o tannenbaum

Yesterday I pulled sturdy jeans over a pair of old nylons, layered up in sweaters, donned the only hat that becomes me, and headed up to Michigan to fetch myself a fine-lookin' tree with Boss Meg and her husband Phillip.

Christmas tree selection, transportation, and installation is possibly a greater difficulty to the modern single woman than the pointlessness of hanging mistletoe. A dear friend (an attached young man) once asked, "Why do all these TV shows and movies make a big deal out of single women having to drag Christmas trees into their apartments through their windows?" Because it's the starkest thing about the single life. A woman can be content, even satisfied, with her life as a Singleton; but managing a Christmas tree by herself throws into sharp relief the inherent wrongness of having to navigate life alone. There should be someone to help her with the damn tree. When there isn't, it goes beyond a feeling of cosmic mockery and violates the sensibility that lies at the marrow of Christmas: connection. Divine connection to humanity, human connection to humanity. A woman falling back on her own resources to set up her isolated celebration of connection is a terribly ironic tragedy.

I've been blessed so far by not having to set up makeshift pulleys out my living room window. Last year when I couldn't go home for any of the holidays because of the demands of retail, my parents visited for Thanksgiving and brought with them a Scotch pine to set up in my living room. (One of these days I'll post on the necessity of having parents, even and especially as an adult, and how glad I am that my parents maintain an active involvement in my life, or I might be lost.) They helped me purchase the lights, the ornaments, the tinsel. I decorated it alone, but even though I cried as I did it, I did not feel abandoned.

This year I could not have done it without Meg and Phillip. And I had a wonderful time. We drove to a Christmas tree farm in the middle of nowhere, which supplies its customers with saws and hayrides (horse- or tractor-drawn) to the tree fields, where you can wander at will and select your very own tree. Phillip cut mine down for me (a tall, full Douglas fir -- I'm drawn to triangular trees the way some people are drawn to certain body types), and we hauled our trees back to meet the next hayride and headed to the home base where our trees were mechanically shaken free of dead needles, measured, priced, and bundled. Then we went into a log-cabin style general store for complimentary hot cocoa and to pay for the trees. Phillip strapped the trees to the top of their SUV and we returned to their place for chili and tree decoration, after which they drove my tree to my apartment, carried it upstairs, and went about the messy business of setting it up in my living room.

I had already rearranged all the furniture to accomodate the beautiful annual intruder, but we hadn't factored on the difficulty of forcing the tree into my ancient tree stand. In the end my living room carpet was littered with branches, bark, sawdust, pinesap, needles, and twigs as Meg and Phillip hacked away at interfering tree limbs. (At one point Phillip was doing the sawing while Meg and I straddled the still-bundled tree to keep it still, and I laughed and said, "Meg, we're having a treesome!")

So now I have armfuls of fir boughs to adorn the apartment, a clean carpet, and a fully decorated tree. Every family decorates differently; mine favors large colored lights, some of which randomly blink (and the first half-hour or forty-five minutes of tree decoration involves unscrewing and moving bulbs around to eliminate clusters of one color throughout the branches) and no particular theme to the ornaments. The tree is a hodgepodge of homemade, inherited, bought, and acquired ornaments placed to fill its spaces, some hung as far back as possible, layered over with silver tinsel icicles (no garland for me!) and topped with an angel. The overall effect is friendly, warm, and delightful; my favorite evening advent activity is to turn off all lights in the house except the tree just before bed, and sit listening to Christmas music or in silence, watching the tree and the needly patterns of colored light it throws against the white walls and ceiling.

It's still odd, decorating by myself and for myself, but this year I feel I have friends with which to share it. Next weekend sometime Meg and I are getting together for a Christmas cookie-baking bonanza (such fun, to swap recipes), and she'll be stopping by during the week to see what I've done with the tree. I'll have Colette over soon, and I'm pretty sure I can drag MP over for some insane Christmas cheer.

This is a new and glowing facet to celebrating Christmas: sharing and experiencing the traditions of fully grown friends. Everyone has a different story, and story, as Leigh Ann and I enthusiastically discuss, is life.

So I'm single. So I'm living alone. But I didn't have to wrestle my tree in place by myself, and I am beginning to feel more and more connected where I am.

And my tree is fragrant and gorgeous.

Enter Henrietta

My cute, sassy 2001 Toyota Corolla Sport. Yes, in the span of sixty hours I got a new car. Here's a frame-by-frame:

Friday. The call comes from Gurley Leep about Earl's totalled status. I freak out. My grandparents promise to help. I ride back to Erie with Mom and Dad feeling sick. Dad calls a friend from church for car-buying tips. The guy tells him he usually gets them off Ebay.

Saturday. Doug e-mails Dad a link to a 2001 Toyota Corolla Sport on the Ebay market, fantastically priced and in great condition. I see the pictures. I read a list of the car's assets. I fall in love. Dad calls the seller (who lives in Rochester, NY) to ask a few questions. Dad calls Pap-pap to tell him about the car. Dad wants to drive the car before he buys it. I spend the entire day chewing my nails.

