Perspective

What I love about this photo that I did not take, incidentally, is the distinct line of perspective my sister captured. Rose on the floor, to a woven basket, to the edge of the door, to the grand painting in the entry way of my apartment. Oh, and the reflection of the rose in the wood. I just noticed that, I mean right now. As I was typing.

More thoughts on the book meme thing...

Aargh! We always forget something...

I really should have mentioned Kafka's The Trial and Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake in some capacity. In either case, both tremendous, for entirely different reasons. Well the same reason in that they are both expertly written, but the affect is completely different. Seinfeld is very Kafkaesque. That existential crisis we're all so fond of having... well that's K's brandname irony (do not even think about using this phrase unless you are quoting me. ) I'll say that much.

In other news, I burned my arm taking cookies out of the oven on Sunday evening. It hurts. Good night.

Good Fortune

I went to buy a bed on Sunday. I made the decision (due to financial constraints) to just get the bed and a new mattress and box spring. I'm saving the dresser and end tables for another time.
But this created a little problem. What to do with my old bed.

A new person just moved in across from me. I hadn't met her before today, but I had this idea tha maybe I could give it to her (I didn't even know it was a her until tonight). I bumped into her in the hallway when I returned home from the market. I asked her if she'd like a free, full-sized bed. I invited her to see it, sit on it, etc.

We're going to put it in her place on Thursday night. My new bed comes on friday.

Oh. and the Independent Study was approved.

Book Meme

1. One Book That Changed Your Life

The Catcher in the Rye. Think it's a hackneyed, adolescent choice? Maybe, but Salinger, through his much crushed-upon bundle of contradictions, Holden Caulfield, made a string of subversive, spot on commentary on hypocrisy... society's, mine, yours, and it's funny. More than 50 years later, it's hysterical. and honest. And if it's possible to have feelings for a construct of fiction, then I had feelings for Holden. I wrote a paper once, for my own enjoyment, comparing and contrasting it to Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

2. One book you have read more than once

Other than "Catcher," The Monk Downstairs. Tim Farrington is a contemporary writer who is preoccupied with questions of spirituality and personal faith as expressed in interpersonal relationships. His monk was disarmingly guiless, sexual, funny, and human. I was more than a little smitten with him, too.

3. One book you would want on a desert island

Jane Kenyon's Otherwise. A tremendous collection of the late poet's work. Accessible, unassuming, staggering.

4. One book that made you cry

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

5. One book that made you laugh

Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job. Just. could. not. stop. laughing.

6. One book you wish had been written

Well, I'll take a little liberty with this one. The story of my life. I hope it will be. Maybe even by me.

7. One book you wish had never been written

Any truly crappy, poorly constructed book. I'm not a snob, though I do love real literature. I've enjoyed a variety of genres, both high and low brow... academic and utterly pedestrian. Good writing is good writing.

Okay, anything by Nicholas Sparks. That man is a hack. And it kills me that he's living well off his truly bad, formulaic books. He's the writer's Thomas Kinkaid.

8. One book you are currently reading

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

9. One book you have been meaning to read

Persuasion by Jane Austen

10. Tag five new people

Sarah, Catherine, anyone else? Have at it!

Last Workshop

Two members of the summer-long group were out. One planned, on business, the other because of strep, but we still had a successful last meeting. My poems were discussed, as were two other submissions. I e-mailed the prof to let him know I was willing to forego group time on my poems, just so no one got short shrift, but he felt it would be doable. We made it work.

Sadly, we didn't go out afterward, but it became clear to me when class started that it wasn't the right group for that. Three married adults and me and the instructor. People have spouses to get back to, and the mood, though very cheerful, wasn't right for convivial activity.

I got some very encouraging feedback on my pieces. Including the one where I really took the risk. Huge payoff.

Well the fall semester, my last in the program starts in a mere two weeks. It's going to be a good one. I had a discussion tonight that mitigated my concerns about the fact that I still haven't heard about the Independent Study. Things will work out in my favor either way.

Okay, so I nearly didn't post this...

but I had a dream last night (or this morning... ever notice how there is no "time" in dreams?). One of a recurring series about letting go. Vestiges. Remnants of feeling. Clearly, this is how I leave things behind. In increments. The subversive life of my dreams processes the truth of "no more" for me.

