Friends and the Married Girl

Being a smug married among singletons, while much easier than the reverse, is still odd. It doesn't really cause fights, but sometimes is a bit sad. I know we both wish at times that it were different - that I was single with them or they married with me. I was just going to type that maybe it'll be easier when they do get married... but then I realized that'll be a bit sad too. Selfishly, I enjoy their time now and don't want us all to drift off into houses with locked doors, babies, and home entertainment systems. And coffee spoons. Are Husband and I less fun post-nuptial? Probably. We certainly have fewer stories, the currency of social cred. Actually, to be fair, our stories are just different. Once our friends get married we'll have lots of stories to share with them. Suddenly our knowledge about when-your-relationship-gets-to-year-five and happily-ever-after:the-marriage-bed will be quite sought after.
Until then, my bar-hopping, free love friends.

No Mike Tyson

Things have been too stressful to write this week. Too stressful in the way you cannot write about on your blog. Stressful in the way that everything makes sense rationally but is scary emotionally and sickening physically. My mind handles stress like a champ, my emotions are a reliable tag team partner, but my body is TKO from the first punch. I'm used to certain things failing me - my muscles transforming into knots, my head pounding, my heart racing - but this week even got to two areas that are as dependable as the daily paper - my sleep and my appetite.
Today I leave it all behind for the north woods, family and friends, grilled food, and some good books.

A People's Full Catastrophe Travel Nanny

"Work is hard," I say in my mechanical Barbie voice. But weekends - weekends - are glorious, particularly if they include Bonus Monday, which last weekend did because of some overtime on Saturday. Yes, I joined the ranks of the anti-nine-to-fivers and grocery shopped at non-peak hours. Oh the joy. Everything seems indulgent on a weekday to one's self.

Reading: Four books at once! This is a record! Does this make me a bookwhore? Trudging through the interesting-yet-demanding A People's History of the United States, taking breaks for the doctor-recommended Full Catastrophe Living, plugging along at Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene, and devouring the gossipy but not very well-written White House Nannies.

In order to destress from my day I'm picking up a theraputic iced latte on the way home and doing some pilates upon arrival. On May 21 my internal calendar turned to summer, and it's the summer purse, iced beverages, and salads from here on out.

No green thumb

There are many household skills that I never learned as a kid. Painting, for example. Laundry, for another. And also: gardening. The only weeds I'd pulled were for fun. So when we moved into our house, with its generous gardens for our small city lot, I felt overwhelmed. We managed to grow some veggies, but we also grew a lot of weeds. One year's experience has taught me many important things, such as:
1. Weeds need to be dug out, not "pulled" as implied.
2. You cannot trim bushes willy-nilly. They will die if you prune them at the wrong time.
3. Perennials, for all of their steady reliance, need maintenance after awhile.
4. What a hosta is. (I still don't know most of the things that grow, beyond tulips, hydrangea, irises, lilies, rhubarb, lilies of the valley, roses, and my newest acquaintance, phlox.)
So like all things I'm not very good at, I have a love/hate relationship with my garden. Love the work when it’s done, hate when I kill things (RIP burning bush). I took some "before" pictures so if it ever stops raining and we plant, I have something to compare our success with.

Rut broken

Friday: Mischief accomplished. There was so much mischief that it is sort of a blur with lots of parts that I don’t understand or even remember (not in that scary-drunken-memory-lapse way, but in that too much happening at once after consuming a few drinks kind of way). It was a wonderful break from the sequential and slow-placed A, B, C, D kind of interactions that characterize most social gatherings. On cold rainy Saturday we nested and made a stew that bubbled on the stove all afternoon while we took the longest nap ever, and then took a drive, yes, like parents do, and ended up at a Middle Eastern grocery and coming home to finish another disc of CSI.

Read: The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald, reading Blankets, a graphic novel by Craig Thompson, and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Banzai

Our college buddy Zigmaster Flash is in town (he's the one we visited in D.C. last August) this weekend, and I'm ready for some good ol' urusai gaijin* merriment. Zig and I studied in Japan together during college, and our little crew of three women and three men spent many a weekend having adventures, whether going in search of Osaka's best porn shop, perfecting our karaoke rendition of George Michael's Faith, or going to crazy festivals. I'll have to dig out my adventure hat and cook up some mischief tonight. Or at least cook up some okonomiyaki.

