Flying Liar

I lied.  I lied and said we were on our honeymoon.  It just came out.  Granted, I had been practicing.  If the opportunity presented itself and it seemed natural, I thought I would go for it.  I clued Babe in on my devious thoughts.  But they were just thoughts.  Until, they weren't and I lied.

The moment I lied I felt so bad.  Instantly, I was overcome with guilt.  I tried to rationalize to myself.  I tried telling myself that, hey, girlfiend, you fly all the time and you deserve a free upgrade.  If you weren't so hung up on getting the best flight time you would have status by now and be enjoying the free perks that come with it.  It's okay.  Don't beat your yourself.

But I still felt wrecked with guilt.  Would the plane crash now because I lied?  Surely I had angered the gods and we were going down in a fiery disaster.  And it would be my own fault.  I lied.

Lying used to be easier, didn't it?

Oh, but who am I kidding.  The moment I was ensconced in those wide leather seats sipping my free booze I forgot all about my guilt.  I drank and ate my worries away.  

Until we landed.  Ever since we stepped off that plane, all I can think about is that my little sister really is going on her honeymoon to Mexico this summer.  And I can just feel that no matter what she says, no matter how much they kiss and snuggle for the ticketing agent, they will not get that free upgrade.  And that makes me feel terrible.

I know I know.  I can't know.  They might get it.  And really, the only reason we got the upgrade is because there were literally 15 people on the flight.  But the thing is, she deserves it.  And, oh god, what I wouldn't give for that little sister of mine to get a little pampering.

Mornings are my favorite time here in Cabo, and not just because the heat of the day has yet to come out and beat you with a stick.  It is calm.  Peaceful.  The outdoor bar is not blaring bad music.  Jet skis are not zipping across the water, revving their engines and spewing noxious fumes in the air.  Lovers Beach is empty and pristine.  It is my time. 

Every morning person feels that way about the mornings I am sure.  But I am not a morning person.  This is unusual for me.  It reminds me a bit of living in Sonoma, where I loathed sleeping in because that ate up the daylight, and daylight was the only time I felt safe and okay there.  Here I rise because it is my favorite time of the day.  Even better than Modello Lights with lime in the pool in the late afternoon and tequila time on the patio in the evening, listening to the waves crash on the shore and talking with Ryan about our lives. 

And since I go incognito on this blog, I thought you might get a kick out of this photo.  It pretty much sums up me in a nutshell.

And this is the view from our room.  I know.  I am spoiled.

Mexican Dreams

I dreamt about arriving in Mexico. In my dream I worried that customs would seize my prescription medicine. In the dream I combined my Xanax and heartburn medicine into one small vial. The plan was to put it in my pocket as I walked through customs and security. Not a very good plan. Even for a dream. I had this dream on the plane Monday morning. Last night I went to get a heartburn pill, the tequila was igniting the burn, and found my heartburn pills and Xanax mixed together in one small vial. I have no memory of actually doing this.

But I wanna go!

Dammit! 

I got a call today.  Free luxury suite.  Ocean views.  My dad had to cancel at the last minute.  Rebecca, if you can get yourself there, you can have the suite for the week.  

Oooooh.  Sun, sand, tropical drinks. For the cost of a plane ticket?  I am so in.  I didn't even have to hesitate.  Of course I will go!  Come Monday I will be setting sail for ... wait, oh shit.  Isn't that whole swine flu thing going on?  Shit.  Maybe this isn't the best time to go to Cabo San Lucas.

Shit shit shit.  But I really want to go.  I am not so worried about getting sick.  Face masks, gloves, and washing hands a lot will go a very long way.  I am more worried about the panic spiraling out of control.  Of borders being shut or sneezing at the airport as I leave and being put in quarantine for 30 days in Mexico.  

Is that what I should be afraid of?  Is that right? Do I have this wrong? Should I go?  

I really, really, really want to go.

I swear, I really am writing

When your biggest fan (in my case, my mom) asks why you aren't blogging and you haven't even realized you've stopped blogging, something's wrong.  Or rather, something's not wrong, but it highlights that in might be time for a little introspection.

I like blogging.  I like having an online home for my thoughts.  I like looking back and seeing what I was up too last September or the 4th of July.  I like connecting with readers.  I like reading other blogs and feeling connected to the threads of their lives.  

But, as you can tell, I have stopped writing.  And reading. Well, I still do read a lot of your blogs but I am not writing comments - the bread and butter of the blogger industry.  So, it really comes down to not writing.

And why am I not writing?

Because I am writing.  Just elsewhere.  The main reason I started this blog was to force myself to get into the habit of writing on a regular basis.  The blog format was perfect because I always thought of myself as a wannabe writer firmly planted in the "Creative Non-Fiction" category.  Now I am beginning to think of myself just as a writer.  And you know what?  I am bored with rehashing my life.  When I sit down to write or when I lie in bed at night dreaming of the next page of prose, I don't think about the tales from my life, I think of made-up people and worlds.   Yes, they all draw from my life, but they are fiction.  And fiction?  Fiction is fucking freeing!

