Waxing Prosaic

Wii have sore arms

2008-02-27T14:11:00.000-08:00

Lately I’ve been thinking about the importance of cultivating one’s pleasures. I think it’s important to find and participate in activities and hobbies that produce joy. Life is difficult, after all, and fraught with disappointments and tragedies great and small. I believe that one antidote is to pursue fun for fun’s sake—in moderation, of course. Which is all to say that

WE GOT A Wii AND GUITAR HERO!!!

Last week we happened into a small little bundle of money in the form of a somewhat unexpected bonus from S’s employer. After socking most of it away into savings, we quickly decided to spend the rest on a mini-splurge and get ourselves that coveted Holy Grail of video-game systems, the Wii.

“But M,” you say. “You are so not a video-game person! You roll your eyes and flee the scene when S and his brother get together twice yearly and trash-talk their way through ‘Madden NFL’ for hours on end. You dislike violence and have no desire to pretend to shoot anything or carjack anyone. Plus, you’re 32 years old, woman! The hell’s going on here?”

Well. As you may or may not know, the Wii is not your average video-game system. The controllers are wireless and require all sorts of physical movement and exertion to maneuver. And the games! The system comes with Wii Sports, which is a little collection of five games: Bowling, Tennis, Golf, Baseball, and Boxing. They’re more like virtual-reality experiences than video games in that you’re swinging your arms madly about to mimic serving a tennis ball or releasing a bowling ball down an alley. S and I have been playing so much bowling and tennis, our right arms are both strained and sore from our wrists to our shoulder blades. This is not Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, people. This is creating a little “Mii” avatar who looks just like you, from your hairstyle to the shape of your mouth, and taking her to the tennis court and the bowling alley and the baseball diamond. This is flailing around your living room like a spaz trying to match your husband strike for strike in the virtual bowling alley. This is pleasure, and I’m cultivating it.

…and then there’s Guitar Hero. Oh, my. I first fell in lust with GH when I played it for the first time at a friend’s house about three months ago. After becoming so engrossed in playing along to the bass line of an excellent, excellent Toadies song that I pretty much forgot that Maya was in the room (don’t worry! She was being supervised by three other responsible adults!), I became utterly hooked. I’ve been pining for my very own GH ever since. And now…and now…I have one!

Here’s what makes GH so fabulously wonderful: It’s supremely fun to pretend to be a guitar player in a rock band. It’s highly entertaining to sling a guitar over one’s shoulder and rock out to bunches of classic, sometimes cheesey songs that everyone knows and loves. Best of all, it’s challenging! It requires loads of concentration and hand-eye coordination to press the right chord buttons with the right fingers at the right times. It’s a skill that is developed with practice, and it is intoxicatingly satisfying to see yourself improve.

The downside to all of this pleasure cultivation is that, right now, the Wii and Guitar Hero are both so novel that S and I are spending way too much time with them and not enough time on our usual evening chores. As a result, we’ve got a sink full of dirty dishes and a kitchen floor that desperately needs mopping. I feel confident, though, that once the initial buzz wears off (by the end of this week, I predict), we’ll reduce our Wii and GH playing to a couple of times per week, as a fun and more lively alternative to TV-watching. (That’s the plan, anyway. Wish us luck!)

Cuteness update: Maya

2008-02-20T11:30:00.000-08:00

Maya's a few weeks from turning two. Wow.
Last night and this morning she did something that made her mama very proud. She shared! Last night we were visiting our upstairs neighbors, one of whom is a giggly little 10-month-old named Leilani, and Maya created a task for herself of presenting Leilani with several toys to play with. "Here go, 'lani!" she announced, while dragging over Leilani's toy piano. "Here go, 'lani!" she chirped again, while pushing a little wooden car gently between Leilani's feet. And on it went until Leilani was literally surrounded in a pile of toys. I was really pleased to see Maya focusing on her little friend that way.

This morning, as I was leaving Maya at school, I saw her spot a particular toy firetruck across the room, retrieve it, walk it over to a little boy named Benji, and offer it to him. "Here go, Benji!" The teachers were impressed and praised Maya accordingly, noting that the truck she'd given Benji was, in fact, his favorite toy in the room. Well-played, Maya! (Unfortunately, though, Maya was further rewarded for her efforts by an inadvertant push from Benji as he barreled by with the firetruck she'd just given him. Sigh.)

I'm really eager for Maya to make friends. She seems to like (and be somewhat mesmerized by) other children at school and at the playground, and I want her to feel comfortable interacting with them. So this desire to share toys is a neat development and a step in the right direction, it seems.

Go Maya, go!

Going Greenish

2008-01-31T13:47:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been trying here and there to educate myself on personal health as it relates to a healthy environment and healthy community. To wit, here are a couple of links I found today:

Here's a DIY all-natural super-cheap cleaning-solution recipe for kitchen countertops (via Budget Hippies). Think I'll whip some up this weekend and give it a whirl. If it can effectively clean my hideously grease-encrusted stovetop, we have a winner.

Here's a list of which fruits and veggies contain the most and fewest pesticides, respectively (via Sustainable Table). (This one I've printed and tucked inside my daily planner so I'll always have it when I'm grocery shopping.) The idea here is that I'll buy organic versions of the most pesticide-heavy produce.

Clinton or Obama?

2008-01-30T11:45:00.000-08:00

Let's talk politics briefly, shall we?
I was disappointed to learn that John Edwards dropped out of the presidential race this morning. I liked his populist spirit and his focus on alleviating poverty. However, I very much like the remaining Democratic frontrunners, HRC and BO, and hadn't preferred one over the other until I read this week's New York Times editorial endorsing Clinton. I think the Times makes a convincing argument for Clinton, mainly that she talks not only of general ideas but in terms of specific policy and details. For instance, and as we all know, she has very specific ideas about health care in this country, and she's been tweaking and adjusting her ideas over the years as she learns more about the challenges of writing policy that just about everyone can agree on.
Also, as the Times pointed out, Clinton is well-known and respected among world leaders. I think this is important---super important, actually---now that the U.S. is so poorly regarded in the international community.
Of course, I like Barack Obama, too (as does the Times). If he were to win the Democratic nomination, I wouldn't mind. I like his optimism and his reluctance to jump shoulder-high into the political fray. I just agree with the Times that Clinton's experience in Washington, her understanding of policy, her formidable international image, and frankly, her gigantic brain, make her the best candidate overall.
Anyone agree? Disagree? Wish this post were about anything other than politics?

Thanks, Internet!

2008-01-16T12:16:00.000-08:00

I just found this perfectly informative and easy-to-read Web site that lists all of the Farmers' Markets in the Los Angeles area. Here it is!
Farmernet.com
I love that it includes the location and hours for each market.

...and here is a super-excellent site I just discovered (slow day at work), which lists, by state, which fruits and veggies are in season each month of the year.
SustainableTable.org

Per French Women Don't Get Fat, I'm going to try to pay more attention to what produce is in season when I plan meals...

Nice to see you again

2008-01-15T16:56:00.000-08:00

Hello! My little family and I just got back from a lovely week-long trip to Falls Church, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., to visit S's family. We had an excellent time---so excellent, in fact, that I found myself in a bit of a teary funk on Sunday afternoon, after we arrived back in L.A. I just love Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. We'd live there if we didn't live here. And I adore S's family and all of our friends in the area. It's difficult getting to see them all only once or twice a year, especially now that many of these friends have kids.
Sigh.
Anyway, we're back in sunny SoCal now, getting back to our routines bit by bit.
I've been adjusting my resolutions for 2008. I started reading French Women Don't Get Fat in Falls Church, and it's changing the way I think about eating and weight loss. I'm inspired to seek out higher quality ingredients for cooking, focus more on using fruits and veggies that are in season, and eat for pleasure. Also, it makes me want to go to France! If S and I start saving now, we should have enough money for a French family vacation by the time Maya graduates from college.
:-)
OK, S has American Idol on right now, and it's making me tense. I just can't stand these ridiculous, overblown, under-edited, forced-sentimental audition episodes. Ugh. Why must Fox trot out these delusional young people, many of them with sad stories, some of them with what seem to be mental illnessnesses, and exploit them for fun and profit? Errgh.
*shakes fist*

Resolve

2008-01-02T13:46:00.000-08:00

I so love New Year's resolutions! I jump on any excuse to reflect on my current situation and consider how it might be improved. Also, I've always been in love with the idea of "starting fresh." Granted, I'm not great on the follow-through. I'm a little lazy, and I procrastinate, and I feel tempted to quit when I feel I'm not succeeding. However, those fairly huge obstacles don't stop me from trying in the first place, so at least I can give myself credit for that. (Right?!)

I haven't crystallized my resolutions for '08 yet, but I've been brainstorming. Here are the ideas I'm batting around so far.

Empty the dishwasher within 24 hours of running it. Duh. I realize most people do this already. I am not most people, and, as a result, we tend to have a sink perpetually full of dirties and a dishwasher-as-storage problem in my household. Sigh. I am pleased to report, though, that I've already begun acting on this resolution and have had success so far.
Always be enrolled in either a dance or yoga class. I'm on hiatus from my tap lessons and am about to sign up for a yoga class offered by the city, so progress is already being made on this front as well.
Go to the gym on most Mondays, Fridays, and weekends.
Eat five fruits and vegetables per day. I embarked on this goal once already, back when I first read The Okinawa Program, a book I just can't recommend highly enough. (If you're interested in science-based overall health, this book is for you.) Back in 2005 I was doing pretty well with this plan until I got pregnant, and then all hell broke loose and egg-salad sandwiches and processed cheeses replaced lettuce and grapes. Time to try, try again!
Continually remind myself to be patient, firm, and loving with Maya.
Teach Maya table manners. (An uphill battle, this one. Yeesh.)

I also like some of the practical, useful, and research-based resolution suggestions offered on the New York Times's Well blog this week---especially the whole splitting-an-entree thing.

Anyway, what do you think? Am I off to a good start here? I feel like I'd also like to choose some reading selections for '08, and set some goals for my emotional health as well. Of course, it's easier to funnel one's willpower into one or two specific goals rather than, say, a dozen of them, so I guess I'd better be careful not to overreach!

Hold onto your hats

2007-12-27T12:09:00.000-08:00

From today's weather report in the LA Times:

Sunny. Highs around 60. From Leo Carrillo to the Hollywood Hills...north winds
20 to 30 mph with gusts to 50 mph through and below canyons. Winds decreasing to
15 to 30 mph in the afternoon.

Um, yeah. It is awfully windy here today. Last night was so windy ("gusty" is a better word), our windows rattled in their frames, our building creaked, the neighbors' wind chimes produced a nonstop, frenzied, cacophony, and our cats expressed their agitation by crying off and on during the early-morning hours.
The wind woke me up several times in the night. I find high, gusty winds quite unnerving. They're loud and violent, and they make going outside an unpleasant experience, to say the least. They also cause branches to snap and boughs to fall on people's cars and homes. And they wreak havoc with traffic lights and satellite television. They give me the impression that the weather is out of control and dangerous, and they make me anxious.
Back home, where I grew up in the Northeast, high winds usually preceded a thunderstorm. I loooved thunderstorms, so I loooved the gusty wind that came before them, because I knew what those winds meant. Also, those winds had a forseeable endpoint. These SoCal winds go on and on, with no rewarding thunderstorms at the end.
I should've known that the glee I was feeling because of our lovely Christmas weather would be short-lived!
Oh, well. It's still sunny out, and I do love that sun...

...and here are the photos

2007-12-26T22:37:00.000-08:00

CHRISTMAS 2007

Overview of tree and gifts

Maya on her new hog
(She's ringing the bell here)

Maya builds with her new blocks
(Anyone else remember these from preschool?)

S reads Maya one of her new books

Hooray! S no longer has to tote his lunches to work in flimsy old grocery bags!

Daily Insight calendar full of Dalai Lama quotes

Christmas lunch. The mashed sweet potatoes look so sloppy and gross in that bowl. Oops.

Oven-roasted kale to the right there. If you like salty, crispy foods, please---I urge you---go roast some kale. You won't be sorry. Thanks, J, for the recipe.

Off they go to explore the neighborhood on three wheels. Mommy cannot join them because she is STILL IN HER PAJAMAS.

The End

Christmas wrap-up

2007-12-26T10:37:00.000-08:00

Oh, man. There's SO much I'm itching to post about right now! However, I feel compelled first of all to do a Christmas summary for those of you wondering how the holiday played out for our little family of three.

First of all, and not to stick it to anyone currently hanging out in colder climes, but the weather this week has been GORGEOUS here. Monday and Tuesday were downright balmy---so sunny and warm and clear, with a slight breeze. No jacket required! (Apologies to Phil Collins.)
Secondly, having S home for four days in a row was special and fun. He got a ton of quality time with his daughter, which we all enjoyed.

Now then, let's cut to the sequence of events:
1. Christmas Eve: S took Maya to the playground, and I made a quick run to IKEA during Maya's nap. Attention IKEA lovers: IKEA is damn near empty on Christmas Eve! Please take note! I zipped in and zipped out (to the extent that one can "zip in and zip out" of a ginormous, three-level, labyrinth of a retail outlet), Maya's rocker toy was in stock (and only $10, people! TEN DOLLARS.), and the SoCal freeways to and fro were unusually free of traffic. The entire trip took just over an hour from start to finish. Yee-haw!
2. Christmas Eve continued: After Maya's nap, she and I decorated cookies together, which is a tradition I hope to continue until Maya loses interest. (At which point I'll resort to bribing: "Maya, you can take my credit card and car to the mall today! Just as soon as you help me decorate these cookies. That's the deal. Hey! Get back here with those car keys, young lady, and start spreading frosting!") Maya took her frosting-spreading and sprinkle-shaking tasks oh-so-seriously, and a good time was had by all, including Daddy, who videotaped the whole thing. Afterward, we all ate delicious tacos from the Mexican restaurant up the street.
3. Christmas Eve, the conclusion: S and I capped off the day by watching a Tivoed episode of "The Amazing Race" by the glow of the Christmas-tree lights. Right before turning in, I wrapped S's stocking gifts (Gold Bond medicated powder! Right Guard deodorant! Q-tips!!!!!) while he set Maya's new tricycle up beneath the tree and walled it in with Maya's new cardboard blocks. (Thanks, Gram and Pop-Pop!) Photo to come!
4. Christmas morning: Maya woke at 8:30, and we excitedly carried her out to the living room where she immediately noticed her new toys. After giving her her milk, we turned her loose to explore Santa's bounty. She loooved busting through the blocks and was even happier to find a "bicycle" (as she calls it) hiding behind them. Much tricycle-riding, unwrapping, and block-building ensued, followed by a late breakfast of cinnamon buns and chicken-apple sausage (thanks, Trader Joe's). I must note here that Maya utterly snubbed the cinnamon bun (even after we fibbed and called it a bagel in a last-ditch attempt to get her to try it) but consumed her weight in sausage. That kid is going to grow a casing any minute now, I swear.
5. My god, are you still reading this? Sorry. I have never been good at summarizing. I have trouble editing out the details. Obviously. The rest of Christmas day was spent calling family, lounging around, eating, and watching various Christmas specials on TV. Our meal was cranberry-stuffing-stuffed turkey breast (additional thanks to Trader Joe's), mashed sweet potatoes, oven-roasted kale (holy god that was delicious), green salad, and pumpkin pie. Maya napped through the whole thing and was totally unimpressed by it later, when we tried to offer her some for a late lunch after her nap. Also, I didn't change out of my pajamas till 3:30. A-hem. In the late afternoon, we pushed Maya in her new tricycle to the playground and goofed around a bit.

There you have it! Now I'm at work today (boooooooooooooo, hisssssssss), and so is S, and Maya is home being babysat by one of her preschool teachers. As I was leaving the apartment this morning, Maya was crying. I can understand her disappointment and confusion. After four lazy days at home with both Mommy and Daddy, this sucks!

I agree, Maya.
:-(

At the end of the day, she's perfection

2007-12-22T22:55:00.000-08:00

It's funny---no matter how fussy or difficult or contrary Maya might be on any given day, I always go to bed at night thinking about how magnificent and beautiful and bright and funny she is, and how very grateful I feel to have a child who far exceeds my expectations, just by being herself.
Believe me, I do way, way, way more than my fair share of worrying about her, and if she's ill or especially upset, or if she spent the evening crying non-stop for reasons unbeknownst to S and me, I'll feel edgy and helpless and half-crazy in the hours after we put her to bed. However, the overarching feelings I have for Maya are appreciation, admiration, and intense love, even at the end of a tough day.
I hesitated before typing perfection up there in the headline, because the last thing I want to do is to give the impression (to Maya and everyone else) that I desire and expect perfection in my child. No, no, no! What I mean is that I love Maya, all parts of her, even the difficult parts. She's perfect in that there's nothing about her that I don't love---see what I mean? She's perfect because she is Maya.

Remembering Grandma G.

2007-12-18T11:10:00.000-08:00

My Grandma G. passed away two days ago. She was 95 and died of natural causes.

I loved my grandma, and I was close with her up until very recently, when her hearing loss made it impossible for me to talk with her on the phone. Even after that point, I know Grandma G. knew how much I loved her and how special she was to my brother and me.

Here are some things I remember and admired about my Grandma G. Most of these memories come from the week or so every summer that my brother and I spent alone with her as kids. I am so grateful for these summer visits and the chance they afforded us to get to know our Grandma G!

She was a no-nonsense, highly independent, resourceful woman.
She had an adorable giggle.
She was very careful with her appearance and always took care to color-coordinate and accessorize. (S remembers her wearing "lots of pink" and layering her nightclothes just so: nightgown, bathrobe, slippers, etc.)
She took my brother and me on many adventures around her town: trips to Ross Park, Cole Park, Otsiningo Park, and local playgrounds.
She always served my brother and me meticulously peeled and cut fruit on our cereal, and wonderful little liverwurst sandwiches on DiLascia's rolls.
She always managed to win at miniature golf, even into her 80s.
She kicked butt at Boggle. Her vocabulary knew no bounds!
She taught me and my brother to play Flinch---and we always played it together while drinking Sprite, Slice, or 7-Up out of clear plastic cups.
She had an impressive collection of houseplants.
She was the healthiest eater I've ever known. For instance, after cooking vegetables in water, she would refrigerate the cooking water and drink it later!
She was environmentally conscious ahead of her time. Grandma rarely threw out "disposable" plastic containers, such as yogurt cups and margarine tubs. She washed and reused glass jars. As a kid I thought this was weird; now I admire her desire to recycle before it was fashionable. (She was thrifty, too.)
She dyed and painted Easter eggs with my brother and me.
She ran errands for and looked in on elder friends who needed help.
She was a capable single mom for much of her life. This did not mean anything to me until I became a mom myself. Now I appreciate this fact.
She loved floating on a raft in my parents' swimming pool in the summer. Skin-damaging UV rays be damned!
She often smelled of witch hazel and flowery Avon lipstick.
She kept knick-knacks around her apartment that fascinated my brother and me: a prism (which I now have), a block of rock salt, a glass jar of seashells.
She used Jean Naté bath powder.
She had a real sense of propriety: Beds were to be made the correct way, slips were to be worn under any and all dresses and skirts, lipstick was to be applied before leaving the house, etc. (Thanks to K for reminding me of this!)
For many, many years she put together bags of tiny, individually wrapped Christmas gifts for my brother and me. These were so much fun to open! They were like stockings, but more mysterious, because you truly never knew what Grandma would find and wrap for you. (One could expect anything from earrings to cashews.)
She was very well traveled. She brought me back beautiful nesting dolls from Russia.
She kept a rack of old (and I mean OLD) LIFE magazines, which I loved to thumb through. I enjoyed looking at the old advertisements.
She had very soft, delicate hands.
Like me, she loved doing those JUMBLE puzzles. (She did them in the newspaper, I do them from a big book.)
Every Thanksgiving that she spent at our (my parents') house, she would assist my dad in carving the turkey. The two of them, my dad super-tall and my grandma super-short, made an odd-looking pair, bent over the bird together.
She called me "Honey."
Not being able to see her great-granddaughter Maya very well, she spent some time caressing Maya's bare baby feet last Thanksgiving when we visited. Both Maya and Maya's cousin Jack seemed very content sitting with Grandma G during that visit (which I believe was a testament to my grandma's calm, gentle demeanor).

Boo-hooing my way through the tough times

2007-12-18T09:04:00.000-08:00

I am a crier. Always have been. When I'm sad, I cry. When I'm overjoyed, I cry. When I'm upset, I cry. When I'm hugely disappointed, I cry. When I'm very angry, I cry. (That last one drives me nuts, though. Sometimes crying when I'm angry makes me feel like a bit of a loser. But I can't help it! The tears, they have minds of their own, and when those tears are ready to spring forth and course down my cheeks, there is no stopping them.)

When friends or acquaintances or whomever tell me they "never cry," or that they "can't remember the last time" they cried, I am amazed. I believe them, because I know that some of us are criers and some of us just aren't, but still, I am awe-struck by the non-criers. I wonder, How is their emotion released? Or, is it simply that non-criers are less emotional, less dramatic than us criers, so they don't cry because they aren't provoked to do so?

I wonder.

Worth reading:

2007-12-17T21:05:00.000-08:00

Dooce's recent post on mental illness and treatment

Little of this, little of that

2007-12-12T12:26:00.000-08:00

It's brain-dump time! At the risk of scaring you off entirely, this post will consist of a random assortment of unrelated (but perhaps vaguely interesting?) thoughts and observations from yours truly.

And we're off!

1. My physician agreed to test Maya's blood for lead in November. The test results were reassuring: Maya's lead levels are currently quite low. Hooray! However, I still plan to purchase more of those home lead-test kits and perform checks of her toys from time to time.

2. I bit off way more than I can chew this holiday season. It came to a head last night, a few minutes before ten o'clock, as I was frantically sprinting around Whole Foods grabbing gifty tidbits (and some basic kitchen staples) while the store employees prepared to close the store for the night. I had my planner open to the page that lists all the holiday shtuff I have to do and get and mail in the next two weeks, and I was checking that list, running to an aisle of the store, checking the list again, muttering to myself, running to another aisle, etc. etc., until finally I was forced to head to the checkout line at 9:59 p.m. Then, I hoofed it back over to Borders, a hundred or so yards down the sidewalk, to pick up the four-million gifts I'd bought over there before ducking into Whole Foods, to retrieve said gifts from the very sweet elderly woman who was wrapping them for me. After a long, not-so-spectacular day at work followed by dinner with a tantrumming Maya, it was not the leisurely holiday shopping I'd been looking forward to. Oh, well.

3. On the other hand, though, I believe I have found the perfect Christmas gift for friend J. Don't you love the feeling of finding the PERFECT gift, one that the recipient is not expecting but that you know fits him or her to a tee? I looooove that. Although I am dying to divulge what J's gift from me will be, I cannot, as she is a loyal Waxing Prosaic reader. The element of surprise must be maintained!

4. I have a cold. But you know what? I don't mind! Compared with the Evil Stomach Bug I caught from Maya after Thanksgiving, a head cold is nothing. Nothing, I tell you! Because hey! I can eat food! I can walk around upright without doubling over in agony! I can easily leave my bed! It's allllllll relative, people. Hooray for the common cold!

5. Oh how I love the iGoogle. Do you know the iGoogle of which I speak? (You probably do, since, according to Wikipedia, it's been around in one form or another since 2005, but was recently made a whole hell of a lot better a few months ago. Where have I been?) If, like me, you are brand-new to the iGoogly goodness, please hie thee to Google immediately and explore the magnificence that is iGoogle and its thousands of "gadgets." On my iGoogle homepage, for instance, I've got a Flickr slideshow, a preview of my g-mail, a local weather report, the time and date, three constantly updating New York Times stories, several constantly updating recipes from various sources, a daily Buddhist quote, and more. Those geniuses over there at Google are just bringing it with the creativity!

Alllll righty. That's it for now. Thanks for stopping by and perusing the contents of my brain...

Quickie post

2007-12-05T14:46:00.001-08:00

Ooooooo, it's soooo nice out today! I just got back from a lunch-hour walk in the lovely sunshine. I would guess it's around 70 degrees, balmy, slightly breezy, clear. Just perfect!
I miss many things about living on the East Coast: my family, friends, autumn colors, snow (and snow days), older architecture, and more. However! I do not miss the cold, punishing winters. No ma'am.

Holidaydreaming

2007-12-04T15:39:00.000-08:00

Having nothing to do here at work, I spent most of my morning reading blogs and came across this post on Well. Following the post were a number of reader comments, many in the vein of, “This is exactly why I refuse to fall victim to the trappings of a consumerized Christmas! I hate shopping, and I refuse to put up lights or decorations. If I could hibernate from Thanksgiving through the new year, I would.” That kind of thing. I felt a little sheepish reading the comments, because while I’m not really into the gifting aspects of the winter holidays, either, I do love so many other things about this time of year.

For starters, I love the music. My dad complains that “they start playing the Christmas music on the radio IN THE MIDDLE OF NOVEMBER,” but I don’t mind a bit. Now that Thanksgiving’s come and gone, I’ve dug out all of my holiday-music CDs (and bought one or two more) and am playing them constantly, enjoying every track. I just love Christmas music! Some of the love is nostalgic, some of it is simply related to my musical tastes. (Nostalgia love: any version of “Little Drummer Boy.” Musical-tastes love: Bing Crosby’s “Jingle Bells” featuring the Andrews Sisters.) And holiday music, when enjoyed on the radio, online, or from a few favorite, old CDs, doesn’t have to cost much, if anything.

Secondly, I love holiday décor. Even here in sunny SoCal, winter can be a little dreary, so lights and poinsettias and festively decorated trees brighten my spirits. I think it’s normal for people to want to counter the cold and gray of winter with lights and ornamentation. It’s fun, frankly. And it doesn’t have to be expensive. Hanging a small wreath on one’s door, or tying a red ribbon on one’s lamppost---these are not costly, crazy-consumer endeavors. As for me and mine, we’ve put up a lovely new tree (artificial, thank you Target) and a cheesy-but-entertaining little train-station tabletop decoration, which Maya LOVES, and each day we look forward to turning these items on in the evening and enjoying their pretty little lights.

Thirdly, the Christmas cookies. Oh how I love Christmas cookies. Last year, one of my very favorite gifts was the little collection of homemade Christmas cookies my friends J and P gave me. Maybe it’s my Grandma Watson’s influence, but I’ll always equate homemade baked goods with love, warmth, and friendship. Baking cookies for someone is such a lovely, personal way of telling that person you care about her and are thinking of her, in my opinion. In the past I’ve organized workplace cookie exchanges, which to me are a fun, low-key, low-cost way to celebrate the holiday season.

Fourthly, I always look forward to the perennial Christmas specials on TV. Charlie Brown, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (the 30-minute original animated version, thank you very much), Frosty the Snowman, A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation…they’re fun and goofy and reminiscent of happy childhood Christmases. Plus, many of them, such as A Charlie Brown Christmas, include wonderful music. And again---enjoying these specials is free of charge!

Lastly, I just plain enjoy the added excitement that this season brings. It’s nice to break away from the ordinary for a few weeks. Holiday luncheons at work, little get-togethers with friends, holiday parades, Christmas concerts, holiday cards, and the like are pleasant diversions.

I guess what I’m getting at is that sure, rampant holiday consumerism and retail pressure is a drag, and kind of a national embarrassment, in a way, but a person can still enjoy this time of year without spending tons of money and energy shopping and racking up tons of expenses. Boycotting the holiday season is anyone’s right, but it seems to me that everyone can find something holiday-related to enjoy and feel good about.

Nablopomo is nablopomOVER!

2007-11-30T21:26:00.000-08:00

Today marks the end of my failed attempt at completing the Nablopomo challenge. Although I missed three days of posts, I found the experience worthwhile, mostly because joining a community of bloggers was just as fun and inspirational as I'd hoped it would be. Over at the Nablopomo headquarters, I made friends (like Myla), I joined groups, I got into some interesting discussions (like one with DaveX about whether a blog can be "too self-indulgent"), and I found motivation to add some neat little bells and whistles to my blog (like the Flickr slideshow down there on the left). I also sampled many blogs written by other participants. I really like this one, by a Nablopomo participant named Jenni, but I think I freaked her out by commenting too enthusiastically on her Nablo page.
:-)
And here's where I thank my two most faithful readers, J and A! Thanks, J and A, for muddling through. Thanks also to Myla and Scott.
Goodnight, everybody!

