2014 february fun

It is February again tomorrow, that least favorite month of mine, and I'm attempting once again to force it to be enjoyable with a February Fun list: 28 small things in 28 days that will bring a little delight to every one of those days.

I am not unaware of the fact that 28 days is the typical length of an addiction-breaking cycle. Perhaps I am trying to break the winter doldrums, not that I'm addicted to doldrums. But this is the rut time of winter, and you either need to break out of it—or it will break you.

For this year, I modified previous years' February Fun lists based on some brainstorming session with friends. {That's another thing about this Fun: Everyone is invited to participate, but some of the days are pretty specific to me. Run 10 miles, for example. If that doesn't sound fun to you, I won't make you do it, shouting at you the whole time like a maniacal drill sergeant: "Are you having fun now?!??"}

Other people came up with ideas like: go to a movie, go to a new place for brunch, go to the Art Institute.

Meanwhile, I came up with ideas like: buy a new book, make sure all your pictures are up to date, bake brioche, clean out your closet {and donate what you don't need anymore}, and buy new underwear.

Broadly speaking, I'd say that other people have fun ideas of things to do together, while all I want to do is be alone with my food, books, and organizational tendencies.

In an effort to "grow as a person," though, I've incorporated some of those non-solitude activities {a less awkward way to say that: social activities, although that does sound like I'm on a cruise and the purser has planned fun things for us on the Lido Deck}.

Here's to a fun-filled February. Please report back and tell me, on a scale of 1 to 28, how fun your February was.

2014 February Fun

1. retreat far, far away (and off the grid): I'm going on a partially silent retreat with my church. Doesn't quiet sound fun?
2. wear fun earrings
3. buy a new CD
4. find a Zooniverse project to work on: I read about this in the Tribune the other day. You can help! With science! Just by using your computer! Look at the projects—I'm most intrigued by the one to help catalog soldiers' diaries from World War I.
5. make something out of my new Downton Abbey cookbook: Or since you probably don't have this same cookbook, you can just make a new recipe.
6. schedule coffee with a friend {or dinner or whatever—basically, schedule quality time with someone. Good friends don't count—this need to be someone you don't see much.}
7. buy flowers
8. bake brioche
9. clean out your clothes and donate the ones you don't need anymore
10. re-organize your books {or whatever else you want to organize}
11. read a short story
12. buy new underwear
13. eat dark chocolate {good for the brain, you know}
14. write a postcard to Java: I read about this in Oprah while I was at the gym one day. To help students in Java learn English, you can send them a postcard telling them a little bit about who you are and where you come from. If you include your address, they may even write you back. Learn more about it.
15. go to a movie
16. write to your nieces and nephews, if applicable: Otherwise, just write a card to someone, anyone.
17. bake for your neighbors {or a friend}
18. re-read a favorite childhood book
19. write a poem
20. host a craft night {or go to one, preferably the one I'm hosting}
21. school spirit day: Remember back in high school when you got to have different Spirit Days, such as Wear Your Pajamas to School Day or 70s Day? We don't get Spirit Days in the Grown-up World, so I'm declaring a personal Spirit Day. For me, this means I could wear something purple and gray in support of my high school team, the Grayhounds—Fight, Purple! Fight, Gray! Fight, fight today! Yes, I still remember my cheerleading chants.}
22. Glen Ellyn Style with friends: I'm sure you have no idea what this is, but all it means is "hang out with your friends in downtown Glen Ellyn and wander through a bunch of shops. Getting coffee is also a good idea."
23. run 10 miles
24. make something out of my new Simply in Season cookbook: I'm sure you're thrilled that I've gotten two new cookbooks just before this February Fun began.
25. go to Starbucks and pay for a random person's stuff
26. paint your nails
27. be a wine-o {or just have a glass of wine}
28. make hot cocoa. Like real hot cocoa, not Swiss Miss

hashtag, eavesdropping

It was one of those to-do list Saturdays—a day when I had scribbled a few thoughts for the day down on a little piece of paper with a very bold THINGS TO DO printed at the top. Maybe it was the boldness of that declaration or the bright sunniness of the day {January sun makes Midwesterners feel that they could take on the world}, but the more things I crossed off the list, the more things I added to it. My little piece of paper was covered front to back, and it was only 10:45.

Sitting in the parking lot at Target, I crossed off such exciting accomplishments as:

• Buy kitchen towels
• Get a haircut {actually, this one is for-real exciting, not sarcastic exciting: scalp massage and someone to tell you you look pretty. That is one perfect way to spend from 9 to 10 on a Saturday morning.}
• Go to the dry cleaners

And then I realized that if I wanted to accomplish what was next on the list—run at the gym—I would need to add something to the list: Eat.

To-do lists, as a side note, should always include what you think of as obvious tasks. Then you get the benefit of crossing yet another thing off {you're so accomplished!}, plus you don't forget to make time for obvious things, like food.

I know, considering how much I talk about food, you're probably surprised that I would ever forget about it, but there were kitchen towels to buy and baseboards to be dusted; I can really lose myself in the face of a promising day of productivity.

Food. Yes. I needed some of that so that I could go burn it off on the treadmill. I added "Eat" to the list, and went to what I saw as the least bad of my options in the area: Einstein's Bagels.

Now, I'm not saying a thing against Einstein's. I'm just saying that given the option, I will always imagine myself in a local, quaint cafe, one that has a soupcon of France in it, and one where I could read an Elizabeth Gaskell novel in a paisley armchair or write things where soupcon seems like a natural word to use.

