headshrinker, headshrinker, shrink me a head

Ha. Alissa understands that title.

So my father finally explained (in a way I understood; he had explained it many times before when I hadn't understood) why it behooves our fair government to tax us too much during the year and then send big checks to make up the difference. But I definitely think there's a psychological element to it, too -- the money I'll get from Uncle Sam in a couple weeks will be far more exciting than if it were just tacked onto my paychecks where it should have been in the first place. Something nice about a big lump sum, which I suppose is why lottery winners always choose their prizes that way even when it means they get less money in the end. That poster-sized check is kind of irresistible.

Anyway, I'm already sort of scheming what to do with it. I really might go on a writers' retreat this summer, hopefully in the Midwest, where I will not be so dumb as to say y'all (note the correct usage and spelling! I can be taught) or to think that Kansas is somewhere it isn't.

Something about this weather lures me to this desk, where I sit and look out at the street and write about nothing. Yes, it is snowing, but I need to get up and recognize that this very very nice weekend is over and that tomorrow will be Tuesday. If you're not ready to accept that yet either, this was a great article on the real Hotel Rwanda.

hi. we're in... delaware.

Not your mama's geography quiz -- it's fun! I got

45 out of 50 perfect
90%
average error: 22 miles
256 seconds

although, in the interest of full disclosure, that was my second time. The first time, it started with Kansas and I was about 200 miles off. But come on, Kansas? I'm a journalist, for heaven's sake. Everyone knows we don't do red states.

OK, tell what you all (would they say "ya'll" in Kansas?) got on the quiz. Peer pressure. We'll see who's s-m-r-t smartest.

throw your gown up and down

Is that really the line from the Dar song? I always thought it was, but writing it looks so strange. Hm. Anyway -- I was only even thinking about that because in the car just now, I was listening to the Best of Dar mix CD that H. and I put together a hundred years ago, and "Playing to the Firmament" came on, and somehow the line when did you cave into this role that you were cast in stuck out, and then it dovetailed with something I've been meaning to write about here for, like, a year, and now I'm writing here instead of working on the freelance project/book review/letter of recommendation I'm supposed to be working on, and that little wordless problem we talked about a while ago? Yeah, not so much -- there are SO MANY WORDS in my life right now, and fortunately many of them are quite lucrative ($35-an-hour lucrative, lucrative such as these words have never seen), but they are not leaving too many left over.

Yes.

Anyway.

What I was thinking about was this: It's funny how many prospective lives all of us tease out. I feel like we all have these sort of alternative realities, most of them involving us living together in some kind of big communal space and working on some kind of big communal project. First it was the Spinster Lodge (which, let's be honest, is still my favorite) -- but it's kind of fallen apart because several of the lodge's planned residents are dramatically reducing their qualification for spinsterhood by doing things like getting married.

Then there was the applesauce (don't ask) farm in Vermont with my college friends. There was the daily commuter newspaper I was going to start with other people from college, the idea for which has been completely appropriated by the W*shington P*st in the last year or so. With no credit to us, I might add, and we suck for not doing it first. There was the semi-pathetic "if you and I are single and age X, we're getting married and having babies," which of course resulted in him being the first one of my friends to actually get married. Now there's a new one, recently floated by my old roommate J., which consists of all of her DC political friends getting together to run one of us for C*ngress; I now have a job among these people overseeing hypothetical polls and writing hypothetical press releases about how awesome she is, which I would do in a heartbeat.

(There are also a few that only I participate in -- including but not limited to writing books in the silence of a snow-covered cabin in Canada -- but those don't count the purpose of this story.)

Why do we do this, do you think? Is it just a beautiful thing to think about so many people you really like being in one place, working toward one real true thing? Do we all just like the junior-high vision of us being 2gether 4ever? It's such a bittersweet pleasure. We know it probably won't happen -- but it's so funny, even in that sentence, I can't bring myself to leave out the word "probably." I can't bring myself to rule out the possibility. Each one is so appealing, things that seems like they should be within our collective reach, and I don't know if the fact that they're (probably) not is good or bad. They make me sad and happy at the same time.

OK. That was my single profound idea for the evening. No more words! Editing lucratively now. Edit. Words. Go.