I am sorry for abandoning you though.  I am climbing back on the horse.  I still want to have a blog.   I love reading yours and I will try to be better about commenting.  

Will you forgive me?

Boxing with poison ivy

"But it's not contagious once its in rash form."

I proclaimed this news to my sister as we were walking through the community college parking lot on our way to a "boxing for fitness" class last night.  I chose the exact wrong moment to say it.  The words lingered in the night air as two strapping young boys looked at us with disgust and quickly hustled away.  Ooops.  I guess rashes aren't a good topic of conversation at the local junior college.

I have poison oak.  I feel like I am six years old.  That is probably because the last time I had poison oak I was six years old.  We went on a class field trip to Muir Woods.  At the start of the walk, the ranger pointed out a poison oak plant and taught us how to identify it so we wouldn't accidently get poison oak.  As the class moved on, I lingered behind.  When no one was looking, I grabbed a fistful of the leaves and furtively rubbed them all over my neck.  I don't know exactly what possessed me to do it at the time.  The adult Rebecca wants to say that I liked the idea of being sick and getting special attention.  I always secretly wanted to be admitted to the hospital when I was a kid.  All the attention just seemed so fabulous.  Maybe that was what I was after?  Who knows?  I doubt six year old Rebecca thought it through that much.  I did get crazy poison oak.  And I did get fabulous attention.  I got to stay home from school and my mom must have had to take a day off work to take me to the doctor.  She fished out a hot pink bandana that matched the polka dots on my dress.  She fashioned it around my neck to hide the rash and probably keep me from scratching it all to hell.  She must have taken me to the doctor.  But I also know we went to the mall.  It was around Easter time and we have a polaroid from that day of me holding hands with some giant Easter Bunny that must have been working the stores.  In the picture, I am smiling hard and the sun is reflected off my face, my hair golden.  I look pretty damn happy.  I loved that day.

Poison oak ain't nearly as much fun this time around.  I keep finding new patches.  I'll be walking around the house and then realize that I am scratching my tummy or itching my calf.  Every single time I realize I am doing that, I look down to discover a new patch. It is kind of horrible.  The worst patch is on my right forearm.  I have this huge blistering, sweating, nubbly hive thing there and it looks atrocious.  For boxing class, I decided to slap a huge bandaid over it so as not offend the other participants.  Five minutes into class I sweated off the bandaid.  Great.   The worst part was when I had to borrow gloves from the teacher.  He was sweet and didn't say anything about sliding is own boxing gloves onto my bubonic plague arm, but I couldn't help but blurt, "It's just an allergic reaction on my arm!  I swear it's not contagious."  I'm not sure if he bought it.

Inspiration, I need you

Being a writer means writing.  Not publishing.  Not making money from the craft.  Not talking about writing.  Not reading about writing.  But actually writing.    It means writing every day.  Writing without inspiration.  Writing boring, dull sentences that irritate the shit out of you as they appear on the screen.  It means keepin' on goin.'  It means tap tap tap no matter what.

Oh, but the times inspiration sits and sings on your shoulder are like glimpsing heaven.  

Inspiration, please pay me a visit.  I have to workshop on Friday and I hate being embarrassed. 

Craptastic!

Living in the moment. Being in the now. I feel like for once we did that. I did it. This weekend was crammed pack. And for once, I enjoyed all of it.

Saturday we woke at the crack of dawn. Ryan bolted out of bed. “Do you smell poop?” And then, I did. It was still dark, so he used a flashlight to hunt around the room. We had slept with the door shut and one cat in the room. If there was poop in the room, it came from that kitty. At first, he didn’t find anything. He got back into bed and we giggled about bad cat farts. But the smell kept getting stronger. So we got out of bed, turned the overhead lights on, and did a more thorough search. After coming up empty handed again, I eyed the pile of clean laundry on the floor. Of course! I knew before I even investigated. Of course the cat would shit in the clean laundry. I gingerly picked the first few layers of t-shirts and socks off the pile. Nothing. I dug a little deeper. Past underwear and sweatpants. And finally, there it was. Nestled in the middle of the heap of clean clothes, was the fresh, hot pile of cat shit. Yummy. I am usually one to jump into action, already formulating three or four approaches before Ryan has even registered that there is a problem. This time though, I just stood there dumbfounded. How was I going to get all this warm, moist shit out of these clothes? But Ryan surprised me. He knew exactly what to do. As I stood there in my bare foot just looking at the mess, he swooped in with latex gloves and whisked the problem away. He later told me he shoved the dookie down the laundry room sink. All I know is I was damn grateful not to have to do it myself.

