Blast from the past

When I go to work this morning, I opened my email and found a note from T, one of Glenn's very best friends in LA. He wrote to say hi and see how I was doing, and to give me an update on how things were going in LA. It meant a lot to hear from him--he and I were good friends back in the day, and I missed him a lot after everything went down. I'm touched--he's the only one of Glenn's friends or family to reach out. We hung out with T all the time. If he wasn't at our place, we were at his house up in Mandeville or meeting him for Mexican food at Poquito. He was supposed to be a groomsman. His office was across the street from my yoga studio and I used to stop by after class and say hi. It's really good to know he's doing well.

I caught you a delicious bass

I’ve been thinking a lot about commitment lately, mostly because I’m realizing how averse I am to the concept as a whole right now, and partly because of lunch boy.

Commitment is nice and good and in a lot of ways it's what makes the planet turn. In an ideal world, the ability to commit goes hand in hand with responsibility, maturity, faithfulness and duty. In relationships, commitment is key. It’s sort of what makes a relationship a relationship. Commitment is a choice, a risk, a creation of vulnerability, a decision that must be adhered to or the whole concept goes out the window. Depending on the moment, commitment can be freeing and wonderful, or boring and claustrophobic. Either way, it’s part of being an adult.

The importance of commitment was pounded into my head at an early age by my mother who, when she wasn’t busy chasing me around the house with makeup or nylons in her hand, made sure I knew that I had to do what I said I’d do, follow through on my promises (even when it meant I ended up mowing the neighbor’s lawn when I really wanted to be reading on the back porch), and to feed the cat when he needed food rather than waiting for someone else to do it.

Sometimes commitment can bite you in the ass. People leave. Things end. And still you have to live your life.

When I was in sixth grade, a girl in my class was killed in a car crash. I was supposed to babysit the night I learned about her death—-a commitment I had made several weeks before. My mother refused to let me cancel, even though the last thing in the world I wanted to do was chase a bratty, spoiled kid around his parent’s McMansion for $6 an hour. Dazed and out of it, I went off to babysit, and the kid was just as bratty and unmanageable as I anticipated. Before they’d left for the theater, I had (very responsibly) told the parents about my friend’s death and I let them know that I was not in a super playful frame of mind. They took their son aside and told him to behave. Which of course he did not. At one point, desperate to get my goat, he said, “I bet your friend was ugly and nasty and deserved to die.” Shocked and appalled, I turned around and said (without thinking), “Billy, if you don’t shut up I’m going to smack you.” Yes, he was little and he probably just wanted a reaction, and yes, I should have known better, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. He didn’t shut up and when his parents came home, he ran to them and told them I’d threatened to hit him. I got a call from his mother the next day saying how disappointed she was in me, and how they would no longer be needing my services. My mother apologized to me and said she should have let me stay home.

Thanks to my mom, I used to be queen of commitment. But yesterday I realized that I am now terrified of it. I am afraid to commit to buying furniture for my apartment because having a lot of big possessions makes it harder to fly by the seat of your pants. I’m averse to signing a new lease because it means I can’t just bug out of town if the next winter makes me shriek with misery. I don’t want to look at condos, not just because the amount of money in my savings account would make a broker laugh til they cried, but because I’m afraid of committing to this city, and owning real estate would make it that much more complex if I decided to leave.

I’m always looking for an escape route now.

I think this is why I’ve been so okay with the lunch boy situation. We may click like crazy, we may have a great time together and we may make more sense than most of what comes out of George Bush’s mouth, but even though the risks are obvious, it’s super safe in one really basic way. If he’s involved with someone else, than the entire issue of commitment is off the table. No commitment = no vulnerability = Moxie does not get hurt. Again.

That’s the theory at least. When you’ve progressed to the point where you’re watching Family Guy in your underpants on someone’s couch, vulnerability is definitely part of in the picture.

That’s not to say that I couldn’t commit to him in a girlfriend-free situation. It just means that I’m afraid of it, and I’m acknowledging that fear. My shrink would be so proud.

Stop the madness

Okay, I have a bone to pick with American Apparel. Their clothes may be sweatshop free, but their ads are full of barely legal jailbait in homemade porn poses, and they are EVERYWHERE. Okay, they may sell really cute shorts and tank tops, but still. I shouldn't have to worry about reading a news site at work, not because the content is inappropriate, but because their ads could get me fired. I'm sure they score tons of clickthroughs so technically their ad strategy is a success, but it's pretty vile. I'm more likely to avoid the sites that host the ads than I am to read them and cross my fingers that my boss doesn't walk behind me to get to the printer while I'm madly scrolling to get past the stupid video ad loop. Clothe your models, people!

Like ducks not in a row

Nothing ever quite turns out they way you think it will. When I moved into my apartment at the end of December, I really, honestly thought that I would be moving to San Francisco when the lease ended in June. Because the whole thing seemed so transitional, I didn't bring much with me when a moved--just a few pieces of furniture and some boxes. But I didn't end up finding a way out to the Bay Area, and my lease is ending in a month and so now I'm looking for a new roommate, as my current one is moving to SF herself to do some post-graduate fieldwork.

I've posted the place a few times on Craigslist and there are a couple of people coming to take a look at me and the apartment this weekend. Craigslist can be a great source but it is also a total crapshoot. Who knows who these people are, whether they would make decent roommates, whether they would secretly kick Scully or leave fingernail clippings on the floor or ignore the dishes in the sink. Will they forget to pay the rent? Are they trustworthy? They could also be completely great. I need to think more positively about the whole process. All I know is that I really don't want to move again, even if it's just into a studio in the same building.

At the same time, the girl I replaced here is coming for her living room furniture this weekend, which means that we will have no couch, coffee table, TV or bookshelves after Saturday. Now I need to either find a roommate who comes with furniture, sort of like a special edition Barbie but with a couch instead of a pink leather clutch, or commit to bringing my own stuff in here.

Things are still happening with lunch boy, but not for much longer. For two people who are very clear about the fact that we are not in a relationship, we talk a lot more than friends who just hook up every so often. As in, emailing all day and IMing until the wee hours at night. I don't understand why I am having such a hard time drawing boundaries and sticking to them. If anyone had asked me if I thought I'd get involved with a guy who has a girlfriend a few months ago, I would have laughed in their face. But here I am. One thing I learned last year is that you can't always control what happens in your life. Things will unfold in the way they're supposed to. I know I want this guy in my life, even though I can't really put my finger on how that happened or why I'm allowing it. Maybe I just need to have a little more faith in the universe in regard to the boy and the roommate. Things will work themselves out.

Something to sing about

There is a god.

Next month, the Coolidge Corner Theater is doing a Rocky Horror-style midnight showing of "Once More With Feeling," complete with a dumb show and fake vampire teeth. A whole theaterful of Buffy fans who know the words to every song!!!!!

I thought I was a dork for knowing the whole soundtrack by heart, but clearly I am not alone in the Buffyverse. And really, what can't we face when we're together?

LArchitecture

It's SoCal time again at Archidose. He takes a look at the Solar Umbrella house in Venice, and at Reyner Banham's book, Los Angeles--The Architecture of Four Ecologies.

A lot of modern LA architecture is stuff that's interesting to contemplate, but I wouldn't want to live in most of it. To me, cement just doesn't scream "home."

Joga Time

In jail, the drug addicts get yoga lessons from Michael Bolton wannabes.

Least complicated

So it happened again. I am full of shit. Moxie = hypocrite. Moxie = trollop.

This afternoon, I had the interesting experience of being told, "If we lived in a society without rules or responsibilities, I would want you to have SO MANY of my babies. If I were the alpha male, you would be my alpha female."

Except that we don't live in that society, so I was flattered, but seeing as the girlfriend exists and he's made it clear she's not going away, I wasn't that flattered. He doesn't love her. He knows I'm a better fit, no pun intended. And yet...

"You shouldn't have to work this hard," he said. I know. But when I asked him why he was fighting it so hard, he couldn't answer.

So I'm walking away. No one should have to try and convince someone to be with them. And I'm worth more than that. His loss. Then again, I seem to be really good at making proclamations about my intentions and self worth, and really bad at actually following up on them (at least with him).

Smile like you mean it

Great yoga class today--and I got in three classes this week! I'm binding all over the place and hitting all the variations I know about. Baptiste isn't great at telling students how to take poses to the next level, so I'm relying on my Wednesday lunch class for that. I just started grabbing my ankles in boat, and now I'm working on jumping into crow. It would be great to work on handstands, but I really think the Baptiste teachers get annoyed by handstands because they want you in shoulder stand, and they aren't trained in how to assist handstands.

One thing that always gets me is when people show up to class 10-15 minutes late, are visibly annoyed that there are no spaces left, and then expect you to interrupt your practice to move your mat so they can set up. Punctuality, people. The world does not revolve around you.

So sleepy today. I ODed on sushi with L last night, and then stayed up past my bedtime on IM with C. Friday night feels like a dream, as it it happened on another planet or in another dimension. I don't know if I want it to happen again, and it's so nice not to be tied up in all kinds of emotional knots over it--to have the presence and clarity of mind necessary to make a decision based on my gut rather than any sense of neediness.

