mind the gap

i think i've moved

2008-07-05T21:39:00.004-04:00

Oh this little space has done me well, but everyone needs new walls sometimes- fresh paint. I think I'm moving shop. I don't know if anything will be permanent there, but follow along if you will or wish or are completely bored with life...
And then there was one.

something i wasn't sure i'd do

2008-06-15T08:27:00.002-04:00

Lord, it's been some time. My favorite saying of late is, "Life is crazy," because it is. And big things have been afoot. I just bought my first place. It feels good, but it was a bit of an ordeal getting there. The lending world is a bit turned on it's head and even though nothing that tripped things up had anything to do with me, those underwriting people are picky about clauses and words. Silly really. All those words have nothing to do with predicting whether or not I will pay my mortgage and you'd think that'd be the thing they worried about most, but I look good in that department. I've worked very hard for the last two years and it paid off. I reached my goal. And now it's time for painting and organizing and party planning. I hope you are well and happy too.

texting

2008-04-09T21:45:00.002-04:00

feel like top spinning. this is pattern for me. get busy. run away. calm down. get bored. get busy. run away. calm down. get bored. get busy... you see don't you? feel like life is elongated text message. don't know the codes. don't have time to chat. barely time to sleep. am western union in modern mode. abreiated socialisms. truncated speech. somewhat enjoy the stress. worry about that enjoyment. wish time for laundry. don't care about dirty clothes with five minutes free. feel contradiction to self. wish life was checklist sometimes. would feel much more accomplished.

in which i carry on

2008-03-27T00:36:00.000-04:00

I thought that having time to let my mind wander might bring about more words, more deliberations, pontifications, or observations. But, all this time hasn’t made me want to write about anything but you. You lurk for me in the quiet places even though I’ve tried my best to tell myself that you need to leave my mind. You’re just so perfect there. I know you’re not really perfect but it’s what I want most, the imperfect parts. I’d like to help your through them or just accept them. It’s the desire that makes you perfect, the glossed over effect of faraway vision. And there is this wall, this insurmountable barrier that even though I want to flail against it, I’m kinda glad it’s there. Because perfect (or imperfect) is easy from far away and always less painful. So the choices I have could be made simple. I could give myself a deadline. I’m good with deadlines, goals. I know how to reach them or let them go. I’m good with finite, or I’m just more accepting of it. Maybe that’s the answer, a day, a time to know for good if good is what we could be.

breathing room

2008-03-23T23:16:00.000-04:00

I finally have hours to fill, hours that are not already predetermined or pawned. And I have a headache. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. I pretend that I don’t, but I do. You’re in the back of my mind always. Haven’t you forever been? But, I do the thing I always do. I’m just continuing my pattern of filling the spaces where you should be. I pack it in, I’m good at the packing, whatever I can find and I leave very little room for what I should focus on which I know is one thing and it’s not you and yet when I have time it’s you that comes spilling into these empty spaces. And I don’t shoo away the thoughts. I welcome them. I turn out the lights, turn off the noise and just let myself indulge in the memory of you- all those snippets I keep in my mind’s pocket. I pull them all out like polaroids strewn across a table and try my best to make a moving picture of a future I have no true faith in.

i'm already losing

2008-01-28T20:33:00.000-05:00

I thought about those pesky New Year's resolutions today. I don't like making them and yet this year I went out on that limb. And a wobbly weak one it is. I almost have no plans to keep any of the ideas I thought were so fantastic a few weeks ago. Take Obama for instance. It's pretty exciting to me to hear all the good news coming from his camp. I believe in him the way people first believed in Bill Clinton. I was never swayed by that smoothe talker, but Obama looks like what our future should be. He's all shiny and pretty like a new penny. But, my working for him seems like a dream and a far distance wish. And yet the idea I had was simply somethink akin to making phone calls for him with a high pitched excited hope lingering through all those fiber optics and cell towers. I barely have time to shower these days. My world is spinning just a little too fast. It's not a bad thing, just a hurried thing and I can't imagine adding one more thing to the growing pile. It's time for things to slow down, for me to take time out and smell the fresh scent of new babies being born because it seems like they're starting to come out of people's ears, but I can't slow down and I don't really want to. We'll see about Obama, but for right now the writing has lost hope and exercise- what's that? It's why I don't make those resolutions in the first place. But then again, if I hadn't what would be lurking over my shoulder rather than bettering myself?

clear as mud

2008-01-22T20:13:00.000-05:00

Of course nothing in my life is as easy as snapping your fingers. Take glasses for example. I learned that I would have to begin wearing them fulltime 10 days ago. I've kinda known this for a year, but my old quack doctor said I had nothing to worry about until the good eye went bad. I thought that sounded funny. So did my new eye Dr. one year later. It turns out that I have an astigmatism in one eye that should have been corrected 10 years ago. Funny, I've been going to eye doctors fairly regularly for 10 years. Hmmmm.

The things is, when I hear that I am blind in one eye, my mind starts to think that I am blind all over and I start to obsess and begin to think that I cannot, in fact, see anything. This is and was not the case, but I wanted my glasses and I wanted them yesterday. So, upon gaining access to my prescription I went about getting some "in about an hour" glasses last Thursday. And when I first put them on I thought the world was better, wonky, but better. It turns out- the world, was not better.

I had heard there would be an adjustment period and that my depth perception would change, but I just had a gut feeling that what was happening to me was not happening to the rest of the four eyed world. My bad eye was hurting, I mean hurting and my good eye could no longer compensate so that things from far away were clearer without the glasses on. Hmmmmm again.

I went back franctic to my eye Dr. this morning and after much attention to my whining he lessened my prescription and baby the world is better and not wonky. I love my gut instinct. I love that I was right, that glasses should make you have an "aha" moment and not and "aaaaaahhhhhh" one when you put them on.

Oh yeah- and I might have bought more pairs than I need and my everyday ones might have diamonds (faux) on them.

blind in one eye

2008-01-12T08:28:00.000-05:00

It's big news to me. It's the confirmation that I am, in fact, getting older. My eyes have gone. Well, one eye has. I have to get glasses, all the time glasses. I've worn reading glasses for years. I like them. I like the idea of slipping on something that brings a book even closer to me and makes me look a little smarter too. And I like glasses. I think they are beautiful and a great fashion addition, but there is a difference liking glasses and truly needing them. My reading glasses are more of a psychological frill. They are such a slight prescription that they don't carry them in drugstores. I have to have them made and do I really need them, well, no. But now, now I know that one eye is 20/25 and the other eye is sooooo not. I've known actually for about a year, but the last eye person was a bit of quack and never figured out a true prescription to help me so she just sent me on my one eyed way. I wised up to her and this time I went to see a very caring eye Dr. and he was so patient and thorough and that little precious bearded guy fixed my one bad eye. God love him. So now is the task of finding the frames that ascert my personality, subtlely show my flair for whimsy and make me look brilliant at the same time. Right now there are three contenders and Lord help me if I can make a decision. When all is said and done I might even show you a picture of them.

w

2008-01-08T23:29:00.000-05:00

"We HAVE Homer Simpson as our president."~ Jon Stewart

I haven't laughed that hard in a long long time.

why i haven't written

2008-01-07T20:59:00.000-05:00

"Maybe he'll be a writer," said my friend's husband about their brand new baby boy.
"Why a writer," I asked.
"Don't most writers have really bad childhoods?" he asked.
He was joking about the horrible life his child would live if he didn't automatically love water. This river guide and whitewater daredevil assumes that a child of his who doesn't swim on command is down for some real disappointment and better learn to pen those frustrations. I offered my reading abilities. And then his sentiment coalesced in my mind.
I've just been so darn happy- so up that writing has no misery to nourish it. I'm sure that my contentment has even put some people on edge. It's hard for me to harbor sadness, regret or angst anymore. And sometimes I can't listen to other's. All was glistening and tinged with the music of the spheres. Then tiny things starting creeping in. Not all humanity is good. Not everyone serves to better this world. And this, this is what nourishes my melancholy now- the disillusionment of reality.

It's our duty and our right I think to go through pain, to live in it and survive it and when we come out of it we're changed so that we vow to "do no harm." And I caution this with the fact that I do not mean that you begin putting bumper stickers on your car about angels flying and whirled peas. I mean that you think before you speak, you include those you don't want to and you surround yourself with those you respect. And I do this and I did this and life was a giddy. And then it backfired. I won't be deterred from my hopeful selflessness. It's hopeful because it's not perfect. I will simply have to be more cautious and let the disappointment be penned rather than stabbed. And since it takes a sad and reflective moment to make me write, I can't help but as the question "What would I rather be; happy and wordless or melancholy and prolific?"

a new year, a new you

2008-01-02T19:46:00.000-05:00

You guessed. The ubiquitous, but let's hope this one keeps you entertained. I usually don't do resolutions. I'm one to view the reality of the situation: that instead of a new year's resolution it's a new year's let down. I never keep to the list of ways to better myself and so I don't keep those lists, but this year feels different. I like the 8 at the end. It's all curvy and soft and even. I like even numbers. They remind me of symmetry and safety where no one gets left out. I like including everyone. And so, for 2008 I will make a wishlist and there will be no pressure, no self-induced panic over completion, no self-hatred for lack of completion and by no means will there be any "what if."

That being said in 2008 I wish to:
- publish
- read 30 books
- write every week
- buy something big
- love someone
- get small
- work for Obama
- fly somewhere fancy
- just be

And I also hope that you will embrace the 8 at the end of this year and be soft and suptle too and in your softness just be.

been merry and reading

2007-12-27T10:54:00.001-05:00

I was so lucky to haphazardly be granted the chance to read an advanced reader copy of Janice Erlbaum's Have You Found Her. My little review can be found in my "what I'm reading on the tube" as well as on LibaryThing.com. You should read it too. It was a good one.

And Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I'm sure I'll be back soon.

radio ga ga

2007-12-22T21:04:00.000-05:00

Since the day after Thanksgiving I've been listening to Christmas music. I do it every year. And I love it. I don't get the Christmas blues that people talk about- how lonely the holidays are without someone by your side. I'm not a lonely person, I'm just a loner. Except now the time is growing closer and closer until the object of my affection is within arms length and my thoughts a vering from Christmas to attack mode.

This will be the fifth year that I have stood near him when a new year started and this will be the fifth year that I leave the next morning with longing and obsession in my heart. The daytime pre-obsession is a bit quieter this year, but my dreams are peppered with him, even with his friends. And the next day I wake up and he stays with me a little while the way good dreams do, like the object is really there, like there was never a dream at all. And then I have coffee.

Christmas songs on the radio are my background noise this season and I can't help but notice all the wishes to be near someone, cuddled up by a fire, basking in the glow of lights. I have to say that for all of that sentiment that I don't miss I do wonder what Christmas would be like with him and whether he'd be game for a tacky lights tour. While I'm not putting pressure on myself (because I know I'll whimp out) this may be the year that the radio pining starts making a little more sense.

refreshing this itch

2007-12-21T13:57:00.000-05:00

I've just been busy. It's the worst excuse. It satisfies no one. But, it's true. When you get busy, your priorities change. Sometimes that's good and sometimes not. This blog is a priority that I shouldn't let slip and yet I have. And reading, it's gone by the wayside too. And now there is time to ponder, time for naps and TV and blogging.

I went through all the links yesterday on the side of this blog and it was like going through old photos, remembering times and sentiments that used to be a part of your everyday. Like the daily photo blogs of London and New York. I forgot that I've missed them. They felt like old shoes, all comfortable with a tinge of homesickness. So, blog world, I hope I'm coming back to you now. I hope this is more than a day or two fleeting feeling. I want to spend some time with you again and I hope you'll do the same.

the year of the lean

2007-12-20T21:41:00.000-05:00

The last thing I want to do these days is blog. It's lost its luster. The tingly, warm feelings I used to have about this little space in space have fluttered down to a dull hum. And part of me wishes that weren't the case. For instance, two Sunday night's ago I wanted to blog the following, but had absolutely no energy or desire. Something about a lunchbreak today though makes blogging sound real good.

I put up my Christmas tree three weekends ago with my nieces. It's become a tradition that they come over and put all the ornaments on after I've nestled it in it's stand and strung it with white lights (only white lights, only). But this year was a little different. They had to stand outside in the spitting rain while I very ungracefully took the tree out of the back of my SUV. I had opened the the window and thrown the tree in with the fat part inside the car. Kroger will sell you a tree for real cheap, but they won't give you string or even help you haul it to your car and since I'm a single girl who likes to make things difficult and do it my ownself, I was forced to get up close and personal with a very wet and sappy frazier fir tree. The tree top stuck out of the window, but I couldn't pull it out that way so then I had to open the gate and finagle the tree and well, it wasn't pretty.