We were awake by then so we decided to just start our Saturday. I had a lot to do anyway. First order of business? Call the police and file a police report of course! Isn’t that what every one does on a Saturday morning? Life in the country is just fucking nuts. The other day a neighbor called to alert me that someone was on our property cutting limbs off the largest and prettiest oak tree with a chainsaw. This was a bit unsettling, but when the man told them that God told him to do it….well, we got a little more nervous. So, another police report was filed. Yes, another. This was actually our third. Don’t even get me started. We only have 10 days left here and I cannot wait to get back to civilization.

After the Sheriff left, I headed down the hill for a $16 haircut at one of those cheapo, walk-in places. I have not cut my hair at one of those since I hit double digits in 1990. But, I am getting cheap in my old age. I couldn’t bring myself to spend $70 on a haircut plus whatever products I would inevitably convince myself I needed. I haven’t had a haircut since last June so the mop really needed it. The results? Eh. Definitely a $16 haircut. But, who cares? I have a lot of hair and if it was really bad I could always get it re-cut at some fancy salon. I spent some time last night cleaning up the bangs and bits around my face. Not the best, but not the worse. I’ll “invest” in a fancy hair cut before my sister’s wedding.

And speaking of the royal wedding, after my five-minute haircut I headed to Berkeley to meet my mom and sister for the great bridesmaid/mother of the bride shopping event of 2009. I won’t get into the drama of the bridesmaid dress – there is always drama, isn’t there? – but the dresses are ordered now and I am not going to worry about actually having to wear the damn thing until August 1st. My mother on the other hand, I am Jealous with a capital J of the dress she is going to wear. She actually picked out a bridesmaid dress. It is this hot little fitted number – sweetheart neckline, strapless, form fitting. It is gorgeous and she looks great in it. I wish I could wear that dress instead!

After the dress decisions, I raced back to Sonoma to meet our houseguests. I started writing this post because I wanted to write about the awesome night we had with them. The gorgeous and relaxed sunny afternoon we enjoyed the next day. The fabulous dinner cooked for us and the yummy wines enjoyed. The jokes and the stories and the general good times. But, shit. I’ve rambled on for too long about haircuts and cat poop and I have to go. I am off to a conference where I am wrapping up the consulting project I’ve worked on these last couple of months.

I need to go pack. Let’s hope there’s no shit in my clothes!

Daily Reflections

Yesterday's meditation (from Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much by Anne Wilson Schaef) was on Awareness.  It might as well have been called "Rebecca, this page was written with you in mind."  The passage eerily mirrors how I introduced myself in my creative writing class the first day when I professed that I had a hyper-developed analytical side and now wanted to focus on developing other parts of myself.  

Each of us has much more brainpower than we ever use.  We have so overdeveloped the logical/rational/linear parts of our brains that we frequently have left underdeveloped our awareness, intuition, and creativity.  We sometimes even forget that awareness, intuition, and creativity are brain functions.

Yet, even without being valued and exercised, these aspects of our selves remain faithful and do not leave us.  Whenever we open ourselves to our intuition, it is always there.  It is important that we remember to go back inside to connect with out intuition.  Trusting our intuition often saves us from disaster.

My whole life I have been someone who just knows things or just feels some things.  My intuition is probably my strongest sense, but for years and years and years I have tried to ignore her in favor of the more socially acceptable norms of data and analysis, research, critical thinking, well formed arguments.  All those things have value but not as much as what I was born with and what I know in my bones.  Just like the author wrote, not only do I need to work on listening to my intuition, but also trusting it.  I have not trusted it for most of my years because I thought it was a weak form of defense.  Now I know it is the most powerful thing I have.  And as I try to become more aware of myself and unleash my creative spirits, I must allow intuition to take the lead.

Please, do not do what I am doing

I’ve decided to stop taking my medications. The idea has been percolating for a while. I know I should discuss it with my doctors first, but they are in New York and they would say no, feeding me more lines that don't really mean anything. I have been taking both these meds for almost a year and half, and in that time, I have been sicker than I have ever been in my life. I have had many many colds. Bronchitis. Several bouts of the flu - one which landed me in the hospital. On top of those maladies, I am just generally unwell. Nausea is an almost daily occurrence. I constantly think I am pregnant because smells are always setting me off. Don't get me started on the diarrhea train. I can't help but link my bouts of sickness to these meds. It just seems too coincidental.

The Metformin (which I take to help with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) doesn’t do anything. In the 1.5 years I have been taking it, it has not changed my blood work at all or helped restore my periods or helped with the night sweats. I suppose that it could be helping manage glucose spikes after meals but then again, I’ve never been tested to see if my glucose does spike to unhealthy levels after meals. My fasting blood sugars have always been normal. So I am not really buying the party line that this drug is helping normalize things.

