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.

From the B-Sides: On My Lust List for Spring

Oh, man.

From summer 2010. And I STILL want them!

From the B-Sides: On Changing and Being Changed

I wrote a post last year about being a partier and dating a partier, and I didn't publish it partly because I hadn't finished it, and partly because I was worried about my mother's reaction.

I need coffee. Hang on.

In my next life, I want to write like Tom Chiarelli. Why is there no Esquire Magazine for women?

Speaking of, the editor for Cosmopolitan, Ms. Kate White, is really an excellent writer. She has at least two non-fiction books out and a whole series of whodunits with a freelance writer (sound familiar?) as the protagonist, and they are really good.

I would totally read an entire magazine written in Ms. White's voice. She treats women like they are literate, independent, sane. Exactly how Esquire seems to treat its readers. I understand that Ms. White cares about Cosmo and I understand that one woman can't--and really, shouldn't--change a working magazine formula, but it is still slightly disappointing, like seeing someone you know and respect marry someone you know is no good for them.

(Tom Chiarelli is not the editor for Esquire. Just one of their more senior and important contributors. He writes a lot of advice pieces, but not advice columns; more longer non-fiction pieces that hope to show, instead of tell, young men how to be a man.)

Yes. Well. Although much of his advice (at least some) is non-gender specific, and I don't always agree with him, I do wonder what he would advise young men to do in these kinds of situations, both a) I've written a very casual and normal piece that I'm terribly worried about publishing because I'm worried about my mother (and, to be fair, my father as well, although he is less of a threat because he is less inclined to call me about it and also works much farther away) and b) I'm in a relationship that is changing me, and I hate it.

Let me be clear: the man is not TRYING to change me. He simply is, by virtue of being himself, and me being myself (by virtue of: GOD what a ridiculous phrase. I'm not even sure what it means.)

Ahem. The man is not at all trying to change me. (I've been THERE before and I know what that looks like. This is different.) I am reacting in some way that seems to be pre-prescribed by either my hormones or the socialization I can't fully rid myself of or the alignment of the stars and the moon or SOMETHING, and whatever that SOMETHING is, it can go jump in the Sound in December, as far as I am concerned, and never come back. (Writer's note: I almost used the phrase "I am simply reacting" and then went back and took it out. Whether you are writing an email, a powerpoint presentation, a blog post, a letter, whatever, you should NEVER use the words "simply" or "just". The minute you find yourself using them in your speech, stop immediately and figure out what you're really trying to say. Those are weasel words, passive-aggressive words, and they make you a hypocritical coward faster than you can say "Pharisee".)

(Back to the point.)

It's an old joke: A woman marries a man hoping he will change, and he doesn't, and a man marries a woman hoping she'll never change, and she does.

I don't WANT to change. I don't want to be changed by him, and I don't want to want him to change, if you follow me. So far I may be succeeding at point three, but occasionally failing at points one and two, and here would probably be a good time to add some nouns, because this sentence is going to get ridiculously complicated quickly if I repeat the word "change" every five words, and you'll start to think you're listening to Obama's 2012 presidential campaign.

In a nutshell, I will post the body of the original post I wrote, because it fits in neatly AND now I'll never have to finish it, and I've already published the parental disclaimer, and so now by writing sleight-of-hand and I am fully blameless and can publish this post with equanimity. HA.

On Being And Dating a Partier.

Hanging out with moderate drinkers is sure different from hanging out with serious drinkers. For comparison: the Blonde Squad are moderate drinkers. The CTC Crew are serious drinkers. (And that's not all they do with their disposable income, I'll just put it that way.)

I've been trying to walk this fine line with my mother (and father) about the amount of partying that I talk about in this blog, not because I'm worried about their judgment or approval, but because they'll worry, and they'll want to talk about it, and I don't know how to communicate to them that they may be correct on some level to worry, but that talking about it would be like talking about why most girls under 30 aren't married yet or what Twitter does, exactly, or trying to explain Snark. It's not that they're dumb. (They're both better educated than I am.) It's that it's a generational phenomenon. I feel that what drives their worry is the fact that I am failing at life, that I am somehow an outlier who is terribly unhappy or unsuccessful or drinking some secret pain away or staying out because I can't bear to be home, and that may be true, but if it is, then the entire generation under 35, and most of the generation under 40, has the exact same problem and perhaps we should ALL go to more therapy and go to fewer bars.

Are bars the new psychiatrist's couch? Is shouting over your friends and chasing members of the opposite sex the new cognitive behavioral therapy?

Because my generation--and the one right before me, say--pretty much INVENTED binge drinking. It's what we do.

Put another way, partying is something that happens among a certain age group who has a fair amount of disposable income and a lot of free time, with no dependents, and is obviously sad about life, because why else would they drink that much?

Seriously, you put a lot of really gorgeous people in a room together who don't know each other, for a big party, and suddenly people are pounding the shots back like they're water. WHY? Why do we do this? Is it social anxiety? Are people afraid of something? Getting to know other people? Getting to know themselves? Are other people not going to like them? Will they know what to say? (I'm aware that paragraph is very poorly written. Sorry.)

So if I have a strong belief that I should live my single life and my relationship life in very similar veins--and I have a very strong belief that I should--then I should be able to go out with my partner, right? And I've made a practice of doing that very successfully. For many years, a shaping policy on my dating life has been that I won't date anyone I can't go out with. I shared that with my mother recently and she said, "But Miss Dear, you won't always want to GO OUT. You'll want to spend time at home!"

I pooh-poohed this idea, which is generally par for the course.

But dating partiers is hard, too. There's a lot of parties. People flirt. People get drunk, and do stupid things, and get jealous. I turn into a hag. It's not good. Or my date turns into a jealous asshole. (Editor's Note: Both have happened to me relatively recently, actually.)

One of the things that broke up the LT and I at the end of the relationship is that he still wanted to go out, in the GO-GO-GO atmosphere that is hard-livin' young professionals that spend every waking moment not at work on a ski mountain or on a sailboat or on a motorcycle or jumping out of airplanes, and I wanted to have more dinners out and see more live music (usually the symphony or jazz) and dance more.

Also, partying that much feels, after awhile--even with the slightly more sophisticated verneer of jazz and dancing and live music, which really only means that you get a cheap red wine hangover instead of a cheap whiskey hangover--childish.

CHILDISH. You're not doing anything. You're not contributing to society, you're not doing anything creative in your off hours. Whether you're on the ski slope or in the ballet audience, you're not doing anything good for society, and yes I DID just equate skiing with ballet. Are you CREATING the ballet? No? Then you're not spending your leisure hours in any more productive fashion than the dude who smokes pot every day and lives in the snow. (I'll buy the argument that there is more POTENTIAL for creativity for the person who attends ballet, but that only counts if they then use that generated creativity.)

And going to fancy parties and drinking with a really nice view is a kick in the pants, true, but it's not any more productive than skiing unless you're in the market for a rich husband or the best networker ever.

The point I am trying to make here is that now I am suddenly hanging out with a lot of boys who are heavy drinkers and it's WONDERFUL, but I'm not ACCOMPLISHING a damn thing besides wearing out my liver and looking really good at night. The last two dates Handrolled and I have had have been specifically about drinking, as in, that was the entire plan for the date: "Let's get drunk and watch movies and snuggle." To be fair, I LOVE this activity. But when it's the GOAL for the date, I feel like we shoot past "happy energetic tipsy", which is what everyone is aiming for, and go directly to "Blackout Express", which means that some part of me SOMEWHERE has a good night but I don't get to remember all of it in the morning, which is no fun.

