Okay rain, you win

All along during this 30-day stretch of rain, I have been saying that I don't mind it. It keeps me focused, I don't feel like a kid trapped inside on a sunny day, and there's a certain amount of coziness to it. Today, however, I have had enough. It's not that I don't like the rain. In fact, I still love it. It's just that right now it is threatening to swallow me. I'm one Law and Order marathon away from not even getting out of bed anymore. I can justify this in the wintertime, what with SAD and bad driving conditions and the fact that nature encourages hibernation. But I need a kick in the pants right now and the rain is not doing it.

Mostly it just makes me so tired. After a weekend away I was hoping to have a productive catch-up day and instead, I have accomplished little more than an hour and a half of writing and a hot bath. Could I really have the winter blues at the end of June?

I attempted to go for a walk when the skies seemed clear enough, only to be poured down on 15 minutes into it. I would have stayed out---I love walking in the rain---but I worried that my iPod would get damaged and that would ruin my life. (I love my iPod. It's my rock.) Sometimes when it rains, especially when it rains hard, I just want to lie down on the ground and let it cover me; let the hard pelting water strike my face in heavy drops, let my hair go limp, let it soak through my clothes. During difficult times I often stay out in the rain just a little longer than I need to, my face lifted up to it, just so I can feel something else.

Today though, I'm hoping it's tiredness disguising itself as sadness. After a weekend away and a stretch of late nights and early mornings that started the night of Michael's death, I'm feeling a tired fog descend. The grayness, of course, never helps.

After a wedding in CT on Saturday, Dan and I made our way up to RI for a visit with the fam and then home last night. The last hour of the trip, as we drove from a dry Massachusetts into a rainy New Hampshire, I rested my tired head on Dan's shoulder and closed my eyes. Dan once told me that before we met, when he would travel to CT to visit his family for holidays, he was always envious during the trip back home to NH of the couples whom were riding together in one car, back to shared lives and homes. A solo driver himself, he would feel lonely. So I always feel a bit of this-is-what-I-bring-to-this-marriage, when he leans his head down to meet mine as we drive.

When we got back to the apartment though, after 48 hours with each other and family and after lots of driving, we both needed a minute to ourselves. I went on the computer (read this depressing article)and headed to the bath. (Yeah, that's two baths in less than 24 hours...I'm telling you, this rain is going to have me taking my meals in bed soon.) Dan put on the Yankees game and then opted to play a video game. When I heard the clicking and maneuvering of the XBOX controller I must admit I was, at first, annoyed. (Even though I enjoy video games---and can beat Dan's ass at Simpson's Road Rage---I still have a hard time with his being a gamer, however rarely he plays. It defies logic since, again, I would beat up a kid to get first dibs at the Pac-Man machine, but I think that maybe women are hardwired for irritation when their partners play video games.) Anyway, I didn't express my annoyance which is progress. (If progress means passive aggressively mentioning it a blog entry instead of having a confrontation.)

Then, when I was in the bath, I heard Dan's footsteps outside the door and again experienced aggravation, thinking that I was going to be disrupted. When I realized he was putting the laundry away and not bothering me (or bothering with me) in any way, I felt like an ass. This low threshold for irritation is sometimes how I know when I need to take some me time. And I'm honest about it and Dan almost gets it. I require more alone time than he does (maybe even more alone time than most people) but without it, I'm exceedingly unpleasant and if Dan doesn't quite understand my need for quiet time, he certainly understands that. Still, he is not entirely guilt-free when it comes to cutting into this time like an attention-starved kid.

But last night, it was all me. I'm grumpy and tired and this close to being a fist-pounding, tantruming child. If I don't get a full eight hours tonight (or at least seven, maybe six) then we're in the danger zone. And if the sun doesn't shine for at least 10 minutes tomorrow---I'm talking solid warmth through closed eyelids---then I'm going to put some time in with the guy upstairs...Jerry Orbach, of course.

Michael

Recently, someone asked me to try to remember the girl I was at 12---to get in touch with that time. In order to do that---and I really wanted to put the effort in---I started listening to Jackson 5 songs, the soundtrack of those years for me. I can remember vacationing in Florida with my family in seventh grade and how I barely took off my Walkman the entire trip, flipping my Jackson 5 tape from side A to B and B to A, over and over and over again.

When I hear those songs now---specifically Michael's voice---I remember the longing that I felt while listening to it. It wasn't the fun and dancing of ABC that got to me, but the melancholy of Never Can Say Goodbye and I Wanna Be Where You Are and Maybe Tomorrow. I listened to that boy, that soulfulness---to me, the very definition of true soulfulness in music---and felt tortured that I could not know him; that I could not be his friend; that I could not love him. I couldn't stand that there was a boy my age that could ever feel like that and now he was a man and I had missed my chance. He sang how I felt. To hear a young voice---not a crooner or Broadway songstress---sing so achingly, made me feel understood if only when my headphones were over my ears.

