You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May, 2009.
Because I’m such an insane little rule-follower, one of the very first things I did on moving to Virginia was to head straight to the DMV for a new license and car tags.
First, they wouldn’t give it to me because I was a security risk. My license was less than 60 days old, they said, helpfully after I’d waited an hour and a half to be called. It was thus considered invalid in the Commonwealth. Yes, okay, the card itself was only about a month old. My birthday is in September, it had just been renewed, and I moved here the first week of October. But I got the actual license the day I turned 16; doesn’t that count for anything? Apparently not.
Because my dad is a badass, we went back the next day and hoped for a new person. We got a little grandma who either (a) didn’t know the 60 day security rule or (b) didn’t care. I’m inclined to vote for (b) at this point, since she also let my dad sign title to the car over to me completely without so much as checking his ID, which is oh so terribly illegal. (He could have been anyone!). She let me take my picture three times until I was satisfied with it, though, which was enough of a perk that I overlooked it.
Result: very cute driver’s license. My smile is perfect, my hair is adorable; I even look really tan, which is kind of amazing seeing as I’d spent the entire summer in my parent’s basement being abused by bar prep.
That card expires on my 30th birthday. Many, many things will die on that day, I fear, but the picture is of most concern to me at present.
Reading the Post on the train home last night, I read this article: Virginia is banning smiles in all DMV photos. Effective now. Driver’s license = mugshot. Forget the lovers. Virginia is for convicts!
I sped straight to the macbook and wasted an inordinate amount of time last night posing “with a neutral face” in front of photobooth. I have to say I’m not very pleased with the results.
Suddenly, the next three years seem like the last precious days of my free-wheeling youth. Thanks, Virginia. Thanks a lot.
A lot of things change, I’ve noticed, as time passes, and as you move from one phase of life to the next. Hanging out with friends on a random Wednesday is still fun, say … but come 11 o’clock, you’re ready to call it quits. And even if you still have the tolerance of a rhinoceros and can put away, oooh, an entire bottle of wine without incident, the mornings have a funny way of coming a lot harder and a lot faster.
The gym stops being somewhere to go because it’s so in, you in your little nike pants on the elliptical watching the world, but somewhere to be so you can still fit in your pants at all.
And you start to realize that even though you can still pull off dresses you had in college, wearing them isn’t so cute anymore. People WILL think you’re an intern, and you WILL feel silly.
But some things never change. “Free” lunches always come with a string, whether its your name on a mailing list forever or the exchange of your hour for doltish lectures aimed to sway hill staffers, strings to lobbiest sliding their agendas between the turkey and the wheat.
The train will never be on time when you’re running late, and metro busses will consistently fail to quash the people you want them to.
That and there is absolutely no such thing as free beer.
I’m technically eligible, in my job here, to unionize and join the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper guild. I don’t, and haven’t, and never intend to, for lots and lots of reasons (first of which: I don’t work for a newspaper. I am not even a journalist, though I often act like one, and though I work in publishing I am always first a lawyer). Lots of other reasons, too, but bottom line: do NOT sign on the dotted line, do NOT make guild deductions from my paycheck, thanks very much, and goodbye.
But they’ve been getting little feisty, their recruitment people. Our enrollment here is low—25% of eligible employees, I think—and it seems they’re looking to up it. I had an alarmingly neon flyer under my door this morning, following up to several e-mails throughout the week, about the guild’s happy hour tonight. “Free beer! Drinks and appetizers on us!” it screamed.
Now wait. If I go there for the beer, you’ve caught me. You see that I’m interested. I’m in your little web, and we’ll always have that hanging. If I go and show my face, it won’t be just a hang-out; you’ll act like you’re my friends, but you’ll all have your agenda, like those evangelical christian fellowship people in college (remember them? Free pizza! Be my friend! Come to our movie night! But pretty soon, movie night was bible study and holding hands and singing songs and WOW this isn’t really for me, but extrication? Difficult).
