Entrepreneur: "Yeah, an important rule of dating is to not muzzle-sweep your girlfriend."

Warning: Not A Cheerful Post

(EVERYTHING IS FINE, MOM.)

But! Some days we must take a moment to reflect on interesting things, and interesting things are not always bright and sunshiny. And so I share with you the following, a passage from Clarissa Pinkola Estes' WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES:

"“Her idea of a really good time was to board the train to Chicago and wear a big hat, and walk down Michigan Avenue looking in all the shop windows and being an elegant lady. By hook or by crook or by fate, she married a farmer. They moved out into the midst of the wheatlands, and she began to rot away in that elegant little farmhouse that was just the right size, with all the right children, and all the right husband. She had no more time for that ‘frivolous’ life she’d once led. Too much ‘kids.’ Too much ‘woman’s work.’ One day, years later, after washing the kitchen and living room floors by hand, she slipped into her very best silk blouse, buttoned her long skirt, and pinned on her big hat. She pressed her husband’s shotgun to the roof of her mouth and pulled the trigger. Every woman alive knows why she washed the floors first. A starved soul can become so filled with pain, a woman can no longer bear it.”"

I found this via the always amazing Ask Metafilter, because I was looking for--no, not ways to kill myself, Lordy!--but because I was looking for the best MOP.

And the Ask Metafilter discussion continues:

Another responder: "While it doesn't quite fit your description, being a play and all, it also sound quite similar to Marsha Norman's Night, Mother, where jessie makes sure everything in the house is settled before committing suicide."

And yet another responder: "Also, it's the opening scene of the pilot to the TV series DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES."

And yet one more: "Although the character is male, that's also the opening scene of the film Wristcutters: A Love Story."

And finally: "I recently read the same thing in an article about an elderly woman who legally (in her country, with medical supervision) killed herself. Her son told her, Mother, you don't need to bother with that. But she had some powerful inner need to get everything cleaned up before she departed."

And finally, the original poster:

"Thanks, all! I had no idea that 'Woman cleans, then woman kills herself' was such a commonly repeated theme in literature. Or life. This has been both enlightening, and a little depressing. I suggest that we all let those floors go for awhile! :)"

And, as often, I think the hive mind has churned out some good advice, here. I do in fact suggest we all let those floors go for awhile. 

ONE MONTH LATER...

Entrepreneur and I have had a crowded month. Many, many, things, have happened.

Coming home some time in the past month, I said to him, "I feel like I work my fingers to the bone all fucking day and I get to the end of the day and I'm exhausted, and yet I have accomplished only one-quarter of the things I needed to."

"RIGHT?" he said. "Where the hell does the time GO?"

For example, we got to the end of July and I was saying, "Remember when I spent three weeks practically bedridden?" And he said, "Yeah, that seems like yesterday."

"That practically WAS yesterday," I said. "That was in July. And we're STILL IN JULY."

The look he gave me was priceless. The man has an even rockier relationship with time than I do. It's precious.

And now, here we are, at the end of August, and I just realized it's only been eleven days since we reclaimed the Loft. It seems like three weeks, because we want to get so much done and we can't seem to GET it done, but it's only been eleven days and perhaps it was unrealistic to expect a gimp on full social disability and an overly-driven yuppie who works 10 hours a day and commutes at least an hour and a half on top of that and who isn't in great physical shape either to completely revamp a bathroom and kitchen in eleven days. I mean, maybe.

Good To Know: Empathy Vs. Sympathy, Plus Side Order of Empathic Concern

Empathy refers to the understanding and sharing of a specific emotional state with another person. It is the capacity to recognize feelings that are being experienced by another sentient or semi-sentient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion.

Sympathy, however, does not require the sharing of the same emotional state. It is an extension of empathic concern, or the perception, understanding, and reaction to the distress or need of another human being. This empathic concern is driven by a switch in viewpoint, from a personal perspective to the perspective of another group or individual who is in need. Empathy and sympathy are often used interchangeably, but the two terms have distinct origins and meanings. Instead, sympathy is merely a concern for the well-being of another individual or group of individuals. Although sympathy *may* begin with empathizing with the same emotion another person is feeling, sympathy *can also* be extended to other emotional states.

Clear as mud? I thought so, too. Here's a definition of Empathy that I like: "The ability to put oneself into the mental shoes of another person to understand her emotions and feelings."

