In the Sun

Once again and, really, as always, there is a song stuck in my head: In the Sun, a Joseph Arthur song as covered by Ben Harper. It’s one of those songs, the ones you don’t remember hearing the first time, one of those songs you think you’ve always known.

Honestly, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it when I heard it on Scrubs the other day. I’m sure I’ve heard it before. I must have. I knew the melody and I knew the lyrics. It just wasn't something I'd normally associate with Scrubs. I don’t watch it for the kickin’ soundtrack. I watch it for the janitor, for Perry, for Turk. I watch it for JD’s flashbacks, flash-forwards and imaginary scenes.

Tuesday night’s rerun kind of hit me, though. A little bit off of the funny bone. Perry’s sister came in for his son’s christening. He, of course, hated her. She found religion; he believed in hockey, himself and the beauty of sarcasm.

Granted, I only paid half attention until the christening scene. I don't know what really happened. Even then, I was only drawn in because the sister was wearing my favorite plum silk wrap dress from the republic of bananas. (Nobody ever claimed I was all that deep.)

Later, when she and her brother bonded, I totally spaced on the family-friendly, touchy feely scene. The background became the foreground and I could only hear the song. In the Sun.

I picture you in the sun wondering what went wrong
And falling down on your knees asking for sympathy
And being caught in between all you wish for and all you seen
And trying to find anything you can feel that you can believe in

May God's love be with you always
May God's love be with you

I know I would apologize if I could see your eyes
Cause when you showed me myself I became someone else
But I was caught in between all you wish for and all you need
I picture you fast asleep
A nightmare comes
You can't keep awake

May God's love be with you always
May God's love be with you

Cause if I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
If I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find you

I don't know anymore
What it's for
I'm not even sure
If there is anyone who is in the sun
Will you help me to understand
Cause I been caught in between all I wish for and all I need
Maybe you're not even sure what it's for
Any more than me

May God's love be with you always
May God's love be with you

I don’t know what it is. I don’t remember hearing it. I don’t know how I know it. In The Milagro Beanfield war, a man awoke one day literate. He lost his literacy when he lost his right arm (to butterflies, by the way). His left arm just didn’t know how to make words. Likewise, I awoke one day knowing this song and feeling it deeply.

I tried singing it to my friend Lauren in the elevator at work the other day. She managed to restrain her giggles at my off-pitch keening but made me play the song back in my office. (I had, of course, found and downloaded it already.)

“I don’t know this song,” she said. “But I like it.”

I knew it. I liked it. I listened to it about a dozen times throughout the day. It made me think.

May God’s love be with you.

It’s not something I would normally say. I go to church. Regularly, even. And over the course of Lent, I gave up wine and picked up church. I became a card-carrying member of a local congregation and I feel at home there. Following my induction ceremony, a man came up to me.

“Go Bobcats!” he cried. I looked at him: white haired, fist pumping. “You are from Cambridge, right?”

I was. I am. I was just surprised to meet a retired gentleman who knew my hometown, who introduced himself, out of the blue, based on geographic ties. He made me happy and tried to make me feel at home.

I grew up in the church. My mom’s a church secretary. My parents met at a religious college. The same one where my cousin met his wife, his parents met, our grandparents met. Church means as much and as little as prayers before bed, over meals and at family events.

After high school, I spent a summer at a church camp. Lifeguarding, making food, canoeing. I was 17 and away from home for the first time and for good. I participated in my first bachelor party that summer. Yes, bachelor. Not bachelorette. I drank. I smoked. I cried a lot.

Over the next several years, I lost my faith. I’m not sure I ever really had it. I don’t know if I have it now. These days, I find myself embarrassed to admit that I am a Christian. That I believe in God. That I go to church. Regularly. Granted, I do meet boys who love that. I’m a girl they can take home to mom. But for the most part, it’s almost a sign of weakness, of ignorance, and I don’t know how that started.

Many of my friends are incredibly strong in faith. I have friends who work for Jewish Women International. B’nai B’rith. Organizations founded on belief and my friends are proud of what and how they believe, but I am still embarrassed. I have been told that organized religion is nothing but a crutch for ignorant souls afraid of dying. Not souls. Soul means nothing. People afraid.

I say the Our Father nightly with my brain shut down, my body close behind. The creeds drip from my tongue without thought or effort. I know every word of 'most every standard Lutheran service and some of the irregular ones. It is part of me, whether or not I believe or understand it.

And I try to believe. I try to understand. Sometimes, I struggle. I struggle with words and thoughts and actions. I try to make sense of all that accompanies the name of God: The hatred, the violence, the evil.

Sometimes, though, it all makes sense. One song. One verse.

May God's love be with you

It’s not a hymn. It’s not a prayer. It’s just a song coursing through my head and it reminds of who I am.

May God's love be with you

Maybe I’m stupid and afraid, ignorant and weak. Even so, it's not a half bad wish.



Tag: Religion In the Sun Christianity

Hard Candy

When a friend invited me to an advanced showing of the flick, I couldn’t say no. I recognized the name, Hard Candy, which appealed to the Candy Sandwich in me, but I couldn’t quite place the plot. The gut-wrenching, heart-pounding, twisted plot.

A bartending friend offered my friend from work a pass to a screening at E Street Cinema. Her husband, distracted by the new big TV that makes up and takes up their living room, declined. Second choice worked for me. We made plans and headed downtown, arriving early to stand in line – promotional events equals more passes than seats and we really wanted to go. We joined the end of the queue. We waited. A mother and son stood in line behind us. A woman alone behind them. And so on. And so on.

The friend and I popped a squat on the floor and poured over Filmfest DC synopses to fill the time, pointing out movie after to movie to one another with “I totally want to see this” and “You know you’d like that” followed quickly by “What page? Which one? Are these pages numbered?”

A man wandered up, tall, round, untucked and misbuttoned, dragging a suitcase.

