an ode to a new pen: or, the joy of everyday objects

In terms of joy office supplies can bring, a new pen is second only to a new notebook. And oh, the thrill in a day that brings both a new pen and a new notebook: I would burst with the writing possibilities, if that were possible.

The new pen that I got today has that smooth, roller-ball ink flow that makes everything you write look important. The first time I put it to paper, my hand practically twitched with a desire to create something that would last generations.

And yet what I was writing was my to-do list for the day, and it was full of words and phrases that wouldn't make sense to anyone outside my company, let alone someone ages and ages hence. What I was writing with this new pen would just end up crossed off and thrown in the recycling bin at the end of the day, but I'm telling you, it was the boldness of the ink that made me want to switch to writing poetry or a letter to a long-lost friend. In the scratching of the pen on paper, I could almost hear a story beginning.

Why is it that things—and having the right thing to do a task—makes us feel like we are better able to do that task? I've thought of this before: What is it about having the right pen that puts me in the mood for writing?

Why do I feel like it has to be a certain kind of notebook, with a certain kind of line, before I can settle in to a writing mood?

This is all bordering dangerously on a self-judgmental tirade about how I use excuses for not writing. That's not where I intend to head.

I'm more aimed at this idea: I am what Laurie Colwin calls a "domestic sensualist," someone who drinks in the beauty of everyday objects and realizes that a pen, just an ordinary pen, can hold so much more than ink. These objects that we surround ourselves with can tell stories about the most normal, uneventful days of our lives, and that is why getting a new pen, one that writes so smoothly, can feel so momentous. It is a thing of beauty and possibility that we can touch every day.

That is also why I set the table for even weeknight meals with my grandparents' wedding china {a Noritake pattern with a pink rose and gold leaf} and why I use a demitasse spoon and a white cup and saucer for my morning coffee, even though it's just me and even though I'm in a hurry. Living with and using pretty, meaningful objects brings delight to even the dullest of days, and it helps me remember to look for beauty on those days when nothing seems to shine.

The new pen I got is just an object; it is just a utilitarian thing that I can use to craft my to-do list and write notes to myself. But it also creates a daring, bold line that seems to want to declare something, write something, live something.

Even though it's just a pen, it can remind me of this: Sometimes, we do the most mundane, routine things with the most mundane, routine objects—and we are flooded with joy at the mere ordinary beauty of it all.

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.

december {a poem, not by me}

It has been a week of—no, a month of—to-do lists and tasks.

The checkmark mentality has so overtaken me that even when I try to write easy, light emails—the kind where you say, "Hi, dear friend, I miss you. When can we see each other? Please say it's soon."—I want to write it in bullet points.

I would so love to see you soon, and here are some times I have available:

• Saturday morning at 9:30
• Sunday before church
• next Monday night from 7:30 to 8:30

And I was thinking that we could:

• take a walk {weather dependent}
• drink coffee
• drink hot cocoa
• drink coffee and hot cocoa together {and maybe put some sort of alcohol in it because that's just the kind of day/week/month it's been, the kind where you want all your desires in one cup}

But none of that sounds very friendly, does it? It sounds like I'm trying to cram my friends into my planner, squeeze them down to size, and then check them off my list.

Of course that's not what I mean, but I cannot seem to make my brain stop its to-do list format.

Until.

Until I remember that poetry always does it.

Poetry always brings me back from the edge where I thought, just for a second, that if I could just get everything down on paper, it'd be all right. If I could just categorize it all under headings and subheadings and especially if arrows were involved—well, then, it would all work out.

Poetry, though, is what reminds me that not everything has to be structured and not everything will work out as I want it to when I make my to-do list in the morning.

Poetry is what reminds me that it's all right—it's more than all right—even when nothing works out as I thought it would.

So today I found a poem about Christmas carols and Christmas decorations. It's about how even in the midst of all this shiny, happy holiday stuff, we still need to do the chores; we still need to take the garbage out and shovel the walk.

You can get bogged down in those details of life {at any time of year, you can get bogged down}, or you can choose to see the glint of beauty in the blend of the chaos, the chores, the normalcy, the lights.

And for right now, reading this poem and writing down a few words about it, my mind has stopped its to-do list. That's all I wanted.



December
Gary Johnson

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye
Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,
And also the partridge in a pear tree
And the golden rings and the turtle doves.
In the dark streets, red lights and green and blue
Where the faithful live, some joyful, some troubled,
Enduring the cold and also the flu,
Taking the garbage out and keeping the sidewalk shoveled.
Not much triumph going on here—and yet
There is much we do not understand.
And my hopes and fears are met
In this small singer holding onto my hand.
Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark
And are there angels singing overhead? Hark.

seven years of bad luck? or a fall project?

It's a sign.

On Labor Day, I was in the shower, luxuriating in a schedule that allowed for a midday shower. That morning, I'd read the entire paper*, worked the crossword, journalled, and made a low-pressure to-do list for the day.

It was so low pressure that I'd called it "Labor Day Thoughts." Just some ideas, some passing fancies that might catch my eye during the day.

Sometimes I divide my to-do lists into MUST DOs and NICE TO DOs—this helps me sort and prioritize and avoid that to-do list overload {when you think, 'If I wrote it down, I have to do it, if only for the satisfaction of crossing it off.' This is terrible logic and is slightly akin to the logic of 'If I read it on the Internet, it must be true.'}.

But even that divided to-do list felt too pressured for a day like Labor Day, the last hurrah of the summer. Summer itself is supposed to be low pressure: long meals on the balcony on long, humid evenings, long runs in the the early morning relative cool, long walks with friends, long afternoons reading in the sun.

