re-(dear)born

It's official. I live in Dearborn now. The Thai protectors are now watching over our house in beautiful, wonderful, forgotten Dearborn instead of my former apartments in the tight, crumbling student buildings of Ann Arbor.

While there will always be some friction moving in together, things have gone really well. Many of the closets are overstuffed, and we have to resolve the issue of having two coffee tables, two vacuums, and no less than 24 stemmed glasses*, but there are certain unexpected perks of combining possessions. For instance, I now have an umbrella vase (I've always kind of wanted one of those).

I do have to admit that the whole move hasn't completely sunk in yet. I am starting to feel more at home, and am having an easier time of it than some of our plants. Apparently, ivy grows up in Ann Arbor and down in Dearborn. This one is now thoroughly confused.

*We're thinking of having a house-warming party so that our stemware can be used and some inevitably broken

Let your hair grow long

The move is almost complete! I'm slowly selling most of my belongings and keeping only that which brings me joy. In the meantime I have to put up with waiting in a barren apartment for craigslist people who show up late or not at all. It will all be over soon; the last few materials are being made ready for transport. Which brings me to a most important dedication to my plant who I've let grow long and wild and take over my kitchen window (as well as the surrounding cupboards and part of the sink).


When it first came to me, its vines were probably not longer than a foot. Once they had grown down from their pot all the way to the counter below, I made up my mind not to trim them back but to let it grow wild until it decided otherwise. I soon began to put up hooks that I could wind its vines twice, sometimes three times, around. You could note good times and bad by tracing the groupings of leaves along these vines.

I'm sorry dear plant, I had to trim you back so that you wouldn't be damaged in the move. Your new style looks great. And if you convince me, we can start all over again.

and then there was one

When I first went to college, my mother gave me an umbrella with a head of a duck as the handle. (This gives you an idea of how little she notices what I like.) It was a good umbrella with a quick open button and a pretty large canopy, but I completely detested the duck head. Still, I absolutely refused to spend any money on something as silly as an umbrella. So, I walked around with my hand covering the duckiest part of it. I momentarily considered sawing off the beak of the duck so you couldn't tell what it was, but this seemed rather morbid, so I didn't.

A number of years later I finally decided to buy myself another umbrella for going-out purposes where I couldn't bare to show the duck head for any moment. But because of my persistent stubbornness not to spend money on umbrellas, I bought the cheapest one I could find—one of those that folds up really small but as a result has flimsy linkages. Not surprisingly, it lasted only but a little while before it got testy; it seemed to work fine during a little drizzle, but on those moments when you really need it and the dark clouds overhead start letting loose, it just refused to open.

My next umbrella was a long, pointy umbrella that you use for more for style than for practicality. I bought it to match my swimsuit. I realize this is a difficult concept to explain. Suffice to say that John and I had a lot of crazy ideas for our early dates. Due to some pleasant distractions, I haven’t yet taken it to the beach.

Umbrella number four was bought as a replacement for the duck umbrella after I left it in a friend’s car. A few weeks ago I saw the duck’s eyes peering out of her husband elect’s* back pocket. (Don’t worry Ross, I think it’s much happier with you.) Number four was probably my favorite: tan in color with a quick release and a sturdy canopy; all around a beautiful umbrella. So naturally this is the one I chose to bring on a trip earlier this year, fearing a forecast that called for constant rain. A DC coworker of mine kidded that it seemed a little funny to carry an umbrella when the sky was completely blue and cloud free. Feeling rather silly, I left the umbrella in my hotel room. Not twenty minutes later black clouds appeared out of nowhere and brought a torrential downpour down upon me. Ducking into an icecream parlor, I contemplated how in the hell I was going to get out of this without facing complete wet misery. At that exact moment, a short squat man walked past the parlor window pushing a cart full of umbrellas: five dollars, five dollars. Enter umbrella number five.

Belgium ate number five and six (left by a crazy ex-roommate). C'est assez, Belgique? That made the count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

I am now gazing in the direction of a corner of a coffee shop (which is every coffee shop in every city) where umbrella number four used to be resting. It seems to have disappeared after I relocated to another corner of the coffee shop. I hope someone is happily weathering the rain with their new found tan, wonderful umbrella. I am very sad, left with only one lonely umbrella number three. I guess it’s time to hit the beach.

* she hates the word fiance and so is now bringing this term into fashion

you've got the stuff?

I'm always happy to get letters in the mail, but you can imagine my surprise yesterday when I received this note from an Erin Marra, a name I had never heard before.


What does one do in this situation? Go through the various #7034 gym lockers in town to see what might be waiting there? Send a note back to Vestal, New York? I started to think this was an intricate scam, where I would find the appropriate locker and it would be full of drugs or money, and perhaps even the police waiting to nab anyone who opens it.

Then I remembered that I was expecting a key from my friend Erin (not with the last name Marra, not living in Vestal, and not for a gym locker) and that this was all an elaborate scheme to prevent potential mail stealers from finding the key to her apartment with the address attached.

