Birthday Week: Day 4 and 5 and a Computer Virus

Birthday week has come to a close.  It breezed right by me, in a sugar rush haze of chocolate, cupcakes and Girl Scout Cookies.

On Thursday morning, the day of my actual birthday, my dear friend Charlie brought me a box of chocolates from the world's best chocolate shop, The Chocolate Delicacy.  The label on the box said "Calorie Consuming Anti Matter Chocolate," and then the other label had the atomic symbol on it.  Of course, the box had all my favorites in it, because Chocolate Dave knows what I like after having been diving with me and eating post dive chocolates with him.

Then I met Todd for Mexican for dinner.  He presented me with a group of papers stapled together with a riddle on it.  He'd bought me tickets to see Willy Porter again (swoon) in April.  But he won't be around to see the show with me.  So he hooked up my friend Dennis from work and his girlfriend Nikki to go with me. 

Then on day 5 he baked me a chocolate cake, and got me a device from Amazon that will measure how much electricity (and money) the lights and devices in our house use.  Which I think will be fascinating to play with.  And maybe it will help me to bitch less about our electric bill every month.   So, it'll bring peace to him as well. 

Also on day 5 I caught a computer virus, which was both good and bad.  It was bad because I didn't get the chance to work on the book, or the freelance project I'm working on.  But it was also good because it forced me to unplug for a weekend.  Todd just finished fixing it a bit ago.

Thank you, love, for an amazing birthday week, and for spoiling the hell out of me once again. 

Birthday Week: Day 3

On the third day of birthday week
My true love gave to me
A red velvet cuh-uh-up-cake.

And then this morning I ran 5 miles on the treadmill to keep up with the excess consumption of goodies.

Birthday Week: Day 2

Birthday week, day 2 brought two boxes of Caramel Delites.  My favorite.

And they're great with Twisted Tea.

Birthday Week: Day 1

It happens the same way, and pretty frequently too.  The doorbell at work rings.  One of my co-workers who sit near it answer it.  They groan and say, "Beej?  Really?  Again?"

Todd likes to send me things at work.  He sent me flowers last year on the first day of spring.  He sent me flowers this year on the first day of February.  I've gotten them for Groundhog's Day.  I've gotten them just because.

Yesterday an Edible Arrangement arrived--chocolate covered pears and apples.  The card read "Happy Birthday Week!"

The women rushed in to share, because I ALWAYS share in my bounty.  And then they rolled their eyes, because it's my birthday week.  I get presents when it's not even my birthday.  (Hell, he's gotten me presents on HIS birthday.  Figure that one out.)

Is it wrong that I was pushing for a birthday month?  Not necessarily for gifts, more for chores.  For example, "I shouldn't have to chase the dog to the neighbor's again.  It's my birthday month."  Eventhough I often call Todd "Excellent Husband," he's not buyin' into the whole birthday month thing.

Maybe I Did Have a Weird Childhood

Even though I have four siblings, I spent a lot of time on my own as a child. My brothers are 4 and 8 years older than me, and my sisters are 5 and 14 years older than me. While the age difference is nothing right now, when we were kids, it was a great divide that screamed “You and I have nothing in common!” There were no kids my age in the neighborhood, which contributed to my not-really-an-only-child-but-kinda-an-only-child life back then.

When I was 4 years old, my oldest sister was graduating high school and heading off to college, while my brother Kaz—4 years older than me—was entering the 3rd grade and playing on the “Major League” little league team. I was barely hitting the ball off the tee. (See above, great divide.)

Throughout my childhood we played endless hours of wiffle ball in the summer, and of course Kaz and the boy next door could hit the ball way further than I could. They would round the bases while I scrambled to field the ball and try to tag them out. The games that my siblings played were all too old for me, and I constantly lacked the skill to compete. I was the little sister that tagged along, yipping at the heels of my older siblings. My choices were yipping or staying home. Staying home meant helping Mom with the cleaning or ironing, and who wants to do that?

Then someone, I don’t know who, took pity on me and bought me a set of jacks. I remember the plastic molded jacks were in a plastic-y drawstring bag with a rubber ball. There were no instructions with the game, and I had no idea how to play jacks. I studied the contents of the set with a scientific fascination. The jacks certainly looked interesting. Why were some prongs rounded while the others were pointy? I didn’t know. I twisted them around in my fingertips, and then tried to spin one of the jacks on its end on the surface of the coffee table. I was disappointed that they wouldn’t spin the way a coin would spin. It would have been cool to see how many I could get spinning at the same time. No dice. I couldn’t stack them on top of each other like blocks, or lean them against each other like I would when building a house of cards.

I lined up the jacks end to end on the length of the coffee table and examined them. They didn’t look like they would be that much fun to play with as they uselessly tilted on their axis; I couldn’t get them to balance so that they looked like plus signs. I left them on the table and bounced the rubber ball against the picture window. I left a perfect round smudge on the glass. I wiped it off with the curtain, so Mom wouldn’t see it and then turned my attention back to the jacks in formation on the coffee table.

“What the heck am I supposed to do with these things?” I puzzled. There was no Internet, so it’s not like I could anonymously look it up and learn. I didn’t want to ask anyone how to play for fear of looking stupid. Even I knew that everyone knew how to play jacks. Well, everyone except for me. Was it some sort of childhood instinct that I lacked?

And now it’s an adult instinct I lack. If I understand it correctly, you’re supposed to bounce the ball and see how many jacks you can pick up before the ball hits the table again, right? Where’s the fun in that?? Who thought of that? I’ll bet it was someone who wanted to make cleaning up the toys a game, so the kids would tidy up after themselves. I can picture some misguided and frazzled mom, “OK, kids, I am going to bounce this ball. Let’s see how many things you can pick up before it lands…. Ready??? GO!!!”

It’s Not That I Am a Fraidy-Cat

Well, maybe I am. A little bit.

For the next few weeks, Todd will be on what I call the Great American Nerd Tour 2010. He will visit something like 10 cities in the next 3 weeks or so, and then he’ll go to Vegas for a conference sometime in February. (I can’t remember when, and I really should pay better attention.) While he's traveling he has lots and lots of meetings schedules where he'll talk about technological things that contain lots of initals and lots of acronyms. 

On Sunday night we came home from Kalahari. I unpacked the suitcase, and on Monday morning he re-packed it and headed back to the airport. He hopped a plane to San Diego. When he was done evading IT groupies as they threw undergarments at him (held together by duct tape), he flew to San Francisco. Then on Wednesday hopped a red-eye back to Providence and stumbled into work on Thursday morning.

I’d been alone in the house since Monday. I enjoy being alone, and used to live alone before I moved in with Todd at the ripe old age of 24. I look forward to having the place to myself for a few days, so long as the lights stay on. But now that I am so used to living with my big strong man, the bliss of being alone for a few days is slightly tainted with trepidation.

I mean, any psycho could be hiding out in the woods that surround my house at any given moment. And surely that psycho will have a freshly sharpened axe. And that psycho will know enough to bring steak bones for the dogs. Hell, my dogs would settle for a tennis ball as payment and grant anyone access to the house. The psycho isn’t psycho enough to kill my dogs, just me.

On Wednesday morning before I left for work (on time, thank you very much) I put the dogs out the front door. I walked out with them. Of course, they caught the scent of something and walked around the back. I followed them through the gigantic puddles that formed back there from the snow melt and recent rain. They finished their business and led me up the deck stairs, where I saw wet foot prints leading up the stairs to the back door. I hadn’t walked on the deck at all that morning.

Let me say this again. There were wet foot prints leading to my door. And they weren’t mine. My heart pounded in my chest. Was it the psycho with the tennis balls and the freshly sharpened axe? I frantically scanned the tree line around the house for evidence of the psycho. Then looked back at the foot prints. The tread didn’t match my “dog chasin’ shoes.” (Yes, I have a pair of shoes devoted to this purpose. I can slip them on quickly when they bolt, and always leave them by the back door. Next to them are my Crocs, that I wear when we walk to the hot tub from the door.)

I opened the back door, which I hadn’t locked the night before when I went to bed. I thought my hands were shaking, but it was actually the dogs nosing at them demanding treats for coming straight home after pooing. I stepped onto the deck again and looked at the foot prints. I bent down and traced them with my fingers.

They weren’t wet. They were frozen. Wet shoes had made these tracks at one point and the surface of the deck was so cold that the pattern froze. I examined the tread pattern and compared it to my dog chasing shoes and confirmed they didn’t match. I went back to the boot tray, just inside the door, to look for a more logical explanation. My paint splattered Crocs sat in the tray.

The night before I’d worn my Crocs instead of the dog chasin’ shoes. I had unlocked the back door and let the dogs out. They took off down the trail behind the house, and in the dark I splashed through an ice-cold puddle near the chicken coop as I chased them. I cursed my choice of footwear as the water penetrated the holes and drenched my socks. Once I lured the dogs back to the deck, the Crocs sloshed and squeaked as I walked.

I picked up one of the Crocs and held it near the frozen foot print. A perfect match.

I Resolve

I am standing with my feet firmly planted, shoulders squared, and fist waving triumphantly in the air. It’s time to think about a few sentences starting with the words “I resolve.” It’s New Year Resolution time.

There are probably billions of people out there, staring down at the end of 2009 and thinking about what they’d like to do differently next year. Some are excited. Some are looking at things they don’t like about themselves that they want to improve. Some are taking this as an opportunity to make someone else feel better. A whole new year is only days away at this point. It’s a whole new opportunity to do something, anything, and to make something, anything, happen.

I fully believe in New Year’s resolutions. I’ve always loved the idea of starting a new year with a plan to do something different, and I’ve always made resolutions. When I was a kid I resolved to give my mom and my teachers less attitude. I was a cantankerous little kid who hated rules for the sheer fact that they were rules. I rolled my eyes in a way that sent my mom into a full boiled rage. That one didn’t last long.

One year I resolved to go sky diving--which I ended up doing as a tandem jump in September of that year. For this last year I resolved to compliment one woman every day—whether she’s a stranger or someone I know. I’ve gotten strange looks from the strangers, but mostly smiles. For just about every day in 2009 I’ve made some woman smile.

