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bridge from sunday

// June 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Life

I dream of being late for work, drenched in sweat, catching a cab to my home and not having enough time to shower.

I wake up before my alarm goes off. The tick of a cat’s tail is at my chin. The heavy curtains gap near the top, a knowing wink of light: not yet, but soon. Without my glasses, the bedpost is a smudge and not a sphere. Cat’s tail ticks. To call the weekend “brief” would do a disservice to all we packed in: our house show, our gardening, our quiet talks and unquiet laughter.

Monday mornings are difficult for me in the most cliched way: I struggle to stay motivated in my job, because one half of it requires me to be the heavy, the other half requires me to be the martyr, and both halves require me to take all of it with unflagging good humor. Some days I feel guilty for how much it frustrates me, for how little I care to interact with the rest of the world as a result. Some days I wonder if I belong in this profession; this is followed immediately by musing on whatever else I would be possibly qualified to do if not this.

The bridge from Sunday to Monday is usually paved with panicked dreams involving exaggerated absent-mindedness, lack of planning on a gross scale, appointments missed, obligations shattered, dependents horrified. I wake up before my alarm goes off; the dreams crumble like mildewed paper. Here are a few solid moments of my own before I push forward and out in an unremarkable birth.

Sometimes when I wake up we are holding hands.

fifteen in fifteen

// June 13th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Life

This sort of meme makes me both crazy and happy. The instructions are as follows: “Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me because I’m interested in seeing what books my friends choose.” The list is in order of how I thought of it, not how I read it. Reply in a comment if you so desire. (Thanks for the tag, Jen!)

1984 by George Orwell
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Bridge by Iain Banks
Justine by Lawrence Durrell
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Demian by Hermann Hesse
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
White Apples by Jonathan Carroll
Black Wine by Candas Jane Dorsey
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

the sprouts of despair

// June 7th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Life

Angsomnia: when, due to angst, one cannot sleep.

I should have had a perfectly lovely evening. Before that, I should have had a perfectly lovely day. All of my problems were no more than minor irritations in actuality, logistical tangles to untie quickly and cleanly.

Why, then, do I only fumble them?

The dish I promised to make for tonight’s pot-luck supper has a time-intensive component: shredding 2 pounds of brussels sprouts by hand because we don’t yet own a food processor. I decided to buy all of the ingredients Thursday night so I could easily make the recipe Friday night, then send it to work with FunkyPlaid on Saturday morning so I didn’t have to carry it on the bus.

By the time Friday night cooking time rolled around, I wasn’t in the mood to cook. Cooking even straightforward recipes like this one is still a challenge for me, and my week had already been an 8 out of 10 on the “challenging” scale. (Note to self: do not plan on cooking to relax until cooking is relaxing.)

Long story medium: the brussels sprouts were wormy and unable to be salvaged, thus turning my Saturday into a car-less quest for brussels sprouts, which — as I realize I should have already known — aren’t in season anyway, so I have no business making the dish. (This last is difficult for me to internalize because I love the dish and it’s something I can do consistently well. Still, second note to self: cook seasonally.)

My Saturdays are strange creatures. I look forward to them throughout the week as if they are gold-plated unicorns of sheer delight. They are all mine, because FunkyPlaid is at work, so I have complete autonomy over them. That is in theory only, because when they roll around, I mull over completing any number of a hundred different things I think I should be doing with my time off, and I end up getting nothing done and feeling guilty for it.

A few times I have hit that lovely “I can do what I want and I want to do nothing” stride, but on most Saturdays my to-do list and I get into a stare-eyes contest and, despite it not actually having eyes, the list always wins.

Anyway, this Saturday I spent entirely on the brussels sprouts, up until the moment I hopped in the shower to get ready for the two-hour public transit adventure that is getting to the middle of Marin County. By the time I arrived, the brussels sprouts had taken on legendary status for me; I was merely a support system for the brussels sprouts, the imperfect vessel by which their greatness would be conveyed.

