TMI Alert

Interesting and exciting discovery of the week - my boobs work.

No joke. They work. It's so weird! And amazing! I am a veritable food factory. Our apartment is a house of wonder at the moment. I realize it's some of the most basic biology known to man, but even the thought of my body being able to feed a little person is mind-blowing.

Next time won't you sing with me?

Amazed. Bewildered. Captivated. Delighted. Excited. Frenzied. Gaga. Hopeful. Intimidated. Jubilant. K. L. Marvelous. Neurotic. Overwhelmed. Piqued. Questioning. Rapturous. Shocked. Terrified. Unbelieving. Victorious. Wondering. X. Y. Z.

My ABCs of pregnancy. Anyone have any suggestions for K, L, X, Y, or Z?

Geekout

I beg your pardon, I need a literature moment:

"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
— Nathaniel Hawthorne

I found this quote today. (OK, OK, Real Simple magazine emailed me the quote, I found bupkiss) He wrote the Scarlet Letter. Not exactly the epitome of glee in literary form. Granted, it's my favorite book of all time (the link shows my Scarlet Letter - look closely, the "D" is for Dreamer), but I don't love it because it makes me happy. I love it for what it says about love and perseverance and overcoming circumstance and social constructs.

To think that Hawthorne had thoughts about happiness kind of blows my mind. He led a fairly miserable life. He hated Puritanical society, yet he was engulfed in it well before he started his job at the Customs House. He made Hester Prynne a woman who found joy in small things, even in spite sometimes, amid her sad social standing as an outcast. The personal writings I've read of his (letters, etc.) aren't very chipper.

I guess this goes to show that even if you don't lead a life of bliss every day you should still find ways to honor your spirit and look for the happiness, however small, wherever you can find it.

A Good Day

Today is Matthew's birthday. He's 31. He says it feels remarkably like 30. We met 2 years ago today. We will be married in less than 3 weeks. I'm so proud of him and I'm grateful that we get to spend our lives together.

We went to the Brooklyn Museum of Art (a whopping 3 blocks from our apartment and one of the best museums in the world). They have an exhibit of Takashi Murakami's work that we were planning to see, but when the 7 of us got there we found out there was a $10 admission fee for the exhibit and half of the group are starving artists... so $10 to see some Japanese pop art wasn't in the cards. Instead, we made modest donations to the museum and visited portions of the main collection.

My favorite was the current exhibits in the Sackler Gallery for Feminist Art. Normally, I'm not a contemporary art fan. Moreover, I'm never a fan of labels other than nationality or time period. Labeling something as "feminist art" makes me crazy and I shy away from galleries that promote that kind of categorization. It seems to counter intuitive to me. Anyway, I was very pleasantly surprised to have found not only 2 contemporary artists I can stand behind 100%, but one in particular that really spoke to me in ways I didn't expect. The Judy Chicago installation of The Dinner Party is amazing, and you should see it if you can. But, it was Ghada Amer who really stopped me in my tracks today.

She's an Egyptian-born, French-raised, New York-living artist who uses fabric, embroidery, text, and paint to create pieces that speak to marginalization of women and themes of typical gender roles. Pretty amazing stuff. If you're near Brooklyn you should check out her work. My favorite piece was a series of 4 panels, each painted a muted shade of CMYK, arranged in a grid, with intricate embroidery of the definitions of 4 words in Arabic - including freedom and fear, I believe.

I do not follow rules

Today, Feb. 29, is supposed to be the only "day off" from blogging in 2008 according to the rules of Blog 365. All participants are allowed this one freebie to rest our brains and fingers. But, you know me, I'm not a rules kind of girl (which is why I'm such an awful baker - because it is almost impossible for me to be disciplined enough to follow a recipe), so I'm taking this opportunity to blog anyway. Why? Masochism? Self-loathing? Nah. Just got the itch, so I'm going to scratch it. *scratch, scratch*

So, today is Leap Day. The day that only comes every 4 years. Actually, if we're being totally scientifically nerdy about it, Leap Day is a day that doesn't just come every 4 years. It's much more gradual and constant that that. It's not like the universe just decides to add a day every 4th year. It's more accurate to say that in our 365 day calendar we lose .2422 days each year and Leap Day is how we make up for lost time. Why do we need to make up for lost time anyway?

