You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July, 2008.
Most of the mistakes I make you wouldn’t class as super serious. I make regrettable decisions and fail to heed directions, sure, but life as we knew it is almost always completely recoverable.
Others, not so much. For instance: girl spends three hours on and off of theknot.com. And subsequently gets hooked. For the record, this girl is far from certain she wants to be engaged. This girl is in trouble.
I started out just passing the time, googling vineyards in Charlottesville that might be nice for a one-day reception; all was going well until, what’s this, the next hit in the queue was a theknot.com wedding profile. Our Beautiful Charlottesville Wedding!!! (or something similar, tauntingly cheery with its extraneous exclamation points; you get the idea). I knew better than to click on it. But it was, for me, that one cigarette I was passed and was to embarrassed to say no to. And I inhaled. And oh, it was good.
I didn’t quite create a profile. I tried, but it came back all red and rejected when I didn’t enter a fiance’s name. I just didn’t want to jinx it; we aren’t engaged. Plus I don’t know who else would be able to see it, and that could just get awkward.
We talked about getting married again last night, J and I did. He seems much more enthusiastic than me. Surely this is backwards? Surely I should be the one constantly bringing it up and with little hits of “oh hey, no there’s a beautiful diamond, hmmmmm?” Right? Shouldn’t it be me? Me who walks around talking about how she “just knows” and can’t wait? I feel like something’s missing in our little love story since I’m not totally over the moon about this. I don’t think it’s him. I think I might just be wedding-averse. Or immune. Or maybe just more than a little bit freaked out.
I’m still not sure how I got sucked in to theknot. I have the window open again now, and I tell you, it’s intoxicating. So! Much! Information!
It occurs to me now that I could just create a false profile. An alias; a secret spy name to infiltrate the world of weddings.
No. No no no. Bad, terrible, spawn-of-satan idea.
I am turning off the computer once I hit “publish.” Do the dishes, have a calming glass of wine; think about reality, and not lose myself in the allure of the picture-perfect. So, so much easier said than done.
In about two weeks’ time, my biochemist sister will be celebrating her second wedding anniversary. I remember her wedding with such clarity, how can it have been that long? Two years, 731 days of growth and adventures, of learning and loving. My position, I’m thinking now, is basically unchanged. On a path, but not at any end; still looking for something bigger. I feel like I could be transplanted back, back to that day in that dress on that mountaintop, and the difference in the time-space continuum would be negligible (at best).
Sometimes I feel like time passes really differently for other people. Like if I had my act together, all of those discarded calendar pages would spell out something really magnificent. Something worthy of my nearly scary age.
I test-drove this conversation with a friend of mine yesterday, showcased as a series of interjections issued from stern to bow of a canoe, traveling down the Shenandoah river when all was peaceful and before I realized I’d sunburned corresponding halves of each leg. Attractive.
One of my guy friends in college had this song he’d play, called “I lied about being the outdoor type.” I can’t say that I remember much more about him that than the few times I was in his car and that song played, but it came back to me pretty clearly on the river yesterday. I’m not so outdoorsy. I like to pretend that I am. But I’m not. I appreciate nature, and I’m learning to like day trips, but it’s not something I’ve traditionally craved.
As I was telling my friend, I used to hate forced outdoor excursions. With uber-active parents like mine, the fate was essentially inescapable; we hiked and skied and biked, whether we liked it or not. Fortunately mom was of my “hot shower and an espresso, please” persuasion re: mornings, so camping was out (and all the angels rejoiced). But still, it was always something of a chore.
As a kid I had limited responsibilities, and no serious stress. I didn’t need an escape, didn’t need to get back to whatever it is people go to nature to find.
With a job and a boyfriend and a life in a new state and a bustling capital where the people are not always kind, yes, I’m seeing it now.
We were floating down the river (downstream canoeing? Effortless! Fun! Not dangerous! Totally recommended, despite what they’ll try to scare you with about capsizing), and I was looking around me. Cows. Cliffs. Virginia farmland. Rocks and algae and young adult Catholics. The beginnings of a real life, and real friends, and an identity that’s peeling itself, howsoever slowly, off of the paper and ink in which it’s been too long memorialized.
