On Why I Take the Train.

You can’t really know a place unless you’re actually there.  You’ve got to get out, and breathe the air; you’ve got to see more than cab insides and  hotel bathrobes and outlets for your macbook.  It’s like how transferring through Denver doesn’t really count as being in Colorado, right?

I’ve traveled a fair amount for work, so I know a thing or two about missing a city completely, despite being physically present.  It’s easy to do, especially when meetings and dinners are right there in your hotel.  (so convenient!).  (or not).

I’m writing from the middle of a king-sized sea, overlooking Lake Michigan.  Stuck inside, it’s easy to find signs and parallels: the last time I was in a hotel, in a king-sized bed—the last time my jeans found their home in foreign drawers, and suitcases found themselves stacked neatly against a wallpapered  wall—was in Philadelphia.  Oh, Japan Man. You have not been in my thoughts for ages.

Double or nothing: the last time I was in Chicago, I was standing with him at O’Hare, in line for venti carmel macchiatos. (He didn’t drink all of his, incidentally; too sweet?  Or something.  I ended up drinking it, and had to interrupt my seat-mates THREE TIMES on the flight home.  Lesson: wild emotions + 2 venti coffees + three-hour flight = bad idea.  For the record).

Thing is, it means nothing.  And I didn’t even make those connections until I opened this window, until I started trying to capture this moment, this Thursday, in words.

I look around me and I see my work things, my press credentials; my CLE papers and three suits, neatly pressed.  A bikini hanging up to dry, evidence of a de-stressing evening swim. A map of all my meetings.  A massive flat-screen TV, and premium cable. (Hello, HBO. I’ve missed you).

Central to everything, flowers, from my PhD, arranged by the concierge.  This is my life. This, this is reality.

And there, tucked into the frame of my wall mirror, a Chicago transit ticket.  Feet on pavement, wheels jumping gaps to board trains; color-coded maps and transfers.  Ipods and musicians and pulsing, pushing people.  Real life.

Red Wine & Muffins.

Because sometimes the night just calls for it.

I was eating dinner in an outdoor courtyard tonight when the rains came.  People pulled back from their tables; the bartender jumped the ledge, and stood there in the downpour pulling down the tarps.  It was a remarkable transformation; there we were, in our sunglasses, then suddenly—same table, same dinner, but in an inside of sorts, the rain drumming a familiar melody on our convertible ceiling.   I miss this weather.

There was a brief reprieve as we left; hugs in the parking lot and a clear drive as far as the gas station.  By the time I hit the interstate, though, the water was back.  Not a drizzle, and not even a rain.  An absolute torrential outpouring; the skies purging themselves of so, so much built up.  I drove with traffic at probably 25 miles an hour; visibility was that of a snowstorm, or worse.  Hi, car in front of me; hi, truck next to me.  Now nobody move suddenly or anything. We all had our hazards on.  Sort of a communal precaution, I suppose; a we’re in this together, and please don’t smash me spirit.  I’m really glad I didn’t get my car washed this weekend.

The rains have passed, but the lightening is still scratching its claws across my sky.  I don’t know why this weather captivates me, but it does; I could sit here with my lights off, on my carpet in front of my picture window, for hours.  I won’t, though. I’ve muffins in the oven and laundry nearly ready for the dryer. I’ve washed the dishes, and things are looking a bit tidier in here; the room brightens as lights flash and the sun sets, and I’m pretty pleased.  I’ve forgotten what it’s like to live without weekends.

I have weekends, of course.  But when I’m there, then he’s here, the normalcy is lost.  Or maybe it’s found, and the life I knew before, a life where Saturdays were long and solitary, was where things were abnormal; maybe this is how it was supposed to be all along, and I’m only just now learning to adjust.  There’s something about baking on a random Thursday night that’s oddly comforting.

An amazing lot can be accomplished in the half hour it takes to go from batter to breakfast.

Perhaps It’ll Do For My Brain What Anti-Aging Lotion Does For My Face?

Otherwise titled, Your Brain Age is 73, or, Maybe I Should Just Stick to Shopping.

