November 2008 Archives

Feeling better today. Had a strange but pleasant dream about having a loooong date with a friend of a friend; someone I actually know in real life and had briefly been interested in before dismissing him as likely too far out in the stratosphere for me. By which I mean odd, rather than unattainable.

I know, you'd think no one could be too odd for me...

Anyway, it still made for a pleasant dream, even though it ended with the kind of transportational hassle that's a very realistic outcome of traveling anywhere by MTA.

Also, I did go bowling yesterday, and I did my special lane-dance, and I got lots of hugs from Special J, and I got to hang out with Miz Fury and her really very excellent boyfriend, and even when they were being cuddly, it made me feel warm and happy for them, rather than painfully envious, so it was all good.

And then I rode over to Fury's house and ate some (okay, a lot) of their Thanksgiving leftovers, and then hauled my very full tummy through the dark, quiet streets and curled up with my kitty and knit some, which is pretty much what we're doing today, too.

J and I had planned to meet for brunch and some shoppingish errands, but she woke up feeling awful, and the weather is hideous, so we decided to postpone for a more auspicious time. Which is good because:

a) some days there isn't enough Gore-Tex in the world to make it nice out, and
b) I really need to make some headway on my gift knitting.

So here is a pretty pink cowl I'm making for a bike friend, and then there will be the gloves for the boy who's killing me softly, and then there will be a hat for another bike friend, and then the fingerless mittens and cowl for sis, and then many tiny cute hats for nieces, and then something for my mom, and then....my fingers will fall off and I'll still have several more people to manage gifts for.

I've noticed during the month of almost-daily posting that writing something every day sometimes helps me figure out what the state of my own head is. It's not that I end up seeing clearly or anything, but it's like getting a little compass reading. This day the compass is pointing southerly, toward fairer winds.

PS. Yes, that blur in the middle photo is Kitwich leaping into the frame. She has a passion for this yarn.

Once upon a time, I was twenty years old, and fell in love with my housemate. It was torture.

It was the first time I'd ever been in love, though I'd had boyfriends, and even a long-term one, before that.

I used to scoff at the idea of not getting over your first love, but I now think there's something to that. It's not that I didn't get over the person (I did, though it took a very long time indeed).

But I think maybe you never get over what it feels like to fall and break yourself so thoroughly like that.

What's weird, looking at myself in the metaphysical mirror, is that I feel so much like that right now. And even weirder, I think I've felt this way more than once in the last year or two.

I don't even know where it's coming from. The last time, early in the summer, I felt quite crushed by a brief fling that didn't work out. The time before, well, that was somewhat different because there was intense physical chemistry involved, and it completely short-circuited my brain.

But now. Oy.

I'm just miserable. Well and truly miserable, the kind where it feels like my entrails are being raked over hot coals and roasted there, slowly.

Is it simply the lure of what I cannot have? It doesn't feel like that, but again, I don't think I am able to sort out much while I am in it. Heck, I can barely sort out what color the sky is today, and whether my stomach will stop hurting enough for me to bowl this afternoon. (That's cramps, by the way, not love.)

There I was thinking it was worst on the days when I see him and don't get the kind of time alone with him that I want. But yesterday I was hoping to see him and didn't, and that seems to definitely be worse.

It all makes the cat look especially pretty somehow. Maybe because I know for a fact that she loves me.

I liked this idea, and when I went to do it myself, found something equally funny. Claudia's randomly chosen pic was of sheep, which figures. My randomly chosen pic was of this darling girl and her equally darling bicycle. Which also figures.

I guess whoever we are, we leave a trail of imprints from our obsessions wherever we go, like breadcrumbs to find our way back to ourselves if we should get lost.

That's the second time in a week that I've used that phrase or something close to it - I think I must be feeling a little lost, wondering where my inner lounge chair is. It's a bit fluttery in here of late. Not sure what to do about that, other than just to hold on and wait it out.

Anyway, it was a beautiful day here, and then turned far colder than I'd expected. All I really wanted, at the end of it, was a hot shower, with this. I'm sure a visitor (not that I have any) would find it odd that I have three different soaps "going" at once, but I'm a fickle girl that way. I want what I want when I want it. And so, at least in the realm of soap, I give it to myself.

