le sigh

This makes me sad.

For 100 years the USPS has run a program called Operation Santa. Children from all over the country send their letters to Santa to the North Pole. Post offices collect these letters, sort through them to find the most compelling (usually from needy kids), and for the past 100 years in one form or another have made them available to the public so you could respond to a child's letter if you wished.

This week, without explanation or warning, the USPS suspended the program. People showed up to New York's post offices expecting to sift through the cardboard boxes of kids' letters to find the one they'd play Santa with... only to find no boxes, no letters. Apparently there was some sort of privacy issue (a registered sex offender responded to a child's letter) and now the entire program is gone.

I understand that pedophiles should be kept away from our children, it's obvious that should be the case. However, have we reached the point in our society where we are truly willing to make everyone pay for the crimes of a few? The answer, my friends, is yes. We've been there for a long time now. Look at the precautions we all need to take at airports these days. When is the last time you personally brought liquid explosives on your travels? Oh, you haven't done that? Well, someone did so now you can't take your favorite shampoo with you on that flight to Tahiti.

There are children in my neighborhood who have probably written letters to Santa asking him for a warm coat for Christmas this year because their parents had to choose between a new coat or a week's groceries. Who is going to answer those letters now? This "one bad apple" theory really stinks.

I'm trying not to get too bogged down by this negativity, so instead let me end this post on a light note. I support a wonderful charity called the Pajama Program here in NYC. Did you know that most children in the foster care/shelter system don't have pajamas? They have no bedtime routine that includes snuggly sleepy clothes and comforting fabrics. This year I contributed PJs in teenage girl sizes. Often, the babies and small kids are thought of first and the teenagers are an afterthought. Some girl will receive a great flannel set of PJs and a robe from me this year. I feel really good about it. If you're looking for something charitable to do this season you can contribute pajamas to the Pajama Program.

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?

Oh boy

I'm happy. I start a new job tomorrow. I walked stray dogs at a shelter for 4 hours yesterday. Today we went to Tar-zhay, Matthew hung our new wine rack, we are doing laundry later, we're on the way out the door to dinner right now. I've had a lovely bottle of prosecco (oh boy!) and the weather is gorgeous. Duke got to play with his little doggie friends this afternoon and all is right with the world... at least in Brooklyn.

It's hard not to think of all the people who will go hungry tonight when I have had such a beautiful day. I'm thankful. I'm grateful. I am a very lucky girl... and I know it. I hope you feel lucky today. You are. You are breathing and the sun shines. That's a wonderful thing. Be thankful for your life. I'm thankful for it. I'm thankful you stopped by here during your busy day. Cheers to you and yours.

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.

Grey Monday

(Matthew did a marvelous job with the photo I took of an old clock in Paris)

If I'm being honest (yes, that was a Simon Cowell reference) I'll say that today I'm a little bummed out. Today is just a day. Just a Monday. It's raining. It's cold. This kind of damp cold sets into my bones and chills me through until the next warm day appears.

This plain, rainy Monday holds none of the giddy anticipation of the wedding planning days. It doesn't have the buzz of the Monday we left for our honeymoon. We're not setting out for Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie tomorrow. Nothing. Today is simply today.

How is it that before the wedding that was good enough and now it seems so lackluster? I think this is what people mean when they talk about the post-wedding blues.

Silly if you think about it. I'm getting blue because I feel like there's no big something looming on my horizon to look forward to. I know that every day can't be my wedding day, and to wish it were is preposterous. Still, that doesn't stop a small part of me from longing for that excitement again. That small part is big enough to hold sway on my moon on a rainy, plain Monday.

I have much to be thankful for. I have the most loving husband and the best friends I could conjure up. Plus, "all signs point to yes" for my chances of getting an offer for the job I had a second interview for today. Those are all wonderful, bright, shining things. I'm glad to have them.

But, today is still a rainy Monday in the end. So, when my husband comes home I'll open a bottle of champagne and we'll dance around the kitchen and pretend that it's the end of a very exciting day. He's my fairytale prince, afterall. No harm in a little make-believe.

The big day

** I must confess that I've written this in advance to be posted today because I know I'll have so many things to do. **

Today's the day. Today I marry the most amazing person I know. Matthew, my love, my partner, my cool breeze, my sunshine.

