blog love

This is the second edition of handing out blog love here at everything in between. I enjoy the blogs I read for lots of different reasons, and so every so often I plan on highlighting some of the blogs I read so that people who read this blog might be motivated to check some more out. Every few posts or so I am going to pull some blogs from my blogroll to highlight. I certainly have been the recipient of  a ton of blog love in the 2 years (almost exactly) that I’ve been blogging - it’s my turn to hand out some love.

Today I’m veering away from bloggers I know in real life, leaving that list for completion another day (it doesn’t help that more and more people I know are blogging, and so the list can no longer be broken into two easy parts the way I originally envisioned!). Today, I’m going to discuss five of the bloggers who I read when I first started blogging, and whose talent and encouragement made me want to blog, too.

1. Litlove, Tales from the Reading Room - Remember the day you first met your spouse? Or your best friend? I remember the day I first “met” litlove. Well, okay, not specifically, but it was around this time two years ago and I didn’t have a blog yet beyond messing around on the inhospitable yahoo site. I was reading some site for work…what WAS that site? I don’t even remember. I think it was a microsoft or an apple blogger, some computer company guy. Anyway, I was reading the comments in response to his post and there was a message from litlove. I have no memory of what she posted but I clicked on her link because, come on, Tales from the reading room? Who WOULDN’T click on her site? I think the first post I read of hers was a beautiful review of a Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories. I checked the book out from the library, read it, loved it, and have been reaping the benefits of Litlove’s compassion, intelligence, and generosity ever since. Atkinson is just one of many authors I’ve discovered since reading Litlove’s blog, but my favorite discovery from her site so far is Sally Vickers.

2. After discovering litlove’s blog I got the hang of reading and commenting and found myself drawn almost immediately to the incomparable bloglily’s site. Her site, I think, has probably grown the most out of the ones I read. Like litlove, bloglily has a generosity of spirit and a compassion, tempered by ferocious wit, that I love. It’s particularly exciting right now to read her blog as she is in the process of revising her novel for her agent, working on another novel, and sending her short stories out into the world. And, also like litlove, she is a working mom who inspires in me the possibility of my own future.

3. Well, after litlove and bloglily this process gets a little messy since that’s about the time I started this blog and I suddenly found a thousand blogs I wanted to read on a regular basis so y’all are just going to have to bear with me since I’m only writing about five today, but trust it was many, many more than that that kept me around, blogging. So, thirdly, Emily. You know, people can bitch and moan all they want about blogging and how it’s taking over better, more thoughtful mediums but I will have none of it because without blogging I would have never met Emily, and then I wouldn’t have known there is this marvelous, brilliant writer out there in the world who shares my thoughts on all manners of things, from rock and roll to martinis to exercise to unprocessed foods…we have had, in Emily’s words, eerie parallel lives and I am so, so grateful every time she posts. I honestly can’t imagine anyone not reading her blog - if you aren’t you should begin, immediately.

4. I’m going out on a limb here and guessing I started reading Charlotte’s blog around that same time as well. Well, I’m more than sure that’s about the time I discovered her excellent blog, but whether she comes before or after anybody else I have no idea. ANYWAY. Charlotte’s blog is a beautiful amalgamation of posts on reading, writing, her children, her husband, South African, cooking, Germany - she seems to me one of the most joyful bloggers I know, and she always manages to strike the perfect balance in her posts, with humor and grace.  She and I seem to be, at least from our fess up friday posts, about the same place in our novel writing and I love knowing she’s across an ocean working on her book while I am  as well.

5. And finally, today, Make Tea Not War. I just popped over to make sure I had the link correct and she noted it’s the fifth anniversary of her blog - thank goodness for that! She writes that she feels a tiny bit of guilt that she rarely brings her best game to blogging but goodness, so few of us do! My blog is basically a receptacle of essay ideas I’d like to pursue someday, with some memes thrown in for good measure. Anyway, I sense in Ms. Make Tea a kindred spirit, someone with whom I could have a couple of gin and tonics, listen to some Warren Zevon and talk long into the night. Visiting her blog is like visiting a friend and I, for one, am thankful for the tone she manages to strike.

You know, my dad teases me about blogging  - he tells me it’s just so much navel-gazing and I’m part of the whole myspace/facebook generation where everything is about me and nothing is about the world at large but I think, if he took a moment (which he never ever will, ever) to read any of the above blogs, he would recognize the space for what it can do when some of the very best writers, writers with huge hearts and minds overflowing with ideas, can do when they sit down to a blank wordpress or typepad page, and share some of what’s going on in their hearts and minds. I have absolutely no patience for the critics who extemporize on the value or lack thereof in blogging because, like all such mediums, there are those who will abuse it, but it’s also a venue to connect like-minded individual and it makes the world a little less lonely. I, for one, am grateful.