Would that other areas of life were as simple.

So I made the gingerbread of Mordor. And it was duly admired and gobbled, and it sent out its mysterious power unto all those who came into contact with it. That being that you may be full to the brim already, even with much gingerbreadness, and yet, lo the gingerbread will still call to you and make you sup again of its deep brandy-laced goodness.

Lordy.

The other Thanksgivingy treats were also thus duly consumed - yea, overconsumed.

And then came I once more onto my bicyclette, and we did (he and me) (he being the bicyclette) make our way homewards unto our own hood, there to take a shower and sit dully upon the couch, thinking upon the many faux pas we may have committed while imbibing too much wine and wishing for things we cannot have.

Okay, the bike probably didn't make any gaffes whatsoever. But I, well, that is another story.

Enh. So what. Big deal.

The thing about holidays, you see, is that there's all this pressure to feel a prescribed way on a given day. Lovey-dovey on Valentine's Day, saintly on Xmas, spooky-playful on Halloween, gracious to our moms on mother's day, and thankful on thanksgiving.

And yet, I often don't feel that way on that day. I might feel that way on a completely other day - I'm sure on Arbor Day I felt perfectly thankful, but today I am nursing a big ol' grudge against fate, and I am sour. And then to have to hide that, channel it into some semblance of cheer laced with dark humor, well, it doesn't always work.

I didn't even know that was what I was doing until after the coffee took effect. Again, oh well. This is one of those days when I can't cobble together an articulate or entertaining post, and I think that whether there's some deeper meaning to all this whirlwind or not, I simply don't care to iron it out into neat little rows.

All I know is this: I'm very, very thirsty for some reason.

Meanwhile back here at Frustration Central, our heroine was tearing up the joint looking for an outlet, and I don't mean electrical. Or maybe I do.

Chemical, anyway.

I thought about callously using the blonde to take the edge off, but he's so not what I really want that I don't think that idea will fly.

Kitwich keeps looking at me as if I've lost my mind (she can apparently read it, so she ought to know when it's gone missing). Really, honestly, I am not quite rational. I am incensed, impassioned, insomniac, immolating, infuriated, insatiable, incitable, inflammatory, infatuated, intoxicated, intolerably intensely incandescent, incendiary, and moving towards insurrectionary.

What I am not is indifferent, impervious, intertwined, invulnerable, insensate, impassive, immured, inured, immovable, indurate, incorruptible, or imperturbable.

I am, on the other hand, possessed of both a vocabulary and a dictionary.

Sigh.

Now I have to make gingerbread. With brandy-vanilla sauce. Here's hoping I don't end up swimming my way out of the brandy bottle.

And then there are days when I manage to accidentally (or instinctively) give myself exactly what I need.

Laundry: check. A chore, make no mistake, but laundry is much like writing - I hate writing but love having written.

Ride into city and go to favorite tiny yarn shop, where the elbow room is minimal but the selection very nice. And the lady at the counter gives me the approving smile and compliments me on my choices (I love that). Buy beautiful Malabrigo Silky Merino in cloudy sky, for my sister's holiday presents. A cowl and fingerless mittens, I think - my two "everyone must-haves" of the moment.

Also buy the yarn for mittens for he who shall not be named but who may at some point be hugged. They didn't have any more of the Jitterbug I'd planned to use, but did have an astonishing array of Koigu Painter's Palette. And I know some of you will fall off your chairs reading this, so steady on: I've never before knitted with Koigu.

Magically, there was a colorway that contained all the colors I've ever seen him wear, in a delightfully harmonious blend. So the choice was easy.

Then, ride to bike shop and have impromptu dinner with several of favorite people in world.

Then, beautiful ride home in clear, chill night air. Not the kind that freezes your limbs off - just the kind that wakes up your whole body and makes you happy.

I really like having seasons; you know what I mean?

I went to the therapist today, to do some of that old work I've alluded to. And I was complaining to her that I hadn't managed to run into you-know-who in weeks.

And she said, "Well, maybe the universe is protecting you."

To which I immediately shot back, with the rapid-fire delivery of a 1940s film heroine, "Fuck the universe."