Now I am reflecting on my past year and looking about the things about myself and my life that bug me.
I think the biggest thing that bothers me about myself are the fact that I am *thisclose* to wearing out the snooze button on our alarm clock. I use it. A lot. Too much. What if I were to resolve to not use the snooze button, and just get my punk ass out of bed on the first ring of the alarm?

Resolution #1 Do not press snooze. This is your life we’re talking about. Are you going to hit snooze on your life? Get up and get your day started. You can’t get those minutes back, my friend. Get vertical and tackle the day.

Another thing that bothers me is that I am not a very good cook. I try like hell, with mixed results. I usually get home from work before Todd and stand before the stove trying to come up with something new to have for dinner. While I cook, Todd calls on the way home and asks what’s for dinner and then I have to hear the trepidation in his voice when I say “I am trying the recipe on the back of the turkey cutlets…” sometimes it turns out. Sometimes it’s mildly edible and I stubbornly eat it anyway while he makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Other times it goes into the trash and a half hour later a pizza shows up at the door.

I feel this is my biggest failing as a wife. I know it’s not a very enlightened thing to say, and just by typing it I’ve probably set the women’s movement back a few minutes. But I like making dinner for my husband. Even better, I like it when he can actually choke down what I’ve made. Even more better if he actually enjoys it. (More better? What?)

He tells me that I don’t have to feel like a failure as a wife because cooking isn’t my forte. But this is also the same guy who says that he feels it’s his responsibility to provide for me, and then I have to tell him that before we married I was the one who did that for me. So, we both have a prescribed gender role that we’re stuffing ourselves into. But that’s a post for another day.

Resolution #2 Take a cooking class.

Uncalloused

I used to play my guitar constantly. It was to the point where I’d bring it to work with me and play during my lunch hour. I played when I got home from work. I played in the morning before I left for work. I lived in an apartment and my neighbors on the other side of the walls must’ve hated me.



I used to play open mic nights religiously, and that habit was what led to meeting my husband.



Then life got in the way. I got into other things like boat restoration, writing a book, diving, living with a boyfriend who eventually became a fiancé, then eventually became a husband.



Every so often I hear music that inspires me. When I get home I pull the guitar out and strum a few chords and grimace at the pain in the tips of my fingers on my left hand. The thick callouses I had developed had worn away to reveal softer skin underneath.



Then I went to see Willy Porter last weekend, and I am inspired. But I teeter between being inspired to smash my guitar into a wall, or to quit my job and play constantly and get really good. I need to find some middle ground.



On Tuesday Todd came home from work and saw my Gibson Epiphone acoustic draped across the couch and said “I was wondering when that would come out.” Then he noticed my laptop was open to a guitar tablature site and said “Let me guess, you’re trying to learn a Willy Porter song.”



“No” I replied indignantly. “Willy Porter songs are way too good and too intimidating. I learned a few Matt Nathanson songs instead.”



“I can see the fan mail now,” he joked. “Dear Matt Nathanson, I love you. You’re like a dumbed down Willy Porter.



Last night Todd restrung one of our acoustics for me. It looks like I am on my way to becoming a hobby guitar player again.

On This the Day of our Engagement

Scene: last night, in the hot tub at our house in Podunk, Rhode Island.

Beej: Hey, what’s the date today?

Todd: I don’t know. I don’t pay attention to that stuff on the weekends.

Beej: It’s October 17th. Nine years ago today you asked me to marry you.

Todd: (splashing around in the water) And what did you say?

Beej: (stretching out in the hot water and sighing) I said no. Then you asked me what you needed to do so I would say yes, and I said that you needed to get me a hot tub and I might consider it.

Todd: I think you might be remembering that incorrectly. Just a little.

On the night he asked me, October 17, 2000, I was working in Boston, and he was working in Providence. We lived between Boston and Providence at the time, and I used to take the train into Boston for work every day, then I went to grad school at night and caught the late train home. Todd drove the 45-60 minutes south to Providence for work, and came home at a million o’clock every night.

He called me at work on a random Tuesday in October and said “Hey, how about if I come into Boston tonight and we’ll have dinner together in the city.” We hadn’t seen much of each other at the time, and I couldn’t wait until I saw him that night.

I was late meeting him at Government Center. I had to take the green line to my professor’s office on Beacon Street to drop off a paper. He never ended up reading the paper and just gave me a B because it had gotten lost in his office. I thought I deserved an A because he was the one who lost the paper. The green line was slower than weight loss, and I frantically checked my watch every other second until the train finally crept into Government Center. I ran up the stairs and out the street exit. Todd was there with flowers that he’d bought from the vendor on the sidewalk.

“There she is!” he exclaimed. Finally I’d shown up, and it didn’t look like he’d been stood up. We walked to Quincy Market, and checked out the benches under the trees. White Christmas lights were strung in the trees, and the branches were lined with thousands of squawking birds. The benches were covered in poop so we sat at the base of the Samuel Adams statue.

It was chilly that night, and I felt the chill of the stone base of the statue as I sat. Todd put his hands in his pockets. I wondered if his hands were cold. But Todd’s hands are never cold. He’s exothermic. I swear the water boils around him when we dive. I watched his hands; I wasn’t listening to what he was saying.

He held out a ring and asked, “So, will you marry me?” I burst into tears and said yes.

Here it is 9 years later, and I still have no idea what he said before he asked. I wish I’d listened more.

Want to Hear Something Creepy?

My mom arrived in North America in October 1961. (Well, that’s not the creepy part, just stick with me.) She went, alone, on a boat from Gdansk, Poland to Montreal, Canada. She was just 24 years old, and all she knew how to say in English were “Bristol Pennsylvania” and “Ham sandwich.” The boat she traveled on was called the Stefan Batory, and she found a way to game the exchange rate en route and made a bit of a profit before landing in Canada.

She had no idea how long the train ride from Montreal to Bristol would be. She stayed awake the entire time, terrified that if she fell asleep she would miss her stop and be lost without being about to communicate. She kept herself awake for 48 hours until her cousin met her on the platform in Bristol. She eventually made her way to Chicopee, Massachusetts where she met Dad. Then all of her siblings and parents ended up in America, and Mom wasn’t alone anymore.

On the day she died, October 4, 2001, we were going through old photos of her so we could put them up in the funeral home. There was a picture of Mom riding a motorcycle when she and Dad visited Poland in 1973 that just had to go into the collage. It was their first time back since they’d left more than a decade earlier, and I was born 9 months after the trip. There were pictures of all of us, and Mom and Dad’s wedding pictures. Dad scoured the house and couldn’t find the picture of Mom parasailing when they went on vacation to Marco Island. We tore the house apart and looked in every cabinet, every drawer and through every photo album. No dice.

Dad opened Mom’s memento box that she had kept on the floor on her side in their closet. The box had always been there. We’ve all seen it a million times when in there, but none of us ever thought to ever open it. It was just one of those things that we didn’t even notice anymore because it was always there.

I don’t think Dad ever thought to open it until that day when he was looking for that picture. Inside the box was a print of the Stefan Batory that Mom had saved from her boat trip. The picture was on the front of the dinner menu on the boat, and Mom’s legendary sticky fingers had swiped the menu and taken it from the boat as a souvenir. On the back of the print was the menu. That night’s dinner selections were written in Polish, and the date was at the top.

It was dated October 4, 1961—exactly 40 years to the day before she died. She was 24 on the night she swiped that menu. She was on her way to a brand new life in a new country. If someone had told her that night “Forty years from today you will die” she would have laughed at them. She was young, brave and invincible. There was a certain brilliance and vibrancy about Mom right up to the end, and I would have loved to see her in action at age 24. (Hell, I’d love to see her in action at age 72, which is what she would have been this year.)

Dad stared at the menu, speechless. I don’t remember who asked him what was wrong, but he showed us the picture and the menu and we all fell silent. The air in the kitchen felt heavy and none of us knew what to say. It was a feeling we all felt all day long. We fumbled around the house while picking out what she’ll wear. We all shrunk into ourselves, exhausted and drained from the day. My sisters made grilled cheese sandwiches that filled the house with a smell that nauseated me as I couldn’t stand the thought of eating anything.

We debated on whether or not we should put shoes on her feet. My cousin Theresa once told us a story about how Mom went to help pick out a suit for Theresa’s father, who was Mom’s older brother, when Theresa was making her father’s arrangements. Theresa had asked Mom if she should bring shoes for him as well. Mom said, “Of course he needs shoes. How will he walk into heaven without shoes on?” My sisters recounted the story and laughed at how it was “so Mom.” All I could do was cry because it was just “so Mom.” I can just see her saying it with that spunk that she had. It was the same spunk she used when she would yell at the ref at one of my high school basketball games. I can still hear her, with her accent and rolled r’s, “Ref! She travel! Blow the veestle!” And then she’d holler to me “Bih Jay! Dreeble! Dreeble the ball! Shoot!!”

The thing about the date on that menu haunts me still. I wonder if my 40 year out mark has passed or not. When Mom was my age, her 40 year mark had already passed; in fact, she only had 29 years left. I wonder when Dad’s was, as he’s 71 now. I look at my brothers and sisters and wonder if theirs passed or not too. Has Todd’s? Has anyone’s? My friends? Strangers I see when I am out and about? Unfortunately, not everyone will have a 40 year mark, and that bothers me too.

So, I pose this question to you, Internet. If you had the chance to know when your 40 years left mark would be, or when it was, would you find out? Would you live your life differently if you knew?

I wonder if Mom would have done anything differently.

Exposed Nerve

On Sunday it’ll be 8 years since Mom’s been gone. The last six weeks of Mom’s life did not at all represent who she was. Her cancer spread, and the tumors compressed her spinal cord and she lost all feeling and ability to move from the waist down. My sisters and I dropped out of our lives for those weeks and took turns taking care of her. I blew off work for most of that time, and only went 1-2 days per week.

I never really let myself fully absorb what was happening at that time. I slipped into denial robot mode and shielded myself from the possibility of losing Mom. Everything I did during those six weeks was done with the sole purpose of making her live. My mind assigned extreme importance to every little mundane task I accomplished every day. My first thought in the morning was how making her favorite breakfast would make her live. The laundry, done just so, would make her live. I concocted protein shakes with fresh fruits blended into them to make her live. I was careful not to get shampoo in her eyes, because one sudsy splash would tip the scales in the wrong direction. Any little thing could make her live, and denial robot had to perfectly execute every chore so not to risk causing her demise.

