Category Archive

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.

I’m always amused by the ads that pop up on my gmail. Privacy advocates like to cry about how I’m surrendering my liberties and being exploited by advertising magnates, but for me, it’s really pretty entertaining–what off-the-wall ads will I be served today? They must be successful, these crazy ads that appear, but I wonder what people are thinking when they click.  Are they really looking for something, or just bored? Or curious?

I’m looking at a sponsored link right now: Are You a Good Sister? Take our quiz and find out for sure!

I can’t think that anyone legitimately believes that the almighty Mr. Internet can make that determination. I also happen to know (thanks to some days of serious boredom) that Mr. Internet won’t likely reveal his secrets in any event without a valid e-mail address that just may be later used to sell you some discount online pharmaceuticals.  Satisfy her tonight!

It’s a diversion, though; a cosmo quiz for the less risqué and desk-bound. Like the love match? Where you match your astrological sign up with your other’s sign and see how you line up? Yeah, I’ve tried that. Compulsively. I might even have it bookmarked. Not that I believe it; it’s just fun.

If my sponsored links and my own time-wasters are a fair sampling, there’s a lot of garbage on the Internet. This makes me wonder if all the recent hype about expanding the namespace is really worth it. At the Paris conference I was meant to go to last week, the gears started moving to allow new top-level domain registrations more easily; to allow dot-whatever because, the argument goes, there’s so much demand for new names and .com is running out. Whether or not people agree kept me occupied for most of the day. It’s on my brain, what can I say.

I think I’ll get a faster answer to whether or not I’m a good sister come Wednesday, when my youngest sister comes down from New York to spend an extended Fourth of July weekend being a tourist in a city that really goes all out this time of year. She’s an intern up in NYC this summer, and I intend to visit her … soon? But until then, I’m busy plotting our exploits here. I’m so so so excited to see her; it’s been since Christmas, which really is too long. It’s a strange shift to go from seeing someone every day, rain or shine, to living states and miles and highways apart. 

I haven’t yet decided whether or not I’m glad that she’s 21 now. Yes, we can go out—fun, to order a drink with my baby sister! But since she can go out, I feel like we will, all the time, just for the novelty of it. My sister can drink. Being 21 hasn’t changed anything but the venue, which sometimes worries me. I remember being an intern, and going out in the city every night; all the time, every night—it’s just what you did. Drinking till crazy hours, and still getting up for work the next morning. Summertime, fun bars, cool people. Party on!

Now, I hate to say it, but something of that shine has worn off. Going out and getting trashed every night? Not exactly my agenda. [Aside: when did I get all old and uncool? When did I start dreading youth’s knock on my door? WTF, self?]

I think we’ll draw a good balance; she really is a good kid. Just to cover the bases, though, I have now in plentiful stock here apartment-side (a) white wine; (b) vodka; (c) kahlua; (d) malibu. All of her favorites. On the nights we stay in, she can pour hers strong and sleep it off, and I can just take a taste and still be functional at work. A win-win.

Who knows, maybe I’ll put in a bid for a new website: magda.awesomesister. HA. Ahahaha.

·      He was the dad who would get to work insanely early so that he’d be home in time to sit down to dinner as a family.

·      He was good-naturedly on a first-name basis with the principals of our various elementary schools; I think we all innocently told our friends and our classes that our dad? He makes drugs and sells them.  He’s a pharmaceutical biologist.

·      One of his drugs was very successful, and there was a point in time when I’d see commercials for it on TV and would say, nostalgically, “that drug put me through law school.”  Except people got the wrong idea, and started thinking that I wouldn’t have made it through law school if I hadn’t have been taking that drug.  Wrong impression entirely.

·      In the summertime, he’d take time after dinner to play catch with my sisters and I, and he taught us all to ride our bikes.

·      He built each of our dolls a wooden trunk, with special compartments for dresses and shoes and other doll-sized accessories.·       

·      He let us put barrettes in his hair to play beauty salon.  And he once answered the door like that when mom wasn’t home, and didn’t get mad or anything.