So I’m not where my mom was at my age, and I skipped the exits my little sister took. Like that canoe, though, I’ve moved. We moved, and we got there; sometimes we coasted, and sometimes we paddled hard. Sometimes we worried we’d rip out the hull on the rocks, and other times we dragged it ashore to swim. It wasn’t a race, and no one was clocking our arrival. We took that boat places, and that’s what matters.
The girl who, two years ago, was waiting on a mountaintop for her life to come together has seen the light. It wasn’t what she thought. But it’s a heck of a lot more than the nothing she feared.
The lovely notsojenny tagged me yesterday for the all-about-me, alphabet-style survey, the results of which I am delighted to present today. I’ll note that I’m doing this at work. And drafting it in my email window, so it looks like I’m being all big and important, and writing a nice long memo to someone for a legitimate corporate purpose. Ha. Ahaha. My job is so bi-polar sometimes it’s extremely vexing; often I’m so busy I can barely make time to read e-mail, much less compose it; others, I’m sitting here with nothing to do until my boss gets off the phone with the various therapists he’s employed to deal with his necessarily warped children. I could be motivated and find my own work. I have before. But today, I’m just not feeling it. Sigh.
Before I get to my answers, though, we’re going to pause for a commercial break on favorites. I’m not a real “favorites” kind of girl–choosing a “favorite” anything seems so often frighteningly exclusive. Also, I’m pretty unstable about the things that I like. I get into ruts where one thing is my favorite favorite favorite, and it’s all I’ll eat/read/watch … but then I move on, discover or rediscover something else, and repeat the whole sorry saga.
I also have an especially hard time singling out people, especially friends. I always feel like I’m leaving someone out. This is probably why I send five billion christmas cards every year, and why I’m already anxious about my future bridesmaids (although that may not be such a big issue … last night it finally dawned on me that since I have two sisters, and J has two sisters, BAM, that’s four bridesmaids by something of a default. Which seems mighty unfair, since there are a total of ZERO brothers in this little love equation. But whatever).
By the goodness and generosity that is this blogosphere, two awards landed here at Thunderstorms last week … Love Blog’s Spreader of Love from Heidi, and Brilliante Weblog Premio 2008 from Ashley. And now I need to pick other people to honor. And it’s hard. I can’t pick just five, or seven, or whatever, because really, all of you who drop by to read my random thoughts and let me in on your lives, too, you’re all amazing, and you all certainly deserve recognition. I’ve tried to update my blogroll with everyone who plays a part in this little project … and if you’re not up, send me a note! Drop by and say hi to each other, because I admire each of you, for so many things.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.
A. Attached or Single? Attached to the J-ster since November 2006.
B. Best Friend? I don’t have one best-in-all-the world friend; I have various friends from the different parts of my life. All are equally important, though my more recent friends–namely those from law school–are my closest.
C. Cake or pie? I eat anything sweet, but I’m going to have to go with pie. It just seems so much more refreshing; cake is often so dense. I also hate most frosting, which is a pretty major strike against cake I don’t make myself.
D. Day of choice? Of course I’m partial to the weekend (duh) but I do have an affinity for Thursday. Waking up on Thursday is like a giant sigh of relief: the week is on the down-hill, and everything seems okay. Theoretically, anyway.
E. Essential item? Lotion. I hate hate hate the feeling of dry skin. I’m a total lotion addict–the scents, the moisturizing properties, the packaging. I just can’t get enough! I always hide it in hotels so they’ll bring a new one when the come to make the bed.
F. Favorite color? To wear, dark grey, though I am also partial to maroon and, this time of year, a nice springy green. For my house (furniture and accessories), chocolate brown. For cars, silver, or maybe a nice dark grey metallic. (See? See what I mean about favorites?)
G. Gummy bears or worms? Gonna go with the bears on this one. The best are Haribo Gold Bears. I like to open the package and let them get a little bit hard before I eat them. I don’t like them super squishy.
