Good Friends and Squirrel Bombs

The week before Christmas was unseasonably warm this year. Remember?

Everyone left town early, until it felt like it was just G and myself, the rest of Glover Park entirely empty. Smoking on my porch before bed one night, I thought: even the lights on the horizon look dimmer. We took to the porch again the next night, finished a bottle of wine nestled in second-story beach chairs. We went inside, then away for our holidays. I left the bottle out there for months.

I am the kind of asshole who clutters a perfectly lovely back porch with unwanted furniture, disintegrating cardboard boxes, discarded books, bags of clothes for Goodwill. Why bother with a table and real chairs when we could just sit on this old desk? You're too good to sink your ass to the floor into one of those terribly awkward canvas chairs? Of course you're not, I'm just kidding. I'm aware it's a terrible system. I've thought about changing it, about throwing all the shit away and making it a pleasant space to sit and chat. I think about it for two minutes before declaring: 'Isn't it already a pleasant place to sit and chat simply by virtue of being a porch? Just let it be a porch!' So it stays how it is, and yes, I see that's pretty bullshit and mostly a function of my general laziness and because sometimes I am a shit friend who does not care about your comfort. You know who is not a shit friend? Kyle.

A few weeks ago we were standing out there while I determined the proper outerwear, and Kyle, as he has done in the past, handed out the gentlest of porch shamings: 'It's so nice out here; 'Chairs would be awesome'; 'I could help you take the boxes down'. Wonderful, kind hints to which I typically respond "Come on Kyle, then I couldn't throw my garbage out here" because I am the kind of person who will regularly throw a bag of garbage or empty box of wine out onto the porch rather than carrying it down to the cans. Then, as usual, he left it alone. There are only so many times you can ask an adult to throw her trash away properly before you start wondering why you're still friends with this lunatic.

I had to go to New York last week for work. The Saturday before I left it was sunny and kind of nice and I opened the porch door hoping maybe it was reading weather. It wasn't. Even if it had been, the environs weren't exactly conducive to relaxing. Unless broken pieces of ashtray, scattered dead leaves, crumbling boxes and mildewing bags of clothes are part of your preferred spa experience. I picked up the months-empty bottle and accompanying glasses, took them inside to the kitchen. Got a garbage bag. Went back and swept up the leaves, the shattered bits of lacquered ceramic*. I pushed the broom under the a/c unit in the window, and noticed something protruding from the largest bag of Goodwill clothes, an enormous black canvas duffel bag, characteristically unzipped.  What initially looked like a stick, was, after closer inspection, clearly a leg. A small, furry leg.

My first thought: How did one of Baylor's toys get in there?
My next thought: Oh that is not a toy that is not a toy that is not a toy that is a dead fucking squirrel and it is super dead, super dead, all the way live dead, how do I get it out of...do I reach in...are there more...OHMYGOD NO, OH MY GOD DEAD SQUIRREL TOUCHING CLOTHES THAT USED TO TOUCH ME. 

I went back inside and had some wine and decided it was time to start packing. And I did. And I shut the squirrel out of my brain for the rest of the afternoon.

A few hours later, Kyle came over. We were hanging out, deciding where to go for food, and I actually considered not saying anything, but then I did: "Want to hear something really horrible that happened to me today?"

I finished telling him, and I think I assumed it would be like confession - once it was out there, the squirrel would magically disappear. I said "I didn't know what to do about it, so I just did nothing." Without judging the ridiculous words that just came out of my face, he said, clearly, reasonably: "Okay, you have to do something." He was right. I did. He helped.

What happened next was Dennis the Menace masterful, something I never would have thought up on my own. It was Kyle's idea to put garbage bags on our arms, Kyle's idea to position the giant outdoor trashcan directly below the porch, to maneuver the monster duffel over the porch rail together, heave it at the can. When the bag failed to land as aimed, crashing face down onto the patio stones a foot away, scattering clothes but concealing the squirrel carcass, I want to say it was my idea to get the snow shovels out of the utility closet and scoop the clothes into the trash can, but that was probably him, too. I invented the term 'Squirrel Bomb', although I also invented the situation that created said Squirrel Bomb, so I'm not sure what kind of pride to take there. Regardless,  the squirrel bomb was successfully diffused. And then we went to Surfside.

