Ryan Adams and the Cardinals

"How did we get such good seats," I asked, looking around the hall.

"We bought them presale."

"Oh, yeah... Nice."

We found ourselves just two rows back from a crowded little box named for a state. North Carolina, perhaps. Or Vermont. Near the front of the risers, in any event, and not too, too far from the stage at the DAR Constitution Hall. Not too, too far from Ryan Adams and the Cardinals.

Broken into two sets, the concert seemed almost two different shows. The first: Somewhat halting. The second: Soft and smooth. Polished.

For the first time in my concert-going history, a band took the stage without introduction or an opening act. They slid into musical riffs and strong, soulful tunes, but the space between stretched into interminable silences peppered by hoots, catcalls and song requests.

"Two!" echoed through the eerily silent hall.

"Come Pick Me Up!"

"Summer of '69!"

Groans resounded.

Toward the end of the first set, Adams picked up a bullhorn and shouted back to the audience.

"Lean left… No, a little more to the right… Back!"

He went through a series of instructions before playing again. At the next break, he retrieved the megaphone and walked upstage to shout something at the backdrop, which might have included lighting instructions and definitely included "It's the 21st century and everybody needs to be in control of f*cking everything."

Adams actually spent quite a bit of time upstage, next to the drummer and in shadows. Until the encore, I really couldn't have said what he looked like, what he wore. A short-sleeved button down over t-shirt and jeans? Maybe.

It didn't matter, though. None of it mattered when he stepped up to the microphone and sang. As he twisted behind the mic, he wrapped my heart in knots and pulled on the fraying edges of thoughts I'd long since believed I'd put away.

Those pauses, though. They were killers.

"You want to go home, don't you?" I asked at intermission.

"Yes, but I can sit it out."

I'd never been to a show quite like it. The balm of a smooth, worn voice against the discordant, fingernails on a chalkboard strumming and thrumming that always melted into richly textured, soul-stirring sounds. Long, awkward silences. Seizure-inducing spotlights spasming across our faces.

I was half in love and half out of my mind with discomfort. The love won out.

Highlights of the show included "Halloweenhead" and a birthday song. The joke of the day. The star-studded backdrop. The bullhorn. And of course, the heart-wrenching tunes.


Tag: Music

Drippy

Tick... Tick.. Tick.

Against all odds, I hoped it was a cricket. Two crickets. A family of crickets dancing the tango in my bedroom, their tiny little legs clicking against the ceramic tiles, tiny little roses clenched between their cricket teeth.

Tick... Tick..

In stocking feet, I walked toward the back of the apartment.

Tick...

I paused between the bedrooms, looking hopefully for a cricket or the ghost of the one I'd smooshed with a snap a couple of days earlier or a twig tapping against the glass. Something, anything, but the inevitable. But I found nothing amiss.

Tick... Tick..

I stepped into the bedroom and looked up. A glistening drop clung to a ridge in the swollen, mottled ceiling, growing, quivering gently before falling seven and a half feet to the ceramic tile below.

Tick.

I cringed. Stared at the ceiling for a minute or two. The floor. I reached for the already full trashcan, sighed and padded to the bathroom with the sounds of water falling behind me. I emptied a plastic bin, placed it under the drip and walked back to the living room where I checked the clock and pulled on my boots.

Outside, I shivered, regretting my complete lack of coat. Lights in the windows pulled me upstairs and onto the stoop where I turned on my heel a half dozen times, struggling with an internal debate. With a final glance at the lit bedroom windows, I pressed the bell and waited, thumbnail between my teeth, despite the paint, the weeks of effort, the bend to stop biting.

Nothing.

I turned to descend the steps, weighing the damage of a night of water versus disturbing the neighbors and their 4-year-old son. I had already called them on stealing my firewood and breeding mosquitoes earlier in the day. I planned to go another two months or forever without addressing them directly.

With one more glance at the lights upstairs, I knocked on the door. Eventually, the curtain moved to side and I waved apologetically at my neighbor in his white waffled robe. He opened the door and stared at me. I smiled hesitantly.

"I'm sorry," I offered. "My ceiling just started leaking. You might want to check for water in your bathroom or kitchen."

"OK."

He stood staring at me as I stood staring at him. He moved to close the door, reaching for the safety chain. I edged down the stairs.

"OK, then. I just wanted to let you know."

"OK."

He closed the door between us.

From the back of my apartment, the dripping continued. I heard noises overhead, furniture moving, appliances moving, scraping across the floor. I shot a quick email to my landlord reminding her of the water damage and mold from the flooding in February and the flooding in September, telling her about the newest damage, and I waited. Eventually, the phone rang.

"Hi, Kristin? It's Tom... Apparently, our dishwasher has a clog in the drain. I'll get that fixed tomorrow."

"OK, well, thanks."

The dripping stopped.

Wired, I started the dehumidifier that had taken up permanent residence beside my abandoned bed and watched a little TV. I emailed friends, slipped out of my boots and prepped for another night in the guestroom. It would all be fine. I was getting kind of used to the narrow little bed, to the Turkish rug underfoot, to a new view of the world in the morning. I didn't mind so much. I just wished the ceiling would stop dripping.


Tag: Apartments Renting

Treading lightly

I got there early. Far too early.

"Can I just sit... somewhere... and get a cup of coffee?"

"Do you want a table?"

"No," I replied. "I just want coffee. I’m really tired."

"Do you want to sit in the bar?"

I read my book and waited 'til closer to the time. The bartender left to pick up newspapers.

"Do you want me to pay before you go?" I asked.

"No, it's OK."

He left me alone in the bar, in the right side of the building, with my book and a fresh cup. I read a page or two, checked the time on my phone, read another page. Phone. Book. Phone. Book. Coffee. Eventually I moved into the restaurant, my cup and saucer in hand.

Hugs were exchanged. Greeting. Waves. We moved to a table at the side big enough for 10; though, only eight of us made it. As the day progressed, we discovered that we were the only ones in direct sunlight from the skylight overhead. The sun drifted across the table and faces. We traded places and traded again, moving down the table, offering respite to those who squinted.

Our impromptu game of musical chairs afforded each of us the chance to catch up with others, to talk to each of the organizer's parents and friends. Babies and travel, books, movies and sweaters. Conversations peppered the meal, which we exchanged several times. The plates as well as the conversation. Every omelet on the table found its way to my setting before I found my own.

We ordered a plate of ricotta pancakes for the table, with bourbon, bananas, and walnuts in the sauce. We all wanted to try them. Our bread plates filled with pieces of other people's brunches.

After the meal, after lingering and changing places a half dozen times, passing around my friend's dad's hat and moving to avoid the sun, we made our way into the crisp autumn air. In the parking lot, I demonstrated the Thriller dance, causing spasmodic laughter and tears.

"You have to tape that."

"I think it was taped."

"No, you have to tape that. You, doing it alone, in a parking lot, without music."

Fortunately, nobody had a camera. I hugged and waved my goodbyes, limped on aching limbs to the Metro with a friend, full of pancakes and eggs, coffee and conversation, laughing deeply and treading lightly.

Tag: Friends

Thriller night

It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark...

