Home with the spread

One of my favorite things about coming home to Alexandria is the spread of cheese, meats, olives and nice beer and wine that inevitably awaits each time I arrive.

Vinnie told me yesterday that my father said to him, "Well, Justin and Cara are coming up, we've got to get some cheeses and things," with a resigned air as though it was necessity, and not desire, that fueled the purchase of such items.

When we arrive, late or early, the bags are pulled from the fridge. J normally chooses some new kind of beer from afar, while I opt for a glass of red wine in a ceramic wine glass and we sit at the counter and make a mess. It's certainly becoming habit. It may be becoming necessity. Sometimes I don't want to leave. Maybe just stay a few weeks and drink good wine nightly, exist on snacks and enjoy digital cable.

Punishment for taking the drink

Last night we initiated one of our favorite summertime traditions - happy hour at He's Not Here, a Chapel Hill bar that sees fit to serve beer in large, plastic cups which resemble small buckets. I have to hold the cup with two hands to get the precious and inexpensively priced beer into my mouth. Kelly and I somehow managed to drink a good amount of the He's Not Here beer, more than when we can remember, and when I say a "good amount" what I mean is enough to ensure that this morning I'd be both struggling against total body failure and hoping that death will come and the pain will end. The pain!

Earlier I drove my sorry self to the post office to get the office mail which has been piling up over the past week. When I arrived and stood before the endless line of post office boxes (what order are these in? Why is this so CONFUSING??) I couldn't remember what our number was. So I tried and failed at several while an employee looked on suspiciously as though I were attempting to steal mail. "Who'd DO THAT?" I felt like screaming and then thought about maybe falling to the floor in a sad little puddle and demanding a chicken biscuit from Bojangles, and fries. But I remained cool. I simply stood there, confounded (and did I mention that I look awesome, today?) until I finally realized that the letter I was holding in my hand to send had our complete address listed right in the corner. Oh. I opened the box to discover piles of mail silently taunting me.

All I've got for now is faith in the knowledge that soon this will end. Hangovers pass, leaving you with a vague memory of the pain, and all the memories of a fun night out. And so we never learn. All I have is this hope. And the promise of an ice cold Coke I can hold with just one hand while I drive myself home.

Bridal magazines calling my name again...

I was looking up a friend's registry information online yesterday when very suddenly I realized I'd been missing out these past few months. Sure, we've been wedding planning. But wedding obsessing? I haven't quite gotten into that yet. Until yesterday.

Evidence #1:
Justin and Cara's Wedding Webpage!

I realized there are colors to get into with awful, affected names like "mango" and "honey" designed so that you don't know what the hell color you are even talking about. There are chatrooms! And of course my favorite - the wedding webpage where I can make sure that everyone, even randoms just passing by, know that J and I are getting married. You'll notice that in the wedding attendants section I've completely left the names of the groomsmen off. That's because when I got to that section, my energy had begun to give way to a lethargy and lack of creativity and I started to wonder if this is what the priest meant when he said planning a big, extravagant wedding, putting all your energy into it and nothing else - is "sinful."

This stained t-shirt for that yummy take out?

I was listening to a report on NPR today that featured cotton - where it comes from, how it's farmed, and I was reminded of a particular spot of my education I truly loved. I was never a history scholar. Dates and names escape me. For example, the part I loved the most in all of my history education was when we learned about the old world (date?) explorers (names?) who traveled to various countries (specifically?) and traded their wares for whatever the specialty was at that particular destination. I especially loved when countries would trade things for tea and spices. I mean, tea and spices were golden. Everybody wanted to go to the countries with tea and spices and get themselves some of that shit.

With my current financial situation being, well, sub-par, I was thinking this would be an excellent tactic to take on. Trading. But I've got nothing as good as tea and spices in my house, or within my grasp. Since we don't want to revisit that period where I got all neurotic about making soap, there is nothing I produce. Nothing that the country of me can offer as tender in the trading game. If old "New Yorker" magazines could get me a delicious burrito for dinner tonight though, I'd be in.

