Basil

The first thing I did this morning, after getting my little pug her breakfast, was check on my basil plant. It was out on the balcony, and last night, its leaves had been shriveled, drooped in the surprising humidity of an early June day.

Defeated: that’s what it had looked like, although it’s possible I’d been projecting my own emotions. Yesterday afternoon on the train home from work, the temperature had hovered at 95 and the air conditioning had been broken.

Shirts that had been crisp and white on the morning commute clung to armpits, shoulders, stomachs, backs—places that should never have so much attention drawn to them. Men and women who had gone confidently into work in the morning were, in the afternoon, avoiding eye contact, aware of every drip of sweat coming off their reddened foreheads. Buttons were undone as far as propriety allowed. Suit jackets were shed and would’ve been thrown from the train windows, if they opened, which of course they don’t, and we were all thinking dramatically of what it would feel like to grab that emergency fire axe and take out our overheated aggression on the windows.

Some tried to read the paper or play a game on their phone, but no distraction could scale that wall of heat. I watched one woman wipe down her iPhone screen several times; her sweaty finger as she played Candy Crush kept leaving trails, and she eventually gave up, thinking, like everyone else on the train, “Oh, what’s the use?”

I’d made it home to the air conditioning yesterday afternoon and stepped out on the balcony to check on my plants. And there was my sad little basil plant, looking every bit like every commuter on the westbound 4:15 train. “Oh, what’s the use?” its deflated leaves asked. “If I can’t make it through a June day, how will I ever survive July?”

Filling the watering can at the kitchen sink, I thought again of what I could make with the basil, if only I could keep it alive.

Caprese salad with those grape tomatoes that taste nothing like the big, tough, bland supermarket tomatoes we all now think of as a tomato.

Zucchini crostini with burrata. I’d chiffonade the basil, slicing it into very thin strips I could sprinkle over the sautéed zucchini and that creamy, mild but memorable cheese.

Wouldn’t it be delicious, a just-right summer taste, with grilled peaches and vanilla ice cream?

And there must be a cocktail I could make, one to call my signature summer 2016 drink—perhaps a gimlet?

----------

I bought my little basil plant at the farmers’ market last Saturday. It had been early—8 in the morning—and I will admit to feeling smug superiority for beating the crowds by being a natural early bird.

Later in the morning, around 10 or so, the aisles of the market are always packed with strollers and people trawling for free samples of just-shelled sweet peas. Inevitably, there is a girl pushing her cruiser bike—the kind with wide handlebars and brakes that you use by pedaling backwards, as if it were a child’s bike—next to the stand selling microgreens. She always pauses, considering if she really would like to spend $10 for very tiny scraps of arugula, just enough to make a salad for a fairy or a woodland creature. While she imagines the very small dinner party she could build around these microgreens, traffic stops behind her, unable to get past her handlebars. Deciding against the microgreens, she slowly moves onto the raw honey stand, and by the time she leaves the market, she will have nothing in her basket but a single sunflower and an iced latte. Which she bought at Starbucks on her way to the market.

Every summer, just once, I make the mistake of agreeing to meet a friend, someone who is not a natural early bird, at the market later in the day. And every summer, as I watch the bicycle girl examine honeycomb as if she’s actually going to buy it, I am filled, all the way down to my toenails, with an urge to tell her to get over herself, something I wish someone had told me when I was 22—and at the very least, to get out of the way of the eggplant I’m trying to reach.

But at 8 in the morning, the aisles are always clear, the eggplant easily accessible, and last Saturday, I’d smiled at every vendor and every other early bird: We were going to get the proverbial worm.
I’d come away from the farmers’ market with:

• Rhubarb that would become a crumble to celebrate the first day of summer
• Shelled sweet peas that would be sautéed in a little butter and a lot of garlic, then tossed on top of pasta carbonara
• Pain au chocolat, made by a French nun whose life I always wonder about. How did you end up here, in middle America? Do you speak French in your convent? Do you ever go home to Auvers-sur-Oise or Castelnaudary or wherever you’re from? But I have yet to work up the courage to ask. The most I have done is to throw a “Merci et bonne journee” to her in a small, timid voice, hoping she’ll hear my accent and lead us into conversation.
• And the little basil plant.

On the way home from the market, I’d stopped at the Pet Supplies Plus. Even in just the few minutes it took to buy dog food, the inside of my car began to boil, the sun already so hot at 8:30 that when I opened the car door, waves of sticky heat emerged, practically tangible. And there, just as strong as the heat, had been the smell of basil.

In the heat of the car, the basil had preened. Feeling the sun on its leaves, it had burst forth with the smell of summer, of evenings in the garden, of southern France or southern Italy or some other sun-soaked world where people eat dinner on terraces overlooking vineyards. That smell of basil was a day spent reading in a hammock, fresh-pressed olive oil, a bike ride along the sea, a morning where you don’t have to wake up to an alarm, and dangling your feet in the teal coolness of a pool.

Standing in the asphalt parking lot of Pet Supplies Plus, suburban traffic of SUVs and minivans crawling past on their way to some soccer game, I wanted everything that little basil plant was offering. I wanted to drink up the world, which I was certain would taste of basil and gin.

----------

I brought home that basil plant and found the sunniest spot for it out on the balcony. I told my little pug to not eat it. I watered it and I admired it.

And then yesterday the humidity got the best of it, as it does to so many of us. Last night, I sprinkled water from above so it was like a cool rain shower. I told it not to worry, that it could still recover, but inside I was thinking: What a waste of a farmers’ market purchase.

And I was thinking: Why can’t I keep anything alive?

And I was thinking: I probably shouldn’t have imbued this little basil plant with all my hopes for the summer, which are defeated and shriveled now, too.

And I was thinking: That’s kind of a dramatic turn to take; it’s just a plant.

The first thing I did this morning was check on it—and it has sprung back to life. I’m once again ready to drink up the world, which will definitely, certainly taste of basil.

-18 degrees

NPR told me this morning that the wind chill was -18 degrees. I'd just come in from walking Miss Daisy, who, despite the coat I'd put on her to keep her warm, refused to actually work.

"But I protected your little paws with that Musher's Secret stuff! That worked last year during the Polar Vortex, and it's nowhere near as cold now," I reasoned with her.

Miss Daisy looked up at me, brown, buggy eyes growing larger and sadder as she dug in all four paws and became a deadweight at the end of the leash.

