For some reason or other, dinner and iPod sharing and plenty of wine with Eric this evening leaves me thinking a number of things, foremost among them this: I miss the Boy more than I can say.
That statement goes against every bone, muscle, and cell in my body that tries to be strong, reasonable, and logical. No doubt I'll want to delete this post tomorrow when the muscat has worn off and the rational part of my brain has once again taken the reins. But for now, when my defenses are utterly down (to the point of being almost nonexistent), I can admit to being human, can say that I battle with these feelings of sighing emptiness, can admit that listening to "If Everything Fell Quiet" on the aforementioned iPod while standing in the middle of my kitchen last night made me sink into tears, so much did the song remind me of him (since it came from him in the first place), of us, of things at a better point.
But when will I learn? When will I understand the upshot of loss, what it's like to have your heart pulled out of your chest, julienned, and unceremoniously stuffed back in, so that it doesn't fit quite right, so that it strains against its boundaries, so that it aches for the parameters it once knew? When will my slow mind--and even slower heart--twig to the fact that us/we/nous is no more, however strong my flare-ups of longing and wishing might be?
For now, sadly, it's still often beyond me. I open my hands for things I can't grab, open my heart for things I can't truthfully feel, reach for a full comprehension I'm (evidently) not yet meant to have.
And all the while, I make the most heart-rending calculations: what I wouldn't give for some contact, though I don't know that it would do me any good. What I wouldn't give to cast back six months, back to when my worlds (both internal and external) seemed like different places altogether.
4.02.2005
3.30.2005
GWB Two Ways
Alexandra Pelosi's Journeys with George is a smart, funny, interesting look at the 2000 Bush campaign as seen from within GWB's traveling press pool, of which Pelosi was a part (as a correspondent for NBC). I know this has been said before, but one of the most brilliant and unnerving things about Pelosi's film, which she bills as a home movie of sorts, is that it makes Bush look charming, reasonable, and entirely human.
So it's jarring to consider Journeys with George side by side with Eyes Wide Open, the American Friends Service Committee's traveling exhibit of 1500 pairs of combat boots, a field of civilian shoes, and a wall of rememberance, all devoted to memorializing and raising awareness of the deaths resulting from the Iraq war.
The exhibit was in San Francisco last weekend, on the grounds between City Hall and the library (with the boots representing servicepeople from California who have been killed in Iraq lining the steps of City Hall itself), and it was both breathtaking and heartbreaking to behold. Granted, staging the exhibit in SF is pretty much preaching to the choir, but even here in Liberalville, USA, it managed to (sorry to poach the expression, but...) open some eyes.
It's one thing to read the death toll every day in the paper, or to hear NPR's endless dispatches from Iraq, but it's something else entirely to see 1500 pairs of empty boots (each with a name attached, and many stuffed with flowers, flags, photos, and letters from the deceased) and row after row of civilian shoes. The numbers become real, and the utter waste of this quagmire becomes even starker.
Asking how it is that the charming, joking, sometimes (though by no means always) even sympathetic man in front of Pelosi's lens could morph into the man who bears responsibility for the depressing parade of shoes making their way across the country isn't a rhetorical question. It's a question with a blatant and sad answer: whatever spark of humanism might have existed in the 2000 GWB was long extinguished by the time that man became 2001 GWB. Any hope the movie might've given us that the man who would become our next president was capable of compassion was long ago blown to bits.
Pelosi's film, then, becomes more than just a portrait of a man, a year, the experiences of a gaggle of reporters and photographers confined to small spaces together for months on end; it becomes a piece of history, a look at what Bush was like before power, greed, hard-heartedness, and a horrific group of advisors made him the war-mongering disaster he is today.
So it's jarring to consider Journeys with George side by side with Eyes Wide Open, the American Friends Service Committee's traveling exhibit of 1500 pairs of combat boots, a field of civilian shoes, and a wall of rememberance, all devoted to memorializing and raising awareness of the deaths resulting from the Iraq war.
The exhibit was in San Francisco last weekend, on the grounds between City Hall and the library (with the boots representing servicepeople from California who have been killed in Iraq lining the steps of City Hall itself), and it was both breathtaking and heartbreaking to behold. Granted, staging the exhibit in SF is pretty much preaching to the choir, but even here in Liberalville, USA, it managed to (sorry to poach the expression, but...) open some eyes.
It's one thing to read the death toll every day in the paper, or to hear NPR's endless dispatches from Iraq, but it's something else entirely to see 1500 pairs of empty boots (each with a name attached, and many stuffed with flowers, flags, photos, and letters from the deceased) and row after row of civilian shoes. The numbers become real, and the utter waste of this quagmire becomes even starker.
Asking how it is that the charming, joking, sometimes (though by no means always) even sympathetic man in front of Pelosi's lens could morph into the man who bears responsibility for the depressing parade of shoes making their way across the country isn't a rhetorical question. It's a question with a blatant and sad answer: whatever spark of humanism might have existed in the 2000 GWB was long extinguished by the time that man became 2001 GWB. Any hope the movie might've given us that the man who would become our next president was capable of compassion was long ago blown to bits.
Pelosi's film, then, becomes more than just a portrait of a man, a year, the experiences of a gaggle of reporters and photographers confined to small spaces together for months on end; it becomes a piece of history, a look at what Bush was like before power, greed, hard-heartedness, and a horrific group of advisors made him the war-mongering disaster he is today.
3.27.2005
Vegas, baby
I went to Las Vegas last week to present my session on creating effective error messages at the WritersUA conference. Though I really did intend to check out some of the other sessions, I wound up going only to my own, the networking lunch, and the networking mixer thingy that took place the first evening.
This left me plenty of time to explore the city, which I did, both on my own and with my friend Marcus (a Vegas native) as my guide. LV can be described in any number of ways, including "totally overwhelming," "oddly compelling," and "human civilization in microcosm."
What can you say about a city where legions of Latino immigrants line the streets to hand out colored business cards offering STRIPPERS DIRECT TO YOUR HOTEL ROOM 24 HOURS A DAY, where every other person you pass on the sidewalk is openly carrying an alcoholic drink of some kind (more often than not in a gargantuan, whimsically-shaped container, such as an Eiffel Tower full of daiquiri), where both cigarette and cigar smoking are allowed pretty much everywhere?
What can you say about the fake rainforest, the fake Manhattan, the fake Paris, the fake Venice, the fake Caribbean, the fake ancient Rome, the fake New Orleans? They're utterly disturbing and utterly quaint at the same time. (I admit that strolling through "Paris" made me really want to go back to Paris--the real one, that is.)
And what can you say about the fact that, when you go out for drinks, as we did, first to a few local bars, then to the Westin, then to whatever run-down $5-ante casino on the strip we wound up at, you can stumble back to your hotel at 2 a.m. and swear for all the world that it's not a minute past midnight, as everyone still seems to be awake and everything still seems to be going full-swing? Only, I suppose, that it's like real life suspended.
