how to have the best day ever

Step One: Finish the paper that has been making your life mis-e-ra-ble for almost a week now (and feel pretty good about it, as well). Email the sucker off with nary a look over your shoulder, just in time for...


Step Two: Yoga class! For best results, choose one with a warm and lovely teacher with tight red curly hair. Chaturanga like the BAMF you are. Namaste. 


Step Three: What?! Two whole hours before your next class?! That's okay... read outside in the sunshine (86 degrees today!), your only regret being that you wore the jeans instead of the dress. 


Step Four: After class (this wasn't your favorite class, and therefore doesn't count as part of the best. Day. Ever) take the Metro to Union Station. Catch the early train!


Step Five: Spend the evening working on the garden you are co-opting with good friends (they have the yard, you have the will). Eat delicious veggie tortilla wraps and homemade mango ice cream. Get home at ten and throw open all the windows, because it's still lovely outside. 


Repeat as necessary. 

Hope you had a lovely day, too!

writing day

Mission: Write 7 reasonably eloquent pages for Virginia Woolf final essay (due Saturday; aiming for first draft by end of Thursday). Do not give in to any of the following: despair; paranoia; the beautiful day tantalizingly waiting to be enjoyed outside.


6:30am Crawl out of bed to see Ross off. Heat up some eggs (my weirdo weakness). 15 minutes of youtube yoga.

7:00am Breakfast, my very favorite part of home days. Two hardboiled eggs; a glass of water; plain yogurt (a mistake... I thought I bought vanilla) with banana slices and the rest of the frozen berries. Quiet time bliss. Put the chickpeas in water to soak for chana masala tonight.

7:30am Back to bed. I know, I know... but before you judge me too harshly, may I submit to the court that I'm currently taking a new medication which makes me insanely drowsy in the morning, even though I take it at night. Not my favorite. Sleep until 9:30.

9:30am Wake up. Open all the windows and move plants into sunny spots. Think about what a beautiful day it is and how I'm stuck inside writing all day. Stop thinking about that. Shower.

10:00am Open this new blog post. Type previous. Open blank word document. Stare at it. Fight rising panic. Type header and "TITLE" for title. Feel pleased with self for filling even a small part of a page. Cut apples and cheese for snack.

10:30am Freak out because it's 10:30 already with nary a word. Close blog window to focus. Actually get some writing done (a whole half-page)!

11:30am Open up the internet again to look up an essay. Get distracted by thinking about dinner tonight. Stress about how few Indian spices I have; stress about whether or not Ross will like it. Read comments on recipe site. Realize how distracted I've become and reel it back in. Write a little more: almost a full paragraph/page. I am a writing God.

12:00pm Lunch time! I'm a big believer in two conflicting things: forcing oneself to sit at the computer for hours, and scheduling breaks. I think my subconscious needs time to sort through the things I was thinking about when I was chained to the desk. I also think this process happens best when it's combined with food and old episodes of Parks and Recreation. Lunch: Half of the biggest grapefruit ever; two pieces of toast; three chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk. Cleaned up the kitchen so I don't have to worry about doing it when Ross comes home, thus freeing me to... just... write. Hmm. Maybe I should spill something.

1:00pm Lunch over. Back to it. Le sigh.

3:00pm Or not! Turns out it was supposed to be really hot today, ergo I should have left the windows closed, ergo I became really hot and dehydrated and fell asleep post-lunch. Whoops. Ok... NOW we're back to it. Good heavens.

4:30pm Yeah... this essay is going really slowly. I'll let you know when I've finished the wretched thing. Haylie OUT.

Edit: Writing yesterday was an utter disaster. I couldn't get my thoughts to congeal or my attention to settle and this morning I realized I'd have to start over almost from scratch. Bright side? It's going much better today (Thursday). Although my thoughts are still somewhat fuzzy, I have a better idea of where I'm going. I doubt I'll have a draft by day's end like I'd hoped, but I'll be much, much closer to that goal than I was last night. Writing is hard, man. 

acknowledgements

Today I spent some time fantasizing about the acknowledgements page for my future first book. Here are some possibilities.

To my husband, Ross: Thanks for making sure that neither the cat nor I starved to death. On an unrelated note, thanks also for making sure the bridges of Maryland don’t fall down.