I was introduced to the Brain Age series of games for the Nintendo DS this past weekend. It’s a distraction my grandma’s called hers for about a year. Sad truth: I think grandma could whoop me.

It starts out all fun, with letters and numbers flying around and things. Cool. Before you know it, though, you’re doing math, and recalling numbers, and unscrambling things. Tricky. Veeery tricky. Somewhere in the great wash of things, basic arithmetic was totally lost on me. I always find myself counting it out, on my fingers or in my head, which is just embarrassing. Eight plus five? Let’s see … nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. A-ha! Meanwhile, everyone else is like three problems ahead.

This went on for a painful quarter-hour, and with less than satisfactory results. It thought on my progress for awhile, then calculated my brain age as … 73. Alarmingly, this is precisely my grandma’s age. I suspect she’s scoring around 27, which would be hilarious in all the ways I’d love if I was her.

“Let me guess,” the little floating head said next. “Your real age is 45?” Ummm, no (!?). I feel like writing a letter to the public school system responsible for my elementary education. Dear school, those stupid colored bears didn’t work. And making pictures with fraction animals doesn’t count as math. You raised me on a calculator, and I want a refund for the aging you’ve unnecessarily caused my brain. Thanks.

However, there are some equations at which I excel. If I come in at 8 every morning, say, I can leave with a clear clear, very clear conscious at noon on Fridays. I may still feel guilty. I probably will. But the truth is in the numbers, the brain man would say, and it’s more than a wash.

Shopping on the first day of the Nordstrom sale has distinct mathematical advantages, as well. (Double platinum visa points! Wooo!). I hit the sale Friday, circa 1pm. It’s been in my calendar for ages (in bright red block capitals—but that’s kind of beside the point). I found some great things, don’t get me wrong, but something about it was actually kind of depressing. It wasn’t crowded at all; there were no pulsing hoards. No “it’s the sale!” frantic people. No numbers to take in the shoe department, and no lines in the dressing room. Sales girls that looked just defeated, and far too much excitement expended ringing up a single, lonely sweater.

I really can measure my life in Nordstrom sales; in a lot of ways, I grew up with them. It was always such an institution, a structure on the horizon of my wasteland summer calendars; then, when I was older, intense work one summer, a welcome reprieve each subsequent year. We were always there on the first day in my house, up early and fighting the hoards to get our sizes and be properly fit for fall shoes (usually a half-size bigger, for room to grow); we’d play cards under the piano while mom did her thing. If we were good, happy meals were a distinct possibility.

There’s no more piano man, at least not often. My Friday afternoon was almost painfully quiet. The music they were piping through just seemed so hollow. A part of me wants to say it felt like such a ghost town because, hey, this isn’t Seattle, and the whole affair’s just not such a big deal on this side of things. That’s true, but it’s only a piece. Yes, it was busier back home, but not like it used to be. My youngest sister was working the sale to pass the time before the fall (child after my own heart! Yes), but they let them all go after the first three days—profits just weren’t high enough, they said. That’s a math I don’t like at all.

An aged brain may suck at subtraction, but it knows a thing or two about the way things used to be. Those are the stories that are worth telling. Remember when the sale was huge? When the commissions we’d make beat our paychecks every time, and we’d get bonuses for ringing multiple sales of thousand-dollar shoes? When we’d exhaust ourselves in the stockroom, skip lunch every day, and get begged to take more hours; when we’d queue clear through to menswear to try on an armful of suits, only to find that our size in that really cute skirt was sold out in three states?

Little things. Glimpses of a past that wasn’t perfect, but that was fun; it’s an old-lady thing to do, but remembering the then is what will bring us to tomorrow, and is what makes the changes of today seem less horrific. Maybe that Nintendo thing wasn’t so off after all—but ohhh, thank goodness I’ve still plenty of years to buy and wear ridiculous shoes. Seriously.

I Went to Pennsylvania, and Actually Liked It.