Well, our calendar is based on a tropical year (a.k.a. solar year), which is the time between 2 vernal equinoxes. What the hell is a vernal equinox? The vernal equinox is when the sun is right above the equator, on the way from the southern to the northern hemisphere. The time between vernal equinoxes isn't really a flat 365 day span. It's actually 365.2422 days long. You might think that the extra .2422 day per year isn't a big deal. It's only about 6 hours, after all. But, if you add up those 6 hours over a 100 year period we'd end up losing 24 whole days. That would make our seasons a mess! Here in the US we'd start to have Spring in late February instead of late March. That would mean that June would be really hot and November would be the dead of Winter rather than delightful Fall. Plus, as time passed it would be even more skewed and more skewed until eventually the seasons would get shifted backward and backward until they started all over in the months that we're familiar with today. Of course, we'd all be long dead and would never see it, but it's just not a good idea to let that happen.

There you have it, folks. Your science lesson for today. Courtesy of this big geek. Enjoy. Happy Friday. Happy Leap Day!

3 years, people

Happy 3 year blogiversary to me! 3 years ago today I started writing about my life and times as a New Yorker and a 20 something. I'm still a New Yorker, still in Brooklyn, still my kooky self, no longer in my 20s, I have a different job, a different man, same best pal, fresh outlook on life. I'd say it's been a good 3 years, even with the bad bits, other bad bits, other bad bits, and worst bits of all. There have been good times, amazing times, the best times, and downright hilarious incidents. This has been a chronicle of my insights about myself, my relationships, and life in general.

Here's to another year of getting all the junk in my head out there into the ether for all to see. Hope you're up for it.

Excuse me, have you seen my pocket protector?

I am a huge nerd. Tonight Matthew and I are going to a seminar in midtown about lutes and Galileo and how the lively music of the Italian Renaissance contributed to his discovery of the law of falling bodies.

I am not kidding. We have a nerd date.

Apparently there will be a lute concert of sorts, then some reenactments of the experiments Galileo conducted in order to prove his theory and get it ever closer to the highest esteemed title of "law". I'm not sure how the lutes relate to the law, but they do and I'm sure I'll be an expert on it by 9PM tonight. If you're not recalling your middle school science class, Galileo's Law of Falling Bodies states that objects will fall to the earth at the same rate irrespective of their mass. So, if you and your fat neighbor and your skinny little sister jump off a bridge at exactly the same time and speed (in a vacuum because wind resistance messes things up, of course), you'll all hit the water at the same time. This discovery enabled the future study of terminal velocity and gravitational force on objects of varying mass.

Nerdy nerd nerd, blah blah blah.

From a seed...

That's where I thought babies came from. I thought the images on the box my Cabbage Patch Kid came in told the whole story. Obviously, babies sprouted in a field of cabbages. Duh, that's what the picture on the box said. Being a smart kid I knew that if there was a baby patch, then there were other components of that scheme. It meant there was a baby farmer and she planted the seeds (Yes, even as a small child the default gender I assigned to professions or fictional people was female. It never occurred to me to assume doctors or farmers or whoever were men. Years later I realized that was a pretty cool mindset to have as a tot.).

Now this baby farmer had to be a hard worker. I knew there were lots of babies sprouting all the time because I knew about the globe and how those different colored blotches were different countries. I even thought those countries had their own version of me. My logic told me that if there was another country on the other side of the world then it must have been the opposite of the one I knew, so there would be another me but she was my opposite. Anyway, those countries all had their own babies, and since there were lots of colored blotches that's a staggering number of babies. I figured in order to make it work efficiently the baby patch was centralized. The baby farmer would give the newly sprouted ones to the storks who would deliver them. At this point I thought they used a transportation system similar to Santa's - you know, all over the place at the same time, that sort of thing. Important note: expectant mothers had big bellies so the storks would be able to see them from the air and know where to drop their deliveries. Total common sense.

The baby farmer was kind of a hero in my eyes because she had this super important job and without her none of us would be around, left to rot in the patch. I wondered a lot about why we never heard anything about her, but we heard about the Tooth Fairy and Santa and that lot all the time. Baby farmer got a raw deal.

When I found out there was no baby farmer and the idea that babies sprouted from seeds was just fantasy I was floored. It really rocked my world because I lost a hero. No baby farmer? Are you kidding me? I had worked out such an elaborate system of how it all worked that finding out it was all in my head was astounding. That's when I started to understand what imagination was. Without a personal hero I had to find someone else to look up to.

Keep in mind I was maybe 6 when all this was going on. I decided my mom would be my new hero. It's been that way ever since. Many of my friends have contentious relationships with their parents and I'm not saying it's always been smooth sailing for us (I was a teenager at some point and I still can't believe she didn't kill me), but we've worked through the junk and we're close. I love my mom. She's a really cool person and I'm lucky to have her. I learned a lot from her as a kid and I still see new things about her as we get older that open my eyes to how dynamic she is. We're going to see my family this weekend and I'm looking forward to seeing my mom the most.

