“So am I going to walk you down the aisle? Or should you have someone else do it, so that maybe this time it will stick? You’re like a farm animal…I give you away but you keep coming back.”
Bobby wanted to write this title, but all of his suggestions were terrible.
Discussing meats over a lunch at Whole Foods: “I’m very particular about my meat. Gristly, fatty, weird stuff just freaks me out. I think it was the way I grew up – my mom always bought the nice, lean, high-quality stuff and it spoiled me. A few years ago, I bought a big package of store-brand chicken breasts and they were gross. I had to throw them out.”
“Really?” Bobby replied. “Chicken is pretty lean.”
I grimaced. “Nope. These were bad. For me, it’s Perdue or die.”
Whiner.
I feel kind of over writing this blog. Maybe I’m just being an irritable shit today. Probably, actually, but I still feel like quitting anyways. Sometimes I think it would be awesome to just drop off the Internet entirely; kill my Facebook account, unsubscribe from any mass emails, stop checking blogs and websites regularly. An analog existence actually sounds refreshing a lot of the time, and it certainly would help me avoid times like Monday afternoon, where I lost several hours to pointless surfing while avoiding a ride on the trainer.
But then I’d miss the latest post on fmylife.com and then I’d probably catch fire.
I’ve been grumpy for the past few days on and off for no discernible reason. It’s annoying because I know I’m a drag to be around (I’m around myself all the time and it sucks), but I can’t change the problem if I can’t identify it. If I had to venture a guess, I would say it’s the same problem I’ve been facing for the past few months: I am discontent, dying for a change of some sort, but unable to choose a step to take in any direction. Be a pro cyclist? Go to law school? Try being a writer? Reproduce? Pierce or tattoo something?
This is probably a quarter-life crisis. It makes me want to fill my ears with cement when I realize that saying that calls to mind a John Mayer song I used to love when I enjoyed generic, boring music. When I made my mom listed to Mayer’s album back when I loved it, even she was like, “Meh. It’s boring.” I didn’t know any better at the time. Now I listen to generic, ‘trendy’ music by bands with names that start with “The” and I feel superior to my former, John Mayer-listening self.
I just choked on the gum I’m chewing while being completely sedentary in my cubicle. FML.
What An Excellent Year For An Exorcism!
For the past three years, I have begun each new year with a review of how I did with my previous year’s resolutions and a discussion of my new resolutions. That sounds boring, so I’m not going to do it. Instead, I’m going to do a quick recap of the past year in list format, which saves me the time and trouble of developing thoughts and connecting them meaningfully in paragraphs. Also, it’s probably less tedious for you to read.
Things That Sucked in 2009
1. Grandma died.
2. My fiance left me and moved out.
3. I drowned uncomfortably at a job that tried to eat my favorite coworkers after it had chewed me up and spit me out.
4. Scout went blind in one eye, which now glows radioactively whenever it catches the light.
5. I killed every plant I owned this year (four of them).
6. The military does not want me.
7. I started a new anti-depressant. This could fall under the “Sucked” category, since the reasons for deciding to start medication again were not happy reasons, or it could be considered a “Good” thing, since it’s like a positive step or something. My therapist would probably be peeved to see that I’ve settled on putting it here.
8. I exercised bad judgment. That description will have to suffice.
9. Racing cyclocross became too mentally taxing, so I bailed in early October.
10. Bobby’s contribution to this list: “You left a huge, irreparable stain on the carpet in the spare room.”
Things That Were Good in 2009
1. I paid a lot of money for a free, middle-aged, overweight dog. He turned out to be many different flavors of awesome.
2. The (5) Days of Summer were a lot of memorable fun.
3. My fiance came back (but remains self-demoted to boyfriend status).
4. I was gainfully employed for the majority of the year, while many people were not (or so I read while surfing the Internet all day long at work).
5. My carelessness led to accidentally cashing out my retirement plan early, resulting in a large check appearing in my mailbox. Whoops. And also, score!
6. I folded 1,000 origami paper cranes. I also learned that one can fold just shy of 30 cranes per hour while riding a stationary bike.
7. I only visited the emergency room once.
8. I hosted the first annual Log Posse Weengiving Dinner in November and acquired my first pair of homemade, bejeweled underwear. There’s a story and a post behind all of that, but Hello, Laziness.
9. It was a good racing season. I was the Kenda Cup East Champion for my category, I had a lot of podium finishes, and I completed the Shenandoah Mountain 100 in 11 hours, 11 minutes. And I did all that while only crying before 50% of my events.
10. I discovered that slathering Bag Balm on my saddle region really improves the quality of my life. Or at least the quality of my bag.