H. Hometown? My passport says California, USA. My heart will always say Seattle. My driver’s license says Alexandria, VA.
I. Favorite indulgence? Red wine in a long, hot shower.
J. January or July? July. January is the cruelest month (no matter what it is that poem says about April). Christmas is over, the calendar seems impenetrable with so many days, and the world outside is bleak and dark and desolate.
K. Kids? Yes please. Preferably riding in one of those running strollers. I have this theory that I’d be more serious about running/exercising/etc. if I had the right, really cute accessories. A running stroller would be so cool!
L. Life isn’t complete without? Laughter. I also want to steal notsojenny’s answer of love.
M. Marriage date? September/October 2009, I’m hoping. Provided marriage really is in the cards for J and me …
N. Number of brothers and sisters? Two little sisters, who really aren’t so little anymore.
O. Oranges or Apples? Blood oranges, mandarin oranges, little satsuma oranges that come around Christmas? Yes. Fuji apples, Gala apples, Pink lady apples? Yes. Tough to pick. Since WA is a major apple distributor to the world, and since I’m loyal to my homies, I’ll pick apples. But not the red delicious ones. I hate those.
P. Phobias? Being alone forever. Losing my family. Snakes. Spiders that have hair.
Q. Quotes? So many good ones! A favorite from my childhood here, courtesy of dad and assured to get a swat from mom: “someone peed in my gene pool.”
R. Reasons to smile? Parents who are still so totally in love. My vacation to Hawaii in two weeks (!!). The friends I’ve kept in touch with and the new friends I’m making.
S. Season of choice? Fall. Especially when it’s called “Autumn.” I love the leaves and the sweaters and the boots, before the snow.
T. Tag 5 people:Does anyone want this? You? Good, then you’re tagged! It’s loads of fun, I promise.
U. Unknown fact about me? I’m a pretty bad driver, where traffic laws are concerned–I speed, I don’t always come to a full and complete stop, and I do things like make illegal u-turns when I’m lost (which is often). I have never been caught, however. I’ve never so much as been pulled over. I am a lucky duck on the road … but when my time comes, oh, I will have deserved it.
V. Vegetable? Eggplant definitely. And potatoes–mashed, fried, or baked, and sweet potatoes, too (especially sweet potatoes!) Also corn on the cob and deep red tomatoes in the summer; water chestnuts and squash in stir fry; carrots and celery as snacks; basically everything except for really hot peppers (my tongue can’t take it!) and those little baby corn things in salad bars that really aren’t corn at all. Are those even vegetables?
W. Worst habit? Getting emotional and reactive before stopping to consider all of the facts and circumstances. Talk to J, he can tell you all about it.
X. X-ray or Ultrasound? I’m confused by this question. Which would I prefer? Ultrasound–the chances of it being for something happy (i.e. a baby!) are much higher. Which have I had? Both. Most recently an X-Ray when I fell off of a bike in Utah on a family vacation; Mom was convinced I’d gotten a concussion. I didn’t. The ultrasound was in 4th grade, when the doctor worried that a giant bruise I’d gotten by being pelted in the stomach with a softball was actually some kind of tumor. It wasn’t.
Y. Your favorite food? Here we go again. Copper river salmon is definitely on my “last meal” list. I also love pasta, in all varieties. Cheese, except blue. Mango. Chicken soft tacos. Macaroni and cheese. Dungenous crab. I could seriously spend all day writing out things I like to eat.
Z. Zodiac sign? Virgo. For the most part, it suits me perfectly.
It’s here, people. The Nordstrom Anniversary Sale. Rejoice. Day one? Conquered. Successfully.
As was made unfortunately clear in my last post, uncertainty is not something I deal with especially well. It looks like J will be living part-time in Richmond. For real. He wants to look at apartments, condos and the like once I get back from a much-needed vacation in August. He wants me to move there, too; to find something new, and just start over.
Sometimes that idea sounds really good. Most of the time, actually; divorce myself from all the losers here at work, get out of the city (but still be close), and be in love and have some room to breathe.
