Archive for the 'Gruyere With That Wine' Category

Oy and Vey

June 11, 2008 | Filed under: Gruyere With That Wine, Inebriated prose

“There’s nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you.” ~Woody Hayes

When I went to bed last night I had already started writing the days events in my head. How would I make an already dramatic turn of events just that much more dramatic that it would make for excellent reading? Over the years my manufacturing of stories to make them a tad bit more interesting has grown by leaps and bounds. Surely not perfect of course but far better than the travesties of yore. Things I won’t even link to for I find them so cringe worthy and sucktastic. But Ok, I will show you but it isn’t pretty and it’s just so damn awful and painful, but here.

So as I laid down last night I was writing and rewriting each conversation and event of the day. Going backwards from my dramatic exit and a day where I consumed more Jack Daniel’s than actual food and the point where I announced that I would quit my job all the way through the start of the day with the deliciously fine firemen of Albany and the hot doctors in the ER. As one can surmise, a lot of shit went down yesterday. And now I’m still in bed at 8:30 AM with every intention of working from home (SPOILER: I did not quit my job. Are you high? It’s like free money) and watching the entirety of the third season of Weeds so that I am fully prepared by Monday.

There is a lesson in all of yesterday. Somewhere, deep down, behind all the anger and the animosity and the hangover. But for now that’s all I’ve got while I play catch up and try to find the perfect words.

Aim low

March 16, 2008 | Filed under: Gruyere With That Wine, Humdrum

“In minds crammed with thoughts, organs clogged with toxins, and bodies stiffened with neglect, there is just no space for anything else.” ~Alison Rose Levy

Each day my sinuses wake up temperamental and fickle. Their only goal is to cause torture somewhere on par with forcing me inside of Circus, Curcus for 19 hours surrounded by clowns. Because I find the act of breathing to be a chore, I’m limited in my vocabulary because after each word I try to inhale and find myself light headed since the oxygen has no way of getting to my brain. So I leave you with photos from both SXSW and St. Patrick’s Day this past weekend. I’m also reluctantly showing this photo just because I’m a generally cruel person who thinks that all people should suffer at least once in their lives. Your turn! View if your eyes can stand to be assaulted by such an onslaught of terrible images. Neither set is particularly exciting but neither is my constant internal debate of when it is time to invest in a neti pot.

Later this week I start boot camp and then my friend, El and I will be going on a photo adventure. I’m aiming really low with my hopes and dreams right now. I hope that the boot camp makes me a little less pool ball in shape and that the photo adventure will keep my pictures from looking like they were taken by a blind woman with webbed hands. My dream is to breathe without feeling pressure in my eardrums that causes my eyeballs to bulge out of their sockets. The latter will determine much of the course of this week.

The best I can hope for

December 20, 2007 | Filed under: Gruyere With That Wine, Mmhmm That's Right

“I always find it a little funny how things can seem so cruddy and then all of a sudden, they return to normal, or some variation of normal. It’s like we’re all set to some relative standard of balance, like a bobber in a lake. And we just bob, bob, bob our way back to okay no matter what.” - Jonniker

On Tuesday I was running ridiculously late to get to the airport. I had every intention of being up early and getting out the door on time and cleaning my bedroom floor but the road to hell is paved with good intentions so I did absolutely none of that. But I do have clean sheets so at least I’ve got that going for me.

Because of my absurd lateness and perpetual fear of missing a flight I didn’t clean off my car. I figured it was passable and went on my merry way. While driving, a police car passed me then promptly turned around to stop me because apparently it is illegal to drive around without being able to see anything out of the front of your car. Shocking. I was offered a ticket or the opportunity to clean off my windshield so that it wasn’t like driving in the dark without lights on. I obliged. When he came back to my car after running my license he asked my height and then asked my weight. I know that it is inadvisable to question a police officer even if they’re wrong as hell but I think I’d risk prison to avoid telling someone my weight, especially since I haven’t seen a scale since 1987. So, I asked why he would need such information and he gave me some bullshit excuse about filling out a ‘contact’ form to say he had had contact with me in lieu of giving me a ticket. I didn’t feel like waiting an extra 20 minutes for him to write out a ticket so I told him my weight and he looked at me as if I’d just informed him that since he was already here, he should also check for the heroin and dead body that I keep in my trunk. Kill two birds with one stone, I always say. He looked me up and down and said “Really??” in this high, you have my testicles in a vice, type pitch. Given that I had actually shaved off about 10 lbs I said “Uh, yes. Why?” then held my breath for him to laugh and call me a liar. He didn’t. Instead he looked me up and down again and said, “Wow, you don’t look it”. And then because the hood of my car was spectacularly clean and snow free, I asked him if he was in a rush or if we could do it on the hood of my car because he totally deserved it.

