While We're NOT on the Subject of Japan...

Several weeks before I went to Japan, I happened to be at Safeway filling a prescription, and I had to wait awhile and this magazine caught my eye:



The copy talked about the most important article I could read this year, so I picked up the magazine and flipped to it. The article was about the losses of the war, written around the trip home for a fallen soldier, and it was interesting enough, but I bought the magazine because of two articles: The 75-year-old Alpha Male Don Wildman (and the related "Change Your Life in One Week" article) and the list of 75 Skills Every Man Must Master. The latter, especially, I wanted to memorize. I read through the magazine several times, and then I went to Japan.

Well. Apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed this article. While I was out of the country, it was apparently blogged about, discussed, shot down, idolized, added to, the add-ons were argued about, etc. People tried to write female versions. You know you've got a really good list when you publish it and immediately people tell you you're wrong. For myself, I liked it, especially the parts about things I don't know much about. For example, I don't know anything about gambling, but I believe the list when it tells me I should know how to place three different bets on a craps table and split aces and eights in blackjack. I'll work on it. It's not NECESSARILY a man's list, because women could certainly stand to know how to do all 75 things. But there's a few more things that women should know, I think.

One restatement of this list that I actually like can be found here (possibly the only right-wing link on this blog so far). An example of stupid comments about this list can be found here, especially annoying because the name of that blog is the same as the title of a really excellent book that doesn't deserve to be associated with stupidity.

(For more, there's more discussion on this than you could ever want on this google search.

And Now, My Two Cents

I've been thinking a lot about this sort of thing recently. I recently realized, while running, that most humans should be able to jog two miles and walk five miles or so, daily, if necessary, and that got me thinking about things that Most Humans Should Be Able To Do. In the case of Armageddon, what would I do if I had no food and water? No way to contact family? How would I travel? What would I do with Titan? Where would I sleep, how would I shower enough to stave off disease? Would I know what plants to eat safely or how to cook a rabbit? Would I know how to find clean water? And then I started making a list, in my head, of things that Most Humans Should Be Able To Do, and more specifically, Things Grown Women Should Be Able To Do.

Most Humans Should Be Able To:

1. Run or walk quickly enough to cover a mile in ten minutes or less. Then keep going for several miles. What if someone is chasing you? What if you have to catch a ferry?

2. Cook for themselves without prepared food. Most humans should be able to cook for themselves and feed themselves properly and healthfully. There's no need to count vegetable servings. Starting the day with complex carbohydrates and fruit and nuts, and then repeating that process two more times, adding a complete protein, is all you need and it's not difficult.

3. Lift most things you own. In a pinch, if you are friendless, alone, and broke, you should be able to move your stuff. Be able to separate what's important and what's not; keep track of the stuff that is important, let the rest go.

4. Know how to inflict pain. Physical pain, that is. Know how to inflict pain on an attacker. I've read that the eyes and nose are especially good, as, of course, are the privates if he is male. Don't punch with your hand--you'll break the bones. Use the heel of your hand. The head is also a good weapon; the skull is a lot harder than almost any other bone in the body. Smash suddenly forwards or backwards with your head, or drive an elbow into the stomach. Smash down on the instep. (The arch of the foot.) Grab of handful of his hair and attempt to rip it out. It will hurt.

5. Fend Off Boredom and Depression. Set yourself goals for the day. Do them. Work out a routine for each week of different things you will do on each day. Stick to it. You should include: working, exercising, eating, household chores, and time spent on a pleasant hobby. There's plenty of way more involved websites about this, but household chores should include: keeping the windows, walls, and floors clean. Keeping the bath, toilet, and shower clean. Keeping the counters and kitchen sink clean. Changing the bedsheets. If you can't remember the last time you did any of these things, you're not doing them often enough. It seems simplistic, but I have trouble with this, full disclosure. Writing it down in this simple fashion can help.

6. Get enough sleep. This is one of the most important things humans can do. It helps maintain body weight, hunger cravings, and mood. Not sleeping enough drops your IQ as much as smoking marijuana. You have no excuse to get less than eight hours. Kick in your TV and give away your computer if you find yourself pressed for time.

7. Spend Less Than You Make. A lot less. You can't buy everything, just get over the idea right now. Someone will always have more toys than you. And if you can't be first place in the toy race, why are you fighting for 52nd place? No one cares. Buy the stuff you need, buy a few things you want, spend the rest of the time developing a hobby.

More Specifically, For Women

8. Know how to take pain. Women, not having the benefit of tough sports, often don't know how to protect themselves, and so will simply stand and take physical punishment, or will run, or scream. Know which parts of your body you have to protect and let the other parts take the punishment. Hold up your arms in front of your face, or if you're on the ground, curl up into a ball to protect your inner organs. Your arms and legs will heal, your face won't. The kicks or punches or knife cuts will hurt terribly, but it's all superficial. Really. Let your limbs take the pain. If he has a gun, though, definitely do run and scream, in that order. It's very difficult to hit a moving target.

9. Know Your Limit and Stay Below It. Do not become noticeably drunk in a public place. Know your limit with food and without food; with sleep and without sleep. My personal rule: If I've eaten recently and am well-rested or pumped up on adrenaline I can drink a maximum of two drinks per hour. If I haven't eaten in as few as two or three hours that drops to one drink per hour. Other rules I try to follow: Avoid being the most drunk one, no matter what. Hot weather or working up a sweat dancing increases feelings of intoxication, so watch out for that, as does smoking. Try to avoid sugary drinks, or mixing alcohols. After midnight, stop drinking. Do Not Succumb to Peer Pressure to have six shots of tequila in an hour.

10. Nothing Wrong With Getting Drunk Sometimes. Do it at home with people you know. Some women I know only get drunk with other women, pretty specific but valid.

11. Know how to tell when a man is not right for you. It could be for something tiny. That's fine.

12. Know how you feel about marriage and kids. Not how your mother feels or how your friends feel, even your best friends. You'll find other methods of fulfillment if you truly don't want kids or a husband. You just have to admit it to yourself first.

13. Get Over the Idea of Romance. I can't believe how many grown women--way older than I am--that I've known of who left their husbands because of someone they met online or in a pottery class. Who claimed true love. Who find the idea of star-crossed love attractive and want it to happen to them. There are very few real great love stories that have happened or will happen in the history of the world. Your love for your new internet friend is not among these.

14. Know your personal style. I look good in higher-waisted jeans and crisp button downs, wrap dress, and fitted tanks or tees. I look better in higher waists, but not empire waists unless they're fitted just right. I look good in medium-to-deep colors. I look terrible in cardigans, vests, suspenders, low-rise anything, most empire-waist things, any pullover that sits right at my hips, and any pastels or warm tones. Know this about yourself.

15. Don't obsess about your personal style so much that you refuse to wear your friend's bridesmaid dress.

16. Decide who your important friends are in your life. Cherish them. Make sacrifices for them. Loan them money, offer to babysit. Make sure these things are returned. Give them honest advice when they ask for it. When they don't, keep your mouth shut. Unless your friend is being abused, her relationship is not your relationship.

17. If a friend complains for more than a year about her relationship but doesn't do anything constructive, you're allowed to tell her to shut up occasionally.

17. Stay in contact with your family. Even if you don't get along.

18. Refuse to obsess about things. Meditate enough so that you know the tangled paths your brain goes down. When it goes down a bad one, stop it. Especially do not obsess about germs, work, or relationships. Basic personal hygiene is plenty of guard against getting sick. Work on your career, and work on work; when you leave work, forget about it. Some of your relationships will work out and some won't. Maybe you'll end up divorced at 55. Worrying about that now won't change the outcome one bit.

19. Put your feelings aside. While in the sports game, or in the argument, or in the raise discussion, disregard all emotion. You'll have plenty of time afterwards.

20. Know how to carry on a conversation with a famous person. Regardless of my success or lack thereof with the other items on this list, I have absolutely no idea how to do this. Thoughts?

21. Know how to talk to a very good looking man. SMILE, for God's sake. He's just human. Ask him where he's from, ask him what he does for a living, ask him what he does in his spare time. Everyone wants to be found fascinating.

22. Know how to budget your time. You really do not have to do everything. This seems like a little thing, but if you constantly seek to be Superwoman, you'll never be happy, and you'll obsess and become overly emotional. Be very good at some things. Pay someone else to do the other things for you.

23. Keep a stock of guest foods. Nuts, cheese, chocolate. A few beers, a few bottles of wine, some basic liquors. There's nothing that makes me feel more like a failure than when people show up at my house and I have nothing to offer them. Cream for coffee, toilet paper in the bathroom, soap on the sink.

24. Make peace with your relationship with feminism. How do YOU feel about make up, about gender roles, about sexual assault, about blow jobs? Don't worry if the feminist party line is different. You think for you.

Among the Things I Bought

It's inevitable: you will buy things, especially things that you would like to take with you on trips, and you will take them on trips--many, many trips--and if you are not LT, they will eventually break.

In this case, Japan ate my camera and my iPod earbuds, although it might be more appropriate to say that two very clumsy and cow-like ladies climbing over seats on my Northwest flight ate my earbuds. (One of them, with her tree-trunk legs, broke off my earbuds in the jack. Making it impossible for me to fix the problem with a new set of headphones. Two hours into the nine hour flight. I'm still miffed.)

Regardless, Japan actually did eat my camera, although I'm sure all the trips to the mountain didn't help either, and I have to (darn!) buy a new one. And then while I was at it I bought some earbuds, and three books, and I do also desperately need an immersion blender. (Shut UP. I do.)

And then I read this post, and then I read the follow-up, and I thought, yes! That's what I need to do!

And then I saw this list of cute shoes.

In conclusion, I must stop reading blogs. Thank you.

