Today

6:15am: Wake abruptly, having realized what was bugging me about that request-for-proposal I got yesterday.


6:18am: Lie in bed, figuring out what to do about it and designing the presentation slides to explain it to others.

7:15am: Get up and draw the slides on some scrap paper.

8:50am: Breakfast

9:45am: Get lost on way to doctor appointment.

10:05am: Doctor appointment.

10:50am: Stop for a cupcake. I *need* a cupcake.

11am: Accidentally (ie, due to cupcake stop) miss my team’s daily standup meeting.

11:30am: Realize that *this* meeting can be cancelled. Aha! Reply to email instead.

12noon: Meeting about taxes.

1pm: Meeting about ... I’ve forgotten.

2pm: Training session about how to be a better Product Manager.

3:30pm: Meeting about whether this thing I’m designing will also work for somebody else’s team.

4pm: Meeting about the overlap between that presentation I started this morning and R’s designs.

5pm: Start getting the slides off my scrap paper and into the computer.

6:30pm: Oh, right, I needed to pay those bills. Online bill pay. And did Fry’s actually refund me for that thing I returned? Yes? Okay, good. 

7pm: Inner monologue:

- You said you were going to leave work earlier today.

- Uh-huh.

- So. You going to get out of here and go work on your book?

- I’m tired! I’ve been up since 6:15!


7:10pm: Get up, leave desk, out to car, start driving to library. Inner monologue continues: 

- But if you don’t work on the book tonight, then when are you going to?

- But I’m tired!

- [Pause] Well, what would you rather do instead? Watch TV?

- [Sighs] There’s never anything on....

- You could go to the gym.

- [Disdainful silence]

- Or go home and vacuum. How about vacuuming?

- [More disdainful silence]

- Well, you could read.

- [Inner inner monologue] But you know, lately reading seems so flat compared to writing!

- Well, what are you going to do then? Come on, it’s only 7pm. You know you won’t go to sleep for at least a couple of hours. What would you rather do than write? There must be something.

- [Inspiration!] I could write a blog post to procrastinate!

7:47pm: Finish blog post....

Seasonal

The pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting is calling. Also the donut, the caramel apple, the frosted cookie, the cream of chestnut soup, the jamon-manchego sandwiches, the green beans with blue cheese cream sauce, the deep-fried artichoke hearts....

The air has gotten colder, the trees are changing color, I turned the heater on for the first time last night, and my body desperately, desperately wants to gain about eight pounds - ideally in the next week.

So far I'm holding it off at two.

But in the back of my head, I wonder: isn't gaining weight for the cold season exactly what mammals are supposed to do? Wouldn't I be warmer over the next few months if I gained a nice cozy layer of insulating fat?

Then I think about going shopping for a whole new set of jeans.

My hand hovers, hesitating, over the oh-so-tempting plate of Friday morning donuts.

The Over-Scheduled Adult

(The person who inspired this post doesn’t read this blog. And I’m at least as bad at this as her, anyway!)

I had plans tonight. I really did. But when my husband asked me this morning what I was doing tonight, I told him, then added, “... but she’ll probably cancel. I did, last time,” and he nodded, understanding.

So off I went to work. I sent an email: “we still on?” and got back, no surprise, “Actually, I’m sorry but....”

And thus the round continues. I forget which of us cancelled first, but this is about the fourth time, or maybe the sixth. Last time it was me. It’s easy: we email, we ping, we add to our various electronic calendars. We agree and then at the last minute...we had a prior engagement. We’re getting sick. I’m so sorry but.... Meeting up for dinner sounds oh-so-attractive when it’s a couple of weeks away. Up close...other things impinge.

I can’t help contrasting it with a recent trip to NY, where social plans went something like this: “...dinner...?” “Love to! 7pm?” over and over and over, so that I wound up with plans on no fewer than six nights out of eight. Not one person cancelled; not one person changed a time or a place. And one, I swear, sounded surprised when I emailed her on day-of to confirm.

Which leads me to wonder: what’s different about New York? It’s sure not less busy; there’s just as much going on. (“Oh, please, there’s more going on!” the average New Yorker would probably claim.) And the usual human priorities remain: self, significant other, friends, work, in some combination of importance and varieties of labelling.