Zaphod Breeblebox's Gambit: When you send a drink down the hatch and it seems to have no affect, so you send another one down to see what the first one is doing, and now they're BOTH ignoring you, so you send a third drink down to see what the first two are up to and that one seems to have some affect, so you have another drink to keep the party going, and suddenly you're wasted and you never got to even enjoy being tipsy.

And it's not only Mr. Handrolled. Two separate members of the Blonde Squad suffered from such serious hangovers this weekend that they slept half their hangovers away, and let me emphasize that that does not normally happen to these girls. I'm seeing what seems like a RESURGENCE of heavy drinking all around me and it makes me feel partly responsible.

God, I missed my calling. I should have been a false prophet. I'd have been amazing. My eyes already glow blue anyway.

The long and short of it is that I thought, until I wrote all this out, that I was suddenly wanting to stay in and party less because Mr. Handrolled was starting to party so much more, and so he was pushing me in the opposite direction, and he was going to be mighty disappointed soon when the party girl he liked disappears for Shrewish Hag, and suddenly I'm thinking it's not his fault at all. Which makes me feel slightly less crazy, and also makes me think that my dates (and my friends) really are drinking this much to either dull pain, or have more fun, which is all well and good but I'd like not to depend on it. Can I be the same fun party girl without drinking quite so much?

And to really put the lid on things, it's possible I'm only thinking this way because I went to my first chiropractic appointment today and I feel old.

From the B-Sides: Only Child Syndrome

I just want things to STAY WHERE I PUT THEM, he said.

I agreed.

I'm touchy about my cereal, he said. I have to keep a box just for me because I go crazy when the level is different from where I left.

I understood.

From the B-Sides: Randoms

Me, to the bartender: "Whiskey and Ginger, please."

Bartender takes one look at me and snorts. "Yeah, I bet you ARE a Whiskey Ginger."

Me: "Is that like a whiskey-FUELED Ginger?"

Bartender: "Or a Frisky Whiskey Ginger?"

Me: "Wow."

Kit, introducing me to a friend of hers: "And sometimes, Aarwenn lets you come over and bounce on her tramp!"

I meant to say "Give you a ride" and switched halfway through the sentence to say, "Drive you home", and this is what came out:

Me, to Entrepreneur: "Okay, so you need me to ride you home?"
Him: "Um...is this a trick question?"

Me, to Sales Guy: "You had him take the day off work so he could help you lay tile in your basement? That IS a good friend."
Sales Guy, defensively: "Yeah, well I bailed him out in LA when he got busted for possession, so as far as I'm concerned, he's still in the hole."

"Bobby": Yeah, not drinking yesterday was a big feat for me.
Me: "Yeah, I don't think I've accomplished that since I had the swine flu."

Death and Taxes (and coffee)

It's a BEAUTIFUL day here and I got a new, free, blouse! I feel pretty classy sitting here in it.

Roommate has switched Bux stores, and she doesn't have to go in quite so early anymore, which means that occasionally I drop her off at the new store on my way to work, and get a free latte out of the deal. This also means that she and I get to trade witty banter in the car, which is a fun start to the day.

This morning, as we left the house, I looked at us--she in her full on Sbux black and me in my charcoal gray blouse and black pants, both of us compulsively wearing our aviators--and laughed.

"What?" she said, grinning.

"Someone who didn't know the culture at all would assume we were going to a funeral," I pointed out.

She laughed. "SO true. It's all sunny, and there's spring coming and bluebirds singing and--"

"--rainbows popping--"

"--right, and people are happy and smiling and probably wearing pastels, and here we are in full on BLACK."

"The Ex-Goth in the Entrepreneur would be proud."

And then, a little later, we weren't far from her store and I court death by pulling a fast left turn in front of oncoming traffic, because, jeez, we were on our way for COFFEE and that can't wait for things like safety, am I right?

Her: "Turns out, we WERE dressed for a funeral!"

Me: "We had no idea IT WOULD BE OUR OWN."

I Can See Why Non-Destructive Testing Is So Popular

It has not been an easy month.(tm)

It is perhaps accurate to say that I have experienced stress levels higher this past month than I ever have before. At one point Entrepreneur offered to take me to the shooting range and I said, "No. I can't be around guns right now."

It's calming down, though. Thanks, in no small part, to Entrepreneur, of course, and his friends, and support network. They have been the best support network ever, not because they actively went out of their way to comfort me (although many did) but because seeing stability and functionality at its most basic level, implemented on the cellular level, was a light at the end of a long and dark tunnel, a logical proof that I was not slowly going mad, that the chaos and destruction I saw in my own life every waking minute was not required, that I didn't have to live in that land forever. The Blonde Squad (tm) also helped enormously, of course, and they should not feel like an afterthought. I grasped moments with them like a woman swimming the Channel would grasp breaths between chops. After all, it was partly the presence of Entrepreneur in my life that made things so stressful, because if he hadn't been who he is the breakdown of law and order would not have happened. Of course, if Roommate hadn't met Her Lady, either, this also would have never happened, at least not all at once.

I don't mean to be cryptic. Entrepreneur is Water, and Rommate's Lady is Oil, and never the two shall mix, which Roommate and I could have dealt with...if we hadn't gotten ambitious and tried to make Salad Dressing.

In fact I owe Roommate's Lady a debt, really. Just by being herself--the constantly chaotic and destructive person that she is--she pulled out of Entrepreneur everything that I was unsure about and set it up in front of me like a barrier; she built a barricade between me and my love for him and I had to knock it down, brick by goddamned brick, in the presence of witnesses.

She also forced me to see Roommate as Herself, not as the woman I'd been imagining all these years, especially the past few years, when I'd been so close to her, Roommate's Lady is a magnifying glass, a crucible, the Devil's Funhouse Mirror; she magnifies everything ugly and unsure about a person and displays it back on them tenfold. If Roommate and I had been actually married and had to get a divorce, it could not have been worse.

(Well, probably it would have been, honestly. I've never actually gotten divorced.)

It was as bad as it was with Handrolled; I had to not only break up with him, but also divorce in my head the person whom I was with him, and him only; I had to examine all my assumptions about him and explode them, one by one. Destructive testing is...destructive. WHO KNEW.

It was worse with Roommate and Roommate's Lady, in point of fact. Part of it was the surprise factor. At least I knew the breakup with Handrolled was coming.

Roommate and I are still roommates, for the time being; we may continue to be for some time. We've hammered out a truce. And we always knew our roommate relationship would be temporary anyway, at least for some definition of "temporary".

The scars, however, are permanent.

I Feel Virtuous When I Walk My Dog, Too.

Also, your word of the day is: Virtuous. As in, "Aarwenn sure felt virtuous listing all the solid food she'd already consumed that Monday." (Future versions of this sentence may include the word "fateful" before "Monday", but of course we can't know.)

Used first in my presence by one Entrepreneur, re the same subject matter. Some people may have hi-fived, I believe I initiated a fist bump, because I am a dork and kind of a douchebag. A much more appropriate conduit of mutual physical recognition, I realize suddenly, would have been a pat on the back. Fooey.

I Flounder.

Breakfast: Granola bar, office coffee. Elevenses: Beet juice with chia seeds, and chicken terrine, cold cuts, and broiled mountain cheese from Cafe Presse. Late lunch: Bimimbap and seaweed soup with beef broth. Clover-brewed Sumatra. I'd make some funny comment, but I guess I'm just all over the map today.

My coworker, on hearing that I had been to Olympus Spa and gotten the scrub and moisturizing package: "Oh, that's my favorite, too! But I always feel like a big fish. A big white flabby fish, you know, because those women all have such lovely golden skin and here I am in all my flabby whiteness on a SLAB while they rub me down and fillet me."