The last thing Labor Day needed was a long to-do list, so I had my Labor Day Thoughts. Showering was one {and something I could definitely achieve during the day}, so after lunch of leftover eggplant gratin, I was in the shower, thinking a little bit about my love of to-do lists and projects, a little bit of my schedule for the week, and a little bit of how I wish it were fall already.

While shaving my legs, I was thinking about a possible fall project {note: someone who loves to-do lists, projects, and schedules will definitely have seasonal projects}: sprucing up my bathroom.

Maybe some paint? Maybe update the shower, which has frosted glass sliding doors and cream tiles from when the condo was built?

Maybe some earth-tone tiles in the shower like in the bathroom at the Pines Lodge in Beaver Creek, Colorado? {When thinking about updating your home, by the way, it's always entirely realistic to plan to mimic fancy ski lodges that market themselves as a "luxury resort." Man, my demonstrations of logic today are way off; you might be very concerned about my thinking abilities. If I followed this Pines Lodge plan, I would need to have soap shaped like little rocks and fluffy robes out for every guest.}

It was just the beginning of thinking about this bathroom plan, and at that moment, with the razor poised over my knee, my vanity mirror fell off the wall, crashed into the sink, knocked over everything on the vanity, and then crashed to the floor, smashing a bottle of Tresor {this perfume I used to wear} in the process.

It's a sign. It must be a sign. It's as if the vanity mirror was saying, "Take me now! I don't want to be here anymore! Fix this bathroom!"

And that is how I decided to re-do my bathroom.

In related news: How long do you think my bathroom will smell like Tresor? Feel free to place bets.



*"Entire" meaning "all the parts I was interested in." Sorry, Sports section; I don't think you're part of the whole paper, but I did glance at you.

february fun

February is, with all due apologies to TS Eliot and his wasteland, the cruellest month.

It is my least favorite month, odd as it seems to be at odds with an entire month. I think this has something to do with how Christmas is long past and spring is far away.

{I should insert this: USUALLY. Usually spring is far away, but today, I took a walk around my office building without a coat on, not even the light jacket I wore for the day. Birds were singing, and everywhere I went today, people talked with a bounce in their voice as we discussed the weather. Maybe this very confused winter will help me like February more.}

A few years back, a couple of friends and I decided to counteract the blah of February by developing a February Fun List. Every day, we would do something small, just to bring a little lift to the day.

I'm reinstating February Fun, but I need a little help: below is the list Katie, Rachel, and I created before, but some things needed to be taken out because they were so specific to that year {such as: Make that uber-long choir rehearsal fun by bringing treats}.

What would you suggest for February Fun?

Seriously, I'm open to anything. But please keep in mind:

• These should be small things. No "write a novel" or "fly to [wherever] to visit [insert friend's name]."
• Most of these are work days. Please don't make me dress crazy or skip work.
• I guess if I have stipulations, I'm not really open to anything, am I?
• Perhaps one of these should be "work on control issues." Although, well, that counters point 1 in this list of stipulations.
• But really, leave me a comment, and I'll work it into the list.
• And you know, you could totally join me in this February Fun. As you can tell from the name, it will be fun.

February Fun List {updated February 3, 2012, after gathering input from fun friends}

1. send a someecard
2. wear fun earrings
3. write a letter to someone you haven't talked to in awhile
4. read a short story
5. write a poem
6. 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.}
7. throw out all the socks you don't really like and go get more of the ones you like the most
8. buy flowers
9. eat dark chocolate {good for the brain, you know}
10. organize something you've been wanting to get in order {can be small, bt-dubs}
11. start watching a tv show you haven't ever seen
12. watch an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, perhaps with a friend who's never seen it
13. be crafty: sew a little something
14. go to a gas station and pay for a random person's stuff
15. wear fun underwear
16. paint your nails
17. call friend/family
18. make a new playlist
19. watch the Downton Abbey Christmas special with friends and try not to let your inner fangirl out too, too much
20. do some sort of outdoor activity {walking Miss Daisy doesn't really count}
21. bake for your co-workers
22. Ash Wednesday...um, give up something for Lent day...
23. wear a power outfit {Note #1: shoulder pads not necessary} {Note #2: Especially appropriate this year, since I'll be in Palm Springs at a conference making a video series with a bunch of doctors}
24. re-read a favorite childhood book
25. be a wine-o {or just have a glass of wine}
26. run 10 miles
27. make hot cocoa. Like real hot cocoa, not Swiss Miss
28. try a new recipe
29. 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.}

all things great

What I've had in my head for several days:

All things great are wound up with all things little.
{Lucy Maud Montgomery, or just Maud, as I like to call her ever since I visited Green Gables and learned that that's what all her family and close friends called her. Maud.}

I suppose it's been in my head because I also have it on a Post-it Note on my computer at work. It's hard to ignore something when it's next to your task list {unless it's a task that you really don't want to do; then it's easy to ignore, isn't it?}.

Can I not stop thinking about it because at the beginning of the year, I'm more aware than at other times that big things {goals, resolutions, re-inventions of yourself as you turn the calendar page} often get tripped up by little things {actually implementing those goals on a daily basis}?

Is it because to achieve big dreams, you have to be willing to celebrate little victories along the way {keeps motivation up, you know}?

I don't know why I can't stop thinking about it, so I decided to get it out of my head and off of my computer—and onto my own little corner of the Internet.

And perhaps into your head to ponder.

re-arranging {part II}

You may want to take a glance at Part I before you get into this.

