In words better than my own

Snark is often conflated with cynicism, which is a troublesome misreading. Snark may speak in cynical terms about a cynical world, but it is not cynicism itself. It is a theory of cynicism.

The practice of cynicism is smarm.

-Tom Scocca

If all goes to plan, the one on the far right will be me in fifty years or so.

(Advanced Style)

Remember that time I forgot I had a blog?

This weekend I drove overnight to take part in the wedding of two of the world's finest people. I tend not to be an overtly emotional person, but weddings get me, especially when it's a couple I've known for the length of their relationship and whom I treasure separately and together.

It's easy, in one's twenties, to be a little cynical. I fall into it often. But once in a while I am reminded of the power of how much two people can love each other, and how they can be bolstered by all the people who care about them, and that's a pretty amazing thing. Congratulations to my amazing friends, who have a beautiful life ahead of them.

I'm in Maine for a few days, by myself. It's so quiet and familiar. As happens every time, I can't quite figure out why I left in the first place.

Conversations

I'm going to a pool party this afternoon and forgot to buy beer yesterday, so today I called my neighborhood wine store to see if they were open.

Me: Oh, hi! I was just wondering what your hours are today.
NLS: Nine to eleven.
Me: (Looking at clock) So if I run in I can still make it?
NLS: Oh, honey! Eleven p.m.! Don't you run anywhere in this heat. You come in nice and leisurely. 

Thanks, Boston. Missed you.

Unemployment = More Cooking

I made a bastardized niçoise for dinner. It's big enough to take over the world. 

Re-entry

It's been a busy time. I had a friend in town, then I went out of town, then I threw a bachelorette party, then I moved across four states. I'm still pretty exhausted, and it will take me a while to settle back in. But tonight I made myself a nice, healthy dinner, opened a beer, and went up to the roof deck to hang out at a rain cloud rolled in. Moving is hard, and adjusting to new circumstances is difficult, but sometimes it's more than worth it.

I have a dear friend coming in a few days for a visit. Stocking up on white wine, diet Coke, and museum tickets.

Don't Buy the Hype

My boyfriend pointed out the other day that one of the brake lights on my car had gone out.

"Great!" I said. "That means I get to learn how to fix it." 

Now, I should have learned this long ago. I was raised by a father who spent much of his time in the garage, tinkering with whichever hand-me-down car we'd most recently inherited. But I was sort of a princessy child, and I didn't spend as much time learning from him as I should have. I know enough about cars to know that most of the time I should leave the tinkering to the professionals. 

While I may not have learned much about mechanics, I did learn from my father that one ought to be able to do most things for oneself. I also learned this from growing up in New England. It's a land full of brazen independents, where reliance on others is seen as weakness. The only things it's really acceptable to call in outside help for are major home renovations and complex surgery. 

So, with this tail light, I saw an opportunity to learn to do something new. I could have taken it to the mechanic and spent $25 to get the bulb replaced, or I could do it my damn self. I broke out the owner's manual to see what it had to say. 

"Light bulbs: head and tail light assemblies are becoming increasingly complex, and it is strongly recommended that you take you vehicle to a registered dealer for service. Your dealer will have the appropriate parts and expertise." 

That's paraphrasing, but the point was clear: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. I had a moment of doubt. If the manual said this was a huge mistake, maybe I was being foolish. One of my worst fears is earning a place in the Darwin Awards, and self-electrocution by brake light seemed a decent bid. But still, the bigger part of me said, "Really? How hard could this possibly be?" 

And you know what? It was the simplest thing I've done in months. I watched a two-minute video on YouTube filmed by some guy with a wicked Boston accent, then went down to the driveway, opened the panel in the trunk, popped out the assembly, changed the lightbulb, and snapped the assembly back in. The most difficult part was getting the old bulb to turn counter-clockwise a quarter of an inch so I could remove it. My car is a Volkswagen old enough to be starting high school, and every single part of it is at least eight times more costly and complicated to fix than on basically anything except a vintage Maybach. This project was five minutes and five dollars, and since the bulbs come in pairs I have an extra for the next time one goes out. 

