Because I'm inspirational, that's why.

A few months ago, I got an email from Crate & Barrel thanking me for my purchases over the past year -- in other words, giving me props for snapping up the clearance page stuff other people passed on. They offered me a $25 gift card to spend how I saw fit at DonorsChoose.org. At first, I thought it might be a bit of a bogus cross-promotion where I'd click a button and wind up inadvertantly agreeing to buy an $800 patio loveseat. So, of course, I did it anyway. (I've since learned that this is an award-winning effort Crate & Barrel's been making for the past few years, issuing these gift cards so that customers can help direct how the company spends its charitable contributions. Which I think is very cool. Would that more companies follow suit.)

Anyway, I followed the DonorsChoose.org link and was intrigued to find that this is a website where teachers, mostly from high poverty schools,  post pleas for financial help purchasing specific supplies -- books, teaching tools, etc. I picked a project somewhat randomly. It was near the top of the list and it caught my eye. A teacher in Northern California needed $24 more to meet her goal of buying copies of Judy Blume's Superfudge for her class.

I love this one from my pal, Sal. Why does he like books? "Maybe because some are funny."

The project piqued my interest on three different levels. First, my mother was a teacher who felt very passionately about imparting to her students the love of reading. I figured my meager and free (to me) donation would honor her in some small way. Second, I was nuts about Judy Blume's books as a kid and I remember Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge were particular faves. And third, my donation would complete the amount the teacher requested and I do like to be a closer!

I'd completely forgotten about the project I'd selected when I fetched my mail today. In it I found a thick white envelope from DonorsChoose.org and with the following words printed on the outside:  "Hurray! Your student thank-you letters for your donation have arrived!" I vaguely recalled that this was part of the deal -- getting a thank you from the class or the teacher.

"When I grow up I'm going to be just like you - donate stuff to class rooms. Sincerely, Eunice." Yes, Eunice, because that's what I am best known for.

Still, I didn't expect what I found inside -- 24 individual hand-written thank you notes addressed to me. With names and drawings and notes about why they liked the book. I should mention that I'm an unbelievable sucker for a thank you note. I was raised in a household where writing them was mandatory and to skip them an unthinkable sin on par with putting your elbows on the table during dinner time. (Guess you had to be there.) Now it seems there are so few people who write them that to get any at all is always a treat. To get a thick envelope full of them from a bunch of little kids who are loving their books is pretty remarkable.

Kids are so wise, aren't they?

I'm not saying the expectation of thanks is a reason to consider donating to DonorsChoose.org. I'm just saying it doesn't hurt.

Cherry blossom petals on the deck

Taken 05.08.09

Four days in the Big Apple

I wasn't sure I wanted to go. Chris was heading to NYC on a business trip last Wednesday and we had a spare ticket we had to use up before too long. So I decided to tag along, despite the fact that heading to New York always puts me into a bit of a panic. I get overwhelmed just by the idea of the city and its offerings. I get consumed with the idea that I'll do the wrong things and I'll miss out on all the good things and wind up catatonic on the subway, rocking back and forth, unsure where to get off.

That didn't happen. It never does. I didn't say it was a rational fear. I'm just not a very good decision maker -- I have trouble picking something off a menu -- and there's so, so much to do and see in New York. I feel like I'm supposed to go to museums and take advantage of the culture but the truth is that what I really like to do in the city, in any city I visit, is wander. Aimlessly, sometimes. Operating with a vague idea of where I might want to end up or which neighborhoods I might like to see. A boutique or craft store I might want to check out.

I like to punctuate my wandering with frequent stops -- sitting at an outdoor cafe and people watching. Pausing in a park and people watching. Standing dumb-struck on a street corner, people watching. You get my drift. And, boy, did the weather cooperate. Beautiful days stretching into one another just tailor-made for doing not much of anything and covering a lot of ground doing it. Thus, the trip I was reluctant to go on turned out to be (of course) one of my favorite to NYC yet.

We stayed at Le Parker Meridien in Midtown, about a block south of Central Park, thanks to my husband's amazing acumen at finding stellar hotel deals. This one didn't disappoint. If you have a partner who enjoys the mind-numbing and crazy-making task of developing complex strategies for bidding for hotels online -- or, you know, an expense account -- I heartily recommend it. Compared to our last visit, our hotel room this time was practically cavernous and at 28 floors up, afforded us a nice view into Central Park and onto the outdoor living spaces of those in buildings shorter than ours. Not that it mattered a ton, considering we spent most of our time wandering the streets of Manhattan, trying to ignore aches and blisters.

On the day of our arrival, Wednesday, I napped. I'd like to tell you I did a whole lot more than that, but it would be a lie. We had to get up at the ungodly hour of 5 in order to catch our flight, which routed us through Chicago, so I was more than done by the time we were able to check into our hotel at 3. (Do any of you ever experience what Chris has affectionately taken to calling my propensity for "morning tummy"? That is, if travel requires me to get up super early, I tend to spend much of the day queasy and nauseous? No? Fine. It's just me.)

Anyway, Chris was off at meetings with probably very important people and returned just in time to drag me out of bed and out of the hotel for dinner, lest the day be entirely wasted. I wasn't up for much, but I have to say the matzo ball soup at the nearby and infamous Carnegie Deli was just the thing for my delicate constitution. Not so much the table pickles, but what do you expect? I've probably only had matzo ball soup five or six times in my life, but I've never had balls this big. Yeah. I said it. You can't possibly actually have expected more from me.

Plus, you get to watch people tackle inadviseably tall (and exorbitantly expensive) piles of pastrami on rye while gazing at walls covered in framed, autographed headshots of stars from the late seventies and early nineties. Oh, neighbor guy from The Jeffersons. What a looker you were!

In the interest of rigorous honesty, there might have been some brisket after the soup, but I prefer to have you think of me as the delicate sort of flower for whom the above would be a complete meal. If it makes you feel better, the brisket didn't do me any favors and absolutely nixed the possibility of having some amazing-looking cheesecake for dessert.

After dinner, we wandered among the throngs in Times Square and while I did my fair share of gawking and photo-snapping, I must say I don't enjoy that level of crowdedness. I have to fight the constant urge to just shove the hell out of people, which would be disastrous for a number of reasons but mainly because New Yorkers would shove back and I'm pretty much a wuss. Nor do I find, as I heard one woman remark to her toddler, the lights of Times Square to be "beautiful." Unless by "beautiful" you mean "draining the world's precious energy resources," in which case, I concur.