Oh, Cecilia

Sleepy Monday at the Chatham Record.

Happy Birthday J!

IM000181
Originally uploaded by caramaria.

Now we are 27...

My childhood, my death trap

I rode to work today overwhelmed by fear of death because my seat belt, which has worked perfectly up til yesterday, refuses to budge from it's plastic sheath, meaning my chest was naked and vulnerable to blows from oncoming cars, tons of bricks, what have you. The worst part was I kept trying to reach around and get it out, temporarily forgetting the dire situation. I've spent my 27 years wearing a seat belt. This is where my parents, especially my mother, really got to me. You will always wear a seat belt in the car or else. I never questioned the seat belt wearing, even in adolescent years when it seemed cool not to do it. I'd always wait, then look around furtively, making sure friends and older sisters of friends were bobbing their heads sufficiently to whatever rock song was popular then deftly and silently pull and buckle and if I was noticed, look at the thing like "how'd that get there?" I am a seat belt dork. I can't not wear it and now I'm being forced not to.

In between imaging the various ways I'd die this morning I started thinking about the power of childhood lessons and memories. I don't really remember my mother telling me to put the seat belt on OR ELSE because I must have heard it so much it's just ingrained, like how the music of Roger Miller immediately puts me in the mood for a road trip, or how the taste of white grape juice makes me feel careless as a three-year-old child. Why white grape juice? That's what I drank instead of the regular, purple kind. As my mother tells it, she got new white rugs in my room when I was just a baby. Apparently one day I stood in my crib, a sinister look upon my face, and threw the bottle of regular-colored grape juice on the new white rug. She says I did it intentionally. From then on, it was white. Why grape juice at all, all the time? I was constipated.

A very "Reality Bites" kind of moment

I'm having - or perhaps more accurately - would like to have a sort of "Reality Bites" period. You know, the part where Wynona Ryder, whatever her name is in the movie, gets all depressed because her documentary filmmaker career is going nowhere and she's been getting in a bunch of fights with her soulmate Ethan Hawke, who she doesn't know is her soulmate yet. She proceeds to sit on the sofa and watch bad television and eat things like Cheetos and talk on the phone with psychic advisors, which turns out badly because she racks up hundreds of dollars of phone bills, and then I think Janeane Garofalo is the one who sort of kicks her in the ass by saying something like "Hey sister, you've got to stop with this. And also pay these phone bills." So she pumps people's gas for them, they pay her, and she pays with the gas card her dad gave her for graduation. Things start to fall into place and finally - FINALLY - Ethan Hawke tells her he loves her, basically, and after a few more complicated situations they get together.

There are some reasons for, and problems with, my wanting this scenario for myself. To put the reason simply, I feel stuck. Twenty-seven is killer. I should be embarking on something, right?

And the major problem? I've got no Ethan Hawke figure. J and I sorted out our own movie-worthy love story over three years ago and are now getting married. So unlike the end of "Reality Bites," the love story can't be the thing to get me out of my mire.

Ok. When I really get down to it the hunkering down on the coach - although indulgently selfish and movie-like - would probably just make me feel fat. And rather than catapult me into a forward march towards semi-stardom, I'm guessing I'd only lose my current job and come away with less business ideas, money making plans, and goals than I have now. Really, with the deposit on a new rental house plus paying current rent, my first goal is simple. Pay the phone bill. Pay any bill. I don't have Janeane Garofalo but I've got warm weather and everyone's talking about margaritas, and hey, you've got to have money for those.

So cancel the "Reality Bites" idea, I guess. I'm way over the just out of college timeframe. When Jennifer and I saw that movie in high school I thought it was the coolest movie I'd ever seen with "All I want is You" by U2 in the background while Ethan and Wynona contemplated post-college cigarette-laden sexual bliss. I mean, who would take care of the dogs if I just lay there. They'd poop all over the place! No, nevermind all that. I think I just might need to make a to do list. Yeah, that usually gets me by.

