Floored

You know me ... Queen of Cynicism.  Surprised by nothing.  So much never surprised that I would hate to disappoint everyone by admitting that sometimes, I am.

Naw. I'll admit it.  Tonight I got floored.

Just home from Rooftop Thursday with the Michigan folks, chilling on the patio with a bag of popcorn and the Gmail account, and up shows an erstwhile boy who, in April and May, I chatted with enough to matter.  The classic he's-10-years-younger-but-we-have-so-much-in-common type.

(Yes. Mock if you will.)

 We had two Almost Dates.  May was the last failed attempt and we hadn't talked since.

Erstwhile Boy: Hi
K:  Hey there.
EB:  How ya been? Find love yet?
K:  Oh, of course. You?
EB:  No
K:  Come on. It's super easy.
EB:  Nah... Not what I want
K:  Come on. Get a sense of humor
EB: Every girl wants an all or nothing relationship
K:   If I could find love you probably wouldn't be talking to me.  Why so blue?
EB:  Just stressed I think.  When it rains it pours.. I'm tired

Please go back and imprint in your head the dialogue you just read. Reserve it.

K:  What makes you say hi tonight?  It's been awhile.
EB:  I saw you in and I'm hardly ever on.  Trying to quit the Internet
K:  Noble.  Are you in school this summer?
EB:  I think about u often ....  Daydreaming mostly

Our chat pace was slow. About this time I recalled that he also wrote a blog, one pertaining to a major hobby ... and for which the blog is a major catalyst.  The name is unusual enough that I re-found it quickly and started browsing as I simultaneously wrote him about my trip to Europe. He was explaining some of his summer pursuits.

Funny, this, because I was reading about these same pursuits on his blog as he was writing them.  Was also reading a couple of phrases that seemed to be of relative import:

".... while on my honeymoon ..."

".... including my wife ...."

One entry pictured him kissing a woman, and the surrounding text suggested this would be the same said-wife, recently married.  Rather explains why we hadn't talked since May.

Meanwhile, back on Gmail, I had just finished a tale of Europe.

EB: Haha.  Very cool.  I still hope we can get together at some point

Here is me. Thinking maybe I should ask his wife if she would mind if we got together at some point.  Or ask if he remembered he had given me his blog address.

Instead:

K:  Perhaps.   I'm sure you are quite otherwise occupied.
EB:  I'm pretty busy yes... But.. I still want to get together... Perhaps have some excitement in our lives

Really, really almost said something.  Realized I was too tired to play the devil.  Realized my job was not to fix this man,  but to just not talk to him any more.

K:   Hey, alright, I'm gonna bail.  I'm on the patio and it's cold
EB:   Wish I was there to warm you up

And people wonder sometimes how I could possibly be cynical about dating.  Bald-faced duplicity is just a total hoot. 

Just joking

About 9:30 last night, I returned from my 6-mile run to find a voicemail from my father, voice gravelly:

"Um, Karin? Call me back tonight, please.  I'll be up late."

Implied death and doom, so I called back within seconds.  Turns out all was well.  But he had read my blog yesterday ... and was worried.

(Cue *sigh*.  We stayed on the line the 40 minutes I walked home, pushing my bike.  Thanks Dad.  Good to talk to you too.)

But, then, this space was entirely too serious yesterday.  I thought the visual of me balancing on one foot trying to look like a Grecian warrior with poker face would potentially amuse.

Anyone know a good joke?

Work still busy today. Taking a break to write here more than this is not in my best interest.  But in service of lightening the mood, I have to again spout my love of my Pandora station that started with Iron & Wine's Such Great Heights .... to which I added Ben Folds and Phoenix and (of course) Sufjan and The Shins .... and which in return has been introducing me to lots of gooey smart-ass goodness, like tracks from Beatles' Abbey Road and Feist and Contra's Vampire Weekend and Tom Waits and most importantly, Cake.

Thank you, Cake.  You made yesterday's work day entirely more palatable.  Is it possible  "Love You Madly" has existed for 9 years and I've never known these lyrics or sang them to anyone?  (Even though I've surely thought them? Have not we all?)

I don't want to wonder
If this is a blunder
I don't want to worry whether
We're gonna stay together
'Till we die

I don't want to jump in
Unless this music's thumping
All the dishes rattle in the cupboards
When the elephants arrive

I don't want to fake it
I just want to make it
The ornaments look pretty
But they're pulling down the branches
Of the Tree

I don't want to think about it
I don't want to talk about it
When I kiss your lips
I want to sink down to the bottom
Of the sea

I don't want to hold back
I don't want to slip down
I don't want to think back to the one thing that I know I
Should have done

I don't want to doubt you
Know everything about you
I don't want to sit across the table from you
Wishing I could run

I want to love you madly
I want to love you now
I want to love you madly, way
I want to love you, love you
Love you madly

Seriously. And they sound so damn chipper saying it.