 

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I originally intended to post this review on the ecojustice blog but Emily, Stefanie, and Mandarine have all recently posted beautiful, insightful posts over there so instead I urge you to go read their posts - I will write there in a few days on a different topic.

Anyhoo.

I’ve really struggled with how to write this review, and I think that is because, like all good nonfiction, reading it made me think not just about the material on the page but the larger implications of my lifestyle. I’ve couched this review a hundred different ways in my head and never settled on one satisfactorily enough to sit down and actually write it. I still haven’t, but I’m going to have stab at it anyway. Here it goes.

I am not a “foodie,” but I spend the majority of my Saturdays in Pittsburgh’s strip district, shopping at the local farmers’ market and then the local Italian, Greek and Mexican shops. You will never see me in a William Sonoma, arguing over the various quality of Kitchen Aid mixers or asparagus peelers, and you certainly won’t see me hovering over my kitchen sink, groaning as I stuff my face with fresh strawberries and swearing I will never, ever buy non-seasonal strawberries again! Don’t get me wrong - I never will buy non-seasonal strawberries again, but not because I am so obsessed with the food itself…I won’t do it because I believe buying locally, from farmers, and buying seasonally, is the right thing to do, for the environment, for the economy, for my community, and for our health. And I also believe those of us willing to make the sacrifice, to skip the big grocery stories and plan meals around the seasons and buy organic, local meat make up a fairly small contingent in this country.

How can I put this differently? Okay, let’s try this: I believe buying locally grown food, and walking as much as possible instead of driving, and carrying clothe grocery bags instead of plastic, and recycling everything possible, and having a job that is in service to something, and using energy efficient light bulbs, and watching our water consumption…I believe all of that is incredibly important. I believe my health, and the health of S., is important. Beyond that, I believe the health of my community, my family, Americans, the world - is important. But I also believe only some of us have the financial wherewithal and ability to make the effort to do what is right. I can afford to spend my time pondering what to do with my fresh asparagus because both S. and I have lucrative jobs, health insurance and the ability to argue early each Saturday morning, between the luxury of sleeping in, and the luxury of buying food - whatever food we want - from wherever we want, regardless. Most people don’t have this choice.

I finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle feeling obligated to do more for the world I am so blessed to inhabit, and also overwhelmed with how do do this. Regardless of the easy tips Steven Hopp provides the reader so you, too, can enjoy tomatoes grown by grit and God’s love, Kingsolver could do what she did because, let’s face it, she works from home and has the time to commit a year of her life to growing her own food. When I first finished the book I had to squash the compulsion to immediately start container gardening and learning how to can. One thing at a time, I told myself. It’s enough, this year, to learn to eat mostly locally.

Oh, damnit. I’m really not returning to the text, am I? I’m all reaction, no analyzing. Let me just say this - Kingsolver’s book is stellar. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in food and/or the environment. Her passages about when she’s cooking she can feel her female ancestors around her make me want to run out and buy the ingredients to make chicken and dumplings, if only to return the smell of my grandmother’s kitchen to me for a couple of hours. She made me feel okay about how much I love to cook (even though I don’t like the food network), and sometimes I do feel self-conscious about my love for my kitchen (even though I don’t own anything special, utensil-wise), and preparing meals. She taught me how to properly cook vegetables, and provided a wonderful recipe for strawberry/rhubarb crumble, which I made and took to a cookout recently. Kingsolver has long been one of my favorite writers and being welcomed into her house and kitchen, as she does in this book, was a wonderful reading treat. But she also stressed me out a bit, as well. No high fructose corn syrup, ever? It’s all fine and good not eating candy bars or cola, but WHAT ABOUT TONIC WATER?  Could I go a whole summer without the tang of a vodka tonic hitting the back of my throat, all because a system I don’t fully understand screwed up farming in American and now corn is a commodity? Let me tell you, I’ve already had several.  And packing a cooler full of fresh, local foods for road trips? The only time I allow myself to eat McDonald’s is on road trips….maybe three times a year? But oh, how I love it then!  A balance must be struck.

Here is what we are doing, in our little household of two, for now. We are waking up early on Saturday mornings and supporting local farmers and local shop owners.  The only meat we eat is hormone and antiobiotic free, and mostly local. We do not keep junk or snack foods in the house, and moreover, with the food crisis currently happening, we do not waste food if we can at all help it. The all-natural hot dogs I bought for S. that he hates will be grilled up and cut into baked beans, for and we will dine like children.  Rotten bananas will always be turned into banana muffins. But, for the time being, at least, we will eat in local restaurants without questioning where the food comes from, and when friends have us over we will gratefully share whatever they prepare for us.  When we head up to the cabin in September, we will eat cheeseburgers.  But we will keep trying, and trying, and trying - this whole eating thing - my - it has grown so tricky.

