I keep reading all of these posts pointing to the end of this year, this decade. They address their best of, worst of, what rocked the nation and what we'll remember going into 2010. I've been sitting here trying to come up with some dramatic thoughts regarding 2009s end and have come up short. A friend asked me if I was going to do a list like last year, and I don't think I will. I've been bathing in some sort of cerebral melancholy for the past few days and I think a list would include a lot of emotional dribble that would prompt you to phone me up and inquire as to whether or not I've been sleeping properly. Which I have. Thank you.
This year was difficult. And I say that with the knowledge that I have an extremely nice life, so I'm aware that my perspective of difficulty is somewhat different from the poor chap sleeping under the freeway. But I was looking over my posts from 2009 and they seem to be a blur of insomnia, general fatigue and me yelling, "NO REALLY! I PROMISE I'LL GET BACK TO THIS EVENTUALLY!" But I don't think I've totally recovered my verve and passion yet - some of it was squelched by professional disappointment, some just because I've had to focus so much of my energy on the healing process necessitated by an auto-immune disease.
I noticed that most of what I wrote this year was steeped in the pain of love lost...almost as though all of the heartache that I've tucked away over time needed to find an avenue out. There are some things I wrote that I just immediately banished into the far corners of my hard drive as reading them brought me back to a place that I thought I had recovered from and I'm not sure what any of that reveals. I suppose the silver lining in that is that I can mine my own psyche for material if I need it - but what? What does it indicate when one's gray matter pours out so much sorrow? It's puzzling. It's what marked most of 2009. Like the entire creative output of that year was covered with a veil of oft-hidden grief. As though somehow, there was no room for joy.
What do I hope for 2010? I hope to not only know but believe that I am brave. I hope to write more. I hope to have the energy to do so. I hope to get outside of myself and make the world I live in a more beautiful place. I'm on the edge of turning 34 and I'm very conscious of how very quickly time is moving forward. And I have felt, sometimes, like it moves forward without me. I want to grasp onto it and bathe in the deliciousness of my life. I want to love more, complain less, be an encouragement to those around me and be willing to admit when my spirit is broken. I want the blue hue of 2009 to lift and to move into a new decade with a spirit that is ready to be happy. I think I'm ready for that.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Friday, December 25, 2009
Notes from SoCal
A Southern Californian Christmas landscape. Please note the palm trees.I hope everyone is basking in the warmth and happiness of family. Or friends. Or people that you just sort of tolerate accompanied by egg-nog with a certain amount of oomph added in. However it is that you roll. I am down in Southern California with most of my family. It's 11:30am and I'm still in my pj's which would indicate that it's already a very good Christmas indeed.
In the past few years I haven't been able to spend the holidays exclusively with my branch of the family. Marriage tends to complicate things - in the best of ways usually - but often during the holidays you find that the push-me-pull-you becomes increasingly intense. I come from parents who graciously have always said, "Do whatever is the least stressful for you," and I feel that in years past this has led to a certain amount of neglect on my part towards them. While they have never once made me feel guilty about this, my own conscience has prodded me with some vigor - sort of like a steel toed boot in the kidneys, if you will - and so this year I remedied that and flew down to San Diego with them and have been fully immersed in the usual family traditions, some of which I have forgotten after years of not being present for them.
And to be here with them? Oh, it has been heaven.
We have eaten and laughed and opened wine and snacked and told stories and traded recipes and made plans for the week and giggled at each other and poked fun and loved and have not let an hour pass without someone exclaiming, "This is so much FUN!" And it is. It is hilarious fun. Two days in and I already feel refreshed, if not somewhat fatter than when I stepped off of the plane on Wednesday. But that is what January is for - vigorous cleansing. So I will just continue to enjoy this time and hope that each one of you is doing the same.
I think we spent a lions share of Christmas Eve shopping for food. It's a family sport. Our team always wins.Yesterday was spent in the gathering of ingredients and preparing of Rouladen which is a German culinary masterpiece. It sort of looks like a turd landed on your plate amidst homemade noodles and red cabbage. So from a visual perspective it's not the best thing you've ever seen. But the flavor? Holy Moses. It's something I cannot even begin to describe, which is probably better since I can't have all of your showing up at my sisters doorstep demanding a bite. I took this opportunity to learn how to make them properly since my parents have never written down the recipe and their version is peerless. So if I know you and you bring me a present (I wear a size 8.5 shoe), I'll perhaps make them for you. I'm now being summoned to the kitchen to learn how to make the corresponding noodles, so I must fly. Happiest of Holidays to you all.
