with love and squalor...

the elusive "hello"

2011-01-06T16:16:00.003-07:00

Earlier today, I ducked out of the pit of distraction I was experiencing at home to take a walk in the 40 degree afternoon.

I had a lot of thoughts in my head, and I wanted to walk along with them instead of sit underneath a cloud of them... thoughts are so restless in a cloud. The ones that are the loudest or angriest or most intense seem to gain floating electrons from the quieter ones until, like lightning, they burst through the cloud and crash into me with great force.

It was a beautiful day. Blue sky, warm sunshine, very little ice left on the sidewalks after the deep freeze that hit over the holidays. I walked quietly, with NPR's "song of the day" playing from my new iPhone through my headphones. It's a small way to feel like Tom is with me when he's at work.

I thought about the things going on in the lives of people I care about... the anticipation of new life, the challenging but exciting work of moving across the world, the prospect of a new job that changes your life, the devastating loss of normalcy after a tragic and cruel twist of fate enters your path.

As I walked, many people crossed my path. Two women chatting and pushing a stroller, Lockheed Martin employees on their endlessly revolving cigarette breaks, high-life hipsters from CPB reluctant to leave late lunches, older men getting some sunshine.

I live in a small sub-section of a low-key city... an area that people are attracted to because of the peaceful farmlands, the endless trails, and the sleepy attitude paired with easy access to the sexier rock climbing, skiing, and night life just down the road. It's hardly Manhattan... this is the kind of place, if any, that someone should be able to go next door to ask for a cup of sugar.

But as I walked, almost no one looked up at me as we passed each other.
The two women pushing the stroller actually physically turned away from me as we walked-- the one closest to me pulling her arm in close, and flinched her face as if protecting herself from a bad smell.

A man carrying a six pack of New Belgium beers half-smiled in my direction before I did, but the elderly gentleman behind him not only ignored my smile-- he seemed to glare as we passed when I nodded a friendly 'hello'.

Two 30-something men sitting behind their ad agency not only didn't smile at me-- they openly stared as I walked past them. It was a cold, empty, "she can't see us" stare.

It made me think about my dad's brother Ted, who lives in Florida, and who I've only met once. Ted is a completely withdrawn man... he sold his family up the river as a young man, acted out of self-interest through his adulthood, and always relied on others to simply give him things instead of ever working (or otherwise participating in his life). He lives in a trailer where he lived as a hoarder for years... outraged when my parents came to help him clean. He didn't want to part with the stacked dirty plates & utensils that sat in the fridge for years after he finished eating off of them... didn't want to throw away trash bags filled with pieces of paper he'd torn out of newspapers, magazines, flyers, and the like.

As I walked, I wondered-- who says hello to Ted? If they won't even look at a twenty-something woman with a happy stride and an engaging expression, who looks at the small, pale, socially anxious man who only comes outside to get food before dashing back home?

How many people talk to my uncle? How many people know his name? If he passed me on the street, would we say hello to each other?

It took me falling (madly) in love and getting married to realize the extent of my loneliness before Tom and I started dating. I was aching from loneliness... knotted in anxiety and flinging myself into every open door of opportunity I could find to fend it off. When those opportunities turned out less substantial than I'd hoped, the feeling of alone-ness intensified. It is worse to be lonely with other people than it is to simply be alone.

Over the last few years, I've noticed how odd it is that everyone seems to be home in my neighborhood... all the time. There are a few families, but mostly it's single people in their 30s and young couples. Why are we all just here, hunkered down in our sunny abodes all the time?

It makes me sad that I don't know my neighbors. It makes me sad that we, as people, make connections so much harder than they need to be. Friends treat each other harshly during bad moments of self-interest... family members take each other for granted and use their harshest words on the ones they love most. Neighbors pass on the sidewalk buried behind headphones and the day's mail.

Several years ago, I knocked on my neighbor's door to let the family who lived there know that I'd be gone for 2 weeks, just in case there was any kind of emergency... and who to contact if they needed anything. I've never seen such a confused reaction. I think they felt embarrassed, because months later one of them made a shy and awkward invitation to "maybe come by for dinner sometime," which was appreciated, but we've never talked since. In fact, I've barely seen them since that day. And for an entire complex of people who either have unemployment, freelance jobs, or enormous trust funds, I feel like we should all be like the cast of Cheers by now.

My wish for 2011 and my future, in general, is to feel more at peace with my connections. To be brave enough to say hi, and to have people in my life who are conscientious about connections. I get anxious with long-distance friendships if they 'require' a lot of sonar pings... but I deeply value the 'fewer but more substantial' check-ins.

We've been considering a dog lately, and although this isn't the right home or financial time in life to get one, I can't wait to have a irresistible pal with me on my future walks who will demand that people stop and smile.

If only we had wagging tails...

work in progress

2010-06-18T10:04:00.005-06:00

This photo was taken in April of 2009 at the St. Francis Cathedral Basilica in Santa Fe, NM. It was the first vacation Tom & I ever took together, and our long weekend there has been lovingly sewn into a quilt of memories that I hope to keep forever.

It was magical and romantic and perfect, and it made me realize that I was dating someone who not only tolerated a quirky, dusty, art-filled and almost completely empty city (April is not tourist season there by any means) on my behalf... but he loved it, too. It was one of the first moments in my life when I felt like maybe it WAS possible for someone to love the eccentric, dog-eared, private side of my life. My love of Santa Fe is nestled in the part of me that also loves weekends spent with a book propped on my stomach; that loves being home watching a movie instead of being out bar hopping at 1am; the part that knows I'm going to go to bed sporting a messy ponytail that makes me look like I'm in 6th grade instead of the coiffed, eyeliner-at-all-times woman who I imagine someone would want to see instead when they're going to bed.

Tom & I are heading back to Santa Fe again next week, and although it feels really weird to be going on a feet-up, vacation-snacks filled road trip when I still have no semblance of employment or stability in my future, I couldn't be happier or more excited to head back to our old haunt.

The photo I posted is from our brief tour of the Basilica, which was under a massive renovation for their 400th year anniversary. I took a lot of photos of the stained glass windows and ornate carvings that were hidden behind construction scaffolding; and I've thought about those images often over the last five months.

It is so easy to feel like a failure. For me, at least.
I deeply internalized the various petty comments I received at my old job, and even though I worked hard to grow a thicker skin and learn the difference between spite and valuable criticism over those five years, the sensitive person that I've always been was wounded by them.

Skimming the value out of my feedback and rejecting the high school pettiness was a huge learning experience for me, but the job searching process has proven to be another massive lesson in self-esteem and intuition.

I have applied for so. many. jobs. I've heard back from three robots, one frazzled human being, and one recruiter who I suspect follows up with 98% of the applications she receives. I've been sneaky, I've been aggressive, I've been passive, and I've been apathetic. Write, review, edit, send. Wait. Forget. Move on. My cover letters never fail to perplex me... even after asking several people for feedback, I have little to no sense of the quality of my sales pitch. My resume has been expanded to two pages (by the firm insistence of the HR recruiter I worked with), but the old-school advice handed out about 1 pg. resumes literally keeps me awake some nights, wondering if I didn't get a callback for job X because they thought I was presumptuous.

Or boring.

Or because my email is secretly broken and only sends personal emails to friends... automatically deleting anything that's sent to a business email.

Or because if you read my resume backwards, it says something malicious about the government and current affairs.

In an ironic twist, my life has gone from receiving constant, never-ending feedback to not receiving any feedback at all, and I miss the fresh hell out of it. I thrive on feedback. I obsess over things I've said to people; replaying them in my mind and worrying if humor could've been offensive or if my appreciation of a kind deed wasn't emphatic enough. My gut twisted this morning when I realized that Tom had taken a peanut butter sandwich to work instead of the Thai leftovers in the fridge, wondering if I had accidentally said something that would make him think he shouldn't take them with him.

Our work is so much a part of who we are, and without a job title to define my place in the world, I can't stop questioning my value, my skills, and my purpose. Some weeks have been good-- I feel more capable and 'awake' than ever. This week has been harder... the doubt has pervaded my brain to the point that I've truly felt like I am not good enough for the jobs I'm seeking.

A constant work in progress. I'm grateful for the opportunity to define myself-- my deep down, art-loving, taco-eating, Real Housewives of New York-watching (on the sly), crazy hair sporting, kindred-spirit loving, previous-comment-obsessing self. I'm grateful for the guise of a difficult job market, which has provided a tangle of scaffolding bars and platforms in-between me and the employers who will (with luck) soon be staring at me across a desk, looking me straight in the face and asking me blunt questions about my flaws and my mistakes.

Right out of the gate, I was too vulnerable for a firing squad. I didn't know it until now, but I was. I have re-learned the game... I have been reminded that interviews are places to shine, not confess, and down-time is an opportunity to reflect, not self-flagellate. (man. that always sounds dirty.)

At the moment, I'm supposed to be applying for jobs, but instead I'm curled into a corner of my favorite coffee shop writing an unfocused journal entry.

I have applied to be a researcher, an admissions counselor, a museum sign writer, an advertising copywriter, a library workshop leader, a marketing guru, a broadcast television producer and a beading & knitting show videographer. I've begged to be considered as a project manager, a portfolio coordinator, a Chipotle training instructor and an at-risk youth counselor.

I have channeled the identity of fifty professionals over the past 5 months, and I've written as much as I could to convince strangers that I would be the perfect, irreplaceable person for each of those jobs.

But for the moment,
I'm just a work in progress... seated by the window, letting a caffeine buzz flow through my veins while I peer between the bars of construction platforms I've built around me.

It's not such a bad place to be.

a time to drink Cava

2010-02-28T18:27:00.002-07:00

The winter Olympics are ending... I'm watching Apollo Ohno being interviewed under the 'final ceremonies' dome, craning to see the faces in the background to see if my auntie and my cousin will make it on camera. My favorite Oregon and Vancouver residents. I've always loved watching the Olympics, but this year really felt special. I loved watching the opening ceremonies with friends in my home, I loved the three nights I spent curled up with my parents cheering for the skiiers and the women's skating short program, and I loved earlier today when a bunch of us crowded around Peter's television with a basset hound and a plate full of homemade chicken wings as we cheered for the hockey game. I loved looking up to see the curling scores while I pulled my hair out over infuriating online job application nonsense.
They're special and beloved because they're only on once in a blue moon, but they came and left so fast. I'll miss you, Olympics.

Today and Friday were unbelievably low for me. I don't know if I've ever felt so low, or so completely overwhelmed-- even by small details. Tom came over after a long day of work on Friday, and I had spent the past hour at King Soopers just standing there holding my little red basket. I was surrounded by shoppers, feeling completely numb... unable to choose between hot dog bun brands and totally unsure of how to navigate the fresh produce aisle. Instead of the warm-smelling kitchen that I wanted both of us to come home to, Tom entered my apartment just to find a cold bag of hot dog buns sitting on the counter next to an unopened box of highlighters.
Just the sight of him made me buckle-- it made the awful sense of panic that I'd been holding in all day bubble over and I lost it.

Some people know just what to do. (I am not one of them.)
He put his arms around me. He put his face against mine and let me cry. He listened. Even through the hot tears. And then-- in a moment of sheer brilliance-- he opened the fridge, reached down to the bottom shelf, and grabbed the cava. The bottle of rose that I bought last fall, confident in my budget and the promise of a new job that an odious company had winked to us that would be his by the end of the day. The bottle that I'd hastily stashed in the bottom drawer of the fridge under a bouquet of broccoli when he told me that they'd lied, the job wasn't his. The bottle that became permanently off-limits... unopened on Valentine's day and our one year anniversary.

The need for an 'occasion' had become too built up, with a shiny bottle of pink silliness reminding me of that daily, and what Tom taught me is that Shitty Day Cava is the best bubbly cork-popping ego boost in the world. The fine nuance of distilled brut is best brought out by $2.99 cole slaw and well-done hot dogs. Sometimes, your fanciest treat needs to be enjoyed in stretchy pants, with hot tears drying on your cheeks and speed skating on NBC.

Between that and the sweetness he showed me today, Tom continues to remind me that even when things feel too big to handle, a pair of loving arms is all I need. It's ok that I lost my saved freelance money and my carefully e-saved 1040. It's ok that I not only lost my reference and a professional mentor I looked up to, but that I have to face her in a hearing next week. It's ok that I sound ridiculous with sinuses that are permanently on vacation, waiting out my flailing panic in the Bermudas.

He reminded me that I have all that I need-- I have my brain and body and home, I have my family, I have him. I can't "what if" myself into the ground... there's enough on my plate as it is. It's a very small plate... it fits a hot dog with mustard, relish and ketchup, cole slaw and a dill pickle. No room for additional fear.

This venting is just a repeat of the purging, cliched and emotional babble I've been so consistent with lately, but I need this to be in print so I can look back on it. Writing from the midst of rawest emotions doesn't make for good literature-- but it can be decent therapy once in a while. And tonight, with endearingly cheesy Olympic farewells set to dramatic John Williams scores (and Neil Young... and...Nickelback?!? and... Avril Lavigne?!?!?), I know that I need to listen to my wheezy lungs and achy stomach and keep the things that are dear to me close, without needing a "special occasion" to validate it. Cava was meant to be opened, and loved ones are meant to share love.

I'm not a religious person, but I sometimes wish I was. I appreciate the comforting repetition of lovely verses and prayers such as these (made even better with the chorus of "turn turn turn")

ecclesiastes 3:1-8
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

"a time to weep and a time to laugh"-- these words never ring so true than when you have experienced both in the same day. The same moment.

A time to get, a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to drink cava with hot dogs. A time to be small and to feel awe at the bigness of the world. A time to seek comfort, and a time to feel blessed in love.

Rudy? Seriously?

2010-02-25T12:15:00.006-07:00

Low gray skies today... I've been crashing at my parents' house for a couple nights to try to sort out some rougher seas than normal at home.

I haven't showered or done anything blindingly productive today, and it sounds like someone's walking around their house, even though they left hours ago. I can hear creeping footsteps in the hall. It's a sleepy, fearless feeling of being gently haunted. I'm ok with it.

The past couple of weeks have been oddly harder than they probably should've. Dad's struggling with health, mom and I are fretting about it. I've been so anxious the past two months that everything feels off, the good and the bad. It feels like when you're sick and your ears become plugged-- everything takes on a muted quality, no matter how hard you yawn or strain to hear. I'm extremely anxious about the recurring thought patterns that have been plaguing me since losing my job-- where and when will I find a new one? Why did it have to happen that way? What are the ramifications of feeling that shitty at a job I really liked, for a long long time? How do I sort out the good from the bad and keep them in their respective camps?

The questions are relentless at times. I try meditation. I try exercise. I try sleep, not sleeping, and feeling dazed. I try focus and procrastination. Things are good-- great, at times-- often peaceful, and always relieved that I'm out of a bad situation. Relieved that I can reinvent myself in a meaningful way. Excited for what the future holds.

But then out of the blue, the questions and queasiness arrive in blinding waves. What does it mean that I worked my ass off to save money, and now I'm hemorrhaging my savings? Will I ever receive unemployment? Was it worth working nights and weekends even though I've just lost everything I made in those 7 months in less than 8 weeks, and I'll have to pay an additional $4-500 for taxes? I was perfect for my freelance boss-- why did they turn on me, too?

One consistent worry is the challenge of writing letter after letter to companies touting my writing skills. Writing cover letters and resumes is an excellent opportunity, I feel, because instead of simply filling in your years of experience, you can attempt to share your personal history and personality with the hiring manager. But the pressure to not write boring, trite, incorrect or revoltingly non-creative work sometimes gets to me. A lot. "I'm a great writer," my cover letters are all supposed to say, "so I think you should hire me for this fabulous writing position because look how many times I've managed to write 'writing' since the date stamp above."

Ugh. It's hard. It's harder than I'm allowing myself to feel, and in turn, I am bottling things up and it's manifesting itself in acid that leaps up my esophagus and has taken my lungs hostage. The pain is scary. It feels like there's a rubber band around my chest all day, ever day, and the absurdity and pathetic truth of that makes me even more stressed. BEING stressed makes me more stressed.

It is like a sinister villain in a novel... the voice that creeps into your head, mocking your emotions and your reactions and your natural inclinations. Not to mention the things you're holding on to as sanctuaries. "Only someone weak would perseverate in thinking about the things you're thinking about." "People you know have better, more interesting jobs than you've had. They also handle it with more going on in their lives. They also easily parallel park on city streets." "Your relationships are solid. Right? Not really, I mean, your relationships are all at risk. But feel free to argue with me."

It's a creeping, evil, sniveling little bastard of a voice. Doubt is strong when vulnerability is prominent. It's my biggest goal in my life right now-- to squash the doubt every time. I think I'm doing ok, but I'm frustrated that it's even there to contend with.

I'm just having a hard time juggling all the plates. I think I just really need a hug. And to fill my prescription for lung happiness. And some cash wouldn't hurt, if I came across a gym bag full of 100s. I am building up my confidence as much as I can, but last night as I was lying awake in my bed with a pounding heart and a chaotic frame of mind, I realized something that I was trying not to think about... losing my job in the way that I did was genuinely traumatizing to me. Hell, half of what I battled with my boss and with myself over the past several years had a legitimately traumatic effect on me.

And with trauma comes skittishness and fear. I can't make fear go away by wishing it off, no matter how much I've tried-- I think I need to find a better way to analyze the fear of inadequacy and failure I've been picking up recently. The job I just applied for almost *certainly* will not consider me as a candidate, but I'd be REALLY GOOD AT IT. I need as much confidence as I can humanly muster in order to convince someone else of that, much less myself.

It's a lot to consider. Like the day of my college graduation, I guess this is another opportunity to ball my hands into fists under my graduation gown, face the stage with courageous eyes, and tell myself-- firmly-- "Rudy would be brave. You should too."

And it gives me the same surprised and amused thought as I have now... I don't know why anything in my life would make me think about Rudy, but somehow, my most unclear and nerve-wracking transitions all make me think of Sean Astin's g-rated performance as the wee little determined football player. Maybe it just got planted in the "Little Engine that Could" part of my brain, and I'm just stuck with a little bit of a maudlin, family-appropriate movie as my cheerleader.

Well. Here's hoping they put me in the big game.

with love and disappointment

2010-02-04T11:22:00.004-07:00

J.D. Salinger passed away last week, at the age of 91.

It hurt my heart to read the news, and even the affectionate (and unaffectionate, mostly snarky) wave of come-backs and quotes people posted online hurt to read.

J.D. Salinger meant a lot to me. His writing was close to my heart because he deeply inspired me, he chose his words carefully and intelligently, his snark was forgivable and his angst was deeply heartbreaking. "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" hurt me all the way down to my cells-- I was speechless after reading it, alone in my living room in the house where I grew up. I remember not being able to talk to anyone that day, and the day after, feeling like something in my life had actually changed because of the content of that story. Years later, I would write about Bananafish in a college essay that may have been the deciding factor in my admission to that college.

Even more personally, Salinger's books filled a void for me when I felt lost at home. My father used to tease me, and then seriously say, that I would grow out of my Salinger phase-- that my teenage years would be Salinger-ized while I read him, and I would look back with annoyance at his work someday. But it wasn't the teen angst that I clung to, it was the quality of his writing, the delightful stories about the Glass family's genius children (that Wes Anderson would later rip off disgustingly for his own films), the clawfooted bathtubs, the wintry backdrops, and most of all, the deep loneliness that comes with being a child who is smarter than the educational system that they're trapped in. The loneliness that comes with depth of understanding, depth of emotion... insight... at any junction in life.

I know my father would understand this because he loves reading Salinger for the same reasons, but those years were often tense for other reasons, and we found ourselves communicating unfairly and untruthfully to each other. Salinger became my respite and my sanctuary when I needed to be elsewhere in those years, when I needed to patiently wait out circumstances that I didn't like, and still find something to deeply love at the same time.

Cynicism has been unfairly attributed to much of Salinger's writing, I think... there is a thin but firm line between the camp of viewing the world through eyes of cynicism, and viewing the world through the eyes of a sensitive lonelyheart.

The thing that makes me mourn his loss the most is the conversation I've had so many times with my parents-- the one about authors and artists being betrayed by their families after their death. Frank Herbert specifically said that he did NOT want his family to allow sequels to his bestselling novel "Dune" because it was an original work that was complete unto itself. His son dodged the legalities by making money writing prequels to Dune. And on and on, the families turn their loved ones over in their graves by cashing in on an empire that was not theirs to recreate.

Salinger could not be any more clear that the novels he wrote in his seclusion were his own, and not for the public's eye... not under any circumstance. I have very little doubt that these novels will be ready for public consumption in the future, and this breaks my heart.

We're just so obsessed, the human race, with feeling entitled to someone else's art. It's for us, never them. Put the cameras in Angelina's bathroom to see if she wears more mascara than Brad and her 20 children thinks she does. Splash it in tomorrow's news.

Maybe this is cynicism spilling over-- I hope it isn't. I'm just concerned for his wishes, and sad that someone who wrote books that meant a lot to me--books that helped me get into college, books that kept me company, books that helped me fall in love with the person I love so dearly-- is no longer here.

I'm seeing the world through strange glasses today--maybe I will feel less forlorn about things tomorrow. It's so odd how various factors affect your feelings about everything* (*and yet another reason why his work speaks to me so much). The exhaustion of hating my work environment and loving my job for so many years has finally hit me, like a huge, murky wave carrying sand and seaweed and trash, and my brain has become incredibly foggy.

The stress is really starting to affect me... stress from the unemployment debacle, infuriating circumstances with withheld wages and state investigations of past employers, not having an income for the first time in 8 years. I have found a way to push the stress out of my mind, and honestly thought that I was in "a good place" emotionally with everything, until the nausea arrived that didn't leave for three weeks. Then the nausea started attacking my chest, my lungs, and I realized that it's a large daily dose of acid reflux. My voice started to squeak from the internal chaos-- to break and crack, and talking made me feel more nauseous. Then my body said ENOUGH, J.Lo style in a martial arts outfit, and retaliated with a truly painful sinus infection.

It was enough to knock me on my ass for a few days, to keep me curled up on the couch unable to go too long without pushing a hand or a blanket or a bag of frozen peas over my throbbing sinus cavities or my aching neck. It's pathetic enough to make me feel like a put-upon Glass child, a Salinger story he wouldn't want to publish. It's making me really sit still, and examine what needs to happen. I'm hopeful, I'm scared, I'm new to this, but I'm in a hurry. My confidence has been run over by a herd of reindeer wearing lead boots; I've planted seeds for a new confidence that has no other choice but to bloom in the spring.

Change... I need so much more life experience to gracefully and effortlessly deal with change. It's still clunky for me to maneuver between dramatically different lifestyles... I still make mistakes when trying to negotiate change. It's frustrating, especially because the only way to get more experience is to have even more life-altering changes come along. I'm doing my best.

It's not easy when your feeling of 'center' changes... I'm off-center, and everything from my dreams to my routine has changed. Instead of starting the day at 8am pouring a cup of coffee and talking to Robin while ice melts off the tops of my boots, I start the day alone in my apartment, staring at the cursor on my laptop, wondering if I could trick myself into leaving my silent home for an hour or two. I feel so relieved to not be in a situation that was causing me extreme frustration and sadness, and so freaked out to be staring at a blank page. It's like leaving college all over again, staring at the commencement speakers with a pounding heart and puffy bags under my eyes, slowly realizing that there was no more syllabus in my life. There was no more built-in social network. Just me.

It's my job to find the means and the luck required to turn this new year into a new adventure. With meaning and substance, with gravity and a center. With love, and always, above everything else, with squalor.

the "up in the air" employee characters weren't actors. they wrote their own lines.

2010-01-29T16:26:00.006-07:00

It's not personal, Jane.
He stopped, cleared his throat, and gave a stiff two-note laugh. He laughed as if to try to convince himself of the truth and lightheartedness of this statement, and it gave him permission to repeat himself.
This-- this isn't personal.

He had paused when he reached the word "this", momentarily panicked when his mind advanced to the words 'employment termination', but avoiding it seemed to have given him some kind of rush. A small flood of relief to have dodged the awkward part, and arrived at the part where he cleared himself of blame. He sat back in his chair, looking pleased with himself. He rubbed his nostril with the side of his thumb, now actually feeling comfortable with what was transpiring. He looked so proud, and I couldn't help but notice how much he looked like a little boy. There was no question what he looked like 33 years ago.

My voice surprised all three of us sitting at that table-- myself the most.
Yes. It is.
His thumb stopped mid-motion, flattening his nostril.
What? -- N, no...
Yes.

Oh my god. It was my voice, undeniably my voice. I had broken an hours' worth of quiet, scared, wide-eyed silence, and my words were tumbling out of me. I needed to clear my voice badly-- it felt lost and strangled in my throat from where I had been burying my words-- but I knew that any sound besides words would break the spell, so I gathered my strength to barrel ahead.

It IS personal. How can you even say that? Of course it's personal. It's personal because you pay me so little, I have to work a second job-- nights and weekends-- to afford rent and groceries and still be able to put any part of my income away. It's personal because I worked hard, DAMN hard, at this job... I put my whole heart into this work. I made sure my research was correct, not convenient, I bent over backwards to make sure the educators thought my projects were accurate and high-quality. It's personal because this was my life-- I carried it home with me, calling my girlfriends and asking, 'have you heard about this? or 'do you know anyone who might be able to help me get info on that new study?'.

Every single day, my car is in that parking lot hours before you arrive, and it is there almost every day after you go home to be with your family. This is deeply personal...if anything, this is personal. So please don't tell me that it isn't.

On either side of me, two people sat and listened without moving or saying a word. It's the only time in the entire 75 minutes that they hadn't spoken, and that they had listened to anything other than themselves and the clock ticking above her desk, the one I had ordered from Staples and then taped large, comical wads of paper towels to the back of when the ticking had started driving her crazy two years earlier.

We didn't need to say anything after this. They assumed I would fight for it; but it wasn't mine to win. It's as if there was a game that they hadn't planned on canceling if the third member didn't want to play.

The silence hurt. It felt like a hand pushing my chest down into my lungs. My cheeks burned so hot that I knew I was furiously blushing. It didn't matter-- it was over. It was over, and the words that had been buried deep, deep down in my chest for so long... five years...had finally been released.

Ten minutes later, I sat in the drivers' seat of my rental Prius thumbing the key fob to its enormous, comical ignition. Tears were welling up, hot and furious, pooling on my lower lids and smearing the mascara underneath. I couldn't drive like this, but the blinds were raised on the second floor windows, and the setting sun was spotlighting my motionless form.

Across the parking lot, the rabbits that burrowed under my new corner office had gathered in the center of the common lawn, ears back, grass poking out from under their velveteen noses as they stopped chewing to stare back at me.

It was the last time we would watch each other through the wintry dusk, momentarily pausing to observe the other before turning our backs again, returning to our own lives, as we did every day. Every day the same as the last.

advice from Beulah

2009-11-30T20:10:00.005-07:00

The year is 1933 -- my grandmother Ruth is about 19 years old and she's at the movies with three of her best friends (who I believe she met at college).

The movie is "I'm No Angel" by Mae West* and Ruthie and her three friends are giggling through the beginning, middle, and end of the movie, I'm sure -- they were gigglers.

* (the pseudonym I'd use all through my 20s as my bowling ID, the name I'd sign affectionately to friends in letters, and a name I'd occasionally tell a drunk frat guy at the bar to get him off my case--not realizing the connection between Mae, my grandmother and me)

But it was these lines between Mae and her maid that would stay with her forever, passed down to me through laughter for many years:
Mae West: Oh, Beulah
Beulah: Yes, ma'am?
Mae West: Beulah, darling, peel me a grape.

Ruthie and her friends thought this line was so hysterical that for the next seventy years, they would all refer to each other solely as "Beulah." There are at least two living Beulah's today-- my grandmother passed away in her early 90s, and my second favorite Beulah is 95 and just told my mom on the phone that she finds it odd how hard of hearing and "noisy" the "elderly people at her retirement are." She says that eating dinner with them is like watching the "who's on first?" routine and she finds it so amusing that she has to eat with a straight face and then go back to her small apartment to dissolve into giggles at the absurdity and redundancy of senile conversations.
My mother asked if Beulah had a kitchen in her apartment.
"No," she replied, "and I like eating with others, anyway. I do have a mini-fridge but it's not much."
Mom asked, "is that just for your little snacks?"
Beulah, totally seriously, replied "no dear, it's for my vodka tonics."

Beulah, when I knew her, had a cone-shaped perm of red hair and wore a slightly mis-matched but radiantly Tim Burton red lipstick. She's probably all of 4'7" tall, at the most, with a petite but fiercely funny and alive personality. I barely know her, but I love her dearly.

My mom was amazed by how coherent and sharp Beulah was on the phone-- she's 95 and hasn't skipped a beat. Apparently she only paused momentarily to think of a couple words, one being "transcript" and the other was something like "happenstance."

Beulah said she was sad that she had to live in a retirement community and that she would prefer to still be at home, but her neices and nephews were concerned and wanted her there. Mom asked what it was like now that she had moved.
Beulah's answer touched me-- she said that although it wasn't her first choice, she was very happy. She thinks it's important to be happy with what you're doing, and see it with eyes that that's where you are, and it's meaningful. Find meaning where you are...

"the true voyage of discovery..."

Beulah really means it, and although I learned of her philosophy indirectly through my mom, the romantic in me feels like it was a small gift from Beulah and my grandmother to me.

I've been having a really hard time with anxiety and "big picture" thinking lately... while I feel happy, and am trying very, very hard to "do the right thing" with who and where I am, there is no subtlety to the feelings I have and the overt statements from some of my extended family and friends that "I should be elsewhere... doing something more with my life."

My philosophy so far has been to accept that thought, feel it, consider it, and store it away. I'm trying to accept where I am and what I do. I'm repeating to myself that the grass is always greener and if I leave, it's purely for cerebral reasons and visions of grandeur more than a palpable dream. But every time I drive through the roads of my childhood to see my family or friends... every time I see an old peer at a restaurant or show... it's a small sting that I haven't left the place that I so desperately wanted to leave from childhood through my high school graduation.

Beulah's advice makes me want to cry. I can't remember the exact way she put it, but just her firm emphasis that she's not wallowing-- she's LIVING damnit, and we should be, too -- is one I need to learn from. Especially considering how much more she's experienced and loved and lost and learned on this earth than me.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and feel like my face is aging more than it should be. Partially because the media tells me I'm supposed to have the complexion of a fetus, but also because it's changing in some ways. Sometimes I feel like the stress I feel inside is inevitably hurting my body, and the stress that I have because I'm feeling stress is just pathetically adding on to that. And I want to have radiant skin, healthy organs, and a heart that will beat away until my healthy mid 90s.

I want to live a life that's as happy as the happiness I experience every day, whether it's for an hour or 12 hours. I'm a sensitive and anxious but deeply happy and appreciative person, which is a weird and almost impossible combination.

There's something so magical to me about the 95 Mae West impersonator finding humor in "those old people" in her building. And accepting her situation with a full and sincere heart. No matter where we are, we can choose to live our lives consciously, or begrudgingly.

This year, I want to learn how to breathe more deeply-- how to let things roll off my back more easily. I want to adopt more grace and inner strength. I want to continue to feel overwhelmed by the happy moments I have with Tom, my family, my friends, and no matter how sappy it's made me this year, I want to keep experiencing this level of intensely happy and grateful love that I've finally found.
Looking back, it's clear to me how deeply unhappy and claustrophobic I get when I'm unable to vent my worries, especially the deep-down frightening ones... and when I'm unable to express, feel, or receive the heart-tugging joy that really emerges when you love something with your whole heart.

The shmaltz has been turned on. Uhgain.

I'm so appreciative for Beulah's words, and for her spirit. I so hope to be like her, my grandmother, and my mother when I am older.

ugh. at the beach.

2009-11-22T23:09:00.002-07:00

the email I wrote, 4/07/09 at 7:57am

To whom it may concern,

I'm writing in hopes of reaching your customer service and/or advertising departments.

I have never written an email or letter complaining to a company before, but your current (animated) commercials are so problematic that I feel very strongly about reaching someone at At the Beach Tanning to voice my concerns.

As a video producer and advertising copywriter, I understand the gimmicks in the television business very well, and it's obvious why your company chose to have an animated woman with a thick, strange voice describing your tanning services. This isn't a case of someone writing to you who 'just doesn't get advertising'. But your commercials are so offensive that my skin crawls when they come on.

My first concern is the volume of your commercials. They are so loud that I have actually had to change the volume of my television in the morning-- I keep the volume moderately low to begin with, but loud enough that I can hear it when I'm in the next room getting ready for work in the morning. Because of your commercials, and your commercials alone, I can no longer listen to shows while I'm in the next room because your volume is SO much louder than the rest of
commercials and TV shows that it will bother my neighbors in my apartment building. It's absurdly loud. I've never had this problem, but thanks to At the Beach, I can't even watch television before work now.

Also, the 'gimmick' of having your animated character swear so much that her words have to be censored-- well, I'd rather watch someone having a root canal trying to sell me their services. It's so annoying that I've had friends leap up from my couch in the middle of our conversation in an attempt to find the remote control or get to the television to turn it off because it's the most annoying commercial we've ever heard.

I volunteer with young foster children, and if one of them was at my home when this commercial came on, I would not only find this idiotic, bronzed, swearing cartoon character too embarrassing to let the kids watch, but I would also feel deeply disappointed that they had to see
a cartoon character act like this. Children shouldn't have to see animated characters dropping words that are so offensive, they have to be censored... especially kids whose only escape from the harsh language they get at home is often through things like animated shows on television. I've honestly heard other people complaining about this commercial, too-- co-workers
have even brought it up on more than one occasion during our lunch break because they saw it before work, and at 1pm, they're still annoyed enough to remember it. This isn't a way to generate business-- it's just a way to link your company name with mediocrity.

I hope that you will add these concerns to the other negative feedback you've collected about this e-mail campaign, because your commercial isn't just something that I don't care for-- it literally raises my blood pressure from how annoying and moronic it is. I'm sure that At the Beach can come up with a campaign that increases your client base without making the rest of us
have to get ready for work in silence every morning. I don't like writing a negative email, but I'm sure you can come up with a campaign that promotes your services and touts the talents of your hard-working employees... I'm writing to ask you to please withdraw the loud, language-bleeped series that you currently have running on television.
And please, please, TURN DOWN THE VOLUME. No one likes to be yelled at.

