Tag Archive | So I Says, I Says

General

A Case of Myopia Writ Large

Oh, hey! It's been a while, huh?

Like, nine whole months? Yeah. Nine months. A lot can happen in nine months. Niiiiine months.

Yeah, so I have a baby now, everyone. Surprise! World's worst baby announcement right there, folks.

I didn't mean to time it this way or anything. It's just that I've had a grand kick in the ass recently (a life-affirming, HELL YES kick in the ass) and it prompted me to wipe the dust off this blog and start writing here again. So here we are, all new and shiny and old at once.

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Advice From My Younger Self

This piece won’t finish itself. I was going to let it languish in the bottom of the “Things To Finish Later” folder on my laptop.

But then there were these signs that came my way, little bitty signs from the Universe that said: it’s okay to put this out into the world without a pretty ending. That endlessness is in the air right now, the Universe said. It’s the season of non-resolution.

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Panama! Part 2

Those of you who know me know I don't like small dogs. I'm not subsumed by a baby-talking alter ego when I see their bulging eyes and stubby legs. Instead I'm compelled to ask myself big, esoteric questions, like, How far I can punt this thing? Why can't this thing carry its own weight in whiskey barrels or picnic baskets?

Dogs have always occurred to me as Man's Best Helpers, so the itty bitty ones that bark and fit into handbags seem like a gross abomination of the species. They seem to be made only for behaving obnoxiously and making their face hair wet with saliva. I hate them. It's probably because like repels like and our similar anxieties meet in the middle like two magnet ends trying to go at it. Anyway, you should know all this because even I was surprised at how I responded to this little ball of fuzz:

I absolutely fell in love with him. I can't explain it. If you had told me months ago that I would love a Pomeranian, I would have punched you in the face for even suggesting such a thing. And yet, there I was, covered in sweat and allowing a small hairy thing to rub against my bug-bitten legs. He wasn't as barky as other dogs- so he had that going for him. And he was genuinely cuddly without being cloying. He only sometimes came out to greet us when we came up the stairs. He played fetch with a stuffed mouse for a short while, and then he stalked off like a nuclear physicist insulted by our pedestrian requests to know what pee-pee was made of. He could take us or leave us, and that was refreshing to see in a small dog. Would I be anthropomorphizing too much to say I thought he was moody? Or brilliant? I rather like the idea that maybe he wouldn't come when he was called because he was sulking under the bed, writing in his diary, bemoaning how utterly alone he was in the world because his parents had brought him to this godforsaken place where no one understood him. It didn't feel like such a stretch. And since there was a time in my life when I was also sequestered away in a bedroom ignoring the calls of my family and scribbling about my sad, what-does-it-all-mean-anyway life, I related. It was like I was meeting the sixteen year old dog-version of myself.

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Panama! Part 1

Well, the world didn't implode. It didn't even hiccup. It was just another day in Paradise the day I walked onto Isla Bastimentos and delivered a big ol' hug to the Other Lauren Ziemski.

Our hug, our meeting... it was all very normal, really. In fact, the whole trip had an air of total banality to it. It was, as they say, soooo Panama. Our plane almost crash-landed in Changuinola. No biggie. One day the whole island lost power. Whatevs. Whole sections of menus were unavailable at most of the eateries on the island. Meh. This is just how it IS on Bastimentos.

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MOAR CHRISTMAS!

Yeah, so that blogging every day thing didn't work out so well, now did it? I should know better than to set the bar that high. I mean, for God's sake. I'd just come off a jag of showering only sporadically and ignoring the laundry while trying to write a novel. Who was I trying to convince that I would be able to blog every day?

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The Twelve-ish Days of Christmas

I had this really good idea. I was going to post something every day, starting on December 1st, until we left for Christmas vacation on the 13th. It was going to be so fun! Updates from our crazy house every day! Getting ready to leave, getting ready to spend the holidays with our families... so much to talk about! I was all jazzed up after NaNoWriMo- so jazzed because the "novel" (let's not call something I squeezed out in 30 days a "novel", shall we? Let's call it a novella. A practice novella. A pranella. Ah, yes. There we are. A pranella) really got me into the habit of writing nearly every day. Well, every day starting on the 16th or so. Yes, that's right. I frittered away the first half of the month and *technically* wrote the novel in 14 days or so.

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Thailand, Day 2

So we decide to take the train to Chiang Mai. Why? Because it was recommended to us. Forty dollars to sleep the night away on an air-conditioned train and awake in a whole new part of Thailand. It practically shimmered with romance and intrigue.

At 6 pm, we roll our luggage noisily up the curb and enter the station. The place is large and overlit with fluorescent lights. There is a second floor, from which you can look down at the passengers camped out down below. And camped they are. Or rather, the white people are. The Thais are sitting in neat rows of chairs, their hands in their laps, their gaze focused on the large screen TV showing a Thai sitcom. The white folks are strewn about like trash, filthy and splayed over their grungy backpacks, their eyes sleepy. There is a section at the front of the station, roped off, and populated by men in orange robes. "For Monks Only" the placard reads. A few of them cup their chins in their hands and laugh at the TV show. Burdy and I go upstairs to scope out the food situation. We have no idea if we’re going to be able to eat on the train, so we figure it’s best to eat our dinner now. Before we sit down, though, we go to see the train on the platform.

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It Looks Like This, Too (A Love Letter)

Upon my request, my husband has left me a thermos of coffee on the countertop. He has made it in the early morning hour between his waking and mine. He has left via the garage on his bicycle for work, having showered and dressed in silence so as not to wake me in that hour. My husband has left me a drawing next to the thermos. He has drawn me some birds surrounding a skinny, shaky heart. He is man who was not used to drawing hearts before he knew me. He has gotten so used to drawing hearts.

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A Visitor

I had an unexpected visitor this week. The little girl I used to babysit- on the east coast, in Irvington, NJ- was here, in Seattle, and sleeping on my office floor. She was on a road trip- a soul journey- the kind we all should take from time to time to sort out what’s next for us and what’s important to us. I’ve taken my share of those, so I was SO excited to finally play the role of hostess to someone on a journey like that.

Not that Eliana really needed any sort of sagely advice from me, or a soft place to land, exactly. You know you’ve both grown up in a hard place when you offer your guest an air mattress and she insists on sleeping on the hard ground because, y’know. We grew up in Irvington. What’s a little hard ground? In addition to being a damned good roadtripper, this young woman is also an accomplished musician, a fabulous cook (she makes a mean veggie scramble), and downright delightful company. We talked long into the night and laughed about all sorts of things (not the least of which was the most monotone, eyes-glazed-over, culty happy birthday song either of us had ever heard at one of the Sri Chinmoy eateries here in town).

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Why My Next Tattoo Would Be An Apology

I should just start every damned entry here with : Wow. I can't believe how long it's been since I last wrote. I am SO sorry.

If I could have a t-shirt made, or maybe a tattoo put on my arm, it would help diffuse a LOT of public awkwardness, especially about this blog. It would be a handy catch-all tool, y'know? Like, if I ran into someone in the supermarket who wanted to know when I was going to post something else on my blog? I would just smile and point to my t-shirt. If I received a text from friend who asked, didja get that thing I sent ya? I'd shrug, take picture of the tattoo, and hit "send". Done.

Procrastination has been the name of my game and I've been a champion at it. I should have a gold medal in putting things off. Like, every time I think I'm going to finish something, I wonder what's in the fridge. Oooo! Maybe there's some peanut butter in there...

Like all procrastinators, I have really, really good excuses. Like... I've been busy! Cleaning my house! And organizing my office!

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Thailand, Day 1

What an inglorious two weeks, huh ? I had this whole post ready to go, and then Boston happened. Man. It hit me hard, in the way that these things do. I have this hang-up about posting really goofy, possibly frivolous stuff in the midst of national tragedies, and it’s happened twice now in the past year; first with Hurricane Sandy, and now with the Marathon bombing. I had this post more or less ready to publish , but I felt conflicted about doing it last week. The sun has been out for TWO WHOLE DAYS here in Seattle, so I’m chalking it up to some kind of “sign” that the air is clear to post slightly neurotic recaps of vacations to hot places.

I’m back from Thailand! Thailand? Yes, Thailand! I went to Thailand for my honeymoon! Your honeymoon? Yes, my honeymoon! I went to Thailand for my honeymoon! With no planning and no reservation! Um, what? You didn’t plan your honeymoon? Nope! I just packed a bag and went! No reservation! Like Anthony Bourdain, but with way less leather jackets!

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On Writing

Recently, I had my ass handed to me by my writing group. It was a good thing, this ass-handing. It didn’t feel quite as nice as being handed a bouquet of roses and a Grammy, but, it was probably more valuable.

What happened was this: I brought in a VERY rough draft of a book chapter I’d written and I read it aloud to my writing group. I then got some VERY valuable feedback. Feedback that made me reconsider whether or not I should be calling myself a writer.

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A Transplant. A Storm. A Way To Help.

You guys, I had this whole piece ready to go about the cereal. And then Sandy hit. And I just couldn’t fathom posting a bit about breakfast cereal as a wildly destructive storm was bearing down on the place I was born. My whole family was in the storm’s path and I was worried for days about them. They’re all fine now. They lost power for a few days there, but they were all safe, and their property was not destroyed. There were others, though, who suffered. Suffered huge. And I just couldn’t stop thinking about them. I couldn’t sit and write about cereal if I tried.

I’ve been working on what I want to say here for days now. It’s been a crazy two weeks of emotional ups and downs: worry, then relief…endless energy to help, then frustration with red tape… helplessness, and then a renewed sense of urgency and hope … it’s been difficult to distill this down into one piece.

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Byrned

Last week, Mr. Burdy and I went to see the inimitable David Byrne at the 5th Avenue Theater here in Seattle. The venue is one of my favorites not only because of the grandiose they-don't-make-'em-like-this-anymore beauty but because of how the seats are arranged. They cascade down from the balcony to the stage at a slight angle so each seat is offset from the one in front of it. This means there's literally not a bad seat in the house. No one's head is directly in your line of sight. See that, arena designers and theater owners? I will gladly pay that "service charge" for the privilege of being able to see past Herman Munster, who, invariably sits RIGHT in front of me at every show.

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In Case of EgoMergency, Break (Hour)Glass

Things hit me in threes and fours, usually. It's got something to do with synchronicity, I think. These past few weeks, I have felt unmoored, adrift. There have been multiple deaths in my immediate circle lately (will write about that when I have something cohesive to say about it). Ever since the wedding (which I will write about soon, too), I have been feeling uncertain about the direction my life should take. It's the inevitable fallout, no doubt, of going from planning a very detailed wedding every waking moment of the day to planning... nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. Working counts for something, I suppose. But my work has never been the thing that's defined me, so I'm back to feeling like there's something else I'm supposed to be doing with my day. That, and the presence of so much death has really got me thinking about how to live more purposefully.

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Mrs. Burdy Goes To Vancouver

A few months ago, I went to my very first Seattle Sounders game. I was about to tell you that it was my first ever soccer game, but that wouldn't have been entirely true. I have vague recollections of being somewhat interested in the outcome of a World Cup a few years ago, but that memory is also twisted up with memories of drinking copious amounts of beer in a sports bar and yelling at a TV screen, so who knows what I was really interested in? (Hint: rhymes with "deer".)

As Mr. Burdy will tell you, I am a strange breed of sports fan. I didn't grow up playing sports in school (unless you count being the editor of the literary magazine a "sport". Because, if you do, then I totally would have been MVP of writing bad poetry). Naturally, given my moodier tendencies, I wasn't much interested in camaraderie or good sportsmanship or any of that sort of team-building crap. I would have won an Olympic Medal if there was a category for scowling and bookreading and scribbling social commentary into a journal, but, alas, the ancient Greeks had a thing for throwing stuff and running and the like. Also, ours was not a particularly sporty family. My dad didn't watch football. My mom did not drive us around in a minivan to practice soccer. How I managed to wind up engaged to a man with an active athletic life, I'll never know.

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THIS is why you need to stay in school, kids

It's good to have your mind blown at least once a day. I mean, that's what I've always said.

OK Go has got to be one of the most brilliant musical (theater? dance?) acts on the planet. I loved them the minute I first got wind of them. They've joined the ranks of other mind-blowingly talented folks who have used Chrome to deliver a personalized, make-you-cry-it's-so-good, Internet experience. I feel like a total toolbag writing the words "Internet experience", but I'm at a loss for how to explain what just happened to me.

What makes this even BETTER is that OK Go has teamed up with Pilobolus, a Dance Theater Company. Here was my introduction to them:

If you are not moved by this, then I'm pretty sure you are dead inside.

There are thousands of critics of our thoroughly modern electronic-gadget-driven lives. Hell, on some days, I am one of them. I waffle back and forth between wanting to unplug and run through fields of daisies and wanting to know what every single person in the world is doing right now through some form of media. I remember days when the first thing I did when I got out of bed was reach for the tea kettle. Now, before I do anything, I slip into my desk chair and check the news, my email, Facebook... Those simpler days are over. And soon to morph into something different, I'm sure. Though it's sometimes exhausting to keep up, I LOVE that our brains are complex enough to invent things like the Internet, streaming video, wireless accessories, and Facebook. (and I love that I'll be able to look back on this post in ten years and laugh at half of what I listed because it will be obsolete.)

On some days, I just need the tactile sensation and smell of an old book in my hands and utter silence.

Today, though, I needed these guys and what they have done with technology:

(You'll need Chrome to make this work properly)

http://www.allisnotlo.st

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We Can Talk. Or Not Talk.

CIVIL WAR, ANYONE?

The U.S. Civil War has been making recurring appearances in my life. Given the situation in the Arab/African world right now, I've been thinking, (if I'm thinking of war at all) about that area of the world, and not about my own country. But I was flipping through the channels on live TV the other night (something I almost never do) and there was a Ken Burns documentary on PBS. I was hooked within a minute. It was riveting. I had a million other things to do that night, but I couldn't pull myself away. Besides which, Garrison Keillor was narrating, as was Morgan Freeman. And who can resist their voices? Then, about a day later, a friend mentioned the Civil War on Facebook. (whaaa??) Then Ancestry.com sent me a newsletter and said I should thumb through their newly released Civil War records to look for my ancestors! (Ah, but Ancestry.com doesn't know my people are relatively new to this country). Since I am on a path, these days, of reading into every little thing that would otherwise be called a "coincidence", I'm taking this as a sign that my United States of Being are at war with one another. I think I need my own internal Abe Lincoln to stand up and give a two minute speech to say how regrettable it is that so many had to die to get this whole living as a unified entity right. Or something like that.

PHONE CALL FOR MR. JONES

I accidentally left an event Saturday night without my phone. I couldn't get it back until Monday morning. On Sunday, I ran the gamut of electronic-device-withdrawal: first I was annoyed, then panicked that it would be stolen, and finally, resigned to the fact that I was going to have to spend ONE WHOLE DAY (Oh! The humanity!) without my phone. I stopped in at one of those dizzying Here, This-didn't-sell-at-the-department-store-so we've-marked-it-up-from-its-department-store-clearance-price-and-shoved-it-on-this-shelf-with-an-egg-slicer,-a-no-name -candle, and-a-frying-pan stores. Doesn't that sound like a bargain hunter's dream store? (and a Type-A's worst nightmare?) I realized about halfway through browsing that I was actually sort of bracing myself for my phone to ring. Seems most things these days are interrupted by a beeping or dinging of some sort, right? But the phone didn't ring. And I eased into this sense of peace I have not known since 1999 or so. It was remarkable.

FUCK YOU, CHASE BANK

But Sunday was also the day I had set aside to call all the various financial entities that autodebit my account and tell them that I have officially dumped the jerks at Chase Bank and would they kindly autodebit my new bank account? And I didn't have my phone. I felt like I was missing a limb. The whole part about not having a phone is that you can't TELL anyone via phone that you are missing your phone.
Me: (sighing heavily) I don't know where my phone is.
Burdy: Maybe it's in the house and you just can't see it. Do you want me to call it?
Me: Sure. Go ahead.
Sound of dialing. Sound of silence.
Burdy: Well, did you call the event center to tell them you think you left your phone there?
Me: blink. blink blink.
Burdy: Oh. Right.

I HEAR / THE SECRETS THAT YOU KEEP

I'm spending lots of time these days inside my own head. I am doing what the head shrinkers call "a lot of processing". One of my head shrinkers told me yesterday that I need to "give voice" to stuff I'm keeping in my head. In other words, I need to get out of my head and into my vocal chords. I need to turn my internal editor off, and just let 'er rip. I can worry about the fallout AFTER I've insulted everyone in the room. The important part here, kiddo, they say, is to just say what's on your mind.

So, this morning, I'm having a dream. I'm knitting a sock while I'm having an argument with my dad. My dad is telling me to get a job. I tell him that I don't want just any job. We go back and forth for a while. The anger builds. He tells me I should apply for this one job, this job that seems completely improbable. But you need a degree for that, I shoot back. No you don't, he says, eyes ablaze with fury. And then, in my sleep, I snarl, at the top of my lungs:

I DON'T WANT TO BE AN OPHTHALMOLOGIST.

I wake myself up and Burdy too. I'm smiling because I feel triumphant! and vindicated! Take that, overbearing dream dad! I'm smiling, too, because I have just yelled at the top of my lungs in my sleep, something I have never done in my life, and holy crap is it funny! Burdy, meanwhile, is trying really hard not to laugh. He spends a few minutes lying very still. He eventually stirs and I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling and start to spell "ophthalmologist" over and over in my head thinking there is some code word embedded in the letters if I just rearrange them. Burdy, unsure if I am fully awake or not, asks me if I remember what I just said. Yeah, I say, impatiently. I DON'T WANT TO BE AN OPHTHALMOLOGIST. And we break down laughing. We laugh for a fully minute. This is going on the blog, isn't it, he asks. And I think for a moment and say no because then I will have to explain why yelling in my sleep is so profound and that I am seeing therapists to help coax all these words out of me and the first thing that comes out of my mouth is "I don't want to be an ophthalmologist".

And then I think: fuck it. I'm going to take the advice of those head shrinkers and worry about what everyone thinks later. So, yeah. I think I'm finding my voice.

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Pictures From A Trip

These past few mornings, I have been waking up from some pretty strange dreams. There's a rule out there that says never to fill your blog with descriptions of your dreams, so I'm going to skip the details. Suffice it to say, though, they have been setting the tone for the day in that way that unshakably bad dreams do.

Ever since the trip to California, things have been less sharply focused. All that energy I had before the trip has been slowly draining from my body. The weather has been colluding to keep me inside. It's been raining real rain, in real storms, for the past week or so.

This is a transitional time of year and I feel it in the very core of me. This is the time when we all want to stretch our achy muscles, wipe the dust from our eyes, and see the sun again. Our bodies sense Spring is around the corner and we want to end our willful hibernation of book reading and tea drinking and coiling our bodies under heavy blankets. The crocuses are poking their optimistic heads out from the ground. Daffodils have burst open, their bright yellow almost unnatural against the hard wet cement and mulch. We humans are gravitating towards windowsills, and lingering in front of piles of folded sleeveless shirts, and gradually feeling like our winter coats are just a touch too heavy for days like these.

I am ready, but the skies, heavy with clouds, have other plans for March. And, like a kid who can see, if she cranes her neck just so, the Christmas tree through the slats of the banister at five am, I know I have to wait some more before that really good thing can happen.

That isn't the introduction I wanted to write for what I am about to share, but this is a season of much back and forth, contradiction and anticipation, so maybe it is, after all, fitting.

My very good friend Tara just returned from a trip to Africa, specifically to Rwanda and Morocco. (She was slated to visit Egypt, but then, well, Egypt happened, so she had to do some rearranging). Tara is a brilliant photographer and one of the most kind, spirited, passionate, honest, talented, and ambitious people I have ever met. You'll see all that when you see her photographs.

When I watched the slideshow this morning, something was put back, something wobbly was righted inside of me. I gained a little perspective. All my fretting about my life, privileged as it is, was made to feel (rightfully) small in the face of genocide and civil war. Of course, something new was set in motion too. I started wondering about the long history of Africa and the inevitability of war... and then, because Tara who she is, and because of the genius of her work, I started to think about resilience, and this divinity we all posses, this ability to overcome devastating defeat and to rise again. It's enough to make me want to slap myself in the face for feeling sorry for myself.

Right now, it's all about scales of gray. What paralyzes me now will not keep me down me in the months to come. This will all be distant and probably laughable one day. I will look back and wonder who I was when I wrote these words. Right now, though... right now, this is all monotone and stifling and unbearably real.

Enjoy Tara's work.

http://tspoonphotography.com/darkroom/share/?n=rwanda</wbr>

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Did You Remember They Had A Dog?

List of things I did today out of love:

1. Wiped a four year old's butt. (Then washed hands)

2. Touched turkey cold cuts with my bare hands and spread mayonnaise on bread. (Then washed hands)

2. Took a four year old, a nine year old, and a rambunctious King Charles Cavalier out for a walk to the candy store. (Then washed hands)

Seriously. The skin on my hands feels like dried corn husks.

The most uncomfortable thing about this whole ordeal (did I say ordeal? I meant "glorious opportunity to experience the joy of parenting"!) is not having all my stuff with me. Stuff like my rubber gloves. The ones I wear when I do the dishes. The ones that help my skin to retain its natural moisture while I scrub pots and pans.

Burdy didn't get much work done today. He usually works from home, but now that our home is 20 miles north, in a house full of two kids and a dog (I can't believe we forgot about the dog), he's set up at the dining room table and the kids don't quite get that he's there to work. They're used to roughhousing with Uncle Stan when he's here. It's hard for them to understand that when he's obscured by that 27" screen, and his brow is furrowed, it means he's looking at the Matrix and coding. And it's wholly unproductive to interrupt Uncle Stan when he's looking at the Matrix and coding.

What's blowing my mind tonight, at the end of Day Two, is how distinct the consequences are when the schedule is not strictly adhered to. Dinner is to be served at six sharp... or plaintive cries from the living room for grapes will ensue. Bathtime is at 7:15, or you run the risk of running into overtime and missing the bedtime deadline... which, in turn, will make for a cranky child in the morning. There really isn't much else in my life that works like this. If I don't finish work for a client, I come in at some other time to make it up. No big deal. If I don't get all the laundry done on Sunday, it doesn't matter. There are always more clothes to wear and I don't mind wearing my dirty jeans for one more day. If we run out of frozen blueberries, well, then we'll just eat frozen strawberries instead.

But holy shit. Try explaining to a four year old that you ran out of blueberries and it ain't no thang... and you might as well say goodbye to the skin on your face, because his wrath will melt it clean off. (Note: we have not run out of blueberries.) Sticking to the schedule is turning out to be harder than I thought. And giving up my free time to be at the beck and call of two children is even harder than that.

I don't have that kind of rigidity and responsibility built into my life right now, so this change feels particularly swift and severe. Sure, I have to show up to work when I say I'm going to show up (more or less) and I need to meet deadlines, but everything else is up to me. If I want to skip lunch, I can. If I want to go to the gym in the middle of the day, I can. If I want to not come home till nine pm, I can.

This whole parenting thing has definitely put a cramp in my hobo lifestyle.

The dog, thank goodness, doesn't seem to care one way or the other about the schedule. He's just rolling with the punches right now. He seems like the type who wouldn't mind wearing his jeans for that fourth day in a row.

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Motherhood: The Beta Version

Alright.

I have about half an hour left in me tonight before I need to put teabags or cucumbers or whatever it is you put on burning eyeballs and I want to save that half an hour for an episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Because mindless TV sounds soooo good right now.

You people? With the kids and the jobs? Both at the same time? HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS?

Burdy and I agreed, while their parents are out of town, to watch Giggles and Little Man for the next four days.

I know, I know. You're probably thinking: but what about the whole worm thing? Aren't you afraid you'll give them your parasites? Well, I've sworn off serving poop sandwiches for dinner, so I think we're all safe.

So, seriously now. I feel like I have whiplash. IN MY BRAIN. Yesterday I was just a single person, living my single person life, doing my single person work... and today... today I was inside a tumbleweed of schedules and snacks and pleads for toys from the toy store and dinner and homework and car seats and late night work hours and coordinating, coordinating, coordinating.

Yesterday I had visions of taking a bath. TAKING A BATH! And going to the gym. At NINE o'clock at night. BECAUSE I COULD. And today? Today I was calling Burdy to make sure he knew that it was half an hour till tooth brushing time and did he start story time yet?

Okay. I'm done with the whiny part. I mean, I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to do this. I love those kids to death. And they love Mr. Burdy and me. I guess I just hadn't really done the math on what it would mean to go from single... to the legal guardian of a nine year old and a four year old overnight. All my gritty, urban styling is going to have to take a back seat for a few days while I pack coloring books in my messenger bag and bend over in my skinny jeans to wipe noses and tie tiny shoelaces.

I guess I'm not entirely unprepared for this. I am the aunty with all the cool stuff in her house. I've got a collection of manual typewriters that still work (always a hit with kids. "Where' the 'print' button?" they always want to know) and stickers and wacky stationary I pick up at estate sales. So, what I may lack in experience, I more than make up for with my obsolete technology and sparkly pipe cleaners. My elementary school art teacher persona kicked in to high gear this afternoon during our urban nature walk. We collected a bunch of goodies from the ground and made sculptures with pipe cleaners and hot glue when we got home.

Little Man insisted on calling the chestnuts "prickly balls". And I insisted that I would tell him when he was much, much older why I thought that was funny.

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Hawaiian Odyssey, Part I

You didn't think I was going to just drop the f-bomb on you like that and not have a good story to go along with it, did you?

Honestly, I have been saving this post up for about two weeks now. I have been trying to figure out just how to say this all. And there is more to say than I ever imagined I would want to say about the subject of marriage.

Let's just start this epic tale from the beginning, shall we?

Let's start by calling CLH by his new name: Burdy. That's what I call him at home (it's what he calls me too for reasons that are too over-the-top cutesy to explain right now) . Anyway, that's what we'll call him on this site from now on. He will no longer be "common-law". He'll just be my "husband". We are hereby removing the "CL" from "CLH", Internet. Weird. This will not be the last time I will see the word "husband" and think "weird".

So, Burdy left for Mexico about 8 weeks ago. He was to get on a boat and sail, with three other men, from Puerta Vallarta, Mexico to Hilo, Hawaii*. He did this because just about a year ago, I left for my own little adventure in a land-of-little-hygiene, and the deal was that if I got to go to Burning Man without him, then he was allowed to go on his own life- changing shindig a year later. So, he agreed to be crew for a 47' long boat named the Jolly Roger.

I was excited for him, but, I also tried to be as hands-off with his experience as he had been with mine.

Truth be told, I was WAY hands off. When it came time to prepare for his trip, I sort of tuned out. Did I care how many hundreds of pounds of rigging they would have to fly to Mexico to re-rig the boat? Not really. Was I concerned that he would have to brace himself in a tiny, rollicking, closet whenever he needed to answer nature's call? Not so much. Could I really conceptualized three WEEKS at sea with no land in sight? Nope. Was I excited to sleep in our bed ALL BY MYSELF? You bet your sweet ass I was.

That's not to say that I wasn't thinking about his safety- I was, in fact, but I was trying to not freak out. I was trying really hard not to think about shark attacks, and bad storms, and holes being punched in the hull by random crap and the guys having to hang on to floating debris and drinking seawater because they were dying of thirst and then going mad and murdering each other with sharpened pieces of decking. We all know that my adrenal glands did not need any more punishment, and I knew that by focusing on all the things that could go WRONG, I would a) make him more nervous about this trip than he needed to be and b) I would exclude the possibility that he might have a WONDERFULLY LIFE CHANGING, positive experience on his trip. So, I sent him off with a wave and a kiss and told him to say Hi to the sun for me.

Then I prepared myself for four weeks of glorious bachelorette-dom.

And by week three, I was really bored.

On Day One, I missed him. I cried at a little at the sight of his balled up pajama bottoms on our bed. On Day Three, I was LOVING living by myself. By day five, I had found my groove. I was garage sale shopping on the weekends, eating really well, avoiding caffeine and going to bed early (wow. on second thought... that isn't really a "groove"; it's the way quadruple bypass survivors spend their recovery period. What a bag o' fun I am. Jeezus.) Anywho, by week two, I was starting to get lonely. Shopping for goofy old records is fun and all, but it's more fun if there's someone by your side. 'Cause, you know. Snickering with your manfriend in public is normal. Snickering by yourself is sort of weird. I was finding myself having a thought, and turning to the empty space beside me where he normally would be standing... and then remembering. Oh yeah. He's on the ocean. And I can't talk to him right now.

And that sucked.

By the beginning of week three, I was feeling this feeling that I hadn't really ever felt before. It was this... I-don't-want-to-ever-be-without-you-feeling. Not in a desperate I-can't- live-without-you sort of way. Just sort of a practical "hey, this is stupid for us not to be together" way.

Can I get a little woo-woo with you, Internet?

The older I get, the more I believe that the Universe speaks to us just like we speak to each other. If you listen closely, you can hear what It's saying to you. Sometimes the Universe whispers. It says: you might want to get those cute shoes at that boutique you just passed on the street. They're not going to be here next week and you're going to kick yourself for not buying them.

And sometimes the Universe cold cocks you right in the face. It gives you a heart attack in the middle of the freeway to remind you to call your kids more often, or it makes your adrenal glands stop working properly to remind you that you're not living the way you should. The point is that the Universe has a cadence just like our spoken language does. And not all revelatory messages from the Universe are light-bulb-over-your-head moments. Sometimes our moments of truth come in very subtle, very quiet ways. And this was one of those times. When I thought about being without Mr. Burdy, the Universe just very quietly and matter of factly said: you should be with this guy for a long, long time. It's that simple. Stop fighting the simple and beautiful truth of your life: you have built an amazing life with this man who treats you well, who loves you for all you are and is excited to meet your future self too. He is generous, he is kind, he is going to make an amazing father, he listens to you when you talk about what needs improving, and he knows how to celebrate what is good in life.

A word about the institution of marriage and the the non-linear nature of my life:
not being married was, on the surface, a part of my fist-raised-to-The-Man defiance of the conventional... but it wasn't the whole story. Sure, I think it's utterly ridiculous that being gay in this country means that you can't be married legally, and, yes, I was making a political statement by not engaging in a practice that was being denied other perfectly qualified members of our society. But, really, my biggest reason for not being married was that I couldn't define what marriage MEANT to me. And my reasoning was that so long as I didn't really know what marriage meant, I didn't have any business being married.

Our friends have teased us over the years about not being married (we've been together for just about twelve years now)... about how were were probably secretly plotting to never be married. Or that maybe we had some plan to be the very last people in our circle of friends to be married just to prove a point. The truth is far less entertaining. Plain and simple: we were just children who weren't ready. Children who had not really figured out how marriage would make our lives any different. Life was comfortable and we'd never really had to make a decision. We were together and that's all that mattered, right?

I can't say we're any closer to understanding what marriage means. I just know we're committed to finding out together.

When we made the announcement to my family, two of the questions my little (taller) brother shot back at us were: why did it take so long, and why now? And those are the two most profound questions we've been asked since making this decision. I think it occurred to each of us, independently and simultaneously, that this is what we should do. Something changed in each of us while Mr. Burdy was on that god-forsaken sailboat.

Victoria asked me before I boarded that plane for Hawaii whether or not I would say yes if Mr. Burdy asked. I said, without hesitating, yes, of course I would. But if I am going to be totally honest, I have to admit that I'd spent many hours thinking of ways to say no. I'm spilling the beans here, on the Internet, because I think it's necessary to talk about this stuff in our marrying culture. Our relationship has meandered through quite a few profound twists and turns. We have been through couples therapy, and through individual counseling. We've broken up and we've gotten back together. We've had some awesome times together, and we've had some truly dark moments together. We both come from wounded families, and that has played no small part in delaying our decision to take the next step in our relationship. I have gone back and forth in my mind for years about whether or not I've made the right decision in being in this relationship for this long.

As a writer, I am moved to draw out and dwell upon ALL the feelings associated with commitment- not just the rosy invitation and dress-picking-out euphoric ones (though, euphoria definitely has a place in this whole thing!) I want to claim a spot at the marriage table for those of us who are still trying to figure this out as we go along. I want to be totally honest about this whole experience because I want to expose love for the journey it is. I want to use more than "scared nervous happy excited" to describe my feelings. Because sometimes I feel three of these at once. And other times I feel nothing at all. I feel completely neutral. Sometimes I feel solid and grounded and like I'm making the most natural decision of my life, it feels that effortless. And sometimes I start to literally hyperventilate thinking about about being with one man for the rest of my life. Scared and nervous don't even being to cover these emotions.

Before Hawaii, I thought about telling CLH things like: you're too late, sucka. Or, that he'd already had me for this long.... so what the hell would a commitment ceremony really mean when he'd gotten the milk without having to buy the farm for thirteen years or so? Besides which... there were logistics to think about. What coast to be married on, for beginners. The thought of having to suggest hotels and plane fares and pick out flowers made me want to stick my head under a pillow. One thing you can do really well out here amongst the evergreens here in the Pacific Northwest is delay your adulthood indefinitely. And we were doing that very well, thank you very much.

But in the moment, when he actually asked me, when it came right down to it, none of the "no" reasons came into my head. Of course, I might have been thinking HOLY SHIT WHAT AM I AGREEING TO, but I was feeling that right alongside YES! FINALLY! I'M SO EXCITED AND HAPPY! and the decision was obvious: of course I would marry him.

So here we are. Muddling our way through what it means to have nothing change and everything change all at the same time.

I'll tell you all about how he did it (and how I saw it coming but was still surprised) in Part II.

*You can read Mr. Burdy's version of events here.

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Love Is In The Air… Literally

Thanks to my fiance* for taking this. I happened to notice this while I was on the phone with Quickbooks customer service this morning. See what happens when you pace while you're on the phone? You notice insects having sex on your windowsill.

Also? The velvet plant has sprung a few new blooms!

*Wait. Did I just type that? Yes, Internet. Yes, I did. WEEEEEEEIRD.

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Letter To A Tropical Fruit

Dear Papaya,

Let's just start over, shall we? I know I called you all those horrible names at that breakfast bar at Macchu Picchu, but I think we should move on. I know, I know. You have every right to hate me. I practically projectile vomited you all over my traveling companions, but, so what, Papaya? Every friendship goes through a few rough patches, right? Okay, so, maybe "You taste like puke" is not something you say to a fruit you've just met. I apologize. I was young. I didn't know.

Brazil? Why are you bringing up Brazil? Alright, so I was much older then. It was many years after Peru, you're right. So I avoided you in Brazil like the plague. So what? Let's face it, Papaya. You taste like throw-up when you're overripe. And Peru scarred me for life. Plus, that lady at the hotel was feeding you to the local birds, so, really, how good could you have been? Imagine if you were all excited to eat fresh tropical fruit for the first time and it was early in the morning (and you don't do mornings) and you were standing in the midst of an ancient mountain range and you had piled your plate high with eggs and toast and brightly colored chunks of juicy, beautiful fruit as you prepared your body and spirit for a trek into those mountains. And then you closed your eyes slowly and bit into those exotic pieces of fruit, and instead of tasting God's candy, you tasted... well, you know what you tasted like, Papaya. I know you're trying to emulate your svelte relative, the mango, but, ummm.. you are not a mango. You are mango's ugly cousin in a stained muumuu and you really just don't smell that good. I'm sorry, Papaya! Somebody had to tell you! I KNOW I'm supposed to be apologizing! Calm down! I'm just trying to be honest with you! You see? This is why we haven't spoken in almost fifteen years.

I know you feed a good portion of the equatorial world, and that you're rich in all the sorts of digestive enzymes that my body needs, but ever since that time in Peru, I have not wanted to go near you. Your green self I can handle. Covered in lime and salt and fresh chilies and tossed with onions and maybe a string bean or ten? Awesome, Papaya. We can totally hang. But that mushy fruit thing you do? Gross, dude.

I'm over it now. I'm a changed woman, Papaya. I just recently found a variety of you in Hawaii that I really like: the strawberry papaya. And for two dollars for SIX of you, well, even if you DO taste a little like stomach acid, I can't resist a bargain. You know what goes really well with you? Strawberries. And mint. In the blender. Yum.

So let's be friends, Papaya. I promise not to hate on you any more.

Now, if I can just get Guava to answer my emails...

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B-Bonzo-Bean

Internets, I have about five minutes in here before two small children figure out I'm awake and available to play another round of Baby T-Rex vs the Power Cord (or whatever the hell superhero name the kid is calling himself), so this post is going to be a slapdash mess of bullet points.

I'm in New Mexico with Victoria, Dan, and their two lovable children. I'm playing part nanny, part friend, and part punching bag on this trip. Victoria invited me along because her mom, at the age of 53, is graduating college (Go, Mom!) and the whole family is convening to celebrate. I get to spend the next few days taking in the beautiful scenery of the desert, soaking up the sun, and avoiding "shark bites" (Oh, you don't know what a shark bite is? Ask a nine year old). The youngest of Victoria's kids has one of those classic kid laughs, the kind a sound effects guy would pay millions for. Anyone who hears it laughs too, it's that contagious. The air sickness, the turbulence through Tuscon, the whining and the constant demands for stories? It's all worth it to hear that laugh.

The little guy LOVES to be told a good story. He regularly asks me to tell him stories. And since I am a master at weaving together hyperbole and moral values, I oblige. We started the day yesterday with the tale of Bozo The Pickle who gets lost in the desert and mistakes a saguaro cactus for his mother. Somehow, via the magic that is a small child's imagination, "Bozo" morphed into "Bonzo", which morphed into "B-Bonzo-Bean". So this morning, I woke to the sound of small children thumping around in the next room and "B-BONZO-BEAN!!!" You're welcome, Victoria.

I went through another round of blood tests and a two hour medical interrogation from a new doctor a few days before I left for this trip. We are no closer to figuring out why my ear and neck feel like they are stuffed with fiberglass insulation, but we did find out that my iron and cholesterol levels are dangerously low. Did you hear that America? MY CHOLESTEROL IS TOO LOW! I'm pretty sure this gives me license to eat an unlimited amount of cheeze puffs and onion rings. I'm on an iron supplement right now, but I also (drum roll please) have agreed to eat small amounts of meat here and there. Did you hear that, mom? Mother of mine who thankfully doesn't read this blog because I would be able to hear the I TOLD YOU SO from across the country? I am going to have a tiny bit of bacon for breakfast. Because my cholesterol is too low! Because I haven't eaten meat, except for the tiniest bits here and there, in FIFTEEN YEARS. And because I lay in bed at night and think about the end of the world and whether or not burglars might take all my shit while I'm at work and whether or not that stain is going to come out of my shirt. It wasn't just that I've eaten a mostly organic, high fiber low fat vegetarian diet for the past fifteen years. I WORRIED the cholesterol out of my system, Internet. I fucking dissolved the stuff right out of my veins because that's what chronic stress will do to your body. It will eat up the very building blocks of your body until you a trembling mass of overworked nerves. I suddenly doesn't feel so bad having that second helping of nachos yesterday.

CLH is more than halfway home! I miss the hell out of him. I was given the okay by the captain's wife about a week ago to send daily text messages to the satellite phone on the boat, so I have been sending a haiku every day for the past week. The update from the boat is that the crew is apparently craving hot showers. They encountered FOURTEEN FOOT swells earlier this week (I had to fight back the urge to pass out, puke, and convulse all at once typing that), and they are having a BLAST talking to the Flying Pigs ham radio operators. Thank goodness they have more than each other to talk to. I've heard that the waves, the sea-sickness, the hard work, the lack of fresh fruit, the sunburn, the constant movement.... it's all manageable after a while. It's the monotony that eventually does you in as a sailor. So, thank goodness for people who understand how to work a radio. I'm sure it's the altitude change, the fact that my neck is a compacted mess, and the fact that we really haven't stopped moving since we landed in Arizona 48 hours ago, but I think I'm feeling sympathy sea-sickness pains. Can that be? Burdy? I miss you too, but quit rockin' the boat, would ya?

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I Heart The Sixties

I'm a real sucker for the advertising stylings of the Sixties. The extra lengths advertising executives went to to make you feel like you'd just purchased the world's greatest whatever-it-was... Astonishing, really. Sixties, you had me at Gold Tassels On Your Owner's Manual. Check out this little gem:

The Lady Shavex. There were actually two of them on display at the estate sale. The other one was baby blue and looked like it had been used maybe once or twice. But this one? It looked it had never been opened. Just to keep the whole thing contained on my way to the checkout table, I stuck the razor, the cord and the tiny, tiny container of "hair powder" into the handsome gold carrying case. When I got to the register, the lady charged me for a "clutch", which I thought was charming. I paid for a clutch and I got a razor for free.

What in the hell would make a person buy such a thing? Nostalgia, people. Plain and simple. My mother, when I turned 13 or so, handed me a very similar box, and told me it was a gift from my grandmother. I was "becoming a woman" back then, and apparently, I would be needing an antique shaving device that worked by vibrating the hair out of your follicles, it was that fucking loud. I tucked that thing down, way down, beneath the pantyhose and slips in my sock drawer and vowed never to shave my legs (or whatever other region of my body it was for... arms? neck? belly button?) It went missing in the era between "We Are The World" and Young MC's "Bust A Move" and I never thought about it again.

Fast forward to this weekend. I'm standing knee deep in a room full of Christmas decorations and books about weight loss at an estate sale and all of a sudden I see the Lady Shavex and I am overcome with this burning need to replace that razor of my youth with this shiny new one. I convince myself that having an electric razor would be preferable to the disposable plastic razor I currently use. I fork over a dollar for the privilege of ownership, and I am in seventh heaven.

Sometimes I wonder how far women have come in being able to announce our hygiene routines to the world. I mean, the men's razor CLH owns rests in hard-backed silver briefcase, for God's sake. The thing weighs something like 14 pounds. And the razor itself? A massive black buzzing phallus. If they could find a way to engineer it without imposing bodily harm, I'm pretty sure men's razors would be shaped like mini-chainsaws and would come with leather work gloves and a tool belt. Why do women have to hide the fact that they ALSO remove hair from their bodies by putting the instrument in a gold bag? (Suddenly, Mad Men is making a whole lot more sense to me. This is Peggy Olson's doing, isn't it?)

I showed the whole set to my friend Ruth who immediately burst out with, "OMIGOD! It's the GOLD BAG!" Turns out, growing up, her family must have owned the Lady Shavex too... only the bag had been requisitioned for things like tweezers and nail files and the Lady Shavex was free to roam the linen closet. That's right. HER Lady Shavex was all "WHAT?? THAT'S RIGHT! I'm A RAZOR, suckas! I don't hide in no carrying case! I don't know why that particular razor talked like Rosie Perez. Sometimes razors are tough like that.

I gave it the test. There were two settings: legs and underarms. To be honest, I didn't give it much of a chance. I thought: well, it's not going to cut as close as my disposable lavender colored Lady Schick, is it? Well, Ladies, it did. My legs are silky smooth and I didn't even have to use the icky hair powder!

Another Sixties favorite of mine at estate sales: cookbooks. The pictures of creamed EVERYthing in casserole dishes accented by things like silver coffee services and doilies just DOES something to me. Maybe it makes me long for the days when everything could be solved by just the right ratio of cottage cheese to pineapple rings. There is just something so reassuring about these recipes. The text around them is always so damned encouraging. There was no concern for any one's impacted colon, just the way their reaction to your sour cherry and lamb souffle made you feel. "Your hot dog casserole will be sure to please the WHOLE crowd, young and old alike!" "Your teens will sing your praises if you interrupt their yearbook committee meeting with a tray of Tang and deviled ham sandwiches!" "Your husband's poker buddies might be tempted to ask you to join them with this ham and artichoke bake!"

Johnny probably won't have any problems snagging a girlfriend later on in life after THIS cake.

THIS cookbook, however, had some "advice" for the new housewife. Little nuggets of wisdom to help her through her day of dumping cans of cream of mushroom soup over cans of ham before she hit up the medicine cabinet for her "headache" pills. Take this one:

The text reads: "Dr. Samuel Johnson once said, "A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek". Most families would agree with Dr. J."

Good point, Dr. J. Better to be full of Mayonnaise, Frankfurters, and Olive Puffs than to listen to your wife. After all, what could SHE possibly have to say? It's all Greek to us anyway! Am I right, fellas? Am I right?

When I was growing up, I almost never saw my mother consult a cookbook. She pulled out the tattered ol' Betty Crocker Cookbook around Christmastime to get her cookie recipes out (I still use those same exact recipes today when I make Christmas cookies), but I never saw her actually read a cookbook the way I read my cookbooks. Thank God, too. I mean, my cookbooks are full of feel good advice about food and community and health tips and measurement conversions and whole sections dedicated to mail order addresses for unusual grains and beans and spices. No one's telling me to shut my mouth and put a roast on the table because 9 out of 10 families agree that that's my job.

Sally never took her chances with roving gangs of root vegetables. She always fired twice. Especially at the turnips.</p>

</span>See how far we've come? We still hide away all the accoutrement of our daily routine, but we can at least serve salad for dinner and not feel like complete failures.

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I Can Now Cross “Help Birth Baby” Off the Bucket List

I hardly feel like I have the right to complain about how tired I am right now. After all, I'm not the rock star who birthed a baby in the middle of her living room last night. That honor goes to my friend Layla, who, while clutching the hands of some of her best women friends, her husband at her back, and her first child at her side, gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.

Layla asked me some weeks ago to be a part of her home birth. My duty was to babysit her first child, whom I affectionately call "Neener", while the new baby was being born. Neener didn't need much hand-holding, though. She was as big a rock star as her mommy.

I, on the other hand, fell apart at the seams. I could hardly keep my eyes open past 4 am. I couldn't sleep, either, as every capillary in my body was surging with adrenaline. I spent the rest of the night in my "catjamas" (as Neener dubbed them) alternating between heightened alertness and utter exhaustion.

But it was worth it. Oh, man, was it worth it. If I had any doubts left about what the human body is capable of, they were all dispelled last night at 3 am.

Welcome to the world, Kai Lucca.

Special thanks to Andrea for capturing this gorgeous shot.

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Bye Bye, Burdy

Well, CLH finally left for Mexico this morning. Between the rants about garage sales and panic attacks, I think I forgot to mention this, um, enormous factoid: CLH is sailing 2800 miles from Mexico to Hawaii with three other men on a 47 foot sailboat and will be gone for about a month.

Hey! Guess what? I'm going to sleep diagonally in my bed for thirty days straight!

I spent the day volleying back and forth from smiling giddily over being a "free" woman for thirty days, and crying like a baby. 'Cause, you know. I'm stable like that. NPR reports on a day of mourning for earthquake victims in China? Okay with me. Hearing the Eels song "Fresh Feeling"? Totally not okay. Total tearjerker.

I've been rattling around the house all day, which does not help at all with this sudden feeling of loneliness. I count on small things, like the smell of CLH's coffee in the morning, and the soft computer glow and tinny music coming from his side of the office when I wake up, to get me through the day. When I woke up this morning (after driving CLH to the airport at the ungodly hour of 5:45 am. Seriously, how do you people with the jobs do it?) the office was cold and quiet and then it set in: no CLH for 30 days.

It usually goes like this for me: whenever we are apart for long periods of time, I miss him and weep intermittently for about four days. By day seven I'm like "Stan? Stan who?" Last year when I left for Burning Man, I cried silently behind the novel I was reading on the bus. I don't know why I get so freaking emotional. It's not like he was dead, or that I wasn't going to see him ever again. It's just that we spend a LOT of time together, and being apart for the first time in a long time was just felt, well, devastating.

Of course, the last time I left, I knew CLH wasn't going anywhere. I knew he'd be at our apartment when I got back in ten days. This time around, it's a little more serious. There's all kinds of shit that can go wrong. Things like capsizing and shark attacks and injury and shit that only the Discovery Channel can design a mini-series around.

I have been trying VERY hard not to focus on all the things that can go wrong on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Did you notice I wrote the words "shark attack" and didn't have to faint? That's the NEW me talking. The new me who is reading a book she found at Goodwill in the self help section of the book department about panic attacks and anxiety. The old me would have needed to be cradled like a baby and told that shark attacks are few and far between (probably as frequent as alien abductions is my guess) and that CLH and his crew are going to be fine. The new me is convinced that everything's going to be just fine WITHOUT needing to be cradled like a baby. Take THAT, anxiety! (high fives with adrenal glands).

Now, to make sure I'm using my Single Lady time to its utmost potential while CLH is gone, I've got a bucket list going (and I'm not even sure I'm using "bucket list" correctly here so excuse me while I go use the Internet. {here's me clicking open another window in Mozilla and Googling "bucket list" and grimacing}. Okay, I'm back. Um. I don't want to give anyone the idea that I'm terminally ill. So maybe I shouldn't call it a bucket list. Maybe it's more of a finite to-do list.)

Alright, I'm so exhausted from lack of sleep my eyes burn. So here's just a few things:

Do a detox diet
Take trapeze lessons
Lose ten pounds
Write a children's book
Update this blog more often
Clean out the 'fridge

Some of the things are more thrilling than others. You can't believe how excited I am to clean out the 'fridge.

Goodnight, sweet Burdy. I hope you are ready for the adventure of a lifetime.

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Greg, You Loser

It's Saturday, so that means CLH and I have our own breakfasts. (He has a lumberjack's plate of eggs and potatoes and bacon and toast and coffee and I had a cup of tea and some old M&M's I find in the bottom of our snack drawer). I do what I do every Saturday morning after I make my tea: I sit with my laptop at the kitchen table scouring the Internet for estate sales in my neighborhood.

Estate sales, in my opinion, are very different from garage sales. I've spent lots of time rooting around in dilapidated produce boxes full of old Christmas decorations and doilies like a hungry raccoon in a garbage can, so I should know.

Garage sales are goldmines for people who want to refurnish their apartments with dated, well-worn couches or who have lost every cord to every electronic appliance they have ever owned and need replacements. If you ever need either of those two things (or several dozen novelty mugs or maybe a gajillion books on how to lose weight, find Jesus, or how to program in HTML), then garage sales are for you.

But if you want to find a framed painting of president Kennedy, 27 pristine vinyl albums of Scandinavian Folk Songs, and a decades old collection of Avon men's cologne bottles shaped like ram's horns, antique cars, and various sports equipment* in one house, then estate sales are your thing.

*real things I've found at estate sales.

I don't usually "do" garage sales unless I've thoroughly investigated the estate sales in the area. I think it's because the estate sale people are different than the garage sale people. The words are in their ads are spelled correctly, their lists of items for sale aren't fifty unreadable miles long, and the ads are usually inviting, friendly even. They include phrases like "Lots of good stuff" and "Great deals to be had" (a nice departure from the usual non-grammatical run-ons for garage sales that include vague threats in all caps like "I WON'T HELP YOU CARRY THIS STUFF OUT SO YOU'D BETTER BRING YOUR FRIENDS. AND A TRUCK. I WON'T HELP YOU. SERIOUSLY. I'M PHYSICALLY INCAPABLE".)

I think it's because the estate sale people are type As. And borderline hoarders. And that's cool with me. I like visiting with "my people" on the weekends.

Today, though, I skipped the usual estate sales and since the weather was getting nicer (you know, fifty-degrees-instead-of-forty-nicer. Nicer as in I'll-wear-my-scarf-and-winter-coat-but skip-the-hat-today nicer) I decided to visit only the outside sales.

And, oh boy.

There was the lady who wove (is it even possible to weave going 11 miles an hour?) down the street clearly looking for the same garage sale we were. I parked almost half a block away, walked, and still beat her there. She was, meanwhile, using up half the street and all of her might to parallel park in a space about 75 feet long. 'Cause, you know. She pays taxes. Why not use the whole road?

There was nothing good at this sale. Terrible Parking Job Lady, though, seemed VERY interested in an old-school compression powered paint gun. As part of her punishment for making me wait in the middle of the street for a totally not-worth-it garage sale, I was secretly hoping the thing would discharge in her face while she stared down the barrel. Garage saling makes me competitive. Forget sports. And academics. If you really want to unleash my inner tiger, put me in a starting gate alongside a half dozen middle aged women in mom jeans and appliqued sweaters and see who comes running out of there first. I am NOT afraid to shove when there's cheap crap at stake.

The next to last garage sale featured a a garage sale classic: Mr. This Stuff Is Too Good For You Guy.

"Greg" was sitting in his garage wearing sunglasses and listening to his Walkman when we walked up (I know his name because he shook my hand after our deal and told me his name and that I should check out his "other stuff" tomorrow as well, at the Fremont Sunday Market). There were like maybe 20 things for sale, and they were all jumbled in boxes, stacked in no particular order, sprawled out over one quarter of the garage. The rest of the garage was full of boxes of... wood. I think. Something an urban garage shouldn't be full of. Weird. Anywho, the whole time we were there, he kept talking about how awesome this "other" stuff was that he had somewhere else.

This guy was a pro. He must have been able to smell when we were about to direct our attention elsewhere, because as soon as we did, he launched into a oral history of the thing we were looking at, waxed poetic about how it was one of a kind, and did we need a replica of the Starship Enterprise? Because if we did, he had one. It was worth a lot but that he would be willing to let it go for less. And then, if he we even so much as opened our mouths to protest about the price, or the "need" for whatever he was offering, he vacillated between wanting to stroke the thing lovingly and letting it go for a bargain. And if there's one thing I hate more than the people who write garage sale ads with bad punctuation, it's people who try to convince me that the crap I'm rooting through like a hungry raccoon is worth hundreds of dollars and that I should feel bad for offering them less than that for their crap. You know what, Greg? If this record of Kabuki music I'm holding in my hand is so rare and expensive, why is it here, in this mildewy box, next to a car buffer and a golf ball puzzle? You don't want to take my lousy dollar bill for your stupid record? Then why are you selling it? If you like it so much, why don't you keep it? WHY DON'T YOU MARRY IT, GREG? Oh, you've got more stuff, Greg? Oh, I'm sorry. Your buddy has more? Well, where is your buddy and his "stuff", Greg? See, this is the way capitalism** works: If you want me to give you money for something, you need have your goods in front of you, in real time, with a price tag on it. When I go to the supermarket, I usually make sure my bag of oranges is in my cart before I hand the cashier my credit card. And when I fill up my car with gas, I buy it from a gas station that has gas to offer, not one whose "buddy" has some more gas around here somewhere...

**Okay, this is not how capitalism actually works. This is how it should work. Collateralized Debt Obligations and Credit Default Swaps? Yeah. They don't count as capitalism. They're just straight up gambling hall adrenaline junkie bullshit. Just sayin'.

Anywho, we managed to convince Greg to take our crumpled five dollar bill for the records we picked out, and I have to say, they've been worth every cent. Especially this one:

It's worth two bucks just to stare in awe at this guy's cigarette ash and wonder what Jedi mind tricks he was using at the time to stand so still. Or what in the hell they make cigarettes in Asia out of...

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Warning: Side Effects May Cause You To Vividly Recall The 5th Grade

I don't know if it was because of clairvoyance or pure dumb luck that I asked for an asymmetrical haircut this last round at the salon. Because guess what's good for hiding a forehead soon to be festooned with angry red pimples? Cute, sweeping bangs, that's what.

My doctor warned me that the drugs I would be taking to help out with my poor, exhausted adrenal glands *might* make me develop adult acne. The drugs are hormones, after all. And what makes your adrenal glands able to finally put their heads between their knees and take a breather from all that running they've been doing for the last five years so also makes your skin return to its former pubescent state. Hallelujah. The body is a magical thing.

So, the diagnosis is this: I've been experiencing what's called Adrenal Exhaustion. All that crankiness, that loss of libido, that tiredness, those panic attacks, the fainting, the insomnia... it's all because my adrenal glands are overworked. Why? Because I'm a stress case. Quite literally. Most people's adrenal glands are supposed to be used every once in a while when, you know, their child is about to be mauled by, say, a saber tooth tiger. (I think that's what they told us in science class). Anywho, when your adrenal glands release adrenaline into your bloodstream you're filled with an enormous, sudden, and temporary amount of strength and energy so you can punch that sonofabitch saber tooth tiger right in the snout, grab your baby, and then run 82 miles at top speed in the opposite direction.

MY adrenal glands, because I am prone to anxiety and because I can't manage my stress properly, are squirting adrenaline 24 hours a day. And those adrenal glands are tired. Like tiiiiiiiii-red. Like dog tired. And this causes me to feel both panicked and unable to move at the same time. MY adrenal glands are exhausted from making adrenaline around the clock. To boot, the adrenaline-producing part of my brain is actually STEALING hormone-building chemicals from OTHER hormone-producing areas of my brain so it can keep making that slow trickle of adrenaline constantly. So, the hormones (like serotonin) that make me feel all good and loosey-goosey? Not being made. And the sex hormones? Well, let's just say CLH has had a very rough year.

To illustrate: Your adrenal glands are probably being manned by two 1930's era circus strongmen who smash them occasionally with comically large mallets, thus releasing adrenaline when danger approaches. My adrenal glands are manned by Droopy Dog and probably look like two crusty dried up balloons.

And there's your science lesson for the day.

Thanks to my new doctor, though, I FINALLY feel restored and alive. Eh, so what's a few pimples? I mean, sure, getting ready for work in the morning is a bit of a joke. No amount of sophisticated black dress and chunky, modern jewelry hides the fact that my skin is blotchy and red like a 13 year old's. I've never been one to wear a ton of makeup, but these days I go through several ROUNDS of cover-up.

Given all the bizarre medical tests I've had to endure, the months and years of not knowing what the hell was wrong with me, the chronic ear pain, a few zits is a very small price to pay for feeling better. And I DO feel better. That "depleted" feeling I was experiencing is all but gone. My energy levels feel restored. I'm working out at the gym several days a week. I'm seeing a new chiropractor now, too, so maybe my neck bones (which currently look like a crushed soda can) will get straightened out. And then maybe my ear will get the hint that the REST of me is tired of being broken and it will step into line.

For now, I'm reducing (at my doctor's advice) my dosage of the hormones, and I'm styling my hair so that it hides a good chunk of my face in a melodramatic, angry punk rocker sort of way. If I'm going to be sporting the skin of a 5th grader, I think I should be able to sport a hairstyle from one, too.

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And I Wasn’t Even High On Cocaine

It was a rockstar Valentine's Day weekend for me and CLH. We drove down to Portland on Friday night and we saw Echo Helstrom in a sold-out show at the Aladdin Theater. (You should buy their new EP, by the way.) Afterward, we partied like rockstars with the band. We ate, we drank, we hob-knobbed with artists and musicians from the Portland area, and then I passed out with my pants around my ankles in a bathroom stall.

I wish I was kidding about that last part. Or, at least, I wish that there were illicit drugs and hookers and the trafficking of tropical birds involved. Because THAT would make for a good story. THAT would give David Sedaris a run for his money. But, this? This is my life. And my life is not filled with gangs running cockatoos and diamonds from Bogota to the Pacific Northwest in the hollowed out carcasses of Beanie Babies. No, my life is filled with ill-timed bouts of unconsciousness followed by days of lethargy, doctor's appointments, and having to tell people to have bottles of orange juice at the ready because my blood pressure is dangerously low.

This was a different kind of faint in that I didn't feel it coming on. Normally, I feel all the "classic" signs of fainting: nausea, sweating, headache, extreme discomfort... But this time, all I had was an extreme and sudden case of nausea. I got up to pee in the middle of the night/morning, and, as I was sitting on the toilet, was overcome very suddenly by the urge to puke. I thought to myself: well, you'd better hurry up because you're gonna need to turn around to throw up in about two seconds. And the next thing I know, I'm on the floor on my back, and CLH is desperately trying to tug my pajama bottoms up over my hips. Also, my head hurts A LOT.

Usually when I faint (Am I even typing this? "Usually when I faint"? Who freaking faints that much that they have a "usual" kind of faint?), my senses return to me one at a time. It's the strangest thing in the world, actually. Weirder than any kind of drug experience, weirder than any kind of transcendent spiritual experience. First I can hear, then I can feel, and finally, I can see. I usually come to to the sound of CLH frantically calling my name. (Geezus. HOW many times has CLH brought me back to consciousness this past year? Note to self: buy that guy a Cadillac filled with jelly beans and a robot that does his laundry and a private lap dance from Shakira to thank him.)

CLH and I were spending the night at my friend Ross's house (who happens to be the lead singer of Echo Helstrom. SO rockstar-y of us, right?) Ross was also hosting a few other folks that night, and we all headed to bed somewhere in the 3 am hour. Our bed was in the basement apartment of Ross's house, which is where Ross's sister, her boyfriend, and boyfriend's sister were also sleeping.

So this toilet, being in a basement bathroom in Portland and all, was up on a six inch platform. I'm not entirely sure why basement toilets need to be raised, but I think it involves terms like "ejector" and "up pump", and other horrifying ways of vaguely describing the movement of poop. Anyway, thanks to the miracle that is indoor plumbing, and the renovations of some prior homeowner, I fell an extra six inches into pitch blackness. With my pants down. I can only assume that unconsciousness stops the flow of urine, because, thankfully, I wasn't covered in my own pee. I'm not quite sure what I hit my head on (probably the slightly open door?) but I also managed to smash my left shoulder and my left knee into something, too, before I rolled onto the cold bathroom floor. CLH heard it and leaped out of bed immediately. Nothing says GET THE FUCK UP NOW like the sound of your girlfriend's limp body crashing onto a tile floor a few feet away. It woke up another guest staying at the house, too, and she helped with the recovery process. I should have greeted her earlier that night with, "Hi. Just so you know, you may or may not find me half clothed and unconscious in our shared bathroom in a few hours. Enjoy your stay!"

So, that was how my Valentine's Day morning started. Not with roses or chocolate, but with CLH pressing a bag of ice to my forehead while yanking up my cat-themed pajama bottoms from around my knees.

I'm the luckiest rockstar in the world.

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Illegible Scrawl, or The Work of A Genius?

I made this resolution to myself for 2010: write everything down. Everything. It doesn't matter when the inspiration strikes. Just write it down. Could be nonsense, could be genius. Just write it down.

To this end, I have stashed several notebooks around the house... and in my messenger bag, and in my purse, and in the pocket of my car door, and in the drawer of my nightstand... just in case. In case of what? I don't know. I mean, did Hemingway compose "A Moveable Feast" while stopped at a red light? Philip Roth ever map out a character sketch while checking out at Macy's? Did Kurt Vonnegut scribble down plot notes in secret under the conference table while in client meetings? Okay, maybe. I think I probably have too many notebooks.

I just figure, hey, better to be ready than not. Genius could strike at any time. Because genius? Oh, it's like lightning. It does not strike twice in the same spot. Once you miss it, it's gone forever. Preparing for genius is a lot like preparing for a nuclear holocaust, or the second coming of Christ, minus the duct tape. You must be READY! As a matter of fact, I have a notebook next to me RIGHT NOW because you NEVER KNOW. I could be in the middle of telling you what I had for breakfast and WHAM! The next War and Peace could ooze out of my skull and onto my notebook. I mean, you just. never. know.

So, a few weeks ago, I was lying in bed and WHAM! There is was this stirring in my brain... this ... string of words... starting to form... and I just knew I needed to write it down. I was all OOH! OOH! GENIUS? IS THAT YOU? That the words did not immediately appear to be genius in its pure form (or really make any sense) did not concern me. What concerned me was writing them down. So, I reached for my small reading light (because CLH HATES when I turn on my bedside lamp while he's sleeping. He's selfish that way, always wanting to sleep in the dark and all). But the light's batteries were dead. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? Do you see what I mean about needing to be prepared? Jesus? He can show up whenever and it's all cool. Genius? You'd better damn well have a notebook and a flashlight.

So, instead of getting up out of bed, getting some new batteries, changing the old batteries, and turning on the light, I decide that THAT series of actions will interfere with, maybe even disable, the REALLY IMPORTANT THING that's happening in my brain. The GENIUS could be stalled.

So I decide to just lay there and write in the dark. With my left hand. Because to move even an inch to adjust my position (and get the pencil in my right hand, the hand I actually write with) might interrupt the flow of genius I am channeling. I wasn't going to get the batteries for the light. I CERTAINLY wasn't going to roll over and write with my right hand. Perhaps this will give you an idea now of just how impressed I am with my own potential for genius.

So here it is, my moment of brilliance:</p>

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I assure you, none of this is genius. About the only two phrases I can make out are "time travel" and "karate chop". Yeah. 'Cause that's got best seller written all over it.

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An Open Letter to the Washington State Department of Revenue

Dear Sirs,

YOU are the reason people avoid filing and paying business taxes. I'm sure I'm asking the obvious here, but, WHY must you make it so difficult to file? And why must your agents, instead of answering a question directly, urge me to check some ruling typed up in eight point font on a page buried deep within your website? Do you think I have time to read that nonsense? If I had the time to do that shit, I WOULDN'T HAVE CALLED YOU. You see, when I call, I need a quick answer. One that doesn't involve you making all sorts of presumptions about my client's business and then ending the call by advising that I call the freaking department of Labor and Industries to see if maybe my client needs to be registered as a contractor. (I assure you, sirs, he does not.) I need to know about very simple things. Simple, innocent things. And you have turned ALL my questions about pass-through income and workshop activities and more into nightmare scenes in which everyone is being mutilated by airplane-sized locusts all because my clients don't have contractor's licenses. Or they're sitting in Guantanamo because they didn't know whether or not to take a credit for out of state wholesaling.

I will give you this: your forms are easy to follow. It's just like school! YAY! Boxes and pencils! Fill in the boxes with numbers. Put your name on the bottom of the form. Stick the form in an envelope. Lick the envelope. Put a stamp on the envelope. Then put that envelope in the mail. Done! Your online forum is also, admittedly, extremely easy to use. Log on, fill in boxes, click "ok". Very easy indeed. Here's what's NOT easy. Interpreting your freaking laws. Figuring out if I'm actually putting the right numbers in the right boxes. Oh, sure. You've got your phone number printed up there at the top of your website so we can call your "tax agents" and ask questions. But can they actually answer our questions? Well, I think we both know what happens when we call. People die at the hands of giant beetles.

While your agents are not so good at answering questions about ACTUAL business practices, they are quite good at making up imaginary ones. Today your agents sculpted out of thin air a scenario in which my client went from drawing up remodeling plans to overseeing a dozen or more illegal migrant workers. Pretty good, huh? Oh, and get this one: One time, a couple of months ago, your agents cleverly rearranged a scene in which my client is hosting workshops for kids into a slag pit full of weary minors leaning on shovels for a boss in a dirty t-shirt who has not obtained the proper building permit. Sirs, that kind of hyperbolic hysteria is reserved for Pat Robertson alone. And you, sirs, are no pat Robertson.

I mean, why did your agent have to "check with his supervisor" about this question this morning? Aren't there HUNDREDS, nay THOUSANDS, of people doing architectural type work in the state of Washington? Why did your agent have to go on a long-winded spiel about a non-existent situation? My question about this type of income simply HAS to be more common than you are making it sound. Why are you suggesting I call another agency about a question that YOU are supposed to know the answer to? And why are you suggesting my client get a license for a profession he DOES NOT WORK IN? While you're at it, why don't you dial up the North Pole and suggest that Santa Claus gets a workman's comp account in case of job related elf injuries? Or that my mailman gets a boat license in case he ever needs to navigate his mailman's cart across a really big puddle? Because your advice about how to interpret the law makes me think that my mailman should be arrested for operating a fishing vessel without a permit. THAT'S HOW CRAZY YOUR LAWS ARE.

I mean, seriously. Do you know what I feel like when I file taxes? I feel like a really hungry rat in a cage that's facing a bank of colored levers. And I can't remember which lever makes the food come down the chute and which one electrocutes me. Is it this one? I don't know! Do I put the numbers in this box? Or is it this one? I DON'T KNOW! I just know that if I pull the wrong lever, I'm going to get zapped. Now, I think I pressed this one the last time and food came out. But, that lever over there. I mean, that one looks like it's connected to food, too. I"m gonna just test this one ouZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! And the next thing I know, I'm on my back, the cage smells like burning hair, and I'm hungrier than ever. That hunger? THAT'S MY DESIRE TO FILE ON TIME. ACCURATELY. And those levers? THOSE ARE YOUR NEBULOUS LAWS THAT COULD GET ME INTO TROUBLE DEPENDING ON HOW THEY ARE INTERPRETED BY YOUR AGENTS.

It's like you want us to fail. Can't we all just fill in one or two boxes and call it good? We human beings and our businesses are varied, it's true. We should celebrate that. But our taxes? They should not be as varied. If you want to celebrate diversity so badly, do something to make sure every American knows how to prepare something besides Hamburger Helper for dinner.

One more thing. Have you considered farming your agents out to Hollwood? I mean, if I had to judge from the conversations I've had with your folks, I'd say they all have WILD imaginations. And Hollywood could use that kind of talent. None of us wants to see another cinematic remake of an eighties television show, after all. Maybe your agents could pen a script or two? Maybe make yourself a little money on the side, eh? Maybe cook up some screenplays? Something involving devastation and destruction brought on by hysterical faceless robots in suits who kill people by causing their adrenal glands to explode from stress? Of course, if you DID get a hold of Hollywood, and you DID get paid for a script or two, I would have to make sure that you filled out BOTH the manufacturing AND the service sections of your combined excise tax return, and I would NOT allow any credits for interstate trade or cultural/arts activities. And also, you would want to check in with the Department of Labor and Industries because if they found out you'd been constructing movie scripts without a contractor's license, they'd come after you with hatchets and bayonets.

Just sayin'.

Love,
LoLo

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Okay, so my sister and I have this THING about cats. There's a very long story here involving a well intentioned but HORRIBLY inappropriate Christmas gift one year, the menagerie of NON-CAT pets we grew up with, the parallels we observed amongst neighbors with unsettling hygiene habits and their ownership of multiple cats, my eye-swelling, uncontrollable-sneezing allergic reaction, and a bizarre twist at the end in which my sister ends up with not one, but TWO cats in her apartment. I will not go into details here because many, many lives would be ruined if I named names. I hate cats. Hate them. And my sister (and brothers) hated them too. That is, until my sister was transformed (and that's really the only word I can use here because how do you go from hating to LOVING cats overnight without the intervention of a heavenly being?) by two cats. So now she has two cats. My sister who once hated cats. I will never understand it. (Because my heart is dark and cold like that).

So, this "thing" with the cats started when we were very young. It started out with one of us getting the other a card with a "cute" picture of a kitten on it because we knew it would open up all those old wounds around this intense dislike of cats (We're a kind, considerate, loving family that way). Eventually, cat cards evolved into full-on cat themed gifts. One year I got her a leather cat handbag. And one year, she got me pink cat print pajama bottoms. Now, I know I'm stepping on all kinds of toes here with what I am about to say... (taking a deep breath)... but, cat paraphernalia? IT'S NOT CUTE. Not one bit. It's like you can SMELL the litterbox and FEEL the fucking hairballs brushing lightly against your ankles just THINKING about it. We can put a man on the moon and perform brain surgery on mice, but we can't find a way to make cat shit NOT stink? I don't buy it. If you live in a house with that kind of smell, well, then, you must have superhuman strength. Cat mouse pads and sweaters that say things like "my cat is smarter than your dog"? Excuse me for a minute while I go spit out the puke that just involuntarily filled my mouth.

My sister has an INCREDIBLE dedication to a bit. I mean, the cat thing has been going on for at least twenty years or so. Last night, in honor of my birthday, I received THIS gem in the mail from my sister.

And the bonus? The back, which I have filled out at her behest.

Melinda? You are the most awesomemest sister ever. I love you so much. Even if you do own two cats.

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Wheat: The Staff of Wife

WTF, right? An entry every day for thirty days, then some morose, then touching posts about family, and then a before and after shot of the Chipmunks. I'd be confused too. Where's the fucking consistency, lady? I apologize for being away for so long. It's just with the holidays... and the drinking and the friends from out of town visiting... and the baking and the wrapping and the shopping... one minute it was Thanksgiving, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting in my new pink Snuggie watching four movies in a row on New Year's Day.

Well, It's January. Which means I am about to work for thirty days straight with no days off (except my birthday) because I am a bookkeeper. And bookkeepers' lives are one big wad of paper and Post-Its and reminders and frantic emails about deadlines and envelopes full of receipts. In January, that wad increases 100 fold. January is chock full of all sorts of federal (and state!) deadlines for businesses, and when you are a bookkeeper in January, you are not allowed to sleep because it's your job to make sure all those deadlines are met. Your job is to send in mountains of paper to some service center in Ogden, Utah so that some poor slob can feel like his life has meaning.

Not that I'm complaining. Because that would be a real jerky thing to do in this economy. Complain that you have TOO MUCH work to do. So, I'm going to shut up and tell you about bread instead.

I baked this.

And CLH helped. "Helping" in our house sorta sounds like this:

CLH: YOU HAVE TO PUT THE STEAM PAN IN BEFORE YOU PUT THE BREAD IN!! IT SAYS IT RIGHT HERE!! (fumbling with pages to find part about when to put the pan in)

ME: (standing over his shoulder and pointing to the passage that says to put the pan in at the same time as the bread, and not before) I think we can just put it in when we put the bread in. What do I turn the heat down to?

CLH: Three fifty. (still flipping pages to find elusive passage about steam pan)

ME: Three fifty? Really?

CLH: NO! I said FOUR FIFTY.

ME: YOU SAID THREE FIFTY!!!! That's a ONE HUNDRED DEGREE DIFFERENCE! YOU CAN'T FUCK UP THE DIRECTIONS LIKE THAT! IT'S A LOAF OF BREAD! IT CAN'T WITHSTAND A ONE HUNDRED DEGREE TEMPERATURE CHANGE. WE'VE BEEN PROOFING THIS BREAD FOR THREE FUCKING DAYS! AND YOU ALMOST FUCKED IT UP!

CLH: I SAID FOUR FIFTY! YOU JUST DIDN'T HEAR ME RIGHT! YOU SHOULD LISTEN BETTER! AND LOOK! IT SAYS SO RIGHT HERE UNDER THE SECTION CALLED "HEARTH BAKING": YOU. PUT. THE. STEAM. PAN. IN. FIRST. SO IT GETS HOT ENOUGH TO CREATE STEAM WHEN YOU POUR WATER OVER IT!!! (jabbing page emphatically and making "Um, hello, dummy. Over here." face)

ME: Oh. Okay. (squinting at page made greasy by jabbing fingers) But you said three fifty.

So, the lesson here is: the bread baking should be handled by one person at a time. Otherwise, you yell a lot.

See you in February!

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Santa? Or Chupacabra In A Red Suit?

It's that time of year again.

Time to be good for Santa because if you're not good, Santa will break into your house and take you... away.. from your family??? Well, if you're my client, that's what you believed because THAT'S what your fucked up dad told you when you were growing up. Yes, Virginia, Santa is a child-stealing psychopath who does not, despite the rumors, bring presents, but instead bodily removes, like a mixture between The Incredible Hulk and Child Protective Services, bad children from their homes.

And this little story illustrates why, as a bookkeeper, you should always attend your clients' Christmas parties. Allow me to illustrate with a simple mathematical equation:

alcohol + childhood trauma - inhibitions around bookkeeper = ammunition

Months later, when they have failed to turn in their expense reports, or they've crumpled up their receipts into unreadable balls, you can tell them that if they don't straighten out, Santa might come down off the roof and stuff them into a bag. Whatever it takes, right?

Oh, It's also time to bake cookies!

Millions and millions of cookies!

Okay, maybe just hundreds. But, still! When was the last time I had TWENTY FIVE POUNDS of FLOUR in my house?

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How To Visit Your Family For Not Quite The Holidays, Part II

You laugh and laugh and laugh.

You laugh so hard your stomach hurts.

You play video games till 2 in the morning even though your whole body is screaming GO TO BED NOW. You ignore your circadian rhythms. Your highly specialized health regimen is off the table now because every moment counts and sometimes those moments are best between midnight and two am. And you all complain that "for some reason" none of you has been sleeping well these past few days and it shows on your faces but none of you would dare suggest you do anything different.

You endure your eyes almost swelling shut from cat allergies. And the dry air made worse by the stale cigarette smoke. But you take it because they make you laugh so very hard and you realize that this whole trip is worth it just to be able to laugh with them for just a few hours every day.

You look down at your distended, swollen belly and tell it, Just two more days, ol' girl. Just two more days of eating this way and then you can go back to eating wheat free everything. And you can stop drinking beer. And whatever else is making you so upset. Just give me two more days because it's going to be another 360 before I see them again and I need you to hang in there.

You shop for clothing with your mom and realize that she actually DOES have an eye for fashion. And that she has an indomitable spirit. And you ache to tell her at lunchtime in the middle of that diner that, even though she put you through hell all those years ago, she really did a fine job of raising you. And that you appreciate all the things she's taught you. And that, on most days, you cannot fathom how you chose the path you did and how she chose the path she did. But that right now, as you sit in a vinyl booth off a major highway in New Jersey on a freezing cold morning, it doesn't really matter.

You have dinner with your dad and you pay special attention to the subtleties in the way he talks, the lilt in his voice, and you see it: THERE, there is where your flair for the dramatic comes from. And that flair, that ability to infuse a story with all that passion, that's okay. That's a talent, in fact. Especially when you're talking about his grandfather, who was an inventor. And the pride shines in his face just for a moment and then fades just as quickly and you're betting he feels his life is pretty dull by comparison. And you wonder if he has done the same calculations you do every night when you lie awake in bed and ask yourself: is this the life I am supposed to be living?

You see your family, your funny, talented, smart, sensitive, wonderful family, as much as you can, and you laugh and laugh. You think: Who cares about the small bed and the gunshot and the rest of it? I have this awesome family that makes me laugh.

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I DID IT!

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With All My Love

To all my friends who have answered my whiny phonecalls
My emails about how hard this is,
My blog posts about how much I have wanted to throw in the towel:

Thank You.

You have no idea how inspirational you have been to me.
Your encouragement means the world to me. And not just the hang-in-there-tiger stuff, either. The Fuck-it-just-go-get-a-latte-and-stop-beating-yourself-up-about-it kind has been a soothing balm as well. It is amazing how many iterations of defeat and triumph this novel has dragged me through. I feel like I actually understand much better the creative process. I understand that I should have been ignoring the dishes a long, long time ago, and giving in to the need to scribble notes to myself in the middle of the night. I understand that this is a full time vocation, that I can't really ignore everything that needs writing down anymore. This is the most difficult thing I have ever done creatively and also the most rewarding. I feel alive and I feel capable and that's how I know I've come home.

So, thank you all so very much. I had no idea what comfort you would be to me. Or that you would cheer me across the finish line when all I wanted to do was sit out the last lap.

We're rounding the bend, coming into the final stretch.

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Forecast: Wind, Rain, and Chance of Mood Swings

It's grey and cold outside and I am indoors, in a sweater and a hat. I am questioning the reason I am here, in a sweater and a hat, indoors. I am trying to trace my steps back to the point where I decided that, despite my love affair with the sun, I agreed to live in a city that doesn't get much sun. I am trying to understand what keeps me here, doing the same thing, over and over again. Why, most of my days, I feel like I am running in place. And I feel like my days are wasted. And why that feeling is worsened whenever I see pictures of my friends with their kids. I think: all this time I have been working (and for what, again?) and I could have been doing other things... like raising a child or two, or traveling, or sailing around the world. Or writing books, or getting degrees. Or meeting people from all over the world.

What happened to that sense of wonder I used to have? Where is my sense of adventure and why haven't I overcome my fear of not having enough? Why do I hold myself back? Why is the decision to leap so intensely exhilarating, but so threatening and scary at the same time? This kind of stuff plagues me. I lie in bed at night and ask the question: what am I supposed to be doing with my life? And always the answer comes back: not this.

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Happy Black Friday! Brought To You By Crows, Harbingers of Messy Sidewalks

With all this focus on turkeys this time of year, I thought I'd bring you some news from other parts of the avian world.

These guys are getting their Christmas shopping done early. It's so easy with one-stop shopping! For mom, orange rinds. For dad, the crow who has everything: old shoelaces. And for that finicky Aunt Marion: a used wad of Saran wrap. It goes with everything!

Do you think they got the lid off the can themselves? Because sometimes crows, when rooting through old soup cans and newspapers, are freakishly strong.

And, in case you needed any reminders that sometimes Seattle looks like the set of of a Hitchcock film from about November thru April, I bring you this. Is it any wonder I want to swallow whole bottles of Vitamin D for breakfast?

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Soundtrack to My Life Right Now

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Thoughts and Thankfulness

On sitting still on the bridge in traffic: There had better be some major fucking construction going on up ahead because it has taken me a whole hour to drive 6 miles and I need to be home writing RIGHT NOW.

On passing the accident scene, seeing two cars with their front fenders smashed in, the airbags hanging limply from the dashboards, causing said traffic: I am such an asshole.

On my OLD dentist after my NEW dentist tells me I don't need a root canal: That sonofabtich.

On not needing a root canal after all: Um. Wow. My intuition was right. I am getting a second opinion on EVERYthing from now on.

On my impending credit card bill which will include the charges for my new boots, my fillings, my teeth cleaning, my cousin's birthday gift, my chiropractor's visits, my drugs for a now unnecessary root canal, and groceries for a month: Oh, crap.

On being able to still have a credit card in this economy: Shit. I have a credit card in this economy. And a job. I'm pretty lucky.

On being able to sleep in on Thanksgiving Day: Yessssssssssssssssssssss.

On having such amazing friends, people who have taught me what gratitude really is... And clients who challenge me in so many ways, and reward me with money so I can buy boots on a whim... And a wonderful man-friend who knows how to do laundry and gives me neck rubs when I want them and who has taught me infinite patience: WOW. I am REALLY fucking lucky. And grateful. Very grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

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Not So Much Progress

It's official: I'm sick of writing this novel. The words are just not coming, and surprise surprise, I find it easier to write about myself than other people. Shocking, I know.

No, it will not help to twist the plot and have the neighbor's cat swallow the evidence during the police investigation. It will not be cute, nor will it be clever, to make my main character morph into a bird or a wolf or a wizard any of that stuff the young people care about these days. I cannot introduce any more characters this late in the game. There's already enough death and destruction, so no one else can die. And there will be no vampires, damnit. There will just be normal humans who did extra-normal things whose stories I cannot, for the life of me, seem to push out of my fingertips without sounding like Jack Kerouac having an asthma attack.

Fuck.

This is harder than I thought it was going to be.

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Facts About the Sixties Triplex

Number of times CLH has nearly burned the place down in four months: 2

Number of cooking vessels he has nearly melted by leaving them on the electric stove while he works in another room: 2

Number of house plants that have been damaged/kicked over during the mad dash from the office to the kitchen because he has finally noticed the apartment is full of smoke: 2

Number of texts I have received this month that have started with the words "Uh oh": 2

Number of times I have forgotten to turn the heat off before I go to work: too many to count.

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An Explanation

Hey, you payers-of-attention to linear time: I missed a day of posting. I know. But mama needed new boots, so she blew off writing and went out and bought them. And my, how new leather smells soooo much better than my apartment, which is where I have been cooped up for the past week trying to scratch out another babillion words for this "novel" I am supposed to be writing. Look for a make-up entry real soon here.

Since it's mid month, I thought I would take a moment here and answer a few questions that many of you have been asking me lately.

Question #1. Who in the hell is "CLH"?
CLH stands for Common Law Husband, and that is the pseudonym I have given to the saintly man I have been sharing my life with for the past ten years. Since we have been living together for so long, we are considered by the state of Washington, where we live, to be a common-law husband and wife. And there you have it.

When I started this blog years ago I was supremely paranoid about privacy. I wasn't sure I wanted anyone to know specifics about my life (HA!) because I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to take this blog in. Was it going to be my soapbox for my political rants? My venue for exposing the unprofessional doings of my clients? My million page opus on the juxtaposition between this city's yah-sure, you-betcha, can-do, consensus buildin', community-lovin', hug-fest attitude, and its staggering inability to make a goddamned DECISION ABOUT ANYTHING, SPECIFICALLY A MONORAL!? Ahem. (Smoothing down skirt and straightening hair). Where was I? Ah yes. Now that it's been a few years and now that I've told you about everything from my Eustachian tubes to my House In The Flight Path Of An International Airport, I think I can come clean about who I spend the majority of my free time with.

CLH's real name is Stan, but he also goes by Mr. Stan. At one point, he also went by the nickname Smooshy, hence the name of his blog and his business name. He is the one who makes the Internet go in our house, the one that does the majority of the laundry, and the one that makes fried eggs exactly how I like them. He is wonderful with kids, he is a black belt in Aikido, and he is a very talented massage therapist. As he has never killed a spider indoors, his karma is quite good. He is also eligible to claim a seat at the right hand of the Father for putting up with my mood swings, my demands for French Fries at 11:25 pm, and my utter disregard for the "proper" location of the toothpaste cap.

Question #2. How does one avoid the public stoning that is sure to happen once my crazy neighbor/soccer mom friend/impossible coworker reads what I have written about him/her on my blog?
Well, I don't know the answer to that one, my friends. Blogging is a balancing act between saying enough and saying too much. There are the lives of your loved ones to consider, after all.

Chances are, if you're committing your day to day life to your blog, you are going to have to tell a story or two about someone who REALLY pisses you off. And that's okay. I would advise against devoting TONS of time on bashing your coworker (unless, of course, you're trying to make us laugh. In that case, bludgeon the guy to death. Really. Go for it.) Seriously: I think there are ways to tell your audience a story without exposing all the identity revealing specifics and still make it readable.

I think you have to ask yourself two basic questions before you sit down to blog: for whom am I writing? And why? If you're worried your grandma from Texas might be reading your blog, and she might not like the part where you get high and start using your dog's back for an ottoman while you lie on the couch and watch re-runs of "Benson" night after night, you might want to turn your filter up to eleven. You risk, however, depriving yourself and your greater audience of the full experience of your life. Editing your work for the more sensitive reader means you're probably leaving out some of the very excellent stuff that makes us cranky, petty, angsty, confused, and therefore human. Not that those are the only things that make us human; there are plenty of other horrible things that make us human as well. It's just that blogging offers us the unique opportunity to hide some of the more "colorful" sides of us, and I say that we do ourselves a great disservice by not telling the whole story of ourselves. What is the Internet if not a giant sounding board for all of us to yell about our stale cookies? Or coo about our babies? Or post videos of our cats running into walls? Give your audience as much as you are willing to give up and I think the connections you will make with perfect strangers will far outweigh the scorn you'll receive for admitting you don't particularly fancy your neighbors. My only rule for writing is this: be honest. Tell the truth as best you know it. Be aware that your truth is not every one's truth.

This is YOUR blog, and YOUR life. Be honest. Be aware.

And the next time that sonofabitch in the next cubicle over starts chewing his doughnut with his mouth open again, you make sure to tell all of us about it.

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Urban Homesteading

Client cancellations come few and far between. When they do happen, I almost don't care about the money I am missing out on because, these days, time to myself is a rare and precious thing.

I decided to make the most of my day by running a bunch of errands that I have been putting off for weeks now. On the top of the list was:

1. Run the postcards from the Galapagos over to the moneyed side of town for hand delivery.

So, twelve years ago, I went on a trip to Peru with a bunch of other community college folks, and that's where I met my friend Barbara, who I lovingly call Babs. Babs and I have been in communication for the last twelve years now. Babs has visited every single continent on this planet, minus the Arctic. Some of them several times. She is an amazing woman and a true friend. She's also a HUGE advocate of the US Postal system. She worked as a mail carrier for a few years and I'm pretty sure Babs is single-handedly keeping them in business. Every few months or so, I receive packages with random assortments of stuff in them... things like letter openers made entirely of corn plastic. Just something to keep those mail delivery folks happy and employed. Anywho, the last time Babs was in the Galapagos, she visited Floreana, an island with a neat little tradition. Dating back to the time of whalers, mail has been left in post "barrels" for sailors (and now tourists) to pick and carry back to their homes in Europe and beyond for hand delivery. So, Babs, being the devoted ex-postal worker, scooped up a few addressed to Seattle and she mailed them off to me. I hand delivered them today. I have to admit, it was sort of neat to watch the reactions of the mail recipients. Also, I'm now guaranteed a place in heaven. Move over, Mother Theresa.

Next on the list:

2. Pick up hardware at packed-to-the-rafters-with-stuff, my-kinda-place hardware store. Hardwicks, you are the hardware store my father always dreamed about. Thank you for your bulk bins of six-cent screws and eighteen-cent anchors. I can finally hang that shelf in the bathroom.

And then:

3. Grocery shop at now-infamous home of the lady who banged a stale cookie on the deli counter. Mostly uneventful except cashier almost didn't swipe my coupon and I almost overpaid by $6.00. These are tough times. Pay attention to my coupons, ya damned hippies.

4. Came home and hand dyed napkins. Okay, okay, this one needs some explaining. Bleach, laundry, and colorfastness in my house are all mortal enemies. CLH and I have done more than our share of white loads that have come out pink because of a rogue red sock we didn't ferret out of the wash. I have destroyed a number of towels with my sloppy bleach handling. And our bath mat is only now starting to fade back to its original checkered pattern after CLH washed it with a indigo colored something or other that turned everything in the load blue.

Now, for ecological reasons, we don't use paper napkins in our house. Instead, for the past ten years, we have been using the same six cloth napkins. As you can imagine, they are a little worse for the wear. They're still in great shape structurally. It's just that they're stained with so much wine and discolored with so much bleach, it looks like we've been using them to clean up after autopsies rather than mushroom risotto. So, I decided to pull out the box of dye I've been hoarding all these years and my canning pot from the basement and try my hand at stovetop dyeing. It was incredibly simple, really. I probably didn't agitate the napkins as much as I should have. But they came out well enough. And now I have a set of clean, uniform looking napkins!

BEFORE:

DURING:
I'll post the AFTER shot tomorrow, right after I finish painting the fence and milking the cows.

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Wherein My Desire to Nickname Everything Results In A Glaring Typo

So, it's come to my attention (thank you, Shoshi) that I stated CLH went to go see a "Henry" Potter movie last week. The movie was, in fact, about "Harry" Potter.

Why the confusion? Well, at our house, we have a tendency to assign made up names to everything. You remember that our sugar bowl is the Sugar Chicken, right? And that the proper way to open it is to sing to it, right? Well, ditto that for lots of things around the house. There's our beat up armchair Chairy (sorry, Pee Wee, you can't have ALL the good names for furniture). And there's CLH's car, a white Volkswagen Passat, which we call OMC, or "Old Man Car".

Somehow, our alternate name for the wizard child "Henry Porter" merged with his given name, "Harry Potter". I don't know why we had to go and change his name. I really don't.

Now, if it sounds like we are in need of a swift kick of adulthood to the ass, or that we have a million cats, or that we collect appliqued Christmas themed sweater vests, rest assured that only the first thing is true. We can actually have normal conversations that don't involve adding cute endings to words, or altering normal names into pseudo porn star names. It's just more fun when we do.

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A Month of Movies

The bonus to my being chained to my computer for the next 23 days or so is that CLH gets to do something he rarely gets to do around here: watch movies. It's not that I'm anti-movie or anything, or that I put the kai-bosh on his movie watching needs. It's just that most movies out there are so... predictable. Especially American movies. And if I wanted to sit for an hour and see something predictable unfold, I'd throw a bunch of lollipops into the air above a dozen three-year-olds.

The other thing about movies is that I have a hard time sitting still for very long. And when I do sit still, I prefer to read a book. Also, the remote scares me and books are really easy to open.

A couple of nights ago, he got to catch up on his Henry Potter repertoire by going to see the last one at a great little theater just north of us called The Crest. The place hasn't been renovated since Elvis died, but, for $3.00 a movie, no one's complaining that their seat is missing half its stuffing.

Since we had our garage sale this summer, we've been paring down our belongings, including our furniture. Though keeping the enormous couch we moved from the House In the Flight Path of An International Airport would have been more comfortable, both CLH and I were tired of looking at the thing, and we finally sold it last weekend. That means that we only have our lovely (but small) couch and armchair as our living room furniture. And that also means that poor, poor CLH must suffer the indignity of reclining his six foot tall body on a five foot long couch. Of course, he doesn't seem to mind. He's getting to watch movies! And he did pay $3.00 to sit on a avocado green tweed seat vomiting its own innards. Something tells me that, when it comes to movies, comfort is a sacrifice he's willing to make.

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THIS is why Internet was invented

So my dad could forward me AWESOME videos like this one:

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Why Snickers Should Change Its Tagline To: “Packed With Peanuts, Snickers Really Restores Dangerously Low Blood Sugar Levels In Near-Anemics”

So, I fainted at work on Friday. It was another bad faint. One where I needed to take the rest of the day off. Luckily for me, the folks that I was working with that day had a great attitude about the whole thing. I suppose if your bookkeeper pages you from the floor below and breathily asks you come downstairs, and you see her slumped in her chair and covered in her own sweat and she tells you she's just fainted and she just needs a glass of water, you have two choices. You can either totally freak out, or you can laugh your ass off at her stupidity for not eating breakfast. And if you choose to laugh at her, she will humor you because she will realize that, in fact, it was stupid to not eat food during the day, and she will tell you that, when she's not unconscious, she's a real hoot, and would you like to come to her housewarming party on Saturday night?

I'm pretty sure it was a combination of not eating a proper breakfast and drinking black coffee, and then getting scolded (yes, scolded, like a child) on the phone that caused the faint. Though I would love to tell you all about it, I can't really go into details about the scolding part because I have privacy to protect here. (Don't worry, though. As soon as I quit being a bookkeeper, every dirty little secret is coming out. That means your ass is getting exposed, filthy contractor with the cigarette ash and pubic hair covered keyboard). Let's just say that, in my profession, emotions run high because we're all Americans dealing with big bad IRS. As a rule, I try to live my life NOT being afraid of the IRS. As a matter of fact, I've dealt with the IRS on several occasions, face to face, and you know what? The IRS is made up of people. Live human beings who have kids and wives and bad hair days and, ultimately, they know humans fuck up from time to time. So long as you're not intentionally trying siphon off your firm's profits and stick it in banks in the Bahamas, they understand that we're human and that sometimes we make mistakes. And that we all needn't go to jail if our math is a little off.

Every one of us who works in the money industry knows that, more than random acts of violence, terrorism, pestilence, plague, or natural disaster, the IRS is the thing to be feared most in this world. Most of my clients think this way, too. And it's good that they do; the IRS can do unpleasant things like fine you and possibly make the case for your imprisonment. It was the IRS that I was being lectured about when my brain decided it would rather hang up a "Gone Fishin'" sign than to listen to any more tirades about money.

Anywho. I was getting scolded (because I may or may not raise the hackles of the IRS agent who may or may not audit my work) and my blood pressure went through the roof. Having eaten nothing but orange juice and a few carrots that day, my body had nothing in it to fight back with, so I pleasantly excused myself from the conversation because I thought I might faint, hung up the phone, leaned back in my chair, and fainted.

It was all very natural, actually. I've fainted so many times this past year, this just felt like a fire drill. Feel blood pounding in ears, general queasiness, and uncomfortably warm? Why, get near the floor! You're about to faint! This is almost embarrassing to say, but I'm practiced at fainting. It's gotten so bad lately that I actually walk into rooms and look for the softest place to land. I know exactly what to do when I start to feel faint. And I know the drill afterwards: ask for water. If candy is offered, eat some, but not all, and go slow. Follow up with protein. Go home, take nap, feel queasy for 24 hours, have general vocabulary words disappear temporarily from memory, feel better, and tell everyone you fainted.

So this is the part where I admit that maybe some sort of anti-anxiety medication might be in order here. Though I have always been pretty much anti-medication for things like anxiety and depression and the like, I'm starting to feel like maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to not faint all the time. And I really do feel like my body just altogether checked out when I fainted this time, and in the past. It was like it just couldn't handle the stress and needed a 15 second brain-scrambling nap. Sure, having not eaten had a lot to do with it, but I've gone for longer periods of time without eating and have not felt faint. I think, though it rubs against all my beliefs about how this country over medicates and how we all walk around numbing pain, I might benefit from sort of regimen to help me relax a little bit more. I know I need to exercise and eat better. But I also know that my brain spirals out of control when I give it two seconds of free time. I'm not sure how to channel this sort of frenetic energy yet. It seems to be building up in my system and causing me to shut down from time to time.

I know there are lots of natural things I can do to relieve stress. And I know, given the choice between caring for myself and working for others, I almost always choose the working for others option. I need to work on changing this.

I've been really anxious about saying any of this on this blog. I usually reserve this space for the more humorous stories in my life... but I was feeling like I needed to explain my very obvious absence from writing. I was getting all worked up about feeling like I had nothing to post about, and then that guilt and anxiety was causing me to not want to post, which was getting me all worked up about not posting... and so it went, on and on. I think, back before we had medication, this was called "writer's block". Now we call it generalized anxiety.

Whatever the hell it is, it's causing some major interruptions in my routine. It's causing me to shy away from one of my favorite creative outlets, and it's causing me to fall down on the job, quite literally. Which is maybe exactly what I need. Sometimes, when it needs a break from your unhealthy repetition, the body knocks politely. And when you ignore it, sometimes it launches itself from the ropes and slams you down onto the middle of the ring, face first.

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Pause

So, I have been trying to come up with ways to tell you about the rest of my Burning Man experience. I can't explain it, but I'm really struggling with the words. I have never felt so bereft of words and so full of writing material at the same time.

I'm having a hard time because my experience is really more than just a story about a bunch of zany, mostly-white, people whooping it up in the desert. Sure, there was the trip down there, the set up, the partying, the meeting of people, the dancing, the staying up all night, the witnessing of art, the burning of things, the hugging goodbye, the tear down and the drive home... but then there were the good feelings that just sort of oozed out from some balled up part of my brain and into my bloodstream when I got home. (And here is the part where I just want to flog myself for even typing that because, before I left, I promised myself I wouldn't describe my experience with incredibly cliche phrases like "Burning Man experience" and "started when I got home".)

This whole writing process has been even further complicated by the fact that one of my camp mates just posted that her younger brother died in a car accident this Saturday. It's surreal. It's almost impossible for me to comprehend that someone I shared an unforgettable week in the dirt and the sun with is now experiencing something so unexpectedly devastating. It's sort of hard to conjure up the zaniness of the trip when all I can think about is her and what she must be feeling right now.

The outpouring of love for her and her family has been amazing. So many people have responded to her, offering up their prayers and their good thoughts and their support. Even though she has been dealt this terrible shock, it is so comforting to know she is surrounded by so much love.

I am more moved by this than normal. I think it has everything to do with my experience at Burning Man.

This is one of the bits of fallout from Burning Man: you find yourself surrounded by this instant just-add-water-community and you can't help but have your empathy for your fellow human renewed (more flogging here for more inarticulate cliches). The whole reason I went to Burning Man (I'll explain more about this in another post) was to brush off these feelings of jealousy and rage I was having towards people who seemed to be "living an easy life" and to reestablish my connection to our commonality, our collective struggle, and our collective triumphs.

It worked.

My campmate is a person who I only really got to know aboard a school bus for two days... but I established a kinship with her that was otherwise impossible for me before this trip. I feel deeply saddened for her loss and I find myself wanting to extend myself to her and other friends in ways I didn't know I could before.

For many reasons (not the least of which is that I want to finally want to answer the question: How was Burning Man?) I am tempted to just sum the whole thing up with a couple of sentences about feeling freer and not having so much judgement, and be done with it. But I can't. Besides the fact that I loathe neat and tidy summations about deeply moving experiences, there is the
inherent dishonor I would do to this whole thing by not spelling out both the good and the bad. Before I left, I wanted to collect honest and practical anecdotes about what to expect. I now want to churn this experience into something as useful and as practical (and inspiring) as the stories I was told.

I also don't want to add to the nebulous-speak, you-had-to-have-been-there-to-know-what-i'm-talking-about type stuff that further "proves" the argument that Burners are all spaced out hippies who speak in surfer-dude sentence fragments.

It'll be worth it, even if it takes a while, to write it ALL down.

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Burning Man, Day 1

i arrive early, packed and ready. there are things everywhere. all over the lawn, the backyard, spilling out of the front door and onto the porch. the bus is not even in front of the house yet. the bus we need to pack and drive away. people are moving slowly, and without apparent purpose. i am confused. i was told to be ready, that we would be leaving in an hour.
this is the conversation i have with myself:
type a, sit down and shut up. there is no need to be on time anymore.

several times, i hear the phrase, "it doesn't matter. we're on vacation". it's true. nothing matters anymore. we are on vacation now.

the bus is loaded. it takes several hours. it takes so long, we won't be able to reach our first destination in time. we drive one half hour south. we stop at a shitty motel. we pile in, three to a bed. some of us sleep in our clothes.
this is the conversation i have with myself:
type a, get ready for all kinds of un-hygiene.

we get up, have breakfast, we get on the road. i miss my boyfriend terribly. i want to cry i miss him so bad. i read my book. i stare out the window and start many letters in my head to him.

there are arguments about the butterflies. where to put them. if we should put them. when we should put them. finally, we decide. we get the butterflies. we put them into the bus. we cram them into the bus. it takes all nine of us to get them in. we get them in. the sky clouds over. the air is cold and damp. soon, i think. soon. soon i will be under a merciless sky. soon the sun will bake my skin. soon i will be brown all over. soon i won't remember the cold.

we arrive at our second hotel. i still don't understand all the inside jokes. i am sad and i miss my boyfriend. i try whittling a crochet hook out of chopstick to keep my hands busy. it doesn't work. i throw newly purchased yarn into a bag half full of oranges and forget about it. we sleep. we awake. we drive.

finally we arrive. the sun is hot. we are greeted by a smiling naked man and two diminutive women in black leather knee high boots and goggles. i am told to make an angel in the dust. i do as i am told. i am told to swing a metal rod at a bell and declare, "i'm a virgin". i do as i am told. everyone tells us, smiling, "welcome home". i don't understand what they mean.
this is the conversation i have with myself:
type a, don't think. just go with it.

we set up in the half-blinding wind. the sun is obscured by the dust. we are cranky. we are tired. we are arguing over the best way to get a tent up. we have forgotten to eat. we cannot tell if we should push on or give up and sleep on the bus.

we work till the sun goes down. we exhale heavily, in between gusts, confounded by the wind. we use makeshift weights to hold things down. we stand with our hands on our hips and we are pushed like sails and we survey, first our camp, then the distance. we estimate what time it is. we estimate how long it will take to set up the other shelters. we pace. we guard our eyes from the dust. we comment about last year's wind. we calculate and re-calculate.

we eat. we take long swigs of water in between short sips of wine. we eat slowly, steadily. we slump in our chairs and lean against one another. we do not speak much except to thank our host for the food. we try to make jokes. we rest. we clean up. we stumble to our tents, to the bus, to the water truck. we try to find what comfort we can. we sleep.

this is the conversation i have with myself:
type a, this is where you will live for the next seven days.

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10 Days In The Desert

I'm going to Burning Man. I'm leaving in two hours.

It feels good to get that off my chest.

There is so much to say about it... but right now, my brain is a messy pile of spaghetti, so bear with me as I try to get this all down in one-pre-life-altering-event post.

I'm all atwitter with nervousness. Usually I would liken my emotional highs and lows to the typical roller coaster ride. But this? This has been more like being vaulted off the end of a see-saw at irregular intervals. When I first accepted the invitation (from my charming, freakish friends) they agreed to pay for my ticket if I took care of paying for things like water and gas and the like. And immediately I began my volley into the stratosphere. My first thought upon seeing my printed ticket?

WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?

Remember how I loathe the idea of a contrived community? Remember how I hate constant noise? Remember that whole episode in the Flight Path Of An International Airport? Remember how I like to BATHE? And eat fresh fruit? And sleep in a real bed?

Before I saw the ticket though, there was a whole OTHER set of things to worry about . The second I said yes to this whole affair, I became obsessed about one thing and one thing only: sex. All I'd ever heard about Burning Man, and all I knew (from friends who have come back) is that something snaps inside people when they go and they come back wanting to do things like change their names to be more in line with their new-found purposes in life. (Thing like Ruby Greensleeves or FeatherMoonbeam. You know. Totally normal.) They also want to do things like sleep with everyone. EVERYone. Because Burning Man makes them realize how sexually repressed we are as a society. And that we should be boinking a WHOLE lot more. So, why not start with your neighbor? And then your neighbor's girlfriend? And then your neighbor's girlfriend's neighbor?

Did I mention that CLH is not going?

Okay, so I did a little talking with CLH and with my hosts and I think I have calmed down about it. I mean, I didn't say yes to this whole experience so that I could try my hand at polyamory... but I am only human. And I am probably breaking about fifty social taboos right now, but I'm just going to admit that I am human and that I didn't know how resistant I would be to the lure of new ideas about monogamy. I think I can safely say now that, after weighing just how special and unique my relationship with CLH is, and after seriously considering what "experimenting" has done to other couples I know, I am quite sure that my pants are going to stay on the whole time I'm at Burning Man.

So, now that that's all cleared up, there's plenty of room for the next set of neuroses. Enter: how do I live in the desert with no cell phone, no computer, limited resources, and no way to escape the constant visual stimuli? I mean, I have never, ever had to pack, not even on the most "extreme" backpacking trip I have even been on, stuff that would literally make the difference between a good time and a helicopter trip to the hospital. I'm already a Nervous Nelly when it comes to new environments and people I don't know. Add in my-ahem-issues with a certain grain and my intestinal fortitude, a 48 hours bus ride, closed in spaces, and, well, I'm breaking out in hives just typing this sentence. I need to bring EVERYthing I might need to survive (food, shelter, clothing, and a feather boa) for the next ten days. In the extreme heat of the day and the frigid temperatures of the night.

Of course, I love me some heat. But, desert heat? For ten straight days? With no relief except the occasional 75 mile per hour blinding, must-wear-goggles-and-masks windstorm? The kind that has the power to blow coolers and lawn furniture and whole tents into the next state? The tent that is my ONLY PROTECTION FROM THE SUN FOR TEN DAYS?

I've made several dozen packing lists. I've pulled every mumu, every glittery eyeshadow, and every kind of skin lotion out of the closets, stuffed them into four blue totes, and have allowed near-perfect strangers to load them onto a giant yellow school bus festooned in silk butterflies.

Oh. My. God.

I texted my friend Tara yesterday while I shopped for wigs and blinky lights, and she reminded me of my formerly brave self, the self that was not afraid, in 2004, to buy an RV off the side of the road and then drive it home, on a downhill, with no breaks. Tara and I do stuff like that.
We started chatting about what we could have done had that RV actually been drivable.

Tara: I just picture us wicked hot and broken down on Route 66, meeting a guy "selling glass" while he follows Wide Spread Panic or some other jam band. We buy weed off him and then line dance at the biker bar all night. Some guy in tattoos reads us the poetry he recently wrote about open roads and the purr of his Harley.

I hope Burning Man is EXACTLY like that.

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Electric Stove: 1, Me: 0

So, one of the more unpleasant things about living in a rental unit? Having to get re-used to cooking on an electric stove. I have been cooking with gas for four years now (two years in my prior rental unit, and two years in the house In The Flight Path Of An International Airport), and, boy oh boy, what a difference a flame makes! Everyone warned me that once I went pilot light, I would never go back. Man, were they right.

Last week, I attempted to make my first pot of popcorn on our new electric stove. (Sidenote: CLH and I eat, on average, four bowls of popcorn a week. We've been making it on the stove from scratch for years now. CLH loves the classic melted butter and salt kind, but I fancy the more eclectic toppings... things like olive oil and nutritional yeast.... or sesame oil and minced seaweed. If you've never tried making it from scratch, I highly encourage you. It take minutes, it costs pennies, and believe it or not, it actually fills you up. I especially like to eat it in bed while reading. CLH, however, decidedly DOES NOT LIKE popcorn in the sheets. He's fussy like that.)

So, last week, I made the popcorn the way I have for years. Only, that method DOES NOT WORK on an electric stove. Turns out that the popcorn KEEPS COOKING even after you turn the heat off. Because that coil? That heinous heating element best suited for campstoves? That red hot spiral of menace? IT'S STILL HOT even after you turn it off. So, when I "turned the heat off", what I actually did was change the temperature from "branding-ready hot" to "third degree burns hot". Not much change there, you see. So, the popcorn burned. It burned bad. It burned so bad that, even now, seventeen scourings with white caustic powder and a green scrubbie pad later, it is still encrusted with carbonized corn matter. The pot got so hot (and stinky) that I had to put it out on the steps of the porch to cool it down. Which is where I took this picture.

Since then, the stove and I have made peace. It was actually the tea kettle that made this whole cooking-with-electricity thing clear to me. You're supposed to REMOVE the cooking vessel from the heating element when it is done heating! Otherwise it screeches at you! Now I remember! It's all coming back to me. Next week's lesson: Learning which setting means "not scorched" on the clothes dryer.

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Welcome Back To The City

(Today's photo is brought to you by the Indignant Urbanites of Seattle, the same folks who brought you the "These Cookies Are As Hard As Dog Biscuits" rant.)

The note states:

"Whoever put this bag of animal feces in my trash can, you need to be a RESPONSIBLE dog owner and take it home with you. Thanks."

My favorite part? Oh, I don't know. There are too many things to love, really. There's the fact that "responsible" is spelled out in all caps. There's the little lesson at the end about how to be that responsible dog owner (take your poop home, dude). There's the fact that the word "Thanks" is underlined. There's the fact that this person DUG THE POOP out of their trash, WROTE A NOTE ABOUT THE POOP, and then STAPLED THE POOP TO A LIGHT POLE outside their house. It takes a special kind of indignant person to handle poop that many times.

I was going to create a post about the joys of walking to work, of how good it feels to not drive everywhere, of how CLOSE we are to everything.... but then (while on a walk) I saw this and I thought: Who wants to read about walking to work on the Internet when you read about my neighbors' unholy rage about poop in their trash can?

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The New Face of Terrorism: Citrus Transporters

Among my more redeeming compulsions is my inability to throw away perfectly good food. Sure, I've tossed out my share of soggy bags of rotten lettuce... but I've done so with a heavy heart (and the memory of an elephant) such that when I got the chance to redeem myself later on down the road, no matter how much it made me that weird woman in the restaurant who just wrapped her uneaten tortillas in a napkin and shoved them in her purse, I've done it. CLH usually wants to slink under the table and disappear at times like these, but, to him I say: Look here, financial partner of mine! I have just saved us three perfectly good tortillas! That's at least THIRTY whole cents of food we won't have to buy this week!

Never mind that my fair city's restaurants compost a good deal of their food waste and that anything I don't eat gets turned into luscious, rich soil suitable for growing more food. No, even the most valiant efforts of our nation's most forward thinking city planners cannot stop my Depression Era tendencies.

Which brings us to the lemons.

So, we went on a trip to Canada this weekend. The trip was sponsored by a generous client of mine; he hosted nearly thirty people for dinner, which was prepared from scratch by one of our mutual friends. Mutual friend bought enough to feed a small army. And there were leftovers enough to feed another small army the next day. The sight of these leftovers, filling up an entire dining room table top, lit up the non-food wasting/money saving part of my brain, which, conveniently, is located right next to the part of my brain that makes my arms want to take home uneaten tortillas. Now, we didn't have a way to take home these particular leftovers... though, when we opened the 'fridge to take out our snacks for the ride home, we did discover leftovers we COULD take home. Sitting inside the fridge were pounds and pounds of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes. They didn't get used in the salad the night before and they were there for the taking. I couldn't help myself. Tomatoes might be my favorite food on earth. I love to grow them, eat them, cook with them, and juice them, and I especially like them pulverized and poured over vodka with Tabasco sauce and cocktail onions, extra olives, please.

And what was there in the vegetable drawer right next to the tomatoes? Why, the lemons. And on the floor, still in its grocery bag? A watermelon. A veritable feast for god's sake, all for free. We packed it in the car and headed home, my skin all a-tingle with the frugality of it all.

But guess what you can't take over the Canadian/US border, Internets? Guess what the guys in the scary SWAT team uniforms will search your car for? Guess why I, the non-driver, all sweaty and bloaty with menstrual cramps, had to get out of the car ? And guess why I had to redeem my passport at a building off to the side of the road full of other sweaty, bloaty people?

It was the lemons.

CLH and I had a five second conversation about the fruit in the car as we pulled up to the border crossing. We've been to Canada dozens of times, and we know the routine with food. You're not supposed to do it. If you're going to do it, be discreet, don't carry metric tons of it, and for god's sake, DON'T TELL THE BORDER POLICE YOU HAVE CITRUS FRUIT IN THE CAR.

But, the wait was two hours long, and we decided, just to be transparent and not get hauled off for lying about it and then interrogated by angry men in itchy, hot jumpsuits, we'd better declare the stupid lemons. So we did. And the stern but friendly man in the booth slapped a giant sized orange Post-It onto the windshield and told us to pull off and go to some building to the left, where we would need to surrender our contraband TWO LEMONS and pick up our passports. At this point, I was nearly unconscious with the heat of sitting in a non-air conditioned car for two hours. (Did I mention we were nearly out of gas and didn't have enough to be able to idle/run the A/C for two hours?) The heat, plus the ibuprofen I'd popped to relieve the cramps, makes this next part a little fuzzy. Apparently, we were given bad instructions to get to the nebulous "building to the left", so CLH parked and walked into the building he thought was the leftmost one, the building marked "AGRICULTURE". (Silly, silly man.) When he got inside, the officials were startled and suspicious and asked him how he'd gotten in the building. He explained he was just looking to hand over two lemons in exchange for our passports and had simply walked through the door. They got all edgy and explained that he needed to go to THAT leftmost building over there, the one NOT marked "Agriculture". So, he headed off to the OTHER leftmost building. Once at the desk, the border police told CLH they needed ME to come in the building, along with the keys to the car. Perfectly logical. About as logical as walking into a building marked "agriculture" to hand in some lemons.

I staggered in to the building, my skin flushed and hot, my lower half full of retained water, my face a consummate grimace of hate for all things inefficient, and practically hissed and spat at the overweight lady behind the counter. At this point, I finally caught a glance of the two offending lemons. There were lying on a counter behind the desk, on top of the giant orange Post-It. They looked absolutely ridiculous back there, these two tiny pieces of bright yellow fruit on top of an imposing black counter top where guns and drugs had probably lain hours before. And here we were, stuck at the border, having brought in lemons. That we bought in Canada. That had probably been GROWN IN THE US. And SHIPPED TO CANADA. We told the officer that there were also a bunch of tomatoes and one whole watermelon in the car as well- just in case she was feeling snackish and wanted to speed up the process.

When the border control officer returned, she looked down her nose at us and said, "You know you have tomatoes in there, too, right?" And here is where I had to dig my fingernails into my palms to resist shouting: Ummm..... YES, LADY. REMEMBER HOW WE DECLARED THAT FIVE MINUTES AGO TO YOU? AND TEN MINUTES AGO TO THE OFFICER IN THE BOOTH?

Finally, she scribbled a big "S" on the back of the Post-It, and sent us on our way. And that was it. Our departure from Canada sponsored by the letter "S".

So, the lesson here (and you knew there was lesson in this, didn't you?) is this: You can mosey on in, unannounced and unassisted, to a border control building. You can tell two different Homeland Security Officers what's in the car, but they won't write it down or tell each other (or remember what you've said is in there, either). You can bring in a watermelon, which is large enough to house several pounds of whatever contraband you fancy. Tomatoes are cool, too. But don't even THINK about, don't even CONSIDER, taking TWO LOUSY LEMONS into the country. Lemons are the fruit of the enemy. If the lemons get in, the terrorists win.

I feel more secure already.

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The Unpacking Begins

Well, we're here, people. I have been trying to think of a more dramatic way to announce we've FINALLY moved, but there's just no drama 'round these parts right now. We're just back in the old 'hood. All things are perfectly normal. It's like we never left. All things are falling neatly into place.

Even though the mirror from the bedroom is leaning up against the couch in the living room, the crab leg crackers and the broken French press are co-mingling on the top of the fridge, and I'm using a metal box for an ottoman right now, I am perfectly calm. See me NOT freaking out about neatness? Isn't it GREAT!?

Oh, and listen:

Hear anything? You don't? Oh. Know why? BECAUSE I DON'T LIVE IN THE FLIGHT PATH OF AN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT ANYMORE!

The move itself went very smoothly... though it did take us one trip in a fully packed seventeen foot moving van and FOUR, count 'em, FOUR, separate trips in a borrowed pickup truck to get all our CRAP from the old place to the new place. That's a LOT of crap, people. A LOT. As in, that's WAY more stuff than I remember moving with. As in, I didn't have time to be tired from moving it all because I was too busy being embarrassed at owning so much STUFF. Can you even imagine? A seventeen foot van was not enough room for two people, TWO PEOPLE, to move all their stuff out of their house. Granted, one of those pickup trucks was very full of potted tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers, but, still. Seventeen linear feet. That's nearly 1800 cubic feet. And it was still not enough room to pack in all our thousands of pounds of stuff.

So, I am on a mission. The mission is simple: get rid of HALF of everything I own. HALF. Every time I open and unpack a box, I put half of its contents into one of several bins I've got stashed around the house. The contents of these bins will eventually all be sold at our enormous, enormous garage sale, date to be determined. There are people out there, young people just starting out, or older people starting over, who need my stuff. And I'm going to be selling it at rock bottom prices in about a month. It's not about the money I can get for it all. It's about dispensing it out in the world and letting someone else use it for a while. Seriously. Half of everything I own.

This move has made me very, very aware of how much stuff I have accumulated and carried around with me- some things in boxes that haven't been sorted through in years- from living arrangement to living arrangement, for purely emotional reasons. Tonight I unearthed a blue glass candleholder that I bought with money I earned from the second job I ever had. My second job. Ever. That was more than 15 years ago. And, no, the candleholder isn't plated in gold, or signed by the Pope. It's just plain blue glass. And it was probably a dollar back in 1996 or whenever I bought it. And, no, I haven't used it in YEARS. But I haven't been able to let go of it, either. Why? Well, it's probably one part minor hoarding compulsion, and one part nostalgia. It's a symbol, more than anything. A symbol of emancipation from my parents' financial woes, a symbol of my entering the "real world" workforce, and a symbol of my ability to build and decorate my own home, complete with blue glass candleholders, bean bag chairs, and posters of The Paperboys.

This is no small thing for me to let go of some of this stuff. I mean, I have literally been carting some of it around since before I moved to Seattle. The number on my lips these days is "10". Some things I have been holding onto for ten years. But this move, this period in my life... it's making me rethink all this carting around and holding on. I'm going to be doing some major sorting and thinning in the coming weeks. My goal is lightness. My mantra is consolidation. I don't know what opportunities lie ahead of me, just that I will need to be treading lightly on this earth to take advantage of them.

So, the unpacking continues. The bedroom is done. The kitchen is a work in progress. For now, the spider plant sits in the middle of the living room. Still, I am calm and every day, I feel a little bit better about being here. I know that this is the beginning of a new chapter in my life.

Also, I know that I don't miss the airplanes overhead. Not. One. Bit.

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Re-Lease With Peace

Internets, there is just so much going on around here, I can barely decide on what to write about. I actually have enough petty grievances saved up to tell you about that I won't need to leave the house for three days. And it's only Wednesday.

I should be sleeping, but the drilling and VERY LOUD pillow fluffing going on in the next room is keeping me up. That's right. Someone is using power tools and fluffing pillows in my former office. My "former" office because a renter is moving into it. A RENTER! Internets, do you know what that means? It means I am *this*much closer to moving out. And you know what else that means? For the next seven days, I get to share my bathroom with a stranger! A bathroom that I pay for! A bathroom that my good credit is helping to secure! A bathroom that I will have to learn to close the door to because when you OWN a bathroom, YOU CAN DO THINGS LIKE LEAVE THE DOOR OPEN WHEN YOU PEE. But you know what that ALSO means? It means I am moving out! In seven days. CLH and I are ending this experiment with co-living and we are moving into our our own place on July 15th: The two year anniversary of our move in date to this house.

After much searching, gnashing of teeth, and tearing of hair, we found a nice little unit in a triplex deep in the heart of one of our favorite neighborhoods back up in the city. It's not the rental house we were hoping for, and it doesn't have hardwoods, and it doesn't have a yard or a garden, but it's going to be ours. All ours. Every night for the past two weeks, I have gone to sleep dreaming about the three things I will want to do immediately upon moving in: walk around in my underwear, drink my morning coffee in front of my computer in peace, and watch obscene amounts of the Discovery Channel while painting my toenails. I'm currently trying to come up with a way to do all three simultaneously.

To be quite honest, though, I'm a little bummed that the apartment only met only 90% of our criteria. I'm excited to actually make the move and get this limbo thing over with, but there's a little nagging voice in my head that thinks that maybe I pulled the trigger a little too soon. I keep telling myself that we're only committing to a year there, that maybe we can go live in Europe or something afterwards. And, after looking at dump after dump, this place was the obvious choice for us, and, um, hello? NINETY percent is a pretty high number. On the advice of friends (thanks, Dave and Sarah!) CLH and I sat down at breakfast one morning during our search and wrote down all the things we wanted in a house. It was a great exercise because a) it gave me an excuse to make a list and lists are like the paper version of Valium to me, and b) it was a great way to expedite the decision making process when we saw a place that we were on the fence about. Some of the things on my list: wanting to hear birds (and NOT airplanes, for the love of god) first thing in the morning, bikeability to most clients' offices, and washer and dryer in the unit. Some of CLH's criteria: place for the missus to write, access to bus lines, and washer and dryer in unit. So, after confirming with each other that we would absolutely, under no circumstances, never, ever, ever travel more than ten feet from our clothes hamper to the washing machine, we took our list to the streets. And the place we chose met most of our demands. We've figured out some work-arounds to the whole non-yard thing (the biggest hangup for me); I'm going to set up a container garden next the garage. And CLH has promised me that he won't cringe too hard when I lay out the bolt of Astroturf on the driveway, roll the grill over it, and call the friends over for a barbecue in our "yard" .

Just to torture myself, I did another craigslist search for houses in our price range tonight. Thankfully, there weren't too many new listings. I say "thankfully" because I think I am still hung up on this not being an ideal new place, and wanted some confirmation that the place we've picked is the best thing out there. Having thought moving in to this house two years ago was a good choice for us, I am feeling like my ability to make a housing decision has become somewhat impaired. I think that I may have done some permanent damage to that lighter, more whimsical person I used to be when I agreed to move in to a fixer upper in the suburbs. Now I'm considering massive flowcharts and bar graphs designed to show, for instance, the inverse relationship between sleeping and planes flying overhead, before making ANY decisions. I know my wish list is a little unrealistic, especially in a rental situation, but, I sort of wanted this next place to be this beautiful, commodious, centrally located dreamhouse of a house. I think I need to realize that what we have chosen is going to be just what we need. Also, it sort of feels like it's SUPPOSED to be ours. I don't want to make too much of it, but I'm pretty sure the universe was trying to dropkick us in the head with this one. At the exact SECOND we finished clearing everything out of my office to make it ready for a renter, the landlady called to give us the place for $50 less than what she was originally asking. Did we need a bigger hint to take the damn place already?

We're just about ready to go, too. CLH and I spent last weekend stacking nearly everything we own into a very sexy 10' by 5' by 7' pile in our garage. We're at the dreaded place now where there are just random things lying around needing to be packed. Stuff that didn't get caught in the dragnet of my organization the first time around... things like the lone fork that's been in and out of the dishwasher a few times, the decorative glass jar that was hiding behind the sequined penguin ornament, a spool of thread, and the battery hatch cover to SOMETHING we own. That kid of stuff. I'm so OVER the whole packing thing, I'm starting to pack very unlike myself. I'm just throwing (inhaling slowly to calm myself) unrelated junk into a box. And the list-making, regularly-scheduled-sock drawer-organizing side of me is breaking out in hives over it. It's a slippery slope, that kind of packing. Classic gateway behavior. Sure, it's just a little toaster in with the tennis rackets now. But, soon enough, we'll be wearing stained sweatpants and "I'm With Stupid" t-shirts, parking our cars on the front lawn, and tying pieces of steak to fireworks. Just you wait.

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Movement II

I just had to post an Internet-sized THANK YOU to all my friends who have sent me their good thoughts and prayers in the last week here. I am so blessed and lucky to have such a supportive bunch of folks in my life. You all have sent me such wonderful bits of wisdom and all-around-wonderful good feelings; and I am feeling much better these days. I will take some time later to post about what's been happening. Suffice it to say that the more we pack, the better things become. Also, I just returned last night from seeing David Byrne in Portland, so how bad could things be really?

Thank you, again, to all my peeps out there who have kept me in their thoughts these past few weeks. If I could, I would buy you all ponies and mansions and your very own rock band as a way of saying thanks. For now, just know that you are amongst the most wonderful people on earth and that you have reminded me of how fortunate I am to have you in my life.

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Movement

I'm going to try really hard not to sound like a whiny baby in this post, but it's going to come out that way anyway. I'm just feeling like I want to crawl under a rock and not make any adult decisions right now. I have begun the house-hunt. It's official. We're moving on from this whole communal living thing. CLH and I scoured crazylist....er... craigslist this evening and came up with the usual overpriced, poorly lit, beige colored, human-sized cat boxes for rent. Note to landlords: I'm not paying you a non-refundable cleaning fee. Unlike your former tenants, I don't plan on actually shitting directly on the carpets, so I'm having a hard time thinking of why I should fork over a non-refundable $400 for "cleaning". Here's an idea: make sure your next tenants have all their teeth and that their hair isn't falling out in clumps; it's pretty much a sure bet that you won't need to call in a haz-mat team to disinfect the place when they leave.

Why don't any of the housing options I've seen tonight seem appealing to me? Why do I want to find my next home in Fiji, or someplace like it? CLH and I even started looking at boats to live on; that's how non-house-dwelling I am feeling right now.

Part of me really wants to take all our boxes, drive them out to the ocean, and dump them overboard with a ceremonial Zen Buddhism mantra about how our stuff is not who we are. And another part of me wants to donate everything to Goodwill, and start ALL OVER. Get rid of every last unmatching bath towel, every collectible fish shaped bottle, every antique nutcracker, and just buy everything new. No more remnants of my past. Just all new. Forks, plates, bedsheets, endtables, everything. All sterile and without history.

I'm feeling everything come undone- every connection to this city, to my clients, to my friends... it's coming undone. The intellectual side of me knows that this is temporary. This is what we call "having a tough go of it". This is the struggle that makes us stronger, the strife that tests the strength of our character. But I want to be done with it. The emotional side of me just doesn't have it in me to fight. I just want my life to go back to being easy.

When I moved two years ago, I completely uprooted myself. I tore myself right out of the upward trajectory I was creating for myself. I was saving money, I was driving less. I was reading more. I was paring down and simplifying. Then I bought a house. Now I find myself surrounded with all this STUFF... my life has been complicated with schedules that revolve around my commute, and what part of the city I will be in when. I'm trying to negotiate traffic schedules, and clients' schedules, and activities I want to do, and I can feel my energy being sapped every time. This is not the chaos I crave. The chaos I love involves travel and writing and the creative process. This is none of those things. I feel like I traded in a life of simplicity for this ridiculously, and unnecessarily complicated one.

I am rambling, and I know it. This is supposed to be the place I come to create clarity, to write it all out and make it all pointed and brief and resolute and entertaining. But, tonight I can't. Tonight it is all spilling out and I am feeling like it would be false to end this cleanly. I have been in a state of limbo for so long; making a decision for myself seems like a foreign concept. I suppose this is the part that I have been looking forward to for so long: being able to choose my own future... making a decision based on want and not need. But I have to admit that this is more challenging than I thought it would be. It is difficult to shake off the last 32 years of bowing down to everyone else's dreams. It is difficult to not know what it is I am supposed to be. It is difficult to not feel shame over this. I am trying to stay positive and remember that all this is passing.

There is still so much of the old me left to contend with.

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This Just In: International Symbol For “I Surrender” Doubles as “Need New Bra. Please Measure Me”

As a general rule, I detest clothing shopping. I usually do it alone, and in secret. Mostly because clothing shopping in this country has become something of a vicious sport, and I'm not comfortable being statistically capable, even for a small while, of trampling a Wal-Mart employee to death to get to the sale rack. I'm also painfully aware of the luxury we Americans enjoy in having access to so much for so little- without any mind paid to the social and environmental cost of acquiring those goods so cheaply- so I usually think twice before I buy anything, anything at all. This awareness, more than the price tag or the trendy stylings, or the need for whatever it is I'm shopping for, informs (and inhibits) my shopping habits.

That, and the fact that finding jeans in my size is a akin to trying to put a whole sea lion into a hot dog bun: some things are inherently disappointing, cause unnecessary sweating, and are better left unattempted.

Underneath my layer of consumer consciousness regarding child labor laws and the true cost of shipping formaldehyde-laced clothing in shipping containers across the ocean, there is another consumer layer. The layer that's not interested in wearing earth toned shapeless sacks festooned with peace signs and silk screens of eagles midflight just to prove a point about consumerism. There is a layer that squeals and flaps her hands excitedly over... well... shoes. I love shoes. I do. And I like jewelry. And I like the idea that I, too, should be able to change up my look every season and not be condemned to financial or moral bankruptcy in the process.

Lately I've been trying to lighten up my rather heavy approach to shopping. I'm trying to abandon my role as Rancor Filled Older Sister Who Calls Younger Sister for Fashion Advice Because She Can't Find Anything To Match Her Ironic T-Shirt Collection, and trying to be a little more gentle in my condemnation of retail therapy.

When my friend Victoria suggested last night that we go to an actual shop that sold only underthings to shop for said underthings, I tried to put aside my mixed feelings and instead embrace the reality that I would be, in less than twenty four hours, spending on one piece of underclothing -clothing that no one would see- what I would normally spend in one year on clothes.

As soon as I got to Victoria's Secret (the store, not my friend's), I realized I was dealing with the big leagues. I didn't even have the stamina for my normal hand wringing because it took all my energy to just take in the fanfare with which these bras and panties were displayed. This was not the dismally lit lingerie section of the department store I normally shop. And these were not the JC Penney clearance rack bras I was used to shopping for. No, ma'am. These were meaty, beefy bras, complete with wires and multiple hooks and names like "Very Sexy" and "Angels". These bras had names, for godssake.

Oh, and here's the other reason I loathe clothing shopping: sizing. I started this blog three years ago with an entry about my shopping for jeans (an ordeal that could have easily involved my clawing the eyes out of sales associates and setting dressing rooms on fire, so mighty was my exasperation) and not much has changed in the world of denim leg enclosures for me. Ditto for bras. Bras are designed for women with much more to work with than what I've got. When bras my size are designed, they are stuffed with all manner of foams and liqui-gels and padding, presumably so that the wearer can feel like she can compete in some pretty severe chest bumping competitions without sustaining any major damage to her mammary glands. (Or maybe to give the illusion that she has actually outgrown training bras, but I'd say the chest bumping is really what the designers were going for). I'm not much into push up bras myself. I'm of the opinion that no one should be shoving foam into various parts of their ensemble to enhance their look (I'm talking to YOU, designers of 1980's era shoulderpads). I'm small, but at least at peace with the fact that my genes have dictated that all the stuffing that should be on my chest has been stapled to my ass instead. I don't want to carry two demitasse swimming pools in my shirt just because God is horribly unfair.

I guess I've never actually been bra shopping before. The whole process is supposed to start with a fitting (and not, like I presumed, by sighing heavily and steeling oneself for disappointment). The perky sales associate asked me if I wanted to be measured out in the open. Here? I thought. Right here in the middle of the store? Well, I guess so. I mean, we're all here for the same thing, right? So, I threw my hands over my head, and the perky sales associate threw a tape measure around my chest. Then it was off to the fitting room, where Victoria informed me that the sales associate would be getting me "my drawer". I repeat: I guess I have never been bra shopping before because when I was handed an entire drawer of bras, in different shapes, for me to try on, I nearly fell over from the excitement.

The poor sales associate must have thought I'd just spent the last ten years living in a cave because it took a few seconds for me to to wrap my head around the fact that Victoria's Secret has been making the ordeal of trying on bras MUCH LESS OF AN ORDEAL via a very sexy system of streamlined organization. If I had been able to collect myself enough to form sentences, I might have grabbed the sales associate by the shoulders and exclaimed: This? This whole drawer? I get to try on a whole drawer of bras? This drawer here? Full of bras? And all of them are flattering? And none of them are filled with foam peanuts? And they've all been designed with my shape and size in mind? These bras here? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY ADULT LIFE?

I settled for a comfortable contoured bra, which is far less imposing than a bra that is so full of strange viscous liquid, it comes with its own red haz-mat disposal bag. I think the sales clerk must have known she was dealing with novice when she rung me up because she actually congratulated me on my purchase when she took my credit card.

So, to all you bra designers who are trying to make us less endowed women feel like we've got some catching up to do: I'm not buying it. I'll make you make you a deal, though. I'll wear your silicone filled bras when you start padding the backs of your jeans with bags of frozen peas. I'd call it even if you did.

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Warming the Planet One Ink Cartridge At A Time

I'm gonna come right out and say it: The people at Canon should be ashamed of themselves.

THIS is why our planet is going to hell in a handbasket. A fiery, unapologetic handbasket.

These little turds CANNOT be recycled. These are ink TANKS, not ink CARTRIDGES. These "tanks" are not hollow. They contain little sponges, sponges that soak up a good twenty five percent of any ink tank, hold it for an indefinite amount of time, and then render it useless. Something about the chip embedded in them, the sponges, and the fact they are made to be impenetrable, renders them unfit for recycling. And before you email me and say, "But have you tried..." let me state the following:

1. You CANNOT bring them to any of the major office supply retailers (Office Depot, Office Max, Staples) and trade them in. Some of these stores have a "turn an empty cartridge in, get money towards your new cartridge" program. Canon tanks do not qualify for this program. The employee may offer to "recycle" the tank for you, but they usually offer this so you'll shut your indignant mouth and move on.

2. You CANNOT ask Canon to recycle them. They have a way to recycle toner cartridges, but not ink tanks. And sure, they'll pay for the shipping to get the toner there, and they will show you many, many pictures of polar bears nuzzling their young on their website and claim that they are doing everything they can to protect the planet. But they, in fact, are not. 'Cause you know what they would do if they were concerned about the earth? NOT MAKE THESE UN-RECYCLABLE PIECES OF SHIT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

3. You CANNOT refill them. Either your very clever printer will recognize your efforts to save the planet, and tell you that it recognizes (via the memory-saving technology stored in the chip on the tank) that you are trying to re-use a re-filled tank, and the tank will not work... OR... you will have to go through a series of button pressings to "trick" the printer into thinking it has a new tank in it. And that's after you've managed to find a kit that will help you messily get the ink into the microscopic holes in the tank. (side note: One website's forum suggested I take a drill and drill a hole in the top of the tank. A drill? Like I'm just going to casually pull a POWER TOOL out of my desk at the office the next time I run out of ink?)

Listen, I'm all about getting my hands a little dirty to help out mother earth. I've filled dozens of ink tanks in my day (mostly HP tanks. Thanks, HP, for ACTUALLY caring about polar bears.) I did it because I thought it was important to NOT throw plastic ink tanks into landfills. But what about the average office worker who doesn't have either the patience or the precision to deal with such an operation? Is it fair to expect that every person using a printer is going to go to the same lengths to not throw a 2 inch square piece of plastic in the trash? Because, given the choice, most people would choose not to ruin their white dress shirts. And I can't say I blame them.

I get it. I like money, too. And Canon makes thousands upon thousands of dollars creating these "consumables" for the printing industry. And there is a whole thriving refill-kit industry out there too. So, who am I to get in the way of every one's cashing in on the impracticality of making my own ink? I just think there's a better way. Canon also claims that their printing is superior because of the whole sponge-tank technology and because its printers physically prevent you from reinstalling spent tanks. I get that too. I understand the benefit of good quality printing. I also understand that plastic doesn't EVER GO AWAY and that Canon is single-handedly creating MILLIONS of pounds of pure trash every year worldwide. What I can't understand is why we can't have both high quality printing AND responsible ways of disposing of the tanks.

I've always thought: if you're going to invent a product that has its obsolescence built into it, you ought to also invent a conscious way to dispose of it. If manufacturers thought this through, they could actually stand to MAKE money on the disposal/recycling part.

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Sleepless In Just-South-Of-Seattle

Oh, Internet. I can't sleep. Not with CLH rhythmically kicking me in the shin with his icy toes like that. I'm going to ask him tomorrow morning if he beat Lance Armstrong on the uphill because he's CLEARLY trying to out-pedal SOMETHING right now.

Things I am thinking about instead of sleeping:

1. I need to rent this house out. NEED TO. This whole living in limbo thing is getting REALLY OLD really fast.
2. I finally caved in and joined (wincing) Facebook. If, in ten years, economists are wondering about the precipitous drop in American productivity right around this time period, I think they'll know who to blame. EVERYONE has welcomed me into the fold with a variation on this sentence: "Welcome to the greatest time suck ever known to man". I've already found half my grammar school class (not hard since there were a whopping 25 of us in the graduating class)... and it's odd to see my childhood playmates... with boobs. And bald spots. I know I'm not a) delivering a social commentary that hasn't already been delivered about this cultural phenomenon or b) saying anything profound or unique, but, seriously. Boobs and bald spots. On my childhood friends.
3. I am really tickled by how many FAKE FUCKING EMAILS I am receiving from scam artists about this house rental. Just wait till I show you the latest round. I could have a full time job just responding to them.
4. On some days (like today) I feel like throwing out all my possessions out and starting over. I've already begun the process of photographing and listing all the stuff I think will sell on Craigslist before we move so that we don't have to move with it. I cannot WAIT to be rid of it all. Something about austere living has really got me in its clutches right now. Of course, I know that as soon as the weather gets better and the garage sales start happening in my neighborhood, I'm going to want to make the inside of my house look like a Bennigan's turned up to 11... so I'm holding on to this feeling of wanting renewal while it lasts.

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The OTHER OTHER Reason I Live In The Northest: Yielding To Waterfowl

Look right into the center of the photo. That's right. There are two ducks there. In the middle of the road. Two waterfowl are crossing the street and the CARS ARE FREAKIN' WAITING FOR THEM TO CROSS. Only in the Northwest, folks. Only in the Northwest.

I just so happened to be fiddling with my phone (illegal here in the Northwest! No phone fiddling while driving! Stop for ducks, but don't dial and drive!) when I saw these two, so I was able to snap this (contraband!) picture as they were crossing the road. Seriously. Look at that traffic backed up for miles. People are just so darned KIND towards their migratory mate-for-life birds here. If these same ducks (er... pardon me. Duck and Mallard) had been crossing the road where I grew up, they would have been flattened in seconds (after they'd been honked at, cursed at, and had balled up gum wrappers thrown at their heads). God bless 'em for having NO idea about anti-lock brakes.

In other news, I went to the first ever Carrotmob event here in our duck-loving little town! And, adorable spokesperson (who'd already had a beer or two in her) that I am, I gave the camera guy who was filming the whole thing a little interview about why I thought this was such a great idea. Vote with your wallet, America! Duh! So, maybe I'll be featured in the next video! How thrilling! I'll keep you posted. You can read more about Carrotmob and the idea behind it here. Thanks to my friend Rich for being my personal tooth inspector tonight. No one should appear on film without having a cute boy inspect her gumline for black olive bits. What a pal, huh? Oh, and note to camera guy: you might want to edit out the part where I mention that wheat beer is no good for my intestines. I don't know why i thought it was a good idea to advertise my flatulence problem while talking about social change. I was drunk with power... and wheaty beer.

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Let The Packing Begin

CLH and I have begun the process of packing up our belongings in preparation for our move from the house in the flight path of an international airport. Tonight we took our first load of books from the bookshelf and put them in the staging area in the garage. It's a strange thing, this move. For one, it's not exactly full of the hope and excitement that usually accompanies a new start. I'm feeling more like I just want this to be over, like I just want to let out the giant breath I have been holding for about two years now. This isn't going to be the clean break I was hoping for. This house, and all the responsibility that comes with it, has the potential to be a whole flock of albatrosses around my neck for the next few years here.

I haven't written much about the house because, well, I just haven't wanted to talk about it. Sure, I can write about our racist neighbors (charming!), or that time my battery was stolen out of my car while I was asleep 50 feet from the door (hilarious!), or how CLH saw a coyote in the neighbor's wild, abandoned lot of a backyard (sounds safe and fun!), but I can't seem to find the humor in any of this. All I can think of when I think about this place is the enormous burden I took on because I was one of the idiots who thought home ownership was something I needed to cross off my Great American Dream List (as if I've ever done anything in order on that list in my life...). There is, of course, much to talk about, given just how freakin' weird this whole arrangement is. And it really is weird. It's only occurring to me now that maybe I should talk about it because it is so weird and people are just dying to know how i do this. I just don't think I'm quite past the hump in this whole saga where the insane and tragic things that have happened here finally become, in retrospect, laughable. Right now, everything just seems raw and uncertain. And there's nothing really funny about uncertainty.

So, I'm just not really ready to talk about it. When my friends and clients ask how are things with the house, what they're really asking is, "What in the holy hell have you done with your life? And thanks for letting me watch while you figure it out". This whole experience has been a weird, slow motion train wreck; everyone who sees it pretty much says the same three things, in this order: "Wow. What a mess. Thank god I wasn't on that train."

And, really, I guess I can't blame them. I mean, if someone had said to me, "I am going to buy a fixer upper, in the flight path of an international airport, in a town with no sidewalks, and live in it with my two friends, and then try to move out after two years... during the biggest economic downturn in American history", I would have told them good luck and then laughed at them as soon as their backs were turned.

It's tough to tell the train wreck story over and over and over without wanting a happy ending. I mean, if it always ends in gore, you start to feel hopeless every time you tell it. So, I guess that's where I am right now: sick and tired of talking about the gore. I want to start talking about how the paramedics arrived and med-evac'd everyone to safety. I want to start saying that everything worked out; less people died in the wreck than initially believed.

I keep telling everyone that I think this is all going to work out; I believe it when I say it, though, lately, my belief fluctuates hour by hour. I wrote the "for rent" ad last night, and a lady at the office I was in today overheard me talking about it to my client, asked me to forward on the information, and she's totally interested. When she asked me for the info, I felt like this whole transition might be easier than I had planned. But, here, hours later, as I go over the idea in my head of having to be someone's landlord... of leaving my friends here to live with strangers because I just couldn't hack it in the suburbs... I get all down about it again.

I know I've made the right choice in leaving this house. I know that even this worrying will be funny one day. But, I just had to be honest with myself and admit that this process is weighing down a HUGE part of my soul. The release will come. And then I'll finally be able to tell the story of the house that nearly broke me.

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Adventures In Dogsitting Entry #1

I promised myself when I started this blog that I would never try to craft a clever title using the words "adventures" and words ending in "ing", but I've gone ahead and done it anyway. You have my permission to just shoot me.

I came home tonight and The Dog had my sock in his mouth. Not in a guilty no-eye-contact "Umm... yeah... about your sock being in my mouth...." sorta way. No, this was a maniacal "And guess what ELSE I've been doing all day?MWHOOHAHAHAHA!" sorta way. In fact, this dog wanted to PLAY with the sock with me when I got home. There he was, jumping, and, I swear to God, smiling at me, holding a ball of saliva-moistened blue Smartwool in his mouth. I'm pretty sure he was trying to tell me that he was bored all day and then LOOK WHAT HE FOUND! and why wasn't I as excited as he was?

You would think, given that I grew up with a beagle who would literally try to pull the socks you were wearing on your feet off to play with them, I would know better than to leave my socks on the floor of the living room. Dogs like socks. It's a given. It's just that the sun finally came out yesterday and after months upon months of weather that has made me want to suck on an exhaust pipe, I just HAD to take 30 minutes and just lay there, in the small shaft of light coming in through the window in the front room. And, for maximum exposure, I took my socks off (every square inch counts when you're this desperate for sun). I just forgot to bring them upstairs with me at the end of the day.

The Dog made sure my humiliation was complete by running off with my sock (after I commanded him to drop it) and depositing it in a hole in the backyard he's been working on for what seems the last eight years or so. He then came back inside, acting as if he had not just dumped an article of clothing of mine into a three foot ditch.

AND, you would think, given that this sock, this very same sock, was the victim of another sort of dog abuse just a week before, that I would have been extra careful with my socks this go around. You see, about two weeks ago, another Dog, a small, impish dog the size and shape of a loaf of bread, stole my sock when I wasn't looking, and then she sat on it, like a hen on her nest of eggs, until her owners got home and found it. I was watching this dog, making sure that she was fed, and kept warm and out of the jaws of much larger dogs while on walks. And this is what she did to me. She stole my damn sock and then hid it. Unbelievable, huh? That was my payment for putting fresh water in her bowl? I mean, have you ever heard of such cunning coming from something the size of a fuzzy slipper?

To be fair to this Other Dog, I did leave my socks out at a latitude that she could reach. And, I was warned by her owners that she might be inclined to steal not just my socks, but my underwear as well. I thought I made sure to hide all unmentionables, lest they be used as a prop in a modern dance routine involving lots of violent head shakes...but this dog rooted through my suitcase anyway, found my purple striped panties, and pranced around the house with them in her jowls like she was a majorette and my Hanes Her Way were her baton. I only found out about the sock via a text message that included a picture of said sock that read, "Is this your sock? We found it in the dog bed".

Tonight I will be gathering up all discarded footwear and bringing it upstairs with me. I will have a talk with The Dog tomorrow before I leave for work and I will tell him that, though it completely grosses me out to have to touch it, I will leave him a pig ear on the kitchen floor for a snack/plaything. All he has to do is go and get it. The socks are off limits. And if he promises to stick to the pig ear and the pig ear only, I will work on not using the word "adventure" in my blog titles.

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The OTHER Real Reason I Live in The Northwest: Renegade Marching Bands

I don't know how this happened, but I've lived here in the Northwest an entire NINE, count 'em NINE, YEARS and I have never once been to Honkfest West. NEVER! I'd never even heard of the festival until a gracious co-worker who understands my penchant for public displays of absurdity told me about it. I don't think I can adequately spell out my love for marching bands. Maybe it's that Eastern European in me, but if you give me an open road, a drum, a horn and maybe a violin or two, I feel like I've come home. Add a whistle or ten or fifteen, multiply the drum factor by eleven, and throw in some striped stockings, bowler hats, and eye makeup, and you've got the makings for a perfect night as far as I am concerned. Lest you confuse the folks below for the buttoned up band folks leading the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade... let me warn you: these are not they. This is more like anarchist biker clique meets talented musician meets Grandma's dress up trunk. I literally planned my whole weekend around this, it was that important to me. I just love the circus. I'm not even kidding. So, without further ado, I present to you, compliments of my phone camera with no flash, HONKFEST WEST!:

This blur is the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band. Well, part of it anyway. I couldn't possibly take a picture of all of them because a) there seemed to be hundreds of them and b) they danced like maniacs. Quite possibly the most energetic band of the night. You might not be able to read it... but the inside of this man's instrument says "This Bud's For You". He ran around carrying that thing like it weighed nothing. And when I say "ran", I literally mean "ran". He ran with that tuba. Do you know how in shape you have to be to run with a tuba? I'm out of breath running to the bus stop with a tuna fish sandwich in my hand, never mind 20 pounds of fluted pipe.

There they are. The Yellow Hat Band! Just one of many bands that we followed into dark alleys to hear what else they could play that would echo off the highway overpass.

Apparently, the man carrying around this obscene (and sexy) amount of bent brass is the man responsible for this whole hot mess. If he weren't so busy cranking out the Klezmer tunes with the rest of his Fedora topped crew, I would have kissed him right on the mouth in gratitude.

That's right. That's a man in a carrot suit. Playing a saxophone. In a parking lot. You can't see it in this picture, but there's a stilt walker to his left. God bless the Northwest.

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The Joys of Living In The Flight Path of An International Airport

Oh, Wait. You thought there were joys involved in living in the flight path of an international airport? Well, I am sorry to have mislead you with that subject line, but there are no joys to be had living in the flight path of an international airport. Not a one. Not a damned one. I mean, unless you think joy is having your HDTV cut out every, oh, I dunno, FOUR SECONDS or so because there is a LINE of airplanes queued up, quite literally for MILES, just to the left of the window you've chosen to stick your receiver in and each time they fly directly overhead, they literally block your TV signal to the satellite in space that is so generously beaming Oprah down to you while you work out. I guess that's a lot like joy. Just like it, I'd say.

It's a not unlike scraping your knuckle on a shelf in the fridge as you reach for the lime in the back, and then squeezing that lime (and the juice from a jalapeno, let's not forget) ALL OVER your bloody knuckle. Now, living in the flight path has nothing to do with that little joy. I could have done that any ol' place. It's just that... when I want to make chili lime popcorn for dinner after working out, and I've just had to witness the gore that is a) seeing the local news team's haggard faces in HDTV and b) seeing them FROZEN GHOULISHLY MID-WORD while the TV tried to retrieve the signal blocked by the FLEET above me.... well, you can see where I'm going with this.

And the only reason I even bring up the chili lime popcorn and the fact that I had it for dinner (as a follow up to a mid afternoon snack of french fries, naturally) is that I have had to really watch CLH's diet lately and I offered the popcorn to him without considering that it was covered with a 1/3 cup of butter. I am a thoughtless person living in the flight path of an international airport.

You see, CLH might have something wrong with his gall bladder and he has been taking some dietary precautions to make sure it doesn't turn into something more serious. Fatty foods exacerbate gall bladder issues. So, while he chugs gallon upon gallon of apple juice (something about malic acid dissolving gallstones...) I have been trying to plan meals, since I do a majority of the cooking, that don't include lots of fats. Which is nearly impossible for me because, well, I LOVE FAT. I don't understand you if you've got a sweet tooth, because, given the choice between a candy bar and a bag of pork rinds, I will almost always go for the pork rinds. Or potato chips, or french fries, or Cheez Doodles. Oh, how i love Cheez Doodles...

Somehow, the internal systems gods saw fit to equip me with a decent metabolism and a love for green leafy vegetables (this, after the anatomy gods cursed me with a big ass and no boobs to match), so, I manage to stay in a somewhat normal weight range... even after I've eaten a whole bag of Robert's "SmartPuffs". In one sitting.

So, while I try to enjoy my one hour of sinful pleasure a night as my screen intermittently goes black, then pixilated, then gorily animated with wrinkles and fake eyelashes and spray on tans in time to the international airport's landing schedule, CLH fights with an aching internal organ the size of a golf ball. We all have our individual battles, now, don't we?

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Saved Voicemail from Taller Younger Brother #1

"Here's a tip for you. If people come to your door and are selling God, it's okay to say no thanks. And if kids ever come to your door selling cookies, it's okay to say no thanks, too. But, if kids ever come to your door selling cookies MADE by God, you should definitely say yes."

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The Difference A (Sunny) Day Makes

-Went sailing today (economy in crapper=clients in the building industry with no work=no work for me=day of sailing on friend's boat. Hooray for no work! Question mark? Exclamation point?). Had a much better day on the water than on Sunday.

-After living a relatively dog free life for the past nine years, I suddenly find myself surrounded by dogs. Swimming in dogs. Bombarded by dogs. I will tell you about my adventures in dogsitting soon. I have another gig lined up for next week and I'm really looking forward to it.

-I am learning to slow down and make better decisions for myself. I know this sounds so banal, but it's pretty important for me to say this aloud. This is what the flu taught me: I spend a lot of time serving others. It is now my time to serve myself.

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A Short List of Things I Am Obsessing Over Lately

-Beyonce's "Single Ladies" video
-Pastel colored peanut M&Ms

Um... know what's more addictive that crack cocaine? The "Single Ladies" video. WHY CAN'T I STOP WATCHING IT???? And what's with the sudden bad chocolate fix? I don't even LIKE chocolate all that much. And yet, about a dozen M&Ms find their way into my mouth every day. As my brother would say, "Sister, these are questions that even scientists have not yet found the answers to..."

Right up there with my new favorite video of Beyonce (woke up with it in my head, not even kidding): Lady GaGa's "Pokerface". And let's not forget about Pink's "So What?" You see? This is what happens when I get five seconds away from the house that Poor Planning built and I get to enjoy things like CABLE FUCKING TELEVISION.

CLH and I visited friends last weekend and we spent the night drinking South American liquor and watching women dressed in vinyl unitards and spike heels sing incredibly catchy pop songs on the TV. No, wait. It wasn't even cable. How 2001 of me. No, this was Apple TV with ON DEMAND videos. What's that? You haven't seen the in-home video of the choreographer who taught Beyonce her "Single Ladies" moves? Well, hold on to your pisco sour. I'm just gonna dial it up on YouTube on my 72" plasma TV. In the meantime, enjoy this photo montage from Flickr.com to the accompaniment of Frank Sinatra's greatest hits on shuffle mode. ON MY TV. WHAAAAA? A dollar and ninety-nine cents later, we were watching "So What". And then we were imitating Dave Chapelle imitating Lil' John because we had watched THAT on YouTube. ON THE TV. This is what happens when you hang with the suburban kids. And when drinking dulls your sense of an appropriate use of time. You get a taste of what life would be like if you weren't busy building consensus and sweeping the pine needles out of your front room. And you long for normalcy. Just a little bit of late night drinking after the kids have been put to bed and zoning out on the couch to watch Pink driving a John Deer tractor in rush hour traffic. You know. Just regular ol' fun.

*Sorry, Tara. I copied and pasted part of this right out of the email I sent you the other day. I can't tell which is greater: my enormous sense of shame, or my appalling laziness.

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The REAL reason I live in the Northwest: Writing Material

This evening, CLH asked me to stop off at the grocery store on the way home. He had a hankering for something sweet and NEEDED me to pick up a scone or a cookie or something. And, you see, to get this sweet thing, I had to go to this particular grocery store because they are the only grocery store around that sells sugar free sweet things. CLH does not eat sugar, you see. And since he had just gotten over a bout of flu-like body aches, and since I was feeling bad for him, I stopped at the grocery store on the way home to get him something to satisfy his honey tooth.

Now, normally I avoid this grocery store like the plague. I love organic strawberries and bulk bins full of popcorn and quinoa just as much as the next health conscious person, but i can't stand to walk into this grocery store. It's not the selection (which, admittedly, could be better.) It's not the cashiers (though, for a bunch of granola crunching hippies, they can be fucking surly when they want to.) No. The reason I hate shopping there is the customers. The stand-in-the-doorway-and-marvel-at-stuff-all-around-like-fucking-four-month-olds, finicky, righteous customers. And I swear they all stand in the doorway and block it every time I go in there. Every. Last. One of them. It's like they've never seen groceries before. Or they've all just woken up out the comas they've all been in for the last 46 years and they can't understand why the automatic doors behind them keep making that sucking sound. IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE STANDING ON THE SENSOR, JACKASS. Is there some kind of correlation between health food enthusiasts and their impossibly slow response time to stimuli? Can they not just fucking make a beeline for the carrots like the rest of us high strung gluten intolerant weirdos? Does the steady purchase of fruit and nut bars impair one's ability to walk in a straight line with a sense of purpose or urgency or both? Is the health food inside this place lowering everyone's blood pressure to near catatonic levels? Because, if I had to guess, I'd say everyone was operating with a pulse of about -9 over -7. Which is about the pulse of a bag of cedar shavings.

I decide that, since I'm already there, I might as well pick up a few more groceries. Which means I need to tuck my chin into my chest, firmly grip my shopping basket with one hand, and push my way through the throngs of idiots with my other arm held out in front of me like an offensive lineman. I get everything I need, then head over to the bakery section for needed non-sugared sweet thing. And, horror of horrors, they are out. No non-sugared sweet things. Plenty of vegan, evaporated can juice sweetened things. But nothing sweetened with honey or molasses or ground-up hippy bones.

I call CLH to deliver the bad news. I hardly get the words out when this lady next to me starts squawking at the young woman behind the deli case (which, lucky for me, is next to the bakery case). I can't hear what CLH is directing me to do (what was that? You want Scottish oats instead of a cookie?) because this woman's complaint is so ridiculous and so loud, it's causing me to ignore CLH and listen to her instead. "Well, it's been like this since the summer when your chef did something to the recipe. These cookies are harder than dog biscuits! I can't serve these! I mean, feel these! (and here she bangs said cookies on the deli counter). I mean..." and here she sputters, and exhales in exasperation, and then trails off, having run out of analogies for hard cookies. I'm trying not to stare, but I'm pretty sure the deli counter woman has a look of complete and utter disinterest on her face.

I try to get back to what CLH is telling me (What? You don't want a cookie after all? You mean I had to enter this hell just to pick up eggs I could have bought SOMEWHERE ELSE?) and eventually I head over to the checkout line. I pay, bag my stuff up in the bag I brought (See? I can care about the Earth AND hate health food store customers at the same time) and head towards the door. Which makes me break out in a cold sweat because I'm going to have to ram my way through another clusterfuck of people who haven't yet mastered one-foot-in-front-of-the-other. And even though I have chocked my feet against the checkout stand like a sprinter in a starting block so I can run like hell, I too slow down near the door. For a moment I think I have caught the slow motion disease and I panic. But then my vision sharpens and my ears hone in on a sound. And I realize I've stopped dead in my tracks because I cannot believe that, after five solid minutes of complaining and banging the counter with her bag of evidence, this woman has still not run out of righteous indignation at being served harder than normal cookies.

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Hate Isn’t Strong Enough

Prescription for indigestion before bedtime:

Put the finishing touches on your post, hit "publish", and receive an error message that something has gone dreadfully wrong in a server cabinet in Texas or Siberia or wherever the hell they keep the effing things, and realize in horror that your whole post has just evaporated. Log back in to the site and see that they have cruelly "saved" just the first line of your post and NOTHING ELSE.

Curse you, Blogger. Curse you.

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Happiness Is… Not Trembling With Fever. Warning: This Might Take a While

I thought it would never end, but it finally has. The fever finally broke on Thursday night or so. At least, the teeth rattling, body shaking, i-can't-hold-the-bottle-of-pain-reliever-still-enough-to-tumble-a-few-pills-out-into-my-quaking-palm-type fever is gone. I'd never thought I would see the day when I would pull a muscle in my back from having such convulsive chills. My poor body was trying to do a Richard Simmons workout routine in one square inch of space while excreting every last drop of moisture onto my skin in an attempt to cool my burning body down for three days straight. I still woke up this morning and gasped aloud when i discovered I'd left an actual wet spot on the sheets from sweating all night. My pajamas were soaked. Apparently, I still have a little more heat left to dispense with. But the chills, the chills are gone. I can sleep the whole night without having to tuck my knees under my chin to make my teeth stop chattering. I can sleep in less than 5 layers of clothing. I can finally exclude "fleece hat" from my nightware repertoire. Hell, I can finally SLEEP through the night.

This illness really knocked me on my ass; and, being an opportunist at heart, I like to take time spent flat on my ass to do some reflecting. Something about this flu really slowed me down. Really, really slowed me down. My brain was in such a fog that I couldn't, I physically couldn't, worry about anything. And for a stress case like me, well, that's nothing short of a miracle. I usually spend the time immediately after dinner until the moments right before I fall asleep at night to worry about everything from what I am going to wear the next day to whether or not we're going to solve the world hunger crisis. My nights are not really my own. They are just blocks of time when every little issue in the world becomes comes flying into my head and disrupts the "power down for the night" routine. Instead of coming to a slow, steady halt, a la HAL singing "Daisy Bell", my brain instead lights up like a Christmas tree and every memory, every concern, every worry, anxiety, unfinished thought, grocery list, and mnemonic device comes crashing into my head like a hoard of ants descending on a unfinished peanut butter sandwich. Poor CLH has gotten quite practiced at quelling my fears in a nearly alpha wave state of drowsiness. I usually find the need to talk about this kind of stuff just as he is falling asleep. Our conversations usually go like this:

Me: Did you lock the doors?

Him: Mmmhmmm.

Me: Do you think the tree out there would likely fall into our bedroom or onto the neighbor's house? You know, like during a wind storm.

Him: Hunh?

Me: Are you happy? I mean like, are you happy with your life? Like, do you ever wonder if you've made the right choice in being with me, in living here, and stuff?

Him: No...mm.....I mean, yes. Yes. I'm happy...mmmm

Me: 'Cause I wake up sometimes and I ask myself what on earth I'm doing here. Like big picture. Like what is my purpose in life. And it scares me when i can't answer. It really scares me. You just seem, i dunno, just so happy and content and stuff. It makes me feel like I am missing some crucial point about life, about being able to enjoy simple pleasures. Like, how come I can't just sit in front of the TV like every other American and forget about stuff? How come I don't like drinking all that much anymore? Am I fundamentally flawed? Am I incapable of feeling happiness over puppies and babies and stuff like that? Know what I mean?

Him: zzzzzzz.....

So the flu really calmed all that noise down. Oh sure, it still tried to worm its way into the folds of my gray matter as I lay there trying to fall asleep. But, louder than the burning questions coming from all parts of the universe was another voice. My own. And it was saying, over and over again: go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep. My body was actually trying to preserve itself. It was trying to REST. It was trying to GET BETTER. And that urge was so strong, it actually dulled the sound of a million unanswered questions. I am trying to find words to describe this sensation, and the only thing I can come up with is NUMB. I felt numb. I felt neutral. It was a little like being high. I felt like i could find another day to worry about the crisis in the Middle East and whether or not we would run out of bread by the weekend. I've never been good at quieting my own thoughts; and this just felt magical and auto-pilot-y, like some other force was doing it for me and I will never forget it. I felt like if I could just hold onto this feeling... just memorize this feeling of being temporarily UNABLE to manage the list of anxieties occupying my head and being okay with it... that maybe I could recreate it at a later time. What a glorious trick the flu would be teaching me.

So, I've been going slow. Walking slowly. Making dinner slowly. Not letting some irrational sense of urgency hurry me along. I really hope this lasts.

No flu reflection would be complete without the requisite "what is it, again, I do for money?" and the resulting feeling of supreme letdown. While I am proud of what I have accomplished in my life, I am also, well, getting bored. Yesterday, i finally left the house for the first time in five days, and decided that I needed to trim the yellow, fuzzy halo of baby chicken down that has grown out of my formerly awesome haircut. And when I sat in front of that ginormous mirror, most of my body shrouded in a black vinyl cape, and the stylist asked, "what do you do?", i felt the smallness of myself as I answered, looking straight at my reflection, "I'm a bookkeeper". Ugh. Of course that's not all I am. Of course I am annoyed that in America, that question is one part small talk and one part the hallmark of our culture. I hate that it's so loaded. I hate that I assign such weight to it. What we do, for money, is important to us collectively, no matter how healthy our relationship is with money. And I could be all Ram Das about it and claim that, hey, man, i don't work for the man, and hey, man, like lay off and stuff. But the truth is I'm getting sick of answering that question. Mostly because I feel like such a loser when I answer it. And why should I, really? How petty of me. I mean, hello! There are are people who DON'T HAVE JOBS, you selfish jerk, people who are struggling to make ends meet. You see? This is the battle that wages itself in my head. This is where all my dichotomous feelings about worth and accomplishment and happiness get all jumbled up. Who am I? How do i reconcile my feelings of utter boredom and love of mastery? How do I reconcile these feelings of supreme gratitude for the opportunity to work, in my jeans and sneakers, no less, with my feelings of dissatisfaction with that work?

All this, of course, is exacerbated by this one thing. See, when the Advil finally kicked in and I had about four hours of normal body temperature, shivering free time to myself, i decided to do something a little weird. I decided to do something that I have always wanted to do but never really had the time time to: read Dooce's blog from start to finish. I'm a little embarrassed to be reading a MOMMY blog, for godssake, but there it is. I said it. She's wickedly funny, and a friend of mine turned me on to her because he thought she was brilliantly funny. That she's also a new mom is really just incidental. Before she was a mom, she was single, worked for a corporation, blogged about her coworkers (in a less than complimentary way, shall we say) was discovered, got fired, found the man of her dreams, got married, moved to Utah, bought a house, and started a family... all the while documenting the whole damn thing. Well, I'm up to year four or so (there's eight year's worth of stuff to read, people), and though i am totally loathe to admit this... i feel this incredible sense of companionship with this woman stranger. I don't want to admit it because, well.... here's another battle that goes on in my head daily, and it's the reason I don't belong to Facebook or other social networks (and can't sleep at night): I don't honestly believe that the connections people are feeling to people's updates or wall scribblings and stuff are, well, REAL. I know, i know. What a cold, soul-less bag of garbage I am. Before you write and tell me that I am a cold, soul-less bag of garbage, you should know that I am changing my stance on this. Not that I'm going to join Facebook anytime soon, but I GET IT. You CAN have things in common with strangers, or people you haven't spoken to in twenty years. You can also have absolutely NOTHING in common, too. But, you really can feel a sense of connection, and that's what everyone is so damn addicted to. I get it. I really do. It's not that i didn't get it before. It's that I didn't want to admit it was true. But now I have to. 'Cause I really feel like this Dooce is my long lost twin sister or something. And I have been silently crying when I read about her hard days, and I am laughing out loud when she writes funny shit, and I am deeply moved when she discovers something profound about herself or her relationship or her child. Her relationship with her husband is one of the most moving things about the blog. I have learned SO MUCH about ... gulp... LOVE from this woman, I am embarrassed to admit it. Who ever heard of such a thing? Learning what other relationships look like, and therefore how mine could improve, via a blog? When CLH couldn't get my attention the other day because I was so deeply engrossed in it, and he gently chided me for becoming so obsessed with reading this blog, i actually snarled at him:
HEY! I'M LEARNING HOW TO LOVE YOU BETTER, OKAY?

So, Dooce, and everyone else out there who has managed to crack open my hard, bony heart with your honesty, I thank you. Thank you for letting me into your poopy diapers, the workings of your relationship, and your swear word filled rants about annoying neighbors and dumb coworkers. You have given me courage and hope. You, and the workings of the flu on my exhausted body. I am always left grateful at the end of ordeals like this, and I have a long list of thank yous to deliver. Thank you for giving me perspective. Thank you for making available, through the magic of the Interwebs, your unfiltered life, so that people like me can stop feeling so alone and sorry for ourselves. Thank you for making me feel like I too, might be reaching someone right now with my long winded diatribes about insomnia and the horrors of trying to buy jeans that fit. Thank you for restoring my humanity. Thank you for making writing for a living a possibility (take THAT, you effing nay-saying family members of mine). Thank you for making this flu a bearable, teachable episode in my life.

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Happiness Is… a good Spackle job

Since the good folks at Advil have afforded me a few hours of peace in between spells of feverish sweats and hacking up globular pieces of my immune system...

I submit, for your perusal, a list of things done today, while battling the flu:

Picked at a yesterday's granola and yogurt breakfast, now gelatinized in take-away container. (Half empy box now sits on nightstand.)

Defiled handkerchief with substance that freely and unexpectedly launched itself out of lungs.

Brought laptop to bed. Checked email.

Listened to Hans Rosling talk about world poverty on TED.com. Admitted to myself that statistics, when combined with bright colors and animation, are about as sexy as anything I've seen. Sword swallowing at the end of any talk will pretty much guarantee that NO ONE will EVER FORGET your presentation. EVER.

Checked email again.

Blew nose several dozen times in sodden handkerchief. Realized that flu symptoms render all normal notions of hygiene and pride void. Moist spot on front of shirt was, no doubt, caused by leaking pipes and laziness with the handkerchief. Flu-like self does not care and just changes shirt (but not before using shirt to wipe nose one last time.) Normal self would have had shirt burned and anything it had touched.

Took shower under new light fixtures in bathroom. Thank Jeebus for CLH's handiwork. The holes are patched, the ceiling's been painted, and there's just the walls left to do. Even as my body is wracked by fever and chills, I am comforted by the even surfaces of our newly spackled walls.

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Scattered

This link was sent to me by a friend. She doesn't (yet) call herself a writer, but I know she's got a book or two in her. ;) For many reasons, this link was VERY timely.

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html</wbr></wbr>

This was incredibly inspiring. I'm totally up to my armpits in tax stuff right now, and I have so many wonderful things to share with you about tax code, but I thought I would launch the discussion that should ensue after watching this clip: mainly, why do I (and so many other writers) demand that our "genius" be synonymous with madness?

I am moving away from this association in my mind. It first started to come undone in a therapy session I had years ago. I don't exactly remember the context (maybe the foot-dragging about writing?) but my therapist wanted to know why I thought that art should come from this deeply wounded place in a person's life. I didn't have an answer, really. I presumed that ALL art came from a place of deep insecurity, loss, tragedy, whatever. He told me that he created his best art when he was joyful. At the time, I was all HUH? JOY inspired art? Get off the dope, buddy. After my initial disbelief, though, I could see his point. Why DID I think that my art could only be drawn from the painful parts of life? Why COULDN'T it be about joy? Where had I learned that art was ONLY a coping mechanism for the most atrocious events in one's life?

...

I woke up this morning, and yesterday morning, with poetry in my head. Poems often write themselves in my dreams. I rarely can recreate them verbatim after I wake up. I was just in the final stages of the dream (and the poem) when CLH kissed my forehead on his way out the door. Now, most people would be touched by the tenderness of that action: a man gently kissing his still-slumbering love goodbye as he heads out the door for the day. When you ARE that still slumbering love, and you just LIVE for strokes of genius like this and your brain is writing this incredible poem about this character you've been dreaming about, complete with alliterative references to Lot and his wife turning to a pillar of salt and killer free form structure... and someone wakes you up just as your brain is putting the final brushstrokes on your masterpiece, and your brain activity immediately jumps from "Writing The Next Langston Hughes Award Piece" to "What Was That Sensation, Now Must Put Food In Mouth".... well, you kinda lose your shit. And then you sulk about it for the whole day.

Elizabeth Gilbert expertly tackles this very conundrum. She quotes two writers, Ruth Stone, and Tom Waits, each of whom have ways of dealing with the incredibly inopportune times that "genius" comes knocking (like when your dear CLH just wants to say goodbye to you while your lazy ass is still sleeping). Not once have I ever, like Tom Waits did, told Inspiration to cool its jets, that I was driving, for god's sake, and would not be able to get to a pen and paper. Instead, I have, over the years, stocked the car with several notepads and writing instruments, and driven with my knees while I balance a pad on the steeting wheel, trying to scribble down the five words or so that suddenly come into my head from out of nowhere. My approach to writing is rather like a hunter's is to hunting: I lay many, many traps for the poems to get snared in and hope for the best. I have notebooks in my bedroom, in my messenger bag, in my car... in practically every place I can think of so that I won't ever be able to say I wasn't ready.

Maybe if I was a little more deliberate, a little more practiced, a little more regimented, I could be have a better working relationship with that Inspiration instead of being resentful at it for having smacked me in the teeth at 5 am, or while I'm doing 65 on the Interstate.

Gilbert claims (and i agree with her) that it is much more healthy to say that we are not the geniuses ourselves, that it is the writing that is genius. We can thereby take the onus off ourselves to produce works of mindboggling brilliance EVERY time we write. I think this fear that I will miss something, that I won't be a "genius" every time I write, is what keeps my car and nightstand stocked with paper.

Why do we get so impatient with the source of inspiration and beg it to hold on for just one sec while we grab a pencil? Why does it always feel like it's rising up over the horizon, threatening to swallow me whole if I don't defend myself with a pen? This is what the practice of writing must teach me: that it is my job to show up, to do my best work, and to tell Inspiration to buzz off once in a while, go bother some other writer. I can't be poised like a nervous stenographer every moment of the day. It's exhausting. The writing can come from a place that is light and airy. The part that holds all these words hostage isn't always a dark cave. Sometimes it's a window thrown open, a bright clear stream overflowing its banks. And I can let them loose whenever I want.

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Crocuses and Bulls

Before CLH comes in here and tells me that using my laptop in bed is bad for the machine, and before the guilt for not posting dissipates into "awww, eff it", here are some things I have been up to lately, in no particular order. Consider this my long-winded Facebook status update. And no, i still don't have a Facebook account.

Here goes:

Crossword puzzles. Thanks to CLH's awesome birthday gift and to Will Shortz's humongous brain, I have been doing one a day. The New York Times has a very smart thing going with their online puzzle subscription. I have a fear bordering on hypochondriasis of Alzheimer's. I read somewhere (I CAN'T REMEMBER WHERE. NOW DO YOU SEE?) that keeping the brain limber via mental exercise is a good way to prevent Alzheimer's. And since keeping track of 12 clients and their appointments and memorizing at least three passwords for each of those clients, as well as the passwords for my own set of books and the password for my phone, my computer, and several other devices that need to know my mother's maiden name to operate WASN'T ENOUGH, I have prescribed myself a steady diet of crossword puzzles for the next 365 days, at least.

I bought this phone (you remember when I made the leap, don't you?) mostly because my clients, having updated THEIR phones, were now contacting me via text about our appointments, and well, the telegraph office was too far away by rickshaw, and I needed a way to stay in touch that wasn't so... y'know, 1981. I also wanted a way to take quick, cheap pictures of stuff I saw out in the world that seemed blogworthy. Like the time the supermarket near my house was visible from space because of the giant wall of PUMPKINS it had built around its front entrance. Or the time that guy left his dog in the front seat of his car while he ran in to buy a taco from the Mexican place and the dog looked he was leaned back in the seat smoking a cigarette. Of course, as soon as i bought the phone, I forgot all about that plan and used it to just to call people. How Plebian of me. Now that i have a few spare moments to myself every day (tax season is mercifully behind me now), I can get back to the ridiculous in life and start taking pictures of the really important things in life, like menu typos and puddles of water shaped like Gorbachev's birthmark. Here is a recent one:

Crocuses have a way of being so heavy with metaphor for me they practically bend over with the weight of it. They're somewhat whimsical, somewhat oblivious to anything but the great ball of gas in the sky (which is why i feel such kinship with them). They get the tiniest glimpse of the sun in freezing cold February and they're all "WHAT? I WANTED TO COME OUT, ALRIGHT?"

I went back to Jersey recently to attend a wedding. It happened to fall on the weekend of my brother's 30th birthday. I threw him a little party (which he thanked me profusely for with ribcage-crushing hugs).

Nothing says "Happy 30th!" like a little plastic bull fornicating with an oversized carrot made of sugar and butter. That's just how we roll in my family. Heavy drinking and karaoke followed.

I have been working, working, working. Nonstop. Weekends. Weekdays. All the time. My work schedule has FINALLY slowed down now that the federal deadlines have come and gone. Now I just have to work on filling jump drives and mailing them off to various CPAs so they can do their part of the work. It's almost odd (and, frankly, sad) that i don't know what to do with all this spare time. It's like i have a normal life now or something. I'm looking forward to catching up on reading, hemming some pants, and baking bread. Y'know. The sexy, glamorous things in life.

A good friend recently gave me a sourdough starter to bake bread with.... and that little jar intimidates the hell out of me. I mean, I've lived with pets that have required less care than that blob of yeast. I'm scared of killing it. It doesn't make any sense. It's twenty freakin' cents worth of flour, FREE tap water, and a recycled peanut butter jar. If i kill it, so WHAT? Just start over, right? Well, I'm having some guilt over the houseplants i recently froze in our laundry room. We call the laundry room the "meat locker" for obvious reasons. You could hang a side of beef in there and it would keep for the next ten years it's so damned cold. The guy who built this house opted for the "keep the kids on their toes by not insulating their bedrooms" package, so the laundry room is always a crisp 29 degrees or so. It's definitely not a place to put tropical plants. In the summer, plenty of sunshine gets through the windows. But, in the winter, the only thing that gets in is eighteen degree air. I got lazy and didn't move the plants to a warmer location before I went on vacation and so they offed themselves when the first snow hit. I've had some of them for YEARS. I was so MAD at myself (and at CLH who kept asking over and over again if maybe I had "just forgotten to water them". I later apologized for clawing out his throat). So, now I'm afraid of killing even bacteria. I'm going to feed the starter tomorrow morning and, if all goes well, start baking bread tomorrow night.

My car *almost* got stolen a month after our house got broken into. I say almost because the thieves got so far as breaking the steering column and stickin' her in reverse. Then they figured out the steering column was locked, so they couldn't turn the wheel after they'd backed out of the driveway. And that's why they left my car, after they'd scraped the side of the neighbor's parked car with it, parked in my neighbor's hedgerow. That's right: i said "IN". Those idiots drove it right into the hedge, got out, and left it idling there for nearly two hours. My roommate was the one who found the car when we came home from work and came in and told me about it. I am lucky to have my car back after only $50 in repairs. I still think it was the David Byrne that was playing at top volume when they started the car that scared them away.

We're moving out!! CLH and I have had enough of commuting and having major appliances stolen, so we're moving back in to the city proper in the next few months here. I cannot wait. My sister gave us these beautiful owl-shaped salt and pepper shakers for Christmas, and I swear, I am planning to decorate our new home around those two lumps of ceramic.

So, that's the less than complete recap. I've really got to exercise my writing muscles more often. I've got a bet going with a friend that I can't complete a whole chapter of a book before month's end... and I intend to win. So far, I have an outline. It's something, at least. I'm hoping to share some of the more thought provoking things I've scribbled in the notebooks stashed throughout my life soon.

If I can't, maybe I'll just post pictures of dogs and assorted members of the squash family.

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December, Part 2

Let's talk about theivin'. In the past 30 days, I've witnessed and/or have been told about more break-ins and robberies than I have ever experienced in my whole life. Seriously. I'll say it again because I can't believe it. In the past thirty days, I have experienced more theft than I have in my whole lifetime. I'm trying to figure out what it is, exactly. I mean, I know the economy's in the tank. I know people are hard up for everything from groceries to gas... but, honestly, I feel like the whole world is going out of its way to prove that old economics textbook inverse corrolary between the economy and crime. It goes: when things get bad, the theivin' starts.

So, the first incident, of course, is my house. I'll get to that. But, first, I just HAVE to tell you about what happened to two clients of mine. The first one was moving her office from the first floor of a building to the third. She works for a larger company and that company was moving all its offices to the third floor as well. The company hired a moving company to move the heavy stuff like filing cabinets and furniture. The moving company told my client's company this: they, the movers, would be responsible for everything but laptops. The movers were NOT to touch laptops. The owners of laptops were told to have them OUT of the building on moving day. Moving day came and my client showed up to loosely supervise. When she saw the crew come in, she knew something wasn't right. They all looked a little shifty. One of them approached her while he was on his cell phone and asked her the address of the place. That was a little odd since he should have known that... having shown up for work that day at said address and all. Well, within seconds, the guy had swooped into the empty room where she had her purse and her laptop bag (she ignored the caveat about laptops) and was out the door, literally hopping into a getaway car (the thief was on the phone with the driver; that's who needed the address). She did an equally brazen thing and ran up to the supervisor from the moving company and ordered him to get into his car and pursue the guy. They tried, but they weren't able to catch up with him in time. Within hours, they'd gone to the Sprint store and racked up $2800.00 in sales with her stolen credit card.

Then, I get into work this morning, check my email, and discover that another client of mine, traveling in South America, had his car broken into while he was sitting in it. He was stopped at a red light, minutes from the airport, when a man broke the window behind the driver's seat, reached in, grabbed a camera, a phone, and a bag with a passport and credit cards in it, and then sped away on his friend's motorcyle. It all happened in seconds flat. Unbelievable, huh?

When I rifle through the Rolodex in my mind and stop on "image of thief", I've got a guy dressed in black wearing a ski mask, almost comically sneaking-around-on-tiptoe in the night and carrying a cinched burlap sack. Ten blissful years in front of a TV on Saturday morning is probably to blame for that. Now I don't know what to think. Could be "guy at barber shop". Could be "dude next to me on bus". I have no idea. I do know that he's brazen enough to freakin' ASK HIS VICTIM the address of the building he's about to rob, and I know he's quick and strong enough to punch through a car window and yoink a couple thousand dollars worth of electronics and cash in the time it takes a light to go from red to green.

World, have you gone crazy?

...

It starts with a rabbit and ends with a rabbit. There are rabbits that live on our property. Maybe they are the offspring of the previous owners' rabbits. Maybe they've just always lived under the rhododendron on the side of the house. I don't know. I do know this: on some mornings, when I get ready to leave for work, there is a black rabbit sitting near my car. Sometimes he's on the lawn munching our weeds. Most of the time, though, he's near my wheels. It's like he's waiting for me. There's another rabbit, a white one, with black feet, but he doesn't come around as much as the black one does. The black one just sits and waits. When I get close, he takes off. When I found him the day of the robbery, I had this thought: He is the only bright spot in my life right now. Every morning, when I stepped out of the house and I surveyed the mess under the carport, or the spiny, dead, brown boughs of the monkey tree all around the front porch, or the muddy, scrubby incline of the driveway, I would just sigh heavily under weight of all that ugliness and work to do. And then I would see Black Bunny (as I took to calling him). And suddenly, everything was okay.

The day of the break-in was an odd one in that all the rules of routine were broken. I took the day off work- unusual for me- and the housemates were working at the same time, away from the house- unusual for them. CLH was spending the first half of the day at home and the second half away. We got up early (again, an anomoly for me) and went shopping for some last minute things so that I could pack up the box of Christmas gifts to be shipped back to my family and the suitcase to be brought to Panama. CLH and I came home, did a few things around the house, and then we left at the same time- he in one direction and me in the direction of the post office. I was so relieved to check "mail 50 lb box across country" that I almost didn't notice the dark mound in the front of the house when I pulled up. It was raining out. It had been raining for days. The ground was muddy; since we don't have sidewalks in our part of town (cue banjo music), i was able to see clearly that the dark mound was a rabbit. And it wasn't moving. It was Black Bunny. He was lying on his side. There was a small pool of blood behind his head.

I went inside and called CLH. He chuckled a little at my calling to report dead wildlife, but he stopped when i started to cry. Softly at first, and then the heaving sobs came. And then a great tidal wall of revelations hit me. The first revelation was this: I really loved that damned rabbit. The second was this: dead rabbits, pets or not, in the front of one's house, are not an omen of good things to come. In fact, they are an omen of horrible things to come. I said as much to CLH. "I don't think we should get on the plane", I said. We were scheduled to leave, at the point, in 12 hours. "We can talk more about it when I get home", he said. He said it in that way that suggested he knew that even though the idea of not getting on the plane because of a dead rabbit sounded ludicrous, he'd experienced firsthand too many accounts of my intuition being right to dismiss it.

I sat in my office and finished working on the project I had for the next three hours. Every once in a while I would look up from my work and stare across the front lawn to the dark spot. The rain was falling, and it just made the day seem all the more ominous. There was a heaviness in the air- there was a potentiality that I couldn't name, and in the absence of knowing, I started constructing the story of this rabbit's life. And this made me cry harder. Firstly, I knew it was a male rabbit. I didn't know this for sure. I just felt it. I knew his name was Black Bunny. I knew he felt safe at our house. He was my little spot of sunshine. The white bunny was his bunny wife. They had bunny children. I'd never seen them but CLH and the other housemates had seen them. He was their provider. He scoped out the lawn in the morning and came back and told them all where the good weeds were. And then he was dead. Some careless driver, probably, speeding down our residential street, had run him over and he'd limped to our front lawn to die. He was dead. His family missed him. It was raining, and I was alone, and I was staring out my window at his body, and he was dead. Thinking about his little white bunny wife... thinking about the white bunny finding his body out there in the rain... well, that just made me cry harder. The word "innocence" kept running through my head. I couldn't shake the feeling, the word. I had to. So, I decided to leave the house.

Around 6, I finished my work, took a shower, and got ready to leave. Again, completely out of sync with any normal routine, I was going to do the following: I was going to go work at a client's place for a few hours, then go to a party to see off a friend who was also traveling the next day, and then go home around midnight to catch a few hours of sleep before getting on the plane.

I left the house at around 6:30. I stopped at a store to do some last minute Christmas shopping. I got to my client's place around 7:30. At about 8:15, CLH called. "Someone broke into the house", he said.

I got home in record time. The thieves had kicked open the front door, so the door didn't close quite right. They'd hit my office, then my housemate's upstairs, and then they booked on outta there. It was a rush job for sure. They hadn't even unplugged the computer; they'd just dragged it from the wall to the front door. The surge supressor that everything was plugged into was in the middle of the room. There is nothing like surveying the mess someone else makes of your personal belongs... it does two things. It raises your blood pressure and it fills you with the most overwhelming sense of violation. There was the party favor from my dad's uncle's 50th wedding anniversary, on the floor. There was the picture of my family at Christmas, torn from the side of my file cabinet, on the floor. There was the memo pad holder that my grandfather made me when I was a small child, on the floor. My adding machine, the paper unspooled. My pencil cup. Everything on the floor, knocked over, spilled out, trampled on.