·      He bookmarked the heck out of a book called “how to father a successful daughter.”  I also caught him reading “Strong fathers, strong daughters.”  Needless to say, he took his job seriously.

·      His love for our family is the closest parallel to God’s love that I can imagine.

·      He taught me how to drive—and never told my mom about the time when, in a parking lot, I confused the brake for the accelerator, and charged the van up onto the sidewalk and nearly slammed into a jewelry store.

·      When I had my heart broken in college when I told my then-boyfriend that I wasn’t ready to sleep with him, dad sent me the sweetest, most heart-felt hand-written note.  I still have it.

·      He makes the best cosmo ever.  And he e-mails me when he comes up with new twists or variations.

·      He sends me the most hilarious YouTube videos at work, and attaches the funniest commentary.  I don’t know how he finds them, but they totally make my day when they come.

·      He dotes on my mom to such a degree that I’m constantly torn between making barf noises and going off to sulk that I’ll never, ever find a love that good.

·      He never lets me forget that, no mater how far away I go or how old I get, he’s still my dad, and I’m still his little girl.  And that’s just the way I like it.

Incompetence really frustrates me. People who drive or walk too slow do, too. But I think people who try to shift blame and avert responsibility top my all-time list of supreme grievances.

I find the offense especially egregious when parents try to make someone else responsible for the rearing and discipline of their children. I was spoiled, I suppose (though I certainly didn’t see it that way at the time); I had two very involved parents who wanted everything to do with how we grew up. We heard “no” a lot. Do we know her parents? Will her parents even be there? You’ll be out till what time? No. Resounding.

The world has changed a lot since I grew up, in a house that had no internet till the tenth grade. Looking back, the landscape seemed a lot safer then: everything was visible; it was knowable and seeable. Parents today have a lot to more deal with, but I don’t think the mysticism of the internet is any excuse to let your duties-as-mom-and-dad slack off. Know when she’s online. Know who she talks to. Know where she goes, and what information she’s telling the world about herself. Harder, sure, but not impossible.

I read a case today where a thirteen year old girl registered for a MySpace page by pretending to be 18. She uploaded pictures of herself, some of which were scandalous, then made internet friends with some guy. After extensive chats, she then arranged to meet him, and was assaulted. Tragic, really. But her mom? Her mom sued MySpace. Negligence, she said: MySpace hadn’t adequately protected her daughter. EARTH TO MOM, that’s YOUR job.

Back when I was younger, if I would have broken the rules and gone out late and been by myself and talked to strangers downtown and gotten hurt, could my parents have sued the City of Seattle? Obviously the analogy is flawed, but really?

The judge in this case was a guy I like. I might even write him some fan mail. This from the transcript:

THE COURT: I want to get this straight. You have a 13-year-old girl who lies, disobeys all of the instructions, later on disobeys the warning not to give personal information, obviously, and does not communicate with the parent. More important, the parent does not exercise the parental control over the minor. The minor gets sexually abused, and you want somebody else to pay for it? This is the lawsuit that you filed?

COUNSEL FOR THE DOES: Yes, your honor.

He threw the case out, and the appellate court affirmed. Good news all around. Still, though, parenting like this makes me want to punch people in the kidney. Laws are important, and technological protections for kids online can go a long way. Nothing, though—nothing at all—will protect a child better than a parent who’s involved and on the scene, who communicates and listens and is there.

That’s about my two cents on that. Time to get back at it now, lickety split; it’s always more fun when work gets you passionate, yeah?

She’s stumbling through Paris tonight, but with a certain grace, as suits her.  She’s got her party hat on, is charming the euro-locals at the bar with a French that has finally surpassed mine, and is, with all certainty, rip-roaring drunk.

