she hates Mondays most of all

We adjust so readily to a life of leisure, she and I. It's true after only 2 days. Give us 5 days? Forget it.

I am grumpy to leave. And she is furious to watch me go.

in the spirit

Thanksgiving was slow to win me over. Christmas always held the most enchantment, first because of the promise of material gain -- between Santa Claus and the guilt of divorced parents I made out pretty well every year -- then because of ballet and the endless Nutcracker rehearsals that marked the season. Nutcracker is such a funny show. I think the viewing of it (for anyone over the age of nine) makes one cynical about the holidays, but the performing in it is sure to reawaken a sense of wonder. I loved to watch the tree grow night after night. I loved to hear the kids gasp as the mice entered the stage to do battle with the Nutcracker and his soldiers. I loved to watch my friends grow into Sugar Plum Fairy pas de deux; how graceful and elegant they had become.

Anyway, Christmas was it for me: the ultimate holiday. Until I worked in a costume shop. I was old enough then to legally enter bars, and young enough still to relish the permissiveness of a night where sluttier alter egos were not only allowed but encouraged. In parallel, I also discovered how sensual it is to ready a pumpkin for carving. Together, these overpowered my terrific fear of spiders and general dislike of the gory and shockingly scary. I could grow to accept those, just throw a candle in the jack-o-lantern, and hand me and my plunging neckline a beer.

Oh, Halloween and I did have some fun.

I can’t say with precision when that love affair faded. Perhaps it was the eleventy-hundredth time the mummy jumped out from behind the painting hanging ten feet away from the cash register where I rang up hundreds of girls with the same sexy costume, where I asked 50 or so people if they could kindly bag the plastic spiders in their cart that I was too afraid to touch, and where I tried to convince other girls’ boyfriends that hospital scrubs dont' really qualify as a costume. Or, I don’t know, maybe you just wake up one day and know in your bones that once your corset costume is drenched in an entire bottle of champagne by an eager co-worker at the employee ‘we-made-it-through-another-one’ party, there are few places left for Halloween to take you.

So I lit upon Thanksgiving: food, family, still a bit of alcohol -- but no gifts, and overall much kinder to committed relationships than vodka-logged, hormone-fueled late nights in costume. Actually, I love the pies and yams and cranberry sauce. On this one day I even love dish washing.

Bald tires and threats of snow conspired to foil grandma's designs on getting us up to Oregon for the holiday this year. "I'm old," she tells us, "and this could very well be my last Thanksgiving." [Don't fear for her. She is more shameless than frail.] I suppose I should have viewed this change in plans as an opportunity to re-ignite my aspirations of making a pumpkin pie entirely from scratch. I suppose I should have tried to conjure up a full Thanksgiving feast with all the fixins, sized for two. Instead, we made pumpkin risotto and baked apples and enjoyed them from bed. And you know what? Thanksgiving was still Thanksgiving -- even without excessive puttering around in the kitchen. It was great, actually.

It allowed time to wonder if it means anything that I have been dreaming almost exclusively of Make Something Day (which is today!). It allowed the space to get started a little early. And I see my crafting plans stretching out into the weeks ahead.

It allowed time to understand what my apparently fickle heart is trying to tell me: that the stretch of time between the big turkey dinners is actually the most wonderful time of year.

Happy making.

the thank you list

[Oh, it's a good exercise, I think. Lest I lose perspective and allow myself to get cynical.]

I am thankful for cute high-heeled shoes, the existence of leg warmers, and one porteur-style bicycle rack that is making its way to me.

I am thankful for red leaves and chimneys and the twinkle of tiny Christmas lights.

I am thankful for new friends. And one in particular who shall remain nameless because I am still at the phase where I find her a bit intimidating.

I am thankful for the soft moan of a cello.

I am thankful for my grandma. And for the memories I have of eating pomegranates on her back porch while wearing nothing but undies and one of grandpa's old undershirts. I am thankful for those early mornings when I climbed into her bed and waited for grandpa to serve us both coffee from fancy tea cups.

