You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January, 2009.
It’s not yet 11am, and already I’ve received three (3) e-mails asking me to buy girl scout cookies from someone or the other’s child.
“Sign up now! Sheet’s posted on my door!” they cry. Or, more boldly, up over the coffee maker, an ink pen helpfully tied on.
The most egregious is from my boss’ hateful wife. “Help my daughter reach her goals and get to camp! No pressure, but you know you love cookies!” Delete.
Why is her daughter, the bastard offspring of the man who calls himself my senior, not out there in the ice and snow with her brownie sash and little-girl smile? Why is she not ringing doorbells and selling her sad camp story herself?
Times have changed, sure, and I guess neighborhoods aren’t as friendly as they used to be. But still. Isn’t the whole thing about learning? About getting independence?
I was a girl scout, too, but every box of cookies I ever sold was mine. I was shy so it was hard: I remember acting out with my mom what I’d say when someone answered the door; how to say “thank you anyway” when they didn’t want to buy anything. I remember the Saturday site-sales out in front of the grocery store. I owned those sales; I worked for them.
There were girls every year who’d turn up with an outrageous sum total, but everyone knew that mom and dad had played a key role. My dad refused to take a sheet to work, on principle. I was only really mad about that the year the theme was carousel horses; I really wanted those prizes that you had to sell like 1,000 boxes to get.
I do love cookies, the hateful wife was right. But I also love those girls who want it for themselves. My $3.50 a box or whatever is going to invest in the whole experience: the nervous knees, the school-girl smiles; the struggle to make change for a 20. I’m holding out for that.
I haven’t had many boyfriends, but I’ve gone on lots of first dates. There’s something deliciously capsuled about a first date: here we are, and we don’t know much of anything about how this whole thing will play out. Maybe it’ll be great, and we’ll learn all about each other; we’ll look back to now at our wedding, as we take pictures of our kids at prom, when we have the grandchildren over for the summer, and we’ll have this story. These were my first impressions; this is how it all started, we’ll say. You can’t plan on that, of course, and I think that’s part of the magic. It’s a grab-bag; reach in and see what finds your searching fingers. Maybe it’ll be perfect. Maybe it’ll be a disaster. Maybe there will be a follow-up, or maybe not; maybe this will be history, or maybe just a really juicy blog post.
I’ve agreed to go on a date-date—a “real” date, if you will—with one of the scary Catholics I’ve known for quite some time. He’s a really great guy in a lot of ways; funny, perceptive, clever. My friends know this individual as the “chips and dip Catholic guy,” and here’s why: one of our first encounters was in a restaurant, on a weeknight in the summer after work; I hadn’t really eaten lunch, was famished, and the beer we drank while waiting for our table only made the situation worse. We ordered an appetizer, a cheese and artichoke dip of some kind; it came, all cheesy and bubbly and smelling so delicious I think I was drooling out my eyeballs. “Go ahead,” he says to me. Now, in magda-land, “go ahead” in this context means “please, have the first bite! Load that chip up with cheese! Go for it!” So I did. The cheese, of course, was scalding. Here I am, tongue on fire and not entirely comfortable, and I look up, as I reach for the water, to see a similarly pained expression on his face.
“I thought we were going to pray first,” he says.
Yeah. That “go ahead”? Short for “go ahead, I’ll let you offer the blessing tonight.” Oops.
The Catholics here all have this same little prayer that they say before eating. I’ve learned it since, but at the time, the words were unfamiliar; “bless us oh lord, in these thy gifts, something something something, something something something, amen.” Easy to fudge in a group. Significantly harder one-on-one with a mouth burned out by cheese.
We’ve talked since, but haven’t really hung out (wonder why!?). I think he’s tight with the Theresas, though, and I’m guessing that word of my split from J reached him; starting around Thanksgiving, he’s been back on my radar. An e-mail here, a text message there; e-vites to parties I never attended.