The denial robot mode fully took over. Nobody could talk about any other fate than Mom surviving around me. There was no other option for the denial robot. Mom dying simply did not compute. Period. It was exhausting. But when you’re a denial robot you never get tired. You push and push because nothing else matters. (My sister and I watched the 9-11 attack on TV, then simply turned the TV off and bathed and dressed Mom so we could get her ready for radiation treatment in Hartford.)

I vividly remember her wake, when my cousin Anna had said to me “It gets easier.” Anna’s dad had died when we were seniors in college. Later on that night my cousin Theresa said, “You just have to live through the pain.” Her dad died when she was in her early 20s and I was only 7 or 8.

And it’s true. They were both absolutely right. I’ve said the same things to other people I know who have lost their parents. “The first 6 months will completely suck. Just get through them and you’ll be OK” I told them. Later on they told me I was right.

But my first six months were riddled with spontaneous sobbing at inopportune times and vivid nightmares. The denial robot’s battery ran down and left me to deal with what actually happened in those six weeks. Mom’s health gradually degraded until we were all with her when she took her last breath. And none of those things I did, that would surely make her live, worked. In those six months I waited for the answer to be revealed to me, but of course it never was. There wasn’t a chore I missed that didn’t make her live. It was the cancer that didn’t make her live.

Now here it is 8 years later. And while the pain of losing her has subsided, there are times when it bubbles to the surface. It's usually something entirely random that triggers it. Today a client at work called me from Bristol, Pennsylvania—where Mom lived when she first came to the United States. I’ve only visited Bristol when I was a kid. It wasn’t a part of my childhood—but I knew the story of Mom taking the train from Montreal, Canada to Bristol when she first arrived on this side of the pond. I spent the rest of the day walking around feeling like I had a stone in my stomach and I randomly burst into tears in the car on the way to dinner at a friends’ house tonight.

And that’s what nobody prepared me for when they were trying to comfort me at her wake. That it never fully goes away.

Looking for Proof

Sometimes it’s not enough to know that I’ve done something, I need to see evidence of it in other people. I struggled with this when I returned from a year abroad in Australia in college. It wasn’t enough to know I’d been there. It wasn’t enough to have three photo albums filled with pictures, many of them including me standing in front of Australian landmarks like the Sydney Opera House, Ayers Rock, or in dive gear on the Great Barrier Reef. It wasn’t even remotely enough to listen to CDs by Australian artists purchased in Australia or to tell a story of something I’d done or seen while there. After all, I could easily get a “My Friend the Chocolate Cake” CD off of Amazon, and I could just as easily make up these stories.

I struggled with the question, “Was I really there?” after I returned, and couldn’t seem to answer it on my own. My year down under had to be justified by someone I hadn’t seen in that year. “Hey! You’re back! How was Australia?” Or “Did you buy this gift for me in Australia? I love it!”

The other day I saw a man riding in an inflatable dinghy in the cove, and I recognized the logo on the back of his navy blue T-shirt. The same logo is on the back of a few T-shirts on our shelf at home. In the last few years I hadn’t seen that logo anywhere other than in my house. That logo appeared on my dive shop’s web site, on the marketing materials I had developed, on a tent that we had made for events at dive sites, and on scads of those T-shirts. I had seen it on someone at the gym awhile back, and then just a few days ago I saw it on the back of a stranger as he rode by.

For that moment the question was answered. Did I own a dive shop? Yes I did, and there was living proof just cruising by for a few moments. And now I seek out the next shred of evidence, only to justify it to myself.

Watching Our Backs

In general, Todd and I are very trusting people. We tend not to conduct our lives as if there are thieves lurking in every shadow. We only lock the doors in our house if we’ll be away from it for more than a day. And while I do lock the doors on my car, in the summer it’s soft top season—if someone really wants what’s in the car all they have to do is unzip it and climb in.

We’ve taken the same approach with our boat. We don’t lock it while we are away from it. The main reason why we don’t lock it is because there’s always the chance that we’ll forget a key and go out there just to not be able to get in. The other big reason is that if a burglar is hell-bent on getting into the boat we don’t want them to have to break a very expensive overhead hatch to get around a locked door. In the past we didn’t lock our dinghy, the equivalent of our car, when leaving it at the dock. We’ve kept it in the same spot for seven seasons now, and haven’t had too much trouble. Except for that one time when somebody stole it. It was later discovered floating around in the cove with a rope wrapped around its propeller. Apparently the thief didn’t know enough to keep the rope away from the spinning prop blades and thwarted their own getaway. Then there was that time last season when our gas tank was stolen. So, in seven years we’ve had two incidents. While we’d prefer to have none, two occasions out of seven years isn’t so bad.

We’ve grown very comfortable with leaving the dinghy tied to the dock with the key to the engine secured out of plain sight. This season we filled the gas tank for the dinghy’s outboard engine, and left it at the dock on a Sunday night. We returned on Tuesday after work and noticed that the key to the engine was conspicuously missing. Upon inspection of the gas tank we noticed that half the fuel was gone. Obviously someone had used our engine, traveled quite a distance with that half tank of fuel, and probably kept the key in hopes of using it again some day. We discussed getting a chain and a lock, and lamented having to do that.

We hopped into the dinghy and went out to Sabine’s mooring. While we were on deck one of our neighbors on another sailboat moored in the cove pulled up. The captain informed us that his sailboat had been broken into. The crooks broke the glass hatch on the deck, slipped inside, and took his tools and his foul weather gear. (Good foul weather gear is quite expensive. I recall dropping a few hundred bucks on ours.) He also said that a few other boats had been burgled, and that we should spread the word so everyone in the cove would be on watch.

The guilt washed over me as I thought back to the spent half tank of fuel in our dinghy. What if our carelessness helped our neighbors get robbed?

Over the weekend I slipped another key onto my key ring, which opens a padlock on a chain that secures the dinghy to the dock. I also brought my bicycle lock and tried to secure the outboard motor and gas tank to the inside of the boat, but the lock didn’t fit. I’ll have to get one that is narrower. And I hate that I have to do that.

On The List of Things I Don’t Understand

Everyday I take my lunch break at the local boat ramp. When it’s a nice day I walk out to the end of the dock and sit with my laptop where I work on my book, or I read somebody else’s book. It’s a lovely spot that overlooks Greenwich Cove, where Sabine is moored. I look at Sabine, rocking gently with the waves and wish that I could be out there casting off her lines in preparation for another sailing adventure. But instead I have to return to work in an hour. But that’s a blog post for another day.

On the days that the weather isn’t cooperating, like the last I don’t know how many weeks, I remain in my car. I roll down the windows and write or read in the driver’s seat. Other people have the same idea I as do, and they park there for their lunch breaks as well.

Today I fought the urge to walk up and introduce myself to three of the other people in their cars. These three people left their cars running the entire time I was there. They sat there idling and pumping exhaust into the air for an hour. It took all my strength to stay in my car and not walk up to them, call them an ignorant prick, reach into their windows and turn the key in the ignition off.

I felt the familiar impatient irritation rise up inside of me. I get this feeling when I see people litter, or spit on a sidewalk in front of other people, or completely blow through a stop sign without even tapping the brake pedal (another thing I encountered on my lunch break today) or nearly run me off the highway at 70 mph (another thing that happened to me on the way to work one day). It’s the kind of impatient irritation that makes me want to get in the face of the person who offended me and scream “What the hell is the matter with you?!”

I saw in my car, reading a copy of Writer’s Digest, and tried not to get out of my car and storm over to these other people and do just that. And then on my way back from lunch break I stewed at my propriety. I mean, change doesn’t happen unless somebody stands up and does something to effect change right? Could I have accomplished something if I went up to these people idling in their cars and say “You know, you are polluting our air by running your car like that. I happen to enjoy breathing clean air, will you please turn your car off.”

Of all the things we know about climate change, pollution, and wasting gas, I just do not understand who in their right mind can sit there for an hour and idle their car like that. If these people don’t care about pollution, at the very least don’t they care about their wallet? If only they realized that they are pumping their money out of their tail pipe with this nasty habit.

It’s such a fine line to walk when wanting to go up to a stranger to ask them to stop doing something that makes me crazy—and to do it in such a way that I don’t come off all holier-than-thou. And the more I think about it, the more frustrated I am with myself that I didn’t do anything about it.

Petty Vandalism was my MO

I was in high school in the early 90’s, back when MC Hammer was telling us that it was Hammer Time. I was a goody goody in high school, ever drank (except for once), got good grades, participated in school activities, and all that two shoes stuff. But I had a weakness. I was a petty vandal.

I carried a sharpie around with me, and scrawled occasional random bits of graffiti. Most of it didn’t make much sense. I didn’t care to tell anyone when I had visited that particular bathroom stall. Instead my contributions of the graffiti world consisted of things like song lyrics, stick figures in a “Walk like an Egyptian” pose and the like.

I was driving home from school one day, and stopped at a stop sign somewhere in Enfield, Connecticut. I cracked up as I read the sign. First it said STOP, but then somebody scrawled underneath it “Hammer Time.” Brilliant! I had just stumbled upon a new vehicle for my writings. I was thrilled at the prospect of my obscure scribbles being exposed to more people than those who used the bathrooms at school. I grew excited at both genders getting to view my artistic contributions.

I raced home and called my friends, “Guys! This is it! We need to come up with some phrases incorporating the word ‘stop’.” The next night, armed with a fresh sharpie and friends packed into my 85 Olds Calais. We cruised down Newbury Road in East Windsor, an isolated road in the middle of nowhere which would serve as the perfect place to test out an installation of my art. I pulled up to the stop sign, leapt out of the car, and dashed to the stop sign on the side of the road. I scrawled “Polka time” under the word “Stop” on the sign—an homage to my roots.

Soon I became more brazen. Dozens of stop signs in East Windsor were defaced with the words “Polka time.” Worn out sharpies littered the floor of my car. The buzz about the weird “Polka Time” stop signs grew at school, and all fingers pointed at me. My classmates shook their heads and said “I am not at all surprised it was you.”