Well, in truth, I only drove through Pennsylvania, which was kind of out of the way, but that’s coming up. The point is, before this weekend, I’d been to the State of Independence but twice, and neither trip yielded especially positive results. Last spring, J and I went on a little “our relationship is waning, we must save it now” wine weekend—when really, we should have just signed a DNR. Then last month I was up in Philly as the Japan Man’s ill-conceived date–where I realized I’d meant nothing substantive to him all along. It’s fair to say, then, that while PA may be lovely, it’s just not my state. Good things don’t happen to me there.

I was cruising through the farmland Sunday afternoon, though, and I just felt so good. So happy. So absolutely content with where I am and what I’m doing; there between the fast-growing corn and the signs for FRUIT: NEXT EXIT, there was a real sense of peace. I could be Pennsylvania. I could drive those roads again, my sunroof open and the wind in my hair. I’ve learned a lot of things, but a bit of truth is this: very few things are one-sided. Sometimes you’ve just got to shake it up; come at it from a different angle. Swap out the integers, and approach it from the north this time.

A while ago—quite awhile ago, actually—the lovely Carolyn tagged me to share 10 “interesting things” about myself, my habits, etc. I haven’t forgotten! I promise. I’ve just been feeling … swallowed. I actually did dishes this morning, but my laundry from India? And the week before? Still in the hamper. ALAS. I don’t know when my calendar left me with a billion things taking time, yet no actual time to speak of.

It’s not the weekend anymore, but nonetheless, I’ll present here ten things, inspired by my weekend away, to get that Friday feeling back.

1. I think I might be allergic to New Jersey, and/or New York. My skin has always been sensitive, but the rash all across my chest right now is just ridiculous. It’s also alarmingly reminiscent of the one I brought back from Princeton in the spring, except that one took over my face, too, and needed several days of Benadryl and lots of pricey lotion to tame. I’ve put said lotion in the “bring to live in NY pile” as a preventative measure from this point.

2. I genuinely suck where “sense of direction” is concerned. This is how I met a New Jersey raccoon on a pitch-black Friday in a very dark neighborhood—a neighborhood that looked nothing like the Garden State Parkway. Curious. It’s when I’m lost and frustrated that I get testy and emotional; I didn’t break down and cry (victory!), but did get pretty snappy with the PhD on the phone.

3. Even when I’m on track, though, I often follow instructions with such blinders it proves detrimental. I had scribbled instructions of how to get home, but I trusted the GPS instead—which is how I detoured through the entirity of Pennsylvania. Saved about $18 on tolls, incidentally, but added an easy 100 miles to the journey. Lucky for me I didn’t add any time because …

4. I take serious satisfaction in driving really, really fast. When I can cruise with the flow of traffic at 80, 85mph on open roads against blue skies? Sign me up. Bonus points when I can beat the GPS’s ETA by an hour in so doing. Six hours and three minutes? We’ll see about that.

5. No joke, a giant meatball pizza and a pitcher of beer at 4pm could, with the right company, really be an ideal date in my book. I’m used to a lot of nice things, but I’m ridiculously easy to please.

6. I’m progressive in a lot of ways (see, e.g., spending till noon in the PhD’s bed on Saturday, ahem), but in others I’m really a traditionalist. I kind of like the idea of being a housewife one day, and forgetting this lawyer thing ever happened; also, I find myself getting angry in hippy-liberal churches. That or really inclined to bust out kumbaya when they all form a circle and hold hands to pray. I miss the days where women wore big hats to church, and I think skirts should still be mandatory in court (but I’m willing to be flexible on that as I have some tremendously cute pant-suits. Still, though).

7. Mosquitoes freaking love me. No one in a ten mile radius will so much as see one passing, but I’ll end up all pock-marked. Those bastards bite through the unscented off! stuff, too, and I’ve pretty quickly discovered that smelling like deet is pretty much a fantastic turn-off. Boo mosquitoes.

8. There are a lot of things I love about the city, but there’s a charm to small-town life that’s just so pure, so real, so American; there’s a (growing) part of me that I think would be actually thrive in a place where the laundromat owner knows you from the check-out line at the grocery store where you always see the mailman’s daughter who used to work at the bank until, well, everyone knows how that worked out, and pharmacist married the librarian’s sister and they’re all coming over for dinner tonight anyway. Like Gilmore Girls, right: small town charm with culture, and not too far from the bigness of my now-definitions of real life.