I do really well with ideas. I get excited and plan and it’s all sunshine and lollipops. It’s the looming certainty of it–and in fact the inherent uncertainty of it–that’s getting me drunk on irrationality (and, oh yeah, tequila). The grandiose ideas in the map of my mind don’t translate so well into reality, I have found. What would I do there? Where would I live? I won’t live with him–not until we’re at least engaged–but is now the right time? And there I go again. The idea of being Mrs. J is so, so lovely to me. But I think the recent influx of so many friends getting engaged and married and this climate of Weddings! Weddings! Weddings! has gotten me all turned around. I still like the idea of marrying him. It’s just the all-of-the-sudden very real prospect that’s got me cowering.
Happily, some things do respond well to careful planning, and are known, and follow their course as they should. Like the Nordstrom Sale. Oh, the oasis of sale shoes and suits and back-to-school-ish clothes! It’s been in my calendar since, well, since I got the calendar, which works out to slightly over six months ago.
I think it’s genetic. Mom used to plan our family vacations around the sale.
Happily, the stores here aren’t near the warzones that they are in Seattle, so my shopping experience tonight resembled what one might find on an ordinary Saturday back home. People, but not too many. No lines for the dressing rooms. No numbers handed out in the shoe department. That sort of thing.
I had my sale catalog in hand, all earmarked as usual, but I always get a different impression of things in person. Plus the actual stock is always so much more impressive than what they print, which this year didn’t do much to entice me, honestly.
Tonight’s goal was primarily to cruise through, and get the lay of the land. I bought the MOST ADORABLE suit, here:
It also has pants. In. Love. They had my sizes, so I had to snap them up. That’s just the way it works.
I also got a sweater, and have big plans to shop shoes tomorrow. I looked at the shoes tonight. I looked hard. They had the most delicious leather riding boots. Two of them: one that was pretty cute, and one that was beautiful. The beautiful one? $300. On sale. That is not a sale, number one, and number two, I’ve NEVER spent that much on shoes. I didnt even try them on, for fear of losing myself prematurely. I’m going to take the night to think about it. When I called my mom a bit ago to discuss the day’s hunt, she agreed. Both are cute. I’ll see how they feel, and who knows, may end up hating them both.
Tomorrow, day two; I’ll drive to the nicer, non metro-accessible Nordstrom, and seal the deal. Different stores have different selections, and different layouts, and it’s very likely I’ll find new things. Plus, everything I buy during the first three days of the sale earns me double points on my Nordstrom Platinum Visa. Which I realize is a totally transparent money-making scheme, and the card could really use a vacation (ahem), but still. Yay.
I’ll try to hit it up again next Monday because they bring out new things during the second week. Not a lot. But some. I used to work there; I can confirm the truth of this chocolate morsel. I might even be nice and invite my non-car-owning Seattle friend out for that last encounter. Because really, it’s kind of too good to keep all to myself.
And, I suppose, at the end of the day, a balance of certainty and uncertainty, planned shopping and spontaneous friendship, isn’t so bad at all. It’s probably just about the way it should be. I can’t live my life with the precision of a well-executed shopping weekend, and if I’m honest, I don’t think I’d want to. I’m working on being okay with whatever life brings. It’s a process.
Blogging now to you live, from a messy apartment in Arlington, this is magda, a little bit drunk, and a little bit wondering where her life is going.
Wow. There’s an intro, yes?
J quit his job at the Senate today. Better: his last day at the Senate was today. He officially incorporated his new business, with a friend deeper into Virginia, and he’s off, off and running, opening an office two hours away and so, so far from the global litigation lawyer I sat down to dinner with one night in long-ago November, 2006.
They got a big break last night, J and his new company. They’re sure they’re on the road to success. He says we’re set. He says we’ll get a house, and have a future, and children in a fancy car, one that shows that camera when we reverse so I don’t run over their roller skates (I did get attached to that camera). He says he’s done this for us. He told me we’ll get engaged “soon.” We’re having margaritas to celebrate; obviously I’ve had a few. We’re toasting the universal “us,” we’re on the right track! We’re getting places! Goooo, J’s company! Gooooo, J’s girlfriend!