That dream cafe was nowhere near me, probably because it is a dream, and I do enjoy a good bagel sandwich. I was sure that the atmosphere at Einstein's—breezy brunch—would match well with the book I'd brought to read {no Elizabeth Gaskell; it was the biography of PL Travers, the woman who wrote Mary Poppins}, and besides, I was just using it as a means to crossing something else off my to-do list.

I sat at a corner table next to a group of older people—like, in their 70s or 80s old—who had pushed together 4 little tables to make one big table.

I immediately began making up stories about them, mostly involving how they'd been friends since elementary school and how they'd been meeting up for brunch for the past 25 years and how they'd just decided to try this Einstein's the other month because who doesn't like a good bagel?

But my stories were no match for their actual conversation, which went like this:

Older Guy Who Looks like Jack Lemmon: Does anyone here understand hashtags? I know they're used on Twitter and Facebook, but why?

Another Guy, Who Is Wearing a Sweatshirt from the Grand Canyon, One that He Probably Bought in 1983: I can't figure out if they're used to say something you want to draw attention to, but you don't want to come right out and say it. You look at some of them, they're practically secret messages, all those run together letters.

A Woman in a Sweater Vest: I think they're fine on Twitter—yes, I tweet—but what I don't understand is when they're used in conversation. As in: "Hashtag, I like this coffee."

Jack Lemmon: Hashtag, I do, too. And hashtag, free refills.

Sweater Vest: See? We could just communicate on Twitter right now in our hashtags! Maybe this is a sign that computers are taking over the world and language is breaking down.

[Much laughter, which isn't the normal response when pondering the effect of computers and social media on our language. Then again, these people were old, so I thought that if they could chortle at that, maybe the rest of us shouldn't be so worried about it.]

Grand Canyon: Well, I just have to say: "Hashtag, I don't understand hashtags."

And then, throughout the rest of their conversation, they would randomly insert hashtags.

"Hashtag, going to be cold on Monday."

"Hashtag, I'm going to get some more coffee. Does anyone need anything?"

"Hashtag, I still can't believe you tweet. What do you have to say?"

This is wonderful, I thought to myself, all thoughts of reading about Mary Poppins pushed aside. I want to join in their conversation with something witty, but I'm scared I would blurt out, "Hashtag, I love you all." Or worse: they might ask me to explain hashtags because I'm young, and I don't want to admit to them that I never use them. Hashtag, not cool.

I lingered in that Einstein's for longer than I needed to, just to see what else those old people would say. They discussed Syria {no hashtag silliness there}, the Grammys, movies they would like to see, and what they're reading.

As I left, I thought 2 things:

1. Please, dear Lord, let me be that in-the-know when I'm their age.
2. I'm totally adding "eavesdrop" to my to-do list and crossing it off.

Hashtag, best Saturday of 2014 so far.

an introvert in the woods

Over the weekend, I took a little retreat from my normal life, or as I like to refer to it: I ran away from home for a night. It's so much more satisfying, by the way, to run away from home when you're old enough to drive.

I brought Miss Daisy the Pug with me to go camping at the Richard Bong Recreation Area near Kenosha, Wisconsin. I picked that because 1) it was the first thing that turned up with I googled "camping near Kenosha" that wasn't an RV store, 2) it was just an hour and 20 minutes away, and 3) I could reserve a campsite with just a few days' notice. All these campgrounds in Illinois, you have to reserve a week in advance, or of course, you can risk it and just show up.

Risking it is not in my genetic make-up, and if I'm going to drive an hour+ after packing a car of camping supplies, I would like to be darn sure that will be a campsite with my name on it at the other end.

So to Wisconsin I went, where they allow for my level of spontaneity: you can make reservations with 3 days' notice and feel assured of your "spur-of-the-moment" planning.

It was such a good decision.

I've never done the solo camping thing, although I am well-equipped for it. By that I mean that I have all the stuff necessary, but I also mean that I have the personality necessary. I told a few people at work on Friday what I was doing, and I received mostly comments of awe that I would dare to do that.

"Won't you be scared?"

"But it's so dark!"

"Who will you talk to?"

"What if you have a problem?!?"

"Are you going to pretend to be Thoreau and come back with your journals to publish? Are you going to talk exclusively about living deliberately when you come back on Monday?"

But all I kept thinking—ever since I made the reservation—was, "I can feel my soul expanding with this possibility of being so far away from my normal life." {No offense to all the people in my normal life.}

My introvert self was very much made for solo camping trips, and thanks to my parents, who began outfitting me with camping equipment when I was still quite young, I have everything I need to run away from home and pitch a tent and cook over a grill and pump my own water out of a spigot that looks like it's been there since Laura Ingalls Wilder was alive.

I love camping for many reasons, and it's one of the continual joys of my life that my parents raised me on a foundation of outdoorsy-ness. {It's such a joy that I've even written about it before when I was flying over the desert on the way to Las Vegas.}

I love camping now because it reminds me of growing up, and I can't set foot in a campground without remembering the hundreds of other campgrounds I've been in {all blending into a generalized one, of course, with a mish-mash of red rocks, mountain streams, and tall trees that always smell sweet in the morning air}.

I think about how my sister and I used to spend hours (it seemed) riding the loops of various campgrounds on our bikes. We'd read for awhile, bike for awhile, volunteer to go get water, set up our own steeplechase course {hey, you see what sorts of activities you come up with when you are so far from humanity that you start to think it's normal to shower just once a week}.

And in the evenings, our whole family would sometimes take long bike rides around whatever national park or state park we were in before settling in to play Hearts or study the stars. {All those star lessons, and all I can pick out with any confidence is Orion, Cassiopeia, and the Big Dipper.}

So I love camping for that nostalgic reason—but I also love it because it pares you down to the essential. Everything—from boiling water to cooking breakfast—takes longer than you ever budget for in your regular life, and there's a quiet beauty in saying: I would like coffee, but it's going to be a little while. Delayed pleasure and all that.

