Me, Elsewhere

Dudes, I promise that I am trying to work my way to posting here, but I might be remiss for the next seven weeks. I'm doing a fitness challenge here in my hometown and it is commanding a LOT of my time. The time commitment is the only downside, though, because it's working, bitches. And I couldn't be happier.

In the meantime, I didn't want to overwhelm this space here with fitness, food and weight loss entries, so I started a separate blog section to write those posts. It isn't linked back to this (my "main" site) because it's being read by my teammates and other people who live in my city, but I will link its URL here in case anyone is interested:

Another Chance To Lose It All

Also, today I have a new post up at Real Mental--and it is about a subject that is VERY important to me:

The Ones We Leave Behind

Kept Clean And They Will Let You Breathe

Today was hard. That is almost all I can say about it. Hard in that way that made me realize, later, that I was gritting my teeth. And rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on the bed. Hard.

Me, Elsewhere--several times over

Things are absolutely insane over this way--this week was already busy, and then I started a new program [which I promise I'll talk about later], but I am still in the process of getting myself organized. Seriously organized.

In the meantime, I've been totally remiss in linking my last few posts from Real Mental--so here they are:

Grace Under The Weather

Civil Wars to Cease

The Fight in the Kid

New Year's Revolution

Something Slow Has Sparked Up In Me

I woke up this morning with dried blood on my toe. Middle one, left foot. Further examination of my skin, later today, yielded two pretty serious bruises. One on my right shin [from what?] and one on the back of my left thigh [attempt #1 to climb onto Rob's porch railing, which resulted in a swift tumble into the bikes tied there].

Throwing up on New Year's Eve is a tradition, now, four years running since the transition from 2006 to 2007. The transition from the worst year of my life [objectively, no contest, no other contenders] to one of the best. The best. In 2006, it was a combination of Gin Bucket and Bullshit Pyramid. 2007, I can't honestly say--Circle of Death, probably, and vodka. 2008, gin again and a midnight-countdown phone call that left me screaming gleefully into the receiver until Joey stopped me with a rather pointed, "Kiss me!"

And 2009, a mix of Svedka and Raspberry Sparkletini and a four-way-split spliff, consumed after my duties as a designated driver were finished. Then, a climb up the porch railing [attempt #2, a sign of my unwavering obstinance, was successful] and a few minutes of feeling infinite. These are the things I remember. These things, then waking up cold and shivering.

I've accepted, I think, that most years in your adult life will be classified as neither good nor bad. With a few glaring exceptions [marriages, births, promotions, graduations, divorces, layoffs], I presume that the years slip by--a healthy mixture of good and bad. The bitter and the sweet.

Still. 2009 had its share of trials: the 6-week-board-studying-insanity tour, a bad grade or two that left me crying and frustrated on the living room floor, a serious adjustment to a new lab mentor.

But it has more than its share of beautiful hazy nights: a wine tasting that ended in a constant supply of offered elbows, a birthday celebration in a now-defunct restaurant and the drive home with the wind in my hair. Nights of sipping out of other people's drinks and the leaning in of our bodies, the alcohol functioning as magnets that draw us in to each other. Six months of non-stop laughter, of having my elbows eaten and my feet tickled until I can't breathe. Thousands of text messages and an endless number of pictures taken surreptitiously. I found them the next day--

[still life with the gay boy who would later have his face buried in my breasts]

And that was it. A whole year of staggering beauty, warm nights and cold drinks, and offered elbows on uneven streets.

And at the end of the year, several presents marked To or From Jenny and Joey. Christmas wishes from friends I didn't know January 1 of 2009. A baby in my arms with a thumb in his mouth and a powdering of snow. A deep satisfying breath in and out.

***

"You're pretty," she says, more-than-half lit. I don't know if this makes her more honest or less. Maybe I don't care. I don't often feel pretty in public--but sometimes (straightened hair, favorite high heels) I can maybe see it.

At the end of the year, I sometimes feel pretty. And sometimes hurt or overwhelmed. Sometimes filled with soul-shattering longing. Sometimes blessed and fulfilled. Sometimes invincible.

Always loved.

***

2010 has started. A new decade we all cried, after the countdown and one quite special midnight kiss. Today it rained and I ate soup, curled under blankets and read, lit a candle and drove to the movies choking on my own laughter.

I don't really have resolutions, just things I'd like to do. Go in early to the lab 2 or 3 days a week to stay on top of the immense body of scientific literature. Write letters--by hand, in pen on typing paper--to Roberto. Write, period--write more, write with intensity and purpose. Stay on top of things here. Listen to more new music. Drink more hot tea and less cafe mochas.

Touch people and be touched. Laugh fiercely. Love fiercely. Fall into nights the way I have this year.

In fact, if this next year is anywhere near this past, then it will be a perfect success. So let's crank it up and do steamrollers. Where shall we begin?

