We did a repeat of this dinner party. This time we had 32 vessels for alcohol at the end of the night. We're getting better with age, just like the Barolos we mercilessly consumed.
No earthquake this time, but my darling husband is once again talking about how closing one eye lessens the effects of his drunken state. Never a good sign.
I very nearly unleashed another typographical alter ego into an unsuspecting world of email recipients. Thankfully I had my wits about me. Ekauna will never see the light of day.
Close one!
I've given about ten minutes worth of thought to how I would like to spend these last few moments of my twenty-ninth year. I thought it would be nice to:
- Reflect on the last nine years, and figure out one important thing I learned each year (you know... the kind of important you can actually recall and articulate in a few minutes);
- Get another stanza of Prufrock under my belt (I have 44 lines left to go);
- Curl up next to my wonderful husband and sleep off a deep post-game weariness that I seem unable to shake.
Year 20: If I had a legacy, it would not be me. It would just be a legacy. In all probability, I would have very little control over what it was, and what it would mean, and to whom.
Year 21: Working in fashion retail is kind of like indentured servitude. Also, a 30% discount doesn't make something "so cheap it may as well be free."
Year 22: Sometimes, everything someone can be just isn't enough. Sometimes, love just goes away.
Year 23: There are some things that you just need to get out of your system. One way or another, they will have out.
Year 24: The death of someone you truly love can fundamentally change who you are. It can make you understand how very long forever is, and how much love you have that you might not have known about.
Year 25: You are given a space to fill... only so wide and so deep. It's daunting figuring out how best to fill it, especially since you don't know its dimensions.
Year 26: Everyone should try living in the city.
Year 27: When you meet the right person, you really do just know.
Year 28: Weddings are a total racket, and where your old world and new world meet can be a very scary place.
Year 29: It's important to feel down in your bones that time isn't waiting around for you, but it's totally okay to give yourself an extra week or so to memorize 44 lines. It's even okay not to get another stanza in before you go to sleep.
Obviously there's more... so much more... but a gal at thirty's door needs to get her beauty rest.
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep... tired... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me."
My evening:
Flaming crepes with rum, coconut, and ice cream. I suspect the point behind the flambé was to burn off the alcohol in the rum. They did not succeed.
Followed by a Gym Class Reunion Party. We played tag and four square and drank. Pictured with me in phys ed glory is my incomparably lovely friend Annabelle.
For the win!
My morning:
On the one hand, I felt a bit guilty for stomping loudly all over his choice piece of real estate. On the other, he's a rodent and I don't want a broken ankle.
I did a spirited slide tackle in the first half, which resulted in the surprisingly painful scrape pictured above. Good thing I wore my short-shorts last night, as it'll be a while before I can rock them again.
My afternoon:
My local coffee shop has a selection called "Whim of the Barista". It costs $5, and is exactly as described: based on their highly variable and very whimsical inclinations, these excellent and extensively-trained (and many other adjectives for which I have no room) baristas whip up whatever the hell they feel like.
Most of them make it very clear that this drink isn't an exercise in democracy. If you order The Whim, you don't get to inquire or make requests. You can mention things that you don't like, and they may or may not huffily oblige. Imagine Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, but with espresso and spices. It's like playing with fire: dangerous, irresistible, fascinating. Even though I'm terrified of paying $5 for a drink I hate, I can't stop ordering them.
This week I've had an iced latte flavored with cinnamon and peanut butter, and a latte with cocoa, ginger, and nutmeg. This afternoon's whim: a savory-sweet clove cappuccino. I continue to be enslaved by the whims of the baristas.
I have long observed in man (and by man I mean men, not mankind) a tendency to forget that we live in three-dimensional space.
Take, for example, the refrigerator. If a man is looking for something -- let's say milk -- and it isn't located in the foremost plane of the fridge, the milk doesn't exist. It doesn't matter if the milk is scarcely obscured by an insignificant object like a jar of Grey Poupon -- if it isn't immediately apparent like a full-grown elephant in the vast expanse of a savanna, its existence is called into question.
I have a working theory that this male dimensional challenge is what makes table surfaces preferable to drawers, gives counter tops more appeal than cupboards, and leaves crisper drawers forlorn like vestigial organs. It also explains why chairs, sofas, and beds slowly evolve into valets and closets.
Most perplexing to me is that some of these men have less trouble wrapping their heads around four-dimensional spacetime or multi-dimensional string theory than notions like behind, between, and inside.