The protein pump inhibitor (PPI) I really do need. I get mad heartburn. But I am pretty sure that the PPI is contributing to my almost daily bouts with nausea. I've read that since PPIs reduce the amount of acid your stomach produces there is less acid to kill the bad bacteria. With more bad bacteria getting into my system, no wonder I am constantly sick!  When the heartburn first became unmanageable I never really tried to manage it with diet. I was too much of a wino and the wine definitely makes the heart burn rage all day and night. But right now I am also feeling like I want lay off the substances. Spend some quality unaltered time with myself. And if I give up the booze (or severely curtail it), that is probably half the heart burn battle. If I really focus on eating the right kind of diet for heart burn sufferers, and if I then still have unbearable heartburn, I can go back on the meds and I will push harder for testing to see if I have an ulcer or GERD.  Ditto with the metformin.   I can always go back on if I change my mind and realize this was stupid.

So, that is that. I am off.

Half-way to change and pressing on 'til morning

When you are stuck, you are acutely aware of being stuck.  Of being cemented to one place with no idea how to free yourself.  When you are changing, there is no such clarity.  It is not until after the changes are long done that your realize you did it...or, you did something anyway.  It is usually never what you expected or planned but the difference is palpable.  It is there.  You can scoop it with a spoon and serve it in a bowl.   "Here, see?  This is the change."  Usually by this stage, the change isn't even impressive.  You are on to new challenges, new struggles.  You shrug your shoulders and dismiss away your accomplishment.

Or, maybe that is just me?

But this time.  This time is different.  And perhaps that is because this is the biggest change I have ever attempted.  This is the change I have put the most energy into.  Focus on.  Reflection of.  I am not running from it.  I am not trying to high jump to the next stage.  I am swimming in the thick soup of uncertainty and I am slurping as much as I can.

I am changing.  

Tonight I feel it.  Tonight, like all those nights I could feel every ounce of bog holding me in place, I can feel each shift in my being.  

Of these shifting particles, one thought is sticking out tonight like a jagged rock, not quite tumbled smooth by the elements.  I am letting go of the money thing.  The fear of destitution.  The unrealistic expectations of what I need to feel secure.  The sacrifices of my soul I was willing to make to get there.  For I would rather be broke and chilling right now than have to go to work tomorrow.

So now.  Now I work towards finding the light.  Having more days than not that I bound out of bed.  Eagerness and optimism, not dread and doubt.  And I know.  I know that one of these days, my work and the other work will be the same.  And Sundays will not make me sad like they used to.

Free to be you and me

Therapist recommended a meditation book for me. I wasn’t sure what to expet, but she promised it would be an easy way to work in daily reflection. The book, Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much, arrived the other day and already I can see its utility. It is compact, fits in the palm of your hand. You read one page per calendar day. You just open it up to the date. It literally takes 30 seconds to read. It is something one could actually stick with. Therapist warned me that the daily meditation would eerily be just what I need more often than not. That the words on the page would appear as if they were written just for me in just this moment.

Today: Feelings/Freedom

The white fathers told us, “I think therefore I am,” and the black mother within each of us – the poet – whispers in our dreams, I feel, therefore I can be free. (Audre Lorde)

The journey I am on, at its core, is being the real me in all faucets of my life. Embracing me, the way I am, the way I feel, the way I nurture, the way I experience pain and frustration, the way I handle joy, down-time, adventures. All of it. For too long I shut off so much that is my CORE. How could I even begin to enjoy all those jobs I had when I was shutting off the main part of my being at the beginning of each day? I look now for the courage to put my true self on display every day in every situation.

I hate titles sometimes

I turned in a bunch of pages for my class on Friday and have been immersed in cranking out my consulting work, so forgive the lack of web presence lately.  I have been typing a lot, just not here.

I did finally break down and join facebook though.  And you know what?  Fine, I admit it.  It is cool.  You were all right and I was all wrong.

We spent the weekend in San Francisco, away from the shit and mud of Sonoma.  At a friend's birthday party Friday night I forgot to internalize that I was drinking Belgian beer - not just beer.  At around midnight I turned to one of my girlfriends, squinted my eyes together to center her face, and oozed out a very slurry, " I gotta go home."  I took a taxi five blocks and passed out next to my darling husband - who was also passed out, having stumbled home himself an hour earlier.  Also a causality of the Belgian Beer. 

I cranked out work Saturday - after muffling the piecing pain in my skull with water and advil - and then we walked to dinner at the bottom of the hill.  We met up with my Maid of Honor and best friend from college.  I haven't seen her in two years.  It was so awesome to reconnect.

Sunday was another work day, but it felt good to be productive (and not hungover), and then we had a chill night at home in the city.  It was really relaxing to be away from the demands of the animals and just the general ruckus of life here in Sonoma.  You would think country life is relaxing, but so far it is anything but.  I get much more peace and quite in San Francisco.  Not to mention that I feel safer there.  Something about being around lots of people.  Making it all worse, someone trespassed on the Sonoma property while we were gone and stole the canoe we keep down by the pond.  My sister was here that night.  Whoever it was, literally stole onto the property in the middle of the night.  As you can imagine, it is very unnerving.  Especially since it was someone who knows this house.  We are in the middle of no where and no one would know about that boat unless they have been here.  Major suckage.

ahh well..  maybe the dogs will lick the intruder to death next time....if they even wake up...