9. I really love surprises, both giving and receiving. I snuck a bottle of scotch into the PhD’s bedroom before I left, as a “thanks for having me, congratulations on your totally impressive new job” present, and I still get such a kick out of the surprise in his voice when he called to say he’d found it. So much more fun than just handing it over.

10. I’m not a singer at all. My voice is terrible. Recently, though, I’ve found myself totally singing in the car (alone only; obviously). I get totally into it. I also have a really uncanny memory for song lyrics, even songs I don’t particularly like / haven’t heard in years; play me the opening bars of anything even remotely familiar and I’ll almost always be able to recall nearly all of the words. Even the little bum-bum-bam parts. You know, the instrumental parts that are really fun to sing along to? Uh-huh.

I really could keep going, but in the interest of following directions (see #3) and getting back to work (see paycheck wants an autodeposit), I’ll leave it there. The upshot is, only two more days till it’s Friday again …

Status Check.

There comes a point in every relationship, I think, where things just become. You’re not just acquaintances, you’re friends, and drinks and phone calls and margaritas and late nights become de rigeur; you don’t just recognize that checker, he becomes your checker, says “hi, magda,” and recommends good cheap bottles of wine (“I’ve noticed you shop in the under $10 category…”).

But where do you go once you’ve jumped off that high-dive to fall in love? I’ve claimed to have been in love a couple of memorable times in the past, but the love has come after the relationship. I’ve been a girlfriend and then, once that status has felt comfortable, I’ve introduced and entertained that loaded l-word. It’s different with the PhD. I was in love with him from that first night on the Potomac. I’m even more in love with him now. It’s one of those bam, it’s love fairy tales, starring me—hold out for this kind of love, girls, it happens and it’s real—but it’s leaving me in something of a lurch where definitions are concerned.

I suppose technically, he is my boyfriend. Something about that term just isn’t clicking, though. Boyfriend and girlfriend—seems so temporary, so test drive-y. I’m not trying him on or trying him out; he’s mine, it’s just that we’ve got some getting-to-know-you games still to play. Thing is, I’ve never hesitated calling someone “my boyfriend” before. In fact I have, at certain points, been proud of the term, and trotted it out like a badge of honor: I’ve peppered sentences with references to that lucky boyfriend till friends of mine were certainly blue in the face. Yes, magda, WE GET IT. You’re dating. Woo for you. Something, though, is causing me to recoil from applying the term to the PhD. “We’re in love,” I’ll tell people. “I’ve fallen in love with the most amazing man.”

I was totally tripping over myself when I was talking to my coworker a moment ago. I’m driving up to New York straight from work tonight, and she was asking why. [I got my EZPass in the mail last night, as something of an aside: it’s official, people. I’m an east-coaster now for real. Woo!] [Also in the mail: (a) the Nordstrom sale catalogue; (b) TWO crate and barrel catalogues; (c) a nice love letter from the PhD. BEST mail day EVER]. But back to the point: I just couldn’t stomach saying “I’ve driving up to see my boyfriend.” It just didn’t sound right. I settled for something in the “well, see, there’s this guy … ” family, then promptly started babbling up a horrendous chorus of gratuitous “likes” and “you knows” as if I was 12 all over again. (Yeaaaah … need to work on my delivery a little bit, I think). He’s my him, my PhD, my one. That’s the way I like it, and I don’t want to catch myself bending for the mere sake of meeting whatever categories the world wants to impose. Our love really is unconventional, in loads of different ways. I just wonder how long I can hold out, dancing around this lexicon of early love.

Vexed.

I’ve always liked that word, “vexed.” It has a dignified air to it; it carries very Austen-esque connotations. I can picture myself in a long dress in a garden, or walking through rolling hills, telling my confidante that oooooh, he vexes me. When the alternative is me veritably yelling expletives at my inbox and slamming mugs of tea so hard they spill all over injunction orders? Well, there doesn’t really seem to be much of a competitive choice, now does there?