I picked my tree for it's crooked top branch that reaches so haphazardly to the sky. I feel like a Christmas tree should reflect it's owner and so I always look for the ones that are a little off. But, my poor nieces in the rain watched helplessly as I dragged the tree up two flights of stairs. One of them was carrying a hacksaw wrapped very carefully inside a towel. I'm telling you, this was a stressful little venture.

Once the tree was inside my warm and not raining apartment I had to do some surgery on it. I took the hacksaw that the 6 year-old carried in and started sawing forcefully. After about 2 minutes the 5 year-old announced that she was bored. I was sweating and wet from rain and sticky with sap. I cared not about her boredom.

When the time came to put the tree in the stand, I had a feeling that I had not taken off enough branches, but my arms were aching and the tree needed a resting place. I got all the screws tightened as much as I could and prayed that my nieces would not be killed by a falling tree this year at my house. When the light stringing began, the nieces got bored again. And I was still sweating and wet and sappy. AND while putting the lights on, the tree decided to fall two times and I had to enlist the 6 year-old to hold the tree, a 6 year-old to hold the tree (wanted to make sure you got that).

With lights finally on and a civil, sisterly fued avoided- we began the ornament hanging. The youngest one bugged out and watched Hannah Montana or something like that. The six-year old, my little trooper stayed with me throughout, carefully picking out ornaments and placing them as high as she could. After one more tree fall that almost crushed the six-year, I decided to give up and just lean the tree against a wall. Hey, it beats battling with it and worrying that in the middle of the night all my ornaments will be broken.

So this, people, is my Christmas tree. A wall is supporting more than the ceiling this Christmas. And I love every crooked little leaning branch of it.

in which i'm totally a techie, but still a girl

2007-11-26T22:50:00.000-05:00

I got a new phone. Not because I needed one, but because it needed me. My phone, my wonderful old flip phone (my first) was just making me sad. I loved him so much when he was pushed into my hands, but this new one, this upgraded, uptraded one is all sparkly and wonderful and I'm sorry, but I haven't looked back at the little Motorola that had no camera, could not recieve pictures and voice calling or bluetooth - what are those. But my new baby, my baby rzr is all pink and all girl even though she does eveything the grey ones do. You go girl. And if I had you number I would totally text you cause that stuff is cool yo. I will say though that I do love it when cool phones are totally free. Want to see a picture of my Christams tree? Send me your number.

in which i'm thankful

2007-11-20T20:28:00.000-05:00

My favorite time of year when the trees look like paintings and the air (should) feels like a cool dip in fresh water. This year has been one for the books and one of my quietest ones. I can't say why I've been so quiet, why the yearn to write out loud stilled inside me, but I wouldn't take back what's happened in the real world. I found that happiness and contentment is a place I'd trade for writing any day. Maybe there is something to artists and pain or maybe there are just moments that I want to keep all to myself, wrapped up for me to remember or forget. I want to return to writing, to make it a daily habit and it might be a goal I set up shortly. I'd like to see what writing looks like with my newly wired mind. And I'd like to know what it wants me to share or hold back. We'll see about that.

Right now I'm thankful for the time I get to spend with my family this week, and I'm a little sad for all the family that won't be around this year. There are babies and babies and babies to come and my dream, my absolute wish is for a Thanksgiving where all the people I love come together and spend the night under one roof. That roof would have to be big, really big cause I got a lot of love up this heart and I'm so giving thanks for all ya'll.

in which i mourn my melancholy

2007-10-27T20:42:00.000-04:00

I want to be sad. I want to wallow in it. I wish I could cry, let it out, release the blockade. But nothing that bad has happened. It's just the tiny little things that after some time start to make me wish that crawling into bed were still my default answer. Bed sounds wrong right now, so sedentary, so almost permenant and that isn't who I am anymore.

Plans got canceled, juggling was done and still people let me down, machines let down. I've had this thought before and it's come up more recently. Sometimes I just want to be someone else's priority. The me, the now, the independence is good. It's great actually, but sometimes- like when my car dies -I want to be the destination that someone runs to, the person that someone wants to rescue. It's the just little things I need help with sometimes and that sometimes is now.

because sometimes i think it

2007-10-10T19:39:00.000-04:00

In some ways I feel like a stranger to myself. Because constant contentment has never been part of me- never even a fleeting thought- that sometimes I don't know if it's real. But it is. It all is. And yet nothing has really changed. A friend on the phone tonight said, "You sound sad." "I'm not," I insisted. Twice. It's just such a knee jerk reaction- from me, from my friends- to assume that I am melancholy. What I am at this moment is me, whatever word that describes me (is there one?) I just am. I feel like now, like this day, this moment- even when the tiredness in my voice is read wrong- that I can finally just be still. I guess it's a little like a Buddhist feels after so much meditation- calm, OK with the now. And yet I've done no meditation. I haven't even changed my diet. Should I call this Nirvana or Enlightenment? I don't know. I think what I really am right now is normal. I think I finally feel what most humans feel from the day they are born. It just took me 30 years to get there. So is this my rebirth? In some ways yes. I finally understand that days flow like a river through our lives and that conscience movement of time does not have to be an obstacle, but a serene knowledge of consistency. I've been a time fighter, but now time just is. If I go on a walk, great. If I spend an hour watching TV, awesome. If I finish a book, good job. And stress- I hardly know her. Sure there are things on my plate, deadlines, commitments, friends, family- and my answer to them is "OK, I've got stuff to do, let's do it." And that is the part of me that feels so foreign, so other. I've always been a procrastinator, a tomorrow-is-another-day, even (mostly) a dreader. I'm now a today girl and today and tomorrow and even yesterday are good, really really good. And hope that this feeling, even now when I just want a nap, is something I can hold on to for much, much longer. And dare I say- share it.

baby mine

2007-09-27T22:47:00.000-04:00

In a word- explosion. It’s the best way to describe it. I was sitting at my dining room table when the tiny trickle started. I sat listening for seconds thinking that it was just a new sound in another apartment. And then it was a gush, a flood, a waterfall and it was close and I ran and I screamed.

In the same chair tonight I sat while my best friend said, “Are you sitting down?” At first the thought was a tiny trickle in my mind and then the words she spoke confirmed the gush, the flood, the waterfall.

In one week two things in my life have cracked wide open. The first- my bathroom ceiling. The second- my social sphere. You see, the Object of my affection (or better my old affection, my sometimes wanderlust, my sometimes passing thought) is moving across the country to reside within a very short afternoon drive. This spins my world around, maybe even more so than my bathroom ceiling spitting on me when I pee.

My first reaction to both was a lot of bad words along with the feeling of unsteadiness like trying to water ski- the feeling of gliding, of skimming along- was within my grasp, but a little painful to achieve.

The Object has just been so perfectly out of reach, so perfectly placed on a pedestal that resided across the universe. He has been a routine for several years, a once a year face-to-face meeting, a fluttering chasm of feelings, an unhealthy amount of obsessive time wasted and then slightly forgotten. I’m a creature of habit. I like my bathroom with a dry ceiling and I like my un-gettable gets to stay un-gettable. My bathroom will be fixed, that’s what I pay rent for, but my brain pays my heat in panic attacks and that’s not good for anyone.

things being what they are

2007-09-19T22:29:00.000-04:00

I've been standing on a cliff dreading the descent below me. I don't want to jump but I know from somewhere deep that the fall is inevitable. In the space between the knowing and warding off of these fellings I do my rituals which amount to breathe blowing in a strong wind. I can't stop the force that's brought me here. I can't unstep my path and yet I want nothing to do with this cliff. I don't want to jump. Not even the lure of a free fall is exciting. I want solid ground again where everything is monotany and calm, where a sneeze does not equal the push that sends you headlong into the void. And yet I know this place well, have stood here many times before- sometimes even willing the wobble on the edge, coaxing the feelings of balance to last a little longer. But this time, this day, I don't want the cold that is barreling down my throat no matter what days off it promises. I want health and sunshine and to enjoy the beginning of fall that is coming, just glinting through the trees.

it will happen one day

2007-09-13T19:59:00.000-04:00

Absence, I think, makes the heart forget. I believe a little more in the "Time heals all wounds" in that after awhile my pre-alzhiemer's mind will not remember. But, I haven't forgotten this blog. I just have had no time and even little creative energy to even summarize my days and life. But, fear not- I will return in some form one day. Until then you should take a trip back in my past and ruffle up some old feathers. There's good stuff back there I promise, but you might have to dig a bit.

me, myself and i

2007-08-28T22:38:00.000-04:00

There are moments in my life when I realize a true fact about myself- when an entire emotion or trait takes solid form and sits down right beside me. Yesterday it was sadness and insecurity.

Happiness, contentedness and ease have been my norm, my everyday for most of this year. And after such a long stretch of almost bliss I thought maybe my emotions had been turned off. Maybe I was numb.

Sadness has been a constant in my life- my security blanket, my commonplace. I even say I like the word “melancholy,” that to me it is not negative, but simply descriptive and alright. And “despair”- I know it well. And “funk.” And “low.” But, I don’t have depression, never have. I’m just low key. And for a long time I thought everyone else felt the same way, but that they were just better actors than I was.

Happiness- I know now- feels better, it wears better, it even walks better than melancholy ever could. My doctor asked me recently how I had managed to lose 10 pounds since my last visit. I told her I had no idea and that I wasn’t even trying. I knew I liked my state of mind and how my body was reacting to it. That even if the even keel I was going through was really numbness I didn’t want it to stop.

Yet sadness crept up on me yesterday and shooed away months of what I thought was non-feelings. And part of me was even glad in the sadness because it meant the all my emotions were there. It meant I was not numb. It meant that I really have been happy and even joyful and that I now have a reference point to work my way back to from the gutter whenever I fall in. But, don’t worry- I’m already out.

like a lost soul

2007-08-21T09:46:00.000-04:00

I awoke this morning earlier than has been usual this summer. I'm sure my mind was not calculating everything correctly- a little foggy from the hour. I did my usual routine of coffee making, Today show, dressing, etc... It all seemed quite normal and I never felt that little twinge of "something is missing." It was 2 hours later that I realized my right wrist was bare. I've had a "Save Darfur" green rubber bracelet on that wrist for over a year. It has become second nature, not unlike a wedding ring would I'm sure. The little wrist flicks that I do to unconsciously move the bracelet up or down my arm are almost background noise in my movements. Except this morning I went to shake my wrist and there was nothing there and it still took my a while to figure out what felt so wrong, so out of place, so missing. And part of me hopes that by losing this bracelet somewhere in my life means that Darfur has won its fight. Because I'd rather lose the bracelet and readjust to its abscence then find another one to wear continously. I'd rather it become a long lost friend, but somehow I know that that is all just my romantic, sentimental mind playing tricks on me.

it's because i'm sooooo good lookin'

2007-08-11T12:25:00.001-04:00

There was once a Seinfeld episode where the members of Jerry's gang decided that when someone sneezed it made just as much sense to say "You're sooo good lookin'" than it did to say "God bless you." I kinda like the sentiment of this. And every so often it runs through my mind- and usually not when people sneeze- it's more often when someone annoys me. And if you think about it, that might be a better use of the phrase. Someone cuts you off in traffic. You simply keep driving calmly and exclaim, "You're sooooo good lookin'."

Anyway, sorry for being absent from this here space, but it's simply because I'm sooooo good lookin'.

my new mantra

2007-08-03T17:18:00.001-04:00

I was raised in a very conservative household. This being said there was also a lot of chaos. You know the kind- "We put fun in dysfunctional." It's your almost typical American story, but recently I've begun to try to turn the heads in my family from perseveration to meditation. My new saying is "Let go and let Buddha." I'm not Buddhist though I respect those who practice it. It's more of my own version of the classic 12 steps "Let go and let God." The sustitution for me is all wrapped up in family dynamics. When I plug my mantra into a conversation where someone is certainly being analyzed and torn apart, laughter comes out. Laughter because we need it, because comedy is alwasy better than tragedy and also because God is too serious. If I used the classic saying then I'd get things like "That's right. Those demons should be banished." Wah! Yeah, I know. So I choose Buddha as my comic relief buddy. Buddha is my little fat comedian. He helps lighten the anger, sometimes even helps release it. And I am the happier for it. You should try it too. It's easy. When something is grating on your nerves (like I don't know, your entire family) just let go and let Buddha.

sooner or later

2007-07-31T12:32:00.000-04:00

Lazy would be an understatment. Before any time off I make lists upon lists in my head about morning walks, afternoon teas, museum visits, matinee movies and reading under a tree in a beautiful public park. When the time off truly comes I wake up late, decide that Regis and Kelly are way more important than a walk or bike ride and then I hit the downward spiral of channel surfing all day. It's bad, it's really bad. There have been summers where I refused to turn on the TV except, of course, to watch Jessica Simpson's married life "reality" show.