Should be happy words.
And then he’s back on the phone. And suddenly this seems so real. My life, flashing so clearly in such sharper-than-crayola colors, but with a bite: these are words I’ve wanted to hear all my life, “I want to marry you someday,” but is this how I wanted them delivered? These in-between-phone-call conversations, these for-now passing glances?
I just don’t know. Suddenly I don’t know if wanting to be married means wanting to be married to him, and to this life, forever. Because to me, that’s what marriage is: it’s forever. It’s till death do us part, all the way. And I’m worried I’m making a mistake by not saying something, not raising my hand, howsoever tentatively, and asking for clarification. Me? Married to you? But Why?
I’m going to eat a fajita now, because clearly I need some sustenance, and will hope to be thinking coherently again soon.
For now, this is me, magda, looking for truth and signing off, till next time.
I love food. Love. I’m not really a cook, though I enjoy it, and though I’m not really a gourmet, I can pretend. I think about food all the time, and it’s not uncommon for me to use thoughts of my pending dinner to get me through the day.
I’ve always been a food girl, since the time I was small. I often won’t remember parties or plane rides or meetings until I’m reminded of what we ate. My mom first realized it, she says, when my sister and I were watching Parent Trap for the first time. The old Haley Mills version; not the pre-trainwreck Linday Lohan update (though that was, I thought, pretty cute, too). It was right at the part where the girls, away at camp, realize that they’re long lost sisters, just as the lunch bell rings. Mom notices us both going teary-eyed. My sister: “it’s so sad, they both have the same mommy and they didn’t know!” Me: “they’re going to miss lunch!” She still gets a kick out of telling that story, my mom.
On the train ride home on this will-not-end Wednesday and en route to dinner with a friend, I found myself pressed against the bony shoulder of an obviously anorexic girl who was, I was horrified to read over her shoulder, devouring a diet book. A diet book. This girl with arms of a starving African and a spine puncturing angry scabs in her emaciated back was reading a chapter entitled “maintenance”; was studying a chart called “controlling the cravings”; was reading lists of “danger” foods. It was crowded. I was curious. What can I say.
Looking back on it now, my first thoughts are of the “how could she do that?” variety. Not the starving, per se, but rather the consciously reading about food while starving. I’m reading a fantastic book now—Julie and Julia, about a woman courageously working her way through Julia Child’s French cookbook (and blogging about it, before blogs were even big)—and seriously, just reading about someone else’s dinners, failed or not, makes me hungry. I’m the only person I know who reads the “fit” portion of Tuesday’s Express with a big plate of snacks, inspired mostly by the portion on eating healthy. The power of persuasion and I, we go way back.
But my mind was elsewhere while gripping that handrail. Sadness; sadness was really my only feeling. Sadness and sorrow. “Doesn’t someone love you? Isn’t there someone to tell you to stop, to destroy that book, to get you help and to force-feed you a nice steak?” If she saw my judging glances, the trying-to-take-you-in, no-I’m-not-really-staring stares, her illness would have contorted them, and twisted them, and turned them into “oh god, she thinks I’m so fat.” She was dying, right there on the blue line to Franconia-Springfield. Dying alone. And I don’t think there was anything I could have done.
Someone should love her more. It should probably start with her. But someone, somewhere, should love her more.
My mornings generally follow this synopsis: 7.15, alarm goes off. It’s my iPod, with a playlist that I really need to change because I know all the songs and what order they come, so I usually just lay there and think about getting up when the next song starts. Somewhere around 7.30, my cell phone goes off. I’ll tell you that I set it, too, because I know all about my iPod habits. That’s part of it. The other part is that I have this gripping fear that the power just might suddenly go out over night, allowing me to sleep uninhibited till way past 9. This has never ever happened, but the cell phone is my insurance that it never will.