She’s my littlest sister, and she’s 21 today.  Twenty-one.  She exists only as a frenchie caricature in my mind, because I just can’t grasp the reality.  I remember so distinctly being 21. I also remember doing things as a twenty-one-year-old that, ahem, no one’s little sister should be allowed to even know about.

Although there’s significantly more fuzz, I also remember the day she was born.  I was in kindergarten, and she was my blue-eyed baby.  Hooray!  You’re 10 today!  I seriously considered sending her a birthday card with this message printed inside.  Behold the power of Hallmark; you, too can reverse time; back-track; take a do-over.  If only it was so simple.

(And seriously?  A 21st birthday in Paris?  Who does that?  How do I know this person?)

In other news, J’s apparently in Nashville this week.  I say “apparently” because it all sort of flew out of nowhere, and as my other sister, the biochemist, oh-so-helpfully pointed out on the phone earlier, I don’t actually know. And thanks, dear.

When I started dating J, he was an attorney in a high-powered firm downtown.  Stable.  Secure. Known.  Earlier this fall, he declared himself miserable, and went to work for a Senator. Starting in about January, he began a tortuous process I can only define as “finding himself.”  Cliché, yes, but hey, if the shoe fits…

On the side, he’s started doing some legal work for a start-up band starring, hilariously, his mandolin teacher. (J’s been playing mandolin for maybe 2 years now.  It’s not something I’m particularly fond of).

He’s started looking into real estate.  He thinks maybe he’ll be a businessman.  In my books, he’s walked the career plank, but rather than furiously and determinedly swimming for shore, he’s splashing around and amusing himself, and wondering if there’s a better beach off in a better direction.

And then I get this call on Sunday. He says he’s leaving his parents’ early and is heading to Nashville.  “I’m going to negotiate a contract for the band,” he said.  He’ll be gone for the week.  Oh really. And I guess work doesn’t mind? You can just write them and say, peace out, I’m driving to Tennessee this week, see you around?

They’ll be really busy, he said, so he may not have time to talk when I call. “I’ll call you when I get time.”  Um. 

From a man who is freaking obsessed with his mobile e-mail (and has been known to regularly check his personal e-mail while we are at restaurants and in church), I have received a whopping ZERO notes of affection/amour/otherwise.  No text messages.  A series of short calls, all late at night. 

Granted, I’m a suspicious person naturally.  It’s an affliction for which I’m a confirmed carrier. The biochemist put it into words, though.  I don’t actually know. It’s not that I doubt, really; it’s more that I fear. I fear that I’m losing touch with who he is at all. 

And now I’m back to googling his ex-live-in girlfriend.  Very. Bad. Behavior. 

Working hard without hope of recognition or personal gain is a great virtue.  Honesty in all things and fairness to all people is the mark of a true leader.  Double-check facts and call to confirm reservations.  Laugh at your own foibles.  Self confidence amidst a sea of infidels and fools is a skill hard to hone, but so valuable to hold.  When management doesn’t respond and the water is too hot, pry the mechanical door off its hinges and readjust the hot water heater yourself.  Be abundantly generous with those you love, for time is precious.  Have a glass of wine or two at home before dinner, and really talk to one another.  Distance is no object when it’s real love at stake; togetherness trumps a phone call, no matter the cost or short duration. Find humor and lightness in a world that is so often grey.  Lessons from dad.

Rain is good for the complexion.  Sometimes a good hug makes everything better. Live life outside of your comfort zone; adventures await, even on metrobuses in the hood.  Look for the joy in little things, as the world holds so much beauty that so often goes unseen. The Eating By Color cookbook is, quite simply, amazing.  It is possible to find practical walking shoes that are also cute. Appreciate the finer things in life, but realize that happiness isn’t found in that which is material.  Chart your own course and make your own decisions, but do so with a level head and reasoned judgment.  Be glad our culture does not condone arranged marriages.  A cheerful attitude changes everything.  Always carry purel—life’s germy. There’s no place like home.  Lessons from mom. 