Thank you,

Jane Simmons

The response:

	from	At The Beach, Inc.
to		Jane
date		Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 8:52 AM
subject		Re: current At The Beach commercials

Ms. Simmons,

I would fist like to say Thank You for your email. Although it definitely was to point, it was also constructive instead of nasty and argumentative. I have received numerous emails about this particular commercial because of what seems to be censored profanity. This commercial is currently under review by our marketing team. This commercial is not censored in Oklahoma because it does not contain profanity or at least the commercial played in Oklahoma does not. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you and anyone else who is dipleased by the content. I would like to further note that because your email is very professional I will be forwarding a copy to our President and Vice President as well as other corporate employees that have the power to remedy the situation. I have notified them of the numerous emails I have received in the past due to this commercial but never received one I could forward with confidence.

------------------------------

--------------------------
xxxx xxxxxxx
Customer Servce
At The Beach Inc. - Corporate Headquarters

the amazing update:
I never, ever heard that commercial again.

Even tonight, as I'm wrapped in blankets trying to finish some work with some left-over sleepy crankiness from only getting a couple hours of sleep on Friday... when an At The Beach commercial just started playing on whatever station is playing in the background, it was so much quieter than the show & other commercials that I thought my set had turned itself off.

Behold. The power of a well-timed rant. (Or at least the power of wanting to believe you had anything to do with something that turned out nicely)

mmm.

and I hear in my mind, all this music...

2009-11-08T18:31:00.002-07:00

...and it breaks my heart
and it breaks my heart

Last night, Tom, Thad, Josh & I went to see Regina Spektor at the Fillmore. I got tix about 3 months ago, so it had sort of been in the back of my mind since then, and with all the turmoil I've been feeling this month I hadn't really been thinking about the show.

And then Regina blew into our lives and unexpectedly transformed my night into something that felt like solid joy.

To me, Regina is the musician equivalent of Meryl Streep as an actress-- in an industry that tends to lean toward vanity and self-consciousness, Regina's genuine qualities shine in a way that is rare. She lives and breathes music, and her gift is rare and magical. As Tom once read in an interview, when someone asked why she makes strange vocal sounds in a song, she seemed perplexed-- "that's because it's how the song goes". She isn't afraid to leap up an octave and then down two; to use her voice to emulate a drum snare; to end a note with the snap of a whip. She immerses herself in the music and the delicious experiment of making music with her voice, her hands; with pianos and guitars and a drumstick against the seat of the chair, and even holding a microphone and singing a capella jazz without a pindrop of sound anywhere else except her voice as a white spotlight floods light from above and clouds her in glitter.

Her performance was amazing. She's one of the few artists whose show not only reminds you why you love that artist, but she takes what you love about her music and turns the volume up full-blast. She gives you new takes on the tracks you've memorized and reminds you that music is an organic medium-- the song is as unique as the night, the audience, and the whims of the musician.

The music was great enough on its own, but what was even better was being there with Tom-- even just being out on the town made everything fresh and awake and aware. Hearing an artist that we love so much together, especially one he loves so much, was really special to me. I felt so close to him and happy. When the show started, Tom wrapped his arms around me and let me rest my head on his chest, and we stayed like that until the last note of the encore. It was one of the sweetest moments I've experienced since my birthday when we curled up in his chair together and listened to Neil Young's live sessions by the light of a tea candle, silently acknowledging the fact that somehow, maybe even that night-- surrounded by mp3 files and sleeping bassets and carrot cake with "extra ingredients"-- we had just started a relationship.

It was everything that a weekend should be-- it was wonderful. She sang with her heart and I listened with mine.

And as all weekends usually end, now I'm home,writing incredibly nauseating and sappy thoughts, unable to even think straight because of the profoundly loud bass that's been booming out of my neighbor's apartment for more than 5 hours, curled on the couch feeling anxious about work and bittersweet that the magical moments on Saturday nights have to meld into Reality by Sunday afternoon.

It's the peaks that make the pits bearable. Said the blue-eyed girl..

*Silly Eye Color Generalizations*

There are those boys with earthly eyes
Their eyes are like the ground
You walk and walk
Kicking up dirt
But they don't make a sound

And when they kiss you, they sometimes leave 'em open
Just to make sure you don't drown
Yeah, the sweetest eyes
The truest eyes are
Probably dark brown

There are those boys with golden hazel eyes
The color of weak tea
They spend their nights howlin' at the moon
To let go of the sea

The scope of their depth is terrifying, thrilling
You think you're finally free
When they capture you
'Cause golden eyes are as sticky as
Honey from a bee
I'm drownin'

But those with blue
I shouldn't trust
'Cause I myself have blue
You fall for them so easy
You think you see right through

You take a leap, thinking blue water is deep
When suddenly it's just grey rain
Then puddles at your feet
They freeze to dirty ice
But somehow they'll melt back to clean blue water once again
Confusing.

Blue eyes, they change like the weather
Blue sea, blue sky, blue pain
I wouldn't trust my own blue-eyed reflection
As far as I can throw that mirror
Bum bum bum

But these are just silly eye color generalizations
You shouldn't believe a word I've said
'Cause when you're lying in your bed
Darkness 'round your head
Your eyes might as well be polka-dotted or plaid
Polka-dotted
Or
Plaid

the rescuers

2009-11-02T22:55:00.004-07:00

exhibit (a): one of my all-time favorite movies. my favorite couple, tied with Cliff & Clair Huxtable. these two have inspired me from as far back as I have memories.

exhibit (b): my favorite Halloween date ever. adventurers for life.

exhibit (c): my sweet Bernard.

I'm not sure if a girl should be allowed to have her favorite movie and her favorite boyfriend combine forces on one of her favorite days of the year, but somehow I got away with it!

I dearly love this mouse. He is the Bernard to my Bianca, and I have never treasured anything more.

nightmares and rubix cubes

2009-10-27T10:14:00.003-06:00

for no reason, I had one of the gnarliest, worst nightmares last night.

It felt like I'd been asleep all night by the time 1:36 rolled around, at which point I looked at the clock, forced myself back to sleep, and immediately dreamed that I was walking in an unfamiliar neighborhood, standing on raised patches of dirt in strangers' back yards trying to find enough cell coverage to call home, and ended up being kidnapped by two Clockwork-Orange-esque thugs with oversized basketball jerseys, ominiously black and red backwards baseball caps, and a small arsenal of construction site tools. We were in an abandoned (but too-well-lit) building and they forced me into a corner while they picked up a faceless body and proceeded to kill the person in front of me. I was scratching at the floor and wall trying to get away, desperate to get out but convinced that there was no chance at escaping. As soon as their backs were turned I started scuttling away, crab or spider style, facing them but walking on the palms of my hands.

They turned and smiled. I started to make some primal, fear-soaked whimper, and the bigger of the two thugs-- in a white jersey, oversized Nikes with no laces, and colorless, greasy hair-- picked up some kind of mechanical, bright yellow tool that was like a corkscrew but with a huge spike in it instead of a spiral screw. He shrugged and the other thug told me that I was just making it harder for myself.
Still scrabbling away on the slick tile with my palms starting to slide out from under me, I summoned as much energy as I could to keep moving, and the thugs began effortlessly throwing the spiked corkscrews in my direction. The first one went straight through the top of my foot, clanging hard as it hit the floor, and as I screamed and my elbows buckled underneath me, I had a sudden anxiety-stricken emotion of feeling like a Christ impersonator as I waited to die, pinned to the floor.

I woke up unable to get a single deep breath in, and I couldn't make out any objects clearly in my dark room. I tried curling up but my legs were still wobbly and adrenaline-filled from the dream. As I tried to get my bearings and breathe in the darkness, Tom rolled over in his sleep, tucked his right arm across my body and mumbled softly but clearly-- "hi. I love you." before dozing back to sleep.

Probably one of the top 10 best moments I've had in 27 years on this planet.

Hours later, stuck at a desk with a computer full of puzzle-linked assignments that feel like a giant Rubix Cube that I haven't figured out yet... I can look out my window lost in thought, waiting for the skies to open up with fat, slushy snowflakes, feeling bolstered and wordlessly grateful for the small and incredibly valuable moments that the last 10 months have offered.

And sometimes, that's all a girl needs to get her head back into the Cube.

unexpected inspirations

2009-10-24T01:16:00.003-06:00

note to self, go here often and be totally delighted frequently...
http://www.williamhundley.com/index.php?/projects/entoptic-phenomena/

There's a first for everything...

I'm lying in (Tom's) bed after midnight on Friday... I've been home with the dogs since about 3:30, which has been nice, but the epic and exquisitely quiet evening has consisted only of the sounds of my fingers on the keyboard, the scritch of my nails on the dogs' sleek coats, an episode of an old Gilmore Girls turned down very low, and now some kind of oddly comforting periodic clicking noise coming from a lamp in Tom's room.

Fridays are braindead days and I should know better than listen to my thoughts, but in such a long, quiet period of thinking tonight, where I've seen almost no one other than my co-workers and the pooches except for Kelly when she stopped by to get Emma earlier... it's hard not to listen too much. And my head is so scrambled and upside down.

I foolishly thought that the review might be the climax of my week, since they can be intense and sometimes draining, and occasionally they can even (momentarily, but brutally) seem to ruin the very, very hard work of almost a year's worth of effort on a project that people... specific people... tell you (on a whim) (a whim! based on what they had for lunch, and what the person next to them just said... literally...A WHIM!... how curious) to change everything, just because that's how they feel and that's what would sound important if they said it.

I was really cringing in preparation for the review, but confident in my work and my team, and I've done so many of these now that I know how to make the best that I can out of the criticism, which is good... and hell, sometimes you luck out and get criticism that's super constructive, that gets your wheels turning and makes you feel like this product is going to be truly solid, with the whole company backing it. And wheee!

The meeting was alright. Not my worst, maybe not my best, but it didn't end in despair and I felt like if I somehow added more coffee the next few weeks and found an extra 8 hrs to sleep at some point, I might find the cunning resources to sneak the things in that truly need to happen without causing a ruckus.

Everyone who thinks they've got it made, take two steps forward! Not so fast, Jane Kathryn...

Ironically, after mentally preparing myself for the meeting on Weds, it was a spontaneous, casual and brief meeting on Thursday that ruined everything. A quick word with the boss about something that's been causing huge anxiety and frustration for me since I've worked with him, but said completely kindly and briefly and putting every "I" statement to use to simply say that our communication might be improved if we could both do one thing, and because speaking in company meetings is something that can be nerve-wracking for me, this would greatly improve my work environment.

I would've had a more favorable discussion if I'd told Napoleon that he was a nice guy, but I wasn't sure that a short man would be capable of suiting my needs.

The next 5 hours of my life were quite honestly 5 hours that I might remember until I'm an old lady. The way my boss descended into a defensive, insecure, blisteringly sarcastic, angry, hot mess was like watching something on a nature program where you hold the remote control in mid air, incapable of changing the channel due to the profoundly awkward, yet primal, situation that's unfolding around the watering hole. Not with the mighty lions fighting for the lioness, but in this case, one of the bizarre, scraggly, hyena-esque animals that has to wait until one of the lions has been fed before he can try to get his chance to drink, and then his display of alpha behavior is so grossly exaggerated and inappropriate that you wonder how he lived long enough to become an adult.

This all sounds cruel and exaggerated, but I want to REMEMBER, not guess, years from now, that I am looking my future self in the face and saying... remember the meetings this man dragged you through in his office a few years ago and tore you down as a person-- not an employee-- but as a person, to temper his sniveling fits? Remember when he put his finger in your cheek and called you an arrogant bitch in his fury that someone had just told him to fire someone (me) that he didn't want to fire because he had absolutely no reason to? Well you're THAT MAD about this one too, future self, and in fact you're probably MORE mad if that's possible in any way, shape or form because this time, you're already onto this guy and you aren't shocked that he'd act this way.

And this time, because you're desensitized to it, you can sit back and watch as his hands begin to shake, how his Adam's apple fights against the new shirt-collar that's under the new sweater-vest and how some of the gel or oil or whatever's in his hair has created a spot on the collar of his shirt back by the nape of his neck. This time, you can completely observe without the blind shock of having someone unexpectedly cross every professional and social boundary by flipping out at you for no reason and continue in such an exaggerated and heated display that even trying to retell an abbreviated version of the story to someone later will require at least 15-20 minutes. At LEAST.

Oh, this man. This little insecure dweeb of a man who has clawed his way to the top and battled with those who have also clawed their way to the top, and now-- even more significant than the man who sat next to me yelling 3 years ago-- he has no one more powerful than him, so he feels even more entitled to say things behind closed doors that are in No. Way. appropriate for work, or friendships or family relationships or any other kind of human interaction. It's just crazy, is what it is. Someone at work recently described him as a maniac, and they're right. He's a tightly wound, Napoleonic, egotistical, trembling little wombat of a man, and he is in charge of my company.

And god damnit. I'm tired of bullies.

The Sound and the Fury of this epic battle with this little cave guano was some kind of significant breaking point for me. When he jumped out of his little CEO rolling chair yelling at me about something so ABSURDLY untrue and unfair and downright cruel, I felt a physical cracking sensation of all of my patience and frustration and intentional self-distraction just snap somewhere deep in my spine. I had a sudden vision of my entire back being constructed of straw, and all of the vertical pieces that were bound along my spine, the strongest of the straw, gave way and released a thousand dry molecules of dust and straw residue and anger into the air.

I walked out of his office with a trembling but fiercely contained demeanor-- so tight-lipped that air could not pass through-- I let him play whatever game he was playing, but I know that he saw the blood boiling in my veins, the fierce and unapologetic anger in my eyes, and he must've seen the deep red lines that formed from my neck all the way across my chest. I dont' think I've ever flushed that deep red before and I can't believe that he-- and that meaningless day of all things-- were the culprits for anger that physical and intense.

I walked out of his office silent and proud, and I walked straight to my desk with hands shaking so badly that it hurt to try to steady them by my sides. I drove home, the longest drive I've had in a long time, and as soon as my key turned in the doorknob I fell apart-- the straw broke down my sternum, across my ribs, it broke in my arms and in my pelvis and in the tops of my legs, and I fell into my mattress with more weight than I've felt in years. I cried and seethed and lay there, totally dead weight, for almost 10 minutes... feeling like I had so much anger that I didn't even know how to physically get it out. Crying wasn't doing anything, and there wasn't anything I could've done to stop those sobs from leaving my chest.

I even called my parents. My mom had helped me think of positive ways to talk to him, and so at least she knew what I was talking about and how absurdly inappropriate he had been, considering the small thing I'd said to him. My father answered the phone by telling me he was about to complete the matter of his will and testament, and how complicated things were going to be with his Name, capital N, for me, and god forbid if something happened to me and if I don't have kids, there's nowhere for his legacy to go.
Oh god. Poor dad, poor dad with his innocent sentence and the gurgled sobs he was greeted with in response.

The typical situation here would be for my dad to try to say something supportive but to obviously be surprised and a little freaked out to talk to me... and end up saying something along the lines of me obviously not doing something well enough in this situation. But he didn't. He softly asked what was wrong and, for maybe the first time ever, I was able to say it so perfectly:
"I'm being bullied at work, dad. Intensely bullied, by two people, every day. And I'm fucking sick and tired of it and I just wanted to call you."

I don't know what he said, but it was soft and gentle and unbelievably supportive. He knew instantly what I was talking about and didn't ask any more questions. He knew exactly how I felt and although his anger probably matched mine-- I get my insanely protective gene from someone-- he just was THERE for me. And with everything dad and I have gone through with his health and job stress in the past two years, and the demise of every conversation we've tried to have, it was the most perfect moment I've had with my dad in a long, long time. 24 hrs later, I still feel totally calmed and empowered and comforted by that one moment I had with my dad.

The amazing thing was that I was able to return to work-- bloodshot eyes and a blotchy face, but to the best of my ability-- within 30 minutes of leaving InJoy's parking lot. So given labor laws, those 30 minutes counted as my 2 paid fifteen minute breaks, and I got to add that time to my timesheet as "general time." TAKE THAT, corporate America! I just had a life moment on YOUR clock! haha. suckers.

Last night, the dogs slept for the first time, and even when Peter called from Chicago in the pouring rain after midnight, I was able to groggily have a conversation with him about 5 songs, and missing Tom, and my asshole boss, and the guinea pigs that I literally almost called the cops about because I thought they were a burglar breaking into the house. Fell back asleep, dreamed flat dreams, and woke up at 7 feeling exhausted but totally free and bolstered. Free that I was truly so much better than the creep who abused his power to make me feel small. Free from needing validation and authoritative figures to like me, like the old me would've needed (the old, 3 years ago me). Free from worrying about where my life was going right this second, and free from the daily heart-twisting worry that my relationship with my parents is stressing me out because it's too entangled with hurt and snippiness and miscommunication.

I felt amazing.
I went upstairs and danced with all 3 of the hounds in the kitchen in my pajamas, hair sticking up everywhere, a huge smile on my face and the calmest feeling in my body.

As with anything... a burst of joy, a hot shower, several whiskey drinks in a row... the extremely warm embers can often cool quickly, and returning to work and The Troll and even more lectures and tedious, achingly tedious tasks ahead of me wasn't a total joy. I rode the wave until tonight, when reality started settling back in and I realized that I do... very truly... very hold-myself-accountable this time... need a new job, because I'm extremely unhappy at my current one. And I'm really, really sick and tired of being unhappy.
So Friday night was spent on the couch trying to do freelance work, but mostly sitting in complete silence looking at the dogs, being lost in extremely deep thought, facebook chatting about work and then with Meghan in Chicago, where it's pouring rain, where Tom and Peter and my Peter and Melissa and Beth and Dave and Kerry and Anna and many more of my dear people are being drenched in endless rain.

I'm doing something I've never done before-- I'm being pathetic and sleeping with one of Tom's shirts. I'm extremely lonely tonight without him and being in his home without him makes it even worse. I'm so sad for him that today must've been sad and difficult and scary, if it's anything like what I've experienced in the past when losing a family member. My heart hurts for him and yet his voice was so warm and sincere and quiet on the phone the couple times he called, he really has a beautiful way of describing things concisely. A skill that I lack, to say the least, and yet another crossword puzzle moment of 'wait, why are you with ME, again?'

God, I'm feeling lost, though. Freaked out that my life needs to change or I may not be able to shirk off the deeply anxious feelings that have been following me like a swarm of bees.

This shirt smells like him and it made me tear up when I saw it because even his shirt looks like him... it's like it maintained the lines of his shoulders even when it's folded up. So I'll be creepy and sleep with his shirt tonight and wait it out, just a few more days before I'll (hopefully) feel more energized and be laughing off the Incident and be inspired to find more beauty and less mirth in my daily activities.

It WAS amazing to find these beauties as I was crawling into bed. I guess the photographer has people curl up in fabric and just leap. They *really* speak to me... I mean, they completely fit in some part of my brain that wants to be amazed and delighted and not even think-- just feel this blobby but ethereal whomp of color and motion and total stillness.

AUUUUUGHHHHHHH, she screamed into the unnamed void... AUUUUUUUUGHHHH...yelled the dust speck.

I need to find a way to be creative with my current life. I will not make it if I don't. I cannot exist on this earth without having an outlet to be creative and academic and witty and without-all-the-answers on a very deep level.

I just want to express myself like this so badly...

I'm so glad to have found these. They are the most lovely thing to look at while curled in a blanket at the end of an extremely trying week...

I will accept my lack of and currently frustrated relationship with words tonight, and instead I will illustrate about a thousand thoughts and emotions that are pouring through my veins with this, which sums it up effortlessly and beautifully and so deeply that if I had any tears left, I might spare one just for this:

basset madness

2009-10-21T21:33:00.003-06:00

This is what I'm going to do when the weekend hits.

This is also my current view...

Babysitting the Bassets at the Glenn's house for a few days while they have to take an unexpected road trip to Chicago.

The past couple of days have been pretty nuts, and I'm trying to convince three crazyass hounds that things are NOT nuts so they stop chewing each other's faces for a few minutes... poor girls. They must be wondering what in the fresh hell the weird blond lady is doing here, with circles under her eyes, hair sticking out of a bun in all directions, red suitcase, a bag full of soup and cereal, and clunky clogs.

This week, it's been one odd thing after another. Yesterday, things started falling apart... cartoon stars of zinging pains started shooting from my middle, it started to hurt every time I swallowed in that weird, pre-strep throat kind of way, weirdness started building up at work and I couldn't stay alert for all the tea in china. Canceled plans with Tom, took myself home, put my pajamas on, tucked myself in with food and a vague fantasy of sleeping until next week. Then the call from Tom that his family needed to leave town, and then a pathetic, fumbling attempt to get myself up and together and somehow helpful and on the road. By the time I got back to my apartment, I discovered that 3 of my 4 stovetop burners weren't working, the leak in the sink's faucet had grown, and my refrigerator was making the exact noise that a refrigerator's final chills might sound.

Things just feel out of place this week. Today was the Huge Video Review day... when every boss and their boss's boss sits around the conference table and opens notebooks and writes down everything they can find wrong with the rough cut of the video. It was also the day that, while trying to get stuff together to wear for Huge Video Review day and then a few days of throwing the tennis ball around for the hounds, I went to war *again* with my doctor... I went to refill my every-single-day prescription, the one she just filled for me... after trying to kill me with some kind of daily misery-maker plus hallucinogenic that she thought I'd enjoy for a few months... and the pharmacy informed me that I had no refills left. Um, excuse me? I just started this.
Called my doctor's office and was informed that she (and her entire staff) were out of town, and no one was on call. Except for a doctor who would only be called if I was lying in the street, in the words of the answering service lady-- "bleeding to death".
So back to the pharmacy I went. Where I had to talk to a pharmacist and then the Top Pharmacist who both told me that I was just shit out of luck, sorry, their hands were tied.

I do not like crying in public.
I do not like Big Video Review Day.

0-2 today.

The dogs are chewing on each other's faces. The guinea pigs are making some kind of unearthly robotic chugging noise as they hide in their home, eating the carrots I left for them. The snake is halfway into his hideyhole in his tank, and the turtle is presumably underground in the back yard, enjoying a long winter's sleep.
I'm missing the boy fiercely, and anxious for the week to end, but there's something nice in being able to at least take care of someone's pets when they need a hand. And it's nice to pat a whimpering furball and look down into those huge brown eyes and feel needed, too.

Time to tuck myself in.

where turtles sleep,
she sleeps

edge hill

2009-10-17T00:32:00.000-06:00

today's been a whale of a day.

countless little things have been building up until last Sunday, when I felt like someone added a tiny green pickup stick on top of the pile that made the entire structure fall-- count the sticks still touching at the end and subtract them from your score...

I know, firmly, that things will get better. And I keep reminding myself, over and over, of how good so many things are, and how I just need to keep a clear vision of that and hold onto it as I weather the things that have me twisted and knotted and worried and awake at night.

Sometimes though, even when you are very grateful for the things that you hold dear and fiercely optimistic for the things that are about to come, the presence of anxiety is very real, very physical, very relentless, and sometimes even scary. Always frustrating...and entirely draining.

There were times in the past when I struggled with these things; times and events that I try to not think about, but sometimes there's something powerful in remembering them...

tonight I had to wait a long time before I felt enough like myself to go to bed. I felt so relieved to feel "normal" and cheerful again after a long day, just excited to make myself as cozy as possible in bed and drift off. But as soon I got in bed, I was whomped with high-octane feelings and a blur of thoughts all over again, erasing the peaceful and Jane-like mood that I'd just entered the tree bed with.

It brings up cringe-worthy but very personal memories from the first few months I'd moved back to CO, when things were so intense and out of my control that I would bottle everything up until close to midnight-- the only time I was alone each day-- and then the emotions would rise to the surface, no matter how hard I fought it. Every day, month after month, midnight would be this oddly cathartic and deeply rattling experience, like the tide going out in my heart, revealing all the secrets buried in the sand below.

The memory of those nights literally makes me ache just thinking about them-- it feels like I want to go back in time and protect my old self from that experience. But it also makes me think about my limits, and accept the fact that regardless of whether I like it or not, my body has a very intense reaction to the internalization of stress. I think I've been trying to 'train' for this the past several years... trying to toughen myself up, increasing my tolerance to stress internalization the way an athlete tries to systematically raise their pain threshold. But tonight as I curled up in my tree bed and felt the immediate, visceral and involuntary pangs of stress release, I realized that I need to accept myself for needing outlets for frustration and stress and sadness and chaos. I need to be ok with the fact that if something's bothering me, I need to talk about it or write it out... I can't run it off or eat it away or tamp it down with a Mary Poppins & Bert-worthy chimney sweeping brush. I've been denying this for years, and my body's been fighting it very hard.

Ok. Ok, brain. Ok, clenched teeth and aching shoulder muscles. Ok, nervous stomach. I'm listening. I'm sorry.

Step 1: deep, deep breaths.
Step 2: Put on a song from Peter-- Edge Hill by Groove Armada-- and repeat over and over and over and over
Step 3: Wabash long-sleeve t-shirt that dad gave me
Step 4: gentle, non-directed inner monologue
Step 5: continue playing Edge hill until inner monologue leaves
Step 6: very quiet, mumbled, reassuring thoughts to self about what tomorrow will bring
Step 7: Curl deeper into the covers so the tide can return, bringing warmer waters. And whales.

*What is it about whales?
There are few things on this earth that make me question my religious choices more than whales. They are the epitome of spirituality and awe for me... something so massive and graceful and profound, and they share the same planet as we do. It makes the hairs raise on my arms. I'm dumbstruck every time I see a whale... I want to pull on the person's sleeve who's standing next to me, like a small child.
Look!
That exists!

Last week, when Jessie was visiting, we went to Lucille's for breakfast on a rainy Monday morning, and we were seated just a few tables over from Lamont...
my childhood hero.
It was a delicious but a non-translatable experience, reveling in the delight of my own inside joke...
every "magic does exist" tagline from every G-rated movie from the past 20 years wouldn't even do it justice.
It was a very sweet moment in a worried, busy time.

Memories of Lamont and whales.
To the sounds of Edge Hill.
The things that need to be remembered when things stop making sense.
The things to let go to.

♥

relentless heat

2009-10-12T22:07:00.003-06:00

I don't understand why I've never dabbled in crossword puzzles.

For some reason, they were a part of the paper I just never really noticed-- I'm not used to interacting with my newspaper, I just read it. Part of me associates them with opening the on-flight magazine during a long trip and having someone else's asinine guesses written in pen, bleeding through the article I'm trying to read and crowding my mind with germaphobic, claustrophobic ick.

I've only even picked up a crossword puzzle a couple of times, but overall I felt disconnected and a little confused at the whole thing, so I've never really committed. On Sunday, Tom met me at the coffee shop after I'd done 90 mins or so of freelance work, and he showed me how to do a puzzle. The NYT Sunday crossword puzzle, that is, in pen. My whole life, I've wanted to be with someone whose mind works that logically and quickly-- who devours the challenge in a quiet and deliberate manner. But it illuminated one of my girlish insecurities-- why would someone who does the Sunday puzzle that well choose to be with someone who struggles with visual gaps? Who hasn't practiced puzzles EVER, even though word play and trivia and clever games are among her favorite things? Should I be worried that he's with someone who takes twice as long to process some clues, and takes twice as long cheering when she gets a correct answer as he does?

Sundays have become crossword puzzles deep down in my bones... even sitting in the coffee shop and letting the Chai buzz fill my brain, there was an odd fidgety nervousness that likes to arrive around 3pm on Sundays. It manifested into a very strange and over-thinking night's sleep... I went to bed around 11:30, slept hard and overheated, and awoke ready to fiercely beat my recent arrival of Monday-anxious dips... I went to the bathroom to wash my face, pull my hair into a bun, and do an Annette Benning pep-talk, real estate agent style. I will sell this house today! Something was off. I went to the living room to turn the heat off, even though it will continue to pour heat directly into my bed all night if it's set to "OFF, DAMNIT" on the thermostat. The living room was blacker than a black steer's tuckus on a moonless prairie night.

I opened the door to my room, bobby pin between my teeth, left hand clutching a mound of twisted hair on top of my head.
3:00. AM. I'd had a whole night's sleep and peptalk in 4 hours and my body just wasn't in the mood to deal with my brain any more.

It was one of those days... I plowed through a morning's worth of work, sent a concerned email, mentally tried to remove the pestering pop-up voices of things that are too much for me to handle right now, and got up to put toast in the toaster for a small hummus & turkey sandwich. 20 minutes later, I returned to my desk while regretting the decision to eat an apple on an anxious stomach, and discovered that a leak had sprung in the ceiling. Right. Above. My. Head.

Papers splattered, computer splattered, coaster that Vicki made for me out of my first award-winning video splattered, speakers, purse, cell phone, lamp, desk phone, markers-- all splattered in ice that was melting through the insulation and tiles above my brand new desk.
Apparently it leaks so much that the fix-it guy in our department hadn't even replaced the rotted tiles above my desk. "What's the point? They're just going to get soaked again. You'd think I would've mentioned it to you, huh?" He laughed.

I leaned against the wall, finishing off the rest of my honeycrisp apple, watching the people in the office next to mine as they leaned against the wall and gawked at me, apple in hand, standing behind a mountain of plastic that I'd swaddled my electronics in.
I was ready for the day-- it was just 3am. And flooded.

I'm so glad that Tom showed me the art of puzzling. It was just what I needed last night when I got home, and tonight when I came home from work and destroyed what should've been a really nice dinner. I was so tired that I imagined cutting the chicken. I actually imagined it. In reality, I dumped the entire thawed breast in the pan and didn't realize my blunder until halfway through cooking it.

If I'm tired and flustered enough that a chicken breast looks like diced chicken, I need ... a padded room? A deep breath. A little more sunlight, a little less office lighting.

Something I'm prone to (not proud of, but prone to) is worrying when a moment, a day, a weekend-- anything relevant-- feels too special. I worry that if I let my guard down and get drunk on the delirious wonderfulness of whatever's happening, that I will somehow cast a curse and elsewhere, disaster will strike.
I'd be less prone to this if it was less persistent.
But that romantic and schedule-free bliss of a weekend with someone you love can so suddenly transform into a serious and sobering distance when something significant goes wrong. The care-free Friday night eating sweet potato french fries can somehow add even more snow to the deck above your office, resulting in a cascade of freezing water onto your head and belongings come Monday morning.

Untrue. Unfair. Glass-half-empty, and I know it.
I'm utterly out of juice, and it makes the highs feel even more intoxicating and the lows feel even more emotionally draining. There are rare times when I call my mom for help, when I've run so low on reserve battery power that I need someone to go to, and for some odd and endearing reason-- those SOS phone calls are just never really registered. She'll be cooking or looking out the window at a bird or watching baseball or thinking about something else, and I'll get some distracted "mm-hmms" and "oh! well that's too bad," in the most chipper register imaginable.

It's frustrating because sometimes I actually really want help-- I want to arrive at her door 30 minutes later looking bedraggled and lost, and have her help me unpack the bags under my eyes. But in some ways, it's sweet... it's sweet because it almost seems like she's so entrenched in her Mom world that she just doesn't have much to say when I confess being overwhelmed, and it's sweet because it reminds me of the many times that we've had the same exchange... I say I'm in over my head; she nods and stirs the chili she's making and says "well anyway... you should sleep and tomorrow I'm going to the bank, and then the..." and melts into mom chatter.

Her advice to me is always this: "get some sleep." That's about it.
I found myself saying the same to the one I love tonight. I was at a loss for words and the cotton between my ears is making every single thought not only obscured, but also delayed. I wanted to say so many things, but they all sounded like Latin (16 across and 10 down) ... and sleep was the only thing I could pinpoint as a viable helpful suggestion.

In some ways, it's such a pathetically unimportant thing to think or do.
But in others, I'm finding, it means so, so much to sleep.

I learned today that it's likely that the fetus has REM sleep in the womb... dreaming, presumably, of simply the muted sounds, lights and physical touch they're experiencing at that stage of development. If we dream before we learn to eat, breathe or cry, that seems like a pretty profound part of our lives. And if we can surrender the anxiety or joy or chaos enough to really sleep, to wrap ourselves in quilts and darkness and-- if we're lucky-- the arms of someone we love, and really let go, I think there's something profound in that kind of healing sleep. Whether we're exhausted or exhilarated, we catch up and find balance during the night. We wear ourselves out by getting up at 3, or indulge ourselves by getting up at 10. We ride the crest of waves that sweep us into the Proustian tide of sleep, and self, and whatever happens in our brains that makes sleep and imagination an essential part of living...

I can tell without even having read my last entry that this is probably exactly what I was babbling about in the last post. A forlorn, scattered, overly-anxious, sleep and dream-obsessed stream of words that leads to nowhere but the ocean.

Oh well. SOMEDAY, I will know which words to say, and I will say them at the appropriate time in the best way possible to the person who needs to hear them.
When that day comes, there will be champagne and joy and many, many lists that I will get to write out of giddy delirium.

by the light of the red star lamp

2009-10-06T23:50:00.002-06:00

the red star-shaped paper lantern ...
it was so, so pretty in the window of that little paper shop in Santa Fe.

I just didn't realize how RED it was going to be. I feel like I should charge my neighbors just for seeing it through the top of my blinds in the evening. It's very... Amsterdam in here.

Trying to unwind from a couple weeks of failing to unwind...

The sound of the heat kicking on.
The comforting feel of my enormous hooded Hamilton sweatshirt.
The smell of sheets tumbling in the dryer and the heating kicking on after many months of being still.
The strange sensation of a crick in my neck... the kind you wake up with and can't turn your head to the right all day.
The clock, reading 11:54pm, reminding me that I was absolutely required to be asleep at 10:30.
The odd pinch of a headache I've had for more than 1 week. Continuously. Some weird kind of diagonal sinus-pain headache that intensifies if I sit, stand, sleep, focus, speak, or pay bills.
The smell of peppermint from the vitamin gluttony I sprayed in my hair.
The unusual feeling of socks after months and months of sun-exposed feet.
The warm promise of cool-weather layers in fall.
The glare of a laptop stirring subconsciously reluctant internal monologues about not wanting to look into the glare of a desktop all day every day for the next few days.
The message I haven't listened to yet from Peter, left on my phone while I drove through country roads in cold weather, scanning the roads for dark raccoon burglars.