I feel like I do a lot of seemingly normal things for totally odd reasons. Like I feel really bad when I leave my apartment a mess in the morning; I always make my bed and try to straighten things up. Sure, I like to have things neat when I get home; a privilege of not having a roommate. But the bigger (secret) reason is that I often get this really morbid outlook, and start wondering what my parents would think if something tragic happened to me and they had to come get all of my stuff. The empty wine bottles littering the kitchen, and the laundry a far cry from the hamper? Not the daughter we knew! Strange. I know.
But back to my mornings. I stumble out of bed, put the water on for tea, and jump in the shower, where I usually remain much longer than needed just because, well, I like long hot showers. I also like postponing the inevitable. Obviously.
I turn on the tv while I fix my hair, generally try on variations of approximately four outfits, and slide out the door just as the clock squeaks 8.40.
I discovered today that just by adding one hour and a bit of dedication, a heck of a lot more can be accomplished.
Note the modified schedule du jour: 6.15, alarm goes off. I get out of bed, and make tea while the rest of the playlist rolls on. I shower quickly, long enough to rinse my hair and decide what to wear; I fix myself up, then head down to the garage, and drive my darling car to its 7am service appointment (I KNOW. That’s so freaking early. I tried to complain, but it was this or mid-day Saturday. I don’t like disrupting the peace of a long and happy weekend with errands involving brightly lit service rooms and coffee out of styrofoam).
I’ll pick it up tonight, after they check it out and run their little tests. In the meantime, I am the temporary owner of a sparkly loaner. My dealership is cruelly kind, in that their loaners are all the newest, nicest cars with all the toys.
The magical space pod in my parking spot right now has a push-button ignition—the keys only have to be in the car, which means I could physically attach them to my person and never ever lose them. You push the dashboard button and the car just starts; smoothly, quietly, perfectly. It has a totally high-tech computer system that is not only a fancy new GPS, but also will answer your phone and will play your iPod so long as if these things are somewhere in the car, in its little magical range.
I realized pulling out of the grocery store on the way home that the screen turns into a camera showing the space behind the car the moment you go into reverse. Parking in the garage, it beeped and showed me sensors and a diagram of dangerous things (i.e. the posts) near the car’s edges. I fit all the week’s groceries in the efficient netted compartments in the trunk.
Driving it is an extraordinary experience. Still, though—it’s not my car. It hasn’t held my CDs, hasn’t driven those miles; its steering wheel hasn’t felt the splash of my tears, and its leather is missing those dents and flaws from moving furniture and other things of the “probably won’t fit in the backseat but darn it, it’s going in” variety. It’s seductive. It’s nice to think about for the day. By tomorrow, though, I bet I’ll be ready to go back.
There’s something really comfortable about what’s yours. No matter how shiny the alternatives seem, how quickly they start or how promising they purport to be at carrying baggage, concealing the ordinary, or taking the edge off of all the bad parts, there’s something missing. The flaws and the quirks and the low-technology originals aren’t always bad. They’re what makes the experience yours at all, and what makes it an experience, not a vacation, a few hours in wonderland.
So yes, my car has some dents from those cursed posts. I cried for each one. But it’s made me more careful, and it’s made me better. I’m pretty sure this goes for a lot more than cars.
I made it home, eggs and cheese in tow and feeling very Euro-posh, in time to send a quick e-mail to my mom, eat the banana I shanghaied from the dealership’s coffee bar, and head out—by 8.40.
All this, and the only difference an hour. Amazing.
Every once in awhile, I find myself in situations that make me stop and think, look around me and realize just what this life of mine involves at the more superficial level. The hot showers I take every day. The refrigerator where food molds because I’m just one person, I can’t eat everything! The eight-dollar sandwiches I buy at lunch, and charge it, please.
Back when J still worked in a law firm, he took a pro bono case, a man seeking asylum in the United States. The judge granted that asylum this week, and last night, we all met in the cramped apartment of his translator to celebrate.
