It's important to be warm

I am quite contrary and my garden grows well. The coy koi survived another winter and I’m sure I’m more proud of him than he is of me. I’m looking over this bridge to April; the backyard smells wonderfully of soil but it’s not yet warm enough to throw open the whole house and get the staleness out.

It was remarked to me a few years ago that, in the transition from young adult to adult, the days are so long, but the weeks just fly by. It’s been a long several days, the sort where you realize that all that stuff that went on wasn’t last week, or last month, but a mere two days ago! Events are bracketed between one another properly, but the smoosh of the timing boggles thinking about it.

The past few days, short version:
Career Days went off surprisingly well. Of course, it’s not surprising that Ian did well; it’s more his reaction to people being interested in him. He’s continually in mild-shock at all the possibilities. His quiet humility is endlessly endearing. Adding to the pleasantness of it going so well is the exhaustion level he’s working at. Both he and I are just “bashing down the clowns as they pop up,” as he so aptly put. We’ve got vast hopes for calmer days.

I’ve had several business stresses lately, several dealing with peripheral people who are clearly deck-hands on the stupid ship. Thankfully, these aren’t clients directly, just tangental, but still it grates. There are few things that rile me as much as being rudely treated as if I’m rather slow by people who really don’t need to be calling the kettle black. It doesn’t help that my only answer is to grin and bear it. All this paired with my ongoing argument with the 1040 Long Form has left me short-fused.

To buffer that, Sunday gave me one of the best conversations I’ve had in ages. It was sorely needed, and much appreciated. I was nearly giving up on forming new friendships, especially ones with the ease and understanding that usually requires knowing someone for years. Thanks Erik.

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Words I learned this week that pleased me.
oversoul and resistentialism
I KNEW there had to be a word for that.

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Check out The Untitled Project
Maiko wished she thought of this before I wished I’d thought of it. Very cool.

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As long as I’m linking, Ian’s website is now live. And no, we haven’t heard about the PhD yet. Yes, waiting remains is incredibly tedious. I’m so bored with not knowing. Even I can’t remain on edge this long. So he’s doing Career Days at school this week and talking to the people who might get the opportunity to pay off the school loans. When he says “Career Days” it always sounds like “Korea Days” due to the accent. Not only does “Korea Days” sound more interesting, it’s hugely cute.

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I went to lunch yesterday with a fellow local AIGAer. We ate in a typical little place in the Strip District. In addition to the worker-eaters of about our age, there was a gaggle of older Italian men, talking nineteen to the dozen, never one at a time. They looked for all the world as if they never left their spot there in the corner. Why would they? They had the only chairs in the place; the rest of the clientele standing at tall café tables, eating their pasta and mozzarella salads, drinking coffee out of small cups, tossing napkins and plastic water cups into the bin marked “rifiuti.”

There was no area designated for smoking, which is, of course, not legal, but this is just the sort of place not to give a damn about such things. As we were leaving, I watched a suit light up a cigar in another corner. I have a distinct impression that while he was a bit younger than the rest of the men, he could understand every word they spoke.

Several people knew my lunch companion on first-name basis, including the short and round guy running the place, breaking away from the men to say hello. I feel like there might’ve been man-bear hugs, had he not been in his cook’s all-white clothes, complete with the appropriate washed-in stains across the white apron. It was a great little Pittsburgh moment.

Filed by joy at 10:34 am under visuals
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Blurbomat has said the definitive remark on Quark. I’m ever so happy I’ve left that piece-o-shit software behind. As one commenter says, “Date Quark, marry InDesign.”

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Mom and I went to a Lúnasa concert and it was amazing. This was one of those rare concerts where I was truly inspired to be able to play. I wanted to make, albeit on a basic level, that wonderous sound, to sit in my garden and play a low whistle. I could see it in my mind and it tasted so sweet.

I am still a bit bitter that in elementary school, they said my teeth were too crooked to play a wind instrument. They put me on violin, which is a lovely thing, but only when other people play it. Watching the masterful fiddler of Lúnasa didn’t echo in me like the flutes and low whistles.

In some other, more restful life, I’ll play more than iTunes.

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Bonus quote:
I used to wonder when I would ever become a grown-up, which I thought meant something like “becoming fully yourself.” As if that is ever done. A self is not a chalked body outline that you lie down in. It’s more like writing letters back and forth, arguing with a friend and gradually changing your opinion with each new round of beers, or keeping an online journal in which all that posturing and constructing of personas slowly starts to change into a great big neon-flashing OH FUCK IT and a “Hi honey I’m home” to the world at large.