The lyrics, the moves ran through my head as I crawled under the covers. I laughed and thought, "The only thing evil is how bad I feel right now."

I spent the day, the entire day, learning the dance to Michael Jackson's Thriller and I hurt. I hurt bad.

My knees started grinding and stopped bending over the course of the day. My arms and shoulders. My back. I hurt in muscles I didn't even know I had, but we did it. My friends and I learned the dance – not well – but enough to participate in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for people participating in the dance.

Thrill the World marked a worldwide attempt for the record. Simultaneously, people from Canada to Croatia, Honduras to Sierra Leone stepped, stomped or zombie marched into the choreography. People in 80 cities between 17 countries danced. On the National Mall, by the Washington Monument in the fading light of day, a couple dozen of us joined in, watched by a couple hundred spectators.

A zombie bunny with a sickle in his back and a knife in his head hopped alongside a zombie bride and Marilyn Monroe, Meg White and a man in a leisure suit. I failed to zombify myself as my face reacted to the makeup and I ended up red and blotchy under all that white but I knew the dance. That was all that mattered.

All week I'd reviewed the instruction videos on YouTube, listening to the choreography at my desk while I worked. Shuffle, back, hop, hop, down. I danced in my chair, trying to remember the routine. Friday night at home, I tried again before cowering in anxiety and fear that I'd never learn, never remember the dance.

Saturday morning, a class –an actual class in an actual dance studio, led by an actual instructor: an older man with a penchant for the pelvic thrust – gave me confidence. At home, two friends and I moved furniture and turned my living room into a dance floor, following the videos. Shuffle, back, hop, hop, down, turn, look, stare, stare.

"I have trouble with the clap, slide," I moaned. "I just can't seem to get it."

After a late lunch, though, our motivation waned. It didn't matter that I didn't know it. We watched the dance scene from 13 Going on 30 for inspiration. The prison dance video. We ran through the dance a couple of times, talked ourselves up and started to dress, to make up, (in my case to unmake up) and make our way down to the Mall.

Nobody wanted to be in front. Nobody wanted to lead the dance, even though the music played with a choreography overlay.

"Booty bounce, booty bounce, swim together, swim jump."

I found myself in the front for the first run. Me. Little Miss "I HATE Performing in Public." In front of a couple dozen zombies.

Fortunately, a trio of girls showed up in sweats and t-shirts, with messy hair and pancake makeup who knew the dance well. The girl with the curls, in jeans and flannel. I shuffled back through the swelling crowd, next to my Meg White friend and polyester leisure suit boy.

By the fourth run, by the time we'd practiced and coordinated the official dance, I was sweating and red-faced, but I'd managed to get the clap slide. The stomp, stomp, stomp. I even managed to get the star down. High five to zombie on the right. More than anything else, though, I had fun, good bloody, muddy fun on a Saturday night.

Photographers crawled around in front of us. Bunny boy hopped one down, earning a cheer from the crowd. Interviews were granted. We bailed on the zombie lurch, chasing prey marked with targets through the city; tired and sweaty, I just wanted to sit my brother and friends, to turn in before midnight. From what I hear, something evil's lurking in the dark.


Tag: Halloween Thriller Dance

Four days left

For grown ups, competition leaves something to be desired. We compete with each other for dates and mates, jobs, promotions and housing. Important things. Life changing things, except maybe the dates, but even a few of those can be earth shattering.

Strangely enough, though, I yearn for a good, healthy game of Candyland, for a little competition for something that doesn't matter at all, to focus all of my attention, all of my hopes, all of my prayers on winning, to really care about the roll of the dice cards with color blocks, Princess Lolly and Lord Licorice. Win or lose, it doesn't matter: Everything's going to be all right.

Today, my brother meets the halfway mark and enters a final push for votes on Ideablob. He competes against seven other finalists for a $10,000 prize, seed money to fund his business proposal.

One might say that it matters. It matters a lot, but I know my brother. I am sure he will find a way to make his idea work, whether or not he wins. It would just be nice to win. Ten thousand times nicer than not winning.

The top runners at this point include a dog beach in Santa Monica and a pacifier that lights up when it falls out of a child's mouth. At third place, Scott's idea revolves around technology and outreach: Adopt a Peace Corps Project through Facebook.

He proposes paying someone to develop an application to connect Peace Corps volunteer projects around the world to Facebook members willing to donate time/energy/resources to those projects. The application, the project, would incorporate the core values of the Peace Corps and focus on community engagement and sustainability.

Much like other returned Peace Corps volunteers, my brother feels strong ties to the organization and the people – both those with whom we served and those he met in his host country. After two years back, he and his friends even started a non-profit to help fund projects. This is just another step in the process.

As the sister of a Peace Corps volunteer/returned Peace Corps volunteer, I see the value in such an application. I could only provide so much time, so much to support the work he did in Guyana. With finite resources myself, I only had so much to give and I was not alone. When my brother joined the Peace Corps, my whole family joined with him – sending money and goods, offering time and connections to try to ease the work. We could only do so much.

Scott's idea will help volunteers expand beyond their family and friends and to reach people willing but uncertain as to how they might help. It's worth a shot anyway. A vote. The competition won't change anyone's life, at least not those who vote on Ideablob. The people helped? It might just change their lives for the better.


To vote for Scott's idea, or any idea, go to Ideablob and click on the thumbs up symbol next to the idea. The site does require registration but they are giving away $10,000.

Tag: Philanthropy

Golden Age

The rain quickened my pace and my pulse as I slid my way from Metro to theater. Thoughts of bonfires and football games filled my head. I could almost smell smoke in the air and I paused to think, "California's on fire."

"We have rain and California is burning."

I quick-stepped past brightly-lit windows with Christmas displays, with warm woolen coats, sweaters, scarves and boots. I didn't need anything, especially in light of so many people who have lost so very much. I did, however, succumb to a $1.19 box of candy to share during the movie.

In the lobby of the theater, I saw familiar faces, movie-goers heading to an advanced screening of Wristcutters, which seemed a perfect flick for the dull, gray day, but I waited for a friend and a trip into the Golden Age. I listened to conversations around me, about tickets and food, clothes and weekend plans. I tucked into my book.

"It's just awful, but I keep reading," I told my friend when she arrived. "I read his other book, too."

"Was it bad?"

"Yes," I cringed.

"Why do you do this to yourself?"

"I don't know."

We chattered up the escalator, past the ticket taker, into the concession line and all the way to our seats, straight through to the previews. We ate Dots from a giant cardboard box, soft, squishy candy that stuck to our fingers and teeth and tasted more like colors than fruit, red and orange, yellow and green. Buttered popcorn greased our fingers and coated our stomachs. With two hands, I lifted the bucket o' soda from the armrest and sipped through a mile-long straw.

Halfway through the film, I regretted that bucket. I danced in my seat and tried to lose myself in the costumes and lighting, the story and the setting of Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Clive Owen looked marvelously fit and tan as (Sir) Walter Raleigh. Cate Blanchett looked like she could use a sandwich or seven. The costumes, the colors and light danced before my eyes.

"How does one decide what wig to wear into battle?" I wondered. "And why wear a wig into battle at all?"

