The reckoning
Summer is almost over, so it is time to go through the list I wrote back in May and see what I need to do in the next few days to get most of it done (that’s me, procrastinating until the very end. Or as I prefer to call it, finishing strong).
- Go to the Farmer’s Market at least twice a month and pick a new ingredient each time. If you average the number of times I went to the farmer’s market by the number of months in spring/summer this worked out. I am converted to farmer’s markets now — the produce is comparably priced, and has so much more flavor. I also got the chance to go to the farmer’s market in Madison, WI, and it is one of the best ones I’ve been to. They have excellent cheese and I have a new favorite, smoked chicken. Did you know that you can smoke chicken? And that it is delicious?
- Learn how to garden. My sweet, sweet boyfriend came over one day and we spent 4 hours pruning, weeding, planting and putting topsoil on my teeny tiny patio. It was beautiful! For about 15 days! And then.. it got worse. And now it is back to looking a little disheveled, so it came full circle. (I have to say, gardening is labor intensive, but not tough. All you do is cut away anything that looks disorderly to your liking and pull up everything you don’t want in there).
- Grow my own herbs. The little plot with the herb garden was the only part of my patio that I took religious care of. I would walk outside and water the herbs, sniff the heady earthy smell, and beam like the proud mama I was. One day I found that someone had stolen the cilantro and some of the basil. I was livid and on the verge of installing little cameras out in the bushes, but not really because I’m a poor student so I was actually going to glue some leaves as camouflage and scare the beejezus out of the trespassers, when someone told me it was the chipmunks. And after that, I realized that I couldn’t win the battle, because have you seen a real, live chipmunk (I hadn’t, until I moved up north)? They are the cutest little squirrely things. All they would have to do is look at me with those little inquisitive eyes and I would be planting more cilantro and leaving chocolate chip cookies out for them. And then, there were the tomatoes, which the groundhogs love (I feel like they are my little animals now too, but also feel bad that I’m domesticating them. They are wild animals, don’t they need to … forage more for their lunch and learn wilderness survival skills?). But I did get to use some of the thyme, rosemary and basil, so I’ll call this one a success.
- Throw a mean barbeque. Not even close. Unless I can get a grill soon (which is not looking likely because I’m kind of broke), this one is a big FAIL. You guys, I actually did this! I found a gas grill for $40 on craigslist and next thing you know I am having about 10 people over for the world’s tiniest burgers (we forgot they shrink) and hot dogs. It was a lot of fun, and I love having a grill!
- Improve my tennis. I’ve been to play out twice, I think that means that this one is met. I mean, that’s twice more than I played this past year, therefore I improved my rusty skills by a lot, 50% even. Also, I am blaming my condo association on this one as they resurfaced the tennis courts and on at least 3 or 4 occasions I wanted to play and couldn’t. Of course I could have found another court, but I think my response of going home and umm, snacking on potato chips was way more reasonable. No one likes an overachiever.
- Do yoga on the patio. I’m on it. This weekend!
- Make curtains. Although I didn’t make my curtains, I did get them. From ebay — so that meant that they were about 8″ short on each side because the specs were all wrong and I didn’t return them. But it provides more coverage than it did before, and now peeping toms will have to really struggle to see inside or at least have to crane their neck a little.
- Hit at least one single per game at my softball games. Surprisingly what I thought was going to be the most difficult one is the only one that I truly did 100%. I even hit a double once (not intentionally, but hey I hit it, I took it, and I ran with it). Yay, me!
- Go to a field at night in early summer to see the fireflies. There was a field. And maybe … three.. four? fireflies. That kind of counts.
So the overarching theme of the summer was “honing the art of doing things half-assedly to perfection”. But an almost-kinda-sorta summer is the best kind.
Full to the brim
I am feeling antisocial today. I had plans to go and see a play with my friends, but I canceled. There are times when I get cranky just thinking about being in the vicinity of people and today is one of those.
I’ve always wondered if my solitary bouts are normal. It is not a preference, it is a need to be alone and do my own thing; and when I get into this frame of mind if someone impinges on my wishes (even it is myself) I get cranky. Example, yesterday I had planned to spend curled up on my sofa, reading a good book. But a very dear friend of mine was not feeling well, and had no one else to turn to, so we spent a couple of hours hanging out together and talking. By the end I was unbearably cranky and feeling resentful. Worst of all, I took my anger out on Tai (I yelled at her at some length, but then she had also peed on the carpet, again), and felt really guilty about it afterwards.
There are times when dealing with people leaves me drained and I need to recharge. I never understood why some people are so scared to be alone. I love the feeling of serenity that can come over you while sitting with your dog and reading a good book, or drinking some hot cocoa while watching trashy tv. Sometimes the best company can be yourself.
