swish

It's ridiculously early - like 6 in the morning early - but here I am. And yes, I realize it's been a year since my last confession - more, actually - but nonetheless, here I am.

I'm not even going to try to explain where I've been because - well, because I don't want to. It's pretty much that simple. Suffice it to say there has been Stuff Going On, and it's nothing mysterious or magical or even all that interesting outside the realm of my skull. I wish I could say I'd been off writing the Great American Novel - although does anyone still want to do that? Do you suppose people today - kids today! - are working on a larger scale than ever before? Oh, there will always be those jingoistic types - America, love it or leave it! I am so very much not one of those types. I think about leaving it all the damn time. But I stay, because our families are here, because it's really hard to find a job in another country, and because we're too broke to even contemplate something as enormous as an international move.

Of course, I'm clearly feeling masochistic, because, as if I don't have enough going on, I signed up for NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. I could use the impetus - a figurative someone to kick me in the ass and make me write. Now, writing 10,000 words a day might be a little more than I can manage, what with the working full time and the teaching and the trying to have a life. But I will do my best. I will be valiant. I will give it the old college try. (What does that mean, anyway?)

As I write this - back in bed after a shower, enormo-mug of coffee to hand, and the dark sound of rainy cars on the street outside - the caffeine hasn't kicked in yet. I'm still a little fuzzy around the edges, and there's a sound outside that makes me think of windshield wipers. I have no idea what it is, but that's what it's making me think of. (Dig that sentence structure! That should be something like 'but it is that of which I think', but - for god's sake.) It's rhythmic and watery and how great would it be to have giant windshield wipers on the windows of your house? Huh. Really not that great, in truth; what would be the point? Yep - still waiting for the caffeine to hit the bloodstream here. But I'm back, and I'm better than ever! Or, you know, kind of the same, but sleepier.

Crunchy is as crunchy does?

I had a physical on Friday – the first one I’ve had in a few years. And a lot has changed with me in a few years; I’ve lost a ton of weight, taken to exercising daily (and happily!), my diet is exemplary. In other words, I take good care of myself. I floss, I wear sunblock, I veer away from heroin. And yet – high blood pressure.

Or at least, borderline high - pre-hypertension. Because I’m in good shape and my diet is excellent, my (new) doctor went right to beta blockers. And I went right to NO. I’m 34; I don’t want to go on medication that I’ll very likely have to take for the rest of my life. I’ve been a medical editor plenty long enough to know a thing or two about beta blockers, like how they can make you tired and lethargic. While I understand its usefulness in certain circumstances, I am not a huge fan of Western medicine; I’d rather try some alternatives before leaping onto the pharmaceutical bandwagon. I’m also suspicious by nature, and deeply cynical – so I don’t trust any doctor or organization to be free of influence when it comes to the pharma companies. I’ve seen the drug lunches.

So – I’m going to take a deep breath, acknowledge my cranky, angry, go-go-GO personality – and try to change it. (I’m an urban East Coaster – surely speed and hostility are my birthright!) Instead of snarling at everyone in my way to MOVE, YOU MORON, I’m going to try breathing deeply and evenly. I’m going to attempt to focus on the moment. I’m going to read about mindfulness, and while I do, I’m going to try not to twitch and groan and roll my eyes. I’m going to acknowledge my defeatist black Irish tendencies and then learn to overcome them. (For instance, when I decided to do some reading on this mindfulness business, I thought, ‘Well, wouldn’t it be nice to take even 10 or 20 minutes every evening just to sit quietly?’; my immediate reaction was ‘I don’t have time for this! Where exactly am I supposed to fit that in? Between a 40+ hour work week, teaching two classes, trying to write, exercising, and otherwise having a life?’)

You can see that mindfulness – that sitting, and breathing, and being quiet and calm – is not likely to come naturally to me. But if I can discipline myself to lose over 80 pounds, if I can learn to love running, if I can stop myself from eating a heaping bowl of Lucky Charms for breakfast every day – surely I can do this.

