Revision

I got the results of a second cholesterol test, and it's 28 points lower than the first one (done one week previous). I don't know . . . well, anything really, about cholesterol, but that seems like a drastic dive in only seven days. But I'll take it. Still in the high-risk zone, but it seems much more manageable than the first score.

And I am taking extreme measures with my diet, so I have high hopes that a healthy score is within reach in a few months.

So I'm exercising, and understanding why people get addicted to the post-exercise exhaustion/happiness hormone rush, but it's still hard to get excited about actually doing it. I've been in a serious funk the past few days, though. It's hard to figure out whether it's PMS-induced, or cheese-withdrawal. I was actually so pissed off for some unknown reason a few days ago that I said, "fuck this cholesterol noise, I'm having cheese." And it wasn't just plain old cheese, it was Boursin. And I loved every single tiny (for even in my "I deserve some happiness!" indignation, I still couldn't put out of mind how I really shouldn't be eating it) bite of it. God it was delicious!

As much as I love being around my classmates again, this school business is getting on my nerves. I have little motivation to sit down and study, when really I should be vigilant so I make straight As again, thus hurtling myself to the top of the scholarship list. Being awarded big sums of money for doing my work well should be good motivation, but right now it's not getting me off my ass in front of the computer to sit down with a textbook.

Plus, I've gotten a few back-to-back freelance jobs (which I suppose should bolster confidence that I'm not actually losing my skill since leaving publishing), and in choosing between reading something that I'm getting paid for, or something that I'm paying for, it's hard to dedicate time to schoolwork.

Shaggy-haired boys

Today I set up community service hours for a boy who--if I were still a 15-year-old girl--I would have been all over. He would totally have been my boyfriend. I would have sighed with happiness over his shaggy hair and band tee-shirt. That's the adult me talking, though. In reality, who I was at 15 probably would not have been able to handle a little juvenile delinquent, no matter how adorable—multiple arrests and a drinking problem in the boy I mooned over.

I like working with adolescents because I remember so vividly what it was like to be a teenager. There was a lot about that time period that sucked. Just plain sucked. I was painfully shy, didn't know to talk to boys; I was so sheltered and naive that I missed a lot of experiences that could have been really valuable. Being naive also caused me to be extremely judgmental about things that, in the end, weren't such a big deal. As time goes on, those fall away and I remember more the wonderful times that I had with an amazing group of friends. Everything is new and important and life changing when you are in adolescence.

I still remember what it was like to hear Eddie Vedder's voice for the first time when I was 16. My tastes have changed in some ways--no longer do I own an Amy Grant CD (purchased at a church retreat when I was 14 or 15)--but my heart still breaks with longing when I hear him sing. That has never changed. Listening to a live album I picked up a few years ago at a used record store, I remember being a senior in high school and learning Pearl Jam was coming to Wichita. It was the first time I knew a band enough to follow them--and I was smitten enough to take the enormous step (for me) of trying to get tickets. I even talked with a few guys in my class, boys to whom I'd otherwise have nothing to say, and arranged a ride with them if I scored a ticket. The logistics of that--how I'd be in a car for an hour each way with two hot guys I only nominally knew--didn't even concern me; such was my love for Eddie Vedder.

This is the way that story should end: I scored a ticket, had a moshingly-good time at the concert, swooned and screamed over Eddie Vedder, and in the dark car ride home, found myself a grungy hot new boyfriend.

This is how the story actually ends: I was on the phone all night calling Ticketmaster, listening to a busy signal the whole time. It wasn't until I was 22 that I saw Eddie Vedder for the first time, but since I also walked past him in the crowd after his performance, it somewhat makes up for missing the show at 17. And at 17, simply trying to get a ticket was a big enough step.

So I set up community service for this kid, and it's a good thing I'm not also his therapist.
Deep down, a part of me will always have such a weakness for boys like him, and Eddie Vedder.

Glorious sadness

Just a small town girl, livin in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin anywhere
Just a city boy, born and raised in south detroit
He took the midnight train goin anywhere

When I was in college, I had what I thought was a great idea for a short story. I think it was about an abused woman. My boyfriend at the time started yelling at me, "Why can't you write anything happy??" He didn't understand when I said that sadness was more compelling.

I've always been drawn to it. I have that luxury, I suppose, given that I have had a overwhelmingly normal, functional life filled with much happiness. There's a hyperreality to sadness, an idea of, "this is it; this is what it means to really feel."

That must explain why I am obsessed with 80s music. It's desperate and sad, melodies that plaster themselves across a heart and chest that is barely keeping it together. One note away from falling apart. Listening to it summons the feelings, the physicality of it in an instant.

When I was in junior high, I got invited to a slumber party at D's house. I don't know why. Perhaps her mother suggested it. We certainly weren't friends. She was sweet and kind, and popular for those reasons, but she also continually sported a leather jacket from her much older boyfriend (she started dating high school boys when we was in the 5th grade, yet as far as I knew, never suffered any vicious talk behind her back about it). To note that these jackets, the succession of them, were probably Members-Only jackets really puts a damper on how thoroughly bad ass they seemed. For she didn't date the cross country team, the basketball team; she dated the guys who took welding for the express purpose of pouring their creative energies into making water pipes and got caught smoking behind the gym instead of participating in P.E. class. Guys she somehow tamed into watching their language and politely extinguishing their butts when she came around.

