Toyotas

Posted on March 2, 2012 by

My parents used to say shout OBNO! like honking geese whenever they thought we were being obnoxious.  That, in itself, is sort of obnoxious.

With that cautionary noise in my head, I think I am being kind of obnoxious lately about how excited I am to go to Napa, to see friends and family, to run this marathon, and to celebrate.  So I hope I’m not being offputting. 

I am fairly confident I am going to run a bad race.  Most of my training has been indoors, and I am deep in the throes of a flare of my RA. 

I am medically cleared to run, mind you.  My lower extremities are unaffected.  My rheumatologist and I have a very close relationship, and one of the more hilarious conversations we have had of late was when I was feeling sorry for myself, and he looked at me quizzically, as if to say What is wrong with you?  I stared him down for a moment.  And then he stared me back down.  You can’t run a marathon on your hands, he said with a laugh.  Touche.

I said yesterday that I always had a mantra for a race.  And I do, and I was only half-kidding about the ones I offered.  Depending on where I am at the moment I run, my mantra might be super aggressive, or very Zen.

I am currently in a very good place, personally and professionally.  But I am facing some extremely difficult choices medically.  And I have to accept that my body will not be perfect.  By that I mean – I suppose, after years of living with a chronic disease, it’s just now dawning on me that I’m not ever going to feel perfectly well. 

My rheumatologist and I talked for a very long time the other day about this.  I’m a model patient, for the most part.  I exercise, I generally eat the right things (except for maybe a bit too much sugar).  I am extremely medication-compliant.  I don’t miss appointments and I dutifully see the phlebotomist; have my blood drawn like clockwork.  My bloodwork usually looks okay.  I subject myself to a good deal of stress, but I have an excellent support network.

In other words, I do it all right. 

But it won’t make it go away.  Which is funny, and strange to me in a meaningful sort of way.  And most of the time, I feel really good.  And for a long time, I’ve felt great.  But there is no rhyme or reason to autoimmune conditions, and so this flare came on, and I’ve simply had to live with it.

I know I’m lucky.  I know it could be worse.  I know that my disease (like my life) is well-controlled.  But I suppose I’ve never fully accepted that I wouldn’t always feel good.  And this is the first time I’ve ever had a flare like this while completely on my own.

But I manage.  I am one for systems and controls.  I have the drycleaner button my shirts to a certain button, so I can slip them on (that was one of my more brilliant work-arounds, if you ask me.)  I ask my doormen to open things.  I tell the pharmacy to give me the easy-open bottles, and they inevitably screw it up.  I ask my housekeeper to take care of certain things I might’ve done without thinking before.

This will pass.  It always does.  For the moment it sucks.  However, there is a good deal for which to be grateful – starting with what I CAN do.  I am, after all, soon to be a ten-time marathoner.  Ten.  How can I lament the buttons I can’t button right now, or the keys it is painful to press, when what works, works well?

(This reminds me of a conversation I once had with PG, where I asked What should work does work?  And he replied, Toyotas.)

(I digress)

So what works; what doesn’t suck is that I am about to take a trip with some people I love.  I’ve had a number of crap birthdays in recent years, and I’m excited to spend this birthday weekend participating  in an activity I love, and seeing my parents, and spending time on the Pacific – which is the place I always go back to when I need a rest.

As with all feats of derring-do with the Women of Winesday, we undertake them with purpose.  Each of the women running the Napa Valley Marathon this weekend will be doing so for her own reasons, and will likely have her own mantra as she makes her way through the course.  I had had something else in mind when I signed up, and I was thinking something entirely different when I began training.

I know what my mantra will be: You can’t run a marathon on your hands.

And also, don’t shit your pants.

Posted in On the road again, Adventures, balance, My Life in Airports | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Number Ten

Posted on March 1, 2012 by

I’m running my tenth marathon on Sunday.  More on the whole experience later.  But it got me thinking about running (which I am ALWAYS thinking about).  When I am not swamped.  Which I have been.  But more on that later as well.

