Vicarious Rising

Wearing My Insides Out

My husband's parents are prosperous enough to own multiple homes in multiple states, which allows them to enjoy fortuitous weather yearlong. It is also rather lucky for us, as we get to hop down to Florida in the winter time and we usually have a nice apartment in New York City to crash in whenever we want to visit the city.

But it does make for a little bit of a lonely winter as everyone packs up and leaves us up in the cold Northeast. But come May, everyone is returning.

This year is especially fun because we - finally - have our new home to show off. Just in the last two days we've had family guests over. I think one of my biggest thrills, however, was hearing my 13-year-old saying to his grandmother and her friends, "yes, we are all very proud of our house." I love that he feels ownership here. I know when I was a kid, the house I lived in was very much my parents' home and not mine at all.

One of our guests was the 80+ mother of my mother-in-law's best friend. She is having a lot of trouble with walking (she suffers from fibromyalgia, among other ailments) and her mind is going a bit. She walked around the first floor of the house, then settled down into one of our comfy chairs. At one point, I was standing across the room, about 30 feet away, and she shuffled her way over to me. I smiled at her and was about to ask if she needed something.

"You are more beautiful than ever," she said to me. "You've always been an attractive person, but you have never looked more beautiful. I just had to come over here and tell you that."

I swear I blushed and I thanked her. It was so sweet. Especially since I was shlepping around in raggedy jeans and a sweatshirt and I needed a shower. My husband teased her that she maybe needed new glasses (to which she responded, "actually, I do.") Maybe it is that thing that makes you dotty and loving when you're old, but I have had a lot of other people say how much different and better I look, that I carry myself differently and with more peace. You know what? I think this sober living agrees with me. I think my own skin is beginning to fit me right.

Contentment Content

I haven't been feeling like blogging lately. It's funny how when things are going well, the need to gab dries up. I think some of it has to do with my inclination to keep my good news to myself, but generally speaking, I think most people tend to not gush on and on when life is good.

At any rate, spring time has begun on the top of my little hill here. I'm enjoying the changing of season and my amateurish antics at gardening and furniture assembly.

I still want to put up pics of my LA trip. We got to feed the hippo and rhino at the LA zoo because my husband's cousin has a friend who works there. It was the coolest thing and I got great photos of the animals.

In other news, my sister is getting married in October. I am happy for her. I think. I haven't met the guy. He can't be worse than the last guy she married. Right?

Let it Rain

My therapist and I are in the process of breaking up. It's a very strange thing to do with deliberation and discussion. I imagine this is the way we are supposed to grow up and leave home. But I think it seldom happens in this way. It is an unusual experience, and rather uncomfortable. I feel a lot of discordant emotions, pleasure and guilt, excitement and fear. But I think in the end sum, it feels right. It feels time.

Nearly.

Decorating my home has been a joy interspersed with headaches along the way. Most of the headaches seem to be shipping related, and unfortunately cannot be pegged on just one shipping company. This has me rather disgruntled, particularly since I am rather in love with online shopping. It give me the opportunity to patronize independent artisans and smaller boutique shops and discover new things the world over. But the merchandise needs to arrive and arrive in one piece. I never had much of a problem (except for the mail lady who smoked incessantly so everything smelled of cigarettes and she also would never bring packages to the door even when we were home: she always left the "sorry we missed you" slip in the mailbox right before I'd watch her drive off in her USPS truck.) until recently. I don't know what the deal is, but it isn't like everybody is spending tons of money shopping. You'd think the delivery folk wouldn't have much else to do but get their jobs done right.

One lovely item that just arrived is this Zen Rain Drop glass mobile I purchased from Leah Pellegrini's Glass Creations on Etsy. My office faces south and gets quite a lot of sunlight. I think this will look beautiful hanging in the windows over my desk.

Leah included a little business card-sized note on her inspiration of the mobile's design, and I thought I would share it because it reflects some of what I have been going through the past several months.:

In this image of lotus leaves in the early morning, we can see in the rippling of the water that one drop has just fallen. It is a precious moment, and one that is full of poignency. In surrendering to gravity and slipping off the leaf, the drop loses its previous identity and joins the vastness of the water below. We can imagine that it must have trembled before it fell, just on the edge between the known and the unknowable.