Haggling over radishes.Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Magic
It would appear that everything in my life currently needs attending to. My car just got back from the shop - did you know that if you leave $700 with your mechanic you'll get a new battery and an alternator and lose your will to live? It's true. I know.
There are a few other household things that we've been doggedly ignoring. It's amazing how you can just stop seeing things, like that splotch of paint color in the kitchen that I was "trying out" two years ago and haven't gotten around to painting over, or the hole in the ceiling that makes my brain hurt to think about fixing. It's so high up and people REALLY have to crane their necks to get a view of the gash in the drywall, so perhaps we're ok as long as we just put sparkly things in front of our guests or distract them with jazz hands.
But the dog. The dog cannot be ignored. I started getting notes from the vets office earlier this year that sang the tune of, "Kylie needs her rabies vaccination updated, lalala!" I sort of put it off for a while until a wretched, WRETCHED flea hopped on board and decided to bite the ever living shit out of Kylie which then turned into a full two weeks of scratching scratching SCRATCHING to which I recall saying to Marc, "This doesn't seem right...she never scratches this much," to which he responded, "Meh, she's fine. Did you finish this episode of How I Met Your Mother WITHOUT ME?" And since this is my blog, I feel entitled to point out that Marc will sneeze and IMMEDIATELY take himself to the doctor, all while gripping his throat, clawing at his eyes and screaming, "BLARGH! I HAVE THE PLAGUE AND AM DYING IS MY WILL IN ORDER?" He'll also mysteriously come down with the same symptoms I have whenever I fall ill and sequester himself into the best corner of the couch for a day or two, asking that I stop typing so loudly and will I make him some tea? It's true. It will be interesting to see what happens should I ever bear a child.
Anyways, this flagrant hypochondria does not extend outside of his own orbit, meaning I had to physically point out a raw spot on the dog and say, "I'm taking her to the vet RIGHT NOW!" to which he responded, "Are you sure it's not just the lighting in here that's making that area red?"
So. Fleas. I won't go into what kind of work that caused me as I'm still recovering from all of the laundry and scrubbing and apologizing I did to my dog for not taking her in the minute I suspected something was wrong. BUT, while I was at the vets, I decided it might be the right time to get the rabies vaccination updated. I mean, let's get this shit DONE. Kylie hates the vet and uses each visit to almost physically crawl up my body and wrap herself around my head all while shedding her entire coat of fur. There are not enough lint rollers to combat THAT, let me tell you.
I told the vet we were seeing that day that we ought to also follow the vaccine protocol and get Kylie updated. I should mention that he's not our usual vet and was someone I requested we NOT see again while checking out. He liberally smattered expletives throughout his speech, which is totally un-fucking-professional, and I think had this idea of me the moment he saw me...that I must be the kind of girl who sups on caviar and sleeps in the Chanel boutique at Neiman Marcus. I disliked him almost immeidiately.
So the vaccine. I mentioned it. He looked at me quizzically and said, "I think that vaccines are bullshit. Unless you're in an area where she is going to come into contact with wild creatures, she's fine." Um, like bears and bats and coyotes and things of that nature that you see when you're in the back country? Because she sees those things a LOT - our recreational activities involve carrying large amounts of gear deep into the wilderness where we then sleep on the ground and poo behind trees. I said as much (minus the poo) and the vet looked at me in complete disbelief and then said, "No, I mean, like WAY back in the woods...NOT just car camping." That's when I kicked him in the head.
I finally just said, "Look, just give me the vaccine." He seemed put out that I would at all challenge his opinion, but at this point we were neck deep in tufts of Kylie's undercoat and he fled the scene telling me he would send in a tech to administer the shot. I swear he told the tech to really go for it as she walked in with a needle the size of which I hadn't seen outside of a Halloween novelty store. This thing could have stitched a leather couch together. The tech was bubbly and sweet and trying to coax Kylie out from underneath my legs where I assume she was saying things like, "Fuck, NO!" I asked the tech to ratchet down her enthusiasm a notch since at this point Kylie was in danger of leaving the office bald. Finally, she just sort of wrapped her fist around the syringe all Dexter style and JAMMED! it into Kylie's rump. Kylie just wilted against my legs and looked up at me in a way that said she would rather have been left on the streets of LA if being rescued by me meant THIS sort of abuse. Especially since she didn't even get a fancy band-aid or a lolly pop. Just a smack on the ass and a GOODGIRL from the tech who left promptly...probably to go and find the nearest lint roller.
Regardless, my dog now has super human blood and can go and smack a bat or lick a monkey or harass any feral creature and not be in danger of dying a foamy death. She is magic. Marc is jealous. There is nothing he can come up with health wise to compete with magic blood. Though I'd like to see him try.