I am thankful to have found a new grandma (in law) who can fill the void my mom's mom left when she died.

I am thankful for achieving an understanding in this marriage that we can each follow our own star. If we can manage to do this without drifting apart, I will be especially grateful.

I am thankful for drag queens and burlesque and John Cameron Mitchell.

I am thankful for film.

I am thankful for furlough days because, frankly, I appreciate the extra time more than I do the money.

I am thankful for sewing machines and bicycles and the communities each build.

I am thankful for Erin at the San Francisco Baking Institute and her thorough and thoughtful advice for making a very big decision.

I am thankful for motivated history teachers whose excitement is contagious.

I am thankful for possibility.

I am thankful for another year with Lila. Since we lost Carter, it all feels like borrowed time. So thank you, little girl cat. You are welcome to stay as long as you like.

ode

Here is something that fall always reminds me: I freaking love orange. [Why isn't there more orange in my world? I need to get on that.]

I also realize I love the light in my apartment: golden pools on summer evenings, and cold, gray-blue wisps on autumn mornings. [Combine bold colors and anemic light and my heart goes puddle-y. That's just how it is around here.] I may, upon occasion, talk a bold streak about leaving this place, but I couldn't. I am far too zealous a wannabe photographer to squander such providential fortune.

apples for you

And very few words. I just want to be sure I pay homage to fall before it goes.

a lightening

It is beautiful out. There are things even an existential crisis cannot deny.

Finally in November the trees conjured that alchemy that transforms green leaves to gold. I have blown through four rolls of film with all my oohing and aahing.

I notice, though, that the trees are disrobing pretty quickly; they are already half undressed. The winds now bring a shock of cold and a waft of chimney smoke. Still lovely, but very nearly winter. So it's time to start posting the fall-inspired still lifes I've been snapping before they become a mere echo of the season's greatest hits.

[I am inordinately excited about the coming week in pictures.]

*****

Also -- oh, alright -- I am excited about more than leaves today. I've just discovered an LA Times article/photoshoot about a family of three living in 380 square feet. I've been having doubts lately about the 340 square feet the mister and I share -- wondering if maybe I'd encouraged us to go too small. And this is some excellently timed succor for my woes.

If my life were a musical, I think now is about the time I would burst into song.

to see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle

I spend a lot of time looking for answers that should be easy to find. I recall a certain summer in upstate New York. During my last two weeks, you could find me curled into a fetal position on my roommate’s bedroom floor, agonizing. My sublease was nearly up, and I needed to decide if I would stay, find a real job and an apartment of my own, or go back to California.

One might imagine a decision like this would require some thought, some weighing of pros and cons. Maybe I did do that, I don’t remember. What I do know is that I spent many hours chest-beating, hair-pulling -- just shy of full-blown pouting, though I think writhing, and perhaps also a bit of foot-kicking, was involved somehow. It was a big damn deal. I was choosing my LIFE. In the big-picture, this-choice-affects-me-forever kind of way.

Except I didn’t really choose. I simply drifted back to Sacramento, because I knew exactly how it would go. At first, it worked out well for me. Then my imagined course fell apart a little and I was disappointed. But once I stopped wondering what might have been, I bounded ahead, saying yes to nearly every opportunity that presented itself. The small things and big things and in-between things that have happened in my universe since germinated organically from there. I have few regrets to speak of, but I haven't achieved any sort of clarity either.

So now I am here, torturing myself (and my current “roommate”) over one question: what do I want to be when I grow up? It’s one of those puzzles that is at once the easiest and hardest thing in the world to solve. I am looking very hard. Hair-pulling and chest-beating have commenced. I am not yet at the fetal-position phase, but I expect it soon.

Also, I can’t help but feel a little sheepish about all this ballyhooing. I suspect the answer I yearn for is right there. Like when you tear your apartment up in search of glasses that turn out to be perched on your nose the whole time. Once you realize, you become painfully self-conscious about the previous five minutes of cussing and bluster, and the deals you made with God to be neater if only you could just find your fucking glasses and get on with the day already. Whoopsie! Silly me!