But like anything suspended, it eventually comes back down. So when I left the city on Tuesday evening feeling like I'd been drinking fiberglass juice (so raw was my throat from inhaling endless smoke) and aching for a week of recovery, I was slightly bummed to be going but, truthfully, fairly happy to return to my quiet world in which other people's cigars don't figure and the only thing I generally see at 2 a.m. is the inside of my eyelids.
I'll go back, to be sure, but not until I've had the chance to detox my liver, clean out my lungs, and remind myself of what's real.
This left me plenty of time to explore the city, which I did, both on my own and with my friend Marcus (a Vegas native) as my guide. LV can be described in any number of ways, including "totally overwhelming," "oddly compelling," and "human civilization in microcosm."
What can you say about a city where legions of Latino immigrants line the streets to hand out colored business cards offering STRIPPERS DIRECT TO YOUR HOTEL ROOM 24 HOURS A DAY, where every other person you pass on the sidewalk is openly carrying an alcoholic drink of some kind (more often than not in a gargantuan, whimsically-shaped container, such as an Eiffel Tower full of daiquiri), where both cigarette and cigar smoking are allowed pretty much everywhere?
What can you say about the fake rainforest, the fake Manhattan, the fake Paris, the fake Venice, the fake Caribbean, the fake ancient Rome, the fake New Orleans? They're utterly disturbing and utterly quaint at the same time. (I admit that strolling through "Paris" made me really want to go back to Paris--the real one, that is.)
And what can you say about the fact that, when you go out for drinks, as we did, first to a few local bars, then to the Westin, then to whatever run-down $5-ante casino on the strip we wound up at, you can stumble back to your hotel at 2 a.m. and swear for all the world that it's not a minute past midnight, as everyone still seems to be awake and everything still seems to be going full-swing? Only, I suppose, that it's like real life suspended.
But like anything suspended, it eventually comes back down. So when I left the city on Tuesday evening feeling like I'd been drinking fiberglass juice (so raw was my throat from inhaling endless smoke) and aching for a week of recovery, I was slightly bummed to be going but, truthfully, fairly happy to return to my quiet world in which other people's cigars don't figure and the only thing I generally see at 2 a.m. is the inside of my eyelids.
I'll go back, to be sure, but not until I've had the chance to detox my liver, clean out my lungs, and remind myself of what's real.
3.12.2005
3.06.2005
Trip, stumble, fall
On Thursday afternoon, while walking to the Mission to meet Dana, I took Octavia, figuring that the newly paved sidewalk on the east side of the street would offer me a quick way to scoot down to Market. What I failed to take into account were the perplexing cement lips they've added to each sidewalk as it dips down to meet the road.
For some reason, though the contractors reworking the whole Octavia thing have added non-slip wheelchair ramps to the street edge of each sidewalk--ostensibly to make it easier to cross streets and access sidewalks safely--they've also added some kind of cement apron around each of these ramps, which means that if you *are* in a wheelchair, you must first surmount these ridges of pavement if you intend to make it onto the sidewalk. It all makes no sense to me, though perhaps there's some master plan at work here that will bring all of these weirdly disparate elements together as the boulevard project progresses.
At any rate, it was while approaching one of these yellow ramps and markedly not paying attention to the ground that I found myself taking a ridiculous tumble onto said ground at Haight and Octavia. It was truly a spectacular fall, landing me face-down on the sidewalk with everything splayed that could possibly be splayed.
I pushed myself up and, after a few moments of writhing in pain and assuring the young man who rushed up and offered to call me an ambulance that I was ok, managed to get back on my feet and limp down toward Market.
The fall left my knee wildly swollen, seriously and disgustingly bruised, and nastily scraped. It also gave me a decent raspberry on the palm of my right hand, which I'd used, evidently, to try to stop myself from meeting the pavement horizontally. So when I finally made it to Dana's office, I washed my cuts and iced my knee, and figured I'd be hobbling around for a day or two.
What I didn't expect, when I woke up on Friday, was that my right shoulder would be achy and tender. I guess I must've fallen on it somehow, or pulled a muscle in my failed attempt to maintain my balance--I really can't remember. But for a while, it hurt more than my knee.
Because I'm still (in fact, am always) on the quest to soothe the emotional bruises of Novemeber (which, even now, months gone, have resisted fading from purple to blue to yellow to nothing) through metaphor, I can't help thinking this: when you get injured, you can sort of prepare for the hurt that stems from the center of the wound, whether it's a wrecked knee or a cut finger or a broken arm.
But sometimes it's the stealth pain--the pain you don't anticipate, can't quite identify the cause of, aren't really ready for--that's much worse. It seems to take advantage of the fact that your attention and healing efforts are focused elsewhere, sneaking up to knock you backwards again just when you think the end of your malady is in sight.
So I woke up with a plan for my slightly mangled knee--ice, elevation, no runs for a few days--but had really no idea of what to do with my weirdly painful shoulder, and spent the day trying to work around it.
All of which frustratingly mirrors what it's like to wake up each morning prepared to stave off the thoughts and memories and disappointments I know are waiting for me throughout the day but fully unprepared to do battle with the new ones, the buried ones, the ones that seem to have come from nowhere. And it's these that keep me achy and stiff and too often fragile, despite my best and most wishful efforts at full rehabilitation.
For some reason, though the contractors reworking the whole Octavia thing have added non-slip wheelchair ramps to the street edge of each sidewalk--ostensibly to make it easier to cross streets and access sidewalks safely--they've also added some kind of cement apron around each of these ramps, which means that if you *are* in a wheelchair, you must first surmount these ridges of pavement if you intend to make it onto the sidewalk. It all makes no sense to me, though perhaps there's some master plan at work here that will bring all of these weirdly disparate elements together as the boulevard project progresses.
At any rate, it was while approaching one of these yellow ramps and markedly not paying attention to the ground that I found myself taking a ridiculous tumble onto said ground at Haight and Octavia. It was truly a spectacular fall, landing me face-down on the sidewalk with everything splayed that could possibly be splayed.
I pushed myself up and, after a few moments of writhing in pain and assuring the young man who rushed up and offered to call me an ambulance that I was ok, managed to get back on my feet and limp down toward Market.
The fall left my knee wildly swollen, seriously and disgustingly bruised, and nastily scraped. It also gave me a decent raspberry on the palm of my right hand, which I'd used, evidently, to try to stop myself from meeting the pavement horizontally. So when I finally made it to Dana's office, I washed my cuts and iced my knee, and figured I'd be hobbling around for a day or two.
What I didn't expect, when I woke up on Friday, was that my right shoulder would be achy and tender. I guess I must've fallen on it somehow, or pulled a muscle in my failed attempt to maintain my balance--I really can't remember. But for a while, it hurt more than my knee.