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props to Z&E’s house.

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If anyone hasn’t seen it, check this clip of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld caught lying on camera.

I didn’t start this website to rant about politics, it’s just become unavoidable.

I had a wonderful conversation with a client who is also a small-business owner. She said the experience of starting her business politicized her very unexpectedly. She feels as personally threatened by the government and economy as I do. Go figure…it’s not just where I came from that has led me to the paranoia and anger of these interesting times, it’s anyone who is busy trying on for size that old sock called The American Dream.

Filed by joy at 5:56 pm under politics
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It is freezing-rain/sleeting/bad-behavioring on my baby tulips and baby daffodils and my head, once I get brave and leave the house.

The question remains, do we blame Dubya or Al Qaeda? For we must pass the blame around, it’s the American Way.

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As long as the subject is the tangent of Spring and Politics, here is my parents’ letter regarding the upcoming primary.

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The bizarreness of the my entrepreneurship has been skittered around, but I feel that I should place it squarely on the table. It is a bigger deal than I have let on, in part because I could not explain it. I did not intend to start my own business. I did not intend to feel so solid about it all. Moreover, I did not intend to want to sink roots (even for the next few years) here in the zipcode of my birth. Terrified, I kept moving, seeing building the business as the only way through with the part of my brain that demanded a goal. I accidentally found that I building home was part of that package.

I am a very deliberate person, sensible and practical, worried and clucking at wackiness insuing in my presence. So how is it that I’ve come to run with scissors? I started my business by some unseen side door, against every rule there should be in books I couldn’t be bothered to read. I followed guesses and instincts and taught myself to yap until someone believed me, irrelevant if inside I was squawking at all the noise. I’m honestly stunned that rent is paid, money is in the bank, and I have new and interesting clients that want me run with THEIR scissors, no less.

Convincing others of my own aptitude, I have nearly convinced myself, which is the biggest surprise of them all. I began corralling doubt for simple business reasons, and it turned into a sea change. I’ve wanted for a long time to live intentionally, and have worked out what that means only so far as to know it is about faith and trust, not just the control I had thought going in.

It’s taken me a twisted journey to get to a place where I trust at all, so I’m beyond wary of anything that smacks of blind faith. I don’t believe we have a road set for us at conception. That doesn’t preclude that if you find your track, you can listen to the rails rumble low. Horrible things will happen for no worthy reason and are not the intent of an indifferent nor a vengant god. They simply are. The track heaves and swells with the weather. Still, you can hear distant clacking deep down. The sound, so deep that it is more a sensation of touch, disappears from time to time; derail and repair.

You can close your eyes, raise your arms, and fall squarely back. Something will catch you when you place trust wisely and well. The universe pushes back. My quarter-life crisis (nearly six years back now) taught me that more surely than anything else could have. My body revolted; out came my useless and angry appendix; I realized both my mortality and the pattern in the years past. The links and ties made sense in bittersweet epiphany.

I hear the rails clearer and louder lately. I think it’s my train; it feels like it should be. Either way, a huge collision is coming.

I can only hope that it will be as terrible/perfect as the one that led me to crash painfully and wonderfully into Ian.

Filed by joy at 11:59 am under life
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2004 is only proving even stranger than I expected when I agree with an entire article by Pat Buchanan. It gives me chills.

In the less shocking news:
“The issue now isn’t of who the nominee is. The people have spoken. Now, the issue is what does the Democratic Party stand for?” Kucinich said…in an interview with The Associated Press.

Damn right, my boy. I’m still voting for you and your delegates this April. May Boston give us all a Democratic plank worth getting excited about.

And since I made note of the Kucinich polka earlier, I must add the Kucinich remix. Nothing like the national lack of confidence in the electoral process set to a beat.

Filed by joy at 3:28 pm under politics
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I dreamt this whole alternate city/country. The politics were of a gang warfare nature. You slept and fought your way into very specific class structure. The people were shockingly rough and beautiful, this incredible combination of ethnicities.

I’m losing the threads even as I type…

I was not me in the dream, but I was a character that could cross from our America to theirs.

Early on, I was talking with a middle-class young woman (there didn’t seem to be any old people) and she was explaining in detail all the levels of society, what it was called to sleep up or fight up, and the names were amazing, long with suffixes to denote the power achieved. While she was explaining, I was watching some sort of battle, but it was also a medical operation of some kind, happening near us.