At this point, my feet started to suggest to me that perhaps I might consider taking it easy on them this first eve in the big city, what with three full days of walking ahead. So I did what I do every time I'm wandering around a new place: I ignored them. Instead, we kept walking, this way and that. Over by Radio City Music Hall, where the Flight of the Conchords were playing a sold out show. (We were only a tad jealous; we've tickets to the Detroit show this Friday.)

Next, we swung by 30 Rock to see if Tina Fey was waiting to meet with me. I didn't see here, so I can only assume that somehow the message didn't get to her. It's hard to find good help, isn't it?

I consoled myself by watching ice skaters and seeing if I had magically developed the ability to make good use of my camera's night time settings without actually learning how. Turns out, no. Still, we had a good old time watching the skaters, which were an odd mix of adolescent girls, families and a small group of mad-fast break-skaters whizzing around the ice, whipping in and out among the regular folks fast enough to put the fear of God into the small children. Occasionally, one of them would put an elbow down on the ice and spin around. Not the most impressive move, but whatever.

That seemed like plenty for one evening, so we high-tailed it back to the hotel. Chris had meetings the next morning (what is with him?) and I slept entirely too late, before dragging my ass from bed, grabbing a sammich and heading to Central Park to get in an hour or so of hard-core people watching. And watch I did. It was a spectacular day. The trees were in bloom, forsythia branches exploding and it was like all of New York had crawled out from their office buildings to sit in the park on their lunch hour, blinking their mole-eyes in the sun's bright light.

Folks were running, the playground was swarming with kids, horsies were dragging fat tourists around in open-air carriages. All good stuff. I saw fat people and skinny people and tall people and short people. I heard seven million different languages, although my favorite eavesdropping moment was in English, when a young girl pointed at a horsie and said, "Mama! I see something poking down from the horse's belly!" Yes, you do dear. Because it's spring. It's spring!

When Chris' business was finished for the morning, I met him back at the hotel and we decided to hop on the subway and head down to Soho, mostly in search of Purl Soho and Purl Patchwork, a duo of yarn and fabric shops. I've ordered fabric from the website before and was eager to get a chance to browse up close and personal some colorways I'd seen online.

Along the way, in NYU's law quad, we saw the first of many stunning magnolias lighting up the city. They're barely budding back home and here some were already losing their petals. Nature doesn't do many things more dramatic than magnolia-makin'.

I didn't actually wind up spending much time in Purl Soho or its sister shop, Purl Patchwork, a few doors down. I knew they were rumored to be small spaces, but they were even smaller than I anticipated. I just get so overwhelmed and claustrophobic in tiny shops, so I barely stayed in the yarn one for more than a minute or so. When confronted by that many balls of yarn, packed tight, piled high in cubbies for the ceiling, I do the aforementioned panic and sort of shut down.

I lingered a bit longer at Purl Patchwork, although it was just as tiny. There were some fabrics designed by the owners I'd wanted to check out and I was glad to have had the chance to see them up close. I also fell in love with some Indian cotton drapery fabric there, but at $37 a yard it was a) out of my price range and b) pointless, since I have no use for it. I left empty-handed, but with that happy fabric-y feeling only fellow sewers will relate to.

We had originally thought we might try to hit Ellis Island on Thursday but they recommend allowing two or three hours for the full effect and the last ferry leaves at 1, the park closing at 5. Since Chris wasn't done with work until well after the last ferry, we went for the cheap, cheerful and fast alternative: the Staten Island Ferry. Sure, it doesn't stop at Ellis Island or give you the option of an up-close visit with Lady Liberty, but on a beautiful afternoon such as we had, it offered us a closer view of both than we would have had on shore and some pretty sparkling sun off the water.

I tell you, no matter how jaded you might be, how many times you might have seen the Statue of Liberty in photos (or even in person), and no matter how tiny she might seem way out in the water, you're just a cold fish if you don't get a bit of a lump in the ol' throat as you glide past.

Walking through Times Square again on the way home, we picked up some half-price tix to see Blithe Spirit, the Noel Coward play, at the Schubert Theater, starring Angela Lansbury, Rupert Everett, Christine Ebersol and Jayne Atkinson. I like Coward well enough, but I like Everett even better, so although the seats were tight and we were about as high up as you could get in the tiny theater, it was a delight. A delight!

I'm not a very shoppy lady, but if I have one extravagance, it's bath products and glorious scents. While other women think nothing of dropping big coin for purses or shoes, that doesn't much tickle my fancy. I will, however, save my pennies to splurge on some really quality bath goodies. Thus, Friday morning, I made Chris schlep all the way up Madison Avenue with me just so I could set foot inside an actual Jo Malone boutique.

My husband created a monster this past year when, on separate occasions, he treated me to the red roses bath oil and the honeysuckle & jasmine bath oil. (While the latter is divine, the former is perhaps the best thing I've ever smelled. Not cloyingly rosey, but green and fresh and amazing.) There were so many different scents I wanted to try and reading about them on the website wasn't cutting it. I sniffed just about everything, dropped my pocket money on a refill of red roses bath oil and a small orange blossom cologne and figured I could die a happy woman.

Except we were going over to Brooklyn, so I needed to stay alive a bit longer. Thanks to my friend Amanda's great tip, we found our way to Brooklyn General, a really lovely yarn and fabric shop. So many sweet notions and pretty things to look at. Such nice help. And more Amy Butler fabric choices than I've seen in one place. They also had a nice selection of vintage fabrics and spools of vintage ribbon. I bought several yards of the latter, not because I have any idea what I'll do with it, but because it was just so sweet. I also bought myself my first cut of Amy Butler fabric, plus the pattern for her weekender bag. Probably a bit ambitious, but I was feeling creative and full of possibility. This too shall pass.

Then it was off to meet our friends Matt and Claudia -- and their adorable eight-month-old son Diego -- in Crown Heights. They suggested a neighborhood Mexican joint called Chavarella's, where we sat outside despite the cooling air and I ate some of the best fish tacos I've ever had.

Saturday was our last real day in the city. We debated heading over to Coney Island but the thought of spending nearly an hour each way on the subway while the sun was shining seemed a tad silly. So we headed instead down to Union Square, which boasts an art and green market on Saturdays. Fresh flowers, local art, street food, strong sun. All so good.

