4. My friends and family rock harder than a Pantera reunion show in Luray Caverns. Which is to say: HARD. I was Legitimately Sad today - not chemically imbalanced, not whining about my lack of post-doctoral work and Nobel nominations - just, y’know, circumstantially heartsick. I know! Surprised me, too. In any event, this afternoon, my friend M. took me out for chicken tenders swathed in ham and Swiss. Several hours later, Pixie treated me to a meal which opened with pierogies, featured guest appearances by bacon and stuffing, and concluded with a rousing finale of FRIED. CARAMEL-FILLED. CHEESECAKE. SITTINGINAPOOLOFCHOCOLATESAUCEAAAAAAAAGHHHHHH.

I’m feeling slightly less bummed, but I think it’s because blood is having a hard time making it past all the grease and reaching my brain.

5. Question for my readers in the literary sphere: do I focus more on attaining publication of any stripe (polishing up essays/non-fic stuff, etc.), or on penning big-ass masterwork, then shopping it around? There are a limited number of hours in the day, damn it. Especially when one is destined to spend a number of them curled up in the fetal position, whining, “Owwwww… fucking fried cheesecake!”

6. Haircolor du jour: NaturTint’s “Fireland“. I was headed to the Whole Foods checkout when I spied its fiery majesty and was forced to toss a box atop my usual comestibles. It looks pretty awesome, but I’m kind of the opposite of the average Whole Foods patron in that I trust “natural” products a lot LESS than lab-formulated, possibly-carcinogenic ones. I’m a little afraid it will fade or bleed or inspire gnats to make sweet, sweet love to my head. Couldn’t they have at least tossed a FEW harsh synthetic chemicals in there?

7. Worst music-as-relates-to-life quote ever, from high school friend’s summer suitor, re: “Freebird“: “I love this song, ’cause it reminds me of me!” (Second worst, ‘though fully unintentional, my mother, re: Massive Attack’s “Dissolved Girl”: “This song reminds me of you.” OH LORD, PLEASE LET IT NO LONGER BE THE CASE.)

8. Question for my readers in the child-development sphere: I once read that “speed of language acquisition” is the only developmental area with a direct correlation to later intelligence. True, or utter shit propagated by the makers of educational toys? I ask because J.Q. is not yet two and is speaking in full sentences (while at a friend’s house: “Menita! Diaper… poop! Change it!”). If he is going to be a freaky little genius, perhaps I should start funneling my money into an MIT fund rather than wasting it on frivolities such as “rent”.

9. Morality Quiz, And Be Honest: do you find that your feelings of guilt primarily stem from fear of being “caught”/exposed or actual remorse? Perhaps I am a monster (but a fetchingly crimson-headed one who produces brilliant offspring!), but I must admit that my guilt is usually of the former variety. I HAVE felt genuine remorse, but very, very infrequently. It takes a truly heinous act for me to feel the urge to atone, rather than shrugging, “Eh, shit happens. I wonder if there’s any more goat gouda in the fridge?”

10. Favorite posts from the past seventeen months of angst and amusement? Requests? I’m open to anything but “Freebird“.

• Solder.
• Code my own style sheets.
• Transport four bags of groceries and a squirmy toddler across several city blocks and up several flights of stairs.
• Get divorced sans legal counsel. I’ve got eight syllables for you: independent source of income. I’ve also got 81 more: odds are your spouse is in a place of existential confusion as well as somewhat lazy; just draft up all the paperwork yourself and hand it over with a brusque, “This agreement is inherently fair and in no way the legal equivalent of nonconsensual anal intercourse, so fucking sign it already.”
• Be naked in front of a man without immediately trying to cover myself with a sheet, a quilt, a cat or a nearby bookcase.
• Run for one mile without staggering to the side of the road and vomiting in a concrete planter.
• Etc., ad infinitum, ergo sum.

And a lot of the time, it feels like nothing.

I’m in the same position at work. I have gone from living in a messy Cape Cod to living in a stark white rental box (and hoping said Cape Cod just spontaneously implodes one day, because it is sure as shit not going to be purchased by any sane, credit-worthy individuals). I haven’t been promoted, published, showered with love/Valrhona Le Lacte bars or party to a life-altering epiphany. I haven’t been content, more or less ever.

When will it be enough? When will I be able to sit back, relax and say, “Yep… I’m fucking proud of you, self. Go grab another diet soda. You’ve earned it”?

It’s the weight loss conundrum : the prospect of losing 50/75/100 pounds is so daunting, so impossible that it seems hardly worth starting a diet. And yet all weight is lost ounces at a time… day after boring, frustrating, rice cake-laden day.