She's way better than the baby farmer. No offense, Sally.

In the immortal words of Tim Gunn...

I've decided to "make it work".

Apparently, the universal theme to this week was realization. It came in waves, some strong and big, others so small they sneaked up on me when I wasn't paying close attention. I realized:

• I can't stomach doing a meaningless job for much longer.
• In order to feel fulfilled I need to make a difference somehow, whether it's with my job or as a volunteer.
• Dogs rule, even the ones who don't like anyone very much.
• I make a mean eggplant parmigiana.
• Other people have much more faith in me than I do.
• I'm going to take a class this Winter/Spring that is going to give me much needed confidence in my technical sewing skill.

We went to dinner at our favorite little French place on Friday night for dinner and had a pretty heavy conversation about my blog entry theme that afternoon. Matthew is of the opinion that everyone who has ever made any difference to anyone has, at one point, gone through an existential crisis. He insists this is normal and that it's OK that I feel useless. In his eyes it's a critical step to greatness. He believes I can do anything I put my mind to. He believes this wholeheartedly, with no doubt, with unending confidence. I sure wish I did.

After dinner one of the owners of the bistro sat down with us for a glass of wine and we had a chat about plans and what it means to be hungry for more. She started out in TV network sales. She worked at a major network for 20 years and was then asked to "retire early" because the corporation could get a younger person to do her job for less money. She saw that as an opportunity to pursue something that moved her. She took her love of backyard gardening and decided on some classes in landscape design at the botanical garden. That turned into an apprenticeship with a very successful landscape architecture firm... 10 years later she was on the cover of Architectural Digest and she decided it was time to move on. Now she owns a fabulous resto with her husband. She looked me right in the eye and asked me what I wanted. After I answered her she said most people just know they don't want to do what they're doing... they're not too sure about the next step. She insisted I'm ahead of the curve when it comes to knowing where to go from here.

She & Matthew are on the same page on this one. It was great to have my partner in life tell me he has faith in me, but he's a little too close to the source to be fully trusted, you know? He loves me and he believes in whatever I do. But when our new friend told me to go for it, that made an impact. It gave credence to what Matthew had been telling me. Now I feel like I have the loose framework of a plan. I feel a little more solid and pointed in the right direction. Now I just need to muster up the fortitude to make it through the next 3 months until the wedding and I'll be able to get to step 2.

Random: what the hell is the deal with all the advertising campaigns recently featuring models who slouch? When did the "I'm worthless" look become cool? Shit, women. Stand up straight. Sheesh. And designers? Stop selling your clothes with ads that make young girls think they're fat and have too strict posture.

Friday was, well, weird.

As I said to the woman who served us lunch today, "Today is a strange day. The morning was a bit like an angry teenager, but I have a feeling the day is maturing into something a lot more likable." Said morning was filled with technological issues with my work computer, which is a big problem since I'm on it all day and it's the only equipment that allows me to do my job.*

The Rover and I had lunch, which was a lovely break from the tech insanity. He's awesome and we went to a cool place. We both had burgers and - get this - they give you a half pint draft beer with every burger for free. Yeah! Old Speckled Hen was a nice accompaniment to the meal. Plus, at only a half pint it's the perfect lunch sized beer. I can't remember the last time I had a beer with lunch, but it was great. Have you ever done that? Had beer or wine or something when you have to go back to work afterward? I had hoped that by the time I got back home the tech issues would be cleared up and I could get on with my servitude work.

Uh, nope. No work done today. None. Not a bit. Couldn't access anything because Corporate IT Dude had taken remote control of my machine to run some diagnostics and such. It's very strange to see your computer being used when you're not the one controlling it. It's a little like what I imagine will happen when the robots come to take over the world. As of 5:41, no progress. Computer is screwed. Need a new one. I've been saying the same thing since mid-December, but now I think there might be some movement on that front since Super Nice Corporate IT Dude pushed for it with his higher-ups after banging his head against the wall for 6 hours today trying to fix it. Ridiculous.

*I had a realization. I realize that I feel bizarre and unsettled about having my work be totally virtual. Meaning, I use a computer for everything - even phone calls - and that makes me feel disconnected from the world. I email, I use online systems, I don't see another person all day, I don't write anything down... ever. I have no product to show for my work. I am in project management and client relations, this means I am a name/email/face that deals with things, but who doesn't actually produce anything. I have no output for all of my input. It's so shocking to me because I work really hard! This is what I can't wrap my brain around. I work my ass off and then at the end of the day I shut down my computer and it's like I did nothing. Not a damn thing. What do I have to show for all my efforts? ... ... ...?

