Summer

After Thoughts

I worked 5 1/2 hours today. It felt like 12 1/2. I wonder what is so exhausting about my job. Is it standing on me feet. Plastering a smile to my face. Saying "have a nice day" or asking "how are you" when it's not really genuine. Putting on a facade. That is exhausting. And all of us do it. Day in and day out.

N & I worked on cleaning the garage today. We had bought some shelves to put in there and now all the camping gear, all the coolers, all the christmas decorations, all the paint supplies and all the tools are exactly where they should be. It feels good to make progress like that. It feels good not to have to search through boxes or go on a manhunt just to find where the gift bags are stored. We plan on buying one more set of shelves to store "everything Michigan" including boots, coats, scarves, hats. We have absolutely no need for them down here but I know we'll be back someday in the dead of winter and really need all of those things. Might as well have keep them on hand.

Speaking of winter, I had a customer come in last night. We started a friendly conversation about Michigan and he genuinely asked how we dealt with the snow. "Umm," i said "we dig ourselves out after a heavy snowstorm and hope we don't spin out on the road on the way to work. It's really not life altering." He could hardly believe that. That we our lives didn't end when we got more than 3 inches of snow. I then went on to say that it amused me how people react to rain down here. There's a certain electric excitement that fills the air. People stay in doors. Stay off the roads. Wait until the storm passes rather than venture out into the puddles. I've learned that people who grow up in a 4 season climate have a certain "hardiness" about them. Little fazes them. And they believe everything is manageable. Even driving in white out conditions.

I've been on a book buying spree lately. I've been busy clearing out the book shelves (I have finally learned the importance of getting rid of books that didn't move me/change me/alter my way of seeing the world/or teach me anything significant) and yesterday took a fairly large stack down to the used book store. I got $18 credit and picked up three more titles. I now have 3 shelves of books that have yet to be read. N kindly asked tonight if I could put the book buying on hiatus until I made a larger dent in the stack called "books i'm going to read in the future." I told him that I didn't plan on having children and that I would need something to keep me company when i'm old and grey. He said I shouldn't worry too much and reminded me that I might as well be hording canned food and duct tape for Y2K.

These days, i've been collecting paint swatches just as much as I have been collecting books. I have so many different variations of greens and pinks and aquas that I feel lost in the color whee. Do I prefer Pear over Dried Palm or Aqua Pura over Cool Jazz? I wish I had some insight. It's isolating to decorate a house when it's just you and your mind and you're looking at all these paint colors and slowly but surely becoming overwhelmed with oh my god but what if I choose Minty Fresh over Slight Sea Foam?!!! I need someone to pull me away for a while or help me understand how Pear and Pura Aqua can peacefully co-exist with Silver Drop.

N's really no help. He doesn't see what the big deal is and doesn't understand why I have so many different shades of grey and why I keep taping them to the wall and then standing back and staring at it for 10 minutes. He walks past and just tells me what nice job I did on our last apartment but then reminds me that, uh, no he has no opinion and doesn't care to take the time to form one.

I'm thinking that I'll start with those rooms that i'm sure of. My bathroom for instance. It's small. do-able. And I know exactly what I want. And when that's finished I'll just move on to the next room. It'll get done.

And it will be exactly how I want it. Cause it's my house now. All mine. And to be that settled feels so good.

From CNN

NEW YORK (AP) -- A consumer alert for the millions who have seen the feature film version of "Sex and the City": There is no such book as "Love Letters of Great Men," from which Carrie Bradshaw reads while in bed with her beloved Mr. Big.
The closest text in the real world apparently is "Love Letters From Great Men and Women: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day," first released in the 1920s and reissued last year by Kessinger Publishing, which specializes in bringing back old works.
Richard Davies, press manager for AbeBooks.com, an online seller that features used titles, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he has received hundreds of queries about the book's existence.
Enough readers have been directed to the Kessinger anthology, on AbeBooks and elsewhere on the Internet, that it ranked No. 134 on Amazon.com as of Thursday afternoon.
In "Sex and the City," an early scene shows Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) poring through the imaginary collection, although citing real letters by Beethoven and Napoleon among others. Mr. Big (Chris Noth), later takes passages from the book as he expresses his love, by e-mail, to Carrie.