And my goodness, if the porch doesn't look so much better without that giant bag of unwanted clothes! And their attendant dead rodent limbs! Who knew? I'm thinking about getting rid of all the boxes now. I'm even considering a table and chairs**.

Happy Birthday Kyle!

*Sorry, D, I really did love that ashtray.
**Where do people get tables and chairs?

Fuck You February Part Eleven Million

A big part of achieving my goal of 'not falling apart in the face of every fucking thing in my life' this year has been 'being uncomfortably honest about some personal shit on the Internets'. My parents seem to be okay with it, and the only person whose real name I use is Kyle's (dude, I don't know why I have like, no concern for your privacy? I'm so sorry. Love you!) so I suppose I'll just continue in this vein.

Most of my time in the next 30 days will be consumed by The February Project. The February Project consists of 'not getting completely, utterly, soul-crushingly depressed in the month of February'. Which is REALLY HARD, guys. I know, 'self-fulfilling prophecy'...but the dread leading up to this month is unreal. Stuff REALLY DOES GO TO SHIT. In the last 90 hours I've had fights with two of my closest friends, and another is MIA, when I really need them not to be. Another one flipped our shit completely. My computer keeps threatening to die. I don't fight with friends! Friends don't disappear on me! (I disappear on them...recognizing a taste of your own medicine makes it no less bitter going down.) Flipped shit makes me cry a whole bunch. And computer, I need you. I need you to watch television shows I steal with my brother's HBO.GO password when I literally cannot work up the mental strength to do anything else.

Two of the hardest things to describe to people who've never experienced them are depression and anxiety. Normal people get sad, and normal people get nervous, but they don't seem to get the cloud that penetrates every pore, all the way into your bones, pumps through your blood, chanting; 'don't, don't, don't' when you should, should, should; 'it's not worth it' when it most definitely is; 'why bother', when there are so many reasons; and 'you are, forever, undeniably, a piece of shit', when that is certainly deniable, and nothing is forever.

Depression is a heaviness that settles into every crevice of you, your body, your brain. It makes everything simple seem impossible: getting out of bed, getting in the shower. You actually congratulate yourself for walking the dog, and this makes you feel worse, although he seems to appreciate it. Food loses its taste in your mouth. You think 'maybe seeing people will make me feel better' but then you don't want to see anyone, anyway, because you are just a little grey cloud personified, and there's a yogurt stain on these sweatpants, and oh my goodness, just the idea of finding other, relatively clean sweatpants is too much, please can I just hide in bed and find a marathon of some HBO programming that I've already watched twice? Yes? Okay.

In no way is this relaxing. Because the entire time you're submerged in your little foxhole of dread, currents of anxiety zap you at irregular, unpredictable moments. And anxiety demons are judgmental as shit. Anxiety is like a spider. She spins webs all through your body, settling wherever she sees fit. She never commits, never announces. She likes to make sure you're as uncomfortable as possible, always, right in your own skin.

The worst part is knowing not everyone feels this way. Lots of people do, but not enough so you can call in: 'I can't come into the office today because the world is too awful'. So you take a lot of deep breaths, and try not to cry at the bus when it's late. Try not to cry in the bathroom at work when you can't find a file. Try not to cry on the walk home for no reason at all.

I always want to go back to New Orleans when I'm like this. Isn't that strange? Maybe it's not strange at all. I suppose it's a place I associate with being crazy, and a place where being not-quite-right is okay. A lot more okay than it is here. Here: 'there's medication for that'. I know there is. Meds are a good thing - a great thing, the best thing - for a lot of people with wacko brain chemistry, but they aren't for me. So instead I'll peruse Craig's List every day, finding all the adorable apartments I could rent for so much cheaper than anything here. I'll watch Treme and cry a bunch, because they're always in my favorite bars (but why is no one ever in the park?) and David Simon can make you miss a place like you miss a person, the heart, the soul, the good parts, the terrible bits.