Whereas Sympathy seems to be an outwardly-generated emotional state. "There are some specific conditions that need to happen in order to experience sympathy. These conditions include attention to a subject, believing that a person (or group) is in a state of need, and the characteristics of a given situation."

"The state of need of an individual or group is also considered during the creation of sympathy. Varying states of need (such as perceived vulnerability or pain) require unique human reactions, often ranging from attention to sympathy. A person experiencing cancer might warrant a feeling of sympathy more than a person who has a cold. The conditions under which sympathy is selected as an appropriate response are organized more broadly into individual differences and situational differences."

Okay, I'm just going to keep going with the Wikipedia article, because this is FASCINATING and because according to this, I've been using "sympathy", and possibly "sympathetic to", all wrong!!

"The ways in which people think about human deservingness, interdependence, and vulnerability motivate the experience of sympathy. A person who seems ‘deserving’ of aid is more likely to be helped. A belief in human interdependence fuels sympathetic behavior; this belief is seen as somewhat selfish because helping someone who is connected to you through some way (family, social capital) will often result in a personal reward (social, monetary, etc.)
Sympathy also operates based on the principle of the powerful helping the vulnerable. Therefore, those who are perceived as vulnerable (young, elderly, sick) become the target of sympathy. This desire to help the vulnerable has been suggested to stem from the paternalistic nature of humans, where humans seek to protect and aid their children in survival. People help others as if they were their own children or family when they are in need.

Individual moods, previous experiences, social connections, novelty, salience, and spacial proximity can also influence the experience of sympathy. Individuals experiencing positive mood states and people who have similar life experiences are more likely to produce sympathy.
Spacial proximity, or when a person or group exists close geographically (such as neighbors and citizens of a given country), they will more likely experience sympathy towards each other. Similarly, social proximity follows the same pattern. Members of certain groups (ex. racial groups) favor people who are also members of groups similar to their own. Social proximity is intimately linked with in-group and out-group status. In-group status, or a person falling within a certain social group, is also integral to the experience of sympathy. With this reasoning, it would be easier to feel sympathy for someone with the same religious beliefs than for someone in a religious group that one is not a part of. Both of these processes are based on the notion that people within the same group are interconnected and share successes and failures and therefore experience more sympathy towards each other than to out-group members, or social outsiders."

Ooooookay. Okay. So: Empathy is what you feel, whether you act on it or not, when you perceive a human/semi-sentient being near you in distress. Cat, child, homeless person, significant other in a sad mood, etc. SYMPATHY is how you...react to your empathy, I guess. Does that sound right to everyone?

If it does, or even if it doesn't, I get to run with it because it's MY blog, so that's what I'm going with.

(Bonus round: Empathic Concern is just another term for Sympathy. Other acronyms used: compassion, pity. Again: active emotions that usually draw from "empathy" as a starting point, but are not *required* to do so.)

Love Note

My amazing Entrepreneur went out and bought a mirror for me and installed it for me after I yelled at him about a lack thereof, and then he only went and bagged up the laundry and dropped it off at a laundromat. I may have yelled at him about that, too, back on Saturday night, after too much wine. And I'm not sure exactly what kind of awesome person is able to forgive and forget the drunken yelling, or even the sober yelling, and just does the things his partner requests of him, regardless of mode of communication, but I would like to stay with this awesome person for awhile. That is all.

*It helps that he speaks New Yorker. For him, "Do what I say or else I'm going to throw you off the loading dock" is a normal phrase to use in a business conversation. He is still a little surprised that that offends some people. 

My Mother Is Awesome

From a few days ago:

"Hi, I'm intrigued about 168 Hours after reading your post! Is that something I can download from the library to my iPad? The hard copy is unavailable, but the download IS available."

Me, in response: "Hi Mom, I’m not that familiar with the iOS (Apple Operating System) but you certainly SHOULD be able to download that book to your iPad! I’ll play around with it for a second anytime. Shouldn’t be more than a five minute test."

Her: "Maybe I should get it out of the box first, yes?"

And then, just yesterday: "Dear Daughter, Observation: You are communicating/posting more because you feel so much better (no back problems), the sun is out, and you have some cool new threads! Just my opinion!!"

Oh, Mom. You rock.

Garbage In, Garbage Out: Thoughts On Life

...and that reminds me, I need to take out ALL of our trash at the DR. We have hills of trash, and they're starting to form mountains, on which rests a light coating of dog-hair snow. We are growing LAND MASSES of garbage.