I had seen the film but didn't give it much thought until a customer had come in looking for the book (this was before it was revealed that it wasn't actually a book). I went through the obligatory search and got a listing of only the Kessinger anthology. When I told the customer that perhaps it wasn't an actual book she look disgusted that I would think that anything Sex & the City could be fictional, let alone have the audacity to suggest the same to her. She was angry that I suggested it and maybe even a little bit more angry that she was played a fool. She quickly turned on her heels and said that she would have to "do further research" (implying that maybe I did mine incorrectly) and get back to us.

How much would I like to shove this article in her face right now?

A lot.

Songs I Just Can't Get Off My IPod

Where Do We Go From Here / Alicia Keys / As I Am
Overlap (2007 Version) / Ani Difranco / Canon (Essential Collection)
Flame / Bell X1 / Flock
Stronger / Kanye West / Graduation
Days Go By (radio edit) / Dirty Vegas / Dirty Vegas
A Little Less Conversation (JXL Remix) / Elvis Presley / Elvis: 30 #1 Hits
The Pretender / Foo Fighters / Echos, Silence, Patience & Grace
Who Am I To Say / Hope / Hope's Indie Cd
Hide & Seek / Imogen Heap / Speak For Yourself
4 Minutes (featuring Justin Timberlake & Timberland) / Madonna / Hard Candy
Extreme Ways / Moby / 18
Rewind / Paolo Nutini /These Streets
Glory Box / Portishead / Dummy
Such Great Heights / The Postal Service / Give Up
Number 1 / Goldfrapp / Supernature
Can't Go Back Now / The Weepies / Hideaway
Drifting Away / Faithless / Reverence
Silence (DJ Tiesto's in Search of Sunrise Edit) / Delerium & Sarah McLachlan / The Best of Delerium

$5 Words

N: Is that sound cloying to you?
L: No. What? Cloying? Why'd you just pull that out?
N: D & I at work pull out $5 words during conversations to see who can use the biggest and most impressive words.
L: I see. And you really think that cloying is a $5 word? Who wouldn't know the word cloying?
N: Well. You? Maybe.
L. Uh. Yeah. No. I know the word cloying. I use the word cloying. I taught you the word cloying. It'll take a $20 word to stump me.

Reminder to Self

Here's a lesson we never stop learning: the importance of not taking bad days out on our significant others.

My feet may hurt. I may be dehydrated, tired and hungry. I may have had a smile plastered on my face for the last 9 hours. I may have had to respond "yes ma'am/sir, we can do that" all day long. I may need a glass of wine. . . desperately.

But at the end of the day when I get home, N wants his wife. Not some monster impersonating her.

Apologizing gets old. So does forgiveness.

I need a new job.

At the Beach

Matisse's mission: to see how fast he can have the carpet replaced with hard wood floors. It seems that no matter what that dog does his lunch ends up on my beige carpeting. He either eats to fast, eats something he shouldn't, exercises too soon after eating, drinks salt water to ensure that he only digests half of the calories given to him. I'm pretty sure that if our dog wasn't so overweight, he would be an anorexic. But I really just think it's a case of - geez it's so hot down here and I love lying on the tile. I wonder what it would be like if the whole house was tile!!?? What can I do to make that happen?! Oh, I know, turn on the projectile vomiting.

N and I have invested stock in Spot Shot (carpet cleaner).

