back in the forest

My husband's back! Yesterday, I finished (some of) the kitchen curtains in time, went downtown for a spot of shopping with Susse, and then down to the airport. He was still in his shorts, and is looking fairly tan. We then went down EVEN FURTHER to Tacoma, where we visited with his cousins, who on Thursday had a new baby! With brown hair (his brothers are blond). He's very, very cute and more importantly, healthy. I got to hold him a lot. So: yesterday was a GREAT day. :)

This morning I brought in a wedding photo for my desk at work. It's 5x7, but the frame is very small, barely anything at the edges, so hopefully it isn't too "LOOK AT ME I GOT MARRIED AND I'M SO CUTE!" However, it was immediately noted by my coworker and my boss. Positively. But hopefully they won't get sick of it. Anyway, this photo is taller so I kind of notice it more and it's sitting in front of my two plants (a maidenhair fern and an ativia.) So it's like MSH and I are hugging in a mini-forest. And considering what a sh*tty day this is, it's very helpful to occasionally imagine oneself wearing a beautiful dress in a forest with one's husband. Nothing huge, just every little thing's going wrong and there's 87 of them. On I trudge!

i heart voicemail

Lastnight I went to a party at a bar--a going-away party for my former boss, Cathy. (This was planned into the retreat, people, I needed a break! And I realized I'd REALLY been looking forward to it, especially since it's been kind of a tough week at work.) It was so much fun and I was hanging out with lotsa peeps I hadn't seen in so long, so I stayed and missed "the O.C." How could you? you ask? Well, because I have a friend who (because of another regular engagement) tapes it each week. (So the redux will be coming this weekend.) Plus, the beer was free. Who am I to turn down free brews? I cut myself off at the proper time, though. Had lots of laughs and did the airplane on the barstool, but I got to bed at a reasonable hour, so I'm bright and chipper this morning!

MSH called from a payphone in Puerto Vallarta lastnight. I missed the call because I was in the bar and didn't hear my phone, but I was so excited to hear his voice on my voicemail! When I saw the message on there when I left the bar I *knew* it was him. Even though it very well could have been his mom calling to let me know that his cousin had her baby, which she did and she did but the message was on our home phone. And it was almost better because I could listen to the voicemail message over and over again. Which I did. And I could even listen to it right now this morning if I wanted. Now, he is having a very good time, but I was very tickled because he revealed the following (hope I am not outing him as a big softie, but if you know him, you probably know he is anyway):

he misses me
he wants to come home now
it's "not the same" without me there

firsts

I did full camel pose for the first time ever, in yoga class today. Now it's NOT a big deal. Most people who have been doing Bikram's series for a few months can bust a full camel. Just not me. And I've been doing Bikram's on and off for five years. It's a big fear pose for me (and can be for a lot of people.) I know this will sound hippy dippy to those of you who don't practice yoga but I swear it's chemically true: certain yoga poses cause involuntary emotions. Most of these emotions are good and most of them are mild, but occasionally not. I did this one forward pose one time--can't remember which one, it was a freestyle yoga class, not the Bikram's series--and once in the pose, I felt utterly sad and panicky. I was about to start sobbing, so I backed out of the pose. Anyway, back bends involve a lot of, as they say, opening of the body, the fuller the back bend, the greater degree of openness (mental and physical) required, and that can be a challenge. Maybe more so for us inwardly directed perfectionist types. ("No, don't open me up there, thanks!") I guess I have been in the habit of regarding certain poses as "hard" or "not my favorites" and gritting my teeth through them, and I know that's not the yoga way. Each time I started into camel pose I felt FEAR FEAR FEAR NO NO NO!! Maybe the fact that this is only my second class after two months without helped, but as we went into this pose today, I thought to myself, no fear, be open, think about the color blue. (Granted, I've tried these thoughts before.) I always felt like it was this HUGE distance behind me from my hands to my ankles when I began the pose. An unbridgeable void. And today I just thought, well, the ankles have to be back there somewhere, and I REEEEACHED.

