56/90... so 90/90 = 90/100

Ok, it's time to acknowledge a small non-failure.

My increased blogging was began as a challenge from a professor. We were to post 90 blogs in 90 days.

There have been weekends without Internet access, and I thought about scrambling tonight to put together posts I've been building for a while now. I thought about blowing of my French homework yet again and catching up on blogging, the only thing I'm really caring about lately.

So, I decided against it. I decided that I'll accept publishing 90 posts in more like 100 days. 90 posts that are true to my writing. 90 posts that show more of who I am than I thought I'd dig into in this blog–so I guess that was the whole point anyway, right?

There was a time in second grade, a day in early autumn weather when I sat down with crayons and the computer paper that comes attached in rings. I wrote a story about a ghost going trick-or-treating. I showed it to my parents and my teacher. As all good parents and teacher should, they encouraged me to get it published. They were astounded by my natural talents. I was encouraged to read more, to keep plugging away.

My parents show the same enthusiasm with my writing today as they did with that first story, written in crayon on those blue-and-white likes we're already forgetting. Now, my network of support is building and thanks to this long series of blogs that truly has become a habit, my desire to write is stronger than ever.

So, there may not be 90 true posts in 90 days, but now I know that that 90th post is not the end of anything. I've been reminded. I've been forced into the habit and allowed to forget what it feels like to go for a day without "a pen in hand," though many days there is no pen and only a keyboard.

The habit has gotten so strong that on those weekends without Internet (or my journal, forgotten in my backpack in Muncie) feel itchy, empty in some way– a bit idle and dangerous.

So. Here we go.

An' here I go again on my own / Goin' down the only road I've ever known...

You said it, Whitesnake. The writing is the only road I've ever known, the only one that's always been there, always been essential. Now, I have it every day instead of only those special days, like the ones in autumn where the air feels ripe with story. There's a story in every day–not always a ghost, not always a true narrative arch, but it's in those moments, the details like that forgotten computer paper, that bring it all together.

55/90, from Saturday

I left the SLU symposium early on Saturday. I presented my paper, ate my free lunch and talked to a girl about the difficulties of teaching yourself French on the side while earning two other degrees and speaking three languages. The conversation was a bit-one sided. I sat next to the girl, sipped my diet Coke, faked a phone call and sprinted to the parking garage.

I needed to catch up on some homework. I stopped in at the bookstore, where Joe was spending the day earning some money for our France fund. He was busy; the store was buzzing. I decided to head down the street in search of a place to spend my afternoon.

I settled into a near-empty restaurant. It was 2:30– after the lunch crowd and hours before dinner. Perfect. I ordered a glass of wine, got out my school books and set to work.

"Are you sure you don't want any food?"

"We have a great lunch menu.'

"Are you sure you're doing alright?"

"Still holding out?"

The questions came at five minute intervals. I forget sometimes that, outside of less corporate cafés, it's not quite socially acceptable to take yourself on a wine date, all alone in a city. Nor is it acceptable to take up a table in a restaurant for hours on end with a glass of wine. I was trying hard to put myself back in France. My waitress was trying to earn tips.

I could understand if I were making a wealthy family of four wait for the table. There was no one. On a flyover question bomb dropping, I stopped the waitress. I explained that no, the wine was sufficient. That I really just wanted the table and the quiet. That I had time to kill, had paid for the wine and now just wanted to read for a bit.

Then two boys in army surplus jackets came in. They were roughly nine years old. Their glasses fogged when they hit the warm restaurant air. They paced the floor, looking at couples drinking afternoon cocktails. They looked at each patron anxiously. They asked me if food was served here.

I nodded and said, "Ive never had it, but they say the lunch is great." The boys walked up to a waiter, asked for a menu, retreated through the door they'd come in and took turns pouring Doritos into their mouths from a bag they found in one of their coat pockets.

The boys returned several times, looking at the television and then reading some of their hostage menu. I could hear their friends outside, a weekend street band eager for an audience.

I wanted to offer them a seat at my table, to please both the boys and the waitress by ordering french fries and Cokes and some messy, cheesy appetizer. I thought better of it, thinking of their friends outside and considering that I was holding my copy of Lolita.

 When I left the restaurant, the boys were still... "playing" their instruments. I dug in my pockets, around gum wrappers and gas station receipts, looking for change. $1.43. I dropped it into the open guitar case.

The boys stopped, thanked me and said, "You're that lady from the restaurant." I nodded, thanked them for their music and turned. Their guardian was seated on the opposite side of the sidewalk, on a concrete structure for flowers or bike locks or some other street decoration. He said thank you, and through the spiderweb tattoo that criss-crossed his cheeks and forehead, he offered a kind smile.

54/90, hot sauce

I'm not quite sure when hot sauce made it onto every table in America. This is not a condiment I remember from my childhood.

There was a time, approximately eighth grade (roughly 2001), when my friends became fascinated with 25 cent wing nights. I didn't go with them, wasn't allowed to go with a group of minors to a place that was part-sports bar. I didn't even really understand what "B Dubs" was until about my junior year.

I'm sitting in a French-inspired bistro, eating a homemade English muffin, debating whether or not to put hot sauce on my eggs. I realize that in my home, this was never a question. We didn't have hot sauce. We didn't eat spicy food, really, outside of my Mexican dinner requests.

I thought this was the norm. Hot sauce was a Tex-Mex thing. It was a sports bar thing, but a small thing. A thing easily forgotten when a waitress offered you ketchup instead. I didn't know that it was on par with Ranch dressing, the condiment of choice for 50 percent of Americans.

Now I'm confused by this. What did Buffalo Wild Wings do to get this wing craze going? Was there a hole in my childhood that just allowed me to miss the hot sauce on tables for so many years? Where was I when this was happening?

I never expected to be a hot-sauce-egg person. I never expected to move beyond hatred for the sticky bottle with its peeling label that has now made its way to every restaurant table. So this morning, when I thought about shaking this runny, red sauce onto my perfectly scrambled eggs, I resisted. Like so many things, I pushed the popular thing away and refused to eat my eggs like so many others. Not until I understand how it got onto my table without my noticing.

53/90, good morning, person

I woke this morning at 6 a.m. like I always (always) do. I hit my snooze button, thought for a minute and slept for four. I woke up to my alarm at 6:05. I got up at 6:07.

I walked downstairs, fixed a toiled that was completely clogged with Charmin, washed my face, made my pancakes and tried to wake my mind up.

You're not supposed to eat first thing in the morning. But I can't think and I can't bend my knees, let alone do yoga, so what else am I supposed to do?

