New Moon Hazel

Capitals and Italics

2007-11-18T16:07:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I used the word dreadful in the following context: “…absolutely nothing dreadful is happening and I’m tired of complaining about nothing…”

You can imagine, then, what simply had to happen:

I’m involved in a Situation at work. The Situation is not my fault. I neither conjured nor provoked the Situation. Yet, I’m at the center of it. It’s about me. I’m the one who has to find a way out of it.

Basically, I’m being offered a new job in a different department of my company. Current Department Honcho emphatically DOESN’T WANT ME TO TAKE IT. Possible New Department Honcho is PRACTICALLY BEGGING.

Wait, you’re thinking. Didn’t you, like, just take a new job in a different department of the company you’d been working for? Why yes, yes I did. That’s why I’m hesitant. Essentially, Current Department JUST trained me, so I’ve JUST become useful to them. To flee now would be, in my opinion, a crappy thing to do to people I like.

Indeed, there’s a but.

BUT, the new job is a level up. A promotion, some people would call it, although that sounds like something I should be happy about and I can’t be. This “promotion” also comes with more money. Not a life-overhauling amount more, but more is more. I think most sane people would say I should take it.

In fact, most people, quite sane and less so, have already said that. Without my having spread the news to anyone, EVERYONE in my office seems to know about this. They’ve all stopped by my cubicle to register their opinions. I’ve asked for opinions from outsiders, too – my parents think I should take it, my friends think I should take it. There’s wisdom in majority opinion, yes? So, I should take it.

Obviously, there’s a but.

BUT, if I took this job, I’d be making…a move. A “move” in the more negative sense of the word, like, a calculated shift that changes a whole bunch of people’s plans. My belief in life is that we can’t all go around thinking we don’t have responsibilities toward each other. And the fact, THE FACT, is that I’D be making life harder for people who don’t deserve to have more shit shoveled onto them. (Have I mentioned that conditions in Current Department are less than pleasant lately?) No question, I’d feel badly about that.

Of course, there’s a but.

BUT, I know that this is work. Work, not life. Work, not baseball. I can’t make decisions based on what’s good for the team. I could, but how can I then expect that if given an opportunity to elevate themselves, EACH member of said team would make the choice that favors the group as I did? I can’t, duh. I’m somewhat foolish and sometimes stupid, but not very much/all the time either and I’D HAVE TO BE.

Yeah, well, there’s a but.

BUT, the story’s a little sad either way it ends. I dream of neither path. If we’re talking about What Tracy Wants, then we’re having a different discussion entirely. To take the new job would be to sign up for a longer period of time than perhaps I mean to spend at this place. To spend a longer period of time would be to progress further into middle-life, i.e. the years that go best when supported by reliable income and sensible decision making. To do this would be to admit that I’m actually DOING THIS.

And we’ve arrived at dreadful. I’m full with dread of Monday, as I haven’t been in years. The Situation is waiting.

Missing October

2007-11-11T12:43:00.000-05:00

I’ve gone and ruined what could have been a smashing anniversary. Well, okay, it wouldn’t have been smashing. This blog is smashless, mostly. But it has been going for a year now, or rather, it had been going for a year as of October 1st, which it is now one month, one week, and four days past.

The reasons I missed October are: I no longer have internet at home (and writing at work is an irresponsible proposition, given that it can take me up to three hours to craft a post about my own shoes); nothing dreadful is happening and I’m tired of complaining about nothing (if one is going to complain, one should have cause – unless one is four years old (I need to grow up)); and I’ve been out most nights, drinking riotously, left with neither the time nor the wherewithal to craft posts on any subject, including my own shoes.

Also, I've been focused on various well-intentioned Octobery pursuits like cleaning my house, cooking, doing yoga, attending conventions. Excuses. Pick one and apply to the week of your choice.

I met with two friends from my old writing workshop yesterday, and they are the reasons I'm shirking everything on this blue-skied Sunday to bring you the first post of my second year. One friend is nearly finished with her novel and is working on finding an agent. The other has involved herself in National Novel-Writing Month, the point of which is to lay down 50,000 words in thirty days. Neither friend is going to be on shelves by Christmas, but both are making such admirable progress in writing such great stories that I feel inclined to listen to them. They're telling me to write.

It's simple, the theory of progress in writing. It's like losing weight. All you do is, you just do it: a little bit every day, behave the way you know you should, plan to let yourself slip up tomorrow as long as you get back on track the day after that. Simple, but not easy. Or else I'd be a size four with three published novels by now, and clearly.... No, no. Can't go there.

I have a respectable amount of work to begin with - about 8,000 words of what started out as a short story, which my writing friends inform me has too long an arc and really needs to be turned into a novel. This I'm taking as neither an insult nor a compliment, but certainly as bad news. What, I'm not done yet? So, I've plucked this particular piece from my pool of unfinished short/shortish stories to work on exclusively. I mean, to the exclusion of others from the pool, not to the exclusion of The Bachelor and (occasional) nights of riotous drinking. It's not October anymore, but I'm still me.

Angst, Part Eighty-Six

2007-09-28T20:34:00.000-04:00

They're blowing bubbles off the Washington Monument tonight. It's pretty. I would post a picture, but I haven't got one. I didn't bring a camera. Because I like to keep things in my head.

I might as well interrupt myself to note: If you're thinking this is justanotherangstypost, you are, of course, correct. I have one setting. It's starting to freak me out. So, okay then, two settings: angsty and panicked. I think they're slightly different.

"I saw you roaming about the Baltimore Book Festival. Your pants mismatched your shoes and you appeared to be talking to yourself." That's nobody's quote. That is the thing I was saying to myself, aloud and in a British accent, while roaming. Rehearsal of imagined comments from other (imagined) people to me : a default pastime of mine. Disturbing? Don't answer.

Believe me, if I thought I could be anything other than borderline schizophrenic, I would go ahead and be it. I would stop batting at gnats that don't exist, speaking to myself in the voices of characters I haven't bothered to export to the page where they belong. And for the love of God or whatever, I would stop telling about such things on a blog, as casually as if they were TV ads killing the time between. But I know what happens when I do things, really, in the world outside my head. Nothing. Nothing happens.

See, I haven't found the cure for invisibility. I'm stumped. Tonight they're blowing bubbles off the Washington Monument. I watch people watching them, snapping their pictures, those see-through bubbles that don't come so near as six feet above the heads of tall people before disappearing. I - for all my solidity - might not have been seen at all.

Red Circles

2007-09-14T22:57:00.000-04:00

I'm walking down my city street in the rain, at night, with a fridge pack of Diet Coke tucked under one arm. In the other: three plastic bags with fields of bullseyes on their fronts. Steps behind me, someone yells.

"Tar-GET!" Emphasis on the get. Tar-GET. Should I be afraid? What does he mean? Tar...get out of here? Tar...get your ass back to the suburbs? I turn around to look - it's just a tipsy hipster. Nothing to worry about there.

I was already feeling the guilt before he said anything. What self-respecting snooty twenty-something urban-dwelling liberal shops three bags worth at Target on a Friday night? This is Mount Vernon, Charm City, for crap's sake. I think the deal is, I'm supposed to be out smoking in a narrow area, looking dour and European.

But I was at a box store. A big one. In Pikesville. I drove there, polluting all the way. And you know what? I got a pretty two-toned bamboo cutting board for just $10.99.

City living is what I've always wanted - I feel even snootier now that I do things like power-walk to Federal Hill, hustle up the steps, admire the sunset, and hit the bar on the way home - but I do have some adjusting to do. Like, I don't understand how to live without Target. What if I have simultaneous need of a 6-outlet power strip, a strapless bra, and toothpaste? Where do I go? For all their blobbiness, suburban communities are, at least, easy. There's always a vast parking lot, and it's actually ajacent to the destination.

I'm realizing that I'll miss that, the ease of it all. I hate to admit it, because, really, who wants easy? It's a word that means nothing much had to happen. I avoid it on principle. But it is habit-forming; you do one easy thing, and, well, it's just so easy to do more. I'll probably continue to travel out to one Target or another, every once in a while - I'm not rich, so it's not like I can do all my shopping downtown at funky independent stores. Next time, though, I may walk with those little red circles facing in. Hipsters don't have time for practical explanations. And for whatever reason, I care.

Spring

2007-09-04T21:40:00.000-04:00

"A place for everything - "

" - and everything in it's place. I know." My mom and I are standing in my bedroom, assessing the situation, discussing the new leaf I'm turning over. It's going to be a tidy leaf. And not just tidy, but clean. I figure I might as well turn it all the way, this leaf.

"Your room is the dustbin of the western world," she'd said with great amusement, a few days earlier, in my cleared-out bedroom at the old apartment. True. I hadn't dusted once in four years and the bunnies were raging out of control. If it had been anyone's mess but mine, I'd have been disgusted. I'd always been one of those people for whom messes were personal extensions, like Pigpen from Peanuts. They were where I was. Without threat of outsiders coming around to crinkle their noses and swat at the air, cleaning and tidying just never occurred to me as possible uses of my time.

Four years of that, and I find myself an amateur trash collector. It snuck up on me.

But I won't let that happen again - I have a new rule. It was inspired by the pulse of glee I felt each time I schlepped a heavy trash bag to the dumpster. (Whee! My house is losing weight!) The rule is: one thing in, one thing out.

"Oh, yeah, good luck," my mom says when I lay down my rule. "Just don't be like your father, and throw things out before you notice what they are."

"No, I'm not talking about an all-out dumping spree," I say. "It'll be more of a thoughtful exchange. Like, I buy a new book, I give away an old shirt."

"God, you'll be naked in weeks."

I explain about balance - how this is a new buzzword in my life, how I'm going to use the Scale of Stuff to determine the Quotient of Need minus the Weight of Want, or some loopy babble like that. The point is that I will have to move again someday. When that happens, I don't want to uncover archaeological detritus suggesting that, of all the personalities warring for my head, Pigpen is winning.

"Well, this place certainly has a lot of potential," says Mom. "I hope you do keep it neat." She pauses, considering the walls. "You know, I think this shade of green came out better than we expected."

"Yeah, me too," I say. "It's light, but not pale."

"And bright, but not neon."

"Kind of a spring-y green."

"That was the idea."

The Last, at Last

2007-08-29T20:53:00.000-04:00

My final night at the old apartment is being marked by nothing. See, I called it "the old apartment". I've already moved. My bed hasn't, and some piles of crap haven't, but everything else is at the apartment - "the new apartment" - i.e. home. I'm here now, at "the old apartment" (non-home, ex-home), marking my final night with nothing.

No last episode of Friends.

No last frozen dinner on the couch.

No last ritual airing-out of the foyer, which always seemed to smell like dead animal.

Okay, the place itself isn't much of a loss. I don't know whether I'm trying to be unsentimental or if there really isn't anything to be sentimental about. I have lived here for four whole years, which makes it the second longest I've lived anywhere. But, they were four tumultuous years. I have lived here with three different people, all good friends. But, we barely saw each other, same address or not. I have lived here through a lot of life changes. But, not the kind of changes that stopped me eating frozen dinners on the couch most nights. (That's less pathetic than it sounds. I do like them.) Sometimes I wonder, when the good and bad balance like this, whether anything has happened at all. That kind of tree-falls-in-the-forest thinking can drive you mad.

Pragmatist answer to the question: IT DOESN'T MATTER. I like it.

So, it seems that unsentimental is the way to go. No last anything, no photographs, no kissing the ground. This is weird for me. I tend to flail, emotionally. I cry when things go changing. I think up words that mean how I feel and write them down, arrange them. That I did, I guess. Just one more: okay.

So, September

2007-08-15T19:34:00.000-04:00

I have an appointment tomorrow to pick up keys. My next apartment sits waiting, empty, lead-tested and roach-bombed. It's old. It has the kind of hardwood floors that happened before hardwood floors got to be so chic. I worry that it's haunted but am willing to make friends with spirits if I must. It's in the place where I wanted to be.

So, I'm moving tomorrow. Or rather, as of tomorrow I've officially and for all postal purposes arrived at a new address. I have until the end of the month to vacate the current apartment, thankfully; I haven't even begun dismantling shelves and furniture. Paintings and lamps and ceramic items are still on display, undisturbed as they've been for four years. I can't make myself do the packing. It's better, for me, to put things together than to take them apart.

In two weeks I'll have done it anyway, because that's what the deal is - and it's sweeter than most. I do appreciate the large window of time that good luck and nice people have opened for me in this move. But I hate chaos. It puts me completely off-game. Last moving day, I woke up shaking at 4am, dropped a box of books on my foot, crashed my parents’ van into a guard rail, and ended up on the floor of my bare apartment, rocking back and forth singing show tunes. I wish that was an exaggeration.

So, I'm aiming to get through it. To the part where there's paint on the walls and mugs in the cupboard. September. Books grouped by genre, alphebetized by author. September. Towels washed and rolled up, clothes hanging by color. September, September. It'll all be fine and fabulous then.

The Birthday/Comeback

2007-08-06T14:33:00.000-04:00

At 10:06 this morning, my exact birthminute, I was wearing sweaty gym clothes and slouching in an armchair with my computer on my lap, struggling to write what was meant to be a very entertaining email reply to a friend. It took me an hour and consisted of four sentences. Picture that. It's fairly representative of my first twenty-six years, which have been all about struggling to do easy things that aren't, and failing (though valiantly) to look and smell better than God seems to have intended.

But let me not give you the impression that I'm not a blazing success, because I am. I've been told that nobody does angst like I do.

Nobody! Hell. Yeah.

Anyway, it's a happy-hopeful candy-colored sort of day, the birthday, so I'll keep it positive and make only one new year's resolution: to finish the things I start.

That is, you'll be hearing more from me.

See Here

2007-07-09T21:07:00.000-04:00

If you're going to Kentucky, and if you're going to camp there, and if the camping is taking place on a vast expanse of former commune known as the Frog Farm, and if it's hot July, here's what you need to know: the tent should have windows.

Past that, you don't need to know nothin'. Not what time it is, not where you left your cell phone, not what's happening next. Please don't bring a portable anything, or watch the news, or - heaven help you - email. As you've figured out by now, (assuming you have the normal, manageable amount of ego) the modern world can withstand your dropping out. If it helps set you in the proper mood, tell yourself the harsher version: It doesn't matter. It's boring. And you are just so over it.

This, on the other hand -

- well, this is something new. New like knitting, skinny pants, and God himself. Everything old, again. Not that I would ever recommend such things purely on their popular appeal. You'll have to see for yourself, and that's why you need a tent with windows. That, and hot July.

