In yoga last night, the woman on the mat next to me looked like a gypsy. Her ujjayi was so strong that it felt like I had a fan on my back for the entire class. When we reached savasana, the word “gypsy” stuck in my mind and all I could think of was an old friend from years ago whom I still miss.
In grad school, I lived in a beat up old Victorian with five other students. It was a good time but could also be a bad reality show on wheels. Our next door neighbors had a dog that never stopped barking and everyone in the house complained about the stupid dog waking them up early every morning. The dog was a big, shaggy golden retriever who never seemed to go on walks. So one day I went next door and asked if I could take the dog running with me by the lake. The dog’s owner, Stephanie, looked at me like I’d just handed her the winning check for the lottery. “Gypsy would love nothing more,” she said. This adorable, hyper dog was confined to a small house and that’s what was driving her nuts. Stephanie’s daughter was disabled and she couldn’t leave her alone long enough to take Gypsy for walks.
Every evening, Gypsy and I would head out around the landfill near Northwestern. At first she was totally hyper and almost choked herself on the leash, but Stephanie bought her one of those halter leashes and after that she was better. Eventually Gypsy stopped trying to jump on everyone we passed, smell every blade of grass and take a swim whenever we were near the water. She was good company and we had fun together. And clearly she loved the runs—whenever I arrived at the house to pick her up, she’d spin around in circles and pee herself. She also stopped barking first thing in the morning.
The runs with Gypsy stopped when I moved to DC, but I went back to see Stephanie every time I visited Chicago on business. The last time I was in Evanston, Gypsy did her circle dance by the door and waited near the dinner table, hoping that we’d go for a spin by the lake once the food was gone. But it was late and I was unprepared. The look in her eyes when I walked out the door without her still makes me cry. I wonder if she’s still alive, or if she ever got to run in the grass again.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
Humbling moments
Watching Homer Simpson say he's 36 and realizing, "Oh shit, he's only 5 years older than me! AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
More tea, Polly Prissy Pants?
This weekend I thought about addictions, mostly because a whole bunch of them came to the fore (not that their existence was a secret) and it was amusing. On Saturday, I was scrolling through all the stuff we’ve TiVoed and I realized that we have about 20 episodes of Good Eats on file. LB’s kind of addicted to Good Eats. His house is something of a secular altar to Alton Brown. If he’s not watching back episodes of the Simpsons or the Colbert Report, he’s got Alton on in the background while he reads or checks email. Alton’s inspired LB to cook some amazing things (like the French toast he made on Sunday) and the strawberry shortcake we tried during the summer. A couple of weeks ago, Alton did an episode on tea and both LB and I were kind of shocked to find out that all the lovely boxes of yummy tea in his cupboard are actually the tea equivalent of sawdust. So yesterday we went to Tealuxe in Harvard Square and invested in a Bee House teapot and 100 ounces of different teas that are definitely not sawdust. After we brewed a sample pot of the Royal Coconut, though, we both realized that after 30 years of drinking the plebian stuff, it was going to take time for our taste buds to get used to the real thing. The nice tea was yummy but it smelled better than it tasted. Then again, I hated the taste of wine when I was 5 and now I can put away half a bottle at a go, so I’m willing to be patient.
My addiction, of course, is celebrity gossip. So last night I kicked back and watched the SAG awards red carpet on E. Why are these shows so riveting?? I can’t look away, even when I see myself turning into the bitchiest witch east of the Mississippi. Really, they’re just people (albeit badly dressed people with a pony tail fetish) who could stand to think for themselves a little bit more. Still, it was nice to have company on the couch. LB joined me and occasionally chimed in on the celebrity watching.
“So who’s that?”
“That’s one of the Desperate Housewives. What the hell is she wearing?”
“And who’s that?”
“Oh my god, that’s Jaime Pressley. She used to be hot but now I don’t know what she did to her face. At least she’s still got the body.”
“I know!! Umm, nothing. I said nothing.”
My addiction, of course, is celebrity gossip. So last night I kicked back and watched the SAG awards red carpet on E. Why are these shows so riveting?? I can’t look away, even when I see myself turning into the bitchiest witch east of the Mississippi. Really, they’re just people (albeit badly dressed people with a pony tail fetish) who could stand to think for themselves a little bit more. Still, it was nice to have company on the couch. LB joined me and occasionally chimed in on the celebrity watching.
“So who’s that?”
“That’s one of the Desperate Housewives. What the hell is she wearing?”
“And who’s that?”
“Oh my god, that’s Jaime Pressley. She used to be hot but now I don’t know what she did to her face. At least she’s still got the body.”
“I know!! Umm, nothing. I said nothing.”
Friday, January 27, 2006
OK
| You are Betty Grable |
 The ulitmate girl next door You're the perfect girl for most guys Pretty yet approachable. Beautiful yet real. |
Thursday, January 26, 2006
So almost a Freudian slip
More fun with research: having regular sex will make you a better public speaker.