11. Nobody else close to me died, I had great times with my friends and family, I didn’t get hit by a bus, it snowed a lot in December, my carbon footprint probably shrank, whatever, so on and so forth.
If I did not include something that you feel was good about my year, I mean no offense. It was undoubtably a wonderful contribution to the parts of 2009 that did not suck, and I just can’t recall it right at this moment. Mom, I am certain you are going to add your own list of positive things to my comments. You go on with your bad self.
In the breaking of the year-end post tradition, I’m also not going to bother doing any New Year’s resolutions. Sure I have goals and shit, but I’m not going to come up with anything specific that will become a to-do list item that stresses me out. This year, I’m just going to do whatever the hell I want and to hell with the rest.
Happy New Year!
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Martha St(ew!)art
After Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house, I was standing in the kitchen as they packed up the leftovers. I opened a drawer to put back a pen I had been using and saw a small pink plastic brush in a box towards the back. The brush was clearly leftover from my days of playing with dolls, and was probably meant for a Barbie or other small toy.
“Why do you still have this thing?” I asked my mother, as I impulsively began combing the brush through my hair.
“Oh,” she replied, “I use it to brush the fringe on the throw rug in the foyer.”
This is long and somewhat depressing. Enjoy!
Hello there. It’s been a few days, a lot has happened, a lot of it has been a crapload of suck, so let’s get caught up and back on track with the whole regular posting thing.
Kelley Acres Race Report
I was going to do a full report on this event, but I procrastinated and then Grandma died, so it went by the wayside. To summarize, I spent the days before this race feeling dread and doom yet again. The Saturday night before, I even broke from my standard pre-race teetotaling and had a beer, and then ate my feelings in the form of fifteen Nutter Butter wafer cookies and three servings of candy corn. It was ugly. The morning of the race was spent agonizing over whether or not to go (including a sobfest in the car after arriving at the venue and registering), until I finally decided I would hate myself more if I backed out at the last minute.
I did a quick warm-up on the trainer while dancing to music that I refuse to admit is on my iPod, lined up in my second row starting position, and promptly blew the start. No idea what happened; one minute I’m pedaling hard and the next minute girls are flying past me. All of the dread and depressing feelings flooded back in and I quickly slid to the back of the pack and considered dropping out, but then realized the only thing worse than quitting after registering would be quitting after slipping to dead last. I picked it up at that point (I may be shortchanged on the mental fortitude, but I can ride hard when forced), played back-and-forth with some of the women grouped behind the top three, and then pulled off a strong fourth place in the 1/2/3 Elite Women and first place out of the Cat 3 Women.
Grandma
The viewing/wake was this past Monday evening, and after arriving and greeting my family, I went to see Grandma lying in her open casket. It was weird; she looked like herself but she also didn’t and because I am completely immature, I touched her hand to see how it felt. It was icy and firm, nothing like the warm softness it had been a few weeks earlier, and I decided then that my grandma was not there in that odd-smelling box.
The funeral mass was the next morning and I was scheduled to give a speech as a result of an impulsive act of volunteering the previous Thursday. Most of the ceremony was spent wiping the pooling sweat off my palms and onto my suit, until the part after communion when it was time for me to speak. It went well, despite my nerves. Then my father spoke, the mass ended, we joined the funeral procession to the cemetery (and ran roughly every red light in Maryland), and fifteen minutes later, the whole thing was done and that was the end of the road for Grandma. It was also the end of the road for my car’s front tire, which died on the way to the funeral reception.
Now I am back at work, wrapped up in everyday life, and it feels almost normal except when I remember that my grandmother no longer exists. I can’t quite wrap my head around that part. I did not cry at the funeral; instead, I am holding out for a more appropriate time to feel the full force of the loss, like say during a meeting or in the grocery store. One thing that helps is that I’ve reinvented a small part of my largely non-existent religious beliefs to now include a place for my grandma that is in a heaven of her very own, hanging out with my grandpa and the other people she loved in her life. It makes me feel better than to think that she just winked out, leaving that cold body in the box. I also like to imagine that she is sort of around all the time, which is comforting when I think about her being there in spirit during my next race, but less comforting when I think about her being there the day after I’ve had Chipotle for dinner.
The Log Posse Does Seven Springs
Back in July, I started a post about a trip with the Log Posse, but I never got around to finishing that post. Here it is:
July 2009: This past weekend, we joined the Log Posse at a cabin in Pennsylvania for a weekend of riding. This included a visit on Sunday to Seven Springs Ski Resort, where Bobby and I rented bikes to try true downhill biking for the first time. Sunday started a little too early after not quite enough sleep, but somehow the six of us all ate breakfast (including me, with my scientifically prepared, highly regimented meal), got ready, and made it out the door in one hour, using only one small kitchen and one bathroom. Do you realize how amazing that is, that six adults shared one bathroom, left the house on time, and didn’t have to kill each other or resort to pooping in the woods? I suppose we may have left roughly ten minutes late, which to some people (ARNE) probably felt like an eternity, but to me it felt like we were early and had time to bake muffins or polish the windowpanes.