Tonight I was picking up pizza from Wicked Good Pizza. I stopped at the stop sign before leaving the parking lot and saw that someone else created their own stop sign art installation. The words “Don’t” and “Believing” were written in black sharpie on the sign, so that it read “Don’t Stop Believing.” I applaud this stop sign graffiti artist for taking it to the next level, and actually saying something a more hopeful and meaningful than my asinine “Stop! Polka time!”

Who ever you are, thank you for making my day. Oh and don’t STOP making people smile.

Let the Record Show

Scene: Podunk, RI, 8 something PM June 9, 2009

Ring ring went the phone. I glanced at the caller ID, it said "Cell Phone CT." One of my siblings was calling me. "Hello?" I answered.

"Hey, it's me," my brother Walter said. "I am at the high school because Janina has a dance recital rehearsal here tonight. Check this out, I am looking the board for the track records and I see 'Shot put, BJ Smith, 35' 3 3/4 1991' and 'High Jump, BJ Smith 5'1" 1991.' So you can sleep easy tonight, your records haven't been broken."

"Hey, that is cool. I set those records 18 years ago. It's nice to know that I haven't been beaten yet."

"You think that's cool? There's a dude on here who threw the discus 140 feet in 1972."

"1972? I wasn't even alive then! When was that record set? When our high school was in ancient Greece?" I laughed.

"My name is still up too," he added. Walter had graduated from our high school in 1984, eight years before me. He wasn't an athelete, he was more involved in student government.

"For what?" I asked.

"Good Citizenship award," he said.

"Oh my God, you were such a nerd!"

Selfish? Really?

On Friday afternoon at work some co-workers and I were stuffing envelopes for a mailing that we had to get out the door that afternoon. We put some music on, set up an assembly line and ended up laughing and joking to beat the monotony of the stuffing, sealing, labeling and stamping. We talked about our plans for the weekend. Eventually the discussion turned to kids. One of my co-workers had a baby girl 6 months ago, and I was asked if I would have kids.

I think Todd and I are back on the “No” side of the fence. We had been teetering on the fence for a long time, and right now we’re firmly living in “No” land.

“Really?” D asked me. “You guys are in such a good position for kids now, I am surprised.”

“Actually, I like the way our life is right now, and so does he. I am pretty set in my ways and really don’t want to add a baby to that right now.”

“You know,” another co-worker at the end of the table chimed in, “It’s perfectly OK to be selfish like that.”

Selfish? Really? Because I have not procreated and do not currently plan on doing so you’re going to use the word “Selfish”? I bit my tongue and concentrated on sealing the envelopes in front of me. I am sure he meant nothing malicious by saying that. But the more I think about it, the more annoyed I am at his using the word “selfish” to describe my way of life. I am also a bit annoyed that he felt the need to tell me it was perfectly OK. Of course it’s perfectly OK. Why wouldn’t it be? It’s my life, and my choice. While my path is different than his, isn’t mine still just as good because it suits me?

Why do people feel the need to use the word “selfish” when referring to a childless couple? Why can’t they say “active” as in “They’re active in other parts of their lives that they never got around to having kids.” Why can’t they say “hard-working” about a childless couple, as in “They are both focused on their careers right now that they haven’t gotten around to having kids.” Why can’t they say “adventurous” about a childless couple, as in “They are busy having adventures. They’re avid divers, sailors, hikers, and paddlers that they haven’t gotten around to having kids.”

No, the impression is that childless people are selfish. I take such an issue with that word because I am not a selfish person. This co-worker of mine has watched me change the water bottle on the water cooler even when I wasn’t the one to empty it. I am one of the few people at work who can lift and carry the full bottle, so I help out my peeps by keeping them hydrated. This co-worker has also observed me wiping up a spill on the hardwood floor that someone else had left behind because I was afraid that someone would slip on it and get hurt. Yet, I was called selfish for not having a child.

I wish I had said, “Well, I don’t know about being too selfish to have a child. I don’t think I am a selfish person. I am devoted to my husband, my friends and my family. I have 12 nieces and nephews as well. All of these people know that I would do anything for them. I don’t need to have a kid to prove that I am not selfish.”

But I kept my mouth shut. While that was probably the better move on a professional level, on a personal level my blood boiled. And continues to.

Coming to Grips

Seven years ago, when Griffen was just a puppy, I clipped him into a leash and tried taking him for a jog. He clumsily bounded behind me, not quite sure what he was supposed to do. I tugged him along for maybe a half mile and returned home frustrated. I had an image in my head of my dog happily jogging along side of me, but jogging with a gangly lab puppy didn’t look like that image. At all.

But I didn’t give up on it. I took him along every day. I tugged on the leash and hollered “Left!” sternly, until he understood that when I say that he’s supposed to move over to my left and get the hell out of my way. Over the years Griffen’s logged a few thousand miles at my side. He’s come to recognize when I put on my jogging clothes and dances expectantly as I get ready to go. He lets out a Chewbacca like howl as I tie my sneakers on and paces by the door.

The last few weeks, with his allergies acting up, I haven’t been taking him along in an effort to cut down his exposure to pollen. The flare up passed, and I took him with me on a 3.3 mile walk/jog interval yesterday. He grinned as he loped along on my left, and stopped to pee on several mailboxes. He sniffed. He looked at me adoringly and wagged his tail as if to say “I am having such a great time. Thank you!” This was the image of jogging with a dog that I had in my head 7 years ago. And I enjoyed every jog with my running buddy for 7 years.

This morning I pulled on my jogging clothes as Griffen watched from his bed. “Griffen, come on,” I whispered. He sat and stared. “Come on buddy, wanna go for a run?” He blinked his eyes, and continued to stare. Normally, when I say the word “run” he leaps up onto all fours and is ready to rock. Not today.

Todd woke up, “He was a bit stiff when he was coming upstairs last night. I don’t think he wants to go,” he explained. I left Griff in bed, and ran on my own. I felt the breeze flow through my left hand sans leash.

I hate to imagine a time where he won’t be able to go with me anymore. The image of the puppy with the oversized paws bounding behind me is fresh in my mind. Back then I longed for a time when he would easily jog at my side. Now I long for a time when he pounces at my heels, not yet comprehending the word “Left!” before the thousands of miles passed under his paws.

It’s Just Not Right

Every year it happens, just like clockwork. The weather warms up. May becomes June. Sailboats in the distance dot the bay. Todd and I make a list of boat projects we’d like to accomplish. We scramble to complete them because we know that once Sabine’s tied to her mooring we will lose all motivation to work on any of those projects. We’re too busy having fun instead. We complete maybe half of the list and say “We’ll finish next year.”

This year the list is longer than most because of the complete refit. We haven’t had access to the interior of the boat all winter, due to the boat yard painting and varnishing the interior. We lazed around all winter, until recent weeks. Now the boat’s painted, but the leaking hydraulic steering system has been ripped out. Replacement parts have been purchased but not installed yet. All of the “stuff” that was on the deck of the boat was moved below so that the yard guys could paint. Now that “stuff” is all over the place in the interior of the boat. A fine layer of dust covers everything. There’s more junk in the cabinets from past completed or abandoned projects. It’s everywhere, spilling out of cabinets that won’t close anymore. Books with moldy pages, Christmas lights, 12,784 miles of extension cords, a broken clock… why are we keeping this crap?

The list is swelling as we think of more projects that we need to complete, faster than it could ever hope to shrink. The installation of solar panels has been pushed down toward the bottom, while installing the anchor windlass has been pushed toward the top.

We spent all day Saturday and all day Sunday working on the boat. On Saturday we painted the boot stripe (the stripe that falls right at the water line). On Sunday we cleaned out most of the cabinets in the interior, and threw out much of the crap that was in there. I scrubbed every inch of the "living room," but still have the forward stateroom, our stateroom, the bathroom, shower and galley to scrub. I took all the cushions outside, drenched them with Febreze, and let them dry in the sun. We nearly finished constructing the lid for the hatch that’s way in the back of the boat. I finished sanding the nameplates, and then we will fill them in with fiberglass and paint them black. The sign company will stick letters on them that say “Sabine” and “East Greenwich, RI” on them in a font that we will deliberate over for far too long.

The weekends are not enough anymore. Wanting to restore a great old boat and get to actually use it takes a lot of time. Work, though necessary to finance the restoration and use of a sailboat, has become inconvenient. I feel myself growing disgruntled at the concept of having to show up to work every day at 8:00 AM, and having to stay there staring at a computer screen until 5:00 PM. In my mind the list remains, with items uncrossed. The clock in the corner of the computer screen mockingly ticks away valuable minutes that could have been spent elsewhere.

Every spring something else happens too. The walls of the cubicle close in on me. I stare up at them and wonder if it is my imagination, or if they are actually slanting inward. Though I like the job, I resent that it keeps me from living the life I want to lead. I resent having to ask permission to take time off. I resent the stressful moments while I wait to be granted permission to take vacation time. I resent giving “the man” the best years of my life.

I grow irritable. I become a nightmare to live with and to work with. I plot. I ponder. I grumble. I leave the office at 5 on the dot with a trace of fire in my footprints. I clench my jaw at the surprise project dropped into my lap on a Friday afternoon. I shake my fist at the sky and say “It’s just not right!”

Yet, for some reason I’ve never bought a Powerball ticket.

Beejutante

“Doesn’t he know you at all?” Brent asked me on the phone and laughed. I returned to my dorm room senior year of college, and called my friend to tell him about my dad’s hare-brained request from that morning.

I had gone home for the weekend. I didn’t go to church with my parents, and they returned from 8:00 mass to have breakfast with me. My parents are very religious, and attended a mass said in Polish every Sunday morning at the very same church in which they were married. Dad still sings in the choir, as do my uncles, and over the years he’s made friends with the people he’s sung with since before electricity.

Dad sat across from me at breakfast and said, “I was talking to Mrs. M. this morning after church. She’s organizing the Polonaise Ball this year. She wants you to be in it.” The Polonaise Ball is kind of like a debutante ball for eligible Polish girls. Supposedly being asked to be in it is some big honor. But it was an honor that made me bristle as scooped up scrambled egg and spread it onto my toast.