"Fine. Fine. Your little sad face wins," I said as I leaned over to pick her up. Miss Daisy burrowed her face into my neck and sneezed, and my skin instantly chilled and I instantly feared frostbite.

My little feet weren't so happy about being outside in -18 degrees at 4:45, either. On Saturday—just before the first snowfall of 2015—the zipper on my right snowboot pulled apart. The boot sort of flops around on my foot now, making it rather useless, and I tried (oh, how I tried!) to get it back together. There were even needle-nose pliers involved.

But this is beyond my abilities; the boots need the help of a cobbler (like, the person who fixes shoes, not the dessert, although maybe filling my boots with cobbler would help keep my feet warm and sweet). I'm taking them in tonight after work, and until they're fixed, Miss Daisy and I will bond over cold feet and how we both want someone to pick us up.

never take a pug to a carnival

"But seriously, imagine this: A pug on a Ferris wheel is an awesome mental picture."

This is pretty much the level of conversation I'm up for an a Friday night—dreaming about adorable pug pictures that would instantly go viral.

With some coaxing, I might also be up for talking about how my day went or what I'm looking forward to over the weekend, but let's face it, by Friday night, I just want to wear my pajama pants and lay on the couch.

On this particular Friday night, I was doing just that, only replace the pajama pants with workout clothes. By some burst of energy miracle, I had made it to the gym after work, where, while doing sit-ups and push-ups and calf raises, I imagined that I was already at home, curled up under an afghan knitted by my great-grandmother.

Workout motivation tip: You know how you're supposed to envision how you want your workout to go? I do this when I have a race: I imagine what the race will be like, including such realistic details as "that panicked feeling you get when you realize you need to spit but that there are too many people around to do it safely."

A little mental preparation can help in a big way, but then I've found that when you're actually in the midst of your workout/run, it's best to imagine what you'll be doing later. Pep talks can only get you so far; it's far better to imagine the coffee you'll drink at brunch after the race {and the bacon! Never forget to think about the bacon!}.

Or in the case of my Friday night workout, it was better to think about laying down and not having to think or do much of anything for the rest of the night. Distract yourself: That's my workout motivation tip, one I hope you'll use and report back to me about how wonderfully it worked.

So I was on the couch, texting a good friend who was being a good sport about my typical Friday-evening-randomness, when the pug on a Ferris wheel image came to me and I sent her that message above.

You're probably either in awe of my imagination or concerned for my thought process {I'm assuming the former, by the way}, so I will offer this by way of explanation for my pug image: The carnival is in town.

Doesn't that explain everything? How could I walk past a Ferris wheel every day on my way to the train and not think of how a pug would react to spinning high above her town in what is essentially a swinging bucket?

{You're thinking about it now, too, aren't you?}

Here's how the conversation went:
Me: I am about to walk Miss Daisy, but then I really need to eat. You know those times when nothing sounds good? This in one of those times.

Allow me to jump in here and say—I had so much to eat at home. There was roast chicken and vegetables, eggplant gratin, a salad with an orange balsamic vinaigrette, and pear clafoutis. I could've made French toast or an omelet or a grilled cheese sandwich. Heck, I could've eaten cereal.

But every time I thought of something to eat, my inner toddler screamed, "NO!" That girl is so demanding and picky sometimes.

Me: BUT WAIT: I just had an excellent dinner thought. The carnival is in town. CORNDOG.

Patient Friend Who Listened to My Dinner Decisions and Hopefully Didn't Roll Her Eyes: Corndog all the way. If I were with you, I'd get a funnel cake. And cotton candy.

That response proves why we're friends and why I'm 99% sure she wasn't rolling her eyes at my dinner quandary: because she gets just as excited by food as I do.

Me: Then Daisy and I shall ride the Ferris wheel.

Patient Friend: Hahahahaha....

Me: But seriously, imagine this: A pug on a Ferris wheel is an awesome mental picture.

And to the carnival we went, my pug and I. The night was cool—shockingly cool for mid-May, and I don't just mean that I had to wear a light spring jacket. I mean that it had snowed earlier in the day, an occurrence that flummoxed us all, even though we have just survived the coldest, snowiest winter I can remember. Snow in mid-May? What are we, Minnesotan?

I formed a plan as I walked over: if there were a lot of people at the carnival, Daisy and I would keep walking and I would force myself to suck it up and eat some roast chicken at home, even though that is no corndog. Crowds tend to overwhelm her, and I didn't know how safe it would be for a pug in a carnival. She might be taken in by one of the carnies, unaware that the games were fixed and she'd most likely not win a new stuffed animal.

But the cool night kept most people away from the carnival because who wants a lemon shake-up when the temperature is much closer to freezing than you'd like to admit? Giving Daisy a few notes on dealing with carnies, I walked her up to the corndog stand.

As I paid, I felt her tug on the leash, and I looked down to see an absolutely panicked pug staring up at the Ferris wheel.

It must've been the bright lights—don't they draw us all in? But given how Daisy was rooted to the ground, frozen as all those bright lights twinkled towards her from the slowly-rotating Ferris wheel, I can only assume that it looked like some sort of giant fireball coming straight at her.

While I know she couldn't possibly have understood that 1) I had suggested taking her on a Ferris wheel, 2) I had most definitely been joking when I said that, and 3) pugs aren't allowed on Ferris wheels to begin with, I still felt bad for even thinking about it. You would've, too, if you'd seen her cower from the Ferris wheel. In fact, if you had been there, you probably would've been yelling at me at this point and taking away my corndog.

I bent down to reassure Miss Daisy, and my movement broke her spell. She looked away from the fireball, shook her head, and suddenly realized that all around her was a magic land of dropped food. French fries. Corndog sticks that still had some breading on them. And her favorite: chewed gum.

She did her spin of excitement and took to licking everything she could find that looked like food, and even some things that were clearly just rocks.

Oh, the carnival! It holds such possibility, doesn't it? One minute, you can be rigid with terror and the next moment, you can be eating bad-for-you food. This is what we all know about the carnival, and this is what Miss Daisy experienced for the first time on Friday night.


------------

PS I was going to insert a picture of a pug on a Ferris wheel, but the Internet holds no such picture that I can find. I believe this is an untapped adorable picture market.