“Is anyone alone?” he boomed. I looked up from the floor and pointed to the woman behind us. He turned slightly. “Is anyone alone?”

“What? Oh, yeah. I’m alone. You want to get in?” Passes admitted two. She couldn’t find anyone to join last minute. He cut into the growing line with his suitcase and started talking to the woman, the mother and the son. He was quite the entertaining character, rumbling in that indescribable, incomparable voice and talking about movies, free movies, and where about town to find them.

At some point, the conversation twisted to the movie at hand. Hard Candy. A movie tagged “Lolita with Teeth,” a movie almost as hard to describe as the man with the giant rolling bag. A poster in the lobby touted “Absolutely terrifying! Once it lands its hooks in you, there’s no tearing away” with a picture of a girl standing in the open jaw of a bear trap.

The IMDB one-liner summarizes the plot as: A provocative drama about a 32-year-old man who takes home a 14-year-old girl he meets on the Internet – with surprising consequences.

That’s when it all got wonky.

Based on the reviews I saw this morning, I expected something along the lines of Dateline meets Swimming with Sharks and a bit of Saw or maybe Saw II. I also expected to fully hate the characters. Both of them. All of them. (Although the movie focused primarily on the characters played by Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page, Sandra Oh popped in to maintain her independent street cred.) I expected a reaction something along the lines of Closer or The Good Girl or Friends with Money. Good stories. Well executed. I couldn’t care less what happened to any of the characters following the credits. I didn’t much like them.

Strangely enough, I walked out of the theater tonight feeling mixed thoughts toward a presumed pedophiliac. Toward his 14-year-old victim. I cared about and hated each of them to varying degrees.

“What did you think of the movie?” asked a theater employee standing by the concession stand where I refilled my friend’s massive bucket o’ Diet Coke for the ride home. “You just saw Hard Candy, right?”

“Yeah…” I replied. I hesitated. “I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.”

The man behind the counter and the man beside me both nodded emphatically. We chatted a little while. We all experienced mixed feelings about the flick, the ending, the presumption of guilt or innocence.

“I liked it,” I decided in front of them. “It was good. I am so not going to watch it again.”

They both laughed and agreed. Strongly.

It was a hard movie to watch. The audience groaned audibly. Tittered inappropriately. Shifted in seats. I plugged my own ears at one point and noticed the woman next to me doing the same. I squirmed uncomfortably and glanced over at my friend for reassurance, for empathy, for a reality check. Then, again, the performances were amazing. The dialogue: Gripping. The action: Eclipsed by the quiet moments of inaction.

Hard. Sweet. Hard Candy. I get it.

I must go and shower now. Try to scrub my mind.


Tag: Hard Candy Movie Patrick Wilson Ellen Page Sandra Oh

A pain in the neck

Tired from an entire weekend of doing nothing, well, relatively nothing, I decided to turn in early Monday night, watch a little TV, finish my book. After an entire weekend of sleeping on the couch, I longed for the comfort of stretching out in my own big, comfy bed.

Why sleep on the couch, one might ask. I have a bedroom. I have a guest bedroom. I also have a personality quirk (surprising, I know). I hate watching TV in my bedroom. According to the National Sleep Foundation, one should use the bedroom only for sleep, sex, and changing clothes. Works for me.

Actually, I am prone to insomnia and limiting my bedroom activities to, well, bedroom activities exerts a Pavlovian influence on me. My ears perk. I drool a little, look for the food bowl and fall fast asleep upon entering the room. (Funny, given that Pavlov also suffered from insomnia, but that’s beside the point.) I sleep better if I don’t watch TV or read in my room. Ever since I got the DVR, it’s been easier to avoid. I don’t watch TV with commercials or in real time either.

Monday night, though, I knew I wouldn’t make it. I could leave all the lights on with the TV blaring and I would still fall asleep. I set the DVR to record my show. I turned on the TV. I set the alarm. I changed into my pajamas, turned down the covers and threw my book on the bed. I looked for the remote.

That’s when things got a little wonky.

I looked on the windowsill, next to the alarm. I looked on the dresser, next to the TV. I looked on the trunk, in the bed, under the pillows. I looked on the floor under the bed. I pulled the bed away from the wall.

Now, at this point, I considered walking the 30 or so steps to the living room to get another remote. I tend to lose them on occasion and keep an extra one next to the chair and a half. I thought about manually changing the channel but the box really isn’t set up for that – I was on channel 262 (General Hospital) and wanted to go to channel 4 (Medium). I don’t even know if there’s a channel button on the box. It’s all a little confusing.

So, bed pulled away from the wall, I persevered. I climbed across the bed, knocking my head on the paper lantern, and crouched down at the edge. I found a Christmas light box and an airplane stress ball, but no remote. I pushed the bed back, plugged in the Christmas lights, thought for a bit. I reached down between the headboard and wall and shook out the bed skirt. Clatter. We have remote!

Unfortunately, we also had remote oh, so, conveniently out of reach. I didn’t think about moving the bed again. That would make sense. I reached my arm between the metal bars of the headboard. A little farther. I shifted. Tilted my head. Reached again. Remote. Pain. Excruciating pain.

“Ow. Ow, ow, ow.” I hopped around the bedroom with my head held at an unnatural angle. I poked at it tenderly with the unremote hand. “Ow.”

I changed the channel to the show I’d basically missed in the whole wild remote chase. And then I went back to whining. Gingerly, I pushed my head toward the other shoulder.

“Ow.” I turned my head back. “Ow.”

I crawled into bed and tried to read a little. I unplugged the Christmas lights and buried myself face first in the pillow for a muffled “Mfow.”

I awoke this morning to a slightly diminished literal pain in my neck and went into work to face an even bigger figurative pain in the neck. Screwy reports, absent clients and random requests for information.

It figures.


Tag: Neck Pain Insomnia Television

Safety pins

One of these days, I swear I’m going to be asked to go home and change. I don’t necessarily dress inappropriately for work – that is never my intention – but sometimes my outfits get a little out of control.

