Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: life, random, thoughts, women, relationships, professional women, career women, networking
This morning’s drink: Peet’s Italian Roast
Growing up, I never considered myself to be a tomboy, though I played sports, took auto shop and graduated from sports bras to real bras in high school. But I always felt like I was different from other girls. I didn’t really care about makeup or expensive underwear, but I sort of felt like I was missing something as a result; that I was lacking an important point of bonding with other girls.
It made my relationships with other girls sort of complicated and mysterious. I felt like I didn’t know how to approach my own gender. I even questioned whether or not I was a lesbian, though I’d never been attracted to women. But I was getting that same apprehensive feeling about talking to women that I was about talking to men that I was attracted to. I’d sort of already assumed they had an upper hand - I guess because they had the girl thing down.
I’m still not really into makeup or expensive underwear, but I’ve realized that it doesn’t make me less of a woman, just a different sort. It’s actually helped me to appreciate all women more, which is part of the reason why I had such a great time at the eWomen Network lunch yesterday. I walked into a group of women who spanned the gamut of demographics and social tiers, and found that I already sort of belonged due to the sheer fact that I am a “career” woman. I didn’t have to justify why I was there, which gave me the freedom to interact and network without feeling like I was hitting on someone. Sort of ironic, in a way - the thing that used to hold me back has suddenly liberated me.
While I’ve been a professional woman of sorts for a few years now, I feel like I’ve just discovered this part of myself, and the opportunities for me therein.
Now just throw a little wine in the mix and we may have something here.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: charity, expectations, fantasy, homeless, homelessness, life, people, random, thoughts
This morning’s drink: more Starbucks.. I’m buying new coffee TONIGHT!
I think one of the insider things about being a resident of San Diego - particularly Uptown or Downtown - is that you sort of get to know the homeless people in your area. You don’t necessarily get to know them in a way that you’d call them a friend, or even an acquaintance. But you start to recognize their faces, their habits, their quirks, and learn to smile and/or avoid them as comfort levels require.
There is one homeless women on the walk home from work who I really like. It actually makes me smile to see her. She’s a large, black woman, with hair wrapped in a thin black sheet, and piled in an upward angle from the back of her head like a voluminous, charcoal beehive. She looks to be in her late 30s, but she could be much younger. She wears layer upon layer of black coats, pants, skirts and robes, so that her dress almost looks to be from the costume room of Labyrinth. She sits or sleeps on the same bus bench around 5 p.m. every evening, with large, black hefty bags, and usually a magazine or something to read. And she always has a kind, mellow look of contentment about her. Every day.
I’ve never spoken to her, for two very flimsy reasons:
1. I always want to give her food, and I never have any.
2. I don’t want to ruin the illusion that she is sweet, complacent and wise; and that she speaks with a Southern accent.
My relationship with homeless people has evolved tremendously over the years. When I used to smoke, I’d give them cigarettes. When I used to wash my clothes at the laundromat on Washington, I’d buy them tacos when they asked for money. One of the more frequent taco/cigarette customers used to think I was going to law school, no matter how often I told him I wasn’t. Everytime he saw me (and he recognized me no matter what), he would ask me when I was going to pass the bar so I could get his uncle’s money back from his evil widow, who apparently screwed the whole family over after his death.
One night, as I was walking into Henry’s, a new homeless man asked me for money for food. As always, I told him I would buy him a sandwich, but no money. This offer is usually met with a disgusted grunt, but he eagerly accepted, and began to follow me into the store. Uneasy from the frantic look in his face, I asked him to wait outside, then carefully picked out a sandwich, chips, a protein bar, some vitamin-enriched juice, and a bottle of water. When I presented him with the package, he didn’t even look inside - he just thanked me, set it down, and continued to beg with the wild look in his eyes.
I was immediately soured, and almost went so far as to take the bag back. Obviously I didn’t - I had to ask myself what I was expecting from the whole thing. Elation, satisfaction, relief - for both of us? Obviously, a tall order from a homeless man, or a junkie, or both. But I don’t even offer food anymore - now I start telling people the intersections for soup kitchens downtown.