The well runneth dry
My heart has hardened to the panhandlers at the Alewife rotary. Every morning I see them walking back and forth, up and down the lines of cars waiting to get through the light. Many mornings, I handed them my stash of toll change—the plaintive hand-lettered signs they carry and their tired eyes were just too much for me to ignore. At first there were only one or two of them, but a few months ago their numbers swelled and now there’s a panhandler for all four entrances to the interchange. During the evening rush hour, I’ve seen five of them working the lines of traffic.
That’s when I started getting suspicious. And then I hated myself for getting suspicious. What kind of horrible person thinks badly of the homeless? But their hand-lettered signs all looked like they’d been written by the same person, and I noticed a certain organization to the way the panhandlers worked their assigned traffic lanes during the morning and evening rush hours. My suspicions were just something I felt terrible about, though. Until today.
This morning, all of the panhandlers had canes. All of them.
These people, who until today had ably trodden wet, cold paths through the snow and mud next to the road, were all carrying identical gray orthopedic canes, the kind you can get at the pharmacy. Do ploys get any more transparent? If one of the panhandlers had suddenly started using a cane, that would be one thing, but all four on the same day? My sympathy and generosity have tapped out as of now.
That’s when I started getting suspicious. And then I hated myself for getting suspicious. What kind of horrible person thinks badly of the homeless? But their hand-lettered signs all looked like they’d been written by the same person, and I noticed a certain organization to the way the panhandlers worked their assigned traffic lanes during the morning and evening rush hours. My suspicions were just something I felt terrible about, though. Until today.
This morning, all of the panhandlers had canes. All of them.
These people, who until today had ably trodden wet, cold paths through the snow and mud next to the road, were all carrying identical gray orthopedic canes, the kind you can get at the pharmacy. Do ploys get any more transparent? If one of the panhandlers had suddenly started using a cane, that would be one thing, but all four on the same day? My sympathy and generosity have tapped out as of now.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Four things
Carmen tagged me with a meme. I'm of two minds about memes. One the one hand, they’re fun to write. On the other hand, they can be annoying to read. When written by people I don’t know or read that often, memes feel like one long, linked up in-joke. Without some context or an interesting story to give the information some background, I kind of don’t care. I guess I’m a sucker for narrative.
So here’s my four things and I understand if you don’t want to read them.
Four Jobs I’ve Had:
--receptionist in the non-invasive cardiology lab at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. It was a temp job. There were no windows and the two techs who did EKGs and echocardiograms were always hitting on me. Also, people frequently came in to ask if I knew where the morgue was. Frequently they were picking up or delivering something morbid, like a head (really). It got too depressing, so I quit after a month.
--page in my local library. I got to put away books and stamp checkout cards for 4 hours after school. There was no better job in the world. It meant I could sneak upstairs and look at pictures of the boys I had crushes on in old yearbooks, and explore parts of the library that were 150 years old. I kept getting in trouble, though, because I was always reading the books I was supposed to be putting away. One of my duties was to call people and let them know the books they’d requested had arrived. Once I had to call a deaf man to tell him his copy of “The Joy Of Sex” had arrived and I ended up screaming it out for the whole library because he couldn’t hear me.
--chambermaid at the Westmoor Inn on Nantucket. Scrubbing toilets and changing nasty bedsheets isn’t what I’d call romantic, but it meant I got to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth for $5 a day. It also meant I got to see what people kept in their rooms—ribbed condoms were popular--and how much they bought at the cheesy island stores (a lot). The guests got tanked every night at the wine and cheese hour and frequently tipped the hotel staff large amounts to stay silent about their bedroom activities. The Inn itself was haunted and that kept things interesting. I fell in love with outdoor showers, beach combing and evening runs along Cliff Rd.
--reporter for an entertainment magazine. Best. Job. Ever. I got paid to network at movie premieres and DVD release parties. My first week on the job, I attended a two-day industry event at the Bacara resort. No one blinked an eye at the crazy amounts of DVD swag I got in the mail. The schwag was creative—the Bubba Ho-Tep DVD came in a yellow plastic bed pan. Also, I worked across the way from E!, so I got to watch all the weird celebrities arrive at the building. I used to bump into Ted Casablanca in the café. Juliette Lewis used to show up in our lobby all the time and I once peed next to her in the restroom. She sang while she peed.
Four movies I can watch over and over:
Bring It On
Center Stage
Star Wars
Last of the Mohicans
Four places I’ve lived:
Florence, Italy
Los Angeles, California
Waterville, Maine
Evanston, Illinois
Four TV shows I love:
Grey’s Anatomy
The Office
Scrubs
Battlestar Galactica
Four places I’ve been on vacation:
Bermuda
Paris
the Pacific Northwest
Hilton Head, South Carolina
Four blogs I read daily:
Carmen
Defamer
Dooce
Blah-di-Blog
Four of my favorite foods:
Cheese—any variety except goat cheese which, for some unknown reason, I cannot stand.
Fresh bialys from Kossar’s
Burritos from Poquito Mas
Sushi sushi sushi
(and the harvest pumpkin soup from Au Bon Pain. Yes, that’s five. Deal.)