I got to thinking about this on the walk home after lunch. The Rover is an actor. A very good actor, actually. He has something to show for his work. He's an artist. People watch his performances and see what he does. It started to dawn on me that I think my work is meaningless. It does nothing. It changes nothing. It affects no one. This is not entirely true because my work actually affects millions of customers around the world, it really does, but I don't think helping millions of people around the world to be able to use various graphic art programs makes a gnat fart of difference. Does it? Does it really matter that some guy in Japan can use Photoshop in his own language? Sure, but only to him and to the company who sells it to him and the CEO's kids' trust funds. I guess I believe my work is insignificant. It's not getting me anywhere. It doesn't help anyone. It doesn't fulfill me. It doesn't feed anyone who is hungry. It doesn't put a roof over any homeless person's head. It doesn't teach a child. It doesn't move people artistically. It just... makes money for a corporation.

This feels bad. This feels like I really am nothing more than the title of my blog. I am a spoke. Just a spoke. Something has to change. I need to do something that's good. I need to find a livelihood that doesn't make me feel... well, nothing. This job, and every one before it, makes me feel nothing. I want to feel good about my work. I know this is some existential crisis and I'm lucky to be in the position to have it - I have a job, and that's great. It means I earn a paycheck that I use to pay rent and feed Duke and pay for my wedding and take The Rover to lunch. BUT, can't I find a way to get a paycheck and make a difference? Is that too idealistic? Is it too late, at 30, to change gears and go in a completely new direction? What direction would that even be? I have 3 years of college, no degree, 8 years of project management experience. What does that equal? It equals corporate nothingness.

I'm feeling a little useless today. Not sure how to fix it. Something has to change.

What, oh what, have I done?

Visit Blog 365

Inspired by The Rover, I joined Blog 365. This means that I'll be blogging every day of 2008 in one form or another. If I'm on vacation and I don't have the 'puter with me I'll write in a journal and transfer the entries when I get back, etc. Why have I done such a thing? Because apparently my masochistic tendencies manifest themselves in interesting ways. Also I'd like to get my creative juices flowing on a more regular basis. Writing helps me with that, even if I'm only jotting down what happened in a particular day. It gets my brain moving and my blood flowing, and that's a very good thing.

Being home alone all day is something I'm trying desperately to get used to, and it's proving far more difficult than I had anticipated. I find my mind wanders a lot and blogging is a tool I can use to channel some of that random thought pattern into something focused and productive.

Care to join me? Any takers? C'mon, you know you want to. All the cool kids are doing it. *nudge, nudge*

Secret Identities and such...

Etiquette is a funny thing, isn't it? Do something the right way and people don't generally notice. Do something the wrong way and it sticks out like a sore thumb. For example, blog etiquette. Blog and etiquette are two words that, at first glance, seem rather silly paired up. However, there's quite a bit of structure built into this medium that you wouldn't think of right away.

MT and I were catching up with our friend, Kerri, over at sixuntilme a couple weeks ago and she mentioned that she and her fiance had come to Brooklyn to have dinner with us (just as I did here). Her fiance and MT were friends in high school and had recently gotten back in touch. In her post about it she referred to me and MT, which prompted MT to ask why she called him MT when she had called me by my name. That led to an interesting briefing on blog etiquette since MT doesn't blog, doesn't regularly read mine (out of respect, he wants me to feel free to write whatever I want and doesn't want to unduly influence any of it with his readership) and isn't familiar with the ways of the blogosphere.

I explained that Kerri is a conscientious blogger and she noticed that I refer to him only as MT, so she did the same. He couldn't figure out why I didn't call him by his name. I said I only refer to people by their names if they also refer to themselves the same way. But since MT doesn't blog, I automatically went to my default of using initials. It dawned on me that I never asked him if it was OK to call him by his name. We had a little chat about it and he said he didn't mind at all.

So, his name is Matthew. There you go. MT is Matthew. We're getting married. He's amazing. That's him, with the beard. He has a real name, believe it or not. The other guy is our good friend, IS. We're all a little toasted in this photo, if you couldn't tell. It was taken in the middle of my company holiday party from the most unflattering possible angle. The last company party we'll all be at together since our office is officially closed now. *le sigh* (this is a blatantly stolen phrase from my friend, M - "le sigh" is hers, but I have shamelessly appropriated it for all sorts of uses) So, Matthew has been outed.