From there, we wandered through the Village, then stopped for lunch at what has become a favorite dining spot in the West Village, French Roast. We were able to snag a table outside and Chris almost saw Parker Posey. That is to say, he saw a woman who vaguely resembled Parker Posey. I should probably mention that, at this point, I was already bitching up a storm about not having seen any celebrities on this trip. I really want people to believe that I am far more evolved than this, but it's not like they wouldn't figure it out after knowing me for ten minutes or so.  Instead, I made us play a game of pointing out people who could have been stunt doubles for famous people and that was far more lucrative.

After filling our gullets, we ambled more around the West Village,  where I saw this gorgeous fire department doorway below.  We ducked down side streets, marveled at sculptural window box displays and just generally enjoyed the atmosphere. We didn't stop into a whole lot of shops, though we made a very happy exception for Pure Dark, where I would very much like to say we learned all sorts of things about how chocolate is made. In reality, we learned mostly about tasting chocolate, particularly in its drinking chocolate form, with nibs. Almost too much for two people to split. Almost.

Exhausted from all that eating, we followed Christopher Street west to where it dead ended at Hudson River Park and plopped ourselves down on the steps at the waterfront to watch people some more.  Tons of folks were out, walking their weird dogs and their weird kids. And I stretch out a bit on the step next to me and look to my right and there's a woman who looks a lot like Janeane Garofalo. Because she is Janeane Garofalo. (If you don't know who that is, why are you even reading my blog in the first place?)

So, like an asshole, I took a few surreptitious pics of her which only fear of litigation is preventing me from posting here. As I'm snapping away, I'm well aware of the fact that this is an invasion of privacy, which I'm less worried about than how horribly cheesy it makes me look. As I'm contemplating all of this, I look up and, passing right in front of me is the adorable Jason Bateman, his wife and their lovely daughter. I wasn't feeling quite ridiculous enough to blatantly take their picture because, you know, I'm cooler than that, so you'll just have to believe me. Or not. Whatever. (Note, that is not a celebrity in the photo below. It's just some random man with his dog. Clearly I had no problem violating his privacy, either.)

That was about it for our last afternoon in NYC. There was some dinner, of course, lest I starve and a little more walking through Central Park, accompanied by a lot more complaining about how sore my feet were and a sheepish eight-block taxi ride back to the hotel so that poor Chris could live to see another day. We had to be up early for our flight again on Sunday, so we were tucked in bed at an hour on Saturday night when, I'd venture to guess, most people in the big city were just heading out to enjoy themselves. Which was fine by us. We'd seen all we came to.

More photos of our trip on my Flickr page.

Need two empty bottles?

The serial killer* who lived next door finally sold his house and moved out. It went on the market at $189,000 and the last I checked was down to $150,000. I'm guessing it went for less than that, which just goes to show you that, in this economy, people simply aren't paying what they used to for neglect.

He left something for you on the porch in case you're interested:

*I suppose, in the interest of dodging libel charges, he may not necessarily have been a serial killer. Let's just say that if the new tenants happen to find surprises waiting for them in the crawl space, I won't be the least bit surprised.

My School Chums

From Hyndland Primary School in Glasgow, Scotland, 1977:

Apparently, I only had four chums. I have no idea what happened to the last three, but the first -- Deborah (whose name I, evidently, could not spell) -- I'm still in touch with today. (In fact, I attended her wedding just last year in Scotland.)

Not about the pot

I was going to write a post yesterday about my Sunday excursion to Ikea. I was going to write about the lengths I went to in order to get my paws on a stock pot reduced from a dazzling $24.99 to $9.99.  I may not be a big shopper, but I'm a big soup maker and that 11-quart baby had my name all over it. I was going to blog about how we got there too early but yet just in time to get our coupons for the pots before they ran out. About how we had to line up just to get into the store and how it was pure insanity but yet there was free breakfast. Free breakfast! Then I saw this news yesterday -- that The Ann Arbor News will cease publication in July -- and I got completely sidetracked. I got that "end is nigh" feeling one gets. Or, at least, that this one gets.

I'm not naive. I know how bad things have been getting for newspapers in recent years. In fact, if anything, I have a glut of awareness about it. I suppose by some stretch of the imagination, I once qualified as a journalist. I am married to a journalist who is a refugee from the increasingly myopic and skeletal world of daily newspaper reporting. I'm lousy with friends -- in this country and abroad -- in the biz, many of them increasingly concerned with their own job prospects and all of them concerned about the future of their  industry as a whole. I have absolutely nothing new or insightful to add on that front.

It's just that when Newhouse decided to shut down The Ann Arbor News, everything got a lot more uncomfortable. Maybe it's the small-town effect -- ripples are felt more strongly here. I know people who work for this newspaper, people whose lives have been completely upset at a junction in their career where prospects are, let's face it, dim. (Employees have apparently been told they can apply for positions with the website that will replace the paper.) It feels a like the black death we've heard tell of finally started claiming bodies in my own back yard.

I never thought I'd live in a place that didn't have a daily newspaper. I also, suppose, that on some extremely Pollyanna level, I'd hoped that a tightknit, somewhat progressive, highly involved community like Ann Arbor would be one of the last bastions for this tradition.

But here comes the most difficult part, the confession: it's sort of my fault. You see, I'm one of those people who loves the idea of a newspaper as beacon of the community -- but who didn't read the paper very often. I'm one of those people who already get the bulk of their news online and, frankly, whose days won't actually be changed very much.

A deeper confession: my internet leanings weren't the only reason I didn't read The Ann Arbor News. Truth is -- with all due respect to those who worked their asses off to get it out each afternoon -- I didn't much love it as a newspaper. I'm realizing now how much I loved the idea of it being there, though. Kind of like when your innocuous ex gets married and you realize how much you liked the idea of them just being out there. Or maybe it's not like that at all. I don't know. Sigh.

So, Ann Arbor News: I'm sorry I wasn't a better friend. I'm sorry I wasn't a subscriber and I'm sorry I wasn't a reader. I wish I'd known what it would feel like to hear it's curtains for you. It's not like I didn't see the writing on the wall. It's just that I didn't do anything about it. And I wish I could say that if I had, I would have done things differently. It's just that I'm not sure that's true. And I'm not sure it would have made a difference.