At home with Tivo

2007-11-29T20:36:00.000-08:00

Day 2 of being housebound with the stomach flu. Good times, y'all!
By midday, however, I was feeling good enough to fire up the Tivo and pick a saved program to watch. (In contrast, yesterday I was so incapacitated, I could barely leave my bed and could not tolerate any sensory stimulation whatsoever.)
Apparently the last show Tivo recorded was on Bravo, because Bravo popped up on my screen, and there it was: The Real Housewives of Orange County.
I know, I know.
Believe me, for the first minute it was on, I was all, "Ugh. Why do they make this crap? Can anybody get a reality show these days?" But then 20 minutes later, I was still watching. Here's the thing: I am nosy. I am interested in other people and their daily lives. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a spy when I grew up, simply because I liked people-watching. Now add to this curiosity the fact that these women are super-wealthy, and I'm not. I had to see what their lives were like! (That is, I had to see what their lives were like within the contrived construct of a scripted reality show, of course.) It was too much for me to resist. I got sucked in!
Right away I learned that at least three of the housewives aren't housewives at all. They're working women with successful real-estate careers. (So why do they call the show "The Real Housewives of Orange County"? Isn't that totally inaccurate?)
Anyway, I couldn't immediately scorn a group of hard-working women (all mothers, too). I mean, I respect women with careers. I suppose I could've scorned the mom who went clubbing with her 21-year-old son, or the mom who stage-managed her daughter, who was modeling jeans at a local boutique. But mostly I was just fascinated. These women just live a completely different lifestyle than I do, and it's not necessarily a bad one. It's just different. And it's not as if these women's lives are free of hardships. One of them recently lost her husband. Another one is estranged from her husband and struggles with her weight.
Anyway, I can't judge the whole series on one partial episode. But I have to admit, the half-episode I watched today thoroughly engrossed me.
And so here comes the confession: The Real Housewives is now season-passed on my Tivo.

Sicko

2007-11-28T19:30:00.000-08:00

OK, well, apparently my last post tempted fate, because I woke up this morning at 5:20 with what I guess is the same stomach bug Maya had. I've spent a miserable day holed up in our apartment, all feverish and sweaty and achey and gross.
So then, I'll end it there.

I failed, and here are my excuses

2007-11-27T20:44:00.000-08:00

Well, as is obvious by my three days' worth of missing posts, I've failed the NaBloPoMo challenge. On one hand, I am crushed, ashamed, and disappointed, because I'm not someone who even bothers to start things I know I won't complete. Once I've set my mind to something, I really keep the pressure on myself to finish. So, as my therapist would say, my failure to post for three days this month is "not in line with my integrity," and it makes me feel crappy.
On the other hand, I am comfortable with the fact that the three days I didn't post were full of real-world obstacles and challenges that wore me down and kept me utterly occupied with more pressing matters till the wee hours---and on East Coast time, no less! I won't go into these events in detail, but one of them---seeing my Grandma George, who is 95 and currently unresponsive, immobile, and dying (under the care of Hospice) in her nursing home---was deeply disturbing, emotionally painful, and life-changing. Another major factor in my no-post record was Maya, who vomited lustily three times during our trip (including once in a restaurant and once on the plane ride home), which sent me into frantic cycles of toddler-comforting, toddler-bathing, clothes-washing, linens-washing, and anxiety. (We still don't know why she was puking, and we have no idea if it's over or if she'll puke again two minutes from now.)
Add to that my parents' dial-up connection and slow-arse computer, which kept seizing up on me the nights I did post, and you get a recipe for no NaBlo.
So, yes, I realize I'm giving excuses. But they are valid, and I guess I feel I have to write them here if I ever hope to get over the feeling that I'm a big fat failure.
But, on the bright side, there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to finish my daily posts for the remainder of the month, now that I'm back home. Wish me luck!
Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.

Still cold

2007-11-23T19:47:00.000-08:00

Day 2 in Albany. Cold as all get-out. Took a brief walk around the neighborhood today wearing a thin fleece jacket and a leather coat. And gloves. Froze anyway! Was secretly relieved to arrive back to the toasty house.
Maya is enjoying exploring Grandma and Pop-Pop's house and playing with her mommy's retro 70s and 80s toys.
S and I are enjoying tasty home-cooked meals and lots of desserts. Tomorrow we will visit my Grandmas Watson and George.
There's hardly any time to get online here. When I finally did, the beep-bap-boop-creeeeeeeeeeek-fzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sound of the dial-up modem startled me. Talk about your retro toys!
:-)

Traveling

2007-11-22T20:48:00.000-08:00

After a looooong day of traveling, we arrived in chilly Albany exhausted but overjoyed to see my parents. (Yay! Familiar faces after seeing only hundreds of other anonymous, fellow travelers all day!)
It's cold here. Very, very cold. But my parents' house is warm and spacious and comforting. And it smells like chili and corn bread!
Happy Thanksgiving.

The end of "packing light"

2007-11-21T22:19:00.000-08:00

I've been scurrying around our apartment for the past two hours now, feverishly checking my to-pack list and squirreling away clothes, medicines, personal-grooming items, toys, books, bottles, sippy cups, and about three-million other assorted items into various suitcases and carry-on bags in preparation for our Thanksgiving journey to Albany, New York. We leave tomorrow morning.
If I may bitch and moan for a moment, I would like to play Mistress of the Obvious here and announce that PACKING "LIGHT" IS IMPOSSIBLE ONCE YOU HAVE CHILDREN. I mean, damn, people. Maya, a toddler, requires way, way, way more gear than I do. Her suitcase is crammed full to bursting, and my two big old carry-ons are jam-packed with all manner of toys and snacks for her for the plane. (In contrast, the only personal "fun" items I've packed for myself are a Newsweek and a novel. Oh, and some gum. And a pot of lipgloss.)
I realize a child does not necessarily require 600 new toys for a five-hour, cross-country airplane ride. However, I am desperate for her to behave and remain reasonably occupied and contented during this flight. The only sound more panic-attack-inducing than a child crying in a car is a child crying on an airplane. Am I right? I'm just really, really hoping to keep the wailing and tantrums to a minimum while we're 30,000 feet off the ground. S and I are going to stuff this kid full of Cheerios and read her stories till we're hoarse. Then, when all of that has lost its novelty for her, we'll start pulling out the toys, the coup de grace of which is a borrowed Mr. Potato Head, courtesy of one of my mom-friends. Maya has never laid eyes on a Mr. Potato Head before, and I know the interchangeable eyeballs and lips and ears and shoes are going to blow her mind, rock her world, and the like.
So yeah, I'm packing a ton of toddler gear and about one square foot of stuff for myself, and my old, pre-baby strategy of "packing light" for Thanksgiving has been totally shot to hell.
Buh-bye, packing light! I'll see you again in about twenty years, maybe.

Half-empty

2007-11-20T20:52:00.000-08:00

Today on the NPR Web site I came across a This I Believe essay by Barbara Held, a professor of psychology and social studies at Bowdoin College and the author of Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching.
Held's belief is that there is "no one right way to cope with all of the pain of living," and that, for many people, feeling temporarily negative and down about a situation or life in general is a valid way of coping with adversity. We shouldn't necessarily try to force positive thinking or cheerfulness on people who are worried or scared or sad about something, Held says. "Sometimes a lot of what people need when faced with adversity is permission to feel crummy for a while, to realize that feeling bad is not automatically the same as being mentally ill," is how she puts it.
Or, even more simply stated, it's OK not to be happy all of the time.
This has been a revelation for me.
This essay resonated with me so much, it actually kind of startled me. S and I have been talking a lot lately about the Buddhist principle that life is difficult, and how that principle is actually freeing and comforting to us in an unexpected way. On the contrary, if we go around thinking we need to be happy and positive all the time, we're going to be at best disappointed and at worst paralyzed with fear when we find ourselves face to face with hardship, loss, or tragedy. Then, on top of that, we're going to feel guilty that we're unable to think positively about our misfortune.
Personally, it has been helping me, when I'm upset or anxious or angry about something, to remind myself that life is difficult. It's not supposed to be one big happy, breezy party all of the time. And it's difficult for everyone, not just for me and my family. We're all in this difficult life together. This fact soothes me, and Barbara Held's piece reassures me that I'm not alone in my sometimes glass-half-empty perspective.

Let's talk sleep deprivation

2007-11-19T22:27:00.000-08:00

How do you feel when you've barely slept for several consecutive days?
I start out overconfident and then drastically crash the second day. The morning after the first night of poor sleep, I actually wake up feeling kind of hyper and all adrenaline-buzzed. I'm chipper, I'm alert, I pour myself an enormous mug of coffee and think, "Hey, this really isn't that bad!" I might even have a good day and foolishly pat myself on the back at the end of it.
Then Day 2 arrives.
Day 2 is cruel. Day 2 reminds me that no, Maureen, you can't actually overcome the laws of biology and maintain satisfactory performance when you've slept only nine of the past 48 hours. I wake up on Day 2 feeling like an overweight person is standing on my face, driving his heels into my eyeballs. My body is uncoordinated. My brain is sandy. Speaking hardly seems worth the effort. As the day continues, my patience is thin, my sense of humor has disintegrated, and my bones hurt. Tasks comprising three steps or more seem herculean and confusing. My inner eyelids burn.
Day 3 is the breaking point. I am unable to cope; I'll cry when I find we're out of quarters for the washing machine AND Maya has just spilled her orange juice on the kitchen floor. Life is so hard, so demanding, so ultimately depressing! What's the point of it all, etc. etc. etc. That's Day 3.
I never knew sleep deprivation until these past few years, and then I still didn't know cumulative sleep deprivation until our darling girl came along. Wouldn't trade her for nine hours of solid, uninterrupted sleep, but I would trade almost anything else.

Easily amused

2007-11-18T23:44:00.000-08:00

Today S, Maya, and I spent way too much time watching old Sesame Street segments on YouTube. Maya's favorite characters are the ubiquitous Elmo, compulsive-eater Cookie Monster, and the Count, a happy puppet for children inspired by Count Dracula, a sinister blood-sucking vampire. (Interesting choice, Jim Henson! But I like it, I like it.)
I'd forgotten that the Count used to have more hair. (I guess he, like other men, balds as he ages.) He was my favorite as a kid, I think because I found him slightly scary and therefore quite thrilling. I distinctly remember loving that "Bats in my belfry" song and feeling spooked by it at the same time.
Here are S and Maya watching the Count count apples, with Cookie Monster surreptitiously snatching each one and eating it after it's been counted:

G'night!

To do

2007-11-17T21:49:00.000-08:00

Drawing my inspiration from this blog, I present to you a very incomplete list of things I'd like to do during my lifetime. These are in no particular order.

Ride a Segway, preferably as a way of exploring a town or city with which I'm unfamiliar
Swim with dolphins in warm water
Teach Maya to drive
Visit Australia and New Zealand with S
Own a home
Publish a piece of personal writing
Take surfing lessons in Hawaii
Interview my parents in-depth about their lives, their generation (the Baby Boomers), and what it was like to live through the 1960s
Take a hang-gliding lesson at Dockweiler Beach in El Segundo
Ride in a hot-air balloon
Take Maya to see Manhattan around Christmastime
Invest some money in stocks
Make a documentary film with S
Live on the East Coast again
Get back into downhill skiing
Take a swing-dancing class
Buy Maya a drumset and some lessons
Learn piano

...to be continued!

Culture Shock

2007-11-16T20:37:00.000-08:00

One week from now, I'll be in a suburb of Albany, NY with my husband and daughter, visiting my parents. I've been in the Los Angeles area for seven years now; going back home always produces some culture shock, especially in the wintertime.
For one thing, it is COLD in Albany in November. Two Thanksgivings ago in New York it was blizzarding and 20-something degrees. I remember taking a nighttime walk with my parents in the swirling, biting snow, straining to keep upright in the whipping wind. About 50 yards and three minutes into our stroll, S turned back. "I'm out, it's just too cold," he announced, and retreated to the warm indoors. My parents and I trudged on. I like to think that I haven't gone completely soft since moving out West.
Another thing about suburban Albany that always strikes me when I go back is the quiet, and the space. The neighborhoods feature large, wide yards and homes set far back from the streets. The houses are large. In the winter, especially, everyone is inside their homes or their cars; the neighborhoods seem empty and deserted. There's a sense of stillness one doesn't get in L.A., where everyone seems to be in perpetual motion. When my parents drive us back to their house from the airport, I always feel a strange little pang of loneliness, like, "Where is everybody?" There are beautiful trees and buildings and bridges and homes, but so few people, it seems.
At night, in bed in my parents' guestroom, the utter silence is both lovely and disconcerting. Here at our home in L.A., we hear airplanes, the occasional dog barking, the light footsteps of our friends who live above us, even our cats wrestling and meowing. Even when it's "quiet" at night, there's always some sort of ambient noise.
I don't prefer one place over the other. They're just totally different. Both agree with me, for different reasons. Both are "home," in different ways. I'm not a city mouse, a country mouse, or a suburb mouse. I'm flexible, I like to explore and appreciate various places for what they have to offer.
It's funny, going "home" to New York, then coming "home" to L.A. It's nice, actually, feeling so comfortable in two totally opposite places.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday---one day late

2007-11-15T21:53:00.000-08:00

Tonight I'm posting a handful of photos. All of these were taken by me between 2003 and 2007.

Someday I'd like to take up photography as a hobby. I have a loooooong way to go before I'm any good at taking pictures, but here are a few shots I like.

Solomon's Island, MD
Pasadena, CA
Big Bear Lake, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Las Vegas, NV

This and that

2007-11-14T20:00:00.000-08:00

I was going to do a Wordless Wednesday and post only a photo tonight, but I don't think "wordless" is my style! I'm too much of a yapper; I've got too much to say.
First, to wrap up a loose end: I've spoken twice now with our pediatrician about the toy of Maya's that tested positive for lead. She is still declining to test Maya's lead levels, citing the fact that Maya's health and development seem normal. She believes I should not worry, and she doesn't believe any action is warranted beyond confiscating the toy. She and another doctor in the practice, with whom I'm also communicating, are being perfectly civil and patient and professional in their dealings with me, but I just don't feel comfortable accepting their opinion that Maya's blood doesn't need testing. So, tomorrow I'm going to call my physician, who also sees pediatric patients, and explain that I'd really like to get Maya's lead levels checked but that my pediatrician is declining to do so, and I'll ask if she or some other doctor in her practice would be willing to do it. We'll see what happens.
Tell me: Am I being unreasonable? Neurotic? Obsessive? You can be honest. Seriously. I'm in therapy for anxiety issues, after all! S believes that doctors know what they're talking about and that their opinions should be respected. He's not stopping me from pursuing this blood test, but if it were up to him, he'd skip it.
Would you? I need some outside perspective.
---
Yesterday morning, the oddest thing happened. Another car and mine drove essentially side by side for the vast majority of my commute to work---like, many miles' worth---and then, we turned into the same parking garage. And then, we ended up riding the elevator together in my work building up to our respective offices! It was weird. On the elevator, I was thinking, "That's him! That's the guy! We drove all the way here together, from Playa del Rey!" I tried and tried to work up the nerve to strike up a conversation ("Hey, aren't you the guy driving the dark green VW Golf?"), but I chickened out. I think, though, that he recognized me, too. He kept looking at me, and when I exited the elevator, he said a friendly, "Have a nice day!" It was just weird that in this huge, sprawling city, something like that would happen. I'm just irked that I let my shyness get the best of me. Who knows, I could've made a new friend!
---
My boss at work had to put his eldest cat down today. He came into work late and seemed so down and quiet. He and his wife have (well, had) five cats, and this one was 20 years old and quite sick. Five cats! I admire them for taking in and caring for so many animals, a few of which have health problems. Lord knows I can barely manage my two freaky felines---I can't imagine five. Anyway, this guy, my boss, has had a rough year. His father passed away, and he's been spending a lot of time with his mother, who has full-blown Alzheimer's. It just didn't seem fair that, on top of all of those things, he had to lose a pet. The amazing thing is, he just keeps coming to work every day, and getting things done. I admire his ability to compartmentalize. I find that very, very difficult to do myself.
---
In one week and one day, my little family and I will be heading back east to chilly upstate NY, to spend Thanksgiving with my parents. I'm looking forward to lazing around their large house; watching Maya romp in their backyard, which is like a football field in comparison to our teeny patch of grass; eating the usual Watson-family Thanksgiving staples (hooray for baked squash with marshmallows!); and visiting Indian Ladders, an apple orchard that makes RIDICULOUSLY DELICIOUS (and perfectly greasy) apple-cider donuts. Mmm.

Oh. That's disappointing.

2007-11-13T17:32:00.001-08:00

Hey, I just noticed something: Apparently, when I switched over to this new template from my old pink one, all of the comments disappeared. For awhile there, especially when I was pregnant, I was getting a few comments per post, and I loved it! It was a fun way to keep in touch with people I don't get to see all the time. And now those comments have all vanished. This makes me sad. Maybe there's some way to recover them? Finding that out would take some clicking around on the Blogger site. Bleh.
Oh well.

All about Maya

2007-11-13T16:00:00.000-08:00

Hello. My post today is a cross-post from my Mayalstones blog. Warning: It is filled with the minutiae of Maya's day-to-day development and goings-on. I can't help it. I'm a proud mama.

Maya turns 20 months in three days! This morning at work, a coworker visited with her 11-week old newborn daughter, and I was struck by how little and helpless and immobile the baby was. (It was all perfectly normal newborn behavior, of course!) I can hardly remember when Maya was that teeny and new---it's so weird how you forget ages and stages as the child gets bigger and older and more capable. I wish I'd begun the Mayalstones blog back when she was a day old! Of course, I could barely drag my exhausted, fresh-from-delivery self to the shower back then, much less to the computer, so I guess I can forgive myself. Now then, here's what's new in Mayaworld:
Maya's bronchitis seems to be gradually receding, thanks to the Horrid Pink Meds we've been forcing on her twice per day. Actually, we no longer have to force the Amoxicillin on her; she's pretty OK with willingly taking it, so long as we clap and cheer and do high-fives after each swallow. I also mime that I'm taking the medicine first, and she seems to enjoy watching Mommy put the syringe to her lips and fake-push the plunger. Whatever works, right?!
Maya's language development continues to grow. She's picked up a few little phrases, including, "Thank you, Mommy!" (no matter whom she's thanking), "What doing?" and "Where going?" She also communicates what she's seeing more and more frequently. For instance, she'll point to Toonces sleeping on our bed and say, "night night, baby." (Not sure why "baby" instead of "kitty cat," but we get the idea.) She looooves pointing out dirt on the kitchen floor. A-hem. She asks questions, such as "Pat?" while looking at one of the cats, as in, "May I please pat Ndugu?" She asks to watch "Bump baby high" about three dozen times per day, which is Mayaspeak for our Sesame Street Beginnings "Make Music Together" DVD. (Her favorite segment is the one where Baby Elmo is bouncing on his daddy's lap. Part of the song goes, "Bump-bump baby high! Bump-bump baby low.") We try to avoid turning on the television until the afternoon, which does not stop Maya from asking for it all morning long. I am also thrilled to report that Maya also asks to hear the song from the Sound of Music soundtrack that goes, "Doe, a deer, a female deer..." many many times during the day, too! She can sing a LOT of it. Like this: "Doe...deer...deer. Ray...suuuuuuuuuun. Me...name...seff. Fa...run!"The kid LOVES TO SING. She does some songs from school that we don't recognize. Something about Jesus and a boat, I think? Another one about elephants.
Last time we were at the doctor's office, Maya weighed in at 22 pounds. She's still petite, but she doesn't look unhealty or out of proportion or anything. She has a very tiny waist, and I think she's just small-boned. Her hair is at her shoulders, and we still haven't cut her any bangs. I'm feeling sort of anti-bangs right now, so I just pull her hair back in a little half ponytail each day---or sometimes pigtails. Her hair is wavy (like her mom's and dad's).
We're having some sleep issues these days and are trying to get through them as a family. S and I are looking for and testing out some creative solutions, trying to find the right approach for Maya and ourselves. Please wish us luck! None of us handles sleep deprivation well. At all.

A mess of a post

2007-11-12T22:19:00.000-08:00

Hi. To make a looooong story short, I slept roughly 4 hours last night and am currently barely functioning. We've got a bit of a sleep crisis on our hands as far as Maya is concerned, but I'm not going to bore you with the details (for once).
Suffice it to say, I'm here to make my requisite post, then I'm sprinting to bed to get whatever sleep I can before Maya wakes up and the hell begins.
First of all, thanks, J and A, for the lullaby suggestions! I'm going to search for them at the iTunes store and hopefully add them to my mix.
Secondly, and utterly apropos of nothing, I'd like to tell you that I made my first two "30-minute meals" last night and tonight, courtesy of the Rachel Ray cookbook of the same name, and both were successes, though not resounding successes. I'm lazy and cheap and put off by loads of hard-to-find ingredients, so I scoured the book for the two simplest-looking recipes possible, and found "Super Sloppy Joes" and "Spinach Calzones."
S loved the calzones, which took me much longer than 30 minutes to make because I'd forgotten to defrost the spinach or acquire a second cookie sheet beforehand (I had to get one from a neighbor, who ended up bringing me a Teflon casserole dish, but oh well, I used it.) The other weird thing with this recipe is the the quantities called for didn't quite jibe with what was available at the supermarket. For instance, S (who did the shopping) couldn't find 10-oz. tubes of premade pizza dough, so he brought home a 13-oz. tube. As a result, the calzones were effing ginormous, really comical-looking, actually. Take a medium pizza, fold it in half, and there's the size of calzone we're talking about. Furthermore, the bottoms of the calzones browned much faster than the tops, which didn't seem to bother S (or Maya) but really irked me. (J, do you know why this might've happened?) Regardless, they were good calzones; I'd just make some adjustments next time I make them.
The sloppy joes---those were really and truly a 30-minute dish. Actually, you could throw those bad boys together in 25 minutes, if you were determined and had better knife skills than I do. (God, my knife skills SUCK!) Also, they were good. Nothing special, really. But satisfying, tasty. It's funny---I was nervous about them because I had in my mind what, exactly, a sloppy joe should taste like based on the ones my mom and grandma made when I was growing up. These weren't the same, but they were close enough and contained a couple of vegetables, which I liked. We had them with a garlicky broccoli-cauliflower mix.
Wow, I am so boring tonight. Oh well. Let's wrap this up, shall we?
I called the lead-test company (see prior post), whose representative advised me to take a Q-tip soaked in vinegar to the red toy piece in question. If the swab turns red, he told me, it's paint transferring to the swab, and the toy does not necessarily contain lead. Well, I did that, and the vinegary swab did NOT turn red. So then, it appears we've got a lead-tainted toy in our posession, one Maya has spent countless hours gnawing on, back when she was big into the gnawing. I'm going to make one more call to the lead-test company tomorrow to discuss this further, but I'll likely end up taking Maya SOMEWHERE for a blood-lead test. If her pediatrician won't do it, we'll find someone who will.
I'm trying VERY HARD not to panic. Yet.
Goodnight.

Lullaby and good night

2007-11-11T22:47:00.000-08:00

As I type this I'm also creating a playlist of lullabies for Maya. S and I are going to try playing a lullaby mix for her as we put her down for bed each night. She's been having a lot of trouble falling asleep on her own; maybe she would feel less lonely if she had some lovely music to keep her company as she drifts off.
So far the "Night Night, Maya" mix contains all tunes she'll recognize. They are songs that her daddy and I sing to her often: Edelweiss; Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star; Moon, Moon, Moon (from one of her children's-songs CDs); Alright for Now; and Rock-a-Bye Baby.
What's funny, though, is that I've spent about the last 40 minutes or so finding and choosing these songs, and as a result, I feel so very soothed and relaxed! Listening to these songs is chilling me right out. It's so nice, and it's even prompted me to ask S if perhaps we could try playing lullabies in our bedroom before we fall asleep each night.
I mean, doesn't that make sense? Why shouldn't we adults use soft, sweet, simple music to lull ourselves to sleep, like we do for our babies?
(An aside: Since I've become a mother, I've often found myself wondering why we parents seem to know how best to nurture our children but not ourselves. Examples: We work hard to feed our children vegetables and fruits and low-sugar treats and lots of milk, yet we cut corners in our own diets. We insist on our babies' getting their full 12 hours' sleep, yet we figure we'll make do on five. We rush our children to the doctor at the first sign of significant illness, yet we fail to do so for ourselves. Don't we deserve the same level of care our children do? Or at least something similar? I think we should all make loving ourselves, as well as our children, a priority, too. After all, we were babies once!)
OK, I've just now made a "Night Night, Mommy" mix for myself. So far it contains Edelweiss; Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World; Twinkle, Twinkle (hee!); and Alright for Now. (Ahem. Maya and I have similar tastes.)
What else should I include in my "Night Night Mommy" playlist? Your suggestions are welcome!

This isn't good

2007-11-10T22:39:00.001-08:00

Well, I had hoped to post something light and fluffy and sweet and whimsical tonight, to counter last night's heavy, long entry. However, what's top-of-mind right now is all this mother-f*cking lead in all these mother-f*cking Chinese-made toys.
Here's what happened: Earlier this week I received the latest issue of Consumer Reports in the mail. The magazine included a very thorough, straightforward, well-researched, and UTTERLY FRIGHTENING story on lead in myriad, seemingly harmless household products and toys. One of the sidebars for this story rated a handful of home lead tests, for use on such items as toys, dishware, jewelry, etc.
I read the article, experienced some mid-level panic, went online to buy one of the lead tests, and waited impatiently for it to arrive.
The test came today. It includes 8 testing swabs; I've used five so far. First, the good news: a yellow, painted wooden ring from one of Maya's toys contains no lead. Also, a yellow plastic ring from another of Maya's toys (a Mattell product, I might add) contains no lead. And surprisingly, a crappy little metal trinket box that some street vendor gave her for free is also lead-free. (Each of these items has found its way into Maya's mouth numerous times.)
Now, the bad news, the news that is causing my nerves to explode like popcorn and my mama-bear rage to ignite: another part of the toy that includes the yellow, painted (lead-free) wooden ring I mentioned earlier does appear to contain lead. I say "appear" because there is one teeny, tiny part of me that hopes the lead-test swab turned pink not because the toy contains lead but because the red paint on it bled onto the swab. (Normally, a swab that turns pink indicates LEAD, LEAD, LEAD, according to the test-kit instructions.)
I have a feeling, and it's not a good one, that the damn red-painted part of that toy does contain lead, just like some of the recalled toys from earlier this summer had tainted red paint, and that's why the swab turned pink. To know for sure, I'll be calling the lead-test manufacturer on Monday to ask whether the swabs ever turn pink not from lead detection but from bleeding red paint. I'll let you know what I find out.
If I get bad news, which is likely, I'm going to call my pediatrician and ask ONE MORE FREAKING TIME for a blood test for Maya to determine her lead levels. So far, the doctor has declined to test her because we don't live in an old-old house, and Maya's development is "right on track." Hmph. Whatevs. I say, let's test this kid! If it turns out there's lead in that one toy, I'm insisting on it, or taking Maya to another doctor who WILL test.
...and that is the end of my angry rant. G'night, everybody!
Tomorrow's post: light, fluffy, sweet, and whimsical. I promise!