The man who calls himself my senior is out on vacation. For the next forty-seven days. According to his little syllabus here, he should be in off in the wilderness now, with any luck being molested most gruesomely by a moose; according to his e-mail auto-reply, I’m in charge. Direct all inquires to Magda, it says, providing so many ways to contact me I’m kind of impressed he didn’t tack on my parents’ address or my social security number. He has written to the foreign correspondents. He has given me what pithy training he can, and has surrendered the keys to all of our darkest, most secret files and databases. He has ceded full control.

And yet. Yet, his blackberry, which needs to be trampled, run over, ignited, or otherwise destroyed, has kept him poking on in. He’s overriding my instructions to our writers. He’s sending me “helpful tips” of cases I should note without bothering to realize WE FINISHED THAT YESTERDAY, (look at me, I’m competent!), and you’d know that, except wait, that’s right, YOU’RE ON VACATION. I really hope, for all our sakes, that the man loses reception soon.

“Mornin’, boss,” my associate editor said to me today. Overlooking electronic intrusions from afar, I kind of like this. I like setting the boundaries. Sure, there’s stress involved; it’s hard work seeing everything, choosing cases, and making calls. It’s hard to be both manager and staff. A sinking piece of me knows I’m not really qualified for this, but I play the part; I breathe in, float along, and handle it, one piece at a time. Pieces. “22 pieces, approx.,” the imported Crunchie bag sitting proudly here on my desk says. Yes, I think I can work with pieces.

I’m seeing, calendared Monday happy hours. Friday noon dismissals. More smiles and chatting. It’s hard being both boss and me, but I run a tight ship and we get a lot done. This and that, here and there; work done and time spent. Efficiency. Try to blackberry that, you vexatious little man.

I think the summer is off to an excellent start indeed.

Things Carried, Things Brought Back.

I spent a significant chunk of time on the Fourth of July at Heathrow airport which, combined with the slightly obscene number of pounds I dropped at duty free, seems more than a bit unpatriotic.   Coming back through immigration at Dulles and having Homeland Security look me in the eye and say “welcome home,” though, bought it all back.  It was a surreal week like that.

Waking in a canopy bed draped in the sheer veil of mosquito net, and the sea of colors at every turn; saried women and barefoot children dancing an eastern tarantella through streets filled with honking cars and crossing cattle.  A faith that is open and pure, and trust that is unhesitating and hungry. Extreme hospitality.  Flower garlands at every turn, and hands eager for a shake, a hug, a touch. Wide-eyed children with so little, and yet so much.  The best Indian food in the world, and a table where even the bishop eats with his hands; the giggle of school children at this foreigner’s sloppy imitation of the same.  A space where time, where calendars and clocks, are low on the list of priorities.  Utter lack of e-mail, internet, phones.  Things I already miss.

No hot water.  Showers that turned out to be but taps at floor-level with two buckets and a sponge.  Consistent power failures, and a roommate who feigned illness to go clubbing with her Indian cousins. Speaking in front of large masses of robed people, and having the team notice my hands shaking; dripping sweat onto lecture notes and worrying I’m disappointing everyone.  Delivering a by-the-seat-of-my-pants talk to an attentive and interested sea of probably two hundred women through a translator, all while knowing that my relayed troubles of control, of relationships, of daily life are so very American that they mayn’t actually translate at all.  The unsettling feeling of being treated as royalty at every turn merely because of the way I look, and the responsibility that seems to impart.  Things I can do without.

The unexpected, yet unfailing nature of grace.  Lessons on how to live faith, rather than just hold it.  Confessing to a priest in a car passing through treacherous mountain roads that the two of us, we’ve found true love; receiving his blessing, and his counsel on how to make the relationship work despite the distance.  A PhD who arranges with the local host to go to a jeweler and buy two toe rings, an honor reserved for married women. An Indian engagement; “until I can talk to your parents,” he said as he knelt at the driver’s side of my car yesterday morning and slid them onto my feet.  He’s back in New York, but it’s his heart beating in my chest.

Things I took home.