We went to dinner last night, just quickly; I was home from a luncheon and class at my church, and he was off to evening mass downtown. A perfect frame for a long over-due catching up.
He admits to me, over Guinness and fish and chips, that he’s always admired me; that he’s wanted to ask me out since he’s known me, but knew I was otherwise spoken for. We discussed the J combustion; he listened, and was entirely supportive. Then the question. Would I say yes, he said, if he asked me out properly? Without even hesitating, I said I would.
Of course I worry that his scary Catholocism and my liberal Catholocism won’t really line up. I don’t want this to get too serious just yet, and I don’t want him to think that one date means we’re dating and on the way to the altar. And I really don’t want to be one of those wives who has to go to confession every week because, oops, I’m on the pill and my husband doesn’t know (!!).
A first date. A chance to test it out, and see what comes of it.
Some of first dates from my archives have been magical: swanky drinks and a late reservation at a glamorous downtown restaurant where flowers and a full-course meal, with wine, waited.
Some of them have been fun: the baseball game I surprised myself by really getting into, and the way we laughed the whole long walk back to the car in the sudden, but quintessentially Seattle, rain.
Some, too, have been downright strange: the painfully long dinner with the guy who meticulously, laboriously chopped all of his food into bit-sized portions before eating; ordered course, after course, after course, even when I said I was done; harangued the wait-staff; and bored me to tears with his encyclopedic knowledge of Eastern-style spiritual enlightenment, giving my thoughts and questions on the matter zero airtime.
I don’t know when he’ll ask, where we’ll go, or what we’ll do. It’ll be a story, though, which is as good a start as any.
Mother doesn’t always know best. Well, at least not my mother. She always means best. But isn’t that something of an impossible standard, to be presumed to always know best? I wouldn’t want that on my shoulders.
Tonight my mom was amazing. I pulled myself out of a day that’s just been outright terrible for no real reason and, seeing nowhere good to turn, called home. Coming out of a deliciously long weekend this Wednesday should have been great. It should have been easy; a no-brainer, back to the grind-type deals. HA, the great cosmos says. We’ll be taxing you for those days now.
A boss who’s a jerk, who yanks me into his office this morning for a smack-down session loosely called “Why this issue sucked (and why it’s all your fault).” A company who tells me that despite my clear title as EDITOR, they’ll just go on ahead and treat me as a reporter, and demand innovative pitches and tighter deadlines, more responsibility in a pressure-cooker of misery with absolutely no glory. I could do that, sure. But I never wanted to be a journalist. When I tell them this, they laugh. Those bastards laugh in my face, and tell me I’ll be “grateful for these experiences someday.” The growing fear that life is passing me by, and I’m just plodding along. The panic and despair that I’m missing all the good things because I’ve made wrong choices, and that my entire life here is a giant mistake they’ll archive and label “EXHIBIT A” in red pencil for students of chaos-theory for years and years to come.
It’s been one of those massive crisis of confidence of days. I’ve vacillated between tightly closing my eyes and praying for mass destruction, bodily harm, and death to befall certain of my colleagues, and wanting to run down to the metro tunnel and lie on the tracks; between calling J and telling him I’ve reconsidered, and yes, let’s get married, and you and your enormous trust fund can support me and the alcohol addiction tying myself to you would surely engender (but at least I wouldn’t have to work!), and thinking maybe I should just call it a wash and start all over. I spent a truly shocking amount of time today looking into PhD English programs, teaching programs, and nursing programs—in DC, in Virginia, and when I realize I can’t afford this apartment without a salary, Seattle. Then I notice that all of their deadlines are in, hmmm, two weeks; most require a lot of prereqs I don’t have and recommendations I’d have to procure. And I freak out.
Mom to the rescue.
When I feel like I’m a massive disappointment to the entire world and a general failure at life, she’s there. She says it’s okay that I’m still not sure what I want; that I’m allowed to have a bad day. Breathe in, she says, and breathe out. You’re going to get through this.