(Serious chair dancing resulted.)

To top this, I went to YouTube this morning to find a video -- and it is simply footage from an episode of The Frugal Gourmet, pitting the band's then-drummer against the trumpeter, complete with celebrity guest judges (the late) Rick James and Phyllis Diller, and (the late) Jeff Smith.

Phyllis F#$%ing Diller, in a red-feather boa.

Good times.  Enjoy.

Faith, fearlessness

Yesterday at work was ... a day.

The kind where you're doing your job the best you know how, all is well. 

Then at 4:30 something (out of your control, you might add) goes off-kilter, so someone in position of power who likes to yell decides to yell at you and demand action, so in frustration you make snide remarks across the file cabinet at the marketing rep, who gives it back as good as (if not better than) you, and by the time everyone chills it is 5:30 and the folks at Schwab have gone home and can't solve the problem anyway, and you're going to have to deal with it in the morning because you were the one who got yelled at in the first place.

I love waking up knowing the first thing I must do is solve the issue I didn't solve yesterday. It made me not want to get out of bed. In fact, I lay there an extra 15 minutes, praying for patience.
(Really. That's exactly what I prayed for. Perhaps God listens to whiners, because I eventually pried myself off the mattress.)

It was only as I stood in the shower, staring at the tile with deadened eyes, that the revelation came:

I'm decent at my job.  I've solved 100,000 problems while at it.  I must have faith that I will also solve this one. Neither my co-workers nor my clients need to see my fear.

(There's this great pose in yoga called Natarajasana, or dancer's pose, where you grab the foot of your back leg with one hand and lean forward so your back foot arches up over your head, while you thrust your front hand forward with fingers stretched.   In the class I currently take, the teacher works us into this pose and, as we're balancing and leaning, murmurs in a way that makes you want to giggle and lose it, "Natarajasana ... the pose of fearlessness!" Although I don't lose it.)

Well, that thought got me out of the shower, anyway.  It did also get me into the kitchen to make coffee.  And onto my bike alongside the dozens of UPS vans and MBTA buses heading full-speed into the Back Bay on East Berkeley .... another balancing act that requires some fearlessness.

And I realized I had that, too.

Let's see how these two qualities get me through this day.

Cynic, avowed (maybe)

Tom Waits came on my Pandora mix a half-hour ago.

Didn't recognize it as Waits at all. Not at all the signature basso growl (usually described as "soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hang to dry in the smokehouse for a couple months, and then taken outside and run over by a car").  But indeed, here it is again, onYoutube, attributed to both his body and his body of work, first recorded the year I was born. 

"Well I hope that I don't fall in love with you
'Cause falling in love just makes me blue,
Well the music plays
and you display your heart for me to see,
I had a beer and now I hear you calling out for me
And I hope that I don't fall in love with you.

Well the room is crowded, there's people everywhere
And I wonder, should I offer you a chair?
Well if you sit down with this old clown,
take that frown and break it,
Before the evening's gone away,
I think that we could make it,
And I hope that I don't fall in love with you.

Now the night does funny things inside a man
These old tomcat feelings you don't understand
I turn around and look at you, you light a cigarette
Wish I had the guts to bum one, but we've never met
And I hope that I don't fall in love with you.

I can see that you are lonesome just like me,
and it being late, you'd like some some company,
Well I've had two, I look at you, and you look back at me,
The guy you're with has up and split,
the chair next to you's free,
And I hope that you don't fall in love with me.

Now it's closing time, the music's fading out
Last call for drinks, I'll have another stout.
Turn around to look at you, you're nowhere to be found,
I search the place for your lost face, guess I'll have another round
And I think that I just fell in love with you."

I do want to be a big softie on these lyrics.  Especially with the broken-chord acoustic backdrop, crying out for sentimentality.

Yet it must be my mood today.  Cynicism in pure form.  Thinking instead:

Yeah right, beer doesn't solve anything. Especially 2 beers.  Image of man as tomcat? Hardly sexy. (Although that might explain why the woman doesn't understand.)  Late-night loneliness? Dangerous.  Unproductive.

And women in bars who frown do not get picked up.  This I know.

(Ah.  Sweet Mondays!)

Long Run #3: Generally content

Can't complain about rising early on a Saturday when the weather is so damn 65-and-partly sunny-and-calm-and-dry fine.

Not griping, either, about the view of the harbor islands and the bay from 3 miles of Wollaston Beach in such conditions.  (Might I also recommend the Lower Neponset River Trail?  Or the quad-busting climb up Adams Street in Milton, if big fat hills are your thing.)

Can't even complain about my knees that generally ached for days after last week's too-long trek through Wellesley ... because they didn't ache today.  Nor about my lack of consistency in comparison: I ran .15 miles more (11.58) in 1 extra minute (1:53) in hillier conditions for an almost identical pace.