Sunday. Dad calls the seller again. Pap-pap calls with his approval (necessary because Pap-pap is footing all of the money for the car, part a gift and part a loan). Mom, Dad, and I drive to Rochester. We test drive the car. I am wildly in love with the car. I name her Henrietta Brighton-Jones. We buy the car. We drive her to North East. We arrive there at 8:00 p.m. I finish packing the rental car and start out in it for South Bend at 9:00 p.m.

Monday. At midnight I am still driving. I pull over at the western edge of Ohio at 1:00 a.m. for a nap because I am so tired I am shaking and feeling close to vomiting. I arrive at my apartment at 3:45 a.m. I fall asleep an hour later. My alarm goes off at 7:00 a.m. I sleep for another hour. I arrive at work forty minutes late. I make it through the day. I go to bed at 9:00 p.m. for ten hours of sleep.

Tuesday. Mom and Dad drive Henrietta to me. Dad and I return the rental car while Mom helps Meg at work. I drive Henrietta back to work. We have dinner at the Fiddler's, then part ways so Mom and Dad can get home before midnight. I drive Henrietta home and hash out the details of repayment with my grandparents (I'm paying back eighty-eight percent of the cost of the car, which will have me making payments to them for the next five years. This basically means I'll be living in my current lifestyle -- no extra frills or fun stuff, definitely not a new chair and probably not even a new mattress for a long time -- even after my raise. This stings a little, particularly about the mattress because my back HURTS all the time now, but at least they're not charging me interest, which with their loans they usually do. My grandfather was a banker). I sit back excited to watch Bones and House. Or maybe just Bones, depending on how tired I am.

So Henrietta is white, snazzy, with a CD player and a stick shift and cruise control. I have wanted a stick ever since I learned to drive one. I can't believe that I have the car of my dreams. For this I am exceedingly grateful. And she definitely has "get-up-and-go." Earl was faithful, but certainly not speedy (zero to thirty in ten seconds). Henrietta grips the road and jumps.

I have an amazing family and a great car.

Happy happy happy.

Tired.

good night, sweet prince

They're totalling my car.

Apparently on the close inspection that he should have done the minute I drove to the dealership with my damaged Earl four weeks ago, the inspection/estimate guy decided yesterday that the cost to repair outweighs the value of the eleven-year-old minivan. So I'm sitting back waiting for a call from the insurance company.

This frustrates me for a number of reasons. First, my old Earl has been a faithful vehicle. So I'm sad. But more than this, the insurance company should have declared total loss at least a month ago. Instead they farted around denying me the money I needed for a rental (they said they'd pay for the three days it would take to repair the as-then-assessed damages, but no more, sticking me with the bill for another five days since the soonest they would let me take my car in was Thanksgiving week, when I was due to travel to visit family), and then the estimate guy waited till FRIDAY (I dropped my car off on Monday) to call me to tell me he's putting a hold on my car until he can hear back from the insurance company about totalling it.

So now I have to scramble to find a new car before the cost of the rental puts me in the poorhouse. My grandparents were great, though -- I got the phone call yesterday at their house, and was so upset that I buckled onto the floor and started crying (I seriously don't have the money for this and I sure as hell have never bought a car before); poor Mom thought someone had died -- and my tough, practical, Scots-Irish grandmother came and knelt in front of me on the floor and took my hands firmly and said, "You're a good kid, and you've been making it on your own. I am so proud of you. Your grandfather and I will help you with a new car. And don't be too proud to accept it." I sniffled and said, "Thanks, I'll pay you back," and she said sharply, "No you will not. If we help you, you won't pay anything back." And my gruff German-Scots-Irish pap-pap growled, "Sure, honey. We'll help you." And Grandma started flipping through the 2006 Consumer Report looking for reliable automobiles while Pap-pap gave me advice on taxes and told me to run my hands up under the dashboard of any used vehicle I consider to look for flood silt.

So I've decided I want a Toyota Corolla -- affordable, reliable, cheap to repair, long-lasting, safe -- and Mom and Dad and their friends and our family are helping me locate some. So within a week I should have a new car.

The good thing is I get an extra paycheck in December, which should cover the cost of the rental. And I'm actually pretty excited about a new(er) car. I'm just glad I don't have to do everything myself (another sucky singleness factor, especially with home base so far away).

Oo, and my parents are giving me my favorite of their three cats, adorable black-as-velvet Simon who doesn't prefer the company of so many cats and would probably benefit from living with only one person. He strayed into our yard two Easters ago and I made first contact with him (I was sitting in the yard with Kristin Born, then Bell, late one evening when I saw this gorgeous slender black cat hanging around under one of the cars, so I crouched down and started rubbing my fingers together and crooning. He paced frantically back and forth like he wanted to come running but was afraid, then suddenly gathered all his courage and shot over and scooted under my hand and froze. Then when I kept crooning and started stroking his head, he relaxed all over and kicked up a raspy loud purr that you wouldn't believe and started rolling around in ecstasy in the dirt. Within a week he was formally adopted into our zoo/family). So after Christmas I'm taking him back to South Bend.

This will put me two closer to achieving my five By The Time I'm Thirty-One I Will Have goals. Those goals are: a house, a new car, a cat, a dog, and a king-size bed.

Three to go.

this is me doing okay.

I found my first facial line.