And there they were. Just my ankles. And I was OOOOPENING up. It felt awesome. Then we had to come back up. Interesting. Interesting. OK, I got into it, there must be a way out...I kind of flung myself out of it, luckily without hitting the woman next to me, and I must have freaked out the instructor, because I got some "personal instruction" on the second set of the pose--it felt even better! I'm elated. I fear no (Bikram's) yoga pose.

Next step is the Power Vinyasa class. I've done it twice and my ass was telling the tale for a week afterward each time. I have to conquer my fear of that next. I figure once I've been going to Bikram's twice a week for two months, I'll go to Vinyasa. It's a different series every time, too. We fear change.

Got the second estimate on the sinking corner of the house, and put all the stuff I cleaned out of my house in NOVEMBER into my car to take to Goodwill/other worthy cause. Tomorrow. Yee haw. MSH is going to be so proud of all my PRODUCTIVA activities!! So one of the things I was donating was a toaster oven, and since someone deserving is going to actually use it, I couldn't donate it as it was--full of crumbs and covered with gross kitchen spatter. So I took about ten minutes and scrubbed it up and it is now a toaster oven which would brighten any kitchen. Which begs the question, in all the time I have owned said toaster oven WHY IS THIS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE CLEANED IT?! See, this is why I need Cheryl Mendelson's brilliant housekeeping manual....

I have decided not emailing or phoning during work hours is pointless.

But at home, it is nice. I did have the contractor AND a freecycler over tonight so I really DID break the rules, but it was for good reasons. The freecycler was megachatty, though--you'd have thought I was her best friend!

Semi Retreat Thingy, Day 2

I don't know how much of a retreat it is to be at work since I can jawbone with my jolly coworkers all day, but I did find it a relief to have personal email, news sites, and the twenty or thirty blogs I read be off-limits. Got more done, too, and it was a good thing--as it was I was there until 7 PM working on the latest tax crisis. Blegh. Just put a tasty quiche in the oven. Pretty easy to cook, esp. when you don't make the crust from scratch, and it's highly proteinous. I had to eat a cheese stick, goldfish crackers, and some famous amos cookies just now, though, since it won't be done for almost an hour and it's already 7:55. Somehow when I got home at 7:15, I looked at my watch and said to myself "Oh, I can make quiche [baking time=1hr] and eat dinner at 8:15, not bad!"

I think about MSH a lot. I embarked on a search for his ultimate barber, Rusty, today. Rusty used to work at Hair on the Square near MSH's work. It was a victory for me to have him even consult a barber (he was cutting his own hair with predictably mixed results--hey, kudos to those of you who can do it, but for some people, it just doesn't work!) but MSH was VERY pleased with the results. Then, not long after MSH discovered him, Rusty decamped to another salon in Capitol Hill. Capitol Hill is a neighborhood in which MSH loathes to drive or park, and for which he has a general distaste I trace to the Incident of the Dredlocked Man Jumping Out From Behind a Tree to Scare Us at Night (TM.) So MSH let Rusty pass on, but eventually discovered through trial and error that Rusty is "the only person on earth [in his price range] who can cut [his] hair!" So one of my little tasks this week in MSH's absence was to call each Capitol Hill barber and salon until I found the rare and wondrous Rusty. (For the record, I'm going to cut that rule about not visiting other websites--I have to visit some for work, plus I have things on my To Do list which require the internet!) I assembled a reasonably comprehensive list of barbers via Seattle.citysearch and began by clicking on the website for the first one on the list. You know where this is going. The front page of the site listed the barbers' names and displayed photos. There was Rusty. As they say on the Staples commercial, that was easy!

Came home on my lunch break, did dishes, switched laundry, and put up a thermometer outside thekitchen window. It was sunny and the kitchen was a very pleasant place to be. It really feels like spring--there was even a tuneful bird tweeting outside the office this morning. That would be great except it's not yet February and if we don't have any more winter coming, we're totally effed for the summer, and not just the snowboard instructors, who won't have enough cash for the requisite supplies of Rolling Rock and dooby. Sorry, straight-edge snowboard instructors, I meant...fresh carrot juice and subscriptions to "The Economist."

