suppose i never ever let you

He asked me to write this all down. Save it in a bottle like a scoop of ocean water and sand. He likes how I write. Thinks it’s pretty. He’s bonded to our story like he has to the smell of my soap. Holding my wrist to his mouth and breathing in. My fingers unfolding into his hair. For me it’s been a string of coincidences and moments like that. Almost sickeningly sweet. Dimly lit. In soft focus. But that is what this is. What these weeks are. The weeks before we one day disagree. The weeks before the day to day can even touch us. The weeks when seeing his name pop up on my cell phone gives me butterflies.

These weeks are to be savored.

I have this idea. Or picture. It’s more of a picture. Of all these very public diaries written by boys and girls and men and women. Posted with wordy snapshots and punctuative ideas of what life is like for us. What it means to share 2007 with a planet full of people who are more alike than different. I can see this timeline in my head. Of all the people before us and all the ones yet to come. Slices of who gets to share today. And it will be a slightly different slice tomorrow. All these people telling their stories of falling in love, of being in high school, of what they had for lunch. We’re documenting life in a way that its never been documented. Turning history books to puzzles where the pieces are scattered about and each one fits with all the others.

This is what I tell myself when I write down how he smells my wrist and how we were at the same punk show in Green Bay, WI summer of 1988, and how I knit stuff and how my cat did something cute. I’m adding to this collective story. Just like you are. Just like she is. Just like he is.

I had lentil soup with spinach for lunch. Keith taught me how to say “Where is the butter?” in French as though I was extremely cranky to have to ask.

And about two months ago I met a boy. Met him because he was wearing a wrist band and I think wrist bands are totally hot. Met him because he said he was brave enough to be truthful and had gone from punk rock kid to irreverent adult with a healthy dose of grown up and dad and guy next door. Met him because I couldn’t get him out of my mind once our paths crossed. 24 hours later I was sending him an e-mail and crossing my fingers. Now he’s having his mom analyze my handwriting and wearing a scarf I made him as he visits his family in DC. His 14 year old son in tow. His cell phone charger forgotten on his kitchen table. His dad wanting to take him to church.

Everyone, this is Bob.

Bob, this is everyone.

i got lost in the sounds

Instead of blaming it on the New Guy, I’m going to first blame my hiatus on Flickr. That whole “a picture is worth a thousand words” thing is really appealing. I’m still in the honeymoon phase with my wee digital camera and it created an unholy alliance designed to bring down my blog.

Next up, I’m going to blame the weather. It’s been all end of the world here. Hail. Snow. Torrential rains. Wind storms. It was all I could do to make it to work on time, and by on time I mean, you know, like by noon.

After that I think I’ll blame laziness with a pinch of writer’s block tossed in for good measure. I tried to write. I really did. But it just wasn’t happening. If my blog was judged by hours put in and not words, I assure you November would not have gone by unnoticed. I spent at least 10 hours looking at a blank page and another 20 contemplating why that was so.

If I was forced to come up with a Top 5, maybe, MAYBE, the New Guy would make an appearance. But to say he’s an obstacle to anything is silly. He’s a distraction, sure. A very cute distraction who happens to be an excellent kisser. But he’s really Grade A Fancy fodder. I have a novel kicking around in me with him as a main character and to tag him a threat to this lil ol’ blog is preposterous. Instead, it was more like waiting to introduce a new boy or girlfriend to your kid. You know, you wanna wait to make sure it’s worth the trouble. Nothing is worse than waxing poetic about how fantabulous he is only to have him be yesterday’s news quicker than I can change my MySpace status back to single. But it’ll be 2 months on Christmas Eve and, dang it, that seems like something. 8 weeks of goo-goo eyes and flirty e-mails. 8 weeks of worrying about what I was going to wear and if I smelled nice. 8 weeks of constant smiling and butterflies. It’s been pretty neat.

I think I’m blushing.

In other news, Best Boss Ever left to go back to radio. He was a gopher on the set of WKRP when he was in college and apparently that had a mighty big impact on him. His leaving triggered my third mid-life crisis. Now I’m on this kick where I want to care about my job. Have it mean something. I have my eye on the perfect place and my fingers crossed. My step dad had heart surgery and is going to be ok. But, man, what a week. The scare made me realize I loved him and I told him so after 23 years of not telling him so. One of my friends is pregnant. And I couldn’t be happier because the world needs more curly haired cutie pies. Clover is robuster than ever. Boo is gonna be in Revolver magazine cuz she rocks that much.

Winter is the new metaphoric spring.

a thousand words

I've been a lazy writer.

Lazy.

While this piece of internet real estate has been vacant, over here it's hopping. Fall makes it easy to take pretty pictures and being lazy (as previously established,) I can't pass that up.

However, if I have any hope of selling this blog to Google for 1.65 billion dollars I really need to update it weekly. So things are a'brewin. Perk-a-lating. French pressing.

I'll post something new this weekend. Pinky swear.

i'm blinking off and on and off again

HOLY MOLY.

Writing is hard. Writing stories for newspapers that care about details and “getting things right” is extra hard. My sophomoric effort to the ass story made it’s debut on Sunday. I haven’t read it yet. I just can’t. It’s been the subject of enough e-mails to bring down AOL. It’s been passed from editor to editor with more frequency than a really bad cold. It’s been the inspiration for passionate rants in the parking lot about whether a word should be in italics or in bold. People. That is not worthy of a passionate rant. So this Sunday, I just let it come and go with nary a clinked glass to my second stint as a freelance writer. But let you not be fooled. I’m already signed up for round three.

It’s like San Pellingrino that way. It takes a little getting use to but once you like it you feel significantly cooler.

Want to know what is not cool? Amateur magicians.

I’ve been to many an advertiser recognition party. I’ve worked in media since you were a toddler and I know how they are supposed to go. The recipe is as follows: open bar, decent band. It’s really that simple. You are supposed to flex your market might to snag a band and venue that your competitors could only dream of. Then you get everyone drunk, fill them up on finger foods and watch the magic happen NOT hire a magician! His first trick were those hoops. You know the ones - where you clink them together a few times to no avail and then suddenly - poof! - they are magically linked together. “Can’t you buy those at Walgreen’s?” I asked Chris. “I’m fighting an urge to make balloon animals.” he said back. Thankfully, they nailed the open bar part.

It’s day 16 sans sugar. Feels a little like day 116. Keith seductively licked a Twix for my benefit. I passed up the prettiest little fruit tarts. I’m really really - really - sick of raisins. Day 21 will be on Saturday freeing me up to eat a wheelbarrow full of brownies on Sunday. Or not. The idea behind this little experiment is to reset my sugar tolerance. I want to feel it when I eat sugar. The highs. The lows. I want to face plant into my keyboard 90 minutes after eating a doughnut. I want to find candy too sweet and maybe, just maybe, chose something like an apple over something like a cupcake. I know it’s a long shot. These hopes typed from the fingers of someone who, say just 17 days ago, considered chocolate chip cookie dough a perfectly acceptable dinner.

Uncooked.

What else? What else? Chris accidentally dressed like an American flag one day. I’m undefeated in fantasy football. Clover The Cat tried to communicate an emergency to me using just her eyes. Boo finished her quilting project. That’s huge. BOO FINISHED HER QUILTING PROJECT. You know what that means ... pole dancing lessons are next on her agenda! This week is the corn-off! My coworkers and I are having a contest to see who has the shortest time frame from corn consumption to corn ... ah ... deconsumption? (a.k.a. pooping.) Kay’s having a football party. I’m making Chex Mix!