Thank you to all of you who have visited me in this space for all these years and wished me well. I appreciate the kinds words in good times and in bad more than you probably know. Sometimes planning this wedding was so stressful and to alleviate some of the strain I'd go back and read a few of the amazing things you've said to me in the past. You've been so supportive, a real community. You've helped me though some rough spots and you've cheered me on through the triumphs.

Today is a big day. My life will never be the same. I'll have an official stamp on the partnership I've been half of for 2 years now. I'll even have a different last name! I couldn't be happier to be Matthew's wife.

I'll probably post all my honeymoon posts when we get back, so if you don't see any movement in this space don't be alarmed. I'll be back in 12 days with stories to tell and photos to share. I'll miss you!

Good news

I was inspired by Lynilu's comment on my post from yesterday. She mentioned that often we don't hear of the good news on the news. The news is always the bad stuff. The nasties of the day packed into a neat & tidy half hour of doom & gloom. Fun, right? Well, in an effort to balance out the bad with a smidge of the good here's the Wednesday Good News Report:

1) Environmental: A woman is being honored for saving Lake Baikal in Russia from a huge oil pipeline. Marina Rikhvanova is receiving an award in San Francisco for her environmental activism. She was scared of what would happen to the eco systems in the lake, so she mounted a campaign to raise awareness and protest the construction. She won! The pipeline was rerouted.

2) Personal: We received a wedding gift with a card that said "For Lucy & Ricky from Fred & Ethel". It was from our landlords who live upstairs. How funny is that? Adorable.

3) Medical/Scientific: There has been cool new research done in the field of hearing aids. Most people don't think about hearing aids unless they wear them, but those who are hearing impaired usually have a love/hate relationship with them. They can be clunky and ineffective. A new one is so teeny it lives in the ear canal near the eardrum and you can't see it from the outside. Pretty sweet!

Got some good news to report? Leave it in the comments.

UPDATE: 4) Personal: I have a job interview tomorrow afternoon. Yay!

Blown away

*scribbled in my notebook...

Ever have one of those experiences where you are completely surprised and caught off guard? I just had one. The bridal shower M's family just threw for me was amazing. I'm really shocked that so many people came and brought such lavish gifts. Don't get me wrong, I know getting married is a big deal, but these folks went all out and I'm beyond touched at their generosity.

I have reached official adulthood, people. I now own a KitchenAid stand mixer. I am in awe of it. It sits in my kitchen in all its chrome glory watching over the lowly appliances with regal authority. It is joined on the throne by the Breville espresso machine. Together they will rule this happy kingdom in harmony and good taste.

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.

It's 2:30AM and Matthew's making creme brulee...

I don't think I could have it any better if I tried. He's putting 3 pans of ramekins in water baths into the oven and the whole apartment smells like vanilla - real vanilla beans steeped in creamy custard. They'll chill in the fridge until tomorrow night when he'll bust out his new kitchen torch and *voila* creme brulee for everyone at our dinner party! Well, for those who'd prefer it to the molten chocolate cakes I'm making, that is. So happy, can't wait!

There's something about ringing in 2008 with Matthew, 12 friends, Duke, champagne, creme brulee and Brooklyn fireworks that makes me think it's going to be the best year yet.

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.

Woof and meows all around

I haven't had my scan yet, but it's coming up and I'm sure everything will be fine. My headache finally went away.

I'll be working from home starting in a few weeks, so my schedule will have a bit more flex. I'm going to start volunteering at BARC - Brooklyn Animal Rescue Coalition. They're a privately funded animal rescue group that has a shelter and a pet supply & grooming shop. The shelter is run with the proceeds from the shop and donations from the private sector (no government subsidies). I'll be taking photos of the animals to be posted on BARC's own site plus adoption sites like petfinder, plus I'll do a walking shift with the dogs after the photo stuff. Cool, eh? I'm super excited about it. MT & Duke & I aren't quite ready to bring another furry thing into our one bedroom Brooklyn apartment, but we talk about it all the time and sometime soon we'll get Duke a little brother. I have a feeling I'll be bringing home one of the BARC dogs sooner rather than later.

Sometimes I might even take the Dukester with me. He'd love it. Lots of butts to sniff. Yum.