Completely unrelated: go see Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Do it. It's grand. We got invited to a pre-release screening through GenArt and it was amazing. By far the bloodiest movie I've ever seen, but really superb. Matthew pretty much detests musicals on principle alone, and even he loved this film. We both want to see it again. He bought me the soundtrack for an early Christmas present and it's been playing non stop all morning. Johhny Depp... yumtastic. So delicious and dark. Sondheim masterfully trimmed the score himself for this movie adaptation and it shows in the best of ways. See this movie!

Melissa who?

I'm alive. I'm here. Brooklyn hasn't swallowed me whole... yet. Friday was my last day in the office. We're closing at the end of this week for good, and starting tomorrow I'll be working remotely (read: from my living room) indefinitely. You might think that's a really cool thing, something to envy. But, I don't feel that way. In fact, there's not much I'm looking forward to about working from home. Perhaps that will change with time, but right now I'm feeling isolated and alone. It's great that I get to be with Duke all day and that I can do grocery shopping and gym runs in the middle of the day instead of lunch if I want to. My challenges will be to limit the feeling of isolation as much as possible and not to let my work time bleed too far into my real life and blur the boundaries of work and home. I can't allow that to happen and it's going to be a difficult thing to figure out.

All that said, I'm going to do a meme that Kerri tagged me for last month. I've been so busy with the office closure and holiday social engagements that I've hardly been blogging and the meme will at least get my mind flowing. Bear with me.

7 things:

1. I'm messy. I'm a messy, messy person. MT had to ask me for the umpteenth time today to pick up my clothes in the bedroom and that made me feel like a jackass. I don't mean to be a mess, I just am. I'm not dirty, can't stand dirt. But clutter? I'm the queen of it. I'd love to be a minimalist who likes a clean, clear space, but the truth is, I like stuff and I hate picking up after myself. This could be a real problem with the whole home office thing. Most days I've worked from home in the past I've made a huge mess in the kitchen and living room and left myself just enough time to frantically run around and clean it all up before MT got home from work. I think that will change when being at home all day is an everyday occurrence, but I know I'll have to work harder at being neat. Today I cleaned out the closet, put all my clothes away, and sorted laundry for tomorrow. Step 1 went OK.

2. I just used a neti pot for the first time. The afore mentioned cleaning led to some amazing allergic reactions. No matter how clean we are, dust collects in clothes piles and clearing that all from the bedroom sent my sinuses into some major overdrive. If you've got any type of sinus problem (even that awful dryness that happens in the winter with radiator heat) I'd try this out. They're like $10 at a health food store. It's a bit weird to irrigate your sinuses, but it feels so good afterward that you'll be hooked from the first time.

3. MT surprised me with tickets to the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular last week. It was awesome! The Rockettes are stunning. Seeing them makes me really sad I stopped dance lessons at 14. *le sigh*

4. I'm too judgemental. I get annoyed with strangers very easily. It makes me feel awful, even when the other person is being an idiot and totally warrants some annoyance. Like when someone on the train is clearly taking up 2 seats when they don't need to and there are loads of people standing. Normally I'll silently stew and stare at them without saying anything, sometimes letting out an exasperated sigh. It's so stupid. Now I just ask the person to scoot over with a smile on my face. It's so much easier and takes way less effort than getting pissed in silence. Plus, it allows me to give the person the benefit of the doubt that maybe they just didn't realize how their packages were spilling over into the other seat. Maybe. I'm trying to be a more peaceful person. I'm trying to let my frustration with small things fall away. I'll let you know how it goes.

5. I had a minor breakdown today over the state of my current creative slump and my tendency to allow my job to be a priority over any effort made on my own behalf. I got very angry with myself for not taking the class I wanted to take in the Fall because work was busy. Work will always be busy. There will never be a "right time". I have to start treating myself better. Excuses can kiss my ass.

6. Our networks and systems were all screwed at work on Wednesday afternoon and I knew I'd get super frustrated if I stayed and tried to work (I'd type a sentence and 15 mins later the words would show up on the screen - it was super bad)... so I went to the Manhattan Mall (dicey little mall in midtown) and tried on sparkly, slutty dresses in the cheapo stores for about an hour just for fun. It was hilarious. I looked like a huge, shiny sausage in all of them and I loved it. I had a blast.

7. MT & I have passes to go see an advanced screening of Sweeny Todd next week. SO EXCITED! Johhny Depp in one of the most fabulous musicals ever. It's gonna be the tits!

Check mate

Sometimes life is a funny thing. It just is. It brings people in, takes people out, moves others around like chess pieces on an infinite board. I had two experiences today that showed me the chess game is always being played, that people are in constant shuffle in moves that seem random but usually end up serving some sort of strategy.