There are a few other household things that we've been doggedly ignoring. It's amazing how you can just stop seeing things, like that splotch of paint color in the kitchen that I was "trying out" two years ago and haven't gotten around to painting over, or the hole in the ceiling that makes my brain hurt to think about fixing. It's so high up and people REALLY have to crane their necks to get a view of the gash in the drywall, so perhaps we're ok as long as we just put sparkly things in front of our guests or distract them with jazz hands.
But the dog. The dog cannot be ignored. I started getting notes from the vets office earlier this year that sang the tune of, "Kylie needs her rabies vaccination updated, lalala!" I sort of put it off for a while until a wretched, WRETCHED flea hopped on board and decided to bite the ever living shit out of Kylie which then turned into a full two weeks of scratching scratching SCRATCHING to which I recall saying to Marc, "This doesn't seem right...she never scratches this much," to which he responded, "Meh, she's fine. Did you finish this episode of How I Met Your Mother WITHOUT ME?" And since this is my blog, I feel entitled to point out that Marc will sneeze and IMMEDIATELY take himself to the doctor, all while gripping his throat, clawing at his eyes and screaming, "BLARGH! I HAVE THE PLAGUE AND AM DYING IS MY WILL IN ORDER?" He'll also mysteriously come down with the same symptoms I have whenever I fall ill and sequester himself into the best corner of the couch for a day or two, asking that I stop typing so loudly and will I make him some tea? It's true. It will be interesting to see what happens should I ever bear a child.
Anyways, this flagrant hypochondria does not extend outside of his own orbit, meaning I had to physically point out a raw spot on the dog and say, "I'm taking her to the vet RIGHT NOW!" to which he responded, "Are you sure it's not just the lighting in here that's making that area red?"
So. Fleas. I won't go into what kind of work that caused me as I'm still recovering from all of the laundry and scrubbing and apologizing I did to my dog for not taking her in the minute I suspected something was wrong. BUT, while I was at the vets, I decided it might be the right time to get the rabies vaccination updated. I mean, let's get this shit DONE. Kylie hates the vet and uses each visit to almost physically crawl up my body and wrap herself around my head all while shedding her entire coat of fur. There are not enough lint rollers to combat THAT, let me tell you.
I told the vet we were seeing that day that we ought to also follow the vaccine protocol and get Kylie updated. I should mention that he's not our usual vet and was someone I requested we NOT see again while checking out. He liberally smattered expletives throughout his speech, which is totally un-fucking-professional, and I think had this idea of me the moment he saw me...that I must be the kind of girl who sups on caviar and sleeps in the Chanel boutique at Neiman Marcus. I disliked him almost immeidiately.
So the vaccine. I mentioned it. He looked at me quizzically and said, "I think that vaccines are bullshit. Unless you're in an area where she is going to come into contact with wild creatures, she's fine." Um, like bears and bats and coyotes and things of that nature that you see when you're in the back country? Because she sees those things a LOT - our recreational activities involve carrying large amounts of gear deep into the wilderness where we then sleep on the ground and poo behind trees. I said as much (minus the poo) and the vet looked at me in complete disbelief and then said, "No, I mean, like WAY back in the woods...NOT just car camping." That's when I kicked him in the head.
I finally just said, "Look, just give me the vaccine." He seemed put out that I would at all challenge his opinion, but at this point we were neck deep in tufts of Kylie's undercoat and he fled the scene telling me he would send in a tech to administer the shot. I swear he told the tech to really go for it as she walked in with a needle the size of which I hadn't seen outside of a Halloween novelty store. This thing could have stitched a leather couch together. The tech was bubbly and sweet and trying to coax Kylie out from underneath my legs where I assume she was saying things like, "Fuck, NO!" I asked the tech to ratchet down her enthusiasm a notch since at this point Kylie was in danger of leaving the office bald. Finally, she just sort of wrapped her fist around the syringe all Dexter style and JAMMED! it into Kylie's rump. Kylie just wilted against my legs and looked up at me in a way that said she would rather have been left on the streets of LA if being rescued by me meant THIS sort of abuse. Especially since she didn't even get a fancy band-aid or a lolly pop. Just a smack on the ass and a GOODGIRL from the tech who left promptly...probably to go and find the nearest lint roller.
Regardless, my dog now has super human blood and can go and smack a bat or lick a monkey or harass any feral creature and not be in danger of dying a foamy death. She is magic. Marc is jealous. There is nothing he can come up with health wise to compete with magic blood. Though I'd like to see him try.
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