My Big Gay Life....

...or, can a Real Girl be a Drag Queen....?

I'm thinking of using that title--or some variation thereof--for some sort of autobiographical (yet funny/comedic) solo performance-type theatrical piece yet-to-be-created.

I think--no, scratch that, I know--I need to create this, because first of all, if I don't some other straight-yet-fabulous chick will, and I'll be sitting there fuming and kicking myself, wondering why I didn't strike while the iron was hot and creatively exploit my status as a Fairy Princess (of which, I might add, I am fiercely proud).



I also--most importantly--have the experience of a Life Lived Gay. Or Gay-ish. Or Gay-like.

I mean, how many 42-year-old straight women celebrate their birthdays at a gay club (having eaten sushi beforehand with primarily gay attendees--to whom my father fondly refers as "my court") in honor of World AIDS Day, get spanked by one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and win a raffle prize consisting of a Christmas Crafts Kit and an Anal Bumper ass dildo?

Together?

And who is now considering joining the Sisters in some capacity as a helper (apparently, straight women can do this)--if only to put my helpless energy around HIV/AIDS to some practical, altruistic and pro-active/productive good use??

I recently saw "The Nutcracker" and during the "Mother Ginger" scene, my mind drifted briefly but deliciously to an idea for a fantasy sequence in the piece I want to write wherein I am Mother Ginger, my face made up in heavy drag, and when I open my voluminous skirts, instead of a gaggle of merry children, out run a gaggle of Queens clad in tight leather shorts, harnesses and Doc Martins.



It would be so, so appropriate, you do not even know.

Well, certainly some of you do.

I'm sure one could go to town with a Freudian Analysis of such a scene, or of the very desire to create such a scene. That's okay. I'm used to the perplexed sidelong glances and random lifted eyebrows associated with my Haggish proclivities (from both straights & gays), and I no longer feel any compunction to explain myself. I had a friend in Minnesota say to me, "I hate to break it to you, but you're really not a gay man. You're an ally, and we need our allies."

My dreams of Honorary Queen-dom were smashed to bits; I was heartbroken and crestfallen. All this time, I'd really thought of myself as a gay man in women's clothing. In so many ways.



But then, I came back to Portland, and just last night, one of my friends said he totally disagreed with that assessment. He said, "You're not an ally. You're family. You get it."

I was flattered and touched and took it for the truly heartfelt compliment I knew it to be. This particular friend of mine would not say anything merely for the sake of filling dead air. He is not a gushy, superficially complimentary sort; that's why it was so meaningful to hear.

So I think it's time this Real Girl writes a piece about her exploits as honorary "family."

Starring, of course, ME.

Work it.

Am I Blue

I finally did it.

I finally got it about the phrase, "Someday, I'll.....[insert elliptical subject here, i.e., skydive/get a tattoo/find a date/write a novel/visit Tut's tomb/quit my job, etc...]" with the help of recovery, in that "some day" is not tomorrow, or next week, or next month or next year, but right now.

Cause who knows what might happen in 24 hours. So if all the elements are right, if the planets are aligned and God is smiling on you and the opportunity for whatever you've been craving yet studiously avoiding exists, right here, right now, in front of your face, then grab it. Do it. Go for it. Don't pussy-foot.

Carpe Diem. Seize the Day. You know.

Case in point: I've always wanted to see Blue Man Group. For years and years. In fact, I'd wanted to see them in Las Vegas when I turned 40, but for numerous reasons involving my lack of recovery and the assembled mostly-resistant attendees, that didn't happen.

I told myself that patience was a virtue, and in the interim, I contented myself with a Netflix DVD, though I get the distinct feeling a Blue Man performance would be vastly improved not viewed on a 13-inch color TV.

Recently, tickets went on sale for the Blue Man Group "How to be a Megastar" tour in January '08.



And I realized that here, in front of my face, at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon, was my right now.

Birdnerd and I will be enjoying the Blueness together, and I can't wait. Patience may be a virtue, but the time is nigh. I get to party with The Men. Finally.

Carpe Diem.

A Can o' Whoop-Ass

I have been dressed-down.

Dressed down in a way that was--oddly--flattering, because it had to do with putting out.

Words, that is.

The other night, over sushi, a friend of mine who reads this blog regularly looked at me over his relatively untouched mound of Volcano Roll and said, "Why do you have a blog?"



I fidgeted with a hangnail on my thumb.

I'm a writer. I have an MFA in playwriting. My family plays joyfully, indulgently, with words (and we all suck at math, badly). I have written plays, I have written short stories, I have written impassioned, emotional over-the-top fuck-you letters to former friends (many of which were used merely as therapy and were never sent, mind you, although the temptation to stamp 'em and drop 'em in the nearest mailbox was enormous). So it makes a certain sense that I have a blog. In hindsight, perhaps a better inquiry would've been, "How come you don't update your blog regularly?"

Well, oy vey. What can I say? Laziness? Some, but not just. Perhaps an overall momentary lack of creativity....it's like the whole Facebook thing: do I rate--and is it interesting, but really?--if I don't have, you know, 500 friends in 25 different networks and constantly post every little thought, twitch, burp, fart and bowel movement? I mean, must I? And does anyone really care that much?



Can there be such a thing as too much narcissism?

Well, you know. Yeah. But that's how this 24/7 online look-at-me-cause I-matter, Madonna-as-Eva-Perone-singing-You-Must-Love-Me low self-esteem-isolated-virtual-culture of ours works.

Anyway, it was weirdly flattering, albeit a mite confrontational, because the message was: my writing, my thoughts, my take on my life or life in general is actually interesting enough to check up on fairly regularly and I actually have fans and God knows one mustn't disappoint one's fans....



Okay, forget the navel-gazing deconstruction. Actually, I think it's cause I'm still recovering from having been spanked by a drag nun on my birthday. Ha.

Little bit o' this and a little bit o' that

Okay, I haven't posted anything lately, so I've decided to post a summary of what's been filling my time these last few weeks.

Without further ado:

Went 'round & 'round with the DMV over a case of, well, not "mistaken identity," exactly, 'cause MY identity was never really in question....but they'd somehow managed, in the 6 years I've been gone from Portland, to mesh the record of one "Clayton Clifford Willis the 3rd" (obviously a GUY) with my OWN, thus indicating that I was a no-show in court for some vehicular infraction or other, which totally held up the issuance of my new Driver's License and necessitated my calling Salem headquarters a few times to rattle the cage (helpful hint: NEVER, never, NEVER stand around passively if some Civic office that has fucked up YOUR information says they'll be getting hold of someone to straighten things out, who will in turn be getting hold of YOU at some vague date in the future with the ostensible outcome. You will grow old and gray and will probably die waiting for some kind of resolution. Grow instant balls, pick up that phone, and DO IT YOURSELF. It works. Take it from me) and finally getting some guy on the phone named "Mike" who stated the obvious right off the bat (something that had eluded the lowly DMV employees just a week earlier) when he blurted incredulously, "Well, it's obvious to me this is just a mistake on your record! I mean--you're a woman! I'm talking to you and even I can tell that!"

People!! Give this man a RAISE!!



So after a bit more pontification around the obviousness of it all, "Mike" worked his magic and sent me back to the DMV and I marched up to the desk and said, "I spoke to 'Mike' in Salem regarding my file and I will be getting my license today, and if you can't help me, I would like to speak to 'Shelly' (the manager to whom "Mike" directed me in the event of further mishegaas) to get this rectified once and for all."

The clerk smiled weakly, acknowledged that "Mike" was, indeed a great guy, opened my record, and--voila! The line item was mysteriously GONE!!! Seems that Clayton's Court Crap went back to CLAYTON, and I left with my temporary license, which has a lovely new photo of me in my new short pixie cut with a discernible scowl on my face. But that's to be expected.

So that's obviously taken up a lot of mental energy, but now I've gotten the damned license and no longer feel like a Woman without a Country. Or at least, a State. Phew.