Hot flashes

"I've been a bad, bad girl."--Fiona Apple

Few experiences in life compare to that first zing between two people, when an unspoken connection is made and you know that something unbelievable is going to happen between you. It's electric, it's chemical, it's intoxicating and unbalancing, and there's no walking away from it. Well, maybe there is walking away from it, but you'd have to leave the country, cut off all contact and wait for the pull of attraction to fade. I remember the first time an old boyfriend kissed me on our second date, and how my brain was so thrown by it that I could barely stand up straight. All ability to concentrate goes flying out the door. Forget being productive in meetings---it's all you can do to pretend like your mind isn't mired in fantasyland, imagination running wild and your body thrumming as it keeps pace. You space out at red lights, in the line at the grocery store, in the middle of phone conversations. It feels like you're giving off an aura, as if everyone you talk to or interact with has to see the flush in your cheeks, the spring in your step, the glassy look in your eyes. How can it not be obvious, at least on an energetic level?

And then there's the calm after the storm, when the zing has done its work and the hormones have relinquished their hold. You can taste the experience on your tongue, in your food, smell it on your clothes, your sheets, your skin. Lips swollen from kisses, hips tender, eyelids heavy with sleep not had. Limbs weighted, catlike and sated, your body holds the memory of the experience in your muscles. The itch is scratched and you wonder how you could ever have considered resisting it in the first place. It was as inevitable as rain, taxes, sleep, sun. The future doesn't exist, only the moment. No expectations, no attachments, no demands or dependency. You have to savor the time before complication sets in.

Generation A

A is for Ambien. It's good enough for me. And apparently almost everyone else. I don't remember the end of my IM conversation last night, though, which may not be a good thing.

Coming back to life

Forget spring—summer is in the air. The thermometer on my computer says it’s 85 degrees outside. There’s a pale green haze around the trees as the leaves hit the budding phase and prepare to emerge, and all the daffodils are in full bloom. I’ve broken out the flipflops (actually, that happened about three weeks ago. It only needs to get above 50 degrees for it to be flipflop season in my book) and the tank tops are next on the list. If it snows anytime between now and November, I will go batshit insane.

Someone invented a brilliant device for people who want to make their subconscious known. Thanks to Collision Detection for the link.

It’s so sad when the celebrity crushes of my youth end up aging badly. Not just badly, REALLY badly. When I was 13, I was an avid reader of such high quality publications as Teen Beat, Bop and 16, and Corey Haim was my fave. There must have been 5-6 head shots of him on my wall and I used to kiss them until the paper puckered. But not now.

Changing of the guard

Far be it for me to comment on the cycling world, but this is pretty major.

It's in the air

Ok, now I get why my brain is all fuzzy and I can't concentrate at work (and why lunch boy remains attractive despite all the red flags.).

With spring comes spring fever. On the Esplanade yesterday, it was a giant game of see and be seen. If we were peacocks, we'd be flaunting feathers right now. As it is, we're flaunting other parts.

Last night TNT ran one of my all-time favorite movies. Nothing like a little Matt Damon to end a gorgeous spring day. I think they ran this one earlier, and I have to say that Brendan Fraser is not so bad himself. Really, what it comes down to is that competent, manly men who know how to make their adventurous women feel safe are the way to go. In this way, Matt Damon and Brendan Fraser are only following in the footsteps of the incomparable Harrison Ford. The Princess Leia bikini scene in Empire Strikes Back may have been a seminal adolescent moment for a whole generation of men, but Han Solo was the same for my generation of women.

Not a target-rich environment

There's nothing like going to a hip, happening bar on a Saturday night and realizing that there is not a single person in the entire room that you're interested in talking to.

But thank god for Texas.

I'll repeat that because I don't expect to ever say that again in my lifetime.

Thank god for Texas.

Last night at Jury's, M and I sat next to a tableful of Southwestern police officers in town for a convention. One of them, a gregarious, friendly type from Texas, adopted us for the evening and bought us drinks. After showing us pictures of his wife and three daughters (and telling us that his wife is a hot piece of ass; he occasionally tells his daughters to go out and get laid because it's good for them), he sat with us and scoped out the crowd.

"What is wrong with these boys that they won't come up and talk to a couple of beautiful women such as yourselves?" he wanted to know. "Men these days need to remember their job in life, which is to take care of the women in their life. Or at least the women in the room."

M sort of liked a bald guy sitting in the corner until she realized that what she'd thought was a shadow on his neck was actually the lower half of a beard that the guy had carefully cultivated. Except that it made him look as if he'd grown a bush on his neck. Disgusting and hysterical at the same time.

Given the preponderance of hair gel, attitude, cologne and bad clothing in the room, the only guy I was even vaguely interested in was one of the waiters, who was very cute and very well mannered. The Texan guy thought this was great. "Want me to get him over here, hon?" he kept asking. A gallant offer, but brute force has never been my flirting method of choice.

Before the bar, I went out for handbags and sushi with 10 or so friends to celebrate my 30th birthday. The handbags were at a little boutique on Mass Ave that lets you design your own bag and then they sew it for you. The sushi was at a great place up the street that had private rooms where the table is sunken and you sit on the floor. Both the bags and the sushi were a great time. I love my friends. As we left the sushi place, I found myself feeling grateful that things with Glenn didn't work out because if I'd stayed in LA with him, I wouldn't be able to have these people in my life as much. And I wouldn't be friends with the ones I met after I moved back. The universe works in interesting ways.

A Tired Girl

Finally, someone's written about what it's like for those of us who are tired all the time. And I don't mean our generation as a whole.

A day of predictions

As my 30th birthday approaches, I thought it only fitting that I take a look at this whole Popstrology phenomenon and see what my birth song has to say about my life curve. Being an Aries born on the cusp of Taurus, I am not surprised to find that the number one songs on and after my birthday are….interesting.

April 6-19: Elton John, “Philadelphia Freedom”
April 20-26: B.J. Thomas, “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song

For the record, I have never been much of an Elton John fan. As for my birth year, here’s what the Popstrology gods have to say:

1975—The Year of Elton John
It was a year of wild diversity -- a year in which nonconformity was the official popstrological credo, as evidenced by the significant activity in the constellation Sui Generis. Elton John was not the only one-of-a-kind star from that constellation of incomparables to work his magic in the pop universe of 1975, for under his benevolent and nonjudgmental rule two more icons of individuality emerged: the unstoppable John Denver and the inexplicable Barry Manilow. When you consider that they were born at a time when millions of Americans who had never been within fifty miles of a working farm were walking around humming about haystacks and flapjacks under the influence of John Denver's Thank God I'm A Country Boy, it should be no mystery why the children of the Elton John generation are such enemies of traditional boundaries and barriers and such non-sticklers for plausibility in matters of identity construction.

On the spiritual side of things, Osho had a mouthful for me and my evil, coworker-entangling ways:

Letting Go:
In this image of lotus leaves in the early morning, we can see in the rippling of the water that one drop has just fallen. It is a precious moment, and one that is full of poignancy. In surrendering to gravity and slipping off the leaf, the drop loses its previous identity and joins the vastness of the water below. We can imagine that it must have trembled before it fell, just on the edge between the known and the unknowable. To choose this card is a recognition that something is finished, something is completing. Whatever it is--a job, a relationship, a home you have loved, anything that might have helped you to define who you are--it is time to let go of it, allowing any sadness but not trying to hold on. Something greater is awaiting you, new dimensions are there to be discovered. You are past the point of no return now, and gravity is doing its work. Go with it--it represents liberation.

Don't go for second best

Today's conversation with lunch boy:

"I don't date men with girlfriends."
"So does that mean lunch at the Japanese place up the road is out of the question?"
"Yes."
"Do you mean yes, it's out of the question? Or yes, it's a bad idea?"
"Both. I'm all about the respect."
"That's fair. But what if it's not a date? What if we're just two work friends having lunch?"
"We are work friends, but not work friends who have flirty lunches even though they have girlfriends. As for a non-date, who are you trying to kid?"
"I guess no one. It's too bad. It would have been nice to have a work friend."
"We are work friends. Don't change the subject."
"So no lunch?"

I had lunch with him, but I bought my own sandwich at the cafe downstairs and we sat outside, which is something work friends do. One has to set boundaries. I am not the trollop.

Life, the universe and everything

Last night I went to the 7:30 class at Baptiste and had the world’s most annoying instructor. As a rule, I don’t like to hear about the Baptiste teachers' personal take on life, the universe and everything, mostly because while many of them have experienced a real opening from yoga, Baron Baptiste has trained them all to say the same things and so it comes across as manufactured pap. This is especially true with the teacher I has last night. Not only did she spout the same Baptiste lines, she also said, “Mmmm, hmmm” after each sentence, as if the class was a Baptist congregation in need of lifting up. She put us through Sun A and Sun B so fast that we didn’t have a chance to actually hit each pose before she had us moving into the next one. I'd like to know how we're expected to link movement and breath if we can't actually go through the correct series of movements? I'm not concentrating on my breathing if I'm rushing from updog to downdog to warrior one, without ever really hitting downdog.

Another thing that irked me: this teacher says the names of poses in a really annoying way. She says Warrior One allinonewordandsofastthatitsoundslike Wrrroooooooooooone. Then Downwardfaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. She'd get going on some cheesy Baptise theme and lose count while the whole class was holding a pose, so we'd end up being in a bind for like 5 minutes. I wanted to kick her.