Rather than ruminate...a J story again

I was going to sign on today, a dreaded Monday, after an incredibly eventful and social weekend and talk about how rural North Carolina was casting a blight upon my very soul. About how all I want to do is go on business lunches and interview interesting people who think I, too, am interesting, and about how I seem to be suffering from a period of unnecessary but pressing grief regarding the whole "I'm 27 what should I be?" question. About how my one spot of joy today (since I didn't get a delicious cup of coffee in an effort to quell the anxiety I seem to have inherited from my father THANKS DAD!) was picking up the keys to our new place. Our soon-to-be home with the turquoise door and the porch with two white rocking chairs that gives me the opportunity to pack and thus perform massive spring cleaning! Throwing things away! A clean slate!

I was going to write about all that but instead I thought I'd share how yesterday when we all went to get breakfast after the incredibly social Saturday with all the guests - how we were standing outside Elmo's, starving, and J got a copy of the Independent newspaper and there was a big cover story about poverty in North Carolina. And I said "Oh man. There's been a lot of press about poverty in North Carolina yesterday. Have you been listening to NPR?" And J, whose eyes didn't even shift in my direction turned to the back page with all the crazy advertising, pointed to one in particular and said to Tom, "Sex toy party."

It's called a "party bus." We're already in trouble.

Today is my friend's birthday and to celebrate we're meeting up at her place tonight and then are going to get into a big vehicle with a refrigerator and a good sound system and be driven around the Triangle while we get drunk. Yes! It's totally legal. The party bus people are going to take us out on the town. I'm not sure whether or not I should admit this, but I've been on the party bus before. It was Carrie's bachelorette party and we girls got on that bus with serious supplies including a kick ass mixed CD featuring R. Kelly's "Ignition (remix)" which I soon learned was the best song ever, EVER written, especially because it features the oft-repeated chorus "Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce." Don't think we weren't singing that out the windows in Raleigh to all the lesser-folk who had to use their own vehicles or feet to get around.

Beyond the normal limits of disgusting

This morning I propped myself up in bed and turned on the television for a few relaxing moments of watching the "Today" show before having to succumb to the reality of the day and the fact that I had to go to work. J was in the shower and Mina and I were cuddled up, still in the realms of last night's sleep, when I sneezed an incredibly forceful sneeze. It's that time of year in North Carolina when the pollen is falling and creates unnatural-looking neon yellow patterns on cars and sidewalks. Everyone is congested, everyone talks about the pollen as though nothing else in the world, no news, no tragedies, no natural disasters, but this pollen exists. Well, I, like everyone else, am susceptible to this horrific rite of spring and so the sneezing is no surprise. But this sneeze...I felt certain something had come out. You know, something of the body had been emitted from my nostrils. So I checked around, grimacing, ready to find some disgusting relic of my nasal passages. I didn't find a thing. Nothing. Nothing on the bedspread or pillow or on my body. I decided I just might have been mistaken about what had seemed to be a rather fruitful sneeze. J exited the shower a few minutes later and came to join Mina and I in our early morning love nest. He was watching Katie and Matt rhapsodize about the Michael Jackson child molestation case for only a few moments before he arose, sharply, from the bed, and said, "Something's on my arm," and ran into the bathroom. I hid right down under the covers, immediately aware of the atrocity that had taken place. "I think it's snot!" he shouted, making all the appropriate faces. I hid deeper, under the covers, torn between pretending to be just as befuddled as he, or tell the God awful truth. I decided to come clean. "The snot? Yeah, I think I know where that came from..."

A decent four cups of coffee

This morning I decided to take action and make us some coffee rather than my normal ritual which is to ask J to make it, thus stroking his ego by telling him that he makes it so much better than I do. Which is true. And also a good way to get someone to make coffee for you.

This morning I really didn't do much better than that, though, because as I stood there in my bathrobe I asked J, just one more time, to please show me how he does such a good job of getting it strong enough, but not too strong, my problem when it comes to undertaking this seemingly simple process.

He got all business-like. And cocky.