Four places I’d rather be:
--climbing the stairs in Santa Monica
--hiking in Marin
--exploring someplace I’ve never been before, preferably somewhere warm and sunny. Beaches and mountains are a plus.
--in LB’s hotel room
Four albums I can’t live without:
Duran Duran, Greatest Hits
The OC Soundtrack, Volume 2
Nick Drake, Pink Moon
Doves, Lost Souls
Four vehicles I’ve owned:
A gold 1985 Toyota Corolla
An unwieldy lime-green Trek mountain bike
Supergirl rollerskates
A 2004 magnesium gray Honda Civic
Four tagees:
Renate
Pound Foolish
Bryna
Elle Charlie
So here’s my four things and I understand if you don’t want to read them.
Four Jobs I’ve Had:
--receptionist in the non-invasive cardiology lab at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. It was a temp job. There were no windows and the two techs who did EKGs and echocardiograms were always hitting on me. Also, people frequently came in to ask if I knew where the morgue was. Frequently they were picking up or delivering something morbid, like a head (really). It got too depressing, so I quit after a month.
--page in my local library. I got to put away books and stamp checkout cards for 4 hours after school. There was no better job in the world. It meant I could sneak upstairs and look at pictures of the boys I had crushes on in old yearbooks, and explore parts of the library that were 150 years old. I kept getting in trouble, though, because I was always reading the books I was supposed to be putting away. One of my duties was to call people and let them know the books they’d requested had arrived. Once I had to call a deaf man to tell him his copy of “The Joy Of Sex” had arrived and I ended up screaming it out for the whole library because he couldn’t hear me.
--chambermaid at the Westmoor Inn on Nantucket. Scrubbing toilets and changing nasty bedsheets isn’t what I’d call romantic, but it meant I got to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth for $5 a day. It also meant I got to see what people kept in their rooms—ribbed condoms were popular--and how much they bought at the cheesy island stores (a lot). The guests got tanked every night at the wine and cheese hour and frequently tipped the hotel staff large amounts to stay silent about their bedroom activities. The Inn itself was haunted and that kept things interesting. I fell in love with outdoor showers, beach combing and evening runs along Cliff Rd.
--reporter for an entertainment magazine. Best. Job. Ever. I got paid to network at movie premieres and DVD release parties. My first week on the job, I attended a two-day industry event at the Bacara resort. No one blinked an eye at the crazy amounts of DVD swag I got in the mail. The schwag was creative—the Bubba Ho-Tep DVD came in a yellow plastic bed pan. Also, I worked across the way from E!, so I got to watch all the weird celebrities arrive at the building. I used to bump into Ted Casablanca in the café. Juliette Lewis used to show up in our lobby all the time and I once peed next to her in the restroom. She sang while she peed.
Four movies I can watch over and over:
Bring It On
Center Stage
Star Wars
Last of the Mohicans
Four places I’ve lived:
Florence, Italy
Los Angeles, California
Waterville, Maine
Evanston, Illinois
Four TV shows I love:
Grey’s Anatomy
The Office
Scrubs
Battlestar Galactica
Four places I’ve been on vacation:
Bermuda
Paris
the Pacific Northwest
Hilton Head, South Carolina
Four blogs I read daily:
Carmen
Defamer
Dooce
Blah-di-Blog
Four of my favorite foods:
Cheese—any variety except goat cheese which, for some unknown reason, I cannot stand.
Fresh bialys from Kossar’s
Burritos from Poquito Mas
Sushi sushi sushi
(and the harvest pumpkin soup from Au Bon Pain. Yes, that’s five. Deal.)
Four places I’d rather be:
--climbing the stairs in Santa Monica
--hiking in Marin
--exploring someplace I’ve never been before, preferably somewhere warm and sunny. Beaches and mountains are a plus.
--in LB’s hotel room
Four albums I can’t live without:
Duran Duran, Greatest Hits
The OC Soundtrack, Volume 2
Nick Drake, Pink Moon
Doves, Lost Souls
Four vehicles I’ve owned:
A gold 1985 Toyota Corolla
An unwieldy lime-green Trek mountain bike
Supergirl rollerskates
A 2004 magnesium gray Honda Civic
Four tagees:
Renate
Pound Foolish
Bryna
Elle Charlie
The snowy road
Snow usually makes for a messy commute but this morning it somehow transformed Rt. 2 into a place of beauty. I wish I could have stopped to take pictures. The bare trees and dirty highway were frosted with snow, and the sun was fighting to burn through the morning fog. Traffic wasn’t bad, so I could actually take the time to appreciate the momentary loveliness. The Cambridge Reservoir looked like a completely different place. Out on the little islands, trees rose out of the mist with an air of purpose and mystery. Newly coated with snow, the ice looked fresh and inviting, like things do after a good, hard rain during the summer. I sometimes forget how pretty Boston can be during the winter and it was nice to be reminded.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Hindsight
It turns out that peanut butter and bacon are two great tastes that do not taste great together. I used reduced fat Jiff and turkey bacon--maybe it would have worked better with the real thing. To get over the dissapointment, I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and they were much tastier.
