Scarfing

So I was looking down and assessing today's outfit:

Sleeveless knee-length dress of a fabric covered in navy blue circles

Grey, cropped cardigan sweater

Black Mary Jane pumps

Rust, brown & cream-colored scarf, natch.

I'm not trying to denigrate my sense of style, but rather to point out that it is November and therefore the opening of scarf season. You know, when you walk in from outside and take off your coat, hat and gloves .... but leave the scarf on. Whether it goes with your clothes or not. Ideal for someone like me who frequently hangs in drafty church basements for rehearsals and meetings, or in 52-story office towers that take awhile to efficiently change the HVAC over from AC to heat in transition weather.

I like the one I've got on, because its made of soft, oft-washed yarn and is skinny enough to wrap around several times and a) not have its tails catch in the wheels of my chair; or b) intrude up over my chin.

This scarf has origin of some interest -- an impromptu gift during a date some time ago with a match.com man I called The Editor, at Davio's on a frigid Sunday night. Recalled thusly last summer:

"Perhaps the most polite gentleman alive. Recently relocated from New Jersey, edits reading curriculum textbooks. We made 2 dates in January---both Sunday nights at swanky Davio's for wine and pizza, both three-hour conversations on politics, family, our jobs. There was minimal spark, but it was agreeable talk. During the course of Date #2 the temperature outside dropped 30 degrees and I shivered as we prepared to leave. The Editor took off his lengthy multi-colored scarf and handed it over:

"My mother has made me a dozen of these. Use it. Keep it."

The Editor's bad luck was timing. Those of you in the single world know: dating success comes in waves and droughts. I was under a tsunami.

The same day as Date #1, I had met Another Man in the flesh....who could not have been more different... with whom there was noticeable romantic spark. We e-mailed every day between my dates with The Editor. The same day as Date #2, I had spent the afternoon flirting over lunch and coffee with Another Man. I really wanted to date Another Man.

So after several unsuccessful attempts to get him in person, I broke things off with The Editor via e-mail. He responded, again, with utmost politeness. He rebuffed my offer to return his scarf. "

It's less about remembering The Editor with any great fondness than evaluating that incident of choices. When faced, I took spark instead of the gentility, and where did it get me? Another Man and I eventually crashed and burned and he left without a trace. But I still have the scarf of the man I ditched. It's a favorite possession.

I don't even really know why it feels symbolic. Or what it would symbolize. Why does it seem like it should?

Need for Speed(o) III: Abs of Evil.

Musical ramping up. Work ramping up. And despite the complete lack of a love life, it's been a hectic couple of weeks in Karin-land.

In the manner of an exercise addict, I have not forgotten the inevitable Speedo & Sports Bra & Bare Stomach & Bare Thighs look that I have committed to on Saturday, Dec. 12. Which means that despite the work chaos and rehearsal chaos and never, ever having a free evening between now and Thanksgiving, you'd better believe I am still making sure I get to the gym during the day. Even if a nap would be preferred.

So on Monday I ran 3.75 miles on my lunch hour. No sweat. (Literally, no sweat. It was cold out.)

On Tuesday, noticing that despite the run my midsection drooped gelatinously in a post-Halloween-candy way, I forewent cardio and instead attended this class at the gym:

Body Defined Strength training class that may feature a variety of equipment including free weights, bands or Body Bars. Balance work may also be included in the class. Instructor: Jakki.

On my gym's website, Jakki's bio states that she enjoys challenging participants with a safe but intense workout. "My favorite part of teaching isn’t the music or the exercises, it’s the smile I see when people leave class feeling better about themselves and more confident to take on a new challenge…maybe another class!”

What Jakki's bio didn't say: "I like to stride around the room when you're on the 13th minute of the 15-minute non-stop abdominal workout and shout out, 'I know what I'm asking you to do is evil. Who thinks I'm evil?! I don't hear you! Who thinks I'm evil! You will thank me later! You will!"

I have a propensity to eat candy and full loaves of Iggy's Cranberry Pecan Rolls in one sitting. And full boxes of Kashi Go Lean. It's possible there are parts of me that are not as firm as they could be.

Nonetheless, I consider myself to be relatively in-shape. (You know. That marathon and yoga thing, etc.)

