Packing Up Again

These are the little guys I got us when my boyfriend moved overseas. We always bring them with us when traveling.  There will be a whole post of their adventures at some point. This is them posing in The Gentleman's living room window. He has a terrible view. 

What a crazy year.

I have to segue from my posts about Mexico to say that I'm currently in the middle of my about-to-travel routine. I'm headed back out to the Middle East on Thursday, which means that for the fifth time in less than a year I'm leaving the country. At this point, I don't even put my suitcase away anymore - it now has a home on the floor of my room. My passport remains in my carry-on, along with eye drops, ear plugs, and an eye mask. I'm thinking ahead eight time zones and remembering to call my credit cards to tell them I'll be overseas and making sure that my cats are taken care of. (My roommate is awesome and not only feeds and waters the cats while I'm gone, she loves on them with brushings, treats, and trips to sit outside on the balcony. I think they are starting to like her better than me.)

I was talking to one of my besties, Stupid, this morning, and she mentioned that while, at first, The Gentleman's announcement that he was being sent overseas for work was a pretty difficult pill to swallow, it's turned into a year of incredible travel opportunity. And she's right. While I would much rather have The Gentleman by  my side (because he's handsome and funny and cooks really good pad thai), our joint love of travel and adventure has propelled us into some pretty awesome experiences. Our separation is temporary, and while being in an Xtreme Long Distance Relationship has been the hardest thing I have ever. Done. Hands. Down, it's also been the best. 

Travel is one of my most favorite things, and I have had opportunities to do things that I probably never would have had if it weren't for our circumstances. What we are doing is incredibly difficult and a lot of hard work, but we are young and we both have decent amounts of PTO from our jobs and the means to travel, and so he gave me the best parting gift he possibly could by saying "Where do you want to go next?"

I am extraordinarily lucky to have had these experiences, and luckier still to have them with my most favorite person. And so, yes, I prepare for another 15-hour flight and Xtreme Jet Lag (I am SO BAD at jet lag...I mean, no one is particularly GOOD at it, but I am REALLY REALLY TERRIBLE no matter how often I experience it), but I'm also preparing for more adventures with someone I love a whole lot. 

I'm hoping to post the remainder of my Mexico photos before I leave, but seeing as how I am up to my eyeballs in laundry and still have two full work days before my 10pm flight, it may just have to wait until I get back. And there will be more adventures to tell then, too.

Onward!

Weekly Goals

So I have another blog post almost ready to go that features disgusting bodily processes and also a toot of my own half-marathon horn (WHADDUP, TAKING SIX MINUTES OFF MY PREVIOUS TIME BRINGING MY PR TO UNDER TWO HOURS?!) but first, it seems that one of my brilliant ideas is about to go viral so I'd like to take some credit where credit is due.

A couple of years ago, a group of us (including Legs and Joel) started a weekly email circulating. It usually went out on Mondays, and contained our goal for that week. It started out because some of us (mainly me) had found ourselves (myself) in a bit of a funk and needed to find ways to make life just a little bit better. And sometimes, just doing one small thing, getting one tiny victory, can change your outlook on a whole lot of bigger things that you feel like you can't control.

The idea was simple: pick something, anything, that's totally do-able, and DO IT. You're telling everyone on the email list that you intend to do this thing in this given period of time. There are no consequences for failing to make your weekly goal, except the sheepishness of having to tell x number of people on the thread that you suck at life. Which is pretty good motivation right there.

The goals ranged from "make my bed every morning" to "eating vegetarian all week." They were intangible ("be optimistic") and tangible ("work out for 45 minutes per day"); simple ("tell one person each day that I love him/her") and complex ("clean out my closet: donate clothes I no longer wear, reorganize my shoes, put away winter clothes, etc.").

Lemme tell you, even an accomplishment as small as just making your bed everyday can feel like a victory when you get to report, a week later, that you did it.

Recently, a friend of mine has been in a bit of a funk and so we decided to resurrect this practice. We are back on the weekly goals email and it's actually kind of exciting. Even though most of us are in far better places in our lives, I've found there's always room to say, "What can I do this week that will make my life look/feel/act better?"

For example: this week it was going to the post office. I frigging hate the post office. Joel has a joke, his "one Libertarian joke," as he refers to it:
Guy goes to the store the week before Christmas to buy his mother a gift. The store is mobbed, the lines are long. He finds a gift, waits in line, finally gets to the register, and says to the sales associate, "Wow, you guys are busy!" The sales associate says, "I know, it's been our best week ever!" Guy then goes to the post office to mail the gift.The post office is mobbed, the lines are long. He waits in line, finally gets to the front, and says to the postal worker, "Wow, you guys are busy!" The postal worker grumbles, "I know, worst week ever."