P.S. I realize I just went ahead and bought a camera and some earbuds without asking you guys for opinions, and yes, I realize that I'm not tapping my blog audience here. I'm an impulse buyer, what can I say? Just ask my American Express card.

Postponed

I KNOW. I know. Japan. But I went camping this weekend. You'll have to excuse me.

Moving on, I bought a bunch of things to replace the things that got broken on my vacation and three books. I'm cooking all the vegetables in my house before they go bad and I'm off to tutoring. One of these days I swear I'm going to scale back to one job.

Sustainability Vs. Yuppiedom

A good example of a morning that's sustainable for my waistline, wallet, and the planet:

6:15 am: Wake up. Shower, dress. Pack breakfast and lunch: Homemade bread sandwich with local cheese and farmers' market pear. Homemade vegetable soup made from farmers' market vegetables, quinoa, a farmers' market apple, and a SIGG bottle with water. Extra credit: salad of dandelion greens from front yard. Fill personal mug with tea or coffee.

7:00 am: Take Titan for nice 20 minute walk. Taking backpack, lunch sack, and mug filled with hot beverage of choice, catch bus into downtown. Catch bus to Bellevue.

12:00 pm: Take walk at lunchtime.

5:00 pm and beyond: Ride bus back. Take long walk with Titan and do the Eastlake Hill Climb, or alternatively, go for thirty minute jog. Relax with glass of organic, local, red wine. For extra credit: Ferment homemade wine.

A good example of a morning that is not sustainable in any way, shape, or form:

10:00 am: Wake up, cursing with jet lag, at alarm that has been going off for four hours. Work very fast from home to make up for missing hours.

11:00 am: Far too late to take bus. No time to pack lunch. Get in car, drive to Bellevue. Stop to buy hugely fancy coffee from Starbucks in paper cup. Buy peppered bacon and cheese breakfast sandwich, packaged in paper bag.

2:00 pm: Sit on duff for hours.

6:00 pm: Drive to Happy Hour.

8:00 pm: Drive to grocery shopping.

9:00 pm: Drive home. Let engine run for several extra hours just for kicks. Leave refrigerator open and turn up heat extra high. Turn on all lights in the house to go to sleep.

Okay, I was just exaggerating at the end. But STILL.

New Goal: More days like the former, a lot fewer like the latter. Hey, I carpooled today...

Home! Socks, Driving, Ceremony.

Yes, it's true, I'm back in the USSR. I mean, Seattle. (Anyone get the Beatles reference? By the way, did you know that the LT can't stand the Beatles? I'm dating a man who doesn't like the Beatles and prefers peanut butter cookies over chocolate chip, not that he's the devil or anything.)

ANYWAY.

So far I have paid all my bills and returned my way-overdue library books, shockingly enough, and Titan and I are getting reacquainted. A few thoughts on returning:

1. Being able to understand overheard conversations is actually not that interesting. Most people don't have casually interesting conversations, except of course T-Town and myself, and we are FASCINATING. I sort of miss being able to tune out the chatter because I can't understand it anyway.

2. If T-Town and I never open up our bikini coffee stand in Whistler, we are opening a sock company in Japan. I've never seen so many socks in my life. Japanese girls do not, under any circumstances, go barefoot. Or bare-legged. If they wear shorts or skirts, they wear pantyhose or thigh highs. (I saw a ton of thigh-highs. With very spiky sandals. At first, the girls I saw looked very tarted-up, and then I realized that to them, bare legs would have looked way more inappropriate than I found their thigh-highs to be.) Because not only are bare legs inappropriate in Japan, but because no one wears shoes indoors, you have to have socks on or else you'll be going around in bare feet, so the style was to have special lacy socks that were meant to peek out from your stiletto heels. Some socks even had straps on them to add visual dimension to your spiky heels. Weird.

3. Umbrellas. Coming from Seattle, where no one uses umbrellas, it was a shock to see rainy streets COVERED in umbrellas. EVERYONE has one, and they don't fold up--they're the old-fashioned kind that look like a cane when furled, no actual collapsing. You can buy clear furled ones, with white trim, at any gas station for three bucks. There's umbrella stands at all doors, at all shops, everywhere, and no one takes your umbrella when you leave it there, and in fancier stores there's an attendant waiting at the doorway with a special plastic bag for your umbrella, with which he or she politely encases your umbrella and then hands it back to you with a bow. Even a three dollar umbrella.

4. Speaking of attendants, for a country so obsessed with automation, Japan employs thousands and thousands of people. Every subway has two conductors, every ticket window is staffed, every store has six people working each small floor, there's a guy who encases your umbrella and a guy who hands you a shopping cart. Their labor charges must be enormous. At ten at night, in a huge camera store, there might be fifteen workers for every customer. No one goes home, no one acts bored. The minute you come in the store they treat you like royalty and don't stop until you leave. I had reason to go in a bank, and the Js and I were bowed at by ten people and ushered around by fifteen more. On the way to the rest room alone.

5. Ceremony. In a country known for mass-production, the Japanese still treat every purchase, every object, like it is uniquely valuable. A four dollar comb is picked up carefully with both hands, shown to you, held while the price tags are gently scraped off, carefully wrapped, and presented to you with both hands. And a bow. I bought a ten-yen stamp--less than ten cents--and the hotel clerk brought out a special book that is only meant to hold stamps, arranged in neat little rows of plastic holders. I picked one out, and the hotel clerk handed it to me...with both hands. And he barely had space for both sets of fingers on that tiny piece of paper.

6. Disorientation. I flew in from Tokyo on Monday morning, and I met T-Town for lunch that same day, and I was surprised about how helpless I felt, driving to meet her and then driving somewhere else, in a town that I had grown up in, for 16 years. I was in a slightly unfamiliar area, but that's not a big enough reason as to why I felt it necessary to write down her directions to the freeway and obsess about how to get to the restaurant. More importantly, I was jet-lagged and disoriented, and most importantly, I was unused to driving. When you're on foot, you can change direction at a moment's notice, you can just stop on the sidewalk or in the subway, you can call people or decide to pop into a computer store or spend half an hour reading a map while foot traffic flows around you. Taking the car, I felt that I had to have a specific plan and it couldn't change. If I wanted to go somewhere else, where would I park? How would I get there? What if I got lost? On foot I felt more secure, and even safer; I don't know why.

Eleven Days Down, One to Go

I have gawked at real live geisha, I have cheered at sumo bouts, I have seen the largest Buddha in the world, I have seen sculptures from the 7th century, I have been in palaces and experienced nightengale floors and gotten to know a country, a history, and a people. I have squirmed to enlightenment by a shortcut. I am in Tokyo on my last night before I leave this amazing country, and I am filled with a desire to see ALL the countries of this world, right now, I never want to go back to my "real" life.

Lots of photos--more photos than any human should want to see, ever--coming up. Highlights from the trip. Notes on gear, what I brought, what I forgot. Tips on getting cash in a foreign country with no PIN number, drinking with Norwegian boys, communicating by sign language with Japanese girls, and playing, "Guess What's In My Bento Box" on a hungover stomach. The three stages of Templeosity. Deer-feeding. Being fascinated by Engrish. I fly home tomorrow. I'll miss vending machine iced coffee and convenience store food, I won't miss language barriers. I'll cover everything in detail. Stay tuned.

Trains, Cable Cars, Ropeways, and Boats

Very short post to say:

1. The JJs and myself are now in Kyoto.
2. We did not see Mt. Fuji although we tried twice.
3. We have learned that although Tokyo's train system is larger, trying to navigate Kyoto's train system based on spotty tourist guide information and no English is way more difficult.
4. We got some GORGEOUS photos.
5. Writing an email to my boyfriend is more important than finishing this post.

From Kyoto,
Aarwenn

Japan, First Day

5/09/08, 4:15 am

I've been awake since 3:20--a coughing fit and the impossible-to-shake-off-sense that it's really 11:20 in the morning combine to make me sleepless. I know what time it is because I brought my watch, which was the single most important decision I made preparing for this trip--I didn't know that my phone wouldn't tell time if it couldn't find a network, and had I not had my watch I would have continually been asking people who don't speak my language for the time. That sounds like a one-way ticket to insanity to me.

5/9/08, Later in the Morning

I have mainly strolled through parks today so far, after the fish market and my sushi breakfast. (If I can get my camera to work, I can retrieve the pictures--the tuna were about as big as Mrs. J and myself put together, with no exaggeration.) The duck park--that's Hama Rihkyu Garden, for those playing along at home--was really incredible. Very peaceful, I got some great photos, and I had tea and a sweet at a tea house, with my best attempt at performing a tea ceremony. Hama Rihkyu Garden was built as a duck hunting ground for a Shogun, which is why I call it the duck park, although they might as well call it the crow park now--I've never seen louder or larger crows. You can actually hear them walking on gravel, that's how larger they are--as big as hawks.

This park is connected to Tokyo Bay, so the ponds are saltwater--and the wildlife is incredible. All kinds of birds, shellfish like oysters and clams seemed to be everywhere, growing all over the rocks, and walking along Tokyo Bay, I happened to look down and see a STING RAY swimming past, the first once I've ever seen in the wild.

The next park I saw, Kyushiba Rikyu Garden, was fresh water, with well-groomed lakes, islands, and bridges. If you stand at the water's edge for more than a minute, the huge carp see you and rush over, fighting with each other and turning their noses up and opening their mouths, begging for treats just like puppies. Feed them and they fight like crazy. A comorant flew in and groomed himself on a big rock, and all over on all the rocks the turtles were out, sunning themselves, standing so still that I almost thought they were statues. Great wildlife here.