You're not supposed to have coffee first thing in the morning. I'm trying to abide by this one, so I turn the kettle on.

I walk back upstairs to my room, mug burning one hand and the other hand precariously carrying a plate with a fork balancing on it. The water from the mug is turning red as it steeps, each step sloshing it a bit and adding another surge of color. The sloshing only jumps from the mug and burns my toes once. An improvement.

And then productivity stops. I'd brought my laptop to my bed, ready to finish the next paper I've been working on. I sit with pancakes and book in front of me. When I take my last bite of pancakes, at what's not 6:34, I realize that I've spent the entire time I was eating them just staring at my bookcase.

I believe that it's time to make some coffee. It's time to do yoga on a full stomach, leave the paper and figure out how I'll explain its being late to my professor.

I already know this isn't true. I'll do my paper, print it in my roommate's room, change my clothes five times, pack for St. Louis and decide which class to skip for the day.

52/90, our endless numbered days

Title taken from Iron & Wine

I never underestimate the power of Early to Bed, Early to Rise. I set my alarm for 6:05 a.m. and do not allow myself to snooze. My feet slide off of my bed and into my slippers. I drink red tea at my desk while I read the newspaper.

I drink a glass of wine and become drowsy, curling against my fiancé’s chest as he watches late-night television. He wakes me when it is time to brush our teeth and put in my retainer. I twirl my hair back into a bun and moisturize my face. I pull my quilt up to my chin.

This routine brings great comfort to me, as it only occurs one weekend a month. Our long-distance relationship has me eager to be older—old. Not tea-cozy-and-blue-rinse old. Comfortable old. Joe will have a permanent indent on his left pectoral, from my head resting there. We will no longer have a twin mattress. The full mattress will be carved into our S-shape, a soothing worry stone.

On four years, I was a barista on weekends. Those mornings are filled with family tradition. At 7:30, I dip toasted wheat bread with butter into cinnamon-sugar. Two pieces are too much for the retired couple, and they share. I imagine myself taking the two small triangles when Joe is not looking. I would scrape much of the sugar off onto his slice and dip the corners into coffee. At 10:00, two children and their parents come in. The parents slip arms around each other and ask us to warm their muffins. The mother cups her son’s face in her hands. He is not embarrassed; he uses it as an opportunity to ask for a mocha. She whispers to me that it needs to be decaf.

I imagine spending Sundays after mass with a dog attached to the fence outside and a boy with a one-syllable nickname and glasses bouncing between the dog and his coloring book and the book we are reading to him—Hans Brinker or How to Eat Fried Worms. We would look back at the pictures and say that we tired of reading that same book; we would call his glasses “spectacles.”

We haven’t discussed all of these things yet—which books will be gender-neutral enough or promote certain roles, how to answer when he asks why Dad doesn’t go to mass. We have discussed names, giving the countdown of days between visits a purpose.

I would find myself drifting into these fantasies instead of buttering the toast. The families ask if they can pay or have a seat. I apologize and hand them the toast, which slips to the left and to the right on the saucer. There eyes widen as they watch, then they glance at me with a worried expression. I imagine my expression to be sparkly and happy and day-dreamy. In reality, it must seem like the apathy that they say permeates our generation.      

I smile at whatever they think, knowing that when I am that age, I will recognize this look on a young girl’s face. I will squeeze Joe’s hand and move his arm around my waist.

51/90, eat the cake. eat iiiiiit.

I ate a piece of cake at work yesterday.

Then, I went back and gathered all of the crumbs and globs of icing on the tray and ate those, too. And hand another glass of iced tea.

While home for Spring Break, my mom bought me a piece of chocolate. It was raspberry cream. She also baked cookies, and I repeatedly dipped my fingers into the batter to steal several white chocolate chips at a time. Then we went grocery shopping together. While walking around the store, I grabbed a jumbo ag of trail mix, the kind with M&Ms. I walked around the store eating one peanut, then one M&M.

For the past, I don't know, several weeks, I had made banana-peanut butter pancakes with carob chips for breakfast. They're healthy, so I'm not really counting these.

This may not seem like a big deal.

It was a big deal. Walking up and down that row of chocolates, deciding if I really wanted the raspberry cream–if I could afford those calories and that sugar–is a conversation I've had before every dessert since I felt fat in middle school.


But when I picked up that raspberry chocolate, that cake server, that bag of Reese's cups I started eating in the line at Target this week, I said what I've found myself saying a lot more lately.

Fuck it.

No, I have not been able to get myself back into my fitness regimen. No, I have not even done yoga more than twice a week for over a month.

No, I have not been eating the kind of meals that I like to make–with solid, organic ingredients, a bit of time and a chair to sit in and eat it.

No, I have not refused any sort of free food that has been offered to me since the semester started. No matter how processed, how loaded with sodium or sugar, how not hungry I am.

Because I've realized that this is my body. I am living in it, and I'm going to love it. I am not Swedish. I am not a model. I am not paid to have a flat stomach or a tiny size. I am not forced to stand on a scale ever.

I am German-Irish. I am short, but not quite petite. I am a woman. For the past three years, I've been longing for the 105-pound frame I had in high school. Then, when I saw my sister and realized that she had reached that true teenage-frame, that she looked so much like me and that she was still a kid, things got put in perspective.

My hips have settled. They've widened themselves past my waist, curving out to prepare for, well, life really. The obvious purposes and the less obvious–the work that we do each day. This body was more built for manual labor, for bratwurst-eating and heavy beer. So why not enjoy it?

Maybe I've read to much Lady Chatterly's Lover lately. But instead of wishing for the boyish frame that changed fashion and expectations in the 1920s, when your beads had to hang flat against your chest, I'm starting to look at my curve for what they are. I'm starting to look at that bit of stomach that hangs over the top of jeans and notice that everyone else has it, too. So maybe the body isn't the problem. Maybe the jeans are too low or too tight or cut too off for your body.

Maybe I look just exactly as I'm supposed to. This isn't what Hollywood says. According to them, my height looks like Selma Blair or Christina Ricci or Eva Longoria.

Natalie Wood was 5'3". Ok, I'm not saying I'm a Natalie Wood, but at least there's hope. At least there was a moment when the small height wasn't limited to the width of their bones.

So for now, when I have stressed about everything else, I'll let this one go. I may never be truly satisfied with the softness of my stomach, my little pooch of a belly. But for now, no piece of cake or handful of M&Ms will kill it.

For now, I can say it will only get better. The air will get warmer, and I'll be out more. I'll be home, doing Tae Bo with my sister, riding my bike across town for whatever job I manage to find. My energy will be back. Life will be pumping through these veins again, in a whole new way.

