Wonderful Maureen at IslandRoar gave me this award. Thank you Maureen. Thank you also for writing so likeably about Martha’s Vineyard, your teenagers, and the vicissitudes of life. I bet you are a wonderful friend to many people IRL. Forthwith, my 5 obsessions and the 5 bloggers I would like to pass this to.
5 Things I’m Obsessed About. In Real Life.
Let’s say obsessed means unable to stop thinking about. Spending more time on than anything else, either in act or in dream. In that case, for me, my obsessions are listed below. These aren’t what I might like to obsess about, like what did Jason Wu put on the runway, can I get to the Post Ranch Inn for a midweek break, or how to make sure everyone in the US has access to affordable organic produce, but it is my actual life.
1. Wait, Is It Too Late To Call My Best Friend In Belgium?
I wake up early. I have some tea, and a piece of toast. I read blogs, post or not, eat some yogurt with Cheerios and pecans mixed in, go for a walk. Around lunch time I almost always think, with a start, “It’s kid bedtime in Belgium. Is it too late to call L.?” This may not count as an obsession. But it is a habit I will probably never lose. I still think it’s weird she moved to Belgium of all places. I told her I thought of Belgium as the potato of Europe. She’s such a good friend that she didn’t even tell me not to be such a jerk.
2. NOW What Needs To Be Done To My House?
House maintenance, particularly once you are unemployed and in said house a lot, becomes all-consuming. The missing drawer pull you never noticed, chipped paint on the wall by the kitchen, faucets from which the water appears to emerge sideways rather than in the usual graceful fall. Dry rot. Let us not forget raccoons who eat our water hyacinths. Why it is so easy to do a full day’s work in an office and so difficult to structure a productive day at home amongst Things That Require A Hardware Store, I don’t know. I suspect the sofa, but it’s not talking.
3. What Are My Children Doing Right Now?
When your children are born the alien tribes who send you those little blue-eyed windows to the universe also install a chip in your head. It’s an alarm. It goes off, PING!, all the time. When the infants first arrive the alarm is a constant loud gonging in your heart, “Little one, little one, little one.” By the time the babies can walk, talk, tie their shoes and wipe their own bottoms at school, the alarm is ringing every 20 minutes or so. Once said small creatures have grown taller than you, grown out of eye-rolling, and learned to use a credit card, the alarm is down to once or twice a day. To my knowledge, it does not disappear. We shall see.
4. What Will I Do For A Living?
My job appears to have gone into full time hiding. I am fine. But any sensible person, looking at the spreadsheet of my existence, would point out a high probability that some more money will need to be earned eventually. I have been striving to be sensible all my life, living for sensible, failing at sensible, succeeding at sensible. Hence a strong to desire to attempt the ridiculous. To take the risks I urge on 26-year olds. I understand I am twice their age. Getting older doesn’t always have the effect you expect.
5. Where Can I Find A Snuggly Plaid Pendleton-ish Jacket? Or Something Of The Sort?
Fall is coming. Although many people think we have no seasons in California, they are wrong. We have seasons. One morning while summer still appears to be in full swing you walk out your doorway and feel a shadow fallen on the sun. The morning is a little cool. Just a little bit. And slowly, slowly, the days will get cooler. And cooler. Rarely cold. But when you rarely experience cold at full strength you become highly sensitized to little variations between cool, and cooler. I want a red buffalo plaid jacket. It’s possible that I think about the plaid jacket to avoid some of the other items on this list. Ahem. Dry rot.
That’s it. This is as true as I can, or at least am willing to in this context, make it. I do not have any idea whatsoever if it matters but I was asked.
Six Bloggers I’m Obsessed With. All Brilliant Young Women With A Voice. Some Good Pictures. I Know I Said Five.
A Practical Wedding – No nonsense, enormous sentiment. She had the wedding. Now she writes about marriage. This should be interesting.
first milk – Lovely, evocative, sweet vignettes, infused with the sensibility of the best children’s literature applied to grown up life. A moment to stop and feel.
even*cleveland – Design, art, thought themes, carried over several days, curated. Moving to New York. This should be interesting.
east side bride – The most likeable sarcastic person you ever met. Recently penned a paeon to an expeletive.
What Possessed Me – Ha. Brilliant. Not kidding. Brilliant. Funny as hell. Writes like the rest of us locate a light switch in the kitchen. Without effort. She’s getting married. This should be interesting.