Example: while we were in half pigeon, she shared this deep insight from Baron: “If you can put your forehead down to your hands or to the floor,” she said, “it’s like your forehead becomes a movie screen. And the movie screen is blank.”

Yes.

So lunch boy emailed today and asked me to go for an afternoon walk. It’s a gorgeous day outside and I had remarkably little work to do, so I said yes. We watched the ducks in the duck pond and talked about lots of things—the Boston real estate market, the nature of parents, the merits of online dating. Then he said something that stopped me in my tracks. “If I saw a 30-year old woman at a bar, I’d wonder about it,” he said.

“You’d wonder about what?” I asked.
“Well, why she was 30 and single and at a bar.”
“Because she’s young and single and likes beer?”
“Okay, but why is she still single? What’s wrong there?”
“Um, why does something have to be wrong? Maybe she just hasn’t met the right guy. And why is 30 the magic number?”

Reason #4527988453 why younger men can be problematic.

I told him that I was 30 and there was nothing wrong with me if I wanted to go to a bar. Then I told him that I was supposed to get married but that I called it off. And he said, “Well, okay. That explains it.” Explains what exactly? What needs explaining? And to whom?

He then revealed that he has an on again/off again girlfriend with whom he is currently on again.

“So if you have a girlfriend, why are you out walking with me?” I asked.
“Because you’re fun,” he said. “Why are you out walking with me?”
“Because you asked. And because I’m single, so it’s not going to weird anyone out.”

I'm probably being overly picky as a defense mechanism, but that seems icky to me.

Workety work work

Today I am thankful for my job because working here means that I am not working at the job I had two jobs ago, or at the first job I had out of college. I am grateful for this fact because last night I had a dream about someone I worked with at both of those former places of employment, and the humiliation I'd suffer if I had to face him today would be off the charts. Hasn't everyone had dreams about coworkers? It's not a voluntary thing so it's not like it can be controlled, but even though the person doesn't know you had the dream, it still feels like they must. Because there they were, in your dream, doing things that would definitely get them fired in real life. So I am relieved that I don't have to face this guy because my face would be very, very red.

In other work weirdness-related news, I had a lunch pseudo-date with one of the consultants at my company today and I am now understanding the wisdom against dating coworkers. I say it was a pseudo-date because he brought a girl to the Christmas party and for all I know he is still attached, but he did ask me out for Thai. And the conversation definitely had that "I'm running down a mental checklist of potential partner attributes" feel to it. And it was fun. He is cute and nice and funny. He likes Star Wars (this is a plus for someone who dressed up as Princess Leia for eight Halloweens, including my senior year in college), he does yoga and he's a gentleman.

But now I am wary of walking by his desk. Thank god it was just lunch. I can't imagine how people carry on inter-office affairs without one of them having to leave the company.

Decisions made

Where I will be for a week in August. For a weekend in June. For Memorial Day.

Maybe I'll do Maui and the Azores next year.

Missing home

Via the wonders of Google Maps.

Double digits

"If you have no wounds how can you know if you're alive? If you have no scar, how do you know who you are?"--Edward Albee, The Play About the Baby

10 months this past Wednesday.

I’ve been feeling great—really positive and clearheaded and focused on the future. For me, it’s a huge accomplishment that I’ve allowed myself to feel content in my life. I’m not fooling myself by thinking that I’d be happier if only I had a boyfriend or I lived in San Francisco or I had more money. Things are good the way they are.

Last night I went for a run by the river. The sky was overcast as the sun crawled below the horizon. Even the water was quiet, with only a few singles and eights going by. It was a good run but when I got home, I saw Scully snoozing on my bed and I realized that I missed Glenn terribly.

The missing him comes randomly now, out of the blue and for no particular reason. Suddenly I’ll just feel the emptiness of the house when I come home, or I'll realize that Scully is now being raised by a single cat parent and I'll want our little family back.

The grief strikes fast and the tears come, hot and quick, and then it’s gone. Standing in my room, I felt the tears build and I just let them fall. It’s so easy to judge myself for still feeling the grief, even after 10 months, because at some level it feels like a waste of energy, time and emotional elasticity. He doesn’t deserve my tears, and how much of a loser am I for grieving the loss of someone who probably never felt the depth of love that I felt for him? I want to be the strong and resilient, like the lead characters in those terrible chick-lit books, the ones who always manage to bounce back and find the right guy all while holding a martini and wearing kickass shoes. But I’m not. I’m just me and I’m not a Wonder Woman with a heart of steel (although a set of those wrist cuffs would be nice).

These flashes of sadness are specific and they cut to the bone. I don’t miss having a live-in boyfriend, I miss Glenn. I’ll be sitting on the couch, reading the New Yorker and suddenly I’ll see one of his silly facial expressions in my head. Or then I’ll miss the way he used to run out of the bedroom and do a quick little dance just to make me laugh. Or how we used to spend lazy Sundays lying around the house or reading up at Tigertail. I miss the sound of his voice, the smell of his clothes, the way he’d get cycling grease on his hands when he worked on his bikes. I miss the way we had found the perfect couch cuddling position, and how I used to prop my left leg on his hip when we were falling asleep. He’d put his hand on the inside of my thigh and we were two peas in a pod.

These random moments, like the dreams, feel like the last stage of processing the relationship and its end. Hitting the double digits is an accomplishment—just surviving last summer was a feat in itself—but it’s a landmark that comes with baggage. I’m amazed at how far I’ve come, but I’m still shocked at how completely my world has changed in less than a year. In some ways I still feel like Alice down the rabbit hole. As the year mark approaches, I feel a degree of pressure to get over it completely. As if I want to be holding on any longer than I have to. Is there a statute of limitations on this kind of thing?

I am fine on my own. My world is rich and full. I know I have to have faith that at some point I’ll find another great partner, but it’s hard to see. I just can’t see—why isn’t my brain a cerebral crystal ball? Glenn was far from perfect, especially at the end, but when you’ve had that pure deep connection with someone, even if it didn’t work out, it’s impossible to settle for something less. I wonder if I’ll find that again, or if I’ll be able to DO that again.

Not in Kansas anymore

What’s it like to be transplanted from your home town into a big, new city? An article in today’s New York Observer looks at how one Southern woman has adapted to the Big Apple, an experience that can be applied to pretty much anyone who’s moved away from home.

One particular paragraph in Kathryn Williams’ article struck home because this is how I felt coming back to Boston, and why I’m still so torn about leaving it again:

"But for me, the most palpable question of the night—one that hovered at the edge of conversation—was how and when can we go back? With every visit, Richmond gets smaller. Like a dress I bought in high school, even if I could manage to squeeze into it, I wouldn’t really want to. But just because I’ve outgrown it doesn’t mean I want to throw it out. "

If you've met Homer Simpson, you've really landed

John King, the San Francisco Chronicle's design critic, gave a fabulous lecture on contemporary California architecture at the Boston Public Library in February. Today he writes about how the culture of celebrity is embracing pop-star architects.

What's love got to do with it

Straight from the minds of Lindsayism and TMFTML comes the Cruddy Award, given out to the person with the worst ex ever.

If only I had known...

I won't get into the similarity between Cruddy and Glenn's last name. It would be too funny. But Glenn's behavior, bad though it was, doesn't even come close to what Billy Crudup did to Mary Louise Parker.

Also, Ms. Klein takes a look at why pain and pleasure are not always what we expect (or want) them to be.

Another one on the chin

From an East Coaster who I doubt ever looked back once when he left LA.

As Higgypiggy would say--in this case very accurately--LMFAO.

Why pantyhose and Moxie just don’t mix

Today it is approaching 60 degrees, and so I judged it to be warm enough to brave baring my legs to the elements by wearing a skirt. Skirts are my uniform in summer, but I only own one winter skirt and it requires the wearing of heavy-duty tights, so it only came out of the closet 2-3 times this past winter. This being a work environment and all, pantyhose seemed to be an appropriate choice of garment, especially since it’s not THAT warm outside yet. Usually, however, I am of the opinion that legs should breathe free.

God, I can just hear my mother screaming at me right now. Her two pet peeves with me: makeup and bare legs. In addition to eschewing all makeup, I used to waltz around during the winters in high school wearing black ballet flats and bare legs when it was in the single digits outside. Did I catch pneumonia and die? Clearly not.

Let it be said that I despise pantyhose almost as much as makeup, which makes sense seeing as pantyhose are pretty much just makeup for your legs. But being the responsible young woman I am, I went to Marshalls and bought some nice pantyhose for cheap. I struggled into them this morning and promptly walked out the door without thinking about the concept of a slip. In the fifty feet between the parking lot and the elevator in my building, I must have tugged my skirt down from around my hips about 15 times, all the while thinking “I FRIGGING HATE PANTYHOSE!” So I did not cry when I accidentally (seriously, it was an accident) poked my thumb through the damned things when I was pulling them back up in the bathroom. Into the trash they went. This series of events was made more interesting by the fact that I went commando today in the interest of removing all pantylines (all three of my thongs are in the laundry) Now I am bare-legged--bare everything, please god don't let me fall down the stairs--and much happier, and since I end up sitting in front of a computer for most of the day anyway, no one will be the wiser.