It’s a studio apartment, situated directly across from the National Cathedral. The walls are brightly colored, and hung with tapestries; Arabic music plays softly in the background, and we’re all seated in low chairs and sofas around the coffee table while the ancient window air conditioner whirrs. The translator is from Iran, and this room is her sanctuary, her home-away-from-home. Just walking in, I feel like I’m crossing the divide into some magical realm; sitting there, I could be in an apartment in Karachi, in Baghdad, in Kabul. Not that I’ve been to any of these places. Only in my head, and the odd Thursday night.
I’m sitting on the blue sofa, neighbor to plates of hummus, of yogurt, of chicken. The lawyer’s wife to my left takes small portions; she’s pregnant, and her appetite has grown persnickety. Misunderstanding how much more is coming, I serve myself generously as the painted platters pass.
Across from us is the newly-minted asylee, speaking rapid French with his four African-born young cousins. Or second cousins? They’re in school in Maryland, we learn; they’ve been in the US for four years now, and won asylum on similar facts as the evening’s celebre.
Victims of oppression, of tribal clashes, of governments built on belief in black magic. Running from bounty hunters and convictions that the rains won’t come, the crops will die, the sky will open its wrath if certain conditions aren’t met, certain covenants aren’t fulfilled. A promise to a god a long time ago, silently whispered in a witchdoctor’s tent: he needs a baby, give me a baby, I don’t want to end up like the rest of them. Give me a baby and I’ll give him right back; I’ll offer him back, he’ll be my offering to you. A conception haled as an omen; a baby boy born, and revered, but predestined.
A baby boy grown up, and grown skeptical; a baby boy defected while on scholarship in Europe. A people enraged and death threats sent; curses cried out and the witchdoctor’s magic again sought. A mother shamed, and stoned. An asylum granted, an American greencard, and a celebration.
The lawyer’s wife strokes her belly, the diamond on her finger causing light refractions to dance across the children, systematically, just for a moment.
She yawns, and they stand to leave. We stay for tea; yes I’ll take sugar, and what grade will you be in? How do you like it here? Oh, wonderful; I liked that class too, and yes, it’s sad that summer is ending.
Back at the car it’s life as usual. The magic of all of us together, all the world under the happy tent of the evening, fades. J’s mad about something, and I’m anxious for another workday.
A workday where I sit, still full from dinner, and no longer particularly interested in studying petty disputes over domain names. I remind myself that the truth is in perspective, but I think I’m still suffering a bit of culture shock from my evening in such a faraway place.
Respect is:
- the very excellent song currently running through my head
- completely lacking in this office
- really important to any healthy relationship
Disrespect is:
- my boss’ pattern after returning from a two-week vacation: in at noon on Monday; failed to appear Tuesday; out at noon on Wednesday
- the miniskirt I am wearing today. Denim, cut-off; on sale in the junior’s department at Mervyns and originally purchased as a swimsuit coverup (HA)
- the hour and a half of company time I just spent in the dressing room at Victoria’s Secret
I feel like I’m in good company by deciding that my job is a joke, and I hate it, and it makes me miserable. I don’t know exactly when these feelings came; were they recent? Maybe my boss really was once the nice guy I remember. Or maybe I was just deluding myself, high on the accomplishment of starting a career, convinced that it was excellent and everything was perfect because it had to be, I’d put so much at stake.
Whatever it is, the shine has worn off.
The hardest thing for me right now is that facially, my job is still perfect. It’s a perfect blend of my education, interests, and aspirations. If I could run my day through a mesh colander and filter out the snark, and the attitude, and the laziness of the people around me? If I could take the action here and set it up in front of a green screen of goodness? I’d be set.
I can’t, obviously, so I’m sitting here with a couple of different options. I could keep this job, because really, at the end of the day, it isn’t bad. I don’t feel challenged nearly enough, and I think there’s a lot of bad energy—but it pays very well, allows me to spend the odd afternoon out at the mall and rattling away on the keyboard, pretending to work (cough), and while it frustrates me to no end some days, it’s a pretty cush way to live.
Or I could look for something else. Something related or something totally different; the jury’s still out on that one. I sometimes get in these moods where I decide that retraining—maybe as a teacher, or a nurse—would be loads of fun. Other days I’m not so sure I’m ready to give up on the law.