P.S. I feel like I have to confess to the Lanky friends: I am cheating on you by going to the Melting Pot tonight with 14 other people (same number as the wineglasses of the last post -- what are the odds), none of whom know the meaning of "meat! fruit! both!" Even though I think most of you, especially the Queen of the Melting Pot, have been there with other people, it feels wrong somehow. I will think of you when I drop my piece of broccoli in the boiling oil stuff and have to fish it out with a spoon...

post-dinner-party party

Sometimes standing in the kitchen washing 14 wineglasses by hand and talking about how much you like everyone is the best part.

the world below

Sitting at my freezing desk, looking out the second-story window at the night of the winter's first snow. The sidewalks are icing over, but the street is too traveled to be cold enough to freeze yet. There's a heightened police presence because of the inaugural stuff; a thousand motorcycles and squad cars make way for fleets of black SUVs and implacable otherworldly limos, forcing everyone else to a standstill so they can pass. Helicopters and sirens are making the windows rattle and it feels like we're under invisible attack. One day when I don't live here, I will remember that window rattle specifically, the view from this chair, the way light pools on wet streets, how there is more red than any other color.

I didn't watch any good-bad reality TV today, which may seem like a step up, but I'm weird and edgy and lonely and I can't call any of you because a potential new roommate is about to show up. I don't want a new roommate. I don't want to be waiting for something unrelated that I shouldn't even care about, and I am very much under the influence of Oh What's The Point.

restaurant weak

What do you get when you cross a psychotically lavish seafood buffet with two people who do not eat at psychotically lavish seafood buffets on a normal day?

Sickish. You get sickish. T. and I went to Cafe Promenade Friday night, and we both felt vaguely ill afterward, but somehow, five days later, she is fine and I am still sickish. Restaurant Week is a biannual event during which the unwashed masses dine at posh places on a $30 price-fixe menu -- and, as promised, the restaurant was amazing and we had the best time ever playing like people who could actually afford to eat at a restaurant like the Promenade (we're on a second-name basis with it now). Going hiking the next day in 30-degree weather didn't help. I have no regrets about any of it, but I do feel sort of bitter about the lingering sickishness... being all healthy and going to the gym and yoga should give me a pass on this kind of stuff, not cause this kind of stuff -- which is my going theory, that my body just can't handle lavish and seafood in the same sentence.

Now I'm eating toast and desperately trying to think of a headline so I can finish my freelance article and pretending I'm not watching the Real World/Road Rules Battle of the Sexes, which I will not justify with a link. I'm so watching it, though. I don't really understand the premise or why it seems like both teams have to vote people off no matter who can or cannot balance on a purple plank suspended a zillion feet above a city, but maybe if I pretend not to watch long enough, I'll figure it out. If any of you know, and are not too ashamed to admit that you know, please enlighten.

---

Update: The guys are throwing the mission! They fell off the purple planks on purpose! Nuh-UH. Oh my god.

hey, look over there

Not over here, because it's not done yet, but the transition was pretty smooth. Please stand by and our operators will assist you shortly.

greener pastures

Who knew it could even get greener than leafygreen? It feels like breaking up with our website, but we're leaving the lousy hosting company. Blogspot, here we come.

Take It Easy is going to be the tester -- I'm going first and this will be my last post at this URL. From now on, my heart belongs to leafyg.blogspot.com.

leafyg.blogspot.com. Go. (Fight. Win.)

Goodbye, leafygreen.org! You were a good website (until you weren't, and that wasn't your fault) and I'll miss you.

water and earth

Just came back from a yoga class where Kim talked a lot about the tsunami and its impact on the world, about how bodies are 85 percent water and how earthquakes of any kind affect water in unimaginable ways.

I donated money to CARE today -- I didn't research extensively or anything, but if you're looking for somewhere too, I did enough checking to ensure that it's legitimate and not religiously affiliated. (It also has long-standing ties in the region, so some systems to deliver help are already in place instead of having to start from the beginning.) Funny that we/I fall back on established religion-y patterns with stuff like this, though... the only number I could think of to donate was double chai, the letter that represents life in Hebrew -- as in "l'chaim, l'chaim, to life" -- because that's what my mom always gives. Not even a tiny fraction of a drop in the metaphorical bucket, almost less than nothing, but it was the only thing I could think of to do.

It seems like a very Western thing just to throw money at problems and then demand they fix themselves, but I don't see many other options; my "skills," such as they are, wouldn't help most people in Sri Lanka even on a good day. What they do need is totally unfathomable to me, almost as unfathomable as the disaster itself. So sad.

a cup of kindness yet

Wish I was an English Muffin
About to make the most out a toaster.
I'd ease myself down, coming up brown.
I'd prefer boysenberry more than any ordinary jam.
I'm a Citizens for Boysenberry Jam fan.
-- Punky's Dilemma

It's going to be a boysenberry jam kind of year, if I have anything to say about it. I bet Maceo agrees; his "fingers on the pulse of funk" told us so last night. And today, Hefk and I made Mondo Beyondo lists. They will be in the back of my mind while the front of my mind works on my new year's intentions, in the service of which I am prepared to go above and beyondo all of my own low expectations. Full speed ahead, 2005.

there are new shirts on the clothes racks, should I feel like one of them?