Short and sweet

From an IM conversation earlier this morning:

Friend: I'd really like to find a more current a capella group of some sort, eventually, but this is interesting, difficult enough and fun. But I have to remember how to sing -- haven't really done it formally for a while.

Me: That is exactly how I'm going to feel the next time I meet a potential boyfriend.

Time is not on my side

Last night I dreamed that I was in LA with Glenn. We were having a conversation and at the end he told me that he didn't need me anymore. Then he got up and walked away. And it still stung.

The time change is playing havoc with my biorhythms. So much for my lovely happy pills--my head is all swimmy and either I can't sleep at all or I sleep for 13 hours (which I did last night). Tonight I went for a long run just to get outside and get some fresh air because it's a whopping 60 degrees outside. Finally, the temperature reaches a hospitable level! Now I am feeling vaguely more normal but still a little out of it.

Suddenly I am the queen of indecision. I cannot make up my mind between the yoga retreat in Maui, an Ashtanga intensive in Costa Rica or another Ashtanga intensive in the Azores. None of these are bad choices, but the feeling in my gut that normally guides me in one direction or another has been resoundingly silent lately. It goes beyond a lack of motivation or even an overall sense of ambivalence, and it's quickly approaching apathy. I just don't care about pretty much anything right now. Existential crisis? Yet I find happiness in something stupid, like walking through Harvard Square and not wanting to go right back home and crawl under the covers. I lack a sense of direction but I suddenly feel at home in the world. Someone call Joyce Carol Oates.

Linktastic

I’ve been too lazy to post cool linky stuff lately (and also my wireless connection at home won’t let me link to anything), so here’s a whole bunch of things that grabbed my eye this week:

Design Within Reach cracks me up because unless you’re in a high-income profession, nothing in that store is reachable for anyone my age (and we are their target demographic). There’s one in Santa Monica and I only ever looked in the window because it felt like one of those stores where the salesperson would take one look at my shorts and flipflops and KNOW that I couldn’t afford anything on the floor. So this made me smile. Design for those of us without disposable income.

The lifelong Buffy addict in me thinks that Geese Aplenty’s and the Yeti’s theories on pope replacement make total sense.

Apparently I’m years late on the whole Lebowski Fest phenomenon, but what isn’t there to say about a celebration of the Dude? My inner Maude wants to attend in nothing but a short red wig and a faux mink coat. But only if I can walk around saying, “He’s a good man—and thoura” over and over again.

Where I went to school, Nalgene bottles were beyond de rigeur. They were almost required of incoming freshmen. So I hope that the school is issuing a public service announcement of the sad and disturbing discovery that Nalgene bottles can cause brain damage.

Lots of cool architecture stuff going on. The Build Boston event is going on this week, and Sarah Susanka, author of “The Not So Big House” is giving a keynote on the future of the American home. She’s a pioneer of the “small is the new big” concept, of which I am a big fan. Also, Architectural Digest is launching its three-city Architecture Days tour in LA later this month. I so wish I could be there.

Last but definitely not least, HBO's biggest tough guys are battling it out over whose cat is cuter. I’m still not sure if this site is for real, but if it is, it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

Forward movement

Progress!! In class today, I got onto my elbows in virasana. Until now, I've only been able to sit on a block with my hands on my heels. And my knees didn't shriek in protest. I also took the variation in arti chandrasana.

And today meant I got in three classes this week. Yay!

It's a mystery

M and I went to First Friday last night and had a blast. It was very crowded again, and there was a good mix of people. M is really friendly and outgoing, but also tall and she commented on the lack of young, tall men in Boston. This is something I never notice because I am short and therefore everyone is taller than me. But once she made the observation, I looked around and saw that she was pretty much right. There were a lot of younger people there but most of them were sub-6'. Suddenly I am glad to be short. In college, T and I had a sign in our room that proclaimed, "Short is Beautiful." Apparently, short is now also advantageous.

We caught sight of three young, attractive guys a little later in the evening, and M dug in her heels so we could stop and talk nearby in the hopes that they'd come talk to us. I am of the mind that men have to make the first move. They also have to ask for the phone number and make the call. In the past, I prided myself on doing those things and paying no attention to social norms. I wanted to show that I wasn't conventional, I guess. Maybe that's how I ended up with a string of boyfriends who let me do all the work in the relationship. Patterns get established early. So now I am mindful of that. If the guy isn't confident or interested enough to ask for the number, then I won't waste my time. There are lots of perfectly nice, shy men out there, I know, and I don't mean to exclude them, but you know what? I'm shy sometimes and I'm tired of feeling like I have to make it easy for the other person all the time. Anything worth having is worth working for.

Eventually, the three guys came over to talk. All three were cute, confident, well dressed and articulate. I was pretty convinced that all three were into M, because M is Dutch and blonde and beautiful, so I talked and laughed and kept my distance, waiting to see what happened. All three of them stuck around, even after M made a dash to the ladies room, and when the lights came down and the docents kicked everyone out for the night, the guys asked us if we wanted to meet up for drinks in the South End. We were heading in that direction anyway, and we said yes. We dished in the car on the way over. M said she was really into Monty, a stocky, Vin Diesel lookalike who's a cardiac consultant. I said I was into Ryan, an art-loving, articulate blond Irishman. The third guy was someone M could go either way on, but I wasn't into at all. So we met up with them at the Butcher Shop in the South End, and Monty had ditched and gone home, so it was Ryan and the third guy. They were hungry and it was late, so we went to the Franklin Cafe on Shawmut, where they serve food until midnight or so. We got drinks and talked and laughed. All of us were tired and I wouldn't have been surprised if the guys bowed out after a drink, but they were really into getting dinner, so we sat down and ordered food. Ryan sat next to me and the other guy sat with M. I felt like Ryan and I totally hit it off. We talked easily, which is a commodity in the dating world, and a good sign for me. We both hate skiing but love snowshoeing, we both love to travel, we both love art and museums. He quoted Thoreau about finding beauty in the world. And he was not gay. Nice shoulders, nice Brooks Brothers suit, very chivalrous. Totally up my alley.

After dinner, we walked back to Ryan's car and he offered us a ride to M's place because it had gotten chilly outside. We took him up on it--I don't get to ride in a cute Mercedes that often, and I was freezing. When we got there, we thanked them for a lovely evening. They didn't ask for numbers. They let us out and then peeled out and took off down Tremont, like the devil himself was chasing them.

I don't get it. If they weren't that into us, why did they ask us out for drinks and make the evening go longer instead of just cutting out? Totally mixed signals. Men are a mystery.

Unexpected adventure

I wish I could say that what happened today was an April Fool's joke but it wasn't--it was just me getting completely turned around and feeling foolish.

I went for a run during lunch and when I got to the place where I usually turn right, I took a left on a whim. I knew there was a loop going back toward work in the other direction, so I decided to try and find it. Except the roads in Lincoln make no sense. After 50 minutes, I had no idea where I was. So I stopped at an elementary school and asked one of the teachers how to get back to where I worked. A couple of other people came over to help, and when I told them where I needed to go, they laughed. "You're like miles away!" one of them told me. So the first guy gave me a ride back in his car. Not that I felt great about getting in a strange man's car, but I figured that if all the other daycare people knew where we were going (and they trusted him with small children), I was probably okay. He was nice--we chatted all the way, and when he dropped me off, I thanked him profusely. "Don't worry about it," he said. "That's what we're all here for--to be angels for one another."

So nice. And I wasn't that late getting back to work. I did feel pretty dumb, though. Next time I'll stick to my regular route.

Sleepless and searching

I haven't been sleeping well. Things just feel out of joint, out of whack. The things that have been staples of my life for a long time have faded into the background over the past few months and suddenly I'm realizing how much I need those things--reading, journal writing and regular yoga practice.

I've kept a journal ever since I was 6, but I haven't been doing much journal writing for the past four months because I've been really into writing here. But when I don't write in my journal for more than a few days, I go into information overload and I can't sleep. My brain just will not shut up. Blogging is great, but journal writing is more stream of thought and it's not edited for public consumption. I have a box full of my old journals, a box full of my personal history, including the cracked hard drive from my college computer that contains four years worth of journaling that I somehow never backed up. My journal goes with me everywhere--I only buy bags big enough to carry a journal because you never know when you'll need to sit down and write about somethng, or when you'll be stuck someplace with time to kill. But this year my journal is almost blank and I don't feel like the same person because of it. So even though I'm writing here regularly, I think I need to pick up the journal again, if only to write down the random, stupid thoughts that need to get out in words but that no one else needs to hear.

I have, however, been writing about my Glenn dreams in my journal because I'm sick of writing about them, period. They still happen regularly, but I don't wake up crying anymore. Last night I dreamed that my family and friends were helping me go through a basement's worth of stuff that belonged to me and him. They wouldn't let me get involved and by the end of the dream, the basement was neat and everything that I kept was stacked on shelves. My brother told me he'd talked to Glenn's grandparents and they had told him that Glenn was getting lots of interest from women in LA. I turned to him and said, "You know what? I really don't care. I wish I could write them all a letter warning them away from him,but that's for them to learn."

