Grow up

Several months ago I made a list of everyone I knew who was pregnant. It was actually a necessity, this list, because I couldn't keep track of all my knocked-up friends. Then, as the weeks passed, the list split into two parts: those who were still pregnant and those who had had their babies. Each side would ebb and flow as people gave birth, and new people became pregnant.

At the moment, there are 26 names on that combined list.

A couple of weeks ago I went back east to visit my college roommates, JoAnne and Becca. JoAnne had just given birth to her first child, and Becca was due in two months with her second child. Conveniently for me, they live about 20 minutes from one another, so I got to meet the baby and the bump at the same time.

It was a good visit, but when I came home I fell into a bad place. It was a short-lived, but surprisingly deep depression. The stay-in-your-pajamas-all-day kind of depression.

"Do you want a baby right now?" asked my friend Emily, as we dissected my mood over lunch one day.

"No," I said. "I really don't. But you know, I'd like to be able to afford a baby right now. Or a house. You know, what got to me even more than the babies was their homes. They're not gigantic or ornate or anything, but they're their homes, that they own, with wallpaper that they chose themselves and color-coordinated paint. They have guestrooms and playrooms for their kids. They have decks. Monte would kill for a deck."

I poked at the ice in the bottom of my glass with a straw. "I don't feel like a grown-up," I said.

"Eh," said Emily, giving a half-shrug. "I hear it's overrated."

But I wasn't sure.

Last night I lay on the couch, half-comatose, nodding in front of a nature documentary on PBS. "What are you watching?" asked Monte.

"Something about elephants," I mumbled, eyelids drooping.

"You're falling asleep," said Monte. "Come on, let's go to bed."

I pushed myself into a sitting position and immediately the change of elevation set me to sneezing. "Damn," said Monte, handing me the Kleenex box, "you're having a bad allergy day, aren't you?"

For I'd been sneezing all afternoon. Actually, I'd been sneezing for two days straight. "I think it's the dust," I said. "The fan is kicking it up." 90-degree temperatures this weekend led us to drag the rotary fan out of the closet. I sniffled miserably, shuffling to the bathroom.

"Or it could be the mold," I said, looking up at the bathroom ceiling. I sneezed again. "I think I'm allergic to our apartment," I said.

"Can we move?" I asked Monte a few minutes later as I climbed into bed.

"Where do you want to move?" he asked me.

"Somewhere clean," I said. "To a place that has circulating air in the bathroom. And windows with cool, steel frames, not old splintery wooden ones that catch dust. And no Venetian blinds. I hate those things.

"And there should be marble counter tops," I continued, rolling onto my stomach.

"Marble?" asked Monte.

"Well, not tile," I said. "Not moldy, grody tile that catches all the dirty dishwater and never comes clean. Tiled counter tops are stupid."

"They are," Monte agreed.

"And it should come with a housekeeper," I said into my pillow. "And a vacuum that actually works."

"And a place for your sewing machine," added Monte. "By the way, can we move that off the kitchen table?"

"No, I'm not done with it yet."

"But are you sewing anything right now?"

"No. But I might soon." I lifted my head to sneeze again. "And we could have kitchen chairs that match, and aren't broken."

"And a dishwasher," he said emphatically. "And a deck!"

"Yeah," I said. "And an office that's not in the living room. With our own desks."

"That sounds nice," said Monte.

"It would be nice," I said. "It would be a grown-up house. This is not a grown-up house. We couldn't have a baby in here. There's no room."

"We could put it in the walk-in closet," suggested Monte.

"No, my hula hoops are in there," I said.

Then we drifted off to sleep.

I've spent some time trying to decipher these pangs that I've been having, wondering if it's actually my biological clock that's beeping at me or something else, and I think it's this grown-up thing. It's this twenty-something feeling in my thirty-something life. This feeling of "I'm still here." (Not to be confused with that triumphant feeling of "I'm still here!", which is something altogether different.)

Yes, I'm still here. Still in this apartment with the too-thin walls and hand-me-down furniture. Still unemployed (or rather, unemployed again), uninsured, unmarried. I've done so much in my life in the last six years, run laps around my younger self, and yet I'm still here. Externally, nothing has changed. We haven't even rearranged the furniture in six years. Literally, I could probably go back in time, walk through my front door and not notice the difference.

And it's not like it's all bad. If it were, we wouldn't hesitate to make a change. But I like my furniture where it is. I don't really mind that my upstairs neighbor only knows two songs on the electric guitar. And I'm lucky enough to share this small space with such a likable guy. It is by no means a bad life we're living.

But I wouldn't say no to some forward momentum.

You hear that, Universe? I'm calling again.

61 things

I just said my first-ever rosary. And do you know what? That's a lot of beads!