Okay, not really, but you get the idea. I had obsessed so much over how I considered this stupid side-dish to be inconveniencing me that I missed the entire point of cooking, or at least what I consider to be its point: to savor and share good food with good people.

Because I am me, I did not have a “silly me” moment. I had a full-on self-loathing “stupid, stupid me” moment. More like a collection of moments, organized into hours. It is hours later and I am still upset with myself. And then I say, “Why am I still upset with myself? That’s so stupid.”

… and we begin again.

This is the point at which a normal person says, “Hey! Snap out of it!” and I hear, “Hey! Stop being stupid!” I have no idea how to stop being stupid so I just sit there, wings flapping uselessly. Flap flap flap they go, and people wander off because watching sad little wingflaps is pointless and kind of pathetic and there is nothing more for them to do anyway.

So, third and final note to self: learn how to snap out of it. There are probably whole self-help books devoted entirely to learning how to snap out of it. I would be surprised if Oprah herself did not have a treatise on the snapping out. If only I knew of a place filled with books that I could browse for free!

Yes, I see my wings are still flapping. At least everyone ate all the brussels sprouts.

on the hunt

// May 28th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Life

I keep meaning to write about my first year participating in the Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt, but I am a dreadful reviewer. Did I take notes? No. Did I record all of my thoughts as soon as I got home? Not even close. My review, therefore, goes like this: we walked (quickly, although there were moments of moseying) all over Chinatown and North Beach and the Financial District, solved puzzles, laughed a lot, and finished with only one question unanswered.

At least I took some video. And let me tell you: there is nothing quite so humbling as watching oneself on video.

Not exactly caveats, but it bears noting: Yes, my face really moves like that when I talk. No, I wasn’t under the influence. Yes, I wear that hat out in public. No, I had no prior experience with handheld videocams.

Yes, I would do it all again next year.

nothing good

// May 28th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Life

Nothing good comes from the random days, the days spent flailing about one or two different poems or stories, the days with strangleholds on reason. Four times in the last hour I have written then deleted one line. Nothing fits right in the head.

It is best, on the random days, to let pieces be pieces, at peace.

._.-.

Torgi the cat is curled up next to me. Bedtime is his favorite time because he curls up in between us and purrs. Overcome with somnolent joy, his purrs pitch higher until he is trilling in his drowse.

._.-.

Recipes recently attempted and succeeded, at least in the barest sense of the word: Southwestern frittata, steak with ginger-butter sauce, pork tacos with mango salsa, baked eggs in ham cups. Concepts tested and learned: broiling, sauteing, searing, braising. Injuries: one minor burn to the left palm, one minor cut to the right index finger. New tools: black plastic measuring cups and spoons, stainless steel pots and pans, waxing confidence.

._.-.

My first-ever multi-day overnight-stay gaming convention, KublaCon, was both a blur and an amber-trapped memory. Although I love games, I have never self-identified as a gamer, perhaps because I avoid self-identifying as most things on principle. Still, I was among my people all weekend, and it felt good to be so.

._.-.

Pastimes neglected: writing, knitting, photography, World of Warcraft, website tinkering. Pastimes nudged vaguely: reading, crossword-puzzle-solving, cooking, geocaching.

._.-.

Right now I am in a boundary-setting mode, creating structures for productivity, reassessing priorities, and discarding inefficient patterns. This mode is dull, and I look forward to the messy thumb-painting of the next one, whichever it may be. I hope it involves wild, mad creation. I am overdue.

stories not to tell

// May 17th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Libraria, Life

The best stories in my life right now are the ones I cannot tell.

Working at the library provides me with many things. A steady paycheck is one, and let’s hope I am not jinxing anything by stating that, as the city budget right now is highly contested territory.

Another thing the library provides me with is a plethora of life lessons. Sometimes these life lessons are neatly packaged within a patron interaction or two, and sometimes they are spread out over a series of days, weeks, or months.

I met someone last week who changed my life, and I can’t even tell you any of the specifics. To say I am frustrated by this boundary is an understatement, but I love my job more than I love writing here, so this is the decision I make.