The ache of having to be patient when things are not on your terms, and not in your control, and continue being patient, day in and day out. The silent reminders to myself that positivity needs to flow through my veins until I'm so steeped in hope and gentle reassurance and, what my mother would call "self-soothing"-- that my blood will be replaced with unicorn sparkles. It's so odd to feel so firmly confident and positive, and at the same time, with equal intensity, feel anxious questioning nudges and frustration and confusion.

I am feeling very bedraggled and very worn thin, but underneath that I also feel immensely light. Somehow, I'm managing to take a little more on each day... the cliched "juggling act" comes to mind, but it is like juggling... job 1, job 1, job 1, job 1 & 2; job 1 & 2; job 1 & watch a movie with Tom & call landlady; job 1 & laundry & job 2 & getting that big email written...

The balls fall. BALLS. But there's no use crying over spilled beanbags, and I have a nest egg to protect and benefits to keep and people I love to see and a weary self who-- at some point-- will cash in those accumulating days off and just read until my eyes cross and then stand in a hot shower until my heating bill skyrockets and then Tom will come over to have a glass of red wine and he'll call me Liz Lemon while the squirrels throw seed pods at me from the top of the tree outside my apartment. And that makes all the early mornings and the humiliating mistakes at work and the weary Tuesday nights on the couch and the evening & weekend jobs worth it.

Julia Child was not an advocate of the Blood Type diet or the South Beach diet or the Caveman Diet. She deeply believed in "all things in moderation," even though she endearingly and eccentrically was known to give in to bliss and the sinful, life-spinning effects of red wine and chocolate and cream and romantic dinner company. I live in the lean, Pilates and rock climbing Muesli land of diets and self-discipline, but at heart I am a Julia girl. I work very, very hard for moderation, but many times I divulge in weary nothingness from the comforts of my couch and a quilt; I give in to chocolate and loud laughter at my office when I should be printing scripts; I lie awake thinking on Saturday mornings for a long time when I could be cleaning or working, but instead doing nothing at all, feeling protected by a warm and supremely comforting arm that's slung across both of my arms, occasionally twitching from REM sleep.

This is one of my biggest life goals. That even when I feel worn as thin as my aging black low-tops, staying up until 12:30 on a Tuesday when the alarm's set for 6:30, that underneath the weariness and nerves is still a sense of stoic lightness... that 'unbearable lightness of being' that so perfectly titles what life truly feels like.

Faith comes in all forms-- and for me, when things are confusing or rocky, it is the unbearable lightness of being that helps me find strength in unusual places.

For now, it's just the unbearable lightness of the red star lamp. Over my bed. Which I should've been in hours ago. Which I will turn on again tomorrow night, after another day that might feel endlessly long, but all in all, will turn out just fine.

To sleep, perchance to dream
ay, there's the rub
for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil
must give us pause; there's the respect
that makes calamity of so long life

...
thus conscience does make cowards of us all

cold snap

2009-09-21T22:34:00.002-06:00

worked from 8:30-5 today... slogged through 6 months of the things I'd put off...
it was unexpectedly really cold today. Freeeezing. Snow was accumulating on the Flatirons when I went to Target at 11am to get lamps for my chilly new office...

ellipses.
discouraging news on the drive home about something that I was so, *so* hoping would not be discouraging. Instant sogginess ensued. My clothes even felt sad. It occurred to me that disappointment actually seems to spill like an oily liquid-- it feels like it moves slowly, but it permeates *everything* so quickly. It takes a strong hand and a determined mind to clean it all out.

5 hours of tedious freelancing and now I'm a limp noodle, cross-eyed on the couch.
New scarf. Pink shoes. Transcripts to weed through tomorrow and more crossed eyes.

I suddenly remembered something earlier that I'd really like to add to my list of things to do in my life, and then promptly forgot it...
I hope it comes back. It was a good one.

Lately I've had some extremely strong cravings to be sitting on a beach watching the waves come in. Waves make life more interesting. They just make *sense* to me. I think more coherent thoughts when it comes to waves.

Tom had the brilliant idea over the weekend to head up to the mountains to check on the earliest aspen changes-- a valley swathed in yellow and deep green and then one lowly orange tree.
why? why just the one orange or red tree?

It's a mystery.

This is a silly pile of Gerber words and applesauce mumbles.

I hope that there is a bright-pink-sneaker moment of delirium in this gray cold snap. I really, really do.

Tonight I'll crawl into bed under blankets and sweatpants and wearium (a weary brand of delirium) and read the words of Fred Rogers to help my spirits:

*

"We all have different gifts and different ways of saying to the world who we are. The world needs a sense of worth, and it will achieve it only by its people feeling they are worthwhile."

*

"If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person"

*

"I think everybody longs to be loved and longs to know that he or she is lovable and, consequently, the greatest thing that we can do is to help somebody know that they are loved and capable of loving"

*

"At the center of the universe is a loving heart that continues to beat and that wants the best for every person. Anything we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow human beings, that is our job.

Those of us who have this particular vision must continue against all odds. Life is for service."

*

Confronting our feelings and giving them appropriate expression always takes strength, not weakness. It takes strength to acknowledge our anger, and sometimes more strength yet to curb the aggressive urges anger may bring and to channel them into nonviolent outlets. It takes strength to face our sadness and to grieve and to let our grief and our anger flow in tears when they need to. It takes strength to talk about our feelings and to reach out for help and comfort when we need it.

*

I feel the greatest gift we can give to anybody is the gift of our honest self.

percussive laundry

2009-08-24T20:49:00.002-06:00

It's Monday night... a long day of work and a long evening spent pacing around the kitchen is giving way to an antsy hour on the couch with "The Rachel Zoe Project" on Bravo because anything less vapid would shove my brain into overdrive.

(And because there's something about vintage fashion that gives me a glimmer of hope that somewhere-- beneath the snark and the unkempt hair and the dorky threads-- somewhere under the double braids on top of my head and the Patagonia waffle-print hoodie I hid in all day lies a woman who's normal enough to melt a little bit at the sight of truly beautiful dresses.)

This week has been so crazy. A week ago from yesterday, Tom and I had just settled into the couch with vino and a big bowl of popcorn to watch the season opener of Mad Men when my mom called from her never-used cell phone-- there was a strange calm tone to her voice, and the first thing that she said was that she was in the car because the emergency room cardiologist had said that "he'd live"...

I was so, so sure she was calling to say that my father had suffered from a heart attack that it literally took me about 15-30 seconds after the fact to realize that she had used my uncle's name instead. My uncle had a severe heart attack and-- according to the emergency room staff-- if the ambulance had spent up to one minute more rushing him there, he would no longer be here. It was hard to believe that this had really happened until I saw him two days after his quintuple bypass... pale and a little blue and his face twisting in agony from how uncomfortable he was, lying naked except for a twisted sheet and hugging a heart-shaped pillow in the ICU because even putting his arms at his sides could've caused another attack.

It surprised me that he had a heart attack, and even more surprising somehow that the hospital sent him home today... just because the robin's egg hue of blue I saw in his cheeks was such a sign of robin's egg vulnerability in one of the only family members I have, and I don't like the idea of him being home without the male nurse from New Orleans sitting right outside his room, watching to make sure that the heart monitor reads 'normal' and his breathing is ok.

My uncle and I aren't as close as I wish we were, but we're as close as I could get considering the dynamic of my family. Aside from my parents, I have one uncle and one aunt who I have any relationship with, and they just have three kids between the two of them (who I speak to once or less each year). My uncle is the only person I could call if something went wrong at home and we needed help. He and I didn't have much of a relationship until two years ago when my parents were in Europe and my grandmother had a stroke and was sent to assisted care-- then it was 6 or so weeks of seeing each other almost daily, and it was the first time as I saw him as a son instead of just my cousins' father. Ever since, I've wanted to know him better as a person-- I've wanted him to know me better outside of the "would you like me to tell you a story about when I lived in Brazil" conversation we have once a year over turkey at my parents' 4-person holiday table.

I was so scared when my mom called. I genuinely panicked... just for a second... and when the panic lifted and my mom kept calmly describing the ICU at the hospital, I felt like someone had pulled my rib cage out of my chest. I didn't even know if I could stand up straight. I felt like someone had just said-- "your family just got taken away and you're totally alone... JUST KIDDING! See you tomorrow at work!" The rest of the week was an odd blur. I just felt numb and sleep-deprived and confused.

Seeing my uncle get better day by day has been incredibly important for me. If he's strong enough to heal at the age of 65 with what looks like (literally) a power strip embedded down the center of his sternum... after a quintuple bypass surgery and coming within a minute of losing his life... I certainly need to be strong enough to face my fears about family and isolation and emotional barriers between people I care about. I need to accept my family the way they are and do whatever I can to translate the immense but secret and pretzel-knotted love I feel for them. The past is the past, and although the family doesn't make much effort to connect, I can feel that all 4 of the cousins would if we had a chance. It's awkward, but we all really reach out to each other when we see each other. Maybe this is the event that makes us all work a little harder to be a real family... hair unbrushed, wearing old pajamas, speaking too comfortably to each other over mugs of coffee instead of what we've always done, which is to have predictable, 2-dimensional conversations over wedding cake or funeral home coffee.

In some ways, I think this might be one of my best chances to get what I've been trying hard to find in my family. I'm sad that 40+ years of heavy smoking probably is what we can thank for my uncle almost losing his life, but I'm bolstered by the fact that we're here, and we can actually help him heal because he lives 15 minutes away instead of across the continent, as it sometimes feels. I'm anxious to hug my cousins and reassure them that I'll do anything I can to smack the cigarettes and heavy power tools out of my uncle's hands as he recovers when they go back to their lives in Mexico and DC.

Anyway.
So there was that.
Now my arms are jello, not from panic, but from a long day of aggressive typing and phone number punching-in and stirring garlic into the ground turkey browning in the fan-tas-tic new skillet I half-acquired from Tom this week as we hauled a bunch of his kitchen stuff into my tiny kitchen.

I'm finally learning the extent of my hidden-under-the-carpet bachelorette neuroses, since I've been working about 6 solid years on this specific neurosis and never stopped to really examine it. I can no longer pretend that no one will notice that I tend to make small meals over my stove and eat them over the sink while reading short stories. I can no longer come home after a long day at work, strip down to my skivvies and lie on the couch watching vapid reality shows on Bravo on Monday or Tuesday nights without someone calling to ask what I'm doing and catch myself when I want to bluff and say that I'm doing something meaningful and grown-up. I have to fess up to the fact that sometimes I come home from the gym so hungry that I could eat the wallpaper off the walls, and sometimes I eat three wheat thins with peanut butter for dinner and couldn't dream of eating anything else.

Food and love seem somehow impossible to separate. I certainly am guilty of eating when I feel especially emotional sometimes... I feel mortified when the person I love sees what a lame chef I can be... I feel sad when I try to show my heart and my love by making food and it goes awry (and up in smoke). I guess it's going to take longer than overnight for me to feel like I don't have to hide who I really am. I'm not even sure that I *can* do that. I thought it would be easier, but it's not, and in some way that's valuable... it means that I really am willing to *work* for this, and it doesn't just happen easily. My heart twists every time I'm reminded that now someone else will see my standing-over-the-sink meals... that my Friday night take-out schedule will be exposed... that the fruit I keep in the fridge a few days after it died will be noticed and I'll ahve to admit to the fact that I was just holding out hope in its restorative powers because I'm cheap and blueberries are not.

Another long, rambly letter into the white, forgiving rectangle of my laptop...
to the sounds of percussive laundry thumping in my washing machine, the smell of garlic on my fingers... the warm and complex sounds and smells of domestic life in my small, flawed, but much-loved home.

I could never be a city girl. Home is right under my nose, and I can barely get a grip on that. I don't need a bridge and tunnel mindset to complicate Home any more than it already is.

lunch time should just be a time for lunch

2009-07-21T12:22:00.003-06:00

well... unfortunately, it's my lunch break, and I'll be damned because I just decided against going home to make a sandwich because I have about six lettuce leaves and a bag of cherries in my lunch bag at the office.

This is why I loved the relationship between the star of "The Gilmore Girls" and her prim parents-- it helps me keep score accordingly with my family. Lorelai: 0 ; Richard and Emily: 27,000

My mom started in with the questions at the end of June-- "another wedding?" "yes, mom." "What are you wearing?" (her only question. she asks every time.) "well mom, whenever there's a wedding, I have two options. They're black and they're pretty and they're all I have. Although I might venture to try a 3rd black dress for this one." "how big are the straps? how low is the cut? how high is the hem?"

this is how it will go for the next 20 minutes.
How wide are the straps?
How low is the cut?
How short is it?
Then, she'll always say, "the straps-- I just can't picture the neckline that you're describing. Hmm."

What she wants to know every time is simply how much I'll be busting out of the thing. Now, I don't like seeing females dressed in way too low / way too tight clothing either. Just because the cut of the dress is sexy never guarantees that it will illuminate the true beauty and character of the woman wearing it. But my mother has been battling me over this since I literally developed anything to fight over... and I have never, not ever, worn anything that I would describe as provocative, save for the pink tank top and robe I wore in a comedy skit about a prostitute named Annie Sprinkle. The skit lasted 3 minutes and hell, I looked cute. I don't wear most of what my friends wear-- spaghetti straps, sheer fabrics, shelf bras, low-scooping necks or backs, halter tops that plunge. I dress pretty damn conservatively, for the most part.

This week, when my mom called, her tone was more authoritative-- she was finally taking action. We're going to a wedding together at the end of the week, and she told me that she was taking me shopping. "Why?" "To buy something to wear." "I have something to wear." "I'm not sure it's going to be flattering. Let's go shopping, I'll buy." "I'm not wearing anything that will embarrass you" "Yes, sometimes you DO embarrass me. You just don't always understand how things look on you" "oh, really?" "Yes. You really need to wear a skirt and a nice cotton blend shirt with a jacket." "...a BLAZER? You want me to wear a blazer to a wedding?" "Yes. I'm coming over."

This is where the fighting began. Not just a fight over shopping, but a fight over the fact that my mother has been trying to dress me like a 60 year old Emily Gilmore in a Chanel suit with pumps since I was in 6th grade. And to really add salt to the wound, I not only go far out of my way to try to avoid unflattering cuts, but I feel damn uncomfortable in a vast majority of what I wear (and like) to begin with.

I'm 27, and I'm in a sea of other 20-something women in g-strings, backless halter dresses that are secured with double-sided tape to the breasts, and Manolo Blahniks that boost you 4" off the ground. At a little over 5'7", I have to hunch over when I wear the one (modest) pair of heels that I own, and the first thing I pick out before thinking about a dress is what wrap I can sling around my shoulders so I don't feel self-conscious about my chest by the end of the night. Girls are supposed to have fun getting dressed for nice events-- but I bet I'm not alone that getting ready involves a decent number of bobby pins and a few stolen moments worrying about looking chubby in photos.

I'm far from having an eating disorder, and I'm far from being obese. But women typically are angsty about their self-image, and as much as I've been working hard on my own self-image and my own definition of confidence and beauty this year, I still wince for a minute when I'm tagged in people's faceboook photos, and I still cringe-- hard-- when I try on clothes in stores, with women standing outside my dressing room commenting loudly on each other's "perky breasts" and "wow, your ass looks so TINY in those shorts". For the rest of us, we're trying to get dressed as fast as possible and doing our best just to find something that fits right. Forget "fits... sexy".

I am still finding my own ways to improve my physical fitness, and doing the best I can to look in the mirror and find beauty in my imperfectly human form. I'm training my mind to appreciate the beautiful curves in women who are splashed in ads and on tv, even though we've been trained to appreciate their tiny, narrow, and flattest parts.

I understand my mom's embarrassment and her twin-set standards... but I don't agree with them. I just hope that if I ever have a daughter, I can teach her to celebrate her form in beautiful clothes instead of drill it into her that so many clothes can make her look less beautiful.

facebook updates make me cringe

2009-07-15T23:46:00.003-06:00

I really resent the ADD-immediacy of facebook updates / twitter / blah blah blah.

Honestly, I feel like this current internet-update mindset really mocks me at times.

I've been lying in bed since 10:15, and with the insomnia and chaotic thinking comes a series of unwanted 3rd person-ings.

Jane Simmons can't ******* sleep
Jane Simmons: disappointed
Jane Simmons seems to be regretting her choice of college. and career.

I took a badly needed 'personal day' on a whim and it only made the gnawing anxiety worse.
Weirdly enough, it jolted me out of the weekly slog just long enough to realize: I made lists about what I wanted to do this summer. They were incredibly easy and manageable, and at this point, halfway through July, they have not and still may not happen. Walk to Dairy Queen on a hot night; go for a hike ; go camping once ; make a s'more ; TAKE A SUMMER VACATION SO YOU DON'T GO NUTS; paddle around in the canoe ; go to the pool ; have a glass of wine on the patio at the med; BBQ a lot.

1 for 9.

The only thing that will get my tired ass out of bed at 6:30 is going to be a deeply ingrained sense of responsibility mixed with a dash of guilt and a pinch of 'oh fuck it, grit your teeth and it will be over by 6'. This is exactly the kind of grumpy, boring, old lady behavior that makes my skin crawl, but this week, this is a huge part of how I feel.

This is not me. This is not who I want to be. Where's Jane Simmons?

She's been replaced by her own name with a demonic cursor blinking next to it...

Jane Simmons is an anxious mess.

February-June 2009: in photos

2009-06-28T23:40:00.000-06:00

kestrel mornings / air conditioned nights

2009-06-26T00:50:00.000-06:00

:june morning:

along the edge of sleek, branch-less trunks,
kestrels cower together while their mother watches from above
three babies crowding the nest so much that
they resemble a feathered barnacle against the bark

their early attempts at flying earlier in the week
resembled slow, perilous falling
with panicked explosions of flapping at irregular intervals
but as they gained practice, the falling began to resemble infantile gliding

still, they retired to their nest at night to sleep
perhaps to dream about feathered flights
and in the morning, in the bright summer sunlight
I saw two of the three chicks flying across the lawn

it seemed odd that I could see their faces so well
until I realized that their bodies were facing mine
and in the early daylight, the image of the wheat field
was perfectly reflected from my vertical office windows

the first kestrel collided with the glass
with a thud and a geometric splay of feathers so frightening
that the second reeled in mid air to veer off to the right
and flew off in a jagged line toward the irrigation ditches

With a dry mouth and a pounding heart
I walked to the window, which showed no sign of impact
nothing-- stillness-- for a minute, maybe two
and then, finally, a brown head peering up at me from beneath the bushes

he took two small hops to the sidewalk, and waited
and my heart waited with him
cautiously, he extended one wing, and then the next,
standing vulnerably in the path with an arc of feathers around him

I felt an ache building in my chest
certain that one or more small bones were broken
knowing that a baby falcon wouldn't last long with territorial
redwing blackbirds and starlings overhead

the moment lasted forever-- he, standing with his wings outstretched,
me, running my fingertips over the latch on the window
and the drawstring on the blinds

and then, in three clumsy flaps, his wings arched and fell
and he was gone
I couldn't see his silhouette against
the bright yellow light that streamed in between the branches of the trees
but I knew that it was there

:june night:

air conditioners whir and creak and grunt
from the unit attached to my neighbor's building
inside, their floppy-eared golden retriever puppy
sleeps outstretched in his crate
dreaming about gnawing on Tom's hands with his shark teeth
and lying in a patch of sun
chewing
on rawhides
scented with bacon
while the old dog watches from inside

new regina spektor album

2009-06-25T00:16:00.000-06:00

I think the thing that I love about art the most is its ability to express things for me that I feel so strongly, but haven't ever found a way to adequately express.

On the flip side, there are times when art reaches out and says something so eerily close to what you've thought that it frightens you.
Especially when your inner monologue adopted a certain stanza or two of poetry that wasn't likely to ever be repeated or illustrated or-- worse yet-- explained better... by someone else.

Tonight my heart froze when I realized what Regina Spektor was singing about in "The Sword & The Pen" from her new album "Far". I felt sick for a second when I got halfway through the lyrics and realized that the chilling similarities in her song weren't a coincidental line or two-- it felt like lines and lines of lyrics that have been milling around in my subconscious for years. Lines that I don't want to think about or admit to myself that I think.

And then, overwhelmingly, I felt confused-- how could a phrase like "well then it's death from above, and death from above is still a death" seem so close to what I've often thought that it feels like it came from my insides, and here it was in an album? In Regina's words, which are so much more blunt and beautiful and scary than my words ever are?

This is like a secret, secret page from a diary I could've written before... years and years before.
But more beautiful and perverse and courageous than I'd be able to say it.

A song that feels like it's part of me; a song that makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I don't want to admit feeling a deep connection to it, but I do.

don't let me out of this kiss
don't let me say what I say
the things that scare us today
what if they happen someday?

don't let me out of your arms
for now

what if the sword kills the pen?
what if the god kills the man?
and if he does it with love
well, then it's death from above...
and death from above is still a death

I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live I don't want to live
without
you

for those who still can recall
the desperate colors of fall
the sweet caresses of May
only on poems remain
no one recites them these days
for the shame

so what if nothing is safe
so what if no one is saved
no matter how sweet
no matter how brave
what if each to his own lonely grave

I don't want to live without you
I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live I don't want to live
without you
I don't want to live I don't want to live
without
you

I think if I'd heard this at a different time, I would've been surprised, but kind of shrugged it off. It's probably too easy to get thrown off-kilter by sad songs when it's been an uncomfortable 9-5:30 work day...a 5:30-7:30 music rehearsal that made my throat raw and my fingers ache, leaving rosin and inky black oil from the fingerboard all over my fingers and my dress... a crashing halt to the day when the guitarist left, and I realized that it was just me and my toaster and some turkey and tomato and sourdough and a completely silent apartment complex...

A guaranteed combination to end up tired and melancholy on the couch, needing conversation or stimulation, but instead getting mustard on my post-its while I wrote long to-do lists that included way too many responsible and nerve-wrackingly adult things that I'm not good at.

I tried a phone call, but the words spilled out of my mouth faster than I could formulate them, and they created a traffic jam on an otherwise poor connection.

I tried reminding myself that life is not always on my terms, but it just reinforced the feeling that when you want to be swept into arms and laughter and sunshine and discussions about super novas while the sun sets over the tea factory, it stings a little when everyone else wants to be in a shell doing the things that need to be done, being responsible and appropriate.

Outside, the sprinkler heads are whining like tea kettles, and my apartment's orientation to the parking lot masks the scent of cranberry zinger and cool air wafting in from the foothills to the west, and hides the view of coyotes lurking around the fields looking for prairie dog meals.

These are not Regina Spektor moments.
These are New Argentinian Guitarist that I Just Imported Into iTunes moments.

I'm still learning.

...but in having new eyes

2009-06-02T23:15:00.002-06:00

"The voyage of true discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes," reads the exquisitely small font on my enormous Proust ring.

And I keep getting closer to tasting the peaceful promise of that line.

The work week has been terrible, and it's only Tuesday night. The only word I can think to describe it is a slow, dense claustrophobia that has consumed me by 11am both days... I felt the knots building in my abdomen this morning before I'd even left the apartment.
Hopefully this wave will break and crest into the more euphoric, productive high that I felt at the end of last week after a few similarly unpleasant days. I don't understand why something that should "just" be work can get me so emotionally involved, but I'd love to sit this one out for a while.

Yesterday was the most classic case of the Mondays imaginable-- I spilled an entire mug of coffee into my lap and all over my keyboard, a co-worker asked me if I was pregnant (as a joke, which I didn't realize until after the initial wave of horror that she was making a comment about my physical appearance), another co-worker later commented with a shocked expression that "I...have...larger...breasts!!!" than she thought (yechh), my project is so far from what I consider to be ethical and educational that my jaw was clenched in frustration for two solid hours before I realized what I was doing and got up to take a break.

My lunch turned out to be a comical marketing sham from the grocery store... the lucky lady curse hit so swiftly that I felt like I'd been punched in the back... I realized halfway through the day that my skivvies were on inside-out, and for no reason at all, that made me mutter "shitballs!" under my breath while someone walked by me.
When I went to the gym, it was completely empty, but halfway through my run a teenage boy hopped on the treadmill right next to mine and started reading my People magazine blatantly over my shoulder. I got a cramp near the ankle that I rolled over last weekend but still ran half a mile more than I was comfortable with in case he wanted to know if John and Kate plus 8 were going to stay together or if they were getting a divorce.

All in all, it was a frustrating but hilariously bad Monday.
And despite the mostly Jane-esque clumsiness that got me into most of those messes, I think what really is at the root of the jaw-clenching angst in my week is that I'm really, really worried about some of the bigger, less laughable things, and subconsciously I'm upset enough that it's making my mugs slip through my fingers, and my clothes are being pulled on in the dark without me wanting them to be seen at all.

Six months ago, I'd come home from a Monday and a Tuesday like these feeling really lost. I'd go to a coffee shop or retreat to my room with a book in hopes of pretending that I was just feeling normal.

Instead, I came home with huge coffee blotches down the legs of my pants and fiery aches radiating down my back... I slid into the couch to work on my CD books, and although I could still feel the pinch of worry in my temples and the knots from the work day in my belly, I also felt myself sinking into the delicious softness of my new couch cushions... the sanctuary of my newly spruced-up home... I felt myself taking deep breaths and letting go of the pins and needles that I was able to do without.

I didn't retreat as I usually do-- I just let my mind get a little mellow and reminded my lungs to keep breathing so I could let go of the rest.

The difference is that I've got a better a way to open my heart these days. And to be myself without berating myself. I've found something I've always wanted, and I'm so grateful to have found it that I feel as giddy as I feel totally peaceful. It's making my worry taste less acidic; my cereal taste more nutritions; my workouts feel less manic and my sleep is less interrupted by dark bat wings.

Life may always have complicated pretzel twists... but feeling really happy and very much in my own skin is all I ask for to take on the big stuff. I'm so grateful for Tom and it keeps coming out in blurted out, sappy-ass babble that I'm sure is probably getting annoying. I'm powerless to the sap. There aren't words to express how meaningful this has been to me, and I keep having to use a stream of small, almost meaningless clichéd words to get out what I feel so strongly.

I should go to bed...
with fingers covered in ink from glue sticks and old books
and my favorite t-shirt from hawaii to fall asleep in
curled up next to a big denim pillow shaped like the protective walls of a moat

with dreams of grandeur and a less stressful wednesday,
and the persuit of more meaningful celebrations of love and happiness

.jane kathryn.

and endless sea of rainy weekends

2009-05-10T23:14:00.000-06:00

holy absence, batman!

It's been forever. My life got swallowed by what can only be described as a 'lazily chaotic whale' this month... I'm behind on just about everything I want to be doing in my Jane Life, and slogging through work at a decent pace in my Employed Life.

Ze weekend: mother's day, Meg's bachelorette party, hanging out in bed with a big glass of water for the majority of two days, a delicious evening of takeout and conversation and crap-tastic t.v. with my prom date.

Tomorrow I'm going to test-drive my new (Tom's old) iPod at the gym to see if NPR and This American Life can get me to run any more efficiently than People Magazine can. I have several categories of 'lists of things that annoy me at the gym', divided by topic... hygienic issues, male-specific habits at the gym, co-ed habits that drive me batshit (texting on the stationary bike during the entire workout = # 1-10 on that list). For the female-specific list, there's wearing fancy jewelry while working out; wearing a baby on your back while running at full-speed on the treadmill; wearing more makeup than Victorian England while working out... and previously... reading gossip magazines.
Well. That one didn't bug me TOO much, but I didn't understand it.
Until I tried it.

The distraction is priceless. The font is just big enough to read when your head moving like a bobble-head. The pictures are huge. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is too deep to handle while sweating and barely concentrating. And-- the most genius part of all-- the magazine covers the calories burned / time countdown / distance data at the top, and the *format* acts as your guide for where you are in the workout. I am a terrible runner, I'm not in terrific Boulder Uber Athlete shape, and my brain is the antichrist when I'm jogging ("you're getting tired! You're getting tired and you just started! Youuuuuu aaaaaaarrrreeee goooooiiiinngg tooooo neeeeed toooooo stooooop sooooon").

I've discovered that, at a moderate jog, if I start with the scathingly vapid letters to the editor, flip uninterestedly through the fashion section, and feign interest in all of the longer articles (never skipping ahead-- the most painful part of the People Workout Routine, because you can't control how terrible each and every story is going to be)... I know that when I get to the stories toward the back about teenagers being stolen on spring vacation and parents adopting babies with a gerbil head and giraffe legs, it's time to peek at the time.
Granted, I'm still not a very good runner. But a combination of new running shoes and a guilty pleasure that battles the evil inner monologue during my workouts has made me *enjoy* running a helluva lot more. And that's worth the embarrassment when I can plant my palms on my knees at Harpos and bellow the names of 7 celebrity babies over a table full of people eating fish and chips at trivia night. Shiloh, Apple, Moses... I secretly hope that each of you grows up dumber than a post. I don't have any idea why, but I do. Apologies for my ill-will, and I hope you all have lovely lives.

Other than that, lots to come back to and babble about in the near future.
I have had little playtime on the computer... long, long work days make it really, really hard to come home to files that need to be formatted and fixed for the cd project, essays that should be written, music files that should be organized, iPods that should be filled to capacity, and software that should be downloaded and properly tinkered with.
Not to mention that I have been putting off a massive cleaning and re-organization of the apartment for about 5 consecutive weeks now, and I am barely on speaking terms with myself.

I've been feeling like total crap for more than 2 months, and it feels like that's seeping into everything else. The fekking mystery pains took a turn for the worst, followed by side symptoms that have been going on for so long, it's actually just gotten to the point of being comical. My doctor sent me off to the labs to get poked, prodded, and scanned, and the lab tech said that it was one of the most perplexing blood draws that she'd ever had... no matter what we did, we just couldn't get any blood out of my arms. I burst out laughing finally and said that I didn't feel like I had any extra to give her. The good news is that the blood work came back looking pretty good... the bad news is that it was fixed because I just gave up on my arms and sent them a vial of chocolate lucky charms.

Anyhoo. Things are going to be ok... I just feel *totally* drained from the last two months. What used to be tiny, stabbing pains once every few days (or once a week) are now every day, for a majority of the day, and come out at night with a vengeance while I'm trying to sleep. The pill I take to try to combat the problem was prescribed incorrectly in March, and my body rejected the mistake so dramatically that I've been paying for it every day for almost 30 consecutive days. These things aren't a huge deal, but what worries me is that I have a lot of conflicting reactions and 'action plans' from my doctor(s), and the research I've been doing on my own is equally murky and frustrating. I feel like I may be doing damage to myself by taking things slow and letting something possibly progress for years, but I'm also being told that doing diagnostic surgery and any reparative measures would also be potentially harmful.
So... that's not reassuring.
Especially when my doctor sees me three times in 7 days, and at the last appointment, says something completely different than she had 72 hours earlier (possibly confusing me with a different patient altogether?!)

UGH.
I'm so grateful that this isn't a terrible, life-threatening disease. I can't imagine having to deal with being your own advocate like this if your illness was putting your life on the line.
Healthcare is really scary sometimes. I'm incredibly grateful for health care and being employed at the moment... and for Tom, who is the only person I've really talked to about everything, who doesn't bat an eye when I'm tired and nervous and weepy, and who lets me vent and get many of the (too much information) details out of my system while he's mixing cherries into chocolate cake batter. I listed "going face-first into an entire chocolate cake" as a new symptom during my last doctor's visit, and because the nurse practitioner there is awesome, she recorded it into my chart next to "feverish nightmares" and "defensive reaction against new prescription".

Ah. I can feel myself stalling. I should've been asleep half an hour ago.
Goodnight, thoughts that I needed to vent into the vast universe.
Goodnight, posts with substance and interest that I will just have to post in the future.
Goodnight, Sunday night that is so cold and drizzly that I'm forced to wear a parka into my cold lonely little bed.
Goodnight until Monday.

and then what happens after they give birth?

2009-04-01T13:15:00.000-06:00

writing from my lunch break in the midst of an off-kilter day.
kilter...
quilted...
kilts...

delirium!

up almost all night, tucked myself in shortly before 3. did that weird thing where you wake up for about 10 minutes every hour, on the hour. Clocks are the weirdest thing to fumble for in the dark when you can't sleep... no matter what time the face reads, it's like a personal betrayal every time. Damn you, 5:13! What the f*ck, 6:13? people are ridiculous. get over it, jane's brain! it's just time.

Rolled out of bed at 8:20... huge sweatshirt, ancient ugly corduroys, messy bun, concealer under the eyes, make-me-gargantuanly-tall-clogs.
Thank god for proofreading to eat a few hours of the day. It compliments the messy bun days so well.

Vicki took an early lunch, so she's on the other side of the partition talking to an educator on the phone... the things she talks about on the phone all day are totally typical in context, I'm sure, but I love how absurd it is to listen to just one side of a conversation day after day.
"Oh. MMmmmm. Oh?"
*beat*
"And then what happens after they give birth?"
*beat* *sniiiiiiff* (slurps some coffee) *sniiiiif*
"mmm. uh huh. I see."

And then what happens after they give birth?
An unintentionally profound question about humanity.

I once asked my mom why she and my dad chose to put me in a room down a long hallway by myself when I was a baby. "We didn't really do the running down the hall to respond to your cries" "Really? Isn't that kinda lonely for a baby to be so far away? Wasn't that a long walk for you at 2am?" "No. We thought it was important for you to self-soothe."

My mom has devastating one-liners... she always has. Often I try to argue with her or pull more discussion out of them, but she'll lock into the statement and won't budge. I love that she's a sweet lady with a tough side... and it was an interesting insight into her parenting philosophy. "Self-soothe, kid." A notable trait for anyone to learn... 27 years later, I'm still working on my method.

For whatever reason, real or imagined, factual or anxiously anticipatory-- it's been a raw week. Raw like the heel of a deep purple onion that's just been cut open, with the jagged edge of the onion skin still hanging onto one side for an aesthetic treat. (Onion metaphors work for everything. I can't even fight it. It's a damn good source of prose.)

Lately, my brain is working hard to imagine a few "push this button in case of emergency" situations, maybe just as a character strengthening test? I'm not sure. (My mind, like my mother, doesn't spare a lot of detail.) I'm ok with it. I'll try to abuse it as an exercise in self-soothing.