~Osho Zen Tarot

Leah says to "remember to let go and your life will thank you". I like the imagery of the lone, trembling drop of water setting itself free. But I don't like to think of it as wiping out its entire identity. Rather, that it is joining the part of itself it had been separated from, that it is being made whole. I kind of have to wonder if the vastness below is any more knowledgeable than the lone drop above. Or does it too change beyond the impact of superficial ripples when hit by the droplet? Maybe it doesn't matter. And I'm not so sure about surrendering to gravity. I'm not in any hurry to get wrinkles. But the rest sounds good.

There I go, ruining a perfectly good metaphor with literal interpretation. I'm having a hard time taking myself too seriously these days. I think that's progress.

Because I am So Superspecial -- All About Me

The other day I declared myself positively boring on this very blog, so maybe I can debunk my own claim by filling out this self-absorbed meme. The amazing Lea Jacobson of Geisha, Interrupted tagged me. For those of you who haven't been to her blog, you should visit her droll diary of experiences as an expat in Japan. Also, Lea's memoir, Bar Flower, will be published in a few weeks. Click here to order it from Amazon.com. I pre-ordered mine ages ago.

Lord knows why Lea'd want to know anything about my upstate New York mom-of-a- teen-boy life. But, hey, I'll take any compliment I can get because I am that deprived and pitiful. Now that I have sufficiently lowered expectations, here are the sordid details of my secret life as a horny housewife:

What I was doing 10 years ago

Living off crazy South Street in Philadelphia and attending the Wharton school for my MBA. My son was 3-years-old and I was one of only three mothers in the grad program. This was out of a total of 750 enrolled. We three were the most exhausted of any of the students, and I am not saying this for dramatic effect. All the men with kids had wives who stayed at home with the kiddos during the program. My husband and one of the other mother's husband was also in the MBA program. The other woman commuted daily from Princeton, NJ so her daughter could stay in school there and her husband could keep his NYC job. Some days we three ladies would just bleerily eye each other and mumble, "no one else understands."

I hated, hated, hated business school. My drinking became an increasing problem. Everyone kept telling me I would never regret getting an Ivy League MBA, that it was a terrific opportunity and my ticket to the big time.

I should have listened to my inner voice that wanted out. Ten years later, all I have is the student loan payments (although those are nearly done, but Ivy League tuition? Pricey. Especially when you follow it up with quitting your first job out of school within 3 months and not ever stepping foot in the corporate world again.), an impressive diploma and dubious bragging rights that I drag out every so often to remind myself that everyone else does not know better than me what is best for me, no matter how pretty the credentials look on paper in the eyes of people who don't see through mine.

I did love Philadelphia, however. I miss the food there. Not the smell of South Street on Sunday morning, though. And I missed the Easter Zombie Pub crawl this year. Bummer.

Later in the year, went for a semester abroad in Milan, Italy. Was the only thing that made going to grad school remotely worthwhile.

5 years ago

Living in the middle of New Jersey (shoot me) and selling US made handbags to vendors in Japan, Taiwan and Korea on eBay. Was a surprisingly entertaining venture, although I spent all my earnings. Had stopped drinking for a year, but not in a program. Buried up to my eyeballs in pretending normalcy. Would pick up again in about a year.

1 year ago

Probably about what I am doing now, hanging out in West Palm Beach, Florida and blogging. My son keeps asking me to play games with him and I keep refusing despite the massive guilt trips. Yep. Same scene. Not a bad scene.

Yesterday

One change in this year's agenda was that I got to see my husband's grandmother from Iowa, who is visiting. That was a treat. She's a phenomenal person. She still handwrites letters, writing things as simple as: "It's 5 a.m. and there's still frost on the ground. The brown squirrel has been searching for nuts, but has given up for the morning. It might snow tomorrow. Made a batch of snickerdoodles and thought I'd send some to you. Made a pie too, from some cherries Wendi and I bought at the Barnes store, but pie wouldn't ship well, now would it?" I adore her.