Hmm. What an odd-ball review. I’d meant to do better by one of my favorite writers. I think I’m still muddling through what I’ve learned. But I have managed to complete the first challenge from the ecojustice challenge….I read one book on the topic, and we are easily eating more than two meals a week locally. I can’t wait for next quarter!

Oh, and the part that stressed me out a bit, from the book? Bananas! Do I really have to give them up?

 

Handing out some blog love

Every so often someone gives me a shout-out for my blog - linking to a post she found particularly insightful, recommending it as a favorite blog, things like that. I am always so incredibly flattered when it happens, and I always promise to do my version of Charlotte’s Web or Litlove’s Best New Writing on the Web or one of Emily’s compilations and then I never, ever do.

That time has passed, my friends - that time has passed.  Within the blogging community and even outside of it, it is sort of agreed that we all read blogs, and write them, because the medium fills such a unique niche - the writing is often better than that found in traditional magazines, and unlike magazines there are few advertisements. Readers can choose blogs by category, so if one wants to read about food, marathon training, motherhood, cancer  - it’s all available with the click of a mouse.  I just read in the NYTimes recently that one in ten people have a blog - so it’s obviously filling some sort of greater societal need besides just naval gazing.

Anyway, I enjoy the blogs I read for lots of different reasons, and so I thought I would start every so often highlighting some of the blogs I read so that people who read this blog might be motivated to check some more out.  I imagine these posts will change over time, but for now I am going to begin by discussing the different blogs on my “blogroll” - why I read them, and why you might want to as well.

Today’s edition brings you Bloggers I Know in Real Life, and Why you Might like them, Too:

1. First up - I would like to introduce my friend E.’s new blog: Bless This DIY Mess - E. and I went to graduate school together, both for nonfiction writing. Not only is she a great friend, the kind of friend you can call with tickets to West Side Story and even though she is in the throes of Wicked Pittsburgh Spring Virus, she will dope herself up with Dayquil, put on a skirt, and join you, she is an amazing writer and I am so happy to she has decided to blog, so I can again read her excellent writing. Her blog centers around the adventure she and her husband have taken on - they recently purchased a large, gorgeous home in Pittsburgh which needs to be remodeled essentially from start to finish. Her blog talks about this, her marriage, her family and I think if you like reading about me and S. and my thoughts on marriage you are going to fall just in love with her blog.

2. K. was a member of the 4th Street Writing Group I belonged to in Detroit - she still is, actually. K. is a gifted writer and designer, and her blog is very in-betweeny, like mine - lots of ruminations about different things, from an infatuation with Beverly Hills, 90210 (and don’t think I won’t be posting in the supposed ‘new’ version - I totally will be) to carrot cake and all it’s glory to writer’s block - so check out BlackCash.

3. Another K., another member of the 4th Street Writing Group - K. is one of the most amazing fiction writers I’ve had the pleasure to read and it is truly only a matter of time (and submitting, K!) before she sells her novel, I just know it. K. can always be counted on to read a draft and someone know exactly what works and what doesn’t.  Her blog deals primarily with reading, writing and the inherent struggles with both - Creative Fallout.

4 Yet another K., and there is still one more to go. This is ridiculousness on a whole other level - even worse than the fact all of my sister-in-laws have names that begin with M. Anyway - K. is the best person I know. She just is. That’s all I’m going to tell you about her blog, so if you are interested in reading the blog written by the very best person I know, go check her out.

5. And another K., and my final in the list for today although I’m actually, surprisingly, not anywhere near done with bloggers I know in real life and so I will pick this theme up again at a later date. I’ve known THIS K. since high school, and dated him briefly before I left for college.  Our relationship didn’t last but our friendship certainly did. K. is one of those rare people who knew as soon as he could talk he wanted to be a writer, and has since dedicated his life to doing just that. He has more dedication than anyone I’ve ever met and if publishing happens for anyone, it really should be him. To read his writing, go here.

Okay, that’s my bloggy love for today…if you are on my blogroll you can expect to find yourself featured here in the coming weeks, and if you aren’t on my blogroll but you link to me, as always, let me know. Stay tuned tomorrow for Fess Up Friday.