Then much later, smelling my seaweed soup: "Mmmm. That reminds me, I should get back there soon. It's time for another flounder treatment."

Me, laughing: "Is THAT what we're calling it now?"

Her: "You prefer Halibut Treatment?"

In Which I Write About Titan, Part The First

I'm going to post about Titan here, for many reasons, and, (Spoiler alert) if you like dogs, or know me well, or know TITAN well, or cry easily, make sure you’re in a private place, or skip this post until later.

(Don't say I didn't warn you.)

Ready? Okay, pet owners, and everyone: I'm writing this all out because at some point, you will need to know how to deal with a dying pet, and...everyone's reactions will be different. Your reactions, whatever they are, or will be, ARE SO FUCKING VALID, because...well, read on.

For those of you who don’t know, Titan had an unexpected, and very scary, unknown  event happen to him on Saturday night. All I know is, I watched him—in what seemed like slow-motion—collapse, rear end hitting the ground first—in my apartment hallway. And when I ran to him to help him up, he vehemently shied away from my touch.



It was then that I realized his pupils were beyond dilated and he was temporarily blind and also had lost any control of his hindquarters.

I screamed at him for a while, in my apartment hallway, giving him orders: Do NOT die on me, you fucking weakling, I should have left you at the pound 13 years ago, if THIS is how you repay me, get the FUCK up, don’t you do this to me. DON’T you do this to me. I have to go to a fancy party in an hour, I did NOT plan on putting you down tonight, don’t you leave me here, on Earth, without you, DON’T YOU LEAVE ME HERE, I can’t live without you, I CAN’T live without you, DON’T YOU FUCKING LEAVE ME, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!

Then I realized I probably wasn’t accomplishing anything and bodily forced him into my car.

I fought my broken clutch on my way to the ER, through the stop-and-go traffic of the Wallingford section of 45th at 7:30 pm on a Saturday night, thinking my dog was going to die at any second. In case you were thinking about trying that soon for your own amusement, my advice is:
Don’t.

Many, many, things happened after that, including me carrying on with life*, not sure if my dog was going to make it or not. On Saturday night, it seemed like he would; they assumed he had ingested some kind of dog neurotoxin (which could be a LOT of things in your medicine cabinet, including NSAIDs) due to the rapid onset. Which also made sense to me. (Note: Two patients who came in after me had to put their cats down, and let me tell you—it was a small office. The obvious pain was...a little awful.)

Back to Titan: They were going to keep him overnight, pump him with fluids and activated charcoal, and run some tests. Fine. Okay. I went home and did the fastest primp job ever, trying to cover up my swollen eyelids. (LOTS of yellow-tinted eyeshadow primer, ladies.)**

2 am Sunday morning, they had tested for every known dog toxin under the sun and were no longer sure what had happened. Obviously pancreatitis, possibly pancreatic cancer, probably some colitis, we’ll call you when we know more. We’re not sure he’s going to make it; we don’t know what’s wrong. That was...a rough night. Shall we just say.

At 8 am Sunday morning, they still didn’t know what had happened, but he was improving; Sunday afternoon, even more promising; Sunday evening, he was *totally* surviving! Stable! Talking! Talking quite loudly, actually! Please come pick him up before we all go deaf! (Titan has his own language, as everyone who has met him knows. Still haven’t found a damned interpreter.) Except...we (the vet) don’t know why he had that event, and you should probably take him to see a neurologist, because problems that cause Serious Neurological Events don’t usually fix themselves. (Excuse my black comedy; it’s a survival mechanism. If you’re offended, fuck you.)

So, after meeting with the veterinary neurologist (yes, I am now the kind of person who gets a neurologist for her *dog*--and we won’t make any jokes about how I probably need it more than he does) I know the truth: he probably has a few months of high quality life left, maybe even a year or longer***. I know what symptoms/turning points to look for, and I have options A, B, and C at every one of those turning points, if and when they happen****. How he’s doing: he’s doing fine right now—he’s sleeping a lot, but he seems happy and comfortable, and he has plenty of appetite, once I got the right food*****. I’m crossing my fingers.

How I’m doing: I feel…fey. I mean, I thought in the middle of Sunday that I was going to have put him down RIGHT THEN, so…when he got better, and I didn’t have to, I felt incredibly relieved, but also pretty apprehensive, like: I have no idea what happened, it could happen again, what the heck am I going to do, when will it end, when will I *know*, what if, what if, WHAT IF. And now, after the neurologist, I have some answers, which, on top of the incredible sense of relief I had after he unexpectedly improved, has made me almost manic******.

This man has been my lifeline for the past 8 years, since I graduated from college. He has been my anchor. My rock. My guiding star, my reason for living, my boyfriend, my priest, my ball-and-chain, my roommate, my heating blanket, my reason for cursing, my expense, my sacrifice, and now, he has emerged as my rather slow-acting…heart. The outward extension of my emotions, my lightning rod, my canary in a coal mine. He’s the most wonderful, and the most frustrating, experience I have ever had. And while he’s very alive right now, at some point in the next year, he will die.

So: expect me to cycle rapidly through the “stages” of grief at some point in the next few weeks/months/years, and by “cycle” I mean “I may experience any of them at any moment, at any second." I’m thinking about carrying color-coded flash cards, so I can just hold one up when I know what I’m feeling, which in ITSELF assumes that I’ll know what I’m experiencing, which is a big assumption. For example: yesterday my ski gear didn’t fit, because I’ve lost weight, and I was so pissed that I was losing that much weight that I hurled my motorcycle boot against the wall and left a dent. (Hope my apartment super isn’t reading this. Hi, James!)

I hope you get/got to meet my Man, and I hope I don’t take it out on you too much, and I hope you can understand if I do.

Thanks, everyone.

*Yeah, I carried on with life. I'll go into that in maybe a next post. I'm certainly not done writing about this subject, I can tell you that. LOTS of emotions to go through. Shout-out to the Snowshoe Gang, who were incredibly supportive when I showed up at Victrola, so unstable that I was breaking into pieces and re-healing all at the same time.

**Like I said: your reactions, whatever they are, are VALID. I chose to go on with life, and I'll talk more about that in a separate post. Shout-out to the Roommate, my mother, and various love interests, both present and past, all of whom have been unbelievably supportive at this crucial time.

***I will happily go into the medical details for anyone (medicine specialists, pet owners, or just the plain nosy) who wants to know. Message me.

****That poor vet. She must have thought I had gone insane, I was so mathematical and logical, but she never said a judgmental word, and went out of her way to discuss, and re-discuss, every possible option with me. I want to take this moment to say that one of the bright spots of this episode in my life has been the extremely high quality of veterinary care I have gotten, from both Emerald City Emergency Clinic and the VCA Veterinary Specialty Center of Seattle. They made me feel like I was the only patient on their books; I called and re-called, and they took as much time as I needed; it was like I had a private team of vets devoted to just my dog. I cannot say enough good things.

*****Twelve hours ago he still wasn't eating. Turns out he just didn't like his old food anymore; a simple hack, a simple thing to fix, not the heart-breaking episode it might have been. If this happens to you, pet owners, try switching up the food a few times before calling the ER. AGAIN.

******I'm fascinated with everything he does, with every move he makes. It's a little strange, but I'm adjusting.

AZ and I: Still Friends, Thank Goodness

*random work chatter over IM, and then*

Me: "Okay, I'm going to get some coffee."

AZ: "Good luck!"

Me: "I don't need luck. I got skill."

Me: "...that is the biggest lie I have ever told."

And then, a few hours later...

*more chatter, and then*

AZ: "...dammit. As usual, please forgive the spelling." (Author's note: I once got him this coffee mug. It is the most accurate description of him available.)

