Life Should Be Like

After college, a group of us moved to Baltimore. The first few months after our May graduation were hectic, as we flew to and back from summers in Europe, found apartments, landed “real” jobs, and generally settled into life as we didn’t yet know it. On a Monday night in October, we gathered at Little Havana to celebrate a birthday. It was an unusually warm evening. We sat outside on picnic benches, on a patio that faced the water and the Domino Sugar sign. We ordered half-price sandwiches and pitchers of beer. At the end of the night, someone said something like, “Hey, this was nice. We should do this again.”

So we did. We had dinner every Monday night for almost two years. Our core group was five people, but most weeks we could expect to be joined by one to six other variable participants – friends of friends, significant others, siblings, or old classmates visiting from elsewhere. Whenever it was warm enough, we sat outside. We talked in quarter-life language: our newborn careers, the inevitable letdown after college, whether and how we should buy houses, get serious, get crazy, quit our jobs, move, or stay here. How long to stay. Where to go after that. What to choose in life, generally.

I think we were all glad to be there. But still, slowly and amicably, the group disbanded. We lost people to far away places, graduate school, demanding jobs, and time-consuming preoccupations. We had talked through our plans together, our wildest dreams and schemes together, and eventually nothing seemed more important than making it all happen - especially not burgers and beer. Each of us had an internal battle to win and a hundred versions of life to try, and check off, or cross out. We had to sacrifice something.

I read recently that Monday dinners are becoming some kind of social trend. This strikes me as very, very good news. Anybody can do dinner on a Saturday. Monday night dinner means you have friends who really love you, who don’t mind your angsty Monday whining. This is what I want my life to be like. When all the choices have been made (we’ll be eighty then) and the careers launched into the stratosphere (seriously), I want someone to call someone else and say, “Hey, let’s go out on Monday. Somewhere with a view. Bring your people.” We'll gather the old crowd - or the new crowd, or just a crowd - to clink glassware and send congratulations all around the table. And at the end of the night, someone will say, “This was nice. Let’s do it again.”

The Why

For my workshop this week, I attempted to define the 'why' of my writing. Why I Write. As in George Orwell, Joan Didion, and probably every other Person Who Writes, from international prizewinners right on down to teenage diarists. There's no shortage of essay material by writers on writing, specifically on their own writing. We are of foremost interest to ourselves.

It's a stirring exercise, digging for your 'why'. I'm not going to post my entire scattered self-analysis here (yet), but I do want to share one major revelation: I write to be read.

In an effort to clean up the ghastly mess that is my hard drive, I've been rereading a lot of old files, trying to toss what no longer means anything and to consolidate and archive what still does. I came across the journal I kept a few years ago and noticed how full of holes it is, how it doesn't really hold a sense of what my life looked/felt/smelled like at the time. My entries skip weeks on end, sometimes. I gloss over important events or leave them out entirely. I write too little of the good nothing and too much of the nothing nothing.

Here's a sentence lifted right out of that old journal: "I went grocery shopping tonight and have the uneasy feeling that a reckless turn may have jolted one of my yogurts out of the bag and onto the floor of my car, where it still sits."

Hahahahaha. See? This is such unbelievable crap that sharing it with you actually elevates it. Sharing it makes it mean something - even if what it means is that I'm vapid and in need of serious help. The problem with my journal was that it lacked an audience. It lived in a password-protected computer bubble, it was never meant to breathe outside air. And that's no good. That means I wasn't working to be especially honest (nobody to gasp), impressive (nobody to whistle), or original (nobody to call me on the cliches). I am a person who likes a response. I've always classified myself as an introspective introvert, but that's just a part-time truth; I love to put on a show. And I need to.

So, please know that I appreciate the fact that you're reading this. There may only be four or five of you, but you're saving me. Me and my yogurt.