I did, however, discover through auto-fill {you know, when Google tries to guess ahead to what you're searching for, based on what other people have searched for} that the following searches are popular {as they should be}:

• "pugs riding in cars"
• "pugs riding unicorns"
• "pug riding a Roomba"
• "pugs in The Hobbit"
• "pugs in fancy dress"

when the world soaks up the winter

This morning, walking the little pug, I smelled spring. That smell of thaw and melt when the world is soaking up the winter.

Oh, I know it's just a passing promise for now.

More cold weather is coming over the weekend, and this smell of spring will disappear into that frozen smell of car exhaust. That is the smell the snow takes on after just a day on the ground. Turning gray, it is an ugly reminder of the price of transportation, just as the soot-covered cathedrals in Europe were a reminder of the price of industrialization.

When the snow turns gray and the air is so cold, all I can smell is exhaust(ion).

But no need to think of that now, on this day when breathing in the air feels life-giving {as I suppose it always should, but when it is -3 out, breathing in feels like a struggle}.

No need to think of the cold to come on a day when you can just start to see the grass emerging from under the snow—just at the edge of the sidewalks. It's matted down, probably experiencing the grass-equivalent of what happens to your hair when you wear a hat for too long, only in this case, the hat is the snow that has been crushing the snow for what must've been years.

It has been years since I breathed in warm air while walking the little pug, hasn't it? That's what my soul seems to remember, but smelling the spring this morning made my soul remember that there are warmer days to come. Soon.

the draw of flannel sheets

I have had a problem this week: getting out of bed. You see, I switched to my flannel sheets and fluffy duvet for the winter—no more sleeping under a thin but handmade quilt as I do for most of the year. Cozy though that may sound—this dreaming protected by tiny, precise stitches from my great-grandmother's hands—it's never quite warm enough when the wind slices outside.

Last Sunday, I pulled out my flannel flowered sheets and immediately wanted to get in bed. It was only 4pm, though, and I still had a Halloween party to go to. {Perhaps my costume could've been bedhead?}

Through the party, all I thought was: bed, bed, bed.

Oh, I also thought about Little Pug, who was dressed up as a devil and was, of course, the belle of the ball.

But when I wasn't accepting compliments on my devil dog, I was imagining flannel and how I'd rather be eating in bed than eating little smokies at a party. And I really love little smokies.

You can see, perhaps, why I don't get invited out much: because I spend my time wishing I were reading alone while surrounded by flannel. Who needs human contact when you have winter sheets?

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!"

conversation tips from NPR

I heard this story on NPR about how we're always trying to figure out what our pets are thinking.

We talk for them and give them, usually, funny voices.

We ask each other, "Now, just what do you suppose she's thinking when she digs her face into the couch like that?" Whoever we asked may speculate on the dog's thoughts by using that funny voice. You'll both laugh.

It wasn't exactly breaking news, particularly for anyone who owns a pet, but that's what I love about NPR: sure, they do their share of newsy stuff, but when you don't have commercials taking up air time, you're left with quite a bit of what I like to call quirkiness possibility.

{At certain times of the year, they're also left with quite a bit of time for pledge drives, which, I'm sorry to report, by the second day reduces me to shouting at the radio: BUT I ALREADY SUPPORT YOU! Where's my secret bypass button on this radio so I don't have to listen to you beg?

By the sixth day, I'm tempted to coerce everyone I know into supporting, just so the pledge drive will be shorter.}

The quirkiness possibility is in those stories on things like, "We like to talk for our dogs." It's as if NPR wants to help you be a better, more informed conversationalist. Maybe they have a corporate goal of making all of us into Renaissance men and women, able to pull out information on nearly every topic.

If they do, I'm in support of that goal. We all need more things to talk about beyond what we did over the weekend, how the weekend was too short, the rain or lack of rain, how we hope it doesn't rain over the weekend, and what we had/will have for dinner.

Not that those aren't fine topics. Don't you find that the predictability of some conversations is reassuring? They are the equivalent of sitting by a fireplace on a winter's night; you know you'll be comfortable, and you might get a little sleepy.

But sometimes, you want to throw some lighter fluid on the fire, and that's where NPR comes in handy. Just pay attention to what's happening in your conversation and see where you can slip in your NPR tidbit about dogs, GMO corn, or how to make beef stock.

If all else fails, just say, "Yes, I had a good weekend, too. In fact, I heard the most interesting thing on NPR."

thoughts on the rain

The rain came down so hard and fast this morning that a river sprang up in the yard.

The water raced down the slight hill from the appropriately-named Hillside Street, past a house that must've been holding its breath in an attempt to remain watertight—and flowed, finally, into a parking lot.

----------

As a sidenote, "raining cats and dogs" is a ridiculous, unhelpful expression, especially if you like cats and dogs. And particularly if you own a dog who refuses to go out in the rain and instead looks at you angrily, as if you summoned this rain to hurt her.

----------

It takes just a few hours of relentless rain to remind us that just underneath the surface of the manicured lawns, the earth is still so wild. We are all still so wild.

----------

This morning, I got half a black down the street on my drive to the gym before I turned around: even exercise is not worth risking the rivers and lakes that weren't there last night. I decided to do sit-ups by the fire and chase the little pug around the apartment; that would be my high-and-dry exercise.

----------

Just an hour or so after my gym attempt, the rain had lightened to more of a gentle crying from the sky. That river in the yard is gone, and if I hadn't had to ford it this morning, pink galoshes carrying me through, I wouldn't believe that it had ever existed. I wouldn't even believe it was a possibility in this town.

we wait for spring

Upstairs from me, a sweet retired couple lives, and on March 1, the man, Hal, declared to me: "My winter ends today."

We were standing outside, having met on the sidewalk—me coming in from my morning walk with the little pug, and he heading out to his volunteer position as the crossing guard for the local elementary school.

The first time Hal told me that he was a crossing guard, I wanted to ask him if he got to wear the reflective belt—the one that loops over your shoulder and then wraps around your waist. I remember that from my crossing guard days at Grimes Elementary, and I also remember always getting it twisted, which rather limited its reflective abilities.

I didn't ask him that but assumed he was the lucky guy who gets to hold up the stop sign and wave at the cars as they drive by.

On March 1, Hal, on his way to be a crossing guard, had on a stocking cap, wool mittens, and a parka, and yet he declared to me: "My winter ends today."

