The scary news is that I haven’t really left my apartment in three days, due to bad weather and lots of work. It snowed slushy, nasty snow-like precipitation on Saturday. I loved it, because it made me feel better about skipping Halloween parties. Now it’s just cold. Well, it looks cold from inside, and my heater’s on.
The nostalgic news is that this was my best Halloween costume ever. My step-grandmother sewed it out of a highly synthetic material that gives me the itchies just thinking about it. You can tell what I was, right?
It’s always hard to explain to my friends from the Northeast that I grew up where Christianity was compulsory. Everyone believed in God and our lord and personal savior Jesus Christ, because…
Just because.
It’s how everything was explained and not explained. Things that didn’t make sense were part of a plan we were too small to see.
I can’t pinpoint the moment when I went from a confident, inquisitive kid to a self-conscious adolescent, but I think God must have been at the root. One day I went from believing in Him, because it’s what everyone did, to doubting such a being could exist. And if there were some sort of God, I was skeptical that He or She or It would hold some of the beliefs that everyone said He or She or It did.
The songs that capture 2010 for me weren’t the most esoteric or classic. These eight summed up a year of change, starting over, and potential dressed as heartbreak.
“Tighten Up” by The Black Keys:
The story of life in pretty much any year: “I wanted love. I needed love. Most of all.” Here’s to finding it in unexpected places.
Tomorrow I’ll be in majestic Connecticut with another set of people who’ve kindly agreed to take me in. I haven’t spent Thanksgiving with my own family for the last seven years. It seems like a long time, but it’s always made sense. Traveling from far away for a one-day binge of carbs and quality time isn’t really ideal. I seldom get a half-day off before, anyway.
I’m very lucky to have picked up some really kind, inspiring friends between moving to NYC and being told this afternoon by a tourist, “I know you’re from here - you’re eating yogurt on the subway!” While I’m waiting for my ride, I’ve decided to bomb some friends’ Facebook walls and such with thanks. I’m channeling Ashton Kutcher and writing an explanation, followed by “You just got thank’d!” Feel free to follow suit.
Bravo to the people at Pixar for their It Gets Better video.
The It Gets Better Project really touches me, not only because I have gay friends who struggled to come out, but because I remember how difficult it was to grow up “different.” I was far from popular during my school years in Odem, Texas. And while I wasn’t bullied outright, I was definitely called names and felt isolated. I grew to be more self-conscious and distrustful than is healthy.
Even now, I’m living some version of that - a few people whose approval I crave tell me I’m wrong and stupid. They condemn whom I choose to spend my time with, and what I choose to spend my time doing. The It Gets Better videos sometimes forget to mention that there will always be people who will tell you that what and how and who you love is wrong.
The people in my life are tags on a mattress. I leave ‘em on, despite knowing the law is antiquated and unenforced. I give favors, though I owe nothing. I’ve done my investing, but can never own enough to grab and tear.
This is why I tutored after work for years, despite being completely exhausted by commuting from the southernmost tip of Manhattan all the way to the tippy top two to four times a week. It wasn’t a lucrative side gig. I loved the kids, and I waited until they all got to high school and left me. It felt right.
Now I would never want to deter anyone from getting an English bulldog of their own. I love the breed for many reasons - gracefulness not being one of them.
So if you spook easily at a spazzy dog, do not watch this video of Annie at my parents’ house in Texas last week.
I repeat: Do not watch this video if you can’t handle your hot dog with extra spaz, hold the ability to follow directions.
When I was a kid, I’d sometimes explore the woods behind my house - they belonged to my uncle and were roamed by his four horses. There was a point where the mesquite trees and brush got so thick that the house disappeared. It didn’t take much; it was a small house.
I’d gaze into my backyard from afar and try to really look. The dog shuffled to her water bowl under the outdoor spigot. Our Siamese cat stretched in a tree. My sister carried glasses of iced tea from our kitchen to my dad’s office attached to the garage.
Looking at my home this way made me feel objective and appreciative and rich.
Raymond Carver’s poem “Locking Yourself Out, Then Trying to Get Back In” reminds me of those times:
I don’t know when it started, but at some point in what is still my relatively young adulthood, I decided I didn’t want children of my own.
I’ve been told I’ll snap out of it as I mature, as all my friends start settling down, as I get comfortable in my career and self enough to think, “I want more.”