Huzzah! Quiche is done!

experiment

MSH is gone for seven days eight nights on vacation with a friend of his. Now, you may think this is odd, since we've been married less than a year, that he is taking a separate vacation. But for one thing, we've always been very into doing things by ourselves, independently--evenings, whole weekends, whatever, we're pretty cool like that, it's part of what makes our relationship so (if I may brag) great. So this is just a logical extension of that. And it was an all-inclusive vacation, offered to him at the last minute, for free. (His friend is a travel agent--it's a long story.) I am very happy he's going, because he's been so stressed out at work; he REALLY needed a vacation NOW, and one sprouted TADA! like that out of the universe without any preplanning. Pretty sweet. (Besides, I was and am planning a trip to NYC without him, this spring...)

So, always one to make lemonade out of lemons (the lemons in this case being the absence of my husband, whose presence I thoroughly appreciate and usually enjoy), I have devised a sort of experiment, a semi-retreat, I call it. Of course, I will still go to work, speak with my coworkers, etc. But other than that, I am trying to keep to myself. Paraphrasing my journal, I will explain myself below.

So do not fear if you do not hear from me by phone or email. Just retreating into my cave for a bit. You can get your fix here--it will mostly be observations on evening solitude. ;) And I promise I'll have much to say when I emerge.

WHAT IS THE POINT?:

To savor my solitude and thus profit by MSH's absence, instead of moping at it.
To find and enjoy that which happens when one is alone, uninterrupted, and undistracted for long periods. I think this is, in general, a good thing.
To work single-mindedly on certain projects.
To conserve for my Self energy normally expended through communication/interaction.
To take some time to examine issues of self, aloneness, and togetherness. Particularly as regards marriage. In writing letters and at other times, I find myself debating between using "I" or using "we." What does each imply to the reader and to myself in the writing of it? Am I backing myself up with the strong "we" of myself and MSH? Perhaps passing the buck of responsibility for whatever it is I'm writing about? If I use a lot of "I," will the reader perceive trouble in our marriage in my lack of mention/implication of MSH? Do I _need_ to mention my husband in letters and conversations? What is _wife_, anyway? I feel in many ways unchanged by marriage. I am still myself. But I feel there is territory to be explored here--I won't come up with definitive answers, but the asking and pondering is worthwhile.

I WILL:

Write in my journal.
Read.
Hand-quilt.
Clean. (_Home Comforts_ is as inspiring as it is enlightening.)
Cook my own meals. (Exceptions: today at dinner and possibly some weekday lunches.)
Post to my blog, once I've written in my journal, in the evenings.
Be quiet and think.
Go running at least twice.
Go to yoga twice.
Go to dharma class on Tuesday.

I WILL DO MY BEST NOT TO:
Talk on the phone.
Watch TV. (Exception: "The O.C."--this is about personal enrichment, not deprivation for deprivation's sake!)
Socialize. (Exception: talking with Susse while running, and a former coworker's farewell party on Thursday--good timing as I will probably be ready for a break.)
Go shopping, except for food.
Read or write email, except on work account for work-related purposes.
Visit websites other than my blogging website.

So, since MSH left home lastnight, today was...

DAY 1:
Slept v. poorly lastnight. Woke up a lot. Bad dream. Slept in, foregoing yoga.

Woke up, read some of _Home Comforts_. Blowing my mind--everything I wondered about (love my mom, but transmitted VERY little to me in the way of positive housekeeping habits and knowledge) is here--a rich, common-sense feast of knowledge. Hard not to skip ahead to the part on care of wood floors, but I want it all so I might as well get it in order.