On the eve
I can’t believe I have made it this far — it feels like it’s been no time and forever since I started school. After all this hard work, it ends tomorrow and I could not be more thankful. I’m so excited for the spring and summer that I put together a list of things that I want to try in the next couple of months:
- Go to the Farmer’s Market at least twice a month and pick a new ingredient each time. I love cooking but I always stick to the tried and true; this summer I want to experiment, expand my culinary horizons, and become a foodie snob that makes her own pesto based on a secret recipe from a friend’s Italian grandmother who still uses a mortar and pestle.
- Learn how to garden. Or how to prune. Or at least make my teeny patio look a little presentable and not like a lazy schizophrenic took over.
- Grow my own herbs. Can you just imagine how delicious that would be? I am just salivating in anticipation.
- Throw a mean barbeque.
- Improve my tennis.
- Do yoga on the patio. I’ve wanted to do this since last summer but I never found the motivation. Or, if I find that it is one of those things that sounds much more pleasant in theory than in practice (mosquitoes, bleh) then do yoga while staring at the pond from inside my house, enjoying nature the way its supposed to be enjoyed. With the AC on.
- Make curtains! I have lived curtainless for a year, and let’s just say, it is time. There are lots of things that one cannot do behind closed curtains if, you know, the curtains are missing.
- Hit at least one single per game at my softball games. Well, a girl can dream, can’t she? And I figured I might as well put something in here that would keep me humble and on my toes.
- Go to a field at night in early summer to see the fireflies. This would make me feel ridiculously happy.
Entering procrastination station
I have two 15 page projects which are maybe a third done due by Friday morning, and qualifying exams (to see if I can continue with my PhD) two and a half weeks from now. And of course, I am updating my blog after not doing so for months. Because I am awesome at finding the most opportune times to procrastinate!
These past few months have been unbelievably busy, but I am having loads of fun. I have been accused by my sister of not writing an entry in a long time because things are going great with the new boy (oops, did I just jinx it?), but that is not the case. Mainly this semester my classes consist of writing ridiculously long essays and papers, so much so that whenever I think of writing in here I sigh, and think – suck it, diary! I need to save my creativity for comparing organizations to an instrument of domination, or a flock of birds, or a burning building, or a pirate ship.
The first year of my grad school career is drawing to a close, and I am very thankful. This summer I will be working part time so that will give me time to work on my proposal for candidacy and do some traveling and visit my family. There are three big events this summer that I am so very excited about: the little bean’s first birthday (but he was just born yesterday! how could that be?), my sister’s high school graduation (but… she is just a baby, how is it that she’s going to college and doing all sorts of grown up activities, like living all by her lonesome and playing beer pong?), and my cousin’s wedding (yeah, this one was a long time coming. I was ready for this one three years ago). I cannot wait for spring and summer!
Ok, back to my regularly scheduled work.
Mr. Bluebird on my shoulder
So I’ve been very chipper lately. Chipper here, chipper there, chipper chipper everywhere. This is amazing considering that I am in the midst of finals, and research, and holiday parties, and gift buying and of course, roomate drama.
It’s madness, but I get to go home next week, and my first semester is over and (pending on finals) it looks like I will actually pass. Yay!
Yoga
It is a truth universally acknowledged that doing any type of exercise is guaranteed to make you healthier, and feel better. Of course, the problems are twofold: first, you have to be motivated enough to go (which most of the time, you just .. aren’t), and second, you have to keep it up. I wish this could be some revolutionary new post on the perfect formula to get yourself to get up and exercise, but it isn’t. Or on finding the perfect exercise to do while you’re sitting on your bum watching tv, but it’s not. In the end exercising on a regular basis is hard, and it takes a lot of motivation and discipline.
I went through periods of trying different things out, from swimming to tennis to those “for women only” clubs (Imagine me and a whole bunch of older ladies bouncing on a trampoline to Devo’s “whip it”). But I hadn’t found anything I loved until I came to yoga. And not just any yoga class, but with a wonderfully patient instructor that just radiates peace and calm.
I am always sure I am going to make time in my week to do some yoga. I love the feeling of peace, purpose and focus that comes over me. I feel so calm and contented after I do it, like I’ve just lifted a huge weight of my shoulders, and nothing matters except for the present moment. I forget about school, about men, roomate troubles and all of my responsibilities. While I’m doing yoga, I feel like I can connect not only with myself but something deeper – I have occasionally felt that way after praying, but yoga relaxes me enough on a consistent basis that I feel like I can be in better tune with my spiritual side. They don’t call it meditation through motion for nothing (:
And, on the super vain side, after three years of practicing, I am more toned and flexible. So, yaay to yoga all around! I highly encourage you to try. And if it doesn’t work for you, find something you love – swimming, synchronized running, anything.