Miss 9th floor representative herself was just by here, knocking on the door with her cheery smile. They really hope to see me there! Unfortunately, I told her, I have other plans … which may or may not involve my own little living room happy hour-for-one.
Thing is, five years ago, I wager I’d have been there, for no other reason than to cash out, as it were. Some things never change. Happily, my penchant for free booze appears to have grown off that list.
One of my best friends … and incidentally, also my first boyfriend … writes me this week about his girl troubles. He’s dating a girl who, by his own admission, is highly unstable and wildly volatile. She has a host of mental issues, often resists medication, and fluctuates from here to forever but—he assures me—loves him fiercely. So fiercely that she’s thrice tried to kill herself when he goes out of town, or when they fight; when she feels unsure, the paramedics come. Trouble. It’s all I can do to keep from screaming BREAK UP WITH HER NOW—because I’ve done that, plenty of times over their three years together. He knows how I feel. She is precious, of that I have no doubt, but she needs far, far more help than he can give. And yet, he tells me, they’re moving in together next month. “I’m worried that it’s too soon, and I’m still not sure about this relationship,” he said. “But she needs me.” He isn’t answering his phone.
A friend of mine from school got engaged this weekend, to a guy she’s been dating since I’ve known her. Nice guy; always been really good to her, and to me. Something about him just doesn’t seem right for her, though. I’ve never thought so. Actually, I’ve always thought he was kind of a well-intentioned loser. She’s so dynamic, so lovely; he’s so mediocre. I think she can do so much better, but I’m not confident she sees the girl I do when I look at her. I’ve tried to talk to her at various points about how their relationship is going, to suss out whether she’s really happy; I feel like she is, but only on the surface. She wants a wedding. She wants to be loved. We all do, on some level, but where do you draw the line? When do you say, sister, stop pining after a loser, you are fabulous? I can’t know the whole story, none of us ever can. Maybe he is perfect for her: I’ve just never, ever bought it. He finally did the whole get-down-on-one-knee thing, and of course she said yes. Honestly, I was kind of hoping that he never would, and she’d move on. How could I have said that, though, without looking like the bitter and jaded single friend? I’m not jealous of her relationship. Maybe it’s just that I know something about settling for what you think makes you happy, without considering what real happiness looks like. I’m working on putting on a real smile for them.
The India trip my church has asked me to go on is a week-long trip as ambassadors of the Anglican district of Virginia (and yes, I still consider myself Catholic; crazy, I know). We’ll visit churches there, and say hello from the fair commonwealth; we’ll learn about them, and they about us. Excellent, I think. At a planning meeting yesterday, the leading priest asked us to give our testimonies—to tell our stories of how we found God. I grew up Christian, which is not a very interesting tale. Instead, I described how I found God as an adult—which (regrettably) is essentially a march through the big mistakes of my relationships gone totally bust. The Japan man started it off, of course. Then the whole almost-getting-engaged-to-J thing. I screwed up, and God found me. True, but not necessarily a fun story to tell a room full of people you barely know (especially when one of them is actually a pretty good-looking single smartie—a PhD, he has! Hooray! I’m going to work on sitting next to him on the long flight, mmm-hmmm). It gets better, though. The priest calls my story “inspiring,” then tells us we’ll all be sharing our testimonies in India, IN FRONT OF A CONFERENCE OF INDIAN BISHOPS. Hi, I’m magda, and I suck at relationships. God’s found me after I’ve f’d everything up, in all possible ways. Nice to meet you, too.
The PhD smartie sent me a really nice e-mail after the meeting, saying he wished we could have had more time to talk, and hoping I had a nice time in Boston last week. As I was writing back, a new message came in. From the Japan man. He’s “decided to kill some time by taking a road trip.” Evidently he’s planning on DC. “Would you be up for a visit early to mid-week?” he writes. After MONTHS of silence, he wants to come. I haven’t written back.
