My girlfriends are amazing. There is bread rising on my counter right now. I painted a chair this afternoon, and Leprechaun bought me an iced coffee. I’m going to wear a dress to work tomorrow.
February, love, you are not so bad.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RRBYxZ7uxA]
I just. They really love each other, is what I’m saying.
I was all over the Northeast this weekend, down to New York for a quick and dirty visit with some lady friends and back up to Mystic for a couple of days with Leprechaun, then home to Boston for an Inauguration brunch complete with lots of cheering and high-fives.
Also lots of bacon.
Nothing like a little travel for head-clearing purposes, and now that I’m back I feel super psyched to take on whatever’s next. So keep an eye out for some new recipes in the next few days, plus some cash-saving tips that are working for me right now. And a gander at my new curtains. That I sewed.
Watch out, world.
I’m just saying.
1. An early bus ride tomorrow, to meet up with a few of the coolest girls in New York
2. A quick getaway with Leprechaun on Sunday and Monday
3. How in Massachusetts furniture stores have trapezes and Imax theaters attached to them
4. Inauguration
5. Letting it go.
I’m gone til Tuesday, chickens. Stay warm.
1. Create a Pandora station called “The Supremes”.
2. Listen loud. Listen often.
I had my grad school interview on Monday. It didn’t go how I thought it was going to go. That isn’t to say it went badly. I didn’t trip or pronounce banal incorrectly or make a fool of myself in any obvious way. It was fine. I think I might get in.
I just don’t think I’m going to go.
The hardest part of the transition to adulthood has been the openness of it all: with no report card every semester, I’ve had to create my own rubric to measure my progress, whatever that means. And since I’m not flying to the moon or publishing wildly successful vampire novels or saving the world, I tend to be sort of hard on myself. You should be doing more, I tell myself constantly. More, more, more.
I think grad school seemed like the perfect plan because it would have hit two buttons at once: the school thing (have I mentioned I like school?) and also the life thing. “I’m in grad school,” I could say when people asked what I was up to. “You’re in grad school,” I could tell myself on all those nights I couldn’t sleep from wondering what the hell I was doing with my life. Never mind that I wasn’t so sure anymore that I was actually interested in the field I was planning to study: the studying itself was a way to buy myself some time before I had to make the big decisions. A way to feel like I was doing something without actually having to commit.
Except it is a commitment. A huge one, in time and money and effort. And as I listened to the assistant dean explain the program–and it is a good program, I think, full of the order and reading and discussion I like so much–and wondered why I didn’t feel more excited, a thought occurred to me:
this is too high a price to pay just to stave off the fear.
And so I’m going to tread lightly in 2009. I’m going to learn to live with the uncertainty. I’m going to write and cook and love my family and wait until the next step is presented to me.
I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with my life.
Suffice it to say: I loved Chicago. I would like to go back when the wind and cold are not conspiring to rip my face off.
I spent a few days between Christmas and New Year’s at my friend J’s farmhouse in Michigan. In addition to getting to spend some much-needed lady time with her and our friend S, being in such a remote location (thirteen miles from the nearest town! For a city girl like me, we might as well have been in Botswana) chilled me out in a way I knew I needed, but couldn’t achieve on my own.
The house itself is fantastic, old and creaking with two staircases and a million secret rooms. It’s always a little cold so you have to wear slippers everywhere and sit on the couch under three blankets when you watch a movie, clutching a mug of tea.
J drove me around for a couple of hours so I could get a feel for where we were. Every time we turned down a dirt road I asked her if she was taking me someplace to kill me and bury my body, but here I am so I guess her intentions weren’t as malevolent as I thought.
I don’t think I stopped eating the entire time I was there. Homemade pizza, chocolate-chip cookies made with coconut oil (something I’m definitely going to try), raw milk, hard rolls with butter, an endless supply of clementines, a crock of spinach dip we kept taking out of the fridge and reheating. I’m lucky my jeans still fit.
It was pretty grey–perfect weather for Scrabble and Rummy and Oh, Hell.
I napped. I never nap.
Most of all, I relaxed. I slept ’til I woke up. I sat and did nothing. I practiced my yoga breathing, and sat on J’s bed listening to the radio and trying to touch my toes. I laughed. I went with J to the train station in Jackson (right next to the nudie bar!) with a thermos of coffee to get S. I saw parts of the country I’ve never seen before.
I’m trying to figure out how to bring that sense of well-being–that sense tat the universe can take care of itself–into my life here. I’m not sure how I’m going to do it. but I think it might involve more quiet–and maybe more bars with a moose on the wall.
I love January. It’s so…clean. Full of possibility. I’m the queen of resolutions, the contessa of new starts. I’m always sure that this is it, the year that everything falls into place, that I finally get where I’m going—wherever it is. Who knows? The journey, I suppose, is the point.
Doesn’t always feel that way, though.
I’ve made some resolutions this year, sure—read more, make a better effort with some casual acquaintances—but my biggest goal for 2009 is to slow the hell down. This past year was a good one—a growing year—but it was a ball-buster, too, and I can’t say I’m sorry to see it go. In its place? Peace. Quiet. A rearranged apartment, and a cup of tea, and a brand new attitude.
Here’s to you, oh-nine. I feel good about this one. I really do.
Back.
New Year.
New Ballgame.
So Very Glad.
So Very Lucky.
Missed You.
Yeah, You.
More Tomorrow.