Then there's the reading. I don't know what's changed about my day, but I hardly have the time and energy to read the way I used to, which was ravenously and almost constantly. Now it's a struggle to keep up with my New Yorkers and Vanity Fair, the only two magazines I subscribe to. I've had the same pile of books next to my bed for four months. Every so often I'll get a block of time and bang through a book, but I guess I feel like there's always something more pressing that needs to get done. I don't give myself permission to sit down and read, which is sad because reading has always been my anchor. When I was little, I used to take a milk crate's worth of books home from the library every week. My boyfriends made fun of me because I always brought a book to the ballgame, and I read intently every night before bed. Harvard Book Store ought to sell me stock judging from the amount of money I've dropped there, and my parent's basement is literally stacked with boxes of my books that I don't have room for right now. I miss losing myself in a good story. I miss being able to talk about books with people. I miss exploring narrative structures and admiring other people's writing styles. I need to make time for reading again.

Then there's the yoga practice. Or what's left of it. The winter was really harsh and every week it was an effort to get a workout in, no matter what it was. I keep meaning to get to the studio 3 times a week, and every week it ends up being twice. In California, I was in the studio 3-4 times a week and I have never felt so healthy, whole and present in my body as I did then ( at least since my days as a gymnast when I was younger). Yoga kept me sane. I was lean and taut and centered in myself. And I felt like I was making progress in my practice. Each day I could stretch a little more, take my twists further, add a pose or take a new, deeper modification. My goal was to start taking some of the advanced classes at the two studios I went to. The studio that was two alleys behind me added Myesore classses in the morning right before I moved back to Boston, and so I never got a chance to start down that path. Here, my practice has been almost totally physical. The studio that is closest, most affordable and has the most convenient schedule is Baptiste. The teachers vary in their approaches, and some lead more spiritual classes than others. They do emphasize breathing, but they tell you when to breathe rather than letting you breathe at your own pace. Other than the intermediate class on Sundays, the classes are exactly the same each time and I've only had one teacher who added poses or encouraged students to take the series deeper to advance their practice. There is no opportunity to take my practice further there, and the only two studios in Boston that offer Myesore are far enough away that it's not really feasible to take up that kind of practice right now. It's very frustrating. I want to be serious about my practice, but the available opportunities are few. It's one reason why I am antsy to get back to the west coast.

The things we own do not always own us

But sometimes it feels like it. The other day I caught myself swiping catalogs from the bulk mail bin near the front door of my building, catalogs that are not addressed to me, all because the duvet situation had not resolved itself to my satisfaction.

I am Tyler Durden’s worst nightmare. And I don't care.

The stupid duvet would not leave me alone. I was obsessed about bedding--I mean, it felt pretty shallow. And I wanted to talk about it with my friends, as if it were an issue of major concern. But in a way it was, at least to me. It's important that I have something nice to wrap myself in at night, that l like what I see when I open my eyes in the morning and when come home from work at night. It's a way of being nice to myself, of feeling worthy of good treatment. "Just go to Marshalls," my friends said, or "I got great stuff on Overstock.com!" Their advice was perfectly sound, but I had all these gift cards to the Hallowed Grounds of Wedding Registration: Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, Williams-Sonoma. And I wanted to use them rather than shell out on my own.

Two weeks ago, I finally made a decision and I ordered a simple blue duvet with matching pillowcases from PB. Maybe a cool quilt would show up in their summer collection, I figured, and I could round it out with that. But when the box showed up in the mail, I discovered that Porcelain Blue looks a lot different in a catalog and on a website than it does on fabric. Rather than the warm, dusty color I’d been hoping for, it was a cold, icy blue, the kind of stuffy shade that pops in designer catalog rooms but not in a normal person’s space and certainly not in a small apartment bedroom. Martha Stewart could make that blue work, but not me. I tried to stifle the nausea I felt every time I looked at the thing. I washed it and put it on the bed. But I hated it. I used to have nightmares about houses painted that color blue. Hard to explain--colors have always made me feel certain things.

So last night I put the whole set back in the box, and went to the PB store at the Atrium in Newton. I wasn't going to make myself live with something that made me unhappy just because I'd made a misjudgment. At the store, I found a pretty, flowered duvet that made me smile every time I saw it. Smiles are good to have in the bedroom, right? And it was on super deep discount. I picked up the duvet, two shams and a table runner for less than $100, which made the Yankee in me even happier.

This afternoon, I was talking to my boss, a really incredibly, genuine person who has an innate sense of what will put you at ease and make you feel appreciated. I felt silly telling her about my duvet quest as if it were the freaking Holy Grail, but she told me that she did the same thing when she was my age, right after she got out of a bad relationship and was starting out on her own again. It's part of the process, she told me, so don't feel bad about being enthusiastic. Move forward with a smile and feather your own nest.

Straight from the horse's mouth

Wit and wisdom of the ex-fiance. I do not know you, Ms. Cain, but I feel your pain. Men should know better than to be stupid with a writer.

A totally random rant on the subject of clubbing baby seals

This makes me so angry I could spit. It's not just the needless killing of innocent animals. It's this:

"Fishermen participating in the hunt, however, blame seals and their voracious appetites for the devastation of Canada's fish stocks, in particular cod, and argue a cull is necessary."

Now, let’s be clear on one thing. Harp seals are not the reason why Canada’s fisheries are in the crapper. Canadian fishermen, as well as fishermen from pretty much every country, routinely overfish and then they protest when the government imposes catch limits in order to allow fish populations to rebound. They also use irresponsible netting/dragging techniques that damage the environment and kill a lot of other sea life along the way. Maybe if the fishermen took responsibility for the way they pursue their livelihood, they wouldn’t be in their current position. They wouldn’t need to deflect blame onto the seals so they can rationalize clubbing some of the cutest creatures on the planet in order to sell their pelts.

If fishermen want sympathy for the decline of their way of life, this is not the way to go about it. Go learn a new trade, something that adds to our quality of life. I'd rather forgo salmon for dinner than patronize this kind of practice.

Idiot Supreme

Even though fame and fortune cause a lot of people to go off the deep end, do mad and crazy things, do immoral or selfish things, or really anything they want to do, it still sucks to find out that one of my favorite Red Sox is a really big jerk. Curt Schilling may be a rabid Republican who’ll say anything that George Bush tells him to, but at least he’s not a deluded philanderer. At least parents can point to him as a role model and not worry that their sons are going to grow up with the wrong idea of how to be a good family man. Steroids, schmeroids, I say.

Buildings with zoom-zoom

Architecture meets carchitecture as car manufacturers ask leading architects to re-invent their design studios.

Brain buzzing before bed

It poured rain today, and when I came out of yoga class, the air and rain felt so GOOD that I walked all the way home in a T-shirt and yoga pants just so I could be outside in the lovely, cool air. I've made a decision to do a yoga retreat in Hawaii this July with a teacher I studied with in LA. For a while I was going back and forth about whether to do the trip because I didn't want a new adventure to be about hanging onto bits of the past, but I don't think it will be like that. I'm going to visit Higgypiggy and Chiztiz in LA very soon, and I'm feeling good about going back to the city and making new memories there. For the first time, the idea of going to LA doesn't make me choke with panic or cry at the thought of not going back to my old apartment. It's time to weave that part of my life into my current existence in a healthy, empowering way. Who cares if Glenn's even in town when I go---this time it's not about him.

I'm feeling really ready to re-enter the dating world, or preferably the relationship world. In yoga, I meditated on opening up to new experiences and I guess we'll see what the universe sends along. My friends and I are hitting the MFA First Friday again this week, and I'm going to check out some other stuff around town. It's time to get out and meet some new people. It still makes me slightly uncomfortable to do it with a sort of alterior motive. Reasons why I will never do 8-minute dating or some such.

Easter candy addicts anonymous

Hello. My name is Moxie. And I am a jelly bean-aholic.

Since I am single this year and thus unable to celebrate Easter as a pagan holiday of fertility, my sole nod to this day of rebirth is via candy. Lots of candy, specifically of the jelly and the bean varieties.

I've put away two bags of Brachs jelly beans in the past two days. And that's not counting the Starburst jelly beans I knawed my way through last week. Or the jelly eggs I picked up from CVS on Friday. It's the hormones, I swear. That and my body wants the sugar to fuel the growth of my quad muscles, which are bulking up due to the fact that the stadium has defrosted and I'm doing stairs again regularly. That must be it.

Still, the madness has to end. I am hereby swearing off candy forever. Or at least until my sweet tooth kicks in right around when PMS shows up next month. Aieeeee.

Jolly good, old chap

I am re-watching the PBS version of John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga. It's so good that I can't tear myself away and I keep getting to bed late. Damian Lewis, who played Major Winters in Band of Brothers, somehow manages to make me forget he's a hottie with his performance as the odious Soames. And then there's Soames' arctic wife, Irene. When I watched the series for the first time a few years ago, I was totally on Irene's side but this time I am kind of disliking her.

I love old British names. Soames. Swithin. Montague. Winifred. Hester. Jolyon. These are names that deserve a resurrection in modern society, if only to get away from all the current names that are so overused. I know someone named Jolyon and his parents named him after the character in The Forsyte Saga. Discerning parents, his. Maybe it's that I spent so much time in WASP world on the Cape, but I find something seductive and charming about Victorian society, despite the fact that it was so uptight people could barely breathe. The concept of manners is nice in itself.

Temporal displacement

What's the difference between holding onto the past and being anchored by your roots as you move forward in life?