Needless to say this elated me. I’m taking my victories - however minor - as they come as of late. I’m generally easily pleased but the past two weeks have kicked my ass. I’m hesitant to give further details because it will come off as whining and well, I’m a HUGE asshole. It all boils down to this relentless tendency to think, analyze, talk, whinge, then rinse and repeat 17 times a day. It’s a classic case of questioning what I want and what I will do to get it. Basically, do I really deserve to be happy or am I destined to questioning my every decision. These are actually things that should be thought out over an extended period of time and hopefully without feeling like I’m at fault and yet I cannot help but think about every single scenario until I’m up at 3:30 AM because what if things don’t go as well as I need them to?

What an utterly stupid question. What if Susan’s roof caves in while I’m sleeping and crushes my torso and I can’t call for help and I die alone in Oklahoma? Seriously. If I ask all the what-ifs I am going to drive myself insane, which is exactly how things have been going for like four days straight. Now I’m tired. Ridiculously exhausted because I’ve worn myself out from all of the overuse of my brain only to come up with a conclusion that is so very easy. A conclusion that should be said very deliberately with a bit of reassuring petting: Things will be OK. I might be an asshole, I might completely fuck up, things will probably not be perfect (understatement of the decade, I know) but things always, always, always, end up OK. And for now that is the best that I could hope for. So I sleep. 

The Washingtonian

August 15, 2007 | Filed under: Comes And Goes, Gruyere With That Wine, The Great Moving Caper, This side of the Hudson

“Home is not where you live but where they understand you.”  ~Christian Morgenstern

A few weeks ago I had a few episodes of homesickness brought on by an episode of Meet the Press and then a mention of Restaurant Week. Then Amy probably mentioned Noah and the tears started to well. I was homesick. Ridiculously so at that. I started missing little things like the Sephora in Georgetown or my weekend routine of the gym, Trader Joe’s, coffee, a nap and then drinks. A routine that could almost be emulated here if I didn’t live with a woman who didn’t understand my obsession with Sauvignon Blanc and why I need to nap in the middle of the day.

I had a life and friends turned family that took six years to build and cherish and put up with my bullshit. I moved and new the lay of the land and could successfully drive from Maryland to Virginia without becoming suicidal. I was comfortable and when I’m comfortable, I become extremely averse to any sort of change or sudden movements. I wasn’t happy – because in general I am not a happy person – and things were nowhere near perfect. But I always knew that if something were to go terribly wrong I could walk to Kris’ apartment or that my best friends in the world were just a short metro ride away.

It was easy. Possibly too easy.

I moved because I needed the change and I felt it in my gut that it would be the right thing to do. So I had celebratory dinners and parties and cried then cried some more then ended up returning to DC literally five days after I left. A trend that continued for roughly two and half months to the point where I decided that I was sick of DC. So, I got a uhaul and packed up the remnants of my life there and transferred them all to my father’s garage, where they are now covered in a fine layer of dust. Yum.

I’m often uncomfortable with my decisions which could be attributed to age or the fact that I’m stubborn but even when I know deep down inside that it’s the right thing to do, I keep thinking I’m missing out on something. Some big event or party or whatever, I’m missing it because I decided to move 400 miles away. And so I cried.

It’s stupid, I know it is and it passed. But for a week, I felt like I couldn’t do ‘this’ – whatever ‘this’ is – anymore. Like I had to move back and get my life because I would never find that level of comfort anywhere else. I felt lost and like I had made some God awful mistake which can obviously be perpetuated when you move in WITH YOUR MOTHER. Goodbye, privacy!