It's snowing and I'm working from home, which means I'm camped out on the couch snarfing Froot Loops with my computer in my lap, pretending that my car does not have to be dug out or moved. Denial is a lovely place to be. I might need to spend more time there. This weekend I realized how much other people's lives affect me. How much is too much? My default setting is to try and help fix problems, but I can't fix other people's problems and usually people don't want their problems fixed for them. Then comes empathy, but empathy feels empty when you're grasping at straws, wanting to help but knowing there isn't anything to do except listen and love. Going through shit is hard, but in some ways I think it's harder watching a friend suffer, knowing her pain will end but also knowing she has to find the way out on her own.
People fade in and out, and it's exhausting trying to figure out when they're present and when they've checked out for the next hour, the next month, the next year. No one is a mind reader. Or a fortune teller. You can say things are fine until you're blue in the face, but there's no hiding it when you go away inside and all that's left is a blank face staring at the TV. Maybe it's not neediness, just confusion over the fact that what used to be offered freely is now withdrawn and unavailable.
It's snowing and I'm working from home, which means I'm camped out on the couch snarfing Froot Loops with my computer in my lap, pretending that my car does not have to be dug out or moved. Denial is a lovely place to be. I might need to spend more time there. This weekend I realized how much other people's lives affect me. How much is too much? My default setting is to try and help fix problems, but I can't fix other people's problems and usually people don't want their problems fixed for them. Then comes empathy, but empathy feels empty when you're grasping at straws, wanting to help but knowing there isn't anything to do except listen and love. Going through shit is hard, but in some ways I think it's harder watching a friend suffer, knowing her pain will end but also knowing she has to find the way out on her own.
People fade in and out, and it's exhausting trying to figure out when they're present and when they've checked out for the next hour, the next month, the next year. No one is a mind reader. Or a fortune teller. You can say things are fine until you're blue in the face, but there's no hiding it when you go away inside and all that's left is a blank face staring at the TV. Maybe it's not neediness, just confusion over the fact that what used to be offered freely is now withdrawn and unavailable.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
On a mission
Nothing says I love you like getting your significant other sick. By that measure, our house is overflowing with love because every week LB gets on a plane and thoughtfully picks up germs from whatever place he’s visiting and then brings them home to me. Somehow he’s become immune after years of exposure to travel germs. At first I wondered why on earth I was getting sick every other week and now it makes total sense.
So last night I was rummaging around in the pantry, searching for something to tempt my suddenly cranky stomach and I realized that we are at serious risk of being killed by peanut butter. Since I haven’t eaten or cooked a meal in my apartment for three months, I trucked the meager contents of my cabinets to his place a few weeks ago so we wouldn’t have to keep buying couscous because somehow I’ve managed to accumulate enough couscous to get us through a nuclear winter. The scary thing, though, is that between the two of us we have like 6 jars of peanut butter. Neither of us really eats peanut butter, so I’m not sure how it happened, but there they are, taking up all kinds of space and edging toward the point when they’ll just get thrown in the trash. LB’s mom likes peanut butter but not even she can get through 6 jars before they get all crusty and gross.
This is why my mission this weekend—once I can stand up without feeling like I’m going to pass out--is to cook and/or bake stuff that involves peanut butter. Then I can bring the results in to work and let the people who actually like a lot of peanut butter eat to their hearts content. Not that I have anything against peanut butter cookies, per se, but I am making a concerted effort not to eat (as much) crap in order to minimize the trauma that will likely be inflicted by the bikini shopping excursion scheduled for this weekend. Fluorescent lights, here I come.
So last night I was rummaging around in the pantry, searching for something to tempt my suddenly cranky stomach and I realized that we are at serious risk of being killed by peanut butter. Since I haven’t eaten or cooked a meal in my apartment for three months, I trucked the meager contents of my cabinets to his place a few weeks ago so we wouldn’t have to keep buying couscous because somehow I’ve managed to accumulate enough couscous to get us through a nuclear winter. The scary thing, though, is that between the two of us we have like 6 jars of peanut butter. Neither of us really eats peanut butter, so I’m not sure how it happened, but there they are, taking up all kinds of space and edging toward the point when they’ll just get thrown in the trash. LB’s mom likes peanut butter but not even she can get through 6 jars before they get all crusty and gross.
This is why my mission this weekend—once I can stand up without feeling like I’m going to pass out--is to cook and/or bake stuff that involves peanut butter. Then I can bring the results in to work and let the people who actually like a lot of peanut butter eat to their hearts content. Not that I have anything against peanut butter cookies, per se, but I am making a concerted effort not to eat (as much) crap in order to minimize the trauma that will likely be inflicted by the bikini shopping excursion scheduled for this weekend. Fluorescent lights, here I come.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Turn around and step outside
I’m continually fascinated by researchers who have to understand every last thing about relationships and sex, as if either is something you can really pin down. But they have so much fun doing it:
Want to get rich? Get married. But once you’re married, don’t keep a TV in the bedroom because it’ll kill your sex life. If you get sick, though, boink as much as possible.