Your day essentially becomes about the survival tasks, and so instead of running from activity to activity, you take your time and focus on where you are. I am scrambling eggs over a grill. I am boiling water to clean the skillet. I am doing the crossword while drinking coffee.

I think that's what I needed when I ran away from home: to be present where I am. There is nothing else in a campground to distract me, unlike at home where I could always be cleaning a bathroom or organizing recipes or re-doing my budget. There's always some task to be done, but in a campground, I cannot do any of that.

I cannot clean the bathroom; it's a pit toilet and the thought of cleaning that is something to avoid contemplating for very long.

I cannot do laundry; I wear the same clothes for several days.

I cannot see friends; they are over an hour away back home.

When I was camping, it was just me and my little pug surrounded by trees and a soft dampness to the air that helps you remember that life is more than running from one thing to the next.

And as a bonus, when camping alone with a pug, you get to see faces like this all the time—faces that say, "But I thought we lived inside!"

how do we ever get used to this?

Last weekend in Seattle, I couldn't stop looking at the water.  It's what always happens when I get near the ocean, perhaps because of my landlocked Midwestern sensibilities.  Even though I grew up on the Mississippi {or, more correctly, on the river bluff above it:  I was not Huckleberry Finn, floating down the Muddy Mississippi and hoping for a better life around the bend} and therefore saw water every day, it simply is not the same as seeing so much blue stretch in front of you.

From my parents' house, I could see Illinois and more farmfields...with a ribbon of a brown river in the foreground.  And though I knew that that river fed the farmfields and had inspired stories and songs, it was also just the thing I saw every morning when I ate breakfast.  

But the ocean... 

I drove to my bed & breakfast in the dark and so it wasn't until the next morning on my run that I saw the water.  The town I was staying in, Port Gamble, was tiny and had about four main streets, one of which was called NE Walker St.  Of course I interpreted that as a sign that I was in the right place.

I had to make about seven loops around the town, running up and down every street over and over, in order to get in my 31 minutes.  {Several years ago, I decided that the minimum time I could run would be my age.  This plan will, at some point, backfire, but for right now, it's working well.}

On my fourth lap past the espresso stand {this is the Seattle-area, after all}, the woman working waved at me and laughed.

I stopped by afterwards and said, in that way that lone travelers have, too much too quickly, as if I was concerned that this espresso woman would be the only person I'd talk to all day:  "I live in Illinois, so I'm really excited to be able to run outside and not have to worry about slipping on the snow and ice.  Look at me!  I'm in shorts! I also can't stop looking at the water and smell that!  It smells so fresh and clean here, like industry and inspiration are just waiting for you.  But the water:  Do you ever get used to seeing it?"

More than anything--more than the babbling and the talking of my shorts--that last line betrayed me as a foreigner.  I suppose it would be like someone asking me, "But the Mississippi: Do you ever get used to seeing it?"

And of course I did.  It was just there with barges going up and down it every day.  

Sometimes it smelled like rotting fish.  

The Mississippi mud can hide clams that slice your toe before you even know you've stepped on anything.

When we read Huck Finn our sophomore year of high school, no one once stopped a discussion to say, "But did you ever think that this river that seems so mythical and magical is literally two miles from this classroom with no windows?" 

The Mississippi was just there, just like for that espresso woman in Port Gamble, the Hood Canal is just there.  It's amazing what we can get used to.

But I'm still convinced that I would never get used to seeing so much water every day.  I would never get used to breathing in deeply and feeling like I was taking in life itself, which I suppose I do every day anyway, but it's hard to remember that when you're in the suburbs of Chicago.

Whoever you are and wherever you live, I think we all need a Port Gamble-like place to escape to when our normal lives and normal view start to feel like drudge and sludge.

We need to see something else for a few days, and then, most importantly, come back to where we started and say:  Here is good, too.  

What is it about being away that makes you see the beauty of here?  I don't know, but I'm willing to spend years figuring that out.  It means, after all, more trips to more Port Gambles.

quebec in pictures

Place Royale on an early morning run: It got that name when they installed the bust of Louis XIV there. It apparently wasn't enough for him to have Versailles and to be called the Sun King; he also needed this square—considered the cradle of French civilization in North America—to be named after him.

Samuel de Champlain saying to Quebec, "I totally discovered you and claimed you for France. Why is Queen Elizabeth on your money now?"

He's probably also, from his perch on that plinth, thinking: What, the governor's house I built back in 1620 on this ground high above the St-Lawrence River wasn't good enough for you? You had to build the Chateau Frontenac, a fancy hotel, here instead?

Un bol de cafe au lait, s'il vous plait: Coffee in a bowl. I'm going to start offering this to people when they come over for coffee: Would you like an espresso, a Waffle House mug, or this bowl from Ikea?

In France, you can have cafe au lait in a bowl with breakfast—the better for dunking your bread and jam in, you see. But here in Quebec, I discovered you can get it any time, even with lunch, and they won't look at you funny. Bonus points for Quebec.

The only fortified city left in North America: Quebec has also left its cannons out and pointed in various directions. They are ready, should anyone ever try to take them back from the British.

Unless it's themselves: there is a separatist movement here in Quebec, much like how some people in Texas would like to secede from the United States. I'd say if the Quebecois want to be their own country, they can all just hole up in the fortified city, drinking their bowls of cafe au lait, and putting those cannons to good use.

Problem with my plan and why I'm not in charge of countries: The cannons don't work any more, there are no longer doors on any of the gates into the city, and even though the French had the high position and the fortifications, the British still beat them on the Plains of Abraham in 1759.