What else: Last Sunday, November 11, (after house and cat-sitting for my Antarctic-bound BirdNerd buddy), I went to a Life Coaching open house at the Baraka Institute, where I'll be training in the Spring. It was called "Friends Free" and it's really practice for the current term's burgeoning life coaches. I had a great coach and I found the experience to be very energetic, intentional, focused, supportive and FUN--nothing like my experience of therapy, which mostly involved me and a box of Kleenex hunched miserably on a sofa sobbing out my life's woes while an MFCC scratched notes on a pad and nodded appreciatively as I got deeper in touch with my angst.

Now, therapy has its place, certainly, but Life Coaching is not therapy. And thank God. It serves a different, more pro-active purpose.

The woman who runs the program has the best haircut, too, and fabulous highlights. Good hair is a good sign. She rocked. I'm excited for the Spring.



I've also been learning to crochet. My roommate's mom has been teaching me, and aside from the fact the tension in the yarn is a little all over the place, I've seriously learned to wield that crochet hook pretty well! I'm up to my 5th row of stitches. Not bad, not bad.

Signed up with two staffing agencies. Was sent on an interview with a hyper, egomaniacal photographer with a stuffy British assistant who had an amazing stick up her Anglophilic little ass (when I asked her how long she'd been in the position she was now leaving, and for which they were interviewing, her mouth twisted into a tight little smile and she replied elusively and with a touch of chill, "A while." You'd think I was talking smack about the Queen or asking if bangers & mash make her fart or something else really inappropriate. I mean, really.) The studios were quite cool, though, and if I'd been right out of college, perhaps I'd've taken it, because it's sort of "altie" and "hip," but the pay was shit and the photographer (a Spaniard who made a habit of grabbing the stiff li'l Brit) was WAY high maintenance. So I thought, naw. Scratch that. Back to the drawing board.

I've been going to Al-Anon (I love this group; this one guy piped up and quoted a line from a book called From Survival to Recovery, in which it says, "hurt people hurt people." Yes. I have been hurt by hurt people. It's very simple--deceptively so--and very true), which always helps to center me when I begin feeling crazy.

I went to church here for the first time a few Sundays ago, too--St. Michael & All Angels, the Episcopal church my roommate goes to. Very hip. I liked it.

I recently had the dubious honor of being the first straight chick in my friend's hot tub which, up until the moment my naked ass took the plunge, had only had men in it. This came about because a female friend of my friend's partner--who herself would've been the first Straight Chick in the Tub--was too self-conscious to go starkers, and the tub's owners have a "naked-only" policy. I mean, dig--this IS the west coast. Clothes are basically optional here. That's how it goes.

So the Diva reigns, again. Of course. :-)

I got dragged onto FaceBook by a friend who "invited" me to be a friend, and the rest is history. What more can I say. There I am.

I bought my plane ticket home for Christmas. El Cheapo! $138 R/T! I've missed this....beats nearly $400 out of MSP every year. And I finally get to meet Olivia, the latest Williams Family Pug.



I've been doing stomach crunches on my recently-purchased, big pink fitness ball. It makes core workouts way more effective. I love it. The cats were a bit agog as I inflated the thing and beat a hasty retreat from the living room, but they've finally gotten used to it.

I've been indulging in Season I of "Ugly Betty" with a friend who has it on DVD. I'm not even watching this season's episodes until these are finished. Then I'll watch them back-to-back on DVD. No commercials makes a HUGE difference!

Getting ready for Thanksgiving, which I'm planning to spend with BirdNerd, who will no doubt be needing to recover from her 2 weeks spent birding at the bottom of the globe. I'll cook, she'll blog or chill or something. Low-key. The best kind of Turkey Day. And a week after that, my 42nd birthday! I'm planning to gorge on sushi and then dance my ass off. I can still bust a move.

As a friend of mine in Minneapolis said, "We're only in our forties, we're not DEAD."

And finally, let me end with a culinary tip: take a Delicata squash, slice into 1/4-inch rings, scoop & discard the seeds and toss with olive oil, salt & pepper, then spread on a baking sheet and bake in a hot (maybe 375) oven till tender and the skin crisps. This is a winter squash with an edible skin and an INCREDIBLE flavor. It blows mere acorn squash out of the water!

Total yum. It's my new favorite.

Why I love Portland, Part I

...or perhaps, why I love the West Coast, the first in what will no doubt be a series of short & quick observations.

I went to my Al-Anon meeting yesterday and, while the room was full and most of us sat around in folding chairs or on the sofa, one guy sat on the floor for the whole hour in the Lotus position. A chick came in a bit later and promptly kicked off her shoes and hoisted her ass into the Plow, audibly popping numerous formerly-compressed vertebrae in the process.



And none of us skipped a beat, involved as we were in sharing our respective Experience, Strength & Hope. I loved it.

Recovery, West Coast style.

Ice, Ice Baby

So there I stood at the counter at Macy's in Lloyd Center, a pair of "Cuddle Duds" wicking long underwear bottoms in my hand.

I must digress a brief moment to share that this quest for long underwear (long johns, base layer, whatever) has been ridiculously difficult and drawn-out, probably because, at least to a certain extent, I've made it so myself, and I didn't need to.

I have come across other long underwear in the last week or so, but simply haven't liked them; I don't care for waffle-weave, I DO appreciate wicking, I don't want black, and I obviously need them to fit.

And while I value my warmth, comfort, and ability to be "wicked" of sweat, I don't really want to have to take out a sizable loan to achieve this state of outdoorsy coziness. Decent long underwear isn't cheap; it's ridiculous.

But, so: I found what I needed, and was paying for them at the counter when the formerly youthful and very skinny, frost-haired saleswoman who rang me up noticed that my driver's license still said Minnesota, and suddenly disclosed that she was from St. Paul (the "other" twin of the Twin Cities). It was enough, it seemed, to bond us as Sisters of the Far North; she chatted me up and tried to get me to open a Macy's account (apparently, I already have one, according to all three of my incredibly impressive, filled-with-green and zero negative ratings credit reports that I checked when I got home).

However, just moments before I proffered my license, she'd been doing the Tilda-Swinton-as-Ice-Queen-in-"Narnia"-routine when I initially accidentally pulled out NOT my debit card and driver's license simultaneously, but TWO debit cards instead (just a spacey moment on my part). I slapped my forehead and gave her my proper I.D.



But the license changed everything, and she went from pinched to pleasant (though artificially so) in less than 60 seconds.

As has been my ongoing issue with Minnesota, I experienced her new-found jocularity to be painfully superficial, at best; she had previously been ready to write me off completely, to draw & quarter me for my innocent oversight. But then, deciding I was somewhat tolerable because I'd spent some time in her former neck of the woods, she immediately backed off and offered me complimentary pink (in honor of breast cancer awareness) Frango mints and bottled water, and when the transaction was finished and I gathered my things to leave, she waved me off with a chirpy "We Minnesota girls have to stick together!"

I thought, no we sure DON'T. I'm not there anymore, I'm not and never was a Minnesotan, and I didn't just leave 'cause the weather dips to -40.

"Minnesota Nice" is not a concept I created, nor is it something I fabricated; it absolutely exists, and I experienced it in numerous ways, shapes and forms for six years. I found the instant changes in warmth and receptiveness, grim-to-grinning-in-60-seconds totally confusing and difficult to deal with among the natives. And I got a little wee taste of "home" again today when this saleswoman just about had a fit because I'd initially offered the wrong combination of plastic to pay for my purchases and then did a complete 180 in front of my eyes.

I think I must've looked utterly dumbfounded by her sudden garrulousness. What could I possibly say?

I find Lutefisk utterly repulsive and a total, complete culinary joke.

Man! Frozen lakes scare me! Guess it's this irrational fear of falling through!

So, why do you "Minnesota Girls" fry your cheese curds, anyway?


I just said nothing, grabbed a few more pink mints and beat a hasty retreat.

There are two things I'm pretty sure of: if you're older than 20, you're not a "girl."

And it's not just the winter in Minnesota that can be icy.

The Novelty Aspect

So, there are items--food items, specifically--I am coming across at the Fred Meyer stores here (a PNW chain the locals like to refer to as "Freddie's") that I fondly remember from past years spent in either Olympia, Washington as an undergraduate or Portland, Oregon as a post-grad.

I am referring specifically to Tim's Cascade-Style Potato Chips.