My Grandma Watson: Part I

2007-11-09T21:31:00.000-08:00

Roughly a year and a half ago, my dad's mother, who to me is Grandma Watson, fell in her home during the night and could not get herself up. A friend found her the following morning, and my grandmother was taken to the hospital. She never returned home after that.
Since then, Grandma Watson has lived in two nursing facilities. Last year at this time, she was at the first one, and when I saw her at Thanksgiving, neither she nor any of us, her family, knew for sure whether she'd be returning to the lovely house she'd lived in for the past 60 years or so. Now, a year later, we all know, including her, that she won't be going home, ever.
My Grandma Watson is in her mid- or late eighties, and she's suffering from a variety of illnesses. To put it frankly, she's not doing well, and she's not the same woman she was. She is clearly in her last stage of life, and knowing this is very, very tough. I think about her and worry about her and feel sad for her daily. Therapist C pointed out that I have been grieving for her as if she were already gone, which, in a certain way, she is, if I think of her the way she was 20, 15, 10, or even five years ago.
So, that's the background for this and a few upcoming posts about my Grandma Watson. The other thing you need to know is that she has always been and remains one of the most important and beloved people in my life.

Grandma Watson's House
My grandma and pop-pop lived in a medium-sized, Victorian-style home built in the late nineteenth century. This house was as much a member of our family as I am. It had character, it had quirks, it was larger than life, it could be temperamental, it was intimidating. As a child, I found parts of it wonderfully warm and sunny and bright and cheery (like the living room, television room, dining room, and first-floor kitchen) and other parts creepy and antiquated and mysterious (like the upstairs hallway, the upstairs kitchen, "the boys'" bedroom, the attic, and the basement).
It was an old house, so it hardly resembled the cookie-cutter 1970s suburban Colonial I was growing up in. Grandma Watson's house had creaky floors. Certain rooms had old, frail-looking wallpaper adorned with faded, almost Baroque-looking patterns. The lightswitch in the foyer was push-button style, which I know dates back to at least the 1920s, probably much earlier. That same foyer also housed a looming, dark-stained valet, with a hard little bench and great big brass coat hooks. In its center was an ancient-looking mirror, pitted and scratched. To my brother and me, these domestic features were fascinating and a little fearsome.
The dining room was the center of my family's universe. It's where all major-holiday meals took place and where so much of the laughter and story-telling and good-natured ribbing happened. My grandma at her end of the table, my pop-pop at the other, with my mom, dad, one uncle, and Grandma George on one side and me, my brother, my other uncle, my aunt, and my two cousins (once they were born, of course) on the other. Some years there was more family in attendance, other years less. Regardless, it was a place where I utterly belonged. I always sat directly to Grandma Watson's left.
I remember the feeling of being in that room for one of those meals: the combination of way more food than I normally ate, so many people huddled around the table, and multiple hours of waxing and waning adult conversation---punctuated by bursts of laughter---would lull me gradually into a very relaxed, sleepy state. It was all so comforting. I would give anything to relive, say, Easter Dinner, 1983.
---
OK. This has been a lot, so I'll continue in future posts.
Thanks for reading!

The C Word

2007-11-08T13:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my best friend called me to say that her husband was just diagnosed with prostate cancer. He is 33.
Another friend of ours, C, the wife of one of S's groomsmen, was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. She is also in her early 30s.
I learned from a coworker recently that another colleague of ours, in Sales, recently fought (and won) a battle with lymphoma. He looks to me to be in his early 40s.
This morning on NPR's "Day to Day," there was a story about a young woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer at 21, is still fighting it now at 30, and has garnered a "cult awareness" of her unique personal ads on an online dating site.
Cancer really is everywhere, isn't it? I have to admit I hadn't given it very much thought till recently, mostly because it is not prevalent in my family, so I hadn't thought about it in a personal way until this year, when C received her diagnosis.
Now it's really on my mind, and I see that cancer affects so many, and maybe everyone, in time. Either we have it, we have had it, we will have it in the future, we know someone who has it, we know someone who had it and survived, or we know someone who had it and did not survive.
Another something I see, which makes me feel so good, is that so many people affected by cancer are full of hope and positivity. My best friend (K), for example, who has the husband recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, is very focused on the many positive aspects of her husband's case: the cancer is localized, the number of cancer cells appears to be quite small, her husband was self-aware enough to take himself to the doctor when he noticed some unusual symptoms, and his diagnosis occurred very early. Also, other family members of his have had prostate cancer, and all lived to tell about it. K told me last night, "We're doing everything in our control to fight this," and she said that gives her and her husband a good feeling. It gives me one, too. I feel confident that K's husband and Friend C are both going to pull through and win their respective battles. They are not sitting idly by; they and their loved ones are taking action and informing themselves and truly doing everything they can.
They are hopeful, and I am, too.

More of life's simple pleasures—from my perspective

2007-11-07T12:56:00.000-08:00

Ugh. This has not been the Best Week Ever in the life of M. I think I'll do another "simple pleasures" roundup to remind myself of the many little things that make me happy. I think this time I will categorize.

Food: a McDonald's cheeseburger (just once in a while); a perfectly made margarita on the rocks (with or without salt); two glasses of red wine; bread and butter; a ripe, juicy peach; an occasional glass of cold beer; homemade chocolate cake; Cadbury chocolate; a plate of decadent, cheesy nachos

Weather: a thunderstorm complete with flash lightning; a warm, breezy day; a chilly autumn day; bright sunlight; a clear night

People/Relationships: getting a baby to laugh; weddings; being told "I love you" by a parent, child, or sibling; uncontrollable laughter with a friend; goofy inside jokes

Hobbies/Recreation: Performing a rhythmic tap step faster and fasterandfasterandFASTER; banging out an intense 20 minutes on an exercise bike or treadmill; chasing Maya around at the playground; completing a Jumble or Soduku puzzle; simple stretching

...and making lists.
;-)

Life's simple pleasures

2007-11-06T12:37:00.000-08:00

One thing I like about myself is that I am easily entertained. I am a big fan of celebrating the small things. Here I present A Dozen of Life's Little Joys, From My Perspective:
-The change of seasons (even here in L.A.)
-A visit to a farmer's market
-Chocolate ice cream
-Dramatic sunsets
-The peaceful little space of time in the morning between S leaving for work and Maya waking up
-Visits with extended family over the holidays
-Cooking a dish that turns out really well
-Easy conversation with a good friend
-Hugs on the leg from a very small child
-Hot, fresh coffee
-Getting a good deal on just about anything
-A cozy, lazy evening of television-watching
It seems to me that when you set your mind on appreciating the small things, you're then presented with infinite opportunities for experiencing joy. I find that reassuring.

Blow Me, NaBloPoMo

2007-11-05T22:45:00.000-08:00

Sorry, that was totally juvenile and inappropriate. I'm in a terrible, terrible mood---although, it was actually worse about 90 minutes ago, before I embarked on The Great Broccoli Casserole Project. After a very challenging afternoon and evening with Maya (which followed a very sleepless Sunday night for the whole family thanks to poor Maya's gagging on her own phlegm and then vomiting at 1:45 in the morning), I dragged my frustrated, fatigued, and teary self into the kitchen to put together dinner for tomorrow. It's a casserole my Grandma W used to make when my whole family gathered at her house, back in the day. It's special to me, though it wouldn't be special to anyone outside the family, but anyway, tonight was my first time making it, and it proved to be a rather enormous undertaking not fit for my small kitchen and limited collection of pots and pans. Anyway, 90 minutes later, I'm done, and I actually feel a tad better--a little like I just had a nice long workout or something. (I'm even sore!)
But still, my mood is pretty crappy. I just sometimes feel that no matter how hard I try, I cannot be as good a parent as I'd like. Some stupid hurdle (self-set or otherwise) will thwart me when I'm least expecting it. And then a long, tiring day of Trying But Not Succeeding will come to an end, and I'll realize I look gross and never actually showered. Or that there are five million dirty dishes in the sink, and oh---I still haven't vacuumed.
I know, I know. I need to get over myself and recognize my copious good fortune. Self-pity is totally annoying.
I do recognize the many ways in which my life is wonderful. Just sometimes, my vision becomes very narrowed, and I can't seem to see past the problem of the moment.
I'm working on it! (See this previous post.)

Fall Fantasy

2007-11-04T20:01:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, as S and I were walking Maya to the playground for some fresh autumn air and much-deserved playtime, I asked S how he thought the two of us might be spending the day if we didn't have Maya.

S: Well, I'd be going to a movie every weekend. Or, OK, almost every weekend. Including this one.
Me: Oh, you would? Just you then?
S: Well, OK, fine, we would be going to a movie every weekend. Also, we would sleep in. Nothing crazy---just till like, 9:30. 10:00!
Me: And then we'd wake up---
S: Go get brunch somewhere---
Me: Then come home---
S: And feel too full to do anything---
Me: So we'd snuggle up on the couch and watch whatever's saved on TiVo...

We enjoyed our cozy little do-nothing Sunday fantasy. But then I started thinking about how having Maya has forced me to grow up a little, take a little more responsibility, strive to be a better person. For instance, I'm enormously proud of the fact that I now plan our family dinners for the week on Sunday, and I always make sure a vegetable is included. It's just a small thing, but it's the kind of planning that was utterly foreign to me before Maya came along. Also, I waste a lot less time than I used to. I mean, believe me, I still waste time. Just not as much. When I'm home with Maya on Mondays and Fridays, I seize every free minute I can get (when Maya's napping, when she's watching Elmo) to get some small task accomplished. I'll actually think, "Yes! I've got some time to clean the kitchen!" and get to it, which is just, well, weird, considering the way the old, childless me operated.
So, yeah: There's always a smidgen of longing when we think about the Lazy, Slow Weekends of Yore. But these new, structured weekends of errand-running, playground-hopping, and meal-planning are pretty great, too.

Happy Feet, Part 3

2007-11-03T21:04:00.000-07:00

The summer tap class I was taking ended in September; now I'm taking the Fall-quarter Saturday tap class, which is a Beginner class. It probably would have made more sense to continue taking an Intermediate/Advanced class, but it's now on Wednesday evenings at 6:00, and I'm usually right in the middle of my evening commute at that time.
So, I'm taking the Beginner class...and it's great! I can focus on refining my technique instead of scrambling to memorize complicated choreography. (Not that I don't enjoy the challenge of memorizing a tricky routine. I do. I like getting a mental workout as well as a physical one.) As a "beginner," I feel that I'm benefiting from the teacher's focus on showing us individual steps and combinations that we practice over and over again until we've got (almost) every nuance correct. And we're doing a lot of "across the floor" work, which is fun and good exercise. Often, the teacher puts on this funky instrumental song by Prince, and off we go down the floor.
We're also learning choreography to "Boogie Shoes," a song that everyone but me seems to recognize and love. It's got sort of a funk-meets-disco sound, and I'm guessing it's from the 70s...? I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, it's a fun, easy routine with quite a bit of repetition, so memorizing it is not strenuous like memorizing the choreography to "Watermelon Man" was.
I was talking with my parents tonight on the phone about my tap class, and they were asking me about why I love tap so much. I told them I think it's because tap is mostly about rhythm and sound, and much less about flexibility, for example, than say, ballet. Anyone with a sense of rhythm and some balance could learn some tap steps. Also, it just seems a little more relaxed and casual than, again, ballet (or even jazz). I loooooove watching ballet, but I'm not particularly interested in dancing it myself. There are just so many rules! And I'm not into embarking on something I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be particularly good at. Ballet is HARD. (I took it for two or three years as a child.) It's even physically painful! It's beautiful and elegant and wonderful to watch, but I won't be donning pale pink tights and a leotard anytime soon.
S keeps asking me if I'll continue tap indefinitely, or if I'll take some other dance classes. I have wanted to try hip-hop for many years, but I have had trouble locating studios in the L.A. area that offer it to adults for purposes of fun and recreation. (I've found that many hip-hop classes out here are for actors who want to add the skill of hip-hop dancing to their resumes.)
I've also thought about trying swing, though I know that it's really hard. (Maybe I'm just too old!)
So, I don't know. I think the important thing is that I continue dancing. It makes me happy and takes my mind off my worries. It gets my blood moving, and it allows me to express the joy that music brings me.

Today in highlights

2007-11-02T20:48:00.000-07:00

Today was a really good day! Here's what went down:

Maya slept through the night and snoozed contentedly till 9:15 this morning.
Maya and I spent a lazy morning in our pajamas, playing in the living room, eating a late breakfast, and finally taking a walk to run an errand.
After lunch, Maya went down for a nap WITHOUT A FIGHT. That's so incredible, it bears repeating: She went down for a nap without a fight.
I had dinner with friend J at Su Casa while S took Maya out for sushi. (The report from him is that she essentially ate her weight in rice and miso soup.) It was sooo nice to spend an hour in uninterrupted conversation with J while eating delicious tacos!
Maya did not cry for 45 minutes after being put down to bed for the night in her crib, as has been her near-nightly routine the past couple of weeks. After less than five minutes of fussing, she was out.
S and I just finished watching an episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," which was really, really sharp and clever. Its production reminded me of that of "Entourage," which S says is because it, like "Entourage," is shot with a single camera. Also, one of the main actors reminds me a little of Jeremy Piven...and the cast of "buddy" characters is similar. Anyway, it was great and quite funny, and we'll be adding it to our little lineup of Genuinely Funny Weekly TV Comedies, following "The Office" and "30 Rock."

Hooray for good days!

What it feels like for a girl...who's anxious

2007-11-01T16:15:00.001-07:00

I thought I'd kick off my participation in National Blog Posting Month by getting all TMI on you and describing what it's like to be in therapy. I started therapy a month or so ago, for the first time ever, when I found that some of my obsessive, anxious thought patterns were intruding on my ability to carry out my normal daily activities. I felt that I had "hit rock-bottom," so to speak, one day at work when I was so consumed by obsessive worry about Maya that I couldn't focus on work tasks or finish them. My working relationships were affected, too---I felt unable to really converse with anyone or simply "act normal" in the office.
My brother-in-law J, when he lived out here, had a wonderful therapist whom he was forever raving about, so I got her number from him and gave her a call. A week or so later, I was sitting in her cozy, homey little office on a big furry couch, patting her cute little dog on the head and verbally spewing all over the place. It was an experience unlike any I'd ever had in that I found myself spilling the majority of my life story, at top speed, to a person who, minutes before, had been a complete stranger. A few tears were shed, too. By the end of it, I felt like a bad date: all self-involved and "me, me, me!" and overly talkative and emotionally volatile. The therapist ("C") reassured me that therapy is an appropriate place for talking about oneself for an extended period, but still, I left there feeling kind of guilty that I hadn't been all, "So, C, tell me about your life!" I mean, in my normal relationships and interactions with people, I would consider it rude to talk about myself exclusively for 50 straight minutes, you know?
Now, with about four or five sessions under my belt, I feel mostly comfortable in C's office, bursting forth with whatever comes to mind and going off on tangents. C is a nice combination of friendly and warm plus professional and goal-oriented. Additionally, we seem to have similar philosophies regarding diagnoses and treatments. Also, she's probably the best listener I've ever met (followed closely by my mom).
A typical session tends to begin with C's asking me what I'm "feeling right now," and my surprising myself with an answer. Most of the time I don't arrive "prepared;" that is, I don't think through what I want to talk about. It's all pretty spontaneous, and that was initially unnerving for me but now seems OK. Next, we usually revisit a Big Issue or two that was established during our first meeting.
Toward the end of my two most recent sessions, C and I have taken turns reading aloud from some relevant literature on the subjects of feelings and anxiety, and while the readings don't necessarily apply to me 100%, they are informative and helpful. Sometimes we'll come to an excerpt that makes me think of S, or my dad. And we'll wrap up with her giving me a strategy to try, something from the literature.
I still have to fight the urge at the end of each session to ask, "And how are you doing this week, C? What's new? Any weekend plans?" because I'm pretty sure that's not appropriate, even though I'm genuinely curious and would really like to know more about her. But, on the other hand, I am paying this woman to get to know me and my history and help me manage my thought patterns, so that fact helps me feel less "selfish" during my sessions.
In all, therapy is helping. It sometimes feels a little scattered, or messy, or that it's taken some turn I didn't want it to, but I think that's just an unavoidable facet of conversation in general, whether that conversation is between friends or coworkers or family members or a service provider and her client.

Two hours and fifteen minutes

2007-10-30T12:16:00.000-07:00

That's how long my commute was this morning. Longer than a movie! Longer than an American Idol finale! The most frustrating aspect of literally inching along in miles of traffic for so long was the time it took me to simply get out of El Segundo: an hour and twenty minutes. I left my apartment at 9:21, and at 10:45, I was only about a mile and a quarter from home, stuck on that expanse of Lincoln between In-N-Out and the Loyola Marymount area.
I'd at first tried my usual route of Vista del Mar to Culver, but made a U-turn on Vista about a quarter of a mile into it, when traffic was stopped dead. I then made my way to Sepulveda via Imperial, but traffic was bumper-to-bumper there, too. (I laughed bitterly when I saw a sign for construction on Sepulveda that said road work had started there this summer and is scheduled to end IN 2010. That's THREE YEARS FROM NOW.)
Frantically, I swerved over to Lincoln, and because of the center barricade there, had no choice but to stay put, despite moving even more slowly there than I did on Sepulveda.
Of course, I'd been swigging coffee this whole time, so about an hour into this odyssey, the bladder, it was full. I tried reading an old Newsweek from August that was lying on the floor of my car. I got through My Turn and scanned a piece about how Barack Obama comes off as a little too high-falutin' for "downscale dems" like myself. But the bladder, it was on fire! I couldn't concentrate on the magazine because I was too worried about peeing my pants. I scanned my car for empty water bottles and found one I could pee in if things became dire. (I had to do this once, back in I think 1996, when S and I were trapped in a blizzard on I-81 in northeastern Pennsylvania. They shut down the interstate, and we were on it. Four hours later, we were still on it. Peeing in a bottle was a necessity.) The stretch of Lincoln on which I was trapped this morning is barren---it runs along the northern periphery of the airport, I think, and there's nowhere to exit except for Westchester Parkway, but that exit's on the right, and I was stuck in the left lane, so...no dice.
Finally, I was able to get off Lincoln farther north, and duck into a Ralph's to pee. After that I felt a little more clear-headed and a little less crazy, and traffic finally started to move, too. I was able to get on Jefferson, shoot up to Centinela, and finally make my way east to the Westside. And here I am, finally at work, with nothing to do.
The cause of all of this wretched traffic jamming, I found out, was a fatal truck accident on the 405 right near where I live. It sounds totally awful and horrifying, and I feel terrible for the person who was killed and his family. It's chilling to think a person could head out on his commute one morning, just as he always does, and never make it to his destination. So, I'm grateful I'm here, despite the extra-long commute.

Smoke, Smog, and Ash

2007-10-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

Every day this week I've been feeling very thankful that my home is not threatened by the wildfires that are burning south and north of my little patch of L.A. I worry for the families stuck in the Qualcomm center and those whose homes are still standing but are dangerously close to encroaching flames.
Here in the South Bay, where I live, and in West L.A., where I work, we don't see any fire, but we see evidence of it everywhere. Each morning this week, I walk to my car and find it covered in delicate, white, papery ashes. The air is desert-dry, and the sky changes color all day: grey, white, taupe, blue, brown, orange. The smoke has been doing strange things to the sunlight here---kind of diffusing it and toning down its severity, like a lampshade does to a bare lightbulb. The effect is often very striking and beautiful, oddly enough.
On the other hand, the smog is thick, brown, and ugly. I'm looking at it right now from my ninth-floor office window. I worry for Maya, who is probably playing outside at school right this minute and breathing that stuff into her little lungs.
I've noticed I've been perpetually thirsty, and my eyes are very dry. I also find myself slathering lotion onto my hands all day long. I'm guessing this is a combination of the Santa Ana winds and the effect of the fires on the local climate.
It's unsettling to think that while I go about my business this week, driving to work, playing with Maya, cooking dinner, there are families just a few miles up and down the coast whose lives are being totally upended as they flee their communities. I'm keeping these people in my thoughts.

Happy Feet, Part 2

2007-08-09T10:27:00.000-07:00

So here's something: I've been tap-dancing again! In late spring of this year I began a Saturday tap workshop at a dance studio a few blocks from home. Since June, I've been learning some tricky, extremely challenging choreography to the song "Watermelon Man," by Pancho Sanchez. (Yeah, I have no idea who he is, either. But it's a fun, catchy song!)

My teeny class (there are four of us, total, and many Saturdays one or two are absent) just last weekend finished learning the choreography, and now we'll be practicing it and "perfecting" it (ha) until we perform for the public on September 9th. The venue is some sort of fair or street carnival or something in Manhattan Beach. I cannot wait! I'm a closeted ham. I love to perform---as long as I feel prepared. I think by next month I'll be ready to share my enthusiasm and mediocre grasp of intermediate-to-advanced tap moves with the world!

Seriously, you should see me doing this dance. I have to concentrate so hard; I do the worst job ever of "making it look easy." The moves are complicated and really syncopated. There's no "flap-ball-change, flap-ball-change" here! We do "riffs" and "drawbacks" and "the Eleanor Powell" and a crapload of turns. Grace, my teacher, is always reminding us that her style of tap is less Broadway and more Savion Glover. "Rhythmic tap" is what she calls it.

Whatever it is, it is truly kicking my ass! But in a good way. I love it and plan to continue tapping year-round.

Everything old is new again

2007-08-08T12:26:00.000-07:00

A couple of stories in the media lately have gotten me thinking that American consumers are beginning to rebel against highly processed and manufactured goods. I get the feeling there's a movement growing to return to "simple," "raw," "basic," "unprocessed" materials, foods, and products. Goods not long ago viewed as "primitive" seem now to be sought after by a growing percentage of the consumer population.

The first article I read that got me thinking about this idea was this one, at Salon, about a return to the glass baby bottle by parents concerned about a possible danger posed by bisphenol-A, a "hormone disruptor" leached by polycarbonate (the plastic most baby bottles are currently made of). The article and some other Googling I did about bisphenol-A persuaded me to jump on this glass-bottle bandwagon, just in case. Earlier this week I ordered a couple of glass baby bottles called "Born Free" (i.e., free of bisphenol-A). What's interesting is that I remember about a year ago coming across a reference to glass baby bottles in an old Terry Brazelton book my mom gave me, called Infants and Mothers, and chuckling that baby bottles were actually made of sharp, dangerous, breakable glass back in the 50s, 60s, an 70s. Now I'm thinking I'd rather feed my daughter milk from a container made of heated sand than of heavily processed petroleum.

The other news story was in today's New York Times, and it was about the growing demand for raw (unpasteurized) cow's milk. Such milk is actually not legal to sell in many states, the Times reports, so raw-milk fans are going underground to get the stuff. The allure of raw milk to these people is its total lack of processing---it undergoes no heat treatment, like the milk on grocery-store shelves does. This "rawness" results in better flavor and possibly greater health benefits, say raw-milk advocates.

I wonder what other consumer goods and the processes used to produce those goods will soon be scorned for being too industrial, too bland, too unhealthful?

Hello? Anyone? (sound of voice echoing in an empty, high-ceilinged hallway)

2006-11-06T20:56:00.000-08:00

A-hem. Um, hi there. As you well know, I had a baby! So, yeah, that explains why I haven't posted since...before she was born. Well, let's just jump right back into it, shall we?
So, Baby M. She's petite and blonde, with dark-blue eyes and enormous rosy cheeks. She's the love of my life, and I feel like we're getting to know and appreciate each other more every day. Just this past Sunday, for instance, S, Baby M, and I accepted an invite to join S's friend D at church. (Yes, church! Entering the sanctuary was like setting foot on the moon, I swear. It had been a long, long, long, LONG time since I'd been to church. It felt so foreign.) Anyway, we tried dropping Baby M off in the nursery with the other little cuties, but we were retrieved from the service a few minutes later by one of the caregivers, who told us Baby M "just won't stop crying." When S and I followed the caregiver back to the nursery and I scooped teary Baby M into my arms, she stopped crying within moments, and it made me feel really good. (One of the caregivers even remarked, "Isn't that amazing?") It was the first time I could think of that I was able to stop Baby M's crying so quickly and easily. In the early months, Baby M cried inconsolably, and it took all of my effort and creativity to put an end to it; often, she'd just cry herself out, and nothing I'd do would squelch the meltdowns any more quickly. It made me feel so incapable and hopeless. Now, I see from time to time that Baby M trusts me and responds to me and feels obviously comforted by me. It's a relief.
Tomorrow I start back at my old company working part time. I'll have Mondays and Fridays home with Baby M---hooray! I've never felt so confident and right about a decision I've made as I do about this decision to stop working full time. Granted, S and I will be eating lots of 49-cent Ramen noodles and cutting back on such luxuries as, you know, buying shoes and whatnot to be able to afford our apartment, but it's worth it.

I'm back! And I'm still pregnant.

2006-01-31T17:05:00.000-08:00

Honestly, nine months is just an absurd amount of time to wait for a baby to be made. One might surmise that over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, evolution could render the nine-month gestational period more streamlined and more efficient, and, as a result, whittle it down to something like twelve weeks. Right?
I mean, NINE MONTHS. That's three-quarters of a year! It was early summer when I first learned that I had been successfully knocked up. Now it's late winter, for Christ's sake. And we're into 2006. And I'm STILL pregnant. It's been an ETERNITY.
Of course, I'm grateful the baby has not come prematurely. And I'm certainly hoping she doesn't sneak out before March 15th, my estimated due date. It's just that I'm getting pretty tired of being preggers. I'm at the point where I entertain lurid, slow-motion fantasies of drinking icy margaritas and fully caffeinated coffee. And working out! Strange as it sounds coming from a lazy ass like myself, I miss exercise. I mean, I can take walks and do some limited stretching at this point, but that's about it. I'm far too huge and ungainly to do anything like yoga or Pilates, never mind a short jog now and then.
But enough with the complaining. I'm thrilled that in six-ish weeks, Maya will make her debut and fill S and me with the kind of intense love that will change us forever, for the better. I know the joy we will feel is unimaginable at this point, but just knowing it's coming is exilharating! And we just can't wait to share so much with her: smooches, hugs, music, stories, laughter.
We're not so naive that we're unaware of all the hard work, sleep deprivation, frustration, and feelings of self-doubt that will present themselves along with our new baby, but they do seem a small price to pay for the privelege of raising a child.
All right then, that's it for now...

Of Face-Eating Tumors and Water Births

2005-11-17T10:32:00.000-08:00

This post is going to be about things I've learned from watching roughly 15 episodes of "A Baby Story" on TLC in the past month. But first, did you know there's another show on this same cable channel called "Face-Eating Tumor"? (They spell it without the hyphen, but I just can't omit a perfectly necessary bit of punctuation in good conscience.) I've not actually seen "Face-Eating Tumor," but I have seen it cheerily advertised right alongside "Bringing Home Baby" and "The Adam Corolla Project." I can't quite believe it each time I see the words "Face-Eating Tumor" flash up on the screen against the red TLC background, with a jaunty TLC tune playing all the while. I mean, even the Fox network would stop short of actually naming a show "Face-Eating Tumor," wouldn't they?

Anyway, on to Things I've Learned From Watching Roughly 15 Episodes of "A Baby Story" on TLC in the Past Month:
1. Water births are not for me.
2. Figuring out a Diaper Genie is harder than learning calculus.
3. The typical new-mom short haircut is just as frumptastic as I thought. Keep those scissors away from my head.
4. Babies look pretty gross when they first come out.
5. They set that slimy, greasy baby right in your arms after you deliver it, without washing it first.
6. The OB always assumes Dad wants to cut the umbilical cord. (S's thoughts on this event: "Let's just leave it to the medical professionals.")
7. The epidural is like heaven in a needle: "Oh, did I have a contraction just now? Huh! I didn't even feel it!"
8. Babies delivered by C-section have rounder, prettier heads.
9. If you turn the TV picture off but keep the sound on during any "A Baby Story" delivery scene, you'll swear you're listening to porn.
10. Seriously, a water birth is NOT FOR ME.

Taut, Like a Drum

2005-10-20T18:01:00.000-07:00

So, for those of you wondering what a five-months-pregnant belly looks and feels like, let me try to describe mine for you.

For starters, I'd say its radius, if I may use a mathematical term without knowing for sure whether I'm using it correctly, is about four to five inches. In other words, my belly sticks out that many inches from my body. When I look down in the shower, I can't see my lady parts. I can still, thankfully, see my knees.

