forty questions about 2007
Here is yet another year-in-review meme. Again, I will get to a proper review one of these days … What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? Traveled abroad for work. Auditioned for a game show. Went on an 8.5-mile hike. Rented my own apartment in San Francisco. Acted in an independent film. Led a team on a year-long project. Went geocaching. River-rafted (or, rather, laid very still on a raft while others rowed). Rode a bike in Golden Gate Park. Sang karaoke, twice at private parties and once at a bar in front of strangers. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I didn’t make them, and I don’t think I will anymore. Every day will be a resolution day, and that resolution...
Read Moreyear in review
Because I haven’t finished my full-fledged year-in-review post, here is that meme that’s floating about the tubes: take the first line of the first entry from each month for the last year. January The party last night was a success. February I am so frustrated with my computer right now. March How it begins: someone sends a fascinating email or an interesting voicemail. April The yay: Making it through an all-day offsite meeting and somehow giving a presentation in front of what felt like eleventy billion people but was in all probability only 40 or so. May I am settling into being mediocre, between genres, unfinished, and not a genius. June Usually it either takes hours or moments for me to write something here. July If you are unsure, holding a hand...
Read Morewould like to know your birthdate
She said, “I would like to know your birthdate, and also other things about you, like if you had a good-luck charm as a child, and if you named it a secret. When you walked home from school, did you touch the trunks of trees in order? Or did you skip home, scuttling over cracks? I would like to know if your eyes were always that blue, what your guts felt like when you first kissed, and if you were the cowboy or the chief. Did you always drink your milk? Did you blush when yelled at? Which freckle have you always had, and which have you lost? I would like to know your first favorite color and all the favorites after that – dogs, songs, shoes, rooms – and if you don’t have time to tell me now, then I would like twice as much time.”
Read Moremore words
My year-long work project launched on Thursday-then-Friday. I would say that I’m proud and relieved, except plans for its second phase are already underway, which is blindingly common and unsurprising and all of that wonderful stuff but still deflating. Working in such an intangible capacity every day is so strange for me. It’s been 15 months and I’m still not used to it. When I worked at a library, it was clear when I was doing something, improving something: books got reshelved, people found the sources they needed, sometimes I’d even see the “a-ha!” look and know I had witnessed a connection of knowledge to experience. And now? More than twenty people spent a year on a project that, if we did it right, most people will...
Read Moreexcused
“What it must be,” she began and paused, hands lifting like feathers. “What it must be like, to be that …” “Free?” he answered. “Light? Unencumbered?” She thought a moment, then tilted her head and shrugged. “Quiet?” He reached to cup her elbow without a thought; he had to touch her. She did not resist. Her forearm dropped onto his. They stood like that, facing each other, one arm to one arm, for a long time and did not speak or look into each other’s eyes. She broke the silence with a cough, then: “Don’t bury me.” “I wouldn’t,” he answered, eyes dropping into the dark soil around the gleaming capsule. “I won’t.”
Read Morerefrigerator
The dead woman’s refrigerator is in the space between our buildings. I call her the dead woman although I admit I am guessing. A few weeks ago, a couple I did not recognize stopped while opening the door to her flat and asked me if I knew her. I didn’t, so I said no, and then immediately wondered if I should have said yes: what does “knew her” mean? I knew her to pass her in the hall and say hello, offer a brief word about the weather, and pet her dog, Kelly. I once helped her call Kelly out of the backyard bushes, minutes and minutes I called the name of a dog of a woman whose name I do not know and now she might be dead. I first noticed the refrigerator after a Saturday morning of thuds and whacks and grunts coming from her flat. ...
Read Moremystery solved
Up before the sun: a lovely, poetic, and altogether inaccurate phrase. I love it. I only love it, of course, with this sort of skeptical relish after I’ve had nearly eight hours of sleep. This happens so infrequently that my general feeling about early mornings is that they are specifically designed, like Oprah’s book club, to weed out mildly unmotivated people, leaving behind only those who sink their teeth into the neck of the day with such singular diligence that I avoid them, like I avoid Oprah’s book club, whenever possible. However, I have just slept nearly eight hours in a row and all in the same night, and so I am unreasonably jubilant, and writing to you all about how well-rested I am, which is possibly the most annoying thing to read...
Read Moresaturdays
Saturdays are different now. I have them entirely to myself, and I try to spend part of them in my flat, simply to center myself outside of everything that happens during the rest of the week. Sometimes I end up working or cleaning or socializing, but I’ve realized over the past few months that the most valuable thing I do on Saturdays is sitting in the window while thinking. I never get bored because there’s a lot going on now, and a lot to process of what’s gone on before. Lists of hobbies like the kind we see on social networking sites usually do not include “thinking” next to “traveling” and “hiking” and “knitting”. How would one quantify a hobby like that, anyway? We’re all expected...
Read Moresubtext
Sometimes I get so wrapped up in a bad feeling that I cannot discern how the bad feeling started and I cannot see the way out of it. During these times, I wonder where the existence of feeling lies, and how other people find it and separate it from the actuality of events in their worlds. I know that I have allowed certain situations in my life to create deep-seated mistrust of reality. I am sure that people are saying words they are not actually saying, and I read more between the lines than is actually there. In a way, I think my background in the theatre has exacerbated this seeking for subtext; in preparing a script, I have been urged to understand what it is the character is not saying as much as what she is saying. This manner of interacting with the...
Read Morevoting or not
I just voted, but I’m not going to get all snarky about it like I did last year. Or rather, I’ve already been snarky about it today and alienated someone I care about very much, and that just sucks. We all have our own reasons for doing or not doing things. I can be fairly condescending about some things I do, like voting, and for the lamest reason: I feel insecure about my place in the world, and so anything that cements that place becomes irrationally important to me. 2007 has been one giant lesson in Accountability For Bullshit I Do When I Feel Insecure. I would rather the year be one giant lesson in 1001 Ways to Eat Nutella, or something awesome like that, but no. We don’t get to pick the lessons, only what we learn from...
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