For G.

I think we all have those friends who were really, really important to us at one point in time, but then we lose touch, our good intentions falling by the wayside. Maybe you think of them a lot, meaning to get back in touch, half-heartedly Googling their names, expecting to see great things popping up and puzzling over why there's nothing. I had a strange set of occurences over the past few days involving one of my friends like that. I met G. my senior year of college in a writing workshop -- and at a place in time -- that was full of inspiration and influence on me, as writer. He was older than most of us in the workshop -- meaning, he was 26 or 27 when we were all just 21. At that point in life, those extra few years were daunting. G. somehow made them seem even more so, having packed so much life and knowledge into that handful of years. Not only did he write like a fiend, but he read like one too, thought about writing, lived The Life. On top of it all, he was even married, his wife beautiful and lively. It was almost more than we could fathom.

G. was at the center of what became, for a few years, a very tight group of writers. In truth, as time wore on and people filtered in and out, we were really a more dedicated group of drinkers than just about anything else. We met on Tuesday nights at a pub called McClain's in St. Louis and G. treated us poor types generously, buying rounds and pitchers and shots -- and the occasional tray of nachos with which to line our stomachs -- out of the tips he made tending bar at an upscale hotel downtown.

When I first met him in that writing workshop, I was struck by his handsome face and his ebullient personality and cowed by his seeming endless knowledge about writing. He was also the first person to be unabashedly, outrageously supportive of my writing and even though I took a long, long break from writing fiction, I don't think I ever would have returned to it if I hadn't carried a bit of G's faith in me that entire time.

After college, in the early 90's, I moved for a year to Asheville, NC.  While I was there, G. sent me letters, updates on his Life, his reading and his obsession with our status as "fin de siecle" writers, those responsible for summing up a century's experience with our words. It was all a bit more than I could take. By that point, all the thinking about writing was exhausting to me. It interfered with my drinking, which fast became a much more important element to me.

I want to get history and all the details right but so much of it is vague. I think I got together with G. a few times after I moved back to St. Louis. I'm certain we did far less talking about writing and more no-frills drinking. I know he was already starting to look pale and drained by the lifestyle. And I believe the last time I saw him, he was waiting tables at a restaurant in a St. Louis mall. He didn't have much time to chat, but I had the feeling he wouldn't have stopped long even if he did. I was a handful of years sober then, although I'm not sure he knew, and while I liked happening upon him, he was a reminder of a time in my life I was trying to put behind me.

I've still thought about G. a lot in the 8 or 9 years since. I find myself Googling his name every once in a while, or searching for it on Amazon, expecting to find a book or a collection of short stories. I did that on Monday and, as always, came up empty-handed. That same day, on Facebook, I connected with a mutual friend from those Tuesday night pub sessions. In his message to me, the friend mentioned that while it had been quite a while since he heard about G., he was still saddened greatly by it.

I knew right away that G. was dead and, in some part of me, I also knew right away that alcohol had played a part. I did some online research, found G.'s obituary from July 2006.  I tracked down his wife -- his ex for most of the past decade --  and she confirmed that it had indeed been a drinking-related death. She offered no specifics and I didn't really need them. Yesterday, St. Patrick's Day, would have been G's 43rd birthday.

I'm not sure I can explain to you the very specific type of sadness I felt, but I'm mourning on a lot of different levels. One, of course, is the all-too-familiar sadness we all feel for any bright and shining star, anyone whose promise is stunted by tragedy. I'm also so sad for G.'s family, especially the two young daughters he left behind. I don't know what the last years of G.'s life were, but I hope they grow up knowing that their dad was kind and warm and smart as hell and good and gregarious and lived life at breakneck speed.

Then there's also the specific loss and sadness of losing yet another friend to the battle with addiction. I'm never sure I need another reminder of how awful and cruel and undiscerning alcoholism is, how unfair it is (and how, in the end, that doesn't make any difference.) But they just keep coming anyway. It's a hazard of the business, so to speak.

I've missed G. in a very vague way over the years, in a very sporadic, superficial manner. Selfishly, I missed him as my cheerleader and as the first person to really root for my writing. Even now, when I write, I could use him egging me on, so generously spending hours and hours convincing me that something of value was flowing from my brain. In fact, I had thought that if I ever wrapped up this first draft of my novel, I'd try to seek him out and get his insight and guidance. Now that I know him gone, I miss him in 800 other ways. Ways that involve fear and anger and sadness and the certain knowledge that the Amazon searches for him will always come up empty.

You can't win if you don't play

So says the old adage and it's variant: you can't succeed if you don't try. Which is all well and good but it does bring up another argument, a perspective far more comfortable to my glass-half-wait-where's-my-glass? mindset: you can't fail if you don't try. This mode of thinking stops me from trying a million, zillion things. Last year, I was so afraid of losing I didn't bother entering a small photo contest friends encouraged me to try. I was so certain everyone else's photos would be far superior to mine. When they announced the winners, I was filled with immediate regret. The winning photos were fine, some even good. But I would have stood a really good chance of winning with the shots I had selected. Unfortunately, we'll never know as I chose the comfort of catatonia instead.

I'm mentioning all of this because I'm trying to bring myself to apply for something. It's this: a summer fellowship at the Norman Mailer's Writers Colony in Provincetown, Mass.  It's an amazing opportunity. Twenty-eight days to focus on writing and, perhaps even more important for me at this point in time, to discuss writing and receive feedback on my work. It's even a free ride. Applications are due March 10. One week from today.

The hitch? They pick seven writers for this session. And my mind's already decided that I won't be one of them. I'm already so sure that I won't make the cut that I'm in the process of talking myself out of submitting an application. Yes, Dr. Freud, I know this is fear talking, but when it comes to writing, I have so much of it. It's easier to stay in my little box and not give it a shot.

Sigh.

Why do I feel like this is a scene in a movie where triumphant, bass-pumping music will build in the background as I realize I've got to give it a shot? One shot. One opportunity. Yes, Eminem would be involved.

And why am I writing about this here? For one thing, just to get it off my chest. But, more importantly, because it's been my experience that if I write something here, at least one or two of you reach out and keep me accountable. What I'm saying is, I'll do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to apply and I'm going to tell you that I'm going to apply, which means that if I don't get in, I have to be willing to cop to that and deal with the ramifications of not being good enough and people knowing that I'm not.