Thanks In Brief

• A spilled bottle of Clorox in the backseat of my sister's car, quite accidentally getting us high enough to crack up the family, not so high as to cause brain damage. (That we know of.)
• Sixty-year-olds who still can and still do play Thanksgiving football in the street.
• Baby (teenage) cousins who know more about Greek mythology than any of the rest of us do.
• Psychological disorders that lay low for the holiday.
• Senses of humor that seem able to weather interpersonal drama.
• The announcement, semi-anticipated, that my grandmother's first great-grandchild will be joining us in May.

F-word

Around three this morning, I sat bolt upright in bed, positive - ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE - that in last Tuesday's post I had written the word "forward" where I meant to write "foreword". I got up and checked, and I was right. I was right about being wrong.

Holy crap, is this what this writing thing is going to be like? I don't know if I can handle it. I'm all for keeping yourself in a healthy state of panic, but a cold sweat over homophones in the middle of the night? That's sick.

I need back-up. An editor. A mean one.

Shiny Things

Saturday evening, in a fit of materialism, I decided that I ought to own more than just the four pairs of pants. So I charted out my plan of attack and psyched myself up to do battle at the mall. I picked out my sturdiest combat uniform and my largest, best-for-accidentally-on-purpose-whopping-people-out-of-the-way purse. I slept eight hours in preparation.

I’m a wanderer only in life, never in retail. I shop strategically. I’m no fun to browse around with, because unless you move as fast as I do – and you don’t – I will leave you in line at Sbarro and be back with six bags and a hatbox before you’ve finished your calzone. I make a plan, I go it alone, and I get it done. So, I set out on Sunday intending for my trip to be clean and short. I figured on three stores, twenty minutes at each, including dressing room and line time. In an hour I’d be in an overstuffed chair at the bookstore, my preferred weekend destination.

But, only minutes into my shopping mission, something went terribly wrong. My pace slowed, my pulse quickened, and I let my purse/weapon fall uselessly to the floor. I stood in store windows gaping for full minutes, throwing myself completely off-schedule. It was a velvet coat, then a platinum necklace, then a glittered snowflake ornament, then a sequined placemat. It didn’t matter what it was; the more light it reflected, the more I wanted it. Those display designers – the evil geniuses – had figured out my weakness: shiny things. In the time it took to say, “Do you have that in white gold?”, the plan was totally done for. I wandered, sauntered through every store on every floor, taking hours, missing nothing, finding reason after reason to wish I were a Trump. Or a Hilton. Or a Rockefeller. Someone.

I didn't buy anything, but I did make a list. Today, during my three o'clock zone-out, I outlined dozens of items that I want, I want, I want. Then I estimated their collective cost, a need-to-know should I decide to present myself with all of them. Which I probably will. I'll dump out the jar of change, search the coat pockets, call Switzerland, whatever. And, yes, it's selfish, ugly greed. The inevitable result, I suppose, of my own image coming at me from the shiny green surface of ten-thousand Christmas bulbs. But this list isn't going anywhere. Not to Santa, not anymore. I make a plan, I go it alone, I get it done.

Just don't distract me.

Don't Go There

Let’s say you’re a man. A big boss-man kind of guy. You’re in charge of four people: one other man, and three women. One day, because you’re a nice big boss-man, you take your four people out to lunch. The restaurant host brings your party to a large booth. Two of the women slide into the near side of the booth, while the third woman makes a quick run to the restroom. You and the other guy slide into the far side of the booth.

The four of you sit, chat, and glance at the menus for a minute. The third woman comes back and is faced with a choice: which side? You mention that that side is roomier because the occupants are “smaller”, so why not sit there? Fine and true. She sits.

Then you push, inexplicably. You make a bet. “I bet,” you say, “that our side weighs more than your side!” That the two men weigh more than the three women. You and the other man quietly confer, and announce your combined weight. The three women glance at each other like, ok, who’s gonna change the subject? Nobody does. So you pick the tiniest woman and make a guess at her weight. It’s close to correct, apparently; she nods. Then you move on to the second woman, who happens to be pregnant. As such, she is still the mid-sized of the three. You guess at her weight. More or less, she says, and gives you the number.