Ha.Thanks, Joel.

So I went to the post office to mail off some stuff that had been sitting around my room, just waiting to be mailed, and let me tell you what a relief it was. Just this one act - this one chore crossed off my list made me feel like I could take on the world. Vacuum my room? DONE! Dust my shoe rack? FINITO. The completion of one annoying, nagging chore can open gateways to cleaning up other areas of your life.

Or it can be a goal like: drink more water. Don't even get me started on health benefits of being well-hydrated, whether you're a runner or not.

I know, aren't I just a bastion of fun these days, all well-hydrated and going to the post office. Fear not, Glitteratis; April and May are already booked to the hilt with batshit crazy fun, including a baby shower, a Broadway play, two weddings, some family events, and (LET US NOT FORGET) my impending #dirtythirty birthday.

But anyway, I just wanted to take full credit for my awesome Weekly Email Update idea before Kid and Lee went off running and making money off of my brilliance.

Next post will be about how I puked again after last weekend's (otherwise totally awesome) half marathon. I know you're excited.

Post-Crisis, Pre-Thirty

Dear Blogging Community Who Patiently Deals With My Oft-Sporadic Posts,

I'm giving you a fair warning.

December is going to be batsh*t crazy.

I looked at my calendar for the month of December, and there are TWO (yes, TWO) days where I have absolutely nothing planned.

And I already turned down a housewarming, a Christmas party, a baby shower, and plans with my own mother because I was starting to feel crazed.

I'm grateful for the busy-ness, of course, and most everything planned is fun. Some is not so much "not fun" as it is sort of "chore-like;" but awesome chores like, "Get international driver's license." That's a pretty sweet chore to have on your list, don'tcha think?

Last night, I had the opportunity to watch the "Monumental Occasion" 40th lighting of the Washington Monument in Mt. Vernon from the newly-erected roof balcony of the building where Donna's used to be before the terrible fire last year. A friend of mine from high school (who is basically awesome) scored invites for herself, The Gentleman, and me. Open bar, catering by Donna's, heaters keeping us all warm, and the best view of the monument in town. Not only that, it was fascinating to be inside the building where they are now renovating so Donna's can reopen post-fire. It's such an old, beautiful building and was thankfully saved from complete destruction. Because this friend is an architecture nerd, we got to learn a lot about the interior of the building and the plans for its future. Also awesome.

In catching up with this friend, she told me that she reads Ye Olde Blog religiously, and how the content change over the years has made her feel like there's a sense of watching transformation. That meant a lot to me.

Three years ago, I was lamenting boy drama and crying about my future onto this blog. Which made it highly readable (and now, highly embarrassing...kind of like having your high school diary published in the yearbook). Now, the high highs and low lows of life seem to have evened out a bit more into a general sense of happiness about life, my blogging gets kind of sporadic.

I once had a guy I dated ask me if I was ever happy (I guess he meant content), would I stop finding things to write about? I guess I like to think that in my happiness, it's not so much that I don't have anything to write about, it's just that I have different things to write about. It's not about failed relationships, career mishaps, and the rocky life of a twentysomething feeling like the victim all the time.

What is this about? Well, I'm still the same emotional, highly neurotic person I always was, my life is just ten times better now. I still cry senselessly in public, embarrassing The Gentleman, and I certainly still do stupid things, like getting a hot stone massage while hungover and sunburned in Vegas.

If there's one thing I could say to the earlier me, to the me that was in years past, it would be this: you will become exactly the person you want to be, for better or worse. You'll make decisions you never thought you'd make, you'll wind up living a life you thought you couldn't have here or now or in the here and now, and above all- you will reclaim that unquenchable thirst for life that drives you to rebuild houses in post-Katrina New Orleans and snorkel with sharks in the Keys. And run a half marathon. And sign up for another.

It's not really a blog about the quarter life crisis anymore (especially because I'm six months away from 30, so damn well better not be!), or about awkward dates and failed jobs, and started and stalled careers. There's nothing to say it won't revert back to any of these things at any time, because - let's face it - the economy means no one's job is safe and I still stare quizzically at The Gentleman trying to figure out where along the line I got so lucky as to land this guy. But it's more than that now. Somewhere in there, when the drama of things that seemed so huge at the time began to fade away and I made decisions that made me feel confident, my real life began. The one I thought I was meant to be living a long time ago. The one it took many twisted paths to find. I think that feeling is universal to anyone who's tripped and stumbled and somehow regained footing. I certainly don't feel like my experience was unique in any way. I'm just the one who wrote about it publicly.