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The MUST DO list has just a few things on it, and that's the way it should be. Instead of feeling that everything is dependent on today, the MUST DO list shows me that no, I don't have to a superwoman. I don't have to be one because that's impossible—

this mix of

Hillary Rodham Clinton {sharp and powerful}
Julia Child {because if you have to eat, it may as well be French}
Martha Stewart {perfectly, plastically Stepford she may seem, the woman really knows about presentation}
and several characters played by Amy Adams {girl-next-door prettiness with some quirky chipperness thrown in}

I just need to be me and accept that whatever happens in a day is all right.

On the Sunday of my room re-arranging, my MUST DO list had on it:

• choose cookie recipe for Tuesday night's cookie exchange
• go to grocery store {for cookie stuff and general food}
• run {outside! It's 40 degrees in December!}
• winterize kitchen window {because it won't always be 40 degrees!}

The NICE TO DO list is, of course, much longer. It's the bonus list, the icing list. Here are things that it would feel good to get done, but if I don't get to them, they will keep.

Sunday's was:

• order new swimsuit
• go to Home Depot {new lightbulbs}: wander around bathroom section, thinking lovely re-do thoughts
• start birthday thank you cards
• cut out fabric for kitchen door project
• email catch-up

I know that it's all just words and trickery, this MUST versus NICE; I know that my to-do lists are just as leggy as before, but since I've added these titles, the lists look more manageable, and they're less guilt-inducing.

I even re-arrange them: if, halfway through the day, I realize that something I thought was essential in the pre-dawn darkness {when the world does indeed look different} isn't, in fact, all that essential in the bright afternoon sun, I move it from the MUST to the NICE list.

This, too, is trickery, a sleight of hand as if I were the Magician of Productivity. It's the listmaking equivalent of moving furniture to make your room feel new and maybe even a little bigger.

Nothing has changed but the placement of an armchair and a lamp, but you feel like you can breathe more easily in there. You feel more like you want to curl up in that armchair and write things that would make people say, "You sound like a modern-day Jane Austen."

There is an incredible, calming freedom in doing three or four things well and completely, instead of trying to muddle through 29 things.

I'm slowly learning this lesson—and attempting to keep myself from putting on my MUST DO list:

• Learn, for once and for all, how you can't do everything and be everything to everyone every day. Learn how to give yourself a break.

That's just not a to-do list sort of item. You can't check it off in one day.

But you know what you can do? You can find an arrangement that works for you in whatever moment you find yourself in. You can figure out what is best for you so that you can thrive and enjoy where you are, instead of feeling like you're simply checking off another item on your never-done list.

Right now, it's most helpful for me to focus on doing a few tasks well. Right now, I need my MUST versus NICE to help me, in bold caps, prioritize.

But there will come a time when this arrangement—as well as it is working now—simply won't work as well. I know this. And when that time comes, I'll do a little re-arranging to open up my life again.

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Re-arranging my living room was not on my MUST DO or even NICE TO DO list on that Sunday.

But I'd already finished everything I knew I had to get done that day. The Christmas tree was lit, The Mary Tyler Moore Show was on, and I was on a chair changing a lightbulb, feeling so accomplished and energetic.

After months of feeling that my life was closing in on me with obligations, I was finally in a position to look around and see the possibilities.

And so I moved the armchair.

re-arranging {part I}

It all started because I needed to change a lightbulb. Up on a chair in my living room, I looked around and wondered.

What if I moved the bookshelf there? What if I moved those chairs? And aha, that would expose the vent that's been hiding {surely another reason it's always slightly chilled in my apartment in the winter, beyond that the heat is programmed to drop to 58 degrees at night and beyond that I live in the Midwest, land of the frozen ice sheet}.

This re-arranging was not at all on my to-do list.

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I've been making these MUST DO and NICE TO DO lists for my free weeknights and for the more unstructured weekends. The concept is straightforward: prioritize. What is actually required today?

I have a tendency, when given a chunk of free time, to make lists as long as my legs, not that I have long legs but when it comes to listmaking, your finger is probably a better gauge, I've leaned.

In my leg lists, the concept of time never applied, so perhaps the first item on them should've been:

• invent Star Trek-inspired machine to stop time {consider suspended animation principles from Star Wars?}

Being outside the limits of time would've helped me accomplish everything on my leg list, which usually looked like this:

• plan lunches for week
• make grocery list
• go to grocery: try to arrive before everyone and their children do
• make chicken stock {can be started early in the morning and left to simmer while doing everything else}
• take clothes to dry cleaners that have been hanging over the back of the armchair in my room for months
• go to Home Depot: plan bathroom re-do?
• do all laundry
• clean bathrooms—especially scrub floors! Maybe twice!
• vacuum whole apartment
• vacuum car
• figure out why garage clicker isn't working
• make three-course dinner

And then, because I'm aware that free time is for relaxing, I would add a few "non-chore" items:

• read paper
• do crossword {time self! Try to beat time from last Saturday!}
• journal
• call three friends to catch up
• write cards to three other friends: gosh, Kamiah, try to be a better and more consistent friend and not have to do these massive catch-ups

That all adds up to an impossible, intimidating list.

It's a laughable list. The kind of list you'd half-expect to end with:

• conquer world by lunch: then have soup and grilled cheese?

It's also the kind of list that leads to guilt when you, quite inevitably, can't accomplish everything on there. Or even three things on there.

As the day progress and you don't make as much progress on your list as you'd like, you can start to feel weighed down.

I think it's the weight of those undone tasks, the weight of the things you aren't doing, dragging you down. Day after day, you feel like you aren't accomplishing what you need to. Yes, your definition of "need to do" may be off and unrealistic, but that doesn't matter in this scenario.