I need to be working on the novel and not writing this. I spent the whole weekend working on it and the editing is finally -- finally, finally, finally -- getting somewhere. Instead of three chapters, the first section now has 12. I think I've added 20 or so pages so far, which is the wrong direction because at a plump 240 pages I really should not add a bunch of description about the sticky fly-tape in the barn and the color of fields after sorghum grass blends are harvested, but there you have it. My very patient roommate (who I think started out sort of enjoying the 400,000 questions about his childhood on the dairy farm but is now thoroughly disenchanted with my "research" process) has started drawing pictures of outbuildings and milking machines on yellow legal paper, and now a little sketch of the layout of his/my farm is hanging above my desk. I kind of love it.

Here is the question upon which I am stuck like sticky fly-tape, though: Is it really possible for me to push words around a page all day and then come home and push more of them around? Are there enough pixels in the universe? What if I deplete the finite pixel supply? What if the pixels (and my eyeballs, and my brain cells) get mad and say they'll never come talk to me again if I keep abusing them this way?

where you lead, I will follow

(Two posts in two days = some kind of crazy blogging record for me. I'm thinking about issuing some dumb challenge to myself about writing every day in December, because I've been having a word problem lately in which I cannot put coherent ones together at work or in the novel. I'm wondering if writing here extemporaneously might help, because god knows I am an utter failure at "journaling." I am an utter failure even at typing the word without sarcasm quotes.)

So I'm at the gym today, on the elliptical machine, watching my own little personal television in the secret third-floor gym paradise area.

(Here is another long parenthetical explanation, this time on my theory about the paradisical nature of the paradise area of my gym: The second floor is the meat market for the buff gay men, and the third floor is home to the almost entirely unpopulated women-only area as well as more elliptical machines and bikes and the studio where Urban Funk classes are held. Although the machines with the personal TVs are not actually in the women's area, they are near the women's area; therefore, the sweaty crowds of buff gay men who populate the second floor exclusively have not discovered them. They have no reason to venture up to the third floor, except for Urban Funk. Also, none of the third-floor regulars -- me and the three or four other women who have the ungodly expensive memberships to this gym -- want to reveal the secret of the awesome personal-TV machines. It's not in our best interest, obviously, or some of the men would be all up in our machines when we want to just watch the full hour of Gilmore Girls without having to endure puppy-dog stares from anyone waiting in line. And also also, they wouldn't care anyway, because presumably they do not want to leave the meat market. If they did, they would already be on the third floor and would have made the discovery on their own.)

I digress. Gilmore Girls. I love it. I forgot what I was going to say about it a million years ago when I started writing this.

Er.

I should have known I would love it when I first heard the theme song, which is a Carole King song one of my friends and I used to sing to each other periodically. The Gilmore Girls song kind of confuses me a little, because that's definitely not the Carole King version from "Tapestry" that I know and love, but one of the women singing the theme song -- there are two -- sounds like Carole herself. Did she record a new version for the show? If yes, is that good or bad?

Can you tell I still don't really remember what I was going to say, and now I'm just rambling? Isn't this expository writing fun already? Don't answer that.

someone get a bugle...

... because we need to play "Taps." Sad day for Smash -- he wasn't looking at all well when I came back from Thanksgiving, and now his spindly feelers, his buggy eyes and weird little claws, they are stilled forever. I hope he is in the Great Seashore in the Sky, eating red grapes only and SMASHing everything in sight.

Hulk, for his part, is doing fine, and would probably be gloating if hermit crabs were capable of gloating. And I really do think they loathed each other, if hermit crabs were capable of loathing. They always stayed as far apart as possible even though they're supposedly social animals. Interesting that the big, active, aggressive, smashful one is gone, and the tiny, quiet one is still alive -- which, according to hermit crab lore (does the Internet qualify as a provider of lore?), is kind of normal, because the big ones tend to die sooner. Live fast, die young, I guess. I'm going to move the cage up to the third floor, though. I wonder if it's too cold even on their new second-floor home.

Anyway. Farewell, Smash. I'm sorry that I'm going to have to go now and put you in a trashcan in a Victoria's Secret bag, but you taught us much. I can't think of any of it quite now, but I'm sure it's there somewhere.