And now my days are filled with running, with working my ass off at a non-profit where I hungrily devour new projects that require me to do things like learn web design and write grants, eating and drinking my way around Baltimore, watching American Horror Story (amazeballs!), planning our trip to Amman and Istanbul, laughing with Book Club and good friends, and spending time with the best guy I have ever been lucky enough to meet.

So yeah, a lot of things have changed. Damn well for the better.

And now, onto December. READYSETGO!

Well Hello There, 2011!

"2010 was a...'Rebuilding Year'," Jaunt said to me last night. It came out with a mix of affection and exhaustion with a slight pause to emphasize that, for all of us it seems, 2010 was a bit of a tornado that picked us up and dropped us off in some entirely different location then where we started the year. Some of us a little more scathed then others, but mostly in one piece.

To call it a "Rebuilding Year" is entirely accurate and, because it's Jaunt, it's also a quite intelligible and poetic way of referring to said tornado. I've felt more change in the air- with friends, family, and the world at large. Change is riddled with difficulty, excitement, and a certain degree of learning when to dig your heels in and when to simply let go and allow the winds to whip you as they will.

In 2010, I went to New Orleans and helped rebuild a little corner of it. I started running and completed 4 5ks and the marathon relay. I started a new job with a nonprofit whose work makes me proud and is fulfilling to me in a way I didn't know a career could be. I got simultaneously angry at the state of affairs in this city that's become my home and elated that there is change happening on so many levels to address things. I went back to one of my favorite past times- kayaking, and explored waterways in Annapolis, the Eastern Shore, and Gun Powder. I reconnected with some old friends, made some new ones, and had more fun with my big band of merry girlfriends then really should be legal.

And I watched change in my friends too. I watched broken hearts and new beginnings, big moves, engagements, break-ups, marriages, pregnancies, new jobs, sicknesses and healths. I've started paying more attention to these things, realizing that our problems are shifting as we are all getting older. The things that are most important to you begin to change over time, and the things that bothered us in the past begin to fall away a little easier with these shifts in priorities.

And 2011? Well, if 2010 was the "Rebuilding Year," then perhaps 2011 is the year to experiment with our new selves. Test the steadiness of the foundation, feel the strength of new roots. Shift the focus away from the skeletons we've been building and start to flesh out the aesthetics a little more. Begin to move around and enjoy the fruits of our labors. Face new issues, build stronger safety measures, and perhaps use some of our newfound architecture as a launch pad.

I don't really have any grandiose resolutions- aside from the fact that I intend to train for and run the half-marathon in October- but I do promise to go a little easier on myself. After so many years of breaking and bending and testing, I want to live 2011 a little more comfortably in my own skin. Don't we all?

Cheers, 2011.

From The Archives

Lovely, lovely birthday. Bike ride in the morning, beach during the day, beautiful weather, good food and drinks, lots of kind wishes and love, flowers delivered.
I went for the run in the evening last night before showering off the beach and found myself going past the house I rented with a bunch of friends for Beach Week ten years ago after graduating high school. I spent my eighteenth and now twenty eighth birthday here, at the beach, and I see this decade as parenthetical.
It was ten years' of experimentation, travel, good and bad choices, adventure, learning, growth, and a host of experiences that have left me with great anecdotes and what I see to be a very well-rounded outlook of the world. I fell in and out of infatuations, had my heart broken, did some very stupid and very cool things, lived all over, met great people, had ten thousand jobs.
And now I see myself closing that chapter and beginning to take the greater values and desires - the heavier elements that stick when everything else falls away - and beginning this next decade which I feel will set the course for the rest of my life.
-May, 2010

The "Thursday Night" Of Your Life

"The path to enlightenment is not a path at all- it's actually a metaphor for the time it takes for you to allow yourself to be happy with who you already are, where you're already at, and what you already have-no matter what."

I was on my undergraduate campus this past weekend, in town to see a play in the theater where I spent four years of my life rehearsing, building sets, sewing costumes, arguing, auditioning, defending, creating, acting, stretching, feeling, and engaging in one epic game of hide-and-go-seek. I walked past the dorms where I'd lived, the buildings where I'd attended classes each day, the Commons where I'd eaten all of my meals. This place, now populated by strangers and changing all the time, was home to me at one point.

Mostly what I felt, underneath all of the nostalgia and remembrance, was a pretty solid happiness that I am not twenty years old anymore.

We all did a lot of growing up in college, and some of us faced further growing up outside of it. Some of us are still in the thick of it. Some are never out of it. The things that I know now...well, there's no use postulating how anything could have been different were you to have been gifted with knowledge and foresight at the time. It was fun, awkward, hilarious, and often painful. It was everything it needed to be.