Back on the farm

Back on the farm it's been raining for days and the animals, and humans, are going crazy.  The dogs are shitting in the house.  The cats are using modern wood sculptures as scratching posts.  The humans are obsessed with preventing the shit and destruction.  We figured out a solution.  Just sleep in shifts.  Easy.  Problem solved.  

The doggie dookie problem is apparently contagious, as I had an emergency wake-up call from my bowels at 5 am.  I felt bad - sickie in the tummy and worried about keeping Babe up.  I shouldn't have worried.  He wasn't even in the bedroom.  He was watching There Will be Blood and monitoring every move of the pooping pets - out for blood if they so much as even looked at the piano, their preferred shit zone.  

Now we are up.  Joking.  Trying to make light of it all.  The rain keeps pouring down.  The thrum of the water a constant reminder that the animals you are charged with caring for are pissed off.  Yeah yeah, I'm pissed off too.  And my bowels are fucked up - just like yours.  We are all in this together, doggies and kitties.  Let's be friends.  Remember we are not the enemy.  We hate things like this just as much as you do.  So, please.  We will thrown you some more (raw hide) bones if you thrown us a couple too.  Please stop shitting in the house.  Please. Please. Please.

Doctor's Orders

What is the cure for a few days of melancholy, general annoyance at your husband, an upset tummy from eating tuna that expired a year ago, and being sick to death of picking up dog shit from underneath the piano no one in the family knows how to play?  

Why, meat of course!

Prime rib to be exact.  Therapist suggested I get out and do something.  Do something I want to do.  Grab Hubbie and make some new fun memories.  And since all good memories of mine involve meat of some kind, I've decided to surprise Babe tonight with an impromptu date to a San Francisco institution, and once upon a time neighbor of ours, House of Prime Rib.

I am going to order the "city" cut, which just means smaller (I guess city folk don't eat as much since we are so skinny and fabulous.  Actually, I think it's just so we have more room for booze).  I am going to order the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu - which used to be Hawk's Crest Cabernet Sauvignon - and force them to give me the "good" wine glasses, not the crappy ones with the pour marks telling bartenders when to stop doling out the ruby stuff.  I am going to instruct the waiter to fill my globe.  Then I am going to instruct Babe to keep his pie hole shut about dogs and dominant behavior, my dad and how he he seems to dislike everything about him, and cleaning dog barf off rugs.  I am going to sit and sip and smile god dammit. 

Scrabble anyone?

"You two would really fit in around here," said the older woman at Hydro Grill last night in Calistoga, "I can just tell."

I can tell too.

We took our Scrabble board out for a date last night.  We thought it would be great fun to play a couple of rounds, with a couple of rounds, at the Calistoga Inn.  It was raining.   The creeks were rushing.  But we wanted to go.  Turns out, so did everyone else.  Lance Armstrong rode through town yesterday afternoon and all the revelers were still out in party mode, drinking wine, sipping beer, and watching the end of the bike race on the tiny TV's in the pub.  Whoops.  I guess we will have to find somewhere else to go.  

Luckily, Calistoga is only 5 blocks long, so we donned our hoods and walked about one block to our next two choices.  First up, Suzie's.  Suzie's is a dive bar through and through.  Even though I am a bit of a wine snob and germaphobe, I love a good dive.   We all know I like an icy cold Stella and that  alcohol kills the germs, so I have no problem walking on sticky linoleum floors, ignoring slumped men on bar stools, and ordering a tall one...or seven.    We were committed to playing and partying at Suzie's - even getting the board out and claiming chairs with our wet jackets - but then they didn't have any draft beer or Stella in a bottle or a bartender to take our order, and we decided to bounce.  If I am going to drink Amstel Light from a bottle, I'd rather be at home.  Amstel Light is not strong enough to kill germs.

So, we dove back out into the monsoon, crossed the street, and entered Hydro Grill.  I was a little down on Hydro Grill because of the name (seriously, lame lame lame name) but any misgivings I had were quickly mollified as we entered the spare brick building with exposed beams.  Comfy booths lined the red brick walls, wooden tables anchored the center of the room, and a wide, stone bar presided over the entire space - it's corners beckoning us to set up shop and stay awhile.  And stay we did.  Locals welcomed us - as usual, a band set-up in the corner and was soon churning out some great jazz standards, one of our new friends at the bar joined the band for some impromptu singing, I kicked Babe's ass but he got a bingo - so we were both happy.

Just another great evening in this great place we get to call home for a bit. 

What life will be next?

Sometimes I think about my old lives.  The one that involved me traveling every single week to a shitty place to work on a shitty project and live in a shitty "corporate" apartment.  Or the one that required me to work 80 hour weeks, pull back-to-back all nighters, and get wasted with the boys in thoroughly inappropriate situations.  Or the one that found me crisscrossing the country, pulling rabbits out of my ass on command, and in tears most of the time.  Almost all of my work experiences fall into two categories: the drearily dull and the wildly fucked-up.  It is no wonder I am left a dried-up old husk.    When I have not been working my ass off and spending way too much time away from home and the things I love, I have been watching my hair turn gray (at least one strand anyway).  

