LaurieWrites

Life List 2011

Camp Mighty begins tomorrow night in Palm Springs, and I'm late with my life list. 

Oh hey! Here I am! Already here, just finishing this post now. (Actually this is last night, pre-space party, to which I went without a "costume" that met the theme. This spurred another list item. Please see below.) 

Of course I'm late. Water is wet, etc. 

And oh, here I am, again! Just now posting this, on Saturday, at 3:47 PST. 

Can you tell this exercise freaks me out a little? Well, it does, to tell the truth, and to top off my problem here, the list I drafted last week (sitting in a bar, impulsively, after Kris intelligently got in a cab to go home) is in a notebook that is way, way back in Maryland, in a purse I swapped out the other day. Change bags carefully, people. Sigh. 

Anyway, I just thought that since this is supposed to be a positive, aspirational thing most of all, I'd do it over again, stream of consciousness, here. And that also I would shut up and just start writing. So here we go. 

1. Shoot an Operation Smile surgical mission. 

2. Have Boston Terriers in my house again and work more actively with senior rescue. 

3. Have a yard. 

4. Pay off all student loan debt early. 

5. Embrace my most hated holiday: go to a Halloween-type event in a costume and not feel like a fool and also not complain about it. 

6. Hike the Grand Canyon. 

7. Finish the Ancestry.com family tree for both sides of my family. 

8. Travel the regions in Ireland and Germany where my relatives originated. 

9. Digitize as many of the White family photos as possible and share them with the whole family. 

10. Have an online presence that reflects my personality and my skills, and what I have accomplished so far in writing and photography -- a portfolio, a business site and a blog. Also, to help Draft Day Suit be the best that it can be, along with the other sites I write for. 

11. Have Washington Capitals season tickets. 

12. Have competent knife skills, and a really great set of kitchen knives. 

13. Have somewhere I can go to stay on a beach that is mine, anytime. 

14. Be self-supporting strictly through writing/photo/media work. 

15. Grow a hydrangea and a lilac bush. 

16. Print out and organize copies in books and frames of all of my images that move me or that I want to keep off of the computer. 

17. Find the courage to visit my grandmother's grave, at least once. 

18. Be able to hold crow, headstand, side crane, wheel and all other yoga poses that I currently cannot successfully hold. 

19. Visit the rest of the 50 states. 

20. Have a 41st birthday party, because I wasn't ready for 40. 

21. Have my grandmother's ring resized and made more stable so I can actually wear it. 

22. Go to a Super Bowl and a Stanley Cup championship game with Sarah. 

23. Grow a garden -- even just an herb garden or a few flowers -- without killing it. 

24. Get overall financial house in order so it is not a constant source of anxiety. 

25. Have a Christmas Eve tradition that brings me joy. 

26. See every country in Europe.

27. Go back to Vietnam, and to Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. 

28. Find a place called Dodge and get the hell out of it. 

29. Understand how to competently use Speedlite flash and studio lighting. 

30. Work in a darkroom again. 

31. Publish an article in a national magazine. 

32. Get my 200-hour yoga certification. 

33. Visit the White House, go into the Washington Monument, and other things I've never done because I live in the D.C. area. 

34. Actively support surgeries for at least five children per year through Operation Smile. 

35. Go on one silent weekend retreat per year. 

36. Drive cross-country. 

37. Find a way to give back to my parents in the significant way that they have given to me. 

38. Go to Michael's Virginia Tech graduation. 

39. Get another tattoo before I turn 41. 

40. Host a Thanksgiving dinner. 

41. Have a regular practice of having people over to my house for meals and conversation. 

42. Have a women's weekend in a pretty place by the water with some of my closest friends. 

43. Read every classic novel I feel I should read before I die. 

44. Purge all belongings that have no purpose in my life -- clothing, books, stuff -- and be at peace with the basics that remain. 