I would most definitely go to church there, assuming it's an Anglican church, which is a big assumption here in what was once the seat of a Catholic diocese that stretched all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Actually, there is an Anglican church in Quebec—Holy Trinity. It was the first Anglican church built outside of the British Isles, and did you know that it has a section set aside specifically for members of the British Royal Family? No one else can ever sit there, which makes it even more exclusive than the Royal Box at Wimbledon.

Un autre bol de cafe au lait: This one at brunch at Le Clocher Penche in the St-Roch neighborhood. I'm reading the book The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food by Adam Gopnik, and should you ever want to really enjoy eating alone {as I often have to do on work trips like this one}, bring that book.

You can read about the glorious social history of the restaurant and the recipe, all while eating. It will make you appreciate where you are, not feel like the odd (wo)man out in a restaurant of people enjoying conversation and each other.

Later, when you're back with people and you don't have to eat alone, you can dazzle them with trivia about what the French Revolution has to do with the restaurant.

Le Sang des Saints: My meal at Le Clocher Penche, and fyi, that translates to "the blood of the saints." It was boudin noir, a poached egg, pears, and caramelized red onions served over naan with a balsamic reduction. If I purposely forget that "boudin noir" is blood sausage and if I purposely forget how it's made, I love it so much. It makes being forgetful worth it.

The most photographed hotel in the world: That's what they say about the Chateau Frontenac, so I thought I'd add another picture to the count.

on a treasure hunt {part 3}

And now we get to the actual date with Treasure House Man.

For the back story, you can read part 1 and hear how he asked me out.

Or you can read part 2 and hear how I reacted.

Or you can just read this.

-----

Tuesday came, and I fielded the typical pre-date questions from friends who knew what was going on:

1. Are you excited? Nervous? Both? Kind of an exci-vous, which is an odd combo of those words and probably never going to take off as other combo words, such as brunch, have?
2. What are you wearing?

And I gave the typical answers:

1. I'm trying to remember that it's just coffee. Just a chance to get to know someone else and see if I might like to get to know him better. Because at this point, most of what I learned about him, I learned through Google stalking.
   
   Oh, of course I Google stalked him. This is the back-in-the-day equivalent of asking if your friends knew anything about a guy who seemed interesting, only in this 21st century scenario, your friend is Google and you can ask anonymously.
   
   You can also start with only three pieces of information and end up finding someone's resume, by the way. I googled just his first name {since I didn't know his last name, too}, University of New Mexico, and metal working, and there it was, his employment history.
   
   That's still not a lot to go on. Even when you're interviewing someone for a job, you have more information than that—not that I think of dates as job interviews, nor do I think dating me would be a job.
2. What to wear? I could've pulled out one of my fleece vests, just to show him that I own more clothes than a puffy vest.
   
   Or I could've gone straight from work: in a heels, pencil skirt, button down with a cardigan and pearls ensemble. But then it might look like I was coming to interview him—or maybe fire him—and we've already established that a date is not the same as an employment opportunity. Right.
   
   As it often goes with these things, I'd picked out one outfit but the weather turned and the outfit was suddenly impractical: a heavy downpour is not the moment for heels and a sleeveless top, no matter how well the top accentuates your eyes.
   
   Note to self: always own tops in all sleeve lengths that accentuate your eyes so that you can go into back-up wardrobe planning mode more efficiently.
   
   On the night of my date with Treasure House Man, back-up wardrobe planning mode looked like this:
   staring blankly at my closet
   staring frantically at my watch
   asking Little Pug what she thought I should wear
   having her stare blankly at me
   and then throwing on jeans, a button down, a cardigan, but leaving off the pearls
   and running out the door, into the rain, and on to the date.

------

Treasure House Man was already there, waiting at the cafe, unaware of all my Google stalking and blank staring at my closet.

Yes, still good looking, I thought. Strong jaw, dark hair, a fiery soccer player build.

It must be a leftover of my cheerleading days that I classify guys by what sport they might’ve played, and you can tell me I’m pulling some sort of mean girl classification, this trying to make everyone into jocks, but it works for me.

As did Treasure House Man’s blazer. He had on a very professorial blazer—so academic that I immediately checked his elbows to see if there were leather patches.

There weren't, but I stretched out my hand anyway to meet his, my mind jumping ahead {as it often does} to imagining the kind of library an art professor and his British literature-loving wife would have. Wood paneled, by the way, but I’ve learned to control my jumping ahead imagination by 1) telling my brain to shut up, and 2) focusing very intently on the moment.

And at the moment, Treasure House man was asking, "How are you doing tonight?"

Little did I know that that would be one of only five questions he'd ask me over the next 90 minutes.

------

I have been on several bad first dates.

I once had a man end a date by giving me a Victoria’s Secret coupon—saying, “Don’t be freaked out by this, but I’m sure you of all people could find something enjoyable there.”

On another date, the man told me flat out that his career had incredible earning potential so he could offer a luxurious life—telling me, “You seem very classy, so I’m sure that’s the kind of life you’re accustomed to.”

And once, the man let slip all the Google and Facebook stalking he had done of me. {Cardinal rule of Internet stalking: It’s a secret.} In one sentence, he let me know that my Facebook privacy settings were way too lax and that he had spent too much time looking: “I really enjoy the renovation your parents did of their living room, especially the orange color they chose for the accent wall.”

So yes, I have had bad first dates, but even on those, the worst parts were just small moments to laugh at later.

With Treasure House Man, it was an onslaught of moments.

It was as if I were watching a performance or being lectured to. Both the performance and the lecture would’ve been titled: “How to Overwhelm Your Date and Not Let Her Get a Word in, Edge or Other-wise.”