Which reminds me of Garbage Island. Which reminds me: buy more reusable bags. Humanity, we are horrible. More pictures of Garbage Island here.

Which reminds me of this post I wrote about rural Thailand, particularly this passage:

"Thailand in general has a waste management problem, and the Burmese school is in the slums, so there is trash everywhere, huge piles of it out back of all the huts. It's depressing. ...On the negative side, the Western culture of consummation of pre-packaged things--sodas and pre-wrapped sweets and things--has TRASHED the area, see the Waste Management problem, above."

BUT!

That is not the point of this post at all. The point of this post is that for some reason I have "Oops, I Did It Again" stuck in my head, which I will not link to because no one should ever be forced to listen to that song, and for some reason I know ALL the words right now, I could sing the entire song a capella, and THAT started a train of thought that ended with: Garbage In, Garbage Out. I could meditate on the complete inanity of the lyrics of "Oops, I Did It Again", which are inane EVEN FOR A BUBBLEGUM POP SONG...

...OR, I could purposefully meditate on something a little more stimulating!

Which is how I got here:

"The sun, whose rays Are all ablaze With ever-living glory, Does not deny His majesty He scorns to tell a story! He don't exclaim, "I blush for shame, So kindly be indulgent." But, fierce and bold, In fiery gold, He glories all effulgent! I mean to rule the earth, As he the sky We really know our worth, The sun and I! I mean to rule the earth, As he the sky We really know our worth, The sun and I!

Observe his flame, That placid dame, The moon's Celestial Highness; There's not a trace Upon her face Of diffidence or shyness: She borrows light That, through the night, Mankind may all acclaim her! And, truth to tell, She lights up well, So I, for one, don't blame her! Ah, pray make no mistake, We are not shy; We're very wide awake, The moon and I! Ah, pray make no mistake, We are not shy; We're very wide awake, The moon and I!"

...what's funny is that the above kind of IS bubblegum pop, albeit from almost 130 years ago.  It's lyrics from one of the songs from the comic opera The Mikado, by Gilbert and Sullivan.

(Which reminds me: see Topsy-Turvy!) (Which reminds me: I've recently seen De-Lovely. Anyone else see this? Thoughts?*)

ANYWAY. I know this song because of the movie Brick, which is a fantastic movie that everyone should see immediately. (Entrepreneur hasn't ever seen it, which is especially wonderful because now I get to be there when he watches it for the first time.) (Unlike Jack of All Trades, which is altogether a different story.) (Pun intended.)

Where was I? Oh yes, Brick. Brick is a fantastic movie, as I was saying, and in it, at a party, a character recites part of "The Sun, Whose Rays Are All Ablaze". See clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jWXE3diiEw

Speaking of clips, may I just say that I love the internet? LOVE the internet? Because it provides space for people, in their spare time, and for no pay or recognition, just for the love of creation, to take hours and make things like this:



SO GOOD. So good. I dare you not to start laughing.

AND FINALLY. While looking for "The Sun, Whose Rays Are All Ablaze", I found this:

Bricklayer Love

I thought of killing myself because I am only a bricklayer
and you a woman who loves the man who runs a drug store.

I don't care like I used to; I lay bricks straighter than I
used to and I sing slower handling the trowel afternoons.

When the sun is in my eyes and the ladders are shaky and the
mortar boards go wrong, I think of you.

 

-Carl Sandburg

 

Carl Sandburg is probably my favorite poet, which is a statement I can make with confidence only because I'm not familiar with the work of very many poets, and Carl Sandburg is also the poet through whom I first even became INTERESTED in poetry. I pulled out a slim volume of his work at Elliot Bay Bookstore when I was in middle school; I remember it vividly. The smell of Elliot Bay Bookstore, the placement of the poetry section in the old location in Pioneer Square, the creaking of the floorboards, the fact that I read four poems from the book without stopping and bought it, and also a book of love poems and a book of William Shakespeare love sonnets, and I have no idea right now where any of those books are, given that they're in boxes, but I read the Carl Sandburg volume cover to cover and still REMEMBER the cover, although not the title. 

 

*mutter, mutter* I'm sorry, what was that? Oh, thanks, Internet, that was great. Here's the volume I fell in love with. 