They pulled the laptop out of its power strip, but not before crashing into my craft table- and two UNsewn 4"x4" canvas bags of unpopped popcorn. (I was in the process of finishing them for a game of Cornhole. ) I had to clean that up too. As I swept, I kept hoping all those hundreds of kernels crashing to the floor scared the bejesus out of them, even if it was just for a few seconds.

They made off with my two laptops and my desktop, and a few small electronics. They also got a few computers from my housemate. They didn't however, seem interested in the passports that were just lying there, in plain sight, on the desktop. I was absolutely amazed at either their stupidity, their haste, or both.

The police officer arrived soon enough. We were told by the 911 dispatcher that he was busy investigating a vehicular homicide down the street. "Joy!" I thought. All this just in time for the holidays, when humanity is at its finest. The cop, either recognizing the potty mouth that spills out of us native born New Jerseyans when the ish hits the fan, or picking up on my references to having to tell the East Coast family that Santa came early and TOOK presents instead of giving them, reveals that he was born not to far from where I was born. Go figure. He spends an extra long time fingeprinting the place. "Fingerprinting?" I think to myself. "Do they even DO that anymore? I thought that went out with VCRs..." He got a few good ones, too. My bedside table drawer was left open- apparently, the thieves were looking for guns in there- and we knew they'd have used their grubby little paws to pry open the clean lines of our Scandanavian design inspired drawer faces. Weren't they disappointed to find a giant red leather bound Webster's dictionary and a few tubs of shea butter?! Ha, you jerks. That's what happens when you mess with intellectual peaceniks. You look for guns and what you get is fair trade shea butter.

The cop spends nearly three hours fingerprinting. It is midnight by the time he leaves. We are all exhausted. We start thinking about that party we were going to go to. We look around, survey the damage, throw the last dustpan of corn away... and then we all pile into the car and head towards the party.

CLH and I don't sleep that night. We just stay up all night. We hit an all night diner and order eggs and toast at three in the morning. We go home, get our stuff, and head to the airport. We are missing our computers, but we have our passports. By the grace of some god, or because criminals are just too dumb to know, we have our passports. And that's all we need.

Am I leaving out the hatred, the rage, the wanting to gouge someone's eyes out with a spoon upon seeing my office the way it was? Yes. There are greater injustices in this world than having your machinery stolen, so I don't want to dwell. I was lucky. I had three machines to be stolen. For god's sake. The thing that stung more, of course, was feeling like I was walking amongst criminals for the next couple of hours. ANYone could have done this. Anyone could have kicked in my door. Guy waiting for bus? Guy in convenience store? I didn't know. And I hate not trusting humanity. I was on high alert for the next 24 hours. I couldn't let my guard down. It didn't happen till I was in the air for a good couple of hours.

We had an absolutely amazing time in Panama; I'll tell you all about it soon.

But, back the bunnies. I can't even describe accurately the scene that follows the cop leaving and before we head to the party. We go outside, all four of us, plus some relatives of our housemates' who drove down upon getting the call. It's raining. It's dark. Housemate and CLH have already scooped up Black Bunny from the front of the house and put him in a cardboard box. They've dug a hole in the backyard near the tulip tree. When the cop shows up, they come back inside to give their testimony. They are wet and their boots are covered in mud. There is a joke somewhere in all this... I want to tell the copy to add "murder" to his list of things to attend to. The victim is out in the yard...

But I don't, exactly. I am somber. We gather in the rain and in the pitch dark night to each throw a little clod of mud onto Black Bunny's grave. I am sobbing like I am burying the love of my life. The break-in, my dead rabbit friend... I can't deal. I feel the world is supremely unjust in that moment.

We return from our trip down south refreshed and renewed. All desire to gouge out eyes with kitchen utensils has passed. A huge snowstorm paralyzes the city for a week straight while we were gone and I am so glad to have missed it.

With snow comes tracks. And one morning, as CLH and I each leave the house for our cars, he points out a familiar pattern in the snow on the lawn. Two little round indentations, then an oval, in succession. Rabbits. I don't know how it's possible. I nearly leap for joy. I do the calculations in my head: rabbits + rabbits = rabbits. Where there was one, there are many. There rabbits have come back to hang out on our lawn. Maybe those tracks belong to Black Bunny.

And then, a day later, I see him. A black bunny. I don't know if he is Black Bunny, and that maybe Black Bunny wasn't the bunny we buried, or if he is just a black bunny, and Black Bunny is dead, but he is by my car. And he is waiting for me. And he is saying, in his telekinetic bunny way, it's okay. I'm here. I'm here for you. It's going to be okay.

And it is.

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December Interrruped to Bring You a Book Review

Alright. I am interrupting Tales of December to demand you read a book. I'm pushy, I know. Especially after I demanded back in Fall that you read "What Is The What", by Dave Eggers. But, it's a great book. A book primarily about a child who was given lobotomy in the 60's, but, ultimately, it's a book about triumphing over abuse.

I was driving to work one day when I heard the now famous NPR radio program about Howard Dully. At the urging of his stepmother, he was given a trans orbital lobotomy by Dr. Walter Freeman. The goal of the operation given to Dully, and thousands of others, was to relieve a whole slew of symptoms ranging from depression to violent tendencies, schizophrenia and migraines. In Howard Dully's case, it was unnecessary. He was a perfectly normal boy. The only thing "wrong" with Howard Dully was that he was being forced to live in a highly dysfunctional home. The emotional instability he suffered was not caused by chemical deficiencies or physical deformation of his brain, but by the combined rage and neglect of his unstable stepmother and his indifferent father. He suffered so much from their abuse that, at times, he thought that living in institutions and stranger's homes seemed preferable to living at home. He was made to feel unwanted, unloved, and "different" his whole life.

I don't want to eclipse the fact that this poor guy had a ego-maniacal doctor knock him unconscious with electroshock and then push two ice picks through this eye sockets to scratch at the connective tissue in his brain... there were a few people mentioned in the book who agreed that lobotomies were better relegated to the "most failed, most barbaric medical treatment ever devised" category. But, there is a much bigger thing, I think to take away from this book, and that's the gift Howard Dully gives us with his story.

He shows us how vitally important it is to feel loved by our parents, and how, without that love in the beginning of our lives, we are nearly always destined to a life of self destruction, violence, hopelessness and directionlessness. Obviously, this all fate can be triumphed over, as Mr. Dully so humbly, thoughtfully, and eloquently has shown us. But it took Mr. Dully nearly his whole life to reconcile with himself. It takes many people the world over that same lifetime. In the meantime, they are set to a course of self-destructive behaviors (including drugs and crime) which, very obviously has a ripple affect on society. One person is raised without love and attention, and the whole society suffers. I just feel like the connection between psychopathic killers and their indifferent mothers, drug dealers and their absent father figures, gang members and their overcompensation for clannishness caused by a lack of real family cohesion... speaks volumes and volumes about the importance of wanted-ness in a child's life. I'm not a psychologist, but I don't actually think I need a few letters behind my name to point out that, if you asked every person locked up in jail right now, every desperate person living on the edge, how stable his or her childhood was, I bet you'd get the same answer over and over again. Some would say we can't intervene in the life of every person (or can we? Just ask Geoffrey Canada. He'll tell you otherwise. I tend to agree with him...), but surely we can dedicate more resources, in this country and others, to ensuring we aren't raising the next generation of murderers, rapists, criminals, etc., right?

What I have to think is that, given the time this all happened (the 50's-60's) "talking about your feelings" was just not the psycho therapeutic approach it is today. Dully talks a lot about the pride his father possessed. It was this pride, and the inability to ask anyone for real help with his son, (and his inability to talk about anything "negative" because negative thoughts were "useless" to him) that caused Howard to be shuffled around from institution to institution his whole life. Howard Dully's step mom, especially, seemed to have a personal vendetta against her stepson. He was the target for all her unexpressed rage, her dissatisfaction with the world. She didn't seem to have an outlet for the hurt and pain caused by her own walk-out mom, her alcoholic dad, and, later, her alcoholic first husband. Dully brilliantly wraps up his book by acknowledging this cycle of neglect and abuse. He, even after all he'd been through, was able to see that his step mom suffered a lack of love in her own life, that this was her motivation in treating him the way she did, and that she deserved compassion just the same as he did. His father too, though he couldn't bring himself to say the words "I love you" to his own son during his interview (arguably the most powerful radio interview you'll ever hear) was still loved unconditionally by Howard Dully. THIS is my reason for loving this book so much. The author knows, now, how a procedure like a lobotomy can be allowed to happen. And he knows now, too, how to prevent one from ever happening again.

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December, Part I

I know, I know. I left you hanging. What happened in Panama? How was Christmas? What happened with the break-in? Well, let me tell you now. All of it. Starting from the beginning. I'm just warning you right now that I may not get to it all. There's quite a bit to tell. But I will start.

Part One: The Faint

We start midweek with a fainting spell. I go to the doctor for a routine blood test. I faint. I faint real bad. So bad that it takes two nurses to hold me up after thirty seconds of unconsciousness. The one nurse looks shaken. She is saying something to me... something along the lines of, "It helps to put your head between your knees" and the other nurse responds, "Usually they can't move when they go out like this". I am so weak I can barely open my eyes. The room comes into focus slowly. Sounds are muted and strange and I can only hear out of my left ear. My body feels like it's been filled with lead. I look slowly to my left and see that my arm has flopped onto to the metal surgical table and that I've knocked over several empty plastic vials. I am trying to figure out when my arm got to the table. I am trying to respond to the nurse's suggestion to sit up, but I cannot move. I am so weak. I am nauseous. It takes all the energy in me to respond to my name. I am being held up in the chair by two strong nurses who are bracing the weight of their whole beings against my knees and shoulders.

After ten minutes, I am ready to move to the reclining chair, which is just a few feet away. The nurse chides that I should have told her that I was a fainter; she would have drawn my blood while I was lying down. I smile faintly and apologize. I don't have the energy to say anything witty. I feel sick. I lay down. After five minutes, I ask the nurse to hand me my phone. I call CLH. Luckily, he is in the neighborhood. I can hardly get my voice above a whisper, so he asks me to repeat myself three times. "I fainted", I say. I tell him to come get me. There is no way I can drive back to work.

In the meantime, a third nurse comes to the room. The first nurse has fed me a Tootsie Roll and some juice, but my body doesn't really want to eat anything. I eat it all anyway, knowing that I need to restore my blood sugar level. The third nurse is a senior nurse. I can tell by the way she tells the first nurse "no more Tootsie Rolls", and asks me what I ate that day. I sheepishly admit that I've only had an apple and some granola. I know I should have eaten more that day, but it's days before we are leaving for vacation, and when I get busy I sometimes forget to eat and I've been working long days to make up for all the days I will be missing and I am stressed out. The nurse shakes her head ruefully as I list what I've eaten that day and says that I just have super low blood sugar from not eating and asks if I will eat a protein bar if she brings it down. I say yes even though I hate protein bars. I still feel sick but know that I should eat to get my blood sugar up. She brings the bar back and I take two bites and cannot chew. I just let the brown gritty mass sit in my mouth and wait for it to dissolve.

Another ten minutes goes by. CLH arrives, calm and doctor-ly. He asks some questions, doctor-ly questions. I tell him what I've eaten that day. I try to take another bite of the protein bar. A few more minutes go by and I finally feel like I might be able to stand up. Well, not really. I feel like I could just sleep in the chair I am lying in. I was covered in sweat, burning with heat fifteen minutes ago and now I am freezing. I just want to sleep. I am so weak, I can barely bring the protein bar to my lips. The nurse and CLH help me out of the chair. My eyes are not right. Maybe they are dilated? It's like I can see the entire floor of the clinic in one glance. I can barely lift my head, so I am concentrating on my feet. Left foot, right foot. Keep moving. The car is not far away, I keep thinking. Just get through the door. Now just get through the hallway. Now to the end of the hallway. Now up the stairs. Go slow on the stairs. CLH is holding on to me and I imagine, from a distance, we must look like an old couple. I imagine that this is what it feels like to be really, really old. Like your body is full of lead. Like you just want to sleep all day long.

I get to the outside and inhale deeply. I kneel down next to the car and puke up the apple. A man walks by and asks if I am alright, if we need help. CLH smiles at him and says we are okay. I stand up and inhale deeply again while CLH fishes for a napkin inside the car. I get in the car and feel remarkably better. I say that I almost feel good enough to go back to work. We laugh a little. It's been nearly an hour and a half since the nurse finished filling that vial with my blood. I tell CLH to call my client, tell him I can't make it back in. We drive home and I get right into bed. I sleep for two hours. When I wake, I still feel dizzy and nauseous and the feeling stays with me for nearly a day. The hearing never really returns to my right ear.

...

This is not the first time I have fainted this bad this year. In the late summer, I fainted while CLH was giving me a fancy cramp-relieving massage. It freaked him out (strangely enough, in all the years we have been together, he has never seen me faint). When I came to, he was holding me in his arms like a soldier holds his wounded buddy. We made a little Pieta right there in the massage room. Me, limp and feeling like my body was full of liquid metal, and him looking down at me, concentrating, and a little scared. That faint was the first really bad one of my life. The first one that took me a whole day to recover from.

I've fainted other times in my life. There was that time, that first fainting in a clinician's office- when my pet guinea pig received a little impromptu swabbing at his rump to remove the pus and scabbing... that sentence alone should make you want to faint. I remember something about a red tricycle going around my head real fast- like stars or birds around the heads of conked-out cartoon characters. And the next thing I know, my dad is smiling down at me telling me I fainted. I remember thinking that I was too young to faint, that that was for Victorian ladies wearing too-tight corsets.

Then there were the times when we made ourselves faint on purpose. One of us had learned that if you pressed your Catholic school uniform tie up against some one's trachea for just a few seconds, they blacked out. But just for a few seconds, and then they came to. And the dreams they had while they were out were absolutely amazing. I remember having it done to me, and I remember having about a dozen, cacophonous dreams, all vivid and loud... and being so confused and giddy when I came to. I remember feeling thrilled, euphoric afterward. It was like doing drugs without the drugs. And the high was just seconds, with no side effects.

There were noises and colors this time around too. But they all came together in a loud, dissonant way. Like a car crash of sound. All my dreams smashed into one another at high speeds and every image bled into one another and when I came to, I was in pain. I thought maybe I actually had been in a car accident. The sounds lasted even after I opened my eyes and tried to focus. The unconscious was bleeding into the conscious and I could not sort it out. I wanted the noise to stop but it wouldn't. I was confused and angry and couldn't do anything about it.

...

The lab results came back perfectly normal. My thyroid is behaving normally. My vitamin D levels are low, typical of folks who live under constant cloud cover. My iron is a little low too, typical of people who don't eat meat. No anemia. Just normal, normal, normal. A recommendation to take a vitamin D supplement, and maybe an iron tablet every now and again.

My naturopath said that, in Chinese medicine, it is believed that people who faint frequently are suffering from a lack of energy input because they are giving it away faster than they are receiving it. In other words, they are doing too much for too many people and not taking enough time for themselves. Like what I had been doing every day of my life for most of my life. Of course. I got it. I got it right then and there. I was standing in the library at the time, talking on my cell phone to my doctor about the lab results and about Chinese medicine. A stack of checked-out books was under my arm. I was checking them out because I wanted to pack them in my suitcase to take on my trip. I'm going to Panama in 24 hours, I told the doctor. I am going to a place where I will serve no one. Where I will be taking no phone calls. Where I will be unable to be reached by email. Where my task list will have nothing on it. Where there will be no fainting for a very long time.

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On Auto Pilot

I am just muddling through, marching with my eyes at half mast. Trying to get through to the end of 2008. Working, working, working. I am a robot, a robot in skin still peeling. Still in the midst of unpacking and doing laundry and sorting through my bills and getting my new computer up and running... the wrapping paper still on my desk, the clothes in heaps, the suitcases still in the hallway, the mail still not sent, the boxes still not put away. I am filling out police reports and trying to find a carpenter to repair our doorjamb and hunting like an animal every morning in our cupboards for food I don't remember storing there. I am constantly thirsty and exhausted and my head feels heavy. I am content, I am slow moving, I am just on the verge of being consumed by responsibility. I dream of the color blue and of the beach every night. I hear the ocean, the birds in my sleep. I wake with the sunrise now, something I haven't done in years and years. I want to go away again. I want to finish reading my book. I want to tell you everything in one sitting. I want to stretch out the telling to last for days. I want to be back on vacation.

The heat coming out of the vents feels odd to me, almost too hot. I am slowly, slowly acclimating.

Something did not come back with me. Something hurried. I do not want it to find me again.

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…

I don't know what to tell you first.
My house was broken into 10 hours before we got on the plane. The thieves stole my computers. All of them. Wrecked my room. Stole my housemate's machines, too. Kicked in our front door, broke the lock. It took me the whole 10 hours of flying to come down from wanting to kill someone with my bare hands.
On Wednesday, I went for a routine blood draw and fainted. Fainted real bad. Took me a LONG time to recover. My naturopath told me that, in Chinese medicine, when someone is prone to fainting, it means they are putting out more energy than they are taking in. I told her I would keep an eye on that.
Hours before the break-in, our wild pet rabbit was killed. He lived on our property and occasionally munched our dandelions and hung out near my car. He was my little spot of sunshine. I had to bury him in the rain and in the dark as I was waiting for the cops to come.
I am hotter than hell and loving it. I just finished a breakfast of fresh fruit, fruit juice, and yogurt. I am happy to be wearing minimal clothing. A little gecko scurried across our doorjamb as we entered the room of our B n B night *the amersand's gone missing on this keyboard* and I took it as a good omen. Things are looking up.
I will be on my way to the beach here in just a short time here. I've brought 5 books and a brand new journal with me. I've brought 2 bathing suits and FAR too much clothing. There will be no Internet where I am going.
We are flying to the east coast in 9 days to visit our families. After the break-in, all I wanted was to be there. With familiarity. With routine. With comfort and the smells of turkey roasting and fresh cookies and the dry cold smell of snow. I cannot wait to see my siblings.

I am now officially ready to exhale and let vacation consume me.

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Why I’ll Wake Up with a Van Halen Song In My Head Every Morning From Now Until Mid-December

It's that time of year again. The time of year when I don't take my coat off when I come from work (I wear it until bedtime) because I just can't seem to warm up. I wear legwarmers around the house (and sometimes to bed). I run out of bed in the morning and head right for the heat ducts in the floor and stand next to them, hunched over like a guilty raccoon. Today the sky had a quality to it that made me think of my East Coast childhood days. The clouds were high and the rain freezing. I had a thought at about 2 pm or so while I was sitting at a stoplight: somewhere, just beyond those clouds up there, there is a big, burning ball of gas, so hot it will burn my skin. And very, very soon, I will be closer to it than I've ever been in my life. Thank Jeebus.

In a mere 18 days, I am going to Panama. The great comedy of this whole cold-as-hell tragedy is that I can't say the word Panama. I just can't. I have to sing it. As in "Pa-nuh-muh! Pa-nuh-MUH-uh-UNH-uhn-uh-uh!" As in, Eddie Van Halen's scratchy screechy PA-NU-MUH delivered from the depths of his be-mulletted soul. I giggle inside every time everyone asks me where I'm going for two weeks. "Panama", I say. "PA-NU-MUH!" is what it sounds like in my head. I do a little kick-split when I'm saying this.

Panama it is. Beach and mountains. Equatorial, baby. That means HOT. Like minimal clothing hot. Like tropical fruit for breakfast, lunch and dinner hot. Like 90 degrees and 80 percent humidity hot. Aaaaaaah.... I can feel it now. Okay, maybe it's the wool socks and sweater and scarf and hot tea I'm feeling. Still... 90 degrees. Hell yes. I'm gonna get what I've always wanted as an adult for Christmas: a tan.

CLH and I have been loosely planning this for some time now. You know how when the Universe tells you something once, it's interesting, and twice, it's a coincidence, and three times, you pack your bags and don't look back? I'm a big believer in reading the writing on the wall (especially if the writing comes in the form of many, many random people who've never met before all telling you the same thing about a country you've never given two thoughts about before in your life). Well, I had a one-two-three run-in with the Universe dropping hints last year sometime and I came home one day and said, "We need to go to Panama." And here we are, months later, with an itinerary and everything. It's a pretty loose itinerary. It looks like this: Panama City, the canal, beach for five days, mountains for four, and then it's Christmas time with the fam on the East Coast. Then it's back on a plane and we're back home in the cold and the gloom. Sigh. Focus on the beach part. Focus.

I have mixed feelings about it, naturally. On the one hand, I'm all WHOO HOO! HOT SUN AND SAND AND PEACE AND QUIET! And on the other hand, I'm, "Um.... yeah... Panama. About that whole colonization of your country by my peeps... REALLY sorry about that, dude. We really botched that one. Apparently, we haven't really honed our We're-building-infrastructure-in-other-countries-without-killing-a-good-portion-of-the-native-population skills. We're working on that in Iraq right now..." Added to the pile of guilt over my being white and having enough disposable income to go lay on a beach somewhere tropical is my guilt over the carbon footprint (Yeti sized) we're leaving by taking a three legged plane journey. Having a conscience is an exhausting thing.

There is also the information I picked up from reading "Maiden Voyage" not too long ago. I don't remember the author spending as much time describing the land-features of a place as much as she did Panama (it's a book about sailing, for goodness' sake, so for her to talk so much about land... it had a big impact on her). Panama City is not unlike any city where Captain WhiteMan has pushed the indigenous folks off their land and then plundered it for resources or opportunity or both. The disparity between the rich and poor is drastic and obvious. What I remember from the book is this: the zone along the Canal is populated by the descendants of the folks who were in charge of building the canal (read: old money) and the area just outside the zone is populated by the workers who helped built it (read: no money). Having read a few books now about sailing around the world, and specifically around islands whose populations have seen The Conqueror come and go, I am uber-sensitive to the impact my presence has on the local economies of such places.

I will keep all this in the front of my mind as I hand over my credit card. I will be grateful to the people of Panama for letting me lie on their beaches and sleep nestled inside their eco-lodges on their coffee plantations. And I will do air kicks and brush my air-mullet bangs out of my eyes every time I say the name of their gloriously rockin' country.

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Yes, We DID!

From an actual email I sent my younger siblings a few days before the election:

"Here's the thing, my dear sibs: this is destined to be an HISTORIC event, this election. Seriously. November 4 feels like Christmas Eve to me. I cannot WAIT to wake up on November 5th and have this eight year nightmare come to an end. As a working class stiff who has to cut a $2000 check to Uncle Sam every four months for my estimated income tax payment, I deeply, deeply resent the fact that my hard earned money is going to pay for Iraq's infrastructure while our bridges literally fall to pieces during rush hour. I deeply resent that a majority of my tax money pays for bombs and guns, and only a tiny fraction is funneled into our education system. It breaks my heart, honestly. I could go on, but I think you get the point. I have watched for almost two years the Republicans waging a campaign of fear mongering and unmitigated hatred towards anyone who dares disagree with them. Sarah Palin has called parts of the country "un-American". McCain has said that the state of women's health is an "extreme" stance the left uses to defend their position on access to safe, legal abortion. His own constituency is so uninformed and so beleaguered by xenophobia that McCain has actually had to deflect their inane questions on national TV by grabbing the mic back from them and changing the subject. There are too many examples to list here of how they have tried to appeal to our most base sense of fear of other, and fear of change, to get themselves elected. That, coupled with the fact that i DIRECTLY, through my tax dollars, am forced to fund their agenda of vengeance and exclusion, has turned me into something I never thought I would be: a voter.

I am STRONGLY encouraging you, even if you don't care one bit about politics, to look around on November 4th. Something incredibly important is about to happen. If you are registered to vote, i URGE you, with every bone in my being, to vote for Barack Obama. You know that something historic is afoot when people in BERLIN, in BRAZIL, in LONDON are rallying on Obama's behalf. The whole WORLD is perched on the edge of their seats waiting for adolescent America to pull the handle for Obama. We have behaved for eight years like hypocrites, like bullies, like ideologues- NOT unlike the very people we are trying to rid the world of to make it "safe for democracy". That Bush can't see the irony is maddening, but also motivating. That's why I am voting. That is why friends have volunteered at phone banks and to drive people around on election day to the polls. It is why I attended our district caucus, along with THOUSANDS of other Washintonians (in some areas a 900 percent increase in turnout rate. NINE HUNDRED). It is why our friends attended a 12,000 member audience to see Joe Biden speak. It is why people have soaped the front windows of their houses in blue in my home town with the words OBAMA 08. It is why my former boss, a staunch Republican, proudly displays his Obama sticker on his car bumper. It is why, on November 5th, the WORLD, the WHOLE world, full of people who have never ONCE cared for politics, is going to break out in song in the streets.

You have a chance to be part of that energy. You have a chance to partake in the making of history. You will be able to say to your kids that you remember utilizing your vote to change the course of history. As a woman, especially, I am mindful of the women who came before me, some of whom literally gave their lives, so that i could, in 2008, vote. Women are not guaranteed that right in many places in the world, so i take my privilege seriously.

I hope you will too. But, even if you don't, even if you can't, just be mindful. I'm obviously very involved in this election cycle, and I think my political leanings are pretty obvious. This election is motivating people at an UNPRECEDENTED level. Literally. Our country is 200 years old and we have never had this many people involved in an election, most of them rallying behind Obama. Even if you don't agree with my politics, take a look around and see how the rest of your country, indeed the rest of the world, is reacting. This is big. "

How do I put it all into a neat little blog posting? I can't. I can just tell you that I must have high-fived two dozen strangers in the street last night. I was part of at least three impromptu parades, one of which was on an escalator coming down from the fourth floor of the hotel in which the governor had just given her acceptance speech. I screamed with joy until I was hoarse. I hugged my friends over and over again. I watched a 6'4" man break down in tears of joy and relief when the race was called. I stood in the same room as my mayor and many of my city's council members last night. I toasted our victory with free beer provided by local, ecstatic bar owners. I had to scream over the car horns in the street, the cheers and the applause to be heard by my friends. In another part of town, fireworks were going off. Other friends were banging pots and pans in the streets with their neighbors. I was told by a bouncer at one bar that he had to throw some punks out of his bar for their appalling remarks towards Obama earlier in the night. "You picked the wrong bar in the wrong city in the wrong state", he told them. I texted friends on the East Coast at midnight. I ran like a wildwoman through the streets, laughing and screaming, tearing through them like a thousand demons had been released from my soul. Indeed, they have been. Ding dong, the witch is dead!

Let the new era begin.

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Look What Four Whole Days of Sunshine This Year Got Me!

So, Summer is officially done here. It's rain and cold and wind from here until May of 2009. That's good news for those of us with boats that need to be pushed by that wind. It's bad news for those us who would prefer to wear a sarong all year round.

This is the time of year when I break out the knitting needles, the sewing machine, the Kitchen Aid... anything to keep my hands busy so I don't go mad with the lack of sunshine. This season's project? Making dresses for next summer out of last summer's t-shirts. More on that soon.

In the meantime:

Holy Nightshade Family, Batman. I mean, Jesus. There's only so much green salsa a girl can eat. Not to fear. NPR is a goldmine of information for the Northwest tomato farmer (read: overly optimistic fool). Just this last Sunday, my buddy Lynn Rosetto Kasper came to the rescue when she answered a call-in from a fellow Northwesterner who'd apparently gotten as crazy with the Cheez Wiz as I had last spring. These bad boys, all SEVENTY POUNDS OF THEM, were sleeping under a blanket of newspaper to trap their ripening off-gasses by the end of the day.

I used the bicycle basket the previous owner left us to cart the suckers all the way through the yard and up the stairs and into the kitchen where I weighed them. I actually had to use my bathroom scale to weigh them. The basket held about 20 pounds when full. I filled it up three and a half times. I lined quite a few up on the windowsill in the living room. Here's the way the rotation works: I leave them on the deck in their newspaper beds to riped to stage orange. Then I move them to the library, the room in the house that gets the most sun. They usually turn red in a day or two.

Day one was hot tomato soup and grilled cheese for dinner. Day two: leftovers. Day three: gazpacho, accented with zucchini and cukes also from the garden. Delicious. Now I just have to come up with recipes for the other 60 or so pounds still out on the vines.

These pictures, by the way, come to you courtesy of my new phone: The Insight, Sprint's answer to the iPhone. I can not can not can not believe I had been so far behind the technological curve. I was literally talking on a brick with an antenna on it before I got this phone. I mean, storks literally flew out of the top of it to deliver my text messages. The paint was chipped off and half the buttons didn't light up anymore (that storm in New Orleans did her in. That's the last time I take a phone and a journal to an outdoor concert) This was how I was told, several months ago, by a gracious and sensitive friend, that I HAD to get a new phone:

(On a flight that has just touched down, from a few rows behind me)
Tara: DUDE! Did you just pull the ANTENNA out of your PHONE??? (hysterical laughter)
Me: Um... well... it helps with the reception. No, really it does!
Tara: (bent over laughing) YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!! (sputtering, wiping tears from eyes) AN ANTENNA????
(Strangers crane their necks to get a better look. Scene closes as I slink down into my seat, slip my phone into a barf bag, and make a mental note to throw phone onto nearest barge headed for Siberia).

So, now do I not only NOT have to raise the antenna like the beacon of Luddite dorkiness it was, but I can take pictures, check my work email, type lightning fast texts, get directions, search on the Internets, find a coffee shop (pet store, shoe store, SCUBA gear store, chicken lo mein, whatever) within 10 miles, and take video. Take THAT, old phone! And all for the price Sprint was ALREADY charging me to carry around my cancer box with the antenna that did NOTHING. Way to go, Sprint, you scheming thieves!

So, beware, Internets. I may just stick several thousand more pictures up here real soon...

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What We Talk About When We Talk About Money and Rubber Gloves

Nothing like a good screaming match about the economy at the dinner table to make your food go down. Last night we had company, and, like all good liberals, we ranted about the economy and the bail-out plan over our organic greens. This, of course, after CLH and I had a competition to see who could best imitate the sound of an iPhone being docked (I won, hands down.) Being white and nerdy never felt so... well, white and nerdy.

Afterwards, it was off to the Internet (for more white and nerdy entertainment) where we huddled up around my laptop and watched the following:
Suzanne Somers, then and now pictures
Oprah, then and now pictures
Sally Struthers (just to verify it WAS really her, and NOT Suzanne Somers, asking us to Save the Children)
Olan Mills pictures (yikes, yikes, and double yikes)

And then, somehow, I stumbled back onto a good friend's blog. Man, she's good. I think I was digging around in my email looking for other ridiculous links to be taken to as a way to show the guests a good time, and I remembered that I hadn't checked her blog in a while. And even stranger still, I don't know how I landed on this particular passage, but I did. Here it is:

"i have dreams of being mugged and raped. rape is not a new dream. i remember having dreams of being assaulted since middle school. to my knowledge, i have never been molested, but i almost feel that i have a kinesthetic memory--do all women have this? why, when my great-grandmother first told me about when she was raped at the age of 13 (something she never told anyone until her late 60's), did i feel it? are women so smothered by the ubiquitous threat of sexual violence that we have developed extreme empathy to the point where we literally feel the violation of others or the threat of violation, independent of whether we actually lived a sexual assault? "</p>

This is put so eloquently, so damn well, that I just had to reproduce it here. It captures something that, yes, I think ALL women identify with. No, I've never actually physically been assaulted, but, yes, my body retains some sort of cellular memory of the violence all around me. When I see it on the big screen and in real life, my body first seizes in fear, and then I am filled with adrenaline. I AM that woman, and I am ready to fight. I am unsure of why I carry this memory; why not any other types? Maybe because this kind of violence, the violence that then becomes intertwined with an intimate act that bonds us bodily with a loved one, corrupts something fundamental about us. It takes away one of the last things about us that we can control as women. I've never heard anyone express it as beautifully as Lacy has above, so I just had to share. It's a heavy topic, but, strangely, reading it last night didn't actually make me feel heavy. It made me feel like I wasn't the only crazy one for feeling this deep, deep, bond with my fellow females. It made me understand that if I can absorb this from my atmosphere, then the membrane works both ways. If I can take in, I can put out. And I can monitor what I put out there. I can put out energy that is affirming and gentle and non-violent to my fellow women.
...

My eyes can hardly stand to look at this computer screen. My brain is sloshing back and forth very slowly in its cerebral fluid, still imitating the motion of being on the boat this afternoon. CLH and I both skipped work a little early to hang out on the new boat. I have surprised myself thus far with my ability to not lose my lunch while onboard. Of course, the marina has zero wave action, so I shouldn't pat myself on the back too hard. It's when I get back to land that the wooziness starts. I was warned about this by fellow sailors. The way they told me about it, though, was in this cute, anecdotal sort of way. Sort of like the way one might tell you how "funny" it was to get caught in a rainstorm and have to walk home soaking wet. Except when they got home, they took off their wet clothes, took a hot shower, and the ordeal was over with. This ordeal goes on for hours. Sitting still is torture. Brushing your teeth while looking into a mirror is torture. I can feel the whole damn house swaying to......... and fro............. and to............ and fro. And it's making me want to hurl. On the lighter side of things, CLH and I hoisted the sails by ourselves this afternoon while moored. Just a test run. And we did it! I have made a list of things I will have to get used to:

-dirt
-my lack of upper body strength

I didn't understand just how out of shape I was until I nearly threw my shoulder out trying to start the engine (that will be a posting for another day). I also didn't ever think I could even look at seawater without wearing gloves. I'm not exactly a germiphobe, but I do get the heebee jeebies touching anything dirty, slimy, dusty, rusty, gritty or greasy. In short, I like things neat and orderly and I DO NOT like getting my hands wet when cleaning stuff. I can feel all that changing. Whereas once I would have had to burn my jeans after sitting on a moist surface, I now find myself able to sit on a deck that I've just knocked a full beer onto. Whereas I once would have physically recoiled at all things floaty, furry, and slimy underwater, I now find myself peering for long spells of time at the stuff growing on the undersides of the dock. Just last week, I couldn't have even fathomed the contents of seagull poop, let alone touch it, and this weekend, I was kneeling down in it, scrubbing a 10 foot deck on my hands and knees, and loving it. My, how I have grown.

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Wheat! It’s what’s for dinner. Again.

Fall's has not traditionally been my "big change" season, but this year, it's all comin' together in September, folks. Big stuff.

Where to start? How about I work my way up the excitement ladder? Okay, so first off, I got the results of my food allergy test back in the mail today. Why the food allergy test? Well, let's just say that CLH didn't think that he could legally get away with listing "flatulence" as grounds for leaving me, but he was threatening to go that way. I finally decided to have my blood tested to see what on the food chain was upsetting my poor intestines. I was told by my doctor that I didn't have to make an appointment with the clinic beneath my doctor's office to get said blood drawn, but when I got there, a surly nurse told me otherwise. I had to go back upstairs to get the doctor's permission, and then take back downstairs my own clear glass vials and a box that had the word BIO HAZARD emblazoned upon it. The nurse begrudgingly took the stuff from me and led me to a chair. She warmed right up to me after I told her I usually pass out from having my blood drawn.

Three weeks later and here we are, results in hand. The exam tests for lots and lots of different kinds of foods: meats, nuts, dairy, vegetables, grains, etc. I suspected, given the bloatiness I was feeling after sandwiches and pastas, that I might be allergic to wheat. I had even been baking wheat free breads and the like for nearly six months in anticipation. Turns out, though, I'm NOT ALLERGIC to wheat. I'm allergic to EGGS instead! EGGS! My Sunday morning constitutional! My favorite thing to put on a kaiser roll with cheese! The only thing I like to eat at greasy spoons! I can't believe it! Who knew??? I don't have the kind of allergy where my throat closes up or my face breaks out in hives or anything dramatic like that. What I have is more like a "strong sensitivity" to eggs. A strong sensitivity that has kept a small patch of eczema on the back of my neck for something like 15 years now. And maybe my bowels in knots. So, wheat's back in. Eggs are out. CLH is far more upset about this all than I am. For the most part, I think I can live without eggs. I'll be grumpy about it, but, if it means I'll be healthier, I can do it. CLH has been moping around all evening, approaching me every twenty minutes or so and sadly reminding me of all the dishes I can't share with him anymore.

Him: "But what about omelets?"
Me: " 'Fraid not."

20 mins later:
Him: "But what about fritatas?"
Me: "Still no."

Okay, here's the other really big news: I bought a boat. I need to make this a big deal because I don't even think I believe it myself yet. I BOUGHT A SAILBOAT. A 21 foot sailboat. CLH and I. We own a freakin' boat.

She's older than us by a year. She doesn't have a name. Yet. She smells strongly of gasoline but CLH reassures me that that's because she's been closed up for almost a year in the marina. Once she airs out, he assures me, she won't smell so bad. Oh, and neither of us know how to sail.

Here's what I've been doing to prepare for buying a boat: I've been reading every disaster-at-sea story I can get my hands on. I mean, who needs to know about sails and navigation and all that crap? What I really need to know is how to survive a hurricane on a 90 foot yacht. You know. 'Cause the Pacific Northwest is known for its strong hurricanes and all...

CLH and I have been absolutely OBSESSING about this for some time now. Our bed stands are stacked with all sorts of books about sailing (well, his side is... mine's full of nautical disaster memoirs). He's learning how to raise a sail (useful information) and I am learning that you should think twice about having a boat built by unskilled Turkish laborers that leaves you stranded in the Mediterranean because your paint is peeling off in sheets and your deck is coming apart under moderate winds (totally, totally useless information).

I'm sort of hovering above this whole experience and looking down on it in wonderment. I mean, who woulda thunk it? Me, the wage slave, the kid of parents who never ever had more than two cents kicking around in their bank accounts, has managed to save enough to buy a boat AND keep it moored in a marina. And in a recession, no less. No, it's not the most fiscally sound thing to do given that America's about to get a taste of what the REST of the world lives like in short order here. But, hell, it won't hurt to have a getaway car when the Polar Bears start swimming ashore looking for a new place to call home. All I'm saying is: the boat comes with a blender and a 12 volt outlet. Heh? Hehhhhh? See? You would have bought it too.

CLH has just reminded me that I can't ever have deviled eggs again. Wait. I just remembered I own a boat. It's all going to be okay.

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Not Gay Enough to be Domestically Partnered

Well, CLH and I have done it. No, we're not married. Quite the contrary. We've done something even more permanent and responsible: we've drawn up our wills. How long-term-planning is that, huh? If you ask me, it's better than getting married. It's downright commitment-tastic. I don't need any crepe paper or gold rings or lines at the ice sculpture buffet table. No way, man. Just give me an old fashioned will and testament and I'm yours forever.

The wills came in letter sized envelopes along with directions about how to have them signed in bat blood by separate notaries public with 463 witnesses present. Or something like that. There's something ominous about seeing your name in 26 point caps on very, very nice paper stock next to words like "sound and disposing mind" and "as soon after my death as is practical".
There was also a letter from the lawyers describing some legal terms.

Here's the (hilarious) irony about our domestic partnership: apparently, CLH and I don't legally qualify for "domestic partnership". Here is (and I quote) the reason the good folks at the Legal Speak Paper Factory gave us:

"We were not able to identify you as 'domestic partners' in the Wills because, under newly passed legislation, this term has a very specific meaning and carries with it certain legal rights and responsibilities. As as heterosexual couple, you do not qualify as persons who can register as 'domestic partners'. Please see RCW 26.60.030 for the requirements and feel free to call our office if you have any questions."

So, I looked up this RCW stuff and read through the requirements. The first few seemed easy enough. "1. Both persons share a common residence". Done. Going on 11 years, off and on, and counting. What else ya got? Requirements two, three, and four state that you be partnered with only one person, be 18 years or older (done and done), you both consent, yadda yadda yadda. Okay. Got all that. Number five made me giggle a little: "The persons are not nearer of kin to each other than second cousins, whether of the whole or half blood computing by the rules of the civil law". (When I first read it, I thought it said "rules of the civil war".) CLH and I have a joke that, in fact, somewhere down the line, we ARE related. Both our families have roots back to Poland. Both our families are from the same part of Poland. Poland's not very big, so I just presume that somewhere, sometime, back on a farm in the countryside, his people and my people were swappin' spit, if ya know what I mean. I sometimes have nightmares that we finally get around to getting married and we do blood tests and we find out we're related and I go crazy thinking I've spent most of my life boinking my RELATIVE and we go through a messy separation because the shame is too great and I eventually sell my story to Hollywood but die penniless because of my heavy drinking. I digress.

Here's the clincher to the law, the "newly passed legislation" that I suspect was added to the existing law so that us lazy heterosexuals who just can't seem to say "I do" get screwed out of being legally recognized as lazy heterosexuals who can't seem to say "I do":

"NUMBER 6: Both of the following are true:
Neither person is a sibling, child, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew to the other person; and
Either (a) both persons are members of the same sex; or (b) at least one of the persons is sixty-two years of age or older."

Did you catch that? I'm not ELDERLY enough or GAY enough to be domestically partnered! I don't know whether to laugh or be indignant, honestly. I'm happy for the folks who are FINALLY getting the recognition they deserve, for chrissake, but I'm unnerved that the term I thought was reserved for the likes of us scared-of-commitment-hets has been taken. Now what do I call my common law marriage? Domestic Alliance? LifeandFinance, LLC? The United Front of BedSharing? Meeting of Grocery Bill Splitters Anonymous? I'm a woman without a term for my domestic non-gay, non-old partnership. I'm adrift on a sea of parchment colored legal paper, a rogue single sailboat in an ocean of married yachts...

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My Dichotomous Life

I'm home in the middle of the day and it's a little disconcerting. I'm usually working during the day, so this feels odd. I have a hard time even typing the word "relax" and "i" in the same sentence, so I've been keeping myself busy with chores.

Thus far, I've made myself a smoothie, taken pictures of the garden with my newly found manual camera, pickled some beets for lunch, put some beans into the crock pot for dinner, and weeded the front yard. Also, I canceled three credit cards, cut them up, took a picture of them cupped in my palm, and then threw the bits into the garbage can.

The credit card thing was a bit impulsive, admittedly. I'm one of those rare (these days, anyway) "uses credit responsibly" people. But, CLH have been making motions to prepare our wills, and other long term planning stuff, and part of that process involves reviewing our credit scores. Mine came in the mail yesterday and the fine folks at the different credit reporting agencies explained my "good" rating might be improved this way: if I got rid of the department store credit cards I had with deliciously tempting credit limits. They also said that my credit history was slightly harder to track because the average length of my borrowing life was 153 months. Hey, Sears Credit folks, I'm a hit it and quit it kind of gal, so I'm real sorry I couldn't stick around for more than 12 months, but them's the breaks. Thanks for the 10% off.

What a bizarre and complicated world the whole credit score thing is anyway. I remember, at 17, my then boyfriend and I drove around the various mini-malls we lived near and filled out credit apps for all the department stores that would give us credit (hence the Sears card...). I also managed to get myself a student American Express card back then. All this, because, at 17, we were thinking that we wanted to own houses one day and we were going to get our credit history built starting right then and there. I don't know who gave us this advice, but it turns out to have backfired just a little bit. Having so many open credit cards, especially ones for department stores, does not make you a responsible borrower in the eyes of Big Brother. It makes your a slight liability. Because who's to say you won't up and run off to JC Penney RIGHT NOW and buy that luggage set, the bagel cutter, and 14 pleather purses and charge it all to your Penney's card with that enormous $500 credit limit??? (And trust me, you'll get it all on there since nothing ever costs more than 4 cents at JC Penney's.) So, here I am, out on the deck of the house I own now, lounging around in my Crocs and eating grapes in the middle of the day... My life didn't turn out too bad, I guess. The advice wasn't half bad after all.

The cards I cut up this morning didn't have balances on them. As a matter of fact, one the cards had been closed by the creditors just 5 days ago for non-use. Most of them were as shiny and unblemished as the day I slid them into my wallet so long ago. So, take THAT, credit reporting people. Now all the bad news you have for me is that my student loan is closer to NOT being paid off than it is to being paid off. What a strange world we live in. I track my spending life on 4 sheets of paper, and this paper is used to determine how I might or might not take my home equity line of credit and spend it on a trip to the Bahamas, or to put my sick mother through chemotherapy.

I'm feeling slightly schizophrenic these days. And I have to be careful about tossing that word around because I suspect there is some bad wiring amongst my immediate family members. I have to take it somewhat seriously. So, I can't call myself literally schizo. Let's just say that my life feels incongruous and therefore crazy.

Here's why I feel so split: the Fall is coming, and it's time for me to crawl back inside the cave of my own crazy-making self analysis once again. The summer never really got here. My tank tops lay unworn in my drawers. I want so badly to just be HOT and I also am looking forward to a season of reflection. One part of my life is spent battling apple maggots and dandelions, and the other spreadsheets and inquisitive clients. One part of my life is spent in ragged cargos and Crocs and the other in heels and tribal-themed jewelry to match. One part is pajamas till four and the other hair gel. One part plotting out a debt free life and the other buying tchotchkes at a garage sale. Boat. Home. Water. Land. Later On. Right Now. Comfortable. Struggling. Rich. Poor.

And I am on the one who's carved out these designations. I oughtta follow my own advice and just be cool with all those things all at once. I can be the granola crunching bread baking make my own applesauce kinda woman AND paint my nails hot pink and sculpt my hair into a mohawk every day, can't I? Can't I make money and not feel bad about it? Can't I drive a gas powered car and make my own compost? Can't I want to live in a tropical country and want a snowy Christmas?

Life is not so one or the other. Duh. But I'm feeling like I need to choose. I don't know where that pressure is coming from. Myself? The credit reporting agency? My tomato plants?

Here's what I think: Capitalism isn't just for those who can make a dollar mercilessly. And holistic living isn't just for people who don't shave their armpit hair. A la some infomercial host, I believe: "There's got to be a better way!" I guess I will just have to live with this split in my psyche until my two worlds merge seamlessly and I no longer care that I pick cucumbers in designer jeans or go to work in the big city with dirt still under my fingernails.

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Day 26 Without Countertops

I've decided to add a little list to this otherwise plain jane blog: a list of books I am reading/have read. I just finished reading What Is The What. I am speechless. Or rather, I'm not. I'm not allowed to be. You can't keep a book like this to yourself. And you certainly can't read a book like this and then go back to complaining about the price of gas or the fact that it wasn't all that sunny out today. You just can't.

The narrator, who spent his formative years outrunning his would-be assassins across the borders of three countries in Africa during the war in Sudan, wouldn't allow you to keep this book to yourself. You would feel compelled, like I am, to tell people about it. You would feel compelled, like I am, to log on to your online library account and put on hold any book you could get your hands on about the history of Sudan. You would find yourself wanting to immerse your whole being in the struggle of people who just want the simplest of things. You would find yourself asking yourself how hope remains a viable thing in times of so much destruction.

I'm mentioning this book specifically because I am struck by the power of several forces all working in conjunction to force a book about modern day genocide in Africa into the hands of a middle class white urbanite. The real-time-ness of this all is something worth studying, I think. I'm not an expert on history, but it seems like there is something unprecedented about being able to read about a major event like the mass murders of thousands and thousands of people just months after it's happened. In a bound book, no less. A whole twelve years of a young man's life, and his country's struggle, was just spelled out for me. This happened in my lifetime. While I was able to point out Sudan on a map. While I was going about the business of going to work, buying groceries, listening to the radio...

I don't know how soon the first autobiographies of Holocaust survivors were published after the end of WWII. I seem to remember learning in school that it was difficult for survivors to write their stories, to feel they had anything worth saying after the fact... and here we have books, a handful even, of stories from Sudan, even as the war is still fresh in some regions. It's astounding to me.

I'm not sure how else to describe this feeling. I'm not driven by an activist's energy, so my inclination isn't to run out and board a plane and ask how I can help solve the crisis. I hope that this book reaches people who can absorb the lessons of war in their lifetime, even as they are experiencing it. I'm not entirely hopeful that war is an entirely avoidable thing, human nature being what it is. I AM hopeful that, very soon, in our increased ability to immediately catalogue crisis and tell the world about it, it won't take losing a limb to understand war is hell. That it won't take losing your family to understand how violence begets violence. That slowly empathy will replace vengeance and that we might overcome our human instinct to forget the past.

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Day 7 Without A Stove

It's been seven days since I've cooked anything on a stove, and, frankly, I don't miss the thing one bit. That's right: the remodel of the kitchen has begun. Now, when someone asks, "How's the house coming along?" I have something to tell them about besides the apple trees out back. My hands are raw and ragged from putting together the cabinet bases tonight, but, I feel it is my duty to tell you that you that FINALLY we are doing something about the ugliest, most leaky kitchen in North America.

Last Sunday we packed up the contents of the kitchen drawers into banker's boxes and stacked them in the living room, we pried the cabinets off the walls and we took the stove, the oven, and the microwave and moved it out into the carport. By the beginning of the week, all that was left in the kitchen were the upper cabinets, the green linoleum, and pink wallpaper from 60 years ago. Pink seems to have been a popular color in this house. My theory is that the guy who built this house (and it was just one guy, and he did build the whole damn thing from scratch) compensated his wife (who raised their 9 freakin' kids while he was busy building tinkering around in the woodshed) for the ad hoc nature of things by painting every blessed thing salmon. "What's that, Dear? You want the insides of the closets to be salmon, too? And the kitchen? And the bedroom? And the pantry? And the stairwell down to the carriage house? Well, what the Mrs. wants, the Mrs. gets!" During the initial painting of this place, we discovered the salmon obsession in this joint. There was either a fire sale on pink paint in 1942, or someone was really getting their interior decorating on.

We've had no sink, no stove, and no real kitchen counters for about a week now. Has that stopped us from eating like kings? Absolutely not! Tonight's menu included buffalo burgers, corn on the cob, and fresh salad. How, you ask? Why, the magic of electricity, of course. Here's how a typical meal for CLH and I goes down: First, I have to fetch the water. "Fetch", really, is the most appropriate word here, too. I've been banking some serious miles jogging back and forth between the rat's nest where my heating elements are, the bathroom sink, and the hose outside, where the cleaning station is set up. Up until yesterday, I had to go DOWNSTAIRS to the basement to get the electric kettle to bring it UPSTAIRS to our bathroom for filling. After a week, we got smart and moved it to the living room (naturally). In the bathroom, I use a mug stationed next to the sink to fill the kettle. I use boiled water for most meals. Last week we ate a series of boil-in-bag Indian food meals. I just filled the bottom of our spaghetti pot with water, put the bag in, covered the pot, and let the meal warm up in there. Tonight's corn on the cob was made the same way. I have to fetch additional water if I want to, say, clean the lettuce for our salad. Again, we finally got smart about the fresh water and filled a giant cambrio with water and now have it stationed out on the deck.

The crock pot and the ricecooker are my two new best friends. Yesterday, I boiled chick peas in the crock pot for a few hours. About an hour before dinner, I drained them, let them cool, then sent them through the food processor (also powered by electricity) with some fresh lemon juice, fresh garlic, cumin, coriander, chili and tahini, and VIOLA! Hummus for dinner! It went well with some crostini (electric toaster!) improvised tzatiki, and fresh salad.

Tonight's burgers? Brought to you by your friend George Foreman, of course. Every meal is accompanied by our little construction buddy who stays downstairs in the cool basement all day: the pony keg. We've been nursing three of them since CLH's graduation from massage school. What a joy it is to clap the sheetrock dust from your coveralls every night, wash your hands, and sit down to warm meal and a Mason jar full of amber colored forget-it-all juice.

The demo process is always the most exciting part of remodeling for me. There's always a story behind the walls. For instance, we've found, to date, about seventeen pencils in the kitchen. Underneath the floorboards, behind the walls, inside the cabinetry, you name it. Pencils freakin' everywhere. Several in one spot, one here, one there. The air duct findings, though, take the cake. A sixteen inch hole in the floor revealed the following:
-one stuffed football shaped dog toy
-two glass prep bowls, approximately 5" in diameter
-three pencils
-one brass Christmas tree-shaped ornament
-two mummified pieces of fruit, unidentifiable. We think they were, at one time, grapefruit

The area underneath the butcher block countertop revealed this:
-four pencils
-one glass marble (which CLH, in accordance with his neurotic compulsion to push all buttons, stick his fingers in all holes, and flick on and off all switches in his line of sight, promptly shoved in a knothole in the original wood flooring)
-one wooden toy block, embossed with the letter "c" on one side
-several dried beans, probably navy variety

Of course, we will find much, much more as we refinish the rest of the house. Why, just today I was putting away our winter bedsheets and I found, at the top of the linen closet (whose depths I had not yet explored):
-three children's foam bath toys, farm-themed
-one glass candeholder filled with dried grey paint
-one pickle jar lid, circa 1976
-one "Woochie" brand costume mustache, still in package

Ah the stories this house could tell. I think ours would go something like this: Once upon a time, there was a family who wrote only with pencil. Their children's bath toys were kept on shelves too tall for any normal human being to reach, and they often lost their crockery to the beasts who lived under the kitchen floorboards, who were satiated only by offerings of fruit and plush dog toys.

The End.

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Dear Greenhouse Babies

Dear Greenhouse Babies,

I am sorry you are so leggy and skinny that your shorter, stumpier counterparts make fun of you behind my back. I am sorry you have had to reach for the sky so much you've made yourself an extra 3 inches long and now your bottom leaves are yellowing and falling off. I'm sorry that yesterday's headline ran "Seattle Colder Than Siberia" and that it wasn't an exaggeration. It really was colder yesterday in Seattle than it was on that day in Siberia. I have been wearing my winter jacket for two days in a row. Two days, Babies. Two days. And I should have been wearing it the whole week, except you know how stubborn mama is. She made that stupid vow to not wear socks after Memorial Day, and there are days she comes home and has to soak her feet in a bucket of scalding hot water just to feel them again... (I hope you inherit that stubbornness. You're going to need it when I set you outside and the Jerry the Crow comes by to "talk".)

I'm sorry too the greenhouse smells a little like pee on hot days and that the door doesn't close all the way. When I bought the greenhouse I didn't think I would have to put my flip flops back in the closet and shop for fur lined boots on my lunch break in the middle of June, Babies. I thought I would be grilling things on the barbeque in the evenings and watching the glorious sunsets from my deck. I was thinking that even if the door didn't close all the way, there would be enough heat trapped in there from the day that it wouldn't matter. But, we don't have any heat to keep you warm with. So, you're not getting adequate light and heat and you've got the hideously deformed stalks to prove it. I put your brothers and sisters out a few weeks ago in my eagerness for warmer weather and they got pummeled by the rain and then eaten by Jerry and Co.

And about the water... You may have noticed a greenish hue to it... a distinct smell. Yes, Babies, that's algae. You see, we've been collecting storm water in 50 gallon barrels all winter to water you with. We thought we'd be through half that water by now, it being June and all, the rain having stopped, and the growing season being in full force... but it's been raining. And raining. And raining. And we haven't needed to use the water as it's been falling in copious, unending, stick-my-head-in-the-oven-and-get-it-all-over-with amounts for months on end now. So, the water's been sitting in the barrels, unused. And every six weeks or so, the sun comes out for about five minutes and alerts every tiny slimy thing that's been lying dormant in that water to get up and shake its moneymaker, and the next thing you know, the water barrel has a carpet of green algae growing on the bottom of it. And that's what I've been watering you with. So, the teenagers amongst you (I'm talking to you, sunflowers) are showing me your rebellious stage. Instead of getting creeped out by the stuff, you've actually taken a liking to it and coated your topsoil with it. Needless to say, I am completely repulsed, I can't understand why you would do such a thing to the person that gave you life. I am bracing myself for they day you start listening to heavy metal and smoking.</p>

We'll get through this, Babies. We will. I know the dormant peach tree leaning all scraggly-like outside your windows is not exactly the most inspiring thing to look at every day. And don't be jealous of the beans in the garden. They have problems of their own. One day you will be ready for the outdoors. More than likely it will be in mid-October, when we finally get some heat, when mama has packed a bag of Cheetos, a dozen novels, and a bathing suit and tried her best to make her tires screech on soggy pine needles as she hightails it out of the driveway.

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Internet, This Is What the Green Movement Looks Like

So, listen. This is how you save the planet one tofu tray at a time. First, you need to enjoy tofu. I love the stuff. Where once I turned my carnivorous nose up at it, now I relish it with glee (and peanuts and sesame dipping sauce). I like yogurt and salsa too. And just by liking those foods, I can do something about the fact that this country loves it some plastic packaging but knows fuck all about what to do about it when it's used.

Here's my solution to our problem of what to do with plastic that can't be recycled where we live: grow stuff in it. Seriously. It takes a couple of minutes and a drill. And that means that you don't have to throw away another container ever again. And it means tomatoes in July.

Here's how it works. First, eat some salsa (or yogurt, or tofu, or margarine, or anything else that comes in a plastic tub). Secondly, eat something raw that has seeds in it. Here are some suggestions: Cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, and peppers. Save the seeds. Here's how to save the seeds: don't eat them. Flowers are cool too! You don't need to grow something edible to use this method.

Next, get yourself a drill. I would suggest another method for poking holes in the tubs, but I have tried them, and with little success. Now, I'm no engineer, so if someone out there in Internet-land can manage to poke holes through plastic without destroying the integrity of the plastic, well, then, you, sir, are a better man than I.

Take that drill and drill a bunch of 1/8 holes through the bottom of your plastic tub. You are creating drainage holes here, people, so five or so will do it. Space them equally apart. Next, fill your plastic container with dirt. Potting soil is best, but, hell, take a scoop of the front yard and see what comes up. Then, stick your saved seeds into your soil. The rule is this: bury your seeds in the soil about as deeply as they are long. In other words, small seeds go in very shallow, and the bigger seeds (cucumber seeds, for example) go in deeper. Use the lids of your plastic tubs as TRAYS for underneath your pots, or, for yogurt cups without lids, cram two yogurt cups into one tofu tray! Now, water your seeds in your plastic tubs. The lids will catch any water that drains from the holes you just drilled.

Okay, now, depending on where you live, the next steps are up to you. If you live in the gray Northwest like I do, buy yourself a long, narrow plot of land with a huge smelly house and greenhouse on it with your almost husband and two friends and stick your pots in there. Okay, okay, so you don't want to live with your friends. I get it. Then do this: cover your pots with little pieces of plastic wrap (Saran works well, or, you can go one step further to reducing waste on your planet by cutting up old produce bags into squares). Secure the plastic wrap with rubber bands. Where do you get the rubber bands, you ask? From around the bases of broccoli and asparagus and scallions, from the supermarket, of course. (I would suggest you buy these vegetables, take them home, eat them, and THEN use the rubber bands. I don't want the riot police showing up at my house claiming I am an instrument of anarchy because I instigated the theft of hundreds of produce rubber bands).

Stick those pots in a warm place and water them every day. Depending on the seeds, they will germinate within a week to several weeks and viola! Once their little green heads pop up out of the soil, you can permanently remove the plastic wrap. You can plant the stuff outdoors, or, keep them in containers indoors (you'll want to move out of the yogurt cup soon enough).

Here's the thing about plastic: it lasts FOR FREAKIN EVER. So, the best thing about this is that next year, no drilling! You just use those suckers over and over and over again. And, in 50 years, when your kids can't remember a time when water didn't cost money and come in jugs, and when we're still arguing over whether we should call sticking the last freakin' cockroach on earth on the endangered species act a result of "global warming" or "climate change", you can say you did something to save a very small piece of earth.

(And, I realize, plant identification people, that those little green sprouts are NOT tomatoes... I got all excited and then realized that what i had sprouted were weeds... or something resembling lettuce or radish. The tomatoes are coming. I swear. )

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You know how sometimes you stop what you're doing and you take stock of what you're doing and then you have a meta-analysis moment? Well, in the middle of mending CLH's pants on the sewing machine while a loaf of bread was baking in the oven tonight, I had one of those moments. And, inside my head, it kind of sounded like this:

"You know, no one would believe that you are sewing and baking bread right now."

"Oh yeah? Now why would you say a thing like that?"

"Because you are wearing a pair of shit kicking black boots and your head is shorn and you have been known to swear in front of children".

"Well, that doesn't mean i'm all spit and vinegar, does it? I can have a soft side too, y'know. I can be domestic."

The sewing machine was my mom's. It's tempermental (not unlike my mother). During my childhood, I knew when she was using the thing because a) it sounded like a small train coming through the house and b) my mom would let fly from her mouth a string of curses like you've never heard. (Think: the father from "A Christmas Story"). I didn't understand the need for such language until I inherited it. Now I find myself also tearing at the needle and bobbin with both hands and cursing the little baby Jesus himself. She didn't use it often- I remember the year she made our Halloween costumes. I remember every rage infused stitch. Ah, homemaking.

But, let's get to the list, shall we?

Okay, so first things first. Friend, mugging, South America. Well, my friend is okay. She can tell you all about her adventures here. She's alright. She's better than alright. She's cruising around on a motorcycle with her male traveling companion behind her. In a Latin American country. Gutsy, I tell ya.

I only bring this up because this was a huge reality check for me. See, lately I've been thinking i want to live someplace sunny and tropical. And that place, in my dreams, is somewhere around the vicinity of Panama. I know, I know. What's with Panama? I don't know, to be quite honest. You know how you things come to you in multiples? Like when you can't explain why you're thinking about oranges all day long and then you see a sign on the way home from work that involves the word orange and then your friend calls when you and tells you he's just invested in the orange markets and then you find the next morning you've unconsciously chosen your orange shirt to wear? Yeah, well, Panama is like that for me. People were talking about it. And seriously, too. Moving to another country is no small thing. So, for lots of different people to be saying all the same thing at the same time... well, don't think I didn't sit up and listen. CLH and I just bought our tickets to go visit in December.

In my mind, the whole visit thing goes down smoothly. We arrive, we kick off our shoes, and we don't put them on again for a whole month because all we do is lay on the beach and read 56 novels each and occasionally we get up for food. Maybe we venture out into the hinterlands and we take some pictures and we find a cave or a pile of rocks and we feel like we've explored. We ask around about where 2 ex-pats can live and we get used to wearing white linen. Here's what's missing from this la-la land adventure: other people. There isn't anyone standing in the way of our being completely and totally lazy. There certainly aren't any criminals. So, when my friend wrote that she'd been mugged, I finally came back to earth. Right. There will be other things to navigate besides palm trees and pina coladas, dummy. Get this: people may not want us there. And even if most of them are cool with us, there are still the rogue few who can see only our wristwatches and passports.

On a totally separate note, the garden is coming along nicely. All the angst I felt about how big a job it was going to be is melting away. We've cleared out three beds and put our seeds in. Here's what we're growing this year: beans, peas, tomatoes (at least six different kinds), turnips, beets, radishes, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers and zucchini. I've also got parsley, thyme, basil, marjoram, chives, mint, and cilantro starting in the greenhouse (which has finally mostly been rid of its former occupants, the rats). Alongside the herbs in the greenhouse are rows and rows of pots with zinnia and sunflower seeds in them. This is the first year I have ever really grown flowers from seeds and I'm pretty excited to see how they turn out. The apple trees and the rest of the fruit trees are flowering. I hope the bees come back this year. The raspberries are finally breathing now that we've got some of the grass cleared out from around their bases, and the strawberries are being weeded one plant at a time. The rhubarb is also exploding like something from another planet. There's so much stinkin' fruit on this property, it's almost too much to manage. It's been amazing to watch everything return to green. Summer's gonna rock.

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Has It Really Been That Long?

I suppose it has. But, listen. I have been so busy lately. There's so much to tell! Hell, I went to New Orleans and was an insomniac and got caught in two torrential downpours and drank and ate so much I nearly needed my stomach pumped every night and danced till 4 am and spent a day's worth of wages on cab fare. And that was just in four days!

There's so much else, too. So, I have to list it all here, Internet, because my feeble brain just can't keep up. I'm going to tell you all the things I am eventually going to give you the whole story one... one day. And, hey, this isn't just a teaser. This is to remind ME that I have stories to tell you. I just don't have enough moments in the day to tell you all of them RIGHT NOW.

To start with, my friend was mugged in Nicaragua just 2 days ago. On the 23rd of April, I was scammed into buying a fake magazine subscription. In New Orleans, I met a world famous chef. I just finished transcribing a six page letter into my journal. I read "Eat, Pray, Love" and have found myself wondering if I need to talk to God in order to find peace. I found out my grandmother was an insomniac like me. My brother has had to wear, amongst other things, a small cutting board on a lanyard around his neck as a way to engage customers at his big box store retail job. I planted flowers in my front yard and got so sunburned my neck skin still aches and a crow we named Jerry followed me around all day. I could go on, people. There is a lot swimming around upstairs. Do you wonder why I can't sleep? While most of the world is twitching in its sleep, (or maybe that's just CLH) I am wondering about whether or not I should call the mechanic tomorrow on my way to work or in between clients, and if i should consider buying wigs for our next party from that great online site Dan told me about...

Alright, that's enough for now. I swear, I'll tell you the stories one by one. Go read someone else's blog and check back with me tomorrow. I'll have a little somethin' somethin' for ya then.

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Will Five Year Old Popcorn Still Pop In The Microwave?

You bet your sweet ass it will. And it won't even taste that bad, either. It'll taste pretty much like all microwave popcorn does: like hot asphalt and paper. It'll even leave that terrible oil slick on your tongue afterwards! Hurray for popcorn! Hurray for the poor old man who spoke three languages (Arabic, Korean and English) who sold it to me with a smile on his face! He didn't know. The expiration date was inside the folded edge of the package, inside the plastic wrap. At first I thought it was written in European time signature- you know, with the year then the day then the month... but, then i thought... that would make it even older than five years, so let's just stop trying to calculate the ways this could still be edible and pop it in the ol' microwave.

Speaking of smells that stick to you:
I smell like burnt coffee because i've been sitting next to a roaster for the past 5 hours. In case you've never had the pleasure of sitting next to a machine the size of a small car that chars green coffee beans at a rate of thousands an hour, let me tell you about it: it's not pleasant.. Deafening, smelly, smoky. That pretty much sums it up.

I'm going to New Orleans in a week. There are no words to describe how badly i want to leave RIGHT NOW.

My sister is coming to visit in June. I'm excited. So excited, in fact, that i'm moved to ask her to join me in an interpretive dance in roller skates in front of hundreds on her birthday just to show her how excited i am. I hope she says yes.

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Is there anything NOT on the Internet? I mean, really. I just spent the last 20 minutes in a link-clicking frenzy in blog-land. Seriously. I had to back up eleven pages to remember how I'd gotten there. One minute, I was checking out some serious craft in the world of indie-knitting, and the next thing I know, I'm on a YouTube video of Argentine kids screaming in fear at a gnome. Seriously. I'm not making this stuff up. In the span those few minutes, I had also seen David Byrne's newsletter, a recipe for blood orange sorbet, a knitted sweater in various stages of completion, a Rob Base video, old books made into journals, someone making pizza dough, and the abovementioned kids scared of a gnome. I'd hyperlink all that crap, but, well, I'm lazy, and you, well, you have Google, don't you?

It got me to thinking:
a) my attention span has begun to rival that of a thirteen year old
b) there is absolutely nothing I can't find on the web

And I'm not saying that in a "When i was your age, sonny...." sort of way either. What i mean is- well, it's hard to sum up. Is there ANY experience that hasn't yet been blogged about, wikipedia'd, databased, web paged or otherwise cyber-catalogued? Doesn't it blow your mind to think about how many different angles there are available to you about anything anywhere? For instance: I saw (on one of the sites I was on) a picture of a half-completed guerrilla art project on a pier in NYC. Now, there must be some blog somewhere by some artist who'd told the world that she was going to paint some barnacled bundle of wood in New York... and now, in addition to that one piece of information about the intent, there is a picture of that project, half completed, and a little blurb to go with it. And that's only one angle. Who knows if someone else didn't snap a picture from a different angle that same day, and write up a little blurb on her blog- or didn't take a picture at all, but wrote a little something about his walk along the water... or maybe he didn't write about the art project per se, but instead was inspired to paint something himself and then post that picture online... which sparked someone else's commentary on some other site... do you see what I mean? We're never just watching kids scream at gnomes. We're participating in this viral experience of the world. Every time we click, we're taking part in a massive social experiment to see if we can take it all in... all this information, all this experience.

When those rebels suddenly abandoned their paintbrushes and paints that day on the pier, did they think that someone might come along and snap a digital picture of their stuff and then write a blog entry about it? I don't know. But here it is, for the world to see and read about. It seems like that IS something you need to consider whenever you do ANYthing these days. Remember when you could just plant a garden or decorate your room or cut the sleeves off your shirt and that was that? Nowadays, the impulse to DO is inextricably linked to the compulsion to document it all.

It all screams of our very human need to seen and heard, doesn't it? Makes you want to add another thing to HomoSapiens grocery list of fundamental needs...

-Food
-Shelter
-Someone to notice me because i saw some stuff and talked about it

It seems like, at least here in the States, that since we've fulfilled our "manifest destiny" to inhabit every stinkin' corner of this country, the next thing on the cosmic to-do list is to have an opinion about everything. And to let everyone know what it is. So, instead of physically occupying every bit of land coast to coast, we now intellectually inhabit it. All of it.

What I'm curious about is the math on all this. I mean, there's only a tiny portion of the world's population that has access to the Internet, right? So, is there some sort of logarithm that states that as we learn more about each other, and as more people gain access to the Internet, the world gets smaller and more knowable? That if we keep sharing exponentially our experiences of the world, that eventually everyone will have access to the experiences of anyone on earth?

If that sounds like sci-fi mumbo jumbo, well, I admit, it is late... and I did just watch a video of a gnome in Argentina. Anything is possible.

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How To Rescue a Raspberry Bush

It's 10:38, people. It's March 17th. My taxes are still not filed. So here I sit, in my smells-of-livestock basement, with my laptop on my lap, my adding machine to my left, and my dayplanner to my right, and a pencil tucked behind my ear. I'm trying to calculate my mileage deduction for my federal taxes. I SHOULD be drinking green beer somewhere. Instead I'm here, freezing my ass off, inhaling the stench of chicken butts from 40 years ago, and adding 2.4, 5.6, 16.0 and so on. Yeah, I know. The cobbler's kids have no shoes, the tailor's wearing rags... and this bookkeeper's books aren't kept. And so it is.

Lucky for me, CLH is down here too, playing me the latest Cloud Cult album, his head hidden behind his gargantuan monitor. He's working. I'm working. Ah, quality time together.

This weekend, we went out to the back 40 and unearthed our raspberry bushes. This past fall, I went out there and cut the nearly hollow (read: old as hell) vines down to the ground, hoping they would make their reappearance this Spring. Well, Spring has been coming, slowly, and the vines are starting to grow. It's a bit tough for them, having to compete with waist-high grass and all. CLH and I got down on our hands and knees and ripped that grass out with our bare hands around the bases of the vines so the poor things could breathe. We couldn't use any tools to get between the plants because they are so close together and the vines so delicate. We played this game with the lawnmower afterwards. It went a little like this: we'd find a place where the grass was so tall, it was bent over and growing horizontally (you could pick out these spots because the ground would feel spongy and creepy underneath you). One of us would "comb" the grass in the opposite direction it was laying and the other would run the push mower over it. We repeated this for nearly an hour and cleared a spot about 6 feet square. Seriously. Our backyard is a lot like the Secret Garden. You have no idea what's growing out there. The former owners' mental state is the subject of much debate in our household. Sometimes, when we do things like mow the same spot of 3 foot grass for 15 minutes, we ask ourselves: Was it madness, laziness, or a combo of both that would make someone let their grass get tall enough to swallow a small dog?

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An Open Letter to Washington Mutual Bank

Dear WAMU,

Honestly. "Whoo Hoo?" That's what you came up with for your newest ad campaign? Have you completely lost your minds? Been reading the latest self help book about how the most obvious thing is usually the best answer and you took the first chimpanzee noise you heard your kid make and labeled it pure genius? Because it's not. This is not even close to bad. This is lazy. The worst. I suppose I can't blame you entirely. You hired a young, snappy marketing team, I'm sure, to help with this. Some group of extremely unimaginative but extremely well dressed men and women with artistic glasses and blocky jewelry. They probably took a look at your monkey language scribblings and rubbed their chins thoughtfully and nodded to one another slowly and made you feel really important and smart for an hour. I would have been taken in too. I watch TV. I know how enchanting the well dressed can be. Especially if they smell good and shake your hand, and say words like "move forward" and "branding" and "product placement" too.

It's impossible to miss the damned billboards. I pass at least two of them on the way home from work. Which is, I'm sure, exactly what the well dressed people in the artistic glasses, and you, wanted. I know enough about advertising to know that McDonald's doesn't make the best burgers ...but they do have enough real estate such that at the moment you get hungry on the road, you are never more than five minutes from a McDonald's. And you are reminded of that fact with a 40 foot McWhatever-It-Is plastered onto a billboard every 80 feet or so. Is that what you were you're hoping to accomplish here as well? Like, maybe I would be thinking about buying some coffee on my way in to the office, but then, Whoo Hoo! I would see your sign and be overcome with unmitigated joy at banking with you so that when I got to the store I wouldn't just buy a coffee, I would buy a to-go mug and a t-shirt and a key chain as well, charging up a storm with my WAMU credit card, exclaiming Whoo Hoo! with every item I picked up like some crazy locomotive/cash register hybrid?

Try this: take the money I give you and DON'T invest it in crap like this. Take it and do something interesting and worthwhile, like that Wamoola for schools thing you started a while back. You do know we're headed towards a recession, right? That the Fed just dropped the interest rate for like the 78th time this year? That means you have less available to pay me in interest... so please don't take the very little I've decided to stick in the meager interest bearing account I have with you and waste it on giant blue and green and orange billboards that read "Whoo Hoo!".

Oh, and don't send me a form letter back. I hate those things. Take the time you were going to spend going to your My Documents folder containing "We've Read Your Letter And Are Trying Our Best To Serve You Better Letter To Complaining Customers" and hitting "print", and save it. Save the money you were going to spend on the paper and the 15 minutes it was going to take your executive assistant to prepare an envelope and hand it to the mail guy... and just meditate for a moment. Think about all the paper you've used making this beast. Think about the money I've trusted you with. My money. The money I work very hard for.

Think about all the nonsense out there you and I have to stomach every single day. Think about the visual bombardment, the cacophony of noise you and I have to endure just to buy a t-shirt, or pay our phone bill online. Think of the pop-up ads, the junk email, the telemarketers, the guy standing out there on the sidewalk wearing a "Liquidation Sale Today!" sandwich-board sign on his body and waving laconically at you. Think about how much junk mail you throw into the garbage every day. There's a lot of "stuff" out there already. Did WAMU really feel like it needed to join the fray?

Here's something else: Think about how much energy and toxic chemistry it takes to manufacture an adhesive strong enough to hold a polymer to a piece of plywood in 20 mph gusts of wind. Think about the electricity it takes to light a sign all day and all night. Think about how many landfills are already full of the latest and greatest cool billboards approved of by well dressed people in artistic glasses. Think about how much waste and noise you've just put out there in the world to promote, not a money saving tool, or a loan product, but a catch phrase having nothing to do with banking.

Now think of the opposite of all that. Think about a clear view of the mountains in our state, unimpeded by big orange signs. Think about our water unpolluted with manufacturing waste runoff. Think about being able to offer your customers more than catch phrases. Think of the opportunity you have in this country, what with the sub-prime mortgage crisis and all, to help people save money and stay in their homes. Think about the money you've just saved by being a more responsible, environmentally friendly, and consumer-conscious bank. Makes ya want to say, Whoo Hoo, doesn't it?

Yours Truly,
A Loyal Customer

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Spoetry

America, this is what I'm talking about. This is what we're not allowed to say on TV or on the radio, but this is the kind of thing that IS allowed into my junk mail box.

These are subject lines taken directly, without alteration, from my junkmail box. I think I'll call this one "Why Power Tools and Weapons Belong Outside And Not In The Bedroom".

Why be a tiny cocktail sausage when you can be a mighty weiner?

Blow her away with your giant weapon.

Be a winner with the ladies with a huge lovestick.

Make her cry in pleasure when you enter her deep and full

Lengthen your male aggregate length and girls will love you promptly.

It's time to bring your good willy hunting.

Change your garden tool into a POWER TOOL.

Increase your male aggregate and you will sex giant.

It is greater than the oscar there will be blood
Armed with our rods, we thrust forwards.

FIN.

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An Update on The House and Why I Should Never Be Allowed To Touch Appliances

CLH did something very special today. He wired an electrical outlet onto its own circuit. I don't even know if I've said that correctly, but it was incredibly impressive to me to see. Yesterday the basement was a black smelly void and today it's a well-lit smelly office space. Being deathly afraid of electricity, I avoid the remodeling tasks that involve electricity. Move furniture, paint rooms, tear down molding, hang curtains, change light bulbs, haul trash, build garden, mow grass, polish floors, yes. Touch the wiring? No freakin' way.

The last run-in I had with do-it-yourself wiring involved a puff of black smoke, a clapping noise, and a temporary power outage in the office. I was there on a Saturday. That should give you a good indication of where my head was to begin with. I had just taken the job in the front office and, since we were switching over as a company to computers from typewriters and carbon paper, i thought I would usher in some newness of my own by painting and redecorating my office. There was one giant problem: the walls were covered with bulky sliding door cabinetry from the '70s. I can't quite remember the color of the things. It was something in between steel gray and failure. Anyhow, I called a friend to come with me to the office so she could help out with the removal of these cabinets around my desk. She was a good friend.

It seemed simple enough: just unscrew one end and then the other, having helper hold the end not being worked on with screwdriver. The unscrewing was easy. It was the little flourescent light that threw me for a loop. I'd forgotten that little sucker was mounted underneath the cabinets. (Sidebar: now that i am thinking about it, this was the second office I worked in the late nineties/early 00's that had these revolting cabinets on the walls. What was it with me and a) missing the dot-com boom, and b) working with people who liked working on the set of the Mary Tyler Moore show?) Anywho, the light. I'd forgotten he was up there. And he was up there GOOD. Mounted to the underside of the cabinets (needed another sized screwdriver to de-barnacle the cabinet) and then hardwired into the wall. Hardwired. No little cord running to an outlet. When these people said "seventies", they'd meant it.

Well, I knew that the little guy wasn't getting replaced, and I wasn't going to be plugging in anything else at 4 and 3/5 feet off the floor, so I just yanked the wires from the fixture and let them hang out of the little holes in the walls. One of the wires had a little (orange, was it?) cap hanging from the end of it. The other didn't.

But now I had these hang-y cords coming out of the wall. Definitely not part of the redecorating plan. I had to do something with them, and I just figured I could ask one of the shop guys on Monday to just clip 'em... so i did what any idiot with compulsive tendencies toward order and who knows nothing about electricity would do: i shoved the one cord into the cap with the other cord.

Enter the smoke and the flash and the comment, "So THAT'S what burned flesh smells like..." I don't know what we did, exactly, or what actually happened after the BANG noise, i just know that on Monday, my computer and my phone had both lost power, and, when asked about it, i just shrugged and backed up nervously to block with my body the black soot stain on the wall.

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A madcap recap

It's the last day of January. For bookkeepers in the US, it's New Year's Eve. In four minutes, it's all over. Anything i file after this day is late, and oh-freakin'-well.

I'm exhausted. I'm a list maker.

1. I shaved my head recently. Not bald. Just shorn. I've received several semi-uncomfortable extra-long looks from male clients who, judging from the way their mouths curled into devious smiles, were grappling with whether or not they should tell me aloud how sexy they thought it was. Several have. Some have asked to rub my head. I've let them.
2. I turned 31 and spent my birthday at a spa. I think I actually sweat out every last drop of fluid i had drunk in the last 6 months and replaced with fresh water. It was a thoroughly cleansing and remarkable experience.
3. I have been working 12 hour days for almost 20 days straight.
4. I want to live on a sailboat. I'm guessing it'll be in 2 to 5 years from now. I want to sail around the world, too, but that might be because i don't know how it feels to be pummeled inside the tiny hull of a boat by a twenty foot wave. I have never sailed before. I am slightly phobic of water.
5. I'm reading "Island" by Aldous Huxley and I'm amazed at how timely it is, even now.
6. I'm moved by how emotional people are getting about the upcoming presidential election. I wonder how many people will turn out for the vote. The current president is still an idiot.
7. I'm currently doing books for a family that is going bankrupt and might have to sell their house to pay off their debt, and another individual who is battling for custody of his kids, and everything he's got. I am working on setting emotional boundaries and it is difficult.
8. I call my brother daily. He was involved in a bad car accident in December and had to have part of his face reconstructed surgically. Getting injured in America without insurance is a terrible and unjust thing. I often wonder how a country that won't provide health care services for all its citizens thinks it's qualified to teach the rest of the world about democracy and freedom.
9. The sub-prime crisis has hit home. My home equity line of credit was frozen two days ago. I also wonder how a country that allows its citizens to be dispossessed of their houses because of a failure to mandatorily educate them about the predatory practices of its economic system thinks it has a right to label who is a terrorist and who is not.
10. It's February. Hallelujah.

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Everything Is On the Internets

CLH just sent a virtual hug to his brother via Facebook. I don't know why that bothers me so much, but it does a little.

We just found a picture of a friend of ours featured prominently (and nakedly) on Wikipedia under the term "Naked Cyclists". I am guilty of looking at pictures of old classmates online like I would look at a car crash: one eye closed to shut out the horror, the other open in morbid curiosity. People have found me, too. I'm creeped out by it every time. "Hey, is this the same Lauren that did so and so back in '89?" Eeeeeeesh. It's weird being found. I never think anyone's looking for me. But they are. Think about how often people are googling your name. Lots of people have googled me and it's weird that I can be found so easily. And with such a random attachment of stuff to my name. I write poetry. I sometimes update this blog. There's another one of me in California, somewhere, and she's an actress. Here are other things that you won't know by googling me, but should, if you are to really know me:

I like popcorn. A lot. I make it the old fashioned way: in a pot with oil.
I have completed several jigsaw puzzles with over 3,000 pieces.
I like to make art out of junk.

I have a client whose employees google just about every customer who contacts them. Just out of curiosity, they say. Y'know, for fun. There's a link to almost all of us out there somewhere. Isn't that odd? Isn't it weird that someone knows your shopping habits? Can track your credit card purchases? Knows your cell phone calls? I'm not talking in my conspiracy theorist voice, either. I'm talking in my David Byrne, "Isn't Technology Weird and Wonderful?" voice. There's a trail of ones and zeros behind all of us, stuck like toilet paper to the soles of our shoes and we track that stuff around everywhere we go and we can't shake it loose. Some program, right now, is plotting to put ads along the side of my email homepage based on the words on my screen. Some program, right now, is pumping out hundreds of junk emails to be sent to me because I am an identity that is a series of numbers and letters that most of the world can access if they just put those numbers and letters together in the right sequence. Who was I before I had a data trail?

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Thumbprints for Christmas

It's close to midnight and I sliding my 40th or so sheet of cookies into the oven. While I typically shun all things mainstream, I am a total sucker for tradition, including baking my mom's Betty Crocker recipe cookies for Christmas. They're made with the three basic ingredients that are almost like swear words around my house: butter, sugar, and wheat flour. My digestive system backs up from too much wheat in my diet, CLH doesn't eat sugar anymore (and has dropped thirty pounds since), and butter is... well, butter is no one's enemy. Yet.

I make the same cookies every year: chocolate chip, peanut butter, Spritz, Russian Tea Cakes (which my family calls "snowballs"), oatmeal raisin, candy canes, and thumbprints. The thumbprints are a family favorite. But this year, the recipe didn't quite live up to its former magic.

I'm not sure what the issue was exactly. I'm pretty sure I put in all the ingredients (although, i quadrupled the recipe, and i may have lost count of the cups of flour in there somewhere). The batch should have yielded 12 dozen, or 144 cookies. I got only 113 cookies out of it. I don't see how I could have lost almost three dozen cookies in that whole mess, but, apparently, I'm not the only one with a missing cookie issue. Thank goodness for the Internet. Who did I bitch to before this thing was invented?

Now, the original recipe I learned to make these cookies with resides on an oil stained, dog eared, high gloss page in the Betty Crocker cookbook, publication circa 1966 or so. It lives in my mom's house somewhere... though when I called over there years ago to collect the recipe, no one could find the book. It often goes missing and then reappears like some kind of magical prop. Well, since I had no access to the book, I had to look up the recipe online. And there it was at bettycrocker.com. I've made them for several years now, and, since I only make them once a year, I forget what a blatant lie the recipe is. The cookies taste great, but the yield measurement is WAY off, AND, the depression you make in each cookie RISES to meet the sides of the cookie so the whole "thumbprint" effect is rendered null and void.

My recipe was printed from the website, and i noticed on my (oil stained, dog eared) sheet of paper that there's a link that didn't quite get all the way printed called "Betty's tips". Thinking i had missed a critical clue to making these all these years, I headed over to the computer to log back in to Ms. Crocker's site. No tips to be found, but I did find a really angry (and therefore hilarious to me) review of the recipe posted by another Betty fan. The reviewer said the recipe didn't work because "There is not enough ingredients". I couldn't agree more, reviewer. I might disagree with your grammar, but I totally agree that the tiny bit of flour and sugar they told you to put in the bowl will not, no matter how you slice it, yield three dozen cookies. </p>

I'm a little bleary eyed right now. I've filled most of the lidded receptacles in the house with cookies. I even used the salad spinner bowl. Tomorrow, I start crafting the gifts. Better get to bed so I can get up early and do that. You've been warned about the thumbprints.
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Down the Slide of The Bell Curve

Listen.

There's a You Tube video going around featuring some pretty young thing from the South on the game show "Are you Smarter Than A Fifth Grader" grappling with the question of whether or not Europe is a country. She doesn't know if France is a country or not. She has never heard of Budapest, the country capital she is being asked about, nor Hungary, the answer. The worst thing about this is not that she doesn't know (I concede that there are probably questions on that show I wouldn't know either); it's that she's unaffected about not knowing. She boldly announces, as if it is pretty common to not know if Europe is a country or not, that she has no idea. She screws up her face and says the word Hungary like the answer to the question was as unexpected and obscure as "cat doo doo" would have been.

Here's something else: I heard on the news recently that we are trailing quite a few countries in our childhood literacy rates. Amazing, huh? With all this blogging and texting, we don't appear to be able to read and comprehend any better. I don't have the numbers, but it appears that girls fare much better in the literacy category all around. US girls carry the US over other countries only because our girls' reading levels are higher than average. And I just read something the other day about Ian McKewan handing out novels, in a little social experiment, to eager and excited women in London while the men turned up their noses in suspicion.

Why am I posting this? I'll tell you. It's one part confession, and one part record keeping. It's a little self aggrandizing and probably smacks of "I Told You So", but I'll say it anyway. When the shish hits the fan, and it will, I want the world to know I was a witness.

I was there when gas prices crept up from record lows to record highs. I was there when people complained and talked about the magical boycott of the big oil companies that would happen if it ever reached such and such a price. It never did.

I was there when children shot other children in their schools and we blamed things like music and the Internet for their disturbing behavior. I was there when we called the victims heroes and installed police officers and metal detectors in our learning institutions.

I was there when our junk mail folders were filled for ads for male enhancement drugs but we couldn't say "fuck" over the airwaves. I was there when we banned insurance coverage for women's contraceptives, and bombed abortion clinics. I was there when gays were not given the same civil rights as heterosexuals.

I was there when our magazines were filled with ads for plastic surgeons and we hated ourselves and each other so much, we cut off pieces of our bodies and filled them with agents to plump and distort them so often, we considered this normal and created TV shows around it.

I was there when one in three women had been sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. One in three. One in three. One in three. One in three. Our mothers, our sisters, our lovers. One in three. One in three. One in three.

I was there when big box stores replaced independently owned stores and these stores became the places where most people shopped most of the time. I was there when people loved their low low prices but did not understand where their jobs and their sense of community had gone.

I was there when we launched a campaign to crack down on illegal immigration and people installed themselves on the borders of our country to shoot at people trying to get in. I was there when the idea was tossed around to build a wall, a security fence, around our country.

I was there when we were told that a terrorist threat was imminent. I was there for the imprisonment of people without charges at Guantanamo.

I was there when people went bankrupt paying for medical bills and insurance could not be provided for free for all from taxpayers' dollars. I was there when insurance rates went up every few years while the insurance companies cited reasons like "more diabetes". I was there when energy drinks, packed full of caffeine and high fructose corn syrup, were available in every convenience store. I was there when we took our kids to coffeeshops and allowed them to drink "coffee drinks" in plastic cups. I was there when we threw these cups away, at a rate of thousands per day, into the garbage. I was there when we still couldn't decide what to do about global warming.

I was there and watched it all happen. I took notes. I smelled our demise coming. I felt hopeless. I felt I had to survive. I slid down the slope of the bell curve knowing what was at the bottom and I went anyway.

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My metal heartbeat

Lately I've taken to pounding out letters to my two brothers on my old Royal typewriter. I happened upon the thing in vintage clothing store (which also stocks old typewriters and typewriter-themed clothing. Odd. And perfect.) I have been longing to replace the one from my youth for years now. (It suffered the scourge of one of mom's manic cleaning frenzies back in the day. Probably wound up on the sidewalk next to the trash can, which was fitting, since that's where my grandfather found it several years prior when he decided to take it home and restore it). I don't think this model is exactly the same. I remember ours being slightly darker in color, but it's nearly a dead ringer. Apparently, gray was THE color to make these suckers out of back in the day, and I have come across varying shades in my travels. This one most closely resembles the gun metal gray of my childhood typewriter. I remember, too, that ours had a case that fit over it. It was made of the same steel the typewriter was made of. The whole thing must have weight 30 pounds or so. It could have herniated our backs several times over, but that didn't stop my brother and I from moving it around the house when we were kids.

I've been searching the Internet for the past hour for images of Royal typewriters. The one I own now is the KMG model (i think). The M in the middle stands for "Magic Margin", a feature which is not so much "magic" as a series of levers and release buttons that allow you set up and then remove a few margins along the length of the roller. Ah, the 40's... a time when machinery that outperformed your expectations was dubbed "magic".

I wasn't sure, when I first bought this KMG model, that I was actually going to use it. I thought I might shove it on a wide plant stand and stick it in the hallway for passersby to leave quirky messages on... but, on a whim one night, I took of its dust cover, and started to pound out a letter.

I'm beginning to fall in love with typing on the thing. I can't type at my normal clip because the hammers get jammed. Instead, I have to be very deliberate with each depression. I have to make sure the hammer has slapped the roller with an "a" before I pound down the "b". It takes quite the effort to get a rhythm going, but once I do...it's the sweetest sound in the world. It drowns out all other noise. I become consumed. It's a wonderful break, too, from a plastic keyboard. By comparison, I am lazy and slack-wristed on the keyboard. The delete key is so handy, sloppiness is always an option. But on the typewriter, because I don't have the special white correction ribbon, sloppiness is not an option. Which is refreshing, because with the slowing down of the typing comes great intention, and with great intention comes great flow. I find that having to slow down my typing just that little bit gives my brain extra time to think of the next string of stuff. There's a slight delay between brain and hand motions, and it puts me into this strange and wonderful state of ease. It feels like the most natural thing in the world. Hands take care of last minute's thoughts while Brain and I starting setting up the next sentence. I can't express how much more relaxed and spent I feel after typing letters. It's a full body workout. I think I am beginning to understand how the great novels of the world were created on these things. It's hard not to write novels when sitting down in front of them.

So far, my brothers haven't written back. Mom thinks I'm weird for writing them using a typewriter (then again, she's the one who threw out an antique with the last week's leftovers, so I'm not going to count that comment). I'm going to keep writing them. Even if they never write back. At some point in the letter writing, it becomes about satiating a need to hear that thwap thwap thwap... the need to hear my writing as regular as my own heartbeat in my ears.

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Haircuts and Transplants

Oh, Glory of glories! The spider condos are gone! Removed by my own hand! (and CLH's). Carmelized then pulverized in the outdoor fire pit. Sigh.

And i thought MOWING the lawn was satisfying. Bah!

Seriously now. I don't know what the name of those suckers were (the plant books are still in boxes, and I'm not smart enough to figure out to search for a plant picture online without any good criteria), but there were COVERED in cobwebs. It was a low growing bush (when not housing a spider population) sporting tiny waxy leaves and bright orange berries. This one, however, was hardly green anymore because it was so covered in webs. The trunk was gnarled and withered. The spiders had long ago abandoned their 14 story house of filth, but their webs had all manner of decay still hanging around in them. The plant was grey, for god's sakes. Dis. Gus. Ting. Who knows if it was even alive? All I know is that the thing was creepy, it was half dead/half growing on the side of the house and it looked like hell. So, we cut it down, in the rain, and then we burned the thing.</p>

We had the fire going for several hours. We'd rented a chainsaw earlier in the day and CLH cut up the old Christmas tree and the who-knows-what-other-kinds-of-tree stumps we found in the many "refuse" piles in the yard. (By the way, lawn chairs don't compost, so don't fucking add to the piles of organic stuff, mkay?) We had a pretty sizable pile of junk wood going- weirdly shaped roots and dried out thin crispy boughs and stuff, so we got a burn pile going and lit it up. We'd burned most of the blackberries we'd wanted gone (they're noxious, but delicious, weeds here), and we were just relaxing after a long day's work, looking around the yard for other stuff to burn (the lawn chair almost made it in) when CLH remembered the spider condos. We both got a gleam in our eyes, grabbed the saw and shovel, and practically ran to the front of the house. By this time the rain was coming pretty steadily. Nothing too heavy- just enough to make all the dirt stick to our clothes. We looked like chocolate bunnies when we were done, but we didn't care. The spider condos were on their way to a fiery grave. I didn't leave the fire until every last inch of them had turned to ash.

There was something indescribably wonderful about burning all the crap that wouldn't stack in the pile. It was one part necessity, and one part ceremony. We, without adding to already stuffed compost bin we'd built, or the bulging yard waste container, got rid of the yuck, AND we rid our house of yet one more reminder of the rampant neglect that shows up everywhere here. Even plants can use a funeral pyre. Sure, we could have shoved the things into a wood chipper- but that would have seemed overly brutal and mechanical. The slow burn approach seemed a bit more ... noble (even if i WAS doing it with a little bit of sadistic glee in my heart). CLH and I transplanted some lavender and sage plants from the backyard (where they were also looking gnarled and spindly from not being trimmed) to the spot the spider condos had been. The rain came down harder later that night, so we didn't even have to water them. Now, instead of having our ankles raked by the tendrils of a dying old bush as we walk by, we will be greeted by the soothing (dare I say, therapeutic?) smells of lavender and sage. Ahhhhhh.... I feel calmer already.

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Public F*ing and The Art of Selling Out

Alright. Enough about the house already. The grass has grown back. I cut it. The library got painted yesterday. It's "coming along", people. Thanks for asking. Really. Onto bigger things.

Like public sex. Like the kind i saw yesterday on my way to an outdoor music festival. It appeared, from a distance, that a guy was rhythmically pumping one of those drop down flexible security gates, his hands above his head, clutching the rungs of the gate, his legs spread slightly, his pelvis crashing into the gate, causing it to shudder. It wasn't obvious right away, but there was a girl up against that gate. I probably wouldn't have even noticed her, had she not moved. As we passed, she reached for the hem of her denim mini skirt and tugged it down (for effect really. I mean, come on, sister. One more square inch of flesh isn't going to send anyone over the edge. You're having public sex, for chrissakes.)

Yes, the boy definitely was either stoned or drunk and his pants were about 3/4 of the way down his legs. His oversized shirt covered his backside. What was most striking was this: while they guy looked like he was enjoying himself immensely, the girl looked embarrassed and maybe a little scared. She was just a touch taller than him and her head poked out just above his right shoulder. She looked right at us as we passed. Weird.

Afterwards, I thought to myself: this is the kind of thing that always happens to other people and never to me. Almost everyone I know has some sort of "i saw people doing such and such in a public place". Not me. Not ever. Do I have some instinct to avoid this stuff?

I remember a bus ride home in high school. It was my first year of high school. I was still a naive little girl, fresh from Catholic grammar school, on her her way to Catholic high school and ignorant still of the inner workings of human sexuality. Nancy P., all ninety pounds of her, leaping up on her bench seat, revealing the rolled up waistband of her her too-big plaid uniform skirt, pointing to the window and screeching and giggling that the guy in the car next to the bus had his pants around his ankles and was masturbating as he drove. We all rushed the side of the bus Nancy was sitting on, but, by the time we got there, the guy had sped off. Nancy, breathless and smiling, told us the details. He was looking up at her. He was an older guy. The car was an older model. He was hairy. I sat back down in my own seat, disappointed that a few seconds had separated me from another opportunity to glimpse into the adult world of sex and its secrets.

After a few more blocks of walking away from the kids on the street, my thoughts took a turn. Was she there by choice? Was that a rape I had just witnessed? Did i just walk away from a CRIME, stifling nervous laughter and averting my eyes? Geez. She DID look a little scared. She WAS really young. She WAS tugging her skirt down so we couldn't see her... She did look right at us. Was she saying HELP, or, Man, I am embarrassed. Hurry up, drunk boyfriend, so we can get the hell out of here. I hate that I have to think that way.

***

Earlier in the day, I sold a little piece of my soul to eBay. I'll let you know if my "cute, perky" mug (their words, not mine) makes it to Internet. I was standing in line for a smoothie when a woman with an eBay t-shirt approached me and asked if i had ever sold or bought anything on eBay. Turns out, i had just sold my Simpsons figurine collection to a Canadian via CLH's eBay account. Made a cool $600 (i bought the damn things for almost $1200.00 seven years ago, so you could call that a really sound investment). I told the lady with the t-shirt the story and she called over her producer. I repeated the story to him. It wasn't much really- just that we had made all this money on the eve of moving into the house, and that, when all was said and done, I had essentially used that cash to pay my first mortgage payment. That, and after frantically wrapping up more than one hundred figurines after 51 simultaneous auctions on the eve of moving day, we moved with something like 12 less huge boxes. They ate it up (i think they ate up more that i was "cute and perky", "had great energy", and that i was wearing my hair in pigtails. I was asked three times if i was over 21 years old). So, i may be an eBay spokesperson soon enough. Here's the thing i took away from that: I am frighteningly good at taking direction. The producer made me do three takes, and by the third take, I was a 12 year old, telling the story in an almost-falsetto about my dolls that i sold on eBay and how thrilled i was that eBay was able (with a dramatic wipe of brow with back of hand) to help me make my payment just in the nick of time! Scary, huh? From jaded to juvenile in three takes. Who knew?

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A Conqueror and afeared to speak

That was the subject line of a junk email I received.

Having cut the grass yesterday, I sort of feel like the Conqueror of the Back 40 (that's what we're calling it these days: the vast, untamed expanse of a backyard we "own".) I also feel like there is so much to say about this place that I am a little intimidated about what to report. I'll start with the lawn and work from there.

A year ago (hell, three weeks ago!) I didn't understand what it was to cut your own grass. Power tools? For the birds. Definitely not for me. But, we bought this lawnmower at a neighbor's garage sale the DAY we moved in. We weren't quite sure how to start the thing, so we had to go back and learn the trick from the neighbor. Sure enough, it started, and its low hum was probably the most satisfying song i'd heard in a great while.

CLH and I did the front the next weekend. If I wasn't feeling like a suburbanite before, I was feeling it then. When I was finished, I stepped back, wiped the sweat from my brow, and admired my handiwork. The dandelions had been leveled. So, it wasn't so much a "lawn"mower as it was a "weed"mower. Nonetheless, it provided the illusion that I could manage the stuff growing in my front yard, even if for just a short time, and NOTHING beats the smell of fresh cut grass on a hot summer day. The interior of the house was such a freakshow... so, having just 10 square feet of order and simplicity felt hugely satisfying.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day rubbing my hands together mad-scientist-style in anticipation of mowing the BACK yard. Comparatively, the backyard is 6 or 7 times as big as the front... and even though I knew I'd only be able to get to one sixth of it last night, it was exciting. In some parts, the marshmallow (flowers) had to be trimmed before I could even get the mower over the grass. The lawnmower choked over most of the grass under the fruit trees. It was probably no less than a foot tall. A foot. I tried to recall the lawnmowing lessons of my perfectionist father- cut in even, symmetrical swaths, go over what you've cut, and incorporate just a few inches of the next swath on your next pass, continue like this to make sure you get everything... tilt the mower back on its back wheels and lower it onto the tall stuff, should you encounter it. Of course, my father never let our grass get a foot tall. It never was more than 2.25 inches long on any given Saturday afternoon. Towards the end of the night, as the sun was setting, I started to throw the rules out the window and was pushing that thing around like it was a vacuum and I was a crazed housewife expecting the inlaws in exactly three minutes.

There is so much more to do... but at least we can walk under the fruit trees and not have to wonder what on earth is tugging at our ankles. I must have found a dozen or more peaches underneath our peach tree IN the tall grass. This was in addition to the ones i found ON the tall grass. The previous homeowners said the peach tree wouldn't bear much fruit and that the fruit wasn't very tasty. We have found the exact opposite to be true. CLH and I picked about 10+ pounds of peaches a few days ago and they were delicious. My housemate and I skinned and cut them up last night and stuck them in a freezer bag for future smoothie making.

That's another thing: peaches. In my mind, they are reserved for the southern plantation. Any literature I have even encountered around peaches usually details lazy summer afternoons in the deep south, the cicadas buzzing... and now they grow right in my backyard. It's surreal to me. The cherries in my former backyard I could handle. Cherries are the pride of this state for a few short weeks in the spring/early summer. But, peaches? Peaches, too.

The Italian plum tree is so laden with fruit, there are more plums than leaves. I cannot wait to pick those suckers and turn them into prunes.

The apple tree is nearly 40-50 feet tall. I know, i know. Apple trees are not supposed to be that tall. But, when you've seen the rest of the house and the other forms of neglect it has suffered, you will understand how a fruit bearing tree gets to be 40 feet tall. We can't even see the fruit at the top of the tree. You wouldn't even know it's a fruit tree save for the beautiful, perfectly round deep red apples it drops underneath it every few days.

So much to do... I'll try to update this thing more regularly. And, I'll also try to avoid making this house the subject of every entry. It's a slippery slope...now that you know about the lawn, you're going to want to know about the kitchen and the bathroom. Camp bathroom. That's what we call it. The reason? Another time.

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This is not my beautiful wife…

So, i bought a house.

Hmmm.. That should probably be accompanied by more fanfare.

I bought a house!

Even that looks odd.

I just bought my FIRST house!! WOW!!

The "wow" might have been over the top, but I'll live with it.

It's an old farmhouse. It's in the suburbs. I live in the suburbs. It's a jagged pill to swallow, having lived in major cities most of my life. It's not quiet either or peaceful either. I live in a flight path, bordered by a highway. So, when the roar from the planes dies down, the roar of the traffic takes over.

I'll have more to write later; I am overwhelmed with having to add a commute to my morning time, with having to pack my life on my back to head into the city for the day. I'm trying to avoid words like "transition" and "life change", so it might take some finessing. There is so much to tell.

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Intertubes and Balanga

So, in talking with a friend tonight, I learned that one should never publish original work in her blog. Who knew? Who knew that someone might be so stupid, so devoid of creativity as to actually lift something from someone’s blog and call it their own! I mean, I’m embarrassed enough to be publishing my own small thoughts... I can’t imagine publishing someone else’s and calling them my own.

I’m still conflicted over the whole notion of having to update this thing regularly. That’s probably obvious by now.

Here is what I know:

This week, I had to stand in the back of a crowded courtroom and watch one of my clients testify before a judge that he was a fit enough father to his two young sons so that he might win custody of them. Before he stood at the cheap wooden podium, his sweaty lawyer at his side, he taped a paper doll cutout to its side. There were three dolls. The one in the middle was my client. The dolls flanking him were his sons. I knew this because they were labeled in a child’s handwriting. The middle one read “DADDY”.

This week, I had to tell other clients of mine that I would be leaving them because I’d just bought a house and the commute was going to be too long and the workload not enough. I was expecting a congratulations or two for the house purchase... but not knitted brows and looks of sheer panic, the-don’t-leave-me-please-i-can’t-do-this-by-myself look. I didn’t give myself a whole lot of time to sit with the feeling of being needed. I am needed. Somewhere out there, people need me. They don’t tell me regularly. But they need me. It is an odd feeling to be reminded so suddenly that I am so needed. Everyone is needed in this same way. Somewhere out there, someone needs you.

This week, I got another horrible sinus infection and had to spend most of July 4th resting. I read The Poisonwood Bible in about two and a half days. What an amazing read. Africa. Poor, poor Africa. What haven’t we done to you? Africa calls to me and repels me at the same time. The idea that there I share a planet with microorganisms that eat away at the membranes of the human body makes me appreciate the balance of it all, that a millimeter or three of porous material holds my insides in, and the atmosphere over our heads.

I can’t even really articulate right now what it is I want to say about all this. In general, I’m still ruminating on the theme of feeling purposeful on earth. My mind fixates on endtimes... and not because of any religious proclivities. Maybe I have been reading too much Jared Diamond, or listening to too much public radio... but it’s all very clear in my mind, more clear than most thoughts I have in a day, how this all goes. I live in a wealthy country that can’t stay wealthy forever. I watch as standards change, as I am being governed by a patriarchy of scared old men who make frequent and hollow public statements. I am watching security tighten, fears rise. I find my hope dissolves a little more every day when I hear that a little girl in Egypt has died of a botched female circumcision, or that we are in the middle of a mass extinction right now, the fastest one the earth has ever known. The Holy Roman Empire is in the valley below me, and I feel one part Chicken Little, and one part soothsayer, a history book in the one hand, and a notion to go run in the sprinklers in the other. I keep telling myself that when the year rolls over and a new president is elected, my hope will be restored. Even I know better than to entrust my precious hope to one man. But I need something to hold onto. Until I find it in myself- until I go to the place inside where my science melts into faith, and my doubt turns over into hope for the future, the infinitesimal spot where life begins inside me, I look for it all on the outside. I am morbidly fascinated by the shipwreck, observing it from the shore, praying I had nothing to do with it, wondering what it means that I escaped.

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Spinnet Circa 2003

3/11/04

It’s 9-11, isn’t it? You want me to write about it. Don’t you? Or maybe you are trying to tell me that’s the answer to the question of time I keep asking. It’s when it all began, or ended. That was the beginning of this… this period. This pupating, this time when nothing makes sense, when everything gets to get in. Every little thing I see, I hear, I taste, I touch, it all gets an apartment in my heart. I have no choice in the matter. It all gets to go in. And it all changes everything. Everything shifts and changes, like the interior of a lava lamp, all moving, all shifting. It never rests, and the same pattern never forms twice. There is nothing that can happen to me now that won’t affect me immediately. Everything must be thought of- every little thing, from the crushing of a bug in my kitchen, to what socks I wear and where I do my job. It’s more than a Zen exercise in mindfulness. It is a permanent change in my chemistry. It is the new standard. It is a painful new consciousness. It doesn’t fit me yet. I am piling on the new without having finished shedding the old. I am still tender underneath, having just shaken off the first half of my life. While scabs were still forming, this new awakening happened, and all the information I now posses just clamped itself to my body, stuck like barnacles. I cannot shake it, shake them. It is too much work to remove them, and too heavy to move with them. I am stuck. I am immobile. I am waiting. For what, I don’t know.

I am changing all the time now. I thought this would be the time when things settle and clarity comes with me wherever I go. Instead, every new thing I learn becomes a part of me. Instead of feeling adult and confident, I feel baby deer, unsteady on my legs, nervous, aware that I am prey, my life body fragile, my life short.

It is not liberating, though I have a feeling that is coming. It is gut wrenching and full of heartache, this time. It is full of indecision, and fear. It’s got me wondering all the time, and questioning… this is not comfortable.

I demand of myself that I be happy all the time. That everything be certain. I am always so surprised and hurt when things are neither way. I do not know what to do to pull myself out of this. All I know is that every time I look at the clock, it says 9:11.

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Into the Ether, Out of Mind

I've got "Comfortably Numb" echoing in my head: "Hello... is anybody IN there? Just nod if you can hear me"...

I never intended for this to be the place I post my feelings IN PLACE of expressing them aloud...

Frankly, I was pretty turned off to the idea of even having this blog for a long time. I knew exactly what would happen. I'd come here instead of to my friends to bitch and moan, to get something off my chest, to wax poetic about politics and brain tumors and the like... Something about the laws of energy just don't allow me to tell the same story twice with the same amount of gusto each time. It's either here, or in person... and the cycle is a nasty one; the more I do it here, the more I do it here.

And I think it's happening. I'm coming here more. And I'm not happy about it. And I'm concerned that I live two lives: one here and one out there. Is this what happens when one converts their innermost lives into public content? If it is, then I'm going to have to stop with the Deep Thoughts, and trim this back to funny anecdotes about buying jeans. Because I don't like the idea that I'm unreadable in real life and knowable here and only here. I don't like the idea that everyone is talking to my face and having a meta-conversation with the space just slightly above my head. "Oh yeah? Really? That's not what your blog said. I KNOW what your blog said and you're actually pretty upset right now".

I feel like I've got to refer back to this thing all the time, and it gets tiresome, frankly.

And I'm also tired of everyone asking me if i've read their blog. No, I haven't. And I haven't updated this one, so stop asking. And I have a life to live, and a paper journal to fill, where most of my writing goes. If you want to know, ask. And if you want me to know YOU, tell me. Is this what the age of information has done to us? Made us all foamy at the mouth with the thrill of thinking someone has seen us online, that we've connected to another human being in Ohio somewhere in some significant way, that we don't actually put any effort into actual face time with people? And we brush it off by saying, "Well, I blogged about it, so..."

There must be a law of equilibrium out there with this kind of thing. As in: for every blog writer who doesn't read blogs, there are three blog readers who don't blog. I am the non-reading type. Is it right to presume SOMEone is reading this? And that my karmic debt to read (and care about it) is cancelled because I am providing something for others to read?

Here's the thing about it all: for me, up until the moment I started this thing, the Internet was just a giant encyclopedia. If I wanted to find out when to plant my corn, what the difference between accrual and cash method accounting was, or who was playing the club on Saturday.... I'd just hop on the web. Now it's become a place I can be found. And I either need to get used to the celebrity, (however minor), or throw in the online writing towel.

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The Sound of a Zillion Crickets Chirping

That's how one online article described the experience of tinnitus. "The sound of a zillion crickets chirping." It also said that some folks describe the ringing in their ears as a loud roar. Mine sounds like those hearing test tones from my childhood. Sometimes high tones, sometimes low tones. Always comes in low at first, then finishes loud. Lasts about 6 or 7 seconds. Ironic, no? My hearing loss sounds like the test used to determine hearing loss.

Ridiculous, too, I suppose, that i would find poetry in having tinnitus.

I can remember when, as a child, i told my mother and her friend (who was a nurse) that I could hear these "sounds" in my ears. When I asked my mom's friend what it meant when people heard these sounds (I presumed everyone could hear these tones...), she exchanged this look with my mom, and, smirking, she said it meant "my body was working properly". I eventually invented my own mythology around it, believing that when my ears rang, it meant my grandmother was thinking of me, or that it was an opportunity to be extra aware of my environment. When she passed, i kept the myth going, thinking that she was sending out these vibrational tones from beyond the grave to make me think of her and give me pause for observation. As an adult, I've I've come to associate it still as an "alarm" of sorts... When the ringing starts, I try to take a breath, slow down whatever I'm doing, and notice where I am in my life. Even though I know tinnitus is actually a slow road to permanent hearing loss and not "my body working properly", I appreciate it in a way. I have a built-in meditation bell in my head, set to random, for the rest of my life.

Lately, though, it's taken on a slightly more ominous meaning: Meniere's Disease. It started with periodic bouts of nausea and slight dizziness, fatigue, irritability, and a general feeling of not being able to concentrate. Last week I found myself in the stairway of a parking garage downtown thinking that if I passed out from the nausea I was feeling, no one would find my body for some time...

I finally was able to see a doctor about it, and now I have three very scary sounding tests scheduled: an ECOG, an ENG, and an MRI. The doctor wants to make sure it's just my inner ear that's "grumpy" (her word, not mine), and not some festering tumor pushing on my brain.

I've been thinking about this whole brain tumor thing for a while now. I started to think of it when the nausea and pressure in my head started to get really bad. I've always had this vision of writing a novel in a hospital bed. Something about being forced into a simplified, regimented schedule was going to eek this book out of me. How incredibly self indulgent and theatrical. I think it's right up there with writing my own eulogies.

I asked a coworker today if he'd ever had an MRI. (Note: not the best opener for conversation with casual acquaintances). When I told him I was going to have one to rule out the possibility of having some mass growing under my skull, his eyes opened up wide and he searched for words... there were none, of course. Only the patients are allowed to be so flip about their own diagnoses. The rest of the population is supposed to struggle with their responses, supposed to make the appropriate cooing noises that indicate sympathy and understanding, but then elbow you right back in the ribs when you make light of having a potentially life threatening disorder.

And it occurs to me that being able to say you have something like Meniere's Disease sounds so official and defining, especially to someone like me who sort of does the same damn thing day in and day out and doesn't really have much else to talk about. It's given me something new to answer "So, how are you?" with. It occurs to me that in a country like ours, financially rich but physically and emotionally bankrupt, being sick can be a full time occupation, can create celebrity, can give you reason to be noticed. And I'm a little scared of that.

Not that I'm planning on having a brain tumor. Because, of course, the flip side to all of this is: the more I understand what's happening inside this tiny, tiny little nautilus shell of a structure inside my head, the more I can come to terms with what this REALLY is. Like when my menstrual cramps got so bad and I was told I probably had endometriosis... a disorder in which the uterus sheds little "mini uteri" and distributes them throughout the body so that EVERYthing hurts when you have your period. Having just moved across the country at the time (but still dragging all my emotional baggage with me), it made sense that my body was trying to tell me that migratory flight doesn't cure the thing you migrated from.

So, now I wonder what a tiny snail shell shaped structure is trying to tell me. This little infinity swirl giving me the power to hear... with water swelling deep inside it... this tiny little voice (or is it an echo of my own voice?) in my head making me nearly fall down on city sidewalks to force me to listen.... this infinitesimal lake trapped in a foreign land, angrily making its way to its source...

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El Nina on the inside

Wallowing isn’t supposed to be part of the plan, is it? I mean, we are supposed to have exit strategies built in. We’re supposed to know how to get ourselves out of our own funks... there is no just “sit and wallow in it”. Isn’t that what evolution is? Rising above the status quo and seeking your higher calling? There is no “feel the bad feelings for as long as you like...” There is productivity to attend to. There are parties to plan and baby showers to go to. I don’t have time to feel shitty about my life. I’m supposed to DO something about it. But I can’t right now. There. I just reinforced the neural network that allows that thought to manifest. See? This is what it is to be human. To understand the interchange of chemicals that is depression, but to still feel powerless against it. To know I can perhaps do something to change this, but to not do it anyway. To pace the cage like a restless lion... and to know God is calling too.

Community. I’m supposed to reach out to my community. That’s what community is for, right? You lean on your peeps when the going gets rough. What if you are so ashamed of your own negative thoughts you don’t want to tell anyone about them?

This has a lot to do with my feelings about gratefulness. I’ve thought about what it would mean to leave all this, this hard work and reward and this small empire of success I have built. It would look like dumping a good thing, it would look like dumping a boyfriend that’s loyal and kind and madly in love with me. Or kicking the dog. That’s what this is. It’s about being so grateful that things have worked out that I am afraid to leave it. Of course, the deeper fear is this: that I will never again be able to create this. Every morning I wake up and the first thing that pops into my head is “is this what you really want to do today?” I have not had a leap-out-of-bed moment in a long time.

I could be a writer. That means I would have to write something. That means I would have to pick something to write about. That means I would have to weed out all the bullshit complaining and have some hope about something. People don’t want to hear about complaining. They want hope. They want transformation. They want babies and futures and dreams. That’s why I never won any writing contests in high school. I didn’t have hope. Not a lick. I saw the world one way and that was that. It was bleak. It was frank. It was honest. It was semi-delusional. My rebellion was against hope, really. I was angry at those people who were happy. Who saw the rest of us as hopeless. Those who wanted to slug me in the shoulder and wanted to tell me that things would get better, and why didn’t I try smiling, I wanted them to know this feeling too.

I’m feeling prolific, which always means that things are roiling around inside and they need to come out. Even the crows playing with the Pringles can outside is cause for a paragraph or two. I feel like a liar. Everything is not fine. Everything is not okay. I’m not even listening to you. Know what I am worried about? That you can see right through me. That you know I’m lying. And because I am worried you can see through me, I am not even listening to what you are saying.

I always leave a bite or two of food on my plate. I never noticed until a friend pointed it out to me. Why do you do that? I don’t know. I just stop eating when I am full. But then I started to notice this scenario in all parts of my life. I give up at the end. I carry things out to about 95% completion. I used to hit home runs in gym class until the 9th inning. Then I would crack under the pressure and strike out. I know how to get most of the way there. I just don’t know the house number. I know most of the parts, just not how to finish the project. I know how to sell the thing, just not how to close the deal. I always drop off at the end. I never eat the last bites on my plate. I am afraid, aren’t I? Afraid to complete because that will mean something new and unfamiliar and ultimately scary and unknowable. I will let that shoe dangle there for eternity. Dropping means I have to find a new shoe. And what does that look like? I have no idea. It means starting something up myself. It means taking initiative. It means choosing. Where are my guides on this one? They are all shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders and telling me they don’t know. They never chose a damn thing themselves. They don’t know how to advise me. They have no idea what choice looks like. They were all servants and serving is all they know. It is the legacy they passed on.

Even my freakin' cranio-sacral therapist doesn't want to work with me anymore. Lauren, can you imagine the space? Can you imagine giving yourself that space? Letting that energetic dent in your field just find some space? No, I can't. I just want my ear to stop hurting. Here's a hundred bucks. Thanks for your time.

Okay, hope. Here's something for you.

Novel Idea #1:
Woman, at the end of her life, waiting out death in an ocean front bungalow, writes the novel of her life. Her husband of 40 some years lives with her. A stable, loyal type, he loves his wife but does not understand her. She writes about having ultimately sacrificed her dreams to be loved by someone who would be her constant companion. She becomes so engaged in writing the novel, she makes peace with her life after being able to write it all down, learning, in the end, it was her gift to be able to create a life on paper she may have been too scared to live in real life.

Novel Idea #2:

A book of short stories, all using the unbearably unimaginative subject lines from spam as the opening lines. Here's one: "Devoid asked Silicon". Authors names are the senders of said spam.

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Re-Entry

Got back from Brazil on Sunday. Yes, Brazil. No, I didn't write a damn thing while I was down there. Just a few scribbles in my journal. Just wasn't feeling the blog thing. Needed a break from the constant contact. It was all about being away from clocks and computers. It was pure bliss waking up every morning and having absolutely no idea what day it was.
Re-entry has been strange and slow. Waking up has been easy. Going to sleep has been easy. I am writing this in the half dark of the early morning, a time sacred to me because of its REM potential. (Read: if you wake me up between the hours of 6 and 9 am and I forget my dreams, death will come to you). But this morning, and every one since Sunday, has been easy, even pleasurable, to ease into. It's those hours in between the sleeping and the waking that are really hard to get used to again.

I went to the wrong client on Tuesday. Didn't really check my calendar or email and just sort of trusted from memory and a scribble somewhere that I was supposed to be North first and South second. Turns out it was supposed to be the other way around. Lucky for me, my clients are forgiving.

I can't get used to not having at least three different kinds of tropical fruit available to me at all times. Not having the blinding sun wake me up every morning or the sound of surf lull me to sleep. The air is cold here. I have to wear layers of clothing. It's Christmastime, for God's sake. People are shopping. Commercials come like machine gun fire. I can still feel the still, muggy air of the coast all around me. I can still smell the inside of the rental car, the hotel room, the smell that says "we do no live here; we need this to be clean and usable; we will make this space that smells unfamiliar and sterile our home and we will pine later on for the smell of our own kitchen, our own shampoo, our own bedsheets."

My nails have grown. That always happens on vacation. I like that.

I remembered my dream this morning. Something about carpooling too many people in a big white SUV and having to leave some people behind. Arriving at an unfamiliar grammar school, Catholic. Girls locker room... not knowing my way around.

Because we watched so much (bad) TV in Brazil, I can't really bring myself to turn ours on. Just listening to the radio is awesome.

Christmas is coming and I am feeling really torn up about it. That's probably what's making this re-entry doubly difficult. I saw my sister on the east coast during our three hour layover in Newark. It broke my heart a little. I had sworn off going back for Christmas because last year's was so traumatic (that'll be another post). And now I am feeling regret. I really want to see them all. I was feeling so brave in my stand against the drama-filled holiday. I'm not feeling so brave anymore. I miss them. Drama and all. I miss the joy of the season, which I know lives in them. I miss the effort, which, at least for my sister, is there. Of course there will be drama. It's not going to ruin my life, right? I've lived through the other 364 days of denial, drinking, neglect, and hazard. What's one more day? It's just a day, right? Just one day. Why is it packed with so much expectation? Of COURSE it's going to be traumatic. It's a holiday with a dysfunctional family, for Chrissake. What do I expect? Couldn't I have sucked it up for one more year and bought the outrageously expensive ticket and been with them for 48 hours? There is limited time on this earth to make amends with them. I feel like i have surrendered an opportunity just to prove I can. It doesn't feel very good. I want to be redeemed. I want it to go poorly. I want someone to injure themselves just so I can say I told ya so. It's not going to happen. I've got plans to stay here for Christmas with friends. I have faith it will be great. But I'm going to be thinking about them the whole time.

Detaching. Re-entering. Welcome, December.

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When Vegetarians find comfort in hamburgers

Some days, I just feel like bitching. Today was a rotten day through and through, and right now, at the end of it, at the very late end of it, there is no one home to complain to. My boyfriend/commonlaw husband/domestic partner- let’s just call him CLH for short, is in Brazil right now. He has stopped writing involved letters to me and has instead starting writing really involved blogs. So, standing here hunched over a 3,000 piece puzzle in my pajamas and Peruvian wool hat, listening to jazz and eating microwavable hamburgers for comfort... it occurs to me that if no is home to bitch to, I’m going to have to seek consolation somewhere else. The hamburger in plastic wrap was step one.

I shouldn’t even be feeling this way. It’s my job that does it to me. My clients. The problem with making a career out of being anal retentive is that when your clients aren’t, it really bugs. Why should I feel exhausted and defeated if my clients can’t get their acts together once a month? How hard is it to turn in receipts on time? How many times do I have to repeat myself about where things go? How can you leave for a vacation and not cross-train ANYONE in your office? How is it that exactly half of your whole bank statement has been entered incorrectly into your financial database? How is your response to my frustration always a pure and utter mystification that things can be this bad even though I tell you how to fix them every time I see you? Why are you still plying me with compliments about my thoroughness and loyalty when what I do IS NOT THAT COMPLICATED? HOW ARE YOU STILL IN BUSINESS?!!! I want to shout these questions to my client. I can’t give away too much about the identity if my clients. One day, though, I will. They and all their shitty bookkeeping practices will be exposed to the masses when I publish my book.

I thought about taking a relaxing bath- but, I’m sure the tub is just dirty enough to make that an experiment of human immunity. So, that’s out. I had a very small, greasy dinner and I ate it in front of the computer. The American Dream.

Kevin’s been bugging me about not updating this very often. He’s right to complain. I am crappy about the upkeep of this blog. I’ve got to let go of the notion that these entries are supposed to be tiny, perfect novellas. Forgive me, Kev.

I’m leaving in 4 days to join my CLH in Brazil. I practiced some Portuguese tonight but I quit after two lessons because my mouth hurt from trying to imitate the native speakers. I think learning Polish is much easier. I’m going to have to get by by pointing and pantomiming. I’ll be okay. I took Latin in high school and much of the written language is familiar enough to me. It’s the speaking a combo of three languages at once that is a little tricky on the grey matter. My mouth just can’t switch from the French words to the Spanish ones quickly enough. Ah... sun and more sun. It can’t come soon enough.

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Herculaneum

I spent the morning with my head cold and The Narrators. My head colds are like older relatives that come and inhabit my space for a week at a time, delaying and distracting me from my routine, leaving in their wake balled up tissues and half drunk cups of liquid and pill bottles and dried up tea bags... They visit at least four times a year and they are one part hurricane, and one part cause for watching lots of TV.

I cried listening to This American Life. I cried watching the History channel. Not good for an already stuffed sinus cavity. Maybe i just needed a good cry and a visit from Aunt Snot. What is it about being sick that makes me so emotional?

I wrote this on the couch this afternoon.

"Herculaneum"

It’s not that I am ungrateful
for modern conveniences
it’s that they give me pause
Like when I slough dead skin from my feet
with a luxury tool crafted for me
by the same forces that buried
thousands at Pompeii

water
and fire
vapor screaming through a tiny hole
the elements at work
like they have been for years
and then I have tea
I can wrap my hands
around pottery
the simple things, at least,
I imagine
don’t change much
after millennia
heat still soothes
liquid still equilibrates

it’s when I need my teeth to be especially white
or my water especially clean
that I am willing to
forego the caveman simplicities
and engage in a conscious relationship
with the castoffs of industrialization
polishing with fluoride
entertaining children with manufacturing byproducts
stuffing bras with liquid death
taking temperatures with poison

turning the dials on a machine
a Calutron Girl
never knowing how much
I am contributing to the
fabrication of the bomb
simply by being alive

never knowing how much ash
my best living is done in.

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Unsolved Mysteries

List of things done this morning:
Dreamt strange things. My sister was involved. Again
Exercised while watching a re-run of Oprah
Showered
Dressed
Watched 15 minutes of an Unsolved Mysteries, circa 1992, on Lifetime, about the Unibomber and the Zodiac Killer while brushing teeth

Has it really been ten years since Ted Kaczynski? It's been a long time since a lot of things, hasn't it? Who knew the Zodiac Killer started his killing spree in the 60's? Who knew that Kaczynski and the Zodiac Killer were, at one time, thought to be the same person? Not me. How much of my young life I am finally starting to understand some 15 years later? How much went on around me as a child that I can only now put into context?

I listened to a program on NPR last night about the conflict in the Middle East. When hostages were taken in Iran and planes being blown up and cities being carpet bombed... how could I have known what to do with this information? I am having it all re-explained to me now, as an adult, via television programs and radio broadcasts, interviews with historians and professors, retrospectives, books, articles...

Growing up while the Berlin Wall came down and planes were downed over Scotland... these events were like people. They were players whose nervous ticks and habits and missing limbs and appearances in my life other adults would explain away with cryptic assurances and smiles that indicated I would "understand when I was older". Now that I am older, I see what those assurances and simple answers were trying to protect me from.

It is amazing to have lived for so long without awareness. Not that anyone, including myself, was expecting a young girl to absorb the historical significance of anything, let alone remember what was for dinner in 1983. How incredible it is to be alive in the aftermath- to have survived to tell about anything, to have a story to tell to children that starts with "I remember when..." How amazing to be able to see history through. To remember when the Target on Mountain Avenue was a grove of trees. To remember when so-an-so was the president of Israel, of the US, of Chile. How amazing to have so much informational schrapnel flying around me as a child and to not get hit by a single piece.

Only now, as I brush my teeth with a toothbrush that does the work for me (the technology that guides it probably being developed as I breathlessly directed 3/4 of a yellow pie chart through a digital maze to gobble up white pellets in 1984) can I understand what it meant to die and how that "weird thing that Nanny did" was actually battle colon cancer, and that people were dying in international conflicts and from bombs in brown paper bags all around me ALL the time. Now things like "Iran-Contra Scandal" and "Unibomber" own their rightful definitions in my head. They aren't vague soundbytes and snapshots.

And when will I understand all that is happening around me now? In another 15 years? I want to call the White House and tell them not to make any decisions today, tomorrow, or next year. I want them to sit on things, for, say, 15 years or so, and see if they reach better decisions then. I want them to tune in to the History Channel and watch the bit about the landing on the moon, or the assasination of Kennedy, or something about the Panama Canal, or the acquisition of Hawaii, and I want them to think about when that became REAL for them. When the schrapnel of their youths finally caught up to them and they realized that history had been happening all around them the whole time.

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Really? It’s Permanent?

I can't believe I am going to type this next sentence. I got a tattoo today. And I'm not sure how i feel about it. I mean, when it was happening, my friends were there and they were stroking my hand and patting my back and telling me to breathe and taking pictures of my grimacing face, and smiling like jackals and asking how i felt and wasn't i excited and had i thought of my next one yet... And now that it's over... I'm not feeling how I thought I would. It's got a lot to do with how the design was arrived at. It happened just a few hours ago. I'm looking down at the bandage and I don't even know what this all means. I'm going to wake up tomorrow, and the next day and the next day, and there is going to be black ink on the inside of my left arm. Forever. My partner, who also got one today with those same friends, said to me when we got home, "Our tough points just went up by, like, ten".
Is that what this is? A sign of my toughness? I don't know. I don't even know if I like the tattoo that much anymore. It was spontaneous and ordeal-producing and, well, now it's going to be on me for the rest of my life. Am i the kind of person who gets tattoos? I never thought I was. I have always loved them on other people. But me? Really? On my skin? My skin that, frankly, I have always really liked plain and clean? My arm skin that tans so beautifully, despite my Eastern European DNA? Permanently? A piercing I can take out (and i have. Over the years, I have taken the jewelry out 7 of my former 11 earring piercings and now there are just little dimples on my earlobes where the holes used to be) But a tattoo? There's no going back.
I just never considered myself a tattoo person. I mean, EVERYone has one, right? Most people I know do. I was one of the only people who didn't. I kind of liked that. Is this as simple as me being sad that I am one step closer to being like everyone else? Or is this really major, some sort of milestone, some coming of age- which is what a tattoo is supposed to represent anyway- that i am resisting?
I mean, civilizations the world over have painted themselves in ceremony. Why the hell should i exclude myself? To be fair, the Amazonians don't have to show up to work on Monday to reconcile the books and discuss the budget like I do. But is that what this is really about? That i would offend some stuffed shirt with my body art? I was holding this no-tattoo policy in protest of all the tattooed folks who thought they were being hipper than thou. Am i now hip? I don't really think so.
Here is what my tattoo is: it's five letters, in circles. The circles are the round keys of a Royal typewriter, circa 1930. My tattoo says "WRITE".
I wanted that tattoo to remind me to write more, to consider myself a writer, and to act like one. I imagined that it would be a great motivator when i had, for instance, just about run out of juice, or felt that everything i had written up until that point was shit and not worth printing. I would look down at my wrists paused above the keyboard, and then my arms, and I would read what it said there on my forearm....and keep on going. It was to serve as a reminder to take myself seriously, to DO SOMETHING with this "thing i do".
How incredibly pompous, huh? I mean, really. Why not just ink the grocery list on your bicep so that when you are in the store you can catch your reflection in the produce scale and remember to buy more cantaloupe? How bad am I at remembering my true calling that I need to have a permanent black scar on my arm to remind me?
The truth is, I do need it. But let me tell you about how this all went down.
We went to a play, four of us. It was last night. When the play let out, it was still light outside, and we weren't ready for going home yet. My best friend, eyes wild, suggests we all go get tattoos, and her fiance nods in zealous agreement, leaning forward onto the middle console. My partner and I look at each other. "Really?" we ask. Best friend is serious. Fiance is serious. I am nervous and giddy. Yes, we say. And we go on the hunt for a tattoo shop.
They all come up with their ideas quickly. I deliberate. It should be significant. It's my first tattoo. It should be cool, and original, and mean something to me. I have thought about this reminder I want to put on my arm for some time. The idea is simple enough: It's got to be a typewriter. A picture of a typewriter. The one i learned to type on: an old Royal typewriter, a model probably used during WWII. The one my grandfather fished out of the trash in Newark and refurbished and plunked down, hard and heavy and smelling of metal and oil, in our playroom when we were children. The one my brother and I used to create a fake newspaper and crank out stories. I would write and he would illustrate. Later on, he would dictate the story of Mu-Shu the imaginary rabbit, and my fingers would hammer out his words as fast as they could. We would play bank, and office, and school, and we would use that typewriter for everything. It would soon jam, and the 'e's and 'o's had their hollow parts filled in with ink and dirt, and the red side of the ribbon would soon be smudged with black as we discovered that, in addition to being a word-making machine, it was also a percussive instrument. The harder you typed, the more satisfying a slap the hammers would make on the typing paper. Typing paper. No one makes typing paper anymore. For years I had saved the last bit of the ream from my childhood... moved across the country with it... and just recently used it up. Time to let go, I told myself.
There were thousands upon thousands of markings on the rubber cylinder of the return carriage. Someone before us had discovered the pleasure in typing without paper and leaving a mark on the cylinder in a grey-green-yellow ghost font. I used to wonder how many letters had been written to officers in far away countries with that rubber cylinder cushioning each tiny blow from the metal arms deep inside...
And now there is this command on my arm, this command I cannot erase. It's there. It's to direct me, to remind me.
But I wish it had come with more euphoria. The tattoo artist was not eager to put the silhouette of an old typewriter on my arm. It would blur, he said, in a few years, and turn into a shapeless blob. Well, then what about close ups of the hammers? Nope. The picture I brought in was not clear enough. Defeated, I chose the keys with the word WRITE. A command, a DEMAND, really. Nothing enigmatic or cryptic or symbolic like i wanted. No memorial to my talented and thoughtful grandfather. No thankful tribute to the machine that had taught me to type. No archival museum for antiquated, funny looking machinery. Just five letters, looking up at me and reminding me that every moment spent not writing is time not well spent. What was I thinking?
I wasn't. I had stomach cramps from macaroni and cheese. I was on the brink of getting my period and my lower half was churning and achy. I was probably dehydrated. I was caught up in the moment. I was excited to mark myself in honor of the decision made amongst really really good friends to be spontaneous, to celebrate our lives together.
And i know this is a GREAT BIG metaphor for the writing process- the denial, the self flagellation, the acceptance, the celebration.... and that makes me even more cranky.
I will probably learn to love it. I don't know that i will learn to love that razor blade pain, though. So maybe this will be my last. And if it is, that will be okay. Really. I have the rest of my skin to love.

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Letters to Nanny

So, the other night I had a dream.
My grandmother (who died when I was about 10) was sitting in a wheelchair. My grandfather (also dead) was standing next to her, and my mother (their daughter) was seated on a couch to the right of my grandmother. I called my grandmother "Nanny" when I was a kid, and my grandfather "Pop-Pops." (Side note: Funny how a toddler is assigned the role of naming grandma and grandpa. One of us kids eeked out "nanny" when we were learning how to speak, and that's what stuck. Don't know much about the etymology of "pop-pops", but we still refer to the stern, proud, 6'-something guy as "pop-pops".)

There was some subplot to the dream- something about me driving around with a boyfriend and being pissed off... i think we actually drove the car through a wall and into the living room where my family was sitting. No one seemed upset about the hole in the sheetrock. My grandmother motioned for me to lean down close to her head because she had something to tell me and couldn't speak very loudly. I did, but i couldn't hear what she said. She had something for me - a bag. Her feet were bound in bandages- and the shape indicated that maybe her toes were amputated (?). I knew she would never walk again- and I got the impression that the bandages represented a slow chiseling away at her existence, starting with the feet. Pop-Pops hands me a gift bag. Inside is stationary- all different colors and sizes, mostly pastels. There is a ziploc bag inside. I open it. It is filled with an assortment of stamps, all different denominations. I get the impression my grandmother was cleaning out a writing desk- some of the stamps are for strange amounts, and this tells me they came from a time when it cost less than it does now to mail a letter. I understand what is being asked of me. My grandmother wants me to write her a letter a day. I look in the bottom of the bag, and I see a glue stick and some Scotch tape, and one other object I cannot remember. The sight of this all brings me to tears. I don't just cry, either. I weep. I am overcome by the feeling of deep, deep gratitude, and a deep sadness. It felt like what it would feel like to have a starving child share his few grains of rice with you. This woman was dying- and she was giving away her last few possessions. I cannot describe how alive those objects were. I felt my grandmother's presence in the tape, especially. I could see that it had only briefly been used- there was quite a bit left on the roll. And it was the shiny kind- the cheap kind. It told me that she was used to a life of second-best, but what little she had, she was proud of, and it made her proud to give it to me. I took on the energy of that tape. There was shame, and there was pride, and there was so much love, so much wanting to share, to make someone feel special. I wept and wept. I understood that I was supposed to mail her a letter every day. It didn't matter what I wrote. I just had to write her. To keep her company as she was dying. She knew I was a writer, and she wanted to encourage my gift with the few things she had. By accepting the items, i was agreeing. I was crying still as the boyfriend and I drive off.

I thought I might wake up crying, but I didn't. I just sat in bed for a long time and tried to sort the dream out. I dream about my family quite a bit. (When I first moved here, I dreamt every day for 365 days about them- all the dreams were violent nightmares... it was a rough year). I can't remember the last time I dreamt about my grandmother so vividly. In fact, I can't remember if I've dreamt about her at all. There was no question about what I was supposed to do. Nanny wanted me to write SOMEthing every day. She wanted me to write her. I take my dreams fairly seriously. They are too vivid not to. This one especially.

I've been struggling with posting stuff here lately. I think my grandmother was trying to tell me to write SOMETHING, anything. Just to get my hands moving. Now that I am back in school (more on that later), I am finding the floodgates have opened. I am just having a hard time focusing on what to write about. There is SO much data coming into my brain... and I am taking lots of time to process it all... and as I do, the emotion about it all changes. I kinda feel schizophrenic these days. I suppose that's just how it goes with writing. The trick is to make time to write at least some of it down.

I saw David Sedaris speak the other day. What a brilliant, brilliant man. He said he carries around a notepad so he can jot things down to write about later. I do that too... though the "later" part doesn't seem to materialize for me like it used to.

Here's the weirdest part about the dream. And i admit this is really weird. I spoke to a psychic a few years back. I did this on some advice from a friend. And I swear she got everything right. Everything. She said the spirit of my grandmother is always over my right shoulder, encouraging me to write. The psychic said my grandmother was saying that "You should write. I don't know how to help you with the writing because my English is no good. But you should write. I support you". My grandmother was born in Germany. I don't know if the psychic knew this exactly, but she interpreted what my grandmother was saying into something like "i don't have the technical know-how to get you published, or to even understand some of the words you are using, but i know you should keep going." Ever since then, every once in a while, I think about that image. My grandmother gently pushing me to write more. I think she knew she had to make an appearance. I think she sensed me teetering out on the edge there, and she wanted to draw me back, encourage me to keep writing. I think she knew that my mind implodes daily with all that's in there that needs airing, and she was trying to tell me to go slow. Take a little at a time. Write a letter a day.

Thanks, Nanny. This one's for you.

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A Haircut, Amended

Alright, I take it back. My Guy, he must have been on something. I don't know what. All I know is that when my hair dried, I didn't like it. Then again, nothing seems satisfying these days. But you don't want to fuck with your reflection when your mind is in this state. And I did. And i regret it. Hair regrets are the kind that make you cry. Talking about of old boyfriends sometimes makes me physically cringe, and the thoughts of old jobs and old bosses makes my lips involuntarily curl into a snarl and my eyes roll... but nothing makes me wish I could take it back more than bad haircuts. This one is bad. I actually paid someone today to chop off the straw-dry clown wig that is my hair this afternoon. That's another twenty dollars down the hole. I know, I know. It grows back. My problems are ridiculously and pathetically mundane and inconsequential. But I have to drag a comb through this rat's nest every day. I have to watch the eyes of my clients and friends climb my head from my eyes to my crown and back down again and try to dismiss the beginnings of a good snicker in the corner of their lips as they realize my skin and hair are the same hideous shade of old milk. Damnit.

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A Haircut

I go to the salon maybe once or twice a year to have my hair colored. I’m not a high maintenance gal, so this is my one expensive indulgence (forget that you read that I buy designer jeans up above). For a month and a half out of the year, I look like a rock star with my hair all drastic two-tone and spiky and around my face. For the rest of the year, I look like a woman who pinches her hair back with little girl hair clips because she’s too lazy to get her roots touched up.

I have a Guy that I always see for my hair coloring sessions. He is good, My Guy. He is very good.

I have sent a dozen of my girlfriends to see My Guy because he is just that good. And they, impressed with his work, have sent their girlfriends, and they have sent their girlfriends. He is good, My Guy. But he is slow. He is very slow.

He is not slow in that “I’m going to take the next three hours to sculpt the latest and greatest piece of art nouveau that is going to be your hair” way. He is slow in that “I’m going to take a cigarette break every twenty minutes or so, wedge the cell phone in between my shoulder and ear and yak to my friends while I do your foils with one hand, and run from one end of the salon to the other in a wild, unprepared frenzy” sort of way. And this is how it goes every time.

You’d think by now, given my short fuse for bad customer service, that I would have picked another Guy to do my hair. But, My Guy, he is good. He is very good.

My appointment was supposed to be at 4:00. I was running a little late, so I called My Guy from the road and said I would be there by 4:30. At 4:12, I walked in the door.

My Guy is finishing up with some customers. They are French. It is odd to see and hear real French people in this city. I am so intrigued by what they are doing here with My Guy that I almost forget that they have kept me waiting for twenty minutes. It is now 4:40.

My Guy finishes up, the Frenchies pay, and My Guy hugs me hello. He puts on his jacket, grabs his phone and walks outside for a cigarette break. I flip through a magazine while I wait. He returns, and tells me apologetically he has lost my coloring card. I need to fill out another one. I do. It is now 4:55.

He has me sit down and he starts running his expert hands through my hair. In my mind, he is feeling for texture, familiarizing himself with his canvas, imagining the combinations of developer and coloring agent that will turn my limp dirty blond strands into gleaming swaths of suicide blond and deep chocolate brown. In reality, he is probably checking out his tattoos on his arms in the mirror.

He begins the mixing. He has to open a brand new jar of developer and needs to pour the contents from the bag to the jar. The phone rings. He answers. It is now 5:05.

My Guy cannot find his special comb for doing color. He searches. He looks on his tray, on his desk, on his table. He cannot find it. All the while he is muttering and giggling to himself. I cannot hear him because he has turned on his dance music CD and it is fairly loud. He also is out of foil. He is ripping the sheets of foil in half using the edge of the table for leverage. I start to look. I find the comb. It is on his table. It is now 5:10.

He begins. His tiny hands begin the work of separating my hair into almost invisible layers of hair to be colored and hair not the colored. He deftly paints the layers with foamy blue developer and wraps them up neatly in little foil squares. Sometimes he looks away, out the wall length windows and onto the street, while he does this. My Guy is that good.

At 5:20, an elderly woman walks into the salon holding a bottle. She asks for The Other One. The Other One is a woman who works at the salon alongside My Guy. The Other One is a miserable human being. She is always, always late for her appointments. She mutters to herself and has a gruff, cigarette smoker’s laugh. She is short with the customers. I try not to ever make eye contact with her. The elderly woman looks lost and confused. She asks if The Other One is on her way. My Guy says yes. That is a lie. My Guy always, always covers for The Other One.

The elderly woman says she should probably move her car, then, because she is parked illegally somewhere. My Guy smiles at her, whispers something I can’t understand into my foil covered ears, and giggles to himself. A man walks into the salon with a box. He asks if the Other One is around. The boxes are for her. My Guy pauses, brush mid-stroke in the air, and studies the boxes. Should I call her?, has asks the man. The man shrugs. My Guy picks up the phone. I have just one row of foils in my hair. It is now 5:30.

The elderly woman leaves to move her car. There is more talk about the boxes. My Guy takes a break to smoke a cigarette. The elderly woman comes back. The Other One is still not there for her appointment. It is now 5:40.

At 5:50, The Other One blows through the front door like a tornado. She is wearing an oversized coat, her hair has been thrown hastily into a giant clip, and she is red-faced and angry looking. She slams down her purse. The elderly woman stands up to greet her. The Other One is talking to no one in particular about how bad the traffic was. She looks at the appointment book, says, again to no one, that she “can’t stay that late”, and runs out the front door. The elderly woman is still standing, watching the front door. I want to hug her.

At 6:00, The Other One blows through the door again. She is still ranting about the commute. She finally acknowledges the elderly woman. She instructs the elderly woman to get in the chair to have her hair washed. The elderly woman now hands the Other One the bottle she has been clutching. She tells The Other One that she should wash her hair with the contents of this bottle because it is the only thing that doesn’t make her scalp itch. She says, all her life, she has used this soap, this Castile soap, and when her kids were babies, she never used lotion, only pure olive oil on their skin. The Other One snorts and grabs the bottle. The elderly woman is prattling on sweetly about raising kids. My heart is crying for her.

The phone rings. My Guy answers it. The Other One is complaining that because her two kids have to go to separate schools, she has to drive all over earth’s creation to get them where they need to be on time. She says that when she was a kid, her mom used to spend the day in bed. And she had to walk a half mile to school every day. I watch her blow drying the elderly woman’s perfectly white hair with a round brush. She seems to be using excessive force to pull the hair into the bristles. The elderly woman’s head snaps a little each time The Other One releases her white locks from the brush. As she is telling the Other One about the wedding she is going to, The Other One is muttering things over her shoulder to My Guy. They giggle together. The elderly woman is still talking as she pays and then walks out the door.

The phone rings some more. My Guy answers it. Another customer walks in. I suddenly want onion rings, and I tell My Guy. He runs next door to get me some. More phone ringing, more painting with the brush, more muttering and giggling, more me not hearing anything above the noise of the dance music and the hair dryer through the buffer of foil around my ears, but smiling politely. At 6:30, my foils are finally done.

At 6:35, friends of mine walk into the salon. They are here because I recommended this place to them. As My Guy takes another phone call, they tell me nervously that they are here because My Guy has told them that, unless they got there before 7:00, My Guy would not be able to see them tonight. I smile at them. Of course they will be seen.

The Other One has been working on her male customer’s hair now for some time. My Guy cuts my friends’ hair and they both look like gods and goddesses. I tell myself My Guy is good.

Another cigarette break. My Guy checks my foils. It is now 7:15. I am ready to be rinsed. I lean my head back into the sink. I love having my hair washed. I will pay My Guy well for this. It is worth it. I am just beginning to melt into the scalp massage when the phone rings. He answers. The phone is tucked into his shoulder. He pauses. I am hungry. I am growing weary of The Other One’s stories about her lousy day. I am getting a little dizzy under the fluorescent lights. I paw my way out from under my cape and make a dramatic gesture of looking at my watch. I really want to be done. I sigh. It works. My Guy tells his caller he has to go. He hangs up, rinses, and I walk back over to my chair and look at myself in the mirror.

He has done it again. I am a rock star, a celebrity, a bright shiny beautiful thing with platinum streaks spilling from my scalp. I look ten years younger. My skin glows. I am reborn. I am alive. He blows the top dry. At first, I am disappointed that he leaves the ends a little wet, but as they dry in a fuzzy, jagged, stylish shape, just as I demanded they should when I walked in, I understand how his genius works, and I am awed all over again.

It is 7:41 when I leave. I have been in this salon for three and a half hours. I am irritated that I have been here for half a work day. I almost get up the nerve to tell him that I might have to go somewhere else next time because three and a half hours is a ridiculously long time to spend in a salon when I catch my reflection in the mirror and swoon a little. I clamp my mouth shut and pay my bill. After all, My Guy is good. He is very, very good.

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Jeans For The Rest of Us

If you want a complex about your body, try fitting it into the average pair of jeans. I had J-Lo’s ass before she did, only mine didn’t come with a patent and a fragrance and a clothing line. And it’s impossible to stuff into a regular sized pair of jeans.

The problem is, and always will be: proportions. Petite sizes are for women who are 5' 4" and under. The waist and hips on petite pants are a normal size. It’s just the legs that are cut short for those of us who inherited the half dwarfism. As if having short legs with a big ass wasn’t enough of a genetic recombination sequence from Hell, I am cursed with being too tall for petite pants, but not tall enough for regular sized pants. “Regular” jeans are for “regular” sized women (whoever they are), i.e. anyone 5'4" and above. I am 5' 4 3/4". Honestly. That’s really what the freakin’ scale says when I step on it at the doctor’s office. I am literally three quarters of an inch too tall to fit into petite jeans. And if you think you can’t tell the difference....well, you can. Regular sized pants usually cover my feet with three to six inches of extra fabric. I look like a blue Gumby that’s had his feet crushed. I’m thinking about marketing myself as the pint sized Swiffer Stripper. For a price, I’ll come over and dance around your hardwoods in a bra and “regular” sized jeans: I’ll get a workout, and you’ll get your floors dry mopped.

So tonight I went to the mall to shop for jeans. My friends think I shop at JC Penney because I have some sort of sense of fashion and an eye for a bargain . The truth is JC Penney is as far into the mall as I can go before I start dry heaving with the banality of it all. I like it because it has several entrances (which double as getaway doors when you just can’t take it anymore). I can park near the women’s clothing section, walk in about twenty paces, try on forty things, buy two, and walk twenty paces out. Period.

Tonight I decided to brave the other stores in the mall. First I went to the Gap, famous amongst my friends for having jeans that “fit well”. I am greeted (read: shouted “Hi-yeeeeeee” at from across the store by a smiling 17 year old with a headset on) and I make a beeline for the jeans. A sign on the door of the dressing room shows what sort of jeans fit what body type. I try mine on. The sign is wrong.

I remember that American Eagle sold me a pair of shorts years ago that still fit, and are not, even after eight summers, even the tiniest bit threadbare. I want to see if their jeans are as strong as their shorts. I am greeted by another teenager in another headset. She asks if I need help finding anything. I am tempted to tell her I am looking for painless way to slough off a few pounds from my ass with a deli meat slicer so I can buy some freakin’ jeans, but I refrain. Instead, I tell her I am looking for stovepipe style pants, straight leg, something that doesn’t taper in the knee. She says that I should try the “boyfriend” style, which is mostly straight, and some other style, which, even from ten feet away, I can see is tapered in the knee. I grab two “boyfriend” styles in my size and head for the dressing room. The tags inform me that the jeans are new and clean, but there are holes in the them. Somebody wants me to buy jeans with holes already in them. I yank off my own jeans and unclip the holey jeans from the hanger. I start the tug of war. My toe catches in one of the holes as I am pulling and I can hear the jeans rip. I pause. I decide the people at American Eagle deserve that I have ruined their pants by further ripping their regulation sized hole and tug some more. I pause again. Clearly something has happened in the eight years since I bought shorts here. Somehow, my size, the size I have been for the past ten years of my life, is no longer my size. I can’t even zipper them. I move on.

I try several more stores. More yelling by more teenaged sales associates. More bad fitting jeans. I am growing tired.

I walk in to Macy’s. Here there is promise. I remember shopping at Macy’s years ago on the East Coast and loving it. At this point, I am hot and sweaty. I have brought my big lumpy jacket into the mall with me and it is hanging over my arm. My purse doesn’t sit on my shoulder quite right, so it’s hanging from my elbow underneath my jacket. I catch my reflection in the mirror. I have a three hairs clumped together and sticking straight up on the top of my head, my mascara has started to run, my face is flushed, and I appear to be smuggling an old lady purse out of the store . I’m surprised I haven’t been flagged by security.

I grab every single size 8 on the rack in the clearance section. Every. Single. One. I swipe a pair of DKNY from the regluar priced rack, a pair of Polo’s, and a pair of Calvin Kleins. I cannot believe I am carrying designer jeans in my arms. I was raised in Lee’s, and even now, as a fairly successful self employed person with a fairly comfortable income, I still wear crappy jeans. The thought occurs: I might have to buy designer jeans tonight. I might have to close my eyes as I hand over my credit card and tell myself that this is what it takes to feel good in a pair of jeans. No more wimpy flimsy blue colored rags that frame my ass like a canvas toolbelt around two balloons. Real jeans, by real designers. I practically skip into the dressing room with my jeans. The sign says the limit per person is 4. I march right past it, throw open a dressing room door and triumphantly throw the 19 lbs. of denim on the floor. I take a deep breath and pull on the first pair. The DKNYs fit like a dream. I am blown away. Could it be? All these years of wearing shitty jeans for nothing? All this time, all I had to do was lay down a ridiculous amount of cash for jeans, and I could have foregone the Gumby legs and the shelf-butt? It seems too simple. I try on the other pairs and they all fit well, but the DKNYs fit the best. I stare at my profile in the mirror. No cheap buttons on the butt pockets. No stretchy material sucking at my thighs. Just a sleek line from my butt to the floor. I almost cry. I check out and either the woman at the counter doesn’t notice or is too polite to comment on the sweat running down my face and the flush in my cheeks as she hands me my bag. And she makes quite a gesture of handing me my bag. She walks all the way around the counter to hand it to me! I feel like royalty. Does everyone shop like this? How many countless hours have I spent being treated like a pile of dung by blank-eyed retail associates who barely make eye contact while they run my clothing over the scanning gun and ball it up in a bag?

Oh, I’m all revved up now, baby. I am armed with the information that I too can shop like the rich, be treated kindly, and get what I want for a mere $59!

But the high does not last long. My overconfidence gets the better of me. I stop in one last time at JC Penney on the way out and I spot a brand I have never seen before. They look straight enough in the leg and they have pretty embroidering on the front pocket. I take them to the dressing room. But there it is again. The pinched knee area. The flared leg that swallows my whole foot. I look like a blueberry on stilts. I take them off and kick them to the corner of the dressing room. It is late. I am tired. Several more hairs have begun to free themselves from my clips, and have joined the others at attention at the top of my head. I notice my shirt is on inside out. One of my shoes is untied. I look down at the ball of rumpled jeans. The retail associate I once was tells me to bend over, pick up those goddamned jeans and return them to the go-back rack. But now I am pissed. All those years of trying on second rate jeans, getting so overheated and dehydrated in dressing rooms changing in and out of jeans that would never fit that I actually craved an Orange Julius. An Orange Julius! Damn you, Penney’s. Damn you for your crappy jeans. Someone else can pick them up. I am a designer jeans wearing woman now and you cannot lure me back with your fancy cheap jeans. Did you hear me, Penney’s? I am a changed woman. I am going to wear designer jeans. I am going to wear designer jeans.

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coronavirus

COVID-IARIES Day 43. I’m Having It Both Ways.

Every few days, it comes: the emotional bulldozer, the thing that knocks me down.

On Day 1 of Week Whatever, I’m angry because the kids have tracked mud through the house, and I’m exhausted knowing I've got to re-up the eggs and milk soon, and I'm beyond BEYOND frustrated that I can't figure out how to make my kid sit long enough to finish a lesson... or IF she even should be sitting still at her age because who has time to read a child development book right now?... and then....

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES Day 30. It’s Been a Month.

Bobo and Beaversons are playing school/family right now, tearing through the house like excitable cats. Bobo is teaching Beaversons the songs she normally sings in kindergarten, and I ask you: WHERE IS THIS ENTHUSIASM ON ANY GIVEN SCHOOLDAY? On any given school day, she's exhibiting a different kind of cat behavior: scratching at me when I hand her a worksheet, slinking away with a hurt look in her eyes when I gently put my arm around her and coax her to the work table.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES Day… Eleventeen. We’re On To Lists.

Sunday, 1:30 pm. Make toddler her own meal since she didn't want to eat what the rest of the family was eating. She sneezes right onto the food, the countertops, and you. Carry on like nothing's happened. Figure you'll save money on a all-at-once family cremation in about a month's time.

Monday-Friday 9am-6:30 pm: Trot out a video for the five year old of favorite musician singing kid songs, videos of kid zumba, videos of Mo Willems (sorry, Mo, we gave it a good run), videos of EVERY SINGLE EDUTAINMENT OPPORTUNITY ON THE PLANET and be met with such resistance, you would think she was being offered a newly eviscerated human kidney on a plate. All these "educational resources"? They're not resources if the kids don't want to have anything to do with them. Thanks for the suggestion. What I need is another set of arms, another functioning adult who isn't grouchy and overstretched about being indoors, and perhaps a robot to get us milk and eggs because the stores only let us buy two cartons at a time, and we need much more than that in a 30 day span, which is how often we're trying to go without groceries because we're all trying to do our part to stay OUT of stores right now.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES Day 12/13: Hitting The Wall

We hit the wall yesterday. Anyone else?

I'm sitting here stress-eating Cheez Doodles, trying to sort through the poopstorm of emotions I've experienced these last two days. I'm trying to name them. Naming things helps, right? Let's see... there was mid-morning Fluster-Rage. Lunchtime saw a bout of Tearful Confessional Grief With Some F-Bombs Thrown In, and by early evening, I was What Is Wrong With Me Why Am I So Mad melting into Dinner Needs To Get Made, Everyone Out Of The House, There I Feel A Little Better, Tomorrow's A New Day, We'll Start Over And It'll Be Fine.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES, Days 8-11: The Sads Cometh

I picked a fight with an old family friend last night. It was shitty of me, and I have had this ball of tension sitting in the pit of my stomach all night and day because of it.

I have been spending an inordinate amount of time online, after the kids go to bed, trying to keep myself abreast of the ever-changing news about the virus. I read article after interview after article, I look at graphs, I read through comments on my neighborhood community page about what local businesses are still operating and if the supermarkets have any Lysol back in stock yet (they don't). I feel like I am trying to prepare for an impending war without knowing who the enemy will be. Will the enemy be food shortages? Medical supply shortages? Doctor shortages? The sudden and un-memorialized (because of the quarantine) death of a family member? I am trying to prepare for a catastrophe while playing nurse, emotional load bearer, grocery shopper, cook, and teacher. I'm doing this while watching the timer on the dryer and planning around naptimes. I'm trying to glean everything I can from sources I don't have time to vet, then worrying that information is outdated, or patently false to begin with. This, after 12+ hours of trying to teach my kid, keep the teacher advised of her progress, dab at the pee-soaked carpet with towels that I will then have to wash with bleach when there's a bleach shortage, cook food in order of expiration so as to limit our trips to the store and to keep the whining of picky eaters down to a half-a-Xanex roar, keep the house tidy, wash the pee-soaked pants, get us outside for fresh air and exercise when one kid wants me to give her roller skating lessons and the other wants to be pushed on a trike at the same time, put the house back together now that the sewer repair and bedroom remodel are done, make sure the goddamned Beta fish is fed, and check in on my neighbors and friends. It's exhausting. AND WE ARE THE LUCKY ONES.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES, Day 7: Gratitude With Attitude

The thing about writing during a pandemic is that when you do it late at night, after you've sung John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt to the kids eight hundred times (yup, my kids fall asleep to a beer hall song), and after you've cleaned the kitchen, and wiped down the table and countertops, and emptied out the potty, and after you've tidied the living room/classroom, and maybe attempted your daily diastasis recti exercises.... after all that, you're too tired to write. But you know - I know- you have to empty out your head, because if you don't, there'll be a ten-car pileup in there before breakfast. You'll have taken all the news of the day and smooshed it together with all the news that breaks before the triangle that signals the start of school is rung, and you'll be a big ball of All The Ways We'll Surely Die during the flag song. One cannot feign enthusiasm for addition and subtraction and finding digraphs at 9 am if one's head has not been properly emptied out of all apocalyptic thinking the night before.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES, Days 5 & 6: HomeFooling

What day is this? Monday? Right. We had spaghetti for dinner. That's the only way I'm keeping track of things right now: via what we ate for dinner. Every monday we have pasta. Tomorrow is Taco Tuesday. Tomorrow is also Day 6 of Distance Learning, which is the very official and studious sounding name to what amounts to a few hours of begging Bobo to complete a worksheet bookended by SpongeBob Squarepants episodes.

Today she wore a fancy dress to "school" (read: our living room), complete with gold colored purse and matching cardigan. I was about to protest, give her a few reasons why we should keep our clothes glue- and marker-free, maybe save the dresses for fancy occasions, and then I was like: You know what? Who cares? Who cares about ANYthing right now? You wanna wear a dress? Go right ahead. The fanciest dress you own? Rock it. Want a clown wig and firefighter's helmet to go with it? Knock yourself out. You know what absolutely doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things? This dress. Specifically, whether or not you'll stain it bad enough (you will) that you'll never be able to wear it again (you won't). Wear ALL the dresses, kid, EVERY DAMNED DAY.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES Days 3 & 4: The Blurring

It was me, you guys. I'm the one who made the parks department wrap the monkey bars in caution tape. That was my family flouting the social distancing mandate the day before yesterday. We thought we were safe in the park. Apparently not. I've now lowered humanity's lowest common denominator. Me. My family. Somewhere out there on social media, there's an old white guy spewing misspelled, poorly punctuated rage about how we can't have nice things because of that negligent woman who brought her kids to the park.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES, DAY 2: The Anger Report

Well, we made it through Day 2. I mean that in the most literal sense. ALL we did was make it through. Schoolwork was attempted, and schoolwork was abandoned in fits of rage. The house remained a heinous, impassable mess. To comfort myself, I made American style "tacos" for dinner: ground beef, hard shells made from genetically modified corn, shredded cheddar, iceberg lettuce, salsa from a jar. It wasn't anything like I normally cook, and it was damned delicious.

Continue to full post...

THE COVID-IARIES, DAY 1

There are two things I do when I get stressed: I write and I clean. Right now, my bathroom is probably the cleanest it’s been in months. It’s "I scrubbed the molding" clean. It’s "I dusted behind the toilet" clean. You people right now perusing Netflix in your loungewear probably do things like "dust behind your toilets" all the time, what with all the free time you have to wear loungewear and watch movies. But those of us with kids... we're outwardly scoffing at your offering of adorable lists of things to do while all we're under quarantine (hang shelves! clean out closet! make a nice meal!) but secretly wishing we could be doing the same instead of fetching endless bowls of CheezIts and breaking up baby fistfights.

Both of my cars are also vacuumed and wiped down, which is oddly both the most privileged and the most prepared thing I've written in probably my whole life. I’m not a germaphobe; quite the opposite in fact. I’ve been known to eat questionable things off the kitchen counter. (The five second rule is more like the five day rule.) I just needed a good deep clean to stay on top of SOMEthing, to give me the illusion of control. When I was young, my mom cleaned like she was going to into battle. She put on her best rags and got down on her hands and knees and mopped and polished and inspected the carpets for tiny bits of lint. Looking back, I imagine that, as a mother of four kids, it was her way of exercising SOME authority over an otherwise circus-crazy situation. I feel like I’m caught in that same understandable trap. I’ve just vacuumed under the couch and I have convinced myself that everything is going to be alright for at least the next twelve or so hours.

Continue to full post...

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COVID-19

COVID-IARIES Day 43. I’m Having It Both Ways.

Every few days, it comes: the emotional bulldozer, the thing that knocks me down.

On Day 1 of Week Whatever, I’m angry because the kids have tracked mud through the house, and I’m exhausted knowing I've got to re-up the eggs and milk soon, and I'm beyond BEYOND frustrated that I can't figure out how to make my kid sit long enough to finish a lesson... or IF she even should be sitting still at her age because who has time to read a child development book right now?... and then....

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES Day 30. It’s Been a Month.

Bobo and Beaversons are playing school/family right now, tearing through the house like excitable cats. Bobo is teaching Beaversons the songs she normally sings in kindergarten, and I ask you: WHERE IS THIS ENTHUSIASM ON ANY GIVEN SCHOOLDAY? On any given school day, she's exhibiting a different kind of cat behavior: scratching at me when I hand her a worksheet, slinking away with a hurt look in her eyes when I gently put my arm around her and coax her to the work table.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES Day… Eleventeen. We’re On To Lists.

Sunday, 1:30 pm. Make toddler her own meal since she didn't want to eat what the rest of the family was eating. She sneezes right onto the food, the countertops, and you. Carry on like nothing's happened. Figure you'll save money on a all-at-once family cremation in about a month's time.

Monday-Friday 9am-6:30 pm: Trot out a video for the five year old of favorite musician singing kid songs, videos of kid zumba, videos of Mo Willems (sorry, Mo, we gave it a good run), videos of EVERY SINGLE EDUTAINMENT OPPORTUNITY ON THE PLANET and be met with such resistance, you would think she was being offered a newly eviscerated human kidney on a plate. All these "educational resources"? They're not resources if the kids don't want to have anything to do with them. Thanks for the suggestion. What I need is another set of arms, another functioning adult who isn't grouchy and overstretched about being indoors, and perhaps a robot to get us milk and eggs because the stores only let us buy two cartons at a time, and we need much more than that in a 30 day span, which is how often we're trying to go without groceries because we're all trying to do our part to stay OUT of stores right now.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES Day 12/13: Hitting The Wall

We hit the wall yesterday. Anyone else?

I'm sitting here stress-eating Cheez Doodles, trying to sort through the poopstorm of emotions I've experienced these last two days. I'm trying to name them. Naming things helps, right? Let's see... there was mid-morning Fluster-Rage. Lunchtime saw a bout of Tearful Confessional Grief With Some F-Bombs Thrown In, and by early evening, I was What Is Wrong With Me Why Am I So Mad melting into Dinner Needs To Get Made, Everyone Out Of The House, There I Feel A Little Better, Tomorrow's A New Day, We'll Start Over And It'll Be Fine.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES, Days 8-11: The Sads Cometh

I picked a fight with an old family friend last night. It was shitty of me, and I have had this ball of tension sitting in the pit of my stomach all night and day because of it.

I have been spending an inordinate amount of time online, after the kids go to bed, trying to keep myself abreast of the ever-changing news about the virus. I read article after interview after article, I look at graphs, I read through comments on my neighborhood community page about what local businesses are still operating and if the supermarkets have any Lysol back in stock yet (they don't). I feel like I am trying to prepare for an impending war without knowing who the enemy will be. Will the enemy be food shortages? Medical supply shortages? Doctor shortages? The sudden and un-memorialized (because of the quarantine) death of a family member? I am trying to prepare for a catastrophe while playing nurse, emotional load bearer, grocery shopper, cook, and teacher. I'm doing this while watching the timer on the dryer and planning around naptimes. I'm trying to glean everything I can from sources I don't have time to vet, then worrying that information is outdated, or patently false to begin with. This, after 12+ hours of trying to teach my kid, keep the teacher advised of her progress, dab at the pee-soaked carpet with towels that I will then have to wash with bleach when there's a bleach shortage, cook food in order of expiration so as to limit our trips to the store and to keep the whining of picky eaters down to a half-a-Xanex roar, keep the house tidy, wash the pee-soaked pants, get us outside for fresh air and exercise when one kid wants me to give her roller skating lessons and the other wants to be pushed on a trike at the same time, put the house back together now that the sewer repair and bedroom remodel are done, make sure the goddamned Beta fish is fed, and check in on my neighbors and friends. It's exhausting. AND WE ARE THE LUCKY ONES.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES, Day 7: Gratitude With Attitude

The thing about writing during a pandemic is that when you do it late at night, after you've sung John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt to the kids eight hundred times (yup, my kids fall asleep to a beer hall song), and after you've cleaned the kitchen, and wiped down the table and countertops, and emptied out the potty, and after you've tidied the living room/classroom, and maybe attempted your daily diastasis recti exercises.... after all that, you're too tired to write. But you know - I know- you have to empty out your head, because if you don't, there'll be a ten-car pileup in there before breakfast. You'll have taken all the news of the day and smooshed it together with all the news that breaks before the triangle that signals the start of school is rung, and you'll be a big ball of All The Ways We'll Surely Die during the flag song. One cannot feign enthusiasm for addition and subtraction and finding digraphs at 9 am if one's head has not been properly emptied out of all apocalyptic thinking the night before.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES, Days 5 & 6: HomeFooling

What day is this? Monday? Right. We had spaghetti for dinner. That's the only way I'm keeping track of things right now: via what we ate for dinner. Every monday we have pasta. Tomorrow is Taco Tuesday. Tomorrow is also Day 6 of Distance Learning, which is the very official and studious sounding name to what amounts to a few hours of begging Bobo to complete a worksheet bookended by SpongeBob Squarepants episodes.

Today she wore a fancy dress to "school" (read: our living room), complete with gold colored purse and matching cardigan. I was about to protest, give her a few reasons why we should keep our clothes glue- and marker-free, maybe save the dresses for fancy occasions, and then I was like: You know what? Who cares? Who cares about ANYthing right now? You wanna wear a dress? Go right ahead. The fanciest dress you own? Rock it. Want a clown wig and firefighter's helmet to go with it? Knock yourself out. You know what absolutely doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things? This dress. Specifically, whether or not you'll stain it bad enough (you will) that you'll never be able to wear it again (you won't). Wear ALL the dresses, kid, EVERY DAMNED DAY.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES Days 3 & 4: The Blurring

It was me, you guys. I'm the one who made the parks department wrap the monkey bars in caution tape. That was my family flouting the social distancing mandate the day before yesterday. We thought we were safe in the park. Apparently not. I've now lowered humanity's lowest common denominator. Me. My family. Somewhere out there on social media, there's an old white guy spewing misspelled, poorly punctuated rage about how we can't have nice things because of that negligent woman who brought her kids to the park.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES, DAY 2: The Anger Report

Well, we made it through Day 2. I mean that in the most literal sense. ALL we did was make it through. Schoolwork was attempted, and schoolwork was abandoned in fits of rage. The house remained a heinous, impassable mess. To comfort myself, I made American style "tacos" for dinner: ground beef, hard shells made from genetically modified corn, shredded cheddar, iceberg lettuce, salsa from a jar. It wasn't anything like I normally cook, and it was damned delicious.

Continue to full post...

THE COVID-IARIES, DAY 1

There are two things I do when I get stressed: I write and I clean. Right now, my bathroom is probably the cleanest it’s been in months. It’s "I scrubbed the molding" clean. It’s "I dusted behind the toilet" clean. You people right now perusing Netflix in your loungewear probably do things like "dust behind your toilets" all the time, what with all the free time you have to wear loungewear and watch movies. But those of us with kids... we're outwardly scoffing at your offering of adorable lists of things to do while all we're under quarantine (hang shelves! clean out closet! make a nice meal!) but secretly wishing we could be doing the same instead of fetching endless bowls of CheezIts and breaking up baby fistfights.

Both of my cars are also vacuumed and wiped down, which is oddly both the most privileged and the most prepared thing I've written in probably my whole life. I’m not a germaphobe; quite the opposite in fact. I’ve been known to eat questionable things off the kitchen counter. (The five second rule is more like the five day rule.) I just needed a good deep clean to stay on top of SOMEthing, to give me the illusion of control. When I was young, my mom cleaned like she was going to into battle. She put on her best rags and got down on her hands and knees and mopped and polished and inspected the carpets for tiny bits of lint. Looking back, I imagine that, as a mother of four kids, it was her way of exercising SOME authority over an otherwise circus-crazy situation. I feel like I’m caught in that same understandable trap. I’ve just vacuumed under the couch and I have convinced myself that everything is going to be alright for at least the next twelve or so hours.

Continue to full post...

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distance learning

COVID-IARIES Day 12/13: Hitting The Wall

We hit the wall yesterday. Anyone else?

I'm sitting here stress-eating Cheez Doodles, trying to sort through the poopstorm of emotions I've experienced these last two days. I'm trying to name them. Naming things helps, right? Let's see... there was mid-morning Fluster-Rage. Lunchtime saw a bout of Tearful Confessional Grief With Some F-Bombs Thrown In, and by early evening, I was What Is Wrong With Me Why Am I So Mad melting into Dinner Needs To Get Made, Everyone Out Of The House, There I Feel A Little Better, Tomorrow's A New Day, We'll Start Over And It'll Be Fine.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES, Days 5 & 6: HomeFooling

What day is this? Monday? Right. We had spaghetti for dinner. That's the only way I'm keeping track of things right now: via what we ate for dinner. Every monday we have pasta. Tomorrow is Taco Tuesday. Tomorrow is also Day 6 of Distance Learning, which is the very official and studious sounding name to what amounts to a few hours of begging Bobo to complete a worksheet bookended by SpongeBob Squarepants episodes.

Today she wore a fancy dress to "school" (read: our living room), complete with gold colored purse and matching cardigan. I was about to protest, give her a few reasons why we should keep our clothes glue- and marker-free, maybe save the dresses for fancy occasions, and then I was like: You know what? Who cares? Who cares about ANYthing right now? You wanna wear a dress? Go right ahead. The fanciest dress you own? Rock it. Want a clown wig and firefighter's helmet to go with it? Knock yourself out. You know what absolutely doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things? This dress. Specifically, whether or not you'll stain it bad enough (you will) that you'll never be able to wear it again (you won't). Wear ALL the dresses, kid, EVERY DAMNED DAY.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES Days 3 & 4: The Blurring

It was me, you guys. I'm the one who made the parks department wrap the monkey bars in caution tape. That was my family flouting the social distancing mandate the day before yesterday. We thought we were safe in the park. Apparently not. I've now lowered humanity's lowest common denominator. Me. My family. Somewhere out there on social media, there's an old white guy spewing misspelled, poorly punctuated rage about how we can't have nice things because of that negligent woman who brought her kids to the park.

Continue to full post...

COVID-IARIES, DAY 2: The Anger Report

Well, we made it through Day 2. I mean that in the most literal sense. ALL we did was make it through. Schoolwork was attempted, and schoolwork was abandoned in fits of rage. The house remained a heinous, impassable mess. To comfort myself, I made American style "tacos" for dinner: ground beef, hard shells made from genetically modified corn, shredded cheddar, iceberg lettuce, salsa from a jar. It wasn't anything like I normally cook, and it was damned delicious.

Continue to full post...

THE COVID-IARIES, DAY 1

There are two things I do when I get stressed: I write and I clean. Right now, my bathroom is probably the cleanest it’s been in months. It’s "I scrubbed the molding" clean. It’s "I dusted behind the toilet" clean. You people right now perusing Netflix in your loungewear probably do things like "dust behind your toilets" all the time, what with all the free time you have to wear loungewear and watch movies. But those of us with kids... we're outwardly scoffing at your offering of adorable lists of things to do while all we're under quarantine (hang shelves! clean out closet! make a nice meal!) but secretly wishing we could be doing the same instead of fetching endless bowls of CheezIts and breaking up baby fistfights.

Both of my cars are also vacuumed and wiped down, which is oddly both the most privileged and the most prepared thing I've written in probably my whole life. I’m not a germaphobe; quite the opposite in fact. I’ve been known to eat questionable things off the kitchen counter. (The five second rule is more like the five day rule.) I just needed a good deep clean to stay on top of SOMEthing, to give me the illusion of control. When I was young, my mom cleaned like she was going to into battle. She put on her best rags and got down on her hands and knees and mopped and polished and inspected the carpets for tiny bits of lint. Looking back, I imagine that, as a mother of four kids, it was her way of exercising SOME authority over an otherwise circus-crazy situation. I feel like I’m caught in that same understandable trap. I’ve just vacuumed under the couch and I have convinced myself that everything is going to be alright for at least the next twelve or so hours.

Continue to full post...

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NaNoWriMo

WINNER!

Holy crap. I did it again. I spent another whole November writing 50,000 words and now I'm DONE!

This novel adventure would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of a great many people. Without them, I might have actually done a load of laundry this month, or gone to bed before 2 am most nights. Here, then, is my ode to you:

To Pandora.com: Thank you for providing me with free endless hours of moody music to be inspired by.

To Purple Bunny Pencil Warmer: You just sat there the whole time and said nothing. No judgment, no harassing me to type faster, no telling me to stop filling out crossword puzzles when I was supposed to be writing. That means a lot to me, buddy.

To the Java Bean in Ballard: Thanks for running one of the most cozy, most relaxed coffee shops in town. I bet you didn't know I wrote almost 10,000 words in a single Sunday afternoon while tucked into one of your tables, did you? You make a divine London Fog, by the way.

To that damned meowing cat keychain my sister brought home from Iceland.... okay, you made me laugh, damnit. I admit it. I needed you, too.

To Kevin, or John, I can't remember which one of you now first turned me on to NaNoWriMo: THANK YOU for pushing me to do this.

To Layla and Tara, who talked me through my mid-novel moral quandary about incorporating too much "real life" into a work of fiction: Thank you for being fellow artistic souls and taking this endeavor seriously and shaping it into something real. Your insight was just the thing I needed to keep going.

To Victoria, who urged me on with a mother's faith that it would all work out if only I just went to my room and typed. You will always be my favorite Cheerleader of the Suburbs.

And finally, To Mr. Burdy. Thank you for being my snack-fetcher, tea-maker, movie-watchin'-in-the-other-room, writer's-block-solving man-servant, and the recipient of more "Get the hell out of here, can't you see I'm COMPOSING?" evil stares than I can count.

I can't promise this thing is going to go anywhere. It may sit on my computer forever and never see the light of an editor's office. I'm just happy to have committed to something and FINISHED it.

And now, dear Internets, I'm going to watch some TV and paint my nails. In one and a half hours, it's December. Hoo-freakin'-ray.

Continue to full post...

Halfway There

Well, happy halfway mark, fellow writers. It's November 16th, which means that, sitting in computer files all around the world, half baked novels are awaiting their as-of-yet-unthought-of endings.

I'm dragging my feet today because I'm under the weather. It's making me not want to write, or go to work. About the only thing I can get excited for is the new Bubble Burst game I installed on my phone.

I'm trying to be okay with not filling every second of my day with writing. It's tough. I feel like I should be dedicating every spare moment of my time to this thing, but there's also other stuff to do. Stuff like surfing Craigslist on Saturday morning, making a snap decision about a piece of furniture, driving out of town to pick up friends truck to haul said piece of furniture back to house, bug downstairs neighbor (still in pajamas) to haul said piece up the stairs, turn house updside down in attempt to fit new piece of furniture in house, and then decide maybe buying piece of furniture was not the best idea I've ever had.

The only part of the house untouched by chaos is Burdy's half of the office. My part of the office is a minefield of unfinished art projects and boxes full of fabric and sewing paraphernalia, which you have to walk through to get to Burdy's side, so the poor man has about four square feet all to himself. I did finish hemming all my pants that needed hemming, so at least I won't be flopping around like a moron in too-long pants this winter. So, you know. Hooray for that.

Here's something to tide you over till the end of the month:

Bottle from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

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NaNoWriMo

Uh oh.

It's November again, isn't it?

Guess I'd better get out the arm restraints and the coffeepot. It's time to write another (terrible) novel.

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It’s National Write Till Your Fingers Bleed Month!

Internets, I have made a contract with myself.

I'm going to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

That's right. It's National Novel Writing Month, and people the world over have agreed to ignore their spouses, hygiene, and housecleaning for thirty days while they sculpt 50,000 words into a quasi-meaningful plot under duress! All for the prize of being able to say, "I wrote a novel in thirty days". Isn't that thrilling? Kinda makes you want to run at full speed into a barbed wire fence. Because that would be less painful.

Oh, and in case that wasn't ambitious enough, I've also agreed to post 30 times in 30 days to this blog. Know why? Because it's also National Blog Writing Month! So, now you get to enjoy the antics of CLH and me (and the Leagues of Indignant Seattlites I live amongst) EVERY DAY for thirty days. Who knows? This could really turn my commitment-phobia around.

The only problem with this whole situation is that I am master dilly-dallier. Tonight, for example, I scoured my pantry for the oldest, hardest legumes I had so that my split pea soup for dinner would require hours of watching the stove (and not my computer screen). I also opted to clean out my spice drawer, catch up on the Oprah show, and paint my nails. All so I wouldn't have to come in here and write. Clever, huh?

The soup has been simmering for two hours now. CLH wants to know why my vegetarian split pea soup smells so good. Is there ham in it, he asks? No, honey. The secret ingredient is procrastination.

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SLO

Pink Is the Color Of Contentedness

Can you hear my contented sighs from where you are? Because I have been doing nothing but exhaling dramatically with relief and happiness for the past 12 hours or so.

Yesterday morning was a rough one. I'd spent the previous day, all day, in the hot, hot sun. I thought I'd drunk enough water throughout the day. I also thought I'd put on enough sunscreen. Turns out I did neither. And then I drank beer.

When I woke up the next morning for the second time (the first time was because I was having a nightmare about a grenade-tossing loner type and me scrambling up a tree) I'm pretty sure I was mega-dehydrated. And, because dehydration works a lot like drunkenness in that you can't accept that you are, in fact, dehydrated while you are dehydrated (Nah, bro... I can totally drive thish car home....I'm totally fine, dude!... [stumbles off curb, breaks ankle]) I didn't realize it until 300 miles, five hours, and many, many bottles of water later when I was feeling a LOT better.

This was the first mechanical failure I've experienced on this trip. And it was a short-lived one thanks to the dozens of stops I made along the way to fill up my water bottle. The technology failures, though, they don't seem to want to stop. I was in Ventura, CA, before I realized the car charger didn't work. So, without a laptop, and with my phone as my only guidebook/map/emergency lifeline, I have to make sure that my phone is fully charged every morning before hitting the road. Yesterday, after pushing through the morning's nausea and listlessness, I got all the way to the bell tower in Balboa Park in San Diego, clearly one of the most beautiful and ornate buildings in the whole park, when my camera ran out of battery. I grabbed a few shots with my phone's camera (is there anything this little HTC Evo CAN'T do?) and made my way back to the car, determined to not have THAT happen again.

Other things, however, have been aligning magically. I was checking my email (from my phone!) from a state park bathroom when I saw that a friend from high school, who I'd been trying to meet up with since March when I was down in SLO the first time, suggested that we meet at a cute little bistro in a sleepy little town for dinner with his wife. I was literally ten minutes from the turnoff when I checked my email. So, I pulled off the highway, called him, changed out of my sweaty traveling clothes into something not sweaty in my car (I'm sorry, Orcutt, CA, for flashing you my boobs, but it's just so much more comfortable to drive without a bra), and, like, just like no time had passed between us at all, we were having wine and eating meatballs. I had arrived just a few minutes before my friend and his wife and handed the lovely hostess at Addamo's my camera battery, explaining that I was about to meet a friend I hadn't seen in fifteen years and could she please plug this battery into her wall for ten minutes or so so I could take pictures of this momentous occasion, and also, was my shirt on backwards?

My friend, the inimitable J.C., his lovely wife Colleen, and I laughed the night away. It's becoming more and more apparent to me that this trip is only partially about the scenery. Letting your hair down and laughing is equally important. Understanding that some friendships do not need physical proximity to endure...this has been the most important lesson yet. I've stayed with some incredibly wonderful people along the way and they have been so warm and welcoming. They have all been tonic to my tired, vibrating soul at the end of a day of driving.

And then, THEN! I got to spend the night at the Madonna Inn. It figures that I would drive all this way to get away from the snow and the cold to sleep in a (very expensive) room decorated, of all things, like a freakin' Swiss Chalet, complete with wooden skis and wood paneling. Gah! Whatever frustration I was feeling this morning wore off in seconds, though, when I got to the pool. The pool, y'all. The pool is magical. Swimming in the early morning in a pool surrounded by mountains with birds chirping in the background? Heavenly. Topped only by the music being piped in through speakers made to look like boulders. The song?

"Take it easy
Take it easy
Don't let the sound of your own wheels
Drive you crazy".

Will do, Mr. Henley. Will do.

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When Life Hands You Lemons… and a guy named Jake*

The clock is ticking here at the San Luis Obispo public library. For 26 minutes, I have Internet access. Then it's back to getting directions, checking my email, and Googling "cheap, shitty motels" on my phone. Why? Well, because my laptop is in San Francisco. And I am at least five hours south of it in San Luis Obispo.

That time calculation might be a little off. You see, time has unraveled these past 24 hours.

A savvier traveler might have a plan for traveling down the coast. A savvier traveler, for instance, might have checked things like road conditions and weather and packed something slightly warmer for those gusty coastal winds. A savvier traveler might also have, for instance, checked to see if Route 1 was blocked due a massive rock slide. She might also have believed the sign when it said in Monterrey "Road Ends 75 miles".

Ends? How does a road just END? Surely there would be a detour, no? Surely there would be something besides a gas station, a restaurant, and three burly contractors nursing tallboys of beer? Surely the Universe would not expect one to squint at a ragged map and know that "G14" was a forest road and that one would have to wend one's way, on a single lane road for 20 excruciating miles at 7 miles an hour, through the Los Padres National Forest as the sun was setting and then drive through a goddamned Army base to get back to Highway 101, right? And surely, surely, the Universe would not have planted Jake at the end of the bar run his ragged fingers through the back of your cute, asymmetrical haircut while you were looking away, offer you some of his shrimp tortellini, and ask you why you had to be going so soon.