50/90, preparation

I'm preparing myself for tongue-biting. I'm preparing myself to walk into an office run by religious conservatives, following a large step in the right direction toward health care reform.

Please, explain to me how one can follow the ideas of Christianity so openly, point to God so consistently, but miss the message that guides not only Christianity, but religions around the world.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. Matthew 22:36-40

If your religion is what guides this country, and not the freedom of religion, then how can we not turn to this example Jesus established? How can we not consider how our actions affect our neighbors–our fellow countrymen?

How can we continue this overly individualistic approach that not only costs us more money, but forces the have-nots to lose hope and continue living in near destitution and dependent on the government? How can we say that this follows any Christian principle, when Jesus reached out to tax collectors, lepers, prostitutes and showed them as equal?

How, then, can we allow or reform to set back women's rights? How can we allow this policy that goes against the core of Roe vs. Wade and the choice it gave to women? How can we give so much weight to one side of this argument?

While the Stupak's success does not limit a "women's right to choose" (society does that well enough on its own), it does allow the government to reinforce the idea that the woman is making the wrong decision, not matter the circumstances. I am not asking for the government to pay for a woman's decision. If I can't get them to pay for my birth control, I'm not holding my breath. I'm not even asking Congress, which is 83 percent male, to understand what that decision means.

I am just asking them not to limit my rights and further the social construct that removes the ability to make a decision and instead reinforces a social construct by saying the government will not recognize your decision–which, in case Congress didn't realize this, they had already made nearly impossible anyway.

It did not take a government action to prevent the nation from suddenly killing millions of children. Stupak knew this. It takes a government action to continue tying the actions of the state to the principles of a conservative, Christian religion. Now, isn't this odd for a political group that views any integration of church and state or anything in any way removed from American individualism as Marxism, communism, fascism and socialism–all at the same time?

But I will bite my tongue. I will hold my breath and let my cheeks flush until I walk out of the office doors, and then I will cry, complain to Joe and be reminded why I am afraid to have children.

49/90, wedding march

The sheet music for our wedding arrived  yesterday. Read a bit about it here.

48/90, attack

I noticed it coming on slowly. My phone was ringing less and less. I could easily get by with checking my facebook once every three days. I could reduce my cell phone bill by lowering my allotted text messages each month; I no longer reach the limit.

I'm not sure when it happened, but plans with my friends have gone from being a few hours of stress relief to a two-hour panic attack.

Today, making breakfast for a friend who was in town for the weekend, I had trouble forming sentences and keeping the words he spoke from floating away from my ears and out the window before I could process them. I excused myself and took a shower, hoping it would clear my head. It didn't.

I locked myself in my room to "knock some things out" before lunch with a friend. I moved lunch to dinner. I asked if she'd rather just order a pizza. I thought the extra few hours would clear my head. They didn't.

My friend arrived, bearing an enormous dinner salad, loaf of banana bread still warm from the oven and Dude, a Brittany spaniel with a melodramatic flop to his ears. This cleared my head a bit, as we talked about books we're reading and feminist fights we're having with women who have everything given to them and therefore don't understand what the real world is like.

I calmed down a second, while I drained the glass of Reisling. Before the sweet on the wine glass had dried, my chest was contracting. I was itching to return to my computer. She understood. We planned a homework party. I thanked her for forgiving me, and I knew that she understood. (We have a system–make plans, break them, make plans, change them, get to stressed, move them, see each other for a few hours a month. We're working on correcting it, which is hard to do when I can't seem to get her to move to France with me. I'm still trying.)

Locking myself back into my room, I know these hours aren't helping. I'm not really progressing, because I never let myself get ahead. A friend said today that people need more hobbies. They need something to do in their time, a fun thing to just do to remember that we're living our own lives. I realized that my hobby is finding the next assignment and "knocking it out."

Maybe, instead of knocking these assignments out of the ballpark, I need to take myself off of the line-up for a while. Slack off on school. Make sure I pass and let the rest slide off my back. Why doesn't this sound relaxing, reassuring or more flexible?

My fingers hurt as I type. I've run out of comfortable ways to hold my neck or arms or spine to sit in front of this laptop and keep myself going. There are 22 minutes of battery life left and I'm feeling the same red emergency reserve firing up in my own battery. It's that usual time of night–when I realize that I'm not a night owl. I won't stay up until 2 a.m. to finish things up and sleep in until 9 a.m. I won't even sleep until 7 a.m. without a start and a jump from the bed–I've missed something.

My eyes are hurting, pulling in and then unfocusing, leaving a bit of my brain feeling floaty and unattached. It's been happening this way throughout the week: my eyes suddenly letting go and giving me a slight motion sickness as I look at the projection screens in class. I keep telling myself I need my eyes checked. I need to close them more. I need to stop typing more.

Then I remember those rectangular purple frames that I tried on and how angular my chin seemed, how arched and high my cheekbones felt, how much more literary I seemed to myself. Perhaps this is why my eyes seem swimmy. They're telling me to go ahead–to fudge the test and get the frames and be convinced that I needed them, that I'm grounded and focused now.

I still can't be sure, so for now I'll shut my eyes, breathe and dream about yoga instead of actually doing it. At least the mat's out and ready to go for a fresh, more inspired Sunday.

47/90, things one needs to know

The first of a few post about that bizarre weekend in Venice. Please forgive me. 

I've finished Hemingway's A Moveable Feast and have been reflecting.

There are things they never tell you about Venice.

They never mention the high cost of the water boat, the only means of transportation. Or if they do, they don't tell you that if you're wearing sunglasses and not smiling–looking like you belong–you can slip onto the boat. They never tell you that in the hundreds of trips the ferrymen make each day, they forget to check your boat pass.

They never mention the rain. Not really. Not its temperament, not its finickiness, not how much it adds to the labyrinth of side streets that make the city's main island. They never tell you that if it is raining before noon, Piazza San Marco is empty. You can hide in a museum, look out the window and feel abandoned, post-apocalyptic. There are no chairs out, not even pigeons in the early rain, and certainly no merchants.

They never tell you that you need to be, even if only the slightest bit, selective in your choice of Italian restaurants. I'm not saying just restaurants in Italy. I'm saying restaurants in Italy serving Italian cuisine.


Jon, my good friend and traveling partner that summer, and I had shared a bottle of crisp white wine in the lobby of our hostel while listening to a girl try to seduce three European men. She was American. Her parents had money. She talked like a Valley. We felt justified and superior, almost sophisticated and European, as we listened in an judged her, drinking our warmth straight from the bottle to save a euro on disposable wine glasses.