45. Spend some time with Elisa and Maria in the Bay area. 

46. Visit the Alamo. Remember it. 

47. Go back to Houston and see my remarkable group of women of the blogs who live there. 

48. Catalog and recognize all birthdays for all important people in my life. Send the damn cards. 

49. Finally -- finally! -- visit Vicky in Seattle. 

50. See Duran Duran in London. 

51. Take trips on all major Amtrak routes in the U.S. 

52. Do something hands-on and helpful in New Orleans.

53. Do the Edgar Allen Poe touristy stuff and other fun things I've never tried in Baltimore.

54. Throw a crab feast for my half-birthday.

55. Learn to pack a suitcase competently.

56.  Have Maryland basketball season tickets -- men and women. 

57. Publish a book. 

58. Understand New York  -- the subway system, visit all boroughs, know Manhattan like the back of my hand. 

59. Cultivate a competent slap shot.     

60. Learn to play the drums. 

61. Go to an Orioles-Nats game. 

61. Actually record a fun and ridiculous podcast with Sarah. 

62. Go to Ireland with my sister. 

63. See all the oceans. 

64. Buy myself a pair of diamond earrings. 

65. Have someone who knows what she is doing rewrite my resume to reflect my skills and experience. 

66. Photograph a birth. 

67. Drive on the other side of the road in England. 

68. Own a pair of ruby slippers. 

69. Pay someone's college tuition.

70. Have a photo site with Laurie.

71. Understand how to design a basic website in a variety of platforms.

72. Publish an op-ed. 

73. Visit Karen and Shannon in Ottawa. See the rest of Canada and all of my friends there, too. 

74. Throw a great 50th anniversary party for my parents. 

75. Take a food and wine trip to Italy. 

76. Spend a whole summer and a whole winter at the beach. 

77. Publish a piece in Salon, Slate, Washingtonpost.com, 

78. Understand wine, maybe at the sommelier level. 

79. Take my mom on a trip anywhere of her choosing, on me. 

80. Know how to give a basic haircut without ruining someone's life. 

81. Consistently practice receiving compliments with gratitude, not apologies or self-effacing comments. 

82. Hike a (smallish) mountain.

83. Sing backup in a band 

84. Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. 

85. Complete my local Mental Health Association hotline training, finally, and volunteer there. 

86. Write a short story I don't hate. 

87. Become a doula. 

88. Learn American Sign Language. 

89. Own a core wardrobe of green dresses. 

90. Have a king-sized bed with really good sheets, an actual duvet, and pillows that don't drive me crazy. 

91. Create an annual tradition with my cousins. 

92. Perfect a variety of vinaigrettes. 

93. Become conversationally proficient in French again. 

94. Have a full Christmas tree of my own ornaments, and also a beachy, small tree with the ones I've bought on vacations. 

95. Go to Bonnaroo and the Virgin Festival in London (or at least see a show at Wembley Stadium.) 

96. Refinish and use an awesome antique writing desk. 

97. Outfit my whole kitchen with good small appliances and all gadgets I need to make me feel like I'm not in college anymore. 

98. See every artist live who is left on my list -- Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, and I know there are more. 

99. Drink coffee in a Parisian cafe.

100. To acknowledge the possibility of falling madly, yet sanely, in real, live adult love with an actual functional human being who feels the same way. Maybe let them live in my house. 

And most importantly: 

100. Be able to confidently say that I love what I do, that the structure of my daily life reflects what I care about, what I'm good at, and how I can best contribute in words and pictures. Oh, and that I love where and with whom I live, and that I am content in my life.  

I picked five big goals off of this list to share with my group, that I'm going to work on extra special over the next year. There are some that I know I can do more easily that I didn't put on my five-things list. I saved some tough stuff for that one. I'll share that later. 

And if you've ever thought this activity sounds lame or ridiculous or like something you shouldn't really have to do in an organized way? Well, I thought the same thing. I blew it off and shot it down as stupid for a long time. And at least in my case, I was totally and completely wrong. I just sat in a room with 20 strangers for three hours. I stood up and I said what I wanted, I acknowledged that I need help with some of it, and I listened to the rest of them do the same. It was one of the most powerful, uncomfortable, cool, inspiring, and sometimes just plain enjoyable things I've ever done. 

Thanks for hanging in there with me. I'll keep you posted. 

Additions: 

I keep thinking of new stuff. 

102. Go to the Olympics. 

103. Go to a Sox game with TwoBusy and ClumberKim. 

What I Love

I wrote this post almost exactly a year ago. It's partly why I'm going to California, so I'm going to do the whole "don't blow NaBloPoMo by doing dumb things like repost posts" and repost it. 

As much as I really am my very harshest critic (seriously -- the trash you talk about me will never surpass the voices in my head) there are some things I like about myself too. For instance, I have better-than-average taste in music and a sense of responsibility to other people and the world at large. I understand how to competently merge on the highway. I make a kickass grilled cheese sandwich and I do not purchase cheap beer.

But when it comes down to the very awkward -- for me, anyway -- question of what I love about myself, I think the most important thing is something that I can only describe as my constant engagement with life, and a commitment to learning and experiencing new things as much as I can until I die.

That sounds wrong, and vaguely awkward. I can't really sum it up.  

EXCUSE ME WHO CAME UP WITH THESE PROMPTS ANYWAY?

But all I know is that my willingness to try new things -- to learn them or go to them or hang out with them or eat them or purchase them -- has made a profound and positive difference in my life.