Here are some running faves of mine — all things I own — none of which I was given or paid to promote, and all of which I am frantically shoving in my suitcase as we speak, or rituals I have performed this week:

1) This little Nathan waterbottle:

I picked up a Nathan Sprint at the Publix Georgia Marathon last year in Atlanta, when I couldn’t handle running with a fuel belt.  On a good day, I am the Captain of the Good Ship of Body Issues, but during the week before and the week after a marathon, I don’t want to wear clothes.  Do other runners get that?  The feel of anything on my skin is like torture.

In other words, the fuel belt simply wasn’t happening in Georgia, and hydration was a must.  This little gem was a lifesaver.  I have a bunch of them now, and I use them on long runs, especially in places where I’m not sure there will be water fountains or hydration stations.  One of my Sprints permanently resides in the suitcase that goes back and forth to London with me.

2) Spibelt:

This is nothing new.  I think every runner has one of these.  They expand to multiple times their size to hold pretty much everything — and comfortably.  I once compared mine to the human stomach, but that wasn’t really that funny.  The human stomach sits at rest in folds and expands exponentially!  It was apt, but again, not that funny.

3) Nutrition:

While running I use Gu Roctane; typically fruit flavours.  (Currently on deck: Vanilla Orange)  Gu doesn’t upset my stomach, and I’ve mastered eating it so that it doesn’t wind up all over my hands and face.

Pre-long race, I eat a white bagel with peanut butter, and half a Creamy Citrus PowerBar shortly before the start.  That combination sounds unfathomably gross to me unless it is a race morning, and then it’s all I want in the world.

I take a number of dehydrating medications so balancing my electrolytes is important.  PowerBars really help — in fact, I credit those suckers with helping me make a completely cramp/pain free Mt Whitney summit.  I could’ve run a half-marathon the next day and been fine.

4) Hydration:

Speaking of hydration, because I become dehydrated so easily, I take salt tabs.  As to salt, I could obviously pound down a fast-food salt packet, which I’ve done before and did for a long time.  But that upsets my stomach.  And given the choice, I would prefer not to puke or suffer.  I use Hammer Endurolytes now.

Also, potato chips.  Shhh.  Don’t tell.

(And some onion dip?  Please.)

Some good old fashioned yellow gatorade will also do.  Just not too much.  Again with the stomach.  Runners have sensitive stomachs.  Well, not necessarily — it’s just…there are some images of runners that everyone has seen that I think we all wish we could unsee.  You know what I’m talking about.  We runners like to keep our stomachs happy.

Sensing a theme?  No one wants to be the poopy runner.

5) CW-X Tights

I am mad about these.  I’ve run 9 marathons in these.  I’m actually featured in the promotional video that they shot at the 2010 NYC Marathon Expo.  The tights compress; they act like tape; they’re just fabulous.  They really work for me.

6) Eastside Massage Therapy:

A part of running is massage.  It’s not a luxury — it’s health.  I stand by that belief.  I use Eastside Massage Therapy on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.  It’s not a spa — it’s a very soothing place, but very clinical.  If you’re in NYC, give them a shot.  I used to use Relax in Chelsea when I lived in Tribeca, but they’re hard to get to from where I live now.

7) Heating Pad:

Fact: I sleep with a heating pad when I am at the peak of training.  This is probably terrible for me.

8) Pedicures:

I once read about a woman who “accidentally” ran and nearly won the LA Marathon.  She was supposed to run the half, and then she wound up running the whole thing in an amazing time.  But her advice was that you need to take care of your feet.  This was a long time ago, before I was a runner.  I didn’t get it.

I’ve only lost 2 toenails ever.  After my first marathon, I lost both of my big toenails and was very upset.  I’m still not sure why I took losing my toenails so hard.  (It was painful, and I was going to the Caribbean for Christmas that year, so that might’ve factored.)  I vowed never to experience it again.

I am now obsessive about footcare.

9) STRAND’S BANANA BREAD (aka: stranana bread):

This stuff is amazing.  Greatest fuel ever.  Easy on the stomach; perfect power.  She’s made it for me before my last few races.