Screw you, owner's manual. I will absolutely try this at home. 

Things I Need in My Life

Really just the one, but I need it RIGHT NOW:

Prancercise

I won't lie, if I had a private compound this is probably how I would move from one building to another.

Last night I made this BLT chopped salad from How Sweet Eats:

And holy god. That, my friends, is the kind of salad you take home to meet your mother. Make it now. Make it forever.

Summer!

After a stupid-humid day in the mid-80s, night has fallen on Pittsburgh and outside is a very pleasant 78 degrees.

Inside my apartment it is still 92 degrees.

 Send help.

Last night was for a Liberace-themed gay dance party. I love a theme party, and managed to pull together one of the more flamboyant outfits of my life from things I already owned. I'm down a sequined sash this morning, but that's okay. This morning was for yard sale wandering on one of the most beautiful days to hit Pittsburgh this year. It's seventy degrees, sunny, breezy. Perfect. Now I'm going to take a nap, then head to yoga. Keep it up, weekend.

Truth

(observando)

So Many Clothes

This weekend I began transferring my winter clothes to storage (plastic bins that will live in the basement until I move) and my summer clothes to my closet. My conclusion? I have a lot of damn clothes.

This will not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me. I like clothing, I like fashion history, I have a problem with clothing swaps and secondhand stores. What I put on my body is an important part of my life, though obviously not as important as my family and friends and under-educated children and a million other things. But it's fun to figure out what to pair with that skirt I could never quite work before, and the rest of my life feels much more manageable when I don't feel like a neglected Goodwill mannequin.

I'm starting to prepare to move in a little over a month, several states away. Most of my things will be in storage for at least a couple of months. It's coming down to a question of, "Do I like this thing enough to move it three times (into moving truck, into storage unit, into wherever I'll live next)?" A lot of the time the answer is yes. My clothes are part of my personal history, and I will never surrender my grandmother's cocktail dresses, or my box of dresses that are really only good for drunken makeover montages. The impending move is making it easier, though, to finally let go of the things that have never fit me, that are proportioned incorrectly or are in colors that do not suit my skintone. I'm also using it as motivation to give away pieces that do have sentimental value that has become more baggage than anything. For those things I try to find a friend who loves the given piece as much as I do. It's exponentially easier when I know something I've cared about will have a rich life with someone about whom I also care.

Is it silly to think this much about clothing? I don't think so. Things are only things, but most of the things I have are there for a reason. And the important ones will stay with me through twenty more moves.

Friday miscellany

• I have a guest post up over at Traveling Marla! I'm very excited that Marla let me take over her blog for a day, so make sure to check it out. 
• The factory conditions in Bangladesh have been in the news a lot the last few weeks. It is an evolving, unimaginably horrific situation, and I've been struggling to figure out how to look at it, think about it, and do something about it. I'm not having much luck, but I was greatly touched to read this article about a woman who survived for 17 days in the basement of the collapsed factory and was rescued yesterday. A brief ray of hope in the midst of a lot of terrible news. 
• Does anyone know what this plant is? Our best guess is some variety of rhododendron, but the six leaves don't quite fit with that. Boyfriend's hand (and snazzy shoe) included for scale. 

Commitment

There are many things I love about model Coco Rocha, not least of which is that the lady knows how to commit to a theme:

Here is Coco entering the Met Gala last night. The theme this year was "Punk," and a disappointing number of people showed up in flattering, sensible silk tank dresses. Read the invitation, guys.

First half marathon down. The rest of the week is for sleep and ice cream.

Some words that bother me, because the world cares:

Blouse
Purse
Vehicle
Purchase
Slacks

 There are other words that mean the same things, are more specific, less pretentious, and lack the unpleasant sibilance. Please use those other words instead.

