M's Return to Fiction (cue trumpets)

This entry is also available here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Shout-Out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sigh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The stage was set.

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

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

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

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

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

Gut reactions

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

HTML = How Terribly Math-Like

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'll Pass on the Scuba Diving, Thanks

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mind-Boggling

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well Hello There, Ladies

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

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

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

Birds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Bedroom of Stifling Nostalgia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Updates to Prior Posts

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

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

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

Woo-hoo!

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

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

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

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

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

The World Outside My Office Window

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sigh.

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

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

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

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

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

Grrr.

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

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

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

So, three cheers for S!

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

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

Technology Bytes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Run, Forest! Run!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two’s a Crowd

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

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

Sigh.

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

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

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

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

Happy Thursday, everyone!

Hip-Hop, You Don’t Stop

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

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

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

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

So, that was that.

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

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

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

But maybe I'm just being a coward?

Dying Butterfly

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

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

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

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


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

Either way, I hope he's not suffering.