It hasn't always felt like it was so great at the time. I climbed a rock wall once, for instance, and that pretty much sucked. I am a terrible rock climber. I don't have an extreme sports bone in my body, and I fear the destruction of years of reconstructive surgery and invasive orthodontia, to tell the truth. But when a (cute!) man with very serious looking climbing gear and an earnest expression handed me the little shoes and the helmet, at some point over the past decade I learned not to cry about it, but to put it on and try it until I either accomplished the goal or failed.

In this case I almost achieved the goal before I nearly stroked out -- major anxiety attack -- at the top. But the point is, I tried.

Over the past ten years, especially, I've had several opportunities to respond to negative situations -- heartbreak, depression, the impossible grief that comes with the deaths of some of the most important people in my life. And although some days it felt like swimming against every imaginable current just to meet the basic demands of my life as I was going through those things, I really never stopped living. I caved in all but the most basic, essential of ways. I raged and drank and babbled to my friends, but I never stopped, in very small and some very big ways, reaching for better.

I miraculously never stopped trying, even when the last possible thing I wanted to do was try anything. Even when the last thing I felt capable of was another activity or thought or plan.

This is the characteristic that led me to take a trip almost every month in 2005, the year the supposed love of my life left to follow his me-less dreams. I cried my way through the American Southwest for the first time, and ended up in California for the first time the following year. I also signed up for my first photography class in the deepest throes of depression following that breakup, and it would take an entire blog to describe the effect that has had on my life.

This is what led me to blogging and the rack of great friends I got from that, and back to school and across the world to take a cab across Hanoi alone and sit with kids who couldn't hear or speak, which was only one of the reasons that it didn't matter that our languages were different.

 

My rolling stone brain gives me my stories, by virtue of the hands and feet it sends on various travels and the mouth that goes along. And although my life may lack some of the fundamental things I still kind of believe I ultimately need to think it was what I wanted it to be, in the meantime I live it every day.

Because the alternative is horrifying. Because when I'm idle I'm insane. Because there is so much to do -- can't you see it all out there?

I don't wait for anyone to go with me, because I can't afford to.

Even when I'm sitting still, I'm planning. I'm dreaming and imagining and knowing that no matter how many years I have left, it will not be enough to do all of the things that I have the capacity both to rock and to fail on the face of this planet. And as much as that could be overwhelming, I'm just glad I still think that way.

I want to go everywhere.

I want to learn languages.

I want to see so much more live music.

I want to be the writer I've always wanted to be, in every way that I can possibly make that real.

I want to be part of a community -- a real one, one that is physical and that I can feel around me in my  house or on my street.

I want to take your picture.

I want to understand major political conflicts and economics and learn sign language and how to change my own oil.

And they're not all big things, either, the things I pick up. This fall I made chicken soup from scratch for the first time. It was a pain in the ass, but it was completely rewarding and now I know how and I can do it again.

As long as I'm alive and capable, I won't ever stop learning. I won't ever stop doing stuff or going places or trying things. And I kind of love that about me.

Lists suck generally so here are some lists.

It's not tomorrow in California, so I'm claiming that for NaBloPoMo. Also it's not like I'm doing this for a prize. And if I was? Oops. 

It's a little early to phone this in, but I'm in a jam because I was traveling this weekend and then there was this entirely engaging football game, so let me give you some lists rather than nothing at all. 

Five things my life eats, as in consumes them without my permission or awareness so that I can never find them when I need them, which is frequently, and have to replace them on a consistent basis: 

Hair ties. 

Contact lens holders. 

Corkscrews. 

Camera chargers. (See also phone chargers, computer chargers, any kind of charger, basically.) 

Olive green eyeliner. (I feel like I buy green eyeliner whenever I see it to prevent this problem, but yet and still, nowhere. I can always find the random brown I never use. No green.) 

Five main current earworms: 

Moves Like Jagger, Maroon Five (Hell. Hell on Earth. Plus no one will stop referencing it online, so, it's all SHE GOT THE MOOOOVVVVEEESSSS LIKE JAGGAH, SHE GOT THE MOOOOVVVVEEESSSSS LIKE JAGGAH around here) 

You Should Hear How She Talks About You, Melissa Manchester

Whip It, The Dazz Band

It's Raining Men (Hi. We're your Weather Girls.) (Horrible. Unmanageable.) 

Any of Dr. Hook's only three very famous songs, most likely When You're In Love With a Beautiful Woman, based entirely on mine and @parentopiadevra's latenight transgressions at Blogalicious. 

"You watch your friends, you better watch your friends." 

Five top-played songs on my main iTunes: 

Take It Easy On Me, Little River Band (shut up) 

Heavy Cross, The Gossip (have you heard Beth Ditto's voice? Because you should.) 

