Lost and Found

Nesty.



On Tuesdays, two things happen. Bryan has Lithuanian class and we have date night. I've spent the last several Tuesday mornings driving him to class so he can have more time to get things done and so I can catch a glimpse of "Groggy Bryan," a side that he often tries to hide from me. This morning, as I was driving through campus, we had the following conversation.

"I want a puppy. What do you think about a chocolate lab?"

"They're nice. You're thinking about dogs all the time, now. Whenever you're not in a conversation, you bring up getting a dog. It's kind of out of the blue."

"Yeah. It's new. I don't know where it's coming from," I say before pausing, "Maybe it's a nesty thing."

"A nesting thing?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry; I don't get it."

"Well, it's just this desire to take care of something..."

"Like a baby?"

Silence.

"Yeah," I say, "I guess. Like a baby."

Is this true? That I want a baby, so instead I'm wanting a puppy? Is that what nesting is really all about? I thought it was just wanting to curl up on a couch with a blanket and a puppy and a cup of coffee and having someone to kiss your forehead. I don't even know how to take care of a baby. It was only a few years ago that I learned that a contraction isn't the same as an orgasm. And if I do want a baby, did I just have a conversation with my boyfriend about wanting to have a baby? Can you have maternal instincts and only apply them to pets? Is there a way to suppress the child stuff until later, until, you know, I go to more baby showers or something? Where did this stuff come from? You can't travel the world with a baby. Did all of the knitting trigger this? The floral apron? The house owning?

These are things that I'm thinking about today, while searching for puppies - not babies - for sale online. I'm not going to buy either any time soon, but I may talk to you about the former, if I happen to come across you.

Design.



It was retreat weekend. Seventeen of us drove down to Peebles, Ohio to enjoy the beautiful southern Ohio hills, spend uninterrupted time with one another and read our Bibles. Throughout the weekend, I was struck by the design of life.

The foliage, streams, hills and sky came together in a way that no architectural firm could ever establish. I remember taking a 3d design class in college, and we were instructed to create a piece inspired by nature. In a way, those of us who create are mimicking something that's already there. I spent some time on a bridge watching water flow over and around piles of stones and pebbles (peebles?). For a moment I was jealous of the water; it knew what to do, it knew its purpose. Just flow.

I saw design in people, too. The people from my church group are different. There are people that, outside of the Bible study, I probably wouldn't have ever talked to, or ever come across in my every day living. Jim, for instance, is a freshman at OSU who looks like a thug, but somehow spent the entire weekend singing showtunes. Joe is passionate about football and golf, and does push-ups every time the Buckeyes score a touchdown. Push-ups. For fun. The personalities are so varied, but when put together, it's magical. I love these people. Jim's heart is soft and he's so eager to share his emotions. And Joe, my most jocky friend, loves to hug and encourage. He's always looking for a way to allow people to use their knowledge and shine. I truly believe that we're designed to be social beings, that our relationships with others make us better people.

The design theme flowed into my time in the Bible, as well. I was reading Hebrews on Saturday afternoon, and came across a section on faith. Faith is an area where I struggle; it's a key component to relating to God, and it's sometimes a decision. This section in Hebrews was talking about faith, and it touched my heart because it was so beautifully written. The Bible, contrary to my previous beliefs, is not a dull list of rules and begats. It's full of prose and poetry. It contains similes, metaphors, foreshadowing, parallels, puns and humor and romance. Hebrews 11 talks about the faith of key people in the Old Testament. And instead of a Wikipedia-style paragraph on each person, I found a rhythmic and poetic chapter that could very well be a piece read by Garrison Keillor on Writer's Almanac. Design.

When it comes down to survival, we don't need design. Pretty trees, sweet relationships and poetry aren't necessary for living. Water, sun, nutrients, sex, air. But the things of design that I witnessed this weekend, they're the things that make life good.

The dog picture? I've been dreaming of getting a dog. Perhaps a lab. Not anytime soon. But from what I've witnessed, dogs make life good, too.

I Don't Look Like This Anymore.



I dyed my hair brown a few weeks ago. For years, my roots and eyebrows have been darker than my hair. Both of my brunette parents had blonde hair as children. So I decided to help out heredity and dye my hair the color that it wants to be.

In other news, I've been downloading episodes of Grey's Anatomy onto my iTunes. I don't own a television, and generally don't like it very much. Does it count as watching television if I'm viewing shows from my laptop?