We'd spent the morning in the Piazza, in the rain that left the city gray and sinking. At this point in my time abroad, my umbrella that I'd been so proud to buy and carry hooked in my arm had already been stolen. I had huddled next to Jon through the streets, the puddles filling my yellow flats and turning me brown from the knee down. My bangs hung limp across my left eye. My bones ached. I was sure I would never be warm.

I had forgotten these things by the time we finished the bottle. It was late. Still early by European dinner hours, but we were hungry and wanted to cross from our hostel's island back to the Piazza's island before the sunset. We headed out of the hostel and walked along the water's edge (not so much for dramatic effect as there is no way not to walk along the water's edge in Venice) until we found a small, family-owned Italian restaurant with low lights and red-and-white checkered tableclothes.

The sister approached our table and asked what we would like to drink. She spoke English to us. We ordered tortellini (Jon) and grilled vegetables (myself). She turned and shouted the order to her brother in–this sounds terrible–an Asian language. I wish I could say that they were Chinese or Korean or, well, any nationality rather than the horribly vague Asian.

Even if I understood the continent better, I'm not sure if I would have been able to concentrate and figure it out in that moment. An Asian family-owned Italian restaurant in the heart of Italy. I was startled. I was more startled when my vegetables were placed on a grill similar to the George Foreman. I was most surprised when Jon's tortelinni was placed in a bowl of water and microwaved, then tossed into another bowl of sauce.

This is not to say the food wasn't delicious. We ate slowly, sipping water to calm our blood that was not only warm now, but a bit flushed with Chardonnay. We ate in a comfortable silence, reminding  
ourselves where we were, while the music from the half-euro slot machines filled the restaurant and floated out the open door where it blurred with the lapping waters of a moving tide.

We sloshed back out to the ferry under an orange sky and headed back to the Piazza, one of so many pigeons on the ferry cooing about the romance of it all.

46/90, breaking them in

I bought the gray flats on whim while grocery shopping with my mom. She said that they look like grandma shoes, and I realized how much of my college wardrobe fits that description... partially because they were once owned by a grandparent (my own or someone else's).

My justification was that they were $5. I had budgeted for myself $40 to buy a sensible pair of flats that would make it through the summer and three seasons of next year, walking my bum around France. I knew they needed to be sturdy and provide support. I found a pair for $25, which by rights meant that I had $15 left in the shoe budget. Into the cart the grandma flats went.

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I work in an office for two hours, go sit in the lounge for 1.5 hours and return for another two hours of work. Not a lot of walking, especially when I ride my bike to work. This made Wednesday a perfect day to break in my flats. Genius.

When I got to the office on Wednesday, a stack of manila envelopes was waiting on my desk. My boss was almost embarrassed to ask. "Could you run these around campus?"

It was the first day I'd been able to ride my bike to work all semester. The sun was out. I was in a dress. My sunglasses were clean and still propped on my nose. Of course I could take an hour to walk around campus and not type scholarship applications.

I set off toward the opposite end of campus, and by the time I reached my first destination my heel was starting to moan. For the softness and floppiness of these shoes, the breaking-in process was being a bit ridiculous.

Walking between offices and buildings, I practiced strategies that kept the shoe from touching my heel without making my look like I was born on the side of a hill.* I didn't slow my pace. I settled into a flat walk, a bit of a stop, so that the whole foot was lifted and lowered at once, preventing the heel-to-toe roll that was skidding the shoe's lining across my heel.

On my walk back to the office, I decided to ask for a bandage, to cover the heel before it got worse. In middle school, I was notoriously bad for blisters. Mom would tell me it was a bad idea, but I would wear the new sandals to the fair anyway, and come home with the scabs and bloody toes to prove it.

I walked in, asked for the keys to the cabinet that holds the bandages and looked at my foot for the first time. The back of my foot was missing. Somewhere walking down the main street of campus, my shoe had eaten my heel, leaving a bloody, mangled carcass where my carefully moisturized and home-pedicured left foot had been.

The inside of the gray, "suede" shoe was lined with a deep crimson. I tried to chip off the dried blood, but left it when the chips started turning my fingernails red. I grabbed an alcohol wipe, bit down on the inside of my lower lip to keep myself from making any noises and set to work cleaning my foot.

I walked the rest of the day without any real problem. I still used the flat, dropping of the foot approach to keep the bandage in tact, and by the time I got home and hopped in the shower I'd forgotten about it.

The shower, however, was quick to remind me. I was glad no one was home to hear the, "Oh. Ow," or "Oh. Eew," each time a stream of water trickled down my leg and into the open wound (as the water had washed the bandage off and onto the shower floor).

What a perfect introduction to a small, early reminder...

Join Toms Shoes for One Day Without Shoes, an opportunity to spread the word and cover the feet of children around the world.

*my favorite Katherine Hepburn ad-lib, from Bringing Up Baby

45/90: Baby bunny

I realized today that I'm leaving my rabbit soon to go to France. I blogged about it on la francofile

44/90, saving a few minutes

Our professor advised us to get to class right on time, because our exam, spanning the whole text, would take the entire class. He said he would stay after if we needed it.

I wasn't sure what to do when I finished in 20 minutes. There was a question on each page, and I'd left an entire page blank, which felt like it alone could fail me. I took some time to label my answers: a check for each sure answer, a ~ for each I felt okay about and nothing for the blank page. Four checks and six ~.

It wasn't that I didn't try, and I analyzed what it would mean to my classmates to turn it in early, then analyzed what the professor would think and how his thoughts would change when he graded it. I turned it in and chose not to think about it.

Now, I'm home. I arrived 45 minutes earlier than expected and gave the time to myself. While I ate a pita and hummus, I watched a video of seven English school kids hanging out, putting mints in their mouths until they threw up. I drank a glass of water and checked my e-mail. I decided to blog.

Today, I didn't ace an exam. I didn't do a complete yoga session this morning, only my morning warm up. I didn't work on research papers or a group project.

I did turn my thesis in at the Honors College, changing an incomplete to a CREDIT, a "you can't graduate" to a "you're an alumnus."

I did buy my cap and gown and learn that I could recycle them immediately following the ceremony. I spent $20 less on this than anticipated, which is good because

I did buy the sheet music we needed for the wedding, from the only American location I could find. The total was a bit painful, but we're saving on everything else... right?

I did eat a cupcake (well, the icing) and two cookies at work. I did decide that I would wait until after I graduate to stress about fitting into my wedding dress, and for now I'll take the free food I can get.