Standing in a place where one has stood countless times before and coming to it with fresh perspective and advanced knowledge always brings about the hovering question of what sorts of wisdom and understanding you'll someday bring to the table if you should chance to visit the places you frequent now. Imagining myself as a college freshman, ten years ago, and then imagining viewing my life as it currently is, ten years from now, does offer some pretty stultifying perspective in terms of what's important and what isn't.

And mostly what I wish I could have leaned over and whispered to myself all those years was this: It. Gets. Better. In every way. The challenges are new, the pain is deeper, the losses bigger, but monumentally life just gets better as it goes on. Especially when you're comparing the late teens/early twenties to the onset of thirty. My God. How I would never want to be 19 again. Honestly.

Which made me think, randomly, in this fashion: what is the best night of the week?

Normally, everyone says "Friday" or "Saturday." Some really energetic person might throw a "Sunday" out there, just to throw everyone off the game.

But the answer, at least in my mind, is Thursday. All of the really good stuff, Friday night, the weekend, an end in sight, etc. is still yet to come. There's still work ahead of you, for sure. But it's work you don't mind doing - this Friday work - because the end is so close you can taste it. Thursday nights have all of the relaxation of a weekend night, but on more dialed-down terms. It has anticipation. It's when you know the best is still yet to come, and you've come so far already.

Which got me thinking...I'm in the Thursday night of my life.

(This is all a truly meandering train of thought, I know, but this is where my mind goes when I'm doing things like writing all the time and running. Your brain just starts clicking in weird ways. Bear with it. Or...enjoy it. Who knows? I like to think it's some logical stretch but sometimes I say these things out loud and once they hit air, I find myself being gaped at with blank stares. Perhaps some things should just reside in my head.)

But, really. Thursday night. Work still yet to be done, but really good stuff ahead. Starting to put all of these lessons learned and experience gained into some kind of real-world context. I see my friends going through this, when all of the bullshit of their first terrible jobs, and their many terrible failed romantic encounters, and the cheap shoes and bad dates and sketchy decisions; all of that just sorts to fall away, and what takes its place is the fulfilling career, the hard work that feels more fruitful in the doing, the real relationships, the more solid decisions.

This is not, in any way, to say that mistakes don't still happen or things don't still fall apart. It's not to say that life becomes perfect after a certain age. I just see how the anxieties and uncertainties and things that fall through tend to fade away in time. And what takes its place is a calmer, more genuinely stable outlook and feeling. Confidence, perhaps, might be a way of looking at it. A belief that things will turn out the way that they should, eventually, and a faith and trust that everything that is happening is unfolding just as it should. A genuine belief that answers reveal themselves in time. Not a constant, panicked worry that because things aren't working out according to plan, total devastation is the only terrain left.

I guess that's the sweetest part of the whole deal. You get older and start to understand that what feels like complete and utter failure at the time, in retrospect turns out to be some bullet dodged or lesson learned that came in sweet handy at another juncture. You start to see how what feels like a missed opportunity maybe wasn't the best option, that wrong turns sometimes lead to the opening of very right doors, and that all of the twisting and turning was configuring you into something better and more satisfying. Perhaps that's an idealistic, optimistic way of looking at things. And, to be fair, there are some things that have happened in my life purely, I believe, to be fodder for some memoir later on down the road when I have twenty five years of distance from it. But, for the most part, I've seen more and more that things almost universally turn out the way they are supposed to, no matter how wrong or right it's felt at the time.

Maybe Thursday night is the anticipation that, regardless of what happens, this is the magic moment when you believe the best. When the experiences are still phantoms and hopeful ghosts and not yet concrete things that could be weighted with disappointment. There is no disappointment in anticipation.

Mostly, it's just a general appreciation for all that's happened and an excited anticipation of all that is yet to be. That's the Thursday night. That's the "Thursday Night" of your life.

Or maybe I just need to start keeping my thoughts confined to notebooks that don't see the light of day. It is possible I am simply becoming eccentric and slightly insane in my old age.

Zen Dentistry

I'm pretty sure I am the only person in the world who finds the dentist's chair a calming, Zen place to be.

I attribute this fact to my refined Welsh genes which gave me a slender nose, skin that freckles charmingly in the sun, and a mouthful of peasant horse teeth. My parents, to whom I am eternally grateful, nipped what could have been a snarling orthodontic nightmare early on. In my bank of very early memories, none of them exist without some form of orthodontia. Arch expanders, rubber bands, retainers, extractions, adjustments, cranks, braces, and all manner of plastic and metal hardware existed in my mouth at one point or another for the sole purpose of completely rearranging what nature intended to be overcrowded and chockablock. Eventually, the 18-point pile-up that might have occurred in the frontal region of my jaw was straightened and refined into the fetching smile I sport today. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for putting the orthodontist's kids through college!