And we both exploded with laughter.

Fuck the universe indeed. I saw him. Instantly after he arrived, he got a message requiring him to dash off on a run (messenger-speak for package to be delivered). He spent the next ten minutes trying to get someone else to do it, to no avail, and packed up and left.

Fuck you, too, universe. Kiss my stellar muscular ass, you shithole.

Ride fast, take chances. That is all for today.

I'd wanted to post this last night but my ftp client was misbehaving, which sounds rather like I'm a dominatrix and had an unruly man show up for a little f+t=p.

You fill in the blanks.

Anyway, what I did instead of that last night was make soup. Soup is one of those elemental things that brings me back to myself when I am feeling far away. In this case, the personal drift was caused by not being able to eat the things I normally eat, by a week of having to live like some kind of 1950s bourgeois teenager being fed peanut butter and grape jelly on white bread by his beaproned mother.

Yuck.

So I gathered the entire contents of the vegetable drawer - a single giant rutabaga (seriously, it had to be eight inches tall), a passel of white baby turnips, three sturdy carrots, a handful of yellow fingerlings (potatoes), two celery roots, and a small beautiful bunch of kale - and made them into white bean soup.

While I was at it, I made stock from the ends and peels for next time.

The whole pot of soup is now in the fridge, a much-larger quantity than I have tupperware for, and probably more than I can eat in a week, even if I have it for both lunch and dinner. But damn, I needed to do that. I also need to bake some bread, a thing which I've not yet done in this apartment, though I've lived here for a few years.

But I have this friend with a bread fetish, and...he keeps nudging me about it. You should have seen the look on his face when he found out that I can bake bread. It was as if I'd told him I know how to shape the very clouds of the sky with my bare hands. (Well, I can do that, too, but it's a story for another time.)

Stayed up way too late last night, obsessing.

Again, you fill in the blanks. I tell ya, the blog, it writes itself some days.

Today as I was packing up my bike bag, I made sure that pocketcam was stowed in there, safe in its little pink pouch, so that I could take some cityscapes for the blog.

But that was before I realized how finger-numbingly cold it was out.

It's the kind of cold that catches you unawares, the kind where you think you have enough clothes on, only to realize, after the frail sun goes down (at about 4 pm), that there aren't enough clothes in the universe to keep your extremities from turning into ten tiny blocks of ice, and - um - ten other tiny blocks of ice.

So instead I took lap-pictures. Here's the view from my lap, five minutes ago (now the view from my lap would just be a shot of this here computer screen, with this very post on it, like that room full of mirrors stretching endlessly and self-referentially onward).

Exhibit A: I wanted applesauce. It was too late (and too cold) to go buy some, but I had two oldish apples kicking around the fruit bowl, so I made some.

Exhibit B: Sleeping cat. Big surprise, I know. But hey, it appears to be her job. That and a lot of licking herself (and my head after a shower - ewwwww), and a certain amount of decorating the apt with cat-hair.

Exhibit C: Cowl-on-needles. Why? Because I need something I can yank over the bottom half of my face on days like these, and the balaclava I cast on for last night is gonna take too long. So this might be called The Interim Cowl. I made it in this pretty pretty hand-dyed lilac yarn that I bought at last year's Rhinebeck, to match the little earflap cap I'd already made out of it. Which he who shall not be named has dubbed the Little Blue Riding Hood. (After which I promptly removed it, since I hated that moniker) (But it was not as cold that day) (And I still haven't seen him - it's officially been a fortnight, if I am remembering the vague definition of that term correctly)

Anyway. I've got so little to report that it hardly seems worth mentioning. Clearly, I've fallen off the daily posting bandwagon, due firstly to illness and then to exhaustion and persistent malaise following illness.

I coulda beena contenda. Maybe.

I guess I just get tired of hearing myself talk about nothing, too.

I mean, I'm knitting (mostly gifts for fellow cyclists, since everybody's cold). I'm still on a bland awful American-type diet. White bread, for pete's sake. Chicken soup. And I hate eating chicken. I hadn't eaten a piece of animal flesh in maybe eight months, but I was starting to get faint from lack of protein, and my stomach will not allow me to ingest any of my normal sources of it yet.