Because I'm still (in fact, am always) on the quest to soothe the emotional bruises of Novemeber (which, even now, months gone, have resisted fading from purple to blue to yellow to nothing) through metaphor, I can't help thinking this: when you get injured, you can sort of prepare for the hurt that stems from the center of the wound, whether it's a wrecked knee or a cut finger or a broken arm.
But sometimes it's the stealth pain--the pain you don't anticipate, can't quite identify the cause of, aren't really ready for--that's much worse. It seems to take advantage of the fact that your attention and healing efforts are focused elsewhere, sneaking up to knock you backwards again just when you think the end of your malady is in sight.
So I woke up with a plan for my slightly mangled knee--ice, elevation, no runs for a few days--but had really no idea of what to do with my weirdly painful shoulder, and spent the day trying to work around it.
All of which frustratingly mirrors what it's like to wake up each morning prepared to stave off the thoughts and memories and disappointments I know are waiting for me throughout the day but fully unprepared to do battle with the new ones, the buried ones, the ones that seem to have come from nowhere. And it's these that keep me achy and stiff and too often fragile, despite my best and most wishful efforts at full rehabilitation.
2.14.2005
In praise of open doors
I love this exchange from Deborah Solomon's interview with Dan Glickman, the new president of the MPAA, in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine:
Solomon: Have you ever experienced a setback?
Glickman: I was voted out of Congress in 1994. It is not great to be fired from your job, particularly so publicly. But a month later I was picked to be secretary of agriculture. When one door closes, another opens. But you have to be standing right by the door.
Solomon: What if the door opens too quickly and breaks your nose?
Glickman: Well, it could. But you still have to be right by the door. It can just as easily open for you as it can against you.
Solomon: Have you ever experienced a setback?
Glickman: I was voted out of Congress in 1994. It is not great to be fired from your job, particularly so publicly. But a month later I was picked to be secretary of agriculture. When one door closes, another opens. But you have to be standing right by the door.
Solomon: What if the door opens too quickly and breaks your nose?
Glickman: Well, it could. But you still have to be right by the door. It can just as easily open for you as it can against you.
2.05.2005
Perhaps the best description of Bush II yet
From Steven Hart's review in Salon of Christine Todd Whitman's It's My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America:
"Bush's narrow victory in November completed the Republican Party's transformation from a vehicle for principled conservatives into a debt-fueled pimpmobile for crony capitalists and religious hucksters."
"Bush's narrow victory in November completed the Republican Party's transformation from a vehicle for principled conservatives into a debt-fueled pimpmobile for crony capitalists and religious hucksters."
1.26.2005
Back, back, back
Josh sends me a message today with simply, blissfully a photo--labeled "We used to get free lunches every Friday"--of me, Lily, Monica, Geoff, Shayne, and Josh in the courtyard of the original WebTV building.
It sends me reeling.
There's no real reason to be nostalgic for the summer of 1997 (when the photo was taken, and when the Friday lunches were indeed free): we were making $10 an hour dealing with endless reams of ridiculous customer e-mail, commuting down to Palo Alto at all hours, kept afloat by Odwalla and cheap microwaveable burritos. But there's such a sweet patina to those days nonetheless; they were free of worries of long-term career success, of complex relationships--of anything, really, but who would win the Borders gift certificate for answering the most e-mails per week, or what outlandish surprise the next company party would hold.
It's funny what my mind is able to elide when it wants to: the frustrations of past jobs, the shortcomings and imperfections of past relationships, moments (and hours and days) I'd never want to relive. All of those get pushed down, and what comes rushing to the fore, bidden or not, are the glossy, happy, sun-dappled moments like those in the photo.
Incomplete and sharply edited though they may be, they keep me afloat when I need them most, when I need to remember that sometimes existence is nothing more than a catered meal in a Palo Alto afternoon, a third round of drinks with the friends I was convinced would never leave me, a nap on a beach in PEI with the man who filled my heart to bursting.
It sends me reeling.
There's no real reason to be nostalgic for the summer of 1997 (when the photo was taken, and when the Friday lunches were indeed free): we were making $10 an hour dealing with endless reams of ridiculous customer e-mail, commuting down to Palo Alto at all hours, kept afloat by Odwalla and cheap microwaveable burritos. But there's such a sweet patina to those days nonetheless; they were free of worries of long-term career success, of complex relationships--of anything, really, but who would win the Borders gift certificate for answering the most e-mails per week, or what outlandish surprise the next company party would hold.
It's funny what my mind is able to elide when it wants to: the frustrations of past jobs, the shortcomings and imperfections of past relationships, moments (and hours and days) I'd never want to relive. All of those get pushed down, and what comes rushing to the fore, bidden or not, are the glossy, happy, sun-dappled moments like those in the photo.
Incomplete and sharply edited though they may be, they keep me afloat when I need them most, when I need to remember that sometimes existence is nothing more than a catered meal in a Palo Alto afternoon, a third round of drinks with the friends I was convinced would never leave me, a nap on a beach in PEI with the man who filled my heart to bursting.
1.24.2005
That old scattered feeling
Evidence of my million-thoughts-at-once existence over the past week is easy to find in a quick look at the piles of books and DVDs throughout my house.
There's the emigration theme: "So You Want to Be a Canadian," "Living and Working in Canada," "How to Be a Canadian," Lonely Planet's "Vancouver."
There's the brush-up-on-French-for-TEF theme: "French Plus--Just Listen and Learn," "Le Petit Prince," "Les Jeux Sont Fait," Larousse de Poche 2005.
There's the must-continue-crawling-out-of-emotional-hole theme, evidenced both by the return of "The Wisdom of No Escape" (for those "wish I had the fortitude of a Buddhist" moments) and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, by the wisdom of pure escape ("Queer as Folk" season 2 volume 4 and "Da Ali G Movie: Ali G Indahouse"--which, by the way, is utterly f'ing hilarious in ways both similar to and totally different from the show).
And, of course, as a constant undercurrent there's the develop-business-or-perish theme, with alternating piles of organizing theory books, business plan workbooks, and guides to things like marketing and branding.
All of which, not surprisingly, leaves me flitting about from one thing to another, unable to focus exclusively on one topic for more than, say, an hour at a stretch. Am I keeping things interesting or am I driving myself crazy? How long can my brain handle this constant and radical shifting of gears before it gives up and latches permanently on to the closest topic?
There's the emigration theme: "So You Want to Be a Canadian," "Living and Working in Canada," "How to Be a Canadian," Lonely Planet's "Vancouver."
There's the brush-up-on-French-for-TEF theme: "French Plus--Just Listen and Learn," "Le Petit Prince," "Les Jeux Sont Fait," Larousse de Poche 2005.
There's the must-continue-crawling-out-of-emotional-hole theme, evidenced both by the return of "The Wisdom of No Escape" (for those "wish I had the fortitude of a Buddhist" moments) and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, by the wisdom of pure escape ("Queer as Folk" season 2 volume 4 and "Da Ali G Movie: Ali G Indahouse"--which, by the way, is utterly f'ing hilarious in ways both similar to and totally different from the show).