Four Things To Read

[Lest this become a blog sub-entitled "I Went To Graduate School, and All I Got Was Smashed," I decided to show you these four things. Two are fiction, two are non-fiction--and I can't stop reading any of them. Serious, I've read all of these countless times, over and over again. And sometimes I stop and think about them, and then I have to run to the internet to read them again. They all, in their own unique ways, have some modicum of perfection to them. They have all grabbed me, tightly, in their words. The way that only the best writing can.]

Fiction

1. Mix Tape for a Dead Girl by Joshua Allen

I think part of my obsession with this is that the death of my close friend Ryan was still raw when I first read this, linked from A Cup of Tea and a Wheat Penny. It reminded me of the things we do for the dead, the memories we hoard for them. There are still days when I want to write him an email or a text message, days when I want to send a quote to him or tell him about my data.

There's also a quiet brilliance to this, a point where he goes back to a previous point and the story starts to develop. I only wish I could be so subtle a writer.

2. Anniversary by Abigail Schilling

I first connected with this piece because it quotes one of my favorite songs, but fell in love with it because it made so much sense in the context of my relationship with Joey.

"I loved you that way. You were only a twinkling."

Non-Fiction

1. Lost in Translation by Kevin Keck

This is a fucking brilliant essay about the love in a family. It touches on the Communication Gap between generations and what it means to care for a deteriorating family member. I posted it earlier this year in my Tumblog, but it deserves a second mention here:

"Thinking of all this, I am filled with remorse — a beautiful word that comes from old French which literally means to be bitten again. And I am bitten continually. When I see my parents with my children, I feel trapped as a thought between two languages, with no adequate word in either tongue to express what I am feeling. So many things about my father that I found confusing while growing up have finally been deciphered with the Rosetta Stones that are my children."

I love that phrasing, that idea--"I am bitten continually." Because I am. I think we all are.

2. [untitled] by Eden Marriot Kennedy at Fussy

An essay about the death of a friend and the things we keep behind. Hers were a pair of shoes, mine are a set of pipets.

If We Can Get Around It

You don't often get to hear the songs that people have set as your ringtone.

It's not for you to hear, really. It's a private thing they've decided on. It's supposed to only play when you're not around.

You're not supposed to hear it.

***

We didn't have a lot of money these last few weeks. It had leaked out, from bills and traveling. Car payments and speeding tickets. Life.

We'd talked about the things we wanted and needed, the few things that came up from time to time, as things do.

In a wave of nostalgia, we wished we could find our copy of Guitar Hero 2, the game we'd played ad nauseum that spring when we decided to give it another try. We'd played it, even, earlier on the day he asked me to date him again. We played it until the songs wove their ways into our muscle memory, programmed in our brains in a way that can make you really respect the human body.

On Tuesday, I showed him how my every day shoes were falling apart. Purchased for 19.99 the day before Easter and worn almost every weekday since, I knew they couldn't be long for this world. And a closer examination revealed that the soles are peeling from the uppers, the inside of the sole worn unevenly. "I need new shoes," I said. He inquired size, and I told him, "Six." He was being not-so-sneaky, and today as I left the lab, I told Janet, "I'm pretty sure I'm getting new shoes for Christmas."

***

Comcast somehow didn't take money out of our account for automatic payments, and this pay period has too many weekends. And I had already borrowed money from him, and there wasn't that much money left this week for groceries. And we were out of the Diet Coke that we drink in 24-pack boxes, one of the many many vices we have and pay for.

And the kitchen is crack-house dirty from too much cooking, and the sink was full of dishes, and I asked him before I left home to please please please unload the dishwasher so I could load it again while I made dinner. And suddenly, we're everyman, full of money worries that could be alleviated by going out less and stuck in conversations about household chores and how we'll be cooking fish for dinner.

***

After a long but satisfying day, with two happy bosses--for the first time ever?--I dragged my cold self home, listening to a CD I had burned as a sophomore in college. The best songs by some of the lamest artists, including Nine Days, who sang these lyrics in a song that now skips every time I play it:

The answers we find,

Are never what we had in mind.

So we make it up as we go along...

We make it up as we go along, I thought. Yes, we do.

***

So, I get inside, and Joey is standing in the bedroom in his boxers, working his way through the songs on Guitar Hero 2.

And I take off my pants to put on pajamas, and he tells me not to take off my socks. But I think he's dicking around, and I take them off because that is easily in the top five most satisfying moments of every day.

But then, he comes over to give me a kiss and says, "I have a present for you."

And goddammit, if it isn't a new pair of every day shoes.

***

"Thank you!" I say. "I love them." [i do] "Are they my Christmas present?"

"No," he says. "You needed new shoes. I got you some."

