we're going to have to skin it if we want to bring it inside.

Sky is grey, wind blowing dead leaves around in little whirlwind circles in the parking lot. It’s a great example of a November day in New England.

The chill in the air isn’t serious, but would certainly make you think twice about flopping down onto the grass to get a better look at the clouds.

There is construction going on outside my window, and I wonder about working outside in this kind of weather. I’m sure once you’re moving the cold doesn’t intrude too much, but it seems like these guys only move as much as they have to: there seem to be a great number of breaks and shovel leaning going on around the site. At any given point several men smoking cigarettes and watching as the rest of the work flows on around them.

I’m always astonished that people still smoke. I never have, but my parents and grandparents did, and a lot of my friends through high school and college picked it up at least for a little while. Most of the friends I still have from that period have given it up--there are just so many ways you’re bombarded with health information these days that it seems like you can’t help but digest the fact that it is going to kill you and in the mean time make you look old and haggard before you’re ready to be mistaken for a grandmother.

So how did these guys duck the information overload? Its just another example of how the people around you influence your own actions: I don’t see how people could keep smoking, and yet there are a great many people out there who don’t see how they could ever stop--its too social or too ingrained or too pleasurable to be put aside so easily. And yeah, so its going to kill you eventually. But so is everything else. You just have to keep in mind that no matter what happens we’re all going to die and you’ll see that the whole death card isn’t really as big an issue as it might seem at first. We’re all going to get there someday, and wouldn’t it be something if you determined your own path, even that little bit?

Not that I am suddenly going to take up smoking just to get a jump on figuring out how I am going to die. Generally I am motivated by what might give me a slightly longer life span rather than a shorter one. Though today it doesn’t really seem worthwhile I must say. I read a bunch of stuff earlier (go to slate if you really want to read it, I will not link it and spread the sadness and mania) about avian flu and pandemics and global warming and general disaster preparedness and I just go to thinking: is survival really such a good idea? I mean, I’m not saying that I don’t want a chance at it like anyone else, but just: why would you want to live through the horror to live through more horror?

Say you get yourself all prepared and outfitted and manage to navigate the horribly debilitating worldwide illness that spreads, airborne, through your family, killing roughly half of those infected. So half of the people that you love and live with you now have to bury or dispose of and then you need to barricade yourself and the supplies you’ve hoarded into some little out of the way spot to keep from being killed for your pantry by the other grief stricken survivors who are now starving in the aftermath because they maybe didn’t stockpile quite as much as you did.

Kind of horrendous, right? To contemplate (at great remove, obviously, but still a major downer) loosing so many loved ones and friends and then having to defend yourself against others as similarly inflicted (if you actually did start saving shelf loads of canned tuna and dried beans like these columnists were recommending, which I don’t know if people in general are--my mother is, but she is a little on the “nut job” end of the “normal people spectrum”) . So yeah, anyone for an afternoon cancer stick?

lobster in the lobster trap

Off site yesterday so I didn’t have any time to have myself a little sit-down.

Fun thing: it is supposed to snow here either later this week or early next week. I’m excited about the possibility. I love a good snow storm.

I would also dearly love a snow day, but for most of the adult world that’s not really a possibility. I can commiserate: at my last job I was the snow policy. At this job though we are given leave, in winter months, to examine the circumstances and decline to come if the conditions seem unfavorable. I love that--we can use our own discretion and judgment! How novel! How humane! Were I to take the temperature of my inner landscape into account I would probably call in a lot more frequently “I’m sorry its just looking a little dark and icy, I don’t think I can get out of my pajamas today” that doesn’t really fly though (save the odd mental health day). But I have high hopes and ambitions and plans for taking a day off my commuting schedule, at least by car: I’m hoping to leave my car at home one day a week and make my way here by a variety of buses. It is a little complicated (involving three changes each way) and a rather ridged schedule (the changes only match up if you make the 7:10 in the first place, otherwise the wait will be rather long between bus #2 and bus # 3 ) so I am going to aim for going car-free on Thursdays and see how it goes.

If it goes at all. I have yet to actually get to the testing process so we’ll see once we’re actually there.

In process and preparation I have been looking for a good warm winter coat. I do enjoy outerwear, but I don’t buy much of it. My great aunt was a horrible pack rat for that sort of thing: she had an entire closet in her apartment filled with just coats. When we cleaned out her apartment after her death I remember being slightly horrified and astounded: she had only ever worn this one raggedy purple down filled winter coat when I had known her, it was amazing to learn that she had had a closet full of choices and never done anything with them--neither wearing them herself nor giving them to someone who might wear them.

So I don’t really have a winter coat--I have an old English duffle coat of my father’s that is wonderfully warm and three sizes too big--which until recently I really haven’t minded. I also have a kids red ski parka that was given to me by a friend who worked at a L.L. Bean’s for a winter and got it for a couple of dollars. And I’ve got a rain coat that I wear most days, which has started to seem a little silly.