10) Mantra:

Why am I running?  What am I running for?  (What is the meaning of life?  What is this all about?)  Seriously.  What’s the point of the race if I don’t know the purpose?  I spend a lot of time writing in my head while I run.  (Nerd alert: sometimes I dictate voicememos into my iPhone. I’m that crazytown marathoner talking to herself at mile 18!)

Each race has a different mantra.  A different purpose.  Generally that purpose is something along the lines of: finish the race, keep my toenails, and don’t shit my pants.

Posted in Adventures, lists, On the road again | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Milk Made

Posted on February 28, 2012 by

I think there are two types of people in this world: people who drink milk, and people who don’t know what they are missing.

An acquaintance of mine recently confessed that she lies about being “lactose intolerant” because she doesn’t think drinking milk “looks cool.”  I had no words for how foolish I found this.  But this happened to be an acquaintance who cared about appearances; who was prone to fad diets, and doing whatever the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow told her was cool at the time.  For the record, Gwyneth’s macro vegan days are, like, so over.  Last I checked she was eating ham in Spain with Mario Battali and roasting chickens in the English countryside like the poor man’s Ina Garten for a spread in Town and Country.  Or something.  (Or maybe it was Vanity Fair, but that sounds way too Town and Country for Vanity Fair).

In other words, milk is not…over.

And furthermore, seriously?!  I love nutmilks as much as the next girl who reads Well + Good and goes to bikram, but come on.

We’ve always been milk drinkers in my family.  I’m still a milk drinker.  And now that I am a grown up, I indulge myself by drinking milk through a straw and blowing bubbles in it at my leisure.  Have you ever blown bubbles in your milk?  It is one of life’s greatest pleasures.  This goes back to my theory that my mother was dead wrong when she’d tell Little Meredith You’re going to miss these days! with reference to my childhood.

As I’ve said before: Girlfriend was dead wrong.  Being a grown up is incredibly awesome.  I’m pretty sure that there is a sick part of me that is perfectly content to pay half of my salary out to the Federal Government and the State of New York for the pleasure of being an adult, and eating ice cream for dinner, and blowing luxurious bubbles in my nymilk skim.

I’m like Tom Hanks in Big, except I didn’t just wake up one day like this, I actually went through twenty years of school, and put in all the blood sweat and tears to get here, and I’m still smiling like an idiot and eating string cheese as I pore over spreadsheets and squint at my open Outlook.

I really love dairy.  I’m a massive milk fan.  I have no patience for people who claim not to like dairy, or who claim lactose intolerance when offered a glass of milk, but then happily eat cheese at happy hour.  Cheese is full of lactose.  You know that lactose is the sugar in milk — it’s not something unique to fluid milk product, and it doesn’t disappear in the cheese-making process, at least, not as far as I’m aware.

At the end of the day, based on the research I’ve read, unless you’re Asian or African American, your chances of simply not liking milk are much, much higher than you being lactose intolerant.

Milk is amazing.  And delicious.  And when combined with some Hershey’s Syrup, it makes the perfect recovery drink after a long run.  By itself, it is the ideal companion to a lovely dinner — goes with any type of dish: summer, spring, winter, or fall.  I drink it when I wake up; I drink it at work.  I work in an office where we have two refrigerators literally stuffed full of milk (for 30 of us.  We’re mad about milk.)

And I swear to you, I’m not a shill for the dairy board.  I was just sitting here, blowing bubbles in my chocolate milk, thinking about dairy.  This is possibly an outcropping of being a week from having another birthday; trying to cling desperately to all the things related to my childhood; and is, in essence, a sort of cheesy love song to…cheese?

Oh.  God.  Too much.

Just…drink your milk.

Posted in F & B, Stuff and Things | Tagged | 3 Comments

Prepared Cheese Product

Posted on February 23, 2012 by

For some reason, the Winesday crowd has experienced a number of romantic breakups lately. 

With that in mind, yesterday, we found ourselves in the midst of another breakup.  While Strand was upset, angry, and going through all of the motions and emotions of someone in the midst of a yucky situation – I was despondent.  As people began arriving at my house, I had put The Carpenters Radio on Pandora, and was laughing/sobbing into my champagne to the tune of Superstar. 