When the alarm went off, I realized that my jaw was clenched (practically welded) shut. "RELAX," my first thought was. Which is always nice to hear, even if just from within yourself. As I searched for my huge Hamilton sweatshirt, I started humming a track to myself by the Audreys that Tom put in his top 5... long ride... it unwinds me, without fail. It's a song I've loved for a while, too. I've been playing it in my mind over cups of cold coffee and the huge sweatshirt as I bleed all over the facilitator's guide proof in ink.

whoops... journaling over. lunch over. Across the hall, the shipping manager is hammering the shit out of a huge shelf. Vicki is shouting and screeching laughter to the educator on the phone. Down the hall, edit suites are blasting the sound of baby cries that indicate hunger.
Back to bleeding ink.

long ride
that you are taking me on
on a long strange ride

there must be
(there must be)
(there must be)
there must be something else
we haven't found
on this long strange ride

long night
and even longer day
I've been travelling blind
it's time you rest your weary eyes
love,
it's been a long strange ride

happily ever after

2009-03-18T23:45:00.000-06:00

It's strange how we all tend to tap into that vague feeling that celebrities are super-human-- that they are somehow a little more protected from the elements than the rest of us mortals, despite the fact that centrifugal force is holding us ALL onto the same planet with the same risk level all the time-- code orange-- leave your shoes in the bin at security.

When a celebrity dies in a senseless tragedy, it is always a startling feeling. I'm truly saddened that Natasha Richardson died, especially from a sudden and completely bizarre beginning ski accident. Her husband, her sons, her mother, her close friends... all wake up today without this woman in their lives, and they are forced to pick up the pieces and start over.

It's terribly tragic. I've written a lot in this rambly, emotional little 'blog' over the years about the feelings of vulnerability in senselessness... mortality... the fear of having things wrenched from you. I'm sure that in most journals, you can flip to almost any entry and read more or less of the same.

Something that I've been thinking about a lot lately is what I affectionately but truthfully consider to be some kind of abandonment complex. Complex might not be the right term... there's a lot attached to a complex... but it's definitely a constant source of dormant anxiety within me. In my experiences with family members and close friends, I seem to have the volume turned up in this arena more than the other people who are close to me seem to, but it's something that I'm sure we all share to a great extent.

We all need human comfort and the closeness of others, but we're all so hopelessly neurotic and nerve-y about relationships. And of course that seems to come from fear. Fear that we're 'settling', fear that we're not spreading the 'seeds to the wind' enough... whatever psychobabble we want to say about it, it's really a fear of loss. Fear of finally letting our guard down enough to truly love someone, and then the crippling fear of losing them.

I'm not sure if my 'loss' anxiety seems to be cranked up because of family stuff, but I'm sure psychoanalysts would roll their eyes, chew the end of their pen and tell me that I'd be crazy if that wasn't the case. I hate most of the things that people try to pin on only children, but one thing that I do feel very strongly about is that I'd be a less anxious person if I'd had siblings.
(*unless I had an extreme personality in the family... someone who brought out the absolute worst in me, or someone who was very volatile and worried me all the time)

When you're a small child, the world is much rougher around the edges. Your physical relationship with the world is constantly changing as your body is growing (and your understanding of gravity is adapting)... animals with big teeth are chest-high or taller compared to you... stoves are much hotter and the sun burns much faster than you expect. Children are also notoriously mean to other children due to the fact that the Id is a very loud little f*cker, and they're obviously still learning to test boundaries and explore what communication and human relationships are all about.
The thing about being little is that you're constantly, *constantly* aware of how much bigger and different adults are than you, and people your own age are very, very meaningful because of that. Adults have all the power and answers and physical ability to lord over you, but other children help you see the world through a *child's eyes*... and there's a certain comfort in any stage of life that goes with being close to someone who's close to your own age and status and life experience.

When you're four, or six, or nine, relationships with other children are very volatile, at best. Your friends can be determined by how many cupcakes you bring to share with your class, or what Kelly said about you behind the tree when you were going down the slide. In my case, there just weren't other kids to be found, for the most part-- my family lived in a *wonderful* small house on a busy street that was flanked by elderly residents. The few kids who lived nearby, three that I can remember over the 8 or 9 years that we lived there, were all in difficult family situations, and 2, or maybe even all 3, left my life when their families packed up and left at 4am because they could no longer make payments on their homes, or deal with the crazy exes following them around.

At school, as every American child experiences, the other kids were either bullies or too popular, or they were friends... as long as childhood friendships last. Some were sweet and meaningful; some were terribly painful; many were just fickle and short-lived because that's how kids are. I was the same person I am today-- a totally exasperating, people-loving ham, but inwardly very shy, and when I was a kid I had the stigma of being 'the weird girl who went to the upper grades for part of the day for reading period', so a lot of kids pulled the "I won't play with her because she won't say the words 'awesome' or 'boogers'" card. I don't blame them. I wouldn't play with Joe D' orazio because he told me that he was working on a motherboard that would eventually be a robot who would string my brains along I-25. We were all exclusive little anklebiters, and we knew it.

The point of my rambling is that, as the kid who was growing up playing by herself and watching the old folks on my street out the window every afternoon, I didn't really get to tune into that kid frequency that teaches you how and why kids say the things that they do. I didn't understand that Tim might just hit you because he hadn't had his nap... playing by yourself, you don't get into fights with ANYONE, so when Tim hits you, or throws a tantrum, or says that you're ugly and he hates you, your world is *rocked*. Parents don't talk to you that way, and their 30-something friends certainly don't. So why would these kids hate you? What did you do?

It's just an odd introduction into socialization... looking back, I realize how deeply I really felt the loss of those elementary school friendships. I idolized my cousins, who were a few years older than me and lived in Boulder, but in kindergarten our families went different ways. A big part of me always felt that I was to blame for them leaving my life... that somehow, by being so excited to see them and play with them, I had actually driven them away.

So, as any 20-something adult, this is an interesting time to look back and try to sidestep the b.s. that comes with psychoanalysis and get into the interesting aspects of it. How *do* I feel about close human relationships? Really close human relationships? How many of my actions are dictated by fear... and really, really old fears that have been settling in my brain since I was a kid? How many of my actions are dictated by a sense of responsibility and logic? How much of my life is currently dictated by joy?

I think the most interesting question I've asked myself recently is how I *truly* feel about joy.
I strive for it in many of the small aspects of my day... I try to surround myself with it... I try damn, *damn* hard to be honest with myself when I know I'm griping or being petty, but to keep the 'bigger picture' joys in the back of my mind when I'm done being a whiner.

This last month, I've had a life change that's totally new for me, and it's revealing some of my character flaws that I wasn't quite expecting. It feels like someone lifted a big rock off part of my personality, and I'm standing here watching the rolly polies unfurl in the sunlight; confused little black bodies in armor, with their little spindly legs feeling out from underneath their shell in buggy confusion.

After all of my big pinwheeling arms song-and-dance about 2009 and 'finding myself' and forging new frontiers and completely reinventing the wheel, I turned around and ran smack-dab into a really, really good relationship. It hit me like a softball to the face... I not only didn't see it coming, I got hit particularly hard because I think I was whipping around to announce to the world how confident and fine I was with the fact that it *wasn't* coming.
I started dating my best friend... although the word 'dating' feels anemic and laughable for what it feels like... the drama of crossing that chasm between 'friends' and 'more than friends' and the complete, drama-free bliss of just feeling like you're home with someone.

*author's note: apparently, I also *really* gush when something like this happens. As witnessed by the eye-rolling goo that I've already started pouring all over my prose lately. I've requested a name change to 'pancakes' since I hear that the really sappy ones are the maple-producing trees.
but I digress.

So... I'm exploring the chambers of my heart, very wide-eyed, with all of the enthusiasm of a Shakespearean love sonnet, but also, the detached fascination of an anthropologist.
"what is this going to feel like NEXT..." I keep thinking... and then scribbling frantic field notes in the deepest recesses of my brain when that data is piped through.
"Oh, how disappointing", a lot of my field notes read: "apparently the North American female *does* cry when presented with a dozen red roses and a night at home making fajitas and curling up with an endless supply of netflix. How terribly cliche of the North American female to get raccoon mascara face when she's surprised all the way down to her red toenail polish by a romantic gesture from a North American male."

I'm very, very interested that this feels this way. To be honest, it's a strange battle between just sinking into the comfort of a person and a bond that I already *completely* trust and hold close to my heart, and the increased anxiety that comes with change, especially when it involves change in a relationship that plays a big part in your life.
There's also a weird tug of war going on between just enjoying feeling happy, and feeling cautious about being happy. I'm trying like hell to let go of the knots that accompany happiness, but they do make themselves known.

I think that's human, though. It's scary to let your guard down and look someone in the eyes and tell them those three words that mean everything... "love" means letting someone in just as much as you're letting yourself into the world of that other person. Love means looking your flaws square in the eye because in about 15 seconds, that other person is going to be taking the white house tour of your flaws, and if YOU can't stand them about yourself, how will they? And love means putting your bulletproof vest on the ground for a second even though it feels like there are still guns pointing at you... and doing it with a gleam in your eye.
those are three big, BIG words to say.

There's so much that I want to write/think through here about this, but it wouldn't be prudent. NONE of this entry has been prudent so far.
Plus, I have much more introspective thinking to do before I can write things that won't make me wince too badly. I'm very happy right now, but I'm also feeling anxious in a way that makes an awkward, fight-or-flight part of my personality come out, and I don't want to write things that I'm scared about because I'm not sure or proud about all of them.
I'm accepting-- embracing, with full arms-- a relationship that's important to me, and I don't want to look back at this in 12 months and read: "I started dating someone. It's wonderful. I'm scared." I want to look back and read, "I'm taking a big risk about something (my heart) and someone (one of my best, best friends). I'm happy that I'm taking this risk because it means that I'm not sticking my head in the sand-- I'm embracing something good and sweet and totally sincere and down-to-my-pores important to me. I'm willing to relinquish control so I can experience what love feels like."

Human relationships are profoundly complex... they are so meaningful, and so frighteningly powerful over our lives. The fears I have about loss are so compounded by the moments when someone mentions things like 'Natasha Richardson died at the bottom of a beginner ski run in Canada'... these fears rise to the surface so fast and so violently that I have to tamp them down, forcing them into knots that live in my stomach and bizarre, meaningless thoughts that will go through my head in the future about the safety of a friend who is simply enjoying his day on a safe, quiet drive on his motorcycle.

It's all about perspective, I guess. You can't live your life in fear... so I will keep doing the best I can to let go of the part of my personality that is terrified of people walking, running, or leaping out of my life when they mean so much to me.

When I was young, I was obsessed with the movie "The Parent Trap" because of this... the idea that these two girls, only children, went to camp just to discover they had a twin... and at the end of the movie, when the audience is supposed to applaud the romantic rekindling of the flame between the parents (*who, if you look at the actual story line, are the most evil people who EVER lived... and the screenwriters were sick, too, making all their young audience members believe that they can get their divorced parents back together...anyway,I digress)... I was jumping up and down clapping just because both girls found their unconditional love in a sister soulmate. (This is why I'm so crazy obsessed with twins... not just a sibling, but someone EXACTLY your age? It was my idea of heaven. And still kind of is.)

When Disney released the equally campy Linsdey Lohan version of "The Parent Trap", I reluctantly hopped on board with that version as a kid, despite its obvious shortcomings. I couldn't help myself... it was the same intoxicating (albeit evil and twisted-- but as I mentioned, that's a whole different journal entry) plot, with the sisters finding each other and celebrating "happily ever after", which in their case was just a new sense of family and permanency in their lives. Natasha Richardson was cast as the mother... and she repeated a line that's in the '90s version and the Haley Mills version. When twin daughter #2 gets home from camp and runs into her house pretending to be twin daughter #1 that the mom has raised for 11 years, the girl finally sees her mom for the first time since infancy. She leaps into her mom's arms, starts to cry and says something like:
"I'm sorry, it's just that I've missed you so much."
Natasha Richardson replies, "I know, it seems like it's been forever"
and her daughter looks up at her, with real emotion on her face: "you have no idea".

Oh. My heart breaks every time I think about that scene. Disney movies or not, that's a real movie moment... isn't that what's at the basis of every relationship? When we're finally in the arms of someone who feels so familiar and meaningful, we want to say, "where have you been?!?", but all we can do is hug them back and learn what it feels like to just let *go* for a second.
Happiness is complicated.
I guess I will have to remember to appreciate happiness because it's not the complete absence of fear, as I keep trying to chide myself into thinking, but really... it's just a victory over fear. It's the acknowledgment that we may suffer loss, but that our suffering would stem from the fact that we had something very valuable to begin with.

Carpe diem... sieze the fish. Hug the people you love and tell them you love them, even if it's nerve-wracking. The world is so big, and so unpredictable. The movies, like my internal monologue this month, are so goddamned sappy because love really *is* what gets us through this spinning orbit that we're in.

goodnight, earth. take good care of us... we're doing the best we can down here.

the jane stimulus package

2009-02-18T16:43:00.003-07:00

craziest few weeks ever...I'm so tired, I may not survive watching the next 50 script pages print out. and then, what if I fall asleep on the printer, and my head gets stuck in the space between the ink cartridge and the paper feed, and my face is permanently deformed?!

thus: time to map out the jane stimulus package...

after the paycut at work, I've instituted the following, which have cut down on costs immensely:

1. skipping meals entirely, or replacing them with a can of $1 soup
2. saving so much money from #1 that I splurge on coffee and really snotty high-brow modern art for my ceiling
3. being so hopped up on coffee and snotty art that I start crazy creative projects
4. being so busy working on creative projects that I forget to do things that cost money; i.e. eat, do laundry, drive my car, earn a living
5. buying $9 (or less) bottles of red wine for creative project all-nighters
6. oh wait! I was already being cheap to begin with! celebrating my genius wine-buying strategies by having a glass of wine
7. emailing my friends periodically to remain sane after particularly gruesome proofreading days at work (my motto is this... as long as email = free... life = good)
8. spending a lot of time just hanging out at home with friends = the greatest wealth ever
9. making the awesome decision to be the offspring of Mr. Simmons, so I never have to buy a $20 hardback when his newest books arrive... I get one right off the truck. Again, free! I'm a genius!
10. taking it upon myself to lower the cost of gas nation-wide from $3.95 to $1.64. You're welcome, America
11. new volunteer job! volunteering is free! actually, since I'll be paying for gas and any activity/ food / outing we do, I guess that's more 'deficit' territory, but that's kind of still 'free'!
12. writing ridiculous, meaningless lists when I'm too tired to function

ah, time to do open heart surgery on the printer...

<3 (that one's for Meredith, if I remember to wake up enough to send this to her, which is unlikely at this point)

it's a Drood-- 784 pages and 2.6 lbs

2009-02-06T22:07:00.005-07:00

Starting dad's new book tomorrow... it's always exciting to see the new ones all shiny and new on amazon... http://www.amazon.com/Drood-Novel-Dan-Simmons/dp/0316007021

who are these readers who already have 5-star reviews posted on amazon?! I share genetic material with the man, and I haven't even gotten past the dust jacket. It JUST came off the presses! Sheesh.

it's friday night... the neighborhood's totally quiet, just a few lights on in the neighboring buildings.

up way too late every night last week... I'd lie awake until 2:30 or so, waking up at a different time every morning, but weirdly enough, every single time I arrived at work and tossed my keys onto my desk, the clock read exactly 9:23.
groundhog day.
it was almost eerie.
I'm ok with the sleep thing... this time it's just because the sharp, twisting pains have returned this week, and honestly, I just don't care. I feel weirdly chipper about it. I will get rid of whatever's causing this if I have to pull a Forrest Gump and run across America to prove a point to somebody. In the meantime, I'm building up a relatively fierce tolerance to the feeling of having a tiny green army man stab me repeatedly in the side with a bayonet.

I was the last to leave work the last few nights. I left around 5:30 or so tonight, lowering the blinds downstairs and tugging the door shut behind me. I've never been the last one out of the building where it doesn't seem like a melancholy scene from a movie. Played phone tag with three friends, went home, flopped on the bed and talked to another friend for a long time... realized that everyone was scattered far and wide tonight and admitted social defeat. Exhausted, anyway, and not in the mood to go see 'Man on a Wire' by myself in Denver even though I've been talking myself into it since 9:23, when my keys hit the desk, and my Outlook informed me that I had almost 9 hours of "cervical ripening agencies" script proofreading to do today. (jesus h. christ... those 9am scotches don't look so bad in Mad Men any more. I was pale and nauseous before noon... I'm still too sensitive for some of this stuff)

Pulled on my low-tops and headed out to the only restaurant in town because I had a hankering for green chili and my apartment was too quiet (and all my burners have gone out...again...)
my plan was to just get takeout and cozy up with a movie at home, but the restaurant was packed to the gills. So weird-- I guess I've never been in there on a Friday night, just sleepy taco tuesdays with the guys. Lots of 20 & 30 somethings at the bar, packed around tables... the music was up loud, trays of beers were whizzing by, laughter permeated the air. I was totally caught off guard, with a messy bun and pinched indentations on my nose from wearing glasses for the last 10 hrs, standing in a sea of happy weekenders in my blue Harriet the Spy coat, turning pink from feeling shy and sleepy and a little in the way.

They overcharged for my lowly green-chili burrito, and once I got it home, I discovered it was totally cold, like it had been in a refrigerator in the restaurant. It was pretty funny and pathetic. Broadcast News came on, one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time, but it hit a little too close to home and I started to feel a little suffocated in my quiet little apartment, eating a cold burrito, still wearing my harriet the spy coat until the heat kicked in. Decided to clean my apartment but sleepiness took over and I watched the end of 'The Lake House', mostly because the Keanu / Sandra pairing reminded me of Speed and 6th grade and Coryn, who I miss to pieces, and because it was set in Chicago and there was a deliciously cheesy art theme that used gratuitous cross dissolves between architecture shots that looked like the photos I took there in October.

I feel like I should be cleaning, or starting laundry, or googling ideas for the book that I want to make for my friends, or hanging up my harriet the spy coat, or starting a portfolio for copywriting to take down the street to Crispin + Porter. But the quiet, dark Friday part of me lured me over to check my email and now I have no inclinations but to get in bed and start "Drood" until I fall asleep (which, at this rate, will be in 8 minutes).

oh... shit.
shit. shit!!!!!
I've been tasked with 'finding a celebrity' who wants to to an "advocacy" project we're working on... a celebrity who wants to talk about the evils of hospitals and epidurals. Oh, and by the way, they need to work for free, and could they fly to Denver?
Despite my own feelings on the project, I've been thinking hard about who might 'be up for the challenge,' and I was excited to find Laila Ali during my research... Mohamed Ali's daughter, a boxer, healthfood spokeswoman, brand new mom & advocate of 'take charge' attitudes toward birth.
I thought I was a genius.
According to my television just now, so did some shea butter lotion, who hired her as their anti-stretch-mark model.

ahhh... I'm not going to wallow, but I'm giving myself just long enough to finish this post to feel a little bit lonely and out of sorts tonight.
It's going to be a good weekend, and I think this is partially from just needing to let go after a sleepy week, and the stress of taking a pay cut at work-- feeling the immediate ramifications of not having the deposit you were looking forward to on the 15th. I'm having a rare but intense feeling tonight of wishing that someone was here to curl up with... someone to laugh with me about how pathetic the burrito was as we dumped it down the disposal, before pulling on a sweatshirt and curling up on the couch together to watch a movie and just unwind.
It's funny to have a strong part of me that likes being alone, and an equally strong part of me that's affectionate and craves closeness. I'm a shy, pink-cheeked girl who still misses the comedy stage and the room full of people. Maybe my brain was wired for comically opposing needs.

Whatever the case. I'm grateful for my quirky little apartment and my job... my penchant for shitty tv when I'm worn out, and for being able to still afford a grossly overpriced cold burrito. It just would've been nice tonight to have someone here to watch part of Spinal Tap with before we got bored and decided to take a walk, since it's warm and clear out, and Orion is probably really bright. I'd take my unplayed guitar out and learn a new chord. The candles would seem cozy instead of a fire hazard, and the apartment would feel calm instead of quiet.

Good thing I have Drood.
No one can be lonely on a Friday night with a book the size of the Mojave Desert wearing a crater into their chest.

an email I wrote to my co-worker's son... she brought in an old tie of his last week since I'm going through my 2009 Tie Phase, so I thought I'd entertain her by writing to him (to make sure he no longer needed the tie that had been in her care for 8 years...)

Dear Trent:

Hello! This is Jane… I work at InJoy with your mom, who I adore. (Not just because she keeps the chocolate bowl stocked, but because she lets me call her DebbyBell—all one word—and doesn’t complain, even when I’m being obnoxious) Also, your mom is an endless source of entertainment and fantastically brilliant ideas.

But… I digress. I’m writing to ask you a question-slash-favor.
Recently, I decided to embrace the tie as a fashion staple for 2009. This was sort of 1/3^rd the result of having too much time on my hands, 2/3rds having just recently watched Annie Hall for the 5^th time.

The day after I announced my new fashion plans, miraculously, your mom came to work with a fabulous gray tie (with pink paisley creatures on it) that belonged to you (I’m assuming, or else this is going to be the most boring email of your life). But it’s only prudent that we ask where you stand on the ownership of this tie. Perhaps you miss it—perhaps it brings you comfort just knowing that it’s home in your closet. I don’t have a photo to include, but I do have a photo of the other tie that I acquired this week (a photo that was shamefully taken in the InJoy women’s restroom, emailed to my best friend, and marked on my timesheet as ‘general/other’).

[ ]

As you can see, my red tie is only going to carry me so far through life, but this should come as no burden to you. You’re more than welcome to reclaim ownership of your gray & pink paisley tie, whose tip has been dipped ever so lightly into some faint pink substance that we can only determine as paint. If you would like to renounce ownership, I can only assure you that I would lovingly adopt it, and I have a reasonably stable financial situation which will allow me to care for this tie in the manner in which he has become accustomed.

I think at this point, we’re all exhausted and confused, so I’ll end this email here.
Happy weekend, and thanks for sharing your awesome mom with us!

commitment o'clock

2009-02-04T12:56:00.003-07:00

I've been waffling about this for a long time... mostly because I can't, in my heart of hearts, commit to a year-long (or more) program when I'm stuck in this transitional, one-foot-in, one-foot-out part of my life.

But it's my lunch break, and I'm staring out the window at this beautiful sunny day, wondering-- on the flip side-- why on earth I *wouldn't* commit to this, either.

So next week, unless there's any unforseen problem, I'm going to go to the orientation, get fingerprinted, give permission for a background check, sign all the paperwork and become a 'big sister' with the Boulder County Partners mentorship program. And honestly, I'm scared... 3-4 hours a day, one day every week... with a child I've never met. I'm not a parent! I'm not good at cooking! I have funny looking hair! I mop my floors singing Etta James and watch crappy tv shows sometimes when I should be reading obscure literature!

But... I love to read. And draw. And write stories. And walk outside. And get ice cream after playing 'horse' on the school basketball court. And learn about animals. I love movies, board games, and hide and seek. I love talking about families, and school, and things that build character, for better or for worse. I love conversations with kids... from what they did at school that day, to what their secret, most intense anxieties stem from. And I've worked so hard to turn the world that I saw and feared and loved as a child into the world that I see and love and fear as an adult. Age is just childhood plus experience-- we're still the wide-eyed, vulnerable, excitable, ice-cream loving people that we were when we were very small. And I would love to spend long, unrushed afternoons with a young girl who could benefit from someone who's gone ahead, to reassure her that the kids will stop picking on her... that the barking dog is safely enclosed behind the fence... that the things that bring her joy aren't a fleeting part of her childhood, but rather, blossoming aspects of her personality that she will draw joy from over the course of her entire life.

I hope they find a good match in both of us.

This girl is out there-- she's at school right now, maybe looking out the window at the same time that I am.
I'm curious what she's like.
I'm anxious about whether or not I'd be a good older sister for her...
but I'm so, so excited to meet her.

new tie!

2009-02-03T17:11:00.003-07:00

oh, man.
the new tie? it's awesome. awe...soooome.
I was practically frothing at the mouth yesterday by the time Tom showed up to help me go tie hunting... I was missing my old college clip-on tie with a vengeance. (seriously, did I ever wear anything to a Yodapez show that I should not have been publicly beaten for wearing? The Clinton High baseball jersey... the clip-on tie... although the "hello, cat!" tank top I turned into a dress for the Annie Sprinkle skit, paired with the pink silk robe, was phenomenal)

it took me all damn morning to try to figure out how to tie this tie (using nothing but intuition and a seriously sleepy half-assed attempt). This resulted in two humorous situations:

1. The following conversation with my boss when I arrived, 23 minutes late from frustrated tie tying (*author's note: we have 'choose your own flex hours' at work. I wasn't being an ass.)

Vicki: Oh, Jane. You missed it! Oh, that's so sad.
Me: What? What did I miss??
Vicki: I was sitting next to a graphic designer on the bus. He was lost looking for Crocs
Me: ... crocs?
Vicki: he was extremely dashing. And lost. And I lured him into the building so you could give him directions.
Me: (turning bright red) What?!?
Vicki: He was very nice. Did I mention 'dashing'? Isn't that the word you use? And anyway, you weren't here. Oh, it was so sad.
Me: You lured a lost, handsome artist in here? And I missed it?!?
Vicki: Hey, nice tie!
Me: oh, yeah, that's why I was late...
Vicki: He would've liked the tie. Ok, let's talk about shooting schedules...
Me (thinking to myself: hmm. there's a lesson in here about vanity and ethics)
Me again (but I'm still going to feel sorry for myself)

So, that happened, which was pretty awesome (and hilarious) (and sad) in and of itself.

then this happened:

2. I happened to notice what I looked like. I nearly dumped my mug of coffee down my legs when realizing, with the swift and acidic taste of horror, that I had inadvertently come to work dressed as a Naughty Librarian.

It started when I got frustrated with my script and accidentally leaned on my pen, causing it to snag some of the hair out of my ponytail. So I went to pull my hair out of the hair tie, but... it felt weird. It felt... I don't know... just inappropriate. So I glance down, and out of the corner of my eye, I realize what happened in my sleep-induced haze this morning:
* put on new tie
* put on button-down white shirt because collar is required for tie
* put on red skirt, which matches red tie
* decided to avoid 'schoolgirl' issue by adding short-sleeved gray suit jacket
* put on fishnet stockings because my other stockings have snags from where my boots eat them
* (don't judge me for inability to keep stockings unsnagged. baby, it's cold outside)
*added loafers. duh.
* put on glasses, failing to notice how much said outfit exaggerates their retro cat-eye effect
*grabbed the only edible thing in my apartment for lunch: an apple

So there I am, at my desk... wearing chunky-heeled loafers with fishnets and a tie and this little prim plaid situation happening, taking off my glasses to give my eyes a breather and pulling my hair out of my ponytail.

It's actually a miracle that I didn't dump coffee everywhere from shock when I realized the horrific situation I was creating. One second, I'm Ms. Professional Script Writer; the next, I'm Ms. Dewey Decimal, 'can I help you find a book? I'm ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille' (**the author recognizes that she's flailing for acceptable soft porn dialogue here. It's been a long day. And I don't think I know what soft porn dialogue sounds like, with the exception of 'did someone order a pizza here?', and that's hard to work into a naughty librarian scene. No food allowed in the library)

I will ascertain that my outfit is AWESOME and I still defend my right to wear it. I just need to remember that when I do wear it, I need to make sure that I'm not taking off my glasses and pulling my hair out of a bun while crossing my fishnet-and-loafer-clad feet. All at the same time. With an apple on my desk.
Bleh.

As part of the 5 SONGS project, Steve Weave cheered on my new accessory and suggested that I listen to one of his favorite old songs: 'new tie'.

I love. Love. Love. Love. the 5 SONGS project.
Best birthday present ever.
Emails and phone calls have been rolling in with the sweetest pondering thoughts as my friends mull over their 5 favorites.

Tom and I drove all over last night just to listen to his contenders for the top 5. And damn! They are amazing!
I had an epiphany while listening to his music-- as a kid, I was totally fascinated with (old-school) circus-related things... I read books about the original P.T. Barnum and the circus freak syndrome... I can still rattle off annoying facts about Tom Thumb, the world's tallest man, the world's harriest woman, etc. And I was equally fascinated with gypsy culture.
The epiphany is that I always kept that interest to myself... I wasn't sure if that was a noteworthy thing to bring up with others. But as an adult, much of my favorite literature, art and music is still part of that stirring, wild, gypsy/haunted circus feeling.
Which makes me wonder why I ever stopped researching those topics.

Even just getting an email from Meg saying that she wanted to pick "Southern Cross" for inexplicable reasons, except "when it comes on the radio, it makes me feel like I can do anything"

I almost cried from how happy that made me.
5 favorites... such a simple idea that becomes such a difficult thought-process.

I was getting so bummed out and tense over things that I didn't want to think about.
'5 favorites' just takes over that part of my brain and inspires me... makes me ask questions, and re-visit fond memories. It reminds me of the beautiful and complicated and nostalgic elements of the soundtracks to our lives.

It requires enthusiasm and great thought.
Tie mandatory.

thumbs up.

2009-02-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

This photo makes me feel a lot of things. But mostly:
JOY

I hope to someday bore my grandchildren to tears telling them about the day that Sasha Obama gave her dad a thumb's up...

smile-shaped moon; cue marimba, piano

2009-01-31T23:00:00.004-07:00

The moon is currently a half-smile... enormous and bright and deeply complicated in its moon-ness. Yesterday there was an incredibly bright star just below it-- the shape formed sort of a vintage metronome.

Appropriate, since the last two days I've celebrated the moon and my thoughts in the same way as I've celebrated music and quietly happy moments.

Last night I worked late... left exhausted... went out for coffee with Sarah and Reji and ended up in a weirdly depressing coffee shop nook for a couple hours with a lovely conversation... looked at their photos from the inauguration and their trip to D.C., and we cheered on each other's ridiculous stories about minutiae, and my dramatic stories about things that will never really amount to anything in the future, but we all pretended in the moment that maybe that wasn't the case.

At some point I realized they were both sick and we were all looking exhausted... drove them home, turned up the heat, pulled over for a badly-needed tank of gas. Rotated cds until it landed on 2 of the 3 that I made for a friend's cross-country trip... sadly, he didn't end up getting the mixes, so I burned the tracks onto a couple cds of my own to test drive around town to see if my spontaneous road trip mix skills are worth anything these days.
I dropped Sarah and Reji off around Broadway and Iris, and it was almost completely empty on the roads, so I settled on a few of the more sad/mellow tracks, turned the music up, and took all the country roads home.

Sia "Breathe Me"... deep, soulful marimba, mournful piano, and a moving string section... then Sia's throaty, expressive voice kicked in. I turned right on Jay as usual, with no street lights and no traffic... passed my favorite intersection in the world, where the Greek Orthodox church sits staunchly across from the Jehovah's Witness church (in an eternal showdown with each other)... the bass and string sections were split so beautifully between my speakers that I turned up the volume several more notches and went past the turn for my apartment complex.
Up Jay, turned right on 75th, the Foo Fighters song "Are You There" came on... wandering, contemplative guitar and dreamlike, heart-torn lyrics. I watched the half-smile of the moon and turned again onto an even darker country road-- headed dead East with the moon in my rear-view mirrors. At one point I drove under a rickety bridge that supported an endless freight train heading the opposite direction... it's a fairly amazing feeling to drive under a train that's suspended by an old, rickety bridge,with pieces of gravel and turf falling on your windshield.

Crested the hill on East Arapahoe and had a surreal and breathtaking view of the power plant that I've never seen before-- instead of dark and ominous as I'm used to seeing it, the plant was fully lit... the huge rectangular windows were glowing with a deep amber light, and endlessly long rectangular amber reflections were cast out into the water surrounding the plant. It was like something out of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil". Magical and beautiful, in a mechanical and eerie way.

Then a piano/intrumental version of Radiohead's 'Let Down'... at this point I was simply worn out, teeth chattering a little, so I hunkered down in my jacket and turned North on 95th. A coyote ran in front of me and I braked softly... he turned and looked straight into my headlights, and then gently loped parallel to my car until I lost sight of him behind me.

Turned West just in time to see the moon set behind the foothills... and as I came over the hill on Lookout Road, I realized for the first time what a truly spectacular view that can be at night. I could see the familiar shimmer of all the Boulder lights, from Longmont down to almost Table Mesa, but the lights that were scattered up through the foothills all the way to Eldorado were incredible. It looked like pollen or something that had scattered in the wind instead of homes.
(I'm the world's biggest sucker for twinkling city lights at night. Thank god I wasn't alive in the 50s, when surely all the high school boys would've discovered that about me, and driven me up to 'hangman's point' every night, just trying to get to 2nd base while I gawked at the city lights.)

Tonight I spent the evening at Meg's... she made a delicious feast of chicken/pasta/peanut sauce and a carrot-oatmeal cake... I brought a rather forgettable but endearingly tasty bottle of Chilean cabernet sauvignon. Kenai ate a large blanket and barked at us with his adorable tongue hanging sideways out of his mouth and all was right with the world. After a long and wonderfully Meg & Jane conversation, I headed home... wondering for a minute if I was the world's lamest bachelorette before turning on the same cd and heading back through the same country roads. This time I turned up the heat a little more and put down the windows... appreciating the feeling of heat encircling my legs as cold air rushed in the side windows while singing the harmony line loud and meaningfully along to Ben Folds' "Fred Jones Part II." Possibly one of my top 5 songs**.
Turned the bend in front of my apt. complex just in time to watch the brilliant ivory half-smile of a moon sink behind the craggy silhouette of the foothills, casting a brilliant halo up over the mountains.

**Maybe if I'm more awake tomorrow, I'll dig out the novel I wrote to my music-obsessed friends about "the top 5" so it won't get lost forever in my endless gmail archive.

What a beautiful place to live.
What a luxury to be able to sing harmonies with all my heart on dark, dark country roads as I peer down long driveways, looking at the one lightbulb burning in a large, haunted country house as I wonder about people's lives, people's whereabouts, people's quality of life and dreams and secrets.

To watching the crescent moon set behind the mountains, and the long coyote tails that disappear behind my headlights.
to friends. and driving. and thinking. and breathing. and singing.

*clink*

to Romania, with love

2009-01-28T19:53:00.002-07:00

New things:
My 'blog' (bleh) is now white. Why I limit myself to hideous templates like the one I've been using the past 3 years, I do not know.