Solstice

2007-06-21T21:10:00.000-04:00

There are six things I'm not doing because I'm doing this. Multitasking is a ridiculous invention - an impossibility, even. You have to choose. Tonight I choose the balcony. Maybe because it's summer now, the latest-coming night, prime balcony time. I enjoy these things.

But I'm not making progress. Oh, hell no. And that's too bad. I know of people who are making progress, as I am not. They're very impressive. They have medals and microphones and homes made entirely of recycled materials. They have astonishingly shiny hair. But I never see them on any balcony. I bet they don't even know that today is their longest-staying day, the best chance they'll have all year to see the light and step into it, too. Me, I never miss these things.

The Strawberry

2007-06-12T19:46:00.000-04:00

You like them all, but your favorites are strawberries. You eat them at the average rate of one pound a day, which translates to something like $28.49 a week, $34.99 if you go fancy, organic. That's insane, but you have your reasons: no food better represents happiness, red is your favorite color, you're trying to prevent cancer.

Between the running, the toning, the sunless tan, and the strawberries, you'd been feeling very healthy of late. Your mind was on physicality and off, well, itself. You were ignoring the fact that you hadn't been writing, hadn't been reading, hadn't been keeping up with smart publications/current events/oil changes. I can't, I don't have time, I hafta go running. It slips away quickly. You start forgetting words, losing arguments, losing track. It's terrible, but hey, the endorphins are pumping (or whatever they say) so you're happy and even better - you're healthy.

But when you're sitting on the shoulder of the beltway with a smoking, dead vehicle, you're not healthy anymore. You're sick because you know you've just lost your strawberries. Your monthly berry bill is half the coming car payment. You have to get to work, but you don't have to be healthy. You don't have to feel good. You don't have to eat expensive fruit.

So you do some reading, some research. You remember words like interest and emissions, what they mean - no really, what they mean that you suddenly have to do. You skip a day of running and go to the store. You pick out a new car. You say goodbye to your old car. It was with you for nine years, mostly causing trouble, kind of like a spouse, in sickness and in health, nine crazywild years that changed you. The new car works quietly and well. It's not exciting; it's dependable and predictable. If it were a person , it would probably read the Washington Post. It's red, the color of a ripe strawberry, and you're paying for it yourself - first time you've ever done that. It feels healthy, just not like healthy used to feel.

I Get It

2007-05-28T15:39:00.000-04:00

People have had babies before. But not my people. This is my oldest cousin's first child, my godparents' first grandchild, my grandmother's first great-grandchild. He's the first new baby my extended family has welcomed in fifteen years. He's the first newborn I've held since my own sister was born. He's named for his father - my cousin - who was named for his father, who was named for his father, who was named for his father. End it already, I once thought. I've never been a great upholder of tradition; I prefer, as a matter of general philosophy, to modernize and move on and overthink - never to do things like give names and have babies just because It's What People Do.

But that was before he got here and I saw him. Now, 120 years of William Joseph is exactly exact and perfectly right. The one I grew up with is a role model and a teacher. He used to read books in corners and give me new vocabulary words to learn. I learned them. We're finally and irrevocably grown up.

Deadhead for a Day

2007-05-20T17:15:00.000-04:00

This was one of the busiest weeks of the last few months, so I almost skipped the concert last night. I nearly chose in favor of a night on the sofa and whatever was on TBS (probably Legally Blonde, it's always Legally Blonde) just to have some time to myself, finally. But at the last minute, I decided to go along with my friends to see the Dark Star Orchestra, a Grateful Dead tribute band that aims to recreate the Dead experience by playing exact setlists from bygone decades.

Now, I'm no Deadhead. I certainly have nothing against them - they tend to be nice people, with a very refreshing lack of fashion sense - but I can't claim to be an expert on the music or philosophies of the Grateful Dead. I like some of their songs, but only the upbeat, melodic stuff. Here's a bit of definite blasphemy: fourteen-minute lyric-free jam sessions bore me to tears.*

Even so, I was pretty excited to see this band, you know, for the experience. We arrived into bizarro 1968, everyone in tie-dye with cell phones. There were fans of all kinds - the stereotypical aging hippie, the stereotypical latter-day hippie, and even a fairly sizable group of corporate types in collared, buttoned shirts. (On a Saturday night? At this show? Yeah, I found that disturbing on a few levels.) We wormed our way into a spot right behind the sound guys, a straight shot to the stage, bonus points for the rail to lean against. For the first half of the show, I kept myself amused watching the happy bobbing heads in front of me. There was a guy next to us who would periodically thrust his arm into the air and wail toward the stage, "Jerry! Jerrrrrryyyyy!" Ah, people and their music. It's a beautiful thing.

By the time the band took a break, I was getting cranky. This had already been a long, long show by my standards (I have the attention span of a flea) and in fact it was long, long break, to be followed by, God help me, a long, long second half. I was tired. My feet hurt. My back ached. There were no chairs anywhere. I considered curling up in a corner; I figured this crowd would let me be. But on a trip to the bathroom, my friend ran into someone she knew, who insisted we all come upstairs to the balcony.

Downstairs, it turned out, had been only a light, refined taste of what the Dead experience was supposed to be. Upstairs was the grainy, whole-wheat version. True Deadheads danced around us, their arms and legs flailing indiscriminately, their eyes mostly closed. An old man with a lazy eye and a peg leg charged around the floor like a bull toward the red cape. A few people wandered over to chat, doubly impaired and unintelligable, but seeming to want to enthuse with us over the general excellence of the night, and of the music. One guy asked me how old I was. Twenty-five, I said. His response, one I'd never gotten before: "When Jerry died, you were eight."**

I usually don't (can't) dance unless I've had a couple drinks - which I didn't do - but the beauty of hippie style is that no one cares much for technique. Caught up in the feeling surrounding us, we had all joined in the Slow Flail by the end of the night. I don't know that this show will turn me into a real follower - I'll probably just continue to put "Uncle John's Band" on repeat when I need to relax - but I'm thrilled to say that I was there. I was there, man. It was like going back in time. Just like that, I bet.

*I'm told that they wouldn't, if only I were high. If only!
**Faulty math - I was actually fourteen when Jerry Garcia died. It was 1995. I remember it. A whole bunch of those bear t-shirts showed up around school that year.

Living Here

2007-05-12T18:31:00.000-04:00

My bedroom door has become half-disconnected - by which I mean that the top hinge has come unhinged. Or rather, the hinge device itself has come off the wall, so the hinge still works, theoretically, except that it can't do its job as long as the hingy-plate-piece-thingy no longer fastens to anything. (See, this is why I can't be an architect.) Anyway, the door is useless. But that's not the most annoying thing in my life.

That would be this: My new black ballet flats, which are good quality and which I bought for just 50% of their intended price, are well beyond adorable. I've gotten at least one compliment on them at every single wearing. Unfortunately, they cause raging, angry blisters on my hours-long weekend walks around Mount Vernon, my favorite neighborhood in Baltimore. This means that I'm unable to pull off both cute shoes and a jaunty step. I have to choose, as Carrie Bradshaw never did.

I choose the neighborhood. My long walks are the light of my life and that's no exaggeration - think what you will. Mount Vernon is the closest to Europe I feel in Baltimore, and it isn't expensive to get to or bursting with good conversation I can't understand to overhear. This is the season when it's booked solid with markets, festivals, and events. I make the fifteen-minute commute every weekend, as early as 8am if I must. I'll miss none of it.

And that has surprised me very much, my love for Baltimore. Four years ago, I was hoping I wouldn't end up here. I wasn't shocked, though, when I did end up here; I never ever manage to get what I want. But as it turns out, I'm pretty good at wanting what I get. Lately, when I think about following some dream to New York City - or even the much-fantasized-about Europe - it exhausts me. I like it here, where if my shoes don't fit, there's a doorless room full of more comfortable options just up the road.

The Intruder

2007-04-29T17:58:00.000-04:00

There's a man in my neighborhood who used to like to break into my apartment. Actually, that's not fair: it was probably not a man, it was probably a woman. I knew this because none of the electronics were ever missing. My laptop, my roommate's laptop, the DVD players, the digital cameras - all remained after the break-ins. The only things that ever appeared to have been touched were the contents of my medicine cabinet - creams, lotions, pills, etc. - which I found congregating in the sink, on the floor, or even in the toilet when I came home. It always upset me, the floating facewash. I'm sure you understand.

It took me a while to figure out what was going on. Oh no, I'd think, rounding the corner that leads to my bathroom, as I caught sight of the doors of my medicine cabinet. Wide open at odd angles - I could tell they weren't how I left them. I'm a messy person, but I have an excellent memory. I know when I've closed a door and when I haven't. Slowly, suspiciously, as if the perp might be hiding in the shower, I'd walk into the bathroom and survey the scene. Yep. Always just as it had been the last time: everything out of the medicine cabinet, nothing left in. And then I started to notice that while everything may have been out, everything was there. SAY, WHAT KIND OF A BURGLAR ARE YOU? I'd shout into mid-air. No response. Sheesh. If I had bothered to break in to someone's apartment, I'd at least take a bottle of Ibuprofen, for the road.

Eventually, it occurred to me that a theftless intrusion was a whole different game. My stuff is worth stealing, like anyone's stuff. A couple of minutes on e-bay can teach you all you need to know about stuff: people like it. Even when it's crap. Especially, they like the crap they don't currently have. Therefore, if they have an opportunity to seize such crap, and no one is around to stop them, whether it's right or wrong, they may well take it. So, clearly, what I had here was not a physical case of stuff at all, or even crap.

My neighbor owns a hammer, which causes pounding, which causes shaking, which causes mess. My neighbor's hammering of her wall is an act that I believe to be independent of me. Perhaps she redecorates frequently. Likes to put up pictures. Is a carpenter. I've got no reason to think she's been hammering her wall in the middle of the day specifically to antagonize me; I am probably at work, I produce almost no noise with which to anger her, and, in fact, we've never met. Besides that, in case it matters - and I think it usually does - she has an angelic singing voice and is most likely a lovely person.

But the hammering, which isn't about me, is still an intrusion on my life. The wall shakes and the facewash falls right out of the cabinet. Every so often, I have to clean up my bathroom. I didn't say it was a bad thing - the bathroom has to be tidied up occasionally anyway, and otherwise I might never do it. My neighbor knows neither what she does to me, nor what she does for me. And this, dear readers, is something we must always remember.

Furthermore

2007-04-20T20:30:00.000-04:00

The lamentation will continue, at least for one more post, and then I swear I'll get happy, or funny, or something good will - well, whatever. I think I probably shouldn't write anything about what happened this week, but there are two reasons why I can't leave it alone and maybe they'll fade a bit if I share them:

1. I know exactly what I was doing at 7:15 and 9:45 on Monday morning, the times of the shootings. In the first instance, I was eating Fiber One with granola, skim milk, and strawberries, sitting cross-legged on my bed, watching the Today Show and thinking that I should probably have left the house by now if I wanted to get to work on time. In the second, I had just thrown away the bag of green tea that had been steeping in hot water for the last five minutes. I was annoyed because I hate green tea - I think it tastes like somebody poured water over a clump of rotting leaves, I only drink it because it's so ridiculously healthy - and now that it was ready, I had to force it down. Man, this sucks. That was what I was thinking.

2. I have indirect but important connections to two of the students who died. I've taken to repeating their names out loud for no particular reason and with no particular idea of what I intend to accomplish. The speaking of the names is never a scheduled tribute or an emotional outburst. Simply, I will park the car and say a name. Open the refrigerator and say a name. I never met either of these students.

Now, as a very wise man once said, that's all I have to say about that.

No-Spring Year

2007-04-15T08:25:00.000-04:00

Where is our lightness and light? I can't come up with a current event that isn't bringing us down these days. All the politicians are angry - except one - and everyone wants to see a change in some direction, and although it's been promised, we don't yet have our spring.

Then a guy calls a group of us hos on the open air, and none of us will leave it alone as we should have done (the worst thing to do with bad behavior intended to get a "laugh" is to pay heaping amounts of attention to it), but we can't, obviously, because it was just that stupid, so we're playing catch with blame and bad words, tiring ourselves out to make change, but we still don't have our spring.

And then Kurt Vonnegut dies, a man who wrote highly unlikely stories that are playing out, in fact, right under our stuffed noses, a man who wrote books we could talk back to, or take issue with, or believe. I quoted him at dinner once, to an accusation that I did not support our troops. Our troops are being treated like toys a rich kid got for Christmas, I said, and people looked up, because that was interesting and it made sense. I don't know who will feed me my next good line. It's scary to have to come up with one myself, so in that way maybe I'm not even ready for my spring.

April Rant

2007-04-05T23:27:00.000-04:00

"Are you serious? You HAVEN'T DONE YOUR TAXES YET?" She's clearly horrified and probably surprised. I'm a responsible, punctual person - a dork. Everybody knows this. I like charts, graphs, and office supplies. I continue to be wildly impressed with the design of the paper clip. It's just the teeniest bit of metal twisted brilliantly!!! I'm also a mess.

Have I done my taxes? Ha! I don't even know where my taxes are. Where my W-2s are, that is. I hate that: W-2s. You'd think they'd have named them something that made a bit more sense, like "Yearly Totals" or "Wow, You Need a Better Job". I absolutely cannot stand things that don't make sense to me, and taxes make no sense to me. I don't mean the part where we have to pay them - that's fine, I get it, I even favor it. It's just the methodology and the terminology. Why do we have to "do" taxes at all? I refuse to believe there isn't some frightening piece of federal technology that could record all our earnings and expenses, that knows how many dependents we have, that can tell whether or not we've actually donated money to our church, etc., and could use that information to set factors and formulas to remove automatically from our paychecks the correct amount in the first place, thus leaving us happily ignorant of the whole process. Or maybe I'm just annoyed because tax forms bring up math in the springtime. April could be such a lovely month, otherwise.

Many of my peers insist that they enjoy tax time, since it means they get lots of money back. These are mostly the peers who have managed, through some kind of government-encouraged existential crisis, to claim "0" instead of "1" on their W-4s. This is another thing that makes no sense to me. It's like wearing size zero, it's completely ridiculous. Zero is zero. Nothing, not there. You may think your existence is debatable, but if you're pacing around on April 14th clutching W-forms and sweating profusely, then financially, it is not.

That'll be me, most likely. I am a responsible person, but much more so at the eleventh hour. And I've nothing much to look forward to, as I always declare myself, myself. I doubt I'll have to pay, but my refund will be small. Sandwich-sized. Good for an afternoon at the mall, where it'll *poof* into lattes and going-out tops that will turn out to be embarrassing, and no good will come of it and nothing will change. Speaking of horrified. Maybe the feds should just keep it.