My office is pretty professional. Outfits tend to run the gamut from khakis and sweaters to svelte suits, from the girl with the short, short skirts and tall, tall boots to the receptionist in lovely tunics and skirts or trousers. I fall somewhere in the middle. I only own one suit. I tend toward trousers and sweaters in the cold months, skirts and blouses in the warm ones and that’s where I get into trouble. I seem to be a button popper, which totally does not go over well in the office.

Take this morning as an example. I wore a new wrap shirt. After ripping out the tags and pulling off the size sticker, I stood in front of the mirror a good 10 minutes, tying, adjusting, and retying, trying to make sure that I was carefully covered, concealed and cute enough for the metro, if not for work. And then I walked to the metro, messenger bag tugging and pulling and completely dislodging things. By the time I got to work, I need to readjust. I retied and got to work.

An hour or so later, my brother and a coworker came into my office and I turned in my chair, pivoting to talk. I raised my arm for some, as yet unknown, reason and felt something give. I broke the tie in my shirt. The one on the outside, not the conveniently concealed one on the inside, but the one that kept my shirt together.

Great.

Of course, I have safety pins. I’m a grown up. I have a sewing kit and safety pins and random notions. I even know that the term “notions” means small lightweight items for household use, such as needles, buttons, and thread. I just don’t carry this stuff with me to work.

With my brother and coworker standing in my office, I tried to tie my shirt together. Highly professional. I knotted the side in a bunchy little knot, all my previous fidgeting and straightening for naught. What’s a girl to do?

Nobody would be surprised. I’m not the most professional person in the world. I keep heels under my desk in case of emergency, flip flops in case of everything else. I tend to fall down, walk into walls, bang my elbows and knees and head (on occasion) on filing cabinets. My buttons pop just about every time I wear a button-down shirt. (I’ve sewn most of them closed between the top three buttons.)

I doubt anybody would even notice that I tied my shirt together.

Fortunately, though, after a good five minutes of watching me fiddle and tie, my coworker had a light bulb moment.

“I think I have safety pins,” she said. “Would you like one?”

“Um… yeah. That would be good.”

She brought me a box of safety pins, rubber banded tight for safekeeping.

“Help yourself.”

I spent another five minutes unknotting my brand new, broken shirt and safety pinned the side in place. I handed the box back.

“Do you want any more?” she asked, heading toward the door.

“Yeah!” I called. “Can I have another?”

I took one out of the box, replaced the rubber band and safety pinned the top of my shirt closed. I handed back the box and grinned. More professional then usual.

Later, long after I got home and before I unpinned my shirt to get ready for bed, I thought about putting the pins back in my bag for later emergencies but I promptly forgot. I’m sure I’ll be a mess again another day. Soon.


Tag: Safety pins Professional Attire Work

Picture perfect

“Excuse me,” asked the nice young man with the camera, the man who had asked for the time 20 minutes earlier. “Can I take a picture of your foot?”

“Pardon me?” I asked.

“Your foot. Can I take a picture of your foot? I’m working on a graphic design project.”

I waved off any additional explanation. I shrugged. “Sure.” I picked up my book as he picked up his camera.

He cast a shadow across my foot, standing between me and the sun. I looked down and noticed the skin tag on my ankle, a bit of extra flesh that’s always been there and a bit of my inner ankle that I probably haven’t noticed since I was eight.

I examined the recent pedicure, the summer-ready feet with “I’m Not Really a Waitress” red from OPI, the nail shaping, the filing, the lotion.

I remembered my Friday night dream of frighteningly hairy ankles and shuddered briefly. (I shave daily but had forgotten to relocate the razor from suitcase to bathtub after the Vegas trip. This morning, I stopped the water and traipsed naked and dripping from the bathroom to the bedroom in search of the razor.)

The man with the camera moved out of the sun, squatted down and took additional shots of my bare foot.

I focused on my book, the hysterical miscellany that is David Sedaris in Barrel Fever and I realized that the man with the camera was quite possibly a freak with a foot fetish. I thought about that for a second, looking down at the top of his head, his well worn camera, his button down shirt and khakis. I shrugged again, to myself.

What could he do with pictures of my foot? Seriously. Even if he’d taken pictures of me, of my face from a distance, to tie the foot to the rest of me, what could he do with them?

I considered the exhibit I had seen barely an hour earlier at the National Gallery of Art in the Photographic Discoveries: Recent Acquisitions exhibition. An Alfred Stieglitz portrait of his artist wife, Georgia O’Keefe, came to mind - a woman, a man and a relationship defined by a carefully cropped photo featuring breasts and hands. Body parts used to define the whole.

Do my feet represent me? Could my foot, my pale, veined foot with vain red nails define me? Could I be exposed and exploited by saying yes to a request to photograph my foot?

The man tapped my foot with a cold finger and looked up at me.

“Could I get a picture of the bottom of your foot?”

I shrugged. I pulled my ankle higher onto my knee and bared the bottom of my foot. He snapped a couple of pictures and pulled himself up to his feet, thanking me. I thought for a minute longer and decided to forget about it.

I delved back into my book and wriggled my toes in the warm, spring air, happy for bare feet and weird people.


Tag: Feet Fetish Photography

Socially inept

“What are you doing tonight?” Kris asked after telling her own plans for appetizers at Zengo and the Nationals/Braves game. We all kind of missed the game Friday night, due to the rain delay, and her dad came to town just to see the Braves.

“Um… I don’t know,” I said. “I feel like such a slacker, like a social reject.”

“Own your social rejection,” she said. “Stay in one night.”

“I know, but it’s Saturday. I feel like I should go out. Other than volunteering this morning I’ve got nothing for the weekend.”

“So?” she asked. “You can choose to be a social reject.”