Right before I woke up this morning I had a dream that involved both being rejected by my ex (again) and having to say goodbye to Pam Beesly, with whom I had become good friends. Jesus, subconscious. It's only Tuesday. Give me a chance to make it through the week in one piece.

Adulthood: Pros and Cons

Cons - Bills, wrinkles, responsibilities, disillusionment, soul-crushing disappointments, closer to death

Pros - Can eat cheeseburgers whenever you want

This. This all the time. 

On Running

I'm training to run a half-marathon. I started training in January, and at the end of February began having pain in my ankle. The pain has persisted, and my training hasn't gone as I imagined it would. I've had to take weeks off to let the tendons rest, I've missed lots of runs, and still the ankle hurts. It's incredibly frustrating. I'm not only running for myself, I'm running on behalf of a greyhound rescue organization, using the run as a way to raise money for the care of the dogs until their adoptive homes can be found.

 I always hated running. I could make it through the mile in the Presidential Fitness Test in middle school, but not with any ease and certainly not quickly. As time went on I ran sometimes, a couple of miles, and called it good enough. I always felt good after my runs, but during them everything was terrible. Once I had a reason to push past my comfort level, knowing that I was accountable to the people who had donated to my fundraising campaign and to the dogs I'm trying to help, things began to change. For my first long run, I went out and made it five and a half miles, the most I had ever run in my life. Then I made it seven, then eight. It's still not easy, and I'm still slow, but I learned to get through the first couple of miles to the part where everything just works, where my legs keep going and my mind wanders from what my muscles are doing to what I'll make for dinner, or what I'll wear tomorrow. That place is wonderful. It's a moving sort of meditation, and it's a feeling I've come to cherish in large part because it's difficult to achieve it.

 The training has helped me to change the way I think about a number of things, in fact. I'm a bit of a perfectionist—not enough to let it rule my life, but enough that I feel guilty that I don't let it rule my life. I'm in a stage of my life that is full of change, some of it positive and some of it even more difficult than the runs. Every day I struggle to do my job well, to keep my apartment clean, to be a good friend and girlfriend, to contribute more to the world than I take from it, to recycle, to find creative outlets, to talk to my mother often enough, to face down my flaws and correct them. It's a huge amount of pressure to put on myself, and it does come from myself. I'm great at appearances, and it is, for reasons not entirely clear or probably entirely healthy, very important to me that the act looks effortless. I strive to be the sort of person other people want to be.

 Sometimes it's not possible. Sometimes a break is necessary. So I've adopted a new mantra: "I will try." I will try to do my laundry before it starts to smell weird. I will try to do my dishes as they are dirtied. I will try to keep a positive attitude at work even when I'm frustrated. I will try to keep in better touch with my friends. I will try to be a good daughter and a good sister. I will to eat healthily. I will try to fit in some writing every day. I will try to communicate my emotions constructively to those relevant to them. I will try to do the difficult thing when I know it is the right thing.

 I will not always succeed. I'm far too ambitious to only undertake things that I know will go well. These are all of the things I will try to do, and if I fail I will try again. If I can do some of them most of the time, or most of them some of the time, I'll consider it a victory. It's not possible to be all things at all times. A lot of motivational speakers would tell you that this phrasing is self-defeating, that I should excise "try" and state the certainly that I will. What works best for me is to allow room for human error, and to give myself a space in which to forgive my shortcomings.

 Will I run the whole half marathon? I don't know. It will, at this point, depend mostly on how my ankle feels that day. One thing I can say with certainty is that I'll damn well try.

Stay safe, Boston. I need something to move back to.

Oprah knew just what I needed to hear this morning.

Last night I had a dream that I cut off my hair again to a sleek little bob, just like I did in November of 2009. I thought, this is fun but I wish I'd kept the long hair for a few more months. It's rare that I wake up from a dream satisfied that at least something is going my way. But I'll probably cut off all of my hair in a few months.