I suspect the answer I’m looking for now is, likewise, right there: just at the tip of my nose. Which maybe makes it too close for me to really see.

Hopefully -- if I can find a way to stop squinting so much -- it will come into focus.

*****

[And yes; this post's title is a nod to Andrew Sullivan. Just in case you thought you'd seen it before, you have.]

awash in possibility

[Shots from the recent Sacramento Tweed Ride.]

Now that tweed rides have achieved a certain national significance, there seems to be quite a bit of conjecture about what the rides mean: a return to dandyism, the hipster search for identity, self-conscious posturing, a yearning for an "authentic" American flamboyance.

Actually, I’m a little chafed by all these suggestions. None seem to really get at the core of the ride, which, in my mind, is simply this:

Get on your bike.

Is that disappointing? Does it seem an overly simplified answer? I suppose it could.

But if you think about it, the great success of the tweed ride is that it reaches the largest cross section of bicyclists possible. Retro grouches meet fixie jocks meet Sunday strollers meet I-haven’t-ridden-in-years-but-dress-up-sounds-fun experience seekers. Enthusiasts of every strain, and novices alike, get on their bikes and ride. Together.

And I cannot possibly overstate the importance of the costume here. The costume gives us common cause. If you have never been on a tweed ride, you are likely to scoff at this. Frankly, I wouldn’t blame you. It is a ridiculous thing to say, particularly in all seriousness. It should be possible to organize a group ride of this size and scope without requiring specific attire. Especially since these tweed rides (or, at least, my tweed ride) are essentially pub crawls. People like pub crawls, and they will want to come anyway. Which is, perhaps, true.

But the tweed dress is an easy unifier. We are all here together. We need to watch out for each other. Should a tweed rider get a flat tire, say, some of us will need to stop and offer assistance. This actually happened to us en route. And I was thrilled to hear the call of “Tweed down!” echo through the throng of bicyclists. Five or so people pulled over, proffered patch kits and tire pumps and encouraging words to a rider they had only met twenty minutes ago. This is what the costumes get you: a quick in to building a community.

What happens after the ride?

I didn’t get a chance to meet everyone on the Tweed Ride, but I did introduce myself to 40 people, roughly speaking. In the week since, I have encountered about 25 of them while out puttering around. We have stopped and greeted each other by name, shared handshakes and smiles and small talk about the neighborhood. I have been out to dinner with 11. We rode there together on our bikes. 2 have come to my house for breakfast. 2 have invited my husband and me to a party at their house. And all have introduced me to more of their friends, bicycle riders or not. A week is early yet, but the prognosis for these new friendships is good.

Also, every business owner who participated has told us that they loved hosting the tweed riders. Not only were we good for their businesses, we were kind to their staff and a curiosity draw for non-tweeds. We have been warmly welcomed back everywhere.

I can’t think of another ride that can do all this. That can merge the interest of so many different riders, and match them with those of local businesses and city planning agendas. I can't recall another local group ride so delightedly received by so many different people: participants, pedestrians, onlookers, and (even) law enforcement. Critical Mass doesn’t come close.

I haven't meant to sound defensive. And I realize that I do. Putting together the Sacramento Tweed Ride (which, I admit, would have gone exactly nowhere without the mister's enthusiasm and elbow grease) was among the most positive things I have ever done. Mr. and I both feel -- not invincible exactly -- but kinetic, enlivened by the knowledge that we can coax a real event from a whole lot of hopes.

We are now more connected to our neighbors, our city, and our bicycles than ever before. And I sense this is the case for all the other tweed riders too. This is well beyond the payoff of a less ostentatious, more bicycle-focused ride. And certainly beyond what a testosterone-fueled fuck you to cars can buy.

This is a step toward the city we've always wanted. And probably the one you wanted as well. I'm pretty sure of myself here, but I have good reason. You donned possibly the most lovely, fop-arific, ridiculous tweeds I could ever hope for. And I can't think of why if not to build something great.

(Also, it was a lot of fun.)

I should be here

[and by "here," I mean work. Yes, even on a Sunday.]