So, in the years that followed, I did what I do: I obsessed. I bought as much of his music as I could, I hung his posters on my walls, I read biographies about him, I carved the words "Michael Jackson" above "Thriller" on the stool I made in Wood Tech. (This stool has moved with me to every apartment I have ever lived in and I use it daily.) I learned about his eccentricities (then, it was just the stuff of hyperbaric chambers and Elephant Man bones) and about his lost childhood. I read about the abuse he endured from his father and how he hated his face. And when people spoke of his strangeness, I thought about how much sense he made, this sad Peter Pan. Of course he was broken. But I would listen to Man in the Mirror or Heal the World or Will you be there and understand how he tried to make sense of it himself; how he tried to unbreak or dreamed of being unbroken. I would listen to those songs and hear that soulful boy. And in his music, if only for the duration of a five minute song, I am sometimes able to sense that longing, hopeful girl.

So through the plastic surgery and skin lightening and sham marriages and baby danglings, I forgave him. With the molestation, I chose a different route: denial. I was 12 when the accusations started piling up. Then, I honestly thought that this man child was just not a sexual being and his motives for surrounding himself with children, misinterpreted. I'm not sure what I believe now. (Even Holden Caulfield, another boy whom I was tortured not to know, ended up an old man who preyed on the innocence of young girls---at least as I read it.) As an adult I understand that even Peter Pan gets boners and that repressed sexuality never ends well. Still, the extent of MJ's fame and wealth opens him up to exploitation and that's always been enough of a plausible scenario for me to hang on to him.

Which is why, when he announced earlier this year that he would be doing a limited number of farewell performances in London, I felt that I had to go. Tickets went on sale at 7am in London so I had to set my alarm to get in the cyber-line at 3am our time. The next day, huge crashes of the Ticketmaster website were reported, leaving thousands of people ticketless after hours of waiting at their computers. My tickets were bought and paid for only 20 minutes after they went on sale. It was meant to be. It was written. I would see Michael Jackson before I died. (No thought was given to his dying.) To cross this off my life's to-do list would not only be a thrill for me as an adult, but it would also be an act of honoring dreams born from a child. I think it's important to do that once in a while.

So a London trip was planned around this concert. And then there were rumors of cancer. And then shows were canceled and a nagging fear that the concert would not be, was rising in my chest. But when Dan called me and told me that Michael Jackson had suffered a cardiac arrest I didn't give it much thought. At this point, I have a pretty high boiling point when it comes to Michael Jackson scandal. He was ill again, I thought, and just moved on.

An hour later I was driving home, the convertible top down, enjoying the first sun I'd seen in weeks. A Jackson 5 song came on and, having totally forgotten the quick conversation regarding Michael's cardiac arrest (indicating the extent to which I thought it was just another headline), I instead thought of the assignment I had been given to get in touch with that 12-year old girl. So I listened and felt the sun on my face and the cooling evening air and I thought about that innocent yearning and Michael Jackson's haunting voice. Before I made it home, Dan called to tell me that reports were coming in saying he was dead. During this phone call with Dan, another friend beeped in and yet another texted me. Now I knew something was going on. When I got home, I sat in my car unable for a minute, to even move. For that minute I felt the deep throb of sadness. Inside, I saw the words "Michael Jackson dead at 50" on the television. I sat down on the floor in front of the screen and watched.

There were still some unknowns then and I was convinced it was a hoax. A publicity stunt. Dan and I talked about how if anybody was going to fake his death it would be Michael Jackson. The hospital hadn't commented yet. This wasn't real. Dan and I went out to dinner, our first chance to sit outside at our favorite local spot. Dan made a toast to Michael Jackson and I thought it was so strange---the night, his toast. I ate a poached pear salad and a cup of chowder and felt uncomfortably full. I couldn't finish my glass of wine. I looked at the sky and heard the birds and thought, "Is this really the night of Michael Jackson's death? No, that's too big a thing for this night."

We got home and the news crews were still "waiting for comment." I did a yoga video and held lunges longer than I normally would have and liked the pain. I reached and pushed for physical strength. "I need to move," I said to Dan.

If you had told me that after hearing about Michael Jackson's death I would go out for dinner and do a yoga video, I would have thought otherwise. It still doesn't really feel like how I spent the night. I got out of the shower and saw Jermaine Jackson explaining the details of his brother's death and only then did I know it was true.

Now, I am numb. I have been watching hours of news coverage and video clips and celebrity call-ins to Larry King. I have been listening to my iPod. It is almost 3 in the morning and I don't want to go to bed without feeling this but my thinking mind tends to shut down the feeling sometimes.

So many friends and loved ones called or wrote or texted and that's been the most real part of this. I thought I was crazy for feeling so affected but the concern from everyone felt validating, if not bizarre. I did really love him, the notes confirmed it. Like it was a relative or something, they apologized for my loss. I never knew him. I believe that you can feel connected to an artist, that you can even grieve such a loss, but I don't know that this is that.