Woo-hoo!

Wanna come?

sing me the alphabet

I’m quitting sugar for 21 days. Cold turkey. When chocolate chip cookie dough sounds like a good thing to have for dinner, you know you have a problem. Or perhaps a number of problems. I’ve made it through two full days of turning my nose up at all things sweet and delicious. So far so good. Keep in mind that the Hawaiian economy may collapse but I can’t worry about island states when there are peanut butter labels to read. And jams to shun.

Yes. I've shunned jam.

But I don't shun prophetic dreams! People are having dreams! People like Kay. People like Diana. In these dreams I'm hooking up with a certain boy who makes me laugh like a goofball and who also happens to star in the following snippet. Names have been changed to protect the inocent.

Zach Braff: Hi, this is Zach.
Me: You referred to yourself in the third person.
Zach: What do you mean?
Me: This email. It says “Braff doesn’t like that.” and it’s from you, Mr. Braff.
Zach: What’s your point?
Me: Referring to yourself in the third person is kinda ... um ... weird.
Zach: Braff doesn’t think it’s weird.

Then he hung up on me. Click. For comic effect. And today. I caught him looking at my butt.

I finished my story for Gender F. Gender Foosball. Gender Foxy. Gender Fifth of Gin. It’s about crafts and girls. Girls and crafts. If you’re in the knitting know you’ll be able to make a pair of leg warmers by following the bouncing ball. It hits the streets on September 25 and get this - THEY ARE PAYING ME AGAIN. I thought the first time was some kind of accident but apparently it’s on purpose. Even more amazing - I’m gearing up to write something for a section that is not special and is not about women. Hint: It doesn’t start with and G and end in an F. It’s about my friends and their super cool company and social networking sites and saving the world and doing what you love and seeing how many bottles of Perrier you can drink in an hour without blowing up.

The jam I shunned was blackberry.

I’m thinking of going back to school. I dunno for what. Maybe law. Or maybe French. Or art. I need more assigned reading in my life. And index cards. I’m severely lacking in index cards. Preferably scribbled with words in a foreign language and held together with a rubber band. I might just decide to bake raisin-walnut bread instead. Or join a particularly challenging book club. I could always take up Latin again. Nothing cured my want of an education as effectively as a quarter of Latin.

Ah. Those were the days. The frustration. The erasing. The cassette tapes.

I’d write something snarky here, in Latin, if I was able to retain anything that I could use in somewhat normal conversation. Instead, all I can say are things about killing. And herding sheep.

that dress looks nice on you

Painting the hearts on the rocks and typing up the fortunes was the hard part. It was the part that made me cry a little and it was the part that made Boo want to come over for a bit to see what I’d made. I had six little polished black rocks with imperfect bright red hearts painted in the center of each one. In a few hours time they would be holding down carefully worded fortunes and a row of lucky numbers.

You are free to move on.
Lucky numbers: 8, 4, 6, 3, 18, 71

When I moved here. See. Right here. I want to justify what happened by pointing out that I was a mess when I moved here. I was bruised. Bandaged. It was all I could do just to go to work. I felt like I’d landed here, accidentally. Spit out of some tornado that was mostly made up of hurt feelings and no where else to turn.

You can have fond memories of bad places.
Lucky numbers: 8, 4, 6, 3, 18, 71

Really. I’m guilty of holding on too long. Of allowing mud dragging door mat hit by a bus rinse lather repeat. I had forgotten that I’m pretty much the best version of me that ever has been and instead was remembering that there is a little insecure place in me that thinks I don't deserve very much at all. That little insecure part of me is willing to put up with a lot. And it’s also willing to not be so little sometimes.

You did the best you could.
Lucky numbers: 8, 4, 6, 3, 18, 71

So round two happened. An affair. And there I was settling for a hundredth of what I deserved. Talking myself into thinking it was all these things that it wasn’t. Mainly: harmless. And then come a Tuesday in December everything crashes into a brick wall that I didn’t see coming even though. Geeze. I should have. We both should have. It was a lot of disbelief and confusion. The kind of crisis that shows what you are made of. I’m made of some pretty good stuff.

You are forgiven.
Lucky numbers: 8, 4, 6, 3, 18, 71

The next month is not a blur. I wish I could say it was a blur. That it was dulled and almost forgotten. But it is not. It was a mix of me being a superhero and me being unable to get out of bed. Disbelief. Deer in the headlights. Vacant. Swimming pools worth of tears. Finding a place in myself that could love something enough to make a rock solid decision in the face of a thousand voices a thousand feelings a thousand possibilities.

You are always welcome here.
Lucky numbers: 8, 4, 6, 3, 18, 71

Just like that it stopped. The out of control. The chaos. The toxicity. A few more changes. Adjustments here and there. I came across the calm I had been searching for. A quiet place to gather my thoughts and get over the last couple years, the last couple months. I beat myself up a lot. For being a door mat. For making bad choices. But no more. August 4 was the day I let go. I freed myself. I put 6 happy ever after fortunes out to change the lives of who picked them up but mostly to change mine. I made pretty offerings to other wise dark places and poked around in the idea of forgiveness. Forgiveness of him. But mostly, forgiveness of me.

You have purpose.
Lucky numbers: 8, 4, 6, 3, 18, 71

i don't laugh like a french man

Although I've been accused of it.

Here is me trying to leave myself a voicemail about a sales lead I saw while driving around with my friend Chris. In the time it took me to dial the phone, I had forgotten the name of the business. This was funny only because it followed a two minute conversation about how I didn't need to write it down because I would "totally remember" it tomorrow. Yeah. Either that or completely forget it in, like, 20 seconds.

So, here ya go kids, this is me laughing while Chris mocks me.

with a side of punk rock

Oh. I’m tired.

It’s a good tired. Hard day’s work kind of tired. Don’t be fooled, I wasn’t out in a field and my job does not typically require that I sweat. Instead, I was inside juggling about two dozen things including clients, proposals, coffee breaks, contracts and insertion orders. It was three o’clock before I would have guessed it was noon. And come 7pm I was a little cranky, a little hungry and a little accidentally calling one of my clients Karen when her name is Kristen. When you become a liability, it’s time to go home.

Isn’t it weird that I have a real job? I read some of the stuff I write and think, DANG, amazing that I’m employed in, like, a professional position and, like, I make good money and stuff. Because I write about boys and stitch fake teeth. And want a yurt.

I more than want a yurt, actually. I am OBSESSED with yurts. I’ve been rallying the troops, i.e. my coworkers and friends, to start a yurt colony with me. We’d each live peacefully in our own separate yurts and all pitch in and buy a Command Yurt or Yurt HQ where we can gather to watch movies and bake cupcakes. I have the yurt brochure on my desk and make yurt jokes at every opportunity. Chris accuses me of being a yurt instigator. I’m not sure what that all means, but if it has the word yurt in it, I consider it a compliment. Abby found a yurt tree house today so now the colony is looking for woodland property instead of grassy fields near babbling brooks. This whole idea kinda makes me want to start a cult.

Other obsessions: large scale graffiti style knitting, hamsters, scoop neck t-shirts from Old Navy and if soy milk is giving me stomach aches.