Called Susse at noon. Instead of stitching (we were supposed to do it lastnight after I dropped of MSH but that turned into a long Chinese circus...), we decided to visit some textile stores and a bookshop before going to see "Lemony Snicket" with her s.o. Enjoyable. (As you can tell, I'm using to day to ease into the strictures of my retreat!) "Lemony Snicket" was OK and left me feeling not blue, but very quiet and thoughtful and wanting to be alone. Perfect for the retreat. They dropped me off and I drove down to buy my own copy of _Home Comforts_, having rendered mine unto the Seattle Public Library FOOLISHLY before ACTUALLY SECURING my own copy. Then, on the spur of the moment, decided to dine at a restaurant I've never been to. Dining alone is a healthy thing to do, and notwithstanding the cooking aspiration for the week, I had been planning to do it. I was seated in the bar (mostly empty) and luckily shielded from the TV by a light fixture and my severe myopia. I ordered a Portobello Salad and a tall glass of milk. Delicious.

Then proceeded home and...not sure what I did at first! I'm reminded of what Venerable Robina says about past lives..."you're so sure you haven't had past lives, but you can't even say what you were doing at nine o clock this morning!!" Made the bed with fresh sheets before I remembered the mattress pad was in the washer. What is the purpose of a mattress pad exactly? Havne't gotten to that part in _Home Comforts_. Realistically, I have not prohibited radio or CD's in my semi-retreated state, but I find this evening that I am just enjoying the quiet of the house. Maybe I will quilt some before bed.

everybody's workin' for the weekend...

...and gnashing their teeth at the tardiness of this week's O.C. redux! Sorry folks, had to work today, early and often. (Yes, I am normally at work when composing these humble lines, but today I had to actually DO WORK--you see the distinction.)

Well, first let me assure you that no one drowned on this week's episode. A load off my mind. Once the episode began, I realized the show just isn't dark enough for death (at least not at this point).

I just hope I'm not as obnoxious when drunk as Lindsay is. Cuz damn. "My numb is tongue"? If I'm that drunk, I've lost all capacity to utter words.

As usual, I enjoyed Seth's witty banter and especially his comic book references, even though I personally rarely read them--I'm sure the writers dumb it down, comic book-wise, for dilettantes such as myself. (However, it's getting a little old that he always wants to ill-advisedly GO TALK TO THE GIRL. Make like George on "Seinfeld" and do the opposite of what you want to do for a while.)

Ryan needs his bangs cut. There, I said it. And, on a more season-encompassing note, did the O.C. hair guru misplace the blonde highlighting goo between seasons? Or are we supposed to believe Ryan had more leisure time on the mean streets of Chino to dye his hair blonde and now in the high-class hustle and bustle of Newport Beach, has little time for such grooming trifles? (In general, though, O.C. Hair Guru, nothing but love for you. See my previous paean to Summer's updo at the SnO.C. dance.)

Btw, is there a reason the characters refer to it as "Newport" instead of Newport Beach? It is supposed to be Newport Beach, right? Has the town copyrighted the phrase or something? Or is it just the hip sobriquet, such as we native-borns calling it "da Beav" (for Beaverton, you pervs.)

I took macabre pleasure in the tsunami relief public service announcement during the show, starring Peter Gallagher and Benjamin McKenzie. It was unpleasant and almost hilarious at the same time. (and not just because of Benji's infuriating bangs!!)

The crucial scenes between Ryan and Marissa were meaty--pretty good writing. But I found myself objectively critiquing their acting during the scenes, instead of being emotionally involved with the characters-- maybe this automatically means the acting was off? I still think Marissa (aka Mischa Barton) needs more acting classes. Or possibly just a clue? (Yes, you're gorgeous, baby, but it takes more than rolling your eyes and pouting your lips hither and yon.) She's OK, she's just at a lower candle-power than Ryan, and he is agian low compared to the mesmeric and golden-tongued Seth (Adam Brody, we love you.)

I'm not sure I'm buying Alex as the predatory lesbian, either. What up?!

Again what up: the girls are having lunch, Summer and the superthin Marissa eating cheeseburger, and Lindsay shamefacedly eating a Zone (diet) meal? Guess what? Lindsay (aka Shannon Lucio) doesn't need to diet!! She looks healthy and well-proportioned--are they foreshadowing a plot line here?

