Archive for the ‘happiness and craziness’ Category

This is the time during the winter where you officially are obligated to say that’s it, I’m finished, I’m done, it’s over, another snowfall will kill me and if it doesn’t, I will kill myself, because really, winter, you’ve gone entirely too far. Really, winter.

When E and I booked our fancy vacation the hell out of winter, I thought we should go as soon as possible. No, E said sagely, as he has lived in winter climes for the entirety of his life, we should go as late in February as possible. Because that’s when we’re going to be sick of winter. That’s when we’re going to need a break. But I want to go nooooooow, I whined. Believe me, he said. You’ll be grateful at the end of February. You’ll be glad we waited.

For Valentine’s Day, which was very lovely and Valentiney, I made a small feast. I made steak with a rub and a nice salad and roasted garlic mashed potatoes. The steak was excellent, the salad was okay, and the garlic mashed potatoes were the stuff of creamery, buttery, garlicky perfection in a gigantic pot of potatoes and I wanted to put my face in them and fall asleep and maybe asphyxiate in potatoey, garlicky happiness. It’s a fitting end for me.

I started them first, because the garlic had to roast for awhile, and then peeling the potatoes took an age and a half and also a knuckle. I focused on my potatoes as they came together, almost like magic. Garlic-smelling magic. The boiling, the concentrated mashing, the adding the entire stick of butter and the cream, the careful seasoning, the whipping in the soft, roasted cloves, the careful adjustment of seasoning, the struggle with myself to not put my face in the pot–at every stage it came together so beautifully, I nearly cried.

You know the three wishes game? Which is pretty much–that. You get three wishes. And you spend a lot of time crafting them carefully, wording them in very specific ways so that you are not screwed by a mischievous genie over a technicality because you had a dangling modifier or forgot to be precise in your choice of adjective. I spent a lot of time working on my major wish, and it was this: to be perfect. I don’t remember how, exactly, I phrased it, but what it boiled down to is that I wanted to be perfect in every way–physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually perfect. That is a whole lot of perfect. That is a whole lot of wishing.

I want to be perfect and unassailable. I want to be absolutely bullet proof. I want no one to ever find fault with me, because there are no faults to find, no cracks, seams or crevices.

A month or so ago I realized that I was long overdue for flying away somewhere and not being in my life for awhile; naturally, I thought of San Francisco. Short plane ride, distinct lack of snow, people I am fond of and babies to dote on, a tattoo to finish, some grooming, and also a lot of shopping. Not that I could have spent any money, but just kind of–touching. Admiring. Pulling down a rack of cunningly skull-embroidered sweaters in H&M and rolling around in them until they kicked me out or I developed a rash from the synthetics. Heaving myself up hills and going BOY THIS PLACE IS PRETTY! Sweating! It’s been a long time since I’ve sweated. I am so long overdue for all of that.

Having the vague outline of a plan quelled some of the restless, itchy shiftiness that had started to make me scratchy in my pants, and I’ve been looking at flights and thinking about domestic arrangements and mentally compiling my packing list (oh, the joy that comes when you realize you can wear cute shoes and your new pencil skirt what has moths on it andomg, dorky outfit planning ahoy).

One of my cherished notions about myself is that no one knows the extent to which I am a nerd. Oh, I have plenty of geek cred, just enough to make you think that I am so smart and interesting and alternative. You know, totally hipster. I love Doctor Who and I grew up watching Star Treks and will follow Joss Whedon around with love in my eyes if only he’d lift the restraining order, but that’s all okay, right, because it makes me cool yeah?

That level of nerdery is okay, even totally awesome; when I start going deeper into nerdtown, I start to get embarrassed. I start to feel uncomfortable about the fact that I like computer games, that I have nostalgic thoughts about the Dragonlance series, that I accept invitations to go play D&D on a Saturday night.

It is Friday! Seriously, it is. You can check. It is Friday, for reals, and if I am very careful, play my cards right, use my time well and am dedicated and industrious, I will only spend most of the weekend working instead of all of the weekend. This is a goal that I am shooting for. This is a goal that is going to find me up at three a.m. on Sunday, blood shooting out of my tear ducts and foam drying on my chin and down the front of the t-shirt I haven’t changed in four, five days.

What I want to do this weekend: well, it boils down to not work. But writ smaller and in list form, it goes something like sleep in, not-sleep in, waffles, nap, not-nap, load the dogs in the car and go hike up a mountain to the waterfall and go “ooooooo,” lattes and pie, nap on the couch with the TV on and the comforter tucked under our feets, fighting over the Wii controller, mac and cheese for dinner, nerdy nerd time with nerdiness in on EverQuest, retiring to not-sleep, then sleeping covered in dogs who steal the blankets and fart on your pillow.

I have discovered the most amazing thing of all about living in the future, and it is that you can call up the nostalgic, rosy past whenever you like, with a click of your fingers and a credit card number. Did you know that onto the Nintendo Wii you can download the classics of your gaming childhood? Did you know that if you had a Wii , and a wireless connection and six bucks, you could be playing the original Legend of Zelda? This is among the most beautiful things that I can think of, and it makes me happier than happy. It makes me the happiest, in fact.

My baby brother and I spent a ridiculous number of hours in the basement with our Nintendo and our enormous collection of games, flailing our arms and yelling at the screen and mashing buttons and throwing our controllers and stomping around and hunching forward filled with grim determination and saying things like YOU CAN DO IT GO GO GO GO YAY YOU WIN YOU ARE SO GREAT!

They don’t tell you, in freelancing school, how great the potential for enormous amounts of guilt is, coming at you from all directions and every angle, pew pew pew. Maybe that’s because there is actually no Freelancing School. If there were, there ought be a class called Warmth vs. Freedom: The Pants/No-Pants Divide. Oh, and Are You Really Going to Eat That, Over the Sink, With Your Hands? Isolation and the Freelancer’s Fragile Dignity and Self-Respect. But mostly, You Will Work Every Hour and Regret the Hours You Don’t Work, and When You Are Waiting For More Work to Come in You Will Panic Because You’re Not Working and the Idea of Sleeping in Just a Little or Even Watching a Movie Fills You with Shame. That might be a little long for a class title, though.

So for the past two weeks or so, I’ve had a handful of rush jobs, for the proofreading people I work for.