Brief glimpses and rememberances of what it used to be like brings homesickness on quickly. Looking for editorial jobs in Seattle on craigslist only makes this worse. There’s nothing like family, quirky as they are; there’s something invaluable about knowing and seeing where exactly you’re from.  Age accumulates, so fast. We’re none of us getting younger.  Appreciating advancement and change is bittersweet.  Anxiety and nervous anticipation of the inevitable is a poor use of energy; time is so much better spent in grateful appreciation of all that’s been given. Independence and self-reliance is a skill to cherish, but at the end of the day, it’s just one tool in a crowded box.  A weekend is never long enough.  Lessons.   

In the middle of a panel discussion on industry best practices in the mobile marketplace this afternoon (yawn, I know), the young man to my left passed me the following note:

Hey, you seem really cool, I have to get back to the office but I’d really like to get to know you better! Give me a call, maybe we can get coffee sometime. –Brad, (xxx) xxx-xxxx.

Aww! Kind of sweet. Even though I think this Brad character is likely barely 21 and an admitted intern, and even though we spoke for about three seconds before the speakers started doing their thing, the gesture was flattering. Got to give it to the guy.

I thought about Brad on my ride home, and for most of my indentured servitude in the gym earlier. Well, perhaps not him specifically. More like the idea of him.

“I wonder if mom would like him if he’s who I was dating.” That’s what I was thinking. “Maybe Brad would be really pleasing to her.”

My mom is not a natural fan of J’s.

There are a million things I love about my mom, and on the scale of mothers world-wide, she gets an 11.5 out of 10. She’s amazing. On this landscape, though, the smallest of aberrations, the most minute cordons of barbed wire, can really mar the picture.

Mom’s never been really enthusiastic about any men that I’ve dated, with mostly good reason and with relatively little protest. “Ah, mom,” we’d say. “She’ll never be satisfied.” It didn’t really matter. Until now. It matters so much to me now.

I want her to like J. I need her to see how much I love him, that I love him for the right reasons, and that he adores me.

She gave me a whole little lecture series over Christmas about how she didn’t understand what I saw in him, didn’t buy it when I said we were such a good fit, wanted to be sure I wasn’t losing out on making friends and finding opportunities because I was so wholly in this relationship.

Fair points, all. But she’d met the guy only twice, and neither under ideal circumstances. First was last winter, when the whole family came out to DC. Our relationship was new, and we had a slight argument over something stupid that ended up making me cry. That wasn’t so good.

Then he came home with me to Seattle last Memorial Day, but he’d broken his collarbone about a month before; he was still hyped up on medication and wearing a really awkward brace. That was pretty unfortunate, too.

This is all she’s using to worry that I’m wrecking my life. I appreciate her concern so much, but it’s hard to keep it impersonal. I don’t want to tailor my life to please her, but her approval is so valuable to me.

They’re coming for mother’s day, my parents, and they’ll be here tomorrow. Instead of running around furtively gathering all evidence of my heathen lifestyle—J’s toothbrush and deodorant, my birth control—and instead of piling dresses and sweaters on top of the clothes on J’s shelf in my closet, I’m just sitting here agonizing about the whole thing. Wondering why she doesn’t think we’re a fit. Scared she’s right.

She specifically requested to not see him on mother’s day, which I still find a bit harsh. “We’re coming to see you,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I respect his place in your life, so maybe he could come over one night besides Sunday and we could cook something.” Between the lines I’m reading “we don’t want to consider the possibility of him as family, we don’t even want to take him out, get the picture, we don’t like you dating him, now move on along.”

True, they’re coming from really far away. It makes sense, and I understand. But still, what is this?

I (stealthily) encouraged J to go back home and spend mother’s day with his mom, which happily he’s doing. But at what cost? He’ll miss my parents entirely this trip. Maybe it’ll be good; will give me a chance to show them that I’m just as much me without him by my side. Let them see that I’m strong and dynamic, that I take care of me and make good choices. Maybe.