I keep seeing people out at night in town in these sort of “out at night in town” type coats and I keep wondering if I possibly look totally ridiculous in my oversized rain coat with sweater, hat and scarf. I think it is a distinct possibility and I am not sure I want to keep being the ramshackle girl--especially if I am riding the bus.

Way too much introspection, huh?

woops

amazing how lazy i can get sometimes.
Thanksgiving was good--lots of food and just my little family.
Well, my sister's boyfriend came, but they're pretty much attached at the hip these days so it wasn't unexpected. Also he's kind of a blender--he just sort of sits back and doesn't say too much so it is easy to imagine he's just part of the woodwork I guess. He's supposed to spend christmas with us too this year.
I told the boy (my boy, who is so not my boy, obviously, since he is leaving me and not looking back in a little over a month now, but who I persist on still thinking of and treating as though everything were hunky dory and we were totally going to be together longer than six weeks. I'm such an ass) about how Mr. woodwork is going to come to christmas and he was sort of amazed--probably because in the recent past its seemed like our relationships (my sister and her bf and the boy and mine) have been rather parallel, but obviously they are not at this point--I'd like to think maybe he was feeling a little left out but I think he was really just thinking "what is Mr. Woodwork doing breaking in on their christmas?"
It was a weird weekend because of our whole odd dynamic--I didn't hear from the boy until late in the day on Saturday (I don't call him anymore--its a rule of mine that I doubt he knows about--so I hadn't heard from him since thanksgiving). He was hung over but we were supposed to be having dinner with a bunch of friends of his. I suppose they are my friends too--but honestly this time around it didn't really feel like it. Maybe it was just the state of mind I was in, but it felt like a lot of pulling back, a lot of "she's walking the plank there boys watch out"--I didn't say much and kept contemplating getting completely blitzed, but I didn't really have the guts to do it. He stayed in town with me and hung out on Sunday and maybe he got the hint that I was feeling like I had the plague--he kept trying to be comforting and at the same time avoiding the subject.
I kept wondering, all day--did we have things in common? Were there things that I thought were indispensable about us? Not about him, but about the combination of the two of us? I know he is singular and unique and wonderful (in his special special-ness...haha but really) but why do I think that he belongs with me? Do I even think that any more?
I can't figure it out. I feel like I've been through my stages of grief on this--bargained and made lists and cried a hell of a lot for so many different reasons--and he is still here and I can't quite figure out where to go from here. sometimes I just wish he would leave already I guess so I can get on with what is next. And all the time part of me is scared about what is next because I know him and I don't want him to go, even if I can't figure out what it was about us that I used to think was worth mourning.

raise your hand if you want ketchup

First snow!

Always exciting--when I was in middle school and high school I had a particular friend who I would go walking with in the first snow. She had her first baby this year, has been married for just over a year and owns a home not that far from mine--we don’t really talk much any more (other than when she emails to tell me about her latest landmark achievement: buying the house, getting hitched, getting knocked up).

I had this huge grey and black sweater that I used to wear instead of a coat. It was my fathers, but it was too big for him too, so I appropriated it and wore it instead of both a jacket and mittens, since the sleeves were more than long enough to cover my hands.

My dad still has it I think. He has another one, a brown and black version, that actually fits him as well--I think they may have been gifts from an aunt of his and she got the size horribly wrong the first time around but liked the pattern and tried again.

I’m still not much for coats--I’ve actually ordered one this year, a fleece from some “mountain goods online” place, to go inside the rain shell I wore last year in place of a coat. I don’t know why I can’t seem to get it together to have an actual wardrobe--some odd combination of laziness and thrift and bucking conformity at all opportunities prevents me I guess.

I used to (and still, to some extent, continue to) have a huge problem with jeans--as in the quintessential teenage uniform, denim pants--I hated the idea that life could be so conscripted as to have that single choice: wear it with t-shirts! Wear it with sweaters, but on pain of death, wear it!

So I never did. Although honestly part of this was most likely the fact that I couldn’t afford the nice jeans, I could afford the jeans from GoodWill or Salvation Army and that was about it. So I wore khakis or skirts or fatigues or (in place of that perennial ‘80’s favorite, the stretch pant) bright red long johns. I got a great pair of tight oil-stained jeans at a local dump store (literally a thrift store at a dump where people could drop household items that might have further use) and those are the only jeans I had through much of high school and college.

As a result, I’m still not very comfortable in jeans--its amazing to me how so many people put them on to show that they are “relaxed” or “casual” for a Friday. I have two pairs: one pair tight (my “hey its almost marathon time: check me out” pants) and one pair baggy (my “fat” pants). And generally when I put them on I feel like I’m putting on a costume, my I am a normal mid 20s girl hanging out casually--see me--see? Yes I am.

the clouds of snot do cover

Sorry. I've been sick--still am sick. It doesn't help that beyond all sense I went out on Saturday and went to a wine tasting and two shows--that was a little uncalled for and I have not quite rebounded from it.
My head is too full of snot to be let any good words out.
maybe tomorrow.

would you be interested in a little harmless movie watching?