 

Trying to be a domestic goddess

Progress on becoming a domestic goddess this weekend to be updated throughout Sunday:

Currently listening: Juno soundtrack

Last weekend, S. and his friend Patrick moved the contents of our Michigan condominium across Ohio and into our Pittsburgh apartment and then left again and ever since I have been living with the realization that while the things we own fit perfectly into our condo they absolutely do not fit into our smaller, lacking-a-garage- or-extra-bedroom apartment. Before his leave-taking, I promised S. in a foolish fit of adoration that I would make this place home for him by the time he returned, and ever since I have been both regretting and revising that statement on an hourly basis, that is, when I am not on realtor.com torturing myself with homes for sale. I could not tell you how many loads of dishes I have done, or how many times I have tried to rearrange our things to fit, but quite simply it’s not working.  To top this all off, as S. left he wistfully said “I can’t wait to move here for good, I miss your cooking.” I tried not to faint as he drove away as I recalled a mere three months ago I did, indeed, cook, and let me say here and now I will never ever again tease my single girlfriends for their cereal dinners because of all the chores to effortlessly slip away, cooking and preparing food was certainly the easy  to let  go of.   Here is a picture of my single-woman fridge:

Ahem. Okay. While I was gone, apparently the only way I know to post a photograph has been “upgraded.” Shoot. It seems I’m finally going to have to join flickr or photo bucket. Since time is short and I have to empty all of my shoes out of S.’s closet, I will catalogue the contents of my fridge:

yogurt - vanilla truffle, french vanilla, and vanilla maple. I have a vanilla problem.

cheese - all sorts. I love cheese, but only eat a bit at a time. Sorts include goat, monterey jack, vermont cheddar and parmesan

cool whip

And that’s it. That’s what I had, as of this week. So today, I donned on my comfort jeans and by hole-riddled black sweater, threw my hair up in a french braid/bun thing I do, made an actual grocery list, and went to Whole Foods (and, people, I TRIED the Farmers Market first. Do you know what my farmers market had? Jam and lemonade. We’ll give it a go again next week). I returned one hundred plus dollars poorer, laden with Things S. Eats: bacon, sausage, eggs, salami, bread, milk, bok choy, kale, ice cream, granola, cream, chicken, jalepeno peppers, grainy mustard, cashews and potato chips and I sort of have to admit, I wonder why I haven’t been feeding myself the way I always so determinedly feed my husband?

Anyway, I’m in the middle of a mess here, people - during my three months here, no matter how much I adore my husband, it never really occurred to me to make ROOM for his return. The fridge is full, and I’ve made the bed up with fresh sheets, and begun the laborious process of clearing out a closet for him, but I think I am going to have to be at the stove frying up a wide variety of the salted cured meats, naked except for high heels, with a double bourbon waiting for him, in order for him to overlook the absolutely sluttish habits I’ve adopted as a single woman, beginning with never ever washing a pair of nylons and just continuously buying more, moving towards using empty cases of beer to store my books, concluding with considering an egg, a spoonful of cool whip and two glasses of wine a totally balanced dinner, and a few other quirks thrown in for good measure.

Okay. So here is what I’ve accomplished for today - and it’s ALL that will be accomplished as I have theater tickets and really, I’m not going to cancel seeing “West Side Story” to clean -

1. Grocery shopped

2. All laundry/dry cleaning

3. PIcked up bedroom;made bed fresh

4. Read blogroll

5. Napped

6. Considered baking rhubarb - no, lemon - no, rhubarb pie for S.’s return but decided to buy ice cream instead.

7. Ate some ice cream

8. Bought rum for S.

9. Unpacked all of kitchen

Things I’ve decided won’t happen until S. is home:

Hung things on walls

Taken boxes to storage unit

Things I would like to fit in this weekend as well:

Go to church

Workout

Work on novel

Read Sunday papers

Okay - the goal for tomorrow is to return here with an update on my progress. Project Domestic Goddess is in full swing…

 

Dispatches from my bed

This post will be continuously updated throughout the weekend…

11:00 am, Saturday morning - the commitment I’ve made to myself to not do anything if it can’t be done on my bed is much more difficult than I imagined. Things that I have thought about doing since I woke up: go to farmers market, pay bills, unpack *just a little bit,* go buy a new belt and blouse, walk to festival down the street for music and fresh flowers, go to yoga. The thing is, though, my body is tired and needs to balance. It needs to NOT run around town this weekend. I have a terrible time listening to what my body needs, what my mind needs, and in the last several years I’ve found myself fitting in things I enjoy as though they are chores. I didn’t make this kind of life change - I didn’t move us across Ohio and into a city - to maintain the same kind of approach to life I had in Michigan. So, here I sit, in my pajamas on Saturday morning, having just finished a yogurt, and I find myself wondering, what is it, right now, I want to do? And I think - I think - I want to throw on a cozy sweatshirt, put in the Herbie Hancock cd I purchased, and read Heart Shaped Box until I no longer feel like reading. Also, I feel like catching up on some blog reading. So, I’m going to start there.