Where are my vegetables, my glorious fruits? I looked at a bottle of guava juice yesterday and nearly cried. Okay, that's an exaggeration; it was more like a wistful sigh, but still. It was sad.

No guava. No Boy. Sigh.

Do you ever act out of hopes you know (intellectually) to be impossible? As if your spine is making decisions for you despite what your logic has to say about it?

You hear all the arguments in your head, recognize the validity of the proofs, feel your ears ringing with the cast-iron alibi of it all, and still you do what you want to do, based on something you wish for but don't have any expectations of getting. But you hope for it anyway.

And so you take the Special Shower: the kind where everything is shaved (even though it's not summer and there's no bikini-wearing occasion on the horizon), and then you go the whole nine yards and use the last of the sugar cane body polish, which smells like honey and is full of those yummy tropical nut oils, and you practically slide out of the shower like a freshly bloomed orchid.

There's no reason to hope for anything, and I certainly have no specific plans to see he who shall not be named (not That He Who Shall Not Be Named). But it's been a long time since I've even been in his orbit, what with the Boywich visit and the horrible sickness that followed it, and the need to wash every single piece of bedding I own afterwards. (It was the kind of illness that makes me yearn to fumigate.)

Anyway, all of this is really apropos of nothing, other than that I wonder if I am not the only one who's ever engaged in hopeful showering.

Boywich is here. He likes his new gloves.

I'd been knitting them in secret because he reads the blog. They're simple stockinette fingerless mittens done in Jitterbug Toscana. Nice colors.

On me, of course, they reached almost all the way to the fingertips.

I'm exhausted for some reason; half asleep, even. Spent most of the day doing errands and laundry and stuff. Then we went into town, and he met a few of my cycling fiends - I mean friends - I mean fiends.

Kitwich has been very happy - it took her a few hours to remember who he was, but I fancy she's especially content at the moment because all the people she knows well are here.

I'd really like to tell you some kind of scintillating story, but it's mostly hangin' out here right now. Boywich may have had the idea that it'd be all dance parties in the big city, but I suddenly realize that I live a pretty quiet life most days. And that I'm pretty okay with that most days.

PS. He just read this and said, "I knew it wouldn't be all dance parties. I just came to hang out."

This poor man walked into the bike shop this evening to ask about the "bike theft situation" in NYC, since he was recently arrived from London and was concerned about it. And I'm afraid I laughed.

But not so much at his question as at his accent. And not the way that sounds - all cruel and middle-schoolish. I laughed because the last time I'd heard those vowels and inflections and that particular lilt, it had been coming out of the mouth of the man I was sleeping with at the time, and it was saying very specific, very sexual things to me.

And I'd had trouble keeping a straight face then. I mean, it was sexy, too. It was just weird, the way he sounded as if he were asking me if I'd like more sugar in my tea, when what he was actually asking me was, shall we say, rather different.

I couldn't decide whether to be turned on or fall off the bed laughing. In the end, I think I held my breath to keep a straight face, and said something clever like, "Yes, 'more sugar' would be lovely."

Tonight, though, the whole scene came flooding back to me and I burst out laughing.

The Brit in the shop tonight (who looked nothing like the other Brit) must have thought I was ridiculing him, or perhaps that all NYC girls are insane, or something equally unfortunate.

It didn't even occur to me to try to explain - all I could do was remove myself from the situation. So I stumbled out of the shop, calling goodbye over my shoulder. And proceeded to laugh hysterically for about the next seven miles.

Later, watching a science show (geek!) on TV, I learned that Russian space missions used to be (or still are) equipped with a sawed-off shotgun. Just in case. I had this image of a Russian mission control director deciding what type of firearm to put aboard, and thinking, "Hmmn. We can just use this." It seemed so typically Russian, and hilarious.

It wasn't just the fact that they'd equip people going to live in cramped quarters in space for months or years at a time (some of these missions were for space stations) with firearms, but also the choice of firearm that struck me as funny.

Sawed-off shotgun, in my mind, is the weapon of choice for women with abusive husbands, farmers defending their land, characters in blues songs, and her.