But, today is different (ha!). I'm off to Starbucks to get some true energy and then to a knit shop. You see I must relish a little bit today because tomorrow starts a part time babysitting job that will heavily interupt my reality TV watching life (at this point it's all repeats). I'll soon be hiking and sitting poolside with two young kids. Oh the tan needs to not fade away. Not fade away.

i’ve lost a few days

2007-07-23T17:28:00.000-04:00

While last Saturday was the best day in New York that I’ve had yet, it was not the best homecoming I’ve ever had. You know when you leave your home and always in the back of your mind is the thought that your house is burning down while you're away, but you're too busy to truly fret about it so you let the thought go until you are pulling up to your building and the fear suddenly envelopes you and you just keep repeating “I hope the building is still standing. I hope the building is still standing.” Well, that kinda happened except this time it was about my car and when I said out loud, “Where’s my car?” no one could find it. That’s right. Welcome home- your car's been towed.

I recovered the car after doling out $185. I’m going to contest the very unfair towing that occurred during my 10 day vacation of which I was not previously warned. We’ll see how that goes. They might make me bring out Mean Anna or Teacher Anna or god forbid, Throw You Out The Window Anna and that one is bad!

Upon returning from vacay I had a housesitting job that began immediately and after recovering my car I went about my duties of trying to keep the dog alive and I was settling into my new digs just fine, pretending I lived in a four bedroom home with a hammock in the backyard when I got the flu. The FLU! Full on 101.8ºF fever, bodyaches, fatigue, sore, sore throat, congestion, loss of appetite. The poor dog just had to stare at me while I lazed about on the Pottery Barn sectional couch watching BBC America and drifting in and out of consciousness.

I’m not one to complain, but is the world taking it out on me because I’ve had two beach vacations? Really, people. I don’t live a charmed life by any means.

i did it again

2007-07-10T13:47:00.000-04:00

Determined not to be a tourist and not to sit in an impossibly beautiful house, I went on another 15 mile bike ride, on my own this time and with my camera. I didn't take but four pictures because once I was riding, the notion of stopping just seemed daunting and so I kept on- willing my legs to "power through" with every hill that made my thighs scream against the pressure I was forcing them to exert. But it feels good in the end, to have accomplished something like that- and enjoyed it.

I'm sitting beside fresh lillies in the center of the dining room table. I say this because in a few days time I will not be sitting beside fresh lillies. Fresh lillies will be my past, a memory stitched together with open windows, cranberry bogs, grey shingled houses, tall green hedges, blue hyancinths and the sea.

It's so easy for me to fall in love with a place. I get enraptured with the age of houses, the direction the wind always blows, the people walking down the street, the accents and the food. But, Nantucket is different. I saw a t-shirt yesterday while shopping that said, "everyone should have a Nantucket." And they should, every last soul on this earth should know the spoiled and perfect life this island heaves upon you. I love places because they beckon you to return, or even to live there like New York or London because there is always something you haven't seen, places you haven't been. But Nantucket is a feeling as much as it is a place. And it's visual- the hyacinths, the shingles, the oyster shell lanes and the sea. Maybe I'm a visual girl. Maybe Nantucket needs to be on my calendar so that I can remember that life can be slow and still filled with lushishness.

All I know is that I don't want this to be the last trip I make here.

be

2007-07-09T09:36:00.000-04:00

It's a hazy morning in Nantucket. The clouds have come to say good morning, but are making their stay a bit unwelcomed. I think hazy days are lazy days and I'm a bit happy for the reprieve. I did a 15 mile bike ride yesterday on a whim and my bum is a bit sore. I'd go again today, but I know that just 3 miles into it I would be cursing the bike seat and wishing against all creation that I was at home, horizontal and reading. I love Nantucket. There is no agenda here- just relax, play some tennis, go for a walk, ride your bike, eat a cookie, sit at the beach, go shopping, go kayaking, go fishing or just be. I plan to kayak. I never have before, but it is on my short list of things to do this summer and what better place than the sound in Nantucket, paddling around all the moored sailboats? Today though, after an impossibly delicous croisant from the Sconset Market, I am lazing it- taking the hint from the weather and just being- like the cloud that's hanging around outside and making the cool air just a bit too dense, so will I hang and maybe nap or read or play games or just be. I love it here. And yes, I wish you were here too, that would make it even better.

i'm going to take your bucket and chuck it

2007-07-07T23:05:00.000-04:00

when I get off the boat in Nantucket. To say I love this place is to say, "Hi, my name is Anna" and yet I don't belong at all. This is an island for the priviledged that you cannot imagine. It's not like you see a few people that you don't see everyday and think, "Man, that's a nice pair of $400 sunglasses he has on." It's seeing those people EVERYWHERE and thinking, "What exactly am I doing here?" In town today, at Nantucket proper, I said, while passing a posh shop (one of hundreds), "Look at those people in there. I couldn't even have lunch with them." Oh this sounds so "them" and "me" and I don't mean it that way. I'm just so uncleverly and tiredly painting a picture. It's not well versed or even practiced. This is my poor man's version of what the human scenery is here, but ignore all that and Nantucket will romance your socks off. From the weathered shingled houses to the impossibly perfect oceans views and anchored boats lazily floating in the sound, this place is everything you could imagine your perfect place to be. I love this island and I don't miss home at all.

the thing is

2007-07-05T00:30:00.000-04:00

The thing is is that I just am like a top spinning. I'm not sure when the wind resistance will slow me down and cause my spinning to stop, but in some ways I don't want it to. I like not knowing what end is up when those ends are surrounded by beach, breeze, full moons and flip-flops. I'm off to Nantucket and looking forward to every flip-flopping minute of it. Of course, up there flip-flops are a little on the "common" side. The thing is, I don't care.

in a grown up world

2007-06-28T10:42:00.000-04:00

Before I left for the beach a lot in my life changed. 1) I almost put a bid on a condo, but the prospect did not turn out so good and now my homebuying status is in limbo. 2) I chopped all my hair off and gave it to Locks of Love. 3) A good friend left for the left coast and I didn't even say goodbye.

Somehow I put all that out of my mind, packed for the beach and have been in a lazy beach mode since then. I've read a book and half already, floated in the waves twice (a big deal for me- I hate saltwater and I immediately have to shower after exiting), watched a movie, fought with my brother, played with my nieces and nephew, hosted a murder, cooked dinner for 12 people and just forgot about time and the ringing cell phone. I've become a hippy. I've tuned in, turned on and dropped out.

But no matter how much I want to push the grown up world away, I have to face it. I have to make some big financial decisions today and I'd rather not. I'd rather someone tell me what to do and let my trust in people be the right choice, the one that keeps me safe and makes me happy. And the ironic thing is is that I don't like to listen to what other people think I should do. I am fiercely independent. And yet.

reaction

2007-06-20T00:54:00.000-04:00

I need you sometimes just to be what I fall into. I don’t want to mutter in the low times anymore. It’s too dark there and I’ve been there too long. I like this lightness now, this floating I’ve been feeling. It doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes need you to be the blanket, my wrap around. Because we all need something that makes the ground softer just like moss on a forest floor that dampens the fall of acorns or pinecones- being the equal and opposite force that stops their fall. And it is what I need now, just something I can curl into and lie still with, something that only needs me to be still and quiet- my equal and opposite.

in which i say something i shouldn't

2007-06-13T21:38:00.000-04:00

It's been a while coming and I know that you could see it. And it's time for me to own up to it. I'm taking a blogging break. It's not a stopping or a quitting. It's just a break, not a break down or even a break up, just a break.

I'll be back. When the blogging bug bites again and the writing wells up in throughout the day, flooding my mind with things I have to write down and send into the void that is the Internets. I just don't want writing to be forced and now it is not coming. It is not fluid in me as it has been and I don't believe in fighting that fight, making something of nothing- I've tried that tactic in my life and it never seems to be what you think it is, but it always disappoints.

In the meantime- go read a good book, teach a kid to sing while hanging upside down, blow bubbles in the bathtub, dress in you most comfortable clothes and love the sunshine and the green grass and the smell of the people you cherish when they come near you.

my new favorite pants

2007-06-04T22:12:00.000-04:00

At 8pm I got myself out the door to go shopping. That’s right- 8pm- shopping. At 7:30 I had let the idea slide, but by 8, with one single hour of shopping possibility left, I was raring to go. I was in search of some nice slacks, some fancy pants. Or a pencil skirt, a pencil skirt could work too. I’ve got something coming up soon and I need to look fine – well, at least less like I rolled out of bed than usual.

Old Navy here I come. Because if it’s a short-lived outfit then it better not cost me a paycheck. (The new Anthropologie catalog came today and I might have drooled all over it.) I new before I stepped in the door that Old Navy might be trouble for me. Keeping to a budget and severely restricting my shopping makes any entrance into a store prompt salivation like a binge eater in Sam’s. But, I needed some fancy pants. Or a pencil skirt so I mentally prepared myself NOT TO TRY ON ANYTHING but fancy pants. Or a pencil skirt.

And then, I walked through the shoplifting scanners and immediately veered to the left knowing full well that the career wear is in the back, the way back. To. The. Right.

The first mistake- picking something off the rack. Once one thing is schlepped over my arms I’m in an all-or-nothing mode and I just decide to try on anything and everything. About 12 things later I enter the dressing room with no fancy pants. Only a pencil skirt. Alfie was my kind, enthuseastic dressing room attendant who promised to help me in any way as he separately hung up every item I picked out.

Second mistake- trying on the cute clothes. I knew I wouldn’t leave with everything I brought in, but I had to try them. The first shirt/dress = precious. And now my mind starts to calculate how smart a purchase it is and where and with what I could wear it. Bad, bad things. Then I tried on the pencil skirt that actually was a size smaller than I wanted, but it was THE ONLY PENCIL SKIRT ON THE RACK (um, near my size and on sale). So, since it was a wee bit small I did the thing that girls sometimes do. I hiked the skirt way up my stomach so I could manipulate the zipper then pull the skirt down around my bum. Yeah, that worked but it hurt and in trying to get the skirt back turned around as to unzip it I almost began yelling for Alfie and then I envisioned his horrified look with my half turned around pencil skirt and mismatched shirt and red face and hair flung everywhere and then... woo, I got it undone.

Third mistake- taking a second look around. So, after reluctantly taking out only 2 tanks and one cute shirt/ dress, I lazily walked to the checkout while still perusing and that’s when I saw them - linen capris. Oh to the Oh NO! So yeah, they were totally in hand and while they were in my hand I might as well just pick up this pair of shorts cause they look cute and if they don’t fit or look cute then I could bring them back because I shouldn’t be buying anything anyway and I will probably bring some stuff back so I’ll just pick that right up and try them on at home and bring them back cause… you know.

But, the happy ending is the linen capris. They are not fancy pants. Or a pencil skirt, but they are heaven, heaven in orange linen. I’m wearing them tomorrow, with no guilt.

insider trading

2007-05-29T23:56:00.000-04:00

I didn’t go to bed on Sunday night because of a boy from London. When I heard London, my ears perked up and my attention remained on him searching for an accent. There was none. He’s American, but a boy who loves London is a boy I could listen to. And he had kind eyes.

We stayed up- a group of us –until the sun came up. I watched green appear on the trees outside the window as I squinted against the increasing light. The notion of sleep was silly. I was still reworking all the words, all the questions, all the answers.

We turned the night into generalizations that turned personal. It started easily and innocently with a hypothetical, a question about what lies behind the curtain of a boy’s mind. He spilled all the secrets, said he shouldn’t be divulging so much. We ate up every word, hung on them.

“Why him and not me,” he asked at one point.

“It’s just a personal choice. It’s like why her and not me,” I replied.