Maybe it will all help me take one step closer to being someone who believes that trying is worth something all on its own.

Yeah. Maybe.

Breathe in, breathe out

I've been trying to meditate lately, and I'm not very good at it. I know, I know. All the Zen types with whom I am acquainted insist there's no such thing as being bad at meditation, but I do so like to think I am unique. Why meditate? A number of reasons, mostly to do with stress and anxiety and the ensuing/causing monkey mind from which I suffer. As I've blogged here before, it plagues me to the point that falling asleep at night is a massive, painful undertaking. I want to learn how to quiet my mind, how not to be leaping to the next thing and the next thing and oh, that one thing I've forgotten. I want to remember how to be in this moment right now and, most importantly, to know that I'm okay there.

The thing about meditating is that I'm never quite sure I'm doing it right and I always feel, quite frankly, like a bit of a dork. I've been talking to as many people I can for whom meditation is a regular (or semi-regular) part of their life and I'm both encouraged and somewhat intimidated by the variety of approaches. Part of me thinks I'd be better off if someone just said, "There's one way to meditate and this is it -- steps 1, 2 and 3. Follow those." And part of me knows that if someone told me that I'd probably tell them to shove it.

I have a friend who meditates only while walking by herself out in nature, simultaneously sending out a bunch of good thoughts into the universe. Several people I know attend meditation classes or groups on a regular basis, but that just sounds like, I don't know, commitment. Another friend suggested a type of visual meditation, focusing on an image that really calms me and just practicing focusing on something other than my crazy thoughts.

So where am I with all of this? Sporadic, at best. Half-hearted and half-assed, at most. I'm trying sitting cross-legged because, I dunno, that's how the Beatles did it, as well as everyone else you see on TV. I've tried it in the morning and in the afternoon. I've tried it using some made up mumbo-jumbo prayers as well as some meditations I remember from the olden days when I practiced Anusara yoga regularly. Speaking of which, I'm trying it while doing some basic yoga poses as that's still one place I can remove myself somewhat successfully from the chaos of my mind and focus on my breathing and movement.

The jury's still out. At this point, I'm just hoping that in meditation there are points for trying.

As you are a granddaughter of a predeceasing brother of Mrs. Sutherland

A few weeks ago, my father forwarded to me an email that might otherwise easily have been mistaken for an internet scam. It was a notification that a distant relative had passed away without a will and that as one of her heirs, I was eligible for a share of her estate. The letter came from a solicitor's office in Glasgow, where I was born, and the deceased in question was the sister of my paternal grandfather. It wasn't the notion of an unexpected windfall that shook me -- the solicitor was quite clear that the estate was extremely modest and that, as one of 84 blood relatives, my share would be modest.  It was the fact that I had this relative at all, about whom I knew absolutely nothing, that rattled me a bit.

A little background is required, I suppose, to appreciate my reaction. As I said, this woman was the sister of my mother's father, a man I never met. I knew him only as a cautionary tale of alcoholism, abuse, familial abandonment and financial ruin. He was the source of tremendous pain for my grandmother, my mother and her brother. That was his place in the family legacy. He had run off long before I was born and, so the story went, the last time my mother laid eyes on him was an accidental encounter at a bus stop in Glasgow, the day before her wedding to my father.

My grandfather's absence made him more intriguing to me than his presence probably ever could and while the rest of the family seemed content to write him off to history, I've always been exceptionally curious to know what happened to him. As far as we knew, he was dead. It didn't seem likely that with his lifestyle, he'd lived long and prospered. Still, I remained curious about how and when he had died, where he lived before that, how he passed the years of his life.

After my mother died in the fall of 2003, I went to Glasgow for a memorial service in her honor. There I met my mother's older brother, who I hadn't seen since I was a very young girl. He had also done a bit of a vanishing act but had, curiously enough, sought out my mother just months before her sudden and unexpected death. It was the first time they'd spoken in more than 30 years and they were able to meet up with each for what would turn out to be the last time. What my uncle told me stunned me. He said that he had been in contact with his father -- my grandfather --  just over a year before. It was almost more than I could process. I'd lost my mother but discovered that her father was, in all likelihood, still alive. It seemed the cruelest of outcomes. What kind of world was it in which my mother, barely 60, died but her father, whose emotional abuse and abandonment trickled down to affect generations, had survived?

If I was curious about my grandfather's whereabouts before, I was mildly obsessed then. After I returned to the states, I made some meager attempts to find my grandfather. He was, understandably, not an easy or welcome subject of discussion for my grandmother or his other son, the uncle I'd known best growing up. I knew only his name and that he was last known to live in England. The online searches I was able to do without a date of birth or a last known address were limited, and I came up empty-handed. That was five years ago and I had actually done a fairly good job of putting it all out of my mind when I received notice that his older sister had died.

After I responded to the solicitor's email, I received a follow-up letter, accompanied by a family tree of heirs. It began with my great-grandparents. Until I that the piece of paper, I had no idea what their names were. Nor did I know that my grandfather was the fifth of nine children. After his  name were the words "date of death unknown." I was surprised and maybe even a bit disappointed. He would have been at least 91 by now, but I suppose I'd retained something resembling hope that he was still alive, still find-able. I don't know what I would have said or done if I had found him, but I had a few fantasies, often involving confrontations that made sure he understood how much pain he'd caused my grandmother and their children. I wanted him to be sorry that he had been so selfish. I wanted him to be sorry that he had missed out on so much. And I wanted to find out what his life had been like without all of us in it.

Now I knew he was dead. I wasn't mourning a grandparent, because he'd never been one to me. I was mourning a chance that was suddenly gone, a closed door.  There just wasn't the possibility of finding him anymore and, somehow, by extension, that meant there was a part of me that was gone, a puzzle piece I'd never be able to identify. And yet now, on this piece of paper, there were suddenly all these other new pieces -- names and birth dates of relatives I'd never even had the chance to know.  I had five great aunts and four great uncles and all of them were dead, too. More shut doors. (Interestingly, only one of the four boys in the family had known death dates.)

