Enchanting Juno

Interlude: rain

I have a story to tell and it is not the story I promised, which I will get to, but its not cooked yet.

So yesterday was rainy.  Miserable, cold, grinchy, soul-shriveling December rain which - given that we've had about 4 days of sun since May - I took very very hard indeed.

I woke up in the gloomy half light and heard it.  I stuck my head under the pillow.  I stayed in the shower too long hoping for it to turn to summer while I steamed.  I only partially dried my hair because WHAT IS THE POINT UNIVERSE, WHEN YOU VEX ME SO?

I stomped around my house looking for my favorite Smartwool hiking socks and a merino top.  Because I WOULD BE WARM. 

I had to wear JEANS. Even though I have PMS.

I muttered.  I ranted.  I pouted.  I had no perspective at all.  It was also a day I could not be later, so it was a touch earlier than I like.  I assure you I mentioned this in the muttering and swearing.

When I left the house, cold water immediately began working its way down my collar, OF COURSE. 

I stalked in a militant and aggrieved fashion down the street.

I live in a Victorian neighborhood, you know this, right?  It's pretty.  Wee brick row houses with a bit of gingerbread - Victorian but not fancy Victorian.  Street parking. Mature trees lining the streets, gas lights and brick sidewalks. There's a creek.  It's nice. 

I wasn't really noticing all that, not until I put my heel down badly on one of the 100 year old bricks, raised from it's bed by a one of those charming mature trees and lurched sideways  which a cartilagey crunch. 

Don't say you're sorry.  Because, my darlings, I LAUGHED.

For one thing, I have sprained my ankles a zillion times over the years.  Twisted, turned, wrenched, sprained, and totally fucked and I could tell within a few steps that this is minor.  Painful, but not debilitating.

Mostly though, it was so perfect.  I sprained my ankle, this ankle in fact, once about 4 years ago 30 seconds after a tirade about being behind and stressed and overwhelmed.  I needed to sit down and my body made me do it.  This time, I was acting like a toddler who lost her popsicle in the dirt and over what?  Nothing as important even as that popsicle.

The universe is full of swift lessons.  And I had to laugh.

In the past I have had a tendency to - when wounded - sort of carry my bandaged limb around like show and tell.  Look at my boo-boo.  Notice my pain.  And I noticed yesterday that I was indifferent to that.  I mentioned it, if at all, when asked ...or because I HAD to tell the tale of my comeuppance.  But I didn't need my wounds tended in the same way.  It was just a thing that happened in a life full of them.

And that maybe has a little bit to do with the other story too.

A day in the life.

I just had the most amusing conversation with the census bureau.

She called - not that I think the census bureau is female, but this representative of it was.  She called because they sent me some damn survey a month ago. 

Which I ignored. 

Because it said census bureau not IRS, and who gives a fuck.  

It turns out it is mandatory (ish) and I have to fill it out every quarter for 8 quarters which is going to go SO well.

She started to make sure they had the correct mailing address and I said, no, no, I remembered it.  I put it in the pile of things I didn't really have to pay attention to.  Because of it not saying IRS on it. 

Which she thought was REFRESHINGLY honest.

I offered to move it to the pile of things to do AFTER I finish the pile of things I REALLY have to do.

But she said no.

And I said, so I really and truly have to remember to do this every quarter for the next eight quarters?  And she said YES

And I said AWESOME.

And she said I had a GREAT attitude.  Which made me laugh.

So I said I would put it on my pile of things I REALLY had to do SOON.

I kind of love her. 

I bet it only take 3 minutes to do.  Three minutes and a 1000 dead trees.

A match struck in a dark room

Making Light is often a good read - I haven't the stamina to be a commenter there, but I do enjoy the place, and find out there interesting things about the world and all it's parts.  The other day Abi Sutherland had an Open Comment thread up there about a second century potter and why we know who he is at all. 

Because he left a mark.

It's just so human, shouting into the future on a scrap of pottery discovered against astonishing odds c. 1800 years later. 
I made this, I was here.