“A debutante? Me? Are you kidding, Dad? There’s no way…” I sat across from the table and tried to get Dad to recognize me. I am his youngest daughter. I hold my high school record in the unfeminine shot put event. I had stopped shaving my legs in some rebellion against “The Man” and was probably clad in a pair of men’s jeans, a humongous flannel, and faux Doc Martens. I was the daughter who ran a drill press in his shop when I was on breaks from school.

“What the hell was I supposed to say to her?” he asked, as if the concept of saying “My daughter’s not really into that kind of thing” was such a foreign concept. “And now,” he added “I will have to face her every week. How am I supposed to say no to her and see her at church every week?”

“Wow, she must be pretty hard up for girls, if she’s asking for me,” I snorted. “Dad, just tell her I am not interested. Please. There’s no way I am doing this.”

“No, I will not tell her. If you don’t want to do this, you’ll have to do it yourself. But don’t just ignore her request. I don’t want her asking me about it every week,” he growled at me.

I found Mrs. M’s number in my parents’ address book, wrote it down and shoved the piece of paper in my pocket. I drove back to school, an hour and a half away in Rhode Island, and tried to come up with a reasonable excuse as to why I couldn’t possibly be included as a Polish debutante. Most of the excuses that I rehearsed in the car started with “Are you fucking crazy? Have you seen me lately? At the moment my hair is magenta! Surely we can agree I am not Polonaise material.” I knew I had to do better than magenta hair.

I walked into my room, and picked up the phone and dialed. “Mrs. M? Hi, it’s Beej. How are you?”

“Oh, honey, how are you? I haven’t seen you in so long!” she replied, excitedly. I was sure that the last time she’d seen me was at the choir picnic when I was 10. I had skinned knees from playing too hard. As a senior in college I had skinned knees from falling down after partying too hard.

“Listen, I am calling about the Polonaise Ball…” I began. I don’t remember how I worded it. Nothing I rehearsed in the car sounded right. I decided when I dialed the number that I would just wing it. I think the words “painfully shy” came out of my mouth, and the words “couldn’t possibly stand up in front of a room full of people while wearing a gown…” also popped out. At least feigned shyness couldn’t be covered over with hair dye, and couldn’t be shaved off my legs.

“I wish you’d reconsider,” she said, soothingly. “There are so many benefits you’ll miss out on of you don’t go. You won’t be introduced properly to the Polish society as an eligible young woman…” I bit my tongue hard to keep in my disdain. My brain was pounding with ‘You mean I’ll miss out on the chance for my life to revolve around making cabbage-laden food for some Polish guy who wears sandals with black socks? Oh damn!’

“Thank you for the opportunity, but I think I will have to pass. Thanks for thinking of me,” I quickly blurted before hanging up the phone. I stared at it for a few minutes, as if it grew a layer of mold in the time I was talking to Mrs. M.

I dialed Brent’s number and heard him laugh. "Hey, you're lucky I am not doing this. I would probably make you go with me, and you'd have to wear a tux," I laughed back. Then he stopped laughing.

Who Are These People?

I’ve always had a bit of a rebellious streak. It used to drive my mom crazy when she’d go to a parent-teacher conference and my teacher would say something about how I deliberately didn’t follow directions. My mom would come home from the conference and ask “Why do you do that? The teacher tells you to do something and you do the exact opposite.” Then of course I wouldn’t answer her question, just to do the exact opposite in that situation too.

Largely I’ve tamed the behavior that used to make my mom crazy. Though there are still times when I’ll do the exact opposite of what was asked, for any number of silly reasons. Over the course of my career I’ve purposely opted out of activities at work just so I didn’t have to be “one of them.” At the gigantic insurance company that once employed me, I routinely tossed out the morale boosting mail out of my mailbox before reading it. When asked to take one of the dozens of required online courses, I didn’t bother to read the course material and instead just jumped to the exam at the end and guessed at the answers until I got them right. At another place of employment I was awarded a red polo shirt with the company logo on it after passing my 90 day probationary period. Never one to wear clothing emblazoned with the logo of my employer (with the exception of my own company), I left the polo in its cellophane wrapper in the bottom drawer of my desk until my last day. I gave it to my office mate before heading to the elevator with my box of stuff.

I view morale building activities with suspicion and disdain. When presented with a dress code, I test the limits of it until my employer gives up on asking me to dress to the code. When given required reading at work, I toss it aside until it ends up, unread, in the trash or in a drawer after a desk cleaning binge.

I was just given a required reading assignment by my employer this week. I bristled as the book was presented to me. I felt a “baaaaah” sound try to escape my lips as I imagined my co-workers in sheep’s wool clutching their copy of the book and quoting it at every possible moment. I set the book aside on my desk, with the intention of never cracking it open. The all familiar and comforting suspicion and disdain came flooding back to me as I consciously set the book aside—in a prominent location to make it look like I was actively reading it, yet not so prominent that it’s not in the way.

Then I picked it up.

Then I opened it.

I thumbed through the pages, resisting the urge to snort and roll my eyes. “Oh great, more touchy-feely business crap…” I thought to myself. Who cares what color my parachute is, or who moved the cheese? Why are people moving cheese instead of just eating it with some crackers, anyway? Then I straightened my shoulders and said “What the hell, Beej. Give it a whirl. You do love reading, after all.”

Over the last few days I read two chapters of this book. Somewhere in chapter two, the author talked about wanting to build a workplace at which people were excited about working for. He wanted to create a workplace at which people would wake up and get excited about going to work. I’ve known dozens of entrepreneurs and managers who said this very same thing.

Are there people out there who actually do this? I thought back to the gigantic insurance company that once employed me. I recalled the bland row after row after row of cubicles, and pictured mine with the pink flamingo lawn ornaments on the top of it—the only flash of individuality and color in the vast expanse of the cube farm. I wondered about this concept when I worked there. Were there people who went to gigantic insurance company truly excited about getting to work? Were there people who worked there who were actually and sincerely excited about insurance?

I like my job right now. My workplace is probably the only place I’ve worked in the last 10 years that I’ve actually liked (other than my own company, of course). The people are nice. The work has purpose—there is more purpose to what I do now than there ever was in marketing widgets, insurance, or developing content on a technology news web site and whatever else I’ve done in the last ten years. Does that mean that my alarm goes off in the morning and I leap out of bed excited about going to work? Hell no. If I hit the lottery the first thing I will do is quit my job and live my life on my own terms. I’ve always viewed my job as a means to support my lifestyle and as nothing more. I do the work, I complete my tasks, and overall I like dealing with my clients and I try like hell to make working with me fun and easy. But at the end of the day, I do this job so I can afford to do other things.

So, who are these people who get excited about waking up and going to work? Are you one of them? I am genuinely interested in what makes you excited about going to work?

Former Self, In Cardboard

When we moved into this house, on March 31st, 2008, we lobbed a load of boxes into a room that is just to the right at the bottom of the cellar stairs. This room is unfinished. The prior owner put up ceiling tiles on roughly 1/3 of the ceiling, and put of 2x4 studs against portions of the foundation in a half-assed effort to finish the room. A single bare light bulb in a socket in the center of the ceiling illuminates the room. There is no light switch, and a slight twist of the light bulb is how we turn the light on and off in that room. Toward the end of moving our stuff into the house, this became the “Oh screw it!” room. Boxes of our stuff were stashed in the room in exhaustion at the end of the move. "Oh screw it, just throw it in there, we'll sort it out later" was what we said over and over in the days of the move. The boxes contained stuff that we wanted to keep but hadn’t yet decided where it would all go. Books, photo albums, two bean bag chairs originally purchased for movie nights at the dive shop—back when we owned the dive shop.

I originally envisioned this space as expanded pantry space. Todd, in his love of cooking, has been accumulating a crap-load of kitchen stuff. He now owns a slow cooker and a pressure cooker. He has lots of stock pots. He has foil roasting pans. All of these things are not used in our daily kitchen use, and we both would prefer to stash them away somewhere so they are not underfoot. I imagined this room would eventually contain racks that contained cleaning stuff, Todd’s kitchen implements, dry and canned goods, etc. We stood in the doorway of the room, looking at the enormous pile of stuff on the floor and speculated about the future of this room.

“Well, I got what I always wanted, the workshop. What’s something you’ve always wanted in a house?” Todd asked me. The way he smiled at he told me that he already knew the answer. He knew I was taking one for the team by suggesting that we turn the room into a big-ass-walk-in pantry. “How about you get the gym you always wanted.”

He excitedly walked into the room, stepped over the debris that is our stuff, and pointed. “We could dry wall in the walls, finish tiling the ceiling, put a flat screen over there, a treadmill over here….” Todd has an amazing knack for visualizing a space that I’d never seen in anyone else.

“Are you sure?” I asked him. “I mean, imagine how much we could store in here.” I stepped into the room and pointed. “Racks over here for all your big pots, a big huge cabinet over here for food…”

“No, I know you’ve always wanted a gym. I want you to have what you want too.”

Over the last few weekends I’ve been going through the boxes in the room that will become my gym. I vowed that I will not just move whole boxes into other parts of the house. I will unpack each box, and find a home for every single thing inside. My pile of papers, notebooks and texts from graduate school ended up in a pile as I unpacked the boxes. I finished my Masters nearly six years ago and since then I have not cracked open a single one of the texts I had accumulated, nor have I re-read my papers and the notations from my professors, nor have I perused any of the notes I scribbled during lectures. I knew that they had to go. I couldn’t imagine all the trappings of my former life as a graduate student taking up space in my house.

Before I recycled the pages from my notes, donated my old texts, or flat out threw away anything related to my graduate degree, I sat in one of the bean bag chairs and I read my old papers.

I don’t recognize the person who scored a 96 on a Consumer Behavior mid-term exam. I recognize her handwriting and I remember how she quizzed herself using flash cards as she walked from the Back Bay train station to the classroom on Tremont Street in Boston. She didn’t stop quizzing herself until she could rapidly recall the answer to every single question on every single card, and then she shuffled the cards and flashed them to herself again. And then again after that. I sat in my soon-to-be home gym and read the answers on the test, and wondered what part of my brain still might store that information. I held my hand over my handwritten answer and I tried to access that part of my brain and answer the question. Today I cannot answer the questions nearly as well as I had back in 2002.

