Do you Know Stuff?

It’s cool when you get to watch your parents learn stuff.

To me, it’s always seemed as if there’s a time-line with parents and their children:

For the first eighteen years of a kid’s life at least, the parents are the ones who Know Stuff. They joke to other parents that Know Stuff about the fact that their kids don’t Know Anything, even though they believe they Know Stuff. Kids may or may not actually feel that they Know Stuff (I didn’t), but it’s widely understood that kids not only believe that they Know Stuff but that they Know Everything.

This next stage in the time-line is a little different for everyone. Somewhere, usually in your twenties, you begin to Know Stuff (or at least, people now recognize that you Know Something). Your parents may or may not agree your opinions (especially if you’re the firstborn), but at least they (usually) respect your right to make decisions and your relationship becomes “grown up.” Some parents are particularly good with this kind of relationship, others … well …

Final stage: the children become the adults. You never know when this will happen. The kids are the ones who now Know Stuff, as their parents’ Knowledge is obsolete and the kids themselves may have kids. With-it parents now have Wisdom. Non-with-it parents are subject to the eye-rolling and heaving sighs they subjected their kids to in adolescence. Adult kids now talk to their adult friends about how they Know Stuff, and their parents don’t.

That’s obviously an over-generalization and something of an exaggeration. I know people who will probably never have any of those experiences with their parents. HOWEVER, roll with it for the sake of the rest of my story.

Those of you who know my parents know that they’ve had it rough in about every area of life for the past forty-five years or so. One area in which this was particularly true was their church. The environment of the church they’ve attended since I was thirteen had become toxic, especially as they weren’t treated well by the church leadership. They made a gut-wrenching decision to leave two years ago, and began attending a far less traditional and conservative church than the one they left.

I was at home over Mother’s Day, and attended church on Sunday morning with them. I’d been there before, but this time I was shocked and delighted to see how much being in a healthy environment had changed them. Doing something that was good for themselves had made them relaxed, able to make LOTS of new friends, and able to forgive and let go of people that had hurt them. My dad had learned to clap his hands in church, my mom had learned hug the ladies in her Bible study, and they both had learned to ask for help when they needed it and to say “no” without fear.

For the past couple of years, I’ve morosely wondered if I had become an adult kid without getting to experience that in-between stage with my parents. Their ability to Learn Stuff showed me how wrong I was–that we are there already, if for no other reason than we’ve still got a lot of Stuff to Learn. They’ve made me incredibly proud to be their daughter.

Say it ain’t SO!

Skybus is dead. If you aren’t familiar, Skybus is was an airline that offered cheap fares, some as low as $10 to a limited number of cities in the US. And one of those cities was MINE. We’re not exactly Mayberry, but our airport isn’t exactly huge either–meaning cheap flights are scarce.

This morning I logged on to their website to buy tickets for a trip to Canada this summer and discovered to my shock and horror that they closed their doors on April 5. With the rising cost of fuel they couldn’t operate any more. Oh, the disappointment. Sigh.

This weekend.

I’m going away for the weekend. Plans include:

salsa dancing,

 

a brunch feast complete with French pastries,

shopping at Ikea,

frolicking, napping, and playing music in the park,

going to see a friend’s independent film,

as much time with this girl as I can fit in,

and a bridal shower for Earl when I get back.

I’m very, very excited.

A taste for back streets.

There’s a little tavern on the north side of the river that I used to go to in college by myself. Only a couple of my friends even knew of it’s existence, so I was always sure to get some time to lose myself in the cozy atmosphere, surrounded by locals. Not even boyfriend knew where I was and like a good man, he’s learned not to ask questions when I say, “I’m going out.” I liked to chat to the bartender that doesn’t work there anymore. He was a dreamer and a kindred spirit and we would discuss his plans to move to Italy or southern France with his little boy and his girlfriend. (I wonder if he made it?)

A few weeks ago, attracted by the open-mic night on Tuesdays, some of my friends began regularly visiting my tavern, so the jig was up. But it’s been fun joining them for cheap pints of beer and listening to talented performers and occasionally one of my own friends play. I love the atmosphere of small pubs and taverns. So close and cozy–even if you don’t know anyone it’s understood that you’re all there for the same thing.

Last night boyfriend and I went to hear a friend play. Boyfriend has a love of taking the road less traveled, so we wound our way there through the french-braided streets on his motorcycle. I love riding on his motorcycle. Without the obstruction of windows and doors, you get to experience the drive. And boyfriend likes to drive really fast. There’s something lovely too about holding on to someone you love while you drive that you can’t get in a car ride.