Job, schmob

This is why I am upset about my office closing. It's not because I'm worried about my professional life. I'll be fine. It's that I'll miss the people I work with so badly I can't even explain it. We're all goofy, crazy, funny, caring, talented people who genuinely love and respect each other. None of us has ever worked in a place where we have such close relationships with coworkers before. Our office is truly an anomaly and I'm afraid I'll never have this kind of experience again.

This photo is the last in a series. The first one is just me & the blonde. Then our buddy on the right got in on it, then those 2 lovelies in the back joined us. It's hilarious. We're so weird. I love it.

We take wacky pictures every day. And we still manage to fully service all our accounts plus the heaps of transition work piled on us because of the closure.

What now?

What do you do when someone you love dies? How do you get to the next step and once you get there how will you know? It all feels surreal right now. I'm tired, even when I've gotten some sleep. I'm sad, even when I'm laughing. At least I can laugh, MT and I are keeping each other laughing as much as we can. We're both past the shock stage, the denial stage, the numb stage. Now it seems like we're both smack dab in the middle of the depression stage. This just sucks.

I can hear Jimmy's voice so clearly in my mind. I hear him picking on me for wearing my favorite red Doc Marten's boots all winter with my jean skirt... he called me "Amy Pohler in a punk sketch". Ever since last winter he always called me Amy. What a nut. We spent last Sunday at the Brooklyn Museum checking out the contemporary Caribbean art exhibit. He was really impressed with a few pieces in particular. I think I want to go back and see them again.

I hate feeling aimless, but I don't know what to do now.

Jimmy Rosina

Our friend, Jimmy Boppapoleze, died last night. Well, that wasn't really his name, it was Mike Rosina, but that's a whole other story. Jimmy had been sick for a very long time and had been in bad shape. He didn't wake up this morning at home in his own bed. We loved him, still do. Jimmy was part of the hectic weekend last week as one of our out of town guests. I'm so glad he came. It's hard to plan our wedding without Jimmy playing a role. I'm at a real loss for words right now.

Second thoughts...

We frequent a place in our neighborhood for breakfast on Saturday mornings. Most people in New York do brunch. We do breakfast. The place we go to does not do brunch, they do breakfast. And they do it so well and so old school that you can't help but go back again and again. Best pancakes in the world. The place is so good that as you wait in line (and you do wait in line) servers come out with trays of cookies and mugs of coffee and orange wedges. The guy who owns it (the son of the guy who started it in 1936) figures if you want to come to his place so bad that you'll wait in line he'll at least make the wait as pleasant as possible. Gus is his name. He's fantastic. He remembers you after the very first meeting. He jokes with MT that he's going to steal me away from him, so don't slip up. He once told MT, "She's real pretty. Like that Britney Spears." The thing is - he meant it as a compliment. This was before she was certifiably nuts.

There's a woman who works there who's the only one who never smiles. I usually make a snide comment about her to MT. Something like, "Would it kill her to smile once in awhile?" I always wonder what the hell is so bad that she's so sour all the time. The rest of the staff is so friendly and outgoing. She sticks to herself and scowls.

Yesterday I was walking home from the market. I stopped after work to get some things for dinner. The custom in my neighborhood is to leave cans out the night before recycling so that folks who need some extra cash can collect them and get the 5 cent deposits from the recycling machine near the market. Sometimes they're homeless, sometimes they're just trying to make ends meet.

I rounded the corner and saw the pushcart piled with big, black garbage bags of cans. I moved over to the edge of the sidewalk so the person behind it could push past with room. As we passed each other I saw that the person was the woman from our breakfast spot. The scowling woman. In an instant I realized that the scowl isn't a scowl, it's just the look of defeat. She's exhausted, she's not mean. I don't know that I have ever felt so sheepish in my life.

Life is full of lessons, friends. I'm learning new ones every day.

So, I have this friend...

My friend from work and I were joking yesterday afternoon that she was pregnant. Her son is almost 1 and she was a little late this month. We were laughing about how crazy it would be to have 2 kids under the age of 2. She was going to stop by the pharmacy on the way home to pick up a test and take it when her husband got home just to ease her mind and put the thought that she might possibly be pregnant out of her head.

About half the day went by before I remembered our funny little chat from yesterday and IM'd her to ask how much she & her husband laughed when she brought that test home. She made a little winky face on IM and then proceeded to tell me that she's pregnant. About 5 weeks, apparently. The kicker is that her thyroid went nuts with her first pregnancy and she's not sure she's healthy enough to have this baby. She's seeing her endochrinologist to see if all's well, but until she gets the go or no she's having a tough time emotionally.