I don't know if such cultural differences make any real difference, if you follow my meaning. I sometimes feel that I have more in common with or understand better people whose lives have gone extremely differently than mine. I wonder if there are deeper ingredients that are similar - not just in who we are as people, but in the experiences themselves. There's something, for example, in my own experience that I think translates into being at war in someone else's experience. I'm not sure of the exact ingredient, but I can feel it.

Watching Band of Brothers, for example, makes me feel weirdly at home in some way.

And there's also the fact that humans are human everywhere, but we find different ways of dealing with the basic realities of life: food, shelter, interaction, conflict, love.
I treasure the parallels, but the differences are icing on the cake, somehow. Piquant.

"I don't speak Fahrenheit," he said to me the other day. Yeah, and even though I agree that the metric system is a far superior method, I look at those Celsius temps and can't make them make sense to myself. On the other hand, I swear I am learning Spanish by osmosis.

Well yes, I did have a nice day yesterday, thank you very much. It was not without its degree of emotional fraughtness, especially during the time when I found myself unexpectedly in crush-boy's company, but that went rather well, too. I don't think it was my imagination that he looked at me starry-eyed a few times.

Which just goes to show that these silly people have a point: one does feel better about oneself when dressed well.

Boywich arrives tomorrow, so I finally called my super about the electricity (or lack thereof) in the bathroom, after some gentle chiding by Special J over margaritas (her) and sangria (me). We had a lovely, lovely time together, by the way, getting our faces scrubbed and smoothed and lavender-oiled, and then having our feet made pretty. Sigh. Wish I could do that more often; there's nothing like having someone massage your arms and hands with lavender oil. Though I did wish I'd been able to book the woman who did it last time; I wanted to marry her by the end of it. (You think I'm joking, I know, but a facial involves a chest massage, too, and really, I lay there thinking, "Maybe I should be dating women." But no, it's just her.)

(Okay, I'll shut up now before this deteriorates into the kind of thing that sends the Google web crawlers into apoplexy)

Where was I? Oh yes, boys.

Damn his pretty, pretty eyes. Not really, I love those eyes.

Anyway, it's all as relatively copacetic as it could be, and now I can entertain myself with lurid fantasies involving him falling madly, desperately in love with me (because I am so wonderful, no?) and - well, we won't go into what happens next.

Let's just say that it's a good thing I have a sweet cat (for the snuggling) and a lot of these (for the other).

And two bikes, for the working off of all that extra energy, er, tension, er, you know what I mean. Ooomph.

Okay, full disclosure: I could fall in love with this guy at the drop of a hat (I can hear them all falling off the hatpegs on the bedroom wall, now - 23 of them), and it will be interesting to see what happens. It may well just dissipate - other crushes of mine certainly have. Or it may not.

And now, to bike. Perchance to pick up some more Dr. Bronner's and such, so that even if Boywich has to shower by candlelight, at least he can be immersed in lavender while doing so. We love Boywich.

PS. The toes, by the way, are fairy-blue.

Feeling unaccountably better this morning (and yes, it is actually morning; I know, you're aghast), because I am young and strong and beautiful - well, pick two.

Or perhaps because the sky looks like this today.

And my only plans are to cycle into my bike shop, where the owner has brought me a present (is it a hot boy?), and then to go to a spa with Special J, where we will have our faces and feet made very beautiful.

What color shall I have put on my toes, I wonder?

Oh god, do I have to? If I'd known the month would be like this, I never would have pledged to do a daily blogpost.

Had an exhausting day, what with the emotional work in the morning, the massive bike rides all over the city in the afternoon, and the big embarrassing risky conversation in the evening. I'd talk about it, but for the fact that I really don't want to talk about it.

And then, of course, there's nothing new to tell. I seem to have undergone some sort of transformation of speed level in the last week, though it only (sadly) applies to one bike and not the other. I apparently am going to be the hottest, and least kissed 41-year-old girl on the block, since I can't seem to do anything but cycle and not be hungry. I'm sure the latter will wear off in a few days.