He went on to explain, "See, Kamiah, I say every year that winter is over on March 1, even if it doesn't really happen until later in the month. But I like to believe that spring comes earlier, so I just say that winter is over."

He's told me that several times since then, and I can tell he tells a lot of people that. It gets him a laugh, and there is a practiced patter to how he says it. "So I just say that winter is over," he always concludes, and then he laughs, a quick ha-ha, at his own joke, as he zips up his parka.

I find these kinds of conversations comforting in their predictability. When it comes down to it, we all have something to say about the weather, and the very fact that on March 25, I woke up to flurries is indeed something to comment on.

The sky is falling, and we are all waiting for spring. Real spring, I mean, not the kind that comes just on the calendar or when an old man declares he's had enough of this Midwestern cold and gray.

I hope I see Hal tonight on my walk with little pug. I want to tell him that this morning, I saw a crocus pushing up through the earth, dotted with snow, but there all the same. Winter is ending. It really is.

at times like this, i long for france. {or, how i wish i could take my pug everywhere.}

With a title like that—and if you, for some reason, have been following the weather where I live—you're probably thinking: Oh Lord, she's going to write about the beauty of the rain and how it reminds her of Normandie. Again.

Well, I'm not. So there.

This warm almost-spring rain does make my rather mundane town feel like it's been transported to northern France. When I'm out walking little pug in the early morning, I can close my eyes and pretend, just for a moment, that I'm walking down the Eau de Robec in Rouen, which is this little street that has a stream running down one side of it. There are cafes and half-timbered buildings and even an art studio where I often considered stopping in to take a painting lesson.


It's all in the smell of rain on pavement, I've convinced myself. That is the aroma of Normandie, and this spring rain has brought it back to me.

But if I walk with my eyes closed for too long, I will run into a tree or a light post here on my very American street named Duane and so I need to keep those urges and longings for France in check.

And dang, I just wrote about the beauty of the rain and how it reminds me of Normandie, didn't I?

Let's start afresh.

I long for France at various moments {many of them related to food}, but right now, I am longing for that ability in France to take your dog everywhere.

Dogs in markets and cafes, restaurants and, bien sur, on the Eau de Robec. The French definitely embrace that "man's best friend" aspect of dogs {even if they don't always embrace actually cleaning up after their little friends}.

Now, I am not feeling this way because I fear Miss Daisy has become lonely at home during my workdays and needs me around for companionship. I'm not even worried about how—as one of my co-workers points out frequently—I travel a lot for work, which means Miss Daisy gets to stay with various people, leading her to be confused about who her real family is.

I am her family. She knows this because I tell her all the time, when I'm not travelling, obviously. It's not like I call her when I'm on the road. That'd be weird, and I don't want to be weird; I just want to be able to take her wherever I go tomorrow.

For one day, I want to be French because I have this guy coming to install a new fireplace for me.

{As an aside, I should acknowledge that as cavalierly as I said "this guy," it makes it sound like I wandered into the DMV and announced: All you people just waiting around here, do any of you know anything about fireplaces? You do, guy over there? Great. Please come to my house next week. Thanks.

That is not at all how this happened. It's a legit contractor coming to install my fireplace, but I feel a tad pretentious saying "my contractor." I could also refer to "my interior designer," if I wanted to up the pretentiousness, but that person would really just be me, wandering around Home Depot trying to pick out tiles.}

So this guy—my contractor—is coming to install a new fireplace, and I've taken the day off work in order to make important decisions about tile placement and such.

Because I'm me, though, I keep thinking of other things I could do with my day off:
go to a cafe to write
go to Hobby Lobby when there aren't 3million people around
take myself out to lunch

And then I remember the little pug. She really can't be left alone with strangers, especially strangers making loud noises and ripping things apart. She would most definitely be a micromanager and want to stick her nose in everything. She may even try to crawl into the fireplace in order to inspect it/sneeze on it {which is a pug's version of approval}.

If I were in France, Miss Daisy could come with me. I would even consider getting her a little bag like this:

She would love it and all the old French ladies would coo over her—and I would be able to run errands.

But I'm not in France, am I? I am somewhere where I get a day of rest at home tomorrow, mixed in with loud noises and tile decisions.

Coming at the end of a couple weeks of travel, I should be grateful for this, this atypical day of rest.

Maybe I should thank my little pug for giving me a reason to just be at home without the pressure to be accomplishing anything.

As a reward for just being herself, maybe I'll take her on a long afternoon walk and pretend we're in France.

never give a pug mulled wine

Last night, I decorated my Christmas tree while drinking mulled wine. The Mary Tyler Moore Show Christmas episode was on in the background. It's from Season 1—"Christmas and the Hard-luck Kid II"—and a couple of years ago, I decided to make watching it while decorating a tradition. {You can read about that and my other Christmas traditions here, should you be interested / want to follow-up with me to see if I actually did these this year.} Mary gets just as excited about Christmas as I do: the lights! the tree! the wrapping paper! the tradition!

Mary Richards is always prone to talking in exclamation points, but that's especailly evident in the Christmas episode. Her desk at the WJM Newsroom has a Santa and eight tiny reindeer on it; she loves Christmas and all its trappings. As she dances along to "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies" in the Christmas episode, I swayed, too, as I twisted red ribbon around the tree and hung ornaments on every branch {practically}.

Who wouldn't want to work here?

My little pug stared warily at me last night. She had done her 12 very tight circles on top of a pillow before laying down and made sure she was facing the tree and me when she finally settled down.

She let out a pug sigh—those squished in noses make for delightfully emphatic-sounding sighs. It sounds a bit like she's simultaneously snoring and letting go of all the world's cares, as if she's been carrying the burden of the Middle East and credit downgrades and the effects of global warming and now finally, finally, she can relax and just be herself.

As I sang "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" with Mary, Little Pug looked concerned that I was either going to decorate her next or replace her with the tree. It's a charmingly enticing thought—a pug with twinkle lights on her—but I took another sip of mulled wine and sat down with her in the chair.

Even though she's a very compact pug, she took up approximately 90% of the chair, and I was forced to sort of contort my body around her.

"Little Pug, it's just a little Christmas cheer. A few extra lights, a tree in the house, a wreath on the door so it smells like we live in a forest." I scratched her behind her ears. "Look how happy Mary is for Christmas! I know it's chaotic right now"—I looked at the storage bins scattered around the living room with lights and Nativity figures climbing out of them—"but it'll all be worth it, just you wait."