What matters is: you feel dragged down by these tasks, and even in admitting that, you add another task to your list: get over yourself. What's so hard, after all, in your life? Why don't you have the strength to get up and do what needs to be done?

In my mind, I see a person with hunched-over shoulders, an exhausted frown, and insomniac eyes, walking through a harvested field {stubbled and a burnt yellow} and pulling behind them a to-do list made of stapled-together scrap paper 100 miles long.

Wow. Sorry for the incredibly dramatic—if very vivid and perhaps paint-able—image there. But in all honesty, I got to a point earlier this fall where I did feel like that person.

I felt like someone trying to carry on doing all these tasks I didn't even know if I enjoyed anymore.

And it didn't matter how many lists I made or how many people I explained this to: at the end of the day, I still felt dragged down. Something had to change or I was prone to start wandering through harvested fields feeling sorry for myself.

I took comfort in this: I know many smart, time-savvy people who, given the opportunity, think they can accomplish 10 things at once and so they, too, make these leg lists.

Why do we do this? Why do we overestimate our abilities and underestimate our need for rest?

I think the answer lies in:

• how common—expected, even—it is to multitask
• how scheduled our lives can be so that we're either perplexed by free time or overzealous when it comes
• if you're of a certain task-oriented, checklist-loving, order-bringing personality. {I may be one of those.}

I've been learning this fall—and now into Advent—about limiting the to-do list.

About not trying to conquer the world {or even my own little corner of it} in my free time.

About focusing on really, actually, truly needs to be done—and then setting the rest of my free time free.

And from that place—that place of wanting to feel less like my life was dragging—has come the MUST DO and NICE TO DO lists.

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Which I'll tell you about in Part II, as well as wrap up the furniture re-arranging bit {bet you forgot that that's where this story started, didn't you?}

how i developed a cleaning playlist

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That up there—that widget {who sounds tech-savvy now?}—that's my Cleaning Playlist. I've had it in mind to create one for awhile now, but a few weeks ago, I decided to make good on that idea because...well, read this story. It should explain why.

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A couple of Saturdays ago, my heating and air conditioning man was supposed to come at 10am to fix my humidifier, which, apparently, isn't working, a fact that may explain my dry lips and parched throat during winter.

This is the same heating and air conditioning man who was featured in my story "Some Like It Hot. I Do Not," so in some ways, I was looking forward to the visit.

Not wanting to be idle and awkward while he was there, I started a small cleaning project at 9:45ish. See, I live alone, and having someone else in my space throws me off.

What I mean is—before all my friends decide they're never really welcome and that I'm simply being polite when I ask them over—when there's another person in my apartment, 99% of the time, it's because I've asked them over for dinner or coffee or to watch a movie.

My heating and air conditioning man is the 1%—someone I have invited over but who's there to do a job. However, my brain works like this: "Someone else is in the apartment! You need to entertain him! Offer him pain au chocolat just out of the oven! See if he wants coffee! Stand and talk to him while he works!"

I'm not used to being in my apartment with someone else just being there quietly doing their own thing, so when heating and air conditioning man—who will forever afterward be referred to as HACM—comes over, I'm liable to break into a routine of "Let Me Entertain You," if only I knew how to tap dance.

This is why I was cleaning at 9:45ish: to control the urge to entertain. If you've found a better way to turn off your jazz-hands-big-finish personality, let me know.

Besides: idle hands do the devil's work, you know, and so I was cleaning the counters with Barkeeper's Friend, which is not a lonely drunk but a magical cream that takes away any stain with hardly any scrubbing.

Time tick-tocked closer to 10am as I wiped away whatever it was I let boil over on the stove. On my pristine white stove, these mars of dirtiness tend to look like burnt cheese, not that I recall letting cheese boil over, but there they were, scars of meal eaten, disappearing as I pretended to be a bartender, a job I wouldn't be good at.

It'd go like this: "You want what kind of drink? I've never heard of that. Can I just give you red wine instead? That I know and understand."

You know how it is: you get caught up in cleaning behind the canisters and time passes without you noticing it. After wiping down the sugar canister, I glanced at the clock: 10:12.

HACM {how are you pronouncing that in your head? Hack 'em? Because that's how I'm doing it.} definitely should've been there by 10:12, but time in that profession seems to run differently, as if handymen have created their own space-time continuum. That is to say: HACM has shown up late before, and he's stayed for more than an hour but charged me for only an hour's work before. I decided to embrace HACM's space-time continuum, a lesson I learned from Star Trek.

The counters clean, I moved on to the floor.

On my knees, I was cleaning the baseboards as it became 10:30 and then 10:41 and by the time it was 10:53, I was wiping down the cabinets, and I was fuming.

jane austen, i disagree with you

A quote from Jane Austen: "Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation."

More correctly, it's a quote from Emma, my least favorite Jane Austen book because I can't work up much sympathy to someone who meddles so much in other people's lives.

So Jane Austen via Emma, I disagree with you.

I realize this is an atypical thing for me to say. Me, the girl who proclaims to have learned lots of things from Jane Austen. Me, the girl who takes it as the highest compliment possible to be told that I'm like Elizabeth Bennet. {Other high compliments include Audrey Hepburn and, of course, Mary Tyler Moore.}

But Jane Austen—in this quote—is not teaching me about planning ahead and careful organization, and I'm a little disappointed in her because of it.

I want to say to her: Why not spread out the pleasure over a long planning period? How often is happiness increased by preparation, glorious preparation.

But maybe that's just me and my attachment to my planner speaking.

Maybe I'll schedule in some journalling time to work through that attachment. And to work through how I'm disappointed in a dead woman and wanting to argue with a fictional character.