We just started composting at work. That's my workplace equivalent of a white blog. A tiny thrill goes through me every time I toss a paper towel onto a pile of coffee grounds... Yay! Recycling!

I'm being SUCH a little kid tonight. I'm having one of those days where I wish we could just take food pills instead of having to eat. I'm just looking at my stomach like a dog who wants to play... stop growling. I don't want to give you attention today.

Also, agonizing over which design to order for the huuuuge wall I have just below the vaulted ceiling in my apt.
I think I'm going to get this, in white, with dark brown birds.
I drive myself crazy. Really, I do.

I've had the craziest time trying to stay warm all week.
I can't for the *life* of me maintain a normal body heat. It's really, really odd. I'm typically sort of pathetically cold throughout the winter, but this is way different... I wouldn't feel cold to the touch, but it's like the hot water heater quit in my heart, and I'm pumping cold blood through my veins.

I think I'm being haunted.

I'd better make some serious money on my Diane Sawyer interview if that's the case.

In other news: I just put up a pathetic facebook bat signal in hopes that my Romanian will put down her PhD homework* for 20 minutes and teach me a new Romanian phrase. I enjoy the prospect of her cute face lighting up when she sees it. Facebook-- it's really just a treasure hunt for grown-ups**
(*I guess it isn't called "homework" when you get that smart. Me, I'm too simple-minded to know)
(**I also have it on good authority that if you're actually a grown-up, you only use the term 'adult'. I'm 0-2 here.)

I'm very nervous about our company meeting tomorrow at the crack of dawn. I feel a little sick about it. Bad economy + loose canon year for management giving people the axe *very* unexpectedly = bad math equation. I hope there's just some lectures. I'm ok with lectures. (I have yet to escape an all-company meeting where I didn't almost pass out from nerves. I can do stand-up in front of 400 people, but company meetings is what gives me total public performance anxiety. Somewhere in my fetal development, some important wires seem to have gotten crossed)

Also!
Dan Simmons
"Drood" tour
Coming soon to a (West coast) (or Midwest) (it's weird when they randomly rule out the East coast) bookstore near you.

Last minute, I decided to put my foot down and insist that I was going on tour with him to help out, but I was overruled by the king. I don't know how he will possibly have the stamina/health to do a tour right now. But hey-- I also still don't understand how Superman can change clothes in that tiny little phone booth. I don't know everything.

Also: http://www.timescall.com/communitytc/schools-story.asp?ID=14073
LHS is putting on Deadwood Dick this year as the '10th anniversary of Asa's death'

actually... no. I'm still too mad to write about it.

My apartment is quiet and zenlike and I have been in a quiet, peaceful state of mind all evening... why take 78 steps back?

It took me years (and almost 2000 miles) to feel liberated from this stuff. I celebrate the kindred spirits from my past who are still in my life, and I'm seeking blue skies and kindred spirits in my future. That's about as much as anyone can do when grappling with their youth. And I'm very content with that.

to blue skies. and white power lines with birds. and keeping the steps pointed forward, no matter how slowly they might move sometimes.

it's bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a... what?

2009-01-27T22:22:00.004-07:00

Oh no we di'int.

Well today was just a little rollercoaster of excitement.

Things have been good at work this week (knock on wood), although the research I'm doing is SO GRIM right now... this morning I was reading a *horrific* story about a woman whose baby was born 'with alcohol on his breath-- already drunk'... which was upsetting enough as it was... and I turned the page to see a photo of a comparison between a normal infant's brain and a FAS baby's brain, and I (actually) almost gagged at my desk. It's a really good thing my boss was in a meeting.
I think I had 3 mugs of tea before I was restored to factory settings... I felt pale until I got home.

(*I've developed a dumb little rewards system for days like today. Survive not vomiting into trash can at my desk; indulge in a little pop music singing & dancing on my drive through dark country roads home at 10pm. Gwen Stefani's 'bananas' came on, which makes me laugh... I got taunted for watching 'the gilmore girls' but that show had the funniest, fastest references ever. Proust, Nabokov, The Bangles, the Civil War... all within 5 minutes and they'd be on to even more obscure high-brow jokes. One of the best was an episode where Sebastian Bach, playing himself, is so frustrated with his small-town rock band, and he's forced to play a girl's bat mitzvah. There's a quick scene of him in a sparkly tux or something, staring ahead with the creepiest look on his face, playing a cocktail lounge version of the song... 'it's bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s'... I laugh every single time I hear the real version thinking of Bach's rendition. I dare you to turn the radio station until you hit the chorus... I double dog dare you. Impossible. Because rhythmic spelling is the devil's elixir.)

Invited myself over to Justin and Dani's in lieu of taco Tuesday when I found out that JC and Ekki had rented 'Zombie Strippers'. Not really sure what I was expecting, but I was pretty darn excited about zombie strippers. And... it was... maybe in the top 8 most offensive movies I've ever seen. Definitely in the worst 10 movies I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of bad movies.
Ugh. I might have to shower before I go to bed.
Definitely keeping a copy of that for myself just as a reminder that there IS a movie called Zombie Strippers, and this information needs to be shared with others.
(During the credits, I noticed that Jenna Jameson was in it?! Damnit... this was need-to-know information. I don't even know which zombie stripper she was. That would've totally made the movie better, had I only known)

Still in a mix cd making frenzy... some are (way) better than others, especially since my music is all chaotic and all over the place at the moment. I'm making an awesome mix for Karsten that is about a year overdue. I wish I was a better artist because I was thinking it would be fun to make a watercolor cd cover...

Mad Men continues to be a way better show than I would've guessed. I never would've watched it, even flipping past it on tv, if Tom hadn't forced me into the commitment of Netflix nights. But it's fun.

And, while I'm killing time while I wait for another mix to burn... I think I've discovered the fix for my sleep issues...
1. I stopped reading Don Delillo's "White Noise". I finally picked it up again and finished it. No more late nights writing notes in the margins. It's over and done with. Not sure how I felt about it, but like Zombie Strippers, probably more disturbing than it was emotionally satisfying

2. Sheets straight out of the dryer. I slept like a dead bug last night.

3. reading a little 'mental floss' before bed. ridiculous trivia is weirdly relaxing.

4. have a 10-14 minute sweet conversation with a friend before passing out. that's the best.

5. nope. actually, the warm dryer sheets that smell like Tide are the best. But friend conversations come in 2nd.

It's Tuesday and I'm already thinking about the weekend.
Excited for my new eccentric apartment decor to arrive... even though I'm not sure how we'll get it up there without a 700' ladder. And there's that whole 'fear of heights' thing.
Excited for my 'volunteer orientation' on Thursday. It's been two months without the kiddos and I'm eager to learn about this new opportunity... hopefully this one will have more opportunities for connection and less getting-kicked-in-the-shins.

in the words of some guy from zombie strippers...
'time to get in the *#&$^@* bread truck and drive your buns outta here"

-janekathryn

ps... this is pretty magical:
http://www.moustacheme.com/

the website's name keeps getting stuck in my head. I was stuck in traffic on the way to JC's and I kept hearing this voice in my head going 'mustache me!' at cars trying to merge unsuccessfully.

most of us need the eggs...even Bambi & Thumper

2009-01-26T00:15:00.006-07:00

good GRIEF.

It's quarter past midnight.
I got very, very little sleep between Thursday night and this morning.
I have work in the morning.
I should be in beeeeed....

But I've been online looking for a new (amazing) funky / urban / interior design scheme of mine and it's got me all wide-awake and creative. I can't wait to put it in my apt and post pictures.

So. Awesome weekend.
Friday- post-o'brother where art thou work day- went straight down to Denver for girls night out with Katie & Lindsay Murphy and a whole gaggle of fabulous women. I had dashed out the door and had a 9 hr work day, so I arrived at a table full of women with perfectly curled and coiffed hair, fabulous out-on-the-town outfits and high heels...and I was wearing about 20 layers with a sweater over a dress over my jeans, the pink sneakers, and the craziest looking hair ever. I felt like Tim Burton arriving at a black tie event-- it was kind of awesome. We hit up LoDo... I discovered some drink that's red wine with orange soda (?!) in it, which is amazing, and then we had a long night of tapas and laughter and wandering several blocks away to the Oxford hotel's (secret) ((extremely haunted)) bar. There's a fun, friendly bar out front, and hidden in a narrow hallway in the back is this bar with red lightbulbs, 20s decor, 30s music playing... it was straight out of the shining. The cosmo I ordered was about 700% alcohol, which made our conversation that much more fun. I actually got nervous in the basement bathroom listening to the laughter warbling through the marble walls from upstairs because it felt so ghostly. Must go back post-haste.

Stopped by a friend's 80s Rockstar themed birthday party on the way home, where my sneakers and crazy hair looked much more at home. Saw the BEST George Michael impersonator I've ever seen, which is saying a *lot*. Really. Dead on. His girlfriend was Madonna, which was an inspired pairing. Derek was Loverboy, which was also a dead-on reinactment... ahhhh... 80s parties. They are my favorite thing.

Also met the sweetest dog on the planet. She reminded me SO much of Fergie, it was unreal... I woke up this morning and I could actually feel how much I missed Ferg. Sometimes I still toss a pillow down to the foot of my bed... it's 2 years later and I'm still not used to her not being there.

Saturday I had to reorganize all of my music... switching everything over to a new backup system mysteriously messed up all my mp3s and made my playlists disappear, which I had been saving for at least 2 or 3 years. I'm super bummed to have lost them... I like playing mixes I made for friends. I had all my harmony favorites bookmarked. Anyhoo. Made a bunch of mixes, which is my happy place... showered so long that there are fewer whales on the planet... went out with Erik for fajitas and $3 Jameson on the walk home (because come on... when it's raining ice and you're walking, one must stop in Connor O'Neils for a Jameson special on the way home.) We had an awesome conversation, during which I learned that Erik has never (he swears. really.) had a nightmare. Not even a bad dream. Not even that dream where you get on the school bus and you aren't wearing pants.
W.
T.
F.

We talked about how different people's lives can be due to sleep and dreams. It blew my mind a little bit. Here I am, stuck in nightmare central (not since Friday night-- knock on wood-- let's hope that's over)... and I realize that not everyone turns out the light with a faint sense of dread sometimes. Or wakes up with their heart in their mouth, terrified. Or wishes more than anything that they could rent someone at 2am when they wake up sweaty and freaked out, just to hang out in the tree bed reading calvin and hobbes so you could go back to sleep and release them from duty at 6:45am.
So crazy. No bad dreams?

Peter called on my way home, and being *ridiculously* sleep deprived and about to fall on my face at midnight, I wasn't even making coherent sentences. Peter reminded me of our last conversation, which included something along the line of:
jane: "and then, you know, I am just not in the mood for this existential crisis any more. I'm over it. If only this whole 'plus one' thing would go away and my co-workers would stop bugging me about why I don't have a date for our party... sorry, I'm snarky at the moment, and I have some image in my head as me depicting a little black rain cloud"
peter: "right... it's more like the grim reaper..."
jane: "....yeah...on the Brooklyn Bridge... that's where I am right now"
peter: "yeah, me too. totally. grim reaper on the Brooklyn Bridge"
jane: "and I'm just not in the mood to be forced to think about, you know, Bambi and Thumper's...date...of love and glory"
peter: *wheezing noises from laughing*
jane: "who the hell are we? What the hell are we even talking about?"
peter: *still laughing hysterically* "I love the pause in your voice and then you just went for 'love and glory"
jane: "yeah, well, snarkiness leads to good comedic timing, right?"
*peter and jane dissolve into hopeless laughter about what dorks they are and hang up on each other*

No one makes me laugh like Peter. Last night we were both so stupid tired that I actually fell asleep while on the phone for a second, and woke up just in time to catch the end of his frustrated anecdote to say, "I hear ya, kiddo. Dating is tough." Peter: "You know what? Taking dating advice is just stupid. And DATING is stupid." Me: (thinking about it for a second) You know, Pita, you're on to something there...

Ah honey. I know. The great thing about Peter is that his life is so parallel to mine... let's say I was coming home from an interview, sleep deprived and angsty, wondering if it was weird that the guy interviewing me had a hook for a hand and a parrot... I'd call Peter, who would be sleep deprived and snarky, driving home from an interview with someone who had a pegged leg and a long velvet jacket. These are the friends you need in your life. The ones who are having simultaneous experiences as you, and who still love you, despite knowing all of your flaws.
(obviously, I'm still totally sleep deprived and English isn't my strong point)

Fortunately, I had a lovely, decadent, exhausted, puttering-around, cold, snowy Sunday.
Tom and I watched a couple more episodes of Mad Men, which I'm really enjoying. The booze! The cigarettes! The bras that go from your neck to your knees! The affairs! The SUITS! The ties! The "chip&dip"... the rifle... the vomiting of clams & champagne after climbing 23 flights of stairs... well... nevermind. Had to be there.
It's awesome.

Tonight I took myself on a date. I smelled totally tasty after another 3-day long shower* and a new scent that I bought and all the candles in my apartment (and whatever else it is that girls are addicted to that smell good)... so I figured that I'd have a romantic date with myself. Made tacos, watched Annie Hall**, decided to buy myself a little art for the apartment, snuggled up under a blanket with myself watching the snow fall.
It's good to be happy and sleepy, home alone. It's rare that I really get to enjoy this any more.
*my hot water lasts about 10 minutes these days, which it's never done... must try to remedy problem...I can't exist without my shower epiphanies
**I hadn't seen it for a few years... it's looking OLD! Crazy. And the DVD is *terrible* quality. Awesome one-liners, though... "don't knock masterbation. It's sex with someone I love" and the one that I've quoted with much love for years..."Love is too weak a word for what I feel - I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you, two F's"

the last lines kind of got me:
I realized what a terrific person she was, and... and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I... I, I thought of that old joke, y'know, the, this... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" The guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs." Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y'know, they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs.

off to bed I go.
this week...
*buy a tie
*purchase awesome apartment designs
*huge company meeting on thurs that I'm nervous about...please don't fire anyone... please, please don't say that the economy is forcing some of us to take a pay decrease...
*do some serious writing... no matter how hard I try to fight it, every year as it gets close to my birthday, I really get that lump in my stomach... the "i'm getting older-- am I doing a good job?" lump. I've learned that I really need to get my thoughts out close to my birthday or I internalize the anxiety/questions/blah blah blah

and, of course, make a few more mixes.
sweet dreams.

new essay up

2009-01-23T08:43:00.007-07:00

I keep forgetting...

new essay's up online:
http://dansimmons.com/news/jane/jane.htm

in summary:
love is dead. text messages + internet = death of love.

I've made a conscious effort to actually talk to people in lieu of emails / texts etc. since publishing the essay so I don't seem like a big hypocrite, and I've been mildly surprised at the extra push I need to give myself to do so. It's so much easier to quasi-chatter than it is to formulate real dialog when you're busy...
Seriously, though.
New Year's Resolution... I'm totally over human connections that are 90% texts and 10% the real deal. I shouldn't have made that compromise in the past. If I want to date a robot, I'll give my wrists a little spritz of WD-40 and head into someone's server closet wearing my Tin Woman costume from high school.
Until that sad little day comes, I'd strongly prefer some actual conversations in my life.

Acceptable uses for texts:
1. letting someone know you're thinking about them
2. sharing a humorous anecdote
3. determining a time and place to meet

Unacceptable uses of texts:
1. wooing the person you're smitten with
2. declaring your love for the person you're smitten with for the first time
3. fights
4. lengthy explanations
5. any kind of discussion that could be easily misunderstood in a tiny, texty context
6. an attempt at replacing actual, real human connection
7. apologies (you can get a head start, but a real apology requires human-to-human follow-up)
8. major life-changing announcements
9. dumping someone
10. art criticism
11. literary theory
12. wedding vows
13. in general, anything that replaces words with numbers
14. in general, anything that replaces words with lowercase letters
15. in general, anything that doesn't say anything at ALL

Robin has encouraged me to do a short on the subject.
Robin is a genius.
Think my 'sound effects' mockumentary, except an old school silent film with text messages as caption cards.
Ohhhh, it's going to be good.

(the best thing about Friday is that I indulge once a week and get a coffee on the way to work. some dark roast, some steamed milk, a little sugar... keeps me feeling totally happy until at least 1pm.
it's the little things that keep us alive and happy. and I stand by that.)

It sounds like there should be a big girls night out in the works for tonight... my fingers are crossed that it's still on. Drinks, dancing, catching up, LoDo... A+ stuff right there. And it's been a ridiculously long time since I had a great posse of girls to hit the town with. Leave the boys at home, ladies... I'm rocking the big hair, the tacky earrings, the pink sneakers, and I have the best of Motown in my car. It's Friday night! :)

Off to the rat races for the day... with a brief pit stop to text my friends good morning and happy Friday (HEY... that one's allowed, it doesn't violate the Lists (tm)... a girl still likes to hear the little tinkle of chimes in her bag while she's slogging through a long day. jeez. I'm not anti-text, just anti-robot-love)

Addendum:
It is currently 11:08.
Not to jinx it, but so far, my work day consists of:
*the graphic designer's adorable 4 year old daughter hanging out in the art department. She likes my bright pink sneakers. Score!

*a 45 minute phone conversation with an AWESOME consultant who reviewed my script and had amazing feedback. She's been working in the diagnostic/public health realm in FAS for twenty years, so she knows her stuff. After the script consultation I started dorking out about all the 'contemporary' cognitive issues research I had questions about, and she and I went on a long, crazy-fascinating tangent about fetal brain development and childhood learning disorders and how fascinating child development is. After lunch, I'm anticipating feedback from 5-8 more experts... including the top researcher in the US, who I have a feeling would also like my pink sneakers...

*That's right. I said crazy-fascinating.

*Post-conversation, I now have the remains of my Friday Happy Coffee... at least 1-2 days' worth of revitalized script-rewriting to look forward to... new research to pursue... AND...the best thing yet...

*my boss, sitting next to me, without looking up from her project: "I watched O Brother Where Art Thou las night"
me: "No. Way. I've been playing that soundtrack non-stop in my car"
boss: "Hmm. Any chance it's still in your car?"
5 minutes later... we've rearranged our speakers so they're split between our desks. The sounds of O Brother Where Art Thou are filling what is normally a deathly silent office.
We work in silence, heads bobbing in time with the rhythm... I occasionally pause from script revisions to hum the harmony and we laugh at the bizarre lyrics.

Perhaps the best Friday morning scenario possible.
Ahhh. It all works out, little Orphan Annie. It all works out in the end.

addendum

2009-01-22T15:51:00.003-07:00

addendum:
took a 5 minute breather to check out my boss's new bike.
a vintage British cruiser with a bell and a basket and a kickstand.
the company prez took it for a spin in the parking lot and we cheered and commented on how wonderful his posture was.

came back to the desk. re-opened my research file. took a deep breath. wiped the sleep from my face.
headphones in:
linus & lucy. vince guaraldi trio.

radioparadise has redeemed itself.
the work week is salvaged.

song covers and repetitive motion syndrome

2009-01-22T14:26:00.003-07:00

so...

I'm at work doing my *damndest* to make a slow day into a productive day.
but oh... my... GOD. It's a brutal one.
Both of the people I'm relying on for this week's "project workflow" are running way behind. Which means that I have 50% less to do at the moment. In an economy that gives my current field about 60% less business.

I love being busy. I work hard to be busy when I'm not busy.
But today I'm dangerously close to stabbing my eyes out with thin-tipped sharpies from frustration.

I was doing ok until just now, when Johnny Cash's "Hurt" came on the podcast I listen to (radioparadise -- awesome. I even got those cloth grocery bags with 'radioparadise' on them to be a total dork and advertise good tunes. Because I live in Boulder! And I'm in my 20s! And I voted for Obama! And I'm a total stereotype that makes the polls cheer with glee!)

Then I realized that "Hurt" was acoustic, so I must be listening to NIN's cover of "Hurt". But Trent Reznor never started singing, so I had to save my script and flip over to iTunes and discover that it was some instrumental piece called "Remembrance Day" by 'God is an Astronaut'. It was the straw that broke the camel's back.
If you're going to totally plagiarize a song, don't plagiarize a cover OF a cover.
And if you're going to be all synth/instrumental band... don't have 'hearts of space' predictable names that include 'cosmos' or 'god' or 'astronaut' or any of those other 'new age' feels that makes me want to just fall over and die.

I shouldn't be doing this. But man, this work thing isn't working out. I'd leave my desk if I had to use the 'loo... and this is the only way I can symbolically leave my desk to release the unwanted thoughts out of my mind.

The economy is really fucking things up. I had a conversation last night with an ex-colleague who started crying in a coffee shop when he asked me to help him enter an international "job" contest that he will never, under any circumstances, win. This morning a friend emailed to say that she won't be visiting me in a few weeks from NYC because of the whole job/domino effect.

I'm feeling it too. After spending SO long and hard trying to find the next place to leap, jobs are disappearing like water in a drought. I've spent the last year and a half developing new market and video ideas for our company because I dislike so many of the titles that we make, and last week I was informed that they were *all* being cut. The only content we'll develop for a minimum of a year is strictly 'the most basic of the down and dirty basics' that we are known for.
I was given two options for my next video:
1. circumcision
2. a video for parents whose baby just died prenatally/in childbirth/shortly after birth

After that meeting, I did something I almost never do-- I went straight home, cracked open a beer. Stood by my window just watching the people in the park across the street and wondering how I can feel so grateful for a job, yet so freaking miserable about the prospect of watching genital mutilation or human loss for the next bachelorette, cooking-for-one year of my life.

Ironically, my current video is about "alcohol and pregnancy", so (as most women can sympathize with) on some level I'm constantly paranoid that my habits are damaging an imaginary baby that I don't know about.

(*the fetal alcohol syndrome video WAS slated for summer. Due to the economy, will not be released until December/Jan '10. Won't even be edited for months and months. And I can't even get revisions back from my boss. I have cleaned my entire desk and files-- 4 hrs of cleaning-- and gone through archived emails. Now am left anxious and twitchy at my desk, thinking about alcohol and circumcision and how much I hate this damn recession)

Ironically, my brain feels the same way that my right arm does-- I've spent so much time at this desk working overtime since last summer, I've developed an incredibly sore kink in my right bicep. I've switched the mouse over and now have to fumble around as a lefty, which results in my shoulders holding even more tension and getting more and more stiff as the work week goes on. The knot in my right arm is just as sore as it ever was.

AUGHHHHH!!!! Why do we do this? How did we get to this point?! Repetitive motion damage from desk jobs has to be the most soul-suckingly sad thing ever. The ergonomic literature makes it even worse... "try carving out 1-5 minutes for every two hours spent at a computer to look at something further away... such as out the window"

The Spaniard never walks down the hall. He speed-walks, if not runs, in big heavy footsteps that rattle the doorframe.
Boom, boom, boom, snatch something from the printer.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, get a glass of water, BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM back to his office.
At his desk, I often see him just staring off into space.

Now there's a metaphor for my day.
Hurry up!
And wait...

damn. I can't believe I'm writing this.
Back to alcohol research...

at least the other person was there to shout back

2009-01-20T22:39:00.002-07:00

Please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of very early-blooming parentheses
(((( )))))

____________________________________________________________________

How terrible is it when you say "I love you," and the person on the other end shouts back "What?"

____________________________________________________________________

...my life story. as summarized by two franny & zooey quotations.
my nom de plume ain't janey salinger for nothing.

filled with sushi and a vague wave of confusion

2009-01-20T00:10:00.006-07:00

Stuffed full of homemade sushi and merlot after a long day, but scared to go to bed because the past three nights have been one horrific nightmare after the next. (*although, the sushi and vino part was awesome. It was a nice but weirdly anxious/somewhat lonely 3-day weekend, which ended with a sweet spontaneous dinner party with Justin, Dani, Ekki & Justin's friend Derek. Sushi is the best thing ever. 3 mile run... hours of eating... meh. Works for me!)

So... alas... I'm stalling and checking email and blah blah blah.

There are many perfect antidotes for nightmares-- including Tom, who's a damn fine diversion and a very good sport. This weekend, he kept me company and let me indulge in Thai food,deep chats, a bottle of shitty champagne, and even brought over Season 1 of Mad Men, which is actually as awesome as everyone said. He let me talk out my angst and be angry and even cry on the down-low without making me feel like an @sshole, because Tom is the best friend ever and because he knows that sometimes you just get overwhelmed and need to cry and pretend you're fine when really you're hiding behind the sink wiping mascara off your face as you fake looking for a bottle opener or whatever.

I digress.
Tom left after our little NetFlixFest ended and I was totally confident that 2 days of some of the *worst* nightmares I've had (yes, even for me) were going to end, but alas... not so much.
The nightmares the past 3 days were just gruesome. To the point that I feel like I'm a bad person.
In one, I toss and turn in covers just to realize that the covers are an albino mental patient-- white skin, white fruit-of-the-loom t-shirt, white pajama pants, white hair. The mental patient wraps his body around my face and I start to suffocate. I flail, start to scream, then stop to preserve the air that remains in my lungs. The mental patient hisses and holds onto my face with his whole torso. I escape and try running out into the snow in bare feet, wishing that I had found my car keys or my cell phone as any form of protection. I run, become exhausted. The mental patient presses his body against the window and watches me, confident that I will crumple from exhaustion into the snow in time for him to catch up with me and end my life. I know that he will win.

In another, I am digging for weapons of mass destruction somewhere in England. The ground is clammy... thick black sod (peat-- from Ireland and my scotch obsession?)... the smell of phosphorous and ominous chemicals fills the air. "Oh, SHIT..." the CIA-whoever leader says. We unearth train tracks. Then a small cavernous bubble under the train tracks, like the little hidey-holes that people hope for when miners get trapped under the earth. Under the train tracks there's a baby in a little onesie outfit. He's covered in wet mud, eyes rolling back in his head, spit-up on his pajamas. I freak out and start crying hysterically. The rest of the 'excavators' look at me in disgust and start chanting. The baby is dead, and then alive, and then dead, and I'm in a full-out panic trying to dig him out. People start chanting in tongues, like in a Pentacostal church. I turn and run, crying, sick... I run into the house and watch the rest of the coverage on CNN as I hide behind an armchair and pretend that I'm not one of the scientists interviewed on the scene, despite the fact that they put my name on a lower third graphic and have me sign a release form on the air.

Totally f***** up, right?
Mostly it's the same recurring nightmare.
I dream about whatever it is that people dream, and as I'm waking up, I get scared to the point that the hair stands up on my arms and a cold wave of adrenaline shoots through my body.
I wake up with that pounding feeling in the hands and chest that you get when waking up from a terrible dream.
I look at my clock. I clutch the covers or my pillow, or simply tuck my thumb under my fingers and try to remind myself that I'm ok.
I look towards the door that leads to my bathroom.
Out of the blackness and the shadows, I discern a man's outline standing in the doorway.
I start shaking. Sometimes, if I'm really half-asleep, I'll say something meaningless and pathetic. "hello?" or "go away".
The shadow remains.
Every time, he raises one arm and braces it against the door frame.
I wait until morning.

Ohhhh, the life of the overactive imagination girl.
I really, really, really wish I could get these twisted dreams out of my brain.
I'm considering hiring someone to sleep over. Just for another breathing, sleeping body in the house. I think having another warm body around would take the edge off of my 4am fear. Like having a pet-- how they say people's blood pressure is significantly lowered if they have a dog or a cat around.
Not that I consider a pet a replacement for human contact...
or that I need someone hanging around the house to cure my bachelorette blues...

anyway. I'm stalling. I have to be up in exactly 7 hours, so I'm going to be a grown-up and go to bed.

sighhhh...
cheers to a great day off, with friends and new running shoes and awesome sushi and the best damn coffee in the whole damn state.

sweet dreams, and cheers on the eve of President elect Obama's inaguration...

-jane kathryn, prisoner to her own imagination

the little apartment that shook

2008-12-29T21:16:00.002-07:00

Gale force winds outside tonight (what is the exact force of a 'gale', anyway?)
My apartment is shaking as branches snap and bottles go skittering around the parking lot. It always makes me nervous how much my apartment shakes in the wind... the way the gusts snap around my walls sounds **exactly** like big waves breaking, so with the movement of my little NE facing apartment bobbing up and down on its support beams, I feel a little bit like I'm out to sea.

Really tired, so I won't do much more than a numbered list for tonight:
1. Christmas. Awesome. Obscenely quiet. Lived at my folks' house for almost a week, which hasn't happened since I was a receptionist home from college over the summer.

2. My annual Bachelorette Party. Even more Awesome-- now with 20% more fun. Photos available on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21442478@N02/
I love my friends so much, it hurts.

3. Work- I did another 'let's make fun of everyone I work with' skit, which got big laughs, did not result in me getting fired, and gave me the very unusual chance to use the word "skit" outside of the third grade. Beth and Robin filmed & edited the whole thing, which reminds me that video nerds live up to our name

4. Meredith and I did a Christmas Eve gig for our our friend's Pastor, which somehow morphed at the last minute into us being in a Christian rock band, complete with electric guitars, keyboards, drums, mics, our own monitors, a light show, and a seriously difficult time keeping a straight face in front of a congregation of Christmas Eve worshipers. Next time, I will write sad things on the toes of my shoes so I will have an easier time looking solemn while playing a heavy metal bass line on my acoustic cello while a slide show projects "Halleljuah, GOD IS NEAR" in confusingly capital letters over my head.

5. My parents are pretty much the coolest people I know. I can't imagine dad rallying any harder for the holidays given how absolutely shitty he feels. Despite the fact that my family lives close by, it's a lot different to move in with them for a week than to just occasionally drop by for dinner or a movie... it was hard coming home after having a really, really bittersweet 4am crackers-and-peanut-butter chat with my dad. He's a different person right now than I've ever known and it scares me and moves me at the same time.

6. Holy. Mother. It is INSANE outside right now! Wind, wind, wind, wind, BOOM... every 30 seconds or so, branches are coming down everywhere. I don't know where to move my car, but I'd prefer to move her into my kitchen until the Apocalypse is over

7. Had about 3,000 reunions over the past week, including anyone I ever met before 1990. There's a fast way to have a BALL and lose all self-esteem at the same time. Glad to have seen everyone, but I also have that post-reunion emotional hang-over thing going on

8. One thing that my (VERY WEIRD) job makes me think about a lot is something that bothered me when I was little-- how hysterical people get over whether their baby is a boy or a girl. As a little kid, I was downright frustrated with that because I didn't understand why that would POSSIBLY matter. And as an adult, I have unfortunately picked up the same reaction to every newborn that crosses my screen... a GIRL, she'll be a mom someday. A BOY, oh, his son will probably play soccer just like him. Gender does pervade the brain so deeply.
This morning I was wondering about gender differences.

I'm more gender-savvy than I was at age four, and I still strongly dislike gender-based discussions, but the one thing that I *will* say after my long day of contemplation is that I hope men appreciate what women go through to someday bring their little mini-me's into the world. I was in a bar a couple nights ago where a guy was drunkenly complaining that his crazy "ex" was a psychotic PMSing bitch (not to mention a series of thinly-veiled racial slurs that he threw in the mix... not to mention that it was painfully obvious that he was still "with" said "ex" and "playing the field at the same time"). I digress. Obviously he was just a drunk idiot, but my friends and I had to really hold ourselves back from not stuffing a sock into his yapper from frustration.

My personal opinion is this: if you're a drunken guy in a bar who will never, EVER in your lifetime have to deal with a *miserable* monthly phenomenon that doesn't even have a name cute enough to use in mixed company; if you will never EVER be asked humiliating questions by your doctor about your chances of being pregnant just to get a cold medicine prescription; if you can go to a party and drink your face off, get amorous with the cutest girl there and stumble home at the first light of dawn while she gets a hangover cure of anxiety, loneliness and the fear of whether or not drunken protection may have been the 2% that the contraceptive companies warn you about... well, DON'T be that guy in the bar. Because while girls are in no way victims or 'entitled' to any kind of sympathetic treatment, those girls are your friends; your sisters; your girlfriends; your co-workers. It's like the old song says-- mama said there'd be days like this. And it's great to be a woman, but drunken idiot in the bar, the shitty country songs do not lie, and it is hard to be a woman sometimes. So do yourself a favor and just pay your tab and go home. Chivalry is DEAD... we're not asking for you to joust for our attention, we're just asking that you do not loudly demean us in public. (*on a side note, I am not damning All Males Everywhere here. And surely, as a female, I forget what's tricky about being male. Suggestions are more than welcome)

9. At one point, this was an attempt at a light-hearted, positive, upbeat numbered list

10. Mama said there'd be days like this.

11. Goals for the new year: (spontaneously. to be re-visited)
1. fix dad
2. work on staying as positive as possible, even under duress
3. stay on top of things that can fall through the cracks: financial organization; contact with very far-away friends; putting laundry away instead of letting it live in the dryer for a few days on end; etc
4. major positive job change (in any meaning of the word 'change')
5. Stop, at all costs, discussing boring dreams, even if it's just to myself here online

12. Last number for the night: I had the craziest boring dream last night.
Sort of a vampire/zombie combo dream. Weirdly Holocaustic (surely, I just butchered two words here)

A bunch of us were herded down a very claustrophobic colorless street-- Italian, probably-- as people passed us. We knew that we were getting herded into sort of a group mind-f*ck vampire-inflicting kind of situation, but we couldn't fight it. Instead of drinking our blood, they('they'- an unseen, terrifying presence that we could only feel by the hair going up on the back of our necks) just kind of forced our demise into our minds, and I realized that everyone else around us had been inflicted because their faces and necks were breaking out in deep scarlet rashes. My uncle passed me on the street, and he had a rash that was creeping up around his chin, and he had dark red candle wax crusted all around his eyes... the thick wax had a faintly raised pattern on it, like the wax seals on letters. He was peeling it away from his face when he noticed me looking at him, and when our eyes met, I realized that his pupils were bright red, too. I shrunk back in horror and he closed his eyes firmly before opening them again-- they were pitch black, and it was impossible to tell where the pupils ended and his irises began.
He smiled at me and started picking the wax out from underneath his nails. I could hear his nails scraping on his skin, and his eyes were so bloodshot that it looked like fractured pieces of wax had just melded into his whole body.
It was awful... everyone around me had fallen expressions; their faces had blotchy red patterns bursting out all over and their lips were cracking from a clammy dryness as they looked around blankly for their next victim.