Kudos to the writers for continuing to sketch in Zach as a believable character. And while I'm at it, for naming him Zach, because I knew two Zachs in high school, so that's a heartwarmer for me personally.

Now, I was eagerly awaiting the hour FOLLOWING "the O.C." this week because they've replaced the repellent, unwatchable North Shore with "Point Pleasant." I had not seen the premiere of Point Pleasant, but as it had that Satan-in-the-mix end of days theme, small town goes bad, and an exec producer from Buffy, I figured I could watch it. Well, I watched half of it and turned it off. It sucked. It just didn't grab me. And people, I've been known to stay up until 3 AM watching bad 80's movies--IT DOESN'T TAKE A LOT TO HOLD MY ATTENTION!! Several of the actors were just wooden, including the young woman's who's supposed to be starting to follow the ways of her papa Beelzebub--that seems like juicy enough motivation for anyone!* And finally, the death knell: all the women had subpar hair. I'm watching TV. If I wanted to see bad hair, I'd look in the mirror!! I expect the best. Which leads me to the next point: After an episode of "the O.C.," it's very likely that any other show is going to look bad--the writing, the wardrobe, the hair, the acting, that chemistry between the characters. It's a hard act to follow, literally.

*Ooh, just for a moment, imagine O.C. denizen Julie Cooper being possessed by Satan--delicious--but I hope, unlikely, since I prefer "reality-based" television.

Yoga: A Good Thing

Went back to yoga lastnight, after like two months. Boy, did I need it. Boy, did it feel good. I felt like a new woman when I woke up this morning. And due to my purchase of a six-month pass, this is only the beginning of radiant health! If you have the means, I highly recommend checking out yoga. Especially Bikram's (hot) yoga. It does a body good. I swear if you'd measured the distance from the middle of my neck (vertebra) to the edge of my shoulder, I have a good half-inch on each side MORE than I did yesterday before I went to yoga. I am LOOSE.

Not long before I woke up this morning, I had a dream I was in a field in southern France with MSH and my French cousins Fabien and Gregory. (NOTE: I do in real life have French cousins, whom I've met, and those really are their names.) Something disturbing happened in the dream, I can't remember what, and I started pacing around the field, yelling "I don't like this dream anymore! Wake up! I want to wake up now!" (I was wearing jeans and my khaki-colored jean jacket.) This didn't work. So then I yelled "I'm changing the dream channel then! Different dream!" and then I had a remote control, so I pointed it across the field (my companions had disappeared, just me and the field and some trees and the river and the horizon) and hit a button, trying to get a screen with different dream options to appear. (Kind of like OnDemand from ComcastTM!) This didn't work, either. So, I thought, well, I might as well try flying, since I can't wake up. So I flapped my arms, and up I went, and WHEEEEEEEE!!! Across river and fields and banking around big stands of deciduous trees--it was exhilarating. It was very vivid--the cool wind moving past my face, the top part of my jacket unbuttoned and flapping back against me, the trees silhouetted black against sunset sky. I dipped and rose and soared all the way to Paris, where night fell, and I lost my flying ability. Then the dream took a turn for the mundane--I was staying in an ex-boyfriend's flat with him and his very jealous red-headed girlfriend. (They met me on the bridge, which was not an actual bridge in Paris.)

The vivid flying part has stuck with me, I think it's part of the reason I'm in such fine fettle this morning.

book preview

I am only in the introduction (first chapter?), but am already enjoying _Home Comforts: the Art & Science of Keeping House_ by Cheryl Mendelson. Here is my favorite sentence so far--an obvious idea, surely, but one that rang deep and true:

"Many people lead deprived lives in houses filled with material luxury."

Further update when I finish the book. (Some of it is reference material so I may start skimming. In fact, I assure you I'll start skimming at some point because it is due soon and it's 882 pages including the index!) It's divided into sections such as: Neatening (yes please!), Ironing (yes, please SEND HELP!), and Domestic Employment Laws (I'm OK, thanks), facilitating the skipping of information currently deemed irrelevant to myself.