I am not on my cycle, nor am I particularly craving salt and/or fat. I was in Freddie's today, doing a little banking, and when one's bank is situated handily within a grocery store, one usually always finds something AT said store to pick up for a future meal or two (various items are suddenly "remembered" or "needed").


As I did, both "remembering" and "needing" (for no real reason other than sentimentality) the potato chips.

And since it occurred to me that I had not yet bought nor consumed the "Welcome Back to Portland" bag of Tim's Cascade, I decided it was high time.

Even though they are a good 2 bucks MORE than the leading national brand and even though it didn't occur to me to read the ingredient list, which includes MSG, a somewhat headache-inducing no-no if consumed in certain vast-ish quantities.
So I try to avoid this flavor-enhancer whenever possible, but sometimes, I simply space it, as I did today, blinded as I was by an impromptu trip down memory lane.

So I bought a bag and threw it in the cabinet and I'm not sure when I'll rip it open and consume a few chips, but there it is. My bag of Tim's.

Guess I'm back. As if I couldn't already tell.

Yum.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig

So, it has happened. The Big Move is now a thing of the past, or of past tense: I have moved. All those months (since January '07) of nervous expended energy planning, mulling, organizing, finalizing...the moment came and went, as moments do, and I survived it, all of it, all the myriad details. Although I had never done this before, I knew that many, many average citizens such as myself had rented trucks of all sizes and hauled their crap uneventfully from one end of this great continent to the other. No big deal.

I quite my job on Friday, 9/21/07, and spent the next week cleaning my apartment from top to bottom. A week later, the following Friday, I was a noodle and living in an empty (though really clean) space, which felt weird and sort of generic. The landlord was coming to do a walk-through and about 45 minutes beforehand, I'd run into the building's caretaker in the hall. He became all sentimental about my time as his (and his girlfriend's) neighbor and heaped upon me many kindnesses, which caused me to burst into tears that would last through not only Friday's walk-through (I'm sure the landlord thought I'd come completely undone, but true Midwesterner that he is, he totally kept his cool and seemed completely unfazed by my histrionics) but Saturday's pack-up. I was a veritable waterworks; I'm amazed I have any salt left in my body.



I left Minneapolis early on the afternoon of Saturday, 9/29/07, after picking up the 16-foot Penske truck at 9:00 that morning, loading it with the help of a few good friends (5, to be exact) who came not only bearing strong backs, biceps and quads, but lattes in to-go trays, a thermos of coffee, and all sorts of bakery goods to quell mid-moving hunger pangs.

I was too nervous and sad, really, to eat anything myself, although I did finally inhale a croissant once we were on the road. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Everything was loaded according to plan; B. carried out the vacuum and when I protested, saying I'd meant to do one final sucking-up of bits of detritus, she replied, "You know, at some point you just gotta say 'I'm done.'" So I decided I was done.
The cat was put in her carrier after being forcibly extracted from her spot in the dark, dank nether-reaches of my under-sink cabinet where she'd fearfully wedged herself, and after my final teary curbside goodbyes, which included kissing the neighbor's fuzzy-headed black cat and hugging my helpers, Friend, Cat and Self were off on a moving adventure that included a quick pit-stop at the corner hardware store for a padlock to keep my possessions safe in the truck.

I have to say, I profoundly hate goodbyes. They never feel like enough; there's this small, final window of shared time to say whatever you need to say for closure--for now, as it's understood, because plans are always made to write/call/visit, futons and extra rooms are offered for crashing, yet still--you can't possibly fill that tiny, final moment with all the meaningful, relevant thoughts bouncing around your head and your heart.

I want to say, take care of your cancer, I don't want you to die, or your presence has been such a comfort here, and I appreciate your friendship, or, simply, thank you for accepting me, but I can't; it's just too full a moment, too loaded and too poignant and really, actually, very hard, so I hope, in my face and my tears and the few words I do manage to squeak out, that the person I am having closure with understands fully just how I feel and how difficult the letting go is.

And I had a lot of those moments leading up to the Big Day, weeks of them, in fact, with friends, co-workers, neighbors, my entire 12-step group, even my hairdresser, culminating Friday, 10/5/07, when I put my intrepid roadtripping friend B. on a Minneapolis-bound plane after we'd shared months of planning, traversed 6 states & 1700 miles, crashed in 3 motel rooms, downed an assortment of road food (I will never eat beef jerky again), snapped digital pix of much whizzing western United States scenery, listened to a wide variety of tunes on her iPod, spent two days in downtown Portland, and downed a few steaming cups of Stumptown coffee.



That was the very final goodbye, the final, teeny, absolute last connection to a now-finished piece of my life that was at once nurturing, fun, hard, lonely, responsible, enlightening, challenging, deeply painful at times, important, relevant, full of personal revelations and good growth, and very, very, very cold.

I could not have returned to my roots had I not gone and lived there first and experienced all of that. Things happened that helped me become the person I desperately needed to become, and I have come back here better, and different, and calmer, and more adult, and more me. That's how this journey needed to unfold. I know this now.

And so I'm back here, finally, in Portland, a new roommate to my old friend D., our respective cats, the tabby & the tuxedo having finally made an uneasy peace, my room all set up with my familiar bed and duvet and the cat's hammock and my night table and basket to hold my assorted reading materials, almost exactly as it used to be, the small framed Winter lake scene oil painting my boss gave me as a going-away present hanging on the hallway wall, a reminder (minus the chill) of what I will be missing in January, and February. And March. And so on.

More significantly, I feel like I've resumed a relationship with that lost 20% of myself that I'd been missing for 6 years in the Midwest, where, as I explained to others, I was really only living 80% of my life. I couldn't be truly who I needed to be there; I was in the minority, sort of, in terms of my values, and my food choices, and my outlook on life in general, my pop cultural proclivities and my outspokenness about various things political, or gender- or animal-related, whatever.

When the VP of our group at the big corporation at which I worked heard I was returning here, his reply was, "She seems like she belongs on the West Coast." I'm not sure it was entirely a compliment, although his observation was nonetheless correct.

I've come back to my home soil--that is, the west coast, since I was raised in Berkeley--and to that formerly lost 20%, which seems to have been waiting for me here right along. I fit in effortlessly here. I'm not stared at. No one says, "That's different," when they're not sure how to disagree. I don't feel ignored, either; I just feel....typical.



And I like that, very much.

So I learned I could survive the slight, repetitive ripping of numerous goodbyes and big transitions and months of planning and driving a 16-foot truck through unfamiliar states when I hadn't driven a car for 6 years, that all of it was just something else I could undertake and follow through on successfully, and now I can move on to my life's next thing.

'Cause, as I've also learned, there's always a next thing.

Coon Bones & Kate Bush

Last Sunday (the 16th), I had my neighbors over for dinner. I wanted some sort of closure with them, especially because, as a result of K.'s cancer diagnosis last Spring, we'd become closer; not necessarily intimate, although K. has shared intimate details of her cancer with me, but more involved--I cared for their cat whenever they left town to visit her doctor in Boston. I was happy to do it, because we're mostly just helpless onlookers in the face of a cancer diagnosis, and it was, at least, something.
The other something I could do was cook, and when K. hasn't just emerged from a barfy round of chemotherapy, she actually has an appetite and appreciates good food.
So I made a couple of spinach quiches and had them over, and K.'s boyfriend (the building's caretaker) somehow got himself on the topic of lucky mojos--charms or spells.
Specifically, raccoon penis bones.
Also known as a "coon bone" or a "pecker bone."

I don't know how the conversation navigated to this esoteric, somewhat voodoo-esque topic (I may've well been dining with the spirit of Marie Laveau), but he told me he'd ordered a number of them and passed them out to his friends, and he even wore his proudly on a lanyard around his neck at a friend's wedding.
For lucky heaps of marital sex, I supposed.
K. grimaced and said, "Eww, it's so disgusting. I hate touching it."
Apparently not having learned when to shut up, move on, or change the subject altogether, I thoughtfully chewed a forkful of balsamic vinegar-sprinkled baby greens and asked what a raccoon penis bone looked like.
"Well," he said, grinning broadly, "I'll show you!" and then ran down the hall and retrieved the thing for my viewing pleasure.
There, swinging at the end of a black silken cord was something that resembled a giant white fish hook. The first thing I thought was, wow. Lady raccoons get it good or get it bad, depending on your perspective.
He then put it on and we continued uneventfully with our dinner while K. and I emphatically ignored the curved baculum swinging on the lanyard around his neck.
The evening was, in spite of the interim pecker bone viewing, very pleasant, and I'm glad I had this time with them.
We ate the apple pie they'd brought, and then I sent them home with the second quiche.