Only one unknown is left. Simple math. The third woman, you compute, would have to weigh more than 130 pounds for the female side to “beat” the male side.

She weighs more than 130 pounds. But it doesn’t feel like a victory.

I’m going to offer you a tip, for the future: don’t go there. It doesn’t matter that you’re really harmless and you meant for it to be just a game to pass the time. It doesn’t matter that the original assertion – I do think – was meant to highlight the small size of the women across the table compared to you. When it comes to weight, don’t go there. It has nothing to do with whether we are large, medium, or small; I have a friend who was recently very offended by someone jumping into a conversation to tell her she needed to eat more. Just don’t go there. And please recognize, because for the love of crap, it’s about time, that any mention of a woman’s physical appearance by men she works with is a diminishment. It is. So don’t go there.

What's In a Name

I spent an appalling amount of time deciding that “New Moon Hazel” was the perfect name for my blog. The process, condensed, probably took 48 hours. At first, I was wedded to a phrase I’m not going to disclose here. I didn’t make it up, though it’s far from cliché. But it's such a treasure that I wanted to use it for something big someday, like a book. I also considered using Latin in the title, figuring this would give the whole enterprise some dignity. But you walk a fine line, employing Latin in American English. Ad Astra Per Aspera, I concluded, was waaay pretentious. Dead languages are too much for a medium in which most people can’t get it up for punctuation.

Then I thought in terms of gaining wild popularity. In order to recruit by way of Google the most possible readers, I would make up a good, solid, pornographic title. That would attract everyone from tortured souls to my own friends to conservative congresspersons. Maybe I'd mention Oprah somewhere in there, to snag all the rest. It was a good idea, for half a minute. (In the end, um, ew.)

Next idea, I stole a line from Tennyson. In an effort to refresh my knowledge of nineteenth century British poetry*, I'd been doing some reading. I was especially taken with the poem “In Memoriam”, which Tennyson wrote – struggled with for years – after the death of his best friend. It’s raw and exhausting in the style of a teenager’s epic diary entry, but with literacy.

Listen to this:

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
     Confusions of a wasted youth;
     Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise.

Wow! Half prayer, half apology. Dude could write the forward to my autobiography. So I took “Wandering Cries” and made it my title, forgetting temporarily that I was trying to shed my gloomy, perpetually self-and-otherwise-deprecated image. Better not to reference the Brits, then.

This 'New Moon Hazel' thing came to me by chance. I was roaming around a renaissance festival (go for the Shakespeare, stay for the meat) and wandered into one of those vendor tents where crafty people sell weird stuff. There was a display of the Celtic Tree Zodiac. I found that, according to ancient Celtic astrologers, I am represented by the Hazel Tree. Specifically, I'm a new moon Hazel, because I was born in the first two weeks of the Hazel sign. (As opposed to the last two weeks, which go under the full moon designation.) Although I've never believed in astrology totally, I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that both my Leo and Rooster traits are fairly well-pronounced. And this Celtic branch had me even more accurately pegged. Or so I hoped; snippets of the diagnosis told me everything I wanted to hear: “perceptive and clever”, “desire to acquire knowledge”, “great deal of imagination”, “idealistic thinker”, “abundance of nervous energy”, “keen observer of the truth”, “dislike of pretense”, and, my favorite, “excellent debater and writer.” Down with self-deprecation! This identity was exactly what I was going for.

And now - thank you, Blogger - I have it.

* I used to have some, I swear. There was a term paper – when was that? Eighth, ninth grade? Really good stuff, I uncovered. Really good. Really.

Orange and Blue

Last November, I had an afternoon that was just lovely. No other word for it. It was a Tuesday (my favorite - no excuses on a Tuesday) with perfect fall weather: sunny, warmish, orange, and blue. I finished a quiet daytime shift at the pub around two. I headed over to Fell's Point, where I spent the afternoon doing the thing I love best, nothing. Urban, waterside nothing.