If I find this book as informative and valuable as I anticipate, I may purchase it. You may not think this is a big deal, but I really have to LIKE (like LIKE like) a book to choose to keep it in my house. Big commitment. That is why I enjoy my public library. No commitment. Fabulous selection. Convenient in-neighborhood pickup. Rah rah, sis boom bah!

white people talking

Olive Garden, 7:15 PM

MSH: Have you heard about the new West Coast Edition of G-Unit? His name is The Game.
ME: Is G-Unit Eminem's crew?
MSH: No--
ME: Oh, is it Fifty Cents'? I mean Fitty Cent?
MSH: Yeah. He's East Coast.
ME: If he's East Coast, why does he have a West Coast Edition?
MSH: I don't know. I think it has something to do with Dr. Dre.

east coast speak

I used to watch NYPD Blue regularly, and when there was some kind of snit in the precinct or somebody needed some help, the parlance of their times was for one cop to "reach out" to another one. (I guess this meant making a personal connection instead of engaging in tough guy small talk.)

I was just on the phone with a woman in the legal department at a company in Pennsylvania, trying to get them to pay their invoice. She said the woman who's responsible for these things (apparently not her) is "unresponsive to [her]." (She didn't volunteer the woman's name--that would be my next step, but I didn't want to press her--I'm non-confrontational.) She ended by saying she would "reach out to [this woman] one more time."

V. thrilling. Mike and I always kind of mocked this phrase because it didn't seem like something a New York cop would say, but at least now we know people on the East Coast do say it.

tv

Do you read “I Love TV”? It is a column in The Stranger (a Seattle weekly) and The Mercury (a Portland, Ore. weekly) and possibly other publications of which I am unaware. The author, WmTM Steven Humphrey, is a goddam genius. He makes me laugh out loud, usually by discussing television shows I don’t even watch. (Regular readers of this space will surely know what show I *do* watch. Ahem.) Witness the following sentence, describing the new show “Point Pleasant” on FOX:

“Unluckily for the locals, she possesses weirdo persuasive powers, thanks largely to her mom who forgot to put in her IUD before riding the wild baloney pony with SATAN.”

His latest column may be read at: http://www.thestranger.com/current/love_tv.html

another friday, another o.c. rundown

Kudos to the O.C. people for getting me to like Lindsay a bit. She doesn't enunciate very well, though, sometimes i can't understand her--vocal coach? sound editors? Get on that, will ya? At least they haven't done any more heinous things with her hair. But WHAT was with that sweater that showed her entire BRA?! OK, maybe it wasn't a bra, maybe it was a camisole; I forgot to look during the rubbin' an' shovin' scene. But either way, it looked a g.d. lot like a bra. And when I was in h.s. we in the advanced science classes didn't show that much of our chests, let alone our purple and black bras. I'm just sayin'.

Ryan's eye-open exuberant facial expression at Lindsay's locker--"Oooh, we'll STUDY..." He so rarely comes out of the booth, that was a big threeeelll.

Finally they show kids doing HOMEWORK for a change.

A bit heavy-handed with the whole Summer-is-a-ditz and her boyfriend's family is the freaking United Nations thing. Especially because she hasn't SEEMED like that much of a shallow ditz heretofore.

I know you're thinking Sandy Cohen didn't really sing those two songs at the end but AHA!! He did. Who can forget Peter Gallagher's cameo as silken-voiced singer Vic Tenetta at the Hudsucker company party in "The Hudsucker Proxy?" The man has pipes, people.