T and I are on the Cape for a few days, staying in her family's summer house on one of the small, semi-exclusive peninsulas off the Falmouth coast. A former boathouse, the cottage is grayed and rambling and full of interesting nooks and crannies. It also houses three generations of memories, embodied by tarnished monogrammed silver, yellowed photos and an overwhelming sense of place. T's great grandparents bought the house in the late 19th century and her family has been coming here ever since. It's just like the book I read last month, which is about a house that's across the bay.

As soon as she walked in the cottage's door, I could see her relax and reconnect with herself, with the person she was when she spent summers running around in her swimsuit, racing Beetlecats and drinking on the beach with the other kids on the island. She knows who every person in every photograph is and she knows their life stories. She knows where she comes from, but right now she can't see where she's going. At the same time, she knows she can't stay here forever. It's too small now.

When I was little, I used to dive into the pool at my parent's health club and see how long I could sit on the bottom before my lungs got tight and I had to get more air. The bottom of the pool was the most beautiful place to me. Blue and sparkling with refracted sunlight, it felt like so safe, as if nothing bad could happen while I was down there. No one could reach me or hurt me (unless they dove on my head). As I got older, I realized that, like the bottom of the pool, the safe places in life can only be visited. You can come home. You can reconnect with your history, but you can never really come back. Even the old haunts have to be made new again.

Puss of the Baskervilles

Don't mess with British cats. It must be something in the milk.

Ghosts of childhood TV shows past

*shock*

I just found out that Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas is Stacy from Kids Incorporated.

Head. Spinning around on shoulders.

I was the biggest, dorkiest Kids Incorporated fan when I was little. I used to dance around the house singing the theme song with a hairbrush for a microphone. Even then I couldn't sing to save my life, but I daydreamed about running up onto that stage and performing with them. There are still songs I automatically associate with that show. "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic." So sad.

And the winner is...

Santa Monica architect Thom Mayne wins the 2005 Pritzker Prize.

There's no place like home

Sometimes, being in a familiar place feels like you're wrapped up in a great, big, warm security blanket. Everything is comfortable and beloved and safe. There's nothing to discover but also nothing to be scared of, and you know all the shortcuts to get around town.

The Osho Tarot says that "home isn't a physical place, it's a sense of security in ourselves." I agree and disagree with that. I think home can be both, a knowledge of yourself that lets you be at home wherever you are, and a place where you feel so right in the world that there's no doubting anything. Maybe that sounds naive or utopic, but isn't that the nature of home, or at least why it can be comforting? Home is where there's nothing left to run from.

Which is why the following passage from Ann Packer's novel The Dive From Clausen's Pier stuck with me:

I'd been swinging back and forth between staying here and going back---swinging without even thinking about it all that much because thinking couldn't really help me choose as well as seeing could: my clothes, here. My life, here. Was this it? I was still swinging back and forth, though I imagined a moment would come when the swinging would change: no longer a movement between choices, but a movement into memory and regret, and back out again.

**UPDATE** Dawn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is going to play the lead role in Lifetime's Version of The Dive From Clausen's Pier. Aieee. Do you ever get an image in your mind of how a book's characters should look? Dawn was not what I pictured for Carrie. Maybe Alison Lohman, but definitely not Michelle Trachtenberg.

LOTR: The Return of the Ring

In which Moxie, having scaled the cliffs of Mount Doom with the help of her trusty friends, flings her engagement ring into the bubbling depths and banishes the Great Eye of Glenn into the misty nothingness of the past.

Or something like that.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that everything comes full circle, and I think that after today the cycle that began when I first met Glenn has now come to its end. The universe backed me up on this because the day was truly epic, complete with plot and soundtrack.

The day itself, March 19th, would have been our 10-month wedding anniversary. It was a clear, sunny, early spring day. After much weeping on my bed, I got in the car and picked up Carmen, who came along for moral support, and drove downtown. We walked through the Public Garden to Newbury St., home of all that is tony and hip in Boston.

On the way to the jewelry store, we passed a woman wearing the largest emerald-cut diamond engagement ring I have ever seen outside of a magazine advertisement. So big it was vulgar. So big it almost blinded us when it caught the sun. So big it made me glad I was getting rid of my bling. I swear, engagement rings of that size are really just the guy marking his territory.

Anyhoo.

When we got to the jewelry store, the woman behind the counter clearly didn’t get it. She kept saying Glenn’s name over and over again.

“Connie, have you seen the invoice from Glenn X?”
“How do you spell it?”
“Glenn with two Ns. Last name is XXXXXX.”
“How’s that again?”
“XXXXXX.”
“Glenn XXXXXX?”
“Yes, that’s it. From December 2002. That’s right, isn’t it? Glenn XXXXXX bought it in December 2002?”

Yes, thank you. Now please shut up.

She finally clued in when I burst into tears and then she got all sympathetic. She gave me a choice between consigning the ring or getting a check, and I got flustered. She said, “Well, these rings are getting harder and harder to find.” And Carmen turned to her and said, “Just like good men.”

Carmen, you ROCK.

I was still sniffling a little when we left the jewelry store, but I started feeling better as soon as we’d put a block or two between us and the ring. The further we walked, the better I felt.

We hit Legal Seafood in the Pru for lunch. There is nothing in the world that their clam chowder can’t fix. Suddenly, another blinding flash from somewhere in the vicinity of the bar. There was a woman sitting there with her left arm draped around a guy, and on her left hand was a three-stone engagement ring so big that it dwarfed the ring we’d seen in the Gardens. I'm talking giant, down payment-sized diamonds. And she had earrings to match.

People, it’s bad when your ring is so big it looks fake.

I had a lot of Glenn memories in the Pru—we went there a lot. After lunch, we walked by the Vinny Testa’s where Glenn and I had our first date, and where his parents threw us an engagement/going away party before we moved to LA. There was the Copley Westin, where we met for the very first time, and where we visited once a year just for sentimental fun.

After lunch, Carmen and I went back Newbury St. and did some shopping. She wanted to hit Kiehl’s and see if we could get some free samples. As soon as we walked in, they started playing the song that was supposed to be my and Glenn’s first dance at our wedding. At that point, the Glenn imagery was just funny. Clearly the day had a theme and we just had to go with it.

We went to Pottery Barn and I finally ordered my new duvet cover. When it came time to pay, I whipped out my collection of gift cards/certificates and discovered that they were all from Glenn’s family—one from his mother for Christmas, one from his aunt for my shower, one from returning the hideous bowls that his uncle’s girlfriend bought me for the shower (and which Glenn insisted on registering for even though I hated them). The saleswoman smiled and said, “Guilt-free money, hmm?” Oh yes. I feel not an ounce of guilt whatsoever.

As Carmen and I walked through the Public Gardens on our way back to the car, the Arlington Street Church bells began playing their joyful, clanging version of "When I Fall in Love, It Will Be Forever.”

Maybe next time. Meanwhile, onward and upward. The circle begins anew.

The state of Moxie

Glenn sent the ring papers yesterday, in a FedEx box packed with a binder from grad school, my copy of Sex and the City: Season 5 on DVD, and some mail that had accumulated for me in LA. No note. Just the box. And I was fine. It was a relief. No more naggy emails.

Then, badness. My friend T, who's in Germany and whose husband decided last week that marriage just wasn't his thing, is coming home next week. I'm so glad she's coming home. Ending a marriage is sucky enough without having to do it 5,000 miles away from your friends and family. But her pain and her experience are so similar to what happened with Glenn that even while I'm glad I can offer my empathy in a way that a lot of other people can't, supporting her is bringing up a lot of memories that are pretty wrenching. That probably sounds horribly selfish, but I don't mean it that way. It's just very hard to watch someone I love going through something like this. It's not something I would inflict on my worst enemy. I wish i could just take away her pain and save her from what the next year will be like. No one should have to go through this. Hearts are not meant to be treated this way.

The ring and the friend weighed on my mind. Bizarrely, the only person I really wanted to talk to about it was Glenn. I tried to talk myself out of it--I used all the call-deterring tactics I usually employ, like forcing myself to remember finding his emails to the trollop on my computer. But the wanting to call didn't fade. I caught him at work yesterday and it was like we'd spoken an hour ago. I didn't even have to say my name. We just picked up as if nothing had happened. And we talked for 45 minutes, which felt like an eon and nothing all at the same time. He had some interesting thoughts on T's situation--he'd photographed her wedding to her scum-sucking coward of a husband--but the thing he said that struck me most was his admission that our breakup was due entirely to his issues, not mine. No more blaming me for everything. It was a relief, and it was torture. Now that he's fixing himself, some other woman will reap the benefits.

Last night I dreamed that Glenn was asleep in our bed in LA. He was underneath the covers and asleep to the point of unconsciousness. I wanted to wake him up and have sex with him, because I figured that a physical connection would lead to an emotional one. But I couldn't wake him up. I kept peeling back layers of blankets and trying to reach him, but he wouldn't wake up.

Alone in a sea of green

St. Patrick's Day.

Ugh.