In the tavern I sipped my lambic and chatted with friends over the performers crooning cowboy songs. There were a huge number of people outside my normal friend-family there that I knew. As I began to look around, suddenly the atmosphere didn’t seem cozy, it seemed claustrophobic. The longer I’ve lived in this city the smaller the chance that I can go somewhere and be completely anonymous. And I love losing myself in a crowd.

I started to jiggle my foot anxiously, debating about whether or not I should ask boyfriend to take me home when suddenly I relaxed. The new bartender was smiling at me. “Hey, Cate–’nother framboise?” “Later!” I called back. A new acquaintance walked up and put an arm around me. “I’m so glad to see you here!” An old friend walked in and yelled out my college nickname.

For some reason, at this time in my life, I’ve been given a community, and I may never have it again. I’ve been wrestling a lot lately with being content where I am. The possibility of a move has come up several times in the past few weeks and every time it’s been the wrong timing, the wrong situation. I want to keep moving, keep starting over again. I’m good at it. However, while I’m here, shouldn’t I try to love the closeness of familiar people and places? Can’t I learn to love knowing the back streets and the bartender and my neighbors and all the people that work at my favorite burrito place and the shops on the river and the hole in the wall places where everyone knows your name?

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can …

Existentialism.

Do you remember when you had your first existential crisis? It may or may not have been my FIRST crisis, but I do vividly remember learning about continental philosophy in 7th grade world history and freaking out at the idea that my reality might be different from other people’s reality.

This morning I heard one of my coworkers’ sons playing outside my office. He’s about four or five and he was looking in a mirror and yelling, “Look at me! I AM NOT A DREAM. I AM NOT DREAMING! I AM A REAL PERSON!”

I can’t tell if this means that the kid is going to need some serious therapy or if he’s years ahead developmentally …

How to die of embarrassment in front of a man named Dwight.

I work with a staff of about twenty-five people. Suffice it to say, the work we do is “non-profit.” In any case, I’m the head of our publications department. Translation? I am a desk monkey. That seems like a pretty safe job, right? As long as I send emails to the right people and don’t accidentally cc the wrong ones, and make sure that I don’t print documents that have typos/double entendres I can’t get into a lot of trouble, right?

Au contraire.

If there is a way to make a situation awkward or embarassing (usually for me) I will find it. I’m resourceful like that. The following is an incident that took place in the very (very) recent past.

I, aka “Desk Monkey,” was dutifully sitting at my desk. I had proofread a stack of documents as tall as my mother (thank God she’s short). I had sent four documents to pre-flight, made necessary adjustments and sent them on to Wes, my printer. I had finished a draft of the new web-page design. I had converted forty (FORTY) graphics with various extensions to .jpgs. (Please take a moment to notice here that I was an English major and most of the tasks listed above are related to graphic design and computer science. I am SO not qualified for this.)

Having plowed through those tasks, and noticing that I had successfully completed all my time-sensitive tasks for the next two weeks, I logged on to the Internet to search for a white cotton slip. I’ve been needing one to wear under a bridesmaid’s dress for a wedding I’m in this summer. Among the list on the Google search page was a site that allowed you to compare prices of similar items so that you can quickly find the best deal. They even show pictures of the items they are comparing. Frugal and efficient, sign me up.

The website turned out to be a little loose in its interpretation of the phrase “white cotton slip.” Towards the end of the list of “suggested products” list, there were several crotch-shots of men wearing whitey-tighties and bikini briefs. Some of those briefs were absurdly small. Just at that moment our tech-services guy walked into the room. His name’s Dwight (not kidding). Dwight is a very nice man with wire rim glasses that make his eyes look three times their natural size who always wears the same blue, linen blazer and brown loafers that look as if he polishes them daily. His hair is thinning in such a way that you know he’ll never be bald, but eventually he’ll have a comb-over.

 

“Uh, I–I just … I’m hear to talk about … well, Jim’s printer is down, and uh–” he stammered.

I frantically clicked at the little red X in the upper right hand corner of my screen, missing it several times in my panicked state, which of course made things look MUCH worse.

“Jim’s printer?” I prompted when the screen full of men in (almost) all their glory had closed.

“His printer is down and I wanted to know if I could sync his computer with your printer just until Monday.”