And for perspective, I'll read 'The Awakening' again, because as long as I don't feel like my only option is walking into the ocean forever, I must be doing something okay.

A Neuner Christmas Carol

I've been accused of being something of a Grinch in the past. I suppose it's not entirely untrue: I really don't care about Christmas. It's not that I want to ruin everyone's good time - despite my staunch opposition to holiday mandated gift-giving, I'm not trying to take toys from kids or cancel the celebrations. I love toys, and encourage festivities.

I like the lights - the lights are my favorite part - although I do abhor Christmas music. Lately I've been keeping my headphones on in Whole Foods because if I hear Zooey Deschanel's version of 'Baby It's Cold Outside' one more time I am going to straight up throttle the next person who stands in front of the cheese samples for half a second too long. And it's cool that everyone's happy and charitable and shit, but I hate receiving Christmas cards from the whole office. I'm the only person that doesn't send any back, and it's super awkward. I just don't do Christmas cards. Because I don't care about Christmas. I'm sorry! I just don't.

And this isn't a war on the Magic of the Holiday Season. Guys, I love magic. I believe in ghosts for goodness sake. When unexplainable shit happens to me, I usually think 'Irish Voodoo' and that is seriously an explanation I'm satisfied with. When I was four, I swear I heard Santa and the Reindeer on the roof. I have never been so convinced of anything*.  So it was a mega goddamn bummer when my parents let me in on the truth about Santa. (It created some trust issues. Most of which I've worked through.) And although I really like Christmas movies (repeated viewings of 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' have convinced me that Charles Schulz shared many of my utopian humanist dreams) most of the real-life celebratory aspects just seem a little...ridiculous, to me.

My parents' interest in the holiday waned around the time we stopped asking for cool toys. As we got older, the whole tree rigamarole became such a hassle**, they downgraded to a small, relatively festive Christmas plant. It totally worked for us. Around then,my brother and I realized we could get each other much better presents if we just waited to buy them with our Christmas money. And so began the grand tradition of Sibling Christmas. In Amherst, it was held at Goten. In Boston, Chinatown. One year, we didn't even leave the apartment. And it was just so much nicer this way, without stress about gifts and travel, no exorbitant price tags, no one-upping a prior year's performance. Just a day off, man. With festive lighting.

All of this serves to explain why I figured spending Christmas alone would be no big deal.

I moved to DC in October of 2010. My parents made their final trip from PEI to Florida over Thanksgiving, and stopped here along the way. We ate Lebanese takeout in their hotel room, and it was awesome. When Christmas rolled around...I don't know. It didn't make sense to go to Florida. My brother was still in Vermont then, and Sibling Christmas can happen whenever, so that wasn't really a concern. And I thought: 'the city will be empty, just how I like it.'

I took myself to museums. I went to the National Gallery two days in a row. I got my super nerd on. It was awesome. The cold made my hands sting, but I took a walk along the mall, which is blessedly quiet at 4:30pm on December 23rd. The lights started coming on just as I was ready to head home, and I thought: 'I'm really glad I moved here.' It was perfect. Who cares about Christmas?

The next day, I decided on the Natural History Museum. I don't know why, but it seemed like an exceptionally charming thing to do for Christmas Eve. I was really excited about the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs! (Seriously, I love dinosaurs. If you want to hang out and talk about your favorite dinosaur, this is something I'm into.) It was cold again, and the creepy silence of my empty house was gnawing at my edges a little, but I'd bought myself some ill new boots as a Christmas present, so there was plenty to be positive about. I got to the museum around 2:30 - lateish, but enough time for some thorough exploration, followed by happy hour in a part of town I never went out in. Maybe I could even find a fire to read by. And a burnished leather chair to sit in! Visions of hot toddies danced in my head.