Dear Japan Man, you are four years too late. And I’m worth so much more than time killed.
It has not been a winning week for relationships around here. But perhaps, perhaps there is hope. The PhD smartie takes but a day to respond. Saieth he, “you write the greatest e-mails.” Indeed I do! Well, most of the time, anyway. This is promising. We’ll see. Stay tuned.
(That actually has nothing to do with this post, the usefulness of addicts to apparent research studies. I just saw it blazed across an ad in this morning’s paper, the remains of which are scattered on my couch, and it struck me as particularly hilarious).
Across from that ad, my horoscope today read “contradictions abound.” This didn’t really make sense till the early evening.
Rules matter to me; rules guide things. They set out the parameters of what is and what isn’t, what can and can’t; they provide order. I respect them. Feeling screwed because rules have been followed is one of the meanest slaps, I think. Indian consulate, take note.
My take-2 on Operation: Retrieve Visa met with success, and I am now authorized for multiple entries through November 12. Hooray.
Less of a hooray: the woman in front of me on her cell phone. The guy with a backpacking-through-Europe-style rucksack attached to his person in front of her. And in front of him, a suit with a wheely-lawyer bag, on his blackberry whilst listening to his ipod.
PEEVED. I am very, very peeved. The consulate’s Web site is explicit. It provides as follows:
Regulations in Consular offices do not permit you to carry the following:
1. All battery operated or electronic gadgets such as cell phones, digital diaries, pagers, audio/video cassettes, compact discs, palmtops or portable music players.
2. Only a small ladies pouch in hand will be permitted.
3. All bags such as travel bags, back packs, briefcases, suitcases, leather, jute or cloth bags and zip folders. Only a plastic bag containing your application related papers would be permitted. Strollers are also not permitted.
4. Any food item.
5. Sealed envelopes or packages.
6. Any sharp objects such as scissors, pen knives or nail filers.
7. Weapons or explosive material of any kind.
The list provided above is not finite. Other items may be prohibited based on security staff discretion. There is no facility to store prohibited items. You will have to make alternate arrangements to keep the same before entry.
When I dropped off my passport last week, I asked the man EXPLICITLY whether the bag and cell phone restrictions applied to pick-ups, as well. He told me that yes, they did.
Unfortunately for him, he was my check-out man tonight. Harsh words I have a plenty, but they rarely slip from my head out my mouth. Tonight was not a night for discretion.
“Do you or do you not have a policy against bags and electronics?” I asked him. “Did you or did you not advise me directly that I was not permitted to carry the same tonight?” He confirmed that they indeed have the rule, and that, helpfully, “they all know it.” (gesturing to the circus of be-bagged and be-cell-phoned individuals behind me).
“Well.” I said, with emphasis. “It would have been tremendously helpful to know that your rules were flagrantly unenforced before I made other plans to come down here with nothing. You could have mentioned that.”
To which the cheeky consular jerkoff says but this, a bit sheepishly: “they’re just rules.” Just rules? Just rules!? AS IF THAT MEANS THEY’RE MEANT TO BE BROKEN? Oh come on.
“Um, no one should be talking on cell phones,” he said feebly to the masses as I left. I got a lot of dirty looks. Read the rules, losers, and peace out.
I feel like I did at camp in middle school, when the packing list clearly and in caps said that TANK TOPS WOULD NOT BE PERMITTED, and that short-shorts were banned, and that all makeup would be confiscated. Turns out mine was the only mom who cared, and I looked like a dork the entire time while the cool girls ran around in their Abercrombie tube tops, their mascaraed eyes drawing the lust of all adolescent boys in a three-mile radius; the counselors turned a blind eye, and tried to be nice to me as I sat, alone in my Talbots Kids ensembles by the firepit, my mind off wondering what it would like to be popular while marshmallow after marshmallow silently sprouted flames.