Random notes: I wore the wrong shoes for 12 hours of walking--not used to starting my day at 5--and my feet hurt so badly I could barely walk Friday night. Tokyo is beating me up, but I don't care, I love it. There's Starbucks everywhere, although I have (as yet) only gone into one, mainly to get my picture taken. I am very lucky that my ryokan has a refrigerator--although no microwave--because Thursday night when I ate, I pointed something on the menu, then changed my mind and shook my head, and pointed to something else. I guess I should have just gone with my first choice--the waiter thought I wanted both things, and both things were large enough to split with another person! Suddenly I had four times as much food as I needed! I had some leftover soup for breakfast on Saturday morning before taking a side trip out of Tokyo for a day--worked great.

Summary from Yesterday

So, I have figured out the subway system, learned how to use sign language and the occasional American word said in a Japanese accent to be understood, bought a phone card and a chapstick and a plug adapter. As long as you don't ask me to do anything complicated like pee, I'll be all set.

(My Ryokan--traditional Japanese Inn--has Western-style toilets, THANK BLOG.)

And a quote: My friends, the JJs, got here today. I was supposed to meet them at their hotel and got there before they did, so I took a walk. Just a few minutes later, they showed up, and the front desk lady said, before they even said who they were, "Oh! Your friend was here!" She told them I had gone to look for a cup of coffee, and they laughed. When they found me on the street, J said, "We heard you were here and we thought, "We just have to find the blonde in the coffee shop, and that'll be her. She's probably the only blonde for dozens of miles."

The blonde in the coffee shop, that's me!

From Tourist to Local in 24 Hours

From my journal on Wednesday morning, after having been locked out of the house without my luggage:

Actually on my way to Japan by myself. I can't believe this is happening. This, so far, is the best decision I have ever made.

5/8/08, On the Plane

Same day on my personal clock, but tomorrow! I've crossed the international date line! Never done that before. According to the Northwest Info screen, Tokyo is 16 hours ahead of Seattle. Huh.

Note to self: Flying sick is the worst thing ever. I seriously thought my head was going to explode.

5/8/08, Just an Hour Later

I have visited two Japanese bathrooms (looking for tissue, and also looking for a really high tech toilet, found the former but not the latter). Have successfully bought a cold green tea from a vending machine and a pack of gum from a kiosk. Have leanred that the right way to say "thank you" is to say it all at once, with emphasis on the Do: DOmoarigato. I think I can do that.

I find the Japanese signage, packaging, and everything endlessly fascinating, despite not being able to hear out of one ear. (Leftover from plane ride.) A lady next to me on the train is playing Sodoku, probably a Japanese game in the first place. Numbers are the same in every language, always a comfort--at least buying things is easy! (A little too easy. Suddenly I wish I were bad at math.)

I felt so miserable on the plane that I briefly considered flying home again and crawling into bed. Never have I felt that pessimistic on the start of a trip, even business trips. I felt--and still feel--truly awful, although the excitement of being somewhere new--and interaction with other humans, even more critical, even something as little as learning to say hello--has helped a great deal.

5/8/08, Still Later

I have learned many important things.

1. Make sure the signature you use on your traverler:s checks is consistent. Don't use the long version to buy them and the short version to turn them in for cash, and especially, on the only one you bought using the short version, don't decide to cash it in using the long version. You will cause yourself and some older Japanese men several minutes of anxiety. In the end I think they just gave me my money to be rid of the crazy foreign lady.

2. Using the toilet is apparently not foolproof. In many public bathrooms, they have bidets--female urinals, a great idea--and I cannot use them. I tried once, and am sure I got it all wrong. Now after 24 hours in Japan I will still walk a long way to find a western-style toilet.

3. Shoes that you thought were comfortable won't be after 12 hours on your feet.

4. Even after being up for 36 hours, jet lag will still hit you hard at 3:30 am. Be productive and just get up.

More to come, on how I felt pretty hip and local-like until I ordered four meals worth of food and it was all brought to my table.

Miss everyone, enjoying myself hugely.

Leaving for JAPAN!

So far I have:

1. Washed all my dishes.
2. Returned all library books.
3. Run an important bank errand. (Fighting some overdraft fees.)
4. Emptied my refrigerator of all perishables.
5. Held my mail.
6. Packed.

So far I need to:

1. Return some things at REI.
2. Buy traveler's checks.
3. Buy a small, collapsible, second bag for more stuff. (optional.)
4. Do some work. (In the morning.)
5. Leave for airport at 11 am.
6. Get over this damn cold!

Good bye, everybody! I've got to go! Gotta leave it all behind and face the...oh, wait, that's a different song.

About Those Vietnamese Sandwiches...

Aarwenn's a tease, or more likely a ditz. I mentioned Vietnamese sandwiches, and then I didn't talk about them, as the LT pointed out. Whoops.

Picture from Herbivoracious.

Doesn't that look yummy? The author made it himself, an effort which I applaud but see no need to repeat. Instead, I'm following his post on where to buy Vietnamese Sandwiches. Because buying them premade is, in most cases, under two freakin' bucks, so why wouldn't you?

(For those who keep wondering why I'm so excited about the idea of a sandwich being Vietnamese, and isn't that a little racist?--they're a product of the French Imperial Occupation of Vietnam, aka A Specific Food Item.) I've never had one but plan to buy one or several at my earliest opportunity.

Japan and Vietnamese Sandwiches

Yes, I realize the only thing that relates those two items is the continent of Asia, which is pretty freakin' large and barely a connecting force.

Japan and Globe-Crossing Girls.

Hello! It's Tuesday, and I leave for Japan in eight days. I have been freaking out about this trip, at least until I found some blogs about Round The World (RTW) trips, especially this amazing girl's blog, and realized that comparatively, my trip is pretty small potatoes. We're going to Japan for twelve days, all the hotels and airfare are booked, I'm traveling with two people AND I have a few contacts in the region. This is a walk in the park compared to, say, an overland trip through Mongolia.

Luxury, Discomfort, and Buckminster Fuller.
I'm reading Tim Ferriss' book The Four-Hour Work Week, which I'm not even going to bother linking to because its everywhere, and it's fascinating--not just for Tim Ferriss' unique point of view and his language structure, which at times reminds me of R. Buckminster Fuller--but also for its use of quotes. Either Mr. Ferriss has done some extensive reading or his editor has, because there are some amazing quotes in there that I have never heard before. A key one is attributed to Jean Cocteau, which I can't find online and can't remember word for word, but it's about how luxury is only within the reach of those who are not afraid of discomfort. I need to print this quote out and glue it on the insides of my eyelids, so I can read it every time I blink. I need to remind myself that a little food and water is all a body really needs. If I'm cold, or damp, or annoyed, or poorer than I'd like, a little discomfort is surely not going to break me. I can refrain from whining or taking it out on those around me, I'm an adult and a citizen of the world. I can do better.

Hopefully I can remember this lofty goal during my trip to Japan with a couple who lives quite frugally and seems to have completely eliminated their tendency to whine. I've never seen the house less than sparkling clean--floors polished and everything--and they are both Serious Career People. It's not like they just sit on their butts at home. On the weekends they clean out their garage and basement--and they enjoy it. Much like the LT, who rushes home and fixes my microwave, saws out my lampshades so they fit non-standard 1940s-style light fixtures, and eagerly tackles bike maintenance, they have the innate ability to LOVE the chores they do, instead of only doing what they think they will love. This has been my big resolution for 2008--to convince myself to LOVE CHORES. So far I can bring myself to enjoy cleaning my kitchen. Still on the list: laundry, sweeping, vacuuming, and purging. Still some ways to go.

Speaking of Purging
Up until now I've collected socks. I can never remember to bring them places, so I end up stealing socks from my roommates, (Hi Noey! Still have a pair of your frog socks!), friends, relatives, and even boyfriends.) I had two plastic bins taking up the bottom of some wire shelving, one for white socks and one for colors, and they were both filled to the brim with mismatched socks, most of them not in pairs. It was seriously becoming an issue. And yet I couldn't throw them out, even the ratty ones. I thought, "Those socks aren't mine to throw out", or "That's a waste of good socks." Yesterday I finally thought, "Why the hell am I treating about five dollars worth of mismatched socks with such reverence?" and performed a sock purge! I now have ONLY pairs of sock that I will USE, no mismatches, no extra socks. It's hard to convey how exciting this is.

Titan Update
Titan has a new girlfriend. She lives across the hall, her parents and I are sharing dog-sitting duties, and they treat the dogs so much better than I do that Titan PULLS on the leash, trying to get to their apartment, every time we go for a walk. I would be way more hurt if I wasn't so happy that he's getting emotional support and stimulation from all different places. When I go to Japan, for those who are curious, he'll be at The Hotel Fory, aka my grandmother's house. Two weeks of dog sitting would be a lot to ask from a couple I barely know, and my grandmother likes having him over.

Final Japan Note

I bought several things for my Japan trip, in the midst of the freaking out (note that I haven't actually cracked a single Japan GUIDE yet, because buying things is easier than reading). Things I've bought include: two pairs of easy-wash, easy dry underwear, two sports bras and two tanks of the same material, and a water-proof, wind-proof, breathable jacket that can fold up tiny. I plan to wear my jeans, take a few light pairs of pants and a skirt or two, and maybe a nice shirt--and that's it. A few toiletries, including the special face cream, but I've managed to wean my hair down to weekly washings with the help of dry shampoo, which I plan to take.

A word on shoes: I'm not sure what kinds of shoes I'll take. I have a pair of nice round-toe flats that I plan on wearing, and of course a pair of slick tennis shoes. (This, however, requires socks.) Should I take a dress pair? Discuss.