All I can think of is Dieter from SNL, sneering and saying, "If St. Patrick's Day were a gas, it would be inert." It's a holiday that sparks not an ounce of excitement in me. And this is hard to endure in Boston, where there's an Irish bar on every corner and more than half the city is of Irish heritage. Every year I try to get excited about green beer and leprechauns but I don't think I'm trying hard enough because it hasn't worked so far. This morning I scrounged through my closet looking for something green to wear--even if I didn't feel festive, I could try to fake it and LOOK like I did--but the only green things I own are an old T-shirt and a cardigan sweater, neither of which were particularly work-appropriate, so I threw in the towel and wore pink instead. At least pink makes me *feel* festive.

For my lack of Irish enthusiasm, I have my mother to blame (or thank, depending on who I ask). She got the attitude from her mother, a steely French-Canadian woman with a flat accent who ruled the house with an iron fist and brooked no celebration of either the Irish or Portuguese cultures. My mother grew up near Fall River, MA, where the Irish, Portuguese and French-Canadian immigrant populations lived side by side but never mingled. She once told me that the worst insult in her elementary school was to call someone a Portagee. There must have been something analagous for the Irish, because when I was little my brother and I never got to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. In fact, my mother refused to acknowledge that the holiday existed, much less allow us to wear green, tote clovers or mangle Gaelic like the rest of the kids at school. She looked down her nose at the Irish and, being young and impressionable, I learned to do the same. Then again, it's hard to be impressed when every boy in the fifth grade is running around at recess screaming, "Erin Go BRA!!" Bra--get it? So witty, those boys. It didn't get much better in college, where the partying hordes hung Irish flags out their dorm room windows and threw dogheads (a drinking event at which participants start drinking first thing in the morning and don't stop until they've hit unconsciousness) where the boys gulped as many live goldfish as possible until they puked. Poor fish--drowned in stomach acid and green beer. Not a great way to go.

This is what I get for being raised a Unitarian of Polish/Russian/French Canadian descent. I won't even get into how much it galled my mother that I was going to marry someone whose heritage and last name were so purely Irish (and whose family was from New Bedford) that there was no avoiding the fact. She'll never admit it but she's so relieved that she doesn't have an Irish son-in-law.

The Unitarian part meant no Easter, either. It also meant no parties for First Communion or Bat Mitzvah. There were a lot of years where I felt gypped out of a good party and lots of presents. But every Easter, my brother and I would go looking for some evidence that the Easter bunny remembered our existence, and every year we'd end up scrounging candy from the Catholic kids down the street, who had chocolate bunnies and jelly beans coming out their ears, and who ate Peeps until they threw up.

Now I appreciate my parent's restraint with the Hallmark holidays. I mean, do potatoes, clog dancing and green beer approximate culture in any country? Eeep. That's my mother talking.

Got to take the good with the bad

Oh joy! KCRW is airing a show on art and architecture in LA on the second and fourth Mondays of each month. Thanks to Archidose for the heads-up. The show's been on the air for almost a year, but it started after I moved, so this is extra exciting news.

And good news is definitely needed after yesterday's Bush extravaganza. His latest round of brilliant initiatives are going to completely fuck this country, the planet, the environment and everything other little thing he can get his grubby, smirking, idiotic mitts on.

Thank you, Matt Baldwin. You made my day.

I want to be militant and pick up the MoveOn torch. I really do. But there are days when it's hard not to feel completely impotent. Resistance is futile--or so it seems. But if Bush is really like the Borg queen, then he has some tiny, hidden flaw that someone will locate, and it will cause him to spontanously combust.

My finger. Is on the button.

The power of Om

Sitting in yoga class tonight, it occurred to me that the "Oms" we chant at the beginning and end of class are more than they seem. It's sort of like a spiritual barometer and tuning fork, all in one. The first round of "Oms" are so telling. Everyone sounds out of tune. They're shifting around on the mat and getting centered in the room. Their exhaustion, their frustrations, their sucky commutes and bad days are audible. Then we do the class. Flow, breathe, sweat. By the end, when we do a closing round of "Oms," everyone is in tune. The sound is rich and full and balanced. Spiritual perfect pitch.

Walking it off

Sometimes the depression and anxiety come crashing down so hard that watching back-to-back episodes of Friends and Will & Grace just won’t help, and the only way to get out of my head is to get out of the house. Thankfully, the sun isn’t setting until almost 6:30 these days and the temperature is hovering around 40, so last night I put on my old running shoes and went for a long walk around town. It’s something I used to do every day during the first few months I was in LA. I call them my sanity walks because by the time I end up back at the house, I usually don’t feel like I’m ready to step in front of a bus any more.

My neighborhood is full of large, graceful old Victorian houses and walking affords a sidewalk-size glimpse of what it’s like to live in that kind of space. Some of the houses have been divided into condos, but most of them are still intact as single family homes and it’s endlessly interesting to see what people have done to them. Makes me wish I knew anything real about architecture, rather than just being a dilettante.

Down by the Charles, spring has already started. The ice is gone and Harvard, MIT and Northeastern had their men’s eights on the water, training for the spring racing season. Rowing is such a beautiful, meditative, painful, amazing sport. I rowed for three years in college, and watching the boats on the water last night made my skin tingle. One of my favorite sounds in the entire world is the deep, almost guttural *thunk* made when all eight oars of a sweep boat hit the oarlock at the finish. It’s a masculine sound, almost sexual in the way it hits me in the gut, especially when the boat making the noise is a men’s eight. Lightweight or heavyweight—it doesn’t matter. It’s a sound full of power and strength, and it only happens when all eight rowers are in sync. Beautiful.

When it got too dark to see, I walked home through Harvard Square. I went straight to the kitchen and made a big batch of cupcakes that I brought into work today. Baking is so appealing to me these days. In the past three weeks, I’ve made banana bread, cherry vanilla bread, brownies and now these lovely, pink-frosted, spring-y cupcakes. Then my roommate and I watched about 4 episodes of Sex and the City and I finished the scarf I’ve been knitting.

Revelation in disguise

Oh my god.

Glenn is an actor disguised as a photographer! How could I have been so clueless? Substitute "cycling" for "entertainment industry" and "bike" for "leased BMW" and wa-la--the man (or boy) revealed.

My world is now complete. Well, it will be when the ring papers actually arrive. FedEx?? Hello?

Out and about near LA

Gimpadelic is heading out to LA next week, and he asked me what he should do while he's there. Well, the LA Times fortuitously came out with a list of the top 10 hikes in greater LA today, along with a handy guide to plants you should avoid. Seeing as Gimp is so planty and all.

I should have paid more attention to the nasty plants when I hiked Nicholas Flats with Glenn in 2003.

Poison. Oak. Everywhere.

Would it help if I got out and pushed?

Now this is a man of my heart.

Ways not to impress a girl on a date

1. Show up 15 minutes late and don't apologize.
2. Insist on trying a particular restaurant and then act like it's my fault you don't like the food.
3. Visibly contemplate my offer to help with the bill when YOU'RE the one who asked me out (and you chose the restaurant, so you should be prepared for the bill)
4. Ask no questions about me--am I wrong, or isn't the whole point of dating to get to know one another?
5. Make me carry the conversation for the whole evening.
6. Volunteer to walk me to my street, and then act put out that you have to wait 10 minutes for the next bus.

It was a bad date. And sadly, not the kind that kills the monkey in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Because at least poison dates would have put me out of my misery.

You know it's going to be bad when the conversation starts out like this:
Me: "So how was your day? Did you do anything fun?"
Him: "Not really. My roommate and I got into an argument about whether Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity."

...and continues like this:
Me: "Wow! You travelled all the way around the world! You must have some amazing stories to tell. Did you meet interesting people? What was the craziest thing you did?"
Him: "Yeah, it was fun. I'm just mad that I won't get my PhD before I'm 30."

NEXT

Life is full of contradictions

Things I've learned over the last 9 months:

1. That there's a difference between missing someone and noticing their absence.
2. That it's possible to love someone unconditionally and dislike them at the same time. Even people who are not blood relatives.
3. That you can never want to speak to someone again, but still want to hear their voice every day.

Nighttime escape from the winter

Last night I dreamed that my family and I went to San Francisco. I was so *relieved* to be back in the city, but I felt like I had to convince my parents and my brother that the Bay Area was a great place to live. So we drove around and I pointed out all the amazing architecture, the great hiking, and I tried to explain why the quality of life was better. At one point, we had to drive over a really big bridge that was part of the 101s. I was so scared of the bridge because it was very high, very narrow and there were no barriers between the lanes and the edge of the bridge. So I hunkered down in the car as we drove over--as long as I couldn't see the bridge's height or narrowness, I was okay. And I knew I had to go over the bridge in order to get where I was going next.

Things of which we do not speak

Carmen started down a long, dark, distasteful road, a road that few people are willing to traverse: the unspoken thing that is workplace bathroom etiquette.

As far as I can tell (or probably any modest, polite person could), the prevailing attitude is "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." But in this case, I'd have to add "smell no evil." Because how else can you face the woman who sits three cubes over when you know she's just done something that stank up the joint? The answer is, of course, to pretend that nothing is wrong and no unpleasant odors exist. Many times that is easier said than done.