2:49, Saturday - Well, I am almost done with Joe Hill’s novel! I am thoroughly enjoying it - just what I needed to pull out of a reading slump while remaining prone on my bed. Right now I am carefully eating some lemongrass soup. I had a BAD reaction to something I ate yesterday, which I think was more powerful because I’m still recovering from this sinus/virus/mystery bug. Everyone I know who has had it swears it takes several weeks to get rid of, and it seems two drinks and a heavy dinner were too much for my system. It’s strange, isn’t it, how frail our bodies are, sometimes? Okay, back to my book. Currently listening: Into the Wild soundtrack - all Eddie Vedder all the time…

6:03 pm, Saturday - I finished Heart Shaped Box - great book! My dad read it recently too and he asked if I thought Hill’s query looked like this :Hi. I’m Stephen King’s son. While I was reading it was easy to get into the whole “I’m staying on my bed all weekend” plan but now I’m getting a little stressed - there’s so much I’m not doing - bills and laundry top the list right now. I’d better transition to the next thing, but there’s a strong possibility I’m not going to last all weekend…Currently listening: Take the Weather with You, Jimmy Buffett. I don’t get into the whole hula skirt/margarita drinking craziness of him and don’t need to see him in concert, but he’s a GREAT lyricist.

8:30 pm, Saturday - There is nothing on television. Didn’t there used to be things on television? Hmm. Day one on the bed is drawing to a close. My neighbor is hosting a dinner outside on our porch, which also happens to be outside my bedroom window. I just heard her say “I’m not the same old Jen from a year ago. I was crazy then. Now, I’ve conquered some demons, and I’m settled down.” I have a sneaking suspicion I will get off the bed tomorrow. This has been real, but in the end I simply have too much energy for a repeat, I think. Perhaps I’ll try for a couple of hours, tomorrow, on the bed….the goal, really, is for balance, yes? And I haven’t had balance in a long, long time. Today was a great start, but I think two days is asking  a bit much, from a personality such as myself…

 

Mark Persons, I love you!

Okay, so this ALSO doesn’t fit in with my blog posting schedule (and again, feel free to scroll down for more typical everythinginbetweeness, and saturday I will comment on all posts to date), but first-time poster Mark Persons sent me this link today on my Bert/Ernie/Obama/Clinton comparison and I can’t stop laughing. Mark Persons, whoever you may be, THANK YOU!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mwTCzjE-3TM

 

Thirty one and done

It is 9:00 pm here. I just got off the phone with M. - she just received a fellowship for her graduate program. Congrats, M! She will be - everywhere - this summer - tearing up the whole entire world. I am at once glad for her and relieved it’s not me because, and this I’ve just discovered, I am tired. S.’s graduation was last weekend - and it was a wonderful event, with friends, family, food and so much love. This week he moves our stuff down, only to immediately turn around and return to work for a few days before heading north to our cabin for some relaxation before finally, finally coming home. I woke up two days before S.’s graduation with a sinus infection taking over the left side of my face, and in the antibiotic laden days since I’m also suspecting a bit of a virus as well. My parents worry the stress of the transition caused my illness but I work in a hospital and I know sometimes an infection is just an infection, nothing more - nothing less, and this is what this happens to be. That said, I have decided, after S. leaves Saturday morning and I go to the farmers market, I am putting myself on a weekend of bed rest. If it can’t be done on my bed, it quite simply won’t be done. To my bed I will take dvds, books, my computer, and my photo albums, and my cell phone, and from my bed I will watch movies and read and blog and put photos away and catch up on calls but I will not leave it other than to eat for the weekend.

You know, S. and I have been together for ten years, married for eight. In that time, there are precisely nine months where one or the other of us or both have not been in school. Nine months out of ten years. That’s…well, quite frankly, I’m speechless on our behalf. That’s insane.

We had a catch phrase when we first decided to spend our lives together - that catch phrase is the title of this post. By calculating the degrees we both hoped to get, we figured by the time we turned thirty-one, we could complete all of our schooling. And by God, we did. Thirty-one  and done. We toasted to our catch phrase often, last weekend.

Hmm. Obama is just about to give his North Carolina acceptance speech…Indiana still too close to call. He is such a freaking rock star. He’s the only candidate with enough cajones to point out the ridiculousness of a gas tax holiday.  He has managed to maintain his dignity despite the ludicrousness of the whole Reverend Wright spectacle (and by the way, if people thought I stood for everything my minister has said over the years I would be in for a world of hurt) - we must be close, yes? To his nomination?

Anyway. I’m not sure what the point of this post really is - you know, I wrote so many gorgeous posts about S. and his graduation and our lives to this point and what might happen next, but they were all in my head. Instead, tonight, as I come to these keys, I feel mostly a great relaxation washing over me, as though I can really take deep breaths. I feel a mellowing - like there will be time, soon - time to write, to blog, to spend with friends and family. Time to just be.