None of the “but we put you through law school!” cries I’d feared; none of the “oh, suck it up, everyone’s job is miserable at some point” gruel I’ve been living on. She let me tell her that I hate my life without the judgment I know I deserve. (It can’t possibly be that bad!).
Just love she had for me, my mom. Just love. I don’t take her up on that unconditional offer often enough.
I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever be too old to call my mom when things are going badly. Thing is, she had the perfect tonic; the Barbie band-aid in her purse at exactly the right moment. Just love. I’m going to close my laptop and end these crazy thoughts of future could-bes to rest on that, I think.
If I’m ever a mom, I hope I have exactly her grace.
“How do they do it?” I asked myself this morning, thinking, of course, of the Eskimos. I’ve long harbored a secret fascination with Eskimos. That life just seems so cozy, and novel. My ideas are limited to the flat pages of children’s books, however; to illustrations of warm hugs and tightly-stacked igloos. Do people even live in igloos anymore? I should look into that.
After this morning, I’m not sure I want to find out. Coming out of the metro, the gaudy time & temperature sign blasted me with this truth: 16. SIXTEEN. Now if I was Canadian and this was all Celsius-style, I think I’d be pretty content. But seriously, DC, seriously? 16′ and no snow?
No, I definitely don’t want to be an Eskimo. Athough one of their coats wouldn’t be so bad. And whale blubber would probably do more for insulation than these leftovers-as-lunch. (Hmmm. Pasta a la whale? mac n’ beluga n’ cheese? Penne in a creamy blubber bisque?) (Exhibit A as to why working straight through lunch and eating at my desk is a bad plan, that; my imagination is far too expansive for these narrow walls).
Good news, though! As of *snap* NOW, noon on January 16th, we are half way through January. Half way! For all its holidays and days off, birthdays and new beginnings, January always seems like the hardest month to trudge through. It’s dark, and frigidly cold; Christmas seems a million miles away, and all that joy and anticipation and happy backwards-looking-at-the-year is expired. Dead. Done. Things rather stop with December, and jumping in, starting to move forward again, is seeming like such a positive drag. Feeling like my face is going to freeze off isn’t all that helpful either.
Half way, though! Half way to February, which is so short, then it’s March, which is really almost Spring. That’s just the thing about beginnings. Hard to get going, but once you do, once you get off the ground, that momentum will carry you through the ups and downs.
I think that holds true for a lot of things, which is one of the reasons I’m delighted to welcome the blogger formerly known as Penelope back to this wonderful interweb. She’s writing as Itty over here, so check her out. (Welcome back, P!)
Ah, January. We’re on the downhill now.
I’d been living here for about six months when somehow, in a period of about three days, I totally started falling apart. I lost my metro card somewhere between my apartment and the metro. Then I lost my ATM card somewhere between my car, the bank, and my apartment. I left my credit card at a restaurant after paying, and I very nearly missed a flight to Puerto Rico because I turned back half way to the airport for a passport I didn’t need. It took me a long time to shake that; to leave without the paranoia that something was about to go horribly wrong.
An unfamiliar lightness in my step last night warned me I may be on that path again. I’d left work late; I was walking home from the train, listening to my ipod, planning my evening in my mind when I felt it. An imbalance. My ipod in one pocket; an unfamiliar nothing in the other. That’s not right, I thought.
Ah. Yes, MY KEYS. You know, the helpful little metal things that grant access to, oh, home; the smiling photo-cards that allow one to swipe in to the office, and to glide passed the armed guards at the Capitol. Missing. En absence.
Panic ensued, of course; me in the freezing cold, veritably dumping my bag inside out on a bench in the fake piazza outside the Embassy Suites. Please be here please be here please be here.
Not there.
Back on the metro I went, hoping beyond hope that I’d left them in the office, but tying my stomach in knots that they’d fallen out somewhere along the way (enigmatic, I still think: keys required TWICE to get into work, but not at all to leave. (And NO, I don’t work for the CIA). Rather invites forgetfulness, really).