5 snacks I enjoy

1) Popcorn (not microwave popcorn)
2) Wint-o-Green Lifesavers
3) Rolds-Gold Pretzels
4) Swedish Fish
5) Cheese and fruit - all kinds, even if I can't pronounce it - either the fruit or the cheese. I'll take jams, jellies, compotes, crackers and fancy breads too

5 books I like

1) My big, old dictionary that my husband rescued from being recycled or trashed (sacrilege!)
2) The Stand, Stephen King
3) Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards
4) Any fairytale or mythology book from any country, especially by Andrew Lang, Ruth Manning Sanders, the Brothers Grimm and subsequent updates by Neil Gaiman, or any books with gorgeous illustrations, plus Roald Dahl
5) J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books (this feels like a cop out, but I did love them. there are many, many other books I have loved. I have a rather large library)

What I'd do with 100 million dollars

1) Pay off all my debt.
2) Finish doing all the stuff to my house and yard that I want to get done.
3) Get a new car. Probably a Mini Cooper. My 1999 Toyota 4-Runner has over 100,000 miles and is great here in snow country, but the CD player died about a month ago. That won't do.
4) Set up some sort of investment to live comfortably on and possibly generate some extra money to continually....
5) Give the rest to various charities and environmental concerns, local farmers, small business loans to developing nations, etc.

.....because $100 million won't be enough, but maybe in perpetuity I can do some good. But a girl's gotta live.

5 places I'd love to run away to

1) My Dream House (of course!)
2) Emilia-Romagna, Italy
3) Provence, France
4) Fiji - why not? Actually, I'd probably rather go some place in Asia or maybe back to Turkey. But not permanently.
5) Someplace beautiful I've never seen, but I'll know it when I see it. It's there. I know it. I need to travel more.

5 bad habits and pet peeves I have

1) Pet peeve: bullies
2) Pet peeve: people who write the word "then" when they should be using "than"
3) Pet peeve and bad habit: people who interrupt/interrupting people.
3.5)Pet peeve: being poked to get my attention
4) Bad habit: staying up too late and sleeping too late
5) Bad habit: picking at scabs

5 things I like doing

1) Writing, reading, learning
2) Drawing and painting
3) Cooking and gardening
4) Torturing my son
5) Just being

5 things I would never wear

1) Lilly Pulitzer clothes
2) Fur
3) Birkenstocks or Tevas
4) A blouse with a big bow at the neck
5) A t-shirt with hateful images or sayings

5 TV shows I like

1) Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2) Burn Notice
3) House
4) Angel
5) Dexter

5 movies I like

1) Moulin Rouge
2) Gladiator
3) Heathers
4) Jaws
5) Casablanca (anything with Bogie)

5 famous people I'd like to meet

1) Freddie Mercury
2) Joss Whedon
3) Angelina Jolie
4) Queen Elizabeth I
5) Jesus (and not because I am a believer, but, man, am I ever curious)

5 People I'd like to see fill this out

1) Confessions of a Serenephobic
2) Mantramine
3) Pat of Child Lost
4) Slutty McWhore
5) Syd of I'm Just F.I.N.E.

I Swear It Wasn't Because of a Baule Fetish

I've never been one for small talk. When I was a youngun, my best manner of survival was being as quiet and unseen as possible. So, while my interior world was usually quite busy, it was rare for it to crack my exterior.

When I drank, of course, there was leakage. I became more likely to share what was happening in my head. I don't know if this was to the horror or delight of my companions or anyone within 20 feet of my viscinity, but in general I don't think it was a bad thing. I was a congenial drunk, cheerful, very smiley and a bit of a smart ass. I think. At least that's how I remember it.

My therapy session have been more and more of a strain for me because I don't really have anything to bring up for discussion. In my mind, therapy is for, well, problems. Since I don't feel any particular angsty things I need to talk about, I am left wanting to ask my doc about his personal life. Which of course isn't appropriate. Well, I do ask in the most polite of manners and he'll small talk and it's all so... dry and dull.