My company generously stocks the ladies room with mouthwash, dental floss, tampons, hair spray, hand lotion and, most importantly, a big, fat canister of Citrus Magic that lives on the counter by the sink. It would be gauche to put up a sign about how and when the Citrus Magic needs to be used, but sometimes I think they SHOULD spell it out because there are times when the ladies room smells less than magical. In my opinion, if you've created a need for the Magic, than be considerate and deploy the Magic. Not everyone subscribes to this theory. And it's embarassing when you have to work next to them, and all you can do is think, "stinker!"

A big no-no for curators

A catfight breweth over in the SoCal Craftsman community.

The two-day rule

I'm just not in the mood to play dating games. The weird, unwritten social etiquette suddenly feels totally superfluous. Either you hit it off or you don't. He treats you right or he doesn't. End of story. Call me intolerant or impatient. I just don't have the time or the attention span for guys who want to beat around the bush. Anyone who's been through relationship hell has been to the circus. You've seen the show and you know how it works. My capacity for tolerating bullshit is virtually nil. Step up or step out, capiche?

So I just don't care that the MFA guy waited 5 days before calling last night. My weekend was full before he called, so it will be fun to hang with him but my life wasn't depending on it. We're going to see a play at the ART on Saturday night. He gave away his level of interest when he slipped and told me he'd done research on the history of Carthage and Rome before he called. It was cute. And nerdy. Nerdy and cute.

Did I mention that he rows? I won't mention the cycling.

You know what they say about nerdy athletic guys. OK, neither do I, but I guess we'll find out.

Years ago, my mother gave me a copy of The Rules. I scoffed and threw it in a drawer, and mocked it at every opportunity. But somehow its twisted evil worked its way into my brain--through osmosis? If MFA guy had called tonight, I would have told him I was busy this weekend. It's a matter of self-respect. Yes, I am a walking contradiction, but isn't that a woman's prerogative? We're required to be mysterious, even to ourselves.

The secret's in the meat

Overheard in the cafeteria downstairs:

"Is that all you eat?" (to a skinny older woman who buys the same small bowl of vegetables from the salad bar every day)

"No, I bring some meat from home. But everyone always wants to know how I stay so thin! I don't eat very much! It's not that hard!"

I ristoranti più costosi che un celebrity su Atkins possono contare

My old neighborhood is the place to go for good Italian food.

Wit's end

Why I am at it:

1. My friend T's husband left her this morning and now she's stuck in Germany, trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces.

2. Spring is nowhere in sight. Yesterday the temperature dropped 30 degrees in 8 hours, and the snow blew in every direction except down. I had to stop in the middle of the highway three times during my commute home because I could not SEE.

3. Flagging faith in the universe. I need a sign or something.

Luckily, potatoes saved my morning.

Not a good time to be a cat in Wisconsin

Grrrrrr. HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

These are not the men you're looking for

All hail Al's brilliant theory about men and the Jedi-like mind tricks they inflict on women in order to get their way without getting called on their shit.

Spoke too soon

Glenn emailed today to tell me he found the valuation papers for the ring and he’s FedExing them to my office. I know I should be cheering-—it’s what I wanted him to do, right? But there's no relief, no joy, no anything---just tears. The broken-hearted voice inside my head is screaming unhelpful things like, "It’s not supposed to be this easy for him," and "It wasn’t supposed to happen this way." Maybe it would help if he included one of his fingers in the envelope, just to show that he felt some pain, too? There’s still a part of me that wants to pick up the phone and talk to him about it, because we used to talk about everything. Just to say, “God, this is weird and awful. I never thought we’d be doing this.”

Now it feels final. Now there’s no excuse for us to be in contact. All material ties are severed once his FedEx arrives. After I sell the ring, all family business will be taken care of.

Still waiting for that proverbial window to open.

Drive-by anniversary

It was 9 months this past Sunday and I totally forgot. Didn't even realize it until I looked at the calendar today.

Upward facing heart

Yesterday I did an amazing 3-hour yoga workshop with Anna Forrest called “Opening the Heart.” It was incredible, intense, healing, rejuvenating. Anna introduced a different pranayama than most of us were used to, and we moved through a series of carefully crafted heart-opening asanas that challenged me in every way. A lot of the poses were completely new to me, and many of the others were ones I didn’t know were about opening the heart.

There were about 150 people in the room and I realized how much I’ve missed classes that size. It’s a little annoying to have so little space because the person next to you is always on your mat, but after a few minutes you just get in the groove. 150 people means 150 times the energy. You get connected to everyone around you, and each person contributes to the energy that feeds the class. I’m not being terribly articulate here, but it was a very cool experience. Anna had about 8 assistants who worked their way up and down the rows of mats. I’ve never had that much assistance in a yoga class before, and it made a huge difference. Some of the assistants were uber hardcore---they were a little like yoga Marines, with the wrist guards and the super attenuated muscles and the body fat in the single digits. They knew every pose inside and out. Whenever I thought I had a pose down, one of them popped up next to me and pushed me to the next level, whether by getting me to stretch further or clench a muscle or adjusting slightly to get my alignment right.

Personal highlights: I did walking wheel. I felt like an insect, crabbing around upside down, and my brain got really confused at first but it was actually very cool.

Today I feel GREAT, great like I used to feel after yoga in LA. Then two seconds later I feel like a beaten dog because I'm so sore. But sore in a great way. I MISS THIS. I used to drive by Anna Forrest's studio on Montana all the time, but never went in because her classes were so pricey. Now I wish I'd taken advantage.

Here’s the workshop description:

There is a demonstrative lack of ability to deal with issues of the heart those emotional wounds, the scarring and shielding that have all developed through a lifetime of habitual pain. Our hearts get involved in one experience after another often breaking, scarring and shutting down. With Forrest Yoga and through heart-opening asanas, learn to get more centered, adept, and wise at accessing and resolving emotional wounds and move them out of your body. Learn to breathe in a way that opens your core and gives the heart the support and counsel of other primary chakras. Learn to strip the emotional shielding from your heart and tone your emotional body by helping your heart and your spirit be more resilient, flexible, and adept at surfing emotional waves. Learn to transmute your life experiences into wisdom.

Marriage is good for your health

I love these little studies. Especially when they contradict each other. Marriage is good for your health, and it can make you live longer. But only if the marriage is a good one. Otherwise, you're screwed and you'll die faster. No pressure.

God, I love being single.

Titian watched me drown in the dating pool

Last night my roommate and I braved the MFA First Friday just to see what it's like in the winter vs. the summer. The answer? Crowded, energetic and a lot less predatory. Or at least predatory in a much more veiled way. There must have been 200 people crowded into two of the upper galleries, and the scene was totally on. All the women congregated in little clusters around the room, clutching their $6 drinks and watching as the men, who ran the gamut from 21 to 65, cruised around and tried to be subtle as they scanned the crowd. We all should have just started mooing and then the meat market metaphor would be complete.

Just to add a little drama, the whole scene took place under what must have been 45 enormous paintings by Titian, El Greco and a couple of other Italian, Spanish and French artists that added a certain je ne sais pas to the evening. Those paintings were a great conversation starter. I mean, how can you not discuss a painting of David holding Goliath's gigantic, bloody head, which happens to have the stone from David's sling embedded smack in the middle of its forehead? Or one of a dead St. Francis looking up at heaven with a terrified look on his face? Talk about icebreakers.

Then the unbelievable happened. I met a genuinely nice guy (my roommate concurred, so I'm not completely crazy). We stood there talking for a good hour and a half, and other than the fact that he's a sometime cyclist, no warning bells went off. We walked around the gallery and improvised a backstory for each work of art. I gave him and his friend a ride to their car because it was positively arctic outside. He had the guts to ask for my number. I hope he calls. Goddamn Swingers for making me wonder about the whole 6 day waiting period for calling a new person. I guess we'll see.

Home; Places I've grown

Places I have lived in my life:

Massachusetts
--Sudbury
--Nantucket
--Boston
--Jamaica Plain
--Cambridgeport
--Brookline
--East Cambridge
--Waltham
--Arlington
--North Cambridge

Waterville, Maine
New Haven, Connecticut
Florence, Italy
Evanston, Illinois
Washington, D.C.
Los Angeles, California

Places I would like to live:
San Francisco
Seattle (or maybe Olympia)
London
Florence (when I'm not mooning over an absent, undeserving boyfriend back in the states)

Destined to be a cat lady

A short list of my nicknames for Scully:
Scully-puss
Pooky puss
Pukey puss
Ms. Puss
Loud girl
Freakazoid
Little love
Scully love
Pooky love
Bear
CAT
The Kitty

Her nicknames mutate on a totally arbitrary, mostly situational basis, usually because of my mood or her attitude or something she's just done (see Pukey Puss). When I come home from work, she's Little Love. When she jumps on my face at 4am, looking for a snack, she's CAT. When she does sprints up and down the hallway, skittering on the hardwood floors, or attacks her hind foot as if it's trying to stage an escape from the tail end of her body, she's Freakazoid. Lately I've been finding her snoozing on the quilt at the foot of my roommate's bed in the morning, which makes her Traitor Cat. It's an ever-changing lexicon.

I can't imagine what it's like to have a child whose name you can't play around with all the time. But what's really scary is that I find myself talking to my friend's kids like I talk to Scully. When they toddle into places they shouldn't, I wiggle my fingers at them and whistle a couple of times, because that works with a cat. Not so much with a kid. I get lots of interesting looks from people when it happens, though. Cat lady spinsterhood, here I come.