56.5 hours

Since Saturday morning, I have worked 56.5 hours.

I know there are people in the world that work like that. But I am not one of them. Although I guess I am now.

Today after work (because today there was an actual after), I went grocery shopping. Grocery shopping, people! I never knew how enjoyable it can be when the first time in many days you are not in front of a computer.

I am not complaining about working a lot. I've actually been enjoying it because 1) I know it's temporary, 2) there's that whole team feeling that comes from working long hours with just a few other people, trying to get a magazine out the door, and 3) there's something to be said for working toward excellence for the sake of excellence...

Since last Saturday, however, I have thought every day about my blog. And here's just a sample of what I thought of writing about, if I'd actually written:

• Hip pain


• So You Think You Can Dance (again)


• bobby pins: their history, my obsession with them, all the different places I come across them in my life (my purse, my car, my drive way, the kitchen, found stuck to the bottom of my foot on the way to the shower, and, yes, in my hair, under some twisted hank of bed-head mess)


• that whole thing with exercise: how your mind can convince you, absolutely, that it would, in fact, be an unhealthy, self-abusive act to exert yourself in any way (only to do it anyway and feel afterward as if you've just had a massage).


And on this first night in many nights that I have not had to bring my work laptop home with me, I shall now sign off and engage in the most enjoyable act of sitting and breathing (and, well, watching So You Think You Can Dance).

Been Taking a Break from a lot of Things

Like from not eating dairy. Best ice cream cone ever. Being across the street from the Grass Roots Festival we could also hear the distant sound of zydeco, accordions, banjos, and lots of "woo hooos!"

I have been putting off posting—I haven't gone this long since the beginning of this summer (which is kind of a mis-statement since it's not actually summer yet, apparently, since it hasn't been hotter than 85 and it's late July. This anti-humiditarian is a-ok with that, tho.).

Since I've last posted about my early morning visit to the trainer, I

• Had a second early morning visit with the trainer (he's the second trainer on the page)


• Watched a most amazing duet on So You Think You Can Dance that I keep watching over and over (first video you come across when you scroll)


• Went to Ithaca, NY, and back to see family, eat whatever I wanted (see photo above), laugh a ton, dance on hay, sit by a fire (like I said, not summer), and celebrate my sister and her best friend's birthdays


• Watched a pretty incredible tap performance last night at Jacob's Pillow (or "the pillow" as its familiarly known in dance circles), Jason Samuels Smith and A.C.G.I. (Anybody Can Get It)


• Noticed (just this morning, like right this second) how my speedy typing (a writer at work nicknamed me "the little machine") reminds me of last night, the speedy tapping...my fingers on the keyboard. Typing fast is no tap dancing but if you start going into the idea...it gets interesting (i.e., JSS's cousin was part of the performance last night--he does a spoken-word/rap thing and afterward he talked about the connection between that and the tapping).

So within each of those things above is a blog post. Which is why I've been procrastinating starting up again. Which thing do I write about, and how do I do it in the limited bog-writing time (the big question for everything, right?). And I love that I just wrote "bog-writing" because that's how it's felt lately. Very boggy.

I thought before I head to workin' on a weekend, I should just break the more-than-weeklong hiatus and say something, anything. So there you have it. (If you have a vote about my next post, feel free to say so).

[Also, note that you can now subscribe to my blog post, and you'll get an e-mail when I post; at the rate I'm going, you won't be getting daily nudges or anything]!

The Ultimate Goal

Someone asked me about my blog today. They asked: “What’s your ultimate goal with it?” And it’s a good question. Because I’m a word person and a totally shameless Gogol Bordello fan, the world “ultimate” is what stuck out to me (the title of one of their most, well, ultimate songs). I gave the person a very short, admittedly insincere reply. Not a lie, just an I-can’t-explain-it-really answer. Half-embarrassed that I didn’t really know. And half-resistant to saying what was true since what is true isn’t really a goal so much as a whole bunch of stuff I don't know yet and can't explain.

The real answer would have been to blast this:



Or play this:



Or read the last several lines of Maurice Manning’s poem “Three Truths and One Story”: "There are words and there are deeds, and both/are dying out, dying away/from where they were and what they meant./God save the man who has the heart/to think of anything more sad."

Once, when I was very young, I had to walk the final bottom stretch of El Caminito Road to get to school. Something had happened with a ride, and to wait would have meant being late. So someone’s mother directed me down the road. “Just walk. And watch for cars.” It was a short stretch. But I was small and there was no sidewalk, just a big intimidating fence to my left that lined our town’s private airstrip. On that walk, I became very aware of the sound of my feet in the dirt. The crunching of my sneakers. And then I became very aware that I was aware. And I began to think about death, as I often did, and about infinite which usually scared me, but didn’t on this particular morning, and I thought about what I would be like when I was old, very very old, and I saw myself there. Old me. And young, small me was filled with a certainty that my life was going to be somehow extraordinary. I didn’t have those words then, but I knew.

In other words, the ultimate goal is, y’know, that.

All of it.