Today he brought up that maybe we could talk about why it is so painful for me to just talk about how I am if nothing is happening. Now, you tell me, but this seems sort of stupid to me.

Yet at the same time, I get this weird niggling feeling, like I get when I read posts like the one Slutty McWhore wrote the other day about an intense meeting with a stranger. I get this feeling that I have all these plate tectonics moving around in the lava under my skin, ready to erupt, but it just isn't coming out at the surface. And for some reason, that mask of steel I've got on my outside still isn't budging. But I feel fine. I really do. But I can't say I feel connected to anyone else.

Does any of this make sense?

I think that I am still in a place where I am not able to relate to other people well at all. The only way that I ever feel truly connected to others is when I write. And I don't just mean blogging, I mean when I write fiction, I feel closer to human beings, when I am relating to made up characters. I wonder if there is something inherently mental about that. Because I also know whenever I try to make a character similar to me, she is the singularly most boring character on the planet. And she has absolutely nothing to say.

Much like me in my therapy sessions.

It's almost like there is a part of me that thinks the world is interesting, what I observe in the world is interesting, but I, alone, am not enough to hold interest.

Swell.

I started this post because I was on the hunt for a chair for my new office. I'd bought one, but it is too short for my desk. I'd done a search on eBay for "cane chairs" because I was liking some French chairs that featured caning in the backs. Inexplicably, the search turned up this Fine African Art Senufo Zoomorphic Stool pictured (you can click on the link to see the listing on Ebay). Some of the description mentions some yadda yadda about baule fetishes and somesuch, but I don't see the word cane or chair. I sort of like the critter, but I don't think it's a suitable desk chair. A little out of my budget too, at $2,350.

I decided to post because absurdities make my day. I don't know why something like this, finding a piece of African Art while I was looking for a French chair, tickles my fancy so much, but it is part of what I love about life. And one of the things I genuinely like about myself. Maybe just the brief thought of me sitting on that bugger, too low to see the computer screen, typing away whilst trying to look serious gives me the giggles. I'm never too old to giggle.

That's my small talk for today.

Rolling With It

"In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintigration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways."

~Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance

I've been contentedly puttering around my new home, slowly arranging things in my nest. Saturday my husband and I celebrated our 11th anniversary. We went out for Indonesian food and had a really nice dinner in each others' company.  My son is really liking the new place. We all are.

I am glad I feel really and truly present to enjoy all that I have. I'm not sleepwalking through my life anymore.

Can I Have Pasta Instead of Bacon?

"I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give."

~Thomas Jefferson, letter of February 1788

We are finally going to spend our first night in the new house. We now have cable and internet and have deemed the place habitable. I'm sure that is what Jefferson had in mind when he spoke of the simple life at home. After all, he certainly would not have done without his pen and paper and books were quite pricey back in the day. His idea of roughing it was probably on par with mine.

The Bright End of the Spectrum

I don't suppose anyone has a recommendation for a sectional sofa with recliners on either end with a wedge (not corner) seat in the center, with down-filled cushions and preferably semi-attached back cushions? Oh, and I'd really love mixed media fabrics, like chenille and leather, but that's not a must.

It'd be really super if it wouldn't break the bank but also be well made AND if the shipping company weren't run by a bunch of lazy buffoons. Plus, if it could get delivered in just a few weeks, bonus, but I know that's highly unlikely.

Life isn't too bad when this is my worst task for the day. Still, I am sort of grumpy about it. You'd think wanting to spend money would be easier.

Periodic Table

I don't exactly know why I wanted to name my post that, but I did. Maybe it's because I am enmeshed in home decorating and furnishing exploits. Not sure. We're not officially moved into the house yet because we don't have internet and cable connected (the rustic horror!), but it should all be in place this time next week. Meanwhile, I did order that Day Dreamer print that I fell in love with to go in my office.

I think I am trying to be clever with the word "irony" and the elements of gold, silver, and then the other basics. I read somewhere about some ne'er-do-well who had a custom table made to look like the periodic table of elements, and each square representing the element opened up to a compartment containing that element. Geek decorating. I think you can now get your own with just photos inside the compartments.