Because nothing would light up your face after finding out that the road, WAS, in fact, closed, and that the "detour" you dreamed of was 50 long miles through dense woods, like a guy who was paying for his meal in weed, and knew those woods like the back of his hand because he lived somewhere in them off the grid. And nothing would make you feel better after pumping thirty six cents worth of gas into your car (because all the other pumps were dry, the other hundred or so drivers that day having panicked in exactly the same way you did and topped off their tanks) than his pet Chihuahua, Bella, who sat in your lap for a picture.

And nothing would make that day more complete than figuring out you'd left your phone, your only effing connection to the outside world, on the paper towel dispenser in that bathroom in the gas station, after driving five miles down the road.

Well, nothing except using that phone, after an hour of driving like a bat out of hell down 101, to find a motel, booking it, and then driving there - only to find out that the only room vacant is the handicapped room. There will be no bathtub, the power button on the TV will be broken, and your blackout shades will have a ping pong ball sized hole in them. You don't care much because you are exhausted. You will pull the plug for the TV out of the wall, you will bunch up the shades to cover the hole, you will turn on the heater (whose knobs are broken/reversed so instead of blowing hot air all night, blows COLD air) and you will dream of a more dignified, more planned vacation. One that does not involve holes in the wallboard, and rock slides, and not eating dinner, and definitely includes more guys eating pasta in a restaurant at the end of the world.

*Not his real name. I'm protecting his innocence from the Feds.

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SLO, Day 2

I've been slow (ha ha! get it! SLO?) to post about my trip. It's been nearly a month since I got back (how in the hell...?) so I'd better get on with it. Plus, Mr. Burdy's cousin called tonight and wanted to know how it was (we haven't talked in a while), so if I needed a sign from the Universe to wrap this thing up, that was it.

But Other Things have been happening! Fun things! And I have wanted to write about them, too! I guess I will have to write about them after I finish writing about this trip. Which, at the rate I'm going, will sometime in 2012.

ANWYHO.

SLO, Day 2:

We start out our tour of downtown with the mission.

I don't know what it is about statuary that fascinates me. Most of my pictures from my 1999 trip to Europe are of statues (and me making an ass of myself in front of them. Oh, to be 20 and shameless again...)

Here we have a bunch of Catholic missals. Which, as a nerdy ten year old, I could not dissociate from projectile ammunition. Oh, homonyms, how I love thee.

Here is our challenge for the day: Bishop's Peak. "Obispo" means "Bishop" in Spanish. Thank you, Victoria, for teaching me this. I would have spent the rest of the trip thinking San Luis Obispo meant something like Saint Louie's Abyss.) And thank YOU, perky young ladies at the Visitor's Information Center, for not knowing the length of a mile from a hole in the ground. Normally, I'm not the type to complain about walking, or about bad estimations of distances to places, but in this case, with my feet swollen in their shoes from the heat, and my tiny water bottle nearly empty before we even got to the FOOTHILL, I was a little more than miffed. Apparently, the attitude in SLO is so laid back, residents can actually cut four miles into one just by saying it slowly.

Yes, we climbed it. And yes, we were sore afterward. And yes, it was sooooo worth it.

This is my favorite part about travel to temperate climates: CITRUS! GROWING ON TREES! IN PEOPLE'S YARDS! It's like shrubbery, or ground cover or something, all casual-like and unassuming on people's property. Like the citrus trees are all, hey lawn, how's it hanging? I'm just standing here minding my biz, making fruit and stuff. Only it's not all casual-like to me because it's CITRUS! With real CITRUS! fruit. And I live in a city that's cold and gray and the only thing that grows really well here all casual-like is mold.

My second favorite part about travel? Signs. Yup. I love me some signs. Especially ones like this one. (The stupid 20 year old in me is snickering right now.)

You know you might have some issues with food when, in a historically Spanish-speaking down, you see a sign that begins with "Del" and you hope and pray it ends in "i" and that they have a good rye bread. Geez. You can take the girl out of New York...

Victoria and I hauled ourselves to the top of Bishop's peak (well, almost to the top; the actual last thirty or forty feet required bouldering equipment) after a very long trip to the base from town. Sure, it was only a few miles, but STILL. When you're planning on just a few hours of hiking because you're trying to save up your energy for the heavy drinking you want to do later that night, you need to pace yourself.

Another thing SLO residents stink at? Describing natural landmarks. We were told that we might come across two massive rocks that would block the road that would require us to "shimmy" between them to get up and over. We came across no such rocks. Why? Because we took a different path to the top. But we weren't told there were two ways to get to the top, so we guessed that the rocks everyone was referring to were these slippery, wet rocks that shot up into the stratosphere at a ninety degree angle. Not wanting to miss the spectacular view from the top, we started up. We got about ten feet up, and both of us broke out into cold sweats. I'm not sure what Victoria was thinking, but all that was running through my head was "Don't die don't die don't die". My knees were starting to give out (because I'm not a billygoat, for god's sake) but I didn't want to disappoint Victoria. But then I saw her face was a shade lighter and we both decided to clamber down, take some photos, chew on some trail mix, and assess the situation. We decided (smartly, duh) to take another path up, and it turns out we chose wisely. From fifteen hundred feet in the air, it was gorgeousness in every direction.

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SLO, Day 1

I've been meaning to post pictures of my trip to San Luis Obispo for weeks now, but I've lately fallen into the rabbit hole of self help books. I know, I know. it's incredibly good for me, incredibly bad for this blog. And, as we all know, at some point you just have to stop all the processing and journaling and weeping about it and just get on with the business of living. So, here it is. The start of my trip.

Were the discovery of the New World up to me, were I asked by the moneyed elite to captain a rollicking, gigantic vessel designed to cut through vast expanses of bumpy sea, were I handed a satchelful of gold and a crudely drawn map and promised fame and glory, were I told innumerable riches, exotic women, and lush climates awaited me in a beautiful new country, I would have considered the offer with a deep and sober humility. I would have calculated the promise of honor, and weighed it against the risk of death. I would have allotted the proper amount of pacing back and forth with hands behind the back and tugging on the chin. And then I would have turned to my benefactors, shrugged my shoulders and said, "Meh. I'll skip it. I'm starved. What's there to eat around here?"

Not that discovery and travel don't excite me! In fact, they are the only things left that excite me! (Well, that and new flavors of cheese puffs). It's the getting there that puts me off. And not because of time or boredom or anything like that. In all matters of cross continental escapades, it's the motion sickness that is the undoing of my enthusiasm.

I haven't talked much about our boat (may she rest in peace with her new owners) on this blog, and with good reason. We bought it, I nearly peed myself in anxiety when we moved it to another slip, we took it out for a few day trips, and that was it. We sold it. And all because I couldn't handle the motion of the ocean.

Travel by boat, though, has its charms. (They wear off after about two hours). It's the air travel, start to finish, that's the absolute pits. And we can just skip the discussion about the public theater that is the security check at the airport. And the bad food and the service and the stench of humankind packed into a winged steel tube. For me, it's the tiny mutiny going on inside my head that makes almost all travel not worth it. My tiny sinuses and the disastrous labyrinth that is my inner ear all conspire to keep me home-bound.

But I do want to leave the house! I do, I do, I do! It's a disconcerting thing, really, this desire to be rowed through the canals of Venice, to want to eat soup for breakfast on the streets of Vietnam, to want to paddle my surfboard out into the Pacific along the Panamanian coast... and then to be thwarted by my own shitty head-plumbing.

I suppose, given my new foray into the Laws of Attraction and all that jazz, I could dig deep for the metaphor here. I could consider that maybe my focus on the destination and not the journey is really what keeps me from enjoying the ride. Maybe I am just not at the place in my life to understand how airsickness is revealing itself as a teacher of a greater lesson.

Oooooooor.... maybe there is no freakin' lesson. For God's sake. Maybe I am just not designed to sit (as Louis CK says) in a chair 30,000 feet in the air and think this is completely normal.

I think I am designed to sit about two feet off the pavement, in my Honda Civic. Or maybe four feet off the ground in a train car. Something not subject to the twitchy temperament of winds or, ya know, clouds.

A massage therapist recently suggested soaking my feet in an Epsom salt bath every night to draw the energy mucking up my head into my the lower part of my body. If there was a way to pull the mangled locomotive engine parts out of my head and put them in my feet, I gladly would. I would happily take nauseous ankles over a head that feels like it might explode from the pressure any day of the week.

How wrong is it, when I fly, to wish I could ferry all the discomfort from my head to my stomach so I could just have a good old fashioned heave-ho into an airsickness bag and be done with it? Why do I have to contend with the feeling of a balloon being inflated inside my skull? Why can't I have restless legs or legs that are too long for an airplane seat? Why, oh why, must I be obsessed with visiting places ravaged by things like "pockets of warm air" or "tropical storm fronts"?

And how hard is it to calm yourself down with deep cleansing breaths when the air you're breathing smells and tastes like dirty shag carpeting? Hard. And then there are the toilets threatening to suction your intestines out and distribute them over a farm in Iowa somewhe-

Wait. This is supposed to be a post about a really awesome trip I went on with a good friend of mine.

Right.

So. Ahem. ANYWHO. After a slight delay at the airport, we boarded the plane. Seattle, like the abusive boyfriend of a city that it is, gave us a rainbow in a last ditch effort to say "Don't leave! I promise I'll never hurt you again, baby."

The ascent was the worst I've ever experienced in my life. The winds were pretty fierce, so, to avoid bumps, the pilot cocked the plane back on its rear wheels, pointed the nose STRAIGHT up into the air, and shot up to 30,000 feet in, like, sixteen seconds. I'm not even exaggerating. My head hurt so bad afterward, I could hardly hold my hands steady to take this picture. Thanks, Victoria, for help with the shot.

We landed at night, got ourselves the most delicious Mexican shrimp cocktail and beers in town for dinner, and then hit the hay early.

Next post: Day Two (where there will be no mention of vomit, I promise).

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craigslist scams

I May Have Gone Too Far With This One…

I consider myself pretty street smart. Usually, I can sniff out the con artist in the crowd. And I think I'm pretty good at knowing when someone's being disingenuous. I knew, for instance, right away that Make Mike Jason Smith was a Nigerian in a very, very stylish 20-something's clothing when he emailed and said he was interested in the room I had for rent on Craigslist. I knew that all his cronies were frauds too (though that may have had less to do with my street smarts with more with the fact that ALL the emails followed the same basic formula. Every last one of them "was into fashion design", and "was not gay, but was totally, totally cool with it".)

Something about this place, though -or maybe just this period in my life- has turned me into something of a village idiot. I have not fallen prey to one, but TWO different scams in the last year. The first one involved a teenager selling overpriced magazine subscriptions door to door this past Fall. And the second one happened on Saturday.

I'm going to make some effort to defend myself here... even though I feel ashamed and embarrassed at what was an undeniably stupid decision on my part, made in haste, and without listening to my gut instincts.

On Saturday, CLH and I went looking for houses to rent. We had seen what amounted to a whole pile of uninhabitable wrecks, with a few cookie cutter condo units thrown in for good measure. We were exhausted. But we'd seen this ad the night before that looked too good to be true (BIG. RED. FLAG. IGNORED.) and we wanted to jump on it. So, we stopped in at a local bar to see if we could set up our laptops, revisit the ad, and follow the instructions for setting up a viewing. There are a few things to consider here before I go any further which might explain why this particular scam worked on us. First, CLH and I are desperate to move. We want out BAD. Secondly, we were hot, thirsty, cranky, and had very low blood sugar when finally stopped to sit down. Thirdly, we couldn't get either of our laptops to access the wireless Internet, so we had to resort to using CLH's new 3G iPhone to access the website. And, as everyone knows, though the new iPhone can do many, many, many things, it still has a screen the size of a slice of Spam, and many things that would otherwise look suspect on a big screen look perfectly normal on this tiny screen. So you can kind of understand why we thought the request to fill out an semi-application online seemed like a perfectly legitimate request. We even asked our real-estate agent friend about it and she seemed to think it was perfectly routine.

It turns out it is NOT perfectly routine. It is also not a legitimate service. It IS a scam designed to have you fork over $15 dollars (again, not an ungodly sum- hence our willingness) and some pertinent information so that this "third party" can "pre-screen" you for your potential landlord. When you initially email the owner of the property, you are sent a message back from some ridiculous made up name (I got "Kenna Chillinskas", which I'm thinking of naming my first dog) redirecting you to a website (erentalapplications.com) that will then ask you to fill out an application. What is actually happening is this: the scam artists are grabbing ads from craigslist and the like, deleting the original owner's information, replacing it with theirs, and claiming that they have the ability to schedule a showing of the property... right after you give them some information via their nifty little website.

Somehow, we avoided surrendering our social security numbers, but the ass clowns at erentalapplications.com now have our current address and phone numbers. I did a little sleuthing this morning to find out more about the site (thank jeebus for Google), and found multitudes of information about it, including a replica of the EXACT email I was sent when I emailed the "owner" asking about the property.

The more I read this morning, the more angry I became. I eventually had to walk away from my computer because smoke was coming out of my ears and I didn't want to have to explain to the neighbors that those fire trucks out front? Yeah, those were there because I had set the couch on fire with the stream of flame that had come shooting out of my mouth.

Still, I needed to do something. So, I just wrote down the first thing that came to my mind. And then I hit "send". I'm not exactly sure where this touch of bravado (or violence) came from... though, if I had to guess, I would say it came from the gaping, gory crater in my soul where I used to house a love for all things craigslist - and which has been replaced by a blackened, hardened little rock which I now use to pelt email scammers in the groin. Behold, the writings of a woman scorned (and not just a little out of her mind):

"You have been reported to the local police as a potential scammer. The
authorities at Craisglist have been notified as well. If you don't
take down your ad, your email address will be used as a vehicle to
infiltrate your personal information, and you will be hunted down and
possibly killed. I have my people working on this. You have just
messed with the wrong folks."

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She REALLY wants to live here….

Hi There,

I got your mail. Thanks for geting back to me so quick and I am extremely interested in ur room since you said you are not expecting it to be too long and i don't want you to rent it out to any other person...... I will inform company client I worked in the states for before I quit to arrnage for my last payment to you so that you can deduct the payment of the room out of it. You seem to be a very good and nice person. I want you to know that i'm a very straight forward and honest person. I contacted the person who i worked for when i was in the states. The man is owing me and he is ready to pay me with acheck. I will be paying ahead my arrival for a month, which is very important and that will secure the Place for me, and as soon as I arrive others important things will be taken care of before moving in the Place. I want you t o know that the first month payment will be made in full via Certified Bank Cashier's Check or Money Order and that will stand as commitment ahead my arrival. So i will inform him to issue out the check to you, so that the check can stand as the payment of the room. All you got to do now is to send me your full name name, contact address and phone number so that i can forward it to my client who will issue the check out to you... As soon as i get these info i requested for, i will forward them to my client immediately. As soon as you recieve the check you will deduct the frist month out of it you will now help me forward the remaning balance to my traveling manager so that i can use it to book for my flight back to the states. I just want to make sure i get the room before i get back to the state.. I will like stay there for a year even more that till when i will have my own personal place but I will prefer month to month lease.
More About me: ABOUT ME:
Name: Rose Michaels
E yes: Black
Age: 26yrs
Height: 5' 6' (167cm)
Weight: 122 pounds (55.0 kg)
Body Style: Athletic/Fit Activity
Level: Active
Smoking: No
Drinking: Socially
Marital Status: Single
Children: I have no kids
Sign: Virgo
Languages I speak: English & Spanish
Ethnicity: Spanish
Religion:Catholic/Christianity
Education: MCSA/MCSE
Occupation: Fashion Designer
My favorites are;
My favorite cuisines: Barbecue, Chinese/Dim Sum, Deli, Eastern-European, Fast Food/Pizza, French, Greek,Indian, Italian, Japanese/Sushi, Mexican, Seafood,
Soul Food, Thai, Vietnamese
My favorite music: Dance/Electronica, Disco, Easy Listening, Pop/Top 40, Rap/Hip Hop, Soul/R&B and Soundtracks.
My favorite physical activities: Basketball, Working Out, Dancing, Swiming and Hiking/Walking I love travelling, sporting and enjoy meeting people. I don't smoke or drink but i do not mind people who do being around me. Am cool headed and easy go ing person with no criminal record and i like to have a roommmate or neighabour who is very responsible and understanding,someone i can really get a long. As soon as you get this mail pls get back to me with the info i requested for so that every thing can be done fast. Take care and I will be looking forward to hear from you soon.

Thanks and have a good time..
Warmest Regards,
Rose

My response:

Dear Rose,
I'm going to do away with the niceties and cut right to the chase. The rooms are all but yours. You won me over with a single line in your response: Your body type. Now, I know most landlords wouldn't care about this sort of thing (and I'm pretty sure it's illegal to sell someone housing based on their physical fitness) but, well, it's important to me. You see, Rose, I need your body. I can't afford to rent to just any fat ass. No, Rose. What I need in my house is a lean mean muscle machine... what we in America call "a hard body". Can you be a hard body for me, Rose? I'll tell you why this is so important, Rose. It's the yard. The yard is a shambles. It needs a LOT of work. Work that only those possessing the body type "athletic/fit activity" are going to be able to handle.

You see, Rose, when we moved into this place, we had high hopes of making that yard the new Garden of Eden. We were going to prune the fruit trees and tame the lawn and really get those vegetable patches producing. But, you know how it goes, Rose. Sometimes life just gets in the way. And sometimes you have less time for big projects than you thought. So, I need to have my yard maintained, Rose, and it's going to be the responsibility of the renter to keep it looking good. I wouldn't want the (racist) neighbors to get any ideas about letting their lawns go because mine has gone to seed! Anyway, Rose, this yard, it needs help. It needs your athleticism and it needs it now.

Do you have experience pushing a lawnmower, Rose? The kind that neither plugs in nor uses gas? Because we only have the old fashioned kind. And the yard is nearly a quarter of an acre. On a slope. So, every two weeks, Rose, you're going to have to put on your Wellies and get out there and mow. It should only take about half the day. That will leave you the other half of the day for the other yard work. There are the rose bushes that need pruning, the ornamentals that will need thinning, the blackberries that will need trimming... and that's just the front yard! Oh, I almost forgot! I hope you're not afraid of coyotes, rats, rabbits, or raccoons, Rose. Your ability to run a mile without getting winded will really come in handy when you encounter our charming neighborhood friend, "Bandit", going through the compost pile!

Anywho, Rose, I'm sure your company client's accounting department is familiar with the procedure for illegal Internet scams, so you just have them wire me one million US dollars right away. That will cover your first week. Once you've learned to operate the WeedWacker, we can lower the rent to something more reasonable... say, something in the hundreds of thousands.

Your Pal With A Green Thumb (in your eye),
GoFuckYourself

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My Response to a Potential Renter

Here's the email I received this evening, after posting my ad on Craigslist, from one "Make Jason" (that's his email return address name).

Hello ,
I saw your advert on craigslist .com ,I'm interested in renting the room . My name is Smith Mike (27 years) ,I am a young male,I am a fashion designer , i'm friendly professional male looking for housing in the USA area in hopes of moving closer to my Job , i am a fashion designer . I would like to shear 1 bedroom and a private/ share bathroom with male or female gender, I prefer to have straight male or female as a roommates. I'd like to sign 1 year lease and planning to move as soon as possible meanig that i will be staying for a minimum of 12 months. My budget is at the range of $500-$1800 per month including the utilities .
Please kindly get ack to me with the total movein for the first month?
A little bit about me: I currently live and work in ,San Diego California, working with 005 WAREHOUSE WHOLESALE CLOTHING & APPAREL our Head office is in melbourne in Australia . I'm not a huge partier either. I enjoy the performing arts, I don't smoke but have no problem with people who do, I'm pretty neat but not a clean freak.More i don't have pets but i will get to like it if you have I'm pretty low-key,independent, considerate and very friendly! I'm not a partier, drinker, drug-abuser, or smoker by ANY means. I'm not a super clean freak, but I will certainly contribute to the cleaning of the common areas of the house. I'm pretty quiet and won't have > a lot of guests
over… I'll rarely have overnight guests. Please email me if you feel I'd be a good fit for your next roomie!
N.b
Incase there is needs for me to attach my pictures please feel free to ask ,Please
kindly get back to me with the total rent for the first month and deposite if included.
Smith Mike

And here's my response:</p>

</span></span></span>Hello, Mike, Make, Jason, Smith, or whatever else you call yourself (all seem suspicious to me).

Thank you kindly for your interest in my house! Your first month's rent, should you choose to accept the terms of our contract, will be 1 million US dollars. I know that seems high Mike Make Jason Smith, but it is for a good reason. You see, we have to keep the first month's rent that high because, Mike Make Jason Smith, there are many dishonest people in the world, and we need to charge a high price to protect ourselves from those dishonest people. Let me explain what they do, Mike Make Jason Smith. Those dishonest people often pretend to be living abroad, looking for housing in the USA, and they write to people like me asking for my bank account number so they can "pay" me for rent on the room-share I have advertised for on the Internet. But, Mike Make Jason Smith, they do not use that information to pay people like me anything. In fact, those people (we call them "scam artists") try to TAKE money from those accounts. Do you know what a scam is, Mike Make Jason Smith? You would never try to scam me, would you, Mike Make Jason Smith? It would be very unfortunate if you did, because, you see, we in the USA have ways of dealing with people like you, and it's not very pleasant. Have you heard of a little nation called "Iraq"? Full of scammers.

Anyway, Mike Make Jason Smith, I know your intentions are sound, and I know you are WAY hip because you are into the performing arts and fashion design and that you are super laid back about pets and smoking. And it sounds like you're going to be a great match for our cleaning schedule and overnight prostitute policy... so, why don't you go ahead and get that check ready (we don't give out banking information over the Internet, you silly goose!). I'll give you my mailing address just as soon as you send me your bank information, your address, your phone number, your mother's maiden name, your government identification number, your driver's license number, your blood type, and your health insurance policy group number. Oh, and a picture would be nice, too.

Yours in domesticity,
GoFuckYourself</p>

(In case you want to send Mike Make Jason Smith an small note reminding him that it's not nice to bait people on the Internet... here's his email: make_smith2005@yahoo.com.)
</span>

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rental house

I May Have Gone Too Far With This One…

I consider myself pretty street smart. Usually, I can sniff out the con artist in the crowd. And I think I'm pretty good at knowing when someone's being disingenuous. I knew, for instance, right away that Make Mike Jason Smith was a Nigerian in a very, very stylish 20-something's clothing when he emailed and said he was interested in the room I had for rent on Craigslist. I knew that all his cronies were frauds too (though that may have had less to do with my street smarts with more with the fact that ALL the emails followed the same basic formula. Every last one of them "was into fashion design", and "was not gay, but was totally, totally cool with it".)

Something about this place, though -or maybe just this period in my life- has turned me into something of a village idiot. I have not fallen prey to one, but TWO different scams in the last year. The first one involved a teenager selling overpriced magazine subscriptions door to door this past Fall. And the second one happened on Saturday.

I'm going to make some effort to defend myself here... even though I feel ashamed and embarrassed at what was an undeniably stupid decision on my part, made in haste, and without listening to my gut instincts.

On Saturday, CLH and I went looking for houses to rent. We had seen what amounted to a whole pile of uninhabitable wrecks, with a few cookie cutter condo units thrown in for good measure. We were exhausted. But we'd seen this ad the night before that looked too good to be true (BIG. RED. FLAG. IGNORED.) and we wanted to jump on it. So, we stopped in at a local bar to see if we could set up our laptops, revisit the ad, and follow the instructions for setting up a viewing. There are a few things to consider here before I go any further which might explain why this particular scam worked on us. First, CLH and I are desperate to move. We want out BAD. Secondly, we were hot, thirsty, cranky, and had very low blood sugar when finally stopped to sit down. Thirdly, we couldn't get either of our laptops to access the wireless Internet, so we had to resort to using CLH's new 3G iPhone to access the website. And, as everyone knows, though the new iPhone can do many, many, many things, it still has a screen the size of a slice of Spam, and many things that would otherwise look suspect on a big screen look perfectly normal on this tiny screen. So you can kind of understand why we thought the request to fill out an semi-application online seemed like a perfectly legitimate request. We even asked our real-estate agent friend about it and she seemed to think it was perfectly routine.

It turns out it is NOT perfectly routine. It is also not a legitimate service. It IS a scam designed to have you fork over $15 dollars (again, not an ungodly sum- hence our willingness) and some pertinent information so that this "third party" can "pre-screen" you for your potential landlord. When you initially email the owner of the property, you are sent a message back from some ridiculous made up name (I got "Kenna Chillinskas", which I'm thinking of naming my first dog) redirecting you to a website (erentalapplications.com) that will then ask you to fill out an application. What is actually happening is this: the scam artists are grabbing ads from craigslist and the like, deleting the original owner's information, replacing it with theirs, and claiming that they have the ability to schedule a showing of the property... right after you give them some information via their nifty little website.

Somehow, we avoided surrendering our social security numbers, but the ass clowns at erentalapplications.com now have our current address and phone numbers. I did a little sleuthing this morning to find out more about the site (thank jeebus for Google), and found multitudes of information about it, including a replica of the EXACT email I was sent when I emailed the "owner" asking about the property.

The more I read this morning, the more angry I became. I eventually had to walk away from my computer because smoke was coming out of my ears and I didn't want to have to explain to the neighbors that those fire trucks out front? Yeah, those were there because I had set the couch on fire with the stream of flame that had come shooting out of my mouth.

Still, I needed to do something. So, I just wrote down the first thing that came to my mind. And then I hit "send". I'm not exactly sure where this touch of bravado (or violence) came from... though, if I had to guess, I would say it came from the gaping, gory crater in my soul where I used to house a love for all things craigslist - and which has been replaced by a blackened, hardened little rock which I now use to pelt email scammers in the groin. Behold, the writings of a woman scorned (and not just a little out of her mind):

"You have been reported to the local police as a potential scammer. The
authorities at Craisglist have been notified as well. If you don't
take down your ad, your email address will be used as a vehicle to
infiltrate your personal information, and you will be hunted down and
possibly killed. I have my people working on this. You have just
messed with the wrong folks."

Continue to full post...

Response to Potential Renter #2

Received a few days ago (and again this evening. Error number one, morons. Don't send the same scam email twice.)

"Hi There, How re you doing? I hope all is well. I'm Rose Michaels, am 26 yrs old and Am originally from Barcelona, Spain . Graduate of Huelva University on the Costa de la Luz, I have a master degree in interior fashion and I work as a professional fashion designer. I moved to Phoenix , AZ two year ago for work and that's where am living. I'm am not in the states right now, i am presently in West africa . I am currently working on contract for a company call (African Family Home Fashions) here in West Africa ( Nigeria) which the contract will be ending soon. I will be returning to states in two weeks time and I don't want to go back to my where am living in Phoenix because my house rent has expired there. I enjoy traveling, It is very interesting to get more knowledge about the new countries, new people and traditions. It's great to have such a possibility.

As i was searching through the web i saw the advert of your room. I would like to know maybe it's still available becasue i'm extremely interested in it. Here are the questions i would like to know about the room before planing to move in to the following questions below:
A}I will like to know the major intersection nearest your neighbourhood.like shopping mall,Churches,bus line e.t.c
B}I will like to know the total cost for the my initial move as in first month rent and if you accept deposit.
C}I will like to know if there is any garage or parking space cos I will have my own car come over.
D}I will like to have the rent fee per month plus the utilities.
E}I will like to have the description of the room, size, and the equipments in there.
F}I will also like to know Your payment mode.
G}I will like to know if I can make an advance payment ahead my arrival that will be stand as a kind of commitment that I am truely coming over and for you to hold the room down for me. I will be very glad to have all this questions answered with out leaving a stone unturned... Now a little about myself;I am from Barcelona, Spain : that means i am Spanish and had all my education in Spain . I am 26yrs old and very much single,the only child of my only parent,my mother alive, i lost my father and my only brother years ago while i was still a kid in an auto accident.I am currently living with my mom who's a catholic volunteer worker,but also manages her antique business. She is a volunteer at the sister's of the eucharistic heart of jesus convent,here in Barcelona , Spain . I have been wanted to relocated to the US longtime ago even while i was a little girl growing up and my mom is in support.It' been a long dreamed come true for me when i finnally settled in the US now. I have chosen your city for me to live when i arrive. I am easy to get along with and well mannered. I do not use people's items without permission and consideration.
Kindly get back to me ASAP with the your monthly rent and the deposit i need to pay to enable you turn down other interested parties and keep the place for me until i arrive,because i will like to pay for the deposit before my arrival and i will like to know the total amount the rent for a whole year would be,as i am more interested in a long term lease,but still open to any form of lease you want. But i will like to pay the deposit first of all before i arrive to show my seriousness and so that you can hold the place for me until i arrive.I am single as i said and i am not attached to anyone at the moment. I do part time modeling; i call myself an amateur though,LOL,just something i take as a hobby and also i have a masters degree in interior fashion which i bagged from the Huelva University on the Costa de la Luz in Spain . I will be looking to pick up Fashion Designer jobs once i arrive in ur city, Fashion Designer is my life and i love it. I am new living all alone as i have lived with my mom alone in the past but i have no doubs in my mind about my ability to live peacefully with as i was raised to be a lover of peace. A friend just introduced me to this thing and i really wish that i am able to find the good cultured kind of Place i am looking for here. I hope i am doing it right anyways.LOL. Well,i think we will get along well because am a easy going person who respects ones privacy,like i said i dont do drugs or smoke but i drink only occasionally,i strongly believe there will be any problems living with me as i was raised by strong catholic Christain parents and have inbibed such good qualities from childhood. I will love to see your pics and those of the place as well.I'll be so glad if you can reserve the room for me and remove all your the adverts abt the place as i'll love to rent the place.
Get back to me ASAP
Thanks and have a good time,and you can give me a buzz cos i am presently online on my IM ( rosesmich0101 ).
Warmest Regards,
Rose"

And, here's my response:

Dear Rose,
Perhaps you might know my friend, Make Mike Jason Smith! He, too, is a fashion designer living abroad or in the states (depending on which line in the email you believe), and he too needs an apartment! I have to tell you, Rose, that I am really intrigued at the DIRECT corollary between earners-of-masters-in-fashion-design and the sudden homelessness pandemic amongst you all. You ALL seem to be searching for apartments at exactly the same time! No worries, though. I'm sure there's room for all of you here in our fair city.

I love that you "bagged" your degree. You must be incredibly smart. And totally hip to be using a word like "bagged" when referring to a degree in a HIGHLY competitive field. I'm confused, though, Rose. Why would someone as smart as yourself want to know about the bus lines AND want to know about a parking garage on the premises? Is it because you are driving a bus? That would be WAY cool, Rose. And probably a nice way to supplement your fashion designer income! As for churches, I can't say. I'm not a church goer, Rose. But, whatever your parents gave you to drink as a kid that immediately made you full of Christian values, I would love to try it. I've never tried chugging Christian values myself, but, hey. I'm not one to turn away God if he comes in a convenient 12 ounce size.

I am concerned about your pursuit of the fashion world here in our small corner of the world, Rose. Really concerned. I don't know how they do it over there in Nigeria, but here in the Northwest, high fashion is considered not wearing socks with your Teva sandals. Also, if your fleece Harry Potter hat matches your ski boot bindings. I hate to disappoint you, Rose, because, believe me, I know what it's like to be disappointed by something that is masquerading as something it's not, but this place does not take kindly to fashion. And I know that, with your degree in fashion and all, you're going to want to be inspired by your environment. But this place inspires only smelly ultimate Frisbee players and Bigfoot with its fashion sense. You'd be better served ~~scamming~~ looking in some other major city for housing.

I, too, strongly believe there will be any (and all) problems with you living here. So here's what I suggest: give Make Mike Jason Smith a buzz. I'll even give you is email! It's: make_smith2005@yahoo.com. He's looking for a place, you're looking for a place. Why don't you guys room together? That way, when the police come and arrest you for email baiting, they only have to make one stop.

With Warmest Apologies for Your Horrible Spelling,
GoFuckYourself

Continue to full post...

My Response to a Potential Renter

Here's the email I received this evening, after posting my ad on Craigslist, from one "Make Jason" (that's his email return address name).

Hello ,
I saw your advert on craigslist .com ,I'm interested in renting the room . My name is Smith Mike (27 years) ,I am a young male,I am a fashion designer , i'm friendly professional male looking for housing in the USA area in hopes of moving closer to my Job , i am a fashion designer . I would like to shear 1 bedroom and a private/ share bathroom with male or female gender, I prefer to have straight male or female as a roommates. I'd like to sign 1 year lease and planning to move as soon as possible meanig that i will be staying for a minimum of 12 months. My budget is at the range of $500-$1800 per month including the utilities .
Please kindly get ack to me with the total movein for the first month?
A little bit about me: I currently live and work in ,San Diego California, working with 005 WAREHOUSE WHOLESALE CLOTHING & APPAREL our Head office is in melbourne in Australia . I'm not a huge partier either. I enjoy the performing arts, I don't smoke but have no problem with people who do, I'm pretty neat but not a clean freak.More i don't have pets but i will get to like it if you have I'm pretty low-key,independent, considerate and very friendly! I'm not a partier, drinker, drug-abuser, or smoker by ANY means. I'm not a super clean freak, but I will certainly contribute to the cleaning of the common areas of the house. I'm pretty quiet and won't have > a lot of guests
over… I'll rarely have overnight guests. Please email me if you feel I'd be a good fit for your next roomie!
N.b
Incase there is needs for me to attach my pictures please feel free to ask ,Please
kindly get back to me with the total rent for the first month and deposite if included.
Smith Mike

And here's my response:</p>

</span></span></span>Hello, Mike, Make, Jason, Smith, or whatever else you call yourself (all seem suspicious to me).

Thank you kindly for your interest in my house! Your first month's rent, should you choose to accept the terms of our contract, will be 1 million US dollars. I know that seems high Mike Make Jason Smith, but it is for a good reason. You see, we have to keep the first month's rent that high because, Mike Make Jason Smith, there are many dishonest people in the world, and we need to charge a high price to protect ourselves from those dishonest people. Let me explain what they do, Mike Make Jason Smith. Those dishonest people often pretend to be living abroad, looking for housing in the USA, and they write to people like me asking for my bank account number so they can "pay" me for rent on the room-share I have advertised for on the Internet. But, Mike Make Jason Smith, they do not use that information to pay people like me anything. In fact, those people (we call them "scam artists") try to TAKE money from those accounts. Do you know what a scam is, Mike Make Jason Smith? You would never try to scam me, would you, Mike Make Jason Smith? It would be very unfortunate if you did, because, you see, we in the USA have ways of dealing with people like you, and it's not very pleasant. Have you heard of a little nation called "Iraq"? Full of scammers.

Anyway, Mike Make Jason Smith, I know your intentions are sound, and I know you are WAY hip because you are into the performing arts and fashion design and that you are super laid back about pets and smoking. And it sounds like you're going to be a great match for our cleaning schedule and overnight prostitute policy... so, why don't you go ahead and get that check ready (we don't give out banking information over the Internet, you silly goose!). I'll give you my mailing address just as soon as you send me your bank information, your address, your phone number, your mother's maiden name, your government identification number, your driver's license number, your blood type, and your health insurance policy group number. Oh, and a picture would be nice, too.

Yours in domesticity,
GoFuckYourself</p>

(In case you want to send Mike Make Jason Smith an small note reminding him that it's not nice to bait people on the Internet... here's his email: make_smith2005@yahoo.com.)
</span>

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writing

Announcements!

You guys, I'm going to be part of this national storytelling event in May called Listen To Your Mother. LTYM is sort of like the Moth, but all about moms, which is not nearly as Hallmark card-y as I am making it sound. There will be no sixteen-inch rises on acid washed denim or "Live, Love, Laugh" painted on driftwood, just good old fashioned stories about sex, drugs, and motherhood. Emphasis on the motherhood part, probably, but, hey, you never know.

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Star Struck

Dear Holy Writing Spirit,

Please let me not trip over my words tonight. Please take the marbles from my mouth and the lead from my tongue. Grant me patience both with myself and with “The Process”. Guide my hand with the pen, and turn my ears towards your messengers. Allow me to be a conduit for your writerly grace and to know a glottal stop when I see one . Imbue me with perfect diction and let my hands lay down by my sides, lest they pinwheel about my wrists in nervousness. Forgive my overuse of elipses, cleanse me of the sin of starting sentences with “and”, and deliver me from clichés,

Now in the hour of your finest performance,

Amen.

This is the prayer I recite every Tuesday night. Every night now for three weeks, I have sat around a table, along with a dozen other students, with one of my literary heroes. I have made it seem like it’s all cool to be sitting five seats from my literary hero and reading my writing out loud, but it is not cool, people. No, it is not cool at all. It is an anxious, sweaty- palmed affair in which I bend the corner of my papers back and forth in anticipation of having to speak I am so nervous. And why? Because the combination of being in the same room as one of my literary heroes AND the pressure I’ve put on myself to make this class THE CLASS to END ALL CLASSES and to make me finally write that book is making my head implode. I have to consciously remember to breathe. I have to remember to be calm and to breathe and that hey! The instructor puts his shoes on one at a time just like the rest of us!

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Artful Bitching and How To Realize When Your Body Is Telling You Something

Internet, I've been away, and I apologize. Typing has been extremely painful these last few days, so I have been resting my hands. I have a finger injury. Okay, it's more like a fingernail injury. I can't actually tell what it is because (if you're squeamish, now would be a good time to just skip to paragraph two) every time I try to trim back the cuticle around the middle finger of my right hand, blood and pus come oozing out, blocking my view of the wound site. CLH thought it might be a splinter, but I argued that a splinter should not make your finger ooze, nor should it make it numb. Plus, I should be able to see a splinter. And all I can see at this point is layer upon layer of ragged skin around my nail where I have been tearing away with my manicurist's tools for the past few days. That, and some dried blood. This is now the third or so mystery injury that I've sustained on the right side of my body. And if you think I take these kinds of things lightly, well then you have me mistaken for someone who is not ultra sensitive to every little thing and not just a little bit woo-woo.

The past few days have been odd and great.

I made an appointment to see a cranio-sacral therapist to help out with my ear stuff. CLH has been hounding me about making an appointment with this therapist for probably more than a year now, but I have been resisting. I didn't want anymore turtle-shell rattle-waving in my general direction from another "alternative therapist" before I went to a western MD and had my head x-ray'd for this ear issue. You'd think I would be a little more open to the turtle-shell rattle folks, being practically married to someone who does alternative healing for a living. But, I can't help but have a bad taste in my mouth. After my original cranio sacral therapist all but kicked me to the curb two years ago, giving me the excuse that she just didn't think we should work together anymore... and after the naturopath I saw dismissed me after five minutes of consultation, I didn't want anything but a big, deadly machine to tell me what was wrong with my ears. Unfortunately, the stress of trying to rent this house has really exacerbated this ear thing lately, so, I decided to give in and see this illustrious Dr. Pat CLH has been raving about.

And, man alive, am I glad I did. She is everything CLH said she would be.

A little background: cranio sacral therapy is a healing modality in which the therapist, by subtly manipulating the plates of the skull, allows for the movement of cerebrospinal fluid within the head and spine. The general effect is that the patient feels relaxed, relieved, and maybe a little lightheaded. That's my scientific understanding of it, anyway. I'm sure a quick Google search will reveal that lots of people think it's pure quackery. To me, though, all medicine is just Dumbo's magic feather in a labcoat. And I say, whatever modality gets you feeling like you're at your optimum, go for it. I do things like accupuncture and craniosacral because I can physically feel the results, and the results are generally awesome. I am fully willing to admit that it might just be me convincing myself that it's working, but who cares? I'm of the belief that a little bit of positive thinking never hurt a healing process. Anywho, I could actually FEEL the effects of Dr. Pat's work. Not only could I feel the intended movement in my head, which left me feeling slightly nauseous but happy that SOMEthing was unsticking itself up there, I had some intense visualizations that were deeply moving.

Now, as if giving a woman $70 to gently rock my head back and forth doesn't sound desperate-for-relief and turtle shell rattle-y enough, my visualizations were pretty damned outta-this-world, too. My visualizations during my therapy sessions are always revealing in this profound sort of way, and what I saw while I was laying on Dr. Pat's table was nothing short of THE GREATEST METAPHOR IN MY LIFE EVER. I saw with my mind's eye that the inside of the left side of my head was all pink and plump and juicy- it looked kind of like what a healthy intestinal tract might look like, or maybe a healthy brain- all squiggly and bunched together, teeming with blood vessels and shiny with some deep-inside-the-body lubricant. The right side (the side where my throbbing, aching ear lives) looked like something out of a Hollywood set. It was a old tin box, irregularly shaped, and lining its insides was fuzzy grey mold. I had the sensation of old age, and neglect, and a little bit of Boo Radley's house. Then I had the feeling that Dr. Pat was reaching in there- I could see hands gently scooping out that mold. And I was grateful- grateful that someone wasn't grossed out by the state of my head, and grateful that she was brave enough to get in there and clean some of the crap out.

And that was all at 10 am that day.

Later on that same day, I had a great talk with my friend Tracy about writing. She's an aspiring writer, and she works part time for a non-profit that I do the books for. She's such an inspiration to me. She just up and decided one day that she'd had enough of her own excuse making, so she applied to a graduate program for creative writing, and now, two years and a degree later, she's got a mostly finished manuscript for a play she's written that's ready for production. She's been trying to talk me into signing up for this same program for some time now. Always curious about her process, and excited about her nearing graduation, I asked her to tell me the greatest lesson she's learned about her writing. And she told me that, prior to her program, she never made time for her writing. Even when she finally learned to schedule time to do it daily, she would double and triple book herself with appointments so she could avoid the computer. Now that she's gone through the program, she's learned that she needs to treat writing like the daily exercise/job it is. I cannot thank her enough for sharing that little nugget of wisdom. While she was talking, I thought about how much I needed to learn about making regular time for my writing. I shared the image of the musty tin box on my right side with her... and suddenly my brain made a synaptic jump. The right side of my body... the side that scientists say is the impetuous, artsy, feeling side... is starting to mold from disuse. The left side, the one that does math and science, the one that balances my checkbook, and the checkbooks of my clients, is alive and well. The mysterious bug bite that has taken a chunk out of my right leg... the fingernail injury... the ear.... all on my right side. All right side, right brain, art brain functionality experiencing a major breakdown. It was like my right side was just screaming at me to DO SOMETHING already. I'm a FREAKING BOX OF MOLD, FOR GOD'S SAKE. It was saying that I needed to replace that box with something vibrant, something pulsating with life and creativity! Something worthy of the right side of my brain, the side that writes and dreams and drifts off into plot lines all day long.

Well, damn. That little revelation was well worth $70.

That night, feeling still slightly queasy from my session with Dr. Pat, I decided to take a nap before heading out to see Lindsay perform her burlesque routine (which was AWESOME!). I couldn't sleep, though, because aside from the general grunting and laughing noise that was coming from the backyard full of CLH's friends through the windows, it sounded like someone was hammering on the pipes DIRECTLY underneath my bedroom floor. You see, we've found someone to live in and pay rent for the basement. It's a small step to getting this place full of money paying renters. She's been moving in for the past few weeks and it has suddenly been made very clear to me that there is NO NOISE BARRIER between the basement and the two rooms in the house I spend the most time in. I can hear EVERYthing from below. So, in a rage at not being able to get one moment's peace in my own home, I took off for the show early. And I drove to the coffeehouse that sells my favorite coffee and I hunkered down with a book and an americano for an hour before the show.

Of course, it never fails. Whenever I am by myself in public, I attract all sorts. An older man sat down next to my table and asked me what time the place closed. Now, I've heard ALL kinds of come-on lines... everything from "I like your hair" to "Do you know of a good place to dance around this city? 'Cause I was thinking you could show me some time..." This guy, though, wasn't trying to guess my sign. He was actually interested in the time. And when I told him, he followed up by asking if this coffee shop had always been a coffee shop. I closed my book, turned to him and the dog eared stack of papers he was holding in his lap and settled in a for a long conversation with another member of the I-Am-Weird-So-I-Will-Talk-To-YOU-Pretty-Accommodating-Lady club.

Thing is, though, he wasn't weird. On the contrary. He was one of the most interesting strangers I have ever met. He was a screenplay writer. That rumpled stack of paper in his lap that looked like it was covered in Klingon was actually a work in progress. Some of his screenplays had been turned into movies that were being shown at Seattle's International Film Festival! And he seemed genuinely interested in my writing when I said I was experimenting with this blog. He wanted to know what my message was. What it was I saying in my blog. And because "contemplative musings about mostly nothing" or "artful bitching" seemed a little too vague, I said I wasn't quite sure yet. That I was still trying to figure it out. Mostly my writing is exactly what a blog was designed for: diary entries about my chronic ear and intestinal blockages and also a place to moan about how much it sucks to shop at the health food store. And since that sounded incredibly self indulgent and not just a little lame as hell, I decided I would spend more time thinking about it over the next few days.

I haven't quite reached any decisions yet about anything. I am just so grateful for this new awareness in my life. so I am going to sit with it for a few days while my finger heals.

So, Thank you, Tracy, for teaching me that it's okay to hang a sock on the door when I'm busy writing. Thank you, Lindsay, for showing me that you still need to practice your craft even when you don't think it's perfect. Thank you, strange dude at coffee shop, for forcing me to dig down deep for my message. And thank you, Dr. Pat, for revealing to me the rusty insides of my creative machinery... and for the hand in clearing out all that space to make room for more writing.

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motherhood

The Work BEFORE Work

There are times in motherhood, times involving cursing and sweating and frantic rubbing at stains, when you must weigh the situation at hand and determine if:
a) you are actively dying or
b) someone out there has it worse than you.

These times demand your careful consideration because otherwise, you can become overwhelmed by the seemingly intractable, filthy circumstance you find yourself in and you can go mad with the injustice of it all.

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Announcements!

You guys, I'm going to be part of this national storytelling event in May called Listen To Your Mother. LTYM is sort of like the Moth, but all about moms, which is not nearly as Hallmark card-y as I am making it sound. There will be no sixteen-inch rises on acid washed denim or "Live, Love, Laugh" painted on driftwood, just good old fashioned stories about sex, drugs, and motherhood. Emphasis on the motherhood part, probably, but, hey, you never know.

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Day Four. Thanks, Ma.

Dear Mom,
Remember when you used to chase us around the house with a raw fish on a newspaper for fun? Well, I found myself doing the vegetarian version of that this morning. I aggressively shoved a Chanterelle mushroom in the face of a four year old and made that weird "EEEEEEEEEEEEE" sound you used to make. Something has come full circle, ma.

I had a bit of an epiphany this morning. Babysitting kids is like making pancakes. You shower all this attention on the first one and you try for perfection. And you nearly break down in tears because it's all half-cooked and misshapen and the pan's not really hot enough or oiled enough and you can't believe you've failed so epically at something that you think should come so naturally. But you try again, and again, and you get better as you go. By the middle of the batch, you're really getting into your groove. The heat's just right. You're functioning like a well oiled machine. You're not even thinking about it. One hand is flipping pancakes and the other is pouring juice. You're feet are probably dancing to Paul Simon in the kitchen and your mouth is answering questions about why the sky is blue and your brain is already thinking about what to make for dinner. That's what these past four days have been like: making pancakes.

Mom, do you know what I did this morning? I sighed contentedly when Elton John played on Pandora. Elton John, ma. I think you know this about me, but I really hate Elton John. Billy Joel, too. All those piano-playing soft -rock-music-station artists. You probably know that Black Flag and Fugazi is more my style for cooking music in the kitchen. But, honest to God, I sighed contentedly when Sir Elton came on. I just needed something familiar and cozy hitting my eardrums at that moment because everything else was feeling like I couldn't do it right. Maybe Sir Elton reminded me of you when YOU were in the kitchen making eight metric tons of pancakes for four hungry, annoying kids who were asking you where milk came from and how much adult turtles weigh and why we weren't having eggs and why the sky is blue SIMULTANEOUSLY. My blood pressure dropped down to normal when that song came on and I was able to make those pancakes in the shape of pumpkins without breaking a sweat because of "Tiny Dancer". What the hell? You didn't warn me THAT would happen when I had kids.

This is my problem, mom. I've got this thing for perfectionism. It's a real problem. Seriously. It's been getting in the way of everything, babysitting included.

So, every once in a while, when kids kick my ass, I feel compelled to write you these letters to both thank you for handing down to me that curse and that gift.

I know those middle years were tortuous on us both. I know mental illness is a deep river that runs through our family, and, though I couldn't appreciate it at the time, I was being taught a very valuable lesson back then with all that shit we went through. More than most kids my age, I could appreciate a pretty full range of emotions because of those years. You scared the shit out of me, ma. Kids don't usually run away from home because things are all peachy keen. But, though it's the strangest thing I've ever admitted, I'm grateful for for those years. If nothing else, I've learned massive amounts of empathy and gratitude from those years. That's what all these years in the secluded Pacific Northwest have taught me: gratitude. It's why I had to move here. Nowadays, I work with ease, I live with ease, I love with ease. There was nothing really easy about our lives together back then, was there? So, I've finally gotten what I always needed, just much later in life. And that gratitude has spilled over into (finally) gratitude for you and dad too. Even through the shit (and the shit you continue to struggle with), I am able to see you as humans, humans who did the very best they could with their limited educations and finite patience and vices and family history of depression and whole generations of tragedy and struggle handed down. I can appreciate all that now. Moving out here has backed me up from my microscopic scrutiny of the first part of my life. I can see a much bigger picture now. I can see who you both were before you had me, who you became after you had us, and most importantly, how hard you tried to make everything in our lives as fun-filled and joyous as you could humanly manage. I can see your mania for what it was now and I am cultivating a love for it.

I'm going to guess you've either blocked those years out, or you so deeply agonize over them still, you don't quite know how to talk about them. Well, time and 3,000 miles (and thousands of dollars in therapy) has helped me to understand quite a bit about those years. So, even though they still pain you, they don't pain me as much anymore. My higher self has emerged out here, and she is learning forgiveness every day.

Anywho, thanks for making zaniness a very regular part of my life. It feels more normal to chase a child with Chanterelle mushroom than it does to do shop for appliances and pay for a mortgage. These past few days, I've been learning to let go of every single expectation for how this would go. I'm not perfect, and perfect is frustrating to kids anyway. I hope one day you can shed just a little bit of your prefect self too and feel free to human and fallible. While I am grateful for having learned how to do hospital corners and how to set a table properly and how keep a house clean, I also know how exhausting it can be to keep that routine up.

I'm hoping what these kids take away, just like I did, is all the good times, and leave the not so good times for later on in their lives to sort through. Thanks for everything, mom. Good and bad.

Love,
Your Oldest Daughter

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san louis obispo

SLO, Day 3 + 4

In honor of Holy Week, y'all, I'm giving up procrastination. I'm doin' it for Jesus, yo.

Day Three was for bike rides through the vineyards. Victoria and I were, a little, um, hung over from the night before, so getting an early start was not easy. As a matter of fact, if it were up to me, we would have skipped the vineyards and the bikes altogether and stayed in bed eating cheese puffs and watching cooking shows on the hotel TV for the day. Luckily for me, though, Victoria is a mother of two and doesn't take bullshit from anyone. I was up, with my bed made, standing at attention by 9 am because I was afraid she might tell me to stop my bellyaching and yank me out of the room by my earlobe.

We slogged our way through breakfast (it's hard to pack in the protein you know you'll need for later when all you want to do is throw up). Undeterred by our condition, Victoria reminded me that when the endorphins kicked in, we would be so glad we didn't quit on ourselves. Boy, was she ever right. Still, it was hard to hear. You see, I'm not an endorphin junkie. The most thrilling athletic thing I've done recently is to stand on a kitchen chair to water a plant up high. I've never been involved with team sports, and I've had to quit running because my knees have gone from well lubricated machines to piles of kindling. So, the prospect of biking up hills at nine a.m. after a night of heavy drinking sounded downright...well, stupid. But, I had to put aside all the stories I tell myself about my body's inability to do hard work and I hoisted myself onto that saddle, tied my skirt in a knot, and I rode like the Devil himself was at my back. And I LOVED it.

Our First Glass

We stopped at the first winery we came to. We sampled some delicious white wine and we put our feet up and let the warm breeze dry the sweat from our brows. By now, the nausea had passed and I was definitely in endorphin territory. I took pictures of olive trees because it was warm and OLIVE TREES! were growing on the property. Just like CITRUS!

Olives!

Being a thoroughly city-fied kind of gal, barnyard animals have always seemed like exotica to me. Horses and cows are just so outsized and foreign to me. My perspective gets blown standing next to them. I mean, have you seen a horse's HEAD recently? Just the head, y'all. They're the size of the upper part of my body. That kind of thing frightens me just a little. Sheep and goats and their body parts too: they're just straight up from another planet. We passed a field of horses and when we stopped to take a water break, they came right up to us and put their enormous heads right up against the fence. Naturally, I had to take a picture.

HORSE!

There is something deeply satisfying about the symmetry of a planted field. Small scale vegetable gardening has always appealed to this need I have for straight lines. Maybe it's because growing things from seed is such a crap shoot. You never know if things are going to come up. Seeing things in tidy rows that appear perfectly straight from every angle is great compensation for the prospect of enormous failure. I still marvel at rows of corn and peas on every roadtrip through farm country. Grapevines, inherently knobby and unwieldy, appear especially hard to plant in straight rows. Maybe this is why their formation is even more awe inspiring to look at from a quarter mile away.

Symmetry and Grapes

Symmetry and Grapes II

There is a little phenomenon that happens around 2 pm every day in the area around SLO. The wind picks up. It lasts about an hour or two. Do you know how hard it is to bike INTO a headwind like that? I kept thinking that if I could just attach my jacket and a few other choice pieces of clothing to my handlebars, I could actually be pushed back up the hill we were trying to bike down. Seriously. It was hard to bike DOWNHILL, the wind was that strong.

Remember how my knees crack like dried twigs and my thigh muscles consider standing on a chair the equivalent of running the Boston Marathon? Yeah. So, I do this thing whenever I find myself on a bicycle with a long road ahead of me. I sing to myself. The same thing over and over and over again. It becomes a sort of meditation so that I can take my mind off how much pedaling SUCKS when I'm low on energy. Last summer, after I fell in a sinkhole at the park and had to pedal home in the dark with my leg oozing blood, I sang "Pushin' Up My Baby Bumblebee" over and over again. I can't remember exactly what I was chanting while I pedaled with all of my might into that wind (I think it was the opening theme to "Dallas"... or maybe it was "Sweet Home Alabama"...) but it got me back into town thankful that I had pushed through the pain.

Taste the Rainbow

Day Four of my trip to San Luis Obispo included a quick bus ride to Pismo Beach. Points have been awarded in the categories of Most Gorgeous Bus Ride I Have Ever Been On, Cleanest/Best Smelling Bus I Have Ever Been On, and Best Destination For The Price.

Hi, Mom, Pismo Beach 2011

I do love me some ocean living, I do.

Dan, Victoria's husband, endlessly teases me about being a most-of-the-time vegetarian. He thinks my mamby-pamby pacificism and my aversion to cold weather would all be cured if I just eat more red meat. "Just once", he pleads with me, "Just once I want to see you eat a hamburger". I don't know if it was the morals-and-values-scrambling euphoria of being at the beach, or if I thought my vacation should end with a toast to Manifest Destiny and the industrialization of American meat packing, but I very suddenly and urgently needed to have a hamburger while we were at the beach. It was positively delicious. I can't remember if Victoria took a picture of me chowing down on that lunch for evidence, but, Dan, I raised a Cherry Coke to you and licked my fingers clean afterward.

The bosom of the Pacific

I also took a picture of pigeons on the roof of that burger-slinging joint. You know. For posterity.

Pigeons and Pismo

The water was freezing, but that did not stop me from sticking my feet in. I always forget how rejuvenated I feel after a day at the beach. I spend so much time in sweaters and boots here in the Northwest. Sometimes it feels completely strange to have my ankles exposed. (I'm working on correcting that self-imposed Puritanism.)

Sign in Pismo

So, my feelings about Days Three and Four of vacation? Jazz hands and boners all around, y'all.

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SLO, Day 2

I've been slow (ha ha! get it! SLO?) to post about my trip. It's been nearly a month since I got back (how in the hell...?) so I'd better get on with it. Plus, Mr. Burdy's cousin called tonight and wanted to know how it was (we haven't talked in a while), so if I needed a sign from the Universe to wrap this thing up, that was it.

But Other Things have been happening! Fun things! And I have wanted to write about them, too! I guess I will have to write about them after I finish writing about this trip. Which, at the rate I'm going, will sometime in 2012.

ANWYHO.

SLO, Day 2:

We start out our tour of downtown with the mission.

I don't know what it is about statuary that fascinates me. Most of my pictures from my 1999 trip to Europe are of statues (and me making an ass of myself in front of them. Oh, to be 20 and shameless again...)

Here we have a bunch of Catholic missals. Which, as a nerdy ten year old, I could not dissociate from projectile ammunition. Oh, homonyms, how I love thee.

Here is our challenge for the day: Bishop's Peak. "Obispo" means "Bishop" in Spanish. Thank you, Victoria, for teaching me this. I would have spent the rest of the trip thinking San Luis Obispo meant something like Saint Louie's Abyss.) And thank YOU, perky young ladies at the Visitor's Information Center, for not knowing the length of a mile from a hole in the ground. Normally, I'm not the type to complain about walking, or about bad estimations of distances to places, but in this case, with my feet swollen in their shoes from the heat, and my tiny water bottle nearly empty before we even got to the FOOTHILL, I was a little more than miffed. Apparently, the attitude in SLO is so laid back, residents can actually cut four miles into one just by saying it slowly.

Yes, we climbed it. And yes, we were sore afterward. And yes, it was sooooo worth it.

This is my favorite part about travel to temperate climates: CITRUS! GROWING ON TREES! IN PEOPLE'S YARDS! It's like shrubbery, or ground cover or something, all casual-like and unassuming on people's property. Like the citrus trees are all, hey lawn, how's it hanging? I'm just standing here minding my biz, making fruit and stuff. Only it's not all casual-like to me because it's CITRUS! With real CITRUS! fruit. And I live in a city that's cold and gray and the only thing that grows really well here all casual-like is mold.

My second favorite part about travel? Signs. Yup. I love me some signs. Especially ones like this one. (The stupid 20 year old in me is snickering right now.)

You know you might have some issues with food when, in a historically Spanish-speaking down, you see a sign that begins with "Del" and you hope and pray it ends in "i" and that they have a good rye bread. Geez. You can take the girl out of New York...

Victoria and I hauled ourselves to the top of Bishop's peak (well, almost to the top; the actual last thirty or forty feet required bouldering equipment) after a very long trip to the base from town. Sure, it was only a few miles, but STILL. When you're planning on just a few hours of hiking because you're trying to save up your energy for the heavy drinking you want to do later that night, you need to pace yourself.

Another thing SLO residents stink at? Describing natural landmarks. We were told that we might come across two massive rocks that would block the road that would require us to "shimmy" between them to get up and over. We came across no such rocks. Why? Because we took a different path to the top. But we weren't told there were two ways to get to the top, so we guessed that the rocks everyone was referring to were these slippery, wet rocks that shot up into the stratosphere at a ninety degree angle. Not wanting to miss the spectacular view from the top, we started up. We got about ten feet up, and both of us broke out into cold sweats. I'm not sure what Victoria was thinking, but all that was running through my head was "Don't die don't die don't die". My knees were starting to give out (because I'm not a billygoat, for god's sake) but I didn't want to disappoint Victoria. But then I saw her face was a shade lighter and we both decided to clamber down, take some photos, chew on some trail mix, and assess the situation. We decided (smartly, duh) to take another path up, and it turns out we chose wisely. From fifteen hundred feet in the air, it was gorgeousness in every direction.

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SLO, Day 1

I've been meaning to post pictures of my trip to San Luis Obispo for weeks now, but I've lately fallen into the rabbit hole of self help books. I know, I know. it's incredibly good for me, incredibly bad for this blog. And, as we all know, at some point you just have to stop all the processing and journaling and weeping about it and just get on with the business of living. So, here it is. The start of my trip.

Were the discovery of the New World up to me, were I asked by the moneyed elite to captain a rollicking, gigantic vessel designed to cut through vast expanses of bumpy sea, were I handed a satchelful of gold and a crudely drawn map and promised fame and glory, were I told innumerable riches, exotic women, and lush climates awaited me in a beautiful new country, I would have considered the offer with a deep and sober humility. I would have calculated the promise of honor, and weighed it against the risk of death. I would have allotted the proper amount of pacing back and forth with hands behind the back and tugging on the chin. And then I would have turned to my benefactors, shrugged my shoulders and said, "Meh. I'll skip it. I'm starved. What's there to eat around here?"

Not that discovery and travel don't excite me! In fact, they are the only things left that excite me! (Well, that and new flavors of cheese puffs). It's the getting there that puts me off. And not because of time or boredom or anything like that. In all matters of cross continental escapades, it's the motion sickness that is the undoing of my enthusiasm.

I haven't talked much about our boat (may she rest in peace with her new owners) on this blog, and with good reason. We bought it, I nearly peed myself in anxiety when we moved it to another slip, we took it out for a few day trips, and that was it. We sold it. And all because I couldn't handle the motion of the ocean.

Travel by boat, though, has its charms. (They wear off after about two hours). It's the air travel, start to finish, that's the absolute pits. And we can just skip the discussion about the public theater that is the security check at the airport. And the bad food and the service and the stench of humankind packed into a winged steel tube. For me, it's the tiny mutiny going on inside my head that makes almost all travel not worth it. My tiny sinuses and the disastrous labyrinth that is my inner ear all conspire to keep me home-bound.

But I do want to leave the house! I do, I do, I do! It's a disconcerting thing, really, this desire to be rowed through the canals of Venice, to want to eat soup for breakfast on the streets of Vietnam, to want to paddle my surfboard out into the Pacific along the Panamanian coast... and then to be thwarted by my own shitty head-plumbing.

I suppose, given my new foray into the Laws of Attraction and all that jazz, I could dig deep for the metaphor here. I could consider that maybe my focus on the destination and not the journey is really what keeps me from enjoying the ride. Maybe I am just not at the place in my life to understand how airsickness is revealing itself as a teacher of a greater lesson.

Oooooooor.... maybe there is no freakin' lesson. For God's sake. Maybe I am just not designed to sit (as Louis CK says) in a chair 30,000 feet in the air and think this is completely normal.

I think I am designed to sit about two feet off the pavement, in my Honda Civic. Or maybe four feet off the ground in a train car. Something not subject to the twitchy temperament of winds or, ya know, clouds.

A massage therapist recently suggested soaking my feet in an Epsom salt bath every night to draw the energy mucking up my head into my the lower part of my body. If there was a way to pull the mangled locomotive engine parts out of my head and put them in my feet, I gladly would. I would happily take nauseous ankles over a head that feels like it might explode from the pressure any day of the week.

How wrong is it, when I fly, to wish I could ferry all the discomfort from my head to my stomach so I could just have a good old fashioned heave-ho into an airsickness bag and be done with it? Why do I have to contend with the feeling of a balloon being inflated inside my skull? Why can't I have restless legs or legs that are too long for an airplane seat? Why, oh why, must I be obsessed with visiting places ravaged by things like "pockets of warm air" or "tropical storm fronts"?

And how hard is it to calm yourself down with deep cleansing breaths when the air you're breathing smells and tastes like dirty shag carpeting? Hard. And then there are the toilets threatening to suction your intestines out and distribute them over a farm in Iowa somewhe-

Wait. This is supposed to be a post about a really awesome trip I went on with a good friend of mine.

Right.

So. Ahem. ANYWHO. After a slight delay at the airport, we boarded the plane. Seattle, like the abusive boyfriend of a city that it is, gave us a rainbow in a last ditch effort to say "Don't leave! I promise I'll never hurt you again, baby."

The ascent was the worst I've ever experienced in my life. The winds were pretty fierce, so, to avoid bumps, the pilot cocked the plane back on its rear wheels, pointed the nose STRAIGHT up into the air, and shot up to 30,000 feet in, like, sixteen seconds. I'm not even exaggerating. My head hurt so bad afterward, I could hardly hold my hands steady to take this picture. Thanks, Victoria, for help with the shot.

We landed at night, got ourselves the most delicious Mexican shrimp cocktail and beers in town for dinner, and then hit the hay early.

Next post: Day Two (where there will be no mention of vomit, I promise).

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Zumba

A List of Things My Zumba Class Has Taught Me

1. Things cannot be mastered on the first try.

I know this sounds like common sense, like something my dad should have pulled me aside and told me over a cold glass of milk and an Oreo when I was eight years old. But, alas, my parents were perfectionists, too. They didn’t even have a vocabulary to tell their kids fucking up was a normal part of life. Back then, not fucking up was a matter of life and death. At least, that's what it felt like to my traumatized six-year-old self. Life back then was a struggle to be the best at everything because being the best ensured you would go to college and not die in the streets like a pauper. And not dying in the streets like a pauper was a driving force in my life for a LONG time. This is what happens when you grow up in a poor but ambitious family: you are motivated by threats of dying penniless in the streets. My parents' nightstands weren’t stacked with books about meditation. They didn’t have time in the morning to write in their pretty paisley journals about self-forgiveness. They were busy raising kids, and the only information THEY had was from THEIR parents, and THOSE guys were raised up in an era where you got a steely-eyed stare if you were lucky (and a thwack across the knuckles if you weren't) for fucking up. Back then, you just pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and carried on. Generations later, I am administering the ruler to my OWN knuckles every time I screw up. And screw up I do. I am NOT patient with myself, either. The first time I tried Zumba, I was winded after the SECOND song. That’s approximately SIX minutes into the routine, y’all, and the routine goes for SIXTY. I had to sit it out. I had to lean up against one of those flesh-colored rubber punching dummies in case I passed out. I drank about a liter of water while sitting there and waited for my vision to come back into focus. I watched all the other women do the routines with ease. And I almost cried. CRIED! Because I didn’t know how to do it.

And here I am, more than a year later, with a pretty good handle on my counts, and my hip shaking, and my footwork. I’m not gonna lie. Taking those beginner salsa lessons all those years ago and those Cumbia lessons at hippie college REALLY helped with the footwork. But the first couple of times at Zumba class, I was as confused as a hippo in a raincoat. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Slowly, over time, I learned the routines. And the more I learned, the better I got at relaxing. And the better I got at relaxing, the better I got at learning the routines. Nobody died penniless in the streets at the end of my not knowing the routine. I'm pretty sure no one gave one shit about me looking stupid, either. It’s amazing how that whole cycle works. After the first time I got through all sixty minutes without wanting to throw up, I high-fived myself. I had just cured three generations of self-abuse by shaking my booty to a Pitbull song.

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Dear Tuesday

Dear Tuesday,
Is it Tuesday already? Dude. You sure do sneak up on me. You're making me look bad, Tuesday. Here I am all trying to be consistent with posting on Tuesday and you go and turn into Wednesday on me.

Dear Oprah,
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I would do ANYTHING to be on the show this last season. Can you sense my desperation from over here? Wait. Scratch that. You would never indulge desperation. Okay. Do-over. I am now appealing to my highest self, my Source, my Power, The Universal Life Force that wants nothing but good for me. Oh! Did you hear that? I think the Source is speaking to me! What's that, Universal Life Force? You ALSO think it's a good idea for me to be on the Oprah show at least once before it goes off the air? You see, Oprah? All things are aligning... Now, if you could just do a show on intestinal worms, I would be more than happy to be your guest.

Dear Self That Visited Chicago Three Years Ago and Never Managed To Get On The Show:
Are you just kicking yourself, or what?

Dear Self That Should Have Published A Book By Now,
Would that not have been the PERFECT excuse to be on the Oprah show? Didn't you, at one time, think that you would have written a book so powerful, so world changing, so full of life and wisdom and engrossing characters that the Queen of Bookclubs, Oprah Winfrey herself, would be made to weep? Imagine it! Oprah weeping while reading YOUR book! GAH! How many times can you smack yourself in the forehead with your open palm before it becomes medically dangerous?

Dear Free Time Made Possible By My New Schedule,
You are a double edged sword, aren't you? Allowing me time to exercise and making me think about publishing a book! You sneaky devil, you!

Dear Woman Who Looks Just Like My Friend Stephanie In Zumba Class,
I'm sorry if I stare so much at you. I'm sorry if I have, by now, memorized and can replicate on command the way your arms and legs perform the Cumbia. I'm sorry that I cannot take my eyes off the back of your neatly coiffed head while you sweat and jab the air with your long, lean arms. It's just that you look almost EXACTLY like my friend Stephanie who is living in China right now and sometimes, when I look at you, I miss her with a power that takes me by surprise, and my eyes start filling with tears right there in class. I have to look away and concentrate on my moves so as not to have a full-on sob-fest right there in the middle of the gym floor. Inevitably, though, I go right back to staring and I am sure you have noticed. I'm sorry you have become a sort of surrogate for Steph. I want very much to approach you in the hallway after class and explain myself, but I'm scared of what you might think of me.

Dear Chase Bank,
I could write paragraph after paragraph about how much you suck for charging me twenty five dollars a month just to have a stupid checking account with you. TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS, Chase Bank. As a matter of fact, I just did. And then I erased it. Know why? Because you are not worth my time. I just did the sensible thing and moved all my money to a new bank. You can't see me right now, but I am flipping you the bird. I'm sure everyone reading this who is also getting charged fifteen bucks here and ten bucks there to bank with you is ALSO flipping you the bird right now. So, consider yourself the recipient of the largest bird ever flipped by the Internet.

Dear Cannonball Adderley Record and Earl Grey Tea,
You are the most perfect breakfast combination I can think of.

Dear Spring,
Your procrastination is even worse than mine. I shouldn't have to wear a sweater in April, Spring. You know this. So please hurry it up. The tomato starts, Spring, they long to be outside, and off my windowsill. The pea vines that are winding their way around yarn I have strung up to my venetian blinds, inside my house, Spring, they are confused. They know something is not right. Think of the cucumbers, Spring, that are bursting out of their little yogurt cups packed with soil. They long to spill out over the driveway. Forget me, Spring. I have gotten used to your heel-dragging ways. But think of the vegetables, Spring. Think of the vegetables!

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Dear Tuesday

Dear Zumba Class,
Thank you for kicking my ass.

Dear girl in the middle who dances like she is swatting away angry hornets:
Thank you for showing me how to dance with reckless abandon.

Dear older woman who can only manage to sway side to side but still keeps her eyes riveted to the instructor:
Thank you for teaching me that it's never too late to start working on yourself.

Dear beautiful Latin lady up in front:
Thank you for showing me what comes with practice.

Dear extra fifteen pounds sitting on my thighs:
What the hell?

Dear Bad I-Sit-At-A-Desk-All-Day Posture:
Seriously, dude.

Dear body:
I'm sorry for yelling at you. It's just that I am so frustrated with you lately, what with the headaches and the gluten intolerance the creaky knees and the general malaise. Please know that I am working on treating you better. I can't seem to shake the belief that you still have the energy and metabolism of your former 20-year-old self.

Dear Former 20-Year-Old Self:
Man, you are one lucky bitch.

Dear Fatigue,
I've got my eye on you. You think you're going to creep on into my workout routine and just wear me down, but you've got another thing coming. It might take me a few tries, but I'm gonna get to the end of that one song and not feel defeated by you.

Dear Impatience with my own Body Mechanics:
See my note to Fatigue.

Dear Mom,
Contrary to what you want to believe, I DO know my left from my right.

Dear Brain that overthinks everything,
Please go do a crossword for an hour. I think Heart's got this one.

Dear Self Criticism,
You're such an asshole.

Dear Schedule:
Please note Tuesday and Thursday evenings are NOT for working late. They are for dancing from now on.

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Madonna Inn

Dear Tuesday (Notes from the Road edition)

Dear Folks at HTC/Google/Sprint,
You've built a fine product, gang. Normally, my insides shrivel up and my body convulses at the sound of the word "product", I hate it so. But, I truly and honestly don't know what to call the four inch by two and half inch black device sitting next to me right now. It's a phone, sure. But it's also been a roadmap, a restaurant review guide, a computer, an electronic diary, a camera, and a way to connect with friends as far away as the other side of the country. I would not have been able to do this trip without it. Well, I would have, but I'd probably be sitting in a corn field in the middle of Iowa right now, lost, crying my eyes out, hungry, lonely, and with no way to take a picture of myself with the caption: "Vacation: Day 1".

Dear Rooster's Restaurant in Medford,
You guys are awesome. When I asked for an outlet to plug my laptop into, you graciously unplugged your nearest ceramic rooster lamp and allowed me access. Then you served me a delicious omelet and your waitress made sure to refresh my coffee at the edge of the table instead of inches from my screen. That sort of courtesy, plus your love of all things roostery and hand painted stuffed into every corner of your wood paneled dining room, is a rare and wonderful thing. May you outlive all the Applebees and may your kitsch never need dusting.

Dear Palm Cottages,
You are so lovely. You are like a doting grandmother standing at the side of the road with a tray of fresh baked cookies calling me to come in and rest a while. Rest I did, Palm Inn. Your beds are wonderful cinnamon-roll folds of cozy blankets and pillows. Your front desk is wonderfully helpful, your gardens are relaxing, your little red doors are charming. You even offer the weary traveler far from home a pillow menu. A pillow menu! Which is a good thing, because....

Dear Madonna Inn,
Thanks for agreeing to mail me back my pillow. It's a weird thing to wake up in a cold sweat five hundred miles from where you slept last night and realize that you've left a pretty important part of your sleeping set-up in another city. For god's sake. I can't remember a damned thing anymore. Which reminds me....

Dear San Clemente Inn,
Thanks for agreeing to mail me back my book. Who the hell goes on vacation with a self help book about healing trauma? I do. And who then leaves that book in a hotel room and drives off without it? That would be me too. The irony of packing a book about getting over anxiety and then waking up in a cold, sweaty panic attack after realizing I'd left said book somewhere along Route 1 is not lost on me.

Dear Future Traveling Self,
Next time you pack for a vacation, you are not allowed to bring anything but the following: underwear, toothbrush, cell phone. Forget changes of clothes, toiletries, laptops, etc. Clearly you cannot seem to manage keeping track of anything else. For God's sake, you almost left your phone on a paper towel dispenser in a roadside bathroom miles from anything. You know what? Forget the underwear and the toothbrush. Just bring your phone and a tether.

Continue to full post...

Pink Is the Color Of Contentedness

Can you hear my contented sighs from where you are? Because I have been doing nothing but exhaling dramatically with relief and happiness for the past 12 hours or so.

Yesterday morning was a rough one. I'd spent the previous day, all day, in the hot, hot sun. I thought I'd drunk enough water throughout the day. I also thought I'd put on enough sunscreen. Turns out I did neither. And then I drank beer.

When I woke up the next morning for the second time (the first time was because I was having a nightmare about a grenade-tossing loner type and me scrambling up a tree) I'm pretty sure I was mega-dehydrated. And, because dehydration works a lot like drunkenness in that you can't accept that you are, in fact, dehydrated while you are dehydrated (Nah, bro... I can totally drive thish car home....I'm totally fine, dude!... [stumbles off curb, breaks ankle]) I didn't realize it until 300 miles, five hours, and many, many bottles of water later when I was feeling a LOT better.

This was the first mechanical failure I've experienced on this trip. And it was a short-lived one thanks to the dozens of stops I made along the way to fill up my water bottle. The technology failures, though, they don't seem to want to stop. I was in Ventura, CA, before I realized the car charger didn't work. So, without a laptop, and with my phone as my only guidebook/map/emergency lifeline, I have to make sure that my phone is fully charged every morning before hitting the road. Yesterday, after pushing through the morning's nausea and listlessness, I got all the way to the bell tower in Balboa Park in San Diego, clearly one of the most beautiful and ornate buildings in the whole park, when my camera ran out of battery. I grabbed a few shots with my phone's camera (is there anything this little HTC Evo CAN'T do?) and made my way back to the car, determined to not have THAT happen again.

Other things, however, have been aligning magically. I was checking my email (from my phone!) from a state park bathroom when I saw that a friend from high school, who I'd been trying to meet up with since March when I was down in SLO the first time, suggested that we meet at a cute little bistro in a sleepy little town for dinner with his wife. I was literally ten minutes from the turnoff when I checked my email. So, I pulled off the highway, called him, changed out of my sweaty traveling clothes into something not sweaty in my car (I'm sorry, Orcutt, CA, for flashing you my boobs, but it's just so much more comfortable to drive without a bra), and, like, just like no time had passed between us at all, we were having wine and eating meatballs. I had arrived just a few minutes before my friend and his wife and handed the lovely hostess at Addamo's my camera battery, explaining that I was about to meet a friend I hadn't seen in fifteen years and could she please plug this battery into her wall for ten minutes or so so I could take pictures of this momentous occasion, and also, was my shirt on backwards?

My friend, the inimitable J.C., his lovely wife Colleen, and I laughed the night away. It's becoming more and more apparent to me that this trip is only partially about the scenery. Letting your hair down and laughing is equally important. Understanding that some friendships do not need physical proximity to endure...this has been the most important lesson yet. I've stayed with some incredibly wonderful people along the way and they have been so warm and welcoming. They have all been tonic to my tired, vibrating soul at the end of a day of driving.

And then, THEN! I got to spend the night at the Madonna Inn. It figures that I would drive all this way to get away from the snow and the cold to sleep in a (very expensive) room decorated, of all things, like a freakin' Swiss Chalet, complete with wooden skis and wood paneling. Gah! Whatever frustration I was feeling this morning wore off in seconds, though, when I got to the pool. The pool, y'all. The pool is magical. Swimming in the early morning in a pool surrounded by mountains with birds chirping in the background? Heavenly. Topped only by the music being piped in through speakers made to look like boulders. The song?

"Take it easy
Take it easy
Don't let the sound of your own wheels
Drive you crazy".

Will do, Mr. Henley. Will do.

Continue to full post...

Love Letters From The Road (Dear Tuesday, the Roadtip Installation)

Dear Everyone That Loves Me,
I am safe and sound. Thank you for your prayers for my safety. What I lack in preparedness, I more than make up for with street smarts and an East Coast tough girl swagger that will not leave my system despite all my granola munching and tree hugging. No one puts this Baby in the corner because this Baby will melt your face off with her stink eye.

Dear Mom and Dad,
Thanks for teaching me good manners. I thank the toothless owner of the filthy roadside gas station as profusely and genuinenly as I do the pretty Hawaiian-shirted and white-sneakered waitress at the seafood restaurant. You have taught me (among other things) to recognize a human being when I see one.

Dear Tara,
Thanks for teaching me that thirty dollars is a small price to pay for my sanity. Thirty dollars last night made the difference between anxiety and peace. Thirty dollars made the difference between curling my body into a tight ball to avoid making contact with the edge of what I presumed to be an unwashed, scratchy motel-issue comforter, and sleeping comfortably in a pin-drop silent, beautifully appointed room that was heated to my exact comfort level.

Dear Tim at the San Clemente Inn,
You, sir, are a rockstar. Thank you for joining the long line of people who think I'm roughly ten to fifteen years younger than I actually am. You asked me if I could handle hauling my luggage up a flight of stairs because I "looked young". I almost invited you to dinner, and not just because you judged my bare biceps to be the suitcase-lifting type. Thanks for that restaurant recommendation as well. I know a fellow eater when I see one. You, sir, have great taste in food. And you know your sleepy little town like the back of your hand. You made that last bit of driving so very, very worth it.

Dear Everyone That Told Me To Avoid L.A.,
Um.... it wasn't really that bad, y'all. I mean, have you sat in NY/NJ traffic? I have, and I'm here to tell you: It's the same damn thing! Only, at least in LA, you have PALM TREES to look at while you're crawling along! And the air doesn't smell like diesel or tar or defeat! Do you want to know a secret? I kinda liked it. Wanna know another secret? This part, this one stretch of an hour and a half of driving... this scared me the most about this whole trip. Not the winding turns down Highway 1 in the pitch black night. Not the random men who would give me the elevator eyes when I said "Table for one, please". Not the depressing, we've-made-this-only-a-modicum-above-tolerable motel conditions. Nope. None of that intimidated me. The traffic in LA is the only thing I was scared of. Why? I don't know, exactly. Maybe I was afraid of all the wasted time. (HA! There's a rock slide I'd like to introduce my pre-trip self to for a lesson in "wasted time"). Maybe I was afraid of getting into an accident and being stranded. Maybe I was afraid I would actually LIKE it. You see, everyone I know seems to hate L.A. But, they hate it in the way that everyone hates the prettiest girl in the room. They all want to BE the prettiest girl in the room- so they just talk smack about her to make themselves feel better. Well, L.A., I think you're pretty and I'm not intimidated by your long legs and perfect hair.

Dear Mr. Burdy,
Thank you for letting me do this. Not in a "thank you for unchaining me from the stove" sort of way, either. Thanks for letting me take an old car we share away for ten whole days and push her to the limits of her speed limits and mechanical capabilities. Thank you for enduring loneliness and having to explain to everyone that your fiance is a rather impetuous thing who loves to jump in the car from time to time, wholly unprepared, and drive for miles and miles just to clear her head. Thank you for making me smile proudly when male strangers ask me "what my man is like" because they cannot imagine why a woman would be on the road, by herself, without him. Thank you for being the confident, secure, and seasoned veteran of this relationship. Thank you for being a thoroughly modern man and a gentle, sensitive human being all at once.

Dear Madonna Inn,
I'm comin' for ya.

Dear Everyone I Know Between San Diego and Seattle,
I'm comin' to see ya. I promise. We're gonna have a beer, we're gonna catch up.

Dear Beach,
I don't even have words. If it weren't so inappropriate on so many levels to scoop up great handfuls of sand and throw them into the air in ecstacy, I would do it. I swear. Man, am I happy to see you.

Continue to full post...

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roadtrip 2011

Slideshow!

Okay, you guys. The slideshow is done.

Mr. Burdy and I have been working on this for days and days and I am SO excited to share this with you.

My good friend Tristen saved my life in a number of ways on this trip and the reason I am singling her out here is because she also inadvertently provided the soundtrack for this video. Tristen, thanks for the homemade granola (the only thing I had to eat the day I got detoured through Los Padres National Park), thank you for having such an awesome guest room, thanks for having such incredible taste in music (and men), and thanks for introducing me to Fanfarlo. You rock.

I'm still digging through journal entries and trying to piece together some sort of summary of my thoughts about the trip. In the meantime, though, here are the pictures that will speak my thousand words:

Seattle to San Diego from Lauren Ziemski on Vimeo.

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…Jiggity Jig

Well, getting back from vacation is never any fun, right? I'm trying to adjust to colder weather and this whole "work" thing. I'm still processing the trip; I have so many thoughts running around in my head right now and I'm not coming up with anything coherent. Best to stay moot in situations like these.

Mr. Burdy and I are working on putting together a little slide show of all my pictures.

In the meantime, here are a few from my phone. More soon.

Bridge in OR

CA Palm Trees

Bikes in Santa Cruz

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Dear Tuesday (Notes from the Road edition)

Dear Folks at HTC/Google/Sprint,
You've built a fine product, gang. Normally, my insides shrivel up and my body convulses at the sound of the word "product", I hate it so. But, I truly and honestly don't know what to call the four inch by two and half inch black device sitting next to me right now. It's a phone, sure. But it's also been a roadmap, a restaurant review guide, a computer, an electronic diary, a camera, and a way to connect with friends as far away as the other side of the country. I would not have been able to do this trip without it. Well, I would have, but I'd probably be sitting in a corn field in the middle of Iowa right now, lost, crying my eyes out, hungry, lonely, and with no way to take a picture of myself with the caption: "Vacation: Day 1".

Dear Rooster's Restaurant in Medford,
You guys are awesome. When I asked for an outlet to plug my laptop into, you graciously unplugged your nearest ceramic rooster lamp and allowed me access. Then you served me a delicious omelet and your waitress made sure to refresh my coffee at the edge of the table instead of inches from my screen. That sort of courtesy, plus your love of all things roostery and hand painted stuffed into every corner of your wood paneled dining room, is a rare and wonderful thing. May you outlive all the Applebees and may your kitsch never need dusting.

Dear Palm Cottages,
You are so lovely. You are like a doting grandmother standing at the side of the road with a tray of fresh baked cookies calling me to come in and rest a while. Rest I did, Palm Inn. Your beds are wonderful cinnamon-roll folds of cozy blankets and pillows. Your front desk is wonderfully helpful, your gardens are relaxing, your little red doors are charming. You even offer the weary traveler far from home a pillow menu. A pillow menu! Which is a good thing, because....

Dear Madonna Inn,
Thanks for agreeing to mail me back my pillow. It's a weird thing to wake up in a cold sweat five hundred miles from where you slept last night and realize that you've left a pretty important part of your sleeping set-up in another city. For god's sake. I can't remember a damned thing anymore. Which reminds me....

Dear San Clemente Inn,
Thanks for agreeing to mail me back my book. Who the hell goes on vacation with a self help book about healing trauma? I do. And who then leaves that book in a hotel room and drives off without it? That would be me too. The irony of packing a book about getting over anxiety and then waking up in a cold, sweaty panic attack after realizing I'd left said book somewhere along Route 1 is not lost on me.

Dear Future Traveling Self,
Next time you pack for a vacation, you are not allowed to bring anything but the following: underwear, toothbrush, cell phone. Forget changes of clothes, toiletries, laptops, etc. Clearly you cannot seem to manage keeping track of anything else. For God's sake, you almost left your phone on a paper towel dispenser in a roadside bathroom miles from anything. You know what? Forget the underwear and the toothbrush. Just bring your phone and a tether.

Continue to full post...

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Housing Scams

She REALLY wants to live here….

Hi There,

I got your mail. Thanks for geting back to me so quick and I am extremely interested in ur room since you said you are not expecting it to be too long and i don't want you to rent it out to any other person...... I will inform company client I worked in the states for before I quit to arrnage for my last payment to you so that you can deduct the payment of the room out of it. You seem to be a very good and nice person. I want you to know that i'm a very straight forward and honest person. I contacted the person who i worked for when i was in the states. The man is owing me and he is ready to pay me with acheck. I will be paying ahead my arrival for a month, which is very important and that will secure the Place for me, and as soon as I arrive others important things will be taken care of before moving in the Place. I want you t o know that the first month payment will be made in full via Certified Bank Cashier's Check or Money Order and that will stand as commitment ahead my arrival. So i will inform him to issue out the check to you, so that the check can stand as the payment of the room. All you got to do now is to send me your full name name, contact address and phone number so that i can forward it to my client who will issue the check out to you... As soon as i get these info i requested for, i will forward them to my client immediately. As soon as you recieve the check you will deduct the frist month out of it you will now help me forward the remaning balance to my traveling manager so that i can use it to book for my flight back to the states. I just want to make sure i get the room before i get back to the state.. I will like stay there for a year even more that till when i will have my own personal place but I will prefer month to month lease.
More About me: ABOUT ME:
Name: Rose Michaels
E yes: Black
Age: 26yrs
Height: 5' 6' (167cm)
Weight: 122 pounds (55.0 kg)
Body Style: Athletic/Fit Activity
Level: Active
Smoking: No
Drinking: Socially
Marital Status: Single
Children: I have no kids
Sign: Virgo
Languages I speak: English & Spanish
Ethnicity: Spanish
Religion:Catholic/Christianity
Education: MCSA/MCSE
Occupation: Fashion Designer
My favorites are;
My favorite cuisines: Barbecue, Chinese/Dim Sum, Deli, Eastern-European, Fast Food/Pizza, French, Greek,Indian, Italian, Japanese/Sushi, Mexican, Seafood,
Soul Food, Thai, Vietnamese
My favorite music: Dance/Electronica, Disco, Easy Listening, Pop/Top 40, Rap/Hip Hop, Soul/R&B and Soundtracks.
My favorite physical activities: Basketball, Working Out, Dancing, Swiming and Hiking/Walking I love travelling, sporting and enjoy meeting people. I don't smoke or drink but i do not mind people who do being around me. Am cool headed and easy go ing person with no criminal record and i like to have a roommmate or neighabour who is very responsible and understanding,someone i can really get a long. As soon as you get this mail pls get back to me with the info i requested for so that every thing can be done fast. Take care and I will be looking forward to hear from you soon.

Thanks and have a good time..
Warmest Regards,
Rose

My response:

Dear Rose,
I'm going to do away with the niceties and cut right to the chase. The rooms are all but yours. You won me over with a single line in your response: Your body type. Now, I know most landlords wouldn't care about this sort of thing (and I'm pretty sure it's illegal to sell someone housing based on their physical fitness) but, well, it's important to me. You see, Rose, I need your body. I can't afford to rent to just any fat ass. No, Rose. What I need in my house is a lean mean muscle machine... what we in America call "a hard body". Can you be a hard body for me, Rose? I'll tell you why this is so important, Rose. It's the yard. The yard is a shambles. It needs a LOT of work. Work that only those possessing the body type "athletic/fit activity" are going to be able to handle.

You see, Rose, when we moved into this place, we had high hopes of making that yard the new Garden of Eden. We were going to prune the fruit trees and tame the lawn and really get those vegetable patches producing. But, you know how it goes, Rose. Sometimes life just gets in the way. And sometimes you have less time for big projects than you thought. So, I need to have my yard maintained, Rose, and it's going to be the responsibility of the renter to keep it looking good. I wouldn't want the (racist) neighbors to get any ideas about letting their lawns go because mine has gone to seed! Anyway, Rose, this yard, it needs help. It needs your athleticism and it needs it now.

Do you have experience pushing a lawnmower, Rose? The kind that neither plugs in nor uses gas? Because we only have the old fashioned kind. And the yard is nearly a quarter of an acre. On a slope. So, every two weeks, Rose, you're going to have to put on your Wellies and get out there and mow. It should only take about half the day. That will leave you the other half of the day for the other yard work. There are the rose bushes that need pruning, the ornamentals that will need thinning, the blackberries that will need trimming... and that's just the front yard! Oh, I almost forgot! I hope you're not afraid of coyotes, rats, rabbits, or raccoons, Rose. Your ability to run a mile without getting winded will really come in handy when you encounter our charming neighborhood friend, "Bandit", going through the compost pile!

Anywho, Rose, I'm sure your company client's accounting department is familiar with the procedure for illegal Internet scams, so you just have them wire me one million US dollars right away. That will cover your first week. Once you've learned to operate the WeedWacker, we can lower the rent to something more reasonable... say, something in the hundreds of thousands.

Your Pal With A Green Thumb (in your eye),
GoFuckYourself

Continue to full post...

Response to Potential Renter #2

Received a few days ago (and again this evening. Error number one, morons. Don't send the same scam email twice.)

"Hi There, How re you doing? I hope all is well. I'm Rose Michaels, am 26 yrs old and Am originally from Barcelona, Spain . Graduate of Huelva University on the Costa de la Luz, I have a master degree in interior fashion and I work as a professional fashion designer. I moved to Phoenix , AZ two year ago for work and that's where am living. I'm am not in the states right now, i am presently in West africa . I am currently working on contract for a company call (African Family Home Fashions) here in West Africa ( Nigeria) which the contract will be ending soon. I will be returning to states in two weeks time and I don't want to go back to my where am living in Phoenix because my house rent has expired there. I enjoy traveling, It is very interesting to get more knowledge about the new countries, new people and traditions. It's great to have such a possibility.

As i was searching through the web i saw the advert of your room. I would like to know maybe it's still available becasue i'm extremely interested in it. Here are the questions i would like to know about the room before planing to move in to the following questions below:
A}I will like to know the major intersection nearest your neighbourhood.like shopping mall,Churches,bus line e.t.c
B}I will like to know the total cost for the my initial move as in first month rent and if you accept deposit.
C}I will like to know if there is any garage or parking space cos I will have my own car come over.
D}I will like to have the rent fee per month plus the utilities.
E}I will like to have the description of the room, size, and the equipments in there.
F}I will also like to know Your payment mode.
G}I will like to know if I can make an advance payment ahead my arrival that will be stand as a kind of commitment that I am truely coming over and for you to hold the room down for me. I will be very glad to have all this questions answered with out leaving a stone unturned... Now a little about myself;I am from Barcelona, Spain : that means i am Spanish and had all my education in Spain . I am 26yrs old and very much single,the only child of my only parent,my mother alive, i lost my father and my only brother years ago while i was still a kid in an auto accident.I am currently living with my mom who's a catholic volunteer worker,but also manages her antique business. She is a volunteer at the sister's of the eucharistic heart of jesus convent,here in Barcelona , Spain . I have been wanted to relocated to the US longtime ago even while i was a little girl growing up and my mom is in support.It' been a long dreamed come true for me when i finnally settled in the US now. I have chosen your city for me to live when i arrive. I am easy to get along with and well mannered. I do not use people's items without permission and consideration.
Kindly get back to me ASAP with the your monthly rent and the deposit i need to pay to enable you turn down other interested parties and keep the place for me until i arrive,because i will like to pay for the deposit before my arrival and i will like to know the total amount the rent for a whole year would be,as i am more interested in a long term lease,but still open to any form of lease you want. But i will like to pay the deposit first of all before i arrive to show my seriousness and so that you can hold the place for me until i arrive.I am single as i said and i am not attached to anyone at the moment. I do part time modeling; i call myself an amateur though,LOL,just something i take as a hobby and also i have a masters degree in interior fashion which i bagged from the Huelva University on the Costa de la Luz in Spain . I will be looking to pick up Fashion Designer jobs once i arrive in ur city, Fashion Designer is my life and i love it. I am new living all alone as i have lived with my mom alone in the past but i have no doubs in my mind about my ability to live peacefully with as i was raised to be a lover of peace. A friend just introduced me to this thing and i really wish that i am able to find the good cultured kind of Place i am looking for here. I hope i am doing it right anyways.LOL. Well,i think we will get along well because am a easy going person who respects ones privacy,like i said i dont do drugs or smoke but i drink only occasionally,i strongly believe there will be any problems living with me as i was raised by strong catholic Christain parents and have inbibed such good qualities from childhood. I will love to see your pics and those of the place as well.I'll be so glad if you can reserve the room for me and remove all your the adverts abt the place as i'll love to rent the place.
Get back to me ASAP
Thanks and have a good time,and you can give me a buzz cos i am presently online on my IM ( rosesmich0101 ).
Warmest Regards,
Rose"

And, here's my response:

Dear Rose,
Perhaps you might know my friend, Make Mike Jason Smith! He, too, is a fashion designer living abroad or in the states (depending on which line in the email you believe), and he too needs an apartment! I have to tell you, Rose, that I am really intrigued at the DIRECT corollary between earners-of-masters-in-fashion-design and the sudden homelessness pandemic amongst you all. You ALL seem to be searching for apartments at exactly the same time! No worries, though. I'm sure there's room for all of you here in our fair city.

I love that you "bagged" your degree. You must be incredibly smart. And totally hip to be using a word like "bagged" when referring to a degree in a HIGHLY competitive field. I'm confused, though, Rose. Why would someone as smart as yourself want to know about the bus lines AND want to know about a parking garage on the premises? Is it because you are driving a bus? That would be WAY cool, Rose. And probably a nice way to supplement your fashion designer income! As for churches, I can't say. I'm not a church goer, Rose. But, whatever your parents gave you to drink as a kid that immediately made you full of Christian values, I would love to try it. I've never tried chugging Christian values myself, but, hey. I'm not one to turn away God if he comes in a convenient 12 ounce size.

I am concerned about your pursuit of the fashion world here in our small corner of the world, Rose. Really concerned. I don't know how they do it over there in Nigeria, but here in the Northwest, high fashion is considered not wearing socks with your Teva sandals. Also, if your fleece Harry Potter hat matches your ski boot bindings. I hate to disappoint you, Rose, because, believe me, I know what it's like to be disappointed by something that is masquerading as something it's not, but this place does not take kindly to fashion. And I know that, with your degree in fashion and all, you're going to want to be inspired by your environment. But this place inspires only smelly ultimate Frisbee players and Bigfoot with its fashion sense. You'd be better served ~~scamming~~ looking in some other major city for housing.

I, too, strongly believe there will be any (and all) problems with you living here. So here's what I suggest: give Make Mike Jason Smith a buzz. I'll even give you is email! It's: make_smith2005@yahoo.com. He's looking for a place, you're looking for a place. Why don't you guys room together? That way, when the police come and arrest you for email baiting, they only have to make one stop.

With Warmest Apologies for Your Horrible Spelling,
GoFuckYourself

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Nigeria

She REALLY wants to live here….

Hi There,

I got your mail. Thanks for geting back to me so quick and I am extremely interested in ur room since you said you are not expecting it to be too long and i don't want you to rent it out to any other person...... I will inform company client I worked in the states for before I quit to arrnage for my last payment to you so that you can deduct the payment of the room out of it. You seem to be a very good and nice person. I want you to know that i'm a very straight forward and honest person. I contacted the person who i worked for when i was in the states. The man is owing me and he is ready to pay me with acheck. I will be paying ahead my arrival for a month, which is very important and that will secure the Place for me, and as soon as I arrive others important things will be taken care of before moving in the Place. I want you t o know that the first month payment will be made in full via Certified Bank Cashier's Check or Money Order and that will stand as commitment ahead my arrival. So i will inform him to issue out the check to you, so that the check can stand as the payment of the room. All you got to do now is to send me your full name name, contact address and phone number so that i can forward it to my client who will issue the check out to you... As soon as i get these info i requested for, i will forward them to my client immediately. As soon as you recieve the check you will deduct the frist month out of it you will now help me forward the remaning balance to my traveling manager so that i can use it to book for my flight back to the states. I just want to make sure i get the room before i get back to the state.. I will like stay there for a year even more that till when i will have my own personal place but I will prefer month to month lease.
More About me: ABOUT ME:
Name: Rose Michaels
E yes: Black
Age: 26yrs
Height: 5' 6' (167cm)
Weight: 122 pounds (55.0 kg)
Body Style: Athletic/Fit Activity
Level: Active
Smoking: No
Drinking: Socially
Marital Status: Single
Children: I have no kids
Sign: Virgo
Languages I speak: English & Spanish
Ethnicity: Spanish
Religion:Catholic/Christianity
Education: MCSA/MCSE
Occupation: Fashion Designer
My favorites are;
My favorite cuisines: Barbecue, Chinese/Dim Sum, Deli, Eastern-European, Fast Food/Pizza, French, Greek,Indian, Italian, Japanese/Sushi, Mexican, Seafood,
Soul Food, Thai, Vietnamese
My favorite music: Dance/Electronica, Disco, Easy Listening, Pop/Top 40, Rap/Hip Hop, Soul/R&B and Soundtracks.
My favorite physical activities: Basketball, Working Out, Dancing, Swiming and Hiking/Walking I love travelling, sporting and enjoy meeting people. I don't smoke or drink but i do not mind people who do being around me. Am cool headed and easy go ing person with no criminal record and i like to have a roommmate or neighabour who is very responsible and understanding,someone i can really get a long. As soon as you get this mail pls get back to me with the info i requested for so that every thing can be done fast. Take care and I will be looking forward to hear from you soon.

Thanks and have a good time..
Warmest Regards,
Rose

My response:

Dear Rose,
I'm going to do away with the niceties and cut right to the chase. The rooms are all but yours. You won me over with a single line in your response: Your body type. Now, I know most landlords wouldn't care about this sort of thing (and I'm pretty sure it's illegal to sell someone housing based on their physical fitness) but, well, it's important to me. You see, Rose, I need your body. I can't afford to rent to just any fat ass. No, Rose. What I need in my house is a lean mean muscle machine... what we in America call "a hard body". Can you be a hard body for me, Rose? I'll tell you why this is so important, Rose. It's the yard. The yard is a shambles. It needs a LOT of work. Work that only those possessing the body type "athletic/fit activity" are going to be able to handle.

You see, Rose, when we moved into this place, we had high hopes of making that yard the new Garden of Eden. We were going to prune the fruit trees and tame the lawn and really get those vegetable patches producing. But, you know how it goes, Rose. Sometimes life just gets in the way. And sometimes you have less time for big projects than you thought. So, I need to have my yard maintained, Rose, and it's going to be the responsibility of the renter to keep it looking good. I wouldn't want the (racist) neighbors to get any ideas about letting their lawns go because mine has gone to seed! Anyway, Rose, this yard, it needs help. It needs your athleticism and it needs it now.

Do you have experience pushing a lawnmower, Rose? The kind that neither plugs in nor uses gas? Because we only have the old fashioned kind. And the yard is nearly a quarter of an acre. On a slope. So, every two weeks, Rose, you're going to have to put on your Wellies and get out there and mow. It should only take about half the day. That will leave you the other half of the day for the other yard work. There are the rose bushes that need pruning, the ornamentals that will need thinning, the blackberries that will need trimming... and that's just the front yard! Oh, I almost forgot! I hope you're not afraid of coyotes, rats, rabbits, or raccoons, Rose. Your ability to run a mile without getting winded will really come in handy when you encounter our charming neighborhood friend, "Bandit", going through the compost pile!

Anywho, Rose, I'm sure your company client's accounting department is familiar with the procedure for illegal Internet scams, so you just have them wire me one million US dollars right away. That will cover your first week. Once you've learned to operate the WeedWacker, we can lower the rent to something more reasonable... say, something in the hundreds of thousands.

Your Pal With A Green Thumb (in your eye),
GoFuckYourself

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Response to Potential Renter #2

Received a few days ago (and again this evening. Error number one, morons. Don't send the same scam email twice.)

"Hi There, How re you doing? I hope all is well. I'm Rose Michaels, am 26 yrs old and Am originally from Barcelona, Spain . Graduate of Huelva University on the Costa de la Luz, I have a master degree in interior fashion and I work as a professional fashion designer. I moved to Phoenix , AZ two year ago for work and that's where am living. I'm am not in the states right now, i am presently in West africa . I am currently working on contract for a company call (African Family Home Fashions) here in West Africa ( Nigeria) which the contract will be ending soon. I will be returning to states in two weeks time and I don't want to go back to my where am living in Phoenix because my house rent has expired there. I enjoy traveling, It is very interesting to get more knowledge about the new countries, new people and traditions. It's great to have such a possibility.

As i was searching through the web i saw the advert of your room. I would like to know maybe it's still available becasue i'm extremely interested in it. Here are the questions i would like to know about the room before planing to move in to the following questions below:
A}I will like to know the major intersection nearest your neighbourhood.like shopping mall,Churches,bus line e.t.c
B}I will like to know the total cost for the my initial move as in first month rent and if you accept deposit.
C}I will like to know if there is any garage or parking space cos I will have my own car come over.
D}I will like to have the rent fee per month plus the utilities.
E}I will like to have the description of the room, size, and the equipments in there.
F}I will also like to know Your payment mode.
G}I will like to know if I can make an advance payment ahead my arrival that will be stand as a kind of commitment that I am truely coming over and for you to hold the room down for me. I will be very glad to have all this questions answered with out leaving a stone unturned... Now a little about myself;I am from Barcelona, Spain : that means i am Spanish and had all my education in Spain . I am 26yrs old and very much single,the only child of my only parent,my mother alive, i lost my father and my only brother years ago while i was still a kid in an auto accident.I am currently living with my mom who's a catholic volunteer worker,but also manages her antique business. She is a volunteer at the sister's of the eucharistic heart of jesus convent,here in Barcelona , Spain . I have been wanted to relocated to the US longtime ago even while i was a little girl growing up and my mom is in support.It' been a long dreamed come true for me when i finnally settled in the US now. I have chosen your city for me to live when i arrive. I am easy to get along with and well mannered. I do not use people's items without permission and consideration.
Kindly get back to me ASAP with the your monthly rent and the deposit i need to pay to enable you turn down other interested parties and keep the place for me until i arrive,because i will like to pay for the deposit before my arrival and i will like to know the total amount the rent for a whole year would be,as i am more interested in a long term lease,but still open to any form of lease you want. But i will like to pay the deposit first of all before i arrive to show my seriousness and so that you can hold the place for me until i arrive.I am single as i said and i am not attached to anyone at the moment. I do part time modeling; i call myself an amateur though,LOL,just something i take as a hobby and also i have a masters degree in interior fashion which i bagged from the Huelva University on the Costa de la Luz in Spain . I will be looking to pick up Fashion Designer jobs once i arrive in ur city, Fashion Designer is my life and i love it. I am new living all alone as i have lived with my mom alone in the past but i have no doubs in my mind about my ability to live peacefully with as i was raised to be a lover of peace. A friend just introduced me to this thing and i really wish that i am able to find the good cultured kind of Place i am looking for here. I hope i am doing it right anyways.LOL. Well,i think we will get along well because am a easy going person who respects ones privacy,like i said i dont do drugs or smoke but i drink only occasionally,i strongly believe there will be any problems living with me as i was raised by strong catholic Christain parents and have inbibed such good qualities from childhood. I will love to see your pics and those of the place as well.I'll be so glad if you can reserve the room for me and remove all your the adverts abt the place as i'll love to rent the place.
Get back to me ASAP
Thanks and have a good time,and you can give me a buzz cos i am presently online on my IM ( rosesmich0101 ).
Warmest Regards,
Rose"

And, here's my response:

Dear Rose,
Perhaps you might know my friend, Make Mike Jason Smith! He, too, is a fashion designer living abroad or in the states (depending on which line in the email you believe), and he too needs an apartment! I have to tell you, Rose, that I am really intrigued at the DIRECT corollary between earners-of-masters-in-fashion-design and the sudden homelessness pandemic amongst you all. You ALL seem to be searching for apartments at exactly the same time! No worries, though. I'm sure there's room for all of you here in our fair city.

I love that you "bagged" your degree. You must be incredibly smart. And totally hip to be using a word like "bagged" when referring to a degree in a HIGHLY competitive field. I'm confused, though, Rose. Why would someone as smart as yourself want to know about the bus lines AND want to know about a parking garage on the premises? Is it because you are driving a bus? That would be WAY cool, Rose. And probably a nice way to supplement your fashion designer income! As for churches, I can't say. I'm not a church goer, Rose. But, whatever your parents gave you to drink as a kid that immediately made you full of Christian values, I would love to try it. I've never tried chugging Christian values myself, but, hey. I'm not one to turn away God if he comes in a convenient 12 ounce size.

I am concerned about your pursuit of the fashion world here in our small corner of the world, Rose. Really concerned. I don't know how they do it over there in Nigeria, but here in the Northwest, high fashion is considered not wearing socks with your Teva sandals. Also, if your fleece Harry Potter hat matches your ski boot bindings. I hate to disappoint you, Rose, because, believe me, I know what it's like to be disappointed by something that is masquerading as something it's not, but this place does not take kindly to fashion. And I know that, with your degree in fashion and all, you're going to want to be inspired by your environment. But this place inspires only smelly ultimate Frisbee players and Bigfoot with its fashion sense. You'd be better served ~~scamming~~ looking in some other major city for housing.

I, too, strongly believe there will be any (and all) problems with you living here. So here's what I suggest: give Make Mike Jason Smith a buzz. I'll even give you is email! It's: make_smith2005@yahoo.com. He's looking for a place, you're looking for a place. Why don't you guys room together? That way, when the police come and arrest you for email baiting, they only have to make one stop.

With Warmest Apologies for Your Horrible Spelling,
GoFuckYourself

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junk food

Cooking With (The Other) Lauren Ziemski

Plantains have been featuring regularly in my life lately. My wedding caterer, who was born in Peru, practically swooned when I mentioned I wanted fried plantains at my wedding. I think he might be more excited to make them than I am to eat them. Well, okay that's not entirely true. I can't WAIT to eat plantains, and all the other utterly mouthwatering things he's thinking of making (think: ceviche, well, really multiple ceviches, fried herbed fish, plantains, beans and rice, hearts of palm salad, and, naturally, a whole roast pig that requires a device to house it called "La Caja China”.

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My Ear Problems Could Be Due To My Recent Decapitation. Who Knew?

Well, it's official. I've got Meniere's Diease, or, as I like to call it "Constant Diet of Extruded Corn Meal Covered In Dehydrated Cheese Powder" Disease.

It sounds all exotic and lethal, doesn't it? Meniere's Diease. I like to say it with an exaggerated French accent just so I can pull as much drama as possible out of having an inner ear imbalance caused by addiction to food the color of traffic cones. I don't mean to diminish the pain and suffering others have endured because of this disease; I feel deeply sympathetic. I've lived with this feeling of low grade nausea and discomfort for four years now and it is no picnic. It's just that now that I know how I came to acquire this disease (my own poor eating habits), I don't feel compelled to be all grave and serious when I talk about it. Which is surprising for me, because I usually know exactly when it is appropriate to take things seriously. Like when I need to ask a convenience store clerk if he carries a snack product with the word "Doodle" in its name.

Though the origins are debatable, most doctors think it's caused by an imbalance of sodium in the body. The symptoms range from vertigo, a fullness in one ear, dizziness, tinnitus, hearing loss, and lovely little thing called nystagmus, a "jumping" in your eyeball when exposed to stimuli. And, in keeping with my fanaticism for collecting all things odd and rare, I've managed to add all these wonderfully uncomfortable items to my curio cabinet of health.

Two years ago, I started the process of trying to figure out why my ear hurt when I slept on my left side, and it has led me through a series of tests, including an Audiogram (in which I learned I had lost some of my hearing in my right ear) an MRI, an ECOG, and an ENG, and, most recently, it led me to the doctor who said I was exhibiting pretty classic symptoms of Meniere's Diease. I cannot relate in words how incredibly RELIEVING it is to finally have something to call this annoyance AND to have something to do about it.

Of course, though I am willing and ready to make the necessary adjustments in my life, I am none too happy about it. Plain and simple, I have to lower my salt intake. And, as my doctor pantomimed by shaking her hand in the air above an imaginary plate of food, it's not just the salt I put on my food I have to reduce. She said I would need to lower my intake of processed foods and prepackaged foods. And when she said this, I thought to myself, "Now wait a minute. I'm a most-of-the-time vegetarian who cooks for herself using mostly organic ingredients. I NEVER eat processed foods.... unless, of course... you count the metric tons of salty snacks I eat. mean, I guess you could consider the onion and corn pulp that's been dehydrated, salted, and flash fried into the shape of a ring "processed food". Oh. Wait a second. I eat METRIC TONS OF PROCESSED FOOD." Have you heard about my love for all things curled and cheesy and salty? It is an unnatural love. And I don't even want to tell you what I would do to get my hands on a certain brand of cheddar cheese goldfish crackers. Let's just say it might involve a criminal investigation.

The most recent visit to the doctor's office included an audiogram (wherein the lover-of-all-things-spreadsheet-able in me ignored the fact that the graph was of my own hearing loss and got all hot and bothered by seeing it mapped out on an x and y axis anyway). There was also the requisite wait in the lobby while I filled out an intake form.

And maybe it was because I was feeling extra grumpy that day because that morning I'd woken up with some more classic Meniere's Disease pain, or maybe it was because the receptionist gave me an incredulous "Are you nuts?" look when I told her no, I was no longer with Regence, that I don't have health insurance... but I felt I needed to correct the third grade vocabulary word spelling error on that intake form with a bit of vengeance.

The intake form was worded to determine whether or not my ear pain might have been caused by something like exposure to repetitive loud noises in the workplace, certain diseases, and/or trauma to the head. REALLY BAD trauma to the head.

I present to you now, compliments of my camera phone and the mood lighting in the doctor's office, the most specific question I have ever been asked on a medical intake form:

"Have you ever experienced the following: A sever blow to the head?"

My response, written in the margin? "I've never had my head severed".

I may have lost my hearing, Doc, but my eyesight is still pretty fucking sharp.

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Lauren Ziemski

Cooking With (The Other) Lauren Ziemski

Plantains have been featuring regularly in my life lately. My wedding caterer, who was born in Peru, practically swooned when I mentioned I wanted fried plantains at my wedding. I think he might be more excited to make them than I am to eat them. Well, okay that's not entirely true. I can't WAIT to eat plantains, and all the other utterly mouthwatering things he's thinking of making (think: ceviche, well, really multiple ceviches, fried herbed fish, plantains, beans and rice, hearts of palm salad, and, naturally, a whole roast pig that requires a device to house it called "La Caja China”.

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The Other, Not As Rad, Lauren Ziemski

Hey, Twitter followers:
It has come to my attention that there is another Lauren Ziemski out there and that she's an actress living in California and that she Twitters. And that you may have thought she was me, so you started following her, and she's on to you. So sorry to disappoint, but I have not signed up for a Twitter account yet. My iPhone is in the shop (on the shelf, unbought) and, well, do you really want to know what I had for breakfast? Oh, wait. You're the Internets. OF COURSE you want to know what I had for breakfast.

Anywho, I Googled my name and this other Lauren Ziemski showed up first in line. Who would have thought there were two of us? Maybe there is even a THIRD Lauren Ziemski out there, some uber-creative woman with tons of devoted fans who want to know via Twitter what she's having for breakfast. Alas, I am none of these Lauren Ziemskis. And I am definitely not as rad as the actress, Lauren Ziemski. She says so right here:

I am not a stunning actress having a wine pairing party hosted by an amazing chef on Venice Beach. In fact, I am sitting slumped in my office chair, listening to sound of the garbage truck down the street, drinking tea with a moody name like "Earl Grey Skies", or something like it, and Googling my own name. That's right. I am Googling my own name. I don't have anything else to do with my time today. That's what you do in 2009 when you're bored. You try to find yourself on the Internet. That last statement is a hot mess of potential philosophical discussion designed for some we-don't-give-out-grades school, but we don't have time to talk about ideas here. We are busy posting about what we ate for breakfast.

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babies

Dear Tuesday

Dear Sprint,
There's a war on. You know that, right? Between you and the iPhone people? And that every time I take my phone out, I might as well be pulling a six-shooter out of a holster? And that every time an iPhone and another phone are in the same room together, the air becomes dry and crackly and people nervously clear their throats? You can practically hear the jangle of spurs and the theme music to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly out here, Sprint. To the iPhone users, every hiccup in your performance is an opportunity to prove to me that the iPhone is faster, easier to use, and just downright BETTER than the phone I use, Sprint. SO. Here's a little advice, from someone down in the trenches: Get. Yo'. Shit. Together. Don't make me look like an idiot in front of the iPhone users. I've defended you for a long time, but the jackals are circling. They want an excuse, ANY excuse, to say to me, "Why don't you just get an iPhone?". Are you going to let them have it, Sprint? Are you just going to lie there and take it? Because that's what the iPhone people are saying you'll do. They think they've got you pegged. They think I'll eventually get so frustrated with you that I'll cave and buy a shiny white lozenge of a phone and leave you in the dust. Is that where we're headed, Sprint? You know, now that I think about it, I actually can't understand my loyalty to you. You really haven't done much more than provide me with uninterrupted, trouble-free service for nine years or so. I mean, it's not like you throw in a dozen roses every time I upgrade my phone. So why should I stick with you when everyone tells me the iPhone is better, faster, and smarter than your best smartphone? Because you had me at Hello, You're Lazy. It's true. I can feel a migraine coming on whenever I think about having to switch phone companies. So let's make a deal, shall we? I will continue to fork over my seventy-some-odd-dollars for a worry-free, all-inclusive plan, and you continue to reward me for my ~~laziness~~ loyalty. Here's another pointer: When I come into your store, make it seem, like the iPhone people do, that I have just brought in a wounded comrade and that you are a triage center. Treat that comrade like he is family. Gently tuck him into a white Formica drawer with other wounded comrades and promise me you'll do everything you can to save him. Ask me how long it's been since I've been without my device, and offer your condolences with lowered eyes and a respectful distance. Offer me a service ticket electronically and act like you don't even know what paper is anymore. Tell me you'll have a new phone in my hands pronto. And do this all with a smile. I mean, for godssakes, Sprint, the iPhone people are watching.

Dear Sprint,
You know I have, like, twenty six followers of this blog and that I could easily foment an insurrection against you? Do you know that in some parts of the world, twenty-six people all hating you at once out of solidarity constitutes a goddamned revolution? How much bad juju can you handle being beamed at you from every corner of North America anyway?

Dear Sprint Store Employee,
I can tell that every morning, in one motion, you push your arms into the sleeves of your corporate logo'd sweater and you put your heart up in a Mason jar on the top shelf of your closet because that is what it takes to do your job. It's okay. I can't blame you. I used to work for a corporate entity once. I, too, got tired of dealing with people who brought back items that THEIR CATS HAD OBVIOUSLY BEEN PEEING ON for three years and tell me that they just "changed their mind" about the color and could they just get a refund, please? I'm sure the stories you hear about what people do to their cell phones is equally as horrifying. I'm sure that people feign ignorance left and right about why their phones suddenly don't work and why they need replacements right this instant for free. I'm sure you have to stare grown men in the face and not move a muscle as they tell you they most certainly did NOT drop their phones in the lake even as wriggling minnows tumble onto the countertop from their battery casings. I'm sure you have to defend against all kinds of asinine behavior that voids service contracts and that you have to tell a hundred or more people a day that that kind of stuff is just not the kind of thing that warrants a free phone.

Dear Assurian Insurance Company Who Insures My Phone,
I am not one of those people.

Dear Sprint Employee (again),
Please review your customer service policies regarding "cracked smartphone screens". Understand that when I hand over my phone and you casually remark, without making eye contact or mentioning a price, that you "could probably have a technician replace the screen in an hour", this equates, in my mind, with a FREE service. You can understand, then, how frustrated and confused I was when, an hour later, you said the technician could not replace the screen because the phone showed signs of water damage. Water damage, Sprint Employee? I'm not following. HOW DOES A CRACKED SCREEN HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH WATER DAMAGE? I brought the phone in because my screen is cracked. And now I've gone from being mildly inconvenienced to irritated and confused. Do you see what's happened here? You've turned me into an all caps lunatic. When you ask me if I've ever taken the phone into the bathroom while I've showered because, you know, condensation from a shower could be the culprit of said water damage and I stand there with my mouth agog, it's because I am trying to comprehend how this is in any way related to my screen. My screen that is on the front of the phone and not the back of the phone where you checked for this alleged "water damage". Sprint Employee, do you live here in our fair city of Seattle? Perhaps you are aware of how much it rains here. And surely you are aware of the high number of smartphone enthusiasts in our fair city (I'll direct you to the paragraph above regarding the iPhone users). So, you must, you simply MUST, understand how, given the number of days in the year there is measurable moisture in the air (ahem, you might understand this better as "shower condensation"), and the number of smartphone users, that, by your logic, EVERYONE'S PHONE IN SEATTLE HAS SUFFERED WATER DAMAGE AND THEREFORE EVERYONE'S SERVICE CONTRACTS ARE VOID. Am I understanding this correctly, Sprint Employee?

Dear Assurian,
You might want to have a talk with the Sprint people. Apparently, there is some confusion about when to pay a deductible for a new phone and when screens are fixed for free. Now, having paid you people seven dollars a month for the last year to insure my phone, I was more than ready to pay this deductible and to have a new phone shipped to me pronto. But, it seems like we all had different ideas of what was supposed to happen here, now didn't we? You shipped me a phone in three days due to "backups" and "popularity of the phone" (and not immediately like you should have, like I am paying you to do). And then, when I got the phone, it was damaged. And when I called and asked your customer service rep if I should ship back the whole package, which included a battery and a memory card, or just the damaged phone, your representative told me "just the phone". And then you somehow, AMAZINGLY, MIRACULOUSLY were able to ship me a BRAND NEW PHONE overnight to replace the damaged one... which, of course, included ANOTHER battery and ANOTHER memory card. (Are you catching all this, iPhone users?)

Dear Really Stupid Week I've Just Had,
Man, am I glad you're done. Geez.... Now, if I could just back to a regular sleep pattern...

Dear Crows Outside My Bedroom Window at 7 am:
Who elected you to the position of Urban Roosters, huh? GET OFF MY GODDAMNED POWERLINES, YOU JERKS!! I'M STILL SLEEPING!! HEY! CROWS! YOU LIKE IT WHEN SOMEONE CAN'T TALK IN A NORMAL TONE OF VOICE? YOU LIKE IT WHEN SOMEONE JUST SCREAMS THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS FOUR FEET FROM YOUR HEAD? HUH, CROWS? HUH? YOU LIKE THIS? CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! YOU WANT SOME MORE OF THIS, CROWS? DO YA?

Dear Baby Next Door,
Are you in cahoots with the crows? Do you suffer from night terrors? Why the hell else would you be awake at 7 am and screaming like you're being murdered? Do you fall out of your crib every day at the same time and land in rusty bathtub full of broken glass? Why the hell must you scream like that, baby? I wake up every morning terrified that you're being mauled by lions. Why, baby? Why? I've met your mother; she's a dear woman. I know you're not being harmed in there, baby, so it must be all in your head. Do you need to see a therapist, baby?

Dear Neighbor with Backfiring Motorcycle/Neighbor with Lawnmower,
Really? Are you and the baby and the crows all in on this together? Is there some conspiracy to make as much noise as possible at the appointed hour of 6:45 am to get me out of bed? You know I don't actually GET out of bed at 6:45, right? Sure, sometimes I get up and press my nose to my screen window and scream at the top of my lungs for the crows the shut the hell up but that doesn't constitute "getting out of bed" per se. Anyway, please stop. It's getting a little ridiculous out there. I mean, a screaming baby is one thing. And crows another. But mowing your lawn AND repairing your motorcycle all at once? Come on. That's just silly.

Dear Self-Employment Schedule,
Thanks for letting me sleep in.

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We Have No Bananas… But We Do Have Fresh Children

Okay, okay. I know I'm supposed to be telling you about Burning Man. And I will, I swear. There is so much to tell you, so you won't be disappointed that you had to wait this long. But, I mean, honestly. How can I possibly start? At what point do I jump in and just start rattling it all off? My plan was to sort of break it down, day by day, make it sequential and all, just to make it easy on us both. Stretch it out and write down the epic adventure that it was. But, because it was just that life-changing, and because I haven't had one spare moment to myself since I got home to really write one single eloquent thought about it, and because, within 72 hours of getting home, I jumped on a plane to NJ to visit my family, and because I have been completely distracted by this gorgeous stretch of beach I am staying on, I am going to stall and tell you about something far more interesting. First, first, I am going to tell you about the meat department at the Strathmere, NJ, Acme Supermarket. But first let me tell you why I'm at the Acme in Strathmere, NJ, in the first place.

My sister and I are visiting CLH's cousin Renee (and her husband Steve) in south Jersey. Renee just had her first baby. Back in February, she asked me to be with her during the first few weeks of the baby's life and I said yes. I was so honored when she asked me I actually broke down in tears. So, being here with my sister is a big deal to me. Renee is the oldest of CLH's gaggle of cousins and I have always felt a special kind of kinship with her.

It's also a big deal, because, up until a few years ago, before my peers started having kids of their own, I was scared to DEATH of having children. I mean, really, really scared. And the fear was multi layered. The first layer had everything to do with my fear of psychologically screwing the kid up. And I had a whole litany of excuses to defend my when-hell-freezes-over answer to the question of motherhood. There was the Well-I-don't-want-to-bring-a-child-up-the way-I-was-brought- up-and-aren't-we-all-destined-to-repeat-the-mistakes-of-our-parents argument that I used for a long time. And then there was Well-there's-so-much-to-know-about childrearing-and-I'll-never-know-it-all-and-i'll-probably-do-something-I-should-have-known-better-about-and-what-lawyer-is going-to-defend-a-mom-that-should-have-known-about-honey-and-botulism-and-newborns? argument.

Several thousand dollars and years of therapy later, my attitude is: it doesn't matter what I do, the kid's gonna need a few years on a leather couch himself to work out all the stuff I've absolutely blown as a mom and it's gonna be okay. He'll have a long list to work on, of course, but, then again, who doesn't? He'll probably cite Mom's annoying ability to deduce that BOTH SIDES of an argument are valid. Her obsession about the order of the spice drawer but utter disregard towards the mold in the shower. Making him eat tofu. FORCING HIM TO LISTEN TO JAZZ.

Whew. So, after that was all cleared up by the psychologists, the second wave of neuroses hit. And these stuck around for years. The ones having to do with my physical ability to actually extrude a living thing from my lady parts. I have a short torso, people. Not exactly baby housing material. I've been known to faint at the thought of getting a paper cut. Cough syrup gets me high, and a single cup of coffee? A single cup of coffee can turn my heart into Kool-Aid Man: it will burst through my ribcage wearing Bermuda shorts and yell "OOOOOOH YEAH!" to thirsty, despondent children. Given all this sensitivity, how in the hell would I be able to withstand hours, nee, DAYS, of excruciating labor pains? How would I be able to endure the morning sickness? The heartburn? The lower back pain? The sleepless nights? Not to mention the parts no one talks about: the way your nipples get cracked and hard from breastfeeding. The perineum tearing and the subsequent stitches. The -gasp- hemorrhoids, people. Let's not forget the hemorrhoids. How could a person whose heart can't handle a common breakfast stimulant handle the endurance needed to squeeze a very large thing from a very small hole?

And then I was invited to witness a live birth. In 2001, my best friend's sister was about to give birth to her second child, and she invited me, CLH, and a choice few other folks to be present for the birth, which was to take place in her home. And sure enough, it was all my worst nightmares come true. I could hear the wails of pain from blocks away. I was nearly frozen with fear before I even stepped foot in the house. When I got inside, I didn't know what to do with myself. My friend's sister volleyed back and forth between gut wrenching moans and making happy, idle chatter as the contractions got closer and closer together. I was beside myself with fear and confusion. My modesty radar self destructed as this naked woman let herself be led from one position to another by the midwife, and finally into the birthing tub by a small army of people. Naked! Naked, pregnant, and wailing and moaning like she was dying. I didn't know what to pass out from, the primal fear this wailing triggered, or having my mind implode at the sight of so much pubic hair in public.

And then the baby came. And no one died. And the sister was in control of her birth experience the whole time. And she was happy afterwards. Really, really happy. And the baby was happy. And both were healthy. And the world didn't explode and no one bled to death and I made it out without fainting.

And it was after that birth that I got to thinking, wait a minute. That wasn't so bad. Which led naturally to, Hmmm. Hold on a second. I could probably do that. Drastic, right? Like, what kind of a logical jump is that? Like, I, too, could probably skydive over an active volcano blindfolded! But I've figured out that it's not logical, this whole child-rearing thing. It's supposed to do things like turn your world upside down and make you think that pushing a wiggly, pokey, bundle of flesh out of your body while being consumed by the worst pain of your life is actually rewarding.

Which is why I eventually had to shove aside the stream of unending questions that issued forth from my over-thinking brain after witnessing this birth. Like how on earth am I going to calm a crying baby in public? A crying baby that doesn't speak English. Or spend leisurely hours in the ethnic food aisle at the supermarket with a toddler? Or listen to This American Life uninterrupted EVER AGAIN? How am I going to take a shower when it is old enough to crawl? Doesn't the baby need 24 hour supervision? Doesn't it have the ability to snap its own neck? Doesn't it suffocate when it's laid on its back before the age of six months? Or is it the stomach? JEEEZUS, I DON'T KNOW, JUST LIKE I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE HONEY AND THE BOTULISM. And the next thing I know, I am tearing my hair out and screaming, Oh Dear God, I've killed my baby because I wanted to take a shower.

....

And I tell you all this because I feel so honored to be in this baby's life with this entirely new perspective on parenting. It makes being here feel like I've worked through a lot of issues and come out the other side a little more wise, and a little more, well, adult. And it gives me an enormous appreciation for the hard work it takes to be a parent. And that sometimes, despite your best efforts, your kids still do things to disappoint or embarrass you. All your lessons about manners and appropriate public behavior go right out the window and you have to just regroup and start over and that's okay too. And that, sometimes, your greatest work can come undone in the meat department of an Acme Supermarket.

So, my sister and I are standing in front of the fish case at the Acme supermarket here in Strathmere after a long day of driving. We're making a special seafood dinner for Steve and Renee and we're arguing over the amount of shrimp we need. The supermarket is so poorly stocked, we're wondering if there's been a war down here in Strathmere and that Steve and Renee just forgot to tell us. We're hot, we're tired, we've got low blood sugar, and we're trying to make a dinner out of mouthwash, flounder, and ice cream, the only things left in this supermarket. While we're waiting for our fish to be weighed and packaged, a group of three adults and a boy come down an aisle and pause a few feet away. The boy looks to be about five years old or so. He slithers away from the adults, and while they are talking groceries, he furtively writes something in the condensation on the outside of the meat case. He scurries away, thinking that no one has seen him. But of course, having been around a newborn for a few hours, my mommy senses are heightened, my kid-tracking-beam is turned up to eleven, and I have been watching this kid out of the corner of my eye the whole time.

The shrimp is handed to us just as this kid sidles up to his adult supervision, and suddenly, I see what he's written on the glass.

maet butt.

The kid has written "maet butt" on the glass.

I'll spell it once more just in case you're not wiping the tears out of your eyes yet: maet butt.

And suddenly, all the fury inside my sister and I over how much shrimp to buy and the fact that we're starving but there's not one piece of edible produce in the whole joint... well, that just melts right out of us and we are holding our sides we are laughing so hard at maet butt.

Because THAT little prank? That is what makes all the hemorrhoids in the world ALL worth it.

Welcome to the world, little Tre.

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parenting

COVID-IARIES Day 12/13: Hitting The Wall

We hit the wall yesterday. Anyone else?

I'm sitting here stress-eating Cheez Doodles, trying to sort through the poopstorm of emotions I've experienced these last two days. I'm trying to name them. Naming things helps, right? Let's see... there was mid-morning Fluster-Rage. Lunchtime saw a bout of Tearful Confessional Grief With Some F-Bombs Thrown In, and by early evening, I was What Is Wrong With Me Why Am I So Mad melting into Dinner Needs To Get Made, Everyone Out Of The House, There I Feel A Little Better, Tomorrow's A New Day, We'll Start Over And It'll Be Fine.

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We Have No Bananas… But We Do Have Fresh Children

Okay, okay. I know I'm supposed to be telling you about Burning Man. And I will, I swear. There is so much to tell you, so you won't be disappointed that you had to wait this long. But, I mean, honestly. How can I possibly start? At what point do I jump in and just start rattling it all off? My plan was to sort of break it down, day by day, make it sequential and all, just to make it easy on us both. Stretch it out and write down the epic adventure that it was. But, because it was just that life-changing, and because I haven't had one spare moment to myself since I got home to really write one single eloquent thought about it, and because, within 72 hours of getting home, I jumped on a plane to NJ to visit my family, and because I have been completely distracted by this gorgeous stretch of beach I am staying on, I am going to stall and tell you about something far more interesting. First, first, I am going to tell you about the meat department at the Strathmere, NJ, Acme Supermarket. But first let me tell you why I'm at the Acme in Strathmere, NJ, in the first place.

My sister and I are visiting CLH's cousin Renee (and her husband Steve) in south Jersey. Renee just had her first baby. Back in February, she asked me to be with her during the first few weeks of the baby's life and I said yes. I was so honored when she asked me I actually broke down in tears. So, being here with my sister is a big deal to me. Renee is the oldest of CLH's gaggle of cousins and I have always felt a special kind of kinship with her.

It's also a big deal, because, up until a few years ago, before my peers started having kids of their own, I was scared to DEATH of having children. I mean, really, really scared. And the fear was multi layered. The first layer had everything to do with my fear of psychologically screwing the kid up. And I had a whole litany of excuses to defend my when-hell-freezes-over answer to the question of motherhood. There was the Well-I-don't-want-to-bring-a-child-up-the way-I-was-brought- up-and-aren't-we-all-destined-to-repeat-the-mistakes-of-our-parents argument that I used for a long time. And then there was Well-there's-so-much-to-know-about childrearing-and-I'll-never-know-it-all-and-i'll-probably-do-something-I-should-have-known-better-about-and-what-lawyer-is going-to-defend-a-mom-that-should-have-known-about-honey-and-botulism-and-newborns? argument.

Several thousand dollars and years of therapy later, my attitude is: it doesn't matter what I do, the kid's gonna need a few years on a leather couch himself to work out all the stuff I've absolutely blown as a mom and it's gonna be okay. He'll have a long list to work on, of course, but, then again, who doesn't? He'll probably cite Mom's annoying ability to deduce that BOTH SIDES of an argument are valid. Her obsession about the order of the spice drawer but utter disregard towards the mold in the shower. Making him eat tofu. FORCING HIM TO LISTEN TO JAZZ.

Whew. So, after that was all cleared up by the psychologists, the second wave of neuroses hit. And these stuck around for years. The ones having to do with my physical ability to actually extrude a living thing from my lady parts. I have a short torso, people. Not exactly baby housing material. I've been known to faint at the thought of getting a paper cut. Cough syrup gets me high, and a single cup of coffee? A single cup of coffee can turn my heart into Kool-Aid Man: it will burst through my ribcage wearing Bermuda shorts and yell "OOOOOOH YEAH!" to thirsty, despondent children. Given all this sensitivity, how in the hell would I be able to withstand hours, nee, DAYS, of excruciating labor pains? How would I be able to endure the morning sickness? The heartburn? The lower back pain? The sleepless nights? Not to mention the parts no one talks about: the way your nipples get cracked and hard from breastfeeding. The perineum tearing and the subsequent stitches. The -gasp- hemorrhoids, people. Let's not forget the hemorrhoids. How could a person whose heart can't handle a common breakfast stimulant handle the endurance needed to squeeze a very large thing from a very small hole?

And then I was invited to witness a live birth. In 2001, my best friend's sister was about to give birth to her second child, and she invited me, CLH, and a choice few other folks to be present for the birth, which was to take place in her home. And sure enough, it was all my worst nightmares come true. I could hear the wails of pain from blocks away. I was nearly frozen with fear before I even stepped foot in the house. When I got inside, I didn't know what to do with myself. My friend's sister volleyed back and forth between gut wrenching moans and making happy, idle chatter as the contractions got closer and closer together. I was beside myself with fear and confusion. My modesty radar self destructed as this naked woman let herself be led from one position to another by the midwife, and finally into the birthing tub by a small army of people. Naked! Naked, pregnant, and wailing and moaning like she was dying. I didn't know what to pass out from, the primal fear this wailing triggered, or having my mind implode at the sight of so much pubic hair in public.

And then the baby came. And no one died. And the sister was in control of her birth experience the whole time. And she was happy afterwards. Really, really happy. And the baby was happy. And both were healthy. And the world didn't explode and no one bled to death and I made it out without fainting.

And it was after that birth that I got to thinking, wait a minute. That wasn't so bad. Which led naturally to, Hmmm. Hold on a second. I could probably do that. Drastic, right? Like, what kind of a logical jump is that? Like, I, too, could probably skydive over an active volcano blindfolded! But I've figured out that it's not logical, this whole child-rearing thing. It's supposed to do things like turn your world upside down and make you think that pushing a wiggly, pokey, bundle of flesh out of your body while being consumed by the worst pain of your life is actually rewarding.

Which is why I eventually had to shove aside the stream of unending questions that issued forth from my over-thinking brain after witnessing this birth. Like how on earth am I going to calm a crying baby in public? A crying baby that doesn't speak English. Or spend leisurely hours in the ethnic food aisle at the supermarket with a toddler? Or listen to This American Life uninterrupted EVER AGAIN? How am I going to take a shower when it is old enough to crawl? Doesn't the baby need 24 hour supervision? Doesn't it have the ability to snap its own neck? Doesn't it suffocate when it's laid on its back before the age of six months? Or is it the stomach? JEEEZUS, I DON'T KNOW, JUST LIKE I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE HONEY AND THE BOTULISM. And the next thing I know, I am tearing my hair out and screaming, Oh Dear God, I've killed my baby because I wanted to take a shower.

....

And I tell you all this because I feel so honored to be in this baby's life with this entirely new perspective on parenting. It makes being here feel like I've worked through a lot of issues and come out the other side a little more wise, and a little more, well, adult. And it gives me an enormous appreciation for the hard work it takes to be a parent. And that sometimes, despite your best efforts, your kids still do things to disappoint or embarrass you. All your lessons about manners and appropriate public behavior go right out the window and you have to just regroup and start over and that's okay too. And that, sometimes, your greatest work can come undone in the meat department of an Acme Supermarket.

So, my sister and I are standing in front of the fish case at the Acme supermarket here in Strathmere after a long day of driving. We're making a special seafood dinner for Steve and Renee and we're arguing over the amount of shrimp we need. The supermarket is so poorly stocked, we're wondering if there's been a war down here in Strathmere and that Steve and Renee just forgot to tell us. We're hot, we're tired, we've got low blood sugar, and we're trying to make a dinner out of mouthwash, flounder, and ice cream, the only things left in this supermarket. While we're waiting for our fish to be weighed and packaged, a group of three adults and a boy come down an aisle and pause a few feet away. The boy looks to be about five years old or so. He slithers away from the adults, and while they are talking groceries, he furtively writes something in the condensation on the outside of the meat case. He scurries away, thinking that no one has seen him. But of course, having been around a newborn for a few hours, my mommy senses are heightened, my kid-tracking-beam is turned up to eleven, and I have been watching this kid out of the corner of my eye the whole time.

The shrimp is handed to us just as this kid sidles up to his adult supervision, and suddenly, I see what he's written on the glass.

maet butt.

The kid has written "maet butt" on the glass.

I'll spell it once more just in case you're not wiping the tears out of your eyes yet: maet butt.

And suddenly, all the fury inside my sister and I over how much shrimp to buy and the fact that we're starving but there's not one piece of edible produce in the whole joint... well, that just melts right out of us and we are holding our sides we are laughing so hard at maet butt.

Because THAT little prank? That is what makes all the hemorrhoids in the world ALL worth it.

Welcome to the world, little Tre.

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Dooce

Coincidences In The Blogisphere

It's healthy to start calling bloggers I've never met by their first names, right? And to refer to them in casual conversation as if they live down the block? Whew. Good. I knew I wasn't the only one doing it.

I follow a couple of blogs and I can't help it. I read about their pets and their kids and their asinine coworkers and I feel like I actually KNOW these people. And I talk about them to my real-life friends like they're ALSO real-life friends. Lately I've been noticing that their lives parallel mine in these really weird, really uncanny ways (which makes me feel even more weirdo kinship with them). I've never said anything about it before because I've always just chalked it up to coincidence. Also? It's weird to pretend that strangers are your friends.

(Did I just really use the word "weird" eighty times in that last paragraph?)

I suppose it's not exactly earth shattering news that any of us weird enough to tell the Internet about our flatulence issues, and our not-so-secret obsessions with pop stars, and our love for extruded corn-based snacks MIGHT share a few weird personality quirks in common. And I guess it's not that uncommon to be riddled with anxiety or paranoid about geese or spiders or annoyed by coworkers who can't form rudimentary sentences. This is all part of our shared human experience, no? The more I read, though, about this shared experience on the Internet, the more weirded out I get. It's so weird it makes me say things like "weirded out".

(Seriously. Stop it with the "weird" thing.)

So, coincidence #1: Burning hot things + plastic + us. Last month, CLH sent me another text that started with the words "Uh-oh" and ended with "I'll replace it soon". I had finally mastered the art of using an electric stove (see issue here regarding never-to-be-the-same popcorn pot). CLH, however, continued to pretend like he'd received his diploma in 1960's Appliances... and last month he left the kettle on the stove so long, the plastic lid MELTED, FELL INTO THE KETTLE, and was SCORCHED into a puddle of burning hot ooze. But not before filling the apartment with an acrid smoke that took WEEKS of Febreezing to get rid of. That and burning incense. And candles. And having the windows open all day long in the middle of winter.

Allie, it seems, has had a similar incident.

And Heather, too, is in the Almost Burn Down The House Club! Hooray for us!

Okay, then there's the leprechauns.

Last night I wrote about the leprechaun-y dude who always seems to be working out at the gym at the same time as me. And today, Heather wrote about her daughter's fear of leprechauns (and Leta, I'm with you 100%. Those dudes are creep-tastic. I don't blame you for being scared). Two uses of the word "leprechaun". Two different blogs. Same 24 hour period. Weird.

Oh sure, it's March, and the whole leprechaun thing was bound to come up soon enough, right? But, still. I was referring to a small man who insists on wearing mostly green clothing to work out in and who trims his beard in a really unflattering, elf-like way. (I know I'm going to get a hundred comments about how leprechauns are NOT elves but instead belong to some other realm of magical beings... and normally I would tell those people to get a life... except I'm the one who thinks she's friends with complete strangers who blog in other states.)

Anywho, the leprechaun dude was at the gym again tonight and I wasn't even going to mention him here (instead I was going to mention the guy who got on the elliptical machine next to mine, even though ALL THE OTHER MACHINES WERE NOT BEING USED, and who began to sweat ACTUAL sour milk). But then I jumped over to Dooce's blog... and there it was: a story about a leprechaun.

Sure, I could draw conclusions about how we're all either crazy or geniuses, or crazy geniuses, and how good story ideas just seem to hang out in the stratosphere until they find the perfect conduits... and that Ally and Heather and I... we're all perfect conduits coexisting so it's not really a coincidence that we're all writing about our melted kitchenware, but still. Leprechauns? Even the Department of Revenue couldn't make THAT shit up.

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Parallel Lives… Almost

For the past year or so, CLH and I have been marveling at how similar our lives are to that of Dooce and Blurb, to whom we are wholly and Internet-ally devoted. I fell in love with Heather's writing about a year and a half ago when my friend Kevin emailed and said YOU MUST READ THIS BLOG. At the time, I was all, Kevin, get a grip, man. How good could it be? And then I started reading. And it was good. It was so good, in fact, I made a vow to read every single entry. From the beginning. And then, basically, I read nearly seven years' worth of blogging over the course of the next few months.

And over the course of those months, I sometimes felt like I was looking into a mirror (if a mirror was shaped like a monitor and had a keyboard dangling from it). I mean, minus the being a mom to two kids, and the Mormon upbringing, and being raised in the south, and the dislike of licorice, and her being extremely tall, and living in another state, and the owning of two dogs, and making a living blogging, and the beautifully decorated house, we have a LOT in common. Okay, so we really have nothing in common. Her husband is a big computer geek and my almost-husband is a computer geek and sometimes I also want to stick my head in the oven at the sight of the first flakes of snow. So, in my mind, that qualifies us to be twins.

You see, this is what the Internets has done to me: it's made me feel this kinship with people I've never met. It's as if, because we can eloquently spell out the joys and pains of raising kids, or training dogs, or hating winter, we can all call each other family. And I kind of like that. I don't know about you, but I think I might know Heather (and other bloggers I follow) better than my OWN family sometimes.

I mean, her life has become dinnertime conversation around our house, for god's sake. CLH will ask me as we sit down together: Did you see what Chuck was wearing today? And I will answer yes and we'll laugh about it knowingly and then cut into our baked potatoes.

So, I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised when CLH came running into the kitchen the other day and blurted out, DID YOU SEE WHAT DOOCE'S KID IS WEARING? SHE'S DRESSED LIKE SPECIAL FRIEND FOR HALLOWEEN!

Internet, meet Special Friend.

Special Friend is a bit of a family joke around our house. Back when I worked for a major retailer, and back when I blew whole paychecks on weird toys, I came across a stuffed multi-colored centipede and brought it home to add to the menagerie. He was a bit of a prominent feature in the bedroom I shared with my sister at the time (this is back when CLH and I were first dating). Somehow, CLH and my sister developed a bit of a rivalry over who had true ownership rights to this stuffed centipede, and he was christened Special Friend (as in, "You can't have him. He's MY special friend"). He then spent the next five years being spirited away under winter coats and stuffed into suitcases at the last minute as each of us stole it from the other and back again. To "settle" the custody battle, my sister HAND STITCHED a second special friend (this time in khaki and navy) so that each of us could have one at our house and gave it to CLH for Christmas a few years back. Can you believe that? I mean, she got the eyes to match and EVERYthing. She even made him- get this- a little tiny top hat! Internet, that is some ingenuity.

My sister still has the original, and displays it proudly with the beaded throw pillows on her bed, and mine acts as a lumbar support when we sit on our couch.

Here is CLH holding up Special Friend II in front of our shower curtain. Yuen Lui, eat your heart out.

That kid could have been dressed as anything, ANYthing at all. But she was dressed as a centipede. A rainbow centipede. Coincidence? I think not.

Recently, CLH was offered the chance to go to Salt Lake City for a meet up with the other half of the development team he has been working with. Immediately, I asked him if I could go too. He smiled and asked if it was because I wanted to see where Heather and Jon lived. Maybe, I said. Or maybe it's because I've always wanted to see Utah. But probably it's because I want to meet Heather and Jon....and that baby wrapped in Special Friend.

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garage sales

Motherlode

I have been struggling to come up with something coherent and funny to post these past few days, but every time I sit down at this computer, all I do is sigh dramatically and rake my hands through my hair and then promise myself I'll write tomorrow and that, for now, I'll just post the pictures I've taken of all the lost cat posters in my neighborhood and won't that be hysterical? Hahahaha!!! *More sighing*. I knew I wanted to post something today, though, so I went digging through some unfinished pieces and I found this little ditty. I wrote it originally back in the beginning of July.

Every once in a great while, your future self shows up to a baby shower, or at the gas station, or in the produce aisle of the supermarket and strikes up a conversation with you and it hits you almost immediately: this is what I am going to be like in 40 years.

Today was an average day for garage-saleing. There was the aggressive soccer mom who all but accosted me as soon as I set foot near her driveway. Her greeting came tumbling out all at once, a command rather than a salutation: THIS IS TO RAISE MONEY FOR BREAST CANCER AWARENESS. Whoa, okay. And a good day to you, madam! I strolled around for a few minutes because Hey! I support causes! But her stuff was way overpriced. Clearly, she hadn't read the manual about garage sale pricing. There was no way in hell anyone was going to pay $25 for a trench coat at a garage sale covered in cat hair and smelling of mold, even if it was for charity. Oh, and her aggressive daughter dressed head to toe in pink offering me cookies in her very loud outside voice? Seriously, kid. Take a hint from Dale Carnegie. At least tell me you like my hair or something before asking me shell out money for your almond bars. (I'm sure they're dusting off the chair reserved for me in Hell right now.)

There was the lady who looked like she should have had that garage sale about twenty years ago. Seriously. That shit was sooooo dated. And ugly. Something happened in the late seventies and early eighties to home furnishings in this country that can only described as "tragic". And this woman had made some SERIOUS investments in her home decor back then. I like that stuff tells a story. I like when it's kitschy. I don't like when it's embarrassing for everyone. A DUSTBUSTER? SERIOUSLY? The last time I saw one of those was in 1987. Which was probably the last time I saw Richard Simmons on the cover of a cookbook. Which she was also selling. Which were laid out next to some framed posters of kittens playing piano. And monkeys dressed like businessmen.

There was the sale that promised "high end modern stuff" which mostly consisted of Ikea crap still in boxes. The real gem in the crown, though, was the woman who got into her Cutlass Supreme afterward visiting that sale and complained that everything was too pricey. Oh, really? You think so? Well, I've got a twenty-five dollar trench coat just a few blocks from here that will make your eyes pop out of your head on springs.

The real treat was the sale I wasn't planning on going to at all (Tenet three of the Garage Sale Theory: It's always the sale you just happen upon that yields the best stuff. The lesson here? Plans yield to crushed hopes.) Anywho, I stopped for bit. The first thing I noticed was that stuff was laid out wonderfully. Antique sheets and tablecloths underneath milk glass pieces and ornate serving bowls and stuff. Drinking glasses shaped like boots. Really well done. And reasonably priced. I saw a medium sized serving platter and fell in love. I picked it up for a mere $2. There were other pieces that I liked, but I thought I'd already broken the bank by spending a whole TWO dollars. I wandered next door where another sale was happening (and where I scored a sleeve for my iPod for twenty five cents). But I couldn't get that second platter off my mind. It was a thing of simple beauty. And I wanted it. And this is when the OCD kicked in. My mind did somersaults trying to justify spending an additional $3.00 on a serving platter. Oh, the agony (and this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I can't sleep at night. That, and because I am trying to figure out the evolutionary advantage to having one's two front teeth spread really far apart and having that hangy-downy part of one's gums between the teeth. You know. Science-y stuff).

I went back for the platter. I paid for it. I felt better about myself. I calmed down. And then the woman running the sale wanted to know where I lived. Huh? Oh, well, I said. Not too far. Closer to downtown. Well, we have these sales three times a year, she said. So check back. And as I was about to walk away, my twin showed up.

Now, she wasn't my twin in the traditional sense. She looked nothing like me. But her skin, it glowed. And her eyes, they sparkled. They sparkled they way someone's do when they have a basement of treasure they are just dying to show someone. And I'm a good audience. A very good audience.

This is my job: I collect stories. I write them down. I have a face that says: Please, go ahead and tell me about that one time you knew that guy who piloted planes and then was killed in a freak accident but that you still keep in touch with his widow and her neighbor, who sure did make a mean margarita and that that dog you had as a kid, why that dog could balance a wiffle ball on its head for a full minute and it wouldn't even move or nothin'. My face also says: I like stuff that other people call "junk". I like to see whole rooms of it. If I could, I would lay down on that junk and do the butterfly stroke through it, letting antique teacups and gooseneck lamps and baseball cards and ashtrays glance off my skin like water while I dipped and came up for air.

So my twin, she says: what are you looking for today? And I am almost stunned silent because this is a serious question. It makes me wonder: what the hell AM I looking for? I mean, what do I do this for? Why do I get up early on the weekends and pay people my hard earned money to haul away stuff they were going to take the the dump anyway? What am I out here hoping to find? Dishes, mostly, I think. Yes, dishes. That is the most practical thing I can think of to say. Burdy and I are eating off of chipped earthenware because we got rid of our old clunky set and we haven't found the perfect replacement set just yet... so we are eating off of an even older set, which is chipped, and we need new dishes. So I'm looking for dishes. But I'm also looking for wedding theme ideas. And perhaps for an apothecary/farmhouse themed armoire to put all my dry goods in. And OOOO!! I know! wine glasses! And also, something to put on the mantle! And a piggy bank in the shape of a donkey! And something to put my makeup in when I travel! And a record featuring a cigarette smoking Asian dude! Yeah! That stuff!

And then she does something completely unexpected. She invites me to her house. Somewhere, deep inside, my inner child bristles, and I can hear my mom's voice telling me not to talk to strangers. But mom, this nice lady! She's offering something better than candy! She has a whole room of STUFF!

Thank goodness child predators weren't on to my proclivities back then. Fuck your candy, sir. You want me to get in your car? Tell me you want to show me your collection of velvet Elvis paintings and maybe your shed full of mason jars. Then I'll do whatever you want.

I love to entertain. And so does my twin. So when I get to her house, she shows me shelves and shelves of plates. Nautical themed ones and silver ones and ones shaped like king crabs. I can't believe how much stuff she has. Silk plants enough to reforest the Amazon. Wine glasses to entertain all of France. And it's all packed very neatly onto shelves in her basement. She knows where everything is. The Fiesta collection? Behind this curtain, please. Watch your step by the stationary bike. Christmas wreaths organized by size? Right this way. Did you say you needed a glass punch bowl supported on a cast metal base in the shape of a flock of migratory birds mid-flight? Well, why didn't ya say so? It's right over here!

I spent the next hour pawing through her stuff, listening to her stories about the party she threw last Christmas for her something-something board and how everyone just loved the spread she brought. She showed me pictures of it, even. There is was: the green and red plaid tablecloth, the cookies on the Christmas tree shaped platter, the bean dip in the bowl with the pine cone motif. The glasses hand painted with snowflakes. And all of it picked from the shelves of Goodwill and magically put together with her expert eye.

She then did something extraordinary: she offered to lend me some pieces. I had a party coming up, I told her, a baby shower, that I needed to plan for, and I would need serving dishes. She had everything, right down to tiny ornamental forks to pull meat from crab legs. It was amazing. We shared a rare kind of trust, a trust between lovers of all things kitschy and beautiful. Her eyes asked: will you take my Precious and care for it? And my eyes said: I would never do anything to harm your Precious. I promise.

In the end, I never took her up on her offer to borrow her serving pieces. Burdy's father passed away a few days after I met this woman, and we had to fly back east to make funeral arrangements. The next thing we knew, it was go-time, and we had to cater the party without the silver cast punch bowl.

There will be other parties, though. There will be need for tiny forks and platters in the shape of fat Santas. And when those parties happen, I will make a run to my own private warehouse of all things horribly beautiful, and I will visit my twin, and I will borrow that wonderfully overdesigned punch bowl.

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The Garage Sale Theory

We interrupt this interminably long season of rain and hail to bring you an update you on the state of affairs in the Sixties Triplex.

Ready? Take a breath, Internet. This is huge.

The garage is organized.

Isn't that thrilling?!! I mean, doesn't that just make you want to end sentences with an obnoxious amount of punctuation? Just picture it: Rubbermaid bins stacked neatly, one on top of the other... each with a little label in my symmetrical, all caps handwriting. Oh, the joy! The pure, unadulterated bliss at seeing my Halloween costume boxes stacked near the Christmas decoration boxes (not ON the Christmas decoration boxes, silly! THAT would NOT be organized! THAT would be sheer craziness! THAT would be blatant disregard for the universal rules of organizing that clearly state that decorations for holidays occurring in DIFFERENT months SHALL NOT TOUCH EACH OTHER!)

You've been so patient, waiting all this time to find out how we managed to fulfill our self-imposed mandate to get rid of half of everything we own. You deserve to share in my little heaven on earth.

But you're probably still wondering: How did you get rid of all those VHS tapes? What did you finally do with Alfredo the Concrete Parrot? Why did you move with all that crap in the first place, you idiots?

Well, the answer is that, the Garage Sale Theory proved itself again. People came in droves this summer and they ignored the awesome vintage melamine dipping bowls on the wooden lazy-susan thingee and they went right for the USED VHS tapes. They did NOT buy the couch in excellent shape but they ogled the mirror framed in a beat up, smiling, wooden half-moon face. They walked right past the chic cowboy boots, and instead picked up the torn bits of fabric and the ripped Mexican paper flags. And they gave me their hard earned money for what I was about ten seconds away from hauling away to the Goodwill. They did NOT give me money for stuff that I thought would be actually useful. Because, my friends, the Garage Sale Theory was proving itself over and over. The theory works a little like Murphy's Law. It basically states that if there is an opportunity for people to give you money for the junkiest, ugliest things you own, AND the nicest, in-best-shape stuff you own, the general public will always buy your junk. And your gently used, newly re-stuffed couch with the neutral color scheme PERFECT FOR ANY HOME will languish in your garage unused for the next four months.

We only had about four small boxes of junk unsold at the end of the sale. And we didn't have to haul one iota of it to the local thrift store. In this city, when you put something out on the sidewalk with a "free" sign on it, people come streaming out of their houses like termites out of burning log and they descend on your junk with a certain predatory glee. Within hours, nearly everything was gone. CLH and I shared many high-fives that night. HALF of our stuff was GONE.

Several weeks after the sale, we invited our good friend Gingi over and she helped us get even more stuff out of the garage. We hadn't unpacked our framed pictures yet because, well, we couldn't GET to them with all the crap down there. After we'd cleared out the stuff for the garage sale, we were able to unearth them, plus a few other goodies which we then decorated the house with. We couldn't part with Alfredo the Concrete Parrot, so he is now sitting atop our mantle along with a few other choice pieces of art and debris.

I think I might have cried tears of relief when Gingi was done. The place FINALLY looked like it was inhabited by ADULTS who knew a thing or two about design. The potted plants that we had just lined up front of the fireplace like a platoon of soldiers was tastefully dispersed around the house. My antique globe was finally taken out of the box of foam peanuts. The pictures of our relatives were finally hung on the walls. My favorite typewriter was put out on display in the living room. Huzzah!

And weeks after that? THE COUCH WAS SOLD. I had to restrain myself from kissing the lady full on the mouth when she said she would take it.

So now, the garage is only half full. HALF! We got rid of HALF of everything! Sometimes, when I go downstairs to check on the laundry, I just open the door to the garage and stand there for a few minutes and marvel at the beauty.

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coincidences

Coincidences In The Blogisphere

It's healthy to start calling bloggers I've never met by their first names, right? And to refer to them in casual conversation as if they live down the block? Whew. Good. I knew I wasn't the only one doing it.

I follow a couple of blogs and I can't help it. I read about their pets and their kids and their asinine coworkers and I feel like I actually KNOW these people. And I talk about them to my real-life friends like they're ALSO real-life friends. Lately I've been noticing that their lives parallel mine in these really weird, really uncanny ways (which makes me feel even more weirdo kinship with them). I've never said anything about it before because I've always just chalked it up to coincidence. Also? It's weird to pretend that strangers are your friends.

(Did I just really use the word "weird" eighty times in that last paragraph?)

I suppose it's not exactly earth shattering news that any of us weird enough to tell the Internet about our flatulence issues, and our not-so-secret obsessions with pop stars, and our love for extruded corn-based snacks MIGHT share a few weird personality quirks in common. And I guess it's not that uncommon to be riddled with anxiety or paranoid about geese or spiders or annoyed by coworkers who can't form rudimentary sentences. This is all part of our shared human experience, no? The more I read, though, about this shared experience on the Internet, the more weirded out I get. It's so weird it makes me say things like "weirded out".

(Seriously. Stop it with the "weird" thing.)

So, coincidence #1: Burning hot things + plastic + us. Last month, CLH sent me another text that started with the words "Uh-oh" and ended with "I'll replace it soon". I had finally mastered the art of using an electric stove (see issue here regarding never-to-be-the-same popcorn pot). CLH, however, continued to pretend like he'd received his diploma in 1960's Appliances... and last month he left the kettle on the stove so long, the plastic lid MELTED, FELL INTO THE KETTLE, and was SCORCHED into a puddle of burning hot ooze. But not before filling the apartment with an acrid smoke that took WEEKS of Febreezing to get rid of. That and burning incense. And candles. And having the windows open all day long in the middle of winter.

Allie, it seems, has had a similar incident.

And Heather, too, is in the Almost Burn Down The House Club! Hooray for us!

Okay, then there's the leprechauns.

Last night I wrote about the leprechaun-y dude who always seems to be working out at the gym at the same time as me. And today, Heather wrote about her daughter's fear of leprechauns (and Leta, I'm with you 100%. Those dudes are creep-tastic. I don't blame you for being scared). Two uses of the word "leprechaun". Two different blogs. Same 24 hour period. Weird.

Oh sure, it's March, and the whole leprechaun thing was bound to come up soon enough, right? But, still. I was referring to a small man who insists on wearing mostly green clothing to work out in and who trims his beard in a really unflattering, elf-like way. (I know I'm going to get a hundred comments about how leprechauns are NOT elves but instead belong to some other realm of magical beings... and normally I would tell those people to get a life... except I'm the one who thinks she's friends with complete strangers who blog in other states.)

Anywho, the leprechaun dude was at the gym again tonight and I wasn't even going to mention him here (instead I was going to mention the guy who got on the elliptical machine next to mine, even though ALL THE OTHER MACHINES WERE NOT BEING USED, and who began to sweat ACTUAL sour milk). But then I jumped over to Dooce's blog... and there it was: a story about a leprechaun.

Sure, I could draw conclusions about how we're all either crazy or geniuses, or crazy geniuses, and how good story ideas just seem to hang out in the stratosphere until they find the perfect conduits... and that Ally and Heather and I... we're all perfect conduits coexisting so it's not really a coincidence that we're all writing about our melted kitchenware, but still. Leprechauns? Even the Department of Revenue couldn't make THAT shit up.

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A Month of Coincidences

This is a story about Facebook, my siblings, college, and a bar in Seattle.

I'm researching my family tree last week and I come across this last name that I recognize. I've never noticed this name on my family tree before. The last name on this family tree is also the last name of a family of kids that my siblings and I went to grammar school with. They share the same birth order as my family. While I was in one grade with Joanna, the oldest sister, my oldest brother was in class with the older brother, Mark, and my sister was in class with the youngest brother, Andrew.

And two days after I review this family tree, this family tree that I haven't looked at in years, Joanna, whose last name happens to appear on my family tree, contacts me via Facebook. I haven't talked to her in nearly fifteen years.

She says she's coming to Seattle. Her brother Mark lives here. Her other brother Andrew is coming from Colorado. They're all going to be here all at once for the holidays. This family whose last name appears in my family tree. The last name I just noticed for the first time last week. This family that I haven't seen in fifteen years.

Joanna writes me suggest we go see some live music at the Seamonster Lounge, have we heard of it? And I write back.... um... yeah. We know the Seamonster Lounge. We spent every Friday night from 2003 to 2004 at the place. We know the DJ. We know the owner. They're both great guys. Andrew, the owner, just gave up ownership of the place about a year ago but, magically, he's back. So, yes, yes we will join you, family that I haven't seen in fifteen years, at our old favorite bar in Seattle, that we just found out is now back under the ownership of our friend Andrew.

Beforehand, we meet up for dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant, and we ask Joanna how she happened to pick the Seamonster for our entertainment tonight. Oh, well, it's all Mark, she says. He knows a guy who will be playing in the band. Oh, really, we ask? And how do you know him? Oh, Mark says, he used to live on my floor in college. You know how that goes. You just get to be good friends with people that live on your floor. Right. Right, we say, and we nod our heads. And what's your friend's name? Ari Zucker, he says.

And here CLH and I exchange googly-eyed glances. YOU know Ari Zucker? WE know Ari Zucker. And how do we know Ari Zucker? Well, we know Ari Zucker because of our friend Shoshi. Shoshi went to high school with Ari. Shoshi is from Seattle. She knew Ari before he went to college on the east coast with Mark. And the reason we know Shoshi is because of Becca. And I know Becca because I went to college with her in Massachusetts. Becca is from the Seattle area. But she went to school in Massachusetts, like me. And I went to high school with CLH. In New Jersey. And CLH and I started dating after I left the college where both Becca and I went to school. Becca eventually met CLH and Becca convinced us both that Seattle would be good for us, so we moved out here together ten years ago. And we met Shoshi. Who is Becca's friend. And we started frequenting the Sea Monster. Where Ari played quite a bit. Ari who knows Shoshi who knows Becca who knows me who knows Joanna whose brother used to live on the same floor as him.

Small fucking world.

Crazy.

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Seattle

An Urban Walk: A Mini Photo Journal

Back when Tara used to live here, back when a popcorn bowl full of old maids passed for a "drum" during an impromptu roommate jam, back when the furniture didn't match and nobody cared, we used to go on long walks.</p>

We walked all over the city. Usually ten miles at a time. Usually after a night of heavy drinking. Those walks were magical.
...

Yesterday was the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for The Cure. My friend Victoria walked for her cousin Patty, who passed away from breast cancer a few years ago. As a sort-of homage to Victoria, and to Patty, who I've felt I've gotten to know over the years, and to Tara, who I miss having aroung in my daily life, I did my own little walk around town. I took my phone along.

I just love the unambiguous nature of old signage.

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Old buildings, too, have a purposefulness about them. I love old advertisements painted directly onto the brick.

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There's a famous nursery rhyme that goes with this one. It goes something like: "There was an old woman who lived in shoe/ Who had so many offers to buy her property she didn't know what to do/ So she stood her ground, and ignored their demands/ And she whipped them all soundly, because her house, it still stands." Or something like that. There are enormous new buildings looming around three sides of this little house. You can read about the whole affair here. It's not surprising that someone has already attempted to hitch their money-making wagon to this star. The banner is an advertisement for, you guessed it, a real estate developer. Tasteless.

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I'm on my way...

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The Fremont Bridge. Apparently, it is the most opened drawbridge in America.

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The Aurora Bridge

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Toxicity never looked so beautiful in the sunlight. The city's about to start churning up the soil underneath these old tankers to test for lakebed contamination. Any guesses as to what the results will be? My money's on Level "three-eyed fish" Contamination.

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A rare and fleeting glimpse of Fall 'round these parts. It doesn't last long.

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QUINT. E. SSENTIAL. Seattle in a nutshell right here, folks. All the rumors about us being nut crunchin', tree huggin', bubble blowin' hippies are true. When we the Seattle Tourism Board asks for a local representative, we send this guy.

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The University Bridge. It was a beautiful day for sailing. The bridges were getting their workouts.

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You don't see these much anymore. It was just so charming, I had to take a picture.

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If I was on a walking team for the Three Day Walk, this would be it.

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The upside down tomato planter. Proof to disbelieving Taller Younger Brother that these things really do work.</p>

I'm not a fan of graffiti on public signage or buildings... But this was a departure from the usual (lame-o) tags I've seen. Is that Klingon? Xhosa?

www.the350project.net

On the door of one of the most amazing little clothing stores in my 'hood. Check out The Frock Shop. And then check out The 350Project. Support little businesses like this when you can.

Art by Henry

I'm not sure what this guy's story is. All I know is that, paid or not, invited or not, this guy is making my neighborhood a whole lot more whimsical. He's Henry. And I like that he makes me feel like I am living inside the pages of a children's storybook.

The chestnut

This chestnut: the preferred ballistic of warring children everywhere ages 5 through 12. Burdy used to hurl these things at his neighbors growing up (don't worry; the targets eventually became his best childhood buddies). I remember hucking them onto the steep slope behind my friend's house, seeing who could get them to roll the furthest. I don't know what is is about them that makes them so throw-able. It wasn't until I was an adult that I found out that these things are FOOD. Chestnuts are edible. They're part of Christmas song lore, and New York City street carts in the Winter, for godsakes. And here I thought they were just kid-sized naval mines.</div>

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A Month of Coincidences

This is a story about Facebook, my siblings, college, and a bar in Seattle.

I'm researching my family tree last week and I come across this last name that I recognize. I've never noticed this name on my family tree before. The last name on this family tree is also the last name of a family of kids that my siblings and I went to grammar school with. They share the same birth order as my family. While I was in one grade with Joanna, the oldest sister, my oldest brother was in class with the older brother, Mark, and my sister was in class with the youngest brother, Andrew.

And two days after I review this family tree, this family tree that I haven't looked at in years, Joanna, whose last name happens to appear on my family tree, contacts me via Facebook. I haven't talked to her in nearly fifteen years.

She says she's coming to Seattle. Her brother Mark lives here. Her other brother Andrew is coming from Colorado. They're all going to be here all at once for the holidays. This family whose last name appears in my family tree. The last name I just noticed for the first time last week. This family that I haven't seen in fifteen years.

Joanna writes me suggest we go see some live music at the Seamonster Lounge, have we heard of it? And I write back.... um... yeah. We know the Seamonster Lounge. We spent every Friday night from 2003 to 2004 at the place. We know the DJ. We know the owner. They're both great guys. Andrew, the owner, just gave up ownership of the place about a year ago but, magically, he's back. So, yes, yes we will join you, family that I haven't seen in fifteen years, at our old favorite bar in Seattle, that we just found out is now back under the ownership of our friend Andrew.

Beforehand, we meet up for dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant, and we ask Joanna how she happened to pick the Seamonster for our entertainment tonight. Oh, well, it's all Mark, she says. He knows a guy who will be playing in the band. Oh, really, we ask? And how do you know him? Oh, Mark says, he used to live on my floor in college. You know how that goes. You just get to be good friends with people that live on your floor. Right. Right, we say, and we nod our heads. And what's your friend's name? Ari Zucker, he says.

And here CLH and I exchange googly-eyed glances. YOU know Ari Zucker? WE know Ari Zucker. And how do we know Ari Zucker? Well, we know Ari Zucker because of our friend Shoshi. Shoshi went to high school with Ari. Shoshi is from Seattle. She knew Ari before he went to college on the east coast with Mark. And the reason we know Shoshi is because of Becca. And I know Becca because I went to college with her in Massachusetts. Becca is from the Seattle area. But she went to school in Massachusetts, like me. And I went to high school with CLH. In New Jersey. And CLH and I started dating after I left the college where both Becca and I went to school. Becca eventually met CLH and Becca convinced us both that Seattle would be good for us, so we moved out here together ten years ago. And we met Shoshi. Who is Becca's friend. And we started frequenting the Sea Monster. Where Ari played quite a bit. Ari who knows Shoshi who knows Becca who knows me who knows Joanna whose brother used to live on the same floor as him.

Small fucking world.

Crazy.

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uncertainty

The Wisdom of T-shirts

I saw this on a t-shirt this morning and I'm making it my mantra for the day:

"Worry changes nothing
Faith changes everything"

I'm interpreting the faith part as the "If you believe in yourself, good things will come", kind and not the "Seriously. He was here three days ago behind this huge immovable rock so I'm pretty sure he bodily ascended into heaven" kind.

The headaches are back. I just know it's because I'm worrying too much. Worrying about how to pay for this wedding (Ha! You were wondering when I was going to bring that up, weren't you?), worrying that I am wasting my life in windowless basements doing work I resent, worrying that I have not been keeping in touch with my friends enough, worrying that someone has already beaten me to all the good, money-producing ideas in the world.

I just need to take a few breaths here. Everything's going to be fine. Worrying about it isn't going to solve anything.

Except, for most of my life, that's exactly what has solved everything. Or so I think. I'm learning a lot right now about the human response to trauma (the garden variety everyone-is-messed-up-over-something kind and not the once-when-I-was-five-I-was-outrunning-a-hurricane-on-foot-after-losing-my-family-to-a-in-home-lion-attack-and-then-fell-down-an-abandoned-well kind). I'm learning that most of my life I have been reacting in this really unhealthy way to stress- but it's the only way I know, so, for the most part, it has been helpful and life-saving.

Except for the part where it's destroyed my endocrine system. Funny thing, that.

Last night, I had a drink with a friend who is in roughly the same place I am in my life right now-and as we were talking about all the events that have led me to where I am, he said, "Well, it sounds like you're in a good spot. You sound calm. And that's the best place to make a decision from".

I took a moment to review in my head what I had just said to him. And he was right. I WAS calm! I wasn't making decisions based on emotional reactions. I was calm! Downright serene, even. My hands were almost touching in Namaste greeting, my eyes were practically at half mast, and I wasn't wildly gesticulating, and I wasn't scanning the room looking for predators. I was calm, for god's sake! So why did I still feel so uncertain?

Well, it didn't matter last night and it still doesn't matter this morning. Uncertainty is healthy. At least, that's what people tell me. It's felt like utter hell to me for most of my life. Not knowing is akin to dying as far as I'm concerned. But I am learning that it can be a good thing. It can be a launching pad for change and for possibility. And if that sounds like the opening line for a self-help book, well, then I submit. Some days I just need to take that tone with myself. It sure beats the alternative.

So, for today, I am trying to posses a faith I am uncomfortable with. I am trying to live with uncertainty. And I'm trying real hard not to cover the house in Post-It notes stating "EVERYTHING'S GOING TO BE FINE". You know. Baby steps.

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How To Make Uncertainty Into A Thing Of Beauty

I just had to copy and paste this. My friend Tim has an amazing way with words. I had no idea he was so talented with a camera, too. He sums up in a small video what I have been feeling for some time now: a little uncertain about everything. But Tim reminds me that Uncertainty can be a blessing.

I got to speak with a very good friend this morning about her Burning Man experience. I was feeling a little nostalgic for those feelings of bliss. She poignantly reminded me not to "invent roadblocks" when it comes to my happiness. Thank you, T. And thank you, Tim. I wish you the best on your journey... wherever it takes you.

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To read Tim's post that accompanies this video, click here.

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oprah

Dear Tuesday

Dear Tuesday,
Is it Tuesday already? Dude. You sure do sneak up on me. You're making me look bad, Tuesday. Here I am all trying to be consistent with posting on Tuesday and you go and turn into Wednesday on me.

Dear Oprah,
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I would do ANYTHING to be on the show this last season. Can you sense my desperation from over here? Wait. Scratch that. You would never indulge desperation. Okay. Do-over. I am now appealing to my highest self, my Source, my Power, The Universal Life Force that wants nothing but good for me. Oh! Did you hear that? I think the Source is speaking to me! What's that, Universal Life Force? You ALSO think it's a good idea for me to be on the Oprah show at least once before it goes off the air? You see, Oprah? All things are aligning... Now, if you could just do a show on intestinal worms, I would be more than happy to be your guest.

Dear Self That Visited Chicago Three Years Ago and Never Managed To Get On The Show:
Are you just kicking yourself, or what?

Dear Self That Should Have Published A Book By Now,
Would that not have been the PERFECT excuse to be on the Oprah show? Didn't you, at one time, think that you would have written a book so powerful, so world changing, so full of life and wisdom and engrossing characters that the Queen of Bookclubs, Oprah Winfrey herself, would be made to weep? Imagine it! Oprah weeping while reading YOUR book! GAH! How many times can you smack yourself in the forehead with your open palm before it becomes medically dangerous?

Dear Free Time Made Possible By My New Schedule,
You are a double edged sword, aren't you? Allowing me time to exercise and making me think about publishing a book! You sneaky devil, you!

Dear Woman Who Looks Just Like My Friend Stephanie In Zumba Class,
I'm sorry if I stare so much at you. I'm sorry if I have, by now, memorized and can replicate on command the way your arms and legs perform the Cumbia. I'm sorry that I cannot take my eyes off the back of your neatly coiffed head while you sweat and jab the air with your long, lean arms. It's just that you look almost EXACTLY like my friend Stephanie who is living in China right now and sometimes, when I look at you, I miss her with a power that takes me by surprise, and my eyes start filling with tears right there in class. I have to look away and concentrate on my moves so as not to have a full-on sob-fest right there in the middle of the gym floor. Inevitably, though, I go right back to staring and I am sure you have noticed. I'm sorry you have become a sort of surrogate for Steph. I want very much to approach you in the hallway after class and explain myself, but I'm scared of what you might think of me.

Dear Chase Bank,
I could write paragraph after paragraph about how much you suck for charging me twenty five dollars a month just to have a stupid checking account with you. TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS, Chase Bank. As a matter of fact, I just did. And then I erased it. Know why? Because you are not worth my time. I just did the sensible thing and moved all my money to a new bank. You can't see me right now, but I am flipping you the bird. I'm sure everyone reading this who is also getting charged fifteen bucks here and ten bucks there to bank with you is ALSO flipping you the bird right now. So, consider yourself the recipient of the largest bird ever flipped by the Internet.

Dear Cannonball Adderley Record and Earl Grey Tea,
You are the most perfect breakfast combination I can think of.

Dear Spring,
Your procrastination is even worse than mine. I shouldn't have to wear a sweater in April, Spring. You know this. So please hurry it up. The tomato starts, Spring, they long to be outside, and off my windowsill. The pea vines that are winding their way around yarn I have strung up to my venetian blinds, inside my house, Spring, they are confused. They know something is not right. Think of the cucumbers, Spring, that are bursting out of their little yogurt cups packed with soil. They long to spill out over the driveway. Forget me, Spring. I have gotten used to your heel-dragging ways. But think of the vegetables, Spring. Think of the vegetables!

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The Bishop calls

Dear Oprah,
I'm going to San Luis Obispo. Your recent piece on "The Happiest City in America" (featuring the delightful Jenny McCarthy) really put the nail in this rainy, gray coffin. This is about the time of year when the weather starts pushing me to consider living in a teepee in the Sahara just so I can feel the sun on my skin, so your timing couldn't be more perfect. I realize it's raining there right now, but, do you know what's going to happen tomorrow? It's going to be sunny. And the day after that? Sunny again. Are you starting to see how this could be a good fit for me?

I don't actually think that just traveling to a place will make me instantly happy, but it won't hurt to spend a few days trying. Anyway, thanks for tip. We should be boarding soon.

Oh, and if you need a follow up report, just let me know. There's probably a flight that connects to Chicago from San Luis Obispo, right?

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dear Tuesday

Dear Tuesday

Dear Sprint,
There's a war on. You know that, right? Between you and the iPhone people? And that every time I take my phone out, I might as well be pulling a six-shooter out of a holster? And that every time an iPhone and another phone are in the same room together, the air becomes dry and crackly and people nervously clear their throats? You can practically hear the jangle of spurs and the theme music to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly out here, Sprint. To the iPhone users, every hiccup in your performance is an opportunity to prove to me that the iPhone is faster, easier to use, and just downright BETTER than the phone I use, Sprint. SO. Here's a little advice, from someone down in the trenches: Get. Yo'. Shit. Together. Don't make me look like an idiot in front of the iPhone users. I've defended you for a long time, but the jackals are circling. They want an excuse, ANY excuse, to say to me, "Why don't you just get an iPhone?". Are you going to let them have it, Sprint? Are you just going to lie there and take it? Because that's what the iPhone people are saying you'll do. They think they've got you pegged. They think I'll eventually get so frustrated with you that I'll cave and buy a shiny white lozenge of a phone and leave you in the dust. Is that where we're headed, Sprint? You know, now that I think about it, I actually can't understand my loyalty to you. You really haven't done much more than provide me with uninterrupted, trouble-free service for nine years or so. I mean, it's not like you throw in a dozen roses every time I upgrade my phone. So why should I stick with you when everyone tells me the iPhone is better, faster, and smarter than your best smartphone? Because you had me at Hello, You're Lazy. It's true. I can feel a migraine coming on whenever I think about having to switch phone companies. So let's make a deal, shall we? I will continue to fork over my seventy-some-odd-dollars for a worry-free, all-inclusive plan, and you continue to reward me for my ~~laziness~~ loyalty. Here's another pointer: When I come into your store, make it seem, like the iPhone people do, that I have just brought in a wounded comrade and that you are a triage center. Treat that comrade like he is family. Gently tuck him into a white Formica drawer with other wounded comrades and promise me you'll do everything you can to save him. Ask me how long it's been since I've been without my device, and offer your condolences with lowered eyes and a respectful distance. Offer me a service ticket electronically and act like you don't even know what paper is anymore. Tell me you'll have a new phone in my hands pronto. And do this all with a smile. I mean, for godssakes, Sprint, the iPhone people are watching.

Dear Sprint,
You know I have, like, twenty six followers of this blog and that I could easily foment an insurrection against you? Do you know that in some parts of the world, twenty-six people all hating you at once out of solidarity constitutes a goddamned revolution? How much bad juju can you handle being beamed at you from every corner of North America anyway?

Dear Sprint Store Employee,
I can tell that every morning, in one motion, you push your arms into the sleeves of your corporate logo'd sweater and you put your heart up in a Mason jar on the top shelf of your closet because that is what it takes to do your job. It's okay. I can't blame you. I used to work for a corporate entity once. I, too, got tired of dealing with people who brought back items that THEIR CATS HAD OBVIOUSLY BEEN PEEING ON for three years and tell me that they just "changed their mind" about the color and could they just get a refund, please? I'm sure the stories you hear about what people do to their cell phones is equally as horrifying. I'm sure that people feign ignorance left and right about why their phones suddenly don't work and why they need replacements right this instant for free. I'm sure you have to stare grown men in the face and not move a muscle as they tell you they most certainly did NOT drop their phones in the lake even as wriggling minnows tumble onto the countertop from their battery casings. I'm sure you have to defend against all kinds of asinine behavior that voids service contracts and that you have to tell a hundred or more people a day that that kind of stuff is just not the kind of thing that warrants a free phone.

Dear Assurian Insurance Company Who Insures My Phone,
I am not one of those people.

Dear Sprint Employee (again),
Please review your customer service policies regarding "cracked smartphone screens". Understand that when I hand over my phone and you casually remark, without making eye contact or mentioning a price, that you "could probably have a technician replace the screen in an hour", this equates, in my mind, with a FREE service. You can understand, then, how frustrated and confused I was when, an hour later, you said the technician could not replace the screen because the phone showed signs of water damage. Water damage, Sprint Employee? I'm not following. HOW DOES A CRACKED SCREEN HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH WATER DAMAGE? I brought the phone in because my screen is cracked. And now I've gone from being mildly inconvenienced to irritated and confused. Do you see what's happened here? You've turned me into an all caps lunatic. When you ask me if I've ever taken the phone into the bathroom while I've showered because, you know, condensation from a shower could be the culprit of said water damage and I stand there with my mouth agog, it's because I am trying to comprehend how this is in any way related to my screen. My screen that is on the front of the phone and not the back of the phone where you checked for this alleged "water damage". Sprint Employee, do you live here in our fair city of Seattle? Perhaps you are aware of how much it rains here. And surely you are aware of the high number of smartphone enthusiasts in our fair city (I'll direct you to the paragraph above regarding the iPhone users). So, you must, you simply MUST, understand how, given the number of days in the year there is measurable moisture in the air (ahem, you might understand this better as "shower condensation"), and the number of smartphone users, that, by your logic, EVERYONE'S PHONE IN SEATTLE HAS SUFFERED WATER DAMAGE AND THEREFORE EVERYONE'S SERVICE CONTRACTS ARE VOID. Am I understanding this correctly, Sprint Employee?

Dear Assurian,
You might want to have a talk with the Sprint people. Apparently, there is some confusion about when to pay a deductible for a new phone and when screens are fixed for free. Now, having paid you people seven dollars a month for the last year to insure my phone, I was more than ready to pay this deductible and to have a new phone shipped to me pronto. But, it seems like we all had different ideas of what was supposed to happen here, now didn't we? You shipped me a phone in three days due to "backups" and "popularity of the phone" (and not immediately like you should have, like I am paying you to do). And then, when I got the phone, it was damaged. And when I called and asked your customer service rep if I should ship back the whole package, which included a battery and a memory card, or just the damaged phone, your representative told me "just the phone". And then you somehow, AMAZINGLY, MIRACULOUSLY were able to ship me a BRAND NEW PHONE overnight to replace the damaged one... which, of course, included ANOTHER battery and ANOTHER memory card. (Are you catching all this, iPhone users?)

Dear Really Stupid Week I've Just Had,
Man, am I glad you're done. Geez.... Now, if I could just back to a regular sleep pattern...

Dear Crows Outside My Bedroom Window at 7 am:
Who elected you to the position of Urban Roosters, huh? GET OFF MY GODDAMNED POWERLINES, YOU JERKS!! I'M STILL SLEEPING!! HEY! CROWS! YOU LIKE IT WHEN SOMEONE CAN'T TALK IN A NORMAL TONE OF VOICE? YOU LIKE IT WHEN SOMEONE JUST SCREAMS THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS FOUR FEET FROM YOUR HEAD? HUH, CROWS? HUH? YOU LIKE THIS? CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! YOU WANT SOME MORE OF THIS, CROWS? DO YA?

Dear Baby Next Door,
Are you in cahoots with the crows? Do you suffer from night terrors? Why the hell else would you be awake at 7 am and screaming like you're being murdered? Do you fall out of your crib every day at the same time and land in rusty bathtub full of broken glass? Why the hell must you scream like that, baby? I wake up every morning terrified that you're being mauled by lions. Why, baby? Why? I've met your mother; she's a dear woman. I know you're not being harmed in there, baby, so it must be all in your head. Do you need to see a therapist, baby?

Dear Neighbor with Backfiring Motorcycle/Neighbor with Lawnmower,
Really? Are you and the baby and the crows all in on this together? Is there some conspiracy to make as much noise as possible at the appointed hour of 6:45 am to get me out of bed? You know I don't actually GET out of bed at 6:45, right? Sure, sometimes I get up and press my nose to my screen window and scream at the top of my lungs for the crows the shut the hell up but that doesn't constitute "getting out of bed" per se. Anyway, please stop. It's getting a little ridiculous out there. I mean, a screaming baby is one thing. And crows another. But mowing your lawn AND repairing your motorcycle all at once? Come on. That's just silly.

Dear Self-Employment Schedule,
Thanks for letting me sleep in.

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Dear Tuesday

Dear Zumba Class,
Thank you for kicking my ass.

Dear girl in the middle who dances like she is swatting away angry hornets:
Thank you for showing me how to dance with reckless abandon.

Dear older woman who can only manage to sway side to side but still keeps her eyes riveted to the instructor:
Thank you for teaching me that it's never too late to start working on yourself.

Dear beautiful Latin lady up in front:
Thank you for showing me what comes with practice.

Dear extra fifteen pounds sitting on my thighs:
What the hell?

Dear Bad I-Sit-At-A-Desk-All-Day Posture:
Seriously, dude.

Dear body:
I'm sorry for yelling at you. It's just that I am so frustrated with you lately, what with the headaches and the gluten intolerance the creaky knees and the general malaise. Please know that I am working on treating you better. I can't seem to shake the belief that you still have the energy and metabolism of your former 20-year-old self.

Dear Former 20-Year-Old Self:
Man, you are one lucky bitch.

Dear Fatigue,
I've got my eye on you. You think you're going to creep on into my workout routine and just wear me down, but you've got another thing coming. It might take me a few tries, but I'm gonna get to the end of that one song and not feel defeated by you.

Dear Impatience with my own Body Mechanics:
See my note to Fatigue.