Here's what I have been able to learn from this piece of paper sent to me from a lawyer's office in Glasgow: My mother's middle name, Ivy, came from her aunt Agnes, who died at age 22, just two years before my mother was born. My grandfather was born somewhere between 1912 and 1917 and, based on the few tidbits of information my grandmother has shared about her former husband, I think it was probably 1916. I learned that my great aunt Elizabeth, whose will is in question, was the last of her siblings to die. I learned that I had 18 first cousins, once removed (my mother's cousins) and that, if the records are correct, only two of them had any children. Ironically, the only two cousins I do know about aren't part of the family tree, although I alerted the solicitor to their absence on the list. It turns out I have three second cousins I'd never heard of before and that their mother, like mine, is deceased.

There are all these connecting boxes, with names I've never seen before, names of people who are actually my relatives. This is a strange phenomenon to me. My family moved to the states when I was ten and we were largely without extended family. Back in Scotland, I had three cousins I knew about, none of whom we were close to. I took it to be a strangely American phenomenon that people knew their second and third cousins and had gigantic family reunions once a year. You have to understand that most of these "distant" relatives of mine never left Glasgow yet by the time I was born, my mother wasn't in touch with any of her father's relatives. Nor had they, to my understanding, made any effort to stay in touch with her. Isn't that strange? Isn't it strange to think that they may well have passed each other on Glasgow's busies shopping streets at some point and not known it? Or is it more strange to think that maybe they never did?

I don't know where all this is going or what it means. I know that it has opened up a deep place of melancholy, as there is my mother's name on the list with the word "deceased" in parentheses following her name. That she is, on this chart, just one of many people whose lives have ended and I have to admit that's very hard to see in print. And then there is my name, and the names of my four siblings, also on this chart. Black type, each of us in our own little box, surrounded by and connected to all these other boxes, each with a name inside. You can follow the lines from one box to the next and so on, and if you if move beyond my mother's box, and past the ones for her two brothers, every single one of them connects to a person I'd never met. All but one connect to people I've never heard of. And that makes it really easy to wonder where the lines are that do connect you to things you know, just what it is in terms of history and family and facts of life, that really anchors you down.

I actually completely forgot...

...that I had a blog. Seriously. Haven't given it a thought in quite a while, which makes me wonder whether this is really serving any purpose at this phase. Still, I'm reluctant to pull the plug. My writing energy's just focused in other directions right now. But I'll get back to it. I will. I'll be good! I promise.

Under snow

We had a couple of inches of snow at some point last week and then on Friday  night it started again, falling slowly, and picking up pace by mid-morning on Saturday. By Sunday, it was piled comically in the seats of our deck chairs like seriously over-stuffed cushions. It was deep and fluffy and covered everything. When all was said and done, we probably had a total of 9 or 10 inches for the week.

It helps that we live in a city like Ann Arbor where, by Sunday morning, all the major roads were virtually snow free and all the side roads were getting taken care of. It's not hard to cope with such snow when the city does, for the most part, a bang up job of taking care of the white stuff. Of course, we're still left to shovel our own walks and driveways, but fortunately Chris -- who had been absent for the week's earlier snow -- was back to handle the big one.

We're due another couple of inches tonight and, apparently, again tomorrow night before an ass-freezing sets in for the coming week. This is the snowiest winter of our four in Ann Arbor thus far and it'll be interesting to see how much we'll have had when all's said and done. (And, yes, as hard as it may be to believe, I still love the white stuff. By which I mean snow.)

Here are a few more shots of our house, our deck and other small sights:

Our little yellow house

Maggie's bike

Frosted fence post

The little bench by the lilac bush

Snowbama

What resolutions?

I could claim that I don't really make New Year's resolutions, sort of as a disappointment-management approach, considering I almost always break them all anyway. (I don't even remember if I resolved anything for last year, which demonstrates just how dedicated I am to such things.) Plus, I actually make resolutions all the time. Like, every day. When I get out of bed and say, "Today I will work out" or "Today will be a sugar free day." And, more often or not, I fail.

Still. I think the new year provides a good opportunity to at least reflect on the goals one has for the year ahead. Some of mine border on fantasty in terms of their likelihood to come to fruition, but it gives me a chance to think. And Lord knows I don't do enough of that. Here's what I'm considering for 2009:

1. Exercise. I know, it's so cliche it's embarrassing. But I can never seem to get to a place where I exercise consistently. I hit the Y regularly for a few months in a row, then I see something shiny and I'm off plan. I think one of the main problems for me is that I have a bag full of built in excuses (fibromyalgia, bad right knee, general laziness) and I have trouble finding a form of movement that feels good for me (fibromyaglia, bad right knee, etc.) I miss my old yoga teacher from St. Louis.

If I can just work on divorcing working out from obsession with weight, then I'd probably be less defeatist and more enthusiastic. If I can just keep the focus on good health and not waist line results, I'd probably be less committed. And I know for a fact that when I work out, I feel better in just about every way -- mentally, physically, spiritually. I have more energy. My mood is elevated. I sleep better. So what's my problem again?

2. Metabolism. So even though the docs threw the Polycistic Ovarian Syndrome diagnosis at me a couple of months ago, I'm still not sure the treatment has my metabolism working again. I'm not sleeping 14 hours a night and requiring a nap like I was late summer and my face is no longer angry all the time. But I still feel...off. I'm still gaining weight like crazy, despite efforts not to, and that's bruising my ego and dampening my spirits quite a bit. I'd just like to figure this thing out once and for all.

3. Food. Sigh. It's always food with me. Namely, sugar and other junk. The bottom line is: the more crap I eat, the more crap I crave. The more crap I eat, the worse I feel. The less crap I eat, the better I feel. Why does this simple logic elude me when faced with a bag of potato chips or a handful of cookies? The goal for this year is more whole foods, especially whole grains. More veggies, more lean protein. Me and everyone else.

4. The book. Or whatever it is. I've been so sidetracked by the holidays that I'm now 3,000 words behind schedule for finishing the first draft by end of January. Still, I'm hoping to stay the course, even if I have to lock myself in my office next week and do nothing but hammer away. This process is just so draining and so daunting. Although, it could be a good excuse to avoid the gym. Heh.

5. Reading. I have a pile of books stacked high waiting for me to wade my way through them, but I keep grabbing Us Weekly when I climb into the bath. Active reading helps me with active writing. I just need to do it. I'm currently reading Miranda July's remarkable collection of short stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You. On the waiting list are Jennifer Haigh's The Condition, Tom Perrotta's The Abstinence Teacher and re-reading some favorites by Anne Beatty, Richard Russo and others.