And yes, it was indeed a false alarm, and I ought to have known. Well, I was dreading it, since that is always how my life works out - the answer is always no, I never get what I want, unto the ending of the earth, and yes, I'm feeling sorry for myself, and no, I don't care if it makes me sound pathetic. Men: can't smooch 'em, can't shoot 'em. (don't really want to shoot this one, of course - what I want to do is sneak him off to some island where he isn't hampered by various legal, moral, and emotional obligations and tear his fricking clothes off.) Did I say that out loud?

No, I didn't think so.

The funny thing is, when I was unscrewing a lightbulb to change it, and the whole wall-mounted unit thing shorted out with that curious small explosion noise, taking the wall outlets out with it, I didn't think I'd find myself enjoying having to shower by candlelight.

You just never know, I guess.

I'll call the super tomorrow, I suppose - particularly since I'll have company staying with me later in this week (who may or may not appreciate that "living in the dark ages" look), but for now it's kind of preindustrial in the bathroom at night - apart from those most marvelous inventions: hot and cold running water and a flush toilet (and I pray those keep working) - and there's something romantic about it.

I have to light the candles every evening, and I get to see myself lit from below, in that soft, warm, almost rosy light. Makes me feel quieter, somehow.

Here's a blast from the past for you. Some of my longer-term readers may remember these charmers from the blog in its previous incarnation, prior to the Great Movable Type Crash of 2007 which rendered my older posts inaccessible.

I was sifting through some photos on my Other Computer last night, looking for ones I'd like to get enlarged for my living room (gotta have the Smoothies, right?), and came upon these fellows, and thought you might enjoy seeing them again (or for the first time). One of my favorite pics ever.

Anyway, several things occur to me this morning, so in no particular order....

It would be really swell, some days, to have a stainless steel heart.

It's not that everything (or maybe even anything) is irretrievably vanished into hell-in-a-handbasket territory - perhaps far from it (fucked if I know - I can't see clearly). But damn am I tired of having that wrung out feeling, like somebody's been having at this ol' heart of mine with a mess of 60-grit sandpaper.

And I had the ill fortune to end up being designated photographer last night, so now I have a series of horribly charming photos of the boy in question all over my computer like a lust-inducing infestation.

Got on my fast bike last night and rode faster and harder than I think I've ever ridden in my life. It was like I'd suddenly become a racehorse and HAD TO RUNNNNNNNN.

Couldn't help it. I was actually delighted when I was finally alone so I could peel out and ride as fast as I wanted to. Rainy empty streets, the sound of chain (time for a little lube, I think), my legs yanking the pedals around so hard I could feel my tendons pulling. I growled and roared as I went. I'm sure the spectacle was on the hilarious side, who gives a damn, really?

One block away from home, I have to wait at a light for traffic to clear and start to fall asleep sitting on my top tube. Then I start out again, and suddenly it's as if someone's thrown a brick wall in front of me. All of it catches up with me, the wrenching exhaustion, the frustration, the anxiety. Get home.

Photos, cat. Big noise right at our open window and both cat and I rush to it and stick our heads out, together, heads bumping into each other, "What's that? what's that?"

Then she head-butts me, as if to say, "Oh, you're helping me guard the castle tonight? I'm glad!"

Me too, sweetie, me too.

Okay, this daily posting shit really bites.

Apparently there was a false alarm in the "getting everything you asked for" department. Whatever. Much, much too tired to examine, parse, slice and dice, fold, spindle, mutilate, index, brief, or debrief it for you.

Seriously. Grand total of 8 hours' sleep in last 3 days = Lizbon must become horizontal.

Miracle I didn't get killed on way home. Still not sure how I managed to ride in that state, much less ride so frickin' fast. Maybe bike has built-in homing device installed in headset. That's why Chris King costs more...

"Charlie, don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted." - Mr. Wonka
"What happened?" - Charlie
"He lived happily ever after." - Wonka
"Actually, I think his head imploded." - Me

And then it all went to hell. Just about literally.

A very dear friend of mine spent 20 minutes this afternoon face down on the pavement in handcuffs, being harassed by two police officers.

He hadn't done anything; simply walked out of an office building after delivering a package, went over to unlock his bicycle, and was accosted by them. They said there'd been a burglary nearby. They said he looked "suspicious."