I was asked to write two, count ‘em, two stories for the next issue of Gender F. Gender Fuck You. Gender Flunked. Gender Fabulous. Gender Fun! I said yes so eagerly that you’d think they’d negotiate on rate. “Yeah, um, we’re not gonna pay you this time...” I have yet to get the full details on the assignments but I know this much: one of the stories will be on how hipster girls are getting together and getting their craft on. That’s almost as good as it being on yurts. Because if there is one thing I know, it’s ah, being crafty.

What else. What else. I got my hair cut. Used Rock, Paper, Scissors to efficiently settle a dispute. (I lost.) Saw As You Like It in Volunteer Park. Had a sno-cone. Pet a really cute dog. Oh! Chris threw his gum out the car window and it somehow landed on the hood. I got a picture! I made a t-shirt. Finished an iBook cozy and checked on airfare to Europe. Oo la la. Tres jujujuju oui oui oui le croissant, non?

someday somebody's gonna ask you

He said he’d been antisocial and spent the holiday on his roof watching the tops of fireworks peek over trees from miles and miles away. I spent it on my neighbor’s deck watching them explode over Elliot Bay and having my mind wander sometimes to what he was doing and sometimes to how fortunate I was to be surrounded by tipsy friends with s’mores on the horizon. The mint julep had made my cheeks pink from two sips and I bet he was drunk, too. The booms were setting of car alarms and my friend Laura’s daughter was eating red licorice by the handful. Everyone looked so pretty in the darkened glow of red, white and blue.

All the important people were there. Laura. Boo. Charity. Charity is new. Met on 43things and have become fast friends. Together the four of us form some dream team of smart girls with special talents. Laura can speak French and makes an amazing macaroni and cheese. Boo works graphic magic and lights up a room. Charity is an emotionally smart genius who can knit you anything your heart desires. Me. I can paint and embroider dish towels and turn any problem into happy. If only we could fly. If only we could bring about world peace with well designed flyers, little sweaters and pasta dishes. I musta done something right to have found these girls in a city this big and this sometimes rainy. Apparently, I've had at least three lucky Seattle days.

I made a flag cake and baked beans and bought more food than I needed . Way more. Like four times more. I was sending leftovers home with everyone who had a spare arm to carry a zip-lock bag or covered dish. Laura and I made a trip to Costco for the occasion and while a giant jug of ketchup seemed like a good idea in the moment, it’s now turned into a lifetime supply. Same thing with graham crackers. Same thing with veggie dogs. Same thing with jell-o. In event of nuclear holocaust, I’m totally covered. Boo promised that next time I have a party she’ll follow me around and secretly put back 2/3 of everything I have in the cart.

It was my second Fourth of July here. The first one, I was a bit wide eyed and homesick. Remembering very clearly my last 4th of July in Minneapolis. Remembering riding my bike. Remembering the mosquitos. Then, from my perch on Capitol Hill, I watched the fireworks while playing with Sophie’s hair and wondering how exactly I had landed in Seattle. Figuring the reason would make itself known in time. And my only job was to be patient and recognize it when it crossed my path. That’s me still, one year later. Keeping an eye out and sipping summer drinks while sitting on the porch.

15 minutes

My first ever published story is in the Sunday paper. I thought I'd kinda hate it when I saw it in print - - but I don't! Hooray!

Thanks to Boo for her ass and connectionz.

I'm blowing my $125 paycheck on booze! Bottoms up! Pun intended!

Read it here.

P.S. Boo's ass and I are trying to make the Top 10 list of most e-mailed articles on Monday. Sooooo ... if you'd be so kind to click the little "send this article" button at the bottom and forward it to a few dozen of your friends, that would be super fantastico. I really think that the Times needs to have the word "butt-love" in it's Top 10 something before turning 110 years old. Don't you agree?

hope you get to be happy sometimes

It was a work project. Taking Polaroids of all the touristy spots for a client in Chicago. We spent 3 hours on a sunny Friday afternoon walking around the market and looking up at the Space Needle. We made friends with the fish mongers and Chris wished out loud for us to run into a Mariner’s player as we photographed Safeco Field. He said it with such youthful optimism that I asked him if he was nine. A giant 9 year old. Who could drive. And was entrusted with a company credit card. It was my little retrobutionary zing for saying the reason he didn’t have a myspace page was, and I quote, “because I’m almost 30.” Yeah.

Kay held the bobble head we had made tour mascot and I snapped the pictures. I had to search all over the city for a Polaroid camera the night before. The only one I have left is almost 22 years old, black with a rainbow stripe up the left side and uses flashes that haven’t been made since the early 90s. Everywhere I looked had film but no cameras. I struck gold at Walgreens and $40 later I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. It’s sliver and space age and cool. We shot almost 20 pictures. 20 times standing in a three person huddle, squinting in the sun and waiting for the picture to turn from drab olive green to the not quite kodacrome colors we all remember Polaroids to be. Wanting to shake it. Eyes peeled for recognizable silhouettes. The immediate critique of the shot. “Yeah, that’s a good one.”

We ate lunch at the pier and I paid an extra $2 to upgrade the fish in my fish and chips to halibut instead of cod. Cod reminds me of poverty and I always think halibut is the fish with both eyes on one side of its body. But that’s flounder. Hey. Had I been able to upgrade from french fries to tator tots, I woulda done that too. We all used a lot of ketchup and talked about regional names for things like tarter sauce and grandma made Jell-o salads. Chris is the right mix of alpha male and goofball. Kay and I play side kick and offer up the right amount of jokes at his expense to keep him in line. Come 3 o’clock my cheeks hurt from smiling. They were a little sunburnt, too.

Kay and I encouraged Chris to take us on a trip through the drive-through Starbucks on the way back and this is where you can take a second to hate me for lobbying for something so lame as a drive through Starbucks. It’s not like I don’t already go there almost every day with Diana anyway. But you know. Admitting it is a little sketchy. I told Chris I wanted the giant passion tea and that is exactly how he yelled it into the speaker. We decided to pay as a team since our triple threat outings were getting to be common place. Kay got this time. I’ll get next.

Stepping off the elevator on the 8th floor carrying a pink iced tea the size of my forearm, I felt almost guilty for the afternoon I’d had. I worried that my sunburnt cheeks and salt water smell would give me away and I’d be questioned about how dare I have fun at work and don’t I realize we’re in a revenue crisis. But instead. The quirky Polaroids getting the best of me and a revenue crisis no where in sight, I plop into Steve’s visitor chair and slide them across his desk. They are great he says. Asking if we had fun. Asking who took the pictures and who’s bobble head it was. Offering tips on the proposal and wishing us luck in closing the deal. Telling me to keep copies so when we win sale of the month, he’ll have handouts for the first time ever.

tiny things are always pretty

I’m people watching. Drinking an iced mocha that surprisingly has cinnamon in it. And eyeing the people that make up the ever changing line. It’s a mix of khaki and hipster. Baseball hats and tattoos. The universal flip flop is ever present. (It’s the official shoe of Seattle.) This cafe is weird in two ways. One. It’s a Mexican-decorated cafe that servers up Cuban specialties and is owned by a French man. I’ll pause here for you to reread that.

Pausing.