6. Being of service. In St. Louis, I was pretty active with Women's Support & Community Services, working their crisis line on a regular basis. Here, I focused my attention on 826 Michigan, where I taught writing workshops, both in-schools and out. That kind of fell away in the second half of the year when my energy disappeared. I think getting back in the mix would help me feel I had a little more purpose, which can be hard to achieve when you're holed up by yourself in your office all day writing a project, for yourself, which you're not sure anyone will ever read.

There. That seems like plenty, doesn't it?

Happy Hogmanay!

That's Happy New Year's Eve, to you non-Scots. I'm spending my afternoon "redding" the house -- the Scottish tradition of cleaning your house on the last day of the year to make sure everything's in good stead for the new one. Hogmanay's a gigantic deal in Scotland, so my heart's with my Glaswegian relatives today. In some ways, it's a bigger deal than Christmas. Many Scots spend the evening at a Ceilidh (pronounced CAY-lee), a traditional Gaelic dance, usually marked by men in skirts, loads o' champers (champagne) and tossing each other around the dance floor to Celtic music. Good times!

At midnight, the bells toll (church bells sound, clocks chime, etc.) across the cities -- it's our version of gun-shooting -- and people open up the window a crack to let the old year out and the new one in. We sing Auld Lang Syne. Then, they set about first-footing, the Scottish tradition in which a tall, dark and handsome man would be the first to set foot across your doorstep after midnight. He'd bring with him good luck for the new year, in the form of some shortbread or cake (to ensure the family won't go hungry), a little coal (to ensure the house would be warm for the year to come) and something to drink, often a bottle of Scotch.

In my family, my Grandpa Smillie was our usual first-footer and while the tradition seems to be fading in modern Scotland, in the face of big parties and street events, it remains one of my fondest memories of my Glasgow childhood.

As for my modern-style New Year's Eve, Chris and I have a tradition of our own: building a fire, putting on comfy clothes and staying in. Sometimes friends with nowhere to go stop by and join us, sometimes it's just us. But it's rank amateur night out there and we prefer to spend the last night of the year safe and warm, enjoying simple pleasures and feeling grateful for all we have.

I have to say I'm ready for a new year. Health-wise this hasn't been the greatest year for me and I'll take a new slate. I also spent a lot of this year sort of meandering, unsure what direction I should be taking, where my focus should lie, what I want to be when I grow up. I'm not sure how many answers I have yet, but I think I'm finally on the right track. Sort of. Maybe. Sigh.

Wherever you are and whatever you do this evening, I wish you a great new year, filled with all kinds of good stuff. Especially laughter. And friendship. Happiness. Some growth. Good mojo and juju. A bit of chocolate. Good coffee. A pile of great books. Crappy, indulgent TV. All kinds of good stuff, really.

In case there is closure

I'm a relatively fearful person. Nothing like I used to be, but even as a child I was worried so much of the time. Every little thing that went bump in the night had me tachychardic, so sure was I that someone was coming to kill my whole family. Mostly me, but sometimes them. (Survivors were integral to the plan, since there had to be somebody left to mourn me in the appropriate manner and to feel sorry for not treating me better while they still had the chance!) I bring this up because today I saw the headline on CNN.com that police have named a suspect in the disappearance of Adam Walsh, who was abducted from a Florida store in 1981. It's probably hard to imagine in a day and age when missing children seem an inevitable horror and John Walsh is best known for his leather-clad posturing as host of America's Most Wanted, but the heartbreaking abduction of the six-year-old -- and the subsequent gruesome discovery of the young boy's decapitated head -- sent a shockwave through the nation. It was awareness of this case and his parents' crusade to further the plight of missing children that changed the face of law enforcement even as it marked the loss of a little more innocence.

The TV movie "Adam," which aired in 1983, heightened awareness even further. Adam Walsh was all missing children and his parents gave them all voice and visibility in a way that just hadn't existed before. I remember watching that movie as a 12-year-old and being so deeply affected, feeling tremendous sorry for this little boy and also an increasing awareness that this world was a potentially unsafe place. That everything you knew could be taken away -- or you from it -- and the people who loved you most would be powerless to stop it or even, worst of all, to find out what really happened.

Thus, I felt something pretty significant today when I read that they'd finally named a suspect in the case: Otis Toole,  a drifter and known pedophile who was suspected of the crime for years and who died in prison 12 years ago. There's no new evidence in the case. Just, it appears, a new police chief's desire to mark the file as "closed."

When I read that today, the face of another missing child's popped immediately to mind, that of a 12-year-old girl named Ann Gotlib, who went missing from a mall in Louisville, Kentucky -- where I lived at the time -- just a few months before "Adam" aired. Her smiling, freckled face, framed by curling red hair was everywhere -- on TV, in the newspapers, on posters. The entire city was consumed with her whereabouts and as Gotlib was my age, I found it all terrifying.

Thus, today, when I read the update about Adam Walsh, I decided to Google Ann Gotlib, just to see if there was ever any closure to the case over the years. I was surprised to find a news article from a week or so ago, announcing that police in Louisville have named a suspect in that case also, one Gregory Lewis Oakley, Jr. Apparently, the recent 25th anniversary of Gotlib's disappearance brought some new information out of the woodworks and police now believe Oakley killed Ann with an injection of the painkiller Talwin. Oakley was charged with assaulting a 13-year-old female and sent to jail in 1984. He received medical release in June 2002 and died that October of cancer.

It seems so odd to me that, less than two weeks apart, police in different states name suspects -- both deceased -- for the two child abductions and murders that were seared so deeply in my memory 25 years ago. I'm not trying to assign to it some higher meaning -- although for the families, I certainly hope it carries some.  I'm just saying it has me a little unsettled today. A little sad. A little jittery, unable to erase from my mind the faces of a six-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl whose fate I feared, more than anything, I might face.

Holiday Fantasy Wish List

This year -- given the economy and all that good stuff -- I'm arranging with most of the adults on my Xmas list to skip the exchange. For the most part, none of us really needs anything and it seems sort of silly to scramble around trying to come up with gift ideas just for the sake of doing so. I think we'll all feel a little pocket book relief this way. I know I am. Still, I am an acquisitive person and even though there isn't much on my "reasonable" wish list, I've been fantasizing about my ultimate wish list, were price not an option. Thus, in a spirit of complete self-indulgence and materialism, I present to you my Fantasty Wish List for 2008. Enjoy. Or don't enjoy, but just judge me for being so greedy.