I guess that’s what happens when you tuck expectations into sub sandwiches — they get eaten.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: happiness, life, love, random, relationships, thoughts
This morning’s drink: a blend of coffee grounds past.
I was supposed to get up for a run this morning, but I couldn’t.
Not so much because I was tired, or remembering the second glass of wine from last night. Or because Josh and I cruised up and down the Wild Animal Park yesterday for three hours while the lions lazed in our faces. Not even because the sheets are new, the bed is warm and it’s just now starting to cool off at night. I couldn’t get out of bed because I woke up and Josh was holding my hand in his sleep.
I am such a fatalist, because I keep trying to figure out what’s wrong with Josh and I. Even though I’m somewhat stoic as a single girl, I’m a classic lover of love. I know infatuation almost as if it were a dance routine I’d practiced and performed for years. Like the one throwback song you play really well on the guitar. Even love was starting to feel that way - like I was figuring out the chords and memorizing the changes.
But this love is totally different - it doesn’t feel like I’m in love with love. Rather, it feels like a natural side effect of something totally normal. Like, getting warm when you put sweats on; or feeling satisfied after a nice meal.
Every action has an equal or lesser reaction. So maybe our love is just naturally so.
Nothing wrong with that.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: books, characters, fiction, life, random, reading, thoughts, writing
This morning’s drink: Starbucks Sumatra
Karaoke and writing converge in my mind in one very basic way: I believe that everyone’s a singer, and everyone’s a writer. You don’t have to be good at something to be a something-”er”, you just have to do it. In a more existential way, maybe even the potential to do something is enough to make someone an “er.” Even kinetic energy gets factored into the equation.
So, like everyone, I’ve always considered writing a book. I’ve dabbled in some really bad short stories in the past, and always come full circle to a kaleidescope of frustrations: one dimensional characters, a plot that never blips above a flatline, lack of inspiration, and a wavering perseverance to get past all of the above. Almost out of nowhere, however, I ran into a character that I am starting to really enjoy. And she’s standing on a city corner, bathed in a streetlight, dressed sort of like Carmen Sandiego, looking straight at me, and pointing in the direction of a storyline.
She’s been doing this for a couple of weeks now, and I don’t even know her name. Feeling unprepared to go, however, I went to the library and picked up some books on writing fiction, and character development. I’m already halfway through Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, which is really very good, whether or not you are a writer.
It used to REALLY bother me when fiction writers would talk about their characters as if they were real people. That they’d worked with these people for years; that they’d really started to love them, and care for them; that they protected them… all of these things used to just seem creepy, and psychotic. And yet, here I am, inspired by a character, and practically aching to barf her out of my head.
And at this point, that’s really what it is. I’m not trying to quit my day job, or become famous and revered. I just want to write this - create something good - get it all out.
Cue Rockapella.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: Buddhism, Catholicism, Christianity, faith, life, prayer, random, religion, science, thoughts
This morning’s drink: Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Genmaicha Green Tea
On Tuesday, I was gripped by a force as I was getting ready to leave for work. I lotioned my arms, put on my watch, clipped in my earrings, and turned to leave, but something stopped me before I reached my bedroom door.
My body followed as I turned my eyes back to rest upon the jewelry box sitting on the dresser. Nut-brown and worn, each drawer is filled with trinkets I rarely wear anymore, or even think about. Yet, instinctively, I reached for the left wing that opens like a door, and holds a small series of gold chains. On the far left is a roped one, with a delicate gold crucifix looped on. As if I’d done this every day, I unlatched it and put it on, then grabbed my things and locked the door.
That evening, as Big Josh and I drove to American Shooting Center to look at 9mm’s, I told him he was driving me to prayer. He laughed before he apologized, but I can understand a little as to why he would. We haven’t talked about religion much since we started seeing eachother - though we have had somewhat extensive conversations about faith. It’d be a lie for me to suddenly say that I’ve held on to my relationship with God all my life; the mismatched background almost by default lends itself to comedy.