I almost forgot the soda by the time the credits rolled, as we chatted 'til the end. The costumes. The cinematography. The symbolism. We agreed that we needed to see it again at least once, maybe twice, as we walked back to the Metro and hugged our goodbyes.

"When is the...?"

"The third."

"And the...?"

"The tenth."

"If we don't talk before then, have fun," she called. "I'm about to get busy with the theater but we'll email. Talk."

She gave the thumb-pinkie wiggle for phone as I waved and headed down to my platform. On the way home, I helped a woman search for her contact lens and thought of how I loved autumn nights and friends who said things like, "I’m about to get busy with the theater."

"I'm moving to Buenos Aires – you have to visit."

"Do you want to learn the Thriller dance?"

"Send your panties to Burma."

Definitely not the Golden Age but an age all my own and an age to be savored.


Tag: Movies Friends

Paul Krugman and dirty words

Some things we just don't say: "Yes, that makes you look terrible but your ego could use a knock or seven," "I've had better," or the L-word.

Liberal.

Last night, writer Paul Krugman of the New York Times broke the rule. He addressed a crowd of hundreds at Temple Sinai in Washington DC to talk about his new book, "The Conscience of a Liberal."

It took too long to get there, to Politics and Prose where we believed the event would be held. We mistakenly drove the seven or so miles from my house, during rush hour. The car filled with conversation and music, laughter and wheel-pounding frustration at traffic. Eventually, we made it. I slipped into 4-wheel drive. Climbed halfway up a tree and parked at a 45-degree angle, in the only available spot we could find. We rushed into the store, and nothing.

Just.

Nothing.

My brother looked at me. I looked at the announcements by the register and pointed to a sign indicating that the ticketed event would be held at Temple Sinai. A rude little clerk told us where to go. We refrained from doing the same and with a random friend of my brother's in tow (he'd been browsing by the door when we entered), we climbed back into the Jeep and drove to the temple.

The benches, pews in my limited vocabulary, were divided into individual seats. People moved to give us seats, my brother, his friend and me.

At the front, Krugman and his interviewer talked about the book, about class equality, about race and healthcare. Krugman paraphrased the Lyndon B. Johnson analogy of the shackled runner, two runners, one being shackled and pushed backward and the other left unimpeded.

"Does it make sense to stop the race, unshackle the runner and just start again?" he asked.

Nobody had the answer.

The crowd reacted to Krugman, though, with smatterings of chuckles and polite applause. He earned a more resounding response with his statement, "I am frustrated with the Democrats in Congress."

Most of the audience seemed to agree, based on the nodding of heads, the clapping, faces set in grim determination. Questions delved into his position on the war in Iraq as well as social security, healthcare, social inequality, urban sprawl.

"Liberals have to be careful not to be elitist," Krugman said. "There are a lot of reasons to be an urbanist... but people have the right to make their own decisions about that."

Most of those who lined up at the mic wanted to offer their own views to the writer. A few asked questions. A few flattered the man at the front of the room. One went so far as to call him "a light in the darkness," a little flowery but in line with the mostly left-leaning audience.

"Liberal is a philosophy. Progressive is the action."

From the line stretching from the authors table back into the sanctuary, of book-toting audience members, it looked like Krugman might have been preaching to the choir in terms of the philosophy but the P-word hasn't made it to the dirty word list. Yet.


Tag: Books

Waiting on pins and mosquitos

I have allergies. I am one of those girls. Allergic to dogs and cats. Horses. Trees and grass. Flowers. Mold. Dust. Pretty much anything that lives and grows and a few things that don't. I once got hives from the sizing used in my lab coat at work; I ended up in the hospital. Twice.

For years, I went in for shots. Every three weeks, except for a new vial or a skipped shot, which would take me back to once a week for three weeks in a row. I grew accustomed to waiting rooms and syringes. To Dorothy, the Mennonite nurse. To checking in and checking out and waiting to see a doctor, to see if I reacted, for a ride home.

I pretty much quit when I went to college. Nobody told me to stop; I just couldn't seem to make it to the health clinic conveniently located at the edge of a cemetery in the middle of campus. A handful of Benadryl. A couple (dozen) boxes of Kleenex® and I pretended like I was OK.

Unfortunately, I was still allergic to everything on the original list but one: Mosquitoes. A decade of shots and I no longer reacted to mosquito bites. No welts. No itching. Nothing. Lately, though, I think it's coming back.

One wouldn't think that mosquitoes would pose a problem late October. One wouldn't think mosquitoes would pose a problem in one's living room either, but one might be mistaken.

All day, every day and more importantly, all night, every night, the drone of fast flapping wings drives me toward the point of insanity as my hands wave around my ears between bouts of slapping my knees, my thighs, my arms. The worst is the ankles and feet.

It all started with my new neighbors. I couldn't be sure but the bin with their laundry seemed to pool stagnant water. And the trash bins they filled despite the length of time 'til trash pickup day or the fact that the receptacles rested not three feet from my door. Maybe it was the plants left by the old neighbors. Maybe it was just the 80-degree days sprawling toward the end of October. Whatever the cause, mosquitoes hover around my front door and find their way inside, clambering up the walls, swarming about my head.

Watching TV, I huddle over the warm, smoky glow of a citronella candle. I douse myself in cloying allure of Deet, numbing my lips and tongue through accidental contact. In bed at night, I swat, awaiting the first frost, the end of mosquitoes as I scratch my itching ankles.

Outside leaves are changing color and falling, crumbling underfoot as woodsmoke superfluously fills the air. Wool and felt take the place of linen and silk and boots eclipse flip flops, whether or not they are warranted.

Soon. So very soon.

Tag: Itching

Black and white

Black beans for brunch, covered with easy eggs and melted cheese. A bloody mary filled with cracked black pepper and spice. Sweet black coffee. Conversation drifted across the table like so much snow on a Wyoming road and we laughed, this strange mix of friends old and new.

I left early, far too soon. We walked along the side of the park, down North Carolina and through Eastern Market. We talked easily, conversations overlapping, laughter bubbling. A hesitant farewell. I wanted to stay. I needed to go.

The wait at the metro was just a minute long. A little reading, and I emerged in the sunlight, a warm, clear autumn day. I walked just a few blocks south, taking a call from a friend looking for parking, which she found despite protests targeting the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, despite road closings and police presence. We met up at the Corcoran for an afternoon of art. Of photography. Of a world in black and white.

We started with Annie Leibovitz, in photos of her family and friends, in candid shots and formal portraits. Captions described the events in the words of the artist herself. She talked of her family. Her love. Her beautiful children. I cried, just a little, just the once at the photos chronicling the life, and death, of her partner Susan Sontag, followed by the death of her father.

The photos, the walls filled with celebrities and strangers, pulled on my heart. The play of light and dark. The balance of humor and sadness, of work and family and travel. They made me want to pull out my camera and pushed me to think of the cameras I would take on my upcoming trip. The film I would use. The pictures I would take. I needed more people in my pictures. I had enough places but not nearly enough shots of the faces that meant so much to me.