There was no good reason for this – I hadn’t been close to or even fond of the boyfriend in question.  My reaction was so comically inappropriate, it prompted Strand to say:

I feel like I should comfort you, Mere.

No, no, I’m fine.  It’s your break up!  (…sniffle, sniffle…)

Granted, I was still jetlagged, and had been through some high highs and low lows over the seven days prior.  But still. My friends and I are extremely close, and none of them had ever seen me cry – let alone openly weep over the end of someone else’s romance and the vocal stylings of Karen Carpenter.

We pondered whether there were any good men out there – faithful men; straightforward ones.  We made toasts to them: To JM, my dad, and one guy who lives in Albuquerque!

He’s probably a priest.

But what did it mean to be faithful, anyway?  Was there a fundamental difference between the immature, unfixably broken frenzy of people who kept  up their online dating profiles once in putatively committed relationships and cheated for cheating’s sake – and the people whose lefthand rings cut off their circulation in lost wars of attrition and so they sought  solace as they waved white flags?  Was I naïve to think there was such a difference?

Judge me for thinking so.  But having once found myself at such a threshold – crossing back over; walking back down the aisle – my definitions had changed.  Yours might’ve too.  So I’ve looked at love from both sides, now.

But this underscores a very serious point:  I love cheesy love songs.  When I was going through the early stages of my divorce, and I was out in California with a client, they piped satellite radio into the “war room.”  I am not sure whether they ever realised that I had surreptitiously tuned us into the “Love Songs” station.  (If you’re familiar with Sirius, you are well aware that this station is like a package of Kraft American Singles – 100% processed cheese.) 

If the client noticed, they were painfully polite in not pointing out the periodic interludes of Sometimes When We Touch.

People are obviously programmed to love love songs.  (You are lying if you tell me you haven’t sat weeping in your whisky over Turning Tables, or Someone Like You.  Lying.)  I was raised on classic rock.  My father woke us up every Saturday by blasting The Doors.  LA Woman is permanently ingrained in my psyche as the tune to which one should clean house.  And I love that.  But good heavens!  I love love songs.  I’ll take the folk singers; I’ll take the crooners.  American country?  Dogs and trucks and tractors and State Fairs and Greyhound buses and things for which I have no frame of reference but find sort of charming – yes.  Doo wop?  Absolutely.  Elvis?  100%.  Lay the cheese on thick and rich, like nacho sauce at a sporting event.

Cheesy love songs are a part of my soul; my every day.  However, I generally do not sit at my table amongst friends, simultaneously laughing and crying, as Miss Mal and Strand do the Macarena, and wear silly hats, and wreak havoc on cheating cheaters who cheat, as was the case last night.

What is wrong with me? I sobbed, while Karen Carpenter crooned We’ve Only Just Begun.

You hold on to things.  You’ve got a filing cabinet full of notes and letters…you don’t let go.

Yes.  I was holding on to things.  And the past week had brought breakups and makeups and roses and kisses and catharsis, and finding out for certain things hadn’t been my fault at all.  And going back to places that hurt and finding my way over, under, around and through.  Bit by bit, letting go.

Then flying home, and sitting in a familiar circle, and dreaming better dreams, and knowing that there was, and would be, and is love among the ruins.

Posted in F & B, friends, home, balance | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Dispatches From the Desk of the Birthday Girl

Posted on February 22, 2012 by

My birthday is coming up (in just under two weeks).  In general, I dislike birthdays.  The fanfare makes me anxious.  As with all gift-giving-and-receiving events, the pressure to perform is high.  For instance, for my seventeenth birthday, my parents gave me a solid oak filing cabinet.  I still have it – it’s a beautiful piece of furniture, and I’ve used it since I was seventeen.  But seriously, Tom and Linnie?  What were you thinking?  First, who gives a seventeen year old a filing cabinet?  Second, who gives a seventeen year old a filing cabinet?

And when you’re already a pretty nerdy kid, how do you explain how your seventeenth birthday went?