Me: "Hey, at least you spelled 'congratulations' right!

AZ: "That one's an easy one for me. I can sound it out."

Me: "Most people spell it with a D. Those people should be taken out and shot."

AZ: "Hehe."

Me: "Aww. That's so cute that you think I'm kidding."

AZ: "HA! That's why I love you. You are batshit crazy about all the right things."

Brain Pickings

The very best blog ever, even more so than The Britannica Blog (which is also excellent) or The Happiness Project (my love of which has been well documented):

Brain Pickings.

Holy. Wow. It is like a museum for the mind.

And this recent post, ABOUT the post entitled 9 Best Books On Reading and Writing, about the power of intuition over rational thought, got me laughing, because of course what I did was go straight to the post about the 9 Best Books and put the first book on hold at the library, because I've been trying to figure out how I can use my down time more wisely than hitting "random" on Texts From Last Night, which I have pretty much memorized by now.

Which is exactly the OPPOSITE of the point of the post. I should have maybe been stretching out with my intuition, trying to *feel* the book I was supposed to read next?

No matter. I have a good book on hold at the library. That counts as a win for today.

Conversation

Me: "Whew. One item off my To-Do List."

Roommate: "Which item was this?"

Me: "I finally installed the magnetic lenses for my phone. They click on magnetically, and they give you wide-angle and macro abilities. I only bought them a YEAR ago."

Roommate: "And WHY haven't you installed them, yet?"

Me: "Putting the self-stick magnetic ring on my phone seemed like too much work."

Roommate: "Says the girl who just took her ENTIRE JEEP apart."

Me: "...whatever."

ALSO!

I would just like to announce to the world that I replaced my gas tank. By myself. Related: I am kind of big deal.

Similarities

I am standing on the sidewalk, which is "safe", or at least likely to contain hidden dog poop, while Titan waters a place as FAR AWAY AS HE CAN GET from me and still be attached. Actually, I am not standing on the sidewalk; I have only one foot on it. The other leg is raised in the air to balance me as I lean at a 90 degree angle over the leaves and dirt, leash hooked on my longest finger, because seriously, Titan is AS FAR AWAY AS HE CAN POSSIBLY BE. I am doing Warrior III Pose, is what I'm saying here. My dog WOULD require me to do yoga while walking him.

I complain about this to my mother, who happens to be standing right next to me. "Why do we always have to go to the very very end of the leash to pee? WHY?"

"I remember a young lady who also had to push to the very edge of her boundaries," she said, rather wryly, watching me balance on the sidewalk.

Me: "...Oh, really? Hmmm."

Her: "YES."

Me: "Hey, and we both do it for the same reason: to make our mark on the world!"

Her: "In a slightly different way, though."

I Am Tired

So tired, in fact, that I hit "Publish" before I'd even written anything. Awesome. I am tired. I am so tired. Everyone's tired on a Friday; I get that. I totally have that going on. That's not what I'm talking about. I am (in addition to the standard Friday tired) the kind of tired that happens after you've been filled with adrenaline and stress for weeks and suddenly, at the end of a Friday, it all drains out of you in a whoosh and you are a lump, in a chair, sort of melting into it, because you don't have any energy to sit up straight. I just put music on and had to turn it off, because I don't have enough energy to write and listen to music at the same time. I am TIRED. I am too tired to fall asleep. Thanks for being here.

I Think Lady Gaga May Be The Third Prophet

I was trying to think of a pithy statement that could possibly describe this hell of a day, and then I realized...the least exciting thing that happened today is the leak in my gas tank. And that's really all I can say. ("And babe, there's nothing else I can say. Eh eh, eh eh.")

Happy Friday!

Classic

Me: "So, want to hit the Crescent? I'm in the mood for some karaoke."

Date: "Mmmm...I don't know. I usually love karaoke." (Author's note: I know this to be true--this was not our first date. But we had not yet gone to karaoke together.) "My mojo's kind of gone. I mean, a few weeks ago, I was in Portland, singing karaoke, and..."

Me (interrupting): "Where?"

Date: "At the Galaxy. And there was this big guy..."

Me (interrupting again): "With a beard? A rather long one?"

Date: "Yes!"

Me: "That's RC."

Date: "Oh, you know him? Wait, what am I saying? Of course you do."

The First Thing You Do, You Destroy All The Mirrors*

Remember how this was supposed to be done for my parents' fortieth anniversary? Yeah, me either.

(If you're lost, feel free to check out Part 1 and Part 2 first.) (If anyone is reading this besides my parents, who deserve this effort and more even if it's only read by them. I love you guys.)

Where were we? Oh, yes. I had taken one post to describe my heroes, and another post to describe how awesome I was, and right when I was about to get to describe WHY I turned out awesome, and also modest, and did I mention I was about to compare myself to my heroes?--I sort of vanished into Korea. (Damn Korea.) (Possibly I'll try not to curse anymore in this love letter to my parents, whom are rather conservative.)

Ahem. So. I possibly ran out of words because I am not MUCH like my heroes, unfortunately, which sort of deflates my point--if you can do that--but I DID grow up to be pretty confident with a rather fresh mouth, and seriously, you want your daughter to grow up like this. You do. (Don't worry, moms that I know--SHE WON'T TURN OUT LIKE ME. Well...probably.)

Wow, I have really lost my point. LET'S JUST COMMENCE, SHALL WE?

Golden Rules For Raising a Kick Ass Daughter in the Style of Tina Fey

(Expect her to curse every now and then.)

1. Pray she "peaks" at 50. Mindy Kaling and Tina Fey made this point very clear: if your daughter isn't Pretty at 17, THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS.

Of course, you can't actually do anything about this, aside from encasing her in a burkha (or handy ivory tower, if you want to go all fairy tale) or marrying the ugliest partner you can find, but I wouldn't really  recommend any of those options. Here's what you can do, even if she has porcelain skin and perfect hair at five years old: bring her up in a household that focuses on other things. And this should start in the womb. (The Huffington Post did a fantastic article about this phenomenon here, which you should really read, right away, right now.)

Fortunately for my parents, they didn't have to work too hard on this, given the material they were blessed with. Arraying yourself in button down shirts with belts in weird places at 12 is not the way to attract a lot of attention for your looks, and it didn't help that I had an unwieldy-ily-large and rather British vocabulary, an enormous imagination, and two friends who were just as nerdy as I was. Tina Fey refers to this phase as "when she relaxed in her colonial lady outfit after school", which is why she is the comedy writer, and not me. And she and Mindy Kaling have both included hilarious pictures of themselves from those time periods, and I won't do that because I am not a multimillion dollar comedienne. What I will say: at the rather advanced age of twenty-four, I suddenly started hitting the gym, lost twenty pounds, cut off my hair, and dyed it blonde, and I was cute!...for about twenty minutes. Turns out that blonde hair needs a lot of upkeep. As I frequently find it difficult to shower more than once a week, you can imagine how well I did with that. For the next three years.

Why did this happen? (Besides the not-washing-hair phase, which happened for other reasons that I won't go into here.) Well. It's true that my parents didn't have to work too hard to keep my focus off my looks, but it's also true to say that they are both overachievers. To say that my up-bringing was not looks-focused would be an understatement. Let's put it this way: I didn't learn how to apply makeup until I was twenty. I didn't get my first pedicure until I had graduated from college. My up-bringing was 100% focused on school, activities, and church. I'm not even sure we owned mirrors in the house. (Joke.) (Barely.)