So what’s the difference?

Out here in CA I am situated in, living on, gripping with the edges of my psychological fingers, the edge of the crazy roiling tech-hub of the world. New York, as far as I can tell, thinks cellphones and "The InterWebz" are nice and all but is still inclined to give a virtual shrug and go do something else.

So is it just the technology? Is it knowing that thanks to a last-minute text, no one is left standing at the bar? The ability to change plans at the last minute means that instead of shamefacedly getting up from a restaurant table, whoever got stood up can quietly drive from work to home, shrug it off in an empty kitchen, move on with an evening only slightly different than planned.

Rescheduling is easy too: an email, an invitation online. No cost, no effort, except that we’ve done it over and again now how many times?

In theory, I’d imagine that with constant connection we’d make more plans, not fewer; see each other more frequently, not less. I love the idea of being able to plan something at the last minute. There was the day another friend called, “I have to run an errand near your house. Want to get coffee?” and she reached me even though I was out for a walk - I had my phone. I love this. I do.

But that's the exception. And so I wonder, if we couldn’t do all this, if plans were harder to make and harder to break - would we be more inclined to show up?

Good enough

“It’s ... pleasant,” said S. 

We sat, half-turned toward each other, on a deep couch in the back of the wine bar. The wine bar is like something out of a movie, although a movie I haven’t seen, something about the tech industry and hedonism and the valley and the magnetic attraction everybody around here feels for things that are “cute.” The wine bar is in an old adobe building, and the ceilings are low, and the waiters use phrases like “not too heavy on the fruit” without thinking much about it, and the upholstery is vaguely mahogany-colored. In the back room, where S and I sat, there’s a fireplace with a semi-sculptured mural above it and, at least tonight, a Real Fire burning in the grate.

“Me too,” I said, and sighed. “It’s pleasant.” 

We’d been talking about all the things that aren’t quite right, from work to geography to relationships. We’d agreed that it was hard to complain, because things are ... pleasant.

“We cook dinner,” one of us said, and the other nodded.

“It’s nice. Domestic.”

“I’ve been working out a lot.”

“Work’s okay.”

“I think I’m in line for promotion,” one of us said, and the one who hadn’t said it nodded in turn.

A while later, we paid the tab, hugged goodbye, and went our separate ways. I drove the short distance home, pulled into my usual parking place, and walked down the red-painted path to my front door. I slipped the key in the lock, turned it, and went inside: home. It felt good to be here.

And yet I wonder: is this underlying something the famous, originally unvoiced female complaint? Is this what fifties and sixties feminism was about, this lurking feeling that there’s something ... more ... out there, that “pleasant” isn’t quite enough? Don’t get me wrong, I know this is 2009; I know S and I have it better, far better, than did our forebears. I know that.

And yet. Things are ... pleasant.

And pleasant isn’t quite enough.

Housework June 22-28: do I do anything that isn't food-related?

The list of housework items below leads me to believe that no, I do not. Things are a bit skewed at the moment, though, because my guy is in the middle of going through a bunch of his stuff (5k books - I am not exaggerating) and since they are in stacks all over the floor, I’m suppressing what would otherwise be a powerful urge to mop. As it is, I’m wearing slippers indoors because the floors are slightly gritty (you wanted to know that, didn’t you?) - less the result of real neglect and more a reflection that since it’s summer, we tramp in and out a lot from the back yard.

Soon this will all be resolved - or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.

June 28: 3.5 hours
I always spend more time on housework on the weekends - partly because I cook, partly because I garden, and partly because I like going through things and throwing them out (you would think this would mean I have nothing left, but no).

1. 1.5 hour: French toast with fresh plums for breakfast, and two loads of dishes
2. 1 hour: going through my three-inch-high stack of old Cook’s Illustrated while chanting my cooking-magazine mantra: “You don’t need the hard copy! That’s why you have an online subscription!”
3. .5 hour: rescuing the wisteria, cilantro, and fuschia from crispy sunstroke death in too-small pots
4. .25 hour: dinner prep: leftover vegetable soup from two days ago plus a frozen pizza contributed by my guy

June 27: . 5 hours
My guy went out by himself to a David Sedaris book-signing, so I got self-indulgent for dinner and ate a bowl of straight pasta sauce. Yummmmm.....OK, I also had some of it on toast with mozzarella. Grand total: 15 minutes. I’m sure I also put something away (mail?) so chalk that up for another 15 minutes. No time on breakfast prep due to the awesomeness of Donut Friday, which my friend B was kind enough to put on Calendar so I’d actually remember to go.