We drove to Seven Springs, rented bikes, bought our lift tickets, and rode up the mountain for the first run of the day. The big debate was whether or not the chairlift would be scary for those of us less fond of heights, and at first it was a bit unnerving. The ground drops away fast and the chair feels pretty minimal, but after a minute or so, Bobby and I switched to playing If You Had To Jump Off This Chair, At What Point Would You Do It?
The first run of the day sucked. I was nervous, the rental bike felt awkward and unfamiliar, I couldn’t keep my feet on the platform pedals, and I was too scared to let go of the brakes. It was also cold and windy on top of the mountain, and I started wondering if this was just a bad idea and should instead spend the day in the resort’s bike shop, buying Fox merchandise with money I didn’t have. Six more runs later, I was bombing down the mountain, whooping on the especially fun parts, and refusing to sit out any rides. The only thing bothering me by then was my hands, which refused to unclench from the deathgrip I had on the handlebar at the end of each run.
After a lunch in the resort’s employee cafeteria (a lunch that took me five years longer than anyone else to eat because apparently I am a digestive sloth), we all headed back out to the slopes to ride. The rest of the afternoon was spent going up and down the mountain as fast as possible, while working on letting go of the brakes and learning to get air on the tabletop jumps. The whole experience was so much fun and really helped me relax on downhills, which has been one of my big weaknesses during races. I didn’t even mind dangling my 40+ pound bike off the chairlift, except for the time it was sliding off my lap slightly as I announced to Bobby, “This will be fine as long as the chairlift doesn’t stop.” The moment the words left my mouth, the lift halted.
At one point, while about halfway down the mountain, I felt something weird happen with my bike and my foot flew off the pedal. Not knowing what had happened, I kept going and was only slightly bothered by a weird sound. Our group stopped a minute later to take a new trail down a different run, at which point I noticed and remarked that my derailleur cable had gotten caught in and chewed by the cassette. I was so wrapped up in the drama of that minor problem that it took Mike saying, “Um, where’s your chain?” for me to notice that my chain had fallen off. A while ago.
And that’s as far as I got. The reason I’m sticking that in here now is because the Posse went back up to Seven Springs this past weekend. Bobby and I changed our plans a bit after the events with my family, but were fortunately able to get in some quality time with the group and spend a whole day downhilling. Details will probably follow later, but I wanted to at least mention this in my update, since everything else here is somewhat dark and gloomy.
What? You Said Dark and Gloomy?
Since my grandma died last Thursday, there have been a lot of moments that have had me ready to throw my hands in the air while screaming WHY?!? I was shamed by a Genius at the Apple store who “fixed” my non-broken iPod with a touch of technical expertise and a huge helping of smugness. I smashed my head on the door of the bathroom not once, not twice, but three times in a hugely painful, shriek-and-tear-up way. Scoot scratched his eye and has spent the last three days curled up in a miserable ball, licking his paw and squinting at us in a sad, pathetic, probably expensive to fix way. My car tire came apart after the burial and has been a nightmare to replace for reasons that include a misquote from Sears, a lack of credit card acceptance by Costco, a delusion on the part of NTB that tires should cost my life savings, and an expired state inspection on the car I’m borrowing while I wait for a new set of tires to grow organically on my car. My father’s car died the day of the viewing in the parking lot of the funeral home (oh, the irony). And I made it almost all the way to work yesterday before realizing I’d forgotten my laptop at home. After going back to get it, I actually made it out to the parking lot before realizing that I’d forgotten it again. Right now it feels like the fun will never stop.
But This Too Shall Pass
Flat tires, death, sick dogs, and good friends are all part of life, so I guess I need to just keep moving forward and wait for the unhappy times to pass. There are some lights at the end of this tunnel – I’m racing the B Men’s category at Granogue this weekend, which should be interesting, and also getting ready for Halloween and my 25th birthday. Onward and upward…I hope.
I baked to fill the empty feeling…
…but all I got was an entire bake sale worth of cupcakes and muffins:
This whole death of a close relative thing is weird. I knew it was coming – Grandma was 85, in very poor health, and eager to move on to bigger and better things – but that hasn’t made this a whole lot easier. I felt good for a lot of yesterday; I knew she was finally at peace and it was sort of like a long exhale after holding a breath for several months. But then when I ran out of things to do with my family last night and came home to an empty, silent house, it started to feel depressing. I spent the next several hours making five different types of baked goods and eating an entire cake’s worth of batter, but that just left me with a stomachache and too many muffins to store in my tiny kitchen (right now, they’re all crammed into the microwave and cold oven). Evidently cupcakes, no matter how fluffy, don’t go very far in filling the big empty space this has left in my life.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
My grandma and my iPod both died within the last 12 hours, but when we had exactly enough eggs this morning to make both breakfast and the muffins I was planning to bake, Bobby noted, “Looks like today is going to be one of those days where everything just works out.”