On quite another topic, I curse the commercials for CSI that moodily play Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work" in the background. It wormed its way into my brain and I was finally compelled to download it.
Of course, being in the midst of transition and after a heavy week of teary goodbyes, it was probably the absolute wrong thing to do.
It's desperate, tremulous, scenes of slow-mo driving-into-the-sunset please-don't-leave-me vein-opening music.
Not that I'm planning to open a vein any time soon or anything, but I could easily conjure a painful moving day departure scene in my head, replete with soulful, long-held regretful hugs and final stumbling words of farewell and crumpled, tear-dampened Kleenexes pressed to reddened noses and rheumy eyes, which was all overwrought and dramatically self-indulgent and highly unnecessary.
Yes, time for BirdNerd's Mash-Ups. I need to happily rock this house, not bring it down.
But I still love that song.

A Good Year for Bad News, part II

I watched Hedwig and the Angry Inch last night, for a couple of reasons: because it had been reintroduced into my consciousness when my friend told me he was HIV-positive and showed me his Origins of Love-inspired tattoo on the inside of his arm, and because it was time, before I pack it in a box for the long schlep back to the west.



I seemed to enjoy it a lot more this time around, and found even more humor in it, which was nice. It was good to laugh.

And the kid who plays Tommy Gnosis didn't bug me this time. In the past, I really wasn't all that keen on that actor; he seemed doughy and uninteresting and kind of not real committed to the role.

This time around, I had a whole different take and really enjoyed his performance.

And I got misty during Midnight Radio, which is my second-favorite song on the soundtrack next to Origins of Love, and the message about becoming who you need to be and being set free (even if it WAS Hedwig who ultimately frees Yitzhak, although perhaps that doesn't need to be taken literally, since there's an element of fantasy about the whole story) really hits home with me.

But I have been contemplative since having received this news about my friend's positive diagnosis; I saw him at work the following day and he looked happy, his cheeks rosy, because he'd had a good check-up and I realize that this is how his life will go forward now: ups and downs based on the status of his health.

I thought about how I have known other people with HIV or full-blown AIDS who were already positive and living with it when I met them, but I have never known anyone pre-HIV who then transitioned into the status of being positive during the course of a friendship. This is something new for me, and I'm resentful that, as I get older, bits of innocence are being stripped from me.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't resentful about so much pertaining to this, in fact--that he's so young, that it's preventable, that it's a complex combination of personal responsibility and societal oppression that leads to risky behaviors (in many groups, not just among gays), that I feel like the Dominant Culture--of which I am a part--has won, once again. And it enrages me.



Which brings me to my next thought: I had this notion that the Midwest would be insulated, so much so, in fact, that I wouldn't be exposed to what I'd been exposed to on the west coast and maybe I'd get a bit of a break. And I see now how ridiculously naive that mindset had been. It all percolates here--Cancer, HIV/AIDS, child abuse, pet abuse, homelessness, alcoholism...it's just not as in-your-face as it is out west, and it all lies, radioactively toxic, beneath the surface of a benign celebration of "Family" as the only pursuit--hetero love, 2.5 kids, picket fences and corporate jobs. In spite of this culturally-ingrained Midwestern message, I feel as though coming here brought me face-to-face with my life in a way that living out west just never had. Which is weirdly ironic. If I wore rose-colored glasses when I moved here, I certainly lost them somewhere along the way for good.

But I also think I knew innately I needed to open myself to the world in the very ways that frightened me the most, because this was the only way I knew that would push me to grow. No, I have no control over what information is shared with me. I didn't know those words were going to spill from my friend's mouth when he said he had something to tell me. I don't purposely seek out bad news, and I can't un-know what I now know, but I don't hide from it anymore, either. And in a weird, profound way, maybe that was the best gift I could give myself, picking up and moving 1700 miles outside my comfort zone.

My friend's diagnosis was not my diagnosis; it's still his life to live, but now I am connected to him and his life in a way I had not anticipated. And, although this is not about me or my ego, it kind of is; it wasn't just his life that changed.

I get a sense that cosmically, more will be revealed to me, because I think I have finally learned that there are no accidents in life.

breathe feel love give free
know in your soul
like your blood knows the way
from your heart to your brain
knows that you're whole
and you're shining like the brightest star
a transmission on the midnight radio

A Good Year for Bad News

I don't think it's been a bad year, really, as far as years and accumulative experiences go. There've been trips home and new pugs and good, enlightening moments in recovery and a road trip that brought me and a friend and her dog to gaze upon the majesty that is Lake Superior, and last fall's Paul Simon concert and newly deepening friendships and a few cool purchases off of eBay and some really good meals. So overall, it's been a really good year, mostly, for which I am deeply grateful. All things considered.

It's the moments of bad news I could do without, but hearing it isn't as awful, ultimately, as being the one sharing it, because the one sharing it has to live with the bad news in a different way than I do as the mere listener.

I was on the receiving end of some of that bad news today.

A friend of mine at work--a kind, sweet, soft-spoken young man--came to my desk and asked if I had a few minutes to talk. I said yeah, and asked if this was something I might need Kleenex for, because of how quiet and serious he seemed.

He said no, but I'm not sure I believed him.

I chided him about the fact that he was a no-show at my going-away party as we walked down the hall in search of an empty conference room, even though he'd accepted the invitation and seemed enthusiastic and excited about attending. He just smiled and looked at the floor, but didn't say anything.

We found an empty room and sat across from one another. I folded my hands in front of me and asked what was up.

His voice was soft and nervous when he spoke. "Remember when I was out this summer and I told you I had Mono?"

I looked at him and nodded.

"Well...." he said carefully. "It wasn't Mono. It's...." His voice trailed, and I watched him watching my face, measuring my reaction through my expression. I felt my heart thump, because I knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"I'm Positive," he said. And I looked at him and said, No, no, because this is the first time I have been told but not the first time that I've seen this virus. It explained so much--the long absences, the huge weight loss, the sunken cheekbones and eyes, the new raspiness in his too-young voice.

I reflexively covered my face with my hands because I started crying and I could see that he was, too, that telling me was hard for him, and then I stood up and hugged him, and in that moment our somewhat casual friendship became much less casual and I knew something new and profound and awful that I didn't want to know but it was too late. And I remembered so many other men I'd seen, the blue-haired costume designer from Evergreen who died, and my mom's friend DeeDee pulling out clumps of hair, and the splotches of Kaposi's and the once-strapping, beautiful, vibrant men at church who whithered to such shocking thinness, too many to keep track of.

He knew the night it happened, and with whom. It wasn't a mystery. A one-night stand, he'd said. And we talked about his self-care and he said with as much frightened conviction as he could muster that he was going to fight it with everything he had or die trying.

And then I really, really wished I'd had a Kleenex because we'd hurtled straight into Major Kleenex Territory and I started crying all over again, a little harder, and he was put in the position of comforting me, which made me feel really ridiculous, but I pulled it together enough to thank him for trusting me enough to share such awful news with me. I told him how honored I was and how much I appreciated his vulnerability.

"Really?" He asked. And I reassured him. "Really," I said.

And we talked for an hour and he says he's taking it one day at a time and doing everything right, everything that he could possibly do, and he even got a new tattoo on the inside of his left forearm, a little split-in-two animated character from Hedwig, which I identified right away. And that surprised him.

"Well, I love Hedwig," I said, and told him about my poster and my video and my book and my CD. And then I apologized for razzing him for not coming to my party, cause I felt like a total ass, given the circumstances.

And then we tried to crack a few jokes even though a giant gray cloud of heaviness permeated the room and he told me he'd been keeping a little fan at his desk because he periodically broke into sweats, and I smiled and put my hand on his shoulder and said, "Welcome to my world."