Turns out the Treasure House Man is a treasure trove of:
opinions
anecdotes
tangential stories
historical facts
movie quotes
and just your run-of-the-mill information.

And he attempted, in 90 minutes, to share it all with me.

There were moments, I will admit, when I was genuinely having a good time. When I was laughing and smiling without thinking to myself, 'Now laugh. Now smile.'

But there were other moments when I thought, 'How do I casually look at my watch? And wouldn’t it be awesome if my watch were one of those spy watches—one that records a conversation without the other person knowing? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that in Sky Mall, which seems, in part, to have a target audience of People Who Are Suspicious of Others and Want Evidence.

‘But if I could only capture some of the off-the-wall things he’s saying, then later when other people tell me I’m too quick to judge or that I need have less demanding standards, I’ll put my watch up to their ear and hit play. Sky Mall and me: we’ll show those other people why my standards are just where they need to be.’

As a general rule, when you’re on a date but thinking about Sky Mall and recording watches and proving to others that you’re right, the date is not going well.

------

What could he have said that was so worthy of recording? Or of trying to get him to keep talking {not a hard thing to do}, just to seem what other gems would fall from his mouth?

For a sampling of what Treasure House Man said—his treasure trove of quotables—read part 4.

without coffee

My coffee machine looked at me forlornly this morning.

You ask: With what eyes?

Oh, I know it has no eyes, but it has a little green light that comes on when it's brewing, and today, the first day in ages and ages I haven't turned it on, my coffee machine looked at me with a cold, calculated, unlit-up glare.

That's a change from forlornly, and I should stop before my coffee machine takes on a murderous glare and starts thinking about brewing me hemlock.

Why such discussion of the feelings of a machine? Have I stepped into some sort of dystopia where the machines are plotting to take us over—by manipulating our feelings?

Thank heavens, no.

But two of my co-workers challenged me to give up coffee for the day—for just one day—because they think I'm addicted. When you write it all down, it may look like I'm addicted.

Kamiah's Daily Coffee Consumption: All Written Down

• 2-3 cups in the early morning: I drink this while sitting with Little Pug in the reading/journalling/writing/chewing on a rawhide bone {Little Pug's activity} nook.
• 2ish cups in the office when I first get in
• double shot of espresso around 10:30 or 11:00: Especially since I got my Anne of Green Gables espresso cup, I'm all for this tradition. The key to work is to break up your day with Anne of Green Gables and coffee.
• double shot of espresso around 2:30 or 3:00: A recent addition, but please see previous note about getting through the work day.

And that's it, I promise.

Except for when I meet people for coffee in the evenings or have them over for dinner. And except for when it's raining and blustery out and a pot of coffee sounds just about right. Or when there's just a hint of chill in the air and I want to sit out on the balcony.

So it's a lot of coffee, but I've always said this: I'm not addicted to the coffee; I'm addicted to the ritual. Even my sidenote up there about drinking out of an Anne of Green Gables cup should tell you that I am a creature of habit, and I love nothing so much as the feel of a mug in my hands as I anticipate the first sip.

But not being one to back down from a challenge, I agreed to go coffee-less for today, and that is why my coffee machine looked at me forlornly this morning: because I was ignoring it.

Here it is, many, many hours later, and I don't have a headache, I'm not cranky, and I don't have the shakes.

But I do miss my rituals. In a vain effort to fill my ritual-need, I drank water out of my Anne espresso cup.

It was not the same. A shot of water isn't nearly as fulfilling as a shot of espresso.

Lessons from the Coffee-less Day

1. I am not addicted to coffee. I just happen to like drinking it a lot.
2. My perkiness comes naturally to me and isn't a caffeine-induced thing
3. I love my Anne of Green Gables espresso cup, perhaps a little too much; I think I may be addicted to it.
4. When I don't have coffee, I start to think that machines are out to get me.

very bad poems by me

Once upon a time, in Rouen, France, some 90 miles from Paris, there lived a small girl in a large high school.

You'll have to forgive me for a bit of silliness; I just re-watched Sabrina {the Audrey Hepburn one} on Friday night, and I've always loved that beginning line: "Once upon a time, on the north shore of Long Island, some thirty miles from New York, there lived a small girl on a large estate."

I've also always felt a kinship to Sabrina Fairchild—she who heads off to France and discovers there that she has strength she didn't know she had. She discovers that there is a grace to every day, and she finds that she is worth knowing.

If you have to go somewhere to find yourself, France is an excellent choice.

Sabrina learned that; I learned that. She spent two years learning how to cook, and I spent nine months trying to teach English to high school students {and living in the boarding school}, but the end result was the same: we came home and life hasn't been the same since.

As she says, France "is for changing your outlook! For throwing open the windows and letting in...letting in la vie en rose."

But before you can get to this changed outlook—before you can start seeing the world through rose-colored glasses—you have to do a lot of pondering, walking next to the Seine, drinking very strong coffee, getting lost on cobblestone streets, and writing.

And for me, writing came in the form of very bad poetry. I don't know if Sabrina had to do this; if she did, it was smartly left on the cutting room floor because it's painful enough to live through yourself. We don't need to see Audrey Hepburn writing overly emotional and trying-to-be-deep poetry, although if anyone could make it look enticing, she could.

I recently re-discovered my writing notebooks from when I lived in Rouen. There, I spent hours in Le Bistrot des Carmes, hunched over my notebook and looking for all the world like I was five minutes from taking up smoking as I scribbled and sighed.

At some point in the year, I decided to write a poem a day, and here is a tip for anyone going through their own early 20s discovery period: DO NOT allow yourself to write a poem a day.

Or maybe do.

More than other forms of writing, poetry is prone to people trying too hard.