I type this from my bed at my sister's house.  My sister is bustling around the frigid house getting ready for work.  Babe is in DC for work.  My sister's fiance is at work already.  Everyone I know is at work or getting ready to go to work.  All I can think about is how grateful that I do not have to go to work.  Yes, I need to do some work today - but not much, and on my own terms (meaning without a bra on).   

Sometimes I get scared that I have no idea what to do next.  I have always had an idea and a complete plan to go along with it.  Sometimes I wonder if this period will ever end.  I mean, it has to, right?  But I can't see the other side or even the beginning of the next hill.  I really have no idea what next month will look like and while I try to live in the moment and enjoy these somewhat carefree days and heal myself...I can't help but be afraid that I am wasting this time.  That in six months, when I must be earning a regular income again, I will be just as lost as I am now.  

A room with a view

E.M. Forster had it so right.  These pictures don't even begin to do justice to the soaring vistas in front of me right now, but you can get the idea.  I took the pics with my laptop, from my seat, at the table, where I am typing away whilst enjoying million dollar views.  It is amazing.

We left the country early Saturday morning for a three day foray into the Big City - San Francisco.  After we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and slid our car into the traffic of Lombard, I turned to Babe and said,"Don't you just feel so normal here?  I do."  If coming back to California has been my great homecoming.  Spending time in San Francisco is like a snake climbing back into its discarded skin and actually enjoying it.  Everything just seems so right here.

Saturday afternoon we attended my first ever baby shower.  It was co-ed and there was booze, so it was a good time.  But the shower was more than that because the couple decided to turn the shower into a Gender Revealing party (it's a girl!).  They didn't even know what the gender would be.  We all found out together.  And I have to admit, I teared up.  Maybe my heart isn't an old piece of tar after all.  

After the party, we moved into our sweet city pad.  Having wealthy family members really has some perks, I gotta say.  After finally finding parking and lugging all our shit up this tower of a house, we grabbed a bottle of champagne and settled on the roofdeck to watch the stars battle the Bay Bridge in a twinkly lights contest.  We were kind of frozen, but knowing that in New York we would still be in the deep bowels of winter helped us keep a little perspective and we "suffered" through it.  After we kicked the bottle we hopped in a cab and returned to our old neighborhood to eat dinner at our all time favorite restaurant.  The salad course was a huge disappointment and I was worried that the meal was going to Taco Bell Hell, but then every single morsel that paraded itself into my mouth after that was a true delight.  Fabulous. Fabulous.  Fabulous.

Sunday morning I woke up like a manic parrot.  Or rather, manic parrots woke me up and I couldn't help but join their crazy party outside our windows.   I am not kidding.   There is a flock of wild parrots that live on Telegraph Hill.  Being that this house is on the Filbert Street Steps - a hidden garden like place that can only be reached on foot - we have direct access to these wild, swooping, shrieking birds.  It is wonderful!  I must have taken a thousand pictures of them.

And the day kept getting better.  A few of my friends came over and we drink wine up on the roof deck.  I love just being with my friends.  I tried to just stay really grounded in the moment and enjoy my time with them.  That sentiment actually goes for everything we are doing.  This is why we came to California.  This is why we are doing all this.  And it is so very very worth it.

I didn't want the afternoon to end but the evening was another fabulous adventure waiting to happen.  I managed to finagle a ride out of my friends and soon found myself at NOPA having a drink with an amazing, mentor-type woman and then settling into another gastronomically delightful meal with my (ex) step-mom.  It was an evening of decadence and ladies.  My favorite kind of evening.

And now.  Now I sit looking at the water.  Admiring the span of the Bay Bridge.  Viewing the campanile at my alma mater.  Thinking about the beauty of this place.  And plotting how I will take advantage of it.  What should I do?  Enjoy the view and write my butt off?  Or enjoy the view and walk my butt off?

I am a lucky lucky lucky girl.

Kill me now

Sitting on the toilet, single-handedly creating the world's largest mudslide, while retching into a 'thank-god I found you in time' waste basket = Horrible

Horrible.

Being a writer

My writing teacher asked the class what was necessary to write.  What does one need?  The class through out trite attributes like 'inspiration', 'creativity', 'a tranquil space', etc.  I thought I was being oh so smart with my contribution of 'discipline'.  When that didn't get the nod of approval I was expecting from the teacher, I tried 'schedule' - that didn't work either.  She then let us in on the secret: Courage.  To write we need courage.

To write we need courage.

To write I need courage.