A 41-year-old straight girl in perimenopause and a 30-something gay boy afflicted with HIV and we actually have something in common.

But I believe on some level that I have really always known that.

Beginning to End

And so it begins. The ending to my Midwestern Adventure.

Last night, right after work, was the Big Going-Away Party at the home of one of the managers from work, who offered his house just for this occasion (I really didn't want some random happy hour at a downtown bar. Boring.) He likes parties (he kept thanking ME for having a party last night, when he is the one who offered to throw it!) and has a Christmas party every year (albeit for select members of whatever team he's currently managing), and he always says he thinks his house was built for entertaining, and indeed it is a good house for that very purpose, with an airy floor plan, two levels and lots of gathering spots for various groups.

And a pool table, if you're in to that sort of thing.

He shares this house with his incredibly sweet and mostly-always-grinning partner, who bought me a big bunch of Mylar balloons (in rainbow Pride colors, no less!) with a top balloon that had cheery scrawl across it that read, "Good Luck!" The bunch is now slowly leaking helium in a corner of my kitchen, since they insisted I take them home with me afterward.



There were about 20 people there, a good combination from various aspects of my life--work, church, writing, etc. The food was great, and unbeknown to me and the host, my boss's husband and son showed up at the house mid-afternoon with a ton of catered Indian food--two enormous trays of samosas (vegetarian and lamb), tabouli, hummus, and enough gigantic middle eastern flatbread to feed a small nation. The manager who hosted the party had taken the day off from work to prepare (I feel honored by this alone) and had bought a ton of wine and other beverages, which is about all he had in the fridge (everything from bottled Seagram's Peach-flavored Fuzzy Navels, which are practically liquor-less and taste like liquid Jell-O shots, to decent white & red wines, waters, soft drinks, beer, Mike's Hard Lemonade, you name it...and of course, the top shelf assortment in the liquor cabinet).

He'd laid out shrimp and cocktail sauce on ice, crusty baguettes and some good cheeses downstairs; a friend of mine brought a magnificent chocolate cake--the same one she'd baked using Scharffenberger Chocolate for my birthday in December. I contributed my famous spinach-artichoke dip.

My boss' son arrived with his keyboard a bit later (a Sophomore at UC Santa Cruz) which he set up downstairs, lending a mellow, cocktail-y verisimilitude to the gathering (I joked that he needed a brandy snifter for a tip jar on his keyboard--he was really good!); there was a group card on the sideboard for signing, and many gifts. In fact, it felt like a shower, really, and as I unwrapped gifts with everyone watching, a friend bundled the discarded curly ribbons into a corsage and made me wear it on my wrist. The gifts and cards were lovely and heart-felt; a few favorites were a small, serene framed watercolor from my boss of a lake scene in winter (she said she wanted me to "remember the colors,") and a book from my brainy, hip church friends called "A Slice of Organic Life" with chickens on the cover, all about raising chickens, planting gardens, collecting rainwater...essentially, living with consciousness and lessening that Carbon Footprint.



I love that the people I've met here are people that reflect my own values and respect them and appreciate ME. I feel really good about that.

I got a few cards I read in private, because they were wordy and sentimental and made me cry, and I was touched by how deeply and sincerely some of my friends here feel about me and how they've shared that they will miss me. And I also feel touched that so, so many of them have said I'll make a good Life Coach. It's so affirming to hear that.

It used to be hard for me to hear that people would miss me; it made me feel bad, like I was doing something wrong by leaving. I'm healthier now, and I appreciate that they can and do express that to me, that I have had some meaning in their lives and have left some sort of imprint.

When the evening ended and everyone departed in a flurry of sentiments, well-wishes, and offers of moving day assistance, I was sent packing with a ton of leftovers, and drove home with a friend of mine and her boyfriend (who were given 2 grocery bags full of leftovers themselves) while the host and his partner stood in the driveway like a sweet married couple and waved us away.

I had a hard time sleeping for all the good, loving feelings this gathering elicited, and I woke up this morning feeling overwhelmed with emotion. For sure, I will miss these people here with whom I have bonded, but I am also leaving for good reasons--there is no pain involved in this decision, no resentment, no need to flee for negative reasons (except, perhaps, the weather). It's just time to take another step on my life's journey, and I'm excited to be back near the ocean and my oldest friends and my family.

And to start the Life Coach training.

Perhaps the nicest thing is knowing that I really did build a life for myself here, and that I can come back to it and visit on occasion. I did that; and I know now that I can do that again.

Two weeks to go at work, a few more lunches, the department-wide email announcement...then a week of packing, a few more goodbyes, and that stretch of highway 94--and a new chapter to my life--before me.

Laborin'

Good day for labor, it being Labor Day and all.

Hell, any sort of labor; I'm sure plenty of babies have been born on this very day.

And speaking of labor, every Monday leading up to the Big Move (since I don't work Mondays anyway), I've made it a point to pack some stuff. I usually scrawl a to-do list on a page in my little bitty pocket-sized Day Planner so I can see what my packing goals are--things like, "wrap/pack framed chicken prints in kitchen/bedroom" and "pack books" or "pack chicken tchatchkes" (yes, lots of chickens in various shapes/forms/sizes, etc.).

Today was a recycling/cleaning storage locker/packing photos & cards sort of day.

I've gotten a significant amount of stuff bubble wrapped & boxed up; in fact, thanks to the recycling room at the biggie corporation for whom I currently work, I've no doubt saved a bundle on all sizes of cardboard boxes and rolls & rolls of wrap. We regularly receive huge boxes with fixture samples, since we're in the business of building Big Box stores with a lot of "stuff" in them, all of which is prettily & helpfully presented to you (and me), the general consuming public, on various fixtures. And these samples are sent to us from their respective hopeful vendors, and all are wrapped like mad, just swathed in yards and yards of large & small bubble wrap.



As a kid, I loved popping the bubbles on the wrap between my thumb & forefinger. The big wrap is the most fun, for a louder pop; as an adult in the midst of a major move, I now see how wasteful (though thoroughly enjoyable) this popping pastime had been. But what do you know of Big Moves when you're a kid and most moves are done FOR you (basically, you're an accessory to be hauled along, like a lamp or a chair or the family dog, when all is said and done; seriously. I'm not being negative. It's just kind of matter-of-fact).

I also got my AAA Triptik made--this has got to be one of the coolest road trip accessories known to Motoring Man (and woman)! It supposedly takes them a week, but it was done in 2 business days; it's a little narrow vertical flip book, spiral-bound, broken down into 200 mile chunks with highlighted sections and cool fold-out pages for a larger frame of reference. It describes the scenery you'll see as you're motoring along--for example, as I pass through North Dakota, my route "...traverses gently rolling, semi-wooded farmland, once the land of the Sioux and Objibway tribes. Noted for water recreation, dairy and granite products."

I mean, I love this! If cat, friend and I must traverse nearly 1700 miles to get to my ultimate destination, it may as well be poetic!



So I'm feeling very good about my progress on this transition; my ducks are falling into a tidy little row and I can feel like I'm leaving as organized and prepared as I can possibly be. And this Friday is the "Bye-Bye Caitlin" party at the home of one of my managers, who offered to throw a party for me. Kind of an after-work cocktail thingie, good combo of straight/gay/single/married/co-workers/church folk/writer buddies, etc. Have a little closure here, then I'll have the "welcome back" party there. Which is, of course, one of the best and sweetest parts about going from one place to another.

On the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin' music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again.....

Not the best idea....

....in the midst of transition, when one is a bit more sensitive, open and sentimental, AND trying to pack, to listen to a resonant mix that includes Judy Collins ("Who Knows Where the time Goes"), John Lennon ("Oh, My Love") James Taylor ("You Can Close Your Eyes") and Cat Stevens ("The Wind").

Amazingly, I kept it together and got some more boxes packed, even though "Beautiful Boy" makes me want to crumple into a heap of depressed inertia and weep buckets.



Not to mention any version of "The Rainbow Connection."

And have I mentioned the late Israel Kamakawiwa'ole doing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow?"

Anything with a gentle, earnest vibrato and rousing acoustic guitar and I'm a total goner.