Then the alarm went off, and I knew that it was time for Monday...

the longer side of the vee

2008-12-15T22:44:00.004-07:00

I was looking at a picture of a sleeping toddler earlier... struck by how sweet her little flushed cheeks were, hair flung out in all directions across the pillow, clutching a stuffed pony in the crook of her arm. It's like she was running somewhere at full-speed and sleep just leveled her.

Sleep is such an odd thing. I was looking at her and thinking about all the other little kids across the world who are sleeping in their beds-- little fingers splayed out the same way, hair scattered, cheeks flushed, stuffed animals watching over them protectively. Sleep is like a plot device from a really good science fiction novella... the sun leaves the sky and all humans are unwound slowly until they topple into blankets, mother's arms, stairwells, whatever will hold them until the sun comes up again.

There's a bittersweet loneliness in tucking yourself in at night with no one to talk to. I wonder if there will ever be a night where turning out the light won't feel a *little* strange without someone to pat the covers around me. Do we always half-expect our parents to linger in the doorway for a minute, watching to make sure that we're safe before shutting the door behind them?

It's bitterly cold this week... it feels strange out here when the temperature stays below zero for more than a day at a time. I associate this kind of cold with my Hamilton days, except the bitter, biting 'moisture' is gone... it's a dry cold, with a sarcastic sun that shines down from the clear blue sky without leaving a trace of warmth.
My apartment has the most insane drafts from the windows. I should REALLY fix this. I either pay out the nose for the inefficient heating attempts, or get a knot in my back from contorting into the shape of my quilt for a couple of hours on my tiny, comfy couch.

On my way home, I got stuck at The Train (tm) on East Pearl, and then the same Train (tm) on Hwy 119. It was one of the longest trains I've ever waited for... it's on the same route that's been an endearing part of my summer and many travels to and from Longmont at Train O'Clock, but tonight it was an endless, endless string of round black cars. It was so cold that I could see my breath in the car all the way home, even with the heat blasting. A 40-something man in an SUV next to me looked at me, waved and smiled... and I was so preoccupied with my own train-waiting thoughts that I didn't even have the reflexes to smile back. We waited there *endlessly*, and sat next to each other*endlessly* again in the same lane trying to turn off the diagonal.

There's something warmly familiar about waiting in traffic on bitterly cold nights. Everyone's lit by the faint glow of their dash... tinkering with the radio dials, chatting on the phone, shifting from first to second over and over as a symbolic 'systems check' in consideration of all the ice on the road. For the most part, everyone just sits quietly, facing forward, buried under down jackets and puffy hats. They all share the same quiet, bemused look. Sometimes it twists my heart a little... because I'm a bleeding heart type and everything's a poem in motion, all the time...

This morning, three huge flocks of geese flew overhead as I was walking into work, and I stood in the parking lot watching in amazement as two flocks combined, some geese maintaining their place in line, and others switching flocks in perfect synchronicity. Each goose was spaced out at exactly the same distance from the next, and it dawned on me how much 'fine tuning' they have to do to move into that exact spot while flying.
Why do they change Vees like that?
Do they all try to keep up with each other? Are the geese who traded lines solitary travelers, without a mate?
Do some of them leave their mates behind to join a new line?

Do geese have regrets? Do they ever feel afraid?
Do they all fly at the same rate, or do some Vees travel much too fast for new members, leaving them jittery and aching at the end of the day?

What do their echoing honks mean... trumpeting back from member to member until they reach the end?

I came inside to an empty department, blinking in the dark, cavernous hallway with pink ears and cold rushing all the way down to my core.
Our UPS delivery man came in, smiling.
"Morning Ms. Jane, what's up with the Geese Watch?"
"Oh- just appreciating their technique. They're pretty amazing."
"You know how sometimes one side of the V is much longer than the other?"
"YES! Oh my gosh, what's up with that?? Does it throw the whole flock off, or is it intentional?"
his expression dropped, looking more surprised than pleased now.
"Oh. That's just... just when there are more geese on one side"
He grinned at me. I blushed, realizing that he was making fun of me.
"Psh. What am I signing for, wiseguy?" I said, smiling in return as ice dripped off of my low-tops in big sheafs.

The rest of the day was spent half-heartedly trying to stay on top of meaningless emails... the view of geese obstructed by the blinds.
Back to the work week we go.

and Bella walks again!

2008-12-08T23:57:00.003-07:00

I can't sleep.

Dad goes in tomorrow for surgery...outpatient surgery, but an invasive and extremely painful procedure on top of the chronic pain he's been in for months and months and months. Chronic pain is so easy to type and say and think. But it's such a high-voltage and wordless thing-- he and I have barely even acknowledged what's been going on even though it's been such a heavy and constant weight, day after day.
If kidney stones aren't even the worst part of any given day of his... I can't imagine what those days must be like!

I'm extremely worried, which does no good. So I sit in my bed with my laptop on my stomach... its warmth feels good against the twisting knots in my belly.

Today: work was pretty tedious, but I got a decent amount done and contacted some top-notch researchers whose work excites me. It started to snow fairly hard as I drove off into the low gray cloud (thinking of Stephen King's "The Mist" and the family fight I had about it last year... does everything tie into a philosophical conversation with my dad?)

I did something for the first time today-- I got my hair done at a nice salon; not one of the tiny lean-to house salons where it's me and a bunch of blue-haired ladies getting a perm. Lately I've been craving something relaxing, and for some weird reason I just keep thinking about the days when I was a little kid and I had really long white-blond hair that my friends or my parents' friends were always braiding or flipping up into a ponytail. Nothing feels as amazing as someone playing with your long hair-- it's the single most relaxing feeling on the planet. So off I went to a nice salon because I'd read that a brand-new beauty school almost-graduate was giving cuts and color for half-off.
"Please don't cut my hair," I said to her. "I've been trying to grow it out forever. And I don't really want a different color... can we do highlights that are basically exactly the same shade?"
She looked at me in the mirror. I looked at her. She gave me a very knowing smile. The owner of the salon, standing over our shoulders, didn't flinch. I think she's seen many frazzled people sitting in that chair who don't want hair that's shorter or a different color... they just want to sit in the chair and pretend that they're five again with waist-long hair.

Two hours later, I was released into a heavy snow storm with wet curly hair that looks almost exactly like my normal wet curly hair, except it cost me a small fortune and probably added a year to my life.
Sometimes, being a little shallow is the antidote for being a little overwhelmed.
I would gladly give them money I barely have for the same thing I already had again. Seriously.

Yesterday: Spent almost 6 hours painting my bedroom. It's really hard to paint by yourself! I missed my painting buddy. The fumes start getting to you and then the panic sets in that you have to finish, perfectly, or you will never leave your fume-y apartment again. At 6pm I staggered out of my home for the first time all day-- exhausted but triumphant. Today, when I came home and flopped down on my bed in this room with no light switches or paintings on the walls, I looked up to admire my handiwork and discovered that the paint I used on the trim was exactly .000001 shade lighter than the paint that covers the rest of the walls.
The trim only took 5 of those 6 hours.

Game face on. I will triumph over $16 paint! I will learn to be a domestically capable person! Baer paint, $20 shampoo, tiny washing machine in my closet, schizophrenic stove range, Safeway strange & unusual-tasting vegetable bins... you can take my pride, but you cannot take my soul! I ate an artichoke for dinner, and by the end of this week, I will have beige walls and beige trim, or so help me, god!

(*apparently sleeping in potent chemical paint fumes and then getting potent chemical crap applied to your hair results in extremely long, pointless rants about domestic insecurities)

After painting, Tom, Thad, Sam & Kate joined me to celebrate Lance's belated birthday with a blue collar bowling extravaganza. Tom discovered an enormous purple ball with a thumb hole the size of Mount St. Helens that he coined "The Gaper". One round consisted of having to USE the Gaper to bowl, and it was the hardest I've laughed in a very, very, very long time. I had to use two hands and basically throw the ball in the general direction of the lane just to get it rolling.

Last week: a week of good things and very, very strange things. There was a scary car accident right outside my office window, where we've seen many accidents and even more near-misses over the past two years because of a particularly precarious two-way stop that SHOULD be a four-way stop with the national guard out there every evening to get people to stop going 60 in a 45 and blowing the only stop signs that are there. A lady blew the stop sign and got plowed into by a pickup truck... she ended up in the ditch, I ran out to call 911 and see if they were hurt. Both drivers were dazed, but within about 30 seconds she went from pale and incoherent to white and panicked. Screaming-- incoherent screaming is all I remember as she dove into the back seat and all I could think was, "child. Small child. Can't remember this address. Hurt child."
She reappeared holding a small black lab whose hind legs were dangling helplessly. The woman turned in a couple of hopeless circles and then sat next to the car, rocking the dog in her arms and sobbing.

It was awful. I felt sick-- first the sound of two cars crunching together in the street; then relief when the woman came out of the car in the ditch; then this. The woman wanted to take her dog away, but a man who had pulled over behind them helped me talk her out of it-- he'd called 911; her face and chin were scratched and bleeding; they both had to report the accident. Without so much as looking at each other, we both put her dog in the back seat of his very nice SUV and peeled out of the parking lot. I think we made it halfway to Longmont before I even asked what his name was, as he nervously looked in the rearview mirror at me with a large dog on my lap who was shaking so badly that I thought she might be having seizures.

To make a long and scary story short, after four stops at emergency vet clinics that were decoys, we finally got Bella into the vets, where she was whisked away and put straight into surgery. Hours later, she emerged from spinal damage surgery. I was relieved that they hadn't put her down, but very nervous about her outcome.
At this point, I was covered in dog hair, glass dust, some dog blood... I had so much adrenaline that the zippers on my boots were audibly clicking as my legs shook.
Over the weekend, the dog's owner called to say that Bella not only made it through surgery, but a few days later, she was eating, could control her bladder, and was even putting weight on her back legs-- something the vets said might not ever happen at ALL, but if it did, she wasn't expected to for several days later. Bella is expected to make a full recovery!

If there is anything as sweet as those words, I don't know what is. I'm so, so happy that she's ok... it sounds stupid, but I really bonded with her on our 30 minute panicked drive to the vet's (and more vets) offices. For all the pain she was in, she literally didn't whimper once-- she just shook in my arms and flailed around a little bit and rested her face on my chest and watched me.

It's difficult to worry about things that are out of your control. But every once in a while, a situation comes along where you barely have time to worry before you're able to leap into motion.
I much prefer motion. It feels so much better to be stroking her and saying what a good dog she is than standing back at your desk, wondering if she made it or not.

If only life gave us more options to leap...
leap, and the net will appear.

the continuing theme of my quarter-life crisis.

Randy, Daddy's not going to 'kill' Ralphie

2008-12-04T21:54:00.003-07:00

Not feeling great tonight, so it's bed and freezing hands and the quietest neighborhood in the world.

Unconnected and non-important thoughts:

1. I need a permanent reminder of the kind of jobs that would be my Dream Jobs, capital D, capital everything.
All this recession / economy / political turnover / terrorism in Mumbai / media everything really does wedge itself into your brain... this morning I was feeling so grateful to have a job, and people who need me working on projects that are scheduled out until June and August of next year. But this is not the rest of my life. I need to start kicking my ass very hard to make it into something that's bigger and better and more ME.

current best dream/fantasy jobs:
1. Writing for Pixar
2. Writing for Reading Rainbow (circa 1992, unfortunately)
3. Writing and producing for Kartemquin Films
4. Making an incredible artistic/cinema verite film about children in foster care while working on my novel / play / book of poetry while preparing to make a high-budget documentary about my dad's writing career
5. Children's book author (and YA author... maybe 2rd grade - 8th grade)

2. I got a long scathing complaint yesterday from a client who was totally put out that my last prenatal health video series featured both single parents and couples. She returned her video because one out of the three videos' covers had a couple on it... wearing... wait for it... wedding rings. She's disgusted that we would depict commited couples at all because she works with single teen moms and feels like our video would not be emotionally healthy for them.

How does one respond to this?
I'm supposed to be all tail-between-my-legs about this stuff, but you know, I really wanted to just call this lady and ask her to bite me. Actually, I wanted to call and say:

Dear crazy woman in Texas,
I sincerely apologize for the horrifically traumatizing effects that my prenatal health video must be having on your teen mother viewers. I realize that 50% of our video shows couples eating right, exercising and preparing for the birth of their child, and I also realize that this is sick and wrong. Couples have nothing to do with pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. In fact, men have nothing to do with babies at all!

Certainly, the young impressionable mothers in your class should NOT be exposed to happy, committed relationships, and the idea of having a stable male figure in their child's life should be cut out and trampled on our editing room floor.
I truly apologize for this blunder. I can't believe that I didn't take your specific (crazy) needs into account while making this video, which will be shown in every hospital across the country. Did I say country? I meant internationally. But obviously such a LIMITED market will have the SAME NEEDS as you, so why should I include a diverse cast of moms (and dads) of all ages?

3. What was I saying about job security? Er...

4. I sent my dad's agent an email out of the blue to thank him for the friendship he's shown my dad for the past 26 years, especially as of late, with his nearly heroically genuine and compassionate gestures toward dad during this awful summer/fall/winter of illness. He sent a response that made me bawl my eyes out. It was one of the most beautifully written and heartfelt letters I've ever received. This year, I don't have to think hard to remember what I'm thankful for during the holidays

5. The day before I left for Chicago, I remember thinking, "I haven't cried much in a really long time".
It's always really, really dangerous to think such things.

6. I spend a decent amount of quarantined mental agony on the stupidest sh*t ever. For instance, "what should I do about a gym lock? I buy them but then forget the combination. But it's irresponsible to just leave stuff in the locker with no lock" (repeat 18,000 times during the week to self) and "my shoes aren't winterized. I am a bad person for wearing non-waterproof shoes. I'm nothing but a lazy, vain fool with cold feet"

7. Last night I had an incredibly realistic dream that I discovered a jar of homemade jam that a social worker made for me on my kitchen counter. Disgusted with myself for letting it sit out unrefrigerated, I mentally berated myself, carried the jam to the refrigerator and put it on the middle shelf, tapping the lid to make sure that it was airtight and I could still enjoy my tasty treat without dying of food poisoning.
It took me ALL DAY to determine that this was, in fact, a dream, and that the jam in question has been in my fridge (on the middle shelf, with the airtight lid) all along.

I'm not sure which I feel more strongly-- that these uber-realistic dreams* are the trippiest thing EVER, or that my jam dream is the most boring thing that's ever happened on this giant green earth of ours.

(*the uber-realistic dreams are the only quasi-cool side-effect of the G.I. Joe internal organ warfare of 2008, but they're driving me bat-shit. Last week I dreamed that Mer was leaving for London and Lance was about to buy an Audi... two things that they've often talked about. It took me DAYS, literally, to decide-- after much, much consideration-- that I had dreamed these conversations) Other uber-realistic dreams: jam, Thad talking to me on the phone, Tom skiing in really deep powder, people breaking into my apartment. LOTS of those dreams lately.

8. Ooh! I won't type up my Philadelphia haunting story here because I'm going to sleep in 10 minutes and I don't want nightmares. But I had another creepy experience this morning after my profoundly boring jam dream... I was caught in the sheets a little bit so I was flailing around at about 6am, grumpy to be awake an hour before my alarm was going to go off. I was flailing, falling asleep, kicking the sheets, dozing off, when right behind my head... CLICK. It was the exact sound of someone flipping on my light switch, but ridiculously loud. I just about levitated out of my bed... but no lights were on. No light switches were flipped. Nothing in my closet had moved, nothing had fallen off my bed... I've stripped the room down to paint it, so there aren't even screws in the wall, just my bed in the room.
How freaky is that?!
It's the second consecutive night in a row that I've sat bolt upright in bed, with waves of real adrenaline pumping in my heart from crazy noises. (Yesterday was the sound of someone super shady walking up and down the stairs and snooping around my door and my neighbor's door at 3am.)

Ok. Must leave before I scare myself with more nighttime (boring) terrors.

for next time:
philadelphia haunting
crack baby dolls that are actually being sold to public high schools as educational material
reasons why I believe (subdued) chivalry is the most underrated and dead sexy thing ever
crazy embryonic development facts
a manifesto for the working rebellious urban cowgirl

love,
Jane Kathryn

'this whole romantic love thing... it's just a projection, right?'

2008-11-30T12:49:00.006-07:00

It just started snowing outside... it's an overcast Sunday and the only sound in my apartment is my ipod set on low.

Love is not a victory march / It's a cold and broken Hallelujah...

The snow starts falling harder

Raise your hopeful voice / You had a choice / Falling slowly, eyes that know me / And I can't go back Moods that take me and erase me/ Take this sinking boat and point it home/ We've still got time

Snow starts filling up the sunroof on my car.
I took a photo on Thanksgiving of the candle on the dinner table, as seen through my (mostly empty) glass of red wine.

Abstract, lines, light, deep reds. The rest of the weekend has had a similar feel.

Portrait of the past two days, seen through Polaroid snapshots:

Many games of Scrabble. "DragonPee", "alibi," "vicar"

Cellos and Lefthand beer with Meredith, leaving more cello messages for ourselves and for friends
("You play the top part" "me? Really? I don't know. I have shy toes right now")

Synechdoche, NY with Thad and Tom. (Thad- "I don't know what I didn't really like about it, but whatever it was, I just REALLY didn't like it about it") ("there are millions of people in the world, and none of them is an extra-- they're all leads in their own stories")

Sitting in coffee shops alone with Delillo's White Noise... getting thoroughly creeped out when he described terrorists hi-jacking a passenger plane and slamming it into the White House, "The president and first lady escaping with nothing but scrapes"... (published in 1985).

Staying up past 2am cleaning out two rooms of my apartment and scrubbing them down in anticipation of painting, and learning from Lance as I stood in my painting clothes bright and early the next morning that cold temperatures are disastrous for house painting days.

Pigtails and my new hat. Sweatpants. Meaningless tv. Putting off trips to King Soopers. Bemused by a sudden flurry of reunion invitations from elementary school comrades. (And being more inclined to attend a kindergarten reunion than a high school reunion)

Missing my friends from Hamilton and starting to understand the whole "you won't really appreciate it until you're gone" warnings about college. Wishing in some ways that I could re-do part of those four years... let myself off the hook a little, pull all-nighters in the library a little less often. Feel more confident about myself. Video tape all those wonderful comedy shows, so I wouldn't be left with just memories of Swedish accents, DeBeers riffs and 80s dance routines. Wear warmer winter clothing. Confront my adviser when he f*d me over and "forgot to give me honors" after every part of my heart and soul was poured into the work I had done for the past four years. Be brave when it comes to my personal life, and not just my academic life. Grilled sandwiches every day in -10 degree weather. Endless amounts of coffee.

I am plagued by questions these days... big-picture questions. Unresolved questions. Life-changing questions with no firm answers.
The stillness of the weekend helps me push them out of my mind.
Simply sit by the window and watch the snow fall...

sweet email for a nightcap

2008-11-19T23:49:00.003-07:00

post script...

Earlier, I sent a long mooshy note to work to thank everyone for the exciting weekend in Philly.
Unexpectedly, I got the sweetest and funniest email back from Rose, one of our off-site sales reps who I don't know very well.
I love when someone says something really nice when you're down (totally coincidentally) . It makes my heart flop around like a goldfish in a carnival bag.

(other things I'm a big fan of today:
1. the kindness of strangers when you're traveling. someday i want to write a coffee table book about this... kind strangers are almost THE reason to travel. Even just the nonchalant guys who help girls who are struggling with their bags on airplanes. Best thing ever.

2. my list of words that I hate and almost can't say because they bother me so much. It's an impressively elite list that I stand by. Today's additions: maven; uranium

3. getting a haircut when I'm feeling blue (or feisty). I've been trying to grow my hair out forever, so whenever I have a real doozy of a day like today, it takes all the willpower I have to not march off to the hair salon and just ask them to start cutting at will.

4. numbered lists. and reiterating every month or so how much i love numbered lists.

5. the subconscious part of me that expects to find a long, hand-written love letter waiting for me every time I check the mail. Somehow, I started quasi-expecting to find one when I was about 11 (while checking the mail daily, neurotically, for one of my dad's manuscripts to arrive from NYC), and the thought has stuck with me ever since. Maybe someday it will happen. For now, it's still just Xcel bills and coupons for oil changes, which is all the romance a girl could ask for.)

From: Rose
Subject: RE: a ton of photos and enthusiasm from the Freddies

Jane - You are by far one my favorite people! I loved the photos, I loved the captions on the photos and your sense of gratitude and your attitude are just second to none! I am dying about the gates of hell comment that is SO LOL I love it. You looked stunning by the way! You should sign autographs at the company lunch- you’re practically a celebrity now!

From: Jane
To: Staff (;all;)
Subject: a ton of photos and enthusiasm from the Freddies

Good morning, everyone!

I’m back (and in a mild state of shock) after an intense 68 hour trip to Philly to accept the Freddie on behalf of everyone here. It was an incredible honor to represent our company… it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had! Thank you so much to everyone for making such a meaningful, professional program, and for letting me take this trip.

Each Freddie recipient got whisked onto the stage to deliver a speech, and what I chose to say was:

“The people I work with are a passionate group who care very deeply about the importance of prenatal, childbirth and parenting education, and I’m thrilled to be representing my colleagues here tonight. For someone who’s very young in her career and in this industry, I’m inspired by the professionalism, dedication and passion of the people I work with, and of the people who are here tonight. On my first day as a video producer, I was in an edit suite alone, editing footage of a family meeting their newborn for the first time. It was the first time that I realized the impressive impact that healthcare media can have, so I am honored to be part of this wonderful celebration.”

Here are a zillion or so photos of the weekend (sorry-- you know how much I love photos…)

The view from the hotel! City hall, very eerie looking at night…

The ballroom… for each award, they would announce the category, the bio of the company that won,

and then turn off the lights to show clips from the video (on both screens, right & left). Then they’d

announce your name, and a live band would play a song as you nervously climbed the stairs, shook the presenter’s hand,

and walked (shakily) up to the podium to give a speech. Intimidating!! (we had to wait backstage before

our award, which was even more intimidating because there were producers and presenters running around with

microphones and ear buds, yelling “cue music, cue presenter! dim the lights! The Discovery Health Channel’s table needs more dinner rolls, go, go, go!)

Just after giving the speech and almost falling over when they handed me the award (Fred’s almost 10lbs!)…

The event lasted nearly 5 hours, so I had Freddie help the ladies freshen up their makeup

The art museum… the famous steps from Rocky (yes, I ran up all of them and yelled “Adriaaaaanne!” after singing the theme song. I couldn’t resist …)

Ben Franklin, appropriately seated inside the Franklin Institute

At the Gates of Hell! Incredible sculpture at the Rodin Museum entrance… (“The Thinker” is also in front. Very cool! I said to the family next to me, “I always wondered who I’d meet at the gates of hell”. Unfortunately, they were extremely religious and not amused by my early-morning humor, which I discovered when they told their 2 and 4 year old children that heathens like me would one day go through these very gates if we didn’t repent. WOW!)

Sculpture of the various constellations… incredible blue sky on my last day

Thanks again for an incredible experience. I brought the ‘brochure’ back with me, as well as an ‘inspirational book’ by the evening’s host, Daryn Kagan (an anchor for CNN)… both are on my desk if you need some reading material. Happy Monday, everyone

Jane K. Simmons
Producer

geese, at dusk, like shadows

2008-11-19T18:56:00.004-07:00

Geese gather by the hundreds in the fields across from my office
They gather close together, lowering their heads and preening
Flocks forming a long black mass that is peaceful and still

The sky is deep pink, orange, and cobalt
Headlights cast a long, low beam across the cropped wheat fields
The geese look like an oil slick

A firetruck passes slowly, then a long line of cars with one person inside
Faces thinly illuminated by cell phones and radio displays
Darkness wraps around the fields until they are swallowed whole

I close the front door and rattle the knob to see if the lock will catch
My thumb follows the teeth of the key in my righthand pocket
The headlights from the highway make me squint, so I cast my face up to the dark dome overhead

Across the street, the sound of wings beating frantically against the still air
Feathered bodies launch into the darkeness
Straining to follow the motion, I stand alone and wonder which direction they chose

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Feeling kind of trapped today.

I get up in the morning, shower, get ready, go to work. With the cooler weather, sometimes we don't leave the office at all (unless I duck out to the parking lot for a 1 minute voicemail check) and by the time I get out of work it's completely dark outside-- pitch black if I work late, which is becoming more and more the case. I make dinner and watch some news, or turn on some shitty tv, or read...I look outside at the darkness. I talk to friends who are close by or far away, I make bachelorette pitter-pattering around in my apartment. I send emails. I make plans. I go to bed. the cycle continues.

Such as it is for most people.

I feel stuck. I feel compelled to go to my parents' house all the time because my dad is sick, but sometimes when I get there, it feels like I should leave because he is irritable, or doesn't feel up to chatting. I've been working hard to get somewhere, and now that I've climbed the ladder to see the view, it turns out I don't actually want to pursue that course of action. Where to go now? I've worked very hard to be independent, but currently, the idea of striking out completely alone in a new city with a new dream is looking lonelier than ever. Heart-sickeningly lonely. Priorities scattered to the wind, catching the jet stream, moving in a hundred places at once.

I'm putting energy into things that do not want my energy.
I'm mostly to blame for expending that energy in the first place. Which just makes me feel small and deflated, for the most part.

Tomorrow's graduation for the class of parents I've been volunteering with. Will their kids remember me? Did they get anything out of our time together, or was I just their babysitter / disciplinarian? Did any of them like me? Were they just busy with their own little kid worlds?
What will happen to these families?
How many of these kids will have kids who will live out the same cycle?

I have a new book of cello music that just arrived in the mail. I would like someplace to play these songs, just to have a reason to keep callouses on my fingers and the satisfaction of making nice music in nice company. I don't want to have to start cold playing at places that have no resonance or meaning to me. It's a metaphor for everything else.

Just stuck. Very stuck. Will get unstuck.

I'm ok with making mistakes as long as nobody gets hurt... as long as I learn from them. But I don't want to make a mistake with my life. We just get one, and it goes so fast. I feel jittery about age for the first time in my life. I don't want to be someone who feels jittery about her age... certainly not at this age.

I went to let my dog out this morning-- it was startling. She's been dead for two years. Tonight at Vic's, a golden retriever waggled his white eyebrows at me and my heart melted with how much I loved him. Why can't people love other people the way we love dogs? Why are we so quick to take our affection away from our friends when it takes a dog dumping on our white carpet for us to raise our voices?

People are strange.

non-political pre-election list making

2008-11-03T12:00:00.001-07:00

Things that I have recently fallen head-over-heels in love with:

1. 71 degree, 100% blue sky Sundays when literally the only thing you are capable of doing that day is sitting outside with a cup of coffee and a book

2. Ed Wood. And... because you can't love one without the other... Plan 9 From Outer Space. I love Ed Wood so much, I can barely sit still.

3. The realization that Johnny Depp has fake teeth in almost every role I've ever seen him in (different teeth... that's pretty much Stanislavski method, right?)

4. The Longmont Vacuum Store. Specifically, the Longmont Vacuum Store Parking lot while idling my car in the parking lot for 17 consecutive minutes, listening to "This American Life: Halloween Special" on NPR.

Things that are guaranteed to drive me up-the-wall, can't-even-stand-it, bat-shit crazy:

1. Leaving a message for someone before 8am that says, drama free but with important intent, "need to speak to you, please call me as soon as you get this". And even 24 hours later, when you know said person will never call you back, still being unable to turn off the watchdog in your brain that's on alert for the phone to ring. Guaranteed fastest way to make me want to eat my left foot from frustration

2. Spending an entire weekend in bed reading a book that builds into a chilling climax at the end, and 10 pages away from finishing the damn thing, you leave it at your parents house.

3. Phone messages that are buried in your phone's memory, only to be shoved in your face when the operator MAKES you review them to re-save or delete, at the WORST possible time, when those exact messages are guaranteed to make you so sad that you can't even operate heavy machinery

4. Trying to sleep when you have stabbing pain emanating from your lower right side. I can only imagine what it would feel like trying to sleep when you're pregnant... but this morning all I could think was... "I think I'd choose being kicked in the bladder over being stabbed by a bayonette in the ovary today. Yes. I choose foot-to-bladder".

Good thing we never really get to choose these things. That would just be messed up.

note to self

2008-11-01T13:13:00.004-06:00

A quick post-it to myself until I can find a better place to store all these random post-its... and then I will delete it. Hopefully, soon... before I forget... Thad reminded me just now that if I don't chuck them into some kind of long-term memory, I'll forget (or become a revisionist historian to convince myself that I've been cooler and less klutzy in my life and miss all the good details), and none of these moments will make it into my memoir when I'm rich and famous and living with David Sedaris (platonically or not. It's completely his choice).

Today is a memoir moment day.
Not a chapter, but a moment.

Woke up after a very strange dream about living in Paris with a friend from Longmont and a bunch of mean, beautiful girls my age-- one of whom had started a list of who was most popular in the house, and I was very relieved to have been listed in the middle... forgotten and out of the line of fire.

Looked at my clock, decided that 8:50 was a glorious time to get up on a Saturday... started to sit up, couldn't move. I did a systems check... still felt cheerfully shitty from the general shittiness that comes with being sick, but something else was wrong.
It felt like I'd swallowed a lead weight, and it had gotten stuck in my chest.
I really barely felt like I could move.
So I hung out for a while, just watching the branches of my tree bed and the crack of light that had snuck in under my blinds. I practiced breathing like we do with the foster kids... we put a stuffed animal on their tummy and teach them how breathing deeply makes the animal go up high and then down very low.
In, out. The lead weight stayed. My legs and arms moved fine, but I felt pinned to my mattress like an exotic beetle in a shadow box.

Half an hour passed... I managed to get up and start my day, but the lead weight stayed. I felt awful. Totally zapped of energy, of cheerfulness... I felt like anybody but myself. Very low. Fuzzy, like I was underwater.

Had a glass of juice and started cleaning the kitchen. Then moved to the living room before getting overwhelmed... my apartment's still a war zone after I had to move everything out to paint. I spent 20 minutes looking for a tiny screwdriver for my broken towel rack, and then just fell horizontally onto the couch. The lead weight won. Remote in hand, I succumbed to an hour of zoning out. And the shittier the television, the more relaxed I felt.
That's when my inner monologue started a little chant:
Just 35 more minutes of watching Lifetime, and then you need to go buy vaccuum bags.

Ok. 20 more minutes of Lifetime to find out if fat, balding Freddie Prince, Jr. chases the girl after discovering she has Cystic Fibrosis, and then you really need to shower so that you can go to Longmont and buy vacuum bags.

Good girl! You showered and dried your hair! (Ignoring the fact that I stood in the shower for 30 minutes on autopilot without remembering to reach for the soap, shampoo, or conditioner. But these are minor details. Tepid running water is still good for you.) Now you have to put on clothes so you can Go. To. Buy. Vacuum. Hey-- what happened to the Cystic Fibrosis story, and what is Meryl Streep doing on this channel?

Thad called to invite me to a late lunch, and things were going fine until my voice cracked halfway through "I'm not sure". Naturally, it seemed appropriate to keep applying mascara to my upper lashes as I stood in my living room crying, with the sun streaming through and illuminating the brilliant chrome sheen of my ancient, heavy, bag-less vacuum (size A. Circa 1935.)

This is what we call a domestic Saturday. Washing my blue bandanna so I can wear it when I mop the floors tomorrow. Trying to apply mascara to the fat tears brimming under my lashes as Lifetime churns out one more cliched line after the next. (Uma Thurman to love interest: So, how long have you two been dating? Girl next to love interest: (falls silent) Love interest: Dating? I wouldn't call it that. I mean.... Uma Thurman: But you're together? Love interest: I don't think I like defining what we are. Girl next to love interest (blushes and looks like she's about to cry) Jane: (gouges mascara wand into her eye and curses the extra 10 minutes this will cost as she tries to get out of the house and away from the nefarious evils of television geared toward weepy single women)

Off to find socks.
To wear with the bright pink sneakers.
And the hideous sunglasses with rhinestones.
Must go find vacuum bags.

like a duck reading about breast care...

2008-10-30T21:41:00.004-06:00

Today at work, we were all asked to come to a mandatory company meeting at 8:15 am to review the quarter's profit and loss sheets, discuss department issues, and have a general company update. In Halloween costumes.

One such costume came with a very large stuffed duck, who spent his afternoon sitting in a red armchair in the office that I share with Vicki, perusing a Better Breastfeeding printed guide** with an expression that can only be defined as Shakespearean.

Such was my day.

**(Suddenly, it dawns on me how appropriate it is that this booklet is forcefully referred to in our marketing material as a web-enhanced guide. Web. Hmm. And much of the content refers to blocked ducts. What a twisted web we weave when we stick the carnival duck in the corner...)

I digress.

I was sick and snuffly, yearning for my bed and the empty wasteland of my refrigerator, but trapped in my office due to the fact that the property manager removed the sole staircase that leads to my second-floor apartment.
It's an interesting feeling to know that your apartment has inexplicably become an unreachable oasis while sitting at one's desk, pushing folders around just to see them move, wondering... if I had to, could I shimmy up the drainpipe to rescue my pink sneakers?

Now, 9 hours later, I lie in my bed contemplating the very drunk photos that I uploaded from Justin's wedding last weekend, and question life.

At various points in a young bachelorette's lifetime, she will turn to her friends, her shrink, or the great vast expanse of the universe with tears in her eyes, and shaking her clutch at the heavens, she will yell, "why?? Why am I not desirable enough? What have I done wrong? Why doesn't he/they/mankind want me??" to which she expects her friends, or shrink, or vast universe to push her highlighted, layered hair from her Lancome-powdered face and say, "there, there. It's not you. It's the universe."

Yes, every bachelorette has this moment, and often, and I have certainly had my share of this very moment.
But not tonight.
Tonight, lying in my bed, I know exactly why and to what horrific extent I'm undesirable* in the prime of my youth. (*At this very moment, mind you. Not all the time. Do you think I'd have a good sense of humor about this if I was a freaky looking lady all the time? Do you think I'd have time to WRITE about it? Hardly.)

Reasons why I am a candidate for dismissal, exasperation, and mild agitation:

1. Sickness. Is anything less sexy than sick? "Hello, my name id Jade" is all I'd be able to get out as an opening line right now, and that wouldnt sell hay to a cow.