I thought about it. I’m not even a “it’s the weekend, let’s party!” kind of girl, but staying in on a Saturday night seemed a little pathetic. I hadn’t spent a Saturday night at home in even I didn’t know how long.

I thought a little more. It was rainy. And cold. And I distinctly heard thunder at some point.

“I guess I did have a big week,” I told Kris. “You know, Monday I flew to Vegas. Tuesday, I flew back. Wednesday we had that work thing with the happy hour. Thursday, oy vey, and last night, you know, we ended up at Saint Ex when we, uh, skipped the game.”

“That’s a lot,” Kris said.

“Yeah… I guess every night this week might be a little much.”

“You can stay in one night.”

Okay. So, I could stay in one night without feeling like a social reject. Volunteering in the morning. Eastern Market. Text messaging with one friend. A call with another friend. A call with the first friend. A call with Kris. A trip to the grocery store. A call with my four-year-old niece and my sister. A call with text-messaging friend. I definitely did not lack for social interaction.

I think it might have been the TV that led to the feelings of social inadequacy. (Like all good Midwesterners, I have learned to blame the TV for all that’s wrong with the world.) After three episodes of General Hospital, two episodes of What About Brian?, an episode of Gilmore Girls and a little Veronica Mars, I felt like a complete potato.

If not for the field greens, hummus and the organic Very Nearly Famous House Vinaigrette wrapped up in a tortilla and a liter or two of water, which meant dinner, I would have felt like a total slug. Pour some salt on me, dry me out and let me die in blaze of slime.

I stayed in with a glass of wine, my laptop and Fever Pitch, the Nick Hornby novel turned Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon movie about love, life and the Red Sox. I’ve still got a Sox cap on my ottoman, even after a thorough, weekend cleaning.

Even though the Nationals game was postponed due to rain, it was a good night for baseball, social ineptitude and sacking out on the sofa.


Tag: Going out Staying in

A great day for lounging

This gray and rainy Saturday, I can hear cars splashing down the street in front of my house, the wheels kicking up sprays of water in a crescendo of noise before fading in the distance.

Strangely enough, the day reminds me of a Saturday just two weeks ago. Drizzly. Cold. The steady patter of rain on leaves, the plop of drops outside the door, the tiny taps against my windows.

I didn’t want to get out of bed that day. I lazed under the flannel and down, a quilt and a blanket, nestled into the pillows well into afternoon, wide awake but unable to move. It was well past late afternoon and well into early evening by the time I had showered, dressed and left the house for dinner with friends.

My whole world seemed to fall apart in the weeks leading up to that gray, rainy day. It continued to fall apart over the next week or so. I could barely lift myself from bed on clear sunny days, much less the drizzly ones.

Today seems like the same sort of day. I want to crawl into bed. I want to cover my head and hide from the world, but I cannot. I will not. My head and my body won’t let me.

This morning, after a night with friends and merely six hours sleep, I ripped myself from the welcome arms of rest and pulled on a swimsuit, the red one, the one for laps, the functional not pretty one. I pulled on jeans, a t-shirt, my fleece. I pulled together a bag of random necessities – towel, umbrella, phone, ID, face wash, shower gel, shampoo. (I forgot the brush. I always forget the brush.) I walked out into the cold wet morning. I left the umbrella in the bag and walked, head down, through the drops.

An hour, an hour and a half later, I found myself walking through more relentless rain. Tired. Aching. Satisfied. (I can barely lift my arms now.) I ducked into Eastern Market on the way back. I checked out the line for Market Lunch and decided to forego the bluebucks and a half hour wait for breakfast at home and walked back through the vendors outside.

“Would you like a sample?” asked a tall man with dark hair and five o’clock shadow at 10 o’clock in the morning. He looked at me as he topped cabbage leaves with baby field greens. “We have micro greens with hummus and an organic vinaigrette.”

I stood a moment, looking and thinking before nodding and taking a hummus-topped mound of greens. A little bit of heaven in my mouth. I looked around at the food-laden tables and picked up a bottle of The Very Nearly Famous House Vinaigrette and some hummus from the Claymont Community Farm. I tucked them into my bag and chatted with the friendly girl who took my money, avoiding the rain a few seconds longer.

Walking home, rain water seeped up the legs of my jeans. Cold. Wet. Uncomfortable. I trod on the hem of my jeans – too tall for regular, too short for long, too lazy to hem. I realized the current jeans an extremely poor choice. Levis with a 34-inch inseam. I’m only 5-foot-8. 68 inches. A 34-inch inseam halves my height but I like them. Cold and damp, I find myself wearing them still, now, as I type.

I text messaged a friend on the way home. I came inside and started cleaning, continuing to text message from my English basement apartment, a process that requires standing in the open door, leaning on the metal grate - hands extended - and tilting the phone trying to find a signal. Put the phone down. Return to the computer. Wait for the ring and buzz a few minutes later. Read the message and open the door to respond. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I continue to clean. To type. To read and to write. I find myself stocked with a week’s supply of General Hospital as well as The Soup, The Office, Veronica Mars and Big Love. I am considering a fire and I am considering a nap. I am strangely happy and at peace with the world and with myself.

The weather today reminds me of a Saturday two weeks ago. My whole world seemed to fall apart in the weeks leading up to that gray, rainy day. It continued to fall apart over the next week or so.

I don’t know what happened. I don’t know when things got better, but today, well, today, even with the rain, the clouds, the coldness, the sun seems to be shining. It is a very good day.


Tag: Rain Depression Washington DC

Who's the big winner?

“I just won you 31-hundred pennies!” I shouted over the whir of slots, the music, the voices, the steady clinking and clunking and noise that made the casino a casino. “Thirty-one dollars. On penny slots.”

We exchanged a high five. Yes, a high five. We were dorks and we didn’t care.

I arrived mid-afternoon Monday and planned to leave Tuesday night. Instead of hitting the Strip, I actually curled up in my room that first afternoon, trying to catch up on email using the hotel/TV internet option (I didn’t want to lug my laptop cross country for such a short trip) and talking on the phone with a couple of friends.