Jackson, Hem (Ditto Sally Ellyson) 

Jungleland, Bruce Springsteen (I went a little nuts when Clarence died and this upped the play count, for sure. This song will break your heart and put it back together a little. ) 

Where the Boat Leaves From, Zac Brown Band (shut up.) 

Five places I would live with little hesitation if someone presented me with a worry-free move and at least a lateral move job: 

San Francisco

Charlotte

London 

New York

Baltimore (I know. What can I say? I'm a Maryland girl.) 

Five best concerts I have ever seen (I'm just pulling the first five that come to my  mind, because it's impossible otherwise): 

Metallica, Capital Center. Just, holy hell. Holy hell. 

Elton John, Red Piano, Las Vegas

Prince, Nutter Center (ha.), Dayton, Ohio

Hem, Ram's Head, Annapolis

Raconteurs, 9:30 Club, DC

(And now I'm thinking Patty Griffin at Constitution Hall during most of which I cried, Duran Duran at Constitution Hall, 2000ish, the first time I saw them live, Pearl Jam at JazzFest in New Orleans, Red Hot Chili Peppers at Virgin Festival in Baltimore, The Killers at the Hard Rock in Vegas...I can go on and on for days. This is a tough one.) 

Five of my most frequently-stated words and phrases according to my own unscientific deduction, proving that I am neither articulate nor original in casual discourse: 

Seriously? 

Really? 

Whatever. 

Right. I know. RIGHT? 

Thanks. (I am a grateful sort in spite of myself.) 

Edited to add that I didn't include "fuck" which makes this the most inauthentic list of all time. And we hate inauthenticity around here, don't we? WE DO. 

Five things I wonder if I have enough of every time I go to the grocery store: 

Olive oil

garlic

protein sources

Milk (although I hardly drink it anymore.) 

avocados (am compulsive avocado buyer.) 

Five people who made me laugh this week: 

Kris

Deb

Samantha

Kim

Kelly

Five most very favorite yoga poses: 

Pigeon

forward fold

dolphin 

legs up the wall

Clearly I can't count. That's four. Returning to add: 

tie between savasana (corpse pose, where you just have to lie still.) and downward dog, because it makes me feel strong. 

Five most loathsome yoga poses that make me question my relationship to my namasted center: 

Chair (GAH CHAIR SUCKS OUCH CHAIR MY THIGHS BURN CHAIR BURN)

goddess (ironically named as goddesses ought not to suffer so.)

headstand (because I can't do it, mostly, and that gets on my nerves.) 

crow (see above) 

tree (I have no balance. My balance sucks.) 

There you have them. Boring. Wrong. I may supplement them later, but I think we all know that when I say I will I totally will not. 

Day Five Stream of Consciousness

I love NaBloPoMo for how it makes you scrounge a dark corner in a room, desperate for words, with five minutes left to spit them out. 

I love it for how it makes me remember that the reason why I picked this stupid name -- this LaurieWrites that I hate so very, very much -- was because I was halfway into my wine six years ago, broken hearted, desperate for an outlet, and this exact same space is what I found. 

I love it for how I know that other people I love and admire and respect are doing it, for how there is a quickening pulse in my strangely small collective of a writing world, that this year feels so much more vibrant, for some reason. 

I love how we have become more urgent as a result of what I'm guessing is our strange exhaustion. 

I love how there are three minutes left. 

I love how we're all still here. 

I love that I still think that I have something to say, that I agonize over topics and conclusions and constructs, even though there is no defined audience. 

I love that these posts don't get the perfect picture, that I don't care about the pixels and the diagrams. 

I love the messy and insane and the stressed and the everything of this. 

As a card-carrying glutton for punishment, I'm sure I always will. And I kind of love that knowledge too. 

Warm Card

I'm not proud of my behavior in Union Station last week. I'm really not. I'm also not proud of yelling at a stranger named Sergio in an unknown location, whose sole purpose in his job is likely to handle being yelled at by people like me. 

I'm also not proud of the fact that I'm listening to Air Supply on purpose right now, but the flip side of that is that I'm not ashamed, so whatever. 

YOU WANT TO CARRY ONNNNNNNNN. 

(Me, in Union Station, in happier, shinier times.) 

I took this crazy trip last week, from DC to New York to, er, Oxon Hill, Maryland, which is now herewith rechristened as "National Harbor", a fancy schmancy East Coast mini-Vegas of a place minus casinos and Elton John and coke and it's-totally-the-heat-not-the-humidity. So I'm wrong, it's minus almost all of the things that make Vegas Vegas, and I'm also pretty sure Nic Cage isn't going to be bottoming out in a hotel room there. But things are really big. 