Dear Mom,
Contrary to what you want to believe, I DO know my left from my right.

Dear Brain that overthinks everything,
Please go do a crossword for an hour. I think Heart's got this one.

Dear Self Criticism,
You're such an asshole.

Dear Schedule:
Please note Tuesday and Thursday evenings are NOT for working late. They are for dancing from now on.

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roadtrippin'

Love Letters From The Road (Dear Tuesday, the Roadtip Installation)

Dear Everyone That Loves Me,
I am safe and sound. Thank you for your prayers for my safety. What I lack in preparedness, I more than make up for with street smarts and an East Coast tough girl swagger that will not leave my system despite all my granola munching and tree hugging. No one puts this Baby in the corner because this Baby will melt your face off with her stink eye.

Dear Mom and Dad,
Thanks for teaching me good manners. I thank the toothless owner of the filthy roadside gas station as profusely and genuinenly as I do the pretty Hawaiian-shirted and white-sneakered waitress at the seafood restaurant. You have taught me (among other things) to recognize a human being when I see one.

Dear Tara,
Thanks for teaching me that thirty dollars is a small price to pay for my sanity. Thirty dollars last night made the difference between anxiety and peace. Thirty dollars made the difference between curling my body into a tight ball to avoid making contact with the edge of what I presumed to be an unwashed, scratchy motel-issue comforter, and sleeping comfortably in a pin-drop silent, beautifully appointed room that was heated to my exact comfort level.

Dear Tim at the San Clemente Inn,
You, sir, are a rockstar. Thank you for joining the long line of people who think I'm roughly ten to fifteen years younger than I actually am. You asked me if I could handle hauling my luggage up a flight of stairs because I "looked young". I almost invited you to dinner, and not just because you judged my bare biceps to be the suitcase-lifting type. Thanks for that restaurant recommendation as well. I know a fellow eater when I see one. You, sir, have great taste in food. And you know your sleepy little town like the back of your hand. You made that last bit of driving so very, very worth it.

Dear Everyone That Told Me To Avoid L.A.,
Um.... it wasn't really that bad, y'all. I mean, have you sat in NY/NJ traffic? I have, and I'm here to tell you: It's the same damn thing! Only, at least in LA, you have PALM TREES to look at while you're crawling along! And the air doesn't smell like diesel or tar or defeat! Do you want to know a secret? I kinda liked it. Wanna know another secret? This part, this one stretch of an hour and a half of driving... this scared me the most about this whole trip. Not the winding turns down Highway 1 in the pitch black night. Not the random men who would give me the elevator eyes when I said "Table for one, please". Not the depressing, we've-made-this-only-a-modicum-above-tolerable motel conditions. Nope. None of that intimidated me. The traffic in LA is the only thing I was scared of. Why? I don't know, exactly. Maybe I was afraid of all the wasted time. (HA! There's a rock slide I'd like to introduce my pre-trip self to for a lesson in "wasted time"). Maybe I was afraid of getting into an accident and being stranded. Maybe I was afraid I would actually LIKE it. You see, everyone I know seems to hate L.A. But, they hate it in the way that everyone hates the prettiest girl in the room. They all want to BE the prettiest girl in the room- so they just talk smack about her to make themselves feel better. Well, L.A., I think you're pretty and I'm not intimidated by your long legs and perfect hair.

Dear Mr. Burdy,
Thank you for letting me do this. Not in a "thank you for unchaining me from the stove" sort of way, either. Thanks for letting me take an old car we share away for ten whole days and push her to the limits of her speed limits and mechanical capabilities. Thank you for enduring loneliness and having to explain to everyone that your fiance is a rather impetuous thing who loves to jump in the car from time to time, wholly unprepared, and drive for miles and miles just to clear her head. Thank you for making me smile proudly when male strangers ask me "what my man is like" because they cannot imagine why a woman would be on the road, by herself, without him. Thank you for being the confident, secure, and seasoned veteran of this relationship. Thank you for being a thoroughly modern man and a gentle, sensitive human being all at once.

Dear Madonna Inn,
I'm comin' for ya.

Dear Everyone I Know Between San Diego and Seattle,
I'm comin' to see ya. I promise. We're gonna have a beer, we're gonna catch up.

Dear Beach,
I don't even have words. If it weren't so inappropriate on so many levels to scoop up great handfuls of sand and throw them into the air in ecstacy, I would do it. I swear. Man, am I happy to see you.

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Express Inn- Short for “Expressly Terrible”

A quick update from the road here before I get back on it. I'm traveling again! This time it's Seattle to San Diego (or as far south as I can get before I get lonely/tired of the buzzing my body does after 10 straight hours of driving.) A few quick points before I hit the shower (that's shower stall; no tub here at the Express Inn. It's express, after all. No time for lollygagging in the tub.)

-A friend of mine called the Oregon Coast "God's Country". God must like him some evergreens, 'cause that's all there is out there. I know I'm ready for a change of seasons because all I wanted after all that misty rain and miles and miles of trees was a good old fashioned desert. I wanted to burn my eyes in the sun and not feel an ounce of moisture in the air. I wanted to see desert flowers, and cacti and brown men in dusty shirts. I wanted to hug a horny toad close to my chest, for Pete's sake, and feed it Jujubees. I know this weather has kept my skin looking radiant and all but halted the aging process, but, a girl needs a little coffee with her sugar now and again, knowwhatimean?

-I am trying to roll with the waves of emotion that come with 10 straight hours of driving. There are cycles of excitement (usually right after the morning's first caffeinated beverage) followed by cycles of fear that I'm wasting my time, followed by steering-wheel-pounding-happiness over hearing Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" on my mix tape, followed by fear that I'm using the most inefficient route to get somewhere, followed by unadulterated joy over two-dollar strawberries sold at a stand on the side of the road just when I am getting hungry.

-This trip is unlike any trip I've ever taken. Maps? On my phone. List of hotels to stay at? on my phone. Directions to the nearest scenic outlook? On my phone. Music? On my phone. Friends' numbers and address for long talks/places to send kitschy postcards? On my phone. It's unbelievably convenient. And paranoia-inducing. If I lost that thing? Holy crap. They'd have to heli-port my deflated body back to Seattle and inject me with a serum that makes one believe there is life after being unable to use mobile technology. Every trip to every gas station restroom has me furiously patting down my pockets and checking my purse to make sure I haven't accidentally left my phone on the paper towel dispenser.

More to come!

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vacation

…Jiggity Jig

Well, getting back from vacation is never any fun, right? I'm trying to adjust to colder weather and this whole "work" thing. I'm still processing the trip; I have so many thoughts running around in my head right now and I'm not coming up with anything coherent. Best to stay moot in situations like these.

Mr. Burdy and I are working on putting together a little slide show of all my pictures.

In the meantime, here are a few from my phone. More soon.

Bridge in OR

CA Palm Trees

Bikes in Santa Cruz

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When Life Hands You Lemons… and a guy named Jake*

The clock is ticking here at the San Luis Obispo public library. For 26 minutes, I have Internet access. Then it's back to getting directions, checking my email, and Googling "cheap, shitty motels" on my phone. Why? Well, because my laptop is in San Francisco. And I am at least five hours south of it in San Luis Obispo.

That time calculation might be a little off. You see, time has unraveled these past 24 hours.

A savvier traveler might have a plan for traveling down the coast. A savvier traveler, for instance, might have checked things like road conditions and weather and packed something slightly warmer for those gusty coastal winds. A savvier traveler might also have, for instance, checked to see if Route 1 was blocked due a massive rock slide. She might also have believed the sign when it said in Monterrey "Road Ends 75 miles".

Ends? How does a road just END? Surely there would be a detour, no? Surely there would be something besides a gas station, a restaurant, and three burly contractors nursing tallboys of beer? Surely the Universe would not expect one to squint at a ragged map and know that "G14" was a forest road and that one would have to wend one's way, on a single lane road for 20 excruciating miles at 7 miles an hour, through the Los Padres National Forest as the sun was setting and then drive through a goddamned Army base to get back to Highway 101, right? And surely, surely, the Universe would not have planted Jake at the end of the bar run his ragged fingers through the back of your cute, asymmetrical haircut while you were looking away, offer you some of his shrimp tortellini, and ask you why you had to be going so soon.

Because nothing would light up your face after finding out that the road, WAS, in fact, closed, and that the "detour" you dreamed of was 50 long miles through dense woods, like a guy who was paying for his meal in weed, and knew those woods like the back of his hand because he lived somewhere in them off the grid. And nothing would make you feel better after pumping thirty six cents worth of gas into your car (because all the other pumps were dry, the other hundred or so drivers that day having panicked in exactly the same way you did and topped off their tanks) than his pet Chihuahua, Bella, who sat in your lap for a picture.

And nothing would make that day more complete than figuring out you'd left your phone, your only effing connection to the outside world, on the paper towel dispenser in that bathroom in the gas station, after driving five miles down the road.

Well, nothing except using that phone, after an hour of driving like a bat out of hell down 101, to find a motel, booking it, and then driving there - only to find out that the only room vacant is the handicapped room. There will be no bathtub, the power button on the TV will be broken, and your blackout shades will have a ping pong ball sized hole in them. You don't care much because you are exhausted. You will pull the plug for the TV out of the wall, you will bunch up the shades to cover the hole, you will turn on the heater (whose knobs are broken/reversed so instead of blowing hot air all night, blows COLD air) and you will dream of a more dignified, more planned vacation. One that does not involve holes in the wallboard, and rock slides, and not eating dinner, and definitely includes more guys eating pasta in a restaurant at the end of the world.

*Not his real name. I'm protecting his innocence from the Feds.

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San Clemente Inn

Dear Tuesday (Notes from the Road edition)

Dear Folks at HTC/Google/Sprint,
You've built a fine product, gang. Normally, my insides shrivel up and my body convulses at the sound of the word "product", I hate it so. But, I truly and honestly don't know what to call the four inch by two and half inch black device sitting next to me right now. It's a phone, sure. But it's also been a roadmap, a restaurant review guide, a computer, an electronic diary, a camera, and a way to connect with friends as far away as the other side of the country. I would not have been able to do this trip without it. Well, I would have, but I'd probably be sitting in a corn field in the middle of Iowa right now, lost, crying my eyes out, hungry, lonely, and with no way to take a picture of myself with the caption: "Vacation: Day 1".

Dear Rooster's Restaurant in Medford,
You guys are awesome. When I asked for an outlet to plug my laptop into, you graciously unplugged your nearest ceramic rooster lamp and allowed me access. Then you served me a delicious omelet and your waitress made sure to refresh my coffee at the edge of the table instead of inches from my screen. That sort of courtesy, plus your love of all things roostery and hand painted stuffed into every corner of your wood paneled dining room, is a rare and wonderful thing. May you outlive all the Applebees and may your kitsch never need dusting.

Dear Palm Cottages,
You are so lovely. You are like a doting grandmother standing at the side of the road with a tray of fresh baked cookies calling me to come in and rest a while. Rest I did, Palm Inn. Your beds are wonderful cinnamon-roll folds of cozy blankets and pillows. Your front desk is wonderfully helpful, your gardens are relaxing, your little red doors are charming. You even offer the weary traveler far from home a pillow menu. A pillow menu! Which is a good thing, because....

Dear Madonna Inn,
Thanks for agreeing to mail me back my pillow. It's a weird thing to wake up in a cold sweat five hundred miles from where you slept last night and realize that you've left a pretty important part of your sleeping set-up in another city. For god's sake. I can't remember a damned thing anymore. Which reminds me....

Dear San Clemente Inn,
Thanks for agreeing to mail me back my book. Who the hell goes on vacation with a self help book about healing trauma? I do. And who then leaves that book in a hotel room and drives off without it? That would be me too. The irony of packing a book about getting over anxiety and then waking up in a cold, sweaty panic attack after realizing I'd left said book somewhere along Route 1 is not lost on me.

Dear Future Traveling Self,
Next time you pack for a vacation, you are not allowed to bring anything but the following: underwear, toothbrush, cell phone. Forget changes of clothes, toiletries, laptops, etc. Clearly you cannot seem to manage keeping track of anything else. For God's sake, you almost left your phone on a paper towel dispenser in a roadside bathroom miles from anything. You know what? Forget the underwear and the toothbrush. Just bring your phone and a tether.

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Love Letters From The Road (Dear Tuesday, the Roadtip Installation)

Dear Everyone That Loves Me,
I am safe and sound. Thank you for your prayers for my safety. What I lack in preparedness, I more than make up for with street smarts and an East Coast tough girl swagger that will not leave my system despite all my granola munching and tree hugging. No one puts this Baby in the corner because this Baby will melt your face off with her stink eye.

Dear Mom and Dad,
Thanks for teaching me good manners. I thank the toothless owner of the filthy roadside gas station as profusely and genuinenly as I do the pretty Hawaiian-shirted and white-sneakered waitress at the seafood restaurant. You have taught me (among other things) to recognize a human being when I see one.

Dear Tara,
Thanks for teaching me that thirty dollars is a small price to pay for my sanity. Thirty dollars last night made the difference between anxiety and peace. Thirty dollars made the difference between curling my body into a tight ball to avoid making contact with the edge of what I presumed to be an unwashed, scratchy motel-issue comforter, and sleeping comfortably in a pin-drop silent, beautifully appointed room that was heated to my exact comfort level.

Dear Tim at the San Clemente Inn,
You, sir, are a rockstar. Thank you for joining the long line of people who think I'm roughly ten to fifteen years younger than I actually am. You asked me if I could handle hauling my luggage up a flight of stairs because I "looked young". I almost invited you to dinner, and not just because you judged my bare biceps to be the suitcase-lifting type. Thanks for that restaurant recommendation as well. I know a fellow eater when I see one. You, sir, have great taste in food. And you know your sleepy little town like the back of your hand. You made that last bit of driving so very, very worth it.

Dear Everyone That Told Me To Avoid L.A.,
Um.... it wasn't really that bad, y'all. I mean, have you sat in NY/NJ traffic? I have, and I'm here to tell you: It's the same damn thing! Only, at least in LA, you have PALM TREES to look at while you're crawling along! And the air doesn't smell like diesel or tar or defeat! Do you want to know a secret? I kinda liked it. Wanna know another secret? This part, this one stretch of an hour and a half of driving... this scared me the most about this whole trip. Not the winding turns down Highway 1 in the pitch black night. Not the random men who would give me the elevator eyes when I said "Table for one, please". Not the depressing, we've-made-this-only-a-modicum-above-tolerable motel conditions. Nope. None of that intimidated me. The traffic in LA is the only thing I was scared of. Why? I don't know, exactly. Maybe I was afraid of all the wasted time. (HA! There's a rock slide I'd like to introduce my pre-trip self to for a lesson in "wasted time"). Maybe I was afraid of getting into an accident and being stranded. Maybe I was afraid I would actually LIKE it. You see, everyone I know seems to hate L.A. But, they hate it in the way that everyone hates the prettiest girl in the room. They all want to BE the prettiest girl in the room- so they just talk smack about her to make themselves feel better. Well, L.A., I think you're pretty and I'm not intimidated by your long legs and perfect hair.

Dear Mr. Burdy,
Thank you for letting me do this. Not in a "thank you for unchaining me from the stove" sort of way, either. Thanks for letting me take an old car we share away for ten whole days and push her to the limits of her speed limits and mechanical capabilities. Thank you for enduring loneliness and having to explain to everyone that your fiance is a rather impetuous thing who loves to jump in the car from time to time, wholly unprepared, and drive for miles and miles just to clear her head. Thank you for making me smile proudly when male strangers ask me "what my man is like" because they cannot imagine why a woman would be on the road, by herself, without him. Thank you for being the confident, secure, and seasoned veteran of this relationship. Thank you for being a thoroughly modern man and a gentle, sensitive human being all at once.

Dear Madonna Inn,
I'm comin' for ya.

Dear Everyone I Know Between San Diego and Seattle,
I'm comin' to see ya. I promise. We're gonna have a beer, we're gonna catch up.

Dear Beach,
I don't even have words. If it weren't so inappropriate on so many levels to scoop up great handfuls of sand and throw them into the air in ecstacy, I would do it. I swear. Man, am I happy to see you.

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The Tudors

Weekly Roundup of Absolutely Nothing

NOT THE FLU, JUST FLU-LIKE

Yup, I've got another sinus infection. Shocking, I know.

I am now quite practiced at being sick. They must be getting used to me at the doctor's office, too, because when I described my symptoms, the doc didn't even blink when I mentioned the cooing pigeon noise in my ear. Not even a raised eyebrow! Guess there's a lot of that going around this year: cooing ear pigeon syndrome.

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Blame Canada

HIS MAJESTY, THE DENTIST!

So, recently Burdy and I started watching the mini-series "The Tudors". I know, I know, we are SO current with our TV watching. Next up on the list: re-runs of "Benson". While everyone else is going bonkers over Downton Abbey, we're finally just watching a show from like five years ago, and a Canadian produced one, no less. I just can't help it. I am somehow fundamentally wired to pick up on television trends half a decade after their premier. I'm just not the typical "consumer" (I'm retching as I type that). It's true: it's me. I'm the one keeping this economy in a recession.

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baby

First Time Colds

It's Friday, which means I can finally admit this has been a hell of a week. Last week at this time, I was salivating over the thought of a whole fried fish and maybe some fried plantains for dinner. Later on that same night, I was cradling my feverish baby in my arms in a rocking chair in the dark.

Two different friends of mine both let me know this week that they were being biopsied for cancer. It was all terrible and scary. I can't tell what was more depressing: that my friends have possible diagnoses, or that I've come to expect these phonecalls and emails with a certain regularity as I get older.

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Shout Out To My Fellow Hoarder Decorator

I can’t even remember how I stumbled upon this blog years ago, but holy smokes, what I do remember is not being able to get enough of it. I sat in my darkened office long after Burdy had gone to bed and crammed my guffaws into my sweater sleeve so as not to wake him. The next morning, Burdy asked me what was so important that I had to stay up half the night hunched over my computer screen.

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yarn pants

Gettin’ My Craft On

Sure fire way to get yourself out of a funk: crochet a pair of yarn pants.

It’s the end of winter here. The irises and crocuses and cherry blossoms are just as confused as the rest of us.

So, to put all fears to rest: I am not suicidal. Not sending my personal belongings off to friends and family via UPS. Not writing my own eulogy (I do that about once a day during the non-funk times.) Not toying with methodology (I hate swallowing even a Tic-Tac accidentally, guns scare the hell out of me, and before I could actually slice my wrists, I’d pass out from the thought of the blood loss).

I was just having a little mid-January crisis. It happens. Twenty clients, two weeks vacation in Brazil when I should have been making file folders and archiving stuff, and a deadline of January 31st to get everything done was taking a toll. Spending eight hours a day serving others gives you reason to think: What am I doing this for, again? Spending TWELVE hours a day for two weeks straight serving others makes you wonder what the hell you were put on this earth to do. Spending the other 12 hours in a day fitfully dreaming of the IRS coming to haul you away... well, that’s enough to send you to the loonie bin... or else call into question your existence and then write a very dramatic blog about it. Either one, really.

So, in between filing a million and one forms with the IRS for twenty different companies, sleeping, and eating dinner standing up in front of the kitchen sink, I wiled away the hours crocheting a pair of yarn pants. The story is this: I had nine hours to kill on the plane ride to Brazil back in November. I’m compulsive about keeping my brain and hands busy, so I brought with me a pound of yellow yarn and a pattern for a baby blanket. By the time the vacation was over, our hotel room was strewn with hundreds of strands of yellow yarn.

Here’s the thing about the yarn: it used to be a wig. Last summer, a friend did this swim... swam from Canada to the US via some waterway about 2 km... and I decided that she should be welcomed ashore at the finish line by three beautiful mermaids. I was one of them. The other two other mermaids were men. Technicalities. Anywho, I crafted up for the three of us some shiny mermaid bras, some seaweed drapings, and bright yellow long wigs made out of said yarn.

After the swim, the wigs hung out in a bag with the rest of my yarn projects. Then the friend’s baby happened, and I wanted to make something for her... and I needed something to do on the plane, so I tied about 300 twenty inch long pieces together, end to end, and started on the blanket. Alright, to be fair: my best friend sat next to me on the plane and tied the pieces together. I crocheted them into the blanket.

But, I had to start over several times because I couldn’t get the pattern down, and I had a few “starts” started and stashed in different places in the hotel room. So, between the plethora of mini-blankets, and the yarn sticking to people’s clothing and shoes, the crap was all over the hotel room at the end of two weeks.

Which brings us to how the yarn pants got started.

My traveling friend, not sharing the same sort of mind/hand busy-ness compulsion, nor the desire to do anything as tedious and repetitive as crocheting (for God’s sake), could not believe that, in the middle of a Brazilian summer, at 80 degrees outside, and with beautiful men, women and scenery to gawk at, I was holed up in my spare time crocheting a hot, scratchy blanket. I mean what was I thinking? You’re young and hip, for chrissake! I mean, are you going to be one of those women crocheting holiday sweaters in their old age, or (gasp), worse, a BODY SUIT? Some kind of UNITARD made out of canary yellow yarn, not unlike the yarn I was crocheting with RIGHT NOW?

Well, that’s all the motivation I needed, really. Suggest something ridiculous and something ridiculous I will produce.

Friend got a little canary something for his birthday.

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commuting

Another “I heard it on the bus” blog posting

Let me just start out by saying that commuting by bus from the suburbs BLOWS. I'm about ready to throw in the towel with this whole "living in the suburbs" bit. The highlight of my day: a sweet young girl engaged me in conversation on the bus. Hang on, though. I need to vent.

I used to recoil at the sight of the massive spider webs embalming the pathway from the front door to my car. Now, i'm so pissed off (at the spiders, at nature, at my beep-beep-beep-heavy-machinery-backing-up-at-7-am-neighbor, at the fact that the first thing I see when I walk out my front door is a half dead monkey tree limb laced with webs and spiders the size of my eyeballs, about my too-small kitchen sink and my too-big "camp style" bathroom, about the utter lack of foresight that dictated the position of all the freakin' light switches in this house) that i just machete right through them with my bare arms. Anyone observing from afar might think a) i have a hard time regulating the swing of my arms when i walk, b) that i'm practicing my judo chop on invisible sparring partners or that c) i'm stark raving mad.

I had to wait an extra forty minutes for the bus home because i finished work late and the buses run with less frequency after commuting hours. And this after a long and tedious day of work. The only thing that kept from going on a killing spree was the book about organic gardening i read while waiting.

The odd highlight of the day was talking to a young girl on the bus on the way in to the city. I didn't realize until a few minutes into the convo that she was with a group of special needs kids. She shyly asked me if it was okay if she talked to me. Of course, I said. She started in on a story about how she'd won the plastic bracelet she was wearing at a carnival. I was just about to get a closer look when someone from the back of the bus hissed her name and told her to not talk to me. The voice said something like "What did we say about talking to people?" The girl tucked her chin into her neck and paused for a moment - but then she kept on going. Again, the voice from the back of the bus said the girl's name, adding "This is your last warning". The girl and I looked at each other; I patted her hand and said, "it's okay- you can tell me another time. I don't want you to get in trouble." I turned and faced forward so she wouldn't be tempted... but, as we drove along, i kept wondering why this girl needed to be silenced by her authority figure. What she prone to violence or outbursts? She seemed so incredibly innocent and demure... The worst part about it was that I could tell she was used to being told to shut up- but that didn't stop her from trying to make friends on the bus anyway. I don't know much about what it's like to take care of a special needs kid... or what this girl's particular story was- but it sure didn't seem like she was hurting anyone by yakking on the bus (hell, it beats staring out the window at the cargo containers on the port). I kept thinking, as I exited the bus and started my walk to work, about how she was being treated like a criminal for talking to me. I don't mean to turn this into a soapbox moment... but i sorta had this refrain going through my head... something like "what the world needs now/is talking on the bus/sweet talking on the bus". Maybe that girl's story would have made some morning commuter's day... It just seemed, given that the rest of this city's inhabitants can't seem to make casual eye contact with one another on the streets (Chicago? Five gold stars for you for your pedestrians' AWESOME sidewalk-side manners. ) that a little light convo on the bus is just what we need to make being crammed in there a little more palatable. I hope she got to tell her story to someone today...

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riding the bus

Another “I heard it on the bus” blog posting

Let me just start out by saying that commuting by bus from the suburbs BLOWS. I'm about ready to throw in the towel with this whole "living in the suburbs" bit. The highlight of my day: a sweet young girl engaged me in conversation on the bus. Hang on, though. I need to vent.

I used to recoil at the sight of the massive spider webs embalming the pathway from the front door to my car. Now, i'm so pissed off (at the spiders, at nature, at my beep-beep-beep-heavy-machinery-backing-up-at-7-am-neighbor, at the fact that the first thing I see when I walk out my front door is a half dead monkey tree limb laced with webs and spiders the size of my eyeballs, about my too-small kitchen sink and my too-big "camp style" bathroom, about the utter lack of foresight that dictated the position of all the freakin' light switches in this house) that i just machete right through them with my bare arms. Anyone observing from afar might think a) i have a hard time regulating the swing of my arms when i walk, b) that i'm practicing my judo chop on invisible sparring partners or that c) i'm stark raving mad.

I had to wait an extra forty minutes for the bus home because i finished work late and the buses run with less frequency after commuting hours. And this after a long and tedious day of work. The only thing that kept from going on a killing spree was the book about organic gardening i read while waiting.

The odd highlight of the day was talking to a young girl on the bus on the way in to the city. I didn't realize until a few minutes into the convo that she was with a group of special needs kids. She shyly asked me if it was okay if she talked to me. Of course, I said. She started in on a story about how she'd won the plastic bracelet she was wearing at a carnival. I was just about to get a closer look when someone from the back of the bus hissed her name and told her to not talk to me. The voice said something like "What did we say about talking to people?" The girl tucked her chin into her neck and paused for a moment - but then she kept on going. Again, the voice from the back of the bus said the girl's name, adding "This is your last warning". The girl and I looked at each other; I patted her hand and said, "it's okay- you can tell me another time. I don't want you to get in trouble." I turned and faced forward so she wouldn't be tempted... but, as we drove along, i kept wondering why this girl needed to be silenced by her authority figure. What she prone to violence or outbursts? She seemed so incredibly innocent and demure... The worst part about it was that I could tell she was used to being told to shut up- but that didn't stop her from trying to make friends on the bus anyway. I don't know much about what it's like to take care of a special needs kid... or what this girl's particular story was- but it sure didn't seem like she was hurting anyone by yakking on the bus (hell, it beats staring out the window at the cargo containers on the port). I kept thinking, as I exited the bus and started my walk to work, about how she was being treated like a criminal for talking to me. I don't mean to turn this into a soapbox moment... but i sorta had this refrain going through my head... something like "what the world needs now/is talking on the bus/sweet talking on the bus". Maybe that girl's story would have made some morning commuter's day... It just seemed, given that the rest of this city's inhabitants can't seem to make casual eye contact with one another on the streets (Chicago? Five gold stars for you for your pedestrians' AWESOME sidewalk-side manners. ) that a little light convo on the bus is just what we need to make being crammed in there a little more palatable. I hope she got to tell her story to someone today...

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suburbia

Another “I heard it on the bus” blog posting

Let me just start out by saying that commuting by bus from the suburbs BLOWS. I'm about ready to throw in the towel with this whole "living in the suburbs" bit. The highlight of my day: a sweet young girl engaged me in conversation on the bus. Hang on, though. I need to vent.

I used to recoil at the sight of the massive spider webs embalming the pathway from the front door to my car. Now, i'm so pissed off (at the spiders, at nature, at my beep-beep-beep-heavy-machinery-backing-up-at-7-am-neighbor, at the fact that the first thing I see when I walk out my front door is a half dead monkey tree limb laced with webs and spiders the size of my eyeballs, about my too-small kitchen sink and my too-big "camp style" bathroom, about the utter lack of foresight that dictated the position of all the freakin' light switches in this house) that i just machete right through them with my bare arms. Anyone observing from afar might think a) i have a hard time regulating the swing of my arms when i walk, b) that i'm practicing my judo chop on invisible sparring partners or that c) i'm stark raving mad.

I had to wait an extra forty minutes for the bus home because i finished work late and the buses run with less frequency after commuting hours. And this after a long and tedious day of work. The only thing that kept from going on a killing spree was the book about organic gardening i read while waiting.

The odd highlight of the day was talking to a young girl on the bus on the way in to the city. I didn't realize until a few minutes into the convo that she was with a group of special needs kids. She shyly asked me if it was okay if she talked to me. Of course, I said. She started in on a story about how she'd won the plastic bracelet she was wearing at a carnival. I was just about to get a closer look when someone from the back of the bus hissed her name and told her to not talk to me. The voice said something like "What did we say about talking to people?" The girl tucked her chin into her neck and paused for a moment - but then she kept on going. Again, the voice from the back of the bus said the girl's name, adding "This is your last warning". The girl and I looked at each other; I patted her hand and said, "it's okay- you can tell me another time. I don't want you to get in trouble." I turned and faced forward so she wouldn't be tempted... but, as we drove along, i kept wondering why this girl needed to be silenced by her authority figure. What she prone to violence or outbursts? She seemed so incredibly innocent and demure... The worst part about it was that I could tell she was used to being told to shut up- but that didn't stop her from trying to make friends on the bus anyway. I don't know much about what it's like to take care of a special needs kid... or what this girl's particular story was- but it sure didn't seem like she was hurting anyone by yakking on the bus (hell, it beats staring out the window at the cargo containers on the port). I kept thinking, as I exited the bus and started my walk to work, about how she was being treated like a criminal for talking to me. I don't mean to turn this into a soapbox moment... but i sorta had this refrain going through my head... something like "what the world needs now/is talking on the bus/sweet talking on the bus". Maybe that girl's story would have made some morning commuter's day... It just seemed, given that the rest of this city's inhabitants can't seem to make casual eye contact with one another on the streets (Chicago? Five gold stars for you for your pedestrians' AWESOME sidewalk-side manners. ) that a little light convo on the bus is just what we need to make being crammed in there a little more palatable. I hope she got to tell her story to someone today...

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Sourdough Starter Bread Sheepherder's Bread

Success!

It worked! The sourdough starter didn't die and the bread rose just fine. I found a recipe online for "sheepherder's bread" and it looked simple enough, so I went for it. It's a wheat bread (and even though the test results say I can eat wheat, my intestines disagree) so this bread was made for the manfriend. It was dense and tasty (i had to taste my handiwork so I nibbled the bottom crust). I could barely taste the sour flavor, which is good because these native east coasters don't really care for sourdough. We prefer our bread to taste like manic depression and stoicism.

I'm going to attempt to bake another loaf or two this weekend. That little bio hazard has been sitting in the fridge (you just take portions of it at a time for each loaf; you always return a little blob to the icebox) for a few days now. I think i am ready to commit to the feeding/throwing away/baking cycle. Sourdough requires attention like a newborn. You can't just leave it on the counter top and say, I'll get to you later, little guy. And I have left MANY a baby on a counter top, so I would know.

I think I will try something in the rye bread department. Most recipes I have found for rye bread require rising times bordering on insane, so I will be picking something that can be made this century. I'll keep you posted.

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Bookie

My New Profession

So, I won't bore you with the beginning part of this story in which I forget to write down the address to the open house I want to attend and I call my Taller Younger Brother who lives across the country, for god's sake, ask him to open up my gmail account and hunt for it in there... and when he can't find it, demand he open up craigslist and search for what I remember of the address under "houses for rent" in my city and then Google "79th St. and cute house". Because I would never, ever want you to believe that I could be a) that forgetful or b) that desperate for an address that I would call someone in another time zone to help me find a house that was about five blocks where I was sitting in my parked car.

The real story here is that when I got to said house, (which was, in fact, on 79th street, but was only cute on the outside) Michele, who was supposed to be showing the house, was not there. Instead, there was an older gentleman there. An older gentleman wearing a tie tack in the shape of a house key. A house-key-shaped tie tack that was pinned to his tie and his fuchsia colored shirt. A gentleman who looked like he had recently been in a fight with a bag of boiling hot french fries because half of his forehead and part of his right cheek were covered in short purple scars. Now, had this guy just been wearing a hot pink shirt, or a key shaped tie tack, or just covered in bizarre scars, there really wouldn't be any story here. I'd just tell you that a slow moving man with unfortunate looking scars showed me a house that smelled of cat pee.

No, the real story is this: When I got there, he was in the middle of telling the people who'd arrived before me that he was only filling in for Michelle, that there weren't many questions he could answer about the house. I felt a little bad for him. He seemed very out of place. If he had ever been a real estate agent (and I'm guessing he didn't get that shiny tie tack for selling steak knives door to door), it seems like he had been out of the game for a while. Perhaps he had been recovering from the accident with his face and the nail gun when Michelle called and asked him to cover for her. I don't know. He just kept talking nervously to everyone who came into the house to compensate, it seems, for his total lack of knowledge about the heating bills and the square footage. All of a sudden, he stopped talking to a woman to my right, turned to face me and asked me, "And what do you do for a living?" I was a little taken aback, his nervous prattle going right into direct questioning, but I responded, "I'm a bookkeeper". And that's when the fun began.

"A bookie?" He asked. And without even blinking, I said, "yup". Now, I know it's not nice to mess with the hearing impaired. And I know it's even meaner to mess with someone who is probably taking daily painkillers, but I couldn't help it. It was hot, the place smelled like pee, I had just been on the phone with Taller Younger Brother for twenty minutes to find a place that took only five minutes to walk through, and I didn't appreciate this guy looking me and down like that. So I went with it. "And how do you get your clients?" he asked me, knowing full well that he thought I was a bookie. "Oh, you know. Word of mouth", I said, winking. His jaw went a little slack in surprise. He took a step back and really took his time eyeing me up and down. I folded my arms across my chest for affect. The woman next to me made a little shuffling noise and cleared her throat. "And you can make a living in this city doing that?", he asked me, completely and totally astounded. I knew where this was going, so I took a breath, waved him away, and said, in an accent tinged with just a touch of Tony Soprano, "Oh, yeah. A VERY good living".

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Bookkeeping

My New Profession

So, I won't bore you with the beginning part of this story in which I forget to write down the address to the open house I want to attend and I call my Taller Younger Brother who lives across the country, for god's sake, ask him to open up my gmail account and hunt for it in there... and when he can't find it, demand he open up craigslist and search for what I remember of the address under "houses for rent" in my city and then Google "79th St. and cute house". Because I would never, ever want you to believe that I could be a) that forgetful or b) that desperate for an address that I would call someone in another time zone to help me find a house that was about five blocks where I was sitting in my parked car.

The real story here is that when I got to said house, (which was, in fact, on 79th street, but was only cute on the outside) Michele, who was supposed to be showing the house, was not there. Instead, there was an older gentleman there. An older gentleman wearing a tie tack in the shape of a house key. A house-key-shaped tie tack that was pinned to his tie and his fuchsia colored shirt. A gentleman who looked like he had recently been in a fight with a bag of boiling hot french fries because half of his forehead and part of his right cheek were covered in short purple scars. Now, had this guy just been wearing a hot pink shirt, or a key shaped tie tack, or just covered in bizarre scars, there really wouldn't be any story here. I'd just tell you that a slow moving man with unfortunate looking scars showed me a house that smelled of cat pee.

No, the real story is this: When I got there, he was in the middle of telling the people who'd arrived before me that he was only filling in for Michelle, that there weren't many questions he could answer about the house. I felt a little bad for him. He seemed very out of place. If he had ever been a real estate agent (and I'm guessing he didn't get that shiny tie tack for selling steak knives door to door), it seems like he had been out of the game for a while. Perhaps he had been recovering from the accident with his face and the nail gun when Michelle called and asked him to cover for her. I don't know. He just kept talking nervously to everyone who came into the house to compensate, it seems, for his total lack of knowledge about the heating bills and the square footage. All of a sudden, he stopped talking to a woman to my right, turned to face me and asked me, "And what do you do for a living?" I was a little taken aback, his nervous prattle going right into direct questioning, but I responded, "I'm a bookkeeper". And that's when the fun began.

"A bookie?" He asked. And without even blinking, I said, "yup". Now, I know it's not nice to mess with the hearing impaired. And I know it's even meaner to mess with someone who is probably taking daily painkillers, but I couldn't help it. It was hot, the place smelled like pee, I had just been on the phone with Taller Younger Brother for twenty minutes to find a place that took only five minutes to walk through, and I didn't appreciate this guy looking me and down like that. So I went with it. "And how do you get your clients?" he asked me, knowing full well that he thought I was a bookie. "Oh, you know. Word of mouth", I said, winking. His jaw went a little slack in surprise. He took a step back and really took his time eyeing me up and down. I folded my arms across my chest for affect. The woman next to me made a little shuffling noise and cleared her throat. "And you can make a living in this city doing that?", he asked me, completely and totally astounded. I knew where this was going, so I took a breath, waved him away, and said, in an accent tinged with just a touch of Tony Soprano, "Oh, yeah. A VERY good living".

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dance

What To Do With That Damned Catchy Song

Okay, so we all know that I have been obsessing about a particular little pop song. Apparently, I'm not the only one who's been fixating on it. (The friends CLH and I went out drinking with last night ALSO think it's catchy). And this morning, as I watched the video for said song UH-GAIN, something came to me.

I have an idea for the inmates at Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center.

Wait. You don't know about the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center? Go to YouTube right now and search for "prison" and "Thriller" (and try not to think of the implications of searching for an actual thriller in an actual prison.) Now watch the video of the reenactment of the Thriller video....by 100 or so prisoners in orange jumpsuits. ISN'T THAT AMAZING? And while you're at it, check out the OTHER half dozen or so songs they have choreographed. I mean, have you ever seen such discipline, such attention to detail, from a bunch of, well... prisoners? I'm beginning to think their only crime was loving the dance too much...

Okay, so now that we know these guys can do the "Soulja Boy" moves like nobody's business, I think it's time we bumped it up a notch. I mean, they are clearly capable of dancing in formation, so it's only natural that they take on the next great dance routine of our time. It's the song on every one's lips. It's fun, it's infectious, and even Andy Samberg has danced to it on national television. I think we all know where I'm going with this. That's right. Those guys in the orange jumpsuits should roll up their pant legs, get themselves some ridiculously high heels, and re-enact the Single Ladies video.

Come on, fellas. Whaddya say? Put your hands up?

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Philipines

What To Do With That Damned Catchy Song

Okay, so we all know that I have been obsessing about a particular little pop song. Apparently, I'm not the only one who's been fixating on it. (The friends CLH and I went out drinking with last night ALSO think it's catchy). And this morning, as I watched the video for said song UH-GAIN, something came to me.

I have an idea for the inmates at Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center.

Wait. You don't know about the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center? Go to YouTube right now and search for "prison" and "Thriller" (and try not to think of the implications of searching for an actual thriller in an actual prison.) Now watch the video of the reenactment of the Thriller video....by 100 or so prisoners in orange jumpsuits. ISN'T THAT AMAZING? And while you're at it, check out the OTHER half dozen or so songs they have choreographed. I mean, have you ever seen such discipline, such attention to detail, from a bunch of, well... prisoners? I'm beginning to think their only crime was loving the dance too much...

Okay, so now that we know these guys can do the "Soulja Boy" moves like nobody's business, I think it's time we bumped it up a notch. I mean, they are clearly capable of dancing in formation, so it's only natural that they take on the next great dance routine of our time. It's the song on every one's lips. It's fun, it's infectious, and even Andy Samberg has danced to it on national television. I think we all know where I'm going with this. That's right. Those guys in the orange jumpsuits should roll up their pant legs, get themselves some ridiculously high heels, and re-enact the Single Ladies video.

Come on, fellas. Whaddya say? Put your hands up?

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Prisoners

What To Do With That Damned Catchy Song

Okay, so we all know that I have been obsessing about a particular little pop song. Apparently, I'm not the only one who's been fixating on it. (The friends CLH and I went out drinking with last night ALSO think it's catchy). And this morning, as I watched the video for said song UH-GAIN, something came to me.

I have an idea for the inmates at Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center.

Wait. You don't know about the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center? Go to YouTube right now and search for "prison" and "Thriller" (and try not to think of the implications of searching for an actual thriller in an actual prison.) Now watch the video of the reenactment of the Thriller video....by 100 or so prisoners in orange jumpsuits. ISN'T THAT AMAZING? And while you're at it, check out the OTHER half dozen or so songs they have choreographed. I mean, have you ever seen such discipline, such attention to detail, from a bunch of, well... prisoners? I'm beginning to think their only crime was loving the dance too much...

Okay, so now that we know these guys can do the "Soulja Boy" moves like nobody's business, I think it's time we bumped it up a notch. I mean, they are clearly capable of dancing in formation, so it's only natural that they take on the next great dance routine of our time. It's the song on every one's lips. It's fun, it's infectious, and even Andy Samberg has danced to it on national television. I think we all know where I'm going with this. That's right. Those guys in the orange jumpsuits should roll up their pant legs, get themselves some ridiculously high heels, and re-enact the Single Ladies video.

Come on, fellas. Whaddya say? Put your hands up?

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Single Ladies

What To Do With That Damned Catchy Song

Okay, so we all know that I have been obsessing about a particular little pop song. Apparently, I'm not the only one who's been fixating on it. (The friends CLH and I went out drinking with last night ALSO think it's catchy). And this morning, as I watched the video for said song UH-GAIN, something came to me.

I have an idea for the inmates at Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center.

Wait. You don't know about the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center? Go to YouTube right now and search for "prison" and "Thriller" (and try not to think of the implications of searching for an actual thriller in an actual prison.) Now watch the video of the reenactment of the Thriller video....by 100 or so prisoners in orange jumpsuits. ISN'T THAT AMAZING? And while you're at it, check out the OTHER half dozen or so songs they have choreographed. I mean, have you ever seen such discipline, such attention to detail, from a bunch of, well... prisoners? I'm beginning to think their only crime was loving the dance too much...

Okay, so now that we know these guys can do the "Soulja Boy" moves like nobody's business, I think it's time we bumped it up a notch. I mean, they are clearly capable of dancing in formation, so it's only natural that they take on the next great dance routine of our time. It's the song on every one's lips. It's fun, it's infectious, and even Andy Samberg has danced to it on national television. I think we all know where I'm going with this. That's right. Those guys in the orange jumpsuits should roll up their pant legs, get themselves some ridiculously high heels, and re-enact the Single Ladies video.

Come on, fellas. Whaddya say? Put your hands up?

Continue to full post...

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Thriller

What To Do With That Damned Catchy Song

Okay, so we all know that I have been obsessing about a particular little pop song. Apparently, I'm not the only one who's been fixating on it. (The friends CLH and I went out drinking with last night ALSO think it's catchy). And this morning, as I watched the video for said song UH-GAIN, something came to me.

I have an idea for the inmates at Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center.

Wait. You don't know about the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center? Go to YouTube right now and search for "prison" and "Thriller" (and try not to think of the implications of searching for an actual thriller in an actual prison.) Now watch the video of the reenactment of the Thriller video....by 100 or so prisoners in orange jumpsuits. ISN'T THAT AMAZING? And while you're at it, check out the OTHER half dozen or so songs they have choreographed. I mean, have you ever seen such discipline, such attention to detail, from a bunch of, well... prisoners? I'm beginning to think their only crime was loving the dance too much...

Okay, so now that we know these guys can do the "Soulja Boy" moves like nobody's business, I think it's time we bumped it up a notch. I mean, they are clearly capable of dancing in formation, so it's only natural that they take on the next great dance routine of our time. It's the song on every one's lips. It's fun, it's infectious, and even Andy Samberg has danced to it on national television. I think we all know where I'm going with this. That's right. Those guys in the orange jumpsuits should roll up their pant legs, get themselves some ridiculously high heels, and re-enact the Single Ladies video.

Come on, fellas. Whaddya say? Put your hands up?

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banks

Updates on Mostly Nothing

I've decided to take a break from responding to the morons who have inundated my inbox with requests to pay me rent via third party out of state checks to bring you this breaking news:

WAMU is now CHASE! (Cue the Darth Vader walking music...) Look at that evil octagonal corporate blue eyeball looking down on you. Doesn't it give you the willies? I think Chase got off easy - taking over a bank with a mostly blue logo. They certainly won't have to spend much on remodeling....which kinda makes me feel better about having a international behemoth take over my neighborhood bank; at least they have their priorities in order. They knew better than to take over a green colored bank, for instance. They've already done the math on the retrofitting costs! Step one to success! Outfitting hundreds of banks with ugly, color coordinated, itchy wool furniture costs MONEY, people. Money the good people at Chase have opted to SAVE by taking over a blue colored bank. Geniuses. All of them. Not like the brainiacs at WAMU. Sure, they got themselves all tangled up in the sub prime mortgage crisis. But we all know the REAL reason WAMU tanked. It was that stupid "Whoo Hoo!" ad campaign. That'll teach ALL the banks a thing or two about advertising. Take a hint, Capitol One. One more fucking ad involving Vikings and what's in my wallet, and you're toast.

In other news, insomnia amongst people who sleep in my bed is on the rise, our house isn't rented yet, and in sports, my right ear is still aching. I called the doctor this morning, explained that I still can't sleep comfortably on my left side because the eardrum of my right ear feels like it might sear a hole right through my brain and come out through my left nostril, it hurts that bad. I have an appointment in two weeks. I can't seem to convince anyone in the medical world that this pain should be taken seriously. I've learned that unless you are bleeding from your eyes, or threatening to kill yourself or others when you get inside a doctor's office, you get thrown into a metaphorical rubber room and told to wait out whatever's ailing you. Because the pain I've had wasn't affecting my ability to go to work or make an egg salad sandwich, I was pretty much dismissed by every doctor I saw. I was told, in effect, that there was nothing wrong with me. I was given prescriptions like "Don't eat dairy", and "brush your neck with this a stiff bristled brush to stimulate your lymphatic system." I am normally ALL ABOUT alternative methods of coping with illness. But I was feeling like this was something more than a dairy allergy. I was so miffed that, at one point, in a subsequent visit to yet another doctor, I actually had her draw a diagram of what she saw on my eardrum through her otoscope on a piece of paper so we could both see that I wasn't imagining the pain. (By the way, if you ever want to scare the hell out of yourself and/or marvel at how far we've come [or not come] since the Dark Ages, Google "medical instruments to look in ears". There's a tool called a "bayonet". I'm not even joking. It looks like it would fit on the tip of a very small rifle. And doctors use this tool, today, in 2009, to perform surgery on ears. Unreal.) Anywho, I have an appointment in two weeks with another doctor who is going to give me another audiogram to determine, for the second time in two years, that I can't hear so well out of my right ear. If nothing else, that first round of tests two years ago taught me that I need to be a little more demanding when I get to the doctor's office. This time, I'm going to try to get someone to x-ray the right side of my head. If they don't find the piece of lead I am sure is sitting on my cochlear nerve, or the 6 inch piece of the Rosetta Stone I'm sure is clogging my Eustachian tubes, I'll eat my hat.

And now for this week's weather. Forecast calls for a big middle finger being waved in my face from the North, indicating I am an idiot for thinking that it would actually be warm in May. There is a put-your-sundresses-away-until-August advisory in effect. Vitamin D levels are nearing precipitously low levels. Moodiness gaining strength on the western front.

Please, Internets. Send me some renters. Please keep the craigslist meth addicts from bargaining me down from $15 to $10 on a cheap wooden TV stand, and, for god's sake, send me some sun.

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Chase

Updates on Mostly Nothing

I've decided to take a break from responding to the morons who have inundated my inbox with requests to pay me rent via third party out of state checks to bring you this breaking news:

WAMU is now CHASE! (Cue the Darth Vader walking music...) Look at that evil octagonal corporate blue eyeball looking down on you. Doesn't it give you the willies? I think Chase got off easy - taking over a bank with a mostly blue logo. They certainly won't have to spend much on remodeling....which kinda makes me feel better about having a international behemoth take over my neighborhood bank; at least they have their priorities in order. They knew better than to take over a green colored bank, for instance. They've already done the math on the retrofitting costs! Step one to success! Outfitting hundreds of banks with ugly, color coordinated, itchy wool furniture costs MONEY, people. Money the good people at Chase have opted to SAVE by taking over a blue colored bank. Geniuses. All of them. Not like the brainiacs at WAMU. Sure, they got themselves all tangled up in the sub prime mortgage crisis. But we all know the REAL reason WAMU tanked. It was that stupid "Whoo Hoo!" ad campaign. That'll teach ALL the banks a thing or two about advertising. Take a hint, Capitol One. One more fucking ad involving Vikings and what's in my wallet, and you're toast.

In other news, insomnia amongst people who sleep in my bed is on the rise, our house isn't rented yet, and in sports, my right ear is still aching. I called the doctor this morning, explained that I still can't sleep comfortably on my left side because the eardrum of my right ear feels like it might sear a hole right through my brain and come out through my left nostril, it hurts that bad. I have an appointment in two weeks. I can't seem to convince anyone in the medical world that this pain should be taken seriously. I've learned that unless you are bleeding from your eyes, or threatening to kill yourself or others when you get inside a doctor's office, you get thrown into a metaphorical rubber room and told to wait out whatever's ailing you. Because the pain I've had wasn't affecting my ability to go to work or make an egg salad sandwich, I was pretty much dismissed by every doctor I saw. I was told, in effect, that there was nothing wrong with me. I was given prescriptions like "Don't eat dairy", and "brush your neck with this a stiff bristled brush to stimulate your lymphatic system." I am normally ALL ABOUT alternative methods of coping with illness. But I was feeling like this was something more than a dairy allergy. I was so miffed that, at one point, in a subsequent visit to yet another doctor, I actually had her draw a diagram of what she saw on my eardrum through her otoscope on a piece of paper so we could both see that I wasn't imagining the pain. (By the way, if you ever want to scare the hell out of yourself and/or marvel at how far we've come [or not come] since the Dark Ages, Google "medical instruments to look in ears". There's a tool called a "bayonet". I'm not even joking. It looks like it would fit on the tip of a very small rifle. And doctors use this tool, today, in 2009, to perform surgery on ears. Unreal.) Anywho, I have an appointment in two weeks with another doctor who is going to give me another audiogram to determine, for the second time in two years, that I can't hear so well out of my right ear. If nothing else, that first round of tests two years ago taught me that I need to be a little more demanding when I get to the doctor's office. This time, I'm going to try to get someone to x-ray the right side of my head. If they don't find the piece of lead I am sure is sitting on my cochlear nerve, or the 6 inch piece of the Rosetta Stone I'm sure is clogging my Eustachian tubes, I'll eat my hat.

And now for this week's weather. Forecast calls for a big middle finger being waved in my face from the North, indicating I am an idiot for thinking that it would actually be warm in May. There is a put-your-sundresses-away-until-August advisory in effect. Vitamin D levels are nearing precipitously low levels. Moodiness gaining strength on the western front.

Please, Internets. Send me some renters. Please keep the craigslist meth addicts from bargaining me down from $15 to $10 on a cheap wooden TV stand, and, for god's sake, send me some sun.

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earaches

Updates on Mostly Nothing

I've decided to take a break from responding to the morons who have inundated my inbox with requests to pay me rent via third party out of state checks to bring you this breaking news:

WAMU is now CHASE! (Cue the Darth Vader walking music...) Look at that evil octagonal corporate blue eyeball looking down on you. Doesn't it give you the willies? I think Chase got off easy - taking over a bank with a mostly blue logo. They certainly won't have to spend much on remodeling....which kinda makes me feel better about having a international behemoth take over my neighborhood bank; at least they have their priorities in order. They knew better than to take over a green colored bank, for instance. They've already done the math on the retrofitting costs! Step one to success! Outfitting hundreds of banks with ugly, color coordinated, itchy wool furniture costs MONEY, people. Money the good people at Chase have opted to SAVE by taking over a blue colored bank. Geniuses. All of them. Not like the brainiacs at WAMU. Sure, they got themselves all tangled up in the sub prime mortgage crisis. But we all know the REAL reason WAMU tanked. It was that stupid "Whoo Hoo!" ad campaign. That'll teach ALL the banks a thing or two about advertising. Take a hint, Capitol One. One more fucking ad involving Vikings and what's in my wallet, and you're toast.

In other news, insomnia amongst people who sleep in my bed is on the rise, our house isn't rented yet, and in sports, my right ear is still aching. I called the doctor this morning, explained that I still can't sleep comfortably on my left side because the eardrum of my right ear feels like it might sear a hole right through my brain and come out through my left nostril, it hurts that bad. I have an appointment in two weeks. I can't seem to convince anyone in the medical world that this pain should be taken seriously. I've learned that unless you are bleeding from your eyes, or threatening to kill yourself or others when you get inside a doctor's office, you get thrown into a metaphorical rubber room and told to wait out whatever's ailing you. Because the pain I've had wasn't affecting my ability to go to work or make an egg salad sandwich, I was pretty much dismissed by every doctor I saw. I was told, in effect, that there was nothing wrong with me. I was given prescriptions like "Don't eat dairy", and "brush your neck with this a stiff bristled brush to stimulate your lymphatic system." I am normally ALL ABOUT alternative methods of coping with illness. But I was feeling like this was something more than a dairy allergy. I was so miffed that, at one point, in a subsequent visit to yet another doctor, I actually had her draw a diagram of what she saw on my eardrum through her otoscope on a piece of paper so we could both see that I wasn't imagining the pain. (By the way, if you ever want to scare the hell out of yourself and/or marvel at how far we've come [or not come] since the Dark Ages, Google "medical instruments to look in ears". There's a tool called a "bayonet". I'm not even joking. It looks like it would fit on the tip of a very small rifle. And doctors use this tool, today, in 2009, to perform surgery on ears. Unreal.) Anywho, I have an appointment in two weeks with another doctor who is going to give me another audiogram to determine, for the second time in two years, that I can't hear so well out of my right ear. If nothing else, that first round of tests two years ago taught me that I need to be a little more demanding when I get to the doctor's office. This time, I'm going to try to get someone to x-ray the right side of my head. If they don't find the piece of lead I am sure is sitting on my cochlear nerve, or the 6 inch piece of the Rosetta Stone I'm sure is clogging my Eustachian tubes, I'll eat my hat.

And now for this week's weather. Forecast calls for a big middle finger being waved in my face from the North, indicating I am an idiot for thinking that it would actually be warm in May. There is a put-your-sundresses-away-until-August advisory in effect. Vitamin D levels are nearing precipitously low levels. Moodiness gaining strength on the western front.

Please, Internets. Send me some renters. Please keep the craigslist meth addicts from bargaining me down from $15 to $10 on a cheap wooden TV stand, and, for god's sake, send me some sun.

Continue to full post...

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WAMU

Updates on Mostly Nothing

I've decided to take a break from responding to the morons who have inundated my inbox with requests to pay me rent via third party out of state checks to bring you this breaking news:

WAMU is now CHASE! (Cue the Darth Vader walking music...) Look at that evil octagonal corporate blue eyeball looking down on you. Doesn't it give you the willies? I think Chase got off easy - taking over a bank with a mostly blue logo. They certainly won't have to spend much on remodeling....which kinda makes me feel better about having a international behemoth take over my neighborhood bank; at least they have their priorities in order. They knew better than to take over a green colored bank, for instance. They've already done the math on the retrofitting costs! Step one to success! Outfitting hundreds of banks with ugly, color coordinated, itchy wool furniture costs MONEY, people. Money the good people at Chase have opted to SAVE by taking over a blue colored bank. Geniuses. All of them. Not like the brainiacs at WAMU. Sure, they got themselves all tangled up in the sub prime mortgage crisis. But we all know the REAL reason WAMU tanked. It was that stupid "Whoo Hoo!" ad campaign. That'll teach ALL the banks a thing or two about advertising. Take a hint, Capitol One. One more fucking ad involving Vikings and what's in my wallet, and you're toast.

In other news, insomnia amongst people who sleep in my bed is on the rise, our house isn't rented yet, and in sports, my right ear is still aching. I called the doctor this morning, explained that I still can't sleep comfortably on my left side because the eardrum of my right ear feels like it might sear a hole right through my brain and come out through my left nostril, it hurts that bad. I have an appointment in two weeks. I can't seem to convince anyone in the medical world that this pain should be taken seriously. I've learned that unless you are bleeding from your eyes, or threatening to kill yourself or others when you get inside a doctor's office, you get thrown into a metaphorical rubber room and told to wait out whatever's ailing you. Because the pain I've had wasn't affecting my ability to go to work or make an egg salad sandwich, I was pretty much dismissed by every doctor I saw. I was told, in effect, that there was nothing wrong with me. I was given prescriptions like "Don't eat dairy", and "brush your neck with this a stiff bristled brush to stimulate your lymphatic system." I am normally ALL ABOUT alternative methods of coping with illness. But I was feeling like this was something more than a dairy allergy. I was so miffed that, at one point, in a subsequent visit to yet another doctor, I actually had her draw a diagram of what she saw on my eardrum through her otoscope on a piece of paper so we could both see that I wasn't imagining the pain. (By the way, if you ever want to scare the hell out of yourself and/or marvel at how far we've come [or not come] since the Dark Ages, Google "medical instruments to look in ears". There's a tool called a "bayonet". I'm not even joking. It looks like it would fit on the tip of a very small rifle. And doctors use this tool, today, in 2009, to perform surgery on ears. Unreal.) Anywho, I have an appointment in two weeks with another doctor who is going to give me another audiogram to determine, for the second time in two years, that I can't hear so well out of my right ear. If nothing else, that first round of tests two years ago taught me that I need to be a little more demanding when I get to the doctor's office. This time, I'm going to try to get someone to x-ray the right side of my head. If they don't find the piece of lead I am sure is sitting on my cochlear nerve, or the 6 inch piece of the Rosetta Stone I'm sure is clogging my Eustachian tubes, I'll eat my hat.

And now for this week's weather. Forecast calls for a big middle finger being waved in my face from the North, indicating I am an idiot for thinking that it would actually be warm in May. There is a put-your-sundresses-away-until-August advisory in effect. Vitamin D levels are nearing precipitously low levels. Moodiness gaining strength on the western front.

Please, Internets. Send me some renters. Please keep the craigslist meth addicts from bargaining me down from $15 to $10 on a cheap wooden TV stand, and, for god's sake, send me some sun.

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craniosacral

Artful Bitching and How To Realize When Your Body Is Telling You Something

Internet, I've been away, and I apologize. Typing has been extremely painful these last few days, so I have been resting my hands. I have a finger injury. Okay, it's more like a fingernail injury. I can't actually tell what it is because (if you're squeamish, now would be a good time to just skip to paragraph two) every time I try to trim back the cuticle around the middle finger of my right hand, blood and pus come oozing out, blocking my view of the wound site. CLH thought it might be a splinter, but I argued that a splinter should not make your finger ooze, nor should it make it numb. Plus, I should be able to see a splinter. And all I can see at this point is layer upon layer of ragged skin around my nail where I have been tearing away with my manicurist's tools for the past few days. That, and some dried blood. This is now the third or so mystery injury that I've sustained on the right side of my body. And if you think I take these kinds of things lightly, well then you have me mistaken for someone who is not ultra sensitive to every little thing and not just a little bit woo-woo.

The past few days have been odd and great.

I made an appointment to see a cranio-sacral therapist to help out with my ear stuff. CLH has been hounding me about making an appointment with this therapist for probably more than a year now, but I have been resisting. I didn't want anymore turtle-shell rattle-waving in my general direction from another "alternative therapist" before I went to a western MD and had my head x-ray'd for this ear issue. You'd think I would be a little more open to the turtle-shell rattle folks, being practically married to someone who does alternative healing for a living. But, I can't help but have a bad taste in my mouth. After my original cranio sacral therapist all but kicked me to the curb two years ago, giving me the excuse that she just didn't think we should work together anymore... and after the naturopath I saw dismissed me after five minutes of consultation, I didn't want anything but a big, deadly machine to tell me what was wrong with my ears. Unfortunately, the stress of trying to rent this house has really exacerbated this ear thing lately, so, I decided to give in and see this illustrious Dr. Pat CLH has been raving about.

And, man alive, am I glad I did. She is everything CLH said she would be.

A little background: cranio sacral therapy is a healing modality in which the therapist, by subtly manipulating the plates of the skull, allows for the movement of cerebrospinal fluid within the head and spine. The general effect is that the patient feels relaxed, relieved, and maybe a little lightheaded. That's my scientific understanding of it, anyway. I'm sure a quick Google search will reveal that lots of people think it's pure quackery. To me, though, all medicine is just Dumbo's magic feather in a labcoat. And I say, whatever modality gets you feeling like you're at your optimum, go for it. I do things like accupuncture and craniosacral because I can physically feel the results, and the results are generally awesome. I am fully willing to admit that it might just be me convincing myself that it's working, but who cares? I'm of the belief that a little bit of positive thinking never hurt a healing process. Anywho, I could actually FEEL the effects of Dr. Pat's work. Not only could I feel the intended movement in my head, which left me feeling slightly nauseous but happy that SOMEthing was unsticking itself up there, I had some intense visualizations that were deeply moving.

Now, as if giving a woman $70 to gently rock my head back and forth doesn't sound desperate-for-relief and turtle shell rattle-y enough, my visualizations were pretty damned outta-this-world, too. My visualizations during my therapy sessions are always revealing in this profound sort of way, and what I saw while I was laying on Dr. Pat's table was nothing short of THE GREATEST METAPHOR IN MY LIFE EVER. I saw with my mind's eye that the inside of the left side of my head was all pink and plump and juicy- it looked kind of like what a healthy intestinal tract might look like, or maybe a healthy brain- all squiggly and bunched together, teeming with blood vessels and shiny with some deep-inside-the-body lubricant. The right side (the side where my throbbing, aching ear lives) looked like something out of a Hollywood set. It was a old tin box, irregularly shaped, and lining its insides was fuzzy grey mold. I had the sensation of old age, and neglect, and a little bit of Boo Radley's house. Then I had the feeling that Dr. Pat was reaching in there- I could see hands gently scooping out that mold. And I was grateful- grateful that someone wasn't grossed out by the state of my head, and grateful that she was brave enough to get in there and clean some of the crap out.

And that was all at 10 am that day.

Later on that same day, I had a great talk with my friend Tracy about writing. She's an aspiring writer, and she works part time for a non-profit that I do the books for. She's such an inspiration to me. She just up and decided one day that she'd had enough of her own excuse making, so she applied to a graduate program for creative writing, and now, two years and a degree later, she's got a mostly finished manuscript for a play she's written that's ready for production. She's been trying to talk me into signing up for this same program for some time now. Always curious about her process, and excited about her nearing graduation, I asked her to tell me the greatest lesson she's learned about her writing. And she told me that, prior to her program, she never made time for her writing. Even when she finally learned to schedule time to do it daily, she would double and triple book herself with appointments so she could avoid the computer. Now that she's gone through the program, she's learned that she needs to treat writing like the daily exercise/job it is. I cannot thank her enough for sharing that little nugget of wisdom. While she was talking, I thought about how much I needed to learn about making regular time for my writing. I shared the image of the musty tin box on my right side with her... and suddenly my brain made a synaptic jump. The right side of my body... the side that scientists say is the impetuous, artsy, feeling side... is starting to mold from disuse. The left side, the one that does math and science, the one that balances my checkbook, and the checkbooks of my clients, is alive and well. The mysterious bug bite that has taken a chunk out of my right leg... the fingernail injury... the ear.... all on my right side. All right side, right brain, art brain functionality experiencing a major breakdown. It was like my right side was just screaming at me to DO SOMETHING already. I'm a FREAKING BOX OF MOLD, FOR GOD'S SAKE. It was saying that I needed to replace that box with something vibrant, something pulsating with life and creativity! Something worthy of the right side of my brain, the side that writes and dreams and drifts off into plot lines all day long.

Well, damn. That little revelation was well worth $70.

That night, feeling still slightly queasy from my session with Dr. Pat, I decided to take a nap before heading out to see Lindsay perform her burlesque routine (which was AWESOME!). I couldn't sleep, though, because aside from the general grunting and laughing noise that was coming from the backyard full of CLH's friends through the windows, it sounded like someone was hammering on the pipes DIRECTLY underneath my bedroom floor. You see, we've found someone to live in and pay rent for the basement. It's a small step to getting this place full of money paying renters. She's been moving in for the past few weeks and it has suddenly been made very clear to me that there is NO NOISE BARRIER between the basement and the two rooms in the house I spend the most time in. I can hear EVERYthing from below. So, in a rage at not being able to get one moment's peace in my own home, I took off for the show early. And I drove to the coffeehouse that sells my favorite coffee and I hunkered down with a book and an americano for an hour before the show.

Of course, it never fails. Whenever I am by myself in public, I attract all sorts. An older man sat down next to my table and asked me what time the place closed. Now, I've heard ALL kinds of come-on lines... everything from "I like your hair" to "Do you know of a good place to dance around this city? 'Cause I was thinking you could show me some time..." This guy, though, wasn't trying to guess my sign. He was actually interested in the time. And when I told him, he followed up by asking if this coffee shop had always been a coffee shop. I closed my book, turned to him and the dog eared stack of papers he was holding in his lap and settled in a for a long conversation with another member of the I-Am-Weird-So-I-Will-Talk-To-YOU-Pretty-Accommodating-Lady club.

Thing is, though, he wasn't weird. On the contrary. He was one of the most interesting strangers I have ever met. He was a screenplay writer. That rumpled stack of paper in his lap that looked like it was covered in Klingon was actually a work in progress. Some of his screenplays had been turned into movies that were being shown at Seattle's International Film Festival! And he seemed genuinely interested in my writing when I said I was experimenting with this blog. He wanted to know what my message was. What it was I saying in my blog. And because "contemplative musings about mostly nothing" or "artful bitching" seemed a little too vague, I said I wasn't quite sure yet. That I was still trying to figure it out. Mostly my writing is exactly what a blog was designed for: diary entries about my chronic ear and intestinal blockages and also a place to moan about how much it sucks to shop at the health food store. And since that sounded incredibly self indulgent and not just a little lame as hell, I decided I would spend more time thinking about it over the next few days.

I haven't quite reached any decisions yet about anything. I am just so grateful for this new awareness in my life. so I am going to sit with it for a few days while my finger heals.

So, Thank you, Tracy, for teaching me that it's okay to hang a sock on the door when I'm busy writing. Thank you, Lindsay, for showing me that you still need to practice your craft even when you don't think it's perfect. Thank you, strange dude at coffee shop, for forcing me to dig down deep for my message. And thank you, Dr. Pat, for revealing to me the rusty insides of my creative machinery... and for the hand in clearing out all that space to make room for more writing.

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naturopaths

Artful Bitching and How To Realize When Your Body Is Telling You Something

Internet, I've been away, and I apologize. Typing has been extremely painful these last few days, so I have been resting my hands. I have a finger injury. Okay, it's more like a fingernail injury. I can't actually tell what it is because (if you're squeamish, now would be a good time to just skip to paragraph two) every time I try to trim back the cuticle around the middle finger of my right hand, blood and pus come oozing out, blocking my view of the wound site. CLH thought it might be a splinter, but I argued that a splinter should not make your finger ooze, nor should it make it numb. Plus, I should be able to see a splinter. And all I can see at this point is layer upon layer of ragged skin around my nail where I have been tearing away with my manicurist's tools for the past few days. That, and some dried blood. This is now the third or so mystery injury that I've sustained on the right side of my body. And if you think I take these kinds of things lightly, well then you have me mistaken for someone who is not ultra sensitive to every little thing and not just a little bit woo-woo.

The past few days have been odd and great.

I made an appointment to see a cranio-sacral therapist to help out with my ear stuff. CLH has been hounding me about making an appointment with this therapist for probably more than a year now, but I have been resisting. I didn't want anymore turtle-shell rattle-waving in my general direction from another "alternative therapist" before I went to a western MD and had my head x-ray'd for this ear issue. You'd think I would be a little more open to the turtle-shell rattle folks, being practically married to someone who does alternative healing for a living. But, I can't help but have a bad taste in my mouth. After my original cranio sacral therapist all but kicked me to the curb two years ago, giving me the excuse that she just didn't think we should work together anymore... and after the naturopath I saw dismissed me after five minutes of consultation, I didn't want anything but a big, deadly machine to tell me what was wrong with my ears. Unfortunately, the stress of trying to rent this house has really exacerbated this ear thing lately, so, I decided to give in and see this illustrious Dr. Pat CLH has been raving about.

And, man alive, am I glad I did. She is everything CLH said she would be.

A little background: cranio sacral therapy is a healing modality in which the therapist, by subtly manipulating the plates of the skull, allows for the movement of cerebrospinal fluid within the head and spine. The general effect is that the patient feels relaxed, relieved, and maybe a little lightheaded. That's my scientific understanding of it, anyway. I'm sure a quick Google search will reveal that lots of people think it's pure quackery. To me, though, all medicine is just Dumbo's magic feather in a labcoat. And I say, whatever modality gets you feeling like you're at your optimum, go for it. I do things like accupuncture and craniosacral because I can physically feel the results, and the results are generally awesome. I am fully willing to admit that it might just be me convincing myself that it's working, but who cares? I'm of the belief that a little bit of positive thinking never hurt a healing process. Anywho, I could actually FEEL the effects of Dr. Pat's work. Not only could I feel the intended movement in my head, which left me feeling slightly nauseous but happy that SOMEthing was unsticking itself up there, I had some intense visualizations that were deeply moving.

Now, as if giving a woman $70 to gently rock my head back and forth doesn't sound desperate-for-relief and turtle shell rattle-y enough, my visualizations were pretty damned outta-this-world, too. My visualizations during my therapy sessions are always revealing in this profound sort of way, and what I saw while I was laying on Dr. Pat's table was nothing short of THE GREATEST METAPHOR IN MY LIFE EVER. I saw with my mind's eye that the inside of the left side of my head was all pink and plump and juicy- it looked kind of like what a healthy intestinal tract might look like, or maybe a healthy brain- all squiggly and bunched together, teeming with blood vessels and shiny with some deep-inside-the-body lubricant. The right side (the side where my throbbing, aching ear lives) looked like something out of a Hollywood set. It was a old tin box, irregularly shaped, and lining its insides was fuzzy grey mold. I had the sensation of old age, and neglect, and a little bit of Boo Radley's house. Then I had the feeling that Dr. Pat was reaching in there- I could see hands gently scooping out that mold. And I was grateful- grateful that someone wasn't grossed out by the state of my head, and grateful that she was brave enough to get in there and clean some of the crap out.

And that was all at 10 am that day.

Later on that same day, I had a great talk with my friend Tracy about writing. She's an aspiring writer, and she works part time for a non-profit that I do the books for. She's such an inspiration to me. She just up and decided one day that she'd had enough of her own excuse making, so she applied to a graduate program for creative writing, and now, two years and a degree later, she's got a mostly finished manuscript for a play she's written that's ready for production. She's been trying to talk me into signing up for this same program for some time now. Always curious about her process, and excited about her nearing graduation, I asked her to tell me the greatest lesson she's learned about her writing. And she told me that, prior to her program, she never made time for her writing. Even when she finally learned to schedule time to do it daily, she would double and triple book herself with appointments so she could avoid the computer. Now that she's gone through the program, she's learned that she needs to treat writing like the daily exercise/job it is. I cannot thank her enough for sharing that little nugget of wisdom. While she was talking, I thought about how much I needed to learn about making regular time for my writing. I shared the image of the musty tin box on my right side with her... and suddenly my brain made a synaptic jump. The right side of my body... the side that scientists say is the impetuous, artsy, feeling side... is starting to mold from disuse. The left side, the one that does math and science, the one that balances my checkbook, and the checkbooks of my clients, is alive and well. The mysterious bug bite that has taken a chunk out of my right leg... the fingernail injury... the ear.... all on my right side. All right side, right brain, art brain functionality experiencing a major breakdown. It was like my right side was just screaming at me to DO SOMETHING already. I'm a FREAKING BOX OF MOLD, FOR GOD'S SAKE. It was saying that I needed to replace that box with something vibrant, something pulsating with life and creativity! Something worthy of the right side of my brain, the side that writes and dreams and drifts off into plot lines all day long.

Well, damn. That little revelation was well worth $70.

That night, feeling still slightly queasy from my session with Dr. Pat, I decided to take a nap before heading out to see Lindsay perform her burlesque routine (which was AWESOME!). I couldn't sleep, though, because aside from the general grunting and laughing noise that was coming from the backyard full of CLH's friends through the windows, it sounded like someone was hammering on the pipes DIRECTLY underneath my bedroom floor. You see, we've found someone to live in and pay rent for the basement. It's a small step to getting this place full of money paying renters. She's been moving in for the past few weeks and it has suddenly been made very clear to me that there is NO NOISE BARRIER between the basement and the two rooms in the house I spend the most time in. I can hear EVERYthing from below. So, in a rage at not being able to get one moment's peace in my own home, I took off for the show early. And I drove to the coffeehouse that sells my favorite coffee and I hunkered down with a book and an americano for an hour before the show.

Of course, it never fails. Whenever I am by myself in public, I attract all sorts. An older man sat down next to my table and asked me what time the place closed. Now, I've heard ALL kinds of come-on lines... everything from "I like your hair" to "Do you know of a good place to dance around this city? 'Cause I was thinking you could show me some time..." This guy, though, wasn't trying to guess my sign. He was actually interested in the time. And when I told him, he followed up by asking if this coffee shop had always been a coffee shop. I closed my book, turned to him and the dog eared stack of papers he was holding in his lap and settled in a for a long conversation with another member of the I-Am-Weird-So-I-Will-Talk-To-YOU-Pretty-Accommodating-Lady club.

Thing is, though, he wasn't weird. On the contrary. He was one of the most interesting strangers I have ever met. He was a screenplay writer. That rumpled stack of paper in his lap that looked like it was covered in Klingon was actually a work in progress. Some of his screenplays had been turned into movies that were being shown at Seattle's International Film Festival! And he seemed genuinely interested in my writing when I said I was experimenting with this blog. He wanted to know what my message was. What it was I saying in my blog. And because "contemplative musings about mostly nothing" or "artful bitching" seemed a little too vague, I said I wasn't quite sure yet. That I was still trying to figure it out. Mostly my writing is exactly what a blog was designed for: diary entries about my chronic ear and intestinal blockages and also a place to moan about how much it sucks to shop at the health food store. And since that sounded incredibly self indulgent and not just a little lame as hell, I decided I would spend more time thinking about it over the next few days.

I haven't quite reached any decisions yet about anything. I am just so grateful for this new awareness in my life. so I am going to sit with it for a few days while my finger heals.

So, Thank you, Tracy, for teaching me that it's okay to hang a sock on the door when I'm busy writing. Thank you, Lindsay, for showing me that you still need to practice your craft even when you don't think it's perfect. Thank you, strange dude at coffee shop, for forcing me to dig down deep for my message. And thank you, Dr. Pat, for revealing to me the rusty insides of my creative machinery... and for the hand in clearing out all that space to make room for more writing.

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visualizations

Artful Bitching and How To Realize When Your Body Is Telling You Something

Internet, I've been away, and I apologize. Typing has been extremely painful these last few days, so I have been resting my hands. I have a finger injury. Okay, it's more like a fingernail injury. I can't actually tell what it is because (if you're squeamish, now would be a good time to just skip to paragraph two) every time I try to trim back the cuticle around the middle finger of my right hand, blood and pus come oozing out, blocking my view of the wound site. CLH thought it might be a splinter, but I argued that a splinter should not make your finger ooze, nor should it make it numb. Plus, I should be able to see a splinter. And all I can see at this point is layer upon layer of ragged skin around my nail where I have been tearing away with my manicurist's tools for the past few days. That, and some dried blood. This is now the third or so mystery injury that I've sustained on the right side of my body. And if you think I take these kinds of things lightly, well then you have me mistaken for someone who is not ultra sensitive to every little thing and not just a little bit woo-woo.

The past few days have been odd and great.

I made an appointment to see a cranio-sacral therapist to help out with my ear stuff. CLH has been hounding me about making an appointment with this therapist for probably more than a year now, but I have been resisting. I didn't want anymore turtle-shell rattle-waving in my general direction from another "alternative therapist" before I went to a western MD and had my head x-ray'd for this ear issue. You'd think I would be a little more open to the turtle-shell rattle folks, being practically married to someone who does alternative healing for a living. But, I can't help but have a bad taste in my mouth. After my original cranio sacral therapist all but kicked me to the curb two years ago, giving me the excuse that she just didn't think we should work together anymore... and after the naturopath I saw dismissed me after five minutes of consultation, I didn't want anything but a big, deadly machine to tell me what was wrong with my ears. Unfortunately, the stress of trying to rent this house has really exacerbated this ear thing lately, so, I decided to give in and see this illustrious Dr. Pat CLH has been raving about.

And, man alive, am I glad I did. She is everything CLH said she would be.

A little background: cranio sacral therapy is a healing modality in which the therapist, by subtly manipulating the plates of the skull, allows for the movement of cerebrospinal fluid within the head and spine. The general effect is that the patient feels relaxed, relieved, and maybe a little lightheaded. That's my scientific understanding of it, anyway. I'm sure a quick Google search will reveal that lots of people think it's pure quackery. To me, though, all medicine is just Dumbo's magic feather in a labcoat. And I say, whatever modality gets you feeling like you're at your optimum, go for it. I do things like accupuncture and craniosacral because I can physically feel the results, and the results are generally awesome. I am fully willing to admit that it might just be me convincing myself that it's working, but who cares? I'm of the belief that a little bit of positive thinking never hurt a healing process. Anywho, I could actually FEEL the effects of Dr. Pat's work. Not only could I feel the intended movement in my head, which left me feeling slightly nauseous but happy that SOMEthing was unsticking itself up there, I had some intense visualizations that were deeply moving.

Now, as if giving a woman $70 to gently rock my head back and forth doesn't sound desperate-for-relief and turtle shell rattle-y enough, my visualizations were pretty damned outta-this-world, too. My visualizations during my therapy sessions are always revealing in this profound sort of way, and what I saw while I was laying on Dr. Pat's table was nothing short of THE GREATEST METAPHOR IN MY LIFE EVER. I saw with my mind's eye that the inside of the left side of my head was all pink and plump and juicy- it looked kind of like what a healthy intestinal tract might look like, or maybe a healthy brain- all squiggly and bunched together, teeming with blood vessels and shiny with some deep-inside-the-body lubricant. The right side (the side where my throbbing, aching ear lives) looked like something out of a Hollywood set. It was a old tin box, irregularly shaped, and lining its insides was fuzzy grey mold. I had the sensation of old age, and neglect, and a little bit of Boo Radley's house. Then I had the feeling that Dr. Pat was reaching in there- I could see hands gently scooping out that mold. And I was grateful- grateful that someone wasn't grossed out by the state of my head, and grateful that she was brave enough to get in there and clean some of the crap out.

And that was all at 10 am that day.

Later on that same day, I had a great talk with my friend Tracy about writing. She's an aspiring writer, and she works part time for a non-profit that I do the books for. She's such an inspiration to me. She just up and decided one day that she'd had enough of her own excuse making, so she applied to a graduate program for creative writing, and now, two years and a degree later, she's got a mostly finished manuscript for a play she's written that's ready for production. She's been trying to talk me into signing up for this same program for some time now. Always curious about her process, and excited about her nearing graduation, I asked her to tell me the greatest lesson she's learned about her writing. And she told me that, prior to her program, she never made time for her writing. Even when she finally learned to schedule time to do it daily, she would double and triple book herself with appointments so she could avoid the computer. Now that she's gone through the program, she's learned that she needs to treat writing like the daily exercise/job it is. I cannot thank her enough for sharing that little nugget of wisdom. While she was talking, I thought about how much I needed to learn about making regular time for my writing. I shared the image of the musty tin box on my right side with her... and suddenly my brain made a synaptic jump. The right side of my body... the side that scientists say is the impetuous, artsy, feeling side... is starting to mold from disuse. The left side, the one that does math and science, the one that balances my checkbook, and the checkbooks of my clients, is alive and well. The mysterious bug bite that has taken a chunk out of my right leg... the fingernail injury... the ear.... all on my right side. All right side, right brain, art brain functionality experiencing a major breakdown. It was like my right side was just screaming at me to DO SOMETHING already. I'm a FREAKING BOX OF MOLD, FOR GOD'S SAKE. It was saying that I needed to replace that box with something vibrant, something pulsating with life and creativity! Something worthy of the right side of my brain, the side that writes and dreams and drifts off into plot lines all day long.

Well, damn. That little revelation was well worth $70.

That night, feeling still slightly queasy from my session with Dr. Pat, I decided to take a nap before heading out to see Lindsay perform her burlesque routine (which was AWESOME!). I couldn't sleep, though, because aside from the general grunting and laughing noise that was coming from the backyard full of CLH's friends through the windows, it sounded like someone was hammering on the pipes DIRECTLY underneath my bedroom floor. You see, we've found someone to live in and pay rent for the basement. It's a small step to getting this place full of money paying renters. She's been moving in for the past few weeks and it has suddenly been made very clear to me that there is NO NOISE BARRIER between the basement and the two rooms in the house I spend the most time in. I can hear EVERYthing from below. So, in a rage at not being able to get one moment's peace in my own home, I took off for the show early. And I drove to the coffeehouse that sells my favorite coffee and I hunkered down with a book and an americano for an hour before the show.

Of course, it never fails. Whenever I am by myself in public, I attract all sorts. An older man sat down next to my table and asked me what time the place closed. Now, I've heard ALL kinds of come-on lines... everything from "I like your hair" to "Do you know of a good place to dance around this city? 'Cause I was thinking you could show me some time..." This guy, though, wasn't trying to guess my sign. He was actually interested in the time. And when I told him, he followed up by asking if this coffee shop had always been a coffee shop. I closed my book, turned to him and the dog eared stack of papers he was holding in his lap and settled in a for a long conversation with another member of the I-Am-Weird-So-I-Will-Talk-To-YOU-Pretty-Accommodating-Lady club.

Thing is, though, he wasn't weird. On the contrary. He was one of the most interesting strangers I have ever met. He was a screenplay writer. That rumpled stack of paper in his lap that looked like it was covered in Klingon was actually a work in progress. Some of his screenplays had been turned into movies that were being shown at Seattle's International Film Festival! And he seemed genuinely interested in my writing when I said I was experimenting with this blog. He wanted to know what my message was. What it was I saying in my blog. And because "contemplative musings about mostly nothing" or "artful bitching" seemed a little too vague, I said I wasn't quite sure yet. That I was still trying to figure it out. Mostly my writing is exactly what a blog was designed for: diary entries about my chronic ear and intestinal blockages and also a place to moan about how much it sucks to shop at the health food store. And since that sounded incredibly self indulgent and not just a little lame as hell, I decided I would spend more time thinking about it over the next few days.

I haven't quite reached any decisions yet about anything. I am just so grateful for this new awareness in my life. so I am going to sit with it for a few days while my finger heals.

So, Thank you, Tracy, for teaching me that it's okay to hang a sock on the door when I'm busy writing. Thank you, Lindsay, for showing me that you still need to practice your craft even when you don't think it's perfect. Thank you, strange dude at coffee shop, for forcing me to dig down deep for my message. And thank you, Dr. Pat, for revealing to me the rusty insides of my creative machinery... and for the hand in clearing out all that space to make room for more writing.

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church

Hallelujah, He Is RAWKING HARD!

Is it sacrilege to be thinking about the writing material a hymnal offers while you're attending a Jewish ceremony for a friend inside a Christian church? Because, if it's not, then I at least broke the commandment that states, "Thou shalt not find humor in the song title 'Eternal Christ, You Rule'".

The roomies invited me to their synagogue tonight to celebrate the recent conversion of our good friend. (Congrats, Josh!) And while I was able to follow the Hebrew along for most of the ceremony (the phonetic pronunciations were mercifully printed below the Hebrew letters in the booklet), my mind started to wander there at the end of the ceremony when I lost track of what page we were supposed to be on. Instead of nudging CLH and asking where we were, I picked up a hymnal tucked into the back of the pew in front of us and started thumbing through it. And, lo, there came upon me the most incredible hymn titles I had ever seen in print.

I was raised Catholic, in a very small church. I would not say I was raised in a church. I was raised by my Catholic parents who felt it was their duty to drag their four unwilling children away from their Sunday morning Abbot-&-Costello-on-public-television-routines to go to church, probably so they could be imbued by the priest with some sense of right and wrong (umm.... sorry that backfired so horribly, mom and dad). I can probably count on one hand the number of hymns I can remember being sung in church. And I say "being sung" because if there was anything worse than being dragged to an eerily lit, cold, cavernous building on Sunday when all you wanted to do was eat scrambled eggs and stay in your pajamas till three in the afternoon, it was having to sing in that eerily lit, cold, cavernous building. Singing was for the single old ladies at the back of the church... and Vicki's mom, whose singing God could probably hear from Heaven, it was that loud.

The hymns I remember were the ones we had to memorize for First Holy Communion... hymns like "Here I Am, Lord", and also the ones we sang during the mass like "Let There Be Peace On Earth". Stuff that sounded like, when accompanied by the slow pipe organ about a mile above us in the balcony, mules in their death throes.

The one that always made my heart catch in my throat, even as a young kid, was "Ave Maria". Maybe it was that I'd made the connection between the organ-led drudgery that was our church's version and the final chapter of Disney's "Fantasia"... when I understood, for the first time in my life, how songs can have multiple interpretations... or maybe it was that my mother's eyes glazed over and she smiled a little every time she heard it, and it was the only time in my life I ever really saw her in a state of silent reverence... or maybe it was that, after mindlessly following along in the hymnal for so many years, at age 15 (having passed Latin I in high school) I could finally understand that "Ave Maria" meant "praise for Mary" and not "Maria Street"... but that song always brought me to tears. Of course, most of the other hymns brought me to tears too, but that was because I was so bored at church, crying seemed like a good alternative to crushing my feet for fun in the hinge of the kneeler.

The hymns I found in the hymnal tonight were actual songs of praise. They seemed like something someone might sing when excited about their god. Definitely not the obligatory "wearecatholicandwesingbecausethisisthepartofthemasswherewesiiii-iiiiing" songs. The titles of these things were amazing. At one point, I mistook the words "eternal splendor" for "eternal spider" and I almost asked out loud, "WHERE HAVE THESE SONGS BEEN MY WHOLE LIFE?"

There were so many songs from different countries, too! Spanish songs, and South African songs, and one from Japan, titled "Ah What Shame I Have To Bear".

After I'd cleared out of my head the image of a giant arachnid seated at the Right Hand of The Father, I stumbled upon my favorite: "Behold The Host All Robed In Light". I don't want to admit just how spiritually bankrupt I am, but I think the fact that I thought of, first, a dinner party I throw where I am wearing nothing but light, and secondly, a parasite making its victim all glow-y, might indicate that I have lost my religion entirely.

When I really think about it, I guess still believe in the basic tenets of Catholicism. I didn't really know I still believed in them until just recently when I had the opportunity to really compare them to the belief systems of other types of Christianity; but the guiding principals of my life (do unto others as you would have done unto you, love thy neighbor as thyself) are still actively guiding my adult decisions. What the Catholic church is going through right now with the sex scandals is horrific and understandably devastating. But, I never (thank Flying Spaghetti Monster) had any inappropriate experiences with priests... nor do I really identify with the guilt that most folks associate with Catholicism, nor was I taught to snub any of the other religions out there. My Catholicism was pretty kind, and humble, and considerate, above all, of others.

I don't go to church, and I don't do much else on Christian holidays but eat candy, but I am thankful for the groundwork my parents laid for me. I have to believe that all those years of having to endure Vicki's mom belting out "Hallelujah" into the stratosphere, and missing the Sunday Early Movie left me with some moral fiber. Just not the kind that considers snickering at hymnal titles in church a sin.

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hymns

Hallelujah, He Is RAWKING HARD!

Is it sacrilege to be thinking about the writing material a hymnal offers while you're attending a Jewish ceremony for a friend inside a Christian church? Because, if it's not, then I at least broke the commandment that states, "Thou shalt not find humor in the song title 'Eternal Christ, You Rule'".

The roomies invited me to their synagogue tonight to celebrate the recent conversion of our good friend. (Congrats, Josh!) And while I was able to follow the Hebrew along for most of the ceremony (the phonetic pronunciations were mercifully printed below the Hebrew letters in the booklet), my mind started to wander there at the end of the ceremony when I lost track of what page we were supposed to be on. Instead of nudging CLH and asking where we were, I picked up a hymnal tucked into the back of the pew in front of us and started thumbing through it. And, lo, there came upon me the most incredible hymn titles I had ever seen in print.

I was raised Catholic, in a very small church. I would not say I was raised in a church. I was raised by my Catholic parents who felt it was their duty to drag their four unwilling children away from their Sunday morning Abbot-&-Costello-on-public-television-routines to go to church, probably so they could be imbued by the priest with some sense of right and wrong (umm.... sorry that backfired so horribly, mom and dad). I can probably count on one hand the number of hymns I can remember being sung in church. And I say "being sung" because if there was anything worse than being dragged to an eerily lit, cold, cavernous building on Sunday when all you wanted to do was eat scrambled eggs and stay in your pajamas till three in the afternoon, it was having to sing in that eerily lit, cold, cavernous building. Singing was for the single old ladies at the back of the church... and Vicki's mom, whose singing God could probably hear from Heaven, it was that loud.

The hymns I remember were the ones we had to memorize for First Holy Communion... hymns like "Here I Am, Lord", and also the ones we sang during the mass like "Let There Be Peace On Earth". Stuff that sounded like, when accompanied by the slow pipe organ about a mile above us in the balcony, mules in their death throes.

The one that always made my heart catch in my throat, even as a young kid, was "Ave Maria". Maybe it was that I'd made the connection between the organ-led drudgery that was our church's version and the final chapter of Disney's "Fantasia"... when I understood, for the first time in my life, how songs can have multiple interpretations... or maybe it was that my mother's eyes glazed over and she smiled a little every time she heard it, and it was the only time in my life I ever really saw her in a state of silent reverence... or maybe it was that, after mindlessly following along in the hymnal for so many years, at age 15 (having passed Latin I in high school) I could finally understand that "Ave Maria" meant "praise for Mary" and not "Maria Street"... but that song always brought me to tears. Of course, most of the other hymns brought me to tears too, but that was because I was so bored at church, crying seemed like a good alternative to crushing my feet for fun in the hinge of the kneeler.

The hymns I found in the hymnal tonight were actual songs of praise. They seemed like something someone might sing when excited about their god. Definitely not the obligatory "wearecatholicandwesingbecausethisisthepartofthemasswherewesiiii-iiiiing" songs. The titles of these things were amazing. At one point, I mistook the words "eternal splendor" for "eternal spider" and I almost asked out loud, "WHERE HAVE THESE SONGS BEEN MY WHOLE LIFE?"

There were so many songs from different countries, too! Spanish songs, and South African songs, and one from Japan, titled "Ah What Shame I Have To Bear".

After I'd cleared out of my head the image of a giant arachnid seated at the Right Hand of The Father, I stumbled upon my favorite: "Behold The Host All Robed In Light". I don't want to admit just how spiritually bankrupt I am, but I think the fact that I thought of, first, a dinner party I throw where I am wearing nothing but light, and secondly, a parasite making its victim all glow-y, might indicate that I have lost my religion entirely.

When I really think about it, I guess still believe in the basic tenets of Catholicism. I didn't really know I still believed in them until just recently when I had the opportunity to really compare them to the belief systems of other types of Christianity; but the guiding principals of my life (do unto others as you would have done unto you, love thy neighbor as thyself) are still actively guiding my adult decisions. What the Catholic church is going through right now with the sex scandals is horrific and understandably devastating. But, I never (thank Flying Spaghetti Monster) had any inappropriate experiences with priests... nor do I really identify with the guilt that most folks associate with Catholicism, nor was I taught to snub any of the other religions out there. My Catholicism was pretty kind, and humble, and considerate, above all, of others.

I don't go to church, and I don't do much else on Christian holidays but eat candy, but I am thankful for the groundwork my parents laid for me. I have to believe that all those years of having to endure Vicki's mom belting out "Hallelujah" into the stratosphere, and missing the Sunday Early Movie left me with some moral fiber. Just not the kind that considers snickering at hymnal titles in church a sin.

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religion

Hallelujah, He Is RAWKING HARD!

Is it sacrilege to be thinking about the writing material a hymnal offers while you're attending a Jewish ceremony for a friend inside a Christian church? Because, if it's not, then I at least broke the commandment that states, "Thou shalt not find humor in the song title 'Eternal Christ, You Rule'".

The roomies invited me to their synagogue tonight to celebrate the recent conversion of our good friend. (Congrats, Josh!) And while I was able to follow the Hebrew along for most of the ceremony (the phonetic pronunciations were mercifully printed below the Hebrew letters in the booklet), my mind started to wander there at the end of the ceremony when I lost track of what page we were supposed to be on. Instead of nudging CLH and asking where we were, I picked up a hymnal tucked into the back of the pew in front of us and started thumbing through it. And, lo, there came upon me the most incredible hymn titles I had ever seen in print.

I was raised Catholic, in a very small church. I would not say I was raised in a church. I was raised by my Catholic parents who felt it was their duty to drag their four unwilling children away from their Sunday morning Abbot-&-Costello-on-public-television-routines to go to church, probably so they could be imbued by the priest with some sense of right and wrong (umm.... sorry that backfired so horribly, mom and dad). I can probably count on one hand the number of hymns I can remember being sung in church. And I say "being sung" because if there was anything worse than being dragged to an eerily lit, cold, cavernous building on Sunday when all you wanted to do was eat scrambled eggs and stay in your pajamas till three in the afternoon, it was having to sing in that eerily lit, cold, cavernous building. Singing was for the single old ladies at the back of the church... and Vicki's mom, whose singing God could probably hear from Heaven, it was that loud.

The hymns I remember were the ones we had to memorize for First Holy Communion... hymns like "Here I Am, Lord", and also the ones we sang during the mass like "Let There Be Peace On Earth". Stuff that sounded like, when accompanied by the slow pipe organ about a mile above us in the balcony, mules in their death throes.

The one that always made my heart catch in my throat, even as a young kid, was "Ave Maria". Maybe it was that I'd made the connection between the organ-led drudgery that was our church's version and the final chapter of Disney's "Fantasia"... when I understood, for the first time in my life, how songs can have multiple interpretations... or maybe it was that my mother's eyes glazed over and she smiled a little every time she heard it, and it was the only time in my life I ever really saw her in a state of silent reverence... or maybe it was that, after mindlessly following along in the hymnal for so many years, at age 15 (having passed Latin I in high school) I could finally understand that "Ave Maria" meant "praise for Mary" and not "Maria Street"... but that song always brought me to tears. Of course, most of the other hymns brought me to tears too, but that was because I was so bored at church, crying seemed like a good alternative to crushing my feet for fun in the hinge of the kneeler.

The hymns I found in the hymnal tonight were actual songs of praise. They seemed like something someone might sing when excited about their god. Definitely not the obligatory "wearecatholicandwesingbecausethisisthepartofthemasswherewesiiii-iiiiing" songs. The titles of these things were amazing. At one point, I mistook the words "eternal splendor" for "eternal spider" and I almost asked out loud, "WHERE HAVE THESE SONGS BEEN MY WHOLE LIFE?"

There were so many songs from different countries, too! Spanish songs, and South African songs, and one from Japan, titled "Ah What Shame I Have To Bear".

After I'd cleared out of my head the image of a giant arachnid seated at the Right Hand of The Father, I stumbled upon my favorite: "Behold The Host All Robed In Light". I don't want to admit just how spiritually bankrupt I am, but I think the fact that I thought of, first, a dinner party I throw where I am wearing nothing but light, and secondly, a parasite making its victim all glow-y, might indicate that I have lost my religion entirely.

When I really think about it, I guess still believe in the basic tenets of Catholicism. I didn't really know I still believed in them until just recently when I had the opportunity to really compare them to the belief systems of other types of Christianity; but the guiding principals of my life (do unto others as you would have done unto you, love thy neighbor as thyself) are still actively guiding my adult decisions. What the Catholic church is going through right now with the sex scandals is horrific and understandably devastating. But, I never (thank Flying Spaghetti Monster) had any inappropriate experiences with priests... nor do I really identify with the guilt that most folks associate with Catholicism, nor was I taught to snub any of the other religions out there. My Catholicism was pretty kind, and humble, and considerate, above all, of others.

I don't go to church, and I don't do much else on Christian holidays but eat candy, but I am thankful for the groundwork my parents laid for me. I have to believe that all those years of having to endure Vicki's mom belting out "Hallelujah" into the stratosphere, and missing the Sunday Early Movie left me with some moral fiber. Just not the kind that considers snickering at hymnal titles in church a sin.

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synagogue

Hallelujah, He Is RAWKING HARD!

Is it sacrilege to be thinking about the writing material a hymnal offers while you're attending a Jewish ceremony for a friend inside a Christian church? Because, if it's not, then I at least broke the commandment that states, "Thou shalt not find humor in the song title 'Eternal Christ, You Rule'".

The roomies invited me to their synagogue tonight to celebrate the recent conversion of our good friend. (Congrats, Josh!) And while I was able to follow the Hebrew along for most of the ceremony (the phonetic pronunciations were mercifully printed below the Hebrew letters in the booklet), my mind started to wander there at the end of the ceremony when I lost track of what page we were supposed to be on. Instead of nudging CLH and asking where we were, I picked up a hymnal tucked into the back of the pew in front of us and started thumbing through it. And, lo, there came upon me the most incredible hymn titles I had ever seen in print.

I was raised Catholic, in a very small church. I would not say I was raised in a church. I was raised by my Catholic parents who felt it was their duty to drag their four unwilling children away from their Sunday morning Abbot-&-Costello-on-public-television-routines to go to church, probably so they could be imbued by the priest with some sense of right and wrong (umm.... sorry that backfired so horribly, mom and dad). I can probably count on one hand the number of hymns I can remember being sung in church. And I say "being sung" because if there was anything worse than being dragged to an eerily lit, cold, cavernous building on Sunday when all you wanted to do was eat scrambled eggs and stay in your pajamas till three in the afternoon, it was having to sing in that eerily lit, cold, cavernous building. Singing was for the single old ladies at the back of the church... and Vicki's mom, whose singing God could probably hear from Heaven, it was that loud.

The hymns I remember were the ones we had to memorize for First Holy Communion... hymns like "Here I Am, Lord", and also the ones we sang during the mass like "Let There Be Peace On Earth". Stuff that sounded like, when accompanied by the slow pipe organ about a mile above us in the balcony, mules in their death throes.

The one that always made my heart catch in my throat, even as a young kid, was "Ave Maria". Maybe it was that I'd made the connection between the organ-led drudgery that was our church's version and the final chapter of Disney's "Fantasia"... when I understood, for the first time in my life, how songs can have multiple interpretations... or maybe it was that my mother's eyes glazed over and she smiled a little every time she heard it, and it was the only time in my life I ever really saw her in a state of silent reverence... or maybe it was that, after mindlessly following along in the hymnal for so many years, at age 15 (having passed Latin I in high school) I could finally understand that "Ave Maria" meant "praise for Mary" and not "Maria Street"... but that song always brought me to tears. Of course, most of the other hymns brought me to tears too, but that was because I was so bored at church, crying seemed like a good alternative to crushing my feet for fun in the hinge of the kneeler.

The hymns I found in the hymnal tonight were actual songs of praise. They seemed like something someone might sing when excited about their god. Definitely not the obligatory "wearecatholicandwesingbecausethisisthepartofthemasswherewesiiii-iiiiing" songs. The titles of these things were amazing. At one point, I mistook the words "eternal splendor" for "eternal spider" and I almost asked out loud, "WHERE HAVE THESE SONGS BEEN MY WHOLE LIFE?"

There were so many songs from different countries, too! Spanish songs, and South African songs, and one from Japan, titled "Ah What Shame I Have To Bear".

After I'd cleared out of my head the image of a giant arachnid seated at the Right Hand of The Father, I stumbled upon my favorite: "Behold The Host All Robed In Light". I don't want to admit just how spiritually bankrupt I am, but I think the fact that I thought of, first, a dinner party I throw where I am wearing nothing but light, and secondly, a parasite making its victim all glow-y, might indicate that I have lost my religion entirely.

When I really think about it, I guess still believe in the basic tenets of Catholicism. I didn't really know I still believed in them until just recently when I had the opportunity to really compare them to the belief systems of other types of Christianity; but the guiding principals of my life (do unto others as you would have done unto you, love thy neighbor as thyself) are still actively guiding my adult decisions. What the Catholic church is going through right now with the sex scandals is horrific and understandably devastating. But, I never (thank Flying Spaghetti Monster) had any inappropriate experiences with priests... nor do I really identify with the guilt that most folks associate with Catholicism, nor was I taught to snub any of the other religions out there. My Catholicism was pretty kind, and humble, and considerate, above all, of others.

I don't go to church, and I don't do much else on Christian holidays but eat candy, but I am thankful for the groundwork my parents laid for me. I have to believe that all those years of having to endure Vicki's mom belting out "Hallelujah" into the stratosphere, and missing the Sunday Early Movie left me with some moral fiber. Just not the kind that considers snickering at hymnal titles in church a sin.

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Goodwill

Wherein My Demands For Lightheartedness Confuse Serious Young Children

I can't explain my compulsion to anthropomorphize every object I own. I just know that I name nearly every piece of tchatchki that comes into my life the way a pet owner might her beloved litter of puppies. Don't dare refer to my reading chair as "that dingy thing you got for half price at Pier One". That's Chairy. And she can hear you when you talk about her that way. And that battery powered chewing-action kimono lizard we acquired during our toy-buying dot com days? Well, that's Karl. And he would greatly appreciate it if you didn't pick him up by his meaty rubber tail like that.

If there was ever a reason to want to be monitored by the CIA, I've got as good a reason as any. Between the weird alien language that CLH and I have cultivated to talk cute to one another in, and my drooling idiot names for common household objects, I'd say I'd be able to give any code cracker a good run for his money.

This habit is so out of control that I've actually got my friends calling my possessions by the inane names I've given them. The roomies now call the 100 pounds of acrylic and wool I crocheted for CLH one Christmas "Blankie". Our 24 inch long oversized wooden ladle? Well, that's non other than "Brunhilda". And then there's our longtime favorite, Sugar Chicken.

Sugar Chicken is a re-purposed jelly bean bowl that now houses our sugar. She came to me from a friend who'd received it as a gift from her grandma. It was on its way to Goodwill when I spotted it in my friend's donation box. I took one look at her smoky lime green glass, her chipped midsection, her hollowed out middle still harboring a jelly bean or two, and I decided she would make the perfect sugar bowl. I took her home (my friend incredulous that I would take such googly-eyed delight in the worst America had to offer in home decor) and filled her up.

Something happened with Sugar Chicken that didn't happen with all the other stuff I've assigned names to. Sugar Chicken compelled me to sing a song when I used her. Specifically, I started singing "Sugar Sugar" from the Archies. Only, instead of singing "Sugar Sugar", I sang "Sugar Chicken....dunh dunh DUNH dunh dunh-dunh.... Oh, honey honey... You are my sugar BO-O-O-O-WL, and you've got me wanting y-o-u-u-u-u-u".

And somehow, this tradition of singing the sugar bowl open became unwritten law in our house. No one, not even guests, could use the sugar bowl without first singing the first lines of "Sugar Sugar". Of course, I was more than happy to get them started.... and once they saw the deranged pleasure I took in singing to a glass bowl, they were free to spoon the sugar into their coffees (and make a mental note to bring their own sweetener to the next brunch I hosted.)

The institutionalization of this custom became very real in our house just a few weeks ago when our friend Jodi and her 5 year old son, Sage, came to spend the night. The night they arrived, we sat around drinking coffee, sweetened, naturally, by Sugar Chicken. CLH informed Sage, in a mock serious tone, that we never EVER open up Sugar Chicken without first singing the Sugar Chicken song. We all then commenced singing the Sugar Chicken song. Sage took in the scene of five grown adults gathered around a chicken-shaped bowl singing a 1960s pop song and I imagine he stored it in the part of his brain labeled "Cult Experiences I Had As A Child That Now Prevent Me From Eating Chicken And Sugar".

The next morning, Josh came downstairs and found Sage hard at work herding all the slugs in our front yard into a new "home" constructed of leaves and twigs. Sage had been up for a while before any of the other adults were out of bed. He came in to the kitchen to chat with Josh while Josh prepared breakfast. As Josh was getting the coffee going, Sage stopped him and said, with deadly seriousness in his voice, "Um, you don't need to sing the Sugar Chicken song this morning because I already did".

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the legacy I will be leaving to our youth.

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Josh

Wherein My Demands For Lightheartedness Confuse Serious Young Children

I can't explain my compulsion to anthropomorphize every object I own. I just know that I name nearly every piece of tchatchki that comes into my life the way a pet owner might her beloved litter of puppies. Don't dare refer to my reading chair as "that dingy thing you got for half price at Pier One". That's Chairy. And she can hear you when you talk about her that way. And that battery powered chewing-action kimono lizard we acquired during our toy-buying dot com days? Well, that's Karl. And he would greatly appreciate it if you didn't pick him up by his meaty rubber tail like that.

If there was ever a reason to want to be monitored by the CIA, I've got as good a reason as any. Between the weird alien language that CLH and I have cultivated to talk cute to one another in, and my drooling idiot names for common household objects, I'd say I'd be able to give any code cracker a good run for his money.

This habit is so out of control that I've actually got my friends calling my possessions by the inane names I've given them. The roomies now call the 100 pounds of acrylic and wool I crocheted for CLH one Christmas "Blankie". Our 24 inch long oversized wooden ladle? Well, that's non other than "Brunhilda". And then there's our longtime favorite, Sugar Chicken.

Sugar Chicken is a re-purposed jelly bean bowl that now houses our sugar. She came to me from a friend who'd received it as a gift from her grandma. It was on its way to Goodwill when I spotted it in my friend's donation box. I took one look at her smoky lime green glass, her chipped midsection, her hollowed out middle still harboring a jelly bean or two, and I decided she would make the perfect sugar bowl. I took her home (my friend incredulous that I would take such googly-eyed delight in the worst America had to offer in home decor) and filled her up.

Something happened with Sugar Chicken that didn't happen with all the other stuff I've assigned names to. Sugar Chicken compelled me to sing a song when I used her. Specifically, I started singing "Sugar Sugar" from the Archies. Only, instead of singing "Sugar Sugar", I sang "Sugar Chicken....dunh dunh DUNH dunh dunh-dunh.... Oh, honey honey... You are my sugar BO-O-O-O-WL, and you've got me wanting y-o-u-u-u-u-u".

And somehow, this tradition of singing the sugar bowl open became unwritten law in our house. No one, not even guests, could use the sugar bowl without first singing the first lines of "Sugar Sugar". Of course, I was more than happy to get them started.... and once they saw the deranged pleasure I took in singing to a glass bowl, they were free to spoon the sugar into their coffees (and make a mental note to bring their own sweetener to the next brunch I hosted.)

The institutionalization of this custom became very real in our house just a few weeks ago when our friend Jodi and her 5 year old son, Sage, came to spend the night. The night they arrived, we sat around drinking coffee, sweetened, naturally, by Sugar Chicken. CLH informed Sage, in a mock serious tone, that we never EVER open up Sugar Chicken without first singing the Sugar Chicken song. We all then commenced singing the Sugar Chicken song. Sage took in the scene of five grown adults gathered around a chicken-shaped bowl singing a 1960s pop song and I imagine he stored it in the part of his brain labeled "Cult Experiences I Had As A Child That Now Prevent Me From Eating Chicken And Sugar".

The next morning, Josh came downstairs and found Sage hard at work herding all the slugs in our front yard into a new "home" constructed of leaves and twigs. Sage had been up for a while before any of the other adults were out of bed. He came in to the kitchen to chat with Josh while Josh prepared breakfast. As Josh was getting the coffee going, Sage stopped him and said, with deadly seriousness in his voice, "Um, you don't need to sing the Sugar Chicken song this morning because I already did".

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the legacy I will be leaving to our youth.

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Sage

Wherein My Demands For Lightheartedness Confuse Serious Young Children

I can't explain my compulsion to anthropomorphize every object I own. I just know that I name nearly every piece of tchatchki that comes into my life the way a pet owner might her beloved litter of puppies. Don't dare refer to my reading chair as "that dingy thing you got for half price at Pier One". That's Chairy. And she can hear you when you talk about her that way. And that battery powered chewing-action kimono lizard we acquired during our toy-buying dot com days? Well, that's Karl. And he would greatly appreciate it if you didn't pick him up by his meaty rubber tail like that.

If there was ever a reason to want to be monitored by the CIA, I've got as good a reason as any. Between the weird alien language that CLH and I have cultivated to talk cute to one another in, and my drooling idiot names for common household objects, I'd say I'd be able to give any code cracker a good run for his money.

This habit is so out of control that I've actually got my friends calling my possessions by the inane names I've given them. The roomies now call the 100 pounds of acrylic and wool I crocheted for CLH one Christmas "Blankie". Our 24 inch long oversized wooden ladle? Well, that's non other than "Brunhilda". And then there's our longtime favorite, Sugar Chicken.

Sugar Chicken is a re-purposed jelly bean bowl that now houses our sugar. She came to me from a friend who'd received it as a gift from her grandma. It was on its way to Goodwill when I spotted it in my friend's donation box. I took one look at her smoky lime green glass, her chipped midsection, her hollowed out middle still harboring a jelly bean or two, and I decided she would make the perfect sugar bowl. I took her home (my friend incredulous that I would take such googly-eyed delight in the worst America had to offer in home decor) and filled her up.

Something happened with Sugar Chicken that didn't happen with all the other stuff I've assigned names to. Sugar Chicken compelled me to sing a song when I used her. Specifically, I started singing "Sugar Sugar" from the Archies. Only, instead of singing "Sugar Sugar", I sang "Sugar Chicken....dunh dunh DUNH dunh dunh-dunh.... Oh, honey honey... You are my sugar BO-O-O-O-WL, and you've got me wanting y-o-u-u-u-u-u".

And somehow, this tradition of singing the sugar bowl open became unwritten law in our house. No one, not even guests, could use the sugar bowl without first singing the first lines of "Sugar Sugar". Of course, I was more than happy to get them started.... and once they saw the deranged pleasure I took in singing to a glass bowl, they were free to spoon the sugar into their coffees (and make a mental note to bring their own sweetener to the next brunch I hosted.)

The institutionalization of this custom became very real in our house just a few weeks ago when our friend Jodi and her 5 year old son, Sage, came to spend the night. The night they arrived, we sat around drinking coffee, sweetened, naturally, by Sugar Chicken. CLH informed Sage, in a mock serious tone, that we never EVER open up Sugar Chicken without first singing the Sugar Chicken song. We all then commenced singing the Sugar Chicken song. Sage took in the scene of five grown adults gathered around a chicken-shaped bowl singing a 1960s pop song and I imagine he stored it in the part of his brain labeled "Cult Experiences I Had As A Child That Now Prevent Me From Eating Chicken And Sugar".

The next morning, Josh came downstairs and found Sage hard at work herding all the slugs in our front yard into a new "home" constructed of leaves and twigs. Sage had been up for a while before any of the other adults were out of bed. He came in to the kitchen to chat with Josh while Josh prepared breakfast. As Josh was getting the coffee going, Sage stopped him and said, with deadly seriousness in his voice, "Um, you don't need to sing the Sugar Chicken song this morning because I already did".

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the legacy I will be leaving to our youth.

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Sugar Chicken

Wherein My Demands For Lightheartedness Confuse Serious Young Children

I can't explain my compulsion to anthropomorphize every object I own. I just know that I name nearly every piece of tchatchki that comes into my life the way a pet owner might her beloved litter of puppies. Don't dare refer to my reading chair as "that dingy thing you got for half price at Pier One". That's Chairy. And she can hear you when you talk about her that way. And that battery powered chewing-action kimono lizard we acquired during our toy-buying dot com days? Well, that's Karl. And he would greatly appreciate it if you didn't pick him up by his meaty rubber tail like that.

If there was ever a reason to want to be monitored by the CIA, I've got as good a reason as any. Between the weird alien language that CLH and I have cultivated to talk cute to one another in, and my drooling idiot names for common household objects, I'd say I'd be able to give any code cracker a good run for his money.

This habit is so out of control that I've actually got my friends calling my possessions by the inane names I've given them. The roomies now call the 100 pounds of acrylic and wool I crocheted for CLH one Christmas "Blankie". Our 24 inch long oversized wooden ladle? Well, that's non other than "Brunhilda". And then there's our longtime favorite, Sugar Chicken.

Sugar Chicken is a re-purposed jelly bean bowl that now houses our sugar. She came to me from a friend who'd received it as a gift from her grandma. It was on its way to Goodwill when I spotted it in my friend's donation box. I took one look at her smoky lime green glass, her chipped midsection, her hollowed out middle still harboring a jelly bean or two, and I decided she would make the perfect sugar bowl. I took her home (my friend incredulous that I would take such googly-eyed delight in the worst America had to offer in home decor) and filled her up.

Something happened with Sugar Chicken that didn't happen with all the other stuff I've assigned names to. Sugar Chicken compelled me to sing a song when I used her. Specifically, I started singing "Sugar Sugar" from the Archies. Only, instead of singing "Sugar Sugar", I sang "Sugar Chicken....dunh dunh DUNH dunh dunh-dunh.... Oh, honey honey... You are my sugar BO-O-O-O-WL, and you've got me wanting y-o-u-u-u-u-u".

And somehow, this tradition of singing the sugar bowl open became unwritten law in our house. No one, not even guests, could use the sugar bowl without first singing the first lines of "Sugar Sugar". Of course, I was more than happy to get them started.... and once they saw the deranged pleasure I took in singing to a glass bowl, they were free to spoon the sugar into their coffees (and make a mental note to bring their own sweetener to the next brunch I hosted.)

The institutionalization of this custom became very real in our house just a few weeks ago when our friend Jodi and her 5 year old son, Sage, came to spend the night. The night they arrived, we sat around drinking coffee, sweetened, naturally, by Sugar Chicken. CLH informed Sage, in a mock serious tone, that we never EVER open up Sugar Chicken without first singing the Sugar Chicken song. We all then commenced singing the Sugar Chicken song. Sage took in the scene of five grown adults gathered around a chicken-shaped bowl singing a 1960s pop song and I imagine he stored it in the part of his brain labeled "Cult Experiences I Had As A Child That Now Prevent Me From Eating Chicken And Sugar".

The next morning, Josh came downstairs and found Sage hard at work herding all the slugs in our front yard into a new "home" constructed of leaves and twigs. Sage had been up for a while before any of the other adults were out of bed. He came in to the kitchen to chat with Josh while Josh prepared breakfast. As Josh was getting the coffee going, Sage stopped him and said, with deadly seriousness in his voice, "Um, you don't need to sing the Sugar Chicken song this morning because I already did".

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the legacy I will be leaving to our youth.

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Meniere's Disease

My Ear Problems Could Be Due To My Recent Decapitation. Who Knew?

Well, it's official. I've got Meniere's Diease, or, as I like to call it "Constant Diet of Extruded Corn Meal Covered In Dehydrated Cheese Powder" Disease.

It sounds all exotic and lethal, doesn't it? Meniere's Diease. I like to say it with an exaggerated French accent just so I can pull as much drama as possible out of having an inner ear imbalance caused by addiction to food the color of traffic cones. I don't mean to diminish the pain and suffering others have endured because of this disease; I feel deeply sympathetic. I've lived with this feeling of low grade nausea and discomfort for four years now and it is no picnic. It's just that now that I know how I came to acquire this disease (my own poor eating habits), I don't feel compelled to be all grave and serious when I talk about it. Which is surprising for me, because I usually know exactly when it is appropriate to take things seriously. Like when I need to ask a convenience store clerk if he carries a snack product with the word "Doodle" in its name.

Though the origins are debatable, most doctors think it's caused by an imbalance of sodium in the body. The symptoms range from vertigo, a fullness in one ear, dizziness, tinnitus, hearing loss, and lovely little thing called nystagmus, a "jumping" in your eyeball when exposed to stimuli. And, in keeping with my fanaticism for collecting all things odd and rare, I've managed to add all these wonderfully uncomfortable items to my curio cabinet of health.

Two years ago, I started the process of trying to figure out why my ear hurt when I slept on my left side, and it has led me through a series of tests, including an Audiogram (in which I learned I had lost some of my hearing in my right ear) an MRI, an ECOG, and an ENG, and, most recently, it led me to the doctor who said I was exhibiting pretty classic symptoms of Meniere's Diease. I cannot relate in words how incredibly RELIEVING it is to finally have something to call this annoyance AND to have something to do about it.

Of course, though I am willing and ready to make the necessary adjustments in my life, I am none too happy about it. Plain and simple, I have to lower my salt intake. And, as my doctor pantomimed by shaking her hand in the air above an imaginary plate of food, it's not just the salt I put on my food I have to reduce. She said I would need to lower my intake of processed foods and prepackaged foods. And when she said this, I thought to myself, "Now wait a minute. I'm a most-of-the-time vegetarian who cooks for herself using mostly organic ingredients. I NEVER eat processed foods.... unless, of course... you count the metric tons of salty snacks I eat. mean, I guess you could consider the onion and corn pulp that's been dehydrated, salted, and flash fried into the shape of a ring "processed food". Oh. Wait a second. I eat METRIC TONS OF PROCESSED FOOD." Have you heard about my love for all things curled and cheesy and salty? It is an unnatural love. And I don't even want to tell you what I would do to get my hands on a certain brand of cheddar cheese goldfish crackers. Let's just say it might involve a criminal investigation.

The most recent visit to the doctor's office included an audiogram (wherein the lover-of-all-things-spreadsheet-able in me ignored the fact that the graph was of my own hearing loss and got all hot and bothered by seeing it mapped out on an x and y axis anyway). There was also the requisite wait in the lobby while I filled out an intake form.

And maybe it was because I was feeling extra grumpy that day because that morning I'd woken up with some more classic Meniere's Disease pain, or maybe it was because the receptionist gave me an incredulous "Are you nuts?" look when I told her no, I was no longer with Regence, that I don't have health insurance... but I felt I needed to correct the third grade vocabulary word spelling error on that intake form with a bit of vengeance.

The intake form was worded to determine whether or not my ear pain might have been caused by something like exposure to repetitive loud noises in the workplace, certain diseases, and/or trauma to the head. REALLY BAD trauma to the head.

I present to you now, compliments of my camera phone and the mood lighting in the doctor's office, the most specific question I have ever been asked on a medical intake form:

"Have you ever experienced the following: A sever blow to the head?"

My response, written in the margin? "I've never had my head severed".

I may have lost my hearing, Doc, but my eyesight is still pretty fucking sharp.

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erentalapplications.com

I May Have Gone Too Far With This One…

I consider myself pretty street smart. Usually, I can sniff out the con artist in the crowd. And I think I'm pretty good at knowing when someone's being disingenuous. I knew, for instance, right away that Make Mike Jason Smith was a Nigerian in a very, very stylish 20-something's clothing when he emailed and said he was interested in the room I had for rent on Craigslist. I knew that all his cronies were frauds too (though that may have had less to do with my street smarts with more with the fact that ALL the emails followed the same basic formula. Every last one of them "was into fashion design", and "was not gay, but was totally, totally cool with it".)

Something about this place, though -or maybe just this period in my life- has turned me into something of a village idiot. I have not fallen prey to one, but TWO different scams in the last year. The first one involved a teenager selling overpriced magazine subscriptions door to door this past Fall. And the second one happened on Saturday.

I'm going to make some effort to defend myself here... even though I feel ashamed and embarrassed at what was an undeniably stupid decision on my part, made in haste, and without listening to my gut instincts.

On Saturday, CLH and I went looking for houses to rent. We had seen what amounted to a whole pile of uninhabitable wrecks, with a few cookie cutter condo units thrown in for good measure. We were exhausted. But we'd seen this ad the night before that looked too good to be true (BIG. RED. FLAG. IGNORED.) and we wanted to jump on it. So, we stopped in at a local bar to see if we could set up our laptops, revisit the ad, and follow the instructions for setting up a viewing. There are a few things to consider here before I go any further which might explain why this particular scam worked on us. First, CLH and I are desperate to move. We want out BAD. Secondly, we were hot, thirsty, cranky, and had very low blood sugar when finally stopped to sit down. Thirdly, we couldn't get either of our laptops to access the wireless Internet, so we had to resort to using CLH's new 3G iPhone to access the website. And, as everyone knows, though the new iPhone can do many, many, many things, it still has a screen the size of a slice of Spam, and many things that would otherwise look suspect on a big screen look perfectly normal on this tiny screen. So you can kind of understand why we thought the request to fill out an semi-application online seemed like a perfectly legitimate request. We even asked our real-estate agent friend about it and she seemed to think it was perfectly routine.

It turns out it is NOT perfectly routine. It is also not a legitimate service. It IS a scam designed to have you fork over $15 dollars (again, not an ungodly sum- hence our willingness) and some pertinent information so that this "third party" can "pre-screen" you for your potential landlord. When you initially email the owner of the property, you are sent a message back from some ridiculous made up name (I got "Kenna Chillinskas", which I'm thinking of naming my first dog) redirecting you to a website (erentalapplications.com) that will then ask you to fill out an application. What is actually happening is this: the scam artists are grabbing ads from craigslist and the like, deleting the original owner's information, replacing it with theirs, and claiming that they have the ability to schedule a showing of the property... right after you give them some information via their nifty little website.

Somehow, we avoided surrendering our social security numbers, but the ass clowns at erentalapplications.com now have our current address and phone numbers. I did a little sleuthing this morning to find out more about the site (thank jeebus for Google), and found multitudes of information about it, including a replica of the EXACT email I was sent when I emailed the "owner" asking about the property.

The more I read this morning, the more angry I became. I eventually had to walk away from my computer because smoke was coming out of my ears and I didn't want to have to explain to the neighbors that those fire trucks out front? Yeah, those were there because I had set the couch on fire with the stream of flame that had come shooting out of my mouth.

Still, I needed to do something. So, I just wrote down the first thing that came to my mind. And then I hit "send". I'm not exactly sure where this touch of bravado (or violence) came from... though, if I had to guess, I would say it came from the gaping, gory crater in my soul where I used to house a love for all things craigslist - and which has been replaced by a blackened, hardened little rock which I now use to pelt email scammers in the groin. Behold, the writings of a woman scorned (and not just a little out of her mind):

"You have been reported to the local police as a potential scammer. The
authorities at Craisglist have been notified as well. If you don't
take down your ad, your email address will be used as a vehicle to
infiltrate your personal information, and you will be hunted down and
possibly killed. I have my people working on this. You have just
messed with the wrong folks."

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Nigerians

I May Have Gone Too Far With This One…

I consider myself pretty street smart. Usually, I can sniff out the con artist in the crowd. And I think I'm pretty good at knowing when someone's being disingenuous. I knew, for instance, right away that Make Mike Jason Smith was a Nigerian in a very, very stylish 20-something's clothing when he emailed and said he was interested in the room I had for rent on Craigslist. I knew that all his cronies were frauds too (though that may have had less to do with my street smarts with more with the fact that ALL the emails followed the same basic formula. Every last one of them "was into fashion design", and "was not gay, but was totally, totally cool with it".)

Something about this place, though -or maybe just this period in my life- has turned me into something of a village idiot. I have not fallen prey to one, but TWO different scams in the last year. The first one involved a teenager selling overpriced magazine subscriptions door to door this past Fall. And the second one happened on Saturday.

I'm going to make some effort to defend myself here... even though I feel ashamed and embarrassed at what was an undeniably stupid decision on my part, made in haste, and without listening to my gut instincts.

On Saturday, CLH and I went looking for houses to rent. We had seen what amounted to a whole pile of uninhabitable wrecks, with a few cookie cutter condo units thrown in for good measure. We were exhausted. But we'd seen this ad the night before that looked too good to be true (BIG. RED. FLAG. IGNORED.) and we wanted to jump on it. So, we stopped in at a local bar to see if we could set up our laptops, revisit the ad, and follow the instructions for setting up a viewing. There are a few things to consider here before I go any further which might explain why this particular scam worked on us. First, CLH and I are desperate to move. We want out BAD. Secondly, we were hot, thirsty, cranky, and had very low blood sugar when finally stopped to sit down. Thirdly, we couldn't get either of our laptops to access the wireless Internet, so we had to resort to using CLH's new 3G iPhone to access the website. And, as everyone knows, though the new iPhone can do many, many, many things, it still has a screen the size of a slice of Spam, and many things that would otherwise look suspect on a big screen look perfectly normal on this tiny screen. So you can kind of understand why we thought the request to fill out an semi-application online seemed like a perfectly legitimate request. We even asked our real-estate agent friend about it and she seemed to think it was perfectly routine.

It turns out it is NOT perfectly routine. It is also not a legitimate service. It IS a scam designed to have you fork over $15 dollars (again, not an ungodly sum- hence our willingness) and some pertinent information so that this "third party" can "pre-screen" you for your potential landlord. When you initially email the owner of the property, you are sent a message back from some ridiculous made up name (I got "Kenna Chillinskas", which I'm thinking of naming my first dog) redirecting you to a website (erentalapplications.com) that will then ask you to fill out an application. What is actually happening is this: the scam artists are grabbing ads from craigslist and the like, deleting the original owner's information, replacing it with theirs, and claiming that they have the ability to schedule a showing of the property... right after you give them some information via their nifty little website.

Somehow, we avoided surrendering our social security numbers, but the ass clowns at erentalapplications.com now have our current address and phone numbers. I did a little sleuthing this morning to find out more about the site (thank jeebus for Google), and found multitudes of information about it, including a replica of the EXACT email I was sent when I emailed the "owner" asking about the property.

The more I read this morning, the more angry I became. I eventually had to walk away from my computer because smoke was coming out of my ears and I didn't want to have to explain to the neighbors that those fire trucks out front? Yeah, those were there because I had set the couch on fire with the stream of flame that had come shooting out of my mouth.

Still, I needed to do something. So, I just wrote down the first thing that came to my mind. And then I hit "send". I'm not exactly sure where this touch of bravado (or violence) came from... though, if I had to guess, I would say it came from the gaping, gory crater in my soul where I used to house a love for all things craigslist - and which has been replaced by a blackened, hardened little rock which I now use to pelt email scammers in the groin. Behold, the writings of a woman scorned (and not just a little out of her mind):

"You have been reported to the local police as a potential scammer. The
authorities at Craisglist have been notified as well. If you don't
take down your ad, your email address will be used as a vehicle to
infiltrate your personal information, and you will be hunted down and
possibly killed. I have my people working on this. You have just
messed with the wrong folks."

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car wash

The Bombs Bursting In Air

Happy, Birthday, 'Murica! Do you still have all your fingers and toes? 'Cause you put on one hell of a show last night. You kept my backyard lit up till nearly 2 am. If I had to judge from the detritus in my front yard, I'd say you're going to come up short with the rent next month, 'cause we both know that a four hour firework show is not cheap. But who cares, right? For one night you got to recreate a war zone with shit you could buy from a tent on the side of the road, and, by golly, did you do it up. Oh, and that piece of charred STEAK on the roof of CLH's car this morning? Nice work. Nothin' says "freedom" like setting a choice cut of meat atop an M80 and letting 'er rip! You sure as hell know how to party, 'Murica.

Honestly, steak cleanup aside, it was a pretty darned good weekend. We got to spend July 4th with our friends Lacy and Roberto (who are moving to Canada in a week and who we will miss having so close to us.) What I love about these two is that they don't let lack of resources ruin a good engineering idea. The weather was extremely warm on Saturday, and, after a couple glasses of a wild mint/rum concoction made in haste, we were nearly unconscious with dehydration and exhaustion. So, naturally, Lacy and Roberto built a Slip N Slide. And when I say "built", I mean that they grabbed all the tarps we owned and the hose, and, within minutes, had us hurling our bodies face first down a 20 foot run of blue plastic into a "splash pool" that Lacy constructed with her bare hands. It was astounding. Oh, and did I mention that this was AFTER Lacy had built us a cabana out of two ladders, a couple pieces of timber, and a blanket? We had shade for hours. Seriously, people. If you're not using household junk to keep yourself cool on a hot day, you're doing it all wrong. And I'm pretty sure Lacy's for hire.

Today CLH and I washed our cars and then ate hot dogs for lunch (and then sang the national anthem 'cause it just seemed like the right thing to do). We both vacuumed the insides of our cars, and then CLH changed my burned-out headlight and topped off my windshield wiper fluid. And then, THEN! because it was empty, we got to (drum roll please) THROW AWAY the windshield wiper fluid bottle. It was thrilling! Because you know what that means? That means we don't have to move with it! Oh! And we blew through a dusty bottle of tequila AND a bottle of peach schnapps on Saturday. So you know what that means? WE DON'T HAVE TO MOVE WITH THOSE EITHER! Do you see where I'm going with this??? I could very possibly violate my own personal limits on exclamation point usage on this one if I let myself go, that's how excited I am! We actually are GETTING RID of stuff!

I am on this trajectory right now to get rid of HALF of what we own. Somehow, I have managed to cart around with us for the past ten years pounds and pounds of stuff that has just no meaning or use to us anymore. I can't explain why I have become so incredibly lazy at keeping inventory of my own life, but I have. We still have stuff in boxes from when we moved into this house two years ago. Unpacked. And the stuff we accumulated while living here? I understand now why everyone warned us about the curse of a big house: you simply fill up the space with stuff. Now that I have to pack so much of it into boxes for the move, I am realizing that I no longer feel the attachment to my stuff in the way I used to. I don't mean to imply that I've mastered the Zen art of non-attachement overnight... just that most of my stuff has this timestamp on it, and I don't feel connected with that time anymore. I want to create new memories. It feels good to let go. It feels like it has needed to happen for a long time now. Happy Independence Day to me, 'Murica.

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independence

The Bombs Bursting In Air

Happy, Birthday, 'Murica! Do you still have all your fingers and toes? 'Cause you put on one hell of a show last night. You kept my backyard lit up till nearly 2 am. If I had to judge from the detritus in my front yard, I'd say you're going to come up short with the rent next month, 'cause we both know that a four hour firework show is not cheap. But who cares, right? For one night you got to recreate a war zone with shit you could buy from a tent on the side of the road, and, by golly, did you do it up. Oh, and that piece of charred STEAK on the roof of CLH's car this morning? Nice work. Nothin' says "freedom" like setting a choice cut of meat atop an M80 and letting 'er rip! You sure as hell know how to party, 'Murica.

Honestly, steak cleanup aside, it was a pretty darned good weekend. We got to spend July 4th with our friends Lacy and Roberto (who are moving to Canada in a week and who we will miss having so close to us.) What I love about these two is that they don't let lack of resources ruin a good engineering idea. The weather was extremely warm on Saturday, and, after a couple glasses of a wild mint/rum concoction made in haste, we were nearly unconscious with dehydration and exhaustion. So, naturally, Lacy and Roberto built a Slip N Slide. And when I say "built", I mean that they grabbed all the tarps we owned and the hose, and, within minutes, had us hurling our bodies face first down a 20 foot run of blue plastic into a "splash pool" that Lacy constructed with her bare hands. It was astounding. Oh, and did I mention that this was AFTER Lacy had built us a cabana out of two ladders, a couple pieces of timber, and a blanket? We had shade for hours. Seriously, people. If you're not using household junk to keep yourself cool on a hot day, you're doing it all wrong. And I'm pretty sure Lacy's for hire.

Today CLH and I washed our cars and then ate hot dogs for lunch (and then sang the national anthem 'cause it just seemed like the right thing to do). We both vacuumed the insides of our cars, and then CLH changed my burned-out headlight and topped off my windshield wiper fluid. And then, THEN! because it was empty, we got to (drum roll please) THROW AWAY the windshield wiper fluid bottle. It was thrilling! Because you know what that means? That means we don't have to move with it! Oh! And we blew through a dusty bottle of tequila AND a bottle of peach schnapps on Saturday. So you know what that means? WE DON'T HAVE TO MOVE WITH THOSE EITHER! Do you see where I'm going with this??? I could very possibly violate my own personal limits on exclamation point usage on this one if I let myself go, that's how excited I am! We actually are GETTING RID of stuff!

I am on this trajectory right now to get rid of HALF of what we own. Somehow, I have managed to cart around with us for the past ten years pounds and pounds of stuff that has just no meaning or use to us anymore. I can't explain why I have become so incredibly lazy at keeping inventory of my own life, but I have. We still have stuff in boxes from when we moved into this house two years ago. Unpacked. And the stuff we accumulated while living here? I understand now why everyone warned us about the curse of a big house: you simply fill up the space with stuff. Now that I have to pack so much of it into boxes for the move, I am realizing that I no longer feel the attachment to my stuff in the way I used to. I don't mean to imply that I've mastered the Zen art of non-attachement overnight... just that most of my stuff has this timestamp on it, and I don't feel connected with that time anymore. I want to create new memories. It feels good to let go. It feels like it has needed to happen for a long time now. Happy Independence Day to me, 'Murica.

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july 4th

The Bombs Bursting In Air

Happy, Birthday, 'Murica! Do you still have all your fingers and toes? 'Cause you put on one hell of a show last night. You kept my backyard lit up till nearly 2 am. If I had to judge from the detritus in my front yard, I'd say you're going to come up short with the rent next month, 'cause we both know that a four hour firework show is not cheap. But who cares, right? For one night you got to recreate a war zone with shit you could buy from a tent on the side of the road, and, by golly, did you do it up. Oh, and that piece of charred STEAK on the roof of CLH's car this morning? Nice work. Nothin' says "freedom" like setting a choice cut of meat atop an M80 and letting 'er rip! You sure as hell know how to party, 'Murica.

Honestly, steak cleanup aside, it was a pretty darned good weekend. We got to spend July 4th with our friends Lacy and Roberto (who are moving to Canada in a week and who we will miss having so close to us.) What I love about these two is that they don't let lack of resources ruin a good engineering idea. The weather was extremely warm on Saturday, and, after a couple glasses of a wild mint/rum concoction made in haste, we were nearly unconscious with dehydration and exhaustion. So, naturally, Lacy and Roberto built a Slip N Slide. And when I say "built", I mean that they grabbed all the tarps we owned and the hose, and, within minutes, had us hurling our bodies face first down a 20 foot run of blue plastic into a "splash pool" that Lacy constructed with her bare hands. It was astounding. Oh, and did I mention that this was AFTER Lacy had built us a cabana out of two ladders, a couple pieces of timber, and a blanket? We had shade for hours. Seriously, people. If you're not using household junk to keep yourself cool on a hot day, you're doing it all wrong. And I'm pretty sure Lacy's for hire.

Today CLH and I washed our cars and then ate hot dogs for lunch (and then sang the national anthem 'cause it just seemed like the right thing to do). We both vacuumed the insides of our cars, and then CLH changed my burned-out headlight and topped off my windshield wiper fluid. And then, THEN! because it was empty, we got to (drum roll please) THROW AWAY the windshield wiper fluid bottle. It was thrilling! Because you know what that means? That means we don't have to move with it! Oh! And we blew through a dusty bottle of tequila AND a bottle of peach schnapps on Saturday. So you know what that means? WE DON'T HAVE TO MOVE WITH THOSE EITHER! Do you see where I'm going with this??? I could very possibly violate my own personal limits on exclamation point usage on this one if I let myself go, that's how excited I am! We actually are GETTING RID of stuff!

I am on this trajectory right now to get rid of HALF of what we own. Somehow, I have managed to cart around with us for the past ten years pounds and pounds of stuff that has just no meaning or use to us anymore. I can't explain why I have become so incredibly lazy at keeping inventory of my own life, but I have. We still have stuff in boxes from when we moved into this house two years ago. Unpacked. And the stuff we accumulated while living here? I understand now why everyone warned us about the curse of a big house: you simply fill up the space with stuff. Now that I have to pack so much of it into boxes for the move, I am realizing that I no longer feel the attachment to my stuff in the way I used to. I don't mean to imply that I've mastered the Zen art of non-attachement overnight... just that most of my stuff has this timestamp on it, and I don't feel connected with that time anymore. I want to create new memories. It feels good to let go. It feels like it has needed to happen for a long time now. Happy Independence Day to me, 'Murica.

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stuff

The Bombs Bursting In Air

Happy, Birthday, 'Murica! Do you still have all your fingers and toes? 'Cause you put on one hell of a show last night. You kept my backyard lit up till nearly 2 am. If I had to judge from the detritus in my front yard, I'd say you're going to come up short with the rent next month, 'cause we both know that a four hour firework show is not cheap. But who cares, right? For one night you got to recreate a war zone with shit you could buy from a tent on the side of the road, and, by golly, did you do it up. Oh, and that piece of charred STEAK on the roof of CLH's car this morning? Nice work. Nothin' says "freedom" like setting a choice cut of meat atop an M80 and letting 'er rip! You sure as hell know how to party, 'Murica.

Honestly, steak cleanup aside, it was a pretty darned good weekend. We got to spend July 4th with our friends Lacy and Roberto (who are moving to Canada in a week and who we will miss having so close to us.) What I love about these two is that they don't let lack of resources ruin a good engineering idea. The weather was extremely warm on Saturday, and, after a couple glasses of a wild mint/rum concoction made in haste, we were nearly unconscious with dehydration and exhaustion. So, naturally, Lacy and Roberto built a Slip N Slide. And when I say "built", I mean that they grabbed all the tarps we owned and the hose, and, within minutes, had us hurling our bodies face first down a 20 foot run of blue plastic into a "splash pool" that Lacy constructed with her bare hands. It was astounding. Oh, and did I mention that this was AFTER Lacy had built us a cabana out of two ladders, a couple pieces of timber, and a blanket? We had shade for hours. Seriously, people. If you're not using household junk to keep yourself cool on a hot day, you're doing it all wrong. And I'm pretty sure Lacy's for hire.

Today CLH and I washed our cars and then ate hot dogs for lunch (and then sang the national anthem 'cause it just seemed like the right thing to do). We both vacuumed the insides of our cars, and then CLH changed my burned-out headlight and topped off my windshield wiper fluid. And then, THEN! because it was empty, we got to (drum roll please) THROW AWAY the windshield wiper fluid bottle. It was thrilling! Because you know what that means? That means we don't have to move with it! Oh! And we blew through a dusty bottle of tequila AND a bottle of peach schnapps on Saturday. So you know what that means? WE DON'T HAVE TO MOVE WITH THOSE EITHER! Do you see where I'm going with this??? I could very possibly violate my own personal limits on exclamation point usage on this one if I let myself go, that's how excited I am! We actually are GETTING RID of stuff!

I am on this trajectory right now to get rid of HALF of what we own. Somehow, I have managed to cart around with us for the past ten years pounds and pounds of stuff that has just no meaning or use to us anymore. I can't explain why I have become so incredibly lazy at keeping inventory of my own life, but I have. We still have stuff in boxes from when we moved into this house two years ago. Unpacked. And the stuff we accumulated while living here? I understand now why everyone warned us about the curse of a big house: you simply fill up the space with stuff. Now that I have to pack so much of it into boxes for the move, I am realizing that I no longer feel the attachment to my stuff in the way I used to. I don't mean to imply that I've mastered the Zen art of non-attachement overnight... just that most of my stuff has this timestamp on it, and I don't feel connected with that time anymore. I want to create new memories. It feels good to let go. It feels like it has needed to happen for a long time now. Happy Independence Day to me, 'Murica.

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Strathmere

We Have No Bananas… But We Do Have Fresh Children

Okay, okay. I know I'm supposed to be telling you about Burning Man. And I will, I swear. There is so much to tell you, so you won't be disappointed that you had to wait this long. But, I mean, honestly. How can I possibly start? At what point do I jump in and just start rattling it all off? My plan was to sort of break it down, day by day, make it sequential and all, just to make it easy on us both. Stretch it out and write down the epic adventure that it was. But, because it was just that life-changing, and because I haven't had one spare moment to myself since I got home to really write one single eloquent thought about it, and because, within 72 hours of getting home, I jumped on a plane to NJ to visit my family, and because I have been completely distracted by this gorgeous stretch of beach I am staying on, I am going to stall and tell you about something far more interesting. First, first, I am going to tell you about the meat department at the Strathmere, NJ, Acme Supermarket. But first let me tell you why I'm at the Acme in Strathmere, NJ, in the first place.

My sister and I are visiting CLH's cousin Renee (and her husband Steve) in south Jersey. Renee just had her first baby. Back in February, she asked me to be with her during the first few weeks of the baby's life and I said yes. I was so honored when she asked me I actually broke down in tears. So, being here with my sister is a big deal to me. Renee is the oldest of CLH's gaggle of cousins and I have always felt a special kind of kinship with her.

It's also a big deal, because, up until a few years ago, before my peers started having kids of their own, I was scared to DEATH of having children. I mean, really, really scared. And the fear was multi layered. The first layer had everything to do with my fear of psychologically screwing the kid up. And I had a whole litany of excuses to defend my when-hell-freezes-over answer to the question of motherhood. There was the Well-I-don't-want-to-bring-a-child-up-the way-I-was-brought- up-and-aren't-we-all-destined-to-repeat-the-mistakes-of-our-parents argument that I used for a long time. And then there was Well-there's-so-much-to-know-about childrearing-and-I'll-never-know-it-all-and-i'll-probably-do-something-I-should-have-known-better-about-and-what-lawyer-is going-to-defend-a-mom-that-should-have-known-about-honey-and-botulism-and-newborns? argument.

Several thousand dollars and years of therapy later, my attitude is: it doesn't matter what I do, the kid's gonna need a few years on a leather couch himself to work out all the stuff I've absolutely blown as a mom and it's gonna be okay. He'll have a long list to work on, of course, but, then again, who doesn't? He'll probably cite Mom's annoying ability to deduce that BOTH SIDES of an argument are valid. Her obsession about the order of the spice drawer but utter disregard towards the mold in the shower. Making him eat tofu. FORCING HIM TO LISTEN TO JAZZ.

Whew. So, after that was all cleared up by the psychologists, the second wave of neuroses hit. And these stuck around for years. The ones having to do with my physical ability to actually extrude a living thing from my lady parts. I have a short torso, people. Not exactly baby housing material. I've been known to faint at the thought of getting a paper cut. Cough syrup gets me high, and a single cup of coffee? A single cup of coffee can turn my heart into Kool-Aid Man: it will burst through my ribcage wearing Bermuda shorts and yell "OOOOOOH YEAH!" to thirsty, despondent children. Given all this sensitivity, how in the hell would I be able to withstand hours, nee, DAYS, of excruciating labor pains? How would I be able to endure the morning sickness? The heartburn? The lower back pain? The sleepless nights? Not to mention the parts no one talks about: the way your nipples get cracked and hard from breastfeeding. The perineum tearing and the subsequent stitches. The -gasp- hemorrhoids, people. Let's not forget the hemorrhoids. How could a person whose heart can't handle a common breakfast stimulant handle the endurance needed to squeeze a very large thing from a very small hole?

And then I was invited to witness a live birth. In 2001, my best friend's sister was about to give birth to her second child, and she invited me, CLH, and a choice few other folks to be present for the birth, which was to take place in her home. And sure enough, it was all my worst nightmares come true. I could hear the wails of pain from blocks away. I was nearly frozen with fear before I even stepped foot in the house. When I got inside, I didn't know what to do with myself. My friend's sister volleyed back and forth between gut wrenching moans and making happy, idle chatter as the contractions got closer and closer together. I was beside myself with fear and confusion. My modesty radar self destructed as this naked woman let herself be led from one position to another by the midwife, and finally into the birthing tub by a small army of people. Naked! Naked, pregnant, and wailing and moaning like she was dying. I didn't know what to pass out from, the primal fear this wailing triggered, or having my mind implode at the sight of so much pubic hair in public.

And then the baby came. And no one died. And the sister was in control of her birth experience the whole time. And she was happy afterwards. Really, really happy. And the baby was happy. And both were healthy. And the world didn't explode and no one bled to death and I made it out without fainting.

And it was after that birth that I got to thinking, wait a minute. That wasn't so bad. Which led naturally to, Hmmm. Hold on a second. I could probably do that. Drastic, right? Like, what kind of a logical jump is that? Like, I, too, could probably skydive over an active volcano blindfolded! But I've figured out that it's not logical, this whole child-rearing thing. It's supposed to do things like turn your world upside down and make you think that pushing a wiggly, pokey, bundle of flesh out of your body while being consumed by the worst pain of your life is actually rewarding.

Which is why I eventually had to shove aside the stream of unending questions that issued forth from my over-thinking brain after witnessing this birth. Like how on earth am I going to calm a crying baby in public? A crying baby that doesn't speak English. Or spend leisurely hours in the ethnic food aisle at the supermarket with a toddler? Or listen to This American Life uninterrupted EVER AGAIN? How am I going to take a shower when it is old enough to crawl? Doesn't the baby need 24 hour supervision? Doesn't it have the ability to snap its own neck? Doesn't it suffocate when it's laid on its back before the age of six months? Or is it the stomach? JEEEZUS, I DON'T KNOW, JUST LIKE I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE HONEY AND THE BOTULISM. And the next thing I know, I am tearing my hair out and screaming, Oh Dear God, I've killed my baby because I wanted to take a shower.

....

And I tell you all this because I feel so honored to be in this baby's life with this entirely new perspective on parenting. It makes being here feel like I've worked through a lot of issues and come out the other side a little more wise, and a little more, well, adult. And it gives me an enormous appreciation for the hard work it takes to be a parent. And that sometimes, despite your best efforts, your kids still do things to disappoint or embarrass you. All your lessons about manners and appropriate public behavior go right out the window and you have to just regroup and start over and that's okay too. And that, sometimes, your greatest work can come undone in the meat department of an Acme Supermarket.

So, my sister and I are standing in front of the fish case at the Acme supermarket here in Strathmere after a long day of driving. We're making a special seafood dinner for Steve and Renee and we're arguing over the amount of shrimp we need. The supermarket is so poorly stocked, we're wondering if there's been a war down here in Strathmere and that Steve and Renee just forgot to tell us. We're hot, we're tired, we've got low blood sugar, and we're trying to make a dinner out of mouthwash, flounder, and ice cream, the only things left in this supermarket. While we're waiting for our fish to be weighed and packaged, a group of three adults and a boy come down an aisle and pause a few feet away. The boy looks to be about five years old or so. He slithers away from the adults, and while they are talking groceries, he furtively writes something in the condensation on the outside of the meat case. He scurries away, thinking that no one has seen him. But of course, having been around a newborn for a few hours, my mommy senses are heightened, my kid-tracking-beam is turned up to eleven, and I have been watching this kid out of the corner of my eye the whole time.

The shrimp is handed to us just as this kid sidles up to his adult supervision, and suddenly, I see what he's written on the glass.

maet butt.

The kid has written "maet butt" on the glass.

I'll spell it once more just in case you're not wiping the tears out of your eyes yet: maet butt.

And suddenly, all the fury inside my sister and I over how much shrimp to buy and the fact that we're starving but there's not one piece of edible produce in the whole joint... well, that just melts right out of us and we are holding our sides we are laughing so hard at maet butt.

Because THAT little prank? That is what makes all the hemorrhoids in the world ALL worth it.

Welcome to the world, little Tre.

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NaBloWriMo

It’s National Write Till Your Fingers Bleed Month!

Internets, I have made a contract with myself.

I'm going to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

That's right. It's National Novel Writing Month, and people the world over have agreed to ignore their spouses, hygiene, and housecleaning for thirty days while they sculpt 50,000 words into a quasi-meaningful plot under duress! All for the prize of being able to say, "I wrote a novel in thirty days". Isn't that thrilling? Kinda makes you want to run at full speed into a barbed wire fence. Because that would be less painful.

Oh, and in case that wasn't ambitious enough, I've also agreed to post 30 times in 30 days to this blog. Know why? Because it's also National Blog Writing Month! So, now you get to enjoy the antics of CLH and me (and the Leagues of Indignant Seattlites I live amongst) EVERY DAY for thirty days. Who knows? This could really turn my commitment-phobia around.

The only problem with this whole situation is that I am master dilly-dallier. Tonight, for example, I scoured my pantry for the oldest, hardest legumes I had so that my split pea soup for dinner would require hours of watching the stove (and not my computer screen). I also opted to clean out my spice drawer, catch up on the Oprah show, and paint my nails. All so I wouldn't have to come in here and write. Clever, huh?

The soup has been simmering for two hours now. CLH wants to know why my vegetarian split pea soup smells so good. Is there ham in it, he asks? No, honey. The secret ingredient is procrastination.

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procrastination

It’s National Write Till Your Fingers Bleed Month!

Internets, I have made a contract with myself.

I'm going to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

That's right. It's National Novel Writing Month, and people the world over have agreed to ignore their spouses, hygiene, and housecleaning for thirty days while they sculpt 50,000 words into a quasi-meaningful plot under duress! All for the prize of being able to say, "I wrote a novel in thirty days". Isn't that thrilling? Kinda makes you want to run at full speed into a barbed wire fence. Because that would be less painful.

Oh, and in case that wasn't ambitious enough, I've also agreed to post 30 times in 30 days to this blog. Know why? Because it's also National Blog Writing Month! So, now you get to enjoy the antics of CLH and me (and the Leagues of Indignant Seattlites I live amongst) EVERY DAY for thirty days. Who knows? This could really turn my commitment-phobia around.

The only problem with this whole situation is that I am master dilly-dallier. Tonight, for example, I scoured my pantry for the oldest, hardest legumes I had so that my split pea soup for dinner would require hours of watching the stove (and not my computer screen). I also opted to clean out my spice drawer, catch up on the Oprah show, and paint my nails. All so I wouldn't have to come in here and write. Clever, huh?

The soup has been simmering for two hours now. CLH wants to know why my vegetarian split pea soup smells so good. Is there ham in it, he asks? No, honey. The secret ingredient is procrastination.

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split pea soup

It’s National Write Till Your Fingers Bleed Month!

Internets, I have made a contract with myself.

I'm going to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

That's right. It's National Novel Writing Month, and people the world over have agreed to ignore their spouses, hygiene, and housecleaning for thirty days while they sculpt 50,000 words into a quasi-meaningful plot under duress! All for the prize of being able to say, "I wrote a novel in thirty days". Isn't that thrilling? Kinda makes you want to run at full speed into a barbed wire fence. Because that would be less painful.

Oh, and in case that wasn't ambitious enough, I've also agreed to post 30 times in 30 days to this blog. Know why? Because it's also National Blog Writing Month! So, now you get to enjoy the antics of CLH and me (and the Leagues of Indignant Seattlites I live amongst) EVERY DAY for thirty days. Who knows? This could really turn my commitment-phobia around.

The only problem with this whole situation is that I am master dilly-dallier. Tonight, for example, I scoured my pantry for the oldest, hardest legumes I had so that my split pea soup for dinner would require hours of watching the stove (and not my computer screen). I also opted to clean out my spice drawer, catch up on the Oprah show, and paint my nails. All so I wouldn't have to come in here and write. Clever, huh?

The soup has been simmering for two hours now. CLH wants to know why my vegetarian split pea soup smells so good. Is there ham in it, he asks? No, honey. The secret ingredient is procrastination.

Continue to full post...

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neti pot

I Think We’ll Call This One Snout Flu

If suddenly you found yourself unable to figure out what time of year it was, all you'd need to do is shine a flashlight up my nose and you'd know in about a nanosecond. Clear up there? It's summer. Slimed over? Well, then, dear nose-looker-upper, it's Fall. Know how you know? Because what you are looking at up there is one of at least three sinus infections I will get in the next three months. So that means it's at least November. Let the neti pot games begin!

You know what most women have behind their vanity mirrors? Things like dainty bottles of perfume and makeup and expensive face creams. Know what I have? A Tupperware container full of sea salt and a ceramic nose bidet.

At times like these, I feel like writing a letter to my pre-natal self . It would go something like:

Dear DNA,
I think you are about to make a terrible mistake. See, you have a set of instructions laid out before you that may have been drawn up by a drunken clown. The human being that is about to be sculpted from these plans could suffer immeasurably from having a head that is, well, too small for everything that needs to go inside it . The problem is that the proportions are all wrong. I would like to draw your attention specifically to the sinus areas. Now, I know you have instructions from the father to make these as prone to inflammation as possible, but I urge you not to listen. You will also be tempted to follow the plan for some fucked up looking Eustachian tubes, very short legs and an intolerance for spaghetti. Please, I beg you, spare this child...</p>

</span>CLH says this infection is probably all due to the massive amount of bodywork I am having done to me right now to fix my neck (and to make sure I don't faint at work again). Turns out that all this ear stuffiness I've been experiencing might have nothing to do with Meniere's Disease (which one MD thought I had). It might, however, have EVERYthing to do with the fact that my neck bones/muscles are all compressed. I saw a chiropractor last week who took one look at my head and neck and declared that my head was noticeably "tilted". I tried to tell her that the tilted head look was totally in this year, but she didn't buy it.

The timing on this whole thing couldn't be worse. I do have a crappy novel to write and there's only so much procrastination I can blame on sinusitis.

</p>

</span>

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sinusitis

I Think We’ll Call This One Snout Flu

If suddenly you found yourself unable to figure out what time of year it was, all you'd need to do is shine a flashlight up my nose and you'd know in about a nanosecond. Clear up there? It's summer. Slimed over? Well, then, dear nose-looker-upper, it's Fall. Know how you know? Because what you are looking at up there is one of at least three sinus infections I will get in the next three months. So that means it's at least November. Let the neti pot games begin!

You know what most women have behind their vanity mirrors? Things like dainty bottles of perfume and makeup and expensive face creams. Know what I have? A Tupperware container full of sea salt and a ceramic nose bidet.

At times like these, I feel like writing a letter to my pre-natal self . It would go something like:

Dear DNA,
I think you are about to make a terrible mistake. See, you have a set of instructions laid out before you that may have been drawn up by a drunken clown. The human being that is about to be sculpted from these plans could suffer immeasurably from having a head that is, well, too small for everything that needs to go inside it . The problem is that the proportions are all wrong. I would like to draw your attention specifically to the sinus areas. Now, I know you have instructions from the father to make these as prone to inflammation as possible, but I urge you not to listen. You will also be tempted to follow the plan for some fucked up looking Eustachian tubes, very short legs and an intolerance for spaghetti. Please, I beg you, spare this child...</p>

</span>CLH says this infection is probably all due to the massive amount of bodywork I am having done to me right now to fix my neck (and to make sure I don't faint at work again). Turns out that all this ear stuffiness I've been experiencing might have nothing to do with Meniere's Disease (which one MD thought I had). It might, however, have EVERYthing to do with the fact that my neck bones/muscles are all compressed. I saw a chiropractor last week who took one look at my head and neck and declared that my head was noticeably "tilted". I tried to tell her that the tilted head look was totally in this year, but she didn't buy it.

The timing on this whole thing couldn't be worse. I do have a crappy novel to write and there's only so much procrastination I can blame on sinusitis.

</p>

</span>

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swine flu

I Think We’ll Call This One Snout Flu

If suddenly you found yourself unable to figure out what time of year it was, all you'd need to do is shine a flashlight up my nose and you'd know in about a nanosecond. Clear up there? It's summer. Slimed over? Well, then, dear nose-looker-upper, it's Fall. Know how you know? Because what you are looking at up there is one of at least three sinus infections I will get in the next three months. So that means it's at least November. Let the neti pot games begin!

You know what most women have behind their vanity mirrors? Things like dainty bottles of perfume and makeup and expensive face creams. Know what I have? A Tupperware container full of sea salt and a ceramic nose bidet.

At times like these, I feel like writing a letter to my pre-natal self . It would go something like:

Dear DNA,
I think you are about to make a terrible mistake. See, you have a set of instructions laid out before you that may have been drawn up by a drunken clown. The human being that is about to be sculpted from these plans could suffer immeasurably from having a head that is, well, too small for everything that needs to go inside it . The problem is that the proportions are all wrong. I would like to draw your attention specifically to the sinus areas. Now, I know you have instructions from the father to make these as prone to inflammation as possible, but I urge you not to listen. You will also be tempted to follow the plan for some fucked up looking Eustachian tubes, very short legs and an intolerance for spaghetti. Please, I beg you, spare this child...</p>

</span>CLH says this infection is probably all due to the massive amount of bodywork I am having done to me right now to fix my neck (and to make sure I don't faint at work again). Turns out that all this ear stuffiness I've been experiencing might have nothing to do with Meniere's Disease (which one MD thought I had). It might, however, have EVERYthing to do with the fact that my neck bones/muscles are all compressed. I saw a chiropractor last week who took one look at my head and neck and declared that my head was noticeably "tilted". I tried to tell her that the tilted head look was totally in this year, but she didn't buy it.

The timing on this whole thing couldn't be worse. I do have a crappy novel to write and there's only so much procrastination I can blame on sinusitis.

</p>

</span>

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Blurb

Parallel Lives… Almost

For the past year or so, CLH and I have been marveling at how similar our lives are to that of Dooce and Blurb, to whom we are wholly and Internet-ally devoted. I fell in love with Heather's writing about a year and a half ago when my friend Kevin emailed and said YOU MUST READ THIS BLOG. At the time, I was all, Kevin, get a grip, man. How good could it be? And then I started reading. And it was good. It was so good, in fact, I made a vow to read every single entry. From the beginning. And then, basically, I read nearly seven years' worth of blogging over the course of the next few months.

And over the course of those months, I sometimes felt like I was looking into a mirror (if a mirror was shaped like a monitor and had a keyboard dangling from it). I mean, minus the being a mom to two kids, and the Mormon upbringing, and being raised in the south, and the dislike of licorice, and her being extremely tall, and living in another state, and the owning of two dogs, and making a living blogging, and the beautifully decorated house, we have a LOT in common. Okay, so we really have nothing in common. Her husband is a big computer geek and my almost-husband is a computer geek and sometimes I also want to stick my head in the oven at the sight of the first flakes of snow. So, in my mind, that qualifies us to be twins.

You see, this is what the Internets has done to me: it's made me feel this kinship with people I've never met. It's as if, because we can eloquently spell out the joys and pains of raising kids, or training dogs, or hating winter, we can all call each other family. And I kind of like that. I don't know about you, but I think I might know Heather (and other bloggers I follow) better than my OWN family sometimes.

I mean, her life has become dinnertime conversation around our house, for god's sake. CLH will ask me as we sit down together: Did you see what Chuck was wearing today? And I will answer yes and we'll laugh about it knowingly and then cut into our baked potatoes.

So, I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised when CLH came running into the kitchen the other day and blurted out, DID YOU SEE WHAT DOOCE'S KID IS WEARING? SHE'S DRESSED LIKE SPECIAL FRIEND FOR HALLOWEEN!

Internet, meet Special Friend.

Special Friend is a bit of a family joke around our house. Back when I worked for a major retailer, and back when I blew whole paychecks on weird toys, I came across a stuffed multi-colored centipede and brought it home to add to the menagerie. He was a bit of a prominent feature in the bedroom I shared with my sister at the time (this is back when CLH and I were first dating). Somehow, CLH and my sister developed a bit of a rivalry over who had true ownership rights to this stuffed centipede, and he was christened Special Friend (as in, "You can't have him. He's MY special friend"). He then spent the next five years being spirited away under winter coats and stuffed into suitcases at the last minute as each of us stole it from the other and back again. To "settle" the custody battle, my sister HAND STITCHED a second special friend (this time in khaki and navy) so that each of us could have one at our house and gave it to CLH for Christmas a few years back. Can you believe that? I mean, she got the eyes to match and EVERYthing. She even made him- get this- a little tiny top hat! Internet, that is some ingenuity.

My sister still has the original, and displays it proudly with the beaded throw pillows on her bed, and mine acts as a lumbar support when we sit on our couch.

Here is CLH holding up Special Friend II in front of our shower curtain. Yuen Lui, eat your heart out.

That kid could have been dressed as anything, ANYthing at all. But she was dressed as a centipede. A rainbow centipede. Coincidence? I think not.

Recently, CLH was offered the chance to go to Salt Lake City for a meet up with the other half of the development team he has been working with. Immediately, I asked him if I could go too. He smiled and asked if it was because I wanted to see where Heather and Jon lived. Maybe, I said. Or maybe it's because I've always wanted to see Utah. But probably it's because I want to meet Heather and Jon....and that baby wrapped in Special Friend.

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Internet friends

Parallel Lives… Almost

For the past year or so, CLH and I have been marveling at how similar our lives are to that of Dooce and Blurb, to whom we are wholly and Internet-ally devoted. I fell in love with Heather's writing about a year and a half ago when my friend Kevin emailed and said YOU MUST READ THIS BLOG. At the time, I was all, Kevin, get a grip, man. How good could it be? And then I started reading. And it was good. It was so good, in fact, I made a vow to read every single entry. From the beginning. And then, basically, I read nearly seven years' worth of blogging over the course of the next few months.

And over the course of those months, I sometimes felt like I was looking into a mirror (if a mirror was shaped like a monitor and had a keyboard dangling from it). I mean, minus the being a mom to two kids, and the Mormon upbringing, and being raised in the south, and the dislike of licorice, and her being extremely tall, and living in another state, and the owning of two dogs, and making a living blogging, and the beautifully decorated house, we have a LOT in common. Okay, so we really have nothing in common. Her husband is a big computer geek and my almost-husband is a computer geek and sometimes I also want to stick my head in the oven at the sight of the first flakes of snow. So, in my mind, that qualifies us to be twins.

You see, this is what the Internets has done to me: it's made me feel this kinship with people I've never met. It's as if, because we can eloquently spell out the joys and pains of raising kids, or training dogs, or hating winter, we can all call each other family. And I kind of like that. I don't know about you, but I think I might know Heather (and other bloggers I follow) better than my OWN family sometimes.

I mean, her life has become dinnertime conversation around our house, for god's sake. CLH will ask me as we sit down together: Did you see what Chuck was wearing today? And I will answer yes and we'll laugh about it knowingly and then cut into our baked potatoes.

So, I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised when CLH came running into the kitchen the other day and blurted out, DID YOU SEE WHAT DOOCE'S KID IS WEARING? SHE'S DRESSED LIKE SPECIAL FRIEND FOR HALLOWEEN!

Internet, meet Special Friend.

Special Friend is a bit of a family joke around our house. Back when I worked for a major retailer, and back when I blew whole paychecks on weird toys, I came across a stuffed multi-colored centipede and brought it home to add to the menagerie. He was a bit of a prominent feature in the bedroom I shared with my sister at the time (this is back when CLH and I were first dating). Somehow, CLH and my sister developed a bit of a rivalry over who had true ownership rights to this stuffed centipede, and he was christened Special Friend (as in, "You can't have him. He's MY special friend"). He then spent the next five years being spirited away under winter coats and stuffed into suitcases at the last minute as each of us stole it from the other and back again. To "settle" the custody battle, my sister HAND STITCHED a second special friend (this time in khaki and navy) so that each of us could have one at our house and gave it to CLH for Christmas a few years back. Can you believe that? I mean, she got the eyes to match and EVERYthing. She even made him- get this- a little tiny top hat! Internet, that is some ingenuity.

My sister still has the original, and displays it proudly with the beaded throw pillows on her bed, and mine acts as a lumbar support when we sit on our couch.

Here is CLH holding up Special Friend II in front of our shower curtain. Yuen Lui, eat your heart out.

That kid could have been dressed as anything, ANYthing at all. But she was dressed as a centipede. A rainbow centipede. Coincidence? I think not.

Recently, CLH was offered the chance to go to Salt Lake City for a meet up with the other half of the development team he has been working with. Immediately, I asked him if I could go too. He smiled and asked if it was because I wanted to see where Heather and Jon lived. Maybe, I said. Or maybe it's because I've always wanted to see Utah. But probably it's because I want to meet Heather and Jon....and that baby wrapped in Special Friend.

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Special Friend

Parallel Lives… Almost

For the past year or so, CLH and I have been marveling at how similar our lives are to that of Dooce and Blurb, to whom we are wholly and Internet-ally devoted. I fell in love with Heather's writing about a year and a half ago when my friend Kevin emailed and said YOU MUST READ THIS BLOG. At the time, I was all, Kevin, get a grip, man. How good could it be? And then I started reading. And it was good. It was so good, in fact, I made a vow to read every single entry. From the beginning. And then, basically, I read nearly seven years' worth of blogging over the course of the next few months.

And over the course of those months, I sometimes felt like I was looking into a mirror (if a mirror was shaped like a monitor and had a keyboard dangling from it). I mean, minus the being a mom to two kids, and the Mormon upbringing, and being raised in the south, and the dislike of licorice, and her being extremely tall, and living in another state, and the owning of two dogs, and making a living blogging, and the beautifully decorated house, we have a LOT in common. Okay, so we really have nothing in common. Her husband is a big computer geek and my almost-husband is a computer geek and sometimes I also want to stick my head in the oven at the sight of the first flakes of snow. So, in my mind, that qualifies us to be twins.

You see, this is what the Internets has done to me: it's made me feel this kinship with people I've never met. It's as if, because we can eloquently spell out the joys and pains of raising kids, or training dogs, or hating winter, we can all call each other family. And I kind of like that. I don't know about you, but I think I might know Heather (and other bloggers I follow) better than my OWN family sometimes.

I mean, her life has become dinnertime conversation around our house, for god's sake. CLH will ask me as we sit down together: Did you see what Chuck was wearing today? And I will answer yes and we'll laugh about it knowingly and then cut into our baked potatoes.

So, I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised when CLH came running into the kitchen the other day and blurted out, DID YOU SEE WHAT DOOCE'S KID IS WEARING? SHE'S DRESSED LIKE SPECIAL FRIEND FOR HALLOWEEN!

Internet, meet Special Friend.

Special Friend is a bit of a family joke around our house. Back when I worked for a major retailer, and back when I blew whole paychecks on weird toys, I came across a stuffed multi-colored centipede and brought it home to add to the menagerie. He was a bit of a prominent feature in the bedroom I shared with my sister at the time (this is back when CLH and I were first dating). Somehow, CLH and my sister developed a bit of a rivalry over who had true ownership rights to this stuffed centipede, and he was christened Special Friend (as in, "You can't have him. He's MY special friend"). He then spent the next five years being spirited away under winter coats and stuffed into suitcases at the last minute as each of us stole it from the other and back again. To "settle" the custody battle, my sister HAND STITCHED a second special friend (this time in khaki and navy) so that each of us could have one at our house and gave it to CLH for Christmas a few years back. Can you believe that? I mean, she got the eyes to match and EVERYthing. She even made him- get this- a little tiny top hat! Internet, that is some ingenuity.

My sister still has the original, and displays it proudly with the beaded throw pillows on her bed, and mine acts as a lumbar support when we sit on our couch.

Here is CLH holding up Special Friend II in front of our shower curtain. Yuen Lui, eat your heart out.

That kid could have been dressed as anything, ANYthing at all. But she was dressed as a centipede. A rainbow centipede. Coincidence? I think not.

Recently, CLH was offered the chance to go to Salt Lake City for a meet up with the other half of the development team he has been working with. Immediately, I asked him if I could go too. He smiled and asked if it was because I wanted to see where Heather and Jon lived. Maybe, I said. Or maybe it's because I've always wanted to see Utah. But probably it's because I want to meet Heather and Jon....and that baby wrapped in Special Friend.

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Yuen Lui

Parallel Lives… Almost

For the past year or so, CLH and I have been marveling at how similar our lives are to that of Dooce and Blurb, to whom we are wholly and Internet-ally devoted. I fell in love with Heather's writing about a year and a half ago when my friend Kevin emailed and said YOU MUST READ THIS BLOG. At the time, I was all, Kevin, get a grip, man. How good could it be? And then I started reading. And it was good. It was so good, in fact, I made a vow to read every single entry. From the beginning. And then, basically, I read nearly seven years' worth of blogging over the course of the next few months.

And over the course of those months, I sometimes felt like I was looking into a mirror (if a mirror was shaped like a monitor and had a keyboard dangling from it). I mean, minus the being a mom to two kids, and the Mormon upbringing, and being raised in the south, and the dislike of licorice, and her being extremely tall, and living in another state, and the owning of two dogs, and making a living blogging, and the beautifully decorated house, we have a LOT in common. Okay, so we really have nothing in common. Her husband is a big computer geek and my almost-husband is a computer geek and sometimes I also want to stick my head in the oven at the sight of the first flakes of snow. So, in my mind, that qualifies us to be twins.

You see, this is what the Internets has done to me: it's made me feel this kinship with people I've never met. It's as if, because we can eloquently spell out the joys and pains of raising kids, or training dogs, or hating winter, we can all call each other family. And I kind of like that. I don't know about you, but I think I might know Heather (and other bloggers I follow) better than my OWN family sometimes.

I mean, her life has become dinnertime conversation around our house, for god's sake. CLH will ask me as we sit down together: Did you see what Chuck was wearing today? And I will answer yes and we'll laugh about it knowingly and then cut into our baked potatoes.

So, I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised when CLH came running into the kitchen the other day and blurted out, DID YOU SEE WHAT DOOCE'S KID IS WEARING? SHE'S DRESSED LIKE SPECIAL FRIEND FOR HALLOWEEN!

Internet, meet Special Friend.

Special Friend is a bit of a family joke around our house. Back when I worked for a major retailer, and back when I blew whole paychecks on weird toys, I came across a stuffed multi-colored centipede and brought it home to add to the menagerie. He was a bit of a prominent feature in the bedroom I shared with my sister at the time (this is back when CLH and I were first dating). Somehow, CLH and my sister developed a bit of a rivalry over who had true ownership rights to this stuffed centipede, and he was christened Special Friend (as in, "You can't have him. He's MY special friend"). He then spent the next five years being spirited away under winter coats and stuffed into suitcases at the last minute as each of us stole it from the other and back again. To "settle" the custody battle, my sister HAND STITCHED a second special friend (this time in khaki and navy) so that each of us could have one at our house and gave it to CLH for Christmas a few years back. Can you believe that? I mean, she got the eyes to match and EVERYthing. She even made him- get this- a little tiny top hat! Internet, that is some ingenuity.

My sister still has the original, and displays it proudly with the beaded throw pillows on her bed, and mine acts as a lumbar support when we sit on our couch.

Here is CLH holding up Special Friend II in front of our shower curtain. Yuen Lui, eat your heart out.

That kid could have been dressed as anything, ANYthing at all. But she was dressed as a centipede. A rainbow centipede. Coincidence? I think not.

Recently, CLH was offered the chance to go to Salt Lake City for a meet up with the other half of the development team he has been working with. Immediately, I asked him if I could go too. He smiled and asked if it was because I wanted to see where Heather and Jon lived. Maybe, I said. Or maybe it's because I've always wanted to see Utah. But probably it's because I want to meet Heather and Jon....and that baby wrapped in Special Friend.

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chickens

Urban Homesteading Part II

AFTER:

Admittedly, not my finest photography work, but you get the idea.

Speaking of ideas, here's CLH's latest: chickens. Raised in our garage.

Him: When can we raise chickens in the garage?

Me: I already told you. I'm totally cool with it. Do you know how to do it?

CLH: My grandmother did it when I was growing up. I'm sure I can find out. But you wouldn't like it.

Me: What do you mean?

CLH: The smell. You would DIE.

Me: Oh. Is is bad?

CLH: Um. Yeah. It would smell like guinea pigs and shit. It would waft up the stairs and you'd ha-a-a-ate it.

Me: Wait. Why would chickens smell like guinea pigs? Is it because of the cedar shavings? Because I kinda like the smell of guinea pigs. And cedar.

CLH: Alright, maybe not guinea pigs. But definitely POOP.

Me: Oh. Well, anyway, don't chickens need sunlight? The garage doesn't get any light. And living things need light to survive. They'd never see daylight unless you took them our for walks or something.

(and here's where we both pause and get lost in our own imaginings of CLH walking chickens on leashes down the sidewalks in our neighborhood.)

Me: Guess we're not raising chickens in the garage.

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garage

Urban Homesteading Part II

AFTER:

Admittedly, not my finest photography work, but you get the idea.

Speaking of ideas, here's CLH's latest: chickens. Raised in our garage.

Him: When can we raise chickens in the garage?

Me: I already told you. I'm totally cool with it. Do you know how to do it?

CLH: My grandmother did it when I was growing up. I'm sure I can find out. But you wouldn't like it.

Me: What do you mean?

CLH: The smell. You would DIE.

Me: Oh. Is is bad?

CLH: Um. Yeah. It would smell like guinea pigs and shit. It would waft up the stairs and you'd ha-a-a-ate it.

Me: Wait. Why would chickens smell like guinea pigs? Is it because of the cedar shavings? Because I kinda like the smell of guinea pigs. And cedar.

CLH: Alright, maybe not guinea pigs. But definitely POOP.

Me: Oh. Well, anyway, don't chickens need sunlight? The garage doesn't get any light. And living things need light to survive. They'd never see daylight unless you took them our for walks or something.

(and here's where we both pause and get lost in our own imaginings of CLH walking chickens on leashes down the sidewalks in our neighborhood.)

Me: Guess we're not raising chickens in the garage.

Continue to full post...

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urban homesteading

Urban Homesteading Part II

AFTER:

Admittedly, not my finest photography work, but you get the idea.

Speaking of ideas, here's CLH's latest: chickens. Raised in our garage.

Him: When can we raise chickens in the garage?

Me: I already told you. I'm totally cool with it. Do you know how to do it?

CLH: My grandmother did it when I was growing up. I'm sure I can find out. But you wouldn't like it.

Me: What do you mean?

CLH: The smell. You would DIE.

Me: Oh. Is is bad?

CLH: Um. Yeah. It would smell like guinea pigs and shit. It would waft up the stairs and you'd ha-a-a-ate it.

Me: Wait. Why would chickens smell like guinea pigs? Is it because of the cedar shavings? Because I kinda like the smell of guinea pigs. And cedar.

CLH: Alright, maybe not guinea pigs. But definitely POOP.

Me: Oh. Well, anyway, don't chickens need sunlight? The garage doesn't get any light. And living things need light to survive. They'd never see daylight unless you took them our for walks or something.

(and here's where we both pause and get lost in our own imaginings of CLH walking chickens on leashes down the sidewalks in our neighborhood.)

Me: Guess we're not raising chickens in the garage.

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Ellen

A Short List

Here's a short list of things that brought me joy today:

1. Getting the filling between my two teeth filed down so that the blinding pain would cease and desist.

2. Being told by the dentist that I would need to suck down 9 ibuprofen a day for the next three days to help with the inflammation. Mandated muscle relaxation. I love it. Just in time for my period, too!

3. Seeing pictures of Ellen Degerenes and Portia De Rossi's wedding day on Oprah.

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fillings

A Short List

Here's a short list of things that brought me joy today:

1. Getting the filling between my two teeth filed down so that the blinding pain would cease and desist.

2. Being told by the dentist that I would need to suck down 9 ibuprofen a day for the next three days to help with the inflammation. Mandated muscle relaxation. I love it. Just in time for my period, too!

3. Seeing pictures of Ellen Degerenes and Portia De Rossi's wedding day on Oprah.

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Portia

A Short List

Here's a short list of things that brought me joy today:

1. Getting the filling between my two teeth filed down so that the blinding pain would cease and desist.

2. Being told by the dentist that I would need to suck down 9 ibuprofen a day for the next three days to help with the inflammation. Mandated muscle relaxation. I love it. Just in time for my period, too!

3. Seeing pictures of Ellen Degerenes and Portia De Rossi's wedding day on Oprah.

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wedding

A Short List

Here's a short list of things that brought me joy today:

1. Getting the filling between my two teeth filed down so that the blinding pain would cease and desist.

2. Being told by the dentist that I would need to suck down 9 ibuprofen a day for the next three days to help with the inflammation. Mandated muscle relaxation. I love it. Just in time for my period, too!

3. Seeing pictures of Ellen Degerenes and Portia De Rossi's wedding day on Oprah.

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castor oil

Go Ask Your Mom

I have just a few minutes here before I start my new nightly routine: slathering the left side of my ribcage with caster oil, throwing on an old t-shirt, then wrapping myself in a heating blanket. You know, a normal 82 year old's bedtime routine. It's to help detox my liver and get my poor, exhausted adrenal glands functioning again. I have to have a sense of humor about this because otherwise, my life is one long list of bizarre maladies and even more bizarre remedies. More on this later.

The real reason to post tonight is to share a little bit of the conversation I recently had with my mom. It was inspired by my friend Layla, who is pregnant with her second child. We were having tea at a local coffeehouse and we were talking about kids and where they get their funny little character traits from (this, as her first kid, a three year old, gets bored with our talking and is out on the sidewalk outside the coffeehouse in about 5.2 seconds because, as she puts it, she is "ready to go home now"). We got to talking about children being mini versions of their parents, and suddenly Layla asked me what I was like as a child. And I realized I had absolutely no idea.

So I decided to call my mom a few days later and ask her. Now, my mom is a phenomenal storyteller. My grandfather, her father, was too. But my mom hasn't spent much time rehashing the past for us recently. These days, she's busy trying to make ends meet, trying to stay on top of my brother's medical bills (he lives at home, and if you think my health problems are never-ending...). When you get her talking, my mom weaves a great tale. And she cracks herself up in the process. Guess that tends to happen when you have four highly resourceful, highly energetic kids whose idea of a good time is deconstructing household furniture).

So this is what I found out about myself (mom's words): I was a very forward child, always curious, always asking questions. I was always very self assured, very pragmatic. My mom remembers once, when I was about 6 years old or so, waking up from a nap to find me on the kitchen counter measuring out my pink bubble gum flavored Amoxicillin into a spoon. When she asked what in the hell I was doing, I calmly responded that it was 3 pm, mom, and it was time for my medicine. Okay, so I don't know the saddest part about all that: the fact that I had to regularly ingest Amoxicillin for chronic ear infections, or the fact that I had an internal clock that knew when to take it before I had actually learned to tell time. Geezus. Okay, how about a happier story, mom?

Well, there was that time I taught myself how to tie my own shoes. My mom showed me the "bunny ears" method, but I guess this method struck me as too juvenile or complicated or something because I told my mom, effectively, to back off because I wanted to do it myself. I remember this, too. I remember fumbling with those laces for what seemed like days, and the next thing I know, the knot magically came together and I declared, "I DID IT! I TIED MY OWN SHOES" to everyone in the house. Mom didn't mention anything about my being a boaster...

There was also the time my mom caught me with a steak knife in one hand and an apple in the other. Again, the question about what in the hell I was doing, and again the very calm, matter of fact answer. "I'm peeling an apple, mom". Oh, did I mention I was four years old at the time? Apparently, I had a lot of confidence in my motor skills back then.

It was really touching to learn all this about myself. And even more touching to hear that my mom's recall was so sharp and so specific. She's got four kids and she's often mixed up details about our lives, but, I felt like, in this moment over the phone, she was channelling her younger self, seeing everything as it was those thirty two years ago.

My mom also revealed that she suffered some pretty severe post-partum depression after she had me. I asked her what she did to help herself. "Nothing", she replied. "The doctors didn't take you seriously back in those days. So, there was nothing I could do. When you were awake, you kept me busy, and that's how I kept my mind off it. The second you were asleep and I had five minutes to myself, I started to spiral downward".

I'd had some ideas about my dexterity with kitchen instruments, but I never knew this about my childhood. My mom spent the first months of my life caught between the boundless love she had for me, her new baby, and the all-consuming depression brought on by the change in hormones in her body.

I thought about this for hours after I hung up the phone. How alone she must have felt, cooped up in the house with just her kid and her brain telling her that it would be better if she just crawled under a rock and died.

I have a new respect for her, and all mothers who battle with post-partum depression. I hope she knows that all her struggles were worth it, that I appreciate the life she gave me, no matter how banged up and bruised that life got later on down the road.

Thanks, mom. You did okay. And you should see what I can do with a paring knife and a piece of fruit these days.

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new mothers

Go Ask Your Mom

I have just a few minutes here before I start my new nightly routine: slathering the left side of my ribcage with caster oil, throwing on an old t-shirt, then wrapping myself in a heating blanket. You know, a normal 82 year old's bedtime routine. It's to help detox my liver and get my poor, exhausted adrenal glands functioning again. I have to have a sense of humor about this because otherwise, my life is one long list of bizarre maladies and even more bizarre remedies. More on this later.

The real reason to post tonight is to share a little bit of the conversation I recently had with my mom. It was inspired by my friend Layla, who is pregnant with her second child. We were having tea at a local coffeehouse and we were talking about kids and where they get their funny little character traits from (this, as her first kid, a three year old, gets bored with our talking and is out on the sidewalk outside the coffeehouse in about 5.2 seconds because, as she puts it, she is "ready to go home now"). We got to talking about children being mini versions of their parents, and suddenly Layla asked me what I was like as a child. And I realized I had absolutely no idea.

So I decided to call my mom a few days later and ask her. Now, my mom is a phenomenal storyteller. My grandfather, her father, was too. But my mom hasn't spent much time rehashing the past for us recently. These days, she's busy trying to make ends meet, trying to stay on top of my brother's medical bills (he lives at home, and if you think my health problems are never-ending...). When you get her talking, my mom weaves a great tale. And she cracks herself up in the process. Guess that tends to happen when you have four highly resourceful, highly energetic kids whose idea of a good time is deconstructing household furniture).

So this is what I found out about myself (mom's words): I was a very forward child, always curious, always asking questions. I was always very self assured, very pragmatic. My mom remembers once, when I was about 6 years old or so, waking up from a nap to find me on the kitchen counter measuring out my pink bubble gum flavored Amoxicillin into a spoon. When she asked what in the hell I was doing, I calmly responded that it was 3 pm, mom, and it was time for my medicine. Okay, so I don't know the saddest part about all that: the fact that I had to regularly ingest Amoxicillin for chronic ear infections, or the fact that I had an internal clock that knew when to take it before I had actually learned to tell time. Geezus. Okay, how about a happier story, mom?

Well, there was that time I taught myself how to tie my own shoes. My mom showed me the "bunny ears" method, but I guess this method struck me as too juvenile or complicated or something because I told my mom, effectively, to back off because I wanted to do it myself. I remember this, too. I remember fumbling with those laces for what seemed like days, and the next thing I know, the knot magically came together and I declared, "I DID IT! I TIED MY OWN SHOES" to everyone in the house. Mom didn't mention anything about my being a boaster...

There was also the time my mom caught me with a steak knife in one hand and an apple in the other. Again, the question about what in the hell I was doing, and again the very calm, matter of fact answer. "I'm peeling an apple, mom". Oh, did I mention I was four years old at the time? Apparently, I had a lot of confidence in my motor skills back then.

It was really touching to learn all this about myself. And even more touching to hear that my mom's recall was so sharp and so specific. She's got four kids and she's often mixed up details about our lives, but, I felt like, in this moment over the phone, she was channelling her younger self, seeing everything as it was those thirty two years ago.

My mom also revealed that she suffered some pretty severe post-partum depression after she had me. I asked her what she did to help herself. "Nothing", she replied. "The doctors didn't take you seriously back in those days. So, there was nothing I could do. When you were awake, you kept me busy, and that's how I kept my mind off it. The second you were asleep and I had five minutes to myself, I started to spiral downward".

I'd had some ideas about my dexterity with kitchen instruments, but I never knew this about my childhood. My mom spent the first months of my life caught between the boundless love she had for me, her new baby, and the all-consuming depression brought on by the change in hormones in her body.

I thought about this for hours after I hung up the phone. How alone she must have felt, cooped up in the house with just her kid and her brain telling her that it would be better if she just crawled under a rock and died.

I have a new respect for her, and all mothers who battle with post-partum depression. I hope she knows that all her struggles were worth it, that I appreciate the life she gave me, no matter how banged up and bruised that life got later on down the road.

Thanks, mom. You did okay. And you should see what I can do with a paring knife and a piece of fruit these days.

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post partum depression

Go Ask Your Mom

I have just a few minutes here before I start my new nightly routine: slathering the left side of my ribcage with caster oil, throwing on an old t-shirt, then wrapping myself in a heating blanket. You know, a normal 82 year old's bedtime routine. It's to help detox my liver and get my poor, exhausted adrenal glands functioning again. I have to have a sense of humor about this because otherwise, my life is one long list of bizarre maladies and even more bizarre remedies. More on this later.

The real reason to post tonight is to share a little bit of the conversation I recently had with my mom. It was inspired by my friend Layla, who is pregnant with her second child. We were having tea at a local coffeehouse and we were talking about kids and where they get their funny little character traits from (this, as her first kid, a three year old, gets bored with our talking and is out on the sidewalk outside the coffeehouse in about 5.2 seconds because, as she puts it, she is "ready to go home now"). We got to talking about children being mini versions of their parents, and suddenly Layla asked me what I was like as a child. And I realized I had absolutely no idea.