I’m surrounded on all sides by high achievers. I work in a sector which is damned near synonymous with high achievement (well, and trips to Aspen / undermining all that which is right and decent in the world). Pounds and pounds of achievement, industrial-sized pallets of it. How can I be happy with a few ounces of forward momentum? For each credit I earn, there’s an office wall upholstered in Ivy League diplomas. For each flattering pair of smaller-size khakis, there’s another which make me feel like a dress-casual sausage. There are awards and accolades, achievements and acclaim. Works of art. Summers spent abroad. Grabbing life by the cojones and giving a hearty squeeze.

I’m trying, I really am. And yet there’s that oddly familiar voice in the back of my head, the one hissing, “There is no try, there is only do.” And I become angry enough to curse, spit, to do awful things to a certain pointy-eared Muppet guru. Because at this point, I haven’t done much. And incessant trying is enough to make anyone feel like a Paul Westerberg antihero… desperate, demoralized, depressed and so, so unsatisfied.

And then there are days like this.

My futon is an ideal landing place for stage falls. It’s firm yet yielding, of moderate height and so ugly that its inadvertent destruction would fill me will IKEA-bound glee. When I’m feeling very happy and very dramatic, I’ll take a face-first dive onto it. After crashing into the cushions, I press my face against the polyester velveteen and close my eyes. I pretend that I have the very essence of warmth and contentment pinned underneath me, and I can’t get up, lest it die, disappear or flutter off into a shady corner. Instead, I let it melt against my skin, light up my bloodstream like fiber-optic cable, assimilate me into the vast cosmic repository of all that which is good.

I’m extraordinarily fortunate. My life is filled with a number of people who are wise, kind and compassionate; people who, to my amazement and delight, actually seem to like me. They feed me. They look out for me. They let me flop on their futons. We tickle each others’ kids, share secrets embarrassing and profound. Being with them makes me like who I am. The cynicism and self-protective stance fall away. I am inundated with goodness; in turn, I try to disseminate as much of it as I can. Sans irony, sans defensiveness, I know what I’d like to be. An open door. An available lap. A safe haven of kindness, small gestures and esoteric cooking tips. When things are bad, scary or falling apart in the middle of the night, the first phone number which comes to mind.

On days like this, I am swept up in the arms of a momentarily-benevolent universe.

III : Love Is Bad For the Teeth of the Soul

For a limited time only (from thisverysecond until all that remains are desiccated petals and half-chewed caramels), and burning only a fraction of the karma which has so richly entitled me to do so, I intend to be an insufferable little bitch about it, I reserve the right to refuse any comfort, advice, platonic hugs, positive prognostication or radiant gems of staggering insight from anyone, anywhere, who spends these dim and icy days warmed by anything more personal than a massive gas bill, who hovers above the stretcher in a protective fog of hindsight and iodine fumes and murmurs, “I know how it feels”, who takes their coffee with the plentiful half-and-half of comfort and companionship rather than the self-loathing Sweet ‘n Low of really, truly wanting to be able to fulfill all of one’s own needs, and failing to do so time and again, and there is no quantity of Altoids large enough to eradicate that particular taste, there is no peanut butter-filled heart succulent enough to negate the fact that it is charity candy, and there is most certainly no one whose opinion I’d like unless they, like I, spent the past month sleeping on the couch without being entirely sure why, and finally, after moving the bed into a snug corner on a whim, realized that it was the confinement, that a sleeping area with walls and borders felt better, and wondered why that might be, and then, curled up tightly, a serif comma printed on a queen-sized mattress, realized: oh, yeah. Right.

So what did I decide to do? Why, take my child to an art exhibition, of course! DUH.

And I’ll be god-damned if we didn’t have a fantastic time.

J.Q. was amazingly well-behaved*. He rode in his carrier, flirted with graduate students, analyzed art (blue-hued, quasi-Modernist painting of a woman crying: “Mama!” Thanks a pantsload, kid). He only opened his mouth to say adorable, squeaky things.

Oh, and to shove cookies in it.

His dinner? After all of that shrieking and pleading and bib-rending vis a vis the subject of yogurt?

Cookies. Lots. And lots. Of cookies.

And a lick of sauce from a chicken satay skewer.

And sips of diet Coke.

Gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em and know when to say “screw it” and play 52 Pick-Up.

I promise to do lots of staggeringly educational things to tip the karmic scales AWAY from “child growing up to be serial-killing Republican”.

* Despite this, tonight marked the momentous occasion of my first piece of unsolicited parenting advice in TWO YEARS (there is something to be said for the Russo-kranian “stoic” expression). While I was checking out some photographs, a woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Mama… the LIGHTS are too bright for our little EYES!” Excuse me?

1. It’s an art gallery. There are bright lights everywhere.
2. In addition to being able to identify numerous polygons and subsist entirely on yogurt and cookies, my child has reached the exciting milestone of “being able to turn head”.
3. You fucking whore.
4. I jest, I jest. He also eats grapes (*rimshot*).