“OK. I get it,” he said and with that I let him go, but we kept talking, almost endlessly about everything.

“I’m sensitive, but straight,” he cautioned us.

“I’m quoting you on that one.” He didn’t know how serious I was. I thought about leaving him my card- an arrow to this blog- a window inside my head. I hinted all night to him, but we had entered the friend zone. I could have- so many times- just slipped in beside him, turned his face to mine. I didn’t- claiming all the insecurities he had released in his conversations. In three hours I knew more about his heart, his feelings, his fears of love than I know about my closest friends. And that felt good. And he made me laugh. With his frankness and openness. I wish that I had said more to him than “bye,” in the morning- more than, “Have fun in London.”

i was the snow

2007-05-22T21:05:00.000-04:00

and you scooped me up.

I don't understand the girl who needs to be with someone. I don't understand dependency. I don't understand how the absolute resolve to stand alone is unique. I don't fight the push and pull anymore in my mind. I accept this independence. And yet, I like to watch things like "The Bachelor" and I cheer for the girl who shelters her heart then lets the walls down in the ninth inning. I know that girl. That girl that makes the boy fight for her with everything he's got. But those boys, those boys don't come around very often and when they do I think sometimes I'm more than steel. Maybe I'm titanium. I just know that you won't find me being snow anytime soon. I am not some easily malleable sustance that could melt on contact. Although, I think- somewhere inside me I wish I was.

in which i talk about the pain

2007-05-14T23:05:00.000-04:00

I believe in being truthful. I believe in being honest. I also usually tell everybody everything or anybody anything. I’m a heart-on-my-sleeve kind of girl.

Right now, I hurt. It’s real pain and it’s lodged in the general area of my ribs. I’ve had this pain since middle school, but then we had no idea what it was. It was undiagnosed pain that would awaken me in the night and would only be relieved by retching. My poor mother, who had to work the next day, would often wake up with me and rub my back until it subsided and I drifted back to sleep. Now, as an adult who loves her sleep, I realize that must have been a pain as well.

It wasn’t until 6 years ago that the cause was found. A Generalized Anxiety Disorder was the diagnosis. I took it with gusto, loved putting words to something as abstract as feelings, unexplained emotions even. Mostly, I deal fairly well with the anxiety. I have the tools now to keep it in check, but every so often I’ll let down my guard, or just become a little sensitive and the pain comes nestling in my ribs like rat burrowing for a home.

There is no more retching these days, just lots of calming self-talk, retro-active thinking to pinpoint the worry spot because I worry. A lot. About anything and everything. Again, I can now put most worries aside, tell my intelligent brain what is rational and what is not (this one is more common). Today though, I know the pain is about deadlines and things undone and things coming round very soon. I don’t know that I’ll sleep well tonight. I don’t know that I can calmly talk down the worries about time. I do know that while I toss and turn and hazily watch TV, I’ll wish I had my mother, half asleep herself, rubbing my back and worrying about me just like I worry about things I cannot control.

oh the thinks you can think

2007-05-11T11:18:00.000-04:00

Kelly at klog tagged me for a meme about websites that make you think. She called the dribble on this site "poetic prose" and "profound." I'm going to suggest she go see a doctor- the kind that analyzes your head.

In the meantime I've been thinking about who on the Internets makes me think and here's what I've come up with. I link to most of these guys anyway, but it's always good to shed some real spotlight love on those you think about, or with, everyday. I think the list was meant to be 5, but I'm not that good at counting.

My cousin love Becca at TryBecca makes me wonder a lot about a bright poet who might be obsessed with pop culture. She recently compared Anna Nicole Smith to Dorothy Wodsworth. If that doesn't make you think then you might be dead.

Because she influenced my blogging fingers, I have to give some props to Snarkspot. My favorites are when she talks about other authors and about how catty or snooty they can be among themselves. Shame, shame on you published people.

I recently started to read Knitting blogs. Why? Because I knit and while in NYC on my last trip I got a little excited about the NYC Knitting webring. The thinking happened after I had been reading the following blog for several days (weeks) and just the other day realized that it was a man writing about knitting. Did you read that? Enter, the quite interesting and amazing knitter,brooklyntweed.

I love photography as much as I love words and so I have to offer up my daily photo addictions of the two places I love most in the world. These guys make me think a lot about living in these magnificent cities. They sometimes make me want to jump right inside the picture. The first is London Daily photo and the second is Joe's NYC. And here is a little extra one (because I'm also a little addicted to subways) Express Train.

chopshop or how i didn't give my hair away or how i went back to middle school or how i went into debt for bangs

2007-05-03T21:39:00.001-04:00

Febuary 2006 was a good month. Not only was I still in my twenties, but I got a great haircut and gave 10 inches of my hair to Locks of Love. It felt good and the free $50 haircut was to die for. Almost immediately after the ponytail was chopped, I decided that I would always do this, that I would continually grow out my hair and give it away. And get free haircuts. To my budget that sounded good. Plus it helps people. And that is the main reason. The main one.

So I did. I've been growing my hair out since that last cut. That's right, no haircut for over a year. And I rarely blowdry my hair so splitends are minimal which in my mind makes it grow faster, right? Right!

Today's appointment was at 6:30. I've been spreading the word like wildfire. I'm so over this hair. So. Over. It. The stylist was in for some major love come chop time except that time never happened. She convinced me that I was still one inch away. Hmmmmm. And then. AND THEN. She persuaded me to trim the ends at least. After I almost speared her with her own scissors, I let her and while she was washing my hair I suggested bangs. BANGS! Wah? And now, behold the bangs in their varied forms (also behold the most you'll ever see of my face, huzzah);

The bangs as hipster cool.

The bangs as blinders.

The bangs as Barbie doll legs on my face.

The bangs as they were in the 80's with a ponytail.

The bangs as I like them.

it feels like the first time

2007-05-03T11:53:00.000-04:00

Spring! Every. Single. Year. I proclaim it to be wonderful. It's like my memory lapses and I feel like I have never seen green budding on the trees, have never smiled at the hint of honeysuckle in the air, have never opened my windows, have never seen the sun. And yet it's what I think about when I look outside, am outside. I can't believe that I get to witness this beauty, that green can feel like life. And I don't even love Spring. I like it, but Fall and Winter have my heart. Spring is a mistress, my flirtatious interlude to the horridness of Summer. If Winter has my heart, Summer has my...

I've been so enthralled with Spring that I haven't yet cracked the air conditioning this season. In fact, I don't plan to until mid May. The weatherman says that cool will hang on in the evenings until at least the 10th, so with small fan whirring and windows open- let the savings begin.

But it isn't the first time that the miser in me has taken over the thermostat in my house. This Winter I might have turned on the heat 3 times. Might have. I have some things going for me in this instance. I live in the middle of my building- in the middle from top to bottom, left to right. I like to imagine that this helps the insulation factor. Also I like cold. I like candles. So, I mixed the two and often settled in with soup and tea to ride out the perpetual draft coming from the windows, and they're replacement too. The guise was the money issue. I could survive with socks and another shirt, but my bank account could not survive the blow of heat in Winter, one thing had to give so I chose the heat. I got flack for this, even started a family fight. Visitors complained, but I had forewarned them to deal and so I felt not guilty. I soldiered on, sometimes with a knitted hat on my head.

My motivation? A house. I want to commit. I'm ready for the plunge, the long ride into night, the settling of old wood, the settling of my soul. Plus I'd really like to be able to paint the walls.

If my desire to nest wasn't strong enough when I was 18 then I don't know what it's doing now. Everyone (with the exception of 2 people) has told me that buying a house is difficult and that you should search and search and search, but something tells me that my gut is my Google and I trust what it gives me in the number one position. I start hardcore looking this month. I plan to put a bid on a house in June. I hope to move in in August.

I'm poor now with no heat or air conditioning so that I can afford to buy a house. When I actually own one, what will be my excuse then?

in which i talk about nothing

2007-04-25T17:12:00.000-04:00

When you're single you wake up in the morning alone quite often. When you wake up in the morning alone quite often you are fairly quiet and routinized. unless, of course, a friend calls you in the morning and as you answer the phone you realize you can't talk. This happened a few months ago when I came down with a really bad case of I-have-no-voice-yet-my-job-requires-my-voice-throat-thing. When I told a friend that I really didn't know how bad my voice was until I got to work, she was surprised. "You don't talk in the morning?" she quipped, confused. "Who did you want me to talk to?" I replied to her-married-self. "You don't talk to yourself? I do a lot of self talk." "Um, no," was my raspy answer.

Do people do this? Do you talk to yourself in the morning? If you had no one to roll over to and ask for a morning kiss or announce the annoyance of their snoring the previous night, would you just talk to the wall? I wouldn't. I don't. I get up, put on the coffee, do bathroom things, get dressed, fix coffee and lunch and goodby. There is no chat time with the silverware, no fluffing the pillows ego with ohs and ahs. I don't even respond when Matt Lauer says absurd things like claiming that VA Tech. should have locked down the campus after the first two shootings. Hindsight Mr. Carmen Sandiego is 20/20.

And so, this morning I awoke not knowing that I had a frog in my throat. It's gone now- left behind is post nasal drip (yummy!), but I'm still wondering if I should create a morning song routine or a one minute monologue. Maybe I should do scales or tell my-single-self "I'm good enough, smart enough, and doggonit people like me!"

with friends you get oreos

2007-04-22T00:05:00.000-04:00

I’m housesitting. It seems in the recent past I’ve become the single girl who house and baby-sits. I knew a girl like me when I was 25, she was 32, I didn’t like the look of her life- working to be a teacher and paying her debts by housesitting and babysitting. Even if she did housesit for some famously rich people, I didn’t like the look of that aspect of her life. And yet…

My friend L. and her husband live -in my mind- in Egypt. It takes 30 minutes, $1.25 in tolls and a lot of gas to get to their house. And my life- is in the city. (I’ve told L. this so if she reads it she’ll know I still love her). It is soul sucking to drive this far away from humanity. And yet, humanity is creeping toward them. They have everything you’re cheesed out, chain store heart could want. You name it (TGIFridays) they’ve (Barnes and Noble) got (Babies R Us) it (Outback).

I hate the one main road aspect of suburbs, the endless traffic, the siding, the siding, the siding, the Wal-Mart, the siding and the utter uncityness of it all. In my perfect world, there would be city and there were be country and suburbs would not exist. My perfect world does not exist- yet.

What’s strange about house-sitting for your friends is that you know this person very well, might have even slept over before, but now, their house is yours. You pretend that the deer head in the living room is your deer head. Wait, no, actually you don’t. You watch TV nonstop because their 42-inch TV with surround sound seems better than your 32 inch TV with surround sound. Plus they have On Demand and so you have to watch like 10 movies before they get back.

And you eat their food. As a food lover, this part is fun. Except L. does not really “cook” and therefore there is nothing to “work” with in her kitchen. Even though I’m single, my fridge is packed with things, ready at any moment to host a dinner party (even though I never do). L.’s fridge on the other hand has a cheese drawer with a Costco amount of processed cheese (for the dog), pre-shredded cheese and some deli meat (ham I believe). There is also some flat ginger ale, yogurt, pudding cups, applesauce cups, beer, a few potatoes, half a red pepper, a bag a carrots, a questionable cucumber and a door of condiments. (Did I mention that I love L. because I do, I love her). What can I do with this stuff? I could make something. I could, but that would require opening things that have not been opened and using all of something that there is only one of. That is the thing about housesitting, you get to eat the food, but there are rules about it. So, I’ve feasted on eggs and toast (forgot the eggs in the fridge list) and Oreos. The one good thing L. does is stock Oreos in a cookie jar (because she doesn’t really bake either) and I am now addicted to Oreos.