And two. The barista looks like he should be featured on America’s Most Wanted. I’m not sure what his crime would most likely be. I don’t think adding cinnamon to iced mochas is anything that would lead to a life on the run. He looks like a bank robber. Or maybe someone who kidnapped a trophy wife for a few hundred thousand dollars. No one got hurt, but now he’s living out of a 1979 Chevy Impala and nervously smoking cigarettes while looking out his motel room window.

I’ve never been that dangerous.

And here’s proof: I kinda want to bake this weekend. Baking, by nature, is not a dangerous activity. Even whipping up a cake version of Piss Christ or a giant penis doesn’t elevate baking to a dangerous art. It smells too nice and there is something meditative about creaming butter and sugar together. Well. And then there is frosting. Butercream can only make people happy. It’s metabolically impossible for frosting to make you cry. Even if left out in the rain. That song was total bullshit. So I’m trying to think of a cupcake design that turns my crank and is G-rated so I can bring a batch to work on Monday. So no boobs. No butts. I gotta be appropriately creative. I will turn to this girl for inspiration - she is the world’s premiere baker of video game themed cakes. Absolutely amazing! Her house must smell really really good. And I bet she has a chorus of eager friends always sitting outside her front door.

Smelling in the smell. Anticipating the frosting.

I was worried for a few days. Maybe almost a week. WebMD got me. It was Saturday morning and I was putting on mascara like I do pretty much every morning and huh. One pupil is bigger than the other. Trying to think back to every eye I’ve ever gazed into, does this just happen? Or is it weird?

OH.

It’s weird all right. All the causes were terrible and the one I shared the most symptoms with was a brain tumor. I didn’t really think that I had a brain tumor. But I didn’t really think I didn’t either. I waited about a week and that eye got a little red and I finally sucked it up and made an appointment. Not a brain tumor. Not all that unusual. But instead, it’s an autoimmune thingy that can be no big deal or something to keep and eye on but the big news was I’m not dying. At least not from my odd sized pupils. So whew.

Fun links to say goodbye!

If you want to see my eyeball of near-death: click here.
If you want to see world's best hamster: click here.
If you want to see a bunny reading a book: click here.

never ending math equation

On the drive to the ferry all the worries I’d had that he was sick manifested in my open palm against the back of his seat. He was talking about politics and I was trying to heal him with happy thoughts because somehow still at 35 I think that can happen. My ability to believe in spite of all evidence to the contrary is one of my greatest strengths. I know for certain that it can’t hurt and I only know for maybe that it won’t help. So with open hand I thought about him being well and about how health can be shared and I sent it along the invisible wires connecting me to him and him to me. All the while he was making us laugh with perfectly timed jokes. All the time, my hand was pressed against the dark gray leather.

That was Friday.

Then Saturday.

Then Sunday.

And Monday. A birthday party for Erik. I hated the pants I was wearing. And the fishnets dug into the soles of my feet. I painted him a painting in about 20 minutes that I wish I had 40 for instead. Todd was there and oh my. All. I. Could. Think. About. Was. Hating. My. Pants. But then there was this polar bear. And she was reading poems and singing songs. And she said: the only thing standing between me and everything I want for my life is my own self hatred. Drinking my drink and silently loathing my pants - that struck a chord with me. I was like YEAH. I could be a fucking SUPERHERO if I could just stop thinking that I can’t be a fucking superhero. I was having my own mini ah-ha moment when all of a sudden the crowd starts going wild. Hooting. Hollering. Clapping. People were cheering their own potential. Acknowledging their self-loating. WOW! We really are all the same! Just like I HEART Huckabees said! At that very moment, I decided to hate my pants a little bit less.

Shall we bring this full circle? SHALL WE?

On Tuesday I told him about the party, the polar bear, the terrible pants. Him of the open palm against the leather seat. Him of the well timed jokes. I could see he was a little surprised that I’d admit so readily to self-doubt. Self-hatred. Bad pants. And all so cheerfully! I spent the rest of the afternoon not thinking a thing of it when PLUNK! - an email from him. He wanted to “give me the response I deserved” to our conversation and proceeded to pen the nicest and most you-go-girl three paragraphs that have ever been written in my honor. I wept. I wrote back. I remembered my hand on the back of his car seat.

spring forward, fall back down

I sent this to almost everyone I know. Now it's your turn, blog friends.

From: HaikuGirl
Sent: Fri 5/26/2006 5:13 PM
To: All who were silly enough to give me their e-mail addess!
Subject: "There was this one time ... "

Hello Friends, Romans, Countrymen.

As many of you already know, I’ve been slowly churning out a kid’s book illustration portfolio and dabbling with ideas to also write a little something something to submit along with it. Inspiration finally struck and the book is going to be about things that make 6 year olds cry. Not real things like daddy hitting mommy or cats getting run over by cars - - but silly things. Like not being able to have a cupcake for breakfast or being forced to wear velour.

I’m looking for your stories! Remember throwing a tantrum over something as simple as the crust still being on the bread? Witness a kid throw down in Target because they were out of pink toothbrushes? Clue me in! If it makes the cut, I’ll thank you, take you to lunch and hide an Ode To You in the illustration. I also will sign a waver so the Ode does not amount to your 15 Minutes Of Fame because that would seem like a total waste of your 15 Minutes.

Thank you in advance to the kind souls who share their stories. I will be forever in your debt.

xoxo,
HaikuGirl

everything smells like pink

Today, my friend Diana found an entire hard boiled egg in her egg salad sandwich. An apparent lack of Quality Assurance (or QA as the corporate kids like to call it) in egg salad making. She didn’t eat it. Oddly enough, it kinda grossed her out. Even stranger, it kinda grossed me out. So we did what any normal duo would do and photographed it. I’m awaiting the camera phone picture as I write this. And of course, I will share its clammy white entirety with you when it comes.

The egg has been a topic of conversation now for almost 4 hours.

It’s that horrifying to us.

Meanwhile.

My terrible ex-boss interviewed at the place I like to call heaven, i.e. my new job. Diana and I launched Operation Khaki when he was detected on the premises. Khaki because he was such a fan of the drab. His skin, his hair, his pants – all khaki. Had they not been pleated, he might have made the cut for a GapEvilDictator commercial.

Did I mention that Diana use to work at the same place I use to work? We over-lapped by, oh, about three days. Here though, we’ve become pals.

Sooooo.

Operation Khaki consisted of batting eyelashes at security guards to peek at visitor logs, chit chatting to secure elevator rides with the Evil Dictator in order to find out which floor he was going to, scouring the company intranet for possible job postings, making plans to “bump” into key decision makers while sporting our hand made t-shirts that say “Only Goofballs Hire Guys In Pleated Khakis” and so on. We’ve also peed all over the building figuring if the t-shirts didn’t work, our estrogen laced pee would surely keep that woman-hater at bay.

The story continues to unfold. Perhaps the whole egg in the egg salad is some sort of terrible prophecy.

What else. What else.

I’m making some art. I’m buying some clothes. I’m dying my hair a darker shade of brown. It makes me look Belgian. Aw, yeah. ”I'm Belgium!” Again, I said that aloud and wasn’t even drunk. I’m your friendly blogging nation-state!

Did I ever tell you guys that my cat has a really tiny head?

She does. It’s wee.

Did I ever tell you guys that I like to sing jazz standards in the shower?

You should hear me. It’s lovely.

And.

Last thing.