Eventually, I made it out of the room and left the hotel to catch a shuttle to the Winn, a walk along the Strip through the Venetian, Harrahs, Bally’s, Paris. Gambling a little. Breaking even for the night. Crossing back and walking along the Bellagio (catching a fountain show and sidestepping a girl dancing in the street with her friend and a Corona). Caesars, the volcano at the Mirage, the people in queue for the Sirens of TI at Treasure Island.

I enjoyed my walk, my brief flirtation with slots. I kept away from the hotel happy hour, from the blackjack table, from craps and entertained myself with a shamefully wholesome Vegas experience.

I had considered coming to sin city sooner, spending the weekend in town, but I had just visited Vegas in December. Besides, it seemed almost pathetic to spend time in Vegas alone. I kept the trip short – an afternoon and an evening, a conference, a couple of hours and a redeye flight.

The conference, though, that was enough to drive a girl to drink at the hotel happy hour with attendees and fellow presenters. The facilitator and I headed out for a night of light gambling. She’d lost a lot of money the night before, borrowing from a coworker even when she exceeded her ATM withdrawal limit. I didn’t ask the limit but I took her word for it. I convinced her to play penny and nickel slots.

She loved every second of it. Of course, she also won on almost every machine we hit. She turned her 20-dollar investment into over a hundred dollars in pennies and nickels. We would try a machine for a while, win and move on.

“You just won 90 nickels. That’s… four dollars and 50 cents.”

“I just won you 31-hundred pennies!”

“You just go the Death Star bonus!”
“What is that?”
“I have no idea! But it sounds good.”

The high fives flew, as did the laughter. We felt far more intoxicated than even three glasses of wine and fairly empty stomachs would allow. We had fun. I’m sure we annoyed the more serious folk, but frankly, we didn’t care. We were playing penny slots.

As my back pocket started ringing, my phone reminding me that I needed to leave for the airport, we cashed out and my friend handed me (her good luck charm) a 20-dollar bill.

“Just one more,” she said.

We tried the slots by car, more than half convinced that one or both of us would be driving that beautiful silver convertible back to the DC. No luck. We moved on. I hit the dollar slots and “Catch a Wave.”

Five dollars at a time, I dwindled the 20 and placed a final bet. I caught a wave.

“50 dollars,” I said incredulously. “I just won $50. We have to leave!”

We walked back to the Winn, caught the shuttle to the Convention Center and walked back to our hotel. I called a cab and worried that it wouldn’t show.

“If you miss your flight,” my friend said. “If you miss your flight, just come back. We’ll find another slot machine.”

I grinned, caught a ride to the airport from one of the conference attendees and won my final win for the night. An empty row in Economy Plus. I stretched out and slept my way home, happy I had made the trip after all.


Tag: Las Vegas Gambling

O'er The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave

"I feel like a kite," shouted the woman in front of me on the plane, completely unaware of her volume, not caring, believing herself clever or trying to be heard over the engines. I believed her oblivous.

"It's the only simile I can think of," she screamed as we bounced around over McCarran International Airport. I felt less like a kite and more like something in the spin cycle of a frontload washer.

It had been an interesting flight, couple of flights. I left my house early this morning, lazily driving to National in dawn's early light and rush hour traffic.

I slept through the first flight, alighting in Chicago none the worse for wear and found myself stuck with a bagel, a book and a delayed departing flight. I curled up and waited for Seating 1. Three hours, one Diet Coke and half a bottle of water later, I took my window seat in the back of the plane. (That's what I get for booking with three days' notice.)

The window seat came in handy as we skimmed through the clouds. I fell asleep early, head against the window where so many heads have rested.

Later, I gazed out the window, watching clouds drift past. Floating. Weightless. Suspended in the middle of nothing outside my window.

Below, the patchwork of middle America. Circles and squares, thick stripes of farms defined by rivers, streams and county roads.

Later, the Rockies. Snowcapped crests and peaks and buttes. Red-tinged crags, not the terra cotta of Red Rocks but rather a deeper, darker cranberry. The Maroon Bells.

Later, still, desert stretched brown and dry beneath the cloudless sky.

We hit bumps of air along the way. Drafts and snags and roller coaster drops. I thought back to each of my three previous cross-country trips since Thanksgiving. The non-retracting landing gear. Covering the Rockies at night. During the day. Each trip beautiful and unique. Snapping photos out the window as we circled "to burn off enough fuel to land." Passengers talking loudly, in fear.

I didn't want to make this trip, this business trip for 24 hours in Vegas, but it was a beautiful ride.


Tag: Flying

Mea culpa

A word just keeps popping into my head. Accountable. I just can’t seem to shake it. It’s been bothering me so much lately, that I actually looked it up.

Accountable (synonym see RESPONSIBLE)

Responsible
1 a : liable to be called on to answer b (1) : liable to be called to account as the primary cause, motive, or agent [a committee responsible for the job] (2) : being the cause or explanation [mechanical defects were responsible for the accident] c : liable to legal review or in case of fault to penalties
2 a : able to answer for one's conduct and obligations : TRUSTWORTHY b : able to choose for oneself between right and wrong
3 : marked by or involving responsibility or accountability [responsible financial policies] [a responsible job]
4 : politically answerable; especially : required to submit to the electorate if defeated by the legislature -- used especially of the British cabinet

I think it’s the middle definitions that are stuck in my craw. (And to further the definitional madness: Stick in one's craw: to irritate, nag at, or obsess one). I am a woman obsessed, a woman irritated, a woman nagged.

Work’s been a little nutty lately. As a financial analyst and project lead, I help my client move toward a performance-based organization, to hold people accountable for their staffing, their budgets, their performance. Given that it’s a large government entity, the whole PBO concept is a little foreign. My client knows how to do its job and to do its job well. It’s not used to being compared, benchmarked, rated or reprimanded. Nevertheless, in every meeting I attend and regarding every report I produce, the word “accountable” pops up.

