Archive for August, 2005

Jam It

August 21, 2005 | Filed under: La Madre

“All you gotta do is jump”-Aladdin

He doesn’t know that I think that doing the dishes and putting away laundry are a complete waste of a perfectly good day that could be used for golfing. He’ll probably look at me funny when I consume four (count ‘em four) cans of diet code red, because I’m anxious. He won’t allow me to drink an entire bottle of wine by myself, but he will make me share. I will no longer walk around naked. I couldn’t do it in front of Kimber so how would I be able to do so in front of him?

He will make me go out and I won’t be able to lie about all the things I just have to get done, but I’m really just watching SVU. He’ll know and ask where I am going, and I’ve actually learned to accept that that is ok. I am not sure if he’ll be more or less protective than he already is; “Remember that if this white republican is bad to you, it’s onward, upward and to the left”. He’ll check out guys that I even attempt to date.

He’ll be lazy with me on sundays because saturdays we’ll have both been out and drunk. I secretly love that he wears, polo, pops his color and is enamored by Nantucket, but still likes to hear “wait till you see my oh…”

I’ve lived in this studio for two and half years. Six months with a roomate and for four months it had to be sublet, but it’s still mine. It’s been a constant and what I’ve always gone back to alone, and I’ve loved that. Two weeks from now, this studio will no longer be mine and Jam will be my new, ‘for better or worse roomie’. The last time I lived with someone it was Maria Teresa and Victor. She cooked and cleaned for me, I could understand her, but couldn’t form a sentence in spanish to save my life. She knew that I loved tortilla though and knew that I hated when she ironed my pajamas and did everything for me, yet she did it anyway. I figure Jam knows english, so it can’t be much worse than that.

There’s a part of me nervous about losing my freedom and that I won’t get to just lay around and write and read and just be me. The other part of me thinks about how quickly we became friends and that we will remain that way and that his need for a roommate and my need for housing was fate. This is a pretty big step for me, moving away from an area that I’ve made my life in for the past four years. I’ll need a new dry cleaner, grocery store (apparently no one on the Hill goes to Bethesda), nail place, and restaurants.

I’m sitting here smiling because I know that this is all part of that whole growing up thing that I’ve been trying to avoid, but here it comes in all of its glory.

But here’s a secret; I think I might be ready for it.

Temporomandibular

August 20, 2005 | Filed under: La Madre

Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it, poor creatures that we are! ~Charles Dickens

Temporomandibular disorders (TMD) occur as a result of problems with the jaw, jaw joint and surrounding facial muscles that control chewing and moving the jaw.Possible causes include: Stress, which can cause a person to tighten facial and jaw muscles or clench the teeth

The temporomandibular disorder was first noticed during the last few days in Madrid. Waking up with headaches every morning, I thought it was the food finally getting to me-all those eggs, fries, and the wine. I returned from Madrid on a Friday and graduated that same weekend on Sunday. By Monday I had called my “contacts” about job opportunities and on Tuesday a former boss died of a brain tumor. I was also getting headaches every morning.

“You’re grinding your teeth again”

Last year and I can no longer remember why, I had been grinding my teeth to the point where it was painful to open my mouth. My dentist said it was stress and prescribed advil and a cold washcloth on my jaw. What the hell was I worried about?
I’ve always had more than I ever needed and gotten whatever I have wanted and yet I am more neurotic and get more stressed out than anyone I know.

“That’s such a neurotic disease”, proceeded my laughter from Elizabeth.

Stress from graduating, going home after four months away. I had literally run out of money, to which my mother gave me Suze Orman’s book and told me to be more careful. I was unemployed and I needed to find a cheaper place to live. My father had been in the hospital for months and one my former bosses had died. I felt I had a reason to be stressed.

Change is huge and just comes at you. Yes there are warnings but no matter how you prepare yourself the change comes at you like a Hummer, and you’re standing there in the middle of Ward Circle waiting for it to hit you. It’s scary. I had spent four months in a place that I dreaded going to in the first place with people that I thought hated me for the longest time. That Hummer comes at you, and thankfully swerves, you survive it. That’s what change is and most of the time you get through it unharmed.

Graduation came and went, through the haze of jet lag. I found a job within six weeks, which I’ve heard is pretty good, especially for a senior who had been out of the country for four months prior. I found a new apartment My father will be ok. And my APR has gone down. My jaw still aches so I’ll need to get my first dental appliance.