In this dream, anyway, he (my unrequited love of years) and I were in a car together. On our way to his house where a party of people waited, his wife included, and he told me what he used to love about me. And he mimicked some gesture that I apparently had (though it is not an actual gesture of mine from the waking world) that was especially meaningful to him. And then a revelation. He said "if I had been black, I would have been able to be faithful to you" (this came, I'm sure, from a background concern of mine that race maybe kept him from considering me as a worthwhile partner).

At the end of the dream (I was leaving his party) he asked me if I would smoke with him [one last time]. My mother/best friend amalgam suddenly appeared and told me not to do it. But I said "I am going to smoke with him. I just am." But the cigarettes were dessert cigarettes and when he dropped them on the floor they broke...

My step-grandmother's funeral is Saturday morning. I'll go home on Friday evening (I had wanted to get the train on Saturday morning, but all the Amtrak options are either too early or too late given the time of the service.) and come back to my place on Saturday evening.

In other, less grave news, I have procured a couch for my office. Well, it's not yet in my possession, but I have a plan in place. I have an agreement with the current owner (Nina!). It's just a matter of getting it to my place...

There is a peace of mind that only comes with cleaning your house top to bottom. Well, I made some strides in the direction of that peace this evening. I got home at about 6, household supplies in tow. I did all of my laundry, textiles and linen included; cleaned the bathroom and swept and mopped the kitchen floor; I dressed my bed in its late summer, nearly fall suit; I made an approximated version of chicken parmesan; I managed to find some baby pictures of myself that I've needed to find; and I conditioned my hair.

I'm hoping to wake up tomorrow morning and scour the kitchen counters and tidy up the office before heading off to an Os game with my mom and a friend of hers.

But back to these baby pictures. I felt a somewhat disconcerting sadness looking at myself at that young age, in that time before my earliest memories began. I marveled at how much was ahead of me--how much sadness I would feel that I had no way of knowing was coming. And it made me wonder if any of us could ever go forward knowing what sorrow awaits us. Even now, perhaps, I am years ahead of some great pain that will completely level me. But all I know right now is the ignorant bliss that has come with the satisfaction of cleaning my apartment on a Saturday night in late summer in 2006...

The First Week

I feel good about my initial efforts. It's tremendous to be so willing, again, to give myself to my work. Really, this has been a fresh start in every sense of the word. I love the new commute (via the Lightrail, not the bus), I love the atmosphere of the office (big, bright room with fun lamps and light wood desks--it has a very organic flow). Let me say, for the record, how important atmosphere is to productivity. Very.

Anyway, I feel that all I've talked about for the last several weeks is work. I would hate to think this is all I have left to discuss.

Let's see... Oh, blast it. I'm just super boring right now. uber boring. I'm getting out of the habit of documenting my life with any sort of clarity or style.

Still haven't heard about the Independent Study. I wouldn't say that I'm stressed about it, but by the same token, I feel a little peeved at the amount of time it's taking for a decision to be made. I mean, fall classes start in about two weeks. What is the hold up?

Just wanting to check in before bed...

I have been incredibly busy at work (a good thing) and cannot imagine (based on what I keep hearing about the workload) that I will have the time I had to e-mail, blog, stare off into space that I often had at my old job. And It's not that I wasn't busy there. I was a lot of the time. I guess I just had arms around my work in a way that I won't have here for a while. So far everyone is great and being there feels good. I've been told that I'm doing well on the assignments I've been given, which is heartening, to say the least. It's not just editing. There's a creation/writing component to the work as well. It's good to be stretched.

Actually, the whole business of being there feels surreally normal. The three weeks between giving notice and starting at the new place helped me to appropriately process the change and to effectively separate.

My neck is still hurting a bit, but keeping heat on it all night last night and during the day today has helped.

Oh! The neurosurgeon and I missed the wine festival. I thought it was this coming weekend. Apparently it was this past weekend. I'm actually in no way disappointed. I told him that we all (him, me, and E) should hang out again when she's fully recovered (she's currently under the weather) and that seemed to go over well.