To give credit where credit is due, I was looking for Carl Sandburg because we were studying Imagist Poetry in my summer literature** class, and the style spoke to me and fascinated me, mainly because it wasn't very long and I didn't have to slog through pages and pages of ABAB rhyming that wasn't even Shakespeare (which is what we were doing in my normal public school classes) and I couldn't see the point. 

As Pratchett says, way better than I do: (gods love you, Internet)

 "In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book. ...It was a poem about daffodils. Apparently the poet had liked them very much. Susan was quite stoic about this. It was a free country. People could like daffodils if they wanted to. They just should not, in Susan’s very definite and precise opinion, be allowed to take up more than a page to say so."

...which reminds me of this quote, for my poor, beleaguered, Entrepreneur:

"She got on with her education. In her opinion, school kept on trying to interfere with it."

ANYWAY. Imagist Poetry and Poets, yes.  How I discovered Carl Sandburg, etc, although he's not technically an Imagist. I read Ezra Pound first, I think, and I liked him, too. And I believe that may be the end of this post for today.


(If you have time, DEFINITELY read that Imagist Poetry Wikipedia article. I didn't realize until I read it how much the style and movement affected, and generated, so many other styles and areas of interest that I like, including Sappho (I bought a book of her poetry not long after) and T.S. Eliot, who, to bring this full circle, was discussed during the Time On The Mountain yesterday, specifically The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock.)


(And if you have MORE time, definitely find a copy of The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock and read it.)

Happy 35th Birthday, Love.

Entrepreneur and I celebrated his birthday by taking the Subaru out on mountain roads and spending several hours exploring, taking short hikes, scouting places to camp and shoot, and just generally breathing the sharp mountain air. We agreed on everything we discussed, from big things to little things, having one of those days in which you're just on the exact same page as someone else, and we were pleased about it.

Regretfully getting off the mountain, driving home, then stepping out of the car on the warmer and more humid temperatures of sea level--and we live almost on top of the port, so the difference is especially noticeable--I felt that my soul was full. It wasn't like the intense joy of skiing, or the intense tiredness that comes after that--it was a more calm feeling, one of...satiety, maybe. It was a more inner happiness, made all the better because I was with someone who was experiencing the same thing. I had been on The Mountain again.

Psalm 121:1. "I will lift mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help."

Skadhi was pleased, I think.

Errata

I'm always inspired when I take a moment to read a few pages of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think. I'm working through it slowly, not because it's difficult to read--it's absolutely not, it's very accessible--but because there's so much to digest, and all this great material is hidden in plain sight, by such short words, that I have to take a lot of breaks. It's the opposite of not being able to see the forest for the trees; it's more like intentionally taking the time to make a complete study of each tree, not caring if you get all the way through the forest or not. A lot of her points simply MAKE SENSE to me, and then I have to go away and think about them for awhile before I feel ready to come back and read a few more pages.

Then again, I'm a sucker for this kind of writing style; I LIKE ideas that seem simple at first and then rattle around in your brain so much that you have to put the book down and really give that simple idea the meditation it deserves. Paradoxes, koans, one-sentence statements connecting the large and the small, the meta and the minute, and using thoughts expressed in those particular ways to attempt to classify and sub-classify human behavior into easily-chewable chunks; that's a style that both makes sense to me and fascinates me. (Just ask Entrepreneur. I tend to go on and ON about it at dinner.)

Back to 168 Hours: The mixed reviews on Amazon may mean I'm the only one who likes this writing style; no matter. It speaks to me, not only because I like the general idea communication style so much, although that's a terribly clunky phrase, but also because of its subject matter; I NEED this kind of simple style more than ever on certain subjects, like...time.

Everyone knows that ADD kids have a weird relationship with time, and meditating ON time--how to actively feel the seconds pass, how to expand a minute so that it contains the whole world--is a happy notion in the abstract but, like many meditative exercises (at least for me) sometimes the same result is achieved, and also more practically emphasized, by an accompanying small action, like Buddhist monks climbing the 314 stairs to the prayer room daily as a form of active meditation. This idea--of actively tracking minutes, hours, etc--is completely fascinating to me.

In the book she recommends keeping a time log on a piece of paper, and she has some very plain but quite fine examples of these kinds of logs, but really who can POSSIBLY carry a notebook around? Instead, me being me (duh) I found two apps, one web-based (Yast) and one app-based (Time Recording) and I'm OBSESSED. It's. Just. So. Fascinating. Why?

Sittin' On The Steps Of Broadway

It almost works, yes? Yes?