We're all doing this - we knit and blog and write and have children and paint and sculpt and cook dinner and plant things and build temples to the glory of our gods in all our little ways - I remember looking at embroidery at the Metropolitan - it was 4 or 5 years ago, an exhibit of ...Byzantine art?  I don't remember that, but I remember these tiny micro mosaics and the gold embroidery, the work of someone's hands, the work of someone's life. 

I worry sometimes that in this digital age, this age of service and finance and disposable goods, we manage to mark our lives with stuff that won't last, that our voices will end with the obsolescence of our technology.
Of course I also think that the act of forgetting is as important as the act of remembering and that much has to be lost for the next generation to rediscover and relearn.  What to sacrifice though? 

Fate decides - that exploded kiln must surely have felt like work lost the the potter then, a wasted effort. 

The idea of leaving no mark is terribly lonely, and I think making things, actual things, is a nice way to spit into the void.  I'm glad I make yarn and sometimes, things from yarn.  I'm glad most of the people I know make things, meaningful, beautiful things.

Hello to you, Lucius Meticius Ferenius, and hello to those you loved.  You existed.

that's a LIVE chicken......

Apparently I don't blog anymore. All the things that once would have been blog posts are now IM conversations and tweets. 
I don't mean to leave you, Lucille, but well, in the immortal words of Crash Davis, we're dealing with a lot of shit.
Work, destiny, future, safety vs.satisfaction, responsibility, moral values, finance and oh, the siding fell of a part of my house.  And some of it involves privacy and some of it involves other people and some of it....well, who wants to be a whiner?

But I still love you and to prove it I will tell you a story.

OK, I TRIED to tell you a story but it went kind of sad and creepy and so I will, as the man said, sum up:

My calves have a stalker.  Some odd fellow who doesn't understand gym etiquette or boundaries and to whom I will have to be terribly rude if he starts following me around the gym again, has a crush on my calves.  Not me, my calves.  Just my calves.  He told me they were most beautiful and then stared RIGHT AT THEM in a pervy way while I was working out.  I had to tell him to stop. 

Also, if you do three big sets of calf extensions for the first time in months, you will, when you go to yoga the next morning, make a very sad involuntary noise every time you go into downward facing dog. much less try to put your heels down. Ow.

And then, when you try and get out of the car at the diner for the egg and hash brown fuel you require, you will be unable to extend your hamstrings sufficiently to achieve fully upright bipedal status.  Which will make you laugh really, really hard.

What else? 

The siding really did fall off my house and I FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE.  It's shaming really.  There's a bit of my house which faces the neighbor and I cannot see at all because of the fence and apparently for years the leaf bits from HIS maple tree have been getting behind the boards and rotting the supports until one day all the rotted fresh compost exceeded the strength of the remaining nails and half the siding fell away at a 45 degree angle, held on only by the bottom fasteners. 

Repairs are underway as we speak, but at least I shall have an unrotted and shiny new fence at the end of it.  Thus removing my excuse for neglecting my garden.  Three cheers for my friend T and his contractor's license.  I left him cookies this morning.

And now I need to go do a bank deposit.

Scenes from a life

I am very attached to green vegetables - I must tell you about the nutrition cow I had last week - and so I stopped at the cute cheap gourmet place with the local produce on the way home from yoga.  Because I et all the ones I had last night.

I am in line behind what I realize slowly is a very cute man.  Plaid flannel shirt, nicely fitting, in flattering autumn shades, flat cap worn well, nice shoulders.  Unfortunately, a beard, but a handsome and well maintained example of the breed.  I am deciding if he is old enough to hit on and if I want to bother, all post workouty and rumpled as I am, when I notice his groceries.

Bread.  The good square Pepperidge Farm white that makes beautiful toast.
Sausage.  The exquisite gourmet breakfast links I have admired but refused to shell out for in the past.
A dozen eggs.
A jar of nutmeg. 

There is no way I am getting the attention of a man with those hopeful groceries.

He leaves and the sales clerk starts to ring up my broccoli and I say - "That guy?  SO has a date tonight.  One he is very optimistic about the outcome of."