Nosebleeds

Dear Blog, I hate nosebleeds. Not the occasional bloody snot--that happens--but the huge, fire-hose type nosebleeds, the kind that tie you to a sink or tub, anywhere that can be cleaned easily, You sit there, holding your nose, as your life force drips out of you, huge drip by huge drip. You count drips. You count sheep. Your fingers begin to cramp. You pray for time to pass more quickly.

Nosebleeds, whenever they happen, are always at the MOST inconvenient time ever. Your nose never starts to bleed when you're sitting in front of your computer, bored. They start when you're in the shower, late for a date already, and then forced to stand in your bathroom for an hour while your nose takes its sweet time clotting. I once got one in a very dark bar with black napkins, which means that no one noticed, not even me--I just assumed my nose was running--as I was dabbing my nose, until I happened to look at T-Town and her eyes were the size of saucers. "You have blood all over your face," she said quietly. Making a discreet exit to the bathroom is difficult under these circumstances. More difficult, though, is stopping a nosebleed when your blood is as thin as water after a couple of drinks. Forty-five minutes later, T-Town came to check on me and as she opened the door, another patron walked by and turned to look at the blood-soaked bathroom in horror. "I'm not a coke whore," I said, trying to allay suspicion. Shockingly, though, mentioning the words "coke whore" to a random stranger is NOT the way to reassure them.

I got a monster one while I was moving two years ago, and I just had one today. I sat at the sink and hoped I wouldn't run out of toilet paper, because I wouldn't be able to go to the linen closet and get more. My mother is susceptible to them as well, although it's different for her--lighter, more frequent. Me, I have no idea why they happen. Stress? I'm not really under stress, and I had an easy, if weird, day. My bank teller hit on me and gave me his card, and the guy at the diner gave me free breakfast. Not a difficult day. And yet, the nosebleed.

I'M A DESIGNER!

Everyone, oh my god, oh my god. In a burst of creativity, I submitted my house to Apartment Therapy's Small, Cool House contest, and they have decided to accept my submission! CHECK ME OUT! No, seriously, check me out RIGHT HERE, and vote for me, early and often!! (Although I'm pretty sure their voting procedures discourage repeat voting.) But seriously, do it NOW, because I only have THREE DAYS TO WIN THE CONTEST. NOW. Go vote NOW. Even Titan will be voting! Run!

A Reminder of Why it's Good to Tread Lightly Upon the Earth

Everyone who is trying to better their behavior in some way needs some reminders, from time to time, as to why in the hell they are torturing themselves in this godforsaken way. In my case, the long and never-ending battle between me and my money received a nice shot in the arm when I learned that my credit score is 714. I was happy I'd spent all that time running when I learned that my blood pressure is now 110/70. Things like that.

Another one of these things happened to me today as I was walking back from the local Starbucks with my reusable mug filled with coffee. When I had first walked out the door, I realized I had forgotten it, and then I made myself go back and get it. And I walked to Starbucks with the pooch and what have you. And then as I was circling around the block, avoiding the construction so I could have more of a Zen moment as I walked, I realized that something else was circling above me. Hmmm, my thoughts ran. That noisy flock of birds is sure upset about something HOLY CRAP THERE IS A BALD EAGLE ABOVE MY APARTMENT.

And indeed there was. He (or possibly she) was rising higher and higher on the thermals as I caught sight of her, and I just caught glimpses of the white tail and head before she got WAY too far up for me to see much of anything. Once she did that, of course, the smaller birds dive-bombing her dropped away and she was left to soar in peace. I gaped after her, awestruck. Birds of prey are relatively common in this area--it's not unusual to see a hawk or two, and I hear we have peregrine falcons as well. And there's quite a few large birds on our bodies of water--my favorite is the great blue heron, which is so huge that if one sits on a bank with its head under its wing, you mistake them for a very large boulder until they move.

Still, a bald eagle! Awesome!

Starbucks: Love.

Okay, small coffeeshops, blah blah, Starbucks burns their coffee beans, blah blah. I get it. But they have this amazing DEAL happening. (And Starbucks almost NEVER has deals.)

You're going to Starbucks. You're getting your fancy latte. And then the nice lady behind the counter informs you that you can get a free flavor and milk option on your fancy latte. Yes, you can have all flavors and milk options FOR FREE. If you buy a Starbucks card. And THEN, if you go register said Starbucks card, and you buy coffee with it from now on, you'll ALWAYS get free flavors and milk options, FOREVER.

My soy cinnamon dolce latte cost me 3.34. I can't remember the last time any drink at Starbucks has cost me less than five dollars. I can't believe they are doing this, and as a side note, they've gone back to their classic brown siren cups, with the totally sexy 70's siren, and what I am trying to say is that Starbucks has totally gone off its meds and you must take advantage of them, right now.

I Spent Three Hours Without A Cell Phone And SURVIVED.

Yes, I know. I can't believe it either.

Happy Friday to everyone! I think I've learned the art of going to salsa without ruining my entire Friday: Stick to one glass of wine. (You think I would have learned this in the five sessions I've had. But no.) Previous Fridays, I have woken up feeling run over by a truck. Today, I woke up cheerfully at 7 o'clock, attended a teleconference, went to two doctor's appointments, bought a piroshky, went to the bank, bought some bus tickets, got quarters for bus and laundry, and walked home. Hooray! (Actually, I hoofed it TO the doctor's appointments, too--I was about three minutes late. Dammit.)

Somewhere in there, though--a combination of coming home at 1 am last night and waking up early this morning and packing my bag for my Day Of Medicine--I forgot to charge either phone. And right as I arrived at my first appointment and tried to check the time, they...died. I spent the next three hours with just my book and myself, no way to call people or know what time it was, hence why I showed up an hour early for my NEXT doctor's appointment after refreshing myself with Starbucks.

Regardless, it was an enjoyable experience, made much more enjoyable by the fact that I don't have to do it again for another year, hallelujah. (For those who care, I'm finally seeing a dermatologist, and I had the Annual Thing coming up, so I scheduled them on the same day since both places are on Pill Hill, within about twenty feet of each other.)

And the most exciting news of the day: my blood pressure is way down, 110/70! Woo! Who knew regular exercise was good for you?

Google: Love.

Who can't love a company that write such elaborate April Fool's Jokes?

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html

Custom Time! I LOVE IT!

Splendid Debaucherous Nonsense

I really thought I was too old for this, but I have since changed this opinion: you’re never too old to make a fool of yourself on a night of debauchery.

You’re CERTAINLY never too old to make a fool of yourself, but you are also never too old to party like a rockstar; it’s just that you eventually get too old to look good while doing it. In fact, you begin to look ridiculous. But if that doesn’t bother you, then who cares?

On a recent night—and thank Blog these are becoming few and far between—a birthday party that started out tame ended up with a huge dramatic fight between the birthday boy and his fiancé. I got hit on by a pair of quite successful looking lesbians in a Farhenheit GTI, T-Town (an ever-present help in times of trouble) and I bought bottles of champagne at a 7-11, and the Fiance, T-Town, and I successfully ditched some old high school friends by jumping secretly into a cab. At which point we went to my house and drank terrible champagne until 4:30 in the morning. (The next day, the LT said to me, “Didn’t you learn your lesson at the PREVIOUS champagne party?”)

In an amazing sequence of events, I turned out the best for wear and T-Town and I collaborated on breakfast on a fairly reasonable hour (pre-noon), meaning that we didn’t have the added guilt of ruining the whole NEXT day, something I hate. After getting a few things done around the house, I went to VegFest (which I forgot to go to last year when I was ACTUALLY vegan) and joined the Vegetarians of Washington, striking fear into the heart of the LT but to make up for it, receiving a huge bag of goodies from PCC Natural Market and others. At the end of the day, LT and I caught a showing of Stop-Loss, an excellent movie that everyone should see eventually, although you’re allowed to wait until it comes out on video. Powerful, but not too heavy, and well-paced; slow enough to allow the characters to develop like older movies, not like a typical MTV movie. It reminded me of some of the movies shot at the time of the Vietnam War, both about that war and about previous wars, although the pace wasn’t quite as slow as theirs.

A problem about debaucherous nights, though: They’re EXPENSIVE! My goal was to fund Japan entirely with ready cash, and I budgeted about $2400 for this. I may be a little short.

UPDATE: I have a personal fund progress bar up for my Japan Fund. And a little more money talk coming soon.

Smacking Myself in the Forehead

Apparently it is ALSO getting to the point where I post once a week. Whoops.

Moving on! I...well, I...well, hell, I'm just say it: Tickets to Japan for the exact time period that I wanted are now $726. From Northwest Airlines, a very reliable source.

I'll just let that sink in.

This means that I paid $200 more than necessary, had I just waited.

It also means that I should really hold my ground more. I was pretty sure I wanted to wait to buy my plane ticket. Tim Ferriss does it, and according to him he's never missed a day of travel. Also, Metafilter recommended waiting until the tickets were under $800.

OH, well. I learned some things, such as the fact that Fare Compare (that I recommended earlier) really let me down here. I swear when I checked it, it recommended a good ticket price of 1000 bucks. I thought I was doing super well with my ticket price of $925. Now Fare Compare lists a good price at $732.

I also think that the money I paid earlier was probably worth it, if not for my own peace of mind, then for the peace of mind of my traveling companions. I'm traveling with two other people, after all, and it's important in cases like these to take the needs of your travel partners into consideration. While I tend to make hotel reservations as early as I can and then cancel them if need be, my travel partners didn't want to live by the skins of their teeth (Whaaaaaaa?) and wanted to nail down an itinerary. Because I did this, Mrs. Travel Partner did all the hotel research and booked all the reservations herself, saving me LOADS of time, work, research, thinking, you name it. There is a lot to know about Japan.

So, in summary, I'll stop smacking myself in the forehead. There's no point to it. I'm traveling with two other people, of whom I need to be considerate, and I've never traveled to Japan before. Surely not everyone gets it right the first time?