Across the hall, Ansel Adams made me reconsider places, though. Grand sweeping shots reminded me of a place I once lived, of the west and mountains and stormy skies.

I couldn't quite switch gears from portraits to panoramas and found myself wandering the exhibit twice, drawn to the same images, to the same few faces, time and again. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around the thought that the same medium, the same film, captured both the power of the human heart and the ever-changing beauty of western skies and 'scapes. So different. So similar. I banged my head within the concept, trying to understand a world in black and white with its infinite shades of gray.

Back at home, I dug through boxes of photos for a friend, trying to find copies of pictures from New Zealand, remembering places and faces.

"This is New Zealand, right?"

"Isn't that the awful night?"

"What? No..." I replied, thinking of Thanksgiving so many years ago. That was Queenstown. This was Auckland. "It's the end of the trip. I made out with that boy. Remember?"

"Where was that?" she asked, scouring the faces. Trying to place them. Trying to find her own world in my photos. Our overlapping lives in black and white.


Tag: Photography Friends

Voting for an idea

Please go and vote.


My brother, he's one of my favorite people in the world, for so many reasons, not the least of which he's known me my whole life and loves me anyway. He even likes me. For the most part.

As kids, we used to pound each other. Beat the living crap out of each other, actually, and I think I might have been covered in bruises until about age 16 when it all just stopped.

We went to the same college – I was a senior when he was a freshman. He'd visited during high school and even spent most of a month on my couch one summer. Thanksgiving that year I made a full dinner, including a tiny little turkey in my tiny kitchen. We watched videos. It was perfect.

After university, my brother worked a little before going off to save the world, a couple of years in the Peace Corps. He came back a different man. Not only was he the only person ever to gain weight in the Peace Corps (just kidding), he actually came back a man. Responsible. Independent. Even cooler than he'd been before.

A couple of weeks ago, he posted an idea on ideablob, a place for people to post their ideas for a small business and get feedback from other users.

"Adopt a Peace Corps Project through Facebook" revolves around developing an application for Facebook that would connect Peace Corps volunteer projects around the world to Facebook members who are willing to donate time/energy/resources to those projects. Donations of goods and services that aren’t locally available will allow volunteers to get many projects underway.

The site earned attention from Smart Money and my brother, the news junkie, found himself in the news.

He won that round. His idea won that round. Now, my brother and his idea are in the final competition for this month's showdown. The winner will receive $10,000 in seed money to bring his or her or their idea to life.

Check out the site. Cast your vote. Make a difference with the click of a mouse. As for me, I'm off to post some knickers to Burma. I've already voted.


Tag: Non-profit Peace Corps

Thoughts of vacation

I have this... I don't know what to call it. Theory? Philosophy? Modus operandi? I don't go on vacation without another one planned (or at least in the works).

I booked a trip to India the day I left for France. I'm already considering New Orleans in December, Argentina in February and Africa next November.

It's not a frenetic, spastic sort of thing. Maybe it is a frenetic, spastic sort of thing but it's not lack of interest in the current trip. I am not looking for something bigger and brighter, newer and different.

The next trip down the line relieves the pressure.

This vacation, this trip, doesn't need to be the best trip ever. It doesn't need to be everything I've ever wanted in a trip. There's another one just around the corner. I will have another chance to do it right.

The funny part is that it makes this vacation, this trip, the best trip ever. Every single time.

Tag: Travel Expectations

Without reservation

Depressed. That's how I felt walking out of the theater. Sad and angry and drained. I had just seen an advanced screening of Reservation Road, not without reservations of my own.

Based on the critically acclaimed novel of the same name by John Burnham Schwartz, this is the compelling new dramatic thriller from two-time Academy Award-nominated writer/director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda). Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly writes: "Choices are made in the very sad, very nerve-racking, very good melodrama Reservation Road."

A confluence of events led me to the screening, to waiting in the lobby for a girl I'd never met and staring at strangers, wondering, "Could it be... Wouldn't she recognize me from the description? I wouldn't call that dark blond hair..."

My cell phone died. I missed her frantic calls about driving and parking, ending up on a bridge to Virginia and destiny. I managed to get the last out of the customer service desk along with a half dozen messages from a boy I met two weeks ago who calls every day with the same message.

"Hi, this is Dan. Here's my number."

I couldn't call her back. Her number was in my phone. My stomach settled a little after a roller coaster of emotions and self doubt, wondering if I had somehow screwed up, if I had given her the wrong information or missed her through my own miscommunication. With anxiety and tension still coursing through my tired, frayed nerves, I sat down for an hour and 40 minutes of raw emotion.

On a warm September evening, college professor Ethan Learner, his wife Grace, and their daughter Emma are attending a recital. Their 10-year-old son Josh is playing cello -- beautifully, as usual. His younger sister looks up to him, and his parents are proud of their son. On the way home, they all stop at a gas station on Reservation Road. There, in one terrible instant, he is taken from them forever. On a warm September evening, law associate Dwight Arno and his 11-year-old son Lucas are attending a baseball game. Their favorite team, the Red Sox, is playing - and, hopefully, heading for the World Series. Dwight cherishes his time spent with Lucas.

Driving his son back to his ex-wife, Lucas' mother Ruth Wheldon, Dwight heads towards his fateful encounter at Reservation Road. The accident happens so fast that Lucas is all but unaware, while Ethan -- the only witness -- is all too aware, as a panicked Dwight speeds away. The police are called, and an investigation begins. Haunted by the tragedy, both fathers react in unexpected ways, as do Grace and Emma. As a reckoning looms, the two fathers are forced to make the hardest choices of their lives.

Tension mounted as lives fell apart on screen. I wanted to join Jennifer Connelly weeping on the floor of the bathroom, to hold Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo as they shook with anger, fear and overwhelming sadness. Instead, I sat alone in the dark and waited for some sort of resolution.

I left the theater drained, emotional exhaustion matching my body's fatigue. I wondered what, exactly, I had done to myself, and walked in a daze. On the corner, I looked up to see a coworker, a friend, approaching with two familiar men in tow. Hugs, smiles, handshakes were exchanged.

"What are you doing? Waiting for a bus?"

"Yes."

"Really? I was just joking," she said. "Do you want to join us?"

The woman, two male clients and I found ourselves in a dark, Italian bar. We crashed on a divan, ordered wine and food and talked of travel and family, of swimming and kids. Favorite hotels in Paris. Airline miles. Working too hard. We talked as we ate, as we drank rich, warm reds, and my spirits lifted.

"I'm so glad you joined us."

"Me, too," I replied, without reservation.


Tag: Movies Reservation Road

Gin dreams

"You look like you're going to need it," he said as he handed me a sweating glass of ice, gin and tonic. I hefted my bag onto my shoulder, smiled and took it in my free hand, the other already holding a full glass.

My friend laughed at me, standing in the middle of the zoo, at the new Giant Panda Habitat, in dress and heels, pounding gin and tonic.

Honestly, I hadn’t intended to pound anything, given my complete lack of sleep the night before followed by a day of training, which left me drained, but when the bartender walked over with drinks, I didn’t know what to say.

Apparently, I looked like I was going to need it.