To the English Departments of Cornell, Brandeis, UMass, NYU, U of Virginia, U of Chicago, Penn State, UConn, Urbana-Champaign: Thank you for your rejection. The English Department at GWU is awesome. You, clearly, are less so. Thanks for helping me dodge a bullet there.  

To my friends on Facebook: Thanks for responding to even my most narcissistic, whiny, and/or needy status updates. Put another way, thank you for responding to my status updates.

To Portland: I think I’m speaking for everyone when I say thanks for allowing me to be the girl who talks about how her hometown “is, like, waaaaay better than this place.” Because everybody loves that girl.

To Don, the man I sit next to on the MARC train almost every morning: Thanks for making room for me. I hope the USC basketball team does well.

To my cat, Creature: Thank you for whining, freaking out, attacking my leg, and generally carrying on while I was trying to write this, and all other, books/papers/articles/emails/shopping lists. Although you make me crazy, unbroken stints of focused writing make me more so.

To Scott, another frequenter of the MARC system: Most flamboyant men are delightful. You’re mostly loud and obnoxious. Thanks for crushing stereotypes.  

To my third grade rival, Christopher C: Thanks for nothing. I still despise you for building a better model of a California mission than I did. I also despise your sister for narrowly beating me in the school spelling bee. A plague o’er both your houses.  

To Kelly Sirles and Chris McDonald: Thanks for being my Portland fellows in this crazy world of English. Chances are extremely poor that more than one of us will be successful and here I am already publishing a book, so, you know. Good luck with that.

Dear Ira Glass: Thanks for everything. I couldn’t have done it without you.

the big red button

Today I pressed the reset button. It was a minor thing, really... I didn't go to a class. But it felt like a really big deal. I always go to class. I'm just that kid. I can be irresponsible and flaky in some other spheres of my life (I'm big enough to admit that, I think), but I always, always go to class. So choosing not to go this evening was:
a) a big deal (I think that's covered now), and
b) extremely liberating.
It's been a slightly crazy couple of weeks, and it's only going to get more so from here. So tonight I just came home early. Ross and I took a walk, we had a nice dinner, and I've had time to sit down and write this blog post. See? Everybody wins.

update friday

Hello all. Remember that time in January when I promised that I’d blog more often? I believe 20 posts a week was my delightfully naïve goal. Ah! Something about the plans of mice and men (and graduate students). Please accept my sincerest apologies, and my (mostly sincere) promise to do better. In the meantime, here are some bullet-point updates for your consideration:

CREATURE:

• Loves her hexbug
• Misses her terrace garden
• Is otherwise pretty much the same she always was

ROSS:

• Continues to work extremely hard for the State Highway Administration, making sure that the bridges of Maryland don’t fall down. I think we can all agree this is an important service. Thanks, Ross!
• Had an interesting project lately in which he was checking the plans for a pedestrian bridge that really would have fallen down if he had cleared it. Which he didn’t
• Organized the bookshelf and “the office,” which means the house is pretty much all done. Thanks again, Ross
• Is reading the Harry Potter series in Polish
• Likes Creature a little. Sometimes
• Likes Haylie a lot. Usually

HAYLIE:

• Started working a lot more hours at her job with Kid Power DC.
• Is taking (and mostly really enjoying) classes on Shakespeare, medieval objects, and Virginia Woolf
•  Is presenting at her first ever conference (at GW, on a graduate panel) in a week!
• Is presenting at her second ever conference (in SLC! On a real grownup panel!) in April
• Is flying to Sacramento to visit her dad and family for Spring Break
• Got a summer job with the Institute of Reading Development
• Started a design and style blog which has been really fun (and fairly popular) with Kathayoon
•  Officially became a vegetarian a few weeks ago

ROSS AND HAYLIE TOGETHER:

• Are hoping to have some adventures this summer
• Are planning a co-op garden with some friends (who have a yard and a baby on the way!)
• Can't wait for it to get warmer
• Are really sad about a certain family moving to Seattle :o(
• Miss all of you West Coasters an awful lot

Love, 

Haylie et al    

happy valentine's day

Heart attack, by Creature. 