If you want to take on the world or if you think you have the world figured out, it is very easy to be tempted to write a poem.

If you're feeling like no one understands you, there is no better way to express yourself than in an attempt at iambic pentameter.

Poetry might be so appealing because we have the mistaken idea that it's supposed to be obtuse. The more complicated and symbolic, the better—right? The more you can confuse with your comparisons of love to moss {or whatever tack you want to take}, the deeper you are.

This idea of appearing deep and thoughtful is especially appealing to those just out of college, and if you allow yourself to write a poem a day at a stage when you're trying to figure out life, it will lead to much laughter years later when you re-discover the poems.

By that point, you will have figured out that you can't entirely figure out life, and you'll be both grateful and embarrassed for this record you have left of when you were too full of yourself and your own ideas.

That's how I felt when I found these poems: simultaneously grateful and embarrassed. My time in France—the hours in cafes and wondering the streets—made me who I am today.

But in these poems, I can easily encounter who I was then as I was putting on the rose-colored glasses and learning to let in la vie en rose.

For Your Amusement and Because These Poems Shouldn't Just Languish in My Journal: A Sampling of the France Poems

2 December 2004
{Note: None of these have titles, just dates. Because who can bother with a title when there are deep things to convey in short lines?}

Arrow clouds
Squeezing to a point
Skinny triangle of reflected heat
Burning orange

From where I sit,
cross-legged in the garden, my breath floating like smoke,
The clouds become the way

They are pointing to a choice:
hidden path of dead, known leaves
leading arrow of lively light

I choose to follow the sun
West, towards the eternity of tomorrow.

Analysis by a 30-year-old: What? What choice are you talking about, 23-year-old Kamiah? And what's with the mixed imagery of a clouds making an arrow—but then you're talking about dead leaves? Are the arrow clouds pointing to leaves? Are you referencing that the leaves are the same color as the orange clouds? Are the sun and the leaves the same thing?

I know exactly where you were sitting when you wrote this poem: in the hidden garden on top of the wall that was, in medieval times, Rouen's protection. I can even see the orange sky and the sun flaring off the cathedral spire. But even knowing the image you were looking at, I have no idea why you wanted to follow the clouds {or the sun?} away from the leaves.

11 December 2004
Time passes and where does it go?
Waste and spend, spend and waste.
A minute saved is a minute earned.
Waste not, want not.

Time passes and what it been worth it?
Inside, I hear a nagging voice
a voice like teeth on fancy silver
each tine a stab of guilt
for what I do not know.

But I do know this:
I waste away
but feel the need to prove justify explain conquer.

And then the voice changes
and it's calling out in the wilderness of my soul,
"Prepare ye the way of self-recrimination!"

Analysis by a 30-year-old: Okay, so maybe you were feeling useless when you were in France. You worked 12 hours a week and spent the rest of your time either running, drinking coffee, or, apparently, writing bad poetry. I get that you were questioning what you were doing with your life—with your time.

But wow, cut yourself some slack, little girl! Just because you're having trouble filling a few hours does not mean that you're a failure. You can tell that voice like teeth on fancy silver to go wander around the wilderness, shouting until it makes itself hoarse. It's not worth listening to.

Also, way to work in paraphrases of Benjamin Franklin and Isaiah into the same short poem.

8 December 2004

And oh it's wonderful!
Does everyone feel this—
this bursting cheer, growing surprise, smiling inside?
Does everyone feel—
and oh it's wonderful?

It doesn't seem fair to feel all—all—all

Analysis by a 30-year-old: Um, you do realize that you're stealing from Katherine Mansfield, right? Re-read "The Garden Party" if you're unsure.

Although I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I also congratulate you on writing a rather chipper poem on your birthday, as opposed to one of those guilt-ridden, image-laden confusions.

11 November 2004

Why I'm here depends on so little:
the Eiffel Tower sparkling at 10:00 on a crisp fall night.

But you must understand that
before you can know how I can be here,
content
and
discontent.

But here for a reason.

Analysis by a 30-year-old: Inspired by William Carlos Williams, eh? "So much depends on a red wheelbarrow" and all that.

But I appreciate your attempt to convey that even when you're in this place of beauty and wonder, this place that you've dreamed about, it can be hard. It can be the hardest thing you've ever done, and even as you're amazed that you get to see the Eiffel Tower so much that it becomes commonplace, you're aware that your life is feeling very much the opposite of commonplace.

go fish

I was drinking black coffee out of a white IKEA coffee cup. It came in a set of six—along with six blue and white saucers—for one of those impossible IKEA prices, like $3.00 or something.

When you're first setting up house, it's difficult to ignore the siren song of IKEA, beckoning to you just off the expressway, and it's only much later that you realize that nice furniture doesn't involve fake wood veneer that can peel off, nor is it made of compressed layers of something that was, perhaps, maybe at one time, wood.

Or those compressed layers that are making up your stylish yet frustrating-to-assemble bookcase {why isn't the faceless IKEA man on the directions ever shown fighting with the person who's trying to help him assemble the furniture? Because that happens all the time and is pretty much part of the process}—those layers could just be scraps of Swedish newspaper that have been skiied over by blonde-headed Swedish people as they chant in practically unaccented English about how they will draw America's youth to them with promises of cheap meatballs.

But these white coffee cups from IKEA have stood the test of time and two moves. In IKEA world, they are heirlooms now.

I was drinking out of one when I suddenly thought of Grandma Walker. It was the black coffee in it that reminded me, I think.

She had coffee throughout the day, I seem to recall, and it was always black. My grandparents had these milky glass mugs that showed the faintest outline of the coffee through as she drank cup after cup.