I just received a text that one of my oldest friends gave birth to a little girl tonight. And, like that, perspective shifts. Real.

Real is not what I am watching on TV right now. I need to turn it off. Real is what I felt listening to my Walkman lagging behind everyone else on my family vacation.

Still, I wonder what that concert would have been like and I am deeply saddened that I will never know.

My friend Liz.

If you have 19 minutes to spare and are into creativity or a funny blond chick or making the most of life, this is so worth your time. Make some Cup O' Noodles, sit back, and enjoy.

When did summer stop feeling like this?

I'm stealing a few minutes here while "watching" four little girls play inside on a rainy day. (I could be cut off at any moment if someone gets hungry or hurt or left out or just starved for a little adult attention.) It's actually pretty fantastic, listening to each of their imaginations go wild. They started off outside and only came in when it started pouring. When it was just drizzling I called out to them, "You guys wanna come in, or are you going to tough it out?"

Four high-pitched voices called back to me, "Tough it out!"

Inside, I had an assembly line of sandwich-making operating at full speed for when they finally came in for lunch. They ran in, dropped their shoes at the door, nibbled a bit and went on their way. Not a sandwich was finished. I expected as much after the two little girls from next door came to join the two I was already watching (Molly and a pal) armed with a box of Yodels. The oldest one---a third grader whom, with the exception of her little sister, they all adore---doled out the treats and even asked me if I wanted some which I thought was especially sweet. Sometimes I think these kids don't know where I fit---I'm not quite the adult that their parents are, but I'm not a kid either. I figure as long as they keep offering me Yodels, I'm where I want to be. (And by the way, is there any better admittance pass to an impromptu neighborhood swingset hoedown than a box of Yodels? I think I'm going to bring Yodels to my next dinner party.)

The group has now moved into Molly's bedroom---a palace for any little girl. Her room is the largest in the house and, as this was a strategic move in order to keep most toys upstairs and out of the way, it is kiddie heaven. In one corner sits a wooden playhouse---large enough to hold all four girls plus babies in cribs and bassinets and all their diapers and bottles. My sister even put a little lamp in there that gets turned off when it's time for the Cabbage Patch Kids to get some rest. In another corner there's a toy kitchen stocked with tiny boxes of food, plastic fruits and vegetables and plates and utensils. Everywhere else there are shelves of stuffed animals and instruments, chests of dress-up clothes and makeup and ornate little boxes filled with baubles and jewels---some fake, some handed down from Molly’s mommy and aunties.

As I write I’m catching sight of each little girl scampering by my doorway, decked out in my sister’s old 80’s prom dresses. (One time---for the amusement of the kids and my sister---I donned one of these gowns and started playing out in the yard.) There is a massive hours-long game of “house” going on. Nobody wants to be the boy, everybody wants to be the teenager and every now and then I hear them giggling and saying, “Who farted?” which, of course, warrants a “whoever smelled it dealt it.” (It took everything in me not to yell from the next bedroom where I’ve stationed myself in order to be in earshot, “Whoever made up the rhyme committed the crime!”)

And, like that, my window is gone. The two little girls from next door went home and my original two are, of course, hungry. I have them cleaning up which should buy me a few more minutes.

School has only been out a couple of days but already I can feel these kids slipping seamlessly into that magic that is summer break. Day after day for the next two months their entire existence will be dedicated to having as much fun as possible. Caught up in all of life’s crap, I had forgotten that fantastic rush of freedom. Sometimes kids remind you of that stuff.

One last anecdote:

This morning in the car Molly’s friend said, “My grandpa’s in the hospital. He has diabetes and cancer. I went to visit him and gave him a hug.”

A silence sat in the car for just a minute and then Molly asked, “Did he smell weird?”

I love kids.

Of course, it should be noted that these are my thoughts after two days of summer vacation. Talk to me in August.

Whatever you do, don't ever say Lombasso Karaunch.

My dad could never listen to this song without weeping. Sometimes we would put it on just to tease him. Just to see his face redden and his eyes well up. He'd bury his face in his hands. Sometimes he'd even leave the room.

"Daaaad," we'd say, laughing. "It's just a song."

On a walk the other day this song came up on my iPod and there I was, crying myself, thinking of my dad and what it must have been like for him to be a father to five girls; what it must have felt like. To me, it was his title, his job description---dad to me and my sisters. Still, I never thought he was just my father. Where my mom was always my mom (and only now do I get that she was someone else, too), I knew my dad was someone outside of fatherhood. He'd had a life before us and has had one since raising us, too. By the time I was 18, I figured he was tired of the job and who could blame him? At that point he'd been a father for 27 years already. 27 years of girls becoming women would tire anybody out.