A room with a view
Because of a lot of reasons that I won’t get into right now, I hadn’t been able to close on the condo, until today. (Parenthesis: I wrote this entry one week ago, and it has actually taken until today to get everything sorted out. it’s been a pain in the ass). What that meant though was that I had to reapply for a loan — of which I was informed of exactly 1.5 weeks ago — which would have been ok in other circumstances, but now I am a student and my income is peanuts. And apparently despite the economic crisis we haven’t resorted to using peanuts as a bartering medium because the mortgage company basically pffftttdd and was like, are you serious? You look pretty rosy and healthy, have you considered being a surrogate or parting with one of your kidneys? You only need one!
That tailspinned me into panic, as I’ve been renting this apartment from the previous owner while we waited for closing and had already spent a lot of money into moving and decorating, not to mention gotten terribly fond of it. I made cushions! And wallpapered! That’s the apartment equivalent of meeting your boy’s parents, or buying him a promise ring. I was ALL IN, and it was going to be whisked away from me. That week I went back and forth from feeling all braveheart about it (I will not surrender! I will wallpaper myself into the walls if I need to) to feeling hopeless (having visions of shuffling slooooowwwwwly out of the condo with Tai and my two bags leaving a trail of sadness and desperation in the snow).
Needless to say, last week I was stressed and scrambling, thinking that I would have to give up the condo that has really become a cozy little haven for Tai and me (and my roommate and Bud), the first place that has felt like home outside of my parent’s. In the end I had to put more money down which I somehow managed to scrounge up (which leaves me with less than 100 dollars in the bank, which is… weird. I’m like a hypochondriac with no kleenexes).
But I closed today! It’s mine, mine, twenty percent mine. So even though I will probably have to watch and budget, it will be nice to be resourceful. I’m not the best (and this is an understatement) at keeping accounts, so this will be a good learning experience. But right now I feel like the luckiest girl in the world, because instead of waking up next to a smelly, unresponsive dog (who likes to cuddle me into the edge of the bed, so she gets 3/4 and I get 1/4 of the space, and wait, there’s something wrong with that) I get to wake up to this:
Priceless! (Ok fine, technically this is the view at night)
The reset button
Today I said something stupid to one of my classmates about one of our homework questions. He stared at me like I had just said ‘Wait, the Earth is not flat? And who is Christopher Columbus and why didn’t he get a medal or something, or at least a day in his name?’. Even now just thinking about it makes me blush.
I’ve thought about why this affects me more than it should, why I can’t just shrug off when I do something stupid or imperfect — and everything, everything always comes back to my childhood. But I need to start taking responsibility for my own actions and for my own self; blaming things on the past is the easier route, but not productive. Besides, the good parts of me came out of my childhood too.
So I came up with the idea of the reset button. I’m not talking about reseting my mind when things of importance happen, when you are supposed to feel hurt, or sad, or lost in order to grow and learn about yourself. But there are tiny things that I think I make out to be of more significance than they are, that maybe other people don’t even notice but cause me hours and hours of discomfort and mortification (like that time my phone rang during class and everyone stared at me and I turned beet red. Or the time I told a girl (in jest! I was teasing, I promise) that she wasn’t a true Latin American if she didn’t wear sandals only to find that she had a disfigurement. Or the countless times when I’ve pronounced words incorrectly — actually this happens to me very often; I read a lot, but don’t know how to pronounce some words. Who knew banal rhymes with “canal” instead of “anal”. English is whack).
So from now on, whenever I do something stupid or embarrassing I will just use my reset button and pretend that they haven’t happened, because people make mistakes. The good thing about such imaginary devices is that you have an unlimited pass to use as you please (:
Conspicuity
It was my first day at school today and was surrounded by really young people. Like, they don’t know who the New Kids on the Block are young. Or, they were fetuses a couple of years ago young. Before I could stop myself, I am thinking ‘What the hell are they wearing and in my days that wouldn’t even qualify as underwear’, and right then and there I realize I have become every single sixty year old person I know. And I wonder, what am I doing here, and am I going to make it in this strange new world where the Jonas brothers are everyone’s guilty pleasure and exposing your lady bits are the norm?
In an effort to be more “down with it” (imagine me doing my rapper hands), I have resolved I will henceforth (or… for the rest of this post) blog all in IM speak.
ZMG, 2day was kewl! I waz a noob, but ppl were gr8! TAFN. XOXO!!! It took half hr 2 write, so atr8 I will fall AAK. Done.
On complications
When I wrote that I thought there would be more stories to tell, I imagined they would have to do with coming home and finding blood splattered all over the walls, with both Tai and Bud lying stigmata-like on the floor. It never crossed my mind that it would have to do with the roomate and myself. Naively (as my therapist and everybody and their mother have been telling me), I didn’t foresee the possibility that there might be some attraction going on. It’s made things very awkward, and I hate not being able to be at my home and just relax. I find myself avoiding going home or hiding up in my room.
Even though we have talked about it, and we know that things are not going happen between us, that feeling of weirdness is still there. If anyone has any ideas of how to deal with a situation like this, I would love to hear them, because this is more drama than I want in my life.