There are three, actually. Very fine, but clear. One parallelling the curve of my upper right lip, the other two side-by-side at the left-hand corner of my mouth. I have been noticing for the past month or so that when I smile (yes, I check myself out in mirrors and my car windows when I'm unlocking the door) the smile quirks back into set, predestined curves. But then after a four-hour laugh session at Don Pablo's with the incorrigible and hilarious MP, I got home and noticed while getting ready to wash my face that the laugh lines...were still there. And I wasn't smiling.

A smile-free night of semi-restful sleep (I have just decided that my mattress sucks, which is the reason I wake up tired and sore every morning) found the lines...still there.

I have two feelings about this. The first is, of course, a combination of hollow regret and desperate panic (will I meet the man who wants to marry me BEFORE my skin collapses into dewlaps?) because I think, I'm not eighteen anymore. The fresh unworn skin is becoming a little less supple, a little more set, like overworked clay.

The other feeling is...pride. I hated being eighteen. I have always wanted to be a grown-up. I have always felt a little too old for my age (and have been told at least a thousand times that I am, even this year), and now I've reached the point where I've lived enough to have it carved, just the tiniest bit, into my skin. My body is beginning to catch up and take me where I've always wanted to go. And I'm proud because the lines, the first to appear and tell me that however young I am, I'm getting older, were born of laughter. In high school I had small white frown-spots at the corners of my mouth from not smiling, from feeling heavy-laden and sad; in college I started to shove away sadness and embrace joy. And the lines that tell me where the smile is going to go show me that I've won what is for me an old war. I have a leg up on time. I'm going into age laughing.

There are years of reasons why this is a miracle. I was reared in my adolescence by a fanatic youth pastor who taught me that I was horrible, who trained me to hate myself and to think that God hated me for not being perfect. I used to lie awake every night weeping, casting around in my mind for every single minute thing I had done wrong that day and desperately begging for God's forgiveness, believing he would cast me into hell and withhold his love from me because I was human. I believed for the entirety of the most formative years of my life that God detested me, was disappointed in me, would never be satisfied with me, thought I was disgusting, and loved me only in spite of myself because he was God but would much rather he didn't have to. I was afraid. I was in despair. I didn't particularly want to live. I didn't think I could make it on my own. I thought that if God could only love me because he was God, no one else could love me. I was alone.

But in college I learned that my fellow human beings could, and did, love me. And so did God. My favorite bathroom stall in North Hall my freshman year (left-hand side, second door from the front) had Zephaniah 3:17 hanging in it. Every time I took a pee, it affirmed to me in curly cheerful letters, "The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. / He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." I started to uncurl my fingers and loosen my hold on the idea that I was worthless, good-for-nothing, better off dead. I began to laugh.

When my sister went through her debilitating illness, I learned to stave off the anguish and despair with laughter. Wild sometimes, hollow sometimes, forced sometimes, but still healing. Even when I was angriest at God, I found something I'd forgotten, something that vanished sometime after I turned eight. I found joy. And I held onto it. I met people I could laugh with, and I found faith that everything would work out.

And it has. It's not a happily-ever-after ending, of course -- not yet. But it's still good. When I was eighteen I had my whole life planned out. Now at twenty-four I don't have plans at all. None of them panned out the way I thought. And I couldn't be happier about it. Sure, there are nights when I wish my battered stuffed Eeyore was a solid, breathing, warm human man; sure, there are mornings when the thought of wiping one more horrible slug-dripping nose or changing one more shitty diaper or holding one more kid in the throes of a temper tantrum over something stupid like "It's time to brush your teeth" makes me want to pull the covers back over my head and deny the daylight; but at every moment I'm in a season. Something new is just around the corner.

Not all of it will be enjoyable (in fact I have an appointment after Thanksgiving to see if I have a stomach ulcer, which I doubt but who knows?), but everything will be okay. I'm doing what I didn't think possible, even two years ago: I'm relatively emotionally stable, I have a good job (which is getting better -- in mid-January I'm going to be, not Administrative Coordinator, but Director of Events, some Marketing, and some PR -- I'll be writing press releases and I get a thirty percent raise and an extra week of paid vacation and an office!!!), I find pleasure in living alone, I find pleasure in spending time with the few trusted friends I've made here. I find pleasure in being.

Yesterday I opened my Bible at random to Psalm 37: "If the LORD delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand." Yesterday I laughed so hard with Marianne that my abs hurt more than they do after my daily workout. Yesterday I found my first facial lines. Today the lines were still there, and today I looked out my window at the hard, bright, shallow sunshine on the bare bright trees and I loved my life and this season and the God who brought me to it. I put on my coat, my favorite scarf, and my warm ugly gloves and went out into the day at the death of the year (this coldness before the snow flies, when the leaves are packed in sharp-smelling banks along the curb and the land is stark and bare, is my favorite time of year), and found Colette, and walked around the neighborhood, talking.

Maybe every second doesn't find me jumping up and down in elation -- that's not life. Maybe every morning doesn't find me burning with delight to be awake, maybe every afternoon doesn't find me suppressing a song because I'm filled to bursting with happiness. But every minute finds me alive. Every minute finds me upheld. And when I turn my faithful, as-yet-unrepaired old Earl nosefirst down the driveway wherever I'm going each day, I can look down the uneven bricks of Ashland St. and up at the flat November sky and think, I'm doing okay.