Already this morning I wrote a pretty solid draft of a new piece and applied for a job. Next up: walk to the co-op to buy more coffee, then submit some poems.

Saturday, I like you so far.

Today in things that made me cry: this video. I volunteer for Steel City Greyhounds, and it's a great organization that helps dogs who need homes. In fact, I'm about to go walk a couple of them right now.

This article from The Atlantic discusses the societal pressure women face now to condense a lifetime of experience into a few formative years in our twenties. I've been acutely aware of this in the past, say, year, which has taken me from twenty six years old to twenty seven. At twenty six, I still felt like I had all the time in the world to find a relationship steady enough for lifelong commitment. Suddenly, at twenty seven, it seems like my time is running out and I'd better get settled right now.

This is, of course, ridiculous. I have never wanted to get married for the sake of marriage. It's too big a commitment for that. My value to society is not measured in whether or not I contribute to the traditional nuclear family, or how quickly I get to it. My worth and attractiveness are not declining as I become more centered and professionally successful.

Despite all of these things I know to be true, there is the nagging voice that tells me I should be married by now, or at least planning my wedding. I resent this subconscious assumption. It does not take into account individual circumstances. It assigns a correct age at which one apparently ought to be coupled up and settled down. That correct age spans roughly three months between the period in which we're all supposed to be running around sewing our wild oats, and the period in which we have passed our prime and become desperate, aging slowly on the shelf, beginning to stink of spoil.

By letting this voice continue, I condone this assumption that my worth is tied to my relationship status. It's hard to silence decades of programming, but I'm going to try. There's no perfect age for anything. My life is great, and is not full of things I'm not ready for. I like it that way.

And then there are days like today, when I go two miles and get cramps in three different spots. My right knee, the bad one, started aching, and the arch of my foot was not happy. Maybe my body likes sprinting and long distance and nothing in between. In any case, I feel better for having run. My boss came in this morning and reported that his wife has the flu, at which point I started to feel flushed and stuffy. Probably all in my head, but I wanted to squeeze the run in today in case I feel terrible tomorrow. Look at me, planning ahead.

I've started training to run a half marathon in May. I have never been a good distance runner. I'm slow, I'm sort of lazy, and I never want to go far.

And then today I set out for a run with my running buddy. Last week I set a personal record of 5.45 miles. This week I decided to set my goal at 6 miles. Before this point, the farthest I had ever run in one go was five miles, and that was one time when I was 21. Today I ran a little over 7.

It's remarkable what a body can do when you treat it decently and allow it to surprise you.

I didn't sleep very well last night, and today I feel like tenderized meat.

 I'm reading Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts. The books covers the story of Ambassador Dodd, a Chicago history professor who was assigned, through a series of misadventures, the post of Ambassador to Germany in 1933. It's a beautifully written and exhaustively researched book. Larson balances the homework he did with a fluid and engaged writing style. I have attempted this blend in shorter bursts, and every time I took a piece into workshop all of my classmates hated it. What I'm saying is that it's a difficult line to walk, and Larson does it well.

Reading this book has me thinking about the modern style of murder mystery, which is no the longer the whodunnit. More common now is to open with the tragedy, either the act or the aftermath, and either the real or suspected culprit. This builds a different kind of suspense than the traditional formula. It's a cymbal crash that recedes into a low, erie hum, one that sustains (if well written) for the length of the book.

The idea here is that what you know is coming can be more terrible than what you can imagine. It's chilling now to read about Martha Dodd's lunchtime meeting with Hitler, an attempt on the part of her Nazi officer friend to set the two up, because we know how it ends. (Martha, thank goodness, wasn't to Hitler's taste and never started dating him.) We all like to think we'd know evil, that we would recognize it and be brave enough to stand against it. We like to imagine ourselves better than we are.

To end with a fun anecdote: I was reading this book right before bed last night. Then I was ruminating on something else that upset me yesterday, and had trouble falling asleep. It got bad enough that at one point I actually said to myself, "Stop thinking about this, and just think about the Nazis." Guess what? It didn't help.