I'll schedule it for a long time from now so that I have much happiness and pleasure to look forward to.

today, i'm grateful for...

I sporadically keep a Gratitude Journal, and judging from how it brings up my overall attitude, I think I should un-sporadically keep it.

Such a simple thing to do, really. In my planner on those weekly pages that Franklin-Covey tells me I'm supposed to use for prioritizing daily tasks—

Have you ever read the Franklin-Covey instructions for prioritizing tasks? No? It involves letters and numbers and a sorting system that makes even me a little overwhelmed, probably because it's a system I didn't come up with. My little/large independent streak comes out when someone tries to explain to me how to organize my life, so I read the Franklin-Covey explanation and say, "You think you're good, don't you? Well, just you watch what I do with your A1, B2, C-whatever system: I disregard it. Take that, F-C."

—So in the section for prioritizing daily tasks {and when I'm in a Gratitude Journal phase}, I write two kinds of things:

1. What I tres really want to accomplish that day: This I do in the morning after I've run {thinking time} and after I've walked baby pug {brain organization time, which includes the time for deciding what I'm going to wear to work that day}. I try to narrow down what would make me feel accomplished that day.
   
   Is it getting done that nagging life admin task, such as getting more stamps at the Post Office? {When it comes to managing your life, don't you find that it's the small tasks that can pester the most? Why is that? And then when you do them, you feel such relief and like you could take on the world. I know I'm not alone in this: read this post over at Pink of Perfection, this blog I stalk/read because I'm convinced the girl and I are kindred spirits.}
   
   Or maybe what I really want to accomplish is finishing a book or that big project at work. Whatever it is, I write it down in the morning to help focus my day.
2. Five things I'm grateful for: The next morning, I think back on the day before and write down five things that I'm glad happened.
   
   Could be a long talk with a friend or making a delicious eggplant dinner.
   
   Could be getting done that life admin task.
   
   Could be getting to bed early.
   
   Could be whatever, but it's the moments and interactions that made the day special and right.

The whole process, the thinking ahead to the day in front of me and the thinking back on the day behind me, takes about five minutes.

And what a difference it makes. Even if I had a very bad, no good, horrible, rotten day, I can usually find five bright spots, and that helps keep life in perspective.

Nothing is all bad. Bright spots count no matter how small they are. This five minute exercise brings calm to my day before it even begins.

So I'm going to jump ahead a bit here and list my five things for today here, right now. {Because I'm me, I'll probably copy them into my planner later.}

Today, I'm grateful for:

1. a fast morning run
2. the little desk fan I bought at Walgreen's: no air circulation, AC that I'm convinced in broken, and a heat wave outside pushing up against the windows makes for an uncomfortable work environment. I'd consider worshiping this little fan, with its white noise and steady stream of cool, if I believed in idol worship.
3. an email from a friend who lives far, far away
4. listening to my musicals playlist that right now involves selections from White Christmas, just so that I remember that it's not always this hot. {I talk about the heat a lot recently, don't I?}
5. cupcakes—frosted with leftover vanilla buttercream from the gateau a l'orange—for dessert after dinner {okay, I haven't had dinner yet, so I'm being pre-emptively grateful for these because I'm sure they'll be good. And I'll be eating them with a friend, so that makes them doubly good.}
   

my want to-do list

Recently, I was cleaning out the files on my computer from college, and I bumbled my way into this document called "want to do lists."

As soon as I opened it, I laughed. Out loud. My sophomore year, two of my roommates and I sat down late one night and made these lists, our own versions of bucket lists.

I can't remember what brought this on, but does anyone remember why you did something in college? It was late, you were tired of reading Wordsworth or doing differential calculus, and you started to talk about your life post-college.

In my experience, people in college think they have figured out post-college life. They dream of a time when they won't have homework every night, conveniently forgetting that they also won't have a meal plan.

Post-college, you will be a bona fide grown-up. You will grab life by the horns, and you will have the most amazing ride.

And that's true, of course—being a grown-up is full of perks, such as being able to have ice cream whenever you want it.

But being a grown-up isn't one exciting bull ride after another.

Sometimes the bull is asleep, and sometimes the bull is running right for you, as if you were in Pamplona, sprinting down a narrow cobblestone street in a little red scarf.

And sometimes you have to eat the bull. I don't really know if this fits into my metaphor, but it's a convenient segue to telling a story:

My junior year, I studied in Aix-en-Provence, France. {Thanks to that time, I'm able to check numbers 12, 19, 28, and 30 off the list.} My mama came over for a visit, and we had a mommy-daughter trip of a lifetime, except I was only 21, so I'm demanding that she and I have more mommy-daughter trips in our lifetimes.

We toured vineyards in Burgundy, even though neither of us knew much about wine at that point. But we did this tour on bicycles, which we both know a lot about.

However, I don't know if you know this, but vineyards are hilly. Extremely hilly. We ended up lost on a back country road pushing our bikes up a hill {she got off first, I'd like to point out}, but we were together and that was good.

We went to Arles to see the Van Gogh sites but ended up being there during a bullfighting festival. Arles has a bullfighting arena leftover from the Roman times, so we wondered past it one night, listening to the cheers and generally agreeing that we didn't want to go in. We may have been to rodeos before, but we weren't about to see a bull—or a person for that matter—get gored.

Outside the arena, we found a street vendor selling sandwiches and so we sat down on the curb outside the arena for dinner.

"Mom, is your sandwich kind of tough?" My jaw was popping from trying to chew.

"Yes. I think we're eating the bull who was killed yesterday. Try not to think about that and just keep chewing."

I did. It was not the best dinner I've ever had, but I was with my mama, and that was good.