I know you're trying to be tricky Erin, but this might have been a little much.
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more drama at work, less at home

When I first met you, I thought: you have to live close to me so my children can know you, even though I wasn't planning on having children.

Today I marked on Google Earth where we all fought on a dark street in Manhattan; where you hung your head outside the cab just to feel the air blowing across your face, just to feel something different; where we spoke on the train. The earth still spins, the sun still shines, and corn and pumpkins still grow at 22nd and 3rd; all is right, all is good.

Sometimes it takes great conflict to bring people closer together.

Happy birthday, Brian.

May your Brooklyn garden always treat you well.

Trapezery

Back from New York for a crazy weekend of karaoke, long island beaches, and of course a trapeze class:




























we did leg hangs, catches-return, and backflip dismounts.
used muscles i didn't even know i had.

see Brian pull it off perfectly here.

Oh, the things we do

It's funny when you get a garbled voicemail that says "your cute" and neither you nor your partner can tell who it's from.

It's even funnier when your partner realizes he left it the night before and forgot all about it.

Dream log

Last night I dreamed that all of our clean water needed to be made by electricity. The lights went out and so we had to collect the trickle of rain falling down our orange roofs. It filled up a clear glass with an eerie glow of green muck. We watched as the gooey sediment fell to the bottom, and I waited for someone else to try the first drink.

Mama Tessa

It's funny when you start talking about a deceased, fictional character like she was a close friend of yours.

....

J: I don't see a need for you to understand everything about me. Tessa was plenty mysterious.

....

K: You know, Tessa would copy articles down to memorize them; maybe that would work for you.

....

I finished the Constant Gardener over a month ago, but she just keeps coming up in conversation.

a change begins

I am moving to Dearborn this fall. I might. I'm pretty sure. It's definitely going to happen.

John owns a wonderful house in Dearborn that just refuses to let us go. It turns out that Dearborn might just be the worst place to own a house right now. Especially if you want to sell it. See more on the crappy real estate market in Michigan, and the curse of the St. Joseph statues. But since we've been trying to live together (in one place, without commuting back and forth, owning two of everything, and driving ourselves crazy) for over a year now, I've decided that it's time to take action and move to Dearborn until the house sell.

So the plan for moving to Dearborn is to commute together into the Ypsilanti-Ann Arbor area. Which really means that I drop John off at work, get to my lonely parking lot on UM's north campus, work a ton since there's nothing much else to do up there, pick John up from work, and drive back home. The plan was to run this routine for the last couple of days since we had to be in Dearborn anyway for house showings and bridal showers. This should be easy, right? No big deal.

Then chaos ensues. The first day, I realized that I had forgotten to pack for three days instead of two and had to return to my Ann Arbor apartment to pick up more clothes. The second day I missed a turn off the freeway and decided to take a detour back home to pick up wrapping paper for the bridal gift. We then realized that the bridal gift is sitting very comfortably in a closet in Dearborn instead of in the car in Ann Arbor where we need it.

This may get some getting used to.

ever constant watcher

.
my love likes to sleep with his eyes open,


and he wonders why bright lights keep him up.
.

little demons

i have decided that i really hate grapenuts. i hate grapenuts. i don't know why i keep trying.

Goddess of the morning red

Ever seen the northern lights?













I grew up in the U.P. I usually saw the northern lights at least twice a year (for hours on end, sometimes weeks) during my entire childhood. They take many shapes: sometimes very pale, ghost-like creatures dancing on top of the stratosphere; sometimes giant, living paint streaks of blue, purple, and red. It's really easy to imagine that some sentient being is trying to communicate with the flashes.

I actually thought that anyone who lived anywhere remotely cold in the northern hemisphere could see the northern lights. It was like our gift for putting up with the bad weather. And I still don't understand why there aren't any southern lights from where the electrons leave their pole.


post script: there are in fact southern lights (aurora australis)! I wonder if you can see them from New Zealand. There are also aurora on Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

contagious engagement

Last weekend I attended a bridal shower for John's sister, Juli. This marks the beginning of at least five wedding—and all the showers and bachelor(ette) parties that go with them—we will be a part of this year.

This was my first bridal shower, to the horror of many 30+ year old women in pink dresses who would then look down motherly at me: "you'd better get used to it". John came with me to say hello to everyone and then retire with the men and small girls to lunch at an Irish pub. I jokingly expressed my wish that they would sing some good Irish drinking songs to John's step-father, who responded with an honest look, "I know you'd rather be coming with the guys".

Luckily Juli is an amazing person, and although she put on a good show in a sun dress for the occasion, I knew she also felt out of place. You have to understand, this is the woman whose gift registry list is full of power tools. I had to laugh when I saw "nail and file set from sears" on there when I realized she was talking about hardware. And although I had to put up with everyone taunting her about breaking the gift ribbons and guessing how soon it would be until she had children, it was all worth it to see the look on her face when she opened her new table saw, saber saw (with laser guide), and a half a dozen combination squares.

Happy pre-wedding bliss, Juli!