And she grins at me and says "Oh yeah, that is a love breakfast if I have ever seen one"

And we look at him getting in his truck and I say - "good luck, dude, good luck"

But we cannot figure out the nutmeg.  Can you put that on eggs?

Trout for thought*

Sheep & Goats at large, I am frightened.  I know I am not alone, but the fear is so large now it is sort of preventing me from talking about anything else.  Have to say it aloud to start maneuvering around it.  So here I go: I am scared to death of what comes next.

I was going to tell you a funny story about the cat, but well.....that would be a kind of bullshit, yes? (It was a good story though)

Business is bad.  We've had three of the worst months ever - a term I keep having to redefine - in the last 8 months.  Our single biggest customer hasn't made a substantial order from us in a year.  Yesterday I cut people's hours 20% and my own salary for the second time. 

Today I have to rewrite my personal budget and decide if I can still afford to fund 100% of the healthcare coverage I offer the people who work for me.

Some of this is not my fault - the lack of liquidity in the marketplace is a far more effective illustration of trickle down theory than actual trickle down economics ever proved to be.
But the most paralyzing thing about what's happening is that some of it is my fault and that is not something I need to make any more excuses about.  I don't mean that in a self-immolating way, but yesterday I was hit in the face with the wet trout of truth.

I have been reading The Fluent Self on and off since JoVE first mentioned it and I find it a weird combination of compelling and repellent, in the way of things that have a message you do not want to hear.  I have been talking about feeling stuck for months.  Years really.  And the Fluent Self is about destuckification.  Terrifying. 
So I read and then avoid, read and avoid.  Yesterday, I read "It's Not the Economy" and this I cannot avoid, this is the wet trout between the eyes. 

Read it, I'll wait.

I have this love/hate relationship with my business - love the independence, really not  interested in the product.  Hate the responsibility, love the flexibility.   Wish someone else was holding me accountable, can no longer imagine working for any one else.  Unable to visualize how to transform it into something that is weighted more to the plus than the minus. Stuck.  Much rather think about yarn and perfume and books and love and friends and sex and cooking and the cat and family and ......

What I am living is more than duty and less than commitment, a fucked up middle ground that has bred a kind of panicked paralysis where I can come up with 1000 reasons why changing it for the better is impossibly out of reach and then sit there for another six months screwing around on the internet and seeing it get that much more out of hand.

I think I have been waiting for the universe to make the decision for me. 
My therapist often reminds me that silence is not empty and now I need to add the correlary that inaction is a choice.

I had this revelation yesterday as I read up on marketing consultants: everything I respond to in the material I am reading is aimed at people in creative fields - people selling their ideas and their work rather than goods.  I am not a creative person, but I do not need to be an artist to work in a field with more congenial values.  I need a new career.  But instead of letting this one implode and losing years to self-loathing, maybe I can transform it so I am not hanging my employees out to dry, so I can close or sell or grow it so it gives me more options, not fewer.

(Message to the universe:  I am looking (actually, actively, looking as opposed to hoping vaguely one falls from the sky into my parking lot) for a non-sleazy marketing consultant/business consultant with a perspective that straddles both my industry and my personality. 

And as long as you are looking into stuff, Universe, a yoga teacher. The right kind.  kthxbye)

*title belongs to the goddess Claudia

The cure for what ails you.

I've been having the MOST unproductive week, and hiding from the gym and watching gallons fall from the sky and while nothing is wrong exactly, nothing is exactly right either.  I'm in one of those pesky transitional life moments, I think, and besides it's cold and damp and my shoulders are all knotty.  And I haven't done my Christmas shopping yet.

Tonight I came home and decided to fix myself and now I am going to tell you how to do the same.

First I made some ginger muffins and then while they were in the oven I put on some music.  Follow along:

Someday I would love to be the kind of person who can do this around other people, but I am not, and I suspect you aren't either, so make sure you are home alone.