I'm sitting just off Broadway in the sun, reading the Stranger, in my new hat, and even though I can't clean anything ever again, or for at least a few months, whichever comes first, life could SERIOUSLY be worse.

Yes, That Just About Sums It Up

This has certainly been a theme of the last two months: 

W.  H. Auden wrote: “Between the ages of 20 and 40 we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.”

Via (what else?) The Happiness Project.

I See...Dirt, Part 3

So far while moving into the warehouse I have employed a traditional cleaning method that the woman in my family have used for generations, or, to put it another much more accurate way, my mother's method, which is to say you go along on your hands and knees on the floor with a wet paper towel, or just your hands if you can't find a paper towel or are way too impatient to wait for the return of the boyfriend you sent off on the errand, and you stuff anything that looks important in your pocket and you mop up all the rest with your damp-and-getting-drier-by-the-second paper towel. It's just as backbreaking and mom-like as it sounds but you get fabulous results in a surprisingly short amount of time, although this method has been known to put you out of commission for the entire next day, but (according to my mother) that only happens to weaklings. I was 22 before I learned that people used vacuums for HARDWOOD FLOORS. For things you could SEE. My mother would have been on her knees picking that clump of dirt up with her bare hands and stuffing in her pocket faster than you could say, "The vacuum is..." (Usually, the end to that sentence, at least living in the sorority house, was: "...clogged." Once we took it to the vacuum place to get it fixed and they swore they'd found a softball in there.)

You'd think things like swiffers and clorox wipes would have been the best invention for my mother and I since sliced bread, but that thought would be wrong. For someone who doesn't really clean much, I have very strong opinions about it, and I've always had much better results with a plain paper towel or just my hands, (following my mother's example) and I've been known to wash my hands 15 times in an hour instead of just finding the damn paper towels because I keep picking up dog hair clumps and then wanting to eat, which also happens about fifteen times a day (again, for both myself AND my mother.) If the paper product industry depended on us, they'd be broke in a matter of months.

And it's even WORSE in the BATHROOM. I don't use even use washcloths, preferring instead to just splash water on my face and then drip dry into a hand towel, and I'll even use my fingers for TONER. The plus side of this method is, if you're using, say, apple cider vinegar for a toner, and you get some on the counter, you can just wipe it up with a paper towel and then keep going for a second or two and then you've cleaned your counters. Marvelous. (My mother bought a packet of cotton balls once in 1985. That packet is still in the cabinet below the sink.)

Along with her electric razor that has a missing chunk out of the razor blade, which hasn't been changed since 1985, so it takes a big chunk out of your leg when you're racing through shaving your legs because you just learned how. NOT THAT I'M STILL BITTER.

I See...Dirt, Part 2.

So, how do *I* shave, because I'm way too self-conscious yet to shave in front of my boyfriend and I'm terrified of making his gigantic shower work without him? Glad you asked. Backing up: how did I do masks before the mirror in the bathroom? (Which, ironically, is one of those little suction-cup mirrors you put in the shower for guys to shave in?)

Well, before this, I was doing it at work.

You read that right. Whenever I thought I needed a mask, I'd bring it to work, carry it into the bathroom, put warm water in a cup and bring a few paper towels, and camp out in a stall. It's only five minutes--the equivalent of a coffee break. Not difficult or fraud-y. (You can use your smartphone for a mirror, at least if it's not broken, or really any vaguely reflective surface will do. Is the top of the toilet well-scrubbed? What about the shiny stall walls? Etc.)

So when I realized I could use the same method to SHAVE...well. You can guess where this is going. I remembered the technique I learned in the slums of Ensanada: you don't need running water to shave if you have lotion. I had a few false starts (things that DON'T work: sunscreen, creamy face wash, olive oil, argan oil) before I realized that those disposable "blade-with-solid-lather-bars" are the absolute best thing ever. The first time I did it I forgot to bring paper towels into the stall, so I just used the toilet seat covers to wipe off the lather. Worked great and almost ZERO stubble rash, which is a miracle in and of itself. Related: I'm generally a natural-ingredient girl, but for some reason the faker and more gel-ier the shave gel, THE BETTER. Damn those silicones. Anyway.

I finally told my boyfriend I was doing it, braving embarrassment at telling him I was too embarrassed to shave in front of him, because I realized he might notice me staying shaved and never actually performing the action and *starting down a rough road*.