In my head, this weekend will be spectacular. “Our daughter can do no wrong!” they’ll be singing at the end of it. “She’s amazing and brilliant beyond compare, and confidence is her middle name! If she chooses him, we’ll love him! Too bad we missed him! He’s the best!” This will be set to music, of course, and we’ll all be holding hands and smiling ridiculously as we tap dance down the accordion thing to their airplane home. Maybe. Maybe all it needs is time.

Poor Brad probably has his phone on maximum volume tonight. He’ll never here from me, and maybe he’ll be disappointed for awhile. But in time, it won’t mean a thing. In time, it’ll all smooth over, and the rearview mirror will remember nothing. For slightly more selfish reasons, this girl’s wishing on exactly that star tonight.

Leprechauns used to visit the house where I grew up.  They came through the vents.  True story.

Every March 16, before we went to bed, my sisters and I would carefully open the floor vents in each of our respective bedrooms—to allow the Leprechauns safe passage, you know.  Every morning, we’d see that our attention paid off, as gold-foiled chocolates and pennies would always be beside our beds when we awoke.  We’d trot downstairs to find mom making green waffles and green scrambled eggs served up over clover-themed placemats; it really was like magic.  We’d have shamrock sugar cookies when we came home from school, and we usually had Guinness stew for dinner.

The best part? We’re not a lick Irish.  Not. A. Lick.

I can’t really remember when all of this ended; when we stopped being innocent and carefree and into believing in our little green vent-men.  My dad will definitely be pouring a few tonight, and mom still has those placemats, but it just isn’t quite the same.

I got a text from my sister this morning: “you’d better be wearing your Guinness underpants.”  We all have them.  It’s kind of a weird thing.

I don’t have too many outward St. Patrick’s Day traditions anymore.  I did wear a green sweater today, and there’s Irish Soda Bread in the oven now (with many thanks to Heidi for the awesome recipe!).  It’s in the little things, I think.  And when I have kids? Those Leprechauns, they’ll be back.  

My boss is a tool, plain and simple.  The man’s ways largely defy logic, and certainly transcend common decency (and, I daresay, corporate ethics). If he was actually practicing law, rather than dancing about calling himself a lawyer while doing god only knows what at work, I’d consider reporting him to the Maryland bar.  Trouble is, I suspect he’s smart enough to keep in just ever so slightly inside the lines.  Mostly, he’s just as asshat.  [Ed. note: I never knew this word until I started blogging.  I’ve seen it employed so many times by other bloggers and commentors, however, that it seems it has actually crept into my vocabulary.  I read that last sentence, and I was all, wait a minute.  Is that my voice?  But hey, if the shoe fits… ]. 

I could write a manifesto on the various ways in which he vexes me.  Probably several impassioned sonnets, too.  I won’t.  I don’t want to give the man any more of my thoughtspace than I have to, besides to say that if I didn’t really love the substantive content of my work, I’d probably be plotting an intricate revenge instead of just running a selected soundtrack of spiteful songs in my mind on a near-constant basis.

Instead, in the words of Bridget Jones, I choose vodka.

Specifically, blackberry-plum vodka tonic, infused by the creative hand of yours truly.  HURRAH Friday.

Best enjoyed when baking cookies.  The cookies are just standard chocolate chip, nothing spectacular, but so delicious just the same. 

YUM-MY.  But the fun doesn’t stop here, my friends.  As it happens, I have a wonder apron.  Sometimes, I bake things for the express purpose of wearing it.  Odd? Maybe.  It’s so cute, though!  I swear it makes everything taste better. 

Clearly I’m easily amused if I’m spending Friday night photographing myself in an apron.  I got it for Christmas; each of my sisters got a matching one, too.  Here’s us, in headless blog-y fashion, in the kitchen at my parents’ house:

The only thing that could make this night better is if they were here.  I miss them both like crazy. Plus, I know I could count on them to help me consume the deliciousness.  Ah well.  More for me, and a very good start to the weekend indeed.