On a more cheerful note, here are some totally mind-blowing color photographs of Paris in the early part of the 20th century.

I found this saved as a draft from August, and most of it still rings true five months later:

Yesterday I helped Gina move. By that I mean I showed up when one big load had already gone, and when she had help more coordinated and enthusiastic than I was, so I ended up carrying a few things and then wandering through the emptying rooms of her apartment.

I've been thinking about endings, as one tends to do during periods of transition. I take endings seriously. I mourn them, even if the thing ending is one I'm happy to put in the past. Ending grad school has been a particularly difficult one for me. From the beginning, I looked at grad school as something I was fortunate enough to do, an extended vacation from the responsible, reasonable parts of my life. I was granted two years in which to read and write and bum around bars with my friends talking about what we'd recently read and written. Even on the most stressful days, I felt so lucky to be doing that instead of anything else in the world.

And now it's over. It's done, and so much sooner than I thought it would be. It didn't feel real over this summer. Only now, only with everyone starting to move and finding jobs and progressing with their lives, can I feel the reverberation of ending. I feel like an empty apartment, one that still echoes with the parties and the late nights and the snow days and the long talks.

The future is an exciting place, certainly. An exciting, uncertain, totally unmapped place in which my friends, who have structured and sustained all of my days here, are scattered.

The Dayman Cometh

Things I need in my life right now.

Always Sunny Beer

I'm not much for New Year's resolutions. I come from the sort of New England whose Puritan roots still show, and that coupled with a tendency for personal accountability forged in me the belief that resolutions shouldn't be saved for some holiday but rather striven toward every day. I cannot reasonably hold that the change of a calendar year will wash slates clean or suddenly imbue me or anyone else with good habits we didn't have before. Self discipline cannot be manifested out of the blue. It's a process, a slow and often painful process that must be attempted every day, even if it's not always successful.

Now, some background that will become relevant soon. Several months ago my gym decided to cancel most of its scheduled yoga and Pilates classes. I had been going to Pilates at least once a week for about a year, something I enjoyed because it absolutely kicked my ass every time. It never got easier, but I did get stronger. Other evenings I went to yoga. Outside of the gym I ran a couple of times a week, and tried to get to a ballet class. It was a good balance.

Then Pilates and yoga were canceled, in the fall as the light started to fade. It became more and more difficult to motivate myself to run, and my energy and mood sank as winter set in. I know that I need exercise, not only for physical health but also mental and emotional. When I don't exercise, I get restless, cranky, and weird. For most of December I couldn't talk myself into working out more than once a week. (I don't count my regular walks; though I usually walk for a few miles, it doesn't get my heart rate up and doesn't sate the itch in my muscles.)

So it was that last night, restless and cranky and weird, I decided to try out a new class at my gym. It had some aggressive, trademarked name, and I thought it might be a weight-lifting class. I steeled myself to be embarrassed, as one usually is during the first attempt at something, and instead had a lot of fun.

What I remembered, as I tried to scout out enough floor space to avoid hitting anyone in the face during jumping jacks, was that it was January 3rd. I don't know what the normal attendance of that class is, but I'm sure it was at least doubled yesterday by women who are entering this new year determined to get thin. Truly, I support any reasonable plan that promotes health and happiness. Exercise is good, and everyone should do it. Realistically, as a long-time gym member, I know that most of this newly motivated flood will dissipate by February. For part of the class, I wished I had some sort of sign I could wear that would say, "I'm not just here for a week, I promise."

I realized, by the end, that my timing couldn't be helped. I had shown up in the beginning of January to run around an exercise studio with a bunch of frighteningly intense, thin women in compression capris. The choice I have now is to keep going, to not be one of the vanishing faces whose resolve fades as the holidays slide away. It's my choice to make resolve an every day decision, not only for special occasions.