Happy Valentine's Day. 

leona and george

Happy Valentine's Day weekend (more Valentine's posts to follow: I'm a sucker for the V-Day). 

launch

Hello all. This isn't the update I'm sure you were hoping for. I apologize for my lack of blogging recently. New job responsibilities + new classes + trying to squeeze as much spouse time as possible = scanty blogging. I'm working on it.

In other news, though, I have been involved in a new project with this girl:

Her name is Kathayoon, we're zoo buddies, and just for kicks we started a design/style blog for people with I Am A Greedy Girl dreams but graduate school budgets. It's My Cherry Amour, and I modestly think that it's pretty awesome... check it out!

but i still love her

tuesday morning bummer

As you may know, given our studio's lack of doors and our cat's penchant for late night festivities, Creature sleeps in the bathroom. Normally this is fine. Not so much this morning. Something happened to poor Creature Cat in the night, and when I stumbled into the bathroom there was poop EVERYWHERE. No, really. All over the floor, all over her, in the sink, on the toilet lid... everywhere. It was a poop explosion. And it gets better. Because while Ross was cleaning it all up, Creature was too scared to go back in to the bathroom, and so she pooped (again) on the carpet under my desk. Poor Kitty. Poor Spouse. Poor floor.   

cinderella story (well, kind of)

This morning as I was running to catch a Metro train a man accidentally stepped on my heel so that I lost my shoe outside the Metro just as the doors were about to close. I swore (not meanly, just impulsively) and bent over. "No, no, no," he insisted as he grabbed my shoe and placed it so I could step into it. The doors closed. "That was almost an unfortunate situation," he said (in a British accent no less!).

This event was exactly as charming as it sounds.

Note: My apologies for not blogging lately. It's the first week of school and I've been busy applying for, interviewing for, and receiving a new job (plus a bonus interview at the Maryland Zoo tomorrow). More updates this weekend... maybe even New York pictures.

it is *fill-in-the-blank* in our house

It is sleepy in our house right now. Ross is currently sleeping on the couch (he's sick). Creature is sleeping on the bed (I know... high-larious). I'm doing nothing of great import on the computer in preparation for school. It is scholarly in our house. Later tonight we're hopefully going to happy hour at P.F. Chang's (they have a GREAT happy hour) and then to see The King's Speech, which is about English history, is getting excellent reviews, and stars Colin Firth. Oh, my. Later later tonight we'll probably come home and watch Buffy while I finish knitting my first ever scarf. It is nerdy in our house.

Most of all, it is Saturday in our house. Happy weekend.

UPDATE: So. Good. Soooo good.

addendum

Festive photo from our New York trip. More photos to come, promise.

I've thought of two other resolutions to add to my list (bringing the total to a pleasing 10):

9. Carry less heavy s*** every day. Actually, I feel like this one simple (and yet oh so difficult!) change could improve my overall well-being more than almost anything else. Remember my backpack? The trouble is, I have to be on campus all day. Ergo, to make sure I'm using time well, I end up carting a veritable library (plus water, lunch, clothes for the gym, and whatever else I need) back and forth every day. Hopefully, however, all this will soon change... hopefully I'll get that most coveted of possessions for the non-officed: a locker. That would be a New Year's miracle.

10. Record our life. I love this blog, and I especially love it when I write a lot. So my goal is 20 posts a month. That's a sufficiently arbitrary number, don't you think? This is obviously for me more than it is for you (although I LOVE that people actually read this thing). I appreciate the way the blog represents our lives... it's not like a journal, where it's all about what we did and when we did it. It's more like a time capsule, and sometimes when I'm reading old posts it takes a second to remember why the hell I wrote such-and-such. Then I remember everything I was thinking that day, and what was going on, and I love that. But the "what we did" factor is nice, too, so along with blogging I want to start keeping an index card journal, like this one here. As an extremely delinquent journaler, I'm totally on board with the idea of keeping a journal every day, but only having to write enough to fit on one line of an index card.

Anyway, I think that's really it. I drank my full 64 oz of water today, which made me feel like a rockstar. Or maybe a superhero (I doubt rockstars are all that hydrated, at least with water). I am AquaGirl.

resolved

Photo by Anne Marie Musselman, a Portland photographer. Love.