For years when people asked me where I was from I would say Washington, DC. Because that’s where my life, bills and bed were. But Washington is such a bubble of people with a rather one track mind and a crackberry permanently attached to the hip and a grocery cart full of organic foods. I miss it. I miss it like hell even if it is a short plane ride and even though I’m contractually obligated to go down once a month, I still feel that little pang – like right now as I’m writing this all out – of missing happy hours around town or a quick trip to Whole Paycheck. So right now I’m in some purgatory: Enjoying weekends at the track and road trips to Massachusetts. Getting reacquainted with my parents, brother and high school friends. Shockingly enough, they do have wine here and bars and grocery stores that sell over priced organic food.

In the event that you were really wondering, so far, so good. But I might rethink all of this come Winter. Then I’ll just have to write a post with the words “PLEASE SEND BOOZE” and you’ll know right then and there that it’s an absolute emergency and that maybe Upstate NY wasn’t the best idea ever.

The business of travel

August 6, 2007 | Filed under: BlogHer, Gruyere With That Wine, Mmhmm That's Right

First off: Y’all are awesome and so willing to share. Thank you.

Second: Behold the powers of my laziness. I’m a cross-posting machine.

Third: Please read this. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you might piss your pants in front of several elected officials.

“Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live.” ~Margaret Fuller

At my former place of employment I did a lot of scheduling and booked a lot of travel. Sometimes to places that I wanted to visit like Jackson Hole or Italy and other times to less extravagant places like some random city in Ohio or the always exciting Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I would get jealous of course, when it came to the trips to Juneau or Florence because I’ve always wanted to travel to Juneau or Florence and wouldn’t it be glorious to get to do so for BUSINESS?? I wanted to travel for work. I was bored and restless and thought that some travel would do me good. Now would be an excellent time to become delirious with laughter because apparently when I had these thoughts I was either drunk or high. Or both.

A few weeks ago, I happened upon this post from Pink Lemonade Diva in regards to a quick business trip she had to take, while the soon to be Mr. PLD travels several times a month:

People who don’t travel for work think that traveling for work is alluring. I’m one of those people. We hear Jim’s stories about trips to Ireland, Holland, Puerto Rico, and think “how cool” without noticing that he’s not tan. He’s Diamond, Platinum, Preferred and I don’t know what else. He’s in a hotel rewards program for people who have stayed in the hotel at least 75 nights in one calendar year. That’s not alluring – that’s annoying

Because there was a time when business travel looked sexy and there was something about expensing a few nights at the Fairmont or a Kimpton property – with FREE bonus happy hours – would be wonderful. I would could write off meals in fantastic cities while earning bonus frequent flyer miles. Let it be known that I moved in May and since May I have managed to earn three Southwest travel awards, 12 drink coupons, and I keep all of my liquids in a 3oz container or less inside of a quart sized bag. I’ve learned the art of removing my belt and getting it back on once through security quickly enough to then get my shoes on without exposing my ass to those in Security line 3. I can pack 9 days worth of clothing in a carryon. I rock.

I love my job. I love my job more than anything and it’s the perfect job for a 20-something who is young and has drive and has no problem waking up in the middle of the night not knowing where exactly she is. I don’t have a family or any real responsibilities I only have to worry about myself thus business travel is easy for someone like me. Yet my youth still leaves much to be desired because I still get tired, weepy and cranky. I can’t handle 7 AM flights and my arm is starting to hurt from dragging that damn suitcase/computer bag around (P.S. Macbooks, while lovely aren’t exactly light) around and maybe one day, I’d like to actually unpack. I’ve heard good things about padded hangers and would love to be able to use mine.

After August 12 I get to spend two entire weeks at home. I might take a day trip or two. But will most likely catch up on sleeping in my own bed, where I know that Dateline won’t be able to find anything mysterious with a black light. All I’m saying is that for two blissful weeks I get to be at home. I’ll make good use of my gym membership and God willing, I’ll actually unpack because there’s something about having to step over a rather large suitcase every time I want to go from one side of my room to the other. The other day it was my big toe versus a stray high heel. Guess which won.