But I’m still relatively unharmed.

In Vino Veritas

August 19, 2005 | Filed under: La Madre

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. “Pooh!” he whispered. “Yes, Piglet?” “Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw. “I just wanted to be sure of you.” ~A.A. Milne

There are caveats to every facet of life. Nothing is really black and white. Four years isn’t a long period of time and yet it is. As humans and emotional beings we learn from one another and four years is long enough to learn and change and perhaps learn some more. In four years you and your roommate, neighbor or acquaintance can grow into one another. We learn each others habits and respective caveats.

I love that we put up walls not solely to keep people out but to see who will tear them down.
I do it all of the time. It doesn’t make me bitchy but human and proves that I am a little scared, then again, aren’t we all?

Two and a half years ago, I disappeared for a weekend. I didn’t go far, just to the apartment I had recently leased, just a block away from school. I left and told no one and when I returned later that weekend my friends shunned me. Yes they were angry, but also hurt and scared. “Did you have friends before that didn’t care where you were?” I will never forget Liz asking me that and how badly I felt about myself and the way I was around others.

Relationships of any sort are hard to bear and are based on trust. Who can you trust to tear down those walls that will inevitably be put up? Who will always be there no matter what time or what day? Does it matter that this person or these people have only been around for four years or even two years?

Elementary school through the end of middle school make me cry and embarrassed just to think about them. Maybe one day I can elaborate, because even after two years of psychotherapy, I still cannot. The point is that by high school I had to put up these walls. Not just the regular brick kind, but brick with barbwire at the top. I kept this up all through high school, because I was afraid that I would never have close friends; because I was afraid that the ‘friends’ I had weren’t real and that they would just disappear and I would be left alone-trapped inside of my walls.

I have these discussions with Kim, where she’s literally inside of my head. I think about something possibly five hours beforehand and later, when I mention to her “what do you think about this?” she can tell me exactly what I had been thinking. It’s quite scary actually. I want friends like Kim and Liz, and thanks to God I have them, because if not, those two years of therapy would not be enough.

I put up walls when I’m scared which is more often than not, I will finally admit. There are people that in less than four years have learned to tear down the walls and save me from me.

Caught in the Rain and Other Stories

August 18, 2005 | Filed under: La Madre

Every survival kit should include a sense of humor. ~Author Unknown

DC weather come late July-early August can best be summed up as hell. It’s not the same as that southwest/Vegas dry heat, where it’s a scorcher during the day but by evening it cools off. No. This is heat advisory, 100+ degrees, 75% humidity kind of weather. I remember my first summer in DC, four years ago, when you would come in from trekking around the monuments, shower, and then you’d feel the need to shower again, because you are soaking wet. I ran across the street one day to catch my bus and looked as if I had run 10 miles.

You wait everyday for the heat and humidity to dissipate so that maybe once you can step outside without becoming drenched in sweat. I must tell you, that the sweat covered look, is just what I’m going for. There’s no point to make up, don’t even attempt it. And everyday, the weatherman says that “This heat and humidity should let up. There will be scattered thunderstorms later today”. I bring my raincoat or umbrella everyday. The rains never came.

I have fears-we know this. I’m new to work and my biggest fear isn’t fucking up (ok that’s a lie) or showing up with my fly unzipped, it’s getting rained on, soaking wet, wearing a white shirt and having nothing to change in to.

One day last week, I once again made sure that I had my umbrella. I left the office and the sky had become gray, but had been that way for hours without a single drop. I left for the bank, just a few blocks away. My next stop would be subway and a block away I feel the first drop. For the record I was wearing black ankle pants, my mom’s new Birkenstocks, and a white button down Polo shirt. I keep walking, gradually increasing speed.

“If I make it back to work, I can get my umbrella and then go back out to subway.”

More drops fall. I start to run. “If I make it to subway at least I’ll be inside”

It then starts to pour and I take cover under a tree. Around the corner from subway and three blocks from my office. What the hell do I do now? I have no cell, no blackberry, I’m under a tree, which will only work for about 15 minutes. I arrive at the tree and find a coworker, who also is sans umbrella and in a see through top. We hang out for a bit, she blackberries my supervisor, who replies with a laugh.