Relax.

"Did you try the Camomile?," Adrienne asked for the second time via e-mail.

So I've been rather tense recently. It's not a new topic to the blog. Both jobs are keeping me very busy. For food marketers, October is way more packed than November and December. It's just the way things like that work out. And I'm holding a film series every week this month at the Library. Über stressful.

My friend Adrienne is in school to be a nutrtionist and she keeps trying to sneak healthy things into my life. Like organics. And Camomile Tea.

I've been drinking English Breakfast Tea every morning for a few months, ever since my roommate Liz took the coffee grinder to Stanford with her. I thought that I'd miss the coffee, but I don't. I love the tea. It's warm, caffeinated and I swear the water has been doing good things for my skin.

But the heart palpitations and the stress continues, and Adrienne swears that Camomile releives stress. So I bought a package this morning, not realizing that the package says, "Naturally Caffeine Free" until after I'd swiped my card. Too late to see if Camomile comes in a high-test format.

And. Well. It worked. I feel less tense. I feel like I could fall asleep. And I feel like I'm in elementary school again. I don't know if any of you have ever chewed on erasers, but if you miss that taste from your childhood, I recommend a nice hot cup of steamy Camomile Tea. Apparently the geniuses at Twinings have captured the flavor with excellent precision.

Back to the Breakfast Tea tomorrow.

Finally, Music.

I've been out of the music scene for awhile. My weekends used to be packed with concerts. PBR. Ironic t-shirts. Casually walking through Little Brothers feeling proud of myself for knowing people in the crowd. I was part of the "scene".

Now I don't even know where my weekends go. On Friday nights, I'm so tired that a DVD and knitting seems to be enough stimulous. The highlight of last weekend was a sail with Bryan and his parents. It's been this way for months.

It looks like I'm breaking out of my rut. In the next few weeks, I'm going to see Jose Gonzalez at the Wexner Center and Broken Social Scene at the House of Blues in Cleveland, and I'm pumped about both. I've been listening to their albums on repeat at work, and am already looking forward to the music roadtrip.

While I think I've outgrown the ironic t-shirts, and I definitely know that I'm not part of the scene, I do, somehow, feel more like me.

Stormy Weather.

I threw an autumn dinner party on Wednesday for the Irish band and friends.* The dinner party was a celebration of all things autumn. I made roasted chicken spiked with mustard seeds, beer, rosemary and, of course, unsalted butter. Accompanying the chicken were several vegetarian side dishes. A salad with sesame seeds, apples and onion, mashed potatoes made with mascarpone and topped with caramelized leeks and my new favorite, a medley of roasted root vegetables topped with parsley and balsamic vinaigrette. We started the meal with butternut squash soup served in pumpkins. I'm sad that I didn't take pictures; the table was so beautiful and the soup and pumpkin set-up was so labor intensive that I probably won't be doing it again any time soon.

The dinner party went well, though sandwiched in between a few minor glitches, including disasters both natural and man-made. Allow me to explain.

Sara and Andy were the first to arrive with liquor in tow. Ever since they got married this summer, they’ve somehow had a never-ending supply of mixed drinks. Apparently they registered at the state liquor agency. At any rate, while I opened a bottle of wine, my guests shared strong White Russians. It was when Sara was searching for ice that I first realized that the rainstorm outside had turned into a hailstorm with tornado sirens. The ice Sara needed was literally falling from the sky.

Back when I was a kid, you went into the basement (or the school hallway) during tornado warnings. These days, I guess the proper ritual is to grab a drink and stand in the front yard to look for funnel clouds. Perhaps that is what the teachers did during tornado drills as we knelt in the hallway with our hands protecting our heads. We quietly kissed concrete while Miss Tathem and Mrs. Guzay drank Margaritas and Bloody Marys on the playground.

Eventually we gained some sort of intelligence. We moved the party from the front yard and brought them to the finished basement to wait out the rest of the storm.

Next was dinner. Good. Nothing really to discuss. Bryan made a delicious tiramisu. We were full. We cleaned up and the band started to play as the women hung around the kitchen, talking about Girl Things. As my glass became empty, I grabbed the wine bottle and filled it, not fully realizing that due to the presence of the White Russians and beer, I was the only one drinking from it. Can you feel the man-made disaster coming on?