43/90, a hot mess

I have run out of time for writing. It gets backed up, like some verbal constipation, to the point where I miss the feeling of the pen's edge digging into my finger next to the cuticle or the smear of ink that forms on my left pinky–the mark of a southpaw.

I get anxious. I lock myself in my room, dig into assignments to get ahead or catch up and find myself waking up with a line of drool on my book at 11 p.m, when my roommates are just getting started.

Two years ago, a mentor was overly busy. I apologized for adding to her to-do list.  She responded simply. "We're all busy." It can't be helped. She didn't mean it as advice or as a caution; she just knew that her list of stresses mirrored mine and didn't need listed.

This hit me. I'd been using the people close to me to rattle off the things I needed done. I was disgusted with the fact that I had overbooked myself, then complained about it without looking at what that person did each day. I decided to stop listing my life to people.


People come to me, they always have, and explain their stresses, their busy schedules. I want to complain, to shout that I understand because I'm there too. I contain myself, try to mention my stresses only when they seem asked for, as a sort of commiseration or shared insanity.

That is not to say that my mother and fiancé don't still get the panic-stricken phone calls, when I feel the day's hourglass shifts its sand only to fall and shatter on the floor. That is not to say that at night, I don't break down and give Joe the litany of things I didn't do for the day.

That is not to say that I don't, at fewer and fewer times, commiserate and complain about not writing and not doing yoga. But there is a bit in this that I can't stand, and that is the response that feels so obligatory, so essential.

Just make time for yourself. Give yourself an hour a day.

Yes. I agree. That would be lovely, and I do look at students as close to I am to graduation that manage to go on cruises or to Mexico (crazy asses) for a week instead of going home to plan and re-write papers. I look and them and think, "How do they do it? When do they do school?"

I can't. I don't have time to give myself. The time I give myself is sleep, which if you've known my for more than two years (when my schedule used to be sleeping from 3 a.m. to 5:30 a.m.), you know that this was a big step. Now, there simply isn't anything else.

So there is no use complaining. There is no hour to sneak away–not if I want to graduate. There is no project to put off. I have been organizing a post for over a week. A post that talks about the horrible body image that comes from not giving myself 40 minutes a day for yoga or cardio, from not having time to make meals and eating trail mix or peanut butter for lunch each day.

I haven't had time to finish it, and in the fifteen minutes a day I get to blog, assuming the house is empty and my rabbit isn't chewing through a wire, I don't feel it anymore. I don't feel confident in the sentiment of the piece... that it will all be okay this summer, when I only have a job and wedding planning and personal reading and an essay to write. That I'll get back on track, maybe lose a few pounds, maybe get my yoga-tea-regime energy back.

For now, I have to accept that this is the big "Deep breath, now push," moment before I birth this diploma. I have to turn in my thesis today. I have to order my cap and gown today. I have to accept these things and the sacrifice of my yoga time, because there is no time.

I'm not asking for more, but I'm trying to accept that this is all I have. So when people tell me that they're behind or overwhelmed or over-class-worked or over school in general, I'm not sure what to say, because I know that they can't "make time for themselves" either.

I'm not sure where this post went. It was not a complaint, and it wasn't an acceptance either. I suppose it was just an attempt to explain that I am tired of ending my conversations with my fiancé in the same way–"Soon, it will be different." Because I'm wondering if it will be. I'm wondering when it will slow down, what I can fake or half-ass or break off with to make graduation not just be a time to start something else that blocks me out of my life.

There. 15 minutes of writing for the day. Still no pen in my hand, no thoughts on the paper, but we've moved somewhere.

42/90

She didn't say much, but I knew it was killing her. Between the sniffling, the chewing, the stirring and the pacing, I wouldn't have sat quietly like she did. I wouldn't have managed to channel all of my frustration into a subtle sideways glance when I lifted fork to mouth.

Between the guacamole, onions, vegetarian "chik'n" and medium salsa, I know the salad had to smell. I know that it kept smelling each time I stirred it. Or  at least, I'm assuming. Like I said, I'm congested.

I spent a week at home in Ohio, sleeping in a bedroom normally shared with a guinea pig.

I am allergic to guinea pigs. My time home is spent in a tingling fuzz of allergy medicine cocktails. My first few days back in Muncie are a recovery period of sniffles, horrendous snoring and breathing through my mouth. This makes it hard to chew a salad with my mouth closed, without choking or sneezing lettuce.

When I packed my lunch this morning, a salad of leftover taco ingredients, I didn't consider who would be sitting next to me when I ate it in the library basement. I didn't notice the smell, because for ten days I have smelled nothing but the insides of my nostrils. The thought didn't cross my mind until I opened the plastic container, dumped my mashed avocados onto my salsa-coated, chopped up chik'n nuggets and began stirring the mess into my lettuce.

I could insult the size of the girl sitting next to me, or insult her purple sun dress that surrounded her chair. It would make me feel better for annoying her. I will instead insult her by including this small reference and leaving the rest to the imagination.

She watched me stir. Watched me take small bites that still left shredded iceberg lettuce hanging from the sides of my mouth. Watched me choke slightly on a slippery piece of chik'n. Watched me carry the tub of salad to the printer line– a short moment of relief for her– and then come back– a longer moment of quiet desperation. Watched me walk back to the printer again, shout at the printer in the library basement while tomato sticks between my teeth, walk back to my Mac station, click print again, click print again, walk to the printer, print one document, walk back and repeat the process four times.

She never made direct eye contact. Never even huffed or slowed the pace of her stead typing. Never moved her perfectly aligned papers away from my half of our table. Never had a shaking hand when she crossed items off of her to-do list.

I finished my salad, walked to the Card Cat computer, grabbed a hand sanitizing wet nap, cleaned my fork and dropped it into my backpack. When I came back to gather my things and head out for some sunshine, she was gone.

41/90, Can you spell that?

I made an international call from my cell phone this morning.

After dialing and dialing an English cell phone number two weeks ago only to receive a busy signal and then nothing at all, I'd given up. I punched the number into Skype time after time, squeezing my eyes shut and hoping for it to ring. There would be silence. When I opened my eyes, it was always the same message. Not allowed to dial this number.

We were sure that our money was lost, somewhere across the Atlantic Ocean. Then, on Thursday, another e-mail. "I still stand by my word i am an honest and trustworthy person." We will hold the apartment.

My heart was pounding. I was sure "our future tenant," as he still mistakenly calls himself, would never pop up in my inbox again. Now, here he was in the middle of a week dedicated to planning my life. Things were falling into place, and now this. With so many things going right, I was convinced that this too would be okay.