What I can tell you is that I helped this patron who needed some unconventional help. As we parted, a rush of clarity came over me, sudden dizziness forcing me to sit down. This is what I was meant to do, not specifically within the context of a library, but in the general sense: I was meant to help people, directly, without levels of abstraction. My fascination with sifting and categorizing information led me to library science, but it might have been another field, had I differing interests, and no less fulfilling.

The second part of my epiphany was how dangerous this purpose has been for me, how much damage it can do and has already done. I associate helping people with who I am instead of what I do, and when I am not immediately being “useful” I lose my sense of self. This is evidenced by some of what I write here: I am less and less able to express myself in this format, hyper-focused as I am on bringing interesting or valuable content with every piece I write, as if this has ever been anything more than a digital diary.

Leaving work that evening, I skipped my usual route in order to take the main staircase. As I descended, I tried to visualize myself apart from the library, the building itself, focusing on where it stops and where I begin. My rumination was interrupted by a coworker calling my name, waving goodbye, and I was glad for the interruption because of the truth stepping out of the shadows.

I have lost myself, and I do not know where to look.

backpack

// May 5th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Life

I went flying this morning, my first voyage in a long while. When I landed, I landed on forearms and knees, face nearly grazing the floor of the train.

I saw things there I will spend some time trying to un-see.

All apologies and crawling, I fumbled my way up and out. My eyes were full of tears, an autonomic response to the shock and sudden pain. When I blinked to clear my vision, my wet eyelashes streaked mascara over the lenses of my glasses.

Limping, foggy-eyed, confused: what happened? I tripped. Backpack. On the floor, in front of feet. I saw it as I fell. I tripped? I must have.

My daily tasks were shrouded in odd jolts of soreness. I told my coworker, who commiserated. When we reached the “it could have been worse” portion of the exchange, she brought up the face-eating tumor. The face-eating tumor — which I could only look up so far as to find its clinical name, fibrous dysplasia — was featured on a television program she and her husband once watched, heart- and gut-wrenched. Now it is their humility touchstone.

And now it is mine, and now perhaps yours, and all because I did not see a backpack.

shovel

// April 16th, 2009 // Comments Off // Life

Years ago, I lived with a Febreze fanatic. The couch always smelled good, better than I ever expected couches to smell, as if it had been stuffed with fresh dryer sheets just before I sat down. I grew to like it, to expect it, to rely on it to mean that everything at home was in order and okay.

Later, I would find out that sometimes people spray Febreze on themselves because they can’t or don’t want to shower. While I am at work, its scent creates a different context; now Febreze is mild confusion or warning, sparks of sunshine gleaming off the head of a raised shovel.

vintage

// April 14th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Life

I spotted a vintage Pelikan 100 in the wild — the reference desk, really — on Monday. It was burgundy with a bright gold “beak” clip and its owner let me write with it. It was filled with Private Reserve Chocolat, an excellent choice for this smooth writer. I let the patron write with my Lamy 2000, which is the new hotness of my collection and the Pelikan’s opposite in form and character; while the Pelikan reminded me of an antique Bentley, my Lamy is more of an Audi TT.

It was a random treat in the middle of a dull day.

Now I am flipping through Fountain Pens Past and Present and it smells just like my high school yearbooks used to smell. That combined with the smell of freshly-baking bread is making me homesick for Chicago, but only the Chicago of my teenaged self, all Wax Trax and Café Voltaire and living for that first burst of Friday afternoon air, half-past three and everything is possible as long as someone borrows a car.

one more smell

// April 13th, 2009 // Comments Off // Life

The dashboard widget said 8 minutes, so I power-walked. As I slid onto one of the last non-senior seats on the bus, I caught a whiff of rubber cement.

The last time I smelled rubber cement on the bus, I was sitting next to the same person.

The smell was not entirely unpleasant. It reminded me of when I used to decorate my Chandler’s assignment notebook in high school, cutting out strange pictures from magazines and pasting them on the pages.

And so I catalogued one more smell that will not make me give up my seat on the bus.

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