A perk of knowing the security guards came when I reappeared that night; “Sure, Magda, we’ll take you right up,” they said, bypassing the paperwork I understand is usually involved in letting uncredentialed employees past secure doors. Now if they start giving me underwear, we’ll be in serious trouble.
(The keys were there. On my desk. Silly, silly magda).
Today was the Internet Caucus, which is always a really fun day; I spent it obsessively tracking my belongings, though, and networked like the most nervous, cracked-out person there is. I bailed on the luncheon to pull myself together in Starbucks, and managed to file a few decent pieces at the end of it; seriously, though, I don’t even know what my deal is these past few days. I’ve been losing focus; going a billion directions at once. I’ve got to cut that out.
I’ve made tentative plans to go downtown with some friends this weekend to see some of the pre-inauguration activities, and that may be just what I need—get back into life, into the anonymity of the crowds; lose myself to feel alive. I’m steering clear Monday and Tuesday—good grief, is there any excuse to go into the city then? I’ll be camped out in Virginia, making good use of my days off watching movies and drinking wine. Wooo change! Et cetera.
Actually, what I should be doing is studying Russian. We had our first class of the winter term tonight; a new teacher, who is young and hilarious, and only five students this go. Unfortunately for me, three have studied Russian in another life (one of whom, yeah, while she was living for four years in the Ukraine). My voice seems suddenly so small. It’s a new dynamic, this group, but there’s something really positive about it. Ooooh, change is in the air. Maybe things are going to turn a corner after all.
About a year ago, the maintenance man in my building revealed his amorous feelings for yours truly.
This is not a man I know well, and arguably less over the past 12 months than in the period prior. The most he gets is a “Hi, maintenance man, lovely to see you! Must run! Late to work!” in the morning when our paths cross in the lobby; a brisk walk and moving wave if I chance see him on the way to the gym at night. And for the record, I’m a full head taller than him. At least. Just sayin’.
I was sitting on my couch tonight, when lo, a knock at the door. Another year later, he was back—and with another gift.
“Can I come in?” He says. I tried to demur with protestations of “I’m working” (looking for new jobs online … same difference, right?), but the words were barely out of my mouth before he was in and on the couch. “Sit down,” he said, and patted my cushion. MY cushion. Of MY couch, in MY apartment. I refused, and stood near the door.
In what I think was an appropriate irony, I was—and am still, in fact—wearing the PINK sweatpants I exchanged for his present last year.
In bits of broken English, he said that he’s been trying to drop this off since Christmas, then informed me that his “Christmas wish” was to be my boyfriend.
Right.
With exaggerated false regret, I told him all about my charming, but imaginary lover; no, he doesn’t live here, but oh, how we’re serious! He wouldn’t be happy to hear about you, I said; plus, I must work, I really must, I am a very important lawyer so I’m going to have to ask you to leave, but thanks so much! Good-bye! Happy New Year! And like shoo-fly gone horribly wrong, he was out. (But back, 30s later, to ask for my phone number. Which was denied).
This year’s trappings:
WTF?
Somewhat enigmatically, the thing that vexes me the most is that more sweatpants are not in the cards this year. Despite the box, the only real VS merchandise here is that skanky thong. The “play with me” massage oil (eeeew) is from an unidentified source, as is the bear; the lotion and scrub are Mary Kay (??). A good day for Good Will?
I probably should be more creeped out. For the moment, I’m just bemused; entertained; planning to use this all as ammunition in a novel I’ll write one day. As soon as I have a new job with a fun staff that doesn’t make me come home and want to drown in vodka/watch television catatonically/hurl myself from the 16th floor, that is; the job that leaves me happy on return home; excited to get back in front of the computer screen and document imaginary lives. Ah, the glittering, if unattainable, possibilities of the someday.
My Job: where creativity, good ideas, and positive morale go to DIE. Die a gruesome and tragic, long and painfully drawn-out death. Like the Earl of Gloucester, right, bleeding to death out my eyeballs.