I slipped out of the heels and into the flip flops. We tried edging toward the lovely Australian with a washboard stomach buried somewhere under the suit and tie, but he was chatting up a girl. We made our way to the bathroom. When I came back, he was half undressed - my friend, not the Australian – and he showed me the tattoo that covered his shoulder and trailed down his arm. It was also buried under a suit and tie for most of the night.

He dressed as we walked, after I had “ooohed” and “ahhhed” over the artwork I had begged to see. The three of us walked through the night, the quiet zoo, toward the locked gates. A security guard in a golf cart drove up to let us out and we smiled our drunken thanks, my drunken thanks, anyway, after the gift from my bartending friend.

Talk of travel and the Baltimore half marathon, plans for brunch on Sunday. I made a friend, early in the night, a lawyer from Sao Paolo. Another from The Netherlands. A third because I told her she had a great smile, which actually bumped it up a notch.

At the table next to us, little girls in dresses and bows, ate gummy bears with chopsticks. The girl with the curls found the chocolate fountain as did the boy with a wicked grin.

“Where are your teeth?” I asked.

“I lost them,” he lisped and smiled, throwing his arms around his father.

“Did you get any money for them?”

“A dollar coin.”

“Man, we only got a quarter in our day.”

Another flash of the toothless smile as his father talked of the tooth fairies predilection for shiny money. The conversation bubbled and flowed like the warm chocolate behind us. Laughter rang through the night.

I would fall asleep on the couch as soon as I got home. I barely removed my shoes and glasses. I awoke, still in my dress and necklaces, in the middle of the night, unwrapped the beads from my neck and crawled into bed where I slept the sleep of the just with nary a thought of the unjust. Maybe a thought or two of pandas, of bartenders, travel and friends, of gin.


Tag: Washington DC

In the sun

Over lunch, I joined my brother and a friend on a stroll through some of the most ambitious and unique houses we'd ever seen.

The Solar Decathlon is a competition in which 20 teams of college and university students compete to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house. The Solar Decathlon is also an event to which the public is invited to observe the powerful combination of solar energy, energy efficiency, and the best in home design.

Filled with glass and light, bamboo and stainless steel, to claim the houses impressive sell both them and their young creators short. We all wanted to move into one by the end of the tour. My brother into one that reminded me of an IKEA show room - cool, clean lines. Birdie into another covered in stucco and filled with recycled glass tiles and recycled teak tables.

As for me, I just wanted the light. The greenery. The blurry lines between indoors and outdoors, technology and saving the world. The in-house washers and dryers.

Later, a friend and I would see a group of students from Team Montréal (École de Technologie Supérieure, Université de Montréal, McGill University) at the laudromat, chatting in French and washing clothes out of a garbage bag. Strangely enough, they hadn't come the farthest with teams from Puerto Rico, Germany and Spain in the running.

"When I was in college, I could hardly be bothered to get out of bed for class," I noted dryly. "These kids built houses, sustainable, environmentally-friendly, beautiful houses, and brought them here – across the country for some, into the country for others. Most of us could hardly be bothered to get to the Mall to see them."

The event takes place on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., October 12 - 20. The team houses are open for touring everyday, except Wednesday, October 17, when they will close for competition purposes. An overall winner will be announced on Friday, October 19 at 2 p.m. See the schedule for more information.


Tag: Energy

My Friend Hoss Part II

By NOLA Celeste

I have this theory about New Orleans: You keep running into the same 300 people over and over again. It's like living in a small college town, with an influx of tourists. Part of this theory is precipitated by the fact that My Friend Hoss has been living in our back apartment for about a month - he knows everyone in the Quarter, and now so do we. The apartment is a small bedroom/bath with its own separate entrance next to the front door of our temporary French Quarter abode. It's where Kristin stayed last time she visited us in New Orleans.

Hoss tells us that he has been trying to go back offshore. Bouncing at the Dungeon from 11pm to 9am was starting to take a toll on his health. Plus, he needs to make some money. He had been staying in a rooming house in a very dangerous neighborhood two neighborhoods over from the Quarter - close to the 9th Ward of Katrina flooding fame. After he ran out of money, the landlord kicked him out. He slept in the park for two nights, hunkered down over the two large duffle bags that carry his offshore equipment and the balance of all of his worldly possessions. We could not have that for Hoss. Hence, we invited him to stay.

Unfortunately, the oil platform operators just won't call him…or so he tells us…even though they paid him to go to safety training: "You know, Celeste, as part of our safety training, we had to go to this HR lecture. The guy kept going on and on about this 401 thing. Do you know what a 401 is?" "A 401(k)? I replied. "Of course. It's a way to save for retirement on a tax-deferred basis..." He cut me off. "Tax-deferred?!?" he giggled. "Don't you know ole' Hoss ain't paid no taxes since his wife died in 1999?" As I've mentioned before, Hoss is the only person on Earth who does not annoy me when he refers to himself in the third person.

Now that we are neighbors, I have heard a lot about ole' Hoss. He likes to talk to me about his deceased wife. Perhaps it's because I am a wife myself (unlike most of his friends for whom being single is key to their sporadic-houred professions: bartenders, bouncers, strippers...call girls).

I think Hoss really lost his marbles when his wife died. As so often happens, his children eventually stopped talking to him for a while. The bad thing is that these conversations about his deceased wife and distant children often happen when I am on my way to work at 6:30 in the morning. I drop my dog Cleo off with Hoss on my way out; He enjoys hanging out with her during the day.

When I see Hoss in the morning he is usually drunk. "Come here, baby," he says, and engulphs me in a whiskey-breath bear hug. "I just can't believe...I just can't believe how you all have taken care of me. You know I love you. You and Joe. I love you so much," he says in his East Texas accent, as he chokes back drunken tears. "Oh stop, Hoss...It's nothing," I stammer out. It's hard to see such an enormous man be so sad. It ruins my day.

The sight of a 275-pound tattooed man walking an 80-pound Doberman has to be pretty amusing (or scary, depending on what side of the law you are on). Every day when I pick up Cleo, Hoss gives me a Cleo update: who they visited…how many doggie biscuits the bartender at XYZ bar gave her…how many times she barked at the mule-drawn carriages that tote tourists around the Quarter. Inevitably, however, every conversation with Hoss about Cleo circles back to his wife, the last being, besides Cleo, who probably gave him unconditional love.

Cleo suffers from really bad seasonal allergies and, therefore, gnarled up hotspots. The vet prescribed her prednisone (people steroids, yes) in order to heal them. The problem with the prednisone is that it makes her pee...a lot. Unconsciously. Sometimes if you are not careful, she will leak on the bed if she is lying next to you. "Guess what?" Hoss said the other night. "Cleo done peed the bed! Ole' Hoss was taking a nap and rolled over into a big ole pile of wet. That ain't happened to ole' Hoss since his wife's water broke when she was having our baby." He suddenly stared off into the distance. Sad. Again.