Peonies and Polaroids – Beautiful, serene photos in a grayish pinkish palette. And writing. The writing seems to be aqua, purple, with flashes of red. But that’s just me. Go read.
16 Responses
I can so relate to numbers 2, 3, and 4.
Thanks for the kind shout out. Now, to check out a couple of these blogs…
And here I am thinking about the blue buffalo check wool Pendleton jacket I gave to charity a few months ago…ah well, it was old and faded and wouldn't have fit my umm…chest anymore. It was a great jacket that kept me warm on campsites and in canoes…maybe I should look for another.
Congratulations! Award is well deserved. I love these lines: "Hence a strong to desire to attempt the ridiculous. To take the risks I urge on 26-year olds. I understand I am twice their age. Getting older doesn't always have the effect you expect." I hope you share more about the "desire to attempt the ridiculous", I am intrigued!
I'm now obsessed with your obsessions.
Oh, I wish I was one percent of a writer as you are! My excuse is that I'm still not entirely fluent in English, after 13 years…, but is there an excuse for that! I digress of course. Just wanted to say that I very much enjoy your writing (a lot).
Congratulations on the award..! I can totally relate to #3. My alarm is going off in the every-twenty-minute category, I guess. But maybe more often — it probably depends on my level of neurosis for any given day. And it doesn't go away, you're finding out, huh?
Rats.
-maria
Ohhh a fun game! What wonderful company I've been cast with. Many thanks.
I wish you special luck with numbers 4 and 5, my dear. I am stopping being so sensible all the time. It makes my head hurt.
p.s. The potato of Europe? *I die.*
I know what you mean about the house taking over! Whenever I have a day off and am just home with not too much to do, I start to get fixated on certain things. Then, when my fiance gets home I have a list of things "we" (he) need to fix!
Thank you for the congrats. Do go look at the blogs listed, and Maureen's as well, if you can. I actually went to a Pendleton store today, instead of contacting the dry rot guy, if you can believe it. If I were a 6 foot tall 180 man I would be all set. Thanks also for the comments on my writing. It means so much me to me.
Congrats on your award! I love Maureen too.
Glad I found your blog – it's quite amusing, plus I love to discover new blogs and you provide links to many! So much to read.
It amazes me how there are just so many lives we live. I'm a Canadian living in Ghana, West Africa – not the potato of Africa, but this is Africa! It's no Cape Town (have you been). In fact, it's quite a mess. The obsessions you have here are more like, "Is the night guard sound asleep or plotting with the armed robbers…" as you like awake in bed at night…
Anyway – thanks and will keep reading!!!
Cheers
Holli in Ghana
24 – good to see you:). Holli – Amazing to be listing my suburban worries and have you comment. Yours would be obsessions in the true form. So many lives.
Congratulations on the award, your blog most surely is fabulous.
And thank you, the words you use to describe P&P make me glow. In all sorts of colours.
And your writing is always eloquent and inspiring but here it is also truly, truly beautiful.
And dry rot is horrible and best ignored. If you don't ignore it then people will just come into your house, tear down your walls, rip up your Victorian floorboards, spray nasty chemicals around, cover your beautiful treasures in a thick layer of dust then leave your house smelling funny. They may or may not also miss a bit, leaving you three years later with a roof that is looking suspiciously like it may fall in on your head as the structural beams have rotted off this mortal coil. All in all, I'd stick with the sofa.
Is it bad that I don't know what dry rot is?
Congratulations on your well deserved blog award. I'm afraid I'm a bit behind on my blog reading so I'm late to the party.
So incredibly pleased and touched and honored to receive my shiny new award – and very happy to enable your obsessive blog reading. Thank you so much for the words of praise – I fear I will now be smug and insufferable. xoxox
Dang a-lang. I am the latest of late, but know I much appreciate the shout out – it made me blue ribbon happy.
Dry rot – it's amazing how two relatively unassuming words can become so evil strung together.
I know all about #4 … and now I appear to have landed in a world where everything is an unpaid internship. It's concerning.
I think the Pendleton jacket will find you. Or you could keep an eye on the Pendleton x Opening Ceremony coats … that is what I am doing.
Thank you, thank you.
xo
Stephanie (aka even cleveland)
PS – I fully expect to hear you on a panel on NPR for the Tad Friend book stuff. I hope they come calling – maybe that will settle #4 …
I don't know if a $650 price tag will scare you off…but Pendelton just did a pretty great collaboration with Opening Ceremony:
http://www.openingceremony.us/products.asp?menuid=2&designerid=239&cn=menu2
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