A man cannot serve two masters...or root for two teams.

Yesterday was a day of mixed allegiances. I went to morning church so I could watch the Gold Medal Hockey team. I cheered for both teams, secretly hoping for Canada to win.

I am a realist, and a traitor. Realistic in that I knew the game would go past the 5 o'clock start of my church. Realistic in that I knew in my heart of hearts that I wanted the other team, the one not called Team USA, to win.

How do we sort out this life? I went to morning church, at a quiet Presbyterian church that I have "a crush" on. Since I'm often tired of my own church, with the people ten to twenty years younger than me, all the babies, all the new couples...it was nice to go to a place where people sat in pews, not chairs, and not everyone sat together, and the music was nice and predictable and I was able to worship because it was familiar. (I often think that our pastors experiment too much.) They had a honest to goodness coffee hour, instead of a "take down the chairs" half hour. People stood around and talked, and some people figured out I was a stranger and talked to me. Does loving W church mean I love the Open Door less? I am invested at the OD, I do visuals once every 5th or 6th Sunday. There are people there that I have relationships with, some going back more than the five years we've been a church. But I tire of it. I guess we all tire of home at some time, that's why we have to go on vacation? So was going to W church a vacation? And like the beaches, the warm air that we know we can't take home, I was tapping into some parts of the service that I miss?

And, by liking W church, was I cheating on the Open Door? Which leads right into why I went to morning church--USA vs. Canada in Olympic hockey. Now, as sports go, I am a Penguins fan first. I did not grow up thinking that the US was a hockey powerhouse, and while I want the American skaters to win, I also want the best skaters to win. So I cheered for Kim Yu-Na, who was amazing and graceful in both the short and free programs in figure skating.

So...if I don't expect USA to be a hockey powerhouse, and it was the miracle of the goalie, Ryan Miller, that got the US team to the Gold medal game, and I am a Penguins fan first, well...I have to say, those things said, I felt a little bit like Benedict Arnold. Traitor. How could I root for the Canadians? But I didn't know the Americans. The Canadian team was full of names I recognized, and two that I loved. Eric Staal, Marc Andre Fleury, and yes, Sidney "Sid the Kid" Crosby. So, faced with rooting for players I didn't know and love vs. rooting for players I did know and love? I was rooting for Canada. But, not outwardly. So it was the most boring hockey game I'd ever watched, because I didn't care who won. When we went to overtime, I flipped a coin and determined that for the OT I would root for the US team. And I did. But when Crosby got that goal, I was dancing in my seat. I could not have been prouder of the 22-year-old Canadian who has skated his way into my heart.

Does that make me a bad person? To some, it does. On FaceBook, a college classmate came out and said that she was rooting for the Canadians. And she was reprimanded again and again, in the comments. I said, hey, you're still fine in my boat, and I'm secretly hoping for O Canada to be sung at the end of the game. Then I sunk my boat. I said, "It's not as if we're playing Russia." To which another friend of my friend (but a stranger to me) wrote, SL, move north, and if we were playing Russia, I'd root for them because of Ovechkin, (the Russian player for the Washington Capitols who has captured so many hearts in and outside of the Beltway.) Which to me pointed out the irony--it was not okay for T to root for Canada, outright, but this person would root for Russia because of Ovechkin, which is essentially why I was rooting for Canada.

Confused yet?

It's easy for me to say, "buck up, it's just a game." I am not a Japanese skater who lives and breathes the rivalry between the countries of Korea and Japan. I am not an American skater who against all odds got to the medal game and lost to the captain of the reigning Stanley Cup team, lost again to Canada, as we have in games before. There are roots that go deeper than one game, or even as many games as it takes to get to the Gold Medal game.

I like a church with a coffee hour. I like a church with a small vocal ensemble. I like sermons that tell a story, so beautifully written that I can't take notes, but the images stay in my head for days after. We are a collection of our experiences, of our childhood memories. And my childhood memory is of coffee hour. My childhood memory is not of hockey--I only became a fan in 1997, and it was automatically the Penguin nation that I adhered to, not the American city where it's played, the American country where it resides.

I grew up all over. I rooted for Honduras in the World Cup in 1982. My personality is not one of severe traditional jealousy for the home team. What is the home team? If you were to take it literally, my home team would be the Washington Capitols. But I wasn't a hockey fan when I lived in the DC area as a teen. And there is a strange phenomenon in geographic allegiance: once a Pittsburgher, always a Pittsburgher. If you've lived here long enough to pass the Pittsburghese quiz, use a parking chair in a major snowstorm, see the Pens go for the Stanley Cup and win, see the Steelers go for the Heisman trophy and win, you may move, but Pittsburgh will always be a part of you. I bleed black and gold.

I don't know. This is convoluted thinking that I'm not going to try to fully sort out here.

and the days go by...

These are strange days, strange days indeed.

We are driving strangely in Pittsburgh these days.

