through these glasses

roommate 4.0 arrives

Last night the new roomie offered to take me out to dinner as thanks for letting him move in. One would argue that his monthly rent check should be thanks enough, but who am I to pass up free sushi? If there is a better way to decompress after a hectic week (month) of reorganizing the house with an eye to giving away all the useable stuff I no longer need/use and prepping for company (8 days! eight. long. and probably all too short days...), it's a seat at nami's sushi bar and a good beer. throw in good conversation with 4.0, who I am still getting to know, and we call the evening a raging success. ...even if I didn't make any progress on the pile of stuff that still needs to be sorted/files/shredded/pitched on the coffee table back home. any bets on how long my burst of "correct" cleaning lasts before i give in and resort to the homeowner's version of a teen cleaning her room by putting everything under the bed or in a closet? I give me 5 days.

crazy ironic

I find it ironic that a commenting troll would choose to use as a pseudonym, the name of someone who was tried, found guilty and committed to a sanitarium  on account of being insane.

I've gone against my norm of letting comments stand no matter what they have to say. From here on out, sucky, belligerent comments will be deleted...

are you ever too old to be an orphan?

"I hear you've gotten to spend some quality time with my parents..."
"They've been so wonderful; I don't know what I would have done without them..."
"I'm glad. It's nice to be able to borrow somebody else's parents for a time, isn't it? With mine so far away, I find I do it all the time up here"

I hadn't realized how true that is until I said it. Whether it's forging a friendship with Big10's 'rents over pumpkin carving parties, or Roommate 2.0's through shared Easters. For years, it seems, I've been sliding into other families celebrations and reaping the benefits of some cool stand-in parents. Just last night, I shared my new business plan with the parents of roommate 2.5. Their overwhelming confindence that I can do this, and kind words of praise for my work were great to get. Even though they are closer in age to me than I am to their son, their words were so calmingly parental. I'd be lying if I didn't say I believed them just the teensiest bit more than I believe my friends.

----------

We were standing graveside for that snippet of awkward conversation. My god-sister and I have always been friendly, but with more than a ten year age difference, she was all grown up and out of the house when I made my visits to her parents, my god-parents, as a child. As adults, we once lived 30 minutes apart, but with no common ground to kickstart a friendship, I only saw her once: they were moving to colorado, and needed a home for the last remaining specimen of a peony cultivated for and named after her grandmother. I gladly fostered "Esther" for a few summers until she and I both moved to new gardens.

The last time I saw her, also graveside, she had just lost her father. Now her mother was gone as well. It seems strange to think of a grown person as an orphan -- a word more suited to mopped head girls with big, saucer eyes, or ragamuffin boys. Or maybe it's just comforting, to think that as we age, as our parents age, we are so self-sufficient that it doesn't mean so much to lose them that we need to employ a separate word to connote the hurt and pain of being left parentless. ...but standing there making clumsy small-talk as her mom's casket was held suspended over a gaping hole in the earth, the idea of parents and what they mean felt poignantly clear. you're never too old for it to be devastating. 

ashes to ashes

There are few things that drive home the idea of what I'd want for my own eternally ever after as seeing what someone else has chosen. Cemetery. Astroturf covering the metal lift & dirt pile next to the hole. and carnations. always a multitude of carnations. dyed to coordinate with the expensive flowers, perched on a big shiny wooden casket (an attempt at permanence in a impermanent world?).

no thanks. give me ashes to have scattered on whatever place(s) I didn't manage to cross off my lifetime to-see list. I'm thinking Tahiti. Actually, the will (once I cross that off my to-do list) will set aside money to send somene(s) to wherever in the world it ends up being to scatter (for) me.  (the line for that particular friendship job forms behind Tizzy & Big10...)

Is it weird that, for the most part, I know the last wishes of my friends? or is it a sign that we aren't as young as we once were, and don't feel particularly immortal any longer?

lines

the best two lines I heard all day:

"I finally found someone to go with me so I didn't have to skulk around the bar by myself, waiting for Omar Sharif to show up." she said, after having her hand kissed by the screen legend himself.

"'Your husband has many fine mandolins.' he said to me after I refilled the carafe with filtered tap water  ("I don't require bottled water," he'd said earlier) and slices of organic meyer lemons."

and my best line of the day:

"I prefer using my tongue." ...which still sounds a teensy bit dirty, even when you put it in the context of sealing 1200 invitation envelopes...

...