In any event: I am all about the cozy. Quilts and toast and tea and sweaters and such. I’ve also been cooking a lot, which is unusual… I tend to shun food-preparation methods more strenuous than “1. Remove wrapper from granola bar. 2. Insert into eatin’-hole.” But nay… as of late, I have baked and basted and broiled and bound with yards on end of butcher’s twine. I may enjoy the latter a little TOO much. Hopefully this fascination will grow old before I’m reduced to trussing individual grapes with dental floss.

Lean Cuisines and Possible Free Sterilization : I cracked. I bought a microwave. It’s sleek and red and freaks my tech-savvy ass right the fuck out (”Does that mushroom shape mean popcorn or new game of Global Thermonuclear War?”). It also means that, when feeling lazy, I’ll now have the option to eat things other than those which are, A. Shelf-stable, B. Granola bars, or C. Impaled on a fork, as they are still frozen.

Mile Marker : when I first started running, I was in wretched shape. I couldn’t run for longer than thirty seconds at a go. Since I was measuring my progress in seconds, I began timing myself via music. If I managed to run through the chorus, I’d vow to keep going until the cool “deedle deedle deedle deedle DEEEEEE” guitar riff the next time. A single song was usually good for two or three walk/run intervals.

At the very end of tonight’s run, I managed to plow through Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s “Over and Over Again”, Flin Flon’s “Floods” and Sparks’ “Perfume” without stopping.

For those of you keeping track at home, that’s ten minutes and forty-two seconds.

For those of you considering running [for fun/fitness/because those ominous howls seem to be getting closer]: when I finished, I didn’t think, “Owie owie ow!”, or, “Wow, that sucked a metric ton of ass,” or even, “I wonder who would win in the Ultimate Smackdown of Catchy Songs, ‘Perfume’ or the Kit-Kat jingle?”

Nope. First thing that popped into my mind was “Again again I wanna do it again!”

Monday evening. Supposedly “counterculture” section of Philadelphia which nonetheless features a Blockbuster Video and several Starbucks. Like “Cheers”, JunketBar was somewhat dim and grungy (although thankfully not marred by the presence of Ted Danson). And like Cheers, everyone appeared to know Junket’s name.

“Hi, Junket!” said the female barkeep, mixing us up a round of Cambodian Cirrhosis-Causers. “Damn, she’s… adorable,” I whispered to Junket. “Mmmn-hmmmn,” she said.

Several minutes later, another drink-flinger strolled up. “Yo, Junket,” he said… what’s the adjective I’m looking for here?… oh, yeah: delectably. “Brad, this is my sister Jul.” “Pleasedtomeetcha,” I mumbled, desperately hoping that no Cambodian Cirrhosis-Causer was dribbling from my wide-agape jaw. Brad shook my hand, then wandered off… ostensibly to work; I prefer to think that he was attending an Advanced Pouting seminar or locating a slightly-tighter pair of jeans.

While at the jukebox, deciding whether to play Fiona Apple or just cut to the chase and affix a “TAKE ME OUT BACK AND WHIP MY ASS” sign to my back, yet another barkeep came over to give his regards to Junket. Another hot, hot barkeep. “Jul? Eduardo. Eduardo? Jul,” said Junket. “Hi, nice to meet you,” said Eduardo. “Uh… well… hrmmn… see, uh… yeah. Yep,” I said, disintegrating into Scotch-scented goo and oozing under a nearby pool table.

After Eduardo’s departure, I recongealed and proceeded to rip Junket a new one. “Did you not feel the need to mention that your bar was full of smokingly hot people?” “I don’t know!” whined Junket, “I didn’t know if you’d be into that!”

Yes. Because nothing enhances the “coed liquor consumption” experience like ugly people (well, unless they’re interestingly ugly… T.G.I. Not Malignant’s? Congenital Deformity’s? I’d be all up in that like a laparoscope, yo).

C’mon, now. I’m shy. I can’t flirt my way out of a paper bag, even if said bag contains a mostly-empty bottle of hooch. I can’t shoot pool. I really shouldn’t play darts without making everyone in a ten-foot radius sign an indemnity waiver.

If I’m going to spend my evening sitting in a corner, nursing a Liberian Liver-Ejector, there’d damned well better be hot people present. If you’re going to try to lure me out of the fortress of solitude, you’d do well to appeal to the nasty, reptilian sector of my brain. Decent jukebox? A dime a dozen (well, three plays for a dollar). Cheap drinks? Whatevah. The opportunity to push aside my croissant-flaky frontal lobe for a few hours and let the Lizard Brain take over? Now we’re talking.

So how about you, comrades? What makes your ideal bar? Dirt-cheap PBR? Metallica’s entire back catalogue on the juke? Foosball? Or perhaps an unshaven, sub-literate Adonis slinging drinks? And how are your watering hole preferences influenced by your personality? I’m guessing extroverts don’t rate drinking establishments based on “number of architectural features that one can hide behind”.