I’m pretty sure that I have magic powers. Ask me nice and I’ll turn your stapler into a monkey.

we have a whole life to live together you fucker,but it can't start until you call

My art space is almost put together. I have over purchased many things. Things like hole punches. And black embroidery floss. My previous lack of organization has cost me at least $14.74. Maybe more. Shopping was easier than digging through boxes. And my complete surprise at how many hole punches I have would lead one to believe I didn’t know either. But no more. It’s all tidy and I dare say that everything has it’s place. Believe it or not I have an entire drawer dedicated to creepy doll parts and another entirely to glue sticks.

A glue stick related snippet circa 2005:
Amy: Do you have a glue gun I can borrow?
Me: Yeah - I have two.
Amy: That’s one of the reasons why I like you.

The boy! The crush! My sophomoric secret admirer effort was in the form of embroidered dish towels. A gold fish in a bag, a hand on fire and this: ))<>((. All from Me and You and Everyone We Know. Our shared favorite movie. I’ve never embroidered before and the back sides ended up looking like little yarn afros. I was surprised at how much I loved it. The taught hoop and muffled puncture sound of the needle poking through again and again. The picture slowly taking shape on one side and looking like a total mess on the other. There are as many metaphors wrapped up in that as there are dye lots.

The towels!


He knows it’s me now. A two day e-mail exchange with about a dozen pointed questions outted me before I could finish the oatmeal in the would be pinhole camera container. It was the one present that deserved him as much as he deserved it. Did I mention that he’s a photographer? And a good one? He uses a real camera. Develops his own pictures. Must look cute in the dark room red light. I haven’t seen him since he guessed it was me. But we virtually pinky swore that it wouldn’t be awkward. That we were still on for Minneapolis. That we should hang out more.

On Friday we missed each other by about 30 minutes and I spent the night hanging out with his office mates. We bar hopped in Ballard and Erik said he wondered about this time in my life. What it was like to be me during all this. How I held it in my head. When he said it, it seemed rhetorical. Two days later, I’m not sure how I’d answer anyway. Other than I like being asked stuff like that. And hey, let’s make it into a movie. And you know what else, I wanna pick the soundtrack.

June 25. That’s the day my first ever published piece of writing hits the streets. It’s a sidebar in the Sunday paper. Boo sent this very blog to an editor and I was asked to write something for a quarterly supplement. My assigned topic: butt acceptance. As in: work it. As in: shake that thing. As in: spankable. First draft is due tomorrow. It’s ready to go. Sitting on the desktop. I think it says “hi.”

Lots else happened. I should have written last week. I made a close friend out of a casual one. I bought a pair of brown shoes. I met this guy Adam and think Boo and I found the sidekick we’ve been looking for. A 23 year old guessed I was 21. I suddenly realized it was possible to have a favorite 23 year old. I saw a band play in a church. I saw a band play in a bar. A member of Sound Garden held open the door for Boo and I and said “Good night, ladies” as we stepped on though. It’s been a good week.

say cheese

He posted this on his blog!

secret superhero surprise

I’m still coughing. Seriously. Hacking up lungs every time I go from horizontal to vertical or vice versa. I’m starting to crave Robitussin and wonder what type of cookie would taste best dipped in it. Chocolate chocolate chip would compliment the cherry taste well, no? It says on the bottle to consult a physician if coughing lasts more than seven days. Assuming they mean earth days, I should have gone in about a month ago.

Two Wednesdays have passed. That is one more Wednesday than usual.

In spite of my designation as a “sick person” I got gussied up (read: showered) and headed to Wednesday Night Rendezvous Number One with The Boy On Whom I Have Crush. I accidentally on purpose got a little drunk and we somehow wound up thumb wrestling. (Important side note: I have never thumb wrestled a boy I didn’t later sleep with!) I think he officially “made eyes” at me when I first sat down and there were about 10 perfect minutes when our legs were touching from hip to knee. The night ended well enough - us chatting outside the bar and him asking me to stay as I walked away, waving, with Boo to her car. Which rat pack type said always leave them wanting more? That’s riiiiiiight.

We met in a bar and while that’s nothing to be ashamed of, it doesn’t give much for the best man to say during the toast, so I decided to launch a secret admirer campaign to up the cuteness a few notches and give us both something to smile about in the meantime. He has, according to his myspace page, one and a half fake teeth. I do not know the story, nor do I know which teeth. Which is a relief - meaning they are not gold nor made out of anything other than tooth-like material. His smile is flawless. Appreciating it as I do, I stitched up one an a half plush teeth complete with happy faces and mailed them to him at work in a rather plain envelope lacking a return address.

Behold the camera phone foto!


I mailed them on Monday and come Wednesday Number Two, I was all a twitter to see if he guessed it was me. I expected a pointed question about my sewing skills or some clever ploy to get a handwriting sample but upon arriving at the Wednesday Night Rendezvous HQ, he was no where to be found! The horror!! All his friends were there, everyone was chatting and drinking and chatting some more. Boo and I settled in and had a couple drinks and suddenly it seemed a good idea to confess my crush and mad sewing skillz to his office mate. Erik is a fine lad. Friendly, smart and secret worthy. After about 15 minutes of qualifying if he could keep a secret and about 10 more minutes making him promise and double promise and then super promise that he would, I said this: Did any strange mail arrive at your office this week?

His eyes big. Open mouthed smile. Finger pointed at me. He said: That was YOU?!? His mouth was still formed in the “o” shape when The Boy On Whom I Have A Crush patted him on the shoulder and we all yelped like the Beatles had just walked into the room. Erik stood up! I yanked him down! Boo started laughing! Maggie threw herself against the back of her chair! He, well, all he did was look confused and order a drink. About 5 minutes later he sat down and asked what we had all been talking about, Maggie cleverly and without skipping a beat replied: Our periods.

Like the other nights, he and I wound up sitting by each other and talking over the music. Yelling in his ear has overtaken singing in the shower as my most favorite thing to do. The gratuitous touching amounted mostly to high-fives this time around but the night ended with him saying that he would like us to hang out more. Did you catch that? He. Would. Like. Us. To. Hang. Out. More. HECK YES!

On the way out the door I grabbed Erik and found out that he was teased about the mystery crush and stuffed teeth the entire day of their arrival. He tossed out a couple names of possibility and I was not in the mix. But! He had talked about me that week. Erik also said the postmark was too smeared to read so they couldn’t even tell if this girl lived in Seattle or Denver or Nashville. Couldn’t have planned it any better!

I have two more packages in mind and after they are sent, I’m handing him a note the that reveals my secret identity as the maker of plush teeth and other delights. It’s the bravest thing I may ever do. Let’s hope he smiles.

take a picture

The new kitchen looks like all the other kitchens I’ve had and there is something very comforting about that. Old and charming with a big porcelain sink and window looking out to the back yard. Something about it makes me want to mash potatoes and bake a pie. It inspires me to fold the dish towel and hang it sweetly over the oven door handle. Suddenly, I am the maker of cozy. Stand still too long and I’ll wrap you in blankets and turn on cartoons. Watch out! I’ll smooth down your hair with a licked finger and top it off with a kiss on your forehead. Make room in your fridge because you aren’t leaving without a tupperware container full of left overs. That’s just how it’s gonna be.