While running errands this afternoon I saw a woman I used to work with. She was shopping with a friend and I was alone, looking ragged with my unshowered, yoga-panted, hat-topped self. We had dinner plans later and it was raining. I didn't want to get all dolled up to go run errands just to get damp and droopy for dinner, I figured I'd clean up when I got home. Plus, when I'm feeling icky, the urge to try on clothes while shopping is considerably less than normal, thereby lightening the load on my wallet. Solid plan, I thought.

Well, I saw this woman and instead of my first reaction being to say hello and catch up, I immediately looked down and pretended I was super interested in the lime green cable knit sweater on the display table at my waist. I looked over the rim of my glasses yet under the brim of my hat every few seconds, monitoring her movements to see if she'd vacated the area while I stood there, paralyzed, face pointed at the hideous lime green cable knit sweater. After she'd gone I avoided her the rest of the time I was in the store.

I started to feel bad. Guilt came creeping in. I felt like I should have said hi, should have acknowledged her. I don't think she saw me, so it would have been up to me to make contact. I thought maybe I was embarrassed because I didn't look "cute enough for company", like I was too schlubby to be seen by anyone I knew.

The more I thought about it, the more clearly it dawned on me that it wasn't embarrassment, it wasn't any feeling of inadequacy. It was simply a realization that sometimes people get moved off your part of the chess board... and that's OK. She and I weren't close, we enjoyed each others' company at work, but we didn't have deep conversations, we didn't have lunch together. We were coworkers, nothing more. I realized I didn't miss her. I was OK with her absence in my part of the chess board. Avoiding her meant saving 15 minutes in a time-crunched afternoon that would have been spent filling her in on details of my life she didn't know about when we worked together and hearing the same from her. It would have been a conversation of pleasantries and "how is So-And-So?". It wouldn't have been bad, it might have even been nice. But it wouldn't have been meaningful to me and I made the decision to let it slide.

That was a very strange thing for me to figure out. In my moments of over-analysis I like to think this means I'm letting go of the piece of me that wants desperately to be liked, wants so badly to be cool and included, even among people I have no real connection with. There's no need for that part. Silencing it leaves more energy to focus on deeper connections with myself and with people on my part of the chess board.

The second part of my day that struck me was the dinner MT and I had tonight. An old friend of his from high school, Chris, and his fiancee, Kerri, came to Brooklyn from Connecticut to have dinner with us. The two guys hadn't seen each other in 12 years. MT was excited all week since the plan was hatched for us to meet up. He really respected Chris back in school (they shared a locker!) and has always listed him in the handful of people he'd like to catch up with now that they're all grown up and adult-ish. Chris and Kerri are great. They're the kind of people who listen genuinely and have intelligent insight and contribute to the moment. They both write, he makes films, she has a blog (sixuntilme) that's a support community for people with diabetes where she talks about everything from medical advances and treatments to everyday things like funny conversations with Chris and her new camera (which is awesome).

Lesson of the day: people move in and people move out... I've got two new people on my chess board. That's pretty sweet.

Interview Me

This is something I saw on Rover's blog and then on L. Britt's. I asked L. Britt to interview me, so her questions (really good ones) are below along with my answers.

The Rules: Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me.” I respond by asking you five personal questions (I will leave these questions for you in my comments) so I can get to know you better. If I already know you well, expect the questions may be a little more intimate! You WILL update your journal/bloggy thing/whatever with the answers to the questions (please don't leave your answers in my comments unless you don't have a blog). You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

1. What's the favorite part of your body, from your neck down?

My back. I love it. I have freckles that I used to hate, but now I think they give me character. There's a cluster of them right between my shoulder blades that I particularly like. I have a sexy back.

2. Are you still making reincarnated t-shirts?

I hadn't for quite awhile because I got sidetracked by my day job (which has turned into a day/evening/sometimes into the wee hours job) plus I was getting Fetching Couture off the ground. But lately I've been tinkering with t-shirts again and it's been really fun. It's made me realize how much I've missed it. It also helps that the weather isn't so frigid anymore. There's something very difficult about making a garment that's better suited for warmer weather when it's grey and freezing outside.

3. Does he offer you anything unique as a friend that you can't get from a less "touchy situation?"

This was a hard one because it made me think about a lot of things that I mislead myself about for a long, long time. It's not about what he offers me, because he doesn't offer anything at this point. It's about what I wish he would have offered when he could/should have. That in itself is absurd because it's all about the past, not about the present and certainly not about the future. I'm attached to the idea of what I want him to be and not to him. I want him to be well adjusted and truthful and earnest and genuine. I want him to be a friend. No, he can't offer me anything unique. I want him to, but he can't.

