I would say about 80% of the time when people make stuff, I don't like it. I think that we should leave the craftsman type creating to people who really know what they're doing and then do what I need to to have the nicely created object. I spend a lot of time online looking at crafty, artsy stuff and I'm sitting here wondering WHO THE HELL IS GOING TO BUY THAT THING THAT LOOKS LIKE IT FELL OFF A CAR. maybe i'm just a design/visual whore...because i certainly am....
When i found my apartment at the end of May this year, I was very excited about the idea of living in such a rough, bare space. I would have to paint and clean like never before, but this would be mine! and i would shape it into something that worked perfectly for me. This did happen in some ways, but certainly not in the magical way I had planned. I was in the midst of the hardest time in my life which was being dragged out for as long as possible, I was tired emotionally and this was the 10th apartment I had looked at that week.
I will never forget the work that Kristi and I put into that place making it my home. I think that was absolute proof of our ability to work through things together because we were going through these things together, yet still doing so much hard work to make each other happy.
In the last six months of living there, I have learned amazing things about myself. I had learned things that I would have never figured out (or at least for a very long time) in such a short time frame that I feel like I've been through a worldwind of experience and am finally starting to take it easy again.
Things I will miss about my apartment:
*coming home after yoga, smelling the fresh air, sitting on my couch and watching NYPD blue
*weekend nights playing guitar for hours
* taking a shower, laying in bed (freezing), turning out the light and looking up at the patchy ceiling.
*being able to walk downtown easily
*the windows, lots of natural light. my plants loved it
What I won't miss at all about the apartment:
*the smell of cat shit in the hallway
*the bass from my next door neighbor (it isn't THAT bad though)
*my leaking fridge that has a great lake in the bottom
*water that feels like it was strained through a dirty sock.
*no light in the kitchen, constantly dirty, shit falling from the ceiling into everything.
* I have become amazingly nostalgic in the last few months. I have never been one to have an emotional attachment to the thing around me. But because of our upcoming trip I have been forced to realize how close I am to having to let everything go.
For example: I am very sad that I have to give up the kitchen table that K and I have had for such a long time. We have shared so many dinners, with each other and friends, so many memories around that table. I would have always said that it was just a table and it was the memories that counted, but now I feel like that physical piece of furniture as some input into those memories too. I had forgotton until just now that that as the table that we eat around while I was in highschool. I've had that table in my life for over 10 years, and in just a week or two, it will stop. We won't have a dinner table in our place and I will miss that for sure. I love making dinner for us and bringing it to the table. It's a wonderful symbol of the home and family.
About a week ago I realized that K is not only my girlfriend, but she is my family. You would call your wife part of your family right? Our level of commitment to each other is equal to that of marriage and just because we don't have kids, doesn't subtract from that status. Maybe that's not an amazing thing, but for me it was wonderfully startling.
In the last six months I've had lots of time to contemplate the way I feel about my friendships and my needs for other people in my life. Noelle is no longer in my life, either because of some unspoken awkwardness or because she lives far(enough) away now. R+P are both dealing with their issues and obviously are putting the energy into that they need to. I don't need much, but I don't want to feel alone and I don't feel like I do anymore. I am happy being by myself, being at home without Kristi on a weekend. I had nights where nothing could have made me feel more lonesome and the very fact that I lived through them, taught lessons to me that only that experience could have.
I'm not sure what is going to happen in the next six months to a year. I'm sure i'll still be at this job, though hopefully not behind this desk as much. in 7 months or so, I will have my credit cards paid off and we will be putting more money in our savings than I have put anywhere before. Where will I be with my friends? Will I be able to trim the wants from my life and only live on the needs?
Co-workers and I were discussing something in my office last week and somehow it came up about the certain goals (dreams?) that I want to accomplish in my lifetime. At the end of the conversation my co-worker said that 'it was nice to hear about someone's dreams'. That made me stop and think, Do people really go without dreaming?, setting goals that have nothing to do with what you SHOULD do or what you think you CAN do. Weird.
I thought maybe I should write down some of things I am most looking forward to in my future (not including traveling...too obvious) :
a. Farm enough land so that I can sustain myself/my family for an entire summer. Can the rest in order to help with the winter. Grow things wild enough to have beautiful, gor-met meals. Have a flower garden and a macro-lens.
b. Learn how to build anything. How does one become a carpenter? lots of how-to books! I want to be able to make anything and have it of designer quality. I want to make functional, beautiufl furniture. I also want to fix/improve the house with my own hands. There isn't any reason not to do this! This may go hand in hand with buying real estate/flipping houses.
c. Because an excellent baker. Something with fruit, pies, muffins, breads. No cakes for me. Grow/use the best ingreidents. Have a big kitchen where everyone is welcome. Feed fellow traveler friends in town. Drink good wine (not too expensive though.)
d. To be in control of my body. To use it, respect it like a tool. To be able to rely on it.
e. Meet Leo Laporte, prefereably have a long conversation with him.
f. Move to San Fransico and be involved with the tech media.
...