“Sure.” I could feel that my cheeks were hot, but I decided to play it cool. After all, maybe he hadn’t noticed. He was standing at such an angle that it was possible that he hadn’t seen anything, I reasoned with myself.

Ten minutes later I was still blushing. I have to deal with this, I thought. I got up and found Dwight slumped over his laptop and began my explanation.

“Dwight? Um, a few minutes ago when you walked into my office … well, I don’t know if our web filter’s down or something, but I just wanted you to know that what I was looking at came up by accident.” 

Dwight looked up at me through his glasses. “What?”

“The pictures … of the men’s underwear. I just wanted you to know that …” Dwight’s expression was still blank. I was beginning to sense the intense awkwardness of the situation. “I mean I didn’t mean to be … I think the filter’s messed up,” I finished lamely.

“It won’t let you look at men’s underwear?”

“No, I don’t WANT to look at men’s underwear.”

“You don’t want to look at men’s underwear,” he repeated, eyeing me suspiciously. “I’m confused.”

Back-peddling was out of the question. “Did you see what was on my screen when you walked into my office a few minutes ago?”

Dwight shook his head and shrugged a little. My face was so red it was purple. The world’s biggest eggplant.

“Well, I was searching for something and it brought up pictures of men’s underwear and I was afraid that you had seen them and thought I was looking up … pictures like that on purpose.”

Dwight stared blankly at me for another minute and then his mouth began to twitch. “That’s the funniest thing that’s happened to me in weeks,” he said, dryly. “Can I tell it at the staff party?”

I sighed with relief and started chuckling. “Sure, I guess … wait, NO! No, I don’t think everyone would appreciate that. Just … just, can we keep that to ourselves?”

Dwight shrugged again. “If you want. Boy, if you hadn’t said anything about it, I wouldn’t have had a clue. I couldn’t see your computer screen from where I was standing. Thanks for telling me. I’m going to have a good laugh about this later.” Apparently Dwight only laughs off the clock.

“Well, I have to get back to work.” I made a hasty escape, mentally kicking myself for opening my big fat mouth. Why. WHY do I try to make things less awkward? It only ever makes things worse. Will I NEVER learn?

 

Careful, you may end up in my novel.

I have a love-hate relationship with the written word. On the one hand I love books. There are books that I’ve read upwards of ten times and still adore. The characters are friends and the narrators are companions. On the other hand, reading can be laborious and a pain in the arse when I’m not in the right mood. I pick apart every detail, mentally challenging the author to say something stupid and watch how much I hate his/her book.

I have a love hate relationship with writing as well as reading. Writer’s block, inflexible characters, the ever-fickle muse. When I was younger, I was going to become a novelist. Unfortunately, I only write well when I’m depressed. Since I don’t like being depressed, a career as an author is looking pretty bleak. There are things that I can do to inspire myself, but they are exhausting and often require me to quite literally set a stage to write on.

However, there is something I have a consistent passion for: character sketches. I love to paint portraits (however inadequate they may be) with words. I did this a lot when boyfriend and I were living in different states. In addition to old-fashioned love letters, I would also write him detailed and carefully dramatized descriptions of the things I was seeing and the people I was meeting. Some of my favorite people to describe were the people I worked for: an elderly Pakistani and his wife and children. I nicknamed him the Evil Raj (not a very nice man) and compared my experience working in his restaurant to being a slave in a palace kitchen. Boyfriend got a description of him in all his large and pompous glory, from his oiled and perfumed comb-over to the gold rings on his pinkie fingers to his soft, plump feet which he used to prop on a stool while he sat on a tall chair behind the counter, surveying his domain and us, his servants.

Whenever I’m feeling unable to write but desperate to do so, or bored, or inspired, or especially vindictive, I take out my little notebook and began to sculpt another character. Some people I have sketched time and again, like my adopted grandfather, Art. He was a wonderful man and if I ever have a son, I plan to name him after Art. Others I have never been able to capture with words. Boyfriend for example, I attempted to sketch once, and it came out as a jumble of words. That was the end of that.

I’m developing a pretty full book of characters now, some real and some imagined, that may or may not end up in my unpublished novel someday (I will write one, I’m just not going to publish it). All the names will be changed to protect the innocent, of course, and my little brown notebook sits waiting, an index of people waiting to be given life.

Happy anniversary to me.

One year ago today I donned a cap and gown and received my college diploma.

Red and I are going out for chocolate cake tonight to celebrate.

Happy anniversary to me.

Here’s home.