HOWEVER, on the next time that I travel, especially alone, I'll plan out the whole trip, but hold off until a month and a half or so before the trip to buy plane tickets. I will trust Metafilter's opinion. If I feel that I need to make hotel reservations sooner, I will do so, and plan to cancel them later if they don't work. (Probably, though, I won't even make hotel reservations. I'm on-the-fly like that.)

We live and learn, yes?

Confessions From an Apartment Kitchen

It's getting to the sad point where I can taste the difference between onions bought at Trader Joe's and onions bought from the Farmer's Market. Someone please help.

I'm not TOTALLY over the edge yet, though. The spinach dish I had for dinner last night consisted almost entirely of store-bought, "convenience" items, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I made this recipe from America's Test Kitchen, a pretty amazing site, and instead of washing and chopping fresh spinach, like it calls for, I USED FROZEN. And then I used PRE-CRUSHED GARLIC out of a JAR. And if that wasn't enough, I USED LEMON PEPPER IN THE PLACE OF THE LEMON ZEST. All things provided by Trader Joe's, obviously, because I worship at the feet of that store.

And I'm here to say that it doesn't matter. I used a bunch of convenience things and the dish was still pretty awesome, especially with a little fresh-grated parmesan over the top. (I have a small grater from IKEA, of all places, and a hard block of parmesan from Trader Joe's costs about four dollars and lasts forever in the fridge, an affordable luxury). In fact, it was super yummy and an instant addition to my recipe rotation.

Other things that I definitely use that you're not supposed to:

Salted butter. I can't understand for the life of me why Real Cooks Are Only Supposed to Use Unsalted. A little extra salt in a dish surely can't hurt. However, I don't add any salt to the dish while cooking it, even if the recipe calls for it--I salt it at the end.

I have a big hunk of butter (from TRADER JOE's, obviously) that I cut off in chunks at a time and put in an old clean margarine container, which I leave out on the counter. This way the butter stays good, in the fridge, but I also always have spreadable butter.

I thought I had way more kitchen confessions than I do--they've all run away from my brain. Hope everyone's Thursday is filled with good food!

I've Been Tagged, and Why Not?

After YESTERDAY's monster of a post, surely I can come up with seven things about me, right? After all, I love reading OTHER people's me!me!s. I just don't like completing them, and I have no idea why, because I love talking about myself. Maybe I have a hard time deciding which [arbitrary number of facts] I should list?

Oh well. Here goes.

THE RULES:
1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post THE RULES on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link to them.
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

And the facts about me:

1. I wash my hair once or twice a week, on average. It's a big deal if I wash it three times in a week. While vegan, I did all kinds of crazy stuff: I washed it in baking soda and with apple cider vinegar as conditioner, I discovered that baby powder, arrowroot flour, or cornstarch can be dry shampoos, and I let go of my "Oh My God my hair is so oily I must wash it" routine. Now, although my hair grows very quickly, my color barely fades at all. I have to let it grow out to get new highlights.

2. I produce GIGANTIC amounts of heat when I sleep. Anyone sleeping next to me at a slumber party, on an airplane, in a classroom (joke!) will instantly begin to sweat. It's especially a problem on airplanes, when a seat mate once remarked that he could actually feel the heat waves radiating from my skin.

3. I'm a terrible driver. I'm often distracted, even if I'm not on the phone or fussing with my GPS system--I'm thinking about my novel, or the State of the Union, or dinner, or whatever. Compounding this, I'm terrible with directions and often realize I'm in the wrong lane for something, and so execute completely illegal U-Turns, Swerves, etc. Naturally, I expect the world to accommodate me.

4. I LOVE public transportation. I love it in theory and practice. I have an obsession with route maps and timetables for every kind of public transportation there is, including trains, buses, and ferries. I like to pick up four copies of each kind of schedule in case I lose one. Even taking the ferry to see the LT for a year and a half didn't deter me from this obsession. T-Town is probably moving to Portland, and I'm super excited that she is because it will give me the chance to TAKE THE TRAIN DOWN THERE!

5. I'm long-winded.

6. I am impossible to reach on the phone. I usually have my phone on vibrate for work, and I forget to take it off. Entire Friday and Saturday nights have gone by where I've felt lonely and unloved because no one was calling me, only to discover at 1:00 am that my phone's been off the whole time and six people have left messages wondering if I wanted to hang out. This has happened WAY more than once.

7. I refuse to get anything hemmed, telling myself that I'll just wear heels all the time. Because of this, I have ruined the cuffs of three pairs of pants.

HA! DONE, SUCKAHS! And you thought I couldn't do it!

For tagging, I'm going to GO WACKY: I want my READERS to respond to this tag. Just reply in the comments, and don't worry about length--I've seen veritable essays written in comments before. I'm going to pick seven people, because I have no idea who reads this blog although people TELL me they read it all the time, and if your name is there, please join the fun! I'd love to know seven things about you! And if your name is NOT there, totally respond anyway. I would love to know seven things about just about everyone on Planet Earth.

1. T-Town, who may update her blog again if she has a purpose.
2. LT. I would love to know seven things about my boyfriend!
3. A Parental Unit. (Mom and Dad, you can respond together, or assign the duty to just one of you.)
4. Anna S-B! I'd love to know seven random things!
5. Amy, Amy, Amy. Yes, you, from Pittsburgh.
6. Skydiamonde, who has a blog and can actually post on that if she desires, although please let me know, and
7. Quaotes, which I can never spell correctly.

On Dating Your Father

Okay, all you Neo-Freud-sters, step up to the plate and bat. I'm talking about that moment in every girl's life, at least the life of every girl born past 1920 or so. We've heard, at length, about this tendency that women have to date men like their fathers and we have all SWORN, on our VERY LIVES, that we will not do this. Because, EWWWWWW.

And yet, in spite of our best efforts, this is exactly what we do.

Unfortunately for me, my father is a veritable SAINT, a man who expresses every single good characteristic of the conservative Christian lifestyle--solid, dependable, holds a steady job, puts family first--without displaying any negative traits, like hatred of everyone else, bigotry, hypocrisy, misogyny, homophobia, etc. So in order to date a man not like my father I'd pretty much have to date an prison inmate, or else chase after a series of gay guys who haven't yet come out to themselves. Neither of which I have ever wanted to do, as my father ALSO raised me with a sense of self-respect (and Mom also contributed big time, but this particular post is not about her) and therefore I'm stuck trying to find a nice guy who is not like my father, almost impossible. Or so it would seem.

Because I've learned that women don't date men EXACTLY like their fathers. We carefully avoid men who display characteristics that are OBVIOUSLY like our fathers', not even realizing that the men we eventually choose displays several SUBCONSCIOUS traits that match our fathers' exactly. This post is not about the ex boyfriend of mine who bore my father's actual name, for example, nor is it about when T-Town dated a man (for four years) that bore HER father's actual name, nor is it about the fact that I broke up with a man who watched TV even for one hour daily, because I swore I would never date a man who watched TV when I wanted to take a walk around the neighborhood. It's about the LT, of course. And my father.

My father, despite all his other very charming characteristics--besides all of the above, he does not stay out late, calls my mother every night when he's away, cooks, CLEANS, and wouldn't raise his hand in anger to a housefly--he does have a fault or two. And one I swore I would stay away from in particular: my father, despite tithing regularly and giving to a multitude of other worthwhile causes, is not a particularly generous man.

He gives well to strangers and causes, yes, and that is very important. But my father is not the kind of man who, if out with a group, would offer to pay for the whole bar tab on his card if his friends paid him back in cash "when you can". He does not give the benefit of the doubt in monetary exchanges, he does not offer to "spot" people. At a time in my life when I desperately needed to stay somewhere warm and forgiving, he wanted to charge me $600 a month to rent out my old bedroom. I wish, three years later, that we had both been calmer when we talked about this, because I would have happily paid rent had he charged me a more reasonable price, and he might have happily charged less had he known what the market would bear and understood that I was WILLING to pay a price. This is water under the bridge, but still: this is the kind of man he is. A man who has been on his own since he was 17, a man who put himself through college, a man young for his year and who had to assume the head of household role relatively early; he does not accept slackness or lackadasickal behavior in others, particularly his own progeny.

Meet the LT. A man who has been on his own, ALSO since 17; a man who is young for his year, a man who put himself through college by giving his youth to the Navy and for them traveled 2000 miles outside his tiny hometown to a Super Fancy Engineering School, and fought in a war, and yelled at men twenty years older than he is, and become the kind of man that causes lesser beings to tremble at his approach.

And since he has fended for himself for all of his adult life, neither does the LT accept slackness in others, particularly not his own girlfriend. Saving random people from occasional mishaps, fine. Continually fending off questions about when his girlfriend is going to arrive somewhere and then PAYING for his girlfriend when she arrives because she has no cash, not so fine. Not when it drags on for a year and a half.

I was three weeks late for my own birth and will be late, I think, my entire life. Sometimes I'm better, other times I'm worse. Overall I hope I'm getting better, but introduce new wrinkles, like bus schedules, into my routine and it's a lot worse. On average it might take me five times, FIVE TIMES, taking the exact same route, to arrive somewhere even less than five minutes late, a big accomplishment for me. The first time I have to be at a new place, all bets are off. I might be an hour late, or I might never arrive at all. Lots of my faults I've improved, over time: I'm better with money, I'm no longer in debt, I try to let other conversational partners have the floor once in awhile--so I hope that I'll get better on this, overall. Or it's possible that I might not. My mother, at Over-45, is just now forcing herself to pad her schedule by half an hour for every appointment she makes, and I STILL arrive at our lunch dates ahead of her. (And she is the ONLY person, in the world, that I've ever beaten to a date.) And in spite of my improving relationship with money, I will never, hardly ever, have cash on me.