I saw him a few hours later - he looked neat and tidy, clear-eyed and sober, dressed for his messenger work - not at all scruffy, not smelling of any illegal substances, carrying a messenger bag and an iPhone - the tools of his trade. The man has a master's degree, by the way. Not that that should make a difference, either, but I am just trying to give you the complete picture.

They threatened to give him a ticket for bicycling on the sidewalk (he hadn't even unlocked his bike yet), and he said Yes, do that. That way I'll have your badge numbers.

They let him go after that. Twenty minutes in handcuffs, face to the pavement, for walking while brown.

I don't have a picture for you - I'm sorry. But I do have a vision.

First, you need to know something about me that I haven't ever discussed here. I stay out of politics. I don't read newspapers and I don't watch TV news. That CNN theme that's playing on my television right now has never before been played here.

I don't normally think of myself as being a cynic, or even much of a skeptic, but in this one area of life, there's no denying it. I'm very, very distrustful of politicians, and I don't put much stock in that whole area of life. I feel that my energies are better devoted to other pursuits - to creating art, to living my life close to the center of where I feel that truth, the big truth, the grand capital-T truth might dwell.

But.

Tonight I ran into a neighbor while I was bringing my bike inside, and he invited me to join them in a small election party across the way. And I said yes.

And I watched, heart in my hands, for two hours, while the numbers rolled in.

I'd watched exactly ten minutes of a single speech Obama had made, months ago, during one of the debates, and that only because a friend had urged me to see it, just to see how the man speaks - to see his capacity to be believable, to be earnest, and articulate, and to dream big dreams aloud and dare to try and bring his listeners with him.

My friend was right, and I was startled by it, but still I turned off the television after a few minutes, because I don't follow politics.

But.

Tonight when the Rev. Jesse Jackson burst into tears, I did too.

And when our new president-elect spoke, I listened to everything he said, carefully, and I watched his face as he said it, his intelligent, earnest expression, his brave hopefulness, his belief.

I was impressed by his humanness. By his grasp of the need to be straight with us, and with himself, about the magnitude of what he's taking on. About the mess we're in, the whole damned planet of us, in some ways. And by his seeming understanding of how badly we all need to believe that we can do better. And by his excitement about trying to make it all happen, as best he can - one man and a team of workers.

And I felt something weird, something unexpected. I trusted him. I believed him. I don't know if he can do it, but I believe he will really try. And I trust his intelligence, and his understanding of his humanity, the limitations of that and the possibilities of that. For the first time in a long time - maybe ever, I feel like we're in good hands.

Not because he's perfect, but precisely because he isn't. He's highly intelligent; he will be able to figure things out. He has depth. He understands. And he will learn.

And watching, I felt the cynicism I didn't know I had draining out of me like venom leaving a wound. Hope, indeed.

It was brought to my attention recently that there are lots of movies that "everybody" has seen that I haven't.

In some cases, the omission was intentional. The previews didn't appeal, or I was too broke at the time, or I got so sick of hearing about whatever the latest thing was that I obstinately refused to pay ten dollars to go see it. In other cases, it just slipped under my radar until it was out of the theaters, and then - well, I don't rent movies.

So when The Notebook (which I didn't see because everyone was talking about it) showed up on TV just as I was sitting down to look for something to watch, I thought, okay, let's see what all the fuss was about.

I nearly gave up on the project in the first five minutes because the credits were so damned sappy - I mean, really, a guy rowing a boat at sunset while soggy music swells around him?

But I hung in there, and soon there was a pretty boy to look at, and that was okay. Three hours later, after having used up the remainder of my Kleenex, I realize why I don't watch movies like that anymore.

Because no matter what your current circumstances, you're bound to feel that your life doesn't measure up. A love story so profound that the two main characters manage to die in synch, holding hands in her Alzheimer's bed? Gimme a fucking break.

Yes, all very touching and it made me weep at all the moments where I'm certain the director had little red arrows printed: "Audience will weep here; add pause and swelling music to allow for them to reach for more Kleenex."

But Jeezus. When the damn thing was over, I actually spent the next few minutes feeling utterly sad and inadequate. No, I've never had a Great Love, and ack! Look how old I am! I'm never going to have one! My life is meaningless! Boohooooooooo!

