Christmas Revelations

It's the day after Christmas, and I have two thoughts.

1.  It's amazing how easy it is to buy gifts for my family.  Mostly, when I buy things for my parents, or my sister, there isn't any agonizing over what to get.  I see it, and I know they will like it.  Why?  Because I like it.  Because I would be happy if it were wrapped with my name on it.  I always thought that was kind of weirdly selfish, like I was buying them things (books, movies, games, sweaters) that I would evenutally be able to borrow, and maybe that made it less personal, less valuable.  But mostly what it means is that my family and I are a lot alike, no matter how different they each may be to each other.  I have pieces of my personality I share with my dad, my mom, my sister, good and bad and geeky and bookish and ridiculous.  It means we're connected in fundamental ways that have nothing to do with genetics.

2.  When you start to tear up a little because your dad and stepmom give you some money to help you pay down your debt so you can someday buy a home?  And you think there is nothing you would rather do in the world with that money?  That means you're officially a grownup.   When you and your mom both decide on small gifts because money is tight and you both stick to that, and you spend the day instead watching movies and looking at old family pictures and laughing while making dinner, and it's one of the best Christmases you've had in a long time?  That means you're officially a grownup.  Being a growup kind of rules.

Those are pretty nice Christmas revelations.

Duties, civic and otherwise

I haven't been around much in the past few weeks (Thanksgiving went off without a hitch; thanks to everyone who asked!) mainly because I have been incredibly busy.  I was called this month for Grand Jury duty in the County of New York, and was chosen to spend four weeks, every morning, on that jury.  It's not something I can talk about in terms of specifics, but I will say that so far it has been incredibly interesting and eye-opening.  The justice system in the country seems pretty complex and even convoluted from the outside, and in some ways it is.  But it's also that complex for a reason - there are so many checks and balances in place that it makes me feel better, feel proud that we've managed to put together a system that striving for fairness, even if it sometimes falls short.

The rest of my time has been taken up with SINGING!  It's been so long since I've had a chance to really sing that this is like an embarrassment of riches.  And I'm getting to sing both classical choral pieces and some good old fashioned rock and roll.  I am tired all the time, but I am really, really happy about all this music in my life.

So far the end of 2009 has been overwhelming in a lot of good ways:

• promotion at work
• sent in application to graduate school
• jury duty
• joined my amazing choir

Having all of these things happen at once is a good reminder that life is a fine balancing act, and one that I'm still working out.  But it's forcing me to schedule my time much more clearly, to say no to social engagements I can't afford, to plan for things like meals and shopping trips and even sleep.  Routine suits me.  Now I just have to keep remembering the little things as well as the big things.  And remember that my elliptical machine can be used for more than just hanging coats!

(December is going to be epically busy, but I'll try to update here more than once a week, since this is one of those good habits I'm trying to foster.)

Breaking Points

It's interesting how tension in your life builds up and builds up, and can sometimes get to the snapping point before you realize it.  It reminds me a lot of guitar strings - the tension in the strings is what causes them to play this gorgeous music, but if you wind one of them too tightly it will snap without much warning, and sometimes cut the hell out of your hand in the process.  (Sidenote: I can change the strings on my guitar thanks to my good friend and colleague Dave, who is one of the most versatile musicians I know.) (Sidenote 2: Please don't ask me how my guitar skills are faring - that is for a later BiB entry.)

Today I am not pleased with myself much at all, and I am a ball of thrumming tension.  I am at that point where the weight of everything I have to do in my life this week, this month, this year has all dropped on my shoulders like a ton of bricks and I can't wrap my head around how to make it better.  I am frustrated at myself and at other people and I am taking out on everyone in biting comments and stubborn procrastination.

We all have those moments where the whole world seems too big to handle and no easy solutions are forthcoming.  Where all you want to do is book a flight to Anywhere Else and let everything fall down behind you while you catch your breath.  We don't do that, of course.  We wake up, and go to work, and fulfill obligations and buy Christmas gifts and clean house and write papers and feed babies and pay bills and walk the dog.  We do this because no one else can do this for us.  We do this because this is our life, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.

Now, I'm not saying that it's not good to step out of a situation that makes you feel like that broken guitar string all the time.  Sometimes a routine is a routine because we can't see another way, even if there might be something better.  Sometimes letting a ball drop is not a bad thing.

But mostly it's just a rough patch, a coming together of a ton of tiny things into one ball of OH GOD WHAT NOW on your shoulders.  And my goal this week is to try to take a step back and see all of these tiny things as their individual components as opposed to the tangled mass it feels like.  I need to pull them apart and sort them into deadlines and doable action items, look at them one at a time and see that each of them is something I can totally handle.

This is going to be a hard one.

In the meantime, I should apologize to some people for being a terrible friend this week.


(This entry brought to you by the letters O, M, G and the sentence "my grad school application is due when???")

MOMS ON THE LOOSE!

It's ten days to Thanksgiving, which means ten days until THE INVASION OF MOMS.  I live in a New York City apartment, and my roommate and I own a lot of stuff - books, movies, handbags, shoes, unframed art, years of back issues of magazines, mismatched furniture (much of it from IKEA), mismatched dishes, knicknacks and photos and candles and aprons and all sorts of things.