I'm not getting younger, and I'm not where I thought I would be. But where I am is better. Facial lines and all.

la la la la la

Just had a fantastic evening hanging out with former roommate Marianne -- I sometimes forget how lovely and essential it is to spend time with someone who has known you well for a long while, whose company you really enjoy. (Shout out, MP!)

Also some really exciting news on the promotion, which I'll go into further over the weekend. Right now I'm tired and have to get up early on a Saturday for a conference on baby sign language. Wheee.

yak

So I'm recovering from a weekend of nasty illness and took a sick day today to give me a chance to get back to as normal as possible.

Last week a wicked stomach bug ran rampant at the Center, and Friday afternoon I caught it. When I got home from work I emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet (my toilet has an old-fashioned base shaped in cross-section rather like a flower, which makes it conveniently easy to grip when in the throes of retching), and went to bed. Apparently bored with the dash-for-the-bathroom routine, I had my stomach put a little blood into the vomit and treated myself to a trip to the ER where after being ignored for hours I was put onto an IV and drugged senseless. My two angels through this ordeal were Colette and her coworker Tona -- Colette drove me to the hospital and Tona met us there -- and they lugged my stuff around and told stories and fetched me things like heated blankets and cups of ice.

After about six hours I was still having trouble keeping water down and the nurse was all for admitting me for the night, but by then I had one clear and ever-so-stubborn thought in my muddled head: Go home. That was about all I could manage to say: "Wan' go home." So Colette drove me home, then filled my prescriptions (I did say angel, yes?) while I dragged myself up the stairs and collapsed into bed.

So the rest of the weekend my stomach was irritable and sore, and I lay around feeling generally miserable and weak and with the idea that I really ought to be eating something, but I was afraid I couldn't get it down. Then came today, when I felt reasonably sure of my stomach lining and managed to make a nice chicken soup that tasted insanely delicious.

So my NaNoWriMo project is sadly sadly behind, but I can sit up without every abdominal muscle clenching in pain, so I think I'll call that progress.

And tomorrow it's back to the gremlins.

the update

I'm sure most of you have stopped clicking on my link because it's been so damn long since I posted. For which I apologize, but yes, Matt, you were right, things have been busy.

So, first the update on the busyness, then the tag (thanks Susie!).

Things at work:

Last week the executive director of the Center for the Homeless (a very outgoing, rather scattered man in his early thirties) approached me and said, "So you've been here for about six months, and I wanted to check on you and see how things are going...and to ask if there was anything else at the Center you'd be interested in doing."

Thinking he was after me to get more involved in extra-work activities, I said, "Can I ask what you had in mind?"

To which he replied, "Administrative coordinator."

And I sort of reeled for half a second (oh wow, he meant what other JOB?) and said, "Okay. What's involved with that?"

So pretty much I'd be his personal assistant, lots of secretarial work (phone calls, filing, organizing his schedule, reminding him of all his tasks) and some extra organizing activities, plus a role as the guy's right-hand gal able to advise him on ideas. Frankly, running to get a guy's coffee (which I doubt I'd have to do) doesn't knock my socks off, but on the other hand I would get to meet EVERYONE (because this guy knows EVERYONE in South Bend), so it would be a huge networking opportunity, and a launching pad toward any career in the community that I would want. There's also a ten to twenty percent pay raise involved (v. good), and I would get to wear nice clothes again, interact with adults, learn all there is to know about the inner workings of the Center (satisfying my life drive to know everything), and help make decisions.

I've been getting stressed and burned out on the children front -- the kids I most love are turning three and leaving the program soon, and really when it comes down to it what I love about my current position is the administrative and development aspect, not so much the day to day grind of wiping snotty noses, cleaning dirty asses, and maintaining a ridiculously patient persona. So this looks like a perfect opportunity.

And naturally I've been losing sleep over it, because Boss Meg is burning out too and this is a heavy blow to her. We're an amazing partnership, think along the same lines, complement each other's strengths, have the same sense of humor, and it's going to be extremely hard to let that go. Also to yield up some of my professional independence.

But I think it's the next right thing.

And I'm going to have to satisfy the tag in a later post; the parental units are visiting this weekend (which is wonderful and also another reason I've been insanely busy, up late every night cleaning) and I want to spend time with them.

Oo, Linds, since you asked -- I had taken a nearly year-long hiatus on writing (sad) -- the last thing I'd really written was that half-baked poem I posted in July -- but the other weekend I sat down and wrote a new fragment for my Clytemnestra project. And it felt wonderful. When I talked to Dr. Price at homecoming he remembered the project and asked after it, and said, "You really need to write that. It has legs." Which pretty neatly bolstered my confidence. Anyway, it's once again a work in progress.

Anything new to send me?

but it pours

This week was something sort of hellish. On no night could I get a decent amount of rest for the life of me, though I went to bed at ten o'clock with the regularity of a healthy octogenarian's bowels. So I was unprepared for most of the normal upsets and wears and tears of my job, and stressed, and easily frustrated.