I feel most discontent when I am alone. This seems odd to me, primarily because I’m strongly introverted. In fact, I took a very in-depth personality test once that suggested that I am so introverted that I am forced to find alternative methods to communicate; that the spoken word would often be found unsatisfying because of tendency to hide. The test results suggested that I would do one of many things: write, play music, act, and produce art, among the options. I’ve done all of these things. In fact, I’ve done all of these things for pay. (Except the artwork. No one would pay a cent for my oil paintings, nor should they.) Clearly, I have a great need to communicate, to feel connected, to feel as if I’ve expressed myself, even if I can’t always say what I’m feeling or thinking. Yet, I also have an incredible need to protect myself, which makes it very difficult to talk openly. I’ve often said, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know; you just have to ask me directly.” That’s actually true: I will be upfront when asked a specific question, but if you give me any wiggle room at all, if you don’t look me in the eye and say, “I want the absolute, whole truth,” I tend to give people the brush off. It’s not a great quality, but it’s there.

Boyfriend is the only person with whom this is not true–the only person whom I’ve learned to let into my head during face-to-face time. He gets my thoughts and feelings uncensored, and as such I feel like he sees a much smarter, feistier, more selfish, more loving, angrier, happier, gentler, insecure me. This is at the same time unbelievably wonderful and awfully vulnerable. I told him last night that being in a relationship is kind of like being awake for open-heart surgery. You know the surgery is necessary and good–without it you can’t live, but you have no control over what’s happening and sometimes it really hurts.

I’m trying to carry that kind of openness and vulnerability into my other relationships. I feel as if my instinct to self-protect has been a roadblock in a lot of my relationships. People react to this roadblock in different ways. Some people cheerfully plow through it. I once had a friend tell me, “I know you have all these walls and barriers in your heart and mind because you’ve been hurt by all kinds of stuff you’re afraid to tell me about, but you should know, I’m getting in whether you like it or not, so just relax and let me love you, okay?” I have this hang-up about letting my male friends see me cry, but just then I burst into tears and let this brother-friend scoop me into his arms and hold me till I had cried all the hurt out.

In other relationships, this roadblock has caused severe strain. Another friend of mine (who is in no danger of ever readying this post) once told me that the fact that there was always a bit of hesitation before I spoke to her made her feel as if I didn’t trust her. Furthermore, she couldn’t have a friendship with someone that didn’t trust her.

And then there are those that just get it, and meet you where you are. I’ve been emailing back-and-forth the past couple of days with my college roommates. Neither of them fall into the two above categories: there was no aggressive (but loving) statement made that they would see my heart, no matter what. There were also no assumptions made that because I hole myself away that I don’t love them or trust them. We’ve experienced good and bad in our relationships with one another, but mostly we just lived together. In that way they, just like my current roommates, are one of the most lovely and unexpected blessings imaginable.

Here’s why: my home is my safe place. It’s where I fall apart. I rush home after work on Fridays, eager to lock myself away, even just for an hour, from the bustle and the traffic going on outside my door. I feel like I’m hiding from the rest of the world on Friday afternoons, like a little kid sitting underneath a big table covered with a table cloth. In my safe place, my walls are generally down. Just by living in proximity to me, I’ve unconsciously created a community of women who know me better than I think they do. They’re aware of insecurities, strengths, and passions that (I thought) I kept completely hidden. This kind of awareness creates an understanding that is always present, even in the tone of group emails I’ve exchanged with my college roommates in the past couple of days when I probably should have converting .eps graphics. How strange and wonderful to think that I have a safe place in people.

I lived on the opposite end of the country from boyfriend for a summer. I had already planned to move back to where he was living to finish school, but I had come to a realization in our time apart that I was truly homeless. School was not a home, for many very complex reasons I couldn’t go home to my family, Seattle was not my home–I was just visiting, and I didn’t even know where I was going to live when I got back to the East Coast. While boyfriend was visiting me, I tearfully expressed this to him. “Where am I supposed to go when school is over? Everyone I’ve lived with since college is married or moving, and I don’t have a home to go back to, or relatives I can live with. What’s a home if it’s a cold apartment you live in by yourself? Where will I go?” He gathered me up in his arms and said, “Right here. I’m your home, and you’re mine.”