2. Extremely painful and embarrassing skinned knees. Hardcore skinned knees. From drunken fall taken immediately after Justin's wedding, at which I was a) wearing high heels b) embarrassed to have partaken of the open bar so freely in my complete flop sweat over the video I made that was shown to about 150 people c) bummed city, resulting in even an additional trip to the open bar, which did not yield in a cherry in my drink as requested, which meant less food in my stomach, which meant even more drunkenness.

3. Yes. I think that even two cherries could've saved my knees that night. It was a party full of engineers... I'm sure they could outline the physics and probability of the cherries-to-knee-injury situation of that night, but please just take my word on it.

4. No? You don't believe me that I can still barely bend my legs, even though it's been a whole week and I practically went through a whole tube of Neosporin? I wouldn't believe me either. Please see figures A and B

Figure A: Two knees. That hurt. A lot. From lack of cherries in my whiskey.

Figure B: Am I not the most grotesque thing you've ever seen?!? Seriously! This is what I'm talking about! No wonder I'm alone in this big chilly apartment. I'm hideous! Shield your eyes!!

In the words of Eddie Izzard... "Even *I* wouldn't shag me".

Gross. Moving on.

5. Posting photos of my own injuries, which screams egomaniac, or at least, "how could you be such an idiot to get those disgusting injuries? And why are you forcing me to look at them?"

6. Contents of my stomach: cherry/white grape juice (1). Vegan "chicken patty" (1). Macaroni salad (1). Gold tortilla chips (7.3) NyQuil (2)

7. Random inuries, aside from disgusing knees: mysterious and hidous scratch that appeared on my chin between 7:45am (can't be late to the all-company meeting! Even with a fever, pillow lines on my face, and no stairs!) and now. How does one cut their face with out realizing it? Shouldn't there have been a distinct moment in my day when I winced, flinched, and/or yelped in pain as something sharp dove into my lily-white skin? No. Instead, I discovered it as I was washing my face, trying to rub the grime off until I realized that the searing pain was self-inflicted, and I stopped.
Um. Yeah.
Also: random black and blue bruise that emerged on my upper, goose-pimpled arm. Very, very attractive.

8. Hair- scattered everywhere from being wound into a tight bun while wet and left to dry for 14 hrs (can't be late for the meeting! It's fine that I have the black death! Surely, I won't even notice as I'm propped up against a wall listening to our marketing strategies for 2009!)

9. High Fashion: pajamas pants- over time, have shrunk in wash until a minimum of 2" too short. Also, too lightweight for winter. Also, sort of generally boring pajamas-colored.

10. Hands. And Feet. Freezing like hell. Oh, very, very attractive. Yes, maybe I should go touch someone with my appendages of doom and see if they ask for my number, or perhaps a defibulator.

11. Makeup. None, except for a thin smear of mascara. No, not on the eyelashes... down both ridges of my cheekbones, where I accidentally cried a few alligator tears explaining the pitfalls of my week to my friend Thaddeus. Still smudged into my cheeks because I got disctracted during face washing routine, when I tried to wash away a huge scratch under my chin where-- unbeknownst to me-- I have a massive scar from a shiv fight I had with my parole officer.

12. Ambiance. Besides the freezing cold appendages, hmm let's see... copies of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood in trade paperback (1) , one loudly whirring laptop (1), crumpled kleenex shrine that I'm making to myself (4), childhood teddy bear that I shamefully dragged from the closet to cheer me up as I lay in bed, cold-footed, sick and miserable (1), ridiculously skinned knees (2).
Mmmmm. Mood setting!

So, let it be known that although there will be days that I beat my puny fists against the cosmos and look down at my fabulous, put-together self, wondering how long the quarter life crisis is supposed to last, anyway, sonofabitch...oops, ladies don't swear under their breath... certainly that's not attractive... today, well, today I look down at my skinned knees, chapped lips, raggedy hair, shrunken pajamas, chapped nose from too many kleenex-ings, tissues strewn about, freezing feet, goose-pimply upper-arm bruise, and NyQuilled, vegan-chicken filled belly (*which is interesting, seeing as how chicken isn't supposed to vegan; nor am I)... and I write an absurdly long run-on sentence...and I say: universe, you rejected me this week. You rejected me, you ran me into the curb on my knees and then threw my heart under a bus, and then gave me the plague, made me question my potential as a competent and productive member of society, made me anxious for the next 10 years of my career and personal life... and universe, looking down at myself at this very moment, I don't blame you.

Some days, I am fabulous.
Today, I ain't nothing but a carnival duck reading about breastfeeding in a red armchair.
And I'm going to own that.

'Night,
She Who Art Delirious from Life Overload and Too Much Sinus Medicine

skinned knees and whiskey

2008-10-27T12:26:00.004-06:00

Wow. It's been a long, long time.

It's also been a long, busy summer, followed by a cold snap into reality that warm weather is gone, the smoke is fading from a variety of pipe dreams, much of the chaos from the past few months is over, and the times, they are a-changing.

It's my lunch break, and I'm wearing arm warmers, a hat, and my reading glasses... pausing every so often to cross my arms in an unsuccessful attempt to warm my fingers in the armpits of my bright green jacket and my bright purple shirt.

The weekend started off with Justin and Dani's wedding, which was beautiful, and I'm so happy for them. A combination of extreme jitters and low food intake resulted in a higher than expected solicitation of the open bar. Which later led to my high heel meeting a root (I got through the bush just fine, ironically), and my knees meeting the sidewalk at about 100 miles per hour.

Spent Saturday with a hangover, trashed knees, and a brain that was overdosed on work and chaos. It's the first time since I can remember... June? April? ... that I just stayed home all day and didn't rally to do anything. Curled up in a big blanket and watched Psycho and The Bourne Supremacy as my apartment got dark... didn't turn on the lights, didn't make dinner. Just sat and zoned out, letting all the things I've been repressing and chasing out of my mind rise to the surface. It was a little more intense than I would've expected. I've been too busy with projects and work to think about the important, scarier things, but I realized that I'm partially making myself too busy, which is a cop-out. I got hit with 3 months of overdue mental post-its like a linebacker. I let all my calls go to voicemail-- three messages from phone robots demanding that I vote for their candidate. Twice, my doorbell rang... an Obama canvasser who did a double-take at my dark apartment and messy hair, and 20 minutes later, a McCain canvasser with a headlamp who actually accused me of lying when I said that no, "I wasn't Catherine Smith, and yes, you do have the right address".

Sunday was a day for sad news. Sunny, cold, and clear... the kind of day that most of my life's bad news has been received on, which I find sort of comforting and poetic, regardless of how cheesy that might be. Three really heavy conversations. Ironically, each of them related in some way to changes to my future that I wouldn't choose for myself. Finances. Careers. Heartache. The hope of taking what you have and trying to make it flourish can be replaced so quickly... it takes a fleeting instant to go from wild, joyful momentum to the drawing board.
One drawing board, I can handle pretty cheerfully.
Three is a lot.
I will push up my sleeves and do what I can to meet the challenge of three new drawing boards with cheer, vim, and vigor.

But in the meantime, I need a few days to go on standby. To feel sad for the things that I will miss. To get my coffee pot ready for the chemically-induced spark I'll need to get rolling. To take vitamins and get over whatever kind of plague I may be coming down with today. To sleep and unbraid my mind from the nightmares that it loves so much, like last night's melodrama that I was being attacked by my pet brown bear next to an insane asylum where many of my childhood friends were wearing white nightgowns and reaching their hands through the bars.

Maybe laying off the crack is a great way to start over!

Until then, I just want to spend time with my family before dad goes to the Mayo clinic next week... apply Neosporin to my knees every 6 hours... watch a lot of Sopranos episodes, where calculated violence and soul-selling takes the place of uncalculated life changes and stagnant momentum.

I'm very interested that spring tends to be my launching point for energy, lifestyle changes, philosophical discoveries, and fall is always the time for heartache, job seeking, and cutting ties with a heavy heart, knowing that they're only pulling me down, headed for a crash landing into the cold, October-frost on the sidewalk below.

I wonder if there's a job where I could just be paid to read literature all day?
I could really disappear into about six months' worth of reading right about now.

Next time: more lucid thoughts. Fewer knocked-on-my-ass-exhausted thoughts. Photos from Chicago. Selections from David Sedaris.

Back to the drone.

premeditated blatherings

2008-08-25T22:58:00.002-06:00

I wrote this a while ago. It's been collecting dust... maybe from June? May? Early July? A few weeks ago? No bloody idea.

Tonight: Been writing other things on my balcony for hours by the glow of my laptop while drinking Malbec out of the world's cheapest wine glass (*white wine glass, because je suis idiote), so I figured I'd save blathery stream of consciousness writing and just post this old stream of consciousness that never saw the light of day.

******************

Drunk on meeting people…

always the anxiety of not meeting the right person, or meeting someone and being anxious and wondering if they’re the right person. Because even if you’re supposed to just know and feel that they’re 'right'… does this still apply to people like me who have profoundly overactive imaginations? I’ve had an overactive imagination since I was a fetus. Am I living a delusional life because of this? Do I really have everything that I want within my grasp, and I’m just making myself frustrated because of my own stubborn personality traits? Or am I a passionate person whose frustration is a symptom of the fact that I haven’t found what I need yet (or perhaps passion is the thing that makes you constantly a-flutter, constantly frustrated and chaotic and questioning. This is my fear. That this IS the life of passion and wanting more… is that you do actually want more from your mind, your habits, your inner self. All the damn time. It’s exhausting, but to be honest, that’s where I get most of my ideas and momentum)

I was dating someone about two years ago who put it to me in terms that I almost could not tolerate. We met up at the Dark Horse for a beer… oh, it lives up to its name…a seedy, dark college bar with kind of a creepy nuance and sticky tables. It was February, and the parking lot was an oasis of sludge and black ice. I could barely sit still, I was so worked up about something… practically knawing on the side of the table. We tried to remedy my conundrum. “Explain it to me,” he said, “I’ll help you put a name to your problem”. So I listed my symptoms: agitated, flighty at work and with relationships, want something in my life very deeply that I couldn't put a name to. Unsure of whether or not to stay or to fly… lacking a certain meaning or goal that I couldn't clearly identify, either. Felt a little manic about the insecurities that come with putting down little tiny roots in a place that I’m unsure about rooting in.

I looked at him, confident that my complex mind would exasperate (and then stump) him.

He cocked one eyebrow at me while he sipped his beer.

Then, without an iota of hesitation, he simply said, “it sounds like you’re bored” and wiped the foam from the side of his beard.

What?!

I felt like he’d hit me in the gut. Bored?! Me, Jane Kathryn, whose mind wakes her up at 4am, who showers sometimes just to listen to the ticking of her internal monologue as it goes through its life lists, who has an epiphany or a new project every hour, on the hour?! Bored?!? Jane Kathryn, the video producer with pens in her hair, talent to direct, pretzels to buy to feed her crew every 15 minutes, lest they starve?! BORED?!??! Ms. 'I Did Improv and Stand Up Comedy On Spontaneous Whims for Seven Years just for KICKS and Not For Purposes of Self-Torture"?!?

Shit. I thought. Maybe he’s right.

It stopped me dead in my tracks.

It was exactly the same feeling as the disappointment when you’re sick… miserably achy, hot, it feels like the world is ending between your knees and your neck … and you pop the thermometer in your mouth just to discover that you don’t even have a fever. Life is so much more fun to milk when there’s something sexy to proclaim, like ‘typhoid fever’… having to tell someone that you just have a cold takes all the fun out of being miserable.

And that’s what he did, right then… he took the fun out of the incredible complex throes of my complicated emotion by suggesting that I was simply bored.

Well, I’ve done a lot of thinking since that fateful winter, and I think that bastard was on to something.

Bored doesn’t have to mean that you’re lazy. Bored doesn’t mean you’re not challenging yourself, or that you’re letting yourself go, or that you don’t MIND being bored. It doesn't even matter if you're tortured by the mere thought of being bored.

But it does mean that your brain is craving something bigger and better than where you are. It can mean that you’re letting yourself circle the drain in some ways, even if it’s just to gauge how much it really sucks (sorry for the pun). But bored is not good. Bored is a desk job with no real potential, bored is a treadmill that’s not moving fast enough. Bored is settling for circumstances that aren’t fulfilling you as an individual.

Bored is not ok.
I keep seeking the scarier option in an attempt to slay bored. And despite all the heartache, all the thrills and raised eyebrows and blind turns, I think bored is the hell that I need to keep avoiding, no matter how much energy or nerves or heartache it takes to stay ahead of that two-headed doberman pinscher of a fate.

**author's note: at this point in the essay, our brave heroine grew bored and wandered away.

-Mae West

post script

2008-08-19T00:52:00.002-06:00

(Startling epiphany of the evening... hearing the Dave Matthews song "I'll Back You Up" and realizing that I'd forgotten that Dave Matthews existed. And I'd also forgotten the fact that I made a breakup mix when I was 19 and devastated and REALLY far from home, and used to listen to that track every single night for about two weeks to get myself to sleep).
It's SO weird, these moments where you suddenly feel like a teenager again, but living this close to family and old friends and old memories... it's inevitable. I occasionally drive past memories of first kisses, the first time driving a standard transmission, first day of high school, public pools in the summer and neighborhood butcher shops at Thanksgiving... and it's trippy... it makes me journal these weird, angsty, John Huges posts... and that's the way it goes.

It's 1am.
Why do I do this to myself?
Work is never going to call and say, "by the way, just start at 11 tomorrow, that's cool, stay up until 3 again..." :)

But damn...
I just remembered that they play the Cosby show after 1am...

this post script is not juicy.
if it doesn't contain gossip, a great joke or an admission of deep and burning love, post scripts should probably not happen.

when the night has come, and the land is dark...

2008-08-18T23:36:00.007-06:00

Lights off. All of them, except the floor lamp by the window that overlooks the parking lot.
Slippers on feet, phone quiet except for the occasional buzz of texts from a weary friend who's just getting out of work. Eyes tired and hair in a crazy conundrum of bobby pins and a pencil that I don't remember owning.

Intro... one of the best intros of all time...
bass line. triangle. a brief percussive whisk every measure on the 2nd beat.
Followed by Ben E. King's voice.
When the night! Has come! And the land is dark. And the moon is the only light we'll see.
No I won't be afraid. No Iiiiiiiiii won't be afraid. Just as long as you stand, stand by me.
the triangle becomes a little more courageous. Then the violins. And then, like magic, the "ooo" of the backup singers.
Stand by me. Stand by me.
If the sky that we look upon. Should tumble and fall. Or the mountains should crumble to the sea...
I won't cry. I won't cry. No Iiiiiiiii won't shed a tear. Just as long. As you stand. Stand by me.

Across the parking lot, a puppy 'yips' and a balcony full of young voices laughs. A beer is opened. Next door, the blue flicker of television in a dark apartment where a guy lives alone (he wears black cowboy boots, and looks a little like Jeff Goldblum...)

violin solo comes to a close
Darling, Darling, stand. By me. Ohhhhh stand by me. Oh stand now. Stand by me. Stand by me.
Whenever you're in trouble, won't you stand by me, ohhhhh stand by me...

posting at the end of the day usually means crashing energy and lots of alone time; resulting in less-than-chipper posts. If I wrote at the beginning of every day, I would leave a much cheerier impression.

However, this is the nature of journaling.

A brief portrait of recent things...

Friday:
1. the rain came. completely drastic cold snap, pouring rain, had to turn the heat on in the car and put on fingerless gloves to type when I got to work really early.

2. late Friday morning, a funeral for a friend of the family. She was only 45. The memorial service was heartbreaking. One of the most heartbreaking moments ever.

3. After the funeral, drove home through country roads alone and upset, got stuck in construction traffic two blocks from my house. Construction guy screwed up with where he was trying to direct me, and embarrassed about his mistake, he yelled at me... something along the lines of "get the hell over to the next lane". Then the window wipers pushed the rain off my windshield and he saw how upset I was. He gave me a super apologetic look and mouthed the words "my mistake" about the lane misunderstanding, which was nice. When it was my turn to go, I passed about 5 other construction workers... the last one was on the walkie talkie with guy #1, and as I passed him, he nodded his head and gave me the kindest wave. It seemed like the first guy had just asked him to do something nice. It's funny... you go into certain events with definite expectations of what they'll be like, and what you will remember about that day. But looking back on Friday's events, I will always remember someone at the funeral standing alone, with hair poking up in the back like a little boy's and a perfectly pressed suit, and then I will remember my teeth chattering in the rain on the drive home, and the kind wave of two construction workers. You really can't plan the cinematic moments in life. They just happen to you when you're least in the mood to experience them.

4. When I thought my drama was over for the day, I pulled over at home to get a sweater and try to get myself together before heading back to the office. I was annoyed when I heard the sound of someone's television blasting into my apartment-- it sounded like the women's finals in tennis... those ungodly half-grunt, half-screams. The sound went on and on, and finally, I stormed over to the window, sick and tired of getting noise from the apartment below mine this summer. Peeking out, I saw someone lying in the parking lot. Under, or next to, a FedEx truck. The blood left my face so fast, it's amazing I didn't faint... it looked like a woman was pinned under a huge delivery truck, screaming her brains out.
Then I heard a strange thing-- someone standing next to her, sounding annoyed: "well, what do you want? Do you WANT me to call an ambulance? Just tell me what you want."
The f***???
I ran downstairs, cell phone in hand, into the pouring rain. A fed ex delivery woman had been running back to her truck, slipped on the drenched curb, and dislocated her shoulder badly. She was in an incredible amount of pain. My neighbor was on the phone... with fed ex, as I found out, and NOT 911... oh lord. It felt like hours before I managed to get the story straight, ensure that help was on the way, try to figure out how and what to say to someone who was literally almost losing her mind with pain if she moved even half an inch.

The rain fell and fell and fell, and I watched her carefully to make sure that she was staying awake and as coherent as possible, and I kept saying maternal, empty promises like "they're almost here, they're almost here, I can hear sirens almost" and tried to say anything helpful... and then the fire truck and the ambulance came and I just headed back out of the rain, dazed and confused by one of the all-time weirdest days ever.

5. Spent the weekend relaxing, spent a LOT of time alone, just thinking and not thinking and trying to catch up on the frenetic energy that's been spent lately.

6. Except for the part where Thad and I had a drunken wrestling match on his kitchen floor as Meredith and Tom cheered us on (or groaned, horrified what nerds we are. Maybe both.) It's been at least 10 years since someone flipped me over their head. It's Monday night, and I still have linoleum burns on my knees, bruises under my ribs, and really sore pec muscles. I start laughing every time I think about it... the last thing I remember saying was "Tom, anyone in this room would wrestle each other for your love, because we all love you" and then tossing back another sip of red wine before Thad-- the human gust of wind-- was pushing my face in the cat bowl. Oh... god... what would I do without these three....

7. I have found the best cup of coffee in Colorado. Ironically, it's just the dark roast drip coffee at Ziggy's in Longmont. It makes me want to be a better person... oh man. It's good.

8. I'm making a couple of mix cds... Meredith's mix that I put on my ipod for her bday, Thad's mix that I've been working on for MONTHS, and a mix for Lance that has strangely morphed into sort of a vintage classics piece. Some latin, some jazz, a little Velvet Underground, Etta James, Ben E. King's "Stand By Me"... I love making mixes, but I'm perplexed by how each one takes on a life of its own (and I'm forced to put songs on people's mixes that I don't even necessarily want to at the time... it's like being hypnotized or something)

9. Portrait of a Monday: went to work. thought very deep thoughts. made the world's worst pot of coffee-- it's like I'm drunk or something when I try to make coffee at work. Barrista for 8 months, can't even fake it in our kitchen downstairs... it's really weird. Came home, ate shite for dinner, Fatal Attraction was on AMC (why?! Why did I watch 75% of it?! Being eccentric has its toll)... watched some olympics and worked on my mix cds... strangled iTunes when it stopped playing songs, and had to spend the next two hours reading forums online and re-installing shite...

10. exhausted. To bed, then to work, then hopefully out for a run, then a cello practice for wedding #3, then vino with Lancer as we sit next to big open windows that smell like summer, then Troy's wedding that Robin and I are filming, and finding a new job, and endless hours of resume-tailoring and putting stamps on envelopes...

11. I. Love. Summer.

12. And I love babbling into my laptop until I can't even think straight as a means of unwinding and then passing out in my awesomely comfortable tree bed.

ain't no sunshine when she's gone,

the vintage mix girl

chilean red and hues of a blue heart

2008-08-11T21:58:00.006-06:00

Nothing profound to report...

Decided that a bad day gave me permission to break my own rules, so I'm drinking red wine alone in my apartment while watching the Olympics. After much, much thought, I decided to contribute my own symbolic refusal to watch the Beijing ceremonies... but last night I got home feeling low despite having a lovely day of watching birthday partying friends celebrate sweet Meredith's 26th while drinking bourbon and eating cake and all the loveliness that comes with birthday parties... after tracking down our friend who never showed at the party and nearly having a heart attack when I thought he was *completely* missing (still as maternal and paranoid as ever, Jane the Wonder Freak), nothing sounded more necessary than watching swimming. I figured, as long as I cheated, I might as well just give in again tonight... because I'm the only who knows and/or cares if I watch the games, anyway.

The swimming was amazing both nights. Michael Phelps, who in the fresh hell are you? Where did you come from? Did robots construct your arms? Are your legs made out of jets?

I must admit that I was *completely* turned off by the men's relay team last night as they were interviewed (and who is this blonde reporter with her blue polo shirt, huge mic, and the world's WORST questions? Oh. She makes my soul hurt. Shouldn't there be some kind of decision making process that goes into interviewing first-place olympic athletes when you've got millions of viewers and thousands of cameras watching you?) Anyhoo. The men's relay team responded to questions about potential trash talking by saying something like, "those Frenchies were talking smack, but we knew we'd blow them out of the water..."... I'm sorry... but... Frenchies? You jocks. And whoever it was who said that was the one who looked all around the pool to see where the cameras were before making his "we just won first place by less than the length of a fingertip" face. GROSS.
*****************
Hmm. Took a 20 minute break just now to watch gymnastics on mute while drinking a 2nd glass of red wine and talking to Lancer.
Feel much less snarky.
I take back everything I just said... and I raise my glass to you, gold-medal-winning swimmers. Just try not to prove all the American stereotypes right overseas, ok, boys?

Plans for star-watching tomorrow night because it's the peak of the Perseids meteor shower, and I'll be damned if a year ever goes by when I miss it... sigh... nature really needs to take over my entire night and make me forget all the snark and disappointment and sadness and frustration and other feelings-- good and bad-- that come with the privilege of being a thinking (and, currently, over-thinking) human bean. I just want to feel small and in awe of the bigger picture of the night sky and friendship and summer and the universe's great, unexplained expanse and motion.

I got out of work feeling really unlike myself. On the brink of tears and helpless to big feelings that surfaced yesterday while sitting on a stone wall watching kindred friends interact and absent-mindedly getting mustard out of my party dress that a sweet tiny baby left for me as a present (or a sacrifice to my cleavage-- either way, good aim, tiny baby). Stayed up late last night watching the thunderstorm, followed by dark nightmares about men with ponytails getting out of vans and chasing me around the neighborhood where I lived when I was really little. Woke up terrified and-- as always-- almost certain that the ponytailed man was actually in my apartment. Actually sat up in bed, sweaty and crazy-haired, to say, "is anyone here?" What kind of horror movies have I been watching that this particular plan seemed like a good idea?

So. Long day at work, too many thoughts, and then I found myself getting totally scammed at an Oil Can Henry's in Longmont (why?! Why did I go there?!? to get my money stolen by a couple of 15 year old punks in bow ties)... when my mom called to say that their next door neighbor passed away from cancer at her home this morning. Oh, I feel so sad. I showed up at my parents' house and my heart broke before I could even get out of the car. Sat in the car on the way home just watching the sunset and thinking thoughts without judging them... deep-down thoughts, like how wonderful and meaningful it is to be alive and capable of thinking, reason, judgment and love, but real loss and real suffering do make life almost not worth living sometimes. And what a profoundly complicated thing it is to be alive, and to lose someone or to be lost yourself. Literature and film keep feeding that part of us that answers and asks some of those scary questions, but tonight, I found a lot of dark and important questions in the salmon-colored, mushroom-shaped clouds that collided with the front range. I think I will remember today for a long, long time.

After cracking open my Chilean wine, I was watching swimming and just feeling numb. Maybe tired, maybe emotional, maybe just out of energy to feel things, but I was completely staring at the events... the women's backstroke, the men's backstroke, 100 meters, 200 meter, they kept coming and they were so appropriately brief. I realized that I was almost tolerating the majority of the race-- the bird's eye view where it's all splashing arms, heaving water, commentators yelling into the mics, the roar of the crowd. But then there's that agonizingly brief shot of the swimmers from the bottom of the pool-- and I realized that I was completely sinking into the back of the couch every time they switched to the shot from below. The motion of the bodies underwater is breathtaking... each swimmer's body has the most amazing muscles, and the streamlined suits silhouetted against the bright lights... the women looked like mermaids, or seals, or waves. I felt stoned each time-- my inner monologue just automatically tried to come up with the right adjective for how those amazing movements looked. It was beautiful. It was peaceful. It was such a word-less, natural, incredible motion and expression of being a living part of this world... part of physics, gravity, motion, buoyancy.
Mmm. I do sound stoned. But I'm not... it just really moved me. I wonder if I can watch any of the swimming events a second time, all from under water?

This wine is such a dark red color, and the pool through my glass looked so aquamarine. I was thinking about the red and blue bruises that form when something hits you hard... the red and blue qualities of blood, depending on whether you are looking at it from above the vein, or within the vein (are you watching them swim from above the pool, or below)... the purpley-red and blue chambers of the plastic hearts that they show you in science class. I hold the glass to my nose and smell deeply... the red wine plunges into my blue veins... red embers of peppery, tanic scents flood into my blue and red heart, bruised slightly, like a mis-shappen plum. The red and the blue of the pool, and the swim caps, and the French, American, Australian flags competing for first place in the women's 200m race.

Swimming in colors, I will finish my glass and head to bed.
Tomorrow is a new day. With shooting stars, open skies, new thoughts, deeper understandings.

I will watch the stars skip across the sky and feel grateful for a lot of things... remembering Carl Sagan, who illuminated this great universe to me at a young age, and to Mr. Rogers, who gave me permission to feel things other than being happy, as long as I learned to find peace with my emotions one way or the other before being tucked into bed for the night...

golden sunsets, longmont sunrises

2008-08-02T15:17:00.007-06:00

Longest busy stretch ever.

If I'm too busy to write-- at all, even on the down-low-- for my own self, then life is craaaazy. And it has been since the beginning of June. It's mysterious, a little perplexing, a ton of fun, and something that was one part purely intentional, one part excellent coincidental timing, and three parts hot summer nights that promise mischief and deep thoughts and cold bottles of beer.

Here's a photo of the sunset in Golden last night ... followed by a photo of the beautiful sunset clouds and me rubbing my butt where Thad had just won our butt-kicking contest. (both photos courtesy of Erik J., who was nice enough to be my photographer when I made whiny dolphin/Lassie noises because my camera was out of juice, and banished on my counter at home.)

*For the record, Thad's pretty damn good at ass-kicking contests. His giggles don't affect his performance as much as mine do... and he also has a much swifter foot-to-cheek delivery. My leg goes out at too much of an angle or something.

So... YES! The summer of going to bed after 2 am at LEAST three nights a week, if not four or five nights. The summer of getting my legs eaten alive by mosquitos and spiders... without even camping... summer of absolutely tedious work days and ENDLESS nights / weekends / early mornings filled with painful producer shoes and shoots with impatient parents and whiny, coddled little children. Er...and nice parents and AWESOME children, too. Those families are just less apt to jump to my mind first after THREE MONTHS of endless video shoots for this project. I'm so over shoots... unless the beaurocratic powers that be make me replace my perfectly wonderful families with a 15 year old hippie with triplets or something, we're done with shoots for the project I've been working on all year (fingers crossed fingers crossed). Before this, the most Mini DVs I ever shot (of new footage, specific for one program) were 5-6. We just finished tape #32 for this project. That's over 32 HOURS of footage to organize, edit... 32 hours of families who had to be cast, directed, bargained with, paid, fed... see? This has turned into some kind of weird work rant. I'm exhausted, and I really need some days off before I lose my mind. :)

Also of note:
1. The mysterious return of the G.I. Joe Invasion... however, this time around I'm less frazzled about it because I figure, hey... if my appendix isn't going to explode and I don't have ulcers, I can deal with mysterious sharp pains and just take myself out for a glass of wine after work. This is the life and wisdom of Dr. Jane, Medicine Idiot. Perhaps this is more of a metaphoric pain... not so much a 'cyst' situation as it is my body's strong psychological reaction to having to watch so many hormonal new mothers with their tiny babies 40-50 hrs a week, when really, at the moment I'm just a bachelorette out painting the town red and being irresponsible. Maybe my SOUL is hurting at the thought of watching such responsible domestic footage all day when I could be out bowling in high heels with friends and pitchers of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Ah! That must be it. Kidneys be damned.

2. Adventures with Edi and Lance: the awesomeness of July. Including: Mer & Jane's 2am cello rehearsals for 2 solid months... mountain adventures... plans for an amazing features piece of 'what are you doing right now'... synchronized swimming parties in the hot tub... going to see Matson Jones and getting all misty-eyed that we're all kind of grown-ups now, and Anna's going to be more famous than Madonna... Also, Lance & Jane's amazing ability to be spontaneous: cheap, sweltering Rockies games with margaritas and stand-up comedy on the bus ride home; philosophy discussions on the golf course and golf lessons in the kitchen; watching naked neighbors fold laundry one sock at a time for an eternity; sitting in chairs watching life happen on a sleepy downtown street below... learning about everything from toe injuries to the importance of venting with fellow only children about the stigma that society places on us.

3. The list is the best thing ever. Let's review!!!
A compilation of my various lists from the past two months...

> New additions to the list (tm) including: a secret that I'll have to figure out how to write in code to myself... still working on this one, but it's going GREAT! Will return to this another time.

cantering while in an *English saddle*... yes, East coasters, I've only cantered with a Western saddle... haven't done anything horse-related this summer except watch GORGEOUS horses in the Boulder County Fair parade this morning in Longmont...

improve vocabulary for quickfire comebacks... found coffee shop that has AMAZING coffee and a word of the day. Often know the meaning of the word of the day already. Ego is boosted, vocab pretty much remains the same

write letters to people who have said or done *very* meaningful things that I would like to acknowledge them for-- including Mer & my cello teacher Maggie, haven't written to Maggie, but I'm drafting it... my uncle who I don't really know, and the author of Bridge to Terabithia...learn an easier way to do the 'inside/outside' cable wrapping with mile-long extension cords and XLR cables.slowly getting better. It's a misnomer, I discovered. It's more of a 'top coil, bottom coil' method.

1. babysit Suri Cruise (seriously. I had the most incredible dream about babys [editors note: this was supposed to end with babys-"itting Suri Cruise". Because I did have an incredible dream about babysitting Suri Cruise. Somehow, this post was left... how shall we say... incomplete, due to the distracting powers of whiskey & cello duets, and lying on the floor giggling to death with Mer as we left long, LONG music messages for a poor unsuspecting victim. The author apologizes for any typos and/or ridiculous sentiments left here on this post a few days ago.] despite being a bit boozy when I originally wrote this, I would like to put "babysit Suri Cruise" back into consideration. I have some things I need to ask this chick before I feel comfortable with the state of Hollywood in the 21st Century

2. take old fashioned photos of ourselves out in a field with our cellos when we have more than two photos left in the old fashioned camera oh yeah! I should find the first two from Mer... scan them and put them online... they're really cute

3. buy a perfume to smell lovely on a subconscious level when meeting new people (one that doesn't reek as much as the atrocity that I just dumped on myself... while eating donuts and jameson) hmm. Ok. Still must find something that smells delicious to slather myself with, so I feel all 1940s and decadent...

4. sing 'for the beauty of the earth' with meredith on a golf course at midnight...without getting past the first three words and falling over giggling and calling it quits not on a golf course, but we DID sing it in the echo-y foyer of my parents' house after the most stressful wedding music afternoon EVER, and so I say: check. Random fact: the wedding weekend was so hot, chaotic and stressful that I lost SIX POUNDS between Friday night and Monday morning. It was kind of awesome.

5. RED HAIR. That I don't have to commit to for a year. Red, little orphan Annie, incredible hair. ok girl, don't yell. I will do red hair for fall. And then go back to ever being a boring regular-hair-color school marm like I always have.

And the original list:
1. swimming tomorrow at 7am fell off the wagon with this. didn't swim at all this summer.. I've just been jogging (and note to self: NEVER jog at night again. Three times with terror running through my veins that I'm going to be eaten by a bear or an escaped prisoner are enough)
2. possibly bringing back the Asian aesthetic of the parasol this summer in an effort to get to fall without a single serious sunburn bzzzt. I have so many weird tan lines, I look like a tiger
3. hikes... Rocky Mtn. National park, Sanitas, the grasslands, everywhere planning some fun ones now!
4. go white water rafting for the first time oops. missed the season for that one. but found a white water rafting buddy, so that's good too
5. find a new job. STAT. regardless of what 9 News may or may not (FINALLY) tell me this week via email three minutes after the 10pm newscast has ended yeah. um, this item of the list has been turning my hair gray for months and months and months. back to the fun stuff before I cry.
6. once I have found my new dream job-- figure out a stable schedule
7. once I have a stable schedule, become a Big Sister, or another youth mentorship program
still planning to do more Nurturing Program work in the fall... can't wait...
8. call the therapeutic riding center and ask them if they still need summer volunteers for the youth with disabilities camp hasn't happened...
9. read absolutely everything about twins. Twins blow my mind. My obsession with twins will never end, and maybe if I read up on them now, I will have the psychic ability to will myself to have twins in my early 30s when I will be married to LeVar Burton and living happily as a documentary producer and fiction writer. mission accomplished! I've learned the difference between fraternal and identical, and had an amazing conversation with Chrissy Stewart about her terrifying surgery she had to go through to save her twins while she was pregant... and I've met at least two new twins this summer and kind of picked their brains... twins are just awesome. Nature is incredible. Multiples should be the next planet earth subject... I mean... seriously. It just blows my mind. Two amniotic sacs-- it's like a science fiction movie!
10. write my buns off until I have something that I would actually have the avacados to try to publish. AUGUST. Taking a couple of days off just to write and re-examine my priorities soon. Slapping my wrist that I've been so bad all month with work and running around (but picked up lots of inspiration this summer, and new ideas of things I want to write...)