Folks, if I'm going to make a habit of Body Defined, "relatively" will not cut it. After my Tuesday time with Jakki, the muscles of my torso hurt so badly two days later I cannot, literally, stand up straight, and the inner-thigh ache causes me to walk bow-legged as if I'm squeezing an exercise ball between my knees.

The overall effect is that I look and feel like a pecking hen. An old pecking hen, at that. Still deciding if I'll feel like smiling, if I'll feel more confident about myself, and if I feel like I ever want to take on a new challenge, ever again.

Onward! (she whispers)

Damn Yankees

You'd think a man of a certain age would not cancel a date in order to stay in and watch the World Series with his roommate.

Especially when the Red Sox aren't even in it.

Evidently I have met the one who would.

**Update, 11:27 pm: the comments this post inspired via the link on universal hub today are more amusing than the post itself and offer lots of helpful advice. I'm honored.

(And, btw, Pedro got knocked out in the fourth. Just saying.)

Deep Thought: Clean out the Nightstand

Today's math!

(brought to you by pragmatism)

In 12 days, my parents are visiting.

They are staying for 4 nights.

For the first time in 4 years.

(In 4 years I've had a lot of dates.)

With the money I have spent on iced black eyes at Starbucks, Dunkin' and the Diesel Cafe since Labor Day, had I not spent it, I could afford to treat my parents to the comforts of a hotel.

Alas.

So my parents are coming, and we will share my 1-bedroom apartment. I am sleeping on the sofa. They will sleep in my bedroom. With the litter box. And the contents of my nightstand.

Sometime in the next 12 days I need to clean out the contents of my nightstand.

(Please don't let me forget.)

Diesel diary

Welcome to another Sunday night, sports fans, when we're on hour 3 of 6 of Karin's weekly post-rehearsal shift at Diesel Cafe in Davis Square, bonding with the laptop over busy work:

Iced (you'd better believe it!) Decaf Americano and peanut butter cookie? Check.

College-aged couple next to me, deep in symbiosis with a "Transport Modeling for Environmental Engineers and Scientists" textbook? Check.

College-aged lanky male youth behind me, in zipper-front sweater with cappuccino, lounging on a couch, pontificating about Wes Anderson movies loudly enough for entire cafe clientele, perhaps to impress his pretty young date, also with cappuccino, who to her credit is giving him encouraging glances? Check.

(There are about 20 more such couples around me. It is Tufts-land up here, after all.)

Checklist of tasks I came here with the supposed fortitude to complete that is not getting completed because I'm weary and my coffee is decaf and already gone and I would instead rather check Facebook every 7 minutes or be distracted by the most excellent Salon Sex column (today: "How Not to Make Love Like a Porn Star") or go onto OKC and see if the guy (37, actually single, a socially-conscious writer whose "most private thing I’m willing to admit here" is that he "walked away from a fight in the fourth grade, and missed my chance to be in the popular crowd") who I favorited on Friday will re-view my profile a third time, and generally acting like a procrastinating college student when, damn damn damn, I should be more responsible and stop leaning on these endless run-on sentences to fill out blog entries and instead finish my list of church council and music director and parents-are-coming-to-visit-in-2-weeks-and-I-must-find-a-B&B-in-Vermont duties so I can go grocery shopping and make chicken and lentil soup and fold the laundry and still get to bed by midnight so that I can stay rested and on-task this week, much unlike last week's meltdown, and because wow, I am getting way sick of Wes Anderson-pontificating college student's pontificating and it's already after 9....

Check.

Grateful

Wow.

This week kicked me in the ass.

You've probably had a week like it. You know, when you've been maintaining your edge of uprightness and balance trying to fulfill the daily list of desires and responsibilities. And you've maintained for a while. And all at once, your body, mind, sanity don't want to work so hard any more.

Enough.

Suddenly, late for every rehearsal. Crabby for every rehearsal. More crabby at friends who have the audacity to be cheerful. Sick and at the doctor's office buying antibiotics for preventable infections. Late paying bills. Late for work. Wearing unbearable clothes combinations. Losing $7M clients. Aggravating the marketing staff via bad attitude. Sending an e-mail with a typo to the wrong person, triggering a 30-email chaos chain to clear it up. Not sleeping, of course.