It's very round. Not quite round enough that any stranger on the street would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's a fetus in there as opposed to, say, several thick insulating layers of fat (although there is some of that, too), but still, quite round indeed. I think it's the roundness that lends a degree of cuteness to the pregnant belly. Round, roly-poly things are sort of cute, generally speaking. (Hello Kitty's head comes to mind.)

My navel has not popped out, exactly. But it's shallower than normal, and flatter. Not quite flush with the rest of my abdomen, but getting there. This was sort of fun to watch until the skin around my navel ring began to get red and irritated. Now I'm worried and want the ring removed, but I don't know how to do that. (It's the bar kind with a jewel on one end.) I'll ask the doctor about it when I see him in a week and a half. (What will remain when the ring is removed, though? Holes? That's weird. I've read you can insert a bit of fishing line where the ring used to be, to keep the holes open. That's not a bad idea. Not that I have any fishing line handy, and not that I would relish threading it through my flesh if I did.)

The funniest part of the five-months-pregnant belly is the tautness. Taut like a drum, I'd say. S finds this amusing, as do I. Also kind of reassuring, because it proves there's a big old uterus in there, expanding as it should. (By the end of pregnancy, I read, the uterus has grown so huge that it butts up against the rib cage. Whoa.) It does make bending over difficult, however. And you should see the sorry state of these pants I have on today. They're my old, regular pants, from like, twelve pounds ago or whatever. They are SO STRAINING. They're like, gasping for breath. Sweating from the effort of staying buttoned, practically. And they are so freaking tight around my butt (which is totally bootylicious and shelf-like now, I might add) that they're almost obscene. I've been keeping my coat on all day to cover it. Oh! That's another thing: My coats and jackets don't zip up now. That's one mild bummer about being preggers in the winter: I guess you have to go buy new coats! And coats aren't cheap, of course.

So, that's the Belly Report. I got a BabyCenter.com update yesterday in my e-mail that starts with, "You're 19 weeks pregnant! Think you're big now? Wait till you see how fast you grow over the next several weeks!" And really, I almost soiled my drawers reading that, because YIKES. I mean, how will my belly skin accommodate all the added poundage that's to come? How much farther out can my butt travel? Will the girth of my thighs increase threefold?

??

Ah, well. As far as I know, all seems OK with Baby of M at this point, so that's the important thing! (Of course, I'm still waiting on blood-test results that were supposedly ready on Monday...)

Let's Do the Time Warp

2005-10-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been suddenly, unexpectedly presented with a bit of information about someone you went to high school with a zillion years ago (or maybe just twelve), and it sort of snaps you back to your teenaged self for a moment and gets your mind thinking about things it doesn't normally spend much time on, like your past and your future and the life you've created for yourself and the nature of time and aging?

That happened to me this morning. I was sitting here in my cube editing, as we editors are wont to do, still kind of stewing over the fact that S and I had just been closed out of an apartment we'd visited last night and liked, but which we found out this morning doesn't take cats, despite the property manager's original claim that it did. I was also contemplating what I might have for lunch. That type of thing. Coworker A appeared in my cube with a Sports Illustrated clipping being circulated by Coworker J, about misspellings of player and team names on sports jerseys. It was an amusing if ridiculous little article, and I was getting a good chuckle out of the player whose Anaheim Angels jersey said "Angees" by mistake but who wore it anyway, and by the guy whose last name was Smith---spelled "Smiht" on his jersey.

Then, I came to the bit about Jon Busch, a professional soccer player for a team called Columbus Crew (presumably in Ohio). Both his first and last names have been repeatedly misspelled on his jerseys, and he's quoted as saying something like, "By this time, you'd think they’d get it right." And then it clicked: Jon Busch. Star goalkeeper for my high school soccer team. Always really tan, with spiky brown hair, arrogant but friendly, worshipped by all for his phenomenal athletic talent. I googled him, and sure enough, it was him. (Also turns out he was born precisely one year and one day after I was. Kind of funny.)

I barely recognized him in his current photo. He looked...well...old. Older, anyway. And not as good-looking as I'd remembered, frankly. (I guess even big-time professional athletes lose their youthful cuteness over time.) But it was definitely him, and his biographical stats confirmed it.

That sent me into the aforementioned timewarp-mindspin. Thinking about Jon got me thinking about high-school soccer games, and my high school's soccer fields, set on a few lovely, green, rural acres. Sometimes my cheerleading practices were held on those fields, or near them. It got me thinking back on my high school's soccer program, which was quite good, versus my high school's football program, which was quite sucky. That got me thinking about Friday night football games, under the lights, with tons of people I knew in the stands. And then I got to thinking about being young, and full of energy, and relatively carefree, and all of that. The world was so much smaller back then, wasn't it?

I felt a slight pang of envy that this guy Jon is doing what he loves for a living, as I always do when I hear of the successes of former friends or acquaintances. But mostly I felt inspired, and sort of weirdly energized. It's nice to know that not everyone winds up hunched over a computer in a cubicle five days a week to earn a paycheck. And I always feel refreshed when I learn of people who are, in some way or another, pursuing something they love. It pulls me out of myself and my immediate concerns for a bit and helps me gain a broader perspective on life in general.

So anyway, here's a little shout-out to Jon Busch of the Columbus Crew. Congrats, dude.

I’m Not an Ungrateful Jerk

2005-10-05T12:26:00.000-07:00

(Honest)

It occurred to me that my Debbie Downer post makes me out to be an ingrate, and I want to make it clear that I'm not. After six solid months of precisely timed trying, S and I are quite delighted and over the moon about being preggers. By about May or so, we'd kind of resigned ourselves to the idea that maybe we weren't ever going to be able to make a baby without some sort of assistance, and we'd gotten pretty down (and, of course, anxious) about it. So please don't think we're all, "Shit! A baby! Damn it!" That's totally not it. We're more like, "Oh my god, it finally happened! We've made a teeny person together! We're going to be a family! Is this too good to be true? Can we really pull this off?"

So, I'd like to share some of the things about which I'm very excited, with regard to the lil' fetus and his or her future (assuming all goes well).

1. Can't wait to see what this wee little lad/lass looks like. I'm guessing Baby of M will have S's deep-set blue eyes and strong browbone. Perhaps my nose (gah!), which I'd characterize as "very British" as opposed to, say, "really huge." Obviously, bright blond hair. And for Baby of M's sake, let's hope he or she gets S's thighs.

2. Really curious about Baby of M's personality. Will he or she be happy-go-lucky, always grinning and laughing? Or, will he or she be more guarded and introspective and contemplative?

3. What kinds of things will Baby of M be good at, later on down the line? Where will his or her talents and interests lie? Will he or she love to read, like Mom and Dad do? One might think Baby of M might take an interest in writing. Perhaps he or she will be lucky enough to inherit Dad's talent for cartoon-style sketching. Will Baby of M love school and all things academic, or will he or she be more of a daydreamer? Will Baby of M be athletic? Musical? Creative? Logical? Mathematical? Ambitious? Laid-back? A smattering of everything?

4. Family vacations! Can't wait to show Baby of M my favorite places: the Northeast, London, the beach...

5. Teaching Baby of M compassion and respect for others. I want him or her to care about other people, and animals.

6. Just generally taking Baby of M out and about. You know, on little outings about town.

7. Watching S interact with Baby of M. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he'll be a tremendous dad.

So, these are the types of things I let myself think about, on occasion, when I’m feeling relatively relaxed, calm, and confident.

Debbie Downer

2005-09-29T15:22:00.000-07:00

I'd like to explain why my preggers experience is fraught with panic and nervousness. There are a few reasons.

1. I am a worrier. It is an inherited trait. I fret like crazy when given the opportunity.
2. Being pregnant makes me feel out of control. I can't see what's going on in there! There's no little window into my uterus through which I can peek to monitor what's happening on the fetal front. And there's only so much I can do to try to make a healthy baby. I can avoid heroin, for example, and cut back on the thrice-daily Long Island iced teas. (Kidding.) But really: beyond feeding myself adequately and following the general do's and dont's of pregnancy, there just isn't a whole lot I can do to affect the outcome---or to guarantee a positive one. It's an exercise in faith, I guess. Don't smoke, don't drink, don't eat sushi, and cross your fingers. This is not my style. I like to have CONTROL.
3. I read too much. I'm not the kind of gal who reads one chapter of What To Expect When You're Expecting per month, the way you're supposed to. No no, I devour the whole damn thing the weekend I buy it. So one little month into my pregnancy, I was already reading about the Stages of Labor and Potential Complications at Each Stage, and making myself sick with anxiety. And then there's the Internet. A few days after learning I was pregnant, I could have given you a pretty thorough description of preeclampsia, ectopic pregnancy, placenta previa, and anencephaly, to name a few. In an effort to be an Informed Pregnant Woman, I read too much. I learn about every potential problem and become convinced that I will get it. Even my doctor tells me to knock it off with the Googling. I'm trying.

And now, as if this post hasn't been tedious enough, I present to you M's Many Worries of Pregnancy. (Have I driven you away yet?)

Miscarriage
Ectopic pregnancy
Alcohol I drank before I knew
Meds I took before I knew
Fetal deformities
Neural-tube defects (spina bifida and the like)
Down's syndrome
Mental retardation
Autism
Mercury poisoning
Toxoplasmosis
Lysteria
High blood pressure
Too-fast weight gain
Not getting enough folic acid
Inadequate nutrition (read: "too many Fritos, not enough lettuce")
Inadequate finances?
We don't own a house
Day care versus staying home
How to find good daycare
Lame-ass maternity leave benefits
Figuring out breastfeeding
Will cats hate baby?
Will cats claw baby in jealous rage?
Should I have gotten pregnant younger?
Should I get pregnant again?

...and finally, will the baby get my ginormous nose?

That last one's a joke (although I do wonder), but the rest of 'em sure as hell aren't. This is the kind of stuff that whips me into a frantic lather. I'm amazed at pregnant women who are relaxed and normal and excited and happy and picking out cribs and Diaper Genies and tra la la, because how do they do it? How do they not worry?

To come: A post that doesn't involve my wearing my neuroses on my sleeve. And a post that isn't about pregnancy! I promise.

Interstitial: Feed Me

2005-09-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

For your entertainment, here are my pregnancy cravings to date, in order of how bizarre they are, listed from least bizarre to most.

Bagels
Pizza
Hamburgers on the grill
"Chili Cheese" Fritos
Mustard
Mustard on tuna-fish sandwiches
"Easy Cheese," which is that spray cheese that comes in a pressurized can, doesn't need refrigeration, and features such baffling flavors as "bacon cheddar"

You'll notice that healthful food is conspicuously absent from this list. Nary a green to be found. Apparently Baby of M isn't interested in lettuce or broccoli. This is perhaps why, when I went to see the doctor this morning and asked about my weight gain, he agreed that I'm gaining a bit too fast and need to rein things in a bit if I don't want to be staring down a 40-pound weight gain at Month 8. A-hem.

Suffice it to say I'll be visiting the gym this evening. And keeping away from the rest of the "Ralph's fudgy chocolate bundt cake" that's in the fridge.

Time To Let It All Hang Out

2005-09-15T13:18:00.000-07:00

Part II: I'm Pregnant. Both My Pee and My Blood Say So

The same day that I took my second pee-stick test, I made a covert call to my doctor from work to schedule a blood test. My understanding was that, while pee-stick tests are pretty accurate, a blood test is always needed to confirm a positive result. And I should mention here that it's always great fun making personal, private calls from my office building, which offers NO PRIVACY ANYWHERE. I always have to either whisper as articulately as possible into the phone that's in my cubicle, or take my cell phone out of the office suite into the corridor, which feels a little more private but sees plenty of foot traffic thanks to the restrooms and elevators located there. You never know when someone's going to step off the elevator and overhear you on your cell scheduling a Pap smear or describing the color of your cat's diarrhea to the vet.

Aaaaaanyway, I found a relatively quiet, solitary corner and made the call. When the receptionist asked for the type of appointment I needed, I whispered, "I think I might be pregnant" into the phone, to which she of course replied, "What?"

"I think I might be pregnant!"

"OK. So you want a blood test?"

"Yes."

"OK. Hm. We could fit you in in two weeks."

That killed me. I mean, two weeks? A whole fortnight? Who on earth has that kind of patience?

"Are you sure you don’t have anything sooner? I mean, like, this week, even?"

"Oh. Well, we could squeeze you in this Friday."

Even that sounded like an eternity, as I was calling on a Wednesday, but it sure as hell beat two weeks, so I took it.

Two days later, sitting across from Dr. A in her office, I learned that pee-stick tests are, in fact, extremely accurate. False positives are very, very rare, she told me. If I took two tests and both told me I was pregnant, then I was. She agreed to do the blood test as a formality, but in Dr. A's mind, I was pregnant beyond a doubt, and that was final.

"But what about all the alcohol I drank before I knew I was pregnant?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it."

"But also the ibuprofen and the Claritin-D."

"Don't worry about it."

"But..."

"M, did you smoke any crack recently?"
(First time a doctor's ever asked me that.)

"No."

"OK then. Stop worrying."

Well, OK. But that's easier said than done. More on THAT later.

On the drive back to work from Dr. A's, I first called S. He was excited, but he didn't want to do any celebrating of any kind until the blood-test result was in. That wasn't supposed to be until Monday, so we were in for a long, suspenseful weekend. After I called S, I caved and called my parents. I'd told myself I wouldn't do that until I knew absolutely, positively for sure, but the temptation was just too strong. I called and told them what the doctor had told me: the pee stick doesn't lie. They were, predictably, happy and supportive. It reduced my anxiety a tad. I was still feeling more terrified than anything else. They agreed not to share the news with any other family till that damn blood test was in.

Mercifully, Dr. A received the blood-test results from the lab the following day, a Saturday, and called us that day to let us know. "Break out the champagne!" she trilled into my voice mailbox, "Or in your case, M, the sparkling cider! You're pregnant!"

At which point, the REAL panic set in.

Interstitial: Welcome, Jack!

2005-09-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

My brother and his wife had their baby! The little spud was born on September 11 and weighed in at 3 pounds, 11 ounces. He's a preemie but can breathe on his own just fine. Once he's put on a bit of body fat (wish I could lend him some of mine), he'll be able to go home.
Congrats, Brother of M and Sis-in-Law T!

Time to Let It All Hang Out

2005-09-12T13:37:00.000-07:00

...of my ever-straining, overworked, stretched-to-the-breaking-point, no longer adequate, wee little size-six pants

Part I: Holy Crap, I'm Pregnant

All righty. The time has come to bore you all with Tales of Pregnancy, M-Style. Now that everyone at my work knows that I'm befetused, I'm feeling ready and willing to blog about it. It ain't pretty, I'm warning you. Seriously, Scott and Brother of M and any other male readers I might have out there in the cyber-ether, you may want to take a collective manly vacation from Waxing Prosaic and just totally tune out for the next five months, you know? It's football season, right? Go watch some.

OK, then, girls. Here's the scoop. Having just returned from a whirlwind trip to Albany, NY (my hometown), where I'd attended my very bestest friend's wedding and visited the fam for the fourth of July holiday, S and I threw our suitcases into the living room, stripped to our skivvies, tossed some affection our cats' way, and climbed into bed. (It was past midnight, we were exhausted, and we both had to work the next day.) As per usual, S fell asleep instantly, damn him. I, on the other hand, lay awake feeling odd and unsettled. With sore knockers, I might add. (Again, Brother of M and Scott: Somewhere, in some stadium or another, someone's kicking the winning field goal. Right now. You don't want to miss it. Go grab a beer and some Doritos and make your way to the couch, immediately. Step away from Waxing Prosaic before somebody gets hurt.) So I decided I needed to take a pregnancy test RIGHT NOW, just to rule that crazy idea right out. Some nagging little feeling was really insisting that I stumble into the bathroom and pee on a stick, and it just couldn't wait till daybreak.

So, I blindly made my way through the dark to the bathroom and fumbled around for a test stick in the full-of-crap cupboard beneath the sink. Found one. Peed on it. Put the cap on the wrong way. Yanked it off and reattached it, correctly. Set the stick on the sink. Waited, with Toonces at my feet, for the result, feeling utterly certain that "Not Pregnant" would pop up on the little display, as it always had.

But sweet Jesus oh dear god: "Pregnant" appeared immediately. Immediately. Like, not even fifteen seconds after I got that freaking cap on right. I know it sounds theatrical, but I truly did rub my eyes and come in for a closer look, because I COULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT I WAS SEEING. I was utterly paralyzed and frankly, confused. I went cold and started shivering. I was just wholely unprepared for this result, and I so hate to be unprepared. Denial set in pretty fast, and I came up with the notion that the result was wrong because I had fumbled with the cap and put it on wrong the first time. That had to be it. That was the only logical explanation. I'd take another test first thing in the morning, being sure to attach that stupid cap the right way right from the get-go.

Regardless, this was such a baffling, freaky event that I had to tell S about it that minute. It couldn't wait. I slunk back to the bedroom and propped myself on my knees right next to where he lay sleeping. I hovered over him, staring at his face. (This is an effective, if spooky, way to wake him up without actually shaking him or making noise or hissing "S! S!" into his ear.) His eyelids started quivering and sure enough, he woke up and barked "What happened?" all disoriented-like. I told him what had just occurred. He stared at me. I stared at him. He broke out in a half-smile. I didn't. I was still convinced the result was wrong, and I told him so. "You're definitely re-taking it in the morning, then?" he asked, not sure how to react to this maybe-true, maybe-not news; appearing a little frightened by my intensity; and not seeming to want to jinx anything. "Yes," I stated. "And I'm sure it will be negative."

Hours passed. Not much sleep on my side of the bed. Waves of anxiety. Etc.

Took it again in the morning, bright and early, cap accurately positioned. "Pregnant." Unbelievable! What the hell?!

I know my first reaction should've been sheer joy, but I have to admit, that wasn't it. At all. I was utterly panicked and terrified, not because I didn't want to be pregnant (I did), but because it caught me so off-guard. S and I had been trying for SIX MONTHS---very precisely, I might add---to no avail whatsoever. We'd been getting worried that something was wrong, actually. And then, besides the slightly sore knockers, there'd been no indication that a wee little M + S zygote had finally been created and was floating around in my lady parts. So I felt like my body had played a huge trick on me: "Ha ha! You're pregnant, M! Surprise! Try not to feel too panicked by all the white wine, vodka-cranberry cocktails, Amstel Light, ibuprofen, and Claritin-D you ingested back in Albany, ‘kay?"

To be continued.

Down With Circus Peanuts

2005-09-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

So I'm reading this book called Candyfreak, by Steve Almond, and it's got me thinking a lot about, well, candy. The book is a thoroughly delightful bit of nonfiction that is part humorous personal narrative and part history of candy manufacturing in America. Best of all, it's well-written AND funny. Finally. I'd been reading books that were either one or the other, and it was getting me down.

Anywho, the author's obsession with All Things Small and Sugary is rubbing off on me, I'm afraid. (I think I'm especially susceptible now that I'm PREGNANT! PREGNANT! PREGNANT! More on THAT soon.) Lately I've been tempted to buy candy bars, which really aren't anything I'd normally purchase or eat, I guess because my parents raised me to expect them on Halloween only, which always seemed pretty reasonable to me. (Good work, Watsons!) But the way Steve Almond describes the Clarke Bar, for example, borders on the pornographic. I find myself indescribably aroused by the thought of crispy peanut-butter filling "enrobed" (industry term) in rich chocolate.
You get the idea.

But today's topic is Candy That Never Should've Been. You know, those decades-old drugstore staples that make you ask, "Why?" They look gross. They sound gross. They taste gross. What's the attraction? Who keeps these brands in business? What gives?

I present to you my list:

-Necco Wafers
-Mentos (no offense to the Foo Fighters)
-Boston Baked Beans
-Good 'n' Plenty
-White jelly beans
-Black jelly beans
-Circus Peanuts
-Those miniature soda bottles made of wax that contain colored syrup

Just thinking of most of these makes me almost gag. Yet they've all been around forever.

Why?

These all need to be cleared permanently from the drugstore shelves so that more room can be made for the illustrious Snickers, Twix, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Hey, that reminds me: According to Candyfreak, most Americans "hadn't even heard of chocolate," let alone eaten it, before 1893. That astounds me, for some reason. You'd think our European forebears would've introduced it to us long before then.

I, Slacker

2005-08-22T17:19:00.000-07:00

Hi. Sorry! It's been way too long, I realize. I plan to do a nice, thick, meaty post very soon...like perhaps this week, since my work schedule looks a little more forgiving than it has the past two weeks or so.
For now, here are some highlights:
1. I've turned 30. It was considerably less tragic than I'd imagined.
2. I've bought an iPod, scheduled to arrive this Thursday, 8/25, and I SERIOUSLY CANNOT WAIT. More on this on my next post, for sure. The excitement, it is consuming me.
3. I'm fat. Not really a highlight, but noteworthy.
4. S and I are starting the whole look-for-a-new-apartment thing again. AGAIN. After some brief and discouraging research, we have concluded that we can't yet afford a condo or house here in L.A.
All righty. That's all for now. More soon! Thanks for being patient.

"Give 'em the ol' razzle dazzle"

2005-07-27T14:59:00.000-07:00

This tap class is so very fun. We're now at the point where we're learning a combination of steps to the song "Razzle Dazzle" (sung by Richard Gere) from the Chicago soundtrack. It's so shmaltzy! I feel like I should be dancing in a top hat and fishnets instead of my too-small, wrinkly yoga pants and various faded tank tops. It's like some sort of twisted, amateur cabaret. I love it! KK, the instructor, has us doing the silliest, goofiest moves, such as seven flaps in a circle with arms outstretched and total jazz hands. We also do a flap-ball-change, flap-ball-change, pivot, pivot move that I like to embellish with a little pop of the hip at the top of each pivot, because I am a dork who feels compelled to ham it up in the floor-to-ceiling mirror.
The first week, KK kept admonishing everyone to lighten up and try smiling, for god's sake, because we were all concentrating so hard, furrowing our respective brows, and appearing more or less constipated. Now we're all grins and giggles, because who can resist smiling when she's toe-heeling across the floor while Richard Gere sings "Give 'em the ol' flim-flam flummox"? During class two weeks ago, someone actually spontaneously shouted, "This is fun!" as we were practicing our combination to music.
One of the best parts of class is returning home afterward and showing S what we've learned that day. I can't $#@%ing find my Chicago CD, of course, so I have to sing the lyrics myself while dancing the moves for S. S gets this delightfully horrified-amused-entertained-disbelieving look on his face, and slowly shakes his head back and forth as I make my way through the combination. I can tell he's like, "Dear god, who is this freaky woman I married?" It's fabulous.

Happy Feet

2005-07-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

Hello there. I guess I should start off by announcing that the much trumpeted "8 in 8" plan is on hold for the time being. I currently weigh 128 pounds, and my doctor advises me to stay put at that number because it's apparently just right for me. Well, OK. I'm happy to know I'm not officially overweight, and I'll just keep on with the moderate working-out and mindful eating. I just won't actively try to lose any additional weight. Too bad, though, because I do love saying "8 in 8." It's catchy.

Right then. Now that the boring stuff is out of the way, I'm eager to tell you about my fun little community-college extension-program tap-dance class, which began last night. Of course, not surprisingly, I started off on the wrong foot (ha!) by arriving to the studio shod in rubber-soled Pumas, which---how could I have forgotten this?!---is a dance-class no-no. Whoops! No rubber-soled shoes, ever! The kindly instructor gently suggested I find some leather-soled shoes (read "ballet or jazz slippers") or some tap shoes (duh), or that I just dance in my socks or with bare feet (eeew). Hmm. I mean, I didn't want to get all crazy and go buy real-deal tap shoes for a freaking five-week, low-key, adult-ed. tap class, but it seems that's the best option of those offered me by the instructor. So, OK. Except, they cost money! And they seem like such a frivolous purchase for someone who's just casually dabbling in tap. Also, were I to own a pair of tap shoes, I'd be super-tempted to wear them around our all-hardwood-floors apartment for fun, which would really, really annoy the neighbor (and scare the bejesus out of my cats.) But, whatev. I might try to score a used pair on Craig's List.

Aaaaaaaaanyway, last night's class! It got off to a slow start, since the ballet class beforehand ran late. (Hey, no fair!) Speaking of which, can I just say THANK GOD I exercised good judgment (for once) and refrained from signing up for ballet. I watched the last few minutes of last night's class, and it was sort of funny-sad-pitiful. I know I would feel ridiculous, elephantine, and clunky trying to run lightly on my toes across the studio, arms outstretched, as if I'm "trying to catch a train," as the instructor put it. It was clear from their self-concious giggling that many of those courageous ballet students felt a bit ridiculous, too.

So the ballet class ended late, and my class started late. Regardless, it was mildly thrilling walking into a dance studio for the first time since last winter’s ballroom-dance class/fiasco. I love the worn hardwood floors, the smooth ballet barre along the back wall, the side-to-side mirrors along the front...even the mild stink of sweat and feet. It's comforting and takes me back to the many happy afternoons I spent in Miss Barb's dance studio back in the day. My class includes ten women of varying ages and ethnicities, and no men. It's a very diverse group (except for the no-men thing): a couple of women have no tap experience whatsoever, and several took a couple of years of it as kids, like me. One woman also practices Romanian dance as a hobby, which she says is similar to tap.

We first stood at the barre and practiced flapping one foot repeatedly, over and over, using our thigh muscles to perform most of the action. After practicing and more or less perfecting the flap on each foot, we tried it moving across the floor. She had us moving really slowly, which was kind of excruciating. Flaps are one thing I remember clearly, and they're much easier to do fast than slowly.

After flapping, we learned flap-ball-changes, which are fun and easy. Some of my classmates were having trouble finding the beat of the music, which was of course exacerbated by the din of clacking tap shoes. When people in tap shoes are off beat, it's painfully obvious. Errrgh! Our instructor, being very sweet and nice and all, encouraged those of us who were off-rhythm to "practice finding the beat in popular music" the next time we're listening to the radio. (Sigh.) I have to say, a person could be as athletic and strong and agile as hell, but without rhythm, that person will never be a decent dancer, I'm afraid.

After flap-ball-change, the instructor mixed things up a bit and had us heel-toe across the floor several times. I couldn't help but swing my arms a bit, which ended up looking rather hoe-down when I caught a glipse of myself in the mirror. Hee. We then toe-heeled, which is not as easy as it sounds, because, to do it right, you must place all your body weight on the foot that's toe-ing. If you just try to imagine that for a minute, you'll maybe see what I mean. Also, it's not a natural movement, since regular walking is always heel-toe, not the opposite.

Finally, at the end of class: flap-ball-change-ball-change! Man, was that ever fun! It actually felt like real tap dancing and was just challenging enough to make me feel accomplished once I got it down.

Today, in an effort to make P and J at work laugh, I tried flapping my way over to P's cubicle with some work. I stupidly caught my feet on the office carpeting and almost did a face-plant, which actually made for a more dramatic entry into P's cube than I had planned.

Lip-Huggers

2005-06-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

Hey, everyone! My friend Kate has a hi-LAR-i-ous essay in Salon today. I'm not sure which serves as better evidence of her truly inspired writing: calling ultra-low-rise jeans "lip-huggers" or comparing her belly to the infamously corrupt and pock-marked General Noriega. Regardless, Kate's essay is a must-read for any woman who's got a bone to pick with the retail fashion industry...

...which reminds me: this rant on Tomato Nation, aimed at the likes of Old Navy, The Gap, Banana Republic, Limited Express, and J. Crew, is funny as hell.

TomKat Repels Me

2005-06-21T17:14:00.000-07:00

I'm so grossed out by Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Seriously. There's just something so unnatural about their weird-ass, sped-up, overly publicized, creepily intense relationship. I found this on Fametracker, and really, I couldn't have said it better.

Sigh.

"TomKat." Please.