And now, back to my want to-do list. I made this list when I was 20, and now that I'm 29, it was somewhat gratifying to check things off here.

Of course it was. I love to-do lists, and I get a sense of accomplishment from checking off "do laundry" or "plan meals for next week."

But there's a bigger sense of accomplishment here. My 20-year-old self was trying very hard to dream big about life after college, life after Wordsworth—and so what a surprise to discover that I've actually done some of these things, even though I completely forgot about this list.

And come next week, I'll be able to cross number 29 off the list. And that will be good.

Kamiah's Want To-do List

1. visit every continent
2. spend 21st birthday in Europe
3. live on the East Coast (Maine, maybe)
4. learn to sail
5. hike part of the Appalachian Trail
6. live in Chicago {Well, if the Chicago suburbs count, although I'm the one judging this list, so I say the suburbs count.}
7. be an extra in a movie
8. own a bookstore
9. take a shower in a waterfall in Fiji
10. have a song written for me
11. learn to water ski
12. drink chocolat in Les Deux Magots
13. see Tintern Abbey
14. go to an Olympic gymnastic meet
15. go parasailing
16. have kids
17. take kids on vacations like I used to have
18. go to a play on Broadway
19. see the Studio of the South
20. have a library with walls of books
21. see the Holy Land
22. read to my kids
23. teach my kids French
24. hear an opera in Vienna
25. learn to ballroom dance
26. own a pug
27. see the Pyramids
28. see the Pont du Gard
29. see the lavender fields in Provence in bloom
30. go to Van Gogh’s café
31. work in a library
32. see a big tennis tournament

to-do: manage to-do list

When my dad called to tell us that my grandpa had passed away, had not made it through the night up at the Mayo Clinic, I sat my mother down and said, "We need to make a to-do list."

I looked around my parents' house in Iowa for paper—since they've remodeled the living room, I don't always know where to find these necessities—and all I could find were small scratchpads. No, that would not do. We needed more room than a small scrap would allow.

I pulled paper out of the printer and went to work. Who to contact. What pictures to pull together for the memorial slideshow. Everything we needed to get from Sunnybrook, his assisted living home. What to do to get the house ready for guests.

Over the weekend, the list grew. It expanded to those little scraps of paper because I started to grab whatever was handy when a new list came to mind. Must not lose track of details.

Meals.

Grocery shopping.

Where everyone would sleep in my parents' house.

How many people would be coming to the dinner after the visitation and how many would come to the lunch after the funeral. {I've said the word funeral so much in the past few days that it's started to sound like a nonsense word, a made-up word, which I guess all words are at their core. They're all just scratches we use to try to make sense of what has happened.}

Timing of those meals: when should the lasagna go in and when should we pull the garlic bread out?

What bowl we should serve the salad in and a list of all the serving utensils we would need.

List upon list. Detail upon detail.

You may be thinking: were you making all these lists to avoid facing the reality of the situation? To avoid thinking about how your grandpa had just died? To avoid the emotion?

Maybe you aren't thinking that, but I did, a little bit. When your reaction to your grandpa's death is sadness and hurt mixed with a to-do list, you think that.

There's irony in this, but I don't care: I even made processing Grandpa's passing {at least the initial processing—there's always more processing to do} a to-do list item. I told myself to journal, which is the best way I know to process and feel and understand why I'm feeling what I am. Why I felt so compelled to make so many to-do lists.

And here is what I've come up with.

I did it because it helped bring control to an uncontrolled situation.

I did it because I didn't want to miss any details.

I did it because that's the way my mind works.

I did it because I wanted to be helpful.

I did it because I come from a very practical family.

And I did it because I loved my grandpa and I wanted to make sure that the family had everything they needed to be able to celebrate his life, including good meals and clean, comfortable beds to rest in.

Some of these to-do lists are now in my wallet, the ones written on scraps of paper when the idea and moment struck. I'll carry them for awhile, perhaps longer than I need to, but do you know what I found when I went through the boxes of family records and pictures over the weekend?

My great-great-grandfather, John Walker, had a wallet stuffed full of scraps of paper. I went through it, unfolding the papers carefully because I was scared that one touch would rip apart my family history, and I found receipts for farm equipment and services rendered. The typical stuff of a wallet—at least the wallet of a man farming in Iowa in the late 1800s.

But I also found lists. What the oats sold for. How many hogs he had at a certain point. When to plant and when to reap {there is a time for everything}. Who bought the corn. What tools needed mending.

I told you I come from a very practical family: lists are in our blood.

the library reading list

Because I'm me, I bought a condo just down the street from the library.

Well, that's a simplification, isn't it? {But sometimes, broad strokes of generalities work better for getting a point across. From that one swath, you know that I love reading.}

I bought my condo for many reasons, but a major selling point was that it's so close to the library. We're talking pretty much closer than walking distance; it's like trip and roll a little bit distance.

And I trip my way over there quite a bit, but do you ever feel like you're in a reading rut?

I do sometimes.

I have shelves and shelves full of books. I even have a special section for books I bought {at book sales or used book stores or wherever they happened to cross my path} but have yet to read.

You would think this would give me ample rutless roads for reading, but no, it doesn't. Sometimes, I look at books upon books in the library and think, 'I don't even know where to begin. I'm going home.'

And when I get home, I watch TV.

I probably shouldn't admit this—me the English major—but there you go. Now you know one of my secrets, if watching TV can be considered a secret, which I don't think it can.

Because I'm me, I don't like to stay in a rut for long and so when I saw that my library offered a program called BookMatch, I jumped at it.

You get to take a quiz! It's like the Myers-Briggs of reading!