When he first asked for a larger deposit to hold our apartment in France, my stomach dropped. I asked for our funds back, to cancel the deal, to "help them find someone that could more easily pay them." I tried to keep faith.

When he stopped responding, my stomach hardened. I tried to block it out, to pretend it never happened. When the police told my I didn't have proof of fraud, I tried to resign myself and move on.


Then, last night a new cell phone number popped up in my inbox. Call my parents, "our future tenant" suggested. So I did.

I dialed the number in Skype and closed my eyes. Silence. Not allowed to dial this number. I opened my phone and punched the digits, careful to get it exactly right. I remembered the 011 +44.

It was ringing. And then I was talking to a man. And then he was giving me an e-mail. And then the line was breaking up. "Info-full-stop-what?" I'm sorry. The line is fuzzy.

Hello? Can you...? Yes. I hear you, but... Hello? Yes. Info-full-stop...Can you spell that again?


Then we were saying then you. Then we were hanging up. Then I was typing, and now I am waiting.

I am waiting with this renewed excitement and optimism. I know that it may be futile, that this phone number may not match this "info" e-mail and the e-mail could go to some confused e-mail operator. This could all be an extended line of misleading communication. For today, I'll keep checking my e-mail every five minutes and saying, "Well, maybe. We could be okay."

40/90, a weekend to recover

My sister and I decided to come back to Muncie for the weekend of my Spring Break. I made a mental list of all the things I need to finish before I graduate. Then I mentally chewed it up and swallowed it. Then I choked on it slightly, had a panic attack and decided to ignore it all anyway.

I have not done homework since Thursday. I did find out about the details for my wedding invitations. (I then found two type-o's. Embarrassing.) I did hang out with my mom and watch Sabrina. I did eat nearly have a tub of caramel icing.

I thought of coming back to my house to work on things, on the last break before I am supposed to graduate, to spend three days alone in my house. I cried silently for a moment, missed my fiancé, missed the family that was sitting around me and had my mind completely made up.

So, Chloe and I ignored what I should be doing and settled into a weekend of baking, eating and watching Katherine Hepburn movies.

Task #1: Coffee Fudge Crinkles, the first cookie that turned out perfectly in my crap oven. The first few spoonfuls that we rolled in granulated sugar looked like lumps of poop. Then we got smart and rolled them in our hands. The result: perfectly soft, spongy, caffeinated cocoa. We were pretty excited.

So then we watched Bringing Up Baby, decided that we needed a pet lion and Cary Grant to make our life complete, did cucumber facials and pedicures and ate cookies until we fell asleep. Well, we fell asleep after dragging our futon mattress upstairs.

Aaw, look. We're glowing. It may be the facials. It may be the sweat from dragging the mattress up the stairs.

See me in the back? I'm doing dishes, preparing for our leisurely weekend and prepping ingredients for our cornbread breakfast. Chloe slacks off, takes a shower and then "tries to get out of the program." There are several pictures like this.

I need more weekends with her, hiding upstairs and focusing on nothing but family.

39/90

another post on the wedding/France blog

fluff about money and wedding

trying to focus on this money problem and not the French money problem

hoping to focus on the small things like this instead of the research projects coming up

38/90, I want to be loved

I’m watching "Man Men" and reading Lady Chatterly’s Lover. This is not a good combination for someone who’s greatest fear is adultery.

I have a lingering fear, after those disastrous high school relationships we all know, that in the end we make it all fall apart. There's that serial monogamist theory that insists we can be dedicated to that one special person. Until that second special person comes along.

In my mind I see life so quickly. The husband goes into advertising, begins sleeping with his secretary and then the other secretary finds out and I keep wearing my pearl necklace to show that everything is still ok, that I'm still some kind of model.

As Katherine Hepburn says in "A Philadelphia Story,"

I don't want to be worshipped. I want to be loved.

 Understood. I am not being worshiped, but like Hepburn's character Tracy, I don't want to be loved for being a potentially good wife or mother. I don't want to be the safe option. I don't want to be what's needed. I want to know that we're always a madly in love.

I should not be allowed to watch more than one episode of this show at a time. I should not be allowed to consume fiction. I make it a part of my life, give people close to me the habits and tendencies of the uneasy people I read and see.

Now, it's working in reverse. I'm becoming the safe, constant piece of anyone's life. Jesus.

37/90, wedding news

Here's a link to the post on my other blog for today, about wedding plans and a momentary feeling of success.

36/90, an example of living and learning

I’m taking the slow steps to recover my dignity, my faith in people and my fiancé’s money.

I got home to Ohio today, and it was out of my mouth before I’d unpacked my suitcases. The college student with his mother’s apartment was a myth, a virtual person with ­­a virtual apartment that we will never live in.


Joe had been suspicious. I had been immediately trusting. I didn’t catch onto the Western Union money transfer. I didn’t catch onto the yahoo e-mail address. I didn’t catch onto it being too good to be true. I convinced us.

I blame myself. The day after asking for our refund and refusing to send more money was the first day I didn’t receive a response. My stomach sank. My pancakes went cold as I sat with my head on my desk. I had to call him, to explain that I’d just thrown his first poetry prize money to a “scammer”–the word our supposed landlord used when we asked for assurance, when he’d sent us the address and phone number.
He says he doesn’t blame me. But I can’t help but wonder, now, how he’ll look back on his first prize. I fear that I’ve tainted this moment that was so close to getting us ahead, so nearly perfect.

He still has the prize. We still have the budget we’ve been planning. I still have my family ready to help me get going this week, moving us toward the Big Day. We have a new plan, a new approach to getting our apartment.


I’m learning to be patient. Had I not tried to get us ahead, I wouldn’t have gotten us into this. I would have received the e-mail from Nancy first. This was not the case.
The e-mail reminding me to complete my dossier candidature for my visa told me that, in the e-mail with more work-related details, they would send housing advice from current students.

Jill, my creative writing professor, has seen me hesitate in my writing and explaining frequently. Her advice is, without fail, to tell them. Don’t hold any of it back–just tell the story, and you’ll be surprise how well they adjust to the truth.

I was terrified to tell my parents what had happened. My dad had left me a voicemail expressing his suspicion. I knew he’d be disappointed, sorry, frustrated that it’d happened to us. I hated continuing my tradition of bad-news-giving each time I come back to Ohio.

I was terrified to be seen as a child again, when we were working so hard to make decisions as our own, distinct family unit. I made myself feel like a child, ready for punishment that would pass and move quickly past everything.

My parents, however, were quick to remind me that these things happen. That we live and learn; we do what we can do get it back.