I’m waiting now for the ex-engaged friend of mine to come by. She’s been incommunicado recently, and has bailed on inked plans THREE TIMES in the last two weeks. She’s going through a lot. But my patience is waning. She twice called me at work today to push the time back.
I am good at prioritizing. I’ll inconvenience myself for loads of causes if I feel that it’s right. Oh that the world were so easily controlled.
Sometimes when I sit down and look objectively at the pieces of my life, I have no idea who I am. Who is this girl, with this wild agenda? How does she know that I live here, and how to get in; how does she do what I’m supposed to be doing? How does she pull it off?
I’m usually a really, really organized traveler. It’s kind of obsessive. I write comprehensive packing lists, and I lay everything out; I make notebooks of itineraries and printed maps. I call to confirm things.
I don’t even know what happened this weekend, but that somehow all went out the window. I packed by opening a suitcase at 2am Saturday and chucking in clothes that seemed cute, seemed appropriate; a nightcap to a very long day at work (and an even longer night out with friends). See the non-coherence of the last post for an idea of how well that went.
I left my apartment at 7.15am. The flight was at 9. “Eh, I’m leaving from National,” I said. “Who needs two full hours?” This, this is VERY unlike me. I don’t even know what happened, but I threw my Charlie Card in my pocket on the way out.
The sound of ten thousand seatbelts unbuckling welcomed me to Boston. I called my dad on the way to the T; I had no idea where I was going or where I was meant to meet them. This didn’t seem to bother the girl who was pretending to be me at all. I studied the wall map for a few minutes, put on my ipod, and hopped onto the train all local-style.
I made it, and it was fine. It was actually kind of fun.
It was a magical weekend away. Graduations are like that: there’s so much anticipation, so much promise. It’s really a poignant picture of life, captured up there on that stage; a meeting of everything where the best of days bleed into the unknown, and the fear of what’s next. The high and the low, the here and the there. Friendships and lessons as steps ascended, but still part of our histories. You maybe can’t go back down that flight, but you’d be nowhere near where you are without each stone that brought you there. This is how it always is; it’s just strange to see it so concretely.
It’s kind of a bizarre role, that of the graduate. You want it to end, but you don’t; you’re excited for what’s next, but you kind of want to hold on to what’s known. I’m so proud of my sister, but I don’t really envy her these days of transition. Not really at all.
I would, however, like to have the summer off. I’d like to float on the high of accomplishment, grab a friend and a probably-getting-engaged-soon boyfriend, and roadtrip across the country. And if I did that, I’d hope to have a sister in Virginia to stay with, a sister I could call at work on a random Friday and say, oh hi, we want to stay with you right after graduation, on Tuesday night, you’re our first stop! She’d be cool and super flexible, that sister. Even though she has a hideous schedule of meetings and essays, shots and mean bosses who have lost all touch with how much can and cannot be done in a measly 8 hours, she’ll say of course, come on down, the wine will be waiting. She’ll handle it, and she’ll more than likely have a lot of fun. She’s taking it one thing at a time, see, and she’s learning that schedules and control over everysingle detail aren’t always critical. Not always critical at all.
It’s amazing what you hear when you stop to listen. Take an evening cruise down a Georgetown sidewalk, say, on a busy pre-weekend full of preps on conversations peppered with oh yeahs and my gods, of he didn’ts and no ways; blackberried conversations from here to everywhere. Rarely does time or circumstance afford me a chance to just listen: to walk alone, without companion, be it person-cell phone-ipod (the rock-paper-scissors of the modern era, certainly). (And can you please walk faster, I really am in a bit of a hurry…), Things to do, people to love, places to be. This is an extraordinary life, to be sure, and the eavesdropping is positively wild. The things people say on busy sidewalks! You’d never believe the half of it.