We have gotten used to passing stopped cars, as long as we can get past them. They wait for us to drive by so they can back into their dug out parking spot, the one that has been saved by a "parking chair" all day.

We are driving below the speed limit, especially when white stuff is falling from the sky, and coating the road. In defense of our cars' transmissions, we drive to avoid potholes, even if that means crossing the median line for a minute.

And speaking of potholes, where does the macadam go? The road gets a hole, but surely the macadam has to go somewhere...

****

I drove into Oakland today, and driving out, I hoped to take the Crosstown Blvd. on my way to the North Hills. Instead, I was in the wrong lane at the wrong time and ended up driving through town. At one point I followed a car up a street I'd never been up before (because there was traffic stoppage ahead that I didn't want to contribute to.)

It was the first time in what felt like months that I crossed the river on the Veteran's Bridge instead of the RD Fleming or the Highland Park Bridges.

Driving to work wasn't that bad. I was in a foul mood, but beyond that, the roads were decent. Driving home was another story. The parking lot was a few inches deep of soupy slush, and my boots were soaked through before I had even finished clearing the snow off my car. I got drive-thru McD's, ate it in the Staples parking lot (the McD's parking lot was too treacherous, as it had not been well plowed from previous snows.) I ate every last golden fry, licked the ketchup off my fingers, and got back on the road, driving at 20 in a 25 zone, where drivers generally drive 30, 35 mph. It took me an hour, crawling through the snow, not caring if SUV's passed me by (though few did.)

When I got home, I forgot that I hadn't moved my parking chair into my space, so I parked my car in the middle of the road and went to remove...oh, it's still on the sidewalk. I got back in the car, parked it, and greeted Max, who has taken to shoveling and salting our walks as if he owned the house we live in.

Me: "Thank you for doing that."
Max: "Sure." (I know he takes a masculine pride in it.)

We have such bittersweet history, and my heart pounded as I walked up the stairs to my apartment and put my key in the lock, going over the sentences we'd spoken:

Me: "It took me an hour to get home."
Max: "I'm glad you're home"
Me: "Yeah, me too." (I was already out of visual sight by the time the last two sentences were spoken, we spoke them as if we were characters in a play, these were the words we should say to to each other.)

If you didn't know better, you'd say it sounded like a conversation amongst intimates, not repartee between two people who live on different floors, people who rarely if ever pass each other in the hall. And yet we were intimates two years ago for about six months. I was his first girl, and I know the weight of that, since my first boy, more than twenty years ago, still impacts how I see men, and that ain't good.

Two years have passed, and only now am I realizing that part of me died in the last embers of our days as boy and girl. And though I am back, I'm me, there are parts of me that never regenerated, parts of me that I have survived these two years without, that only now I realize I miss, and I want them back. And I have no idea where they are, where to look for them.

It wasn't just him--it was the end of an era. I finally realized that this was the last boy I would ever date who didn't share my values. I had always dated attractive, fun, somewhat pompous boys who thought it was cute that I went to church, but had no desire to join me, or if they joined me, it was merely to support me, not for any spiritual reason of their own. And while dating Max, I realized that I needed someone who had their own spiritual reasons. So as Max and I were dating, I was coming to conclusions about all the boys I had dated in my twenties. Just as I was Max's first girl, Max was my last boy. The next date I go on will be with a man. Which is a really scary thought, since I am still very much girl.

I don't know where I'm going. But I know I can't stay here. And so I travel on.

Books I didn't read as of January

...that need to go back to their respective libraries:

Today I will: a year of quotes, notes, and promises to myself by Eileen & Jerry Spinelli
(found that it was more of a "literary devotional" than what I wanted, with a quote, a homily, and an affirmation.)

Girl Group Confidential: the ultimate guide to starting, running, and enjoying your own women's group by Jennifer Worick. (I find that I want to be that person that starts something but in the end, right now, for better or for worse, I prefer to just show up.) But it looks like a good book. Not sure I even opened it...

the amazing adventures of working girl: real life career advice you can actually use by Karen Burns
I wish this book had been available to me sixteen years ago, and it's the sort of book I would recommend to my sister, who is ten years behind me in her journeys, though her journey at work is so different from mine. the hold slip in this book is in the chapter called, "boss from hell." Let's not go there.

Biggest Loser simple swaps: 100 easy changes to start living a healthier lifestyle by Cheryl Forberg et al. This is the sort of book I would buy if I wanted to admit that I'm not crazy about the fact that I've gone up two jeans sizes. But I never ever opened it, and it is now the item on my library record that would block me from taking anything else out if I didn't know how to override that. The library that owns it wants it back or wants my $28.00. (This is the book that started this exercise.)

You're so money: live rich even when you're not by Farnoosh Torabi. Another book that I would buy if I bought books right now. I started reading it, but I'm still pretty much in denial. Oh, the tax refund will take care of...etc. BLECH!! I got as far as p. 16.

Cooking with all things Trader Joes by Deanna Gunn and Wona Miniati. If I read cook books...This book still has the hold slip in it, which means I never even cracked the spine.

