Perfect Pairings

“Medical history tells us of the case of a man living under the peculiar delusion that he was a fried egg. Quite how or when this idea had entered his head, no one knew, but he now refused to sit down anywhere for fear that he would "break himself” and “spill the yolk.” His doctors tried sedatives and other drugs to appease his fears, but nothing seemed to work. Finally, one of them made the effort to enter the mind of the deluded patient and suggested he should carry a piece of toast with him at all times, which he could place on any chair he wished to sit on, and hence protect himself from spillage. From then on, the deluded man was never seen without a piece of toast handy and was able to continue a more or less normal existence.”  (From the chapter entitled "Skepticism and Faith," from On Love, by Alain de Botton)

The Wise Bush

This is from a misdirected email that wound up in my inbox. Pretty sweet gig! 


"I meant to email everyone last week but building a mini golf course took more time than I realized.  My question concerns one of my more energetic kids in Enrichment.  He has stage fright and REALLY, REALLY doesn't want any lines in his play.  At the moment he is perfectly happy to be a bush so we're leaving it open for lines to be added for him at a later point.  (The other characters may come to the wise bush for advice as we get farther into the play)."

Despite All Evidence To The Contrary

My happiness meter is pretty low today.

I looked on the internet for advice having to do with happiness meters and discovered that this may be something called a "Moodlet Bug" originating from problems with my bed (I didn't get the best sleep, either). Behold: "Players have discovered after installing the latest patch, their Sims mood has dropped into the red and will no longer rise into happy or elated status no matter what they do. This bug occurs regardless of whether your needs are filled, and if you have multiple positive moodlets. When Sims are affected by this bug they will be too miserable or depressed to garden, change their appearance, woohoo, and try for a baby."

The internet also offered some helpful workarounds:

Workaround 1: Reloading a save file will temporarily fix the mood your Sim is having. You must save your game, load into the main menu and then load your game. This will place your sims mood back into it’s appropriate value.
Workaround 2: Due to a faulty calculation, one sim must use the Luxorlove Sleepset or beds with +25 Well Rested Moodlet.
Workaround 3: If you can’t afford the bed, one must awake a Sim before the Well Rested Moodlet appears. You can avoid this by waking your Sim up before the energy bar is completely green.
Workaround 4: Install the "Mood Hotfix Mod" which will check and recalculate the correct mood throughout the day.

....

I have not been saving my game but I am going to start doing so.  Additionally -- Mood Hotfix Mod!  In this house, we call that a "Nap" and I am going to go take one.  DO NOT WAKE UNTIL THE ENERGY BAR IS COMPLETELY GREEN PLEASE.

Meditation Stool, and other life changes

Hello world,

It's Tax Time, and like Liz Lemon, this year we have really made some changes. We are a new woman! We have also started eating the lettuce under our onion rings!

Ok, so I did my taxes in January, and I'm trying to cut out onion rings, but I am eating lettuce. Lots and lots of delicious lettuce. The herby mix, please, with lots of dill and basil. Here are some other good habits that have hung around long enough to Officially Endorse and share with you for the testing out:

1. Track your spending and budget with Mint.com
I started this in late December/January when Josh made a comment about wanting to get square financially with his budget. Yes, you have to turn over all your account info and passwords, but once it's all uploaded to the secure site you have access to all your accounts in one place. I have a much greater understanding of where my money goes now than before, and I've had a lot of fun with the budgeting features. Additionally, I see every charge on my credit cards in near-real-time as opposed to once a month (maybe) when I log on to pay the bill.

2. Sodastream!
Santa brought me this fantastic gadget and I've used it regularly and with ease since then. When I stopped drinking alcohol, I immediately saved a ton of money and put it toward fancy sparkling waters instead. With this machine, I make my own sparkling water and can mix it with lemon, mint, a few drops of bitters, or anything else to liven things up. The key here is that it is EASY. It takes 30 seconds, there's no clean-up, and I do not even have to plug it in. That is more than I can say for the French Press coffee maker, which requires not only set up but also extensive clean up and consequently gets used a lot less often. Now that the Sodastream replaces Perrier, the only beverage I'm purchasing regularly is milk and...

3. Unsweetened 100% cranberry juice
Here's a tip: This juice sells for $7-$9 from the usual "natural juice" brand suspects, but there's a $3 version from "L&A" that is exactly the same stuff. Those of you with Trader Joe's probably have a generic awesome version to choose from as well. These's some debate these days about whether or not cranberry juice actually helps prevent UTIs, but I don't care, I think you should drink it anyway and you should add a splash of apple cider vinegar to 4 oz of juice and then add the juice of 1/2 a lemon and feeeeelll theeeee buuuuuuurrrrrn as it races down your throat and does all sorts of healthful things to your insides. Also, you should drink it first thing in the morning and you can add some water to dilute it, but that defeats the burning, and the burning is my favorite part! GOOD MORNING to you! This cranberry cocktail is not my invention, but I'm a convert. Also, I'M AWAKE NOW.

