Go press that dissonance, if you dare.

Go press that dissonance, if you dare.

Alone, I drove our car up to Scott and Sarah's new home in Orange County. Piles of their oldest daughter Grace's toys stared at me from the passenger seat, except for her naked baby doll called Judy, who wasn't so much staring at me as it was shoving its ass in the general direction of my face everytime I checked my mirrors. Hello, Judy.

As San Diego peeled away from me, I listened to the remarkably-voiced and -named Imogen Heap of Frou Frou sing the words "is this it?" over and over again in a breathtaking zillion-part harmony in Breathe In. It was like realizing for the first time that my life is happening. I'm running a marathon in a few days and chances are, I'm in the best physical, mental, and emotional shape of my life, even though everything feels ragingly crazy right now. Maybe it's connected to the long distance runner madness, but on top of this, my heart constantly feels broken and brimming at the same time. It makes me sad to think about the changed daily fabric of our life here now that Scott and Sarah and their beautiful children are further away, but it makes me happy to know that I'll just have to drive a little bit longer to get there and that our friendships have been enriched and will continue to be enriched by this geographical obstacle.

Before I left for Orange (but not the City of Orange! It's different! You can only say Orange County!), another friend of ours pulled me aside. She talked to me about how she didn't really have anyone else that fit the place Sarah was leaving, and she was also trying to step away from another friend with a very different lifestyle. She told me she wanted to make sure she and I started being better friends, and that we started being there for each other. I was honestly dumbfounded, but played along and agreed with her. I do agree with her, technically, but it just surprised me to be told so plainly that I was second-string, that I might not have been worth the relational effort had Sarah not moved away. My own insecurities aside, they hadn't even closed the moving van door and replacements were already being lined up.

It didn't really hit me until a lazy moment at church on Sunday, when I realized I was waiting for Grace to come waddling up from the parking lot, holding hands with her mom. Sure, they'll be back at church every once in a while, but I need to get used to not seeing them like that. It hit me hard. There is no replacement.

A couple of years ago, some friends we knew moved to Alaska. They moved here knowing they'd be moving away for the next Coast Guard assignment, but didn't want to hold back from truly living in the moment. They made some amazing friendships here, and then had to kiss everyone goodbye one sad summer evening. My friend made a little speech about how a lot of his coworkers avoid taking those risks of making a connection with someone only to lose them, but they did. And they had absolutely no regrets.

I'm a better person for taking risks and loving people, even when it's not completely convenient. Doing things the hard way is so underrated. Remind me of this at mile 20 on Sunday morning.

Yes, this totally is it.

Choose Your Own Adventure, the "Your = Somebody Else's" Edition.

Choose Your Own Adventure, the "Your = Somebody Else's" Edition.

I've been trying to do some soul searching the last few days, to absolutely no avail. Typical.

Anyway, let's say you've been doing a job for the sake of having a job for the last 5 years. It's a good, intellectual job, and you're not really compromising your education in doing it. You love your coworkers and your boss, and you enjoy coming to work every day. However, it's not what you want to do and you feel inauthentic and slightly sold-out.

Problem is, you don't know what exactly it is that you want to do.

Let's also say that the last 5 years, since you've known your now-husband, have been spent pretty much supporting him while he tries his hardest to do what he wants to do, including but not limited to: going to school, taking night classes, not working while waiting for the perfect job, running off to Ojai for a summer to work for the forest service, etc. And now, we just found out that The Next Big Erik Thing, the CA State Park Ranger Academy for which he's been applying / testing / background check-ing for the last two years, has been cancelled due to lack of funding for next year and there's no chance Erik will be a ranger before summer 2007. Thanks, Arnold. It's a little bit like being hit by a mack truck, like when Holden Caulfield finally snaps and has those freaky hallucinations or whatever they were. I digress. But it's mostly what sparked all this public / communal soul searching.

You have an english degree, and you aren't very smart. You don't memorize things well, nor do you test all that well, unless there are essays on the test and then you'll surely kick it's ass. You have a well-rounded education, hate quitting, and totally despise doing things you're not really good at. (I know, I know. I'm so shallow.)