If, perchance, you’ve got to pick up a visa at the Indian consulate on Wisconsin, you may have a chance to taste the this spectrum-space for yourself. I’m going to India the last week of June, by invitation of my new Anglican priest; “come with us to India,” he said, and being something of a girl born of adventure, a matter of days had me signed and sealed on. A small group we are, ringing in at but four; “a teaching and learning mission,” he said, then presented an itinerary with two full days called “sightseeing and shopping.” I’m so there. (and incidentally, I can’t spell “itinerary” to save my life—thanks, Word and your corrective spelling. I love you, too). But even a week needs a visa. A new entry on the list, a something to be done. Six months multiple entry, thanks, and yes, I’m just there as a tourist.
When the consulate says its pick-up hours are 4.30 to 6, however, it really means it. In fact, it really means “we close down at 5.50 sharp, and if you come at 6, you’ll find us locking the doors and closed for business, with best wishes for better luck next time, bitches.” If you’re me, some tears will spill on those ancient bricks when you get denied at 5.59pm, because yeah, it was just one of those days. Not cool. Less cool: walking home, alone, in the rain, with no umbrella and no cell phone (because clearly, I’m such a huge security risk; “bags and electronics are not allowed,” they say in words that I swear stare right at me). The rain washes so much away.
I’m headed up to Boston in the very early a.m. for the baby belle’s graduation. Come autumn, she’s accepted work in Thailand. Thailand. “At least two years,” she says. “We’ll see.”
The macbook informs me that it is now after 2, which is admittedly shocking. I’ve been out drinking wine from the homeland at the Washington State Society dinner for far longer than is advisable, really. I don’t even know what happened.
15 minutes yielded to 7, to 3, to ARR on the yellow line and here I am, home again. An empty suitcase is staring me down.
I’m bringing five pairs of shoes for what essentially boils down to two and a half days.
A plane is grazing the fly-zone and the rain is back to pouring down outside my window. In a few hours, it’ll be me out there, back in that hustle of ziplocs and security, of words and people. Vintage to vintage, and visas from here to there: there’s just so very much to see. I cant help but feel I’m running out of time.
(Title lifted shamelessly from Heidi, whose fiancé used the above-term to reference the film we saw Friday).
Sometimes the things you think you want, the things you think you know, don’t really pan out. The veil lifts and you’re less wow, more what the hell is this!? It’s like the Nights in Rodanthe paradigm. Seemed so good! So adulterous and delightful! So indulgent. Except it sucked. From shallow start to stupid finish, the movie lacked that oomph (and, yeah, any substance whatever—Diane Lane, note my disappointment). My friend who’d brought it over, all netflix style, sat on the couch with me and yelled insults at the television as the credits rolled. We had to put in Love Actually to make ourselves feel better. Dear Nicholas Sparks, DIE. Preferably in a slow-moving mudslide. Thanks.
I wonder how much of life is like this: you think you know what you’re in for, the previews all looked great, but then your author goes and kills Richard Gere and it’s not what you’d thought it was at all.
I feel like it may apply with special force to my dating life (see, lack thereof). It seems all glittering and unattainable and perfectly perfect at the outset. You wait for it, and plan for it, and get all excited to sit down with it. Then you do and it’s just, well, not quite what you thought.
I had lunch with the lawyer yesterday. I had an early morning meeting (The Obama administration is going to work on rigorous antitrust enforcement! Woo!), and was right near his office; I wrote last week to see if he’d be around. In my head, his response went like this: “I’d love to! Excellent, yes; can’t wait to see you!” In reality, though: “Sure, I could do lunch.” Hmmm.
Lunch was fine, but it just wanted for … something. I looked adorable, but I don’t think he noticed. (He looked unshaven and casual Friday-ed out, and I did. Notice, that is). We had a nice talk, I suppose, but I had so much more to say and kept setting up for questions he never asked.