And, of course, as a constant undercurrent there's the develop-business-or-perish theme, with alternating piles of organizing theory books, business plan workbooks, and guides to things like marketing and branding.
All of which, not surprisingly, leaves me flitting about from one thing to another, unable to focus exclusively on one topic for more than, say, an hour at a stretch. Am I keeping things interesting or am I driving myself crazy? How long can my brain handle this constant and radical shifting of gears before it gives up and latches permanently on to the closest topic?
1.12.2005
Songs that were written all about you
What were the chances that the bartender at the Dutch Cabin--the tiny beer-only, ages-old, Eugene O'Neill-haunted place in downtown New London, Connecticut--would play Broken Social Scene's "Anthem for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl" when Phil and Monique and I were there on that random late December night? We had chatted with the bartender about the 17 Relics, about Lotus, about his current band, and he had none of those on cd, but for some reason he had "Anthem...," which made me stop and think, "Why do I know this song?" before realizing: ah. Because it was on a cd G made for me.
And what were the chances that Frijtz would set aside its normal fare of 80s vinyl while I was there tonight to play "There Goes the Fear" instead? I tried to focus on chatting with Jeff about client consultation questionnaires rather than listening to the song, but it crept in anyway. I once (clearly erroneously) read into those lyrics--the soaring "there goes the fear/let it go," especially--a kind of loving encouragement to once and finally set aside my fretting. Now they just seem taunting and sad.
Though I've taken all of G's mixes and dubs from my cd changer and have seriously limited my doses of emo and Canadian pop, even just going out in the world (which is supposed to be a balm) risks hearing something that will send me reeling, if only temporarily and only internally.
So maybe I just say fuck it, just put the summer '03 disc in my Discman tomorrow and turn it up loud and take it running like I used to, when "American English" and "Sharp Hint of New Tears" and "Throw Your Arms Around Me" meant something else entirely. Maybe I run with it fast enough and long enough and hard enough that, for a while at least, only my legs ache, and everything else goes numb.
And what were the chances that Frijtz would set aside its normal fare of 80s vinyl while I was there tonight to play "There Goes the Fear" instead? I tried to focus on chatting with Jeff about client consultation questionnaires rather than listening to the song, but it crept in anyway. I once (clearly erroneously) read into those lyrics--the soaring "there goes the fear/let it go," especially--a kind of loving encouragement to once and finally set aside my fretting. Now they just seem taunting and sad.
Though I've taken all of G's mixes and dubs from my cd changer and have seriously limited my doses of emo and Canadian pop, even just going out in the world (which is supposed to be a balm) risks hearing something that will send me reeling, if only temporarily and only internally.
So maybe I just say fuck it, just put the summer '03 disc in my Discman tomorrow and turn it up loud and take it running like I used to, when "American English" and "Sharp Hint of New Tears" and "Throw Your Arms Around Me" meant something else entirely. Maybe I run with it fast enough and long enough and hard enough that, for a while at least, only my legs ache, and everything else goes numb.
1.09.2005
Resolved
Last year I made several resoultions, all of them aimed at improving my health and generally making myself a better person (which, I suppose, is just what resolutions are for). Somewhat unsurprisingly, I eventually broke them all--except the one about drinking more red wine, for which my cardiovascular system thanks me, I'm sure.
So this year I'm steering clear of specific resolutions (of the "floss every night" and "drink 64 ounces of water a day" ilk) in favor of one general one shared with me by my colleague Connie: Make new mistakes.
Connie explained the resolution thus: you know you're going to make mistakes somehow or other, so it's not realistic to try to avoid them altogether, but at least you can aim to make (and learn from) new ones so you're not repeating the same ones you made in the past. This, to me, is both simple and brilliant. It requires, first off, that you look at and acknowledge your past mistakes, and then that you let them go so you can start fresh, all with (hopefully) a modicum of guilt.
That much I can do, even though identifying last year's mistakes will involve looking into some caves and under some rocks I'd much rather leave as the dim and unexplored areas they are right now. But once that's done, I can let all of last year's trip-ups fall into darkness again, and can start messing up in all sorts of new and valuable ways. I'm looking forward to that.
So this year I'm steering clear of specific resolutions (of the "floss every night" and "drink 64 ounces of water a day" ilk) in favor of one general one shared with me by my colleague Connie: Make new mistakes.
Connie explained the resolution thus: you know you're going to make mistakes somehow or other, so it's not realistic to try to avoid them altogether, but at least you can aim to make (and learn from) new ones so you're not repeating the same ones you made in the past. This, to me, is both simple and brilliant. It requires, first off, that you look at and acknowledge your past mistakes, and then that you let them go so you can start fresh, all with (hopefully) a modicum of guilt.
That much I can do, even though identifying last year's mistakes will involve looking into some caves and under some rocks I'd much rather leave as the dim and unexplored areas they are right now. But once that's done, I can let all of last year's trip-ups fall into darkness again, and can start messing up in all sorts of new and valuable ways. I'm looking forward to that.
12.21.2004
Miscellany
Arrested
How is it that Fox can offer up both crackpot, right-wing, pseudo-professional news programs and comedies like The Simpsons and Arrested Development in the same breath? I haven't a clue, but I do know that Arrested is one of the cleverest, funniest, most original shows I've seen in a while. (Granted, I don't watch much TV, and don't have cable, so that's a relative measure to be sure. But still.)
Arrested Development is smart, hilarious, and just inappropriate enough to be amusing without being crude or abrasive. (The most recent episode, for example, had the lead character, Michael, and his niece singing a karaoke duet to "Afternoon Delight" and realizing partway through the error they'd made; to top things off, Michael's twin sister and his son repeated the gaffe later in the program.)
It turns cultural references on their ear: when the matriarch of the Bluth clan is asked by a Michael Moore-esque documentarian whether she'd be willing to send her son Buster to the Army to fight in Iraq, she looks at Buster and, without missing a beat, answers a hearty "Yes!" It pokes subtle fun at the Blue Man Group, expensive facial creams, and professional magicians. It leaves almost no character unscathed.
Best of all, it's pulled me through some Sunday nights that would have otherwise been unbearably crappy and depressing, and has frequently made me laugh in spite of myself. For that alone, I am a huge fan.
Guided by Wire
I've known Neko Case as part of The New Pornographers for a while now, and knew she recorded several albums on her own, but it wasn't until this past week that I took a listen.
There's no way to describe my reaction without sounding trite, so I won't try. She blew me away. The first song I heard, on the Noise Pop compilation cd, was "Set Out Running," which made me sit still in front of my cd player, stopped dead: she was singing my life ("If I knew heartbreak was coming/I would've set out running/'Cause I just can't shake this feeling/That I'm nothing in your eyes").