Heating Pad & A Medicinal Cocktail

I must have slept funny last night because I couldn't turn my head more than 45 degrees today. Slight pain aside, I had easy an easy, busy first day. My sisters didn't leave until this morning, which made the transition to living alone again much easier. I guess because I was going right to work as they were heading out, so I didn't have that weird time alone with nothing to do but think about them and Babygirl, and how they all been here with me... I love being alone, but it is harder right after I haven't been, if that makes sense.

Last night we watched two contemporary classics--"Jerry McGuire" and "Bridget Jones' Diary" after a supper of takeout pizza; we went to bed at about midnight. It was supremely good bonding time, overall, but I'll have to report more later b/c my neck is really hurting now. It doesn't help that I decided to lift a heavy box off a high shelf after getting home from work, I suppose...

Me and Bg in the park today!

My other tremendously beautiful sister with our beloved Babygirl...

My sister is leaving today. And I will miss her so much it will take me at least a week to adjust to the lack of her in the apartment. Not that her presence ever entirely goes away. If you've met Carly (a nickname of hers), then an indelible impression has been made.

My other sister, whose name also begins with a C is here and at some as yet undetermined time, they will get in the car with our beloved Babygirl and drive away.

As much as I love the sense of accomplishment that comes with closing the door on certain parts of life and times and seasons, this one is a bit harder.

So in homage to my summer (the second in a row) with Carly, I give you a little roundup of the themes of this particular season.

Song of the Summer: The Beautiful Ones (Prince)
Show of the Summer: So You Think You Can Dance?
Phrase of the Summer: Two more minutes... (spoken sleepily by C when I tried to wake her up in the morning)
Best "Something Good" of the Summer: You will be getting a new job soon (spoken in May!)
Worst Gig of the Summer: C being forced to sing a medley of "People" and "Reach out and touch somebody's hand" at my mother's community service organization's banquet
Best Gig of the Summer: The Green Door with Juanito!
My Favourite Moment of the Summer: Listening to C and her band guys practice in the apartment
Favourite way to make change for the bus: Going to 7-11 to buy ice cream sandwiches or diet black cherry vanilla Coke
My Summertime Obsession: Making the slightly earlier bus in the morning!
What I wouldn't have had any other way: Walking out of my old job for the last time with C by my side.

I had forgotten how brilliant Jeff DanielsBridges is in "The Fabulous Baker Boys." I remember seeing this film in 1988, when I was 15 and I got it then. I understood that his interpretation of the younger Baker brother was good, but I didn't fully grasp why. I was flipping through the various HBO channels this afternoon and it was just coming on, so I watched. The restraint. The desperation masked by a veneer of apathy. A tremendous performance. Wonderful lines.

the roses I got today (in sepia) on the dining room table

the view from the window at work

me in my [nearly] empty cubicle

my lovely sister

my dansko clog on the [home]office floor

From my [home]office window

Time on my hands...

Your Love Quote

Love is made by two people, in different kinds of solitude. It can be in a crowd, but in an oblivious crowd.

What Love Quote Suits You?

A coworker left a dozen pale pink roses on my desk along with a card while I was out on a brief head-clearing walk. They are not in a bloom as full as those in this picture, but they are fat and generous with intricate folds. Pink roses have been very significant to me since I was 23 years old. It's a story I've told on this blog before, and I won't go into it here... but I will say this. I had this vision, earlier, of leaving here today with a dozen roses. And I thought it odd, because I had no reason to believe that anyone would be getting me any (you can't exactly expect such a gesture). Perhaps my desire for some was so strong that I pushed the thought out into the universe--or, more as I would think of it, that God knows even the deeply hidden desires of my heart and grants them.

In Retrospect

It is fitting that I stopped in at Whole Foods on this, my final morning working at this job (contrary to the way it must seem, Whole Foods is not part of my daily routine). It is also fitting that as I sip black coffee (a lot has changed) from an egg white mug while eating an organic blueberry muffin, that I am blogging. If you click on the title, it should take you to my thoughts after my first day here. I cannot resist the concept of full circle. I believe in it.

Probably the most accurate result I've ever gotten for a test that measures this index...

You Are An Intro-Extrovert!

Sometimes you're social - sometimes you're shy You've got a bit of an Introvert / Extrovert split going on You enjoy all sorts of situations. Parties, small groups, and alone time. Too much of one, and you'll long for the other. You need varity! Chances are, you've got both serious and fun friends - and they don't get along.