He was right, and if that old saying, “home is where your heart is,”  is true, I found my home that day. But a wonderful realization came to me when I was talking to Red a few weeks ago. I told her what boyfriend had said and she smiled at me. “Then I’m your home too, right?” I only had to think about that for a split second before answering, “Yes.” In the last two years, my idea of home has gone from a wistful, abstract mental picture of a happy nuclear family with a fire in the fireplace, a kettle on the stove, and leather books on the shelves, to an image of my current Red House, filled with all the people who know me better than I thought and despite my best efforts and love me anyway. I may never live in a big house, but I already live in a very, very big home.

The Spanish guitarist.

I was digging through old CDs the other day, smiling to myself about how much my musical taste has changed. I had every single No Doubt CD, plus a lot of nineties ska and grunge stuff hanging around. Amid the Green Day, Cranberries, and Nirvana, I found a CD that I was given when I was in England by a Spanish guitarist.

I met him while I was visiting the city of York. I was traveling with Frenchie and a few others, and found myself walking around the city alone. We’d already walked along several stretches of the wall and even splurged on a guided tour of the minster (really worth doing, actually) before Frenchie and I broke off from our other companions to tour the city on foot. After a fortifying meal of bread, cheese, salad, and ale at the Golden Fleece pub, we began milling around the back streets. Frenchie wanted to go look for a jacket with one of England’s rugby teams colors on it, so I continued on by myself.

I had a good map, and so I wasn’t too concerned about getting lost. The last coach to our hotel was leaving at 5:30, and that was just outside the city wall, so I twisted and turned down the city streets, looking for something interesting. Just as my feet were getting tired, I emerged in a square formed by beautiful white stone buildings. Music–a beautiful Spanish melody–was coming from somewhere. I ventured further into the center of the square, trying to locate the source of the sound, and my eyes landed on him.

He was tall and a little too lean, and sat hunched over his rosewood guitar with nimble fingers that flew up and down the neck of his instrument with shocking grace. He wore a little hat that just shielded his eyes from view. There was a bench not far from him, so I quietly went to sit down and fished some of the chocolate that I had bought at the market that morning out of my satchel. I sat there in heaven for about twenty minutes, eating the warm, rose-shaped chocolates filled with strawberry honey and listening to him romance his guitar. Eventually he paused to rest his hands and shake out his fingers. He looked up and saw me watching him, and his face relaxed into an easy smile.

I got up immediately and went to him. “Your music is beautiful.” “Thank you,” he replied. He caught my hand and turned it so that it was palm-up. “You’re a musician to, ah?” I nodded. “Classical piano?” he asked. I nodded again. “You can always tell from the slant of the fingers,” he said, brushing my fingertips with his. “People who play popular piano music have flat, wide fingers. Classical musicians play on the tips of their fingers; they have a very delicate slope, right at the end.”

I was blushing a little bit, standing there with a stranger caressing my fingers. He looked up into my eyes and smiled again, dropping my hand. “What is your name?” he asked. “Catie,” I replied. “Do you like Spanish music.” I nodded emphatically. “I wasn’t raised in Spain, so the music is my connection to home. I feel the music here,” he said, laying his hand over his heart. I placed my hand right over the top of my stomach, across my lower rib cage. “I feel it here.” He laughed and introduced himself. “You’re American, ah? How did you come to love my music?”

I explained how my dad would put on Spanish music every evening in the summers when I was little. He and Mum would dance around the living room, my dad doing a weird sort of faux-flamenco, while Mum glided back and forth, occasionally balancing a glass of wine in one hand. My brother and I would twist and shake, moving every-which-way in time to the music. He smiled as I self-consciously became aware that I was letting myself get carried away in my story.

After a moment of silence he reached into his guitar case and pulled out a disk. “Will you do me the honor of taking this with you?” he asked. He opened the case and began scribbling something on the inside of the paper cover. “I’d love to,” I replied enthusiastically. I shoved the disk into my bag without looking at what he wrote. “It was nice to meet you.” He just smiled and went back to his guitar.

I sat on the bench for a while longer until Frenchie ran up and plopped down beside me. “What have you been doing with yourself?” she asked, pulling her newly bought rugby jacket out of a plastic bag to display. “Making friends,” I said, nodding towards my guitarist. Frenchie got quiet and listened to him for a few minutes. “I’m going to go buy a CD from him,” she said, pointing to a little sign I hadn’t noticed that said, “CDs–£5.” “Do you want one?” “I … uh, I already got one.”

After a long coach ride to the hotel, Frenchie jumped into the shower and I sat down on the settee in our tiny room to look at what Walter had written. To my mild disappointment, it was just his phone number, and not an actual note. Though I was single, I had left my heart across the Atlantic, so I never called him.