Did you know I was once an extra on Dawson's Creek? This was back in the day, when S was interning for the show down in Wilmington, NC. S did an excellent and hilarious job of placing me oh-so-conspicuously in nearly every scene; if you were to see the episode (I should find out which number it is), you would laugh at the Where's Waldo quality of my frequent appearances. "Hey, there she is walking on the sidewalk! And now she's at a table in the restaurant! Oh, here she comes out the door of the university classroom!" etc. I'm everywhere in that episode, and it's a damn funny sight. And the thing is, this was years ago, maybe six or seven years, even, and I remember thinking the cast and most of the crew were really cool and friendly (with the exception of the props woman who gave me the ol' Evil Eye when I accidentally walked off a set with the notebook or whatever it was I had been holding), Katie Holmes included. I think maybe they're being in laid-back, small-townish Wilmington rather than dog-eat-dog LA had something to do with it. But I think it was also a matter of Dawson's Creek being this cool, kind of smart WB show starring a bunch of fresh unknowns. And now, here we are bunches of years later, and we've got a raw, chapped kissy-mouthed, overexposed "Kate" Holmes devoting herself both to Tom Freaking Cruise and his crazy Scientology. And he's so effing weird and manic, and she's sixteen years his junior, and it's all just unsettling. I don't like it.

I know I shouldn't care. But, tragically, I find myself irresistibly drawn to celebrity goings-on. More so now that I live in LA, where I actually see big-time celebs out and about fairly often. (Most recent sighting: James Spader at Westside Pavilion mall, with a woman (his wife?) and a child (theirs?). He was wearing a Panama hat, and he was short and a bit stocky.)

OK then. Later.

8 in 8: Day 2

2005-06-18T19:41:00.000-07:00

Hi there. So, today is Day 2 of my goal to drop eight pounds in eight weeks, so that I might embrace my thirtieth birthday feeling healthier, fitter, and less mopey than I would otherwise. Good idea, no?

As promised, here's what the scale at my new gym said I weighed yesterday:

130.5

Yeah, that seemed low to me, too. The last few times I went to the doctor's office, it was more like 134-ish. Hell, even S (cautiously) guessed "138" last night, when I decided to come clean with the number. (I'd never told him my weight, ever. It's just not something I normally go around broadcasting. Naturally, he was frightened to hazard a guess. I think he expected some sort of tearful overreaction on my part...and wondered aloud whether I'd be more offended by a too-high guess or a too-low one. I wasn't sure, but I was impressed that his number, while high, was more or less "in the ballpark," so to speak. And I didn't have any emotional response whatsoever to his guess.) Maybe the low number was a result of my not having eaten since lunch, which, by the time I weighed myself, had come and gone six hours ago. Maybe I was also dehydrated? Working in an over-air-conditioned office will do that to you.

I'm about to head out to the drugstore, and while I'm there I might pick up a scale. If I do, I'll weigh myself again and report any discrepancy in numbers between the new and old scales.

I hope I'm not displaying tacky exhibitionist tendencies, here, by sharing my numbers with you. I hope it's not unseemly. I'm normally sort of modest to a fault about this type of thing, I think. This feels a little grotesque, to tell you the truth.

Oh! Another thing. Each time I go to the gym, I deposit five bucks into my new online savings account, set up specifically for this purpose. (I recommend the ING Direct Orange Savings Account, by the way. It's currently paying 3.00% interest. Not too shabby!) Anyway, each time I work out I get five bucks, until I have enough dough saved to buy an MP3 player. It sucks not having music to listen to in the gym. I think this little incentive plan just might work! As S will quickly confirm if you ask him, I've been lusting after MP3 players for some time now. I want one SO BAD.

Eight Pounds, Eight Weeks

2005-06-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

Guess what today is? Guess! Guess! Can you? Can you? Huh? Can you?

You can't?

Oh.

OK, well, it is exactly two months before my thirtieth birthday. Thirty. THIR-TEE. Unbelievable, really. I'm really sort of suddenly surprised that the blur that was my Twenties is about to vanish for good. I'm not ready to reflect on that first decade of my (supposed) adulthood just yet, but stay tuned. A long-winded, self-centered, self-indulgent, self-pitying post on What I've Decided My Twenties Were All About is eminent, I'm sure. Lucky you, Mr. or Ms. Beleaguered reader! Good times.

So, I have re-joined a gym. But not just any old gym, mind you. I have left the overcrowded, noisy, utterly undercleaned Bally's behind in my quest for more exercise. I have joined Spectrum Health Club, people. And so far, so good.

I'd taken a hiatus from the gym after finding myself just plain sick of it. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I became so very tired of Bally's, of which I'd been a member for five sweaty years. And it's not that Bally's has disgusting horrible gyms all around; on the contrary, the Culver City and West L. A. and Hollywood branches are all large, decently equipped facilities. It's that they're just not well maintained. Equipment is always broken, the air is always fetid, the locker-room floors are coated with grime and curly hairs. And oh, the crowding. It was never, "What cardio machine do I want to use today?" but rather, "Well, which machine is free?" Or worse yet, "OK, all the machines are taken. I'll wait here in this line and adopt the vigilance of a Buckingham Palace guard to ensure no one snags a treadmill out of turn."

But now, Spectrum Health Club. For starters, membership is month to month, so I'm not trapped in any kind of labyrinthine multi-year contract like I was with Bally's. I can honest to god quit AT ANY TIME. And good thing, too, because the dues are expensive! This is how they keep from overcrowding the facility, it seems. It's elitist, it's snooty, it goes against my vaguely Socialist ideals, and it makes me feel slightly fraudulent, since I'm not rich like many of the members ... but I do appreciate being able to show up at 5:45, during peak after-work hours, and have my pick of cardio machines, no waiting. I should mention here that my work reimburses me forty bucks' worth of my dues each month, which makes membership doable for me. Otherwise? No way in hell.

So. Eight weeks, eight pounds. I realized on the elliptical trainer yesterday that today, June 17th, marks the beginning of my Eight-Week Countdown to 30. And I thought, Oh, that's funny, I happen to be eight pounds overweight. And then I recalled that a pound-a-week weight loss is supposed to be healthy and feasible, and then I thought, Hey! Why don't I try to lose one pound per week, every week, 'til my thirtieth birthday? That works out to eight pounds in eight weeks, see? So. That's the plan. I'm not really going to diet, per se, since clearly I ain't the dieting type. But I am going to work out regularly, which I need to do anyway, to lower my cholesterol (189) and increase my muscle strength and cardiovascular capacity. And I'm going to forego many of my usual foodie treats: cookies, cake, tortilla chips, huge burritos full of cheese, that type of thing. Basically, I'm going to eat and workout the way I know I should, for eight weeks. It would be nice to welcome The Big Three-Oh feeling healthier and more fit. I think it would help me feel better about getting older.

As for the DVD home workouts that I love so much: I'm not doing away with those. I love 10-Minute Solution Pilates! I'm going to do my home workouts every so often, for variety, when I need a reprieve from the gym. Maybe once a week or so.

So, today before I work out, I'll weigh myself. Then, this weekend, I'll gather up all my little scraps of pride, work them into a tight ball, punt that ball out my living-room window, and post the number here, on this blog. And I'll update my progress each week. Probably a bit boring and tedious for you, but strangely motivating for me. OK?

Three Months to Three Years

2005-06-04T17:13:00.000-07:00

Last night I met a couple of friends at a tapas bar in Los Feliz for drinks and superfluous food. Superfluous because all three of us had eaten dinner already and were full, but we had to order something to justify our sitting at a table while other would-be diners waited to be seated. Nothing like putting the contents of "Six-Piece Cheese Plate" and "Flourless Chocolate Cake" on top of a belly full of Italian food...yeesh. Anyway, at one point in the evening Friend 1 mentioned someone she knew who is "dying of cancer," specifically mouth cancer, and has a prognosis of "three months to three years" to live. This startled me right out of my food coma because, presumably, the woman is around my age: late twenties, early thirties.

At the time Friend 1 mentioned this woman, I felt alarmed and very sad. Then the conversation turned to other things and I lightened up again. On the long drive back home, however, I was caught in a traffic jam on Vermont and found myself pondering the stark bleakness of people dying young. I wondered what I would do if I were terminally, gravely ill and given a prognosis of "three months to three years" to live---a range of time which, incidentally, strikes me as grotesquely cutesy and tidy, and weirdly meaningless. People sometimes talk hypothetically on long car trips and during late-night conversations about what they'd do if they knew they had only a limited time left to live, and it's kind of a game and an amusing way to pass the time. "I'd have sex with as many people as possible," someone might say, or "I'd travel to China" or what have you. But in the isolation of my dark car last night, when I tried to imagine what I'd do, I became panicky and a bit hysterical. I also despaired at the huge number of mundane details that would require my attention were I to prepare for my own death. Never mind bungee-jumping off The Great Wall---what would become of my 401(k), and to what extent would I clean out my closet, my end table, and my overstuffed Box of Important Papers? I wouldn't want to leave a mess behind. But would I have the physical and emotional energy to do these chores? I can barely face them right now.

I decided I would quit my job---I wouldn't want to waste a single second of my dwindling remaining days trapped in a gray cubicle doing unimportant work. But then, without benefits, would I get on S's health insurance so I could continue receiving whatever treatment I was prescribed? Would that be financially burdensome? Would the subtraction of my income force S and I to move to a smaller apartment? Would the stress of moving further ruin my poor health? Would I even stay in Los Angeles? One thing I knew was that I'd want to be with my family as much as possible. Part of me immediately concluded I'd move back to NY to live with my parents in the home I grew up in. But then, would S be stuck in LA without me? He'd miss me, and I'd miss him. Maybe I'd stay out here but fly home often. Would I eventually become too sick and frail to travel? In that case, would my family fly out to spend time with me? I wondered, too, about getting pregnant. Would that still be feasible? Would it be irresponsible to knowingly conceive a child under the circumstances? But I think S would want a child---our child---anyway, if it were possible.

I think I'd have to sit down and make a list of Things to Do, People to See, and Places to Go in my remaining days. I'd have to brainstorm, then I'd have to narrow down and prioritize and consider what was practical and possible. Would I wish for trips to exotic places? I've wanted to go to Australia since I was eight. Or would I simply want to return to favorite, comfortable spots that define who I am...like my grandma's front porch, or childhood vacation spots like Cape Cod? I'd definitely want to spend lots of time with good friends, old friends, and my parents, brother, aunt, uncles, and grandmothers. And then, of course, there's S's family, too. I'd want to be with them as well.

I feel as though I wouldn't be interested in being online a whole lot...sitting in front of a computer making my way around the Internet is a nice way to pass the time but also confining and sometimes depressing. I think I'd feel differently about movies, though. I might rewatch old favorites and keep seeing whatever interested me in the theater. No bars, no clubs---well, maybe somewhere with dancing.

And that's about as far as I got, thinking it all through in the car last night. The whole exercise of imagining this situation was upsetting, certainly. But mostly it was inconceivable. I mean, try as I might, I of course could not truly put myself in the place, mentally, of someone who is dying. It's impossible, and futile, and foolish, really, to try to imagine you're living in a way that you're not. But I tend to always try: What would being in a major car crash feel like? What if S died? What will it be like when Mom and Dad are in their eighties? And then I concentrate on trying to summon these things in my imagination such that I can "rehearse" living through them. I read somewhere that this is actually a thing certain people do as sort of a defense mechanism---we don't like the feeling of being unprepared, so we try to imagine, in detail, what some event would be like, so that if or when it ever happens, we can say, "Come on now, Self. We've mentally prepared for this! We can handle it."

Strange.

If You're Happy and You Know It...Shake Your Head in Puzzlement

2005-04-27T16:05:00.000-07:00

Today I am inexplicably happy. I don't get it at all. For starters, last night I did nothing but sit on the couch and neglect the myriad household chores that needed attention. I worked on a few word puzzles and watched a couple hours of television. That's it. That kind of evening usually depresses me. Secondly, I ate so poorly today——consuming hundreds and hundreds of calories, and several plates full of miniature cookies——that I now feel bloated and sluggish, not to mention a bit guilty and ashamed. Again, this type of behavior normally plunges me into a deep, dark funk. But today? I just seem to be buoyed by feelings of contentment and mild joy, and nothing will bring me down. Weird!

I can only guess this la-dee-da-dee-da feeling is related to one or more of the following:

1. Ndugu is on yet another round of meds which seem to be working, for now. This means that the stress of waking up in the morning to foul-smelling poo stains hidden in hard-to-reach places has, for now, been eliminated.
2. My workload in the office this week has been juuuuuust right, with a dash of——gasp!——variety thrown in for added satisfaction.
3. I have, after a month-long hiatus, restarted my little Pilates and yoga home workouts.
4. Our tax refund has spruced up the appearance of our checking account a bit.
5. S and I finally bought a new couch (to arrive in a few weeks).
6. It's finally getting sunny and warm-ish outside, and the winds that have been blowing us around the past couple of weeks seem to have died down, finally.
7. Hormones?

So, while none of these things is particularly momentous or thrilling, perhaps the
combination of them is enough to perk me up and make me cheery.

Who knows?

I Still Like Lots of Things About This Country, Even Though Our President Is Crap

2005-04-20T17:23:00.000-07:00

So, first off, I apologize for not yet responding to Brother M's comment about my Terry Schiavo post. In the frenzy of preparing for my trip to Ireland, my poor little Waxing Prosaic blog was neglected. And now that so much has happened between my last post and now, I've got other things I'd like to write about. For now, though, I'd just like to say that I hope Terry Sciavo's family is able to find some peace now that the political circus that had made her their headlining act has left town (for the time being, anyway). And, my personal lesson learned: Put down in writing what my wishes are for my own medical treatment should I ever suffer brain trauma that severe.

OK then! Let's transition awkwardly from personal tragedy exploited for political gain to M's return to the good old U.S. of A. two Tuesdays ago! S and I had a marvelous time in Ireland and thoroughly enjoyed all the food, sight-seeing, exploring, and time spent with my parents. I returned home so filled up on puréed vegetable soup, brown bread, Cadbury chocolate, and salmon that I'm near to bursting, and my newly ill-fitting pants are the proof. Sigh. I'm just so resentful of the positive correlation between overeating and gaining weight.

As for the sight-seeing, the highlights for S and I were the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast, Giant's Causeway on the northeastern coast, Donegal Town, and the town of Westport. We also found the day we spent in Derry (site of The Troubles and Bloody Sunday) in Northern Ireland educational and quite worth the visit. Exploring Westport, Donegal Town, and Galway with S was lots of fun, especially considering our good luck with the weather. Sunshine! Blue sky! Mild temperatures!

Spending time in Ireland and learning about its history (rocky) and status quo (economically booming) was refreshing and stimulating, but coming back home to the States was nice, too. Some bits of my American life that I missed while on the Emerald Isle included public-toilet-seat protectors, robust plumbing, racial diversity (my mom on Day 7 of our trip: "I think I've only seen, like, three black people total since we've arrived here!"), Starbucks...and unfashionable people. Like most Europeans, I suppose, the Irish are so stylishly dressed, it intimidates me. No one, anywhere, looks frumpy. It made me self-concious to be trekking around in what I thought were cool Adidas trail-running shoes when everyone around me had on sleek, narrow, minimalist urban casual shoes that weren't quite trainers but weren't quite something you'd wear to work. (One of my first orders of business upon returning home was to pick up a couple of pairs of sleek, narrow, minimalist urban casual shoes myself: I've now got a cute pair of Pumas in ecru suede and a pair of Adidas made of Asian-style embroidered satin. Hooray!) In Ireland, everyone's jeans were darker, crisper, and better tailored, and I saw no one---I mean, no one---in anything oversized.

Getting back to the U.S. was bittersweet, because while our vacation was over (boooo!), the California sunshine was strong and brilliant, and everything in Los Angeles was in bloom. I've been marvelling at the green trees and richly colored flowers ever since. I even bought some potted tulips for our front stoop. I'm trying hard not to kill them.

About three days after returning from Ireland, I hiked with some coworkers in a poppy preserve in the Antelope Valley (two hours north of L.A.). The scenery was so breath-takingly beautiful, it almost seemed fake, like a Hollywood creation. Rolling hills were covered in wildflowers: Goldfield, clover, and California poppies. Snow-capped mountains served as a backdrop. It rivalled even the most gorgeous scenery I saw in Ireland, and it made me proud that, while this country is definitely going through a rough patch on political, governmental, and socioeconomic levels, it's still got plenty of stunning natural beauty to admire.

That Guy and That Cat Walk Into a Bar...

2005-03-23T15:45:00.000-08:00

So, today coworker-friend J sent me a very funny excerpt from the Frolic and Detour blog, written by Miss Alli, a recapper on one of my favorite Web sites, Television Without Pity. In her blog post, Miss Alli and her friend and fellow recapper, Sars, discuss the hundred or so permutations of That Guy. For example, there's That Guy Who Wears His Hat Backwards and Goes "Woooo!" There's Gore-Tex Vegetarian With Bicycle Guy. There's I'm Sensitive But Only So I Can Get Laid Guy, Defensive About Not Finishing College Guy, and Self-Conciously Offbeat Guy. Here in Los Angeles, we are all too familiar with Screams "Make It Happen!" Into His Cell Phone In Quiet Restaurants Guy, Talks Only About His Latest Acting Gig And Nothing Else Guy, and Wears Trucker Caps and Aviators Because Ashton Kutcher Wears Them Guy.

It all got me thinking: there's also That Cat. You know, That Cat Who Finds You Excruciatingly Boring, for instance. Or maybe That Cat Who Always Rubs Against Your Legs For So Long It Becomes Creepy. And of course, Kills All The Birds In The Neighborhood And Leaves Their Carcasses Lying About Cat. Here, for your reading pleasure (I hope), are various other That Cats, as categorized by J and me this afternoon:

Put Down the Claw Trimmer Before Someone Gets Hurt Cat
I Am in Love With This Magical Bathtub Cat
Do Not Mock My Hunger, Woman, Just Give Me the Goddamn Food Cat
Maybe If I Look Very Calm, No One Will Notice Me Walking on the Stove Cat
Only Fascinated by the Computer Keyboard When You Actually Want to Type on It Cat
It's 4:41 AM, Why Aren't You Awake and Playing With Me? Cat
Don't F-cking Wake Me Up From a Nap Ever Again Cat
Hooray! I Love Your Lap! Cat
Oops! I Accidentally Leaked A Bit of Poo Onto Your Comforter, But It's Cool 'Cause I'm So Cute, Right? Cat (that's our Ndugu!)
I Suppose You May Approach Me Now, But I Might Change My Mind And Bite You Cat (that's our Toonces!)
I Am So Over Playing With The Feather Wand Cat
Sweet Jesus, Is That A Cardboard Box Over There? I Must Jump Into It Immediately! Cat

Readers (all three or four of you), your additional contributions to this list are welcome!
In the meantime, I'll be working on my That Coworker list...

Dear Brother M,

2005-03-23T15:44:00.000-08:00

Thank you for posting a comment. It's always nice to know someone out there is reading Waxing Prosaic!
I am currently crafting a response and will post it by the end of this week.

Love,
M

Outrage: a rant

2005-03-18T18:55:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else feel downright appalled by the Republican members of Congress who are trying to subpeona Terry Schiavo and bring her to Washington for a bogus hearing to "review health care policies and practices relevant to the care of nonambulatory persons such as Mrs. Schiavo"? I'm just stupefied that federal legislators would flagrantly make this desperate, transparent effort to intervene in a situation over which they have NO JURISDICTION. They are not the interpreters of the law in this country! This is clearly a judicial matter! And on top of this total, unabashed overstepping of bounds, these same individuals are making these totally wild, maniacal proclamations about keeping this woman---who they don't even know, of course---alive and protecting her from the "barbaric" act (Tom DeLay's word) of removing her feeding tube, "no matter what her husband says" (also Tom DeLay). I mean, could this jackass listen to himself? "No matter what her husband says"?! DeLay is essentially dismissing the legal fact of the Schiavos' marriage and Mr. Schiavo's inherent say in this situation.
What's happening here is that a family's tragic personal experience is being transformed into a theatrical political circus by these members of Congress and by the dramatic protesters outside Terry Schiavo's nursing facility. These people who have a zealous, maniacal reverence for "life" are showing blatant disrespect for the sensitivity of the Schiavos' situation and turning her into their unwitting emblem.
It's interesting and upsetting that these people (both the members of Congress and the protestors) seem to have chosen Ms. Schiavo as the poster child for their extreme beliefs about the supposed sanctity of "life." Why, then, don't they display the same outrage over the young men and women killed in Iraq every day? The ones who aren't even engaged in combat? All those lives wasted? What of the tragic human deaths that occur in this country every year at the hands of criminals armed with illegally obtained handguns? What about the loss of all of THAT life? Why choose the very sad, personal, private tragedy of this woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state for fifteen years to get hysterical over?
The protesters are robbing Terry Schiavo of her dignity, and the Republican members of Congress are pandering to the protesters. It's sickening. I'm just so appalled. I don't know what this country is about anymore.

Workin' It On Out

2005-03-18T12:26:00.000-08:00

Two posts in one week! This is highly unusual, isn't it? There are three explanations for this. The first is that I've had a very light workload here in my cubicle this week (for practically the first time since the new year), and the second is that I'm reading Anne Lamott's wonderful and inspiring book on writing, Bird by Bird. I'm only a couple of chapters into it, and already I'm feeling motivated and rejuvenated. The third reason for the increased blogging frequency is that I've also been reading the Bad Mother blog, written by Ayelet Waldman (Michael Chabon's wife and a novelist herself). She stopped writing in February but all her old posts are still available online. I really enjoy her blogging style. She comes across as honest, genuine, funny, and thoughtful, which is how I'd like like my blogging to be.

So anyway, I'm writing today about my newfound love of the home workout, something to which I never, ever thought I'd take. I've always been a definite exercise-class person and have participated in such classes as yoga, Spinning, step aerobics, Latin dance, ballroom dance, Pilates, and something I'll call "faux bo" (fake boxing), because I can't remember the exact name. I enjoy working out within a group of like-minded exercisers under the tutelage of a living, breathing human being (as long as he or she is competent). There's something about the "we're all in this together" mentality that I find motivating. Most of the time, though, the class schedules don't quite jibe with my own, so I end up schlepping to the gym to work out independently on various pieces of equipment, which is just OK. I've been doing it for years, but lately I just can't tolerate it.

Maybe I'm getting old and crochety, but the entire gym experience is wearing on me, big time. Driving there, circling around for parking, keeping my membership card together with my water bottle and keys, waiting around to use sweat-soaked machines that don't always work, and witnessing way too much unsightly bare flesh in the locker room are among the lowlights. Also, my current gym features a red and black color scheme I find cold and depressing. Honestly, there's very little about the experience I'm not sick of.

So, when coworker-friend J first told me about a Karen Voigt yoga and Pilates DVD she'd recently received from her mom and started using, I asked her if maybe I could borrow it and give it a go. J had raved about how good the yoga had been making her feel, and I was familiar with Karen Voight's kick-ass, highly ripped self. She's been an exercise guru and icon for decades.

When I borrowed the DVD and gave it a whirl one weekend, there was the predictable awkwardness of trying to establish a suitable exercise space in my shoebox-sized living room combined with the constant repositioning of my yoga mat so that the television screen was always visible. Add to that a couple of curious felines nipping at my heels and fingertips whenever those body parts got within their range. Despite all of this, though, I enjoyed myself. Karen Voigt is not overly perky (hear that, Denise Austin?), her workout was doable but challenging, and I liked the yoga-Pilates combo. The music was quite cheesey and synthesized, but it seemed a small price to pay for the opportunity to stay out of the gym. And after my workout was over, I just rolled up my mat, dragged the coffee table back to the center of the room, and headed into the bathroom for a shower. The whole shebang was over and done with in one hour. Nice!

I returned the Karen Voigt DVD to J, ordered my own on Amazon, and wondered if Netflix had any fitness DVDs available that I could try. Sure enough, they do! I'm excited, because it means I can try out and experiement with various home workouts without having to actually purchase them, which means the potential for my becoming too bored with home workouts to continue is significantly reduced.

A couple of weeks ago I received "10-Minute Solutions: Pilates" from Netflix and ended up LOVING it so much that I bought it on Amazon, too. The disc cotains five 10-minute Pilates workout that you can do individually or all together for one fifty-minute session. You can also create your own workout by building a session from the 10-minute programs. I have to tell you, this whole "ten minutes" concept is genius. On a day when I'm tired, grumpy, or pressed for time, I need only pop the disc in for 10 minutes and still get the benefits of exercise. It's much less daunting than, say, a DVD that contains one 90-minute workout. Typically I do two workouts together, preceded by some walking in place and jumping jacks as a warmup, with some light stretching at the end. The whole bit is done in 30 minutes. On the weekends, when there's more time, I might do three of the workouts in a row, followed by a walk around the neighborhood.

I reeeeally like Pilates. I first took a Pilates class about two years ago at my gym and loved it right away. I went to maybe six or seven classes before reluctantly quitting because the class was at 1:00 p.m. on a Saturday---a most inconvenient time. Like yoga, mat Pilates helps you build strength without a bunch of boring weight-lifting and waiting around for equipment. There's a focus on trying to maintain a bit of grace as you perform the movements, which I appreciate. It's challenging and requires concentration, and it's so exciting to feel yourself start to improve. I also respect Pilates's history as a form of physical rehabilitation and medical treatment for soldiers wounded in war, and as a form of strengthening and muscle-lengthening poplular in the professional dance community.

So, I'm excited about working out at home and have been enjoying it immensely so far. It will be interesting to see whether I will choose to forego the gym for good or still get the urge to head over there on occasion. I do, after all, like the treadmill and the elliptical trainer. But now that the days are getting longer and the weather is gradually, tentatively getting warmer, I can't imagine wanting to relegate myself to the dank, cavernous gym anytime soon. Hooray for the home workout!

Damn you, cursed Val-Pak!

2005-03-16T13:51:00.000-08:00

I like the idea of coupons. (Or "kewpons," as my Grandma W. calls them.) I'm drawn to the concept of cutting a few cents here and there from the overall grocery bill until BAM!—all those ten-cents-off and fifteen-cents-off have added up and added up and your total bill is ten bucks cheaper. Voila! And you can waltz happily out of Ralph's or Vons or Price Chopper or what have you, warm with the glow of triumphant penny-pinching.

However, there's a catch. Coupon cutters must be meticulously organized and sufficiently self-disciplined, two qualities of which I am utterly devoid. Let's begin with the organization part. After clipping the coupons, it's a bad idea to, for example, shove them into a remote kitchen drawer that's already choked with old mail, dead batteries, wrinkled take-out menus, and three-year-old birthday cards. Because if you do that, you'll forget all about them until your hand accidently grabs one the next time you're rummaging around that drawer for a battery. (Although, don't bother, because, like I said, only dead batteries are stored there.) By that time, the coupons will have expired, and you'll be left blinking at the expiration date trying to calculate what age you were when the coupon was still valid. (Twenty-six? Nineteen?) I can write all of this with authority because I am that unorganized person stuffing coupons into already overstuffed drawers. What you're supposed to do, I've gleaned from Grandma G. and a few everything-in-its-place–type friends over the years, is keep the coupons in a coupon organizer, which is like a narrow little accordian file folder. It's small enough to take up temporary, if not permanent, residence in a handbag, so that it may be quickly and easily retrieved the next time you're shopping. The contents of the organizer can be filed by expiration date, product type, whatever, so long as they're categorized somehow. Sadly, this type of coupon storage is, to me, admirable yet improbable. I just tend not to place a high priority on filing, or categorizing, or weeding out old documents to make room for the new. (You should see the wad of old Baja Fresh receipts in my purse. Shameful!) The coupon organizer ain't happenin' chez moi.