Most boyfriends, or men in general, might not notice or think anything of it if they did notice, but my boyfriend is one of the most observant and connected men I have ever met. He has "sensitive female" levels of perception ability. I *love* this about him, of course, because it allows us to have entire conversations in which the subject is never mentioned--essentially starting in the middle of a thought process--leaving the people around us rather confused, which of course is half the fun of having inside jokes in the first place. But we get to create them all the time. Moving on.

There is one thing that he is absolutely male about, however: he is much, MUCH, messier than I am, and everyone that knows me in real life is shaking their head right now and wondering just how messy could someone be? And that answer is: MESSY.

He's a genius, of course. He doesn't SEE dirt, just as I'm sure Einstein didn't see dirt. I am unfortunately either not a genius, or I am too steeped in female culture or social expectations or SOMETHING, because unfortunately, now I see Dirt. (It only took ten years and some very helpful and compassionate sorority sisters. Shoutout to Bergie, who was the nicest and most gentle person to ever approach me about the fact that my room...smelled.)


So, I'm used to filth. I can hang, as the kids say. I slept in the same bed as my DOG for several years, and he was occasionally incontinent. Yes, really. But now? I see Dirt. How do I handle it? Glad you asked! Stay tuned.

I see...Dirt.

If smart phones are good for anything, it's amusing yourself in the bathroom while your mask dries.

I have recently moved in with my boyfriend , who is living, temporarily, in a (barely) converted warehouse, which only goes a part of the way toward explaining why I'm standing naked in what amounts to a gas station bathroom smearing $65 face mask on my skin, but damned if I'm not going to stand here for the recommended five minutes, which is why I'm typing this on my smartphone. I put some on my elbow, too, for good measure. The mask, not the phone, and I didn't put any mask on the phone, although the screen is so broken I'm not sure I could actually worsen the condition and a good mask treatment might even be an improvement. My elbow, which has some kind of recurring bite on it and itches like crazy, is stinging a bit after the mask, which I think is a good sign.

The only reason I can even do this here is because there's finally a mirror in this bathroom, which only happened yesterday. You read that right. No mirror in the bathroom. Before this I did my makeup in the big mirrored doors of the IKEA wardrobe in our bedroom, which means that I often splashed water on my face at night, THEN trekked, raccoon-eyed, two rooms over to the big mirrors, so I could put lotion on the correct smudges and not in my eye. I'd have installed a mirror in the bathroom awhile ago except we can't even seem to keep TOWELS in the bathroom, much less a mirror. (No, really. Three other guys live here too and one of them purloined the mirror and set it up by the only window in the place by a live outlet, because two of the three have beards and they needed to shave in natural light. With electric razors, obviously.)

This is what happens when you move into a barely converted warehouse. My boyfriend refers to it as "the Danger Room", or the DR for short, which is confusing if you have spent any time in the Dominican Republic, which he has and I haven't, so there you go. It's much like living in a medieval castle, or in a third world--I feel like I need a lit candle to walk around the place. (Much better, too, if I had flowing robes a la Maid Marian.) It's confusing and challenging and AWESOME and I LOVE IT. Stay tuned.

Charlotte Gray at Bending Breath

I found the book "Charlotte Gray" in a shared library in a hostel in Tokyo at 3 am because I couldn't sleep, and I read it all in one sitting and brought it home with me on the plane and haven't read it since, but have thought about it many times. It remains a mystery in my head, a mild obsession, a faint itch that I COULD scratch if I wanted to, but choose not to. I like it almost better as a mystery.

Also, "found in a shared library in a hostel in Tokyo at 3 am because I couldn't sleep" is one of those incredibly pretentious things you only get to say a few times, and I am damned well going to take every opportunity to do so. I'd say I'm sorry about this, but I'm not.

Also: I have no idea how I found this blog, but I read her obsessively. I don't think she even knows I exist. Another mystery that I like to leave as a mystery.

“Memory is the only thing that binds you to earlier selves; for the rest, you become an entirely different being every decade or so, sloughing off the old persona, renewing and moving on. You are not who you were, he told her, nor who you will be.”  
 

-Sebastian Faulks, Charlotte Gray

Via this post at Bending Breath

Give me a 13 foot pipe and a place to stand, and I shall move...THIS SUITCASE.

Or, Why You Should Never Throw Anything Away.