I assumed the museum would be mostly empty. I wanted something tomb-like, intimidatingly quiet. Just myself and people like me, nerds alone on Christmas, and totally cool about it. As it turns out? The Natural History Museum on Christmas Eve is pretty much ENTIRELY THE OPPOSITE OF THOSE THINGS. The joint was full of families. All kinds of families. Moms and Dads and kids, Aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews. Grandparents and grandchildren. Foreign students goofing around, tourists unabashedly snapping the most touristy of pictures: ‘One with my arm in the shark’s mouth!’; ‘One where it looks like the mammoth is going to step on me!’; ‘One where it looks like I’m about to do this Neanderthal lady from behind!’. Couples, friends, people all in love, one way or another, with their companions. The museum was bursting with love. I'd made a mistake, coming here.

Back when we were roommates, F and I spent a frigid November afternoon at Harvard’s deliciously vintage Natural History Museum. We spent an hour looking at the gems and stones, at least twice as long in the Great Mammal Hall, browsing the animals behind the 70s-era glass cases, noting the expressions taxidermied onto their faces: alarmed, bemused, stoned. We took pictures of at least a dozen examples of 'stuffed balls' with our phones and sent them to my brother. We laughed all afternoon.

I snapped out of the memory, back to myself: alone, standing in front of a Triceratops. The corners of my eyes and the sides of my throat got a little sore, felt a little full. I got out of there before the tears came. 

Outside, I didn't feel like drinking in the company of strangers anymore, so I went home, and tortured myself with the Ghosts of Christmases Past: watched 'A Muppet Christmas Carol' and thought of the one present we'd been allowed to open on Christmas Eve as kids, the one we fretted over for a week beforehand, poking the wrapped packages and weighing them in our hands. Thought about my Dad grabbing up our discarded wrapping paper and stuffing it in the trashbag before it had a chance to hit the floor. Thought about the year Beetle and I selected 'Avatar' as our Christmas movie, the silent moment when he leaned over and whispered: "How come only the male avatars have nipples?" I laughed so hard I almost had to leave the theater. 

You see what I'm getting at here. No, I don't care about Christmas. But it's not about the holiday. It's about love. And maybe it should be just a day off, but it's not. It's not like I was loved any less because I wasn't with my family. But the presence of love is a powerful thing. And it's even more powerful in the remove. 

This year, I'm going to Florida. I'm meeting my brother and his lady in Miami on Christmas day, and then we're spending the rest of the week with our parents in their adorably weird little golf course community, places that exist by the hundreds in Florida - and seemingly only in Florida, although I bet Arizona has a bounty of these joints, too. I haven't bought presents for anyone, and I'm sure no one's got presents for me. I'll spend the majority of my holiday flying, I'll be late to meet everyone, I'll annoy at least one person by repeatedly asking where the dive bars are in this town. My dad will have trouble finding the hotel the next day when he comes to pick us up, and someone will yell at me for dawdling/getting us lost/being generally unhelpful. I cannot wait, I could not want anything more. 

Merry Christmas, everyone.

*I did hear something that night. My adult explanation? Irish Voodoo. Or raccoons, whatever.
** Putting up the Christmas tree is pretty much the only time I've ever seen my parents really hate each other. They didn't like, say it or anything, but the air was pretty thick with an 'If this tree falls on you, I hope you die' vibe.

A Shot and a Beer, Delores

It probably goes without saying: I'm delighted by the outcome of the election. Obama is my jam, and I want to have a beer with Biden so much, I own a cozy with a picture of his face on it. There are more lady senators than ever, and check it: burgeoning religious diversity! A Buddhist lady! A Hindu lady! (Which made me think, if I were ever to take office - it's a hypothetical, roll with me - would they allow me to swear in on The Ballad of the Sad Cafe? Carson McCullers is as close as I get to religion.) We're four states closer to universalizing the right to marry whoever the hell you're crazy enough to want to do that with. And I have yet another reason to visit the baby brother in Boulder. America 2012: now with more weed!

But, hey, stoner! Pay attention.We're not done yet. This is just another good step. There's still so much to fix. Like - there is still a ton of racist garbage going on. Case in point: The Washington Redskins.