Grandma Walker would always have a cup of black coffee on the kitchen table as we played Go Fish when I was just a very little girl. Because my hands weren't big enough to hold all the cards, I would use the swivel kitchen chair as my card stand. I'd swing the chair around so that the back was facing the table.

High-backed, no arms, and covered in a light brown plasticky material that made them easy to clean, those chairs were set-up for me to play cards.

I'd crouch on the chair, studying my carefully-arranged cards—they were propped up in between the seat and the back—and peek around the side to study my grandma, to see if she was giving away any clues in her face.

Glancing out the kitchen window: did that mean she had 3s?

Looking at the orange and brown flowered wallpaper: maybe it meant she had no 3s?

Hard to tell. My grandma's thin but sturdy face and milky eyes rarely betrayed a tell.

I'd pop above the back of the chair as she took another drink of her coffee. "Do you have any 3s, Grandma?"

"Go fish," she'd say.

or

"Oh, you got me! Here you go," she'd say.

And I'd retreat to my hiding place to study her some more and wonder if I'd ever like coffee as much as she did.

i am a crazy pug lady

When I write in the early morning—I've been getting up at 5:15ish to write before going to the gym—Miss Daisy, my little pug, sits just next to me in another of the kitchen chairs.

It's as if we're an old farm couple, sitting here having coffee. Ours is the only kitchen light on for miles, and the cheery yellow glow is an oasis or a beacon in the dark. It's the only thing, besides the hope of a good day, pushing back against the darkness.

But we're, of course, not an old farm couple. We're just sitting in a square of light in the suburbs.

Miss Daisy sits so patiently in her chair, and she sits so observantly. Her eyes follow my hand as I try to fill the paper with words that are worth leaving, with words I don't need to claw away, to scratch out.

When I look up and smile at her, happy I didn't cross out a word in the last sentence, she looks woefully back at me. She's a pug; woeful is her typical face, particularly when she's just waking up from a night's sleeping and snoring.

Her wrinkled brow seems to say, "Are you sure you want to write that? Are you sure you're happy with it? It's all right if you need to keep trying. I'll stay right here next to you."

And then she looks hopefully, not woefully, at my coffee cup, sitting in an NPR mug on the table in between us. She's perhaps suggesting that she have a sip or two of that as a reward for her encouragement.

I scratch her behind the ears, tell her that pugs shouldn't have coffee, and get back to scratching on my paper.

in celebration of national coffee day

At home, I have four ways to make coffee:

• drip coffee: Nice and normal and stays warm for hours, although it will take on that burnt coffee taste if you leave too little in the pot and cook all the enjoyment out of the flavor. I am not, however, saying I don't drink it after it's taken on said flavor. I'm also not against heating up coffee in the microwave, by the way. I realize that the microwave, by its very nature, changes the molecular arrangement of my coffee and therefore the taste, but I DON'T CARE.
• French press: Somewhat disturbingly, all real French people I know have never heard of this. Where did it come from? Why did we make it French? Did we think it gave the coffee a certain je ne sais quoi, perhaps a taste of cigarettes, chocolate, lavender fields, boeuf bourguignon, and a waiter who refuses to make eye contact with you at the cafe? And yes, I originally got this because it had the word "French" in the title.
• espresso machine: I got this for free at a garage sale up the street from my parents' house in Iowa. It did not come with an instruction manual; I totally would've paid a quarter to get that. My sister and I spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out how to work it without making a mess. We were not successful, but at least we figured out how to make espresso. If you want your espresso served with hot water all over your mother's counters and floors, that is.
• Italian espresso maker: When I lived in Rouen, France, I had an Italian roommate. She used one of these little contraptions to make her coffee, and once she let me taste it. I almost spit it out, it was so dark. Not wanting to appear uncouth and like a weak American {no! We are a strong people! How else do you think we settled this entire country full of Starbucks and expressways?}, I drank the rest of it like a shot. And then later had a stomach ache. And then mysteriously was never around when Annamaria offered coffee again.

But recently, one of those trusty coffee methods broke on me.

The drip coffee.

"WHY AREN'T YOU WORKING?!?!" I, as you can tell from the all-caps sentence, shouted at the coffee maker one morning.

"I paid $10 for you six years ago at Walgreen's. Why doesn't ANYONE make a quality product any more?!?!" I said this as I tried to figure out which other coffee-making method to use and thought about that website for First World Problems: this "ooh, which fancy coffee maker should I use?" quandary definitely qualified for that.

The problem wasn't that I couldn't make coffee and have my morning ritual; the problem was that something I'd paid good money for—and was clearly a high-class product if Walgreen's was carrying it—had broken.

$10, people. That is good, good money, especially considering I bought it before I actually had a paycheck. I think the process went like this:

Soon-to-be-boss: Kamiah, we'd like to offer you a job. Can you start in two weeks?
Young, Naive Me: TWO WEEKS?!?! I have two weeks to pack up, move out of my parents' house—eh, maybe I'll just leave some of these things here. You know, like my high school yearbooks and a pair of slippers and all these clothes and my American Girls dolls. Yeah, I'll do that. That'll lighten the load and I bet my parents will appreciate finding pieces of me all over the house—find a place to live in Chicagoland, settle in, and figure out how a grown-up dresses every day for work? Just two weeks?
Boss: Your panic and focus on packing {and what not to pack} makes me doubt my decision. However, your ability to say everything out like that, just as if you were making a bullet-point list, is something intriguing.
Me: Oh no, I'm cool. I'm fine. I'll just make a to-do list to handle all of this. Item a1a: Buy coffeemaker. I think I saw one at Walgreen's the other day. Yes, I need to buy that and the second season of Mary Tyler Moore. Priorities are so critical.
Boss: [Pause as he once again reconsiders the smartness of hiring someone who will probably base her work wardrobe on a TV show from the 70s.] See, you did it again. You say something that freaks me out, but then you finish strong with something about priorities.
Me: How about we bond later? I need to get over to Walgreen's in case they've run out of that coffee maker!