Daddy was in New Zealand and called me on the 3rd thinking my birthday was the 4th, (and it’s actually on the 5th.)  Mums got violently ill.  I locked my keys in my car twice in the same day, in the middle of a rainstorm, and used up my entire AAA Idiotic Driver allowance.  And then, as a gift, I got a filing cabinet.

When the oak vessel was finally presented to me, I think my eyebrows went up into my hairline.  I actually refused it at first because, well, see above.

I make my parents sound like jerks, and they’re NOT, nor do I want to imply that I think they are.  My seventeenth birthday was just a shitty series of events.  My father was half a world away, across the Interntional Dateline.  Now that I travel like that too, it is obvious how someone could mess up a date.  And their thought process with the cabinet was: She’s a prolific writer, and she takes notes.  She’d probably enjoy a private space in which to store this stuff. 

Thirtysomething me gets that.  Seventeen year old me wanted something more…seventeen.

I digress.

This year, around the time of my birthday, the Women of Winesday and I are running the Napa Valley Marathon.  The synergy of wine and running?  Long weekend away with the girls?  Yes.  This is the perfect celebration.

But I also thought more about it, since I inevitably get asked: What do you want for your birthday?

I reply: Nothing.

And then I wind up with a solid oak filing cabinet.  So to preempt another such age-inappropriate travesty, I will tell you exactly what I want for my birthday:  I want you to support what I believe in.  What follows is a list of charities to which I donate, and which I hope YOU will also consider supporting. 

1)      Team for Kids:  As I’ve mentioned ad nauseam, I run with the official charity of New York Road Runners, and will be fundraising for the 2012 NYC Marathon.  TFK raises funds for critical services provided by New York Road Runners Youth Programs. These programs combat childhood obesity and empower youth development via running and character-building programs in low-income schools and community centers in New York City, throughout the country, and in South Africa.

2)      Angiosarcoma Awareness:  We recently lost an amazing educator, Pete Pew, whose rigorous academic method and challenging curriculum encouraged me to become a lawyer.  Donations can be made in his name here.

3)     Bideawee:  This is where I got Roo.  They do terrific rescue work, and take in animals from kill-shelters.

You are a hero for donating.  There are obviously a number of other groups to which I donate time and resources.  And the ones listed above are merely suggestions.  If you have a charity you love, please donate!  For my birthday.  For Lent.  For whatever reasons you can think of.  But my desire is that you make a contribution to a charity you love.  (Or that I love, depending.)

And if you’re still not happy with these suggestions, well, I am looking for a new nightstand.

Posted in Adventures, lists, musings | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Little Earthquakes

Posted on February 20, 2012 by

During my first weekend in London, my friend Jenn said over dinner: I’ve never been to Scotland.

Over that dinner, an impromptu weekend trip north was planned.  When Friday came, I dashed out of the office to Gatwick.  We had planned to fly to Edinburgh then drive to the northern parts of the country, maybe Wick.  The last time I had been in Scotland was with my parents and my Auntie and Uncle, where they wanted to talk about relationships.  They told me:

We’ve all been together forever, so we don’t know what you’re going through.  But I think, Mere, I think that you’ll probably wind up with someone you’ve been friends with for a long time.

I had left them to go back to London to spend time with The Englishman.  Did I believe their wisdom?  I didn’t know then, and don’t know now.

Speaking of the devil, The Englishman and I had dinner last Thursday, and I told him about my trip.  He replied, The last time I was in Wick, I was still in school, and we’d gone up there dressed in pirate costumes. We moved the sofas out of my friend’s house and on to the lawn.  And then we had a bonfire.

It made sense, because that’s all par for the course in my circle.  Case in point: that same morning, another friend had recounted the story of her very fresh breakup.  She said, And I still have to get my dirndl back from him.  Neither of found this statement the least bit bizarre.

Anyway, on Friday, we flew to Edinburgh then started the drive towards Wick.  There was something about this trip that made me think I could resolve my anger leftover from last Spring: my fury at the Scotland Tourism Board, the weird family trip to Edinburgh, and all that followed, as if obsessively retracing my steps not merely in time, but also in place, could provide answers.