Yesterday I sat down to write.  I reviewed some old things, thinking I might start (gasp!) revising some work, but I soon pulled up a blank page and willed my mind and heart to open up.   I reviewed life moment after moment, scanning the entries of my life for something I could write about with as much honesty and courage as I could muster.   What did I need to write about?  What would allow the real me to come out?  What is true?  

I settled on a particularly terrifying car ride from my child hood.  A ride spent trapped in the back seat of a shiny new care watching my father destroy my older brother: physically, mentally, spiritually.

I maybe wrote five lines.  My heart hurt too much.  Tears filled my eyes.  My chest felt cold.  I was being honest.  The writing was true.  I just didn't have enough courage on that particular afternoon.

Morning time again

I sat down to the laptop just now, fully planning on griping about the sleep disagreements from last night that kept me up to the point that I am not a happy, shiny morning person today and Babe is still asleep, but then I decided that was old and tired, kind of like how I feel right now, and I would rather try to reclaim the happy morning time that I have begun enjoying up here in the country instead.  So. 

• I suck at poetry.  I have never been in to poetry.  I have never gotten poetry.  So, of course my creative writing class is opening with six weeks of fucking poetry.  But, I can tell that some of my therapy dollars are working because I am "open" to it.  Even digging it at times.  I heard Mary Oliver read some poems on NPR the other day and I was actually into it. My teacher is doing a great job of introducing us to poetry and showing how the lessons for good poem writing  are the same for all creative writing: similes and metaphors, rhythm, sound, making the lines "sing".  I get it and it is fun.  So fun that I am considering submitting a poem I wrote to the junior college literary magazine.  The deadline is today.  Am I going to do it?

• Who ever heard of labrador retrievers that can't, well, retrieve?  These two big lugs of dog I am currently living with have some serious issues in the fetch department.  They know how to do it, but they lose interest very quickly.  Even with treats and lots of affection involved.  I am stumped.  These guys are only just three years old so they need lots of exercise and play to get all that energy out.  The walks we take them on are just not cutting it.

• After I gave my mom my blog url I immediately regretted it.  And when she told me that she cried the first time she read the blog, I regretted it even more.   But when we were chilling on the deck on Saturday she told me that she reads the blog all the time now and no longer cries.  Score?

• I am sort of in love with my Dad's fancy, gym quality treadmill in the garage.  I finally hopped on that thing on Saturday and it was such an easy ride.  Even though my sneakers are dead and my sports bra is a nothing but a threadbare hammock for the girls, I like getting on that thing and seeing what I can do. (hint: not much)

• Seriously, why is coffee so delicious?  Especially Peet's coffee made at home into a cafe au lait.

• I haven't blogged about this at all, but I have been laying off the sugar for about a month now.  Sugar is my kryptonite.  I am slip, slip, slipping though.  First it was eating cereal after dinner.  Then it was sneaking chocolate chips late at night.  I need to reign that one back in again.

• I love living in this area!  Not necessarily this house, but this community.  Everyone we meet is so friendly.  We already found the coolest hang out place in town.  Not to mention awesome brunch in a neighboring town and a sweet place to grab a glass of wine.  I love all the folks in my writing class and the locals we meet at the Brew Co.  Even all the hoards of workers who descend on this property to help me take care of this place are awesome.  And I don't mean that service folks are often un-awesome, I just mean that they are always interested in getting to know me, welcome me in to their community, and tell me about the goings on next weekend.  I love it!

I beat the sun again this morning

I beat the sun again this morning.  Though I am not a morning person.  Whenever I wake to an alarm clock, I lie in bed plotting how I will return and get a nap. Even if I never do.  I love the night.  The endless possibilities of no tomorrow.  One more glass of wine.  One more of this.  One more of that.

But here, in the country, things are changing.  When darkness falls over the valley like a curtain, it really does mean the show is over.  Come 6 pm, everything is still, the animals are fed, and there is nothing left to do but feed the humans and get to bed ourselves.  We still have the internet and 400 cable channels, but there is something about the darkness here that signals the true end to the day.  Lacking the lights and sirens and shouts of the cities I have always lived in, I find that I am ready for the silence and for once, even for bed.

And on Fridays I am up with the bullfrogs in the creek.  My writing class is every Friday morning and I have never bound out of bed with so much anticipation.  What a wonderful and fantastic feeling!

I drive past those cows every day

The local food/seasonal food thing got its start here in these parts - in Berkeley, by Alice Waters.  By the time I was out of college and living in San Francisco seven or eight years ago, the local/seasonal thing was not only all the rage in the foodie circles, but de facto.  It was what was done already.  Living on the East Coast these last few years, we have watched the local food craze sweep across the country and feed East Coast foodies by the truckload.  Since it is still a relatively new concept (???) in NYC, it is definitely still in the hip/cool kids stage - and frankly it is really annoying.