After how excited I was for that coffee maker, how dare it break. I felt a little bit like it broke my trust.

So I did what any good American would do: I went out and bought something bigger. This time, I upgraded to Target.

How far I've come from Young, Naive Me—and how helpful of my coffee maker to show me that. It maybe could've shown me without breaking, but since it's an inanimate object, I'm not sure how it would've accomplished that.

things i said in vegas

Last week, I was in Las Vegas for work, and no, really I did work.

I can hear you doubting me, thinking that I let go of all my Midwestern roots and grabbed the proverbial bull by the horns. {That bull's proverb is: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Somehow, I don't think that matches well with other proverbs that generally encourage you to hold your tongue, work hard, and treat others fairly, even if they don't deserve it.}

I have no salacious, gossip-worthy revelations for you.

No confessions that I've been repressed my whole life and finally realized that—on the Strip at 4am.

I went on the Strip. Twice. Three times if you count my cab ride back to the airport.

And I spent both of those times saying, "Oh my, it's just so...so...bizarrely opulent."

I said this as I tried to speed walk past men handing me cards to strip clubs. Do not make eye contact, do not make eye contact.

Trouble is, when you don't make eye contact, you're more likely to run into one of those men as they step in front of you. Or you could run into any one of 317 people dressed up as Elvis. Or the guy dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow. Or the Wonder Woman—there were several of those, too.

I don't think I'm Vegas' target audience. A random sampling of things I have said in Vegas:

• Is there some sort of Vegas clothing store that I don't know about? How did everyone else know what the Vegas uniform is? You know, just past your hips dress, impossibly tight, strapless. I don't own anything like that. I never want to own something like that. I wouldn't even know where to go for that.
• Is anyone else thinking of that scene in Sister Act, the one with the nuns running through the casino? I realize that took place in Reno, but as I stared at the flashing lights, I kept thinking of Maggie Smith, a disdainful Mother Superior at her best, calling Reno Sodom and Gomorrah.
• Why is it so loud all the time? I realize I sound like I'm 89 here, not 29, but when hotel room door clicked behind me every night, I relaxed. Quiet. Calm. Nothing clamoring.
• I don't understand slot machines. I'm a classic girl through and through: I just wanted a simple slot machine. Put in a quarter, pull a lever, three spinny things go around. That's all I needed. But there are Star Wars slot machines, I Love Lucy slot machines, Wheel of Fortune slot machines, and slot machines that just look like video games. All you have to do is hit a button, which takes some of the tangible fun out of gambling, if you ask me. Which clearly no one did before designing Las Vegas casinos.
• No, I will not go up to your room with you. A man on the elevator—another guest, I do believe—asked me to go to his room. I laughed in shock, which is the best way to handle being propositioned. And then I glared. The laugh-glare is a very useful response in Vegas.
• All things considered, I'd rather be watching Gosford Park. I'd brought my most recent Netflix movie with me, and when faced with the possibility of standing in line for two hours just to get into a nightclub {and I didn't even have the proper clothes!}, I thought longingly of my little bit of period drama.
• No, this isn't at all like the real Paris. Standing in front of the Vegas version of the Eiffel Tower, I realized that every part of Vegas I'd been to reminded me of the Champs-Elysees, which I never go to when I'm in Paris. The people. The gawking. The tourists. The slow walking. The noise.

• Your tomato salad is $27? That is better than your $65 lamb, but are your tomatoes grown in soil from the Garden of Eden? Is your feta from goats that trace their lineage back to the three billy goats gruff? Do the English cucumbers in it make me able to speak in a real British accent? And do they come with the ability to watch Downton Abbey when it starts airing in the UK this weekend—obliterating the need for me to wait until next January because I don't want to demonstrate that patience is a virtue?
• Why doesn't my room have a coffeemaker? My room on the 53rd floor was fancy. You could control the lights and the AC with the TV. You could make a spa appointment on the TV, too. There was a full-length window in the shower that went through to the bedroom: you could watch TV while you showered. {A lot centered around the TV in that fancy room.} The housekeepers replaced the CO Bigelow toiletries every day, even if you still had a lot left. {This means I came home with several bottles of lotion}.
  
  But try as I may, I couldn't find a coffeemaker in my room. This is, by the way, one of my favorite parts of staying in hotels: you can make coffee in your bedroom! I realize I could do this at home, but it doesn't seem as special to have your coffeemaker on your dresser along with your family pictures and the stuff you pulled out of your pockets last night.
  
  I looked in the closet. By the mini-fridge {being careful not to touch any of the snacks offered, should moving said snacks cause me to be charged}. I looked in drawers, even: maybe they hid the coffeemaker so that the room would look sleeker and more posh. I flipped through the TV options, thinking that, with such a wonder machine, perhaps it could make me coffee, too.
  
  No coffeemaker.
  
  When I went to the hotel cafe for the first time, I realized why my fancy room came without a coffeemaker: because coffee was $4.00. Just normal drip coffee. $4.00. Put a bunch of coffee-loving people in a situation where they've been out too late and yet still need to function during the day, and you will get lots of people paying $4.00 for coffee. Including me, although I didn't need coffee because I'd been out too late; I needed coffee because I needed some normalcy in my life there in Vegas.
What does it say about me that I loved the design of my hotel room so much, I took pictures of the wallpaper? It says, once again: you were not made for Vegas. But nice wallpaper.