Our first destination, though, was Inverness.

Have you ever been on a road trip in Scotland?  At night, it’s not that different than driving the New Jersey turnpike, except you are driving on the opposite side of the road in a car with the steering wheel in the passenger’s seat.  The service plazas have Burger Kings and WH Smiths; you cross great suspension bridges.  By night, you might as well be driving from New York to Washington.  By day, a different ballgame.

Despite a few missed turns, we made it to Inverness unscathed.

The next morning, we were off to Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness.  I’ve never had a thing for castles – maybe a bad childhood Medieval Times experience? The scenery, however, was breathtaking.

Our drive farther north was then thwarted by a fast-moving snowstorm.

(This tore through the area within an hour of the first photo.)

So we turned around and headed back for Edinburgh.

We arrived in time for a lovely dinner, and spent the next day walking around the city.  I was able to navigate from my memory of May.

But by the end, it didn’t really feel like I was resolving any anger.  Sometimes, I think we go back to epicenters merely to see if the ground has stopped shaking; to find stillness in formerly chaotic places, even if they are wrecked.

Or was I seeking stillness where there would always be little earthquakes?

There were unexpected aftershocks that weekend.  Like remembering that I’d lost my grandfather in a town called Inverness, in Florida, seven years earlier. We’d arrived after the fact – the week of my graduation from law school.  I flew back to Washington after the Florida moment, and I walked at graduation, carrying the stuffed monkey my grandfather’s namesake son had given me.

It was the same monkey in whose fur I had sobbed as a misfit kid; my comfort object when I was divorcing my husband.

When my grandfather died, there was no funeral – just an in-and-out in the greater Inverness area.  We’d rummaged through his things; found tangible evidence of how he’d loved us.  But that was it.

So I thought I’d headed north to resolve my Springtime anger.  Instead, as my heart swelled with the shocking February blues and greens and golds, I discovered I had come to put something else to rest.  I stood silent, just outside of Inverness, as the British weather moved swiftly and switched from snow to radiant sunshine for our visit:  I let it go.  And then the snow moved in again.

That was maybe the last aftershock.  My mother tells me often how proud of me my grandfather would’ve been; how thrilled he’d be with the life I lead.  How much he’d love the present-day me — coupled up or not.  I don’t disbelieve her – there’s something about daughters and daddies; daddies and daughters – daughters know.

So the trip was an end, but also a beginning, as endings tend to be.  It was a core-shaking moment.  And I suppose resolution is much like an earthquake: to be rattled in unexpected ways, and then survive it; built on it; create better things from it.

Posted in Adventures, balance, musings, On the road again | Tagged , | 1 Comment

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Posted on February 19, 2012 by

I went out to dinner on Valentine’s Day with my friend PG.  As I’ve previously mentioned, I share custody of him with eee, who met him on a volcano in Guatemala.  They’ve been the best of friends ever since, and speak frequently — but can count on one hand the number of times they’ve met up face-to-face.

I, on the other hand, speak to PG occasionally, but have lost track of how often I see him, because it’s usually every couple of weeks.

Life is funny that way.

Why do you suddenly love London?  PG had called and asked last Sunday, taking the hint from some comments I’d made last weekend.  I could hear the Central Park day in his voice — he was in New York when I arrived in London.  I could hear the gentle suspicion, too — he stopped just short of asking whether I’d met someone.  (Another dear friend had also ribbed me: Ok, what’s his name?)

It was always the case with me — I had always been a bit boycrazy.  I loved having a partner; someone with whom to run errands and to whom I could read my writing aloud so I could catch the typos and grammatical errors.  And someone to yell at.  (Holy hell, I love to yell.)

But as to the question:  Firstly, was I so transparent?  And secondly, there wasn’t anyone.  Not even the prospect.

I had always been That Girl.  The little girl who had had pretend weddings so often that her mother made her a wedding dress out of an old pair of lace curtains.  The girl who, until the weekend of the car accident last April, had had partners — consecutively and without meaningful gaps — since November, 1995 (I finally pinpointed the correct date.)