Aside from the near nervous breakdown the move unlashed and the 30 hours of sleep it induced, it went pretty smoothly. The week leading up to it was filled with hard to get sales calls and me nursing a bad cough. Or perhaps The Consumption. I’d pack and swill Robitussin until which time I’d pour myself into a pair of dress pants and hoof off to the 41st floor of a swanky high rise office tower to pitch the benefits of online advertising with a smile. In three days I probably eeked out a mere 6 hours worth of work and somehow my boss was still pleased with me. God love him.

I slept after that. 18 hours on Saturday. 12 hours on Sunday. Putting away dishes and folding laundry for the few hours I was vertical, pushing the recommended daily dosages on cough syrup and Advil. Come Monday I was shocked to still be sick figuring the germs would have died from sheer boredom if nothing else. Four blocks from here is a drug store containing my next bottle of cherry flavored silence that I’ll be due to purchase tomorrow if my immune system can’t crack this puzzle. But if you think that will stop me from my Wednesday evening rendezvous with The Boy On Whom I Have A Crush, you’d be wrong. I’m going to go on the assumption that he finds cold medicine induced stoopidity charming and thinks Halls Vapor Action breath is sexy.

I have a mountain of art supplies to unpack. I was fairly unaware of the magnitude of my craft arsenal. It seems big enough to require some kind of license or registration with the state. I have enough pipe cleaners to reenact Hands Across America in stick figurine. Enough glitter to glam up the Space Needle. Paint for days. Sharpies by the dozen. I have the evil plan of turning my bedroom into an art studio in which I sleep. Ideas for shelving and storage bins are dancing in my head. I see bulletin boards with tacked up sketches and a big basket of yarn in my future. It’ll be a fine fine day when painting requires little more than sitting down and the skirt I want to make is covering my ass instead of kicking around my head. Making things keeps me happy. And out of trouble. So make things, I will.

The move was the last stressful thing on the agenda. That’s not to say another thing won’t come up and bite me in the ass, but after the break up with the Boy I Should Have Never Been Seeing, the job change, The Event ... it seems as though a break is in order. I’m playing it cool, focusing on art and work and filling my time with as much peace and glee as I can pack in. I’m shooting for a calm that borders on boring and if I even land close to it, I’ll be glad. I imagine my blog deteriorating into shopping lists and detailed cat updates. I can picture myself chatting with clients about how cool it is to watch dust settle. Like really cool, mind blowing cool. Like the plastic bag in American Beauty. You can’t take your eyes off it kind of cool.

spring is white and fluffy

Lesson of the week: Egg replacer is like magic.

Boo is vegan and into metal. She also bakes cupcakes. Jessica and I got in on the action Tuesday night and low and behold if the cupcakes weren’t as tasty and softer than regular cupcakes. If softness is a criteria for your cupcake enjoyment, I highly recommend giving egg replacer a try. It comes in a box and for $1.49 you have enough egg replacer to last a lifetime even if you have some weird longevity gene. It’s an amazing value.

Cupcake Quote Of The Week: “I wonder if you could bake a really big cupcake. Oh wait, that would just be a cake.” I said that and sadly, I wasn’t even drunk.

Saw a rock n’ roll show. Saw The Boy On Whom I Have A Crush at that rock n’ roll show. We stood by each other and yelled things over the music. Drank beer and smiled a whole lot. I blushed a couple of times. Said a couple of silly things. Had an impure thought or two while yelling into his ear. I wish I had sang a Barry Manilow song when he prompted me to sing a little something for him. I woulda picked “Can’t Smile Without You” or maybe something we coulda disco’d to like “Copa Cabana.” I would have called him Tony the rest of the night and bought him a drink with an umbrella in it. This is my favorite. The happy that comes with potential. Even if the potential is just for another Wednesday night. Giggly and smiling on the bus. A reminder that happy is perennial. Just like the grass.

My favorite thing about this boy so far: his smile.

I’m moving in less than 7 days. My apartment is a sea of boxes and my cat is nervous. The new place is lovely. Full of windows and charming. It’s in Queen Anne and handy to everything. Right now, my current place, only handy for 3am drug runs and not much else. Oh wait, handy for getting mugged. And for throbbing techno beats. There are plenty of those around. But soon there will be squirrels and morning walks and pleasant smells instead. I’m going to get a plant and maybe a fish. And I’m setting up an art space so it’s easy to paint and sew. And less easy not to. Once I’m settled in, I’ll invite y’all over for dinner.

What I’ll make: potpie. Because it’s the funniest sounding food.

I had the most wonderful email exchange with my boss. About a job in marketing that opened up and my curiosity if the new girl, meaning me, could apply. Apparently I can. And apparently, he was hoping I would. He’d still be my boss (!) and tomorrow we’re going to coffee together to talk details. It’s not even the money or the neat new title. It’s the chance to have a job where ideas are the currency because I’m rich with those. I can promote and sponsor things in my sleep. I can hang a banner with my eyes closed. If I get this, man, again - Proof! Perennial like the grass. You can’t keep the happy down. It rises to the surface like air bubbles.

Bloop bloop bloop.

learning to name things

All the milestones hit at once. I turned 35 on Saturday. Said goodbye to my proclaimed Year of Debauchery and toasted in The Year of Conscious Choices - designed solely for the purpose of keeping me out of trouble. Tomorrow is my one year anniversary of leaving Minneapolis. The yellow Ryder truck, the small Montana made me feel, the cute punk rock boy I was lucky enough to kiss. A few days after that I started my new job. Met the then strangers that would become my best friends. Met the boy I still can’t put into words. Realized quickly that a year lease is a really long time in a sketchy neighborhood. I remember getting here and thinking Seattle was all possibility. That I was going to change someone’s life. That I had changed mine. Three hundred and sixty five days later, I still feel the exact same.

Potential / potently.

Birthday events like comic book panels. Moving the story right along. A midnight donut run with Boo where we listened to a homemade fart CD. Not our handiwork, mind you. Charlie’s Greatest Hits. By track 62, I was having a hard time catching my breath. By track 85, Boo was curled up into a little giggling ball. Next. A mad chase to follow a shopping cart race. Waving and yelling as Chris and friends rode past our window, red shopping cart bouncing wildly behind them, pirate flag flapping in the breeze. Later. Someone else's birthday party. It was attended by a hodge podge of artists, musicians and indy business types. A faded rock star working on a feedback opera. A tattooed man in grad school for nursing. There was a rice crispy treat cake with frosting and mashed up Whoppers that was so dense you coulda killed a guy with it. An accidental puddle of fake blood on the driveway. An art piece that had a life of it’s own.

Birfday / burpday.

It ended quiet enough. Hidden away at the Hideout. Drinking drinks and talking talk. Further proof that Boo knows everyone: I met a boy there, friend of a friend of hers. We raced each other picking up ice cubes with straws used as chop sticks. Smiling wide the whole time. Somewhere in the middle I had that sudden awareness of how I was sitting. That shy nervousness about how close our hands would get. Plans for Wednesday. Or the Wednesday after that. An open invite. A certain rematch. When we said good night he held my hand for a second too long and looked me right in the eye, “It was nice to meet you, Heather.” Stomach knot. Butterflies. “Nice to meet you, too.”

Gun-shy / gushy.