We were talking about Fourth of July, if we’d done the mall thing; I said I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing this year, as I’ll be coming back from India on the fourth. Pause. “I’m going to India in June, I’m so excited, but there’s a lot to do—visas and shots, and it’s coming up soon!” I said. Logical responses would have been along the lines of, Why are you going? or Where are you going? Heck, I’d even settle for an impassioned Neat! And yet, the result: “I’ve never had to get a visa.” Uh huh.
“I’d like to visit every continent before I retire,” I said. Pause. “I’ve been to Japan, but that’s a pretty Westernized version of Asia; this will definitely go on the list,” I said. His turn: why were you in Japan? What other continents have you been to? Do you like to travel, magda? And yet: “you should watch slumdog millionaire.” Seen it.
I’ve been busy this week. Because I’ve had five billion essays to grade, church groups to teach, friends to meet, and an insane work conference schedule. I’m going to Boston on Saturday for my sister’s graduation, and my whole family will be there. My parents, and both of my exceptional sisters. Here is what they do, and here is what they’re like. Yes, I’m licensed in Washington, I report to the bar every two years. But law school was a mistake; if I could do anything in the world I’d quit my job, write novels, have some babies and join the PTA.
There are always so many things I want to say that never get said, so many stories that never get told. That applies to everything, that last one, not just pseudo-dates: I feel like a billion words and thoughts and ideas are tripping through my mind far faster than they can be approved for translation. They fall through the cracks. They evaporate prematurely. How can we paint more than a snapshot, more than flawed sketch of everything that we see, and think, and feel?
He was home last week, this lawyer, so I switch tack. “I was only home for a day,” he says. I ask about his family, and I all get is that “it was good to see them again.”
(That, incidentally, is okay, since my insane google skills have already filled those details in. I know all about his sister and her husband, and his niece’s name; I know where his parents live and that his mom teaches second grade. It’s true. I have a serious google problem).
He used to sue on behalf of Google, I learned, but that’s neither here nor there, and he didn’t tell me that, either. What he did say: he runs triathlons, owns a townhouse, went to the spa when he had a free day at his work conference in California last week (??). Odd, rather random details. (And he seems so very straight…).
He e-mailed to say thanks for coming; I wrote back with words that, between their lines, were practically yelling this was pleasure, not business, just in case we were still hung up on that. “I like you for you! Not for your brain and sparkly resume!” they said. (And that’s true, except insofar as that brain and sparkly resume could transfer, in the form of exceptional genes, to our future children, but I didn’t throw that in. Obviously.). We’ll see.
I’m thinking that he’s just not that into me. And that, perhaps, there’s a reason the man is 39 and still single. (Google research turned up no hints of marriage/previous marriage/etc. I’m pretty sure I would have found it, had it existed).
Thing is, I’m a catch. I’m cute and I’m smart; I’m young but I’m focused. I’m curious and I try new things. I can ask you to “hand me that pencil” in Russian, and I read a lot for fun; I go to church but I’m not a crazy zealot. I have fiercely loyal friends and I’m close to my family. I have a good sense of grounding. I feel like I’m past the point of settling for something less than perfect … EVEN IF that less-than-perfect is gorgeous and bed-me-now brilliant. (And OH it pains me to write that).
The science of how we connect is complicated. He seemed like a perfect match from a distance. Maybe he will be, with time. Maybe I’ll never hear from him again. Maybe this is how it was supposed to go all along, just a little blip and the status quo has been restored.
There are certain things at which I am exceedingly good. Things like loading paper into tray 2, and holding the door for old ladies; taking my vitamins and promptly RSVPing. Complaining about the slowness of this here computer just enough times and to just enough people that, magic, they delivered a new one this morning (and it’s SO FAST! These windows are just FLYING open! Technically should make me more productive. Also makes time for blogging. Win).
At other things, however, I am not-so-exceedingly good. Tires would definitely go on that list. I don’t stop to think about my tires all that often; I just trust that they’ll be there, in good shape, carrying me around and spinning at the outrageous speeds I command of them (dear magda, you are not an autobahn racer. Please keep this in mind. Yes, I am sporty, and yes, I am cute. But that’s no excuse. Love, your car).