The guiding catch phrase of our first decade together has been rendered moot - between us, we have two undergraduate degrees, an M.F.A., an M.T.S. and a Juris Doctor. We’ve talked about what will guide us for the next ten years, and we are pretty sure it is the acceptance of mess and chaos - we are quite sure our thirties won’t happen in nearly as orderly manner as our twenties did. We are both such first children, so concerned with retirement accounts and healthcare and education - that accepting a messier decade scares us in some ways. But in so many others - so many others - it feels wonderful. We may not have such a strict road map for our next ten years, but in them I suspect there will finally be time - to take a vacation in the autumn, or lose hours in good books, or even just take a weekend to sit on the bed and breath.

I expect my next post will come to you live from my bedroom (hmm - that sounds so much racier than it actually is) because what I am requesting of the upcoming years, in fact, what I insist on giving myself, is a healthier respect for the hours that make up my life, and using them not only to for work (both public and private) but for restoration, relaxation, pondering and play. Thirty one and done was certainly a remarkable decade, but it is time to move a bit less methodically, with a bit more wonder, and a lot more care.

Goodbye, thirty-one and done. You served us well.

 

The airplane ovation

The most interesting things happen at airports and on airplanes. Maybe this is why while the very thought of packing and preparing for a trip throws me into brief fits of ugly hysteria, I immediately grow calm once my bags are checked and I am free to wonder the airport. Airports, frankly, are a writer’s paradise.

I’m something of a connoisseur of American airports at this point in my life. My favorite airport is still Pittsburgh International. The new airport in Detroit is fine as well, and I love Atlanta’s airport. My judgment on San Diego’s airport? It sucks. Before you think I spent too much time judging San Diego (which truly, I did enjoy incredibly), I’d like to point out that this verdict is also supported by Thomas, A Business Man from Savannah, GA.  I found myself sitting next to Thomas on Tuesday evening at the small bar near my gate after a fruitless attempt to find anywhere to enjoy an actual sit-down meal. He was drinking a beer, I a vodka tonic. I don’t remember what we started talking about first but he was very kind and I enjoyed our casual conversation. I remember he works for a credit card company and hates all of the travel because it keeps him away from his wife and young children. About mid-way through my drink, he looked at me and said “You know, there is absolutely no where to get a good meal in this airport.”

“I know!” I said. I myself was slightly dazed from wondering from McDonalds to the yogurt shop and back again, blinking and wishing for an actual restaurant with a menu I could hold in my hand. While I had wonderful meals  in San Diego I hadn’t really had time to, as my grandma called it, dine, with a glass of wine and different meal components, like salad and bread and dessert, and while I love tacos and fried scallop plates, S. and I make a regular habit of dining and I had missed it. I was looking forward to, if not a good meal at the airport, at least the experience of dining.

“Even in the airport I last connected in, there was a Chilis.” Thomas said. “It wasn’t great but you could get a steak. I just really wanted a steak.” He looked so forlorn my heart actually hurt for him because, you know, I get it. You are away from your family, your home - even your office takes on a sheen of nostalgia when you’ve been gone too long. And let’s face it, sometimes food IS comfort, and to be forced, as Thomas and I were, to order “roasted turkey sandwiches” which were pulled from a cooler and came with accompanying mustard packets, well - it sort of hurts your soul, a bit.

Later, when I boarded the plane, I found myself in the same row as the largest man I’ve seen on a plane, and the smallest. The largest man was heading out on a business trip - the smallest was a cancer researcher returning to Columbia University. It was a chatty plane of people, and the plane fairly hummed with the buzzing of it. The cancer researcher and I spent some time discussing the conference, but somewhere between takeoff and drink service concern flitted across his features.

“I forgot my movie earphones in the hotel!” He said. “I paid for them and I got to watch Chris Rock all the way here, and now I don’t have them!”

I didn’t really know what to say. I thought about offering him my ipod earphones but I had already offered up my aisle seat to the largest man I’ve ever seen and I really didn’t think I could fall asleep without Bob Dylan, since I am nothing if not a creature of habit and like the Starbuck’s lemon poundcake and cappuccino I always eat when traveling, Bob Dylan is who sings me to sleep on planes. I couldn’t bring myself to give him up.

“They are just two dollars.” I said. “You could get another pair.”

“No, no. This is just terrible. I already paid for a pair. Already I am missing Hillary on Conan! Now I can’t watch the movie!”

“Here,”said the largest man. “You can have my earphones. I brought earplugs and I’ve taken a valium so I’m not going to need them.”

There was much “are you sure-ing” and “thank-you-ing” and but in the end the cancer researcher took the earphones and I swear I have never seen anyone enjoy any film as much as he enjoyed “The Water Horse.”