Take, for example, my darling husband. He's hands-down one of the smartest and most observant people I've ever met, or am ever likely to meet. After several hours of reading, he peeled himself off the sofa and away from his book to hunt for his iPhone. He hunted and hunted. Many minutes later...
Him: Do you know where my phone is?
Me: No. Why don't you call it?
Him: <dials>
Stage Left: <muffled ringing sounds coming from underneath the book he was just reading>
Ah, yes. The phone was lost in yet another one of the many faces worn by the ever elusive third-dimension: under.
The only correct response to the question, "Would you like some tea?" is "Yes. That would be lovely."
Last night I attended a good friend's 30th birthday dinner at his local sushi joint up in San Francisco. Many pounds of sushi and sake were consumed, all washed down with delicious dark chocolate cupcakes and soju dispensed from a mini gas pump. As a gentle reminder that it was indeed a party, one of my other good friends slurred many hilarious things very loudly and then threw up on the floor. All in all, the evening was a win.
Incidentally, last night also marked the one month countdown to my own 30th birthday. As I lie in bed this morning somewhere between dreaming(*) and waking, the imminence of it slapped me in the face. Whenever I mention the upcoming event to people, their response is a (not altogether funny) joke or a conciliatory lecture that thirty really isn't so bad. The latter folks are entirely missing the point, and the former folks always get the same lame joke in response: "thirty is the new twenty."
My notice (and perhaps mild apprehension) of thirty doesn't spring from a fear of losing my youth and vitality, or some cockamamie notion that all of my best years are spent. In fact, I'm excited for something different, even if it's mostly on paper. I think of it much like joining a new club, where my fellow members drink better booze, live in bigger houses, have restaurants to recommend, and make altogether different and more interesting kinds of mistakes. The point is that my thoughts aren't the kind one might expect after watching too much Sex and the City(**).
Rather, my proximity to thirty reminds me that time continues to race down a steep slope, and that five/eight/ten/twenty years can easily pull away from anyone who thinks that there's plenty of time. I'm certainly guilty of that charge often enough. It blows my mind when I consider that ten years ago...
- I didn't know my husband
- I was still a hopeful college student on the East Coast
- My grandfather was alive
- California seemed like the last place on Earth I'd end up
- I'd never heard of the Silicon Valley,
- I had no idea that my current industry and career existed
- I didn't know any of my best friends
- I wasn't legally allowed to drink
- I'd never lived alone
- I hated wine
You'd think that in ten years I'd manage to realize my peristent goal of writing a book, even if it was a bad one. You'd think that I'd have gotten around to having the dog I've always wanted, or scheduling that elusive follow-up visit to the dermatologist. You'd think I would have pursued my odd dream of singing in a self-parodying cover band. In short, you'd think there'd be more time somewhere amidst all that... time.
Five years ago, I made a list of 30 things to do by age 30. It contained exactly the kinds of things that a twenty-five year old would put on that sort of list: learn to play guitar, become fluent in another language, go back to school. It also contained some pointedly "Elaina" things: ask my mother about my father, get my teeth straightened or get over the fact that I have crooked teeth, make a Thanksgiving Day dinner. I've done just over half of them, mostly in passing, as I decided a few years later that many of them weren't really worth doing.
Only one undone item has survived, and I'm determined to get it done in the next 31 days: memorize T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I remember thinking when I made the list that five years was an eternity to accomplish the things I'd set out to do. "And indeed there will be time," I thought. Turns out that five years simultaneously manages to be an eternity and a flash.
While I already fully understand and appreciate its truth, perhaps memorizing the poem will stop me from realizing its truth over and over again.
* Incidentally, I was dreaming of making a large marshmallow, zucchini, bacon, and egg frittata.
** Incidentally, I have been watching too much Sex and the City. It's a slippery slope.
Oh my! The surge of interest created by my "Apropos of Nothing" post
prompted me to dig up the book on Amazon, along with another
(previously unknown to me) book by the same author:
Two letters are in order.
I.
Dear Cat Who Pissed in my Recycle Bin,
In the future, please don't.
Sincerely,
Hates Your Face
II.
Dear Spider With Whom I Constantly Fight for Ownership of the Yard Waste Bin,
I take great pleasure in destroying the beautiful webs you weave over the handles every week. If I ever catch you, I will smoosh you. Moreover, said smooshing will fill my heart with glee.
Sincerely,
Hates Your Face Too