On that song alone, I went out and bought one of her albums, Furnace Room Lullaby, and immediately fell further in love. As I'm not usually one for alt-country (or any sort of country, with the possible exception of Patsy Cline and some Willie Nelson ballads), that's saying something. Not that I should've been surprised, though; Neko Case's voice and lyrical smarts could do wonders for any genre.
The second track on the album is called "Guided by Wire," and as best I can tell, it's about the power of certain songs to pull you through when you need it most--sort of High Fidelity in demi-reverse. Part of the refrain is "Someone singing my life back to me," which I hear two ways: first, as in a song mirroring your experiences (see above); and second, as in a song being like an IV drip that, little by little, dulls what ails you and brings you back from the edge.
So Furnace Room Lullaby is coming with me back east, and will come with me on my runs, and will be in my ears when I need a dose of that curative.
Amici
Finally, while washing wine glasses and wiping down my kitchen counter late Saturday night, I felt a pang of loneliness, remembering that the last time I'd hosted a party like this, G. had been here, and had walked up behind me to say, "Babe, leave the dishes for tomorrow and come to bed."
But I let that pass, and thought instead (with more than a twinge of awe) how lucky I am that I'd just spent several hours with friends ranging from those I've known since my earliest days in San Francisco to those I met just this year, and how amazing it was to see them all interact and blend and laugh. What made me almost well up, though, was the realization that if I could somehow get all of my friends--those here in SF, those back east, those in Europe and Japan--in my house at the same time, and if I could add my family to the mix, there would be absolutely no room to move. Every room would be full.
That image--my house overflowing with people--was (and is) a sweet and precious reminder that though I may be lonely, I am not alone.
How is it that Fox can offer up both crackpot, right-wing, pseudo-professional news programs and comedies like The Simpsons and Arrested Development in the same breath? I haven't a clue, but I do know that Arrested is one of the cleverest, funniest, most original shows I've seen in a while. (Granted, I don't watch much TV, and don't have cable, so that's a relative measure to be sure. But still.)
Arrested Development is smart, hilarious, and just inappropriate enough to be amusing without being crude or abrasive. (The most recent episode, for example, had the lead character, Michael, and his niece singing a karaoke duet to "Afternoon Delight" and realizing partway through the error they'd made; to top things off, Michael's twin sister and his son repeated the gaffe later in the program.)
It turns cultural references on their ear: when the matriarch of the Bluth clan is asked by a Michael Moore-esque documentarian whether she'd be willing to send her son Buster to the Army to fight in Iraq, she looks at Buster and, without missing a beat, answers a hearty "Yes!" It pokes subtle fun at the Blue Man Group, expensive facial creams, and professional magicians. It leaves almost no character unscathed.
Best of all, it's pulled me through some Sunday nights that would have otherwise been unbearably crappy and depressing, and has frequently made me laugh in spite of myself. For that alone, I am a huge fan.
Guided by Wire
I've known Neko Case as part of The New Pornographers for a while now, and knew she recorded several albums on her own, but it wasn't until this past week that I took a listen.
There's no way to describe my reaction without sounding trite, so I won't try. She blew me away. The first song I heard, on the Noise Pop compilation cd, was "Set Out Running," which made me sit still in front of my cd player, stopped dead: she was singing my life ("If I knew heartbreak was coming/I would've set out running/'Cause I just can't shake this feeling/That I'm nothing in your eyes").
On that song alone, I went out and bought one of her albums, Furnace Room Lullaby, and immediately fell further in love. As I'm not usually one for alt-country (or any sort of country, with the possible exception of Patsy Cline and some Willie Nelson ballads), that's saying something. Not that I should've been surprised, though; Neko Case's voice and lyrical smarts could do wonders for any genre.
The second track on the album is called "Guided by Wire," and as best I can tell, it's about the power of certain songs to pull you through when you need it most--sort of High Fidelity in demi-reverse. Part of the refrain is "Someone singing my life back to me," which I hear two ways: first, as in a song mirroring your experiences (see above); and second, as in a song being like an IV drip that, little by little, dulls what ails you and brings you back from the edge.
So Furnace Room Lullaby is coming with me back east, and will come with me on my runs, and will be in my ears when I need a dose of that curative.
Amici
Finally, while washing wine glasses and wiping down my kitchen counter late Saturday night, I felt a pang of loneliness, remembering that the last time I'd hosted a party like this, G. had been here, and had walked up behind me to say, "Babe, leave the dishes for tomorrow and come to bed."
But I let that pass, and thought instead (with more than a twinge of awe) how lucky I am that I'd just spent several hours with friends ranging from those I've known since my earliest days in San Francisco to those I met just this year, and how amazing it was to see them all interact and blend and laugh. What made me almost well up, though, was the realization that if I could somehow get all of my friends--those here in SF, those back east, those in Europe and Japan--in my house at the same time, and if I could add my family to the mix, there would be absolutely no room to move. Every room would be full.
That image--my house overflowing with people--was (and is) a sweet and precious reminder that though I may be lonely, I am not alone.
12.14.2004
O Canadapharmacy.com
When I applied for health insurance earlier this year, after losing the plum deal I had at the job I quit, I opted not to disclose the fact that I have asthma. Because even though it's sort of Asthma, Jr.--more an occasional lung tightness than a wheezy, all-out attack kind of thing--it's still enough to make insurance companies slam their doors in my face.
This was all well and good until I looked at my Pulmicort inhaler (which I use every day) last night and saw the approach of the red line that demarcates Full and Empty. So I went to Walgreens this afternoon to order a refill, told the pharmacist I'd be paying in cash rather than using my insurance, and asked what the damage would be. I was ready for some vaguely ridiculous sum, but I wasn't ready for $180.
Now, I fully admit that I was far luckier than most with the insurance I had under Microsoft. It covered everything--absolutely, positively everything--with not a deductible or a co-pay in sight, so I never had to know that the little inhaler that keeps my lungs calm costs a small fortune. And I'm still relatively lucky, in that this is the only medication I take and, if needed, I can pay for it and not have to go without food or shelter or heat.
But I'm too stubborn to fork over nearly 200 bucks for medication I need because of a condition I can't control (I don't smoke, I exercise regularly, I'm not overweight, I eat well, and it's not like I'm huffing glue or anything). And I'm doubly stubborn because a quick Google search reveals that I can get the self-same Pulmicort Turbuhaler for $70 if I order it from a Canadian pharmacy.
$70 versus $180. Am I crazy enough to pay two-and-a-half times the price to get my medicine down the street than to have it imported? I am not. So I called Canadapharmacy.com and signed myself up.
Come and get me, John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales: I'm joining the growing hordes of Americans who are breaking the law by having prescriptions that are mind-bendingly expensive here at home shipped in. I can put my $110 to much better use than lining the already excessively lined pockets of Astra Zenica.
This was all well and good until I looked at my Pulmicort inhaler (which I use every day) last night and saw the approach of the red line that demarcates Full and Empty. So I went to Walgreens this afternoon to order a refill, told the pharmacist I'd be paying in cash rather than using my insurance, and asked what the damage would be. I was ready for some vaguely ridiculous sum, but I wasn't ready for $180.