You see, not to be holier than thou, but I grew up eating local and seasonal.  Only, it wasn't dubbed the "slow food" movement back than, it was called "eating."  The one and only time I was stung by a bee was at a farmer's market at age six - eating an "artisan" croissant filled with "local" honey.  I'm pretty sure we bought a bunch of apples and shit that day too.  And you know what?  They were cheaper than at the store.  Back then, the farmer's markets brought goods directly from the farm, they sold them at a higher profit for themselves and we got them for less money than at Safeway.  

I am all for the local and seasonal thing, but it some locales it just makes more sense.  Growing up in Northern California (San Francisco Bay Area), it was just easy.  All our fruits and vegetables are grown a stones throw away in the Central Valley and all our dairy and meat and chickens come from Northern Marin and Sonoma Counties.  No, I have not done any fancy research, I just now this.  As I tap out this little entry, I am drinking coffee with milk in it.  This milk is not fancy organic stuff, it is Clover.  The same brand I have been drinking since I was born.  And you know where it comes from?  Petaluma.  20 minutes away from where I type this.  And you know what else?  They don't give growth hormones to their cows.  When I go to a farmer's market here, the fruit and vegetables are plentiful and delicious and mostly affordable still.  Farmer's Markets in New York are just such a disappointment.  Everything is remarkably expensive and the selection is so slim.  There are a lot of apples, but that is about it.

I know I am being a little hard on the New York local movement, but dammit.  It is so much harder, more expensive, and less tasty to jump on that tractor in the Big Apple.  Here, it is just a way of life.  Sure, it is trendy now, the prices have gone up, and all the SF yuppies walk around with smug looks and North Face vests on - but it is still awesome.

And the best local product around here?  Ahhhh, the wine.  Now that is one movement I can get completely behind.

See-saw in Sonoma

I have been improving my balance by practicing on the Wii Fit.  I am getting stronger and more stable as I strive to balance right in the center.  My Wii Fit age is improving and I am even setting records.  I just wish there was a Wii Fit for the rest of my life.

"Balance" is the Pee-Wee Playhouse word of the day around here - every day.  It is what I am thinking most about.  It is what I want above all else.  I know I am not alone in this wish.  I want to sleep and eat and work and exercise and write and read and relax and have sex and cook and drink wine and go out to dinner with friends and have coffee with my mom and keep the house clean and fold the laundry and watch Gossip Girl and sit on the deck and go fishing with my brother and buy a gift for my friend's birthday and listen to my husband discuss his latest research topic and day-dream and hike and pet dogs.  

I have never been a moderation gal.  All or nothing has pretty much been my de-facto life motto.  It was never on purpose, it just happened.  I like to drink too much and laugh too loud and be #1 and stay up too late and sleep in too much.  I don't like to work or work-out.  I don't like to clean or cook really.  But I do like a clean home.  Need a clean home.  Need healthy meals.  Need a strong body.  I want those things.  I want it all.  

I am sitting here, procrastinating like a slug on a porch.  I know that the sooner I actually do this work, the sooner I can do other things.  But I just sit here.  I want to take the dogs for a walk and do my homework for my creative writing class.  I want to get back to the story I wrote about visiting Nantucket as a teenager.  I want to take a bath in the huge bathtub that overlooks the valley.  I want to write more and better blog posts.  I want to read your blogs! 

But, I need to work.  Must work.  Must work now.

Living in the sticks

We are officially living in the country.  After five weeks of bouncing between housesitting jobs, hotels, my sister's house, and my mom's place, we are finally (FINALLY) staying in one place for about two months.  And that place is in the boonies!  Well, it feels that way anyway.  We are only about 15 minutes from civilization (i.e. wine and cheese stores), but after you have made it up the windy one lane road, it feels as though you are in the middle of no where.  You can't hear a car or any other human sounds.  All you hear is the wind blowing in the trees, wild animals scuttling in the brush, and birds calling as they swoop between branches.  It is beautiful and it is tranquil, but it is also a hell of a lot of work!  Between the dogs, the cats, the landscaping, the housekeeping, the solar panel maintenance - it is enough to make your head spin!  But we are getting settled and optimistically looking forward to a time of work, reflection, exercise, and home cooking.  

I just need to get okay with sleeping out here.  During the day, I love this place - the baby turkey chicks, the rabbits, the sun, the views - but at night, I look out the glassed-in livingroom and all I say is inky black.  Even when I moosh my nose up to the glass, I still can't see anything but impenetrable black.  This city girl is having a tough time adjusting to the silent black of night in the country.  I don't feel safer here than I do in my Brooklyn apartment.  I should.  But I don't.  I always feel safe when I know there are people around to hear me and call 911.  Here, you could scream all you want - and no one would come.  It freaks the shit out of me.

But, I am going to concentrate on the good.  I am going to focus on our location in the middle of wine country.  The crazy dogs who love to slobber on my pants.  The deer grazing in the meadow by the pond.  The beautiful kitchen full of delicious provisions.  The chance to connect with nature.  The ability to do what I want to do.  Space to reflect and get back to my work.  Alone time with the husband.

I just wish my hands didn't constantly smell like dog!

The view from the deck last night