We also entertain a LOT, so our apartment is always in an in-between mode of "not quite cleaned up from the last thing, but clean enough for the next thing."

But on Thanksgiving, something will happen that has never happened before - Sarah's mom will fly up from Virginia and my mom will drive down from Connecticut and they will both be at our place for a Thanksgiving feast prepared by US.  The cooking does not worry me.  The fact that my kitchen floor is kind of disgusting does.  I find myself thinking "when is the last time I swept behind the couch?" and "do I have time to repaint the hallway?" and other completely ridiculous things.  I am a grown-up!  I want my mommy to see that I can take care of myself, and keep house and cook a turkey and not freak out about it!  So I spend the ten days leading up to the actual event doing all of my freaking out, while Sarah says things like "You've seen our moms' apartments, right?" and "Dude, no one is going to be looking behind the couch."

But I can't help it.  I'm not a neat freak, unless there are MOMS in the area!  So I am armed with my dustpan and broom, my Windex and Clorox Wipes and Swiffer mop and an 18-pack of paper towels, and I am ready!  T-minus ten, and away we go...

It's a good thing I saw Hunt for Red October a million times, right?

Part of my boring life right now is not actually all that boring!  I'm lucky enough to be involved with a choral group in the city, and this week I'm charged with memorizing one of our Christmas songs.

In Russian.

Last week it was French.

Man, it's a really good thing I have all this forced free time these days.

*puts on headphones*

(More information to come about the when's and where's of my Christmas concerts, if anyone is interested in coming!)

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.

Some days I just can't quite figure out where the time goes.  I'm sitting in my bed and it's 9pm, and I have no idea how that happened!  I haven't eaten dinner!   Granted, I had an omelet for lunch (with chorizo!) so I'm not low on protein today.  That usually means I don't get that hungry for diner.  But mostly I think the time change has me a little out of whack.

Anyway!  Let's talk about goals.

I tend to overextend myself in terms of life goals.  Diets need to be all or nothing (this is why I have never been on a diet for more than two weeks).  Exercise needs to be intense and hurt the next day (again, me and gyms have never been friends).  I make goals that are not realistic and then make lists of do's and don't's for myself that I can't possibly do, and then when I fail I feel awful about myself and go buy a bag of chips and wallow.

So, one of the main goals of Boring is Beautiful is to slow down, to ramp up to big changes, to prove that I can do little things, and then stack them on top of each other, one at a time, until they add up to changes that aren't so little after all.

This week's assignment for myself is small.  Tiny.  Really, really ridiculously good-looking basic.  It's a morning routine that takes four minutes.  Before I leave the house, I have to take a) my meds, b) my vitamins and c) floss.

Flossing is gross.  Flossing is annoying and (when you don't do it for a while) flossing is painful.  Flossing has been my least favorite hygenic chore my whole life.  I am an grown woman, and I still hate it.  But I can do it.  Every day.  And when I do it every day and walk in to my December bi-annual check up, and the lovely woman who cleans my teeth looks at me and says "have you been flossing?," I will be able to look her in the eye and say, "YES.  YES I HAVE."  And that, my friends, will be worth every second.

PS - I have only a vague idea of what some of the pills in my pill container DO.  My mother is a health store junkie and sends me boxes of things purchased through mail order catalogs, and I believe I'm taking herbal supplements for things from eye health to joint pain to digestives.  I'm also taking hyssop.  I have no idea what it does (even wikipedia won't tell me!), but it sounds cool.  We'll see what happens...

Boring is Beautiful

There are a lot of things to be said for New York City.  It's busy and huge and full of Thai food and concert halls and museums and people.  My life in New York has consisted of a lot of late night cabs and drinks downtown, rock shows and musicals, gourmet cheeses and fancy haircuts.  My life, until this point, has been exciting.

Now here are some things that, unlike New York City, are not awesome at all: I am massively in debt, emotionally exhausted, and significantly overweight.

A lot of that has nothing to do with NYC, and a lot to do with the scattered way I live my life - the habits I've picked up over the years that keep me from sticking to a budget, a diet, a routine.  But I'm in my mid-30's now, and while I am fully aware that 30 IS the new 20, I am also fully aware that any bank in America would laugh themselves stupid if ever I went in for a home loan.

Also, my pants don't fit.

I have decided that what my life needs in order to fix the above is less stuff, not more. The world is beautiful outside my window, and inside my cozy apartment I've accumulated a lifetimes worth of things that make me happy.  I have friends who will love me whether I go to the bars or not.  I have goals laid out for myself that I want to actually accomplish, and not let slip and slide all over the place this time.

So, starting today, I am going with a new life motto.  Boring is Beautiful.  I'm relearning how to say no.  I'm picking up a library card and putting my credit cards away.  I'm rediscovering what I already own.  I'm putting good habits back in my life, and weeding the bad ones out.  I'm going to learn to love my life (and myself) from the ground up.

This blog is a record of progress made (and lost), tips and triumphs and things that make me smile.  It's going to be a reminder of how far I've come and how far I'm going.  It's my diary, my organizer, my standard of accountability.  I'm making this public because I need to make these changes publicly; my friends and family are my rock and my sanity and they will keep me honest while they hold my hand.

Here's to a tough, eye-opening, life-changing, boring beautiful year.