***

And of course, the dishes have been put up, and he put the ones from the sink into the dishwasher. And when we sit down to watch TV-on-the-internet and eat M&Ms, he asks if I want a Diet Coke. And if it weren't so stupid to be so sentimental about Guitar Hero and shoes, about dishes and Diet Cokes, then I would have cried.

Or is it stupid to be happy that someone pays attention and then spends their two-weeks paycheck on the things you need? Is it really so stupid to want to cry when someone loves you that much?

Because that's what it is. On the surface, it's a lot of things that don't seem to matter that much. But somewhere else, there's that girl who will never forgive herself for hurting him. I never expected him to give me anything. Much less everything. The least of these things being Diet Coke and shoes. The most being unrelenting love and a fresh start at being ok.

***

So, after TV night, I get up to do work.

[I do this a lot lately, work in the later hours after he has gone to sleep. I lie in bed with him for an hour or two, watch TV while he drifts off, and then slip out to the den. It's a weird pattern, one that I've seen many scientists fall into. We spend as much time as we can with our families. Then, while they're asleep, slip back to science. God, it's weird.]

He is on the verge of nodding off, but he wants to find his phone. So I call him in the living room, and stand still to locate where the sound is coming from.

And in the bedroom, the ringtone I didn't know was set for me.

"Well, it's you...I fell into."

Oh, but boy--you don't know the half of it.

Lord, If You've Got Lungs--C'mon and Shout Me Out!

A couple of months ago, my oldest friend mused in her blog about what she called the "The in-between blues." It was an excellent post, and I think it highlights a lot about the confusion of the mid-20s. No matter who you are, what your job is. No matter what your relationship status--married, dating, single. It's a weird age.

My favorite movie of all time is Garden State--and I think it describes the uncertainty of this time with an enlightening clarity:

"You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place."

But with my most sincere apologies to the delightful Mrs. H, I do believe I have to describe myself as being firmly ensconced in the "In-between Yellows."

I don't mean to be infuriating or overly sunny, I promise. Life here is not easy. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But surely you are tired of me complaining about chronic exhaustion and a grumpy boss [who, by the way, happens to hate Christmas because people stop working as hard...seriously]. So--my yellows.

My grandmother refuses to stop asking me when I am getting married, and I am tempted to tell her "never." Although I do want--and occasionally long--to be married, I am increasingly satisfied with this stage of in-between. It's like all of the fun of being married--cheaper finances, living in the same place, getting to go out on dinner dates and to get coffee at the bookstore--without some of the more serious stresses. I don't know what it is--if not being constrained by the legality and formality of it makes it seem easier to love harder and more freely. Or if it's just the lingering "honeymoon" phase of seeing each other every day, as opposed to once every two weeks. Or if it's just that we finally feel pretty sure that we can, actually, do this. But, whatever it is, this in-between is somethings else. Something my grandmother doesn't understand, but something--simultaneously--that I'm not eager to let her take from us.

The in-between, mixed with the absolute good fortune of living in a city with college friends and working in a field that constantly exposes me to people of my general age, has also yielded a collection of friendships that is deeply satisfying. For the first time, Joey and I have real couple friends. Like, "Hey, we'll be inviting you to dinner when we move into the new house," couple friends who are actually married. Somehow, the in-between lets us bridge this gap, the one between married friends and single friends. We have things in common with both. In the same week, we could ostensibly go to dinner with a married couple one night, and then spend the next out in bars with our less-attached friends.

But I continue to be amazed with the amount of intimacy we can manufacture with this latter group--I am, as always, intrigued by what I have come to call the "post-crazy intimacy" of these friendships. I am enamored with the arm thrown casually above my head on the couch, when we're tipsy off liquor, debating the finer points of Lady Gaga and leaning into each other. I am taken with the the image of my clove cigarette in Charlie's mouth as he lights it for me, after I've failed miserably in the dual forces of the December wind and my own inexperience. There's the delight of knowing that someone knows how I pronounce the word "couch," of knowing how someone else pronounces the word "breakfast." Making Janet laugh until her face turns red and she cries. Getting drunk and hiding Rob's kitchen appliances--finding some way, any way, to relieve the disarming stress of a crazy week.

It's the hangups, the sudden pleasure of a slip of emotion you weren't expecting. The sudden frustration that you can only feel with the best of your friends, followed in a flash by something redeeming they do. Something that makes you smile and forget why you were grumpy in the first place.

Because Joey lives here, I am now closer to the people I intentionally guarded myself from. I am safer, less worried about what someone will think. If a boy falls asleep on my couch on a Saturday night, it doesn't matter. Let the neighbors be confused about two boys slipping out of my house, one at 4:45 AM and another at 5. I couldn't care less.

I'll just be asleep in my bed, hoping to avoid a hangover and not minding if I don't. Stuck--somewhat improbably--in the in-between yellows.