...and neither is the self-discipline required to cut out and save only the coupons that discount products you actually buy. Obviously, you're not saving money if you're using coupons to buy extra products you don't normally use. Duh. A simple enough concept to grasp, one would think. Not for me, though. I rip open the Val-Pak Coupons envelope (always the familar pale blue with the purple stripe), and (after frantically rummaging through to see if I've won "one of 500 hundred-dollar checks placed randomly in the envelopes") the next thing I know, I'm hoarding coupons for things like Mystic Tan, maid service, and brake jobs. I tend not to see the coupons as opportunities to save on things I need, but as reasons to give something new a try. Or, illogically, as chances to save a few bucks on something I might, someday, sometime, somewhere find myself wanting or needing, like said brake job. Of course, the coupon for the maid service, for instance, will expire long before I'm wealthy enough to afford a maid. So you see, I'm doing exactly what the merchants giving out the coupons WANT me to do! I'm viewing the coupons as opportunities to spend money rather than to save it. They've got me right where they want me, those clever local merchants! I'm their helpless little bitch! Unless, of course, I overcome the lure of the coupon next time the pale blue envelope arrives in the mail, if such a thing is possible. I'll show them! (Maybe.)

We shall see.

Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens

2005-03-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

Actually, raindrops on roses are NOT one of my favorite things, because when I think about raindrops on roses, the mental picture that forms is one of cheap fake flowers with faux plastic dewdrops on the petals. Have you seen those? You can find them at your local drugstore in the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day. They're the saddest thing I've ever seen.

I do like whiskers on kittens, though.

Anyway, I hope this isn't lame, but I thought I'd whip up a list of my (current) favorite things. That's very self-indulgent, isn't it? Well, this entire blog is by its very nature self-indulgent, so why fight it?

Food:
-The curry at Chan Darette
-Seedless grapes
-Baby carrots (They're like crack, these things! If I could smoke them, I would.)
-Apple sauce
-The carnitas street tacos at Rubio's
-Orange juice
-Jasmine green tea
-Pumpkin butter, something I found at Trader Joe's

Movies:
-Shaun of the Dead
-Ray

Books:
-The Okinawa Program
-Taking Charge of Your Fertility (just, you know, for future reference)

Television:
-Project Runway (which has inspired me to ask for a sewing lesson from my friend)
-Supernanny (oh, the horror!)
-Oprah
-Unscripted
-Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (Ty Pennington = cheesy like a radio deejay, yet so very pleasant to look at, and talented to boot)
-The brand spankin' new season of The Amazing Race, featuring a JMU alum (go Dukes!)

URLs:
-Rotten Tomatoes
-Margaret Cho's blog, which I just recently discovered
-Slate
-Television Without Pity, of course
-Wikipedia
-Good ol' Craig's List

Music:
-The Black-Eyed Peas
-The Black-Eyed Peas
-The Black-Eyed Peas
-Maroon 5
-The Black-Eyed Peas

Hobbies:
-Blogging, natch
-Journaling
-Knitting
-Cooking (nothing crazy, but I did make miso soup recently, and a baked chicken-and-root-vegetables thing with Tandoori marinade last weekend)

People:
-S
-Our vet
-Barbara Boxer
-Jamie Foxx

NEWSFLASH! NEWSFLASH! This just in! My wee little 26-year-old brother and his lovely wife T are preggers! It's all very exciting and mind-boggling...
My niece/nephew is due in November.

Was I a long-lived Okinawan in my former life?

2005-01-27T16:05:00.000-08:00

I ask this question because I am currently going through a personal mini-revolution of sorts, the cause of which is a book I am reading called The Okinawa Program. Listen, I don't mean to get all evangelical on anyone, but I feel passionately enthusiastic about this book. I'm five chapters into it, and already I'm a changed woman. I know I often speak (and write) in hyperboles, but I do mean it when I say this book has had a powerful effect on how I think about health, lifestyle, food, weight, and age. I want to recommend it to everyone I know who is interested in health, nutrition, Eastern thought, and science. It's that good.

Here's the deal: Earth's longest-lived human beings live on an island off of Japan called Okinawa. I believe it served as a U.S. base of operations in World War Two. (I'd better check that, though. I'd hate to be dead wrong about a key time in U.S. history. A-hem.) Anyway, this land was once the Kingdom of Ryuku, but now it is a territory of Japan that-I believe-is subject to Japan's rule. And while Japan boasts better life-span statistics than the United States, Okinawa's lifespan numbers are the best (i.e., highest) in the world. A significant percentage of Okinawans live to be 100 or older, and they maintain good quality of life into their nineties and beyond. So we've got a lot to learn from these people, obviously. They must be doing something, if not everything, right.

A group of science-medicine-academic types began formally studing elderly Okinawans more than 25 years ago, and their findings, plus recommendations for we Westerners who want a little of what the Okinawans have, are documented in this well-organized, fact-packed, readable book.

I am so impressed. For starters, I, like probably most Americans, tend to get my health and nutrition info in bits and pieces here and there from a variety of credible and not-so-credible sources: fitness magazines, national and local media, diet books, etc. It can be exhausting and frustrating trying to keep on top of it all and weed out the fact from the hype. One simple yet brilliant thing the authors of this book have done is to basically compile the latest and most-proven health and lifestyle information in one place and footnote it so that you can know exactly which studies produced which facts. Hooray! They've weaved all of this information in where appropriate; that is, where it relates to the Okinawan lifestyle and contributes to Okinawans' superior health and longevity. For instance, there's a wonderfully detailed (and admittedly frightening) section on trans fat, a nutrient that has just recently been examined by researchers and categorized as really, really bad. In explaining what trans fats are, how they affect one's health, and where they appear in popular American foods, the writers make the point that Okinawans don't eat trans fat, ever. Because it's a manufactured fat produced by food companies to keep food "fresh" (read: "preserved") without refrigeration for long periods of time, it's used mainly in convenience foods, the likes of which the older Okinawan generation has never even seen, much less ingested. (By the way, I am horrified to learn that trans fats show up in places I'd never expected, including powdered cocoa mixes-Damn you, Swiss Miss!-and microwave popcorn.)

Another appealing characteristic of the writing is its straightforwardness and total lack of author-promoting spin. (Anyone who's read the late Robert Atkins's The New Diet Revolution and hated it knows what I'm talking about. Ugh.) The authors of The Okinawa Program are clearly so excited about the findings of their research that they feel compelled to share it with the Western world, and they are careful to do it in a way that is direct, honest, and respectful. Where so many "hot" diet books insult their readership by taking a defiant tone and failing to provide scientific or medical evidence to back their claims, this book shows nothing but respect and concern for its readers by providing as much science-based, well-documented information as possible. I appreciate that immensely. And the result of all of this directness and honesty is powerful, influential writing. When the authors tell you your high saturated-fat intake and social isolation are slowly killing you, you know they're not playing around. They've footnoted that statement three times over, and they haven't minced words. Powerful stuff.

So, on to how The Okinawa Program is changing my life. Well, for starters, it's really reshaped my thinking about my health in general. Instead of seeing it as little individual compartments that I label "good," "bad," or "mediocre" (nutrition: bad, physical fitness: mediocre, emotional fitness: good, etc.), I'm seeing it more holistically. I'm also taking my health much more seriously, because the hard, cold truth is that I'm 29 years old, so playtime is over. People, I'm nearly 30. One can't afford to be effing around with one's arteries and bone density and whatnot at that age. And considering the amount of effing around (with my health, that is) I did in my teens and twenties, it's high time I made amends. There's no time to waste anymore. Each decision I make now will contribute to my overall cumulative health, and that's serious business. It's hard to explain, and I'm not doing a good job of expressing the fundamental shift in thinking I'm undergoing, but here are some specific changes I have made so far, and some that I plan to make over the next year:

So far, I have set a requirement for myself to eat five fruits and vegetables (total) per day. I'm starting with five, and I plan to work up to seven over the next several weeks. This is a big deal for me, as I have probably never eaten this many fruits and veggies on a per-day basis in my entire life. Fortunately, I'm enjoying the challenge! I have also increased my daily intake of flavonoid foods, which include soy products, tea, and cranberry juice. I am trying to eat fish once per week for now, be it in the form of sushi or a tuna-fish sandwich. I'm rarely eating mayonnaise. I'm cutting way the hell down on my baked-goods consumption. I'm shopping around for a vegetable steamer. I'm setting aside (more) time each week to knit and see friends. I'm taking walks often.

Over the next year, I will be experimenting with Asian cooking and ingredients. I wasn't born with a taste for tofu, but I'll acquire one! I've got friends to help me with this, thank goodness. (Hi, CL!) I'm also excited about incorporating miso into simple dishes and making stir-fry and curry. When I feel my ailing hip can handle it, I'll return to yoga and maybe give Tai Chi a try. I also plan to make keeping a clean, tidy, cozy home a priority. I'd also like to watch less television (gulp) and do more trying of new things.

I think the timing for all of this couldn't be better, since, as I mentioned, I'm turning 30 this year. Perhaps making healthful lifestyle changes will help me greet the Big Three-Oh with less trepidation and more acceptance. Hell, maybe I'll embrace it!

One step at a time, though.

Things That Are Meditative

2005-01-10T11:17:00.000-08:00

I've done the type of meditation that comes to mind when you hear the word: the kind that involves sitting on the floor on a cushion or yoga mat, legs folded into the lotus position, palms resting upward on thighs, eyes closed. Each time I've been guided, along with yoga classmates, through the meditation by an instructor, and each time I've felt that I wasn't quite doing it "right." The repetitive, mindful breathing never fully "takes," I guess you'd say. I'm never able to lull myself into that sort of subconcious state of concentration; my mind wanders away from the pattern of the breathing, and the next thing you know, I'm rehashing old high-school relationships or wondering when I'll decide to have a baby and what I'll name it. That kind of thing.

Lately, though, I've started noticing the meditative qualities of other activities, things that aren't called "meditation" but for me result in what I know I'm supposed to achieve during those last fifteen minutes of yoga class. Here's an incomplete list:

-knitting
-running
-singing
-carving a pumpkin
-proofreading long, nontechnical articles
-tallying figures
-making lists
-vacuuming
-stretching
-driving on an empty, scenic road

When I try to determine what all of these activities have in common, I come up with two things: they are repetitious and they require moderate concentration. The key word in the latter characteristic being "moderate." So while adding up columns of numbers for me is pleasantly therapeutic because it requires attention and concentration but is not complicated, filling out a tax return or working through a word problem ("Two trains are coming at each other at different speeds...") is not. Likewise, driving on a country road or remote stretch of interstate is meditative; fighting traffic on La Cienega Boulevard during rush hour is not, because it requires intense concentration and is unpredictable.

Lately I've been hearing and reading (in everything from Newsweek to fiction) about the meditative qualities of knitting, and I can attest to those qualities now that I am an (admittedly novice) knitter myself. I've also heard and read about gardening as a meditative activity, and I could see how that would be true. I might like to take it up as a hobby once I own my own home.

What's intriguing is that it seems that current research indicates that meditative activities are beneficial for health. I've read a bit about super-healthy elderly people who regularly knit, or garden, or do crossword puzzles. The general gist seems to be that incorporating some meditative activities into one's life on a regular basis can contribute to both physical and mental health, which I think is neat. It's not often you hear that something enjoyable might also provide health benefits! (The recent exception being, of course, eating dark chocolate.)It'll be interesting to see where the research leads.

M's Return to Fiction (cue trumpets)

2004-12-13T10:18:00.000-08:00

This entry is also available here.

I had bookstore anxiety. It was getting to the point where each time I'd set foot in a Borders or a Barnes and Noble, I'd become overwhelmed by dozens of titles and authors I so desperately wanted to read. Within 30 minutes or so, I'd be hot and perspiring, with a touch of upset stomach. Of course, that's the same physical response I have whenever I want to buy something but feel I shouldn't (clothes, mostly), but lately it's occurring primarily in bookstores, and with great intensity.

The thing is, I was suffering from Fiction Withdrawal. I hadn't picked up a novel since...well, I can't remember! That's not like me. Could it have been that the last novel I'd read was The Color Purple, back in the spring? No, I'm sure not. I must be forgetting something. But the point is, it's been quite awhile. Too long!

I trace my unplanned respite from fiction back to the pleasant June day S surprised me with a copy of My Life, Bill Clinton's autobiography. It was a thrilling, thoughtful gift that S had somehow acquired from his work for free. Woo! So I dove into that with gusto for several weeks, but then petered out about a third of the way through in late August or so (around Clinton's birthday, in fact). Feeling a bit bogged down by the density of the chapters on Clinton's early political life in the nineteen-sixties, I decided to take a temporary hiatus and return to the book at a later date. I should add here that I actually really wrestled with this decision, as I tend always to see a book through to the end on principle. I'm just not one to abandon a story partway through. However, to read Clinton's autobiography from beginning to end without a break might have caused my head to explode, and I couldn't risk that! I must take care to preserve whatever precious brain matter I have left now that I'm on the cusp of my thirties.

Anywho. Clinton got tucked inside my nightstand drawer, and I read a few light things here and there, one of which was...a-hem...former supermodel Janice Dickinson's memoir, No Lifeguard on Duty, which was surprisingly well-written (hello, ghostwriter). Finishing that one (in two days; the thing was such an easy read) stoked my nearly lifelong fascination with the world of modeling and fashion, and I was prompted to buy Michael Gross's Model, The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women, which I've been plodding through ever since. The thing is thick, a bit dry (despite the critics' tantalizing snippets on the front and back cover that describe it as a "juicy tell-all," blah blah blah), and poorly written (or edited, or both). It's definitely a comprehensive history of the modeling industry in the United States and France, but I kept getting distracted by Gross's strange turns of phrase and not-quite-right figurative language. He's certainly a thorough researcher, but his writing is nothing to admire, and it can even be bothersome at times.

So. Having made my way from modeling's beginnings to its Studio 54 heyday in the nineteen-seventies, I tired of the book and put it down, again undergoing considerable guilt because of my decision. (Fortunately, though, the book reads less like a continuous story and more like a reference guide, so picking it up again won't require much mental exercise in terms of remembering "where the story left off," so to speak. Unlike My Life. Eek!)

After putting the Gross book down and seeing Funny Face, the Hepburn-Astaire film about an ordinary-woman-turned-international-modeling-superstar cited frequently by Gross in his big old book (it's not such a hot movie; I'll save that for another entry), I officially declared an end to my little modeling jag and wondered what to read next. For some reason, indulging in a novel felt like cheating, since I felt I somehow didn't deserve it after putting two nonfiction works down unfinished. I spent a few weeks with my face buried in magazines and Internet journalism pieces (Slate and Salon, especially around the time of the election), but finally two holiday-shopping excursions to big, wonderful bookstores did me in. There was nothing to do but read some fiction! Even J here at work suggested it might be just the thing.

So this past weekend I finally picked up Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter, a novel I'd bought this past summer but hadn't yet cracked open. I'd been feeling nostalgic for Southern fiction on and off this year, and managed to squeak The Color Purple in, but nothing else. Having read The Golden Apples by Welty in that Southern Fiction class in college (fabulous course; brilliant, mercurial, rather inflexible professor who loathed me), and having remembered said professor speaking highly of The Optimist's Daughter, I decided I couldn't go wrong choosing that one. Indeed, I'm not quite halfway through the slim little paperback and already I find myself thinking about the characters on and off throughout the day. It also seems like a timely choice, considering the situation with my grandmother. The main character in the novel, Laurel (the optimist's daughter, natch), has just seen her father, the optimist, die by what comes across as his own will after undergoing risky but not normally life-threatening eye surgery to repair a slipped retina. Now she has returned to her childhood home in Mississippi (from Chicago) to attend his funeral and take care of his affairs. Complicating matters is his father's much-younger wife of a mere one-and-a-half years, Fay, whose behavior suggests she is selfish and childish and holds her deceased husband's family in contempt.

Welty strikes a perfect balance of melancholy and honesty in her storytelling, and her writing seems effortlessly elegant and uncomplicated. She does a marvelous job of attending to detail (but without making things messy, like some writers), like the way she includes the sights and sounds of the loud, rowdy Mardi Gras carnival going on in New Orleans very close to the hospital where Laurel and Fay sit with Laurel's father during the weeks immediately proceeding his eye surgery. Fay longs to join the revelers outside, while Laurel finds them noisy and upsetting.

Anyway, I am thoroughly savoring my Return to Fiction with this book. At the risk of sounding ridiculous, it feels nourishing, in a way. If I'm still hungering for Southern writing when I finish, I've got Clyde Edgarton's Killer Diller in my bookshelf still unread. Otherwise, I might make a go of Jane Austen's Persuasion (another summertime purchase that's gone neglected) or The Lovely Bones, which S read earlier this year and has been recommending to me ever since.

A Shout-Out

2004-11-05T16:53:00.000-08:00

I have the coolest coworkers. It's true. I work with three other editors: A, J, and B. B is our managing editor; she's in her mid-forties and has been with the company for a long time. Both A and J are around my age and have been working here a short time, as I have. It's really astounding how much the three of us have in common. We share similar tastes in books, movies, and food. We have nearly identical senses of humor (read "dry"). Our political views are closely aligned. And we're all hooked on e-mail.

I've never had the pleasure of working for a boss as cool as B. She's smart, sharp, and organized, yet she's gentle and soft-spoken and manages us democratically. She makes up our schedules each week, and then she essentially stands back and lets us work. She might check in on us twice a week (if that) to see how we're doing and whether we've got too much or too little work, but often she just leaves us entirely alone. It nicely evens out the somewhat oppressive corporate atmosphere that is ever-present in the office; B has her own little ways of quietly rebelling against some of the more draconian office rules (like the one that forbids employees from using the Internet for personal use, for instance. She sends us links to funny Web sites all the time).

Best of all, B is self-confidant and secure and therefore does not lord her power over her underlings in any way, as the big cheese did at my old company. (Well, he was small, like a leprechaun, actually.) She's very trusting and open and shows no desire to scare us into accepting her point of view on anything, editorial or otherwise. I feel very comfortable approaching her with a work question or asking her what she thought of the latest Harry Potter film. For me, that's a perfect manager.

A and J are goofy and nerdy, like me. One of us (maybe A?) came up with an acronym that perfectly describes us: NERDS (Notorious Editing Ring of Derisive Snickerers). A has a gift for coming up with quick, perfectly groan-worthy puns and hilarious little haikus, and J can talk about anything from reality TV to literary theory fluently and without pretension. I like that the three of us are essentially good people who sometimes let our snarkier alter-egos get out of hand and feel bad about it (but not TOO bad) later.

What inspired me to produce this lovefest-on-paper about the women with whom I work? Well, this week has been crappy, because George Bush pulled out a totally undeserved win against John Kerry three days ago. Since Wednesday morning, the grief and anger in our left-leaning office has been palpable. To try to counteract all this sadness and fear, the editors came up with the winning idea of sharing poetry with each other. For the past couple of days, we've been e-mailing each other poems that remind us of our faith in humanity and the (sometimes bittersweet) beauty in our ordinary lives. It's been an exhilerating experience! I've read some gorgeous, moving, jarringly honest verse that has managed to nudge my mood from despairing to hopeful. On top of that, A has revealed herself as a writer of poetry as well, and she's shared a couple of her own works. It's a compliment that she trusts us enough to let us read these very personal, lovely poems. In return, J and I have invited A to read our respective blogs. (Hi A and J, if you're reading right now!) I'm feeling very fortunate to work with such fine people.

Not to be too over-the-top sappy or anything, but I think it's in times of acute crisis and unhappiness that I'm reminded of all the relationships that are important to me, for which I'm grateful.

So, uh, thanks, red states, for reelecting Bush, thereby crushing my soul enough to remind me of all I should be grateful for!

Sigh.

I Don't Know Jack...O' Lantern

2004-10-28T14:51:00.000-07:00

So, last week, when the receptionist at my company announced a pumpkin-carving contest for Halloween, I thought immediately of husband S and his talent for drawing funny little cartoon faces, and I smugly signed on as a contestant. The idea was that S would be my "ghost carver," so to speak. My secret weapon. So full of hubris was I that I even chose the largest pumpkin I could find from the dozen or so displayed for the taking on the second-floor lunchroom table. My fiendish, somewhat deceptive plan was to take said specimen home and have S do all the designing and most of the actual carving. I thought I might help gut the thing and offer words of encouragement here and there, but he'd be the actual artist toiling away on our dazzling orange masterpiece. Back at work, I imagined, I'd present the jack-o'-lantern as my own, win the "Funniest" or "Most Creative" category, humbly accept all the praise and admiration that my coworkers were sure to heap upon me, and drive home with a big fat prize for S and me to share.

Well. You know what they say about the best laid plans.

Not 24 hours after I'd volunteered for the contest and gloated about my sure win to more than a few coworkers, S was ordered to Orlando for four days on business, courtesy of one unsympathetic Fox Sports Net. At first I did the math wrong (no surprise there) and calculated that S would return from the land of Katherine Harris and hanging chads in time to help me whip up our Jack-O'-Lantern To Beat All Jack-O'-Lanterns, but upon double-checking my arithmetic, I realized I'd be doing the damn pumpkin all on my own. Bummer! Let down! Anxiety!

I figured it would be sort of lame to back out of the contest, especially after I'd made such a big freaking deal about it to begin with. So, last night, I made a jack-o'-lantern. By myself!

I'd been dreading it all day. Honestly, I hadn't gotten anywhere near the inside of a pumpkin since I was a kid. Back then, my mom and dad would clear the kitchen table, spread newspaper all over it, drag the trashcan over, set up the pumpkin and the various cutting instruments, and do the majority of the work, with enthusiastic creative direction from my brother and me. Aside from pulling out a few token handfuls of stringy pumpkin innards, however, I was always more of an observer than a participant. (Once I tried to salvage the pumpkin seeds and toast them in the oven. That was sort of a bust. My parents were sweet about it, but I think we all knew the idea was better in theory than in practice.)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanywho, I got home from work last night, dragged my big ol' pumpkin indoors, set it up on the kitchen table, and wondered nervously how I was going to pull this thing off on my own. A skilled procrastinator, I spent several minutes preparing. Fancying myself a careful pumpkin surgeon, I went about choosing about half a dozen of my sharpest knives from their various kitchen drawers and laying them in a neat row on the table. I removed all non-essential items from the table and disinfected it with cleaner and bleach. I wiped down the pumpkin. Finally, like Mom and Dad used to do way back when, I dragged the trashcan over to my little surgical theater and removed its lid.

The stage was set.

Fortunately, I had a design in mind. Constant worry over the outcome of next week's presidential election precluded me from dreaming up any idea that wasn't political or civic in nature. All I can think about these days is Please John Kerry, Win and Please George W. Bush, Run Home to Your Native Crawford and Leave Ruling the Free World to the Grownups, which doesn't leave much room for creative thought. Fearing, however, that my very corporate work environment might react in a rather Ashcroftian way to an outright political endorsement-especially for "the liberal senator from Massachusetts"-I opted for a simple get-out-the-vote message for my pumpkin. "VOTE," my pumpkin would read. And I'd try to get the date in there, November 2, if there was room. At lunch that day I'd bought some tempura paint, a few brushes, and a package of those little star stickers teachers use, with the idea that my presumably horrid carving skills could be offset a bit by some jaunty red, white, and blue decoration.

After escaping to a nearby restaurant with a friend for dinner, I was back in my kitchen with everything ready to go and my design in mind. It was only 8:00, so at least time pressure wasn't an issue. The first and most difficult task was to cut off the top of the pumpkin and eviscerate the thing. I had a lot of trouble wielding the carving knife with grace and accuracy at first. And the walls of the pumpkin were about an inch and a half thick! Honestly, sweat sprang to my brow from the effort. Gutting the pumpkin by reaching in and yanking out its gooey, slimy strings and shiny seeds was more fun. Sometimes it's just plain great to get your hands dirty. I scooped and squished the pumpkin pulp and dangled gobs of it in front of my perplexed cat's nose.

Next up, blueprinting my design. I started by using red pen to outline the letters V, O, T, E and the numbers 11 and 2 (for November 2) on the front of the pumpkin. Easy enough. Then, the carving. It took a few minutes and several near-finger-amputations before I got into my groove. The toughest part was cutting around narrow strips of pumpkin flesh, but otherwise, I managed to control the knives without any serious mishaps. (I learned this morning from a pumpkin-carving coworker that one can purchase an actual pumpkin-carving tool specifically for the purpose of jack-o'-lanterning. Who knew?)

What surprised me was how much I enjoyed my little pumpkin-carving adventure. Bent over the fat pumpkin in my bright kitchen with rain falling outside and the McKrells singing away on my stereo, I found myself falling into a bit of a meditative, happy trance. Toonces kept me company as I carved away and hummed along. Most fun of all was the post-cutting painting. Uncapping my "Crayola tempura paints" and filling a cup with water for cleaning the paintbrushes, I was taken back to my elementary-school art classes with Ms. Lotto, where we students would chatter with each other contentedly while working at those long, sunlit tables, perched atop rusty metal stools. I remember enjoying the way my paintbrush water would grow more and more colorful and dark as class wore on. Because of the red and blue paint I used last night, my paintbrush water turned a deep shade of violet that reminded me of grape juice.

I finished my little piece de resistance at around 10 p.m., took a hairdryer to it to speed the paint-drying and slow down the progress of the damp rot that had settled into the pumpkin's rear wall, and snapped a few digital pics. Will I win the pumpkin-carving contest at my work? Lawd no. Will anyone but me vote for the Get-Out-The-Vote-O'-Lantern? Doubtful. But damn if I didn't have a swell time making it!

Gut reactions

2004-10-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

Here, excerpted from an e-mail I wrote to a coworker this morning, are some first impressions of last night's debate:

I didn't like this debate. Cheney is just so incredibly unpleasant and seemed to me to just want to get the damn thing over with. And I wish Edwards had simmahed down nah with the smirking and head-shaking and arm-flailing. But, it's his first national debate, so he can be forgiven. But also, I found the questions irritating, and I thought "Gwen" could've worded them better and more clearly. That very first question, for instance, about Paul Bremer's statement, went on and on and didn't invite a focused response.

I wish Edwards had fought back a bit whenever Cheney attacked him for not being present at Senate votes lately. I mean, duh! He's OUT CAMPAIGNING, obviously, and probably hasn't been back to DC in months to occupy his Senate chair. Why didn't Edwards point that out?

I was disappointed that Edwards, like Cheney, didn't address the question about black women with AIDS in this country. Like Cheney, he talked about AIDS overseas.

I think overall I feel stronger about Kerry than I do about Edwards, but I don't dislike or distrust Edwards or anything.

I'm looking forward to Friday's Kerry-Bush debate! I hope Kerry can kick as much ass Friday as he did last week. My hero!

---

This same coworker, J, to whom I sent that e-mail, has turned me on to Paul Begala's and Jessi Klein's post-debate CNN blogs, which are quite effing funny and entertaining.(I do wish Jessi would spell her name with an "e" at the end, though. It's my observation that "i" names tend to signify platform heels and g-strings and lap dances. As in, "And now, taking the stage, the lovely miss Brandi!")

HTML = How Terribly Math-Like

2004-09-13T17:04:00.000-07:00

Today I'm back at work after four glorious days in Classroom 3 of my company's Education Center learning HTML and other, more-complicated aspects of Web publishing. I spent all last week (a short one, thanks to Labor Day) enjoying 9 to 4:30 workdays, free breakfasts, and hourly breaks. The class I took was super-informative and incredibly educational---especially for me, a definitive non-IT person.

The first day and a half or so, we learned the basics of HTML (that's hypertext markup language, for those of you who have better things to do than decipher silly technological acronyms), which was interesting, fun, and relatively easy, compared to what would come later in the week. I now understand tags and attributes and am comfortable working in TextPad. If you wanted me to, I could produce for you a simple little Web page with text, images, anchors (links to other pages and Web sites), tables, and frames. From scratch!

About halfway into Day 2, however, we moved from HTML to Web servers and how they work (i.e., "the server side"). I had to really, really concentrate to understand; and even then, I was barely getting it. I had specific questions, too---all pertaining to how I could get a Web site of my own uploaded to a Web server to share with the world. I tried not to reveal my intentions, though, since ostensibly I was attending this class to build the skills necessary to help my department create a Web site sometime in the future. (Yawn.) My questions were along the lines of, "Could a person turn her own home computer into a Web server?" (Answer: Yes, but it's a really, really bad idea.) "Are there companies that sell Web-server space to individuals?" (Answer: Yes, and some will do it for cheap.) "Once you've got access to a Web server for publishing your Web pages, how do you upload your HTML files?" (Answer: Using FTP software.) That type of thing. I just think I would really enjoy building a simple little Web site for myself, but I don't want to begin creating the pages without knowing what comes after that, you know?