I wished they’d been next to me when I walked into legal services and was told they couldn’t help me. I wish I’d had my dad to cry on when a mascara-filled tear slipped onto my cheek in front of the university police’s receptionist.

“Do you have proof of fraud?” she had asked.

“What does that mean?” I replied, swatting the tear away, holding my breath and straightening my spine. She wasn’t sure. I didn’t let myself deflate.

I walked through the glass door with nowhere else to go, but was glad to walk out on my own. I had done it. I had taken those steps, and when my parents asked how things were getting handled so far, I was proud to list the people I’d talked to, the next phase I’d made for myself.

And they trusted me. I’d spent so much time yelling at myself, standing myself in a corner and dreading what others would say, that I forgot how good they are at making me feel better. Their support and the quick transition to happy wedding talk made me feel like the adult I’m learning how to be.

35/90, home

 

When I saw this house on my first walk up the hill (mountain) to the Université de Savoie that summer, I admired the textures, the way each level feels like the earth but manages do get more modern.

On the second day, I fell in love with the door on the side, from which a woman, stooped with age and cigarettes, descended each morning to weed the garden that covered her yard.

On the third day, I decided that functioning wooden shutters are a necessity.

On the fourth day, I was a horrible person. I looked at the woman and used degrees of curve in her back to guess her age. Then, I tried to guess what year should would die. Maybe I used words like "pass away," or "fall asleep for the last time." I don't use those words here; I don't pretend that the sentiment is any less horrible than it sounds.

I painted a life in this house. I determined crop rotations, imagined Joe on a ladder each summer whitewashing the first floor while I walked around caulking and cleaning windows on the ground level. I imagined waking up each morning at the foot of a mountain.

When she wasn't out walking along the rows of peas and tamed wildflower, she watched us from the large open window. It wasn't unusual. As my stay in Chambéry progressed, I knew which windows to look up at to find a person holding a cigarette casually, letting it burn and ash into the open air as they watched us. I wasn't surprised. The scattered trail of 30 Americans winding up the hill each day seemed far more unusual than sitting at one's own window, watching the world.

The day I carried my camera to school with me, when I had begun counting days before I came home instead of days of adventure ahead of me, she was not in her yard. The wind was still, and the curtains were flat in the open window. I leaned against the shed that housed her garbage bins, next to the road and in line with a fence not pictured.

As I slipped my hand through the fence to frame the picture, I saw the curtains flutter. I clicked and turned up the hill. For a moment, I'd considered waving, stopping to tell her what the house meant to me.

The picture sits on my desk, distracting me from my writing, my translating, even my social media playtime. My feelings haven't changed.

We may not live in Chambéry. We may not live in France. We may not leave the Midwest. But we will have our home and we will fix our shutters and we will plant our seeds. And when I remember what all of this means, I can't help but long for this picture too.

Going home tomorrow. Planning a wedding for real this week. Focusing on my family and detoxing my brain, looking forward to my dad working about what I'm eating and my mom worrying about what I'm thinking, because they're both getting it just right. They both know the answers already.

It's been a rough patch. Going back to the home that's held me for all of the years I remember instead of focusing on the home Joe and I are trying to create will be a welcome relief, a refresher,  and a reminder of what's at the center of what we're building.

34/90, today or any day, really

Today, I want to say that it is to hard, that I have nothing to say. I want to say that today was nothing, and it doesn't count.

I didn't have time to see anything, because I was too consumed by the things I wasn't doing. This is Lent, and I'm giving up excuses. I admitted to my boss that I called off of work yesterday because I was too exhausted to eat, sleep or read. I did not do yoga. I did not eat well. No excuses, no lies, Megan. The truth: tomorrow will be much the same. And now it all comes down to making the best of it, to accepting the day for what it is and moving on.

Today, I didn't translate. When one of my closest friends contacted me when I finally got home for the day, I told her that I needed to translate. This was true, and it was what I had scheduled next for myself. Even then, I knew I wouldn't translate. I thought about packing for break. I didn't do that either.

I did go get a beer with friends, which turned into some food with friends, which turned into outstanding conversation but left me feeling sick–not heartburn, but a burning lower in my chest that reminded me that I have no right to go out and spend money like I have it.

I did get a reading assignment done that I had scheduled for over break. I did eat trail mix and a Reese's cup for lunch. I did remind myself to shave in the shower. I did volunteer to do an interview for a girl's thesis project. I did volunteer to help a professor answer questions for perspective students tomorrow.

I did pray. I'm going to keep praying.

33/90

can be found over at the other blog, with two posts about wedding things:

freaking out about Spring Break and
looking at decorations

32/90, ground control to major tom

Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
(Ten) Ground control (Nine) to major Tom (Eight)
(Seven, six) Commencing countdown (Five), engines on (Four)

When my family planned vacations, as soon as the date was set, my sister and I sat down with our ruler and markers. We counted the days until our departure and made countdowns.

When we went to Disney World, the countdown started well past 100. For that period of more than three months, the first thing we did each morning was nick a number off. Now, after a while it was hard for me to look at all of the inconsistent slash marks. I had to really fight the urge to re-write the thing, but it was important that we remember where we came from. Having only 49 more days was a lot better when you could see the 120 days you'd made it through.

Each day, Joe asks me several questions.

How many days until we're married? Today, there are 158. The first step of my wake-up process is taking one more number off of the reminder saved on my laptop's desktop. We started somewhere around 500--from December 26, 2008 to August 7, 2010.

When this semester started, our outlook changed. We were in the Year of the Marriage. We could count and understand what the numbers really meant. We could take the next steps for ordering dresses and printing invitations. Things were "set in stone" and real decisions were made.

How many days until I see you? This one varies. After the five hour drive home from a weekend together, we're both itching to figure out when our next visit is.

When I messed up my car and mixed up our Valentine's Day plans, it was a whole different kind of upsetting. We weren't just missing the holiday or a friend's get-together: I was tossing us unto a Limbo; we didn't know when we'd pull our lives back together to make the drive.

Then I remembered it's my last semester; I'll graduate no matter what (because I'd never fail a class). So, I skipped several assignments I'd been planning for the weekend, passed them off to Monday and drove to St. Louis the next weekend.



How many days until you graduate? Ok, so he's not that interested in my graduation, really, but my graduation means the start of two weeks together. Those two weeks are then followed by our last summer apart. We're good at summers. After being completely cut off from most communication in France, I feel like we can survive anything those measly months can toss our way.

Oh, and the number is about 67, according to a girl in my class that keeps a better countdown on that than I do. I don't like that number. It makes me feel like I should already be packing to move out of my house.