It’s strange to have a friend whom you adore and with whom you’ve shared many a meal and yet their kitchen essentials look nothing like your kitchen essentials. And so I wonder how it is that we are friends at all. Maybe it’s that I feed her, literally, and she feeds me, emotionally. Somehow, somewhere there is balance. There always is, or at least there’s Oreos.

because words sometimes say enough

2007-04-17T21:42:00.000-04:00

After a week away, a week of suspended reality, it was difficult to come back to the harsh truth of a daily routine, of people depending on you, of your absolute grown-upness. And all day on Monday the only thing I could think of was that picture window in Brooklyn on that rainy last day, the late flight, the typical New Yorker in my southern town who couldn’t get a taxi at 3am, my father’s 70th birthday and my nieces, my nieces and nephew. Then I heard the news of college kids being shot, but it didn’t register. I had copies to make, a schedule to keep. And then I did listen and I watched as the whole world of news came to my backdoor. My first reaction was to shoe them away, to tell them that this was a Virginia ordeal, a tragedy we needed to take care of, to understand. And yet I wanted to know all the facts. I’m sure it’s how Columbine felt, like the world was looking at something only you knew about, a little pristine part of earth secluded from the real world. It’s like a prying eye you didn’t expect, an unwelcome guest in a time where you barely know up from down. Virginia Tech. will always be to me what is has been, a huge school in my hometown’s backyard, a rival college, a school with unfortunate school colors. Except now, I plan to wear orange on Friday because we are all Virginians. We are all human. We have all lost something.

thinking inside the city

2007-04-13T13:15:00.000-04:00

I thought you had to be hard to live in New York, like you had to come here with grit already under your nails. You don't. People here are soft, filtered around the edges like any other place. I’ve had more doors opened for me in New York than I would ever in Virginia. There is a collective spirit here, a bond that automatically links everyone. It is the decision, the absolute resolve, to be alone in a sea of people. That decision of isolation, ironically, is the link- because New York is isolating. So vast, so filled, and yet you can end your day with emptiness in your heart.

"It’s because you don't have really deep relationships here. You have a lot of friends, but the connections are not the same," say the 20 something girls sitting in a pub listening to friends play Irish music. I would argue that what they say isn't true. The closeness they talk of- that exists in college, on common halls, in shared rooms. It doesn't happen outside New York either because of the paring off, the coupling that is inevitable. First you have a friend and you are close and can sometimes finish each other's sentences then that friend gets married - step one in the distance between you. Then that married friend has children - step two in the distance between you. You see your friend, you still love her, but there are now complications, messiness, and babysitters to arrange. And there you are, single and wanting a big city to get lost in, to decidedly be isolated inside of. So, this closeness that New Yorkers want so badly. It isn't an anomaly that is only lacking in Gotham. It happens everywhere. It just looks different.

Maybe you do have to be hard to live here, but that grit under your fingernails is really just grit in your heart. And maybe I have that and that is why I love this place, love this city, with it's noise and brittleness and it's softness, just around the edges, like the Hudson and East River rounding the edges of the hard land.

it's like i work

2007-04-12T15:23:00.000-04:00

in Brooklyn. To the office i went, trudging through rain and about 30 blocks (I got off on the wrong subway stop). Soaked and tired I landed on the top floor of brick exposed, old building almost under the Manhattan bridge with big sky windows that look out on the Hudson and Manhattan. How Becca has never described her daily view boggles me a bit. I could just live here. And I'm sure people do. These would be called studios, loft style, one room, impossibly trendy and city-like. There's even a loft, for- the bedroom, i would guess.

I could do this. Well, for today I could. I'm sure the office life, even the chilled, laid back open office style of this office would get old and even that sky line, that amazing view would wear away at some point and only be a blip in the back of your mind, a calling card of a busy life over your shoulder. Then again, this environment breathes of importance and new life, like having no walls, no cubicles, means you are like a 60's era campaign headquarters where battles are fought, men in button down shirts with no ties pound on desks in excitement of defeating some conservative monster agenda.

So, I'm sitting here, in Brooklyn, in an office and I don't want to go out. I'm done. New York has done it's thing for me. I've left some things still on the to do list, but that's how I leave a city, with something undone, so that I will return to un-undo them. And I will be here again, in all these exact places. Hopefully sooner than you or I even think.

with no umbrella in her hand

2007-04-12T12:08:00.000-04:00

It’s raining in Brooklyn today. I needed a rainy day. I’m tired. The city has worn me out a bit, in a good way.

I saw two musicals yesterday. The first, The Drowsy Chaperone, was a high profile Broadway production. I sat beside a couple on my right and an older lady on my left. The left hand lady slept through most of the show, bobbing her overly made up and big blond head and snoring now and then. She was the quintessential New York old lady who goes to matinees every now and then as her hobby. Before her nap (read: before the show started) she rummaged in her purse for decades, filed her nails and blew her nose. I wanted a shower after sitting beside her. New York is dirty and you are onslaught with miniscule debris constantly, but I think the left hand lady gave me a day’s dose of New York slime in 5 minutes.

The show starts I complete darkness with the narrator introducing the show. And from the second I heard his voice I was in love. The voice was a little high for a man, but something in it was familiar and warm. I couldn’t place my automatic fondness for this man, hadn’t recognized his name on the program, hadn’t placed his face. But, I wouldn’t have. It’s been years, decades even. I was in middle school probably and he was my dream man. For any girl who’s ever breathed in the girly air of the 80’s and was jealous of the red-headed Anne (with an “e”) you’ll understand why I was so easily in love with the narrator’s voice because it was Gil .

The second musical was Gutenberg! The Musical! at which my cousin Rebecca works. It was hilarious and wonderful and in a tiny theatre where you can feel the subway underneath you as the show goes on. I loved it and hope that it continues to run for longer and longer stretches. “A musical about a man who invented the printing press?” I know, but it’s got everything a musical needs and they’ll tell you so. If you are in NYC you should go and it’s in a great location in the Village near Magnolia Bakery, Sushi Samba, Tasti-D-Lite, and few other places you’ll love.

Today, this rainy, cold day is my last in New York, this town I love. I have not key to leave the apartment and partly I don’t want to. I’m tired and ready for home, but sometimes I wish this was that place.

in a good way

2007-04-09T23:52:00.000-04:00

I could live here and be here and be happy. Thanks Becs!

i heart

2007-04-09T08:04:00.000-04:00

I woke up today in New York City- Williamsburg, Brooklyn to be exact. It’s quiet here, really quiet. It almost doesn’t feel like New York except that I know there is a subway stop around the corner as well as a something that looks like a chop shop. Otherwise, the neighborhood is quaint- you could raise a family here it seems.

Today I plan to do a whole lot of whatever. I came with no agenda simply because I love New York and I want the city to guide my moves. The Guggenheim is calling (because I’ve never been there) and so is the Apple store. Of course it is. It’s the Big Apple.

Don’t worry. I’ve got my camera.

an easter miracle

2007-04-08T18:46:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I woke up to snow- everywhere. It had beautifully fallen and stayed on almost every surface. And it was cold outside. I called it an Easter miracle, snow in Virginia in April not having happened for 24 years. I was six when the last snow came and I remember it. I still wish for a snow in April, a freak little thing when spring lets you know it’s not completely let go of it’s winter coat strings.

The snow yesterday was nice, if short lived, and coated roofs and trees. The trees were the strangest, freshly sprouted with bud and yellow pollen- a white coating of snow was out of place. I played with my nieces and nephews, throwing snow balls and making snow angels. It was perfect snowball snow, the kind that packs so easily and firmly and can hurt when it hits.

By 4 o’clock when I finally got to my errands started it was gone, like it had never been there. I’ve been hoping for snow since November. Hoping would not be the correct word- more like longing, gritting my teeth and praying for it to happen. It took ‘til Easter for my wish to come true. EASTER. And then it was gone. Maybe it wasn’t a miracle, maybe it was tease, an in-your-face from nature to me. Whatever it was, it was beautiful and magical and perfectly peaceful, like every snow should be, like every snow is.

pulling my leg

2007-04-01T16:33:00.000-04:00

“This is gonna sound really weird,” I said, “but I requested the one who pulled my leg a lot.”

“You told me you liked that before,” she responded without a hint of strangeness.

“It’s my favorite part. I look forward to it the whole time.”

We were going for a full spa day including facials, massages and pedicures and when I told my best friend that I had requested a certain masseuse, the previous conversation occurred. She told me that I should request more leg pulling if it really was my favorite, but I said I couldn’t. “How can you say, ‘I really like it when you pull my legs.’ It just sounds weird,” I told her. And kinky and I believe massages are anything but kinky.

The spa day was a thirtieth year treat for the two of us. I had gotten a 2 for 1 special and thought that the best birthday present for my best friend would be one that I could enjoy too. And I did. A lot. I even think I fell asleep a little and I may have snored. My apologies to my sweet, leg pulling masseuse for that one. I’m sure I’m not the first.

“Did you ask her to pull your leg?” PK asked when we were through and heading in for the decallusing of our feet.

“No,” I simply said. “I just couldn’t, but I did enjoy it when she did.”

I was worn out. The toxins must have been revving through my body for months because that massage made me go home and fall asleep for several hours and my poor best friend was stuck in my house watching Marie Antoinette while I snored even though no one was pulling my leg.

return policy

2007-03-27T21:23:00.000-04:00

What I dd this weekend was 1- family time and more importanlty (because it's always more important) 2- shop. I shopped like I haven't shopped in months because, well- I haven't. I've been extrememly good on the budget front- well good enough.

Why is it that women so easily succumb to the shopping bug? I wanted (and did a few times) to buy frivolous things this weekend and the only thing I really needed, that I even went shopping for was a battery charger for my camera. I used to be queen of buying things that I really didn't need. There was a fime when money was no object, when I didn't have real life bills to pay and so my paychecks went straight to shopping and not the ever wiselier savings account. I wish I could rewrite those few years, rewind the tape to shake myself, slap the goods out of my hand and open that IRA months (!) earlier than I did. But, I didn't. We live, we learn. But, there is still something in the power of shopping. I believe that retail therapy fufills some primal urge that goes deeper than just trying to fill the void in your life. There is something self sustaining and empowering in the knowledge that as a grown-up, if you want it, you really can have it. And i did and now I have a pile of returns because in reality- I can still get buy, breathe in an out with that extra pair of pajamas, bicycle shorts and reading glasses.

things stuck in my head

2007-03-26T23:49:00.000-04:00

"It takes a big man to admit his mistakes and I amthatbigman." - Michael Scott.

So thank you, thank you to the writiers of The Office. Thank you a lot.

smoke in my eyes

2007-03-24T11:02:00.000-04:00

I smell like smoke. After breakfast I smell like smoke. I hate that lingering odor after a meal out, but the lingering is usually after a night where smoke is inevitable and then I don't mind so much, but breakfast? BREAKFAST?

The food was fabulous, all greasy and runny eggs. Oh, I love breakfast food. My parents are in town and breakfast at a greasy spoon is something we do every once in a while. That once in a while was this morning at a new place that boasts the best red eye gravy. We didn't try the red eye or the brains and eggs or the salt herring and corn flakes or the fat back. Southern cooking can be odd at times, but when you smother a biscuit with sausage gravy, southern cooking is at its best and it is all wonderful.

wouldn't it seem

2007-03-20T21:40:00.000-04:00

It would seem to simply follow that after the before post that I would begin posting again and yet...

I did have a post in me today, a post that rattled around and walked with me through the streets and someday it might come out, but not today. I'm working back to you. I'm always working my way back to you. And I'll be there- if not shortly then soon, very soon.

An old teacher I met again this past week said when writing that it's "more important to do less well than a lot, not well." I'm prescribing to her opinion by not doing any because well, let's face it- nothing here is done well.

She was an old high school teacher whom knows more than I ever knew. When I see her now I want to go back to myself in high school and shake that girl and scream, "Wake up. Take in every minute of knowledge she dishes out. Listen to her!!!" She captured me, this old teacher- now retired, but probably not enough. I was not the best in high school. I was a class skipper, a minimal effort-maximum gain kind of gal. I wish I hadn't been. I wish I had understood what was before me when it was. Can't we all use that line?

So, I'm working, working on writing less well, or a lot, or, whatever, something will come out of me one day.

to blog

2007-03-19T23:00:00.000-04:00

"To bloooooggg." I imagine Billy Crystal dressed as a midevil medicine man from The Princess Bride telling me that "To blooogg means to actually write on your space in the internet on a regular basis and to do so using quips, observations and stories from your life."

"True," I'd remark, "but I've lost the will to blog and so I need something- some magical pill that could bring it all back."

The medicine man and his wife would get to mixing and messing and come out with a huge chocolate covered pill that would have to be forced down my throat. I'd take it and respectifully return to my bit of the Internet and go about with my blathering dribble. It seems I've even missed my own blogoversary.

Oh, hello world. I've missed thee.

morning brownies

2007-03-13T21:01:00.000-04:00

What does it say about me when there are times that I am the happiest when things are baking in the oven, a movie is on and knitting is in hand? And I do mean I am happy and it’s not even a settling happiness. This is what I want. These are the moments I really enjoy, long for even. Was I born this old?