4. Unfug Your Habitat
I go through stages with this one and I'm currently in an "on" phase where everything is clean and tidy and all surfaces well-bleached. This site offers up basic nighttime steps to unfug (warning: that is not the word they use) your morning:

• Wash the dishes in your sink
• Get your outfit for tomorrow together, including accessories
• Set up coffee/tea/breakfast
• Make your lunch
• Put your keys somewhere obvious
• Wash your face and brush your teeth
• Charge your electronics
• Pour a little cleaner in the toilet bowl (if you don’t have pets or children or sleepwalking adults)
• Set your alarm
• Go to bed at a reasonable hour

Beyond that, they suggest tackling things in 20 minute increments, and offer up such wisdom as, "Doing the dishes is not difficult. It’s often tedious, and sometimes overwhelming, but it’s not hard. Suck it up and do them." They also present a very reasonable treaty about how to unfug your home without alienating everyone you live with. Mmmmmmhmmmmmmmmm.

For other householdy tips that will blow your mind, like how to put your phone in a drinking glass to amplify music to fill the whole room, you might want to get on:

5. Pinterest and
6. Google Reader <--you can get a "subscribe" button for your toolbar so when you stumble on a blog you like, you can add it to one central follow list housed here instead of having to check a zillion webpages for updates.

But you're probably using those already. It just took me a minute to catch on.

Cranberry cheers to a whole new you!

Napoleon's Battle Plan

It's been since JANUARY since I've posted?

Ok ok ok.

Must be setting a good example after all on the posting front and et cet era.

Y'all, I tried this no heat headband curl tutorial and my hair came out with ridiculous curls, and they lasted all day.

Please forgive the glamour shot, but I have to share this knowledge with the world and you might not believe me without proof. If you are of the long haired variety, male or female, you must try this! Immediately!  Parents, do this to your children! Even the wrapped headband part looks sort of pretty (more than I can say for pin-curls) and if you're careful about it, you can probably run errands on a Saturday morning with your hair up and then let it down to reveal amazing curls for the evening. Oh, man, I am so excited for you!

What else what else...

I spent my 32nd birthday in San Francisco on the Best Trip Ever, and was back there again last month for a work visit. Every time I see Josh is the best time. Naturally, we are working on creating a world where we get to see each other more often. In the meantime, though, we sometimes video chat, and yesterday this clip appeared mysteriously on my phone (from months ago).

I dare you to stare directly into this sweater:

So in sum: my hair looks great, and I'm in love. NO WONDER they made me stop blogging, Jeez. I annoy myself some days.

You know, a year ago I went to California, a trip aptly named "Go To California Already Gosh Mary What's Wrong With You Just Go Already" and since then I've been back three times and today my life is on a very different path from where it was. I couldn't have predicted it at the time, and I didn't have any say in how it all played out, but in retrospect that was me taking a baby step towards the life I thought maaaaaaybe I wanted--friends, travel, adventure.

Napoleon's two-part battle plan, paraphrased by Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night, is, "First we show up, then we see what happens."

What have you always wanted to do, and what's holding you back from doing it?

Ohhh yes. Yes yes definitely yes!

I would like to go to this exhibit:

wearing this dress:

Someone should buy it for me immediately!

Books to Read in 2012

Fiction

• The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
• A Clash of Kings, George RR Martin (book 2 of Song of Fire and Ice series)
• A Storm of Swords, George RR Martin (book 3 of Song of Fire and Ice series)
• Haround and the Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie
• Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
• Adam Haberberg, Yasmina Reza
• Amsterdam, Ian McEwan
• The Lover's Dictionary, David Levithan
• The Wild Things, Dave Eggers

Memoir

• Say Her Name, Francisco Goldman
• Dry, Augusten Burroughs
• The Cat's Table, Michael Ondaatje (sort-of)
• Cherry, Mary Karr
• The Pillow Book, Sei Shonagon

Biography

• Dream Songs: The Life of John Berryman, Paul Mariani

Non-Fiction

• Condor, John Nielsen
• The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell

"But Let's Not Kid Ourselves..."

What a week!  I got to see John Darnielle and the Mountain Goats, view unobstructed.  This song does not appear to be on any album. It made me a little teary.

So freaking cool. That dude! That. dude.