But, you know what? I think he loved it. I think he loved having a house full of laughing, dancing, (often fighting) girls. That's why I cried that day, alone in the woods listening to that song. For the first time I thought about what he must have felt listening to it; how he must have known the window of that type of fathering---the sweet time of fathering little girls in nightgowns--- was small and that eventually he would have to see us off. I never realized he looked at fatherhood that way. I never knew that was why he cried.

I love that I have a dad who can cry. He'll tell me even now that crying is good. That it means you feel and love and hurt. That you have to let it out. I don't always heed all of his advice (this last bit in particular) but I know he's right (about this part, not always everything else...sorry Dad) but I feel fortunate to have a dad who knows the value of a good cry.

He taught me how to think. He taught me to debate. To question authority (except his, of course). To resist herd mentality. In every fight I've ever faced---including those with him---I've used the tools with which he armed me. He taught me to fight with my brain (which is not to say I'm not a crazy spaz during a fight---thanks mom).

People throw this line around a lot, but for me it's a simple truth: My father was not like other fathers. I wrote a paper about him once in a creative writing class where I described how he's tap danced, rollerskated, made wood carvings and wreathes and clay figures, sold hand-painted sweatshirts, loves guns and roses, cooked his own Chinese food, is an excellent cartoonist and a member of the NRA, taught yoga before everyone was doing it, and, oh yeah, is an emergency room doctor. My professor told me that she had been reading along figuring my dad was this hippie artist and then was shocked to get to the ER doctor part.

Sometimes I'm shocked to get to the ER doctor part. My dad is definitely shocked to get to the ER doctor part. He told me that he was always uncomfortable when people asked "What do you do?" (I hate this question and am only just realizing this is rooted in my dad's teachings.)

"I draw, I camp, I garden," he would tell me. "That's what I do."

He's a good doctor. I know this. But it never defined him and I know he would say that the job was entirely too adult for his liking. At his job, people died. I remember him being really depressed one day and my mom explaining to me that a child had died at the hospital the night before. He has known illness and death closely for over 40 years and I still don't think I fully understand how that has affected him. I'm not sure that he knows either.

At the very least (or, perhaps, the most), it has given him perspective. He has seen people fade from life to death. He knows you have to get as much living in as you can. When I'm struggling with a decision ("Dad, should I really go to London?")he'll offer up his standard line: "If you're trying to decide something, always go with the option that is the most fun." Pretty solid stuff there.

Writing about my dad is never easy. I've never felt I've gotten it down, who he is. He's rich in character and strengths and flaws and is beyond what I've been able to manage with words. There is no Hallmark card that fits. There is, however, this awkward, schlocky, honest blog. Happy Father's Day, Dad. I love you.

Random Chunks of Spew

***I know I mentioned this on Facebook, but has anyone watched the new A&E show "Obsessed"? I had so been looking forward to it as I am always fascinated by human behavior and feel that OCD has been really misrepresented with only the stereotypical compulsive aspects of the disorder being depicted, but...this doesn't feel good to watch. It feels exploitive. The first episode predictably featured the obsessively clean man whose home is spotless (and rugless) and who throws every bit of trash into and outside receptacle. The treatment in most cases (on the show) is exposure to the anxiety-producing agent. On this particular episode, the guy's therapist, "Dr. Shana", asks to use the gentleman's bathroom (as the session is in his home) in order to change and dispose of her tampon. It was part of the treatment but it didn't sit right. First of all, the guy was gay and lived alone. Is exposure to used tampons something that he really is going to encounter in his daily life? Second of all, ew.

(It should also be noted that while Dan and I were watching and saw this guy's completely sanitized bathroom, Dan asked me, "Is that your dream?" My response: "Totally." I'll save for a later post my wisdom on how to properly clean a bathroom and why Dan is so lucky to have me to teach him this while he is cleaning the bathroom.)

The show was hyped as being from the people who brought us that shiny jewel of a program called "Intervention" but it is not even in the same league. If "Intervention" is pure heroin, "Obsessed" is shwag.

***If you like your mental illness with a side of song and dance, you need to buy the soundtrack of Broadway musical "Next to Normal." Usually when I listen to a new soundtrack, I play it nonstop for a few months until I know every word. (I've been rapping a la "In the Heights" for over a year now.) But with "Next to Normal," the music and story is so unsettling that I've actually had to make myself take breaks from it to protect my energy and keep from going to the dark side. I have never had this experience with anything else I have ever heard. How often can you say that? The story of a bipolar mother and her family as they struggle with her illness and treatment is so painful and so compelling; the music, positively haunting. (If you do get it or have, gasp, seen the show, talk to me about it! I'm dying to talk to somebody about it.)