Where does this need to be so calm, so chill, so utterly un-wild come from? Scared? Possibly. Terrified? Definitely. Didn’t I just say it wasn’t a settling? And I don’t lie. I had the thought tonight that I should just throw caution to the wind and leap, just float, just fall. But, then I came out of my dream world.

The nest thought had something to do with adding espresso to brownies for the mornings that you don’t have time to make coffee. Ingenious? I know, right. But, not wild- in fact, so domesticated. And that’s me. In a nutshell I’m a little homemaker- for one. And I’m OK with that.

And it’s not difficult at all to fall for Jude Law.

my tivo is at one with my mind

2007-03-12T23:43:00.000-04:00

In a concession I'm rather embarassed to admit- I have two TiVos. Why? It just happened. And really, with some extra high frequency/ radio wave gadgetry I really could easily just use one like in the old days, like last year.

But, two I have and the older, less shiny one remains in my bedroom where night time TV is my nightlight. My TiVo in the bedroom, however, still thinks the world is moving at a different hour. It's currently 11:45 and my TiVo thinks it's 10:46 yet it's still showing my beloved David Letterman. The TiVo people say it's just a "consmetic" change and will go away after April 1. APRIL 1!! What? I have to pretend that I live in eastern TX when I watch TV in my room for 3 weeks. Whatever. OK. Who are these TiVo people anyway? I wish I worked at TiVo.

Sometimes I think about living in another time zone. I wonder how different life is not because of the physical movement and environment, but solely because of time change. Time zoned kind of fascinate me, like how there is some state in the middle of the country (IA, OH???) that doesn't participate in the whole daylight savings time. Talk about my TiVo being confused! I don't think it could handle it.

So my TiVo wishes for the hour back and I'm not going to lie that so do I. More light in the evenings- who cares. Losing an hour of sleep and having to deal with the adjustment for a week or more- annoying. Thanks congress. I love you too.

it's like the universe is against me

2007-03-11T19:20:00.000-04:00

Well, maybe not so much, but still I like to ebb in the direction of the dramatic at times. I have a cold. Well, maybe not, but it's the hint of cold- that back in the throat thing that makes you cough and your throat a little scratchy. I hate a cold.

Spring has sprung this weekend and right now a window is open. I love opened windows. I do so much miss the snow we didn't get this year. Winter failed me, but Spring has possibilities in it that I think I will embrace. I'm looking for the daffodils waiting to push their yellow heads through the dirt.

the blogging blahs

2007-03-06T17:29:00.000-05:00

I've been negligent. I've been remiss. I've been quite quiet.

One thing I hate that bloggers do is talk about how long it's been since they last posted. It's a blogging-peeve of mine and yet...

Sometimes I think I've lost the blogging spirit, the will to spread the news of my life across the Internets. Well, Mr. Internet, I still don't got a lot to tell ya. I've been quiet on the web. I've been quiet in my life. I'm not even reading very much. There must be a correlation between how much I read, or don't, and how much I write, or don't. I have been knitting quite a lot and worrying about how I'm going to pay for summer vacations and spring break to NYC to visit TryBecca and well, I've come the realization that the $100 I spent on the cotton yarn to make a spring sweater will not actually be suitable barter for a plane ticket to the Big Apple. Whoops. But, I'ma goin'. Yes sirree, I'ma goin'.

sometimes you feel like a nut

2007-02-28T00:09:00.000-05:00

things i did today:

- made some pumpkin soup with prepared pumkin pie mix- a mistake, but it turned out surprisingly OK
- bought some yummy 100% cotton yarn to make a summer sweater and if my camera battery charger were not missing, I'd take a pict. for you
- took one piece of chocolate to my nieces and nephew and told them the recipent would have to be the one who gave the biggest hug. i split it three ways
- scheduled a full day spa day for my bestest friend and me
- became a little thankful for a full day

in which i wax

2007-02-20T22:59:00.000-05:00

melancholy. It's the new black for me. It's my skinny jeans. I like melancholy because I wear it well. It goes with everything I've got. It's a year rounder.

What I don't like it how things like a few seconds of a song can bring me just a smidge past melancholy into- let's call it- a trench. Oscar Wilde said, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." I like his take, his not-to-put-too-fine-a-point-on-it. I know he wasn't exact. Some people are nowhere near the gutter and some haven't seen a star in years. Still, it sits well with me. At least... it did.

I pulled myself from the eternal and metaphysical gutter, but sometimes things like the light in a photograph can remind you of circumstances, words, star gazing. It's OK. I prefer the melancholy side anyway. I get suspicious of happy people, like really they just cry through the night so as to be so happy in my presence. Crying isn't something I do often and I'm not doing it now. This all is really about a song and how I wanted to listen to it, but after three seconds I had to turn it off- the images and words were just swimming too fast and I needed to slow them down if not stop them. And that my dears stinks, that other people can own something that you used to share or that was given to you. I want my melancholy songs without the tinge of extra melancholy.

in which i actually write a post

2007-02-15T22:38:00.000-05:00

I skipped two major events in my posting this February. I'm making up for that now.

Most people don't like February. They think of it as a month that drags on in the middle of winter full of crankiness and visible breath. I've always loved February because it holds my birthday. February to me is like a jewel, like the best month every invented. It's different, spicy, unconventional with its 28 days and sometimes an extra. I like a month with spunk and I like February.

This particular one brought on my 30th year which means I was born in 1977 when disco was dying and Madonna was not yet the rage. I don't hold much to age in years and what the societal conventions say about them. But, the things that bother me about age are the things I can't stop, like time. I can't postpone the fact that at some point I will be past the age of having children and at 30 I still have no idea if I even want them. That is what bothers me about turning over a year. I'd just like time to hault and wait for me to get all pulled together, then let's start back up at 21, that was good year- and a good birthday.

The second February event, of course, occurred yesterday and I so gracefully floated over it because V-Day to me does not mean flowers and chocolate (If someone was here to give them to me I would not want them. Valentine's Day is lame-o and meant for middle American men who don't konw how to show love every other day of the year.). I've decided, through some events I haven't shared with you, that I want nothing to do with dating. Maybe it's because I'm so into this single life or because I think I've found the one I want yet my love is unrequited and I'd rather live in the moments I have with him then in the lifetime I could have with someone else because when I look in his eyes it's like every place I want to go and all the places I've never been.

her wet nose

2007-02-12T21:56:00.000-05:00

My mother says there are rooms she can’t sit in, can’t linger too long in. The rooms must still somehow hold the shape of her body; carry the muffled shuffle of her paws. The kitchen is one of these rooms and now I think of my mother existing only in the hallways of the house, the den and her bedroom.

I miss her too even though the rooms I live in never held her. I know I’ll feel the emptiness when I return this weekend like the house has lost of a bit of its soul. It was going to be the weekend I was going to say goodbye to her, but her age couldn’t hold her. I’ll miss her soft ears, how she’d bend her head toward the side I was rubbing. And her wet nose, though I tried, sometimes in vane, to avoid it.

a sort of eulogy

2007-02-08T23:35:00.000-05:00

It isn’t something I can talk about easily. I loved (love!) her very much. I raised her, taught her to sit, stay, come, heel and “be quick.” She’s too old now, can barely walk. The vet says we’ve been lucky to have a lab last 16 years. I think we were lucky to have her a day.

I can’t write this without crying. She’s alone right now, in a sterile place and tomorrow she will be gone. I want to be with her so badly it hurts. I want to hold her paw while she drifts off to a peaceful, painless place, but I can’t and it’s not fair to her to keep her alive until I can.

The decision is mine to keep her ashes or let them go. I know that I want them, but it will be so strange that after 12 years of not living with me, she will live with me yet not. I’m not sure I could look at her urn everyday. Where would I put it? And how could I explain to her ashes that I forgot to say goodbye at Christmas? That I there was just too much to pack and too many people to say goodbye to and that she was in the kitchen still, lying down probably, her arthritis joints too painful to move her to the door, her hearing too faint know I was leaving.

I can’t say goodbye to the old dog I’ve love so much that I spent hours with treats in my hand making sure she understood my words, cuddled next to her at night and slipped covers over her in winter, forgave and cursed her with every trashcan she disheveled, screamed at and searched for her for hours when she would “wonder,” bathed and taught her to “shake” to dry herself and petted and petted and petted.

I loved that dog. I love you Megan.

how do you say, “i’m looking at what i want”?

2007-02-01T21:41:00.000-05:00

It’s a line from one of my favorite chicklit movies, Sabrina, and it is the most succinct way to summarize what the last month has been. I found what I wanted, in two places, in two very different ways, stared at them both, and let them slip through my hands. The first was a house.

It’s not hard for me to become obsessed- preoccupied with a thing- and a house is quite a lot of a thing to ponder over. I found the house on a drive by probably in early November, but it was more of a passing wish than anything. Then a friend had me stop and pick up a flyer on another drive by in late December and the lusting began. I got a realtor, researched mortgages, and got real with my finances and the debt I’d be placing myself in. It was a bit of a reality check.

I sought advice from everyone who’s been through the ordeal of buying a home and I listened, really listened, thinking that this was the one time in my life where Anna’s inner dialogue and preseveration should cease. I was told to look around, find out what I really wanted, and know what else was out there.

I became glued to the quick search application of a real estate website, drove around neighborhoods, virtually and actually toured other houses, but my mind was all the time painting, reorganizing, re-plumbing, and moving into the first house that started it all. The drive bys became purposeful and almost daily. I began doing Internet and in store pricing on washer/dyers, dishwashers, even wainscoting. Everything in my mind was already boxed up and I was a homeowner… except, I hadn’t actually done anything about it.

I cannot blame anyone but myself, my own fantastical thinking that the perfect one would up and come running to me, knocking down every barrier I put up and I would succumb because destiny meant for us to be together. And such was the subconscious thinking going on in my head. I just thought that first house, that first love of mine, would wait for me, would be patient while I got my commitment phobia under control, while I followed everyone’s advice and figured out what I really wanted. I just thought that house would wait for me.

It didn’t. It’s under contract and I’m under a cloud, have been for a week now. I have to slowly repack all my belongings in my mind and move from a house I barely got settled into. And the stove, oh the stove- it was 1950’s era gas and WONDERFUL. I would have bought the house just for the stove, and I said as much.

But, I’m learning now that when you feel something in your gut, when you feel pulled to something indescribably, you need to know how to listen to your self and to say with confidence and stamina to everyone else, “I’m looking at what I want.”

in which i write to you

2007-01-27T00:57:00.000-05:00

It seems that my thoughts lately are about “what ifs,” “what isn’t,” “ what didn’t” and tonight I felt a big sense of “I didn’t,” and “why?”

Anxiety has been my companion lately, keeping me on my toes and ever presently worried. I can jump at the sound of a door opening, someone coughing, or a door closing. Maybe it’s the doors I should be studying so intently, worrying about their openings and closings and how I can better not miss them. I’m talking in circles a bit and I’ll talk it out a bit better soon. It’s too close, a door too freshly in motion to determine if it is a closing or an opening.

In other news, don’t miss the opened blogging door that is my true cousin love, Rebecca. She’s a New Yorker by way of the south. She writes poetry and has a bit of my heart. Read her.

it's a break something

2007-01-23T23:51:00.000-05:00

Words like "your the coolest chick" should make me feel really good. Instead -much to the surprise of many- they make me want to run. Let's examine and induce some meanness. "your," I try real hard with the correct spelling and such, but when you want to make an impression, make sure you contractions, contract. I'm just saying. "chick" sadly, while the sentiment is totally sweet, I know few women who like it when a man calls them a chick. But I call men boys though I do it endearingly and with no hint of idiot girl syndrome which the formentioned does. None-the-less these words make me want to run. They should not. I should want to stay and talk awhile, but if I can, and I can, I use my brain and dissect something that should be left alone and turn it into a reason for running. Good lord in heaven, will I ever be able to stand still?

Quietness around here deos not mean quietness is truly afoot. I'm turning 3-0 in a matter of weeks, days really, and I think the breadown is beginning. Lot's that doesn't need to be worried about is being worried abour. Oh bother, oh dear, here to see another year.

one art

2007-01-18T22:26:00.000-05:00

“so many things seemed filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.”