(Lizbon's director notes: pause here for audience to fall on floor and piss themselves laughing. Add appropriate music, maybe some ragtime or one of those songs from Sesame Street. Manamanah. Yeah, that one.)

And the ironic thing is, just an hour before the damn movie started I had been scoffing at an on-air promo showing 5 seconds of a prototypical TV marriage proposal: guy says "will you marry me?" and girl opens mouth in shock and transport of rapture. Fuck that.

The subtext of that ad - and indeed of much of pop culture - is that being asked to marry someone is pretty much the apex of female experience. Which begs the question, why'd she be so shocked to be asked in the first place? Presumably she's been maneuvering this guy into that chessboard square for months.

So, if this is what I honestly think about that kind of crap, then how does one sappy-ass movie (with two admittedly very beautiful young stars) turn me, in the space of two hours plus another hour of commercials, into a weepy mess who feels that her life is empty?

I guess the answer is:

a) It doesn't. I recovered within five minutes.
and b) I really would like to meet someone I like (and who likes me).
but c) I don't want them to ask me to marry them.
and d) I don't want to live in a small rural town in Virginia, or wherever the fuck that book/movie was set.

While we're at it, I also:
e) NEVER want to have ANY children.

Okay. Just so we're clear.

Now then, I must just also say this:

I love my bikes. I love my bikes. I love my bikes.

Any potential suitor who doesn't understand this, or has some kind of a problem with this, can go find himself a simple, pink-icing kind of girl. And fuck himself.

Just so we're clear.

Does everyone go through this? Each season there is a color or small group of colors that kind of sets you afire, that makes you feel just right somehow, so that you want to wear nothing but.

It's not quite like having a favorite color, because the palette rotates quite a lot. For example, I tend to wear groups of colors seasonally - bright, hot colors in summer and cool darker ones in winter. But every so often a season will come in which there's one color that just sticks in my mind.

This fall it's deep dove grey. Stainless steel, Old Navy is calling it. At American Apparel, it's Asphalt. I could wear it every single day. Unfortunately I don't own enough of it to wear it every single day, so I am alternating it with plum and black and a particular shade of blue.

I'm enjoying those, too, but if I had to pick one, there'd be no contest.

It's all I want to knit, it's all I want to put on in the morning. In yarn form, one can have the variations spun right in, so that you knit yourself a garment with your whole season's palette.

I've been making myself knit some other colors, primarily as gifts for other people, but I feel like I'm chomping at some sort of bit to get at that Tortuga you see in the top edge of the photo. Grrrrrrrreeeeyyyyyy.

Okay, I'm doin' it. I'm not sure why. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but I have a feeling I'll get something out of it, if nothing other than the daily exercise of my literary muscles.

Though I suppose to really flex the lits, I ought to post fiction. If I run out of true tales to tell, it may come to that: 30 Tall Tales From A Short Person.

In the shop today, as I wheeled out my bike, another patron looked at it and said, "Hunh. I didn't think you were that small." Snort.

Anyway, I really am rather nervous about how I shall fill up a month's worth of posts. I expect at some point I will segue into the fantastical, as I am wont to do when entertaining myself in my own head.

For example, it occurs to me that if I were a superhero, my mutant power would be to make men forget they have girlfriends and/or wives. And as amusing as that may sound, it would not be my first choice of superpowers.

I should much prefer to be able to fly, for example - the better to swoop over the rooftops in the grey dawn light.

Time-traveling might be entertaining, in a Connecticut-Yankee sort of way. As would being able to wave a magic wand and degravitize certain objects.

During the mad pre-holiday rush, I might choose to be able to speed-knit - though I suppose that's not so much a mutant power as simply knowing how to knit Continental.

Aw, I'm just filibustering. The truth is, what's on my mind lately mostly has to do with being a bit lonely in a very specific way. I had a delightful day with friends today, for instance, and yet when I got home I still felt kind of lost. I've begun to feel, quite recently, that I may have passed over the border between wishing vaguely for a boy to play with and actually being ready to cope with having a boy to play with.

Believe me, there is a distinction. We shall see. So far, the mutant power does not extend to luring fabulous boys out of the woodwork. Okay, not to luring fabulous single boys out of the woodwork.