My argument is failing here. 

Anyway, before I got back to National Harbor (good LORD people, this place is Oxon Hill. You know this, right? OXON HILL.) I was in New York, i.e., my favorite city in the whole wide world. I left Union Station because taking the train is one of my favorite things to do in life. And while I waited for my train, I decided to call my credit card company and confirm that my travel card was clear, as it certainly ought to have been, given that I returned the obscenely expensive camera lens rental six days before. 

I checked the website first, sitting amid a raucous group of Japanese tourists, all of us circled by a transit cop with a bomb-sniffing dog who really liked my bag, because hello there is always some errant piece of fruit or a whoopie pie or some shit in my bag that smells like drugs or a homemade bomb? The website said, "Fuck you, you still have that camera lens, as far as we're concerned," because of course it did. 

So I called Capital One, using the arduous iPhone keypad that I only use to enter bank and credit card pin numbers and to occasionally call a person I am required by law to call. 

"Hello, this is Capital One. This is Sergio. I am happy to help you today." 

"Hey Sergio. How are you?" (I am nice to these people. I am not an asshole. I swear to THE GOD WHO SMITES ME DAILY.) 

"I am doing well, hello, Mrs....White? How are you today?"

"I'm good, and it's not Mrs. And Laurie is good. Birthdate 12.27.70, pin number CAPITAL ONE SCREWS ME DAILY AND I LOVE IT SO HARD. 

(That is a joke. I did not say that.)

Then he asked me how he could help me, and basically I was like, look, Sergio, I need this pre-authorization code removed. I didn't buy anything, I took the shit back, it's gone from my life for half a pay period now. I didn't break it or lose it. I hate my pictures, I need to be able to buy wine and maybe a room in New York on this card because this is my TRAVEL NEW YORK CARD SO FUCKING FIX IT. 

"I am very sorry for your concerns, Mrs. White. I will see what I can do to alleviate your consternation." 

(Sergio is talking to my mom. Ignored. Bygones. Also they give these poor souls thesaurus.com with their training manuals, right?) 

"Look, Sergio, can you just clear my card? Because I have a train in 20 minutes and need an Egg McMuffin like Lindsay needs a bump, so really." 

I almost said this. Not super proud. GIRL YOU'RE EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD TO ME. (Related, that sounds like a lot of really hard fucking work. Multitasking.) 

I hear bleedeeebleepbleeps in the background that indicate that Sergio is scaring up some information about my relatively paltry financial situation. I really do just need this card to work. I had plans for this card. Dreams. 

"Hello. I see the concern."

(OMG THERE IS NO CONCERN.) 

"I see the concern, and if the camera company will please to call us soon we will remove it." 

The Japanese people started laughing more loudly, like the rotating clowns in Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

The dog sniffed everything six times. 

"Sergio. Honestly. The camera store is not going to call you." 

As I said this, I imagined the endless stream of iPhone calls I would have to make to work this out. Jack or Steve or Bill, lounging on the counter, completely disinterested in arresting his discussion of prime lenses and chicks who can't take pictures to make a phone call via many menus to Sergio in God knows where. 

I was never going to get my money back. I was not going to have my New York story financially told. And this made me mean. 

"That is unacceptable, Sergio. Unacceptable. I need you all to be able to call the camera store, if that is what you need to do, after THEY TOLD ME THAT THE HOLD ON MY CARD WOULD JUST NATURALLY FALL OFF LIKE THE LEAVES OF ADAM AND EVE AFTER A MAX OF 72 HOURS WTF SERGIO?"

He was contrite, yet unflappable. 

"This is a surprising development, I know. Please allow me to investigate further." 

And he was gone. For five minutes. And when he returned, he was saying stuff about tomorrow morning and telephone calls and the Dalai Lama and credit cards and whatnot. So, fully committing to hating myself for a refractory period of several hours, I said, 

"Hey Sergio? You got a supervisor." 

"Why yes. Yes I do. I will retrieve Melissa."

Sergio, Small Wonder, same difference. Melissa was on the line in a minute or two. I've worked with Melissa. Melissa went to my high school. Melissa was going to dispose of me in .5 minutes, and she had no idea my student council poster housed hers, hard.

"Hello, Ms...White? Yes. White. So you're traveling to New York?"

"Yes. And I  need you all to clear my card so I can move on with my life." 

"So you're going to have (redacted) call us to take care of this little charge?"

"No. I'm not, Melissa. (Because I have read the findings of repeating names and mirroring, yes I have. Also I watched The Office for years.) I'm standing in a line for a train to New York, a situation that normally takes all of my Oregon Trail survival skills, clutching an Egg McMuffin, an unconscionably hot-regardless-of-burning-lawsuit McDonalds coffee AND MY PHONE. I need you all to get in touch with the camera store, if that is what you need to do, and settle this." 