This is both entirely both my parents' fault, as it's their damn genes on my face, but also of course not their fault at all, since they couldn't help it. My mother was born with naturally perfect skin, a fast metabolism, a dread of sugar, and a great smile. You don't NEED makeup when you have all those things. My blessed father told us both, over and over again, that we were the most beautiful ladies he knew. I believed him, because he was my father, and besides, it made sense that if he was right about my mother--which he was--then he must be right about me, too! I was beautiful! Excellent!

(Junior high came as kind of a shock.)

Yes, well. It gives me things to laugh now, and more importantly, it turns out that that is THE ABSOLUTE BEST WAY TO RAISE A DAUGHTER. Like, only the absolutely most important thing you can do. Being shuttled around between school, activities, and church (also not a looks-focused organization, generally) I had zero time to stare into any mirrors even if we had owned them. Instead, I developed interests in many other things, all of which were focused on my talents and skills, and not my looks. Music. Art*. Drama. Travel. Knowledge about the world. Opinions (definitely developed a lot of those). Ability to FORM opinions and SHARE them, articulately. Hey: I am the product of two (2) salespeople. The dinner table was not quiet in our house.

Oh, yeah: the dinner table. It also turns out some kind of structure and dependability is also important for raising kids, and that brings us to The Next Golden Rule...TOMORROW!

*Name that Shakespeare reference!

Obviously, I Was Just Kidding

I was writing the piece about The Second Golden Rule, and then I realized that my piece on "How To Raise A Kick-Ass Daughter" was veering into "verbal diarrhea about my relationship with my parents". The first focus is good, the second focus is...not. Come on. That's what Roommate is for. (Other people might say, "That's what Therapy is for," but that's not how I roll.)

Please hold while I work out exactly what I want to say. THANK YOU.

I Am Such An Engineer, Part II.

Him: "Well, the original composite bows were made of heartwood, and yew* wood."

Me: "Really? How did they get the two woods to stay together back in medieval days? Glue? Had nails been invented?"

Him: (Smiling, because he is cute.) "No, it grows that way."

Me: "..."

Me: "...Oooooooooohhhhhhhh. Because it's...a tree."

Him: "Yes!"

*Note: it has come to my attention that this post is totally, and completely, inaccurate, and it's not because of the source. It's because I misremembered it and wrote it quickly. The Yew is the kind of tree. Bows were made from heartwood and SAP wood, which is true no matter what kind of tree you make it out of. Here's what Wikipedia says:

"One of the simpler longbow designs is known as the self bow. By definition, a self bow is made from a single piece of wood. Truly traditional English longbows are self bows, made from yew wood. The bowstave is cut from the radius of the tree so that the sapwood (on the outside of the tree) becomes the back two thirds and the belly, the remaining one third, is heartwood. Yew sapwood is good only in tension, while the heartwood is good in compression."

The point of using the yew tree (hopefully, not to shoot ewes) is that the yew sapwood can take much, much, more energy in tension (when you draw the bow back) than other timbers, so more of the energy goes into the arrow, meaning you can kill someone from farther away, always a plus.

Minor Differences. (Hat tip to The Oatmeal.)

When my roommate cooks, it is a well-choreographed ballet. When I cook, it is a chicken running around the kitchen with its head cut off, if said chicken also swore a lot and made general comments about the chastity of the recipe author's mother. This is why my roommate does most of the cooking.

Happy Birthday to the best mother in the world. I love you.

And Happy Birthday to MY LITTLE! I'm coming back to NYC soon, honey. <3.

I Guess She Does Notice A Few Things About Me

I had a recent conversation with my mother in the car, always a good place for a productive one on one session, even if you're yelling at each other. (We haven't done that in a long time, though.)

(I think my father and I recently solved all the world's problems on a sunny drive out to Cle Elum and back.)

Back to my mother. Right. I had been contemplating sharing something about my dating life--always a trepidatious thing to do with your MOTHER--and finally I said it.

"I've noticed a theme with the guys I'm dating," I said.

"Oh, really?"

"Well, two themes, really. The first is substantial, the second is totally superficial."

 "Okay..."

"Superficially, and I don't know what this means, but it appears to be common thread more often than not: they're a) not clotheshorses, b) they have often asked me to influence their clothing choices. I mean, I revamped the entire wardrobes of two serious boyfriends (at their request), and more recently I went shopping for suits with T.C. Like on our fifth or sixth date."

Mom: "Hmmm. That's interesting." (Because she is my mother, she has to say this, even if it's not.)

Me: "I just thought that was worth mentioning."

Author's note: I've since realized that anyone I date more casually, as in, not in relationship mode, actually IS kind of a clotheshorse. There's four five, wait, SIX men I could name off the top of my head that I've dated who are better dressers than I am. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Ahem.

Anyway.  Back to my poor mother, who has to listen to this.

"More substantially, there IS a common theme that binds almost every man I've been romantically interested in, throughout my whole life, almost to a man: romantic interest has shaken off the blueprint of his home life to become something completely different than his parents. Mostly he still has a cordial, and even close, relationship with his family, but he has still purposely looked at his parents' lifestyle, said, 'No thanks, I think I'll create my own', and run with it."

My mother actually was listening, I realized, because she responded, at neutrino speed, with: "REALLY! I can't imagine why YOU'D find that attractive in someone! I'm just flabbergasted!"

Humph. Everyone's a comedian. 

I Am Such An Engineer, Part 1

Me: recently describing to Entrepreneur in lurid detail the recent visit I got to make to Insitu, which makes some of the best, if not THE best, UAVs in the world.

Me: "The planes are MODULAR and  SILENT and SUPER LOW ALTITUDE and they have FANTASTIC IR BLAH BLAH BLAH SO AWESOME NERD GASM."

Him: "Hmm. I wonder if you could train raptors to spot and attack those drones, if they fly at such low altitude?"

Me: "...Raptors?" Thinking: Does he mean the F-22? Is this a UAV I don't know? There is one called Predator. Is he about to make a velociraptor joke?*

Him: "Well, there's a long history of falconry in the Middle East."

Me: "..."

Me: "...Oh, my God. You mean, RAPTORS. Like, birds of prey."

Him: "Yes!"

Me: "You mean, those commandable, maneuverable, low-profile, low-altitude, high-resolution-vision, silent, flying, things."

Him: (Smiling.) "Yes."

Me: "The ORIGINAL flying drones. Wow."

Me: "Well, if you thought of it, I can only hope they don't."

* (In a conversation between two people who read xkcd, this is always a possibility.)

Supporting the World I Want To Live in, or Justifying Spending Money, OR, See Title Of This Blog. Part III.

I found The Thing That Will Be Teh Awesome, or at least I hope it will. The thing that will convert heels or flats into boots. I may never need to buy another pair of boots again. Maybe.

If it doesn't work, it will be a rather expensive experiment, but oh well. This is how we learn, yes?

I can't share the details yet; my mother would have a heart attack, and anyway I bought the item on Etsy, so it's no longer available for public view.

What can I do instead? I promised an update. Hmmm. I will share other ways in which I changed my own personal world:

My new, absolutely favorite, artist:

Ronald Jenkees, everyone.

Need more?

Diplo. Oh, hell yes.

A Magazine that I can feel proud supporting: Anthology.

A blog that represents my design aesthetic very closely: The Steampunk Home.

In related news, I need to make more money. Thanks and good night.

Supporting the World I Want To Live in, or Justifying Spending Money, OR, See Title Of This Blog. Part II.

His reply, and then MY reply to his reply. (Author's note: his responses, and my responses, are inline to my original questions, and the things that look like links are, indeed, links. All SFW except when noted.)

Can you also give me the following?

1. Hooks on strapless dresses that attach to the supporting bustier. Obviously, the hooks (on both garments) will need to be standard widths apart, so that all garments work together.