Writing and Publishing: the librarian's handbook. Edited by Carol Smallwood. This is the book I would read if I believed that I could read it at work. (I guess I'm not a committed enough librarian that I want to take my work home...) And since it's an ALA guide, it probably retails at $50. It's the one book I would buy tomorrow if I had an extra $50.

*I apologize to all my Indy book lovers that all my links are Amazon. Unfortunately, it is the easiest way to link to book titles, and give folks the option of reading reviews beyond the tiny ones I'm giving here.

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

So, here we are. The 4th biggest snow fall in Pittsburgh weather history. Breaking all the records for February snowfall.

To commemorate this momentous occasion, I constructed this photo essay...for you!

This is the view from my street at 7 am, taken through the glass door.

Seriously, that is a lot of snow.

Wow, there's a bit of car under there!

Oh, and we can see by its markings that it is a Chevy.

The back window...

It must be my car, it has a "Got Milkweed?" bumper sticker.

It's beginning to look like a car under there...

Across the street, you can see what my car looked like before it looked like THIS.

I am covered in snow, just as dusk is falling. Time to go in and make some dinner.

______________________
*Michelangelo

Girl date!

So...I'm meeting someone for lunch today. A librarian that I "met" through at least two mutual friends. We've been twittering and facebooking and emailing and finally today we're having lunch!

And we're doing brown bag. So I had to go to the grocery store for some things to go with my PB&J and it was like shopping for a date...shall I get pretzels, and what kind? Oh, and I should get some fruit, so I'm all balanced. I ended up getting yogurt, because I actually eat that...

And I got quarters, just in case my usual jammed parking meter is a) not available b) finally fixed.

In other news, my back sprain is probably not just muscle but also ligament. Which takes longer to heal because less blood flows near/around/through them. (Will have to do a Google/Bing/WebMD search.) So 2x weekly chiro visits for a while.

What else? Listening to A long way down (Nick Hornby) for the umpteenth time. I've decided I'm buying the audio soon, as it's one that I get out on a regular basis. It's grumpy enough to be okay when you're having a bad day but funny enough that you might laugh as you whiz through the intersection in Morningside before the Rite Aid.

Speaking of Rite Aid, the price of Epsom Salt has gone up. I bought two boxes for $2/each, but that was the sale price. The regular price seems to be anywhere from 3.39 to 3.99. And it looks like the norm is going away from the milk carton packaging to plastic bags, ick. But, bonus, I got some more tickets for the Life game they are playing/promoting.

See you next time!!

To blog or not to blog, that is the question...

You have surely noticed that I'm barely pretending to keep up this blog. And that I supposedly off working on studying for my GREs, preparing my portfolio for my MFA application, and other "important" work.

Yeah, right.

So I've been contemplating coming back, a bit a week...maybe.

But I couldn't not share this beautiful book with you, it reminds me of Paula's blog. Blogging for Bliss: crafting your own online journal. This is the book I'd read if I had time to really craft and really blog. It's by Tara Frey and features what seems like a hundred blogger profiles. So much of it is the stuff we all learned by trial and error, but it is a beautiful book, one that I would recommend if you are really hoping to make it blogging, for reals, not just piecemeal like yours truly.

It talks about HTML, manners, ads vs. no ads. And at $14.95, it's a bargain.

The best part are the almost 100 blogger profiles. The other stuff is mostly on the job training. (Unless you are a beginner. Then, it is doubly great.)

Tara's blog, typing out loud, is stunning. It is a place I would go every day, (if I trolled the blogosphere daily, which I don't anymore.)

Up up in the air, in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon...

(in which Sarah Louise plays film critic, poorly, and scours Rotten Tomatoes site to find proof that she is correct.)

Someone tell Hollywood that they need better storytellers. Two weeks in a row I've gone to the movies, expecting laughter and a good story. I got the first (I even got tears with today's dish) but story was lacking.

When I was just a girl (to the tune of "Loves me like a Rock" by Paul Simon) in English, we learned about the up and down of a plot. You have the beginning, the climax, and the rest. Sometimes you can get away with having the climax at the very end. But sometimes you can't. Especially if your story isn't strong.

That is what happened with the two vapid movies I saw the past two weeks.

(Spoiler alert: the two movies were "It's Complicated" and "Up in the Air.")

To preface, both had great trailers. And UITA had six actual people that I converse with online or in person tell me, "oh, good movie."

Um.

If you consider a movie that has good acting and makes you laugh enough, okay. But I don't. I want good story, and I will take bad acting if you give me good story.

Both of these movies were headed in one direction story wise, and then climaxed, and went in the opposite direction (or, in both cases, took the main character exactly to where they were when the movie started, just with a few more experiences under their belts.)