I've yet to hear the story of Hoss' dissent from loving husband, straight-laced company man and doting father to Quarter nomad. I'm not sure I really want to. Yesterday I was given a brief glimpse of Hoss' dark side: According to A., the owner of M'sER, Hoss was hanging out at the bar when N., the bartender, overheard some guys asking him where they could buy drugs. They eventually left, and so did Hoss. The gentlemen returned around three hours later, yelling at N. that Hoss had made off with $50 that they gave him to accomplish this task. N. said that she was not responsible for Hoss or their foray into the underground economy. Perhaps fueled on by bravado (or perhaps they found what they were looking for from someone else), they delivered all sorts of threats regarding Hoss, including threats to his life.

It is unlikely they were serious, but even a 125-pound man wielding a gun can stop someone over twice his size. A. called us about this exchange the next morning because she was worried that we were in danger…that someone from the underground economy would follow Hoss home and find us, instead.

I ended my last post about Hoss with a David Brooks quote from an article he wrote about pre-Katrina New Orleans. After hearing that Hoss made off with some guy's $50 drug purchase money, I have now realized that having Hoss as our neighbor perhaps places us just a little too close to that "alternative and much stranger moral universe."

Joe is going to tell Hoss tonight that he has a week to find a new place to live. I'm not worried that Hoss will be mad at us. I just know that as much as Hoss will try to hide it, Hoss will be sad. Again.



Tag: New Orleans

The finish line

Between Camden Yards and the Ravens stadium, a man just won the marathon, crossing the finish line not 15 feet in front of me. 2 hours and 16 minutes. A handful of seconds. I tried to snap a picture but I was too slow and he was too fast. Number two crossed the line with a relay runner before I finished my sentence, jotting down notes as I sat in the sun cheering for strangers and awaiting a friend.

Tailgating started early. We sat in the front of my Jeep, feet on the dash, listening to music and watching people prep for the race. The half marathon. (The marathoners were already on the road.) Ibuprofen. Powdered vitamins. 4267% of the recommended daily value of B12. 1667% of Vitamin C. That might have cured (or hired a hit and assassinated) my cold early in the week. In front of us, people jumped and dressed, undressed and glided.

"What is she going to do with her puffy vest?" I asked.

"And really it's not that cold."

Running skirts. Headbands. Boys with black socks pulled up to their knees.

"Do you think he mohawked his hair just for this?"

"Probably. He thought it would be funny."

The man with the close cropped strip of hair stretched alongside a man in striped boxers boasting plastic buttocks with a lipstick kiss.

"I always end up behind people like that," my friend wryly observed.

She noted the clown car in front of us, gangly boys pouring from the extended cab of a pickup truck followed by a lone girl. Seven in all. I watched the boys two cars down, the boys with the cooler, the lanky man with curls and cords who poured himself a bloody mary.

"I think I'm in love."

Back at the finish line, more and more men crossed the line and found themselves wrapped in foil. The winner, John Itati, wrapped up his interview. A couple of racing wheelchairs. More and more runners. Standing to cheer. Sitting. Writing. Clapping. 2:36 for the first woman. Gladys Asiba. 2:37. 2:38. And the women keep coming. Men swung their chips low to be read.

"We need more cowbell," I thought.

Earlier though, before the race, my sweatshirt garnered a friend as we walked to the start. He grew up in my University town. We bonded over Campus Pollyeyes and Mr. Spots. I wondered if he might know my friends from high school days, good Catholic boys in uniforms and acne.

I would find more friends at the finish line, where I sat and waited in an out of the way spot that ended up being a perfect view of the finish line and not in the least bit out of the way after a while. I cheered for the winners, for everyone who crossed the finish line. Marathoners. Relayers. Men in wheelchairs. Women in very little.

The crowd grew and the noise rose. Whistles and bells. Helicopters. The Kelly Bell Band would play later. For the moment, though, I would sit and write. I would stand and cheer. I would wait and I would be there when she finished after 13.1 miles on a perfect October morning.

"We need more cowbell."

First and second for the half marathon crossed at 1:04. My new friends' friend placing second by 13 seconds. They jumped. Screamed. Threw their hands in the air. I cheered and asked, "Is that your friend?"

"Yes. Yes!" rasped the girl, hoarse and jumping still.

My notes deteriorated as I folded the chair, stood and cheered, clapping for about 45 minutes straight. The runners trying to beat three hours. The space around me filled. 1:14 for the first woman on the half.

"That's Boston qualifying," shouted a young man and the crowd cheered wildly.

I gave a woman and her baby my chair. Another woman edged in front of us, pushing us and casting aside her Dunkin Donuts coffee cup. It rolled across the finish line. Minutes later, a man in a Dunkin Donuts costume ran across the same. A marathoner finishing in about 3:10 and a costume.

Limping. Praying. Crying. Cheering. Wheelchairs rolled in for those who collapsed; at least one runner left in an ambulance.

I watched my new friend cross, the one from my University town. 1:35 for the half marathon.

Red shirt, black shorts. We pushed against the barricades and looked for our friends, for husbands and children and spread the word.

"Red shirt coming."

"Come on, Tim... Where is he?"

Music rang out. Voices rang out.

"There are more runners coming. Keep moving."

My notes suddenly stopped. My friend appeared. I cheered. We walked through the sun back to the car, jumped a stranger's car and drove home. It was over


Tag: Running Races

Support System Saturday

"I think we should call this 'Support System Saturday,'" my friend joked as we sat in the sun Saturday afternoon. At a half past one, most of the clientèle looked like they had just rolled out of bed. My own friend looked a little worse for wear and had to leave after ordering, before collecting her change, her soda or food. The mixture of hot and cold, of strange scents, turned her stomach.

Unlike the rest of the stomach-sensitive guests, my friend had just run the Baltimore half marathon – 13.1 miles – and I, well, I just waited. I got up at six after far too much wine and far too little sleep, showered and dressed. I played with my email, watched the news (or ignored the news as the case may be) and climbed into my Jeep to pick her up.

I actually parked instead of calling or honking. I knocked on the door and jumped around her stoop to look in the high window and wave. To Baltimore. To a parking lot where we sat and chatted, critiqued the other runners, poked fun at my quarter-sized blisters and talked about anything other than running 13.1 miles.

En route to the starting, we made a new friend. At the finish, I made more as I waited a couple of hours, cheering for marathon, half-marathon and relay runners and in more than a couple cases, wheelchairs. I enjoyed the sun. The crowd. The day. And I waited for those few, brief seconds when I might cheer for my friend at the end of her race. Sunlight, friendship and strains of the Kelly Bell Band over the chatter and shouts.

We left soon after for lunch and naps, for the dubbing of "Support System Saturday." Before leaving, though, we jump a stranger's car. Later in the day, I would bake cookies for my brother, for another friend and for a boy I knew in a bad place, and I would hang with my friends at my favorite bookstore en route to Blue's apartment, where we'd hang, eat soft foods and watch movies. She just had her wisdom teeth pulled.

Honestly, Blue would have been fine without me. Blue is always fine without me, but it was nice to spend an evening with a friend. She managed to avoid the chipmunk face, but stitches disintegrated and pulled in her mouth. Her high cheekbones lost a little of their towering heights in the slight swelling and she swallowed antibiotics and prescription painkillers as we sat on the couch with our comfort foods and Grey Gardens, the Queen and a pair of cats.