Now, the type of music is very important. 
You have to know the words pretty well, no faking, so its probably something you started listening to in college. 
It's a woman singing. 
And there should be heartbreak.  Men should be faithless dogs (I apologize for the hetero-normative standard here - the only lesbian song I can think of that works here is My Secret Love off the Grace of My Heart soundtrack, though it is a bit positive, it has compensatory factors.  In fact that's an awesome song record, lemme go put it on) or society should be keeping you down.  Or both. 

I've used Tracy Chapman's first album.  Also Peggy Lee.  A big chunk of the aforementioned soundtrack.  Some of Lenard Cohen's songs would work, I'm thinking Chelsea Hotel no. 2 has a bit of the right vibe, but I've never tried a man for this, so proceed cautiously.

But the gold standard is the one, the only, the immortal Patsy Cline.  Including Blue, which was written FOR Patsy and sung by a 15 year old Leann Rimes channeling her ghost.

Put it on louder than you usually listen to anything

Stand in your living room

Now, sing the shit out of it. 

Put your heart into it, your secret Joss Stone fantasies, your deep desire to have been Nina Simone.   Close your eyes.  Tip your head back.  EMOTE.  PROJECT.  From the diaphragm.
I personally abjure the air-microphone, it gets in the way, but that is a choice every person must make for herself.

It is important for you to know that I cannot sing.  Particularly not if it involves range.  And while I am not tone deaf, I have trouble staying in the same key.  Doesn't matter.

Make a damn fool of yourself.   Get into it.  Scare the cat.

Get all the air out of your lungs and exchange it for something flavored with insane declarations of love, and a life without self consciousness.    Repeat for at least 5 songs.

Don't you feel better?

And by the time you're done the muffins are ready to come out of the oven. 

driving home

Tonight, I left the office and drove to the gym and as it is December and the mid-Atlantic, by 4:45 it was almost, nearly, sorta verging on dark.  The sky was cloudy, three quarters full of shredded vapor and the light was the flat clear transparent gray of winter and the clouds backlit by the setting sun and around the edges of the clouds was the most extraordinary rose colored light, rose and gray-blue. 

I was stuck at the same traffic light for some time and just watched it cool and fade.  I found myself wishing for the camera buried in my purse under my gym bag, but that would not be safe.  And.

Well, sometimes I think the memory is better to have than the image you made in the time you could have been making the memory.

Then someone came around from behind me to run the red light and I was distracted by cursing at him and when I looked again the light was gone, the night flat and fully arrived. 

I'm Going to Go Down to 42nd Street And Commit a Mortal Sin.

I love how we say 'upgraded' instead of "bought new toys" (while rubbing our hands together in gluttonous and hedonistic satisfaction).

But seriously.  When I upgraded to the Mac last year, I was replacing my old obsolete notebook that had a problem.  And I could have maybe fixed the problem but it would still have been almost 4 years old and obsolete and small hard-drived and slow.  So I convinced myself I needed to 'upgrade'.

What I did was buy myself a wicked new toy.  Ditto upgrading to FiOS, buying BOTH types of KnitPicks Options, all four (cough) spinning wheels, the DSLR a couple of years ago and...oh many things (I exempt replacing my gym sneakers when the old ones no longer provide any foot support.).

I bought it all because I waaaannnna.  And as George Carlin used to say, "wanna" is a sin all by itself.  Thou shalt not waaaannnna.

Except of course, we all waaannna.  All the time. 

All of which is a materialist disclaimer on the following story:

me: So I accidentally bought a new car stereo yesterday.

  Merry Christmas!K: what!? how does something like that happen?

 me: it's just a sign I can only ever look after myself

  ok, it's like a chain reaction.

 My old mp3 player is kind of not working so well, plus my windows computer (for which it is formatted) is busted and I am STILL waiting on the parts, so my ipod shuffle for the gym has gotten pressed into service in the car.

K: trust me when I tell you that shit like that used to happen to me all the time....only mostly with yarn and fleeces and books, BUT - if you're thinking that precludes the mom thing? sorry. there's an amazing thing that kicks in....called 'being the grown up'.