Still, in times of need, I find myself drawn back into the religions I’ve known. Then, almost as quickly I find myself alienated all over again. The Protestant faith I celebrated in Sunday school seems too flaky, the Adventist faith too cultish, the Catholic faith too intangible and the Buddhist faith too self-centered. Obviously, I haven’t tried them all, but I find myself wishing for someone to simply give me the raw materials of faith so that I can cut through the middle man.
Some of them are easy enough to pick out; in Protestant Faith and Catholicism, many of the Ten Commandments:
4. Honor your elders
5. Thou shall not kill
6. Thou shall not commit adultery
7. Thou shall not steal
8. Thou shall not bear false witness
9 & 10. Thou shall not covet
These seem pretty safe as basic premises of not being a jerkface, and a generally unpleasant person. And let’s face it - some of us actually need rules in order to achieve this.
I also like the objective outlook and logic of responsibility in Buddhism’s law of dependent origination, which basically mimics Newton’s 3rd Law of mechanics - every action has an equal and/or opposite reaction, or do unto others as you would have done unto you. When science and faith collide, I’m pretty much sold.
Finally, despite the crazy childhood experiences I had in the Seventh-Day Adventist school, I have grown to appreciate the tenets of the faith that are flexible with the times (i.e., a rather liberal view on abortion) and yet maintain that a simple life is the best way to celebrate living. Plus, they extol the benefits of eating crickets and grasshoppers, and they argue that Saturday is holier than Sunday, so someone over there has got a sense of humor. Also important for faith.
So I suppose I’ve got a decent sense for what my ideal faith teaches and believes, but if I’ve created a faith, who do I pray to?
When I pray now, I imagine that I’m talking to God, and I haven’t been struck by lightning yet. And, really, I never pray with the expectation that I’m going to get what I ask for - it’s more to achieve that sort of relieving release that I imagine Victorian doctors proffered in the practice of leeching.
It’s amazing what happens when you simply get things out of your head.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: exorcise, family, life, malaise, mental, random, running, thoughts
This morning’s drink: Tazo Zen green tea.
I am not an athlete, nor have I ever been mistaken for one. But I have always been a jogger to some extent - almost in the same way that I’m a smoker or a wino. Each have their place in combating the part of me than can turn into a head-case.
A lot of the distinction has depended on age, priorities and mental health. When I was in high school, I couldn’t buy cigarettes or alcohol, so I jogged around my neighborhood when I started to feel cloudy. When I started college, I began smoking more.. I think that just happens in college. But I noticed that it inhibited my running, so it never turned into a full-fledged habit. When I became of age, I actually started keeping alcohol in the house, but I didn’t like the smell of vodka in my sweat on morning runs. It never got out of control until I started dating more, and I finally went through a breakup that broke me down. But my age is reminding me that health insurance only covers so much, so I’m back to running, and I’m glad.
This holiday weekend, I had an unusual experience, though, that reminded me of my first bad breakup at the age of 18. I had been with him for a couple of years, and we had talked about marriage, etc. after college. But, of course, we grew apart, and it killed me. I started running A LOT. By the river, along Jackson Street, all over town, and in the gym. I was sort of like Forrest Gump - if I wasn’t waiting tables, I was running.
This one morning, I was all in my head, and I felt like I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t get hot enough, tired enough, sweaty enough, sore enough - I cranked the treadmill up as high as I could stand and screamed through my last mile until I couldn’t breath. As I walked it out, a fellow gym rat came up and just said, “Whatever it is, you aren’t going to outrun it.” All I could think was that I didn’t know it was so obvious.