Her first impulse was to be excited, obviously. Having another baby now, planned or not, will be easier for her than when her son is older and she's out of the getting-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night mode. She wants to have this new kid even though she's totally taken by surprise. But her excitement is tempered by her fear of getting bad news from the doctor. It's a heavy thing to carry around.

Makes my little worries seem pretty teensy weensy.

Gifts? Really?

MT & I went to his folks' house this weekend. We were supposed to have a big BBQ with his extended fam last Sunday, but after missing our flight out of Paris Saturday night (3 hours on a payphone at the airport and $1,500 later we got home Sunday night) that plan had to be reworked.

His extended fam didn't know he was proposing in Paris. His parents and sister knew, but not the big Rhode Island Italian faction. In the week between the 1st incarnation of the BBQ and the actual get-together they were all told and the engagement fiesta has now officially begun. We got gifts. Gifts! Who knew? We are now the proud owners of a set of Waterford toasting flutes, a silver photo frame, a silver cake serving set and a big photo frame that you sign instead of a guest book. Not being the very traditional sort, we didn't even know most of these things existed. I guess this means we have to have a sort of formal cake cutting thingamajig at the wedding, eh?

Now if only we could find a place that wasn't $40k for ONE SILLY NIGHT. I'm so disgusted with the wedding industry. I just want to get married. I want to get married and have a party with our friends and family to celebrate it. That's it. It shouldn't cost a decent yearly salary. It just shouldn't. Even if I had that kind of cash to blow I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I just keep thinking about The Princess Bride. "Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togezzah todaaay...

Get this book. postsecret is a fantastic project that supports a suicide prevention hotline and also serves as an outlet for humor, heartbreak and hope. Frank Warren started it and still runs it. People from all over the world send him anonymous postcards with secrets on them. He started the project at Art-o-matic in DC and it's gone global online. I met him last night at a book signing.

It was one of the coolest things to happen to me yet this year.

Some people say that peering into secrets is narcissistic and self-serving, but I disagree. I choose to see it as a window into humanity, no matter how small or goofy the secret. Sometimes they're funny and nonchalant ("I fart in my cube at work and blame it on the guy next to me.") and sometimes they break your heart and open something up inside of you ("I'm beginning to find... my way." or "I hope my illness is fatal... so I have an excuse to give up."). It's therapy, a comedy show, a chat with a stranger, a talk with a good friend all at once.

Thanks, Frank.

Do you have a favorite postsecret secret or one of your own?

Kristie, I'm bringing your book down in a week and a half! :)

2 solid weeks of good

It might be a miracle. If those exist, that is. I've had 2 solid weeks of good stuff. Good feelings, good times, good thoughts (the occasional bad one has crept in there, but not super duper bad ones - I see that as progress!). I'm not thinking this as the light at the end of the tunnel, I'm way more realistic that that (read: cynical). However, even if everything is cyclical and things are bound to get drab again I know, at least, that there is hope for bright days now and then. That's got to be worth something, no?

I took a business trip to San Francisco and met my new clients. They're great. They're demanding and a bit high pressure, but they're great. Kristie came up for a weekend. MT went to visit his parents so we had the whole weekend to just be the silly chicks we are together (see 2 posts ago for more details). Being with her always does my heart and soul good. Then last weekend MT's sister came into town. I'd not met her before and was a bit nervous... we got along swimmingly. She's lovely and we had a grand time. This weekend we have a birthday party and then its off to Providence for Christmas with MT's family. The entire extended Italian lot of them! I'm a little nervous about that - but even the prospect of meeting all those people and always wanting to make a good impression isn't getting me down.

I'm up. I'm up for more than an afternoon for the first honest-to-goodness time in months. It's glorious and I'm basking in it.

P.S. The pic is because last night MT took me to Handel's Messiah at the historic Riverside Church on the Upper West. Gorgeous, old, amazing place. I'm not big on the whole Christ/God part (long story) but the music was beautiful and the mezzo-soprano blew my mind. She was fantastic. It was a really wonderful evening. It was also the first time I'd felt well enough in 3 days to leave the house. I've had the flu and been working from my bed in my robe. Thank goodness for remote desktop access. The good stuff continues...