Gastronomy à la Karl

2007-03-30T21:58:00.000-04:00

Fish soufflé
Quail flambé
Protein sachet

Today's entry in the food diary? Nope - it's tomorrow's. Because that's when I'll be starting the zany Karl Lagerfeld diet. Amid the many diet crazes to sweep the nation in recent years (and by "sweep" I mean misinform, traumatize, and finally, sabotage) this one was quite overlooked. I found out about it yesterday, over a lunch of deluxe pizza - one of the many food items Karl would deem unforgiveably indulgent in the way that is typical of Americans.

Our essential Americanness is probably the reason that the K-man's diet never attained Weight Watchers status in this country. We love: pie (both eating and baking, as a kind of heartland sport), spirited encouragement, positivity. We hate: hunger as punishment, harsh metaphors, words with suspect accent marks over the e. Karl gives us none of what we want in a diet plan and everything we don't. A 1,000-calorie limit? Snacks of homeopathic granule? Orders to be a "single soldier" marching toward victory? Dinners of rabbit? I mean, rabbit?! Dude, not unless it's chocolate and wrapped in pink cellophane.

But my favorite recommendation of Karl's is that we not try to lose weight for downer reasons like cardiac health or self-esteem. Rather, we must lose madly in the name of fashion. We must lose so that we become the fourth person in the world on whom skinny jeans are not an atrocity. This, he insists, is actually the best attitude toward weight loss: "nothing in your life depends upon it." You know, I think he's really got something here! Personally, I always have a difficult time succeeding at the things upon which my life does depend - that's why I'm starting this diet tomorrow!

Now, if only I could remember how to flambé a quail...

Read the Slate article, my main souce of information.

Living in Yellow

2007-03-27T20:08:00.000-04:00

I was dreaming in black last night. Swirly, inky black, like the color of a movie with no plot, just terror. I awoke already upset and turned on the morning news - never a calming distraction, especially not in Baltimore. It wasn't going to be a good day, but then it was a good day:

Summer in March. A three-course lunch and laughter the whole way through. Early pardon from work following the three-course lunch, a retirement celebration. The scenic route and rolled-down windows - and the confidence that it was too early in the season for bugs to fly in. My third run of the week, in spite of sore muscles. A thunderstorm I ran right under and all the way through, soaked completely, before a quick dance in the rain.

So, you can save it. It can be saved.

More Whining

2007-03-24T14:18:00.000-04:00

I'm pissed off. The bottom third of my computer screen has become a blacked-out mess of pulsating horizontal lines that make it impossible to get anything done without feeling epileptic. Tech support has been unhelpful, probably because I registered my complaint only minutes ago, after having put up with this problem for nearly two weeks. That's why I'm pissed off - I'm annoyed with myself. I can put up with anything. I won an award for it once. You could plop me down in the middle of the desert and instead of using the sun to navigate toward civilization, I'd lie down to get a tan and wait for the rain that never comes. That ain't good.

Neither is anything else I've done (not done) lately. Like I said in the last post, it's been all TV and weeping for the last few weeks, with infrequent breaks to go to Panera and work on the story I'm writing. Apparently, I can only write this story while dining on French Onion soup. This is not an acceptable quirk; in fact, I suspect it's not a quirk at all, but an excuse - I can't go to Panera every day. I can go maybe once a week. Once-a-week writing does not add up to great success anytime in the next five years or so. Which is perfect for me, because then I don't have to finish something I actually feel good about and think has potential.

Do I need psychotherapy, or what?

Anyway, I'm in unloading mode and I guess that's what this blog is for. I never took the time to define it, did I? Some people say right up front that their blog is a diary, some people insist it's a showcase of their serious writing, some people have an obvious agenda. Those people are probably also the ones with personal mission statements and five-year plans. (And readers.) I don't have any of that. Surprise.

March

2007-03-21T21:22:00.000-04:00

Two weeks. Was I on vacation? Working overtime? Reading Michener? Protesting the war? Hiking through Tibet? No.

I was watching televison.

A while ago, I wrote about having become obsessed (re-obsessed, actually) with the first season of Felicity, the show that followed a group of nervous, drama-prone New York college students for four years. Since then, I've watched the other three seasons on DVD, which, at twenty-some episodes a season, required serious dedication. I finished the series two days ago - it was a five-tissue finale - and am now officially in mourning.

But it's time to come back to my life. I hope I can find it.

Two Fifty-One, and Nothing

2007-03-07T19:33:00.000-05:00

I was going to win Mega Millions. I knew. The day was filled with bizarre happenings, little blips that meant something unusual was about to transpire. I woke up with my contact lenses still in my eyes, having completely forgotten to take them out. I started to take a shower, but we had no hot water. Randomly, the pictures fell off the bathroom walls. When I opened my wallet to pay for lunch, the only money I had was a two-dollar bill. Later, after an ATM visit, the lady at Royal Farms gave me too much change. Concerned for my financial karma, I tried to correct her, but she brushed me away. So, clearly, I was going to win Mega Millions. Just had to.

I'd been gearing up all weekend, making plans, rehearsing lines. I simply couldn't believe it when I looked at the ticket! Is this really happening? Pinch me! I joined forces with a group of women at the gym. We signed our names to an official document and surrendered ten dollars each. We pooled two hundred and fifty tickets bought from a variety of locations. The amount split twenty-five ways, even after taxes, would put each of us into the rank of people who can buy groceries without anxiety and mental math. Groceries, or, you know, yachts. Wooohooo! We would all go to Aruba together to celebrate our luck.

Of course, I also bought myself a ticket. A single, secret ticket. A potential fortune to be shared only with those of my choosing. I imagined paying off all my debts and loans, and buying an entire block of houses in the city to rehab at my job-free leisure. I decided I'd turn the place into a community for artists, musicians, and writers. Then I'd establish a charitable foundation and direct it myself, traveling around the world to deliver inspiring speeches. Finally, I'd get a dog.

I stayed up until 11:22 to watch the drawing live from Times Square. It happened so fast, number after number - dreams were flattened and shattered in seconds. I could hear the neighborhood sighing along with me. Who didn't have a Mega Millions ticket last night? Or, two-hundred and fifty-one of them? Who didn't believe in some small way that it was going to happen? 11:23 was a sad, and sadly unexpected, minute. There was nothing I had to do, or could do. So I got up off the couch, took my contacts out, and went to bed.

Ego

2007-03-06T22:02:00.000-05:00

I zig-zagged around the parking lot, in search of the elusive Saturday space. Crowds were worse than usual – it was a sunny day, a happy weather day, a get-me-outta-the-house day. In the best of circumstances, I wouldn’t have ended up at a large chain store off Reisterstown Road, but for reasons too depressing to divulge without having had a single potent beverage today, my action-adventure options were none. So I circled the parking lot.

In the way-back right side, farthest from the door, I thought I saw a space. Two spaces? An SUV was blocking my view, but it looked like I might be in luck. Just before I swung my ’98 Saturn into it, I saw the Aston Martin convertible of “Meteorite Silver”, parked diagonally across the two spaces. For those of you not familiar with this car (as I was not, until I looked it up on Wikipedia), it’s a six-figure purchase. It’s a house. It’s a college education. A fancy one. So, I was rather relieved not to have smashed it.

And then I got annoyed. Because, really, how unimpressive is that? How do you become such a person – who is not James Bond – who spends the money that could have gone towards many dozens of life-enriching experiences to obtain a bulletesque vehicle instead, who cruises out to a big-box discount store on a road notorious for bent fenders, who thinks it’s his right to take up two spaces on a busy Saturday while the real people are out buying their toilet paper? Show-offs. I’m may sometimes be jealous of their posessions, but never their incredible capacity for delusion. How much lovelier is life when you understand that you are not your stuff?

Idol Wednesday

2007-02-28T22:26:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Day Two of my American Idol fanaticism. Hello, I love pop culture.

Seacrest opens by wondering if the girls can match the guys’ throw-down last night. It was more of a toss-down, so I’m betting they’ll manage.

Gina’s “Alone”, and never really cared until she met us. She brings her big rock voice, but sounds screamy at times. R says she got it together. P says, man, excellent job. S says the vocals felt forced and, hey, isn’t she supposed to be edgier? In an embarrassing moment that probably shouldn’t be happening, Seacrest admonishes her boyfriend to propose. I don’t even think she told him to say that! I say: the girl’s got spirit.

Alaina is not ready to make nice. She hits a few bad notes and doesn’t quite pull off the bold, angry thing like a true Chick, but maybe that’s better for her – I fear a lot of voters are going to HATE the fact that she’s singing this song. R says it was not good. P says it was a hard song to sing. S says he’ll put it into plain English: this performance was like R taking part in a 100-meter sprint. P says she looks beautiful, which in P-speak means she sucks. I say: I’m ready to let her go.

LaKisha sings “Midnight Train to Georgia." She’s flawless; I’ve got nothin’. R says she’s got some vibe. P says she loves it, and her. S says she’s a phenomenally good singer, but she should act like more of a star. (Um, don’t go advising normal people to become insufferable divas right before they make it big. 'Kay? Thanks.) Then he criticizes her outfit, which is uncalled for. I say: major contender.

Melinda, who is by far the most likable candidate, personality-wise, ever to appear on this show, sings “Funny Valentine”. At first, I think she’s headed for disaster (AI history: slow and old can be baaad), but she does the best version I’ve EVER heard. R says we’ve got a competition going. P is astounded. S says it was incredible and that she’s a breath of fresh air. I say: perfect.

Antonella sings a Celine song, which nobody should ever attempt. (Say what you want about Celine – that woman can sing.) She hits, like, three notes, total. R says she’s drop-dead gorgeous…but pitchy. P says less than 1 % of the population can sing like Celine. S says it was worse than last week. Antonella fights back, comparing herself to Jennifer Hudson, whom S also dissed back in the day. I say: just go home.

Jordin, who is by far the most impressive human being, everything-wise, ever to appear on this show, sings a song from Mulan. She’s incredibly articulate, insanely talented, and, oh, seventeen. She’s confident and gorgeous and charismatic. I may be slightly in love with her. R says it wasn’t her best, but is so, so impressed with where she is at this point in her life. P tells her she’s a brilliant talent. S stresses her massive potential. I say: top three.

Stephanie sings “Dangerously in Love” just like Beyonce. Which is great, except that it makes her – just like Beyonce. R says she has proven she deserves to be up here, but needs to find her own sound. P says fantastic, brilliant, more adjectives, and everyone will be in love with her. S agrees with P. Let’s say it again. He AGREES that it was terrific. I say: another one to watch.

Leslie is feelin’ good. She’s got that smoky, deep, soulful thing going on. I’m a BIG fan of the voice, but she’s too jazzy-cool for the voters, probably. I’m thinking basement club, gritty city. R likes that she’s returned to her trademark style, but it was just aiight. P says she’s in her element. S says a bunch of whack shit that we’ll skip over, because P jumps in to compare her to a “different” flavor of ice cream. The judges spiritedly discuss what flavor of ice cream Leslie is, while she kind of rides the wave. I say: keep this one around.

Haley’s got the stuff that we want, the stuff that we need. Girl has WAY more fun than she did last week and is entertaining to watch. Still, I sense reviews will not go well, because you just can’t sing “The Queen of the Night” and get away with it. R says everyone has had a good time, but the song was not great for him. P says leaps and bounds better than last week. S says she gave it a go, but advises that contestants not take on Whitney songs unless they have Whitney voices. I say: yeah, forgettable.

Sabrina sings “He Fills Me Up”, another Whitney song. She’s powerful, and actually does have the voice for it, but – meh. Except for her hair, which is itself incredibly charismatic, she just doesn’t command attention. R says nice overall. P says she’s a big contender. S says she almost confused power with shouting, but predicts she’ll be back next week. I say: works for me, I guess.

And we’re done. I’ll spare you commentary on the eliminations tomorrow, as I’ll be watching Grey’s Anatomy and, you know, reading some tremendously important literary masterpiece during the commercial breaks. Because I’m cultured, oh yes I am.

Idol Tuesday

2007-02-27T22:10:00.000-05:00

Don't worry, I won't do it every week. This week, I can't resist.

Seacrest opens with a short tribute to “Jen” Hudson, “our” first Oscar winner. Our first Oscar winner who opted not to thank AI in her jubilant acceptance speech, though God did get a shout-out. Hmm!

The top ten boys are singing tonight. Contestants will be dedicating their performances to people who inspire them, thus ensuring that we're in for a snarkable evening. I smell lots of sappy salutes to grandmothers, girlfriends, and our troops.

Phil ain’t missing us at all, since we been gone. I appreciate the revival of a fun ‘80’s tune. He makes it pretty boring, although he hits one mildly impressive note before the end. R says it was hot. P likes his tone and can hear him on the radio. S is not jumping out of his chair. R gives him the three-yeah salute. I say: meh.

Jared dedicates his performance to Mom and Dad, and then, creepily, sings “Let’s Get It On." I’m sure I don't need to tell you that this is a bad choice. Boy also should not be wearing white sneakers with a suit, or crawling on the floor. R loves his “face-move." P tells him he’s good-looking. S is reminded of the Love Boat. I say: word.

A.J. takes forever to get going, but ends well. R tells him to shake it out, dawg, and then says he has skills. P says he has a real, real, real, real, real voice. S says it was nearly very good. I say: OK, but I’m still not fanning myself over here.

Sanjaya, the gorgeous-hair kid, is stepping out, with his baby. But he does go wrong - by covering up that fab hair with a hat. The worst part is the song choice, though. Kid’s only seventeen, so I’m thinking he’s never really stepped out. R says aww, gawd, it was like a bad talent show. P tells him he was in pitch! S says it was like a ghastly lunch where the parents make the kids sing to guests. I say: oh, honey. Sigh.

Chris S. sings “Trouble”, by Ray Lamontagne, which is an AMAZING SONG that I LOVE. He’s not as good as Ray, but he’s definitely got some soul. R calls it “skills." P says he’s real awesome. S says he used to think Chris was a very good singer and tonight he is indeed still a very good singer. (Yikes, S.) I say: high point, yep.

Nick sings “Fever”, which contains the craptastic lyric “what a lovely way to burn." I get over it though, because his voice is smooth and cool like a [I wanted to have a really good comparison here, but all I can come up with is] stone. R says it was smoky and kinda nice, dude. P praises his tone. S says he looks like he just came from the office and now he’s singing this song. I say: alrighty then.