2. Pants that have hems that can be risen or lowered, depending on heel length, so that a woman isn't forced to choose, roll up hems (never works), or buy two pairs of the same damn pants.

He said: "this might work for numbers one and two ."

I replied: "I've had bad experiences with fashion tape of any kind, but I did find these, which I think may solve a number of my problems, including possibly problem 1. (Or maybe clear plastic snaps?) I might even start tailoring my work pants with them. I mean, seriously. The possibilities are endless."

3. Some sort of neoprene-with-support bustier? Probably not neoprene, but something like it. I love my traditional corsets, but there is a material out there SOMEWHERE that will lift, support, and be somewhat flexible. Somewhere. (Out there.)

He said: "somewhere to start ." (Slightly NSFW if you work at a church, or a place where the word "corset" offends.)

4. Shoes with retractable heels would be great, too. God, I wish women designed more things.

He said: "you mean like this?"

I replied: "Okay, I actually BOUGHT those, they were so exactly what I needed. (Phooey on the 4-6 week wait, but whatever.) Also I discovered these. Apparently they sell them in downtown Seattle? Your next challenge here: convert these shoes into boots when necessary. And then I'll be able to carry every kind of shoe I need in one bag."

5. And finally, some kind of small bag item that carries a few things that is wearable, and not nerdy. In a really perfect world, I'd own this:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/49864328/ms-money-penny

But something much simpler would be fine, too. Sigh.

He had no response to this. (HA! Stumped him!)

But then...I did a little more looking and bought this and this, the second one in black and with a zipper closure.

6. While we're talking about bags, I also want a larger bag that is convertible from backpack to messenger to cross-body to cross-back. I wouldn't need to own so many things if I could make them do what I wanted them to do.

He said: "ok, I'm done procrastinating.."

I replied: "This is the only failure--it's close, but not great. I already bought a second laptop bag of the one that I love, that I'm going to convert myself." (Have I told everyone on this blog that I've bought the nearly-perfect work backpack? The only way it could be better is if it was handmade by 100% Genuine American Grandmothers, but for the same price.)

Actually, I would totally pay three or four times this price for an identical backpack handmade by 100% Genuine American Grandmothers. (Speaking of, anyone remember this movie? Turns out it's based on a short story by Ray Bradbury.)

And FOR MY NEXT TRICK...coming tomorrow!

Supporting the World I Want To Live in, or Justifying Spending Money, OR, See Title Of This Blog.

A few weeks ago, I had a Moment.

We all get these, I think. Moments at which we are suddenly driven with a desire to change our worlds. To make things better. To fix X problem in our lives which, although not life threatening, is one of those little daily annoyances that make us want to curse at business meetings. (Or maybe that's just me.)

Some people may have them about BIG things. I'm not ashamed to say that mine usually involve clothes.

Okay, I think they ALWAYS involve clothes. I don't know why. I don't think of myself as much of a clothes horse, although I do like to make a statement with my outfit, when I can; I think partially due to the conservative work environment I'm forced to live in five days a week. (See title of this blog.)

And it's not just clothes--I also have an obsession with GEAR. (Would I include shoes here? or in clothes, above? No matter.) I want things that work, simply, and don't do anything I don't need them to do, and do EXACTLY what I WANT them to do, all the time, with no backtalk.

(Man, the backtalk my new phone gives me, sometimes, will just blow your mind.)

And I've lived in Capitol Hill for five years. I'm not exactly surrounded by jeans-wearing engineers in my off hours. (My mother: "Every time I come to see you here, I think to myself, 'There must be a costume party happening somewhere,' and then I realize, no, that's just the way they dress all the time.")

(You should see the Hill on Halloween!)

Anyway, yes. My ideas regarding clothes. They came to a head a few weeks ago, and, while inspired through rage, I sent the following email to a young entrepreneur that I know:

"Hey there. While you're changing the world, can you also give me the following?

1. Hooks on strapless dresses that attach to the supporting bustier. Obviously, the hooks (on both garments) will need to be standard widths apart, so that all garments work together.

2. Pants that have hems that can be risen or lowered, depending on heel length, so that a woman isn't forced to choose, roll up hems (never works), or buy two pairs of the same damn pants.

3. Some sort of neoprene-with-support bustier? Probably not neoprene, but something like it. I love my traditional corsets, but there is a material out there SOMEWHERE that will lift, support, and be somewhat flexible. Somewhere. (Out there.)

4. Shoes with retractable heels would be great, too. God, I wish women designed more things.

5. And finally, some kind of small bag item that carries a few things, that is wearable, and not nerdy. In a really perfect world, I'd own this:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/49864328/ms-money-penny

But something much simpler would be fine, too. Sigh.

6. While we're talking about bags, I also want a larger bag that is convertible from backpack to messenger to cross-body to cross-back. I wouldn't need to own so many things if I could make them do what I wanted them to do.

Got it? Good. I'm glad we had this conversation. :)

--Aarwenn"

(Yeah, perhaps that last sentence is a bit snotty. He thinks I'm cute, I can get away with it.)

I was just rambling, you know? Having a Moment. Not really expecting anything. Because he is an entrepreneur and a dreamer, what does the workaholic do but GET BACK TO ME WITH FIXES.

*Coming Monday!*

Have now officially survived all six weddings I was supposed to attend this summer. Close call.

I don't think I've slept in four days. Maybe more. But I'm surviving, and that's what counts. Yes?

I Shake My Bumbershoot In Your General Direction

Hello! How was your Labor Day weekend? Good? Excellent. Did you go to Bumbershoot? I did not, in spite of invitations, and I hear it was great. But one can't be everywhere, and instead I spent a lot of time with people that I really dig, and also I redecorated my kitchen, almost got thrown out of a bar, (related: survived a bachelorette party) and put a blonde to work washing my dishes. I opened my house up to guests, and also, spent quite some time away from it. I got my bridesmaid's dress tailored! I went to West Seattle twice! I went to a LOT of restaurants and brought home pounds of leftovers! I found TWO new good hip hop places! (God, I miss dancing.) I had two very serious and productive relationship talks! Did I mention I redecorated my kitchen? Like, for real? No pictures, sorry. I didn't want to stop and take the time to take "before" pictures, and without the "before", the "after" won't have quite as much affect. I still may take some, though.

Now that I have redecorated my kitchen so that it is, in fact, usable, and even attractive, my next project is to inventory everything in my fridge and cabinets. Yes, everything. Since this fridge isn't yet within my budget (or lifestyle), I'm trying to simulate it with cunning. And hacks.

Speaking of, has everyone seen this? This is what I see when I close my eyes. Every. Day. This is the future, and it is SO CLOSE. This is going to happen. It's already happening, somewhere else in the multiverse, and this one is going to jump there, if all of us keep pushing to change this world.

Sometimes Life Just Works Out

I couldn't figure out what I wanted to listen to, a moment ago. I called up (on the new application Spotify, which is pretty good, everyone go check it out) the first two songs that were stuck in my head:



And then Jane Fonda, by Mickey Avalon, a song that I am not linking to because it's so dirty (but great!), and then:



(The above song isn't all that clean, either, but way less dirty than "Jane Fonda".)

And then I couldn't decide what was next. Ambient? RJD2? Or classical? Finally I just went to my RJD2 station on Pandora, my old standby, and THIS song came on next:



Thanks, universe. That was pretty great.

Like If You Described the Bible as a Story About Some Guys Who Travel Around and Talk To Each Other

"Like the Princess Bride?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

"I haven't seen it," he said.

Silence on my end.

"WHAT?"

"What?"

"You haven't seen THE PRINCESS BRIDE?"