This weekend, on the plane to Sacramento, I felt that suffocating headspace consume me. I was completely out of it the entire time - in line, on the plane, waiting for my father, on the drive home. Even though I hadn’t been working out very hard lately, if at all, I felt like I needed to go to the gym. I needed my brain to seep out of my pores along with the sweat, worry, embarrassment, frustration, loneliness and defeat. My dad set me loose, I made a bee-line to the gym, and ran for an hour straight for the first time in years. I just couldn’t stop running - I couldn’t get tired enough, sore enough, hot enough to burn it all out of me. Today is the third day in a row that I’ve tried to exorcise through exercise, but to no avail. I can’t put my finger on it, but like a cranial rum cake, something is soaking deep into my brain.
My life is better than it’s ever been, my siblings are finally getting their shit together, my parents understand what it means to eat healthy, and I have a tan. Yet all I can think is that I want out of this body. What the hell is wrong with me.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: growing, life, progress, random, success, thoughts, women
Tonight’s drink: hopefully some red wine at Gordon Biersch Chevy’s, very soon.
It’s been a long time, and a lot has happened. I hardly recognize myself in the memories of a tiny studio apartment, within which every post up until now has been couched, and cached.
Suddenly my entire life: my apartment, my bed, my tv, my workplace, my boyfriend, my reality; has been blown up, like the end of Honey I Shrunk the Kids. I have room to do yoga without moving furniture, and room to breath in that metaphysical sort of way. Everything’s bigger, but not overwhelming - just more spacious, and more comfortable.
Truth be told, my waistline has undergone it’s own little expansion project, too. I guess I should be doing a little more of that yoga.
A couple of years ago, I started to try to write a story about mirrors that has been in the back of my mind for what seems like forever. Mirrors are crazy things - they come across as so transparent, because it’s a reflection of the original item. However, mirrors are easily influenced by a variety of invisible things. Light, shape, depth, angles - all of these things effect the message a mirror sends you. So even though you see the original, you see it through the mirror’s interpretation.
But even if you get the physics worked out, you find that atmosphere also plays a part in how your image translates back to you. Maybe you’re in a stranger’s apartment, and you look completely awkward and out of place. Maybe you’re in your parent’s mirror, and your reflection is young and fresh in place of theirs. Maybe you’re in a bathroom in Vegas looking sultry and sharp against the black marble. Or maybe you’re just at home, putting your makeup on, and curling your hair like any other schmoe.
Either way, you start to realize that you never actually see yourself as you are, but rather as your environment sees you. Like a goldfish, I’ll grow into my new environment, and get ready for the next size up.
But, sorry booty - you need to stay right where you are.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: friends, high school, life, memories, momentos, random, reminders, sentimentality, thoughts, yearbooks
Tonight’s Drink: Mondavi Merlot.
They say that the fall from the top is the hardest, but I don’t think physics always translates cleanly into the metaphorical world. I say that the fall from almost-the-top is way harder - the crush of frustration can feel like enough to kill, sometimes.
In college, we learned about a phenomenon where the better a nation’s quality of life gets, the more dangerous it is for it to fall. The highest standard, presumably, gives you some cushion to recover, though. Think about a 4% drop in employment in the US as compared to a smaller, less developed country. There’s more wiggle room at the way, way top, but the hump before it seems to bump up against a glass ceiling all its own. Of course, if the giant topples, though, you’ve got some serious problems to deal with. Whether or not the fall of an empire is inevitable is another blog post all its own.
It’s as if a higher standard brings with it less room for mistakes - like a higher level in a video game gets more challenging, and tries harder to kill your character. So where is the incentive to make life better, then? You grow, you make friends, you make enemies, you get your hearbroken, you get your dreams stepped on, you learn from your mistakes and pay for your good intentions. All in the name of the ends justifying the means. That someday, it will all pay off, and you’ll be happy. If you don’t topple.
My dad went through the garage a few weeks ago and happened across some of my yearbooks, school awards, trophies, etc. He paid a lot of money to ship them to me, along with a beloved sweater from something like eight years ago.
I went through everything last night, after a sickly 12 hours of sleep. I wiped the dust off the pictures, read the pre-summer musings of past classmates, looked at my face and my friends through the year, and all the things I had and hadn’t done. I made two piles in my living room: trash and keep. In the end, the only thing I kept was the sweater. I put it on and fell back asleep.