On the plus side, Paper Source finally took the fuck you with paper dress out of the window display. I guess we'll see what goes up for Valentine's Day.
Want to get rich? Get married. But once you’re married, don’t keep a TV in the bedroom because it’ll kill your sex life. If you get sick, though, boink as much as possible.
On the plus side, Paper Source finally took the fuck you with paper dress out of the window display. I guess we'll see what goes up for Valentine's Day.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
He knows I'm going to stay
Blah. Winter blues-y. Right now the world feels small and dark. If life could be conducted in bed under lots of blankets, I’d be a happy girl. So tired--I think half of the exhaustion is from all the effort it takes to try not to be depressed. This time of year, it’s a constant battle. I’m trying to find out if my HMO covers light therapy.
The places I find solace are transitory. My car, with the radio off. The couch, under a blanket with a book and lots of cats. The tanning salon, when I step out of the booth and feel toasty inside. The yoga studio just after class is over, when surrender isn’t such a negative thing.
Little things make me smile, though, make me feel less invisible. Last night after class, the lithe Indian man on the mat to my right turned and said, “It was lovely practicing next to you.” Really, he deserved the thanks. Some people just give off an aura of centered serenity and he was one of them.
Every time an opportunity comes up to go to California, something happens and it doesn’t work out. For months the something was a choice. It’s still a choice but there are moments where it feels like the universe is making sure I stay here no matter what. I miss the west coast sunshine, though. I miss my west coast friends. I miss being in a place where it feels like anything is possible. And for the first time I feel ready to visit LA, just for the fun of it without the fear of crumpling under the weight of memories.
The cafeteria was playing a cheesy version of “California Dreaming” when I went down for lunch.
The places I find solace are transitory. My car, with the radio off. The couch, under a blanket with a book and lots of cats. The tanning salon, when I step out of the booth and feel toasty inside. The yoga studio just after class is over, when surrender isn’t such a negative thing.
Little things make me smile, though, make me feel less invisible. Last night after class, the lithe Indian man on the mat to my right turned and said, “It was lovely practicing next to you.” Really, he deserved the thanks. Some people just give off an aura of centered serenity and he was one of them.
Every time an opportunity comes up to go to California, something happens and it doesn’t work out. For months the something was a choice. It’s still a choice but there are moments where it feels like the universe is making sure I stay here no matter what. I miss the west coast sunshine, though. I miss my west coast friends. I miss being in a place where it feels like anything is possible. And for the first time I feel ready to visit LA, just for the fun of it without the fear of crumpling under the weight of memories.
The cafeteria was playing a cheesy version of “California Dreaming” when I went down for lunch.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Yay!
It’s so nice outside! Fifty degrees and sunny. Sigh. This is the kind of winter I can deal with. You know you live in a cold place when the first time the temperature tops 45, you want to break out the shorts and flipflops. Judging by how loud the chirping outside my window is, the birds think it’s spring, too. I can’t wait to feel grass under my toes and bask in the sun!
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
The heart of the matter
When it comes to honesty in relationships, there are a lot of reasons why I prefer full disclosure to being on a need-to-know basis. There’s a difference between privacy and keeping someone in the dark. I don’t like being in the dark and I don’t like being condescended to in that, “The less she knows, the less upset she’ll be” kind of way. As Darci Ratliff said on The Black Table:
“...if you apply the rules of the game to a woman who's not playing the game, she's going to be very, very upset. Like, insanely upset. Like, mad as fucking hell, alright? We're all adults here. We know what we've gotten ourselves into and we don't need you to fucking hold our hands and tell us some bullshit lie. It's totally unnecessary and extremely condescending…”
To me, total honesty means you confront problems when they arise instead of pretending they don’t exist or, even worse, pretending they’re not that big a deal even though the other person is clearly upset.
Over Christmas, my mother was bugging me about why I wasn’t planning for the future more. “If you like being on your own too much,” she had the nerve to say, “You might get to be alone more than you think.”
I prefer to focus on the present and make sure that a strong foundation exists so that, if and when what I want for the future happens, I/we will be ready for it. If you spend all your time with your head in the clouds, where everything is perfect and rosy and romantic, that’s when problems come up and get ignored. There are things that are appropriate in the context of friendship and things that are not, especially if you’re in a serious relationship with someone else.
When I first starting dating J, my boyfriend back in the late 1990s, he was getting extremely come-hither emails from the girl he dated before me. She clearly wanted to get back in his pants. I was not a happy camper. But he handled it well. Once he got past the intoxicating ego massage part of being hit on by someone who wanted him to rock her world just one more time, he saw how uncool it was and told her to back off. He held the line and she stopped with the flirty flirty. We were good after that.
J and I were talking about this over lunch today. He helped me draw some lines where I was having trouble seeing straight enough to draw them myself. Some situations have less to do with trust—he was never going to run off and nail that girl again—and more to do with comfort. How important is your partner’s comfort to you? At what point does that comfort level come before the demands of the ego?