The entire dream took place in semi-outdoor space, temperate weather. Even indoors was open air in some way; there was always a sticky urban breeze.

My actions were limited while on the alternate side. If I participated in anything that was of their class structure (sex or battle) I would be of their world, and couldn’t get back. It the end there was a massive gathering, which took place under a huge structure, a bridge or part of an interstate, but it was also a building with empty shops and hallways within it. At this gathering, which was probably a celebration, there was this acknowledgment of the rift in cities/worlds, and the potential to cross, and a few, especially of the lowest class, were sneaking off to do so. There was speaking and running and argument, but I was distracted for a long while by watching a very pink hippo submerging and surfacing in the vast dingy water at the base of the structure. I was then near the hippo and touching him.

I could feel myself pulling out of the dream, and I dove back in a bit.

I was then walking with a small group of these alternate citizens. I was being thanked for something, as I must’ve helped one or two of these young people cross class lines in an atypical way. A few stragglers nearby were looking into movie-theatre style glass doors to a long hall along the wet cement street, as if the rift would be so obvious. I was saying goodbye, especially to one man, who shared a great desire with me. He was dark and sad and knew since he was to stay and I wanted to return that we couldn’t even embrace goodbye. So I left him standing there, and walked on.

The dream took place from 9:30a when I woke up enough to see the clock, and 10:30a when I officially got up to write all this down.
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In dreams, whenever I’m waking but am not ready to let go, I pull gobs of chewing gum out of my mouth. I’m struggling to talk or to understand with this pink wad of glub in my way, so I pull in out and around my fingers like a little kid who just put an entire package of Hubba Bubba in their mouth at once. At times in waking life, I think at this point, I’ve removed the night guard I wear to keep from hurting my teeth.

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This dream was so atypical as I dreamt of people. Granted they weren’t the usual grade of humans, and the architecture of the place was still pretty damn important, but dreaming people is different. Not entirely pleasant actually.

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“Because it’s there.”

It made no sense, so we grabbed a box of tissues, a bag of cough drops, a few granola bars, and a pile of CDs. Ian printed a few maps, a few sites off the internet, and me and my sense of direction all got in the Kia.

Seen in Meadville en route:

Another if you like.

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We saw two of the Great Lakes. Susie’s right, they’re Inland Seas, not “lakes” by the usual sense. There is a different sort of cold when one is near a large body of icy water. Mortality is a little nearer. There is always that part of my mind that takes the leap off of any tall building or bridge just as a headgame. I play my vertigo as part of my awed respect for that which is far bigger and more potent than I am.

Lake Erie:

Cold, eh?

Lake Ontario, farther north, not as frozen:

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The American Falls at Night:

The Canadian Falls at Night:

Bonus pics:
Barrier and Stating the obvious.

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Gastronomically speaking, we fared rather poorly, even for road trip standards. The most memorable moment was the elevator-version of that Macy Gray song I try. It’s always rather scary to know the words to the Muzak, but in this case, it was bizarre in a new and different way. What is it about the chocolate pudding on salad bars in these chain establishments?

We also ended up at a Taco Bell for the first time in years. Ever since Ian became allergic to guacamole, we’ve given up entirely on that range of fast food. It helped that Burger King has a decent veggie burger, but I digress. The Bell hasn’t changed a bit; it’s always over air-conditioned; it has that particular smell. But I’ve changed. I’ve become more food elitist. While still a far cry from being a foodie, I just resent more and more anything that isn’t nearly as good as what I have at home. I make a mighty fine burrito, and I prefer my vegan sour cream, and the better organic cheeses, and actually flavorful salsas and hot sauces.

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We are traveling people. It’s part of our echo, the comfortable shadow that never needs to be stitched back onto our relationship. There is an ease of movement in how we pack our passports the way most people pack an extra pair of underwear. We listened to several CDs on our journey, and finished the set with the CD I made for Ian before we met in Istanbul. The selections are all hope and promise, a touch of threat (we are talking about me, after all) and it’s all still there, still achingly bright. One song Ian requests replay on twice. All three times, we’re singing along. It’s rare to hear him sing, and always makes me smile, especially on the road, especially in all the uncertainties of right now. I’m typing in the car, the last song in rhythm to the dark road, white dotted line, Pittsburgh, next left.

Filed by joy at 7:35 pm under travels
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