Week Four: Fantasy Dinner Party (or, Week Four-and-a-Half: The Second Biggest Cop-Out Ever)

So I'm with Alissa -- I was on track with the GBC, but then the dinner party daunted me. I had started writing last week -- the cast so far was Gandalf, God, my hermit crabs, Bush, Ellen D*generes and Captain Kangaroo -- but then I read Lauren's and it's so perfect that I simply cede to her narrative brilliance. Lauren is queen of the dinner party.

Meanwhile, I want this weekend back. H. and two roommates and I went camping -- "camping," because we were in a beautiful little cabin with kitchen, bathroom, etc., but it's November! cold! and the cabin was the best -- at this state park, the most beautiful fall place ever. Friends, river, leaves, fireplace, wonderful. I want it back.

Funny moment No. 1: C. and I are trying to build a fire, which is not working. (Wet wood, lack of newspaper or starter log and difficult grate thing were the rationalizations.) C. asks H. if she can help us, seeing as she is a lifelong Girl Scout and has gone on many a hearty camping trip. She replies, "I'm sorry, I am looking for my pear tart recipe!"

That doesn't translate well, does it. Perhaps funny moment No. 2:

On the way home, we stop off at George Washington's birthplace, which was fairly deserted. As we are getting out of the car, C. says, "This is my first step toward becoming a good American again!" We didn't want to pay the entry fee, though, so we just kind of loitered in front of the visitor's center, drove to this pretty beach lookout, saw his family's burial plot from the car and then proceeded down the highway to eat at a diner filled with more kitschy ceramic figurines than I knew existed in this world. Being a good American is not worth four bucks these days, and it's probably better expressed via hashbrowns and coffee anyway.

recoup

My yoga teacher sent this quote in her November newsletter (edited to exclude the parts specific to yoga):

you're a small stone dropped into the heart of a circular pool: the waves you generate will eventually touch everyone.

So I'm trying to treat the post-election hangover with very small personal things that will radiate out and eventually touch the bigger, badder things in the world. I will download all the Rilo Kiley music I can find. I will go to a wedding on a boat on the Potomac, where I will look at the monuments at night and dance to Latin music and drink too much wine. I will become obsessed with an old TV show. I will edit the book. I will go to the zoo and appreciate monkeys with the best almost-two-year-old ever.

(Shannon has a new blog, by the way, and so many stories to tell. Click here for photos of the zoo visit. I cannot even begin to explain how fabulous Gaby is -- I am madly in love with her.)

Anyway, what I'm trying to convince myself of is that a bunch of things I thought were awful might have silver linings. Or silver ripples. Waves. Whatever. I'm not there yet, but this weekend was a start.

Week Three: Something about politics

And so it goes.

What else is there to say, really. Not like we haven't all been trying to say it, and won't continue to try until we're too sick of ourselves to keep going.

I just wrote this long thing about political journalism and erased it, because I'm still paranoid about expressing my opinions in print when I'm supposed to be An Objective Journalist -- a symptom of the problem, which is that I feel guilty for having opinions at all. I have to wonder if I want to be in the media in 2008, though. There's a reason we're supposed to be so cynical: It's too hard when you're not.

Isn't it funny how all the conversations we were having yesterday morning seem so impossibly quaint now? Like, remember when everyone talked about a 269-269 tie that would have to be decided by the House? Remember when JK went to that oyster place in his old yellow barn jacket? Remember exit polling? Oh, ha.

This struck a chord. Not that I officially approve the message or anything like that.

Week Two: Worst Cop-Out Ever

These are dark days, my friends, when I transcribe political ads for 10 hours straight, and I can't spend one more second at a computer today. So I am lame-ass-edly fulfilling my second-week-of-GBC duty with an atrocious cop-out question: Would any of you -- meaning the people with whom I generally exchange holiday-ish gifts, or the people who would like to exchange holiday-ish gifts -- like knitted items this year?

I would like to knit things and give them to you, but I fear I have saturated my market (especially with my early work that featured many gaping holes and floppy scary hats) and I certainly do not want to foist knitted items upon people who do not want them. I really like knitting things for you, though, and you and you and you, and I personally like receiving handmade gifts very much. I also happen to have a lot of very cool yarn right now. And I also also happen to have learned a couple new tricks recently, and the era of the unintentionally hole-y and floppy is over. I'm pretty decent now, I swear. You won't be embarrassed to wear the stuff in public.

Any takers? I will even accept color and scarf/hat preferences.