Not to mention a nice little fender bender on Tuesday night, the result of the most insane act of idiocy I've witnessed on the road to date. A woman who'd turned the WRONG WAY onto a one-way street swung around into the middle lane at an intersection, then, as I came up behind her on the left, turned left FROM THE MIDDLE LANE into the intersection, right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and lay on the horn for a good five seconds, to no effect. My poor Earl smacked his right front bumper into her left rear door. Plastic headlight and turn signal covers shattered all over the asphalt. My radiator slowly leaking fluid. Me so silently outraged and irate that my passenger (a coworker whom I was driving home) told me later she feared I would throttle the offending driver right there in the street.

I wish I could draw a diagram for you. The blatant stupidity jacked my blood pressure sky-high, even more than if I had been remotely at fault. A quick phone call to 911 (first 911 call I've ever made) brought a police car to the scene in about ten seconds, and since no one was injured and the damage minimal, the officer just did an official exchange of information, gave us some advice, and left. I could barely look the Stupid Woman Who Drove in Front of Me in the face, but I didn't kill her, attempted to be pacified by her frantic overtalkative woe-is-me-what-a-bad-week attempts to appease me, and left. Now I'm just waiting for her insurance company to call me and send somebody to look over my poor baby to assess the cost. At least I don't have to pay for any of the damage.

This weekend is a Note Dame home game, and I have happily holed myself up hermit- or grizzly bear-like in my apartment for the weekend, knowing that if I wanted to leave it would take me hours to get anywhere, and everything would be twice as expensive. (Oh yes. God help you if you want to fill your gas tank on a home game weekend: The prices are ten to twenty cents higher per gallon.)

Boss Meg and Jess (the coworker whom I drove home) have noticed that my Inner Bitch is snarling and rattling the bars of my ribcage -- not in how I treat people, but in my general attitude. She had a lot of free reign in college (though she didn't fool the people who knew me), and even when I worked retail; but now that I'm in social work, and with small children at that, I've stuffed her into a tight drum of controlled kindness. She's in a rage. Sometimes I've found myself longing to really have it out with Slightly Psycho Kevin, the only really hateable person I know, just to blow off steam. (But I haven't because that isn't my place and would open up a suppurating and unpleasant can of long-living worms.)

A good thing I've started working out every day after work with Meg. Without that physical outlet for pent-up aggression, I don't really know what I'd do besides slowly disintegrate.

Which is largely why I'm a.) healthy as a horse and getting steadily stronger, and b.) blowing most of my extra money on really nice-smelling Yankee Candles. Aromatherapy, my friends. It's vital.

dearly beloveds

Homecoming was perfect. I got to see nearly everyone I had hoped to see, and it was rejuvenating and healing to spend time with people whom I love ridiculously. Also good to be seen by those who have known me for some time. There's a lovely, warm comfort to being with old friends who know you well.

A wonderful weekend. Thanks all!

(And Kellie Donnelly, you left your lotion and hand cleanser in my purse. Just so you know.)

rorschack eggs

The egg I dropped into the frying pan this morning assumed the perfect shape of a STEALTH bomber.

It tasted fine, though.

call me a cat

And I just caught Mouse Number Two, this time with some cleverness and cunning. It poked its head around the bookshelf as I sat on my couch journalling, and sneaked along the baseboard and around the corner to the kitchen. I waited a moment, then followed. It wasn't caught in the glue trap laid along the wall just around the corner. Puzzled, I checked my other empty trap in the kitchen behind the stove, then inspected its path to see how it had escaped.

It occurred to me that the mouse was running on the molding, not the bare floor, so I tipped the glue trap at an angle from molding to floor, and went on a hunt around the kitchen.

As I opened the pantry door, a little brown furriness darted behind the stove. I waited, and then with a jerk it ran over the tipped trap and caught.

So now Mouse Number Two is feeling a little colder and I'm thinking if there are more than two mice in this apartment, I am quickly going to lose my reluctance to give them a sound blow to the head to finish the whole business right away, so as not to waste good Gladware.

Meowwr.

a conversation with my father

Me: Hi, Daddy.
Dad: Hey, Sarah B., I just got your message.
Me: Yeah, um...what do I do?
Dad: Well, how bad is it? Did it chew through the whole wire?
Me: Hang on, checking...yeah, it chewed through an entire wire. So the speaker only has one wire intact.
Dad: Well...hm...it's a little hard for me to walk you through it step-by-step...
Me: I know, you can't even see the damage. But there are little bits of copper strewn everywhere and the speaker is definitely not working.
Dad: Do you know anyone you could take it to?
Me: Yeah, my boss's husband is good with this kind of stuff. You think that'll do it?
Dad: Yeah, I think so. Hey, what did you mean when you said the mouse is currently freezing to death?
Me: I mean I put it in the freezer.

So yes, I had a mouse this past week. Monday evening I was sitting on the couch watching TV when a furry black thing scuttled across the baseboard and disappeared behind the entertainment center. I shrieked (wondering if it was perhaps the biggest cockroach on the planet), grabbed a stool, and climbed on it to peer behind the entertainment center. There it was, terrified by the volume of my yell, and there I was, paralyzed. I put in a call to my mother and then to my landlord, who happened to be at Target at that very moment buying mousetraps for his own house. So he brought me some flat glue traps, the kind that catch but don't kill (grr, I hate doing the dirty work myself), and Wednesday afternoon I came home to find it lodged in a corner, its back legs caught in the trap and the glue full of copper wire pieces from the stereo speaker next to which it was lying.