For some reason, I've been ruminating about that "everythings fabulous with the world" feeling I'd get with the early phases of being drunk. Not because I want to drink, but partly because I feel bits of that right now when I allow myself to not feel as if I need to save the world, cure cancer and cook the perfect dinner for my soon to be Nobel Prize winning child all in one day.

What I was musing is that we all want to be successes in our lives, some of us to the point of wishing for fame and fortune. And yet, many of those achieving those upper eschelons celebrate by using mind altering substances. I find this ironic. If you are figuratively on top of the world, the best, in your glory, why do you need assistance to feel better and have fun? Shouldn't you be happy for having reached your goals and having everything you thought you ever wanted?

It's not like this is a new perplexing question, but I was listening to my beloved Freddie Mercury and thinking of his fabulous rock star life as well as the lives of his bandmates. How many people want to know those kinds of people, be them, be their friends, lovers, confidantes? Roll in their money and bed linens?

Then why do they need the drugs and booze? What are they still trying to prove? Didn't they already make it? Aren't they who we all want to be?

I'm not just talking about the celebrities who go attention hunting, but also those who are brilliantly talented and successful in their chosen field. Some I have met are highly functioning addicts of some sort or another (yes, I know, I'm not supposed to label them, but fuck-it), indulging in excess, still trying to either vindicate themselves to the world or perhaps to convince themselves they are not actually frauds underneath it all. It's just an observation, the basic insecurity that does not seem to disappear for so many that gets obfuscated by chemical substances or other vices.

See, where I come in on this, at least in my experience, is not so much that I have because I've come into my own fame and fortune. But I've got a damned fantastic life, one that if I choose to will only get more fabulous. And yet for a time, I was choosing artificial joy so that I could take pleasure in what I already had.

And now, I still struggle to feel as if I am enough to deserve to be happy.

Fucking weird, isn't it? It doesn't matter what you have on the outside, it really is an inside job.

Bad Plumbing

Now that we've finally closed on the house, we've begun to slowly move our possessions in. We're not quite to the point of being able to inhabit the place yet, but I'm hoping to be able to spend the night there soon.

I have a few more photos to share, one of which is a picture of the front of the house. We finally don't have a parking lot of construction trucks blocking it. The front door will be stained mahogany to match the wraparound porch. I love how it looks as you come up the hill. We have a really long, 600 foot, driveway. I think the house looks like it fits properly up there and it looks deceptively small and unpretentious. The structure actually runs long on the property, so the southern side has the most exposure. All the views from the house are wonderful, but the southern side has a nice tumble down a hill into the natural woods that is really beautiful and peaceful.

The other photos are of a wall unit we bought from an antique shop in Vermont I mentioned before, The Country Gallery Antiques. I have some before and after pictures of what the proprietor, Borge, miraculously did with restoring the piece. I will, however, give myself credit for picking out the unit and seeing how fantastic it would look before it was redone. Even Borge and his wife didn't think it would look as amazing as it did when it was finished (Borge's wife, Janet, called it "ugly" but I wouldn't have gone that far. It was kind of rough and literally fuzzy, though). We bought a new TV set last night to put in the open cubby. My photo of it doesn't quite get the color right - it's more soft brown and less yellow than my pic makes it appear. (By-the-by, they ship all over, so if you like their stuff, check out their website.)

The other couple pics are of our mudroom built-ins, another view of the pantry and one of the kitchen with some of our counter stools. For our 11th anniversary coming up in March, my husband has hired the guy who did these to do a custom bookshelf/file cabinet for my office however I want. Being the big nerd I am, I am really, really thrilled with this gift.

I've been dreaming a lot lately about water leaks, not just in my own home, but about me somehow being responsible for them when visiting in other peoples' homes as well. I don't know what to make of these dreams, but my subconscious is trying to tell me something. I'm always trying to figure out where the leak is from, trying to fix it, keeping it quiet that something is amiss, and - of course - making the problem worse as I try to repair the increasing flood of water.

The water begins to rise, and I am just stumped as to how this happened when I wasn't really doing anything intentionally wrong.

It never really ends, does it?