First of all, thanks so much for your wonderful response to yesterday's maudlin midnight post. I was feeling pre-tty glum, but your encouragement cheered me up considerably, as it always does. So today I thought I'd return with a slightly more positive spin on the New Year. Like I said, I love making resolutions. Remember the week of living resolutely last spring (it was sadly truncated by bike accident #1)? Well, then some of these goals will look mighty familiar. We're all works in progress.

RESOLUTIONS FOR THE NEW YEAR (or "New Year's Resolutions"):

1. Drink enough water (64 oz. daily) This has always been and probably will always be on my to-do list, but I continue to get better. Incrementally. Sometimes.

2. Exercise three times a week. My newfound (and totally unexpected) fondness for the gym will hopefully make this doable.

3. Be on time for the important stuff. I tend to be staggeringly early to class and late for just about everything else.

4. Make time for adventures. Part of the reason why Ross and I were excited about moving here was because of the chance to explore new places. Lately, the cold weather has put the kibosh on that plan (warm weather = cheap entertainment; cold weather = expensive). Once it gets warmer I want to resume our hiking/exploring/camping/getting to know DC adventures.

5. Take better notes in my school books. Yes it makes my books messy, and yes, I often blush when I stumble across some forgotten and inane marginalia. But when it's paper time, those scribbled notes (of which I did not make nearly enough last term) are a godsend.

6. Find a summer job that I won't hate. This may be nearly impossible, as nothing could ever, ever compare to the bliss that is the Oregon Zoo, and I'm worried that, in spite of my best intentions, I'll spend the summer thinking of what might have been. But that's why we make resolutions, right? To try to overcome our worst impulses.

7. Make time for hobbies. Ross gave me a knitting book for Christmas, and I've been reteaching myself how to knit (I quasi-learned in college). I'm even halfway through a scarf! This fall I really missed my hobbies. Without NW 23rd, many of our friends, and Portland, Ross and I both kind of forgot to keep up with the things we liked to do. In 2011 I want to make those things a priority (especially for the spouse, who really neglects his interests without prodding)... yoga, cooking, knitting, and maybe even some gardening for me, frisbee and other running-around activities for Ross.

And finally:

8. Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other... well, you know how I feel about you. Happy New Year.

midnight missive

Hi, friends. I hope you're well, wherever you are... I can't sleep. I apologize for the lack of posts since Christmas. The truth is, I've been feeling somewhat less festive than usual. Most years, the New Year's Eve/Day duo is my favorite holiday. I'm a sucker for the promise of new beginnings that the new years holds, and I'm a passionate resolution writer. This year has been different, though. Christmas was fine... we missed our families quite a lot, but since Ross and I are also our own small family it was all right. But New Year's--the holiday that is perhaps most dedicated to friends--was extremely lonely.

In the beginning of 2010, Ross and I were surrounded by an embarrassment of truly wonderful friends and family. Never in my life have I felt so blessed by the people around me. What's more, we had the world at our feet: we were waiting to hear back from grad school, Ross was satisfied with his job (and I, of course, can't ever fully describe how much I loved mine), and we lived in Shangrila (if Shangrila has no parking, which I suspect it doesn't). 2010 stretched out before us, full of mystery and opportunity and the promise of a good time had by all. 2011 seems a little less sparkly in comparison. A little predetermined. A little lonely. It's not that I'm not looking forward to my classes, to Ross' continued increase in job satisfaction, or to the as-yet-unforeseen surprises of the New Year. I am. It's just... it's just (this was all much more eloquent in my head, before I sat down to write)... it's just that I miss you, I guess. We miss you. Zeta Chi and Annette and Christian and Donilee and Jessi and the aunts and the vast Dewey clan and Tanna and Ben and everyone else in Portland whom we love. My Dad and family in Northern California, Mom and Mark in Silverton, the Southern California contingent, and everyone in Utah. Washougal. Chicago.

I'm not good at saying good-byes. So many people have come and gone (and often painfully) in my life that I tend to steel myself against farewells, not truly feeling them sometimes for days or weeks or months. But eventually, inevitably, the brutal realization of how much I miss you (all of you) penetrates my defenses. And it hurts like hell. So (to try to put a positive spin on this Debbie Downer of a post), my New Year's message to you is this: know that you are missed, know that you are loved, and that my wish for the New Year is that is has you in it.