By the third and fourth days of class, my head was reeling, and I honest to god had flashbacks of high-school calculus. I mean, the server-side scripts responsible for making Web content interactive? And the script languages themselves? Rough, I'm telling you. It's like when I took algebra in seventh grade with Mr. Tresselt: I was capable of understanding it and applying it, but only with many extra hours of one-on-one tutoring in the mornings before homeroom. It worked that way with SL, my HTML instructor last week: He'd instruct the class from the front of the room, I'd concentrate so hard my brain would buzz, he'd finish up, my eyes would glaze over, and I'd raise my hand for some extra one-on-one reinforcement of concepts he'd covered that my brain hadn't quite processed. Even then, I'd get the general gist, but not the nitty gritty of the individual script languages or their syntax. And when we had to create Web forms that sent information to a SQL Server database? Brutal. I barely, barely clung to the do-it-yourself exercise.

On Friday, our last day, the instructor lectured a bit on search engines, how they work, which are the best, etc. He also talked about the different browsers, and cookies, and other Internet-related subjects that are no sweat for IT people but that have always seemed sort of incomprehensible to me. One cool site he showed us was one in which you can type any operational Web address and find out how many other Web sites link to it in their pages. (I typed in www.waxingprosaic.blogspot.com and a big fat zero popped up. Hee.)

Also on our last day, SL, the instructor, entertained us by making animal shapes from balloons. (He's self-taught, if you're wondering.) He also distributed the exam, which I took and which caused me major anxiety---again taking me right back to my schooldays, when I'd study my bloomin' arse off for a test, only to find that none of the concepts I studied were part of the test whatsoever. Errgghh. After practically assaulting SL to get him to reveal some of the more-difficult answers after I'd turned my answer sheet in, I discovered that the guesses I'd made were good ones, so I don't think I failed the test after all, as I'd feared I might. I mean, really: How lame would it be to fail a test your very own company created? And that you once copyedited?! And whose answer key you've seen before?! Soooo lame.

So, yeah. Now I'm back at work, and frankly, it blows. Turns out that in my absence, a coworker I liked and was just getting to know better was suddenly fired one afternoon. Peculiar. And it's all very hush-hush, so I've no idea what happened. It's unsettling. Plus, I miss the free oatmeal and afternoon snacks in the Education Center. On the other hand, I've missed chatting and e-mailing with the other editors, so I guess it all evens out.

Well, there you have it. I've got no clever conclusion to tack onto the end here, so....that is all.

Knit, Purl. Knit, Purl. Knit, Purl. Screw-Up Royally, Start All Over Again. Knit, Purl. Knit, Purl. Screw-Up Worse. Curse the Day Yarn Was Invented.

2004-08-24T22:23:00.000-07:00

Oh, hello there. I almost didn't see you, as I was so engrossed just now in reliving my fun-yet-stressful Saturday-morning beginning-knitter experience at Sweater Babe studio in ye olde Hollywoode Hills. Yessirree, approximately three years after the knitting craze took off here in Southern California among the young, hip, and handy, I've finally bought myself a ticket and climbed aboard.

So, on Saturday morning, after an interesting and unusual night spent dog- and house-sitting for JP over on Braddock Drive, I hurried over to adorably pregnant E's house to pick her up and snake our way through the canyon to Sweater Babe studio. I should add here that I was in such a hurry and so busy with doggie duties that I neglected to 1) drink any water before leaving for the knitting class, 2) eat any breakfast before leaving for the knitting class, or 3) ingest any caffeine before leaving for the knitting class. The latter is cause for alarm, I can assure you. Mornings aren't my thing, particularly mornings during which I'm awoken at 6 to pour "lamb flavored" dogfood pellets into the bowl of a frenzied, barking canine and refresh a guinea pig's bowl of lettuce. (Not only was I dog- and house-sitting, I was rodent-sitting as well. Shudder.) Catering to demanding animals at 6 a.m. on a Saturday should only be attempted after downing a strong cup of coffee, I've since learned. Same goes for attempting to fashion a small, pink blob of knitted yarn from a couple of unwieldy wooden sticks four hours later: In both cases, caffeine is strongly recommended.

Alas, I entered Sweater Babe's Architectural Digest-worthy home studio that morning dehydrated, unfed, and with nary a molecule of caffeine in my system. Not good; not good at all. However, the Sweater Babe herself had kindly set out a platter with a few small pastries on it, and a couple bowls of pretzels, so I was able to at least eat enough to pump some sugar into my bloodstream. She set out water, too, thank goodness. No coffee, though. Sigh. So please understand that I undertook this new endeavor with a dull brain and lethargic mental reflexes; I like to think that's part of the reason why I was the worst student in the class.

Sweater Babe was a very patient teacher. She never once seemed even slightly exasperated by anyone's cries of "Help!" or "I don't get it!" I appreciated this, since most of the cries of confusion were mine. She had a cool way of demonstrating for us, too. We eight students were seated in a U-shape on various sofas and armchairs, and Sweater Babe sat in the center, her back toward us, arms raised and knitting needles held high in the air. The idea was that everyone could get a good view this way; and, generally speaking, we did. We just weren't able to get an up-close and personal view of the individual stitches this way, which is why it was great that Sweater Babe always followed-up her demos by walking around to each student individually to show her again, one on one.

We started by "casting on," a process that begins with the knitter making a slipknot with the yarn. The slipknot caused me problems until Sweater Babe saw that I was wrapping my yarn around my hand in the wrong direction (back to front instead of front to back. Oops). After sliding the slipknot loop onto the knitting needle, we then cast on nine more loops through a needle-hand-yarn maneuver that reminded me of braiding hair. It looks complicated as you're doing it, but it feels strangely intuitive, so it becomes routine and fairly easy pretty quickly. So far, so good.

After we casted on, Sweater Babe introduced us to the knit stitch, the primary stitch of knitting. One can do nothing but the knit stitch and wind up with a very respectable-looking scarf. (I think straight knit-stitching is referred to as the Garter stitch, but I'll need to refer to my helpful Sweater Babe handout to be sure.) Anyway, I was OK with the through-the-loop and the wrap-around, but when it came time to pull the right-hand needle out through the newly formed loop, all hell broke loose. It was damn near impossible for me to determine which "loop" was the new one, and how to pull the right-hand needle through it. Sweater Babe helped me, though, by repositioning my needles in my hands and showing me what to do in slow-motion. She also gave me some helpful tips about keeping the needles upright and maintaining "yarn tension." At this same time, I was quickly learning that both E and I are "tight knitters;" that is, we feel compelled to tighten every stitch as we make it, which is a really bad idea and makes it very difficult to stab a needle through the stitch later. I wondered if my tendency to want to tighten the stitches beyond all reason was in any way related to my compulsion to brush my teeth much too vigorously (I've snapped two toothbrushes in half) and double-knot all shoelaces and drawstrings. Anyway, knitting more loosely is something I need to continually work on.

Once I got the general hang of performing the knit stitch, everyone else had graduated to the purl stitch. Purling is funny: on one hand, it's super mind-melting because it's the exact opposite of the knit stitch; on the other hand, it's intuitive because it's performed on the reverse side of the fabric (when you're switching stitches at each row, as you would for a sweater). So it feels correct to be doing the knit stitch in reverse. I find I have to concentrate especially hard when I'm purling; but otherwise, it's OK.

Changing colors was fun. We learned the easiest way possible to switch yarns: tie a strand of the new to the strand of the old, and resume your knitting, being careful to use the new yarn strand. My knitted fuschia blob (i.e., "swatch") ended up featuring a natty pale-pink stripe in its center, which I liked.

After purling and changing yarns, everybody else moved on to "ribbing," which involves switching from purling to knitting on the same row (to add stretch to the fabric---good for sleeves and waistbands). I, however, needed much more practice doing the basic stitches, so I missed the whole thing. After teaching us (well, everyone else) ribbing, Sweater Babe gave us a quick tutorial on "decreasing" (fairly simple) and "increasing" (an impossible nightmare). Finally, with literally two minutes left on the clock, Sweater Babe taught us "binding off," which, oddly enough, I picked up right away. Again, it just feels right, even if you don't understand how it works.

I left class with a nice little self-contained fuschia rectangle, complete with a thick, pale pink horizontal stripe. I've been marveling at how it looks just like a small piece of sweater---part of a rollneck I might buy at J. Crew, for instance. It's been pleasantly surprising to learn that my hands are capable of turning yarn into fabric and to wonder about the possibilities as my knitting improves. I've set a goal to knit two scarves by Christmas: one for my mom, and one for my mother-in-law. Here's hoping I succeed!

I'll Pass on the Scuba Diving, Thanks

2004-08-10T15:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw Open Water with S and our friend M, whom I will call WYD for "Who's Your Daddy?" (That's what it said in fuzzy brown letters on his tee-shirt, hee. Plus, he's going to be a first-time dad---woo!---next month.)

So, have you seen Open Water? The shoestring-budget Sundance winner that's now in limited release in major theaters across the country? (In case you haven't, here's a link to its Rotten Tomatoes page: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/open_water/.) It's an independent film made inexpensively with unknown actors, a haunting score (to use a tired but accurate cliché), and plenty of lingering, mood-building, wide-angle ocean and sky shots. It's not, as the trailers suggest, a Jaws-type movie, although sharks do play a prominent role. It's not really a survival movie, either. It's more of a look at what happens to a relationship under extreme, nearly hopeless conditions. Except that it's a pretty superficial look at that relationship, which was my only complaint coming out of the thing. The screenwriter thought a little bit about how a couple stranded in the middle of a vast, threatening ocean might behave and interact with each other, but I think he could have given those things even more thought. We get glimpses and snippets of how they're first in denial, then a bit alarmed, then accusatory, then angry, then reconciliatory, then hopeful, then desperate, then resigned to their respective fates. I liked that progression, and I imagine it's fairly accurate. But I wish the writer and actors had explored it further. For instance, there didn't seem to be enough demonstration of sheer panic by these two, considering the dire situation. And we only saw one moment during which they tried to amuse themselves to pass the time---the scene in which they played Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, which was a warm, touching, bittersweet moment. (Bittersweet in that they're giving themselves a laugh during what are surely the most horrible hours of their lives.)

Regardless, I liked the film. I like stories that beg the question, "How would I fare in this situation?" Except that, in the event that I find myself stranded in the middle of shark-infested waters, miles from shore, with nothing but a wetsuit on my back and a cumbersome oxygen tank strapped to my shoulders, I fear I'll not fare well. It's not like being stranded on a deserted island with only a volleyball for company (ahhh...good ol' Wilson!), where you can at least build shelter and forage for food and rub a couple of sticks together in an attempt to make fire. Watching Open Water, one quickly realizes that two scuba divers left at sea are in what is essentially a hopeless situation. They could be the smartest, most resourceful people in the world, but it doesn't matter. If the sharks don't get them, the dehydration, starvation, or hypothermia will.

I'm quite afraid of situations that seem destined for disaster, over which I have no control. Extreme turbulence on a plane, for instance, really takes a toll on me. I can't help but think that very dramatic, nausea-inducing turbulence signals a problem, and that in the event that the plane stops functioning correctly, we passengers are utterly doomed. When the plane loses an engine and goes plummeting down to Earth, there really isn't a damn thing any of us can do about it---even the smartest among us---and death is inescapable. I prefer a disaster that offers even the slightest, slimmest chance of individual survival. A big earthquake, say. Or a hurricane. Even being abandoned deep in the woods somewhere, in the dark, with a hungry bear hot on my heels. At least I'd have the opportunity to strategize and possibly survive using my wits.

Also, I wondered during the movie about S and me and how our relationship would hold up under extreme duress. Not well, I'm afraid. We've both been known to freak out in stressful situations: kicking and swearing (S), crying and screaming (me). Were we stuck in the middle of the Pacific feeling helpless and pretty sure we were going to die, I imagine we'd each mentally deteriorate very quickly. And previous experience tells me we'd go through our share of finger-pointing before finally clinging to each other and declaring our never-ending love as the sharks close in.

Note: I think I've got this thing set up now so that anyone (not just Blogger members) can post comments. Will someone give it a try? Thanks!

Mind-Boggling

2004-08-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

Last night I learned many new things. For starters, I learned several new three- and four-letter words, including aga, haw, and frag. (Frag is the most interesting: "To intentionally kill a higher-ranking member of one's military unit during wartime, usually with a hand grenade.") I learned that when my friend CL's homemade brownies are cut into bite-size pieces, I am less able to exercise good judgment regarding when to stop eating them. Most importantly (and to my chagrin), I learned that, when competing against writers and grad students studying English, I'm not the Boggle champion I thought I was. In fact, I'm barely in the game.

This revelation notwithstanding, Boggle Night at CL's was a fun way to spend a Wednesday evening. Who wouldn't want to pass four hours scanning randomly selected letter cubes for words like pea, peas, egg, eggy, moon, moony, and, in smarty-pants JD's case, plural? I would guess most people, actually; but fortunately, those people weren't at CL's last night (with the exception of her friend S, who looked like he'd rather be standing in line at the post office two days before Christmas, poor guy).

I love Boggle. It's a simple, challenging game. There's no fake money to be acquired; no stupid, shiny, plastic game pieces to be moved monotonously about a flimsy gameboard; and no complex system of oppressive rules. In fact, the only rules of Boggle that I can think of are Don't look at someone else's word list and Don't keep writing once time's up. There are some limits, of course, on the types of words that can earn points. Initialisms, acronyms, and proper nouns, for instance, won't get you anywhere. Neither will two-letter words or words that don't appear in any of the major dictionaries. (You'd be surprised how generous most dictionaries are, though. We found dost and naw and gat in there last night, to name just a few.) Other than that, it's all about staring silently at the Boggle pieces until a word pops out at you. When it does, you write it down. Except that it's a little more active than that (for me, anyway). It's less waiting for a word to appear than forcing hundreds of combinations of letters together in one's brain until one such combination yields a useable English word. (It's so frustrating to spot chien or hola and not be able to get credit for it!)

Boggle offers nerds, English majors, and other like-minded word-lovers a chance to openly revere the language. As I said to S later that night, after the fierce Boggle competition was over and we were sleepily tucking ourselves into bed, Boggle is a celebration of words. Even ordinary words! In Boggle, the word often isn't just a lowly adverb, it's a valuable two-point earner! I like how, as each game player reads off her word list, those listening "oooh" and "ahhh" at some of the better finds. JeK's two-point agony earned some praise last night, as did my one-point (but hard-to-find) urge.

Which brings me to another point: Boggle is fun, yet so civilized! What other game can you think of that involves (and requires) absolute silence for three straight minutes? The noisy rattle of the letter cubes inside the Boggle box contrasts nicely with the intense silence that follows. Afterward, everybody's congratulating everybody else on finding unique, long, or hard-to-find words. It's a big lovefest, really. Just the kind of game a nonconfrontational sort like me is most fond of!

At this point you're thinking, "My god, M. You couldn't sound like more of an enormous dork right now. Honestly, stop writing, before you implode into a big, sludgy, geeky mass." But here's the thing: There are so many others like me! Today at work, some of S's coworkers expressed disappointment and a smidge of hurt feelings because they hadn't been invited to the Big Boggle Bash. And these people work in television, for chrissakes! They're cool! Hip! Young! With it! Furthermore, one of my twentysomething coworkers, A, has told me she participates in Boggle Nights with her friends as well. And my mom recently snagged her mom's (ancient) Boggle set for herself. So you see, there's a quiet little Boggle Movement going on behind the scenes. Nerds, dorks, geeks, writers, grad students, English majors, and all other manner of word lovers: Unite, and play Boggle!
(unite = two points)

Well Hello There, Ladies

2004-08-03T20:42:00.000-07:00

(Inspired by a recent night out at Casa del Mar in Santa Monica)

There's nothing quite like watching older, balding, unfashionably dressed, shamelessly self-absorbed men try to pick up young, pretty women in bars. It's a terribly amusing and utterly depressing spectacle. It always seems to play out in the same general way:

1. A pair of men wearing very unhip loafers and tweed sportcoats spot shiny lip gloss, long hair, low-rise jeans, and bare midriffs across the room. Hypnotized by these trappings of youthful womanhood, the men approach, swaggering a bit. Each man is clutching a scotch on the rocks in one hand while resting the other hand in his pants pocket.
2. The targeted women, also a pair, see the men walking toward them and exchange looks of panic. But there isn't time to bolt as the men, smirking in an "I'm devilishly handsome and cocksure, aren't I?" type of way, steadily advance.
3. "Well hello there, ladies!" begins the more outgoing and self-confident of the two men upon their arrival at the women's place at the bar.
4. "Hi!" the women chirp brightly, forcing wide smiles. (Those who don't believe that American women are socialized to be friendly and warm and polite, no matter how alarming or distasteful the social situation, should go out drinking more often.)
5. Outgoing Man A introduces himself and his grinning, somewhat self-concious buddy, Man B. Man A prattles on about what he and Man B are doing in this part of town, where they were earlier in the night, and where they plan to go later. Both men absentmindedly swirl the ice in their glasses while occasionally stealing quick glances at the women's breasts. The men think their glances are surreptitious. They aren't.
6. The women, who hadn't planned on getting to know a couple of lecherous old men tonight, each fold their arms over their chests, cross one leg over the other, and lean back a bit, smiling deliberately all the while. Their self-protective body language is apparent to other women in the bar. It goes utterly undetected by Man A and Man B.
7. The men continue talking, smirking, swirling (ice), and stealing (glances). Man A feels particularly satisfied with himself because he is clearly taking the lead in the conversation. He also has a bit more hair than his partner.
8. The women, fake smiles firmly affixed to their faces, nod at what the men say. They infrequently chime in or answer direct questions. Every now and then one woman shoots a look at the other. Sometimes the look says, "Jennifer, what should we do right now?" Sometimes it says, "Kyra, I can't take another minute of this. Think of an escape plan." Often it says, "I told you we shouldn't have come here."
9. The men, encouraged by the women's smiles and oblivious to their furtive nonverbal communiqués, turn to locate a couple of empty barstools. They grab the stools and drag them over, so that they can sit with the women. The women use this brief respite to whisper quickly to one another. They are devising a game plan, a course of action. By this time, other bar patrons are watching this little comedy with bemusement and a bit of sympathy for the women. (Although some of the female patrons, envious of how cute the women look in their teeny designer jeans and satiny sleeveless tops, are enjoying watching the cuties squirm.)
10. The men rejoin the women, sitting across from them in a tight huddle. The women, still smiling, begin drinking faster. Under normal circumstances, they prefer to leisurely sip their Bellinis and Mojitos and Margaritas, but when the situation is dire, gulping is key. The faster the drinks are drunk, the quicker the bill will arrive, and the sooner the women can get the hell out of there.
11. The men, delighted to be seated with such glimmering eye candy and emboldened by their success thus far, test the limits of their charm. Man A places his hand on the corner of one of the women's bar stools as he talks. In response, the woman deftly retracts from his hand and repositions herself at an angle on the stool. She smiles tightly, with closed lips. Man B moves in a bit closer to the second woman. She, in turn, brings a hand up to her neck, leans back a bit farther, and quickly surveys the room for younger, cooler, hipper men who might come to her and her friend's rescue. She succeeds in locking eyes with the apparent leader of a small pack of twenty-something men who are hanging out several feet away. Her eyes are pleading, and they offer a bit of desperate flirtation. The leader and his pack approach, tentatively. The woman's eyes scream, "Thank you! Thank you! You won't regret this! Don't wuss out!" The leader and his pack get within speaking distance of the women, quickly assess the situation (specifically the unbridled enthusiasm and tenacity of the older men), and...retreat. As the pack slinks away, the leader offers the women a little shoulder shrug of apology. It's too much work for the twenty-somethings. They're out to have fun. They're not out to wrestle a couple of cute women away from men who look like their own fathers.
12. Disappointed, but not totally defeated, the women pretend to listen to the men talk about their very important high-paying jobs, all the while keeping an eye out for the cocktail waitress. Eureka! They've found her. One of the women throws her hand up into the air and waves the waitress over.
13. "We're ready for the check," cry the women, in unison, as soon as the waitress is in earshot. In their excitement, they've interrupted the men.
14. Man A, thinking it makes him seem very generous and in-control and take-charge, insists on paying the tab. Man B hastens to pull a few bills out of his wallet as well, not wanting to be shown up by his buddy.
15. The women flash big, sparkly smiles, tilt their heads a bit to one side, and say to the men, "Thank you so much; that wasn't necessary." Except that it was necessary, because the women have endured these two irksome, slightly creepy, self-centered, horribly uncool men for the better part of an hour. Their drinks most certainly should be paid for. Damn straight, is what they're thinking.
16. As the men settle the tab, the women consider this wasted outing. Who knows what other (younger, cuter, cooler, better dressed, more thoughtful, sexier) men might have happened by their barstools and struck up conversation had Man A and Man B not shown up. The women also consider the dozen or so people nearby who have been watching all along and snickering at the sight of the two old men hitting on the two young women. The women grimace; one flips her hair back in frustration, the other sighs.
17. The waitress has been paid and tipped. The women stand, lifting their handbags from their laps and placing them on their shoulders. They're not happy they have to leave. They love this bar, but what choice do they have? They smooth their jeans, adjust their tops, and prepare for their big exit. "It's been nice chatting with you guys," one of them says, producing yet another megawatt smile. She's already forgotten their names. "Have a great night." She sticks out her hand for a courteous shake. Her friend smiles too, and does the same.
18. Man A is crestfallen. He stands. "What? Leaving so soon?" he asks, genuinely disappointed...even more so when he steals one more lingering look at her breasts. He then takes one of the women's outstretched hands and kisses it. Man B isn't quite so brazen; he shakes the other woman's hand. "It's always a pleasure meeting such beautiful girls," he says, winking.
19. "Where are you off to next?" Man A asks the women as they turn to go, one digging around in her handbag for her cell phone. "You know, we're incredibly tired. We really need to head home," says one. It's eleven at night. "But thanks so much for the drinks!" shouts the other, as the two turn on their heels and walk as fast as they can toward the door of the bar. The woman who has got her cell phone out dials her sister. "Listen, meet us at Shutters," she says into the teeny little receiver. "We'll be there in five minutes."
20. The men, a little disoriented by their dates' rapid departure, sit back down and get quiet for a moment. Finally, Man A asks Man B, "You want another scotch on the rocks?"

Birds

2004-07-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening S and I went running together. This was a first, as normally S prefers going to the gym over taking a run around the neighborhood; plus, he's naturally a faster runner than me, so we hadn't ever explored the idea of becoming running partners. On a whim yesterday evening, though, I called S from work and asked if he might want to join me on my usual three-mile loop, and he agreed!

So we took off around 7:30, and to my surprise, S was able to jog at a very slow pace in order to stay alongside me. Because I tend to pant heavily when I run (insert lewd joke here), I told S as soon as we started that this might be his first chance ever in the history of our relationship to talk freely and at length without my interjecting comments and opinions the whole time. Hee. He actually grinned at the idea of rambling on uninterrupted, so off he went, regaling me with stories about work for the first 15 minutes or so of our run.

Once we turned off the main road and entered our friend JP's neighborhood, we passed many cute cats. Cute cats that seem to understand that hanging out beneath cars or in the center of the road is not advantageous to their health, unlike our local scrappy outdoor feline, Hip-Hop, who disregards all personal-safety concerns whatsoever. The cats we passed were all hanging out on front lawns or on the edge of the sidewalk, watching us as we ran by.

On the way out of JP's neighborhood, we ran beneath a huge, circling, shrieking cloud of crows, which was freaky. Crows (or ravens, or starlings---I'm not sure which) do this, as I learned in my first apartment in Maryland a few years back. There, we had a problem whereupon several hundred crows (or some other similar-looking, scary black birds) would circle two large trees by our parking lot, shrieking and crapping all the while. They would fly around and shriek and be generally creepy for a few hours, then they'd finally settle in the branches of those two trees and quiet down a bit. Those trees, with all the black birds on them, looked like something out of a nightmare. The problems with this situation were many: For starters, the birds would circle and shriek early in the morning, beginning at 5:00 a.m. or so. The sound was deafening and very disconcerting. Secondly, a few hundred birds crapping in our parking lot was bad news. You should've seen the cars. They were COATED. So was the ground. You had to watch your step the entire way. Plus, that much crap smells bad. Kind of musty. It was a problem, and unsanitary. Finally, the city sent someone over to attempt to scare the birds away for good. He started by using various loud devices: whistles and clapping things. That didn't really work. He then graduated to mini-explosives. That worked, a bit. Finally, he used a rifle to shoot blanks into the air, over and over, thereby rendering the birds too terrified to stick around. Eureka! Problem solved.

Anyway, we passed beneath the birds last night, and one peed on me. Not as much as when I got peed on by a bird on Melrose one time, but still. There was a guy in his front yard waving a newspaper at the birds (totally ineffective) and generally cursing them, and I shouted, "One peed on me!" I'm not sure why I yelled that. But he was sympathetic and shook his head with what looked like bitterness, as if to say, "These damn birds are a nuisance!"

It's interesting how some birds are frightening and loud and ugly (pigeons, crows, vultures, the more-aggressive seagulls), while others are adorable and pretty and lovely singers (finches, cardinals, nightingales).

When we finally got back home, I iced my calf with that same bag of Peruvian scallops and popped some Advil, which is now becoming my usual routine. We then settled in for a night of "Amazing Race" viewing and Jonathan Ames reading.

Toonces, the Cat Who Could Drive...Her Owners Crazy

2004-07-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

I am so tired. I am so tired. I am so tired. I am so tired.

Last night Toonces was especially active. When used in reference to Toony, "active" is a cute little euphemism S and I have adopted to mean "defined by sprinting and leaping and battle-crying, resulting in little to no sleep for the two of us." Last night, I think the toy mice were to blame for Toonces's "activity."

Chilling on the couch (i.e., rickety futon) yesterday evening, S and I discussed---for the millionth time in the two years since we first adopted T. Kitty (like P. Diddy. Get it?)---how we don't play with her enough. She's rambunctious and super-playful, and she likes very much to engage in mock fisticuffs with all manner of erratically-moving string-like or mouse-like objects. In fact, she seems to thrive on this type of exercise. S and I, on the other hand, can think of other, more-enjoyable things to do after a long day at work than shake the Cat Dancer cat wand in the middle of the living room, for several minutes on end, while Toonces stalks it from various points around the room's perimeter. I mean, it's fun for the first ten minutes or so. But as time wears on, Toony's set-ups and choosing of vantage points and hiding places from which to stalk the wand become more and more elaborate. She'll spend five full minutes wriggling around beneath the bookcase to find the perfect little lookout point, then she'll sit there and follow the wand with her eyes for another eight. Meanwhile, there one of us is, standing in the center of the living room, bored, shaking the Cat Dancer halfheartedly while waiting for Toonces to finally make her move. Sometimes when I'm doing this, I repeat the words, "Look Toony! Come get it! Come get it!" so many times that I kind of work myself into a trance, and my mind sort of floats out of my head and goes somewhere else.

OK, anyway. After comparing levels of guilt about the piddling amount of playtime we
each make for Toony, I wondered aloud if her several hundred toy mice had all ended up in the usual place, beneath the television stand, since I hadn't seen them littering our hardwood floors in the last few months or so. S guessed the mice were indeed beneath the TV stand, and he set out to retrieve them with the handle-end of a Swiffer mop.

Bad idea. Well, good at first. Then bad.