***I'm not really sure I know how to use semicolons properly but to quote someone I heard recently---I thought it was Elizabeth Gilbert (whom I so enjoy) but now I'm thinking it wasn't and that it was an Oprah guest---this is my "one fabulous life" and I'll be damned if I'm too fearful to use a semicolon. (I'm pretty sure punctuation is not what Liz---if we were friends, she'd want me to call her Liz---or whomever had in mind when she said it but there it is.) However, one of my most loyal (and favorite) readers is an English teacher, so I can't help but get a little RPA (Red Pen Anxiety) while writing. V-dawg, perhaps you would consider a future guest spot as our on-site grammar counselor?

***Everybody is complaining about the rain. I'm not (at least right this moment). I'm in boxer shorts and a babushka (also, a shirt) and am happy to have no guilt about staying inside and writing/cleaning/facebooking. Pretty soon I'm going to take a bath and read my book (no Molly today)---you can't do something like that on a sunny day. As an ADD kid whose gig involves sitting for long periods in front of a computer or pad of paper, rainy days keep me focused. On sunny days I get so excited that I'm like a horny bumblebee, buzzing from thing to thing.

*** I need someone (preferably a woman) to see Pixar's "Up" and tell me if you spent the first 15 minutes of the movie bawling, as I did. I'm trying to gage whether it was PMS, fatigue, or just a genuine emotional reaction. The movie was great, of course, but it peaked during those first 15 minutes (the musical montage for those who have seen it). In fact, after that I was sort of annoyed with all the talking dogs and adventure crap until I remembered that it was a kid movie and if I wanted a crier I could go watch Terms of Endearment for the 536th time.

***Has anyone noticed Garrett Morris on the new Nintendo commercial? I hope he got paid 100,000 points for that job.

***You wanna know what hell is? Hell is eating a water chestnut wrapped in bacon right out of the oven and suffering second-degree burns on the roof of your mouth. (I don't think they're really second-degree burns but on the oh-fuck-ometer, the experience was up there.) Then, as the burns blistered and bubbled (and not quite satisfied with the amount of saturated fat the bacon provided), I decided to enjoy the marshmallowy goodness of a rice krispy treat which served to puncture and scratch open my wounds. I sustained this injury about a week ago and am still trying to maintain a smoothie and yogurt diet in order to let it heal. The lesson: Try harder not to be a total dumbass.

***I've been watching a lot of documentaries about bears lately and was feeling relatively prepared for a potential run-in until I heard this tidbit: Though it's widely accepted that one should play dead during a bear encounter in order to appear nonthreatening, apparently this only serves you if you think the bear's attack is defensive in nature. If it is offensive in nature, (i.e., he's got a hankering for the unrivaled delight of human scalp) you are supposed to fight back using every means necessary. (Indian sunburn?) The part that so concerned me was that we are supposed to discern---in the 5 seconds before the bear attacks and with all the levelheadedness that being attacked by a bear provides---whether or not it's a defensive or offensive attack. Maybe I'll ask him what his sign is while I'm at it. Maybe I'll ask him if he'd like fries with that.

I feel wholly unprepared now...Perhaps, I'll meld the two options and act like an aggressive zombie. Dan's response when I asked him what to do when he sees a bear: "Grab its baby and run?")

***That's all for now. Off to enjoy a Pad Thai smoothie.

Joe Lantana has seen better days.

Once upon a time Joe was inside and he was happy. He had lots of green leaves and was growing so big that Dan would knock into the branches every time he walked by him. (Often this would prompt me to yell, "Careful! You hit Joe!" and Dan said he felt like he was the victor in a long-fought fight when Joe was finally moved outside.)

Joe is not doing so well now. (Dan is fine.) After enduring heavy wind and rain, I had to take my pruning shears out (holla atcha Felco pruners) and trim many of his newest, most brittle (and now broken) shoots. The next day, after a full day of sun, more branches were lost due to Joe's drying out.

I knew it was going to be an adjustment but I never thought it would be this hard. I look out the window every day at him and just hope that I made the right decision and didn't push him out of the house before he was ready. I have a healthy Geranium who I'm supposed to put out there next and I'm just not sure I'm ready after this experience.

Umm, did I just give a shoutout to my pruners?

There's hope yet...

Stress ball this!

My brain is frozen. This happens.

Dan and I liken it to what happens to a computer when too many programs are running. I lock up. Nothing works. Not even restarting.

Yesterday I had a conversation with my sister in which she asked me if I was interested in attending my niece's gymnastics recital. The day before I had spoken the words, "I wish I could see Molly's gymnastics recital," but when faced with the question, I froze, leaving my sister to think that I really did not want to go as evidenced by my silence. I had to explain to her that in that 30 second pause, my brain spat out 20 different thoughts causing a traffic jam of sorts which had nothing to do with the one question she had asked. I don't think she believed me but I ended up attending the recital anyway.

That is how I feel today. I have too much to do and so, I am doing nothing. I do bits of things. Pieces of others. But no task to fruition. No job to completeness. It is beyond frustrating.