"We've been over this," he said, but not annoyed - more like, proud, more like "Oh-I'll-show-you-you-unworthy-but-grateful-bottom-dweller. I'll show you my ultimate skills, which you'll never attain, by the way."

First he took the spoon I was holding right out of my hand.

"Not this one." He got another from the drawer. "This one."

He scooped an enormous amount of freshly-ground Verona blend from Starbucks into the spoon.

"That," he explained. "is too much."

Shook a lot back into the tupperware. "That? Too little."

"Just feel it out," he continued, and with that scooped what I now know is the perfect scoop size, Oh knowledgeable mentor!

After the required number of scoops were placed into the filter, he turned on the water.

"Cold water! Cold."

Since he was staring me down I felt the need to reply. "I never use hot," I offered. Reasoning wasn't provided, just the hardcore, definitive process. I was a fortunate spectator to watching God-given talent, THE talent, execute that process.

He showed me his scientific method for measuring the right amount of water, which surprisingly, involved some carefully-placed deviations from the regimen.

"See, about a cup. That's about right. Even if you're off the mark a little. It'll be fine."

After pouring it all in, he shut the lid with a final snap of the wrist. Click.

"Now you plug it in and just hit this button."

"Yeah, I know how to do that part."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

Hello, sexy

Seriously, is this really him writing a blog?! I'm going to post a comment every day UNTIL YOU NOTICE ME, DAVID!

http://lionsgatedirectors.com/duchovny/index_flash.html

They're worth it. Sort of.

I put Cecilia in the car this morning to her great delight, and drove off to the inevitable yearly check up, which loosely translates into yearly money-making scheme for the vet, in layman's terms.

Cecilia loves the vet, mostly because it means people touch her and give her treats. She sits, she stays, she lays on her back exposing her tummy and asking for rubs with that face...that face...all things she fails to do when we have guests over at home. When people come over, she jumps and licks and basically loses control out of sheer joy. It's as though she gets it that these other humans in the office setting are professionals, and worthy of her obedience.

So I'm sitting there adoring my perfect dog as she is adored, in turn, by the assistants and veterinarian who attend to her. "She's so good! Good girl! Good GIRL CECILIA!" I'm over-abundant in my praise, but she deserves it after wagging her tail while they jab her with a needle and draw her blood, while they do the "recommended" feces check, ramming a plastic stick up her ass, while they clip her nails, a service they offered and in a heartbeat I'd said yes. It was a proud morning.

When it was all over and I approached the check-in desk and they said "your total will be $230" in all seriousness, only then did I look down at the dog, sitting ever so nicely, waiting, head cocked, and wonder how "good" she really was.

When I get home, she better have some dinner waiting for me, damnit.

Memories of a seldom joker

I was thinking this morning that it might be funny to try and fool the two or so people who regularly read this by saying something about the wedding being off or J having taken another lover, but where's the fun in that, huh? "The wedding's OFF!" Not funny. It's hard to really get people on April Fool's day in a way that is actually fun for all persons involved.

My freshman year, Erin and I posted up signs on the girl's bathroom on our floor, stating we'd dropped our sea monkeys in the shower. We had sea monkeys, so the trick was a good one. But if you really think about it, who cares? Sea monkeys never live beyond the stage of being the size of tiny pinpricks anyway, right? Plus, wouldn't they have just been flushed down the drain by the shower? The great thing was - people noticed, and didn't like it. Girls were worried about showering with sea monkeys. That was a good joke. The fact that those same sea monkeys died just after or right before the joke - I can't remember - at the hand of some evildoers watching them for us for the weekend (who gets a babysitter for sea monkeys?) who then tried to save them from the tile dormitory floors with a teaspoon - makes the memory slightly bittersweet.

Another good one was when I called my little brother from a friend's house when he was 9 or 10 or so and very into building replicas of the Titanic and collecting Native American kachina dolls and told him he'd won an art award. This was believable as the kid was and is a great artist. I disguised my voice and started asking him a bunch of questions, like how old he was and where he got his inspiration. Then I asked how his bowel movements were, and he hesitated only a second before he muttered, "Um, fine...?"