One cool thing about DC is that most of  the sports teams are in different divisions than Boston teams, so I can be a fan without betraying loyalties. But I realized this fall: I cannot root for the Redskins. Because...what...how...this the name of the capital city's football team? Guys, that word is a fucking slur. It's disgusting. It is not celebratory. It is a hateful, hateful thing. Because it's a tradition, because everyone's used to it: these are not reasons to continue the practice in perpetuity. Do you really need examples of 'traditional' practices where, in hindsight, it's just 'Holy shit, what the hell was WRONG with everyone?' I brought this up with Kyle the other day, and he was like 'Okay, but is the Cleveland Indians mascot not more racist than Washington's team name?' And he has a point, that bullshit is also terrible, but we don't need to involve a scale of racism. It is all vile. Like, HOW IS ANYONE OKAY WITH ANY OF THIS?

Why isn't everyone talking about this all the time? Every game? Why haven't the Commissioners of ALL THE SPORTS just gotten together for lunch one day and been like 'Guys, none of this is alright. Let's fix it right now. Let's just split some calamari and - what, okay you want the mussels? Bud, you don't like mussels? Of course you don't. Hmm. Beef carpaccio? What? No. We aren't getting the spinach-artichoke dip. This isn't TGIFridays. Okay FINE, get it, just can we please talk about changing all these abhorrent team names and mascots? Fans would be so into this! It'd be like the time M&M's had people vote on the new color! Remember? Okay, sure some people miss tan, but that's not a super valid comparison, because tan M&Ms weren't COMPLETELY FUCKING RACIST. I mean, we changed the Bullets. To the Wizards, I know, entirely stupid name, we'll need to brand-manage better this time, but really. DC didn't want to be the Bullets anymore because of the negative associations with violence and being the murder capitol and all. What about the negative associations of, oh, I don't know, murdering millions of people with smallpox blankets and forcing them out of their homes just because some white people wanted to raise their stupid cows there? That's not negative enough? I'm just saying - OH MY GOD, DAVID, NOBODY WANTS THE APPETIZER SAMPLER, THAT IS ALWAYS THE WORST DEAL ON THE MENU.'

Because kids, we're better than this. You know? Just today I was bitching about how we haven't changed Columbus Day to American Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the discussion turned to getting credit for 'finding' something you stumbled across while looking for something else. Like when I 'find' an ill dive bar in a weird neighborhood after wandering around in search of a subway station. People have been drinking there for mad long. It was merely a personal discovery. Later my friend compared America, at it's best, to a great dive bar, and we were both like 'Oh shit, that is the best way to think about it.' And there's no place I'd rather be than a great dive bar. You know?

Tuesday night, I left Kyle's still nervous about what kind of country I'd wake up to on Wednesday (the Metro should totally run late on election night). I was walking down the street listening to Rihanna on my giant headphones, in an outfit that involved no pants and a lot of scarves, eating a cookie with TWO KINDS of chocolate chips, and I was like 'Dude, I love America! Romney can't win.' Then I didn't feel like eating the rest of the cookie, so I threw it in the street. Obama's America: Where the streets are paved with chocolate chip cookies! Half-eaten chocolate chip cookies, though. We've still got a lot of work to do.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go help those old white men get through their lunch meeting so I can feel okay cheering for RG III. Because he's dope. And before Goodell starts pegging waitresses with dinner rolls. He's a mess when he doesn't get his way on the first course.

I love this bar.


a) Despite the lighthearted end note, we still need to fix all the mascots, and Columbus Day. 
b) I wasn't like, naked and wrapped up in scarves or anything, it was my typical unbalanced ratio of leggings-to-layers-on-top.
c) I figured throwing the cookie in the street wasn't littering because there are animals, but now I feel bad about luring them into the street, and what if chocolate is bad for raccoons like it is for dogs? I feel bad about this now. See? LOT OF WORK TO DO. 