My massive guilt trip evaporated then and there. I had decided in advance that freezing to death was the most humane way of disposing of the mouse (as opposed to smashing it or doing as my landlord suggested, which was to throw the whole thing in the trash: "You'll hear it moving around for awhile, but it'll die eventually" -- what?! -- and the glue prevents you from freeing the mouse in one piece, so I couldn't drive it twenty miles to a field and let it go) and so I lifted the trap with a spatula into a disposable Gladware container, covered it in plastic wrap, and popped it in on top of the icebox.

It's too bad mice are vermin. This particular little mouse was very very cute -- a long, alert face and bright eyes and dark brown fur, much more preferable than the nasty boorish sluggish smelly "domesticated" variety -- and if I had found his little poops in my toilet instead of my pantry, I believe we could have set up a tidy, peaceable coexistence. Instead he crapped on my flour and ate one of my speaker wires. Sorry, little buddy; time to go.

So I'm listening to George Winston with one speaker, which is adequate but one-dimensional. Boss Meg's husband Phillip will fix the devastated speaker for me, so I'm taking it to work with me tomorrow.

a disclaimer

Life has been a little depressing lately...I'm exhausted with no apparent cause (I've been taking iron supplements and have decided to add a meat dish every week to my diet to avoid anemia), haven't been sleeping well, and have no energy.

I've begun cracking into my Bible in the mornings again (I've needed that pretty desperately) and exercise regularly, so hopefully with my improvements in diet I'll be picking up the pace again.

Really I think my exhaustion stems from my job. I love my work, I love the kids, I love what Meg and I are trying to do; but it's an exhausting job. All day every day I have to remain patient, calm, and loving for 6-8 very small children whose mental/emotional wellbeing partially depends upon my attitude and how attentive and vigilant I am for them. This keeps me on my guard every second.

Plus it was a long summer with only one steady volunteer on only Monday and Wednesday mornings. Meg and I have been planning and executing lessons (Yes, we do lessons: This is an early intervention classroom, not a daycare) all morning every morning by ourselves since June. All summer we've been upbeat about it, refusing to admit how hard our job has been, plowing through until we can get a break. Finally more volunteers are returning with the start of the academic year; but not many are coming in the mornings when we do our lessons and need the most help: Therefore we're not getting much of a break. But even a slight bit of help has the weight of the summer leaning on me -- rather like plowing through a semester refusing to get sick because of the workload for school, then going home for fall break and catching pneumonia, the flu, or some ungodly horrible cold. Only this is manifesting itself not in illness but utter, bone-deep mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion.

I am dead tired. When I come home I barely have enough energy to make something for dinner before I sink into the couch and stare vacantly at the TV until bedtime. My entire apartment needs a thorough cleaning; my plants need regular watering; my refrigerator could stand a purge; but I can't do it.

It upsets me when people assume that most of my negligence of a social life is due to some internal rudeness or irresponsibility or callous disregard. First, my job is my life. I love it, and I will not leave it until my work there is pretty much through, and while I have it I must necessarily have early bedtimes and low-key weekends, since any time not at work is time recuperating from that day and preparing for the next. I'm in social work. If I show up groggy or grumpy children who have already endured more insecurity than I have ever endured in my life will suffer for it. I cannot do that to them. Thus, my night life is g.o.n.e. Kiss it goodbye, friends; I already have.

I am happy to meet people for dinner. I miss a lot of the folks I used to see regularly. But I can't jump into clubbing clothes and hit the bars on a work night. I doubt I can even jump into clubbing clothes and hit the bars on a weekend night. At ten o'clock my vision starts fuzzing. It's the nature of my current life.

Second, I am by nature an introvert. I do not believe this characteristic is the negative hurdle-to-be-overcome that contemporary society would have us believe. It is merely a fact. By nature I avoid oversocializing with people -- not because I dislike people, but because being with people, however fun and necessary and wholesome (and it is fun and necessary and wholesome) drains my resources. It has nothing to do with the people and everything to do with how I'm wired. When I'm at a mental/physical/emotional ebb, I heal by being alone. And I've been in a mental/physical/emotional low tide for a long time.

So friends, please don't take offense if I neglect you. I love you, and apologize for neglecting you, and hope not to neglect you soon. In the meantime, if you think of me, kindly pray that more morning volunteers will show up to help Meg and me, because until then it looks like my social life (which, may I reiterate, is sometimes just as much work for me as my job) is kerplut.

And in the meantime, I'm going to bed.

fall cleaning

I made a delightful discovery yesterday when depositing my birthday money into my checking account: I have much more money there than I had thought.

Much more really isn't much in the grand scheme of things, but the end of the month usually finds me scraping the bottom of the financial barrel because my spending habits have never been stellar. Well...actually my spending habits are great for the economy, but my saving habits suck.

But so far this month I've been practically miserly, not buying anything but groceries and staying in a lot to watch Buffy. (My birthday shopping spree at the Grove doesn't count, as it used up money that didn't come from my paycheck.)

So I can relax a little bit and enjoy the not-spending that is September.

Today my apartment was fifty-eight degrees when I woke up (again, up and about before nine -- huzzah!) and even though I didn't feel I'd had the best night's sleep, just rolling out from under the covers into delightful briskness had me completely energized. Which means I get to partially accomplish my goal of reorganizing and cleaning my entire apartment this weekend. The clutter has been accumulating and it's driving me bonkers.