Blake's future is made of virtual insanity. He wins instant points with me for choosing Jamiroquai, but mucks it up with mediocre vocals. His beatboxing rocks, though. Not gonna win, but I like him. R gives something like a three-dawg salute, he's crazy in love with this one. P says way to go. S separates the performance into three parts and says the beginning was copycat, the middle was great, the ending was a loss. I say: S is right.

Brandon sings “Time After Time", another revival I approve of, but he doesn't pull it off. He's almost surely the most talented in this group, but his performance is dull. R says he likes the dedication to Grams, but he's not showing what he’s got. P says she understands he’s keeping his emotions inside. S tells him to put it out there and make us believe. They get into a debate about feelings. To show or not to show? I say: duh. S is right again, babe. Put it out there.

Chris R., who favors Jason Mraz in almost every possible way, sings “Geek in the Pink." I’m split on this one: the boy can sing, but he’s got a weird quality to his voice. Bzzzz, it kind of sounds like a bee is stuck in his nose. R says it was hotter than the original. P raves. S says it was the best by a mile. I say: really?

Sundance thinks you better slow your mustang down. He's sucked it up big-time for the last three weeks, but he finally busts out the voice we heard in auditions. R gives him the three-wow salute, welcomes him back, and says he dropped the bomb. P says to BRING IT like this every week. S praises, but warns not to get too excited. He can still do better, but it was great. I say: about time, Mr. Head. I knew I wasn’t delusional.

And that’s it for tonight. Tomorrow: the top ten girls, almost all of whom are more interesting than pretty much any of the guys. As usual.

Sahara

2007-02-25T23:32:00.000-05:00

Africa’s a terrible place, dangerous, screwed up. You should never go there. I already knew she thought that. My mom’s the type of person whose opinions you know. She thinks people who run red lights should be shot. She enjoys British sitcoms and thinks American ones contain too much sex. She still favors tapered jeans and says wide-leg make you look like a ragamuffin. She believes it’s lazy not to speak at least one foreign language. And she hates Africa. The good thing about people with strong opinions is that you always know where you stand with them. The bad thing is that they shut out too many interesting voices. They may speak the truth, but less frequently do they hear it from anyone else.

I’d like to go to Africa. That’s one of the truths about me. I probably shouldn’t tell her that. If I did go, I’d have to delay telling her until I’d been back for a week. Or I might just say I’d gone to Nice or Mykonos, destinations she could get behind. I’m not all that happy about this. It would be great if I could call her and say, “Hey, did you hear that piece on NPR the other day? The interview with one of the runners who crossed the Sahara? Isn’t that amazing?”

But she wouldn’t get my fascination, wouldn’t be tempted out of a comfortable lifestyle by the idea of a 4,000-mile run – 100 days, 6 countries. Wouldn’t want to hear about how this sounds to me like one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard (disregarding practicality, of course). Sounds bloody miserable, is what she would say. And dangerous. I bet none of those runners’ mothers wanted to see them cross the Sahara. That they went anyway probably wasn’t a direct defiance, it was simply a choice between voices.

Limbs: An Appreciation

2007-02-21T19:19:00.000-05:00

Four is such a good number. The Four Seasons, the Fab Four, the Fantastic Four, the Four Tops. Four food groups. Petit fours. Four walls. Four sided-pyramids. The Schick Quattro. Where would humanity be without that? But my absolute favorite four is the Four Limbs. Arm, leg, leg, arm. Excellence in design, right there.

A woman at my gym this afternoon was telling a group of us about a friend who had an ice-related accident. The friend broke both wrists AND twisted an ankle. Can you imagine? Oh, my goodness, can you even imagine? I hope she has damn good insurance. I hope she has a damn good husband! She can't even go to the bathroom on her own, God, she'll need therapy after this! We all shook our heads and lamented the poor woman's condition. Having broken a foot last summer, I've come to think that functional loss of a limb is one of the most frustrating afflictions there is. Not the worst, just the most frustrating. You feel okay, but you can't do squat. I used to have to put on sweatpants and shimmy across the hardwood floor with a Lean Cuisine on my lap, because it's not possible to use crutches and carry frozen chicken piccata at the same time. Believe me, this is even more depressing in person.

So, to be down three outta four is pretty much my nightmare. I spent the rest of my workout feeling thankful for all of my limbs, hoping that my only ever complaint about them will be that they're paler than average and kind of short.

Pretty Good Spam

2007-02-20T22:36:00.000-05:00

I've been paying attention to my spam lately. You know, it's entertaining. I choose to know very little of how spam comes about; I prefer to imagine that it's written and sent independently by small, frail aspiring lyricists who make their homes under the stairs of Manhattan high-rises. Lines from today's most excellent sample:

Now Japan will withdraw,
From this venture so flawed,
While Bush clings to his pricey, failed mission.

He mocks liars on cue,
And he loves kangaroos.

My media humor is here,
and my Ann Coulter humor is here.
My New York humor is here,
and my travel humor is here.
With laughter my mood he transforms.

Ne monkey pas avec les babouins!

Like, wow.

Year of the Pig

2007-02-18T23:00:00.000-05:00

I love a new year. If what you do on the first day signifies what you'll do throughout the year, then in the year of the pig I'll be sleeping in, writing, eating Italian sandwiches, spending time with friends, and reading my stories in front of gathered crowds.

Sounds perfect.

Anniversary of a Snow Day

2007-02-14T20:08:00.000-05:00

[I wrote this post before I had a blog, back when it was just called a journal, on another snow day exactly one year ago. It's mildly angsty, fits in with my theme of late, so here it is.]

From my living room window this morning, I could see that a man across the street had strapped on a pair of skis. He was all suited up - snow pants, parka, goggles, hat, gloves, ski poles. I watched him for nearly an hour. He would start in his backyard and get himself going with the poles. He would shoot across the twenty-foot stretch of midland between houses and into his neighbor’s backyard. He’d disappear for a few minutes, I assume to take advantage of a slightly more substantial slope on the other side. And then he’d do it in reverse, shooting back between the yards and stopping to turn around again. Back and forth on these baby slopes, on this baby snow.

It occurred to me that, had he seen me, he'd have found my actions just as strange: I was dressed in my pajamas and spinning a three-pound hula hoop around my waist. My laptop was perched precariously on the arm of a chair, pointed towards me, streaming an episode of This American Life from the year 2000. Half-read books were scattered, open, on every surface in the room. Every few minutes, I'd laugh at something on the radio show, causing me to lose my rhythm and the hoop to wobble and fall down around my ankles.

Of all the things we do when (we think) no one is watching, the most interesting is that we open ourselves up to our own truth. Here in my living room, I'm able to admit that I prefer not to get dressed before noon. I keep after the almost hopeless cause of achieving abdominal svelteness, while studying my media, my handbooks, my tomes. My neighbor, too, seems to have made an admission: he's in the wrong place. He fancies himself atop an Alp instead of in the twenty feet that separates his small home from the one next to it. Maybe today is his first time on the skis he bought five years ago with grand intentions, and now, inspired by Torino, now that the kids have trudged off to school and the wife has gone to work, he’s free to pursue Olympic gold. It will take years of practice and a lot of equipment he doesn’t yet have, but he’s spent his whole life learning to be patient. In the absence of a mountain, he makes do.

Ack! Ack! Ack!

2007-02-13T15:06:00.000-05:00

I've been given a surprise afternoon off work - thank you, God of Precip - which of course means that I'm dressed in pajamas, drinking a latte, and considering chilling some mini-bottles of Pinot Grigio leftover from a barbeque we had in September. Free time. I really make it count!

What I should be doing today is freaking out productively (i.e. getting some work done in preparation for a very looming deadline) as opposed to freaking out counterproductively, which is what I was doing for much of the morning. The mania du jour: grad school. I have no idea what brought this on, but here's what happened:

Tracy [on the phone to Friend, immediately after Friend picks up]: Don't I seem like someone who should have an advanced degree?
Friend: Um...hi?
Tracy: Hi. Sorry. Don't I seem like a person who should have, like, a Master's?
Friend: Yeah, er, what? I mean, I'm sure you can get one.
Tracy: Getting one is not the same as having one. I should have one.
Friend: Is this about...? What is this about?

I didn't know what it was about. We talked in circles until she made me hang up and take deep breaths. Oh my god, oh my god/calm down, calm down. That's all we accomplished. I've been stewing ever since.

In my original life plan, Plan A1, I didn't need a graduate education. That was because I was going to be a movie star. The money thing was therefore implicit, and the respect thing I would get simply by being less drugged out than my Hollywood peers. Plan A1 was amended to Plan A2 when I realized I was too pale and bookish ever to take Los Angeles by storm. Plan A2: become an Olympian. The A-plans were generally pretty bold.

As I matured, I learned more about my own strengths and weaknesses, the pitfalls of money and fame, and the gleaming promise of the Stafford Loan. The B-plans were centered around involving myself in art, theater, and writing in an Ivy League setting. I would stay for as many degrees as it would take to become an authentically frizzy-haired, glasses-wearing NPR listener. Unfortunately, I got scared and ditched the arts in favor of the more practical and parent-friendly C-plans.

C1-5: Architecture, psychology, architecture, psychology, architecture. Graduation. Work. Major freak-out. Then, D1: pouring/fetching. Not terribly practical, or parent-friendly. Look how that worked out. Telling the whole story would exhaust me.

So, now I'm in the early E-plans, having left both the design and restaurant industries behind. I'm happy enough, and probably better off than I've been on any of the plans that came before. BUT - nothing I ever wanted I actually got, and that, I think, is why I'm freaking out. What if I'd stuck with it, any of it? Disregarding A1 and 2 (did I mention I was five and twelve when I came up with those?), I bet I could've made some dreams come true. Any combination of publication, gallery shows, applause, rolled up sheets of heavy paper, funny hats, and big-name universities (oh, the respect!) would have been quite satisfying. I know it's irrational even to be thinking the words "too late" at twenty-five, but then, being irrational is the essence of freaking out, isn't it?

Yep, I'm definitely gonna chill that wine.

She Reminds Me

2007-02-11T20:19:00.000-05:00

When Felicity (yes, the television program) premiered, it was 1998. I was a senior in high school, an insane person on the edge of everything, who was at that time juggling seven college applications, two art classes, physics, a handful of other (comparatively less demanding) classes, daily play rehearsals, and all the soap-operatic drama that comes with being seventeen. Most of the drama was imagined, but that has never in the history of humanity made any of it less serious, because, as they say, or maybe nobody says – maybe I say – the mind is everything. Everything.

I watched Felicity with fierce devotion, and related to the characters in a way that I’d never related to any others the WB had produced. There was nothing about that show that didn’t strike me as meaningful and straight-outta-life, even and especially the stark camera shots, the above-average vocabulary, the saddish music that kicked in to let the viewer know that someone was having a Moment. In my head, this was also how I lived. My emotions were black-and-white photography, my progress set to guitar music. The conversations I imagined having were good in the sense that a writer might have written them. And I was going to follow my heart, and I was going to live in the city, and I couldn’t grow that great, curly, I-am-what-I-am hair, but I’d find something to do about that, too. I cried throughout the first season.

The show was about making decisions, particularly the ones that come fast and furious as you’re in college, trying simultaneously to grow up and not to. Felicity was a year ahead of me, and so I used her as a role model and a preview of what was to come, which was slightly dangerous and somewhat stupid, but everyone did it. Does it. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s rare to the point of being almost impossible not to base your life, at least some part of it, on someone you know, or think you know, or know of. This person is the one who informs your choices, is the voice in the back of your head, or whose work and/or life has inspired you to reach for something. I think most people have someone like that. I have a few people.

I’m not saying that Felicity, the fictional New York student, is one of those people for me – anymore. But I’ve spent the weekend watching the first season on DVD, which I haven’t seen since it aired originally, and I’m surprised by how thoroughly I still can relate. It’s been eight years since I was a freshman in college, but I’m no more sure of my direction now than I was then. I still wonder what I’m doing here, “here” being anywhere I happen to be. I still wonder what I’m ever going to do about men, having made mistakes enough in that department to fill my own – albeit extremely short-lived – prime time soap opera. I still wonder whether the decisions I’ve made, basically since I’ve been making decisions, were the right ones. And you know how people always say, with their chins in the air, that they have no regrets? Yeah, I don’t think that way. I’m certain that if I could go back in time, I’d do many things very differently.

Of course, I’m saying to myself, as I sit here in the yoga pants that have done no yoga, the mind is everything. I could choose to look at my decisions and see them as solid, in that, like 99% of all decisions ever made, they could’ve turned out worse – and they could’ve turned out better. Or I could choose not to see them at all, but to take my current reality and only move forward with it, and never think back. But then again, I know what I have in the mind I’ve got. It travels in time. It loves to watch television and cry with people it doesn’t really know. It can keep me busy all weekend, just flashing pictures and playing songs, squeaking what if, what if, what if? Actually, it’s the best show around.

The Walking Hour

2007-02-09T22:41:00.000-05:00

I leave the office, south of Baltimore, at four-thirty. I’m slightly ahead of the rush, so it’s a commute with options. I could take the beltway, or MLK Boulevard – either of which would be shorter, at least mileage-wise – but instead I like to quick-turn through the city, passing the familiar people and buildings that pop up like Outlook reminders, letting me know what it is I’m about to see.

Every day, I hit Charles Street a few minutes either side of five o’clock. Today, despite the cold, my people are out and walking. All of them, it seems. The teenagers who eat chips and drink sodas in front of the Subway. The girl who carries a portfolio across Mulberry Street. The guy who walks his scarily tiny dog up the hill past the Walters Art Gallery. There are dozens of dog-walkers out; a group gathers on the grass at Mount Vernon Place, people talking, dogs sniffing, but I don’t have time to recognize them as the light turns green. I’m jealous of the walking hour here on Charles Street. There’s no better hour for walking than this one, when everyone has just left work, changed shoes, and is facing the best choice of the day: what to do with the wide-open rest of it. I’m only sorry I’m in a car headed north, speeding past it all, having already made my choice.

Back

2007-02-07T20:22:00.000-05:00

It almost sounded like a call to action. Give me your money. I’d heard it before, from the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Habitat for Humanity. But tone – tone is important. This was no call. It was a gloved and hooded 250-pound demand. Spat up from history’s throat, these words were old and experienced; they had begun in the early wars, passed through the golden age of motion pictures, made euphemistic appearances on behalf of the underfunded, and were back – here, now – on the modern, lamp-lit streets of Baltimore. Just those words, numerous potholes, a thuggish fellow, and me.

And then I woke up. But that’s not important to the story.

The story is: you lose. You walk along, and for no discernable reason, people take your stuff, or it falls out of your pocket, and you lose. This is not my favorite piece of life. I also dislike the waking up sweaty and scared when I only dream that I lose. Which has been happening more or less continuously since I was introduced to the concept of theft.