And so.  The airline I was flying has apparently decided there is nothing like a bunch of captive passengers, and decided to pitch its own credit card to us. Attendants walked up and down the aisle with credit card applications trying to convince us to fill out forms. The particular attendant for our area was particular aggressive and told us he had five kids to support and he could win a plasma screen television with only five more applications. I was mentally rolling my eyeballs when this kid next to me muttered, not quite under his breath, Get fucked.

Something about it - I don’t know - made me laugh out loud. He smiled at me and said, I’m sorry, but this guy is an asshole.

“Right?” I said (a response which warrants in own post soon). The guy was an asshole.

“This is the last thing we need,” he said, gesturing towards, apparently, the whole rest of the plane. “I’m already pissed off about how cold it is in Maryland.”  Some of his friends turned around and nodded their agreement.

“We got used to California weather,” another one said.

“I read somewhere that in Baltimore, on the first day of spring, all the boat owners burn their socks in order to celebrate the beginning of boat season,” I said.

“All of their socks, or just one pair?” Asked my neighbor, frowning.

“Just one pair, I think. You know, because then they can wear boat shoes without socks…”

“Makes sense,” said one of the kids ahead of me. “But we won’t be there too long anyway. We are headed for parachute school.”

And that’s when your intrepid writer finally noticed. The boy next to her. The boys ahead of her - and they were boys, reader. And row after row after row ahead of them - at least three out of every five people on the plane  had the tell-tale buzz cut and wore fatigues. And their energy, their bantering, is what kept a normally sleepy flight buzzing.

“All of you are going to parachute school?” asked the cancer researcher.

“No,” said my neighbor, gesturing to the small group around us. “Just us. We’re the badass motherfuckers of this plane!” Again, he said it so exuberantly it was impossible to be offended. Everyone was going to special training. We were on a plane full of troops on their way to three months of special training before going, of course, to Iraq. And, God. I mean - God.  They were BOYS. Many of them didn’t even yet have planes and angles emerging in their features. Their faces were unlined, their energy contagious. They tried buying beer on the plane, but were too young. They made jokes. They talked about what it would be like to jump out of planes. What it would be like in Iraq. Once they thought I was asleep, they talked a little about having sex with their girlfriends. And all I could think about was how ever since my dad returned from Vietnam, he has slept on his back with his arms crossed over his chest because that is how he slept with his gun. And how you can’t wake him up in the middle of the night without being fearful of his reaction. And how that war has been like another member of our family - or, like the burning smoke of a distant city, tinging the air around us - or, like a jungle cat, waiting to leap on its prey - but mostly how it took a small-town football playing, hopeful writer and turned him into to someone who can’t sleep, someone haunted by the an experience no one he shares blood with can identify with, and according to all my reading this is the same thing we are doing to this young generation of boys, and how it is criminal.

I fell asleep for much of the flight, and when I awoke the boys around me were sharing gum with one another and debating the various merits of Bubba-licious versus another kind. This is how young they were: they were talking about the different flavors of bubble gum.

I wonder if we could end this war if our government officials were forced to fly in coach for nearly five hours with a plane full of boys alternately discussing what it would be like to jump from a plane into the Iraqi dessert, and bubble gum?

As frustrating as it can be to be an American right now - at least, an American who hasn’t supported this war from the beginning and who finds herself disillusioned with how her values stack up against the rest of her countrymen, beautiful moments can still break through. Here is one.

When we landed, our attendant, the one who my neighbor told to get fucked, came over the broadcast.

“As you may have noticed,” he said. “We have some very special guests riding with us today. We have been accompanied by many men and women from the army, and I just think we should give them all a big round of applause for all they do for us.”

And people, the plane thundered with applause. And passengers stood up, until attendants came by and sheepishly asked them to sit down and buckle their seat belts. And the boys all looked sort of sheepish and embarrassed and slunk down a bit in their seats, and my neighbor looked to me and said we haven’t done anything yet. And I thought about how tricky living a whole entire life can be - how as we age solace can be found in a hot dinner or a movie or a stand-up comic and how that’s not all that different from when we were young, when a misbegotten beer made us almost as happy as our favorite kind of bubble gum.

 

Not quite bullets, but practically so - my life in numbers

0 - the number of minutes I spent with my novel on this trip, mostly because my conference is exhausting but also because I am lazy…

1 - the number of blog posts (this one) I will have managed to write while in San Diego, mostly (nay, entirely) because my internet connection has been so terrible -

2 - the number of times I ordered mahi mahi tacos for dinner

3 - the number of times I have considered requesting the journalist sitting next to me at this moment please please please stop  talking to herself

4  - hours left  until I board the red eye for home

5 - number of hours it took for my luggage to arrive last week (not too shabby at all, I think!)