But a secondary result of all of this tugging and straightening is that I feel quite at home parked back in a dentist's chair with people poking around in my mouth. I was pulled out of school on a monthly-and sometimes weekly, depending on the status of the hardware- basis for afternoon appointments that involved smocked technicians scratching and rummaging around in my face.

I had a dentist's appointment this week; the first in a long, long time. (Part of the deal of returning to the 9-5 workforce is what I now recognize as the luxury of health insurance that includes dental.) I mean, a LONG time. An amount of time that might make a dentist, say, suck in a mouthful of air in a dual reaction: "OhmyGodDISGUSTING" and "Ca-CHING; JACKPOT!"

Also because there had been a serious stretch of time since anyone had stuck pointy metal objects between my teeth, I think the dentist was under the impression that I had some sort of raging phobia about general dentistry and went quite out of his way to insure my comfort.

"Now, we're just going to do X-rays right now. JUST X-RAYS! This won't hurt AT ALL!" he assured me. I somehow made it through the horrifying and life-threatening procedure of photographing my teeth and was rewarded with a toothbrush. A PURPLE toothbrush! Because I am a brave little soldier.

I almost wonder if he was slightly disappointed that I was cavity-free. A perusal of my X-rays revealed a mouthful of strong, sturdy European choppers with five-foot long roots. (Which only furthered my somewhat pervasive fear that my teeth are, in fact, abnormally large and horsey.) No cavities! Good for you! You've been brushing your teeth sometimes! And maybe flossing on that one night a week you force yourself to go to bed at 10pm so you can get something close to 8 hours of sleep! Hooray, aces!

"I'm going to clean your teeth now," he said. Good. It was early in the AM and I had only had time for half a cup of coffee, so this meant I could settle back in the chair, open my mouth, close my eyes, and embark on a nice little snooze. No more questions to answer about my previous dental history. Have at it, good doctor, and wake me when you're done.

Except he seemed to be under the misapprehension that I was bordering on a giant freak-out.

"I'm just going to use the Water Pik," he explained. "This is NOT A DRILL! I promise!"

Ok, fine, use a fire hose for all I care. I'm closing my eyes now, mmmmkay? Night niiiiiiigghhht.........

"This won't hurt AT ALL," he went on. "It will make a sort of loud noise, but it's NOT GOING TO HURT!"

OK. I HEARD YOU. GO FOR IT.

"Are you ok?" he asked.

"Yep, just fine."

"You sure? This won't hurt," he said, again. At this point, I was starting to wonder if, perhaps, whatever he was planning to do was, in fact, going to hurt and this was his disclaimer ahead of time. Or something to convince me, mentally, that it WASN'T hurting, I only THOUGHT it was hurting. It couldn't possibly hurt because he told me so many times that it wouldn't! I was starting to doubt this, a tiny bit.

"I'm going to get started here in a second," he said. Awesome. Settle back. Eyes closey. Hands foldy. Sleepy sleepy time. I figured I could get in a good twenty minutes while he was scraping a few years' worth of artsy-I'm-only-waiting-tables-and-freelancing-until-my-book-deal-comes-through crud off of my newly-insured teeth before I had to get up and go to work.

It didn't hurt. At all. I was just dozing off when he stopped. "You still doing ok?"

Yes. I'm fine. My eyes are closed because I am sleeping. Not because I am trying to shut you-and, by proxy, this nightmarish situation in which you are squirting water onto my delicate, sensitive teeth- out of my mind. I am actually trying to doze off. Don't worry- I sleep with my mouth open all the time; this is no problem for me. Unattractive, perhaps, but utterly convenient for you.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............

"Where did you say you went to school?"

I didn't. Say anything. Because I am TRYING TO TAKE A NAP! Now. Sleepy time.....

"All done!"

Wait, what? I barely closed my eyes!

"Now, that wasn't too bad, was it?"

Yes! Yes it was! I don't even think I actually fell asleep, I just got my eyes barely closed and you woke me up and now I'm awake again! I DID NOT GET A NAP. WHAT IS THE POINT OF THE DENTIST IF I AM NOT LEAVING WELL-RESTED?

"That's a difference now, huh?!"

Huh? What? I am cranky! You woke me from my nap! Actually, you did not wake me because I did not actually fall anything close to asleep, I barely even shut my---oh. Oh. OOoooooooohhhhhhhh.