So I decided to call my mom a few days later and ask her. Now, my mom is a phenomenal storyteller. My grandfather, her father, was too. But my mom hasn't spent much time rehashing the past for us recently. These days, she's busy trying to make ends meet, trying to stay on top of my brother's medical bills (he lives at home, and if you think my health problems are never-ending...). When you get her talking, my mom weaves a great tale. And she cracks herself up in the process. Guess that tends to happen when you have four highly resourceful, highly energetic kids whose idea of a good time is deconstructing household furniture).

So this is what I found out about myself (mom's words): I was a very forward child, always curious, always asking questions. I was always very self assured, very pragmatic. My mom remembers once, when I was about 6 years old or so, waking up from a nap to find me on the kitchen counter measuring out my pink bubble gum flavored Amoxicillin into a spoon. When she asked what in the hell I was doing, I calmly responded that it was 3 pm, mom, and it was time for my medicine. Okay, so I don't know the saddest part about all that: the fact that I had to regularly ingest Amoxicillin for chronic ear infections, or the fact that I had an internal clock that knew when to take it before I had actually learned to tell time. Geezus. Okay, how about a happier story, mom?

Well, there was that time I taught myself how to tie my own shoes. My mom showed me the "bunny ears" method, but I guess this method struck me as too juvenile or complicated or something because I told my mom, effectively, to back off because I wanted to do it myself. I remember this, too. I remember fumbling with those laces for what seemed like days, and the next thing I know, the knot magically came together and I declared, "I DID IT! I TIED MY OWN SHOES" to everyone in the house. Mom didn't mention anything about my being a boaster...

There was also the time my mom caught me with a steak knife in one hand and an apple in the other. Again, the question about what in the hell I was doing, and again the very calm, matter of fact answer. "I'm peeling an apple, mom". Oh, did I mention I was four years old at the time? Apparently, I had a lot of confidence in my motor skills back then.

It was really touching to learn all this about myself. And even more touching to hear that my mom's recall was so sharp and so specific. She's got four kids and she's often mixed up details about our lives, but, I felt like, in this moment over the phone, she was channelling her younger self, seeing everything as it was those thirty two years ago.

My mom also revealed that she suffered some pretty severe post-partum depression after she had me. I asked her what she did to help herself. "Nothing", she replied. "The doctors didn't take you seriously back in those days. So, there was nothing I could do. When you were awake, you kept me busy, and that's how I kept my mind off it. The second you were asleep and I had five minutes to myself, I started to spiral downward".

I'd had some ideas about my dexterity with kitchen instruments, but I never knew this about my childhood. My mom spent the first months of my life caught between the boundless love she had for me, her new baby, and the all-consuming depression brought on by the change in hormones in her body.

I thought about this for hours after I hung up the phone. How alone she must have felt, cooped up in the house with just her kid and her brain telling her that it would be better if she just crawled under a rock and died.

I have a new respect for her, and all mothers who battle with post-partum depression. I hope she knows that all her struggles were worth it, that I appreciate the life she gave me, no matter how banged up and bruised that life got later on down the road.

Thanks, mom. You did okay. And you should see what I can do with a paring knife and a piece of fruit these days.

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organization

The Garage Sale Theory

We interrupt this interminably long season of rain and hail to bring you an update you on the state of affairs in the Sixties Triplex.

Ready? Take a breath, Internet. This is huge.

The garage is organized.

Isn't that thrilling?!! I mean, doesn't that just make you want to end sentences with an obnoxious amount of punctuation? Just picture it: Rubbermaid bins stacked neatly, one on top of the other... each with a little label in my symmetrical, all caps handwriting. Oh, the joy! The pure, unadulterated bliss at seeing my Halloween costume boxes stacked near the Christmas decoration boxes (not ON the Christmas decoration boxes, silly! THAT would NOT be organized! THAT would be sheer craziness! THAT would be blatant disregard for the universal rules of organizing that clearly state that decorations for holidays occurring in DIFFERENT months SHALL NOT TOUCH EACH OTHER!)

You've been so patient, waiting all this time to find out how we managed to fulfill our self-imposed mandate to get rid of half of everything we own. You deserve to share in my little heaven on earth.

But you're probably still wondering: How did you get rid of all those VHS tapes? What did you finally do with Alfredo the Concrete Parrot? Why did you move with all that crap in the first place, you idiots?

Well, the answer is that, the Garage Sale Theory proved itself again. People came in droves this summer and they ignored the awesome vintage melamine dipping bowls on the wooden lazy-susan thingee and they went right for the USED VHS tapes. They did NOT buy the couch in excellent shape but they ogled the mirror framed in a beat up, smiling, wooden half-moon face. They walked right past the chic cowboy boots, and instead picked up the torn bits of fabric and the ripped Mexican paper flags. And they gave me their hard earned money for what I was about ten seconds away from hauling away to the Goodwill. They did NOT give me money for stuff that I thought would be actually useful. Because, my friends, the Garage Sale Theory was proving itself over and over. The theory works a little like Murphy's Law. It basically states that if there is an opportunity for people to give you money for the junkiest, ugliest things you own, AND the nicest, in-best-shape stuff you own, the general public will always buy your junk. And your gently used, newly re-stuffed couch with the neutral color scheme PERFECT FOR ANY HOME will languish in your garage unused for the next four months.

We only had about four small boxes of junk unsold at the end of the sale. And we didn't have to haul one iota of it to the local thrift store. In this city, when you put something out on the sidewalk with a "free" sign on it, people come streaming out of their houses like termites out of burning log and they descend on your junk with a certain predatory glee. Within hours, nearly everything was gone. CLH and I shared many high-fives that night. HALF of our stuff was GONE.

Several weeks after the sale, we invited our good friend Gingi over and she helped us get even more stuff out of the garage. We hadn't unpacked our framed pictures yet because, well, we couldn't GET to them with all the crap down there. After we'd cleared out the stuff for the garage sale, we were able to unearth them, plus a few other goodies which we then decorated the house with. We couldn't part with Alfredo the Concrete Parrot, so he is now sitting atop our mantle along with a few other choice pieces of art and debris.

I think I might have cried tears of relief when Gingi was done. The place FINALLY looked like it was inhabited by ADULTS who knew a thing or two about design. The potted plants that we had just lined up front of the fireplace like a platoon of soldiers was tastefully dispersed around the house. My antique globe was finally taken out of the box of foam peanuts. The pictures of our relatives were finally hung on the walls. My favorite typewriter was put out on display in the living room. Huzzah!

And weeks after that? THE COUCH WAS SOLD. I had to restrain myself from kissing the lady full on the mouth when she said she would take it.

So now, the garage is only half full. HALF! We got rid of HALF of everything! Sometimes, when I go downstairs to check on the laundry, I just open the door to the garage and stand there for a few minutes and marvel at the beauty.

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amoxicillin

Life Is Handing Me Metric Tons of Lemons Right Now

And I can't find my juicer.

This blinding tooth pain I've been having? Yeah, that's probably being caused by an angry nerve. So I'll probably need a root canal next week. Happy Fucking Thanksgiving to me!

And the Amoxicillin I'm taking to clear up the infection that's probably raging in my gums right now? Well, that will probably destroy the flora in my gut that I've been working to restore by not eating wheat for nearly three weeks now. So, yeah. We can pretty much flush that little experiment down the toilet. I'm having 17 servings of macaroni and cheese in between layers of pancakes for breakfast tomorrow to celebrate.

And the Tylenol with codeine that I'm taking to kill the pain? Well, I'm not supposed to drive after taking it (thanks for the info, Mr. Pharmacist with the really bad nail fungus. You DO know you work in a pharmacy where they sell remedies for common ailments like nail fungus, right? Just sayin'.) How do you propose I get to work? Because this surgery isn't free, you know, and I need to work to pay for this shit. And all these trips to the dentist? Well, that's costing me money in the form of lost work. Dear Mr. Obama, I AM the health care crisis in this country in the flesh. Let me introduce you to my Single Lady Option.

The bright side? The dental hygienist thought I was a dead ringer for a certain blond celebrity (I get that a lot) so she labeled my x-rays "Meg Ryan".

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Meg Ryan

Life Is Handing Me Metric Tons of Lemons Right Now

And I can't find my juicer.

This blinding tooth pain I've been having? Yeah, that's probably being caused by an angry nerve. So I'll probably need a root canal next week. Happy Fucking Thanksgiving to me!

And the Amoxicillin I'm taking to clear up the infection that's probably raging in my gums right now? Well, that will probably destroy the flora in my gut that I've been working to restore by not eating wheat for nearly three weeks now. So, yeah. We can pretty much flush that little experiment down the toilet. I'm having 17 servings of macaroni and cheese in between layers of pancakes for breakfast tomorrow to celebrate.

And the Tylenol with codeine that I'm taking to kill the pain? Well, I'm not supposed to drive after taking it (thanks for the info, Mr. Pharmacist with the really bad nail fungus. You DO know you work in a pharmacy where they sell remedies for common ailments like nail fungus, right? Just sayin'.) How do you propose I get to work? Because this surgery isn't free, you know, and I need to work to pay for this shit. And all these trips to the dentist? Well, that's costing me money in the form of lost work. Dear Mr. Obama, I AM the health care crisis in this country in the flesh. Let me introduce you to my Single Lady Option.

The bright side? The dental hygienist thought I was a dead ringer for a certain blond celebrity (I get that a lot) so she labeled my x-rays "Meg Ryan".

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root canal

Life Is Handing Me Metric Tons of Lemons Right Now

And I can't find my juicer.

This blinding tooth pain I've been having? Yeah, that's probably being caused by an angry nerve. So I'll probably need a root canal next week. Happy Fucking Thanksgiving to me!

And the Amoxicillin I'm taking to clear up the infection that's probably raging in my gums right now? Well, that will probably destroy the flora in my gut that I've been working to restore by not eating wheat for nearly three weeks now. So, yeah. We can pretty much flush that little experiment down the toilet. I'm having 17 servings of macaroni and cheese in between layers of pancakes for breakfast tomorrow to celebrate.

And the Tylenol with codeine that I'm taking to kill the pain? Well, I'm not supposed to drive after taking it (thanks for the info, Mr. Pharmacist with the really bad nail fungus. You DO know you work in a pharmacy where they sell remedies for common ailments like nail fungus, right? Just sayin'.) How do you propose I get to work? Because this surgery isn't free, you know, and I need to work to pay for this shit. And all these trips to the dentist? Well, that's costing me money in the form of lost work. Dear Mr. Obama, I AM the health care crisis in this country in the flesh. Let me introduce you to my Single Lady Option.

The bright side? The dental hygienist thought I was a dead ringer for a certain blond celebrity (I get that a lot) so she labeled my x-rays "Meg Ryan".

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American Indian Relief Charities

My Apologies To All The Trees That Gave Their Lives

Cannot. Find. Top. Of. Desk. Must. Grunt. Out. Statements. A la. William. Shatner. Must. Clean. Off. Desk. To. Think. Straight.

Aaaah. There we are. An hour and seven different emails to seven different charity organizations later, I am free of clutter.

Seriously. Who the hell authorized the selling of my name to every blasted charity under the sun? So I gave twenty five bucks to a Native American charity years ago. Does that mean that I have to receive a letter a day, some with return address labels, some with whole sets of Christmas cards in them asking for money for the rest of my life?</p>

</span>I'm pretty sure there's a service out there that will tell these guys to scram for you, but I can't for the life of me remember the name of it. I think Brad Pitt once did a spot on Oprah for it. Was it Brad Pitt? Or some other hunky celebrity? Well, a lot of good his looks did me because I can't remember his face or the website. Just his pecs. Under his white t-shirt. Yup. That's pretty much all I remember.</p>

A quick Google search reveals the usual tips for making junk mail go away.
</span>
http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/></p>

http://www.ecocycle.org/junkmail/index.cfm#step6

</span></span></span>I'm not a penny pinching ogre or anything. It's just that I give to my LOCAL charities. And any yahoo willing to tape a REAL AMERICAN DOLLAR to the freaking ask letter to entice you to match his contribution CANNOT be hurting all that bad, right?

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charities

My Apologies To All The Trees That Gave Their Lives

Cannot. Find. Top. Of. Desk. Must. Grunt. Out. Statements. A la. William. Shatner. Must. Clean. Off. Desk. To. Think. Straight.

Aaaah. There we are. An hour and seven different emails to seven different charity organizations later, I am free of clutter.

Seriously. Who the hell authorized the selling of my name to every blasted charity under the sun? So I gave twenty five bucks to a Native American charity years ago. Does that mean that I have to receive a letter a day, some with return address labels, some with whole sets of Christmas cards in them asking for money for the rest of my life?</p>

</span>I'm pretty sure there's a service out there that will tell these guys to scram for you, but I can't for the life of me remember the name of it. I think Brad Pitt once did a spot on Oprah for it. Was it Brad Pitt? Or some other hunky celebrity? Well, a lot of good his looks did me because I can't remember his face or the website. Just his pecs. Under his white t-shirt. Yup. That's pretty much all I remember.</p>

A quick Google search reveals the usual tips for making junk mail go away.
</span>
http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/></p>

http://www.ecocycle.org/junkmail/index.cfm#step6

</span></span></span>I'm not a penny pinching ogre or anything. It's just that I give to my LOCAL charities. And any yahoo willing to tape a REAL AMERICAN DOLLAR to the freaking ask letter to entice you to match his contribution CANNOT be hurting all that bad, right?

Continue to full post...

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donations

My Apologies To All The Trees That Gave Their Lives

Cannot. Find. Top. Of. Desk. Must. Grunt. Out. Statements. A la. William. Shatner. Must. Clean. Off. Desk. To. Think. Straight.

Aaaah. There we are. An hour and seven different emails to seven different charity organizations later, I am free of clutter.

Seriously. Who the hell authorized the selling of my name to every blasted charity under the sun? So I gave twenty five bucks to a Native American charity years ago. Does that mean that I have to receive a letter a day, some with return address labels, some with whole sets of Christmas cards in them asking for money for the rest of my life?</p>

</span>I'm pretty sure there's a service out there that will tell these guys to scram for you, but I can't for the life of me remember the name of it. I think Brad Pitt once did a spot on Oprah for it. Was it Brad Pitt? Or some other hunky celebrity? Well, a lot of good his looks did me because I can't remember his face or the website. Just his pecs. Under his white t-shirt. Yup. That's pretty much all I remember.</p>

A quick Google search reveals the usual tips for making junk mail go away.
</span>
http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/></p>

http://www.ecocycle.org/junkmail/index.cfm#step6

</span></span></span>I'm not a penny pinching ogre or anything. It's just that I give to my LOCAL charities. And any yahoo willing to tape a REAL AMERICAN DOLLAR to the freaking ask letter to entice you to match his contribution CANNOT be hurting all that bad, right?

Continue to full post...

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African violets

Report From the Windowsill

When our friends Lacy & Roberto moved from the US to Canada, they had to leave behind a dozen or so houseplants. Somehow, I agreed to take them all in. Hopeless at decorating, I simply lined them all up, firing squad style, in front of my fireplace (and then I crossed my fingers and said a little prayer that we would never, ever have to use the fireplace because some of those plants were HEAVY and hadn't I had enough of the heavy lifting for one year?)

Well, I am happy to report to Lacy and Roberto that their African violets are doing marvelously. Apparently, we have the perfect combo of natural light and human sweat running down the window panes because they are thriving in here. And, as Lacy predicted, they've made a comback. When I got the plants back in July, they were flowerless and some of the leaves a little worse for the wear. But even the one we thought would never flower has shot up a lovely little stem of deep purple.

I've been experimenting with using CLH's big bad heavy camera lately, so I'm going to start posting bigger, more vibrant pictures to this site. Lucky for me CLH knows a thing or two about technology, because, let's face it, I have very little patience for it. And there might not be any pictures of African violets here at all if I didn't have him to ask about cords and file formats and which program I use to open what photo. If it were up to me, I would be chiseling you pictures onto a piece of slate using a mallet and a sharpened piece of rebar. And then trying to cram that piece of slate into to my disk drive while yelling obscenities.

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camera

Report From the Windowsill

When our friends Lacy & Roberto moved from the US to Canada, they had to leave behind a dozen or so houseplants. Somehow, I agreed to take them all in. Hopeless at decorating, I simply lined them all up, firing squad style, in front of my fireplace (and then I crossed my fingers and said a little prayer that we would never, ever have to use the fireplace because some of those plants were HEAVY and hadn't I had enough of the heavy lifting for one year?)

Well, I am happy to report to Lacy and Roberto that their African violets are doing marvelously. Apparently, we have the perfect combo of natural light and human sweat running down the window panes because they are thriving in here. And, as Lacy predicted, they've made a comback. When I got the plants back in July, they were flowerless and some of the leaves a little worse for the wear. But even the one we thought would never flower has shot up a lovely little stem of deep purple.

I've been experimenting with using CLH's big bad heavy camera lately, so I'm going to start posting bigger, more vibrant pictures to this site. Lucky for me CLH knows a thing or two about technology, because, let's face it, I have very little patience for it. And there might not be any pictures of African violets here at all if I didn't have him to ask about cords and file formats and which program I use to open what photo. If it were up to me, I would be chiseling you pictures onto a piece of slate using a mallet and a sharpened piece of rebar. And then trying to cram that piece of slate into to my disk drive while yelling obscenities.

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Abba

Awesomeness Never Goes Out of Style

I'm taking a break from blogging about my health problems to show you the latest addition to my record collection.* Um, did she say record collection? Yes, my record collection. It's about 24 records big and includes this gem, MJ's "Thriller", and the WWF album. As you can see, I only collect quality pieces.

I popped this sucker onto the turntable the other evening and made dinner while doing some interpretive dance to "SOS". One minute I am moping about how I'm going to pay for a root canal and the next I am warbling into a wooden spoon and flapping my arms. There's just something irrepressibly happy about Abba. I would wager you could step knee deep in dog poop, get fired from your job, and find a human finger in your french fries, and you'd still find yourself jutting your hips to one side and hoisting your arms over your head once "Dancing Queen" came on.

Well, I'd wager you would. I'd wager CLH would chew his dinner and shake his head and wonder why his girlfriend insisted on singing harmony to "Fernando" with a mouth full of salad mix. I can't help it. They just make me believe that, with enough dramatic gesticulations, anyone can sing their way out of bad mood. I think it's because Abba are aliens made entirely of wholesomeness and good cheer. I'm not a statistician or anything, but I'm pretty sure you could track a very clear trend in world peace summits, hand holding, and Abba record release dates.

Also, check out the fashion points here. Um... knee-high boots? Cute tweed hats? Ponchos? Is anyone else weirded out by the fact that these EXACT outfits are totally in fashion right now? And the boots? Check out the details on these puppies. Amazing.

I'm gonna come right out and say it: the guys, the guys are TOTALLY rockin' it here. REAL men wear jaunty scarves and platform boots. Am I right, ladies?

And speaking of fashionable comebacks, I, for one, am totally ready for David Sedaris's new book. Know why? 'Cause I got me a phonograph. That's right. The NY Times has announced that his new book will be released on vinyl. Do I need any more proof that great minds think alike? Or that knee-high boots will ever go out of style?

*Thank you to Geoff, Steph, Gingi, for the contribution to my collection.

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Dancing Queen

Awesomeness Never Goes Out of Style

I'm taking a break from blogging about my health problems to show you the latest addition to my record collection.* Um, did she say record collection? Yes, my record collection. It's about 24 records big and includes this gem, MJ's "Thriller", and the WWF album. As you can see, I only collect quality pieces.

I popped this sucker onto the turntable the other evening and made dinner while doing some interpretive dance to "SOS". One minute I am moping about how I'm going to pay for a root canal and the next I am warbling into a wooden spoon and flapping my arms. There's just something irrepressibly happy about Abba. I would wager you could step knee deep in dog poop, get fired from your job, and find a human finger in your french fries, and you'd still find yourself jutting your hips to one side and hoisting your arms over your head once "Dancing Queen" came on.

Well, I'd wager you would. I'd wager CLH would chew his dinner and shake his head and wonder why his girlfriend insisted on singing harmony to "Fernando" with a mouth full of salad mix. I can't help it. They just make me believe that, with enough dramatic gesticulations, anyone can sing their way out of bad mood. I think it's because Abba are aliens made entirely of wholesomeness and good cheer. I'm not a statistician or anything, but I'm pretty sure you could track a very clear trend in world peace summits, hand holding, and Abba record release dates.

Also, check out the fashion points here. Um... knee-high boots? Cute tweed hats? Ponchos? Is anyone else weirded out by the fact that these EXACT outfits are totally in fashion right now? And the boots? Check out the details on these puppies. Amazing.

I'm gonna come right out and say it: the guys, the guys are TOTALLY rockin' it here. REAL men wear jaunty scarves and platform boots. Am I right, ladies?

And speaking of fashionable comebacks, I, for one, am totally ready for David Sedaris's new book. Know why? 'Cause I got me a phonograph. That's right. The NY Times has announced that his new book will be released on vinyl. Do I need any more proof that great minds think alike? Or that knee-high boots will ever go out of style?

*Thank you to Geoff, Steph, Gingi, for the contribution to my collection.

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David Sedaris

Awesomeness Never Goes Out of Style

I'm taking a break from blogging about my health problems to show you the latest addition to my record collection.* Um, did she say record collection? Yes, my record collection. It's about 24 records big and includes this gem, MJ's "Thriller", and the WWF album. As you can see, I only collect quality pieces.

I popped this sucker onto the turntable the other evening and made dinner while doing some interpretive dance to "SOS". One minute I am moping about how I'm going to pay for a root canal and the next I am warbling into a wooden spoon and flapping my arms. There's just something irrepressibly happy about Abba. I would wager you could step knee deep in dog poop, get fired from your job, and find a human finger in your french fries, and you'd still find yourself jutting your hips to one side and hoisting your arms over your head once "Dancing Queen" came on.

Well, I'd wager you would. I'd wager CLH would chew his dinner and shake his head and wonder why his girlfriend insisted on singing harmony to "Fernando" with a mouth full of salad mix. I can't help it. They just make me believe that, with enough dramatic gesticulations, anyone can sing their way out of bad mood. I think it's because Abba are aliens made entirely of wholesomeness and good cheer. I'm not a statistician or anything, but I'm pretty sure you could track a very clear trend in world peace summits, hand holding, and Abba record release dates.

Also, check out the fashion points here. Um... knee-high boots? Cute tweed hats? Ponchos? Is anyone else weirded out by the fact that these EXACT outfits are totally in fashion right now? And the boots? Check out the details on these puppies. Amazing.

I'm gonna come right out and say it: the guys, the guys are TOTALLY rockin' it here. REAL men wear jaunty scarves and platform boots. Am I right, ladies?

And speaking of fashionable comebacks, I, for one, am totally ready for David Sedaris's new book. Know why? 'Cause I got me a phonograph. That's right. The NY Times has announced that his new book will be released on vinyl. Do I need any more proof that great minds think alike? Or that knee-high boots will ever go out of style?

*Thank you to Geoff, Steph, Gingi, for the contribution to my collection.

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records

Awesomeness Never Goes Out of Style

I'm taking a break from blogging about my health problems to show you the latest addition to my record collection.* Um, did she say record collection? Yes, my record collection. It's about 24 records big and includes this gem, MJ's "Thriller", and the WWF album. As you can see, I only collect quality pieces.

I popped this sucker onto the turntable the other evening and made dinner while doing some interpretive dance to "SOS". One minute I am moping about how I'm going to pay for a root canal and the next I am warbling into a wooden spoon and flapping my arms. There's just something irrepressibly happy about Abba. I would wager you could step knee deep in dog poop, get fired from your job, and find a human finger in your french fries, and you'd still find yourself jutting your hips to one side and hoisting your arms over your head once "Dancing Queen" came on.

Well, I'd wager you would. I'd wager CLH would chew his dinner and shake his head and wonder why his girlfriend insisted on singing harmony to "Fernando" with a mouth full of salad mix. I can't help it. They just make me believe that, with enough dramatic gesticulations, anyone can sing their way out of bad mood. I think it's because Abba are aliens made entirely of wholesomeness and good cheer. I'm not a statistician or anything, but I'm pretty sure you could track a very clear trend in world peace summits, hand holding, and Abba record release dates.

Also, check out the fashion points here. Um... knee-high boots? Cute tweed hats? Ponchos? Is anyone else weirded out by the fact that these EXACT outfits are totally in fashion right now? And the boots? Check out the details on these puppies. Amazing.

I'm gonna come right out and say it: the guys, the guys are TOTALLY rockin' it here. REAL men wear jaunty scarves and platform boots. Am I right, ladies?

And speaking of fashionable comebacks, I, for one, am totally ready for David Sedaris's new book. Know why? 'Cause I got me a phonograph. That's right. The NY Times has announced that his new book will be released on vinyl. Do I need any more proof that great minds think alike? Or that knee-high boots will ever go out of style?

*Thank you to Geoff, Steph, Gingi, for the contribution to my collection.

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vinyl

Awesomeness Never Goes Out of Style

I'm taking a break from blogging about my health problems to show you the latest addition to my record collection.* Um, did she say record collection? Yes, my record collection. It's about 24 records big and includes this gem, MJ's "Thriller", and the WWF album. As you can see, I only collect quality pieces.

I popped this sucker onto the turntable the other evening and made dinner while doing some interpretive dance to "SOS". One minute I am moping about how I'm going to pay for a root canal and the next I am warbling into a wooden spoon and flapping my arms. There's just something irrepressibly happy about Abba. I would wager you could step knee deep in dog poop, get fired from your job, and find a human finger in your french fries, and you'd still find yourself jutting your hips to one side and hoisting your arms over your head once "Dancing Queen" came on.

Well, I'd wager you would. I'd wager CLH would chew his dinner and shake his head and wonder why his girlfriend insisted on singing harmony to "Fernando" with a mouth full of salad mix. I can't help it. They just make me believe that, with enough dramatic gesticulations, anyone can sing their way out of bad mood. I think it's because Abba are aliens made entirely of wholesomeness and good cheer. I'm not a statistician or anything, but I'm pretty sure you could track a very clear trend in world peace summits, hand holding, and Abba record release dates.

Also, check out the fashion points here. Um... knee-high boots? Cute tweed hats? Ponchos? Is anyone else weirded out by the fact that these EXACT outfits are totally in fashion right now? And the boots? Check out the details on these puppies. Amazing.

I'm gonna come right out and say it: the guys, the guys are TOTALLY rockin' it here. REAL men wear jaunty scarves and platform boots. Am I right, ladies?

And speaking of fashionable comebacks, I, for one, am totally ready for David Sedaris's new book. Know why? 'Cause I got me a phonograph. That's right. The NY Times has announced that his new book will be released on vinyl. Do I need any more proof that great minds think alike? Or that knee-high boots will ever go out of style?

*Thank you to Geoff, Steph, Gingi, for the contribution to my collection.

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Facebook

A Month of Coincidences

This is a story about Facebook, my siblings, college, and a bar in Seattle.

I'm researching my family tree last week and I come across this last name that I recognize. I've never noticed this name on my family tree before. The last name on this family tree is also the last name of a family of kids that my siblings and I went to grammar school with. They share the same birth order as my family. While I was in one grade with Joanna, the oldest sister, my oldest brother was in class with the older brother, Mark, and my sister was in class with the youngest brother, Andrew.

And two days after I review this family tree, this family tree that I haven't looked at in years, Joanna, whose last name happens to appear on my family tree, contacts me via Facebook. I haven't talked to her in nearly fifteen years.

She says she's coming to Seattle. Her brother Mark lives here. Her other brother Andrew is coming from Colorado. They're all going to be here all at once for the holidays. This family whose last name appears in my family tree. The last name I just noticed for the first time last week. This family that I haven't seen in fifteen years.

Joanna writes me suggest we go see some live music at the Seamonster Lounge, have we heard of it? And I write back.... um... yeah. We know the Seamonster Lounge. We spent every Friday night from 2003 to 2004 at the place. We know the DJ. We know the owner. They're both great guys. Andrew, the owner, just gave up ownership of the place about a year ago but, magically, he's back. So, yes, yes we will join you, family that I haven't seen in fifteen years, at our old favorite bar in Seattle, that we just found out is now back under the ownership of our friend Andrew.

Beforehand, we meet up for dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant, and we ask Joanna how she happened to pick the Seamonster for our entertainment tonight. Oh, well, it's all Mark, she says. He knows a guy who will be playing in the band. Oh, really, we ask? And how do you know him? Oh, Mark says, he used to live on my floor in college. You know how that goes. You just get to be good friends with people that live on your floor. Right. Right, we say, and we nod our heads. And what's your friend's name? Ari Zucker, he says.

And here CLH and I exchange googly-eyed glances. YOU know Ari Zucker? WE know Ari Zucker. And how do we know Ari Zucker? Well, we know Ari Zucker because of our friend Shoshi. Shoshi went to high school with Ari. Shoshi is from Seattle. She knew Ari before he went to college on the east coast with Mark. And the reason we know Shoshi is because of Becca. And I know Becca because I went to college with her in Massachusetts. Becca is from the Seattle area. But she went to school in Massachusetts, like me. And I went to high school with CLH. In New Jersey. And CLH and I started dating after I left the college where both Becca and I went to school. Becca eventually met CLH and Becca convinced us both that Seattle would be good for us, so we moved out here together ten years ago. And we met Shoshi. Who is Becca's friend. And we started frequenting the Sea Monster. Where Ari played quite a bit. Ari who knows Shoshi who knows Becca who knows me who knows Joanna whose brother used to live on the same floor as him.

Small fucking world.

Crazy.

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Seamonster Lounge

A Month of Coincidences

This is a story about Facebook, my siblings, college, and a bar in Seattle.

I'm researching my family tree last week and I come across this last name that I recognize. I've never noticed this name on my family tree before. The last name on this family tree is also the last name of a family of kids that my siblings and I went to grammar school with. They share the same birth order as my family. While I was in one grade with Joanna, the oldest sister, my oldest brother was in class with the older brother, Mark, and my sister was in class with the youngest brother, Andrew.

And two days after I review this family tree, this family tree that I haven't looked at in years, Joanna, whose last name happens to appear on my family tree, contacts me via Facebook. I haven't talked to her in nearly fifteen years.

She says she's coming to Seattle. Her brother Mark lives here. Her other brother Andrew is coming from Colorado. They're all going to be here all at once for the holidays. This family whose last name appears in my family tree. The last name I just noticed for the first time last week. This family that I haven't seen in fifteen years.

Joanna writes me suggest we go see some live music at the Seamonster Lounge, have we heard of it? And I write back.... um... yeah. We know the Seamonster Lounge. We spent every Friday night from 2003 to 2004 at the place. We know the DJ. We know the owner. They're both great guys. Andrew, the owner, just gave up ownership of the place about a year ago but, magically, he's back. So, yes, yes we will join you, family that I haven't seen in fifteen years, at our old favorite bar in Seattle, that we just found out is now back under the ownership of our friend Andrew.

Beforehand, we meet up for dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant, and we ask Joanna how she happened to pick the Seamonster for our entertainment tonight. Oh, well, it's all Mark, she says. He knows a guy who will be playing in the band. Oh, really, we ask? And how do you know him? Oh, Mark says, he used to live on my floor in college. You know how that goes. You just get to be good friends with people that live on your floor. Right. Right, we say, and we nod our heads. And what's your friend's name? Ari Zucker, he says.

And here CLH and I exchange googly-eyed glances. YOU know Ari Zucker? WE know Ari Zucker. And how do we know Ari Zucker? Well, we know Ari Zucker because of our friend Shoshi. Shoshi went to high school with Ari. Shoshi is from Seattle. She knew Ari before he went to college on the east coast with Mark. And the reason we know Shoshi is because of Becca. And I know Becca because I went to college with her in Massachusetts. Becca is from the Seattle area. But she went to school in Massachusetts, like me. And I went to high school with CLH. In New Jersey. And CLH and I started dating after I left the college where both Becca and I went to school. Becca eventually met CLH and Becca convinced us both that Seattle would be good for us, so we moved out here together ten years ago. And we met Shoshi. Who is Becca's friend. And we started frequenting the Sea Monster. Where Ari played quite a bit. Ari who knows Shoshi who knows Becca who knows me who knows Joanna whose brother used to live on the same floor as him.

Small fucking world.

Crazy.

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finishing a novel

The Aftermath, and the Afterglow

What I celebrated with:

Shots of Polish grain alcohol. Fresh from the back of the 'fridge. One for me, one for CLH who made too many late night bowls of popcorn to count, and one for Cousin Rob, who I all but ignored the whole time he was here because I was busy writing. Sorry, Rob!

And this the -how shall I say this?- FOOD that was stuck in the plug of my mouse:

Not in the mouse. That would make sense. This was stuck in the plug part, the part that gets put into the port of the computer. Don't ask me how it got in there. All I know is that it was covering the contacts. Which made the left button stick or not work at all. Which slowed down the writing progress. Which made me hiss at the mouse and then angrily throw it at the floor.

And this is what my desk looked like last night when I finished:

Like my "laptop stand"? Known in other circles as "a cardboard box"? My laptop was being treated to a spa day and a manicure, hence its absence from the picture. Oh, and see that white capped bottle just behind the open can of nuts? Yeah, that's my caster oil. You know. For my old lady problems. It's a little known fact that Hemingway wrote while wearing a caster oil pack. Yup. Dostoevsky, Emerson, Hawthorne... they all wrote swathed in greasy
t- shirts. Looks like I can take my place alongside the Greats.

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Christmas

How To Visit Your Family For Not Quite The Holidays

First, you wake up to gunshot.

And your first thought is: why is someone beating a carpet in the freezing cold? Because, you're still half asleep and, in your save-the-children, non-video-game-playing, I-don't-own-a-TV, dreams-of-living-on-a-remote-island-where-things-are-simpler life, "beating a carpet" is the closest corollary your brain can make with this sound. And as you come out of your early morning dream fog, your brain goes digging through its memory banks like a nutty professor with a hoarding disorder and suddenly your eyes blink open and you're very much awake because you realize THAT sound is one thing and one thing only. Gunshot.

And you whisper to your man-friend sleeping next to you, is that gunshot?

And he whispers, yes, it's the cops target practicing across the reservoir.

And you are relieved, but now very awake. And you would really much rather be sleeping.

Because now that you are awake, things much more disturbing than gunshot come into focus. For example: you and your man-friend are sleeping in his childhood bed at his mother's house. You try very hard not to liken your life to that of a very sad sitcom character who finds herself sleeping in the childhood bed of her boyfriend at his mother's house. But you soon realize that your life IS a sitcom character's and now you're mad at yourself for not having thought of "Everyone Hates LoLo" first. You wonder if you will look back on this when you have grandchildren together and laugh... or if you will pack your bags and leave this relationship, because, let's face it: adult girlfriends should not have to sleep in a room where a Brooke Shields poster and skateboard promotional schwag once counted as "decoration".

And then the phone rings and words are exchanged and there is a mad rustling of sheets and hurried movement in the hallway and you hear the words "lots of things are going wrong" and your manfriend announces that he has to now go put in a few hours at his parents' business because things are falling apart and they need his help. And there goes your quality time this morning. This morning that you were supposed to have a leisurely breakfast and make a Christmas present list and get all warm and fuzzy thinking about the approaching holiday.

And again you find yourself scratching your head and asking yourself, why aren't I getting paid royalties to live this life?

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family

How To Visit Your Family For Not Quite The Holidays

First, you wake up to gunshot.

And your first thought is: why is someone beating a carpet in the freezing cold? Because, you're still half asleep and, in your save-the-children, non-video-game-playing, I-don't-own-a-TV, dreams-of-living-on-a-remote-island-where-things-are-simpler life, "beating a carpet" is the closest corollary your brain can make with this sound. And as you come out of your early morning dream fog, your brain goes digging through its memory banks like a nutty professor with a hoarding disorder and suddenly your eyes blink open and you're very much awake because you realize THAT sound is one thing and one thing only. Gunshot.

And you whisper to your man-friend sleeping next to you, is that gunshot?

And he whispers, yes, it's the cops target practicing across the reservoir.

And you are relieved, but now very awake. And you would really much rather be sleeping.

Because now that you are awake, things much more disturbing than gunshot come into focus. For example: you and your man-friend are sleeping in his childhood bed at his mother's house. You try very hard not to liken your life to that of a very sad sitcom character who finds herself sleeping in the childhood bed of her boyfriend at his mother's house. But you soon realize that your life IS a sitcom character's and now you're mad at yourself for not having thought of "Everyone Hates LoLo" first. You wonder if you will look back on this when you have grandchildren together and laugh... or if you will pack your bags and leave this relationship, because, let's face it: adult girlfriends should not have to sleep in a room where a Brooke Shields poster and skateboard promotional schwag once counted as "decoration".

And then the phone rings and words are exchanged and there is a mad rustling of sheets and hurried movement in the hallway and you hear the words "lots of things are going wrong" and your manfriend announces that he has to now go put in a few hours at his parents' business because things are falling apart and they need his help. And there goes your quality time this morning. This morning that you were supposed to have a leisurely breakfast and make a Christmas present list and get all warm and fuzzy thinking about the approaching holiday.

And again you find yourself scratching your head and asking yourself, why aren't I getting paid royalties to live this life?

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gunshot

How To Visit Your Family For Not Quite The Holidays

First, you wake up to gunshot.

And your first thought is: why is someone beating a carpet in the freezing cold? Because, you're still half asleep and, in your save-the-children, non-video-game-playing, I-don't-own-a-TV, dreams-of-living-on-a-remote-island-where-things-are-simpler life, "beating a carpet" is the closest corollary your brain can make with this sound. And as you come out of your early morning dream fog, your brain goes digging through its memory banks like a nutty professor with a hoarding disorder and suddenly your eyes blink open and you're very much awake because you realize THAT sound is one thing and one thing only. Gunshot.

And you whisper to your man-friend sleeping next to you, is that gunshot?

And he whispers, yes, it's the cops target practicing across the reservoir.

And you are relieved, but now very awake. And you would really much rather be sleeping.

Because now that you are awake, things much more disturbing than gunshot come into focus. For example: you and your man-friend are sleeping in his childhood bed at his mother's house. You try very hard not to liken your life to that of a very sad sitcom character who finds herself sleeping in the childhood bed of her boyfriend at his mother's house. But you soon realize that your life IS a sitcom character's and now you're mad at yourself for not having thought of "Everyone Hates LoLo" first. You wonder if you will look back on this when you have grandchildren together and laugh... or if you will pack your bags and leave this relationship, because, let's face it: adult girlfriends should not have to sleep in a room where a Brooke Shields poster and skateboard promotional schwag once counted as "decoration".

And then the phone rings and words are exchanged and there is a mad rustling of sheets and hurried movement in the hallway and you hear the words "lots of things are going wrong" and your manfriend announces that he has to now go put in a few hours at his parents' business because things are falling apart and they need his help. And there goes your quality time this morning. This morning that you were supposed to have a leisurely breakfast and make a Christmas present list and get all warm and fuzzy thinking about the approaching holiday.

And again you find yourself scratching your head and asking yourself, why aren't I getting paid royalties to live this life?

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Holidays

How To Visit Your Family For Not Quite The Holidays

First, you wake up to gunshot.

And your first thought is: why is someone beating a carpet in the freezing cold? Because, you're still half asleep and, in your save-the-children, non-video-game-playing, I-don't-own-a-TV, dreams-of-living-on-a-remote-island-where-things-are-simpler life, "beating a carpet" is the closest corollary your brain can make with this sound. And as you come out of your early morning dream fog, your brain goes digging through its memory banks like a nutty professor with a hoarding disorder and suddenly your eyes blink open and you're very much awake because you realize THAT sound is one thing and one thing only. Gunshot.

And you whisper to your man-friend sleeping next to you, is that gunshot?

And he whispers, yes, it's the cops target practicing across the reservoir.

And you are relieved, but now very awake. And you would really much rather be sleeping.

Because now that you are awake, things much more disturbing than gunshot come into focus. For example: you and your man-friend are sleeping in his childhood bed at his mother's house. You try very hard not to liken your life to that of a very sad sitcom character who finds herself sleeping in the childhood bed of her boyfriend at his mother's house. But you soon realize that your life IS a sitcom character's and now you're mad at yourself for not having thought of "Everyone Hates LoLo" first. You wonder if you will look back on this when you have grandchildren together and laugh... or if you will pack your bags and leave this relationship, because, let's face it: adult girlfriends should not have to sleep in a room where a Brooke Shields poster and skateboard promotional schwag once counted as "decoration".

And then the phone rings and words are exchanged and there is a mad rustling of sheets and hurried movement in the hallway and you hear the words "lots of things are going wrong" and your manfriend announces that he has to now go put in a few hours at his parents' business because things are falling apart and they need his help. And there goes your quality time this morning. This morning that you were supposed to have a leisurely breakfast and make a Christmas present list and get all warm and fuzzy thinking about the approaching holiday.

And again you find yourself scratching your head and asking yourself, why aren't I getting paid royalties to live this life?

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Alvin and the Chipmunks

Is Anyone Else Disturbed..

By the refashioning of Alvin and Chipmunks from adorable little singing weasels to overweight I'm-a-bus'-yo'-ass glossy hip hop stars?

THIS is Alvin and The Chipmunks.

Cute, slightly sexually ambiguous for wearing turtlenecked dresses, and downright wholesome.

And this?

THIS is Al-Viddy and the Chipcrunks. And they will seriously get the rest of the animal kingdom on your ass if you don't go see their new movie...

in which they will have become slightly less intimidating, and much more... like jerkoff frat boys.

Simon, you look much better as a defiant, squirrely Harry Potter, and Alvin, thanks for revealing your healthy head of... human... hair??? Also, boys, your junk is showing.

I'm sorry for the excessive use of the ellipses, but I am just really blown away by how much these boys have changed since I used to watch them on the family television all those years ago. (A television, by the way, which was the size of Connecticut and which did not come with a cable subscription... or a remote.)

Here is where I would insert a paragraph about how the world is a crummier place and everything is worse now than it was "back then" and everything has lost its innocence...blah blah blah. But I've already nipped that crap in the bud. I swore that when I got to be the age I am now, I would never ever start comparing the glory of my youth to the shitshow of today's youth. Because you know what? It's all relevant. I had to hear my relatives drone on about how, in their day, they played with gasoline-soaked rags tied to driftwood and they LOVED it, damnit! THAT was playing!

Alright, my relatives didn't play with gasoline-soaked rags. But they, just like their parents, always thought their version of their youth was so much freakin better than everyone else's. And so I promise never to say that MY Alvin is better than today's Alvin. Maybe just ...er.... different. In a defensive posturing, staring you down to let you know who's boss kinda way.

Here's why: In twenty years, Alvin and the Chipmunks will be making a third comeback to a generation who has no fucking idea why harmonizing rodents should be entertaining, and the only thing that will be holding their attention is the fact that Alvin has had a sex change operation gone wrong and that he looks mezmerizing in a sequined leotard wrapped around a strippers pole.

And then we'll all long for the days when Alvin was just a misguided punk-ass in an oversized hoodie, now, won't we?

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Chipcrunks

Is Anyone Else Disturbed..

By the refashioning of Alvin and Chipmunks from adorable little singing weasels to overweight I'm-a-bus'-yo'-ass glossy hip hop stars?

THIS is Alvin and The Chipmunks.

Cute, slightly sexually ambiguous for wearing turtlenecked dresses, and downright wholesome.

And this?

THIS is Al-Viddy and the Chipcrunks. And they will seriously get the rest of the animal kingdom on your ass if you don't go see their new movie...

in which they will have become slightly less intimidating, and much more... like jerkoff frat boys.

Simon, you look much better as a defiant, squirrely Harry Potter, and Alvin, thanks for revealing your healthy head of... human... hair??? Also, boys, your junk is showing.

I'm sorry for the excessive use of the ellipses, but I am just really blown away by how much these boys have changed since I used to watch them on the family television all those years ago. (A television, by the way, which was the size of Connecticut and which did not come with a cable subscription... or a remote.)

Here is where I would insert a paragraph about how the world is a crummier place and everything is worse now than it was "back then" and everything has lost its innocence...blah blah blah. But I've already nipped that crap in the bud. I swore that when I got to be the age I am now, I would never ever start comparing the glory of my youth to the shitshow of today's youth. Because you know what? It's all relevant. I had to hear my relatives drone on about how, in their day, they played with gasoline-soaked rags tied to driftwood and they LOVED it, damnit! THAT was playing!

Alright, my relatives didn't play with gasoline-soaked rags. But they, just like their parents, always thought their version of their youth was so much freakin better than everyone else's. And so I promise never to say that MY Alvin is better than today's Alvin. Maybe just ...er.... different. In a defensive posturing, staring you down to let you know who's boss kinda way.

Here's why: In twenty years, Alvin and the Chipmunks will be making a third comeback to a generation who has no fucking idea why harmonizing rodents should be entertaining, and the only thing that will be holding their attention is the fact that Alvin has had a sex change operation gone wrong and that he looks mezmerizing in a sequined leotard wrapped around a strippers pole.

And then we'll all long for the days when Alvin was just a misguided punk-ass in an oversized hoodie, now, won't we?

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elliptical machine

Why It Will Never Work Out Between CLH & Me: We’re Both In Love With The Same Woman

This is what happens when my suburban friends invite me to their home with their giant flat screen TV and videos on demand: we wait for their kids to go to bed, we drink copious amounts of beer, and then we all heave yourselves onto a couch and watch music videos. Because MTV did something to us when we were kids and now it's not enough to just listen to music; we have to SEE it, too. And, for different reasons, each of us is riveted to the TV screen and pointing limply and asking each other, "Duuuuuude. Did you SEE that?" Because Shakira is moving in ways that humans shouldn't be allowed to move.

And then I go home and the next day, I download her songs onto my iPod and I take her to the gym with me. And I run on an elliptical machine like I OWN IT because I think I might be able to look like Shakira one day if I just listen to her song while having my arms pumped up and down by a giant fan with foot pedals. And I justify this repetitive, inane-looking exercise with the thought that, probably, before her singing career was launched, Shakira used to sit at a computer for 9 hours a day and she got that awesome body by using an elliptical machine for 20 minutes three times a week. Yup, probably.

And I become so convinced that all it's going to take for me to be able to wear a cut up bodysuit in public (or to work! I've earned it!) is a few more weeks of pumping cable weights while that weird Leprechaun looking dude with the black dress socks pulled halfway up his calves works out on the machine next to me.

And then I go shopping with CLH and I buy $145 worth of who knows what at Trader Joe's and I while updating my blog, from my laptop in bed, I shove handful after handful of (delicious, delicious) Sesame Seaweed Rice Balls into my mouth. And I decide that maybe the whole bodysuit in public thing is overrated.

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exercise

Why It Will Never Work Out Between CLH & Me: We’re Both In Love With The Same Woman

This is what happens when my suburban friends invite me to their home with their giant flat screen TV and videos on demand: we wait for their kids to go to bed, we drink copious amounts of beer, and then we all heave yourselves onto a couch and watch music videos. Because MTV did something to us when we were kids and now it's not enough to just listen to music; we have to SEE it, too. And, for different reasons, each of us is riveted to the TV screen and pointing limply and asking each other, "Duuuuuude. Did you SEE that?" Because Shakira is moving in ways that humans shouldn't be allowed to move.

And then I go home and the next day, I download her songs onto my iPod and I take her to the gym with me. And I run on an elliptical machine like I OWN IT because I think I might be able to look like Shakira one day if I just listen to her song while having my arms pumped up and down by a giant fan with foot pedals. And I justify this repetitive, inane-looking exercise with the thought that, probably, before her singing career was launched, Shakira used to sit at a computer for 9 hours a day and she got that awesome body by using an elliptical machine for 20 minutes three times a week. Yup, probably.

And I become so convinced that all it's going to take for me to be able to wear a cut up bodysuit in public (or to work! I've earned it!) is a few more weeks of pumping cable weights while that weird Leprechaun looking dude with the black dress socks pulled halfway up his calves works out on the machine next to me.

And then I go shopping with CLH and I buy $145 worth of who knows what at Trader Joe's and I while updating my blog, from my laptop in bed, I shove handful after handful of (delicious, delicious) Sesame Seaweed Rice Balls into my mouth. And I decide that maybe the whole bodysuit in public thing is overrated.

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lovingthe same woman

Why It Will Never Work Out Between CLH & Me: We’re Both In Love With The Same Woman

This is what happens when my suburban friends invite me to their home with their giant flat screen TV and videos on demand: we wait for their kids to go to bed, we drink copious amounts of beer, and then we all heave yourselves onto a couch and watch music videos. Because MTV did something to us when we were kids and now it's not enough to just listen to music; we have to SEE it, too. And, for different reasons, each of us is riveted to the TV screen and pointing limply and asking each other, "Duuuuuude. Did you SEE that?" Because Shakira is moving in ways that humans shouldn't be allowed to move.

And then I go home and the next day, I download her songs onto my iPod and I take her to the gym with me. And I run on an elliptical machine like I OWN IT because I think I might be able to look like Shakira one day if I just listen to her song while having my arms pumped up and down by a giant fan with foot pedals. And I justify this repetitive, inane-looking exercise with the thought that, probably, before her singing career was launched, Shakira used to sit at a computer for 9 hours a day and she got that awesome body by using an elliptical machine for 20 minutes three times a week. Yup, probably.

And I become so convinced that all it's going to take for me to be able to wear a cut up bodysuit in public (or to work! I've earned it!) is a few more weeks of pumping cable weights while that weird Leprechaun looking dude with the black dress socks pulled halfway up his calves works out on the machine next to me.

And then I go shopping with CLH and I buy $145 worth of who knows what at Trader Joe's and I while updating my blog, from my laptop in bed, I shove handful after handful of (delicious, delicious) Sesame Seaweed Rice Balls into my mouth. And I decide that maybe the whole bodysuit in public thing is overrated.

Continue to full post...

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Shakira

Why It Will Never Work Out Between CLH & Me: We’re Both In Love With The Same Woman

This is what happens when my suburban friends invite me to their home with their giant flat screen TV and videos on demand: we wait for their kids to go to bed, we drink copious amounts of beer, and then we all heave yourselves onto a couch and watch music videos. Because MTV did something to us when we were kids and now it's not enough to just listen to music; we have to SEE it, too. And, for different reasons, each of us is riveted to the TV screen and pointing limply and asking each other, "Duuuuuude. Did you SEE that?" Because Shakira is moving in ways that humans shouldn't be allowed to move.

And then I go home and the next day, I download her songs onto my iPod and I take her to the gym with me. And I run on an elliptical machine like I OWN IT because I think I might be able to look like Shakira one day if I just listen to her song while having my arms pumped up and down by a giant fan with foot pedals. And I justify this repetitive, inane-looking exercise with the thought that, probably, before her singing career was launched, Shakira used to sit at a computer for 9 hours a day and she got that awesome body by using an elliptical machine for 20 minutes three times a week. Yup, probably.

And I become so convinced that all it's going to take for me to be able to wear a cut up bodysuit in public (or to work! I've earned it!) is a few more weeks of pumping cable weights while that weird Leprechaun looking dude with the black dress socks pulled halfway up his calves works out on the machine next to me.

And then I go shopping with CLH and I buy $145 worth of who knows what at Trader Joe's and I while updating my blog, from my laptop in bed, I shove handful after handful of (delicious, delicious) Sesame Seaweed Rice Balls into my mouth. And I decide that maybe the whole bodysuit in public thing is overrated.

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Ally

Coincidences In The Blogisphere

It's healthy to start calling bloggers I've never met by their first names, right? And to refer to them in casual conversation as if they live down the block? Whew. Good. I knew I wasn't the only one doing it.

I follow a couple of blogs and I can't help it. I read about their pets and their kids and their asinine coworkers and I feel like I actually KNOW these people. And I talk about them to my real-life friends like they're ALSO real-life friends. Lately I've been noticing that their lives parallel mine in these really weird, really uncanny ways (which makes me feel even more weirdo kinship with them). I've never said anything about it before because I've always just chalked it up to coincidence. Also? It's weird to pretend that strangers are your friends.

(Did I just really use the word "weird" eighty times in that last paragraph?)

I suppose it's not exactly earth shattering news that any of us weird enough to tell the Internet about our flatulence issues, and our not-so-secret obsessions with pop stars, and our love for extruded corn-based snacks MIGHT share a few weird personality quirks in common. And I guess it's not that uncommon to be riddled with anxiety or paranoid about geese or spiders or annoyed by coworkers who can't form rudimentary sentences. This is all part of our shared human experience, no? The more I read, though, about this shared experience on the Internet, the more weirded out I get. It's so weird it makes me say things like "weirded out".

(Seriously. Stop it with the "weird" thing.)

So, coincidence #1: Burning hot things + plastic + us. Last month, CLH sent me another text that started with the words "Uh-oh" and ended with "I'll replace it soon". I had finally mastered the art of using an electric stove (see issue here regarding never-to-be-the-same popcorn pot). CLH, however, continued to pretend like he'd received his diploma in 1960's Appliances... and last month he left the kettle on the stove so long, the plastic lid MELTED, FELL INTO THE KETTLE, and was SCORCHED into a puddle of burning hot ooze. But not before filling the apartment with an acrid smoke that took WEEKS of Febreezing to get rid of. That and burning incense. And candles. And having the windows open all day long in the middle of winter.

Allie, it seems, has had a similar incident.

And Heather, too, is in the Almost Burn Down The House Club! Hooray for us!

Okay, then there's the leprechauns.

Last night I wrote about the leprechaun-y dude who always seems to be working out at the gym at the same time as me. And today, Heather wrote about her daughter's fear of leprechauns (and Leta, I'm with you 100%. Those dudes are creep-tastic. I don't blame you for being scared). Two uses of the word "leprechaun". Two different blogs. Same 24 hour period. Weird.

Oh sure, it's March, and the whole leprechaun thing was bound to come up soon enough, right? But, still. I was referring to a small man who insists on wearing mostly green clothing to work out in and who trims his beard in a really unflattering, elf-like way. (I know I'm going to get a hundred comments about how leprechauns are NOT elves but instead belong to some other realm of magical beings... and normally I would tell those people to get a life... except I'm the one who thinks she's friends with complete strangers who blog in other states.)

Anywho, the leprechaun dude was at the gym again tonight and I wasn't even going to mention him here (instead I was going to mention the guy who got on the elliptical machine next to mine, even though ALL THE OTHER MACHINES WERE NOT BEING USED, and who began to sweat ACTUAL sour milk). But then I jumped over to Dooce's blog... and there it was: a story about a leprechaun.

Sure, I could draw conclusions about how we're all either crazy or geniuses, or crazy geniuses, and how good story ideas just seem to hang out in the stratosphere until they find the perfect conduits... and that Ally and Heather and I... we're all perfect conduits coexisting so it's not really a coincidence that we're all writing about our melted kitchenware, but still. Leprechauns? Even the Department of Revenue couldn't make THAT shit up.

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Heather

Coincidences In The Blogisphere

It's healthy to start calling bloggers I've never met by their first names, right? And to refer to them in casual conversation as if they live down the block? Whew. Good. I knew I wasn't the only one doing it.

I follow a couple of blogs and I can't help it. I read about their pets and their kids and their asinine coworkers and I feel like I actually KNOW these people. And I talk about them to my real-life friends like they're ALSO real-life friends. Lately I've been noticing that their lives parallel mine in these really weird, really uncanny ways (which makes me feel even more weirdo kinship with them). I've never said anything about it before because I've always just chalked it up to coincidence. Also? It's weird to pretend that strangers are your friends.

(Did I just really use the word "weird" eighty times in that last paragraph?)

I suppose it's not exactly earth shattering news that any of us weird enough to tell the Internet about our flatulence issues, and our not-so-secret obsessions with pop stars, and our love for extruded corn-based snacks MIGHT share a few weird personality quirks in common. And I guess it's not that uncommon to be riddled with anxiety or paranoid about geese or spiders or annoyed by coworkers who can't form rudimentary sentences. This is all part of our shared human experience, no? The more I read, though, about this shared experience on the Internet, the more weirded out I get. It's so weird it makes me say things like "weirded out".

(Seriously. Stop it with the "weird" thing.)

So, coincidence #1: Burning hot things + plastic + us. Last month, CLH sent me another text that started with the words "Uh-oh" and ended with "I'll replace it soon". I had finally mastered the art of using an electric stove (see issue here regarding never-to-be-the-same popcorn pot). CLH, however, continued to pretend like he'd received his diploma in 1960's Appliances... and last month he left the kettle on the stove so long, the plastic lid MELTED, FELL INTO THE KETTLE, and was SCORCHED into a puddle of burning hot ooze. But not before filling the apartment with an acrid smoke that took WEEKS of Febreezing to get rid of. That and burning incense. And candles. And having the windows open all day long in the middle of winter.

Allie, it seems, has had a similar incident.

And Heather, too, is in the Almost Burn Down The House Club! Hooray for us!

Okay, then there's the leprechauns.

Last night I wrote about the leprechaun-y dude who always seems to be working out at the gym at the same time as me. And today, Heather wrote about her daughter's fear of leprechauns (and Leta, I'm with you 100%. Those dudes are creep-tastic. I don't blame you for being scared). Two uses of the word "leprechaun". Two different blogs. Same 24 hour period. Weird.

Oh sure, it's March, and the whole leprechaun thing was bound to come up soon enough, right? But, still. I was referring to a small man who insists on wearing mostly green clothing to work out in and who trims his beard in a really unflattering, elf-like way. (I know I'm going to get a hundred comments about how leprechauns are NOT elves but instead belong to some other realm of magical beings... and normally I would tell those people to get a life... except I'm the one who thinks she's friends with complete strangers who blog in other states.)

Anywho, the leprechaun dude was at the gym again tonight and I wasn't even going to mention him here (instead I was going to mention the guy who got on the elliptical machine next to mine, even though ALL THE OTHER MACHINES WERE NOT BEING USED, and who began to sweat ACTUAL sour milk). But then I jumped over to Dooce's blog... and there it was: a story about a leprechaun.

Sure, I could draw conclusions about how we're all either crazy or geniuses, or crazy geniuses, and how good story ideas just seem to hang out in the stratosphere until they find the perfect conduits... and that Ally and Heather and I... we're all perfect conduits coexisting so it's not really a coincidence that we're all writing about our melted kitchenware, but still. Leprechauns? Even the Department of Revenue couldn't make THAT shit up.

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hyperboleandahalf

Coincidences In The Blogisphere

It's healthy to start calling bloggers I've never met by their first names, right? And to refer to them in casual conversation as if they live down the block? Whew. Good. I knew I wasn't the only one doing it.

I follow a couple of blogs and I can't help it. I read about their pets and their kids and their asinine coworkers and I feel like I actually KNOW these people. And I talk about them to my real-life friends like they're ALSO real-life friends. Lately I've been noticing that their lives parallel mine in these really weird, really uncanny ways (which makes me feel even more weirdo kinship with them). I've never said anything about it before because I've always just chalked it up to coincidence. Also? It's weird to pretend that strangers are your friends.

(Did I just really use the word "weird" eighty times in that last paragraph?)

I suppose it's not exactly earth shattering news that any of us weird enough to tell the Internet about our flatulence issues, and our not-so-secret obsessions with pop stars, and our love for extruded corn-based snacks MIGHT share a few weird personality quirks in common. And I guess it's not that uncommon to be riddled with anxiety or paranoid about geese or spiders or annoyed by coworkers who can't form rudimentary sentences. This is all part of our shared human experience, no? The more I read, though, about this shared experience on the Internet, the more weirded out I get. It's so weird it makes me say things like "weirded out".

(Seriously. Stop it with the "weird" thing.)

So, coincidence #1: Burning hot things + plastic + us. Last month, CLH sent me another text that started with the words "Uh-oh" and ended with "I'll replace it soon". I had finally mastered the art of using an electric stove (see issue here regarding never-to-be-the-same popcorn pot). CLH, however, continued to pretend like he'd received his diploma in 1960's Appliances... and last month he left the kettle on the stove so long, the plastic lid MELTED, FELL INTO THE KETTLE, and was SCORCHED into a puddle of burning hot ooze. But not before filling the apartment with an acrid smoke that took WEEKS of Febreezing to get rid of. That and burning incense. And candles. And having the windows open all day long in the middle of winter.

Allie, it seems, has had a similar incident.

And Heather, too, is in the Almost Burn Down The House Club! Hooray for us!

Okay, then there's the leprechauns.

Last night I wrote about the leprechaun-y dude who always seems to be working out at the gym at the same time as me. And today, Heather wrote about her daughter's fear of leprechauns (and Leta, I'm with you 100%. Those dudes are creep-tastic. I don't blame you for being scared). Two uses of the word "leprechaun". Two different blogs. Same 24 hour period. Weird.

Oh sure, it's March, and the whole leprechaun thing was bound to come up soon enough, right? But, still. I was referring to a small man who insists on wearing mostly green clothing to work out in and who trims his beard in a really unflattering, elf-like way. (I know I'm going to get a hundred comments about how leprechauns are NOT elves but instead belong to some other realm of magical beings... and normally I would tell those people to get a life... except I'm the one who thinks she's friends with complete strangers who blog in other states.)

Anywho, the leprechaun dude was at the gym again tonight and I wasn't even going to mention him here (instead I was going to mention the guy who got on the elliptical machine next to mine, even though ALL THE OTHER MACHINES WERE NOT BEING USED, and who began to sweat ACTUAL sour milk). But then I jumped over to Dooce's blog... and there it was: a story about a leprechaun.

Sure, I could draw conclusions about how we're all either crazy or geniuses, or crazy geniuses, and how good story ideas just seem to hang out in the stratosphere until they find the perfect conduits... and that Ally and Heather and I... we're all perfect conduits coexisting so it's not really a coincidence that we're all writing about our melted kitchenware, but still. Leprechauns? Even the Department of Revenue couldn't make THAT shit up.

Continue to full post...

Back to Top ↑

leprechauns

Coincidences In The Blogisphere

It's healthy to start calling bloggers I've never met by their first names, right? And to refer to them in casual conversation as if they live down the block? Whew. Good. I knew I wasn't the only one doing it.

I follow a couple of blogs and I can't help it. I read about their pets and their kids and their asinine coworkers and I feel like I actually KNOW these people. And I talk about them to my real-life friends like they're ALSO real-life friends. Lately I've been noticing that their lives parallel mine in these really weird, really uncanny ways (which makes me feel even more weirdo kinship with them). I've never said anything about it before because I've always just chalked it up to coincidence. Also? It's weird to pretend that strangers are your friends.

(Did I just really use the word "weird" eighty times in that last paragraph?)

I suppose it's not exactly earth shattering news that any of us weird enough to tell the Internet about our flatulence issues, and our not-so-secret obsessions with pop stars, and our love for extruded corn-based snacks MIGHT share a few weird personality quirks in common. And I guess it's not that uncommon to be riddled with anxiety or paranoid about geese or spiders or annoyed by coworkers who can't form rudimentary sentences. This is all part of our shared human experience, no? The more I read, though, about this shared experience on the Internet, the more weirded out I get. It's so weird it makes me say things like "weirded out".

(Seriously. Stop it with the "weird" thing.)

So, coincidence #1: Burning hot things + plastic + us. Last month, CLH sent me another text that started with the words "Uh-oh" and ended with "I'll replace it soon". I had finally mastered the art of using an electric stove (see issue here regarding never-to-be-the-same popcorn pot). CLH, however, continued to pretend like he'd received his diploma in 1960's Appliances... and last month he left the kettle on the stove so long, the plastic lid MELTED, FELL INTO THE KETTLE, and was SCORCHED into a puddle of burning hot ooze. But not before filling the apartment with an acrid smoke that took WEEKS of Febreezing to get rid of. That and burning incense. And candles. And having the windows open all day long in the middle of winter.

Allie, it seems, has had a similar incident.

And Heather, too, is in the Almost Burn Down The House Club! Hooray for us!

Okay, then there's the leprechauns.

Last night I wrote about the leprechaun-y dude who always seems to be working out at the gym at the same time as me. And today, Heather wrote about her daughter's fear of leprechauns (and Leta, I'm with you 100%. Those dudes are creep-tastic. I don't blame you for being scared). Two uses of the word "leprechaun". Two different blogs. Same 24 hour period. Weird.

Oh sure, it's March, and the whole leprechaun thing was bound to come up soon enough, right? But, still. I was referring to a small man who insists on wearing mostly green clothing to work out in and who trims his beard in a really unflattering, elf-like way. (I know I'm going to get a hundred comments about how leprechauns are NOT elves but instead belong to some other realm of magical beings... and normally I would tell those people to get a life... except I'm the one who thinks she's friends with complete strangers who blog in other states.)

Anywho, the leprechaun dude was at the gym again tonight and I wasn't even going to mention him here (instead I was going to mention the guy who got on the elliptical machine next to mine, even though ALL THE OTHER MACHINES WERE NOT BEING USED, and who began to sweat ACTUAL sour milk). But then I jumped over to Dooce's blog... and there it was: a story about a leprechaun.

Sure, I could draw conclusions about how we're all either crazy or geniuses, or crazy geniuses, and how good story ideas just seem to hang out in the stratosphere until they find the perfect conduits... and that Ally and Heather and I... we're all perfect conduits coexisting so it's not really a coincidence that we're all writing about our melted kitchenware, but still. Leprechauns? Even the Department of Revenue couldn't make THAT shit up.

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anxiety

Dermabrasion: The Hallmark of Alien Visitation

A few days ago, I woke up with a scar on my forearm. I didn't notice it until I was showering. I was running the soap over my arm and suddenly I was all Huh. My arm burns. That's weird. My other arm doesn't burn. Let me turn my arm around and have a look at th----WHA??? OH. MY. GOD. THEY'VE BEEN HERE. THE ALIENS. THEY CAME IN THE NIGHT. THEY'VE SCARRED WITH THEIR HORRIBLE MEDICAL EXAMS.

And I wonder why I've been suffering from adrenal exhaustion.

It's in my nature to worry. I worry about everything. I get worked up about things that normal people don't even think about. Like whether or not all the knife blades are facing the same way when we set the dinner table for guests. Or whether or not my riding gloves are next to my bike helmet in the garage. Or that there is one lone sock without a mate in CLH's sock drawer. It literally keeps me up at night.

The height of my pent-up anxiety usually hits me just as I am getting ready for bed. The time when most people are thinking things like, Oh boy, I sure am excited to sleep in that big ol' bed. I can't wait to get under the covers and dream abou----zzzzzzz. You see? That's how most people fall asleep: mid-thought, probably with their mouths open, with little pools of drool threatening to soak their pillowcases, their fists all curled tightly around their heads, their bodies nestled between billowy folds of down comforter and an array of pillows.

Not me. My thoughts as I lay down to sleep in the dark sound more like OMIGOD. OH. MY. GOD. WHAT WAS THAT NOISE? IS THE NEIGHBOR'S CAT IN THE DRYER? SHIT. DID I LET THAT CAT INTO THE LAUNDRY ROOM? IS SOMEONE KICKING IN THE FRONT DOOR? SHIIIIIIIIIT. FUCK. WHERE ARE MY PHOTO ALBUMS? BECAUSE IF THAT'S NOT A CAT IN THE DRYER OR A PREDATOR AT THE DOOR, THEN WE'RE HAVING AN EARTHQUAKE, AND I REALLY NEED TO BE ABLE TO GET AT MY PHOTO ALBUMS. SHIIIIIT. FUCK. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RUN FOR THE OREGON BORDER. ON FOOT. IN OUR PAJAMAS. IN THE DARK. IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER. AND I WILL NOT GO WITHOUT MY PHOTO ALBUMS. AND MY JOURNALS FROM THE FIFTH GRADE. AND, OH SHIIIIT. A NEWS CREW IS GOING TO WANT TO INTERVIEW ME ABOUT HOW I KNEW TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE SO SOON AND I'M PROBABLY GOING TO SOUND LIKE AN IDIOT ON FILM AND HAVE SEAWEED STUCK BETWEEN MY TEETH BECAUSE THAT'S THE LAST THING I ATE BEFORE BED- AGAIN! BECAUSE I WAS HUNGRY! AND I LIKE SEAWEED, OKAY!?- AND I'M GOING TO WEIGH LIKE 500 POUNDS ONE DAY BECAUSE I SNACK BEFORE BED AND OPRAH SAYS THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR WEIGHT GAIN IS EATING AFTER 7 PM, AND -

I'm going to cut it off right there because I could go on forever and there's only so many lines of capital letters one should have to read before one is convinced that I should be injected with horse tranquilizer after 10 pm.

The night before I acquired this mystery scar, I asked CLH about aliens. I asked him because, well, I wondered if the things that kept him awake at night were the same things that kept me awake at night. Not that I spend nights thinking about aliens, per se, or that they are the only things keeping me awake at night (no, what keeps me awake at night most of the time are all sorts of apocalyptic scenes in which we have to run for our lives because the bomb's just been dropped and somehow just he and I have escaped total annihilation and now we have to decide what to pack as we paddle across the newly liquefied landscape to start our lives over on another continent: my memory box from third grade or a jar of dried mung beans.)

The only reason I asked him about aliens was because there was something about the way the streetlight was shining in through the slats of the venetian blinds in our bedroom. The light looked all fuzzy and oval-shaped, and, well, a lot like a flying saucer. And I hadn't thought about flying saucers in a real long time. Not since that PBS special in December of 1987 that gave me nightmares for weeks and convinced me that I could see a little gray man with huge ovoid eyes standing RIGHT behind me in the reflection of the glass ornaments hanging on our Christmas tree.

Anywho, I decided to ask CLH about what he thought about the idea of aliens.

The conversation went a little like this:

Me: Do you ever think about aliens?

CLH: Do I ever think about aliens?

Me: Yeah, aliens.

CLH: Um, no, sweets. I don't think about aliens. Not the way you do, anyway.

Me: What's that supposed to mean?

CLH: (Looks at me the one might look at a child who has just said something supremely naive, but in a cute way) Your imagination. You let it get the better of you. I don't believe in aliens because (insert boring, logical reasons why reasonable adults do not believe in gray beings from another planet while I drift off into a reverie about what it would be like to be inside an alien spaceship. Cut to scene of blinking wall of important looking dials backlit with blue light. An operating table sits center stage. I am shackled to a gurney and wearing a flimsy paper gown. Two gray beings in lab coats exchange telepathic messages and then one flicks a 12 inch hypodermic needle and walks slowly toward the gurney). And that's why I don't believe in aliens.

Me: Wait. What?

CLH:... (pats me on the thigh, sighs heavily, and rolls over on his side.)

Me: (Snuggling down next to CLH and staring up at the venetian blinds) That's why I love you. Because you're not afraid of aliens. You're like the rock in this relationship. You talk me down out of every tree I climb into. I really appreciate you. You know that?

CLH: Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately about guilt and perfectionism (the roots, I believe, of my anxiety and depression) and the things that plague women that don't seem to bother men. And I've been thinking about how much worrying I do about things I cannot control (like being probed by fictional creatures in the night). I've been thinking (this is new only to me, not to the world) that I can actually control the nutball things I lay in bed worrying over, writhing in agony, awake for hours on end. I've also been thinking about the guilt I carry around for REALLY DUMB THINGS. Like not posting to this blog. I beat myself up quite a bit for not posting. And for not writing more in general. The guilt makes me ashamed to show my face (on my own blog, for chrissakes). So I don't post. And then I feel guilty about not posting, so I stay away even longer. And as we all know, that cycle of inaction, guilt over inaction, and more inaction is a hard one to break. Just ask my deflated adrenal glands.

But, I'm working on it. I'm working on being a touch more forgiving of myself. I mean, I AM RUNNING A BUSINESS and all. And I do most of the cooking and meal planning in our house. And some of the laundry. And I have an active social life. The point is that I have other things to attend to, things like a full time job on the weekdays, a luxury that allows me to sit around unshowered in a Snuggie all Sunday afternoon and tell you about bizarre scars that form in the middle of the night on my forearms. So, I'm going to go easy on myself from now on.

And I'm definitely going to close the venetian blinds ALL the way before I go to bed.

Continue to full post...

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panic attacks

Dermabrasion: The Hallmark of Alien Visitation

A few days ago, I woke up with a scar on my forearm. I didn't notice it until I was showering. I was running the soap over my arm and suddenly I was all Huh. My arm burns. That's weird. My other arm doesn't burn. Let me turn my arm around and have a look at th----WHA??? OH. MY. GOD. THEY'VE BEEN HERE. THE ALIENS. THEY CAME IN THE NIGHT. THEY'VE SCARRED WITH THEIR HORRIBLE MEDICAL EXAMS.

And I wonder why I've been suffering from adrenal exhaustion.

It's in my nature to worry. I worry about everything. I get worked up about things that normal people don't even think about. Like whether or not all the knife blades are facing the same way when we set the dinner table for guests. Or whether or not my riding gloves are next to my bike helmet in the garage. Or that there is one lone sock without a mate in CLH's sock drawer. It literally keeps me up at night.

The height of my pent-up anxiety usually hits me just as I am getting ready for bed. The time when most people are thinking things like, Oh boy, I sure am excited to sleep in that big ol' bed. I can't wait to get under the covers and dream abou----zzzzzzz. You see? That's how most people fall asleep: mid-thought, probably with their mouths open, with little pools of drool threatening to soak their pillowcases, their fists all curled tightly around their heads, their bodies nestled between billowy folds of down comforter and an array of pillows.

Not me. My thoughts as I lay down to sleep in the dark sound more like OMIGOD. OH. MY. GOD. WHAT WAS THAT NOISE? IS THE NEIGHBOR'S CAT IN THE DRYER? SHIT. DID I LET THAT CAT INTO THE LAUNDRY ROOM? IS SOMEONE KICKING IN THE FRONT DOOR? SHIIIIIIIIIT. FUCK. WHERE ARE MY PHOTO ALBUMS? BECAUSE IF THAT'S NOT A CAT IN THE DRYER OR A PREDATOR AT THE DOOR, THEN WE'RE HAVING AN EARTHQUAKE, AND I REALLY NEED TO BE ABLE TO GET AT MY PHOTO ALBUMS. SHIIIIIT. FUCK. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RUN FOR THE OREGON BORDER. ON FOOT. IN OUR PAJAMAS. IN THE DARK. IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER. AND I WILL NOT GO WITHOUT MY PHOTO ALBUMS. AND MY JOURNALS FROM THE FIFTH GRADE. AND, OH SHIIIIT. A NEWS CREW IS GOING TO WANT TO INTERVIEW ME ABOUT HOW I KNEW TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE SO SOON AND I'M PROBABLY GOING TO SOUND LIKE AN IDIOT ON FILM AND HAVE SEAWEED STUCK BETWEEN MY TEETH BECAUSE THAT'S THE LAST THING I ATE BEFORE BED- AGAIN! BECAUSE I WAS HUNGRY! AND I LIKE SEAWEED, OKAY!?- AND I'M GOING TO WEIGH LIKE 500 POUNDS ONE DAY BECAUSE I SNACK BEFORE BED AND OPRAH SAYS THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR WEIGHT GAIN IS EATING AFTER 7 PM, AND -

I'm going to cut it off right there because I could go on forever and there's only so many lines of capital letters one should have to read before one is convinced that I should be injected with horse tranquilizer after 10 pm.

The night before I acquired this mystery scar, I asked CLH about aliens. I asked him because, well, I wondered if the things that kept him awake at night were the same things that kept me awake at night. Not that I spend nights thinking about aliens, per se, or that they are the only things keeping me awake at night (no, what keeps me awake at night most of the time are all sorts of apocalyptic scenes in which we have to run for our lives because the bomb's just been dropped and somehow just he and I have escaped total annihilation and now we have to decide what to pack as we paddle across the newly liquefied landscape to start our lives over on another continent: my memory box from third grade or a jar of dried mung beans.)

The only reason I asked him about aliens was because there was something about the way the streetlight was shining in through the slats of the venetian blinds in our bedroom. The light looked all fuzzy and oval-shaped, and, well, a lot like a flying saucer. And I hadn't thought about flying saucers in a real long time. Not since that PBS special in December of 1987 that gave me nightmares for weeks and convinced me that I could see a little gray man with huge ovoid eyes standing RIGHT behind me in the reflection of the glass ornaments hanging on our Christmas tree.

Anywho, I decided to ask CLH about what he thought about the idea of aliens.

The conversation went a little like this:

Me: Do you ever think about aliens?

CLH: Do I ever think about aliens?

Me: Yeah, aliens.

CLH: Um, no, sweets. I don't think about aliens. Not the way you do, anyway.

Me: What's that supposed to mean?

CLH: (Looks at me the one might look at a child who has just said something supremely naive, but in a cute way) Your imagination. You let it get the better of you. I don't believe in aliens because (insert boring, logical reasons why reasonable adults do not believe in gray beings from another planet while I drift off into a reverie about what it would be like to be inside an alien spaceship. Cut to scene of blinking wall of important looking dials backlit with blue light. An operating table sits center stage. I am shackled to a gurney and wearing a flimsy paper gown. Two gray beings in lab coats exchange telepathic messages and then one flicks a 12 inch hypodermic needle and walks slowly toward the gurney). And that's why I don't believe in aliens.

Me: Wait. What?

CLH:... (pats me on the thigh, sighs heavily, and rolls over on his side.)

Me: (Snuggling down next to CLH and staring up at the venetian blinds) That's why I love you. Because you're not afraid of aliens. You're like the rock in this relationship. You talk me down out of every tree I climb into. I really appreciate you. You know that?

CLH: Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately about guilt and perfectionism (the roots, I believe, of my anxiety and depression) and the things that plague women that don't seem to bother men. And I've been thinking about how much worrying I do about things I cannot control (like being probed by fictional creatures in the night). I've been thinking (this is new only to me, not to the world) that I can actually control the nutball things I lay in bed worrying over, writhing in agony, awake for hours on end. I've also been thinking about the guilt I carry around for REALLY DUMB THINGS. Like not posting to this blog. I beat myself up quite a bit for not posting. And for not writing more in general. The guilt makes me ashamed to show my face (on my own blog, for chrissakes). So I don't post. And then I feel guilty about not posting, so I stay away even longer. And as we all know, that cycle of inaction, guilt over inaction, and more inaction is a hard one to break. Just ask my deflated adrenal glands.

But, I'm working on it. I'm working on being a touch more forgiving of myself. I mean, I AM RUNNING A BUSINESS and all. And I do most of the cooking and meal planning in our house. And some of the laundry. And I have an active social life. The point is that I have other things to attend to, things like a full time job on the weekdays, a luxury that allows me to sit around unshowered in a Snuggie all Sunday afternoon and tell you about bizarre scars that form in the middle of the night on my forearms. So, I'm going to go easy on myself from now on.

And I'm definitely going to close the venetian blinds ALL the way before I go to bed.

Continue to full post...

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random shit I think about before falling asleep

Dermabrasion: The Hallmark of Alien Visitation

A few days ago, I woke up with a scar on my forearm. I didn't notice it until I was showering. I was running the soap over my arm and suddenly I was all Huh. My arm burns. That's weird. My other arm doesn't burn. Let me turn my arm around and have a look at th----WHA??? OH. MY. GOD. THEY'VE BEEN HERE. THE ALIENS. THEY CAME IN THE NIGHT. THEY'VE SCARRED WITH THEIR HORRIBLE MEDICAL EXAMS.

And I wonder why I've been suffering from adrenal exhaustion.

It's in my nature to worry. I worry about everything. I get worked up about things that normal people don't even think about. Like whether or not all the knife blades are facing the same way when we set the dinner table for guests. Or whether or not my riding gloves are next to my bike helmet in the garage. Or that there is one lone sock without a mate in CLH's sock drawer. It literally keeps me up at night.

The height of my pent-up anxiety usually hits me just as I am getting ready for bed. The time when most people are thinking things like, Oh boy, I sure am excited to sleep in that big ol' bed. I can't wait to get under the covers and dream abou----zzzzzzz. You see? That's how most people fall asleep: mid-thought, probably with their mouths open, with little pools of drool threatening to soak their pillowcases, their fists all curled tightly around their heads, their bodies nestled between billowy folds of down comforter and an array of pillows.

Not me. My thoughts as I lay down to sleep in the dark sound more like OMIGOD. OH. MY. GOD. WHAT WAS THAT NOISE? IS THE NEIGHBOR'S CAT IN THE DRYER? SHIT. DID I LET THAT CAT INTO THE LAUNDRY ROOM? IS SOMEONE KICKING IN THE FRONT DOOR? SHIIIIIIIIIT. FUCK. WHERE ARE MY PHOTO ALBUMS? BECAUSE IF THAT'S NOT A CAT IN THE DRYER OR A PREDATOR AT THE DOOR, THEN WE'RE HAVING AN EARTHQUAKE, AND I REALLY NEED TO BE ABLE TO GET AT MY PHOTO ALBUMS. SHIIIIIT. FUCK. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RUN FOR THE OREGON BORDER. ON FOOT. IN OUR PAJAMAS. IN THE DARK. IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER. AND I WILL NOT GO WITHOUT MY PHOTO ALBUMS. AND MY JOURNALS FROM THE FIFTH GRADE. AND, OH SHIIIIT. A NEWS CREW IS GOING TO WANT TO INTERVIEW ME ABOUT HOW I KNEW TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE SO SOON AND I'M PROBABLY GOING TO SOUND LIKE AN IDIOT ON FILM AND HAVE SEAWEED STUCK BETWEEN MY TEETH BECAUSE THAT'S THE LAST THING I ATE BEFORE BED- AGAIN! BECAUSE I WAS HUNGRY! AND I LIKE SEAWEED, OKAY!?- AND I'M GOING TO WEIGH LIKE 500 POUNDS ONE DAY BECAUSE I SNACK BEFORE BED AND OPRAH SAYS THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR WEIGHT GAIN IS EATING AFTER 7 PM, AND -

I'm going to cut it off right there because I could go on forever and there's only so many lines of capital letters one should have to read before one is convinced that I should be injected with horse tranquilizer after 10 pm.

The night before I acquired this mystery scar, I asked CLH about aliens. I asked him because, well, I wondered if the things that kept him awake at night were the same things that kept me awake at night. Not that I spend nights thinking about aliens, per se, or that they are the only things keeping me awake at night (no, what keeps me awake at night most of the time are all sorts of apocalyptic scenes in which we have to run for our lives because the bomb's just been dropped and somehow just he and I have escaped total annihilation and now we have to decide what to pack as we paddle across the newly liquefied landscape to start our lives over on another continent: my memory box from third grade or a jar of dried mung beans.)

The only reason I asked him about aliens was because there was something about the way the streetlight was shining in through the slats of the venetian blinds in our bedroom. The light looked all fuzzy and oval-shaped, and, well, a lot like a flying saucer. And I hadn't thought about flying saucers in a real long time. Not since that PBS special in December of 1987 that gave me nightmares for weeks and convinced me that I could see a little gray man with huge ovoid eyes standing RIGHT behind me in the reflection of the glass ornaments hanging on our Christmas tree.

Anywho, I decided to ask CLH about what he thought about the idea of aliens.

The conversation went a little like this:

Me: Do you ever think about aliens?

CLH: Do I ever think about aliens?

Me: Yeah, aliens.

CLH: Um, no, sweets. I don't think about aliens. Not the way you do, anyway.

Me: What's that supposed to mean?

CLH: (Looks at me the one might look at a child who has just said something supremely naive, but in a cute way) Your imagination. You let it get the better of you. I don't believe in aliens because (insert boring, logical reasons why reasonable adults do not believe in gray beings from another planet while I drift off into a reverie about what it would be like to be inside an alien spaceship. Cut to scene of blinking wall of important looking dials backlit with blue light. An operating table sits center stage. I am shackled to a gurney and wearing a flimsy paper gown. Two gray beings in lab coats exchange telepathic messages and then one flicks a 12 inch hypodermic needle and walks slowly toward the gurney). And that's why I don't believe in aliens.

Me: Wait. What?

CLH:... (pats me on the thigh, sighs heavily, and rolls over on his side.)

Me: (Snuggling down next to CLH and staring up at the venetian blinds) That's why I love you. Because you're not afraid of aliens. You're like the rock in this relationship. You talk me down out of every tree I climb into. I really appreciate you. You know that?

CLH: Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately about guilt and perfectionism (the roots, I believe, of my anxiety and depression) and the things that plague women that don't seem to bother men. And I've been thinking about how much worrying I do about things I cannot control (like being probed by fictional creatures in the night). I've been thinking (this is new only to me, not to the world) that I can actually control the nutball things I lay in bed worrying over, writhing in agony, awake for hours on end. I've also been thinking about the guilt I carry around for REALLY DUMB THINGS. Like not posting to this blog. I beat myself up quite a bit for not posting. And for not writing more in general. The guilt makes me ashamed to show my face (on my own blog, for chrissakes). So I don't post. And then I feel guilty about not posting, so I stay away even longer. And as we all know, that cycle of inaction, guilt over inaction, and more inaction is a hard one to break. Just ask my deflated adrenal glands.

But, I'm working on it. I'm working on being a touch more forgiving of myself. I mean, I AM RUNNING A BUSINESS and all. And I do most of the cooking and meal planning in our house. And some of the laundry. And I have an active social life. The point is that I have other things to attend to, things like a full time job on the weekdays, a luxury that allows me to sit around unshowered in a Snuggie all Sunday afternoon and tell you about bizarre scars that form in the middle of the night on my forearms. So, I'm going to go easy on myself from now on.

And I'm definitely going to close the venetian blinds ALL the way before I go to bed.

Continue to full post...

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how to ruin black beans

The List of Horrible

My sister was having a very boring day at work the other day and asked me to post something for her to read. I wish I could say this was the anecdote for a boring work day, but i think it might be the exact opposite. Um, sister? If you are reading and are having a bad day, this might make you feel even worse. I don't have anything really exciting to report, except that the past few days I have been feeling really out of sorts and horribly unproductive. Parts of my week have been downright stupid.

A List of Unfortunate Things That Have Happened to Me In The Past 24 Hours:

-Made a pot of black beans, but put too much water in the pot, so wound up making a very watered down, flavorless pot of what looked like, at the end of 3 hours, sewer sludge.

-While making pot of black beans, was not careful while de-seeding the chili peppers, so my hands burned with radiant atomic heat for HOURS after the mediocre dinner of sewer sludge over rice.

-Earlier in the day, while tallying up my mileage for 2009 on an adding machine, did not notice until too late that the end of my very long tape was resting in my coffee cup. Which was full of coffee.

-Tallied up nearly three month's worth of mileage before I realized that I had already done the work MONTHS AGO (in a different mileage log)... and so wasted hours of my life with an adding machine and Google maps.

-Thought about going to the gym (to work out... to feel better about myself) but then realized my hip is still injured (from working out at the gym) and wondered which would be worse: the pain from working out my hip, or acknowledging that I ate my dinner of potstickers and corn chips in front of the TV in my pajamas.

...

Today CLH came home to find me in an oversized, stained sweatshirt and heavy pants with my fuzzy scarf wrapped around my head, turban style. Which means that even though "spring is here", and even though my apartment is heated, it's still mothereffing cold outside. Sure, the sun is out here and there, and, at the right angle, from inside a heated room on the 6th floor of a building, it might even look nice outside. But, the second you get out there, you realize that nature has pulled a fast one on ya. It's not warm, as the presence of the sun might suggest. No, it's just slightly above cold. That doesn't stop the optimistic native-born Northwesterners I live with from making chipper comments about the weather. No, sir. To them, this time of year is downright delightful. My friend Victoria (who, like me, grew up in climes much warmer) and I have a bet going: whoever hears "Sure is nice out there today!" uttered in line in the supermarket next gets to go King Kong on everyone's ass.

This is about the time of year when I get a major case of the blahs. Or the mehs. Whatever. It's this limbo time between winter and spring and the daffodils are blooming, but we all still have to wear heavy coats outside. The time of year when if I miss even ONE day of not cramming handfuls of Vitamin D down my throat, I run the risk of kicking puppies and yelling furiously at babies.

Not that I came anywhere close to kicking puppies today. Quite the opposite, in fact. I have this magical... um... let's call it a "gift" with dogs. They like to be around me. They flock to me like I'm freaking Saint Francis of Assisi. They curl up on my feet. Same with babies. They just like me. Maybe it's because I'm usually smiling like a clown and I smell like flowers. I don't know. But the dogs today? Right underneath my fucking task chair. More than once today, in TWO DIFFERENT OFFICES, I had to yell at FOUR DIFFERENT dogs to move the hell out from behind me or they'd lose a paw. I know, you're thinking: Wow. Sweet life ya got there. You get to work in an office with dogs in it? How laid back. How relaxed. And you're complaining?

YES. YES I AM. DO YOU SEE HOW DIFFICULT TO PLEASE I HAVE BECOME? Now, where was I?

Ah, yes, the pity parade was stopped just at the Giant Bottle of Vitamin D float. Well, what a beaut, eh, Bob? This one is being led by the good people at Nature's Pharmacy. This is a special float, Bob, as it's half-filled with cotton. I don't know how they make it float with all that cotton in it, but they do! What a magnificent sight. This baby is made up of about 5000 yards of green Lycra and made its first appearance in the parade back in 2001. Oh! I think I see the next float and I think the kiddies are going to be very excited!

I don't even know where I'm going with this post. This was supposed to be a quasi-serious discourse about how different people treat the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder, but I don't think I have it in me tonight. I just made myself a salad with black eyed peas and lemon zest just to feel all springy, but CLEARLY it isn't helping.

Tomorrow I hope to post something with a little more topical-ness. Something related. About the healthcare bill. And taking medication. In general, I hope to have at least one day a week of getting all soap-boxy on this blog. And I hope to make it prettier some day. With pictures and stuff. And buttons that do things. For right now, though, it's battling a major case of the Blahs.

Continue to full post...

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why vitamin d is like the second coming of christ

The List of Horrible

My sister was having a very boring day at work the other day and asked me to post something for her to read. I wish I could say this was the anecdote for a boring work day, but i think it might be the exact opposite. Um, sister? If you are reading and are having a bad day, this might make you feel even worse. I don't have anything really exciting to report, except that the past few days I have been feeling really out of sorts and horribly unproductive. Parts of my week have been downright stupid.

A List of Unfortunate Things That Have Happened to Me In The Past 24 Hours:

-Made a pot of black beans, but put too much water in the pot, so wound up making a very watered down, flavorless pot of what looked like, at the end of 3 hours, sewer sludge.

-While making pot of black beans, was not careful while de-seeding the chili peppers, so my hands burned with radiant atomic heat for HOURS after the mediocre dinner of sewer sludge over rice.

-Earlier in the day, while tallying up my mileage for 2009 on an adding machine, did not notice until too late that the end of my very long tape was resting in my coffee cup. Which was full of coffee.

-Tallied up nearly three month's worth of mileage before I realized that I had already done the work MONTHS AGO (in a different mileage log)... and so wasted hours of my life with an adding machine and Google maps.

-Thought about going to the gym (to work out... to feel better about myself) but then realized my hip is still injured (from working out at the gym) and wondered which would be worse: the pain from working out my hip, or acknowledging that I ate my dinner of potstickers and corn chips in front of the TV in my pajamas.

...

Today CLH came home to find me in an oversized, stained sweatshirt and heavy pants with my fuzzy scarf wrapped around my head, turban style. Which means that even though "spring is here", and even though my apartment is heated, it's still mothereffing cold outside. Sure, the sun is out here and there, and, at the right angle, from inside a heated room on the 6th floor of a building, it might even look nice outside. But, the second you get out there, you realize that nature has pulled a fast one on ya. It's not warm, as the presence of the sun might suggest. No, it's just slightly above cold. That doesn't stop the optimistic native-born Northwesterners I live with from making chipper comments about the weather. No, sir. To them, this time of year is downright delightful. My friend Victoria (who, like me, grew up in climes much warmer) and I have a bet going: whoever hears "Sure is nice out there today!" uttered in line in the supermarket next gets to go King Kong on everyone's ass.

This is about the time of year when I get a major case of the blahs. Or the mehs. Whatever. It's this limbo time between winter and spring and the daffodils are blooming, but we all still have to wear heavy coats outside. The time of year when if I miss even ONE day of not cramming handfuls of Vitamin D down my throat, I run the risk of kicking puppies and yelling furiously at babies.

Not that I came anywhere close to kicking puppies today. Quite the opposite, in fact. I have this magical... um... let's call it a "gift" with dogs. They like to be around me. They flock to me like I'm freaking Saint Francis of Assisi. They curl up on my feet. Same with babies. They just like me. Maybe it's because I'm usually smiling like a clown and I smell like flowers. I don't know. But the dogs today? Right underneath my fucking task chair. More than once today, in TWO DIFFERENT OFFICES, I had to yell at FOUR DIFFERENT dogs to move the hell out from behind me or they'd lose a paw. I know, you're thinking: Wow. Sweet life ya got there. You get to work in an office with dogs in it? How laid back. How relaxed. And you're complaining?

YES. YES I AM. DO YOU SEE HOW DIFFICULT TO PLEASE I HAVE BECOME? Now, where was I?

Ah, yes, the pity parade was stopped just at the Giant Bottle of Vitamin D float. Well, what a beaut, eh, Bob? This one is being led by the good people at Nature's Pharmacy. This is a special float, Bob, as it's half-filled with cotton. I don't know how they make it float with all that cotton in it, but they do! What a magnificent sight. This baby is made up of about 5000 yards of green Lycra and made its first appearance in the parade back in 2001. Oh! I think I see the next float and I think the kiddies are going to be very excited!

I don't even know where I'm going with this post. This was supposed to be a quasi-serious discourse about how different people treat the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder, but I don't think I have it in me tonight. I just made myself a salad with black eyed peas and lemon zest just to feel all springy, but CLEARLY it isn't helping.

Tomorrow I hope to post something with a little more topical-ness. Something related. About the healthcare bill. And taking medication. In general, I hope to have at least one day a week of getting all soap-boxy on this blog. And I hope to make it prettier some day. With pictures and stuff. And buttons that do things. For right now, though, it's battling a major case of the Blahs.

Continue to full post...

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fake naills

Like A Wristwatch Inside A Turkey. Sort Of.

Internet, I have a weird secret to tell you. I'm sharing this secret with you because, this afternoon, my secret lodged itself in a bag of potting soil, or underneath a potted cucumber plant (impossible to tell which), and I can't hide it anymore.

I engage in a beauty ritual that rubs up against all my au-naturel, no-morning-routine, simplify to the point of monkishness, urban greenie lifestyle.

Sometimes, I wear fake nails. And not on all my fingers, either.

I don't do it for looks entirely. I would be lying if I said I didn't like the way nicely manicured nails look. Who doesn't? The real reason I sometimes wear fake nails, though, is for comfort. Seriously. I type all day long for work. More to the point, I ten-key all day long for work. That means that my right hand is curled up into a digit punching perma-claw for about 75% of my waking hours. My nails tend to break very easily. And when my nails are different lengths, it really bugs. It messes with my sense of balance. One finger might have a regular length nail on it, and another might have a slightly longer nail on it. Another might have one hacked right down to the quick because I accidentally smashed it into a file cabinet drawer a week ago. I hate the sensation of first my sensitive bare fingertip, and then a small talon, and then my sensitive bare finger again, hitting the keys. It's my own private nails on chalkboard. Or biting down on tongue depressors. Whatever. Insert gag reflex-inducing peeve here. So, to keep them all strong and the same length, I sometimes glue down a few falsies.

I know, I know. Horrible. Deplorable, even. Do I even KNOW what's in nail glue? If it can hold a grown man in a hard hat to an I-beam, what must it be doing to the DNA just underneath my nails? And all the Toluene and formaldehyde in nail polish? Aren't I just ASKING for my kids to be born with five heads? And what becomes of my poor nail beds once I soak them in paint thinner to get those claws off? And the bottles, once they are used up? Where do they go? Am I not just contributing to an ever increasing pile of non-recyclable, downright toxic trash that will be with us for milennia? And don't I normally rail against all the products we use in our daily lives that are positively AWFUL for the planet? These are questions I choose not to ask myself, Internet. I'm not proud of the fact. It's one of my guilty pleasures, and so long as Sally Hansen continues to make nail polish the color of pumpkins and eggplants, I will continue to apply my industrialized war paint.

So.

It's T-minus two weeks until my starts are ready to go into the ground (or, in my apartment-dwelling case, into the pots that will line the driveway) so today I got out some more yogurt cups and thinned the herd a little. About two and a half weeks ago, I planted four different kinds of tomato seeds. I planted a few of each variety thinking that, of the dozen or so that that I planted, only a few would take. Well, mother nature is a fertile lady this year, and instead of four or five, I got roughly ten. Any by the looks of it, there are more on the way.

So, I had to separate some of the little buggers because the yogurt cups were starting to get crowded. I went down to the basement to grab some potting soil, came back upstairs, and set up shop on my kitchen counter. I pulled the teensy weensy little starts from their soil, put them into new yogurt cups, watered them, and put them back on the windowsill. And then I went to wash my hands. Which is when I noticed this:

My pinky nail was missing. My fake pinky nail. I didn't even feel it come off. Gross. Grosser still? It's probably hanging out in one of the yogurt cups. I guess if in the Fall, the cucumbers come up with orange-tinted skins, we'll know where it went.

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guilt over killing off whole species with nail polish

Like A Wristwatch Inside A Turkey. Sort Of.

Internet, I have a weird secret to tell you. I'm sharing this secret with you because, this afternoon, my secret lodged itself in a bag of potting soil, or underneath a potted cucumber plant (impossible to tell which), and I can't hide it anymore.

I engage in a beauty ritual that rubs up against all my au-naturel, no-morning-routine, simplify to the point of monkishness, urban greenie lifestyle.

Sometimes, I wear fake nails. And not on all my fingers, either.

I don't do it for looks entirely. I would be lying if I said I didn't like the way nicely manicured nails look. Who doesn't? The real reason I sometimes wear fake nails, though, is for comfort. Seriously. I type all day long for work. More to the point, I ten-key all day long for work. That means that my right hand is curled up into a digit punching perma-claw for about 75% of my waking hours. My nails tend to break very easily. And when my nails are different lengths, it really bugs. It messes with my sense of balance. One finger might have a regular length nail on it, and another might have a slightly longer nail on it. Another might have one hacked right down to the quick because I accidentally smashed it into a file cabinet drawer a week ago. I hate the sensation of first my sensitive bare fingertip, and then a small talon, and then my sensitive bare finger again, hitting the keys. It's my own private nails on chalkboard. Or biting down on tongue depressors. Whatever. Insert gag reflex-inducing peeve here. So, to keep them all strong and the same length, I sometimes glue down a few falsies.

I know, I know. Horrible. Deplorable, even. Do I even KNOW what's in nail glue? If it can hold a grown man in a hard hat to an I-beam, what must it be doing to the DNA just underneath my nails? And all the Toluene and formaldehyde in nail polish? Aren't I just ASKING for my kids to be born with five heads? And what becomes of my poor nail beds once I soak them in paint thinner to get those claws off? And the bottles, once they are used up? Where do they go? Am I not just contributing to an ever increasing pile of non-recyclable, downright toxic trash that will be with us for milennia? And don't I normally rail against all the products we use in our daily lives that are positively AWFUL for the planet? These are questions I choose not to ask myself, Internet. I'm not proud of the fact. It's one of my guilty pleasures, and so long as Sally Hansen continues to make nail polish the color of pumpkins and eggplants, I will continue to apply my industrialized war paint.

So.

It's T-minus two weeks until my starts are ready to go into the ground (or, in my apartment-dwelling case, into the pots that will line the driveway) so today I got out some more yogurt cups and thinned the herd a little. About two and a half weeks ago, I planted four different kinds of tomato seeds. I planted a few of each variety thinking that, of the dozen or so that that I planted, only a few would take. Well, mother nature is a fertile lady this year, and instead of four or five, I got roughly ten. Any by the looks of it, there are more on the way.

So, I had to separate some of the little buggers because the yogurt cups were starting to get crowded. I went down to the basement to grab some potting soil, came back upstairs, and set up shop on my kitchen counter. I pulled the teensy weensy little starts from their soil, put them into new yogurt cups, watered them, and put them back on the windowsill. And then I went to wash my hands. Which is when I noticed this:

My pinky nail was missing. My fake pinky nail. I didn't even feel it come off. Gross. Grosser still? It's probably hanging out in one of the yogurt cups. I guess if in the Fall, the cucumbers come up with orange-tinted skins, we'll know where it went.

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vegetable starts

Like A Wristwatch Inside A Turkey. Sort Of.

Internet, I have a weird secret to tell you. I'm sharing this secret with you because, this afternoon, my secret lodged itself in a bag of potting soil, or underneath a potted cucumber plant (impossible to tell which), and I can't hide it anymore.

I engage in a beauty ritual that rubs up against all my au-naturel, no-morning-routine, simplify to the point of monkishness, urban greenie lifestyle.

Sometimes, I wear fake nails. And not on all my fingers, either.

I don't do it for looks entirely. I would be lying if I said I didn't like the way nicely manicured nails look. Who doesn't? The real reason I sometimes wear fake nails, though, is for comfort. Seriously. I type all day long for work. More to the point, I ten-key all day long for work. That means that my right hand is curled up into a digit punching perma-claw for about 75% of my waking hours. My nails tend to break very easily. And when my nails are different lengths, it really bugs. It messes with my sense of balance. One finger might have a regular length nail on it, and another might have a slightly longer nail on it. Another might have one hacked right down to the quick because I accidentally smashed it into a file cabinet drawer a week ago. I hate the sensation of first my sensitive bare fingertip, and then a small talon, and then my sensitive bare finger again, hitting the keys. It's my own private nails on chalkboard. Or biting down on tongue depressors. Whatever. Insert gag reflex-inducing peeve here. So, to keep them all strong and the same length, I sometimes glue down a few falsies.

I know, I know. Horrible. Deplorable, even. Do I even KNOW what's in nail glue? If it can hold a grown man in a hard hat to an I-beam, what must it be doing to the DNA just underneath my nails? And all the Toluene and formaldehyde in nail polish? Aren't I just ASKING for my kids to be born with five heads? And what becomes of my poor nail beds once I soak them in paint thinner to get those claws off? And the bottles, once they are used up? Where do they go? Am I not just contributing to an ever increasing pile of non-recyclable, downright toxic trash that will be with us for milennia? And don't I normally rail against all the products we use in our daily lives that are positively AWFUL for the planet? These are questions I choose not to ask myself, Internet. I'm not proud of the fact. It's one of my guilty pleasures, and so long as Sally Hansen continues to make nail polish the color of pumpkins and eggplants, I will continue to apply my industrialized war paint.

So.

It's T-minus two weeks until my starts are ready to go into the ground (or, in my apartment-dwelling case, into the pots that will line the driveway) so today I got out some more yogurt cups and thinned the herd a little. About two and a half weeks ago, I planted four different kinds of tomato seeds. I planted a few of each variety thinking that, of the dozen or so that that I planted, only a few would take. Well, mother nature is a fertile lady this year, and instead of four or five, I got roughly ten. Any by the looks of it, there are more on the way.

So, I had to separate some of the little buggers because the yogurt cups were starting to get crowded. I went down to the basement to grab some potting soil, came back upstairs, and set up shop on my kitchen counter. I pulled the teensy weensy little starts from their soil, put them into new yogurt cups, watered them, and put them back on the windowsill. And then I went to wash my hands. Which is when I noticed this:

My pinky nail was missing. My fake pinky nail. I didn't even feel it come off. Gross. Grosser still? It's probably hanging out in one of the yogurt cups. I guess if in the Fall, the cucumbers come up with orange-tinted skins, we'll know where it went.

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nightmares about brothers

He’s Baaaa-aaack!

Being partnered for the last ten years with a tech-geek allows me to make the following prediction: CLH has been clutching his iPhone in his gnarled, crusty hands for the last 12 hours aboard that boat, waiting, just waiting for the signal to come in so that THE SECOND IT DID, say, at 3:35 am, for instance, he would use it to call me to say he was within cell phone range and nearing Hilo.

Not that I'm upset he called. I'm thrilled he called. What I'm upset about is that I was already awake at 3:35 am because I was having a terrible nightmare about my youngest brother. Maybe my stomach was plotting some sweet revenge against me for eating all that ground meat for dinner. Or maybe my subconscious mind took in the last few pages of the book I was reading before bed and morphed them into something more familial and vicious. Either way, I was lying in bed at 3:45 sweating and VERY much awake when I heard the voice mail chime on my phone.

He's back, Internets! Scheduled to make port in Hilo right around now. And I am scheduled to meet him in Hilo in a mere two days. Everyone has been asking me if I am excited to go. Well, duh. It's been raining cats and dogs since I got back from New Mexico and I couldn't be more thrilled to spend the next week on a tropical island with my favorite guy. I'm going to presume that this trip was life altering for CLH. Judging from the sporadic texts and emails I received from the boat, he's had lots of time to think about stuff. And you don't stare at an endless horizon for 30 days with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company and not come back to land a changed man. Does the prospect of meeting a changed man in Hilo scare me a little? Yes, yes it does. Does it also make me giddy with excitement? Yes, yes it does. Does it make me unable to concentrate on ANYthing work or otherwise adult-responsibility-related right now? Yes, again.

I've been slow to post my pictures from New Mexico because I have been busy trying to make travel arrangements (how 19th century does the term "travel arrangements" sound? You'd think I was boarding a steamer bound for some mysterious tropical climate to cure my woman hysteria or my fainting spells). Anywho, I've been trying to pull together a little something special for CLH when he comes home. Emails, emails, emails with all the various moving parties, checking the Internet for flight deals, researching... So that's been eating up all my free time. Well, that, and all the hamburger eating.

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Taco Bell is Gremlin food

He’s Baaaa-aaack!

Being partnered for the last ten years with a tech-geek allows me to make the following prediction: CLH has been clutching his iPhone in his gnarled, crusty hands for the last 12 hours aboard that boat, waiting, just waiting for the signal to come in so that THE SECOND IT DID, say, at 3:35 am, for instance, he would use it to call me to say he was within cell phone range and nearing Hilo.

Not that I'm upset he called. I'm thrilled he called. What I'm upset about is that I was already awake at 3:35 am because I was having a terrible nightmare about my youngest brother. Maybe my stomach was plotting some sweet revenge against me for eating all that ground meat for dinner. Or maybe my subconscious mind took in the last few pages of the book I was reading before bed and morphed them into something more familial and vicious. Either way, I was lying in bed at 3:45 sweating and VERY much awake when I heard the voice mail chime on my phone.

He's back, Internets! Scheduled to make port in Hilo right around now. And I am scheduled to meet him in Hilo in a mere two days. Everyone has been asking me if I am excited to go. Well, duh. It's been raining cats and dogs since I got back from New Mexico and I couldn't be more thrilled to spend the next week on a tropical island with my favorite guy. I'm going to presume that this trip was life altering for CLH. Judging from the sporadic texts and emails I received from the boat, he's had lots of time to think about stuff. And you don't stare at an endless horizon for 30 days with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company and not come back to land a changed man. Does the prospect of meeting a changed man in Hilo scare me a little? Yes, yes it does. Does it also make me giddy with excitement? Yes, yes it does. Does it make me unable to concentrate on ANYthing work or otherwise adult-responsibility-related right now? Yes, again.

I've been slow to post my pictures from New Mexico because I have been busy trying to make travel arrangements (how 19th century does the term "travel arrangements" sound? You'd think I was boarding a steamer bound for some mysterious tropical climate to cure my woman hysteria or my fainting spells). Anywho, I've been trying to pull together a little something special for CLH when he comes home. Emails, emails, emails with all the various moving parties, checking the Internet for flight deals, researching... So that's been eating up all my free time. Well, that, and all the hamburger eating.

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the sailing trip comes to an end

He’s Baaaa-aaack!

Being partnered for the last ten years with a tech-geek allows me to make the following prediction: CLH has been clutching his iPhone in his gnarled, crusty hands for the last 12 hours aboard that boat, waiting, just waiting for the signal to come in so that THE SECOND IT DID, say, at 3:35 am, for instance, he would use it to call me to say he was within cell phone range and nearing Hilo.

Not that I'm upset he called. I'm thrilled he called. What I'm upset about is that I was already awake at 3:35 am because I was having a terrible nightmare about my youngest brother. Maybe my stomach was plotting some sweet revenge against me for eating all that ground meat for dinner. Or maybe my subconscious mind took in the last few pages of the book I was reading before bed and morphed them into something more familial and vicious. Either way, I was lying in bed at 3:45 sweating and VERY much awake when I heard the voice mail chime on my phone.

He's back, Internets! Scheduled to make port in Hilo right around now. And I am scheduled to meet him in Hilo in a mere two days. Everyone has been asking me if I am excited to go. Well, duh. It's been raining cats and dogs since I got back from New Mexico and I couldn't be more thrilled to spend the next week on a tropical island with my favorite guy. I'm going to presume that this trip was life altering for CLH. Judging from the sporadic texts and emails I received from the boat, he's had lots of time to think about stuff. And you don't stare at an endless horizon for 30 days with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company and not come back to land a changed man. Does the prospect of meeting a changed man in Hilo scare me a little? Yes, yes it does. Does it also make me giddy with excitement? Yes, yes it does. Does it make me unable to concentrate on ANYthing work or otherwise adult-responsibility-related right now? Yes, again.

I've been slow to post my pictures from New Mexico because I have been busy trying to make travel arrangements (how 19th century does the term "travel arrangements" sound? You'd think I was boarding a steamer bound for some mysterious tropical climate to cure my woman hysteria or my fainting spells). Anywho, I've been trying to pull together a little something special for CLH when he comes home. Emails, emails, emails with all the various moving parties, checking the Internet for flight deals, researching... So that's been eating up all my free time. Well, that, and all the hamburger eating.

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Kids on vacation

Human Anatomy 101, the Preschool Edition

I'm not in the habit of posting every little cute thing my kids' friends say... but, Internet, this was a deal breaker.

I mean, this is right up there with MAET BUTT.

It happened during my recent trip to the Southwest with my friends Dan and Victoria and their lovable kids.

So, I'm back in Tuscon after four days of being on planes, in cars, and in rooms with small kids who want me to do things like chuck them off the sides of a beds onto air mattresses and tell them stories that contain the following characters: a giant squid, a shark, and a Dimetron. If I deviated from the script, I was reminded in A VERY LOUD VOICE that Diplodocus was NOT on the approved character list. (Sorry, kid. Auntie Lolo is tired and can only keep track of two giant predators at a time.)

There were lots of logistics to keep track of on this trip. And there was a lot of shouting and pleading for "TWO MORE MINUTES, MOM!"

You know how it can get when you travel in a group, right? Without creature comforts and routine, social order breaks down. Tempers flare, alliances are formed, and eventually, someone winds up dead from a blow to the head. Or something like that.

Well, we were all a little on edge and sleep deprived and cranky.

I had also come down with a nasty sinus infection by this point. My whole body ached, and my head felt like it was full of wet cement. I hadn't slept well in five days. Something miraculous had taken place in the last few weeks and I was finally able to SLEEP at night, like normal people. But when I got into Arizona, I couldn't sleep again. And all I wanted to do was sleep. And there wasn't going to be any sleeping in my future any time soon. I was going to have to get up at 3:45 in the morning to catch a 5:00 am flight.

So, Little Man was in the bathtub at Aunt Linda's house, and the demands for this toy or that toy were reaching crescendo levels. Victoria was trying to sort and pack a small mountain of clothing into two suitcases. Dan was trying to accommodate Little Man's demands and help Victoria at the same time. Aunt Linda was pacing and politely trying not to lose her mind over the chaos in her craft room (which we were staying in). I was trying not to shove an ice pick through my forehead to relieve the pressure in there. I think the only person still having a good time at this point was Giggles. She was in seventh heaven assembling layered paper cut-outs of lions and turtles courtesy of Aunt Linda's nifty die-cutting machine.

It was around eight o'clock in the evening and Little Man was just finishing up his bath. Dan had hoisted him out and was searching for a towel. Little Man, of course, had ants in his pants even without his pants on and had wandered into the hallway outside the bathroom. As soon as Little Man discovered the full length mirror, he paused and studied his reflection. He pointed to his chest, and yelled out:

DAD, LOOK AT MY NIBBLES!

NIBBLES, INTERNET! Could ya just die of cute?

The whole house exploded into laughter. It was just what we needed: a little desert rain after a long, hot day.

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Aaron's Cottage

Hawaiian Odyssey, Part II

It occurs to me that in order to name a post "Hawaiian Odyssey Part I", I need to actually write the part II. Riiiiight. I'm on it.

Where were we? Ah, yes. Mawaage.

So. Mr. Burdy is on the high seas. And I am doing calisthenics and taking my Metamucil.

There is a satellite phone on the boat to be used for outgoing calls for emergencies only. In addition to making calls, the phone sends and receives texts. This is how the captain tells his wife (who tells the other sea-wives, and wives-to-be) that he and the rest of the crew are alive and making progress. We wives (and wives-to-be) didn't request much in the way of details when we learned we would be updated daily. A message stating "Not dead; sails still working" would have sufficed. But sometimes we got more detail; we learned about when the head (that's Pirate for "toilet") got clogged... and when the swells reached fourteen feet. Technology is amazing, is it not?

After about a week or so, the captain's wife says that the captain says that they'll never use up all the texting time they've pre-purchased, so go ahead and send our menfolk a daily message. They're apparently longing for the soft and delicate curves of a female ~~body~~ text message.

Mr. Burdy has been allowed to send a message home to me. When you only have 140 characters to sum up your whole state of being, you choose your words carefully. And when you receive a message that you know can only be 140 characters long, you read it over and over again, reading between each character to glean the meaning, trying your hardest to imagine what was going on at the time those characters were typed.

He requests that I write him a haiku every day. I oblige.

Here is High-Ku Seas Haiku #3, written after I find out that they are all "recovering" (read: not puking anymore) from the first big waves they encounter:

"Text from Chuck Norris:
Roundhouse kick to the seas, boys.
Hilo awaits you. "

I text a haiku every day, I mark the days off the calendar, I search online for ticket prices to Hilo. I work, I eat, I sleep.

A few weeks later, I get on the plane, and I try to distract myself from the fact that I am about to reunite with Mr. Burdy after not seeing him for nearly six weeks. He picks me up on a gloriously hot afternoon with a bouquet of tropical flowers in hand. We hug, we cry, we almost forget how to kiss. (Wait. Do I lean in, or does he?) I bury my nose in his neck. He holds me tightly like in one of those coming-home-from-war pictures. We walk back to the car and we hold hands the whole way back to the house.

We stay at a friend's house for the week. Unbeknown to Mr. Burdy, I arrange for our first night together to be at Aaron's Cottage, a lovely little bed and breakfast. I want our first night together to be all romantical and cozy. And it is. Until the toddler in the room next to our starts being vivisected. Or whatever was happening to it to make it scream like that. I don't know. Whoever you are, father of that child, thank you for taking it on a car ride at midnight to calm it down. You are a saint.

Everything's going exactly as you might imagine it would after two people who love each other are finally reunited after a month and a half apart. There's a lot of PDA going on. And canoodling. Mr. Burdy is holding open doors and reading me whole sections of his journal and we're having an awesome time. We're plotting a million and one creative endeavors together, we're laughing, and we're eating some of the BEST food we've ever had on vacation. We vow to eat rice and eggs every morning till the day we die. And to eat more raw fish. And maybe some SPAM once in a while.

Now, in the midst of all this bliss, my adrenal glands are taking a much needed nap. They had nothing to worry about, 'cause we were on vacation, baby! Except, wait, what's that he's reaching for in his pocket? OH GOD, HERE IT COMES! RED ALERT. RED ALERT. WE HAVE A POSSIBLE RING SIGHTING. COMMENCE SHORTNESS OF BREATH PROCEDURE. You see, I have a very strong intuition. A very strong intuition. You might say I can smell a man's intent to marry me from 3,000 miles away. I knew Burdy was up to something. But I just didn't know when he was going to be up to something. So, every time he asked me to "sit down" because he "wanted to tell me something", my adrenal glands blasted a metric ton of adrenaline up to my brain and I nearly blacked out from the pressure change. Of course, Mr. Burdy didn't know he was doing this to me. He just wanted to show me the birds on the horizon, and why didn't I sit right here where I would get a better view and he would tell me about the birds he saw while he was at sea? And then he would reach into his pocket... and pull out a handkerchief and loudly blow his nose.

Mr. Burdy was especially eager to tell me about this particular constellation he saw while sailing at night. He even drew a map of the stars in his journal. In the constellation, he saw a female form. And the female form was leaning forward, sort of like a sprinter in a running position. The stars were his focal point at night during his watch. They pointed right to Hilo. No matter how dark it was, or how far away they were, all he had to do was look up to get his bearings. He kept the boat pointed where those stars pointed and they made their way to Hilo. Burdy kept mentioning these stars to me over and over again. I imagined that ANYone who had to steer a boat in the absolute pitch blackness with nothing but the stars for light and reference would have formed a special bond with one patch of sky or another, but there was something in his voice that I hadn't heard before. Some sort of seriousness. Something that quieted his normal boyish energy and drew out a more contemplative man. This was only the beginning of my understanding all the ways that this trip had changed him.

Oh, I should mention something else pivotal to this story. The weather.

One of the first things I asked Mr. Burdy when he came ashore was how the weather was in Hilo. Seattle had been (still is, goddamnit) having one hell of a cold summer and I was DYING for some hot sun. I think I was so excited for Hawaiian sun that I might have answered that first phone call from him with "Sun?" instead of "Hello?"

Burdy reassured me that the weather was sunny. He even took a picture of the sky with his phone and sent it to me as proof. He said that Hilo was on the rainy side of the island, but that it was sunny a lot of the time. It would probably rain a little bit each day, but after that, it would be bright and sunny. Pack your sundresses, he told me. Bring sunscreen. You'll love it here.

When I got to Hilo, though, it was overcast. The sun poked out from behind the clouds every few hours or so, but only for a few minutes. It was warm, but it was not "sunny" as promised. It went on like this for two days. Two days of overcast skies. And Burdy not proposing. I thought I was going to lose my mind.

On day three we decided to leave the Hilo side of the island and sail to the Kona side. Burdy was very eager to show me the pointed wooden clog he'd been living in for the last 30 days and thought it might be fun to sail to the other side of the Big Island rather than drive. And overcome with bliss, I agreed that yes, it would be romantic and adventurous to sail to the other side of the island! More on that (incredibly shortsighted) decision in Part III.

Before we left, though, we decided to visit the Queen Liliuokalani Botanical Gardens. We strolled through the gardens, took pictures, and then we came to a tree on the outskirts of the garden. It was enormous. It looked out of place and out of time. I think I had Morgan Freeman's voice running through my head while I stared up into its massive canopy: "At the base of that wall, you'll find a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield." This tree had no earthly business being on the island of Hawaii. I'm not the kind of person that usually describes flora and fauna as "magical", but, I have to admit: there was something magnetic about this tree. Something that spoke to us. It said: sit down. I have something to tell you.

So we did. And THAT'S when Burdy finally pulled something out of his pocket. It was a letter. He handed it to me, and I opened it. Here it was, finally. My heart was beating out of my chest. I scanned the page, turned it over, my eyes searching for the words. And there they were. I looked up at him, my eyes already filling with tears, and I asked, "Really"? He nodded, took my hands, and pressed into my palm a small piece of teak. It was a carving he'd made on the boat. The carving was of the constellation. The constellation that guided him to Hilo and told him to marry me.

We held each other for a few trembly moments, both of us full of nervous and excited energy. It began to sink in. I had just agreed to marry Burdy. Which meant we would have to get married. Which mean we would be married. Like real adults. With rings and stuff. And invitations. And catering. And guest lists. And OKAY BOYS, FULL STEAM AHEAD! WE'VE GOT A WEDDING TO STRESS OUT ABOUT. LAUNCH ADRENALINE! COMMENCE UNENDING QUESTIONS THAT DON'T NEED TO BE ANSWERED RIGHT NOW BECAUSE IT WILL ALL GET SORTED OUT LATER SEQUENCE.

"Aw, shit", I said. "Does this mean we have to plan a wedding?"

And, as if in answer, the heavens opened up, and FINALLY, after two full days of nervous tension and overcast skies, it began to rain.

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Lilioukalani Gardens

Hawaiian Odyssey, Part II

It occurs to me that in order to name a post "Hawaiian Odyssey Part I", I need to actually write the part II. Riiiiight. I'm on it.

Where were we? Ah, yes. Mawaage.

So. Mr. Burdy is on the high seas. And I am doing calisthenics and taking my Metamucil.

There is a satellite phone on the boat to be used for outgoing calls for emergencies only. In addition to making calls, the phone sends and receives texts. This is how the captain tells his wife (who tells the other sea-wives, and wives-to-be) that he and the rest of the crew are alive and making progress. We wives (and wives-to-be) didn't request much in the way of details when we learned we would be updated daily. A message stating "Not dead; sails still working" would have sufficed. But sometimes we got more detail; we learned about when the head (that's Pirate for "toilet") got clogged... and when the swells reached fourteen feet. Technology is amazing, is it not?

After about a week or so, the captain's wife says that the captain says that they'll never use up all the texting time they've pre-purchased, so go ahead and send our menfolk a daily message. They're apparently longing for the soft and delicate curves of a female ~~body~~ text message.

Mr. Burdy has been allowed to send a message home to me. When you only have 140 characters to sum up your whole state of being, you choose your words carefully. And when you receive a message that you know can only be 140 characters long, you read it over and over again, reading between each character to glean the meaning, trying your hardest to imagine what was going on at the time those characters were typed.

He requests that I write him a haiku every day. I oblige.

Here is High-Ku Seas Haiku #3, written after I find out that they are all "recovering" (read: not puking anymore) from the first big waves they encounter:

"Text from Chuck Norris:
Roundhouse kick to the seas, boys.
Hilo awaits you. "

I text a haiku every day, I mark the days off the calendar, I search online for ticket prices to Hilo. I work, I eat, I sleep.

A few weeks later, I get on the plane, and I try to distract myself from the fact that I am about to reunite with Mr. Burdy after not seeing him for nearly six weeks. He picks me up on a gloriously hot afternoon with a bouquet of tropical flowers in hand. We hug, we cry, we almost forget how to kiss. (Wait. Do I lean in, or does he?) I bury my nose in his neck. He holds me tightly like in one of those coming-home-from-war pictures. We walk back to the car and we hold hands the whole way back to the house.

We stay at a friend's house for the week. Unbeknown to Mr. Burdy, I arrange for our first night together to be at Aaron's Cottage, a lovely little bed and breakfast. I want our first night together to be all romantical and cozy. And it is. Until the toddler in the room next to our starts being vivisected. Or whatever was happening to it to make it scream like that. I don't know. Whoever you are, father of that child, thank you for taking it on a car ride at midnight to calm it down. You are a saint.

Everything's going exactly as you might imagine it would after two people who love each other are finally reunited after a month and a half apart. There's a lot of PDA going on. And canoodling. Mr. Burdy is holding open doors and reading me whole sections of his journal and we're having an awesome time. We're plotting a million and one creative endeavors together, we're laughing, and we're eating some of the BEST food we've ever had on vacation. We vow to eat rice and eggs every morning till the day we die. And to eat more raw fish. And maybe some SPAM once in a while.

Now, in the midst of all this bliss, my adrenal glands are taking a much needed nap. They had nothing to worry about, 'cause we were on vacation, baby! Except, wait, what's that he's reaching for in his pocket? OH GOD, HERE IT COMES! RED ALERT. RED ALERT. WE HAVE A POSSIBLE RING SIGHTING. COMMENCE SHORTNESS OF BREATH PROCEDURE. You see, I have a very strong intuition. A very strong intuition. You might say I can smell a man's intent to marry me from 3,000 miles away. I knew Burdy was up to something. But I just didn't know when he was going to be up to something. So, every time he asked me to "sit down" because he "wanted to tell me something", my adrenal glands blasted a metric ton of adrenaline up to my brain and I nearly blacked out from the pressure change. Of course, Mr. Burdy didn't know he was doing this to me. He just wanted to show me the birds on the horizon, and why didn't I sit right here where I would get a better view and he would tell me about the birds he saw while he was at sea? And then he would reach into his pocket... and pull out a handkerchief and loudly blow his nose.

Mr. Burdy was especially eager to tell me about this particular constellation he saw while sailing at night. He even drew a map of the stars in his journal. In the constellation, he saw a female form. And the female form was leaning forward, sort of like a sprinter in a running position. The stars were his focal point at night during his watch. They pointed right to Hilo. No matter how dark it was, or how far away they were, all he had to do was look up to get his bearings. He kept the boat pointed where those stars pointed and they made their way to Hilo. Burdy kept mentioning these stars to me over and over again. I imagined that ANYone who had to steer a boat in the absolute pitch blackness with nothing but the stars for light and reference would have formed a special bond with one patch of sky or another, but there was something in his voice that I hadn't heard before. Some sort of seriousness. Something that quieted his normal boyish energy and drew out a more contemplative man. This was only the beginning of my understanding all the ways that this trip had changed him.

Oh, I should mention something else pivotal to this story. The weather.

One of the first things I asked Mr. Burdy when he came ashore was how the weather was in Hilo. Seattle had been (still is, goddamnit) having one hell of a cold summer and I was DYING for some hot sun. I think I was so excited for Hawaiian sun that I might have answered that first phone call from him with "Sun?" instead of "Hello?"

Burdy reassured me that the weather was sunny. He even took a picture of the sky with his phone and sent it to me as proof. He said that Hilo was on the rainy side of the island, but that it was sunny a lot of the time. It would probably rain a little bit each day, but after that, it would be bright and sunny. Pack your sundresses, he told me. Bring sunscreen. You'll love it here.

When I got to Hilo, though, it was overcast. The sun poked out from behind the clouds every few hours or so, but only for a few minutes. It was warm, but it was not "sunny" as promised. It went on like this for two days. Two days of overcast skies. And Burdy not proposing. I thought I was going to lose my mind.

On day three we decided to leave the Hilo side of the island and sail to the Kona side. Burdy was very eager to show me the pointed wooden clog he'd been living in for the last 30 days and thought it might be fun to sail to the other side of the Big Island rather than drive. And overcome with bliss, I agreed that yes, it would be romantic and adventurous to sail to the other side of the island! More on that (incredibly shortsighted) decision in Part III.

Before we left, though, we decided to visit the Queen Liliuokalani Botanical Gardens. We strolled through the gardens, took pictures, and then we came to a tree on the outskirts of the garden. It was enormous. It looked out of place and out of time. I think I had Morgan Freeman's voice running through my head while I stared up into its massive canopy: "At the base of that wall, you'll find a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield." This tree had no earthly business being on the island of Hawaii. I'm not the kind of person that usually describes flora and fauna as "magical", but, I have to admit: there was something magnetic about this tree. Something that spoke to us. It said: sit down. I have something to tell you.

So we did. And THAT'S when Burdy finally pulled something out of his pocket. It was a letter. He handed it to me, and I opened it. Here it was, finally. My heart was beating out of my chest. I scanned the page, turned it over, my eyes searching for the words. And there they were. I looked up at him, my eyes already filling with tears, and I asked, "Really"? He nodded, took my hands, and pressed into my palm a small piece of teak. It was a carving he'd made on the boat. The carving was of the constellation. The constellation that guided him to Hilo and told him to marry me.

We held each other for a few trembly moments, both of us full of nervous and excited energy. It began to sink in. I had just agreed to marry Burdy. Which meant we would have to get married. Which mean we would be married. Like real adults. With rings and stuff. And invitations. And catering. And guest lists. And OKAY BOYS, FULL STEAM AHEAD! WE'VE GOT A WEDDING TO STRESS OUT ABOUT. LAUNCH ADRENALINE! COMMENCE UNENDING QUESTIONS THAT DON'T NEED TO BE ANSWERED RIGHT NOW BECAUSE IT WILL ALL GET SORTED OUT LATER SEQUENCE.

"Aw, shit", I said. "Does this mean we have to plan a wedding?"

And, as if in answer, the heavens opened up, and FINALLY, after two full days of nervous tension and overcast skies, it began to rain.

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marriage

Hawaiian Odyssey, Part II

It occurs to me that in order to name a post "Hawaiian Odyssey Part I", I need to actually write the part II. Riiiiight. I'm on it.

Where were we? Ah, yes. Mawaage.

So. Mr. Burdy is on the high seas. And I am doing calisthenics and taking my Metamucil.

There is a satellite phone on the boat to be used for outgoing calls for emergencies only. In addition to making calls, the phone sends and receives texts. This is how the captain tells his wife (who tells the other sea-wives, and wives-to-be) that he and the rest of the crew are alive and making progress. We wives (and wives-to-be) didn't request much in the way of details when we learned we would be updated daily. A message stating "Not dead; sails still working" would have sufficed. But sometimes we got more detail; we learned about when the head (that's Pirate for "toilet") got clogged... and when the swells reached fourteen feet. Technology is amazing, is it not?

After about a week or so, the captain's wife says that the captain says that they'll never use up all the texting time they've pre-purchased, so go ahead and send our menfolk a daily message. They're apparently longing for the soft and delicate curves of a female ~~body~~ text message.

Mr. Burdy has been allowed to send a message home to me. When you only have 140 characters to sum up your whole state of being, you choose your words carefully. And when you receive a message that you know can only be 140 characters long, you read it over and over again, reading between each character to glean the meaning, trying your hardest to imagine what was going on at the time those characters were typed.

He requests that I write him a haiku every day. I oblige.

Here is High-Ku Seas Haiku #3, written after I find out that they are all "recovering" (read: not puking anymore) from the first big waves they encounter:

"Text from Chuck Norris:
Roundhouse kick to the seas, boys.
Hilo awaits you. "

I text a haiku every day, I mark the days off the calendar, I search online for ticket prices to Hilo. I work, I eat, I sleep.

A few weeks later, I get on the plane, and I try to distract myself from the fact that I am about to reunite with Mr. Burdy after not seeing him for nearly six weeks. He picks me up on a gloriously hot afternoon with a bouquet of tropical flowers in hand. We hug, we cry, we almost forget how to kiss. (Wait. Do I lean in, or does he?) I bury my nose in his neck. He holds me tightly like in one of those coming-home-from-war pictures. We walk back to the car and we hold hands the whole way back to the house.

We stay at a friend's house for the week. Unbeknown to Mr. Burdy, I arrange for our first night together to be at Aaron's Cottage, a lovely little bed and breakfast. I want our first night together to be all romantical and cozy. And it is. Until the toddler in the room next to our starts being vivisected. Or whatever was happening to it to make it scream like that. I don't know. Whoever you are, father of that child, thank you for taking it on a car ride at midnight to calm it down. You are a saint.

Everything's going exactly as you might imagine it would after two people who love each other are finally reunited after a month and a half apart. There's a lot of PDA going on. And canoodling. Mr. Burdy is holding open doors and reading me whole sections of his journal and we're having an awesome time. We're plotting a million and one creative endeavors together, we're laughing, and we're eating some of the BEST food we've ever had on vacation. We vow to eat rice and eggs every morning till the day we die. And to eat more raw fish. And maybe some SPAM once in a while.

Now, in the midst of all this bliss, my adrenal glands are taking a much needed nap. They had nothing to worry about, 'cause we were on vacation, baby! Except, wait, what's that he's reaching for in his pocket? OH GOD, HERE IT COMES! RED ALERT. RED ALERT. WE HAVE A POSSIBLE RING SIGHTING. COMMENCE SHORTNESS OF BREATH PROCEDURE. You see, I have a very strong intuition. A very strong intuition. You might say I can smell a man's intent to marry me from 3,000 miles away. I knew Burdy was up to something. But I just didn't know when he was going to be up to something. So, every time he asked me to "sit down" because he "wanted to tell me something", my adrenal glands blasted a metric ton of adrenaline up to my brain and I nearly blacked out from the pressure change. Of course, Mr. Burdy didn't know he was doing this to me. He just wanted to show me the birds on the horizon, and why didn't I sit right here where I would get a better view and he would tell me about the birds he saw while he was at sea? And then he would reach into his pocket... and pull out a handkerchief and loudly blow his nose.

Mr. Burdy was especially eager to tell me about this particular constellation he saw while sailing at night. He even drew a map of the stars in his journal. In the constellation, he saw a female form. And the female form was leaning forward, sort of like a sprinter in a running position. The stars were his focal point at night during his watch. They pointed right to Hilo. No matter how dark it was, or how far away they were, all he had to do was look up to get his bearings. He kept the boat pointed where those stars pointed and they made their way to Hilo. Burdy kept mentioning these stars to me over and over again. I imagined that ANYone who had to steer a boat in the absolute pitch blackness with nothing but the stars for light and reference would have formed a special bond with one patch of sky or another, but there was something in his voice that I hadn't heard before. Some sort of seriousness. Something that quieted his normal boyish energy and drew out a more contemplative man. This was only the beginning of my understanding all the ways that this trip had changed him.

Oh, I should mention something else pivotal to this story. The weather.

One of the first things I asked Mr. Burdy when he came ashore was how the weather was in Hilo. Seattle had been (still is, goddamnit) having one hell of a cold summer and I was DYING for some hot sun. I think I was so excited for Hawaiian sun that I might have answered that first phone call from him with "Sun?" instead of "Hello?"

Burdy reassured me that the weather was sunny. He even took a picture of the sky with his phone and sent it to me as proof. He said that Hilo was on the rainy side of the island, but that it was sunny a lot of the time. It would probably rain a little bit each day, but after that, it would be bright and sunny. Pack your sundresses, he told me. Bring sunscreen. You'll love it here.

When I got to Hilo, though, it was overcast. The sun poked out from behind the clouds every few hours or so, but only for a few minutes. It was warm, but it was not "sunny" as promised. It went on like this for two days. Two days of overcast skies. And Burdy not proposing. I thought I was going to lose my mind.

On day three we decided to leave the Hilo side of the island and sail to the Kona side. Burdy was very eager to show me the pointed wooden clog he'd been living in for the last 30 days and thought it might be fun to sail to the other side of the Big Island rather than drive. And overcome with bliss, I agreed that yes, it would be romantic and adventurous to sail to the other side of the island! More on that (incredibly shortsighted) decision in Part III.

Before we left, though, we decided to visit the Queen Liliuokalani Botanical Gardens. We strolled through the gardens, took pictures, and then we came to a tree on the outskirts of the garden. It was enormous. It looked out of place and out of time. I think I had Morgan Freeman's voice running through my head while I stared up into its massive canopy: "At the base of that wall, you'll find a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield." This tree had no earthly business being on the island of Hawaii. I'm not the kind of person that usually describes flora and fauna as "magical", but, I have to admit: there was something magnetic about this tree. Something that spoke to us. It said: sit down. I have something to tell you.

So we did. And THAT'S when Burdy finally pulled something out of his pocket. It was a letter. He handed it to me, and I opened it. Here it was, finally. My heart was beating out of my chest. I scanned the page, turned it over, my eyes searching for the words. And there they were. I looked up at him, my eyes already filling with tears, and I asked, "Really"? He nodded, took my hands, and pressed into my palm a small piece of teak. It was a carving he'd made on the boat. The carving was of the constellation. The constellation that guided him to Hilo and told him to marry me.

We held each other for a few trembly moments, both of us full of nervous and excited energy. It began to sink in. I had just agreed to marry Burdy. Which meant we would have to get married. Which mean we would be married. Like real adults. With rings and stuff. And invitations. And catering. And guest lists. And OKAY BOYS, FULL STEAM AHEAD! WE'VE GOT A WEDDING TO STRESS OUT ABOUT. LAUNCH ADRENALINE! COMMENCE UNENDING QUESTIONS THAT DON'T NEED TO BE ANSWERED RIGHT NOW BECAUSE IT WILL ALL GET SORTED OUT LATER SEQUENCE.

"Aw, shit", I said. "Does this mean we have to plan a wedding?"

And, as if in answer, the heavens opened up, and FINALLY, after two full days of nervous tension and overcast skies, it began to rain.

Continue to full post...

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poke

Hawaiian Odyssey, Part II

It occurs to me that in order to name a post "Hawaiian Odyssey Part I", I need to actually write the part II. Riiiiight. I'm on it.

Where were we? Ah, yes. Mawaage.

So. Mr. Burdy is on the high seas. And I am doing calisthenics and taking my Metamucil.

There is a satellite phone on the boat to be used for outgoing calls for emergencies only. In addition to making calls, the phone sends and receives texts. This is how the captain tells his wife (who tells the other sea-wives, and wives-to-be) that he and the rest of the crew are alive and making progress. We wives (and wives-to-be) didn't request much in the way of details when we learned we would be updated daily. A message stating "Not dead; sails still working" would have sufficed. But sometimes we got more detail; we learned about when the head (that's Pirate for "toilet") got clogged... and when the swells reached fourteen feet. Technology is amazing, is it not?

After about a week or so, the captain's wife says that the captain says that they'll never use up all the texting time they've pre-purchased, so go ahead and send our menfolk a daily message. They're apparently longing for the soft and delicate curves of a female ~~body~~ text message.

Mr. Burdy has been allowed to send a message home to me. When you only have 140 characters to sum up your whole state of being, you choose your words carefully. And when you receive a message that you know can only be 140 characters long, you read it over and over again, reading between each character to glean the meaning, trying your hardest to imagine what was going on at the time those characters were typed.

He requests that I write him a haiku every day. I oblige.

Here is High-Ku Seas Haiku #3, written after I find out that they are all "recovering" (read: not puking anymore) from the first big waves they encounter:

"Text from Chuck Norris:
Roundhouse kick to the seas, boys.
Hilo awaits you. "

I text a haiku every day, I mark the days off the calendar, I search online for ticket prices to Hilo. I work, I eat, I sleep.

A few weeks later, I get on the plane, and I try to distract myself from the fact that I am about to reunite with Mr. Burdy after not seeing him for nearly six weeks. He picks me up on a gloriously hot afternoon with a bouquet of tropical flowers in hand. We hug, we cry, we almost forget how to kiss. (Wait. Do I lean in, or does he?) I bury my nose in his neck. He holds me tightly like in one of those coming-home-from-war pictures. We walk back to the car and we hold hands the whole way back to the house.

We stay at a friend's house for the week. Unbeknown to Mr. Burdy, I arrange for our first night together to be at Aaron's Cottage, a lovely little bed and breakfast. I want our first night together to be all romantical and cozy. And it is. Until the toddler in the room next to our starts being vivisected. Or whatever was happening to it to make it scream like that. I don't know. Whoever you are, father of that child, thank you for taking it on a car ride at midnight to calm it down. You are a saint.

Everything's going exactly as you might imagine it would after two people who love each other are finally reunited after a month and a half apart. There's a lot of PDA going on. And canoodling. Mr. Burdy is holding open doors and reading me whole sections of his journal and we're having an awesome time. We're plotting a million and one creative endeavors together, we're laughing, and we're eating some of the BEST food we've ever had on vacation. We vow to eat rice and eggs every morning till the day we die. And to eat more raw fish. And maybe some SPAM once in a while.

Now, in the midst of all this bliss, my adrenal glands are taking a much needed nap. They had nothing to worry about, 'cause we were on vacation, baby! Except, wait, what's that he's reaching for in his pocket? OH GOD, HERE IT COMES! RED ALERT. RED ALERT. WE HAVE A POSSIBLE RING SIGHTING. COMMENCE SHORTNESS OF BREATH PROCEDURE. You see, I have a very strong intuition. A very strong intuition. You might say I can smell a man's intent to marry me from 3,000 miles away. I knew Burdy was up to something. But I just didn't know when he was going to be up to something. So, every time he asked me to "sit down" because he "wanted to tell me something", my adrenal glands blasted a metric ton of adrenaline up to my brain and I nearly blacked out from the pressure change. Of course, Mr. Burdy didn't know he was doing this to me. He just wanted to show me the birds on the horizon, and why didn't I sit right here where I would get a better view and he would tell me about the birds he saw while he was at sea? And then he would reach into his pocket... and pull out a handkerchief and loudly blow his nose.

Mr. Burdy was especially eager to tell me about this particular constellation he saw while sailing at night. He even drew a map of the stars in his journal. In the constellation, he saw a female form. And the female form was leaning forward, sort of like a sprinter in a running position. The stars were his focal point at night during his watch. They pointed right to Hilo. No matter how dark it was, or how far away they were, all he had to do was look up to get his bearings. He kept the boat pointed where those stars pointed and they made their way to Hilo. Burdy kept mentioning these stars to me over and over again. I imagined that ANYone who had to steer a boat in the absolute pitch blackness with nothing but the stars for light and reference would have formed a special bond with one patch of sky or another, but there was something in his voice that I hadn't heard before. Some sort of seriousness. Something that quieted his normal boyish energy and drew out a more contemplative man. This was only the beginning of my understanding all the ways that this trip had changed him.

Oh, I should mention something else pivotal to this story. The weather.

One of the first things I asked Mr. Burdy when he came ashore was how the weather was in Hilo. Seattle had been (still is, goddamnit) having one hell of a cold summer and I was DYING for some hot sun. I think I was so excited for Hawaiian sun that I might have answered that first phone call from him with "Sun?" instead of "Hello?"

Burdy reassured me that the weather was sunny. He even took a picture of the sky with his phone and sent it to me as proof. He said that Hilo was on the rainy side of the island, but that it was sunny a lot of the time. It would probably rain a little bit each day, but after that, it would be bright and sunny. Pack your sundresses, he told me. Bring sunscreen. You'll love it here.

When I got to Hilo, though, it was overcast. The sun poked out from behind the clouds every few hours or so, but only for a few minutes. It was warm, but it was not "sunny" as promised. It went on like this for two days. Two days of overcast skies. And Burdy not proposing. I thought I was going to lose my mind.

On day three we decided to leave the Hilo side of the island and sail to the Kona side. Burdy was very eager to show me the pointed wooden clog he'd been living in for the last 30 days and thought it might be fun to sail to the other side of the Big Island rather than drive. And overcome with bliss, I agreed that yes, it would be romantic and adventurous to sail to the other side of the island! More on that (incredibly shortsighted) decision in Part III.

Before we left, though, we decided to visit the Queen Liliuokalani Botanical Gardens. We strolled through the gardens, took pictures, and then we came to a tree on the outskirts of the garden. It was enormous. It looked out of place and out of time. I think I had Morgan Freeman's voice running through my head while I stared up into its massive canopy: "At the base of that wall, you'll find a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield." This tree had no earthly business being on the island of Hawaii. I'm not the kind of person that usually describes flora and fauna as "magical", but, I have to admit: there was something magnetic about this tree. Something that spoke to us. It said: sit down. I have something to tell you.

So we did. And THAT'S when Burdy finally pulled something out of his pocket. It was a letter. He handed it to me, and I opened it. Here it was, finally. My heart was beating out of my chest. I scanned the page, turned it over, my eyes searching for the words. And there they were. I looked up at him, my eyes already filling with tears, and I asked, "Really"? He nodded, took my hands, and pressed into my palm a small piece of teak. It was a carving he'd made on the boat. The carving was of the constellation. The constellation that guided him to Hilo and told him to marry me.

We held each other for a few trembly moments, both of us full of nervous and excited energy. It began to sink in. I had just agreed to marry Burdy. Which meant we would have to get married. Which mean we would be married. Like real adults. With rings and stuff. And invitations. And catering. And guest lists. And OKAY BOYS, FULL STEAM AHEAD! WE'VE GOT A WEDDING TO STRESS OUT ABOUT. LAUNCH ADRENALINE! COMMENCE UNENDING QUESTIONS THAT DON'T NEED TO BE ANSWERED RIGHT NOW BECAUSE IT WILL ALL GET SORTED OUT LATER SEQUENCE.

"Aw, shit", I said. "Does this mean we have to plan a wedding?"

And, as if in answer, the heavens opened up, and FINALLY, after two full days of nervous tension and overcast skies, it began to rain.

Continue to full post...

Back to Top ↑

proprosing

Hawaiian Odyssey, Part II

It occurs to me that in order to name a post "Hawaiian Odyssey Part I", I need to actually write the part II. Riiiiight. I'm on it.

Where were we? Ah, yes. Mawaage.

So. Mr. Burdy is on the high seas. And I am doing calisthenics and taking my Metamucil.

There is a satellite phone on the boat to be used for outgoing calls for emergencies only. In addition to making calls, the phone sends and receives texts. This is how the captain tells his wife (who tells the other sea-wives, and wives-to-be) that he and the rest of the crew are alive and making progress. We wives (and wives-to-be) didn't request much in the way of details when we learned we would be updated daily. A message stating "Not dead; sails still working" would have sufficed. But sometimes we got more detail; we learned about when the head (that's Pirate for "toilet") got clogged... and when the swells reached fourteen feet. Technology is amazing, is it not?

After about a week or so, the captain's wife says that the captain says that they'll never use up all the texting time they've pre-purchased, so go ahead and send our menfolk a daily message. They're apparently longing for the soft and delicate curves of a female ~~body~~ text message.

Mr. Burdy has been allowed to send a message home to me. When you only have 140 characters to sum up your whole state of being, you choose your words carefully. And when you receive a message that you know can only be 140 characters long, you read it over and over again, reading between each character to glean the meaning, trying your hardest to imagine what was going on at the time those characters were typed.

He requests that I write him a haiku every day. I oblige.

Here is High-Ku Seas Haiku #3, written after I find out that they are all "recovering" (read: not puking anymore) from the first big waves they encounter:

"Text from Chuck Norris:
Roundhouse kick to the seas, boys.
Hilo awaits you. "

I text a haiku every day, I mark the days off the calendar, I search online for ticket prices to Hilo. I work, I eat, I sleep.

A few weeks later, I get on the plane, and I try to distract myself from the fact that I am about to reunite with Mr. Burdy after not seeing him for nearly six weeks. He picks me up on a gloriously hot afternoon with a bouquet of tropical flowers in hand. We hug, we cry, we almost forget how to kiss. (Wait. Do I lean in, or does he?) I bury my nose in his neck. He holds me tightly like in one of those coming-home-from-war pictures. We walk back to the car and we hold hands the whole way back to the house.

We stay at a friend's house for the week. Unbeknown to Mr. Burdy, I arrange for our first night together to be at Aaron's Cottage, a lovely little bed and breakfast. I want our first night together to be all romantical and cozy. And it is. Until the toddler in the room next to our starts being vivisected. Or whatever was happening to it to make it scream like that. I don't know. Whoever you are, father of that child, thank you for taking it on a car ride at midnight to calm it down. You are a saint.

Everything's going exactly as you might imagine it would after two people who love each other are finally reunited after a month and a half apart. There's a lot of PDA going on. And canoodling. Mr. Burdy is holding open doors and reading me whole sections of his journal and we're having an awesome time. We're plotting a million and one creative endeavors together, we're laughing, and we're eating some of the BEST food we've ever had on vacation. We vow to eat rice and eggs every morning till the day we die. And to eat more raw fish. And maybe some SPAM once in a while.

Now, in the midst of all this bliss, my adrenal glands are taking a much needed nap. They had nothing to worry about, 'cause we were on vacation, baby! Except, wait, what's that he's reaching for in his pocket? OH GOD, HERE IT COMES! RED ALERT. RED ALERT. WE HAVE A POSSIBLE RING SIGHTING. COMMENCE SHORTNESS OF BREATH PROCEDURE. You see, I have a very strong intuition. A very strong intuition. You might say I can smell a man's intent to marry me from 3,000 miles away. I knew Burdy was up to something. But I just didn't know when he was going to be up to something. So, every time he asked me to "sit down" because he "wanted to tell me something", my adrenal glands blasted a metric ton of adrenaline up to my brain and I nearly blacked out from the pressure change. Of course, Mr. Burdy didn't know he was doing this to me. He just wanted to show me the birds on the horizon, and why didn't I sit right here where I would get a better view and he would tell me about the birds he saw while he was at sea? And then he would reach into his pocket... and pull out a handkerchief and loudly blow his nose.

Mr. Burdy was especially eager to tell me about this particular constellation he saw while sailing at night. He even drew a map of the stars in his journal. In the constellation, he saw a female form. And the female form was leaning forward, sort of like a sprinter in a running position. The stars were his focal point at night during his watch. They pointed right to Hilo. No matter how dark it was, or how far away they were, all he had to do was look up to get his bearings. He kept the boat pointed where those stars pointed and they made their way to Hilo. Burdy kept mentioning these stars to me over and over again. I imagined that ANYone who had to steer a boat in the absolute pitch blackness with nothing but the stars for light and reference would have formed a special bond with one patch of sky or another, but there was something in his voice that I hadn't heard before. Some sort of seriousness. Something that quieted his normal boyish energy and drew out a more contemplative man. This was only the beginning of my understanding all the ways that this trip had changed him.

Oh, I should mention something else pivotal to this story. The weather.

One of the first things I asked Mr. Burdy when he came ashore was how the weather was in Hilo. Seattle had been (still is, goddamnit) having one hell of a cold summer and I was DYING for some hot sun. I think I was so excited for Hawaiian sun that I might have answered that first phone call from him with "Sun?" instead of "Hello?"

Burdy reassured me that the weather was sunny. He even took a picture of the sky with his phone and sent it to me as proof. He said that Hilo was on the rainy side of the island, but that it was sunny a lot of the time. It would probably rain a little bit each day, but after that, it would be bright and sunny. Pack your sundresses, he told me. Bring sunscreen. You'll love it here.

When I got to Hilo, though, it was overcast. The sun poked out from behind the clouds every few hours or so, but only for a few minutes. It was warm, but it was not "sunny" as promised. It went on like this for two days. Two days of overcast skies. And Burdy not proposing. I thought I was going to lose my mind.

On day three we decided to leave the Hilo side of the island and sail to the Kona side. Burdy was very eager to show me the pointed wooden clog he'd been living in for the last 30 days and thought it might be fun to sail to the other side of the Big Island rather than drive. And overcome with bliss, I agreed that yes, it would be romantic and adventurous to sail to the other side of the island! More on that (incredibly shortsighted) decision in Part III.

Before we left, though, we decided to visit the Queen Liliuokalani Botanical Gardens. We strolled through the gardens, took pictures, and then we came to a tree on the outskirts of the garden. It was enormous. It looked out of place and out of time. I think I had Morgan Freeman's voice running through my head while I stared up into its massive canopy: "At the base of that wall, you'll find a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield." This tree had no earthly business being on the island of Hawaii. I'm not the kind of person that usually describes flora and fauna as "magical", but, I have to admit: there was something magnetic about this tree. Something that spoke to us. It said: sit down. I have something to tell you.

So we did. And THAT'S when Burdy finally pulled something out of his pocket. It was a letter. He handed it to me, and I opened it. Here it was, finally. My heart was beating out of my chest. I scanned the page, turned it over, my eyes searching for the words. And there they were. I looked up at him, my eyes already filling with tears, and I asked, "Really"? He nodded, took my hands, and pressed into my palm a small piece of teak. It was a carving he'd made on the boat. The carving was of the constellation. The constellation that guided him to Hilo and told him to marry me.

We held each other for a few trembly moments, both of us full of nervous and excited energy. It began to sink in. I had just agreed to marry Burdy. Which meant we would have to get married. Which mean we would be married. Like real adults. With rings and stuff. And invitations. And catering. And guest lists. And OKAY BOYS, FULL STEAM AHEAD! WE'VE GOT A WEDDING TO STRESS OUT ABOUT. LAUNCH ADRENALINE! COMMENCE UNENDING QUESTIONS THAT DON'T NEED TO BE ANSWERED RIGHT NOW BECAUSE IT WILL ALL GET SORTED OUT LATER SEQUENCE.

"Aw, shit", I said. "Does this mean we have to plan a wedding?"

And, as if in answer, the heavens opened up, and FINALLY, after two full days of nervous tension and overcast skies, it began to rain.

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SPAM

Hawaiian Odyssey, Part II

It occurs to me that in order to name a post "Hawaiian Odyssey Part I", I need to actually write the part II. Riiiiight. I'm on it.

Where were we? Ah, yes. Mawaage.

So. Mr. Burdy is on the high seas. And I am doing calisthenics and taking my Metamucil.

There is a satellite phone on the boat to be used for outgoing calls for emergencies only. In addition to making calls, the phone sends and receives texts. This is how the captain tells his wife (who tells the other sea-wives, and wives-to-be) that he and the rest of the crew are alive and making progress. We wives (and wives-to-be) didn't request much in the way of details when we learned we would be updated daily. A message stating "Not dead; sails still working" would have sufficed. But sometimes we got more detail; we learned about when the head (that's Pirate for "toilet") got clogged... and when the swells reached fourteen feet. Technology is amazing, is it not?

After about a week or so, the captain's wife says that the captain says that they'll never use up all the texting time they've pre-purchased, so go ahead and send our menfolk a daily message. They're apparently longing for the soft and delicate curves of a female ~~body~~ text message.

Mr. Burdy has been allowed to send a message home to me. When you only have 140 characters to sum up your whole state of being, you choose your words carefully. And when you receive a message that you know can only be 140 characters long, you read it over and over again, reading between each character to glean the meaning, trying your hardest to imagine what was going on at the time those characters were typed.

He requests that I write him a haiku every day. I oblige.

Here is High-Ku Seas Haiku #3, written after I find out that they are all "recovering" (read: not puking anymore) from the first big waves they encounter:

"Text from Chuck Norris:
Roundhouse kick to the seas, boys.
Hilo awaits you. "

I text a haiku every day, I mark the days off the calendar, I search online for ticket prices to Hilo. I work, I eat, I sleep.

A few weeks later, I get on the plane, and I try to distract myself from the fact that I am about to reunite with Mr. Burdy after not seeing him for nearly six weeks. He picks me up on a gloriously hot afternoon with a bouquet of tropical flowers in hand. We hug, we cry, we almost forget how to kiss. (Wait. Do I lean in, or does he?) I bury my nose in his neck. He holds me tightly like in one of those coming-home-from-war pictures. We walk back to the car and we hold hands the whole way back to the house.

We stay at a friend's house for the week. Unbeknown to Mr. Burdy, I arrange for our first night together to be at Aaron's Cottage, a lovely little bed and breakfast. I want our first night together to be all romantical and cozy. And it is. Until the toddler in the room next to our starts being vivisected. Or whatever was happening to it to make it scream like that. I don't know. Whoever you are, father of that child, thank you for taking it on a car ride at midnight to calm it down. You are a saint.

Everything's going exactly as you might imagine it would after two people who love each other are finally reunited after a month and a half apart. There's a lot of PDA going on. And canoodling. Mr. Burdy is holding open doors and reading me whole sections of his journal and we're having an awesome time. We're plotting a million and one creative endeavors together, we're laughing, and we're eating some of the BEST food we've ever had on vacation. We vow to eat rice and eggs every morning till the day we die. And to eat more raw fish. And maybe some SPAM once in a while.

Now, in the midst of all this bliss, my adrenal glands are taking a much needed nap. They had nothing to worry about, 'cause we were on vacation, baby! Except, wait, what's that he's reaching for in his pocket? OH GOD, HERE IT COMES! RED ALERT. RED ALERT. WE HAVE A POSSIBLE RING SIGHTING. COMMENCE SHORTNESS OF BREATH PROCEDURE. You see, I have a very strong intuition. A very strong intuition. You might say I can smell a man's intent to marry me from 3,000 miles away. I knew Burdy was up to something. But I just didn't know when he was going to be up to something. So, every time he asked me to "sit down" because he "wanted to tell me something", my adrenal glands blasted a metric ton of adrenaline up to my brain and I nearly blacked out from the pressure change. Of course, Mr. Burdy didn't know he was doing this to me. He just wanted to show me the birds on the horizon, and why didn't I sit right here where I would get a better view and he would tell me about the birds he saw while he was at sea? And then he would reach into his pocket... and pull out a handkerchief and loudly blow his nose.

Mr. Burdy was especially eager to tell me about this particular constellation he saw while sailing at night. He even drew a map of the stars in his journal. In the constellation, he saw a female form. And the female form was leaning forward, sort of like a sprinter in a running position. The stars were his focal point at night during his watch. They pointed right to Hilo. No matter how dark it was, or how far away they were, all he had to do was look up to get his bearings. He kept the boat pointed where those stars pointed and they made their way to Hilo. Burdy kept mentioning these stars to me over and over again. I imagined that ANYone who had to steer a boat in the absolute pitch blackness with nothing but the stars for light and reference would have formed a special bond with one patch of sky or another, but there was something in his voice that I hadn't heard before. Some sort of seriousness. Something that quieted his normal boyish energy and drew out a more contemplative man. This was only the beginning of my understanding all the ways that this trip had changed him.

Oh, I should mention something else pivotal to this story. The weather.

One of the first things I asked Mr. Burdy when he came ashore was how the weather was in Hilo. Seattle had been (still is, goddamnit) having one hell of a cold summer and I was DYING for some hot sun. I think I was so excited for Hawaiian sun that I might have answered that first phone call from him with "Sun?" instead of "Hello?"

Burdy reassured me that the weather was sunny. He even took a picture of the sky with his phone and sent it to me as proof. He said that Hilo was on the rainy side of the island, but that it was sunny a lot of the time. It would probably rain a little bit each day, but after that, it would be bright and sunny. Pack your sundresses, he told me. Bring sunscreen. You'll love it here.

When I got to Hilo, though, it was overcast. The sun poked out from behind the clouds every few hours or so, but only for a few minutes. It was warm, but it was not "sunny" as promised. It went on like this for two days. Two days of overcast skies. And Burdy not proposing. I thought I was going to lose my mind.

On day three we decided to leave the Hilo side of the island and sail to the Kona side. Burdy was very eager to show me the pointed wooden clog he'd been living in for the last 30 days and thought it might be fun to sail to the other side of the Big Island rather than drive. And overcome with bliss, I agreed that yes, it would be romantic and adventurous to sail to the other side of the island! More on that (incredibly shortsighted) decision in Part III.

Before we left, though, we decided to visit the Queen Liliuokalani Botanical Gardens. We strolled through the gardens, took pictures, and then we came to a tree on the outskirts of the garden. It was enormous. It looked out of place and out of time. I think I had Morgan Freeman's voice running through my head while I stared up into its massive canopy: "At the base of that wall, you'll find a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield." This tree had no earthly business being on the island of Hawaii. I'm not the kind of person that usually describes flora and fauna as "magical", but, I have to admit: there was something magnetic about this tree. Something that spoke to us. It said: sit down. I have something to tell you.

So we did. And THAT'S when Burdy finally pulled something out of his pocket. It was a letter. He handed it to me, and I opened it. Here it was, finally. My heart was beating out of my chest. I scanned the page, turned it over, my eyes searching for the words. And there they were. I looked up at him, my eyes already filling with tears, and I asked, "Really"? He nodded, took my hands, and pressed into my palm a small piece of teak. It was a carving he'd made on the boat. The carving was of the constellation. The constellation that guided him to Hilo and told him to marry me.

We held each other for a few trembly moments, both of us full of nervous and excited energy. It began to sink in. I had just agreed to marry Burdy. Which meant we would have to get married. Which mean we would be married. Like real adults. With rings and stuff. And invitations. And catering. And guest lists. And OKAY BOYS, FULL STEAM AHEAD! WE'VE GOT A WEDDING TO STRESS OUT ABOUT. LAUNCH ADRENALINE! COMMENCE UNENDING QUESTIONS THAT DON'T NEED TO BE ANSWERED RIGHT NOW BECAUSE IT WILL ALL GET SORTED OUT LATER SEQUENCE.

"Aw, shit", I said. "Does this mean we have to plan a wedding?"

And, as if in answer, the heavens opened up, and FINALLY, after two full days of nervous tension and overcast skies, it began to rain.

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the big island

Hawaiian Odyssey, Part II

It occurs to me that in order to name a post "Hawaiian Odyssey Part I", I need to actually write the part II. Riiiiight. I'm on it.

Where were we? Ah, yes. Mawaage.

So. Mr. Burdy is on the high seas. And I am doing calisthenics and taking my Metamucil.

There is a satellite phone on the boat to be used for outgoing calls for emergencies only. In addition to making calls, the phone sends and receives texts. This is how the captain tells his wife (who tells the other sea-wives, and wives-to-be) that he and the rest of the crew are alive and making progress. We wives (and wives-to-be) didn't request much in the way of details when we learned we would be updated daily. A message stating "Not dead; sails still working" would have sufficed. But sometimes we got more detail; we learned about when the head (that's Pirate for "toilet") got clogged... and when the swells reached fourteen feet. Technology is amazing, is it not?

After about a week or so, the captain's wife says that the captain says that they'll never use up all the texting time they've pre-purchased, so go ahead and send our menfolk a daily message. They're apparently longing for the soft and delicate curves of a female ~~body~~ text message.

Mr. Burdy has been allowed to send a message home to me. When you only have 140 characters to sum up your whole state of being, you choose your words carefully. And when you receive a message that you know can only be 140 characters long, you read it over and over again, reading between each character to glean the meaning, trying your hardest to imagine what was going on at the time those characters were typed.

He requests that I write him a haiku every day. I oblige.

Here is High-Ku Seas Haiku #3, written after I find out that they are all "recovering" (read: not puking anymore) from the first big waves they encounter:

"Text from Chuck Norris:
Roundhouse kick to the seas, boys.
Hilo awaits you. "

I text a haiku every day, I mark the days off the calendar, I search online for ticket prices to Hilo. I work, I eat, I sleep.

A few weeks later, I get on the plane, and I try to distract myself from the fact that I am about to reunite with Mr. Burdy after not seeing him for nearly six weeks. He picks me up on a gloriously hot afternoon with a bouquet of tropical flowers in hand. We hug, we cry, we almost forget how to kiss. (Wait. Do I lean in, or does he?) I bury my nose in his neck. He holds me tightly like in one of those coming-home-from-war pictures. We walk back to the car and we hold hands the whole way back to the house.

We stay at a friend's house for the week. Unbeknown to Mr. Burdy, I arrange for our first night together to be at Aaron's Cottage, a lovely little bed and breakfast. I want our first night together to be all romantical and cozy. And it is. Until the toddler in the room next to our starts being vivisected. Or whatever was happening to it to make it scream like that. I don't know. Whoever you are, father of that child, thank you for taking it on a car ride at midnight to calm it down. You are a saint.

Everything's going exactly as you might imagine it would after two people who love each other are finally reunited after a month and a half apart. There's a lot of PDA going on. And canoodling. Mr. Burdy is holding open doors and reading me whole sections of his journal and we're having an awesome time. We're plotting a million and one creative endeavors together, we're laughing, and we're eating some of the BEST food we've ever had on vacation. We vow to eat rice and eggs every morning till the day we die. And to eat more raw fish. And maybe some SPAM once in a while.

Now, in the midst of all this bliss, my adrenal glands are taking a much needed nap. They had nothing to worry about, 'cause we were on vacation, baby! Except, wait, what's that he's reaching for in his pocket? OH GOD, HERE IT COMES! RED ALERT. RED ALERT. WE HAVE A POSSIBLE RING SIGHTING. COMMENCE SHORTNESS OF BREATH PROCEDURE. You see, I have a very strong intuition. A very strong intuition. You might say I can smell a man's intent to marry me from 3,000 miles away. I knew Burdy was up to something. But I just didn't know when he was going to be up to something. So, every time he asked me to "sit down" because he "wanted to tell me something", my adrenal glands blasted a metric ton of adrenaline up to my brain and I nearly blacked out from the pressure change. Of course, Mr. Burdy didn't know he was doing this to me. He just wanted to show me the birds on the horizon, and why didn't I sit right here where I would get a better view and he would tell me about the birds he saw while he was at sea? And then he would reach into his pocket... and pull out a handkerchief and loudly blow his nose.

Mr. Burdy was especially eager to tell me about this particular constellation he saw while sailing at night. He even drew a map of the stars in his journal. In the constellation, he saw a female form. And the female form was leaning forward, sort of like a sprinter in a running position. The stars were his focal point at night during his watch. They pointed right to Hilo. No matter how dark it was, or how far away they were, all he had to do was look up to get his bearings. He kept the boat pointed where those stars pointed and they made their way to Hilo. Burdy kept mentioning these stars to me over and over again. I imagined that ANYone who had to steer a boat in the absolute pitch blackness with nothing but the stars for light and reference would have formed a special bond with one patch of sky or another, but there was something in his voice that I hadn't heard before. Some sort of seriousness. Something that quieted his normal boyish energy and drew out a more contemplative man. This was only the beginning of my understanding all the ways that this trip had changed him.

Oh, I should mention something else pivotal to this story. The weather.

One of the first things I asked Mr. Burdy when he came ashore was how the weather was in Hilo. Seattle had been (still is, goddamnit) having one hell of a cold summer and I was DYING for some hot sun. I think I was so excited for Hawaiian sun that I might have answered that first phone call from him with "Sun?" instead of "Hello?"

Burdy reassured me that the weather was sunny. He even took a picture of the sky with his phone and sent it to me as proof. He said that Hilo was on the rainy side of the island, but that it was sunny a lot of the time. It would probably rain a little bit each day, but after that, it would be bright and sunny. Pack your sundresses, he told me. Bring sunscreen. You'll love it here.

When I got to Hilo, though, it was overcast. The sun poked out from behind the clouds every few hours or so, but only for a few minutes. It was warm, but it was not "sunny" as promised. It went on like this for two days. Two days of overcast skies. And Burdy not proposing. I thought I was going to lose my mind.

On day three we decided to leave the Hilo side of the island and sail to the Kona side. Burdy was very eager to show me the pointed wooden clog he'd been living in for the last 30 days and thought it might be fun to sail to the other side of the Big Island rather than drive. And overcome with bliss, I agreed that yes, it would be romantic and adventurous to sail to the other side of the island! More on that (incredibly shortsighted) decision in Part III.

Before we left, though, we decided to visit the Queen Liliuokalani Botanical Gardens. We strolled through the gardens, took pictures, and then we came to a tree on the outskirts of the garden. It was enormous. It looked out of place and out of time. I think I had Morgan Freeman's voice running through my head while I stared up into its massive canopy: "At the base of that wall, you'll find a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield." This tree had no earthly business being on the island of Hawaii. I'm not the kind of person that usually describes flora and fauna as "magical", but, I have to admit: there was something magnetic about this tree. Something that spoke to us. It said: sit down. I have something to tell you.

So we did. And THAT'S when Burdy finally pulled something out of his pocket. It was a letter. He handed it to me, and I opened it. Here it was, finally. My heart was beating out of my chest. I scanned the page, turned it over, my eyes searching for the words. And there they were. I looked up at him, my eyes already filling with tears, and I asked, "Really"? He nodded, took my hands, and pressed into my palm a small piece of teak. It was a carving he'd made on the boat. The carving was of the constellation. The constellation that guided him to Hilo and told him to marry me.

We held each other for a few trembly moments, both of us full of nervous and excited energy. It began to sink in. I had just agreed to marry Burdy. Which meant we would have to get married. Which mean we would be married. Like real adults. With rings and stuff. And invitations. And catering. And guest lists. And OKAY BOYS, FULL STEAM AHEAD! WE'VE GOT A WEDDING TO STRESS OUT ABOUT. LAUNCH ADRENALINE! COMMENCE UNENDING QUESTIONS THAT DON'T NEED TO BE ANSWERED RIGHT NOW BECAUSE IT WILL ALL GET SORTED OUT LATER SEQUENCE.

"Aw, shit", I said. "Does this mean we have to plan a wedding?"

And, as if in answer, the heavens opened up, and FINALLY, after two full days of nervous tension and overcast skies, it began to rain.

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another fine mess

The Old Adage Was Right: Monkeys Should NOT Jump On The Bed

I rarely have occasion to say "Here's another nice mess you've gotten me into", Stanley. But Wednesday morning was different.

You know, we're real adult around our house. We definitely do NOT do things like speak in a weird language to each other. We definitely do not regularly refer to the neighbor's pet as "Roof Dog" and try to take clandestine pictures of it. And we definitely do not attempt WWF wresting moves on our bed in the morning before work.

Alright, we do all those things and you know it.

Another really adult thing we do? Wait for THE most inopportune moments to tell each other REALLY important stuff that affects our lives. Burdy, for instance, likes to set up plans in the space of a few seconds between my kissing him goodbye and walking out the door in the morning for work. It usually sounds like this:

"K.Bye!Oh,andJillandGabrielinvitedusoverfordinneronThursday,shouldIsayyes?Itooktheboatmotortotherepairshopandit'sgoingtocostlikefiftydollarstofix,butIfgurethatthat'sbetterthanmetryingtofixitandscrewingitup,right? Oh,andyoucanjusthavemybluetooth,sodon'tgoandbuyone.IfoundmineandIneveruseitanymore,plusIhavemywiredsetsoyoucanjusthavetheoldone. Isthereanythingforlunchinthefridge?ShouldIbuythoseplaneticketstogobacktoJerseyinAugust?Whattimeareyoucominghome?ImightstaylateatAikidotonight! Bye!"

And I have a very bad habit of trying to tell him every last thing I've thought of in the past 24 hours in the few moments in takes him to fall asleep at night.

Me: Have you fixed the boat motor yet?

Burdy: Mmmmfff.

Me: I'm thinking about getting a new Bluetooth. I hate the wired thingee I use.

Burdy: Mmmmff.

Me: Shoot. We still have to get those plane tickets, don't we?

Burdy: ...Zzzzzzz....

The (obvious) problem with both of these scenarios is that both of us is stumbling (or lying around, as it were) in alpha wave mode when the other is trying to talk to the other... and well, we wind up forgetting a lot of what the other one is saying. I mean you would think after twelve years together, we would understand that the only real time we are awake and functioning at the same time is around lunch and that when I am trundling towards the bathroom with my shirt all twisted around my torso and my hair doing its best Don King impersonation and my eyes all slitty and crusted over , it is NOT the best time to tell me that we are scheduled to make an appearance at like 5 parties this weekend, so clear my calendar... but, Burdy doesn't recognize zombies when he sees them. (Mostly deaf, still-dreaming zombies who are groping the air for coffee mugs and sugar bowls.) And I, apparently, can't appreciate that "lights out" does not mean "divulge the contents of your psyche".

Anywho, Wednesday morning, I actually got up early (SERIOUSLY. How do you people with the jobs do it?) and I made my way down to the chiropractor (to learn I have minor scoliosis in my upper back! Huzzah!) and then home again. I was wide awake by the time I got home. And so was Burdy. And so we actually talked like real adults. About weekend plans and where we were going to be at dinner time.

And then he decided it would be fun to test out the bed with wrestling moves.

So, we got this king sized bed from the parents of Giggles and Little Man. We've always known we've wanted a king sized bed. It's like the ONE luxury item we have pined for. The only item of excess we felt we deserved. Because we are really frugal and don't spend money on things like cars and clothes and jewelry. And because Burdy kicks and punches in his sleep.

Anywho, we got this awesome, marshmallowy, huge king-sized mattress. Burdy's kicks now happen in another zip code and I can't feel a thing. It's a perfect mattress. Perfect for, for example, launching yourself from the corner and body-slamming a pillow.

Now, our old mattress, it was a platform bed. Very low to the ground. The new bed? She's practically at chest height for me. So maybe Burdy hadn't done the calculations involved. Big bed, regular sized ceilings, overhead lamp complete with seventies style shade (probably full of dead bugs), plus six foot tall man launching three feet into the air, arcing DIRECTLY underneath the lamp....

equals one surprised man clam-shelled on his back in the bed, his hair and pajamas full of microscopic pieces of glass, his eyes wide open in shock, his hands open in front of him, his mouth frozen in the shape of the words OOOOOOOOOOH, FUUUUUUUUUUUDGE.

And one woman laughing hysterically going to fetch the dustpan.

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jumping on the bed

The Old Adage Was Right: Monkeys Should NOT Jump On The Bed

I rarely have occasion to say "Here's another nice mess you've gotten me into", Stanley. But Wednesday morning was different.

You know, we're real adult around our house. We definitely do NOT do things like speak in a weird language to each other. We definitely do not regularly refer to the neighbor's pet as "Roof Dog" and try to take clandestine pictures of it. And we definitely do not attempt WWF wresting moves on our bed in the morning before work.

Alright, we do all those things and you know it.

Another really adult thing we do? Wait for THE most inopportune moments to tell each other REALLY important stuff that affects our lives. Burdy, for instance, likes to set up plans in the space of a few seconds between my kissing him goodbye and walking out the door in the morning for work. It usually sounds like this:

"K.Bye!Oh,andJillandGabrielinvitedusoverfordinneronThursday,shouldIsayyes?Itooktheboatmotortotherepairshopandit'sgoingtocostlikefiftydollarstofix,butIfgurethatthat'sbetterthanmetryingtofixitandscrewingitup,right? Oh,andyoucanjusthavemybluetooth,sodon'tgoandbuyone.IfoundmineandIneveruseitanymore,plusIhavemywiredsetsoyoucanjusthavetheoldone. Isthereanythingforlunchinthefridge?ShouldIbuythoseplaneticketstogobacktoJerseyinAugust?Whattimeareyoucominghome?ImightstaylateatAikidotonight! Bye!"

And I have a very bad habit of trying to tell him every last thing I've thought of in the past 24 hours in the few moments in takes him to fall asleep at night.

Me: Have you fixed the boat motor yet?

Burdy: Mmmmfff.

Me: I'm thinking about getting a new Bluetooth. I hate the wired thingee I use.

Burdy: Mmmmff.

Me: Shoot. We still have to get those plane tickets, don't we?

Burdy: ...Zzzzzzz....

The (obvious) problem with both of these scenarios is that both of us is stumbling (or lying around, as it were) in alpha wave mode when the other is trying to talk to the other... and well, we wind up forgetting a lot of what the other one is saying. I mean you would think after twelve years together, we would understand that the only real time we are awake and functioning at the same time is around lunch and that when I am trundling towards the bathroom with my shirt all twisted around my torso and my hair doing its best Don King impersonation and my eyes all slitty and crusted over , it is NOT the best time to tell me that we are scheduled to make an appearance at like 5 parties this weekend, so clear my calendar... but, Burdy doesn't recognize zombies when he sees them. (Mostly deaf, still-dreaming zombies who are groping the air for coffee mugs and sugar bowls.) And I, apparently, can't appreciate that "lights out" does not mean "divulge the contents of your psyche".

Anywho, Wednesday morning, I actually got up early (SERIOUSLY. How do you people with the jobs do it?) and I made my way down to the chiropractor (to learn I have minor scoliosis in my upper back! Huzzah!) and then home again. I was wide awake by the time I got home. And so was Burdy. And so we actually talked like real adults. About weekend plans and where we were going to be at dinner time.

And then he decided it would be fun to test out the bed with wrestling moves.

So, we got this king sized bed from the parents of Giggles and Little Man. We've always known we've wanted a king sized bed. It's like the ONE luxury item we have pined for. The only item of excess we felt we deserved. Because we are really frugal and don't spend money on things like cars and clothes and jewelry. And because Burdy kicks and punches in his sleep.

Anywho, we got this awesome, marshmallowy, huge king-sized mattress. Burdy's kicks now happen in another zip code and I can't feel a thing. It's a perfect mattress. Perfect for, for example, launching yourself from the corner and body-slamming a pillow.

Now, our old mattress, it was a platform bed. Very low to the ground. The new bed? She's practically at chest height for me. So maybe Burdy hadn't done the calculations involved. Big bed, regular sized ceilings, overhead lamp complete with seventies style shade (probably full of dead bugs), plus six foot tall man launching three feet into the air, arcing DIRECTLY underneath the lamp....

equals one surprised man clam-shelled on his back in the bed, his hair and pajamas full of microscopic pieces of glass, his eyes wide open in shock, his hands open in front of him, his mouth frozen in the shape of the words OOOOOOOOOOH, FUUUUUUUUUUUDGE.

And one woman laughing hysterically going to fetch the dustpan.

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WWF moves

The Old Adage Was Right: Monkeys Should NOT Jump On The Bed

I rarely have occasion to say "Here's another nice mess you've gotten me into", Stanley. But Wednesday morning was different.

You know, we're real adult around our house. We definitely do NOT do things like speak in a weird language to each other. We definitely do not regularly refer to the neighbor's pet as "Roof Dog" and try to take clandestine pictures of it. And we definitely do not attempt WWF wresting moves on our bed in the morning before work.

Alright, we do all those things and you know it.

Another really adult thing we do? Wait for THE most inopportune moments to tell each other REALLY important stuff that affects our lives. Burdy, for instance, likes to set up plans in the space of a few seconds between my kissing him goodbye and walking out the door in the morning for work. It usually sounds like this:

"K.Bye!Oh,andJillandGabrielinvitedusoverfordinneronThursday,shouldIsayyes?Itooktheboatmotortotherepairshopandit'sgoingtocostlikefiftydollarstofix,butIfgurethatthat'sbetterthanmetryingtofixitandscrewingitup,right? Oh,andyoucanjusthavemybluetooth,sodon'tgoandbuyone.IfoundmineandIneveruseitanymore,plusIhavemywiredsetsoyoucanjusthavetheoldone. Isthereanythingforlunchinthefridge?ShouldIbuythoseplaneticketstogobacktoJerseyinAugust?Whattimeareyoucominghome?ImightstaylateatAikidotonight! Bye!"

And I have a very bad habit of trying to tell him every last thing I've thought of in the past 24 hours in the few moments in takes him to fall asleep at night.

Me: Have you fixed the boat motor yet?

Burdy: Mmmmfff.

Me: I'm thinking about getting a new Bluetooth. I hate the wired thingee I use.

Burdy: Mmmmff.

Me: Shoot. We still have to get those plane tickets, don't we?

Burdy: ...Zzzzzzz....

The (obvious) problem with both of these scenarios is that both of us is stumbling (or lying around, as it were) in alpha wave mode when the other is trying to talk to the other... and well, we wind up forgetting a lot of what the other one is saying. I mean you would think after twelve years together, we would understand that the only real time we are awake and functioning at the same time is around lunch and that when I am trundling towards the bathroom with my shirt all twisted around my torso and my hair doing its best Don King impersonation and my eyes all slitty and crusted over , it is NOT the best time to tell me that we are scheduled to make an appearance at like 5 parties this weekend, so clear my calendar... but, Burdy doesn't recognize zombies when he sees them. (Mostly deaf, still-dreaming zombies who are groping the air for coffee mugs and sugar bowls.) And I, apparently, can't appreciate that "lights out" does not mean "divulge the contents of your psyche".

Anywho, Wednesday morning, I actually got up early (SERIOUSLY. How do you people with the jobs do it?) and I made my way down to the chiropractor (to learn I have minor scoliosis in my upper back! Huzzah!) and then home again. I was wide awake by the time I got home. And so was Burdy. And so we actually talked like real adults. About weekend plans and where we were going to be at dinner time.

And then he decided it would be fun to test out the bed with wrestling moves.

So, we got this king sized bed from the parents of Giggles and Little Man. We've always known we've wanted a king sized bed. It's like the ONE luxury item we have pined for. The only item of excess we felt we deserved. Because we are really frugal and don't spend money on things like cars and clothes and jewelry. And because Burdy kicks and punches in his sleep.

Anywho, we got this awesome, marshmallowy, huge king-sized mattress. Burdy's kicks now happen in another zip code and I can't feel a thing. It's a perfect mattress. Perfect for, for example, launching yourself from the corner and body-slamming a pillow.

Now, our old mattress, it was a platform bed. Very low to the ground. The new bed? She's practically at chest height for me. So maybe Burdy hadn't done the calculations involved. Big bed, regular sized ceilings, overhead lamp complete with seventies style shade (probably full of dead bugs), plus six foot tall man launching three feet into the air, arcing DIRECTLY underneath the lamp....

equals one surprised man clam-shelled on his back in the bed, his hair and pajamas full of microscopic pieces of glass, his eyes wide open in shock, his hands open in front of him, his mouth frozen in the shape of the words OOOOOOOOOOH, FUUUUUUUUUUUDGE.

And one woman laughing hysterically going to fetch the dustpan.

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already?

Nostalgia

Car parked in driveway, dusk settling around us. Food in our bellies, our livers and pancreases working harder than ever to dilute the grilled catfish and gin and tonics into usable calories...

"So, what's the plan?"

Silence.

Stephanie: "Uh-oh. Are we in our mid thirties and officially out of juice?"

We are. Getting drunk and pulling stunts has lost its appeal and hauling ourselves out of lawn chairs requires a sort of grunting and not just a little scuffling of feet trying to get a purchase on the deck.

We're getting older. Not old. Just older. Two of us are pregnant. Two of us are moving to China. Two of us are planning a wedding (sort of). Two of us have moved far enough away that traveling is just more effort than it's worth. The band's breaking up. It's hard to watch. It's hard to reconcile. Just a few years ago, my body would have ignored the metric tons of gin passing through it and would have just jumped in that stolen grocery cart being pushed by someone full of whiskey and laughed long into the night.

Now I'm worried about taking multivitamins.

Where is the rite of passage for the thirty-somethings? Our twenties have all these significant mileposts: graduating from college, moving in with boy/girlfriend, moving away from home, making our first disposable income... but the thirties... they turn in rather than out. And now we are here... the late twenties having slipped away under cover of night without so much as a goodbye note. We thirty-somethings are filled with routine and tendencies towards security and safety. We are ritualized and ordered. We smile quietly and run our fingers through our hair when we talk. We don't make as much noise as we used to.

I guess the next logical thing is kids. Except, we're only just starting to have them. We are, by necessity, peeling off and reconsidering our alliances, making new ones. Ones with people who know things about childhood development and who are available at 6 am. We're trading our beer cozies for baby rattles and it feels... normal. I have to wonder about my parents who had me nearly ten years earlier in their lives than my friends are having their kids. I was born when my mom was 24. TWENTY FOUR. What was I doing at 24? Being an idiot. Abusing myself. Working for the weekends. Hanging out in great clusters of friends. NOT raising children.

Which ultimately leads to the question: If I'm not having kids, what AM I doing with my life? Whereas kids once sounded like needy, codependent things, they now sound like fun playthings, things that make you want to get up in the morning because they love you unconditionally, things that enrich your life, not just suck the life out of you. All those notions have been turned on their heads. Intellectually, of course. I mean, in my head it all has been turned around. Has my heart been turned? How many cute babies do I have to see before my loins ache to house one of my own? Apparently, I need more convincing. I am not compelled. Yet.

What is this thing I need to do? Write a book? Get some sort of traveling done? Get a degree?

I laid in bed this morning at 3 am wondering about birth pains. Imagining the different intonations each of my girlfriends' primal screams would take on. I had cramps, so I imagined my own birth pains. I thought of my struggle with endometriosis, of my mother's same struggle with it, of my sister's, I thought of the twins that have occurred in my future husband's family, I thought of the twins that have occurred in my dad's side of the family. I thought of the miracle that it would be if my tiny frame, my small runt body of the litter, ballooned one day to house another set of look-alike babies. And of the days of labor. And the joy. And the mounds of laundry everyone always talks about. And the things those children would teach me. Teach us. My new husband and me. Would we last? Would I prove to myself that I could do it? Would my weaknesses get the better of me? Am I even meant to labor like that? It seems like after everything else I have inherited, physical and mental, that I should not have to endure such pains to create a legacy of my own.

Sometimes my hands find their way to my bellybutton and they lovingly cup those ghost children. It is years of slouching and overeating that I hold there- not a baby, but indecision and boredom on cold days, and my compulsion to work long hours without stretching.

Sometimes I strain my eyes to see past the mountains in the distance, imagining that beyond them lies some place I have simply overlooked for the requisite amount of easy living and sunshine... and that, if I just squint harder, what will come into focus is where I am meant to be.

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getting older

Nostalgia

Car parked in driveway, dusk settling around us. Food in our bellies, our livers and pancreases working harder than ever to dilute the grilled catfish and gin and tonics into usable calories...

"So, what's the plan?"

Silence.

Stephanie: "Uh-oh. Are we in our mid thirties and officially out of juice?"

We are. Getting drunk and pulling stunts has lost its appeal and hauling ourselves out of lawn chairs requires a sort of grunting and not just a little scuffling of feet trying to get a purchase on the deck.

We're getting older. Not old. Just older. Two of us are pregnant. Two of us are moving to China. Two of us are planning a wedding (sort of). Two of us have moved far enough away that traveling is just more effort than it's worth. The band's breaking up. It's hard to watch. It's hard to reconcile. Just a few years ago, my body would have ignored the metric tons of gin passing through it and would have just jumped in that stolen grocery cart being pushed by someone full of whiskey and laughed long into the night.

Now I'm worried about taking multivitamins.