This was the girl who invited me to a slumber party. This was the girl about whose parties I'd heard whispered rumors. To say I was rattled and mystified at my invitation is an understatement. I wondered if it was a joke or if she had somehow lost a bet and I was the butt of it.

It was unlike any sleepover I'd ever been to. We got to order pizza, and drink Mountain Dew in her room, making prank calls on her private phone line. Her bedroom walls were plastered with posters of Warrant, Stryker, and Motley Crue. We watched videos on MTV (a channel I had only heard about). D talked knowledgeably about the themes in her favorite song, "Janie's Got a Gun," using words I had never even heard before, and she sighed over Nikki Sixx and Janie Lane.

Then her boyfriend drove past. He and his friends picked us up, and we cruised Main for a while. It was something I knew older kids to do; never imagined I would do it, too. The high school boys blared their hair metal and tolerated us waving our arms out of the windows in the air stream and shrieking.

It was almost too much for my system. Wired on caffeine and newness, the whole evening had a dreamlike quality. It became imperative to cross my arms in front of my chest, holding myself together in an attempt to keep my chest from breaking open and merging with the night. I didn't know how to stop it, how to put on the brakes and regain control out of the heady dizziness that the night became. I didn't want to. I didn't want it to ever end. It was wildly beautiful, desperate, and sad. I couldn't have articulated it then, but I sensed something beyond my experience, beyond my maturity, about the gorgeous tragedy of boys looking for excitement in a dead-end small town, of beautiful, ripening girls, children really, anxiously expanding the boundaries of experience.

Break

I have been relaxing and cooking like I used to--really taking advantage of my break. Not feeling guilty about my excessive laying around watching TV or reading. And I thought, "I could really get used to this. Damn us not being independently wealthy!" How I'd love to be a lady of leisure, rising late, being able to spend time making my home beautiful and lived in, gourmet cooking when the mood strikes. My non-existent stress level has made things utterly lovely for Tim and I. Our weekends are lazy and filled with happiness and cuddles.

And then, when I started to freak out that I had just a week and a half left until that whole world would be turned on its head, and school would start, my internship, my second part-time job, I also started to get a little restless. So now I'm ready. Good timing, that.

Only I found out today, third-hand, that three of the supervisors at my internship (my direct boss one of them) all quit and their last day will be Friday, before I even return. Talk about a world being turned on its head. I don't know what my future will hold there, now. I reeeeally like my boss, and she is/was the only LCSW on staff--a certification needed to sign off on intern's hours. There are five of us students in total, so I hope we get taken into consideration when planning how to proceed with new hires. I love the placement, so I don't want to get shuffled off to a new one.

And I also hate the timing, for I wanted my boss's job when I graduate--in 1.5 years. But I know there's some hospital fuckness, the extent of which I'm not even sure, so I'm sure she and the others have a good reason for leaving. (But despite the horror stories I've heard, I still harbored the desire to at least get my foot in the door, to get some experience there.)

I'm trying to spin it positively (because I haven't yet heard any details) and think that maybe this is a good opportunity for me to take on more responsibility. Or maybe she's going to a cool new place and will take me with her. I don't know. I'm trying to chill out and not worry about it.

My New Year's resolution is to remain calm and relaxed when things get stressful.

Photos

Last night I put on some good music and dug through my photo pile. As much as I love having a digital camera, I am so grateful for the old cameras that spawned loads of pictures of my past. I learned a lot, too--mostly that most of my hairstyles were serious missteps, and I need someone to sit me down and firmly tell me exactly what haircut I am best suited for.

I also used to be a lot more photogenic. I have millions of pictures of me leaning into a friend, us beaming widely and authentically--and beautifully. I don't remember having more self-confidence when I was younger (in college and after). But I do see so much happiness in the pictures, which is a universal beautifier. And friends. I see lots of friends. That's got to be what's missing now.

Another reason for looking through pictures: A friend asked about summer camps, and I thought of mine, Googled it, and found a web page for it. There were enough pictures that I could tell how much it had changed--and hardly recognized it. I made my way to the staff list for the upcoming summer, and saw a name I knew under Art Director. It took the wind out of me. If my memory does not fail me, she was my favorite camper 4th- and 5th-grade week my second year of counseling. That would have made her, what, nine or ten? And now she's the art director at the camp that, when I was there, could barely sustain crafts hour once a week for the littler kids.

I feel so old.

So I looked through my camp photos, and found a few pictures of her and me. I think I'm going to get copies made then send her a note with the pictures this summer at camp. I feel a bit tentative about it, as I always do contacting people with whom I'm long out of touch, but I remember what it was like at camp. I hope they still do post-lunch mail call, make a big fuss out of people who receive a lot of letters, and sign them up for an act in the weekly talent show. I would have loved to get a letter from an old counselor sharing memories with me, remembering me. I don't know, though, if I had been a camper at ten, if I would have remembered my counselor ten years later. I do know how influential counselors are, and I do still remember the ones I had the years I attended in high school. It could be like always remembering your first-grade teacher.