"And you can give us the number of the store?" 

"No. No I cannot. Do you have a computer in front of you, Melissa? Because, Google."

And I spelled it for her when she responded like this: agveargvaer;nhagraga;agvnbaga??????? And oh my God. I felt myself transforming into a Sleestak by the minute, but the rage, the RAGE. MELISSA! Seriously?  

And then I lost the call, because of course I did. And then the Northeastern line started moving, which, if you've never been in it? Is intense. It evokes a primal need to move and be first and elbow people that is not frequently seen outside of exercise class space placement and the lawn seats at the Indigo Girls. It is a horror show.  

As Melissa's stupid ass call dropped, the lady with the embroidered bag in front of me, who hasn't traveled since the Reagan administration, tried to Battle of the Network Stars elbow check me, and I wasn't having it. As I tried to aggressively reestablish my place in line, my phone rang.

Ringing phones: worse sounds on earth besides IT'S LATE NIGHT WITH JAY LENO, hands down.

I answered.

"Hi, Mrs....White? It's Melissa. I was able to contact (insert popular 90s name here) at (redacted) and he said all was well, that that equipment was returned unharmed several days ago. Capital One is happy to return the full functioning of your card to you, and we hope you have a fabulous time in New York City!" 

"Well. Okay. Thanks. Great." 

And I will leave it there. I will not tell you about slowly going insaner over the next 36 hours, as this company tracked my every move, shutting down both of my credit cards no matter where I went within an EXTENSIVE 500 MILE RADIUS. I won't detail talking to some guy whose complicated name I forget from a bar in New York, when they decided to "confirm" that my destination that I had told them about three hours before was accurate. I will spare you the details of my conversation with Brian, the next day, (I had learned by then to just ask for the supervisor immediately, because, well, the comedy.) who declined my card until I called to tell him I was back in Maryland, just to alleviate any more "concerns" that a thief was purchasing my one beer and rainbow roll at a dinner with colleagues, in my home state. 

It was like someone who hated me had called this place and told them I was a rogue person charging exorbitant amounts of, oh, say, $32.67 at a time. I was not to be trusted. This operation was to be shut down, before it tried to pay for another ten-dollar cab ride. 

Because I know this is my fault. I know this is our fault. This credit situation. This need for confirmations and codes and deposits, when really we'd be likely better served by stacks of dollar bills in mattresses, or trading beans for Etsy shit.

No, I won't. I'll just say this: Sergio holds it down. You want Sergio on your team. Hell, I want him on mine. He held the flare gun throughout my two days of Stockholm Syndrome with Capital One, and he made it feel like sugar going down.

I really wish I could friend him on Facebook. I'm pretty sure he would help me move. 

NaBloPoMo -- Day Two

Dammit. 11:58. It's like this every November, but usually not by day two. 

Here's a picture of Roxie. She lives in my neighborhood. I'm going to write a story about her someday. 

What Happens When a Plan Changes Against My Will, a List

• Cry. Cry involuntarily and at great length. Cry due to inability to stop crying.
• Immediately consider and discard approximately 32 different options for instant life changes, some quite sweeping. 
• Contemplate depressing evening of Goldfish and wine consumption on the couch. 
• Berate self for not including gym visit in that equation. Resolve to lose 200 pounds, more than current weight. Small detail.
• Ignore suggestion from friend about infinitely better plan to go to expensive wine dinner because of current inappropriate outfit. 
• Look at Craigslist to reassure self that there are other places to live, none as perfect as this place that was just rudely snatched away, but places. Hate them all.
• Friend pushes wine dinner again as a much more appealing option, because she is the best person in the world. Demands attendance. Say okay. 
• Contemplate life as sommelier, writer, dilettante.
• Obsessively touch sore spot on neck, convinced it is a tumor. Berate self for abandoned, yet longstanding, smoking habit. Wallow in possibility of life's fated resemblance to a Lifetime movie. 
• Go to doctor, discover pain is related to inflamed lymph node. Nurse practitioner's expression indicates that I am very stupid, overreactionary drama queen. Concur, although the pain, it was real. Feel like an idiot some more.
• Scramble to go to three stores in half an hour. Purchase dress, which, while not ideal, will pass dinner test.
• Go to wine dinner. Feel better -- and drunker. I can do this! Stupid condo, holding me back! I can do whatever I want now!
• Wait. Um. I can do whatever I want now. Head explodes. Options. Overwhelming options. OPTION ALL THE THINGS. 
• Leave work the next day. Drive aimlessly. Call sister and make random Say Anything reference and realize I have jumped the shark. Go immediately to first hot yoga class. Feel better. Release toxins. Almost pass out. Do not. Survive.
• Manage stress related to endless life options poorly, regardless of enthusiastic "OM" repetition. Nonetheless, stop crying. Demand return of documents from condo owner in terse e-mail. Am advised to sue, will likely never sue, enjoy concept of suing nonetheless.
•  Smartly surround self with smart people who listen, give good advice and help me answer my own questions, via GChat, dreaded telephone and in person.
• Embrace the weekend. Have some fun. Happy hours and Irish festival with said smart people. Beer tips at the latter go to Little Sisters of the Poor. Feel pleased, as this would please my grandfather who would verbally smack me around for wallowing. Feel better.
• Accept help, this thing that is so hard for me to accept, descended from a people who dug up potatoes with their hands. Find some perspective, in spite of continued confusion. Let some of this garbage go.
• Do not dig up potatoes with hands, but in mildly tangential move fork over five dollars to an elderly lady in a jaunty hat representing the Ancient Order of Hibernians. She in return gives me a bowl of scallion mashed potatoes. Scarf down entire thing and a pitcher of Harp. 
• Make plans. What to buy, what to build, what to sketch out for the next couple of months. React in a shockingly proactive way to disappointment after three days of intermittent wallowing and panic.
• Know that as much as the plan got wrecked, as much as the wrecking of it wasn't on the agenda, that it's just another thing, and yeah, it was probably the right thing, but it'll take me another week or so to get there.