Oh Elizabeth Bishop, song of my heart. When these things go there is no disaster, but a quiet void none-the-less, a brief moment that the universe stops and ponders. We let things go quietly and unequivocally at times, when needed. I’ve needed to implore the no disaster rule and it is so odd how things can leave no wake when they leave, no churning over of emotions, just a pause, a nanosecond of desolation like the flicker when a light bulb goes out and then the replacing begins.

It is the replacing that can be disastrous, that I am having trouble with. And I own it all up to eyes. I don’t care how trite or cliché or nonsensical it can seem, the eyes, when stared at for long periods of time or even those little nanoseconds can tell you eons of things, lifetimes and worlds can pass through them. I’ve looked for those eyes all my life, dreamed about them. And now, I’m trying to replace them, their loss has been a disaster though I never truly owned them. And what can I do when the eyes that stare back at me now tell me nothing, no lifetimes, no history lessons? Was I imaging it? Was I just practicing my art, my own art of losing?

“I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.”

Oh Elizabeth Bishop, song of my heart.

track this package

2007-01-16T23:27:00.000-05:00

I find it funny that a UPS commercial has a Postal Service song playing it the background. It's just so American- in the sense that we own everything that is ironic and tinged with sarcasm.

rings and things

2007-01-15T17:35:00.000-05:00

I bought a rock today. It currently sits on my right hand though I don't know how long it will. It's green, not neccesarily the color of an emerald, but it's green and green seems to be my favorite color of late. And the size is beyond. It's probably equal to at least 5 or 6 carrats. It's obnoxious and yet simple and plain at the same time. Just a huge green sparkly thing set in silver. I think I love it.

When we read The Great Gatsby in high school, my English teacher asked the class what the green blinking light at the end of Daisy's dock symbolized. Thinking of the neighbor's desire I do believe I raised my hand and said, "Go." Oh silly, silly girl. My friends chuckled and someone pointed out that traffic lights had not yet been invented. It was the money and greed and envy I couldn't see. I just saw love and lust and wanted so badly for Gatsby to just go and get what he needed, what Daisy needed.

I can imagine the first boy to remark on my green, giantess ring. He'll say something like, "It that the kind of rock you expect?" "Not at all," I'll reply. "This one doesn't come with someone's heart attached to it."

on the weather

2007-01-14T22:57:00.000-05:00

"It's January 14th and 70 degrees outside," a bewildered man said to his son this morning in the Starbucks parking lot. His son responded with some kind of quesiton about a movie, too young to care about the flip of the seasons, the unrealistic bend toward Spring in Winter, long before Winter even got here.

I'm not a fan of the flipping seasons. I want Winter with all it's rudeness and smugness. I want to complain about my feet being cold and hide under scarves and sweaters and actually use the endless supply of jackets I own. I want to wear my heavy jeans with a longsleeve shirt and not worry about sweating late in the day.

I need the huddled up, hermit like behavior inducing weather of Winter. I need snow, or at least the hope of it. I am not happy with Winter shirking it's duties. I get up and go to work everyday. All I'm asking if for Winter to do it's job. It's really not such a difficult task.

on forgetting christmas

2007-01-10T22:27:00.000-05:00

I've let Christmas go quite early this year. At the turn of the new year I began packing things up and decidedly not turning on the lights on the tree. Then, of course the ornaments began to go while on the phone to a friend. I've let Christmas go quite easily though lamenting it's loss none-the-less. It is my favorite time of year and one month of wonderfulness is never enough even though I know I just have to wait 11 more. But, so much could happen in those eleven months to ruin or spoil the magic of the Christmas past or even, yet, keep it from coming altogether.

The tree is gone, the jingle bells taken down and even with the plastic lids of the storage boxes snapped shut I look up to see shiny little packages and glittery red star garlands hanging from the window treatments. Oh Christmas, I knew you couldn 't let go either.

i could

2007-01-07T21:12:00.000-05:00

I could make a home in your dimples, set up camp and nuzzle in. I’d be so happy there, close to your nose and warmed by your smile. I could live a lifetime there all snuggled in and curled up tight.

It’s silly to say that I could fly through your eyes, skim the surface of your blue skies. I could puddle in your tears and trickle down your cheek.

I could live on your grin, eating the happiness you share, drinking the laughter you give.

I could swim through your hair, be adrift on the waves. I could float there awhile, above your mind just wandering. I’d go from ear to ear letting you know that I was there, taking life in with you.

I could, I could, I could.

sometimes is not now

2007-01-03T00:28:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I live in moments, in breaths of air, in words that should be tossed aside or let out to dry. Sometimes I move through moments too quickly, rushing them to get to the next, to the ones I will relive, the ones that keep me up at night, the ones that keep me hoping, that twist my days and nights around.

Sometimes I let the weight of things settle and feel the heft of emptiness. Sometimes I wish I had held the moment a second longer to make something permenant.

It is not enough to say, "I wish. I wonder." I want to say, "I know and I will never not." That sometimes is not now.

so many things

2007-01-01T21:43:00.000-05:00

could be said about the end the year. The ones coming to mind right now are "tired, wondering, longing, hoping, excited, waiting, rested, slowed, expansed and watchful." It's been a good one, the one leading to 30 (like numbers really matter).

I could write my heart out and yet my first inclination is to stay quiet, to let it simmer then dissipate. That just seems more healthful at this point. And no, you don't know what I'm talking about. But, I do.

end of

2006-12-27T23:38:00.000-05:00

I'm thinking of not doing anything for New Year's Eve. It's not a first for me, but it sure hasn't happened in a really long time. I spend every one with my best friend, but this year plans are a little sketchy and I would just feel like I'm crashing into someone's home. The ironic thing is that I have 2 other invitations to parties. That never happens. Never. I feel a little popular if not totally riddled with anxiety of talking to strangers for hours upon end, hoping and just waiting for that ever-lasting hour to get here. I never love a New Year's. It's always so anti-climatic. There has only been one (well two) of any sort of memory worth the retelling-- which I'm not doing here.

That paragraph up there looked like I was boasting about having 3 possibilities for New Year's. I wasn't, not in the least. I hate boasting and boastful people-- reason 1 for not enjoying talking to strangers. And even so, I have 4 possibilities, one just isn't an invite-- it's a "hang out with a friend who's husband is like 13,000 miles away." She doesn't even know I've considered it. I wandered what she has planned.

Well, it's the "end of" no matter what we've got planned and according to "they" we must plan to start anew. I've got big things cooked up for 2007. I'm keeping them a secret and I resolve not to resolve anyway, it's just happens that these big plans are coming together (fingers crossed) right now. It's like the stars are alligning or some higgeldy-piggeldy idea like that.

To quote a Christmas card, "merry everything, happy always!"

my wishes for you

2006-12-24T01:23:00.000-05:00

May the merriest of times be upon you. And may you be happy and warm and filled with eggnog.

christmas stressers

2006-12-21T14:50:00.000-05:00

My nephew is getting to the age where I wonder when it is he will stop believing in Santa Claus. When exactly will he scoff at my exclamation that "Santa has a microphone hidden in the tree so he can hear whether or not you're being good." ? So far, so good although I'm a little stressed for the time when the realization does hit him and his friends let him on the big, fat lie that all adults throughout the world put upon children to enhance their free gift recieving experience. I'm not looking forward to simply because he has two little sisters and the amount of convincing that will have to take place that their older brother is actually crazy and synical makes my head hurt. I believe though that youth and the ultimate, undying belief in magic will win out and their innocent deception will remain intack for several more years. I hope at least.

you can’t defile a first edition

2006-12-20T23:53:00.000-05:00

It's what I told a friend, handing her a book I found at a thrift store. A little known book, but a first edition just the same. It may never be worth anything, but you can't disregard it's status among other books.

Sometimes I feel like this, like I’m brand new, a minute old, pristine and so innocent. I’m no original. 'You’re one of a kind.' It’s just babble. We’re all the same when it comes to basics, just trying to survive.

A boy once told me something like “when you get to the end of the road, it’s better to have a worn out heart than a pristine one.” What does he know? I thought. I still think.

I like my pristine little heart all glittery and guarded by a fortress of emotions. You couldn’t break in if you tried with a jackhammer.

My 1st edition heart has been shelved a long time and it looks to be never read. My pages aren’t dog-eared, no one has left notes in the margins.

When I get to the end of my road, my heart won’t be worn out and maybe it will be priceless, a one of a kind first edition, still memorialized between it’s own covers.

christmastime's a'coming

2006-12-19T14:34:00.000-05:00

To say that Christmas is my favorite season is to say, "Hello, my name is Anna."

I'm not a Christmas sweater,jingle-bell earring wearing Christmas lover. I'm the Christmas music 24-7, baking special Christmas only recipes, eggnog drinking, finding the perfect Christmas card, holiday party, real tree trimming Christmas lover.

And the best thing about Christmas is the long break I get from work. I'm sitting in Panera Bread just wiling away the hours. I had a massage yesterday after strolling down Carytown shopping with a friend. I love the relaxed feel of time off at Christmas. It's better than summer, or Spring Break, or even the perfectly planned weekend. I'm just enjoying things right now and writing here on my little space in the World Wide Web has not been top priority. I'll get back here soon. My plan today is to sit here and write and write and write until I'm tired of writing, but never, never tired of Christmas.

i’m wishing for snow

2006-12-09T22:11:00.000-05:00

It’s still technically fall, but when coats and gloves are necessary we automatically put “winter” in our everyday vernacular. And I love winter. Love it the most even though when fall comes I think it is my favorite. It isn’t. Not truly at least. Winter is the one that I long for. It’s my second skin, my soul mate.

The darkness feels strange at first then it becomes so usual and almost comforting, makes snuggling into bed early an OK venture. And candles. Oh candles in the cold. Sometimes I burn candles instead of turning on the heat. It works. Kinda.

I could live on a land that only had winters, where down was stuffed inside everything, where tea, hot chocolate, soup, and grilled cheese ruled the kitchen. I could wake up to snow each morning and go to sleep with a fire each night.

On come winter, come to my house.

reading through

2006-12-06T00:10:00.000-05:00

It's so easy to run back through the words of time, imagine the evirnoments in which they were written, know that the other person had you at the forefront of their minds. And now....

It's the re-reading I like the most, the culling of details I might have skipped over. I barely live my own life. I read a great deal, but I never re-read books. I do, quite often, re-read the words that other have written to me.

This must be my need to be claimed, to understand that at one time, words were important enough to make them permenant and then give that permenance to me. So, it is mine. As much mine at the books on my bookshelves and ever so much more real with references and events I have experiences. The letters, emails, cards.... the bigger senses of what I really want, words, the breaking down of meaning, or understanding.

Or whatever. It's been a little rollercoast reading night.

in which i forgot

2006-11-28T23:02:00.000-05:00

I totally had something to tell you and when the page finally loaded and all that whiteness just sat there, my mind said, "Nah, ain't got no clue what was twirling around two secs. ago. Whatever, like what's on amazon?"

I'm flightly. I'm tired. I just spent 2 hours knitting with strangers and spent too much $ on really good yarn for my ownself. I deserve it. I'm fabulous, so there.

That makes the second stranger filled happening of the week. I might be beating my own record for number of strangers conversed with for prolonged portions of time without running away during the span of 4 days.

opera is fishy

2006-11-27T23:05:00.000-05:00

I went to the Opera on Friday night. It was my first. I was underwhelmed.

I wanted so much to be swept away, carried on the waves of sound from the voices trilling in front of me. I wasn't moved. I was bored even.

It wasn't the performers, it wasn't that it was Opera. It was the story, it was the questioning in my mind as to why they just didn't make a musical out of it.

I've been babysitting for an Opera singer lately and it peaked my interest. I've always meant to go to the Opera and somehow never have. Then, my cousin from NYC was here and she above all others jumped at the chance for Opera. I love cousin poets from NYC who go to mediocre Opera with me.