Now, I fully admit that I was far luckier than most with the insurance I had under Microsoft. It covered everything--absolutely, positively everything--with not a deductible or a co-pay in sight, so I never had to know that the little inhaler that keeps my lungs calm costs a small fortune. And I'm still relatively lucky, in that this is the only medication I take and, if needed, I can pay for it and not have to go without food or shelter or heat.
But I'm too stubborn to fork over nearly 200 bucks for medication I need because of a condition I can't control (I don't smoke, I exercise regularly, I'm not overweight, I eat well, and it's not like I'm huffing glue or anything). And I'm doubly stubborn because a quick Google search reveals that I can get the self-same Pulmicort Turbuhaler for $70 if I order it from a Canadian pharmacy.
$70 versus $180. Am I crazy enough to pay two-and-a-half times the price to get my medicine down the street than to have it imported? I am not. So I called Canadapharmacy.com and signed myself up.
Come and get me, John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales: I'm joining the growing hordes of Americans who are breaking the law by having prescriptions that are mind-bendingly expensive here at home shipped in. I can put my $110 to much better use than lining the already excessively lined pockets of Astra Zenica.
12.11.2004
Plath
A month gone, my days have more or less returned to normal: busy, full of work and errands and chores and friends. But at night, still, when things get slow and quiet, I find myself searching for proof that someone else was in this same emotional morass before I got here, has felt this same insane mix of emotions, has made it out the other side. So I read like mad: poems, books, articles, old e-mail, past journal entries, whatever I can get my hands on.
Nothing fits perfectly. I find lines, phrases, lengths of text that brush the surface, though the perfect and relieving words I want remain elusive. The closest I've come so far is a passage from Sylvia Plath's journals, written in 1952; I found it appended to an e-mail I wrote in February 2001, during The Resistance. Plath is no relationship role model, to be sure, but there's something in her words that made sense to me then and gives some sort of odd solace now. Maybe that's good enough.
August 22, 1952
So I kiss him, and there is the great dark sea ahead, and above the sheaves of yellow stars, shoals of cold bright pieces of light, and the great wind, blowing always cold gulps and gusts of air, big and soft in the tree leaves, hushing, miracles are happening, and I, strange and elated with a new wonder, child-like in my sudden power, look with eyes large in love and amazement at this intent lovely face so earnest, so close to mine.
I cannot bear to leave you, because you will forget, I will forget, except for perhaps once or twice a brief sharp sear of pain as a word, a laugh, a thought of truth, will cut like a knife at all that will have happened after now, bringing clear and wistful to mind the remembering of these few hours, night and day--and us so young....
But of all the nights, rushing backward along the rocket-track of your experience and receding into the dark of your past subconscious, remember, remember how he trusting looked long and sweetly at you out of the dark at the door with the wild wind in the dark grasses, and how love was there in his face--making you, miraculously, the dream girl and woman, sister and sweetheart, mother and spiritual mistress. You walked in, laughing, tears, welling confused, mingling in your throat. How can you be so many women to so many people, oh you strange girl?
All the young growing and testing and being once burned and twice shy and not knowing what to do, or where, or when to be how. And then this, this sudden intuitive flash, the sudden knowing when it is right to render up a dream, to speak so, to love so. It comes ripe in you suddenly and there is the taste of wisdom, aged full and mellow-flavored. You have gotten drunk and elated on the young firm tart green of early apples, and never wanted other. But the first ripened apple breaks open its fruit on the palate, and the sweet, savory juice floods in vindication into the mouth, lyric lovely on the tongue.
Oh honey ancient gathered from the garden of rare weed and strange wild plant, years pass and you grow golden clear in the tree, shedding fragrance of wisdom upon the lovely summer air. (You have taken a drink from a wild fountain... 'and all the wells of the valley/will never seem fresh or clear/all for that drink of mountain water/in the feathery green of the year.' Not so, not so, for in parable the wells are sweet in their ripeness, and I will not cry forever, over the young wild spurting fountains--not forever.)
Nothing fits perfectly. I find lines, phrases, lengths of text that brush the surface, though the perfect and relieving words I want remain elusive. The closest I've come so far is a passage from Sylvia Plath's journals, written in 1952; I found it appended to an e-mail I wrote in February 2001, during The Resistance. Plath is no relationship role model, to be sure, but there's something in her words that made sense to me then and gives some sort of odd solace now. Maybe that's good enough.
August 22, 1952
So I kiss him, and there is the great dark sea ahead, and above the sheaves of yellow stars, shoals of cold bright pieces of light, and the great wind, blowing always cold gulps and gusts of air, big and soft in the tree leaves, hushing, miracles are happening, and I, strange and elated with a new wonder, child-like in my sudden power, look with eyes large in love and amazement at this intent lovely face so earnest, so close to mine.
I cannot bear to leave you, because you will forget, I will forget, except for perhaps once or twice a brief sharp sear of pain as a word, a laugh, a thought of truth, will cut like a knife at all that will have happened after now, bringing clear and wistful to mind the remembering of these few hours, night and day--and us so young....
But of all the nights, rushing backward along the rocket-track of your experience and receding into the dark of your past subconscious, remember, remember how he trusting looked long and sweetly at you out of the dark at the door with the wild wind in the dark grasses, and how love was there in his face--making you, miraculously, the dream girl and woman, sister and sweetheart, mother and spiritual mistress. You walked in, laughing, tears, welling confused, mingling in your throat. How can you be so many women to so many people, oh you strange girl?
All the young growing and testing and being once burned and twice shy and not knowing what to do, or where, or when to be how. And then this, this sudden intuitive flash, the sudden knowing when it is right to render up a dream, to speak so, to love so. It comes ripe in you suddenly and there is the taste of wisdom, aged full and mellow-flavored. You have gotten drunk and elated on the young firm tart green of early apples, and never wanted other. But the first ripened apple breaks open its fruit on the palate, and the sweet, savory juice floods in vindication into the mouth, lyric lovely on the tongue.
Oh honey ancient gathered from the garden of rare weed and strange wild plant, years pass and you grow golden clear in the tree, shedding fragrance of wisdom upon the lovely summer air. (You have taken a drink from a wild fountain... 'and all the wells of the valley/will never seem fresh or clear/all for that drink of mountain water/in the feathery green of the year.' Not so, not so, for in parable the wells are sweet in their ripeness, and I will not cry forever, over the young wild spurting fountains--not forever.)
12.07.2004
Comprehension
Several years back, shortly after I first joined Sloo's team, I set about trying to teach myself Javascript so I could better understand what was happening behind the scenes on our Help pages and, perhaps more importantly, stop nagging poor Eric for every little code-esque change that needed to be made.
So I bought a few books, worked my way through a few online tutorials, and spent many, many hours asking Eric, Ceej, and John for help. I eventually got the basics down and actually managed to create a few pages, but I never really got into JS, and could never say I was anywhere near fluent in it.