It’s amazing how important those things were to me, and the length of time I revered them for. But, turning the pages, shifting through the certificates, none of it meant anything to me last night. I had my memories that I wanted to keep - the rest of it, I never wanted to see again.
This seems a little contradictory to my excitement for our impending class reunion, but I had a great time catching up with old classmates at Chelsea’s wedding, and I can’t wait to do it on a grander scale with whoever actually shows up. It wasn’t the people or the education or the place that I can’t stand to think about now - it was that time, it was my head.
So I wonder, now, if my head is on straight. I make a concerted effort to clear out my clutter on a regular basis, and I’m looking forward to throwing out a bunch of stuff in these next couple of weeks when I move to my new place. But does it say something that I’m shying away from keeping things that should mean something to me?
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: 20-something, aging, beauty, life, random, thoughts, women, youth
Tonight’s drink: King Fish Merlot
It’s warm in San Diego, and at 8 a.m. this morning I headed to class in a pair of short shorts and a conservative tee. As a semi-professional young woman, and named editor to a small group of reporters, I repeatedly questioned my choice of attire. Even though I had shaved my legs, and the mirror told me I wasn’t too hoochie, I kept asking myself if I was crossing the image I was trying to make as a respectable, responsible leader.
“What the hell, I’m still young,” I thought as I threw my bag into the car and put the top down. “After all, I am only… 27.”
The thought struck me for two reasons. First, because I won’t be 27 for a little over a week still. And second, because that excuse doesn’t seem to work with that age anymore.
They say that 40 is the new 30, and 50 is the new 40 - so why does the 27 feel like the new 37? Perhaps because the decade of the 20’s is so segmented. 20 is just the age of frustration: no longer a teen, but not yet legal in terms of drinking. 21 through 24 are like the party ages. 25 is sort of the age where reality strikes - where you start to see that 30 is not so far away. So far, 26 and almost 27 have been the ages of recount, and recoil.
You start taking your inventory a little more closely. You no longer work out because it helps you stay toned - you work out because it keeps you from getting fat. You begin to evaluate your professional status with more critique, as well as your love life. You start to feel like you need to keep up - apartments, cars, clothes, education, outlook. Maturity isn’t an option, but a virtue. The late 20s are a sort of scramble to stay young, but be above it. Your late 20s begins the adage of feeling younger than you look.
Nothing aggravates this sensation more, for me, than watching America’s Next Top Model. Women on that show who are at the top of the age limit - I think it’s 24 or 25 - are criticized as looking “old.” The sad thing is that the girls who say this - typically 20 or so - are not entirely wrong. There is something more weathered about their look than the other girls. If they have kids, the effect seems to double.
Zack and I used to talk about “Mom eyes” in some of the women he dated who already had kids. When women have kids, something changes in their face - no matter their age. The eyes become deeper, and softer - the face more angular somehow. Even if these things aren’t factually true, you sense them in the vibes, the aura, whatever you want to call it. Purpose - an external purpose - puts it there. I don’t think that kids are the only things that have this effect. Any pursuit that beats you down some adds a strain to your demeanor, and humility to your face.
“You look younger than your age,” is something all women like to hear. Two years ago, when I was 25, I used to get that a lot. After the way the last year or so has gone, I’m not surprised I haven’t heard it as much. I’ve been alley-smacked by a lot of different experiences, and it ain’t even close to being over. They say smoking and drinking take years from your looks, but I have to argue that life’s tumult does triple the damage, and with more immediate results.
So I run, apply facial masks, pay attention to what I eat and drink lots of water. But the truth is that it really does comes down to mind over matter. You have to be right in your head before any of that other stuff can work its magic.
I try to figure out how to keep my mind youthful in the same way that I’m trying to salvage this body - I’m drawing blanks. All I can think to do is to put my heels on, enhance my still perky boobs, put some makeup on, and assume the fabulous look of carefreedom while I still can.
But, at this moment, I don’t know what I’m going to do when I can’t wear heels anymore.