Toony freaked when she saw her long-lost toy-mice prey come bursting forth from the
TV stand in one forceful swoosh of the Swiffer. She gave an excited little chirp and set about batting at the mice with her paws and scurrying after them as they sailed across the floor. "Oh, how cute! She's so excited!" we idiot pet owners cooed. We spent the next several minutes watching Toony fling her mice down the long hallway, then chase frantically after them, then bat them around for a bit, then start the whole shebang over again. Our "We're too lazy to play with the cat" guilt was eradicated for the time being.

Unfortunately, the fun and games didn't end when S and I climbed into bed at 11:30. No no; Toony was only getting started. She spent the next several hours whipping herself into a toy mouse–induced frenzy, which manifested itself as lap after lap of hallway sprints, nails clicking and clacking every step of the way; little victory mews and cries of attack when a mouse was successfully conquered; and what sounded to me like a whole lot of crashing into walls. I barely slept. S, who sleeps like he's dead, slept just a bit more than I did. It was bedlam! I wondered if the neighbors were kept up by the clamor as well.

This morning, when I "woke up," (as if I'd been asleep!), I felt more tired than when I'd gone to bed. Today I'm having trouble reading and concentrating. It's pathetic! And what irked me more than anything was that as I was leaving the apartment this morning to go to work, I caught a glimpse of Toonces lounging luxuriously on my side of the bed, yawning and snuggling up against a fold of the comforter, preparing for a nice long nap.

The Bedroom of Stifling Nostalgia

2004-07-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

It's Day 9 of 10 that I'm spending Chez Parents in good old G-land on the opposite coast. Upstate NY really is beautiful in the summer. The warm breeze stirring the pine boughs and rustling the lush, green grass is almost enough to make one forget the dismal Northeastern winters, which stretch from November all the way to April. More than anything else this past week, I've been enjoying my parents' big, quiet backyard, especially the shade of the maple tree, which was "my" tree through childhood and which now is large and full enough to provide a pleasant spot for reading.

The expansive shade of the maple tree is far, far more soothing than the comparatively oppressive space contained within the four walls of my childhood bedroom on the second floor of the house. This room, with its faded orange carpeting and very nineteen-seventies collage-style wallpaper, has changed little since I left it for good in the spring of 1997. The canopy bed is gone, the posters honoring the band INXS and various NY and VT ski resorts have vanished, and the stuffed animals have relocated to the attic, but there still sits a full bookcase on one wall and a bulletin board replete with high-school relics on another. The closet, though thoroughly (and courageously) sifted through and organized a few years back by my mom, still contains boxes of papers, notebooks, letters, and diaries from what were evidently my emotionally turbulent middle- and high-school years. It was these boxes I approached today, at the gentle urging of my parents, in an attempt to weed out those items that could be discarded once and for all.

The thought of opening these boxes and coming face-to-face with my younger self filled me with dread. Last time I did this, I think a full year ago, I came across a paper I wrote about how, when I grew up, I wanted to do work that focused on helping women with eating disorders, or something similarly counseling-related. (Reading that made me feel a bit guilty about having recently joined the ranks of Corporate America.) I cracked open my massive junior-year English project titled "The Physique Mystique," a study of contemporary literature with women's body image as its focus. I read a journal entry from the same time that explored my choices as a young woman on the brink of adulthood. I was surprised by what seemed like an intelligent, idealistic, thoughtful young me. The surprise quickly dissolved into panic, though. I wondered if anyone would describe the current me as intelligent, idealistic, or thoughtful. I wondered if I'd squandered any sort of potential I displayed in high school. I felt sick and anxious trying to determine if high-school me would be proud of adult me. In the fretful aftermath of that closet clean-out, I decided it was time to make a few changes in my respectable but unremarkable adult life. I started writing again, and a few months later, began volunteering on Saturdays. Small steps, certainly. But taking initiative and action, however minor, has helped a bit in keeping the "What am I doing with my life?" anxiety at bay.

So. Anyway. Today I was again faced with the daunting task of reliving bits and pieces of my adolescence and judging how my thoughts and ideas from back then measure up against the life I'm living today. Daunting, indeed. These situations are always greatly exacerbated by my lifelong propensity for writing everything down. I've kept a handful of diaries over the years, and I tend not to throw out letters, notes, and drawings that seem meaningful at the time. Everything's documented. It's all there on paper, and it often makes me cringe.

Today I found quite a bit of incriminating personal writing from my adolescent and late-teen years. Among the yellowed papers was a word-processed self-improvement plan that I vaguely remember typing up in a fervor one college summer. It included everything from "Apply skin medication EVERY DAY!" to "Reduce number of bingeing incidents to zero." I also found, presumably from high school, a scribbled diary entry titled "People Who Never Fail at Anything," with a list of 20 or so names listed beneath. Some of the names are repeated. Many of them are kids I went to high school with who got better grades than me, were involved in twice the activities I was, and were accepted to Ivy-League schools. Some of them were good friends of mine. Even one of my grandmothers made the list. On the next page, in the same ink and feverish scrawl, is a paragraph about how talentless, stupid, and ugly I believed I was in comparison to those on the list. Ugh. Painful! I threw that out and made a mental note to Google a few of the people on the list of whom I'd lost track.

Among the other, less emotionally wrenching artifacts were a few fairly embarrassing diary entries in which I'd listed in numerous ways how much I loved or was bored by my boyfriends; there was one particularly silly entry detailing how elated I was to be asked to D's junior prom. It was incredibly goofy, yet also kind of sweet. I mean, I really don't get excited like that anymore about most things. I also found some drawings that a long-ago coworker from an old summer job had covertly delivered to me in the office whenever he wanted to have lunch, as well as writing authored by myself and my classmates from the overnight, week-long field trips to Nature's Classroom taken in fifth and seventh grade.

So I guess what I'm saying here is that each time I enter my childhood bedroom and begin sorting through my old things, I'm reminded of the person I once was. Sometimes I get a kick and a laugh out of it; other times I'm disturbed by what I find. In both cases, though, I'm prompted to reflect on my life as it stands now and to compare it to what I imagined my adult life would be.

So, how do I measure up this go-round? Not bad, actually. It seems I've evolved a bit from the self-absorbed person I was ten or twelve years ago, and I now rarely compare my accomplishments, or lack thereof, to others'. I don't think I'm talentless, or stupid, or ugly...just lazy and a bit unorganized, with too many interests and not enough "stick-to-itiveness," to borrow a word from one of the Nature's Classroom writings. When faced with the opportunity to daydream under a shady maple tree or force the contents of a closet into some kind of order, I'll always choose the maple tree.

Updates to Prior Posts

2004-06-27T12:11:00.000-07:00

I am thrilled to announce that technology no longer bytes. Captain K, fearless defender of and hero to vulnerable, corrupted PCs everywhere (or at least in the greater Los Angeles area), successfully diagnosed our ailing computer and fixed it! To make a long, complicated diagnosis short and somewhat understandable, we did NOT have a virus; we had corrupted Windows.

Ironically, Captain K believes the Microsoft Security Update CD I'd installed last Friday was somehow responsible for Windows' demise. Maybe the CD was defective. So, the good captain backed up our important files, then uninstalled and reinstalled Windows on our machine. He also "reassociated" the *.doc extension with Word, since part of the trouble had been that Word was no longer interpreting *.doc files as Word documents.

Furthermore, Cap'n K updated our Internet Explorer to 6, refreshed our anti-virus software, and downloaded Mozilla for us to use as an alternative, less-vulnerable Web browser.

Woo-hoo!

In other news, the mighty combination of Flex-all, frozen Peruvian scallops (gotta love Trader Joe's), and rest seems to have restored my right calf back to its relatively healthy state. I'll find out for sure when I attempt a run around the neighborhood tomorrow. The Montrose Independence Day 5K is fast approaching!

Hi to brother M, if he's reading this. Brother M, when told of this blog, replied, "What's a blog?" Hee. Anyway, hello to brother M in San Antonio.

Oh! Here's something: We saw Fahrenheit 9/11 Friday night. I think it's imperative that every American watch this film. I know not everybody loves Michael Moore or the methods he uses for making his points, but the man does his research and presents indisputable facts. He does an extraordinary job of laying out the Bush family's numerous connections (primarily business-based) with Saudi Arabia, which explains, in part, why the Bush administration is using Iraq as a scapegoat for the so-called War on Terror and tiptoeing around the Saudis.

The film was also peppered with actual footage of various Bush speeches and soundbites, all of which were either shameful or mortifying. One of the most telling quotes from a speech made by Bush at some sort of black-tie affair went like this: "Well, here we are: the Have's and the Have More's. [laughter] Many think of you as our nation's elite; I think of you as my base."

And another, spoken by Bush on a golf course somewhere: "Yeah, we're going to get those terrorists. We're going to smoke 'em out. Now check out my golf swing."

The World Outside My Office Window

2004-06-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the strangest day at work. Sometime shortly after my workday began at 8:30, a female pedestrian at the bus depot across the street was struck by a city bus, dragged a bit, then trapped beneath the vehicle for some time before finally dying at the scene. A brief account of the accident appears here:
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/news/062404_nw_bus_ax.html

None of us here at work saw the accident happen, but we had a clear view of the woman's body, covered in a yellow tarp and resting on the ground directly behind the bus, for most of the day. The harrowing scene included the woman's belongings, strewn on the pavement just behind where she lay. It looked like a black totebag and maybe a purse, each with its contents spilled out. It was as if time froze the moment the accident happened, with the bus, the woman, and her personal items all remaining in place for several hours after the accident occurred, while the police and various other adults milled about and, presumably, investigated the crime scene.

What made this incident not only tragic and terrifying but also surreal was my proximity to the office window that perfectly frames the bus depot. It's impossible for me to look toward the window without seeing the sprawling grounds of the bus terminal; I even see the window when I'm not facing it, as it is reflected in my computer monitor. So, all day yesterday, when I wasn't purposely staring out the window at the crime scene with the rest of my officemates, I kept catching inadvertent glances of the dead woman's body. Any time I turned away from my computer or got up from my chair to visit the kitchen, the restroom, or the printer, I saw her; or rather, the form of her body beneath the yellow tarp.

I found the experience very unsettling and distressing, and I kept wondering about the woman, her family, and the destination she never reached that morning. I also thought about how no one should have to die in such an undignified, horrific manner; that is, being hit by a bus. To be running for the bus one minute and dead the next? It seems absurd and unfair.

On another, less-emotional level, the whole experience was educational. I'd never seen a real-life fatal-crime scene before yesterday, and it was interesting for my coworkers and I to witness the course of events unfold throughout the day. First, the police taped off the crime scene with that yellow "Caution" tape. Then there were many men milling about, and crouching down by the body, and standing up again, and what appeared to be their taking of photographs. We also noticed a large group of plain-clothed people queued up on the sidewalk by the depot for at least a couple of hours, and we wondered if they were witnesses to the accident. Perhaps they'd been on the bus that struck the woman, or maybe they'd been waiting at the depot for that bus, or another, to arrive.

We saw no ambulance, just nine police cars and a few official-looking city vehicles. No crowd was gathered, perhaps because the area is right outside the airport and a bit isolated from the surrounding communities. I think if a similar accident occurred in the heart of, say, Hollywood or Santa Monica or some other heavily residential part of the city, swarms of onlookers would be present, and the whole scene would be rather chaotic.

Finally, in the afternoon, the coroner arrived. He or she set up some sort of tent over the woman's body, which remained for an hour or so. Later, the body was removed. That was a relief. I think if the victim were a loved one of mine, I would want her body removed from the scene as quickly as possible.

Afterward, maybe around 3:00 or so, a white van with the business name "Clean Scene" arrived at the depot. Dressed in white biohazard suits, the Clean Scene staff got to work scrubbing the place on the pavement where the body had been. That was creepy, but interesting. None of us realized that accident clean-up is, at least in some cases, performed by a private business instead of by the city.

By about 4:30, the depot was back to its original state: The bus that had struck the woman was gone, the woman's body and personal items had been removed, the pavement was clean, and the yellow crime-scene tape was gone. All in a day's work for the LAPD, I guess.

A few of us in the office kept gazing out the window at the bus depot after all traces of the accident were gone. I kept thinking about the people driving and walking by who had no idea what had occurred there earlier in the day.

Defeat of Da Feet: A Rant (or, I Can’t Believe I Injured My Calf Muscle Again)

2004-06-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

Sigh.

Not long after finishing yesterday's Beverly Hills run toward the front of the 11-minute three-miler pack, I felt a familiar, loathesome twinge in my right calf. Alarmed, I launched into several minutes of obsessive stretching, but my efforts proved futile: By the time I was standing in line for the free Whole Foods sandwich halves, both calves were clenched and emitting bursts of intense pain from that point where the muscle links up with the tendons of the ankle. (If I remember correctly from my 11th-grade anatomy and physiology class, the muscle in question is called the "gastrocnemius." But man, that spelling looks really, really wrong.) And, like the last time this whole injury situation began, the pain in my right calf is much more intense than the pain in my left.

Honestly, I can't believe it! Injured again! What the...? I was so careful this time to avoid jogging in place on the balls of my feet at the stoplights! Granted, we hit many more red lights than the last time I ran this course, so maybe the stopping and starting---even sans stationary jogging---did me in. I don't know! CL suggested I run on the road, not the concrete, next time around. The pavement is more forgiving and offers some "give," so maybe that's it. Also, this Beverly Hills course is the only one of the three that involves sidewalk running. The Santa Monica course is great in that we run along that dirt path above the beach, which is easy on muscles and joints. The Ladera course is all neighborhoods, so there's no stopping at intersections or traffic forcing us onto the sidewalk.

So now what? Last night I stretched and slathered on Flex-all, which is like Kryptonite to S and Toonces. Neither of them can tolerate the strong menthol odor. (Toonces kept attacking me, as if I were a big, menacing menthol monster.) I then iced my right calf with the bag of frozen "Peruvian Scallops" I've had in the freezer for approximately four months now. But today I'm hobbling around. It seems I won't be able to do Saturday's Ladera run (the one with the free Starbucks afterward), and that makes me very, very angry.

Honestly, I might just cut out these Beverly Hills runs altogether. It takes me an hour to drive to the starting point (Niketown at Wilshire and Rodeo) from work anyway, and by the time I arrive, I'm all amped up and twitchy from the treacherous drive. Plus, I always get there just in the nick of time. Barely time to pee and say hi to J and CL before hitting the sidewalk.

Hello, treadmill. It's been so long. I haven't missed you, but it seems the time is right for a forced reunion.

Grrr.

Well We’re Movin’ On Up! (Movin’ on up!): A brief celebratory post

2004-06-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

Finally, S has been promoted to full-time staff writer, and has earned a healthy, satisfying raise as part of the deal. I say "finally" because the huge media corporation for which S toils in his 6 X 7–ft cubicle had been dragging its cheap-ass feet about bumping S up to staff writer ever since B, one of the staff, left to work for another show several months ago.

But, to our great surprise and delight, S got official word of his long-overdue upgrade last week. In a fashion typical of S's employer, the promotion was announced on S’s first day of vacation. Apparently S's boss made the announcement Thursday morning, then kept asking everyone where S was, because he wanted to meet with S to discuss the details. To which everyone answered, "Uh, he's on vacation. Remember?" Well no, the big boss hadn't remembered that, it turned out. So one of S's coworkers called S later that morning to let S in on the news. We didn't learn what the new salary would be until yesterday. We're pleased with it.

So, three cheers for S!

To quote George and Weezy Jefferson, "We've finally got a piece of the pie!"

Interesting side note: The head writer of S's staff, who, I might add, is brilliant and funny and incredibly generous, was also head writer for The Jeffersons, back in the day. This same individual wrote for Golden Girls, too. (One of my personal faves. Laugh if you want.) He's got some great stories from the 1980's...I tell him he should write his memoirs, but he just chuckles in reply.

Technology Bytes

2004-06-22T16:22:00.000-07:00

My computer has a virus. Or a worm. Or a Trojan Horse. Or corrupted Windows. Whatever. There's something horribly, horribly wrong with it, and that makes me very sad. It also makes me hysterical and angry. On Sunday, I watched helplessly as all of my personal-writing Word documents turned into Notepad files full of gibberish and asterisks. I wanted to hurl my big, clunky, corrupted Gateway machine out the window, then hurl myself onto my bed and weep while punching my pillow and kicking the mattress.

I didn't quite do all of that, but I did cry. I also stomped around my apartment wailing "Why now? What the f-ck? This is such bullsh-t!" and trying to talk myself through the trauma. The most upsetting part is that the disk I had my writing backed up on is corrupted also...I mean, really f-cked up...so I fear all the writing I've done in the last two years is irretrievable.

Enter Captain K, the computer-genius husband of coworker A, who has graciously swooped in to offer his expertise free of charge. My hero! He has volunteered himself (or, more accurately, his enormous brain) to try to determine what, exactly, is ailing my computer, and possibly to fix it. He may even be able to recover some files. Whee! Even if he can't do much, it's a start, and I'm grateful. The IT guys here at work, who make my head spin with all their techno-jargon, are also trying to help. They've e-mailed me some instructions for virus-scanning in DOS mode, which is very kind of them, but I don't understand the instructions whatsoever. Perhaps Captain K will. They've also given me an updated, all-powerful virus-scanning CD to run on my machine, to determine if a virus is indeed the problem.

In the meantime, I'm attempting to come to terms with losing my writing. It's not like it was fantastic (or even good) stuff, but many of the pieces had been through dozens of rewrites and had been steadily improving over the course of the last several months or so. I dug up some hard copies of some things, but they're my first drafts from a year or two ago. I guess that's better than nothing.

Perhaps I should view this loss as a new beginning. (Cue violins.) Perhaps I should also avoid clichés. But what I mean is, I've been considering a couple of memories I'd like to write about, so maybe it's time to put pen to paper (not fingers to keyboard, yet, until this damn virus---or whatever---is fixed) and actually get to work. I've never written about being hit by the car, and I think that's a story worth telling. I think it's safe to assume that the average person has not been hit by a car while jogging and might be curious to know what that's like. Also, it's a story with a happy ending, now that I'm running again.

That reminds me: My last post, which never made it on-line as a result of the computer debacle, was about the joy of last Saturday's three-mile run. Also, it was about the joy of drinking a big, free Starbucks iced coffee afterward. I discovered my computer horror shortly after saving the post to disk. How quickly joy can turn to despair. And rage. And dark, violent thoughts about Bill Gates and his crappy Internet Explorer, which is maddeningly vulnerable to attacks from hackers and other virus-making evil geniuses.

P.S. I'd like to give a shout-out to coworker and talented blogstress, J, also known as Gintastic, who writes a blog that's much more interesting, clever, and funny than this one. Also, I think she's only the second person to ever read my blogs. Maybe she's reading right now! Hi J!

Run, Forest! Run!

2004-06-21T10:52:00.000-07:00

I am thrilled to report that, after injuring myself two weeks into joining Nike Run Club L.A. with J and CL, I’ve resumed running with the club. Whee! I'm so relieved. I wasn’t sure how long a strained muscle would take to heal, and after a week had come and gone with little improvement in my right calf, I'd become despondent and downright pissy. Joining these runs had turned out to be more fun than I'd guessed it would, and I was so frustrated and disappointed to have to temporarily drop out after doing only three of them.

I'm quite sure the problem stemmed from my jogging in place on the balls of my feet at stoplights during both the Santa Monica and Beverly Hills runs. As I was doing it, in fact, my calves were uncomfortable and felt as if they were "balling up," so to speak, but I was under the impression that coming to a dead stop at intersections would cause my muscles to tighten, which in turn might lead to injury. So, I jogged in place, and found myself barely able to walk in the days following my third run. Grrr. It couldn't have helped that I continued wearing shoes with high heels to work, which didn't allow my calves to stretch and relax during the workday.

What's especially funny is that when I mentioned to CL that I believed the jogging in place was responsible for my injury, she was like, "Yeah, I think people who jog in place while waiting to cross intersections look really dorky, actually. So I don’t do it." Hee. Well, considering I am indeed a big dork (in an endearing way, I hope), it didn’t surprise me that I'd been doing something that wasn't just a strain on my muscles, but a silly-looking maneuver to boot.

My reintroduction to the club runs took place this past Saturday morning, at the obscenely early hour of 8 a.m. In the few days prior, I'd felt that my calves were finally healing, so I was eager to get back out on the pavement. While J and CL joined the 11-minute-mile five-milers, I humbly took my place among the 12-minute-mile three-milers. Fine with me; I was just happy to be out there.

The run was great! Leisurely, relaxed, mildly hilly, and quiet, save the one guy in my group who yapped at an inordinately high volume to another runner throughout the duration of the run. Did you know this particular gentleman plans to have one million dollars in the bank by his forty-fourth birthday? I do, and so does the entire Ladera neighborhood around which we ran, because this guy’s pie hole was going at maximum volume for the full 36 minutes of our run. Honestly, there’s one in every pack of runners, you know? The guy who talks about himself through the whole thing, really loudly?

Afterward, the Starbucks with which Nike contracts for this particular run gave out free coffee drinks (any kind we wanted!), bagels, croissants (my high-carb baked good of choice), and assorted fruit breads. Mmm.

It's been 36 hours since that run, and my calves feel pretty good! So I think I'm back in the game and on-track to run the Montrose, PA 5K on July 5. Yeah!

Two’s a Crowd

2004-06-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

One day into single-parenthood and already I’m tired of it.

S flew back East last night for a six-day stay with his family in the F.C., so it’s just Toonces and me till next Tuesday. Good god, it’s a challenge parenting this cat on my own. She’s so needy! I got approximately three hours of sleep last night, no thanks to Toonces and her noisy forays into the closet and onto the computer desk. That damn closet door won’t stay closed, and as soon as it pops open, Toonces dives in and immediately begins chewing on and ripping up the newspaper that’s in there. It’s a sound that woke me up three times last night. The sound of her scaling the computer monitor is loud as well. A lot of rattling around. And, she’s a bed hog. Without S snoozing next to me and taking up half of the mattress’s surface area, Toonces felt perfectly free to plop down on the bed’s dead center, then s-t-r-e-t-c-h herself out. Thanks so much, Toonces. I’ll be over here in the far right corner, curled into the fetal position so that you might be more comfortable.

Sigh.

Suffice it to say I’ve got some rather unbecoming bags underneath my eyes today.

On top of her nighttime hijinks, she followed me around all morning and kept mewing at me, as if to say, “Where’s that other human of mine? I like him better. You’re a poor substitute, Lady.” She sat on the bathroom sink and stared at me as I showered. She kept rubbing up against my legs as I sat on the toilet to pee (sorry, but it’s a pertinent detail). I’m the only person she can hang out with for the next several days, and already it’s an exhausting role.

Oh! And I nearly forgot to mention that she swiped at me with her scythe-like claws this morning when I tried to pet her before leaving for work. Nice! She drew blood.

My morning concluded with a bang as I arrived at work 17 minutes late and had to beeline for the crappy first-aid kit in the office kitchen (why the kitchen?) to grab an alcohol-wipe to dab on my bleeding cat-wound.

Happy Thursday, everyone!

Hip-Hop, You Don’t Stop

2004-06-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you the story of Hip-Hop, the affectionate-kitten-turned-wild-street-cat that roams my neighborhood.

I first met Hip-Hop one Saturday evening while I was doing laundry. (Oops, I just revealed how boring my life is. Let’s get past that and move on, shall we?) So anyway, I was taking my sopping wet clothes out of the washer and chucking them into the dryer when I heard a sudden, persistent mewing coming from outside. My first panicky thought, of course, was that it was our adorable Toonces, and I briefly wondered where she was and if she’d somehow gotten outside. A few moments of concentrated listening, however, revealed that the cries were not hers, and that they sounded like those of a very young kitten. I popped my head outside and found the cutest, fuzziest little kitten stuck atop the fence that separates our duplex from the one next door. He’d climbed up and was unable to get back down.

Being too short to reach up and help the poor little guy myself, I called S to come to the rescue. S, animal lover and general softie that he is, was happy to oblige. He reached up and effortlessly plucked the cat from his perch, and the kitty immediately got comfortable in S’s arms and began purring. What a snuggly little creature! He seemed perfectly content to stay in S’s arms and let the two of us rub his head and chin. It reminded us of Toonces’s youth, when she’d purr for anybody at anytime and seemed to enjoy cuddling. (She’s since reached her surly, rebellious adolescent stage. Sigh.)

The kitten’s tag revealed his name was “Hip-Hop” and that he lived a block east of us. S called the owner, whose pleasant British accent I could hear through his cell phone, and the owner asked some general questions about Hip-Hop’s wellbeing and how far he’d strayed. She then said it was too late for her to come by and pick the kitten up, but that she’d swing by in the morning to get him. We thought that was sort of weird, but OK. (Once we set Hip-Hop back down on the ground, he’d likely go scampering off and end up who knows where, right?) The owner also casually threw in, at the end of the conversation, “I guess I should get him neutered at some point.”
!
Um, yeah, lady. You should. It’s a little irresponsible to let your young male cat roam the neighborhood, free to impregnate any willing female cat who happens to cross his path. (We didn’t say that to her, though.)

So, that was that.

Since then, we’ve seen Hip-Hop a million and one times. I doubt his owner ever drove by to “pick him up.” Hip-Hop is always in our neighborhood stalking birds or making eyes at Toonces from the other side of Toonces’s favorite window. At first we’d see him outside and be like, “Oh! Hip-Hop, you cutie!” and pet him and fuss over him. But as more time goes by and he spends more and more time on the street and in other people’s yards, he grows dirtier and wilder and less affectionate. His formerly bright gold, fluffy coat is now dingy and grayish. And he’s forever pouncing on birds and eating them. He’s become very predatory. He also does crazy maneuvers like running up the sides of houses, which is of course quite dangerous.

The last time we saw him, he was scratching himself with fervor. He seemed totally incapable of stopping the scratching; I’m sure he’s got fleas. A couple of neighborhood kids and I were standing above Hip-Hop on the sidewalk watching him, and the one girl said, “I think his owners let him out for good,” which seemed like an astute prediction to me. If it’s true, I’m pissed. You don’t just bring home a kitten and then neglect him. That same afternoon, I tried to pet Hip-Hop, and he didn’t let me. He swiped at me with his paw and resumed scratching. He seems undomesticated at this point. It’s a shame.

I’m guessing Hip-Hop will ultimately meet his end in this very neighborhood. I’m guessing he’ll either be squished by a car or attacked by the large raccoons that come out after dark. (I’ve seen them twice now, on my evening walks. They scare the sh-t out of me.) I hope neither of these things happen, but I fear they’re likely. I wish Hip-Hop’s owner would take him back in, get him a bath and a flea dip, and have him neutered. I’m not the kind of person, however, who would tell a stranger what I think she should do.

But maybe I'm just being a coward?

Dying Butterfly

2004-06-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

Last night at the Farmers' Market I watched a beautiful butterfly limp around the pavement and make several unsuccessful attempts to take wing and flutter off. It was disturbing to watch, this injured creature with wide, smooth wings of yellow and black trying to just get the hell off the ground and away from there, and failing.

I was bothered and sad watching this little tragedy, but when I pointed it out to my friend, who was sitting next to me on the bench, she said, "Eew! I don't like butterflies."
Huh?
"Why?" I asked her.
"I'm afraid they're going to wind up caught in my hair or something," she said.
I thought that was weird and actually very silly, but I kept quiet about it, considering I love this particular friend of mine, and she does have many, many good qualities---despite her dislike of harmless, pretty little insects.

The thing is, how do you help an injured butterfly? In the middle of a bustling Farmers' Market? At the time, I decided there was nothing I could do, so I sort of angled my body away from it and pretended it wasn't there. I focused on eating my quesadilla and making conversation with my friend and husband.

In retrospect, now that I relive the moment in my head, I think I could have tried moving the butterfly to safety, maybe lifting him off the pavement and placing him out of the path of all those feet and the occasional pick-up truck. I should have done that. Now I feel like an ass. This is a recurring pattern for me: good intentions, followed by complete inertia.

I wonder if the butterfly died later on that night? Maybe he was squished by a hapless shoe or a truck tire shortly after we left the market? Perhaps he has miraculously survived and is still struggling to take flight.

Either way, I hope he's not suffering.