I think this is where I say thanks, kids. For the birthday and for the year. For taking in the Midwestern girl and overlooking my inability to use hip hop slang correctly. For the happy hours gone awry and the ones that didn’t. For being the bright spots in an otherwise dim job. For letting me befriend your friends. For driving me all over this twisty city. And then for driving me all over it again. For giving me a sense of family when mine is so far away. For honest to goodness, no holds barred, without question being there for me when I needed it. For making me feel like the kid sister. For making me feel on top of the world. Y’all are living proof against the idea that Seattlites are cold and aloof. You could melt ice caps. Or boil water. You’ve made me feel right at home.

Aww shucks / awe struck.

pretty on the blue

My last post. The last two paragraphs. Have lingered a little. Hung around. Disappointed. Disappointed that I’d have those feelings. Disappointed that I’d write them down. I shouldn’t miss him. And there are many days where I don’t. But I haven’t written those days down because they don’t lay on the page as lovely. Longing is pretty. Missing is pretty. It’s veiled and soft somehow. It’s starring out a window. But the sour that boils up in me some days. That isn’t pretty. Every time I try to write the why of it, it spits out juvenile and clunky. Filled with and thens. And then, and then he, and then. I imagine myself catching my breath between accusations. Finger pointed. Wet cheeks.

So I don’t write it.

Instead it gets blown away when I’m looking for my keys, or lost in the mail. It gets packed away and forgotten about or handed off in a knowing look. It gets dropped or kicked under a table. It gets left on the bus. It falls out of my pockets when I sit down. Or stand up. It washes off me in the shower. Twirling down the drain. Married to the soap suds and smelling like cherry blossoms. You can’t always tell the vinegar by its smell. And sometimes the pretty reeks of sugar beets. My hair reaches the middle of my back now and see. Time heals all. All, time heals. Heel. He. Eels. Hey kid, it’s. Time to move on.

Off. On. Off.

On.

Had drinks and tiny appetizers with Boo and a Boy With A Very Small Head. This was overheard: I’m a hermaphrodite. This was said out loud: It was a different fucking Algerian. Number of tofu puffs consumed: 2 dozen. Number of chopsticks used on both ends: 1 pair. Number of people with dark hair: two. Number of girls: one less than three. Number of mixed drinks consumed: too times two. Did you know that in the movie, he kills her because she is terribly inconvenient. Know what else, I’ve been terribly inconvenient. So there. At least I wasn't murdered. At least. That didn’t happen. Or at least I don't think it did becuase whenever you breath out, I breath in. Positive. Negative. Positive.

NeGaTiVE.

I think I just took a step sdrawkcab.

Nah. I’m moving right along.

Another afternoon there was Brad and me. We were both wearing dress pants, slacks I said, trousers he laughed. And talking on a conference call. All his papers were dog eared and we walked away with a $100,000 contract to split. Banana split. He said she swirled her ice like Yahtzee. And I told him I thought the word sticky was a terribly ridiculous thing to have a conversation about. With the window down my hair spun around my head. An updraft (like fingers) brushing my neck. I wished for my sunglasses as we drove toward the city, across the floating bridge. I wanted to see if I could walk on water. I wanted to see if I’d sink or float. I wanted to see if it would recognize me after all this time.

Because that’s my home town.

Where everything is fluid. Where everything bobs with the waves.

look at what you did

Coming. Slow. Again. It’s been two weeks and seems like everything I wanted to say has been mushed together. In a ball. Like Play-Dough. And the happy parts are yellow. Like happy parts always are. Like street signs and banana taffy. Yellow like the sound of birds. Or yellow like taxi cabs. Yeah yellow, just like that.

There were parties. Two to be exact. But only one where I accidentally dressed like a French hooker. Black and white striped shirts and fishnets have a way of doing that. Instead of changing I made extra effort to throw my hips into my walk. Swish. Swish. Boom. Boom. I had my hair in folded up pig tails and drank red wine with a sense of purpose. The other one, we made cupcakes and I smiled wide like a 6 year old the whole entire time. Frosting with a pastry bag and choosing from trays of pretty to top the hill of buttercream. I smelled like sugar for two days. It was in my hair. My earlobes. That little place on my neck.

And then.

I made art and my hands were pewter from the wire. 5th Annual. Shrinky Dink. Invitational Art Auction. First ever. Time. I was invited. I drew colorful fancy-filled leaves and watched them curl and wiggle down to 1/5 their original size. Sticking the wire through the tiny holes and twisting it carefully around the branches of my stolen twig in the exact perfect way I’d think a pink polka dotted leaf would grow. Still more wire to hang it. Silver metal washers for balance. A few felt leaves to add a little soft. It was the biggest piece in the show and was bid on before I left. Smiling I said goodbye and wondered whose window it would be casting shadows from.

And then.

Procrastination caused an accidental meeting and a cat hair covered couch caused an accidental phone call to The Boy I Try Hardest Not To Think About. (Tuesday) Cleaning out the art space on the absolute last day we could clean out the art space, his mussed hair made him look like a little kid. He had on brown corduroy pants. The perfect brown, really. Cadbury if creamier. The color of the 1975 light brown M&M. I got my things and left as quickly as I came. Waiting for the elevator, I thought about the rock I held in my hand for two days straight and let the wave of missing him come and go. (Then Friday.) Transferred to him, I said nooooooooo even as it rang. Even as he answered. Even as he said there is a place in Fremont that takes unwanted couches. I mostly just wanted off the phone. I mostly just wanted to have been transferred to Chris. Where a call about a couch is a call about a couch. And not where a call about a couch is a call about a couch, ya know? Hanging up, I quickly started flipping though pages of market research on wine drinkers in Western Washington and figuring out ways to spend $10,000 of someone else’s money in a month’s time. When really. I just wanted to look out the window and remember how we’d laugh and kiss and how his hands would slide all over me.

But.

He looked so beautiful in the half light of my bedroom. Making me laugh and scream and pull his hair all at. The. Same. Time. Wine drinkers are 25 times more likely to visit us online than non-wine drinkers. The print buy is twice as much, with twice as much free. How do I write that? Let me try this. This. This connection could have powered a small city some days. Electric as I fed him licorice in a dark movie theater. Sparks when I'd kiss his ear. By adding online you increase your reach to wine drinkers by 35%. For just 10% more investment. How. Can. You. Say. No? He was pulling down the elevator gate as we all waved good-bye. And I was walking backwards for a second. Looking for the eject button and instead turning off the radio. Thanks for your time today. I look forward to working together to further promote and brand Washington wines.

rescue

I think I was coated in gunk. Picture this: a penguin in an oil spill. It slowed me down. Dulled me. Changed my colors. I tried to think it was just a job. Some stress and a few sleepless nights. But it was really 40 hours of my week and then some. It’s one of the building blocks of calm. For as much as I claim it doesn’t, my career plays a role in how I define myself. I knew right away I wasn’t going to last there. By the end of week three I was already plotting a way out. I had applied for another job by month four. I started doubting myself. I started doubting my career choice. Second guessing everything I did. That was a recipe for a slow decline. I’d slump into Wendy’s office, open my eyes real big and ask her to take and peek and see if my soul was still in there. It was. But barely! I started looking for a job on December 2. I had one by the middle of January.

Thank GOD.