I met Margaret Atwood!! In my dream, she was 4 feet tall and got real chatty with me at a surprise cocktail event. I felt stunned and honored to be having the conversation but did not entirely understand what she was saying, so I did a lot of smiling and nodding. In real life, she is taller than 4 feet (but not by all that much) and has a very wicked wit and sense of humor. I hope to be one tenth as witchy when I grow up. Oh hell, let's start now. (It's good to have resolutions!)  She signed my copy of The Blind Assassin and I told her (in my one pre-rehearsed conversation topic) that I make all my suitors read it. "How's that working for you?" she asked. "I'm dating that one," I said. "He responded with the appropriate enthusiasm."

You can tweet her and she might even tweet you back. Ms. Atwood loves her t-pals.

On the flip side, Maurice Sendak, total grouch!  (In the most delightful way, as evidenced in this interview with Stephen Colbert... stick with it, the last few seconds are gold.) Go away, t-pals. And take your g-damn e-books with you.

A handful of other new year updates:

1. I quit smoking (again) (again, again). I did not make a resolution, I just did it. Back in August, I thought "I should probably stop doing this by the end of the year" and I stopped right away and then started again when some people told me I should not quit just yet (bizarre, I know) and then January rolled around so I stopped. That feels about right. My phone says 19 days but it is full of LIES because I think it did not start counting until day 3. Ohhhh, phone. Don't you know anything? Days 1-3 are the worst. Those are the only days to count. All the rest are whatever. When I am tempted, I remind myself that if I don't start up again I will not have to deal with any more Days 1-3. So, I don't start up again.

2. Josh was here and now he is in Zurich for the week, which might as well be on another planet. We send each other telegrams from the future and the past.

3. I am trying to get back into healthy eating habits. Last week, in a mid-January Most-Depressing-Day-of-the-Year lunch break, I abandoned all hope and succumbed to a lunch break "bottom" consisting of a bacon cheeseburger with onion rings and a chocolate shake. Oh God, was it good. And, there is nowhere to go from there but up. Today, I had a salad with steak dressing.  Baby steps!

December

What's left to say that hasn't been said?

I worked hard in December and asserted myself rather than holding onto resentments; I made time for family and friends and romance; I tried to be kind to myself and others and celebrate the season without stressing out over it too much. In early December, preparing for a parade of holiday visitors and recognizing an abundance of blessings, I pledged to document. (And, gratefully, have come to an end.)

I'm saying goodbye to 2011 and hello to 2012 surrounded by people I love. And, even if it were just me and the cat and a prayer, I think that I have the tools I need to make it ok. 

Peace and love and cheers and a very happy new year to you!

November

I spent the first week of November in Memphis for a work conference. I had been there once before, also for work, and saw nothing but the inside of my hotel room and the Rhodes Career Center. This time around I got to see a bit more of the city, including the Civil Rights Museum where MLK Jr. was shot. And I spent three days with coworkers from all across the country, some known and many new. This coming off the heels of an announcement that my current manager would be leaving her position at the end of December, with the possibility of a long vacancy.

In the midst of this excitement, I lost my temper, hard, twice. The first time was in the security line at the Houston airport. I told the TSA agent waving me through that I was going to opt out of the scanner. He said, "no, this isn't what you think it is, it's fine," like I was some sort of confused child, and I snapped. He made me wait unnecessarily long for the pat-down and I glared at him the entire time, fuming. The second time was in a Memphis restaurant. I just asked if I could substitute something, anything, for the coleslaw, and it turned into a fiasco. I did not want a fiasco. I didn't even care that much about the stupid coleslaw. But when I saw the fiasco coming and tried to reverse course ("nevermind nevermind!"), it was too late: "So, lady, what do you WANT?"

On the plane ride home, I wrote a few reminders to myself about the resources at my disposal. On changes and choices, I wrote: "Don't decide. Don't even think about it. Pray, wait, stall, stall, stall, stall, ask for help, wait, and do the next right thing."

I celebrated Thanksgiving in San Francisco with Josh, where we were blessed to spend some time with friends, including those who drove up from LA to spend time with us. Sitting around the table with this group of old and new loved ones I found myself thinking again: stall, stall, stall, don't decide, don't DO anything, just sit in this moment for today and drink it up.

And I've been thinking a lot about how to reply to people who ask me in all the different forms: "SOOOOOO what's next??? What are you going to do? Where are you going to live? Who's moving where? When are you going to decide?" Maybe they are just being polite and maybe also people want to know what to expect, and they think that you should, too. What's the plan, lady? What are you having?

I don't know, is generally my reply. Something great, somewhere, yes, and I'm not in any hurry.