Where is the rite of passage for the thirty-somethings? Our twenties have all these significant mileposts: graduating from college, moving in with boy/girlfriend, moving away from home, making our first disposable income... but the thirties... they turn in rather than out. And now we are here... the late twenties having slipped away under cover of night without so much as a goodbye note. We thirty-somethings are filled with routine and tendencies towards security and safety. We are ritualized and ordered. We smile quietly and run our fingers through our hair when we talk. We don't make as much noise as we used to.

I guess the next logical thing is kids. Except, we're only just starting to have them. We are, by necessity, peeling off and reconsidering our alliances, making new ones. Ones with people who know things about childhood development and who are available at 6 am. We're trading our beer cozies for baby rattles and it feels... normal. I have to wonder about my parents who had me nearly ten years earlier in their lives than my friends are having their kids. I was born when my mom was 24. TWENTY FOUR. What was I doing at 24? Being an idiot. Abusing myself. Working for the weekends. Hanging out in great clusters of friends. NOT raising children.

Which ultimately leads to the question: If I'm not having kids, what AM I doing with my life? Whereas kids once sounded like needy, codependent things, they now sound like fun playthings, things that make you want to get up in the morning because they love you unconditionally, things that enrich your life, not just suck the life out of you. All those notions have been turned on their heads. Intellectually, of course. I mean, in my head it all has been turned around. Has my heart been turned? How many cute babies do I have to see before my loins ache to house one of my own? Apparently, I need more convincing. I am not compelled. Yet.

What is this thing I need to do? Write a book? Get some sort of traveling done? Get a degree?

I laid in bed this morning at 3 am wondering about birth pains. Imagining the different intonations each of my girlfriends' primal screams would take on. I had cramps, so I imagined my own birth pains. I thought of my struggle with endometriosis, of my mother's same struggle with it, of my sister's, I thought of the twins that have occurred in my future husband's family, I thought of the twins that have occurred in my dad's side of the family. I thought of the miracle that it would be if my tiny frame, my small runt body of the litter, ballooned one day to house another set of look-alike babies. And of the days of labor. And the joy. And the mounds of laundry everyone always talks about. And the things those children would teach me. Teach us. My new husband and me. Would we last? Would I prove to myself that I could do it? Would my weaknesses get the better of me? Am I even meant to labor like that? It seems like after everything else I have inherited, physical and mental, that I should not have to endure such pains to create a legacy of my own.

Sometimes my hands find their way to my bellybutton and they lovingly cup those ghost children. It is years of slouching and overeating that I hold there- not a baby, but indecision and boredom on cold days, and my compulsion to work long hours without stretching.

Sometimes I strain my eyes to see past the mountains in the distance, imagining that beyond them lies some place I have simply overlooked for the requisite amount of easy living and sunshine... and that, if I just squint harder, what will come into focus is where I am meant to be.

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when are you going to have kids

Nostalgia

Car parked in driveway, dusk settling around us. Food in our bellies, our livers and pancreases working harder than ever to dilute the grilled catfish and gin and tonics into usable calories...

"So, what's the plan?"

Silence.

Stephanie: "Uh-oh. Are we in our mid thirties and officially out of juice?"

We are. Getting drunk and pulling stunts has lost its appeal and hauling ourselves out of lawn chairs requires a sort of grunting and not just a little scuffling of feet trying to get a purchase on the deck.

We're getting older. Not old. Just older. Two of us are pregnant. Two of us are moving to China. Two of us are planning a wedding (sort of). Two of us have moved far enough away that traveling is just more effort than it's worth. The band's breaking up. It's hard to watch. It's hard to reconcile. Just a few years ago, my body would have ignored the metric tons of gin passing through it and would have just jumped in that stolen grocery cart being pushed by someone full of whiskey and laughed long into the night.

Now I'm worried about taking multivitamins.

Where is the rite of passage for the thirty-somethings? Our twenties have all these significant mileposts: graduating from college, moving in with boy/girlfriend, moving away from home, making our first disposable income... but the thirties... they turn in rather than out. And now we are here... the late twenties having slipped away under cover of night without so much as a goodbye note. We thirty-somethings are filled with routine and tendencies towards security and safety. We are ritualized and ordered. We smile quietly and run our fingers through our hair when we talk. We don't make as much noise as we used to.

I guess the next logical thing is kids. Except, we're only just starting to have them. We are, by necessity, peeling off and reconsidering our alliances, making new ones. Ones with people who know things about childhood development and who are available at 6 am. We're trading our beer cozies for baby rattles and it feels... normal. I have to wonder about my parents who had me nearly ten years earlier in their lives than my friends are having their kids. I was born when my mom was 24. TWENTY FOUR. What was I doing at 24? Being an idiot. Abusing myself. Working for the weekends. Hanging out in great clusters of friends. NOT raising children.

Which ultimately leads to the question: If I'm not having kids, what AM I doing with my life? Whereas kids once sounded like needy, codependent things, they now sound like fun playthings, things that make you want to get up in the morning because they love you unconditionally, things that enrich your life, not just suck the life out of you. All those notions have been turned on their heads. Intellectually, of course. I mean, in my head it all has been turned around. Has my heart been turned? How many cute babies do I have to see before my loins ache to house one of my own? Apparently, I need more convincing. I am not compelled. Yet.

What is this thing I need to do? Write a book? Get some sort of traveling done? Get a degree?

I laid in bed this morning at 3 am wondering about birth pains. Imagining the different intonations each of my girlfriends' primal screams would take on. I had cramps, so I imagined my own birth pains. I thought of my struggle with endometriosis, of my mother's same struggle with it, of my sister's, I thought of the twins that have occurred in my future husband's family, I thought of the twins that have occurred in my dad's side of the family. I thought of the miracle that it would be if my tiny frame, my small runt body of the litter, ballooned one day to house another set of look-alike babies. And of the days of labor. And the joy. And the mounds of laundry everyone always talks about. And the things those children would teach me. Teach us. My new husband and me. Would we last? Would I prove to myself that I could do it? Would my weaknesses get the better of me? Am I even meant to labor like that? It seems like after everything else I have inherited, physical and mental, that I should not have to endure such pains to create a legacy of my own.

Sometimes my hands find their way to my bellybutton and they lovingly cup those ghost children. It is years of slouching and overeating that I hold there- not a baby, but indecision and boredom on cold days, and my compulsion to work long hours without stretching.

Sometimes I strain my eyes to see past the mountains in the distance, imagining that beyond them lies some place I have simply overlooked for the requisite amount of easy living and sunshine... and that, if I just squint harder, what will come into focus is where I am meant to be.

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Seattle bus

I Have No Idea What To Call This One. Stranger Danger?

Know how sometimes you want to update your blog with a funny story about how you fell in a 16" sinkhole in a city park while drinking and then you had to then pedal your bike home and you hummed "Pushin' Up My Baby Bumblebee" over and over again to take your mind off the fact that there was blood running down your leg, but then your would-be father-in-law ups and dies and you have to fly back to the East Coast last minute and the next thing you know it's the middle of August?

Yeah, me too.

I don't mean to sound so callous about my father-in-law's death. I really don't. He was a good man who lived a long and full life and we will all miss him dearly. It's just that sometimes, despite my best agnostic tendencies, I am compelled to think that God exists and that he has a really horrendous sense of timing. I have really wanted to sit down and write about the whole experience, but, honestly, time management is not my thing right now.

I will write more about the funeral and the trip back East and all the darkness that was brought, kicking and screaming, into the light. It was an emotionally exhausting trip, and I am still processing what it all means.

What is fresh on my mind, however, is the bus ride home from the airport. Because God, if he exists, also has a thing for kneeing you in the balls when you're down.

Riding public transportation in a city late at night can be a dicey thing. Here in the great city of Seattle, physical safety when riding the bus is not usually one's prime concern. What is of concern is one's mental safety. It is not without cause that certain of our bus lines are referred to as "mobile psych wards". Some of the greatest serial killers of our age were born and bred right here in the Evergreen State. Charming, huh?

So, Mr. Burdy and I decide to forgo the fifty dollar cab ride home from the airport and put our money where our civic-minded mouths are and we take the light rail to downtown to then catch a bus home. The whole train ride, Burdy and I argue over where to get off. I insist that we take the line all the way to Westlake Center and then hoof it on over a few blocks and catch the bus that picks up near the market. Burdy, using a series of apps on his iPhone that calculate the timing of bus routes (and simultaneously the average annual rainfall in the Philippines, I think) insists that we should just get off in Pioneer Square. No, I insist. I've taken this route before. Let's just take advantage of our whole $2.50 and ride the train to the end of the line, I say. The train goes faster than the bus, I say. It's logical, I say. I don't want to deal with the belligerent drunks in Pioneer Square, I say. Why ride the slow bus at the beginning of its route when we can take the fast train to the end of its route and then pick up the slow bus when it's already a third of the way to our house, I say. Burdy taps the iPhone a few more times. He's starting to remind me of Dean Stockwell's character on Quantum Leap, and I want to punch the iPhone for giving us what I presume are bad predictions about the future. My intuition is telling me something. And my intuition is never wrong.

Westlake, I say.

Pioneer Square, he says.

Westlake, I say.

Pioneer Square, he says.

University, we both concede.

So, we get off at University.

We get inside the bus shelter and I impatiently ask Burdy, who checks his iPhone again, when the bus is coming. We've just come from 90 degree weather with 17,000% humidity, so Seattle's crisp nighttime temperature of 65 degrees suddenly feels like an arctic blast and I want the bus to hurry up and get there so I can be warm again. Also, it's late and I am cranky. Just as Burdy is about to tell me when the bus will be arriving next, a guy leans in to the bus shelter and asks when the bus is coming. Call it street smarts, call it a woman's intuition, call it the simple fact I could deduce from the timber of his voice that the guy had been smoking unfiltered prison cigarettes for most of his life, but I knew this guy was going to be a thorn in our sides.

What commenced after that question, (and Burdy's iPhone-assisted answer), was a self-obsessed diatribe, unparalleled in its bravado and its audibility (this coming from a person who has listened to her fair share of nutbags at bus stops). I knew this guy was buttering us up for beer money the second he cheerily said "White people know everything!" (I muttered under my breath in response "No, the iPhone knows everything. We don't know shit"). I can smell a street ruse a mile away. Sure enough, five minutes in to his soliloquy, he turned quite somber, asked us our names, gravely shook our hands, introduced himself as "Dave", delivered a mini-sermon about how "it's all about the love", and then asked if we had a few bucks for beer.

You'd think that being denied beer money would make a man take his dog and pony show elsewhere. You'd think that he'd understand a thing or two about body language, about how no eye contact suggests disinterestedness, that the way we were having a FULL ON CONVERSATION on TOP of his, that we were NOT interested in making friends. But not this guy. No, this guy was persistent.

Also? R e e e eeally high.

Dave told us, with emphatic arm gestures, that he'd spent ten years in the Army and twenty years in prison. He showed us his tattoo of iconic images of San Francisco (and then I was teased for not being able to identify the Folsom Prison tower on his bicep. You know. BECAUSE I'VE NEVER MURDERED ANYONE.)

He told us he was half black, half white, that his mom had flaxen hair, that he got the shit kicked out of him for being a "half breed" (his words, not mine), that he loved the city of Seattle for its festivals (were we going to Hempfest next week? No? Why not?! It's going to be aaaaaaawesome, duuuuuuuude), that he'd just bought weed in the U District, and that his "friend" had just given him Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon and he was listening to it on his portable CD player on infinite repeat.

Oh, and he'd just gotten laid.

I believe the words he used the term "that fine honey" to describe his ladyfriend and some choice words involving a vacuum-like experience, but it was the way the words dripped out of his mouth and the way he cocked his head back and let his knees go slack that let me know we were talking about a "fine honey" for hire. Then, contemplating the temporary nature of his recent lovin', he said ruefully, "I just want someone to love on my summer sausage, you know?" And then he laughed a deep throaty villain-from-the-movies laugh and looked me straight in the eye.

Even the cooties left my skin just then. Fuck this, they said. This shit's naaaaasty.

At this point, the kitsch factor of this whole encounter evaporates. Whereas this guy was once a wayward, lonely stranger, innocent fodder for a blog post, he was now some drunk asshole whose self aggrandizing bullshit was bordering on aggressive and I was going to have to pretend to ignore him in a four foot by two foot bus shelter. I no longer cared about his 16 inch long dong, or his prison record, or his love life, or how cool he thought Seattle was. I just wanted to go home. But the bus wasn't there yet. So, I turned, leaned against the edge of the bus shelter, and faced the direction the bus would be coming from. I was hoping this guy would somehow, magically, understand that now I really didn't want to listen to him.

And that's when I feel something warm and rubbery being shoved into my ear.

Now, it's nearly midnight, it's dark outside, it's chilly, and I am groggy from lack of sleep. I cannot immediately put together the sensation of warm rubber, cold night air, and relative silence followed by the woozy strains of muted brass instruments in my ear into one cohesive experience. Slowly at first, and then all at once like a train going 186 miles an hour into a brick wall, it all comes together: it's Dave's EARBUD in my ear! From his CD PLAYER. He wants to share! That's Dark Side Of The Moon I'm listening to! And rather than dwell on the milk of this human kindness and the universal language of music kicking down the barriers of age and race, all I can think is: I hope I don't have ear herpes now.

Throughout this whole thing, Burdy keeps trying to interject with clever little bits, tries to answer this guy's rhetorical questions (You guys know Haight Ashbury? You guys know Pink Floyd? You guys ever been to Folsom Prison?), but Dave is too wrapped up in his running dialogue to respond. And God bless him, Burdy is trying to make lemons out of lemonade. Drunk, high, unselfconscious, with tendencies towards violent outburst lemons.

Let's cut to the bus ride, shall we? Now, when you belong to a Facebook group called "I SURVIVED growing up in Irvington", you know a thing or two about how to properly board a bus with a crazy guy behind you. Get it? I SURVIVED Irvington. I didn't just LIVE there. I SURVIVED it. Like a freakin' nuclear holocaust. That's what growing up there was like. Only with crack vials and bullet casings instead of radiation.

Anywho, I was tired, and all these years of living in this Wonderbread town has made me go soft, so I got on the bus AHEAD of crazy guy. BAD CHOICE, amigos. Let me give you a lesson in dealing with Crazy: You always let the crazy guy get on FIRST. You let him find his seat, and then YOU sit about twenty seats AWAY from him. You dig?

Luckily, Dave found a seat at the front of the bus after we'd found ours at the back. He then he proceeded to poke a young woman in the arm across the aisle to get her attention.

Now, I had only just debarked a plane from the East Coast a few hours before. My hackles were up, my fists were poised in punch-mode down at my sides, and I was READY to take on the first idiot that crossed me. But, I have to hand it to the Northwest: there's something about this place that just lowers your blood pressure. By the time I entered that bus shelter, I had already sassed someone at the airport for being in my way, and I was in cool-down mode. I was in a sleepy sort-of transition phase on that bus. The East Coaster in me wanted to tell this idiot to stop singing aloud to Pink Floyd and to leave the girl alone. But the West Coaster prevailed, so I just sat there with quietly my teeth clenched, waiting for the bus to get to our stop.

I was also FUMING at Burdy for having made the end of our trip such a hassle. Had we gotten off at the stop I wanted to, we never would have met Dave, and we could have gotten home in relative peace and quiet.

Instead, we were listening to Dave recount, at the top of his lungs and in vivid detail, his blowjob.

Yup, right there on the bus. I guess drugs will do that to you: make you forget about appropriateness and decibel levels. Hey, I'm a fan of recreational drug use. And I can get behind recalling fine works of sexual art. Just not on the bus at midnight in front of senior citizens, you know? There's a time and a place to talk about the size and shape of a fine honey's mouth, okay?

After about ten minutes of this crap, the bus driver did something I have never seen a bus driver do in this town: he got on the intercom, and in a stiff, offended manner, said: SIR! YOU ARE ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION! YOU CANNOT TALK LIKE THAT!

I snorted. A guy with a Folsom Prison tattoo on his arm is not really inclined to heed the chastising of a ninety pound bus driver. Just sayin'.

More details about the BJ, more "MUH-NAY! mumblemumblemumble MUH-NAY!" from Dave.

Then, the bus driver does something even MORE astounding. He PULLS THE BUS OVER. But, instead of saying WHY he's done this, we just sit there, all of us, in stunned silence.

Except for Dave, who has no idea we are pulled over.

"AW, MAN! THIS SHIT IS AWESOME! MUH-NAAAAAY!!! FAR OUT!!!"

Remember how in grade school the teacher would make everyone stay in for recess because one kid had done something wrong and now the whole class couldn't go outside because the kid wouldn't 'fess up and everyone KNEW who the kid was and was giving him stink eye but the kid just sat there doodling on his desk? Yeah, that's how sitting on the bus felt.

I could feel the East Coaster rising in me. I was LITERALLY just about to shout NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR BLOWJOB, DAVE. CAN IT! when some young kid in the front of the bus turns around to face Dave and makes the slicing-neck motion with his hand. "Chill out, dude. Bus driver wants you to be quiet."

"WHAT?" Dave yells. He pulls the earbuds out of his ears. "ME? Oh, sorry man", he says to the bus driver. "You want me to get off here?" he asks. Silence from the bus driver. Dave looks to the kid for advice. "Does he want me to get off?" The kid tells him to just keep quiet so we can all get home. But Dave does the first unselfish thing of the night. He gets off the bus.

Everyone on the bus visibly relaxes. We get home and I throw my things into a corner, get changed, and crawl into bed.

The last thing I say to Burdy before falling asleep:

"Rule Number One: You let the crazy guys get on the bus BEFORE you. Rule Number Two: Don't engage with the crazy guys. No eye contact, no telling them your real name. Rule Number Three: Trust your wife's intuition. When your she says get off at Westlake, GET OFF AT WESTLAKE, FOOL."

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strangers who tell you about their sex lives on public transportation.

I Have No Idea What To Call This One. Stranger Danger?

Know how sometimes you want to update your blog with a funny story about how you fell in a 16" sinkhole in a city park while drinking and then you had to then pedal your bike home and you hummed "Pushin' Up My Baby Bumblebee" over and over again to take your mind off the fact that there was blood running down your leg, but then your would-be father-in-law ups and dies and you have to fly back to the East Coast last minute and the next thing you know it's the middle of August?

Yeah, me too.

I don't mean to sound so callous about my father-in-law's death. I really don't. He was a good man who lived a long and full life and we will all miss him dearly. It's just that sometimes, despite my best agnostic tendencies, I am compelled to think that God exists and that he has a really horrendous sense of timing. I have really wanted to sit down and write about the whole experience, but, honestly, time management is not my thing right now.

I will write more about the funeral and the trip back East and all the darkness that was brought, kicking and screaming, into the light. It was an emotionally exhausting trip, and I am still processing what it all means.

What is fresh on my mind, however, is the bus ride home from the airport. Because God, if he exists, also has a thing for kneeing you in the balls when you're down.

Riding public transportation in a city late at night can be a dicey thing. Here in the great city of Seattle, physical safety when riding the bus is not usually one's prime concern. What is of concern is one's mental safety. It is not without cause that certain of our bus lines are referred to as "mobile psych wards". Some of the greatest serial killers of our age were born and bred right here in the Evergreen State. Charming, huh?

So, Mr. Burdy and I decide to forgo the fifty dollar cab ride home from the airport and put our money where our civic-minded mouths are and we take the light rail to downtown to then catch a bus home. The whole train ride, Burdy and I argue over where to get off. I insist that we take the line all the way to Westlake Center and then hoof it on over a few blocks and catch the bus that picks up near the market. Burdy, using a series of apps on his iPhone that calculate the timing of bus routes (and simultaneously the average annual rainfall in the Philippines, I think) insists that we should just get off in Pioneer Square. No, I insist. I've taken this route before. Let's just take advantage of our whole $2.50 and ride the train to the end of the line, I say. The train goes faster than the bus, I say. It's logical, I say. I don't want to deal with the belligerent drunks in Pioneer Square, I say. Why ride the slow bus at the beginning of its route when we can take the fast train to the end of its route and then pick up the slow bus when it's already a third of the way to our house, I say. Burdy taps the iPhone a few more times. He's starting to remind me of Dean Stockwell's character on Quantum Leap, and I want to punch the iPhone for giving us what I presume are bad predictions about the future. My intuition is telling me something. And my intuition is never wrong.

Westlake, I say.

Pioneer Square, he says.

Westlake, I say.

Pioneer Square, he says.

University, we both concede.

So, we get off at University.

We get inside the bus shelter and I impatiently ask Burdy, who checks his iPhone again, when the bus is coming. We've just come from 90 degree weather with 17,000% humidity, so Seattle's crisp nighttime temperature of 65 degrees suddenly feels like an arctic blast and I want the bus to hurry up and get there so I can be warm again. Also, it's late and I am cranky. Just as Burdy is about to tell me when the bus will be arriving next, a guy leans in to the bus shelter and asks when the bus is coming. Call it street smarts, call it a woman's intuition, call it the simple fact I could deduce from the timber of his voice that the guy had been smoking unfiltered prison cigarettes for most of his life, but I knew this guy was going to be a thorn in our sides.

What commenced after that question, (and Burdy's iPhone-assisted answer), was a self-obsessed diatribe, unparalleled in its bravado and its audibility (this coming from a person who has listened to her fair share of nutbags at bus stops). I knew this guy was buttering us up for beer money the second he cheerily said "White people know everything!" (I muttered under my breath in response "No, the iPhone knows everything. We don't know shit"). I can smell a street ruse a mile away. Sure enough, five minutes in to his soliloquy, he turned quite somber, asked us our names, gravely shook our hands, introduced himself as "Dave", delivered a mini-sermon about how "it's all about the love", and then asked if we had a few bucks for beer.

You'd think that being denied beer money would make a man take his dog and pony show elsewhere. You'd think that he'd understand a thing or two about body language, about how no eye contact suggests disinterestedness, that the way we were having a FULL ON CONVERSATION on TOP of his, that we were NOT interested in making friends. But not this guy. No, this guy was persistent.

Also? R e e e eeally high.

Dave told us, with emphatic arm gestures, that he'd spent ten years in the Army and twenty years in prison. He showed us his tattoo of iconic images of San Francisco (and then I was teased for not being able to identify the Folsom Prison tower on his bicep. You know. BECAUSE I'VE NEVER MURDERED ANYONE.)

He told us he was half black, half white, that his mom had flaxen hair, that he got the shit kicked out of him for being a "half breed" (his words, not mine), that he loved the city of Seattle for its festivals (were we going to Hempfest next week? No? Why not?! It's going to be aaaaaaawesome, duuuuuuuude), that he'd just bought weed in the U District, and that his "friend" had just given him Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon and he was listening to it on his portable CD player on infinite repeat.

Oh, and he'd just gotten laid.

I believe the words he used the term "that fine honey" to describe his ladyfriend and some choice words involving a vacuum-like experience, but it was the way the words dripped out of his mouth and the way he cocked his head back and let his knees go slack that let me know we were talking about a "fine honey" for hire. Then, contemplating the temporary nature of his recent lovin', he said ruefully, "I just want someone to love on my summer sausage, you know?" And then he laughed a deep throaty villain-from-the-movies laugh and looked me straight in the eye.

Even the cooties left my skin just then. Fuck this, they said. This shit's naaaaasty.

At this point, the kitsch factor of this whole encounter evaporates. Whereas this guy was once a wayward, lonely stranger, innocent fodder for a blog post, he was now some drunk asshole whose self aggrandizing bullshit was bordering on aggressive and I was going to have to pretend to ignore him in a four foot by two foot bus shelter. I no longer cared about his 16 inch long dong, or his prison record, or his love life, or how cool he thought Seattle was. I just wanted to go home. But the bus wasn't there yet. So, I turned, leaned against the edge of the bus shelter, and faced the direction the bus would be coming from. I was hoping this guy would somehow, magically, understand that now I really didn't want to listen to him.

And that's when I feel something warm and rubbery being shoved into my ear.

Now, it's nearly midnight, it's dark outside, it's chilly, and I am groggy from lack of sleep. I cannot immediately put together the sensation of warm rubber, cold night air, and relative silence followed by the woozy strains of muted brass instruments in my ear into one cohesive experience. Slowly at first, and then all at once like a train going 186 miles an hour into a brick wall, it all comes together: it's Dave's EARBUD in my ear! From his CD PLAYER. He wants to share! That's Dark Side Of The Moon I'm listening to! And rather than dwell on the milk of this human kindness and the universal language of music kicking down the barriers of age and race, all I can think is: I hope I don't have ear herpes now.

Throughout this whole thing, Burdy keeps trying to interject with clever little bits, tries to answer this guy's rhetorical questions (You guys know Haight Ashbury? You guys know Pink Floyd? You guys ever been to Folsom Prison?), but Dave is too wrapped up in his running dialogue to respond. And God bless him, Burdy is trying to make lemons out of lemonade. Drunk, high, unselfconscious, with tendencies towards violent outburst lemons.

Let's cut to the bus ride, shall we? Now, when you belong to a Facebook group called "I SURVIVED growing up in Irvington", you know a thing or two about how to properly board a bus with a crazy guy behind you. Get it? I SURVIVED Irvington. I didn't just LIVE there. I SURVIVED it. Like a freakin' nuclear holocaust. That's what growing up there was like. Only with crack vials and bullet casings instead of radiation.

Anywho, I was tired, and all these years of living in this Wonderbread town has made me go soft, so I got on the bus AHEAD of crazy guy. BAD CHOICE, amigos. Let me give you a lesson in dealing with Crazy: You always let the crazy guy get on FIRST. You let him find his seat, and then YOU sit about twenty seats AWAY from him. You dig?

Luckily, Dave found a seat at the front of the bus after we'd found ours at the back. He then he proceeded to poke a young woman in the arm across the aisle to get her attention.

Now, I had only just debarked a plane from the East Coast a few hours before. My hackles were up, my fists were poised in punch-mode down at my sides, and I was READY to take on the first idiot that crossed me. But, I have to hand it to the Northwest: there's something about this place that just lowers your blood pressure. By the time I entered that bus shelter, I had already sassed someone at the airport for being in my way, and I was in cool-down mode. I was in a sleepy sort-of transition phase on that bus. The East Coaster in me wanted to tell this idiot to stop singing aloud to Pink Floyd and to leave the girl alone. But the West Coaster prevailed, so I just sat there with quietly my teeth clenched, waiting for the bus to get to our stop.

I was also FUMING at Burdy for having made the end of our trip such a hassle. Had we gotten off at the stop I wanted to, we never would have met Dave, and we could have gotten home in relative peace and quiet.

Instead, we were listening to Dave recount, at the top of his lungs and in vivid detail, his blowjob.

Yup, right there on the bus. I guess drugs will do that to you: make you forget about appropriateness and decibel levels. Hey, I'm a fan of recreational drug use. And I can get behind recalling fine works of sexual art. Just not on the bus at midnight in front of senior citizens, you know? There's a time and a place to talk about the size and shape of a fine honey's mouth, okay?

After about ten minutes of this crap, the bus driver did something I have never seen a bus driver do in this town: he got on the intercom, and in a stiff, offended manner, said: SIR! YOU ARE ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION! YOU CANNOT TALK LIKE THAT!

I snorted. A guy with a Folsom Prison tattoo on his arm is not really inclined to heed the chastising of a ninety pound bus driver. Just sayin'.

More details about the BJ, more "MUH-NAY! mumblemumblemumble MUH-NAY!" from Dave.

Then, the bus driver does something even MORE astounding. He PULLS THE BUS OVER. But, instead of saying WHY he's done this, we just sit there, all of us, in stunned silence.

Except for Dave, who has no idea we are pulled over.

"AW, MAN! THIS SHIT IS AWESOME! MUH-NAAAAAY!!! FAR OUT!!!"

Remember how in grade school the teacher would make everyone stay in for recess because one kid had done something wrong and now the whole class couldn't go outside because the kid wouldn't 'fess up and everyone KNEW who the kid was and was giving him stink eye but the kid just sat there doodling on his desk? Yeah, that's how sitting on the bus felt.

I could feel the East Coaster rising in me. I was LITERALLY just about to shout NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR BLOWJOB, DAVE. CAN IT! when some young kid in the front of the bus turns around to face Dave and makes the slicing-neck motion with his hand. "Chill out, dude. Bus driver wants you to be quiet."

"WHAT?" Dave yells. He pulls the earbuds out of his ears. "ME? Oh, sorry man", he says to the bus driver. "You want me to get off here?" he asks. Silence from the bus driver. Dave looks to the kid for advice. "Does he want me to get off?" The kid tells him to just keep quiet so we can all get home. But Dave does the first unselfish thing of the night. He gets off the bus.

Everyone on the bus visibly relaxes. We get home and I throw my things into a corner, get changed, and crawl into bed.

The last thing I say to Burdy before falling asleep:

"Rule Number One: You let the crazy guys get on the bus BEFORE you. Rule Number Two: Don't engage with the crazy guys. No eye contact, no telling them your real name. Rule Number Three: Trust your wife's intuition. When your she says get off at Westlake, GET OFF AT WESTLAKE, FOOL."

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why the iPhone is not that smart

I Have No Idea What To Call This One. Stranger Danger?

Know how sometimes you want to update your blog with a funny story about how you fell in a 16" sinkhole in a city park while drinking and then you had to then pedal your bike home and you hummed "Pushin' Up My Baby Bumblebee" over and over again to take your mind off the fact that there was blood running down your leg, but then your would-be father-in-law ups and dies and you have to fly back to the East Coast last minute and the next thing you know it's the middle of August?

Yeah, me too.

I don't mean to sound so callous about my father-in-law's death. I really don't. He was a good man who lived a long and full life and we will all miss him dearly. It's just that sometimes, despite my best agnostic tendencies, I am compelled to think that God exists and that he has a really horrendous sense of timing. I have really wanted to sit down and write about the whole experience, but, honestly, time management is not my thing right now.

I will write more about the funeral and the trip back East and all the darkness that was brought, kicking and screaming, into the light. It was an emotionally exhausting trip, and I am still processing what it all means.

What is fresh on my mind, however, is the bus ride home from the airport. Because God, if he exists, also has a thing for kneeing you in the balls when you're down.

Riding public transportation in a city late at night can be a dicey thing. Here in the great city of Seattle, physical safety when riding the bus is not usually one's prime concern. What is of concern is one's mental safety. It is not without cause that certain of our bus lines are referred to as "mobile psych wards". Some of the greatest serial killers of our age were born and bred right here in the Evergreen State. Charming, huh?

So, Mr. Burdy and I decide to forgo the fifty dollar cab ride home from the airport and put our money where our civic-minded mouths are and we take the light rail to downtown to then catch a bus home. The whole train ride, Burdy and I argue over where to get off. I insist that we take the line all the way to Westlake Center and then hoof it on over a few blocks and catch the bus that picks up near the market. Burdy, using a series of apps on his iPhone that calculate the timing of bus routes (and simultaneously the average annual rainfall in the Philippines, I think) insists that we should just get off in Pioneer Square. No, I insist. I've taken this route before. Let's just take advantage of our whole $2.50 and ride the train to the end of the line, I say. The train goes faster than the bus, I say. It's logical, I say. I don't want to deal with the belligerent drunks in Pioneer Square, I say. Why ride the slow bus at the beginning of its route when we can take the fast train to the end of its route and then pick up the slow bus when it's already a third of the way to our house, I say. Burdy taps the iPhone a few more times. He's starting to remind me of Dean Stockwell's character on Quantum Leap, and I want to punch the iPhone for giving us what I presume are bad predictions about the future. My intuition is telling me something. And my intuition is never wrong.

Westlake, I say.

Pioneer Square, he says.

Westlake, I say.

Pioneer Square, he says.

University, we both concede.

So, we get off at University.

We get inside the bus shelter and I impatiently ask Burdy, who checks his iPhone again, when the bus is coming. We've just come from 90 degree weather with 17,000% humidity, so Seattle's crisp nighttime temperature of 65 degrees suddenly feels like an arctic blast and I want the bus to hurry up and get there so I can be warm again. Also, it's late and I am cranky. Just as Burdy is about to tell me when the bus will be arriving next, a guy leans in to the bus shelter and asks when the bus is coming. Call it street smarts, call it a woman's intuition, call it the simple fact I could deduce from the timber of his voice that the guy had been smoking unfiltered prison cigarettes for most of his life, but I knew this guy was going to be a thorn in our sides.

What commenced after that question, (and Burdy's iPhone-assisted answer), was a self-obsessed diatribe, unparalleled in its bravado and its audibility (this coming from a person who has listened to her fair share of nutbags at bus stops). I knew this guy was buttering us up for beer money the second he cheerily said "White people know everything!" (I muttered under my breath in response "No, the iPhone knows everything. We don't know shit"). I can smell a street ruse a mile away. Sure enough, five minutes in to his soliloquy, he turned quite somber, asked us our names, gravely shook our hands, introduced himself as "Dave", delivered a mini-sermon about how "it's all about the love", and then asked if we had a few bucks for beer.

You'd think that being denied beer money would make a man take his dog and pony show elsewhere. You'd think that he'd understand a thing or two about body language, about how no eye contact suggests disinterestedness, that the way we were having a FULL ON CONVERSATION on TOP of his, that we were NOT interested in making friends. But not this guy. No, this guy was persistent.

Also? R e e e eeally high.

Dave told us, with emphatic arm gestures, that he'd spent ten years in the Army and twenty years in prison. He showed us his tattoo of iconic images of San Francisco (and then I was teased for not being able to identify the Folsom Prison tower on his bicep. You know. BECAUSE I'VE NEVER MURDERED ANYONE.)

He told us he was half black, half white, that his mom had flaxen hair, that he got the shit kicked out of him for being a "half breed" (his words, not mine), that he loved the city of Seattle for its festivals (were we going to Hempfest next week? No? Why not?! It's going to be aaaaaaawesome, duuuuuuuude), that he'd just bought weed in the U District, and that his "friend" had just given him Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon and he was listening to it on his portable CD player on infinite repeat.

Oh, and he'd just gotten laid.

I believe the words he used the term "that fine honey" to describe his ladyfriend and some choice words involving a vacuum-like experience, but it was the way the words dripped out of his mouth and the way he cocked his head back and let his knees go slack that let me know we were talking about a "fine honey" for hire. Then, contemplating the temporary nature of his recent lovin', he said ruefully, "I just want someone to love on my summer sausage, you know?" And then he laughed a deep throaty villain-from-the-movies laugh and looked me straight in the eye.

Even the cooties left my skin just then. Fuck this, they said. This shit's naaaaasty.

At this point, the kitsch factor of this whole encounter evaporates. Whereas this guy was once a wayward, lonely stranger, innocent fodder for a blog post, he was now some drunk asshole whose self aggrandizing bullshit was bordering on aggressive and I was going to have to pretend to ignore him in a four foot by two foot bus shelter. I no longer cared about his 16 inch long dong, or his prison record, or his love life, or how cool he thought Seattle was. I just wanted to go home. But the bus wasn't there yet. So, I turned, leaned against the edge of the bus shelter, and faced the direction the bus would be coming from. I was hoping this guy would somehow, magically, understand that now I really didn't want to listen to him.

And that's when I feel something warm and rubbery being shoved into my ear.

Now, it's nearly midnight, it's dark outside, it's chilly, and I am groggy from lack of sleep. I cannot immediately put together the sensation of warm rubber, cold night air, and relative silence followed by the woozy strains of muted brass instruments in my ear into one cohesive experience. Slowly at first, and then all at once like a train going 186 miles an hour into a brick wall, it all comes together: it's Dave's EARBUD in my ear! From his CD PLAYER. He wants to share! That's Dark Side Of The Moon I'm listening to! And rather than dwell on the milk of this human kindness and the universal language of music kicking down the barriers of age and race, all I can think is: I hope I don't have ear herpes now.

Throughout this whole thing, Burdy keeps trying to interject with clever little bits, tries to answer this guy's rhetorical questions (You guys know Haight Ashbury? You guys know Pink Floyd? You guys ever been to Folsom Prison?), but Dave is too wrapped up in his running dialogue to respond. And God bless him, Burdy is trying to make lemons out of lemonade. Drunk, high, unselfconscious, with tendencies towards violent outburst lemons.

Let's cut to the bus ride, shall we? Now, when you belong to a Facebook group called "I SURVIVED growing up in Irvington", you know a thing or two about how to properly board a bus with a crazy guy behind you. Get it? I SURVIVED Irvington. I didn't just LIVE there. I SURVIVED it. Like a freakin' nuclear holocaust. That's what growing up there was like. Only with crack vials and bullet casings instead of radiation.

Anywho, I was tired, and all these years of living in this Wonderbread town has made me go soft, so I got on the bus AHEAD of crazy guy. BAD CHOICE, amigos. Let me give you a lesson in dealing with Crazy: You always let the crazy guy get on FIRST. You let him find his seat, and then YOU sit about twenty seats AWAY from him. You dig?

Luckily, Dave found a seat at the front of the bus after we'd found ours at the back. He then he proceeded to poke a young woman in the arm across the aisle to get her attention.

Now, I had only just debarked a plane from the East Coast a few hours before. My hackles were up, my fists were poised in punch-mode down at my sides, and I was READY to take on the first idiot that crossed me. But, I have to hand it to the Northwest: there's something about this place that just lowers your blood pressure. By the time I entered that bus shelter, I had already sassed someone at the airport for being in my way, and I was in cool-down mode. I was in a sleepy sort-of transition phase on that bus. The East Coaster in me wanted to tell this idiot to stop singing aloud to Pink Floyd and to leave the girl alone. But the West Coaster prevailed, so I just sat there with quietly my teeth clenched, waiting for the bus to get to our stop.

I was also FUMING at Burdy for having made the end of our trip such a hassle. Had we gotten off at the stop I wanted to, we never would have met Dave, and we could have gotten home in relative peace and quiet.

Instead, we were listening to Dave recount, at the top of his lungs and in vivid detail, his blowjob.

Yup, right there on the bus. I guess drugs will do that to you: make you forget about appropriateness and decibel levels. Hey, I'm a fan of recreational drug use. And I can get behind recalling fine works of sexual art. Just not on the bus at midnight in front of senior citizens, you know? There's a time and a place to talk about the size and shape of a fine honey's mouth, okay?

After about ten minutes of this crap, the bus driver did something I have never seen a bus driver do in this town: he got on the intercom, and in a stiff, offended manner, said: SIR! YOU ARE ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION! YOU CANNOT TALK LIKE THAT!

I snorted. A guy with a Folsom Prison tattoo on his arm is not really inclined to heed the chastising of a ninety pound bus driver. Just sayin'.

More details about the BJ, more "MUH-NAY! mumblemumblemumble MUH-NAY!" from Dave.

Then, the bus driver does something even MORE astounding. He PULLS THE BUS OVER. But, instead of saying WHY he's done this, we just sit there, all of us, in stunned silence.

Except for Dave, who has no idea we are pulled over.

"AW, MAN! THIS SHIT IS AWESOME! MUH-NAAAAAY!!! FAR OUT!!!"

Remember how in grade school the teacher would make everyone stay in for recess because one kid had done something wrong and now the whole class couldn't go outside because the kid wouldn't 'fess up and everyone KNEW who the kid was and was giving him stink eye but the kid just sat there doodling on his desk? Yeah, that's how sitting on the bus felt.

I could feel the East Coaster rising in me. I was LITERALLY just about to shout NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR BLOWJOB, DAVE. CAN IT! when some young kid in the front of the bus turns around to face Dave and makes the slicing-neck motion with his hand. "Chill out, dude. Bus driver wants you to be quiet."

"WHAT?" Dave yells. He pulls the earbuds out of his ears. "ME? Oh, sorry man", he says to the bus driver. "You want me to get off here?" he asks. Silence from the bus driver. Dave looks to the kid for advice. "Does he want me to get off?" The kid tells him to just keep quiet so we can all get home. But Dave does the first unselfish thing of the night. He gets off the bus.

Everyone on the bus visibly relaxes. We get home and I throw my things into a corner, get changed, and crawl into bed.

The last thing I say to Burdy before falling asleep:

"Rule Number One: You let the crazy guys get on the bus BEFORE you. Rule Number Two: Don't engage with the crazy guys. No eye contact, no telling them your real name. Rule Number Three: Trust your wife's intuition. When your she says get off at Westlake, GET OFF AT WESTLAKE, FOOL."

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finding your twin

Motherlode

I have been struggling to come up with something coherent and funny to post these past few days, but every time I sit down at this computer, all I do is sigh dramatically and rake my hands through my hair and then promise myself I'll write tomorrow and that, for now, I'll just post the pictures I've taken of all the lost cat posters in my neighborhood and won't that be hysterical? Hahahaha!!! *More sighing*. I knew I wanted to post something today, though, so I went digging through some unfinished pieces and I found this little ditty. I wrote it originally back in the beginning of July.

Every once in a great while, your future self shows up to a baby shower, or at the gas station, or in the produce aisle of the supermarket and strikes up a conversation with you and it hits you almost immediately: this is what I am going to be like in 40 years.

Today was an average day for garage-saleing. There was the aggressive soccer mom who all but accosted me as soon as I set foot near her driveway. Her greeting came tumbling out all at once, a command rather than a salutation: THIS IS TO RAISE MONEY FOR BREAST CANCER AWARENESS. Whoa, okay. And a good day to you, madam! I strolled around for a few minutes because Hey! I support causes! But her stuff was way overpriced. Clearly, she hadn't read the manual about garage sale pricing. There was no way in hell anyone was going to pay $25 for a trench coat at a garage sale covered in cat hair and smelling of mold, even if it was for charity. Oh, and her aggressive daughter dressed head to toe in pink offering me cookies in her very loud outside voice? Seriously, kid. Take a hint from Dale Carnegie. At least tell me you like my hair or something before asking me shell out money for your almond bars. (I'm sure they're dusting off the chair reserved for me in Hell right now.)

There was the lady who looked like she should have had that garage sale about twenty years ago. Seriously. That shit was sooooo dated. And ugly. Something happened in the late seventies and early eighties to home furnishings in this country that can only described as "tragic". And this woman had made some SERIOUS investments in her home decor back then. I like that stuff tells a story. I like when it's kitschy. I don't like when it's embarrassing for everyone. A DUSTBUSTER? SERIOUSLY? The last time I saw one of those was in 1987. Which was probably the last time I saw Richard Simmons on the cover of a cookbook. Which she was also selling. Which were laid out next to some framed posters of kittens playing piano. And monkeys dressed like businessmen.

There was the sale that promised "high end modern stuff" which mostly consisted of Ikea crap still in boxes. The real gem in the crown, though, was the woman who got into her Cutlass Supreme afterward visiting that sale and complained that everything was too pricey. Oh, really? You think so? Well, I've got a twenty-five dollar trench coat just a few blocks from here that will make your eyes pop out of your head on springs.

The real treat was the sale I wasn't planning on going to at all (Tenet three of the Garage Sale Theory: It's always the sale you just happen upon that yields the best stuff. The lesson here? Plans yield to crushed hopes.) Anywho, I stopped for bit. The first thing I noticed was that stuff was laid out wonderfully. Antique sheets and tablecloths underneath milk glass pieces and ornate serving bowls and stuff. Drinking glasses shaped like boots. Really well done. And reasonably priced. I saw a medium sized serving platter and fell in love. I picked it up for a mere $2. There were other pieces that I liked, but I thought I'd already broken the bank by spending a whole TWO dollars. I wandered next door where another sale was happening (and where I scored a sleeve for my iPod for twenty five cents). But I couldn't get that second platter off my mind. It was a thing of simple beauty. And I wanted it. And this is when the OCD kicked in. My mind did somersaults trying to justify spending an additional $3.00 on a serving platter. Oh, the agony (and this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I can't sleep at night. That, and because I am trying to figure out the evolutionary advantage to having one's two front teeth spread really far apart and having that hangy-downy part of one's gums between the teeth. You know. Science-y stuff).

I went back for the platter. I paid for it. I felt better about myself. I calmed down. And then the woman running the sale wanted to know where I lived. Huh? Oh, well, I said. Not too far. Closer to downtown. Well, we have these sales three times a year, she said. So check back. And as I was about to walk away, my twin showed up.

Now, she wasn't my twin in the traditional sense. She looked nothing like me. But her skin, it glowed. And her eyes, they sparkled. They sparkled they way someone's do when they have a basement of treasure they are just dying to show someone. And I'm a good audience. A very good audience.

This is my job: I collect stories. I write them down. I have a face that says: Please, go ahead and tell me about that one time you knew that guy who piloted planes and then was killed in a freak accident but that you still keep in touch with his widow and her neighbor, who sure did make a mean margarita and that that dog you had as a kid, why that dog could balance a wiffle ball on its head for a full minute and it wouldn't even move or nothin'. My face also says: I like stuff that other people call "junk". I like to see whole rooms of it. If I could, I would lay down on that junk and do the butterfly stroke through it, letting antique teacups and gooseneck lamps and baseball cards and ashtrays glance off my skin like water while I dipped and came up for air.

So my twin, she says: what are you looking for today? And I am almost stunned silent because this is a serious question. It makes me wonder: what the hell AM I looking for? I mean, what do I do this for? Why do I get up early on the weekends and pay people my hard earned money to haul away stuff they were going to take the the dump anyway? What am I out here hoping to find? Dishes, mostly, I think. Yes, dishes. That is the most practical thing I can think of to say. Burdy and I are eating off of chipped earthenware because we got rid of our old clunky set and we haven't found the perfect replacement set just yet... so we are eating off of an even older set, which is chipped, and we need new dishes. So I'm looking for dishes. But I'm also looking for wedding theme ideas. And perhaps for an apothecary/farmhouse themed armoire to put all my dry goods in. And OOOO!! I know! wine glasses! And also, something to put on the mantle! And a piggy bank in the shape of a donkey! And something to put my makeup in when I travel! And a record featuring a cigarette smoking Asian dude! Yeah! That stuff!

And then she does something completely unexpected. She invites me to her house. Somewhere, deep inside, my inner child bristles, and I can hear my mom's voice telling me not to talk to strangers. But mom, this nice lady! She's offering something better than candy! She has a whole room of STUFF!

Thank goodness child predators weren't on to my proclivities back then. Fuck your candy, sir. You want me to get in your car? Tell me you want to show me your collection of velvet Elvis paintings and maybe your shed full of mason jars. Then I'll do whatever you want.

I love to entertain. And so does my twin. So when I get to her house, she shows me shelves and shelves of plates. Nautical themed ones and silver ones and ones shaped like king crabs. I can't believe how much stuff she has. Silk plants enough to reforest the Amazon. Wine glasses to entertain all of France. And it's all packed very neatly onto shelves in her basement. She knows where everything is. The Fiesta collection? Behind this curtain, please. Watch your step by the stationary bike. Christmas wreaths organized by size? Right this way. Did you say you needed a glass punch bowl supported on a cast metal base in the shape of a flock of migratory birds mid-flight? Well, why didn't ya say so? It's right over here!

I spent the next hour pawing through her stuff, listening to her stories about the party she threw last Christmas for her something-something board and how everyone just loved the spread she brought. She showed me pictures of it, even. There is was: the green and red plaid tablecloth, the cookies on the Christmas tree shaped platter, the bean dip in the bowl with the pine cone motif. The glasses hand painted with snowflakes. And all of it picked from the shelves of Goodwill and magically put together with her expert eye.

She then did something extraordinary: she offered to lend me some pieces. I had a party coming up, I told her, a baby shower, that I needed to plan for, and I would need serving dishes. She had everything, right down to tiny ornamental forks to pull meat from crab legs. It was amazing. We shared a rare kind of trust, a trust between lovers of all things kitschy and beautiful. Her eyes asked: will you take my Precious and care for it? And my eyes said: I would never do anything to harm your Precious. I promise.

In the end, I never took her up on her offer to borrow her serving pieces. Burdy's father passed away a few days after I met this woman, and we had to fly back east to make funeral arrangements. The next thing we knew, it was go-time, and we had to cater the party without the silver cast punch bowl.

There will be other parties, though. There will be need for tiny forks and platters in the shape of fat Santas. And when those parties happen, I will make a run to my own private warehouse of all things horribly beautiful, and I will visit my twin, and I will borrow that wonderfully overdesigned punch bowl.

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stuff you love in strangers' basements

Motherlode

I have been struggling to come up with something coherent and funny to post these past few days, but every time I sit down at this computer, all I do is sigh dramatically and rake my hands through my hair and then promise myself I'll write tomorrow and that, for now, I'll just post the pictures I've taken of all the lost cat posters in my neighborhood and won't that be hysterical? Hahahaha!!! *More sighing*. I knew I wanted to post something today, though, so I went digging through some unfinished pieces and I found this little ditty. I wrote it originally back in the beginning of July.

Every once in a great while, your future self shows up to a baby shower, or at the gas station, or in the produce aisle of the supermarket and strikes up a conversation with you and it hits you almost immediately: this is what I am going to be like in 40 years.

Today was an average day for garage-saleing. There was the aggressive soccer mom who all but accosted me as soon as I set foot near her driveway. Her greeting came tumbling out all at once, a command rather than a salutation: THIS IS TO RAISE MONEY FOR BREAST CANCER AWARENESS. Whoa, okay. And a good day to you, madam! I strolled around for a few minutes because Hey! I support causes! But her stuff was way overpriced. Clearly, she hadn't read the manual about garage sale pricing. There was no way in hell anyone was going to pay $25 for a trench coat at a garage sale covered in cat hair and smelling of mold, even if it was for charity. Oh, and her aggressive daughter dressed head to toe in pink offering me cookies in her very loud outside voice? Seriously, kid. Take a hint from Dale Carnegie. At least tell me you like my hair or something before asking me shell out money for your almond bars. (I'm sure they're dusting off the chair reserved for me in Hell right now.)

There was the lady who looked like she should have had that garage sale about twenty years ago. Seriously. That shit was sooooo dated. And ugly. Something happened in the late seventies and early eighties to home furnishings in this country that can only described as "tragic". And this woman had made some SERIOUS investments in her home decor back then. I like that stuff tells a story. I like when it's kitschy. I don't like when it's embarrassing for everyone. A DUSTBUSTER? SERIOUSLY? The last time I saw one of those was in 1987. Which was probably the last time I saw Richard Simmons on the cover of a cookbook. Which she was also selling. Which were laid out next to some framed posters of kittens playing piano. And monkeys dressed like businessmen.

There was the sale that promised "high end modern stuff" which mostly consisted of Ikea crap still in boxes. The real gem in the crown, though, was the woman who got into her Cutlass Supreme afterward visiting that sale and complained that everything was too pricey. Oh, really? You think so? Well, I've got a twenty-five dollar trench coat just a few blocks from here that will make your eyes pop out of your head on springs.

The real treat was the sale I wasn't planning on going to at all (Tenet three of the Garage Sale Theory: It's always the sale you just happen upon that yields the best stuff. The lesson here? Plans yield to crushed hopes.) Anywho, I stopped for bit. The first thing I noticed was that stuff was laid out wonderfully. Antique sheets and tablecloths underneath milk glass pieces and ornate serving bowls and stuff. Drinking glasses shaped like boots. Really well done. And reasonably priced. I saw a medium sized serving platter and fell in love. I picked it up for a mere $2. There were other pieces that I liked, but I thought I'd already broken the bank by spending a whole TWO dollars. I wandered next door where another sale was happening (and where I scored a sleeve for my iPod for twenty five cents). But I couldn't get that second platter off my mind. It was a thing of simple beauty. And I wanted it. And this is when the OCD kicked in. My mind did somersaults trying to justify spending an additional $3.00 on a serving platter. Oh, the agony (and this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I can't sleep at night. That, and because I am trying to figure out the evolutionary advantage to having one's two front teeth spread really far apart and having that hangy-downy part of one's gums between the teeth. You know. Science-y stuff).

I went back for the platter. I paid for it. I felt better about myself. I calmed down. And then the woman running the sale wanted to know where I lived. Huh? Oh, well, I said. Not too far. Closer to downtown. Well, we have these sales three times a year, she said. So check back. And as I was about to walk away, my twin showed up.

Now, she wasn't my twin in the traditional sense. She looked nothing like me. But her skin, it glowed. And her eyes, they sparkled. They sparkled they way someone's do when they have a basement of treasure they are just dying to show someone. And I'm a good audience. A very good audience.

This is my job: I collect stories. I write them down. I have a face that says: Please, go ahead and tell me about that one time you knew that guy who piloted planes and then was killed in a freak accident but that you still keep in touch with his widow and her neighbor, who sure did make a mean margarita and that that dog you had as a kid, why that dog could balance a wiffle ball on its head for a full minute and it wouldn't even move or nothin'. My face also says: I like stuff that other people call "junk". I like to see whole rooms of it. If I could, I would lay down on that junk and do the butterfly stroke through it, letting antique teacups and gooseneck lamps and baseball cards and ashtrays glance off my skin like water while I dipped and came up for air.

So my twin, she says: what are you looking for today? And I am almost stunned silent because this is a serious question. It makes me wonder: what the hell AM I looking for? I mean, what do I do this for? Why do I get up early on the weekends and pay people my hard earned money to haul away stuff they were going to take the the dump anyway? What am I out here hoping to find? Dishes, mostly, I think. Yes, dishes. That is the most practical thing I can think of to say. Burdy and I are eating off of chipped earthenware because we got rid of our old clunky set and we haven't found the perfect replacement set just yet... so we are eating off of an even older set, which is chipped, and we need new dishes. So I'm looking for dishes. But I'm also looking for wedding theme ideas. And perhaps for an apothecary/farmhouse themed armoire to put all my dry goods in. And OOOO!! I know! wine glasses! And also, something to put on the mantle! And a piggy bank in the shape of a donkey! And something to put my makeup in when I travel! And a record featuring a cigarette smoking Asian dude! Yeah! That stuff!

And then she does something completely unexpected. She invites me to her house. Somewhere, deep inside, my inner child bristles, and I can hear my mom's voice telling me not to talk to strangers. But mom, this nice lady! She's offering something better than candy! She has a whole room of STUFF!

Thank goodness child predators weren't on to my proclivities back then. Fuck your candy, sir. You want me to get in your car? Tell me you want to show me your collection of velvet Elvis paintings and maybe your shed full of mason jars. Then I'll do whatever you want.

I love to entertain. And so does my twin. So when I get to her house, she shows me shelves and shelves of plates. Nautical themed ones and silver ones and ones shaped like king crabs. I can't believe how much stuff she has. Silk plants enough to reforest the Amazon. Wine glasses to entertain all of France. And it's all packed very neatly onto shelves in her basement. She knows where everything is. The Fiesta collection? Behind this curtain, please. Watch your step by the stationary bike. Christmas wreaths organized by size? Right this way. Did you say you needed a glass punch bowl supported on a cast metal base in the shape of a flock of migratory birds mid-flight? Well, why didn't ya say so? It's right over here!

I spent the next hour pawing through her stuff, listening to her stories about the party she threw last Christmas for her something-something board and how everyone just loved the spread she brought. She showed me pictures of it, even. There is was: the green and red plaid tablecloth, the cookies on the Christmas tree shaped platter, the bean dip in the bowl with the pine cone motif. The glasses hand painted with snowflakes. And all of it picked from the shelves of Goodwill and magically put together with her expert eye.

She then did something extraordinary: she offered to lend me some pieces. I had a party coming up, I told her, a baby shower, that I needed to plan for, and I would need serving dishes. She had everything, right down to tiny ornamental forks to pull meat from crab legs. It was amazing. We shared a rare kind of trust, a trust between lovers of all things kitschy and beautiful. Her eyes asked: will you take my Precious and care for it? And my eyes said: I would never do anything to harm your Precious. I promise.

In the end, I never took her up on her offer to borrow her serving pieces. Burdy's father passed away a few days after I met this woman, and we had to fly back east to make funeral arrangements. The next thing we knew, it was go-time, and we had to cater the party without the silver cast punch bowl.

There will be other parties, though. There will be need for tiny forks and platters in the shape of fat Santas. And when those parties happen, I will make a run to my own private warehouse of all things horribly beautiful, and I will visit my twin, and I will borrow that wonderfully overdesigned punch bowl.

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garbageasaurs

Tee-Ranosaurus: A Kindler, Gentler Dinosaur

There was a time, about a year ago, when a certain daddy was very nervous about having his newborn son's face plastered all over my blog. It was understandable. But, over time, the kid starting developing a personality, started making adorable faces, and somebody grabbed a camera, posted some pictures on Facebook, and it was all over. I mean, how can you NOT want to photograph this cuteness all day long and then stick it on the Internets?

Having your picture on the Internet is an inevitability these days, isn't it? Especially when you've got incredibly talented photographers in the family. (Thanks to Greg for capturing this one and others.) My guess is that this kid, and the rest of his generation, will never NOT know what it's like to not be on the Internet.

Burdy and I flew back east to celebrate Tre's 1st birthday last week. We wanted to make something special for him, a handmade gift, something that he would find in a box in the attic in about thirty years from now and go: "Wow. Somebody spent a l o o o o o o t of time on this." And then he would try and wrap his brain around how something so ugly and lumpy could have brought him so much joy as a child.

I present to you, making their debut on the Internet, fresh from the sweatshop of Burdy, Incoporated, The Garbageasaurs!

Seen here in their natural habitat, the Garbageasaurs belong to rare group of dinosaurs, known for their soft cottony skin, and their exposed baseball stitch seams.

According to his mom, Tre loves them. And why not? They're made of t-shirts. And love. Lots and lots of love.

Also included in the gift: A set of a dozen blocks, also made of t-shirts, complete with handsome tote bag (also made of tees!)

My favorite part about these blocks is that they're not just from Burdy and me. They're from a whole group of awesome people, really. The Garbageasaurs, too. A couple of years ago, I asked my friends to donate to me t-shirts they would have otherwise turned over to Goodwill (or the rag pile). I've been using them to make clothing (with a little help from my friend Megan at Generation-T), and some of them to make baby toys, burp cloths, and all sorts of drawstring bags. I love that each piece I create has a story to tell. These blocks, for instance, feature t-shirts from all our friends here in the Northwest (plus some never-used boxer shorts thrown in for good measure.)

Happy 1st Birthday, Tre! You are so very loved!

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hand made gifts

Tee-Ranosaurus: A Kindler, Gentler Dinosaur

There was a time, about a year ago, when a certain daddy was very nervous about having his newborn son's face plastered all over my blog. It was understandable. But, over time, the kid starting developing a personality, started making adorable faces, and somebody grabbed a camera, posted some pictures on Facebook, and it was all over. I mean, how can you NOT want to photograph this cuteness all day long and then stick it on the Internets?

Having your picture on the Internet is an inevitability these days, isn't it? Especially when you've got incredibly talented photographers in the family. (Thanks to Greg for capturing this one and others.) My guess is that this kid, and the rest of his generation, will never NOT know what it's like to not be on the Internet.

Burdy and I flew back east to celebrate Tre's 1st birthday last week. We wanted to make something special for him, a handmade gift, something that he would find in a box in the attic in about thirty years from now and go: "Wow. Somebody spent a l o o o o o o t of time on this." And then he would try and wrap his brain around how something so ugly and lumpy could have brought him so much joy as a child.

I present to you, making their debut on the Internet, fresh from the sweatshop of Burdy, Incoporated, The Garbageasaurs!

Seen here in their natural habitat, the Garbageasaurs belong to rare group of dinosaurs, known for their soft cottony skin, and their exposed baseball stitch seams.

According to his mom, Tre loves them. And why not? They're made of t-shirts. And love. Lots and lots of love.

Also included in the gift: A set of a dozen blocks, also made of t-shirts, complete with handsome tote bag (also made of tees!)

My favorite part about these blocks is that they're not just from Burdy and me. They're from a whole group of awesome people, really. The Garbageasaurs, too. A couple of years ago, I asked my friends to donate to me t-shirts they would have otherwise turned over to Goodwill (or the rag pile). I've been using them to make clothing (with a little help from my friend Megan at Generation-T), and some of them to make baby toys, burp cloths, and all sorts of drawstring bags. I love that each piece I create has a story to tell. These blocks, for instance, feature t-shirts from all our friends here in the Northwest (plus some never-used boxer shorts thrown in for good measure.)

Happy 1st Birthday, Tre! You are so very loved!

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soft blocks

Tee-Ranosaurus: A Kindler, Gentler Dinosaur

There was a time, about a year ago, when a certain daddy was very nervous about having his newborn son's face plastered all over my blog. It was understandable. But, over time, the kid starting developing a personality, started making adorable faces, and somebody grabbed a camera, posted some pictures on Facebook, and it was all over. I mean, how can you NOT want to photograph this cuteness all day long and then stick it on the Internets?

Having your picture on the Internet is an inevitability these days, isn't it? Especially when you've got incredibly talented photographers in the family. (Thanks to Greg for capturing this one and others.) My guess is that this kid, and the rest of his generation, will never NOT know what it's like to not be on the Internet.

Burdy and I flew back east to celebrate Tre's 1st birthday last week. We wanted to make something special for him, a handmade gift, something that he would find in a box in the attic in about thirty years from now and go: "Wow. Somebody spent a l o o o o o o t of time on this." And then he would try and wrap his brain around how something so ugly and lumpy could have brought him so much joy as a child.

I present to you, making their debut on the Internet, fresh from the sweatshop of Burdy, Incoporated, The Garbageasaurs!

Seen here in their natural habitat, the Garbageasaurs belong to rare group of dinosaurs, known for their soft cottony skin, and their exposed baseball stitch seams.

According to his mom, Tre loves them. And why not? They're made of t-shirts. And love. Lots and lots of love.

Also included in the gift: A set of a dozen blocks, also made of t-shirts, complete with handsome tote bag (also made of tees!)

My favorite part about these blocks is that they're not just from Burdy and me. They're from a whole group of awesome people, really. The Garbageasaurs, too. A couple of years ago, I asked my friends to donate to me t-shirts they would have otherwise turned over to Goodwill (or the rag pile). I've been using them to make clothing (with a little help from my friend Megan at Generation-T), and some of them to make baby toys, burp cloths, and all sorts of drawstring bags. I love that each piece I create has a story to tell. These blocks, for instance, feature t-shirts from all our friends here in the Northwest (plus some never-used boxer shorts thrown in for good measure.)

Happy 1st Birthday, Tre! You are so very loved!

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Tre

Tee-Ranosaurus: A Kindler, Gentler Dinosaur

There was a time, about a year ago, when a certain daddy was very nervous about having his newborn son's face plastered all over my blog. It was understandable. But, over time, the kid starting developing a personality, started making adorable faces, and somebody grabbed a camera, posted some pictures on Facebook, and it was all over. I mean, how can you NOT want to photograph this cuteness all day long and then stick it on the Internets?

Having your picture on the Internet is an inevitability these days, isn't it? Especially when you've got incredibly talented photographers in the family. (Thanks to Greg for capturing this one and others.) My guess is that this kid, and the rest of his generation, will never NOT know what it's like to not be on the Internet.

Burdy and I flew back east to celebrate Tre's 1st birthday last week. We wanted to make something special for him, a handmade gift, something that he would find in a box in the attic in about thirty years from now and go: "Wow. Somebody spent a l o o o o o o t of time on this." And then he would try and wrap his brain around how something so ugly and lumpy could have brought him so much joy as a child.

I present to you, making their debut on the Internet, fresh from the sweatshop of Burdy, Incoporated, The Garbageasaurs!

Seen here in their natural habitat, the Garbageasaurs belong to rare group of dinosaurs, known for their soft cottony skin, and their exposed baseball stitch seams.

According to his mom, Tre loves them. And why not? They're made of t-shirts. And love. Lots and lots of love.

Also included in the gift: A set of a dozen blocks, also made of t-shirts, complete with handsome tote bag (also made of tees!)

My favorite part about these blocks is that they're not just from Burdy and me. They're from a whole group of awesome people, really. The Garbageasaurs, too. A couple of years ago, I asked my friends to donate to me t-shirts they would have otherwise turned over to Goodwill (or the rag pile). I've been using them to make clothing (with a little help from my friend Megan at Generation-T), and some of them to make baby toys, burp cloths, and all sorts of drawstring bags. I love that each piece I create has a story to tell. These blocks, for instance, feature t-shirts from all our friends here in the Northwest (plus some never-used boxer shorts thrown in for good measure.)

Happy 1st Birthday, Tre! You are so very loved!

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Tim's Getting To The Point

How To Make Uncertainty Into A Thing Of Beauty

I just had to copy and paste this. My friend Tim has an amazing way with words. I had no idea he was so talented with a camera, too. He sums up in a small video what I have been feeling for some time now: a little uncertain about everything. But Tim reminds me that Uncertainty can be a blessing.

I got to speak with a very good friend this morning about her Burning Man experience. I was feeling a little nostalgic for those feelings of bliss. She poignantly reminded me not to "invent roadblocks" when it comes to my happiness. Thank you, T. And thank you, Tim. I wish you the best on your journey... wherever it takes you.

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To read Tim's post that accompanies this video, click here.

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all creatures huge and small

Look At The Size Of The Fangs On This One

*Sound of garage door opening and closing, Burdy climbing up the stairs to the living room.*

Burdy: (excited to finally see his fiance after a long day) Hi!

Me: (not looking up from laptop) There's a spider that behind that plant that I need you to get rid of.

Burdy: Um.... What?

Me: Yeah, behind that plant

Burdy: How was your day?

Me: (Pointing with chin) Right there. That plant over there.

Burdy: Ok a a a a y.... so your day was okay, then? (excited energy fading to confusion)

Me: I put a glass over it last night but I forgot to tell you about it. You need to take it outside. Right now.

(Burdy grabs a piece of paper from my desk to slip under the glass)

Me: No! NO! NO! Don't use that piece of paper! It's huge and disgusting!

Burdy: (Sighing heavily at fiance's tendency to exaggerate). Okay. (Reaches for a different piece of paper) It's behind which plant agai.... WHOA!! HOLY CRAP THAT'S BIG!

Me: (hopping from foot to foot and nervously chewing on knuckle skin) I TOLD YOU! GET A DIFFERENT PIECE OF PAPER!

Burdy: Wow! (slipping new piece of paper under glass and holding drinking glass/spider bio-dome up to eye level) I think that's a hobo spider.

Me: What? (adrenal glands throbbing at the thought that spider with legs the length of human pinkies and capable of causing anaphylactic shock in humans might have slept in my shoes, or- WORSE!- in my bath towel overnight and subsequently torn a chunk out of my neck with its ugly hairy mouth parts had I not thrown a glass over it.) *gulping nervously* A hobo spider?

Burdy: (squinting at glass) Oh, wait. It's not.

Me: How do you know?

Burdy: It's not carrying a bindle stick.

- END SCENE -

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hobo spider in your house

Look At The Size Of The Fangs On This One

*Sound of garage door opening and closing, Burdy climbing up the stairs to the living room.*

Burdy: (excited to finally see his fiance after a long day) Hi!

Me: (not looking up from laptop) There's a spider that behind that plant that I need you to get rid of.

Burdy: Um.... What?

Me: Yeah, behind that plant

Burdy: How was your day?

Me: (Pointing with chin) Right there. That plant over there.

Burdy: Ok a a a a y.... so your day was okay, then? (excited energy fading to confusion)

Me: I put a glass over it last night but I forgot to tell you about it. You need to take it outside. Right now.

(Burdy grabs a piece of paper from my desk to slip under the glass)

Me: No! NO! NO! Don't use that piece of paper! It's huge and disgusting!

Burdy: (Sighing heavily at fiance's tendency to exaggerate). Okay. (Reaches for a different piece of paper) It's behind which plant agai.... WHOA!! HOLY CRAP THAT'S BIG!

Me: (hopping from foot to foot and nervously chewing on knuckle skin) I TOLD YOU! GET A DIFFERENT PIECE OF PAPER!

Burdy: Wow! (slipping new piece of paper under glass and holding drinking glass/spider bio-dome up to eye level) I think that's a hobo spider.

Me: What? (adrenal glands throbbing at the thought that spider with legs the length of human pinkies and capable of causing anaphylactic shock in humans might have slept in my shoes, or- WORSE!- in my bath towel overnight and subsequently torn a chunk out of my neck with its ugly hairy mouth parts had I not thrown a glass over it.) *gulping nervously* A hobo spider?

Burdy: (squinting at glass) Oh, wait. It's not.

Me: How do you know?

Burdy: It's not carrying a bindle stick.

- END SCENE -

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Big box stores

Big Box, Bigger Disappointment

Major chain stores have always smacked of a certain defeat to me.

Inside the big box bookstore, Glen Beck's new novel is displayed rather prominently, but there is nothing for a counterpoint, nothing in the "Radical Progressive" category, laid out in neat stacks on nearby tables. I put down the two books I have picked up in the last half hour and have a little debate in my head, weighing the merits of buying the books I have chosen for my mother's birthday present. The Plus? I can buy them and wrap them tonight and mail them tomorrow and it won't look entirely last-minute. The Minus? I have to buy them from this heinous chain store, with its whole sections on vampire lit, which is right past the stand of teen magazines, all of which feature Justin Beiber on their covers. I put the books back in their stacks and make a vow to visit my local bookstore tomorrow on my way home from work.

At the big box electronics store, the fiance mistakes my foot dragging and grumbling under my breath for not wanting to “nerd shop” with him. I consider this for a moment, that gadgets in general do nothing for me unless they had limited usefulness and were rendered obsolete by incumbent technology and were generally patented in between 1865 and 1985. No, I tell him, it's not that I mind shopping for nerd stuff with you. It's that we're here. For effect, I fan my arm out to take in the scene before us.

A man is holding an iPad no less than 3 centimeters from his face and clutching and unclutching his fist at regular intervals at chest level. I presume he is legally blind, but after he does not move (save for his hand) for a few uncomfortable minutes even as the family of five children around him go absolutely apeshit over the iPads THEY are holding, I am convinced that perhaps his fillings have interacted with the iPad's inner workings and that he either believes he is receiving messages from outer space, or he has become simultaneously magnetically suctioned to it and repulsed by it, a la Superman to Kyrptonite, and is acting out a very dramatic tussle with it, but all the effort of holding the iPad with one hand and clutching his fist with the other has left him with no energy to work his jaw into saying “Please help me. I need help”.

Somewhere, symphony music dripping with that the-underdog-is-running-his-field-goal-in-right-now-and-the-crowd-is-jumping-to-their-feet-in-slow-motion feeling is playing over a stereo system's speakers. Indeed, right around the corner, in the TV section, a live football game is being broadcast and it works, with eerie coincidence, really, really well, with the music. This, of course, clashes with the sound of Uzis emptying their clips and tanks rumbling over ravaged landscapes in the video games department. Occasionally, a sonic boom rattles the atmosphere as an RPG meets its target. I don't know which is more unnerving: the sound of the war scene being broadcast to everyone within earshot (including children) or the fact that I am actually considering the melodramatic music to be more offending to my eardrums.

The cash registers are noted by giant lighted cartoonish “price tags”; the place has all the charm and style points of a rodeo-sized arcade, which, it sort of is. There are buttons to press, plugs to pull, and screens to squint at. It's all here: Guns, sports, machinery, and the occasional flash of exuberant yellow logo to remind you that you are still in a retail environment, and not, say, a twelve year old boy's version of Heaven.

In the Wireless Devices Department, an overweight middle aged male employee looks absently ahead, then down at his cell phone, then up again, then down again. As far as I can tell, this is what he does for exactly eight hours a day every day here in the Wireless Devices Department. The fiance emerges from around a corner and says to me: Did you find what you were looking for? But, with my eyes transfixed on the carpet pattern (because the overhead fluorescent tube lights are making me nauseous) I mistake his good-natured inquisitiveness for the scripted lines of a sales associate and I am about to grumble FUCK OFF when I look up and realize it is my beloved. Oh, I say. Hey. No, I didn't. Can you find it for me? I'm tired of looking.

The truth is that I haven't really been looking so much as just passing my eyes over the rows and rows of protective glass and silicone condoms for cellular devices. They are all packaged in black boxes, and, were I illiterate, I might be forgiven for thinking they were boxes of or steroids, or bull semen, or nuclear waste or something so potent and volatile, the manufacturers had to package them with no less than three multipointed, starred warnings and five exclamation points each. One brand claims to have been developed and used by the US military and promises a lifetime guarantee against scratches, which is pictorially exemplified on the back of the box with a photo of a key being held to the screen of a phone. It's as if the marketing people didn't think the consumer would believe the words "SCRATCH RESISTANT BARRIER" or "LIFETIME GUARANTEE" but would once he saw the key on the back. "I didn't think you could make such a material, but here you have shown me this picture of a key being held up against the glass and NOOOO! Oh. Wait. I forgot it's protected with your space age technology! WHEW!"

It's not that I am anti-technology. Quite the opposite. I couldn't do half of what I enjoy in life without it: taking pictures, writing on a computer, talking to my brother every day on the phone. And overall, I am quite taken with it all. It is endlessly fascinating how it all works, and all works together. I can use my phone as wireless hotspot in places where none exist. I can take pictures with my phone, then upload them to another device that will store them infinitely, and then I can make copies and either print them, via a trip to the drug store with a storage device the size of a hair barrette, or post them to my blog. It's all so beautiful and synergistic, a ballet of a million pirouettes going faster than light.

It's the peripherals that I could do without. And the people who sell them. When I put my question, earlier in the night, to the sales associate at the store where I bought my phone, about whether or not they sold a wired headset to work with my phone, I am answered with a self conscious shake of shaggy hair out of eyes (only to have it fall back in, it IS the style, after all), and a mumbled Um... I don't have one right now. So, they make one, you just don't have one, right now, I clarify. And he answers in Finnish. Or Welsh. It's something I can't make out and there is more hair tousling and eye contact has been broken and I am left there, a thirty something unable to communicate with someone who is only, no doubt, a mere seven or eight years younger than me. A deep yawning divide has opened between us. On one side is me with perfect diction and forthrightness. And on the other side: a young man who has styled his hair to fall into his line of vision and who has lost the ability to focus on anything further away than the length of his arms.

Eventually the fiance calls over a sales associate and asks if they make a wired headset for my type of phone. Bluetooth devices seem so incredibly obnoxious to me and I have had, on more than one occasion, to turn my head and point to the pulsing blue light sticking out of my ear canal to kind strangers who simply want to know if I have signed this petition they are carrying clamped to a clipboard. My flagrant pointing says: Umm... Not now? Okay? Dummy? Can't you see I'm on the phone?

And their raised, apologetic eyebrows and mouthed “Oo! Sorry's” say: No, lady. Being ON THE PHONE would imply you have a phone to be on. What you have is a wireless signal being shot through your optic nerve and out your nose holes to your phone, which is in your coat pocket, which will then be shot into space and to another person's phone, probably in another time zone, how's that for a mind fuck, thank you very much? So, you are not ON the phone, now are you? If you were, I'd be able to see it, and I probably wouldn't have bothered you. But I guess “I'm receiving a satellite signal which I can hear in my one inch ear slug” doesn't have the same, shall we say, ring to it, now does it?

I'm opting for the wired headset because my hearing is pretty bad these days and two ears plugged (instead of one, Bluetoothed) just seems like it will provide more volume. I'm going for more square footage here. The sales girl points the fiance to a section of more black boxed and neon highlighted packages containing earbuds and wires. Which one for the Evo? he asks, mentioning my brand of phone by name. She fans her arm out to a small section of boxes and proclaims, “Any one of these”. The fiance thanks her and we both crouch down to get a better look. I feel like I am moving in slow motion. Suddenly, I am overcome with the urge to lay down on their swirling blue carpet and take a nap. I am so. Utterly. Bored.

So, how do you like your new Evo?, she asks the fiance. I finally look directly at her. From my crouched position, I shoot her eye-daggers that say “ I am the one with the phone, lady. Just because we're in this overlit rabbits warren of Chinese manufactured doodads doesn't mean there isn't something in here for us romantic types who just who are more interested in your carpet patterns than your merchandise!”

“Oh, I really love it”, I tell her. And I smile wickedly.

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mini photo journal

An Urban Walk: A Mini Photo Journal

Back when Tara used to live here, back when a popcorn bowl full of old maids passed for a "drum" during an impromptu roommate jam, back when the furniture didn't match and nobody cared, we used to go on long walks.</p>

We walked all over the city. Usually ten miles at a time. Usually after a night of heavy drinking. Those walks were magical.
...

Yesterday was the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for The Cure. My friend Victoria walked for her cousin Patty, who passed away from breast cancer a few years ago. As a sort-of homage to Victoria, and to Patty, who I've felt I've gotten to know over the years, and to Tara, who I miss having aroung in my daily life, I did my own little walk around town. I took my phone along.

I just love the unambiguous nature of old signage.

IMAG0273

</p>

Old buildings, too, have a purposefulness about them. I love old advertisements painted directly onto the brick.

</div>

IMAG0274

There's a famous nursery rhyme that goes with this one. It goes something like: "There was an old woman who lived in shoe/ Who had so many offers to buy her property she didn't know what to do/ So she stood her ground, and ignored their demands/ And she whipped them all soundly, because her house, it still stands." Or something like that. There are enormous new buildings looming around three sides of this little house. You can read about the whole affair here. It's not surprising that someone has already attempted to hitch their money-making wagon to this star. The banner is an advertisement for, you guessed it, a real estate developer. Tasteless.

IMAG0276

I'm on my way...

IMAG0278

The Fremont Bridge. Apparently, it is the most opened drawbridge in America.

IMAG0279

The Aurora Bridge

IMAG0280

Toxicity never looked so beautiful in the sunlight. The city's about to start churning up the soil underneath these old tankers to test for lakebed contamination. Any guesses as to what the results will be? My money's on Level "three-eyed fish" Contamination.

IMAG0281

A rare and fleeting glimpse of Fall 'round these parts. It doesn't last long.

IMAG0282

QUINT. E. SSENTIAL. Seattle in a nutshell right here, folks. All the rumors about us being nut crunchin', tree huggin', bubble blowin' hippies are true. When we the Seattle Tourism Board asks for a local representative, we send this guy.

IMAG0283

The University Bridge. It was a beautiful day for sailing. The bridges were getting their workouts.

IMAG0284

You don't see these much anymore. It was just so charming, I had to take a picture.

IMAG0285

If I was on a walking team for the Three Day Walk, this would be it.

IMAG0287

The upside down tomato planter. Proof to disbelieving Taller Younger Brother that these things really do work.</p>

I'm not a fan of graffiti on public signage or buildings... But this was a departure from the usual (lame-o) tags I've seen. Is that Klingon? Xhosa?

www.the350project.net

On the door of one of the most amazing little clothing stores in my 'hood. Check out The Frock Shop. And then check out The 350Project. Support little businesses like this when you can.

Art by Henry

I'm not sure what this guy's story is. All I know is that, paid or not, invited or not, this guy is making my neighborhood a whole lot more whimsical. He's Henry. And I like that he makes me feel like I am living inside the pages of a children's storybook.

The chestnut

This chestnut: the preferred ballistic of warring children everywhere ages 5 through 12. Burdy used to hurl these things at his neighbors growing up (don't worry; the targets eventually became his best childhood buddies). I remember hucking them onto the steep slope behind my friend's house, seeing who could get them to roll the furthest. I don't know what is is about them that makes them so throw-able. It wasn't until I was an adult that I found out that these things are FOOD. Chestnuts are edible. They're part of Christmas song lore, and New York City street carts in the Winter, for godsakes. And here I thought they were just kid-sized naval mines.</div>

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seattle bridges

An Urban Walk: A Mini Photo Journal

Back when Tara used to live here, back when a popcorn bowl full of old maids passed for a "drum" during an impromptu roommate jam, back when the furniture didn't match and nobody cared, we used to go on long walks.</p>

We walked all over the city. Usually ten miles at a time. Usually after a night of heavy drinking. Those walks were magical.
...

Yesterday was the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for The Cure. My friend Victoria walked for her cousin Patty, who passed away from breast cancer a few years ago. As a sort-of homage to Victoria, and to Patty, who I've felt I've gotten to know over the years, and to Tara, who I miss having aroung in my daily life, I did my own little walk around town. I took my phone along.

I just love the unambiguous nature of old signage.

IMAG0273

</p>

Old buildings, too, have a purposefulness about them. I love old advertisements painted directly onto the brick.

</div>

IMAG0274

There's a famous nursery rhyme that goes with this one. It goes something like: "There was an old woman who lived in shoe/ Who had so many offers to buy her property she didn't know what to do/ So she stood her ground, and ignored their demands/ And she whipped them all soundly, because her house, it still stands." Or something like that. There are enormous new buildings looming around three sides of this little house. You can read about the whole affair here. It's not surprising that someone has already attempted to hitch their money-making wagon to this star. The banner is an advertisement for, you guessed it, a real estate developer. Tasteless.

IMAG0276

I'm on my way...

IMAG0278

The Fremont Bridge. Apparently, it is the most opened drawbridge in America.

IMAG0279

The Aurora Bridge

IMAG0280

Toxicity never looked so beautiful in the sunlight. The city's about to start churning up the soil underneath these old tankers to test for lakebed contamination. Any guesses as to what the results will be? My money's on Level "three-eyed fish" Contamination.

IMAG0281

A rare and fleeting glimpse of Fall 'round these parts. It doesn't last long.

IMAG0282

QUINT. E. SSENTIAL. Seattle in a nutshell right here, folks. All the rumors about us being nut crunchin', tree huggin', bubble blowin' hippies are true. When we the Seattle Tourism Board asks for a local representative, we send this guy.

IMAG0283

The University Bridge. It was a beautiful day for sailing. The bridges were getting their workouts.

IMAG0284

You don't see these much anymore. It was just so charming, I had to take a picture.

IMAG0285

If I was on a walking team for the Three Day Walk, this would be it.

IMAG0287

The upside down tomato planter. Proof to disbelieving Taller Younger Brother that these things really do work.</p>

I'm not a fan of graffiti on public signage or buildings... But this was a departure from the usual (lame-o) tags I've seen. Is that Klingon? Xhosa?

www.the350project.net

On the door of one of the most amazing little clothing stores in my 'hood. Check out The Frock Shop. And then check out The 350Project. Support little businesses like this when you can.

Art by Henry

I'm not sure what this guy's story is. All I know is that, paid or not, invited or not, this guy is making my neighborhood a whole lot more whimsical. He's Henry. And I like that he makes me feel like I am living inside the pages of a children's storybook.

The chestnut

This chestnut: the preferred ballistic of warring children everywhere ages 5 through 12. Burdy used to hurl these things at his neighbors growing up (don't worry; the targets eventually became his best childhood buddies). I remember hucking them onto the steep slope behind my friend's house, seeing who could get them to roll the furthest. I don't know what is is about them that makes them so throw-able. It wasn't until I was an adult that I found out that these things are FOOD. Chestnuts are edible. They're part of Christmas song lore, and New York City street carts in the Winter, for godsakes. And here I thought they were just kid-sized naval mines.</div>

Continue to full post...

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upside down tomato planters

An Urban Walk: A Mini Photo Journal

Back when Tara used to live here, back when a popcorn bowl full of old maids passed for a "drum" during an impromptu roommate jam, back when the furniture didn't match and nobody cared, we used to go on long walks.</p>

We walked all over the city. Usually ten miles at a time. Usually after a night of heavy drinking. Those walks were magical.
...

Yesterday was the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for The Cure. My friend Victoria walked for her cousin Patty, who passed away from breast cancer a few years ago. As a sort-of homage to Victoria, and to Patty, who I've felt I've gotten to know over the years, and to Tara, who I miss having aroung in my daily life, I did my own little walk around town. I took my phone along.

I just love the unambiguous nature of old signage.

IMAG0273

</p>

Old buildings, too, have a purposefulness about them. I love old advertisements painted directly onto the brick.

</div>

IMAG0274

There's a famous nursery rhyme that goes with this one. It goes something like: "There was an old woman who lived in shoe/ Who had so many offers to buy her property she didn't know what to do/ So she stood her ground, and ignored their demands/ And she whipped them all soundly, because her house, it still stands." Or something like that. There are enormous new buildings looming around three sides of this little house. You can read about the whole affair here. It's not surprising that someone has already attempted to hitch their money-making wagon to this star. The banner is an advertisement for, you guessed it, a real estate developer. Tasteless.

IMAG0276

I'm on my way...

IMAG0278

The Fremont Bridge. Apparently, it is the most opened drawbridge in America.

IMAG0279

The Aurora Bridge

IMAG0280

Toxicity never looked so beautiful in the sunlight. The city's about to start churning up the soil underneath these old tankers to test for lakebed contamination. Any guesses as to what the results will be? My money's on Level "three-eyed fish" Contamination.

IMAG0281

A rare and fleeting glimpse of Fall 'round these parts. It doesn't last long.

IMAG0282

QUINT. E. SSENTIAL. Seattle in a nutshell right here, folks. All the rumors about us being nut crunchin', tree huggin', bubble blowin' hippies are true. When we the Seattle Tourism Board asks for a local representative, we send this guy.

IMAG0283

The University Bridge. It was a beautiful day for sailing. The bridges were getting their workouts.

IMAG0284

You don't see these much anymore. It was just so charming, I had to take a picture.

IMAG0285

If I was on a walking team for the Three Day Walk, this would be it.

IMAG0287

The upside down tomato planter. Proof to disbelieving Taller Younger Brother that these things really do work.</p>

I'm not a fan of graffiti on public signage or buildings... But this was a departure from the usual (lame-o) tags I've seen. Is that Klingon? Xhosa?

www.the350project.net

On the door of one of the most amazing little clothing stores in my 'hood. Check out The Frock Shop. And then check out The 350Project. Support little businesses like this when you can.

Art by Henry

I'm not sure what this guy's story is. All I know is that, paid or not, invited or not, this guy is making my neighborhood a whole lot more whimsical. He's Henry. And I like that he makes me feel like I am living inside the pages of a children's storybook.

The chestnut

This chestnut: the preferred ballistic of warring children everywhere ages 5 through 12. Burdy used to hurl these things at his neighbors growing up (don't worry; the targets eventually became his best childhood buddies). I remember hucking them onto the steep slope behind my friend's house, seeing who could get them to roll the furthest. I don't know what is is about them that makes them so throw-able. It wasn't until I was an adult that I found out that these things are FOOD. Chestnuts are edible. They're part of Christmas song lore, and New York City street carts in the Winter, for godsakes. And here I thought they were just kid-sized naval mines.</div>

Continue to full post...

Back to Top ↑

urban walk

An Urban Walk: A Mini Photo Journal

Back when Tara used to live here, back when a popcorn bowl full of old maids passed for a "drum" during an impromptu roommate jam, back when the furniture didn't match and nobody cared, we used to go on long walks.</p>

We walked all over the city. Usually ten miles at a time. Usually after a night of heavy drinking. Those walks were magical.
...

Yesterday was the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for The Cure. My friend Victoria walked for her cousin Patty, who passed away from breast cancer a few years ago. As a sort-of homage to Victoria, and to Patty, who I've felt I've gotten to know over the years, and to Tara, who I miss having aroung in my daily life, I did my own little walk around town. I took my phone along.

I just love the unambiguous nature of old signage.

IMAG0273

</p>

Old buildings, too, have a purposefulness about them. I love old advertisements painted directly onto the brick.

</div>

IMAG0274

There's a famous nursery rhyme that goes with this one. It goes something like: "There was an old woman who lived in shoe/ Who had so many offers to buy her property she didn't know what to do/ So she stood her ground, and ignored their demands/ And she whipped them all soundly, because her house, it still stands." Or something like that. There are enormous new buildings looming around three sides of this little house. You can read about the whole affair here. It's not surprising that someone has already attempted to hitch their money-making wagon to this star. The banner is an advertisement for, you guessed it, a real estate developer. Tasteless.

IMAG0276

I'm on my way...

IMAG0278

The Fremont Bridge. Apparently, it is the most opened drawbridge in America.

IMAG0279

The Aurora Bridge

IMAG0280

Toxicity never looked so beautiful in the sunlight. The city's about to start churning up the soil underneath these old tankers to test for lakebed contamination. Any guesses as to what the results will be? My money's on Level "three-eyed fish" Contamination.

IMAG0281

A rare and fleeting glimpse of Fall 'round these parts. It doesn't last long.

IMAG0282

QUINT. E. SSENTIAL. Seattle in a nutshell right here, folks. All the rumors about us being nut crunchin', tree huggin', bubble blowin' hippies are true. When we the Seattle Tourism Board asks for a local representative, we send this guy.

IMAG0283

The University Bridge. It was a beautiful day for sailing. The bridges were getting their workouts.

IMAG0284

You don't see these much anymore. It was just so charming, I had to take a picture.

IMAG0285

If I was on a walking team for the Three Day Walk, this would be it.

IMAG0287

The upside down tomato planter. Proof to disbelieving Taller Younger Brother that these things really do work.</p>

I'm not a fan of graffiti on public signage or buildings... But this was a departure from the usual (lame-o) tags I've seen. Is that Klingon? Xhosa?

www.the350project.net

On the door of one of the most amazing little clothing stores in my 'hood. Check out The Frock Shop. And then check out The 350Project. Support little businesses like this when you can.

Art by Henry

I'm not sure what this guy's story is. All I know is that, paid or not, invited or not, this guy is making my neighborhood a whole lot more whimsical. He's Henry. And I like that he makes me feel like I am living inside the pages of a children's storybook.

The chestnut

This chestnut: the preferred ballistic of warring children everywhere ages 5 through 12. Burdy used to hurl these things at his neighbors growing up (don't worry; the targets eventually became his best childhood buddies). I remember hucking them onto the steep slope behind my friend's house, seeing who could get them to roll the furthest. I don't know what is is about them that makes them so throw-able. It wasn't until I was an adult that I found out that these things are FOOD. Chestnuts are edible. They're part of Christmas song lore, and New York City street carts in the Winter, for godsakes. And here I thought they were just kid-sized naval mines.</div>

Continue to full post...

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how to honor the dead

Walking For A Cure (For My Stone Cold Heart)

After my walk on Sunday, I came home, guzzled some water, and put my feet up.

And then it was time for the closing ceremonies at the Three Day Walk For The Cure. Because, you know, it's not a real crying jag unless I'm suffocating on my own sobs.

Walk For the Cure

Time to get my cry on....

Walk For The Cure

You've never seen so much pink in a football stadium before.

Yep, bawled like a baby. BUT.

I have to admit something here. I am not a fan of walks, or runs, or giant, public awareness campaigns that involve banners and those inflatable clapper tubes. I've always thought that a majority of the money raised for those things went into printing cheap sponsor t-shirts and caps and keychains and the like. I also, having lost two grandparents to cancer, one twenty years ago, and one ten years ago, and Burdy's uncle nearly seven years ago, find it hard to believe we are any closer to finding a cure than we were decades ago. Many years ago, during a college class I was taking on Nutrition, the teacher asked everyone in the room to raise their hand if they personally knew anyone who had died of cancer. EVERYONE in the room raised their hand. The image of our class (more than 100 students) with their hands in the air haunts me to this day.

So, I'm a bit of a defeatist when it comes to cancer. I admit I don't know much about its history, or how long it's been with the human race. It seems to me a very modern disease, one made permissible only by our stressed-out, sedentary, addicted to convenience and chemicals, Western-diet lifestyle. It seems like finding a cure for cancer mandates that we find a "cure" for our modern lives.

But something happened to me this year when Victoria announced she would be walking again for her cousin Patty. Something shifted in me. The walk was no longer about raising money to find a cure for a disease that I didn't think curable. It was about honoring someone who meant a great deal to a great friend of mine.

When I saw those women and men walk into that stadium Sunday, filling it with their excitement and their indefatigable energy, I thought, this isn't a fundraiser; this is a ceremony to honor the dead and celebrate the living. This has nothing to do with the color pink, or the millions of dollars raised. This is a funeral march and a parade all at once.

As a culture, we don't publicly honor our dead with pom-poms and clapping. We do it quietly and in private. It was utterly transformative to see pictures of the dead pinned to clothing, to see women's names spelled out in glitter and held up on poster board, with the words "Mom" and "sister" and dates of birth and death next to them in a public place. This was a beautiful reminder that death is not an end, but just a transformation in the way we live with a person's energy.

Victoria talks about her cousin all the time. She tells me while we listen to music sometimes "Patty would have loved this song", or "Patty would be dancing on the tables with us right now!" She has taught me to redefine my relationship with death. She reminds me not to keep the memories of the dead to myself, but rather to shout them from rooftops, to proudly wear pink and endure the torture of blisters and bad weather to make sure that everyone knows that the dead are still with us in spirit.

Burdy's father passed away this summer and it was wholly shocking and fitting all at once. He was an older man, one who'd lived a fulfilling, challenging, and long life. His death was fitting because he was nearly 90 years old, but shocking because we just took for granted that he'd be with us forever. I still feel him with us every day. He laughs from his corner of the room when we tell jokes, he prods us to hurry up and have kids already, he tells us "It's okay" when we make mistakes. He is as alive to me as Patty is to Victoria.

So, this year, I went to the closing ceremonies of the Three Day Walk For The Cure to honor Victoria and Patty. And I cried so hard I couldn't catch my breath. Seeing those breast cancer survivors walk in at the end was moving beyond words. I wondered about chance, and strength, and the willingness to overcome, the power of positive thought, and the randomness of death. And it made me want to don a pink tutu and be there next year to clap my hands off when they crossed the finish line.

Something came over me inside that stadium. I realized I'd been looking at this whole event through very jaded eyes. Here in front of me was the real reason people participate in this event year after year. I swear to you, I had a moment where I felt like the Grinch when he hears those Whos singing on Christmas morning. My cynical little heart grew to three times its size. I was filled with something I haven't felt in a long time: love for perfect strangers. THAT'S the effect this thing has on people. It's the effect it had on me, anyway.

Perfect strangers touching the lives of others, reinforcing the power of positive thinking, reminding us to revisit all that we cherish in our lives, renewing our faith in the human spirit and in the mysteries around us. That's what this was about, wasn't it? The money, the pink hats, the motivational music and banners... those were incidental, weren't they? Those walkers, and all the people they represent when they walk...they dare us all on a daily basis to dream and to hope... even as we all face down the inevitability of our own mortality.

The Grinch gets it now.

Thanks, ladies.
-Your Future Cheering Section

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Three Day Walk For the Cure

Walking For A Cure (For My Stone Cold Heart)

After my walk on Sunday, I came home, guzzled some water, and put my feet up.

And then it was time for the closing ceremonies at the Three Day Walk For The Cure. Because, you know, it's not a real crying jag unless I'm suffocating on my own sobs.

Walk For the Cure

Time to get my cry on....

Walk For The Cure

You've never seen so much pink in a football stadium before.

Yep, bawled like a baby. BUT.

I have to admit something here. I am not a fan of walks, or runs, or giant, public awareness campaigns that involve banners and those inflatable clapper tubes. I've always thought that a majority of the money raised for those things went into printing cheap sponsor t-shirts and caps and keychains and the like. I also, having lost two grandparents to cancer, one twenty years ago, and one ten years ago, and Burdy's uncle nearly seven years ago, find it hard to believe we are any closer to finding a cure than we were decades ago. Many years ago, during a college class I was taking on Nutrition, the teacher asked everyone in the room to raise their hand if they personally knew anyone who had died of cancer. EVERYONE in the room raised their hand. The image of our class (more than 100 students) with their hands in the air haunts me to this day.

So, I'm a bit of a defeatist when it comes to cancer. I admit I don't know much about its history, or how long it's been with the human race. It seems to me a very modern disease, one made permissible only by our stressed-out, sedentary, addicted to convenience and chemicals, Western-diet lifestyle. It seems like finding a cure for cancer mandates that we find a "cure" for our modern lives.

But something happened to me this year when Victoria announced she would be walking again for her cousin Patty. Something shifted in me. The walk was no longer about raising money to find a cure for a disease that I didn't think curable. It was about honoring someone who meant a great deal to a great friend of mine.

When I saw those women and men walk into that stadium Sunday, filling it with their excitement and their indefatigable energy, I thought, this isn't a fundraiser; this is a ceremony to honor the dead and celebrate the living. This has nothing to do with the color pink, or the millions of dollars raised. This is a funeral march and a parade all at once.

As a culture, we don't publicly honor our dead with pom-poms and clapping. We do it quietly and in private. It was utterly transformative to see pictures of the dead pinned to clothing, to see women's names spelled out in glitter and held up on poster board, with the words "Mom" and "sister" and dates of birth and death next to them in a public place. This was a beautiful reminder that death is not an end, but just a transformation in the way we live with a person's energy.

Victoria talks about her cousin all the time. She tells me while we listen to music sometimes "Patty would have loved this song", or "Patty would be dancing on the tables with us right now!" She has taught me to redefine my relationship with death. She reminds me not to keep the memories of the dead to myself, but rather to shout them from rooftops, to proudly wear pink and endure the torture of blisters and bad weather to make sure that everyone knows that the dead are still with us in spirit.

Burdy's father passed away this summer and it was wholly shocking and fitting all at once. He was an older man, one who'd lived a fulfilling, challenging, and long life. His death was fitting because he was nearly 90 years old, but shocking because we just took for granted that he'd be with us forever. I still feel him with us every day. He laughs from his corner of the room when we tell jokes, he prods us to hurry up and have kids already, he tells us "It's okay" when we make mistakes. He is as alive to me as Patty is to Victoria.

So, this year, I went to the closing ceremonies of the Three Day Walk For The Cure to honor Victoria and Patty. And I cried so hard I couldn't catch my breath. Seeing those breast cancer survivors walk in at the end was moving beyond words. I wondered about chance, and strength, and the willingness to overcome, the power of positive thought, and the randomness of death. And it made me want to don a pink tutu and be there next year to clap my hands off when they crossed the finish line.

Something came over me inside that stadium. I realized I'd been looking at this whole event through very jaded eyes. Here in front of me was the real reason people participate in this event year after year. I swear to you, I had a moment where I felt like the Grinch when he hears those Whos singing on Christmas morning. My cynical little heart grew to three times its size. I was filled with something I haven't felt in a long time: love for perfect strangers. THAT'S the effect this thing has on people. It's the effect it had on me, anyway.

Perfect strangers touching the lives of others, reinforcing the power of positive thinking, reminding us to revisit all that we cherish in our lives, renewing our faith in the human spirit and in the mysteries around us. That's what this was about, wasn't it? The money, the pink hats, the motivational music and banners... those were incidental, weren't they? Those walkers, and all the people they represent when they walk...they dare us all on a daily basis to dream and to hope... even as we all face down the inevitability of our own mortality.

The Grinch gets it now.

Thanks, ladies.
-Your Future Cheering Section

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Beard Papa

Captain Creampuff and the Angry Letter To The Bank

Tuesday was just a typical day at the office.

First, I wrote a nice letter to the local bank and included it with my mail-in deposit.

Then I had lunch in the International District.

Then, I went down the street and picked up some snacks for my afternoon client meeting.

At a place called "Beard Papa's". That's right. The name of the Cream Puff place was BEARD PAPA'S. What the hell, right?

My first impression was that the marketing team behind Beard Papa's had decided that French pastries were synonymous with kindly sea captains. It made me wonder: are these pastries filled with creamed cod? Were they harvested from the sea floor? WHAT THE FUCK, JAPAN? WHO'S IN CHARGE OVER THERE?

Anywho, they were delicious. I got the standard vanilla kind (and green tea for my client). The woman who filled them right before my eyes was wearing a get-up not unlike the pour souls at Hot Dog On A Stick have to wear, but unlike the HDOS people, she looked incredibly proud to be wearing her yellow puff hat and yellow cravat. There was a bit of a language barrier, so I had to do a lot of pointing and smiling to get my stack of cream puffs in a cup. Also, she did a little mini-bow of gratitude at the end of our transaction. I bowed back. How culturally aware of me, right?

I had to find out what this place was all about, so I Googled Beard Papa when I got home. Weirder than buying French pastries from a Japanese woman dressed like an American hot dog vendor clown? The "Beard Papa Story". Prepare to have your mind blown. Seriously, Japan. I will never understand you. Thanks for the cream puffs, though.

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BECU?

Captain Creampuff and the Angry Letter To The Bank

Tuesday was just a typical day at the office.

First, I wrote a nice letter to the local bank and included it with my mail-in deposit.

Then I had lunch in the International District.

Then, I went down the street and picked up some snacks for my afternoon client meeting.

At a place called "Beard Papa's". That's right. The name of the Cream Puff place was BEARD PAPA'S. What the hell, right?

My first impression was that the marketing team behind Beard Papa's had decided that French pastries were synonymous with kindly sea captains. It made me wonder: are these pastries filled with creamed cod? Were they harvested from the sea floor? WHAT THE FUCK, JAPAN? WHO'S IN CHARGE OVER THERE?

Anywho, they were delicious. I got the standard vanilla kind (and green tea for my client). The woman who filled them right before my eyes was wearing a get-up not unlike the pour souls at Hot Dog On A Stick have to wear, but unlike the HDOS people, she looked incredibly proud to be wearing her yellow puff hat and yellow cravat. There was a bit of a language barrier, so I had to do a lot of pointing and smiling to get my stack of cream puffs in a cup. Also, she did a little mini-bow of gratitude at the end of our transaction. I bowed back. How culturally aware of me, right?

I had to find out what this place was all about, so I Googled Beard Papa when I got home. Weirder than buying French pastries from a Japanese woman dressed like an American hot dog vendor clown? The "Beard Papa Story". Prepare to have your mind blown. Seriously, Japan. I will never understand you. Thanks for the cream puffs, though.

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cream puffs from Asia

Captain Creampuff and the Angry Letter To The Bank

Tuesday was just a typical day at the office.

First, I wrote a nice letter to the local bank and included it with my mail-in deposit.

Then I had lunch in the International District.

Then, I went down the street and picked up some snacks for my afternoon client meeting.

At a place called "Beard Papa's". That's right. The name of the Cream Puff place was BEARD PAPA'S. What the hell, right?

My first impression was that the marketing team behind Beard Papa's had decided that French pastries were synonymous with kindly sea captains. It made me wonder: are these pastries filled with creamed cod? Were they harvested from the sea floor? WHAT THE FUCK, JAPAN? WHO'S IN CHARGE OVER THERE?

Anywho, they were delicious. I got the standard vanilla kind (and green tea for my client). The woman who filled them right before my eyes was wearing a get-up not unlike the pour souls at Hot Dog On A Stick have to wear, but unlike the HDOS people, she looked incredibly proud to be wearing her yellow puff hat and yellow cravat. There was a bit of a language barrier, so I had to do a lot of pointing and smiling to get my stack of cream puffs in a cup. Also, she did a little mini-bow of gratitude at the end of our transaction. I bowed back. How culturally aware of me, right?

I had to find out what this place was all about, so I Googled Beard Papa when I got home. Weirder than buying French pastries from a Japanese woman dressed like an American hot dog vendor clown? The "Beard Papa Story". Prepare to have your mind blown. Seriously, Japan. I will never understand you. Thanks for the cream puffs, though.

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where the hell are my deposit slips

Captain Creampuff and the Angry Letter To The Bank

Tuesday was just a typical day at the office.

First, I wrote a nice letter to the local bank and included it with my mail-in deposit.

Then I had lunch in the International District.

Then, I went down the street and picked up some snacks for my afternoon client meeting.

At a place called "Beard Papa's". That's right. The name of the Cream Puff place was BEARD PAPA'S. What the hell, right?

My first impression was that the marketing team behind Beard Papa's had decided that French pastries were synonymous with kindly sea captains. It made me wonder: are these pastries filled with creamed cod? Were they harvested from the sea floor? WHAT THE FUCK, JAPAN? WHO'S IN CHARGE OVER THERE?

Anywho, they were delicious. I got the standard vanilla kind (and green tea for my client). The woman who filled them right before my eyes was wearing a get-up not unlike the pour souls at Hot Dog On A Stick have to wear, but unlike the HDOS people, she looked incredibly proud to be wearing her yellow puff hat and yellow cravat. There was a bit of a language barrier, so I had to do a lot of pointing and smiling to get my stack of cream puffs in a cup. Also, she did a little mini-bow of gratitude at the end of our transaction. I bowed back. How culturally aware of me, right?

I had to find out what this place was all about, so I Googled Beard Papa when I got home. Weirder than buying French pastries from a Japanese woman dressed like an American hot dog vendor clown? The "Beard Papa Story". Prepare to have your mind blown. Seriously, Japan. I will never understand you. Thanks for the cream puffs, though.

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blastocystis

I Got Worms!

It's been a week of procrastinating... wasting time, and generally being ineffective. Oh, who am I kidding ? It's been a whole month of that. It's been a whole YEAR of that.

Take, for instance, the directive from my doctor to poop in a to-go container and then mail it to a lab. Do you think I ran right home and did it? Of course not! I let that kit sit on the toilet tank for four whole days before I could get up the nerve to open it.

Wait. I didn't tell you about the poop in the to-go container, did I?

Listen. This is the Internet, right? The place where everyone can feel safe and secure talking about their most private moments, right? The place where no one is subjected to public ridicule because of their parasitic orientation, right? That's what the Internet was designed for, no? So, I'm just gonna drop the facade that I have any dignity left at all, and I'm going to tell you something very unpleasant about myself:

I have parasites.

PARASITES! Microbial beings that have actually entered my body and have latched on to the lining of my intestines and are causing my body great harm! Eating my cheese doodles and drinking my lattes and using my guts for their living room!

Now, I know I've posted quite a bit about my bizarre health maladies these past few years, so I can understand if you're sick of this litany of complaints. (That makes two of us, pardner. And two points for me for the double entendre!) It's not like I have something dramatic and obvious wrong with me like, say, leprosy. THAT would be a good excuse to not to go to work in the morning. No, I have something far more banal. I've got worms.

Roundworms, to be exact. And also protozoa.

Seriously. All this digestive stuff, ALL OF IT, probably has been caused by these mothereffin' worms. All these sensitivities to eggs and wheat and dairy.... all this stuff that has been on the no-eat list for so long... it's probably because of the worms.

My doctor, who is awesome, took me quite seriously when I went to her a few weeks ago and said that I felt like I was five months pregnant after every meal. My stomach would bloat and it would be no trouble at all getting someone to give up their seat on a bus for me. It was getting to be a little ridiculous. So I went to her and asked if she would write me a prescription for an abdominal x-ray because I was beginning to think the whole legend of being able to grow a watermelon inside you because you'd swallowed a seed was true.

Anywho, my doctor, who is awesome, obliged me. She wrote me that prescription (um.... $1,400 for that bad boy, by the way, so I skipped it and decided living with a melon-gut was better than not being able to afford rent). She also suggested, just for shits and giggles (oh, will it ever stop?) that I take a "stool" test.

Um, stool test, I asked? I understood pee test. That was easy. That's self administered and simple: I shamefacedly handed a cup of warm urine to a nurse without making eye contact and it would be like it never happened. But, um, stool test? That's a far cry from a mostly inconspicuous cup of pee. I mean, a pee cup is small. It fits in the palm of your hand. Hell, the pee cup is nearly the color of my hand. For all anyone knows, I am just high-fiving the nurse after using the bathroom. But poop? That's different. There's no getting around handing a live human being your own feces. Plus, who can poop on command? What if I got into the bathroom at the doctor's office and discovered that I just couldn't go? And then what if I was in that doctor's bathroom for an inordinate amount of time and then someone came and knocked on the door to make sure I was still alive, but what if I wasn't alive because the stress of having to poop under duress plus the embarrassment of having everyone in the doctor's office know what I was doing had caused, at that very moment, a blood vessel in my head to RUPTURE, and I fell off the toilet and hit my mouth on the toilet paper dispenser so hard I knocked my front teeth right out of my mouth just as the nurse was breaking down the door and she could never use that bathroom again she was so traumatized and everyone at my funeral would know I was dead and toothless from the effort of trying to poop into a tiny sample jar? WHAT THEN?

While I was imagining all this, my doctor was busy filling out paperwork and digging a small cardboard box out of her desk drawer. Here ya go, she said, cheerily, and handed me the box. I took it from her and saw that it had an address stamped on it. An address. To a lab in another city. In another state. I would be mailing my poop. I could do this in the privacy of my own home. There would be no ruptured blood vessels, no untimely death, no traumatized medical personnel. Hooray!

Hooray? You still have to poop into something, dumbass, I reminded myself. There's still the risk of (gag) contima(gag)tion. Like, getting it on (dry heave) your ha(dry heave)nds and stuff.

I don't just have one parasite. I have TWO. TWO little fuckers living in my body making me all bloaty and cranky.

Here's the lowdown:

There's some controversy about whether these two bugs cause any symptoms at all. Some argue that they are asymptomatic, that lots of people walk around this earth with parasites ALL THE TIME. But some people have things happen when these things get into their systems. Some people, who are, say, chronically stressed out, and who dream at night of apocalyptic world-ending subject matter, and whose adrenal glands have taken a beating the past few years, well, those people don't do so well with small beings living in their guts.

My doctor, who is awesome, drew me a little diagram of what has happened to my once strong and mighty intestinal lining. The cells that line my intestines used to live very close together. But stress (and the critters) have caused them to spread apart and create gaps. And those gaps have allowed food to get directly into my bloodstream. My bloodstream, unhappy at receiving huge chunks of partially digested food, has created antibodies against that food. So, when I eat that food again and again, my blood attacks it like a foreign invader. And it never gets broken down into the tiny nutritional pieces my body needs.

And that, Internet, is why, even without a positive allergic reaction to wheat, even without a positive reading for Celiac disease, I cannot digest gluten without feeling like I've just swallowed a mind-altering, lethargy-inducing tablet the size and shape of a watermelon.

Can I just get an AMEN for finally understanding what the holy hell is going on with my digestion?

Here's the thing about finding out you have parasites: everything in your life becomes suspect. I can't help wonder HOW ON EARTH I could have gotten these things and not noticed. Where are the skin rashes? Where are the entry site wounds?

Of course, there was that time I fell in that hole in the asphalt at the park and gouged my leg from my kneecap to my ankle...

Or all those weird lumps on my leg I thought were spider bites. And there's also all the bodies of water I've been swimming in in the past few years....

Anywho, everything I touch now, I regard with suspicion. Grapes from Chile in my refrigerator? I know I washed you, but I dunno... was it you? What about that one time I ran barefoot around a muddy park late at night that I found out was a HORSE TRACK the next morning? I'm recalling one by one all the brushes with nature I've had recently where parasites might have been involved. And you know how that can go. I mean, you know I dream about the Apocalypse at least once a month, right? SO, it's really no stretch for me to imagine that every single thing in my house, IN MY LIFE, is crawling with infectious microorganisms. I mean, did it come in on the bottom of my shoes? From a public bathroom? From the doors on the bus? From food? If so, which food? Mexican? Thai? Chinese? Greek? That one time I ate at Olive Garden just to see if I really did feel like family? My favorite sushi restaurant? OH GOD. Not the sushi restaurant. Don't make me think about the chef not washing his hands. Noooooo oo oo oo o o.

All I can freakin' think about are those parasites. What they look like. What they're doing in my body. What they've been eating. How they're going to die horrible traumatic deaths in the next 24 hours because I just took a drug that is so potent the side affects include rash, dizziness, headache, vomiting, and fever. Yeah! Take that, worms!

Mostly, though, I've been thinking: HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN?

Let's review the evidence, shall we? Offender Number One: Blastocystis Hominis.

From Wikipedia: "Blastocystis is a genus of single-celled protozoan....The extent to which human-human, human-animal, and animal-human transmission occurs is still unknown. Fecal-oral (gag) tans(gag) mission is the most accepted (dry heave) pathway."

I. Can't. Even. Think. About. It.

Moving on. Offender Number Two: Strongyloides stercoralis. Also from Wikipedia: "Strongyloidiasis appears to have a high prevalence in some areas of Brazil and Central America".

Let's review the places I've traveled in the past five years:

Brazil
Panama
Costa Rica

A few years before that? Mexico.

A few years before that? Peru, Bolivia, Chile.

I'd say that I put the port back into opportunistic, no? Get it? Nudge nudge, wink wink?

I'm reading "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" right now (which you should buy because a portion of the book sales goes towards a scholarship fund which you will understand the importance of once you read the book. Seriously. Read this book. Donate to the scholarship fund). The book is about the woman whose cancer cells (taken from her body without her consent) have helped scientists the world over develop treatments for many common human diseases. I've always been fascinated by how the body works and how it adapts in all its myriad ways to disease. My body, according to my awesome doctor, has been operating in "Hang In There, Tiger" mode for some time now... just barely making enough hormones and Vitamin D to keep me functioning, but not thriving. Amazing, really, that I am not a trembling mass of goo and bones at this point.

I'm almost... nervous? excited? about killing these things. I feel like a little kid waiting up all night for Santa. Will I see the little buggers come out? I have this idea that I'm going to get up from the toilet tomorrow morning and see something that will tell me that they're out and then I'll flip them the double bird and be like “See ya LATER Strongoloides! Guess you weren't that STRONGoloides after all, were ya? Couldn't stand up to the ol' Ivermectin, huh? Serves you right, you stupid worm! The whole Internet knows you were in there and we're just waiting for you to come out so we can kick your ASS! You thought you could mess with this tough old broad, did ya? Well, you were wrong! I mean, you were right for a while there. Like maybe even for years. Like maybe even a decade...there's really no way of telling.... But NOW who's got the upper hand, huh, Strongoloides? Not so fancy now, are ya? You get on outta here! And don't come back, y'hear?"

And with that I would flush the toilet with a single bash from my fist, ala Fonzerelli, and then swagger on out of the bathroom with my thumbs hooked in my belt loops.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way. But I'm going to hold on to the fantasy that roundworms are capable of feeling shame and remorse and that, if the drugs don't do them in, they'll die of public embarrassment.

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guess who has parasites? strongoloides

I Got Worms!

It's been a week of procrastinating... wasting time, and generally being ineffective. Oh, who am I kidding ? It's been a whole month of that. It's been a whole YEAR of that.

Take, for instance, the directive from my doctor to poop in a to-go container and then mail it to a lab. Do you think I ran right home and did it? Of course not! I let that kit sit on the toilet tank for four whole days before I could get up the nerve to open it.

Wait. I didn't tell you about the poop in the to-go container, did I?

Listen. This is the Internet, right? The place where everyone can feel safe and secure talking about their most private moments, right? The place where no one is subjected to public ridicule because of their parasitic orientation, right? That's what the Internet was designed for, no? So, I'm just gonna drop the facade that I have any dignity left at all, and I'm going to tell you something very unpleasant about myself:

I have parasites.

PARASITES! Microbial beings that have actually entered my body and have latched on to the lining of my intestines and are causing my body great harm! Eating my cheese doodles and drinking my lattes and using my guts for their living room!

Now, I know I've posted quite a bit about my bizarre health maladies these past few years, so I can understand if you're sick of this litany of complaints. (That makes two of us, pardner. And two points for me for the double entendre!) It's not like I have something dramatic and obvious wrong with me like, say, leprosy. THAT would be a good excuse to not to go to work in the morning. No, I have something far more banal. I've got worms.

Roundworms, to be exact. And also protozoa.

Seriously. All this digestive stuff, ALL OF IT, probably has been caused by these mothereffin' worms. All these sensitivities to eggs and wheat and dairy.... all this stuff that has been on the no-eat list for so long... it's probably because of the worms.

My doctor, who is awesome, took me quite seriously when I went to her a few weeks ago and said that I felt like I was five months pregnant after every meal. My stomach would bloat and it would be no trouble at all getting someone to give up their seat on a bus for me. It was getting to be a little ridiculous. So I went to her and asked if she would write me a prescription for an abdominal x-ray because I was beginning to think the whole legend of being able to grow a watermelon inside you because you'd swallowed a seed was true.

Anywho, my doctor, who is awesome, obliged me. She wrote me that prescription (um.... $1,400 for that bad boy, by the way, so I skipped it and decided living with a melon-gut was better than not being able to afford rent). She also suggested, just for shits and giggles (oh, will it ever stop?) that I take a "stool" test.

Um, stool test, I asked? I understood pee test. That was easy. That's self administered and simple: I shamefacedly handed a cup of warm urine to a nurse without making eye contact and it would be like it never happened. But, um, stool test? That's a far cry from a mostly inconspicuous cup of pee. I mean, a pee cup is small. It fits in the palm of your hand. Hell, the pee cup is nearly the color of my hand. For all anyone knows, I am just high-fiving the nurse after using the bathroom. But poop? That's different. There's no getting around handing a live human being your own feces. Plus, who can poop on command? What if I got into the bathroom at the doctor's office and discovered that I just couldn't go? And then what if I was in that doctor's bathroom for an inordinate amount of time and then someone came and knocked on the door to make sure I was still alive, but what if I wasn't alive because the stress of having to poop under duress plus the embarrassment of having everyone in the doctor's office know what I was doing had caused, at that very moment, a blood vessel in my head to RUPTURE, and I fell off the toilet and hit my mouth on the toilet paper dispenser so hard I knocked my front teeth right out of my mouth just as the nurse was breaking down the door and she could never use that bathroom again she was so traumatized and everyone at my funeral would know I was dead and toothless from the effort of trying to poop into a tiny sample jar? WHAT THEN?

While I was imagining all this, my doctor was busy filling out paperwork and digging a small cardboard box out of her desk drawer. Here ya go, she said, cheerily, and handed me the box. I took it from her and saw that it had an address stamped on it. An address. To a lab in another city. In another state. I would be mailing my poop. I could do this in the privacy of my own home. There would be no ruptured blood vessels, no untimely death, no traumatized medical personnel. Hooray!

Hooray? You still have to poop into something, dumbass, I reminded myself. There's still the risk of (gag) contima(gag)tion. Like, getting it on (dry heave) your ha(dry heave)nds and stuff.

I don't just have one parasite. I have TWO. TWO little fuckers living in my body making me all bloaty and cranky.

Here's the lowdown:

There's some controversy about whether these two bugs cause any symptoms at all. Some argue that they are asymptomatic, that lots of people walk around this earth with parasites ALL THE TIME. But some people have things happen when these things get into their systems. Some people, who are, say, chronically stressed out, and who dream at night of apocalyptic world-ending subject matter, and whose adrenal glands have taken a beating the past few years, well, those people don't do so well with small beings living in their guts.

My doctor, who is awesome, drew me a little diagram of what has happened to my once strong and mighty intestinal lining. The cells that line my intestines used to live very close together. But stress (and the critters) have caused them to spread apart and create gaps. And those gaps have allowed food to get directly into my bloodstream. My bloodstream, unhappy at receiving huge chunks of partially digested food, has created antibodies against that food. So, when I eat that food again and again, my blood attacks it like a foreign invader. And it never gets broken down into the tiny nutritional pieces my body needs.

And that, Internet, is why, even without a positive allergic reaction to wheat, even without a positive reading for Celiac disease, I cannot digest gluten without feeling like I've just swallowed a mind-altering, lethargy-inducing tablet the size and shape of a watermelon.

Can I just get an AMEN for finally understanding what the holy hell is going on with my digestion?

Here's the thing about finding out you have parasites: everything in your life becomes suspect. I can't help wonder HOW ON EARTH I could have gotten these things and not noticed. Where are the skin rashes? Where are the entry site wounds?

Of course, there was that time I fell in that hole in the asphalt at the park and gouged my leg from my kneecap to my ankle...

Or all those weird lumps on my leg I thought were spider bites. And there's also all the bodies of water I've been swimming in in the past few years....

Anywho, everything I touch now, I regard with suspicion. Grapes from Chile in my refrigerator? I know I washed you, but I dunno... was it you? What about that one time I ran barefoot around a muddy park late at night that I found out was a HORSE TRACK the next morning? I'm recalling one by one all the brushes with nature I've had recently where parasites might have been involved. And you know how that can go. I mean, you know I dream about the Apocalypse at least once a month, right? SO, it's really no stretch for me to imagine that every single thing in my house, IN MY LIFE, is crawling with infectious microorganisms. I mean, did it come in on the bottom of my shoes? From a public bathroom? From the doors on the bus? From food? If so, which food? Mexican? Thai? Chinese? Greek? That one time I ate at Olive Garden just to see if I really did feel like family? My favorite sushi restaurant? OH GOD. Not the sushi restaurant. Don't make me think about the chef not washing his hands. Noooooo oo oo oo o o.

All I can freakin' think about are those parasites. What they look like. What they're doing in my body. What they've been eating. How they're going to die horrible traumatic deaths in the next 24 hours because I just took a drug that is so potent the side affects include rash, dizziness, headache, vomiting, and fever. Yeah! Take that, worms!

Mostly, though, I've been thinking: HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN?

Let's review the evidence, shall we? Offender Number One: Blastocystis Hominis.

From Wikipedia: "Blastocystis is a genus of single-celled protozoan....The extent to which human-human, human-animal, and animal-human transmission occurs is still unknown. Fecal-oral (gag) tans(gag) mission is the most accepted (dry heave) pathway."

I. Can't. Even. Think. About. It.

Moving on. Offender Number Two: Strongyloides stercoralis. Also from Wikipedia: "Strongyloidiasis appears to have a high prevalence in some areas of Brazil and Central America".

Let's review the places I've traveled in the past five years:

Brazil
Panama
Costa Rica

A few years before that? Mexico.

A few years before that? Peru, Bolivia, Chile.

I'd say that I put the port back into opportunistic, no? Get it? Nudge nudge, wink wink?

I'm reading "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" right now (which you should buy because a portion of the book sales goes towards a scholarship fund which you will understand the importance of once you read the book. Seriously. Read this book. Donate to the scholarship fund). The book is about the woman whose cancer cells (taken from her body without her consent) have helped scientists the world over develop treatments for many common human diseases. I've always been fascinated by how the body works and how it adapts in all its myriad ways to disease. My body, according to my awesome doctor, has been operating in "Hang In There, Tiger" mode for some time now... just barely making enough hormones and Vitamin D to keep me functioning, but not thriving. Amazing, really, that I am not a trembling mass of goo and bones at this point.

I'm almost... nervous? excited? about killing these things. I feel like a little kid waiting up all night for Santa. Will I see the little buggers come out? I have this idea that I'm going to get up from the toilet tomorrow morning and see something that will tell me that they're out and then I'll flip them the double bird and be like “See ya LATER Strongoloides! Guess you weren't that STRONGoloides after all, were ya? Couldn't stand up to the ol' Ivermectin, huh? Serves you right, you stupid worm! The whole Internet knows you were in there and we're just waiting for you to come out so we can kick your ASS! You thought you could mess with this tough old broad, did ya? Well, you were wrong! I mean, you were right for a while there. Like maybe even for years. Like maybe even a decade...there's really no way of telling.... But NOW who's got the upper hand, huh, Strongoloides? Not so fancy now, are ya? You get on outta here! And don't come back, y'hear?"

And with that I would flush the toilet with a single bash from my fist, ala Fonzerelli, and then swagger on out of the bathroom with my thumbs hooked in my belt loops.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way. But I'm going to hold on to the fantasy that roundworms are capable of feeling shame and remorse and that, if the drugs don't do them in, they'll die of public embarrassment.

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never run in the dark without your shoes on

I Got Worms!

It's been a week of procrastinating... wasting time, and generally being ineffective. Oh, who am I kidding ? It's been a whole month of that. It's been a whole YEAR of that.

Take, for instance, the directive from my doctor to poop in a to-go container and then mail it to a lab. Do you think I ran right home and did it? Of course not! I let that kit sit on the toilet tank for four whole days before I could get up the nerve to open it.

Wait. I didn't tell you about the poop in the to-go container, did I?

Listen. This is the Internet, right? The place where everyone can feel safe and secure talking about their most private moments, right? The place where no one is subjected to public ridicule because of their parasitic orientation, right? That's what the Internet was designed for, no? So, I'm just gonna drop the facade that I have any dignity left at all, and I'm going to tell you something very unpleasant about myself:

I have parasites.

PARASITES! Microbial beings that have actually entered my body and have latched on to the lining of my intestines and are causing my body great harm! Eating my cheese doodles and drinking my lattes and using my guts for their living room!

Now, I know I've posted quite a bit about my bizarre health maladies these past few years, so I can understand if you're sick of this litany of complaints. (That makes two of us, pardner. And two points for me for the double entendre!) It's not like I have something dramatic and obvious wrong with me like, say, leprosy. THAT would be a good excuse to not to go to work in the morning. No, I have something far more banal. I've got worms.

Roundworms, to be exact. And also protozoa.

Seriously. All this digestive stuff, ALL OF IT, probably has been caused by these mothereffin' worms. All these sensitivities to eggs and wheat and dairy.... all this stuff that has been on the no-eat list for so long... it's probably because of the worms.

My doctor, who is awesome, took me quite seriously when I went to her a few weeks ago and said that I felt like I was five months pregnant after every meal. My stomach would bloat and it would be no trouble at all getting someone to give up their seat on a bus for me. It was getting to be a little ridiculous. So I went to her and asked if she would write me a prescription for an abdominal x-ray because I was beginning to think the whole legend of being able to grow a watermelon inside you because you'd swallowed a seed was true.

Anywho, my doctor, who is awesome, obliged me. She wrote me that prescription (um.... $1,400 for that bad boy, by the way, so I skipped it and decided living with a melon-gut was better than not being able to afford rent). She also suggested, just for shits and giggles (oh, will it ever stop?) that I take a "stool" test.

Um, stool test, I asked? I understood pee test. That was easy. That's self administered and simple: I shamefacedly handed a cup of warm urine to a nurse without making eye contact and it would be like it never happened. But, um, stool test? That's a far cry from a mostly inconspicuous cup of pee. I mean, a pee cup is small. It fits in the palm of your hand. Hell, the pee cup is nearly the color of my hand. For all anyone knows, I am just high-fiving the nurse after using the bathroom. But poop? That's different. There's no getting around handing a live human being your own feces. Plus, who can poop on command? What if I got into the bathroom at the doctor's office and discovered that I just couldn't go? And then what if I was in that doctor's bathroom for an inordinate amount of time and then someone came and knocked on the door to make sure I was still alive, but what if I wasn't alive because the stress of having to poop under duress plus the embarrassment of having everyone in the doctor's office know what I was doing had caused, at that very moment, a blood vessel in my head to RUPTURE, and I fell off the toilet and hit my mouth on the toilet paper dispenser so hard I knocked my front teeth right out of my mouth just as the nurse was breaking down the door and she could never use that bathroom again she was so traumatized and everyone at my funeral would know I was dead and toothless from the effort of trying to poop into a tiny sample jar? WHAT THEN?

While I was imagining all this, my doctor was busy filling out paperwork and digging a small cardboard box out of her desk drawer. Here ya go, she said, cheerily, and handed me the box. I took it from her and saw that it had an address stamped on it. An address. To a lab in another city. In another state. I would be mailing my poop. I could do this in the privacy of my own home. There would be no ruptured blood vessels, no untimely death, no traumatized medical personnel. Hooray!

Hooray? You still have to poop into something, dumbass, I reminded myself. There's still the risk of (gag) contima(gag)tion. Like, getting it on (dry heave) your ha(dry heave)nds and stuff.

I don't just have one parasite. I have TWO. TWO little fuckers living in my body making me all bloaty and cranky.

Here's the lowdown:

There's some controversy about whether these two bugs cause any symptoms at all. Some argue that they are asymptomatic, that lots of people walk around this earth with parasites ALL THE TIME. But some people have things happen when these things get into their systems. Some people, who are, say, chronically stressed out, and who dream at night of apocalyptic world-ending subject matter, and whose adrenal glands have taken a beating the past few years, well, those people don't do so well with small beings living in their guts.

My doctor, who is awesome, drew me a little diagram of what has happened to my once strong and mighty intestinal lining. The cells that line my intestines used to live very close together. But stress (and the critters) have caused them to spread apart and create gaps. And those gaps have allowed food to get directly into my bloodstream. My bloodstream, unhappy at receiving huge chunks of partially digested food, has created antibodies against that food. So, when I eat that food again and again, my blood attacks it like a foreign invader. And it never gets broken down into the tiny nutritional pieces my body needs.

And that, Internet, is why, even without a positive allergic reaction to wheat, even without a positive reading for Celiac disease, I cannot digest gluten without feeling like I've just swallowed a mind-altering, lethargy-inducing tablet the size and shape of a watermelon.

Can I just get an AMEN for finally understanding what the holy hell is going on with my digestion?

Here's the thing about finding out you have parasites: everything in your life becomes suspect. I can't help wonder HOW ON EARTH I could have gotten these things and not noticed. Where are the skin rashes? Where are the entry site wounds?

Of course, there was that time I fell in that hole in the asphalt at the park and gouged my leg from my kneecap to my ankle...

Or all those weird lumps on my leg I thought were spider bites. And there's also all the bodies of water I've been swimming in in the past few years....

Anywho, everything I touch now, I regard with suspicion. Grapes from Chile in my refrigerator? I know I washed you, but I dunno... was it you? What about that one time I ran barefoot around a muddy park late at night that I found out was a HORSE TRACK the next morning? I'm recalling one by one all the brushes with nature I've had recently where parasites might have been involved. And you know how that can go. I mean, you know I dream about the Apocalypse at least once a month, right? SO, it's really no stretch for me to imagine that every single thing in my house, IN MY LIFE, is crawling with infectious microorganisms. I mean, did it come in on the bottom of my shoes? From a public bathroom? From the doors on the bus? From food? If so, which food? Mexican? Thai? Chinese? Greek? That one time I ate at Olive Garden just to see if I really did feel like family? My favorite sushi restaurant? OH GOD. Not the sushi restaurant. Don't make me think about the chef not washing his hands. Noooooo oo oo oo o o.

All I can freakin' think about are those parasites. What they look like. What they're doing in my body. What they've been eating. How they're going to die horrible traumatic deaths in the next 24 hours because I just took a drug that is so potent the side affects include rash, dizziness, headache, vomiting, and fever. Yeah! Take that, worms!

Mostly, though, I've been thinking: HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN?

Let's review the evidence, shall we? Offender Number One: Blastocystis Hominis.

From Wikipedia: "Blastocystis is a genus of single-celled protozoan....The extent to which human-human, human-animal, and animal-human transmission occurs is still unknown. Fecal-oral (gag) tans(gag) mission is the most accepted (dry heave) pathway."

I. Can't. Even. Think. About. It.

Moving on. Offender Number Two: Strongyloides stercoralis. Also from Wikipedia: "Strongyloidiasis appears to have a high prevalence in some areas of Brazil and Central America".

Let's review the places I've traveled in the past five years:

Brazil
Panama
Costa Rica

A few years before that? Mexico.

A few years before that? Peru, Bolivia, Chile.

I'd say that I put the port back into opportunistic, no? Get it? Nudge nudge, wink wink?

I'm reading "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" right now (which you should buy because a portion of the book sales goes towards a scholarship fund which you will understand the importance of once you read the book. Seriously. Read this book. Donate to the scholarship fund). The book is about the woman whose cancer cells (taken from her body without her consent) have helped scientists the world over develop treatments for many common human diseases. I've always been fascinated by how the body works and how it adapts in all its myriad ways to disease. My body, according to my awesome doctor, has been operating in "Hang In There, Tiger" mode for some time now... just barely making enough hormones and Vitamin D to keep me functioning, but not thriving. Amazing, really, that I am not a trembling mass of goo and bones at this point.

I'm almost... nervous? excited? about killing these things. I feel like a little kid waiting up all night for Santa. Will I see the little buggers come out? I have this idea that I'm going to get up from the toilet tomorrow morning and see something that will tell me that they're out and then I'll flip them the double bird and be like “See ya LATER Strongoloides! Guess you weren't that STRONGoloides after all, were ya? Couldn't stand up to the ol' Ivermectin, huh? Serves you right, you stupid worm! The whole Internet knows you were in there and we're just waiting for you to come out so we can kick your ASS! You thought you could mess with this tough old broad, did ya? Well, you were wrong! I mean, you were right for a while there. Like maybe even for years. Like maybe even a decade...there's really no way of telling.... But NOW who's got the upper hand, huh, Strongoloides? Not so fancy now, are ya? You get on outta here! And don't come back, y'hear?"

And with that I would flush the toilet with a single bash from my fist, ala Fonzerelli, and then swagger on out of the bathroom with my thumbs hooked in my belt loops.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way. But I'm going to hold on to the fantasy that roundworms are capable of feeling shame and remorse and that, if the drugs don't do them in, they'll die of public embarrassment.

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November

NaNoWriMo

Uh oh.

It's November again, isn't it?

Guess I'd better get out the arm restraints and the coffeepot. It's time to write another (terrible) novel.

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write your freakin' book already

NaNoWriMo

Uh oh.

It's November again, isn't it?

Guess I'd better get out the arm restraints and the coffeepot. It's time to write another (terrible) novel.

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No plot

Tricks Of The Trade

Well, It's Day 4 and I've got nothing so far. Just a bunch of stream of consciousness stuff written in the first person. The anti-novel, you might call it.

Since inspiration has not hit yet, I have busied myself by preparing the writing room. I kind of feel like an expectant mother folding tiny cloth diapers into a drawer waiting for the Big Day. Except pregnant ladies eventually birth their kids... and I'm not so sure at this point that I'm ever going to deliver this 50,000 pound baby.

1. I'm using a stack of books by some of my favorite authors as a riser for my laptop. Why not a real riser, you ask? Well, cheapness, for one. And two, I'm hoping for the miracle of digital plot-osmosis.

2. I've cleared off the rest of the desk and moved my favorite keyboard from my work desk to my writing desk. I've ~~thrown out~~ organized everything I had in my inbox so there are no distractions.

3. I've faced this gem of a gift from my sister in my direction so that when I lose my train of thought, his benevolent smile will goad me on. He comes from Iceland, where even writing instruments need winter coats. (I guess...)

Internet, meet Purple Bunny Pencil Warmer.

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purple bunny pencil warmer

Tricks Of The Trade

Well, It's Day 4 and I've got nothing so far. Just a bunch of stream of consciousness stuff written in the first person. The anti-novel, you might call it.

Since inspiration has not hit yet, I have busied myself by preparing the writing room. I kind of feel like an expectant mother folding tiny cloth diapers into a drawer waiting for the Big Day. Except pregnant ladies eventually birth their kids... and I'm not so sure at this point that I'm ever going to deliver this 50,000 pound baby.

1. I'm using a stack of books by some of my favorite authors as a riser for my laptop. Why not a real riser, you ask? Well, cheapness, for one. And two, I'm hoping for the miracle of digital plot-osmosis.

2. I've cleared off the rest of the desk and moved my favorite keyboard from my work desk to my writing desk. I've ~~thrown out~~ organized everything I had in my inbox so there are no distractions.

3. I've faced this gem of a gift from my sister in my direction so that when I lose my train of thought, his benevolent smile will goad me on. He comes from Iceland, where even writing instruments need winter coats. (I guess...)

Internet, meet Purple Bunny Pencil Warmer.

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Halfway there

Halfway There

Well, happy halfway mark, fellow writers. It's November 16th, which means that, sitting in computer files all around the world, half baked novels are awaiting their as-of-yet-unthought-of endings.

I'm dragging my feet today because I'm under the weather. It's making me not want to write, or go to work. About the only thing I can get excited for is the new Bubble Burst game I installed on my phone.

I'm trying to be okay with not filling every second of my day with writing. It's tough. I feel like I should be dedicating every spare moment of my time to this thing, but there's also other stuff to do. Stuff like surfing Craigslist on Saturday morning, making a snap decision about a piece of furniture, driving out of town to pick up friends truck to haul said piece of furniture back to house, bug downstairs neighbor (still in pajamas) to haul said piece up the stairs, turn house updside down in attempt to fit new piece of furniture in house, and then decide maybe buying piece of furniture was not the best idea I've ever had.

The only part of the house untouched by chaos is Burdy's half of the office. My part of the office is a minefield of unfinished art projects and boxes full of fabric and sewing paraphernalia, which you have to walk through to get to Burdy's side, so the poor man has about four square feet all to himself. I did finish hemming all my pants that needed hemming, so at least I won't be flopping around like a moron in too-long pants this winter. So, you know. Hooray for that.

Here's something to tide you over till the end of the month:

Bottle from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

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Dancing with the stars (of 19th century Norway)

The Mr. Yuk Sticker: Now A Handy Way to Label My Life

I'm beginning to think my doctor pulled a fast one on me. The horrible, horrible herbal tincture I have to drink to kill the second set of parasites is the most God-awful stuff on earth. Seriously. It's so bad it comes with a Mr. Yuk sticker on the bottle. That's right kids. You might want to consider downing the Dran-o before you touch this stuff. This stuff is POISON.

Imagine leaving a 25 gallon bag lawn of clippings, a bottle of nail polish remover, and about a dozen bicycle tires in a bathtub of old rainwater and you might come *close* to being able to imagine the flavor of this stuff. I'm beginning to think it actually IS old rainwater and tires and that my doctor just charged me $140.00 for the bottle just to see if I would actually hand over my credit card. I have to take it every day, three times a day, for the next THIRTY DAYS. And I can't tell if the stuff is working or not. It would be more tolerable, I think, if I could tell it was working. Like, if the parasites would scream a little every time I tilted my head back, you know, because they could smell it coming or something, THAT would make me feel better. But, no. I just have to swallow this crap and hope that it's killing SOMETHING down there. I DO know that my taste buds, the lining of my esophagus, and I'm pretty sure the outermost layer of skin on my gums are all dying. Yup, those are definitely dying. I can tell because those first doses made me feel like I had just swallowed a teaspoon of Ebola virus. After the first one or two, though, I finally got wise and utilized those early drinkin' day techniques and just opened up my throat and threw the stuff back without it even hitting my tongue. And here I thought my early twenties had taught me nothing....

I have been trying to avoid wheat lately. And eggs. And sugar. And dairy. Because, you know, the sugar is not going to help out my yeast problem. And the dairy and the wheat just cause inflammation. And the eggs... well, we're not sure exactly what the eggs are doing, just that they're in the red zone of the allergy test I took a few years back. So pretty much I'm eating boatloads of lentils and tomatoes and an occasional rice cracker. I have been experimenting with baking gluten free breads for a while now and I've gotten quite good at whipping up gluten free batches of cookies and pie crusts. Most of these recipes require a mix of flours, flours I usually have on hand, but which I may have run out of recently. You see, it's important not to get cocky about one's gluten free savoire -faire. It's very important to follow recipe directions to the T. When the recipe calls for potato starch, for instance, it's important to use potato starch and not, for instance, potato flour. Because, you might, for instance, even after the thirty minutes in the oven, wind up with a gummy, undercooked bread, and you might, for instance, throw your oven mitt in a blind rage at the pot of beans you've been boiling for an hour because you've ruined dinner, and you might, for instance, miss the pot and hit the burner instead and have to imagine explaining to a firefighter that the reason your apartment is on fire is because you are an impatient idiot who thinks "starch" and "flour" are interchangeable words. Burdy ran to the turntable and put on Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" after the whole fiasco. "You know", he said to me, "To soothe the savage beast?" And then darted out of the kitchen to avoid getting caught in the eleven foot stream of lasers shooting out of my eyes and my short, windmilling arms.

This whole having to swallow paint thinner three times a day combined with not being able to eat, oh, I dunno, about 75% of the things I have been eating most of my life is making me REAL cranky. Good thing I also signed up to write a novel in thirty days to make me less stressed out.

On a positive note: I am unnervingly excited about the holidays this year. The feeling of insatiable giddiness doesn't usually come on this early in the season. I usually spend most of December grousing about the weather and working twelve hours a day and having panic attacks over what to buy who until about December 22nd or so, when I am finally strapped into my seat aboard an airplane and can't do anything but crossword puzzles for six hours. But this year, I am filled with this uncanny calm. And, I can't believe I am actually going to admit this, but I am enjoying the cold weather a little bit (does that have something to do with the fact that being outdoors in the freezing cold flushes my cheeks a healthy shade of red, suggesting I am actually more robust and hale than a parasite-harboring, gluten-sensitive, sinus-infection-prone basket of nerves? Maaaaaaaybe.....) Anywho, I can't get George Michael's voice singing "Last Christmas" out of my head. Also? When I'm at the supermarket, I have to resist the urge to buy up the requisite ten pounds of nuts, fifteen pounds of flour, ten pounds of sugar and eight bags of chocolate chips for cookie making. "Not yet, Preciousssssss", I have to tell myself. "We havesssssss to waitssssss to make the cookiesssssss...."

Another reason to be in a good mood? Eating lefse and looking at carved wooden toys at the Norwegian Heritage Museum's YuleFest today. Also watching old Norwegians dressed in traditional costumes do a dance on stage. And by "dance", I mean "move in a slow, moderately coordinated fashion around in a circle making only minimal and utterly platonic contact with dancing partner." God bless the Scandinavians for making this fair city the civic-minded, egalitarian, sensible-shoe-favoring place that it is. If it were up to my people, we'd all be smashing each other over the head with giant root vegetables and drinking vodka out of soup pots.

Hey, just kidding, motherland! These Swedes ain't got nothin' on ya. Except maybe for their ways with crocheted potholders and sweaters. I mean, have you SEEN these things? It's like a national freakin' treasure, these people's abilities to turn a skein of yarn into an itchy, bulky utilitarian item! Uff-da, indeed!

Seriously, December. Hurry it up. I'm totally over this whole November thing.

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Mr Yuk

The Mr. Yuk Sticker: Now A Handy Way to Label My Life

I'm beginning to think my doctor pulled a fast one on me. The horrible, horrible herbal tincture I have to drink to kill the second set of parasites is the most God-awful stuff on earth. Seriously. It's so bad it comes with a Mr. Yuk sticker on the bottle. That's right kids. You might want to consider downing the Dran-o before you touch this stuff. This stuff is POISON.

Imagine leaving a 25 gallon bag lawn of clippings, a bottle of nail polish remover, and about a dozen bicycle tires in a bathtub of old rainwater and you might come *close* to being able to imagine the flavor of this stuff. I'm beginning to think it actually IS old rainwater and tires and that my doctor just charged me $140.00 for the bottle just to see if I would actually hand over my credit card. I have to take it every day, three times a day, for the next THIRTY DAYS. And I can't tell if the stuff is working or not. It would be more tolerable, I think, if I could tell it was working. Like, if the parasites would scream a little every time I tilted my head back, you know, because they could smell it coming or something, THAT would make me feel better. But, no. I just have to swallow this crap and hope that it's killing SOMETHING down there. I DO know that my taste buds, the lining of my esophagus, and I'm pretty sure the outermost layer of skin on my gums are all dying. Yup, those are definitely dying. I can tell because those first doses made me feel like I had just swallowed a teaspoon of Ebola virus. After the first one or two, though, I finally got wise and utilized those early drinkin' day techniques and just opened up my throat and threw the stuff back without it even hitting my tongue. And here I thought my early twenties had taught me nothing....

I have been trying to avoid wheat lately. And eggs. And sugar. And dairy. Because, you know, the sugar is not going to help out my yeast problem. And the dairy and the wheat just cause inflammation. And the eggs... well, we're not sure exactly what the eggs are doing, just that they're in the red zone of the allergy test I took a few years back. So pretty much I'm eating boatloads of lentils and tomatoes and an occasional rice cracker. I have been experimenting with baking gluten free breads for a while now and I've gotten quite good at whipping up gluten free batches of cookies and pie crusts. Most of these recipes require a mix of flours, flours I usually have on hand, but which I may have run out of recently. You see, it's important not to get cocky about one's gluten free savoire -faire. It's very important to follow recipe directions to the T. When the recipe calls for potato starch, for instance, it's important to use potato starch and not, for instance, potato flour. Because, you might, for instance, even after the thirty minutes in the oven, wind up with a gummy, undercooked bread, and you might, for instance, throw your oven mitt in a blind rage at the pot of beans you've been boiling for an hour because you've ruined dinner, and you might, for instance, miss the pot and hit the burner instead and have to imagine explaining to a firefighter that the reason your apartment is on fire is because you are an impatient idiot who thinks "starch" and "flour" are interchangeable words. Burdy ran to the turntable and put on Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" after the whole fiasco. "You know", he said to me, "To soothe the savage beast?" And then darted out of the kitchen to avoid getting caught in the eleven foot stream of lasers shooting out of my eyes and my short, windmilling arms.

This whole having to swallow paint thinner three times a day combined with not being able to eat, oh, I dunno, about 75% of the things I have been eating most of my life is making me REAL cranky. Good thing I also signed up to write a novel in thirty days to make me less stressed out.

On a positive note: I am unnervingly excited about the holidays this year. The feeling of insatiable giddiness doesn't usually come on this early in the season. I usually spend most of December grousing about the weather and working twelve hours a day and having panic attacks over what to buy who until about December 22nd or so, when I am finally strapped into my seat aboard an airplane and can't do anything but crossword puzzles for six hours. But this year, I am filled with this uncanny calm. And, I can't believe I am actually going to admit this, but I am enjoying the cold weather a little bit (does that have something to do with the fact that being outdoors in the freezing cold flushes my cheeks a healthy shade of red, suggesting I am actually more robust and hale than a parasite-harboring, gluten-sensitive, sinus-infection-prone basket of nerves? Maaaaaaaybe.....) Anywho, I can't get George Michael's voice singing "Last Christmas" out of my head. Also? When I'm at the supermarket, I have to resist the urge to buy up the requisite ten pounds of nuts, fifteen pounds of flour, ten pounds of sugar and eight bags of chocolate chips for cookie making. "Not yet, Preciousssssss", I have to tell myself. "We havesssssss to waitssssss to make the cookiesssssss...."

Another reason to be in a good mood? Eating lefse and looking at carved wooden toys at the Norwegian Heritage Museum's YuleFest today. Also watching old Norwegians dressed in traditional costumes do a dance on stage. And by "dance", I mean "move in a slow, moderately coordinated fashion around in a circle making only minimal and utterly platonic contact with dancing partner." God bless the Scandinavians for making this fair city the civic-minded, egalitarian, sensible-shoe-favoring place that it is. If it were up to my people, we'd all be smashing each other over the head with giant root vegetables and drinking vodka out of soup pots.

Hey, just kidding, motherland! These Swedes ain't got nothin' on ya. Except maybe for their ways with crocheted potholders and sweaters. I mean, have you SEEN these things? It's like a national freakin' treasure, these people's abilities to turn a skein of yarn into an itchy, bulky utilitarian item! Uff-da, indeed!

Seriously, December. Hurry it up. I'm totally over this whole November thing.

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parasite remedies

The Mr. Yuk Sticker: Now A Handy Way to Label My Life

I'm beginning to think my doctor pulled a fast one on me. The horrible, horrible herbal tincture I have to drink to kill the second set of parasites is the most God-awful stuff on earth. Seriously. It's so bad it comes with a Mr. Yuk sticker on the bottle. That's right kids. You might want to consider downing the Dran-o before you touch this stuff. This stuff is POISON.

Imagine leaving a 25 gallon bag lawn of clippings, a bottle of nail polish remover, and about a dozen bicycle tires in a bathtub of old rainwater and you might come *close* to being able to imagine the flavor of this stuff. I'm beginning to think it actually IS old rainwater and tires and that my doctor just charged me $140.00 for the bottle just to see if I would actually hand over my credit card. I have to take it every day, three times a day, for the next THIRTY DAYS. And I can't tell if the stuff is working or not. It would be more tolerable, I think, if I could tell it was working. Like, if the parasites would scream a little every time I tilted my head back, you know, because they could smell it coming or something, THAT would make me feel better. But, no. I just have to swallow this crap and hope that it's killing SOMETHING down there. I DO know that my taste buds, the lining of my esophagus, and I'm pretty sure the outermost layer of skin on my gums are all dying. Yup, those are definitely dying. I can tell because those first doses made me feel like I had just swallowed a teaspoon of Ebola virus. After the first one or two, though, I finally got wise and utilized those early drinkin' day techniques and just opened up my throat and threw the stuff back without it even hitting my tongue. And here I thought my early twenties had taught me nothing....

I have been trying to avoid wheat lately. And eggs. And sugar. And dairy. Because, you know, the sugar is not going to help out my yeast problem. And the dairy and the wheat just cause inflammation. And the eggs... well, we're not sure exactly what the eggs are doing, just that they're in the red zone of the allergy test I took a few years back. So pretty much I'm eating boatloads of lentils and tomatoes and an occasional rice cracker. I have been experimenting with baking gluten free breads for a while now and I've gotten quite good at whipping up gluten free batches of cookies and pie crusts. Most of these recipes require a mix of flours, flours I usually have on hand, but which I may have run out of recently. You see, it's important not to get cocky about one's gluten free savoire -faire. It's very important to follow recipe directions to the T. When the recipe calls for potato starch, for instance, it's important to use potato starch and not, for instance, potato flour. Because, you might, for instance, even after the thirty minutes in the oven, wind up with a gummy, undercooked bread, and you might, for instance, throw your oven mitt in a blind rage at the pot of beans you've been boiling for an hour because you've ruined dinner, and you might, for instance, miss the pot and hit the burner instead and have to imagine explaining to a firefighter that the reason your apartment is on fire is because you are an impatient idiot who thinks "starch" and "flour" are interchangeable words. Burdy ran to the turntable and put on Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" after the whole fiasco. "You know", he said to me, "To soothe the savage beast?" And then darted out of the kitchen to avoid getting caught in the eleven foot stream of lasers shooting out of my eyes and my short, windmilling arms.

This whole having to swallow paint thinner three times a day combined with not being able to eat, oh, I dunno, about 75% of the things I have been eating most of my life is making me REAL cranky. Good thing I also signed up to write a novel in thirty days to make me less stressed out.

On a positive note: I am unnervingly excited about the holidays this year. The feeling of insatiable giddiness doesn't usually come on this early in the season. I usually spend most of December grousing about the weather and working twelve hours a day and having panic attacks over what to buy who until about December 22nd or so, when I am finally strapped into my seat aboard an airplane and can't do anything but crossword puzzles for six hours. But this year, I am filled with this uncanny calm. And, I can't believe I am actually going to admit this, but I am enjoying the cold weather a little bit (does that have something to do with the fact that being outdoors in the freezing cold flushes my cheeks a healthy shade of red, suggesting I am actually more robust and hale than a parasite-harboring, gluten-sensitive, sinus-infection-prone basket of nerves? Maaaaaaaybe.....) Anywho, I can't get George Michael's voice singing "Last Christmas" out of my head. Also? When I'm at the supermarket, I have to resist the urge to buy up the requisite ten pounds of nuts, fifteen pounds of flour, ten pounds of sugar and eight bags of chocolate chips for cookie making. "Not yet, Preciousssssss", I have to tell myself. "We havesssssss to waitssssss to make the cookiesssssss...."

Another reason to be in a good mood? Eating lefse and looking at carved wooden toys at the Norwegian Heritage Museum's YuleFest today. Also watching old Norwegians dressed in traditional costumes do a dance on stage. And by "dance", I mean "move in a slow, moderately coordinated fashion around in a circle making only minimal and utterly platonic contact with dancing partner." God bless the Scandinavians for making this fair city the civic-minded, egalitarian, sensible-shoe-favoring place that it is. If it were up to my people, we'd all be smashing each other over the head with giant root vegetables and drinking vodka out of soup pots.

Hey, just kidding, motherland! These Swedes ain't got nothin' on ya. Except maybe for their ways with crocheted potholders and sweaters. I mean, have you SEEN these things? It's like a national freakin' treasure, these people's abilities to turn a skein of yarn into an itchy, bulky utilitarian item! Uff-da, indeed!

Seriously, December. Hurry it up. I'm totally over this whole November thing.

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com

WINNER!

Holy crap. I did it again. I spent another whole November writing 50,000 words and now I'm DONE!

This novel adventure would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of a great many people. Without them, I might have actually done a load of laundry this month, or gone to bed before 2 am most nights. Here, then, is my ode to you:

To Pandora.com: Thank you for providing me with free endless hours of moody music to be inspired by.

To Purple Bunny Pencil Warmer: You just sat there the whole time and said nothing. No judgment, no harassing me to type faster, no telling me to stop filling out crossword puzzles when I was supposed to be writing. That means a lot to me, buddy.

To the Java Bean in Ballard: Thanks for running one of the most cozy, most relaxed coffee shops in town. I bet you didn't know I wrote almost 10,000 words in a single Sunday afternoon while tucked into one of your tables, did you? You make a divine London Fog, by the way.

To that damned meowing cat keychain my sister brought home from Iceland.... okay, you made me laugh, damnit. I admit it. I needed you, too.

To Kevin, or John, I can't remember which one of you now first turned me on to NaNoWriMo: THANK YOU for pushing me to do this.

To Layla and Tara, who talked me through my mid-novel moral quandary about incorporating too much "real life" into a work of fiction: Thank you for being fellow artistic souls and taking this endeavor seriously and shaping it into something real. Your insight was just the thing I needed to keep going.

To Victoria, who urged me on with a mother's faith that it would all work out if only I just went to my room and typed. You will always be my favorite Cheerleader of the Suburbs.

And finally, To Mr. Burdy. Thank you for being my snack-fetcher, tea-maker, movie-watchin'-in-the-other-room, writer's-block-solving man-servant, and the recipient of more "Get the hell out of here, can't you see I'm COMPOSING?" evil stares than I can count.

I can't promise this thing is going to go anywhere. It may sit on my computer forever and never see the light of an editor's office. I'm just happy to have committed to something and FINISHED it.

And now, dear Internets, I'm going to watch some TV and paint my nails. In one and a half hours, it's December. Hoo-freakin'-ray.

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Java Bean

WINNER!

Holy crap. I did it again. I spent another whole November writing 50,000 words and now I'm DONE!

This novel adventure would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of a great many people. Without them, I might have actually done a load of laundry this month, or gone to bed before 2 am most nights. Here, then, is my ode to you:

To Pandora.com: Thank you for providing me with free endless hours of moody music to be inspired by.

To Purple Bunny Pencil Warmer: You just sat there the whole time and said nothing. No judgment, no harassing me to type faster, no telling me to stop filling out crossword puzzles when I was supposed to be writing. That means a lot to me, buddy.

To the Java Bean in Ballard: Thanks for running one of the most cozy, most relaxed coffee shops in town. I bet you didn't know I wrote almost 10,000 words in a single Sunday afternoon while tucked into one of your tables, did you? You make a divine London Fog, by the way.

To that damned meowing cat keychain my sister brought home from Iceland.... okay, you made me laugh, damnit. I admit it. I needed you, too.

To Kevin, or John, I can't remember which one of you now first turned me on to NaNoWriMo: THANK YOU for pushing me to do this.

To Layla and Tara, who talked me through my mid-novel moral quandary about incorporating too much "real life" into a work of fiction: Thank you for being fellow artistic souls and taking this endeavor seriously and shaping it into something real. Your insight was just the thing I needed to keep going.

To Victoria, who urged me on with a mother's faith that it would all work out if only I just went to my room and typed. You will always be my favorite Cheerleader of the Suburbs.

And finally, To Mr. Burdy. Thank you for being my snack-fetcher, tea-maker, movie-watchin'-in-the-other-room, writer's-block-solving man-servant, and the recipient of more "Get the hell out of here, can't you see I'm COMPOSING?" evil stares than I can count.

I can't promise this thing is going to go anywhere. It may sit on my computer forever and never see the light of an editor's office. I'm just happy to have committed to something and FINISHED it.

And now, dear Internets, I'm going to watch some TV and paint my nails. In one and a half hours, it's December. Hoo-freakin'-ray.

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Pandora

WINNER!

Holy crap. I did it again. I spent another whole November writing 50,000 words and now I'm DONE!

This novel adventure would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of a great many people. Without them, I might have actually done a load of laundry this month, or gone to bed before 2 am most nights. Here, then, is my ode to you:

To Pandora.com: Thank you for providing me with free endless hours of moody music to be inspired by.

To Purple Bunny Pencil Warmer: You just sat there the whole time and said nothing. No judgment, no harassing me to type faster, no telling me to stop filling out crossword puzzles when I was supposed to be writing. That means a lot to me, buddy.

To the Java Bean in Ballard: Thanks for running one of the most cozy, most relaxed coffee shops in town. I bet you didn't know I wrote almost 10,000 words in a single Sunday afternoon while tucked into one of your tables, did you? You make a divine London Fog, by the way.

To that damned meowing cat keychain my sister brought home from Iceland.... okay, you made me laugh, damnit. I admit it. I needed you, too.

To Kevin, or John, I can't remember which one of you now first turned me on to NaNoWriMo: THANK YOU for pushing me to do this.

To Layla and Tara, who talked me through my mid-novel moral quandary about incorporating too much "real life" into a work of fiction: Thank you for being fellow artistic souls and taking this endeavor seriously and shaping it into something real. Your insight was just the thing I needed to keep going.

To Victoria, who urged me on with a mother's faith that it would all work out if only I just went to my room and typed. You will always be my favorite Cheerleader of the Suburbs.

And finally, To Mr. Burdy. Thank you for being my snack-fetcher, tea-maker, movie-watchin'-in-the-other-room, writer's-block-solving man-servant, and the recipient of more "Get the hell out of here, can't you see I'm COMPOSING?" evil stares than I can count.

I can't promise this thing is going to go anywhere. It may sit on my computer forever and never see the light of an editor's office. I'm just happy to have committed to something and FINISHED it.

And now, dear Internets, I'm going to watch some TV and paint my nails. In one and a half hours, it's December. Hoo-freakin'-ray.

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thanks for the memories

WINNER!

Holy crap. I did it again. I spent another whole November writing 50,000 words and now I'm DONE!

This novel adventure would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of a great many people. Without them, I might have actually done a load of laundry this month, or gone to bed before 2 am most nights. Here, then, is my ode to you:

To Pandora.com: Thank you for providing me with free endless hours of moody music to be inspired by.

To Purple Bunny Pencil Warmer: You just sat there the whole time and said nothing. No judgment, no harassing me to type faster, no telling me to stop filling out crossword puzzles when I was supposed to be writing. That means a lot to me, buddy.

To the Java Bean in Ballard: Thanks for running one of the most cozy, most relaxed coffee shops in town. I bet you didn't know I wrote almost 10,000 words in a single Sunday afternoon while tucked into one of your tables, did you? You make a divine London Fog, by the way.

To that damned meowing cat keychain my sister brought home from Iceland.... okay, you made me laugh, damnit. I admit it. I needed you, too.

To Kevin, or John, I can't remember which one of you now first turned me on to NaNoWriMo: THANK YOU for pushing me to do this.

To Layla and Tara, who talked me through my mid-novel moral quandary about incorporating too much "real life" into a work of fiction: Thank you for being fellow artistic souls and taking this endeavor seriously and shaping it into something real. Your insight was just the thing I needed to keep going.

To Victoria, who urged me on with a mother's faith that it would all work out if only I just went to my room and typed. You will always be my favorite Cheerleader of the Suburbs.

And finally, To Mr. Burdy. Thank you for being my snack-fetcher, tea-maker, movie-watchin'-in-the-other-room, writer's-block-solving man-servant, and the recipient of more "Get the hell out of here, can't you see I'm COMPOSING?" evil stares than I can count.

I can't promise this thing is going to go anywhere. It may sit on my computer forever and never see the light of an editor's office. I'm just happy to have committed to something and FINISHED it.

And now, dear Internets, I'm going to watch some TV and paint my nails. In one and a half hours, it's December. Hoo-freakin'-ray.

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Nor'easter

SNOWMYGOD!

I suppose, since it's been thirty days since I've updated this blog, I should tell you about all how awesome my Christmas vacation has been. BUT. Thirty inches of snow fell here in the great state of New Jersey overnight and all anyone around here is talking about right now is the apocalyptic state of things.

Burdy and I have pretty much been trapped indoors for two straight days and our moods have shifted from festive to anxious. Our flight back to Seattle this evening was canceled, and we still haven't been contacted with a rescheduled flight. Burdy's been calling the airline all day, but he keeps getting the same recorded message: "Due to the Northeast Blizzard and high call volume, your call is going to be disconnected..mmm.... now". The Internet, for once, is not helping. Continental Airlines' website is a tangled mess of red capital letters and exclamation points. The news is one long slideshow of pictures of snow piled eight feet high in front of buildings and snowplow drivers smiling giddily. Burdy is starting to get cranky and when Burdy gets cranky, bad things happen.

To escape the ennui this afternoon, I bundled up in Burdy's mom's black and white one-piece snowsuit (which was at its peak, fashion-wise, in 1982 or so) and took a good long walk. The winds here have been gusting up to 60 miles per hour. I didn't really do the math on that when I packed myself into the penguin suit. I left my face exposed and walked around the neighborhood for a good hour and a half. When I got home and looked at myself in the mirror, my inner East Coaster reached around and kicked my inner West Coaster in the ass. My cheeks were completely windburned.

Definitely no children at play today. Definitely none in bobby socks and lace up leather shoes, anyway. </p>

Parts of the Parkway AND the Turnpike were closed down yesterday. No bus service, no train service. Today, 50% of the vehicles on the road were plows.

To make myself feel better about being stuck here, I pretended these were from Truckasaurus.</p>

</span></div>

I almost had to pull out my luge for this portion of sidewalk.

This is the snow the plow piled up in front of Burdy's mom's neighbor's house. Pretty much the whole neighborhood looks like this. </p>

The plan right now is to head over to the airport in the morning to see if we can talk to a real live human being about scheduling. My guess is that NO ONE ELSE in the tri-state area is going to have that very same idea, so I'm pretty sure they're going to hand me a genius award as I step onto my very own privately chartered airplane. That's the thing about natural disasters around these parts. They make everyone super smart. </p>

</div> </div>

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Northeast Storm 2010

SNOWMYGOD!

I suppose, since it's been thirty days since I've updated this blog, I should tell you about all how awesome my Christmas vacation has been. BUT. Thirty inches of snow fell here in the great state of New Jersey overnight and all anyone around here is talking about right now is the apocalyptic state of things.

Burdy and I have pretty much been trapped indoors for two straight days and our moods have shifted from festive to anxious. Our flight back to Seattle this evening was canceled, and we still haven't been contacted with a rescheduled flight. Burdy's been calling the airline all day, but he keeps getting the same recorded message: "Due to the Northeast Blizzard and high call volume, your call is going to be disconnected..mmm.... now". The Internet, for once, is not helping. Continental Airlines' website is a tangled mess of red capital letters and exclamation points. The news is one long slideshow of pictures of snow piled eight feet high in front of buildings and snowplow drivers smiling giddily. Burdy is starting to get cranky and when Burdy gets cranky, bad things happen.

To escape the ennui this afternoon, I bundled up in Burdy's mom's black and white one-piece snowsuit (which was at its peak, fashion-wise, in 1982 or so) and took a good long walk. The winds here have been gusting up to 60 miles per hour. I didn't really do the math on that when I packed myself into the penguin suit. I left my face exposed and walked around the neighborhood for a good hour and a half. When I got home and looked at myself in the mirror, my inner East Coaster reached around and kicked my inner West Coaster in the ass. My cheeks were completely windburned.

Definitely no children at play today. Definitely none in bobby socks and lace up leather shoes, anyway. </p>

Parts of the Parkway AND the Turnpike were closed down yesterday. No bus service, no train service. Today, 50% of the vehicles on the road were plows.

To make myself feel better about being stuck here, I pretended these were from Truckasaurus.</p>

</span></div>

I almost had to pull out my luge for this portion of sidewalk.

This is the snow the plow piled up in front of Burdy's mom's neighbor's house. Pretty much the whole neighborhood looks like this. </p>

The plan right now is to head over to the airport in the morning to see if we can talk to a real live human being about scheduling. My guess is that NO ONE ELSE in the tri-state area is going to have that very same idea, so I'm pretty sure they're going to hand me a genius award as I step onto my very own privately chartered airplane. That's the thing about natural disasters around these parts. They make everyone super smart. </p>

</div> </div>

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Snowmygod 2010

SNOWMYGOD!

I suppose, since it's been thirty days since I've updated this blog, I should tell you about all how awesome my Christmas vacation has been. BUT. Thirty inches of snow fell here in the great state of New Jersey overnight and all anyone around here is talking about right now is the apocalyptic state of things.

Burdy and I have pretty much been trapped indoors for two straight days and our moods have shifted from festive to anxious. Our flight back to Seattle this evening was canceled, and we still haven't been contacted with a rescheduled flight. Burdy's been calling the airline all day, but he keeps getting the same recorded message: "Due to the Northeast Blizzard and high call volume, your call is going to be disconnected..mmm.... now". The Internet, for once, is not helping. Continental Airlines' website is a tangled mess of red capital letters and exclamation points. The news is one long slideshow of pictures of snow piled eight feet high in front of buildings and snowplow drivers smiling giddily. Burdy is starting to get cranky and when Burdy gets cranky, bad things happen.

To escape the ennui this afternoon, I bundled up in Burdy's mom's black and white one-piece snowsuit (which was at its peak, fashion-wise, in 1982 or so) and took a good long walk. The winds here have been gusting up to 60 miles per hour. I didn't really do the math on that when I packed myself into the penguin suit. I left my face exposed and walked around the neighborhood for a good hour and a half. When I got home and looked at myself in the mirror, my inner East Coaster reached around and kicked my inner West Coaster in the ass. My cheeks were completely windburned.

Definitely no children at play today. Definitely none in bobby socks and lace up leather shoes, anyway. </p>

Parts of the Parkway AND the Turnpike were closed down yesterday. No bus service, no train service. Today, 50% of the vehicles on the road were plows.

To make myself feel better about being stuck here, I pretended these were from Truckasaurus.</p>

</span></div>

I almost had to pull out my luge for this portion of sidewalk.

This is the snow the plow piled up in front of Burdy's mom's neighbor's house. Pretty much the whole neighborhood looks like this. </p>

The plan right now is to head over to the airport in the morning to see if we can talk to a real live human being about scheduling. My guess is that NO ONE ELSE in the tri-state area is going to have that very same idea, so I'm pretty sure they're going to hand me a genius award as I step onto my very own privately chartered airplane. That's the thing about natural disasters around these parts. They make everyone super smart. </p>

</div> </div>

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Snowpocalypse

SNOWMYGOD!

I suppose, since it's been thirty days since I've updated this blog, I should tell you about all how awesome my Christmas vacation has been. BUT. Thirty inches of snow fell here in the great state of New Jersey overnight and all anyone around here is talking about right now is the apocalyptic state of things.

Burdy and I have pretty much been trapped indoors for two straight days and our moods have shifted from festive to anxious. Our flight back to Seattle this evening was canceled, and we still haven't been contacted with a rescheduled flight. Burdy's been calling the airline all day, but he keeps getting the same recorded message: "Due to the Northeast Blizzard and high call volume, your call is going to be disconnected..mmm.... now". The Internet, for once, is not helping. Continental Airlines' website is a tangled mess of red capital letters and exclamation points. The news is one long slideshow of pictures of snow piled eight feet high in front of buildings and snowplow drivers smiling giddily. Burdy is starting to get cranky and when Burdy gets cranky, bad things happen.

To escape the ennui this afternoon, I bundled up in Burdy's mom's black and white one-piece snowsuit (which was at its peak, fashion-wise, in 1982 or so) and took a good long walk. The winds here have been gusting up to 60 miles per hour. I didn't really do the math on that when I packed myself into the penguin suit. I left my face exposed and walked around the neighborhood for a good hour and a half. When I got home and looked at myself in the mirror, my inner East Coaster reached around and kicked my inner West Coaster in the ass. My cheeks were completely windburned.

Definitely no children at play today. Definitely none in bobby socks and lace up leather shoes, anyway. </p>

Parts of the Parkway AND the Turnpike were closed down yesterday. No bus service, no train service. Today, 50% of the vehicles on the road were plows.

To make myself feel better about being stuck here, I pretended these were from Truckasaurus.</p>

</span></div>

I almost had to pull out my luge for this portion of sidewalk.

This is the snow the plow piled up in front of Burdy's mom's neighbor's house. Pretty much the whole neighborhood looks like this. </p>

The plan right now is to head over to the airport in the morning to see if we can talk to a real live human being about scheduling. My guess is that NO ONE ELSE in the tri-state area is going to have that very same idea, so I'm pretty sure they're going to hand me a genius award as I step onto my very own privately chartered airplane. That's the thing about natural disasters around these parts. They make everyone super smart. </p>

</div> </div>

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cleaning out your mental home

Inventory

I don't know how it is we got here- owning twos and threes of things... letting things pile up... having to rearrange endlessly... I just know it has to stop. The four half-empty bottles of dishwashing detergent under the sink, the natural remedies and prescription drugs with 2009 expiration dates on them in a basket in the linen closet, socks with no mates that keep making it into the laundry rotation somehow... It all needs to end. 2011 is it.

The first thing I thought when I stepped into my apartment after being on the East Coast for nearly two weeks was "Good lord, is it cluttered in here". I had not considered myself a cluttered person before, but my life and all its distractions suddenly came into sharp relief in the few moments it took my eyes to scan the room. Granted, we did leave the house a holy mess before we left, and granted, we really hadn't had any time in the month of December to do any deep cleaning, but.... But. It's all about the buts, isn't it? There was always something keeping me from my real life.

Suddenly all my kitsch, my thrift/antique store aesthetic, it all became so garbage-like to me. Every surface was covered with something... something I had thought cute or necessary in the moment but which later just became one more thing to dust, to file away.

I'm not a decorate-it-once-and-walk-away kind of gal. I like my home to be a work in progress. I like it cozy, and I like it to tell a story, and I like that story to change as my life changes. But, I also like peace and quiet. And somehow this house has become a cacophony of to-do lists. And that doesn't feel good at all. While I don't particularly fancy the classic stylings of our East Coast families, I can see the merit now in just setting it up and letting it be. There is simplicity in having just one serving bowl, just eight mugs, and just two sets of sheets, however color coordinated it all is.

It all started with Burdy cleaning out the fridge on Sunday morning. He threw away the leftovers and tore everything out and scrubbed the inside of that thing for an hour. And oh my god what a difference a sponge makes. Opening that door first thing on Monday morning made my heart sing. And then it made me wonder: how long was that fridge THAT dirty? How long has it been since I've really lifted up the carpet of my life and taken a good hard look at all things I've hurriedly shoved underneath?

How many times have I moved the shaker top from that spice jar from the windowsill to the countertop and back again? How long has that bottle of blue chamomile been sitting in that tiny box in my nightstand? How long was it going to be before I finally got rid of those slippers with the hole in them? I've been living with this DustBowl survivor's mentality for so long, this mindset that demands I scrimp and save and never throw anything away until I've used the holy hell out of it. I forgot to take notice of my actual surroundings. I do not want for anything. I have plenty of food. My house is warm. I have clothing, and shoes, and a computer that doubles as a TV. Right now, as I type this, I am staring at my fruit bowl, which contains a pomegranate. A pomegranate! In the middle of winter! Whatever storm caused me to lower my head and pull the collar of my coat tight against my chest has passed. Funny how, though my life has dramatically improved since then, I've stayed stuck in this position all these years.

So, I'm not starting out 2011 with any grandiose resolutions. I'm starting it with mini-cleaning binges. I'm shooing the bats from the belfry, as it were, clearing out the cobwebs, making the place feel fresh again. I want to go through all those corners in the house I haven't visited in a while and pack up and donate everything that keeps me from writing more and worrying less. I'm not into wastefulness; this won't be frenzied. This is an opportunity to share, to give away. This is a great gift, this ability to see again. I have a feeling I am going to find dusty pieces of myself amidst all this clutter, and, at the end, I might just feel whole again.

Happy 2011.

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new year's resolutions

Inventory

I don't know how it is we got here- owning twos and threes of things... letting things pile up... having to rearrange endlessly... I just know it has to stop. The four half-empty bottles of dishwashing detergent under the sink, the natural remedies and prescription drugs with 2009 expiration dates on them in a basket in the linen closet, socks with no mates that keep making it into the laundry rotation somehow... It all needs to end. 2011 is it.

The first thing I thought when I stepped into my apartment after being on the East Coast for nearly two weeks was "Good lord, is it cluttered in here". I had not considered myself a cluttered person before, but my life and all its distractions suddenly came into sharp relief in the few moments it took my eyes to scan the room. Granted, we did leave the house a holy mess before we left, and granted, we really hadn't had any time in the month of December to do any deep cleaning, but.... But. It's all about the buts, isn't it? There was always something keeping me from my real life.

Suddenly all my kitsch, my thrift/antique store aesthetic, it all became so garbage-like to me. Every surface was covered with something... something I had thought cute or necessary in the moment but which later just became one more thing to dust, to file away.

I'm not a decorate-it-once-and-walk-away kind of gal. I like my home to be a work in progress. I like it cozy, and I like it to tell a story, and I like that story to change as my life changes. But, I also like peace and quiet. And somehow this house has become a cacophony of to-do lists. And that doesn't feel good at all. While I don't particularly fancy the classic stylings of our East Coast families, I can see the merit now in just setting it up and letting it be. There is simplicity in having just one serving bowl, just eight mugs, and just two sets of sheets, however color coordinated it all is.

It all started with Burdy cleaning out the fridge on Sunday morning. He threw away the leftovers and tore everything out and scrubbed the inside of that thing for an hour. And oh my god what a difference a sponge makes. Opening that door first thing on Monday morning made my heart sing. And then it made me wonder: how long was that fridge THAT dirty? How long has it been since I've really lifted up the carpet of my life and taken a good hard look at all things I've hurriedly shoved underneath?

How many times have I moved the shaker top from that spice jar from the windowsill to the countertop and back again? How long has that bottle of blue chamomile been sitting in that tiny box in my nightstand? How long was it going to be before I finally got rid of those slippers with the hole in them? I've been living with this DustBowl survivor's mentality for so long, this mindset that demands I scrimp and save and never throw anything away until I've used the holy hell out of it. I forgot to take notice of my actual surroundings. I do not want for anything. I have plenty of food. My house is warm. I have clothing, and shoes, and a computer that doubles as a TV. Right now, as I type this, I am staring at my fruit bowl, which contains a pomegranate. A pomegranate! In the middle of winter! Whatever storm caused me to lower my head and pull the collar of my coat tight against my chest has passed. Funny how, though my life has dramatically improved since then, I've stayed stuck in this position all these years.

So, I'm not starting out 2011 with any grandiose resolutions. I'm starting it with mini-cleaning binges. I'm shooing the bats from the belfry, as it were, clearing out the cobwebs, making the place feel fresh again. I want to go through all those corners in the house I haven't visited in a while and pack up and donate everything that keeps me from writing more and worrying less. I'm not into wastefulness; this won't be frenzied. This is an opportunity to share, to give away. This is a great gift, this ability to see again. I have a feeling I am going to find dusty pieces of myself amidst all this clutter, and, at the end, I might just feel whole again.

Happy 2011.

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Little Lion Man

Recommendation

I heard the first notes of the banjo come over the car stereo speakers, and my first thought was: Just because I shaved off all my hair when I was nineteen and listened to Ani DiFranco and went to that hippie school, they all still think I like patchouli and Bluegrass. Dammnit.

It was my sister who first recommended them to me. Have you heard of Mumford and Sons? You might like them... My sister doesn't usually recommend music to me. Our tastes aren't all that dissimilar anyway. Usually, if I mention so-and-so, she's already listening to them. But this was odd- a band I'd never heard of. Then again, I'd become wholly disenchanted with our local indie radio station these last few years and was listening to NPR exclusively...

And then, the next day, my future brother in law, while we were listening to music and playing dominoes at the kitchen table, switches up the tempo and says, while swishing his finger around on the mousepad, Here- you might like this. And he played a song of theirs.

Hours later, I had a burned copy in my hand. I'd been waiting for just the right moment to listen to it. But then I realized it wasn't going to come, perfection. This was to be a trip of so much imperfection sitting right there on top of perfection's pretty party dress. So, I slipped it into the CD player in the rental car and waited.

I turned it down low and waited for it to blow me away. I listened and waited some more. Nothing.

Then I got to song number seven, Little Lion Man. And something snapped inside me. Something about the way the singer ripped into the words "I really fucked it up this time" just got to me. I listened to it over and over again, in that compulsive way I do when I like a song. I got home and slipped it into the CD player in my own car. I drove from appointment to appointment today and listened. I listened to it turned all the way up. I had it turned up so loud my side view mirrors vibrated in time with the bass notes. I sang at the top of my lungs and beat the steering wheel with my palms. Magically, effortlessly, my voice found the harmony. Maybe this is what my sister was thinking when she heard them for the first time. She'll love them because it is effortless. There is something so anguished and breaking in the singer's tone. Maybe this is what my future brother in law was thinking when he burned the CD for me. She'll love them because she will be able to hear herself in there.

For the record, I don't care for Bluegrass, I HATE the smell of patchouli, and I didn't graduate from that hippie school. But I love this song.

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Mumford and Sons

Recommendation

I heard the first notes of the banjo come over the car stereo speakers, and my first thought was: Just because I shaved off all my hair when I was nineteen and listened to Ani DiFranco and went to that hippie school, they all still think I like patchouli and Bluegrass. Dammnit.

It was my sister who first recommended them to me. Have you heard of Mumford and Sons? You might like them... My sister doesn't usually recommend music to me. Our tastes aren't all that dissimilar anyway. Usually, if I mention so-and-so, she's already listening to them. But this was odd- a band I'd never heard of. Then again, I'd become wholly disenchanted with our local indie radio station these last few years and was listening to NPR exclusively...

And then, the next day, my future brother in law, while we were listening to music and playing dominoes at the kitchen table, switches up the tempo and says, while swishing his finger around on the mousepad, Here- you might like this. And he played a song of theirs.

Hours later, I had a burned copy in my hand. I'd been waiting for just the right moment to listen to it. But then I realized it wasn't going to come, perfection. This was to be a trip of so much imperfection sitting right there on top of perfection's pretty party dress. So, I slipped it into the CD player in the rental car and waited.

I turned it down low and waited for it to blow me away. I listened and waited some more. Nothing.

Then I got to song number seven, Little Lion Man. And something snapped inside me. Something about the way the singer ripped into the words "I really fucked it up this time" just got to me. I listened to it over and over again, in that compulsive way I do when I like a song. I got home and slipped it into the CD player in my own car. I drove from appointment to appointment today and listened. I listened to it turned all the way up. I had it turned up so loud my side view mirrors vibrated in time with the bass notes. I sang at the top of my lungs and beat the steering wheel with my palms. Magically, effortlessly, my voice found the harmony. Maybe this is what my sister was thinking when she heard them for the first time. She'll love them because it is effortless. There is something so anguished and breaking in the singer's tone. Maybe this is what my future brother in law was thinking when he burned the CD for me. She'll love them because she will be able to hear herself in there.

For the record, I don't care for Bluegrass, I HATE the smell of patchouli, and I didn't graduate from that hippie school. But I love this song.

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Arts and crafts movement

Arts and Crafts and Porn

Hey! Guess what? Yesterday I cleaned up the last of the tax paperwork that has been littering my living room floor for the past two months! I can see the floor again! Isn't that exciting? I mailed off the last package of receipts, wrote the final email, and then vacuumed up two months' worth of popcorn kernels, gravel, rubber nubbins from our doormat, dead leaves, tiny bits of paper, and bent staples from the carpet. You could be forgiven for thinking a wild animal good with an adding machine was living here. It feels good to see the floor again.

So. Now that tax season is somewhat behind me, I'm initiating a new era in the art world. It's called the Arts and Crafts and Porn movement.

It fits into a larger movement I am participating in called the Make Useful Stuff Out Of Garbage, or MUSOOG, for short. Go ahead. Say it. Muh-soooooog. Catchy, no?

Alright. So. Here's my latest creation: a bookshelf made out of VHS tapes.

There is, of course, a backstory, and it goes a little something like this...

A few years ago, friends of our were getting married. Mr. Burdy hosted a part of the bachelor party for the groom. This being a Northwestern bachelor party, the men gathered and beat drums and drank handcrafted beer and scaled cliffs and then probably sat around and brushed each other's beards. Or something like that. I don't know what they did exactly. They definitely didn't do anything that involved cologne or shirts that require regular ironing or strobe lights or dollar bills being waved at women with large breasts. I just know they all crashed at our house afterward in big smelly piles of sleeping bags and mud caked boots. As a gag gift, one of the attendees brought a box (a giant box that had once contained a fan) full of VHS tapes of porn from the early eighties.

The fan box of porn had come from a coworker of the attendee. The coworker's uncle had recently passed away and the family was sent to clean out the house. I don't know if the coworker knew about the box beforehand or if he just stumbled across it in the back of that closet (though I would like to believe that the dying uncle, in the moments before he passed, pulled the coworker real close to his mouth and whispered something to the effect of, "Charlie, there's something I need to tell you. There's a closet upstairs with a false wall in it. Behind that wall is my collection. You mustn't let anyone know about it. You've got to destroy it. Can you do this for me, Charlie? Char...." And then he sputters and coughs and exhales dramatically and his eyes roll up in his head and Charlie is shaking his uncle ferociously by his lapels and frantically searching his face for answers. I'm pretty sure the guy's name was not Charlie, and that his uncle did not do this to him, but it makes the story edgier, so let's just roll with it, shall we?)

Okay. So attendee shows up with his co-worker's dead uncle's box of hideous porn. All of it is from the eighties. And it's soft core porn. Now, I'm no expert in porn, but I know bad porn when I see it, and this stuff was BAD. I mean, the names of some of these videos pretty much said it all. Like "Nude Stretching". NUDE STRETCHING? Like as in, "Oh my, my neck is soooo tight from a day of stenography! Let me slooooowly take my silk scarf and cameo broach off and do some sensual neck rolls!" nude stretching? Lame.

There was the "Buttman" series... I could at least get behind that (zing!). Let's see, some other goodies included "Polelympics" (I'm got the impression this guy was a failed gymnast) and "Naked Aerobics", complete with legwarmers and headbands (and not much else! Yowza!) So, now you all know what kinds of things turned on an old man in the eighties. There were dozens of these tapes. A whole fan box full of them.

So. Back to the bachelor party at our house. The box got left. It made its way to our garage where it sat for some months. You're probably asking yourself.... umm... why didn't you just throw the thing away? Ah, you see. This gets at the very heart of who I am. You might have noticed I have a hard time throwing things away. And not because I am a hoarder. Seriously. I sleep in a bed NOT covered in tennis rackets and shoe polish kits. I don't bathe with my bank statements from 1987 and you can walk through the house without tripping over stuff. On most days.) ANYWHO. My real reason that I can't throw anything away is guilt. You see, whenever garbage is generated in my house, my brain immediately conjures up post-apocalyptic scenes of children playing atop heaps of garbage in torn clothing and pterodactyl sized seagulls circling overhead and roving gangs of gleaners pushing shopping carts of rags and clothes hangers and copper wiring. Always in this scene, one brave child, his face smeared with grease and soot, picks up a VHS tape or something else as insideously designed for obsolescence, and, with doe-like eyes, stares up at the gray sky, a single tear rolling down his filthy face. And that's how I know. It was me. I was the one who caused this. I was the one who threw the VERY LAST VHS tape EVER into the garbage, setting off an irreversible series of events that lead our planet, so delicately hanging in the balance, to descend into a thousand years of darkness. There is no sun, nothing grows, and humanity is doomed to eat rusty nails and drink putrid water collected in plastic kerosene-slicked jugs. And it's all because I couldn't get more creative with how to throw out my trash.

And, that, ladies and gentlemen, is Clinical Depression in a very colorful nutshell. Guilt and anxiety and a little bit of post apocalyptica thrown in for good measure.

Anywho, the porn. So, I couldn't just throw it in the garbage (Tiny Tim from the year 2109 would be watching). I did the next best thing I could think of: I tired to figure out ways to recycle the damn things. I found a few companies by searching online that were able to take them and re-use them by erasing the materials on the tapes. (Sure.... erasing them. ) For some reason, I was embarrassed about sending these tapes to central Illinois, or wherever this factory was. It was going to be totally anonymous, of course, but I just couldn't help feeling sheepish and mortified about sending old man porn. Plus, they were going to charge me something like $10 and I wasn't about to pay for throwing garbage away, no matter how good the cause.

So, the tapes sat for a few more months. Then Christmas rolled around and our friends hosted their White Elephant party. Never heard of a White Elephant party? Google it. I'll be here when you're done.

This, of course, was the perfect opportunity to unload these things on some unsuspecting friend. So we did. I think. The details are fuzzy now. But then, I can't remember how, we wound up with the box. Again.

Here's the dumbest part of this whole saga: we moved with the damned things. We packed up our house, not once, but TWICE with these tapes. And each time, I had to blush fiercely and defend myself when one of our helpful moving buddies picked up the box and the layer of dinner napkins fluttered to the ground (What?! The box didn't have a lid. Dinner napkins seemed like a good alternative). NO, I would tell them. OF COURSE that's not my porn! Sillies! I don't even like that stuff! (waving dismissively at the box) That's just my...uh... friend's friend's porn. We're keeping it for him....