I’m good at the check engine light, and the CD player; anything that lights up and flashes wins my attention. But oh, how easy it is for me to ignore larger problems. Like, say, the car hydroplaning. It’s been doing it a lot; “grooves in the road,” I’d say. “Oil in the water, it hasn’t rained in so long.” Feeling the bumps in the road more than I used to? Eh, Virginia roads are full of potholes. Even that odd creaking sound when I hit the brakes wasn’t really alarming me.
It wasn’t till I was driving in an outright downpour on Sunday and really, truly, felt I was losing control that I took it in. “It was like I was driving on ice,” I told them, and it was true: by the time I arrived, my hands around my umbrella were white at the knuckles from gripping the steering wheel so hard. That’s really not normal.
“Routine maintenance?” the dealership man asked me this morning when I dropped the darling off. “Yeah, it’s at 20,000 miles,” I said. (!!). “Also I’d like you to check the tires, I think there might be something wrong with them.”
Ha. Ahaha.
The tires are totally shot, all of them. “It’s really amazing you got here,” the guy said after a quick look. “Hit one bump the wrong way, it could be all over. You’re totally down to the cords.” I don’t really know what that means, but it sounds serious. Guy also sounded bemused, though; “crazy girl in her crazy nice car, can’t take care of it at all” were, I fear, his underlying thoughts. Huh.
Days like this I feel like my car is a metaphor for my life. It’s nicer than I deserve, and I suck at managing it in the ways that matter. I love it, but I abuse it. I never mean to. It just kind of happens; I wear out but I keep charging on. At least emotionally, I wait till I’m about to literally blow out on the highway before I reach out for help, or look for an exit; I hope that problems will just fix themselves on their own. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t, though; sometimes you end up assaulting the platinum visa just in the nick of time, just miles before that’s you out there, stranded and broken in the pouring rain on 495. This is not a good pattern.
My computer may be faster now, but I need to slow down. I need to stop and check in on things before there’s a problem. Routine maintenance, et cetera, plus a bit more precaution. I must have written these words out five billion times, but I find they’re significantly harder to implement that you’d think.
Here is what I know: Wine won’t fix everything, getting busier won’t stop my worrying, and writing it down isn’t always a fix. I need to remember to take time for me.
But in case of Armageddon, come to my place; I’ve got a lot of beer.
You’d think, coming from my seriously science-y family, that disease and pandemic and outbreak would be words I’d be comfortable with. Dad’s the microbiologist who insisted that The Hot Zone join the assignments from school and mom to keep us sharp over the summer, after all, and the biochemist and her husband met in—wait for it—influenza study group. We had anti-microbial scrub in all of our bathrooms way before it was trendy (or available in fancy scents, in pocket-sized bottles). I know all about germs and infection. I have a minor in Biology, and I haven’t been sick, even with a cold, since March 2007.
But when I got another e-mail today from corporate outlining strategies to fight “the pandemic,” I tensed up. When my boss said he’s going to be leaving early again because the confirmed case in Maryland is connected to his son’s school, they’ve closed down completely, and he’s not feeling so well, I started to shake. When the man in CVS today told me that they were out of purell, that they’d been out for days, and then started to cough, I cried. Right there in aisle 5. Not loud tears, or obvious tears. Just the little pre-panic tears, the tears of frustration and futility. The tears from that place that says “this is it, my life is over, I’m going to die here, alone in Virginia, slowly and painfully, and the only thing that can save me is more hand sanitizer and I can’t find it, I just can’t, and it’s all ending, right now.” I turned around too quickly and knocked over a sunscreen display as I felt my way to the exit, holding my breath like a deep-sea diver. (A deep sea diver who is DYING. Of THE PLAGUE).