It’s been two weeks at the new place and I’m kinda in awe. My boss is supportive, encouraging and funny. My old boss - - eh -- not so much. This guy smiles and heaps on the praise! He’s asks me my opinions on things because he values my experience and perspective. He said that! Out loud! To me! WHO IS THIS GUY? My grandpa reincarnated? I keep expecting him to pull a quarter out from behind my ear! So the 9-5 is loads better and the gunk has been power washed away. I’m working my ass off and enjoying it. Best yet, my soul is firmly attached to my body and instead of plotting a way out, I’m plotting ways to move up.

Group hug anyone?

Went to the Seattle Central Library with Boo today. She had some research to do for an evil punk rock quilt project she’s up to her eyeballs in. I had high hopes of working on my kids’ book. Neither of us got much done. Instead we worked out an elaborate plan for a fanzine and are now in search of a leggy cover model wearing a Gucci dress to pose as if she were on the verge of cutting someone’s break lines. OH! It’s gonna be a good magazine!

Here is a picture of the Seattle Central Library:


Here is Boo’s first words upon entering it: Wow, this sure is fancy bum storage.

Boo also thinks Oprah is the only one who can bring about world peace.

A week has made a big difference in my mood. I think it was the fight I picked. Woke me up a bit. It was also a conversation I had with an unlikely confidant. And maybe time is kicking in. I'm typically pretty cheerful and it’s thankfully proven hard to hold down. I’m moving on and best part of that is I’ve given myself permission to do it. I hadn’t been. Thought I should feel like shit for a while. But I know that’s not needed and more importantly, it’s not respectful of The Events or lessons I learned to wallow in the discomfort. So I’m letting myself rebound and dang if I haven’t rebounded. I’m like a superball.

OH’Grady’s gonna have fun with that line.

Boing.

pull the ripcord

I am employed again! It’s like working for NASA. I went from a much smaller paper to a much larger paper and the amount of high tech gadgetry and sales support is making me feel like I’ve hit some sort of work jackpot. You can listen to your email over your phone and your voicemail over your email. This may not sound like much. For all I know maybe 75% of all companies offer this fine feature, but my email and voicemail have never met before and if I wanted them to it would have required the help of a grumpy IT guy and a tape recorder. But OH, It doesn’t end there! Customer management programs are chit chatting with Outlook. Emails and attachments are automatically saved in the customer program via seamless address recognition. We drink Tang every morning and wear silver sapcesuits around the office. There are zero gravity rooms and the coffee is freeze-dried and crunchy. Seriously, pinch me.

Plus, I somehow got paid already and I’ve only been there since Monday. How do they do it? Seriously. HOW DO THEY DO IT?!?

Went to see King Kong. Otherwise known as the worst movie ever. Save your hard earned money, Jimmy. I didn’t hold a gun until I was in the army, Jimmy. I had a drill sergeant. I was a man, Jimmy! We were in the theater for what seemed like three days and the monkey still wasn’t in New York.

One of my many problems with the movie: there are like 10,000 prehistoric species of animals on Skull Island and they take the angry gorilla as their prize. THERE WERE DINOSAURS, Jimmy. Dinosaurs? Big gorilla? Dinosaurs? Big gorilla?

Can you hear me slapping my forehead?

Who picks the gorilla?!?

I’m experiencing post KONG stress disorder. It’s been 72 hours and it’s still pissing me off. Matt and Boo were good movie buddies though. Our collective squirming and snide comments got us through. We were like a team that went in and played a good game. We high fived when it was over. I poured Gatorade over Boo’s head. It was fun.

Tonight we’re going to a show. Matt has some pals playing in this kick ass zany hip hop meets punk rock aerobics kind of band and I’m nearly wetting my pants in anticipation of the night’s festivities. It’s gonna be a rip roaring good time and I may even take a shower and attempt to look “cute” for the occasion. Although. Eh. Don’t count on it.

The Events are still making themselves known. It’s all left field kind of stuff lately. Things I overhear or stumble across will remind me of it. It’s like high tide when that happens. It washes over me and then slides away. Anger is the most persistent of the tides. I picked a fight with my costar and realized, rather quickly, that it wasn’t a smart move but I didn’t know how to get out of it once I was in it. It’s easy to blame him. It’s easy to spew mean mean words that have my full backing and support only in the moment. It’s part of this process. Part of accepting what happened. I hear that it’s normal. I hear that it passes. I hear that you can stay angry for a long time while this settles into you. And that’s where I am right now. Sometimes fine, sometimes not. The scales will continue to tip though. The fine days will stake their claim to me and the angry ones will turn to understanding and peace and calm instead. It’s all deep breaths and one day at a times. Picking up a little meaning here and there along the way. Filling up my pockets.

fly away

I’m on day, um, forty-five or something of my surprise unemployment. Seems like when you give your two week notice at the smaller paper to take a job at the larger one - - they aren’t such a fan of that. Suddenly you’re some kind of “media spy” or “security risk.” I got the same day boot topped off with no pay. The boot part isn’t so bad. I actually needed a few of the days off and have kept busy the rest of the time. The no pay part though - I pretty much hate it. I am broke. Broke broke broke. It’s temporary as the new job provides me with a pretty nice raise but until that glorious first pay period ends, it’s cereal in a bag for me.

Today I was cheerful. I have this idea that I shouldn’t be but was only momentarily concerned. I’m blaming it on hormones or full moons or my triumphant return to caffeine. Seems too soon after The Events to have this return to happy. But whatever the reason, it was a gift to feel like myself again. It’s been a while. I’m not usually a down in the dumps kind of person but it got pretty bad. My friend Laura said I seemed hollow. That’s how I felt. I was sinking into this circumstantial depression and couldn’t pull myself out of it. My friends were worried. My mom, calling 10 times a day. Brooke was the unexpected hero in my story. She crafted a phrase that turned on a lightbulb and helped me shift from depression into grief and while that sounds like not much movement at all, it was like an earthquake. Here is what she said: “You know in your heart what you need, you just have to give yourself permission to hear it.” That was about two weeks ago and today, happy. Funny how that works.

A 4pm coffee break was the icing on the good day cake. A rendezvous for a phone charger lead to seeing a bunch of people who I have sincerely missed. My old department turned out for the event and as I saw them file past the window and into the coffee shop, I was all smiles. Hugs and the same old jokes and lots of laughter filled the half hour and the residual smiley lasted well into the evening. I know they are a total buncha toads but dang if I don’t love ‘em.

This writing thing is coming back slowly. I feel rather rusty. Clunky. I know I’m ignoring the pink elephant in the room, but I’m not ready to tackle it just yet. Writing about coffee breaks and paychecks seems to be all I can muster for right now. And that’s probably a good thing. The dust needs to settle and I need a break. Some calm. Some peace. So it’s the surface for this girl. The ocean floor is safe for now.

i held it best i could

January is almost over and nothing from me. I could have taken the easy route and posted some resolutions. You know. Eat more vegetables. Learn to fly. Sign up for tap dancing, make a name for myself on Broadway. But I've been kinda quiet. Got the wind knocked out of me. Random Tuesday kind of shit and the fog is just lifting. I've been writing the past few days but nothing sticks. It's too new or too unsettled still. Proving hard to match with words. It's the uncomfortable of fitting in a new experience to who you thought you were. I didn't want it. But probably needed it. It's mixed with grief and shame and thankfulness. Stirring determination and grace. Willpower like a superhero. I didn't want a January like that to go by unmarked. Without so much as a hello. So, hi. Here's to new normals and lessons learned and growing up just a little.