The rain gets harder. I mean the type of rain where people on I-95 will stop driving, because frankly windshield wipers don’t work. The tree, doesn’t help and my co-worker has the idea to make a run for it to an awning about 10 feet away.

Drenched. Saturated. Sodden. Whatever, that was me, in my white shirt, ‘natural’ hair and my mom’s new shoes. Grrrrrrrrreat.
Thankfully, I was met with laughs and assistance when I got back to the office and given a shirt to wear, that broadcasted my political affiliation.

This morning poor Liz was pooped on by a bird on her way to work. This occurred as she was running for and missing every bus between Dupont and Georgetown.

We’re young, these are our first jobs. Showing up to work wet and wearing see through and/or having been pooped on, isn’t exactly the look we’re going for.

I can laugh about the rain now. Liz is still trying to get bird poop off her skirt. Maybe one day I’ll be able to tell you about the day I got stuck in a metro in front of my coworker, after getting drunk at dinner…but there’s still time.

Red Diva

August 17, 2005 | Filed under: La Madre

“The glow of inspiration warms us; it is a holy rapture.” -Publius Ovidius

Mondays are horrid, my pick me up is reading the Sunday New York Times Style section. In the July 24th edition is where I first discovered the Red Diva. Under the title of “Dear Reader, I dated him” was a piece on a Manhattanite who blogs, writes, and gets NBC sitcoms about being single and almost 30 living in Manhattan. Now where have we seen this before? Sex and the City perhaps a la Candace Bushnell. I readily admit that I was never a huge Sex and the City fan. HBO was only seen in my home, when they were running a promo month to try and get more subscribers. Upon entering college, the one draw was HBO. Sunday nights, girls gathered in dorm rooms throughout campus to watch Carrie Bradshaw and her friends Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha (along with Big and Aiden of course) live and learn in Manhattan. It was good, I suppose, something to watch. SATC ended almost two years ago and since then there has been a flux of writers and shows about being single in your 20’s, living in Manhattan.

I’m a terrible New Yorker, I don’t ‘do’ Manhattan, except for an occassional visit. But I’ve digressed.

Here I was reading about the Red Diva and little did I know, how hooked I would (inevitably) become. I clicked on the link to her blog-I was a blog virgin at the time. She had been keeping her blog since January of 2004. I tore through every entry from January 04 to August 05. There wasn’t a day that I didn’t read her. It was like I was compelled to read her and know more. It wasn’t the subject matter-single in Manhattan is pretty passe. It was her writing. It was that she could make lists over and over again (my favorite pastime). It was that I could read her and get goosebumps .

One sunday night after a glass of shiraz, I got up the nerve to write her:
(an excerpt from my journal written to her)
I’ve been reading more Stephanie Klein. I don’t read her because Iwant to live vicariously through her-gallivanting through Manhattanand shopping on the Upper East Side. I read her because she’sinspirational and because something inside of me compels me to do so.That girl can write and I get the privilege of reading her. I read Greek Tragedy the way I read Middlesex and East of Eden-I devour it.And my heartaches while reading it, because I know that if I continueto read it at warp speed it will be over before I know it. I’ll thenbe stuck with these memories and quotes in my head; the funniest andmost inspirational bits used as away messages or in my AIM profile. Ihate books that do this to me-make me sad when the end comes. I am sojealous of authors who can write so well as to bring me to my kneesand thank God for literature. If I could I would spend my life inBarnes and Noble reading all day. Steinbeck, Euginedes, Salinger andnow Klein. All of these people-brilliant artists, get to do what I’vealways wanted to do.

She even wrote me back:
Heather, you just made me cry. I read a lot of email.. I just got toyours now. My hair is wet from the shower, dripping in runnels, andI’m watching HELLO DOLLY, laughing until I snort. Thank you for youremail… it’s one I’ll save. Thank you so much. Some days I feellike a wretched writer, others great. On the wretched days, I’ll hit the archived mail. Thank you, once again.Very much.

It was the highlight of my day.

Red Diva, who is actually the infamous Stephanie Klein that I’ve mentioned, oh just a few times, has inspired me and kicked my ass into gear. Many people really can’t stand her. Her writing, her book deals, her t.v. shows, her narcissism etc. But I dig her. My only suggestion to her would that she will hopefully move away from the “chicklit” and into a good novel, that has nothing to do with single life and/or Manhattan. I know she has it in her.