A librarian takes time to review your answers! It's like being graded!

You get suggestions of what books to check out! It's like eHarmony, but with books!

Clearly, this BookMatch idea resonated with my soul: my quiz-loving, grade-loving soul.

Please note that I left out "eHarmony-loving" soul. Not that I don't like it—it just seems a little odd to have your soul love a computer algorithm with really slick commercials.

I got my BookMatch results just a few days ago, and let me tell you, I opened that email as if I were a presenter opening the Oscar envelope, or some other over-used example of opening an envelope.

Suffice it to say: there was a lot of excitement, and when I read through my list, I felt that I had won Best Actress.

When a reading list can make you feel like Meryl Streep, a librarian has clearly done his or her job well.

Because I'm me, I've turned this BookMatch list into a personal challenge: I will read all these books this summer. And you know, if I'm inspired, I'll write about them, too.

Should you be interested, I'm starting with Let the Great World Spin.

Oh, hey, you could read along with me and then we could turn this blog into a book blog {with random forays into wherever else my mind goes}.

Actually, I don't know about that idea. But I do know this: reading is fun and getting out of a rut is even better.

The Library Reading List

Too Much Happiness
{Alice Munro}

Let the Great World Spin
{Colum McCann}

The Surrendered
{Chang-Rae Lee}

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
{Jung Chang}

The Hand that First Held Mine
{Maggie O’Farrell}

The Women
{T. Coraghessan Boyle}

Your Oasis on Flame Lake
{Lorna Landvik}

accomplishments

A quote for the day {or, in truth, for many days}:

It's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit.
{President Truman, smart man that he was}

This quote should be printed in every board room, on the doorframe of every CEO's office, on cubicle walls, and in break rooms.

We, as a working people, tend to preen. We point out what we've done well; we draw attention to ourselves and those to-do lists and all our checkmarks.

We are peacocks when perhaps we should be more like peahens, and I, for one. need to remember that this life isn't about accomplishments and accolades and having my name tied to all of those.

Not that I know what this life is all about, but for today, Harry's words {we're on a first-name basis since I went to a school named after him} are humbling and good for me to remember.

a long walk and then a reward

The old couple walks towards me, he with a cane and she in a green spring jacket.

They're familiar to me, and if you've read this, they're familiar to you, too. It's the older couple I see almost every day on my walk with my little pug in the early morning.

When I wrote about them before, she had a brick-red winter coat on. It was cold, but now, there are daffodils springing up and waving their cheery heads at us and so she's switched to her green jacket.

"Well, there's my Daisy!" he says to little pug, and she sticks up her squished-in nose for a pat just where she likes it best, under the chin.

He bends down—carefully, he's carrying a cane, you know—and scratches his Daisy, who then shows her appreciation by licking his knee. For some reason.

"Oh, I see you have running shoes on," he says to me. "Are you a runner, then?"

They both look at me expectantly and with smiles of pride already itching at the corners of their mouths. Even if I weren't actually a runner, I would lie to them, just to see them smile, I think.

They are the kind of people who make you feel full but at the same time hungry for more of the day, for more people, for more smiles, for more conversations. I don't know how they do it, although I think their secret is in old age, a life spent together, and a good walk every morning.

"Yes, I run," I tell them, and she claps a little.

She really does. She throws her head back and she throws her hands together, and she says, "Oh, that's so wonderful for you!"

I tell them about my 10-mile race coming up and we have a little moment imagining Daisy trying to run with me, and then she says, "Yesterday, we walked all the way to the school on Main Street. You know which one I'm talking about? That was like a marathon for us. But then we got to have a bagel."

And that sounds like a good day to me: a long walk and then a reward.

It can be a long anything, you know. A long day at work. A long run. A long conversation. A long to-do list.

And then a simple little reward: I like this idea.

"All right, we have to get to church now," they told me, and Miss Daisy and I turned, our shadows stretching long in front of us as we walked away from the morning sun.

to a frustrated poet

On Sunday night, I couldn't sleep in my recently re-arranged bedroom.

I thought about beginnings of poems, and I thought about my work to-do list. I thought I should start writing my work to-do lists as poems.

{They'd be sparse and full of acronyms that make sense only to me.}

Finally, I turned on the light and grabbed a book of poems. Short, easy to fly through. Anything to take my mind off work and I hoped that maybe the poems would help some of the poem fragments come together in my head.

I opened to this poem: "To a Frustrated Poet" and laughed. It's about poetry and work, exactly what I was thinking about.

I guess you could call this some sort of universe moment or kismet or a joke from God or sheer coincidence.

I just call it fun.

And now for fun: in the poem below, another, more famous poem is referenced. Do you know what it is {without using Google}?

{There is a prize for this, people. I will either a) mail you a prize, or b) give it to you when I see you next. And it will be cool, something better than a paperweight unless a paperweight is what you really want.}

To a Frustrated Poet
RJ Ellman

This is to say
I know
You wish you were in the woods,
Living the poet life,
Not here at a formica topped table
In a meeting about perceived inequalities in the benefits and allowances offered to
employees of this college,
And I too wish you were in the woods,
Because it's no fun having a frustrated poet
In the Dept. of Human Resources, believe me.
In the poems of yours that I've read, you seem ever intelligent and decent and patient in a way
Not evident to us in this office,
And so, knowing how poets can make a feast out of trouble,
Raising flowers in a bed of drunkenness, divorce, despair,
I give you this check representing two weeks' wages
And ask you to clean out your desk today
And go home
And write a poem
With a real frog in it
And plums from the refrigerator,
So sweet and so cold.

the dixie chicks, they speak to me

Yesterday, my iPod was on shuffle as I sat in the armchair I got at a garage sale and did the Sunday crossword.