Between the years 2000 and 2003, my Masters program took up a lot of space in my life. I went to class, I met people, I created presentations, and wrote papers. I studied in every spare moment. Friends and family asked me “So, how’s school going?” all the time. Normally, it’s the act of thumbing through old pictures that make me marvel at my former self. I marvel at how long or how short my hair was, or the definition in my quadriceps from my captain-of-the-college-track-team days. But this time it wasn’t something I could easily point out in a picture. I held quantities of information in my brain that I no longer think about, even though for three years the acquisition of that information was my entire life.

Who was that person that I dug out of a cardboard box? And who is the woman now who threw that person into the recycling bin?

Welcome to Point B, Population Me

I am 34 years old, and spent so many years of my life trying to get from point A to point B. Point A was always the undesirable spot I was in at any given moment. I always longed for something else. Some glorious point B just on the other side of the fence, where cushy green grass glowed in the sun just waiting for me to skip across it barefoot without having to worry about dog poop.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be 16 so I could drive a car on my own.

When I was 16, I wanted to be 18 so I could be in college and out from under my parents’ roof and their 10:00 curfew.

When I was in college, in Rhode Island, I wanted to be abroad. When I was abroad (as bitchen as that year was, and how much I knew that I was in a decidedly spectacular point A) I was ready to be post-graduated and living on my own.

When I was post-graduation and living on my own, I longed to have a boyfriend. When I had one of my lousy post-college boyfriends, I longed to be single. When I was in the working world, I lusted after school supplies on the store shelves every September. When I was working at one job, I kept my eyes peeled for some other, better job. When I landed the other, better job I wished I to worked at a job that had purpose and meaning and largely checked out of the one I had. Then I stopped paying attention in meetings; I stopped writing things down that I had to accomplish. Then I’d find another job and repeat the cycle.

I’ve always wanted something I didn’t have or to be somewhere where I wasn’t at the time. It had nothing to do with material objects. I don’t care about a lot of that stuff. My wandering eye constantly made its way over to the want ads, to the apartment listings, to the magazine articles and books about people who were living lives that were way cooler than mine.

In my last bout of unemployment, I asked myself “So, where is point B? What does it look like? How do I really get there? What do I want it to be like?” Then I looked around and realized that the current situation was point B. It was the culmination of 34 years of trying to get to point B. Every single point A that I had tried like hell to get away from was actually a point B that I had arrived at from some other point A. (Did your head just explode?)

I came to a few interesting observations. Yeah, I am a rather unoriginal guitar player. I am a three chord wonder. I listen to other players (Willy Porter, I am talking to you) and think, “Man, I’d love to be able to do that with a guitar. He has six strings and ten fingers, just like me. I should be able to do that too.” But then I realized that other people who have heard my songs have said to me that they’d like to be able to express themselves like that. And I can take those three chords, mix up the progression, change the rhythm, play them faster, play them slower and come up with a new song with a different feeling and another message. And that’s pretty damn cool.

I look at other women and think, “Man, I’d love to be that thin.” But then I realized that women who are bigger than me look at me and think that.

I look at people who have sailboats that are nicer than mine and who have traveled further in theirs and think, “I would love to have that boat and go that far.” Then I look at my own boat and think “Yeah, she still needs a lot of work. But she’s all mine. I haven’t yet sailed to places like Martha’s Vineyard, but I have sailed to other places that other people haven’t been.”

I read other blogs, and take glimpses into other people’s lives and think “They have a way of taking something mundane and making it into something hilarious, or something meaningful, something beautiful and something I crave when I am looking for entertainment.” Then I just think, “Then you need to get better at writing if you want other people to be interested in what you have to say.” So I experiment. I get personal and give you all a closer look at who I am. Then I swoop out again and I keep you behind the hedges so you can’t see in. I haven’t decided where I want to put you guys yet. I am not sure I want you all with your hands cupped around your eyes peeking into my windows waiting to see me naked, but I know it’s not so much fun for you to be hanging around at the end of the driveway either. But it’s OK to leave you out there once in awhile, and it’s also OK to invite you to the door too. But am I good enough at that? And is that enough for you? Some days yes, and some days no. It’s the “no” days that make me look at other blogs and think, “Man, these guys are always so ‘on.’ Why can’t I do that?” without even realizing that I’ve had a few “on” days, myself.

So here I am, at point B. And yes, it’s a probably point A for me to start from so I can get to some other point B. I am always plotting, always searching, always comparing, always yearning, always creating and always on the look out. Will I ever arrive at point B and think “OK, here I am. This is it. This is where I’ve wanted to go all this time?”

I don’t know.

All Grown Up and Nowhere To Go

I am 34 years old, and still do not feel entirely grown up. I like to think that I will never be a grown up, and a large part of me will still do things like drive too fast with the radio in the car blaring. On Thursday, Todd and I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time. It seemed like such a grown up thing to do. I set the table and actually cared about how the plates, napkins and silverware looked, and that they actually came from matching sets. Todd slaved over the stove, and I cleaned the house and fretted over dog hair on the furniture. The guests we had for dinner have been to dinner at our house a kabillion times, and don’t care about dog hair on the couch, or dust in the corner of the room. They’re our friends and our family and they came over to be with us.

But there’s something about hosting a big meal like Thanksgiving to force the inner adult to silence the inner child. I’ve seen people flip out over making Thanksgiving dinner the perfect meal that Martha Stewart would approve of. They scour the Internet for recipes and they make impossibly difficult centerpieces out of things like cranberries, pinecones and gourds. Todd and I survived our first Thanksgiving without freaking out too much about it. We had a lovely time with his parents and our friends. But I still don’t entirely feel grown up, even after hosting a major holiday meal.

Today I was looking at a picture of my sister C. In the picture, taken 5 years ago, she was my age and she’s holding her newborn 4th child. And it’s funny because I don’t think that a childless 34 year old and a 34 year old with 4 children really are the same age. We’ve taken different paths in life. Five years ago she gave birth to her 4th child, and I was getting married. Yet, if you put the two of us next to each other at age 34, she would instantly have more credibility as a grown up than I would. Never mind the fact that I’ve been in the working world and she’s largely been a stay-at-home mom. Never mind the fact that I’ve finished my master’s degree (she’s almost done with hers, just 3 more classes to go and just suck it up and finish, C!) I’ve learned to sail, owned my own business, and held I don’t even want to admit how many jobs. I’ve lived abroad, I’ve travelled alone, I’ve lived alone, and I’ve dated a lot of guys--all the things that my sister didn’t do. But somehow I feel like all that experience falls short compared to her giving birth to, nursing, potty training and raising 4 children.

Does having children force one to be a grown up? What exactly is a grown up? Am I just a “different kind” of grown up? And if so, why do I have a gigantic zit on my forehead?

Is it Real Me, or Pretend Me?

Lately I’ve been developing a persona I like to refer to as “Pretend Me.” Pretend Me does all the things that “Real Me” only dreams about. For example, Pretend Me wouldn’t think twice about telling off the client that was eating while speaking on a conference call a few weeks ago. Pretend Me would sit at home watching trash on TV, but Real Me has been pulling 12-16 hour workdays.

Today Real Me and Pretend Me got into a fender bender in the parking lot at BJ’s Wholesale Club. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Real Me was pulling into a parking space, and tapped the bumper of a car that was in the space on the left. Pretend Me forced the gear shift into reverse, peeled out and hightailed out of there. Real Me sighed, and put the car into reverse, and listened as the bumper of the Jeep gently unhinged the bumper of the parked car. Pretend Me screeched at Real Me, “What the hell are you doing?? Get out of here?”

Real Me parked the car, and asked an older woman approaching, “Is this your car?” The woman said yes. Real Me apologized profusely for hitting the woman’s car, while Pretend Me got in the woman’s face, pointed her finger millimeters from her nose, and got on her case for having the nerve to park in that lot, or even to come to the store in the first place.

Real Me then wrote down her name, phone and insurance policy number on a slip of paper from a small note pad she keeps in her purse, while Pretend Me scoured the car looking for a scrap of paper on which she could write somebody else’s name, number and insurance card—preferably that of an ex-boyfriend.

Real Me listened to the woman and her middle aged son discuss whether or not to call the police, while Pretend Me hollered something containing the phrase “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.” Then the middle aged son whipped out his cell phone and said “So, what’s the number for the police in this town? Should we just call 911?”

“Don’t call 911, this isn’t an emergency,” Real Me sprung out of the car. Pretend Me grabbed the man’s cell phone, threw it across the parking lot with all of her might and said “Are you fucking crazy? You’re going to call 911 because the bumper is hanging down a few inches? Don't be a dumbass!” Then she took the item she planned on returning to the store and said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes, I just need to return this. I’ll deal with this when I’m done,” while Real Me stood in the parking lot for about an hour and made small talk with the woman and her middle aged son while we waited for the cop to arrive.

The cop arrived, and we filed the report. He examined the damage to her vehicle, then Real Me and Pretend Me reached out to the woman’s dangling bumper and ever so gently popped it back into place. We dusted our hands off on our pant legs, then went about returning a defective cordless phone to the store.

A Life of Uncertainty

All of you, thank you for responding to “Indecision.” I don’t know if it’s the case that neither of us has the courage to go first and say “Hey let’s do this,” or “Hey, let’s not do this.” Just yesterday Todd joked that we’ll be in the old folks’ home when we’re in our 80’s still trying to decide. He turned to me, sucked his lips in as if he’d lost his teeth and said in a perfect imitation of an old man, “So, devil woman, you think we should have a baby?” I cracked up over it, because he says that when he's old he's going to call me Devil Woman, and say things like "Git me my tonic, Devil Woman!" I tried not to pay attention to the way the question made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and the way I feel the question looming behind me all the time, sometimes more so than other times.

I think it’s such a permanent decision. And no matter which way you go you just cannot undo it. I almost want the decision to be taken out of my hands by either a surprise pregnancy or learning that either of us is infertile. Almost.