Yesterday, we took Matisse to the beach. Good idea. Bad reality. We packed too much and had even more grandeur ideas of how this all would go down. We thought we would spend a quiet afternoon at the dog beach where Matisse would play in the water and N & I could read on the beach. It was more of Matisse in the water and then coming out and shaking all over us. I had the understanding that he's a dog and therefore attracted to anything dry and belonging to humans but this being N's first real dog (besides one he had as a small child) didn't understand that the dog lacked a human's ability to reason. WHY DOES HE SHAKE ALL OVER THE CLOTHES?! WHY IS HE SHAKING ALL OVER ME! WHY DOES HE INSIST ON LAYING ON THE SHEET!? WHY IS HE DRINKING THE SALT WATER WHEN HE HAS A WHOLE BOWL OF FRESH WATER?!!! WHY IS HE SITTING ON MY LEG?!! WHY WON'T HE LEAVE ME ALONE??!!! WHY IS HE LOOKING AT ME?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was finally when he (N not Matisse) sat down on the beach, wrapped his arms around his legs and pouted that I had to turn away to surpress a laugh. He's a dog, I kept saying. What do you expect? N expected him to lay down, chill out under the umbrella and catch some rays with a corona light in paw so that N could do the same thing. It was funny and tragic and short lived. As soon as I was able to look at N without laughing I suggested we pack up the things and go. That this was all sorts of not working. N looked at me like I had finally saved him from a brutal hell.

It was then that N finally regained the ability to talk without using capital letters and exclamation points.

We packed up and headed home. I suggested that next time we make less of a show of it. Meaning, one bottle of water. Leash. Dog. An hour max. No cooler or sheets or towels or change of clothes or snacks or water games. Just he. Me. Matisse.

Sometimes, simple is just better.

Leaving

I left very little in Michigan when it was finally time to go.
A couple of cans of paint in the garage.
A roll of paper towels underneath the sink
Childhood odds and ends in the basement of my parents house

That last night I spent with you
it was raining buckets
A dark foreshadowing of the morning to come
when I would watch my past disappear
through the small frame of a rear view mirror

We jumped through puddles like little girls
holding hands
wrapped in boots, scarves
hats pulled nearly over our eyes
to keep the cold
and the wet out.

We sat down in a booth
surrounded by the soft glow
of rosy cheeks,
lit cigarettes
and lamps reflecting the red
of their pleated shades.

We drank more red wine than should be allowed
we laughed harder than we had in a while
but when the conversation took a turn
to the more serious
you reached across the table and took my hand
(your little hand in mine)
you lifted your glass
and in only so many words
toasted our past
the uncertain future
and this one night left
before I had to go

I left very little in Michigan when it was time to go
some paint cans in the garage
a roll of paper towels under the sink
a few odds and ends in the basement of my parents house

And that last night of
you and me together
(one last big hurrah)
I also left a little piece of my heart at that table
quietly and secretly
slipped it across the polished wood
a piece of me
for you to hold on to

Being Settled Ultimately Just Means More Questions

I live in Florida now. A permanent residence and the FL drivers licenses to prove it. The suitcases that we've been living from for the last 2 years have fianlly gone into retirement (at least for now). We have bought a house. Unpacked boxes of items that we had forgot about or wished we had with us all the while we were on travel status. We've bought furniture and debated what colors to paint the walls. We have Matisse with us again.

We're home.

There has been a lot of excitement over this transition. N finally got a job he enjoys. One that is more stable, and that pays a lot better. There are no more questions or doubts about the next place he'll be stationed (if anywhere) or whether he'll just be sent home for lack of work. There will be no more large gaps of time spent apart. We can actually plan for the future.

I have the chance to go back to school. To get a different, better, more permanent job. I can do anything. Be anyone. But i'm beginning to think that what I craved is exactly what I was most afraid of. The biggest question still looms over my head: what do I want to do? Who do I want to be? And now that I have no excuses, I find myself depressed because I don't know the answers to these questions and I don't know how to go about resolving them either.

The answer that keeps resounding in my head is just keep moving forward. The world does not standstill and no matter how hard I try I can't either. I can stagnate but not stand still. Update my resume. Apply for jobs. Go to interviews. Enroll in school again. Get that diploma. It's all a jumping point that will hopefully (and eventually) get me to where I am meant to be. I can't expect the future to reveal itself to me all at once just because I need the reassurance of it. Life is uncertain. The future is most definitely so. But the only way to success is to put one foot in front of the other and start the journey into the unknown.