Are You An Extrovert or Introvert?

Okay, I do like candles, but the rest of this is spot on!

You are Totally Realistic

"Romance" means you're about to roll your eyes Seriously, you can do without the sap or drama Save it for someone who has nothing really going on in their relationship For you, love is real - and easily integrated into your life You don't need candles, flowers, or chocolates to know he's the one Just some stimulating conversation... and maybe a great smile.

Are You a Romantic or Realistic?

Another... (these relieve tension/boredom)

Your Element is Earth

Your power color: yellow Your energy: balancing Your season: changing of seasons Dedicated and responsible, you are a rock to your friends. You are skilled at working out even the most difficult problems. Low key and calm, you are happiest when you are around loved ones. Ambitious and goal oriented, you have long term plans to be successful.

What Element Are You?

This is pretty much where I am right now...

You Don't Need a Man ... or Want One!

Generally, you're very happy being a single woman. And anyone who has a problem with that... well, that's there problem. Not that you wouldn't share your life with the almost perfect guy. You simply won't settle though. Your life is too good to share with some substandard man!

Do You Need a Man?

Finally, some down time!

You Are a Rose

You are a total alpha female who tends to be a leader. Your friends depend on you to hold things together and make decisions. Men are drawn to your feminine powers and strength. While you are the center of attention, you are secretly introverted and a bit shy.

What Flower Are You?

Barefoot in the Park...

was charming, as I had remembered it (I believe I had seen all but the last 5 minutes before). And a good sized, fun crowd came out. Such a feeling of community--friends, couples, dogs, a ferret on a leash...

Speaking of dogs. Before the movie started, V and I went to the "wrong" park in my neighborhood at first (the movie was shown in the one on the other side of the street, so it was an easy correction to make) and sat down by the fountain when one of several dogs came over to me. I saw it notice me as soon as we entered the park, and I understood that it wanted to make a connection. So, I sat down and she/he (I didn't have time to notice) came right over, and just stood looking at me. Its head was practically on my leg, but she (I'll just say "she") was still affecting an unobtrusive posture. I started to talk to her, "hello..." at which point she licked my fingers. I petted her head. More licking of my fingers ensued. Then she trotted off. I complimented the dog's owner on her fantastic animal. Really, what a sweet spirit she had!

Anyway, V and I spread a blanket I'd brought and drank the iced decaf coffees I made us at my place and settled in for vintage Jane Fonda and Robert Redford. The movie is really funny and I loved laughing outside with strangers on a balmy summer evening (occasional sirens broke the mood). Honestly, there will be three more Wednesdays of movies. It would be a tremendous thing to do with friends, alone, or on a date.

Any Given Wednesday

I had lunch at the James Joyce Irish Pub yesterday--with the coworker whom I lauded a few posts ago. What a stand up guy. We had to keep looking around the restaurant to make sure no one from work was in there... it was that kind of debriefing session...

Now I'm just eating a bowl of toated oats of some kind along with the requisite cup of black joe. Starting next week, I'll eat breakfast at my apartment before I leave because the new job starts an hour and a half later than my current one. Well, it was my choice to work these hours--and if I had the option at the new place, I would also work earlier hours. But...now my mornings will open up in a new way... and I'll only get off an hour later than usual. Not too bad. Oh, and I do have the option of working earlier on the days that I have classes. Pretty good.

Sidebar: I love it when employers show their support for employees' personal goals by allowing for this sort of flexibility. I would actually give my current company (at least the bosses I have had here) and A++++ for that. They have been tremendous about my schedule from the get go.

Tonight, I meet up with Victoria for "Barefoot in the Park" in the park!

And now for some Blogthings...

You are Dark Chocolate

You live your life with intensity, always going full force. You push yourself (and others) to the limit... you want more than you can handle. An extreme person, you challenge and inspire the world!

What Kind of Chocolate Are You?

You Communicate With Your Ears

You love conversations, both as a listener and a talker. What people say is important to you, and you're often most affected by words, not actions. You love to hear complements from others. And when you're upset, you often talk to yourself. Music is very important to you. It's difficult to find you without your iPod.

How Do You Communicate?

I've Been Through The Desert On A Horse With No Name...