So when I show up to a St. Patrick's Day celebration half an hour late with no cash, and then ask the LT to pay for me with what little cash HE has, you can imagine how that conversation went. Worse, still, that I asked him in front of our friends. They didn't say a word, but the LT--who hardly ever feels guilt--felt the weight of their unasked questions bearing down on him: Why aren't you buying her at least one drink? Is something wrong?

There was nothing wrong, apart from the fact that his girlfriend had showed up late without money again. He was simply tired of enabling me. And then forced to buy me a beer. My own father, had I happened to be out drinking with him on St. Patrick's Day, would probably have laughed in my face and thanked me for volunteering to drive him home, since I couldn't afford any beer of my own. (This is really an impossible analogy, as my father doesn't drink, but the point is there.) Did the LT eventually buy me a beer? Of course he did, although I took him at his word when he said he didn't have enough cash and found my own beer. Would my father take pity on me eventually in my life? Of course he would, and did; I stayed with them for three weeks (rent free!) at the very start of this blog, and when I was considering buying a condo, he called my phone and left a special message on my voicemail, saying he'd be happy to have me stay with them for free while I looked. It's not that the two most important human men in my life won't take pity on me eventually, it's that they'll probably feel used while doing it. My father is still speaking to me after 27 years; I can only hope that the LT will be doing the same.

What I Get Up To When The LT Is Out Of Town

LT left on Sunday for a conference in Disneyland (some people have all the luck) and after a normal weekend of us running around like chickens with their heads cut off and going skiing and all that, I was looking forward to SLEEPING. The LT seems to have some secret source of one-hundred-percent renewable energy that many governments would probably kill to get their hands on, so no one tell any governments, okay? I swear the man is unstoppable. After working twelve-hour days, he fills every evening with maintenance work on FIVE (5) vehicles, pushes all of his lazier and less disciplined friends (including me) to attend Happy Hour on a regular basis, would be rolling me out of bed at 5:30 to be on the mountain every Saturday at 8 am if he didn't think I'd break up with him for it, and may for all I know be planning his world domination tour.

In California, he spent Sunday night out with his fraternity brothers and Monday night driving to Santa Monica, getting about four hours of sleep each night. I can't compete with that. Who could?

In contrast, I have done nothing that requires leaving my apartment except going to work. Well, and going grocery shopping. And tutoring. And I went running twice. And working out and doing yoga, except that doesn't require leaving the apartment. And I swept out my apartment, scrubbed my tub, returned a package to FedEx, cleaned my bathroom, and baked bread. And I added a few pages to my novel.

But aside from THAT, I did nothing.

Salsa + Wine = Hungover

Okay, Mom, just close the "I'm worried about you" email you're about to start. This is not about judgment. Thank you.

But yes, salsa! I went, even without a date (LT had a work event, and surprisingly, all my friends that I pinged at the last minute actually had lives that they couldn't drop to go with me) and I enjoyed myself IMMENSELY. I went to the lesson first, which was well-taught and easy to follow, and then the dancing started. I was worried I was going to be sitting on the sidelines, with no partner, but I spent very few dances sitting down, even though I'm a rank amateur. Everyone was very friendly, and there were some really amazing dancers. I probably didn't need a glass of wine. I should have just stuck to water, especially on an empty stomach. Because after working out, not eating, and drinking wine, I woke up this morning DEHYDRATED.

But it does not matter! Salsa is awesome!

Ridiculous Advice

While running errands by bus on Friday, wearing my spiffy new J. Crew silk cargo jacket (Ebay!) and my aviators, and feeling almost well-dressed enough to go into Nordstrom downtown--until I tried on a pair of $144 shoes, without which my life was no longer complete--I was trying to juggle about four bags, my phone, and the requisite cup of coffee as I was talking to my mother.

"Hi, Mom. I have to go skiing tonight, go skiing tomorrow, and then go to a big party tonight. Titan will be have company for about two hours out of 36. I'd like to take him to Grandma's. When do I do it?"

"I can help," she said, my enabler as always. "Should I come pick him up at midnight tonight after you're done skiing? Tomorrow morning at 6:30 before you leave for skiing? Should you meet me in Auburn?"

"Let me call LT," I said, and called him.

After I laid out all the options, at great length, I said, "So, baby? Do you think we can fit Titan in the car with all the ski stuff AND Sydney (the girl, not the city) tomorrow morning? What do you think?"

"I think you should take something off your schedule," he said.

WHAT? Who DOES that?

Titan Update

He's good to go! Parasite search results were negative, and as of this morning, he's finally pooping normally. That dog has a stomach of steel. (This is the dog who happily eats chocolate with no problems.)

The parasite test for $50 was TOTALLY worth it, though. I felt much better about the whole situation once I knew that a) he was clean, and b) I had thrown some money at the problem. Such is the weirdtastic nature of the human mind.

On Waiting It Out

WARNING: Post of a graphic nature follows.

Saturday: Titan gets into the trash. He eats about fifteen teabags and two ounces of brie, still in the wrapper.

Sunday: LT, Robb, Titan, and myself go to the dog park. He spends a great deal of time in the water.

Monday: Uneventful.

Tuesday: I awake to A LOT of vomit on my throw rug, both solid and liquid. I take him for his walk, and turns out he has the runs. I assume he has a stomach bug, which he's had before, and withhold breakfast.

Tuesday Lunch: No vomit! Yay!

Tuesday Afternoon: Vomit. Dammit. And he still has the runs.

I clean everything up and put my throw rug in the washer. I call the vet's office. "Well, sounds like he could have an obstruction, which could potentially be life-threatening," says the cheerful woman on the phone. "You can either bring him in here for a drop-in, or you can take to the emergency vet hospital."

I dither.

I call the emergency hospital. "Sounds like he should be looked at. Bring him in. That will $95 for the exam, $50 for the blood work, and $150 for the x-rays."

I dither some more.

The thing is, Titan has had stomach bugs before--not this bad, but they have happened. I normally withhold food for 24 hours and then start feeding him small meals of chicken and rice, easy to digest food, and pretty soon he's back to normal. Titan does not like the vet and I hate to take him someplace and pay them $300 for them to tell me that he has a stomach bug, most likely the case. We wait it out at home on Tuesday evening, me stressing out and calling the LT, who forces me to lay out my options. I decide I am definitely not going to the vet's when Titan almost pulls the leash out of my hand chasing after a cat. Clearly he's fine.

Wednesday: Eats breakfast of rice. No vomiting! Still has the runs. Dammit.

Call the vet's office again. They recommend me coming in to drop off a stool sample, but say he's probably fine for another day. He's drinking water and not vomiting, so whatever it is, it's not a stomach bug but he's not over it. Humph.

This Morning: Drop off sample at the vet's, still dithering. Vet technician calms me down: "If it was an obstruction, it would have already gotten way more complicated by now, even though this is the dog that ate all those teabags and wrapped cheese." Titan is famous! For his stupidity, sadly. Vet goes on: "Has he been at a dog park or in the water recently?" Yes and yes. "It's probably [some parasite that I can't pronounce], it's prevalent around other dogs and especially prevalent around water. A test should prove it."

Well, okay! Awesome!

This afternoon, Titan is still fine, relatively, and enjoying his diet of rice. (People food! Hooray!) Could I have rushed off to the emergency hospital? Yes. Can I afford it? Technically yes. Did I think it was worth it? No. He wasn't throwing up water, a sign of extreme dehydration, and he wasn't lethargic, a sign of a real obstruction. Was I needlessly stressed out? Yes. Was $300 too steep a price to pay for peace of mind. Again, yes.

Before you get all animal-rights on me, keep in mind that I put off going to my OWN doctor to have my arm looked at for at least a month, and a year and a half ago when I had terrible bronchitis, I ALSO put off going to the doctor for at least three weeks, getting so bad that the doctors thought I might have whooping cough and two friendships ended.

A lot of other posts on this topic:

Frugal Homemaker Plus talks about her $1000 rabbit.

Ada Calhoun at Salon talks about her $1300 cat.

Emily Yoffe's How to Say No to Your Vet piece that started it all.

Monday: YAWN.

LT's friend Robb (yes, with two B's) came into town this weekend to enjoy some Pacific Northwest skiing, and then almost punched both LT and myself as we blithely complained about the snow quality in front of a man who lives in a paved-over swamp. (D.C., not New Orleans.) Seeing his irritation at us taking the snow and mountain ranges that we enjoy for granted, I re-thought my feelings on the East Coast. I've always missed it and wanted to move back, at some point, but the reality of "NO MOUNTAINS" hadn't really occurred to me. Ouch. How could I live in a city with no skiing?

In other news, I have eaten nothing but crap for about a week. In Norfolk, having eaten mainly vegetables for three days, trying to get rid of all my fresh stuff, I looked in the mirror and thought, "Hey...pretty foxy." This morning I looked in the mirror and thought, "What the HELL happened to my skin??"

This just in: eating crap? Not good for you! Who knew??

From Zero to JAPAN!

7:00 am: Receive yearly bonus.
7:15 am: Pay off ENTIRE AMERICAN EXPRESS BILL! I am credit-card debt free! Hooray!
12:30 pm: Buy ticket to Japan.
12:31 pm: No longer credit-card-debt free.

If anyone needs information about buying tickets to Japan, definitely call me, because I have done about 86 million hours of research and obsessing, and I have learned about everything there is to know.

1. The cheap tickets (for 864 or whatever) on Kayak.com are a sham. When you go to the site to book the ticket, there's an error message saying they're no longer available. I don't think it's meant to be a sham, but what I've discovered about trying to book tickets to Asia is that some prices are listed with tax and fuel surcharges and some aren't. I think it's a mistake of the code or something.