I ate a late lunch at a place on Thames Street. Among hipster daycrawlers, I sat alone at the bar with my book, an act that required the muted confidence I'd always wanted and had finally found. Then I went outside and sat on a bench. Stared at the harbor. Watched the pigeons. Felt the air. Thought back to the time when a happy 3pm was a concept in the abstract, never an experience. I opened my book again but couldn't concentrate for the voices in my head. It's so rare, just go with it. Plain life - yours - and it's singing. For once. Just listen, ok, and GO with it.

Should you ever find yourself in such a lovely afternoon, please do as I say and go with it. Don't muck it up with work, or reading, or heavy thoughts, or thoughts at all. If you must bother to commit any of it to memory, remember only the place, so you can go there again. Or maybe remember the color, so you can paint it. Yes, paint it. Later, when for irrefutably excellent reasons your life has swung back in the direction of office-bound Tuesdays, you can hang the painting on a blank wall and think, well, I had some time.

Quickly, Before I Pass Out

I am dead tired and I want to go to bed in seventeen minutes. Because if I go to bed in seventeen minutes, I can sleep for longer than three and a half hours. Like, eight hours.

So, this post will not be artful. What I've done since Friday is work. What I've thought about since Friday is work. What I've talked about, laughed about, and sighed about since Friday is work. This is not a work blog - and I don't disclose details about my job because I wish to keep it - but you need to know this: what I do brings me into contact with people from all over the world, many of whom have genius-level IQs and all of the accompanying personal qualities.

Now, I've always fit in with nerds. They tend to like me a lot. I'm right up their competitive, socially limited alley - smart but not smarter, cooler but not cool. Then I found myself in a large room with thousands of them, responsible in part for making them do things that they are apparently not wired to do, like fill out forms, read simple directions, and walk in a straight line towards a destination. Holy whack, nerds need help with everything. I'm an extremely nervous person, but they make me look like one of those guys who goes around wearing sandals and using the phrase "no worries".

So, after each long (long, long) day of all that, my coworkers and I needed a drink. We needed between three and seven drinks, usually, which of course made the following day even longer. This is unlike my typical weeknight behavior, which, as I've said, is some variation of sit-read-stare-write. I enjoyed it, unexpectedly. But I still wished fervently for it to end - even as I sat swirling my red wine, smiling, watching Taiwanese scientists get down on the dance floor, blurring the line between nerdy and cool. I guess what this makes me is old.

From Up Here

This place is a one-room palace - it's a heaven, it's a haven, and it's mine. All mine. It has a view of a gritty downtown (my favorite) and a comforter fluffier and whiter than my own. The complimentary conditioner? Makes my hair look good. The art on the walls? Photography, black and white. There's a menu for 'Dining'. It describes a twenty-dollar salad. I could order this salad; I'd never see the check.

So basically, I'm cool with staying here for a week. I'm cool with staying here for a year. I thought it as soon as the green light flashed and I swung the door open: business trip = ok. I'll muddle through the long days and I'll put up with the barside networking. Because for a few hours daily, whenever I can catch them, I've got the sleek-comfy, street-corner studio I've always wanted. Someone's home city crowds up beneath me, the grime so much farther than my window, the lights so much closer than the stars.

All Expenses Paid

Tomorrow begins my first official business trip. In past jobs, no assigned task ever took me farther than to FedEx or the nearest sandwich shop, but tomorrow I'm going to be dispatched to Pittsburgh.

Tell you the truth, I'm worried. I tend to dislike travel when it isn't self-directed, and there's nothing less independent than a business trip. My entire schedule appears to have been broken down by the hour, for a whole week. The days will be all businessy (obviously, and that's fine) but the nights threaten to involve networking. God help me, I'm an introvert writer who requires six hours a day to face into corners and brood - colleague-ridden hotel bars are so not my scene. It's a damn good thing I can act.

I'm bringing the laptop, since I can and can't imagine not. I hope to have a few hours free to use it.