Today, luckily, brought turnaround. I don't know why; it's not as if I slept enough last night or I feel any more relaxed. But it IS Friday. Maybe that's all it takes sometimes, to get to 5 p.m. on the final work day and be able to view the weekend with some hope.

Or. Maybe it was at about 4:30, actually, as I attached quarterly reports and letters to e-mails and checked off the sent ones, when my favorite music radio station (WERS 88.9 FM), brought one of my favorite singer/songwriters (Ellis Paul) into their Tremont Street studio as part of their fall fundraising drive (Live Music Week) and let him wail on the Steinway and sing, and then talk about how much he liked to wail on that Steinway and sing, and how grateful he was that WERS kept asking him back to do so.

See, tomorrow at 1 p.m. .... I, too, get to wail on that same f*#&ing Steinway in the Tremont Street studio while the cast of my show does the singing. See, we were invited, just like Ellis, as part of Live Music Week, in our case to perform numbers from "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" for WERS' weekend musical theater show "Standing Room Only." (Hint: WERS streams live online. You can listen if you want.)

How grateful am I for that? Like Ellis, to want to play and be able to play and be allowed to play and to perform on the radio with my friends.

Gratefulness must breed hope, eh?

Thank God. I think it has redeemed my week

Caption Contest

When I got to church choir last night, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the absurdity of my outfit. Each piece in and of itself was acceptable for a cold & rainy night. It was the sheer combination of styles & materials & colors, plus the rain-soaked hairdo, that defied rational explanation.

I asked my friend Mitch to take a picture to prove it.

Contenders for potential captions:

1) Purple paisley & green plaid & brown stripes & periwinkle nylon .... who knew?

2) What all the fashionable finance girls are wearing this fall.

3) Having trouble finding a boyfriend, eh? With that sense of style? Bollocks!

Feel free to add your own.

Early holiday

Late-night rehearsal plus bacterial infection that inhibited serious sleep plus early-morning doctor visit plus a pile'o paperwork that threatens to topple plus noting that the most recent OKC inbox message was from a 54-y-old and we've all already been-there-done-that, I think this morning is better served by the image of a toddler in dragon-drag with fire-breathing toes.

Henry -- 14 months

This Week's Sign that The Apocalypse is Upon Us

Perhaps .... that I unexpectedly and entirely whole-heartedly cried this morning when leaving my final physical therapy appointment with Ian?

Either I'm taking this supposed autumnal loneliness factor too seriously or I'm just really, really, really already nostalgic for those 6 months of weekly hip massages and manual groin stretches.

**with props to old school Sports Illustrated.

The need to need

About 4:30 on Saturday my good friend B treated me (thank you very much) to Thai Basil on Newbury, where we downed a couple beers and he ordered the crispy duck and I the pad thai, and I told him I just might be going out on Date #2 with Friday-night man, and B rolled his eyes and told me to not stay up all night again (since I had, naturally, shared with him details of Date #1) because I had to be fresh for the concert we were both in on Sunday afternoon....

... and one would think I should listen to B because he's become very sage since having a girlfriend and he thinks all I do is date (ha!) and he furthermore doesn't think many of these dates have been very good for me and then insinuated, because it's October and the seasons are changing and it's a time that people might become more lonely than usual and crave companionship more than usual, that just perhaps that was the reason I was going out on Date #2 even though I had already commented that I wasn't sure of the long-term potential of this situation, and that maybe it would be better if I just went home and got some sleep instead.

I must have had the need to need someone because I didn't listen to B, but did instead go out Date #2 with my younger man who needed more time to freshen up when I arrived to get him so we missed the early movie and and only as we were walking in at 9 p.m. did he mention he was starving so we instead went to get him supper and then hit the 10:15 show, which meant that by the time we walked back across the Boston Common in a downpour sharing one umbrella and I dropped him off and re-parked the car and ate my leftover pad thai and climbed into my bed it was 2 a.m. and I'd have to confess that it was not a bad date but was rather just an OK date and, because I haven't yet decided if my need was worth the resulting fatigue I'll now know for the rest of this week, I'd furthermore admit that B, as usual, was probably on to something.