  I hate it sometimes.

 me: it has no screen, and there were a couple of minutes of semi-sketchy driving while I figured out how to operate it without looking

  so I convinced myself it was OK to get a Nano for the car and stuff

 K: oh jesus. ok, that's a little dumbass - the driving thing. whatever it is could have WAITED until you were stopped.

 me: so I get the Nano (and OMG is it gorgeous) and I load it up and I am so in love with it I take it to the gym because HELLO, it has a wee video screen with which to watch Rachel Maddow while I work out!

  It is love.

 And we can never be parted.

 K: oh i know...i heart the nano

  yes. i know

  only....thankfullly i do not have the video version

 me: The new one is to die. TO DIE. With the wee video? I can have Jay Smooth with me ALL THE TIME, which is very important. Except I hook it up to the radio thingy in the car and while it has never bothered me before that reception right around where I live is sketchy because of the station density, it is a real problem now (because we can never be parted) and I have to change the station 17 times on the 3 mile trip to the gym and I am FED UP TO HERE with it.

  and then I watch Rachel Maddow while I work out and I am filled with the light of possibility

 so I somewhat arbitrarily drive to Sound Automotive (for all your sidewalk vibrating and radar needs since 1989)

  and ask if there is a decent stereo I can get with a line-in, so no more of the road rage and almost driving off the highway and dude says, well, let's see what your ipod is compatible with.

 and now I have a beautiful blue -lit car stereo that allows me to operate the ipod from the radio controls, while the ipod itself is safely stowed in the glove box

  and I love it and want to call it My Beloved, or maybe Clive?

 and drive everywhere experiencing my music collection in ways I have never dreamed of before.

  Supporting the economy ALL ON MY OWN thank you

  And I will maybe paste this into to typepad and clean up the spelling and blog it.

 K: well, and that is all very, very logical.

 and now you can play all the baby Einstein your prospective child could ever want, right there on the stereo. ;)

  i totally think you should.

 me: And when a girl has her mother's haircut, she needs all the help she can get.

 K: oh PLEASE.

 me: too much, the last line?

 K: yeah.

Note: I am not trying to tell you I am pregnant, by the way.
Note: I did cut off all my hair though and someone I know started calling me by my mom's name. You know, to be funny.

Clive

Note:  I expect this is not new technology to anyone but me, but the whole arc of acquisition was very much along the lines of the I-Ching Calculator, but better built.  And if you get that, you are as big a dork as me, congratulations.

Note:  I also have Matt Harding dancing on the Nano, which is reason enough to have one.  Don't you think we'd all be better people if we watched Matt dance once a day?  

Note: And yes, I am fully cognizant of the fact that Matt dancing is the exact opposite of buying a new car stereo and iPod because I wannnna. I contain multitudes. Live with it.

Be Part of History: Vote

I passed a lot of those signs this morning, in places I usually don't see signs for national elections, only local.

I love going to the polls.  I walked this morning - I usually stop on my way to work, but the street is torn up for resurfacing and I figured parking would be iffy.  And it's really not far, five minutes maybe.
I liked walking, seeing everyone getting going on their day, the purposeful slow drift of foot traffic converging on the housing complex that is our polling place.  Saying good morning.

I always go in the morning around 7:30 and I am usually among the first 40 voters of the day and out in less than five. 
Today I was voter 151, and waited in line for 15 or 20 minutes.  I was ready - ball of yarn in my coat pocket, cowl on the needles.  My neighbors J & D, across the room in the A-K line, were amused.  The woman behind me in a wheelchair thought it was a very clever place to keep my yarn supply.

That's what, 3x more voters before 8 am than usual?  Almost 4x? 

Love it.

I walked to the corner with a woman, I said hello and she asked me how I was.  I don't think she was expecting an answer, but I said I was fabulous thank you, and how was she?
She looked at me then, and said, did you vote?
I nodded.  And she smiled, and said, I am blessed. 

And we wished each other well and walked away from the corner in opposite directions with the same happy stride, the same swing of skirt hem, the same energy.  I am pretty sure we voted for the same guy.