In "It's Complicated," Meryl Streep's ex-husband Alec Baldwin wants to get back together b/c his current marriage is failing. It sure looks like they're having fun and that this is where the movie is going. But no, we are not given all the information, and Meryl comes to the conclusion that they've been apart too long and it would never work. Now, yes, that is a good story. IF you fill it out with Meryl really wrestling with it. And you show not tell us how it's totally NOT going to work. But no, Nancy Meyers decided that she could just tell us that Meryl would be better off with her architect Steve Martin, who seemed entirely milque toast. Blech.

In "Up in the Air," George Clooney loves his life lived in airports and airplanes. He fires people for a living, he, the man who is kind of married to his job. Two women come into his life, one as a protege, one as a love interest. Wow, maybe George is going to have a chance to see what life is really about, relationships...and then WHAM! We find out that Alex (George's on the road lover) is married, with kids. That she was playing George, and figured George was playing along. OUCH! Now, yes, that is good storytelling. If you give us some foreshadowing. If you show us some character growth. However, if you then don't show George changing at all, and you then put George back up in the air (did I mention he was going to be grounded, the job was changing) and he's back where he was at the beginning. Nothing has changed, not really, except that now George realizes he's lonely. And then the movie ENDS.

Now, I like other work by these directors. Nancy Meyer's movie The Holiday is sheer chick flick smaltz and I eat it up. Yes, we have no idea if these transatlantic romances will work, but we don't care. They dance the night away and tomorrow will take care of itself.

I liked Thank you for not smoking and I adored Juno (Jason Reitman's other two films.)

Some other folks that agree with me on
:

From Dan Jardin's Cinemania: Jardin talks about the contrast of the folks that have lost their jobs (interesting, vibrant) to the boredom of the business travelers (Clooney, Farmigia, and Kendrick)

...these moments of honesty that hover around the fringes of the film serve mainly to highlight the banality of the main plot line and the superciliousness of the lives of the characters we are supposed to care about. I wanted to learn more about the real folks whose lives had been ruined, and would have been quite content had I never met [Clooney, Farmigia, or Kendrick.]

Jay Antani at Cinemawriter.com talks about the depth that could have happened in Reitman's movie:

It’s a movie of missed opportunities, wherein Reitman could have plumbed the dark depths of the betrayal, loneliness, and denial that make up the core of Bingham’s wounded self. He could, thereby, have made the moral payoff of his conclusion feel well-earned and satisfying. As it is, he’s got the right actor for the job, but his movie lacks the guts.

I could go on. But it's late, and this blogger is out of practice writing using other people's words...

I just think that if I'm going to spend good money on popcorn and a movie ticket that I should get a good story along with good acting. Because I care the most about story. I will forgive bad acting for good story, but NOT the other way around.

At least my plate has penguins on it...

Watching the Winter Classic. Learning that I really don't care about hockey if I don't know who is playing. Off to check movie times...

singing...

to babies in 3 minutes. I posted about allergies on the SL gets better blog.

it was better in my mind...

So, in the bath (eureka) this morning, I was thinking about my favorite show of late, The Good Wife. And everybody's dreamboat, Chris Noth. How, if at almost 38, I had a locker, his picture would be up there.

This is such the perfect role for him, and at a perfect time. He's had all this time to be the good guy/bad guy on SATC, and so women are used to him being a cad, but coming out good in the end, and now he's in this role where he is in JAIL and still, looking oh so cute, and...

this is not coming out word perfect like when I was in the bath. Darn. It was all beautiful and it was going to convince you to watch The Good Wife, if you aren't already doing so, Tuesdays at ten, CBS.

Oh, and there's my timer. Gotta get the quiche out of the oven, yum.

Well, I posted. And posting, this month at least, means just that, even if it is warmed over and not so tasty.

I woke up thinking about 8+7

The trouble about this kind of blogging (which is not mommy bloggging, since I have no child, but not niche blogging since I don't blog about old cars or poker) is that I tend to write about myself. Ah, that favorite subject. But since I write about myself, and my ideas, I get personal. And so I forget that this is a computer and I want someone to answer me back. Which happens, sometimes. But not all the times. So my search for approval and friendship on the interwebs brings me right back to the fact that I need more face to face time with people. Which I am working on. Also, writing morning pages (3 pages every morning, a la Julie Cameron and TAW) helps, because instead of blurting out all my ideas to a computer and expecting approval, expecting conversation, I know that I'm writing on a page and that no one will read it until I want them to, and that I'm more having conversations with myself.

Last night, after church, I spent about an hour finishing transcribing the first story that I'm putting in my MFA portfolio. (A fiction portfolio should have 2 stories and equal a total of 20-30 pages.) So I rewarded myself with what I thought was the last 20 minutes of Cold Case. Nope, it was 3 Rivers. Well, I'm not going to start with another show (I already am loyal to The Good Wife and Numb3rs) so I turned the TV off. Moved some furniture around. I got rid of a desk and a bookcase this weekend, and to pull of the getting rid of part, I had to move furniture. I used to have a tiny bookcase at the top of my staircase, where I put my keys, etc. But it was a little tight manuevering. But I never thought about putting it somewhere else...until I got rid of the bookcase that was on the landing. And so all weekend, the landing was NAKED. (The horrors!) So I thought, why don't I put the keys bookcase on the landing? So I did, angled it, and I think it looks lovelier than it did in its original home. Maybe I'll start using it for mail, instead of piling mail on the floor of the landing...