Week One: Letter to my 13-year-old self

Dear me,

Hi there. Let's get the hard stuff out of the way first: You know that guy you started going out with in camp last summer? The cute one with brown curly hair a little bit like yours, who liked soccer and gave you that woven bracelet you're still wearing. The one who is still writing you letters that you don't return because you are "busy," whatever that means. Stop ignoring him. Write him back. I'm not kidding. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but he might be the best boyfriend you have up until now, four days after your 27th birthday. He definitely takes second place, if not first. I know. I'm sorry. You sort of develop this, uh, thing for things that don't work out. I really apologize. We're working on it, but in the meantime, write him back. Now. He wrote you a POEM, for heaven's sake.

And speaking of that, during your senior year in high school, another guy will write you a poem. It's a very sweet poem that you may well keep for the rest of your life. Go out with him, too. I mean it, and I will know what you're thinking when you think you don't want to, but you will be wrong. Your reasons are dumb, frankly. Also, please try to get better at taking well-intentioned advice without interpreting it as criticism. (Twenty-seven-year-old you has a little trouble with that also, but again, you're working on it.)

But! Here is the good news. Aside from your family, most of the people who mean the most to you? You haven't even met them yet. It's the fall of 1990, you're in ninth grade... I think a couple of them are just beginning to come into view. Two of them are in your homeroom, and one of them is in your typing class. Definitely keep photography in your plan for next year -- she will turn out to be one of the most amazing friends you will ever have. So will the rest of those people in marching band, and the people connected to the people in marching band. Yes, marching band. Also concert band and pit orchestra and jazz band and percussion ensemble. Those are your people. Stay oblivious to the fact that many people think it is dorky. You genuinely don't care, and that is one of the best things about you, 13-year-old Gwen.

Try to that remember that when you go to Israel sophomore year: Don't waste so much time being scared and miserable, because you don't have much time to waste there. Believe it or not, you will love Jerusalem so much that by the end of the semester you will cry the whole way to the airport in a group taxi at 4 a.m. Also, while you're there, think twice about letting that guy at the end of the block cut your hair. Let this a closing lesson to you: Have a common language with your hairdresser.

But for the most part, just know that there is so much yet to come. I didn't even start on college -- you really like it there, and you will find more of your people (and also your writing thing, but we'll leave that a semi-surprise), and then later when you move away to a big city far away you'll find still more. Anyway, pay attention, and don't forget to slow down sometimes -- you'll get there. Here. :)

love,
me

the sound of the gavel

The second annual GBC 2004 is hereby convened.

Week One-Half: New links.

I adore the Internet. (Love to read me some rumors on the "internets"!)

Here is an example of why: There is a plumber in my house right now. (Must remind self of why self loves living in beautiful old house, and not concentrate on beautiful house's not-beautiful old pipes that necessitate plumber to perform terrifying exorcism of apparent poltergeist in basement sink. [See? I didn't know how to spell "poltergiest" just now. Who told me? The Internet!])

But the plumber just said he had to go out and get a snake. A snake? I wondered. What kind of snake? A cobra? A python? No! The Internet told me no!

Anyway. I definitely use it as a research tool, but I also use it as a research tool into people's heads. Which is a justification for the number of total strangers' blogs I read, which is a ridiculous number of blogs, which exceeds... a lot. It exceeds a lot. But I learn about cool people -- cool people with babies and cats and writing careers and cats and writing careers and babies and writing careers and writing careers and a love of books and a love of books and funny stories about pie. That's not all of them, either, I'm just tired of linking.

But, as specified Carl's rules, none of those blogs count because I think I've mentioned them all before. So let's see, new. Imagine you are in a bagel shop and are getting eight tasty fresh bagels:

Four cinnamon raisin (book-related): Librarian.net, Bookslut, Identity Theory and Chicklit.

Three granola (health-related): Put Down the Donut, Women's Weight Training and Cooking with Google.

Two pumpernickel (political): Wonkette and Daily Kos.

And one random everything: Superhero Designs, which is the coolest jewelry ever that I would really like to own someday.

That's it! And now it's time to leave these here internets and go deal with the continued plumbing saga...

turning into a pumpkin

Tired post-New York and one minute until bedtime, but first, GBC-related news:

1. We are doing it.

2. It will commence next Sunday night, and we will have one topic per week for a month.

3. I will set up a page for it soon at http://www.leafygreen.org/gbc/.

4. Topics so far:
- Letter to/Conversation with 13-year-old self (with extra credit for 70-year-old self)
- Something serious about politics/issues/candidates
- Something about memory/train of thought/how you think

5. We need at least one more topic -- preferably two so that we can have a pre-GBC warm-up. Someone be creative, because I need to go find my glass slippers. Not to mention Prince Charming.