Today I've come to a point where I realize how much I eat. Even though I've made amazing progress compared to the way I used to be... but I still have room for improvement.
All this came about today because I stopped and got a vitamin water, a junk cookie and a bag of ritz cracker things. That wouldn't be the end of the world if I hadn't have stopped in the morning for a vitamin water and sunflower seeds. (that's about $6 total). Again, not the end of the world, except that I do this 3x a week. $18 total. Way more than I think. I don't shop smart and buy 5 waters for $4, I buy them everday on the way to work as to make my morning easier, something to look forward to. Why do I need this? How can I stop the craving that I get for it?
But, when I think about the fat/calories that I put down because of this, it makes even more sense why i've become (a new term I've coined) Computer Salesman Fat.
Let's add it up:
Breakfast:
Bowl of stuff: 100 calories - 5g fat, pretty good breakfast
Vitamin water #1 - 125 calories
Sunflower seeds: - 0
Lunch:
Bertucci's Panini - 25g fat, 500 calories ? lots of cheese, olive oil, small amount of bread. Lean chicken. Not horrible, but definately has to be the largest meal and not very often. Free.
Afterwork Snack / Pre yoga food:
Rasberry Snapple (not soda) - 200 calories
Ritz Crackers - 100 calories, 8g fat (didn't eat them all)
fat cookie - 10g fat, 200 calories. lots of sugar.(?) eat it in two minutes.
After yoga:225
Arizona Tea - drank 1/2 of it - 75 calories
1/2 pint of low fat ice cream - 2g fat, 100 calories (?)
micro pizza (why the fuck did I eat that?) - 10g fat, 400 calories?
total: calories that I can think of... 1800. Fat: 60 fucking grams.
I went to yoga, so maybe i worked off 200 calories.
So when i think it's not the worst day, it was really bad.
No one can make me stop eating except for me. Small steps, but I've never wanted to be in shape more than I do now. I'm going to try to write about it here, to help me stay on track.
I guess i've been thinking about this because I want to be healthy. I'm sick of fighting my body. I'm sick of feeling good and then suddenly feeling like shit. I'm going to have to get in shape for europe. i'm going to have to learn how to eat. how to not feel like shit when i don't eat. how can someone do that? i literally feel horrible when i don't eat. why is that? is that all my stomach? is it mostly my brain? that barrier is so thin i don't even know.
i'm so tired, but i'm more tired of being so unhealthy.
> A pro flickr account
> A new digital rebel
that's about it actually. I really want an ipod, but i can definately wait for a long time on that one (as long as my mini doesn't break).
If the world somehow allowed those things into my life (the second one really, I think I can get the first one), I feel like it would create a gigantic BOOM! in my photograhic life. Small enough to carry, large enough files to really work with, no processing costs...
Alas. This is a perfect example of when I would have found a way to buy this camera. That's what I did with my first digital rebel. I just charged the thing with the idea of paying it off slowly. I had no clue as to what a thousand dollars actually is. I still haven't paid it off!
Maybe someone has a new rebel and would like to trade for my old one...
This week was the week that I went further negative in my bank account than I ever have before ($600 in the negative to be precise). Wow. It's amazing how sobering something that can be. I was sure for a while that I was circling the drain into the vortex of my death. Was I ever going to get out of this whole that I had created?
Whenever it ends up that I have kids I will do what it takes for them to have a grip on their finances. I won't be like my parents. I won't be like my grandmother. I will teach them to save, teach them to work. It has taken till I'm out of college for 6 months, many thousands of dollars in debt and my student loans finally starting to come, to finally realize how hard it is to get money and what it means to spend it.
1) don't ever spend the money before you have it in hand. Pay cash until it's an emergency.
2) if you feel like you really, really want something..wait a month and then revisit the idea.
Now I just need to stop spending money on food and I'll be rich.
Death so far (the +/- of it all)
Death segments life into manageable parts. There is before ________ died and there is after.
The first death that I went through was that of my grandmother on my father's side when I very young. All I remember is sitting with dad in a new suit in one of the pews. The only memory I have of her before her death was sitting at the foot of her lounge chair and staring at her feet and then up to her body.