Grandma, if you are reading this somewhere, you’re probably shaking your head because I can’t keep from slapping my personal life on the Internet. But just know that I mean well, I miss you so much, and I am really glad you are no longer trying to set a record for the longest-running resident of hospice care. Rest in peace, and know that we will never forget you and that you are very much loved. I feel so lucky to have had you as a grandmother.
On crosses and candles.
My grandmother is dying. She has about a million things wrong with her health at this point, and even though she has proven to be incredibly strong and resilient, each day that goes by is a day in which she gets a bit weaker and a bit closer to the end. This past week, she moved into a hospice care center where she will spend the rest of her fading life.
The funny part is that she is has been through so much and yet still she survives. As a family, we’ve all said our final goodbyes a half dozen times, we’ve planned for and expected the worst, and we’ve heard multiple bits of bad news about her health from doctors who are certain this time will surely be the end. I even stayed up late one night last week, crying and waiting for the call from my father. And yet Grandma is still hanging out at the hospice center, probably taking up yoga or competitive knitting as I write this.
People who have heard that my grandmother is dying generally ask if we are close, and that’s a hard question to answer. After my grandpa died about ten years ago, my grandma became a different person. She was easily irritated for the first few years (who could blame her?) but then settled into being a strong, independent woman who had her job, her friends, her life, and her travels around the world. Back in 2003, she even took my parents and me with her on a tour around Ireland, where she and I shared a hotel room the whole time. I thought that would be so awkward, but after the first night or so, it felt completely natural to stay with Grandma.
In the years since then, I never visited as much as I should have, but I tried to call once in a while to at least say hello and let her know I was thinking about her. She has the same attitude about the phone as I do; I’ll call, she’ll ask a few questions about my life, thank me for calling, tell me she loves me, and hang up. Wham, bam, we’re done in under a minute or two. The one time she kept me on the phone chatting for almost fifteen minutes was so remarkable that I called my parents afterwards to share the news.
I also sent her letters and cards, sometimes to just check in and tell her about my life and other times to wish her well if she was ill or to share good memories about my grandfather on the anniversary of his death. She used to tell me when I was younger how much she enjoyed my thank you notes and cards, so I like to think the letters I continued to send brought her happiness when she opened the mailbox.
Now she is in a hospice center, so I can’t call her house or mail her letters to anymore. The funny thing is that this has made me realize that I was partly reaching out to her because it made me feel close to her. Writing to her wasn’t just for her sake, it was for mine as well. I don’t know what I will do when she is not around anymore to even open a card I bring to her bedside.
If history is any proof of what’s to come, that’ll never be an issue and she’ll probably do the eulogy at my own funeral in fifty years. I would love that, because the idea of never hearing her voice on the other end of the line or getting a card from her on my birthday is too much to even imagine. I’ve gotten a small taste of that sorrow each time we think it’s the end of the road for her, but every time she bounces back, I forget that feeling, forget to make time to go visit her, and keep on pretending I have all the time in the world.
I was going to wait to write about her until after she goes, because I figured that would be the right time to say something. But I chose to write this today because I just read the website of a friend who lost someone close to him last week to cancer. He had kept a candle burning in his kitchen for years throughout her long battle, but now that she has died, he no longer keeps the candle burning. I wanted to share the story about my grandmother so that I could explain that starting just over a week ago, I began wearing a small silver cross – not because I am in any way religious, but instead because she is and it is my way of honoring her, her life, and her beliefs. I will wear this cross until she is gone and then long after, until one day the chain finally wears away. I will wear it to remind me of her and her strength and grace, to remind me to be a better, kinder person, and to remind me that she loved me in her own way and I loved her in mine.
So you see, my friend, there is no reason you should not still keep lighting candles to keep your friend in your life. People we love lose battles to age or disease, they move on to new and better places where they no longer hurt or feel weak, but those of us who are still here should not stop doing what we can to remember and honor them.
Flattery
My mother’s new driver’s license photo is not exactly the most flattering. It could best be described (and was, by both Bobby and me separately) as looking like she is headed to her own execution. When my father saw it for the first time tonight, his watch started beeping at exact same moment. Without missing a beat, he looked at the license and said, “Uh oh, that’s the ugly alarm going off.”