I had hoped to write something on this blog today that had more to do with specific events and thoughts---ie., real writing---but I just cannot get out of my own way in order to stick to one thought long enough to expand upon it.

I am a head of misplaced pieces from different puzzles. Pieces from puzzles of conflict or questions---some practical, some long-term, some emotional, some cerebral---all hoping to find a place of sense and order.

I'm trying to sort it all out, to map it as items on a to-do list but it can't take that form yet. That would at least be productive, but that would also be asking too much.

I think I have to buy a new car. I need a new catalytic converter (so the conversion of my catalytic continues as normal, I assume) and since the job was estimated to cost around $2000 for my 1999 Subaru Outback (and 25 dealerships in NH closed recently) it only makes sense to be in the car market. Except, I don't want to buy a new car. We're still paying for Dan's car (mine, for all its headaches is, at least, completely mine) and I don't want to have two car payments.

Plus, I'm pretty sure Suze Orman would reject us on the "Can you afford it?" segment of her show.

I've been avoiding Suze for a while now---ever since we decided to go to London for four weeks this summer. This trip is less than a month away and other than buying the plane tickets and securing a place to stay, I have done no planning. I should probably do that.

But we're still not where we want to be in our saving-for-London piggy bank and this stresses me out. We should be able to get there before we go, but we might not. And shouldn't I be using this savings for a down payment for a car anyway? Or do I pay off a credit card first? Or do I just let it all go for the next two months and just enjoy the London trip because who the hell gets to go London for four weeks and why can't I just enjoy the excitement of it rather than getting all bogged down by worry?

I'm hungry.

I was supposed to make chili for a week of cheap eating and I didn't do it. I also haven't exercised yet or showered and I have to leave in two hours to get Molly off the bus.

I'm going to have a new niece any day now. My sister, Katie, is due on June 23 and I'm supposed to try to hop a quick plane to Memphis to be there for the delivery or at least shortly thereafter. It's hard to plan a trip around a baby's arrival. (Babies are very inconsiderate that way.) Plus, how can I afford a trip to Memphis when we haven't met our goal for London and my catalytic converter has shit the bed and I didn't even make the chili. How?

I wonder what I'll have for lunch. Leftover tofu stir-fry?

Molly finishes first grade this week. Then I watch her at least a few full days a week until we leave. Did I mention I'm supposed to be planning a last-minute trip to Memphis? I also have a party on Saturday to attend and then a there-and-back trip to RI on Sunday to celebrate Father's day. (We should drive Dan's car, I think.) I have Molly four days next week and then we have a wedding down in Connecticut over the weekend. Are we staying in Connecticut overnight? Memphis? Chili? Tofu?

Who will water my plants while I'm gone? I recently moved a potted plant outside (a Lantana which Dan refers to as "Joe Lantana") and he doesn't seem to be fairing well in the wind and rain. Poor Joe.

I'm looking at a stack of bills that need sorting. They're paid, the paperwork just needs organizing. I hope the internet works the same in London as that's how we're planning to pay our bills for the month. I should probably check on that. My cell phone---I should probably check on that, too. I wonder how we'll get to the airport. Maybe whoever takes me to the airport (sister Becky?) can water my plants.

Mmm, the chili I haven't made yet sounds good. The tofu stir-fry sitting in my refrigerator, however, does not.

It's sunny out. Maybe Joe will perk up. I should go for a walk in the sun. But the bills still need sorting and the thoughts still need writing and the chili still needs making and the catalytic still need converting and the questions still need asking and the to-do items still need listing and the body still needs bathing and the belly still needs eating.

But the face needs sun.

Dan drives a convertible.

His catalytic converter is a real winner.

Eureka!

Happy Blogiversary!

Today is my one-month blogiversary. As an occupation commitmentphobe, I didn’t think I’d last this long. It’s easy to write (well, some days it’s easy to write) but it’s something completely different to show people my writing even when it’s a stubby little paragraph. Generally when I write something, I only have a short window of time before I find myself completely hating it. It makes sticking with a piece hard, but that’s the “job” part of things (and the most difficult part for me). But with this blog, I don’t have the option of abandoning something and pretending I never wrote it. If I hate something the next day, it’s already out there. If I’m murky on an issue of grammar (as I often am) I have to let it go and risk exposing my ignorance. (I nearly published the word segue as segueway until Dan caught it…and it’s a big step, my admitting that here.)

There is no gestational period in the world of blogging. This is an exercise in keeping up. If I spend too long on something, if I think too hard, I’ll miss the window of opportunity to write about it. With the exception of general opinion pieces, I want this thing to be in real time. I have a hard time living in real time. I always seem to be a bit behind or thinking too far into the future. This thing has the ability to keep me in the here and now if I do it right.