Thank God I'm generally bubbly and happy and don't have a propensity for fondling straight razors. Oy vey.

Yep, it's been a while....

...time to update ye olde blogge.

No real excuse, except perhaps indifference, a touch of pre-moving stress (a friend in Portland, Oregon, to where I will be moving at the tail end of September, said something to the effect that he thought this was probably the longest transition anyone has ever made moving from one place to another, and who knows, he may be right. I mean, I've known since January of this year that I was going to hightail it on outta the Midwest sometime during the summer or shortly thereafter. "Shortly thereafter" won out, cause I figured, why suffer through something like 8 months of winter just to ditch out on the summer? Even if it's humid? The days are bright and long and the sun is a blessing. And I love the Farmer's Market which stretches along a main street of downtown, right in front of my office, so I can buy a few things on Thursdays, like fresh green beans and bread and black plums), and a lot of time spent participating in an online Intuitive Eating (IE) support group, which I've really liked. It's how I want to encourage my future Life Coach clients--those who come to me seeking solutions/direction regarding their potentially unsatisfactory relationships to their bodies and food and the self-loathing, punitive and sometimes dangerous practice of "dieting"--to eat.

I know a lot of people--myself included, and primarily women--who have had very dysfunctional relationships to their bodies and food (most of whom have dieted unsuccessfully, only to regain their weight), and Intuitive Eating seeks to examine the root cause of unconscious eating, how food is used emotionally and as comfort, rather than as nutrition. The outcome is a healthy relationship to food, mindful eating, increased enjoyment in the process of eating, and, finally, a natural release of weight.
Not "thinness," because everyone's body is different and "thin" is an artificial construct perpetuated by crappy, bulimia-inducing pop-culture chick-mags like Cosmo and a bunch of bratty, wealthy, bored, narcissistic chickie-babes with too much time on their hands (think Paris or Nicole).
IE is an interesting process but one I deeply believe in--even when I was struggling with weird off-and-on diets all my life, I still read "Thin Within," "Diets Don't Work," "Eating Awareness Training" numerous of Geneen Roth's books, and most recently, "Intuitive Eating." All are excellent.
I do feel most women have some level of disordered eating, and I am convinced it's rooted in emotion. I had very disordered eating most of my life and only now, at 41, have really begun to let go of it, probably because I am already in recovery and this is one more "leftover" dysfunctional practice that doesn't serve me anymore.
A lovely outcome of IE is a renewed, positive relationship to one's body (and no more diets!). I no longer see mine as something imperfect and disgusting that needs reigning in or to be "controlled" or punished (the hallmark of diets). It's served me very well for my entire life and it needs love and nurturing. As Geneen Roth says, "Many people want to lose weight because they believe it will make them happy and stop their pain. So it's not so much the weight they want to lose, but the pain."
Examining that pain--the reasons we eat that have nothing to do with true body hunger--is the crux of IE.
Most people don't trust IE or its practices; I have a friend who has expressed discomfort with the idea of eating quietly, without distraction (in this case, the TV in the background); she said she didn't like to hear people chew, and I thought a lot about that in the ensuing days.

Anyway, the recent bridge collapse here in Minnesota (for a change, it wasn't something collapsing in California) served as a stark, tragic reminder that life is short and shittily random, and I'd hate for my last day's worth of meals to be some horrid, low-fat, low-carb, low-salt, low-suger, high-fiber, under-1200-calories misery. I mean, what IS that?
There is a saying that goes something like, Life is unpredictable so always eat dessert first.
I would rescind that to say, eat what makes you hum.
And, just quickly, back to the bridge: yes, we all hate paying taxes, but when they're earmarked in ways that positively support a society--good, accessible, affordable education and functional, well-stocked schools, say, and a sound, reliable infrastructure--then they're necessary.
Levees and bridges shouldn't collapse (this bridge was in need of repair but our moronic twice-elected current governor vetoed "upgrade funds" in favor of other pet projects like, oh, a new stadium...ahem)....
And human beings were not meant to diet.
And that's where I'll conclude this entry.

One Hot Mama, part deux

Okay.
So, back in March (ALREADY! Holy shit, but time hurtles ever onward; but that's another post.....) I'd written about the Saga of my Hair and how I was ready for a change and how that change involved a throwback hairstyle from my childhood and from Jane Fonda's Hanoi Jane/"Klute" period (namely, The Shag) and how my former hairdresser simply wasn't getting it around the look I wanted and so I quietly fired the dude and found a new hairstylist--a woman--who gave me exactly the shaggy 'do I'd been questing for. And it got long.
Long for me is to my shoulders and down--way down--past my ears.
But then we moved swiftly from Spring into Humid Summer, and the 'do would not behave.

I have cowlicks up the kazoo--on my crown, at my forehead, at the nape of my neck. And I have a bit of wave, especially around said cowlicks.
So, no, contrary to popular belief, my hair is actually NOT dead straight (it used to be more-or-less dead straight when I was wee. I am no longer wee, and let let me tell you, your hair texture does change as you get older).
I am also not the sort to flat-iron and do a lot of conking/manipulating in order to achieve a Look. I work for a big corporation that hires a lot of 20-something chickie-babes who tend to pretty much be knock-offs of one another. Lots of them are blond (this being the Midwest) and lots of them have long, flat-ironed swingy hair.
In my opinion, they are all interchangeable.
Hair, to me, needs to be sexy, but also fun, kicky, simple, relaxed and terribly easy to style, for men as well as women (it is advisable that you NOT resemble an uptight, self-loathing brain-dead refugee from the Republican National Committee). Personally, I like finger-styling my hair. I am not opposed to running some goop through my locks to add volume, hold and shine--in fact, these are attributes I rather appreciate in a head of hair--but beyond that, I need simplicity.
Especially when it's humid beyond belief and when, after much early-morning pre-work wrangling my hairstyle lasts all of 2.5 seconds and ends up wildly fluffy and weirdly wavy and completely unmanageable after a quick swim to the bus stop.
Which it has since, oh, May.
And so, observing all the chicly-shorn, cropped pixie cuts adorning the program-working heads of many of my fellow 12-steppers, I decided to return to a shorter 'do. A little different then my usual pixie, with more verve, choppiness, texturizing and kicky personality.


As she cut it, I felt the Real Caitlin emerging again.
And, yes, this latest hairstyle has indeed been subjected to bouts of horrid, cat-flattening humidity (my cat Abby becomes about 5 feet long and flat as a bear rug when it's hot out) and has held up a heckuva lot better. No whirls and whorls, no unholy, unruly flips and flops, no throwing up my hands in the women's restroom and shoving the fluffiness behind my ears.
Oh, and I have bangs again. Cute, fun, textured eye-enhancing bangs.
I have learned that living in the nation's midsection means necessarily submitting to the wild extremes of the weather, in many ways, and my hair is no match for this region's humidity. And just like my impending return to the west coast, getting my hair cut shorter is a return to what I know, to what works, to what is familiar and comfortable and ultimately very me.
So now I'm more of a Cute Mama.
And that suits me just fine.

When in doubt, increase your options

I'm terrible at making up my mind. I mean, I ultimately do, about many things and in many circumstances, but usually only after much hemming and hawing and weighing and measuring and speculating and waffling. According to the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, I am an INFJ; this stands for "Introvert/Intuitive/Feeling/Judging" and everything has a percentage.

I am 40% Judging. This not only means I tend to be opinionated (I am), it means I assess a given situation and often have a hard time coming to a decision.

This difficult aspect of my personality manifested itself this afternoon as I stood gazing into the freezer case at the grocery store. I wanted ice cream. It's been hot. And cool foods are good for hot days (see my earlier post on mayonnaise).



In fact, I headed to the store wanting a specific flavor of ice cream: Mocha Almond Fudge, to be exact. My favorite, just about, made by Dreyer's (or "Edy's" out here).

There I stood. But they did not have my flavor. They had many others, but not Mocha Almond Fudge, and I walked to the store in 90 degree heat specifically to get Mocha Almond Fudge.