Walking home, I found a boy, an Israeli boy on his first day of work, who needed direction. I walked him to the Metro and we talked. He plans to study medicine. He thought was a student, a decade younger than I am. We picked up another lost soul on the way to the station, and we all walked together, chatting in a mix of rapid-fire and halting English. (He threatened to speak Hebrew, which I would understand about as well as he my words.)

"Well, Caroline..." he started and shook his head. "No?"

"Kristin," I smiled.

"Very nice to meet you, Kristin," he smiled and shook my hand as we parted ways. I boarded my train and sank into my seat and my book as Support System Saturday faded into early morning Sunday.

Once again, I rose early, this time to bake a coffee cake for brunch. Another full day stretched in front of me. Walking. Shopping. Farmers' markets. Friends and food. Conversation. Coffee cake. A support system for me.


Tag: Friends

Adopt a Peace Corps Project

Hi folks, Scott here.

I'm working to promote an idea I've placed on a website called Ideablob. What is Ideablob?

Ideablob is a place for people to post their ideas for a small business and get feedback from other users. The other users can then vote for which idea they like the best, and each month the top voted business will be rewarded with $10,000 in seed money.

What is my idea?

Develop an application for Facebook that will connect Peace Corps volunteer projects around the world to Facebook members who are willing to donate time/energy/resources to those projects. Donations of goods and services that aren't locally available will allow volunteers to get many projects underway.

This is a project I've been trying to launch, in some form or another, over the last four years. If I get enough votes, I can actually begin the work, granted I win for the month. Take a look and vote for me.

http://ideablob.com/ideas/125

Thanks!

Tag: Peace Corps, Facebook

Marta Gomez

I loved the downtime this week. Really and truly loved it. The mid-afternoon naps. Starting new relationships with daytime television. Discovering where Ellen went when the Today show added an extra hour. The couch and I moved to the next level and it started to bear the imprint of my prone form.

For the first time in ages, I got sick. Scratch that, for the first time in ages, I got better. Fast. Granted, I still feel like crap but it is nothing like the pinnacle of unwell that I reached on Tuesday. I slowed down. I stopped. And I stitched myself together. My body stitched itself together, in spite of me, with pots of tea and bowls of soup, naps on the couch and early nights. I loved every second of it and I craved the return to my regularly scheduled life.

Last night, I went out. Out being a relative term as I joined a friend and her coworker Dave for dinner at the Thai place by my office and a performance by Colombian singer-songwriter Marta Gomez.

Honestly, I didn't know a thing about Gomez but my friend liked her and I trusted my friend. Life got hectic and I forgot to seek her out, to find her music, her heritage, her story. Every other day for two weeks, my friend reminded me of the show and every other day for two weeks I said, "Oh, yeah. Right. I'll be there."

And I was.

Despite the cold, or maybe because of it, I looked forward to my first night out since Sunday. Dinner at the Thai place. A concert thrown by the Smithsonian Institute. A concert in an auditorium of a government office building.

"The last time I was in an auditorium like this," whispered coworker Dave, struggling for a date, a time, a place. "Must have been high school."

"My niece's ballet recital," I replied. "She's seven."

We forgot all about the chair, the stage, the close quarters as soon as Gomez opened her mouth. As the Smithsonian touted, "Colombian singer-songwriter Marta Gomez takes South American indigenous folk music into a hip new realm."

Bouncing between softly accented English and lilting Spanish, Gomez wove stories of family and place, rhythm and nature between the songs. A girl from Russia played the flute. The bass player, keyboardist and drummer hailed from Argentina and Gomez from Columbia. I didn't know the songs. I barely knew the words or rhythms but the music struck a chord.

My mind wandered. The songs, the songs I had never heard before, reminded me of everything I had ever wanted to be, of everyone I had ever loved. Words I barely understood evoked emotions I barely knew I held. I darn near cried there in my little seat between coworker Dave and my friend.

"You know what this needs?" asked my friend with devilish grin and an eye toward the stage. "More cowbell."

Cowbell and maracas and strange little things that must have a name littered the stage. Actually, they hung orderly from a music stand but they peppered the music with interesting sounds. Gomez actually whistled the end of the show.

I thanked God that I didn't perform and would never find myself onstage, but I wanted to dance. I wanted to understand more than I did.

Later, at home, on the couch again, I would catch up on the DVR. I would fit myself in the impression that the sofa still bore and cuddle under the fleece, still sniffling, and thinking of the songs I had heard.


Tag: Music

Breathing

Being sick reminds me of a boy I used to know, which is neither flattering to the man I used to love nor indicative of the relationship itself, but something about the coughing, the hacking and sneezing reminded me of him.

This boy I used to know, this man I used to love, spent his days in class, his evenings at work and the in between times smoking and studying, studying and smoking. I got whatever remained. The off night. The Saturday afternoon when he should have been at band practice. Whenever. And I didn't mind. I enjoyed the time that we carved out, the time that was ours alone.

We seldom had plans. He would call or text and I knew I would see him soon. We would talk. Eat. Laugh. Live. Love. Movies. Books. Music. I once gave him 50 CDs. His had been stolen; I replaced some of his favorites, introduced him to some of mine.

I was happy. And then I wasn't. And then everything fell apart. In the middle, though, when I was still happy, my heart raced at the thought of seeing him. I cleaned my apartment, anything to keep my hands busy, my head from meeting the point of distraction at the thought of him. I lit a candle. I read. I changed my clothes a half dozen times and forced myself back on the couch.

"Just breathe," I told myself, focusing on the book, the music, the heavenly aroma. I had gotten the candle as a gift. Archipelago Stonehenge. Rich and dark, it filled the air with smoked cedarwood, bergamot and amber. It tickled my senses as something of the verge of memory, and I waited.

A knock on the door and there he was, the boy that I used to know, the man that I still loved. We talked. Ate. Laughed. Lived. Loved. Movies, books and music were shared.

Eventually, though, something happened. I could barely breathe. My lungs constricted. My nose ran. My eyes shut and I coughed violently. As sweetly as possible, he asked if I was sick.

"Apparently, I have contracted SARS," I wheezed as his brow wrinkled.

"I can't... I can't get sick," he apologized, kissed my forehead and left. I understood. I showered, hoping the steam would help, and tucked myself into bed. By morning, I felt better. I could breathe again.

Eventually, I realized that it was the candle. The candle that reminded me so much of him, the candle that I loved, stole my air. Months later, I realized that I had started to do the same to him. I still have the candle; I just don't burn it.


Tag: Relationships

Still sick

A pot of tea, a bowl of soup and back episodes of How I Met Your Mother... Another exciting night in the life of Candy Sandwich. The cold kept me home. Grounded as it were and away from walking with a friend, away from a choice of three movies, away.

I curled up on the sofa with cold medicine, my Reading Rocks! mug sporting steaming chamomile and my laptop. Working a little, a lot, as day drifted into night. I had fallen asleep on the couch when I got home midday and moved to the bedroom for a proper rest. I awoke to a clap of thunder and the patter of raindrops outside the bedroom door.