Because here's the thing: with Javascript, you just have to accept that things are what they are, are called what they're called, and work like they work just because. Many, many, many of my conversations with my tutors ran along the lines of me asking, "But why is it called that? It makes no sense," them replying, "Well, it just is," and me coming back to "Why??"
That sounds like obstinance, I know, and I'm sure obstinance was part of it, but I'm inclined to attribute it more to the fact that to truly latch onto something, to be able to say "I get it" and move on with it, I need to be able to turn it inside out and understand how it works. Otherwise, it just gets relegated to the opaque part of my brain where vague or mysterious or incomprehensible things go--a sort of mental limbo.
And that's kind of how I've been feeling over the past few weeks: like I'm trying once again to teach myself Javascript--or, worse yet, an actual programming language--but this time without the benefit of books or tutorials or helpful colleagues. Like I'm staring at screen after screen of code, and if only I could find something familiar in it, or if only someone would come along and explain a few lines of it to me, I might have a spot to work from. But it all looks foreign, and there's no one around to walk me through it, so I just keep trying and searching and asking in vain.
When all I want--so badly--is to understand it, to understand all of it, so I can breathe out again and get up from the desk and walk away.
So I bought a few books, worked my way through a few online tutorials, and spent many, many hours asking Eric, Ceej, and John for help. I eventually got the basics down and actually managed to create a few pages, but I never really got into JS, and could never say I was anywhere near fluent in it.
Because here's the thing: with Javascript, you just have to accept that things are what they are, are called what they're called, and work like they work just because. Many, many, many of my conversations with my tutors ran along the lines of me asking, "But why is it called that? It makes no sense," them replying, "Well, it just is," and me coming back to "Why??"
That sounds like obstinance, I know, and I'm sure obstinance was part of it, but I'm inclined to attribute it more to the fact that to truly latch onto something, to be able to say "I get it" and move on with it, I need to be able to turn it inside out and understand how it works. Otherwise, it just gets relegated to the opaque part of my brain where vague or mysterious or incomprehensible things go--a sort of mental limbo.
And that's kind of how I've been feeling over the past few weeks: like I'm trying once again to teach myself Javascript--or, worse yet, an actual programming language--but this time without the benefit of books or tutorials or helpful colleagues. Like I'm staring at screen after screen of code, and if only I could find something familiar in it, or if only someone would come along and explain a few lines of it to me, I might have a spot to work from. But it all looks foreign, and there's no one around to walk me through it, so I just keep trying and searching and asking in vain.
When all I want--so badly--is to understand it, to understand all of it, so I can breathe out again and get up from the desk and walk away.
11.23.2004
Walks beside me/Walks on by
The New York Times' Sunday Styles section has recently started a column called Modern Love, in which writers of various stripes share their tales of relationships gone awry. (There have been a few hopeful-esque entries so far, but the scales definitely seem to be tipping more in the other direction; it is, perhaps, a counterweight to the shouting streams of joy waiting a few pages back among the wedding announcements.)
If the columns so far are any indication, modern love is something of a big old mess--not always a hopeless mess, to be sure, but a sticky, muddled, uncertain mess just the same. From the sound of it, we all have the potential anytime soon to fall into some giant pool of heartache, heartbreak, infidelity, ambiguity, truth stretching, fear, loss, sadness, guilt, and confusion. Like we were always told as children, it seems best not to run on the deck of this pool; you don't want to slip and go unintentionally splashing in.
But while the columns share a view of love as anything but glamorous and rosy and un-fraught, they also allow at least a few hints of something better, of the possibility that somewhere in that pool the water gets calm and easier to float in, that sooner or later someone throws you a life vest or you manage to pull yourself over to the side so that even if you do start to go under, you won't be down there for good.
And I guess I have to believe that, because I've known the good parts of love, and because it seems unfathomable that that entire Olympic-size pool could be such a treacherous mess, and because I know I'm still a strong swimmer when I need to be, even if my techniques are rusty.
So although I'm flailing a bit now, shivering and tired and feeling my throat burn from all the water I've swallowed, I'm trying to keep my eyes focused on the lip of the pool. And at some point, I'll be able to make my way toward it, and then pull myself onto it, where I can dry off and warm up and wait for the waters to calm.
If the columns so far are any indication, modern love is something of a big old mess--not always a hopeless mess, to be sure, but a sticky, muddled, uncertain mess just the same. From the sound of it, we all have the potential anytime soon to fall into some giant pool of heartache, heartbreak, infidelity, ambiguity, truth stretching, fear, loss, sadness, guilt, and confusion. Like we were always told as children, it seems best not to run on the deck of this pool; you don't want to slip and go unintentionally splashing in.
But while the columns share a view of love as anything but glamorous and rosy and un-fraught, they also allow at least a few hints of something better, of the possibility that somewhere in that pool the water gets calm and easier to float in, that sooner or later someone throws you a life vest or you manage to pull yourself over to the side so that even if you do start to go under, you won't be down there for good.
And I guess I have to believe that, because I've known the good parts of love, and because it seems unfathomable that that entire Olympic-size pool could be such a treacherous mess, and because I know I'm still a strong swimmer when I need to be, even if my techniques are rusty.
So although I'm flailing a bit now, shivering and tired and feeling my throat burn from all the water I've swallowed, I'm trying to keep my eyes focused on the lip of the pool. And at some point, I'll be able to make my way toward it, and then pull myself onto it, where I can dry off and warm up and wait for the waters to calm.
11.21.2004
Of Breakup Babe, Dire Straits, and the Undead
I'd be much happier if I could get my thoughts to line up and take a number, then come forward when that number is called, just like you do when getting ice cream at Mitchell's on a busy day. As it is, though, they're a gigantic jumble, random snippets of things popping up at inopportune times, too many disparate thoughts and ideas and words to let me get anything down straight. It's a pain in the ass.
I don't know what phase this is, but for the past few days, whenever the realization of the breakup creeps into my mind (which is to say, painfully often), I can only think, "Now, huh. Wait a minute. That can't be right." The overwhelming emotion of the week isn't sadness or shock or anger but utter perplexion. This analogy will surely make no sense, but these days it feels like G. and I were both walking down the same long hallway, and he stepped out of it before I knew what was happening. So I'm still walking, confused and half convinced I'm dreaming things or making them up, achingly searching for the door that will let me out, too.
And that's the sucky thing: you can't just will a door to appear, which is to say that well-established trajectories aren't easy to change. For better or worse, love and hope aren't killable; you need to wait for them to die on their own. I don't know what to do with the desire that they go quickly. It seems foreign and awful to me.