Which meant, I had to decide on an approximation. And after picking up and putting down numerous half-gallons of ice cream of other brands and flavors, I finally settled on two pints of Ben & Jerry's--Coffee Heathbar Crunch and Mint Chocolate Cookie. Because a singular decision just wasn't being reached and I didn't want Buyer's Remorse, heading home with an entire half-gallon of something I'd get bored with. So I did the next best thing.



I decided I didn't need to limit my options, that I actually had choices about things in life (thank you, Al-Anon!), and instead of settling for one flavor I really liked, I'd settle for two. It felt indulgent and terrific and exactly like the right decision to have made. After all, variety is the spice of life, as they say.

I don't know who "they" is, but it works for me.

Yum.

Happy Feet

My dad, at the ripe ol' age of 75, is one hip (or "hip-ish") dude.

He wanted--and received--a pair of those foamy, plastic-y, trendy "Crocs" shoes for Father's Day, and he's been wearing 'em.

It's a respectable color, nothing outrageous (tho he did say he'd agree to wearing yellow, if they'd had 'em, as he has a penchant for most things either yellow in color or lemon in flavor, but the place they were ordered from had only more conservative colors in stock), and they seem to fit him fine.

But I don't think my sister's pug, Noelle, quite knows what to make of them.

Without further ado, I bring you my father's feet (and I think this is a hilarious picture, so this post was an excuse to use it):

Bring Out the Best

It's summer. Well, not quite; not officially, but soon. June 21st, to be exact.

Although, really, right around Memorial Day, and then just after the holiday itself, summer happens in earnest. It gets hot. Armpits and legs needs constant shaving (if you're a chick; hell, even if you're a guy and you're into it. This is a liberal, equal-opportunity, live-and-let-live kind of blog). The window air conditioner gets installed and my personal guilt rises about the hole in the ozone and just what sort of "carbon footprint" I'm making while the cat and I cool off.

But perhaps the most overt harbinger of the seasonal shift is gustatory. Plebeian and gustatory, but gustatory nonetheless.

I begin eating a LOT of mayonnaise.



Potato salad gets made. So does tuna salad. And in goes the mayo. And, admittedly, a bit of sour cream like the best Jewish Delis, but this blog entry is an ode to my mayonnaise-loving WASP side.

It's the kind of cool meal a body wants on a long, hot, bright day that wakes you up at 5:00 and doesn't end till around 9:30, when the sun finally decides to fade out of sight and leave the next 8 hours or so to the moon and the mosquitoes.

In fact, I made tuna salad for dinner yesterday, and had it for lunch today. I plan to have it for lunch tomorrow. I was inspired by a friend at work who had whipped up a batch for her husband and son. Just a few weeks ago, I made a batch of potato salad with redskin potatoes I'd bought at the farmer's market; they hold their shape well and don't just crumble into pasty mush when you mix 'em.

It hits the spot, when the mercury registers 90 and warnings are posted about air quality.

Sure, there are other warm-weather comfort foods that aren't mayonnaise-based. Deviled Eggs. Anything grilled. Fruit salad. Ice cream. And these are all good and delicious and very Betty-Crocker-in-the-50's, and they definitely all hold an esteemed spot in the pantheon of Classic American Cookery.



But to me, quite simply, it's just not summer 'til I get my mayonnaise.

Pack it in

Man, I am just itching to get the hell outta dodge, and I am so totally okay admitting that, here and anywhere else.

Just recently, one of my managers at work--conversationally, in passing--asked if I'd chosen an actual departure date for leaving Minnesota. At that time, I hadn't, really; all I knew was that I was leaving sometime in early October, and that was about all I'd established. So I went back to my desk and flipped through the calendar that hangs on the wall there and figured out a date to be done with work (September 21st, a Friday) and to be done with Minnesota (September 29, a Saturday).

Which should land me at my destination (Portland) sometime within that first week of October, and that was always the plan.


And not only can I not wait for salt air, mountain passes, the beach and fresh seafood, I can't wait to be back in a place where I am simply not esoteric (or if I am at all, no one gives a rat's ass either way), where I am, instead, pretty much the norm, or just some variation of the norm.

Here in the Midwest, I just always have this strange, overriding sense that, no matter how much I'm liked by people, how "down" with me my friends have been, I'm still a titch quaint in my perspectives and dealings with the world. I rant about things like global warming and eating less meat and gender roles and living car-less, and I most often receive kind, tight-lipped smiles and the verbal equivalent of a "there, there" pat on my head.

Okay, well. This might be a bit extreme. I admit, I am a bit crabby today because of a head cold I developed over the weekend, and now that I'm doing the actual work of preparing to leave--I've cleaned out my closet (3 huge bags of little-worn clothes) and 3 shelves of my living room built-in (lots of crap amassed there over the last 4.5 years since I've been living in this apartment)--I have my "eyes on the prize," so to speak (my destination) and I'm getting restless to be there. The ball is rolling, and my feet are itchy.

But time does go quickly, and it will soon enough be the date of my departure. In the meantime, I busy myself with adding tasks to my growing to-do list, such as getting my cat a new carrier/pet stroller thing for her comfort during the long drive and buying an American Automobile Association (AAA) membership, very practical for triptych plotting, as well as in the event of a van breakdown somewhere en route across the continent.



Stuff like that.

I'm transitioning already, slowly, and caring less about things here and more about things there. And I'm just excited to be closer to my family and to be spending October out west (I love that month) and to be able to buy a much cheaper plane ticket home for Christmas and to start the Life Coach training (ah, a career that doesn't involve outsourcing to partners in India!). And my friends have been very accommodating--one is accompanying me on the cross-country drive, one is letting me stash my crap in her "extra" room once I get there (there's a whole history here that I won't indulge, but let me just say, she is an utter doll for agreeing to this), and one that is letting me crash with him while I regain my footing there.

So I'm excited and growing more restless by the day, and I have the vague-yet-palpable sense that I am beginning to slowly, surely, identifiably pack it in and hang it up and call it quits. The summer will unfold and soon it'll be the first hints of fall and then the end of September and there I'll be in a van, cat, plants & friend, motoring across the miles.

As Gonzo sings in the Muppet Movie,"You can just visit/but I'm going to stay/I'm going to go back there someday."

No love lost

I hate the weather here.

Now, I know some of the people who peek at this blog are native Minnesotans, and they love this state with every cell in their bodies; they were born here, some of them got married here and had kids here and continue to happily, lovingly call it home. And that is okay with me. They are absolutely entitled; they can love it. And they can know that this is where we part ways, where we stop seeing eye-to-eye, that I simply do not share their fondness for this region. Perhaps I am not built for it, or I'm too wussy and soft, or I merely bitch way too much, or I am impatient or unrealistic or I give up too easily. Perhaps.



Whatever the case, I must vent. I am at the mercy of the weather here, and I hate it.

Hate it, hate it, hate it.

It's either somewhere below zero and the windows are frozen shut and it hurts to breathe or you're slogging through snow up to your kneecaps, or it's humid and your hair frizzes and your thighs rub and your chest feels clammy and the air begins buzzing with mosquitoes and then the skies open up with an amazing clap and rain dumps from the heavens at a breathtaking rate.



This is what happened this evening, just as (wouldn't you know) I left my apartment to catch the bus and get to where I needed to be by 6:30. Two blocks into it, my jeans were soaked to the knees and my Tevas were squishing water with each step. And so I said, fuck this, I'm going home. And so I turned on my squishy heel and went home and everything has been peeled off and is drying and my plans have fallen completely through and I'm pissed.

I don't have a car, which I mostly like, but sometimes, I admit, it can be very challenging. Sometimes. On days such as this, when I leave work early, rush around, clean the dishes, change and make my lunch for the next day, only to have my plans rudely aborted by the unpredictable Plains weather.



Bleh. I have never lived in rain this hard; yes, it rains on the west coast, but it tends to hang around and fill the air mistily or fall steadily, and one can (I feel) more easily cope; one doesn't come away after 2 traversed blocks soaked to the skin and looking like something the dog dragged in.

In many ways, this place has been very, very good to me, and good FOR me, perhaps more importantly. Indeed, there will be much to miss when I move, like my 12-step group, my church, my apartment, and the friends I've made.



But I can say with absolute certainty that never, not ever, not even once, not even briefly, will I miss the weather.