I thought I’d kicked these flu fears. Guess not.
Friday, see, I had a code-red meltdown. It was a breathe-into-a-paper bag kind of a day. I think it was a combination of things, really, but it ended with me driving my car at 80 miles an hour to Costco after work, and buying loads of canned goods and pastas and brownie mixes and beer; I was sure the world was ending and people were dying and I’d be ordered to work from home, wearing a gas mask, praying for salvation without opening any windows or breathing anyone else’s air. Yes. My imagination is a lurid and expansive place; thing is, I’m generally a pro at containing it in my head, in crazy-person thoughts scribbled on paper (or, you know, here). Sometime Friday, between the e-mails and the headlines, the waiting for words from might-have-been dates and the memories of love lost and friends in pain, the worlds merged. I flipped.
Costco was jammed, everyone was speaking Spanish, and I bought every immune-boosting supplement and vitamin I could find.
Result: I’ve been drinking the foulest fizzy crap for days now. But swine flu, I have not. Excellent progress.
A happy lunch hour spent shopping also informs that Bath and Bodyworks is discounting all of their antibacs now; I’ve brought some back for the co-worker, too, and oooh, we smell so pretty down at this end of the hall!
I don’t think we’re going to die today. Probably not tomorrow, either. But if we do? If I catch the damn flu, if the world shuts down, if I’m forced to drink my way through a slow and sweet-pea scented untimely and unfortunate demise? I’m ready. And I’m going down in style. Bring it, pigs.
I can go days with nothing interesting happening, then wham, like a whirlwind, everything picks up. I think the caffeine is typing these letters. I don’t even know what’s going on.
A good friend of mine called me just as I was leaving work yesterday; she broke off her engagement. That’s huge. Sometimes I think things happen, I think we suffer things, for reasons we can’t even begin to understand; I think sometimes there are webs that catch our thoughts and our fears and turn corners on our experiences so that those big mistakes and gross miscalculations become, suddenly, useful. Paving stones for a road that actually goes somewhere. Or something.
All this to say, with this girl, I could be there. I didn’t just listen and understand. I knew. I knew what she felt and I swear, the words she said were mine not eight months ago. J and I were never engaged. But the relationship ended the same way, and for exactly the same reasons; a battle of will, of what we want vs. what we know we need. Because it ended, I found a new church. Because I found a new church, I met this girl. Because we’re both so much alike, we became friends, and when last night happened, I was there.
Talking to her made me late to a happy hour; cheers, happy birthday, must run was basically all the hostess got before I jetted off to a book group, where I got fantastically lost on straightforward streets, nearly went crippled in my too-tall-for-walking boots, and shattered a bottle of wine on the way.
Home again, we continue the conversation, the ex-engaged and I, and I wake up exhausted. I hate that.
The triple shot I ordered for my meeting with the lawyer this morning was, thus, essential.
The meeting confused me. Was it a date? Or was it not? Was it like one of those TV situations where the guy thinks he’s caught a live one when the girl gives him her card and says “call me,” but she’s really a psychiatrist and the “date” is an appointment? It could have gone that way; this guy is technically a source of mine. Maybe he isn’t interested in me at all, and just wants to make friends with the media. I have no idea.
We talked a bit about work, and what we each do; we talked about family, and how often we see them. What we think of DC, what we want to do with ourselves; what we think and what we like. It was good. He came here, out of his way; he set it up, and asked if I was free sometime this morning … but again, that could have been motivated by some larger self-interest. I walked him back to the metro on my way back here; he thanked me for “meeting with him.” Then he was gone, in a whoosh and a flash, and my heels clicked a lonely chorus back up the stairs.
Back here in reality, there appears to be a tremendous amount of work to do. It’s enough to make me wish I could act out and get asked to put my head down on the desk. As it is, I’d best get back to it; shelve the daydreams and thoughts and confusion for later. An odd sort of struggle to be sure.