No wonder everyone found it a bit shocking that my happiness, satisfaction over the weekend was due to a lovely few days with good friends!

PG made his way home from NY, and he and I tried to make plans for the week.  Both my scheduling and his worked out to be a bit nighmarish, so we finally resolved to go out on Valentine’s Day.

Early in Pacific-time on Valentine’s Day, a friend had posted a link to an article about my high school sweetheart — the first person to break my heart.  We were together for years when we were young, then he came out as a gay man.  Over time, people have tried to minimise this by saying:  You turned him gay.  That was obviously not true and it wasn’t ever funny for anyone to say — not when I was a teenager, and not now.

On Valentine’s Day years ago, I was in Sacramento for a conference and this first love sent flowers to my hotel.  The note on the bouquet said, I know you hate flowers, but I love you.  He was also the type who once brought me a relatively hard-to-find copy of Miles of Aisles on vinyl.  In some ways, he knew me at my heart-center — in a way I didn’t then know myself.

(Prom night.)

On our first date, years before that, we’d gone to the mall for Chinese food.  The food court speakers had been playing The Circle Game, and the fortune in my fortune cookie had said: Trust him, but keep your eyes open.

Indeed.  Maybe that was love: new dreams, maybe better dreams, and plenty, before the last revolving year is through.  And: Trust him, but keep your eyes open.  Maybe that’s all there was to get:  a lot of dreams, a bit of trust, and a healthy dose of realism.

Anyway, the link my friend had posted was to an article about the grant my first love and his partner had just won for their musical.  I was proud, in words that I didn’t think anyone could possibly understand.  How does one tell the story about first loves, and broken hearts, and fortune cookies, and getting it, and being gotten?

But this wasn’t California in the ’90s – it was Valentine’s Day 2012 in London, and I was set to have dinner with PG.  Our dinner plans prompted eee to tease us a little, which elicited the following response from PG:

PG and I met; headed to a pub, then moved on to dinner at a restaurant a few blocks away.

As we ate, we talked about our adventures; our hopes; our dreams.  Where we were and where we were going.  We discussed the ways in which I try to control things.  We were essentially having a discussion about entropy: randomness; chaos; loss of information and the escape of heat from the system — my efforts to control and avoid it; his efforts to enjoy a wild ride the on wave of chaos.

At the end of the night, he said: You’re a beautiful wonderful piece of debris caught up in a vortex of chaos.  He said it purposefully, as if he were trying to convince me of the beauty of the things beyond my control.  And I was fighting physics; I was trying to permanently reduce disorder.

We parted ways with a hug and a kiss, and I was left in a puddle of reflection.

It felt like control had slipped away from me.  I had had no control over whether a car blew through that intersection at 85th and Lex last April.  I couldn’t make my hands work anymore if my body didn’t want them to.  For that matter, I couldn’t have forced my ex-husband to have listened to me, and I certainly couldn’t have cajoled his family into loving me.  Furthermore, I had no way to stop the British from explaining ad fucking nauseam that “zed” is “zee” in American.  Finally, I definitely hadn’t turned anyone gay.

That some things hadn’t worked out for me was maybe just a product of chaos.  I was going to have to learn to accept that.

There’s some trite old wisdom about self-acceptance being the key to having meaningful relationships with others (oft represented in fortune cookies as Our first and last love is self-love, which sounds unnecessarily filthy).  Did all of my desire to control come from a lack of getting myself?

As I went to bed that night, I put Joni Mitchell on the stereo and let her sing me to sleep.  It occurred to me, suddenly, as I drifted off to sleep that had been crap at physics when I was in school.  Any knowledge I’d ever had of heat and work and friction had long been forgotten, and I’d carried on in perpetual motion.  I was just about out when I remembered that my physics teacher had been an Englishman.  He’d always taken great pains to distinguish “zed” from “zee.”

There were a lot of things to get.  To control.  And not control.  Dreams to dream.  The alphabet was probably the least of my worries.

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