This story has no ending. It's not a good story. I’m only writing it to say that you should be careful, and you should hang on.

Divided in Three

2007-01-30T18:57:00.000-05:00

So conveniently divisible these twenty-four hours are! You could almost believe some genius designed it. With days of equal parts sleep, work, and personal freedom - the trifecta of human fulfillment - why are we not all buzzing around like happy honey bees, imagining none other than the lives we live?

Because simplicity died with the first millenium, that's why. Name me anyone today who can live by the 8-8-8 schedule. Please. I truly want to speak with anyone who can do it. For the last couple days I've been trying desperately for such trifection*. The reason: a nearly disasterous morning drive, during which I had to open my window and stick my head into the winter wind just to keep from dozing off at seventy miles an hour.

But eight hours of sleep leaves a mere sixteen hours for work and freedom - the former taking up well more than it's share, what with preparatory routine, commute, lunch, and commute2; the latter being a commodity of which I hate to surrender a minute. "Freedom" as it is, in my life anyway, doesn't refer to some empty-handed lounging around a fireplace or anything. I've got shit to do, and it can't come out of work time (dammit) and it can't come out of sleep time - because now I'm scared - so what does this leave? Am I going to have to learn to be (gasp!) efficient?

Yes, as it turns out, probably, I am. I know I can't go on sleeping just four to five hours a night, as I have done since late high school. I know I shouldn't persist in dreaming of joblessness; not even I can make that stylish too many more times than I already have. So, assuming I won't sell my soul for a PlayStation, there are about five hours I've got left every day for everything I want to do, everything that's good and fun, everything that matters.

*Not a word.

A Covey of Fustian Lexemes

2007-01-28T22:35:00.000-05:00

I'm going to redirect you today to the Write Here, Write Now blog, an offshoot of my workshop, where my fellow writers and I share news, questions, and commentary. I've just contributed my first post, which is about how it's good not to sound like a thesaurus-loving robot when you write.

Check it out!

To Walk with Nothing

2007-01-26T18:25:00.000-05:00

Last night, my medium-large purse and I went to Amsterdam. All the way to Amsterdam, just me and the medium-large purse. Three a.m., I got up and sleep-drove to the airport. If I'd been awake, I would have packed a purse of practical things: a toothbrush, a combination lock, pants. But I wasn't awake, and so several grocery lists, three old New Yorkers, and my favorite lip gloss were all that came with me to Amsterdam. When I got there, it occurred to me that the purse was kind of useless. Why would I read about a city where I’m not, and who cares if your lips are shiny, anyway? So I chucked the whole thing in the Singel and walked along Raadhuisstraat, inward toward the center, toward the Dam. Just me and the pants I came in.

I have three lifelong dreams: to host a party on a rooftop, to travel West in a covered wagon, and to walk with nothing. It’s that third one that throws people off. (Surprisingly, they tend to be understanding of the second.) But – to walk with nothing? What does that mean?

To me, it means exactly what it sounds like it means. I don’t remember ever having done it before. Maybe as a kid I was able to walk with nothing, but probably for only a few short years. When I was still young, I was given an allowance, and then I walked with quarters. That was the start of gathering things. I was shy, but I grew to be a little less so, and then I walked with friends. We built forts out of blankets and drew with chalk and jumped rope, so we walked with all of that. We fought, and so we walked with high drama. We played Animal Hospital and walked with toads.

I got a little older and the load got heavy fast. I went to school and walked with books. I wanted to learn how to do new things, so I walked with soccer balls and ballet shoes. Soon, I was walking with bigger, more serious books, and it was a much longer walk. I tried more new things and walked with the painting supplies and play scripts that weighed me down like I thought art was not supposed to do. Did I have it all wrong? For two weeks, I walked with a flute. It never stopped. High school, college, world. Like a Dr. Seuss character, I walked with an armload, cartoonishly piled to the sky, waving precariously in the wind. Eventually, I put some things down. But.

There’s a new thing to walk with when you’re grown up, I've found. It’s the must-have grown-up accessory. It’s called expectation – everyone is walking with it! It sounds like a light thing, but, you know, it isn’t. I walk with apples and try not to walk with cupcakes, and I walk fast, faster than you do, because I think it means I’m better than you. Later, I feel badly because that’s not true, and guilt isn’t a light thing to walk with, either. Then there’s hope, heaven help us all, which doesn’t always float as promised. It seems like the only thing I never walk with is a map, and let me tell you, it’s exhausting, walking and walking nowhere like this.

That’s why I dream of the glorious walk with nothing. When I imagine this walk, it's in a place with nothing of mine. I think a mesa would be perfect. My medium-large purse would be left in the hotel room, because there’d be nothing to buy, nothing to do, nothing but air. I would amble around alone, swinging my empty arms, feeling, as they say, on top of the world rather than under it. And it would be very cool to be, for once, inside the definition my mind would file under freedom forever and ever, amen. Being me, of course, I would probably be bored in ten minutes.

But think of those ten minutes!

Feel Like Hell?

2007-01-24T18:48:00.000-05:00

Well, you have a good excuse. Today has been declared the most depressing day of the year. They actually put it into an equation and came up with today. Dark + cold + the demise of resolutions + big bills + nothing much to look forward to = January 24th. Or something like that.

This day also happens to be a bit of a crap-anniversary for me, so it's extra depressing. I'm not gonna go there - because I've already been there all day - but let's just say I'm looking forward to tomorrow. Like Annie said, just thinkin' about...

Every Thing

2007-01-23T18:42:00.000-05:00

I was wading, slogging through my emails at work this morning, getting more discouraged as the hours passed. A glitch in operations had left thousands of subscribers without the easy online access to which they're all accustomed. It was looking like each of them was going to complain to me about it. I'm the fix-everything girl.

Amid many what-the-hells and do-something-fasts came a message of a different tone. He must have known he was just one in the barrage. Two lines below a polite request in shaky English, he wrote the sentence that made my day: "It is not to have worries, every thing will be fine at your side."

Fridgetop Publishing

2007-01-20T18:32:00.000-05:00

I've just taken an important step in my development as a writer. I have obtained a kit of magnetic poetry.

Over-reverence of poetry seems widespread among literary types (at least in my experience) and, back in the day, it caused me to have a pretty bad time writing it. As a result, I never attempted it again. I dabbled in everything else, but not that. The genius of magnetic poetry is that it takes all the seriousness out. You don't have to be afraid that you're going to write something terrible because you definitely will. And then you'll scoot a few words around and come up with something better/funnier/dead-on. Or not. If you place your magnetic word tiles on the bottom half of your refrigerator, you can always blame your less successful work on the nearest small child.

So, now that I have a pressure-free method of poetry writing, I may actually write poems. In fact, I just wrote one. In the spirit of fearlessness, I will share it with you now:

bitter those drool ing pound s
fiddle fast er & sweat

My inspiration was cheesecake guilt. I'm obviously quite talented.

Unsilence

2007-01-18T20:04:00.000-05:00

When the Radio Listener moved in next to me, I knew I was in trouble. We're different. I don't do country. I don't do lite favorites. I do NPR and guitar players you've never heard of. But I don't even do that at work. I'm the world's worst multitasker; I literally can't walk and chew gum at the same time, let alone groove and update spreadsheets.

And yet, when RL wheeled her cart of supplies into the cubicle next to mine and asked me if her radio was going to bother me, I said no. "No! It's fine. [Smile.] I'm used to the noise." That part was true. I'm in a high-traffic area of an office that contains the usual cast of phone talkers, hallway shouters, loud sighers, and cackly laughers. It truly doesn't bother me. It's the human din.

Music doesn't fall so well into the natural background, though. Neither do shiny objects, food smells, sudden urges to walk around, internet news sources, or any of my running daydreams. For what can distract me, I ought to relocate to an extra-large refrigerator box in the middle of a barren field. Although, there would still be the ultimate problem - my brain, which can't focus on any one thing for longer than ten minutes. A real limitation, that is.

But, suprisingly, I made some progress today. Somewhere between Barry Manilow and Peabo Bryson, I realized that I'd crossed six items off my list. What does this mean? Am I some kind of closeted soft rock fan? Or are these singers really so boring that their sounds don't register at all, don't qualify as either distraction or din? I don't know, but I'm going to take it as good news. I've got work piled high around me, so the next time the Radio Listener asks if the noise is bothering me, I'll tell her, truthfully, "No! You can turn it up a bit, actually. I mean. If you want."

...can't even...finish this...title...

2007-01-16T20:23:00.000-05:00

Oooh, it's bad. Very bad. Since the start of this to-be-fabulous year, the list of things requiring my immediate attention has grown from a manageable Post-It to more of a scroll. When life gets hectic, my natural tendency is to dash about, flinging minutes at each little task, never sitting down to give solid hours to the big ones.

For example, I have...nope, I don't even have an example. I'm surrounded by bills and books and far too many calendars for one person to own. I don't know what they're all asking of me. I wish they'd go away so I could YouTube the night away.

I guess this is just the mid-January slump, which happens to everyone. I thought I would cleverly thwart it this time, by giving myself a two-week, resolution-free grace period before beginning any major project. But that idea, like all ideas born this time of year, is stupid. Slump happens, and now I'm two weeks behind.

So far, one good thing: I've finished book #2 on this year's list. (I'm at the respective end, middle, and beginning of 1, 3, and 4. I'm quite scattered in reading, as in life.) I actually do have commentary I'd like to share, but I'm tired and it's late and I'm in giving up mode tonight - so let me just tell you to read it, if you haven't. It makes a bold statement without ever seeming to have an agenda. That's a controversy in itself, and you should think about the reasons why. Go to it. Hell yeah, Zora.

Fame and Family

2007-01-14T09:23:00.000-05:00

I've been tagged by Richard to post five things you probably don't know about me. Which is super, as I've had almost no inclination to invent topics to write about recently. Probably because I've been so busy reading, working, and trying not to die. I'll have much to say soon. For now, here are my five things, with a slight theme-twist:

1. My great aunt Helen has a picture of herself with Bill Clinton. Although she appears to be elated, she'll tell you in her no-shit, 96-year-old style, that, in fact, she hates him. I admire nonagenarians with big opinions.

2. My grandmother, Rose Waters, starred in a 1950's TV cooking show. My mom inherited her culinary talent. I'm never in the kitchen long enough to be sure, but I strongly suspect that I did too.

3. My grandfather, Robert Waters, was the Washington correspondent for the Hartford Courant in the '60s and '70s. He used to have drinks at the Press Club with Ralph Nader. I love hearing those stories.

4. Grandpa is also a second cousin of Vanity Fair writer Dominick Dunne, whose brother is the late novelist John Gregory Dunne, who was married to the very famous Joan Didion. We don't hear from them.

5. My cool aunt Mary once won a ride in the Wienermobile. She made and carried an enormous sign that read 'My nephew is Jon Byrnes', because she knew it would embarrass the hell out of him. It did.

Now, I believe I'm supposed to keep this going by asking other bloggers to post the five things. Hmmm, I guess I'll go for Dr. K, Manisha, and Melanie.

Wine, Then

2007-01-11T18:23:00.000-05:00

"Relax! You have to relax."

Relax? What did she think this was, Sunday afternoon on the boat? It was the gynecologist's office and I was on the table. I didn't say what I was thinking: you want me to relax, you're gonna have to turn off that damn spotlight and get me a bottle of wine.

Instead, I tried to relax. It wasn't so much the physical discomfort that was bugging me, it was the problem she might find. I recently had a scary experience with a ruptured ovarian cyst, and it seemed like I probably had another one coming. Same symptoms, similar time frame. Because I'm one of those people who knows just enough to get herself in trouble, I'd spent the past week imagining the worst: tumor, surgery, loss of my entire reproductive system, and/or sudden death. And now I had to relax, so someone could find the awful truth and deliver it. Crikey.

"Well, it certainly doesn't seem like we've got anything out of the ordinary." No? I was skeptical. Um, then why am I in pain? And why does this KEEP HAPPENING?

"These things develop all the time. [Doctor speak, doctor speak.] You're just more sensitive to it than most people. If you have sharp pain along with fever or nausea, then go to the hospital. Otherwise, take these pills."

Ah, excellent. Another internal episode of ER had ended, and with no Shocking Moment at the end. This time she lives, roll the credits, I thought. Maybe there's a worse episode next season. I'll always be vaguely fearful of that. But for now, I guess I can really relax.

Additions

2007-01-07T14:34:00.000-05:00

Please direct your attention to the sidebar, where I’ve begun what will likely be a long and slow renovation. I know very little about websites, HTML, and coolness in general, so for now I’m just adding links and lists.

I’ve stolen the book list idea from one of my workshop comrades. He read seventy-seven books in 2006, and is therefore my literary role model. In ’07, I’m shooting for forty-eight. When I was a kid, I read one book every day during the summer and about two a week otherwise. But now there are jobs and grocery outings and the pursuit of fitness, and there’s my own writing. AND there’s the internet, the greatest time-sucking contrivance ever. That makes it a feat to finish forty-eight books in a year. Keeping a public record of them will force my progress, because the main thing that motivates me is gloryandpraise – or its paler, blog-born cousin. Unfortunately.

Speaking of which, why don’t I work on getting some more readers for this little G-list tabloid? There’s a goal.

Reward

2007-01-05T18:19:00.001-05:00

"Do you have my stapler?"

It was a classic Office Space moment, complete with sheepish mumbling and a mug of coffee. I giggled, ha ha, you're kidding, huh? She wasn't. It was her good stapler.

I didn't have the good stapler. To my annoyance, I have no stapler at all. To my even greater annoyance, I think about this stuff. Who has the best cube? I'm always wondering. Who has the nicest ergonomic keyboard? Apparently, fluorescent light fries the particular brain cells that tell you, he who dies with the sweetest office supplies...still had to use them.

So, in the heat of the moment, whenever I have a stack of papers threatening to rearrange themselves if they're not immediately fastened together, I'm pretty pissed that they still haven't given me a stapler. What's the holdup? According to our start-of-the-year pep talk, we're an organization steadily on the rise. Our finances are well in line and we're becoming ever more relevant in our field. We, the workers, are to be commended.

Of course, we, the workers, realize and appreciate what we're working for - a society whose priority is the education and support of its members. We know this commendation won't come in the form of gigantic raises. And that's fine. For my part, I'm just hoping they can drop thirty bucks on a really badass Swingline.

January Thoughts

2007-01-03T18:43:00.000-05:00

Forgive me, I can't abandon the event of a year-change within two weeks or so of its occurrence. I realize it's hugely cliche to get all reflective during the first days of a new calendar, but I offer up this defense: I'm always reflective.