My teeth are so..........slick. And my mouth is so.......minty fresh. It's actually quite...well, it's quite refreshing!

I left the dentist, swiping my tongue across my newly sparkling choppers, feeling the squeaky clean of a plaque-free mouth. And, to make up for my lack of nap, I rewarded myself with a triple shot skim latte.

So my mouth was clean for approximately seven minutes before I had coffee breath again.

Oh, well. Maybe if I'd gotten a nap....

This Is Ourselves Under Pressure

My alarm went off at 6:10 yesterday morning. As usual, I hauled myself out of bed, feeling approximately one million years old, with legs and back aching. Dark out. Of course. Chillier now, in the mornings. A jacket was needed, and I could see my breath. When I first started this, there were mornings when I would be sweating before I even got out of bed. Somewhere in there, there's been a transition of three seasons: spring to summer to fall. In another handful of weeks, it will be straight-up cold in the mornings but this day marks the last official day of Training.

For the past 10 weeks, since nearly the beginning of August, it's been six days a week of training for the marathon relay this Saturday.Six days a week, some in the early mornings and some in the evenings when I limp through the door from work. Running before or after work doesn't seem to make any particular difference in terms of energy levels: forty minutes of alternating jogs and sprints is exhausting regardless of whether it's at 6:30am or 7:30pm.

I originally signed up for the marathon relay back in June, when running was still a fairly new activity to me.

Let me make one thing clear: I'm no runner. I ran indoor track for one season in high school, but mostly I found the whole ordeal so boring I eventually quit for the more interesting pursuits of theater and for sports that involved a little more action and ball-hitting, like tennis. I'm a very active person, but I also get routinely bored and so tend to change it up between running, elliptical, yoga, and Pilates.

The running thing just kind of happened. One day last spring, my muscles were itching to do something and the gym was closed. I so rarely have the urge to run, and even more rarely do I want to run outside. I was always a treadmill kind of girl, preferring to watch syndicated episodes of Friends while listening to Thievery Corporation. But this particular day, the gym was closed and I was in serious need of a sweat session. I laced up my crappy New Balances, strapped the iPod to my arm, and went for a run.

It was fairly short at first, just a couple of miles through the Inner Harbor, maybe. A mere jog pace. But it felt so good that, the next day, I found myself reaching for the running shoes again.

It became an addiction. Two miles turned into three, then four, then timing became more of an issue. Everyday, until my quads hurt so badly I had to take a day off. All that day, I felt itchy. I couldn't sit still. I had a trainer teach me better stretches. My parents bought me new shoes for my birthday, and I traded in my badly-worn trainers for shiny new shoes that actually fit. My miles pared down from 11 minutes to 10 to 9 to an epic 8. I signed up for the Baltimore Womens Classic.

Running a 5k would have been, in the past, a horrifying prospect. Challenging yourself to physical feats in the privacy of your own mind is one thing. But putting money down, getting a timing chip and a bib, and performing this in a venue with a thousand other women is an entirely new arena. As I said before, I'm not a runner. Or, at least, I wasn't until I crossed the finish line in 26 minutes and 33 seconds- a very decent time for my first 5k.

My second 5k I shaved nearly two minutes off of my time. And it was on a hill course in the pouring rain. I was hooked.

Signing up for the marathon relay was a definitive turning point in my life. Not only did it mean that I would have to commit to my new hobby for a distinctive period of time (commitment being a difficult agenda for any Gemini, this one in particular) I have a nasty habit of jumping on board with some activity/passion/hobby/

project, getting my life all up into it, and then slowly becoming bored or less disciplined or otherwise drifting away. It's not something I'm proud of and, in fact, Jackal and I adopted as our New Year's Resolution for 2010 the mantra: Finish what you start.

I knew it would be hard, I knew I would get discouraged, but I also knew that if I signed on the dotted line and made a promise to a team that I would be there- fit and ready for action- that I would follow through. Because, apparently, I can't keep the promises I make to myself (I WILL finish all of those projects I started...someday), but I'll go through hell and high water and a whole lot of other crap to keep promises I make to other people. One of my biggest pet peeves is flaky individuals, and I often damn near kill myself attempting to never come off as such.

And, the thing is, this year has been a whole lot of "put your money where your mouth is" in terms of following through on what I say I'm going to do. Running the marathon relay- and doing it in a decent time- is a huge point of pride for me. After having spent a couple of years floundering around, not really sure what I wanted to do, I'm pretty damn proud of saying that in 2010 I went to New Orleans and helped build some houses; found my passion in life and subsequently found an awesome job that routinely allows me to engage in all the things that make me happy; ran four 5k races and will run a 6-mile marathon relay with an awesome team. It's been a busy year.