"What about ME would imply that that is a movie that I would want to see?"

I looked at the angry, smartass engineer across from me at the table at lunch. He enjoyed all the same webcomics I did, and we even had the same phone. Sure, he tended more heavily to straight up sarcasm than I did, me preferring to stay on the side of snark, but there was no reason that he would NOT like The Princess Bride. Wait.

"Do you KNOW anything about the movie?"

"I know it's about a girl who falls in love with a guy who goes away and becomes a pirate, or something, and then she thinks he's dead and marries someone else, but he comes back for her. And there's a guy with six fingers."

A little part of my soul died, but I was relieved.

"Okay. I see the problem. Hmmm. Okay, you've seen The Big Lebowski, right?"

"Of COURSE I've seen The Big Lebowski!"

I held up my hands in a placating gesture. "Okay, okay. Just checking. Okay. Describing The Princess Bride as a movie about a girl and a guy who becomes a pirate, and there's a guy with six fingers on one hand, is like describing the plot of The Big Lebowski as a movie about a guy who gets his rug peed on by a low-class criminal and gets involved with a rich guy and his weird ex-wife. It's technically TRUE, but the movie is about so much more than that. It's the environment that's created, and the quotes, and the interaction between the characters. It's not about the plot. The Princess Bride is the same way."

He stared at me.

"Okay. Maybe I'll check it out."

"Okay."

The End of the First Trip with T.C.

After the launch tweet:

"Local place with coffee, gourmet sandwiches, ice cream, and air conditioning. Clutch. (@ Caffe Chocolat) http://4sq.com/osegWh."

Snarky tweet to appease my mother: "Yes, T.C. and I were on our phones the whole time during the launch wait, duh, but we DID actually see the LAUNCH."

(Also, it was 100 degrees at the launch. To say that is "hot" is...well, you know. T.C. and I felt we should get extra credit for surviving Orlando at 100 F, when even the locals were complaining.)

Launch lunch finished, we discussed what to do next, doing that polite but weird thing in which you totally like this person but you are different from him, and you're realizing for the first time how different your likes and dislikes are, and I had the additional challenges of being paranoid and crazy (every day, for a woman, but certainly more likely on this, the first trip with T.C., coincidentally scheduled directly over my PMS week) (hi dad!) and T.C. still hadn't recovered from his tummy bug (did I mention we were sharing a small hotel bathroom?) and...yes.

Of course, I wanted to see *everything* while we were already out on the Atlantic, and he wanted to go home and maybe do it tomorrow, when we weren't so exhausted.

"August 5th: T.C. and I not adjusting to East Coast Time well."

Reminded me of traveling with my father and mother. My mother wants to see everything, my father wants to read in the comfort of his hotel room, eat great meals, and see good museums. Not much of an outdoor guy. Similar situation here. T.C. and I came to easy compromise: he would come to Daytona Beach and would find shade and nap in the car, running the engine and with the AC on if necessary. (It was.) I would do my thing. He might meet up with me later, or might not. Simultaneously, I released him from any obligation to come out to the Gulf Coast with me for this trip, as long as he didn't mind if I left him alone for five hours. He didn't. Excellent. On to Daytona Beach.

From the August 5th Twitter Feed:

"Hello, Daytona Beach! twitpic.com/61gkgv"

"Self explanatory. twitpic.com/61glfa"

"Daytona Beach Strand is a little less crowded than I expected. Heat getting to everyone, maybe, even locals. Tonight may be busier?"

It was less crowded on both sides, the Daytona Beach side and the...other...beach side. I can't remember what it was called. I preferred Daytona Beach--more to do, less touristy, more "real" things, like Walgreens and 7-11s, that showed that some people actually *lived* here. T.C. and I made a stop to buy crucial charger adapters, including one that could live in the car. T.C. made a name for himself because his apparently bat-like ears picked up the sound of the engines coming from the race track over closed windows and the radio and ME TALKING, and he rolled down both windows and I stopped talking and turned the radio off and the cars were doing! laps! and we both had a freakout moment. No matter what you think about Nascar as a social symbol, we are both of the gearhead persuasion and that SOUND is OMG VROOM SO SEXY.

We got a break from the heat on the way back to Orlando, driving through a rainstorm. We didn't make it back for the free Happy Hour, sadly, and we went and got pizza for dinner and I had a minor freakout--not in a good way--in which because he told me he was tired, but I could certainly go out on my own if I wanted, I was so paranoid that I thought he was trying to tell me he was breaking up with me. (This is the time at which I decided that I could not, under any circumstances, allow this emotional state of affairs to continue. I am trying certain supplements.)

"I just used #Shazam to discover Fortune Teller by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss. http://shz.am/t45328882"

From the August 6th Twitter Feed:

*Crickets.*

We did almost nothing--we chilled out in the hotel and saw a movie (our 2nd of what would turn out to be three movies, it being too ridiculously hot to hang out by the pool, I never put my swimsuit on once the whole trip) and that night we found an anime convention across the street from our hotel and we rejoiced. And we got dressed up and got drunk and went over to see the Con. And it was good. (It was GREAT. It was about the best time we had on the trip.) I got to put on the cocktail dress that makes taxi drivers give me free trips. And I gave T.C. the following speech: "I am way more dressed up than you. I will need a lot of personal attention and possessiveness from you, or else I will feel like an idiot." Him: "Done. As long as you don't leave me hanging, just to make a point." Me: "Done."

The next morning I got up early, grabbed the Challenger keys, and felt like a real pimp, cruising in my skirt and tank top on pilgrimage to a Starbucks at a quiet strip mall. T.C. had not moved, beyond asking me if I had made a deal with the devil. Our attempts at using the osmosis method to share my hangover recovery skills failed completely, and I went out to Ybor City alone.

From the August 7th Twitter Feed:

"Ybor city is a ghost town on Sunday morning, even now at 11. There's a big bar kind of place that obviously does a swinging brunch crowd, but that's a little too bust-ly for me."

Then, after strolling down the street and back, I found the perfect place:

"Crucial food stop. Plus a mojito. Adorable bartender named Christian just added bonus. (@ Carmine's) http://4sq.com/pxa3WN."

(My mojito looked so good that three other tables around me asked me what it was and then followed my example.)

I thought about getting all the way out to the Gulf beaches, but decided T.C. would start getting lonely, and besides--I was lonely, too. I'd rather have had him with me. So I headed back. Plus, I'd been to the Gulf before--on the Texas side.

I did a little meditating, and of course I called my mother, on the way back. And a little Shazaming, thanks to the crucial car charger we had bought at Daytona Beach.

"I just used #Shazam to discover Bright Lights Bigger City by Cee Lo Green Feat. Wiz Khalifa."

My life, for the past 22 days, in tweet form

Monday, August 1st: "Hello, World! Computer is up and running." (For those who are curious: Dell Inspiron Zino HD.) "No need for the help of Mr. Neighbor. Well, not yet."

Wednesday, August 3rd: "Pit stop before airport! (@ Cafe Besalu)." Thanks to the Foursquare app for Android.

We had called a cab with an hour to spare! It was an easy Wednesday morning! We were feeling fine! WHEN SUDDENLY...

Wednesday, August 3rd: "Okay, it's been half an hour. Where is the cab?"

Travel Companion and I start phone bombing the Yellow Cab offices.

Wednesday, August 3rd, safely on airplane: "Totally the closest I've ever cut a flight, and that is really saying something. Actually not my fault this time."

Wednesday, August 3rd: "For the record, we waited an hour for the yellow cab. I keep saying, "never again", might mean it this time." (I didn't, but you know...)