October

I want to be so careful with October and the months that follow. Having found the thing I was waiting for, I have to treat it differently. It's like when the cat does something really adorable and you're caught between "I want to go grab my camera but if I move she's going to change position." Or, a more appropriate analogy, caring for an orchid. Orchids require special soil and a certain light and juuuuuust so much water* and a lot of patience, and the payoff is breathtaking.

Breath taking away is actually a good way to describe all of October. At the beginning, it was the mad rush to the big event at work and I was done with being calm and had moved on to a morning prayer that consisted of: "Dear God, please help me remember to breathe today and to be nice and not yell a lot so that I may be of better service to others, amen." The gala came and went and everyone says it was a great success and I believe them, because I was there, but I don't remember much from the actual evening.

(Breathe, Mary)

And after, a long nap? Not hardly; work remained a mad dash and has sustained that pace through all of quarter 1. In the middle of it, Josh came back and stayed with me for a week while conducting some work in Houston. That initial connection sustained across time zones was already starting to take deeper roots; it was real and immediate and here in person in front of me: living and working and loving and making plans and delivering my lunch to the office on a busy day when I forgot to bring it.

(Breathe)

It rained in October. The first time all summer, it seemed. Two weeks later, the city was hit with a massive mosquito attack the likes of which I had never experienced before. Thick clouds of mosquitoes hovered on the back deck waiting for a warm victim. Despite our collective best efforts, they got inside the houses, the restaurants, stores, offices, cars--the mosquitoes were everywhere and making up for lost time. Cause (rain) and effect (mosquitoes).

Josh had to leave, of course, but not before I bought a ticket to visit for Thanksgiving. The cost of my ticket with airline miles: $5. The thought of that visit sustained me through the mosquito swatting, through multi-hour calls on Pacific time, through the nights I went to sleep and woke up alone, and into the morning prayer: Lord, whatever your end may be, accept my amazement.** 

And in a twist none of us would have seen coming in April, it was back to California for the second time in 2011. 

*Unless it is a really high-quality fake, in which case, do not water it.

**John Berryman, "Eleven Addresses"

September

Some stuff happened in early September and it seemed noteworthy at the time* but who am I kidding let's just jump to the 16th when I got an email from Lana saying "Mary, meet Josh. Josh is in town this weekend and you guys should hang."

I thought it was a friend date so I had no stress or fancy outfit going into dinner; I was actually wearing pants a size too big for me because over the last two months I'd started losing weight. So in walks this sharp-looking, handsome, bespectacled guy who looks way too cool for Houston and I'm like, hi, I'm Mary, and we get to talking and it's like HUH, you are also smart, and well read too, and sincere, with interesting life pursuits and you are so so easy to talk to. None of this was surprising given the mutual friend connection but it did make me sigh a little and think "my chances of finding true love would be SO MUCH BETTER in San Francisco, seriously."

After, on the phone with my friend, I asked, Lana, why am I settling? This is the type of person I want to be with. If not this person exactly then someone very very close to him. And her response was, "Really? Because he thinks you're a dreambabe."

Armed with this "he likes you oh she likes you too" knowledge we arranged to meet up the next day and spent the next twelve hours together until he had to get on a plane back to San Francisco. In parting, we agreed on three things: 1) This was really special. 2) A long distance relationship probably doesn't make sense. 3) Yeah, about #2....

So it began that over the next two weeks my cell phone was constantly running on low battery due to the calls and the texts and the tweets and the emails. As we approached the big dinner my coworkers reiterated, "No, really Mary, it's two weeks away, you're not stressed?" and I was like, we've done all we can, we're all competent professionals, it will be fine... does anyone have a charger I can borrow?

And when Josh said "there is a chance I could be back in Houston in October; is that something you would be interested in?" I said YES.


*I met Michael Ondaatje! I saw the Weepies! I went tubing in the middle of a drought! I am sorry you got eclipsed, September stuff... but not all that sorry.

August

Having admitted that the bus I was driving was headed nowhere good, fast, I stopped driving and spent the rest of July and most of August as a passenger, doing what other people told me to do. I found meetings for people who have chosen to abstain from alcohol, and I went to those meetings every day. I joined a running group and ran when and where they told me to run. I closed down the dating shop. 

And I spent a lot of time thinking about God, gratitude, and humility. When I prayed for serenity and stopped trying to control everyone and everything, it often found me. And you will not believe this but also the world went along just as before. Faced with my own relative unimportance, I tried to conscientiously focus on "how can I be of service to someone today" rather than "how am I going to get that thing I want." Sometimes that worked.