Right.

So, fast forward to this Fall. I decided it was time to REALLY do something about these things. Around this time, Mr. Burdy and I were also struggling with how to store stuff in our house. The house was in pretty much the same state it was in when we moved it... things just sort of thrown haphazardly onto bookshelves. There were still boxes of books in the garage that I hadn't unpacked. I needed a bookcase. And the porn needed to go. I hatched an idea that day, standing in our cold garage. I pulled out the old sketchbook, went down to my local craft store and picked up some heavy duty glue, and I got to buildin'.

And this is what I made.

I cleverly hid all the ridiculous titles like "Girl on Girl Elbow Touching" and stuck my favorite books on the shelves and topped it off with a few houseplants. Done. Problem solved. But part of me was just a little bit sad. It had been nearly five years since the box of porn had come into our lives, and here, at long last, I had permanently altered it into something, karmically, a notch above a doorstop. Plus, I was still stuck with all the paper inserts AND the plastic cases they all came in. The paper was easy enough to recycle. The sorters down at the transfer station would get in their daily dose of WTF and I would be making the world a greener place. But the plastic cases? That type of plastic wasn't intended to be recycled. They would be headed for the post-apocalyptic junk heap.

And then, when the last of the glue dried, I panicked for a minute. Was our friend expecting the box of porn to be cycled through our community of friends forever via the White Elephant parties? It was a pretty great gag gift. Worse, was the coworker expecting his inheritance back?

But then it came to me: a way to contribute to the white elephant, a way to solve my non-recyclable plastic dilemma, and a way to finally be rid, once and for all, of the box of porn.

First, I took a picture of the newly constructed bookshelf. Then I printed it and framed it in an old frame I had lying around.

Then I went about constructing a box out of packing tape and the plastic cases. Not a word about how the tape is toxic and non-recyclable. Remember my adrenal glands?

Then I shredded each of the lovely paper inserts. Remarkably, the shredder didn't choke once on the thick paper... not, that is, until the very end. Which was fine because then I got to snap this lovely shot.

I stuffed the box (complete with hinged lid) with the shredded inserts, stuck the framed photo inside, piled more shredded paper on top, and then sealed the box. Viola. Problem solved, gift made, apocalyptic heap a distant memory.

I have to say, though, watching our friends' faces as they opened the box at the party, I felt a mixture of nostalgia and just a little bit of regret. The friend who had brought the box to our house in the first place looked like he might shed a tear or something. I waited for a response. And then everyone laughed and their eyes got big and they asked me, "You MADE that?" like they might ask a potted plant if it had once been the Secretary of the Interior. I could understand their bewilderment.

Anywho, the lesson here is this (because there is a lesson n everything, is there not?): don't leave your crap at my house. It might get turned into furniture.

Thanks for the memories, Box Of Porn.

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making furniture out of VHS tapes

Arts and Crafts and Porn

Hey! Guess what? Yesterday I cleaned up the last of the tax paperwork that has been littering my living room floor for the past two months! I can see the floor again! Isn't that exciting? I mailed off the last package of receipts, wrote the final email, and then vacuumed up two months' worth of popcorn kernels, gravel, rubber nubbins from our doormat, dead leaves, tiny bits of paper, and bent staples from the carpet. You could be forgiven for thinking a wild animal good with an adding machine was living here. It feels good to see the floor again.

So. Now that tax season is somewhat behind me, I'm initiating a new era in the art world. It's called the Arts and Crafts and Porn movement.

It fits into a larger movement I am participating in called the Make Useful Stuff Out Of Garbage, or MUSOOG, for short. Go ahead. Say it. Muh-soooooog. Catchy, no?

Alright. So. Here's my latest creation: a bookshelf made out of VHS tapes.

There is, of course, a backstory, and it goes a little something like this...

A few years ago, friends of our were getting married. Mr. Burdy hosted a part of the bachelor party for the groom. This being a Northwestern bachelor party, the men gathered and beat drums and drank handcrafted beer and scaled cliffs and then probably sat around and brushed each other's beards. Or something like that. I don't know what they did exactly. They definitely didn't do anything that involved cologne or shirts that require regular ironing or strobe lights or dollar bills being waved at women with large breasts. I just know they all crashed at our house afterward in big smelly piles of sleeping bags and mud caked boots. As a gag gift, one of the attendees brought a box (a giant box that had once contained a fan) full of VHS tapes of porn from the early eighties.

The fan box of porn had come from a coworker of the attendee. The coworker's uncle had recently passed away and the family was sent to clean out the house. I don't know if the coworker knew about the box beforehand or if he just stumbled across it in the back of that closet (though I would like to believe that the dying uncle, in the moments before he passed, pulled the coworker real close to his mouth and whispered something to the effect of, "Charlie, there's something I need to tell you. There's a closet upstairs with a false wall in it. Behind that wall is my collection. You mustn't let anyone know about it. You've got to destroy it. Can you do this for me, Charlie? Char...." And then he sputters and coughs and exhales dramatically and his eyes roll up in his head and Charlie is shaking his uncle ferociously by his lapels and frantically searching his face for answers. I'm pretty sure the guy's name was not Charlie, and that his uncle did not do this to him, but it makes the story edgier, so let's just roll with it, shall we?)

Okay. So attendee shows up with his co-worker's dead uncle's box of hideous porn. All of it is from the eighties. And it's soft core porn. Now, I'm no expert in porn, but I know bad porn when I see it, and this stuff was BAD. I mean, the names of some of these videos pretty much said it all. Like "Nude Stretching". NUDE STRETCHING? Like as in, "Oh my, my neck is soooo tight from a day of stenography! Let me slooooowly take my silk scarf and cameo broach off and do some sensual neck rolls!" nude stretching? Lame.

There was the "Buttman" series... I could at least get behind that (zing!). Let's see, some other goodies included "Polelympics" (I'm got the impression this guy was a failed gymnast) and "Naked Aerobics", complete with legwarmers and headbands (and not much else! Yowza!) So, now you all know what kinds of things turned on an old man in the eighties. There were dozens of these tapes. A whole fan box full of them.

So. Back to the bachelor party at our house. The box got left. It made its way to our garage where it sat for some months. You're probably asking yourself.... umm... why didn't you just throw the thing away? Ah, you see. This gets at the very heart of who I am. You might have noticed I have a hard time throwing things away. And not because I am a hoarder. Seriously. I sleep in a bed NOT covered in tennis rackets and shoe polish kits. I don't bathe with my bank statements from 1987 and you can walk through the house without tripping over stuff. On most days.) ANYWHO. My real reason that I can't throw anything away is guilt. You see, whenever garbage is generated in my house, my brain immediately conjures up post-apocalyptic scenes of children playing atop heaps of garbage in torn clothing and pterodactyl sized seagulls circling overhead and roving gangs of gleaners pushing shopping carts of rags and clothes hangers and copper wiring. Always in this scene, one brave child, his face smeared with grease and soot, picks up a VHS tape or something else as insideously designed for obsolescence, and, with doe-like eyes, stares up at the gray sky, a single tear rolling down his filthy face. And that's how I know. It was me. I was the one who caused this. I was the one who threw the VERY LAST VHS tape EVER into the garbage, setting off an irreversible series of events that lead our planet, so delicately hanging in the balance, to descend into a thousand years of darkness. There is no sun, nothing grows, and humanity is doomed to eat rusty nails and drink putrid water collected in plastic kerosene-slicked jugs. And it's all because I couldn't get more creative with how to throw out my trash.

And, that, ladies and gentlemen, is Clinical Depression in a very colorful nutshell. Guilt and anxiety and a little bit of post apocalyptica thrown in for good measure.

Anywho, the porn. So, I couldn't just throw it in the garbage (Tiny Tim from the year 2109 would be watching). I did the next best thing I could think of: I tired to figure out ways to recycle the damn things. I found a few companies by searching online that were able to take them and re-use them by erasing the materials on the tapes. (Sure.... erasing them. ) For some reason, I was embarrassed about sending these tapes to central Illinois, or wherever this factory was. It was going to be totally anonymous, of course, but I just couldn't help feeling sheepish and mortified about sending old man porn. Plus, they were going to charge me something like $10 and I wasn't about to pay for throwing garbage away, no matter how good the cause.

So, the tapes sat for a few more months. Then Christmas rolled around and our friends hosted their White Elephant party. Never heard of a White Elephant party? Google it. I'll be here when you're done.

This, of course, was the perfect opportunity to unload these things on some unsuspecting friend. So we did. I think. The details are fuzzy now. But then, I can't remember how, we wound up with the box. Again.

Here's the dumbest part of this whole saga: we moved with the damned things. We packed up our house, not once, but TWICE with these tapes. And each time, I had to blush fiercely and defend myself when one of our helpful moving buddies picked up the box and the layer of dinner napkins fluttered to the ground (What?! The box didn't have a lid. Dinner napkins seemed like a good alternative). NO, I would tell them. OF COURSE that's not my porn! Sillies! I don't even like that stuff! (waving dismissively at the box) That's just my...uh... friend's friend's porn. We're keeping it for him....

Right.

So, fast forward to this Fall. I decided it was time to REALLY do something about these things. Around this time, Mr. Burdy and I were also struggling with how to store stuff in our house. The house was in pretty much the same state it was in when we moved it... things just sort of thrown haphazardly onto bookshelves. There were still boxes of books in the garage that I hadn't unpacked. I needed a bookcase. And the porn needed to go. I hatched an idea that day, standing in our cold garage. I pulled out the old sketchbook, went down to my local craft store and picked up some heavy duty glue, and I got to buildin'.

And this is what I made.

I cleverly hid all the ridiculous titles like "Girl on Girl Elbow Touching" and stuck my favorite books on the shelves and topped it off with a few houseplants. Done. Problem solved. But part of me was just a little bit sad. It had been nearly five years since the box of porn had come into our lives, and here, at long last, I had permanently altered it into something, karmically, a notch above a doorstop. Plus, I was still stuck with all the paper inserts AND the plastic cases they all came in. The paper was easy enough to recycle. The sorters down at the transfer station would get in their daily dose of WTF and I would be making the world a greener place. But the plastic cases? That type of plastic wasn't intended to be recycled. They would be headed for the post-apocalyptic junk heap.

And then, when the last of the glue dried, I panicked for a minute. Was our friend expecting the box of porn to be cycled through our community of friends forever via the White Elephant parties? It was a pretty great gag gift. Worse, was the coworker expecting his inheritance back?

But then it came to me: a way to contribute to the white elephant, a way to solve my non-recyclable plastic dilemma, and a way to finally be rid, once and for all, of the box of porn.

First, I took a picture of the newly constructed bookshelf. Then I printed it and framed it in an old frame I had lying around.

Then I went about constructing a box out of packing tape and the plastic cases. Not a word about how the tape is toxic and non-recyclable. Remember my adrenal glands?

Then I shredded each of the lovely paper inserts. Remarkably, the shredder didn't choke once on the thick paper... not, that is, until the very end. Which was fine because then I got to snap this lovely shot.

I stuffed the box (complete with hinged lid) with the shredded inserts, stuck the framed photo inside, piled more shredded paper on top, and then sealed the box. Viola. Problem solved, gift made, apocalyptic heap a distant memory.

I have to say, though, watching our friends' faces as they opened the box at the party, I felt a mixture of nostalgia and just a little bit of regret. The friend who had brought the box to our house in the first place looked like he might shed a tear or something. I waited for a response. And then everyone laughed and their eyes got big and they asked me, "You MADE that?" like they might ask a potted plant if it had once been the Secretary of the Interior. I could understand their bewilderment.

Anywho, the lesson here is this (because there is a lesson n everything, is there not?): don't leave your crap at my house. It might get turned into furniture.

Thanks for the memories, Box Of Porn.

Continue to full post...

Back to Top ↑

making stuff out of garbage

Arts and Crafts and Porn

Hey! Guess what? Yesterday I cleaned up the last of the tax paperwork that has been littering my living room floor for the past two months! I can see the floor again! Isn't that exciting? I mailed off the last package of receipts, wrote the final email, and then vacuumed up two months' worth of popcorn kernels, gravel, rubber nubbins from our doormat, dead leaves, tiny bits of paper, and bent staples from the carpet. You could be forgiven for thinking a wild animal good with an adding machine was living here. It feels good to see the floor again.

So. Now that tax season is somewhat behind me, I'm initiating a new era in the art world. It's called the Arts and Crafts and Porn movement.

It fits into a larger movement I am participating in called the Make Useful Stuff Out Of Garbage, or MUSOOG, for short. Go ahead. Say it. Muh-soooooog. Catchy, no?

Alright. So. Here's my latest creation: a bookshelf made out of VHS tapes.

There is, of course, a backstory, and it goes a little something like this...

A few years ago, friends of our were getting married. Mr. Burdy hosted a part of the bachelor party for the groom. This being a Northwestern bachelor party, the men gathered and beat drums and drank handcrafted beer and scaled cliffs and then probably sat around and brushed each other's beards. Or something like that. I don't know what they did exactly. They definitely didn't do anything that involved cologne or shirts that require regular ironing or strobe lights or dollar bills being waved at women with large breasts. I just know they all crashed at our house afterward in big smelly piles of sleeping bags and mud caked boots. As a gag gift, one of the attendees brought a box (a giant box that had once contained a fan) full of VHS tapes of porn from the early eighties.

The fan box of porn had come from a coworker of the attendee. The coworker's uncle had recently passed away and the family was sent to clean out the house. I don't know if the coworker knew about the box beforehand or if he just stumbled across it in the back of that closet (though I would like to believe that the dying uncle, in the moments before he passed, pulled the coworker real close to his mouth and whispered something to the effect of, "Charlie, there's something I need to tell you. There's a closet upstairs with a false wall in it. Behind that wall is my collection. You mustn't let anyone know about it. You've got to destroy it. Can you do this for me, Charlie? Char...." And then he sputters and coughs and exhales dramatically and his eyes roll up in his head and Charlie is shaking his uncle ferociously by his lapels and frantically searching his face for answers. I'm pretty sure the guy's name was not Charlie, and that his uncle did not do this to him, but it makes the story edgier, so let's just roll with it, shall we?)

Okay. So attendee shows up with his co-worker's dead uncle's box of hideous porn. All of it is from the eighties. And it's soft core porn. Now, I'm no expert in porn, but I know bad porn when I see it, and this stuff was BAD. I mean, the names of some of these videos pretty much said it all. Like "Nude Stretching". NUDE STRETCHING? Like as in, "Oh my, my neck is soooo tight from a day of stenography! Let me slooooowly take my silk scarf and cameo broach off and do some sensual neck rolls!" nude stretching? Lame.

There was the "Buttman" series... I could at least get behind that (zing!). Let's see, some other goodies included "Polelympics" (I'm got the impression this guy was a failed gymnast) and "Naked Aerobics", complete with legwarmers and headbands (and not much else! Yowza!) So, now you all know what kinds of things turned on an old man in the eighties. There were dozens of these tapes. A whole fan box full of them.

So. Back to the bachelor party at our house. The box got left. It made its way to our garage where it sat for some months. You're probably asking yourself.... umm... why didn't you just throw the thing away? Ah, you see. This gets at the very heart of who I am. You might have noticed I have a hard time throwing things away. And not because I am a hoarder. Seriously. I sleep in a bed NOT covered in tennis rackets and shoe polish kits. I don't bathe with my bank statements from 1987 and you can walk through the house without tripping over stuff. On most days.) ANYWHO. My real reason that I can't throw anything away is guilt. You see, whenever garbage is generated in my house, my brain immediately conjures up post-apocalyptic scenes of children playing atop heaps of garbage in torn clothing and pterodactyl sized seagulls circling overhead and roving gangs of gleaners pushing shopping carts of rags and clothes hangers and copper wiring. Always in this scene, one brave child, his face smeared with grease and soot, picks up a VHS tape or something else as insideously designed for obsolescence, and, with doe-like eyes, stares up at the gray sky, a single tear rolling down his filthy face. And that's how I know. It was me. I was the one who caused this. I was the one who threw the VERY LAST VHS tape EVER into the garbage, setting off an irreversible series of events that lead our planet, so delicately hanging in the balance, to descend into a thousand years of darkness. There is no sun, nothing grows, and humanity is doomed to eat rusty nails and drink putrid water collected in plastic kerosene-slicked jugs. And it's all because I couldn't get more creative with how to throw out my trash.

And, that, ladies and gentlemen, is Clinical Depression in a very colorful nutshell. Guilt and anxiety and a little bit of post apocalyptica thrown in for good measure.

Anywho, the porn. So, I couldn't just throw it in the garbage (Tiny Tim from the year 2109 would be watching). I did the next best thing I could think of: I tired to figure out ways to recycle the damn things. I found a few companies by searching online that were able to take them and re-use them by erasing the materials on the tapes. (Sure.... erasing them. ) For some reason, I was embarrassed about sending these tapes to central Illinois, or wherever this factory was. It was going to be totally anonymous, of course, but I just couldn't help feeling sheepish and mortified about sending old man porn. Plus, they were going to charge me something like $10 and I wasn't about to pay for throwing garbage away, no matter how good the cause.

So, the tapes sat for a few more months. Then Christmas rolled around and our friends hosted their White Elephant party. Never heard of a White Elephant party? Google it. I'll be here when you're done.

This, of course, was the perfect opportunity to unload these things on some unsuspecting friend. So we did. I think. The details are fuzzy now. But then, I can't remember how, we wound up with the box. Again.

Here's the dumbest part of this whole saga: we moved with the damned things. We packed up our house, not once, but TWICE with these tapes. And each time, I had to blush fiercely and defend myself when one of our helpful moving buddies picked up the box and the layer of dinner napkins fluttered to the ground (What?! The box didn't have a lid. Dinner napkins seemed like a good alternative). NO, I would tell them. OF COURSE that's not my porn! Sillies! I don't even like that stuff! (waving dismissively at the box) That's just my...uh... friend's friend's porn. We're keeping it for him....

Right.

So, fast forward to this Fall. I decided it was time to REALLY do something about these things. Around this time, Mr. Burdy and I were also struggling with how to store stuff in our house. The house was in pretty much the same state it was in when we moved it... things just sort of thrown haphazardly onto bookshelves. There were still boxes of books in the garage that I hadn't unpacked. I needed a bookcase. And the porn needed to go. I hatched an idea that day, standing in our cold garage. I pulled out the old sketchbook, went down to my local craft store and picked up some heavy duty glue, and I got to buildin'.

And this is what I made.

I cleverly hid all the ridiculous titles like "Girl on Girl Elbow Touching" and stuck my favorite books on the shelves and topped it off with a few houseplants. Done. Problem solved. But part of me was just a little bit sad. It had been nearly five years since the box of porn had come into our lives, and here, at long last, I had permanently altered it into something, karmically, a notch above a doorstop. Plus, I was still stuck with all the paper inserts AND the plastic cases they all came in. The paper was easy enough to recycle. The sorters down at the transfer station would get in their daily dose of WTF and I would be making the world a greener place. But the plastic cases? That type of plastic wasn't intended to be recycled. They would be headed for the post-apocalyptic junk heap.

And then, when the last of the glue dried, I panicked for a minute. Was our friend expecting the box of porn to be cycled through our community of friends forever via the White Elephant parties? It was a pretty great gag gift. Worse, was the coworker expecting his inheritance back?

But then it came to me: a way to contribute to the white elephant, a way to solve my non-recyclable plastic dilemma, and a way to finally be rid, once and for all, of the box of porn.

First, I took a picture of the newly constructed bookshelf. Then I printed it and framed it in an old frame I had lying around.

Then I went about constructing a box out of packing tape and the plastic cases. Not a word about how the tape is toxic and non-recyclable. Remember my adrenal glands?

Then I shredded each of the lovely paper inserts. Remarkably, the shredder didn't choke once on the thick paper... not, that is, until the very end. Which was fine because then I got to snap this lovely shot.

I stuffed the box (complete with hinged lid) with the shredded inserts, stuck the framed photo inside, piled more shredded paper on top, and then sealed the box. Viola. Problem solved, gift made, apocalyptic heap a distant memory.

I have to say, though, watching our friends' faces as they opened the box at the party, I felt a mixture of nostalgia and just a little bit of regret. The friend who had brought the box to our house in the first place looked like he might shed a tear or something. I waited for a response. And then everyone laughed and their eyes got big and they asked me, "You MADE that?" like they might ask a potted plant if it had once been the Secretary of the Interior. I could understand their bewilderment.

Anywho, the lesson here is this (because there is a lesson n everything, is there not?): don't leave your crap at my house. It might get turned into furniture.

Thanks for the memories, Box Of Porn.

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gashes on fingers as spiritual teachers

Dismantling the Empire

I'm going to keep this one short today because the middle finger of my right hand is covered in a big fat bulky Band-Aid and typing is a bit of a pain. (I cut my finger yesterday while repotting a plant. Who the hell cuts themselves while repotting a plant? I do. Of course, now that I am associating every little thing in my life with some larger spiritual message, I asked myself yesterday: what does a deep gash on your finger mean, Grasshopper? And I was like, Um... it means there's a sharp piece of unfinished clay on the bottom of the pot obscured by dirt, dumbass.)

(Inhaling.... thumb and middle fingers touching lightly, eyes soft and unfocused....)

I've begun the process of letting go of some of my clients (well, most of them, actually). I had a really life changing migraine (which I'll tell you about when the bandage comes off) a few weeks ago and I've been using that god-awful day as a launching point to change my life. I literally felt like my brains were being scrambled that day, like the Universe had lifted off the top of my skull, stuck in a whisk, and agitated the contents of my skull (and then left without so much as offering me an aspirin). When your brains get scrambled, you can't just carry on as if your brains were not just scrambled. I'm a believer in pain as a messenger and that day was my five a.m. wake up call.

In an effort to reduce stress in my life (the Great Cause of that horrid migraine), I've decided to cut my workload down by nearly seventy five percent. (I know, you're thinking: how could you cut down your workload by seventy five percent and STILL have enough work to sustain your lifestyle? Ahhhhh, now you see, Grasshopper, the Way of the DayPlanner Warrior is not a balanced one.)

I've had to let some very dear clients go, people I have enjoyed working with tremendously. These clients are brilliant, creative people, people who have taught me so very much about business, about dreaming big, and about balancing work and play. It has been a very emotional couple of weeks here deciding who gets to stay and who has to go.

I figured my clients would be upset over my announcement; I figured they would be shocked. I figured they might even be mad, maybe feel let down or abandoned. The reaction I had not counted on was sadness. People are sad to see me go. They like me, and not just my ability to make a file cabinet neat and orderly. I can't tell which is more shocking: their emotion over my leaving, or the fact that I don't consider myself lovable enough to be missed. Jesus. Talk about pain as a messenger....

I've been doing lots of thinking about this notion of my work as separate from me. Every day I have to wake up and push aside the guilt over leaving my clients and repeat to myself: it's your life or theirs, kiddo. I know that sounds extreme and dichotomous but I need to employ that bit of melodrama to get me through these next few weeks when it is inevitable that I will start reconsidering, and then berating myself for having made these decisions. I need a little mantra to keep my mind focused.

So this is it, Internets. It's my life. I just have to figure out how I want to live it.

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life changing events

Dismantling the Empire

I'm going to keep this one short today because the middle finger of my right hand is covered in a big fat bulky Band-Aid and typing is a bit of a pain. (I cut my finger yesterday while repotting a plant. Who the hell cuts themselves while repotting a plant? I do. Of course, now that I am associating every little thing in my life with some larger spiritual message, I asked myself yesterday: what does a deep gash on your finger mean, Grasshopper? And I was like, Um... it means there's a sharp piece of unfinished clay on the bottom of the pot obscured by dirt, dumbass.)

(Inhaling.... thumb and middle fingers touching lightly, eyes soft and unfocused....)

I've begun the process of letting go of some of my clients (well, most of them, actually). I had a really life changing migraine (which I'll tell you about when the bandage comes off) a few weeks ago and I've been using that god-awful day as a launching point to change my life. I literally felt like my brains were being scrambled that day, like the Universe had lifted off the top of my skull, stuck in a whisk, and agitated the contents of my skull (and then left without so much as offering me an aspirin). When your brains get scrambled, you can't just carry on as if your brains were not just scrambled. I'm a believer in pain as a messenger and that day was my five a.m. wake up call.

In an effort to reduce stress in my life (the Great Cause of that horrid migraine), I've decided to cut my workload down by nearly seventy five percent. (I know, you're thinking: how could you cut down your workload by seventy five percent and STILL have enough work to sustain your lifestyle? Ahhhhh, now you see, Grasshopper, the Way of the DayPlanner Warrior is not a balanced one.)

I've had to let some very dear clients go, people I have enjoyed working with tremendously. These clients are brilliant, creative people, people who have taught me so very much about business, about dreaming big, and about balancing work and play. It has been a very emotional couple of weeks here deciding who gets to stay and who has to go.

I figured my clients would be upset over my announcement; I figured they would be shocked. I figured they might even be mad, maybe feel let down or abandoned. The reaction I had not counted on was sadness. People are sad to see me go. They like me, and not just my ability to make a file cabinet neat and orderly. I can't tell which is more shocking: their emotion over my leaving, or the fact that I don't consider myself lovable enough to be missed. Jesus. Talk about pain as a messenger....

I've been doing lots of thinking about this notion of my work as separate from me. Every day I have to wake up and push aside the guilt over leaving my clients and repeat to myself: it's your life or theirs, kiddo. I know that sounds extreme and dichotomous but I need to employ that bit of melodrama to get me through these next few weeks when it is inevitable that I will start reconsidering, and then berating myself for having made these decisions. I need a little mantra to keep my mind focused.

So this is it, Internets. It's my life. I just have to figure out how I want to live it.

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migraines

Dismantling the Empire

I'm going to keep this one short today because the middle finger of my right hand is covered in a big fat bulky Band-Aid and typing is a bit of a pain. (I cut my finger yesterday while repotting a plant. Who the hell cuts themselves while repotting a plant? I do. Of course, now that I am associating every little thing in my life with some larger spiritual message, I asked myself yesterday: what does a deep gash on your finger mean, Grasshopper? And I was like, Um... it means there's a sharp piece of unfinished clay on the bottom of the pot obscured by dirt, dumbass.)

(Inhaling.... thumb and middle fingers touching lightly, eyes soft and unfocused....)

I've begun the process of letting go of some of my clients (well, most of them, actually). I had a really life changing migraine (which I'll tell you about when the bandage comes off) a few weeks ago and I've been using that god-awful day as a launching point to change my life. I literally felt like my brains were being scrambled that day, like the Universe had lifted off the top of my skull, stuck in a whisk, and agitated the contents of my skull (and then left without so much as offering me an aspirin). When your brains get scrambled, you can't just carry on as if your brains were not just scrambled. I'm a believer in pain as a messenger and that day was my five a.m. wake up call.

In an effort to reduce stress in my life (the Great Cause of that horrid migraine), I've decided to cut my workload down by nearly seventy five percent. (I know, you're thinking: how could you cut down your workload by seventy five percent and STILL have enough work to sustain your lifestyle? Ahhhhh, now you see, Grasshopper, the Way of the DayPlanner Warrior is not a balanced one.)

I've had to let some very dear clients go, people I have enjoyed working with tremendously. These clients are brilliant, creative people, people who have taught me so very much about business, about dreaming big, and about balancing work and play. It has been a very emotional couple of weeks here deciding who gets to stay and who has to go.

I figured my clients would be upset over my announcement; I figured they would be shocked. I figured they might even be mad, maybe feel let down or abandoned. The reaction I had not counted on was sadness. People are sad to see me go. They like me, and not just my ability to make a file cabinet neat and orderly. I can't tell which is more shocking: their emotion over my leaving, or the fact that I don't consider myself lovable enough to be missed. Jesus. Talk about pain as a messenger....

I've been doing lots of thinking about this notion of my work as separate from me. Every day I have to wake up and push aside the guilt over leaving my clients and repeat to myself: it's your life or theirs, kiddo. I know that sounds extreme and dichotomous but I need to employ that bit of melodrama to get me through these next few weeks when it is inevitable that I will start reconsidering, and then berating myself for having made these decisions. I need a little mantra to keep my mind focused.

So this is it, Internets. It's my life. I just have to figure out how I want to live it.

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san luis obispo

The Bishop calls

Dear Oprah,
I'm going to San Luis Obispo. Your recent piece on "The Happiest City in America" (featuring the delightful Jenny McCarthy) really put the nail in this rainy, gray coffin. This is about the time of year when the weather starts pushing me to consider living in a teepee in the Sahara just so I can feel the sun on my skin, so your timing couldn't be more perfect. I realize it's raining there right now, but, do you know what's going to happen tomorrow? It's going to be sunny. And the day after that? Sunny again. Are you starting to see how this could be a good fit for me?

I don't actually think that just traveling to a place will make me instantly happy, but it won't hurt to spend a few days trying. Anyway, thanks for tip. We should be boarding soon.

Oh, and if you need a follow up report, just let me know. There's probably a flight that connects to Chicago from San Luis Obispo, right?

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bryant terry

Letter To A Vegan Soul Food Chef

Hey, Internets. I owe you some stories and pictures from Central California. But, I need to sing some praises first.

Dear Bryant Terry,

You are a genius. A certified, bona fide genius. Your cookbook is like none I have ever owned. I am having a torrid love affair with your recipes and I am not afraid to say it. I just got the book a few weeks ago, and I have already made a dozen dishes or so from your collection.

Soul food has always been one of those cuisines that I have had to stand on the sidewalk and enjoy from the other side of the steamed up glass. All that fried golden brown deliciousness, that spicy, savory, range of flavors... succulent greens, followed by sweet deserts piled high with cream... it's a little heaven on earth. But I'm a most-of-the-time vegetarian (who has dappled in the world of veganism and gluten-freedom for some time) so soul food has been off limits for me. But now, because of your book, I can bring all those wonderful aromas and flavors to my own table without having to compromise my values. "Vegan Soul Food" is the prefect (if not unlikely) marriage of flavor and consciousness. And that is why I have hugged it to my chest and kept it on my nightstand with the rest of my other reading material.

I feel like I have been waiting for this cookbook my whole life. The music, matched with recipes, matched with stories and inspirational little bits of wisdom? I just can't say it enough: it's a work of art. Your passion practically radiates from each page. And who would have thought that a cookbook would be such an extraordinary resource for discovering new music? (You did.) I didn't think the baked beans could taste any better, but, when I put on Bill Withers, they seemed to taste just a little sweeter.

It was quite by accident that I decided to make soul food on Mardi Gras. I had planned to have this dinner with a friend weeks ago, and when I was putting together the menu, all I was thinking about was FLAVOR. But, midway through the day, I remembered it was Mardi Gras, and it just made the prep all the more satisfying. Here's what I made from your cookbook: citrus collards, baked beans, barbecued tofu, and succotash. I even threw in some of my own vegan gluten free mac and cheese for good measure. We washed all of this down with your hibiscus-ginger-lemon-ade. And oh my, was it delicious. Last night, my fiance held me at arms' length, looked me square in the eyes, and very seriously said, "Every single thing you cooked tonight was AMAZING".

After dinner, we danced the night away to Kermit Ruffins and The Rebirth Jazz Band in our tiny living room, our beads around our neck, and our (ahem, adulterated with vodka) ginger-ade drinks in hand. It might have been one of my favorite dinner parties for three ever.

Big thanks to Lynne Rosetto-Kapser for featuring you on her show.

You know, I have pressed my nose longingly up against countless restaurant windows and sucked in the saliva threatening to fall from my mouth, wincing just a little in an effort to deny the temptation and uphold my values around food production in this country for many years. Now I can just turn on a little music, shuffle around the spice drawer, and cook what I long for myself. And it's all because of you, Bryant Terry. Thank you.

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mardis gras

Letter To A Vegan Soul Food Chef

Hey, Internets. I owe you some stories and pictures from Central California. But, I need to sing some praises first.

Dear Bryant Terry,

You are a genius. A certified, bona fide genius. Your cookbook is like none I have ever owned. I am having a torrid love affair with your recipes and I am not afraid to say it. I just got the book a few weeks ago, and I have already made a dozen dishes or so from your collection.

Soul food has always been one of those cuisines that I have had to stand on the sidewalk and enjoy from the other side of the steamed up glass. All that fried golden brown deliciousness, that spicy, savory, range of flavors... succulent greens, followed by sweet deserts piled high with cream... it's a little heaven on earth. But I'm a most-of-the-time vegetarian (who has dappled in the world of veganism and gluten-freedom for some time) so soul food has been off limits for me. But now, because of your book, I can bring all those wonderful aromas and flavors to my own table without having to compromise my values. "Vegan Soul Food" is the prefect (if not unlikely) marriage of flavor and consciousness. And that is why I have hugged it to my chest and kept it on my nightstand with the rest of my other reading material.

I feel like I have been waiting for this cookbook my whole life. The music, matched with recipes, matched with stories and inspirational little bits of wisdom? I just can't say it enough: it's a work of art. Your passion practically radiates from each page. And who would have thought that a cookbook would be such an extraordinary resource for discovering new music? (You did.) I didn't think the baked beans could taste any better, but, when I put on Bill Withers, they seemed to taste just a little sweeter.

It was quite by accident that I decided to make soul food on Mardi Gras. I had planned to have this dinner with a friend weeks ago, and when I was putting together the menu, all I was thinking about was FLAVOR. But, midway through the day, I remembered it was Mardi Gras, and it just made the prep all the more satisfying. Here's what I made from your cookbook: citrus collards, baked beans, barbecued tofu, and succotash. I even threw in some of my own vegan gluten free mac and cheese for good measure. We washed all of this down with your hibiscus-ginger-lemon-ade. And oh my, was it delicious. Last night, my fiance held me at arms' length, looked me square in the eyes, and very seriously said, "Every single thing you cooked tonight was AMAZING".

After dinner, we danced the night away to Kermit Ruffins and The Rebirth Jazz Band in our tiny living room, our beads around our neck, and our (ahem, adulterated with vodka) ginger-ade drinks in hand. It might have been one of my favorite dinner parties for three ever.

Big thanks to Lynne Rosetto-Kapser for featuring you on her show.

You know, I have pressed my nose longingly up against countless restaurant windows and sucked in the saliva threatening to fall from my mouth, wincing just a little in an effort to deny the temptation and uphold my values around food production in this country for many years. Now I can just turn on a little music, shuffle around the spice drawer, and cook what I long for myself. And it's all because of you, Bryant Terry. Thank you.

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splendid table

Letter To A Vegan Soul Food Chef

Hey, Internets. I owe you some stories and pictures from Central California. But, I need to sing some praises first.

Dear Bryant Terry,

You are a genius. A certified, bona fide genius. Your cookbook is like none I have ever owned. I am having a torrid love affair with your recipes and I am not afraid to say it. I just got the book a few weeks ago, and I have already made a dozen dishes or so from your collection.

Soul food has always been one of those cuisines that I have had to stand on the sidewalk and enjoy from the other side of the steamed up glass. All that fried golden brown deliciousness, that spicy, savory, range of flavors... succulent greens, followed by sweet deserts piled high with cream... it's a little heaven on earth. But I'm a most-of-the-time vegetarian (who has dappled in the world of veganism and gluten-freedom for some time) so soul food has been off limits for me. But now, because of your book, I can bring all those wonderful aromas and flavors to my own table without having to compromise my values. "Vegan Soul Food" is the prefect (if not unlikely) marriage of flavor and consciousness. And that is why I have hugged it to my chest and kept it on my nightstand with the rest of my other reading material.

I feel like I have been waiting for this cookbook my whole life. The music, matched with recipes, matched with stories and inspirational little bits of wisdom? I just can't say it enough: it's a work of art. Your passion practically radiates from each page. And who would have thought that a cookbook would be such an extraordinary resource for discovering new music? (You did.) I didn't think the baked beans could taste any better, but, when I put on Bill Withers, they seemed to taste just a little sweeter.

It was quite by accident that I decided to make soul food on Mardi Gras. I had planned to have this dinner with a friend weeks ago, and when I was putting together the menu, all I was thinking about was FLAVOR. But, midway through the day, I remembered it was Mardi Gras, and it just made the prep all the more satisfying. Here's what I made from your cookbook: citrus collards, baked beans, barbecued tofu, and succotash. I even threw in some of my own vegan gluten free mac and cheese for good measure. We washed all of this down with your hibiscus-ginger-lemon-ade. And oh my, was it delicious. Last night, my fiance held me at arms' length, looked me square in the eyes, and very seriously said, "Every single thing you cooked tonight was AMAZING".

After dinner, we danced the night away to Kermit Ruffins and The Rebirth Jazz Band in our tiny living room, our beads around our neck, and our (ahem, adulterated with vodka) ginger-ade drinks in hand. It might have been one of my favorite dinner parties for three ever.

Big thanks to Lynne Rosetto-Kapser for featuring you on her show.

You know, I have pressed my nose longingly up against countless restaurant windows and sucked in the saliva threatening to fall from my mouth, wincing just a little in an effort to deny the temptation and uphold my values around food production in this country for many years. Now I can just turn on a little music, shuffle around the spice drawer, and cook what I long for myself. And it's all because of you, Bryant Terry. Thank you.

Continue to full post...

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vegan soul food

Letter To A Vegan Soul Food Chef

Hey, Internets. I owe you some stories and pictures from Central California. But, I need to sing some praises first.

Dear Bryant Terry,

You are a genius. A certified, bona fide genius. Your cookbook is like none I have ever owned. I am having a torrid love affair with your recipes and I am not afraid to say it. I just got the book a few weeks ago, and I have already made a dozen dishes or so from your collection.

Soul food has always been one of those cuisines that I have had to stand on the sidewalk and enjoy from the other side of the steamed up glass. All that fried golden brown deliciousness, that spicy, savory, range of flavors... succulent greens, followed by sweet deserts piled high with cream... it's a little heaven on earth. But I'm a most-of-the-time vegetarian (who has dappled in the world of veganism and gluten-freedom for some time) so soul food has been off limits for me. But now, because of your book, I can bring all those wonderful aromas and flavors to my own table without having to compromise my values. "Vegan Soul Food" is the prefect (if not unlikely) marriage of flavor and consciousness. And that is why I have hugged it to my chest and kept it on my nightstand with the rest of my other reading material.

I feel like I have been waiting for this cookbook my whole life. The music, matched with recipes, matched with stories and inspirational little bits of wisdom? I just can't say it enough: it's a work of art. Your passion practically radiates from each page. And who would have thought that a cookbook would be such an extraordinary resource for discovering new music? (You did.) I didn't think the baked beans could taste any better, but, when I put on Bill Withers, they seemed to taste just a little sweeter.

It was quite by accident that I decided to make soul food on Mardi Gras. I had planned to have this dinner with a friend weeks ago, and when I was putting together the menu, all I was thinking about was FLAVOR. But, midway through the day, I remembered it was Mardi Gras, and it just made the prep all the more satisfying. Here's what I made from your cookbook: citrus collards, baked beans, barbecued tofu, and succotash. I even threw in some of my own vegan gluten free mac and cheese for good measure. We washed all of this down with your hibiscus-ginger-lemon-ade. And oh my, was it delicious. Last night, my fiance held me at arms' length, looked me square in the eyes, and very seriously said, "Every single thing you cooked tonight was AMAZING".

After dinner, we danced the night away to Kermit Ruffins and The Rebirth Jazz Band in our tiny living room, our beads around our neck, and our (ahem, adulterated with vodka) ginger-ade drinks in hand. It might have been one of my favorite dinner parties for three ever.

Big thanks to Lynne Rosetto-Kapser for featuring you on her show.

You know, I have pressed my nose longingly up against countless restaurant windows and sucked in the saliva threatening to fall from my mouth, wincing just a little in an effort to deny the temptation and uphold my values around food production in this country for many years. Now I can just turn on a little music, shuffle around the spice drawer, and cook what I long for myself. And it's all because of you, Bryant Terry. Thank you.

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air travel

SLO, Day 1

I've been meaning to post pictures of my trip to San Luis Obispo for weeks now, but I've lately fallen into the rabbit hole of self help books. I know, I know. it's incredibly good for me, incredibly bad for this blog. And, as we all know, at some point you just have to stop all the processing and journaling and weeping about it and just get on with the business of living. So, here it is. The start of my trip.

Were the discovery of the New World up to me, were I asked by the moneyed elite to captain a rollicking, gigantic vessel designed to cut through vast expanses of bumpy sea, were I handed a satchelful of gold and a crudely drawn map and promised fame and glory, were I told innumerable riches, exotic women, and lush climates awaited me in a beautiful new country, I would have considered the offer with a deep and sober humility. I would have calculated the promise of honor, and weighed it against the risk of death. I would have allotted the proper amount of pacing back and forth with hands behind the back and tugging on the chin. And then I would have turned to my benefactors, shrugged my shoulders and said, "Meh. I'll skip it. I'm starved. What's there to eat around here?"

Not that discovery and travel don't excite me! In fact, they are the only things left that excite me! (Well, that and new flavors of cheese puffs). It's the getting there that puts me off. And not because of time or boredom or anything like that. In all matters of cross continental escapades, it's the motion sickness that is the undoing of my enthusiasm.

I haven't talked much about our boat (may she rest in peace with her new owners) on this blog, and with good reason. We bought it, I nearly peed myself in anxiety when we moved it to another slip, we took it out for a few day trips, and that was it. We sold it. And all because I couldn't handle the motion of the ocean.

Travel by boat, though, has its charms. (They wear off after about two hours). It's the air travel, start to finish, that's the absolute pits. And we can just skip the discussion about the public theater that is the security check at the airport. And the bad food and the service and the stench of humankind packed into a winged steel tube. For me, it's the tiny mutiny going on inside my head that makes almost all travel not worth it. My tiny sinuses and the disastrous labyrinth that is my inner ear all conspire to keep me home-bound.

But I do want to leave the house! I do, I do, I do! It's a disconcerting thing, really, this desire to be rowed through the canals of Venice, to want to eat soup for breakfast on the streets of Vietnam, to want to paddle my surfboard out into the Pacific along the Panamanian coast... and then to be thwarted by my own shitty head-plumbing.

I suppose, given my new foray into the Laws of Attraction and all that jazz, I could dig deep for the metaphor here. I could consider that maybe my focus on the destination and not the journey is really what keeps me from enjoying the ride. Maybe I am just not at the place in my life to understand how airsickness is revealing itself as a teacher of a greater lesson.

Oooooooor.... maybe there is no freakin' lesson. For God's sake. Maybe I am just not designed to sit (as Louis CK says) in a chair 30,000 feet in the air and think this is completely normal.

I think I am designed to sit about two feet off the pavement, in my Honda Civic. Or maybe four feet off the ground in a train car. Something not subject to the twitchy temperament of winds or, ya know, clouds.

A massage therapist recently suggested soaking my feet in an Epsom salt bath every night to draw the energy mucking up my head into my the lower part of my body. If there was a way to pull the mangled locomotive engine parts out of my head and put them in my feet, I gladly would. I would happily take nauseous ankles over a head that feels like it might explode from the pressure any day of the week.

How wrong is it, when I fly, to wish I could ferry all the discomfort from my head to my stomach so I could just have a good old fashioned heave-ho into an airsickness bag and be done with it? Why do I have to contend with the feeling of a balloon being inflated inside my skull? Why can't I have restless legs or legs that are too long for an airplane seat? Why, oh why, must I be obsessed with visiting places ravaged by things like "pockets of warm air" or "tropical storm fronts"?

And how hard is it to calm yourself down with deep cleansing breaths when the air you're breathing smells and tastes like dirty shag carpeting? Hard. And then there are the toilets threatening to suction your intestines out and distribute them over a farm in Iowa somewhe-

Wait. This is supposed to be a post about a really awesome trip I went on with a good friend of mine.

Right.

So. Ahem. ANYWHO. After a slight delay at the airport, we boarded the plane. Seattle, like the abusive boyfriend of a city that it is, gave us a rainbow in a last ditch effort to say "Don't leave! I promise I'll never hurt you again, baby."

The ascent was the worst I've ever experienced in my life. The winds were pretty fierce, so, to avoid bumps, the pilot cocked the plane back on its rear wheels, pointed the nose STRAIGHT up into the air, and shot up to 30,000 feet in, like, sixteen seconds. I'm not even exaggerating. My head hurt so bad afterward, I could hardly hold my hands steady to take this picture. Thanks, Victoria, for help with the shot.

We landed at night, got ourselves the most delicious Mexican shrimp cocktail and beers in town for dinner, and then hit the hay early.

Next post: Day Two (where there will be no mention of vomit, I promise).

Continue to full post...

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airsickness

SLO, Day 1

I've been meaning to post pictures of my trip to San Luis Obispo for weeks now, but I've lately fallen into the rabbit hole of self help books. I know, I know. it's incredibly good for me, incredibly bad for this blog. And, as we all know, at some point you just have to stop all the processing and journaling and weeping about it and just get on with the business of living. So, here it is. The start of my trip.

Were the discovery of the New World up to me, were I asked by the moneyed elite to captain a rollicking, gigantic vessel designed to cut through vast expanses of bumpy sea, were I handed a satchelful of gold and a crudely drawn map and promised fame and glory, were I told innumerable riches, exotic women, and lush climates awaited me in a beautiful new country, I would have considered the offer with a deep and sober humility. I would have calculated the promise of honor, and weighed it against the risk of death. I would have allotted the proper amount of pacing back and forth with hands behind the back and tugging on the chin. And then I would have turned to my benefactors, shrugged my shoulders and said, "Meh. I'll skip it. I'm starved. What's there to eat around here?"

Not that discovery and travel don't excite me! In fact, they are the only things left that excite me! (Well, that and new flavors of cheese puffs). It's the getting there that puts me off. And not because of time or boredom or anything like that. In all matters of cross continental escapades, it's the motion sickness that is the undoing of my enthusiasm.

I haven't talked much about our boat (may she rest in peace with her new owners) on this blog, and with good reason. We bought it, I nearly peed myself in anxiety when we moved it to another slip, we took it out for a few day trips, and that was it. We sold it. And all because I couldn't handle the motion of the ocean.

Travel by boat, though, has its charms. (They wear off after about two hours). It's the air travel, start to finish, that's the absolute pits. And we can just skip the discussion about the public theater that is the security check at the airport. And the bad food and the service and the stench of humankind packed into a winged steel tube. For me, it's the tiny mutiny going on inside my head that makes almost all travel not worth it. My tiny sinuses and the disastrous labyrinth that is my inner ear all conspire to keep me home-bound.

But I do want to leave the house! I do, I do, I do! It's a disconcerting thing, really, this desire to be rowed through the canals of Venice, to want to eat soup for breakfast on the streets of Vietnam, to want to paddle my surfboard out into the Pacific along the Panamanian coast... and then to be thwarted by my own shitty head-plumbing.

I suppose, given my new foray into the Laws of Attraction and all that jazz, I could dig deep for the metaphor here. I could consider that maybe my focus on the destination and not the journey is really what keeps me from enjoying the ride. Maybe I am just not at the place in my life to understand how airsickness is revealing itself as a teacher of a greater lesson.

Oooooooor.... maybe there is no freakin' lesson. For God's sake. Maybe I am just not designed to sit (as Louis CK says) in a chair 30,000 feet in the air and think this is completely normal.

I think I am designed to sit about two feet off the pavement, in my Honda Civic. Or maybe four feet off the ground in a train car. Something not subject to the twitchy temperament of winds or, ya know, clouds.

A massage therapist recently suggested soaking my feet in an Epsom salt bath every night to draw the energy mucking up my head into my the lower part of my body. If there was a way to pull the mangled locomotive engine parts out of my head and put them in my feet, I gladly would. I would happily take nauseous ankles over a head that feels like it might explode from the pressure any day of the week.

How wrong is it, when I fly, to wish I could ferry all the discomfort from my head to my stomach so I could just have a good old fashioned heave-ho into an airsickness bag and be done with it? Why do I have to contend with the feeling of a balloon being inflated inside my skull? Why can't I have restless legs or legs that are too long for an airplane seat? Why, oh why, must I be obsessed with visiting places ravaged by things like "pockets of warm air" or "tropical storm fronts"?

And how hard is it to calm yourself down with deep cleansing breaths when the air you're breathing smells and tastes like dirty shag carpeting? Hard. And then there are the toilets threatening to suction your intestines out and distribute them over a farm in Iowa somewhe-

Wait. This is supposed to be a post about a really awesome trip I went on with a good friend of mine.

Right.

So. Ahem. ANYWHO. After a slight delay at the airport, we boarded the plane. Seattle, like the abusive boyfriend of a city that it is, gave us a rainbow in a last ditch effort to say "Don't leave! I promise I'll never hurt you again, baby."

The ascent was the worst I've ever experienced in my life. The winds were pretty fierce, so, to avoid bumps, the pilot cocked the plane back on its rear wheels, pointed the nose STRAIGHT up into the air, and shot up to 30,000 feet in, like, sixteen seconds. I'm not even exaggerating. My head hurt so bad afterward, I could hardly hold my hands steady to take this picture. Thanks, Victoria, for help with the shot.

We landed at night, got ourselves the most delicious Mexican shrimp cocktail and beers in town for dinner, and then hit the hay early.

Next post: Day Two (where there will be no mention of vomit, I promise).

Continue to full post...

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i discover the new world

SLO, Day 1

I've been meaning to post pictures of my trip to San Luis Obispo for weeks now, but I've lately fallen into the rabbit hole of self help books. I know, I know. it's incredibly good for me, incredibly bad for this blog. And, as we all know, at some point you just have to stop all the processing and journaling and weeping about it and just get on with the business of living. So, here it is. The start of my trip.

Were the discovery of the New World up to me, were I asked by the moneyed elite to captain a rollicking, gigantic vessel designed to cut through vast expanses of bumpy sea, were I handed a satchelful of gold and a crudely drawn map and promised fame and glory, were I told innumerable riches, exotic women, and lush climates awaited me in a beautiful new country, I would have considered the offer with a deep and sober humility. I would have calculated the promise of honor, and weighed it against the risk of death. I would have allotted the proper amount of pacing back and forth with hands behind the back and tugging on the chin. And then I would have turned to my benefactors, shrugged my shoulders and said, "Meh. I'll skip it. I'm starved. What's there to eat around here?"

Not that discovery and travel don't excite me! In fact, they are the only things left that excite me! (Well, that and new flavors of cheese puffs). It's the getting there that puts me off. And not because of time or boredom or anything like that. In all matters of cross continental escapades, it's the motion sickness that is the undoing of my enthusiasm.

I haven't talked much about our boat (may she rest in peace with her new owners) on this blog, and with good reason. We bought it, I nearly peed myself in anxiety when we moved it to another slip, we took it out for a few day trips, and that was it. We sold it. And all because I couldn't handle the motion of the ocean.

Travel by boat, though, has its charms. (They wear off after about two hours). It's the air travel, start to finish, that's the absolute pits. And we can just skip the discussion about the public theater that is the security check at the airport. And the bad food and the service and the stench of humankind packed into a winged steel tube. For me, it's the tiny mutiny going on inside my head that makes almost all travel not worth it. My tiny sinuses and the disastrous labyrinth that is my inner ear all conspire to keep me home-bound.

But I do want to leave the house! I do, I do, I do! It's a disconcerting thing, really, this desire to be rowed through the canals of Venice, to want to eat soup for breakfast on the streets of Vietnam, to want to paddle my surfboard out into the Pacific along the Panamanian coast... and then to be thwarted by my own shitty head-plumbing.

I suppose, given my new foray into the Laws of Attraction and all that jazz, I could dig deep for the metaphor here. I could consider that maybe my focus on the destination and not the journey is really what keeps me from enjoying the ride. Maybe I am just not at the place in my life to understand how airsickness is revealing itself as a teacher of a greater lesson.

Oooooooor.... maybe there is no freakin' lesson. For God's sake. Maybe I am just not designed to sit (as Louis CK says) in a chair 30,000 feet in the air and think this is completely normal.

I think I am designed to sit about two feet off the pavement, in my Honda Civic. Or maybe four feet off the ground in a train car. Something not subject to the twitchy temperament of winds or, ya know, clouds.

A massage therapist recently suggested soaking my feet in an Epsom salt bath every night to draw the energy mucking up my head into my the lower part of my body. If there was a way to pull the mangled locomotive engine parts out of my head and put them in my feet, I gladly would. I would happily take nauseous ankles over a head that feels like it might explode from the pressure any day of the week.

How wrong is it, when I fly, to wish I could ferry all the discomfort from my head to my stomach so I could just have a good old fashioned heave-ho into an airsickness bag and be done with it? Why do I have to contend with the feeling of a balloon being inflated inside my skull? Why can't I have restless legs or legs that are too long for an airplane seat? Why, oh why, must I be obsessed with visiting places ravaged by things like "pockets of warm air" or "tropical storm fronts"?

And how hard is it to calm yourself down with deep cleansing breaths when the air you're breathing smells and tastes like dirty shag carpeting? Hard. And then there are the toilets threatening to suction your intestines out and distribute them over a farm in Iowa somewhe-

Wait. This is supposed to be a post about a really awesome trip I went on with a good friend of mine.

Right.

So. Ahem. ANYWHO. After a slight delay at the airport, we boarded the plane. Seattle, like the abusive boyfriend of a city that it is, gave us a rainbow in a last ditch effort to say "Don't leave! I promise I'll never hurt you again, baby."

The ascent was the worst I've ever experienced in my life. The winds were pretty fierce, so, to avoid bumps, the pilot cocked the plane back on its rear wheels, pointed the nose STRAIGHT up into the air, and shot up to 30,000 feet in, like, sixteen seconds. I'm not even exaggerating. My head hurt so bad afterward, I could hardly hold my hands steady to take this picture. Thanks, Victoria, for help with the shot.

We landed at night, got ourselves the most delicious Mexican shrimp cocktail and beers in town for dinner, and then hit the hay early.

Next post: Day Two (where there will be no mention of vomit, I promise).

Continue to full post...

Back to Top ↑

uis obispo

SLO, Day 1

I've been meaning to post pictures of my trip to San Luis Obispo for weeks now, but I've lately fallen into the rabbit hole of self help books. I know, I know. it's incredibly good for me, incredibly bad for this blog. And, as we all know, at some point you just have to stop all the processing and journaling and weeping about it and just get on with the business of living. So, here it is. The start of my trip.

Were the discovery of the New World up to me, were I asked by the moneyed elite to captain a rollicking, gigantic vessel designed to cut through vast expanses of bumpy sea, were I handed a satchelful of gold and a crudely drawn map and promised fame and glory, were I told innumerable riches, exotic women, and lush climates awaited me in a beautiful new country, I would have considered the offer with a deep and sober humility. I would have calculated the promise of honor, and weighed it against the risk of death. I would have allotted the proper amount of pacing back and forth with hands behind the back and tugging on the chin. And then I would have turned to my benefactors, shrugged my shoulders and said, "Meh. I'll skip it. I'm starved. What's there to eat around here?"

Not that discovery and travel don't excite me! In fact, they are the only things left that excite me! (Well, that and new flavors of cheese puffs). It's the getting there that puts me off. And not because of time or boredom or anything like that. In all matters of cross continental escapades, it's the motion sickness that is the undoing of my enthusiasm.

I haven't talked much about our boat (may she rest in peace with her new owners) on this blog, and with good reason. We bought it, I nearly peed myself in anxiety when we moved it to another slip, we took it out for a few day trips, and that was it. We sold it. And all because I couldn't handle the motion of the ocean.

Travel by boat, though, has its charms. (They wear off after about two hours). It's the air travel, start to finish, that's the absolute pits. And we can just skip the discussion about the public theater that is the security check at the airport. And the bad food and the service and the stench of humankind packed into a winged steel tube. For me, it's the tiny mutiny going on inside my head that makes almost all travel not worth it. My tiny sinuses and the disastrous labyrinth that is my inner ear all conspire to keep me home-bound.

But I do want to leave the house! I do, I do, I do! It's a disconcerting thing, really, this desire to be rowed through the canals of Venice, to want to eat soup for breakfast on the streets of Vietnam, to want to paddle my surfboard out into the Pacific along the Panamanian coast... and then to be thwarted by my own shitty head-plumbing.

I suppose, given my new foray into the Laws of Attraction and all that jazz, I could dig deep for the metaphor here. I could consider that maybe my focus on the destination and not the journey is really what keeps me from enjoying the ride. Maybe I am just not at the place in my life to understand how airsickness is revealing itself as a teacher of a greater lesson.

Oooooooor.... maybe there is no freakin' lesson. For God's sake. Maybe I am just not designed to sit (as Louis CK says) in a chair 30,000 feet in the air and think this is completely normal.

I think I am designed to sit about two feet off the pavement, in my Honda Civic. Or maybe four feet off the ground in a train car. Something not subject to the twitchy temperament of winds or, ya know, clouds.

A massage therapist recently suggested soaking my feet in an Epsom salt bath every night to draw the energy mucking up my head into my the lower part of my body. If there was a way to pull the mangled locomotive engine parts out of my head and put them in my feet, I gladly would. I would happily take nauseous ankles over a head that feels like it might explode from the pressure any day of the week.

How wrong is it, when I fly, to wish I could ferry all the discomfort from my head to my stomach so I could just have a good old fashioned heave-ho into an airsickness bag and be done with it? Why do I have to contend with the feeling of a balloon being inflated inside my skull? Why can't I have restless legs or legs that are too long for an airplane seat? Why, oh why, must I be obsessed with visiting places ravaged by things like "pockets of warm air" or "tropical storm fronts"?

And how hard is it to calm yourself down with deep cleansing breaths when the air you're breathing smells and tastes like dirty shag carpeting? Hard. And then there are the toilets threatening to suction your intestines out and distribute them over a farm in Iowa somewhe-

Wait. This is supposed to be a post about a really awesome trip I went on with a good friend of mine.

Right.

So. Ahem. ANYWHO. After a slight delay at the airport, we boarded the plane. Seattle, like the abusive boyfriend of a city that it is, gave us a rainbow in a last ditch effort to say "Don't leave! I promise I'll never hurt you again, baby."

The ascent was the worst I've ever experienced in my life. The winds were pretty fierce, so, to avoid bumps, the pilot cocked the plane back on its rear wheels, pointed the nose STRAIGHT up into the air, and shot up to 30,000 feet in, like, sixteen seconds. I'm not even exaggerating. My head hurt so bad afterward, I could hardly hold my hands steady to take this picture. Thanks, Victoria, for help with the shot.

We landed at night, got ourselves the most delicious Mexican shrimp cocktail and beers in town for dinner, and then hit the hay early.

Next post: Day Two (where there will be no mention of vomit, I promise).

Continue to full post...

Back to Top ↑

bishop's peak

SLO, Day 2

I've been slow (ha ha! get it! SLO?) to post about my trip. It's been nearly a month since I got back (how in the hell...?) so I'd better get on with it. Plus, Mr. Burdy's cousin called tonight and wanted to know how it was (we haven't talked in a while), so if I needed a sign from the Universe to wrap this thing up, that was it.

But Other Things have been happening! Fun things! And I have wanted to write about them, too! I guess I will have to write about them after I finish writing about this trip. Which, at the rate I'm going, will sometime in 2012.

ANWYHO.

SLO, Day 2:

We start out our tour of downtown with the mission.

I don't know what it is about statuary that fascinates me. Most of my pictures from my 1999 trip to Europe are of statues (and me making an ass of myself in front of them. Oh, to be 20 and shameless again...)

Here we have a bunch of Catholic missals. Which, as a nerdy ten year old, I could not dissociate from projectile ammunition. Oh, homonyms, how I love thee.

Here is our challenge for the day: Bishop's Peak. "Obispo" means "Bishop" in Spanish. Thank you, Victoria, for teaching me this. I would have spent the rest of the trip thinking San Luis Obispo meant something like Saint Louie's Abyss.) And thank YOU, perky young ladies at the Visitor's Information Center, for not knowing the length of a mile from a hole in the ground. Normally, I'm not the type to complain about walking, or about bad estimations of distances to places, but in this case, with my feet swollen in their shoes from the heat, and my tiny water bottle nearly empty before we even got to the FOOTHILL, I was a little more than miffed. Apparently, the attitude in SLO is so laid back, residents can actually cut four miles into one just by saying it slowly.

Yes, we climbed it. And yes, we were sore afterward. And yes, it was sooooo worth it.

This is my favorite part about travel to temperate climates: CITRUS! GROWING ON TREES! IN PEOPLE'S YARDS! It's like shrubbery, or ground cover or something, all casual-like and unassuming on people's property. Like the citrus trees are all, hey lawn, how's it hanging? I'm just standing here minding my biz, making fruit and stuff. Only it's not all casual-like to me because it's CITRUS! With real CITRUS! fruit. And I live in a city that's cold and gray and the only thing that grows really well here all casual-like is mold.

My second favorite part about travel? Signs. Yup. I love me some signs. Especially ones like this one. (The stupid 20 year old in me is snickering right now.)

You know you might have some issues with food when, in a historically Spanish-speaking down, you see a sign that begins with "Del" and you hope and pray it ends in "i" and that they have a good rye bread. Geez. You can take the girl out of New York...

Victoria and I hauled ourselves to the top of Bishop's peak (well, almost to the top; the actual last thirty or forty feet required bouldering equipment) after a very long trip to the base from town. Sure, it was only a few miles, but STILL. When you're planning on just a few hours of hiking because you're trying to save up your energy for the heavy drinking you want to do later that night, you need to pace yourself.

Another thing SLO residents stink at? Describing natural landmarks. We were told that we might come across two massive rocks that would block the road that would require us to "shimmy" between them to get up and over. We came across no such rocks. Why? Because we took a different path to the top. But we weren't told there were two ways to get to the top, so we guessed that the rocks everyone was referring to were these slippery, wet rocks that shot up into the stratosphere at a ninety degree angle. Not wanting to miss the spectacular view from the top, we started up. We got about ten feet up, and both of us broke out into cold sweats. I'm not sure what Victoria was thinking, but all that was running through my head was "Don't die don't die don't die". My knees were starting to give out (because I'm not a billygoat, for god's sake) but I didn't want to disappoint Victoria. But then I saw her face was a shade lighter and we both decided to clamber down, take some photos, chew on some trail mix, and assess the situation. We decided (smartly, duh) to take another path up, and it turns out we chose wisely. From fifteen hundred feet in the air, it was gorgeousness in every direction.

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Office Max(imum Stupidity)

Dear Tuesday

Dear Office Max,

I'm writing because there is something seriously wrong with the way you do business in my neighborhood and I think you should know about it.

I came in to your store tonight hoping to shop quietly, without interruption, and without the heartless "hellohowareyou?" issuing from the cashier nearest the front door. I know your strategy, you see. I used to work retail myself. I know that "greeting customers" is actually code for "theft prevention". The idea that making someone feel like you've "seen" them is going to somehow dilute the meth coursing through their veins and deter them from stuffing fourteen wireless mice down their pants to sell on the street for cash is some pretty optimistic thinking. But, hey, you keep at it! To be honest, I used to think that you actually cared about making customers feel welcome at your store. Office Max, there is only so cozy I can feel in a 20,000 square foot airplane hangar lit with giant fluorescent lamps. No amount of friendly greeting at the door is going to confuse the issue. It's still a warehouse. A warehouse full of objects just on the brink of obsolescence who wait patiently like Corduroy the Bear to be taken home and loved. I might as well be stocking up on ammunition or plane parts or frozen swordfish steaks. Let's just call a duck a duck, shall we?

When I walked into your store tonight, I had my phone headset on. Yes, I was that guy, talking on my phone while shopping. But, you see, that's my right as a customer: I have a right to shop with my earbuds in if I want to. I thought yours was a store that embraced headset culture. After all, all your employees wear them, no?

I was asked by no less that four different employees if I needed help finding anything. FOUR. And they all talked RIGHT OVER the conversation I was having on my headset. No apologies, no "Excuse me", absolutely NO acknowledgment that I was on the phone. Nothing.

Here's the thing that is most maddening about being asked if I needed help while I was clearly talking on the phone: your stores are all signed appropriately. You get maximum points for way-finding. All stores like yours are laid out the same way. Seriously. If you've been in one, you've been in them all. I know where your freaking pens are. Why? Because they're located in the pen aisle. Your paper? In the paper aisle. The other reason I know where everything is? Because I come in to your store A LOT. I do lots of office supply purchasing for my clients, and I frequent your store because it's close to my house. (Guess that whole asking for my zip code thing all those years in a row really panned out, huh?) Anyway, your employees KNOW who I am. They know I NEVER need help shopping your well-signed store. They also know that when I DO ask for help, it's because I can't find something. It's not for lack of looking either. It's because you don't sell what I'm looking for and I hold on to the hope that perhaps you've stuck the letter openers in the upper stratosphere of your shelving and I can't see it. Even with 20,000 square feet, you still manage not to carry certain office supplies. How is this possible?

I can only presume, based on the number of times I was asked if I needed help, that your average patron has the approximate intelligence and grabbing capabilities of a herd of blind walruses. I'm sorry that this is the case, but you might consider training your employees to be able to discern a blind walrus from, say, a young woman clutching a shopping list and pushing a shopping cart very determinedly towards the pen aisle.

I've been in the store over the past five years dozens of times with checks from my clients. Only today, because I had a printer in my shopping cart, did one of your employees call a manager over. Yes, the check was written for a large amount. I get that this requires some theatrics, some furrowed brows, some serious squinting at my driver's license, the check, my driver's license, the check, my driver's license. I get that this might even require your employees to use their - gasp!- headsets! Most visits, your employees are teasing each other using these devices, giggling while they ring me up over some inside joke being transmitted through their earbuds. They're not paying attention to checks or IDs. Most of the time, I have to remind them to scan my "rewards" card (rewards which have NEVER been issued, I might add). But tonight, I was treated like I'd just been caught trying to traffic a shipping container full of Russian prostitutes. Your concern, Office Max, for your bottom line, is laudable, but I give you an F for your performance.

Another area you fail miserably in? Your ability to listen. Against my better judgment, I asked one of your stalkers/employees for help with your printer section. Your employee, though I specified I wanted a duplexer in the machine, but was not interested in wireless capabilities, pointed more than once to machines that had wireless capabilities, but no duplexer. I chose to ignore this. When I finally decided on a machine, he pointed to the spot on the shelf that should have contained the box for said printer, shook his head disapprovingly, and told me he'd have to get one from the back because the "dummy before him" hadn't replenished the one he'd sold. Was this my cue to shake my head disapprovingly as well? Should I have tsked tsked and suggested that the "dummy" be given a demerit? If so, I failed. I just stood there a little dumbstruck.

Your see, even on my worst days working retail, I followed the Rules Of Working Retail. Oh yes, Office Max. I know all about the Rules. I used to sell nearly obsolescent shit for a living, too, you know, and I know there are Rules. The First Rule? The CUSTOMER is the enemy. Not your coworkers. Retail is a battlefield. Breaking ranks is grounds for court martial (or at least being snubbed in the breakroom). Why would your employee call his fellow comrade a "dummy"? Is this the look of the new Big Box Soldier? Has our individuality superseded even our most basic instinct to not foul the nest? Do your employees not honor the retail rules of engagement?

Another sticking point, Office Max: your lack of motivation. Your same insurgent employee then asked me (these are his words verbatim) if I "really wanted the printer" before he "went through the trouble" of getting it from the stockroom. Forgive me, Office Max, but, um, is it not your job to SELL MOTHERFUCKING OFFICE SUPPLIES? Is it so much "trouble" to keep the shelves stocked? Perhaps I am mistaken about how supply and demand work. I am under the impression that when you have something shiny to sell, you put it out on display so people can ogle it and blindly hand over their wallets. This ensures you can get rich and that I take home a cheap plastic printer that will undoubtedly break in five years. I'm holding up my part of the deal. The least you can do is put your shiny stuff out where I can see it.

It's clear my expectations need to be not just lowered, but completely thrown out. Your store is located on some strange vortex where a salutation becomes a repetitive verbal assault, the personnel would rather talk smack about each other than keep the shelves stocked, and "help" means saying "Uh, I don't know if we, like, carry that". So, rather than demand more of you, I'm going to demand less. I'm going to use the time honored method of boycotting your store. And from now on, I'm going to order my supplies the old fashioned way: through the Internet.

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jazz hands and boners

SLO, Day 3 + 4

In honor of Holy Week, y'all, I'm giving up procrastination. I'm doin' it for Jesus, yo.

Day Three was for bike rides through the vineyards. Victoria and I were, a little, um, hung over from the night before, so getting an early start was not easy. As a matter of fact, if it were up to me, we would have skipped the vineyards and the bikes altogether and stayed in bed eating cheese puffs and watching cooking shows on the hotel TV for the day. Luckily for me, though, Victoria is a mother of two and doesn't take bullshit from anyone. I was up, with my bed made, standing at attention by 9 am because I was afraid she might tell me to stop my bellyaching and yank me out of the room by my earlobe.

We slogged our way through breakfast (it's hard to pack in the protein you know you'll need for later when all you want to do is throw up). Undeterred by our condition, Victoria reminded me that when the endorphins kicked in, we would be so glad we didn't quit on ourselves. Boy, was she ever right. Still, it was hard to hear. You see, I'm not an endorphin junkie. The most thrilling athletic thing I've done recently is to stand on a kitchen chair to water a plant up high. I've never been involved with team sports, and I've had to quit running because my knees have gone from well lubricated machines to piles of kindling. So, the prospect of biking up hills at nine a.m. after a night of heavy drinking sounded downright...well, stupid. But, I had to put aside all the stories I tell myself about my body's inability to do hard work and I hoisted myself onto that saddle, tied my skirt in a knot, and I rode like the Devil himself was at my back. And I LOVED it.

Our First Glass

We stopped at the first winery we came to. We sampled some delicious white wine and we put our feet up and let the warm breeze dry the sweat from our brows. By now, the nausea had passed and I was definitely in endorphin territory. I took pictures of olive trees because it was warm and OLIVE TREES! were growing on the property. Just like CITRUS!

Olives!

Being a thoroughly city-fied kind of gal, barnyard animals have always seemed like exotica to me. Horses and cows are just so outsized and foreign to me. My perspective gets blown standing next to them. I mean, have you seen a horse's HEAD recently? Just the head, y'all. They're the size of the upper part of my body. That kind of thing frightens me just a little. Sheep and goats and their body parts too: they're just straight up from another planet. We passed a field of horses and when we stopped to take a water break, they came right up to us and put their enormous heads right up against the fence. Naturally, I had to take a picture.

HORSE!

There is something deeply satisfying about the symmetry of a planted field. Small scale vegetable gardening has always appealed to this need I have for straight lines. Maybe it's because growing things from seed is such a crap shoot. You never know if things are going to come up. Seeing things in tidy rows that appear perfectly straight from every angle is great compensation for the prospect of enormous failure. I still marvel at rows of corn and peas on every roadtrip through farm country. Grapevines, inherently knobby and unwieldy, appear especially hard to plant in straight rows. Maybe this is why their formation is even more awe inspiring to look at from a quarter mile away.

Symmetry and Grapes

Symmetry and Grapes II

There is a little phenomenon that happens around 2 pm every day in the area around SLO. The wind picks up. It lasts about an hour or two. Do you know how hard it is to bike INTO a headwind like that? I kept thinking that if I could just attach my jacket and a few other choice pieces of clothing to my handlebars, I could actually be pushed back up the hill we were trying to bike down. Seriously. It was hard to bike DOWNHILL, the wind was that strong.

Remember how my knees crack like dried twigs and my thigh muscles consider standing on a chair the equivalent of running the Boston Marathon? Yeah. So, I do this thing whenever I find myself on a bicycle with a long road ahead of me. I sing to myself. The same thing over and over and over again. It becomes a sort of meditation so that I can take my mind off how much pedaling SUCKS when I'm low on energy. Last summer, after I fell in a sinkhole at the park and had to pedal home in the dark with my leg oozing blood, I sang "Pushin' Up My Baby Bumblebee" over and over again. I can't remember exactly what I was chanting while I pedaled with all of my might into that wind (I think it was the opening theme to "Dallas"... or maybe it was "Sweet Home Alabama"...) but it got me back into town thankful that I had pushed through the pain.

Taste the Rainbow

Day Four of my trip to San Luis Obispo included a quick bus ride to Pismo Beach. Points have been awarded in the categories of Most Gorgeous Bus Ride I Have Ever Been On, Cleanest/Best Smelling Bus I Have Ever Been On, and Best Destination For The Price.

Hi, Mom, Pismo Beach 2011

I do love me some ocean living, I do.

Dan, Victoria's husband, endlessly teases me about being a most-of-the-time vegetarian. He thinks my mamby-pamby pacificism and my aversion to cold weather would all be cured if I just eat more red meat. "Just once", he pleads with me, "Just once I want to see you eat a hamburger". I don't know if it was the morals-and-values-scrambling euphoria of being at the beach, or if I thought my vacation should end with a toast to Manifest Destiny and the industrialization of American meat packing, but I very suddenly and urgently needed to have a hamburger while we were at the beach. It was positively delicious. I can't remember if Victoria took a picture of me chowing down on that lunch for evidence, but, Dan, I raised a Cherry Coke to you and licked my fingers clean afterward.

The bosom of the Pacific

I also took a picture of pigeons on the roof of that burger-slinging joint. You know. For posterity.

Pigeons and Pismo

The water was freezing, but that did not stop me from sticking my feet in. I always forget how rejuvenated I feel after a day at the beach. I spend so much time in sweaters and boots here in the Northwest. Sometimes it feels completely strange to have my ankles exposed. (I'm working on correcting that self-imposed Puritanism.)

Sign in Pismo

So, my feelings about Days Three and Four of vacation? Jazz hands and boners all around, y'all.

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pismo beach

SLO, Day 3 + 4

In honor of Holy Week, y'all, I'm giving up procrastination. I'm doin' it for Jesus, yo.

Day Three was for bike rides through the vineyards. Victoria and I were, a little, um, hung over from the night before, so getting an early start was not easy. As a matter of fact, if it were up to me, we would have skipped the vineyards and the bikes altogether and stayed in bed eating cheese puffs and watching cooking shows on the hotel TV for the day. Luckily for me, though, Victoria is a mother of two and doesn't take bullshit from anyone. I was up, with my bed made, standing at attention by 9 am because I was afraid she might tell me to stop my bellyaching and yank me out of the room by my earlobe.

We slogged our way through breakfast (it's hard to pack in the protein you know you'll need for later when all you want to do is throw up). Undeterred by our condition, Victoria reminded me that when the endorphins kicked in, we would be so glad we didn't quit on ourselves. Boy, was she ever right. Still, it was hard to hear. You see, I'm not an endorphin junkie. The most thrilling athletic thing I've done recently is to stand on a kitchen chair to water a plant up high. I've never been involved with team sports, and I've had to quit running because my knees have gone from well lubricated machines to piles of kindling. So, the prospect of biking up hills at nine a.m. after a night of heavy drinking sounded downright...well, stupid. But, I had to put aside all the stories I tell myself about my body's inability to do hard work and I hoisted myself onto that saddle, tied my skirt in a knot, and I rode like the Devil himself was at my back. And I LOVED it.

Our First Glass

We stopped at the first winery we came to. We sampled some delicious white wine and we put our feet up and let the warm breeze dry the sweat from our brows. By now, the nausea had passed and I was definitely in endorphin territory. I took pictures of olive trees because it was warm and OLIVE TREES! were growing on the property. Just like CITRUS!

Olives!

Being a thoroughly city-fied kind of gal, barnyard animals have always seemed like exotica to me. Horses and cows are just so outsized and foreign to me. My perspective gets blown standing next to them. I mean, have you seen a horse's HEAD recently? Just the head, y'all. They're the size of the upper part of my body. That kind of thing frightens me just a little. Sheep and goats and their body parts too: they're just straight up from another planet. We passed a field of horses and when we stopped to take a water break, they came right up to us and put their enormous heads right up against the fence. Naturally, I had to take a picture.

HORSE!

There is something deeply satisfying about the symmetry of a planted field. Small scale vegetable gardening has always appealed to this need I have for straight lines. Maybe it's because growing things from seed is such a crap shoot. You never know if things are going to come up. Seeing things in tidy rows that appear perfectly straight from every angle is great compensation for the prospect of enormous failure. I still marvel at rows of corn and peas on every roadtrip through farm country. Grapevines, inherently knobby and unwieldy, appear especially hard to plant in straight rows. Maybe this is why their formation is even more awe inspiring to look at from a quarter mile away.

Symmetry and Grapes

Symmetry and Grapes II

There is a little phenomenon that happens around 2 pm every day in the area around SLO. The wind picks up. It lasts about an hour or two. Do you know how hard it is to bike INTO a headwind like that? I kept thinking that if I could just attach my jacket and a few other choice pieces of clothing to my handlebars, I could actually be pushed back up the hill we were trying to bike down. Seriously. It was hard to bike DOWNHILL, the wind was that strong.

Remember how my knees crack like dried twigs and my thigh muscles consider standing on a chair the equivalent of running the Boston Marathon? Yeah. So, I do this thing whenever I find myself on a bicycle with a long road ahead of me. I sing to myself. The same thing over and over and over again. It becomes a sort of meditation so that I can take my mind off how much pedaling SUCKS when I'm low on energy. Last summer, after I fell in a sinkhole at the park and had to pedal home in the dark with my leg oozing blood, I sang "Pushin' Up My Baby Bumblebee" over and over again. I can't remember exactly what I was chanting while I pedaled with all of my might into that wind (I think it was the opening theme to "Dallas"... or maybe it was "Sweet Home Alabama"...) but it got me back into town thankful that I had pushed through the pain.

Taste the Rainbow

Day Four of my trip to San Luis Obispo included a quick bus ride to Pismo Beach. Points have been awarded in the categories of Most Gorgeous Bus Ride I Have Ever Been On, Cleanest/Best Smelling Bus I Have Ever Been On, and Best Destination For The Price.

Hi, Mom, Pismo Beach 2011

I do love me some ocean living, I do.

Dan, Victoria's husband, endlessly teases me about being a most-of-the-time vegetarian. He thinks my mamby-pamby pacificism and my aversion to cold weather would all be cured if I just eat more red meat. "Just once", he pleads with me, "Just once I want to see you eat a hamburger". I don't know if it was the morals-and-values-scrambling euphoria of being at the beach, or if I thought my vacation should end with a toast to Manifest Destiny and the industrialization of American meat packing, but I very suddenly and urgently needed to have a hamburger while we were at the beach. It was positively delicious. I can't remember if Victoria took a picture of me chowing down on that lunch for evidence, but, Dan, I raised a Cherry Coke to you and licked my fingers clean afterward.

The bosom of the Pacific

I also took a picture of pigeons on the roof of that burger-slinging joint. You know. For posterity.

Pigeons and Pismo

The water was freezing, but that did not stop me from sticking my feet in. I always forget how rejuvenated I feel after a day at the beach. I spend so much time in sweaters and boots here in the Northwest. Sometimes it feels completely strange to have my ankles exposed. (I'm working on correcting that self-imposed Puritanism.)

Sign in Pismo

So, my feelings about Days Three and Four of vacation? Jazz hands and boners all around, y'all.

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Chase Bank

Dear Tuesday

Dear Tuesday,
Is it Tuesday already? Dude. You sure do sneak up on me. You're making me look bad, Tuesday. Here I am all trying to be consistent with posting on Tuesday and you go and turn into Wednesday on me.

Dear Oprah,
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I would do ANYTHING to be on the show this last season. Can you sense my desperation from over here? Wait. Scratch that. You would never indulge desperation. Okay. Do-over. I am now appealing to my highest self, my Source, my Power, The Universal Life Force that wants nothing but good for me. Oh! Did you hear that? I think the Source is speaking to me! What's that, Universal Life Force? You ALSO think it's a good idea for me to be on the Oprah show at least once before it goes off the air? You see, Oprah? All things are aligning... Now, if you could just do a show on intestinal worms, I would be more than happy to be your guest.

Dear Self That Visited Chicago Three Years Ago and Never Managed To Get On The Show:
Are you just kicking yourself, or what?

Dear Self That Should Have Published A Book By Now,
Would that not have been the PERFECT excuse to be on the Oprah show? Didn't you, at one time, think that you would have written a book so powerful, so world changing, so full of life and wisdom and engrossing characters that the Queen of Bookclubs, Oprah Winfrey herself, would be made to weep? Imagine it! Oprah weeping while reading YOUR book! GAH! How many times can you smack yourself in the forehead with your open palm before it becomes medically dangerous?

Dear Free Time Made Possible By My New Schedule,
You are a double edged sword, aren't you? Allowing me time to exercise and making me think about publishing a book! You sneaky devil, you!

Dear Woman Who Looks Just Like My Friend Stephanie In Zumba Class,
I'm sorry if I stare so much at you. I'm sorry if I have, by now, memorized and can replicate on command the way your arms and legs perform the Cumbia. I'm sorry that I cannot take my eyes off the back of your neatly coiffed head while you sweat and jab the air with your long, lean arms. It's just that you look almost EXACTLY like my friend Stephanie who is living in China right now and sometimes, when I look at you, I miss her with a power that takes me by surprise, and my eyes start filling with tears right there in class. I have to look away and concentrate on my moves so as not to have a full-on sob-fest right there in the middle of the gym floor. Inevitably, though, I go right back to staring and I am sure you have noticed. I'm sorry you have become a sort of surrogate for Steph. I want very much to approach you in the hallway after class and explain myself, but I'm scared of what you might think of me.

Dear Chase Bank,
I could write paragraph after paragraph about how much you suck for charging me twenty five dollars a month just to have a stupid checking account with you. TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS, Chase Bank. As a matter of fact, I just did. And then I erased it. Know why? Because you are not worth my time. I just did the sensible thing and moved all my money to a new bank. You can't see me right now, but I am flipping you the bird. I'm sure everyone reading this who is also getting charged fifteen bucks here and ten bucks there to bank with you is ALSO flipping you the bird right now. So, consider yourself the recipient of the largest bird ever flipped by the Internet.

Dear Cannonball Adderley Record and Earl Grey Tea,
You are the most perfect breakfast combination I can think of.

Dear Spring,
Your procrastination is even worse than mine. I shouldn't have to wear a sweater in April, Spring. You know this. So please hurry it up. The tomato starts, Spring, they long to be outside, and off my windowsill. The pea vines that are winding their way around yarn I have strung up to my venetian blinds, inside my house, Spring, they are confused. They know something is not right. Think of the cucumbers, Spring, that are bursting out of their little yogurt cups packed with soil. They long to spill out over the driveway. Forget me, Spring. I have gotten used to your heel-dragging ways. But think of the vegetables, Spring. Think of the vegetables!

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last season

Dear Tuesday

Dear Tuesday,
Is it Tuesday already? Dude. You sure do sneak up on me. You're making me look bad, Tuesday. Here I am all trying to be consistent with posting on Tuesday and you go and turn into Wednesday on me.

Dear Oprah,
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I would do ANYTHING to be on the show this last season. Can you sense my desperation from over here? Wait. Scratch that. You would never indulge desperation. Okay. Do-over. I am now appealing to my highest self, my Source, my Power, The Universal Life Force that wants nothing but good for me. Oh! Did you hear that? I think the Source is speaking to me! What's that, Universal Life Force? You ALSO think it's a good idea for me to be on the Oprah show at least once before it goes off the air? You see, Oprah? All things are aligning... Now, if you could just do a show on intestinal worms, I would be more than happy to be your guest.

Dear Self That Visited Chicago Three Years Ago and Never Managed To Get On The Show:
Are you just kicking yourself, or what?

Dear Self That Should Have Published A Book By Now,
Would that not have been the PERFECT excuse to be on the Oprah show? Didn't you, at one time, think that you would have written a book so powerful, so world changing, so full of life and wisdom and engrossing characters that the Queen of Bookclubs, Oprah Winfrey herself, would be made to weep? Imagine it! Oprah weeping while reading YOUR book! GAH! How many times can you smack yourself in the forehead with your open palm before it becomes medically dangerous?

Dear Free Time Made Possible By My New Schedule,
You are a double edged sword, aren't you? Allowing me time to exercise and making me think about publishing a book! You sneaky devil, you!

Dear Woman Who Looks Just Like My Friend Stephanie In Zumba Class,
I'm sorry if I stare so much at you. I'm sorry if I have, by now, memorized and can replicate on command the way your arms and legs perform the Cumbia. I'm sorry that I cannot take my eyes off the back of your neatly coiffed head while you sweat and jab the air with your long, lean arms. It's just that you look almost EXACTLY like my friend Stephanie who is living in China right now and sometimes, when I look at you, I miss her with a power that takes me by surprise, and my eyes start filling with tears right there in class. I have to look away and concentrate on my moves so as not to have a full-on sob-fest right there in the middle of the gym floor. Inevitably, though, I go right back to staring and I am sure you have noticed. I'm sorry you have become a sort of surrogate for Steph. I want very much to approach you in the hallway after class and explain myself, but I'm scared of what you might think of me.

Dear Chase Bank,
I could write paragraph after paragraph about how much you suck for charging me twenty five dollars a month just to have a stupid checking account with you. TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS, Chase Bank. As a matter of fact, I just did. And then I erased it. Know why? Because you are not worth my time. I just did the sensible thing and moved all my money to a new bank. You can't see me right now, but I am flipping you the bird. I'm sure everyone reading this who is also getting charged fifteen bucks here and ten bucks there to bank with you is ALSO flipping you the bird right now. So, consider yourself the recipient of the largest bird ever flipped by the Internet.

Dear Cannonball Adderley Record and Earl Grey Tea,
You are the most perfect breakfast combination I can think of.

Dear Spring,
Your procrastination is even worse than mine. I shouldn't have to wear a sweater in April, Spring. You know this. So please hurry it up. The tomato starts, Spring, they long to be outside, and off my windowsill. The pea vines that are winding their way around yarn I have strung up to my venetian blinds, inside my house, Spring, they are confused. They know something is not right. Think of the cucumbers, Spring, that are bursting out of their little yogurt cups packed with soil. They long to spill out over the driveway. Forget me, Spring. I have gotten used to your heel-dragging ways. But think of the vegetables, Spring. Think of the vegetables!

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how to cope without a phone

Express Inn- Short for “Expressly Terrible”

A quick update from the road here before I get back on it. I'm traveling again! This time it's Seattle to San Diego (or as far south as I can get before I get lonely/tired of the buzzing my body does after 10 straight hours of driving.) A few quick points before I hit the shower (that's shower stall; no tub here at the Express Inn. It's express, after all. No time for lollygagging in the tub.)

-A friend of mine called the Oregon Coast "God's Country". God must like him some evergreens, 'cause that's all there is out there. I know I'm ready for a change of seasons because all I wanted after all that misty rain and miles and miles of trees was a good old fashioned desert. I wanted to burn my eyes in the sun and not feel an ounce of moisture in the air. I wanted to see desert flowers, and cacti and brown men in dusty shirts. I wanted to hug a horny toad close to my chest, for Pete's sake, and feed it Jujubees. I know this weather has kept my skin looking radiant and all but halted the aging process, but, a girl needs a little coffee with her sugar now and again, knowwhatimean?

-I am trying to roll with the waves of emotion that come with 10 straight hours of driving. There are cycles of excitement (usually right after the morning's first caffeinated beverage) followed by cycles of fear that I'm wasting my time, followed by steering-wheel-pounding-happiness over hearing Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" on my mix tape, followed by fear that I'm using the most inefficient route to get somewhere, followed by unadulterated joy over two-dollar strawberries sold at a stand on the side of the road just when I am getting hungry.

-This trip is unlike any trip I've ever taken. Maps? On my phone. List of hotels to stay at? on my phone. Directions to the nearest scenic outlook? On my phone. Music? On my phone. Friends' numbers and address for long talks/places to send kitschy postcards? On my phone. It's unbelievably convenient. And paranoia-inducing. If I lost that thing? Holy crap. They'd have to heli-port my deflated body back to Seattle and inject me with a serum that makes one believe there is life after being unable to use mobile technology. Every trip to every gas station restroom has me furiously patting down my pockets and checking my purse to make sure I haven't accidentally left my phone on the paper towel dispenser.

More to come!

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Seattle to San Diego

Express Inn- Short for “Expressly Terrible”

A quick update from the road here before I get back on it. I'm traveling again! This time it's Seattle to San Diego (or as far south as I can get before I get lonely/tired of the buzzing my body does after 10 straight hours of driving.) A few quick points before I hit the shower (that's shower stall; no tub here at the Express Inn. It's express, after all. No time for lollygagging in the tub.)

-A friend of mine called the Oregon Coast "God's Country". God must like him some evergreens, 'cause that's all there is out there. I know I'm ready for a change of seasons because all I wanted after all that misty rain and miles and miles of trees was a good old fashioned desert. I wanted to burn my eyes in the sun and not feel an ounce of moisture in the air. I wanted to see desert flowers, and cacti and brown men in dusty shirts. I wanted to hug a horny toad close to my chest, for Pete's sake, and feed it Jujubees. I know this weather has kept my skin looking radiant and all but halted the aging process, but, a girl needs a little coffee with her sugar now and again, knowwhatimean?

-I am trying to roll with the waves of emotion that come with 10 straight hours of driving. There are cycles of excitement (usually right after the morning's first caffeinated beverage) followed by cycles of fear that I'm wasting my time, followed by steering-wheel-pounding-happiness over hearing Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" on my mix tape, followed by fear that I'm using the most inefficient route to get somewhere, followed by unadulterated joy over two-dollar strawberries sold at a stand on the side of the road just when I am getting hungry.

-This trip is unlike any trip I've ever taken. Maps? On my phone. List of hotels to stay at? on my phone. Directions to the nearest scenic outlook? On my phone. Music? On my phone. Friends' numbers and address for long talks/places to send kitschy postcards? On my phone. It's unbelievably convenient. And paranoia-inducing. If I lost that thing? Holy crap. They'd have to heli-port my deflated body back to Seattle and inject me with a serum that makes one believe there is life after being unable to use mobile technology. Every trip to every gas station restroom has me furiously patting down my pockets and checking my purse to make sure I haven't accidentally left my phone on the paper towel dispenser.

More to come!

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Gorda

When Life Hands You Lemons… and a guy named Jake*

The clock is ticking here at the San Luis Obispo public library. For 26 minutes, I have Internet access. Then it's back to getting directions, checking my email, and Googling "cheap, shitty motels" on my phone. Why? Well, because my laptop is in San Francisco. And I am at least five hours south of it in San Luis Obispo.

That time calculation might be a little off. You see, time has unraveled these past 24 hours.

A savvier traveler might have a plan for traveling down the coast. A savvier traveler, for instance, might have checked things like road conditions and weather and packed something slightly warmer for those gusty coastal winds. A savvier traveler might also have, for instance, checked to see if Route 1 was blocked due a massive rock slide. She might also have believed the sign when it said in Monterrey "Road Ends 75 miles".

Ends? How does a road just END? Surely there would be a detour, no? Surely there would be something besides a gas station, a restaurant, and three burly contractors nursing tallboys of beer? Surely the Universe would not expect one to squint at a ragged map and know that "G14" was a forest road and that one would have to wend one's way, on a single lane road for 20 excruciating miles at 7 miles an hour, through the Los Padres National Forest as the sun was setting and then drive through a goddamned Army base to get back to Highway 101, right? And surely, surely, the Universe would not have planted Jake at the end of the bar run his ragged fingers through the back of your cute, asymmetrical haircut while you were looking away, offer you some of his shrimp tortellini, and ask you why you had to be going so soon.

Because nothing would light up your face after finding out that the road, WAS, in fact, closed, and that the "detour" you dreamed of was 50 long miles through dense woods, like a guy who was paying for his meal in weed, and knew those woods like the back of his hand because he lived somewhere in them off the grid. And nothing would make you feel better after pumping thirty six cents worth of gas into your car (because all the other pumps were dry, the other hundred or so drivers that day having panicked in exactly the same way you did and topped off their tanks) than his pet Chihuahua, Bella, who sat in your lap for a picture.

And nothing would make that day more complete than figuring out you'd left your phone, your only effing connection to the outside world, on the paper towel dispenser in that bathroom in the gas station, after driving five miles down the road.

Well, nothing except using that phone, after an hour of driving like a bat out of hell down 101, to find a motel, booking it, and then driving there - only to find out that the only room vacant is the handicapped room. There will be no bathtub, the power button on the TV will be broken, and your blackout shades will have a ping pong ball sized hole in them. You don't care much because you are exhausted. You will pull the plug for the TV out of the wall, you will bunch up the shades to cover the hole, you will turn on the heater (whose knobs are broken/reversed so instead of blowing hot air all night, blows COLD air) and you will dream of a more dignified, more planned vacation. One that does not involve holes in the wallboard, and rock slides, and not eating dinner, and definitely includes more guys eating pasta in a restaurant at the end of the world.

*Not his real name. I'm protecting his innocence from the Feds.

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rockslide on Route 1

When Life Hands You Lemons… and a guy named Jake*

The clock is ticking here at the San Luis Obispo public library. For 26 minutes, I have Internet access. Then it's back to getting directions, checking my email, and Googling "cheap, shitty motels" on my phone. Why? Well, because my laptop is in San Francisco. And I am at least five hours south of it in San Luis Obispo.

That time calculation might be a little off. You see, time has unraveled these past 24 hours.

A savvier traveler might have a plan for traveling down the coast. A savvier traveler, for instance, might have checked things like road conditions and weather and packed something slightly warmer for those gusty coastal winds. A savvier traveler might also have, for instance, checked to see if Route 1 was blocked due a massive rock slide. She might also have believed the sign when it said in Monterrey "Road Ends 75 miles".

Ends? How does a road just END? Surely there would be a detour, no? Surely there would be something besides a gas station, a restaurant, and three burly contractors nursing tallboys of beer? Surely the Universe would not expect one to squint at a ragged map and know that "G14" was a forest road and that one would have to wend one's way, on a single lane road for 20 excruciating miles at 7 miles an hour, through the Los Padres National Forest as the sun was setting and then drive through a goddamned Army base to get back to Highway 101, right? And surely, surely, the Universe would not have planted Jake at the end of the bar run his ragged fingers through the back of your cute, asymmetrical haircut while you were looking away, offer you some of his shrimp tortellini, and ask you why you had to be going so soon.

Because nothing would light up your face after finding out that the road, WAS, in fact, closed, and that the "detour" you dreamed of was 50 long miles through dense woods, like a guy who was paying for his meal in weed, and knew those woods like the back of his hand because he lived somewhere in them off the grid. And nothing would make you feel better after pumping thirty six cents worth of gas into your car (because all the other pumps were dry, the other hundred or so drivers that day having panicked in exactly the same way you did and topped off their tanks) than his pet Chihuahua, Bella, who sat in your lap for a picture.

And nothing would make that day more complete than figuring out you'd left your phone, your only effing connection to the outside world, on the paper towel dispenser in that bathroom in the gas station, after driving five miles down the road.

Well, nothing except using that phone, after an hour of driving like a bat out of hell down 101, to find a motel, booking it, and then driving there - only to find out that the only room vacant is the handicapped room. There will be no bathtub, the power button on the TV will be broken, and your blackout shades will have a ping pong ball sized hole in them. You don't care much because you are exhausted. You will pull the plug for the TV out of the wall, you will bunch up the shades to cover the hole, you will turn on the heater (whose knobs are broken/reversed so instead of blowing hot air all night, blows COLD air) and you will dream of a more dignified, more planned vacation. One that does not involve holes in the wallboard, and rock slides, and not eating dinner, and definitely includes more guys eating pasta in a restaurant at the end of the world.

*Not his real name. I'm protecting his innocence from the Feds.

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Sab Diego

Love Letters From The Road (Dear Tuesday, the Roadtip Installation)

Dear Everyone That Loves Me,
I am safe and sound. Thank you for your prayers for my safety. What I lack in preparedness, I more than make up for with street smarts and an East Coast tough girl swagger that will not leave my system despite all my granola munching and tree hugging. No one puts this Baby in the corner because this Baby will melt your face off with her stink eye.

Dear Mom and Dad,
Thanks for teaching me good manners. I thank the toothless owner of the filthy roadside gas station as profusely and genuinenly as I do the pretty Hawaiian-shirted and white-sneakered waitress at the seafood restaurant. You have taught me (among other things) to recognize a human being when I see one.

Dear Tara,
Thanks for teaching me that thirty dollars is a small price to pay for my sanity. Thirty dollars last night made the difference between anxiety and peace. Thirty dollars made the difference between curling my body into a tight ball to avoid making contact with the edge of what I presumed to be an unwashed, scratchy motel-issue comforter, and sleeping comfortably in a pin-drop silent, beautifully appointed room that was heated to my exact comfort level.

Dear Tim at the San Clemente Inn,
You, sir, are a rockstar. Thank you for joining the long line of people who think I'm roughly ten to fifteen years younger than I actually am. You asked me if I could handle hauling my luggage up a flight of stairs because I "looked young". I almost invited you to dinner, and not just because you judged my bare biceps to be the suitcase-lifting type. Thanks for that restaurant recommendation as well. I know a fellow eater when I see one. You, sir, have great taste in food. And you know your sleepy little town like the back of your hand. You made that last bit of driving so very, very worth it.

Dear Everyone That Told Me To Avoid L.A.,
Um.... it wasn't really that bad, y'all. I mean, have you sat in NY/NJ traffic? I have, and I'm here to tell you: It's the same damn thing! Only, at least in LA, you have PALM TREES to look at while you're crawling along! And the air doesn't smell like diesel or tar or defeat! Do you want to know a secret? I kinda liked it. Wanna know another secret? This part, this one stretch of an hour and a half of driving... this scared me the most about this whole trip. Not the winding turns down Highway 1 in the pitch black night. Not the random men who would give me the elevator eyes when I said "Table for one, please". Not the depressing, we've-made-this-only-a-modicum-above-tolerable motel conditions. Nope. None of that intimidated me. The traffic in LA is the only thing I was scared of. Why? I don't know, exactly. Maybe I was afraid of all the wasted time. (HA! There's a rock slide I'd like to introduce my pre-trip self to for a lesson in "wasted time"). Maybe I was afraid of getting into an accident and being stranded. Maybe I was afraid I would actually LIKE it. You see, everyone I know seems to hate L.A. But, they hate it in the way that everyone hates the prettiest girl in the room. They all want to BE the prettiest girl in the room- so they just talk smack about her to make themselves feel better. Well, L.A., I think you're pretty and I'm not intimidated by your long legs and perfect hair.

Dear Mr. Burdy,
Thank you for letting me do this. Not in a "thank you for unchaining me from the stove" sort of way, either. Thanks for letting me take an old car we share away for ten whole days and push her to the limits of her speed limits and mechanical capabilities. Thank you for enduring loneliness and having to explain to everyone that your fiance is a rather impetuous thing who loves to jump in the car from time to time, wholly unprepared, and drive for miles and miles just to clear her head. Thank you for making me smile proudly when male strangers ask me "what my man is like" because they cannot imagine why a woman would be on the road, by herself, without him. Thank you for being the confident, secure, and seasoned veteran of this relationship. Thank you for being a thoroughly modern man and a gentle, sensitive human being all at once.

Dear Madonna Inn,
I'm comin' for ya.

Dear Everyone I Know Between San Diego and Seattle,
I'm comin' to see ya. I promise. We're gonna have a beer, we're gonna catch up.

Dear Beach,
I don't even have words. If it weren't so inappropriate on so many levels to scoop up great handfuls of sand and throw them into the air in ecstacy, I would do it. I swear. Man, am I happy to see you.

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good friends

Pink Is the Color Of Contentedness

Can you hear my contented sighs from where you are? Because I have been doing nothing but exhaling dramatically with relief and happiness for the past 12 hours or so.

Yesterday morning was a rough one. I'd spent the previous day, all day, in the hot, hot sun. I thought I'd drunk enough water throughout the day. I also thought I'd put on enough sunscreen. Turns out I did neither. And then I drank beer.

When I woke up the next morning for the second time (the first time was because I was having a nightmare about a grenade-tossing loner type and me scrambling up a tree) I'm pretty sure I was mega-dehydrated. And, because dehydration works a lot like drunkenness in that you can't accept that you are, in fact, dehydrated while you are dehydrated (Nah, bro... I can totally drive thish car home....I'm totally fine, dude!... [stumbles off curb, breaks ankle]) I didn't realize it until 300 miles, five hours, and many, many bottles of water later when I was feeling a LOT better.

This was the first mechanical failure I've experienced on this trip. And it was a short-lived one thanks to the dozens of stops I made along the way to fill up my water bottle. The technology failures, though, they don't seem to want to stop. I was in Ventura, CA, before I realized the car charger didn't work. So, without a laptop, and with my phone as my only guidebook/map/emergency lifeline, I have to make sure that my phone is fully charged every morning before hitting the road. Yesterday, after pushing through the morning's nausea and listlessness, I got all the way to the bell tower in Balboa Park in San Diego, clearly one of the most beautiful and ornate buildings in the whole park, when my camera ran out of battery. I grabbed a few shots with my phone's camera (is there anything this little HTC Evo CAN'T do?) and made my way back to the car, determined to not have THAT happen again.

Other things, however, have been aligning magically. I was checking my email (from my phone!) from a state park bathroom when I saw that a friend from high school, who I'd been trying to meet up with since March when I was down in SLO the first time, suggested that we meet at a cute little bistro in a sleepy little town for dinner with his wife. I was literally ten minutes from the turnoff when I checked my email. So, I pulled off the highway, called him, changed out of my sweaty traveling clothes into something not sweaty in my car (I'm sorry, Orcutt, CA, for flashing you my boobs, but it's just so much more comfortable to drive without a bra), and, like, just like no time had passed between us at all, we were having wine and eating meatballs. I had arrived just a few minutes before my friend and his wife and handed the lovely hostess at Addamo's my camera battery, explaining that I was about to meet a friend I hadn't seen in fifteen years and could she please plug this battery into her wall for ten minutes or so so I could take pictures of this momentous occasion, and also, was my shirt on backwards?

My friend, the inimitable J.C., his lovely wife Colleen, and I laughed the night away. It's becoming more and more apparent to me that this trip is only partially about the scenery. Letting your hair down and laughing is equally important. Understanding that some friendships do not need physical proximity to endure...this has been the most important lesson yet. I've stayed with some incredibly wonderful people along the way and they have been so warm and welcoming. They have all been tonic to my tired, vibrating soul at the end of a day of driving.

And then, THEN! I got to spend the night at the Madonna Inn. It figures that I would drive all this way to get away from the snow and the cold to sleep in a (very expensive) room decorated, of all things, like a freakin' Swiss Chalet, complete with wooden skis and wood paneling. Gah! Whatever frustration I was feeling this morning wore off in seconds, though, when I got to the pool. The pool, y'all. The pool is magical. Swimming in the early morning in a pool surrounded by mountains with birds chirping in the background? Heavenly. Topped only by the music being piped in through speakers made to look like boulders. The song?

"Take it easy
Take it easy
Don't let the sound of your own wheels
Drive you crazy".

Will do, Mr. Henley. Will do.

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HTC Evo

Pink Is the Color Of Contentedness

Can you hear my contented sighs from where you are? Because I have been doing nothing but exhaling dramatically with relief and happiness for the past 12 hours or so.

Yesterday morning was a rough one. I'd spent the previous day, all day, in the hot, hot sun. I thought I'd drunk enough water throughout the day. I also thought I'd put on enough sunscreen. Turns out I did neither. And then I drank beer.

When I woke up the next morning for the second time (the first time was because I was having a nightmare about a grenade-tossing loner type and me scrambling up a tree) I'm pretty sure I was mega-dehydrated. And, because dehydration works a lot like drunkenness in that you can't accept that you are, in fact, dehydrated while you are dehydrated (Nah, bro... I can totally drive thish car home....I'm totally fine, dude!... [stumbles off curb, breaks ankle]) I didn't realize it until 300 miles, five hours, and many, many bottles of water later when I was feeling a LOT better.

This was the first mechanical failure I've experienced on this trip. And it was a short-lived one thanks to the dozens of stops I made along the way to fill up my water bottle. The technology failures, though, they don't seem to want to stop. I was in Ventura, CA, before I realized the car charger didn't work. So, without a laptop, and with my phone as my only guidebook/map/emergency lifeline, I have to make sure that my phone is fully charged every morning before hitting the road. Yesterday, after pushing through the morning's nausea and listlessness, I got all the way to the bell tower in Balboa Park in San Diego, clearly one of the most beautiful and ornate buildings in the whole park, when my camera ran out of battery. I grabbed a few shots with my phone's camera (is there anything this little HTC Evo CAN'T do?) and made my way back to the car, determined to not have THAT happen again.

Other things, however, have been aligning magically. I was checking my email (from my phone!) from a state park bathroom when I saw that a friend from high school, who I'd been trying to meet up with since March when I was down in SLO the first time, suggested that we meet at a cute little bistro in a sleepy little town for dinner with his wife. I was literally ten minutes from the turnoff when I checked my email. So, I pulled off the highway, called him, changed out of my sweaty traveling clothes into something not sweaty in my car (I'm sorry, Orcutt, CA, for flashing you my boobs, but it's just so much more comfortable to drive without a bra), and, like, just like no time had passed between us at all, we were having wine and eating meatballs. I had arrived just a few minutes before my friend and his wife and handed the lovely hostess at Addamo's my camera battery, explaining that I was about to meet a friend I hadn't seen in fifteen years and could she please plug this battery into her wall for ten minutes or so so I could take pictures of this momentous occasion, and also, was my shirt on backwards?

My friend, the inimitable J.C., his lovely wife Colleen, and I laughed the night away. It's becoming more and more apparent to me that this trip is only partially about the scenery. Letting your hair down and laughing is equally important. Understanding that some friendships do not need physical proximity to endure...this has been the most important lesson yet. I've stayed with some incredibly wonderful people along the way and they have been so warm and welcoming. They have all been tonic to my tired, vibrating soul at the end of a day of driving.

And then, THEN! I got to spend the night at the Madonna Inn. It figures that I would drive all this way to get away from the snow and the cold to sleep in a (very expensive) room decorated, of all things, like a freakin' Swiss Chalet, complete with wooden skis and wood paneling. Gah! Whatever frustration I was feeling this morning wore off in seconds, though, when I got to the pool. The pool, y'all. The pool is magical. Swimming in the early morning in a pool surrounded by mountains with birds chirping in the background? Heavenly. Topped only by the music being piped in through speakers made to look like boulders. The song?

"Take it easy
Take it easy
Don't let the sound of your own wheels
Drive you crazy".

Will do, Mr. Henley. Will do.

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the fucking eagles

Pink Is the Color Of Contentedness

Can you hear my contented sighs from where you are? Because I have been doing nothing but exhaling dramatically with relief and happiness for the past 12 hours or so.

Yesterday morning was a rough one. I'd spent the previous day, all day, in the hot, hot sun. I thought I'd drunk enough water throughout the day. I also thought I'd put on enough sunscreen. Turns out I did neither. And then I drank beer.

When I woke up the next morning for the second time (the first time was because I was having a nightmare about a grenade-tossing loner type and me scrambling up a tree) I'm pretty sure I was mega-dehydrated. And, because dehydration works a lot like drunkenness in that you can't accept that you are, in fact, dehydrated while you are dehydrated (Nah, bro... I can totally drive thish car home....I'm totally fine, dude!... [stumbles off curb, breaks ankle]) I didn't realize it until 300 miles, five hours, and many, many bottles of water later when I was feeling a LOT better.

This was the first mechanical failure I've experienced on this trip. And it was a short-lived one thanks to the dozens of stops I made along the way to fill up my water bottle. The technology failures, though, they don't seem to want to stop. I was in Ventura, CA, before I realized the car charger didn't work. So, without a laptop, and with my phone as my only guidebook/map/emergency lifeline, I have to make sure that my phone is fully charged every morning before hitting the road. Yesterday, after pushing through the morning's nausea and listlessness, I got all the way to the bell tower in Balboa Park in San Diego, clearly one of the most beautiful and ornate buildings in the whole park, when my camera ran out of battery. I grabbed a few shots with my phone's camera (is there anything this little HTC Evo CAN'T do?) and made my way back to the car, determined to not have THAT happen again.

Other things, however, have been aligning magically. I was checking my email (from my phone!) from a state park bathroom when I saw that a friend from high school, who I'd been trying to meet up with since March when I was down in SLO the first time, suggested that we meet at a cute little bistro in a sleepy little town for dinner with his wife. I was literally ten minutes from the turnoff when I checked my email. So, I pulled off the highway, called him, changed out of my sweaty traveling clothes into something not sweaty in my car (I'm sorry, Orcutt, CA, for flashing you my boobs, but it's just so much more comfortable to drive without a bra), and, like, just like no time had passed between us at all, we were having wine and eating meatballs. I had arrived just a few minutes before my friend and his wife and handed the lovely hostess at Addamo's my camera battery, explaining that I was about to meet a friend I hadn't seen in fifteen years and could she please plug this battery into her wall for ten minutes or so so I could take pictures of this momentous occasion, and also, was my shirt on backwards?

My friend, the inimitable J.C., his lovely wife Colleen, and I laughed the night away. It's becoming more and more apparent to me that this trip is only partially about the scenery. Letting your hair down and laughing is equally important. Understanding that some friendships do not need physical proximity to endure...this has been the most important lesson yet. I've stayed with some incredibly wonderful people along the way and they have been so warm and welcoming. They have all been tonic to my tired, vibrating soul at the end of a day of driving.

And then, THEN! I got to spend the night at the Madonna Inn. It figures that I would drive all this way to get away from the snow and the cold to sleep in a (very expensive) room decorated, of all things, like a freakin' Swiss Chalet, complete with wooden skis and wood paneling. Gah! Whatever frustration I was feeling this morning wore off in seconds, though, when I got to the pool. The pool, y'all. The pool is magical. Swimming in the early morning in a pool surrounded by mountains with birds chirping in the background? Heavenly. Topped only by the music being piped in through speakers made to look like boulders. The song?

"Take it easy
Take it easy
Don't let the sound of your own wheels
Drive you crazy".

Will do, Mr. Henley. Will do.

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are you kidding me?

They Have No Idea Who They’re Dealing With

Write a review about my recent stay? Why, sure, Hotels.com. Sure I will.
Here ya go.

Title: "Where dreams of comfort and hospitality go to die"

"What should I start with? The ping pong ball sized hole torn into the drapes? The drapes that wouldn’t properly shut out the light because every third curtain hook was bent and unable to be placed back in its track without a pair of pliers and a ladder? The black mildew ringing the shower stall? The power button on the TV pushed in so hard it was lodged an inch deep into the device and the remote that didn’t work? The room key that was a single loose key with the number of the room scratched into it with a wood screw? Maybe you’d like to hear about the water damage on the ceiling, a sagging, stucco bowl of water damage big enough to hold a few pieces of fruit? Or maybe the lampshades ragged and torn and not really bolted to the mismatched lamps so much as perched cockeyed from the tops of their wire frames? Or perhaps you’re not bothered by the aesthetics of a place and you don’t care about these sorts of things. Maybe you don’t care if your furniture looks like it was pulled from a run down schoolhouse circa 1967. Maybe you’re more into the language of a place. Like, maybe you’re the sort that enjoys a good printed sign stapled to the bathroom wall in a sheet protector warning you NOT to use the towels and sheets as vehicles for applying shoe polish and car wax. Maybe that sort of thing gives you an ego boost because, for god’s sake, what kind of person polishes his shoes with a motel pillowcase? Or maybe you’re not here for the comfort factor and classy signage at all. Maybe you pulled off the road because the words “free continental breakfast” caught your eye. And maybe your idea of continental breakfast is a dingy plastic pitcher of reconstituted orange juice and five Styrofoam cups. If all this sounds tolerable to you, then, by all means, pay the outrageous sum of $50 a night for this dump. All your wildest fantasies about what it would be like to sleep in a room used to stage a grizzly murder scene for an episode of America’s Most Wanted would come true."

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Hotels.com

They Have No Idea Who They’re Dealing With

Write a review about my recent stay? Why, sure, Hotels.com. Sure I will.
Here ya go.

Title: "Where dreams of comfort and hospitality go to die"

"What should I start with? The ping pong ball sized hole torn into the drapes? The drapes that wouldn’t properly shut out the light because every third curtain hook was bent and unable to be placed back in its track without a pair of pliers and a ladder? The black mildew ringing the shower stall? The power button on the TV pushed in so hard it was lodged an inch deep into the device and the remote that didn’t work? The room key that was a single loose key with the number of the room scratched into it with a wood screw? Maybe you’d like to hear about the water damage on the ceiling, a sagging, stucco bowl of water damage big enough to hold a few pieces of fruit? Or maybe the lampshades ragged and torn and not really bolted to the mismatched lamps so much as perched cockeyed from the tops of their wire frames? Or perhaps you’re not bothered by the aesthetics of a place and you don’t care about these sorts of things. Maybe you don’t care if your furniture looks like it was pulled from a run down schoolhouse circa 1967. Maybe you’re more into the language of a place. Like, maybe you’re the sort that enjoys a good printed sign stapled to the bathroom wall in a sheet protector warning you NOT to use the towels and sheets as vehicles for applying shoe polish and car wax. Maybe that sort of thing gives you an ego boost because, for god’s sake, what kind of person polishes his shoes with a motel pillowcase? Or maybe you’re not here for the comfort factor and classy signage at all. Maybe you pulled off the road because the words “free continental breakfast” caught your eye. And maybe your idea of continental breakfast is a dingy plastic pitcher of reconstituted orange juice and five Styrofoam cups. If all this sounds tolerable to you, then, by all means, pay the outrageous sum of $50 a night for this dump. All your wildest fantasies about what it would be like to sleep in a room used to stage a grizzly murder scene for an episode of America’s Most Wanted would come true."

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San Luis Inn

They Have No Idea Who They’re Dealing With

Write a review about my recent stay? Why, sure, Hotels.com. Sure I will.
Here ya go.

Title: "Where dreams of comfort and hospitality go to die"

"What should I start with? The ping pong ball sized hole torn into the drapes? The drapes that wouldn’t properly shut out the light because every third curtain hook was bent and unable to be placed back in its track without a pair of pliers and a ladder? The black mildew ringing the shower stall? The power button on the TV pushed in so hard it was lodged an inch deep into the device and the remote that didn’t work? The room key that was a single loose key with the number of the room scratched into it with a wood screw? Maybe you’d like to hear about the water damage on the ceiling, a sagging, stucco bowl of water damage big enough to hold a few pieces of fruit? Or maybe the lampshades ragged and torn and not really bolted to the mismatched lamps so much as perched cockeyed from the tops of their wire frames? Or perhaps you’re not bothered by the aesthetics of a place and you don’t care about these sorts of things. Maybe you don’t care if your furniture looks like it was pulled from a run down schoolhouse circa 1967. Maybe you’re more into the language of a place. Like, maybe you’re the sort that enjoys a good printed sign stapled to the bathroom wall in a sheet protector warning you NOT to use the towels and sheets as vehicles for applying shoe polish and car wax. Maybe that sort of thing gives you an ego boost because, for god’s sake, what kind of person polishes his shoes with a motel pillowcase? Or maybe you’re not here for the comfort factor and classy signage at all. Maybe you pulled off the road because the words “free continental breakfast” caught your eye. And maybe your idea of continental breakfast is a dingy plastic pitcher of reconstituted orange juice and five Styrofoam cups. If all this sounds tolerable to you, then, by all means, pay the outrageous sum of $50 a night for this dump. All your wildest fantasies about what it would be like to sleep in a room used to stage a grizzly murder scene for an episode of America’s Most Wanted would come true."

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Rooster's Restaurant

Dear Tuesday (Notes from the Road edition)

Dear Folks at HTC/Google/Sprint,
You've built a fine product, gang. Normally, my insides shrivel up and my body convulses at the sound of the word "product", I hate it so. But, I truly and honestly don't know what to call the four inch by two and half inch black device sitting next to me right now. It's a phone, sure. But it's also been a roadmap, a restaurant review guide, a computer, an electronic diary, a camera, and a way to connect with friends as far away as the other side of the country. I would not have been able to do this trip without it. Well, I would have, but I'd probably be sitting in a corn field in the middle of Iowa right now, lost, crying my eyes out, hungry, lonely, and with no way to take a picture of myself with the caption: "Vacation: Day 1".

Dear Rooster's Restaurant in Medford,
You guys are awesome. When I asked for an outlet to plug my laptop into, you graciously unplugged your nearest ceramic rooster lamp and allowed me access. Then you served me a delicious omelet and your waitress made sure to refresh my coffee at the edge of the table instead of inches from my screen. That sort of courtesy, plus your love of all things roostery and hand painted stuffed into every corner of your wood paneled dining room, is a rare and wonderful thing. May you outlive all the Applebees and may your kitsch never need dusting.

Dear Palm Cottages,
You are so lovely. You are like a doting grandmother standing at the side of the road with a tray of fresh baked cookies calling me to come in and rest a while. Rest I did, Palm Inn. Your beds are wonderful cinnamon-roll folds of cozy blankets and pillows. Your front desk is wonderfully helpful, your gardens are relaxing, your little red doors are charming. You even offer the weary traveler far from home a pillow menu. A pillow menu! Which is a good thing, because....

Dear Madonna Inn,
Thanks for agreeing to mail me back my pillow. It's a weird thing to wake up in a cold sweat five hundred miles from where you slept last night and realize that you've left a pretty important part of your sleeping set-up in another city. For god's sake. I can't remember a damned thing anymore. Which reminds me....

Dear San Clemente Inn,
Thanks for agreeing to mail me back my book. Who the hell goes on vacation with a self help book about healing trauma? I do. And who then leaves that book in a hotel room and drives off without it? That would be me too. The irony of packing a book about getting over anxiety and then waking up in a cold, sweaty panic attack after realizing I'd left said book somewhere along Route 1 is not lost on me.

Dear Future Traveling Self,
Next time you pack for a vacation, you are not allowed to bring anything but the following: underwear, toothbrush, cell phone. Forget changes of clothes, toiletries, laptops, etc. Clearly you cannot seem to manage keeping track of anything else. For God's sake, you almost left your phone on a paper towel dispenser in a roadside bathroom miles from anything. You know what? Forget the underwear and the toothbrush. Just bring your phone and a tether.

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Oprah's last show

The End of An Era

I'm so moved by Oprah's show coming to an end I hardly know what to do with myself. I know she's not "going away", but it's going to be weird that she's not on at four p.m. anymore. That show has shaped my adult life in more ways that I can count.

Years ago, back when email and the legal drinking age were new to me, I wrote Mr. Burdy a love note that contained a phrase that I think sums up how I'm feeling right now. Burdy was in Germany for a semester and I was in the habit of communicating with him, because of our schedules and the time difference, at night (and sometimes after a cocktail or five). In this particular email, I waxed poetically about missing him terribly, that it was strange to be away from him for so long, and that there was this "bif emoty" in my life where he used to be. What I was trying to say was that there was a big empty in my life where he used to be, but, y'know. I was all Daphne thumbs and bleary-eyed. It has since become an inside joke between the two of us, and every time one of us says it, I marvel at how that one little idiotic phrase can make me re-live that longing all over again.

Ms. Winfrey, I feel a bif emoty where your show should be.

Here are a few more pictures from the roadtrip. Enjoy.

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screaming obscenities in a padded room

Happy Memorial Day. I Hate Everyone.

I'm having a hard time being back. There. I said it.

I don't want to abuse the privilege of this platform by using it as a place to complain about really trivial things, but, seriously, can I bend your ear for a moment? I feel like I've earned it, karmically. I mean, I could give you daily updates on the crazies on the bus, and the uppity types at the all-natural grocery stores and my very vivid, very lucid, very apocalyptic, dreams, but I very consciously keep that stuff from making regular appearances here. I've also spared you the stories of the craziness I have to put up with in my profession. (Mostly, though, that's so my own ass is protected. I can't very well go mouthing off about the people who pay my rent, now can I?) Well, what if I change some names and details? What if I just loosely disguise the characters but still reveal the plot? Oh, wait. What's that creaking noise? Is that the sound of Pandora's Box being slowly opened? Why, yes. Yes it is.

I can't tell if I am just in the throes of PMS... or if I have just overstayed my welcome here in the Emerald City and every extra minute here is a sharp stick in the eye. It just seems that everything is conspiring to send me packing, and I'm of the mind to think I would be a fool not to listen. Also? We could spend whole lifetimes chalking bad days up to PMS, and, really, that's not fair to all the dumbasses out there.

I've long resisted the popular opinion that Seattle is an especially passive aggressive place because I think that every place has its share of jerkwads. I used to think the East coast was no more passive than the West. But today, that theory was turned on its head. EVERYone I had to deal with today was a bone-crushing steamroller of displaced angst and bitterness. I am trying very, very, very hard to not let this get to me. Very, very hard. I am trying to understand that maybe it's just me. I am trying to identify what part I have to play in all this and to, in the parlance of our times, "take responsibility" for my actions.

Of course, that's a stack of self help books talking. And maybe a little of Oprah's farewell speech thrown in for good measure. In any event, I'm looking for the silver lining to this whole thing, looking for the reason Seattle is being so damned nasty to me right now.

It started with a client being very unclear (which she typically is, so no surprises there) about a task she wanted done. A very confusing hour later, when I asked for clarification, she giggled condescendingly, as if to say, "Silly girl, I told you how to do this this morning and here you've gone and bungled it". For my part, I apologized for not understanding, but I am still fuming at that horrid (passive aggressive) laugh. Of course, my higher self is saying to my wounded self (in Glenda the Good Witch's voice, because that's who my higher self sounds like) "There, there, my child. You see? She is unhappy in her marriage and her husband is an ass and she has to put up with a business partner dumber than a bag of hammers. You'd be short tempered and irritable if you were her, too." And my wounded child's shoulder's sag in defeat and I trace a semi-circle in the dirt with my toe I admit that maybe I am being too harsh on her. And then I rear back and clock Glenda in the face for trying to shine this turd.

Because that's what this whole thing makes me: an angry, angry beast who punches nice ladies in the face.

Hours after that little incident, I had to call both the city and state to clarify a tax question and my cell phone cut out with the state just as I was about to get to the meat of my question. The state rep, who has a history of not really knowing how to answer questions, got all pissy, as if I had purposely tried to make the phone cut out.

The coup de gras, though, was the city rep. Now, because I have been doing this for a living for the past five years, I know the players around town. I know the accountants and the silver-tongued man at the general help desk with the city who ends every sentence with a slow and velvety "ma'am". I know the sweet old ladies in sensible shoes down at the state unemployment office. And I know this particular woman at the city. And I know she is hard to deal with. And just like her tone indicates, there is no one but her to deal with, so you'd better buck up and get used to it. She doesn't just run this particular department at the city, she RULES it. She LORDS over it. If you have questions, you'd better be prepared to deal with the only person who can answer them. And you'd better be prepared for her to be impatient, rude, and to speak in confusing sentence fragments.

In a series of questions that led to both of us answering each other like miffed thirteen-year-olds (FINE! SEE IF I CARE!), I finally got out of her that we needed to follow a series of steps to get things straight. She listed those steps, of course, as snidely and slowly as if she were talking to a developmentally disabled manatee.

The downfall, really, of our modern small-personal-electronics society is that you can't really angrily slam a phone back down in its cradle anymore. There's no two-pound receiver to crash into a fifteen-pound desk phone with a little bell inside that will reverberate for a second or two afterward while you sweat and take deep, heaving, agitated breaths. I was tempted to throw my cell phone at a brick wall to have, at least, a fittingly dramatic ending to the call, but my warranty doesn't cover "Soap Opera style outbursts of exaggerated violence". Instead, I just wound up pressing "end call" with as much ferocity as I could and yelling, despite my rules about using the word, BITCH! on the echo-y upper floor of my client's business.

Of course, we all know the weather isn't helping things. All of this would be moderately tolerable if it was at least sunny and warm. Maybe I wouldn't have this compunction to want to march right back to my client's place of business and, in front of everyone, yell, HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME THAT WAY. You know things are in the red zone when you start pulling the "How Dare You's" out. Not good, people. Not good.

Do I realize that by posting this here instead of approaching my client and using my "I" statements and saying that how she behaved really hurt my feelings is just as passive as all the shit I am complaining about? Yes. Yes, I do. Am I tempted to correct that? No, no I am not. Does this blog serve, from time to time, as a giant padded room where I go to scream obscenities at the tops of my lungs just to get some release? Well, duh. Isn't that what the Internet was invented for?

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why everything sucks right now

Happy Memorial Day. I Hate Everyone.

I'm having a hard time being back. There. I said it.

I don't want to abuse the privilege of this platform by using it as a place to complain about really trivial things, but, seriously, can I bend your ear for a moment? I feel like I've earned it, karmically. I mean, I could give you daily updates on the crazies on the bus, and the uppity types at the all-natural grocery stores and my very vivid, very lucid, very apocalyptic, dreams, but I very consciously keep that stuff from making regular appearances here. I've also spared you the stories of the craziness I have to put up with in my profession. (Mostly, though, that's so my own ass is protected. I can't very well go mouthing off about the people who pay my rent, now can I?) Well, what if I change some names and details? What if I just loosely disguise the characters but still reveal the plot? Oh, wait. What's that creaking noise? Is that the sound of Pandora's Box being slowly opened? Why, yes. Yes it is.

I can't tell if I am just in the throes of PMS... or if I have just overstayed my welcome here in the Emerald City and every extra minute here is a sharp stick in the eye. It just seems that everything is conspiring to send me packing, and I'm of the mind to think I would be a fool not to listen. Also? We could spend whole lifetimes chalking bad days up to PMS, and, really, that's not fair to all the dumbasses out there.

I've long resisted the popular opinion that Seattle is an especially passive aggressive place because I think that every place has its share of jerkwads. I used to think the East coast was no more passive than the West. But today, that theory was turned on its head. EVERYone I had to deal with today was a bone-crushing steamroller of displaced angst and bitterness. I am trying very, very, very hard to not let this get to me. Very, very hard. I am trying to understand that maybe it's just me. I am trying to identify what part I have to play in all this and to, in the parlance of our times, "take responsibility" for my actions.

Of course, that's a stack of self help books talking. And maybe a little of Oprah's farewell speech thrown in for good measure. In any event, I'm looking for the silver lining to this whole thing, looking for the reason Seattle is being so damned nasty to me right now.

It started with a client being very unclear (which she typically is, so no surprises there) about a task she wanted done. A very confusing hour later, when I asked for clarification, she giggled condescendingly, as if to say, "Silly girl, I told you how to do this this morning and here you've gone and bungled it". For my part, I apologized for not understanding, but I am still fuming at that horrid (passive aggressive) laugh. Of course, my higher self is saying to my wounded self (in Glenda the Good Witch's voice, because that's who my higher self sounds like) "There, there, my child. You see? She is unhappy in her marriage and her husband is an ass and she has to put up with a business partner dumber than a bag of hammers. You'd be short tempered and irritable if you were her, too." And my wounded child's shoulder's sag in defeat and I trace a semi-circle in the dirt with my toe I admit that maybe I am being too harsh on her. And then I rear back and clock Glenda in the face for trying to shine this turd.

Because that's what this whole thing makes me: an angry, angry beast who punches nice ladies in the face.

Hours after that little incident, I had to call both the city and state to clarify a tax question and my cell phone cut out with the state just as I was about to get to the meat of my question. The state rep, who has a history of not really knowing how to answer questions, got all pissy, as if I had purposely tried to make the phone cut out.

The coup de gras, though, was the city rep. Now, because I have been doing this for a living for the past five years, I know the players around town. I know the accountants and the silver-tongued man at the general help desk with the city who ends every sentence with a slow and velvety "ma'am". I know the sweet old ladies in sensible shoes down at the state unemployment office. And I know this particular woman at the city. And I know she is hard to deal with. And just like her tone indicates, there is no one but her to deal with, so you'd better buck up and get used to it. She doesn't just run this particular department at the city, she RULES it. She LORDS over it. If you have questions, you'd better be prepared to deal with the only person who can answer them. And you'd better be prepared for her to be impatient, rude, and to speak in confusing sentence fragments.

In a series of questions that led to both of us answering each other like miffed thirteen-year-olds (FINE! SEE IF I CARE!), I finally got out of her that we needed to follow a series of steps to get things straight. She listed those steps, of course, as snidely and slowly as if she were talking to a developmentally disabled manatee.

The downfall, really, of our modern small-personal-electronics society is that you can't really angrily slam a phone back down in its cradle anymore. There's no two-pound receiver to crash into a fifteen-pound desk phone with a little bell inside that will reverberate for a second or two afterward while you sweat and take deep, heaving, agitated breaths. I was tempted to throw my cell phone at a brick wall to have, at least, a fittingly dramatic ending to the call, but my warranty doesn't cover "Soap Opera style outbursts of exaggerated violence". Instead, I just wound up pressing "end call" with as much ferocity as I could and yelling, despite my rules about using the word, BITCH! on the echo-y upper floor of my client's business.

Of course, we all know the weather isn't helping things. All of this would be moderately tolerable if it was at least sunny and warm. Maybe I wouldn't have this compunction to want to march right back to my client's place of business and, in front of everyone, yell, HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME THAT WAY. You know things are in the red zone when you start pulling the "How Dare You's" out. Not good, people. Not good.

Do I realize that by posting this here instead of approaching my client and using my "I" statements and saying that how she behaved really hurt my feelings is just as passive as all the shit I am complaining about? Yes. Yes, I do. Am I tempted to correct that? No, no I am not. Does this blog serve, from time to time, as a giant padded room where I go to scream obscenities at the tops of my lungs just to get some release? Well, duh. Isn't that what the Internet was invented for?

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Fanfarlo

Slideshow!

Okay, you guys. The slideshow is done.

Mr. Burdy and I have been working on this for days and days and I am SO excited to share this with you.

My good friend Tristen saved my life in a number of ways on this trip and the reason I am singling her out here is because she also inadvertently provided the soundtrack for this video. Tristen, thanks for the homemade granola (the only thing I had to eat the day I got detoured through Los Padres National Park), thank you for having such an awesome guest room, thanks for having such incredible taste in music (and men), and thanks for introducing me to Fanfarlo. You rock.

I'm still digging through journal entries and trying to piece together some sort of summary of my thoughts about the trip. In the meantime, though, here are the pictures that will speak my thousand words:

Seattle to San Diego from Lauren Ziemski on Vimeo.

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Seattle to Dan Diego

Slideshow!

Okay, you guys. The slideshow is done.

Mr. Burdy and I have been working on this for days and days and I am SO excited to share this with you.

My good friend Tristen saved my life in a number of ways on this trip and the reason I am singling her out here is because she also inadvertently provided the soundtrack for this video. Tristen, thanks for the homemade granola (the only thing I had to eat the day I got detoured through Los Padres National Park), thank you for having such an awesome guest room, thanks for having such incredible taste in music (and men), and thanks for introducing me to Fanfarlo. You rock.

I'm still digging through journal entries and trying to piece together some sort of summary of my thoughts about the trip. In the meantime, though, here are the pictures that will speak my thousand words:

Seattle to San Diego from Lauren Ziemski on Vimeo.

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slideshow

Slideshow!

Okay, you guys. The slideshow is done.

Mr. Burdy and I have been working on this for days and days and I am SO excited to share this with you.

My good friend Tristen saved my life in a number of ways on this trip and the reason I am singling her out here is because she also inadvertently provided the soundtrack for this video. Tristen, thanks for the homemade granola (the only thing I had to eat the day I got detoured through Los Padres National Park), thank you for having such an awesome guest room, thanks for having such incredible taste in music (and men), and thanks for introducing me to Fanfarlo. You rock.

I'm still digging through journal entries and trying to piece together some sort of summary of my thoughts about the trip. In the meantime, though, here are the pictures that will speak my thousand words:

Seattle to San Diego from Lauren Ziemski on Vimeo.

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faith

The Wisdom of T-shirts

I saw this on a t-shirt this morning and I'm making it my mantra for the day:

"Worry changes nothing
Faith changes everything"

I'm interpreting the faith part as the "If you believe in yourself, good things will come", kind and not the "Seriously. He was here three days ago behind this huge immovable rock so I'm pretty sure he bodily ascended into heaven" kind.

The headaches are back. I just know it's because I'm worrying too much. Worrying about how to pay for this wedding (Ha! You were wondering when I was going to bring that up, weren't you?), worrying that I am wasting my life in windowless basements doing work I resent, worrying that I have not been keeping in touch with my friends enough, worrying that someone has already beaten me to all the good, money-producing ideas in the world.

I just need to take a few breaths here. Everything's going to be fine. Worrying about it isn't going to solve anything.

Except, for most of my life, that's exactly what has solved everything. Or so I think. I'm learning a lot right now about the human response to trauma (the garden variety everyone-is-messed-up-over-something kind and not the once-when-I-was-five-I-was-outrunning-a-hurricane-on-foot-after-losing-my-family-to-a-in-home-lion-attack-and-then-fell-down-an-abandoned-well kind). I'm learning that most of my life I have been reacting in this really unhealthy way to stress- but it's the only way I know, so, for the most part, it has been helpful and life-saving.

Except for the part where it's destroyed my endocrine system. Funny thing, that.

Last night, I had a drink with a friend who is in roughly the same place I am in my life right now-and as we were talking about all the events that have led me to where I am, he said, "Well, it sounds like you're in a good spot. You sound calm. And that's the best place to make a decision from".

I took a moment to review in my head what I had just said to him. And he was right. I WAS calm! I wasn't making decisions based on emotional reactions. I was calm! Downright serene, even. My hands were almost touching in Namaste greeting, my eyes were practically at half mast, and I wasn't wildly gesticulating, and I wasn't scanning the room looking for predators. I was calm, for god's sake! So why did I still feel so uncertain?

Well, it didn't matter last night and it still doesn't matter this morning. Uncertainty is healthy. At least, that's what people tell me. It's felt like utter hell to me for most of my life. Not knowing is akin to dying as far as I'm concerned. But I am learning that it can be a good thing. It can be a launching pad for change and for possibility. And if that sounds like the opening line for a self-help book, well, then I submit. Some days I just need to take that tone with myself. It sure beats the alternative.

So, for today, I am trying to posses a faith I am uncomfortable with. I am trying to live with uncertainty. And I'm trying real hard not to cover the house in Post-It notes stating "EVERYTHING'S GOING TO BE FINE". You know. Baby steps.

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why couldn't I just have fallen down a well instead?

The Wisdom of T-shirts

I saw this on a t-shirt this morning and I'm making it my mantra for the day:

"Worry changes nothing
Faith changes everything"

I'm interpreting the faith part as the "If you believe in yourself, good things will come", kind and not the "Seriously. He was here three days ago behind this huge immovable rock so I'm pretty sure he bodily ascended into heaven" kind.

The headaches are back. I just know it's because I'm worrying too much. Worrying about how to pay for this wedding (Ha! You were wondering when I was going to bring that up, weren't you?), worrying that I am wasting my life in windowless basements doing work I resent, worrying that I have not been keeping in touch with my friends enough, worrying that someone has already beaten me to all the good, money-producing ideas in the world.

I just need to take a few breaths here. Everything's going to be fine. Worrying about it isn't going to solve anything.

Except, for most of my life, that's exactly what has solved everything. Or so I think. I'm learning a lot right now about the human response to trauma (the garden variety everyone-is-messed-up-over-something kind and not the once-when-I-was-five-I-was-outrunning-a-hurricane-on-foot-after-losing-my-family-to-a-in-home-lion-attack-and-then-fell-down-an-abandoned-well kind). I'm learning that most of my life I have been reacting in this really unhealthy way to stress- but it's the only way I know, so, for the most part, it has been helpful and life-saving.

Except for the part where it's destroyed my endocrine system. Funny thing, that.

Last night, I had a drink with a friend who is in roughly the same place I am in my life right now-and as we were talking about all the events that have led me to where I am, he said, "Well, it sounds like you're in a good spot. You sound calm. And that's the best place to make a decision from".

I took a moment to review in my head what I had just said to him. And he was right. I WAS calm! I wasn't making decisions based on emotional reactions. I was calm! Downright serene, even. My hands were almost touching in Namaste greeting, my eyes were practically at half mast, and I wasn't wildly gesticulating, and I wasn't scanning the room looking for predators. I was calm, for god's sake! So why did I still feel so uncertain?

Well, it didn't matter last night and it still doesn't matter this morning. Uncertainty is healthy. At least, that's what people tell me. It's felt like utter hell to me for most of my life. Not knowing is akin to dying as far as I'm concerned. But I am learning that it can be a good thing. It can be a launching pad for change and for possibility. And if that sounds like the opening line for a self-help book, well, then I submit. Some days I just need to take that tone with myself. It sure beats the alternative.

So, for today, I am trying to posses a faith I am uncomfortable with. I am trying to live with uncertainty. And I'm trying real hard not to cover the house in Post-It notes stating "EVERYTHING'S GOING TO BE FINE". You know. Baby steps.

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worrying

The Wisdom of T-shirts

I saw this on a t-shirt this morning and I'm making it my mantra for the day:

"Worry changes nothing
Faith changes everything"

I'm interpreting the faith part as the "If you believe in yourself, good things will come", kind and not the "Seriously. He was here three days ago behind this huge immovable rock so I'm pretty sure he bodily ascended into heaven" kind.

The headaches are back. I just know it's because I'm worrying too much. Worrying about how to pay for this wedding (Ha! You were wondering when I was going to bring that up, weren't you?), worrying that I am wasting my life in windowless basements doing work I resent, worrying that I have not been keeping in touch with my friends enough, worrying that someone has already beaten me to all the good, money-producing ideas in the world.

I just need to take a few breaths here. Everything's going to be fine. Worrying about it isn't going to solve anything.

Except, for most of my life, that's exactly what has solved everything. Or so I think. I'm learning a lot right now about the human response to trauma (the garden variety everyone-is-messed-up-over-something kind and not the once-when-I-was-five-I-was-outrunning-a-hurricane-on-foot-after-losing-my-family-to-a-in-home-lion-attack-and-then-fell-down-an-abandoned-well kind). I'm learning that most of my life I have been reacting in this really unhealthy way to stress- but it's the only way I know, so, for the most part, it has been helpful and life-saving.

Except for the part where it's destroyed my endocrine system. Funny thing, that.

Last night, I had a drink with a friend who is in roughly the same place I am in my life right now-and as we were talking about all the events that have led me to where I am, he said, "Well, it sounds like you're in a good spot. You sound calm. And that's the best place to make a decision from".

I took a moment to review in my head what I had just said to him. And he was right. I WAS calm! I wasn't making decisions based on emotional reactions. I was calm! Downright serene, even. My hands were almost touching in Namaste greeting, my eyes were practically at half mast, and I wasn't wildly gesticulating, and I wasn't scanning the room looking for predators. I was calm, for god's sake! So why did I still feel so uncertain?

Well, it didn't matter last night and it still doesn't matter this morning. Uncertainty is healthy. At least, that's what people tell me. It's felt like utter hell to me for most of my life. Not knowing is akin to dying as far as I'm concerned. But I am learning that it can be a good thing. It can be a launching pad for change and for possibility. And if that sounds like the opening line for a self-help book, well, then I submit. Some days I just need to take that tone with myself. It sure beats the alternative.

So, for today, I am trying to posses a faith I am uncomfortable with. I am trying to live with uncertainty. And I'm trying real hard not to cover the house in Post-It notes stating "EVERYTHING'S GOING TO BE FINE". You know. Baby steps.

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slouch socks are so making a comeback

A Friday Roundup… Of One Thing

Yeah, so I know a "roundup" is supposed to be some sort of "list" of things rounded up, but, um. HEY, MAN! I'm not, like, into your FASCIST RULES, man. Don't make me get all Montessori School up in here.

Seriously, you guys. I got nothin'.

I've been busy with double bookings at work this week, and I haven't made the time to sit down and write. What I HAVE been doing in my spare time, what little there is of it, is reading other people's blogs.

I'm just now coming out of a rabbit hole I've been down in for the last hour and a half, so don't even ask me how I got here, but go read this. It's effing funny as hell, y'all. Especially if you were alive and dressing yourself in the eighties and nineties. Re-branding is an evil and hilarious thing. The 21-year-old's of this world have no idea. "Leggings"? Yeah, we used to call them "stretch pants" back in the day. Rompers? Well, we called them rompers back then, too, and they were just as unflattering.

And there. I've gone and done it. I've officially made a "back in MY day...." comment.

Listen. I call slouch socks as the next big thing. You can totally say you heard it here first.

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name twin

The Other Lauren Ziemski has been very busy

What are the chances that someone who shares your (unusual) name is actually someone who seems really cool? And what are the chances that that same person is interested in the same things you are? And what are the chances that Google Alerts emails you every few weeks to let you know that your name twin has been filming herself in St. Lucia visiting volcanoes or in Venice Beach performing with a local rock band?

Okay, those odds for that last one are pretty high. I mean, this stuff IS automated, after all.

But, seriously! How surreal is it to see this person, in pictures, and in videos, doing things that you can imagine yourself doing? Like maybe this other Lauren Ziemski is ME in the future, and she is sending videos back to 2011 to say: HEY! Get on with living already! Get your ass over here to Venice Beach where it's SUNNY and sign up to sing with a rock band and get your acting career on and make sure you bring your video camera when you go on vacation!

I first discovered I had a name twin when Google Alerts let me know that she had tweeted something about a bunch of her friends following ME instead of her. THAT must have been weird. They probably signed up to hear about her fabulous life and instead they got blog posts about intestinal worms and panic attacks. Sorry about that, Twittersphere!

One of the weirder moments I've had with my name twin was this: about a year ago, I created a profile on the Rockethub website. The exact sequence of events is a little hazy but it goes something like this: A few weeks later, I got an email from the CEO OF ROCKETHUB congratulating me on my project in Panama. WTF? I started digging around and found out that the OTHER Lauren Ziemski also had a profile on Rockethub. Around that same time, I also got a Google Alert that said that one Lauren Ziemski was doing something involving eco-villages in Panama. Um? WHAT? First of all, Panama is one of my favorite places on earth. Secondly, eco-villages? That sounds EXACTLY like something a less-anxious, more-having-her-shit-together me would be involved in! I had to email back the CEO of Rockethub to say he had the wrong Lauren Ziemski, but it got me thinking:

What if I started living more like this other Lauren Ziemski? What if we all found another person on this earth that shared our name and we found one thing about them to admire and possibly emulate in our own lives? (Wearing a leather dress and rocking out with a band is actually on my bucket list. And apparently, this other LZ over there in California has done that.... so why not move to the top of my list?)

This other Lauren Ziemski is pretty fearless. She's clearly a sun worshipper and knows how to have fun. She's a risk-taker, too. At least, that's what I'm gathering from what the Internet has provided about her. Those are some pretty imitation-worthy attributes, don't ya think?

Now, I'm going to presume that since we share last names we are related. And that means that it's not that much of a stretch to presume that it's DNA that mandates we feel most at home in swimwear. Or that, if I just dig down deep, since the other Lauren Ziemski has already tapped into it, that I can find that same courage and fearlessness in myself.

Ladies and gentlemen: the other Lauren Ziemski.

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Panama

The Other Lauren Ziemski has been very busy

What are the chances that someone who shares your (unusual) name is actually someone who seems really cool? And what are the chances that that same person is interested in the same things you are? And what are the chances that Google Alerts emails you every few weeks to let you know that your name twin has been filming herself in St. Lucia visiting volcanoes or in Venice Beach performing with a local rock band?

Okay, those odds for that last one are pretty high. I mean, this stuff IS automated, after all.

But, seriously! How surreal is it to see this person, in pictures, and in videos, doing things that you can imagine yourself doing? Like maybe this other Lauren Ziemski is ME in the future, and she is sending videos back to 2011 to say: HEY! Get on with living already! Get your ass over here to Venice Beach where it's SUNNY and sign up to sing with a rock band and get your acting career on and make sure you bring your video camera when you go on vacation!

I first discovered I had a name twin when Google Alerts let me know that she had tweeted something about a bunch of her friends following ME instead of her. THAT must have been weird. They probably signed up to hear about her fabulous life and instead they got blog posts about intestinal worms and panic attacks. Sorry about that, Twittersphere!

One of the weirder moments I've had with my name twin was this: about a year ago, I created a profile on the Rockethub website. The exact sequence of events is a little hazy but it goes something like this: A few weeks later, I got an email from the CEO OF ROCKETHUB congratulating me on my project in Panama. WTF? I started digging around and found out that the OTHER Lauren Ziemski also had a profile on Rockethub. Around that same time, I also got a Google Alert that said that one Lauren Ziemski was doing something involving eco-villages in Panama. Um? WHAT? First of all, Panama is one of my favorite places on earth. Secondly, eco-villages? That sounds EXACTLY like something a less-anxious, more-having-her-shit-together me would be involved in! I had to email back the CEO of Rockethub to say he had the wrong Lauren Ziemski, but it got me thinking:

What if I started living more like this other Lauren Ziemski? What if we all found another person on this earth that shared our name and we found one thing about them to admire and possibly emulate in our own lives? (Wearing a leather dress and rocking out with a band is actually on my bucket list. And apparently, this other LZ over there in California has done that.... so why not move to the top of my list?)

This other Lauren Ziemski is pretty fearless. She's clearly a sun worshipper and knows how to have fun. She's a risk-taker, too. At least, that's what I'm gathering from what the Internet has provided about her. Those are some pretty imitation-worthy attributes, don't ya think?

Now, I'm going to presume that since we share last names we are related. And that means that it's not that much of a stretch to presume that it's DNA that mandates we feel most at home in swimwear. Or that, if I just dig down deep, since the other Lauren Ziemski has already tapped into it, that I can find that same courage and fearlessness in myself.

Ladies and gentlemen: the other Lauren Ziemski.

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the other Lauren Ziemski

The Other Lauren Ziemski has been very busy

What are the chances that someone who shares your (unusual) name is actually someone who seems really cool? And what are the chances that that same person is interested in the same things you are? And what are the chances that Google Alerts emails you every few weeks to let you know that your name twin has been filming herself in St. Lucia visiting volcanoes or in Venice Beach performing with a local rock band?

Okay, those odds for that last one are pretty high. I mean, this stuff IS automated, after all.

But, seriously! How surreal is it to see this person, in pictures, and in videos, doing things that you can imagine yourself doing? Like maybe this other Lauren Ziemski is ME in the future, and she is sending videos back to 2011 to say: HEY! Get on with living already! Get your ass over here to Venice Beach where it's SUNNY and sign up to sing with a rock band and get your acting career on and make sure you bring your video camera when you go on vacation!

I first discovered I had a name twin when Google Alerts let me know that she had tweeted something about a bunch of her friends following ME instead of her. THAT must have been weird. They probably signed up to hear about her fabulous life and instead they got blog posts about intestinal worms and panic attacks. Sorry about that, Twittersphere!

One of the weirder moments I've had with my name twin was this: about a year ago, I created a profile on the Rockethub website. The exact sequence of events is a little hazy but it goes something like this: A few weeks later, I got an email from the CEO OF ROCKETHUB congratulating me on my project in Panama. WTF? I started digging around and found out that the OTHER Lauren Ziemski also had a profile on Rockethub. Around that same time, I also got a Google Alert that said that one Lauren Ziemski was doing something involving eco-villages in Panama. Um? WHAT? First of all, Panama is one of my favorite places on earth. Secondly, eco-villages? That sounds EXACTLY like something a less-anxious, more-having-her-shit-together me would be involved in! I had to email back the CEO of Rockethub to say he had the wrong Lauren Ziemski, but it got me thinking:

What if I started living more like this other Lauren Ziemski? What if we all found another person on this earth that shared our name and we found one thing about them to admire and possibly emulate in our own lives? (Wearing a leather dress and rocking out with a band is actually on my bucket list. And apparently, this other LZ over there in California has done that.... so why not move to the top of my list?)

This other Lauren Ziemski is pretty fearless. She's clearly a sun worshipper and knows how to have fun. She's a risk-taker, too. At least, that's what I'm gathering from what the Internet has provided about her. Those are some pretty imitation-worthy attributes, don't ya think?

Now, I'm going to presume that since we share last names we are related. And that means that it's not that much of a stretch to presume that it's DNA that mandates we feel most at home in swimwear. Or that, if I just dig down deep, since the other Lauren Ziemski has already tapped into it, that I can find that same courage and fearlessness in myself.

Ladies and gentlemen: the other Lauren Ziemski.

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Friday night shopping

A Very Quotable Weekend

Part 1: Friday

Scene: The local mall. I am looking around Macy's for birthday present ideas. Uninspired by mostly everything, I find myself drawn, once again, to the shoe department. There is a sale going on, so naturally the section looks like Susie Windmillarms came through and did a number on the place. There are shoes ALL over the floor (as well as a pink puddle of skinned-over glorp underneath a chair in the seating area that appears to have hit the wall behind it at Mach 5 earlier in the day).

Act One: The Staring Contest

There are two relatively attentive young people working the shoe department, a male and a female. I pick up a lovely snake-skinned heel and make my way over to a try-on area away from the pink glorp. Female employee asks me if I would like to try on the mate to the shoe I've picked out. I say yes; she disappears into the stock area.

It's Friday night. The mall is a weirdly quiet place on a Friday night. I'm searching for a gift idea, but, really, I'm also killing time till the fiance gets home. Also, I could always use another pair of shoes. I can't remember the last time I was at the mall on a Friday night. I think about where I would be right now if I wasn't at the mall. I would be out on a date with the fiance, I think. We'd be eating sushi, or saganaki, and having a cocktail, and talking about weekend plans. I look at the few people around me. They are mostly single women. I look beyond the shoe section and into the cosmetics section and then out into the mall itself. I think: who are these people? Why are they shopping on a Friday night? Do they have plans to go out later? Is shopping their plans for going out later? A Muzak version of some popular song plays over the PA system. People move around in slow-motion. Piles of poorly designed and cheaply priced goods are messily heaped on display tables and stuffed one-too-many onto Formica shelves. I deduce that malls on a Friday night are probably the most depressing things on earth.

I look down at my slumped posture, at my boots laying on the floor next to my stocking feet. My legs are especially white. And it's mid-June. I notice that I have thrown my purse up against the foot of the chair (and not put it ON the chair like a real lady would). Lord, I think. I'm here at the mall on a Friday night. I'm totally one of them.

I look up to check on the progress of my shoe request. There is an older woman standing at the counter and she makes eye contact. She is holding a bag containing a box of shoes and she looks like she wants to make a return.

Is anyone working here, she asks? Yes, I reply, but I think they're both in the back getting shoes for folks. At the moment, I am the only one seated waiting for shoes, so it's strange that both the employees are gone. I look back to my feet and then up again as another woman has entered our small, sad circle at the mall on Friday night.

This woman is probably in her late thirties. She is well dressed and put together. She is holding a shoe in her hand and she is staring at the older woman, who is staring back at her. She is studying the older woman standing at the counter with a fierce intensity.

There is a brief moment of complete and strange silence, and then this, from the late-thirties woman to the older woman: "STOP STARING AT ME."

I look at the late-thirties woman. She has this look in her eyes, like a bull about to charge. I am almost paralyzed with alarm. Did she really just tell this sweet old lady, who, I am sure, like the rest of us, was just trying to focus on another living soul in the midst of all the negative space and shoe clutter and crusted-over smoothie, to STOP STARING AT HER? Surely the older woman was NOT staring at her, and even if she was, why wouldn't the late-thirties woman just ignore her and go about her business? Why would she just blurt out this playground-style accusation at an old woman trying to return some shoes?

Just then both employees come out of the stock room, and another woman my age comes into the seating area holding a shoe. None of the newcomers have any idea what has just transpired. The late-thirties woman goes back to trying on her shoes. The female employee asks the young woman what size she needs and she quickly goes into the stock room again. She returns a moment later to say that she's out of that size. The male employee starts to process the old woman's return. The young woman sits down behind me and starts to pull her own socks and shoes back on.

The female employee then asks the late-thirties woman if she needed help. And this is what she says:

I DON'T APPRECIATE BEING STARED AT BY YOUR SPIES. THESE TWO (She waves her hand in my general direction) AND THIS ONE OVER HERE (she jabs a thumb at the old woman) HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING ME AROUND THE STORE FOR HOURS. I DON'T APPRECIATE YOUR HAVING CORPORATE SPIES.

My jaw drops. My blood pressure goes up. What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. ON?

The thing is, this woman who thinks I am a spy (Spy? SPY? When was the last time you used the word spy? Seriously. Think about it. Never? Yeah, I thought so.) looks perfectly NORMAL. Except for the intense bull-charging look in her eye. I mean, she's doing the most mundane, normal thing in the world: shopping for shoes. She has a purse, she is wearing a well put-together outfit. Her hair is coiffed. It's not like she's wearing two different flip-flops and a gunny-sack stuck with dirty, feral cats. She looks completely sane. But the crap coming out of her mouth is bat-shit CUH-RAZY.

For the next several awkward seconds, the employees, the old lady and I all do a sit-com style head turning routine where we all look at from one to the other and worldlessly ask "Is she talking about ME?"

Now she is staring right AT me and muttering something about my being a spy. And let me tell you something: I have never been so paralyzed with fear in my life. The look in this woman's eyes was an unearthly mixture of ImmmaKillYou and far-away non-focus; I've never seen anything like it. And I wasn't sure what to do.

I mean, I had a pretty good idea. What I WANTED to do was stand up in my heels, do a snap in a Z-formation, and get all Jerry Springer on this woman's ass. I wanted to slap my sternum with my open palm emphatically, lean forward, and shout at the top of my lungs "Are you talking to ME? You think I'M a spy? Are you fucking OUT OF YOUR MIND?" And here I would laugh derisively or dismissively, whatever, and I would look at the employees and ask them, "You believe this bitch? Saying I'm a spy?" And then I would turn back to her and say, "Listen. Only reason I'm in this store on a Friday night is because I'm trying to kill time. Even if I WAS a spy, what in Jesus' name makes you so damned important that you need to be spied on? I mean, really. Like anyone cares what the hell you're doing here. Like any one cares what the fuck you do with your lame-ass, pathetic Friday night, you-"

What actually happened was this:

me: blink. blink blink.
female employee: sheepishly ma'am, um, she doesn't work for our company.
me: blink. swallow hard. blink blink.
female employee: blink.
male employee: craning neck from behind the counter and pretending to be looking at something in the far distance
young woman behind me: slips shoe onto the counter and slinks off
older woman: hurriedly gathers up her purse and walks away, unphased. I presume she is partially deaf. Or maybe scared to pieces. Hard to tell.
me: blink. blink blink.
female employee: looks at me, looks at customer. looks at me, looks at customer.
customer: staring hard at me, or at the fireworks on her retinas, I can't tell.

And now I am faced with a conundrum: I want to leave, but that means I'll have to interact with the employees ('cause the snakeskin heels are gorgeous and I want to put them on hold) but I've just been accused of being a spy, and even though I know I'm not, I have no idea what the employees are thinking right now. My anxiety is kicking in. Why the hell would I care what these people thought of me? Why can't I just brush this whole thing off? It's sheer clinical craziness. Why should I, the sane one, have to defend against the clearly crazy one? Why am I trying to rationalize my getting up and walking away? Why do I want so badly to yell at this woman STOP IT; JUST STOP IT. I can't explain it. Something about this woman's presence in that little corner of Macy's was sucking all the rationality out of it. Up was down. Wrong was right. Bored Friday night shoppers were corporate spies. And the thing about protesting against accusations of insanity (or spying activities) is that the more you protest, the crazier (or more spy-ish) you sound.

I go to the counter where the male employee is busy shuffling papers (anything to avoid looking five feet to the right where this woman is standing). He asks if he can help me and I inhale and hold my breath for a second and plop the shoes on the counter. I meet his eyes and we have this milli-second exchange that went something like: You just see that shit? What the fuck, right? You know I'm not a spy, right? And you know I wasn't following that lady around, right? Dude. I am soooo sorry you have to deal with this kind of shit on a Friday night. I mean, it's hard enough having to look at people's bunions and dry, cracked heels, and unkempt toenails all day long. Now you have to deal with people like this. And it's an hour before closing and the clearance section looks like a bomb went off in it. I know you're just counting down the hours till this is all just a distant memory and you can go home and tell your girlfriend what a fucked up day you had at work. I know you're smarter than this. I know you're being underutilized and underpaid and that you don't deserve this. I bet you're studying to be a doctor or something, and you just took this job to help pay for your graduate studies. I know this woman is probably only one of hundreds of nutcases that comes in here on a regular basis and accuses you of price-fixing, or of hiding the good stuff, or selling things that Macy's clearly does not carry, or of being personally responsible for Macy's return policy, or their store hours or locations, or one of a million other things that you have absolutely no control over... and it just sucks the life out of you day after day having to explain to a generally very uninformed and very impatient populace the way retail sales work in this country. I am so sorry. Really, I am.

Also, dude? There's a really nasty spill under the chair over there you're gonna wanna take a look at before you clock out.

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Macy's

A Very Quotable Weekend

Part 1: Friday

Scene: The local mall. I am looking around Macy's for birthday present ideas. Uninspired by mostly everything, I find myself drawn, once again, to the shoe department. There is a sale going on, so naturally the section looks like Susie Windmillarms came through and did a number on the place. There are shoes ALL over the floor (as well as a pink puddle of skinned-over glorp underneath a chair in the seating area that appears to have hit the wall behind it at Mach 5 earlier in the day).

Act One: The Staring Contest

There are two relatively attentive young people working the shoe department, a male and a female. I pick up a lovely snake-skinned heel and make my way over to a try-on area away from the pink glorp. Female employee asks me if I would like to try on the mate to the shoe I've picked out. I say yes; she disappears into the stock area.

It's Friday night. The mall is a weirdly quiet place on a Friday night. I'm searching for a gift idea, but, really, I'm also killing time till the fiance gets home. Also, I could always use another pair of shoes. I can't remember the last time I was at the mall on a Friday night. I think about where I would be right now if I wasn't at the mall. I would be out on a date with the fiance, I think. We'd be eating sushi, or saganaki, and having a cocktail, and talking about weekend plans. I look at the few people around me. They are mostly single women. I look beyond the shoe section and into the cosmetics section and then out into the mall itself. I think: who are these people? Why are they shopping on a Friday night? Do they have plans to go out later? Is shopping their plans for going out later? A Muzak version of some popular song plays over the PA system. People move around in slow-motion. Piles of poorly designed and cheaply priced goods are messily heaped on display tables and stuffed one-too-many onto Formica shelves. I deduce that malls on a Friday night are probably the most depressing things on earth.

I look down at my slumped posture, at my boots laying on the floor next to my stocking feet. My legs are especially white. And it's mid-June. I notice that I have thrown my purse up against the foot of the chair (and not put it ON the chair like a real lady would). Lord, I think. I'm here at the mall on a Friday night. I'm totally one of them.

I look up to check on the progress of my shoe request. There is an older woman standing at the counter and she makes eye contact. She is holding a bag containing a box of shoes and she looks like she wants to make a return.

Is anyone working here, she asks? Yes, I reply, but I think they're both in the back getting shoes for folks. At the moment, I am the only one seated waiting for shoes, so it's strange that both the employees are gone. I look back to my feet and then up again as another woman has entered our small, sad circle at the mall on Friday night.

This woman is probably in her late thirties. She is well dressed and put together. She is holding a shoe in her hand and she is staring at the older woman, who is staring back at her. She is studying the older woman standing at the counter with a fierce intensity.

There is a brief moment of complete and strange silence, and then this, from the late-thirties woman to the older woman: "STOP STARING AT ME."

I look at the late-thirties woman. She has this look in her eyes, like a bull about to charge. I am almost paralyzed with alarm. Did she really just tell this sweet old lady, who, I am sure, like the rest of us, was just trying to focus on another living soul in the midst of all the negative space and shoe clutter and crusted-over smoothie, to STOP STARING AT HER? Surely the older woman was NOT staring at her, and even if she was, why wouldn't the late-thirties woman just ignore her and go about her business? Why would she just blurt out this playground-style accusation at an old woman trying to return some shoes?

Just then both employees come out of the stock room, and another woman my age comes into the seating area holding a shoe. None of the newcomers have any idea what has just transpired. The late-thirties woman goes back to trying on her shoes. The female employee asks the young woman what size she needs and she quickly goes into the stock room again. She returns a moment later to say that she's out of that size. The male employee starts to process the old woman's return. The young woman sits down behind me and starts to pull her own socks and shoes back on.

The female employee then asks the late-thirties woman if she needed help. And this is what she says:

I DON'T APPRECIATE BEING STARED AT BY YOUR SPIES. THESE TWO (She waves her hand in my general direction) AND THIS ONE OVER HERE (she jabs a thumb at the old woman) HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING ME AROUND THE STORE FOR HOURS. I DON'T APPRECIATE YOUR HAVING CORPORATE SPIES.

My jaw drops. My blood pressure goes up. What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. ON?

The thing is, this woman who thinks I am a spy (Spy? SPY? When was the last time you used the word spy? Seriously. Think about it. Never? Yeah, I thought so.) looks perfectly NORMAL. Except for the intense bull-charging look in her eye. I mean, she's doing the most mundane, normal thing in the world: shopping for shoes. She has a purse, she is wearing a well put-together outfit. Her hair is coiffed. It's not like she's wearing two different flip-flops and a gunny-sack stuck with dirty, feral cats. She looks completely sane. But the crap coming out of her mouth is bat-shit CUH-RAZY.

For the next several awkward seconds, the employees, the old lady and I all do a sit-com style head turning routine where we all look at from one to the other and worldlessly ask "Is she talking about ME?"

Now she is staring right AT me and muttering something about my being a spy. And let me tell you something: I have never been so paralyzed with fear in my life. The look in this woman's eyes was an unearthly mixture of ImmmaKillYou and far-away non-focus; I've never seen anything like it. And I wasn't sure what to do.

I mean, I had a pretty good idea. What I WANTED to do was stand up in my heels, do a snap in a Z-formation, and get all Jerry Springer on this woman's ass. I wanted to slap my sternum with my open palm emphatically, lean forward, and shout at the top of my lungs "Are you talking to ME? You think I'M a spy? Are you fucking OUT OF YOUR MIND?" And here I would laugh derisively or dismissively, whatever, and I would look at the employees and ask them, "You believe this bitch? Saying I'm a spy?" And then I would turn back to her and say, "Listen. Only reason I'm in this store on a Friday night is because I'm trying to kill time. Even if I WAS a spy, what in Jesus' name makes you so damned important that you need to be spied on? I mean, really. Like anyone cares what the hell you're doing here. Like any one cares what the fuck you do with your lame-ass, pathetic Friday night, you-"

What actually happened was this:

me: blink. blink blink.
female employee: sheepishly ma'am, um, she doesn't work for our company.
me: blink. swallow hard. blink blink.
female employee: blink.
male employee: craning neck from behind the counter and pretending to be looking at something in the far distance
young woman behind me: slips shoe onto the counter and slinks off
older woman: hurriedly gathers up her purse and walks away, unphased. I presume she is partially deaf. Or maybe scared to pieces. Hard to tell.
me: blink. blink blink.
female employee: looks at me, looks at customer. looks at me, looks at customer.
customer: staring hard at me, or at the fireworks on her retinas, I can't tell.

And now I am faced with a conundrum: I want to leave, but that means I'll have to interact with the employees ('cause the snakeskin heels are gorgeous and I want to put them on hold) but I've just been accused of being a spy, and even though I know I'm not, I have no idea what the employees are thinking right now. My anxiety is kicking in. Why the hell would I care what these people thought of me? Why can't I just brush this whole thing off? It's sheer clinical craziness. Why should I, the sane one, have to defend against the clearly crazy one? Why am I trying to rationalize my getting up and walking away? Why do I want so badly to yell at this woman STOP IT; JUST STOP IT. I can't explain it. Something about this woman's presence in that little corner of Macy's was sucking all the rationality out of it. Up was down. Wrong was right. Bored Friday night shoppers were corporate spies. And the thing about protesting against accusations of insanity (or spying activities) is that the more you protest, the crazier (or more spy-ish) you sound.

I go to the counter where the male employee is busy shuffling papers (anything to avoid looking five feet to the right where this woman is standing). He asks if he can help me and I inhale and hold my breath for a second and plop the shoes on the counter. I meet his eyes and we have this milli-second exchange that went something like: You just see that shit? What the fuck, right? You know I'm not a spy, right? And you know I wasn't following that lady around, right? Dude. I am soooo sorry you have to deal with this kind of shit on a Friday night. I mean, it's hard enough having to look at people's bunions and dry, cracked heels, and unkempt toenails all day long. Now you have to deal with people like this. And it's an hour before closing and the clearance section looks like a bomb went off in it. I know you're just counting down the hours till this is all just a distant memory and you can go home and tell your girlfriend what a fucked up day you had at work. I know you're smarter than this. I know you're being underutilized and underpaid and that you don't deserve this. I bet you're studying to be a doctor or something, and you just took this job to help pay for your graduate studies. I know this woman is probably only one of hundreds of nutcases that comes in here on a regular basis and accuses you of price-fixing, or of hiding the good stuff, or selling things that Macy's clearly does not carry, or of being personally responsible for Macy's return policy, or their store hours or locations, or one of a million other things that you have absolutely no control over... and it just sucks the life out of you day after day having to explain to a generally very uninformed and very impatient populace the way retail sales work in this country. I am so sorry. Really, I am.

Also, dude? There's a really nasty spill under the chair over there you're gonna wanna take a look at before you clock out.

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now with more crazy

A Very Quotable Weekend

Part 1: Friday

Scene: The local mall. I am looking around Macy's for birthday present ideas. Uninspired by mostly everything, I find myself drawn, once again, to the shoe department. There is a sale going on, so naturally the section looks like Susie Windmillarms came through and did a number on the place. There are shoes ALL over the floor (as well as a pink puddle of skinned-over glorp underneath a chair in the seating area that appears to have hit the wall behind it at Mach 5 earlier in the day).

Act One: The Staring Contest

There are two relatively attentive young people working the shoe department, a male and a female. I pick up a lovely snake-skinned heel and make my way over to a try-on area away from the pink glorp. Female employee asks me if I would like to try on the mate to the shoe I've picked out. I say yes; she disappears into the stock area.

It's Friday night. The mall is a weirdly quiet place on a Friday night. I'm searching for a gift idea, but, really, I'm also killing time till the fiance gets home. Also, I could always use another pair of shoes. I can't remember the last time I was at the mall on a Friday night. I think about where I would be right now if I wasn't at the mall. I would be out on a date with the fiance, I think. We'd be eating sushi, or saganaki, and having a cocktail, and talking about weekend plans. I look at the few people around me. They are mostly single women. I look beyond the shoe section and into the cosmetics section and then out into the mall itself. I think: who are these people? Why are they shopping on a Friday night? Do they have plans to go out later? Is shopping their plans for going out later? A Muzak version of some popular song plays over the PA system. People move around in slow-motion. Piles of poorly designed and cheaply priced goods are messily heaped on display tables and stuffed one-too-many onto Formica shelves. I deduce that malls on a Friday night are probably the most depressing things on earth.

I look down at my slumped posture, at my boots laying on the floor next to my stocking feet. My legs are especially white. And it's mid-June. I notice that I have thrown my purse up against the foot of the chair (and not put it ON the chair like a real lady would). Lord, I think. I'm here at the mall on a Friday night. I'm totally one of them.

I look up to check on the progress of my shoe request. There is an older woman standing at the counter and she makes eye contact. She is holding a bag containing a box of shoes and she looks like she wants to make a return.

Is anyone working here, she asks? Yes, I reply, but I think they're both in the back getting shoes for folks. At the moment, I am the only one seated waiting for shoes, so it's strange that both the employees are gone. I look back to my feet and then up again as another woman has entered our small, sad circle at the mall on Friday night.

This woman is probably in her late thirties. She is well dressed and put together. She is holding a shoe in her hand and she is staring at the older woman, who is staring back at her. She is studying the older woman standing at the counter with a fierce intensity.

There is a brief moment of complete and strange silence, and then this, from the late-thirties woman to the older woman: "STOP STARING AT ME."

I look at the late-thirties woman. She has this look in her eyes, like a bull about to charge. I am almost paralyzed with alarm. Did she really just tell this sweet old lady, who, I am sure, like the rest of us, was just trying to focus on another living soul in the midst of all the negative space and shoe clutter and crusted-over smoothie, to STOP STARING AT HER? Surely the older woman was NOT staring at her, and even if she was, why wouldn't the late-thirties woman just ignore her and go about her business? Why would she just blurt out this playground-style accusation at an old woman trying to return some shoes?

Just then both employees come out of the stock room, and another woman my age comes into the seating area holding a shoe. None of the newcomers have any idea what has just transpired. The late-thirties woman goes back to trying on her shoes. The female employee asks the young woman what size she needs and she quickly goes into the stock room again. She returns a moment later to say that she's out of that size. The male employee starts to process the old woman's return. The young woman sits down behind me and starts to pull her own socks and shoes back on.

The female employee then asks the late-thirties woman if she needed help. And this is what she says:

I DON'T APPRECIATE BEING STARED AT BY YOUR SPIES. THESE TWO (She waves her hand in my general direction) AND THIS ONE OVER HERE (she jabs a thumb at the old woman) HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING ME AROUND THE STORE FOR HOURS. I DON'T APPRECIATE YOUR HAVING CORPORATE SPIES.

My jaw drops. My blood pressure goes up. What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. ON?

The thing is, this woman who thinks I am a spy (Spy? SPY? When was the last time you used the word spy? Seriously. Think about it. Never? Yeah, I thought so.) looks perfectly NORMAL. Except for the intense bull-charging look in her eye. I mean, she's doing the most mundane, normal thing in the world: shopping for shoes. She has a purse, she is wearing a well put-together outfit. Her hair is coiffed. It's not like she's wearing two different flip-flops and a gunny-sack stuck with dirty, feral cats. She looks completely sane. But the crap coming out of her mouth is bat-shit CUH-RAZY.

For the next several awkward seconds, the employees, the old lady and I all do a sit-com style head turning routine where we all look at from one to the other and worldlessly ask "Is she talking about ME?"

Now she is staring right AT me and muttering something about my being a spy. And let me tell you something: I have never been so paralyzed with fear in my life. The look in this woman's eyes was an unearthly mixture of ImmmaKillYou and far-away non-focus; I've never seen anything like it. And I wasn't sure what to do.

I mean, I had a pretty good idea. What I WANTED to do was stand up in my heels, do a snap in a Z-formation, and get all Jerry Springer on this woman's ass. I wanted to slap my sternum with my open palm emphatically, lean forward, and shout at the top of my lungs "Are you talking to ME? You think I'M a spy? Are you fucking OUT OF YOUR MIND?" And here I would laugh derisively or dismissively, whatever, and I would look at the employees and ask them, "You believe this bitch? Saying I'm a spy?" And then I would turn back to her and say, "Listen. Only reason I'm in this store on a Friday night is because I'm trying to kill time. Even if I WAS a spy, what in Jesus' name makes you so damned important that you need to be spied on? I mean, really. Like anyone cares what the hell you're doing here. Like any one cares what the fuck you do with your lame-ass, pathetic Friday night, you-"

What actually happened was this:

me: blink. blink blink.
female employee: sheepishly ma'am, um, she doesn't work for our company.
me: blink. swallow hard. blink blink.
female employee: blink.
male employee: craning neck from behind the counter and pretending to be looking at something in the far distance
young woman behind me: slips shoe onto the counter and slinks off
older woman: hurriedly gathers up her purse and walks away, unphased. I presume she is partially deaf. Or maybe scared to pieces. Hard to tell.
me: blink. blink blink.
female employee: looks at me, looks at customer. looks at me, looks at customer.
customer: staring hard at me, or at the fireworks on her retinas, I can't tell.

And now I am faced with a conundrum: I want to leave, but that means I'll have to interact with the employees ('cause the snakeskin heels are gorgeous and I want to put them on hold) but I've just been accused of being a spy, and even though I know I'm not, I have no idea what the employees are thinking right now. My anxiety is kicking in. Why the hell would I care what these people thought of me? Why can't I just brush this whole thing off? It's sheer clinical craziness. Why should I, the sane one, have to defend against the clearly crazy one? Why am I trying to rationalize my getting up and walking away? Why do I want so badly to yell at this woman STOP IT; JUST STOP IT. I can't explain it. Something about this woman's presence in that little corner of Macy's was sucking all the rationality out of it. Up was down. Wrong was right. Bored Friday night shoppers were corporate spies. And the thing about protesting against accusations of insanity (or spying activities) is that the more you protest, the crazier (or more spy-ish) you sound.

I go to the counter where the male employee is busy shuffling papers (anything to avoid looking five feet to the right where this woman is standing). He asks if he can help me and I inhale and hold my breath for a second and plop the shoes on the counter. I meet his eyes and we have this milli-second exchange that went something like: You just see that shit? What the fuck, right? You know I'm not a spy, right? And you know I wasn't following that lady around, right? Dude. I am soooo sorry you have to deal with this kind of shit on a Friday night. I mean, it's hard enough having to look at people's bunions and dry, cracked heels, and unkempt toenails all day long. Now you have to deal with people like this. And it's an hour before closing and the clearance section looks like a bomb went off in it. I know you're just counting down the hours till this is all just a distant memory and you can go home and tell your girlfriend what a fucked up day you had at work. I know you're smarter than this. I know you're being underutilized and underpaid and that you don't deserve this. I bet you're studying to be a doctor or something, and you just took this job to help pay for your graduate studies. I know this woman is probably only one of hundreds of nutcases that comes in here on a regular basis and accuses you of price-fixing, or of hiding the good stuff, or selling things that Macy's clearly does not carry, or of being personally responsible for Macy's return policy, or their store hours or locations, or one of a million other things that you have absolutely no control over... and it just sucks the life out of you day after day having to explain to a generally very uninformed and very impatient populace the way retail sales work in this country. I am so sorry. Really, I am.

Also, dude? There's a really nasty spill under the chair over there you're gonna wanna take a look at before you clock out.

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four year olds hate hippies

A Very Quotable Weekend, Part II

I didn't mean to make that last entry all cliff-hangy, you guys. I swear I didn't. And I also didn't mean to leave you hanging for three whole days. I've just been having an emotional three days here and posting something funny just wasn't in the cards for me.

So, here's the (anti-climactic) end to the whole episode: Male employee acknowledges my telepathic message with a smile and I turn around and walk out of the shoe department while (I'm sure) the crazy lady tried to burn holes in my back with her eyes. And then, because I have a tendency to fixate on things, I couldn't get those eyes out of my head for the whole night and part of the next day.

The remedy to this whole situation was a four-year old. That's right: Giggles and Little Man have made it to the blog again. And this time around, there were some real gems to be had.

Part Two: Saturday and Sunday

Before they got there, their mom told me that Little Man was into germs lately and that anything we could do to get him to talk about germs would probably make him happy. Being the eco-friendly laundry detergent-using, fair trade grown coffee-drinking, recycle everything but chewing gum types that we are, we thought the best place to show a kid where germs live would be the inside of our City-provided curbside compost bin. Little Man actually wanted to SEE the germs though, and we were having a hard time explaining the term "microscopic" in a meaningful way. (Alive, but invisible to the naked eye, every one of them a different shape, all of them moving but unable to be detected... it's all very confusing) The best we could do was to draw a few paramecia and some cell diagrams on paper and say that germs often had irregular shapes. Since we'd already made a plan to make some handmade dolls on the sewing machine for our night of stay at home fun, I offered to sew him a germ. He then insisted that I sew it INTO the bodies of the dolls, since that's where germs lived: inside people. Well played, Little Man. Well played.

We spent the better part of Saturday night crafting their stuffed amorphous monster-dolls out of polyfill and old t-shirts. Little Man, seeing his sister's joy when her doll, Devil, was all sewn up, promptly tucked it under his arm and initiated a game of keep-away.

Now, our apartment is tiny, so the the game consisted of Little Man running in circles around the focal point of our living room, our couch, and Giggles, well, giggling, and chasing him. After a few passes, I asked him why he'd stolen the doll, and he answered without breaking his stride, and with total earnestness: I NEED IT FOR COMPOST!

And then there was this, when I offered him Burdy's knife-making out of paper and aluminum foil skills:

LM: Make me a rondel.
Burdy: A what?
LM: A rondel.
Burdy: I don't know what that is.
LM: It's a sword, with two round things on the end. The knights used it when they were fighting. And it's sharp, okay? Really, really sharp.
Burdy: Um. Okay. Well, how about I start with a normal sword and then you can tell me what else I need?
LM: Nuh-o. Just draw a rondel!
Burdy: Okay, I'll try. (draws a fairly typical sword).
LM: That's not it. You didn't put the round things.
Burdy: How about you trace it on the paper with your finger and then I draw what you've traced?
LM: NUH-O! JUST DRAW IT! IT HAS TWO ROUND THINGS AND IT'S SHARP!
Me: BURDY! (Hissing under my breath) JUST USE YOUR GODDAMNED IPHONE AND LOOK UP AN IMAGE OF THE THING.
Burdy: Oh! I have an idea! Let's look it up on the Internet!

You guys, this is a rondel:

It's TOTALLY a sharp thing with two round things on the end. Next time a four year old commands you to draw a rondel, don't guess and don't ask for further instruction. Just go right to the Internet.

Giggles was into dressing up her dolls in makeshift outfits constructed of fabric scraps. She tied a long piece of fabric around one of the doll's heads and presented it to me. "Look", she said, "It's a Hippie!" And then she giggled. And that prompted this exchange between me and Little Man:

LM: What's a hippie?
Me: A Hippie? Well, a hippie is a slang term for person that belonged to a movement that started in the 60's-
LM: Is it a Roman?
Me: What?
LM: Is it a Roman?
Me: No, kid. I meant the 1960s, not the 660s. Anywho, a Hippie-
LM: Is it an Egyptian?
Me: Well, I suppose they could be. I mean, not an ancient Egyptian, if that's what you're asking. I mean, I think it's mostly a North American thing. Hmm.... I guess you could say a Hippie is someone whose core values are peace and love and equality and fairness.
LM: (considering thoughtfully what I've just said) I hate Hippies.
Me: (patting his head lovingly) Of course you do, sweetheart. Of course you do.

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how to draw a rondel

A Very Quotable Weekend, Part II

I didn't mean to make that last entry all cliff-hangy, you guys. I swear I didn't. And I also didn't mean to leave you hanging for three whole days. I've just been having an emotional three days here and posting something funny just wasn't in the cards for me.

So, here's the (anti-climactic) end to the whole episode: Male employee acknowledges my telepathic message with a smile and I turn around and walk out of the shoe department while (I'm sure) the crazy lady tried to burn holes in my back with her eyes. And then, because I have a tendency to fixate on things, I couldn't get those eyes out of my head for the whole night and part of the next day.

The remedy to this whole situation was a four-year old. That's right: Giggles and Little Man have made it to the blog again. And this time around, there were some real gems to be had.

Part Two: Saturday and Sunday

Before they got there, their mom told me that Little Man was into germs lately and that anything we could do to get him to talk about germs would probably make him happy. Being the eco-friendly laundry detergent-using, fair trade grown coffee-drinking, recycle everything but chewing gum types that we are, we thought the best place to show a kid where germs live would be the inside of our City-provided curbside compost bin. Little Man actually wanted to SEE the germs though, and we were having a hard time explaining the term "microscopic" in a meaningful way. (Alive, but invisible to the naked eye, every one of them a different shape, all of them moving but unable to be detected... it's all very confusing) The best we could do was to draw a few paramecia and some cell diagrams on paper and say that germs often had irregular shapes. Since we'd already made a plan to make some handmade dolls on the sewing machine for our night of stay at home fun, I offered to sew him a germ. He then insisted that I sew it INTO the bodies of the dolls, since that's where germs lived: inside people. Well played, Little Man. Well played.

We spent the better part of Saturday night crafting their stuffed amorphous monster-dolls out of polyfill and old t-shirts. Little Man, seeing his sister's joy when her doll, Devil, was all sewn up, promptly tucked it under his arm and initiated a game of keep-away.

Now, our apartment is tiny, so the the game consisted of Little Man running in circles around the focal point of our living room, our couch, and Giggles, well, giggling, and chasing him. After a few passes, I asked him why he'd stolen the doll, and he answered without breaking his stride, and with total earnestness: I NEED IT FOR COMPOST!

And then there was this, when I offered him Burdy's knife-making out of paper and aluminum foil skills:

LM: Make me a rondel.
Burdy: A what?
LM: A rondel.
Burdy: I don't know what that is.
LM: It's a sword, with two round things on the end. The knights used it when they were fighting. And it's sharp, okay? Really, really sharp.
Burdy: Um. Okay. Well, how about I start with a normal sword and then you can tell me what else I need?
LM: Nuh-o. Just draw a rondel!
Burdy: Okay, I'll try. (draws a fairly typical sword).
LM: That's not it. You didn't put the round things.
Burdy: How about you trace it on the paper with your finger and then I draw what you've traced?
LM: NUH-O! JUST DRAW IT! IT HAS TWO ROUND THINGS AND IT'S SHARP!
Me: BURDY! (Hissing under my breath) JUST USE YOUR GODDAMNED IPHONE AND LOOK UP AN IMAGE OF THE THING.
Burdy: Oh! I have an idea! Let's look it up on the Internet!

You guys, this is a rondel:

It's TOTALLY a sharp thing with two round things on the end. Next time a four year old commands you to draw a rondel, don't guess and don't ask for further instruction. Just go right to the Internet.

Giggles was into dressing up her dolls in makeshift outfits constructed of fabric scraps. She tied a long piece of fabric around one of the doll's heads and presented it to me. "Look", she said, "It's a Hippie!" And then she giggled. And that prompted this exchange between me and Little Man:

LM: What's a hippie?
Me: A Hippie? Well, a hippie is a slang term for person that belonged to a movement that started in the 60's-
LM: Is it a Roman?
Me: What?
LM: Is it a Roman?
Me: No, kid. I meant the 1960s, not the 660s. Anywho, a Hippie-
LM: Is it an Egyptian?
Me: Well, I suppose they could be. I mean, not an ancient Egyptian, if that's what you're asking. I mean, I think it's mostly a North American thing. Hmm.... I guess you could say a Hippie is someone whose core values are peace and love and equality and fairness.
LM: (considering thoughtfully what I've just said) I hate Hippies.
Me: (patting his head lovingly) Of course you do, sweetheart. Of course you do.

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bad reception

Just Brushing It Off

The last thing I heard before the fall?

Classical music.

The last thing I thought before the fall?

I should jog to classical music more often.

The sound I made to the strains of Bach as I smashed, palms first, knees second, into the sidewalk?

Uuhhfffff. Oh fuck.

The number of seconds it took me to understand what had just happened?

Three.

The thought I had after realizing what had just happened?

Geezus. I hope no one saw that.

The thought that went through my head when I peeled back my jogging pants to check for injuries and saw my knee skin stuck to the inside of my pants?

Don'tthrowupdon'tthrowupdon'tthrowupohgoddon'tthrowup.

The likelihood, I thought, that my phone would turn back on after it hit the sidewalk and all but exploded?

Very small.

The relief I felt when it did turn on and I was able to dial Burdy and tell him I need you to pick me up. I fell and I'm hurt?

Huge.

The number of blocks I had to hop-step before Burdy found me in the dark?

One.

The number of times I said "FfffffffffffffffffffIt stings!" and AaaaaaaaghHurry up!" to Burdy while he pawed through the linen closet looking for Neosporin?

Entirely too many for a grown woman.

The number of minutes in the bathroom cleaning the wound before I fainted?

Roughly eleven.

The number of seconds I was out?

Roughly twenty.

The number of times I have ever tripped and fallen while jogging in my whole entire life?

Just this once.

The number of pieces my phone's screen is in after the fall?

A brazillion.

The sole reason I chose this phone over the others in this price range?

The FM radio receiver.

The reason I was scanning for something to listen to (which is how I found the classical station)?

Bad reception.

The idea that, because my phone normally gets excellent reception and because the only thing I could pick up last night was classical music, and because I got the distinct impression before I left the house that it was NOT a good idea to jogging at 9:30 at night, that some cosmic force had choreographed the whole thing?

Disturbing.

The amount of time I spent today marveling at the invention of Band-Aids (seriously. BAND-AIDS. THINK ABOUT IT)?

Quite a bit.

The amount of time I spend, when catastrophe strikes, thinking about all sorts of modern inventions I take for granted, like running water, and bathtubs, and gauze, and ice-packs, and television, and re-runs of Seinfeld?

Far too much.

The gratitude and awe I feel for people who have to deal with blood and skin and Band-Aids and gauze on a daily basis?

Immense.

What my dancin' buddy, Terri, said when she saw my bandaged knee underneath my rolled up workout pants at Zumba class tonight?