Oh, so where was that train going? Oh, Cold Case. So after I'd done some apartment improvement, I turned on Cold Case, which was 10 minutes in. And soon realized that while it is a cool show and I love seeing the flashbacks, it is not on the same par as The Good Wife and Numb3rs, so maybe I would finish my book instead. Which I did.

Books last week:

The Year of the Rat by Grace Lin, sequel to The Year of the Dog. A nice middle grade book about a first generation Taiwanese-American girl (her parents are immigrants) who lives in upstate New York. It's also illustrated by the author, little whimsical drawings, which won my heart over. A little confusing, since the author says it's fiction, yet she uses her own home names, Pacy (for home, with family) and Grace (for school). So I kept wondering...is this a memoir? Apparently not, according to the author's note at the end, though the part about a friend moving away was true. But why use your own name in a novel? Other than that bizarro twist, I would recommend it, ages 8+

The Grace Livingston Hill Story. Hi, I'm Sarah Louise and I'm a GLH-aholic. I'm better than I was, but I used to tear through her romances like crazy. The first one I read was White Orchids. In a flurry of I'm getting rid of stuff because I'm/we're moving, I got rid of it at the end of high school. I missed it, and now have another copy. Phew! That actually happened with another book, Sparrow Lake, too, which is out of print, so more it's more of a story that I have another copy, just happened upon it one day and said, yes, this is that book that I thought was too sad to ever read again but I want to read it again and be sad. Where was I? Oh yes. I really liked the Grace Livingston Hill bio, because her books can be a little sugary and we're so poor and honest and godly. Her first husband was a morphine addict! At the time when they didn't know morphine was addictive and there were no rehab centers. He was a pastor, so all the more shocking. And her second husband was a musician who was very childish, who she finally told, leave, and don't come back. No word of an actual divorce, since, you know, not godly. While I love her novels, they are sheer escapism and now I understand a little more about why. SHE needed the escape. And I never knew that the books were her bread and butter, since her first husband died at 35, leaving her with two young daughters to raise. So, of course they were a little formulaic, she was pounding them out, 2 or 3 a year.

Oh, and the title. I have always had trouble with 8+7. How in the heck do they make 15? But I was talking to my mother (retired schoolteacher) about it yesterday, and she said they are now teaching about the "doubles" in math. 6+6=12, so go up or down one for 13 or 11. Same with 7+7. It is so much clearer!! My mother goes back to teaching Wednesday. Her former colleague is having a scheduled C-section Tuesday and my mother will teach for the duration of her maternity leave, which is til the end of the quarter, some time in February.

Well, my dearies, off to take a picture, the one you see up there. Ciao for now.

This is it ...(no, really, really not.)

I had completely forgotten about NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo. I have decided to participate in the latter.

Stay tuned, I have a post about Nick Hornby's new book, Juliet, Naked, and how I thought about it a lot while watching the movie made from Michael Jackson's rehearsals for his once and no longer future last concerts. But if you want to go see This is it, don't wait for my review, it needs to simmer. And if you're on the fence, go see Amelia. (Next on my list.)

I bet you're wondering where I've been and why I'm not blogging as much anymore...it's that I'm trying to work on a portfolio and it's hard to keep up with daily blogging, Twitter, Facebook, oh, and that pesky thing that pays my bills, work.

I'm also trying to get away from the approval curve. A lot of why I blogged in the beginning was because I thought it was something cool people did and I wanted to be cool. And when I lucked into a sweet community and started getting comments, I felt like I had hit the cool pot of gold. The other night the president of Drew, the first African American and first woman president etc, etc. was on Tavis Smiley. And Tavis asked her about approval. And she said (paraphrased from memory, folks), I work hard to excel, not for approval. This is the way I would do it anyways.

I am SO not there. I want people to like my eggplant spaghetti sauce. I want people to re-tweet my tweets. I want to be a Newbery author. I want to be like Sally Fields and stand up there on stage, "You like me! You really like me!"

And folks, nothing like approval seeking to kill the lust for hard work. Approval seeking wants glitter and glamor and recognition.

So I've been working on very non-glamorous Morning Pages, as a part of my "artist in recovery" work with Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way. If you can do it, get some friends to do it with you, it's hard to stay honest if it's just you. I'm in a closed blog with some Twitter friends, and boy is it good to be able to say, no, I did not write today, and for that to be okay, because other people didn't either. Of course, we seek excellence, but we are human, and we will always always always fail.