Soldier on. Still slow, but as for the training groove starting to jell?  Amen.

To top it, the reward breakfast was sincerely the bomb. Although I would expect nothing less of the Wheelhouse Diner.  Check out this dumptruck-sized portion of home fries (taken from the even larger stockpile at the back of Doug's grill.)

Awesome.  Let's do it again next week.

Tired

I gave up going on a date tonight, to sleep.  I hope to be sleeping very soon.

This is partly to have energy to run 13 miles through Quincy early tomorrow morning.  Partly because all this week, I have not slept as I should, and the accumulated lack is towering over my ability to articulate, to work well with others, to desire others.

Last night I hung with my dear friend (the Professor) and the Thursday Michiganites near Harvard Square, roofing it until late, then biked the 6 miles home well after midnight and inhaled a bag of peanut butter M&Ms upon my return, to recover.

But the other nights were no excuse. No late gym visits.  No late meetings.  No desperate projects to finish. No scintillating chats ... with HBI .... with anyone.

(I tell the truth on that last one, ye non-believers.)

No.   I just didn't want to go to bed.  I wanted to websurf and eat almonds and listen to jazz on WGBH and empty the dishwasher.  Then it would kinda sorta be about 1:45 a.m. And I'd open a can of Fresca and recline on top of the bed, invite the cats to join, and do a reading run through last week's New Yorker, usually with help from a frozen fudge bar.

In writing this tonight I almost Googled "purposely staying up on weeknights" and "needing to sleep early on a Friday night" and "unresolved personal issues and / or relative lack of life direction" to see if perhaps some therapist had a website for treating not inability, but unwillingness to sleep, and they could tell me how to get my act together.

I almost feel like a petulant child, here.  Being bad for myself.  For no reason.

Why I'm doing this?  Worth exploring.  Stay tuned ... after I get some sleep.

Dateline 8/4/10: My table

He:  up from the Garden State. 

She: over from the Back Bay.

90 degrees.

(And almost that much humid.)

4.25 miles run, 38 minutes, 8:50 pace.

Stop at the

Southie Stop-n-Shop.

Find filet of sockeye.

Air-conditioned apartment. 

Agneta's 2000-calorie salmon recipe

(heavy cream, parmesan)

totally earned, no?

(Counter with light

via Chenin Blanc.)

No need to shower

or

lose the sweaty clothes

or

stop checking e-mail

when

dinner is with an old friend

at

9:36 on a Wednesday night.

Good times.

Thwack (upside the head, that is)

Gave myself one last night as my chat with HBI, for the 3rd time in 3 days, acquired Harried Married Conversational Tone. 

HBI:  Sorry about earlier
K:  Yes, you were a bit short.
HBI:   I had to look some stuff up quick, and then get to the post office.
K:  Yup.  It's fine.  You should just not list yourself as available to chat. Then I wouldn't ask.

On g-mail, HBI frequently shows the green light of "I'm here." Frequently he is not.  Or not wanting to be, responding to "hello!" in a tone of, "um, not really."  Such as he had that afternoon. We had left things awkwardly.

HBI:  I prefer the mystery.
K:  Well then you're not allowed to be short.
HBI:  People are going to have to take what they can get.
K:  Sigh. Yes, I know. Because you're so wonderful ... we must suffer for your attention ...

.... say I, joking.  Perhaps a ;-) would have helped here.

HBI:  Sure don't. No one has to do anything. But if they desire my attention, beggers cannot be choosers.

He might have put a ;-) here.  Obviously not so moved.

K:  Noble.   And it's beggars.  Anyway.  Did you make it to the post office?
HBI:  No.
K:  Ah.  So that's why you're crabby.
HBI:  Yes, because I missed the post office.
K:  Well, I can only guess.
HBI:  Well, I'm not crabby.
K:  Gotcha.  Me neither.

I was crabby, in that way where the crabbiness feeds on itself and inflates.  He was .... something.   Distracted?   Disengaged?  We went on like this for a half-hour, enough to inspire serious teeth-grinding.

Then.  Thwack!  The realization I should have slapped myself with a week ago:  You're conversing with a man

a) you've never met
b) who is not moving back to Boston
c) who is being a modified ass right now and
d) who is seriously out of game or
e) not even bothering to fake it.

Why stay up? Why chat? Why waste good aggravation?

K:  Seriously. Question here:  Should I bother checking in with you again?  You seem entirely less than interested.
HBI.  yes.   heh, you are mistaken
K:   It's hard to tell.

Grand pause.