“If I’d kept you in the dark and didn’t discourage her very strongly from sending those emails, you would have been well within your rights to dump my sorry ass,” he said. And he was right. Because he called her off early and decisively, I never worried about whether he needed that kind of excitement outside the relationship, or whether the behavior was indicative of something that might pop up again in the long term.
It comes back to full disclosure. I want to know what I’m getting into before I go too far. That way I can figure out what I’m comfortable with and whether I want to move forward.
I’m trying to decide.
“...if you apply the rules of the game to a woman who's not playing the game, she's going to be very, very upset. Like, insanely upset. Like, mad as fucking hell, alright? We're all adults here. We know what we've gotten ourselves into and we don't need you to fucking hold our hands and tell us some bullshit lie. It's totally unnecessary and extremely condescending…”
To me, total honesty means you confront problems when they arise instead of pretending they don’t exist or, even worse, pretending they’re not that big a deal even though the other person is clearly upset.
Over Christmas, my mother was bugging me about why I wasn’t planning for the future more. “If you like being on your own too much,” she had the nerve to say, “You might get to be alone more than you think.”
I prefer to focus on the present and make sure that a strong foundation exists so that, if and when what I want for the future happens, I/we will be ready for it. If you spend all your time with your head in the clouds, where everything is perfect and rosy and romantic, that’s when problems come up and get ignored. There are things that are appropriate in the context of friendship and things that are not, especially if you’re in a serious relationship with someone else.
When I first starting dating J, my boyfriend back in the late 1990s, he was getting extremely come-hither emails from the girl he dated before me. She clearly wanted to get back in his pants. I was not a happy camper. But he handled it well. Once he got past the intoxicating ego massage part of being hit on by someone who wanted him to rock her world just one more time, he saw how uncool it was and told her to back off. He held the line and she stopped with the flirty flirty. We were good after that.
J and I were talking about this over lunch today. He helped me draw some lines where I was having trouble seeing straight enough to draw them myself. Some situations have less to do with trust—he was never going to run off and nail that girl again—and more to do with comfort. How important is your partner’s comfort to you? At what point does that comfort level come before the demands of the ego?
“If I’d kept you in the dark and didn’t discourage her very strongly from sending those emails, you would have been well within your rights to dump my sorry ass,” he said. And he was right. Because he called her off early and decisively, I never worried about whether he needed that kind of excitement outside the relationship, or whether the behavior was indicative of something that might pop up again in the long term.
It comes back to full disclosure. I want to know what I’m getting into before I go too far. That way I can figure out what I’m comfortable with and whether I want to move forward.
I’m trying to decide.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Bulling through
Anger is a handy emotion to have during spin class.
While I was spinning so hard I thought the bike would break off the frame and caroom out the window, I started thinking about my old spinning studio in LA. Edgar was my favorite instructor—he was a hardcore cyclist who led the kind of ass-kicking workouts that left me on the verge of puking but drew me back week after week. It was a very sad day when Edgar quit spinning to start a new business, that of tattooing Ugg boots. Sad and funny. Only in LA.
While I was spinning so hard I thought the bike would break off the frame and caroom out the window, I started thinking about my old spinning studio in LA. Edgar was my favorite instructor—he was a hardcore cyclist who led the kind of ass-kicking workouts that left me on the verge of puking but drew me back week after week. It was a very sad day when Edgar quit spinning to start a new business, that of tattooing Ugg boots. Sad and funny. Only in LA.
Monday, January 09, 2006
If you build it
I like DIY projects. There it is. I said it.
Not the crafty kind of DIY stuff—Martha Stewart makes my head ache. I mean the fun kind that come with indecipherable directions, an L screwdriver and fifteen tiny Ziploc bags labeled with a capital letter and containing nuts, bolts, dowels, screws etc. IKEA—yay. Target by mail—double yay.
Yes, I’m a freak.
What can I say? I like having fun with my hands. And tools make me happy. One of the most satisfying nights I’ve ever had home alone was spent putting together a metal-topped kitchen cart from Target. Talk about completion.
Last night, after I dropped LB at the airport and had sushi with a friend, I came home and finished putting together the swanky new medicine cabinet we bought at Target. The kitchen floor was covered in bits of Styrofoam, little plastic bags, pieces of white pseudo-wood and electric screwdriver bits. Happy Moxie. The cats were in heaven. And now we have a nice new cabinet. Wheee.
Say what you will, but there’s something intrinsically satisfying for me in putting pieces together in order to make a whole. It’s partly why journalism attracted me, and why I love patchwork quilting. An inherited trait it’s not, though. One of my favorite memories is of being 6 and listening to my dad cursing a blue streak while wrestling with a particularly stubborn DIY entertainment unit.
“Mom, what does ‘Jesus H. Fucking Christ mean?” I asked.
My family, they like things done FOR them. Me? The only thing that drives me batty about DIY is when I’m not strong enough to make something fit. Hell hath no fury like Moxie when dowel D won’t fit into hole F. I’m all for LB’s lovely, gym-honed manly man muscles but I hate admitting defeat
Still, despite the DIY fun, I’m totally calling in our carpenter friend to put up the cabinet. The house is old and we can’t find the studs, and my handiness only goes so far.