I will let you think it was the New York Times Sunday crossword.

Mixed in with musicals and French music on my iPod is a lot of folk and a little country. The Dixie Chicks came on—and even though I have heard their songs hundreds of times and listening to them takes me back to high school and early college—I stopped the crossword and listened like it was the first time.

They sang:
We're afraid to be idle
So we fill up the days
Run on the treadmill
Keep slaving away

I was trying to be idle yesterday. Doing the crossword, taking time to cook a slightly fancy lunch, taking a long walk with my little pug. I was trying, but I still felt restless.

So I put down the crossword, hit repeat on the iPod, and sat. I just sat. I was idle.

put your good thoughts ahead of your bad ones

As I have done every year since I was in 4th grade, I have re-started my Kids-Thot-a-Day Calendar—a little flip book my Grandma and Grandpa Callahan got for me. {You can read more about it here, if you're so inclined. And bonus! There's a poem in that post, too! This is only a bonus if you like poetry, I know.}

It's chock-full of pithy little sayings, and every morning before I leave for the gym, I flip the page to see what the day has in store for me.

I don't believe in horoscopes {although I will admit that there have been some I've read that are frighteningly accurate. But how, I always wonder, can it be accurate for all the other Sagittarians? How are we all having the same day, considering that we're all so different?}.

But my Kids-Thot-a-Day works a horoscope-like charm on me. I look at it and can sense, somehow, how my day might go.

Take yesterday for example. At 5:30 yesterday morning, I read, "Put your good thoughts ahead of your bad ones."

And I prayed: Oh dear Lord, if it turns out that I need that reminder 3 hours from now or 6 hours from now, please bring this moment back to me.

I did, and he did.

in which i am too smart for my own good

Somewhat inexplicably, I signed up to bake for two separate occasions this week.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem:  is baking ever a real, heart-wrenching problem?  No, and actually, some people, perhaps me, bake as a way to deal with heart-wrenching problems.  There's nothing that a spoonful of creamed sugar and butter won't fix, and I'm not one of those people worried about eating the raw egg in cookie dough.

My baking problem this week is more with my schedule.  I'm leaving on vacation on Friday morning, and I made a 22-item to-do list last night of what needs to get done before I leave.

When you have 22 items staring you down—and a day job your boss apparently wants to be at, mixed with an evening schedule that makes you question your self-described introvertedness—the time you need to bake something starts to look implausible. You start to feel like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, running around with a pocket watch, chattering on about how you're late.

After making the to-do list, I slotted each of those 22 items into various lunch hours and before-work hours.  The baking got stuck in the post-evening activity time, a dangerous time for me.  Once 9pm comes, I don't think I should be trusted with the precise proportions needed for baking.

Last night, though, I had a brilliant idea:  I could make brownies from a box.  This idea maybe already occurred to you as a way to save time, without having to stay up past my bedtime or skip over important {but time-consuming} details such as pre-heating the oven or letting the eggs come to room temperature.

Maybe it's a pride thing, this fighting the urge to bake a mix and call it good.  Ok.  It's obviously a pride thing.

However.

I would like to say that it's also a practical thing:  I have armloads of apples to use from my apple picking, if-I-could-I-would-hug-fall experience, and I have this amazing French apple tart recipe.  Practicality and Frenchness is a beautiful combination that I try to put on display whenever I can.

Also, add item #23 to the list:  use apples so they don't go to waste.

So an apple tart:  that took care of one baking commitment, and I decided to go the easy boxed brownie route for the other commitment.

{I keep boxes of brownies and cakes in the back of the pantry for such a time as this.  I may like baking and cooking, but I'm no culinary superwoman:  there are times when I just want it fast.  This is why you'll also find beans and weenies in the back of the pantry, for those nights when I don't want to cook.}

Enter the challenge:  I didn't have any eggs, and the brownies needed water, oil, and one egg.  That's it.  So simple.  But sometimes, I like to make really simple things really complex, I guess.

I thought about my options:  re-arrange the carefully slotted schedule so that I could bake these brownies after buying eggs.  Or use a little kitchen science to substitute.

Of course I didn't go for the option that involved waiting and patience and re-arranging my schedule.
No, instead, I thought:  eggs are a leavening agent.  They aren't in there for flavor or to make the dry ingredients become more you know, batter-ish.  The egg is just to make the brownies grow a little.

Baking powder is also a leavening agent, and I learned a few years ago from my Cooking without Mom cookbook {yes, that's the real title, and yes, that's how I learned to cook} that you can substitute 1/2 tsp baking powder for one egg in batters.

Smiling to myself about my smartness and ingenuity and how well I was going to get through this busy, over-scheduled week, I mixed the baking powder into the brownie mix, along with the water and oil.

45 minutes later, I learned that I am too smart for my own good.

And that an egg-less brownie mix is not so good.

I was folding laundry and ironing, and the whole apartment smelled like Betty Crocker had moved in.  When the timer went off and I pulled the pan out of the oven, I saw that the brownies looked like something that would make Betty Crocker gnash her teeth and then glare at me.  She'd probably also rip off her apron and throw it at my face.

The brownies were a goopy mess, and no, I shouldn't have left them in for longer {lest you're thinking I was hasty in judging my own brownie disaster}.  The edges were burnt, and I know a brownie disaster when I see one.

Moral of the story:  don't overthink the brownie mix.  You don't have to be Julia Child every time you touch a pan.  Just get out the water, oil, and egg, stir 40 strokes like the box tells you to, and move on with your life.

Also, don't run out of eggs.  Ever.