So, I hereby promise to write most days this month, right here. I do not promise to write every day or to only give you fresh writing every day. But I'll be here, and if you show up, I hope you take a minute to say hi. It's the only way I'll know you stopped by, because I don't have a thing-y that catches visits. See? It's been so long I can't remember the name of that silly thing-a-ma-jig-y, because it was tied in with my own personal am I good enough approval rating.

with x's and o's,
me.

...and it was still warm...

So, when one names ex-boyfriends after favorite book characters, it can backfire...


...but I think we'll survive.

Banners from /Film, where you can find out more info about this "Coming SOON!" movie.

I ching?

So, when I was working for Fox books, my friend Tim told me about the I Ching. It's the same book, but when you look at it every day, the message changes. I used to feel that way about Eat Cake. Now, Sex and the City re-runs are my I Ching. (I suppose as a Christian, the Bible should be, but I'd rather not say the Bible is my Buddhist answer book.)

I used to have Eat Cake sitting on top of the CD player in the loo, so I read bits every day. And it always spoke to me. Then I dated a struggling musician and had intimacy issues and money problems and Eat Cake was no longer removed enough from my life. I haven't touched it in a long time. (Soon, I think, I'll be ready to re-read.)

But now, when I have a vile day, I know exactly which episode to turn to: when I can't cry because something horrible happened, I go to the one where Miranda's mother dies and Sam can't get a release until the funeral. Or yesterday, I went for the one where Carrie rebounds with the new Yankee and then cries in his mouth after seeing Big in a bar. She dials the pay phone and you don't know who she's talking to, and you don't know who she's meeting "at our place" until the camera pans to Miranda.

I gotta go. It's this thing called work. They pay me to correct catalog records and help pubescent boys find the next great sci fi series, preferably one he has never heard of. (He's tired of vampires, when I recommend a Westerfeld.) (Me too.)

Writing vs. Blogging Part Deux

So, ironically, here I am, again, less than an hour later.

I'm trying to build an arsenal of writing prompts. There are a lot of websites, and it's super easy to open my google documents and open a window with writing prompts.

This is the one I found today: Creative Writing Prompts.

I find that I'm a lot better with the prompts that are like "write about an empty glass" (which I did) than write "I remember..."

Okay, I did today's writing, back to Season Six Part One. Miranda has figured out she loves Steve, Berger's book option got dropped, Samantha is helping Smith with his acting career, and Charlotte is sad because she lost Harry, after she converted to Judaism so they could get married.

Blogging vs. Writing...

This is an interesting development.

I never knew Jose Saramago was blogging, but hey, he's stopped to finish his novel.

I have been trying to post to this, while trying to work on writing.

Not saying that I'm stopping, but I'm wondering.

Even though I went walking this morning, and was thinking of blogging. But I came home, and nothing.

Except some pictures (which I will try to remember to post) and this great quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”

Lint Gate continues...

Except now, it's not about the lint.

So...I waited all week to do laundry, knowing that I didn't want to have to deal with it on a night that I worked til 9pm. So last night, I put a load in around 6:30 p.m. I moved around some books for an hour, went back downstairs at 7:30. Well, it was still going, but at least it was in the "Final Spin."

I did a bunch of other stuff, including getting a Popsicle, calling my parents (line busy), calling Michigan Sally, and gabbing away. While we were talking, I thought, let me just see where the load is, maybe I can transfer stuff to dryer. Um. Still in "Final Spin," a half hour later.

My clothes were almost dry! Who needs a dryer? So I unplugged the washer (there may be a shut off switch, but this is a laundromat style coin-op and so there aren't really dials to work with.) Upstairs again, I wrote an email to the landlord.

Luckily, I washed towels and underwear last night, so I'm set for a week. I have enough shirts to last me a while, since my mom and I did 4 loads of laundry when she came to visit a few weeks ago.

On the depression front--my body is doing bizarre things that feel like "not depression":

• I couldn't sleep last night (which feels like hypomania).
  
• I am eating everything in sight (including opening a can of tuna with a church key b/c my can opener is broken) (And yes, I know hunger is a depression symptom, but when I lick the plate clean, that seems hypomanic to me.)
• Today in the morning, I was Ms. Motormouth, and at lunch, too.
  

But this afternoon, at work on the Children's reference desk, I retreated inward and in between helping patrons, I transferred my Twitter favorites into Delicious. I grunted at patrons, and told them we didn't have books, (but then I found myself wrong, and delighted them.) So, I can still do my job, and well, but I am like dead wood inside. Argh.

Insomnia, thy name is...

So I'm getting ready to take some time off work. So of course, all things go wrong, and by all things, I mean, my washing machine, which had issues a few weeks ago and I alerted my landlord, who cleaned out a ton of lint. Max, Mr. First Floor, did a load after "lint-gate" and had no problem. My mom was in town last weekend, so we went to a laundromat since I had more laundry than one load. But in preparation for stuff n'at, I wanted to do a load tonight.