*We called ourselves the urusai gaijin, or annoying/loud foreigners, because that's how people viewed us on the train, even if we were talking quietly. But often, I admit, we were not talking quietly, because there is only so much quiet one can achieve while being 20 in Japan.

If you have to ask...

A friend, when I met her last fall, asked me if people always know that The One is The One before getting married, or whether it’s different for different people. She shared that she'd been with her guy for five years (with several breaks) and while she couldn't swear he was The One, they'd been together a long time and were happy.
I never know what to say; just because I made good in one marriage doesn't mean I'm somehow gifted in all things relationship. As loathe as I was to make any generalities, I couldn't help thinking that if you've been in a relationship five years and are worried that you don't know he/she is The One... that it’s probably a good indicator that he/she is not The One. At some point, you do just know - that whatever comes up you can work out, that you will be able to live with their charming/maddening idiosyncrasies, that he/she is not going to change beyond recognition. But you can never tell people that; that's not what she wanted to hear.
Anyway, after five years they broke up yesterday. As hard as it must be to leave someone you do enjoy and are happy with, it seems that there comes a time when you need more than that.

Judicious use of the furry middle finger

I don't really like cats that are too friendly. I know this is awful, an affront to cat-lovers world wide, but it's true. I like a bit of discernment in my cat, a bit of choosiness, not a mushball that sits on any human that happens to be immobile. It seems an indicator of intelligence - in survival of the fittest, the fittest could hardly be a lap-loving ball of fur.
Since as a choosy cat-owner I choose Siamese, I'm not really worried about our future cats, who will undoubtedly have judicious use of the furry middle finger.
Husband was showered with kitty stuff for his birthday, including Kittens for Dummies and the Kitten Mitten, so all we're waiting for is for them to grow up enough to adopt.
I've done really well since Rocky's departure... but on Saturday I was sitting in our local neighborhood coffee shop reading American Fuji and drinking the beloved crunchy chai latte, and Husband alerted my attention to a eight-or-so month old Siamese being held by a man in the window. My eyes immediately filled with tears. I am learning that I tend to think that I'm not sad about something then cry spontaneously at small things.

Birthday eve

Somebody's turning 26 tomorrow... and it isn't me. He has an evil eyebrow, laser-sharp wit, and no butt... yes, it's Husband, about to become the birthday boy. Husband is probably in the 5% of people in the world who do not care about their birthdays. It's a little odd, actually, trying to make a day special for someone who doesn't care in the first place. But tomorrow it's party in da house. Actually, it's a small gathering of friends with fancy pizza and drinks. I keep wanting to buy crepe paper and hats, but then remember... no. Just, no. Oh well...I'm off to buy the secret b-day gift that I'm not used to buy.

Caution: Contents Hot!

Says my latte container. Having just read an article on Paris Hilton, the phrase made me think twice about my beverage.

Snippet updates: Shopping success on Saturday! Underwear and purse purchased! Hurrah. Also blazers ordered. Watching: CSI and loving it. Reading: Milk, just waded through the overly descriptive language of The Hatbox Letters just to enjoy the nice New Brunswick setting. It really made me want to garden, and in particular, garden in the country, where I could compost or burn clippings instead of forcing them into Hefty bags.

Secret indulgences/things about self that clash with image:
1. I regularly watch The Gilmore Girls (hey, everyone has to have a show).
2. I very much like processed nacho cheese dips, although I am picky about which one.
3. I can become [temporarily] enthralled with mundane computer games*.
4. I occasionally enjoy very mindless fiction, such as not-so-good young adult novels or murder mystery novels a la Mary Higgins Clark.

* In the The final frontiersman: Heimo Korth and his family, alone in Alaska's arctic wilderness by James Campbell, even veteran Alaskan bush trapper Heimo became addicted to computer card games during the one month that his family lived in a village to lay in supplies for the coming winter. Free cell = crack.