I idly petted her {reassurance through touch works for so many things} as I considered where to hang the Advent calendar. By the entry? Replace the K hanging in the dining room? {Another not-so-subtle homage to Mary Tyler Moore} Where would it be best?

And then into my Christmas reverie came the strangest of noises: very sloppy slurping. I looked down and the pug was practically up to her neck in my mug. Her flat face was pressed as far as she could get it into the mulled wine, and she was making her own Christmas cheer.

Photo op of a pug in a mug re-created this morning. She was rather disappointed when she figured out that there wasn't more mulled wine in that mug and that I'd tricked her for my blogging pleasure. But really, who wants to drink mulled wine at 7:30am, even when you're competing with Mary Richards for Person Most in Love with Christmas?

"Little Pug, no! You can't drink! You can't be a drunk pug during Christmas decorating—at the office holiday party, sure, but not in front of Mary and the Christmas tree!"

She pulled her face out, and I'm pretty sure she smiled. The whole sad pug sighing about the Middle East had been an elaborate ruse, I think, to get mulled wine.

I laughed as she licked her nose, trying to get every last drop, and I decided then to adapt my Christmas decorating tradition: Mary, mulled wine, and a drunk pug.

What could be more festive?

a picture a day keeps fall here to stay

That's true, right? That a picture a day keep fall here to stay?

If I can document the color, then it never has to fade. Let's pretend that is true, and look at this tree I pass every day on my walk with Little Pug.

It is fall. It is brilliant, even on a gray day like today. It is what I want to remember from this time, even as I notice day by day that it's changing and we're marching ever closer to winter.

In fact, I think I will take a picture every day of this tree: to help me pay attention.

{As a bonus, this will also probably confuse Little Pug: Why do you stop here every day? She will ask me that with her eyes, and I will tell her stories about fall. I'm sure she'll appreciate my rhapsodizing about colors when all she wants to do is go on a walk.}

to try with the pug

Really Awesome Idea to Try with Little Pug

I can wear a pretty dress.

She can row the boat.

Just-picked flowers are essential to this idea, as is that hat.

I don't know, though, if I can pull off looking so bored. I'll be ON A BOAT. WITH A PUG. AND FLOWERS.

I bet tucked under that brocaded-blanket {seriously, it looks like curtains} is a copy of a Jane Austen novel—or maybe it's "The Lady of Shalott." Maybe I could have my own Anne of Green Gables re-enactment while I read "The Lady of Shalott." You know, like here:

And then Little Pug could rescue me.

These are the kinds of things, by the way, that you think about when it's such a glorious May day outside your office window.

biking to work {or, why i am not audrey hepburn}

It's National Bike-to-Work Week, and as I so like to do, I'm celebrating appropriately: by biking to work.

Saying that, I get an image of Audrey Hepburn biking—perhaps cycling {a much more refined, Audrey-type word} through a field of tulips. Skirt flying, big sunglasses, laughing into the wind as she speeds down the lane, careful to not let her baguette, cheese, and wine spill out of her basket.

There's the Audrey Hepburn version of cycling:

And then there's the reality of me biking to work:

• My bike has no basket.
• Even if my bike did have a basket, I doubt Little Pug would sit in it for very long—and she certainly wouldn't look as content as Miss Hepburn's dog with her little bow. Little Pug is an explorer and has a scrappy side to her that may compel her to jump out of the basket, just to prove that she can. Then she'd land on the front wheel and become the tumbling pug.
  
  That sounds like a very good beginning to a very bad children's book: The Pug Who Did Not Like Biking.
• I don't wear a headscarf so much as a big magenta bike helmet. This replaced the old Bell bike helmet I had when I was younger, an ugly travesty of a thing that brought me much embarrassment. So much embarrassment that I wrote about my Bell helmet once.
• My bike doesn't have an Audrey Hepburn nameplate, for obvious reasons—the most obvious being: if someone thought my bike belonged to Audrey Hepburn, they would steal it.
• I wear bike-appropriate clothes—wait, not spandex. Don't get that idea. I just mean that I wear clothes I don't mind getting sweaty, and then I bring with me—in the backpack I carried in college—my work clothes.
  
  In other words, I don't have an adorable cycling outfit so much as a practical approach to the realities of sweat.

It's a 20-minute jaunt to work, and I have to admit, I feel very European as I bike through downtown Wheaton, by the cafe that opens for breakfast at 6am, and past schoolchildren.

I have to hold in the urge to sing-song "Bonjour!" to the train, the commuters, the cafe, the schoolchildren, the people out walking their dogs.

Biking to wrk can be associated with a sower, more charmed pace of life—a pace we Americans often think, in a dreamy, idealized kind of way, all Europeans have.

If only I could bike to work like the Dutch {even their Queen bikes!}, we think, then my life would be hale and hearty. I'd stop at the cafe for an espresso with friends after work, and I'd have enviable leg muscles.

And it's true: these 20-minute bookends on my day do bring a sort of charmed airiness to the workaday world.

The gravel crunching under the tires, the archway of trees over me creating patterns of sun and shade, the fresh edge of the morning air, the pulsing of my legs as I peddle fast at the Main Street railroad crossing: it all combines into a kind of intense gratefulness for the day.

Lest I get too wrapped up in this idealized version of biking to work—and then fall down the slippery slope into thinking I'm Audrey Hepburn—I've made a list of Things to Keep in Mind While Biking to Work.

Things to Keep in Mind While Biking to Work

• You're not actually Audrey Hepburn.
• You're also not Dutch, not even the littlest bit.
• Seriously, just because you rented bikes in Amsterdam that one time doesn't make you a Dutch biker.
• Drawback to biking: It's challenging to drink coffee on the way to work.
• Another drawback: I hope you don't have to run any errands at lunch today, such as getting an oil change.
• You are your own pack mule when it comes to bringing lunch, so consider what you'll be hungry for at noon carefully.
• You should get a little bell to ding-ding-ding. That can be your precursor to shouting out, "ON THE LEFT!" every time you pass someone.
• After getting to work, it takes 15ish minutes to cool down enough to feel like you're presentable enough for actual work. Keep this in mind should you have any meetings to run as soon as you get into the office.
• I hope I never forget my brush or my deodorant while biking. I bet everyone else in the office really hopes I never forget my deodorant.
• On days you bike to work, for the love, do not do the legs portion of your weight lifting routine. Not necessary. And later, when you have to bike home and your legs are already sore, you will be upset at your overachiever morning self that tried to be all exercise-y.
• If you can fit in a swim and a run before you bike to work, you can start bragging about doing a triathlon every day.