Their stories are better. Is it because I wasn't inspiried to spin a good yarn in this week of feeling more than the usual amount grief for a loss who would have been eight years old on saturday, if not for the fact that she died six years ago yesterday? or is it because I'm still finding my new venture sea-legs and discovering that is it increasingly unsettling to go back the old work home now that I'm not one of them any longer?

on being in the closet

"Hey, guess where I am."
"Oh,no! I can't feel your energy! You've travelled outside the loop!
"Yeah, I'm just passing through Coates, Minnesota. Hey look, there's a restaurant called House of Coates"
"Wouldn't a house of coats just be an insanely big closet?"
"Good point. Maybe I should stop in, I'd be right at home"

missing her already

reason number three hundred and forty two why i'll really miss my kick ass neighbor when she moves next month...

ring ring ring.
me: hello?
her: can you meet me in the front yard and write "i luv dick" on my chest?"

though clearly no explanation is necessary, there actually is one: a friend's birthday bar crawl where all the guests have been instructed to dress in either a princess (clearly not neighbor's choice, unless she's going as trashy, black sheep princess who embarasses her family at every opportunity because she's so tormented what with all the diamonds and rubies and pearls her doting father has foisted on her. and tiaras! don't forget the tiaras!) or a nascar theme.

black eyeliner chest graffiti is such the sophistocated way to proclaim one's love for a nascar celebrity.

transcribing...

snippets from a phone conversation this morning that was too funny to not save highlights from...
__________

"...but we've been good! Where are they?! Where are our knights in shining armour?"

"I don't need a knight, I'd settle for any ol' guy on a horse. ...cowboy... mountie.... mounted traffic cop... armour not requried."
__________

"at least I got up to let the dog out... but then I crawled back into bed, and now he's comfortable. I can't get up now, I'd hurt his feelings."

[insert long pause here]

"yes, as soon as that came out of my mouth, I realized how it sounded..."
__________

"hans is really cute, unfortunately he's a kayak salesman who camps out for months at a time."
__________

"Stop sending me these earthy types like Hans the Kayak Salesman and the Dirt Whisperer. I don't even recycle, I'm too lazy."
__________

"Opposites attract?"

"Well... there's that whole Green Acres thing..."

"Great, I'm Zsa Zsa Gabor. I want to be Carrie Brandshaw & I'm freakin Zsa Zsa Gabor. All I need is the pig and I'll be set."

click click click clickety click click

"Hey! Stop typing! I know what you're doing. You're forcing me to get out of bed just so you stop typing."

verboten phone time

I’ve been in michigan with the family since last Wednesday. Do you know how long that is?! 6 days! 6 long long days where, each time my cell phone beeped, I got in trouble like I haven’t gotten in trouble since I was 15 and no one else could use the phone when I was on it, for hours on end.

Day One: Anger & irritation. “Can’t you just put that thing down for a second?!” he bellowed. We were in the middle of Costco. The 14 year old boy next to me had just gotten a similar dressing down for gameboy usage. We shared a knowing glance and shrugged at our respective authority figures and pocketed our gadgets.

Day Two: Faux Interest. “I don’t understand the allure of text messaging. Why can’t you just make a simple phone call?!” ...I now think it is impossible to explain certain things across a generation gap. I will never understand folk music. He will never understand texting.

Days Three - Six: Sarcasm. "Where's your phone? Have you run the battery dry yet?" "Don't you have a text message to send?"

Midway thorugh day four, I took to surreptitious texting and stolen phone conversations. How do you explain the need to be on the phone with a new boy when everyone around you is either an old married hand, or so far removed from it that courting is a bit of a wispy memory covered in cobwebs and stale air? I decided you can’t. So my phone and I took to hiding out in nooks and crannies of the house, and excused ourselves to the bathroom overmuch. I felt like a crack addict everytime my pocket vibrated. I was fine, then *buzz buzz* jonesing for a hit. Just one quick peek... a short, sweet reply... nothing fancy.

By day four, my accomplice was in full on tease mode about my sneaking around. "Are you hiding?" "What? who me? wait. hold on. (muffled: OK! I'll be right there.) I've gotta go..." "How old are you again?" "12, apparently... what's your point?"

So the question of the day is: does it feel new and fresh and exciting because I've spent the last week revisiting my teen self, and she has an unquenchable capacity for intoxicating enthusiasm. Or is it really new and fresh and exciting?

Time will tell...

bait & switch

Frustration is thinking you have plans with someone for the day, only to find out that they changed your plans to spend time togehter, but neglected to change their own... so instead of a day of quality bonding time, you have a day alone. thing is, you didn't want a day alone. Even before life started hurling bean balls at you, you wanted a day surrounded by people, in fact, had planned to be surrounded by not only people, but the visiting relatives. they who hardly ever venture to this side of the pond. Then life happened, curve balls and bean balls starting flying at your head, and she swooped in offering a day together to figure it out before the whole family weekend thing started. You thought it was a great idea. Even thought it was sweet that she called the 'rents to see if plans could be adjusted for some sibling bonding. and then business came up, and suddenly instead of bonding, you're being instructed to take a solo walking tour around the city, camera in tow. which would be great if it was your idea. and if it was, oh, nice outside instead of hovering below freezing & overcast, with a wind that would blow Dorothy right back to Oz.

I. Am. Not. Amused.

I am irritated that I'm back in the place where I feel manipulated into doing what other people think is good for me. Especially in the face of trying to really stand up for the plans I'd made. I've never been fond of the bait & switch, and this is no exception.