I checked on it at 9pm, before I left for Whole Foods. I checked on it at 10, after I returned from Whole Foods. (After I put a phone call into my car friend to say, why would there be water dripping from my passenger side foot area? Oh, condensation from my a/c? Oh, okay.) My mom assured me that we could do laundry tomorrow. I assured her, oh, I'm sure it will spin out soon, and promptly forgot about it, went upstairs to watch Numb3rs and finish packing my meds. At a quarter to midnight, after I had done enough of my own spinning, I figured my laundry should be too.

And I was sorely disappointed.

So I unplugged the stupid vile machine (I think it must be a faulty pump) and took my laundry out, put it in the sink to drain overnight. In the morning, I'll take my trash bag out of my kitchen trash can and use the trash can to transport the drained out laundry.

I discovered this unhappy laundry debacle after I had put my laptop to bed but since I'm so wired I brought it back up, wrote an email to my landlord, and started this post.

ARGH.

North Hills Sally, now Michigan Sally, has discovered her local library and has finally taken out Gilead, one of my favorite books. I told her, it's a love letter from a father to a son, do not expect a plot and know that it meanders.

I am so exhausted. Maybe I'll find an online game to play.

mtc (more to come)

xo,
SL

"No more sadness, I kiss it good-bye/The sun is bursting right out of the sky..."

In 1986, M-tv still showed music videos, Madonna's album True Blue had been released, and I was in 8th and 9th grades.

What do I remember? That True Blue was one of the first cassettes I bought (as opposed to vinyl records) and that there was a contest on M-tv for best video for the title track when it was released as a single. I remember spending afternoon(s) watching the entries, some of which used blue casting as part of the visual effects.

So when the song came on the radio the other day, the memories flooded back. I had just arrived at work, but I stayed in the car until the song was over. Funny how memories flood back: I remember the record shop where I bought the tape, in Wheaton Plaza. It was sort of but not really near the Gap store. I remember strolling my siblings along, in their double stroller, and people asking me if they were my kids and me being offended. (They are ten and eleven years younger than me.)

In our split level house in suburban Silver Spring, Maryland, we had bean bag chairs on the floor, that's what we sat on to watch TV. Much more comfortable than my current set-up at home, a bed on top of a box spring, no headboard. I miss my sofa!! Not that there is really room for another piece of furniture, but even sitting against a husband pillow** doesn't quite replicate the comfort of watching TV from a couch.

****************

So you may have noticed that I've been blogging less--that's about to stop, because (drum roll please) my laptop HAS arrived, all shiny and pink. She came on Friday, I opened her on Sunday morning, and we're still getting acquainted. I have yet to install AVG (the computer came with McAffee, yuk, but we'll deal.) Today I installed Firefox, Adobe Flash, and other sundry things. I have a router, but haven't hooked it up, and I still need to get a wireless mouse. And I need to name her.

In the time that I've not been blogging, I've been tweeting more, especially since I can tweet from my non-internet enabled cell phone. And I've been trying to think what I want to do with this blog--what is it for, who is it for, and what should I write here? And I still don't know. So I'll keep writing bits here and there. I hope you'll come back to see what I've written.

In other writing news, I'm now in a women's writing group with some women from church, which is thrilling. We meet every three weeks and have met twice so far. Now, if only I could get started on something to submit...my goal is to work really hard for the next two years so that I can be in an MFA Creative Writing program by August 2011. (Eek!) My boss in Children's let out a celebratory whoop when I told her my plans--previous to this, my plans had been plain vanilla: to go back for a doctorate in Library Science. This goal is far more audacious but closer to what I really really want: to write more.

It is super scary, since the dual goals of spending less to reduce debt and writing more so I have a portfolio to submit are both things I have not been successful at since my college years. But then again, I haven't had a goal like this since those years.

STAY TUNED!!

_____________________
*True Blue, Madonna, 1986.
**in 1986, I was a Redskins fan.

"Shopping is my cardio."

Carrie Bradshaw, on why she doesn't think she'll get into online shopping now that she has Internet. (Baby, Talk is Cheap, Episode 54, Season 4)

I spent 50 minutes in a grocery store today. That is 50 minutes too many, but at least when my therapist asks me tomorrow did I walk this week, I can answer truthfully. I walked from my car to the movie theatre to find out movie times. I walked from the movie theatre to Panera, where I had corn chowder with my sandwich, yum. I walked from Panera to Bed Bath and Beyond. I walked around the kitchen area of Bed Bath and Beyond long enough to find some food storage containers that will come in handy now that I'm determined to cook more and eat out less, which includes taking food to work that isn't in a cardboard box that has plastic wrap around frozen food.

I then walked to Bath and Bodyworks, where I discovered they don't have bath bombs either. NO ONE DOES. They suggested I look online. Shopping online never occurs to me. (I hate paying for shipping.) (And I like stores better.) But I really want some bath bombs.

['Scuse me while I look for them, and the first ones I find are $9 a piece! WHAT? The last one I bought was $1 at Giant Eagle and I didn't have to pay shipping!!!!!!!]