That's what the latter part of July and beginning of August have felt like. Incidentally, I am also listening to America's classic "Horse With No Name" as I type this entry. What a curious bunch of lyrics.

Today was well-paced, even-keeled. Me in control. Had the last status meeting I'll ever have at this place. It was all about printouts, work logs, and having more information to disseminate than was necessary. I'm finishing things on my own terms in spite of some maneuvering on the boss lady's part (last week) to show me who was boss. I saw her agressive posturing and raised her an "above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty" strategy. Yeah. So don't mess with me. So now she knows. But she doesn't know she knows...

In typical fashion, my initiative is making things happen as they ought. I had to ask HR about my exit interview (this has happened before at other companies). Heck, the payroll woman didn't even know I was leaving. Outside of my department and a handful of other people, I'm beginning to think this is the best kept secret in the company. Anyway, I found out that the process of scheduling an exit interview is being held up because my manager hasn't filled out a form. Maybe when she was busy making sure I completed a task outside the scope of my job, she should have made sure she'd gotten things that are her job done.

Well. It seems that I am downright snarky this evening. I'm trying not to lament the fact that because I took my July vacation before I'd actually accrued the days that I am 4 days in the hole... esentially, the last check will be a significantly shorter one. I am comforting myself by reminding myself that I could not have known I was going to be getting a new job so soon... and that that vacation was a Godsend. It saved my life. I was back at the office a little over a week when I got that interview at the new place. So this will all eventually work out.

But I had to postpone the honey brown highlights I'd planned to get this Saturday morning. 'S okay. Everything in due time.

I returned two books to the library--via the dropoff bin since this branch is closed on Sundays until October--shortly after waking up this morning. I checked the weather. It was a temperate 75 degrees that felt like 75 degrees according to the heat index. Realizing it wouldn't get better than this, I set about making some toast and coffee, put the "Quitessential Billie Holiday" in the discman and set off.

Once back in the roost, I started planning my day. I called the Sarah-one and we talked about resuming attendance at the Saturday church services we enjoyed so much. Long hiatus due to any number of circumstances, but we were in agreement that we need to start going back. I need that corporate worship experience. Or rather, I want it.

I've just polished off a spinach and jack cheese omelette, so it's time to start the weekly cleaning. Then I have some lists to write. This is the last week y'all...

You once asked me what I regret. This was about 4 years ago, maybe 3. Anyway, I remember having this overwhelming compunction to answer "you." I bit it back because I convinced myself in the space of a nanosecond that it was still possible for our story not to be tragic... okay, maybe not tragic... a cautionary tale, perhaps. That first, visceral answer was prescient, I know now.

Sometimes It's hard to believe I ever knew you... but then I ran across this rare bit of photographic evidence that we once existed in the same space. You used to occupy my life.

I want you to know I never thought you were something you weren't... well, I think I must have thought of you in some ways that had precious little to do with who you actually are... but what I mean is that I was never deluded about the construct of our relationship. It was a construct, wasn't it? I felt like I was caught behind glass for six years...

or maybe, that my doppelganger hijacked all my interactions with you... while I was locked in a closet somewhere banging desperately, wanting to be let out, but there was always so much to hide. At the end I was so tired.

Know what I've discovered? There remains this distilled part of the years I knew you, and that to me is still pure. It has nothing to do with my unrequited angst... but more the purity of our mutual yet separate artist angst. The common language of a painter and a poet. The one pure element of it...what I sometimes wish, when I wish anything concerning you, could have survived the seismic (for me) shift the complete mortification of our friendship meant, finally.

I'm writing all of this not even hoping you'll read it, not even a little bit. I'm writing this because I was overcome by a wave of missing you this evening... not the way I used to miss you--sharply, accutely--a year ago, but a prescient missing. Because you are leaving the town that has always been synonymous with you, for me. So much of my fierce longing for this city had to do with a fierce longing for you for the longest time. You tried to leave it so many times before, but it would not let you go until now. Everything waits for the right time.

And I knew I had really grown past the last vestiges of any hope I ever had for you when it became possible for me to imagine leaving. I loosened my grip. And though it is mine to call home for a while more, I suddenly, today, in a moment of noting the sun's loosened grip on the sky, marked this thought. In mere days, you will not live here anymore. You will not live in the place of all my memories of you. We are not friends anymore. Though I have a story that is connected to any street I walk--of having driven, walked, or crossed that street with you--on our way somewhere.