On Wednesdays I work in the evenings, so my schedule is a little off--but generally I love it: its great to have a weekday morning mostly free to do the administrative things of life: going to the post office and bank and knowing that they will be open and not too crowded, using the kitchen while the rest of my housemates are away at school and work, and especially eating leisurely breakfast before I shower.

I don’t know about you, but on the typical weekday morning I am generally in a rush, lately I get up at the last possible instant, and even when I do manage to get up earlier I don’t really have time to ease into the day or take things slow. If I have to I shower (and very often I just say “screw it” and fake a shower with a wet brush and a quick face wash) throw on clean (does it pass the smell test? Then yes, in my book it counts as clean) clothing and throw some food into my bag to eat once I get to work. A true measure of leisure time, as far as I am concerned, is eating breakfast at a table and then showering.

Pretty much every day this week I have brought a piece of fruit with me with the intention of eating it for breakfast. And every day I’ve brought a piece of fruit I have abandoned it on a corner of my desk and gone for hot chocolate powder mixed with coffee. This should not be part of a balanced breakfast but has become my default breakfast of late. Obviously this is one of the reasons I’ve caught a cold and feel generally sluggish and unmotivated about life. Something really should be done.

I mentioned to my office mate that it looked like I was saving up for a fruit salad. He laughed and the next day he came back from the cafeteria (I don’t usually go there to eat--its only $4.75 so I do get there once a month or so, but sort of on principle I like to bring food from home because if I’ve already got it I might as well eat it, and if I keep throwing down $5 for lunch the numbers get big pretty quick: $4.75 x 12 = $57 spent if I went once a month all year! $242 if I went once a week instead! Oh how money lost does have a way of adding up!). Office Mate Man goes pretty much everyday--he has a regular crew that he eats with and so they all go together and he usually brings back the good gossip--but this time he also brought me a banana! And he has promised that tomorrow he will bring me an apple! So on Friday we will really have a fruit salad! I’ve got some frozen blueberries and also some plain yogurt already in the fridge at home, so although it will be an occurring-at-work post-shower breakfast, it should still be pretty good!

blustery indeed

I have a cold. It’s the sneaky kind, the back of the throat sore, the sinuses dry yet leaky (eeew.) and the body as a whole kind of achy and slow.

I hate being sick but as sicknesses go, this one is not too terrible. The sneakiness and mildness of it allows for a certain academic detachment. As I breath in I notice the complete lack of moisture in my nose, as I swallow I follow the decent of the ache.

Also, it makes the needs so much easier to meet: I want warmth and stillness, which equals bed, empty save perhaps for a curled up kitten at the end. Simple and easily met, though of course first I’ve got to get through work, and then a training session with gym buddy and then an evening meeting (I curse all of these things individually but I will not back out of them. I hate being sick and do not want to use it as an excuse. I am a firm believer in using sick days only for ulterior purposes).

Which reminds me. At my last job once I used one of my insanely late work days (really more of a work night, since I would come in around 3 or 4 and work until 12midnight or 1 in the morning) to have a morning interview at a company a four hour drive away. I got up insanely early and drove down there and then had an hour and a half interview and then hightailed it back. On my way back I realized that with traffic the way it was I was never going to make it on time, so I called and told them that I was going to the doctors in town (with still about two hours to go until I needed to be in) and if I was running late that was why--and I told them that I was having a strep test and a monoculture done because I’d had a sore throat for a week (lies, obviously but I was thinking on my feet--since I didn’t want the job I had to know how much I wanted out). When I was a half hour from home I got a call from my director telling me to just go home and go to bed after I got done at the doctors, he would cover my shift for that day and the next so I could get better. It was unbelievably kind and made me realize that even if I wanted to leave I wasn’t going to be able to. And I didn’t--the other company offered me the job and I tried to play the bargaining game, but they didn’t want to pay me any more (their initial offer would have been 1/3 to ½ again as much as I was making at my first job, but the benefits were all in all more expensive, not as inclusive, there was little to no vacation time to speak of, and the area was considerably more expensive, cost-of -living wise, so the actual money in my pocket would have been about the same, with less time off and more expensive surroundings) and they didn’t want to give me anything for moving expenses, and they wanted me to start right away. So it was really a non-starter. Plus my boss had covered my shifts for two days because he thought I might be sick. And the department secretary called to check on me twice. So I stayed. and the second year wasn’t as bad, they hired someone part time so that I was able to work a steady 5-day (and night)-work- week and have my weekends almost completely to myself (there were always exceptions, but then, there always are). I found a cheaper apartment that was still within walking distance, which was sort of like getting a raise. And I started teaching yoga classes at a local health club in exchange for free membership, which was a fantastic move. How would you like to get paid $20 a week to work out? It made me happy, that’s for sure.