One year ago in January. '06 had arrived in the middle of a series of nightmares wherein all my teeth fell out. In one dream, my teeth fell out AND the world ended - an obvious "you must change your life" from my subconscious. I thought at first that all the mental spinning was an effect of unhappiness, dissatisfaction, or confusion (plainly), but then I admitted that, more than anything, it was anger. I was reading a book where the main character was angry. His anger caused him to leave a perfectly decent life and cross an ocean. I wanted to cross an ocean.

There were very specific reasons why I'd become so angry. One was that whatever I came up with as a possibility for changing my life, I couldn't actually do. I wanted to, but I couldn't. It was mostly about money: the best, worst, and most heartbreaking reason people have for feeling stuck. I'd defied financial prudence before, a year prior, quitting my job with a three-digit bank balance and no new opportunity waiting. So I already knew about the ride that comes with doing that - the greatest confidence you've ever had, the highest high, and the crash. I knew that it had been a good move in the long, long run (I'd escaped an industry I wasn't made to work in), but it had also resulted in the now. The world-ending, teeth-of-sand, freaked-out now. I was hesitant to do it again.*

My frustration with feeling stuck built to an alarming height. I devised a new escape route every morning and I'd written a detailed list of pros and cons by the end of the day. I went out in public dressed to teach myself the lesson of nobody-cares-what-you-do: black lycra capris, an electric pink shirt, a suit jacket, striped socks up to my knees, and red loafers. (I was right, nobody stared.) I spent days off entirely in bed, or in an armchair, just trying not to wake up too much. I was like a part-time manic depressive, always dipping and flailing, but managing, for the most part, to keep it under wraps. "Oh yes, the salmon is very fresh. What can I get you to drink this evening?" You have to be pretty wrapped up, as a waitress.

And that was the start of '06. Two thoughts floor me today: how different my life is now, and how close it is to being exactly the same. A few decisions and an adventure later, my job, daily routine, and attitude are completely different. My worries are all the same. I've gone from one perfectly decent life to another perfectly decent life, and I understand, I do still understand, why sometimes that makes people angry.

*I would, in fact, do it again. Five months later. The whole thing - no money, no job, and just to make things interesting, a plane ticket to Europe. Turns out, I'm ballsy.

It's ninety minutes to midnight when we push aside our drinks. "Let's write them down!" Our resolutions, we mean. We'd discussed them over dinner, but we're not finished yet. Speedy extracts a pen from her purse and I grab some cocktail napkins.

We resolve as most people resolve - to improve our lives with professional advancement, killer black dresses, and boyfriends good enough to fight with. Dr. K wants to avoid insanity and get gumption. I want to learn to speak Mandarin and play Texas Hold 'Em. Speedy will escape her second job. MJ initially refuses to go down the futile promise route, then decides to call her friends more frequently. Collectively, we add one to the top of the list:

1) Do this stuff. Really, really.

Maybe it'll make the difference that we wrote our promises in ink, but probably it won't. Probably, the napkin-lists we save will be like fragments of a map, the bits that say 'You Are Here', this is what you wanted when. Not that we won't accomplish our goals; I think we will. But I don't think it'll be because we took the time to define them. The theory about goals being only as attainable as they are specific is, in my opinion, complete crap.

Instead, we'll succeed because of that top line, assuming we have the good sense to heed it. In 2006, I learned that it doesn't matter so much what your resolutions are. What matters is being resolute.

Think Before You...

2006-12-28T17:19:00.000-05:00

You know all those health-freak types? The obnoxious ones, who go around clucking "you are what you eat", and not only you are what you eat, but everyone is what you eat, because of connectedness, and Earth being our Mother, kumbaya, so put down the Twinkies, blah blah blah?

Turns out, they're right.

This is the most convincing article I've ever read on the subject. It's probably not the most comprehensive analysis, or the most researched, but I don't like it for its facts. I like it because it has "sewage plant" and "80,000 cookies" in the same sentence. (Ha ha! The twelve-year-old-boy side of me is compelled and reads on, hoping it will mention shit directly.)

The gist of the article is: hey, it does matter what we put in our bodies! We, the ever-brilliant public, have really hogged it up over the holidays, and nature is paying the price. Disoriented fish are trying to figure out where their dinner has floated off to, now that Puget Sound smells like Christmas cookies instead of kelp.

Isn't that enthralling? I realize the concept of connectedness isn't news to people who pay attention, but many of us just think we do and don't. I admit that it has never hit me this way before: you eat a cookie, it's in your poo. Poo travels. Once it's snorked away, we tend to stop thinking about it, but poo travels. It goes to a treatment plant, where it joins other poo in escaping, apparently, into local bodies of water. This is bad news for many reasons, not the least of which is that I love the beach but hate the smell of cinnamon. Researchers say animal fans shouldn't worry too much, since "[there is] no evidence that snickerdoodles are harming sea creatures."

For sea creatures, great. They don't deserve big trouble, anyway. But what about us?

To My Delight

2006-12-26T23:01:00.000-05:00

I've just found an old notebook, tiny in dimension and filled with French vocabulary from my summer in Paris. I remember speaking French only rarely while I was there. But I must have been fascinated with the look and feel of the language, because I wrote those words over and over again, in my best handwriting, with loops and flourishes, like the lettering on a cafe sign. Interspersed with the vocabulary lists were suggestions for my own improvement ("Be classic, like the Place des Vosges") and pearls from my professor ("Karl's life advice is never to pass up food or a chance to go to the restroom. Karl says Robert Venturi doesn't use verbs - how postmodern!")

At the back of the notebook, there was a draft of a letter to my then-obsession, at home and not missing me nearly as much as I was missing him. I never did send that letter - it was dreadful, as all such letters are - and the obsession eventually faded, as I must wisely have known it would. But, to my delight, years later, I realize that I have always remembered to be classic, and to use the bathroom as frequently as is necessary, plus some. Also, as a small but somehow important bonus, I actually remember what le couteau means.

They Said

2006-12-24T23:55:00.000-05:00

I was born on a sad day. My family told me yesterday, and they said it just like that. You were born on a sad day. We were talking about years, the ones where we stayed here for Christmas, the ones when we went there, or there. We were talking about 1981, the year I was born on August 6th. My first Christmas, they said, was spent in Bethesda. Bethesda? What was in Bethesda? My uncle, they said. The one who died. My mother's little brother. He was in the Navy and he said his leg hurt. The Navy said walk it off. He couldn't. They sent him to the hospital in Bethesda, but it was bone cancer, advanced. The doctors said things like too late and very soon. And do you want to know what day they said those things to my mother about her little brother? August 6th. Within hours of my birth, they said. When I was pink and crying and my mother was pink and crying - that was when they said those things. You were born on a sad day. I said nobody ever told me that, WHY DIDN'T ANYONE EVER TELL ME THAT? We're sorry, they said. Sorry.

So we went to Bethesda for Christmas that year, to the hospital where my uncle would die a month later. I wonder if they let him hold me, if he could. We were cheated out of an uncle/niece history, out of hide-and-seek and backyard football. But I wonder if he felt a connection. I was my mother's baby and he was her little brother. She doesn't have many pictures of him, but in the ones she does have, he looks just like her. I look just like her, too.

Read Me

2006-12-20T22:43:00.000-05:00

Six months ago, when I was unemployed and broken-footed, I discovered a feature of McSweeney's to which I felt the need to contribute immediately. I glanced at the empty carton of Trader Joe's Chocolate Calcium Chews on my desk and said out loud, "That'll work."

I wrote a review of the chews, and sent the review to the Reviews of New Food. I learned that it was accepted on the same day I got a job, so I sent an email out to everyone I know, saying that two monstrously excellent things had just happened, but, really, don't get too excited, I'm no genius, it was luck, quiet down. (Or, PRAISE ME.)

Anyway, in the time between all the news and the posting of my little piece, I managed to forget that nearly one dozen people had ecstatically requested the link. In fact, I only noticed the appearance of my review after two newer ones had been published ahead of it. So, what I worried already had been a very small contribution - a mere musing on nougat - seemed even less of a PR event now. I never sent the link.

Then, recently, I learned that McSweeney's only accepts about 5% of what gets submitted. (Although, I must admit, not only can't I remember which reputable source provided me this detail, I also can't remember if the 5% applies to the entire internet magazine, or just to the big features - of which New Food is not one. We'll just assume it's the whole thing.) Yay!

So that, I suppose, is the point of this post. I rock; read my stuff. You'll have to scroll down. Place your thumb sideways just under the up arrow and move the bar down until the top of it is right below your thumb. Right around there you should find 'Chocolate Calcium Chews.' And my name in lights.

Jubilation

2006-12-19T20:44:00.000-05:00

“Oh my God!” came a yelp from just down the hall, the first of the day’s eight or nine similar exclamations. For the first week I worked here, I thought she received an unusual amount of bad news. Then I started listening. She always followed up with peals of laughter and “That UPS man is so handsome, boy, I’d like ta…” or “Somebody’s food smells really good!”

“Oh my God!” she shrieked, to nobody specifically. “Have you tasted these?” We’d just had a cookie exchange at the office, so people’s desks were piled high with the results of each other’s weekend experiments, iced and sprinkled and frosted and filled. From all along the hallway, you could hear plastic wrap being unrolled, untwisted, stretched out, and, finally, carefully, pealed back. We were trying but failing to ignore the beckoning cookies. Why had we done this to ourselves in the morning, on a Monday?

“TASTE THE LITTLE BALL-SHAPED ONES!” She was practically levitating now, having broken into her each of her plastic cookie bags – having never really wrapped them, probably. She started giggling. “It’s like a chocolate....like a pillow or something, oh my God!”

Soon, people were giggling with her. From inside all the cubes and offices, you could hear internal battles being lost. Plastic wrap being ripped away now, balled up, thrown at the trash can. “Dang, I’m not gonna get any work done today!” And neither were we. Crumbs were scattered everywhere and chocolate was smeared on keyboards. All day long, there was laughter coming from some corner of the office, as somebody admitted to devouring something heavenly, to having a little too much fun for a Monday.

“Holy cow!” she’d squeal, like she’d just discovered a secret. “Try the real fancy ones, I feel like I’m havin’ tea with the queen!”

Shopper's Block

2006-12-17T20:12:00.000-05:00

Continuing along holiday themed lines, I refer you today to the "Gift Guide Strategic Holiday Command Center", an invaluable resource for procrastinators such as myself. Take a look at Dave Barry's fun and practical catalog, and tell me there's not something for everyone on your list!

Go ahead, read it.

I'm particularly inspired by the motorized ice-cream cone and the electronic message brassiere. The toilet monster may be going a bit too far; I prefer to frighten my bathroom-going guests with a framed picture of Michael Jackson above the towel rack. Similarly shocking, but evokes less screaming.

Either Side of Perfect

2006-12-14T21:27:00.000-05:00

I walked into a store intending to buy several sheets of nice paper. I walked out with twelve pounds and forty-seven dollars worth of candy making supplies.

That's crazy, right? I'm asking because I don't know.

The thing is, I lack experience. I'm mostly missing the holiday warm fuzzy gene. You know, the one that makes people buy cookie cutters and wear sweatshirts with puff paint and answer the phone, "Merry Christmas!! You've reached the Snoodmans!!!" It's not that I'm a fun-hater. It's just that I can't get past how crappy this time of year is for anyone without money, heat, food, time, health, happiness, and/or family. That's a lot of people, maybe most people. Merry Christmas, okay, and good luck with that.

Most years, eventually, the holiday spirit nudges me. I send cards. I bake; I'm good at that. I even write a newsletter (although I call it a bluesletter and fill it with sarcastic jokes in lieu of the year's achievements.) But this year, for whatever reason, I was standing in the candy aisle of a craft store and - bam. More than a nudge.

It started with the idea that I would make candy for several of my coworkers. Just the ones I like best, or who are in charge of giving me raises, so that would be about four people. But then there were the ones who'd already given me a gift. I would have to reciprocate, so that was another three people. What about the rest of the people in my department? Three more.

The idea evolved into a truffle extravaganza for my entire thirty-person office. In my head, there would be hundreds of uniquely designed truffles piled high. I'd arrange them on an enormous silver tray, set it in the center of the table in the lunchroom, and sprinkle confetti around it for extra holiday pizazz. I'd write a charming message in gold calligraphy and people would come from all corners of the office to see. There could be ribbons involved. And tiny glass dishes wrapped in colored cellophane, a surprise in everyone's mailbox. I could cut snowflakes out of folded white paper and hang them from the ceiling, down the hallways.

"Your total comes to $47.59."

Stop. What was I doing? Three plastic bags stuffed with meltable candy chips and professional decorating tools? All the way home I thought about what a lunatic thing holiday spirit is. Nobody has it in healthy measure, we're all either Scrooge or Santa. With no viable middle ground, I guess there's nothing for me to do but make the candy. Silver tray and everything, while the spirit lasts.

An Odometer Moment

2006-12-11T18:43:00.000-05:00

One. One. One. One. One. One.

I was nearing my exit when I realized it was going to happen. Soon. I'd never clocked the distance between there and my apartment building, but I guessed that it was just about what I needed. I held my breath a little. How cool would that be - all those ones on December 11th, just as I pulled into my parking space? (I know, not as cool as it would have been on November 11th, but still.) I sped up - no, too much - and slowed down - no, too little - and sped up again, as if it were a matter of time and not distance. I turned onto my street, pulled up to the curb, and - flip - there it was. A literal turning point. My poor car won't make it to 222,222 (it might not even make it to 111,112), so this, I knew, was going to be it for us. Our one moment.

In Four Letters

2006-12-09T09:21:00.000-05:00

"So, Mom, what did you do today?"

"Oh, sat around. Groceries. Dad and I took some online personality tests. And then I got a phone call from Cindy."

"Wait, what? Personality tests?" The thought of my parents spending an afternoon on some testing website...well, it seemed like an unlikely activity. I wondered if they had also taken the one that tells you what character from Sex and the City you are.

"Yeah, the Myers-Briggs thing. 'ESFJ' and stuff like that. You get four letters."

"Oh, I've seen that! I think I took one once. I can't remember what I was, though. I know it started with 'I'. Introverted. Which makes sense. What were you?"

"'ES...something...J' Was it that? Jim, what am I? Do you have the print-out? Well, anyway, it started with 'E' as in extroverted - can you believe that?"

I could believe that. I told her that I used to think it was impossible for her even to go to the grocery store without revealing a pretty major chunk of her life story to the cashier. Many of my childhood memories involve standing around a parking lot for an hour or two while she chatted with someone we barely knew. At the time, it was annoying. But now I think of it as useful history. I've heard a lot of conversations. And I'm going to use them.