Short of sorting out these universal questions, I took a back-door approach and updated my resume last night; oh, my goodness it felt like I was slapping my boss just opening that dusty file. “I’m moving on, you see,” I said to his specter. “I’m turning all the skills I’ve learned under your dictatorship and am polishing them into something amazing. I’m planning a coup.”
I still couldn’t shake the skank feeling of writing about myself with the harsh brevity the resume demands, though. Hi, it’s me, knocking on your door in my barest, most revealing elements. Why don’t you let me in, and let me show you how I use these assets, and you can pay me? Yeah. It feels pretty much exactly how it sounds.
This was the first time I updated my resume since school, and I’m pleased to report that it’s looking a lot meatier. A lot less “obviously I needed to fill space so I stuck this in.” It totally got my confidence going, so I moved that blinking cursor on over to a cover letters file.
For inspiration, I started researching job postings. It started out as “let’s pretend” (yes, this is what I do for fun late at night), but I actually stumbled on an opening that I’d be perfect for. Except that it’s in New York. I don’t live in New York. J is starting a business in inland Virginia, which is the opposite direction of New York. Troubling.
I don’t know that I’ll apply, but I wrote myself a glowing cover letter just the same. It was such a positive exercise, actually sitting down and writing out how great I am and what a good job I’m doing, and why I’m ready to move on. I am excellent here, even if no one sees it. And won’t they be sorry when the girl behind all of those great things slips away?
The New York job is with a major competitor. And there are others out there. Game on, bitches.
I’ve become a real Internet junkie of late. I’m online seriously all the time. I check the news and weather before I head to work. Checking e-mail is the first thing I do when I get to the office. And when I get home, I move the laptop to the sofa and continue on.
It’s a little bit surprising to me that I was able to wean myself of the habit all weekend without any repercussion. Like debilitating withdrawal, or those anxious cravings that get you up in the night sleepwalking towards the glowing screen? No one? Right. Moving on.
From the moment my sister arrived Wednesday night, the macbook was snapped shut, save for a brief skype with our parents and some random recipe checks. No e-mail. No blogs. For four days. Really, it seemed like the longest of long weekends, back how it used to be before the wireless world was my world, too, keeping me informed and updated and positively always in the loop.
Part of that may have just been being with her. It’s hard to believe, looking back, that the same girl who I’m sitting with up at a rooftop bar, splitting a pitcher of margaritas and talking about her next year’s plans, her boyfriend’s MCAT worries, and the bills they’ve both got to pay is the same overalled kid I used to fight with over the “best” dollhouse, and whose barbies were best friends with mine. We’re still the same, and our conversations are just as freefalling … but something’s changed. Something so subtle that you don’t even notice it till you take a step back and say, hey wait a minute … weren’t we in elementary school, like, yesterday? It’s like a child growing up; you see her once a year, and WOW, you’ve grown so much! But every day? Every day it’s so slight, changes that miss detection; you buy her new pants because they’re old, and you don’t even realize that it’s because she’s growing, too.
We did some of the touristy things, my sister and I; we went to the mall for the folklife festival and fireworks, catching a capitol hill backyard barbeque in between. We toured the Library of Congress, and went shopping in Georgetown. My favorites, though, were the hours we spent in the living room, in a fort of sorts we built from her air mattress and my sofa, watching tv favorites from our childhood (composed primarily of I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched … so excellent) and old movies of the Carey Grant / Doris Day variety.
We complemented these silver screen spectaculars with unanimous favorites from the Childhood House of Us: macaroni and cheese, lil’ smokies (cheese injected, of course), and bagel bites. Just because we could.
I miss the time when that’s what summer was all about—being lazy, watching TV, and playing games till dinner time. My weekend was like playing house in reverse: instead of pretending we were the responsible adults going to work and running errands and driving the car, we were pretending that we had no worries, and could just stay in our pajamas all day doing nothing but changing out the DVDs. Honestly, we had just as much fun.