The ringing phone pulled me out of sleep once and for all and I talked with a coworker, awaited her email. I would spend the next few hours reviewing and modifying the file she sent, catching up on the time I missed from work, the hours I spent sleeping under red fleece and the lull of antihistamines.

I wanted nothing more than a cold glass of water and the hot tea. Buttered saltines. Broth. Somebody to tuck me into bed and a cool hand upon my forehead. I made myself tea and settled into work from the couch. A grownup version of sick days.

Favorite songs on the play list. Hot soup. Cold water. Minimal retail therapy. Minimal emailing, unable to string together thoughts and words and phrases. Syndicated sitcoms. Old movies. New pajamas.

In the morning I would get up and work. I would start to feel better. Different, at least. Thoughts would echo in my otherwise soundproofed head. I would feel heavy, thick, slow... but on the road to recovery.


Tag: Sick

Sick days

Five minutes. Ten. I looked back at the computer and realized that I had lost a solid chunk of time. I started typing, looked up and it happened again. Time slipped through my glazed eyes, my open mouth, and I shook my head, trying to dislodge the feeling of cotton that muffled the world from my senses, reminding me of fresh-fallen snow, everything preternaturally still.

I fell asleep on the couch a little after seven, having taken the medication upon which I normally frowned. One tablet. Two. Three. A couple of minutes of Snakes on a Plane and the sleep timer took over. I didn't know when it ended. I simply awoke at half past midnight to silence.

Typing an email to a friend, a response to his response to my message of warning, my admonition that I was sick and anything I wrote for the rest of the night would not make sense, I rambled. I lost time. I lost the stream and ended with "I'm sorry this is disjointed. I am disjointed."

I wanted nothing more than iced water and cinnamon toast, steaming tea and someone to tuck me into bed. I made due with myself. I poured a glass of water, cold and filtered; condensation formed on either side of my hand. I tucked myself into bed.

Minutes later, I rose and grabbed a box of tissues. I sniffled. I coughed. I tossed and turned and eventually found my way back to sleep, blessedly without tissue shoved up my nose.

The alarm sounded far too soon and I felt worse than I had the night before. In the shower, I croaked, "I feel icky... Oh, so icky... So icky and sicky and blah..." unable to get the twist on "I feel pretty" out of my head. Soap and steam cut through my congestion and I breathed free for a moment at least and felt minimally better.

Slowly, oh, so slowly, I dressed and dug a pair of heels from the closet. I gently brushed my hair, afraid to pull too hard, and I grabbed my bag. Ready for another day of work. [Cough.]

After my morning meeting, I would have to figure out if I would send myself home to work or my officemate. With a 10-week-old daughter at home, she could not afford my cold. Frankly, neither could I. I needed the vacation time for India, for New Orleans, for life. After my morning meeting, though, drugged and muffled, I would need to reconsider my priorities.

For the moment, though, I headed to work.


Tag: Sick

Being green

"Are you going to the Green Festival?"

"Probably not."

"Oh... K say she'd go with you."

"Is that really something one goes to twice?"

"I don't know. There are speakers... Anyway, I was going to say that I could get you a free pass."

"Oh... Well, thanks."

We had talked about going to the Green Festival, but when my friend went with my brother Saturday, I figured it was off the table for Sunday. And I really didn't care. I wanted to go to the All Roads Film Festival. To Eastern Market and the laudromat, the grocery store and Target. I needed to clean. I needed to crash.

Nevertheless, on Sunday morning, after juggling a little, we met on our corner and wandered through the market before heading to the Convention Center. We followed the (relative) throngs up an escalator that stopped under our combined weight. A woman wrestled a stroller to the top as her husband watched, toddler in arms. Through the convention center. Into a room I thought I might have seen before at a conference.

I remembered men in black suits. Women in the same. Me in pink and brown. Knee high boots. I knew the topic better than most but I didn't quite fit. I figured I wouldn't quite fit at the Green Festival either: I'm not green.

Wandering through the booths, I reconsidered. I knew many of the names, the businesses, the products. In Provence a few weeks ago, I practiced my favorite French phrase: je suis végétarienne or something like that. I can say it if not write it. I don't speak French. I am a vegetarian, though, and have been most of my life.

Over the past several years, I've gotten to the point – physically, mentally, financially – that I buy local. Organic. Support fair trade. I don't really think about it. I live near a farmer's market. I shop at Yes! Organic Market. Not only do I love the punctuation mid-name, it is on the way home from the metro, and Safeway isn't.

I don't really drive, choosing public transportation or foot power, depending on location. I carry a market bag. I give my few plastic bags to the local bookstore for reuse. I wear cotton. I don't wear makeup. Not much, anyway, and my bath products (and corresponding Body Shop addiction) tout five core values:

• Against Animal Testing
• Support Community Trade
• Activate Self Esteem
• Defend Human Rights
• Protect Our Planet

At a table near the front, I recognized a girl from Idealist.org. She served with my brother in the Peace Corps. I stayed in her apartment in New York for a long weekend in July. I climbed to her roof. Not far from the Idealist booth, I saw the travel company with whom I am going to India in less than five weeks.

As we walked through the stands, picking up organic treats and tea bags, I realized, "I'm granola. Crunchy. Birkenstock-wearing, tree-hugging green through and through."

I guess I just never really thought about it before. It's a way of life, my way of life, and I'm glad.


Tag: Green

Saturday night with Sedaris

The man on stage, the boy who was barely a man at 17, introduced himself and called his mother. Apparently, David Sedaris had pulled him out of line five minutes before the performance. We discovered that later, after the writer had taken the podium. For the moment, though, as the phone rang into the microphone, 1500 readers, book lovers or guests, waited and watched.

Mom seemed a little surprised as we all called out, "Hi, Mom," not to mention the fact that her son was onstage before 1500 people at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium, introducing humorist, writer and radio commentator Sedaris. It was priceless.

When we saw him after the lecture, the boy in the back of the auditorium, he looked even younger than he had appeared on stage with flopping hair and guileless face. He still had the phone in hand and the book that Sedaris had signed.

He said he'd keep the five dollars he had been paid for the introduction, that he would never spend it, and the Brady Bunch popped into my head, Marsha's declaration that she'd never wash her cheek again after a kiss from Monkee Davy Jones. Derek had probably never seen the episode. Derek probably didn't know the Monkees either, but I could imagine Sedaris would identify.

Sedaris seemed to identify with so much, reading a series of stories and chatting easily with the audience, he peppered stories that seemed so real – filled with sympathy and humor – with the downright odd. Feet like hot dog buns. Being buried alive. A rabbit named unemployment. He made us laugh.

Something about Sedaris made me want to write, to be a better writer, to be a better storyteller, and more than anything, that's what he seemed to be. A storyteller. Gifted. Able to find the perfect blend of humor and poignancy, confidence and insecurity, the ordinary with the downright absurd and details. Funny little details.

Something about Sedaris made us want to talk. I offered to take the metro home, but it seemed so anti-climactic, so unfinished to leave without talking through the night, without closure.

I had already bought and read the books he sold after the show, which was good as the line stretched through the lobby, down the stairs and back across the building. I also considered the book he recommended, The Easter