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“Nothing wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.” (Mahatma Gandhi)

I love that quote.

Lent started yesterday. I actually really like Lent; I’m the product of thirteen years of Catholic school and to me these forty days mean get ready. For Easter, if that’s your jam. For spring. For sacrifices and fish on Fridays and a pair of droopy three dollar L’eggs pantyhose underneath a musty-smelling purple gown for the Passion play (in eighth grade I made my debut as Crying Woman #2 and we all went to the diner afterward, grilled cheese and french fries and a crazy run around the parking lot, the smell of the pavement wet under our feet). I am from school uniforms and novenas and devotional candles, and the ritual of this season appeals to me very much.

I don’t practice, really. I’ve spent a lot of my early twenties feeling weird about my religion, the nasty underbelly of it, the yuckiness inherent in being sixteen and a girl and spending forty hours a week with nuns who want nothing more than for you to shut up and write neatly and cross your ankles and obey. I objected. I thrashed. I moved in with my boyfriend and I stopped going to church and I read Catcher in the Rye which, I’d like you to know, was banned at my high school.

This is not to say I don’t miss it. I miss it like I miss my own family. Figure out the church thing has been on my list of resolutions for three years running, but for whatever reason I haven’t been able to get there–like that part of me was still smarting, or something. Like my new life was still too new.  Still, I’ve been feeling lately like maybe I’m getting closer to ready. Like maybe this Lent might be a good time to experiment–to open a book or slide into a pew or hand over my worries, finally, to something that is bigger than me.

Am trying not to waste my body. Am trying not to waste my heart.

001. i get a book deal and live in a giant high rise in miami for the six months of the year boston is simply too frigid to stand. in the afternoons i swim in the pool.

002. i move to upstate new york to start the farm with the girls; we keep chickens and goats and robust farm boys. marissa brings our goods to market in a truck.

003. i go to nova scotia where i live in a garret apartment and cultivate a blueberry patch and wear men’s galoshes all the time.

004. i stay here and restore a crumbling victorian house with a pull chain toilet and a cupboard under the stairs.

005. i move to queens and work in a coffee shop. i let my accent hang out and call people hon as a reflex, without sounding condescending and affected.

006. i go home, help my mom sort the house out, solve mysteries.

007. i get up at three and bake bread in the dark. i take no milk in my coffee.

008. i move to the desert and haunt honkey-tonks in a dress and a beaten pair of cowboy boots, dancing to pasty cline.

009. i have four children.

010. i  have a motorcycle.

011. i have perfect vision.

012. i find the town near bari where my grandfather’s parents came from, and i plop myself down in the square until someone teaches me italian.

013. i move to california to develop dramedies for the CW. i take up yoga and prove myself quite flexible. i keep a cactus at my door.

014. i work in a dog grooming parlor in converse and a hanes t-shirt, whispering to rottweilers and waiting for whatever might happen.

015. i move in with my sister in manhattan. i cook. she does the dishes. we argue, but not that much. i start a wildly successful blog about the landscape of television in the age of snookin’ for love, and it pays all my bills henceforth in perpetuity.

i could keep going. i always can. does anybody else do this? or is it just me?

So how was everybody else’s weekend?

Happy Valentine’s Day.

(name that book)

Meanwhile, OTHER FACTS:

1. I got some New Yorkers out of the library and I think I am already smarter. No, really. Ask me something a smart person would know.

2. Canned beets are to roasted beets as Sarah Palin is to Michelle Obama.

3.  I almost cancelled our Valentine’s Day dinner reservation last night because Jackie told me she was almost sure that the first boy I ever kissed (spoiler alert: NOT TOM) was a waiter at the Trendy Restaurant I picked, and just THINKING about that encounter made me want to die, because apparently even though we are All Adults Here and I have been kissing people for ten years now, in my heart I am fourteen years of age. Can you imagine? I walk into this fancy restaurant on VALENTINE’S DAY of all the days and oh hey, how you doing, it was really cool of you to like me back in the 00’s even though I was a wretch and wore Steve Madden platform wedges all the time. ANYWAY, crisis averted, reservations kept, no need to panic. Phew.

4. I put six valentines in the mail today! You all know who  you are. But hey, everybody else…I love you too! I just ran out of stamps.

5. There is PW meatloaf (and SK homemade oreos, if I can somehow make them Island-themed. Dharma oreos? John Locke cookies, because they’re one thing on the outside and something else on the inside? Sawyer cookies, because they are attractive and desirable? NEVER MIND. I WILL MAKE IT WORK) in my immediate future. Stay tuned.

Life is so incredibly good sometimes.

Tom went skiing with some friends from work yesterday, and I wanted to make him something sweet  to tuck into his pack (you know, ’cause I love him. And to make him popular with his ski buddies). I’ve wanted to try Deb’s cocoa brownies (for people who like boxed brownies! Which I do!) ever since she posted them, and boy howdy they did not disappoint. It was a very good thing that they left my house at 7 o’clock yesterday morning.

Also, I picked up some Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla at Williams-Sonoma a couple of weeks ago (thank you, gift card), and while I’m not a hundred percent sure it’s improved my baking, it sure makes me feel fancy. Which is obviously the most important thing.

Puzzles with H and a cuddle with my favorite mutt, a late night “I’m downstairs!” call from Miss Rachel, revelatory egg sammies at Flour, US Weekly and mani-pedis, dinner at Cambridge 1, effectively using the GPS on my phone, everything about Ladysmith Black Mambazo, drinks and hummus at Tory Row, a long, bracing, second-wind inducing scuttle back to the apartment, a lazy Sunday morning coffee date, and kamikaze grocery-shopping with the boyfriend. R, you are always such a joy. See you in the spring.