Just last week I was talking to a co-worker who said something very interesting about the way he makes his decisions. He has a very interesting way of looking at life, and I find him very wise. He said that he looks to nature to help him decide. ‘What would normally occur in nature?’ he asks himself. I thought about it for a few minutes, and we got to talking about it. He said “Well, in nature animals reproduce all the time and our bodies are designed to reproduce and perpetuate our specie.” Then I asked him, “Well, OK, but is it in my nature?” Then I threw up my hands in frustration.

Todd and I talk all the time about things we’d do with are theoretical and non-existent children. We look at other families we know, and talk about how they live and what, if anything, we’d do differently. Would we switch to all organic foods like my sister did? Would we spank our theoretical and non-existent children? Would they ever eat anything produced at McDonalds? These are things we discuss all the time. He jokes that we’ll name our daughter Chlamydia so that the boys won’t go near her, and call her “Clammy” for short. We can talk about all this stuff, but still cannot come to a conclusion about whether any of it (aside from the name Clammy) will ever be a reality for us.

From what I’ve observed, being a parent is the hardest job in the world, and you don’t ever get a vacation from it. Is that what I want in my life? But, the hardest job also brings the biggest reward, doesn’t it? Will I look back on a childless life and regret it? Will I look back on a life with a child and regret not having the freedom that childless life allows? It's not like I can give birth, try it out, then return it like I would with a car that turns out to be a lemon.

I agree with the sentiment that I’ll know it when I am ready. I am struggling with the concept of having a feeling that I am not already familiar with. When I fell in love with Todd it was a feeling I was unfamiliar with too. And everyone else around me who was falling in love and getting married all said the same thing “You’ll just know if he’s the right one,” and that’s the same thing I say to other people when they talk about elusive concept of “the one.” I am sure that it’s the same thing--I’ll feel it in my gut.

But really I want to know if I will ever feel it. I really want to know how it’ll all play out before I step onto the field.

Indecision

The PlayStation blared from the living room on Sunday. Twelve year old Madison and ten year old Spencer talked trash back and forth about who would win the next race in the game. Music flowed from the computer speakers in the office, as fourteen year old Rachael browsed the hard drive for music that she would like. The glasses and silverware clinked as I unloaded the umpteen cereal bowls and silverware from the dishwasher. Four year old Cassidy tugged on my shirt and asked me for a glass of water, for what seemed like the thousandth time, because I kept forgetting to get one for her.

“This is what it would be like, you know,” Todd gestured around the kitchen at all the sounds that our nieces and nephews made.

“So,” I plopped a glass into the rack in the dishwasher, “Do you think we should do it?”

“You ask me that like you expect me to have an answer,” Todd said, and fidgeted with a half filled bag of baked cheese doodles.

“If everyone put as much thought to this question like we do, the human race would have died out long ago,” I sighed as I wiped out the bottom of the kitchen sink with the sponge.

He laughed a bit, but I know that he’s as torn on the question as I am. It’s the same question that’s been plaguing us since the earlier years of our marriage. Should we have a child?

Well? Should we?

I’ve asked nearly every mother I know how they knew that they were ready for a baby. They all say the same thing, “I just knew I was ready.”

“But how did you know? What did it feel like?” I pressed

“I don’t know. Just ready, I guess,” they all shrugged their heads and turned to tend to a wriggling infant or a bumbling toddler, or a petulant teenager.

I don’t know what ready feels like. Have I felt it already and just didn’t recognize it? I can feel the confused look of every mother I know bearing on me. The look that says, “You’re weird. What do you mean you didn’t recognize ready?”

What I am looking for is certainty. What I am looking for is a neon arrow that either points to “ready” or “not ready, wait a little longer” or “no, don’t have a baby. Ever.” What I am looking for is certainty that our baby, our child, our teen, our adult offspring will be a cool person that we’ll actually like to hang out with.

I remember when my cousin was pregnant with her first child; she emailed me with her fear that she wouldn’t like her child. She was so afraid that her child would be somebody that she didn’t enjoy spending time with, yet she was also afraid to admit that out loud for fear of being branded as “weird” or even a “bad mother.” Well, it’s a legitimate concern, isn’t it? I emailed her back with, what I hope was a comforting notion, that she liked herself and she liked her husband. It stood to reason that she would then like her child, the direct product of parts of herself and her husband. And of course her child is cool, because she’s cool and her husband is cool. Her child was so cool that they went and had another one. She didn’t email me again with any fears during the second pregnancy. She was sure her second would be cool. And of course he is.

I was able to comfort my cousin in her time of uncertainty, I hope. Yet here I am with this huge question that weighs on me with each passing day that I grow another day beyond 34 years old and closer to 35 years old. In each day I teeter on the fence, afraid to tip into the mommy side, and afraid to tip over into the child free side. I walk on top of the fence, and I watch each side from the elevated view. My balance never wavers, I walk a straight line on top of that fence everyday, my eyes fixed on the horizon and waiting for the neon arrow to appear. I calculate that I will be in my late 50’s when my theoretical and non-existent child would graduate from high school, and with each day that passes I will be even older then. My feeling of readiness changes from minute to minute as I think to myself, “Ooh, was that a ready feeling? Or am I just hungry for lunch?”

I look down at my feet, firmly planted on top of the fence and command them to pick a side and jump to it. They remain in place, and my eyes continue to scan each side looking for a safe place to land should I ever decide to jump.

Branded

Right now I am in the midst of the second round of edits to my book, before Todd does the third round. Once he’s done with his edits I’ll begin “Agent Quest 2008.” I am an avid reader, and have this terrific list of excellently written books I am dying to read. The list contains Pulitzer winners, and other beautifully written books that really should be called “pieces of art” and not insulted by the mere mortal word “book.”

In May, just before I finished writing my own book, I was reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s new one called “Unaccustomed Earth” which is a collection of short stories about people who emigrated to the US from India. Of course, Lahiri is an impossibly gorgeous writer, and while reading this book I got very bummed out. While I enjoyed reading her work, it depressed me only because it was so beautifully written. As I turned each page I was simultaneously absorbed into her amazing descriptions, and depressed because I doubt I could ever write as well as she does.

I vowed at that point that I would only read trash until I was finished writing my own book. This way I could turn each page and say “Oh man, this writer is a hack. If this moron could get published then I will totally get published too.” As a result I’ve been reading a lot of chick lit. It would seem that each story I’ve been reading lately has been about some woman in her 20’s-30’s who lives in a major metropolitan area, her dating life is insane and she ends up dating a bunch of assholes until she finds Mr. Right in an unlikely place. Or she stumbles across her best friend’s husband cheating with some bimbo and almost ruins the relationship with the best friend because she has to tell her. But all these women are shopping junkies and they all drool over expensive shoes and handbags, specifically Jimmy Choos and Manolo Blahniks.

Now, I like shoes and all, in fact my mother in law started calling me “Imelda” due to my impressive shoe collection. But I honestly don’t think that I would recognize a pair of Choos or Blahniks, even if they bit me on the face. (Though I would be naturally suspicious of shoes that have teeth, I am not completely ignorant.) My girlfriends go bonkers over a Coach handbag, but I wouldn’t know one without the “Coach” logo on it or the word “Coach” that is stamped into the side of bag. The bags themselves don’t look like they’re such a big deal, yet so many women go crazy over them and spend hundreds of dollars on them. Everywhere I go I see women carrying these bags that say “Coach” on them, and I just don’t get the appeal. They don’t look like anything more than what I’ve seen in the handbag section at Target. What I also don’t get is why would someone pay hundreds of dollars for a handbag and have the “Coach” logo stitched all over it. Basically the people who carry these bags have just spent hundreds of dollars to be a walking billboard for the Coach company, right?

Maybe I need to surrender my membership card to the girl club, because there are a few certain things about being a girl that I don’t understand. I have one purse. It’s a black pleather backpack that I bought at Target for about $10. I will continue to carry this thing until it falls apart, and then I will buy another similar nondescript handbag, preferably in backpack form, so I can always keep my hands free. My last purse was a red cloth bag that I got for free for donating blood. It was an awesome bag that I carried around for a year until the lining on the inside disintegrated and my stuff on the inside got wet when it rained. Yet I hear of women who have purses for this outfit and that outfit, and I just don’t have the patience to bother with that stuff. I don’t think I could look at someone and know where they bought something like some women do. And you know what? I don’t think I actually care where someone bought what they are wearing.

Now this is supposed to be the closing paragraph where I am supposed to go on some rant about how shallow we are for caring about brand names when there are starving children in the world. But I am not going to do that. Just because I don’t care about something doesn’t mean that I should expect others to not care just because they take the time to read my blog. To each their own, right?

So why bother writing about it? Because I want to be enlightened. I am genuinely curious about why people are so interested in Coach handbags and why they are drawn to Manolo Blahnik shoes. Please tell me, what is the big deal?

The Boy has Got Me Pegged

Allow me to reenact a conversation between Todd and I last Friday night as we drove to Vermont for the weekend. This conversation precisely demonstrates how well this man knows me, and I want to share it with you in honor of tomorrow’s “Beej and Todd’s 5th Wedding Anniversary Extravaganza.”

Todd: Hey, on the way home let’s try that other route that my Mom told us about. I want to see if it’s faster.

Beej: Sure. We’ll have to remember to take exit 10.

Todd: How do you know it’s exit 10?

Beej: Because I am the knower of all things good and evil, that’s why?

Todd: Good and evil? Ha. Try obscure and ambivalent. You are the knower of all things obscure and ambivalent.

Beej: What is that supposed to mean?

Todd: Well, only you would know which exit to take for a route that we’ve never gone on. You know more random tidbits of information than anyone I’ve ever met. I mean, you know how to sing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” in Swedish. It doesn’t get more obscure than that. Hell, I could walk into a store right now and point out a shirt and say “I want to buy that shirt” and you’d say something like “Oh, I saw that shirt at a Sears in Albany, NY in 1992. It was cheaper then,” without batting an eye.

And you know what? He’s absolutely right? I remember the phone number for my Dad’s company, the kicker is that that he sold that company when I was 6 years old. If you put a saxophone in my hands I will still remember how to play, note for note, the solo I played in “Blowin’ the Blues” in sixth grade jazz band.