Thrive

After my potential living situation fell apart this week I started thinking big picture.

I don't really know what I'm doing right now. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing -- not where I'm supposed to live, what kind of work I'm supposed to be doing or, in most cases, where the best place is to focus my time and energy.

It's disconcerting, and it's gotten old. Moving into this condo was supposed to be the centering force, the base from which all of the other stuff was going to get figured out, honestly. This felt right.

And then it didn't happen and I was uncentered again. Oh woe is me, constantly thwarted, blahblahblah. Then I realized that I didn't have to lift heavy things on Sunday and that kind of made me feel better because I am all about laziness and procrastination. And somewhere amid this maelstrom of emotion, I left work and I just started driving. I called my sister and told her I was driving like Lloyd Dobler, which was in no way as dramatic as it was in the movie because a. I was not heartbroken and b. it wasn't raining so I had no excuse to bust out "the rain on my car is a baptism" line.

I ended up somehow in the parking lot of a yoga studio that I'd been meaning to try, having failed to use a Groupon I bought for them this summer. No matter. $49 to the dharma, or wherever failed yoga studio Groupons go (which is probably just out of my bank account, into the fire, as usual.) They were running a $49 unlimited-yoga-for-a-month special so I was all over that. I looked around at the faux-stone walls and water features in this hyper-yogafied cavelike place and I felt very much at home. I have no idea why. I'm not the definition of serene.

I paid my fee and bought an overpriced tank top and went to Sports Authority to get pants suitable for stretching and sweating in an 85-degree room. The "hot yoga" classes at this studio aren't at the 105 degrees of a Bikram practice, which is really totally fine with me. I'm not in great shape right now, honestly, so I figured I could start with 85 and see where it went. 

And it was good. I've always said that I may be fat but I'm flexible, and I am. I didn't embarrass myself. I didn't pass out. Yes, it was hot in there and yes, the Vinyasa flow (warrior and chair and plank and down dog) was challenging. But the couple who own the place taught the class together and they were good. I felt comfortable with them -- not weirded out or bludgeoned with any heavy-handed new age wisdom -- and challenged in my body. I felt like I could center myself there and somehow, moving myself again after months of relative inactivity made me feel better about all of the other things that I currently can't figure out and all of the rest of it that I honestly can't control.

And at the end, Dave had us move our hands quickly but purposefully over the chakras, centers of energy and thought and speech. And somehow, hokey or not, when he put his hands over his throat and mentioned speaking only that which we know to be true and truly believe, something reorganized in my mind. And I don't know how this works but I'll take it, and I'm hoping it sticks.

Wrapping It Up

This week was rather challenging, so tonight I got nothin', nothin' but links. This is where I was, elsewhere, this week. 

I wrote about fall and winter beers at Food Lush. Jennie's got a good thing going over there and contributing is fun.

At MamaPop, besides the usual Biggest Loser businne, Gwyneth Paltrow went country , and Charlie Sheen said more lame things.

Oh, and we're working hard on Draft Day Suit, so drop by and check us out if you're into sports at all.

And that's it. Next week, less life upheaval, more writing! Real writing!