Of course, as a project lead, I am also accountable for the work that comes out of my office. Any errors, any inconsistencies, any problems. Those are mine. I work with a team, but ultimately, I am responsible. I am accountable. For the work, for the deadlines, for the products. People hate working with me - I am demanding. My standards are high. One guy just quit, but I don't want to change. Ultimately, it’s my ass and my name on the line.

More often than not, though, I tend to use the word in a personal way, the first of the two or definition number two. Being able to answer for one’s conduct and obligations. To be able to choose between right and wrong.

To err is human, to forgive divine, but where does admitting fault fit into the grand scheme of things?

The other day, heading to the doctor’s office, I pulled into the garage and looped the endless spiral up toward the top floor and midday parking spaces. I stopped on the third floor as a woman waited for a car to back out of a space. While I sat there, waiting, the woman who’d stopped, the car shark, backed her car down the ramp to give the exiter more space.

I watched indifferently for a minute or two and then I realized that she was going to hit my car. Bump. Honk. She looked in the rearview mirror and scowled at me. I sat there stunned.

“You hit my car,” I said to nobody in particular. “You just hit my car.”

The leaving car left. The waiting car parked. The woman got out and walked into the building.

“You just hit my car.”

I parked. I walked into the building, the office, the appointment in a bewildered daze. I didn’t even look at my bumper. My car is a tank. I rear ended someone a couple of months ago, destroying her bumper and drove away without a scratch (after an hour, an exchange of insurance information and a talk with a cop). I wasn’t worried about Sam (the car) but rather shocked that someone would just hit me and walk away.

“You just hit my car.”

The word crops up in relationships, too, with friends, in disagreements, misunderstandings. Sometimes the whole accountability thing gets in the way. If I feel wronged, well, I get upset. Period. I probably won’t get over it without a mea culpa. An “I did something wrong.” A stupid, strict moral code, I know, but it’s mine and I hold myself to it.

I did something wrong the other night. I might have hurt a friend. I called to apologize and left a message when he did not answer. I sent a text message. I will try again.

Mea culpa.

Mea maxima culpa.

Stupid accountability.

Tag: Accountability Responsbility Friendship Trust Mea culpa

Take me out

I say you don’t know. You say you don’t go. I say… take me out!

Actually, tonight, I took out my brother, the Brokekid, for an early birthday treat. Franz Ferdinand and Death Cab for Cutie co-headlining at Constitution Hall. I am tired. I need sleep but I want to get a little of it out before I crash.

The Cribs opened. I don’t know much about them. A little punk rock. A little melody. The rockingest trio I’ve seen all day. All week even. Lead singer in tight-fitting light colored jeans.

“Those look like women’s jeans,” the Brokekid said. I looked. I nodded. Tight, light, pouching about the knees and ass. Not Sevens by any stretch of the imagination but a little girly. “When I worked at the Gap, men came in and bought women’s jeans all the time.”

Huh.

I forgot about the jeans as the music carried me away and all too soon the lights came on. The Cribs left the stage to make way for Franz Ferdinand, a band that looked and sounded like heaven poured into cowboy boys and Western shirts with Scottish accents, angelic voices, and perfect music. Happiness with a six-string.

I bounced along to every song. Singing involuntarily. Toward the end, while three men attacked a single drumset, hair flopping, backs bending and arching, arms flailing, drumsticks flying, five sticks plus a tambourine pounding away on the trap, lights flashing off the cymbals – I could only think one thing: That. Is. Hot.

I love drums.

With every song, my spirits lifted. I grinned broadly, involuntarily. I couldn’t help it. I groaned when the music stopped but I knew it had to stop. We had heard just about every song recorded plus a couple of new ones, but I was still sad when it ended.

And then came Death Cab making me sadder still. The eerily discordant voice of Ben Gibbard drew out every emotion I’ve been trying to suppress. The music made me think of everything I want and everything I need and every stupid little thing I’ve done. It broke my heart and healed it. Exhausting.

The acoustic "sound of settling." "The resounding rhythm of my footsteps crossing flood lands to your door have been silenced forever more." The lyrics ran through my head. "I need you so much closer." I need to sleep.

Good show. Happy (really freakin’ early) birthday to my brother.


Tag: Franz Ferdinand Death Cab for Cutie The Cribs Constitution Hall

A wild ride

I should have stories from this weekend. Mr. Toad has nothing on that wild and crazy ride. However, other than lengthy phone calls and stream upon stream upon river of email messages with a couple of close friends, those stories will remain untold. Or maybe just locked up for another day. A little more time, a little more distance might loose my lips or free my fingers to tell the tales of yesterday. The day before. The night before that.

It was a crazy weekend.

Early on, I lost my wallet. I didn’t discover the loss until Saturday evening but I am pretty sure I dropped my purse when I got out of the cab Friday night. I was a little distracted. My hands were full: wallet, Red Sox cap, purse with a broken strap, messanger bag with an unhooked strap and a complete lack of sobriety. At least, that’s what I think happened. The complete lack of sobriety threw me off.

I didn’t realize it was gone until well after I relocated from bedroom to couch, from sleep to nap sometime late Saturday. I assumed that it was in the messenger bag. I had the bag. I had the hat. I curled up under my ragged red fleece and took the only medicine I wanted – Big Love, The Soup and General Hospital. Eventually, I relocated from couch to shower and put on clothes for the first time that day.

At 5 p.m.

Though, I think I deserve a bit of a break - it was a cold and rainy day and I knew it was going to be a late, birthday night. Clothes seemed optional as I lounged around the living room, lolled about in bed. Honestly, I wasn’t hung over, just tired from a very late night and completely unmotivated from drab, drizzly day.