"Trace?" My dad had picked up the phone. "I just wanted to share my results. I came out to be an 'ISTJ'. Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging. The webpage gives a list of famous people and fictional characters who have that same personality, to help you interpret the results. I'll send you a link."

"So who do you match?"

"Fred Mertz and Eeyore."

"Fred Mertz? The sourpuss from 'I Love Lucy?' And Eeyore?"

"Yes, the perpetually gloomy one on 'Winnie the Pooh.'"

"Yikes. That's no good. I wouldn't have said it was as bad as all that." My dad's not a sparkling, effusive kind of person, but I wouldn't have called him sour or gloomy. Interesting. Clearly, this personality testing stuff was going to require more attention from me.*

Ten minutes after we hung up, I had an email from Dad with links to two different tests.

"I neither endorse nor encourage such things," he wrote, "but I was impressed by the similarites. Have fun. Don't be Eeyore."

*I'll post my own captivating results soon.

The Daily Drivel

2006-12-06T19:55:00.000-05:00

Things I apparently need to get off my chest but can't seem to weave artfully into a cohesive post:

Does anyone else always think, when they mention the Iraq Study Group on the radio, that they're saying Rock Steady Group?

k.d. lang's version of "Hallelujah" is better than Jeff Buckley's. I know a lot of people say his is definitive, but they're wrong. And anyone who prefers Leonard Cohen's is just talking crazy.

It's cold. Damn cold. Too cold. Ten-extra-minutes-to-scrape-off-your-car cold. Winter comes every year, but somehow every year it shocks me.

I spend Wednesday nights watching America's Next Top Model and Biggest Loser, one right after the other. I'm sure this indicates that there's something fundamentally sad about my life. But I have no idea what that is, because I'm too busy enjoying this QUALITY PROGRAMMING.

I tried on every pair in the place, and it turns out that I just don't look good in thick-rimmed smart-girl glasses. I'm so disappointed.

Okay.

The Rest of Us

2006-12-04T20:03:00.000-05:00

After a weekend of trying and failing to get into the holiday spirit (i.e. retail blitz mode), I'm thinking of limiting my Christmas celebration this year to cookie-baking and the occasional shower rendition of "O Holy Night." Nobody will be getting beautiful, elaborately decorated gifts. They might be getting a pen.

Instead, I'm gearing up for a Festivus celebration. One of the things I appreciate about Festivus is how little is involved in this gearing up. Mainly, you go about your daily December business, enjoying the true meaning of the holiday (nothing!) and maybe drinking extra. There aren't many rules to follow. Even if you want to be super strict about it, there are just three must-haves (although I like to add nog and a ceremonial rewatching of the Seinfeld episode that made this great holiday famous):

1. The Festivus Pole
2. The Airing of Grievances
3. The Feats of Strength

All pretty easy. The pole doesn't have to be anything fancy, nor does it have to be trimmed or topped with anything. I'll probably use a curtain rod. The airing of grievances comes quite naturally to most people, so I don't bother planning that - I just do it around the dinner table, like always. The feats of strength can be anything you want them to be, from pillow fighting to appliance tossing. (Seinfeld orthodoxy calls for the head of household to challenge anyone of his or her choice to a wrestling match. But that's very formal.)

My family wasn't planning a big Christmas this year anyway. For various reasons, we're all broke - the worst possible thing to be at the holidays. My sister and I suggested we forgo presents and volunteer at a soup kitchen or something, but our parents seem attached to the tradition of preparing herb-stuffed poultry and grating on each other's nerves. I think they'll be amenable to Festivus - or rather, Festivus will be amenable to them. That's the beauty, like I said. It's the holiday for the rest of us.

Life Should Be Like

2006-11-30T23:41:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-28T23:28:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-25T16:33:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-21T19:47:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-20T23:47:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-17T00:01:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-14T22:37:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-10T20:35:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-08T22:19:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-03T23:51:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-01T21:56:00.000-05:00

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.

October Resolved

2006-10-31T22:53:00.000-05:00

It’s not that I’ve cleaned up my living – I haven’t. (I never.) The running, the spilling, the piling of things – I’ve come into my habits, and now they and I are comfortable together. There's a mess of half-designed “personal finance” spreadsheets littering my desk at home; I revere the rules, but I don’t have to follow them.

The success of this month is that my plan worked minimally, brilliantly: it changed me only in details. I do exactly as much nothing as I always did, but better. Some people know about my nothing now, and I like that. What is to be said of my progress is that I noticed it. That’s all. I’m sleeping well now, if less.

An Admission, First of Many

2006-10-29T12:51:00.000-05:00

I’m not usually one to go all goopy over celebrities, but apparently I’m going through a phase. The most horrifying evidence of this is the following: I sat down at the computer this morning for my Sunday review of washingtonpost.com, scrolled right past Campaign 2006, Joel Achenbach, and Gene Weingarten, and went straight for “Britney Baby Does Have Name” in the Entertainment section.

(For the uninformed, that name is probably Jayden James, but could be Sutton Pierce – it seems the golden couple either has yet to decide or has yet to admit. Both are Malibu-fabulous, obviously, but my vote is for Jayden James. Because J-Fed sounds way cooler than S-Fed.)

At the bottom of the story, there were links to both Britney’s and Kevin’s website. Even I already know too much about her, so I headed straight to K-Fed online. Much to my surprise, I found that he’s kinda, um, compelling.

Mainly, it’s the stare. (Sharp. Deep.) But then there’s the flaming drink, the loosened tie, and white button-down with the sleeves rolled up a little. (Note to all men: roll up your sleeves. EVERY GIRL I KNOW thinks this is hot. It takes two seconds to do and anyone can pull it off. You’re welcome.) When the music kicks in, I expect to be totally unthrilled. But I’m not. It’s 12:30 and I’ve been listening to “Privilege” on repeat since 11:51.

I know.

Crossing Oceans

2006-10-27T22:35:00.000-04:00

I'm currently writing a piece for my workshop about my experiences this past spring in Europe. I'm finding it pretty challenging to take all that stuff - traveling is stuff, mostly - and build it into a story with one core message. So, as an experiment, I'm going to post unedited passages from my journal on this page. Not every day, just whenever I don't have anything else to tell you. I want to see if the bits I select somehow come together in the end to tell me what I'm thinking. Because I never know what I'm thinking.

I'll start at the beginning.

[11:15 pm, Eastern time]

Three months ago I was a vegetarian and now I’m eating airline beef. I consumed the thoroughly disgusting meal in about five minutes, having not eaten for hours before takeoff, and takeoff having been an hour delayed. The meal included yogurt (Dannon La Crème) that was warm. Warm yogurt. I would not be surprised if the barf bag gets used tonight. It would be my own fault.

[Slightly later]

Here’s a suggestion: if you are going to fly, and that flight takes place for eight continuous hours, and you are sitting in coach, and in the middle seat of the middle block, and you used to be a vegetarian, do not eat airline beef.

[10:30 am, We should have landed but we haven’t…]

Because of the delay, we are still up. We need to be down. Down in time for my 12:35 connector to Berlin. I had not realized just how crucial it was to my best laid plans that this plane arrive exactly on time. I will have an hour if I’m lucky to navigate the notoriously user-unfriendly Frankfurt airport and catch that flight. If I don’t, I will definitely not make the train. (If I do, I may still not make the train – whoops, as it turns out there’s customs on the other side, how did I not think of that?) The 3:30 train is a stretch anyway, and that’s it for runs to Copenhagen today. I will have to find a place to stay in Berlin. But – travel adventures, right?

I have just had an airline donut, very packaged. And coffee with not enough cream in it. And I am on the second chapter of my J.S.F. postmodern journey to Everything [Being] Illuminated. I need to be studying German. Flughaven German. Bahnhof German. I’m going to need it.

Strangely, I Love

2006-10-26T18:59:00.000-04:00

I'm not a hiker, camper, or lumberjack. I'm not hardy or pioneering. I don't wear khakis, booties, or scuffs. I don't live near the mountains, woods, or frozen lakes of Maine, Idaho, or upstate New York. I don't have a puppy. Or a braided rug. Or a rocking chair. I don't light pine-scented candles and sit around smelling them.

And yet, strangely, I LOVE the L.L. Bean catalog. As I turn the pages, my thoughts drift to cabin life in the wilderness: my nearest neighbor straps on snow shoes and braves half a mile in a November blizzard to come have coffee with me while our ruggedly handsome husbands chop wood. December comes, and we all put on vests of 'Mallard Teal' and go tree-farming with sleds and children. Life is simple, all stew and corn muffins.

The catalog is that powerful. Not only does it overtake my perpetual daydream (which isn't easily wrested from urban semi-fame and my future Brooklyn Heights brownstone), it also causes me to reconsider my position on flannel and vertical wood-paneling (unfavorable). I wonder how I could use or if I might actually need a 'Trailblazer II Headlamp.' I think about purchasing barn coats, fleece pullovers, knit pants...stuff so elemental and unpretentious that, for a minute, I believe sporting it might actually constitute a stand for human decency.

Then I revert to my usual snippy mood. I notice the blatant and not-so-decent oversupply in this catalog of white people, and also of Christmas wreaths. I wonder about the confidence of marketers. Do they know they'll be safest preaching to their choir? And is that a good enough reason to leave everyone else out?

We liberals sure ruin everything, don't we?

100 Things

2006-10-23T22:06:00.000-04:00

Ok, onto the bandwagon!

1. People call my hair blond, despite that it is clearly brown.
2. People call my eyes brown, despite that they are clearly…not.
3. A lot of the time I just feel invisible.
4. My favorite place in the world is the Place des Vosges in Paris.
5. I am mad for triangles. Totally, freakishly, love them.
6. I don’t believe in bumper stickers. You shouldn’t piss off people who are operating heavy machinery. (And you shouldn’t distract them either.)
7. I think change is good.
8. I can’t be left alone with cheesecake.
9. I very rarely swear in real life.
10. I am afraid of the dark.
11. And roaches.
12. And AIDS.
13. And schizophrenia.
14. I also have an inexplicable fear of knee-high robots.
15. I hate the smell and taste of cinnamon.
16. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
17. My first memory is of cracking my head open on a concrete bench. It was my third birthday.
18. London was my first love.
19. All loves after that have also been cities.
20. Except one.
21. And I don’t want to talk about him.
22. I used to pretend my name was Liz Spencer – I thought it sounded fancy.
23. When I was eleven, I made up a country. It was an island nation called Liane.
24. I also made up a Liannese constitution, language, and royal family.
25. I once organized a Summer Olympics for the children in my neighborhood. I was 14.
26. Neither of my parents has a regional accent, but both can do British very believably.
27. It bothers me that most people don’t know the grammatical difference between "less" and "fewer".
28. I listen to NPR when I’m driving.
29. This American Life is my favorite program EVER and Ira Glass is AWESOME.
30. I have only ever lived in Maryland and Germany.
31. I have a long list of favorite writers. The top ones right now: David Sedaris, Mark Twain, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Sarah Vowell.
32. I own many Sex and the City DVDs and watch them all the time, even though I could hardly relate less.
33. Fresh linen is my favorite smell.
34. I insist on using toothpaste (not gel) with baking soda.
35. Beautiful sculpture makes me cry.
36. So do movies. Not just sad movies – all movies.
37. I love my laptop like a friend.
38. I really want to learn Mandarin, but so far haven’t made any effort to do so.
39. The central drama of my life involves making people think I’m prettier than I am.
40. Which is terrible and needs to change, obviously.
41. My biggest regret in life is having lost touch with so many great people.
42. I don’t believe people who say they have no regrets.
43. I love bright colors, but I wear a lot of black, brown, and purple.
44. I think most people look better with short hair.
45. I’m very liberal, but several of my good friends (and many members of my family) are not.
46. I’m alternately the least and most competitive person I know.
47. I’ve taken actual time out of my life to figure out what brand of dryer sheet smells best.
48. One of my lifelong dreams is to travel West in a covered wagon.
49. Another is to host a party on a rooftop.
50. I require 16 oz. of coffee to leave the house in the morning.
51. I didn’t want to like Harry Potter. But I do.
52. The University of Maryland is my alma mater.
53. I loved it, but often think I should have gone to Smith.
54. I majored in architecture, but I am not an architect.
55. I always get butterflies before I make a phone call, even just a call for pizza.
56. I believe in second, third…100th chances.
57. I was seriously bad at physics in school. After much tutoring, I finally grasped the basics of force. But nobody could teach me anything about electricity; I still believe the world is really lit by glow worms.
58. As children, we were labeled: I “the smart one”, my sister “the pretty one”. The truth is – she’s both.
59. I adore dashes and semicolons. I use them far too frequently, sometimes flat-out incorrectly.
60. I love to travel and am happiest when I’m walking the streets of some European city, drinking a lukewarm Cola Light.
61. Berries are the best kind of fruit, followed by peaches, then apples, then grapes.
62. I don’t care for citrus and can’t understand people who put a lemon in everything they drink.
63. Blue Moon is my favorite kind of beer, which IS citrus-y, and I do like it with lemon. Better, orange.
64. I contradict myself all the time.
65. I can’t dance and only try when I’ve been drinking.
66. Once I get going, I really enjoy it. (Dancing, drinking…this applies to most activities.)
67. I am a procrastinator.
68. Some people would call me a girly-girl (I have a thing for shoes, feelings, bread products, fragrant soaps, etc.).
69. But I do exhibit several stereotypically male qualities: I can’t multitask, I shop in a very goal-oriented fashion (and as quickly as possible), I think bodily functions are hilarious, and much of the time, I just wish people would stop talking.
70. I can ski, but not snowboard; skate, but not skateboard. I like the concept of two separate feet.
71. I am a mutt-mix of Irish, German, Scottish, British, and Native American.
72. The Irish totally won out – pale, pale, PALE, and serious freckles in lieu of a tan.
73. In person, you can tell when I’m trying to be funny because I'll put on a mild New York accent.
74. I think New York accents make people automatically funny – this is at least 7/10ths of the reason why Seinfeld was so great.
75. I claim to love to read, but I’ve never read most of the major classics.
76. Of the ones I have read, I haven’t liked a number of them.
77. This makes me feel tremendously guilty, like I’m not entitled to any literary opinions I may have.
78. And I do have them.
79. I am both an early riser and a night owl.
80. I love and depend on caffeinated everything.
81. I was raised Roman Catholic.
82. Then I broke all the rules, so I don’t know what I am now.
83. I believe in God, I just don’t think he’s a giant white dude up in the sky.
84. Maybe he’s Morgan Freeman. He probably should be.
85. I joke about things that scare me or make me nervous.
86. I love babies but don’t know if I’ll ever have any, because it’s so hard for me to imagine getting married.
87. I have to wash my hair every day, I don’t care what the experts say.
88. I am a cat person who also likes dogs.
89. But only small-to-medium sized ones, who don’t smell, drool, or shed excessively.
90. I think the best pet names are wildly inappropriate ones, like Tito Jackson for a teeny Siamese kitten.
91. I love Campbell’s Bean with Bacon soup and if they ever try to take it off the market, I’m going to hit the streets with pamphlets and petitions.
92. One of my current goals is to apply such grassroots activism to non-soup causes that actually matter.
93. I have been a babysitter, warehouse worker, desk receptionist, bookstore associate, architect, bartender, waitress, and now…my job defies classification, but it’s pretty enjoyable and I don’t have to get anyone anything.
94. I think money is very nearly as important as love.
95. My all-time favorite movie is The Sound of Music. I also revere: Forrest Gump, Pay It Forward, and The Shawshank Redemption. The best funny ones are Office Space and The Princess Bride.
96. I actually love almost all movies and am leaving out a bunch of great ones.
97. Car noises and street fighting put me to sleep.
98. It drives me crazy to be even five minutes late getting somewhere, although I'm at least that late half the time.
99. It’s 10pm and I have three hours of work left to do tonight.
100. And yet, somehow, I felt obliged to provide reading material for the 4-6 people who read this blog.