My grandfather died in 2000. I came out of the auditorium later than most ( I always walked around and talked to people in the last two years of high school ) and I saw my sister parked beside my car, leaning against the trunk of my car. I don't think I even noticed who she was until I was within hearing distance. She said, "I'm sorry..." and sniffled. There is always a point where you know that the situation is different...that something has gained a giant lead brick of weight. "I’m sorry... Pop passed last night." It was such a beautiful day in January. I followed her back to Nana's house a few miles away. Walking into the house you could smell the crying and death. It was heavier than the air and it laid at your feet, pulling you to the ground. Nana was at the dinning room table in the rightmost chair near the kitchen entrance, hysterically crying with Pop's hat over her face. She was swinging herself back and forth. I had never seen someone crying that hard before. Patty was across the table, Tammy next to her and Mom has the phone and was making calls. I had arrived as they were taking his body away and I was told not to go in and look at him. I was told that he had a heart attack in the middle of the night. He was up from bed, but had bent down to pick something up. He was found on his knees, he bent down, had the heart attack and never got back up. I questioned them, but I knew that I couldn't see him in such a position. Nana stayed in the house and when everyone visited (more than ever because she was now alone) it always felt awkward knowing that he was there. She moved out of the house, it took the family two full weeks to clean the house. She moved into town closer to the family, into a nice apartment for older folks just like her. She was the hit of the community. When ever I walked in people in the hallways always said how wonderful she was. Nana was on the top floor, down the hall on the left. When you walked into the new apartment you noticed that she had completely changed her furniture except for a few pieces. She was never the same. She was dieing with grief. I visited her many times always saying to myself that I will never know when it is coming. You can't predict someone's death. She lasted longer than many of us had predicted and there were a few signs of her 'getting worse' but overall it was quick. I got the call one afternoon from mom saying that Nana was in the hospital for shortness of breath, but Mom expected her to be fine. Twenty miles from Baltimore and thirty miles from Frederick, Scott called to tell me that Nana had passed away. When Pop died I cried. When Nana died I sobbed, I lost my heart, I lost a part of me. I remember as a kid thinking that when she dies, I would die also. There was still some truth in that. When Kristi and I got to the hospital everyone was there, crying like before. Nana was in her bed, white and cold. It was one of the best moments in my life being able to say goodbye to her then. To her body. She had not been the same for years, but saying goodbye to her kisses and hugs were nearly impossible, no matter how much you planned for it. The doctors never really found out what killed her. It had something to do with her kidneys, but everyone knows it was of a broken heart.
On Sunday night two more people died in my family. One was my grandfather, my father's father. He was 96, a hard worker with no nonsense farmer who lost everything to his children in a custody battle. Dad had seen him not a month ago and had one of the best times with him that he has ever had. Dad said he made his peace and his death was not a shock. I remember only two or three times that I met him. He was very tall, four inches taller than my 5' 8" father. He was also skinny and looked like the hardest worker you've ever seen. He was that from dad said. He was such a hard worker that he never paid attention to his children and my dad never got over it.
Marjorie also died.
In 9th grade I was absolutely miserable. I was no where near confident enough to make friends. I had no idea who I was or what I wanted and therefore was stuck in a terrible 'in-between' place amongst my peers. My dad and I were fighting worse and worse at this point. I had grown old enough to know that I hated him but still felt that I couldn't stop seeing him at all. When I first met Marjorie she was living in a giant house in a development 5 miles from Urbana High. You had to turn into a large development, follow a few roads and then turn off onto a dirt path. It was a house from a Lia Block book. There were plants everywhere. The lawn was up to your shins. It was beautiful. The next time I saw her she had bought land near Jefferson and put a nice pre-built house it. Dad said to me one time that she needed someone to come over and take her to go get groceries. From that point on she paid me $20 a week to take her to the grocery store and back. Oh wait.. I forgot she had bought a condo in frederick before buying this land. The condo never fit her and she always felt that. I always remember her being miserable there. It's easy to remember the new carpet smell that never left. She filled it with plants and her furniture, we ever had a Christmas dinner there, but she never felt at home. Back to the house near Jefferson… I would take her to the Weis a few miles from her house and I'd always finish getting my half of the groceries (she had the brand and box size she wanted, it was a shopper's dream) before she did and then I would read magazines till she finished. This was fun, especially the rides up and back, but she was always uncomfortable. She never learned how to drive and rarely left her house. She had suffered from many years of depression, often lasting years and her anxiety didn't let her leave the house except for a few things that she needed. When we returned to her house, I unloaded the groceries; she would make a BLT sandwich, with bacon bits and not real bacon. She would also have swedish fish for me and at Christmas time she knew how much I loved candy canes and would always have them also. We would have the most wonderful conversations and for once in my life, I felt really understood. In 8th grade I had started the journey of transforming into my adult self and was completely lost socially, but in that house on those Monday's, she knew exactly. She introduced me to Leonard Cohen, Prairie Home Companion, Car Talk and lots of classical music. She would take the Lake Wobegon segment of PHC onto tapes for me to listen in my car. At that point in my life, she was the only home I had where I felt part of something away from my parents. When I was 17 turning 18 things started to stop being so perfect. I think I was getting really busy with school, my first girlfriend and work. At 18 I went to college and Dad went shopping for her. They fought constantly, I knew that. When I visited from Clarion with bright Pink hair she made fun of me and I never really went back after that. I heard through dad that she had started drinking a few bottles of gin a week and I know her meds weren't working as well. She went back into a depression and never recovered. She died from a heart attack in her bed around midnight.
With the love of Marjorie, I know I wouldn't have had the confidence to become who I am. She let me know that not only that it was ok, but something to be proud of. She was truly one of the most beautiful souls to have known. I am very lucky to have had her in my life and I will adore these few memories that I have.
Death plays such a fascinating role in life. It is beautiful in it's own way, because it makes you understand just how ALIVE you are.