2. DEFINITELY spend a month or so, if you can, watching ticket prices on various search engines. It'll give you a good idea of what a low price is for the time of year you're traveling. For example, flights to Japan fluctuate DRAMATICALLY between winter and spring; I found tickets for as cheap as 479...if I wanted to go in February.

3. Check out FareCompare.com AND Kayak for international flights. Especially Fare Compare will give you excellent history of pricing so you can see a whole year's pricing at once. FareCompare is how I learned that Japan is so cheap in winter months.

4. Query the hive mind: check Metafilter. I really need to buy a membership to this site, it's awesome.

5. I eventually found my ticket on GatewayLAX, although I also looked at IACE. I paid $925 for a round-trip from Seattle, non-stop, and I think that's a pretty good price for non-stop Japan in May!

So, yes! Had a zero American Express balance today for about five hours! Have bought a Japan ticket! Woo!

Running in Norfolk

Not quite the same as Walking in Memphis, I guess.

I got one of those emails on Monday of last week that read, "How soon can you be in Norfolk?"

I said, out loud at my desk, "WHAT?"

So near the end of last week I packed up all my stuff, flew to Norfolk, gave someone else's presentation--more difficult than it sounds, my boss has a totally different style than I do--and worried a lot about the time change. I don't sleep well in hotel beds and my insomnia flares up dramatically when I switch time zones, and to make matters worse, I was flying a red-eye out there. And so I made sure to bring my shoes and my sports bra and my iPod and some running gear. I touched down about 10 am, completely disoriented and with no clue what day it was, and I had to be at a presentation dry-run at 2 pm. I tried to answer some email and gave up after I couldn't figure out where to place my fingers on the keys. I thought about taking a nap, but wasn't sure I'd wake up and didn't want to ruin the possibility of me sleeping later, so I strapped on my running shoes and took off.

It worked. I saw another runner, way faster than I was, and he nodded at me just like I was a real runner instead of a fake one that had only been running for a month. It was a gorgeous day in Norfolk, sunny and bright, although cold. I'm just now at the stage where I'm running for all twenty minutes. I'll do this for a week and then try to add time. My goal is three miles, five times a week.

In the mornings.

Yes, you read that right. I keep thinking that I should be exercising in the morning--that way I won't have to do it at night. The only problem is, I SUCK at mornings and I think it will take longer, because I'll have to spend more warmup time. At night I won't need as much warm up time, and as an added bonus, it won't be morning. Which sucks on general principles. (Side note: the last time I had a gym habit, I went at night and it didn't seem to bother me. I'm not sure why this seems so different--maybe because I have more going on at night now, between tutoring and happy hour plans. (Hey, gotta make time for the happy hour!)

Anyway, for right now I'll keep running in the evenings and see how it goes. And last night I couldn't find my earbuds--I think I left them with T-Town--and I went running ANYWAY. WITHOUT MY IPOD. I can't believe it.

2008 Resolutions: Hey, They Still Apply in February, Right?

So, I am very late. But this gives time for resolutions to sink in, right? To be considered? Surely it's better this way? It's not?

Oh well. I seem to have a lot fewer resolutions this year than last year,
when I had a whopping 27. A lot of them were about saving money and eating less, and I did, um, NEITHER of those things. In fact, I'm sort of beginning to think that 2007 was a complete failure on many fronts. I blame it on the weather.

But it does not matter! 2008 is a whole new year!

2008 Resolutions:

1. Wean myself off of iTunes and their ridiculous copyright protected mp4 teasing. Resolve to use Amazon for all mp3 buying instead. Also refrain from using iTunes to burn CDs; investigate Nero instead. LT has complained about getting burned CDs with no way to play them on his computer or, indeed, see what song is playing.

2. Brush teeth and wash face every day! (Getting better at this.) (Um, sort of.)

3. Eat vegetable dish every day, either raw or cooked. Eat fruit at breakfast meal, again either raw or cooked. Include vegetable and fruit side dish with lunch every day, either raw or cooked. Now that I CAN eat meat and cheese that's all I'm eating. But it's important to note that a lot of vegans don't eat anything besides peanut butter and pasta. Forcing yourself to not eat meat or cheese does not mean that you will naturally eat vegetables instead. Trust me on this one.

4. Buy digital scale. (Done!)

5. Rearrange kitchen. The arrival of my new dishwasher changed the landscape a lot, and now I apparently have EVERY appliance I own sitting out on my rather limited counter space. This must change.

6. Limit self to five crackers with spread/cheese before meals. And when I wasn't eating cheese this was tahini. I have a tendency, laid in by long years of watching my parents and grandparents indulge in a few slices of cheese on crackers before dinner, and maybe a handful of nuts, to munch on something yummy before dinner. As I am from a completely different generation and have zero self-control, this becomes ten crackers with thick slices of cheese, several forkfuls of tahini, and maybe a few scoops of nutella. You know what I should be eating before dinner? Salad. A serving of spinach has 35 calories in it. Ten slices of cheese, several forkfuls of tahini and a few scoops of nutella has about 870 calories. No. Joke.

7. Only eat four meals a day. So that I can't eat crackers and cheese and call it a meal.

8. Stick to The Budget. Because travel to Japan, Pittsburgh, L.A., and NYC is not cheap!

9. Finish novel. Self-explanatory.

10. Pay Off Car. This is a big one, but possible, assuming I spend barely anything on shoes/books/makeup/non-essentials for 2008, I could theoretically do this. And of course, assuming that I stay on a very cheap grocery budget and barely drive anywhere.

11. Sweep and mop apartment weekly.

12. Keep running three times a week. Eventually bump up to 30 minutes or three miles, whichever comes first.

13. Do more yoga.

14. Investigate weight lifting. (Side goal: increase upper body strength to more than that of a common house fly.)

15. Truly try to use up everything in your house this year before you buy new. Especially true with grocery shopping, obviously.

And...Things I DID Do in 2007:

1. Resolved to drink more water...and did so!
2. Resolved to detox more...and did so! (At the end of the year.)
3. Resolved to try mineral makeup...and did so! I use Everyday Minerals, for those who care, and really like it.
4. Resolved to listen to the stations 98.1, 103.7, and KEXP more...and did so!
5. Resolved to use the library...and did so!
6. Resolved to see more NEW movies and read more NEW books instead of reading and watching the things I already know...and halfway achieved this.
7. Resolved to take my grandmother to see the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit...and did so!
8. Resolved to buy USED books and media, not new, and not be sucked in by Amazon's free shipping...and did so!
9. Resolved to attach monetary value to everything I own...and...sort of did so.

Things I DIDN'T Do:

Um, a lot. I bought fancy coffee during the week, I completely went haywire with my grocery shopping, I sent a few more thank you notes but not a lot, I packed my lunch and breakfast some days but not much, I did not listen to more live music and I never made it to Central Cinema. I did not clean out my magazine stash and craft supply box. I hardly ever shopped on Member Days at Madison Market and completely failed at creating a stranglehold on my finances. I didn't take a business class OR learn a language.

But that's fine! More to do this year!

Anger vs. Annoyance

It's important to understand the difference between these two things. For example, I'm ANGRY that today, in the cafeteria, two old men were staring at me, mouths open, as I ladled some oatmeal into my bowl. And then they tried to talk to me. I'm not a morning person and I really have a prejudice against men with gray hair who haven't shaved in several days staring at me and thinking that they have the right to talk to me. I'm angry that men, as a species, look in a mirror on such a day and think, "Not bad. I can get a chick under 30." And a thirty-year-old woman looks in the mirror after working out for months and watching what she eats and being ashamed of herself, and thinking she only deserves a fifty year old man with a beer gut who hasn't shaved for several days. I don't know why this makes me angry, this huge self-esteem gap, and what's more, I know it's not the fault of the male half of the species. And I ALSO know that cutting a man down when he tries to talk to me, blowing him off just because I can, won't increase my own self esteem or the collective self esteem of the female half of the species, so I might as well smile and be nice. (I was, in case you were wondering.)

On the other hand, I'm ANNOYED that these "rebate" checks that everyone is making such a big deal of are actually just advances on next year's tax refunds. The only difference is, if you invested said $600 at some reasonable interest, you'll make money, whereas if the government held onto it all year you'd be lending them money without interest. But how many Americans are going to invest said $600?

In other news, I rearranged my kitchen and am NOT going to the Barack Obama rally today, although I thought about it. Tomorrow I'm going skiing (duh) and Sunday I'll be sleeping and tutoring. And if anyone has a little time today, definitely check out this site: www.barelypolitical.com

Two of my favorite videos below:

A Service and Skiing

C's mother's service happened, and my flute playing apparently went off well. I got to see a lot of people that I hadn't seen in awhile, good even though it was such a sad occasion, and of course I hugged C a lot and got to meet Josie. The LT and I arrived super early so I could rehearse with the other two musicians, and we had about half an hour to kill in between rehearsal and the service so I took him on a trip down memory lane, to the Thriftway. For those who don't know, my high school and the church I grew up in are within about two blocks from each other, and I was just lucky enough that they're both gorgeous buildings and Tacoma landmarks. Later on, I also lived in an apartment building in that same neighborhood for about a year and a half, and therefore, I spent A LOT of time at that Thriftway and the related espresso stand, as a teenager and as an adult, getting coffee before church and getting coffee between classes (completely illegal), buying snacks before swim practice and shopping for actual groceries later on. The LT and I got coffee (fancy coffee for me) and jo-jos, and I took the jo-jos with me back into the church, and immediately C and her sister CJ said, "Ooooooh! Jo-jos!" and helped themselves, which was perfect. They were a very big part of all three of our childhoods. (Don't know what jo-jos are? They're potato wedges.)