My Bad

Okay, so.

It appears I haven't posted anything since May 6th. And this is sort of a problem for me. Not because I'm into over-functioning; in fact, I enjoy a bit of leisurely foot-dragging from time to time and do truly appreciate the relaxing merits of the whole couch potato metaphor.

I just can't go that long without saying something about something.

I was out of town for a week, soaking in the delights of the Bay Area, where I was visiting my family and attending an Al-Anon 12-step retreat called "Let Go & Get a Grip" (more on the retreat later; it was an intense experience and worth the dedication of an entire post) so I wasn't in the mindset to ruminate and come up with anything.



I suppose I could've kept a sort of running commentary on the other day-to-day events with which I occupied my time in Berkeley--pedicure (I had one in Portland last summer with a friend which was WAYYY better; this particular place has gone way downhill, but you can't really tell that just by staring at my toes), great food (same Chinese restaurant 3 times, in fact, and may I just share the observation that prawns taste totally different 'out there' then here in the Midwest), a visit to A.R.F. (Tony LaRussa's Animal Rescue Foundation in Walnut Creek--I wanted to adopt about 10 cats and dogs), shopping (I splurged on a great outfit in my eye color at one of my favorite boutiques in North Berkeley called Bryn Walker), walking my sister's pug up the street, and basically just enjoying the company of my family, whom I have come to appreciate more and more as I (and they) get older, and since I have moved 1500 miles away.

Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

It was hard to leave (I cried--I ALWAYS cry when I leave the Bay Area, so I'm glad I decided to pay attention to that overt and repetitive emotional cue that I need to be back on the west coast, and I will be by October of this year; I'm so rooted there, to that whole west coast metaphor), but it was good to see my kitty again (who was a bit of a problem child in my absence, having been unflatteringly described as a "meth factory rat catcher" by my neighbor; I have since made amends with the offering of a home-made carrot cake with cream cheese frosting;

food cures all. Almost. And, for the record, tho a bit scratched, my neighbor is not at all ticked. It was all quite amusing, actually) and sort of get back into my day-to-day routines.

Like cooking. And walking.

And, yes, updating my blog.

No Words

I got up early--too early--Saturday to participate in the Humane Society pet Walk-a-Thon. I suspect it once started out solely as "Dog Walk-a-Thon," but many people bring other sorts of pets--lizards, cats (many of whom were being pushed in pet strollers or closely cuddled in kitty versions of human baby "Snuglis"), ferrets, even a rat in a tiny plastic cage with shavings in it, strapped to a Radio Flyer wagon as part of an ad-hoc circus train coterie of creatures, all of them apparently owned by one single family.



It's always a good-natured, whacked-out event; as I've mentioned in other posts, animal lovers can be quite eccentric. I count myself among that lot, though as I get older, my eccentricities and my mad love for my fat tabby are the least of my concerns.

I attended the walk with a friend, her mom and her Border Terrier (the "Benjie" dog), and had a fine time, even though we turned around about a quarter of the way through and left. All told, we spent about 3 hours there and patted the heads, sides and hindquarters of quite a canine assortment.

Lots of pugs. That's always good.

When I came back, my neighbors were chatting with a friend, and as their front door was wide open (and they are directly across the hall from me), they saw me approach and started chatting with me. She told me she'd had her first chemo treatment Thursday.
I wasn't sure how someone undergoing chemo should or would look. She looked....normal.
She was chatty and fairly animated and didn't look too tired. She showed me what others had done for her; there was a lovely hand-made quilt on her bed, a stack of carefully-knitted prayer shawls on her chest of drawers. A cluster of mylar balloons bobbed in the air.
And she had all her hair. For now.
"I get another round next week," she said. It would be a different, more potent combination of drugs. That, she said, is what would make her hair fall out.
"All of it?" I asked.
"Yep," she said. "Even my eyelashes."
Then she showed me the wig she'd picked out for herself. Close to her natural color and shorter, sort of wavy, but obviously a wig; there's a certain unnatural sort of doll-baby sheen specific to nylon hair.



She talked a little more, the cats alternately hissing and running back and forth between the open doors.
I asked her about her thoughts on buying a home, something she had mentioned only a few months earlier, prior to her diagnosis. I admit, it was my way of getting a sense of her future.
"It's not a plan any more," she said. "I have to let that go."
I stared at her. I wasn't sure what this meant, exactly, and I didn't really want to read too hard between the lines.

I am in recovery; I go to a weekly 12-step meeting for those of us that have issues with enmeshment and codependency. At those meetings, when I am listening and present, I often find I have something meaningful to share; it's kind of a goal, sharing something in a group setting from which others might benefit.
In this situation, watching my young neighbor begin her battle with a rare cancer, I felt utterly verbally inadequate.
I smiled weakly, and then said, "I really wish there was some combination of words, something pithy I could say to make you feel better......."
"What can you say," she replied. What can anyone say, is what she meant.

This morning, she knocked on my door to borrow my heavy-duty Acme juicer.
"There's a juice combination from my cancer cookbook," she said. "Kale & Pineapple."
I brought it over and set it up.



So no, maybe there aren't any words.
There are only hand-made quilts and prayer shawls and mylar balloons bearing simple sentiments. And there is juice.
Juice is good enough.
Juice will have to do.

Always Eat Dessert

I ran into my building’s caretaker on the steps a couple of days ago as I headed to the basement to retrieve the cold wash I’d just done; it’s his girlfriend—my across-the-hall neighbor—who has Leiomyosarcoma, the rare cancer that she’s just begun to battle. They went to Boston last weekend and met with an energetic and passionate doctor who spent 3 hours with them discussing options—“The difference between Midwestern Protestant and East-Coast Jewish,” as my neighbor said—and in about a week and a half, she’ll begin a course of chemotherapy.

It’s true, in an odd, guilt-producing sort of way, that someone else’s adversity (in this case, my neighbor’s discovery of her cancer) can help put one’s own life and neuroses into sharp perspective; I thought of this as I enjoyed a cookie in a meeting at work.



It's not (and I do feel it necessary to qualify this) that my neighbor's cancer is a grim-yet-convenient excuse for me to compare circumstances and how "lucky" I am to not be coping with it myself, but rather, a dire just-across-the-hall reminder of how much menial bitching I've done--and still do--about truly inconsequential things. I used to have neuroses about sweets, about eating too many of them and what they might do to me: diabetes, cellulite, rotten teeth, pimples. Sweets were “dangerous” and “powerful” and could affect my body negatively and the pleasure of indulging in them was always superseded by the weird, unhappy, nearly obsessive bout of negative self-talk that invariably ensued.

I’d left my neighbors some chunks of homemade gingerbread; I was caring for their cat while they were in Boston, and I like to cook (and bake), and I personally adore gingerbread. But I don’t need a whole pan, and I wanted to share it. The caretaker mentioned this as we spoke, in passing, how much they’d liked it. I thought it might be nice for them, after that, after the flight and the news and the anxiety, to come home to their kitty and the familiarity and comfort of a plate of home-baked sweets.



And I thought, yeah. I think I get it after 41 years of "Oh, I shouldn't eat that" neuroses.

It goes without saying that a preventative mindset is a good thing; it makes sound sense, therefore, to be conscious of where your food comes from and to make healthful choices and avoid trans-fats and eat your veggies and get plenty of fiber and don’t smoke and get plenty of sleep and pop a few vities and take your flaxseed oil and exercise regularly and drink in moderation and....yes, all of those things.

Of course, there are no guarantees.

And so, because of this, because there are no guarantees, the finest, most life-affirming, optimistic, glass-half-full thing you can do, without making excuses or offering apologies or attempting futile shows of "willpower" and absolutely without the merest smidgen of self-consciousness, is always eat dessert. Make room for it. Order it. Bake it yourself, and get drunk on the aroma. Lick the batter from the pan. Eat the cookie dough. Enjoy the hell out of it. Share it. Savor it.

Savor it.

Always. Because sweets are good. And life, I am learning, finally, is really, truly, laughably, ridiculously blink-and-you-miss-it short. And very unfair.

No guarantees. Even if you do everything right. But do everything right anyway, just in case. Cause it couldn't hurt.

And always eat dessert.