[The next two places are $4 and $5, but look, you can MAKE THEM HERE.] Now I'll be looking to procure a "dome shaped mold." Yes, I think that means more shopping. Unless I could use Styrofoam egg cartons...I digress.

So back to my afternoon exercise routine. (Are you tired yet?) I walk from Bath and Bodyworks (where I bought a compact that has one side regular mirror and one side magnified, for $4, and it's PINK) back to the movie theatre. During the previews I try to finish the Red Dress Ink book that I've been working on for the past day or so, because I've invested too much time to not finish it, and I know she gets the guy because I cheated, but I just want it to be DONE, and at this point, it seems really confusing why she would want the guy or why, for that matter, he would want her. Be forewarned: Loves me, Loves me not, is not a lovable book. Though the graphic design for the chapter headings is clever--a Gerber daisy that loses more petals as you work through the book. (You know, like pulling the petals out, "he loves me, he loves me not." Cute. But you don't need to read the book to enjoy that detail.)

Since I've already seen Harry Potter and the HBP once, I'm so bored the first 15 minutes (and I want to finish the blasted stupid RDI book) I almost walk out. But I don't, and I finally settle in and enjoy myself, catch a lot of the little things I missed the first time I watched it, but generally wish I was with someone. Chick flicks, I can see alone. But for me, Harry Potter movies are about my sister and where the heck was she?? In DC, as usual. (Well, she lives there, so that's no big surprise.)

After the movie ends, I walk back to the car, deposit my book and walk to the grocery store. And I proceed to walk around the store for the next 50 minutes, without a list, and though I used to shop at this Giant Eagle back in the day, I'm somewhat unfamiliar and did I mention no list? I don't get out under $50, which I'm sure my mom readers are saying what, that's a bargain, but remember, I'm feeding one person, not three to five. If I spent $50 for what should turn out to be 30 meals (including breakfast cereal), how much is that per meal? About $1.66, so not so bad. I need to keep shopping. Eat out less.

The thing is awareness. I'm actually spending less than I was a year ago. But I'm more aware of my financial situation and I actually REALLY THIS TIME DO want to get out AND STAY OUT of debt and I've given up the dream of getting a higher paying job and I'm looking at grad school in two years, so...the awareness makes my anxiety level higher and by the time I get $60 fast cash out of the ATM and see my balance, which has gone significantly down since payday, (was that only four days ago?) I am on High Anxiety.

So from the grocery store, I walk back to the car (thankfully I didn't buy any heavy things like, say, a whole turkey or a case of canned beets) and drive home. At which point, I walk downstairs one flight to the basement, put my laundry in the dryer (walk up one flight to the foyer) and walk the three flights to my garret apartment with my groceries. I put away my food, immediately open a 100 calorie Pringles container, and make myself a rum and Coke. Anxiety levels drop as I chow on a second 100 calorie Pringles container, fix a Lean Cuisine (I can't cook every day!) and finish the RDI book. And immediately turn the TV on as I work my way through Season Three of SATC.

Today would have been a great day to have worn my pedometer. I may not have walked to church (it's a goal) but please observe that I didn't move my car from 1:30 pm to 7pm while I did all that walking around the Waterworks Shopping Center.

When I finally am at a low enough anxiety level that I can actually call my mother, she confesses that although she doesn't like getting her hair cut on Sundays, she did today. It makes sense, they're leaving tomorrow for a road trip that culminates next weekend in a wedding. And it hits me WHY my grocery/money/ shopping anxiety was so high! I don't actually hit my hand on my forehead, but it's that kind of a moment. We're "no shopping on Sunday" people! We do movies, we do restaurants, but we do not do laundry or shopping unless absolutely necessary. As I have developed from a wee Louise to an almost 40 year old Louise, Sunday has become my day to zone out, my day to FORGET that I even have a checking account. The money anxiety? Was only part of the fact that I hate grocery shopping and a lot of the part that I feel it is my God-given gift to NOT GROCERY SHOP on Sunday. That's what Monday is for. (Monday is also wash day...) Sunday is for movies. Sunday is for chillin' in the crib. Sunday is for church. Sunday is NOT for worrying about bank balances.

And finally, this particular Sunday is for Sarah Louise to spend ten minutes turning her computer on and off, hitting F8 till finally she gets the "do you want to try safe mode with networking" screen. It is 11 pm and I have spent the past hour WRITING A BLOG POST. Life, my friends, is good. Dear reader, there is joy in Mudville. And I didn't have to turn on my air conditioning at all.

And so, as I realize I should probably start to get ready for bed so that I can greet tomorrow with at least a half-hearted desire to find laundry detergent,* I bid thee adieu.

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*did Wisk go off the market? And why are there so many different kinds of Tide? And is it really worth it to spend $8 for the kind that is good for the environment and and and... this is why I didn't buy laundry detergent. Which is also why my groceries were light and easy to carry back to the car, parked by the movie theatre.