By August, we were just two months away from the biggest fundraising dinner of the year, and more than one concerned colleague confronted me to ask why was I so calm, why wasn't I freaking out, what were we missing because this didn't feel normal. Some things, of course, did not change--I discovered this as I pulled the  pen labelled DO NOT TAKE out of my purse and then proudly displayed my inadvertent theft for the rest of the month.

By mid-August I was back online and sort of peeking through the windows of the dating shop, curiosity mostly, what sort of match might be out there for me now: which is how I wound up hanging out with the vegan heavy metal accountant.

July

Twelve months is a lot to write through.

You may be thinking what I would probably be thinking: This is over-dramatic and self-centered. I hope she doesn't plan to do this every year.

Well, yes. And also: a year ago at this time I thought--well, I didn't think my life was over, but I sure didn't know where it was going. I lost a four year relationship and a roommate. I found myself tied via property to a city where I no longer had a vested long-term interest. In love, I realized: I am 30. Anyone I marry at this point, barring any rekindled past relationships, will only know me as a 30 year old. I felt sad for those lost years, grateful for another opportunity at happiness, and completely out of my element.

By the grace of God and kindness of strangers, I'm here to write about what I learned in a year and how things changed for me. Maybe other, future years will get the same treatment, maybe not. And, yes, maybe that's self-indulgent. Maybe these problems are first world problems. Let us sit in that discomfort for a minute and then move on.

July.

The beginning of July found me in Portland, OR where I met up with my mom, her sister and my cousin. I had a very elaborate guide of bookstores and other places to visit that the poet had generously written for me before I drunk-texted him one night listing out all his faults and had to cut off communication after. I wasn't very interested in the conference in town (except to occasionally make fun of the geniuses and rescue my family from eating conference breakfast in the parking garage, insisting that we go out into the sunshine and find a coffee shop instead), but I was interested in exploring, having perfected the walk-a-bout while in Los Angeles.

Portland is home to the mecca of bookstores and I went every day. There are also bridges and gardens and trolleys and food carts and, that weekend, a blues festival. With Lucinda Williams! And 4th of July fireworks!

I had given up the vague hope of finding an attractive single 30something MENSA genius with social skills when from out of nowhere, one bummed a cigarette off of me. I didn't realize what was happening until the middle of unexpected and effortless banter when we both realized, wait, YOU'RE here for the conference? In the span of maybe three minutes, tops, I gave him my number with a "you seem like my kind of people, we should hang out this weekend."

And we did hang out. Dinner, no more. After, I wrote: "Surprise dates with a stranger. All the sweeter for their lack of script and narrative. I am for the moment a safe ear to whisper in: This is really personal..."

I left Portland feeling alive, empowered, and connected to the people and places I had visited.

And so I boldly re-entered Houston with an invitation to go see my crush play a show. An invitation I accepted after drinking all the beer left in the fridge. On an empty stomach. After waking up at 3am to catch a flight. And the next morning everything was a blur, and I didn't hear from him again, and two days later, on July 9, I stopped drinking altogether.

June

I don't really want to talk about June, because June was pretty manic. What I'm telling you about my bustling spring season is what most people saw and heard: a busy Mary, probably with a funny story about some recent date or weekend outing, working irregular hours due to after work commitments and frequent offsite meetings. I'm not telling you about the spaces in between, about the alcohol I regularly consumed at the end of a long day, or at the start of a rare obligation-free weekend. In June, with all the outdoor festivals and their focus on drinking in the streets, those private spaces started seeping into public view--enough to scare and shame me but not enough to make me slow down.

Other people achieved some notable things this month. My best friend Heather had a baby. On sadness, Lana's advice was: "more mango: fruit and color" and also to take an exercise class with a murderous ballerina. I did the mango part.

Coming off a couple months with no real romantic interest I developed an all-consuming, idealistic crush on someone I had met through work. Combining the shared interests and resources of our respective organizations was not enough for me (although I remain proud of that budding partnership to this day) -- ALSO we were going to fall head over heels for each other via a shared passion for social justice and I was going to tell all the internet dating sites to shove off. It Was Thus Destined. At work I started referring to this poor boy as My Future Boyfriend and when my colleagues tried to warn me about putting the horse before the carriage (or is it the carriage before the horse?) I brushed off all perfectly rationale arguments and dove into hawk-like pursuit, determined to turn this work relationship personal.

And it worked, because I get what I want.

We were right at that stage where I'd integrated him into the work/social happy hour hybrid (having exchanged cell phone numbers and texts in the process--do you see how this works, this is all very calculated) and I had learned enough to want to know more.

And then I went to Portland.