And then there are the hard numbers floating in my head each day. The ones that make me anxious, make me stay in each weekend, make me sound angry at you when we speak on the phone. This is a list, more a visual aid for me than of any interest to you. I apologize in advance and thank you for sticking with me to this point:

• 10 page research paper: The Bell Jar and the controversy that is Sylvia Plath
• 10 page research paper: le rôle des femmes dans L'Amant par Marguerite Duras
• 10 page paper: analysis of a public relations campaign
• final presentation and group project I really need to work on: planning a PR campaign for Eldenware and presenting it two weeks after the analysis paper
• edit my thesis (wow, I've had that one going for a long time)
• file my information for a visa for France
• 4 exams coming up that I've chosen not to think about or study for yet--can't wait till Wed!

So all set out there on the table, the final projects and midterms (forget thinking about finals--for. get. it.) don't look too bad. Small bites. I'm caring less and less about the four papers I write each week, thinking about these projects instead. I'm caring less and less about these projects as Real Life gets closer.

I'm breathe, breathe and pushing through this last semester, when four years will give birth to these two degrees that will, God willing, get me into graduate school. Funny. I thought that high school was preparation for college, which was preparation for a job. Now I'm adding at least two more "preparation" steps...

How else can I get out of a Real Job? Bring it on, Teach for America/AmeriCorps/Peace Corps. Because I'm still in the countdown phase of my life. I'm sure it will be different in four years, after our time in France and my stint in graduate school, but for now I am not ready to live without the countdown. I'm not ready for a career that stretches into the days endlessly before me.

(Three, two) Check ignition (One) and may gods (Blastoff) love be with you

31/90, the gloves

There are several things that I am not allowed to have, most of them preceded by the adjective "expensive."

It started with my Panama Jack sunglasses. I wasn't a teenager yet. The frames were teal, iridescent, round. They were perfect. They were slipped into my clear plastic purse–huge deal that summer–while I jumped into the chlorinated water. The whistle rang for Adult Swim. My eyes burned from chemicals and sun. I reached for my glasses. They were gone.

These were my expensive sunglasses, new and big-girl and handled carefully. I went home with my head down, knowing that no matter how many times I checked the lost and found they would not be there.

I don't spend more than five dollars on sunglasses. I tried once, buying imitation Ray Ban aviators. I dropped them on my car seat, then dropped myself on my car seat. You get the picture.


I won a ring once. I was 13 or 14. It was an arrangement of diamonds and sapphires, part of a local jewelry store's seasonal open house raffle. I was careful only to wear it when I knew that people would see it and be impressed. This meant I often wore it to work.

I was a "sales associate" and master gift-wrapper at Hallmark a year or two after winning the ring. I couldn't say what happened, really. One moment, I was wrapping a collector's Father Christmas with a fur-lined coat. The next, my ring was gone.

I imagine that the husband who'd purchased the Father Christmas was as startled as his wife when she found the bonus present that year, tucked in the tissue she could have easily thrown out without noticing. Maybe it would have been better if she hadn't noticed, if we'd all gone on not knowing where it ended up.


The opal ring was the worst. This happened twice. It took the second time to realize that I should not wear the ring on day when I would play, practice or think about softball.

The game was about to start. My thumb bent my ring finger down, to crack the knuckle and give the ring a spin. It was a habit I had. The ring wasn't there. I wasn't thinking. I was running to the dugout. I was searching my bag, my coat pockets, my batting gloves, other people's bags, other people's batting gloves.

And then we were in a line. The entire team, a few parents. We were walking across the field. We were tracing every inch of the outfield. The game was waiting. There was nothing–not in the grass, not in dirt, not on the bus. I don't know if I played that game or not. I do know that my parents were not there, a lucky break.

When we got on the bus and were heading home, I kept my window pressed against the cold damp of the windows. It was fall, maybe raining. The rain would have been a nice touch of symbolism. My hands were in my pockets, fingering the lining. My ring was in my pocket. I lifted my head from the window; the air made my dampened hair freeze, but this was not the reason for my shivers or raised arm hair. I looked around the bus and thought better of telling my teammates.

The second time was not a success. I realized halfway through a game, again lucky enough to have my parents not there, that there was nothing on my ring finger. The memories of this one are fuzzy, but the memory of how my parents found out about the missing opal are not.

After Mass on a Saturday night, as my family was leaving the pew, my softball coach turned around from the pew in front of us. "So, has Megan found her ring yet?" My pew stood in a stunned silence. The ride home, only a few blocks, was torture.

The next day, adequately rainy for our moods, my dad took me out to the practice field. We had my sister's metal detector. We looked down drains, in fields in baskets of softballs. We did not find it.


I am unwilling to spend more than $5 on a pair of gloves. For the most part, I spend $1.97 on a pack of two pairs that will make it through, if I'm lucky, an entire winter with me and my leaking thermos (this rules out white gloves). They are inexpensive, and I don't spend much time thinking about this. The are left in classrooms, at work and on restaurant tables with an increasing regularity.

When I let myself get a pair of those flipping half-glove-mittens from a Gap outlet, I thought they were golden. A week later, I made Joe drive back across Evansville after we'd reached his parent's house, back to the Mexican restaurant where we'd eaten lunch to see if our waitress had found my glove.

This Christmas, my parents got me a pair of leather gloves. I am a near-adult now, more responsible. I'd wanted a pair that would make me look professional and sophisticated.

When I returned from a hellish day of errands and work, I was transferring my purse contents to another handbag. My gloves were missing.

No. Nope. Not happening. I called Marsh, asked if they'd found black gloves. They laughed, asked if they were men's gloves. I said that no, they were not and I really didn't think it was funny.

When I arrived at their customer service desk, they pulled out seven black gloves and a matching pair. Several were leather; several were women's; none were mine. I drove to Wal*Mart and bolted to the customer service desk.

"Did you find black gloves yesterday?"

The woman looked at me, a bit startled by my rushed, breathless speech. She gave the same laugh. Ok, yes, I understand how many people lose black gloves. But how many of them lost a pair of black leather gloves yesterday? I'm trying to differentiate as best I can here. Work with me.

She reaches below the counter, pulls out a sleek pair with a bit of scrunched elastic on the inside of the wrist.

"YES."

I walk away as quickly as I came, thanking her over my shoulder.

It's odd, the feeling of success and adulthood that came from finding the gloves. I realize that not losing them would be the responsible way to own things, but the progress to making an organized effort to find them is an improvement. Maybe someday I could move myself up to Ray Bans.