Anyway, enough with the justification, I showered and removed the stench of smoke from my hair, sleep from my limbs. I even dressed (somewhat poorly) for going out. I called the birthday girl, grabbed my messenger bag and started rifling through the pockets.

“Um, I think I lost my purse.”

“What? Look everywhere.”

And I did. Tearing apart the couch, the bag, the bedroom. I found the disarray that represented my clothes from the night before and my cell phone in the pocket of my jacket with my iPod and my badge from work. I tried to maintain a level tone, a normal conversation, failing miserably of course. After checking the shower, the fridge, the guest bedroom, I hung up to let the birthday girl shower and to call and cancel my credit cards. For the second time. In a month.

In between “No, I don’t know my account number. I’ve lost my card… No, I don’t know where… Yes, again… No, really…” and “Could you maybe rush that?” with two or three different carriers and my bank, I called and left a message for a friend, asking for a Sunday callback. I really needed to talk.

I canceled everything I could cancel, asked for everything I could request. I felt a little sick but I ponied up and made it out for a birthday celebration. Unfortunately, I neglected to look in the mirror and realize that the shirt I wore appeared about six sizes too large. (In my defense, it’s the exact same style, size and brand as the shirt I’d worn Wednesday, a shirt that fit, but apparently blue means big at Old Navy.) I also lost a bit of my makeup in the possibly purloined purse. I looked pretty pathetic and had to borrow money from the birthday girl but I made it out. I had fun.

Sunday dawned blue and beautiful. A couple of friends saved me from myself and I spent the day away from the couch. I also spent the day feeling like a mooch: no money, no way to get money and no motivation. The phone didn’t ring. Actually, the phone did ring. Rather incessantly, but not the call I wanted. Not the call I requested.

I watched more Big Love. I watched the Sopranos. I curled up in the fetal position and rocked myself to sleep. (Well, not really, but that’s just because I’m stomach sleeper.)

I awoke and watched daylight grow in my dark room. Silencing the alarm for two hours before crawling from the bed. I love what I do, but I cannot handle the workload right now. I cannot handle my personal life right now. I apparently cannot handle my belongings with the whole lost wallet for the second time in a month. I cannot handle getting out of bed but I survived a day at work.

At home again, I found more messages from friends, from my doctor. I received text messages. All of which I enjoyed but none the call I wanted. None the call I needed.

I gave up. I sat down. I tried to eat a salad. Suddenly, a knock resounded. My heart lurched. On some level, I knew it wasn’t the missing caller, but I hoped. I don’t get many knocks and I really needed to talk. I gulped. I opened the door and saw a stranger before me. He reached out his hand.

“You lost in a cab?” he handed me my cigarette case-cum-wallet. “I came last night but went upstairs. Today I remembered the letter ‘B’.” My apartment number.

As a weight lifted from my shoulders, I took the case and I gushed my thanks. I opened it up. I found my cash. Untouched. One hundred dollars. I pulled out $30 for the cab driver. I might have given it all if I could have found it. (It was all shuffled but all there and I kept pulling out fives.)

Deep down, people are good. Then, again, deep down, I believe I will not get a call. (Every time the phone rings, I jump. I gasp. I hope.) I hoped for my wallet back last time. I didn’t get it. This time I gave up and it knocked at my door. You never know.



Tag: Lost Wallet Hope

Jane says

I have a Song stuck in my head. It’s been there for days. It’s been there before. It will be there again. I don’t know how it gets stuck on play but I know it means something to me.

There are songs and then, there are Songs. The Songs keep you in the car after you reach your destinations. The Songs take you back or forward or sideways. The Songs make you hit repeat as the music dies down.

The Song in my head, the Song stuck on play, is a Song I’ve known for years and the first time I really heard it, the first time I paid attention, I knew it was mine. I remember it, that first time, headphones on, standing in that little shop on Pearl Street in Boulder. My brother, the Brokekid, had come to visit and we wandered into the store. He stood next to me, his own headphones on, lost in his own world and I pressed play.

“Jane says…”

From the first chords, I knew the words. I knew the music. I felt like I had known it forever. Maybe I had but I didn’t remember anything before that. I just remember standing in that store. Summer. Jeans and a t-shirt. Headphones. My brother.

Fast forward a couple of years. I left Colorado. I drove around the country for a few months, crashing on couches, visiting family and friends and living off my $2K in savings. I landed at my sister’s (after a lot of craziness and miles) and started temping.

Despite the slender savings, despite the three jobs, despite the loss of income from taking a week without pay, I packed up and headed to Hawaii to meet up with a friend and her 16-year-old son. I was 23. Closer to the kid’s age than the mom, but we were friends. She asked. I went.

Thanksgiving day, we went parasailing. I could not afford it and didn’t really want to do it but it was Thanksgiving. And I was in Hawaii. And she asked. Somebody, my friend, her son, somebody was strapped into a parachute high above the ocean. We bounced across the waves, the sun shining burning the part in my hair, my cheeks, my nose and making me squint my eyes as I stared across the deep blue sea.

The Song came on the radio. I turned my head and started singing.

“I done with Sergio… He treats me like a ragdoll.”

The driver turned and looked at me, a wide-eyed young thing in pigtails and flip flops.

“You know this song?” he asked. I nodded; he grinned. “So, who sings it?”

“Jane’s Addiction,” I replied, cocking my head. He was kind of cute. I turned back to the ocean and smiled. “Jane says ‘Have you seen my wig around? I feel naked without it.’ She knows they all want her to go, but that's ok man. She don't like them anyway.”

I parasailed, too. It’s a little cheesy but it was one of the most beautiful, most peaceful things I’ve ever done. The most quiet. The words kept running through my head.

“Jane says ‘I'm going away to Spain when I get my money saved. I'm gonna start tomorrow.”

After a week, I went home. I went back to my three jobs, my hour and a half commute, my life. I moved closer to work, farther from my sister and the kids. I narrowed down to one job and the words kept coming.