Meh.

Deprived

2006-10-20T18:35:00.000-04:00

My October resolution has worked so well that I now have no time to blog. Whoops, didn't think that one through, did I?

Between the three-to-five hours of sleep I've been getting per night and the medical mini-drama of last week (no trouble now, it looks like I won't drop dead), I'm simply and totally drained. I hope to have more interesting-ish stories for you next week.

There's a pretty good one about an emergency room, an old man, and a pair of red briefs...

Concentration

2006-10-15T14:23:00.000-04:00

Today’s to-do list had one thing on it: Write. Here are the things I’ve actually done since I sat down at the computer at 9am:

1. Brushed my teeth six times.
2. Re-read my favorite essay by David Sedaris.
3. Tweezed my eyebrows.
4. Tied a scarf around my head and tried to make it look cool. (Nope.)
5. Gone out for coffee.
6. Danced around the living room singing “Handyman” by James Taylor.
7. Considered a trip to Whole Foods for some lobster bisque.
8. Had instead a string cheese, a can of soup, and two Diet Cokes.
9. Read the latest entries by my four favorite bloggers.
10. Written this post.

Of course, I’ve also managed to produce a rough draft of an essay about my father, my car, and modern psychology. Call it my process.

Play Nice, Eat Big

2006-10-12T22:37:00.000-04:00

My friends and I believe that the secret to world peace lies deep within the lime-cilantro center of a Chipotle burrito. Were we to be left in charge of the planet, we’d promptly appoint the staff of the College Park Chipotle to the highest cabinet positions. Then we’d send out Evites to all the world leaders and gather them inside the aluminum walls of our headquarters. We’d sit everyone down, give them paper cups with nifty stories printed on, and serve each their choice of chicken, beef, carnitas, or vegetable burrito. The magic would unfold.

A Chipotle burrito is a beautiful thing. It is seemingly disparate pieces coming together in, yes, harmony. Meat! Grains! Cheese! Fiber! Brought together by a tortilla wrap that, no matter how much it is asked to contain, always makes room for all. It’s a kindergarten class, it’s a sing-along. Or one of those bus tours through Europe, where everybody pretends to be cousins.

Of course, all that harmony is only up until digestion. The real heart of the Chipotle Theory of World Peace is the idea that after consuming one full pound of Mexican food, nobody feels like arguing. You must understand, this is a honking burrito. Stuff down one of those puppies and politics is the last thing on your mind. Is there a God? Are there weapons of mass destruction? Nobody cares, as long as there’s Maalox.

Phone your representatives, people. I’m telling you.

Let It Out

2006-10-11T20:35:00.000-04:00

Here's something I love - International Moment of Frustration Scream Day. It's happening tomorrow and I just found out about it today. Lucky stars!

It works like this: You go outside at noon, along with friends, neighbors, and other stressed-out type A anxiety sufferers from around the globe, and you SCREAM for 30 seconds. Is that not beautiful in its simplicity? Is that not brilliant? Not only is this a fun, healthy alternative to beating the crapola out of your comrades and relations, it is also an opportunity to share a Moment with all humanity. I say pair it with a raised pint of good beer.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you about the Chipotle Theory of World Peace.

Free

2006-10-09T23:00:00.000-04:00

I was off work for the day given in name to our favorite proponent of genocide, Chris “It doesn’t count if they’re not wearing shirts!” Columbus. I would have celebrated it anyway as a glorious, weekend-extending free day – giving no mention to the history, or to the irony – but my car had cooked up other plans for me. Deep in its blazing center, from the wheezing sounds and vaguely present smell of death-by-fire, it seemed to be roasting a rat.

Or so I imagined when the ‘Service Engine Soon’ light popped on. I find it disconcerting that vehicles indicate trouble so nonchalantly. In the future, I want my car equipped with the voice of Mo’Nique shouting, “Ooooh, giiiirrrll, you best get off the road, now!” But the makers of Saturn are not with me on this, so I take their demure warnings as seriously as I assume they are meant to be taken. I drove straight to the shop, envisioning roadkill sucked up into the workings, a leaf-based bonfire in the engine, a family of chipmunks making a treadmill out of this “belt” I keep hearing about. In the sparse land of What I Know About Cars, any such thing is likely.

I’ve always heard that women should be tough and knowledgeable when dealing with mechanics, or else bring a man along. I have no men, or knowledge, so I did my best to mask my innate nervousness (which I don’t mean to imply is a girl thing, it’s just a me thing, so don’t even go there) and act like I knew what I was saying. I did the one-elbow-lean onto the counter and gestured casually toward the parking lot. “Yeah, I’ve got the ‘Service Engine Soon’ light. Came on this morning. Car’s been sounding strange lately, so…”

“Strange how?”

“Well, like…uh, kind of like…actually I always describe it as…a wheezing old man?”

“A what?”

“A wheezing old…never mind. To me it just sounds like it’s struggling, you know? Like it’s working way too hard just to keep breathing, er, running.”

“Uh-huh.” Okay, so my cred was gone at sentence two. He looked at me with what I hoped was amusement, not costly annoyance, and said they’d get someone on it. I sat down in the waiting room to read a book.

Three and a half hours later, after all the characters in my book had fixed their problems, I was told that I had no problems. “Ma’am, we checked everything.” Stuff was wired, connected, clean enough, and working. “Another couple thousand miles, you should replace the xlkdcfn jhssklas [I had him write it down], but other than that there’s really no issue.”

I had waited out the afternoon chewing off the ends of pencils, thinking this was the end, the old man was on his way out, that I’d owe thousands of dollars or should be headed to the junkyard. But nothing was wrong? Happy Columbus Day to me. I thanked the mechanic and drove off to Barnes & Noble, my happy destination on a free day, where I picked up a coffee and a new book, a new set of someone else’s problems.

Eh, It Happens

2006-10-08T19:58:00.000-04:00

I had one of my weekends. The kind where I disregard all plans and goals, including the one laid out on this very page one week ago, and do basically nothing. I left the house just once each day – Saturday to buy some caramel apples and Sunday to go to the gym. I didn’t have any adventures or meet any people or learn anything new. I watched Forrest Gump twice and now I’m sitting here, muttering to myself in a southern accent.

And I’m not even sorry.

Okay, so I can’t turn on a dime. There’s always a bit of a backslide in the process of progress, I’m used to it. But lest you think I employ this justification lightly, here are the reasons why I deserve a couple days of nothing:

1. I’ve just completed my 12th week at the new job and I actually – gasp – like it.
2. This is approximately the 2,173rd word I’ve written this week, which certainly doesn’t break any records, but is about 2,172 words more than I’d put down in a while. So, yeah. It’s something.
3. I registered for a class this week. How’s that for proactive? (It starts on Thursday, so I’ll tell you then.)

Don't Say It

2006-10-06T23:22:00.000-04:00

[A story from the past.]

“Is five dollars okay, honey? For your tip? Is five dollars good?”

I am needing more than the socially acceptable one second to come up with a response to this. Think. Think. Any more of a pause between utterances and this woman is going to understand her mistake and feel awkward. Or worse - she won’t understand it, she’ll decide I’m stupid, and then I’ll feel awkward. All of which, when either of you depends on the other for an evening's service (not to mention a living) is, well, awkward.

Is five dollars okay? Not on a fifty-nine dollar check it’s not, lady. Not after I ran to the kitchen and back twenty times, sweating like an obese porn star in a futile quest to satisfy your buffalo sauce-guzzling family. Not after I gave you six times a half-portion of everything, with no salt, with extra pepper. Not after providing bottomless Mr. Pibbs - as though you needed them, you horde of overindulgent, sugar-pushing crazies.

But I didn’t say that. It only took me a bit longer than my one-second window to come up with “Oh, yes, sure, that’s fine!” Because the thing was, she might really not know. Or even if she did know, she was the customer - in corporate restaurant speak, the “guest” - and therefore was always right. She should probably not be told by an employee that, actually, the standard at minimum is fifteen percent, twenty is nicer, and rounding up is really, really appreciated.

So, five dollars.

Herein lies the thrill of being a waitress: Maybe you’ll make rent and maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll make so much money in a week that you’ll be able to buy a Cole Haan handbag at retail, in cash, guilt-free. Or maybe you’ll find yourself on the phone with Dad, whose generosity, mercifully, still extends to your car insurance. You just never know.

In waiting, the tip is not the icing, it is the cake. And there is no icing.

Too Long, Too Late

2006-10-04T22:58:00.000-04:00

One night, in a dream, I had the following conversation with my daughter, who was seven years old (and does not exist in real life):

TRACY: So, what do people call you? I never really named you.

DAUGHTER: Phil.

My smoke alarm is off the wall. It chirps 1,440 times a day. There was no stopping it when it started. I noted the absence of any actual smoke, dragged a chair to the wall, fiddled with buttons and wires and then – I ripped it out, wrapped it up, and stored it in a drawer under layers of winter sweaters and unemployed bath towels. That was two years ago.

I’m used to the sound. It’s baby-faint, but there. I go to sleep with the chirping. I watch tv with the chirping. And when I wake up from another fuzzy apocalypse, the chirping is what tells me I lived through it. The summer I spent in Paris, I was greeted every morning by a pigeon that flapped and pooped right outside my screenless open window. This is not better; it’s only what I’ve got.

I bet there’s a way to fix my smoke alarm. It’s probably simple and there may even be directions. I’d find out if this were still two years ago. But I waited too long and so the story has written itself most weirdly. There’s another, functional smoke alarm right outside my bedroom door. I will be safe and strange, together.

On History

2006-10-03T21:28:00.000-04:00

I’ve been a web presence before. I wrote a blog called Planet Tracy from January 2001 through March-ish 2003. It was a crazy-brochure that doubled as an issues resource. I posted on such important matters as the link between hand lotion and fire safety. I kicked off the widely supported “Campaign for Water Consumption”. I told of a fantastical future in which history and fun come together and they turn Mont St. Michel into a water park. My readership was vast – dozens of people in my dorm building, over four of my high school colleagues, and as many as one person from the UK.* You can imagine, with stats like that, how my eventual distraction from writing was a blow to the international e-publishing community. Should I ever have the drive again, I vowed to make it up to my fans by producing an even more exciting blog called – this is so inspired – Planet Tracy II.

Then I was recruited to MySpace by a few enthusiastic three-dimensional friends. Therein, I was assured, I would gain popularity via a technologically current, semi-adult version of “Do you like me? Check yes or no”. This was irresistible, so I promptly I discarded all notions of PTII.

But after months of bandwagoning, I have about 20 “friends”, mostly because I never accept anyone I haven’t met in real life (excluding the famous people, I’m not that cool) and I’m shy about asking people to be my “friend”, even if they are my friend. I would make a terrible politician. “Oh, you don’t have to vote for me. No, no, that’s okay. If you don’t want to…I understand, people are different! It’s cool. Really, Mom, it’s fine.”

And so I’ve reverted to my original documentary medium. It’s much better to self-promote in complete sentences.

* Hi, Paul! You were right about Kraft parmesan cheese, it does melt.

October Resolutions

2006-10-01T21:13:00.000-04:00

At the start of the last quarter of the year, I do something confined by many people to the first week in January: I improve. The fall calls me to newness, a leftover feeling of back to school, I think. Self-improvement is happier here than in too-cold, too-white, too-dark January, a month whose innate depressiveness ought to be formally decreed. You can’t save it with lists and promises, and you shouldn’t have to put down your mint hot chocolate and try.

My list this October is short: Do stuff. I am a long-time champion doer of nothing, a sitter extraordinaire. With a little wine in me, I’m basically French. I’ve passed whole weekends just staring at things. It’s lovely, but it’s all wrong in the here and 25-year-old now. If nothing changes, nothing will change. That’s a dangerous chance I can’t take.

One component of the new doing is the doing of this blog, which I have been thinking about vaguely ever since I decided to quit writing Planet Tracy in 2003. Blogging had been a serious hobby of mine since my sophomore year of college. To its reputation as the pastime of the pallid self-obsessed, I will say that I don’t think that’s entirely off, I just don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Everyone has their own internal marketing department, quietly coming up with craftier ways to get the word out than to stand on chairs and shout “This is who I am!” Writing is the form that takes for me, and it worked before. At a university of 35,000 people, suddenly a few of them knew that a girl with my name was around, mixing ground beef into her Easy Mac and worrying that every action taken was another tally on the wrong side of the scorecard. Yes, it was angst-y, all about me and what I think. Some people hated that. But some loved it, and I loved doing it, and it made people think, and it made me think, and it made me write more – and some loved it, and I loved doing it… When that happens, who cares if people call it self-obsession?

I’ve not kept it secret that I think of myself as a writer. I can’t say that I am one now (that would mean I’ve been working) or even that I want to be one (that would mean I’ve been working), just that when I think about an occupation plotted over fifty weeks a year for forty years, writing is the only one that does not make me want to throw up. I’m not sure in what specific ways this blog is going to contribute to the achievement of that. But on the occasion of October resolutions, I’m going to start a tiny something, this indefinite thing thing, and hope the oldest two hopes in the world – that there is a point, and that we will eventually know what it is.