On Commitment, Or: Why Thresholds are Kind of My Jam

Today was a bit of a ride. My birthday dresses were delivered by UPS in theory, but not in practice. Missing packages! I worked myself up into a bit of a tizzy. By the time I acknowledged there was nothing I could do right then, I was later than usual, and I had to take a cab. Wisconsin was a dead zone, and it started to rain, the kind that doesn't quite validate your umbrella. I was grouchy all over. But then I had this amazing cab driver - he knew all this history about the Circles in DC. He told me Dupont has eleven traffic lights. I opened the window a smidge and let the water sprinkle in. It was cooling things down. Later that afternoon I lost my wallet, but someone called me to give it back before I even noticed it was gone. I had to stay late at work, but a friend texted to tell me they'd taken Baylor on a walk, and dropped a present off at my house. And even that was bittersweet - that friend is moving away this weekend. 

Last night, he had a goodbye happy hour in Georgetown. I came from work, recovering-from-frazzled - I was far less sweaty-looking than I'd feared. We talked about his move, and then he asked me "So how much longer are you staying here?" It was a smirk, but a fair one. I've been talking about leaving since I got here. 

I left Boston because I panicked. That's literally all there is to it. My friends lives were changing in all these profound, mature ways, and I suddenly felt light years from everyone, pitched overboard in outerspace, watching their rocketship tail lights speed away. I'd wave, floating, in the dark. 

DC was close enough, people I loved lived there. I ran right to the edge and jumped: It was time to go, and now. Boston was All Wrong. Once you find the first reason to leave, a hundred others line up right behind it. 

How long after I got here before I decided it was time to find another place? This one wasn't perfect enough, either? Two months? Four? This happens to me a lot. 

I've always been more comfortable with one foot out the door.  I am never in a job, a class, a house, a city, a party before I start looking for the next new to jump into. I love knowing that I'm going somewhere, that whatever's next, I can't even imagine yet. I like being in control of my own surprises. 

That's the romantic take on it, anyway. There's other ways to analyze the situation: I cannot handle commitment. In the face of so many choices (what we might call 'life') I freeze. I am afraid of making the wrong decision. I'm afraid of making the right decision, and have it not feel like enough. In an earthquake, they tell you to stand in a doorway. Sometimes I feel like I've lived my life under a doorframe, I have never trusted the earth not to open up and swallow me whole. 

Except...life just happens to you anyway. The threshold is not a safety net, that framing will not protect you. And that's a good thing.

I know that those last few months were filled with fear, and dread, and anxiety. Burning everything to the ground and starting from ash is not without it's discomforts. But what I really remember are the last weeks in East Somerville, those enchanted nights before spring rolls over for summer, sitting out on the stoop with cheap booze, staying up too late making each other laugh, watching cop car lights flash across Broadway, playing rock-paper-scissors in our socks for no prize at all. 

I remember summer in Quincy, every night on the back porch with the dogs, walking home from someone's house down the middle of an empty street, night bugs humming, feeling more like 16 than I maybe ever had - that sense that the world is giant, but can wrap itself so small around you, that there are a million ways to be protected. 

I was saying goodbye to people I loved more than anything, and I know I cried, and took long walks by myself through places I'd want to remember: Goodbye Beacon Hill, Goodbye Bay Village, Goodbye Fort Point, goodbye to all of these spaces, these buildings that had never failed to calm me down, that had always been there when I needed them. 

I was so sad, but that's not the place I go to first. I go to Maine, the beach at night, us all deciding that the sky looked like velvet shot through with stars. I go to the Common, on Friday evening, a little circle of us spread out on sweaters and suitcoats, buzzed after Sweetwater, watching the sun go down behind the Hancock Building, the sky turning purple, then indigo. 

Was it because I was leaving, because I was already straddling the threshold...did I appreciate it more? These memories come easy, a tide of love I can feel in my chest. Because I've had one foot out the door on DC for so long, will I remember it like that, too? The nights on stoops, up too late with too much wine, talking about boys and playing with lighters. Blackout parties, (legitimate!) happy hours, the sweet strangeness of living in a neighborhood, a place where I stop and talk to people I know on the street, the oddity of living in a place I feel safe walking the dog late at night. 

This is not to justify my fear of commitment. I recognize there is tremendous value in regularity, responsibility, attachment. Maybe this is just to say: there's a silver lining to everything. Even structurally compromised door frames.