So another episode wraps up, we're all one big happy family. And then they promo the next week and all is STINKIN' DANGER AND CHAOS. So I was all warm and fuzzy and happy...and now I'm tense and anxious. Thanks, guys. I'm DONE watching the scenes from next week's episode!

up

On Monday, I was in an emotional pothole. When this happens, my mind races trying to assign some external factor to this, and it leads to typical, late-twenties "I haven't achieved enough and I'm not DOING anything with my life"-type bullshit. Then the next day I realize I WAS PREMENSTRUAL! DUR! But anyway. I was feeling down in the dumps, and was walking on Capitol Hill on my lunch hour, looking down at the sidewalk. As I crossed Thomas Street, a man on the sidewalk called out to me, "Look! Pretty!" and indicated the vista of the Olympic Mountains to my right, snow-topped and sunlit, mantles of cloud here and there around their shoulders. "Yes, it's beautiful," I called back,a nd he kept walking. What a nice man. I am a very lucky girl. I started smiling.

"un long dimanche de fiancailles"

means: "A Very Long Engagement"
un film de Pierre Jeunet
Starring Audrey Tautou

Grade: A

Jeunet casts an unflinching gaze on the unmitigated hell of war, and finds hope and love. Tautou is luminous, frail, full of life, like a determined moth. The role challenges her a bit more than Amelie and she's up to it. (And she wears great clothes.) The mystery, the unreliable eye-witnessing, Jeunet's usual quirks. Caprices of fate and men translate into who lives and who dies. I found myself hoping desperately with Tautou's character, and wondering in a real, pure way at the horrible POINTLESSNESS of war.

It's a mystery, a love story, and a war story. Go see this movie.

Sorry this isn't better written but I've got low blood sugar.

Where Milk Should Not Go

This morning, I rose early (for me) so I could take Susse and Mr. Susse to the airport. They are going to NJ, Mr. Susse's natal soil. Maybe native ground is better. Natal soil sounds like the first dump one takes after being born. But I digress.

My cold cereal breakfast was consumed, as it is three times a week, in the car out of a tupperware container. And at some point just before picking up my passengers, I drippled milk on my right lapel and onto the ends of my hair in one spot. Don't ever do this. Milk dries very sticky and it seems to have coated the hair shafts very efficiently. I should give up trying to rub it off and just wait until I can shower.

morning

Gnarled fingers of ice down my windshield, my teeth brushed, the crossing-guard bundled but for eyes and nose, my stomach growling and chill seeping under the edges of my hat into wet hair.

movin' on in the new year

Fact: No one has proved definitively that microwaves (of the sort used to cook food) cause cancer.
Fact: No one has proved definitively that microwaves do NOT cause cancer.
Fact: I have not squirted out a miniMarmot, but plan to someday.
Fact: The microwave at work could fry a whole chicken to a crisp in under five minutes. (Opinion: I suspect it is a special experimental nuclear-powered microwave. It was left here by a former employee surname: Hamburger. Coincidence?!)

So, when at home, when I turn on the microwave, just to be on the safe side with my ovaries, I stand about four feet AWAY from the microwave BECAUSE you get DRASTICALLY less microwaves through the flesh of your bodkin at that distance than you do standing RIGHT IN FRONT of the microwave. Which I would feel compelled to do otherwise, like the thing is a fucking TV or something and watching food gyrate is my favorite show. I hope I'm not the only one. Now, when at work, I stand EIGHT feet away because those microwaves have to be at least twice as powerful. But this actually doesn't save much time, because after thirty seconds, the outer 1.5 inches of my miniquiche are piping hot, while the center portion is ice cold. So I have to eat a ring around the quiche, then return to the microwave.

Here's the part where you are confirmed in your probably fairly solid notion that I am a self-absorbed neurotic. I put my food in the microwave, and stride eight feet away while it's whirring. No one I work with has ever inquired why I loiter 8 feet away while my food is cooking. I am always hopeful that someone will ask, so I can explain the above about my ovaries and microwaves, and the non-conclusive studies. It finally bubbled up to my conscious brain today that this is freakish. So, in attempt to get it out of my symptom and quit striding hopefully, dramatically from my microwave trying to make eye contact with coworkers, I have belabored the point with you, dear reader. Now, let's all move on.

My new year's resolutions:
Meditate for at least five minutes each day.
Post to this blog every workday.