God I feel old.

My sister's wedding

So she's bugging me to write about it.

It was lovely. All the celebrations were fun and not stressful (for me anyway).

I planned the bachelorette party, dinner out at a nice restaurant. No strippers, penis cookies, nothing. It was wonderfully low-key. We had plenty of wine and got to see old friends. Katie likes to act like she's an old fogie, and doesn't want to party like a rock star, but after a few glasses of wine, her tune changed, and we stayed up way too late. I really can't think of much I enjoy more than being surrounded by girl friends, good conversation, food, and wine.

The next day was the rehearsal, then an afternoon spent with the other bridesmaids, mom, and mother of the groom at a nail salon. We drank iced coffee, read magazines, and absolutely blissed out to manicures and pedicures. I don't get those ever. They were such a treat. In the evening, rehearsal dinner, where Chris's brother made a slide show of childhood pictures. I was in most of them. We were darling.

And that's when the picture taking started.

How is it that Katie looks like a California surfer girl? We're Kansas girls!


Where did my round eyes come from? Clearly I was adopted.


Day of the wedding. For Tim and I, it was pretty leisurely. We slept late, walked downtown Evanston to get some Dunkin Donuts (for me anyway. Hey! We don't have a DD here!), and then lunch in the hospitality room. My parents had the stack of photos that Chris's brother sifted through to put together the slide show, and I looked through them. I wasn't but a few pictures in, looking at baby Katie and I hugging each other like we actually got along as kids, when I started sobbing.

It wasn't the wedding so much as just her. I miss her so much it's like I have this hole missing in my heart. I just can't bear to be so far away from her.

Cool, calm, and collected, ready to head to the wedding space. It really took two people to carry that dress.


On the way to the space. That's Eliza, Katie's best friend.


Before she got dressed, I modeled the crinoline under my own dress.


We tied her into it.



Posing for pictures pre-ceremony.



Then we went back to the dressing room to hang out and wait until it was time. Chris's brother's girlfriend procured a bottle of wine and we did a round of toasts.


Then it was time. I love the look on mom's face. Halfway between laughter and insanity.


No pictures of the ceremony, for someone was sitting right in front of Tim. All I remember is that the minister wore a cell phone speaker on his lapel so that Chris's grandpa in Florida could listen to the vows; that Katie spoke so quietly I couldn't hear her, and I was standing right next to her; and that my feet hurt so badly it was all I could do to not fall down on the spot.

After the ceremony, a quartet played for cocktail hour. I think quartet is too fancy of a word. They were a folky bluegrass band. Exactly the thing that inspired dad to pick up an extra guitar and join in.


Then it was dinner time. The DJ announced their arrival.


In case you can't tell, here's a closeup of Katie. She'll kill me for it, but I love the look of sheer happiness.


Hopefully some day I will see the video, because I made an spectacular toast to Katie and Chris. Best maid of honor speech ever. Trying to recount it to Tim (who ducked out after the ceremony to go to another wedding) didn't even do it justice. Let's just say I made people laugh and cry lots. I should be a professional toast-giver.





BFF




The evening took a wild spin when dancing started. My certifiably insane uncle got out his drum and started playing along to the music.


But it was fun. So much fun. It was demonstrated, the clear link to insanity in the Moran family because my dad also tore up the dance floor. I'm so disapointed I didn't get a picture of that hilarity. I was afraid he was going to throw out his back.

And I got to spend most of the evening with Hannah and my cousin Andy, two of my most favorite people in the world.

Finally, some of my favorite notes that guests wrote to Katie and Chris.

Socializing and stuff

Theatre parties. I never go, because they're always on Sunday nights. But this week, I worked overtime on Friday, so I was able to take off most of Monday. So Sunday night, I squeezed myself into a pretty black strapless top, my new grass-green capris, and went out to have some fun and a gross amount of vodka lemonade. While I'm generally bored when actors start yapping about theatre, this party included crew and stage hands. At this theatre, they are some of the nicest, most down-to-earth people I've ever met. I met some of the Wardrobe girls who invited me to their weekly scrapbooking/movie nights. I chatted about knitting with a Prop Runner, whose husband just got a new Star Wars tattoo. And one of the actors informed Tim that he had a "very hot wife."

It always amazes me how happiness can increase beauty tenfold. I miss having a social life.

The party spilled over into Monday night, when about fifteen people showed up at the baseball stadium for a Biscuits home game. I had forgotten how much fun it is to watch baseball, eat hot dogs and drink beer with a rowdy bunch of friends.

Tonight I start tennis lessons. I'm scared. I haven't played in nearly ten years, and my tendonitis is raging right now. But I'm excited.

And this Saturday I'm volunteering for an arts festival at the fine arts museum. I love how busy and involved I am. I'm even looking forward to the governor's conference on domestic violence that I'm attending this week, a chance to hang out outside of work (sort of) with a few co-workers.