K:  Just let me know then.  You hit me up when you're in the mood to talk next time.
HBI:  There's no reason to get excited.  I am just on vacation, with friends, and have a lot of things going on at once, all the time. So sometimes I am distracted or short. But it has nothing to do with you.  I am just busy. I try to talk to you as frequently as I can.
K:  I understand that.  I'm not excited.
K:  But I also have other things going on and if you have nothing to say - or are distracted or short - then just tell me you don't feel like talking so I can go do those other things.  That's all.
HBI:  Well, if I was on, and didn't say anything at all you would tell me that I am "being quiet"

Five minutes.  During which I laid my forehead on the table and just stayed there.

K:   That has only ever been a joke as a way of greeting.
HBI:  It's fine.

I couldn't think of a response.  So I went off to Facebook to play Scrabble.

It's possible HBI tells the truth that he's not mad,  is really only distracted, is perhaps truly interested in me. Or at least interested in a couple dates.

But at the moment, Scrabble is more fun.

Post #601: Walking

A pretty morning in Boston.

Decided to forego the zippiness of a bike commute.  Walked instead. 

(Even though I am kind of a zippy walker.)

In riding the 9 to work, I pretty much only notice how slow we roll and hear only the rumbling motor. When driving, I can only impatiently focus on the impatience of pedestrians who show no doubt as to their entitlement.  When biking, it's all about watching for potholes and avoiding death.

When walking, I find myself just listening and seeing.  Listening, mostly this morning, to motors -- of leaf blowers and electric hammers and (yes, you can't escape) buses accelerating through intersections. 

And walking up Berkeley, about to turn at Stuart Street, I saw a woman carrying a bookbag printed with this:

Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History *

Which of course made me wonder why, as I am so poorly behaved with my late nights and cereal cravings and weakness of engaging online with college boys and their lousy come-ons ...  I am not more famous.

Although, maybe if I just go on with my bad self ** I will be?

* From Harvard historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, winner of the Pulitizer Prize.  Whose husband I sang with in a choral group, not knowing of  her prominence. 

** Happy 600-blogpost milestone to me, BTW. 

Long Run #2: An Event

So Philly on November 20 will be my first marathon in several in which I'll be training myself, not depending on the planning and support of Children's Hospital Boston.

This means getting to sleep at a decent hour most nights. (Um, yeah ... )  Not eating with the appetite of a professional football player, therefore gaining weight and exacerbating knee and ankle joint stress. (Um, yeah again ... ) Running on days I'm supposed to without someone telling me I must. (Wow.  Hmmm ... )

You know me by now: motivating myself to a larger goal requires bells and whistles.  No different in the case of Long Runs .... the essential weekly jaunt that starts at 6 miles on Week 1, grows longer by 2-mile increments, and works up to 21 miles by Week 15, just in time to get ready for race day.  An essential psychological and physical component in marathoning.  Unwise to get behind on.

When training for Boston the past 2 years, Children's coaches made these runs Events, each at 8 a.m. on Saturdays. And damn, that requirement worked for me.  Even in the black cold of January, or after a 60-hour workweek, or when my IBT cried torture .... I got up at 6:30 on Saturday and made a cup of coffee, ate a bowl of oatmeal, drove to Newton, and was cranking out 15 or 18 miles as the sun came up.

So my motivational conceit this training season is to do the same:  make each Long Run an "Event."  And henceforth,  an Event will contain going to contain the following:

1.  It will be Saturday morning, if at all possible. It will never be Sunday.

2.  It will be mapped out ahead of time.

3.  It will never be in the same place twice.  

4.  It will start and end at some awesome food locale, which I will patronize after successful completion.

Yesterday was Long Run #2, but Week #1 of Long Run as Event.  And .... despite setbacks like oversleeping and burning the coffee (yes!) and not leaving the house until 10, then zoning the Route 16 exit off 128 and being forced to backtrack around a traffic jam on Route 9 which means the run didn't originate until 11:15, then mapping out 2.5 extra miles by accident and choosing as "awesome food locale" a bakery without eggs or sandwiches or one bit of greasy diner goodness ....

Not a total failure.  

Completed just under 11.5 in slow but serviceable 9:30 pace.  Scenery included the rich and rolling hills of a rich and rolling suburb.  Sun hot, breeze cool.  Knees: behaved.  Carrying a water bottle in lieu of water stops, not a deal-breaker.  Lack of conversation or music replaced with looping internal monologue on frustrating men in my life:  as usual, rewarding.

And despite lack of eggs and sausage, Quebrada Baking Co. (just off the Wellesley Hills Commuter Rail Stop) did make up for it with a killer blueberry scone.  Which I ate as I drove over to Nantasket Beach for the afternoon.

So Long Run #3 next Saturday:  12 miles .... along Wollaston Beach and around through the Milton Hills. The Wheelhouse Diner in Quincy as motivation.  Full report to follow.

(And, incidentally, I'm taking suggestions for future runs or future diners.  Do share.)