I let that knowledge settle. I have understood it as a fact for months, but I let my spirit expand to receive its full meaning. If you were staying I would not seek you out, as I am not seeking you out now. It is just my way of saying I had this moment, this little ache of acknowledgment today. And I missed you in a way that was alien to me after a year's distance.

I have stated often that I wish I had never met you--not so much because of you--but because of how I conducted myself when I knew you. I wish you had no such memories of me as the ones I know you have. I did not love the person you knew as me. She no longer exists. Maybe it was her I felt sad for.

After a dinner of spinach and three-cheese omelettes, C and I went to First Thursday. The one we attempted in June got rained out; we were both out of town for the one in July, so this was our last chance. The band was very good, as were the pale ales we sipped to beat the heat. There were so many cute babies and dogs in the park. I'm excited to go back next week for this.

We made our way back home to watch the "So You Think You Can Dance?" results show (Well, C to watch, me to check in with it periodically while doing other things).

Well, It's Friday. One week from today will be the last time I ever sit in this chair, clicking the keys on this keyboard, or look out of this cubicle window.
I'm really trying to stretch out the work now...there isn't much more to do.

I'm going to take down and take home all the stuff left in the cube (black and white photography post cards, mostly) next Thursday. I want to be able to walk out on Friday the 11th with just my purse.

32 Days to 33...

Okay, so the neurosurgeon called. Straight off, he asks me "why are the Israelis attacking my people?" If E hadn't shared with me earlier this week that he had asked her the same thing, I would have been taken aback. Just because it's so loaded, politically, to even discuss this issue--particularly when you are ill-informed, as I am, about the latest events.

Sidebar: I will only discuss politically controversial topics with people with whom I have an established relationship--family or friends--not because I am afraid of controversy but more because I want a person to know where I'm coming from, on the whole, so that any comments I make can be taken in context. Not that I want my friends and loved ones to agree with me, but I do want to know that they're disagreeing with me based on what I'm actually saying...not a misunderstood version that is being filtered through the lens of a certain predisposition.

In any case, I dealt with it by asking him a question. Something technical about what's happening. It seemed to reroute him.

He mentioned the wine festival that E told me she'd mentioned to him... that she suggested he take me to! But he just mentioned it. He didn't ask me to it. So I said "So are you calling to ask me to the wine festival." We're going. He also said that I should call him if I want to do something before then.

Look, people, this was not a love connection the night we had dinner or anything, and while I'm open to hanging out with him here and there, I'd prefer if it was in the context of group stuff... but I'm trying to be less rigid. I am woefully unpracticed. This would be great, I think, if he and I stay on the same page.

At the very least, it's an anecdote with a lot of mileage potential.

I have one coworker that I will miss, especially. He is my buddy. He likes my anecdotes--or at the very least suffers them. One of the funniest people...naturally funny... that I've ever met. And if he wasn't already taken, I would not hesitate to set him up with any number of friends. He's top drawer. He is also the only person here who has even mentioned taking me out for a farewell lunch. I don't expect my coworkers, for the most part, to make any special efforts because most of them are new or new-ish. I'm a relic from the company's first three years of existence. Almost no one with whom I was especially close (as far as work goes) is still around. But this guy, who has only known me for a little over a year, is being true to what makes him so great. He's generous, kind, and giving. And if you're ever lucky enough to work with someone like that--or currently have such a gem in your workplace, then you know that people like him are what making leaving a crappy situation a little sad.

I wish I could take him with me.

You've heard it before, but my manager is getting on my last nerve! This would be the new woman who just started about a month ago... it's subtle and not so subtle stuff. But really, Thank God I am getting out, because the veneer of civility between me and her is about to crack.

Listening to a Jazz Cafe playlist as I type. Waiting for the sun to go down so C and I can gather the strength to walk to 7-11 for a couple of ice cream sandwiches. Tomorrow is hump day. Halfway through my penultimate week.

Projects are closing down nicely...including this one I just really didn't want to do. I slogged through this morning. This freaking heat is making everything go in slow motion.