So, along with about several thousand other people including many of my friends who have also risen to the challenge, I'll be running through the streets of Baltimore on Saturday morning. Even if I come in over my projected goal time, if I finish then I will finally have seen something through to the end. And knowing I can do this, knowing that the power to take responsibility and discipline into my own hands, is endlessly empowering.

Now, about that novel I'm gonna write....maybe if someone makes me sign up for a deadline....

Get Over Yourself.

(This is not an octopus.)

It pains me to admit it, but I've been wrong about some stuff lately.

For one thing, octopus have three hearts. Two hearts exist for the pumping of blood through each set of gills, and the third is for the rest of the octopus body. They work in concert with one another to get blood pumping through what is actually a fairly complex, and frighteningly intelligent animal. That appears to be a sack of Jell-O with snake arms.

I was convinced that the octopus is the only animal in the kingdom with triple hearts.

Convinced.

As it turns out.......I was wrong.

It was a crushing defeat; one I handled with neither grace nor dignity. I stomped my foot. I pounded my fist. I downed another beer. I stated my point, over and over again.

I'm pretty sure Apple should market a series of commercials about the fact that, in the digital age, most people are less than 15 seconds away from proving you wrong. A few buttons pushed (most of them mine,) a link up to some distant satellite, and BOOM--I'm wrong. Dead wrong.

Octopii do have 3 hearts. So do squid, cuttlefish, and nautiluses. All of which are counted as separate- but equally triple hearted- creatures.

I was wrong.

Swallowing your pride is not something that has ever come easily to me. Admitting wrong and accepting blame are so incredibly hard. It took me years upon years upon years just to say that maybe, perhaps, quite possibly, I am not a victim. Maybe sometimes I make decisions that are....less than wise.

The fact is that I usually assume that most decisions I make are stupid and fraught with failure. I am my harshest critic, as I'm sure most people are for themselves. I just don't always publicly admit this. I'll sling a whole lot of blame around before I'll realize that pointing a finger means at least three are pointed back at you. I had a high school teacher fond of that expression. I found that it also applies to more rude hand gestures as well.

The thing is- sometimes you have to take a huge step back when a situation is feeling fraught and you're feeling cornered. You have to take a step back, breathe, and before you begin listing faults and blame-gaming all over the place, you should probably first stake out what the caliber of ground is you're standing on. Because, 9 times out of 10, there's a good chance that ground is shifting depending on who's defining it.

That's not to say that I'm wrong all of the time. It's just that I somehow developed some sort of indefatigable self-righteousness somewhere along the line, believing I had it all figured out and that I had somehow risen to some enlightenment that perhaps other people hadn't quite reached yet. And the universe has a way of knocking you down a few pegs when this happens.

I think one of the hardest lessons to "embrace with grace" is how to accept responsibility, to figure out what you did wrong, and how, and why, and then figure out how to salvage the pieces and move on from there. It's not a pretty process. In fact, it can be downright humiliating, upsetting, and earth shattering.

But it's important. Because when you find yourself making the same mistakes again and again, sooner or later you have to come to terms with the idea that perhaps you should change up your game plan a little bit.

I was wrong about the octopus. Thankfully I hadn't staked any money on that one. But there are certain things in my life that I do put a lot of stake in, and I don't want to come up short. Stepping back, admitting blame, and uttering a well-timed mea culpa is possibly the only antidote to ultimate failure.

So...you know. I'm sorry. For the whole octopus thing. I was wrong. I should have fact-checked before I went spewing my inconclusive knowledge of the phyla Cephalopod. Only I don't think Cephalopods are a phyla. They're a class. And the difference between a class and a phyla is....I have no freaking clue. I was a dual Mass Comm/Theater major who squeaked through Bio 101.

Not that I'm making excuses.

Take Initiative

#6 on the Happiness Project: Take Initiative at work.

How does this translate?

MERCURY RETROGRADE has me in a state of unease. I am disorganized, feeling sleepy and slightly panicked, and seriously self-doubting. Why do these things always go altogether like some jambling, horrible, off-key sonata? I constantly feel as though I am a step behind, or too far ahead, or somehow lacking crucial details. This is typical Mercury Retrograde, but also typical of what happens whenever I neglect to allot enough time for what I've come to term "White Space."

White Space is clean, clear, and under control. White Space is "I don't have to be anywhere at this moment but where I am." White Space is "STFU, turn the phone off, and no, I am not answering that email RIGHTTHISSECOND." White Space is an active passiveness, a stepping away.