It wasn't all lost. We met an old man who very reluctantly told us he escaped from Germany before the war saying, "Well, you know we didn't we have a choice. It was the thirties during Hitler's days." He wasn't much for talking about his past, the only thing I wanted to talk about, crack open his plethora of history, this survivor of Nazi Germany, this living relic in the seat next to me, my seat at the Opera. I envision his life in so many ways. The verions are endless and every changing, but I will hold steadfast the image of the frozen fish he said were thawing in his car while he sat and watched Opera.

this day

2006-11-23T20:59:00.000-05:00

I hope you belly is full of happiness and pumpkin pie.

driving rain

2006-11-22T17:44:00.000-05:00

I used to think my car was the bomb because it was brand new in 2000 with things I had never really considered a car could have. I had been driving a 1987 white, standard Saab that my oldest brother gave to me my second year in college. After graduate school and several months where exhaust fumes began circulating in the car and after 4 wrecks (2 not my fault), a new exhaust system that didn't fix the exfixation problem, I decided to you use my brand new job contract and lay down some signatures for a large amount of money that I didn't yet possess. It sounded like a really good idea to me. Basically, I just wanted a CD player so that I could listen to Jerry Sienfeld's new comedy CD while on road trips.

I've since decided that I will drive this car 'til it dies, or I do, whichever comes first. It's mine now, no large chunks of monthly income going out the window as I drive down the street. Now, wads of cash just billow from the exhaust pipe, happily polluting the trees which I have come to appreciate since I bought the gas guzzingly SUV.

If for some reason I still own this tank when my nephew is 16 I will have to give it to him. I doubt he'll remember though; I made the promise when he was 4. But, then the car was really cool still with the new car smell and shininess. I thought then that even though I couldn't concieve of the new fangled things that cars in 2013 might look like, I thought having a 6 disc CD changer in the armrest would raise my nephew's status among his friends to uber cool. I thought of the hours of music he would roll down the street blasting from those shiny discs spinning beside him. This was before the iPod was really big, it was 2000 still.

So much has changed. I craved an iPod on my drive today through the fog induced rain with no heat. The windshield was fogged and blurred for 3 hours because my tank is beginning to breakdown on me. When I pulled up to my parents' house, the first thing I said was, "I hate the rain. I hate my car." The driver's door is out of line and lets water in plus rushing wind, the powered seats don't work, and no matter what I tell the controls, the vents only blow cold air, even in the off position. It was not a fun 3 hour drive because the only thing that kept me sane were my heated leather seats and a fleece jacket. I guess some of the poshness hasn't totally worn off.

stress dreams

2006-11-21T00:33:00.000-05:00

I took a nap today though it wasn't at all on the agenda or the timetable, but I'm trying as best I can to push back the cold that is edging slowly up my throat. Keeping the cold bug at bay through Thanksgiving is my goal. But while napping, I was in that comotose state where you are aware of things around you, but so very asleep that you can't move. I have these naps when I am my most tired and still have many things that should keep me from taking naps. So, in the dreams I had I had not accomplished the evergrowing list of pre-Wednesday travel day items and thus, ruined Thanksgiving. I'm so tired. I'm so stressed, about little things like making scarves, hats, and Christmas CDs for my cousins. I just love giving too much and I don't have the money to mail everything so this is a one shot deal and there is no time to get it all done. And did I mention that I'm getting sick?

beyond

2006-11-16T23:48:00.000-05:00

I live in quiet community. Sometimes I dream about owning my own house, being able to paint the walls or tear them down if I want to, but everytime I seriously think about it I have nightmares where I end up very confused and close to homeless. So, I stay because I love this place and it seems my psyche likes to just give money away. I like the comfort here and the familiarity, the curiousity I get when I see a window across from me light up. So many blinds are pulled shut and so few people walk about. We're not the friendliest of neighbors and I kinda think that's OK. When I first moved here I thought it was to be like college again where you made friends with everyone and hung out, but this time it'd be the grown-up version with homemade dinners and wine without the RA lurking down the hall. I had a little shindig and tried to get the peeps my age to come round. They did, but that evening was as far as it went. For people my age, this is usually a transition spot, a place for young couples to decide about what house they want to buy, a place for single girls and guys waiting 'til the wedding bells and moving trucks. Now, my neighbors are older or just old. I haven't seen the person below me in some months and the apartment above and across from me must be empty, I think. It's strange how little we know about each other or see each other and yet I know the sleeping, showering, and dishwashing habits of my above neighbors. I still don't know if it's a guy, a girl, or a couple, or what either of their names are. But, just now I heard voices, slurred speech and shuffled feet outside in the leaves and felt like I really was back in college. I turned all the lights out to see what was the unfamiliar noises were and that's when I saw two boys just before one of them walked to the bushes to relieve himself. I can handle the party life and what it does to people, but at 11:30pm on a Thursday, urinating in the common area is beyond reproach.

just tired

2006-11-15T22:30:00.000-05:00

Who likes to hear people complain? Unless it's about people you work with and you have some good dirt or you know someone who knows someone who like knows K-Fed and what a not upstanding guy he really is, then the answer is: no one.

That being said, I'm just going to tell you that I'm tired, pooped, exhausted, worn out, spent, drained, and wanting of really long naps (that's plural baby, PLURAL). For some reason things have piled on and gotten a little bit crazy. I've added three extra jobs on top of the fulltime one. Two are tutoring and one is babysitting on a fairly regular basis and people, I'm just tired. I have too much to do and too little time to do it and when I think of having to come up with a blog post I want to shout "I have 8 to 10 people coming to dinner on Friday, a football game on Saturday out of town, 2 hats to knit plus baby booties and a baby hat, worksheets to copy, packages to wrap, a house to clean, and sanity to remaing intack for the next week so I can't be bothered with the posting and all of these things!"

Much love to you though. For reals, yo. Night!

in which i dodge my commitment

2006-11-14T22:43:00.000-05:00

I signed up to do this. The month of November was to be a daily dose of blogging and yet I skipped a few days cause, well, you know, sometimes it's just too hard to think up dribble and type it out. It's a cool little project that you should go skipping through and keep checking back to see if I keep up my bargin through the rest of the month, at least.

thanks and giving

2006-11-13T22:14:00.000-05:00

My friend is going to Seattle, clear across the country, a full day's plane ride. I'm sad about it, but I don't get to lose her until June or July so the true crying and tear jerking is on hold until then. She's staying to finish out the school year while her husband goes clear across the country, a full day's plane ride.

They'll miss Thanksgiving together and it being my most favoritist of holidays, I had to do something. So, I'm hosting Thanksgiving, a little early, in my house for like 12 people. I'm a little Ahhh! about it, but she needs this; he needs this. We need to say goodbye to him, support her, and just be thankful we happened into each other's lives.

I can't imagine a love for me, someone that I just can't believe I get to spend the rest of my life with, but I do feel this for my friends. How lucky I am to have stumbled so ungracefully at the foot of their friendships. For that I give them thanks.

stranger than fiction

2006-11-12T23:37:00.000-05:00

He once told me that he looked on amazon.com for the title of the book he wanted to write and was satisfied that this epitome of literature would not mislead him. The title he was thinking of was something like "Drifting Apart." But, I don't believe he ever sat down to write a thing though I know he writes the book everyday, everytime he opens his mouth to speak, possibly to breathe. I want to tell him now that a better resource would be the library of congress because out of print books won't show up on amazon.com. But, I can't tell him because we've, well, you know.

free write-candlelight

2006-11-09T21:33:00.000-05:00

Is it one word or two? Candlelight. Candle light. I don't know. I don't really care. I'm begun burning candles as the weather ebbs toward cold and I refuse to turn the heat on. It does seem a little silly, to be burning candles rather than turning the heat on. But then I think of the pioneers and not only did they not have heat to turn on, but they had to read by the candlelight as well! I couldn't do that. A candle really gives almost no light at all. And therefore, it would follow, probably no heat at all. But, I like it. I like the idea of the rugedness about it. The willing of the soul in this modern age to sit in front of a computer screen and type by candlelight. It feels so Jane Austeny, so utterly romantic as well, in the non-love sense. I've begun puttting candles on the windowsills in my reading room and lighting them (along with a small book light) when and only when I am reading at night. It makes the adventure of the book, the destination I'm going to, so much more etheral. And that, afterall, is what reading is suppose to make you feel, a little bit fancy free. I might just need some candles to help me on my way. I'm sure, however, that passersby think it odd that three to four small candles are flickering in a windowsill of a room that does not seem to be inhabitated, as my reclining/ reading position is below said windowsills. What must they think of the lone candles in the windows? Do they get scare their apartments will catch fire when the unattended flames reek havoc in my apartment? It won't happen. I've got too many books up in this joint that I don't want burning. I'm not into the Naziness of all that. I just like my candles with a little side of reading.

why amazon.com is my new/old boyfriend

2006-11-08T22:38:00.000-05:00

Amazon.com is always there for me no matter what time of day or wherever I am, knows what a like, keeps track of the things I've already got, listens when I want to spout about the horribleness of something or someone, advises me on mistakes I'm about to make, surprises me at my door with things I love, takes my change at coinstar counters and lets me get "free" stuff with it, recommends what might cheer me up when I'm in a mood, gives me discounts and coupons out of the blue and free super saver shipping. I've been slightly in love with amazon.com for a long time, but I'm thinking of taking this to the next level. I'm thinking of letting amazon.com cook me dinner.

my election story

2006-11-07T22:26:00.000-05:00

In seventh grade homeroom we were told by the calm and docile shop teacher (yep, shop teacher) that we need to elect a homeroom representative. I now have no idea what the job of this person was, but I remember the election very clearly because I ran.

My opponent was a blond haired girl named Susan whom I had known for years and years. She was smart, quiet and nice. She was not of the "in" crowd (read: she did not hang with my peeps), but she was the closest to a normal person in our homeroom so she was the one I sat beside and pretended to have a friendship with for that 15-20 minute period. We made no speeches or cries for votes. We simply raised out hands to volunteer to run and then a vote was cast. I assumed, this being my very first election, that one must never vote for oneself in a public vote because that would seem too selfish, too needy, too bigheaded. And so, in my selflessness, I raised my hand to vote for Susan and by doing this lost the election quite quickly. Susan, however, voted for herself. She wasn't as nice as I thought she was.

Whether you voted for your opponent or yourself, a democrat or a republican, I hope you voted today. If you didn't you should feel like Susan should feel, selfish and ashamed.

in which i insight my need for you to understand

2006-11-06T23:04:00.000-05:00

I've heard it called Rocktober and I kinda like that one And hearing that version makes the elementary ryhmer in my go all giddy and melodious. I would, however, like to settle definitively on Nocktober. That's my name for this past month that is gone and already old by six days.

"N" for the nothing that happened, for the none of books that I read, for the numb I didn't feel and yet. October was a passive month, one in which weeks seemed to fly by and yet. I would not say it was funk this time, to the contrary and yet. There are days and days I didn't write, days and days I didn't read. I filled my time and was not languishing, was not tormented and yet I remember October as a blur of days that just went by. "N" for the next month coming round that would offer breath and life to the days that just went by.

I've opened books again and am thinking about if not writing again. Something in the written word opens me up and lets me feel my own pulse like when you've gone on a run and when you are done with the work, the heaving of the body through time and space, you can't believe you could feel that good from such a simple mechanical motion. Words are becoming a station in my brain that must be satiated daily like breathing, like eating, like...

i want to celebrate the turkey

2006-11-05T21:40:00.000-05:00

I'm not big on authority. I'm a rule follower, but I just don't like the idea of someone telling me what to do. Hence, the need and abiding love I have for living alone, free to wander or nap as I please AND leave as many dishes in the sink as I like. There are, however, a few rules I am unbearably and increasingly more obnoxious and vocal about and those rules come into effect in October, November and December.

I've never been a big Halloween buff, but this year I started to like the idea of all the tacky decorations and the creativity in costuming. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday by stretches and leaps and bounds and is, in my opinion, the best day of the year because I get to be around the people I love the best and do the thing I love the best, eat. Christmas, however, is my favorite holiday season because I believe that Christmas is a feeling and spirit and far more than just one day and therefore it does not compete with Thanksgiving. My like/love for these festivities are very strickly limited to the month in which they happen to occur.

I like Halloween in October, not August or September. I like Thanksgiving in November, not slightly hidden behind Halloween and Christmas. And I like Christmas the day after Thanksgiving and for all of December and not the day after Halloween. What I'm saying is, "I'M SICK OF THE COMMERCIALISM OF HOLIDAYS THAT ARE MEANT TO BE ABOUT FAMILY AND GIVING AND I JUST WANT TO CELEBRATE THE TURKEY RIGHT NOW, NOT THE BABY JESUS!!!!!!!"

happiness

2006-11-04T20:03:00.000-05:00

Happiness came knocking on my door today, this morning to be exact. For no reason, so unexpectedly, it showed up. I love happiness. I welcome it with open arms. Happy Fall. Happy Happiness.