 

Moving: On

So yesterday I was at my desk getting ready for class when I got an hysterical-sounding e-mail from the woman who was renting me the condo that I was going to move into this Monday. This Monday as in November 15. This Monday as in just Tuesday she sent me an e-mail confirming our meeting on Saturday to get the keys and do a walk-through and OMG even the CABINET HANDLES are new and the place looks AWESOME.

Every inexplicable misgiving I had about this situation panning out? True.

I called her immediately and she started babbling about how all of a sudden her marriage was over and she needed to go live in the place and she'd rip up the lease and my checks and so sorry, was I "going to be homeless?"

Fuck. Me. (Sorry. That was my exact, silent, reaction, pretty much.)

No, I was not going to be homeless, I said. Yes, I'm sorry to hear that your marriage is ending, but excuse me I have this UNEXPLAINED PAINFUL LUMP IN MY NECK AND I HAVE A LINE OF STUDENTS AT MY DOOR AND I NEEDED THIS ONE HUGE THING THAT'S GONE RIGHT TO CONTINUE TO GO RIGHT AND NOW THAT'S SHOT TO HELL ASSHOLE.

I was so angry. I was immediately, red rage angry. And yes, I know that it sucks that her marriage fell apart, especially if it fell apart in a day or overnight or in whatever bizarre way this appears to have happened. Maybe she or her husband (wife? I don't know. Assuming gender here, shouldn't.) saw a vacant living space that would facilitate their freedom slipping away and thought they'd better grab it while they could. If she was in any way abused I am beyond sorry for that. I am compassionate beyond reason and this was a really sad situation.

But I just couldn't be nice about it yesterday. I couldn't process everything that was going on, my stress and hers. I had to, in this instance, focus on myself, because when I don't I end up getting screwed over and missing the point of both personal and business transactions. I am sick and tired of being collateral damage in someone else's psychodrama, and this wasn't even necessarily personal to her. I'm tired of infusing all of my (even vaguely) business interactions, especially, with the phrase, "Oh no, it's fine."

Sometimes it's not fine. Sometimes disrupting the lives of others is not okay, even with good reason, if just for the fact that it's disruptive to their lives. Consequences and all that jazz.

Now, I'm not saying that she should have kept to the terms of our agreement and found another place to live, necessarily. Since I've calmed down I've realized that some things are insane and random, and two wrongs don't make a right or whatever cliche you want to throw in there, go for it. It's just that some days when this kind of thing hits the fan, it's more than the resolve I have at the moment to find the good or the "this is meant to be" or "this must have happened for a reason" or "The next place! The place I'm meant to live in, THOSE hallways will be paved with gold!" in it.

I couldn't. It was more mental effort than I could handle at the time. I had my distinct, psychological and emotional reasons for needing that place at this precise moment. I really needed this to work out. And for some reason if at that moment I caved into the story she was telling me and the need to feel sympathy for her over my own aggravation at having to start over, again, at square one, of having to find a place and move into it NOT before the holidays and NOT before it gets crazy cold and potentially record-breaking snowy again? That would have been caving I couldn't afford. It would have been three steps back from where I'm trying to be so I can make some sense out of my life without constantly being blind-sided by people and events and bad news.

And I wasn't bitchy, I was just honest, (honest!): 

"Wow, yeah, too bad, but seriously? This is indeed very inconvenient and upsetting for me."

In response to her additional plea for understanding:

"Please just send my checks back by Saturday. Sincerely, Laurie."

I had to keep it business. I had to stay focused for a few days on why this was such a total drag for me so I could figure out what to do in response to it. I had to keep my feelings in control, because by the time I spent the morning I got the news completely unproductive at work because my body needed to cry this out? That's all I could handle.

Tough stuff, balancing our problems large and small with the needs of other people. And as much as I felt like a jerk for being less than the bleeding heart that I am, in my natural habitat? It was the right thing for me. It allowed me to move forward into plans more quickly. It allowed me to consider the ways in which this could have, conceivably, screwed me over financially (I trusted her immediately when I met her. What if I'd let her cash my check before move-in? What if I'd paid a lot of money for a moving company?) I'll make different plans in the future. I'll be more cautious.

I'll spend more time reading the fine print on leases, that's for sure.

What this really highlighted for me is that I'm not taking care of myself at all and I need to regroup and decide what's next, for real. So today I went to hot yoga for the first time, and it was fantastic.

"Take the next ten minutes and chill out," the teacher said at the end. "Know that whatever is out there waiting? It can go on without you for ten minutes."

Exactly what I needed to hear.

So I'm taking the weekend off from most of these things. That stuff can go without me for a little bit longer, until, very shortly, I do what I need to do, which is to deal with it again.