“She gets mad and she starts to cry. Takes a swing but she can't hit! She don't mean no harm. She just don't know... What else to do about it.”

Even now, the words run through my head. The music. The memories, the feelings, the thoughts. They loop endlessly, sometimes making their way out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“I’ve never been in love. No. She don’t what it is. She only knows if someone wants her. I only want ‘em if they want me. I only know they want me.”

“Jane says…”


Tag: Jane Says Jane's Addiction Music Song Stuck

Grandma candles

“Mom,” I said. “I totally found these candles that remind me of Grandma.”

“What?” she asked.

“Grandma. These candles smell like Grandma.”

“Estée Lauder,” Mom said. “You found Estée Lauder candles?”

Um, no. Actually, I didn’t know what it was. I picked up a candle at Yes! Organic Market and wandered around the store with it for a while. If not for the man outside the store, begging for food, I probably would have bought it, an 18-dollar candle from Archipelago. Instead, I bought the man a burrito and walked home with a bag full of cheap dried soup for lunch.

When I walked in the door and took off my coat, though, I caught a whiff of something that reminded me of my grandmother. After momentary panic that something had happened to my grandmother and I was experiencing some sort of final olfactive message from Minnesota or beyond the grave, I realized that it was the candle. Somehow, I carried the fragrance home with me.

As the night wore on, I found myself sniffing. Trying to find the scent again. Smelling my hand. Disturbing, I know. I just kept catching a whiff of it and memories would overwhelm me.

I remember coming home some random weeknight as a kid. I walked into the house, looked at my mom and asked, “Where’s Grandma?” I knew she was there: I could smell her.

I grew up in a huge, old house 890 miles away from her home in Faribault, Minnesota. The scent should have diffused in all those rooms. Honestly, I probably shouldn’t have recognized it anyway. I didn’t see her much growing up, maybe once a year but I still knew her smell.

“The candle’s from Archipelago,” I told my mom on the phone. “It’s got… I don’t know let me go find the candle.” I walked over to the shelf and picked up the jar. I had bought the candle online. Two of them, actually. The 60-hour ones in the glass jars. They’re from the Excursion Collection.

“Um, it’s called Havana, as in Cuba,” I told my mom. “It’s got… Bergamot? How do you pronounce that – bergamow? Bergamot? Whatever. And tobacco leaf. And ylang-ylang. What is that? Ylang-ylang?”

“Tobacco?”

“Yeah, tobacco, but it doesn’t smell like cigarettes or anything,” I said. “It smells like Grandma.”

“You’re going to have to tell her that she smells like tobacco. Your grandmother is going to love that.”

I haven’t told her yet. I’ve been terrible about keeping in touch with Grandma Mavis. I think about her all the time. I cannot help it. My whole apartment smells like her.

Unfortunately, I did not think of the long term implications of this whole candle thing. Fragrant flames tend to make my throat close up, my lungs do this wheezing, coughing, aching thing. Besides, my whole apartment smells like Grandma. What happens if and when I decide to… entertain? This may encourage celibacy. And church going. And random communication with elderly family members.

I’m not sure of the long-term impacts of this whole candle-buying experience, but short term, I am happy and thinking of my grandma. That’s not a bad place to be.


Tag: Candles Archipelago Grandma

A little red light pushing my buttons

Walking back from the kitchen this morning, bagel in one hand, Diet Coke in the other, I looked at my phone and saw a red blinking light.

“Ah, fudge,” I said, sitting down and staring at the light for a good five minutes before pushing the button.

The phone scares me. At work, the blinking light generally means more work and more often than not, something I don’t know how to do. Today was different, though. A call from my boss. Generally, that just means that she needs a file from her laptop or she has a question about my work. Safe.

Or so I thought until I called her back.

“Do you have something to tell me?” she asked, fear creeping into her voice.

“Um, no?” I replied.

“Are you… leaving?”

“No,” I replied. “Should I be? I mean I can start looking if you want me to.”

“No! I just wanted to make sure.”

I guess she’s worried about a recent spate of resignations. I’m worried, too. Following the call, I started Googling phrases like “work-related stress,” “effects of long-term stress” and “coping with stress.” I gave up after a minute or two and got back to work. Strangely enough, I doubt that method would be classified as coping.

During the course of my stress-related surfing, I discovered a couple of interesting facts.

April is Stress Awareness Month. Huh. Good to know. I am aware of my stress; thank you very much. Apparently, I am not alone. In 2000, a Gallup poll found that 80% of workers claimed their jobs stressed them. Eighty-percent. Four out of five people. Stressed by work.

That seems awfully high.

Another study, featured in Health Magazine, found the most stressful jobs to be inner city high school teacher, followed by police officer, miner, air traffic controller, medical intern, stockbroker, journalist, customer service/complaint worker, secretary and waiter.

The least stressful: forester, bookbinder, telephone line worker, toolmaker, millwright, repairperson, civil engineer, therapist, natural scientist and sales representative.

My job lies somewhere in between. Insufficient stress acts as a depressant and may leave me bored or dejected; excessive stress may leave me shaking like the Magic Fingers at the Super 8. Low amounts of alcohol might reduce stress. High amounts of alcohol might compound it.

Not all stress is bad but the fact that I have trouble getting up in the morning. The fact that I have trouble writing and sleeping and talking. The fact that I’m scared to answer the phone. They all mean that I have a little too much of the bad stress.

I’m learning to cope with it. I’m delegating or I was until the recent spate of resignations. I leave work at work (when I leave work entirely too late at night). I listen to techno with the office door closed, my shoes off and my feet on the desk. I try to write. I try to read. I talk to friends; I’m talk to family. I say no. I volunteer more. I swim when I can and I will get better.

The next time my boss calls, though, the next time she asks if I’m leaving, I might have to tell her that I’m looking for a job as a forester, a bookbinder, a telephone line worker.


Tag: Stress