4. Do you think you'll be engaged by the end of 2007?

I think so, yes. We talk about being married. We talk about our future. We both want it. I'm really happy about going through this journey with MT. He's an amazing partner. I love him more all the time.

5. Why does sadness scare you?

This one took a lot of thinking. Sadness scares me because I view it as a personal failure. When I am sad I get angry with myself. I'm usually a very upbeat person and when I'm not feeling positive I think I'm doing something wrong. 6-7 months ago I would have laughed that off as a silly personality quirk. But now I see sadness as the door opening slightly to let depression back in. I'm afraid that every bad day is a slippery slope.

Re... births

This is on postsecret this week. It struck me that there have been a number of days in my life when I've felt really reborn. Or maybe not even reborn, but born for the first time. Days when something has happened and I've had a realization, an epiphany about my being and my existence that causes me to see the world with new eyes and hear the sounds of the planet with fresh ears. After a period of darkness it's always refreshing to see that other people can find their new selves in this mess, too, and that as long as we all keep trying there's a good chance that this hope I carry inside isn't for naught.

I'm happy for this new girl. From the stats alone she's a lot like me. I hope she has a wonderful journey in this new land she's found.

2nd Blogiversary

It passed right by and I didn't realize until now. 2 years here. Wow. Cool.

From my first post a little more than 2 years ago:

"But, sometimes I feel rather alone in this big city all by myself. My love for this place is peppered with bitter drops of sadness that only reveal themselves at my weakest moments. I think that's pretty typical. Not sure if that's something that ever truly goes away. All New Yorkers carry with them some sort of conflict. It's a badge of courage, honor, stubbornness - whatever it is it's stamped into you the day you cross over the bridge, come through the tunnel, glimpse that Gotham skyline."

It's still true. I love this place. I love it and it beats me down sometimes and I love it even more.

Hide & seek

I found something this weekend. I had been missing it for a long, long time. I was afraid that it had left me for good and I'd not get it back in time to save my sanity. But it's back. I hope it stays for a good, long time. But, even if it's only fleeting at least I know it can come and go and I don't have to fear it's permanent absence.

I found my creativity again. We got reacquainted. We had coffee, watched leaves blow down the sidewalk, saw rays of light fall on Duke's apricot fur, ate sushi, read books, went for walks, talked to strangers, ignored a lot but embraced a lot. I sat down at my sewing machine and made two things from start to finish in one day. I saw the pieces in my head and I sat right down and got started. I didn't give myself time to overthink it to death, to ruin it with my mind. I simply did it. It probably seems trivial, but for me it was monumental.

I hadn't sewn in a long time. It's been months. I thought I had lost "it". But "it's" back. To make things even more delicious, I've got a plan for these things I created. There will be more of them. They'll be a nice project for me. I'm comforted. I've found the driving force of my revolution again.

I figured something out today

The lyrics below are from a Death Cab For Cutie song called Someday You Will Be Loved. It's on an excellent record called Plans - you should listen to it if you haven't yet. The snippet down there is what I'm afraid of.

You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

I'm always afraid of being forgotten. I know there's no more "us" for me & him. There hasn't been for a very long time. I'm making myself OK with that. Even so, I don't want to be reduced to nothing but fuzzy memories for him. I don't want to be forgotten. I don't want him to have me and yet I don't want him to discard the thought of me. I know that's the most selfish thing to feel. I know it and I still feel it. I want him to remember what my hair looks like when the sun hits it, how I make cooing noises in my sleep when I'm dreaming, the way I dance around the kitchen when I cook, the way I used to look at him when I hoped everything would work out harder than I'd ever hoped for anything before.

I hope now that this feeling will fade just like the memories of me will fade for him. I'll be a series of blurs and sometime soon I'll have to be OK with that. I have to learn to be OK with that.

Shock

There is no easy way to say this, so here it is - the man called this morning to tell me Duke had died at the vet overnight. Said that the vet tech came in this morning and he looked like he was sleeping. Said it looked like he didn't suffer, that he had just stopped breathing in his sleep. I was a wreck. I stood outside my office building and was overcome with despair. I've been basically mourning for a week, I've been so distraught that I've made myself physically ill, I've been so upset at work (bad enough that the new proof reader gave me a card for Duke - so sweet), I've cried me eyes out every day and the people in my life who love me have been taking care of me. I've not been in good shape.