I have tried all weekend to muster the energy to go the office. I have tried to convince myself that just a few weekend hours will make all the difference for my Monday -- will magically transform tomorrow's deadline furor into bite-sized task.

But it's gorgeous out, you know: brisk air, bright sun, and sidewalks strewn with crisp leaves that crackle as you walk through them. Just the thought of my office, with its gray walls and no windows, makes me feel a little cheated. And my private pep talk turns quickly to whining.

Though Saturday and Sunday have been lovely, though I have remained both optimistic about what I can do come Monday and defiant about what I should have to do on my days off, these 48-hours have been dominated by "should" rather than "do": I should go. I should work. I should care obsessively about commas, periods, boldface, and one-inch margins.

I still haven't gone in to the office. But I'm not sure that I've won. The internal struggle has come to define my weekend, and the issue of work has taken center stage anyway. Instead of editing, I have napped. Instead of editing, I went to a party. Instead of editing, I cooked breakfast for friends.

I attribute much (ok, nearly all) of my current unhappinesses to this life in a cubicle, to work that is completely divorced from manual labor and tangible products -- work that demands long, computer-based hours while stationed at ergonomic chairs in fluorescent-lit rooms. I am, in fact, so certain of the deleterious effects of the office, I have convinced myself and a certain Mr. in my life that the only thing in this world that can restore the kind of whole-body happiness I used to have is to just walk away from the cube. Leave three-quarter walls and prairie dogging and morale building behind forever in favor of more creative work, physical work, or, really, anything work -- just as long it doesn't involve an office park.

Occasionally I worry that I am being melodramatic. I worry that the same zero-sum game awaits me no matter the occupation I pick. I worry that bullshit politics and vying and doublespeak are everywhere. I worry that the basic demand of any job in any field is to quietly put up with the crap. I worry that the real cause of the doldrums I'm in is something else entirely -- something I just can't see yet. But I try not to spend much time on this. Every choice has a set of naggy what-ifs attached, and I am tired of fearing the boogeyman.

Though I'm still the only person in the office who knows this, my end-of-cubicle-days countdown has begun.

So all that's left, I guess, is holding my breath and hoping my no-office-for-me theory is right.

it's finally here!

Dear Fall:
You are even lovelier this year than you have ever been before.

it's finally here!

Dear Fall:
You are even lovelier this year than you have ever been before.

and so could I

[the window of 826 Valencia, August]

Which makes me wonder what, exactly, my Everest would be.

Also:

Sometimes we don't believe we are worthy of receiving what we dream of; sometimes we don't believe it could ever happen. Sometimes we are so convinced of our apparent unworthiness we do everything we can to prevent the good stuff entering our lives. We don't do this consciously, of course. I'm slowly learning that all i need to do to help the good stuff manifest is to step out the way, to stop littering the path with my worries and insecurities, and all the endless head-chatter that scares the dream whisps away. In some ways it's easier to sabotage our dreams than help them become reality - that way, when they don't happen we can shrug our shoulders and say, 'see? I knew it. I'm not worth it.' But lately i've been trying this idea on for size: what if i AM worthy? What if it is okay for good things to come into my life?

(via ink on my fingers)

Clearly, I'm in the middle of a vortex that converges on this: my time to poke at the age-old, what-will-I-become question is now. It is time that I utter brave yeses and well-placed nos. Simply, it is time to start doing.

My working theory is that every blog starts as a wish. I have kept other blogs before, and made other wishes, variously hoping for: a following, a niche, the admiration of strangers, a book deal (you know, the small things). Except I realize that these wishes aren't really for me, they are just about me. I've been slow to understand this. But here we are.

So, it's time to end wistful blogs, daydreamy blogs, and yearning blogs in favor of actually dreaming, trying and becoming. No more self-defensive marketing of self as outlier (which I've become so good at -- and not just on the internets). It's time to be honest with myself; set aside my aversion to work; and occasionally sign on for an adventure that thrills and scares me.

Time to become the cat who could. Instead of the cat who only wished she'd tried.