6 - average number of times my blackberry rang with questions from the office each day

7 - number of times my parents called to make sure I was still alive

8 - number of hives on my right arm that mysteriously appeared after eating an apple yesterday

9- number of ” contacts” I have made for future reference

10 - number of times I have wondered why people live in southern california

11 - probably the number of pounds I have gained from eating pastries, bread, omelets, tacos, guacamole and imbibing  margaritas -

12 - the number of months it will probably take to get rid of the above 11 pounds

13 - number of gray hairs I’ve counted last week

14 - number of minutes it took me from gray-hair counting to calling my man Corey for my first coloring, and

15 - number of hours between me and my little, tree-shaded apartment in Pittsburgh - that is, if all goes well

‘Kay, I’m off for one more seafood dinner and one more margarita (they squeeze fresh oranges and limes for them here!) - more upon my return to Pittsburgh.

 

Ridiculousness, in bullet points

• I should just stop blogging about what I plan to blog about because every time I do it NEVER and I mean NEVER works out. Never. I had all these grand plans to blog about Clinton and Obama and then, as occasionally happens in my field of work, I found myself caught up in some heart-wrenching cancer stories and suddenly by Tuesday afternoon everything about the candidates and their primary runs seemed so unimportant, in light of the people I was meeting and their stories they were kind enough to share with me. I have weeks like this every once in a while at work - weeks that seem supported only by wave after wave of sadness, and I found myself crying more than once for people I barely knew.
• Did you know that while the rates of cardiovascular diseases have steadily fallen, the rates of cancer have remained steady over the last forty years? And that a literal tsunami of cancers are expected as the baby boomer generation continues to age, and yet our government continues to cut research funding for this disease? Think about that when you receive this RIDICULOUS rebate check we are all supposedly receiving…really think about where that money is coming from.
• Sometimes I take my job too personally. Sometimes, it can make me cry. Sometimes, it sends me home so depressed no amount of exercise eliminates it, and I have to find a certain strength inside of me to keep from internalizing the illness of others…a random pain in my stomach is NOT like the time patient A was first diagnosed with colon cancer - a fleeting headache is not a warning sign of malignant glioma.
• But this sensitivity is also what makes me good at my job, and is the reason my boss is willing to send me around the country representing our institute, and why I find myself in sunny San Diego as I write this, sipping the world’s most wonderful cappuccino (to combat jet lag, you know), although I must admit that
• San Diego seems like an unusually cruel place to come for work - the sun! The beach! Coronado Island is RIGHT THERE - land of one of my favorite mystery authors, T. Jefferson Parker, and I have to go make copies in the business center instead of taking the ferry over. Of course, I won’t be going anywhere if
• My luggage doesn’t show up. While I made my flight from Pittsburgh, sadly my luggage had a mind of its own and took itself to Savannah, GA. Bitchy luggage. I could be in a bit of a bind tomorrow since when I left my quiet apartment this morning at Puke Early, I dressed for comfort - cords, a big white hippie blouse thing, ballet flats - and I really cannot look like this when the conference starts. Tomorrow.
• One Mississippi by Mark Childress is a wonderful plane read - I am nearly finished with it. Two thumbs up as a great airport/airplane book.
• I am so excited by the proximity of so much seafood, I can barely stand it. I am wondering - can one eat seafood for 2 out of 3 meals each day for five days? For lunch I had a nicoise salad, and I don’t care what the New York Times says, that salad is NOT outdated - it’s a classic! And the sourdough bread here - oh. my. God.
• I am incredibly pleased with myself for bringing my own laptop instead of my work laptop. Granted ,the work laptop is having firewall issues (I think it’s in cahoots with my luggage and my blackberry, which will NOT tell CA time) but my laptop has my music (currently listening - Dixie Chicks), my novel, my recipes I’ve been meaning to organize, and in no way can I get in trouble for surfing the internet. Rock. On. I am always traveling with my laptop from now on, which will probably drive S. crazy because he likes perks like laptops and blackberries and thinks work things should be used whenever possible, which is the same reason he always rents cars on business trips when I much prefer driving my own if possible.
• And….so…that’s it. Obama and Clinton…maybe soon? I just don’t know. I’ve lost my bloodlust on this topic, suddenly. From now I on I don’t think I will blog about future blogs. Hard week at work, but hard because it was emotionally challenging. Those are the challenges, though, that make me believe the cancer field is the field I hope to stay in for the rest of my life. There’s just so much to do. San Diego -I totally get the hype. That said, I felt very wistful, leaving my little street in Pittsburgh this morning. It’s home.  I think I am going to take my book to the pool, soak up some sun (not something the burgh sees much of, that’s for sure), and finish it. When I return, maybe my luggage will have shown up. And I make no promises about what I will be blogging about next - I really do seem suddenly all over the map!