Did you get a boo-boo?

Number of minutes of class that went by before I remembered that my skin was missing from my knee-cap and I started to get woozy?

Forty seven.

Willingness to dismiss idea of cosmic choreography and accept the fact it was just a matter of my sneaker catching a piece of raised sidewalk in the dark?

Strong.

Determination to listen to inner-self when it says: Don't go jogging right now. Stay home and eat popcorn instead?

Renewed.

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jogging accident

Just Brushing It Off

The last thing I heard before the fall?

Classical music.

The last thing I thought before the fall?

I should jog to classical music more often.

The sound I made to the strains of Bach as I smashed, palms first, knees second, into the sidewalk?

Uuhhfffff. Oh fuck.

The number of seconds it took me to understand what had just happened?

Three.

The thought I had after realizing what had just happened?

Geezus. I hope no one saw that.

The thought that went through my head when I peeled back my jogging pants to check for injuries and saw my knee skin stuck to the inside of my pants?

Don'tthrowupdon'tthrowupdon'tthrowupohgoddon'tthrowup.

The likelihood, I thought, that my phone would turn back on after it hit the sidewalk and all but exploded?

Very small.

The relief I felt when it did turn on and I was able to dial Burdy and tell him I need you to pick me up. I fell and I'm hurt?

Huge.

The number of blocks I had to hop-step before Burdy found me in the dark?

One.

The number of times I said "FfffffffffffffffffffIt stings!" and AaaaaaaaghHurry up!" to Burdy while he pawed through the linen closet looking for Neosporin?

Entirely too many for a grown woman.

The number of minutes in the bathroom cleaning the wound before I fainted?

Roughly eleven.

The number of seconds I was out?

Roughly twenty.

The number of times I have ever tripped and fallen while jogging in my whole entire life?

Just this once.

The number of pieces my phone's screen is in after the fall?

A brazillion.

The sole reason I chose this phone over the others in this price range?

The FM radio receiver.

The reason I was scanning for something to listen to (which is how I found the classical station)?

Bad reception.

The idea that, because my phone normally gets excellent reception and because the only thing I could pick up last night was classical music, and because I got the distinct impression before I left the house that it was NOT a good idea to jogging at 9:30 at night, that some cosmic force had choreographed the whole thing?

Disturbing.

The amount of time I spent today marveling at the invention of Band-Aids (seriously. BAND-AIDS. THINK ABOUT IT)?

Quite a bit.

The amount of time I spend, when catastrophe strikes, thinking about all sorts of modern inventions I take for granted, like running water, and bathtubs, and gauze, and ice-packs, and television, and re-runs of Seinfeld?

Far too much.

The gratitude and awe I feel for people who have to deal with blood and skin and Band-Aids and gauze on a daily basis?

Immense.

What my dancin' buddy, Terri, said when she saw my bandaged knee underneath my rolled up workout pants at Zumba class tonight?

Did you get a boo-boo?

Number of minutes of class that went by before I remembered that my skin was missing from my knee-cap and I started to get woozy?

Forty seven.

Willingness to dismiss idea of cosmic choreography and accept the fact it was just a matter of my sneaker catching a piece of raised sidewalk in the dark?

Strong.

Determination to listen to inner-self when it says: Don't go jogging right now. Stay home and eat popcorn instead?

Renewed.

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crows

Dear Tuesday

Dear Sprint,
There's a war on. You know that, right? Between you and the iPhone people? And that every time I take my phone out, I might as well be pulling a six-shooter out of a holster? And that every time an iPhone and another phone are in the same room together, the air becomes dry and crackly and people nervously clear their throats? You can practically hear the jangle of spurs and the theme music to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly out here, Sprint. To the iPhone users, every hiccup in your performance is an opportunity to prove to me that the iPhone is faster, easier to use, and just downright BETTER than the phone I use, Sprint. SO. Here's a little advice, from someone down in the trenches: Get. Yo'. Shit. Together. Don't make me look like an idiot in front of the iPhone users. I've defended you for a long time, but the jackals are circling. They want an excuse, ANY excuse, to say to me, "Why don't you just get an iPhone?". Are you going to let them have it, Sprint? Are you just going to lie there and take it? Because that's what the iPhone people are saying you'll do. They think they've got you pegged. They think I'll eventually get so frustrated with you that I'll cave and buy a shiny white lozenge of a phone and leave you in the dust. Is that where we're headed, Sprint? You know, now that I think about it, I actually can't understand my loyalty to you. You really haven't done much more than provide me with uninterrupted, trouble-free service for nine years or so. I mean, it's not like you throw in a dozen roses every time I upgrade my phone. So why should I stick with you when everyone tells me the iPhone is better, faster, and smarter than your best smartphone? Because you had me at Hello, You're Lazy. It's true. I can feel a migraine coming on whenever I think about having to switch phone companies. So let's make a deal, shall we? I will continue to fork over my seventy-some-odd-dollars for a worry-free, all-inclusive plan, and you continue to reward me for my ~~laziness~~ loyalty. Here's another pointer: When I come into your store, make it seem, like the iPhone people do, that I have just brought in a wounded comrade and that you are a triage center. Treat that comrade like he is family. Gently tuck him into a white Formica drawer with other wounded comrades and promise me you'll do everything you can to save him. Ask me how long it's been since I've been without my device, and offer your condolences with lowered eyes and a respectful distance. Offer me a service ticket electronically and act like you don't even know what paper is anymore. Tell me you'll have a new phone in my hands pronto. And do this all with a smile. I mean, for godssakes, Sprint, the iPhone people are watching.

Dear Sprint,
You know I have, like, twenty six followers of this blog and that I could easily foment an insurrection against you? Do you know that in some parts of the world, twenty-six people all hating you at once out of solidarity constitutes a goddamned revolution? How much bad juju can you handle being beamed at you from every corner of North America anyway?

Dear Sprint Store Employee,
I can tell that every morning, in one motion, you push your arms into the sleeves of your corporate logo'd sweater and you put your heart up in a Mason jar on the top shelf of your closet because that is what it takes to do your job. It's okay. I can't blame you. I used to work for a corporate entity once. I, too, got tired of dealing with people who brought back items that THEIR CATS HAD OBVIOUSLY BEEN PEEING ON for three years and tell me that they just "changed their mind" about the color and could they just get a refund, please? I'm sure the stories you hear about what people do to their cell phones is equally as horrifying. I'm sure that people feign ignorance left and right about why their phones suddenly don't work and why they need replacements right this instant for free. I'm sure you have to stare grown men in the face and not move a muscle as they tell you they most certainly did NOT drop their phones in the lake even as wriggling minnows tumble onto the countertop from their battery casings. I'm sure you have to defend against all kinds of asinine behavior that voids service contracts and that you have to tell a hundred or more people a day that that kind of stuff is just not the kind of thing that warrants a free phone.

Dear Assurian Insurance Company Who Insures My Phone,
I am not one of those people.

Dear Sprint Employee (again),
Please review your customer service policies regarding "cracked smartphone screens". Understand that when I hand over my phone and you casually remark, without making eye contact or mentioning a price, that you "could probably have a technician replace the screen in an hour", this equates, in my mind, with a FREE service. You can understand, then, how frustrated and confused I was when, an hour later, you said the technician could not replace the screen because the phone showed signs of water damage. Water damage, Sprint Employee? I'm not following. HOW DOES A CRACKED SCREEN HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH WATER DAMAGE? I brought the phone in because my screen is cracked. And now I've gone from being mildly inconvenienced to irritated and confused. Do you see what's happened here? You've turned me into an all caps lunatic. When you ask me if I've ever taken the phone into the bathroom while I've showered because, you know, condensation from a shower could be the culprit of said water damage and I stand there with my mouth agog, it's because I am trying to comprehend how this is in any way related to my screen. My screen that is on the front of the phone and not the back of the phone where you checked for this alleged "water damage". Sprint Employee, do you live here in our fair city of Seattle? Perhaps you are aware of how much it rains here. And surely you are aware of the high number of smartphone enthusiasts in our fair city (I'll direct you to the paragraph above regarding the iPhone users). So, you must, you simply MUST, understand how, given the number of days in the year there is measurable moisture in the air (ahem, you might understand this better as "shower condensation"), and the number of smartphone users, that, by your logic, EVERYONE'S PHONE IN SEATTLE HAS SUFFERED WATER DAMAGE AND THEREFORE EVERYONE'S SERVICE CONTRACTS ARE VOID. Am I understanding this correctly, Sprint Employee?

Dear Assurian,
You might want to have a talk with the Sprint people. Apparently, there is some confusion about when to pay a deductible for a new phone and when screens are fixed for free. Now, having paid you people seven dollars a month for the last year to insure my phone, I was more than ready to pay this deductible and to have a new phone shipped to me pronto. But, it seems like we all had different ideas of what was supposed to happen here, now didn't we? You shipped me a phone in three days due to "backups" and "popularity of the phone" (and not immediately like you should have, like I am paying you to do). And then, when I got the phone, it was damaged. And when I called and asked your customer service rep if I should ship back the whole package, which included a battery and a memory card, or just the damaged phone, your representative told me "just the phone". And then you somehow, AMAZINGLY, MIRACULOUSLY were able to ship me a BRAND NEW PHONE overnight to replace the damaged one... which, of course, included ANOTHER battery and ANOTHER memory card. (Are you catching all this, iPhone users?)

Dear Really Stupid Week I've Just Had,
Man, am I glad you're done. Geez.... Now, if I could just back to a regular sleep pattern...

Dear Crows Outside My Bedroom Window at 7 am:
Who elected you to the position of Urban Roosters, huh? GET OFF MY GODDAMNED POWERLINES, YOU JERKS!! I'M STILL SLEEPING!! HEY! CROWS! YOU LIKE IT WHEN SOMEONE CAN'T TALK IN A NORMAL TONE OF VOICE? YOU LIKE IT WHEN SOMEONE JUST SCREAMS THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS FOUR FEET FROM YOUR HEAD? HUH, CROWS? HUH? YOU LIKE THIS? CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! YOU WANT SOME MORE OF THIS, CROWS? DO YA?

Dear Baby Next Door,
Are you in cahoots with the crows? Do you suffer from night terrors? Why the hell else would you be awake at 7 am and screaming like you're being murdered? Do you fall out of your crib every day at the same time and land in rusty bathtub full of broken glass? Why the hell must you scream like that, baby? I wake up every morning terrified that you're being mauled by lions. Why, baby? Why? I've met your mother; she's a dear woman. I know you're not being harmed in there, baby, so it must be all in your head. Do you need to see a therapist, baby?

Dear Neighbor with Backfiring Motorcycle/Neighbor with Lawnmower,
Really? Are you and the baby and the crows all in on this together? Is there some conspiracy to make as much noise as possible at the appointed hour of 6:45 am to get me out of bed? You know I don't actually GET out of bed at 6:45, right? Sure, sometimes I get up and press my nose to my screen window and scream at the top of my lungs for the crows the shut the hell up but that doesn't constitute "getting out of bed" per se. Anyway, please stop. It's getting a little ridiculous out there. I mean, a screaming baby is one thing. And crows another. But mowing your lawn AND repairing your motorcycle all at once? Come on. That's just silly.

Dear Self-Employment Schedule,
Thanks for letting me sleep in.

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lawnmowers at 7 am

Dear Tuesday

Dear Sprint,
There's a war on. You know that, right? Between you and the iPhone people? And that every time I take my phone out, I might as well be pulling a six-shooter out of a holster? And that every time an iPhone and another phone are in the same room together, the air becomes dry and crackly and people nervously clear their throats? You can practically hear the jangle of spurs and the theme music to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly out here, Sprint. To the iPhone users, every hiccup in your performance is an opportunity to prove to me that the iPhone is faster, easier to use, and just downright BETTER than the phone I use, Sprint. SO. Here's a little advice, from someone down in the trenches: Get. Yo'. Shit. Together. Don't make me look like an idiot in front of the iPhone users. I've defended you for a long time, but the jackals are circling. They want an excuse, ANY excuse, to say to me, "Why don't you just get an iPhone?". Are you going to let them have it, Sprint? Are you just going to lie there and take it? Because that's what the iPhone people are saying you'll do. They think they've got you pegged. They think I'll eventually get so frustrated with you that I'll cave and buy a shiny white lozenge of a phone and leave you in the dust. Is that where we're headed, Sprint? You know, now that I think about it, I actually can't understand my loyalty to you. You really haven't done much more than provide me with uninterrupted, trouble-free service for nine years or so. I mean, it's not like you throw in a dozen roses every time I upgrade my phone. So why should I stick with you when everyone tells me the iPhone is better, faster, and smarter than your best smartphone? Because you had me at Hello, You're Lazy. It's true. I can feel a migraine coming on whenever I think about having to switch phone companies. So let's make a deal, shall we? I will continue to fork over my seventy-some-odd-dollars for a worry-free, all-inclusive plan, and you continue to reward me for my ~~laziness~~ loyalty. Here's another pointer: When I come into your store, make it seem, like the iPhone people do, that I have just brought in a wounded comrade and that you are a triage center. Treat that comrade like he is family. Gently tuck him into a white Formica drawer with other wounded comrades and promise me you'll do everything you can to save him. Ask me how long it's been since I've been without my device, and offer your condolences with lowered eyes and a respectful distance. Offer me a service ticket electronically and act like you don't even know what paper is anymore. Tell me you'll have a new phone in my hands pronto. And do this all with a smile. I mean, for godssakes, Sprint, the iPhone people are watching.

Dear Sprint,
You know I have, like, twenty six followers of this blog and that I could easily foment an insurrection against you? Do you know that in some parts of the world, twenty-six people all hating you at once out of solidarity constitutes a goddamned revolution? How much bad juju can you handle being beamed at you from every corner of North America anyway?

Dear Sprint Store Employee,
I can tell that every morning, in one motion, you push your arms into the sleeves of your corporate logo'd sweater and you put your heart up in a Mason jar on the top shelf of your closet because that is what it takes to do your job. It's okay. I can't blame you. I used to work for a corporate entity once. I, too, got tired of dealing with people who brought back items that THEIR CATS HAD OBVIOUSLY BEEN PEEING ON for three years and tell me that they just "changed their mind" about the color and could they just get a refund, please? I'm sure the stories you hear about what people do to their cell phones is equally as horrifying. I'm sure that people feign ignorance left and right about why their phones suddenly don't work and why they need replacements right this instant for free. I'm sure you have to stare grown men in the face and not move a muscle as they tell you they most certainly did NOT drop their phones in the lake even as wriggling minnows tumble onto the countertop from their battery casings. I'm sure you have to defend against all kinds of asinine behavior that voids service contracts and that you have to tell a hundred or more people a day that that kind of stuff is just not the kind of thing that warrants a free phone.

Dear Assurian Insurance Company Who Insures My Phone,
I am not one of those people.

Dear Sprint Employee (again),
Please review your customer service policies regarding "cracked smartphone screens". Understand that when I hand over my phone and you casually remark, without making eye contact or mentioning a price, that you "could probably have a technician replace the screen in an hour", this equates, in my mind, with a FREE service. You can understand, then, how frustrated and confused I was when, an hour later, you said the technician could not replace the screen because the phone showed signs of water damage. Water damage, Sprint Employee? I'm not following. HOW DOES A CRACKED SCREEN HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH WATER DAMAGE? I brought the phone in because my screen is cracked. And now I've gone from being mildly inconvenienced to irritated and confused. Do you see what's happened here? You've turned me into an all caps lunatic. When you ask me if I've ever taken the phone into the bathroom while I've showered because, you know, condensation from a shower could be the culprit of said water damage and I stand there with my mouth agog, it's because I am trying to comprehend how this is in any way related to my screen. My screen that is on the front of the phone and not the back of the phone where you checked for this alleged "water damage". Sprint Employee, do you live here in our fair city of Seattle? Perhaps you are aware of how much it rains here. And surely you are aware of the high number of smartphone enthusiasts in our fair city (I'll direct you to the paragraph above regarding the iPhone users). So, you must, you simply MUST, understand how, given the number of days in the year there is measurable moisture in the air (ahem, you might understand this better as "shower condensation"), and the number of smartphone users, that, by your logic, EVERYONE'S PHONE IN SEATTLE HAS SUFFERED WATER DAMAGE AND THEREFORE EVERYONE'S SERVICE CONTRACTS ARE VOID. Am I understanding this correctly, Sprint Employee?

Dear Assurian,
You might want to have a talk with the Sprint people. Apparently, there is some confusion about when to pay a deductible for a new phone and when screens are fixed for free. Now, having paid you people seven dollars a month for the last year to insure my phone, I was more than ready to pay this deductible and to have a new phone shipped to me pronto. But, it seems like we all had different ideas of what was supposed to happen here, now didn't we? You shipped me a phone in three days due to "backups" and "popularity of the phone" (and not immediately like you should have, like I am paying you to do). And then, when I got the phone, it was damaged. And when I called and asked your customer service rep if I should ship back the whole package, which included a battery and a memory card, or just the damaged phone, your representative told me "just the phone". And then you somehow, AMAZINGLY, MIRACULOUSLY were able to ship me a BRAND NEW PHONE overnight to replace the damaged one... which, of course, included ANOTHER battery and ANOTHER memory card. (Are you catching all this, iPhone users?)

Dear Really Stupid Week I've Just Had,
Man, am I glad you're done. Geez.... Now, if I could just back to a regular sleep pattern...

Dear Crows Outside My Bedroom Window at 7 am:
Who elected you to the position of Urban Roosters, huh? GET OFF MY GODDAMNED POWERLINES, YOU JERKS!! I'M STILL SLEEPING!! HEY! CROWS! YOU LIKE IT WHEN SOMEONE CAN'T TALK IN A NORMAL TONE OF VOICE? YOU LIKE IT WHEN SOMEONE JUST SCREAMS THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS FOUR FEET FROM YOUR HEAD? HUH, CROWS? HUH? YOU LIKE THIS? CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! YOU WANT SOME MORE OF THIS, CROWS? DO YA?

Dear Baby Next Door,
Are you in cahoots with the crows? Do you suffer from night terrors? Why the hell else would you be awake at 7 am and screaming like you're being murdered? Do you fall out of your crib every day at the same time and land in rusty bathtub full of broken glass? Why the hell must you scream like that, baby? I wake up every morning terrified that you're being mauled by lions. Why, baby? Why? I've met your mother; she's a dear woman. I know you're not being harmed in there, baby, so it must be all in your head. Do you need to see a therapist, baby?

Dear Neighbor with Backfiring Motorcycle/Neighbor with Lawnmower,
Really? Are you and the baby and the crows all in on this together? Is there some conspiracy to make as much noise as possible at the appointed hour of 6:45 am to get me out of bed? You know I don't actually GET out of bed at 6:45, right? Sure, sometimes I get up and press my nose to my screen window and scream at the top of my lungs for the crows the shut the hell up but that doesn't constitute "getting out of bed" per se. Anyway, please stop. It's getting a little ridiculous out there. I mean, a screaming baby is one thing. And crows another. But mowing your lawn AND repairing your motorcycle all at once? Come on. That's just silly.

Dear Self-Employment Schedule,
Thanks for letting me sleep in.

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being hit on by men half my age

It’s Been Quite The Week Already. And It’s Only Monday.

I'VE STILL GOT IT
While walking to work today, I was waved to a by a young man down a side street using a hose. I waved back. He waved more. "Nice day we're having," he called down the street to me. "Yup," I called. He waved some more. Wanting to end the waving, I gave him a solid "We're done here" thumbs up and kept walking. Thirty seconds later, from behind me, I hear him trying to get my attention the way one might hail a streetwalker in another country. I slowly turn around. He is running towards me. He repeats "Nice day we're having" about three times and I agree three times. Confused about his intentions and in a hurry, I start to walk away, but he is insistent we keep talking about the weather. He reaches out and shakes my hand (limply, like maybe he's trying to imitate something he's seen in a gangster rap video) and says his name is "J, or J, or Jarve. My friends call me J". Right. Shortening your name to your first initial. Very gangster indeed, sir. You've clearly read all the rules about how to impress a lady, including using a gardening implement to first get her attention. He asks me where I am going and I tell him "To work" and I turn to leave. I am about five paces away when he calls out, "Are you married?"

NO APPOINTMENT NECESSARY

I have been trying to unload a bunch of stuff from the garage onto craigslist. For some reason, everyone I have been dealing with this past week has been a complete and utter flake. I've had really good luck in the past making deals on craigslist, so I was completely unprepared for the amount of people who just didn't show up when they said they'd show up. And I know, too, that the common feeling around craigslist is that, Hey, it's craigslist! It's not a binding agreement or anything! But, seriously, douchebags. Don't make me wait around on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon and then tell me, via text, of all things, fifteen minutes after you were supposed to show up, and after you've ALREADY NOT SHOWN UP TO OUR FIRST APPOINTMENT THAT DAY that you can't because of... you know what? I don't even give a flying fart why you're late. A heads-up would have been nice.

BROWN COULD BE THE NEW RED WHITE AND BLUE.

I dropped off a package at the post office this morning, and I got to thinking about a recent news report I heard about the USPS reporting close to a 5 BILLION dollar loss for the first half of 2011. And I thought to myself: am I hearing this right? 5 BILLION? As in, it should probably cost about $28.50 to mail a letter for the next seventeen years for the Post Office to break even? I'm not one of those Down With Big Government types. I support public safety nets and socialized medicine and all that other good stuff that makes me a baby-killing, job-hating liberal. But, seriously. The Post Office? Why don't we hand this over to the already existing, mostly-well functioning businesses that deliver packages around the world and say, "Here. You seem to have a grip on how to make this profitable. YOU do this." I mean, no offense to my lovely local mail carrier, but what the hell do we even need the post office for anymore anyway? You can do online nearly everything you can do at the actual post office. And there are tons of FedEx and UPS stores around the country for those times when you feel like standing in line for half an hour to find out you need just three more cents in postage to mail your letter. Why aren't the corporate giants fighting to buy the USPS like they did Skype or AOL? It's not like they would be eliminating EVERY job with the buyout. I mean, SOMEONE's got to deliver all those Publisher's Clearing House notices, credit card offers, and supermarket flyers, right?</p>

BULLER? BUELLER? BUELLER? OH GOD. DOUBLE ENTENDRE. NO ONE UNDERSTANDS THAT JOKE ANYMORE.
I've been making quite a few cultural references lately that people even just a few years younger than me just don't get. I'm starting to sound like that weird uncle at family reunions that makes all the dumb jokes that just make people groan and roll their eyes. Only instead of groans, everyone just stares at me blankly and then goes back to checking their Facebook statuses on their phones. This became particularly obvious to me when a friend of mine wore a thrifted Ghostbusters shirt in front of her young student and the student commented, "Oh, I get it! No ghosts!" AAAGH, KID! It's not "No ghosts"! If it's anything, it's "I ain't 'fraid o' no ghosts"! Geez! I mean, it was only one of the most phenomenal movies of our young lives! Get it straight, kid! NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!

A SHORT LIST OF THINGS I AM OVER
-Ironic mustaches
-Cupcakes as adult food
-Rompers

The End.</div>

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making myself sound old

It’s Been Quite The Week Already. And It’s Only Monday.

I'VE STILL GOT IT
While walking to work today, I was waved to a by a young man down a side street using a hose. I waved back. He waved more. "Nice day we're having," he called down the street to me. "Yup," I called. He waved some more. Wanting to end the waving, I gave him a solid "We're done here" thumbs up and kept walking. Thirty seconds later, from behind me, I hear him trying to get my attention the way one might hail a streetwalker in another country. I slowly turn around. He is running towards me. He repeats "Nice day we're having" about three times and I agree three times. Confused about his intentions and in a hurry, I start to walk away, but he is insistent we keep talking about the weather. He reaches out and shakes my hand (limply, like maybe he's trying to imitate something he's seen in a gangster rap video) and says his name is "J, or J, or Jarve. My friends call me J". Right. Shortening your name to your first initial. Very gangster indeed, sir. You've clearly read all the rules about how to impress a lady, including using a gardening implement to first get her attention. He asks me where I am going and I tell him "To work" and I turn to leave. I am about five paces away when he calls out, "Are you married?"

NO APPOINTMENT NECESSARY

I have been trying to unload a bunch of stuff from the garage onto craigslist. For some reason, everyone I have been dealing with this past week has been a complete and utter flake. I've had really good luck in the past making deals on craigslist, so I was completely unprepared for the amount of people who just didn't show up when they said they'd show up. And I know, too, that the common feeling around craigslist is that, Hey, it's craigslist! It's not a binding agreement or anything! But, seriously, douchebags. Don't make me wait around on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon and then tell me, via text, of all things, fifteen minutes after you were supposed to show up, and after you've ALREADY NOT SHOWN UP TO OUR FIRST APPOINTMENT THAT DAY that you can't because of... you know what? I don't even give a flying fart why you're late. A heads-up would have been nice.

BROWN COULD BE THE NEW RED WHITE AND BLUE.

I dropped off a package at the post office this morning, and I got to thinking about a recent news report I heard about the USPS reporting close to a 5 BILLION dollar loss for the first half of 2011. And I thought to myself: am I hearing this right? 5 BILLION? As in, it should probably cost about $28.50 to mail a letter for the next seventeen years for the Post Office to break even? I'm not one of those Down With Big Government types. I support public safety nets and socialized medicine and all that other good stuff that makes me a baby-killing, job-hating liberal. But, seriously. The Post Office? Why don't we hand this over to the already existing, mostly-well functioning businesses that deliver packages around the world and say, "Here. You seem to have a grip on how to make this profitable. YOU do this." I mean, no offense to my lovely local mail carrier, but what the hell do we even need the post office for anymore anyway? You can do online nearly everything you can do at the actual post office. And there are tons of FedEx and UPS stores around the country for those times when you feel like standing in line for half an hour to find out you need just three more cents in postage to mail your letter. Why aren't the corporate giants fighting to buy the USPS like they did Skype or AOL? It's not like they would be eliminating EVERY job with the buyout. I mean, SOMEONE's got to deliver all those Publisher's Clearing House notices, credit card offers, and supermarket flyers, right?</p>

BULLER? BUELLER? BUELLER? OH GOD. DOUBLE ENTENDRE. NO ONE UNDERSTANDS THAT JOKE ANYMORE.
I've been making quite a few cultural references lately that people even just a few years younger than me just don't get. I'm starting to sound like that weird uncle at family reunions that makes all the dumb jokes that just make people groan and roll their eyes. Only instead of groans, everyone just stares at me blankly and then goes back to checking their Facebook statuses on their phones. This became particularly obvious to me when a friend of mine wore a thrifted Ghostbusters shirt in front of her young student and the student commented, "Oh, I get it! No ghosts!" AAAGH, KID! It's not "No ghosts"! If it's anything, it's "I ain't 'fraid o' no ghosts"! Geez! I mean, it was only one of the most phenomenal movies of our young lives! Get it straight, kid! NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!

A SHORT LIST OF THINGS I AM OVER
-Ironic mustaches
-Cupcakes as adult food
-Rompers

The End.</div>

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why the USPS should be bought out

It’s Been Quite The Week Already. And It’s Only Monday.

I'VE STILL GOT IT
While walking to work today, I was waved to a by a young man down a side street using a hose. I waved back. He waved more. "Nice day we're having," he called down the street to me. "Yup," I called. He waved some more. Wanting to end the waving, I gave him a solid "We're done here" thumbs up and kept walking. Thirty seconds later, from behind me, I hear him trying to get my attention the way one might hail a streetwalker in another country. I slowly turn around. He is running towards me. He repeats "Nice day we're having" about three times and I agree three times. Confused about his intentions and in a hurry, I start to walk away, but he is insistent we keep talking about the weather. He reaches out and shakes my hand (limply, like maybe he's trying to imitate something he's seen in a gangster rap video) and says his name is "J, or J, or Jarve. My friends call me J". Right. Shortening your name to your first initial. Very gangster indeed, sir. You've clearly read all the rules about how to impress a lady, including using a gardening implement to first get her attention. He asks me where I am going and I tell him "To work" and I turn to leave. I am about five paces away when he calls out, "Are you married?"

NO APPOINTMENT NECESSARY

I have been trying to unload a bunch of stuff from the garage onto craigslist. For some reason, everyone I have been dealing with this past week has been a complete and utter flake. I've had really good luck in the past making deals on craigslist, so I was completely unprepared for the amount of people who just didn't show up when they said they'd show up. And I know, too, that the common feeling around craigslist is that, Hey, it's craigslist! It's not a binding agreement or anything! But, seriously, douchebags. Don't make me wait around on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon and then tell me, via text, of all things, fifteen minutes after you were supposed to show up, and after you've ALREADY NOT SHOWN UP TO OUR FIRST APPOINTMENT THAT DAY that you can't because of... you know what? I don't even give a flying fart why you're late. A heads-up would have been nice.

BROWN COULD BE THE NEW RED WHITE AND BLUE.

I dropped off a package at the post office this morning, and I got to thinking about a recent news report I heard about the USPS reporting close to a 5 BILLION dollar loss for the first half of 2011. And I thought to myself: am I hearing this right? 5 BILLION? As in, it should probably cost about $28.50 to mail a letter for the next seventeen years for the Post Office to break even? I'm not one of those Down With Big Government types. I support public safety nets and socialized medicine and all that other good stuff that makes me a baby-killing, job-hating liberal. But, seriously. The Post Office? Why don't we hand this over to the already existing, mostly-well functioning businesses that deliver packages around the world and say, "Here. You seem to have a grip on how to make this profitable. YOU do this." I mean, no offense to my lovely local mail carrier, but what the hell do we even need the post office for anymore anyway? You can do online nearly everything you can do at the actual post office. And there are tons of FedEx and UPS stores around the country for those times when you feel like standing in line for half an hour to find out you need just three more cents in postage to mail your letter. Why aren't the corporate giants fighting to buy the USPS like they did Skype or AOL? It's not like they would be eliminating EVERY job with the buyout. I mean, SOMEONE's got to deliver all those Publisher's Clearing House notices, credit card offers, and supermarket flyers, right?</p>

BULLER? BUELLER? BUELLER? OH GOD. DOUBLE ENTENDRE. NO ONE UNDERSTANDS THAT JOKE ANYMORE.
I've been making quite a few cultural references lately that people even just a few years younger than me just don't get. I'm starting to sound like that weird uncle at family reunions that makes all the dumb jokes that just make people groan and roll their eyes. Only instead of groans, everyone just stares at me blankly and then goes back to checking their Facebook statuses on their phones. This became particularly obvious to me when a friend of mine wore a thrifted Ghostbusters shirt in front of her young student and the student commented, "Oh, I get it! No ghosts!" AAAGH, KID! It's not "No ghosts"! If it's anything, it's "I ain't 'fraid o' no ghosts"! Geez! I mean, it was only one of the most phenomenal movies of our young lives! Get it straight, kid! NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!

A SHORT LIST OF THINGS I AM OVER
-Ironic mustaches
-Cupcakes as adult food
-Rompers

The End.</div>

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Burdy

In Memoriam

It's been an emotional few days around the Burdy house. I feel like some portal has opened, like the veil between me and the rest of the world is membrane-thin right now and everything is flowing in unchecked.

It started last week with a news report that a cyclist had been killed in a hit and run accident downtown. I heard it on the radio just as I was parking the car to get to my Zumba class. There were no details in the report, just that the driver was in an SUV and the cyclist was dead. Burdy regularly rides his bike to work downtown, so when I heard the report, I froze in fear. I knew that Burdy had probably not been anywhere near that part of downtown, but I still panicked. The minds of the anxious are incredibly over-active in situations like this. One moment I was preparing myself to sweat to dance music. And in the next I was imagining the rest of my life without my best friend.

It's been a while since I've had a freakout session like that. I am trying to be gentle with myself these days, trying not to let the words "freak out" enter my vocabulary because they only serve to downplay how real and paralyzing this anxiety is. I could hardly breathe through my class. At one point, while I was I bent down in a stretch and feeling like I would pass out from the anxiety, I started describing my sneakers to myself (it's an anti-anxiety technique I recently learned about) and I was able to relax a little. It occurred to me that I was describing my shoe to myself to calm myself down over an accident that probably, in all likelihood, had not happened to my partner. Talk about meta-meta-awareness.

Burdy is still very much alive, thank you.

But I didn't want to start this post to tell you about my anxiety. Well, sort of, I did. It will all make sense eventually.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Burdy's dad's death. I quickly glossed over it in this blog last year when it first happened because there were last minute travel plans to be made and suits to be checked over for stains, and dresses to be dry cleaned. The call came on a glorious summer day. I was just getting home from a jog. I remember how the light outside my apartment had that particular lazy summer end-of-day quality about it, the street noisy with screaming kids and birdsong, the apartment still and warm. I remember thinking how strange and unjust the world felt at that moment. I was relaxed after a run, the sun was still going strong at 7 pm, everything right with the world around me. Three thousand miles away, at exactly the same time, there was upheaval and sorrow and loss. It didn't make sense that these two moments could coexist in time.

What made the whole thing even more chaotic was that, when he got the call, Burdy was not at home. We were dog-sitting for a friend at the time and staying at her house. We had only just begun the stint and we had to call my friend (who was visiting family in Boston) to tell her we had to leave the house in a few hours to catch a flight back east.

Death, in my family, has always been a weighty, grievous thing. Both my grandmothers died within four months of each other in the same year. Both of these deaths felt premature; my grandmothers were only in their sixties. I felt particularly close to my mom's mom. Her death was not exactly unexpected (she was in the final throes of battling colon cancer), but it was still shocking.</p>

My earliest memories are of her gingerly lowering herself into the pool, careful not to wet the line above her abdomen where a colostomy bag nestled hidden behind her classy bathing suit. She was always dressed to the nines. She spoke perfect English, but still pronounced certain words with a thick German accent. She sliced the crusty, round loves of Portuguese bread she bought from the Ironbound section of Newark against her body and stubbornly refused to use a cutting board. She introduced me to the heady smell of carrots freshly plucked from the back yard and the addictive properties of tomato gardening. She made a mean goulash. She told me very little about herself, just that she'd had a hard childhood and that I should be grateful for my parents who loved me.

My dad's mom had a heart attack quite suddenly on a weeknight. Our family was always struggling financially and my dad had to ask for gas money from my baby-sitting fund to get to the hospital. He was agitated and impatient with me when I protested. He didn't tell me that his mother was dying.

My dad's mom, in the tradition of my family, was a great storyteller. She had a memory like my dad does; every moment of the day was an opportunity to tell the story of what it was like back when she was a kid. My dad's mom taught me how to crochet. She had a whole room in her house piled to the ceiling with different colored yarn. She must have loved being near the water like I do because she fell in love with my grandfather at the community pool when they were teenagers.

The year my grandmothers died was also the year my uncle was married. I was only eleven years old, so of course what I remember was how perfectly my hair seemed to react to being blown out by a hairdryer for the first time, and how I got to wear a comb of baby's breath with my pink dress and matching shoes. Years later, when I asked my mom about what she remembered about that wedding, she said she couldn't remember much at all because those deaths were still fresh on her mind.

My mom's dad passed away two months before September 11th. He was a complex man who was also an incredible storyteller. My dad's dad passed away shortly after I was christened. I never knew him.

At my grandmother's funeral, it rained. I rode for the first time in the back of a limo. When I stepped from the car, I remember feeling like my mom was Jackie-O, and all eyes were on us, the brave little children, dressed in mourning black and walking like ducklings behind her.

A few months after my grandmothers' funerals, a friend of the family's mother passed away. We went as a family to the funeral. I cried and cried then, unable to stop. I surprised even myself. The friend, maybe in grief, maybe because both of us couldn't understand how I was capable of expressing so much sorrow for a stranger, knelt down beside me and told me "You don't have to do this. It's okay". But I couldn't stop. That membrane between me and the outside world was thin, then, too, and every death at that age felt personal and devastating.

Somewhere in that same stretch, our neighbor died. He must have been struggling with some kind of illness. His wife, a former NYC Rockette, her feet twisted from years in toe-shoes, ran over to our yard in just her housecoat, yelling over the gate as she ran, "He's gone! Oh, God! He's gone!"

So you see, death is a heavy, terrible thing in my family. And this is why Burdy's dad's passing was so life-changing for me. And why I still have a lot to learn about living. And why, if I understood more about how to really live, a bicycle accident that didn't happen to my fiance wouldn't send me into a anxiety-driven tailspin.</p>

Burdy's dad, who I called "Poppi", lived a long life. Burdy details some of it here. His father's name was Stanley, too. He became a father to Burdy late in his life. He was 55 when his second son was born. His first was born in Ukraine, to his first wife, and he didn't know she was pregnant at the time. He had to flee his native country, the threat of imprisonment looming large for having deserted the Russian army during the war. He left with the classic immigrant's fare of two dollars and the shirt on his back, literally. When he got to America, he knew almost no one and he didn't speak the language. He built himself up from nothing. He worked his way up from lineman to foreman in a factory, impressing his superiors with his quick command of the language and his proclivity for hard work. He smiled a lot. He was a classic charmer; he turned, in his lifetime, bushels and bushels of lemons into gallons and gallons of lemonade.

He was a hard man to get a straight answer out of sometimes. I believe his life necessitated this. He grew up in an era where expressing national pride was dangerous. Hard work was the order of the day and standing out in a crowd was frowned upon. He came of age in a time of great upheaval and change. I mistook his dismissive attitude towards negativity as denial, but I learned over time what a necessary thing that attitude was to his survival, and I learned to appreciate it. Poppi was able to put in its rightful historical place all the events of his life and not hold a grudge. He had a way with a dirty joke and a wink. He was a brilliant chameleon, a true survivor, and a master of adaptation.

I learned a lot from Poppi.

At Poppi's funeral, there was no carrying on, no rending of garments and gnashing of teeth. It was all very civil and simple and beautiful. This was quite the departure from my childhood funeral experiences. I couldn't fully comprehend it at the time, so I talked to Burdy about it. "He's had a very full life, sweets", he explained to me patiently. And it hit me then: this was the difference. Poppi wasn't taken in this dramatic "before his time" sort of way like everyone in my life. He lived till he was eighty-eight years old. He needed drugs to keep his heart ticking and his blood thin, but he was still lucid. He still wore a pressed shirt and dress slacks. He made his own breakfast and still sat the bar of the restaurant he owned with his wife. He did not suffer at the end of his life. He was able to reflect on the bounty life had offered him and smile at his luck. He had owned airplanes and luxury cars. He'd bought and sold property. He had managed a restaurant for forty years. He'd traveled. He had gambled and lost and gambled and won. Most importantly, he'd produced three wonderful children, two of whom, at least, I have gotten to know in my lifetime and who carry his same lust for life.

Towards the end of his life, Poppi was on so much medication that it was, even to him, almost comical that it took so much to keep him alive. He would line the dozen or so orange pharmacy bottles up on the kitchen table with his glass of water in the morning and would tell us with a sad smile, as we poked at our eggs and bacon, "It's nice to get old, but it's not nice to age".

Poppi was a man who wasn't much for the rules. Against his doctor's orders, and with a wink at the bartender, he'd order a shot glass of wine with his dinner. "Just a little bit of grape juice", he'd call it, showing us with thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Nothing wrong with that, right?" he'd ask. And there wasn't. You couldn't deny the old man his grape juice.

Last night, Burdy and I had a shot of "grape juice" in his honor. We toasted "To Poppi" and downed the wine. There were no tears. Just smiles twisting into puckers as the acidic liquid hit our tongues and smiles again as the warmth settled inside us.</div>

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Burdy's dad

In Memoriam

It's been an emotional few days around the Burdy house. I feel like some portal has opened, like the veil between me and the rest of the world is membrane-thin right now and everything is flowing in unchecked.

It started last week with a news report that a cyclist had been killed in a hit and run accident downtown. I heard it on the radio just as I was parking the car to get to my Zumba class. There were no details in the report, just that the driver was in an SUV and the cyclist was dead. Burdy regularly rides his bike to work downtown, so when I heard the report, I froze in fear. I knew that Burdy had probably not been anywhere near that part of downtown, but I still panicked. The minds of the anxious are incredibly over-active in situations like this. One moment I was preparing myself to sweat to dance music. And in the next I was imagining the rest of my life without my best friend.

It's been a while since I've had a freakout session like that. I am trying to be gentle with myself these days, trying not to let the words "freak out" enter my vocabulary because they only serve to downplay how real and paralyzing this anxiety is. I could hardly breathe through my class. At one point, while I was I bent down in a stretch and feeling like I would pass out from the anxiety, I started describing my sneakers to myself (it's an anti-anxiety technique I recently learned about) and I was able to relax a little. It occurred to me that I was describing my shoe to myself to calm myself down over an accident that probably, in all likelihood, had not happened to my partner. Talk about meta-meta-awareness.

Burdy is still very much alive, thank you.

But I didn't want to start this post to tell you about my anxiety. Well, sort of, I did. It will all make sense eventually.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Burdy's dad's death. I quickly glossed over it in this blog last year when it first happened because there were last minute travel plans to be made and suits to be checked over for stains, and dresses to be dry cleaned. The call came on a glorious summer day. I was just getting home from a jog. I remember how the light outside my apartment had that particular lazy summer end-of-day quality about it, the street noisy with screaming kids and birdsong, the apartment still and warm. I remember thinking how strange and unjust the world felt at that moment. I was relaxed after a run, the sun was still going strong at 7 pm, everything right with the world around me. Three thousand miles away, at exactly the same time, there was upheaval and sorrow and loss. It didn't make sense that these two moments could coexist in time.

What made the whole thing even more chaotic was that, when he got the call, Burdy was not at home. We were dog-sitting for a friend at the time and staying at her house. We had only just begun the stint and we had to call my friend (who was visiting family in Boston) to tell her we had to leave the house in a few hours to catch a flight back east.

Death, in my family, has always been a weighty, grievous thing. Both my grandmothers died within four months of each other in the same year. Both of these deaths felt premature; my grandmothers were only in their sixties. I felt particularly close to my mom's mom. Her death was not exactly unexpected (she was in the final throes of battling colon cancer), but it was still shocking.</p>

My earliest memories are of her gingerly lowering herself into the pool, careful not to wet the line above her abdomen where a colostomy bag nestled hidden behind her classy bathing suit. She was always dressed to the nines. She spoke perfect English, but still pronounced certain words with a thick German accent. She sliced the crusty, round loves of Portuguese bread she bought from the Ironbound section of Newark against her body and stubbornly refused to use a cutting board. She introduced me to the heady smell of carrots freshly plucked from the back yard and the addictive properties of tomato gardening. She made a mean goulash. She told me very little about herself, just that she'd had a hard childhood and that I should be grateful for my parents who loved me.

My dad's mom had a heart attack quite suddenly on a weeknight. Our family was always struggling financially and my dad had to ask for gas money from my baby-sitting fund to get to the hospital. He was agitated and impatient with me when I protested. He didn't tell me that his mother was dying.

My dad's mom, in the tradition of my family, was a great storyteller. She had a memory like my dad does; every moment of the day was an opportunity to tell the story of what it was like back when she was a kid. My dad's mom taught me how to crochet. She had a whole room in her house piled to the ceiling with different colored yarn. She must have loved being near the water like I do because she fell in love with my grandfather at the community pool when they were teenagers.

The year my grandmothers died was also the year my uncle was married. I was only eleven years old, so of course what I remember was how perfectly my hair seemed to react to being blown out by a hairdryer for the first time, and how I got to wear a comb of baby's breath with my pink dress and matching shoes. Years later, when I asked my mom about what she remembered about that wedding, she said she couldn't remember much at all because those deaths were still fresh on her mind.

My mom's dad passed away two months before September 11th. He was a complex man who was also an incredible storyteller. My dad's dad passed away shortly after I was christened. I never knew him.

At my grandmother's funeral, it rained. I rode for the first time in the back of a limo. When I stepped from the car, I remember feeling like my mom was Jackie-O, and all eyes were on us, the brave little children, dressed in mourning black and walking like ducklings behind her.

A few months after my grandmothers' funerals, a friend of the family's mother passed away. We went as a family to the funeral. I cried and cried then, unable to stop. I surprised even myself. The friend, maybe in grief, maybe because both of us couldn't understand how I was capable of expressing so much sorrow for a stranger, knelt down beside me and told me "You don't have to do this. It's okay". But I couldn't stop. That membrane between me and the outside world was thin, then, too, and every death at that age felt personal and devastating.

Somewhere in that same stretch, our neighbor died. He must have been struggling with some kind of illness. His wife, a former NYC Rockette, her feet twisted from years in toe-shoes, ran over to our yard in just her housecoat, yelling over the gate as she ran, "He's gone! Oh, God! He's gone!"

So you see, death is a heavy, terrible thing in my family. And this is why Burdy's dad's passing was so life-changing for me. And why I still have a lot to learn about living. And why, if I understood more about how to really live, a bicycle accident that didn't happen to my fiance wouldn't send me into a anxiety-driven tailspin.</p>

Burdy's dad, who I called "Poppi", lived a long life. Burdy details some of it here. His father's name was Stanley, too. He became a father to Burdy late in his life. He was 55 when his second son was born. His first was born in Ukraine, to his first wife, and he didn't know she was pregnant at the time. He had to flee his native country, the threat of imprisonment looming large for having deserted the Russian army during the war. He left with the classic immigrant's fare of two dollars and the shirt on his back, literally. When he got to America, he knew almost no one and he didn't speak the language. He built himself up from nothing. He worked his way up from lineman to foreman in a factory, impressing his superiors with his quick command of the language and his proclivity for hard work. He smiled a lot. He was a classic charmer; he turned, in his lifetime, bushels and bushels of lemons into gallons and gallons of lemonade.

He was a hard man to get a straight answer out of sometimes. I believe his life necessitated this. He grew up in an era where expressing national pride was dangerous. Hard work was the order of the day and standing out in a crowd was frowned upon. He came of age in a time of great upheaval and change. I mistook his dismissive attitude towards negativity as denial, but I learned over time what a necessary thing that attitude was to his survival, and I learned to appreciate it. Poppi was able to put in its rightful historical place all the events of his life and not hold a grudge. He had a way with a dirty joke and a wink. He was a brilliant chameleon, a true survivor, and a master of adaptation.

I learned a lot from Poppi.

At Poppi's funeral, there was no carrying on, no rending of garments and gnashing of teeth. It was all very civil and simple and beautiful. This was quite the departure from my childhood funeral experiences. I couldn't fully comprehend it at the time, so I talked to Burdy about it. "He's had a very full life, sweets", he explained to me patiently. And it hit me then: this was the difference. Poppi wasn't taken in this dramatic "before his time" sort of way like everyone in my life. He lived till he was eighty-eight years old. He needed drugs to keep his heart ticking and his blood thin, but he was still lucid. He still wore a pressed shirt and dress slacks. He made his own breakfast and still sat the bar of the restaurant he owned with his wife. He did not suffer at the end of his life. He was able to reflect on the bounty life had offered him and smile at his luck. He had owned airplanes and luxury cars. He'd bought and sold property. He had managed a restaurant for forty years. He'd traveled. He had gambled and lost and gambled and won. Most importantly, he'd produced three wonderful children, two of whom, at least, I have gotten to know in my lifetime and who carry his same lust for life.

Towards the end of his life, Poppi was on so much medication that it was, even to him, almost comical that it took so much to keep him alive. He would line the dozen or so orange pharmacy bottles up on the kitchen table with his glass of water in the morning and would tell us with a sad smile, as we poked at our eggs and bacon, "It's nice to get old, but it's not nice to age".

Poppi was a man who wasn't much for the rules. Against his doctor's orders, and with a wink at the bartender, he'd order a shot glass of wine with his dinner. "Just a little bit of grape juice", he'd call it, showing us with thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Nothing wrong with that, right?" he'd ask. And there wasn't. You couldn't deny the old man his grape juice.

Last night, Burdy and I had a shot of "grape juice" in his honor. We toasted "To Poppi" and downed the wine. There were no tears. Just smiles twisting into puckers as the acidic liquid hit our tongues and smiles again as the warmth settled inside us.</div>

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death

In Memoriam

It's been an emotional few days around the Burdy house. I feel like some portal has opened, like the veil between me and the rest of the world is membrane-thin right now and everything is flowing in unchecked.

It started last week with a news report that a cyclist had been killed in a hit and run accident downtown. I heard it on the radio just as I was parking the car to get to my Zumba class. There were no details in the report, just that the driver was in an SUV and the cyclist was dead. Burdy regularly rides his bike to work downtown, so when I heard the report, I froze in fear. I knew that Burdy had probably not been anywhere near that part of downtown, but I still panicked. The minds of the anxious are incredibly over-active in situations like this. One moment I was preparing myself to sweat to dance music. And in the next I was imagining the rest of my life without my best friend.

It's been a while since I've had a freakout session like that. I am trying to be gentle with myself these days, trying not to let the words "freak out" enter my vocabulary because they only serve to downplay how real and paralyzing this anxiety is. I could hardly breathe through my class. At one point, while I was I bent down in a stretch and feeling like I would pass out from the anxiety, I started describing my sneakers to myself (it's an anti-anxiety technique I recently learned about) and I was able to relax a little. It occurred to me that I was describing my shoe to myself to calm myself down over an accident that probably, in all likelihood, had not happened to my partner. Talk about meta-meta-awareness.

Burdy is still very much alive, thank you.

But I didn't want to start this post to tell you about my anxiety. Well, sort of, I did. It will all make sense eventually.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Burdy's dad's death. I quickly glossed over it in this blog last year when it first happened because there were last minute travel plans to be made and suits to be checked over for stains, and dresses to be dry cleaned. The call came on a glorious summer day. I was just getting home from a jog. I remember how the light outside my apartment had that particular lazy summer end-of-day quality about it, the street noisy with screaming kids and birdsong, the apartment still and warm. I remember thinking how strange and unjust the world felt at that moment. I was relaxed after a run, the sun was still going strong at 7 pm, everything right with the world around me. Three thousand miles away, at exactly the same time, there was upheaval and sorrow and loss. It didn't make sense that these two moments could coexist in time.

What made the whole thing even more chaotic was that, when he got the call, Burdy was not at home. We were dog-sitting for a friend at the time and staying at her house. We had only just begun the stint and we had to call my friend (who was visiting family in Boston) to tell her we had to leave the house in a few hours to catch a flight back east.

Death, in my family, has always been a weighty, grievous thing. Both my grandmothers died within four months of each other in the same year. Both of these deaths felt premature; my grandmothers were only in their sixties. I felt particularly close to my mom's mom. Her death was not exactly unexpected (she was in the final throes of battling colon cancer), but it was still shocking.</p>

My earliest memories are of her gingerly lowering herself into the pool, careful not to wet the line above her abdomen where a colostomy bag nestled hidden behind her classy bathing suit. She was always dressed to the nines. She spoke perfect English, but still pronounced certain words with a thick German accent. She sliced the crusty, round loves of Portuguese bread she bought from the Ironbound section of Newark against her body and stubbornly refused to use a cutting board. She introduced me to the heady smell of carrots freshly plucked from the back yard and the addictive properties of tomato gardening. She made a mean goulash. She told me very little about herself, just that she'd had a hard childhood and that I should be grateful for my parents who loved me.

My dad's mom had a heart attack quite suddenly on a weeknight. Our family was always struggling financially and my dad had to ask for gas money from my baby-sitting fund to get to the hospital. He was agitated and impatient with me when I protested. He didn't tell me that his mother was dying.

My dad's mom, in the tradition of my family, was a great storyteller. She had a memory like my dad does; every moment of the day was an opportunity to tell the story of what it was like back when she was a kid. My dad's mom taught me how to crochet. She had a whole room in her house piled to the ceiling with different colored yarn. She must have loved being near the water like I do because she fell in love with my grandfather at the community pool when they were teenagers.

The year my grandmothers died was also the year my uncle was married. I was only eleven years old, so of course what I remember was how perfectly my hair seemed to react to being blown out by a hairdryer for the first time, and how I got to wear a comb of baby's breath with my pink dress and matching shoes. Years later, when I asked my mom about what she remembered about that wedding, she said she couldn't remember much at all because those deaths were still fresh on her mind.

My mom's dad passed away two months before September 11th. He was a complex man who was also an incredible storyteller. My dad's dad passed away shortly after I was christened. I never knew him.

At my grandmother's funeral, it rained. I rode for the first time in the back of a limo. When I stepped from the car, I remember feeling like my mom was Jackie-O, and all eyes were on us, the brave little children, dressed in mourning black and walking like ducklings behind her.

A few months after my grandmothers' funerals, a friend of the family's mother passed away. We went as a family to the funeral. I cried and cried then, unable to stop. I surprised even myself. The friend, maybe in grief, maybe because both of us couldn't understand how I was capable of expressing so much sorrow for a stranger, knelt down beside me and told me "You don't have to do this. It's okay". But I couldn't stop. That membrane between me and the outside world was thin, then, too, and every death at that age felt personal and devastating.

Somewhere in that same stretch, our neighbor died. He must have been struggling with some kind of illness. His wife, a former NYC Rockette, her feet twisted from years in toe-shoes, ran over to our yard in just her housecoat, yelling over the gate as she ran, "He's gone! Oh, God! He's gone!"

So you see, death is a heavy, terrible thing in my family. And this is why Burdy's dad's passing was so life-changing for me. And why I still have a lot to learn about living. And why, if I understood more about how to really live, a bicycle accident that didn't happen to my fiance wouldn't send me into a anxiety-driven tailspin.</p>

Burdy's dad, who I called "Poppi", lived a long life. Burdy details some of it here. His father's name was Stanley, too. He became a father to Burdy late in his life. He was 55 when his second son was born. His first was born in Ukraine, to his first wife, and he didn't know she was pregnant at the time. He had to flee his native country, the threat of imprisonment looming large for having deserted the Russian army during the war. He left with the classic immigrant's fare of two dollars and the shirt on his back, literally. When he got to America, he knew almost no one and he didn't speak the language. He built himself up from nothing. He worked his way up from lineman to foreman in a factory, impressing his superiors with his quick command of the language and his proclivity for hard work. He smiled a lot. He was a classic charmer; he turned, in his lifetime, bushels and bushels of lemons into gallons and gallons of lemonade.

He was a hard man to get a straight answer out of sometimes. I believe his life necessitated this. He grew up in an era where expressing national pride was dangerous. Hard work was the order of the day and standing out in a crowd was frowned upon. He came of age in a time of great upheaval and change. I mistook his dismissive attitude towards negativity as denial, but I learned over time what a necessary thing that attitude was to his survival, and I learned to appreciate it. Poppi was able to put in its rightful historical place all the events of his life and not hold a grudge. He had a way with a dirty joke and a wink. He was a brilliant chameleon, a true survivor, and a master of adaptation.

I learned a lot from Poppi.

At Poppi's funeral, there was no carrying on, no rending of garments and gnashing of teeth. It was all very civil and simple and beautiful. This was quite the departure from my childhood funeral experiences. I couldn't fully comprehend it at the time, so I talked to Burdy about it. "He's had a very full life, sweets", he explained to me patiently. And it hit me then: this was the difference. Poppi wasn't taken in this dramatic "before his time" sort of way like everyone in my life. He lived till he was eighty-eight years old. He needed drugs to keep his heart ticking and his blood thin, but he was still lucid. He still wore a pressed shirt and dress slacks. He made his own breakfast and still sat the bar of the restaurant he owned with his wife. He did not suffer at the end of his life. He was able to reflect on the bounty life had offered him and smile at his luck. He had owned airplanes and luxury cars. He'd bought and sold property. He had managed a restaurant for forty years. He'd traveled. He had gambled and lost and gambled and won. Most importantly, he'd produced three wonderful children, two of whom, at least, I have gotten to know in my lifetime and who carry his same lust for life.

Towards the end of his life, Poppi was on so much medication that it was, even to him, almost comical that it took so much to keep him alive. He would line the dozen or so orange pharmacy bottles up on the kitchen table with his glass of water in the morning and would tell us with a sad smile, as we poked at our eggs and bacon, "It's nice to get old, but it's not nice to age".

Poppi was a man who wasn't much for the rules. Against his doctor's orders, and with a wink at the bartender, he'd order a shot glass of wine with his dinner. "Just a little bit of grape juice", he'd call it, showing us with thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Nothing wrong with that, right?" he'd ask. And there wasn't. You couldn't deny the old man his grape juice.

Last night, Burdy and I had a shot of "grape juice" in his honor. We toasted "To Poppi" and downed the wine. There were no tears. Just smiles twisting into puckers as the acidic liquid hit our tongues and smiles again as the warmth settled inside us.</div>

Continue to full post...

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funerals

In Memoriam

It's been an emotional few days around the Burdy house. I feel like some portal has opened, like the veil between me and the rest of the world is membrane-thin right now and everything is flowing in unchecked.

It started last week with a news report that a cyclist had been killed in a hit and run accident downtown. I heard it on the radio just as I was parking the car to get to my Zumba class. There were no details in the report, just that the driver was in an SUV and the cyclist was dead. Burdy regularly rides his bike to work downtown, so when I heard the report, I froze in fear. I knew that Burdy had probably not been anywhere near that part of downtown, but I still panicked. The minds of the anxious are incredibly over-active in situations like this. One moment I was preparing myself to sweat to dance music. And in the next I was imagining the rest of my life without my best friend.

It's been a while since I've had a freakout session like that. I am trying to be gentle with myself these days, trying not to let the words "freak out" enter my vocabulary because they only serve to downplay how real and paralyzing this anxiety is. I could hardly breathe through my class. At one point, while I was I bent down in a stretch and feeling like I would pass out from the anxiety, I started describing my sneakers to myself (it's an anti-anxiety technique I recently learned about) and I was able to relax a little. It occurred to me that I was describing my shoe to myself to calm myself down over an accident that probably, in all likelihood, had not happened to my partner. Talk about meta-meta-awareness.

Burdy is still very much alive, thank you.

But I didn't want to start this post to tell you about my anxiety. Well, sort of, I did. It will all make sense eventually.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Burdy's dad's death. I quickly glossed over it in this blog last year when it first happened because there were last minute travel plans to be made and suits to be checked over for stains, and dresses to be dry cleaned. The call came on a glorious summer day. I was just getting home from a jog. I remember how the light outside my apartment had that particular lazy summer end-of-day quality about it, the street noisy with screaming kids and birdsong, the apartment still and warm. I remember thinking how strange and unjust the world felt at that moment. I was relaxed after a run, the sun was still going strong at 7 pm, everything right with the world around me. Three thousand miles away, at exactly the same time, there was upheaval and sorrow and loss. It didn't make sense that these two moments could coexist in time.

What made the whole thing even more chaotic was that, when he got the call, Burdy was not at home. We were dog-sitting for a friend at the time and staying at her house. We had only just begun the stint and we had to call my friend (who was visiting family in Boston) to tell her we had to leave the house in a few hours to catch a flight back east.

Death, in my family, has always been a weighty, grievous thing. Both my grandmothers died within four months of each other in the same year. Both of these deaths felt premature; my grandmothers were only in their sixties. I felt particularly close to my mom's mom. Her death was not exactly unexpected (she was in the final throes of battling colon cancer), but it was still shocking.</p>

My earliest memories are of her gingerly lowering herself into the pool, careful not to wet the line above her abdomen where a colostomy bag nestled hidden behind her classy bathing suit. She was always dressed to the nines. She spoke perfect English, but still pronounced certain words with a thick German accent. She sliced the crusty, round loves of Portuguese bread she bought from the Ironbound section of Newark against her body and stubbornly refused to use a cutting board. She introduced me to the heady smell of carrots freshly plucked from the back yard and the addictive properties of tomato gardening. She made a mean goulash. She told me very little about herself, just that she'd had a hard childhood and that I should be grateful for my parents who loved me.

My dad's mom had a heart attack quite suddenly on a weeknight. Our family was always struggling financially and my dad had to ask for gas money from my baby-sitting fund to get to the hospital. He was agitated and impatient with me when I protested. He didn't tell me that his mother was dying.

My dad's mom, in the tradition of my family, was a great storyteller. She had a memory like my dad does; every moment of the day was an opportunity to tell the story of what it was like back when she was a kid. My dad's mom taught me how to crochet. She had a whole room in her house piled to the ceiling with different colored yarn. She must have loved being near the water like I do because she fell in love with my grandfather at the community pool when they were teenagers.

The year my grandmothers died was also the year my uncle was married. I was only eleven years old, so of course what I remember was how perfectly my hair seemed to react to being blown out by a hairdryer for the first time, and how I got to wear a comb of baby's breath with my pink dress and matching shoes. Years later, when I asked my mom about what she remembered about that wedding, she said she couldn't remember much at all because those deaths were still fresh on her mind.

My mom's dad passed away two months before September 11th. He was a complex man who was also an incredible storyteller. My dad's dad passed away shortly after I was christened. I never knew him.

At my grandmother's funeral, it rained. I rode for the first time in the back of a limo. When I stepped from the car, I remember feeling like my mom was Jackie-O, and all eyes were on us, the brave little children, dressed in mourning black and walking like ducklings behind her.

A few months after my grandmothers' funerals, a friend of the family's mother passed away. We went as a family to the funeral. I cried and cried then, unable to stop. I surprised even myself. The friend, maybe in grief, maybe because both of us couldn't understand how I was capable of expressing so much sorrow for a stranger, knelt down beside me and told me "You don't have to do this. It's okay". But I couldn't stop. That membrane between me and the outside world was thin, then, too, and every death at that age felt personal and devastating.

Somewhere in that same stretch, our neighbor died. He must have been struggling with some kind of illness. His wife, a former NYC Rockette, her feet twisted from years in toe-shoes, ran over to our yard in just her housecoat, yelling over the gate as she ran, "He's gone! Oh, God! He's gone!"

So you see, death is a heavy, terrible thing in my family. And this is why Burdy's dad's passing was so life-changing for me. And why I still have a lot to learn about living. And why, if I understood more about how to really live, a bicycle accident that didn't happen to my fiance wouldn't send me into a anxiety-driven tailspin.</p>

Burdy's dad, who I called "Poppi", lived a long life. Burdy details some of it here. His father's name was Stanley, too. He became a father to Burdy late in his life. He was 55 when his second son was born. His first was born in Ukraine, to his first wife, and he didn't know she was pregnant at the time. He had to flee his native country, the threat of imprisonment looming large for having deserted the Russian army during the war. He left with the classic immigrant's fare of two dollars and the shirt on his back, literally. When he got to America, he knew almost no one and he didn't speak the language. He built himself up from nothing. He worked his way up from lineman to foreman in a factory, impressing his superiors with his quick command of the language and his proclivity for hard work. He smiled a lot. He was a classic charmer; he turned, in his lifetime, bushels and bushels of lemons into gallons and gallons of lemonade.

He was a hard man to get a straight answer out of sometimes. I believe his life necessitated this. He grew up in an era where expressing national pride was dangerous. Hard work was the order of the day and standing out in a crowd was frowned upon. He came of age in a time of great upheaval and change. I mistook his dismissive attitude towards negativity as denial, but I learned over time what a necessary thing that attitude was to his survival, and I learned to appreciate it. Poppi was able to put in its rightful historical place all the events of his life and not hold a grudge. He had a way with a dirty joke and a wink. He was a brilliant chameleon, a true survivor, and a master of adaptation.

I learned a lot from Poppi.

At Poppi's funeral, there was no carrying on, no rending of garments and gnashing of teeth. It was all very civil and simple and beautiful. This was quite the departure from my childhood funeral experiences. I couldn't fully comprehend it at the time, so I talked to Burdy about it. "He's had a very full life, sweets", he explained to me patiently. And it hit me then: this was the difference. Poppi wasn't taken in this dramatic "before his time" sort of way like everyone in my life. He lived till he was eighty-eight years old. He needed drugs to keep his heart ticking and his blood thin, but he was still lucid. He still wore a pressed shirt and dress slacks. He made his own breakfast and still sat the bar of the restaurant he owned with his wife. He did not suffer at the end of his life. He was able to reflect on the bounty life had offered him and smile at his luck. He had owned airplanes and luxury cars. He'd bought and sold property. He had managed a restaurant for forty years. He'd traveled. He had gambled and lost and gambled and won. Most importantly, he'd produced three wonderful children, two of whom, at least, I have gotten to know in my lifetime and who carry his same lust for life.

Towards the end of his life, Poppi was on so much medication that it was, even to him, almost comical that it took so much to keep him alive. He would line the dozen or so orange pharmacy bottles up on the kitchen table with his glass of water in the morning and would tell us with a sad smile, as we poked at our eggs and bacon, "It's nice to get old, but it's not nice to age".

Poppi was a man who wasn't much for the rules. Against his doctor's orders, and with a wink at the bartender, he'd order a shot glass of wine with his dinner. "Just a little bit of grape juice", he'd call it, showing us with thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Nothing wrong with that, right?" he'd ask. And there wasn't. You couldn't deny the old man his grape juice.

Last night, Burdy and I had a shot of "grape juice" in his honor. We toasted "To Poppi" and downed the wine. There were no tears. Just smiles twisting into puckers as the acidic liquid hit our tongues and smiles again as the warmth settled inside us.</div>

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in memoriam

In Memoriam

It's been an emotional few days around the Burdy house. I feel like some portal has opened, like the veil between me and the rest of the world is membrane-thin right now and everything is flowing in unchecked.

It started last week with a news report that a cyclist had been killed in a hit and run accident downtown. I heard it on the radio just as I was parking the car to get to my Zumba class. There were no details in the report, just that the driver was in an SUV and the cyclist was dead. Burdy regularly rides his bike to work downtown, so when I heard the report, I froze in fear. I knew that Burdy had probably not been anywhere near that part of downtown, but I still panicked. The minds of the anxious are incredibly over-active in situations like this. One moment I was preparing myself to sweat to dance music. And in the next I was imagining the rest of my life without my best friend.

It's been a while since I've had a freakout session like that. I am trying to be gentle with myself these days, trying not to let the words "freak out" enter my vocabulary because they only serve to downplay how real and paralyzing this anxiety is. I could hardly breathe through my class. At one point, while I was I bent down in a stretch and feeling like I would pass out from the anxiety, I started describing my sneakers to myself (it's an anti-anxiety technique I recently learned about) and I was able to relax a little. It occurred to me that I was describing my shoe to myself to calm myself down over an accident that probably, in all likelihood, had not happened to my partner. Talk about meta-meta-awareness.

Burdy is still very much alive, thank you.

But I didn't want to start this post to tell you about my anxiety. Well, sort of, I did. It will all make sense eventually.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Burdy's dad's death. I quickly glossed over it in this blog last year when it first happened because there were last minute travel plans to be made and suits to be checked over for stains, and dresses to be dry cleaned. The call came on a glorious summer day. I was just getting home from a jog. I remember how the light outside my apartment had that particular lazy summer end-of-day quality about it, the street noisy with screaming kids and birdsong, the apartment still and warm. I remember thinking how strange and unjust the world felt at that moment. I was relaxed after a run, the sun was still going strong at 7 pm, everything right with the world around me. Three thousand miles away, at exactly the same time, there was upheaval and sorrow and loss. It didn't make sense that these two moments could coexist in time.

What made the whole thing even more chaotic was that, when he got the call, Burdy was not at home. We were dog-sitting for a friend at the time and staying at her house. We had only just begun the stint and we had to call my friend (who was visiting family in Boston) to tell her we had to leave the house in a few hours to catch a flight back east.

Death, in my family, has always been a weighty, grievous thing. Both my grandmothers died within four months of each other in the same year. Both of these deaths felt premature; my grandmothers were only in their sixties. I felt particularly close to my mom's mom. Her death was not exactly unexpected (she was in the final throes of battling colon cancer), but it was still shocking.</p>

My earliest memories are of her gingerly lowering herself into the pool, careful not to wet the line above her abdomen where a colostomy bag nestled hidden behind her classy bathing suit. She was always dressed to the nines. She spoke perfect English, but still pronounced certain words with a thick German accent. She sliced the crusty, round loves of Portuguese bread she bought from the Ironbound section of Newark against her body and stubbornly refused to use a cutting board. She introduced me to the heady smell of carrots freshly plucked from the back yard and the addictive properties of tomato gardening. She made a mean goulash. She told me very little about herself, just that she'd had a hard childhood and that I should be grateful for my parents who loved me.

My dad's mom had a heart attack quite suddenly on a weeknight. Our family was always struggling financially and my dad had to ask for gas money from my baby-sitting fund to get to the hospital. He was agitated and impatient with me when I protested. He didn't tell me that his mother was dying.

My dad's mom, in the tradition of my family, was a great storyteller. She had a memory like my dad does; every moment of the day was an opportunity to tell the story of what it was like back when she was a kid. My dad's mom taught me how to crochet. She had a whole room in her house piled to the ceiling with different colored yarn. She must have loved being near the water like I do because she fell in love with my grandfather at the community pool when they were teenagers.

The year my grandmothers died was also the year my uncle was married. I was only eleven years old, so of course what I remember was how perfectly my hair seemed to react to being blown out by a hairdryer for the first time, and how I got to wear a comb of baby's breath with my pink dress and matching shoes. Years later, when I asked my mom about what she remembered about that wedding, she said she couldn't remember much at all because those deaths were still fresh on her mind.

My mom's dad passed away two months before September 11th. He was a complex man who was also an incredible storyteller. My dad's dad passed away shortly after I was christened. I never knew him.

At my grandmother's funeral, it rained. I rode for the first time in the back of a limo. When I stepped from the car, I remember feeling like my mom was Jackie-O, and all eyes were on us, the brave little children, dressed in mourning black and walking like ducklings behind her.

A few months after my grandmothers' funerals, a friend of the family's mother passed away. We went as a family to the funeral. I cried and cried then, unable to stop. I surprised even myself. The friend, maybe in grief, maybe because both of us couldn't understand how I was capable of expressing so much sorrow for a stranger, knelt down beside me and told me "You don't have to do this. It's okay". But I couldn't stop. That membrane between me and the outside world was thin, then, too, and every death at that age felt personal and devastating.

Somewhere in that same stretch, our neighbor died. He must have been struggling with some kind of illness. His wife, a former NYC Rockette, her feet twisted from years in toe-shoes, ran over to our yard in just her housecoat, yelling over the gate as she ran, "He's gone! Oh, God! He's gone!"

So you see, death is a heavy, terrible thing in my family. And this is why Burdy's dad's passing was so life-changing for me. And why I still have a lot to learn about living. And why, if I understood more about how to really live, a bicycle accident that didn't happen to my fiance wouldn't send me into a anxiety-driven tailspin.</p>

Burdy's dad, who I called "Poppi", lived a long life. Burdy details some of it here. His father's name was Stanley, too. He became a father to Burdy late in his life. He was 55 when his second son was born. His first was born in Ukraine, to his first wife, and he didn't know she was pregnant at the time. He had to flee his native country, the threat of imprisonment looming large for having deserted the Russian army during the war. He left with the classic immigrant's fare of two dollars and the shirt on his back, literally. When he got to America, he knew almost no one and he didn't speak the language. He built himself up from nothing. He worked his way up from lineman to foreman in a factory, impressing his superiors with his quick command of the language and his proclivity for hard work. He smiled a lot. He was a classic charmer; he turned, in his lifetime, bushels and bushels of lemons into gallons and gallons of lemonade.

He was a hard man to get a straight answer out of sometimes. I believe his life necessitated this. He grew up in an era where expressing national pride was dangerous. Hard work was the order of the day and standing out in a crowd was frowned upon. He came of age in a time of great upheaval and change. I mistook his dismissive attitude towards negativity as denial, but I learned over time what a necessary thing that attitude was to his survival, and I learned to appreciate it. Poppi was able to put in its rightful historical place all the events of his life and not hold a grudge. He had a way with a dirty joke and a wink. He was a brilliant chameleon, a true survivor, and a master of adaptation.

I learned a lot from Poppi.

At Poppi's funeral, there was no carrying on, no rending of garments and gnashing of teeth. It was all very civil and simple and beautiful. This was quite the departure from my childhood funeral experiences. I couldn't fully comprehend it at the time, so I talked to Burdy about it. "He's had a very full life, sweets", he explained to me patiently. And it hit me then: this was the difference. Poppi wasn't taken in this dramatic "before his time" sort of way like everyone in my life. He lived till he was eighty-eight years old. He needed drugs to keep his heart ticking and his blood thin, but he was still lucid. He still wore a pressed shirt and dress slacks. He made his own breakfast and still sat the bar of the restaurant he owned with his wife. He did not suffer at the end of his life. He was able to reflect on the bounty life had offered him and smile at his luck. He had owned airplanes and luxury cars. He'd bought and sold property. He had managed a restaurant for forty years. He'd traveled. He had gambled and lost and gambled and won. Most importantly, he'd produced three wonderful children, two of whom, at least, I have gotten to know in my lifetime and who carry his same lust for life.

Towards the end of his life, Poppi was on so much medication that it was, even to him, almost comical that it took so much to keep him alive. He would line the dozen or so orange pharmacy bottles up on the kitchen table with his glass of water in the morning and would tell us with a sad smile, as we poked at our eggs and bacon, "It's nice to get old, but it's not nice to age".

Poppi was a man who wasn't much for the rules. Against his doctor's orders, and with a wink at the bartender, he'd order a shot glass of wine with his dinner. "Just a little bit of grape juice", he'd call it, showing us with thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Nothing wrong with that, right?" he'd ask. And there wasn't. You couldn't deny the old man his grape juice.

Last night, Burdy and I had a shot of "grape juice" in his honor. We toasted "To Poppi" and downed the wine. There were no tears. Just smiles twisting into puckers as the acidic liquid hit our tongues and smiles again as the warmth settled inside us.</div>

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Poppi

In Memoriam

It's been an emotional few days around the Burdy house. I feel like some portal has opened, like the veil between me and the rest of the world is membrane-thin right now and everything is flowing in unchecked.

It started last week with a news report that a cyclist had been killed in a hit and run accident downtown. I heard it on the radio just as I was parking the car to get to my Zumba class. There were no details in the report, just that the driver was in an SUV and the cyclist was dead. Burdy regularly rides his bike to work downtown, so when I heard the report, I froze in fear. I knew that Burdy had probably not been anywhere near that part of downtown, but I still panicked. The minds of the anxious are incredibly over-active in situations like this. One moment I was preparing myself to sweat to dance music. And in the next I was imagining the rest of my life without my best friend.

It's been a while since I've had a freakout session like that. I am trying to be gentle with myself these days, trying not to let the words "freak out" enter my vocabulary because they only serve to downplay how real and paralyzing this anxiety is. I could hardly breathe through my class. At one point, while I was I bent down in a stretch and feeling like I would pass out from the anxiety, I started describing my sneakers to myself (it's an anti-anxiety technique I recently learned about) and I was able to relax a little. It occurred to me that I was describing my shoe to myself to calm myself down over an accident that probably, in all likelihood, had not happened to my partner. Talk about meta-meta-awareness.

Burdy is still very much alive, thank you.

But I didn't want to start this post to tell you about my anxiety. Well, sort of, I did. It will all make sense eventually.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Burdy's dad's death. I quickly glossed over it in this blog last year when it first happened because there were last minute travel plans to be made and suits to be checked over for stains, and dresses to be dry cleaned. The call came on a glorious summer day. I was just getting home from a jog. I remember how the light outside my apartment had that particular lazy summer end-of-day quality about it, the street noisy with screaming kids and birdsong, the apartment still and warm. I remember thinking how strange and unjust the world felt at that moment. I was relaxed after a run, the sun was still going strong at 7 pm, everything right with the world around me. Three thousand miles away, at exactly the same time, there was upheaval and sorrow and loss. It didn't make sense that these two moments could coexist in time.

What made the whole thing even more chaotic was that, when he got the call, Burdy was not at home. We were dog-sitting for a friend at the time and staying at her house. We had only just begun the stint and we had to call my friend (who was visiting family in Boston) to tell her we had to leave the house in a few hours to catch a flight back east.

Death, in my family, has always been a weighty, grievous thing. Both my grandmothers died within four months of each other in the same year. Both of these deaths felt premature; my grandmothers were only in their sixties. I felt particularly close to my mom's mom. Her death was not exactly unexpected (she was in the final throes of battling colon cancer), but it was still shocking.</p>

My earliest memories are of her gingerly lowering herself into the pool, careful not to wet the line above her abdomen where a colostomy bag nestled hidden behind her classy bathing suit. She was always dressed to the nines. She spoke perfect English, but still pronounced certain words with a thick German accent. She sliced the crusty, round loves of Portuguese bread she bought from the Ironbound section of Newark against her body and stubbornly refused to use a cutting board. She introduced me to the heady smell of carrots freshly plucked from the back yard and the addictive properties of tomato gardening. She made a mean goulash. She told me very little about herself, just that she'd had a hard childhood and that I should be grateful for my parents who loved me.

My dad's mom had a heart attack quite suddenly on a weeknight. Our family was always struggling financially and my dad had to ask for gas money from my baby-sitting fund to get to the hospital. He was agitated and impatient with me when I protested. He didn't tell me that his mother was dying.

My dad's mom, in the tradition of my family, was a great storyteller. She had a memory like my dad does; every moment of the day was an opportunity to tell the story of what it was like back when she was a kid. My dad's mom taught me how to crochet. She had a whole room in her house piled to the ceiling with different colored yarn. She must have loved being near the water like I do because she fell in love with my grandfather at the community pool when they were teenagers.

The year my grandmothers died was also the year my uncle was married. I was only eleven years old, so of course what I remember was how perfectly my hair seemed to react to being blown out by a hairdryer for the first time, and how I got to wear a comb of baby's breath with my pink dress and matching shoes. Years later, when I asked my mom about what she remembered about that wedding, she said she couldn't remember much at all because those deaths were still fresh on her mind.

My mom's dad passed away two months before September 11th. He was a complex man who was also an incredible storyteller. My dad's dad passed away shortly after I was christened. I never knew him.

At my grandmother's funeral, it rained. I rode for the first time in the back of a limo. When I stepped from the car, I remember feeling like my mom was Jackie-O, and all eyes were on us, the brave little children, dressed in mourning black and walking like ducklings behind her.

A few months after my grandmothers' funerals, a friend of the family's mother passed away. We went as a family to the funeral. I cried and cried then, unable to stop. I surprised even myself. The friend, maybe in grief, maybe because both of us couldn't understand how I was capable of expressing so much sorrow for a stranger, knelt down beside me and told me "You don't have to do this. It's okay". But I couldn't stop. That membrane between me and the outside world was thin, then, too, and every death at that age felt personal and devastating.

Somewhere in that same stretch, our neighbor died. He must have been struggling with some kind of illness. His wife, a former NYC Rockette, her feet twisted from years in toe-shoes, ran over to our yard in just her housecoat, yelling over the gate as she ran, "He's gone! Oh, God! He's gone!"

So you see, death is a heavy, terrible thing in my family. And this is why Burdy's dad's passing was so life-changing for me. And why I still have a lot to learn about living. And why, if I understood more about how to really live, a bicycle accident that didn't happen to my fiance wouldn't send me into a anxiety-driven tailspin.</p>

Burdy's dad, who I called "Poppi", lived a long life. Burdy details some of it here. His father's name was Stanley, too. He became a father to Burdy late in his life. He was 55 when his second son was born. His first was born in Ukraine, to his first wife, and he didn't know she was pregnant at the time. He had to flee his native country, the threat of imprisonment looming large for having deserted the Russian army during the war. He left with the classic immigrant's fare of two dollars and the shirt on his back, literally. When he got to America, he knew almost no one and he didn't speak the language. He built himself up from nothing. He worked his way up from lineman to foreman in a factory, impressing his superiors with his quick command of the language and his proclivity for hard work. He smiled a lot. He was a classic charmer; he turned, in his lifetime, bushels and bushels of lemons into gallons and gallons of lemonade.

He was a hard man to get a straight answer out of sometimes. I believe his life necessitated this. He grew up in an era where expressing national pride was dangerous. Hard work was the order of the day and standing out in a crowd was frowned upon. He came of age in a time of great upheaval and change. I mistook his dismissive attitude towards negativity as denial, but I learned over time what a necessary thing that attitude was to his survival, and I learned to appreciate it. Poppi was able to put in its rightful historical place all the events of his life and not hold a grudge. He had a way with a dirty joke and a wink. He was a brilliant chameleon, a true survivor, and a master of adaptation.

I learned a lot from Poppi.

At Poppi's funeral, there was no carrying on, no rending of garments and gnashing of teeth. It was all very civil and simple and beautiful. This was quite the departure from my childhood funeral experiences. I couldn't fully comprehend it at the time, so I talked to Burdy about it. "He's had a very full life, sweets", he explained to me patiently. And it hit me then: this was the difference. Poppi wasn't taken in this dramatic "before his time" sort of way like everyone in my life. He lived till he was eighty-eight years old. He needed drugs to keep his heart ticking and his blood thin, but he was still lucid. He still wore a pressed shirt and dress slacks. He made his own breakfast and still sat the bar of the restaurant he owned with his wife. He did not suffer at the end of his life. He was able to reflect on the bounty life had offered him and smile at his luck. He had owned airplanes and luxury cars. He'd bought and sold property. He had managed a restaurant for forty years. He'd traveled. He had gambled and lost and gambled and won. Most importantly, he'd produced three wonderful children, two of whom, at least, I have gotten to know in my lifetime and who carry his same lust for life.

Towards the end of his life, Poppi was on so much medication that it was, even to him, almost comical that it took so much to keep him alive. He would line the dozen or so orange pharmacy bottles up on the kitchen table with his glass of water in the morning and would tell us with a sad smile, as we poked at our eggs and bacon, "It's nice to get old, but it's not nice to age".

Poppi was a man who wasn't much for the rules. Against his doctor's orders, and with a wink at the bartender, he'd order a shot glass of wine with his dinner. "Just a little bit of grape juice", he'd call it, showing us with thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Nothing wrong with that, right?" he'd ask. And there wasn't. You couldn't deny the old man his grape juice.

Last night, Burdy and I had a shot of "grape juice" in his honor. We toasted "To Poppi" and downed the wine. There were no tears. Just smiles twisting into puckers as the acidic liquid hit our tongues and smiles again as the warmth settled inside us.</div>

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failure as teacher

Revision, Revision, Revision

I'm going to try not to make this some lesson-laden post about all the dumb white people problems I've been having this week, but honestly. I hope we can still be friends by the end of this post.

A month and a half ago, after my fall, after I came to on that bathroom floor, I was overcome with this HUGE sense of relief. An all consuming, holy crap am I glad to be back, ENORMOUS sense of relief. I mean, it makes sense that one's being would generate that sensation after one's being was visiting alternate universes for a few seconds while lying limp on a dusty linoleum floor, but, really. This might have been the most relieved I have ever felt. It was almost like the faint to end all faints- like my body was SO glad to be back it was making promises to never conk out again.

And after that faint, I had this perfectly miraculous 24 hours of feeling calm. I practically FLOATED through my day. Stack of papers on my desk? No problem! Giant to-do list? Done! Voicemails? Returned. Emails? Answered. Laundry? Folded and put away. Nothing was overwhelming. The to-do lists that usually trail out into infinity? I couldn't see them. Or rather, I was aware of them, but chose to not focus on them. All they could see was the desktop in front of me. I was concentration incarnate. I was all soft edges and confidence. I knew everything would get done in due time. And it did. I had one of the most productive days I can remember.

Zumba class that week? NAILED IT. Normally I am scrambling to keep up, all flailing limbs and sweat dripping into the eyes. But that night, I was a vision of grace. I was one with the music. I pivoted when pivoting was called for. I clapped when clapping was called for. I didn't miss a single beat, didn't jump when I was supposed to clap, didn't step when I was supposed to jump. And I did all this without thinking about it . That anxious feeling of not being able to keep up (which in turn causes me to not be able to keep up, which causes me anxiety about not being able to keep up which causes me not being able to keep up) was somehow gone. And because I didn't think about keeping up, I DID keep up. My consciousness was outside my body, floating up above it a little. I was relaxed and limber and coordinated. Terri came up to me afterwards, sweaty and tired, hands on hips, and declared that the hardest class she'd ever taken. Terri, who's been taking the class for almost a year and has practically mastered all the routines. Really, I asked, because I kinda thought that was the BEST I've ever done in class.

And then it all went to hell in a handbasket.

All that ease and lightness evaporated. And it was replaced with this harsh self criticism that would not let up until, like, maybe yesterday. Maybe.

Everything I attempted from then on, from having a conversation to sketching a telephone pole, came out all wrong. I was feeling so bad about myself, I had to pull back and make a list of all the things I WAS good at just to remind myself that I wasn't a total failure of a human being. Good Lord, that's the saddest sentence I think I've ever written.

Anywho. One of the things I came up with on that list to comfort myself was "cooking". I soothed myself with thoughts of strawberry-mango muffins and broccoli-tofu stir frys. I concentrated on the one place I have never felt out of place or unsure of myself: the kitchen. I'm so comfortable in a kitchen, in fact, that I take quite a few liberties in there. Swapping out ingredients for other, less intestinally-harmful ingredients is my forte. Most of the time it's because I'm trying to avoid the inevitable unpleasantness that results from too much wheat and dairy in my diet. But, also, I like experimenting. I like seeing how far I can go with those swaps. I like the thrill of throwing a bunch of stuff into a bowl, stirring, and then applying heat and not really knowing how things are going to turn out until minutes before serving it. I've been cooking for a very long time and I'm comfortable in an apron. I know, too, from experience, that it's all a matter of ratios. Somehow, I've managed to see the kitchen as just a palette where I can mix up the colors and not have to worry about the outcome. Mac and cheese has morphed from a gas-inducing glue-forming intestinal blockage to a light and easy gluten free, cheese free affair that involves making a roux and turning powder into liquid. I'm a goddamned alchemist for chrissakes. Sure, there are days when not everything turns out golden. There WAS that one time I added a QUARTER CUP of salt to a batch of roasted potatoes because of a typo in the recipe. I understood that a quarter cup of salt is more suited to a bathtub than to a baking sheet, but I still followed the directions religiously. What the hell was I thinking? To be honest, I was thinking about a recipe I'd seen for salt encrusted fish that bakes inside a very salty paste... and I somehow thought this would translate to the veggies. I was wrong. And I served them to very, very dear friends of mine, who, thank god for their Midwestern upbringing, didn't make a peep even as their eyeballs were drying out and their joints were starting to fuse.

Anywho. The kitchen. I love it in there. It's a giant playground with the perfect mixture of sharp objects, liquids, powders, malleable soft things and crispy brittle things and I feel like a sculptor in there. I feel utter and complete permission to serve a quivering heap of gelatinous failure because, like haircuts, I see my failures in the kitchen as only temporary. There are plenty more to be had and all are recoverable. I can make a bad meal and, because we live in America, and because we shop at Trader Joe's, there is always a frozen pizza on hand if I screw up REALLY bad.

But, for whatever reason, I can't seem to take this permission to fail out into other parts of my life. My baggage as oldest child (among other things) is that perfectionism has been stitched into my personality. If I can't master something on the first try, I literally break down in tears. I become a veritable Don Fucking Piano and I slam my head down on the keyboard over and over and proclaim I'LL NEVER GET IT RIGHT because that's what I actually believe.

Thank goodness I live with a man who, as part of his exercise routine, voluntarily wears a humongous pair of multi-layered, heavy, black cotton pants ON TOP OF a heavy cotton gi. Because, if he learns nothing else while he tumbles and rolls and dodges men and women who come at him with the force of a thousand murderous thieves, he surely understands what it is to be hamstrung by our own circumstance. Seriously. You try fending off attackers while wrapped in wet boat sails. I dare you. Also? He learns that we cannot all be masters of our practices at first blush.

As a matter of fact, it is routinely repeated at his dojo that Aikido is a practice- there are bad days and there are good days. And the bad days do not equate to total failure. They are just a temporary pause in awesomeness. And we must accept them as heartily as we accept the good days.

Back when I used to do yoga, I was told the same thing: yoga is a practice. There is no getting it right or wrong. There is only your breath. And you can't win at breath. Except... I tried. I tried to master breath. And because I couldn't, I stopped doing it. This is the cycle I get into. I try something. If I appear to be good at it, I stop, satisfied, lest I mess up my perfect 1-in-0 record. If I suck at something, that is proof that I never should have attempted it in the first place.

Sometimes, during Zumba class, I look over at a woman in the mirror and I see the way she moves with short, evenly measured steps and I see symmetry and beauty. And then I look over at myself and I look like a short torsoed, big footed, red faced beast frantically trying to keep up. Like an orangutan trying to pedal an imaginary bicycle with her arms. Or a 130 pound salami trying to outrun a swarm of fire ants. It's not pretty.

Burdy has been trying to convince me to practice Aikido for exactly this reason: to help me let go of impossible standards and to just let go of outcomes. He thinks it would be good for me if I could learn to love failing as much as I love winning. Outrageous, right? The nerve of that guy. Trying to balance out my manic nature. Ffft. Please.

A few months ago, I decided to subject myself to further torture and self criticism by enrolling in a short-lived drawing class as well. I thought: I'm going to try to let go with this class. I already know I stink at drawing. I'm going to just let that fact lie there and draw in spite of it. I'm going to let go of outcomes and see if, by letting go of outcomes, I can actually produce something worthwhile.

A few weeks ago, we learned about gesture drawing, a freehand style of drawing that's usually done with a pen and tends to incorporate lots of big, sweeping lines and general outlines. Gesture drawing is usually the type you associate with napkin sketches. Aha! I thought: I've got this one down! If I do any kind of drawing at all, it's this kind! I'm gonna RAWK this session. See that? You see what happened there? Instead of being a little Buddha about the whole thing and not being attached to whether or not I could practice the technique, I immediately went to I'M GONNA DOMINATE YOU IN THE RING, GESTURE DRAWING! RAAAAAAAAWR!

We were told to pick something in our natural environment to practice sketching, which, given the area, includes things like moving cars, stoplights, and dogs being walked. Moving freaking targets, people. I can't draw something inanimate. How was I supposed to draw leaves rustling in the breeze? I wasn't. I didn't. I drew what I thought looked like leaves. The instructor came by every few minutes and critiqued everyone's drawings. Usually she gave feedback like "I like what you've got going on there with the circles". Or, "Try to lighten up on your pen here; you'll get better shading if you start light". She stopped by my drawing and said nothing. Nothing. Just complete and utter pregnant silence. I got the impression it wasn't a "I'm stunned by the way you've managed to capture the movement in these leaves" silence. It was more like, "Wow. That's... um... maybe if you had....(shuffling, repositioning head) if you could just... (reaching for pen)... let me just... (slowly pulls paper out from underneath elbows, eases paper into nearby trash bin).... there we go....". Yeah, so I'm not a good drawer. That much is clear. Or rather (and this is the point of this whole post): I'm not a good drawer RIGHT NOW. This is a process, a journey. Honestly. I hate to be all Ram Fucking Das about this, but it really is all about BE HERE NOW. When I get all harsh with myself I need to remember to stop, look around, and take a breath. And then I need to remember the following:

1.I have a talent (okay, maybe more than one) I am ALREADY proud of. Can't I be happy with what I already have? Sheesh! How ungrateful!

2.I have nominated myself into this category of Artists, Writers and Musicians, and as a member of said category, I have put it upon myself to be the master of all things creative. When I fail to compose an opera, AND write a novel, AND paint a mural AND whip up a souffle, all in one day, somehow I count this as abject failure.

3. There is more to being creative than just "nailing it". I mean, sure, it's nice to have people come up to you and say things like, "Wow, man. When I saw that fried egg and bacon strip you crocheted... I just... I don't know, man. I just connected with it. It's like you totally got into my head and made what I was seeing....". Truly. That kind of stuff makes my day. Digging up our common humanity and putting it up on display is what it's all about, after all. But, does every attempt have to yield pure artistic gold? Can't there be room for hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of silt?

But where is that sort of example in my life? No one puts their junk out on display. You don't go to the museum and see "Picasso: The Shit Years". You go to see completed works. And sure, usually you can see many iterations on a theme, and it's pretty obvious, given the volume of his work, that Picasso didn't just sit down one day and crank out a boatload of instant masterpieces.... but, still. It's hard (for me, anyway) to remember that this is a PROCESS. Why is this so hard for me to understand?

This week I am going to try to focus on the metamorphosis. I'm going to see the moments in between the idea and the final outcome. There is so much to be gained from seeing the process. It's part of why I blog. It's why I read other people's blogs. It's why I ask personal, intrusive questions at dinner parties: I want to know about how all of us, the whole human race, gets from point A to point B. I want to know how we get from sorrow to joy and back again. I want to know how we get from tragedy to triumph, from uncomplicated to complicated, from single to married, from student to teacher. All I've ever wanted (all of us, really) is to understand how to get from point A to point B.

Sometimes I get scared that I'll get all the notoriety and fame I long for as a writer and I'll lose sight of the journey it took to get there and that my writing will be contrite. I'm always afraid of mounting that hurdle of doubt and then not being able to see behind me.

And then I remember that I have a lifetime of neuroses to draw upon for inspiration. A whole lifetime! So, yeah. If there's one thing I totally, totally win at, it's being human, and therefore vulnerable. I totally rock at being human.

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perfectionism: the silent killer

Revision, Revision, Revision

I'm going to try not to make this some lesson-laden post about all the dumb white people problems I've been having this week, but honestly. I hope we can still be friends by the end of this post.

A month and a half ago, after my fall, after I came to on that bathroom floor, I was overcome with this HUGE sense of relief. An all consuming, holy crap am I glad to be back, ENORMOUS sense of relief. I mean, it makes sense that one's being would generate that sensation after one's being was visiting alternate universes for a few seconds while lying limp on a dusty linoleum floor, but, really. This might have been the most relieved I have ever felt. It was almost like the faint to end all faints- like my body was SO glad to be back it was making promises to never conk out again.

And after that faint, I had this perfectly miraculous 24 hours of feeling calm. I practically FLOATED through my day. Stack of papers on my desk? No problem! Giant to-do list? Done! Voicemails? Returned. Emails? Answered. Laundry? Folded and put away. Nothing was overwhelming. The to-do lists that usually trail out into infinity? I couldn't see them. Or rather, I was aware of them, but chose to not focus on them. All they could see was the desktop in front of me. I was concentration incarnate. I was all soft edges and confidence. I knew everything would get done in due time. And it did. I had one of the most productive days I can remember.

Zumba class that week? NAILED IT. Normally I am scrambling to keep up, all flailing limbs and sweat dripping into the eyes. But that night, I was a vision of grace. I was one with the music. I pivoted when pivoting was called for. I clapped when clapping was called for. I didn't miss a single beat, didn't jump when I was supposed to clap, didn't step when I was supposed to jump. And I did all this without thinking about it . That anxious feeling of not being able to keep up (which in turn causes me to not be able to keep up, which causes me anxiety about not being able to keep up which causes me not being able to keep up) was somehow gone. And because I didn't think about keeping up, I DID keep up. My consciousness was outside my body, floating up above it a little. I was relaxed and limber and coordinated. Terri came up to me afterwards, sweaty and tired, hands on hips, and declared that the hardest class she'd ever taken. Terri, who's been taking the class for almost a year and has practically mastered all the routines. Really, I asked, because I kinda thought that was the BEST I've ever done in class.

And then it all went to hell in a handbasket.

All that ease and lightness evaporated. And it was replaced with this harsh self criticism that would not let up until, like, maybe yesterday. Maybe.

Everything I attempted from then on, from having a conversation to sketching a telephone pole, came out all wrong. I was feeling so bad about myself, I had to pull back and make a list of all the things I WAS good at just to remind myself that I wasn't a total failure of a human being. Good Lord, that's the saddest sentence I think I've ever written.

Anywho. One of the things I came up with on that list to comfort myself was "cooking". I soothed myself with thoughts of strawberry-mango muffins and broccoli-tofu stir frys. I concentrated on the one place I have never felt out of place or unsure of myself: the kitchen. I'm so comfortable in a kitchen, in fact, that I take quite a few liberties in there. Swapping out ingredients for other, less intestinally-harmful ingredients is my forte. Most of the time it's because I'm trying to avoid the inevitable unpleasantness that results from too much wheat and dairy in my diet. But, also, I like experimenting. I like seeing how far I can go with those swaps. I like the thrill of throwing a bunch of stuff into a bowl, stirring, and then applying heat and not really knowing how things are going to turn out until minutes before serving it. I've been cooking for a very long time and I'm comfortable in an apron. I know, too, from experience, that it's all a matter of ratios. Somehow, I've managed to see the kitchen as just a palette where I can mix up the colors and not have to worry about the outcome. Mac and cheese has morphed from a gas-inducing glue-forming intestinal blockage to a light and easy gluten free, cheese free affair that involves making a roux and turning powder into liquid. I'm a goddamned alchemist for chrissakes. Sure, there are days when not everything turns out golden. There WAS that one time I added a QUARTER CUP of salt to a batch of roasted potatoes because of a typo in the recipe. I understood that a quarter cup of salt is more suited to a bathtub than to a baking sheet, but I still followed the directions religiously. What the hell was I thinking? To be honest, I was thinking about a recipe I'd seen for salt encrusted fish that bakes inside a very salty paste... and I somehow thought this would translate to the veggies. I was wrong. And I served them to very, very dear friends of mine, who, thank god for their Midwestern upbringing, didn't make a peep even as their eyeballs were drying out and their joints were starting to fuse.

Anywho. The kitchen. I love it in there. It's a giant playground with the perfect mixture of sharp objects, liquids, powders, malleable soft things and crispy brittle things and I feel like a sculptor in there. I feel utter and complete permission to serve a quivering heap of gelatinous failure because, like haircuts, I see my failures in the kitchen as only temporary. There are plenty more to be had and all are recoverable. I can make a bad meal and, because we live in America, and because we shop at Trader Joe's, there is always a frozen pizza on hand if I screw up REALLY bad.

But, for whatever reason, I can't seem to take this permission to fail out into other parts of my life. My baggage as oldest child (among other things) is that perfectionism has been stitched into my personality. If I can't master something on the first try, I literally break down in tears. I become a veritable Don Fucking Piano and I slam my head down on the keyboard over and over and proclaim I'LL NEVER GET IT RIGHT because that's what I actually believe.

Thank goodness I live with a man who, as part of his exercise routine, voluntarily wears a humongous pair of multi-layered, heavy, black cotton pants ON TOP OF a heavy cotton gi. Because, if he learns nothing else while he tumbles and rolls and dodges men and women who come at him with the force of a thousand murderous thieves, he surely understands what it is to be hamstrung by our own circumstance. Seriously. You try fending off attackers while wrapped in wet boat sails. I dare you. Also? He learns that we cannot all be masters of our practices at first blush.

As a matter of fact, it is routinely repeated at his dojo that Aikido is a practice- there are bad days and there are good days. And the bad days do not equate to total failure. They are just a temporary pause in awesomeness. And we must accept them as heartily as we accept the good days.

Back when I used to do yoga, I was told the same thing: yoga is a practice. There is no getting it right or wrong. There is only your breath. And you can't win at breath. Except... I tried. I tried to master breath. And because I couldn't, I stopped doing it. This is the cycle I get into. I try something. If I appear to be good at it, I stop, satisfied, lest I mess up my perfect 1-in-0 record. If I suck at something, that is proof that I never should have attempted it in the first place.

Sometimes, during Zumba class, I look over at a woman in the mirror and I see the way she moves with short, evenly measured steps and I see symmetry and beauty. And then I look over at myself and I look like a short torsoed, big footed, red faced beast frantically trying to keep up. Like an orangutan trying to pedal an imaginary bicycle with her arms. Or a 130 pound salami trying to outrun a swarm of fire ants. It's not pretty.

Burdy has been trying to convince me to practice Aikido for exactly this reason: to help me let go of impossible standards and to just let go of outcomes. He thinks it would be good for me if I could learn to love failing as much as I love winning. Outrageous, right? The nerve of that guy. Trying to balance out my manic nature. Ffft. Please.

A few months ago, I decided to subject myself to further torture and self criticism by enrolling in a short-lived drawing class as well. I thought: I'm going to try to let go with this class. I already know I stink at drawing. I'm going to just let that fact lie there and draw in spite of it. I'm going to let go of outcomes and see if, by letting go of outcomes, I can actually produce something worthwhile.

A few weeks ago, we learned about gesture drawing, a freehand style of drawing that's usually done with a pen and tends to incorporate lots of big, sweeping lines and general outlines. Gesture drawing is usually the type you associate with napkin sketches. Aha! I thought: I've got this one down! If I do any kind of drawing at all, it's this kind! I'm gonna RAWK this session. See that? You see what happened there? Instead of being a little Buddha about the whole thing and not being attached to whether or not I could practice the technique, I immediately went to I'M GONNA DOMINATE YOU IN THE RING, GESTURE DRAWING! RAAAAAAAAWR!

We were told to pick something in our natural environment to practice sketching, which, given the area, includes things like moving cars, stoplights, and dogs being walked. Moving freaking targets, people. I can't draw something inanimate. How was I supposed to draw leaves rustling in the breeze? I wasn't. I didn't. I drew what I thought looked like leaves. The instructor came by every few minutes and critiqued everyone's drawings. Usually she gave feedback like "I like what you've got going on there with the circles". Or, "Try to lighten up on your pen here; you'll get better shading if you start light". She stopped by my drawing and said nothing. Nothing. Just complete and utter pregnant silence. I got the impression it wasn't a "I'm stunned by the way you've managed to capture the movement in these leaves" silence. It was more like, "Wow. That's... um... maybe if you had....(shuffling, repositioning head) if you could just... (reaching for pen)... let me just... (slowly pulls paper out from underneath elbows, eases paper into nearby trash bin).... there we go....". Yeah, so I'm not a good drawer. That much is clear. Or rather (and this is the point of this whole post): I'm not a good drawer RIGHT NOW. This is a process, a journey. Honestly. I hate to be all Ram Fucking Das about this, but it really is all about BE HERE NOW. When I get all harsh with myself I need to remember to stop, look around, and take a breath. And then I need to remember the following:

1.I have a talent (okay, maybe more than one) I am ALREADY proud of. Can't I be happy with what I already have? Sheesh! How ungrateful!

2.I have nominated myself into this category of Artists, Writers and Musicians, and as a member of said category, I have put it upon myself to be the master of all things creative. When I fail to compose an opera, AND write a novel, AND paint a mural AND whip up a souffle, all in one day, somehow I count this as abject failure.

3. There is more to being creative than just "nailing it". I mean, sure, it's nice to have people come up to you and say things like, "Wow, man. When I saw that fried egg and bacon strip you crocheted... I just... I don't know, man. I just connected with it. It's like you totally got into my head and made what I was seeing....". Truly. That kind of stuff makes my day. Digging up our common humanity and putting it up on display is what it's all about, after all. But, does every attempt have to yield pure artistic gold? Can't there be room for hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of silt?

But where is that sort of example in my life? No one puts their junk out on display. You don't go to the museum and see "Picasso: The Shit Years". You go to see completed works. And sure, usually you can see many iterations on a theme, and it's pretty obvious, given the volume of his work, that Picasso didn't just sit down one day and crank out a boatload of instant masterpieces.... but, still. It's hard (for me, anyway) to remember that this is a PROCESS. Why is this so hard for me to understand?

This week I am going to try to focus on the metamorphosis. I'm going to see the moments in between the idea and the final outcome. There is so much to be gained from seeing the process. It's part of why I blog. It's why I read other people's blogs. It's why I ask personal, intrusive questions at dinner parties: I want to know about how all of us, the whole human race, gets from point A to point B. I want to know how we get from sorrow to joy and back again. I want to know how we get from tragedy to triumph, from uncomplicated to complicated, from single to married, from student to teacher. All I've ever wanted (all of us, really) is to understand how to get from point A to point B.

Sometimes I get scared that I'll get all the notoriety and fame I long for as a writer and I'll lose sight of the journey it took to get there and that my writing will be contrite. I'm always afraid of mounting that hurdle of doubt and then not being able to see behind me.

And then I remember that I have a lifetime of neuroses to draw upon for inspiration. A whole lifetime! So, yeah. If there's one thing I totally, totally win at, it's being human, and therefore vulnerable. I totally rock at being human.

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Burning Man 2009

Why Going To Burning Man is A Lot Like Finding Out You Have A Terminal Illness

I figure, since I never really posted about Burning Man back when I went, that I should do it now. It's been two years, for Pete's sake. I started writing about this experience with a bit of poetic license here. A good chunk of some of my best friends on earth are returning from their annual pilgrimage in the desert right now. So, you know. It's time.

There's an eency-weency part of me that feels like I'm breaking some kind of code by talking about this almost mythical subculture so frankly... but, so many people asked me what it was like afterward and it bothered me that I couldn't produce a satisfactory answer. So, in an effort to remedy that, here goes.

There are stages.

Your first awareness that there even are stages is when you finally feel how oppressively hot it is. You look at all the veterans carrying on like it's perfectly normal to walk around in arid 100-degree heat half-naked in swatches of leather, rubber, and fur, and covered head to toe in dust, and you raise your arms to the sky and you ask the heavens IS EVERYONE HERE RETARDED, OR WHAT?

The next thing that happens is you enter a state of speechless awe. You watch the city getting built. The city. It's a real city. With lights and running water and roads. And street signs. And cars. And when the lights go down. Christ almighty. It's like a carnival on acid. Now, I grew up in Northeast New Jersey, the neon capital of the US. I've seen my share of things that spin around lit with a thousand and one Christmas lights. Burning Man is an entire 40,000 square feet of carnival. One of the most surreal things you can do is get someplace up high in the middle of it all and just slowly spin around to take it all in. Miles of pulsating lights. And utter and total black darkness. It's like Candy Cane Lane. To infinity.

So once you get accustomed to the heat, and to the fact that most people around you have the physiques of Greek statues (seriously, where are you people in my everyday life? I wouldn't mind a little more eye candy during my commute, y'all) and that you might be the only muffin-topped A-cup for 500 miles, you try to find your groove.

The next thing that happens is that you start to get angry. Because you see that in just three days, a city has been built. And no governing body was there to tell it how to do it. No building inspectors (okay, there were some inspectors) trying to shut down your project because you didn't install a handrail in the bathroom. Somehow, through the mantra of radical self reliance, stuff gets built. The place hums with activity. The generators hum, the music systems hum, the earth just sings. And when it's all up and running, you get a little angry. You get angry because you think about how the whole earth at this point is just mired in red tape and that's why our global creativity is so stymied. You think about how much could get done if there weren't twenty levels of resentful middle-managers in bad ties playing cat and mouse with their underlings. You think about things like economics and health crises and war and you fume inside thinking about things like wasted time and talent.

I thought to myself, my GOD, if we can do this, why are the people of Darfur still living on international aid? If we can do this, why do we have people living in FEMA trailers still in New Orleans? Why, with all this collective ingenuity, can't we put our heads together and in one WEEK, cross a major crisis off the world's list of problems? I kept saying over and over in my head: we can solve world hunger. We can solve world hunger. We can solve world hunger. It's not that hard. We can solve world hunger.

But then acceptance settles in and you start to relax a little. I realized that there needs to be space on this planet for the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake. And who the hell was I to judge these people? For all I knew, they WERE solving world hunger in their spare time. And this was their one week off per year, and they were here, using the skills they used every day to solve world hunger to build geodesic domes and tiki bars instead.

I mean, there has to be a little bit of hedonism, right? It can't be a utilitarian life we lead all the time, right? Not everything has to be number-crunching and problem-solving and self-sacrifice. We can ALSO put our heads together to build something beautiful in the desert just for beauty's sake. Why can't we get as much satisfaction in building an irrigation system in a developing country as we do staring up into the bright sun at a gleaming metal sculpture that took just as many people to assemble? Isn't that community-building at its finest as well?

So, yeah, I calmed down. I saw it for what it was: an impromptu community, a city, built on the principles of do-it-yourselfness beautifully balanced with helping your neighbor out. THAT was a miracle to behold. I can't say that I have ever experienced anything like that in my life. And I live in a pretty progressive city. But even Seattlites can't decide to build a monorail or a toll bridge without hostility and legal battles.

One of the most wonderful things about Burning Man was how I ate. Or, how I didn't eat. Being in 100 degree weather does something very beneficial to this sedentary North American: it makes me totally and completely unapologetically un-hungry. I packed myself a week of gluten free food: GF oatmeal for breakfast, rice crackers and nut butter and dried soup mix for lunch, and then boil-in-bag Indian meals and rice for dinner, a few bags of extruded corn and powdered cheesy goodness, some fruit juice, and some electrolyte tabs. Sure, it wasn't terribly diverse, and when/if I do it again, I will DEFINITELY ignore all the advice about packing light and not packing perishable things and I will take my foodie ass to the store and stock up on live food. I was warned that fresh fruit would not last long in the desert, so I didn't bring any. I brought Vitamin C tablets instead. But on the last day, THE LAST DAY OF TEN, UNIMAGINABLY HOT DAYS, I was offered an orange from a neighbor. A real live orange. It was cool to the touch because it had been sitting in a cooler of ice for ten days! The person offering the orange was trying to unload not just the orange but LOTS of other fruit from that cooler because she didn't want to carry a full cooler back home with her. So, now I know. But, hey, that was the fastest five pounds I have ever dropped. I felt AMAZING in my body, lightweight and not bloated. Heat just relaxed all the muscles in my body. I felt invigorated and relaxed at the same time. I felt strong and fit. All the water I was drinking was helping flush things out, too, I'm sure.

You knew this was going to devolve into talk about my bowels, didn't you? Of course you did.

Sidebar: One of the funniest things that happened was this: one of my hosts, as we pulled onto the grounds, said, "Ahhhhh, the Port-O-Potties! I never shit so well in my life as I do here!" I could not IMAGINE what the hell he was talking about. Between trying to rest only the most minimal part of ass on the seat and trying to keep my feet planted in the driest part of the floor, I couldn't fathom being relaxed enough to just let it all go. But, to my great surprise, my friend was right. I, too, was as regular as a Swiss watch for ten days. Ten days of muscle-melting heat, tons of water, exercise, small meals, and NO white food will do wonders for your guts.

It was nice not to have to worry about carrying around a wallet. Or my cell phone. It was nice to think about staying alive in this whole new way. I have NEVER had to worry about dying before. And that was eye-opening. The most risky thing I have really ever done was to hike the very slippery 12-inch-wide steps of Wayhno Picchu 13,000 up feet in the air on a very foggy day. (Okay, I also skydived when I was 19, but even that felt more safe to me than the hike up Wayhno Picchu). For all that risk, though, I never thought about my own death. I had knowledgeable people with me, and I had proper clothing and food and safety gear. If anything was to happen to me, help would be very quick in coming. But Burning Man... this was a whole new thing for me. Death seemed a very distinct reality. Or, given my weak-ass constitution, at least a fainting spell or two, or maybe a helicopter ride to the hospital. I have never, ever had to be responsible for my own life in that way. Sure, no one was going to let me go hungry or wither up like a grape leaf on the desert floor or anything... but it was impressed upon me from the start that I was responsible for staying alive. This was not a co-dependent affair.

And I did okay. I mean, I stayed alive, obviously. But I also cultivated an ENORMOUS appreciation for what it takes to keep us, as humans, alive. I'm talking about the transport of agricultural goods across country lines and indoor plumbing and the relatively recent discovery of germ theory. Honestly. Take a moment and think about what it would be like to have to get every single drop of water you need in a day from a well. A well that's not near your house.
Think about how much of your day would be spent fetching water.

It was nice to slow down and get back to basics ("basics" including costume changes and shots of vodka at 4 am). It was nice to use a pen and paper instead of a computer to write a letter to Mr. Burdy, which I did every few hours to update him on my experience. It was nice to rise with the sun and to be forced by the boiling temperatures inside my tent to go out and talk to people, to participate in this whole experiment.

And this is how Burning Man is also like having a terminal illness: once you've accepted your condition, you have to fully participate in the processing of your condition. If you want to heal yourself, you have to actively engage in healing. If you want to let it consume you, you can do that, too. Participating is very important to the culture of Burning Man. It was repeated over and over again in various online forums, and by my hosts, that I was not allowed to stand on the sidelines. However uncomfortable it was, I needed to let go of my hang-ups and social anxieties and be an active member of the community. This was not a spectator sport. This was not a peep show. This was a place to live for a week, and that meant I had to wash dishes and haul trash and dance and play and celebrate and trudge through windstorms and be filthy like everyone else. This was not a place to go and gawk at the freaks. This was an opportunity to negotiate an existence with perfect strangers in a harsh environment in a loving, fair, and conscientious way.

One thing that emerged from the whole experience was that, no matter where you go, archetypes exist. And whether you are living in a city of 2 million, or forty thousand, there are assholes, and there are saints. There are helpers, there are hinderers. There are people who take and people who give. Okay, the world doesn't naturally cleave into just two halves, obviously. There is a strata out there: a whole spectrum of folks that make communities come together and work in really almost magical ways. And Burning Man is a microcosm of the macrocosm. One of the (only) things that shocked me was a series of fliers taped up inside the Port-O-Potties. The fliers warned would-be victims that "no means no" and that if anyone had been forced into sex while at Burning Man, there was a resource center in the city for dealing with that. Rape. At Burning Man. It happens. So, it wasn't all peace and love and daisies. This was the world writ small. There were maybe more furry boots here than in an average random selection of the population, but there were the same percentage of aggressors and helpers and philosophers and doers as there were out there in the "regular" world. And there was something comforting about that.

Before I left home, I spent some time browsing online forums and reading articles written about Burning Man. I wanted to know what to expect before I went. The folks I went with encouraged me to gather as much information as I could so that I wasn't overwhelmed when I got there. What I found was that written accounts usually fell into two very distinct camps: those written in this distant, vague and spacey way, and those written as warnings to the uninitiated. The vague and spacey recollections, usually peppered with inside terminology like "playa" and "cosmos" and "soul-rending" were clearly aimed at fellow Burners and it had the effect of irritating and isolating those initiates who were just looking for practical advice. And the haters, using these flowery accounts as evidence that the only people who went were burned-out drug users, just got booed off the Internet stage and told by commenters that they clearly "weren't getting it" and that's why they'd had a bad time. None of this was particularly helpful. As a matter of fact, all of them, the gripers and the woo-woo folks, did nothing to really explain what to expect. And that's part of both the mystery and the beauty of Burning Man (and I hereby acknowledge that sentiment probably qualifies me for membership in the spacey-vague camp.) Here's where the inevitable breakdown occurs: there are words for the physical experience of Burning Man: hot, unforgiving, exhausting, dry, fur-filled, interactive. There are less for the emotional experience of Burning Man.

You can't really put into words what it feels like to have 40,000 strangers cooperate just because. Our world is so fractured; it's probably been a long time since anyone's felt that feeling, if anyone's ever felt that feeling. There is an energy of intentionality in the air; most people are there to share, to be vulnerable. You feel raw and exposed because you, now, are part of that shared, vulnerable energy, but you also feel safe, like everyone wants to push you to your creative and emotional limit, but they also have your back in case you get scared. It's a feeling you just don't experience much outside of a spiritual community.

I think it's because a big chunk of us, on a daily basis, have only the minimum required of us. Somehow, between the lessons of cooperation taught to us in very early childhood, and our foray into the "real world", something more base takes over us and we become more animal than spirit. Burning Man calls on you to set aside your animal protectiveness and to exercise that spirit instead.

One of the reasons I love photographing hand-made signs around the world is because our response to our baseness is so raw, powerful and emotive. I love most those signs that imply someone has broken a rule, a rule the sign-maker believes everyone should just KNOW, like "don't eat your co-workers' sandwiches out of the office 'fridge" or "don't pee in the pool" or "please replace if you've just used the last of something". Our world right now is designed to have us fighting each other in the streets over resources and we're prone, at the end of the day, to look out for number one and number one only. We're all vying for the same nut. And on top of it all, this same system of limitations ensures that there isn't any time or energy to sit, be still, and design a space in which nearly everyone can be provided for without all the squabbling. (I'm headed over the cliff into full-on woo-woo territory, aren't I?)

If I'm making it sound like Burning Man is this playground rules reductionist experiment, then I'm oversimplifying. Because there are real dangers and real elements to be fought against. Windstorms are no joke. Nor is the heat. Or not bringing enough water. Or not knowing how to say no. But imagine, if you even can, what it would be like to fight the elements all day instead of each other. Would it be a step back in time? Maybe. Would it be relieving to pit myself all day against something that does not have an agenda, like wind direction, instead of my fellow man? You bet it would. And it was.

There is a "gifting economy" at Burning Man and it works in magical ways. When your needs are met (because you have prepared in advance) you can then be pleasantly surprised at anything extra that comes your way. Sometimes that thing is a back rub after a day of hoisting heavy metal. Sometimes it's a cocktail. And sometimes it's a sip of water when you need it most, or a needle and thread to hem your costume, or the lending of a headlamp. When you come prepared to take care of yourself and to hand out gifts, everyone benefits. There are no expectations, so there are no disappointments. Anything over and above your basics needs are just bonuses. And imagine a week, instead of letdowns by people being inconsiderate, of bonuses.

Just like any other life-changing event (like dropping acid or going to a tent revival) Burning Man is all about what you bring to it. There's just no other way to put it. People told me this before I left, but I didn't quite know what to make of this. I just sort of pocketed the information like the slip of paper from a fortune cookie. I was sure I would take it out and examine it later and have it be applicable only in retrospect. I think, two years later, that wisdom is finally beginning to make sense.

The fur, the tattoos, the overt sexual overtones, the dreaded hair and the Mad-Max get-ups... these were the things that were supposed to shock me into an altered state. They didn't. I grew up right outside New York City; I saw the players and the set of Burning Man every day of my life. The "look" was nothing new to me; neither was the abundance of art or the number of people or the primitive living conditions.

The thing that took my breath away was how radically different my experience was once my defenses melted away. Once I removed, piece by piece, my denial, my anger, my resentment. All that was left was joy. And the understanding that I was stronger, and, in some ways, more vulnerable, than I had ever known myself to be.

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Gotye

Your Beautiful Thing Is Now Ready For Download

Know the best part of being alive right this second?

Being able to fall down a rabbit hole in the Internet and finding yourself reading a blog written by a brilliant clothing/jewelry maker on the other side of the world and, in the process, falling deeply, madly in love with a musician you've never heard of.

I don't know what it is about Gotye... but I am smitten. Is it that he sounds like the lovechild of Peter Gabriel and Sting with some Jeff Buckley thrown in for good measure? That his compositions are deliciously layered with other-worldly sounds? That I feel like I am bouncing around inside a gypsy circus tent, a mo-town recording session, a thoroughly modern sampling remix, and a New Orleans style funeral march all within the span of ten songs? That his stuff is vaguely reminiscent of that urgent and heartbroken, dreamy sound of the eighties? I don't know. But I am under his spell. And, after months and months of being on musical strike, I can't stop listening.

Thank you to Don at urbandon for originally posting this on his blog.

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new music

Your Beautiful Thing Is Now Ready For Download

Know the best part of being alive right this second?

Being able to fall down a rabbit hole in the Internet and finding yourself reading a blog written by a brilliant clothing/jewelry maker on the other side of the world and, in the process, falling deeply, madly in love with a musician you've never heard of.

I don't know what it is about Gotye... but I am smitten. Is it that he sounds like the lovechild of Peter Gabriel and Sting with some Jeff Buckley thrown in for good measure? That his compositions are deliciously layered with other-worldly sounds? That I feel like I am bouncing around inside a gypsy circus tent, a mo-town recording session, a thoroughly modern sampling remix, and a New Orleans style funeral march all within the span of ten songs? That his stuff is vaguely reminiscent of that urgent and heartbroken, dreamy sound of the eighties? I don't know. But I am under his spell. And, after months and months of being on musical strike, I can't stop listening.

Thank you to Don at urbandon for originally posting this on his blog.

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urbandon

Your Beautiful Thing Is Now Ready For Download

Know the best part of being alive right this second?

Being able to fall down a rabbit hole in the Internet and finding yourself reading a blog written by a brilliant clothing/jewelry maker on the other side of the world and, in the process, falling deeply, madly in love with a musician you've never heard of.

I don't know what it is about Gotye... but I am smitten. Is it that he sounds like the lovechild of Peter Gabriel and Sting with some Jeff Buckley thrown in for good measure? That his compositions are deliciously layered with other-worldly sounds? That I feel like I am bouncing around inside a gypsy circus tent, a mo-town recording session, a thoroughly modern sampling remix, and a New Orleans style funeral march all within the span of ten songs? That his stuff is vaguely reminiscent of that urgent and heartbroken, dreamy sound of the eighties? I don't know. But I am under his spell. And, after months and months of being on musical strike, I can't stop listening.

Thank you to Don at urbandon for originally posting this on his blog.

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chondromalacia

I Have the Knees of An Eighty Year Old

Oh, hi.

I kind of...um... haven't blogged in a while, huh?

Yeah, about that.

I don't know how else to say this, but, um, sometimes I get into these "moods". And I go inside. Like, deep inside. Like, empty, echo-y hallways in an abandoned building deep inside. Like, wrap myself up in blankets and read four hundred books on self-help topics deep inside. Like, carry around a journal at all times because suddenly every weird guy on the bus and every crow on every telephone pole is fodder for what is surely going to become my opus and no one had better interrupt while I'm writing down the color of the sky deep inside.

This always seems to happen around this time of year. A few weeks ago, the weather went from sunny to cool in a heartbeat like it always does here in the Northwest, and just like that- like the flash of a ghost at a window- I turned inward and didn't feel like talking to anyone anymore. Not even the Internet.

And we're all familiar with that lovely, vicious cycle, aren't we? The one where this introspection takes over your whole being and you don't want to talk for fear you'll lose out on this awesome opportunity to do some quiet soul searching, but then you wind up isolating yourself a little too much and you get sad because you realize all your friends either hate you or have died in fiery car crashes, and then you realize your tendency to exaggerate is, well, exaggerated when you get like this and that no one, not one person, hates you or has died in a fiery car crash and that they're probably just busy with their lives, and the reality is that you haven't done one thing to reach out to them, and then you feel ashamed for over-dramatizing the fact that your friends are just busy with their own lives and that there are people out there with real problems, problems their shitty brain chemistry hasn't invented out of thin air, so then you don't talk to anyone for fear you'll sound like a nutcase for imagining that no one likes you anymore, which makes you isolate yourself even more. Yeah. THAT cycle.

When I feel these dark moods coming on, I usually start swallowing Vitamin D by the fistful and drinking massive amounts of coffee in hopes that sooner or later, some equilibrium will be achieved and I'll snap out of it. I hold out for the day when I will want to crawl out of my nest of scribbled-on napkins and mugs full of shriveled-up tea bags and piles of books and reading lamps and balled-up tissues and pretend like I haven't just been living like a rodent hoarder of pens and memoirs about war and death for three months.

Well. Here we are. On the other side of that heinous hill. There is obviously a level, a very real and delicate little red line in my brain, that indicates when I have all the chemicals I need to make rational decisions. And I'm pretty sure that when the level falls below that line, I start doing things like wanting to live in pajamas and never leaving the house and eating malted milk balls for breakfast. And when it's over that line, well! I can handle anything. I want to talk to people! About real things! And I want to plan my future and travel and clean my house! Rainbows appear as if to say welcome back, my child! I'm not even kidding, y'all. Check THIS shit out:

This is what I saw yesterday on the way to therapy. It's like the sky was like: I MADE YOU A DOUBLE FUCKING RAINBOW. NOW GET OVER YOURSELF.

And then! This morning I got the results back from the MRI I had on my knee last week. My knee has been bothering me for some time now... like, since I was a teenager and everyone just thought it weird and funny that it sounded like a hundred dried up twigs snapping every time I bent down.

Nothing will kick you right out of a non-posting funk like x-rays of your kneecaps flipping the rest of your body the bird, I tell ya. Apparently, my kneecaps have been "migrating" away from their groove in the rest of my knee joint and that has been causing some massive damage. Oh, and pain. Lots of pain. That twig-snapping noise I've been hearing all these years? That was the sound of my patella deteriorating. ISN'T THAT HILARIOUS?

Do you know WHY this news got me out of my non-posting funk? Because the sight of my kneecaps marching off into the sea of black x-ray film like they were pissed-off teenagers just made me laugh. It made me laugh in that defeated "there's nothing left to do but laugh" kind of way. It made me laugh because it was completely out of my control and there was nothing I could have done to stop them. My scrunched up Eustachian tubes? My poor, overworked adrenal system? That was some serious and worrying shit. This? This was and is just ridiculous. How could I have stage 4 chondromalacia at my age? Well, I was born this way, with knees that don't track over my shins. I've been slowly grinding down the surface of my patella and rubbing away my cartilage my whole life. That pain? That was bone on bone action I was feeling. There's no cure for this kind of thing. And I will probably need new knees by the time I am 60.

I'm not special. Nearly every human on earth has some form of arthritis. It comes with the territory of standing upright and, for the duration of our lives, balancing the entirety of our body weight on two little bulbs of bone the size and shape of silver dollar pancakes. I just have happened to have discovered my arthritis earlier in my life than most people do because I've been experiencing shooting pains in my knees when I work out.

So there you have it. Funk resolved. Brain chemistry out of its bad-poetry-writing dark hole and into are there bone chips floating around my kneecaps? territory. All I can think about when I am walking around town is "scrape scrape scrape scrape". There's more patella I am rubbing away. When I'm jumping up and down in Zumba class all I can think is "clap, SLAM!, clap, SLAM!" See ya later, cartilage. It's the strangest thing in the world to actively know you are aging yourself by simply living. It's even weirder to think that the act of staying in shape, presumably to prolong my life, is actually taking years off my knees, and therefore my life. Oh, Irony! You big jerk.

My doctor says I have a few options: Cortizone injections (into my joint? Are you serious, doc? Because, um, the average papercut sends me into a low blood pressure tailspin. I don't want to know what a long needle being dug into my knee is going to do to me). There's also surgery to snip away the bands of tissue that are working to pull my kneecap away from the rest of the joint and into an adjacent universe. Neither one actually solves the problem of having ground down my kneecaps into three quarters of their former selves or the pain that will cause.

I'm holding out for new knees. I really, really hope that by 2042 science has either a) found a suitable replacement for cartilage or b) my insurance company gives me a pair of kick-ass robot knees and that, when I run and leap over parked cars (which I will be doing NON-STOP, obviously), they make a junh-junh-junh-junh-junh noise so I sound like the Six Million Dollar Man. Except it will be 2042 by then, so maybe I won't be leaping over parked cars- maybe I will be leaping over the entire Amazon ('cause we'll have reduced it to four square feet by then- hurray for development!). Or maybe I'll be leaping over hovercars. Yeah. Hovercars. Because that implies that I'll also have had my biceps replaced with rocket boosters. Or maybe I'll run a marathon. Or maybe four marathons, right in a row. Hopefully I'll have replacement sinuses by then, too, because MAN, am I going to be working the lungs.

Come on, science. Hurry up. Mama needs a new pair of knees.

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depression

I Have the Knees of An Eighty Year Old

Oh, hi.

I kind of...um... haven't blogged in a while, huh?

Yeah, about that.

I don't know how else to say this, but, um, sometimes I get into these "moods". And I go inside. Like, deep inside. Like, empty, echo-y hallways in an abandoned building deep inside. Like, wrap myself up in blankets and read four hundred books on self-help topics deep inside. Like, carry around a journal at all times because suddenly every weird guy on the bus and every crow on every telephone pole is fodder for what is surely going to become my opus and no one had better interrupt while I'm writing down the color of the sky deep inside.

This always seems to happen around this time of year. A few weeks ago, the weather went from sunny to cool in a heartbeat like it always does here in the Northwest, and just like that- like the flash of a ghost at a window- I turned inward and didn't feel like talking to anyone anymore. Not even the Internet.

And we're all familiar with that lovely, vicious cycle, aren't we? The one where this introspection takes over your whole being and you don't want to talk for fear you'll lose out on this awesome opportunity to do some quiet soul searching, but then you wind up isolating yourself a little too much and you get sad because you realize all your friends either hate you or have died in fiery car crashes, and then you realize your tendency to exaggerate is, well, exaggerated when you get like this and that no one, not one person, hates you or has died in a fiery car crash and that they're probably just busy with their lives, and the reality is that you haven't done one thing to reach out to them, and then you feel ashamed for over-dramatizing the fact that your friends are just busy with their own lives and that there are people out there with real problems, problems their shitty brain chemistry hasn't invented out of thin air, so then you don't talk to anyone for fear you'll sound like a nutcase for imagining that no one likes you anymore, which makes you isolate yourself even more. Yeah. THAT cycle.

When I feel these dark moods coming on, I usually start swallowing Vitamin D by the fistful and drinking massive amounts of coffee in hopes that sooner or later, some equilibrium will be achieved and I'll snap out of it. I hold out for the day when I will want to crawl out of my nest of scribbled-on napkins and mugs full of shriveled-up tea bags and piles of books and reading lamps and balled-up tissues and pretend like I haven't just been living like a rodent hoarder of pens and memoirs about war and death for three months.

Well. Here we are. On the other side of that heinous hill. There is obviously a level, a very real and delicate little red line in my brain, that indicates when I have all the chemicals I need to make rational decisions. And I'm pretty sure that when the level falls below that line, I start doing things like wanting to live in pajamas and never leaving the house and eating malted milk balls for breakfast. And when it's over that line, well! I can handle anything. I want to talk to people! About real things! And I want to plan my future and travel and clean my house! Rainbows appear as if to say welcome back, my child! I'm not even kidding, y'all. Check THIS shit out:

This is what I saw yesterday on the way to therapy. It's like the sky was like: I MADE YOU A DOUBLE FUCKING RAINBOW. NOW GET OVER YOURSELF.

And then! This morning I got the results back from the MRI I had on my knee last week. My knee has been bothering me for some time now... like, since I was a teenager and everyone just thought it weird and funny that it sounded like a hundred dried up twigs snapping every time I bent down.

Nothing will kick you right out of a non-posting funk like x-rays of your kneecaps flipping the rest of your body the bird, I tell ya. Apparently, my kneecaps have been "migrating" away from their groove in the rest of my knee joint and that has been causing some massive damage. Oh, and pain. Lots of pain. That twig-snapping noise I've been hearing all these years? That was the sound of my patella deteriorating. ISN'T THAT HILARIOUS?

Do you know WHY this news got me out of my non-posting funk? Because the sight of my kneecaps marching off into the sea of black x-ray film like they were pissed-off teenagers just made me laugh. It made me laugh in that defeated "there's nothing left to do but laugh" kind of way. It made me laugh because it was completely out of my control and there was nothing I could have done to stop them. My scrunched up Eustachian tubes? My poor, overworked adrenal system? That was some serious and worrying shit. This? This was and is just ridiculous. How could I have stage 4 chondromalacia at my age? Well, I was born this way, with knees that don't track over my shins. I've been slowly grinding down the surface of my patella and rubbing away my cartilage my whole life. That pain? That was bone on bone action I was feeling. There's no cure for this kind of thing. And I will probably need new knees by the time I am 60.

I'm not special. Nearly every human on earth has some form of arthritis. It comes with the territory of standing upright and, for the duration of our lives, balancing the entirety of our body weight on two little bulbs of bone the size and shape of silver dollar pancakes. I just have happened to have discovered my arthritis earlier in my life than most people do because I've been experiencing shooting pains in my knees when I work out.

So there you have it. Funk resolved. Brain chemistry out of its bad-poetry-writing dark hole and into are there bone chips floating around my kneecaps? territory. All I can think about when I am walking around town is "scrape scrape scrape scrape". There's more patella I am rubbing away. When I'm jumping up and down in Zumba class all I can think is "clap, SLAM!, clap, SLAM!" See ya later, cartilage. It's the strangest thing in the world to actively know you are aging yourself by simply living. It's even weirder to think that the act of staying in shape, presumably to prolong my life, is actually taking years off my knees, and therefore my life. Oh, Irony! You big jerk.

My doctor says I have a few options: Cortizone injections (into my joint? Are you serious, doc? Because, um, the average papercut sends me into a low blood pressure tailspin. I don't want to know what a long needle being dug into my knee is going to do to me). There's also surgery to snip away the bands of tissue that are working to pull my kneecap away from the rest of the joint and into an adjacent universe. Neither one actually solves the problem of having ground down my kneecaps into three quarters of their former selves or the pain that will cause.

I'm holding out for new knees. I really, really hope that by 2042 science has either a) found a suitable replacement for cartilage or b) my insurance company gives me a pair of kick-ass robot knees and that, when I run and leap over parked cars (which I will be doing NON-STOP, obviously), they make a junh-junh-junh-junh-junh noise so I sound like the Six Million Dollar Man. Except it will be 2042 by then, so maybe I won't be leaping over parked cars- maybe I will be leaping over the entire Amazon ('cause we'll have reduced it to four square feet by then- hurray for development!). Or maybe I'll be leaping over hovercars. Yeah. Hovercars. Because that implies that I'll also have had my biceps replaced with rocket boosters. Or maybe I'll run a marathon. Or maybe four marathons, right in a row. Hopefully I'll have replacement sinuses by then, too, because MAN, am I going to be working the lungs.

Come on, science. Hurry up. Mama needs a new pair of knees.

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Six Million Dollar Man

I Have the Knees of An Eighty Year Old

Oh, hi.

I kind of...um... haven't blogged in a while, huh?

Yeah, about that.

I don't know how else to say this, but, um, sometimes I get into these "moods". And I go inside. Like, deep inside. Like, empty, echo-y hallways in an abandoned building deep inside. Like, wrap myself up in blankets and read four hundred books on self-help topics deep inside. Like, carry around a journal at all times because suddenly every weird guy on the bus and every crow on every telephone pole is fodder for what is surely going to become my opus and no one had better interrupt while I'm writing down the color of the sky deep inside.

This always seems to happen around this time of year. A few weeks ago, the weather went from sunny to cool in a heartbeat like it always does here in the Northwest, and just like that- like the flash of a ghost at a window- I turned inward and didn't feel like talking to anyone anymore. Not even the Internet.

And we're all familiar with that lovely, vicious cycle, aren't we? The one where this introspection takes over your whole being and you don't want to talk for fear you'll lose out on this awesome opportunity to do some quiet soul searching, but then you wind up isolating yourself a little too much and you get sad because you realize all your friends either hate you or have died in fiery car crashes, and then you realize your tendency to exaggerate is, well, exaggerated when you get like this and that no one, not one person, hates you or has died in a fiery car crash and that they're probably just busy with their lives, and the reality is that you haven't done one thing to reach out to them, and then you feel ashamed for over-dramatizing the fact that your friends are just busy with their own lives and that there are people out there with real problems, problems their shitty brain chemistry hasn't invented out of thin air, so then you don't talk to anyone for fear you'll sound like a nutcase for imagining that no one likes you anymore, which makes you isolate yourself even more. Yeah. THAT cycle.

When I feel these dark moods coming on, I usually start swallowing Vitamin D by the fistful and drinking massive amounts of coffee in hopes that sooner or later, some equilibrium will be achieved and I'll snap out of it. I hold out for the day when I will want to crawl out of my nest of scribbled-on napkins and mugs full of shriveled-up tea bags and piles of books and reading lamps and balled-up tissues and pretend like I haven't just been living like a rodent hoarder of pens and memoirs about war and death for three months.

Well. Here we are. On the other side of that heinous hill. There is obviously a level, a very real and delicate little red line in my brain, that indicates when I have all the chemicals I need to make rational decisions. And I'm pretty sure that when the level falls below that line, I start doing things like wanting to live in pajamas and never leaving the house and eating malted milk balls for breakfast. And when it's over that line, well! I can handle anything. I want to talk to people! About real things! And I want to plan my future and travel and clean my house! Rainbows appear as if to say welcome back, my child! I'm not even kidding, y'all. Check THIS shit out:

This is what I saw yesterday on the way to therapy. It's like the sky was like: I MADE YOU A DOUBLE FUCKING RAINBOW. NOW GET OVER YOURSELF.

And then! This morning I got the results back from the MRI I had on my knee last week. My knee has been bothering me for some time now... like, since I was a teenager and everyone just thought it weird and funny that it sounded like a hundred dried up twigs snapping every time I bent down.

Nothing will kick you right out of a non-posting funk like x-rays of your kneecaps flipping the rest of your body the bird, I tell ya. Apparently, my kneecaps have been "migrating" away from their groove in the rest of my knee joint and that has been causing some massive damage. Oh, and pain. Lots of pain. That twig-snapping noise I've been hearing all these years? That was the sound of my patella deteriorating. ISN'T THAT HILARIOUS?

Do you know WHY this news got me out of my non-posting funk? Because the sight of my kneecaps marching off into the sea of black x-ray film like they were pissed-off teenagers just made me laugh. It made me laugh in that defeated "there's nothing left to do but laugh" kind of way. It made me laugh because it was completely out of my control and there was nothing I could have done to stop them. My scrunched up Eustachian tubes? My poor, overworked adrenal system? That was some serious and worrying shit. This? This was and is just ridiculous. How could I have stage 4 chondromalacia at my age? Well, I was born this way, with knees that don't track over my shins. I've been slowly grinding down the surface of my patella and rubbing away my cartilage my whole life. That pain? That was bone on bone action I was feeling. There's no cure for this kind of thing. And I will probably need new knees by the time I am 60.

I'm not special. Nearly every human on earth has some form of arthritis. It comes with the territory of standing upright and, for the duration of our lives, balancing the entirety of our body weight on two little bulbs of bone the size and shape of silver dollar pancakes. I just have happened to have discovered my arthritis earlier in my life than most people do because I've been experiencing shooting pains in my knees when I work out.

So there you have it. Funk resolved. Brain chemistry out of its bad-poetry-writing dark hole and into are there bone chips floating around my kneecaps? territory. All I can think about when I am walking around town is "scrape scrape scrape scrape". There's more patella I am rubbing away. When I'm jumping up and down in Zumba class all I can think is "clap, SLAM!, clap, SLAM!" See ya later, cartilage. It's the strangest thing in the world to actively know you are aging yourself by simply living. It's even weirder to think that the act of staying in shape, presumably to prolong my life, is actually taking years off my knees, and therefore my life. Oh, Irony! You big jerk.

My doctor says I have a few options: Cortizone injections (into my joint? Are you serious, doc? Because, um, the average papercut sends me into a low blood pressure tailspin. I don't want to know what a long needle being dug into my knee is going to do to me). There's also surgery to snip away the bands of tissue that are working to pull my kneecap away from the rest of the joint and into an adjacent universe. Neither one actually solves the problem of having ground down my kneecaps into three quarters of their former selves or the pain that will cause.

I'm holding out for new knees. I really, really hope that by 2042 science has either a) found a suitable replacement for cartilage or b) my insurance company gives me a pair of kick-ass robot knees and that, when I run and leap over parked cars (which I will be doing NON-STOP, obviously), they make a junh-junh-junh-junh-junh noise so I sound like the Six Million Dollar Man. Except it will be 2042 by then, so maybe I won't be leaping over parked cars- maybe I will be leaping over the entire Amazon ('cause we'll have reduced it to four square feet by then- hurray for development!). Or maybe I'll be leaping over hovercars. Yeah. Hovercars. Because that implies that I'll also have had my biceps replaced with rocket boosters. Or maybe I'll run a marathon. Or maybe four marathons, right in a row. Hopefully I'll have replacement sinuses by then, too, because MAN, am I going to be working the lungs.

Come on, science. Hurry up. Mama needs a new pair of knees.

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Opening Up

Timing Is Everything

I'm not even sure what I want to say here, so bear with me, okay? By the end of this post, something that resembles a theme should emerge. Then again, I haven't been having any luck lately with things like "being able to form sentences" and "making sense when I talk". I would promise you it will all be worth it, but honestly, I can't even do that right now.

I know that I should write a little every day. Just a little something. Even if it's something weird I heard on the bus (alright, I could fill volumes with that and really, I think we've all heard enough from the delightful people who use public transportation, don't you?). I get a little anxious and can't sleep well when I don't write. So I know what you're thinking: then just WRITE ALREADY. This isn't difficult. You just write something down. And then hit "publish". And then you can sleep at night. I mean, REALLY, kiddo, this isn't hard.

Except it doesn't always work. In fact, it almost never works. So, it's something I need to get better at. I know it doesn't have to be fancy. It just has to be something. I know it can be done. I know bloggers who do it regularly. They just review their day and then write something. It's that simple. I used to think that was the most difficult part: being interesting every day of my life. Really, though, the most difficult part is making the time to write. I mean, if you're lacking for material, for God's sake, there's a whole INTERNET out there to be inspired by if nothing cool happened that day. Hey, LoLo! Ever heard of a little thing called GOOGLE, the magical place where you can LITERALLY type the words "SOMETHING INTERESTING" and something interesting will LITERALLY appear? Yeah, well, I'm not so good at making time to do that. That's really all this non-writing is: one big suckitude at time management.

I've been getting better at at least thinking I should blog more. For example, before drifting off to sleep the other day, I thought about the TSA guy who suggested my not wanting to go through the full body x-ray was unpatriotic in some way, and my next thought was: Oh, shoot. I TOTALLY could have written a blog post about that. Damn. That's another day down the drain. But, hey! At least I got to the step where I thought about writing it down.

I didn't even come here to write all that stuff up above.

This is what I came to write:

Often when I feel like I am the only one suffering through something, I find out I'm not. All it takes is for me to open my mouth and say "I can't even believe I am struggling with this, but here it is." And I lay it out, and it turns out that someone ALWAYS has a corollary to that struggle.

It's so difficult for me to admit when I'm feeling less than. And not just because I live in a fairly affluent city and I have a job (several in fact) and a loving partner and access to good food and clean water and because what kind of a douche bag complains when 95% of her life is so easy? But it's all relative, I keep telling myself. Just because you're not dying in a refugee camp doesn't mean that your suffering isn't valid. And the more I talk to people, the more I see that EVERYONE, men and women alike, everyone is keeping it all inside because they don't want to seem ungrateful, or nit-picky, or like Debbie Downer at the party. Our privilege (at least in North America) as some of the luckiest people on earth and/or our shame about feeling like we're less than are keeping all of our mouths sealed about what we struggle with and I don't think it's healthy. So I'm totally volunteering to be the weirdo at the party. I am, right now, officially standing on the coffee table and motioning to the DJ to turn down the music and I am saying: Hi, my name is Lauren and sometimes I struggle with having so much and still feeling unfulfilled.

I was recently invited to belong to a book club, and when I got to the first meeting, a few of the women (who I have gotten to know on a casual basis over the years) jabbed me in the ribs and asked me in that knowing way if I was "ready" for bookclub. It could get real emotional in there, they warned. COOL, I thought. FINALLY. A place where I could get my cry on. And here in the frozen-hearted Northwest no less! After we DID all get our cry on, I approached one of the women in the kitchen and whispered ,"Why did everyone think this was going to scare me away?" And she said, "Well, you don't always want to dump all your problems on your girlfriends when you see them, right?" And I just stared at her for a second and said, "WELL THEN I HAVE BEEN DOING IT ALL WRONG because all I DO is dump on my girlfriends. Isn't that what girlfriends are for!!?"

And were this blog a sitcom, this is the part where I would wink at the audience and say "Am I right, ladies?" and then clink wineglasses with a bunch of women wearing fuzzy-toed high heels and tight fitting rhinestoned t-shirts that said things like "Loves to Shop" and "Diva".

I just wanted to say to everyone out there who's holding it in for fear of looking like an idiot in front of their friends: let it go. Just do it. You have permission to come here, at least, and vomit all over the place. I will totally hold your hair back and hand you a warm towel afterwards.

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Something Inspiring

Timing Is Everything

I'm not even sure what I want to say here, so bear with me, okay? By the end of this post, something that resembles a theme should emerge. Then again, I haven't been having any luck lately with things like "being able to form sentences" and "making sense when I talk". I would promise you it will all be worth it, but honestly, I can't even do that right now.

I know that I should write a little every day. Just a little something. Even if it's something weird I heard on the bus (alright, I could fill volumes with that and really, I think we've all heard enough from the delightful people who use public transportation, don't you?). I get a little anxious and can't sleep well when I don't write. So I know what you're thinking: then just WRITE ALREADY. This isn't difficult. You just write something down. And then hit "publish". And then you can sleep at night. I mean, REALLY, kiddo, this isn't hard.

Except it doesn't always work. In fact, it almost never works. So, it's something I need to get better at. I know it doesn't have to be fancy. It just has to be something. I know it can be done. I know bloggers who do it regularly. They just review their day and then write something. It's that simple. I used to think that was the most difficult part: being interesting every day of my life. Really, though, the most difficult part is making the time to write. I mean, if you're lacking for material, for God's sake, there's a whole INTERNET out there to be inspired by if nothing cool happened that day. Hey, LoLo! Ever heard of a little thing called GOOGLE, the magical place where you can LITERALLY type the words "SOMETHING INTERESTING" and something interesting will LITERALLY appear? Yeah, well, I'm not so good at making time to do that. That's really all this non-writing is: one big suckitude at time management.

I've been getting better at at least thinking I should blog more. For example, before drifting off to sleep the other day, I thought about the TSA guy who suggested my not wanting to go through the full body x-ray was unpatriotic in some way, and my next thought was: Oh, shoot. I TOTALLY could have written a blog post about that. Damn. That's another day down the drain. But, hey! At least I got to the step where I thought about writing it down.

I didn't even come here to write all that stuff up above.

This is what I came to write:

Often when I feel like I am the only one suffering through something, I find out I'm not. All it takes is for me to open my mouth and say "I can't even believe I am struggling with this, but here it is." And I lay it out, and it turns out that someone ALWAYS has a corollary to that struggle.

It's so difficult for me to admit when I'm feeling less than. And not just because I live in a fairly affluent city and I have a job (several in fact) and a loving partner and access to good food and clean water and because what kind of a douche bag complains when 95% of her life is so easy? But it's all relative, I keep telling myself. Just because you're not dying in a refugee camp doesn't mean that your suffering isn't valid. And the more I talk to people, the more I see that EVERYONE, men and women alike, everyone is keeping it all inside because they don't want to seem ungrateful, or nit-picky, or like Debbie Downer at the party. Our privilege (at least in North America) as some of the luckiest people on earth and/or our shame about feeling like we're less than are keeping all of our mouths sealed about what we struggle with and I don't think it's healthy. So I'm totally volunteering to be the weirdo at the party. I am, right now, officially standing on the coffee table and motioning to the DJ to turn down the music and I am saying: Hi, my name is Lauren and sometimes I struggle with having so much and still feeling unfulfilled.

I was recently invited to belong to a book club, and when I got to the first meeting, a few of the women (who I have gotten to know on a casual basis over the years) jabbed me in the ribs and asked me in that knowing way if I was "ready" for bookclub. It could get real emotional in there, they warned. COOL, I thought. FINALLY. A place where I could get my cry on. And here in the frozen-hearted Northwest no less! After we DID all get our cry on, I approached one of the women in the kitchen and whispered ,"Why did everyone think this was going to scare me away?" And she said, "Well, you don't always want to dump all your problems on your girlfriends when you see them, right?" And I just stared at her for a second and said, "WELL THEN I HAVE BEEN DOING IT ALL WRONG because all I DO is dump on my girlfriends. Isn't that what girlfriends are for!!?"

And were this blog a sitcom, this is the part where I would wink at the audience and say "Am I right, ladies?" and then clink wineglasses with a bunch of women wearing fuzzy-toed high heels and tight fitting rhinestoned t-shirts that said things like "Loves to Shop" and "Diva".

I just wanted to say to everyone out there who's holding it in for fear of looking like an idiot in front of their friends: let it go. Just do it. You have permission to come here, at least, and vomit all over the place. I will totally hold your hair back and hand you a warm towel afterwards.

Continue to full post...

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Vomit

Timing Is Everything

I'm not even sure what I want to say here, so bear with me, okay? By the end of this post, something that resembles a theme should emerge. Then again, I haven't been having any luck lately with things like "being able to form sentences" and "making sense when I talk". I would promise you it will all be worth it, but honestly, I can't even do that right now.

I know that I should write a little every day. Just a little something. Even if it's something weird I heard on the bus (alright, I could fill volumes with that and really, I think we've all heard enough from the delightful people who use public transportation, don't you?). I get a little anxious and can't sleep well when I don't write. So I know what you're thinking: then just WRITE ALREADY. This isn't difficult. You just write something down. And then hit "publish". And then you can sleep at night. I mean, REALLY, kiddo, this isn't hard.

Except it doesn't always work. In fact, it almost never works. So, it's something I need to get better at. I know it doesn't have to be fancy. It just has to be something. I know it can be done. I know bloggers who do it regularly. They just review their day and then write something. It's that simple. I used to think that was the most difficult part: being interesting every day of my life. Really, though, the most difficult part is making the time to write. I mean, if you're lacking for material, for God's sake, there's a whole INTERNET out there to be inspired by if nothing cool happened that day. Hey, LoLo! Ever heard of a little thing called GOOGLE, the magical place where you can LITERALLY type the words "SOMETHING INTERESTING" and something interesting will LITERALLY appear? Yeah, well, I'm not so good at making time to do that. That's really all this non-writing is: one big suckitude at time management.

I've been getting better at at least thinking I should blog more. For example, before drifting off to sleep the other day, I thought about the TSA guy who suggested my not wanting to go through the full body x-ray was unpatriotic in some way, and my next thought was: Oh, shoot. I TOTALLY could have written a blog post about that. Damn. That's another day down the drain. But, hey! At least I got to the step where I thought about writing it down.

I didn't even come here to write all that stuff up above.

This is what I came to write:

Often when I feel like I am the only one suffering through something, I find out I'm not. All it takes is for me to open my mouth and say "I can't even believe I am struggling with this, but here it is." And I lay it out, and it turns out that someone ALWAYS has a corollary to that struggle.

It's so difficult for me to admit when I'm feeling less than. And not just because I live in a fairly affluent city and I have a job (several in fact) and a loving partner and access to good food and clean water and because what kind of a douche bag complains when 95% of her life is so easy? But it's all relative, I keep telling myself. Just because you're not dying in a refugee camp doesn't mean that your suffering isn't valid. And the more I talk to people, the more I see that EVERYONE, men and women alike, everyone is keeping it all inside because they don't want to seem ungrateful, or nit-picky, or like Debbie Downer at the party. Our privilege (at least in North America) as some of the luckiest people on earth and/or our shame about feeling like we're less than are keeping all of our mouths sealed about what we struggle with and I don't think it's healthy. So I'm totally volunteering to be the weirdo at the party. I am, right now, officially standing on the coffee table and motioning to the DJ to turn down the music and I am saying: Hi, my name is Lauren and sometimes I struggle with having so much and still feeling unfulfilled.

I was recently invited to belong to a book club, and when I got to the first meeting, a few of the women (who I have gotten to know on a casual basis over the years) jabbed me in the ribs and asked me in that knowing way if I was "ready" for bookclub. It could get real emotional in there, they warned. COOL, I thought. FINALLY. A place where I could get my cry on. And here in the frozen-hearted Northwest no less! After we DID all get our cry on, I approached one of the women in the kitchen and whispered ,"Why did everyone think this was going to scare me away?" And she said, "Well, you don't always want to dump all your problems on your girlfriends when you see them, right?" And I just stared at her for a second and said, "WELL THEN I HAVE BEEN DOING IT ALL WRONG because all I DO is dump on my girlfriends. Isn't that what girlfriends are for!!?"

And were this blog a sitcom, this is the part where I would wink at the audience and say "Am I right, ladies?" and then clink wineglasses with a bunch of women wearing fuzzy-toed high heels and tight fitting rhinestoned t-shirts that said things like "Loves to Shop" and "Diva".

I just wanted to say to everyone out there who's holding it in for fear of looking like an idiot in front of their friends: let it go. Just do it. You have permission to come here, at least, and vomit all over the place. I will totally hold your hair back and hand you a warm towel afterwards.

Continue to full post...

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baking

It’s Not Too Late To Post Halloween Pictures, Is it?

You know your life has changed in some profound way when your friends catch you in the most awkward moments of your life and, instead of asking what they can do to help, they say, "This is going on the blog, isn't it?". Indeed, friends. It's all going on the blog.

I know it's completely awkward to be posting Christmas themed photos this late into the new year, but my resolution (yes, I only made one) is to post a little more frequently. So, here you go. I'm only a week behind.

Most of December can be summed up in pictures. I took quite a few and hope to post them before... Easter.

Highlights of my post-Christmas week include walking through the pouring rain to catch the bus and being told by an exceptionally chipper homeless man, "Keep warm, little girl!". God bless the hard of sight, for they shall compliment the soggy and wretched.

I made quite a few cookies for the clients this year. I even introduced a new one: the Linzer Tart! Yay! (And there was much rejoicing.)

These double as throwing stars. You know. For the ninjas in the ninjabread house. (Thanks to my cousin Sue for that one).

Snowballs might be my favorite.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Linzer Tart Cookies.

Wait. I changed my mind. Thumbprints are my favorite.

And here they are, all nestled in their tins. Ready for a long winter's snacking.

This is why I am the best bookkeeper. Ever.

And THIS is what I found on the floor while I was cleaning the kitchen after baking. It was underneath our kitchen stool. I wasn't quite sure what it was at first. I mean, I'd started out the night with a perfectly clean kitchen, so it must have arrived (erupted? metastasized? been rolled in by prankster mice?) fairly recently. So, I reviewed the events of the past several hours in my head. Let's see... I'd mixed up the dough in the KitchenAid, baked a few hundred cookies... and now there was this brown mushy blob on the floor. Wait. The KichenAid. There was that mysterious thump after I'd loaded in the metric ton of sugar onto the metric ton of butter and turned my back. Ah, yes. It was all making sense now. I'd put so much butter and sugar in the mixer, it had spun it right out of the bowl. And onto the floor. Where it had sat, somehow, unmolested, for a few hours, while everything baked. It was a pretty decent sized lump, too: almost a half stick of butter. It was all making sense now that the batch had not yielded its intended number of cookies.

I'm sorry for cursing you and your recipe, Betty Crocker. It wasn't your fault. It was all centripetal force's fault. And maybe my inability to judge when a bowl is too full. But mostly it was centripetal force's fault. Yeah. That guy's a real jerk.

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christmas cookies

It’s Not Too Late To Post Halloween Pictures, Is it?

You know your life has changed in some profound way when your friends catch you in the most awkward moments of your life and, instead of asking what they can do to help, they say, "This is going on the blog, isn't it?". Indeed, friends. It's all going on the blog.

I know it's completely awkward to be posting Christmas themed photos this late into the new year, but my resolution (yes, I only made one) is to post a little more frequently. So, here you go. I'm only a week behind.

Most of December can be summed up in pictures. I took quite a few and hope to post them before... Easter.

Highlights of my post-Christmas week include walking through the pouring rain to catch the bus and being told by an exceptionally chipper homeless man, "Keep warm, little girl!". God bless the hard of sight, for they shall compliment the soggy and wretched.

I made quite a few cookies for the clients this year. I even introduced a new one: the Linzer Tart! Yay! (And there was much rejoicing.)

These double as throwing stars. You know. For the ninjas in the ninjabread house. (Thanks to my cousin Sue for that one).

Snowballs might be my favorite.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Linzer Tart Cookies.

Wait. I changed my mind. Thumbprints are my favorite.

And here they are, all nestled in their tins. Ready for a long winter's snacking.

This is why I am the best bookkeeper. Ever.

And THIS is what I found on the floor while I was cleaning the kitchen after baking. It was underneath our kitchen stool. I wasn't quite sure what it was at first. I mean, I'd started out the night with a perfectly clean kitchen, so it must have arrived (erupted? metastasized? been rolled in by prankster mice?) fairly recently. So, I reviewed the events of the past several hours in my head. Let's see... I'd mixed up the dough in the KitchenAid, baked a few hundred cookies... and now there was this brown mushy blob on the floor. Wait. The KichenAid. There was that mysterious thump after I'd loaded in the metric ton of sugar onto the metric ton of butter and turned my back. Ah, yes. It was all making sense now. I'd put so much butter and sugar in the mixer, it had spun it right out of the bowl. And onto the floor. Where it had sat, somehow, unmolested, for a few hours, while everything baked. It was a pretty decent sized lump, too: almost a half stick of butter. It was all making sense now that the batch had not yielded its intended number of cookies.

I'm sorry for cursing you and your recipe, Betty Crocker. It wasn't your fault. It was all centripetal force's fault. And maybe my inability to judge when a bowl is too full. But mostly it was centripetal force's fault. Yeah. That guy's a real jerk.

Continue to full post...

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mess making

It’s Not Too Late To Post Halloween Pictures, Is it?

You know your life has changed in some profound way when your friends catch you in the most awkward moments of your life and, instead of asking what they can do to help, they say, "This is going on the blog, isn't it?". Indeed, friends. It's all going on the blog.

I know it's completely awkward to be posting Christmas themed photos this late into the new year, but my resolution (yes, I only made one) is to post a little more frequently. So, here you go. I'm only a week behind.

Most of December can be summed up in pictures. I took quite a few and hope to post them before... Easter.

Highlights of my post-Christmas week include walking through the pouring rain to catch the bus and being told by an exceptionally chipper homeless man, "Keep warm, little girl!". God bless the hard of sight, for they shall compliment the soggy and wretched.

I made quite a few cookies for the clients this year. I even introduced a new one: the Linzer Tart! Yay! (And there was much rejoicing.)

These double as throwing stars. You know. For the ninjas in the ninjabread house. (Thanks to my cousin Sue for that one).

Snowballs might be my favorite.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Linzer Tart Cookies.

Wait. I changed my mind. Thumbprints are my favorite.

And here they are, all nestled in their tins. Ready for a long winter's snacking.

This is why I am the best bookkeeper. Ever.

And THIS is what I found on the floor while I was cleaning the kitchen after baking. It was underneath our kitchen stool. I wasn't quite sure what it was at first. I mean, I'd started out the night with a perfectly clean kitchen, so it must have arrived (erupted? metastasized? been rolled in by prankster mice?) fairly recently. So, I reviewed the events of the past several hours in my head. Let's see... I'd mixed up the dough in the KitchenAid, baked a few hundred cookies... and now there was this brown mushy blob on the floor. Wait. The KichenAid. There was that mysterious thump after I'd loaded in the metric ton of sugar onto the metric ton of butter and turned my back. Ah, yes. It was all making sense now. I'd put so much butter and sugar in the mixer, it had spun it right out of the bowl. And onto the floor. Where it had sat, somehow, unmolested, for a few hours, while everything baked. It was a pretty decent sized lump, too: almost a half stick of butter. It was all making sense now that the batch had not yielded its intended number of cookies.

I'm sorry for cursing you and your recipe, Betty Crocker. It wasn't your fault. It was all centripetal force's fault. And maybe my inability to judge when a bowl is too full. But mostly it was centripetal force's fault. Yeah. That guy's a real jerk.

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turning 35 and not giving a shit

Blame Canada

HIS MAJESTY, THE DENTIST!

So, recently Burdy and I started watching the mini-series "The Tudors". I know, I know, we are SO current with our TV watching. Next up on the list: re-runs of "Benson". While everyone else is going bonkers over Downton Abbey, we're finally just watching a show from like five years ago, and a Canadian produced one, no less. I just can't help it. I am somehow fundamentally wired to pick up on television trends half a decade after their premier. I'm just not the typical "consumer" (I'm retching as I type that). It's true: it's me. I'm the one keeping this economy in a recession.

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coughing up blood

Weekly Roundup of Absolutely Nothing

NOT THE FLU, JUST FLU-LIKE

Yup, I've got another sinus infection. Shocking, I know.

I am now quite practiced at being sick. They must be getting used to me at the doctor's office, too, because when I described my symptoms, the doc didn't even blink when I mentioned the cooing pigeon noise in my ear. Not even a raised eyebrow! Guess there's a lot of that going around this year: cooing ear pigeon syndrome.

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new old phones

Weekly Roundup of Absolutely Nothing

NOT THE FLU, JUST FLU-LIKE

Yup, I've got another sinus infection. Shocking, I know.

I am now quite practiced at being sick. They must be getting used to me at the doctor's office, too, because when I described my symptoms, the doc didn't even blink when I mentioned the cooing pigeon noise in my ear. Not even a raised eyebrow! Guess there's a lot of that going around this year: cooing ear pigeon syndrome.

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the flu

Weekly Roundup of Absolutely Nothing

NOT THE FLU, JUST FLU-LIKE

Yup, I've got another sinus infection. Shocking, I know.

I am now quite practiced at being sick. They must be getting used to me at the doctor's office, too, because when I described my symptoms, the doc didn't even blink when I mentioned the cooing pigeon noise in my ear. Not even a raised eyebrow! Guess there's a lot of that going around this year: cooing ear pigeon syndrome.

Continue to full post...

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urban operas

Weekly Roundup of Absolutely Nothing

NOT THE FLU, JUST FLU-LIKE

Yup, I've got another sinus infection. Shocking, I know.

I am now quite practiced at being sick. They must be getting used to me at the doctor's office, too, because when I described my symptoms, the doc didn't even blink when I mentioned the cooing pigeon noise in my ear. Not even a raised eyebrow! Guess there's a lot of that going around this year: cooing ear pigeon syndrome.

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plantains

Cooking With (The Other) Lauren Ziemski

Plantains have been featuring regularly in my life lately. My wedding caterer, who was born in Peru, practically swooned when I mentioned I wanted fried plantains at my wedding. I think he might be more excited to make them than I am to eat them. Well, okay that's not entirely true. I can't WAIT to eat plantains, and all the other utterly mouthwatering things he's thinking of making (think: ceviche, well, really multiple ceviches, fried herbed fish, plantains, beans and rice, hearts of palm salad, and, naturally, a whole roast pig that requires a device to house it called "La Caja China”.

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wedding plans

Cooking With (The Other) Lauren Ziemski

Plantains have been featuring regularly in my life lately. My wedding caterer, who was born in Peru, practically swooned when I mentioned I wanted fried plantains at my wedding. I think he might be more excited to make them than I am to eat them. Well, okay that's not entirely true. I can't WAIT to eat plantains, and all the other utterly mouthwatering things he's thinking of making (think: ceviche, well, really multiple ceviches, fried herbed fish, plantains, beans and rice, hearts of palm salad, and, naturally, a whole roast pig that requires a device to house it called "La Caja China”.

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marriage and divorce

Say Yes To The Mess

It started with Heather at dooce.com announcing her separation from her husband. It knocked us both down, Burdy and I. Them? The people we found online all those years ago, the ones whose relationship we felt was invincible? The ones we found commonality with? The mouthy blonde and the nerdy computer guy? The husband and wife team of blogging and software engineering? The very thing we aspired to? The thing which inspired our daily mantra of: if they can make it work, so can we?

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wedding planning

Say Yes To The Mess

It started with Heather at dooce.com announcing her separation from her husband. It knocked us both down, Burdy and I. Them? The people we found online all those years ago, the ones whose relationship we felt was invincible? The ones we found commonality with? The mouthy blonde and the nerdy computer guy? The husband and wife team of blogging and software engineering? The very thing we aspired to? The thing which inspired our daily mantra of: if they can make it work, so can we?

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dancing

A List of Things My Zumba Class Has Taught Me

1. Things cannot be mastered on the first try.

I know this sounds like common sense, like something my dad should have pulled me aside and told me over a cold glass of milk and an Oreo when I was eight years old. But, alas, my parents were perfectionists, too. They didn’t even have a vocabulary to tell their kids fucking up was a normal part of life. Back then, not fucking up was a matter of life and death. At least, that's what it felt like to my traumatized six-year-old self. Life back then was a struggle to be the best at everything because being the best ensured you would go to college and not die in the streets like a pauper. And not dying in the streets like a pauper was a driving force in my life for a LONG time. This is what happens when you grow up in a poor but ambitious family: you are motivated by threats of dying penniless in the streets. My parents' nightstands weren’t stacked with books about meditation. They didn’t have time in the morning to write in their pretty paisley journals about self-forgiveness. They were busy raising kids, and the only information THEY had was from THEIR parents, and THOSE guys were raised up in an era where you got a steely-eyed stare if you were lucky (and a thwack across the knuckles if you weren't) for fucking up. Back then, you just pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and carried on. Generations later, I am administering the ruler to my OWN knuckles every time I screw up. And screw up I do. I am NOT patient with myself, either. The first time I tried Zumba, I was winded after the SECOND song. That’s approximately SIX minutes into the routine, y’all, and the routine goes for SIXTY. I had to sit it out. I had to lean up against one of those flesh-colored rubber punching dummies in case I passed out. I drank about a liter of water while sitting there and waited for my vision to come back into focus. I watched all the other women do the routines with ease. And I almost cried. CRIED! Because I didn’t know how to do it.

And here I am, more than a year later, with a pretty good handle on my counts, and my hip shaking, and my footwork. I’m not gonna lie. Taking those beginner salsa lessons all those years ago and those Cumbia lessons at hippie college REALLY helped with the footwork. But the first couple of times at Zumba class, I was as confused as a hippo in a raincoat. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Slowly, over time, I learned the routines. And the more I learned, the better I got at relaxing. And the better I got at relaxing, the better I got at learning the routines. Nobody died penniless in the streets at the end of my not knowing the routine. I'm pretty sure no one gave one shit about me looking stupid, either. It’s amazing how that whole cycle works. After the first time I got through all sixty minutes without wanting to throw up, I high-fived myself. I had just cured three generations of self-abuse by shaking my booty to a Pitbull song.

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learning

A List of Things My Zumba Class Has Taught Me

1. Things cannot be mastered on the first try.

I know this sounds like common sense, like something my dad should have pulled me aside and told me over a cold glass of milk and an Oreo when I was eight years old. But, alas, my parents were perfectionists, too. They didn’t even have a vocabulary to tell their kids fucking up was a normal part of life. Back then, not fucking up was a matter of life and death. At least, that's what it felt like to my traumatized six-year-old self. Life back then was a struggle to be the best at everything because being the best ensured you would go to college and not die in the streets like a pauper. And not dying in the streets like a pauper was a driving force in my life for a LONG time. This is what happens when you grow up in a poor but ambitious family: you are motivated by threats of dying penniless in the streets. My parents' nightstands weren’t stacked with books about meditation. They didn’t have time in the morning to write in their pretty paisley journals about self-forgiveness. They were busy raising kids, and the only information THEY had was from THEIR parents, and THOSE guys were raised up in an era where you got a steely-eyed stare if you were lucky (and a thwack across the knuckles if you weren't) for fucking up. Back then, you just pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and carried on. Generations later, I am administering the ruler to my OWN knuckles every time I screw up. And screw up I do. I am NOT patient with myself, either. The first time I tried Zumba, I was winded after the SECOND song. That’s approximately SIX minutes into the routine, y’all, and the routine goes for SIXTY. I had to sit it out. I had to lean up against one of those flesh-colored rubber punching dummies in case I passed out. I drank about a liter of water while sitting there and waited for my vision to come back into focus. I watched all the other women do the routines with ease. And I almost cried. CRIED! Because I didn’t know how to do it.

And here I am, more than a year later, with a pretty good handle on my counts, and my hip shaking, and my footwork. I’m not gonna lie. Taking those beginner salsa lessons all those years ago and those Cumbia lessons at hippie college REALLY helped with the footwork. But the first couple of times at Zumba class, I was as confused as a hippo in a raincoat. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Slowly, over time, I learned the routines. And the more I learned, the better I got at relaxing. And the better I got at relaxing, the better I got at learning the routines. Nobody died penniless in the streets at the end of my not knowing the routine. I'm pretty sure no one gave one shit about me looking stupid, either. It’s amazing how that whole cycle works. After the first time I got through all sixty minutes without wanting to throw up, I high-fived myself. I had just cured three generations of self-abuse by shaking my booty to a Pitbull song.

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'eighties

Part of A Balanced Breakfast

For weeks now, I have been craving Frankenberry. Yes, Frankenberry. The breakfast cereal.

Maybe it’s the crisp air, hinting at the coming Fall weather, which reminds me of the start of school, which makes me think of how I started every single day of my young life: with a medium-sized Corelleware bowl of sugary cereal sluiced with whole milk.

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Booberry

Part of A Balanced Breakfast

For weeks now, I have been craving Frankenberry. Yes, Frankenberry. The breakfast cereal.

Maybe it’s the crisp air, hinting at the coming Fall weather, which reminds me of the start of school, which makes me think of how I started every single day of my young life: with a medium-sized Corelleware bowl of sugary cereal sluiced with whole milk.

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Frankenberry

Part of A Balanced Breakfast

For weeks now, I have been craving Frankenberry. Yes, Frankenberry. The breakfast cereal.

Maybe it’s the crisp air, hinting at the coming Fall weather, which reminds me of the start of school, which makes me think of how I started every single day of my young life: with a medium-sized Corelleware bowl of sugary cereal sluiced with whole milk.

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sugar cereals

Part of A Balanced Breakfast

For weeks now, I have been craving Frankenberry. Yes, Frankenberry. The breakfast cereal.

Maybe it’s the crisp air, hinting at the coming Fall weather, which reminds me of the start of school, which makes me think of how I started every single day of my young life: with a medium-sized Corelleware bowl of sugary cereal sluiced with whole milk.

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anti-candida diet

Candida AlbiCAN’T, Sucker

There was a really brilliant bit going around on the Huffington Post site a couple of weeks ago about the typical trip to Whole Foods. I laughed out loud at parts. I did. Girl knew how to assess a ridiculous situation. And I appreciate a good pull-back from the myopic scrutiny that we here in the Northwest apply to everything from our shoes to our tofu. Every once in a while, I actually laugh out loud (alone in my car, usually) thinking about our first world ridiculousness. I live in the city with one of the highest rates of first world ridiculousness, so I’m guaranteed to enjoy at least one derisive snort a day.

The one thing about the piece that did get at me a little was the bit about Candida. And that’s because I have it. And it is no fucking joke. And here is where, were I not so serious about this crap growing in my guts, I would full-on belly laugh at MYSELF. Because, Candida? Really? Your gut flora is a little out of whack? That’s what you’re complaining about, kid?

My internal dialogue me is SO mean to the regular me.

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candida

Candida AlbiCAN’T, Sucker

There was a really brilliant bit going around on the Huffington Post site a couple of weeks ago about the typical trip to Whole Foods. I laughed out loud at parts. I did. Girl knew how to assess a ridiculous situation. And I appreciate a good pull-back from the myopic scrutiny that we here in the Northwest apply to everything from our shoes to our tofu. Every once in a while, I actually laugh out loud (alone in my car, usually) thinking about our first world ridiculousness. I live in the city with one of the highest rates of first world ridiculousness, so I’m guaranteed to enjoy at least one derisive snort a day.

The one thing about the piece that did get at me a little was the bit about Candida. And that’s because I have it. And it is no fucking joke. And here is where, were I not so serious about this crap growing in my guts, I would full-on belly laugh at MYSELF. Because, Candida? Really? Your gut flora is a little out of whack? That’s what you’re complaining about, kid?

My internal dialogue me is SO mean to the regular me.

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chronic illness

Candida AlbiCAN’T, Sucker

There was a really brilliant bit going around on the Huffington Post site a couple of weeks ago about the typical trip to Whole Foods. I laughed out loud at parts. I did. Girl knew how to assess a ridiculous situation. And I appreciate a good pull-back from the myopic scrutiny that we here in the Northwest apply to everything from our shoes to our tofu. Every once in a while, I actually laugh out loud (alone in my car, usually) thinking about our first world ridiculousness. I live in the city with one of the highest rates of first world ridiculousness, so I’m guaranteed to enjoy at least one derisive snort a day.

The one thing about the piece that did get at me a little was the bit about Candida. And that’s because I have it. And it is no fucking joke. And here is where, were I not so serious about this crap growing in my guts, I would full-on belly laugh at MYSELF. Because, Candida? Really? Your gut flora is a little out of whack? That’s what you’re complaining about, kid?

My internal dialogue me is SO mean to the regular me.

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northwest

Candida AlbiCAN’T, Sucker

There was a really brilliant bit going around on the Huffington Post site a couple of weeks ago about the typical trip to Whole Foods. I laughed out loud at parts. I did. Girl knew how to assess a ridiculous situation. And I appreciate a good pull-back from the myopic scrutiny that we here in the Northwest apply to everything from our shoes to our tofu. Every once in a while, I actually laugh out loud (alone in my car, usually) thinking about our first world ridiculousness. I live in the city with one of the highest rates of first world ridiculousness, so I’m guaranteed to enjoy at least one derisive snort a day.

The one thing about the piece that did get at me a little was the bit about Candida. And that’s because I have it. And it is no fucking joke. And here is where, were I not so serious about this crap growing in my guts, I would full-on belly laugh at MYSELF. Because, Candida? Really? Your gut flora is a little out of whack? That’s what you’re complaining about, kid?

My internal dialogue me is SO mean to the regular me.

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car accident

Congratulations, Little Brother

My little brother (though he stands easily a foot taller than me) has always been my “little” brother. But today he is something else. A homeowner. And though I try not to tell anyone else’s story but my own on this site, I thought he deserved a little shout out this morning for the journey he’s made.

He texts me a picture of him and his girlfriend standing in front of their five bedroom home. I don’t ask him why, when it’s just the two of them and a cat, they need five bedrooms because it’s beside the point. The rates were good, they got a great deal on the price, and he’s handy, so they can fix what they don’t like. It’s an old house- nearly a hundred years old, on a corner lot, built in an era when there was need for so much room because families were larger then. They own it simply because they can.

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healing

Congratulations, Little Brother

My little brother (though he stands easily a foot taller than me) has always been my “little” brother. But today he is something else. A homeowner. And though I try not to tell anyone else’s story but my own on this site, I thought he deserved a little shout out this morning for the journey he’s made.

He texts me a picture of him and his girlfriend standing in front of their five bedroom home. I don’t ask him why, when it’s just the two of them and a cat, they need five bedrooms because it’s beside the point. The rates were good, they got a great deal on the price, and he’s handy, so they can fix what they don’t like. It’s an old house- nearly a hundred years old, on a corner lot, built in an era when there was need for so much room because families were larger then. They own it simply because they can.

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little brother

Congratulations, Little Brother

My little brother (though he stands easily a foot taller than me) has always been my “little” brother. But today he is something else. A homeowner. And though I try not to tell anyone else’s story but my own on this site, I thought he deserved a little shout out this morning for the journey he’s made.

He texts me a picture of him and his girlfriend standing in front of their five bedroom home. I don’t ask him why, when it’s just the two of them and a cat, they need five bedrooms because it’s beside the point. The rates were good, they got a great deal on the price, and he’s handy, so they can fix what they don’t like. It’s an old house- nearly a hundred years old, on a corner lot, built in an era when there was need for so much room because families were larger then. They own it simply because they can.

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new home ownership

Congratulations, Little Brother

My little brother (though he stands easily a foot taller than me) has always been my “little” brother. But today he is something else. A homeowner. And though I try not to tell anyone else’s story but my own on this site, I thought he deserved a little shout out this morning for the journey he’s made.

He texts me a picture of him and his girlfriend standing in front of their five bedroom home. I don’t ask him why, when it’s just the two of them and a cat, they need five bedrooms because it’s beside the point. The rates were good, they got a great deal on the price, and he’s handy, so they can fix what they don’t like. It’s an old house- nearly a hundred years old, on a corner lot, built in an era when there was need for so much room because families were larger then. They own it simply because they can.

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recovery

Congratulations, Little Brother

My little brother (though he stands easily a foot taller than me) has always been my “little” brother. But today he is something else. A homeowner. And though I try not to tell anyone else’s story but my own on this site, I thought he deserved a little shout out this morning for the journey he’s made.

He texts me a picture of him and his girlfriend standing in front of their five bedroom home. I don’t ask him why, when it’s just the two of them and a cat, they need five bedrooms because it’s beside the point. The rates were good, they got a great deal on the price, and he’s handy, so they can fix what they don’t like. It’s an old house- nearly a hundred years old, on a corner lot, built in an era when there was need for so much room because families were larger then. They own it simply because they can.

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Ex Libris Anonymous

A Memorial Day Post, A Little After The Fact

A few years ago, at a Fourth of July party, a friend brought along photocopies of the Declaration of Independence for us to read aloud. There was beer involved so I might not have taken it very seriously. My friend did, though. There wasn’t an ounce of cynicism in his voice as he read a paragraph and passed the paper along. We really did take turns (between giggles) reading it aloud. Some wiseass might have been piping the Battle Hymn of the Republic through his pursed lips. Someone else might have been saluting an invisible flag. It might have been me.

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Journals

A Memorial Day Post, A Little After The Fact

A few years ago, at a Fourth of July party, a friend brought along photocopies of the Declaration of Independence for us to read aloud. There was beer involved so I might not have taken it very seriously. My friend did, though. There wasn’t an ounce of cynicism in his voice as he read a paragraph and passed the paper along. We really did take turns (between giggles) reading it aloud. Some wiseass might have been piping the Battle Hymn of the Republic through his pursed lips. Someone else might have been saluting an invisible flag. It might have been me.

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Memorial Day

A Memorial Day Post, A Little After The Fact

A few years ago, at a Fourth of July party, a friend brought along photocopies of the Declaration of Independence for us to read aloud. There was beer involved so I might not have taken it very seriously. My friend did, though. There wasn’t an ounce of cynicism in his voice as he read a paragraph and passed the paper along. We really did take turns (between giggles) reading it aloud. Some wiseass might have been piping the Battle Hymn of the Republic through his pursed lips. Someone else might have been saluting an invisible flag. It might have been me.

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WWII

A Memorial Day Post, A Little After The Fact

A few years ago, at a Fourth of July party, a friend brought along photocopies of the Declaration of Independence for us to read aloud. There was beer involved so I might not have taken it very seriously. My friend did, though. There wasn’t an ounce of cynicism in his voice as he read a paragraph and passed the paper along. We really did take turns (between giggles) reading it aloud. Some wiseass might have been piping the Battle Hymn of the Republic through his pursed lips. Someone else might have been saluting an invisible flag. It might have been me.

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Craigslist

Shout Out To My Fellow Hoarder Decorator

I can’t even remember how I stumbled upon this blog years ago, but holy smokes, what I do remember is not being able to get enough of it. I sat in my darkened office long after Burdy had gone to bed and crammed my guffaws into my sweater sleeve so as not to wake him. The next morning, Burdy asked me what was so important that I had to stay up half the night hunched over my computer screen.

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decorating

Shout Out To My Fellow Hoarder Decorator

I can’t even remember how I stumbled upon this blog years ago, but holy smokes, what I do remember is not being able to get enough of it. I sat in my darkened office long after Burdy had gone to bed and crammed my guffaws into my sweater sleeve so as not to wake him. The next morning, Burdy asked me what was so important that I had to stay up half the night hunched over my computer screen.

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furniture

Shout Out To My Fellow Hoarder Decorator

I can’t even remember how I stumbled upon this blog years ago, but holy smokes, what I do remember is not being able to get enough of it. I sat in my darkened office long after Burdy had gone to bed and crammed my guffaws into my sweater sleeve so as not to wake him. The next morning, Burdy asked me what was so important that I had to stay up half the night hunched over my computer screen.

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hoarding

Shout Out To My Fellow Hoarder Decorator

I can’t even remember how I stumbled upon this blog years ago, but holy smokes, what I do remember is not being able to get enough of it. I sat in my darkened office long after Burdy had gone to bed and crammed my guffaws into my sweater sleeve so as not to wake him. The next morning, Burdy asked me what was so important that I had to stay up half the night hunched over my computer screen.

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mid-century modern

Shout Out To My Fellow Hoarder Decorator

I can’t even remember how I stumbled upon this blog years ago, but holy smokes, what I do remember is not being able to get enough of it. I sat in my darkened office long after Burdy had gone to bed and crammed my guffaws into my sweater sleeve so as not to wake him. The next morning, Burdy asked me what was so important that I had to stay up half the night hunched over my computer screen.

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contest

Announcements!

You guys, I'm going to be part of this national storytelling event in May called Listen To Your Mother. LTYM is sort of like the Moth, but all about moms, which is not nearly as Hallmark card-y as I am making it sound. There will be no sixteen-inch rises on acid washed denim or "Live, Love, Laugh" painted on driftwood, just good old fashioned stories about sex, drugs, and motherhood. Emphasis on the motherhood part, probably, but, hey, you never know.

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Listen To Your Mother

Announcements!

You guys, I'm going to be part of this national storytelling event in May called Listen To Your Mother. LTYM is sort of like the Moth, but all about moms, which is not nearly as Hallmark card-y as I am making it sound. There will be no sixteen-inch rises on acid washed denim or "Live, Love, Laugh" painted on driftwood, just good old fashioned stories about sex, drugs, and motherhood. Emphasis on the motherhood part, probably, but, hey, you never know.

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LTYM

Announcements!

You guys, I'm going to be part of this national storytelling event in May called Listen To Your Mother. LTYM is sort of like the Moth, but all about moms, which is not nearly as Hallmark card-y as I am making it sound. There will be no sixteen-inch rises on acid washed denim or "Live, Love, Laugh" painted on driftwood, just good old fashioned stories about sex, drugs, and motherhood. Emphasis on the motherhood part, probably, but, hey, you never know.

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cancer

First Time Colds

It's Friday, which means I can finally admit this has been a hell of a week. Last week at this time, I was salivating over the thought of a whole fried fish and maybe some fried plantains for dinner. Later on that same night, I was cradling my feverish baby in my arms in a rocking chair in the dark.

Two different friends of mine both let me know this week that they were being biopsied for cancer. It was all terrible and scary. I can't tell what was more depressing: that my friends have possible diagnoses, or that I've come to expect these phonecalls and emails with a certain regularity as I get older.

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fever

First Time Colds

It's Friday, which means I can finally admit this has been a hell of a week. Last week at this time, I was salivating over the thought of a whole fried fish and maybe some fried plantains for dinner. Later on that same night, I was cradling my feverish baby in my arms in a rocking chair in the dark.

Two different friends of mine both let me know this week that they were being biopsied for cancer. It was all terrible and scary. I can't tell what was more depressing: that my friends have possible diagnoses, or that I've come to expect these phonecalls and emails with a certain regularity as I get older.

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illness

First Time Colds

It's Friday, which means I can finally admit this has been a hell of a week. Last week at this time, I was salivating over the thought of a whole fried fish and maybe some fried plantains for dinner. Later on that same night, I was cradling my feverish baby in my arms in a rocking chair in the dark.

Two different friends of mine both let me know this week that they were being biopsied for cancer. It was all terrible and scary. I can't tell what was more depressing: that my friends have possible diagnoses, or that I've come to expect these phonecalls and emails with a certain regularity as I get older.

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scare

First Time Colds

It's Friday, which means I can finally admit this has been a hell of a week. Last week at this time, I was salivating over the thought of a whole fried fish and maybe some fried plantains for dinner. Later on that same night, I was cradling my feverish baby in my arms in a rocking chair in the dark.

Two different friends of mine both let me know this week that they were being biopsied for cancer. It was all terrible and scary. I can't tell what was more depressing: that my friends have possible diagnoses, or that I've come to expect these phonecalls and emails with a certain regularity as I get older.

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Tylenol

First Time Colds

It's Friday, which means I can finally admit this has been a hell of a week. Last week at this time, I was salivating over the thought of a whole fried fish and maybe some fried plantains for dinner. Later on that same night, I was cradling my feverish baby in my arms in a rocking chair in the dark.

Two different friends of mine both let me know this week that they were being biopsied for cancer. It was all terrible and scary. I can't tell what was more depressing: that my friends have possible diagnoses, or that I've come to expect these phonecalls and emails with a certain regularity as I get older.

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crap

The Work BEFORE Work

There are times in motherhood, times involving cursing and sweating and frantic rubbing at stains, when you must weigh the situation at hand and determine if:
a) you are actively dying or
b) someone out there has it worse than you.

These times demand your careful consideration because otherwise, you can become overwhelmed by the seemingly intractable, filthy circumstance you find yourself in and you can go mad with the injustice of it all.

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work

The Work BEFORE Work

There are times in motherhood, times involving cursing and sweating and frantic rubbing at stains, when you must weigh the situation at hand and determine if:
a) you are actively dying or
b) someone out there has it worse than you.

These times demand your careful consideration because otherwise, you can become overwhelmed by the seemingly intractable, filthy circumstance you find yourself in and you can go mad with the injustice of it all.

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working moms

The Work BEFORE Work

There are times in motherhood, times involving cursing and sweating and frantic rubbing at stains, when you must weigh the situation at hand and determine if:
a) you are actively dying or
b) someone out there has it worse than you.

These times demand your careful consideration because otherwise, you can become overwhelmed by the seemingly intractable, filthy circumstance you find yourself in and you can go mad with the injustice of it all.

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