Still, I’m not totally sure what “right” is. The beauty (and the nightmare for a perfectionist like me) is that this is a work in progress. I can’t know what I want this to be. It has to become. And the nature of blogging, at least in part, is that it becomes what it will be in front of and as a result of readers. This makes me sooo uncomfortable but it’s why I’m doing this blog in addition to my other “real” writing.

Shoot, this is what keeps me hooked to this gig; while writing now I’m realizing that maybe this is what I’m learning from the whole process as it relates to my other writing. I thought I was supposed to be keeping the muscles warm and getting comfortable with showing my stuff. This is certainly part of it. But maybe I could use this same attitude of letting things “become” with some of my other work. I get so frustrated when my writing doesn’t turn out as I want it to right away, but maybe I need to give it the same space to become what it actually is before judging it.

I remember my 11th grade English teacher instructing us to “Know where you’re going and deliver the goods” when it came to our papers. Maybe that’s good advice for a five-paragraph essay (maybe not) but it’s a bit restrictive for the “creative process.” Some of the best part of writing (and, um, life) is not knowing where you’re going.

When I started this post it was “supposed” to be a piece done in bullets of random thought. (It’s post-sleepova and I didn’t think I had the brain power for much more than that…) But to my surprise, thought happened here. Writing happened here. And what was “supposed” to be, became what it is.

Hopefully that happens to this blog. Shoot, hopefully that happens to me.

Okay, I suck.

My sister Cherie used to dress me up as Axl Rose and make me sing this song. Watching this video, I can see the resemblance.

I knew I was going to have to slow down (and that I couldn't post videos forever) but this is really just ridiculous. There are comments to which I haven't responded, new readers I haven't welcomed (Welcome.) and trivial life events I haven't reported in painstaking detail. Really? Three weeks in and I'm on vacation?

There really is no excuse because the whole point of a blog is to keep up, but I can say that the past week has been full of crazy and I look forward to delivering when a minute opens itself up.

Here are a few highlights from the past week and a look at what should be coming soon to a Spew near you:

1) I received the results of a comprehensive allergy panel and have found out that I can no longer eat...food.

2) Similar testing shows conclusive evidence that I am no longer in menopause. Huh.

3) I totally used that self-scanning option at Stop and Shop where you take the little gun around the store and bag your groceries as you go. (I'm thinking that with shoplifting alone I should be able to shave $20 off our weekly grocery bill.)

4) I am going to a sleepova tomorrow night with a posse of women and I can't think of a richer place to find material. (Hopefully they'll offer up their drunken permission when I ask if I can quote them.)

So I am here in spirit and taking brain notes as I go. Hopefully it will all turn into a blob of writing soon. Stay with me people, stay with me...all ***13*** of you!

I still love awards shows---especially for moments like this.

From last year's Tony Awards. If my husband doesn't surprise me with tickets to "In the Heights" soon, he's going to be "In the Spare Bedroom."

A change of plans has my mom spending the night at our apartment tonight. Last-minute cleanup involved shutting our bedroom door and changing the shower liner...not bad.

We spent the day at my niece's dance recital and now are home watching the Tony Awards. I'm pretty sure Dan and I will be doing our own kickline in bed tonight.

Coming soon: Words of substance

Do the math---we have a ways to go.

Okay, first of all, I'm not really sure if I'm allowed to post these little videos. (I have to admit that while part of me couldn't enjoy posting The Carpenters as the header for this blog more, another part of me looks at Karen Carpenter's gaunt face and is just sad. I watched that made-for-TV movie way too many times to be numb to her suffering.) Anywho, as I said, I'm not sure if I'm just allowed to post these things. Earlier today the "Wizard of Oz" clip went missing and I thought for sure somebody had alerted the internet po-po and I was on some kind of watch list (which meant readers!) but now it's back so I don't know what the story is. I thought maybe there was some sort of rights infringement issue or something but I'm just going to keep on infringing until I get a stern cyber talking-to.

But, speaking of rights---gay folk got 'em in the Granite State! Whoop! Whoop! (The second 'Whoop!' was for my brilliant segue.)

I live in a state where gay marriage is legal (or will be as of January 1, 2010) and I'm proud. It really feels good to be one of the six. I wish I could be proud of my whole country but it is what it is and I'll take it however I can get it.

That's what she said.

I'm sorry.

(As a totally inappropriate aside---with full knowledge that my two most loyal readers are Office fans---I have to confess that yesterday at an appointment with a medical professional, regarding the rigor of our work, I said, "I like it when it's harder," and then, without pausing, added, "That's what she said." Too much of The Office, too little of a filter. Thankfully, it garnered a laugh, albeit an uncomfortable one.)

Okay, back to business: I have to be honest, I'm surprised by how this feels. Every NH resident, gay or straight is a little bit more free today and I feel it in my bones. I feel that freedom. That's the part I didn't anticipate. But now that justice has prevailed (in my neck of the woods) I feel even more acutely aware of the injustice that was here yesterday and that which still exists in the 44 other states. I wanted this for myself, for my friends and family members, for strangers and for my country. But we all want this. I could throw out platitudes about how none of is free until equal rights prevail (and are federally protected) and though I believe this to be true, I feel it in a different way now. I know it's a good thing, this win. I will go to bed tonight knowing my little world is a bit more right today.