I find excellent White Space in monotonous activities. Cooking, showering, on the treadmill at the gym. When my body is occupied and my mind is mine, all mine. But you can find White Space in a variety of environments and tasks.

Not driving. White Space requires a sense of relaxation, of not-constant vigilence. Maybe a long drive. Sunset in autumn, wide road, destination far off, no traffic, music blaring. That could be White Space.

White Space is undemanding, and requires nothing of you but the untangling of thought processes and the general resetting of one's state of being. Interruptions, false starts, or impatient stimuli disturb this.

So...how does this translate to taking initiative at work and happiness? Well, I define "work" as not simply what you do during business hours or how you make money, but any sort of project that you engage in that requires brain or brawn power. It could be errands, chores, To Do's, any of those things. Taking initiative and actively grabbing responsibility causes wheels to turn and things to get done.

All in the hope of creating more White Space for oneself.

White Space requires a silencing of all other demands, and most of the time the only way these demands in our lives can be silenced is if they are addressed. To pursue White Space means to clear up the clutter of your life, to tie up the loose ends and dot "i's" and cross "t's" and confirm, confirm, confirm. That way, nothing can creep in to White Space. Taking initiative to clear your own plate of responsibility not only makes you feel able and proactive, it also gives you a sense of completion and productivity that will come in handy when you're ready to wipe the slate clean and decompress.

It's sort of like lying on the couch. Lying on the couch, reading chick lit. How relaxing! But wait....did you remember to take out the trash? If it doesn't go out right now, you'll forget. And if you forget, the bins will be overflowing next week and you'll receive one of those ridiculously passive aggressive "friendly reminders" from your Neighborhood Association representative who--of course--has been keeping tabs on the state of your garbage disposal. And taking out the trash requires- crap- that you purchase new trash bags. Which means you have to put gas in your car.

Lying on the couch reading a chick lit book has suddenly become a Thursday evening nightmare of chores and To Do lists.

Taking initiative means keeping all of the little tick tocks of your life up-to-date, in working order, and at least halfway full with a note (physically written and placed strategically) to buy more. To avoid interruption of White Space. To cultivate a sense of completion and relaxation. Which leads to.....happiness. Oh the joy of chores done, clean house, phone calls made, wine glass full, new book to be read, and no where to be or anyone to answer to. Bliss!

I liken it to vacation. When I go on vacation, I want the house spotless, laundry done, bills paid, chores completed so that when I come back, I am walking into a clear space. Whilst on vacation, I'm not lying there obsessing over whether or not I remembered to buy cat litter. It's been done. I took care of it. Breathe sigh of relief. Nothing infiltrates White Space.

Take initiative. On the job, start to notice little loose ends that require tightening. Confirm, confirm, confirm.

(I cannot stress this point enough: CONFIRM!)

I wish you healthy productivity and rejuvenating White Space. Get cracking.

Unearth

Mercury retrograde unearthed archived postings on this blog.

1,214 pages, to be exact.

And that's just up until about a year ago, which was the last time I archived the blog.

Oy.

two years ago:


"Is this how this whole thing is supposed to work? This whole dating thing? Because if it is, I'm done. I'm done. This is exhausting and pointless."


Like not everything in your life can fall apart at once, right?

I wound up at a karaoke bar singing 4 Non Blondes and imbibing more sake than a Tokyo wedding.


At which point Snap and I had a discussion: sometimes it’s just not about them. Sometimes, it’s just about art. And ourselves. Mostly ourselves. But sometimes art.


But it's more than that. Ending a relationship is always fraught with difficulty, no doubt, but when someone moves out there is a certain feeling of monumental failure that is pervasive and all-encompassing.



I will say, in retrospect, that the burning down of Metropolitan opened up an entire avenue of events that would not have happened otherwise.

one year ago:

They say the way out of any life crisis; be it when you're twelve, twenty one, twenty seven, or eighty four; is a plan.

In your catalog of losses,
You cannot count yourself as one.

We were only there for one drink before it was last call, and at this point everyone was ready to head home. As we were walking out, I felt a pair of strong arms stop me and pull me back, and I found myself face-to-face with a very unconvincing drag queen."You are so pretty," s/he whispered. "I love your earrings. Wherever did you get them?"

The fact that Jaunt once let "somebody" (i.e. a charismatic male) call her "Jill" for three years is unastonishing.

"You look tired." (Which translates to: you look like a big bag of crap.)

Let me interject here by saying this: I am the most highly-functioning depressed person in the world.

I very strongly believe that when you are open and ready for change in your life, opportunities and ideas present themselves to you in ways you may not have anticipated.

Today:

I simply want to enjoy this happy, busy, interesting life for awhile.