Wednesday, August 3rd: "Travel companion flagged down gate agent & convinced her to print our boarding passes."

Wednesday, August 3rd: "I talked stone faced TSA agent into letting travel companion & I through 1st class line or else would not have made it. Go team!"

Wednesday, August 3rd: "Not worth it, though, even for good story. Stress was overwhelming."

Wednesday, August 3rd: "98 degrees in Charlotte. Fortunately not final destination. Unfortunately Fla will be hotter."

Wednesday, August 3rd: *Took picture posted below.*

Thursday, August 4th: "Orlando is very hot. And strip malls as far as the eye can see."

Thursday, August 4th: "We're in a part of the world that has more Denny's than Starbucks. Truly strangers in a strange land."

Friday, August 5th: "Keeping in theme of trip, Traveling Companion is sick and we caught the absolutely last bus from the visitor center out to the probe launch."

Friday, August 5th: *From NasaJuno*: "We are GO for launch!"

@NASAJuno: "LIFTOFF of the Atlas V 551 rocket carrying the Juno spacecraft on a mission to Jupiter to reveal the giant planet story!"

From Me: "Traveling comp. and I were mainly on our phones for much of the time, duh, but we did view the actual liftoff."

NASAJuno: NASA's Juno Mission: Wow there’s a kick! Rocket staging complete. Centaur upper stage now on 1st of its 2 planned burns

NASAJuno: Payload fairing separation confirmed! Atlas V & Juno are now above the bulk of Earth’s atmosphere!

Whew! Tweeting to the blog is exhausting!

And then they set the sky on fire.

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Part 2: Love Letter to My Parents, on Their Fortieth Wedding Anniversary

Because Roommate and I have been exploring this subject for a while, on and off, in our mid-evening talks: "Our parents succeeded brilliantly in raising us. WHY? Our parents are not similar in their lifestyles or methods, and yet, you and I turned out very similarly. If it's not about the small details, then what is it about?"

I mean, we don't necessarily take after our (very different) parents, either of us, and so I think both of us occasionally worry that our respective parents think they did a poor job of raising us. Or that maybe they wish we had turned out differently. Or that we were more...normal, maybe. Less likely to really stand out in a crowd. Softer. Less sharp tongued. Less apt to have lives that we can't really even talk about in mixed company. More apt to spend time with family. Especially because we are both girls; this kind of "I can act normal, but I could also make you REALLY uncomfortable" is not perhaps what every parents dreams of in a daughter.

And yet. As I recently exclaimed to Roommate, the other night: "I mean, both of us are rather intelligent, rather talented, rather sane, not unsuccessful, or addicts, or even alcoholics (debatable) or divorced, or lovesick retards, married to someone who's all wrong for us and barely has a job, etc..." and here she interrupted me: "We beat the spread."

Yes. We beat the spread.

It's important to note here that I've never once thought that my parents just "got lucky" with the way I turned out. They WORKED at it. They always had the best of intentions; they are loving parents. But so many other parents had good intentions and were loving and kind and caring, and yet the product of their efforts didn't turn out the way they intended. Their children didn't beat the spread. Why?

Love Letter to My Parents, on Their Fortieth Wedding Anniversary

*This will be in many, many parts. MANY parts. Hi, Mom and Dad! I love you.*

To be clear, my parents' fortieth wedding anniversary was in fact two weeks ago (when I STARTED this incredibly long piece, anyway, and now it's been a month and a half) and in fact I'm still not even sure of the correct DAY.

Yes. Me, their only child, I don't know the day they were married and the ONLY thing I know is that I am two weeks late at least, because that is the kind of caring, thoughtful, and involved only child that I am.

Ahem.

In my defense, it is all THEIR fault because they got married on a holiday (Memorial Day) that shifts days every year, and who can be expected to remember that?

Anyway, on this, their fortieth wedding anniversary, it occured to me to say a few words about how they are the best parents any girl could ever wish for, and because I have two engineering degrees, I won't expect you to just believe it; I will also use two references for proof: Tina Fey, and Mindy Kaling.

Tina Fey, as you may know, has just come out with a book, Bossypants, and Mindy Kaling's book will appear in October. And so I have been reading Tina Fey's, and it is of course AMAZING, and reminded me how much I also appreciated Alisha Tyler's "Swerve", a few years ago, speaking of funny, mouthy, women.

These two women (and also Ms. Tyler) are two of the most brillliantly funny writers to hit comedy in the past twenty years, and it's only a SLIGHT bit of a thing that they are, in fact women.

They haven't succeeded because they have made big protests on the lawn of the SNL headquarters. They have succeeded because they were so funny, and so good, and so DETERMINED, and--here's the kicker--not determined in the kind of way that makes you stage protests on the lawn of SNL HQ but rather the kind of determined that only happens because you're too confident and stubborn to do anything else. It's naievete masquerading as stubbornness, really. You don't know how hard it's going to be, but all you know is that you're confident and that you don't know how to do anything else and you have a healthy sense of humor. A REALLY healthy sense of humor.

From Bossypants: "In 1995, each cast at The Second City [Improv touring show] was made up of four men and two women. When it was suggested that they switch one of the companies to three men and three women, the producers and directors had the same panicked reaction. "You can't do that. There won't be enough parts to go around There won't be enough for the girls." This made no sense to me, probably because I speak English and have never had a head injury. We weren't doing Death of a Salesman. We were making up the show ourselves. How could there not be enough parts? WE'RE MAKING UP THE SHOW!"

And then there's me: I had been at B about six months when I met several other people my own age, which was great, and one day I was visiting one of these gentlemen at his desk, and he introduced me to his coworker, who chatted with me for a brief second before saying, "So, how long have you been here?"

I answered. And he said, "Ah. Okay. I'll shorten your learning process right now: Women who succeed at B are either a) ugly but smart women who keep their heads down and act like men, or b) pretty and dumb women who do exactly what they're told to do."

It was the kind of thing that leaves you speechless, and let me add here that I am rarely speechless.

I wish now I'd had the wherewithal, the CHUTZPAH, to answer him, something snappy like, "Oh yeah? So which one will I be?" But it's possibly a good thing that I didn't because then I might be living up to that today, if I had been told at that formative time what, exactly, to be.

And yet I didn't let that stop me, of course, and now I think I'm actually higher than he is, on the engineering promotional ladder. Not that I've noticed that or anything.

About the same time one of my friends on a different program in the company got told by a man she worked with that her kneepads (for crawling around on the inside of a plane) would come in handy at her performance review with her boss.

For the record, it is comments like that that are why women don't stay in engineering. Or leadership roles. Why they quit before they make partner. Comments like that will sink into your head and keep you up at night, and they will poke at your psyche and your confidence over and over again until they're full of holes and you're going back to school to become a nurse...if you let them.

What allows you to keep going after comments like that? Why did I stick around engineering? Why did Tina Fey and Alisha Tyler and Mindy Kaling keep going in spite of the people around them?

Because your parents raised you to have more confidence and kickass-ness than that, and so you keep going. But how did your parents actually do that? Confidence isn't a pill you can give; it's not a one-day seminar. Strength, and courage, aren't carried in your genes. They're instilled in you by whoever raised you, and the people around you. And so, having suddenly realized that they have been rather successful (in spite of comments like the above) Ms. Fey, and Ms. Kaling, and also Ms. Tyler, have written books, part memoir, part instruction guide for life, with some comments on how to raise your own version of a really kickass daughter, and it turns out that there are some very strong patterns.

Very, very strong. And it also happens that my life fits into this pattern. As I was reading, I kept thinking..."That could be ME!"

How? I'm happy you asked! This love letter to my parents will continue in the next episode. Please stay tuned.