At some point near the end of the bottle, I decided that it was a good time to discuss some serious things with one my guests. He obliged and came upstairs with me. I had wanted to clarify a misunderstanding that had taken place a few weeks earlier. This was apparently a topic that I was very passionate about, because I found myself weeping. And screaming. I learned the next day (yesterday) that what had in my head been a quiet and private conversation had actually been broadcast, via my voice, to the entire house, because whispering and a bottle of wine are not a pair that can exist very well together.

While a tornado never touched down in my neighborhood, there is still a mess to clean up in my yard. As for the storms caused by my performance on Wednesday, the clean up has begun and we’re looking at a clear forecast. My new anxiety meds forbid alcohol.

That, of course, won’t stop me from eating leftover wine-spiked tiramisu, but it might prevent me from weeping over it through a megaphone.

*As I write this, it occurs to me that not everyone has an Irish band so readily available. I can remember large sections of my life when I didn't personally know someone who could play the Irish whistle, the bodhran or the pipes. Those were the dark years. If you need an Irish band, you should check out The Drowsy Lads. They're a friendly bunch; they'd probably like you.

Wednesday.

Likes:

laundry just out of the dryer
cream, butter, cheese and chocolate
wearing sweaters
making things

Dislikes:

cleaning hair out of the bathroom shower drain
the texture of peanuts
humidity
washing my face at night

Mr. Darcy.

I finished watching the original version of *Pride and Prejudice* last night, and I have to admit that I'm totally and completely smitten with a fictional character from a novel that I was too ADD to read. After spending roughly six hours with Colin Firth, it's undeniable that I have a crush on Mr. Darcy. There's something about the character that makes a girl's heart flutter. He's so honorable, so intense, so handsome, so...rich.

In real life, it wouldn't work with me and Mr. Darcy. I would be disgusted at the size of his manor, with the way he clings to class distinctions, with the fact that he never laughs. But in the pretend world, where I always get to wear dresses with empire waists that flatter any bosom size, where I have someone brush my hair for me, where I get to say things like, "This vexes me" and "That is very vexing" and "I feel vexed," Mr. Darcy is perfect.

Has anyone ever noticed that Elizabeth Bennett never has to work? That all she does is travel around and visit people? But that while none of the daughters do any work, the family is supposedly poor?

Conclusion: real life is different than fiction. How vexing.

Very Crisp.

I'm in a squirrel-ey mood today, and I'm okay with that. Here's a list of things I've been thinking about, have done or will do soon.

• Autumn. It's here and I'm excited. I've been spending my Sunday nights on a farm in Sunbury Ohio trying to learn how to relate to high school kids. It's lovely out in Sunbury. We've been having campfires, feeding horses and in two weeks, we're going on a hayride! A hayride! I haven't done that since I was, like, fifteen. Lovely.

• Phlegm bubbles. Last night, while Bryan was teaching about the sowing of the seeds, I watched this kid make giant bubbles with what was most definitely phglem. It was disgusting. I later asked him if he thought that playing with his phlegm is something that might make girls like him in the future. We both decided that we didn't think so. But, for the present, I don't think he cares if girls like him. Oh well.

• Dating tips. I spent a good amount of time yesterday trying to teach boys about girls. "If she changes her hair, take notice. Ask her if she did something different. And then say it looks good. That's important. The good part. Be sure to drive that home. And, if you really want her to like you, stop pulling her chair out from underneath her when she's about to sit down. That get's old after the sixth or seventh time. Have you tried flowers?"

• Repairs. I'm getting my car towed to a cheapo mechanic today. I'm praying for a $600 price tag. As compared to my original $1200 estimate. Yuck.

• Movement. My mom now lives in the state of Ohio. I cannot recall if she and I have ever lived in the same state. (Insert a joke about the state of denial, state of confusion, etc.)

• Love. On Friday night at a Spelling Bee for the Library, I watched Bryan rap out a Czech swear word on stage in front of 100 strangers. He didn't want to be in the Spelling Bee. Nor did he want to publicly rap. He's a good man.

• Strange. And finally, I used the phrase "as crisp as a baby's bottom" today when describing my love for Autumn. It doesn't make sense, but I kind of like it. I'm going to try to make it catch on. Like my "Ohio needs a mountain" movement and Sarah's "great gravy" initiative. (In high school Sarah and her brother made it their lifelong goal to make "great gravy" a phrase in everyone's vocabulary.