So I asked M to bring home Andrew Weiss’s book Beginning Mindfulness: Learning the Way of Awareness, and damn it, I’m going to give it a chance. Tune in, see how it’s going. Watch me – hopefully – transform from an aggressive, angry type A to a mellow, centered, grounded person. Right now, just the words ‘centered’ and ‘grounded’ make me clench my teeth and snarl; maybe in a few months, I’ll be six new kinds of blissed out. My mother always says, “You’re really crunchy – you just don’t dress like it.” Who knows, maybe after 10 weeks of self-taught mindfulness, I’ll be crunchier than the goddamn granola I put on my soy yogurt every day.

So I'm back from vacation, and my god, is that brutal. It means I have to wear clothes, all day, every day, and that I have to put them on by 7 AM. No more sleeping late and spending most of the day in a little cotton hippie dress and flip-flops. No more leisurely days with my sweetie, sipping iced rooibos and reading on the deck. I was suffering from severe post-vacation depression as I walked to the train this morning, and what was the first thing that greeted me as I descended into the tunnel? A big dead rat. Yeah. Welcome back from vacation!

A week off is just long enough to get used to living a life of luxury. We started things off with a bang - and here's where you bail, if you don't care about How I Spent My Summer Vacation. Friday night we went to Zwahlen's to get the Best Ice Cream on Earth. No kidding. It's more like old fashioned custard, but in addition to chocolate and vanilla they have a flavor of the day, freshly made in small batches each day. Friday's was blackberry chocolate chip, eaten in sundae form with dark Belgian chocolate hot fudge and fresh whipped cream. And if that doesn't sound good to you, well, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. If you live in the general Philadelphia area, check it out. It's worth the trip.

On Saturday we ran errands, laid in supplies for the week - fresh veggies for the grill, wine, cheese, really good bread, and these toasted sesame ginger potato chips from Trader Joe's that are so good you could eat them until you're sick. Oh, and smore fixings - or our version of smores: dark Belgian chocolate, cinnamon graham crackers, and giant marshmallows. To be seared to a molten mass of goo on the grill, smooshed together, and eaten with maximum messiness. We had them for dessert the night M's sister came over, and the three of us tore into those smores like a bunch of feral 6-year-olds.

We also each got our first pair of Reef flip-flops, and oh my god in heaven, what flip-flops they are. I've never been a big fan of the flip-flop - they're just not comfortable. But my brother swears by these, and damn if he isn't right. They're so comfortable it's crazy. It was the start of a shiny new obsession; a week after we bought our first pair, we each bought our second pair. It was also the start of not really wearing clothes for a week; we spent our week sleeping late - hey, 8:30 is really late when you're used to waking up at 5:30! - reading, watching movies, and shopping.

In other words, we lived life the way it should be lived all the time. Leisurely mornings with coffee on the deck, eating whatever the hell you want and not feeling guilty (it's vacation! I am entitled to eat a giant ice cream sundae for dinner), reading comics (Locas: The Maggie and Hopey Stories is a great collection for fans of Love and Rockets), and going to the movies (Howl's Moving Castle: Good, but not Miyazaki's best. Maybe because he didn't write the story? Batman Begins: Very, very cool. Mr. and Mrs. Smith: So-so eye candy. Angelina Jolie is pretty much always worth the price of admission, and when she's kicking the shit out of Brad Pitt and wielding a Glock, you know, call me sick, but I'm there. Saving Face: Chinese lesbian rom-com. Yeah, it's a niche film, but it's fun, and Joan Chen remains ethereally lovely.)

But now I'm back at the office. And instead of spending the morning reading, nibbling at a plate of fresh mango and pineapple, and having interesting conversation with my sweetie, it's back to listening to The Mouth and pretending to give a damn. I actually have to answer the phone every time it rings. I have to be, you know, present and thinking and actually doing stuff. Supposedly it's what they pay me for.

It doesn't help that my entire family is still on vacation. So as I made my way through the increasing humidity to the train this morning I thought of them - sitting on the deck in the cool, clear mountain air, drinking my dad's turbo coffee, playing with the baby. As I carefully stepped around the large dead rat at the station entrance, I imagined them looking out over the valley. And as I sit here avoiding any actual work in order to do this, I realize that they're probably all still in their pjs, looking forward to doing whatever sounds good. A little late morning walk around the Laurel Path, maybe. A swim after lunch, and some lazy time on the beach with a book. All I have to look forward to today is a walk across campus to get my monthly trailpass. That, and coming home to my girl and trying to pretend like we're still on vacation for a few precious hours this evening.

Not that I'm bitter.