11. #10 again, because it's one of the most important things I've decided all year.
12. watch the Cosmos series again front to back, mostly over at my parents' because dad can tell me what research was updated since Carl Sagan's death Went to see Eddie Izzard last week (AMAZING!!!) and his opening line-- "why didn't God start the Bible with, 'So the Earth is round..." turns out to be a Carl quote. Awwww.

13. watch all the Sopranos episodes that I missed all those years at school
14. learn how to properly chop vegetables, instead of the for-crap way that I taught myself in my bachelorette pad
15. make a mystery video, a personal project video, and "what are you doing right now?" before end of July. video projects-- A+. Working on the secret video now, did a Terminator spoof video with Beth that was shown at Mile High Sci-Fi's Terminator show last week (on YouTube soon? I'll put the link up)... also made a top-secret video involving tiny toy cars and three disgruntled overtime employees... also filmed some driving around in the mountains with Meredith.

16. learn Elgar's cello concerto with Maggie, my spiritual advisor since 8th grade
17. learn guitar, instead of the crap self-taught guitar I've picked up while poorly chopping vegetables have started! will conquer!

18. write an original song for guitar, cello, and piano... and memorize all three parts in case this ever becomes a desirable skill and my country calls upon me for service
19. write letters to Canada because I'm a terrible person and I never send lovely typewriter-drafted notes on vintage magazine ads like Steve has for years

20. go on a ride-along with the Longmont Police Program YES!!!! It was amazing!!! Thursday from 1:30pm to 10pm, had the option to stay with another officer until 4 or 5am... too tired to write the entire experience out now, but it will be coming soon. Actually, it will also be up on dad's website soon. God, I love the list. :)

21. speak with someone from the Reading Rainbow production company and Sesame Workshops to talk about what experience I actually need to get there, as opposed to the experience I'm pretending I'll need have done MUCH thinking on this subject, but it was not the right time... with luck, I'll have the moxie to do it soon

22. do something that scares me at least once every two weeks CHECK

23. take a winter driving course
24. interview a dog expert to see how I can overcome my fear of scary dogs (or at least how to get a dog to stop attacking me if it were to ever happen) have also looked into this. May simply read pack-mentality dog essays and dog-trainer books to get a less hands-on approach. However, discovered a dog expert on Google named Jane. I kind of want to have a long back-and-forth with her about scary dogs... it would be like an existential "teaching yourself the things you already know" kind of moment
25. write a heartfelt hand-written letter to the people at This American Life who discussed their employment opportunities to me

26. learn Thriller. The entire thing. Well enough to do it drunk in a bar surrounded by strangers. oh yeah! forgot about this one. Will return to it.

27. audition for at least one more comedy group / project / improv troupe / standup gig Mile High Sci Fi! Check. Will be writing with them as soon as next week. Very endearingly dorky and fun idea

28. learn how to paint, and take a figure drawing class
29. possibly take a calligraphy class in Boulder from Marlow Brooks
30. take some kind of dance class. Preferably something fun, where I won't look like an idiot. not so much. Although I did take Meredith to a wedding where she met a sexy Tango dancer. So I consider this one to be a check mark.

31. go out in Denver as much as possible during the convention, and have at least one beer with an interesting politician who wants to tell me about checks and balances in more detail than I currently understand on second thought... the recreate 68 *ssholes make that way less fun and manageable than I'm in the mood for.

32. buy a new computer and set up my first at-home edit bay check! have borrowed one. looking into maybe buying a gently used mac.

33. someday: buy my own video camera seriously. it's becoming essential.

34: someday: also buy a second pair of tall high heels. they make me feel like a 1950s jazz singer, and it's absolutely worth feeling 10' tall to feel like that when I leave the apartment.

speaking of number 20...
I filled out the Ride-Along application for the Police Department this morning, and it has the craziest clauses. "Observers shall not converse with prisoners, suspects, witnesses..." "Observers shall not participate in any police activity unless specifically directed by officers" ... "No handcuffs or weapons are permitted"... "you voluntarily assume the risk of death or personal injury from the use of vehicles, weapons, unlawful acts, forcible resistance by law violators, fire, explosion, gas, electrocution, or injury in any other way..."

I'm totally excited. I scratched out the day shift and am now requesting the night shift. I really want to learn more about how law enforcement works, what part it plays in society, what it's like for people on the offender's side, how our society really works, and what the ugly side of it is that I only peek at when it's convenient for me. I want to get jury duty soon, too. I also have an itch to vote soon. did I mention that I completed this one??! It was awesome. I still have pants that smell like jail. Yeah... I was in every holding cell in Boulder County at least twice, and a man covered in blood asked me for my phone number. I know how to use a SWAT gun and what code means "distempered raccoon" when we originally thought we were racing to a "stabbing-- possible homicide". I'm so excited for this post...

I will also update my new list items soon.
Here's to the weekend... *clink*

list from way past my bedtime

2008-06-16T02:36:00.003-06:00

many things to talk about soon.

preview of coming attractions:

1. thoughts on internet dating (I'm not doing field research-- however, I was recently questioned about this subject in an interesting way and I'd like to muse about it in a philosophical and sociological way. Internet dating brings some interesting new twists to society that I'm intrigued by, disapprove of, and endorse all at the same time.)
2. Story about the girl in the bathroom stall next to me at Old Chicago's last Friday night. (And it's not gross at all. Unless your threshold for 'gross' includes things like 'oatmeal' or 'public transportation,' in which case you are probably upset a lot of the time for constantly being grossed out)
3. Why, and how, my new bedtime is 3am. IT'S RIDICULOUS. And so, so weird. And yet... not at all.
4. New additions to the list (tm) including: a secret that I'll have to figure out how to write in code to myself... cantering while in an *English saddle*... yes, East coasters, I've only cantered with a Western saddle... improve vocabulary for quickfire comebacks... write letters to people who have said or done *very* meaningful things that I would like to acknowledge them for-- including Mer & my cello teacher Maggie, my uncle who I don't really know, and the author of Bridge to Terabithia...learn an easier way to do the 'inside/outside' cable wrapping with mile-long extension cords and XLR cables.
5. Brief discussion of this week's impusle buys, including People magazine's cover story: Jody Sweetin-- From Meth to Mom (oh, trashy impulse buys...)
6. Extoll virtues of playing cello with Mer at least once every 48 hrs. If not twice.
7. in homage to Laura's cross-country move: a conglomeration of quotes from "The Adventures in Babysitting"
8. An appreciation of people who understand why you need to practice handshakes with them, and also give you a bear hug after said handshake practicing because they know it can be a challenging personal endeavor to test-drive your handshake

9. I'm off to bed.
10. let us all bow our heads and pray that's the case, anyway.

late-night croons of slim cessna on a cool monday night

2008-06-10T02:09:00.004-06:00

2am.., and jane's awake. with the spirit of the revival music loud in her ears and the feeling of friendship close to her heart.

best springtime of my life... worst springtime ever to have a 9-5 job. so it goes.

meaningful quotes from my night (and also last night, because Meredith and I are school night warriors)

> the voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes [marcel proust]

> "excuse me, but are you James Joyce?" [throws head back and laughs] "No!" "Are you potentially channeling James Joyce's spirit through you at this moment?" "No." "Huh. Ok. I'm impressed by the resemblance-- although I don't mean to slight your own sense of style." "No..." "Those are the most amazing glasses I've ever seen!" "I know. Don't they look like James Joyce's glasses?"

> isn't it a little sad to anyone else that the moral of the Wizard of Oz is that Kansas was home all along? And you were destined to live in black and white, without the technicolor adventure all around you?

> listen up, good people-- the good people of Colorado. My friend Munly has something he'd like to say to you.
>This is how it's always been! This is how we do things in the countryyyyyy.

> "Let's have some Jameson." ... "And I think we also need donuts." ... [in unison] "Yes. Donuts."

> "I need to tell you something. We're going to call you. Don't answer. We're going to leave you a song." (an hour of rehearsal goes by... the phone is set to speaker... our song is played... we stop and have a ten minute discussion about what dorks we are, and what notes we missed, and why bras are REALLY uncomfortable if you're a cellist... and the muffled sounds of brassiers being pulled off under many layers of clothes and thrown on the floor with a resounding, "there, NOW I can be an artist in peace"... just to hear (7 minutes later): 'your message has been recorded. to listen to your recording, press...*click*)

Jane.
Go to bed.

A painful, painful day of work lies ahead.

[the moon is waxing crescent]
[goodnight]

jameson list footnotes

2008-06-08T21:22:00.003-06:00

additions to my list, as meredith and I sit on my couch drinking Jameson and eating donuts:

1. babysit Suri Cruise (seriously. I had the most incredible dream about babys [editors note: this was supposed to end with babys-"itting Suri Cruise". Because I did have an incredible dream about babysitting Suri Cruise. Somehow, this post was left... how shall we say... incomplete, due to the distracting powers of whiskey & cello duets, and lying on the floor giggling to death with Mer as we left long, LONG music messages for a poor unsuspecting victim. The author apologizes for any typos and/or ridiculous sentiments left here on this post a few days ago.]

2. take old fashioned photos of ourselves out in a field with our cellos when we have more than two photos left in the old fashioned camera

3. buy a perfume to smell lovely on a subconscious level when meeting new people (one that doesn't reek as much as the atrocity that I just dumped on myself... while eating donuts and jameson)

4. sing 'for the beauty of the earth' with meredith on a golf course at midnight...without getting past the first three words and falling over giggling and calling it quits

5. RED HAIR. That I don't have to commit to for a year. Red, little orphan Annie, incredible hair.

on the good ship lemondrop

2008-06-08T10:30:00.003-06:00

New essay up on dad's site... http://dansimmons.com/news/jane/jane.htm

Perks of the weekend, in list form:
1. Dad summoned his eccentric powers and set up a ginormous outdoor movie theater system in the backyard-- big outdoor screen, speakers, projector...mom made popcorn by the truckful. Neighbors and friends came over and we watched Jaws on blankets and lawn chairs... pretty much the best idea ever. It rained a little, which only added to the ocean freakiness. More movies to come over the summer-- if you need something different for your Saturday, join the fun... just look for the flicker of movies coming from the prairie just North of 66th.

2. Today Robin and I are meeting with a midwife to talk about international health education issues... we're hoping to find a way to expand our education beyond suburbia, and into developing countries and places where this would save lives. Many, many lives. And our fingers are crossed that we could do a little traveling and filmmaking in the process.

3. Meredith made me a lemondrop martini yesterday... it was delicious. We're having a cello party /Jameson party / taking Robert Doiseneau-style photos of ourselves in unexpected places with our cellos this afternoon... tomorrow we'll be rocking out to the sweet country goth croons of Slim Cessna & Munly at the Larimer Lounge with Laura, Beth and a few other brave soule.

4. With luck, the best live music in America will be a good way to send our Laura off to grad school at Baylor. I'm going to miss her! I'm so excited for her... but it's bittersweet when it comes to the friends you've had forever. You want to be selfish and keep them in a little tupperware wherever you go. I can't believe I've been friends with Laura since we were 12, and Mer since we were 14. And we still ended up with such similar interests and valuable friendships as grownups. What are the odds?

5. I will be tactful and fail to mention that I drank a bunch of blueberry beer and threw a pool party in the dark last week. But that was fun, too.

6. Must practice for the audition that I haven't practiced for.

7. Must leave this list immediately to be get ready for auditions / Jameson / midwives who lived in Darfur / lounging with a book / old fashioned photos / more list making...

happy weekend!

harmony to the sound of heat lightning

2008-06-03T00:16:00.004-06:00

(photo courtesy of the interweb)

I had the loveliest of nights.

Busy, busy day at work... lunch outside in perfect weather... busy until the 9th hour of the work day, when I officially threw in the towel and left. Ate a bowl of cereal, and met Meredith for a 7:20 showing of Sex & The City. My feelings on the show, and the movie, are pretty complicated...I'd like to come back to that at some point when it isn't 12:22am. In short, I have laughed at the hilarious lines and cried at the truly moving moments over the past decade of the show, but overall, the show and the phenomenon disappoint me on a fundamental level. It asks us to be shallow; credit is given to those who are fickle; the women treat men in the way that I would never treat another human being. When the men act the same way, they are thrown from the show into a pool of rotting, unmentionable shame, from whence their acting career may never return. The movie's writing was the worst I've seen in years, which surprisingly made me feel disappointed-- I had low expectations, but hoped it would be the female bonding experience that I miss from my gaggle of girlfriends I had to move away from. One of the things I've appreciated about my job is that it's reinforced the power of female friendships and female bonds, and even if it was from a manufactured sexual feeding frenzy chick flick, I was looking forward to making a few "eee, she's getting married!" dolphin noises and muffling a few sniffles with my fellow females in the theater.

I digress.

After the movie, I turned the volume up on the cd I'm trying to learn for an audition. I drove up the country roads, and parked at the church on Niwot Road & 95th. Huge clouds had built up to the East, all the way up and down the plains, so I sat in the car with no lights on... watching heat lightning flicker across the vast expanse in the darkness, listening to frogs croak just beyond the church, and singing harmonies slowly and carefully until my voice relaxed into a timber that I haven't achieved since the old days, when singing had any place in my life outside of the shower.

The breeze and the night was so docile-- when I got home, I sat on my porch drinking a Blue Moon and playing a few songs multiple times in my iPod while I jotted the lyrics onto a legal pad. There was just a tiny bit of light spilling out onto my porch, and I had my bare feet up on the railing. Heat lightning began to flash closer, and clouds billowed up over my apartment,but there was no sense of a storm-- just a lovely, Western, summer night with a light beer and some deeply beautiful music. I began singing the harmonies softly with one ear bud in to hear the melody line, and discovering the complexity of the lyrics, a knot welled up in my throat and I discovered why I've been so sad to be away from music for the past few years.

It's completely silent outside.
The flickering of televisions in my neighbors apartments has subsided-- everything is dark and calm.
There's a cool cross-breeze coming in through my windows, making the apartment somewhat less stuffy than it was all weekend.

For a year, I went to bed at 10:30, and now it's 1am or later every night, with burning ideas and stories and aspirations pounding in my ears.

My mind and heart seem to have blossomed with the burgeoning of spring.

and I'll sing in a quiet place
I'll sing you to sleep
I know all the words to sing to finally satisfy you
-Wadirum

soundtrack to a happy weekend

2008-06-01T23:03:00.002-06:00

Portrait of the ridiculous aspects of life when you're a bachelorette:

Went to Meredith's house, had dinner, sat around having a lovely chat with her parents, played with Gizmo (who looks like a little happy lamb). Lounged around in perfect weather with the perfect amount of breeze and no wasps flying around our food. Felt 100% relaxed for the first time in quite a while. (Then talked about politics and the economy and gross things that dogs do-- lost a little bit of my calm stupor)

Soundtrack of the evening, which sweetly represents everything my current life feels like:
1. a couple hours of Celtic music on our cellos-- lovely, ridiculous, good for the soul
2. got in the car... some reggae band was covering "Paranoid Android" on KBCO. Worst song I've ever heard, in the history of bastardized covers. It was so bad that I had to call Meredith and gag into my cell phone, and then writhe around in pain until I got to the Safeway on Ken Pratt
3. zoned out in a very sleepy stupor in front of the milk, confused momentarily by the packaging differences (my ghetto King Soopers has trained me to just find the blue 1% milk... Safeway is so much more about Earth-tones... oh, marketing, you control every ounce of our lives)... what comes over the loud speaker? Journey. DON'T STOP! BELIEVING!
4. caught my second wind from Journey (it's impossible not to)... danced a little jig up to the only open lane... a lady in her 70s (?) rang up my cereal and was so sweet that I felt like we should've swapped addresses and started writing to each other at major holidays. Rolling Stones came on (?) as I handed her $10 for the next three weeks of my breakfast items and $10 for the Windsor tornado relief fund
5. schlepped my groceries back to the car-- suddenly exhausted again. Some song came on the radio about "scrambled eggs, and my pegged legs!"
6. switched over to the cd of the local band (Wadirum) I'm trying out for, but have been feeling very low-confidence about lately (almost called to cancel this morning)... fortunately, I was so warmed up from hours of cello-ing, I rocked it out. Sang with ease and vigor and full passion for music and life all the way down the diagonal to my home. Promised myself I would still try out, just to conquer the anxiety.
7. Home, listening to the song of my oscillating fan and early summer stillness

My arms are tired from hauling a cello, two bags of groceries, a purse and leftover Cashew chicken up from the last spot in the parking lot.
My knee that dislocated (while I was simply standing on it) in college has become so sore and swollen over the weekend, I can barely put weight on it. If I go gimp again, I'm going to be SO CRANKY. Fortunately, I refuse to allow this to happen.
My inner monologue is surprised to discover that seeing "Thank You" on top of Chinese rice take-out boxes actually cheers me up-- I was reading the box as I closed the fridge, and disovered that I was smiling and feeling loved. Awesome! Quelle packaging! Why can't the rest of us be this cheerful and generous with our spunk?

My heart is full of love for friends and satisfaction that I have finally found a long stretch of momentum
and inspiration-- I truly want to make something of my life. The blissfully selfish part of being a lone reed for a chapter of your life is the 'wants', I'm discovering...
I want to eat better, dress better, speak better, sing better, run better. I want to listen carefully and live gracefully. I want to continue learning the best ways to cherish those who I love, and keep my heart open with a reasonable amount of vulnerability instead of slamming the chambers of my heart shut when it comes to the scarier, big-picture parts of life.

I want to continue holding firm to things that are important to me-- I've finally learned how to draw a line in the sand and say: "I appreciate who you are and what you say, but if you pass this line, then you're out of bounds and I'll wait talk to you when you get back on your own half of the beach". How do we know if we're being disrespectful to others unless there are clear limits? You wouldn't lash out at your boss-- yet we have all been guilty at certain points of lashing out at our friends and family members. It's important to set firm limits on what's ok to say to each other, and what's not... as kids, we needed boundaries, and as adults, it can be even more reassuring to know the cutoff limit.

Rambling. Sleepy. Need to get up early and greet the day face-on.
Grateful for my friends, my family, my weekends, and the many important moments that make up any given day.
Deliriously grateful for the part of the year that will always be the most special (to me, anyway)-- this subtle transition between spring and summer, which feels the way that light looks as it creeps across the planet in a sunrise, seen from space.

with mooshy sentiments and fingers stained black from cello playing until late,
Mae West

lights will guide you home, and illuminate your bones...

2008-05-28T23:19:00.004-06:00

New essay up soon on dad's website... about my current obsession with lists and my eternal obsession with LeVar Burton...

Went to see Young at Heart by myself in Boulder tonight. Didn't feel very well, didn't really have the heart to go to the Tivoli by myself, so I just stayed in town. The movie was really odd-- the filmmaking was terrible, the story was bittersweet but also odd in itself. I wish it had been a little more lovingly made... every shot was from 7" above the person being interviewed, or down on the floor looking up, or at an unflattering (almost fisheye) close-up. Most of the movie was handheld and out of focus, and the twerpy filmmaker narrated it himself, giving the whole production a high-pitched, effeminate, rather nervous feel.
The old folks singing punk music, on the other hand, was interesting.
Fred Knittle, the man who sang "Fix You" by Coldplay, made me cry on my pink coat. It was such a sweet scene. He had a beautiful voice and a delightful sense of humor, and I will remember him for a long time. I wish he was my friend. (a sweet video of him singing in his house: http://www.vh1.com/video/play.jhtml?id=1584620&vid=222197)

After the movie got out, I was starting to lose my voice,and I felt really out of sorts... walked next door and bought Mozart's Requiem and Beethoven's 'Egmont'. I drove around in the dark singing along to requiem, even though it still sounded all sinus-infectiony from a few weeks ago... and rain was hitting my windshield in big fat drops. The countryside is so dark out here... the little farm houses that run East along Jay Road were all dark except for the flicker of televisions. It made me wonder if I would ever feel scared going up a long dirt driveway into such a dark house on cool, eerie spring nights like this.

Not much to report except a general feeling of too much energy, and almost no energy at the same time.
I copped out and made a frozen pizza for dinner.
It was surprisingly delicious. Finally, a frozen pizza that turns out crunchy and pizza-tasting.

Babbling.
Off to bed.
Maybe I can drink healthy tea in my sleep and wake up fully restored.

Cheers to all my sleeping friends tonight-- may your pillows be soft, and your dreams be sweet.

10ks and Dinosaur Bones

2008-05-26T21:57:00.007-06:00

1. Craziest weekend ever
2. Following last week's craziest weekend ever
3. The list is also the best thing ever-- I'm checking things off left and right.
4. Everyone must make a list immediately.

Here are the rules:
1. write down all the things you'd like to do, but never remember to actually do
2. you don't have to complete all of them, but only write them if you genuinely intend to make the effort
3. items can be challenging (i.e. overcome fear of dogs) but not negative / stressful (i.e. pay hospital bills)

Today, I checked off number 22 from my list (do something that scares me at least once every two weeks), and from the list as I've been updating it, #34 (go for a run that's at least twice as long as what I think I can do)

Check!
And Check!!

Laura invited me to do the BolderBoulder with her today...on a whim... around Tuesday or Wednesday of last week. Which didn't leave any time for "training" ... my preparation involved wandering over to Coot lake in the mid-day heat on Saturday and jogging 2.2 miles. At the end of my jog, I was out of steam, and I had a cramp the shape of a pretzel under my right rib. This did not bode well for doing a 10K with Ms. Glorga, who is: 1. ripped and 2. in super-duper shape. As much as I wanted to give it a go, just to say "yeah, I lived in Boulder and yes, I participated in the race just like everyone else has"... I also felt a little uncertain that I'd look like an idiot, or slow Laura down. (Before I forget... although we didn't train in the "running" sense, we did train in the "making Statler and Waldorf t-shirts for the race" sense. And they are AMAZING-- see photo above, which was taken by Laura after we made them in my apartment on Sunday morning)

Ok, I thought... just take it easy Sunday, enjoy the event (and don't get overwhelmed with 50,000 people) on Monday. Except... I ended up accidentally walking about 3 miles in flip flops on Sunday, resulting in blisters and barking dogs (metaphorically speaking, referring to my tootsies) and then having a party with Mer, Thad & Tom Sunday night. Ridiculous. Ridiculous.
At 1:45 (Monday), I returned home with exhausted feet, a tummy full of blueberries, tired beyond belief... and... INSOMNIA hit. I lay in bed thinking of many, many angsty issues, and didn't fall asleep until 4:45 IN THE MORNING.
My alarm went off at 7:15.
Ok... go time... I splashed some water on my face, turned on some music and remembered the theme of the season: GET THERE!

Best thing about The List (tm): checking off an accomplishment can only be a positive experience.
Best thing about a weekend full of blisters, very late night parties, insomnia and race jitters: they all add to the experience without throwing a kink in the fun. A+

The race was awesome! It couldn't have been a better experience, and it couldn't have been with a better friend to get out and enjoy the rain with.
Laura and I kept a great pace... we started out at a comfortable 12 minute mile, and barely strayed from our pace until we hit the finish line. There were bands, old men ringing cowbells, 50,000 people in running gear, people in costume... best way to exercise. Whenever Laura or I needed to slow down a little, we decided we'd need a code word, so we decided on an obscure lyric from the cd I have in my car: Dinosaur Bones!:

obscure lyrics:

Dinosaur Bones won't sleep again
Cover your mouth!
Don't make a sound

Dinosaur Bones won't sleep again
Cover your mouth!
Don't make a sound

Yeah, I don't know what it means, but the cd is part of #37 or something like that on The List... I'll get back to that later. My rockstar days aren't here yet and I'm deliriously tired.

The race was just so great. I have always, always wanted to overcome my shyness / insecurity when it comes to sports and endurance, and this year has been really good for me in that sense. I felt like I missed out not being in a sport in high school, but today I got to cross my very first finish line. And I had no idea I could actually jog 6 miles. Before the race I decided that my goal would be to finish on or before 110 minutes, and we crossed the finish line at 88 minutes. It felt great to say "I will finish strong" before heading up the hill and into the stadium.
The endorphins were great.
The popsicles at the end were even better.
I'm wondering if everyone else in the city of Boulder has unbearably sore knees from 88 continuous minutes of knee-to-asphalt pounding. :)

I can't believe that I got 2.5 hours of sleep...ran 6 miles... and ended the day past 11pm with a dramatic limp and a big goofy smile on my face.

This is getting delirious...I'm still running on adrenaline, and it's truly crazy that I haven't been asleep since 8pm.

happy BolderBoulder, everyone...

tornado weather

2008-05-22T22:01:00.004-06:00

strange, strange, strange day.

Got to work quite late... 20 after 9 or so... just couldn't get my body out of bed and moving, and once I did, I just felt this weight. It wasn't necessarily sleepiness, but I really felt like I was dreading the day.

Odd, very ADHD-feeling morning... I just couldn't focus on work, and there was very, VERY strange tension with office bickering popping into my email every half hour or so.
Before lunch, Robin called to say there was a tornado watch in Niwot.
I laughed-- Niwot?! "I'm in Niwot, and the sun's out," I said, and we mused about how odd that seemed.

Little did I know, just then the tornado sirens were blaring just down the road in Longmont... someone (police?) was even going through neighborhoods in Old Town and telling people to get in their basements.
Meanwhile, there we all are in our office, bickering and snarking and looking out the window at the dramatic clouds to the North, and West, and East, and South...

I had no idea until after lunch that Windsor got *whomped* by a 3/4 to 1-mile-wide F3 tornado. I hope that Bryan and Beth are ok! The pictures are terrifying-- the footage of the tornado ripping across I-25 literally made me feel sick to my stomach. Real storms like that are just baffling-- like getting caught in a violent wave, it's a reminder of how small and out of control we are when the planet really *does* something like that. It's amazing that there was only one death, especially when seeing the demolished homes. Horses picked up and thrown-- I can't imagine seeing a horse or a car picked up and then dropped from the sky!

I got super maternal and angsty and called Fawn and Paul about a bazillion times... I figured they were safe and sound at their home in Greeley, but watching that footage really got to me... I tracked them down a few hours later, Fawn said she had to duck into the basement, and they lost power, but otherwise they're fine.

I really do get anxious about my friends when I hear scary stuff in the news like that. It doesn't speak well for my chances of being a sane, ulcer-free woman when I have kids to worry about someday... I can't help it. I'm a logical person as much as I can be, but I care too much about my people to not worry if they're happy and safe... well, here's the crazy test, I'm getting angsty just typing this. Stop! Be normal, for once in your life, Janie!

I got home a couple of hours ago, and for some reason, a very weird sense of nervous energy followed me home. I feel very angsty and deeply unsettled. I wonder if it's the weather? Or just weariness? I feel weird, agitated, a little queasy. I feel like I just want a little bit of company. Probably more bachelorette-dom than tornado weather... sometimes it's wonderful to be home alone, and sometimes it just makes for a too-quiet evening, trapped with your own thoughts.

I was dropping some things off at Brian's, and we went up to Flagstaff to take pictures of the storm and the clouds all across the plains. He sent them to me... I'll post them tomorrow if I have time.

Just as the sirens were going off in Longmont, I was staring out the window, watching a flock of birds flying in a V-formation. In a burst of chaos, they suddenly all disbanded and went flapping wildly all across a field. I've never seen birds act like that, and it really took me by surprise... animals really do pick up on these bizarre weather days so much better than people can. I remember seeing horses freak out during a heat lightening storm in Indiana, hours before a tornado ripped through where we were staying. And I definitely felt this strange, somewhat sick-to-my-stomach, unsettled, 'life isn't right' feeling then, too. In kind of a twisted way, today made me yearn to watch a huge thunderstorm (from afar) someplace with a good view.

Anyhow, those are just my scattered storm thoughts.
Tomorrow I get the pleasure of having lunch with Ms. Fawn, and then it's a busy afternoon... Robin's son is having a graduation party, Ms. Heidi's getting married in Longmont, and I have some precious brain space to squander on weather-caused-distraction and angst...

Dorothy: It really was no miracle. What happened was just this.
[singing]
Dorothy: The wind began to swish / The house, to pitch / And suddenly the hinges started to unhitch / Just then the Witch / To satisfy an itch / Was flying on her broomstick, thumbing for a hitch.
Munchkin: and, oh, what happened then was rich.
Munchkins: The house began to pitch / The kitchen took a slitch / It landed on the Wicked Witch in the middle of a ditch / Which was not a healthy situation for the Wicked Witch. . .

(I do believe in spooks! I do, I do, I do believe in spooks!)

lists for groceries; lists for life

2008-05-20T21:36:00.002-06:00

Oh, Spring is wonderful.

Spring is just a tad more wonderful than the second best thing ever: lists.

I would not get by without lists.

Recently, I wrote a top ten list for two of my gentlemen friends... it was called "what do women want?", and gave away all the secrets of the universe. But I don't regret giving away the secrets to the universe, because I think when it comes to matters of the heart, lists are important to keep important things like chivalry and 'offering to drive' front and center.

I also consider mix tapes (/ mix cds) to be an acoustic version of lists. Lists without check boxes or strife.

This morning I wrote a long, obscure grocery list because I realized that I had been angsting (and journaling) and becoming preoccupied with groceries in a telling way-- the kind of grocery angst that really meant I was nervous that my empty fridge symbolized something like an empty soul, or an empty future. I smacked myself around and headed into King Soopers... returning with corn, sweet potatoes, the largest artichoke ever, a lime green toothbrush and a mountain of grocery staples (most of which were on sale, oh-- the rapture)

My fridge is full of happiness. My future is back out of the proverbial gutter. Amazing what a good night's sleep can do for needless worry

While my little orange potato baked, I shucked corn and wrote a new list.
An exercise list, mainly... things I keep wanting to do but don't. A friend offered a free bike, and my fingers are crossed that it's still an option... I haven't had a bike since streamers were my life's greatest priority.

I have a list brewing that feels very real and ugent... unlike the more pipe dream, half asleep lists that I penned in the sultry January snow storms.

It includes post-its for my future self to remind me that my heart yearns for:
1. swimming tomorrow at 7am
2. possibly bringing back the Asian aesthetic of the parasol this summer in an effort to get to fall without a single serious sunburn
3. hikes... Rocky Mtn. National park, Sanitas, the grasslands, everywhere
4. go white water rafting for the first time
5. find a new job. STAT. regardless of what 9 News may or may not (FINALLY) tell me this week via email three minutes after the 10pm newscast has ended
6. once I have found my new dream job-- figure out a stable schedule
7. once I have a stable schedule, become a Big Sister, or another youth mentorship program
8. call the therapeutic riding center and ask them if they still need summer volunteers for the youth with disabilities camp
9. read absolutely everything about twins. Twins blow my mind. My obsession with twins will never end, and maybe if I read up on them now, I will have the psychic ability to will myself to have twins in my early 30s when I will be married to LeVar Burton and living happily as a documentary producer and fiction writer.
10. write my buns off until I have something that I would actually have the avacados to try to publish.
11. #10 again, because it's one of the most important things I've decided all year.
12. watch the Cosmos series again front to back, mostly over at my parents' because dad can tell me what research was updated since Carl Sagan's death
13. watch all the Sopranos episodes that I missed all those years at school
14. learn how to properly chop vegetables, instead of the for-crap way that I taught myself in my bachelorette pad
15. make a mystery video, a personal project video, and "what are you doing right now?" before end of July.
16. learn Elgar's cello concerto with Maggie, my spiritual advisor since 8th grade
17. learn guitar, instead of the crap self-taught guitar I've picked up while poorly chopping vegetables
18. write an original song for guitar, cello, and piano... and memorize all three parts in case this ever becomes a desirable skill and my country calls upon me for service
19. write letters to Canada because I'm a terrible person and I never send lovely typewriter-drafted notes on vintage magazine ads like Steve has for years
20. go on a ride-along with the Longmont Police Program
21. speak with someone from the Reading Rainbow production company and Sesame Workshops to talk about what experience I actually need to get there, as opposed to the experience I'm pretending I'll need
22. do something that scares me at least once every two weeks
23. take a winter driving course
24. interview a dog expert to see how I can overcome my fear of scary dogs (or at least how to get a dog to stop attacking me if it were to ever happen)
25. write a heartfelt hand-written letter to the people at This American Life who discussed their employment opportunities to me
26. learn Thriller. The entire thing. Well enough to do it drunk in a bar surrounded by strangers.
27. audition for at least one more comedy group / project / improv troupe / standup gig
28. learn how to paint, and take a figure drawing class
29. possibly take a calligraphy class in Boulder from Marlow Brooks
30. take some kind of dance class. Preferably something fun, where I won't look like an idiot.
31. go out in Denver as much as possible during the convention, and have at least one beer with an interesting politician who wants to tell me about checks and balances in more detail than I currently understand
32. buy a new computer and set up my first at-home edit bay
33. someday: buy my own video camera
34: someday: also buy a second pair of tall high heels. they make me feel like a 1950s jazz singer, and it's absolutely worth feeling 10' tall to feel like that when I leave the apartment.

speaking of number 20...
I filled out the Ride-Along application for the Police Department this morning, and it has the craziest clauses. "Observers shall not converse with prisoners, suspects, witnesses..." "Observers shall not participate in any police activity unless specifically directed by officers" ... "No handcuffs or weapons are permitted"... "you voluntarily assume the risk of death or personal injury from the use of vehicles, weapons, unlawful acts, forcible resistance by law violators, fire, explosion, gas, electrocution, or injury in any other way..."

I'm totally excited. I scratched out the day shift and am now requesting the night shift. I really want to learn more about how law enforcement works, what part it plays in society, what it's like for people on the offender's side, how our society really works, and what the ugly side of it is that I only peek at when it's convenient for me. I want to get jury duty soon, too. I also have an itch to vote soon.
(Except... with the Kentucky votes coming in today as expected, and Kennedy's illness announced today, and Obama's scramble toward exhaustion, and the current state of the Democratic and Republican battle... OY. Maybe I don't have an itch to vote soon.)

So, lists. They're A+.
1. They help me remember things that I really want to remember
2. They make me feel organized and responsible
3. I love feeling organized and responsible
4. They make me feel happy
5. I love feeling happy.

Over and out, from a summer-hot apartment with spring fever,

JaneKathryn.