Over the years Todd has come up with methods for dealing with my penchant for remembering the obscure and ambivalent. You would not believe how many conversations we’ve had that have gone something like this:

Todd: Hey, do you remember when we bought that gum you really liked?

Beej: Yeah, we were in Newport. Man, that was really good gum.

Todd: Well, do you remember the name of the band we saw at the bar the night before?

Beej: Of course I do, it’s blah blah blah…

Now, keep in mind, just because I bought that gum in Newport doesn’t necessarily mean that we saw that band in a bar in Newport. We could have been in an entirely different state. But because he knows that I would associate the great gum I bought in Newport with an entirely unrelated event from the night before he knows the right questions to ask. (Side note: I probably wouldn’t remember the brand name of the really delicious gum if he’d asked me. Maybe if he asked me what the name of the band was, I might remember the gum. My weird associations are not always reciprocal, however.) If he’d asked me, “Hey, do you remember the name of that band we saw that night?” I would probably say “No I don’t remember. How the hell do you expect me to remember that!?”

It’s for this reason that he was able to call me up when I was on a business trip in Saint Paul, MN and ask me “Where is our copy of Pirates of the Caribbean?” and I can answer “It’s on top of the TV upstairs,” and be exactly correct. If I was home and he asked me that, I probably wouldn’t have known.

Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary, we were together for six years before making it legal, and Todd married me anyway knowing full well about my knowledge of the obscure and ambivalent

Happy Anniversary.

I’m New Here

Over the course of my career I’ve worked for many different companies. All of these companies were different, but there’s one thing each of these companies has in common. Everyone sitting in the cubicles and offices has a first day. First days are great in that you can claim ignorance about any question you are asked “I am not sure about that, you see, it’s my first day working here…”

It constantly amazes me how first days differ from company to company. I remember when I started my first job out of college. On my first day I was taken out to lunch by my co-workers, I was shown around all day long, and I got to know the people that I ended up working with for the next year and a half. It was such a welcoming atmosphere and in my mind it set the expectation for how first days in the corporate world are supposed to go. At my second job I didn’t pack a lunch because I was 23 and I assumed that I’d have the same sort of reception as I’d had at my first job. Boy was I wrong; in fact I don’t recall ever being taken to lunch again on my first day at any other job I’ve held.

But it’s not just the social interaction that takes place on first days that is different from company to company. It’s the actual orchestration of the first day. Will I go on a new hire orientation on my first day? Will my office supplies be laid out on my desk when I get there, next to the stack of paperwork I need to fill in as a new hire? Will I be handed an overstuffed file folder with all the relevant information of my first project and be told “have at it”? Will I be left alone while everyone else rushes through their day because they don’t have time to say hello to me, let alone train me? Everywhere I have worked has done it a bit differently, and I am always thankful to see that some thought had been put into my arrival on my first day.

In the late 90’s I worked for a series of dot.coms in the Boston area and I vividly remember my first day at an online technology news magazine where I worked for two years. I was the first person to be hired in that department by a man who clearly did not put any thought to the fact that he’d have a new hire starting. My boss said “Here’s your office, there’s the ladies room, have a good day.” Then he turned and headed for his own office. That was it. There was no “Hey, why don’t you go to this file on the server and familiarize yourself with this project I am going to have you work on.” There was no “Hey, take a look at this site and let me know what you would propose to make the user experience work better.” All I got was “Here’s your office, have a good day.” At least he showed me my desk and didn’t just leave me in the lobby—I mean, really, can I complain?

I sat in my office for an hour or so, thinking he’d come back to talk to me about my job. So I surfed the company’s web site and got more familiar with it. I roamed the hallways and introduced myself to people who weren’t so engrossed in their day that they looked up to say hello to me. I lurked outside my boss’s office while he endlessly droned on the phone, never beckoning me to come in and wait or never holding his hand over the receiver to say “I’ll come to your office in a bit and we’ll talk.”

I called Todd, to give him my new work phone number and he asked, “How’s your first day going?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “It’s weird. My boss just kinda left me in here with nothing to do. I am looking at the train schedule in my purse trying to decide if I should leave here right at 5 to catch the 5:40 train, or should I wait and catch the 6:15? I am so bored!”

“I think you should wait for the later train, it will make a better impression,” he suggested. I stared longingly at the pencil on my desk, wanting to stab myself in the eye with it rather than stay for a minute longer than I had to.

I waited around the office, and my boss finally came and talked to me at 5:30 or so. He didn’t mention leaving me alone for the entire day. He didn’t mention any plans for working with me the next day. He asked me how my day was.

“Well, I think that tomorrow I would like to sit with you so I can get my hands on my first project,” I replied with what I hoped would be a display of my motivation. Instead it probably came out like “I am bored out of my fricken skull, will you please give me something to do or I am going to break the window and jump out of it merely for something that would occupy my time for a few hours.”

The next day came and went just like the first. Before I knew it a month went by, then another. I was given a project, but it was so slow going I didn’t have enough work to occupy me. The boss hired another employee to work in the same capacity I’d been hired for, but he worked on different projects. At the time I had no idea that this guy was as bored as I was. We both took great efforts to look busy, probably afraid that the other would pull the job out from under us. After working there for about six months, our department was being disbanded and we needed to find jobs in other departments. The company was big enough that this was possible. Finally this co-worker and I had lunch one day, before we both went our separate ways in the company, and we laughed about how bored we’d been, how ignored by the boss we’d felt, and how pressured we’d felt to maintain this semblance of being busy. At least he had an office where his back wasn’t to the door so he could look busy on his computer when he was really surfing and shopping online. I sat in a cube, and constantly checked my back when I was surfing for non-work-related items online.

Most of my days spent at that company were spent like my first day there—bored and trying not to look bored. I’ve since learned that how I spend my first day on a job will set the tone for how the rest of my tenure there will go. At my first day I socialized, and I spend my time there socializing with some of the nicest people I’d ever met and some first days had been spent going over the company's systems and policies, which sets the tone for how my work will be completed.

So, it is true—first impressions are almost always the correct ones.

...Take One Down, Pass it Around, 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall...

Saturday night I went to McKinley’s pub for their Halloween party. I dressed as Marge Simpson, and made my costume myself. I have pictures on my digital camera, but do not have a way to get them off the camera so I can show you all. We packed our card reader when we packed up the house to get it ready to sell, so I need to figure out how to get the pictures off. I think the Walgreens on the corner has some system that will help me out with that, or I’ll send the card with Todd to work tomorrow, and maybe he’ll have something there that can help me out. I can’t wait to show you the costume that won me second prize at the bar. (Though the jokers who won first didn’t really have costumes. He was wearing a wife beater, suspenders and a hat, she was wearing a low cut top, a short skirt. I asked them what they were supposed to be and they said that they were dressed like 1930’s people. I don’t think I’ve seen pictures of anyone dressed as Britney in the 1930’s. Yeah, I was robbed. Robbed!!)

While I was at the bar I made a new friend and we hung out all night watching the game and talking about life, relationships, marriage, kids, etc. He’s in our circle of friends but I’ve never spent an entire evening talking to him before, and it was so much fun.

We were talking about past drinking experiences, and I told him about the time when I was 15 and I got busted for drinking. I didn’t drink during high school, only this one time. I was an athlete and I was on the whole my-body-is-my-temple thing. My brothers and sisters drank in high school, and I remember seeing them come home after parties and sneaking to their rooms so my parents wouldn’t notice. I never got drunk in high school, and think I was a pretty good kid--other than the random acts of petty vandalism I committed.

This one time I drank in high school was with my boyfriend, Karl. Karl had a few friends named Charlie and Brian, and the 4 of us used to hang out often. One night Charlie had scored a bottle of vodka and we all decided we’d go into the woods to drink it. I grew up in a small town in Connecticut located between Hartford, CT and Springfield, MA. It was common for teens to go out into the woods or into the tobacco fields to party.

On that Saturday night Charlie told his parents we were going to Brian’s. I told my parents we were going to Charlie’s. Brian told his dad we were going to Charlie’s, and Karl told his parents we were going bowling. Instead Charlie drove us to a secluded spot in the woods he knew, and the boys lit a campfire. We mixed the vodka with some juice, and I think I had maybe a cup and a half, and then Karl and I just hung out by the fire. Charlie barely had any because he was driving, and Brian had the most and was trashed. We left the spot in the woods and drove around town before I had to be home for my 10 o’clock curfew. The boys dropped me off, and Brian was out of his gourd by then.

Fast forward to Sunday night, the phone rang and it was Brian’s dad asking for my mom. I called out to Mom, and waited for her to pick up the phone. Before I got the chance to hang up, I heard Brian’s dad ask my mom if I hung up. She said that she thought I did, so at that point it would have been too obvious if I hung up. I stayed on the line and listened to Brian's dad tell Mom all about our wild Saturday night. Apparently when he got home from being away for the weekend Brian was still sick from Saturday night. He was about to take Brian to the emergency room because he was afraid that Brian had food poisoning. It was at that point that Brian confessed about the night before. Brian’s dad felt it was his duty to call my parents, Karl’s parents and Charlie’s parents to fill them in.

I can’t remember how I was ever punished for that. My parents weren’t big on grounding as a punishment because I think that they were too busy to keep track of what 5 children were grounded for at any given moment. The part of the punishment I do remember was having to talk about why I went into the woods with 3 boys and a bottle of vodka. I think that they were more concerned about me being in a secluded spot with 3 boys and alcohol and them getting me drunk and having their way with me. But they were my friends, and they were all skinny cross-country runners. I could have taken them.

But how do you answer that question as a 15 year old? “Why did you go into the woods and drink with 3 boys?” I think I answered the question by asking my parents why they drank, and they told me that wasn’t the point. They were old enough, and I wasn’t. They persisted with the why question, and I didn’t really have an answer. “For fun” wasn’t a good enough answer either, because they pointed out that there are a zillion things that we could have done for fun.

After that night, drinking in high school didn’t interest me too much. I guess I didn’t really see the point, and I wanted to be healthier because I loved to play sports. I didn’t have another drink until I was 20 and in college. Charlie, Brian and Karl would still drink on occasion, and I passed and stuck with something non-alcoholic.

So, now I open up the floor to my commenters. Tell me about the first time you went out drinking.