June 26: .5 hours
... all of which was spent making bruschetta.

June 25: 1 hour
Made vegetable soup from scratch. It rocked, in spite of my initial skepticism of shredded carrots and grits (grits?!) in soup. This was my first recipe from Jacques Pepin’s Fast Food My Way, which for years I’d thought was actually my guy’s cookbook rather than mine. The flaws in my mid-term memory leave me wondering how I get anything done at all; the cookbook is actually inscribed to me (it was a gift), so there really shouldn’t have been any doubt about whose it was.

There’s probably 5 minutes in there to pour a bowl of cereal for breakfast, too.

June 24: .5 hour
Was out late with T for our weekly commiseration about attempting to write while holding down a full time job. Topic for discussion: how damn hard it is to keep focus when your whole day is spent skimming, rather than focusing on, data and stories.

June 23: 0 hours
Which matches up nicely with going out to see Sex and the City with a good girlfriend, which is how I spent my evening. Really no one should do housework on a day when they go to see Sex and the City.

June 22: 2 hours
Split up somehow between picking plums from the trees in the yard, a couple of loads of dishes, and making breakfast and dinner.

Housework June 18: zero hours :)

I had a rotten day at work yesterday (no, not bad news, just another stall), so I insisted on going out for Mexican food and margaritas for dinner, hence no cooking time. And curiously, the idea of tracking housework made the idea of emptying the dishwasher before I went to bed pretty damn unattractive, so I skipped it.

I also noticed another interesting stat in the same article: lesbian couples with kids (no data yet on gay men) do a total of 31 hours of housework per week - about a third less than straight couples. 

Wha... ?! Clearly the lesbians are on to something. 

So of course I brought this up with my guy over dinner. Our guesses: 1) women and men traditionally notice & care for different areas around the house, but a lot of housework isn't strictly required. So in a lesbian relationship, maybe the "guy" things just don't get done - which makes me really, really curious about gay male relationships and housework load! and 2) a lesbian couple is already outside society norms in some senses, so maybe it's easier to avoid getting your ego caught up in having a perfectly-kept house. 

Which leads to the question, what is housework? For purposes of tracking it, I'm figuring it's things I do in the house (or yard), which benefit both me and my guy. That ropes in cooking, cleaning, yardwork - but no errands, and no time spent setting up our various networking gadgetry needs which are totally gratuitous, really, and fun anyway. 

And for today's count (as yet incomplete of course): I spent 10 minutes emptying the dishwasher and pouring myself a bowl of cereal this morning....

Housework: are you *!?%$** kidding me? (part 1)

This weekend I read a New York Times Magazine article about couples who attempt to achieve 'equally shared parenting.' Ok, fine, that's nice - but what really stood out was this statistic: 

"the average wife does 31 hours of housework a week while the average husband does 14"

That's appalling from a gender-relations standpoint, it really is - but right now I'm not thinking about that. No, right now I'm thinking, "45 hours of housework PER WEEK?!" No matter how you divide it up that's just awful. That's more time than I spend at work. If I hired someone to do all that I'd be paying them overtime! 

And so I embark on an experiment. For the next week or so I'm going to track how much housework I actually do and report back here. And it had better not be 31 hours - or anything approaching that.

Money shock

My guy and I did some financial planning this weekend (reallocating a 401k: such an exciting way to spend a Saturday morning!).

This morning, my brain still wrapped in numbers, I plugged some data into the crazy rent vs buy modeling spreadsheet one of the guys at work created and helpfully shared.

And for the very first time, the model shows that it might make sense to buy.

Wait, what?

I have no idea what to do with that. I've been happily using "it makes no financial sense to buy a house!!!" as the unassailable justification for my geographic commitment-phobia. If that's no longer the case, then [gasp] might it actually be time to think about where I want to live?

I dunno if I'm ready for that. Maybe AMT will make all the numbers change again, and I can procrastinate a little longer.