Not the crafty kind of DIY stuff—Martha Stewart makes my head ache. I mean the fun kind that come with indecipherable directions, an L screwdriver and fifteen tiny Ziploc bags labeled with a capital letter and containing nuts, bolts, dowels, screws etc. IKEA—yay. Target by mail—double yay.
Yes, I’m a freak.
What can I say? I like having fun with my hands. And tools make me happy. One of the most satisfying nights I’ve ever had home alone was spent putting together a metal-topped kitchen cart from Target. Talk about completion.
Last night, after I dropped LB at the airport and had sushi with a friend, I came home and finished putting together the swanky new medicine cabinet we bought at Target. The kitchen floor was covered in bits of Styrofoam, little plastic bags, pieces of white pseudo-wood and electric screwdriver bits. Happy Moxie. The cats were in heaven. And now we have a nice new cabinet. Wheee.
Say what you will, but there’s something intrinsically satisfying for me in putting pieces together in order to make a whole. It’s partly why journalism attracted me, and why I love patchwork quilting. An inherited trait it’s not, though. One of my favorite memories is of being 6 and listening to my dad cursing a blue streak while wrestling with a particularly stubborn DIY entertainment unit.
“Mom, what does ‘Jesus H. Fucking Christ mean?” I asked.
My family, they like things done FOR them. Me? The only thing that drives me batty about DIY is when I’m not strong enough to make something fit. Hell hath no fury like Moxie when dowel D won’t fit into hole F. I’m all for LB’s lovely, gym-honed manly man muscles but I hate admitting defeat
Still, despite the DIY fun, I’m totally calling in our carpenter friend to put up the cabinet. The house is old and we can’t find the studs, and my handiness only goes so far.
Wanting to quote John Denver, but...
I have a love-hate relationship with Terminal B at Logan. I've said too many goodbyes there on the curb and, before 9-11, inside at the gate, and left from there for too many places where I knew I couldn't stay. That's partially because I have a strange history of long distance relationships and lots of those involved drama, of the emotional or time-constrained variety, staged at Terminal B. It's a place that I can't wait to be, can't stand to leave and can't wait to get away from, all at the same time. But it's been a long time since I've cried there, at least until tonight.
It's somewhat ironic (even if only in the pseudo-irony Alanis Morrisette sense) that I love travelling but my job doesn't let me out of the local office, yet I'm dating someone who would rather be at home but has to travel every week for work. Usually Lunchboy gets to visit such fabulous, cosmopolitan locales as White Plains, NY, Lenoire, NC, Springfield, MA and various smelly towns in NJ which, while outside the greater Boston area, are not what I'd call enviable destinations. Today, however, he left for a week in Manchester, England, which is home, of course, to Manchester United (insert Eurotrip parody of choice here).
Lucky dog.
Jealousy aside (I would have gone but my passport is still locked somewhere in the renewal process, hopefully to be released before we leave for St. Lucia in a few weeks), saying goodbye just sucks. And saying goodbye is part of the nature of his job. I knew that going in and most of the time it doesn't bother me that he's gone every week from Monday through Thursday. But I can't help resenting it just a little when his job takes him away more than that.
In the past, I've done anywhere from one week to four months away from my significant other at the time. Lots of people do a hell of a lot more than that. So I know that in the context of things this isn't that big a deal. But he just got home on Friday afternoon and he left again tonight, and as much as I hate being girly, I couldn't keep a tight leash on the tears. The pavement outside Terminal B has soaked up lots of those.
It's somewhat ironic (even if only in the pseudo-irony Alanis Morrisette sense) that I love travelling but my job doesn't let me out of the local office, yet I'm dating someone who would rather be at home but has to travel every week for work. Usually Lunchboy gets to visit such fabulous, cosmopolitan locales as White Plains, NY, Lenoire, NC, Springfield, MA and various smelly towns in NJ which, while outside the greater Boston area, are not what I'd call enviable destinations. Today, however, he left for a week in Manchester, England, which is home, of course, to Manchester United (insert Eurotrip parody of choice here).
Lucky dog.
Jealousy aside (I would have gone but my passport is still locked somewhere in the renewal process, hopefully to be released before we leave for St. Lucia in a few weeks), saying goodbye just sucks. And saying goodbye is part of the nature of his job. I knew that going in and most of the time it doesn't bother me that he's gone every week from Monday through Thursday. But I can't help resenting it just a little when his job takes him away more than that.
In the past, I've done anywhere from one week to four months away from my significant other at the time. Lots of people do a hell of a lot more than that. So I know that in the context of things this isn't that big a deal. But he just got home on Friday afternoon and he left again tonight, and as much as I hate being girly, I couldn't keep a tight leash on the tears. The pavement outside Terminal B has soaked up lots of those.
Friday, January 06, 2006
Who knew
There is apparently a pita bread shortage in the greater Boston area. Or maybe it’s just that the lunch nazi in my building’s Rebecca’s Café just hates everyone, because pita bread was denied in a very emphatic way.