This is my bike. See how it's not at all like Audrey Hepburn's? It's older than I am, actually, and at one time, belonged to my older brother. Yes, I have a boy's bike. Yes, it is slightly too large for me. Yes, once when I stopped at an intersection, I fell over because my foot didn't reach the ground very well. No, I will not demonstrate that for you.

what i said to my pug recently

Last Friday night, there was a snowstorm.

Come Saturday morning, the world was fresh and white and sunshiney, just as the world is meant to be after a snowstorm.

In getting my little pug ready for her walk out in the great white world, I put her snow boots on her.

"Miss Daisy, you have to wear your booties because the snow melt hurts your paws. Remember that from last winter?"

[Little pug cocks her head at me, as if to say, "I barely remember what I had for breakfast—and it's the same thing every morning, especially since you put me on a diet. By the way, I'm not fat. Way to give me body image issues."]

"Well, it does hurt your paws. You do this painful-to-my-heart hopping thing. I want to simultaneously laugh and cry and pick you up and make you keep walking. No pain, no gain, after all, little pug."

[She twists her head the other way and looks in general very worried because she believes her feet no longer exist. Once the booties are on, she can't feel her footpads touching the floor, and in the dog world that means "OMG, I NO LONGER HAVE FEET!"]

Later, as we stomped through the snow on the Prairie Path, a group of fearless runners came {carefully} running past.

"Hey, pug! I love your shoes!" The lead runner shouted this, and then the others all looked down as one at Miss Daisy.

"Yeah, great boots!"

"Love them!"

"You have such style!"

I shouted out a thank you on behalf of little pug, and then, as she looked up at me, confused as to why this group of bright-colored-tight-wearing people just all yelled at her, I said:

"See, other people think your booties are cool. Why can't you just trust me that they are?"

So this week, little pug and I are working on her trust issues.

And on my issues of talking out loud to her as if we were having a real conversation and she wasn't covered in fur.

It's a big week for us.

BONUS picture of little pug, in celebration of this big week

on pushing 30

"The one thing you should know about me is this: I'm the consummate good girl."

That's how the back cover of a book by Whitney Gaskell begins. The book is a pinkish-purple, and the cover involves a swirly font—looks like it could've been handwritten by a 15-year-old hoping to appear fancy—and high heels.

I tell you all these cover details because, contrary to that saying, I most definitely judge a book by its cover. I am seduced by typeface, clean design, and—although this is on the inside of the book, so perhaps it makes me seem less judge-y of outward appearances—hefty, creamy paper. No, saying that I like the touch of a book doesn't make me seem less superficial.

Maybe re-phrasing this way helps: the sensory details—the aesthetics, too—of a thing add to the reading experience.

You know it's true: the weight of a book in your hands, the smell of the paper, the pressure in your fingernail when you dogear a page to mark a favorite passage. These details are valid.

And these details, when applied to the Whitney Gaskell book I found next to Wives and Daughters at the library, said:

I am chick lit.

I am set in either a big East Coast city {preferably NYC} or a small town that is based not on the reality of small town life but more on the idealized but updated Donna Reed version of small town life. In this small town, there is a charming cafe that rivals Starbucks and has vegan options, even though in a real small town, you'd be going to something called the Dairy Barn for your Maxwell House drip coffee and ham salad sandwich at lunch.

I will have a protagonist who is either in publishing or a lawyer. Regardless of which it is, she will have the same amount of money and be able to buy scarily expensive shoes a la Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City.

Those high heels may figure prominently in a scene where she meets a man who is perfect for her. She will meet him just after breaking a heel.

Or she will meet him the one time she doesn't wear the heels when she runs a quick errand—dashing out of her hardwood-floored, granite countertopped, vintage-feeling apartment that could be used for a photo shoot for Anthropologie. She will meet him when she hasn't done her hair and when she's wearing sweatpants and old running shoes.

I would make a good movie starring Katherine Heigl.

Chick lit can be so comforting in its predictability.

Chick flicks bring the same comfort. You know that Katherine Heigl is, indeed, going to get together with whoever it is after they go through a spell of "No, I hate YOU more! Also! Look at my adorable pencil skirt! Also! Have you met my whacky but endearing friends? Also! I think you're self-centered, but aha, I just learned that you can make an amazing coq au vin. You're full of surprises; I think I'll stick around."

Sometimes, you just want predictable comfort. Actually, a lot of times I want predictable comfort, which may be why I like Jane Austen so much and why I was at the library to get an Elizabeth Gaskell book in the first place.

I decided to go for the predictable comfort of the Whitney Gaskell book, too, because:

• the book is called Pushing 30: And I am, indeed, pushing 30.

  I did not get this book as either a) a guide {how can I make the last month of my 20s hilarious and worthy of a chick flick? And if I were to be in a chick flick, who would play me? I wish Audrey Hepburn were still available. I would also accept Mary Tyler Moore.}

  or b) a reassurance {OMG, THIRTY. THIRTY MAKES ME WANT TO TALK AND WRITE IN ALL CAPS.}.

  On this whole turning 30 thing: I'm not freaked out at all/delving into over-analyzation/starting to act like I'm wise beyond my years/thinking wistfully of college/officially declaring myself a spinster/planning on finally losing all inhibitions and partying until I forget how old I am.

  But I will read a silly book about someone else turning 30.

• the protagonist—Ellie—called herself the consummate Good Girl: And I relate to that, although she does talk about washing her make-up off every night, even when she's tired. If that is a sign that you're a Good Girl {and not, you know, going to church and singing in the choir and spending nights in Vegas reading Persuasion}, well, then, I may not qualify. I get really tired and lazy—and FYI, start to make a lot less sense—at about 10pm.
• the back cover talks about Ellie's pug: Honest-to-goodness, I was thinking that I could put the book back on the shelf.