A nice weekender bag just wasn't going to cut it. I was about to leave on a week long trip, covering business AND a wedding AND some time just bumming around Long Island. I needed a suitcase. A REAL suitcase. I had one of those, but...oh, dear. Hadn't I just moved?

On the plus side, I located it immediately, in the morass of things that is my stuff, piled up to the rafters of the warehouse I've just moved in to with Entrepreneur. On the negative side, it was...at the top of a 15-foot stack of boxes. Mounting the neighboring drafting table brought me within wishing reach, but...my arms weren't quite long enough. Then I braved climbing directly onto the upper strata of boxes, and managed to reach the handle button, which extended said handle, which seemed like victory...until I realized I'd just extended the lever arm in the wrong direction. Now I'd have to apply much MORE force to lift the suitcase above the sides of the box holding it, and I wasn't sure the upper strata were balanced enough to support me, plus me working against my own weight, without toppling over like dominoes and taking me with them. Not the ideal start to a week long trip of any kind.

Fortunately, I had resources; namely, one very smart boyfriend, and also, one 13-foot conduit pipe that I've carried with me from place to place for the last two years for gawd knows what reason except that you just never know when you might desperately need a good 13-foot pipe, and they can be hard to lay your hands on at a moment's notice.*

Entrepreneur's solution: Tell girlfriend to stay where she is. Grab your girlfriend's 13-foot pipe. Utilize already installed girlfriend, precariously but firmly balanced on the closest access point to the suitcase, as the fulcrum.** Have her thread the pipe through the helpfully popped-up handle. Direct her to utilize all of her non-existent upper body strength and push and HOLD the pipe as high as possible above her head, against your force. Stand back and haul that lever DOWN. Et Voila!

Optional finish for extra style points: As you hand your girlfriend the high flying suitcase, remark offhandedly, "When facing a problem, always remember your Archimedes."

*Very smart boyfriends can ALSO be hard to lay your hands on at a moment's notice.

**This stunt was performed by a completely unpaid nonprofessional on a very uncontrolled course. Do not try this at home.

Survived Hell!

HOORAY!


Getting called a tw@t in front of my mother really put the cap on it, I think. But! It does not matter. I escaped with all my fingers and toes--I don't think I left more than a few brain cells behind--and I get to live with a pretty awesome guy and really, just surviving, and knowing I never have to go back, is a wonderful, blessed, thing.

Also! I got to go to LA and NYC and see some awesome people get married. That was pretty nifty. Shoutout to a navy blue dress I bought at a thrift store that I think was meant to be a nightgown and has now carried me through six weddings, with at least one more to go. Best fourteen bucks I ever spent.

About "From the B-Sides"

Tri-Tip, the other day, took time out of his busy work schedule to hound me for posting ARCHIVES. (Direct quote: "We demand NEW content!")

"But they ARE new content, at least to you," I said. "Those are all unpublished drafts of posts I never finished, or wasn't sure what to do with. Figured the time had come to make them work for their keep."

"Ah," he said, without missing a beat, "then they're not archives. They're B-sides."

And so they are.

From the B-Sides: Blues Lyrics

It's a warm summer night, but that computer screen glows cold/
This space you put between us is really growing old/
Talking to you is less appealing than mold/
So when the dealer comes around again, tell him that I fold

Written about the LT, sometime in spring or summer 2009.

From the B-Sides: Cooking for the Then-Boyfriend

From last year:

I had kind of an off week last week--tired, not really into much, feeling like a failure--and Roommate (before she was Roommate) came over in the middle of it and looked into my fridge. "Hold up," she said. "You...went to the grocery!"

"Yes!" I said. "There's cheese, and bread, and even some lettuce mix."

She gave me a priceless look of amazement over the back of the door. "Wow," she said, "you HAVE had an off week!"

HA. Whatever.

On the plus side, I totally packed a lunch for myself today of FOOD that I bought at a GROCERY STORE, including SALAD with dressing and leftover pasta that I totally made ON MY OWN, with mainly-homemade sauce, thanks to the aforementioned dinner that I cooked for Boyfriend.

(Menu for Boyfriend Dinner: Two pork chops, of such high quality that I just cooked them in butter, salt and pepper, and a little garlic-from-a-jar. Wide good noodles from TJ's with a sauce of sheeps' milk yogurt, Nancy's sour cream, and leftover parmesan sauce from Safeway. Lettuce mix with dressing. Yes, it feels fancy to ME, okay? Okay.)

From mid-year 2010, cooking for AZ.