Battling for attention with the hundreds of thoughts in my head these days are snippets of countless songs, and I don't know what to do with them, either. (Maybe I should re-read High Fidelity, though I don't think I could stand the upbeat ending just yet.) The song that's been the most persistent (though I haven't actually listened to it) is Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet"--or, more precisely, the Indigo Girls' raw and aching cover of it. There are so many layers of meaning and memory to that damn song; why can't I get them--and it--out of my mind? Even a day of quiet would do wonders. (One day we're gonna realize/it was just that the time was wrong.)
Finally, because it's sadly true that I'm better at dealing with my own emotional messes when I can read about others', I was intrigued by the mention of Breakup Babe on the Blogger main page today, so I clicked over to her site.
Damn if her words aren't some of the smartest, funniest, most awfully and painfully honest on the subject of relationships (and their variously messy demises) I've ever read. (Of course, her book deal with Random House and the legion of fans linked to her blog mean I'm by no means the first or the only to think so.) There are any number of things she's written that I could post here to try to explain my own emotional furball, but I think it's more appropriate to let her words stand on their own in their original context and to simply say, Yes, that's it exactly.
It's back to BB for me, then, to escape my own tangle of thoughts in someone else's.
I don't know what phase this is, but for the past few days, whenever the realization of the breakup creeps into my mind (which is to say, painfully often), I can only think, "Now, huh. Wait a minute. That can't be right." The overwhelming emotion of the week isn't sadness or shock or anger but utter perplexion. This analogy will surely make no sense, but these days it feels like G. and I were both walking down the same long hallway, and he stepped out of it before I knew what was happening. So I'm still walking, confused and half convinced I'm dreaming things or making them up, achingly searching for the door that will let me out, too.
And that's the sucky thing: you can't just will a door to appear, which is to say that well-established trajectories aren't easy to change. For better or worse, love and hope aren't killable; you need to wait for them to die on their own. I don't know what to do with the desire that they go quickly. It seems foreign and awful to me.
Battling for attention with the hundreds of thoughts in my head these days are snippets of countless songs, and I don't know what to do with them, either. (Maybe I should re-read High Fidelity, though I don't think I could stand the upbeat ending just yet.) The song that's been the most persistent (though I haven't actually listened to it) is Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet"--or, more precisely, the Indigo Girls' raw and aching cover of it. There are so many layers of meaning and memory to that damn song; why can't I get them--and it--out of my mind? Even a day of quiet would do wonders. (One day we're gonna realize/it was just that the time was wrong.)
Finally, because it's sadly true that I'm better at dealing with my own emotional messes when I can read about others', I was intrigued by the mention of Breakup Babe on the Blogger main page today, so I clicked over to her site.
Damn if her words aren't some of the smartest, funniest, most awfully and painfully honest on the subject of relationships (and their variously messy demises) I've ever read. (Of course, her book deal with Random House and the legion of fans linked to her blog mean I'm by no means the first or the only to think so.) There are any number of things she's written that I could post here to try to explain my own emotional furball, but I think it's more appropriate to let her words stand on their own in their original context and to simply say, Yes, that's it exactly.
It's back to BB for me, then, to escape my own tangle of thoughts in someone else's.
11.18.2004
Words
There are two sets of words I'm trying to keep in mind these days.
First, supposedly from Winston Churchill: "When you're going through hell, keep going."
And second, from myself, circa December 7, 2001:
[Pause]
And the world does indeed start to shake beneath your feet. When it stops, you find things around you slightly changed, although you can't say that anything's either remarkably better or remarkably worse. But when things inside you start shaking, too, you need to stop, look around, remember this: the soft thrill of walking in the newly sunny streets of a San Francisco morning. Or this: how full you feel when you're surrounded by your friends and laughing. And this: how every one of the experiences you've had this year, however brilliant or awful or gut-wrenching, has made you stronger, and has had something precious to teach.
First, supposedly from Winston Churchill: "When you're going through hell, keep going."
And second, from myself, circa December 7, 2001:
[Pause]
And the world does indeed start to shake beneath your feet. When it stops, you find things around you slightly changed, although you can't say that anything's either remarkably better or remarkably worse. But when things inside you start shaking, too, you need to stop, look around, remember this: the soft thrill of walking in the newly sunny streets of a San Francisco morning. Or this: how full you feel when you're surrounded by your friends and laughing. And this: how every one of the experiences you've had this year, however brilliant or awful or gut-wrenching, has made you stronger, and has had something precious to teach.
11.09.2004
From the flames
Earlier this year, while casting about for a better employment situation, I applied for a position with another division of Microsoft, and went up to Redmond for a series of interviews with the product team.
My interview with the team manager took place over lunch at a Thai restaurant in a strip mall. After the meal, the manager mentioned that the restaurant we'd just visited used to be a few doors down, in the center of the strip rather than at the end; it had moved, she said, after a car had plowed through its front window and caused a great deal of destruction. The good news, she said, was that the restaurant's business was markedly better in the new location than it had been previously.
She then mentioned a study she'd read about that focused on the victims of a wildfire in the Los Angeles area. In one neighborhood, all of the homes had been destroyed, with the exception of one that was spared because the owner sprayed it with his hose while the fire blazed. A few years later, researchers checked in with the residents of the neighborhood to measure their levels of happiness and satisfaction with their lives; their findings suggested that almost to a person, the residents were happier and more content than they had been before the fire. The one exception was the man who'd saved his house; he exhibited more stress and less contentment.
It goes to show, the manager said, that sometimes you need to let the upheavals in life be not just annoyances and disappointments, but pathways to better things.
So I'll try. Because what else can I do? When what you've known and loved meets the front grill of a rapidly moving car or the flames of a wildfire, you can either stand around and rue the destruction or you can pick up the pieces and rebuild. For the sake of strength and sanity, I need to choose the latter and hope that from the broken glass, from the ashes, I'll pick myself up again.
My interview with the team manager took place over lunch at a Thai restaurant in a strip mall. After the meal, the manager mentioned that the restaurant we'd just visited used to be a few doors down, in the center of the strip rather than at the end; it had moved, she said, after a car had plowed through its front window and caused a great deal of destruction. The good news, she said, was that the restaurant's business was markedly better in the new location than it had been previously.
She then mentioned a study she'd read about that focused on the victims of a wildfire in the Los Angeles area. In one neighborhood, all of the homes had been destroyed, with the exception of one that was spared because the owner sprayed it with his hose while the fire blazed. A few years later, researchers checked in with the residents of the neighborhood to measure their levels of happiness and satisfaction with their lives; their findings suggested that almost to a person, the residents were happier and more content than they had been before the fire. The one exception was the man who'd saved his house; he exhibited more stress and less contentment.
It goes to show, the manager said, that sometimes you need to let the upheavals in life be not just annoyances and disappointments, but pathways to better things.
So I'll try. Because what else can I do? When what you've known and loved meets the front grill of a rapidly moving car or the flames of a wildfire, you can either stand around and rue the destruction or you can pick up the pieces and rebuild. For the sake of strength and sanity, I need to choose the latter and hope that from the broken glass, from the ashes, I'll pick myself up again.
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