Boss Meg and I have been working out consistently after work on MWF; yesterday's workout was fantastic (although sadly I sweat like Niagara Falls, thanks Dad) and I've finally found the perfect height on the exercise bike so that my knees aren't burning two minutes into the routine.

The two of us managed to get through the end of August and part of September without hearing someone ask us, "Are you sisters???" But this week we were deluged; it's gotten to the point where we either start laughing as soon as it's asked, or suppress impatient groans. I mean seriously. She's Greek-Italian and I'm Scots-Irish-German. We're two pretty white girls with big smiles and brown hair, and that's where the resemblance ends. Although I do look a little more like her sister than her own sister does.

My mango yogurt ice went over fabulously at La-Di-Ta; I met two new young women who a.) don't mind at all our various differences in personality and background (which rocks) and b.) apparently know all the young people in South Bend, so I've been threatened with a social life, which sounds grrrreat. They exclaimed over the delicate flavors and beautiful presentation (at the recipe's direction, I served the ice with sprigs of mint) and asked, "You made this?" Which of course made me smile.

Bring on the cleaning. I'm wearing ancient, huge, patched, faded jeans and a bandana. Brace yourself, clutter. Te goberno!

la-di-ta

Temperatures last night bottomed out at a welcome fifty-something degrees, so that when I woke groggily to the insistence of my alarm this morning my apartment registered at a blissful fifty-nine. With the sun filtering through slowly yellowing leaves on the street outside my living room window, and yellow-brown leaves scattered over the sidewalk, it definitely bespoke the coming of autumn.

Colder weather brings out the best in me. I like summer while it lasts, but the heat and the humidity make me feel bloated, lethargic, and stupid. When I wake up and get cold feet walking across my kitchen floor to put on the kettle, and the air bites at my bare legs, I feel energized, chipper, ready to take on anything. I think I'm going to get up an hour earlier on these fall mornings so that I can take a long constitutional in the vinegar-tangy air before work. My ideal temperature is sixty-five, my ideal day a late September Saturday when I can dig out my shapeless red barn coat, stuff the pockets with apples, and wander at will through the trees.

On a social note, tonight begins the inception of La-Di-Ta ("Living Alone -- Dining Together"), a single women's dinner group started up by Colette and one of her coworkers. Six women comprise the group, and every Thursday we shift hostesses and get together at one gal's place for a sit-down-together-and-chat meal. Everyone brings something so the hostess only has to worry about the entree.

Tonight I'm in charge of dessert. My oven knob caved, so while I'm waiting for my spastic landlord to replace it, I'm cooking a lot of soup, stovetop curry, and cold food. For tonight's sweet-tooth indulgence I selected a Mango Yogurt Ice recipe from my vegetarian cookbook. Everything went smoothly; I just have to stop by the house to make sure it froze as it was supposed to. I'm not sure it's enough for six women, so since I'm doing my laundry before dinner and the laundromat is located in a Martin's plaza, I'll swing by the grocery store for some mixed fruit.

I'm actually terribly nervous. I do very well cooking for myself, but I've never made anything sweet for anyone besides my Ann Taylor coworkers last Christmas (I'm not a big dessert person, so I never make any for myself). I want it to taste good, to turn out perfectly, and to be enough for everyone. But I'm sure the ladies will be forgiving in the event that perfection is unattainable.

Here goes!

a year older

Yesterday I turned twenty-four.

I've been looking forward to this birthday since about February, when I decided that twenty-four is a.) going to be the best year of my life so far and b.) closer to being a settled, "real" adult than twenty-three. At twenty-four I think it's beginning to look like I have a clue...or if not a clue, then at least a plan that happens to be working out so far.

It's also the age my mother was when she gave birth to me. My life has taken dramatically different turns from hers: Not married right out of college (not even dating), not holding my first child in my arms. One thing, though, we have in common: I moved far away from family to start a life of my own.

I'd planned to be incredibly reflective, but as it turns out that's all I have to say about turning twenty-four. My birthday itself was a great deal of fun in a relaxing, low-key way. I went out for some excellent deep-dish pizza with Colette, came home and watched the season premieres of Bones and House while on the phone with Leigh Ann, broke open a bottle of mead (which I highly recommend: honey wine is sweet, flavorful, and rich) and contentedly watched the day end. I'm glad, as I'm glad of most things lately, to be a year older and to find nothing to wish for, having all that I want (besides a raise, let's be honest).

This past weekend I caught a ride East to visit my sister and her fiance in New Wilmington -- and it was perfect. I didn't get to see enough of Laura, as she spent most of the weekend working, but my future brother-in-law doesn't mind shopping, so we spent some intensive hours at the Grove City Outlets, where I bought eight T-shirts, three long-sleeved T-shirts, and two tanktops (nearly all of them for work), a garlic press, three pairs of underwear, and a cheap VHS edition of E.T. I consider this my birthday shopping spree, and was profoundly happy that it took place in a state without clothing tax. It was absolutely rejuvenating to be back in Western PA for thirty hours, among old hills, small farm towns, and a slower pace of life. I needed that time in the landscape of my home.