Jo Malone Red Roses Bath Oil

I'm sort of a giant bath whore, as everyone who knows me well can attest. If it bubbles and smells pretty -- by which I mean not fruity or edible, for the most part -- I'm game. Experience, however has taught me that often you pay a higher price for the truly sublime bath products. Amazing fragrances require real essential oils and those require coin. Fortunately, I have a husband who indulges me very well in my Lush and L'Occitane fetishes. However, I've been coveting a bottle of Jo Malone Red Roses Bath Oil by the reknowned English perfumer. It just sounds exquisite, don't you think? However, at $60 for a 25 mil bottle, it's too rich for my blood. And my bath.

A Beehouse 48 oz teapot in crackly green

Believe it or not, I've already had -- and squandered -- time with a fabulous Beehouse 48 oz teapot. Chris spoiled me with one for Christmas last year (in a lovely light green crackle finish) and I can honestly say it was the most beautiful and best-performing teapot I've ever owned. No drips, people!  But at $56 a pop, it's ludicrous to pony up for a replacement since odds are I'll just break it again. (Oh! While I'm on the tea subject, this one's not a fantasy, just a recommendation: blood orange fruit infusion from the Tea Haus on N Fourth Street here in Ann Arbor. Love it!)

Canon EOS Digital REbel XSi

Sure, I don't know how to use many of the features on my current Canon Powershot S3 IS camera but that doesn't stop me longing for an even better model. I'm aching to dabble into the world of SLRs, even though I wouldn't know anything about using one. Still, I'm thinking that given how pleased I am with my current Canon, I'd like to try out the Canon EOS Digital REbel XSi.  Prices seem to vary between $600 and $800, so there are no doubt bargains to be had! Bargains!

Some learnin'

Of course, that means I'll need some digital photography lessons to go along with that. I'm thinking something like this Fundamentals of Photography workshop from Midwest Photographic Workshops, but maybe not taught by a Hemingway lookalike.  That seems to run around $250, which seems fairly reasonable if it'll convert me into a world-class photographer in six short weeks. (Also, while you're signing me up for classes, I'd really like to brush up on my French. Seven years of studying the damn language and so much of it is gone. And Spanish. Don't forget Spanish. I need schooled, people. Might as well send me to the University of Michigan where, I learned the hard way, the price tag for a non-degree-seeking course will run you around $5,000. But I'll be able to order in French restaurants!)

Negative & Slide Scanner

I have boxes and albums full of photos I haven't looked at in years. Ditto my family, which also has carousels full of slides that date back to my grandpa's itchy camera finger -- and no projector to view them on. Wouldn't it be fantastic to take the negatives and slides and scan in the keepers for digital posterity, making it much easier to view and share them with everyone and making it possible to dump the ones that aren't of interest? Sure it would. I'd go relatively big with this purchase, not pro-style, but with a pretty high end resolution. I'm liking the look of this Canon CanoScan model, which goes for around 200 clams.

The keys to a shiny new Australia*

Okay, maybe not the keys to the whole country, but I would so take a trip to Australia. It's been on my list for years and years and after seeing our good friend (and Sydney residents) Gerard and Kim very recently, it seemed like extra incentive to go. Gerard says we need to allow six weeks to do it properly, and that we'll probably want to check out New Zealand while we're over there. (And thank them for FOTC and whatnot.) We're not sure that Gerard's ever met an American or else he'd know that a six-week vacation is laughable. I'm not sure I'd even want to be gone from home quite that long, but since it's a fantasy, let's go for it. I also figure, while we're fantasizing, that a few days on the ground in Fiji, Tahiti and/or Thailand on the way there and back would be a worthwhile diversion. For the sake of comparison shopping, this tour operator offers a 32-day Australia/New Zealand/Fiji package for right around $9,000 a piece. If you're buying me this, it's only polite to buy one for Chris too. *Bonus points for recognizing Dr. Horrible reference

Creative Writing Workshop

Specifically, this Creative Getaway for Writers, hosted by Cary Tennis in West Marin, California this coming January. A friend of mine takes a workshop with Tennis in San Francisco and speaks very highly about him. Plus, I'm pretty impressed with his Five Essential Affirmations and Five Essential Practices that guide his workshop approach. Since I'm such a light and fitful sleeper, I'll need a single room for the event, which puts the price tag for this three day affair at $1,150. Plus, I'll need airfare too. Thanks!

There. That seems like plenty.

Yawn

Are you tired? I'm tired. I spend a lot of time tired. Sigh.Don't know if it's this metabolic system crap starting up again or the winter blue settling in. Either way, I haven't much to report. On the writing front, I'm scraping my way out of a rut. I've found myself about 2/3 of the way through the first draft of this supposed novel I'm writing and hitting a bit of a brick wall, plot-wise. Had to go back to the drawing board recently and rework my outline for the last third of the draft. I'm still not entirely sure how things fall into place, but I've got enough of a vision to keep moving forward, I think. And I believe I've identified some holes that will need to be plugged.

This is a daunting and humbling project, my friends.

I definitely need a little accountability to keep me on task. It's too easy to get distracted, to let my fear talk me into sitting on the couch and knitting rather than tapping out some more sentences. I'm going to follow a friend's suggestion and ask a couple of my writer friends to enter into a contract of sorts with me. I'm going to identify some deadline goals and ask them to help keep me accountable, to encourage me and stay in contact with me along the path so this doesn't feel like such a lonely endeavor with a fuzzy grey ending.

Here's what I'm thinking: first draft done by the end of January. That would require me to pick up the pace substantially. Otherwise, at the rate I'm going currently, dragging my feet, it would be a lot longer before I wrap up the first draft. And I can't stand the thought of that.

On an unrelated note, I dragged out and dusted off my sewing machine yesterday. It's been a long, long time since I sewed. Just another thing that fell victim to health problems. But it feels good to have it out. I've a couple of brave projects I want to get done for Christmas, which involve drafting my own pattern which is difficult and sometimes confusing. And I'm really kind of excited about it. Yeah, I said it. Excited.