After this, the LT and I managed to get a few chores done before heading out to dinner, with the plan to have a few drinks afterwards, and then practically falling asleep in our dishes and skipping the drinks part. Just as well, as getting up at 6:30 the next morning to go skiing was difficult enough.

Fortunately, skiing (at Crystal) turned out to be AWESOME, a really fantastic day; powder two feet deep, great steeps, great tree-skiing conditions. My legs today: so sore to straighten out that I think my legs fused into a permanently bent position. Today is a running day and I'm having a hard time convincing myself it will be in my best interest. Yoga sounds more likely. Okay, drinking hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps seems ACTUALLY more likely.

Only One Month Behind!

That's WAY earlier than I usually am.

Those in the know will notice that I have not yet, this year, had "We Regret These Errors" or "Stuff I Did" or "Next Year's Resolutions" posts yet, and I'm sure you were losing sleep over it.

That will happen no longer. I don't really have a "We Regret These Errors" post in my head, and I'm not sure if that's because I did fewer things I regret or, alternatively, if I tried fewer things and then failed less. I tend to the latter assumption because I'm firmly of the belief that if you're not making mistakes, you're not trying hard enough, so even though I have fewer regrets, I'm a little sad about that. I swear I did some exciting things, though, and just in case you don't believe me, I am going to tell you all about them. Get a cup of coffee.

2007: A Recap

January

Still reeling from a horrible fight between friends, I cooked a lot and rediscovered my passion for classical music, which I filled my Landlord's house with as I utilized his huge, gourmet kitchen. I took time out to visit the LT's family in Texas for a well-deserved break in the sunshine, and went on just a few skiing trips, including one to Whistler.

February

In February, I MOVED into this gorgeous apartment. While there, I wrote this long post about feminism and sex, and the LT went to Texas again to attend the service for his aunt. I took the time to build a pegboard wall.

March

In March, I kicked off women's history month by co-writing a post with the LT about sororities and body image. My Little came to see me, I went to California, I went to Whistler, and I went to California again. Also I moved office buildings and joined a gym.

April

In April, the LT and myself met our friend Mike in Tahoe, and then I totaled up how much I'd spent on skiing, discovering it to be very expensive in terms of shoes but pretty cheap in terms of therapy. I had a long, snarky, judgmental, and thoroughly enjoyable discussion with my brilliant friend D about declining education standards. I wrote a long post about past decisions and got a THIRD speeding ticket in a year. Adding to my finance issues, I also donated to my alma mater. The LT and I attended his last Submarine Ball.

May

In May, I went to the dentist, not big news but still important, and learned how to clean before I hosted Mother's Day at my apartment, and I was helped along in this process by my discovery of Flylady.net (which I still don't use, but occasionally try). I skied on Cinco de Mayo and read Suze Orman and opened an IRA. I attempted to bike to work. Finally, the LT, myself, Titan, and our friend Dave went camping, and almost rolled Helter off a cliff. (Part 1.) (Part 2.)

June

In June, the LT and I celebrated our one-year anniversary with a dinner out and then a tasty breakfast of banana walnut pancakes, which I still drool over. Or maybe I'm just drooling over those GORGEOUS ROSES. I locked myself out of my apartment in bare feet, and had some further adventures in housekeeping. This happened right before my gorgeous cousin and her awesome fiance came to visit me, whom I then left in the care of the LT as I left for T-Town's Bachelorette Party Weekend, possibly the most relaxing and detoxing weekend ever. All of us, even the drivers, showed up extremely hungover, and after three hours of mineral bath and massage we felt young enough to pass for pre-teens.

July

Well, for one thing, T-Town GOT MARRIED in July! I explored summer culture, my good friend BLarr came to see me and Geeber, I stayed up until 3:30 am finished the final Harry Potter, and the LT and I went to a second wedding.

August

In August, my microwave blew up and I bought a motorcycle helmet, and the LT and I ran away to Seaside. After that, LT's friend Leslie came to visit us, making her the fourth set of houseguests I'd had so far. More exciting things happened as I went out with Julie, Dave's wife, and sat backstage for a Wilco concert when my Little came to town again. I entertained some vegans from the Vegan Freak forum (wow!) when they came to town.

September

In September, I went to MIAMI and on a CRUISE with some of my best friends ever! (More Miami pictures here and here!) LT went to Texas for his ten-year reunion and then built me a new computer as I flew back from Miami and had to fly out to San Jose the same day. I remember telling the MasterPark shuttle guy that I was back at the airport for the second time in four hours, and he said, "Holy Crap, you must be exhausted!" I got a landline and got in another fatal and friendship-ending fight, seems to be a theme this year but I've accepted both occurrences as necessary. LT had his motorcycle stolen while we were volunteering at Beerfest, and I threw an excellent Back to School Party. I bought a Polaroid camera for this event, and I swear I'll have pictures soon.

October

(Hang in there!) In October, I stopped being vegan, and the LT got his motorcycle back, thank Blog. I bought some Mary Kay and answered a lot of questions about my ING account. I met Crazy Aunt Purl on the LT's Birthday, I got banned from the Vegan Freaks website and was then flamed to eternity, and escaped from it all to go to Sacramento for my cousin's wedding. I also contributed my helping of snark to the world.

November

In November, I went to Boston, Baltimore, and Minnesota, none of them warm places but only really freezing in Minnesota. I posted my novel excerpt and voted, I celebrated Veteran's Day, and I said to my big sister. I spent several days in Baltimore staying with the amazing Sarah and saw my friend Anna get married. Much less impressive but still important, I tried Chez Gaudy, and started a real blogging job.

December

Finally, in DECEMBER, I burned a frittata, I got crafty for the holiday spirit, I turned 27 and discovered life-hacking, and attended about five million holiday parties. Finally, I ate at Quinn's and froze my rear off at New Year's Eve, inspiring a New Year's Resolution for next year!

Happy 2008 to everyone! Even if it's been around for a month already!

Extra, Extra! ONE DAY ONLY!

I'd like to wish a very special January 31st to the LT, who--as of the end of this day, I think--is no longer in active duty in the U.S. Navy. You'll notice that the countdown in the right side bar now says Countdown COMPLETED!

Running and Aarwenn: Fighting

It happened. I went on my run yesterday--at four minutes of running and three minutes of walking, this week--and I anticipated that it would be easy, as I was basically doing four minutes of running last week.

Well. Pride goeth before a fall, not literally in this case, but certainly my lungs felt like collapsing. Wednesday was an extremely windy day here in Seattle, and I had a hard time catching my breath. Not only that, but I ATE before I jogged--nothing serious, just a few crackers and tahini and a piece of chocolate--but I think even a little food is too much. The body tries to digest and exercise at the same time, and it's not possible. I ate because I have a fear, instilled in me by several years of experience, that I'll suddenly run out of calories, get light-headed, and pass out, something that has only happened once or twice in my life, but has almost happened at least a dozen times.

Taking the vegetable broth fast, however, seemed to practically sure me of this, an unexpected but very welcome side effect. For years I held on to the fact that my blood sugar was irregular, welcomed the sudden pressing needs to eat and the occasional light-headedness. I thought it made me look exotic, fragile, feminine, and might even require the purchase of a fainting couch one day, a great excuse to buy such an item. And when eating several small meals came into vogue a few years ago, I blended in much more with society, and eating every three hours no longer seemed odd.

Well. I'm done with looking fragile and exotic, if indeed that was how I appeared in the first place. Much more likely that I appeared whiny and high-maintenance, and I was constantly obsessed with food; I had to bring food with me everywhere, I always had snacks, and I was loathe to leave any food behind in case I wanted it later, so I was constantly carrying around bits of sandwich in huge boxes that would collapse and spill, half-full yogurts that I would have to choke down before boarding aircraft while the LT held all my bags and contemplated leaving my behind...well, behind, and so on. Drinking coffee and alcohol, too, seemed more treacherous; sometimes I'd metabolize it well, other times one cup of coffee or wine would either have me climbing walls or snoring and drooling.

I'm not sure if the vegetable broth weekend had any affect, or if it's more likely that five days to myself--not planned out, just happened--gave me some time to meditate on what was important to me and what kind of person I wanted to be, not to put too formal a spin on it. No matter the cause, I now find myself less obsessed with food. I eat it when I'm hungry, I don't eat it when I'm not. I seem to metabolize caffeine better, especially since I also weaned myself off of caffeine during that time. It's really not exciting to anyone but me, but I feel...more whole. More calm. Less fidgety and obsessive.

Now if I can just remember to not eat before running.

Food in Sad Times

My friend C lost her mother on Wednesday. There's no soft way to put that and it's not an easy thing to say, or to contemplate. I've grown up with C and her sisters and knew her parents well; I ate dinner there once or twice, and they were the first people to introduce me to fondue, that happy marriage of cheese and wine, one of the most perfect foods in the world. Her father passed away a few years ago, and her mother hung on until this year. They were both classically trained musicians, and their easy sophistication--and especially C's mother's tall, lanky grace--seemed like the last word in elegance.

I've been asked to play my flute for the service, as Petra was an excellent flautist, and I'm honored. I need to get out the flute TODAY to start practicing--it's been awhile and I'm scared I'll screw up, and I want it to be perfect for Petra.

In the meantime, there is food. I had the chance to see C last Thursday, and brought a few things--wine, chocolate gelato good enough to bathe in, fresh chevre from the local market. (I feel very posh being able to buy fresh-made chevre.) She cooked dinner, despite the fact that she had every excuse to subsist solely on cheese, chocolate, and wine for the next month, and we talked about old times. It seems as if those days are long gone, but I realized, driving home, having just had dinner with a girl I've known for fifteen years, that we are making our own good times, our own old times. History is happening now, even in the midst of sadness.