Thanks everyone for your good wishes! Life is, as usual, lovely.

the post in which I confess to like being single

I like being single.

I like it a lot.

It's been a dawning comprehension over the last couple of months, moving to a conscious realization over the last couple of weeks, blooming to a solid awareness over the last couple of days. Given a choice, at the moment, I think I would choose to stay as I am.

Oh, not forever -- "it is not good for [man/woman/a person/me] to be alone" and all that -- but for now. When I find my life completely satisfying. When I have so much to do and learn, and so much to read. When I look around and see that everything is good, as it is.

When I was younger I thought I would never have the capability to be/live alone, as in single (I'm not actually "alone"; I have faith an family and friends and plants). But that's what has happened, and it's very very good.

A blessing. This, for the time being, is my blessing. Something to cherish and protect, something to make me smile with my whole being, until the next blessing.

planning tracks for the grove

So I'm still sick, home from work actually, which wasn't as difficult to achieve as I'd always thought. Meg and I were worried about me infecting the kids, so we called Boss-Boss Beth who got very agitated on our behalf and came up with half a million ideas for helpers and substitutes over the next few days.

"Everyone gets sick," she fumed. "You ought to have a substitute. And you both are taking a vacation at Christmastime. I'm ordering you!"

Well. All righty then. So today the symptoms are milder and I am (if you can believe it) all Buffy' and Angel'd out. I've watched almost the entire fourth season of B and the first season of A for the past five days straight. My brains began sloshing about in my skull last night, so I decided to call a TV-free day today and do things like blog and wash dishes and listen to George Winston and Chopin.

So. Homecoming. Once again, due to the finances of travel, I faced the difficult decision between the North East Wine Fest (the weekend prior to Homecoming) and Homecoming at Grove City. The Wine Fest has infinite charm (and infinite wine), but the Grove has old friends with whom I seldom have the opportunity to connect. So, friends trumped wine and I'm planning to make tracks for the Grove in a few weeks.

I also think this is the last year I can crash in someone's room. After this I won't know anybody who's still attending, so friends, if we make plans for Homecoming next year, why don't we make them way in advance so we can reserve a cheap motel room cheap?

the healing power of chicken

Recognizing that my posts tend to ramble, I will attempt to keep this concise and clear. (This is how you should never, never start a paper.) This blog will have three parts.

1. Notification and apology to all my friends: I've turned on word verification for comments. I'm tired of random comment spam.

2. Nara, my favorite two-year-old at work, on Thursday demonstrated the impossible. The kids had discovered a wagon left in the courtyard during their outdoor free play time, and organized themselves into puller, pulled, and pusher. The teamwork as they navigated the curves in the path was adorable.

Then Nara started pulling everyone else. Raziel, Antonio, and Kristopher sat in the wagon while she pulled them around and around the circle. Meg and I looked on amazed. I laughingly asked Nara if I could have a ride, to which she responded, "You cain't have a ride! My kids in there!" (She has Mother Hen and Matriarch embedded into her personality.)

But then Meg had everyone climb out and climbed in herself, and Nara pulled 135-lb Meg halfway around the circle. Then Meg climbed out and I climbed in. She pulled 160-lb me partway around the circle. Then 25-lb Christopher and 35-lb Kristopher climbed in with me, and she dragged the 220-lb three of us -- five times her own body weight -- about a foot.

I think she's going to take over the world.

3. Chicken broth. This morning I woke up unspeakably nauseous and could barely bring myself to sip water. But then I remembered the boullion granules on my spice rack. I made a cup of chicken broth. Bliss. Digestive healing heaven.

Why? What makes chicken broth a cure-all for upset stomachs?

Well. I'm just glad it works.

a little plague for the weekend

Yesterday I woke up with a fever and a nasty sore throat. I came home early from work (God bless my courageous boss), slept for a few hours, decided I should call a doctor, found one that had Saturday hours AND took my crappy insurance, and rolled out of bed at 6:30 this morning after a terrible night's sleep to wait for an hour and a half in the waiting room stuck watching a 72-hour Michael Landon marathon, which struck me as supremely unfair.

The nurse who took me back to the exam room asked why I'd come in, and I reeled off a list of my symptoms (sore throat, swollen painful glands, fever, joint and muscle aches, cold extremities, headache), and when she returned with a swab to do the strep test she said, "You gave that description really well. Are you a medical student?"

I didn't say, "No, I'm a hypochondriac and I watch House." Instead I smiled and said, "No...but thanks. I check a lot of online websites." And gave myself bonus points for sounding educated while running a fever of 101.5 before ten in the morning.

I paid through the nose for the medication (half of which the doctor's office gave me in samples; I'm grateful), bought myself necessary BRAT diet goodies like bananas, applesauce, and ginger ale, and returned home to find that my fever had spiked to 103.5, at which I panicked and called the doctor's office. They kindly gave me a schedule for Tylenol doses, which has helped dramatically.

It's really the only downside of living alone -- when you're sick no one knows, and no one is there to brush your nasty unwashed hair off your sweaty sickie forehead and tell you, Drink this; everything's going to be all right.

So I called my mom and Leigh Ann and spent the rest of the day watching Buffy and Angel. It's not like having family closeby, but it'll do.

And I didn't once hallucinate. Which I consider to be a good thing.