  The story sounded so-so—and SO trite, actually. It's about how Ellie, our adorable lawyer who lives in Washington, DC, meets a man twice her age, and she immediately falls for him. But, OMG, can she finally have some happily-ever-after happen to her with "the one man who's so wrong for her, he's perfect"? {What does that even mean?}

  Plus, I could relate to Ellie only it that she was almost 30 and a Good Girl with a Clean Face {sometimes, on my part}. The rest of it—dysfunctional family {that's right, family, I don't think we're dysfunctional! Do not take Thanksgiving as a chance to prove me wrong!}, hating her job {Dear People I Work With: I like my job.}—I didn't relate to at all.

  Even from the back cover copy, I could tell I wasn't going to be all that invested in her family/hating work problems. Most likely, if we were friends in real life, I'd tell her to pull herself together.

  But then, there was this: "...and she's somehow become enslaved to her demanding pet pug Sally." A pet pug! Just like mine! Maybe this book will be portentous for the next month before I turn 30, especially since I dress up my pug like this:

  

  If that little face doesn't say "demanding pet pug," I don't know what does.

Turns out I shouldn't have let the mention of a pug sway me. In general, that's actually a pretty good life principle to live by: do not be swayed by pugs.

I didn't make it beyond the first chapter where Ellie meets The Older Man—while, GASP, running an errand in her sweatpants because she had a home-hair coloring disaster! How could she let herself go out in public like that? Oh, such tragedy! Oh, and her pink hair!

I hope you can tell from the number of exclamation points that I had very little sympathy for her. I did have a little for her pug, though.

And from now on, I will stick with Elizabeth Gaskell when I'm in the G section of fiction at the library.

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.

away, away they must go

It was a cold fall morning, feeling for all the chill in the air just as November 1 should. As I walked baby pug down a side street and past a house with a bright red door and a For Sale sign out front, the birds above us chattered the solfege.

Do-re-mi, they said to one another, perched {a word made for birds, I tell you} in a tree that still had most of its leaves, which were finch-gold and full of glory and grace.

The leaves hid the birds; looking up into the branches spreading across the pink sky, all I saw were leaves and all I heard was birdsong, as full of glory and grace as the leaves hiding the little singers.

A movement then—was it me? Or the pug?

A movement—a signal from time immemorial, perhaps—set them off, and in one flap of their wings, they were away.

For just a moment, it seemed the tree was moving, flying away, lifting off. The birds were extended branches, and because of them, the tree stood taller, scratched more of the sky.

The small black birds had stopped singing, and now they were no longer hidden by the golden leaves. They were dotting the sky above me—away, away they must go.

The manipulation of air: that was all there was to hear as the birds aimed up and away. Wings moving air, and even in an instant, I thought of the beauty of physics and creation. Science and nature together {can they ever be apart?} give the illusion of magic at times.

All around me, gold pieces were falling, gently—a ballet of the season. The leaves felt released when the birds revealed themselves, and down the leaves fell as up the birds rose.

I stood in the midst of falling gold and heard the birds start singing again as they decided on a direction. This way, this way—they beckoned to each other.

And the leaves piled on the ground.

a note about phlegm

Look, I'm going to warn you now: if you don't like reading about phlegm, this is not the post for you. Maybe you could try reading about my nerdiness via Downton Abbey if you'd rather not read about my very unladylike behavior I demonstrated along the Prairie Path in Wheaton today.

Last week, I actually took a half a sick day. I say "actually" because it just doesn't happen all that often, this taking of a sick day. I mostly say things to myself like, 'I mean, really, is it that bad? Can you still sit at your desk? Are you still able to focus your eyes? Could your cough be something of a conversation topic in the office because Lord knows we need something to talk about besides work?'

I have, after all, the constitution of a horse {assuming horses are very healthy creatures} and the work ethic of a protestant {because, well, I am one. Oh my, I just realized that when you talk about "protestant work ethic," you're totally insulting the Catholics who, in my experience, do work hard. I should stick with the "puritan work ethic" because I don't know any puritans I could potentially be insulting. And probably when puritans are insulted, they take it as a sign of God's favor. Persecution = favor, you know.}.

So I don't often allow myself sick days, or, as I cheerfully and judgmentally like to call them, weakness days or wussy days.

One of my fall projects, though, is trying to learn how to be kinder to myself.

I'm pretty sure this "fall project" is going to last FOREVER {who can learn to be kinder to themselves in one season?}, which means that it will be eternally autumn for me and doesn't that sound like bliss? To always have crisp nights and visual reminders of change around you at all times?

When I woke up last Tuesday with an "I can't breathe very well" throat, I decided to act on my fall project and take a half-day—after going to work in the morning to keep some projects moving along.

Stop judging my inability to slow down and just let myself be sick. Fall just started a few weeks ago, okay? Yeah, maybe I should've taken a whole day, but let's just let me celebrate the half-day victory. Sheesh. Cut me some slack here, people.

{Maybe being kinder to myself is making me less kind to other people around me. Oh my, I hope that isn't true.}

I was back at work on Wednesday morning in such a perky mood that my boss found it necessary to ask, "Are you this perky at home, too, when it's just you and the pug?"

Of course. Of course I am.

Of course I spent my sick day being perky to my pug. It went like this:

"Miss Daisy!" {said in a sing-song voice}

"It's sweatpants and orange juice time! No, baby, don't look so confused about why I'm home in the middle of the day and why I'm singing to you. Let's just cuddle on the couch and watch Anne of Green Gables, or ooh! We could take a nap!"

Yes, perky.

The truth is I was extra perky on Wednesday because 1) I was feeling guilty about taking a half-day {shut up, puritan work ethic!}, and 2) I was trying to fool my body into thinking it was better. As you may have picked up on, I'm going to Prince Edward Island on vacation this week, and I just had to get better. I did not want to be sick and moaning and being bleary-eyed in pictures at Green Gables.

If ever there was a time to be clear-eyed, it's when visiting a house with gables.

My body may have felt slightly better after its sick day, but I needed to marshal my emotional forces—my perkiness—to start feeling all better.

You're probably thinking—that's silly, Kamiah. You can't force yourself to get better, just by chipperness.

And to that I say: I'm all better now, aren't I?

Granted, this may have something to do with the fact that even when I was sick and clogged up, I went running anyway.

You can chastise me for this {how do you run when you can't breathe?}, but my view is that if you're clogged up with phlegm, there's nothing like a autumn morning run to jostle everything around so that you cough it up. What else was a fall morning made for?