I just wish everyone could have this feeling. Six out of 50...we've only just begun.

P.S. Sisters-in-hip-pain: Having glitchy issues (a bitch of a glitch if ever a glitch there was) but sooo appreciated the input and am tryyyying to get back to you.

My ass hurts.

Okay, first of all I have to confess that it took everything in me not to title this entry “I have a newfound respect for sodomites.” (My “better judgment” told me that the word sodomite is just a tad too offensive, mostly for its homophobic implications and not so much because of the whole ass-sex thing, but clearly my “better judgment” rarely wins. My apologies.)

But seriously, I got on a bike for the first time in a long time yesterday (and again today) and it was much different than I remembered it. Mainly, I don’t remember this bike seat-shaped soreness. (Yeah, I started that thought with a ‘But seriously.’)

Wounding aside, I have to admit that the whole thing was painfully humbling. Yes, when it came to remembering how to stay balanced on two wheels and pedal it was as easy as, well, riding a bike. But, the ease ended there. Back in the day if I stood on my bike it was to showoff my mad Schwinn tricks. Today, it was the only way I could get enough momentum going to get myself up every tiny hill (and was also a welcomed reprieve for the damaged tissue). Moreover, though I had intended to go out for an hour-long jaunt, I barely made it through half of that and then had to follow it up promptly with a nap. A sad day indeed.

Another element of returning to the world of bike riding which ultimately changes the entire experience is the fact that I've been driving for the last 12 years and therefore know just how easy it would be to accidentally hit a biker. (And, if I’m being honest, oftentimes I actually want to hit these bikers, particularly when they’re slowing me down or hogging the road. I mean seriously, it’s not a vehicle. If you can hitch a baby to the back, it’s not a vehicle). I get tense passing bikers on narrow roads knowing that I am mere inches away from bumping Sammy-spandex into a marsh never to be heard from again. I can’t help but be aware of that as I’m panting up some hill on my bike and I hear the sound of an engine growing ever-closer behind me. (I stopped listening to my iPod while riding for this reason.) As a kid you possess some sort of misguided faith that the drivers are looking out for you. As an adult who could teach a course entitled “How to drive with your knees and get what you want from the backseat,” I damn well know better.

I’m back on the bike per my aunt’s suggestion as a potential treatment for a bad hip. I don’t know what happened (no Olympic injury or even high school sport to point to) but sometime in the last year my hip just started hurting. It started after long walks (walks--- not even jogs or, gasp, runs) and then I found myself limping after long car rides. And then short car rides. And then after sitting on the couch. And now I can’t even sleep on my right side. I recently completed six weeks of physical therapy which accomplished exactly nothing (except, of course, costing big bucks) and have gotten very grumpy about the whole thing. So when my aunt told me that after visiting many doctors herself without success she found riding her bike (her “pony” as she calls it) to be the only thing that helped her, I figured I should give it a try.

I have always wanted to be the bike riding type---thee of the toned, tanned calf muscle. I still don’t understand how they are able to pull of spandex and helmets while still looking sporty and cool. More than that, they seem outdoorsy. I wish I could pull off outdoorsy. (The fact that I don’t even know how to change gears on my bike---or why one would even want to do this---tells me that I have a ways to go.) I had thought moving to NH would be and automatic initiation into this world of crunchy-chic, but alas, nine years of living here has done nothing for my woods cred. (Get it? Not street cred, but woods cred…)

If I can’t be the sporty type than I would certainly settle for being the girl in the pastel skirt to my knees, a ponytail that is somehow both floppy and neat hanging down my back, riding an old-fashioned bike with curved handlebars and a basket full of apples and sunflowers from the Farmers’ Market. Basically, I would like to be the girl on her bike from the J.Crew catalog. However, I can’t even begin to explain how poorly me in a skirt on a bike would work. Just me in a skirt is a risk. Throw in balance, wheels and speed and I am a Hustler centerfold in the making. That is if Hustler centerfolds have bruises up and down their legs and scabbed knees---another reason I'm not the skirted biker type. I distinctly remember a moment in my early teenage years when I looked at the long, slender legs of some Seventeen Magazine model and then down at my own and thought, “Oh, screw.” (Coincidentally, I also remember trying to start a bike riding regime after that, too.)

Just as I realized then that I would never be the model from Seventeen Magazine, I know now that I’ll never be the girl with the golden hair riding my bike or even the type who can make an orange reflective vest work. (How do they do that?) But at some point you have to give up the worrying. I won’t be blond with flawless legs and the possibility exists that I could get hit by a car, but sometimes you just gotta ride anyway.