Now, here's the part that's really not easy to say - all is not as it seems. I started putting 2 and 2 together after that phone call this morning and I had some questions. Why did the man avoid my question last week about whether Duke could come live with me? Why did he then tell me Duke was very sick and he didn't tell me earlier because he didn't know how? Why didn't he have an answer when I asked what kind of cancer it was? Why did he make a point of telling me that he took Duke's crate to the vet? Why did he tell me that he cleaned the house this morning and got rid of Duke's things so I wouldn't be upset everytime I turned around? It all started to sound like he was covering his bases. Like he was answering in advance the question I'd have about why nothing remained of my dog at his apartment.

I asked him for the vet's phone # so I could call and talk about what would happen to Duke's body. I didn't want my beloved dog to be disposed of in some bio-medical bin. He wouldn't give me the phone #. I called him and said that I didn't know how to say it, but my bullshit detector was going off loud and clear and I needed to know where my dog is. What I got in response was hurt and anger and denial that anything was amiss. I was the bad guy. I insisted that if he were in my shoes that he'd be asking the same questions. He said he never would doubt me like that. He would never accuse me of something this awful. Everything got shoved back at me and I was the asshole. He said he'd email me the vet's #. I apologized and let him know that I had to run the risk of being wrong and making him angry because if I didn't confront him about my doubts it would eat me up inside. I asked if it was still OK that I come down this weekend (I was to leave for the airport in an hour) and he said he needed a couple minutes to process things and he'd let me know.

I then got an email half an hour later saying that he still wanted me to come, but that he didn't think it was a good idea, that he'd send me my things and he'd pay me back for the money I spent on the flight. I asked again for the vet's #. I got nothing. I left work and just started walking. I didn't know where I was going, I just needed to walk and clear my head. I was walking around lower Manhattan crying and talking into my cell phone like a crazy person. I must have looked like a total mess. I was a total mess. I didn't know what to do. I called Kristie. I called MT. I called my mom. I called the man again and left a msg saying that I wanted to make sure I wasn't coming to Miami because that was my last chance to make my flight. He didn't call back.

I called MT again. He was so calm and so smart. He looked up the # of the vet who supposedly did Duke's 1st biopsy a couple weeks ago and said he'd call them and find out what was going on. I walked around in utter confusion waiting for him to call back. I called Kristie and she kept me from freaking out. MT called back and said that the vet hadn't seen Duke since February. The receptionist didn't want to give out any information, but he pleaded with her and said if she knew how upset I was because I thought my dog was dead she'd give him something. She said, "DEAD?? Hold on a moment..." and when she came back she told him they hadn't seen him since February.

I called the man again, no answer. My msg said that I needed him to call me back and explain to me why Dr. Fernandez hasn't seen Duke since Feb. if he's the one who did a biopsy 3 weeks ago. I said that I needed him to make it all make sense for me, that I wanted more than anything to be wrong - to be the asshole for real and be accusing him of something falsely. What I got was a text msg telling me that I was right, that he had given Duke away and that he didn't know why he lied to me, that he couldn't control it, that it had gotten out of hand, that he was so sorry and he was sick about doing this to me.

It was all a lie. It was all an elaborate series of complicated deceptions. I've spoken to him almost every day since last week. I cried to him, he comforted me. I thanked him for doing everything he could for Duke, he said he did it gladly. He heard the devastation in my voice for a week and he kept adding to it every time we spoke. Each phone call was another layer of lies. First it was cancer and a second opinion was needed. Then it was one night in the animal hospital. That became 3 nights. Then it was trouble breathing. Then the respiratory condition might be treatable and separate from the cancer - he actually fed me information to give me hope about a totally fake illness! Then the respiratory condition wasn't separate, it was probably cancer in his lungs. And then the biggest lie of all - Duke died in his sleep. He tortured me. He broke my heart and he knew he was doing it.

I'm lost right now. I'm destroyed. I've never been so betrayed, so lied to, so taken advantage of, so devastated, so underestimated. He even said he'd send me Duke's ashes. What was he going to do - put some dirt in a jar from the dollar store and tell me that it was my dog's body? I told him he should get help because there's obviously something in him that's broken and needs repair. Something in there is rotten. Something in there made him do this to me. I don't understand it. He says he doesn't understand it.

The only solace that remains for me is that my Dukester is safe with a family in Ft. Lauderdale. My mom asked me how I know that's the truth and not just another deception. I told her that I have to believe something, and this needs to be it.

Thank you for the support and the caring, everyone. Even if the whole situation was a tangle of lies, the support was real and I can't tell you how much that means to me.

I've been cheated. I've been cheated out of my dog and I've been cheated out of my trust. I'm a skeptic now.