My officemate and I went downstairs for lunch. Not feeling terribly hungry (which hopefully means my body is burning up all the M&M cookies I ate last week), I headed for the salad bar and helped myself to some lovely greens. Feeling the need for some bread, I reached for a piece of the single serving, plastic-wrapped pita bread that is usually kept in a basket on the salad bar. The basket, however, was empty.
Just then, the lady we’ve dubbed the lunch nazi walked by. She’s short and squat and incredibly moody. One day she’ll be magnanimous and say, “Go ahead, have a cookie on the house,” and the next she’ll snap my head off in a very officious way, sort of like the soup nazi on Seinfeld. Also, on days when the sandwich line gets unmanageably long, she sometimes comes in to pinch hit. Her sandwich-making skills leave a lot to be desired and she seems to dislike the task almost as much as her patrons dislike her sandwiches.
Anyhoo.
I tried to flag her down politely.
“Hi! Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if there might be any more pita bread. The basket at the salad bar is tapped out.”
“Oh, I know,” she replied, officously. “Someone came by earlier and took four whole slices.”
Her face closed. End of story.
“And that’s it?” I asked. Rebecca’s must get a couple of hundred people during the lunch rush—I couldn’t imagine that they’d budget so little pita bread for the hordes.
“That’s it.”
No pita for me.
My officemate and I went downstairs for lunch. Not feeling terribly hungry (which hopefully means my body is burning up all the M&M cookies I ate last week), I headed for the salad bar and helped myself to some lovely greens. Feeling the need for some bread, I reached for a piece of the single serving, plastic-wrapped pita bread that is usually kept in a basket on the salad bar. The basket, however, was empty.
Just then, the lady we’ve dubbed the lunch nazi walked by. She’s short and squat and incredibly moody. One day she’ll be magnanimous and say, “Go ahead, have a cookie on the house,” and the next she’ll snap my head off in a very officious way, sort of like the soup nazi on Seinfeld. Also, on days when the sandwich line gets unmanageably long, she sometimes comes in to pinch hit. Her sandwich-making skills leave a lot to be desired and she seems to dislike the task almost as much as her patrons dislike her sandwiches.
Anyhoo.
I tried to flag her down politely.
“Hi! Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if there might be any more pita bread. The basket at the salad bar is tapped out.”
“Oh, I know,” she replied, officously. “Someone came by earlier and took four whole slices.”
Her face closed. End of story.
“And that’s it?” I asked. Rebecca’s must get a couple of hundred people during the lunch rush—I couldn’t imagine that they’d budget so little pita bread for the hordes.
“That’s it.”
No pita for me.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Unresolved
I was going to write a post about how much I hate new year's resolutions and why I think they're counterproductive, but she did it so much better, with beautiful insight. Her new year's post from 2005 is equally inspiring:
Something I am learning this year is the importance of not simply dreaming and manifesting, but also "completing" (or finding peace with) what came before. To start the new year with a blank slate we also need to acknowledge everything we need to acknowledge about the previous year. What worked? What didn't? What were the upsets and failures? What were the successes and joys? What are you proud of and how did you grow? What really sucked?
I like her approach almost as much as I like her jewelry (meang, I love that bracelet!) but I have no idea what I want my theme for 2006 to be. There's so much that could happen but before I can figure out what I want, maybe I should put 2005 to bed first. How?
Something I am learning this year is the importance of not simply dreaming and manifesting, but also "completing" (or finding peace with) what came before. To start the new year with a blank slate we also need to acknowledge everything we need to acknowledge about the previous year. What worked? What didn't? What were the upsets and failures? What were the successes and joys? What are you proud of and how did you grow? What really sucked?
I like her approach almost as much as I like her jewelry (meang, I love that bracelet!) but I have no idea what I want my theme for 2006 to be. There's so much that could happen but before I can figure out what I want, maybe I should put 2005 to bed first. How?
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
I am so smart. S-M-R-T
Feeling very scattered and stressed out lately. I can’t seem to remember details of any kind, which explains why I forgot to pack dress socks last night and ended up wearing ankle-high white running socks to work today. It’s stupid stuff like misspelling simple words and clicking the wrong buttons and inadvertently buying the chicken salad instead of the turkey sandwich for lunch. My brain, it won’t stay in my head.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Body slam
On a lark, a bunch of us went to the Bruins-Flyers game today at the Garden. I was excited--I've seen the Celtics and the Red Sox but never the Bruins and that seemed like a failing for a lifelong Bostonian. One of my friends said there's a line in Shear Madness that goes, "There's nothing more painful than being a Bruins fan," and now I kind of understand. Hockey is great because it's all action. What other sport pays its players to get in fights? There were no fights, however, much to the chagrin of the guy sitting behind us, who kept screaming "BRAWWWWWWWWWWLLLL!" There was no scoring, either, at least not on the part of the Bruins. I think last year's strike broke their spirit. A guy in our group was a Flyers fan and he went home happy. It was nice to see all the fathers bring their sons and daughters to the game. The kids didn't really care who won or lost as long as they got to wave their foam bear paws or their handmade Bruins signs. So that was a fresh start to the new year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