There's - hang on...59 beads on that thing! And I think you're supposed to pray on the crucifix and the Virgin Mary connector thing too, so that makes 61 prayers. 61 prayers! That's a lot of prayers, people!

Why did I choose today to say my first-ever rosary? Well, I've developed a schedule to keep me on course during this time of unemployment. As soon as I got laid off I sat down and made a list of things that I need to do to keep myself healthy, productive and calm. One of things I'm supposed to do is meditate for 5 minutes a day.

The only problem is, when I meditate unsupervised, I tend to fall asleep. Which was kind of counter-productive to the rest of my daily tasks.

So I changed 'meditate' to 'pray' and decided that I would spend 5 minutes of every day in prayer.

That started off okay, but after a couple of minutes my mind wandered and I discovered I was making a grocery list in my head.

So today I pulled out my rosary. I got it for my First Communion in the 3rd grade. I've always liked that rosary; it has pretty glass beads that sparkle different colors under the light. In fact, there have been difficult periods in my life where I took to carrying it with me everywhere I went. I would often pour the beads through my fingers, comforted by the feel of the rosary in my hands.

But I never actually figured out how to use it.

So today I took the thing out and gave it a test drive. I thought it might help me get through my 5 minutes of prayer without my mind wandering.

I should have counted those damn beads first.

I didn't say Hail Marys. I didn't say Our Fathers. Instead, I said Thanksgivings. I said Thank You for 61 things today. And when I finished I felt abundantly blessed.

And as soon as I put my rosary away I started thinking of things I forgot to count! So now I have a head start on tomorrow.

61 things. Life can never be too bad if you can find 61 things to be thankful for.

I wholeheartedly recommend giving this a try, especially on a day when you're feeling gloomy. It'll brighten you right up.

But be forewarned - it takes more than 5 minutes.

I'm a grown-ass woman and I'll come to bed when I feel like it

Monte is annoyed with me. He woke up at 1:30 this morning to find that I still hadn't come to bed. I was hunched over my computer, surfing for Harry Potter trivia.

The telltale squeak of the floorboards alerted me that he'd woken. I froze with my hand on the mouse, caught in the act.

Monte appeared in his jammies, looking all cute and disheveled. His hair stuck up at the back and his face was impressed with sleep lines. "You're still on the computer? What are you looking at?" he asked. I thought fast for something that would be deemed appropriate.

"Porn," I said.

"Oh," he mumbled. "Okay." Then he shuffled off to the bathroom.

But I knew he knew better. I shut down my computer and hurried to the bedroom. When Monte came back to bed I tucked him in and smoothed his hair.

"Must be nice," he murmured pointedly, "not to have to get up in the morning."

Ouch.

Of course, this morning he has no memory of having said that. But I was a little miffed, so I told him that his new cowboy boots look silly with his favorite blue pants.

They do. It was sound sartorial advice. But I took a little pleasure in the telling.

This blog needs more photos

There. Isn't that pretty? I took that in Venice. This one too:


I had a good time with my camera in Venice. Forget being a city for lovers; Venice is a city for photographers.

It is not a city for those with a tendency toward motion sickness. Everywhere you look there's water, water, water, slapping, lolling, waving, moving. By the third day I was declaring, "I feel like I'm on a boat!" By the fourth day I was wishing I was on a boat, just so the rocking feeling would make sense. And that night my poor mother sicked up her dinner due to the constant motion in her head. Yarf.

But still, a lovely city.

Look folks, it's Day 4 of Unemployment and I'm at a bit of a loose end. It's not that I have nothing to do. I have plenty to do. I have a list as long as my arm of things to do, and my arms are fairly long. I'm just having some trouble getting things done.

I start out in the morning with the best of intentions. I get up. I drink a green smoothie. I plan to go for a run. Sometimes I actually do go for a run. Sometimes I stay in my pajamas and think really hard about going for a run, which is probably just as effective. I sit down at my computer. I check my email. I wait 10 minutes, then I check it again. I am amazed when nothing has changed.

I try to clean one small area of my house. I might do the dishes or clear off the coffee table. Nothing too strenuous. Don't want to freak myself out, you know?

I email my friends at work: Hey, how's it going? What are you guys doing? Is it weird that I'm not there? It's weird, right?

I eat lunch.

Then I tool around on my computer, pretending I'm working, actually feeling like I'm working (blogging is working, right?), until the sun goes down (blessedly early). Then I dust off my hands, call it a day well done and flick on the tube. If I've changed out of my pajamas, I put them back on.

I should probably wash those soon.

I know this will get easier. I know I will figure out how to be the productive superhero that I always knew I could be if I just had the time. I probably just need a week to blunder around in my PJs and, you know, find myself.

I guess I'm a little lost.