Marital differences

Saturday night, as my guy and I were making a pizza:

Him: I'm done with the tomato sauce; it's ready to put away.

Me: ok, hand me the spoon.

Him: the spoon?

Me: so I can take a big scoop of the sauce and eat it before I put the rest in the fridge.

Him: EWWWWW!!!!

Me [pondering whether I will still be able to eat pizza if I first eat the entire contents of the jar of marinara sauce]: what? What? Doesn't everybody do that?!

Then again, he also likes Brussels sprouts. Weird.

Evil poison death gas

Last year, the termites in the garage conducted a heavy attack on a couple of C's books that were boxed up in the garage. The termites went straight through the covers and on into the pages. They were embedded (like reporters in Iraq? They certainly faced instant death once we found them.).

Ewwww.

I previously thought that termites were small and hard to notice. I was wrong. They're maybe 3/4" long. They're brown and shiny, and when they die, their wings fall off and drift down onto whatever's underneath them: some bikes, some books, a drill, a box of sandpaper, some furniture... the usual garage stuff.

When the termites ate the books we decided it was time to do something. We called the property management co; they sent out an inspector. The inspector said, "yup, termites." (We could have told them that). And after the holidays, and some confusion, and so on, we finally got the house scheduled to be tented.

Then we read up on the chemicals that would be blown into the house to kill the termites. And we realized there weren't really any good non-scary solutions that we could find.

So we moved out C's books. And most of both our clothes. And all the food in the kitchen. And the cast iron griddle, because it's porous. And all the wooden spatulas, for the same reason. And the seeds I've been meaning to plant. And the cushions & slipcovers from the furniture. And the comforters and blankets from the bed & linen closet.

And we picked all the lemons, so they wouldn't be within reach of the fumes (the only upside here is that B. still owes me lemon bars).

And we went to stay in my in-laws' guest cottage (thank you!) which is only a few minutes away from our own house, so not too much of a hassle.

And I pulled off all the weatherstripping we added last winter, so that our house would once again leak like a sieve, letting fresh air in and (I hope) helping the gas dissipate.

And I decided I wasn't going back in that house until a full four extra nights after it was officially cleared for safety by the termite-tenters, because that will give the gas still more time to get the hell out.

And I'm still trying not to think too hard about chemical half-lives and rates of dissipation and all of that, because the air has been tested and it's OK, and tenting is normal, and this chemical has been in use for sixty years, and one version of it is used on food for crying out loud, and I'm sure half the buildings I've lived in have been tented, and this is normal, and there isn't any other good solution.

But why isn't there?

Maintaining standards

Why is it that, my guy being not home for the evening due to a fantasy baseball draft, it suddenly seems normal to eat only an enormous bowl of edamame for dinner, with chocolates for dessert?

saturday

happiness is reading elizabeth hardwick while eating truffles in the backyard on a hot spring day

More about babies

On my mantelpiece right now are two new-baby announcements. Both babies look, um, like babies: they're cute (but then, would anyone send out a new-baby announcement that wasn't?).

But the real point of this post is that both babies have the middle name Elizabeth! Just like me!

Clearly these babies' excellent middle name makes them way cuter than they would be otherwise.

Non-Work Haiku

Chaos in focus.
Days and evenings both filled up:
nostalgia, content.

Tomatoes are ripe
Cheese & bread become dinner
No cooking needed.

Cats live down the street
Dark graceful forms yowl at night
All else is silent.

Fans blowing all night
Record highs through next Sunday
Heat wave here at last!

Odd

It's Sunday afternoon, and up till writing this post I have spent the entire day in the backyard. I have eaten breakfast, read a book, and written a letter to my Great Aunt Lee.

In the apartment building next door, there is a baby who amuses itself by crying in an "I want to talk but I can't yet and this is the next best thing so here I go WWAAAAAHHHA WWAAAHHHH!!!" kind of way. And this afternoon I noticed: on a sunny day and at a distance, a baby crying is a strangely peaceful, happy sound. It's right up there with the buzz of a fat tumbling bumblebee and the helicopter beat of a hummingbird's wings. Odd, isn't it: a sound I normally associate with distress (or at least angst) can add to a day's contentment.