Spitting into a pile of orange-gold leaves just feels right, you know? You feel like a real runner and a little bit like a cowboy or like someone who chews tobacco, which sounds like a terrible idea if you're a runner.

I do try to wait until there's no one else around me on the Prairie Path to do this hawking and spitting and coughing, but today, these two college guys snuck up on me. Probably I couldn't hear them because I was coughing.

I was just turning my head to spit this mouthful of phlegm
this expectoration of sickness
this need to be kind to myself

I was just turning my head to spit when they came flying past.

As I spit, I imagined that they were a little impressed with my distance and general rough-and-tumble girl attitude, spitting on the Prairie Path like that.

But then I realized that they're probably 18, and I maybe shouldn't be so worried about impressing them.

And then I coughed a lot more, which most likely decreased any attractiveness factor I'd built up.

But oh, did I ever feel good, spitting and running on the Prairie Path this morning.

night-time crazy

I woke up standing on my bed, pushing on the wall, throwing all my weight and muscle power into it. 

Actually, "woke up" is not the correct phrase.

As with every other time something bizarre has happened in the middle of the night, I was well-aware what was going on the whole time.

I was awake. 

My eyes were open. 

It's just that my brain was convinced of some alternate reality. 
 
I should probably back up a little bit here, huh? 

-------- 

I am not a sleepwalker.

{I'm Kamiah Walker.  Funny!  Get it?!?!  I have been making walking jokes for years with my last name, and I predict that it will never get old.}

I'm more of a late-night crazy thinker, which is the only time the phrase "late-night" will ever be applied to me.


See, every month or so, I sit straight up in bed, awake, convinced that something rather impossible is happening.  In the past, I have thought:

• that I needed to help load a van:  I got dressed and rushed outside.  I was late for the van loading, but I still took the time to brush my hair and pull it back in a ponytail.  Regardless of the fact that it was the middle of the night, I needed to keep up appearances.  When I got outside, I {not surprisingly} found no van.  I thought, 'Well, they'—sidenote: who were they? I still don't know—'must be late.  Now I have time to rest.'  And then I sat down on the front step and waited; I will not tell you how long.
• that my friends Katie and Rachel were staying the night:  And I had gone to bed without a) saying goodnight, b) showing them where they were going to sleep, or c) making the bed. I felt, as you may guess, intensely guilty about this.
  'I'm a horrible hostess,' I chastised myself as I sprang from bed. It was winter, and in the winter, my apartment drops to 58 degrees at night {you can call me cheap; I call myself frugal and in love with burrowing under five blankets as if I were in Little House on the Prairie}. 'Who invites guests over and then tries to freeze them out after expecting them to make their own bed? Terrible, terrible hostess.'
  
  I bumped the thermostat up to 68 degrees, and then rushed to the linen closet to gather up extra blankets. I paused at the door to the guest room. It'd be creepy, I decided, to actually put the blankets on them, as if I were pretending to be their mother and was checking on them in the middle of the night. Acting quickly, I pulled open the door and threw in the blankets.
  
  'They'll wake up and find the blankets on the floor and take back all their nasty thoughts about how I'm a bad hostess,' I thought as I climbed back in bed, plotting out what I would make them for breakfast in the morning to further cement my hostess-with-the-mostess-ness. I don't know why I assumed that my very good friends were thinking very bad thoughts about me, but at this point, I think that should be the least of my concerns about my thought process. 
• that a hand was coming through my bedroom window:  I told myself that if I hid under the covers, then the hand couldn't find me.
  
  And really, that makes a lot of sense. A disembodied hand doesn't have eyes; even a very small child knows that. I smiled to myself as I flattened my back against the mattress. 'He'll never get me now!' I thought with glee.
  
  Which inevitably leads to the question: How did I know it was a man's hand?
  
  Oh, it was clear. The nails were ragged and the hand was large and looked like it could palm a football. So clearly a man's hand.
  
  I slid out of bed, still under the covers, and then crawled—yes, on my hands and knees—to baby pug's room. {Yes, she has her own room. Okay, it's actually the same as the guest room featured in the "Katie and Rachel are sleeping over" adventure, but since she came at Christmas time, it's been her room.}
  
  I figured that if I could get Miss Daisy to protect me from the hand, I'd be set.
  
  Because everyone knows that disembodied men's hands are frightened of little pugs who wear pink collars.
  
  "Shhh, Miss Daisy, it's okay," I whispered. Whispering was important because even if the hand couldn't see me, it could hear me. I just knew it. "Okay, you're going to come with Mia," I told her as I eased open her kennel and tucked her under one arm.
  
  Crawling with a pug is difficult, by the way, even a sleepy one. Whispering to her about how you need protection doesn't make the job any easier.

You may, at this point, be concerned for my safety, and for that I say thank you. But rest assured, I've never harmed myself or caused harm to someone else. This brings me some level of comfort / quells the panic / pushes down the idea that I should have a sleep study done.

Actually, I'm more concerned for the logic that works on me in the middle of the night. At no point do I say to myself, 'Kamiah, this is not happening. There is no hand. Katie and Rachel aren't here. Don't worry about how cold it is in here and how people think you're a bad hostess. All this is in your head.'

No, instead, I talk myself out of it like this: 'Kamiah, you can go back inside now because the van isn't coming. You probably missed the pick-up because you were running late.'

THAT'S NOT LOGIC.

It's lying. It's some sort of alternate reality. It's night-time crazy, and I don't know why the crazy comes out then.

Take this wall incident, for example. I woke up convinced that my walls were bowing in, and I needed to push back on them to prevent them from exploding. Hence the whole standing on the bed in the middle of the night and straining against the wall thing.

I was pretty sure that the walls were bowing because of the change in air pressure from Hurricane Irene, and here's how I talked myself out of pushing on the walls for the whole night: 'Kamiah, hurricane Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm. Also, it's already passed and moved into Canada. Finally, I don't care how many push-ups you can do, you will never be able to keep a wall from exploding. Now go to sleep.'

Why doesn't my brain say to me, 'Kamiah, YOU LIVE IN THE MIDWEST. There are no hurricanes here. You're going night-time crazy again, so get it together and go back to bed.'

But my brain never says that. In the middle of the night, it never says the logical thing, and I wake up the next morning with vivid memories of night-time adventures.  And then I very logically get out of bed and go about my day.