I don’t just say this because I was in the office at 5am pacific time this morning, or because my flight was delayed TWO HOURS and I didn’t make it home till 1am eastern time, also this morning.
Nor are these feelings spawned completely by my tragically slow work computer that takes 45 SECONDS to open ONE E-MAIL. (Five hundred thousand e-mails received over two weeks out x 45s each = computer smashed on floor in frustration). It wasn’t even the realization by the tech support lady that my computer “doesn’t even have enough memory to run lotus notes.” (She said she’d look for more, but then she took lunch, since apparently she’s all unionized, etc., and she was never heard from again.) (And what is that, anyway? Can you just find memory? Like, at the corner drug store, or in a forgotten closet?)
The problem is the people. I work with some seriously disorganized underachievers. My boss is their ringleader. I wish the man dead most every day. This is no way to start the new year, truly. I was back in my office this morning, all decked out with flowery and cheery calendars; I looked at my Buddha, and my Mary icon, and I said, “Magda, be kind.” But I tell you, it took ever last ounce of my sanity.
It breaks my heart a little bit to say that I want to get out. I had such high, high hopes for this job. Just look! I moved my whole life out here! I picked up and moved thousands of miles away; that’s how much I believed in us. In the potential of me in this position.
And now I’m the jaded lover; I’ve lost that spark. The job still loves me, in its way. It treats me as well as it can. But it’s an awkward partner. The shine has worn off. I am no longer satisfied.
(Is this possibly a pattern with me?)
So, where to now? I have a sinking feeling I’ll stay, if only because I fear I won’t be able to find something that will (a) look as good for my career (senior editor, what?); (b) match my salary (I’m not exactly rolling in the dough over here, but I’m highly paid for what I actually accomplish); (c) actually NOT be with a team of cloaked morons (in which case, what’s the point?).
I’m also thinking of hanging on for a bit because they’ll pay for further education. Since about, oh, a week ago, I’m considering applying for an LLM program, part-time, for next fall (and stress considering); they could pay, then I could go on to greener legal pastures. Maybe? God, the thought of going back to school makes me want to cry a little bit.
I was having about this exact conversation with George tonight. In fact, it was at exactly this point that he just grabbed my hand. And held it.
Um, ok? It was the most awkward thing that’s happened to me in a long time. A pause in the conversation, me talking my mouth off and stopping for air, and suddenly my hand in his. Most unexpected, and not entirely welcome, if I’m honest. I thought he was wanting to see my watch or something, then wham, we’re holding hands? I’m sorry, what? It didn’t even fit. I just removed it; then I kept talking. Yeah, because I’m smooth like that.
Other than that, though, the man’s been paper-perfect. Sending a text on Christmas; on New Year’s; to welcome me home last night (good memory). Hell, he even says he wants to move back to the west coast.
I called him after work; said I’d be up for dinner, but only quickly, as I’ve loads to do. (I’ll note, for interest’s sake, that essentially nothing on that “loads to do” list has disappeared. My suitcases? On the floor, still. My Christmas decorations? Mostly remain up (so, so depressing to take that all down). Me? Not in bed. Clearly).
No problem, he said; let’s meet in the lobby at 6.30. Just something quick.
He was true to his word; we went for dinner at Whole Foods down the street (actually, perfect for my mood, strange as that is). Not perfect? Him. He was fun to talk to, and fun to hang out with, I suppose, but that magical “it” just was not there. In absentia. On strike.
No magic! I really don’t see it coming, either. It just doesn’t add up, me and him. Nice try, better luck next time, etc.
Problem is, I can’t simply vote him off the island; I can’t merely present my rose to the others, and have him shuffled off innocuously by the staff, only to hear his criticism and disdain remotely when the saga of my quest for Real Love airs in prime time.
Hmmm. Maybe I should look into reality love.
On second thought, no. Maybe I’m just not ready for all of this yet.