I already asked What Jesus Would Do but nobody answered or I'm having a hard time hearing. So, I'm asking you all. Also, hopefully Jesus reads my blog and will answer via the comment box also.

Choose your (a.k.a. Julia's) own adventure:

Do nothing. Stay put. Thank your lucky stars that you have a job even though the free coffee sucks and you have to buy your own recycled paper. Remind yourself that you volunteer a lot and do lots of enriching things that are helping save the world, and it's just a technicality that you're not getting paid to do that stuff. But don't forget that the shipping department has made you cry. Twice.

Become a midwife. This involves school, of course. It might involve being a nurse first, I think, and that would involve putting in some time in different discipline rotations, including gory stuff and maybe even skin diseases or impalements and shit. Also, I've never even seen a birth on TV, so it might be on par with impalements. Who knows.

Become a teacher. More school. and tests. But I would love to be a high school teacher. I'd totally be that teacher, and be an ecology club advisor and cross country coach too.

Start assigning time for a "part time job," which would be writing. I'd set aside 10-15 hours a week at first to work on the computer with NO INTERNET and NO PHOTOSHOP to just write things, either freelance or towards a book. Keep in mind that I hardly have 10-15 hours net awake time at home per week, so life changes would need to somehow be made.

Quit your decent job the very second your husband gets something permanent and work at a coffeehouse/bookstore/library part time and do more writing. Or school. Or make babies.

Make babies. Sometimes I feel like all I'm very clearly called by god to do on this earth is be a mother. I really like the concept of having a spiritual vocational calling, by the way. I just can't really hear mine.

Make a Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good.

Rent out the condo, sell the cars, and backpack across a random beautiful country or two of your choosing for a few months/years, survivng off interest from savings (hahahaHAHAHA) and the $200 per month higher the going rental rate is than the mortgage payment.

Drop everything, move to a rural area on cheap off-grid solar property with little-to-no expenses, have one income (Erik), write, and make babies and crops.

Anyway, choose your own adventure. For someone else. This is your chance to totally play god with my life! Luckyyyyyyy.

I don't even like the word "meme."

I don't even like the word "meme."

In fact, I also hate pronouncing it as "meeeeem," so imagine me saying "meh-meh," unnecessarily loudly and probably making psycho eyes. I think meh-mehs are as silly as they sound. That said, I'm totally going to do one anyway. As I can imagine 5 year old Julia saying to herself as she consciously pooped her pants: What the hell.

Ten things you don't know about me:

1. I like to stop eating a burrito about 3/4 of the way through, and then I empty out the contents and just eat the soggy tortilla on it's own. MMM, soggy tortilla. It's one of my favorite food groups.

2. I've graduated from chewing all of my fingernails relentlessly to just chewing my thumbnails relentlessly. I may have ugly thumbs, but hey, it's better than ugly everything.

3. I was a biology major for two years in college and got straight Cs in all of my chemistry and organic chemistry classes.

4. I had a dog called Rip as a kid. He was a lakeland terrier mut. Then, we got another lakeland terrier who was quite different. Her name was Jess and she started having seizures about 2 years after we moved to the US. Poor little thing. I bet she hated America, what with the plane ride and then the seizures and what have you.

5. As a little kid, I once pooped my pants while jumping on the bed with my brother and sister. I knew it was coming, and I distinctly remember thinking, "what the hell." And just went, right there. I was fully potty trained and probably about 5 or 6.

6. My coworker Craig and I have decided to do a relay triathlon in the near future. He's a serious swimmer, and I'd run. We wanted John to do the cycling, since he used to be an award-winning competitive cyclist, blah blah blah, but he was acting all "I'm too busy" and self-aggrandized yesterday when I brought it up, so we're going to find someone who cares more, even though John might change his mind and want to do it. It's sheer revenge for his bad attitude. I'm not manipulative at all, as you can see.

7. I don't really like Erik's haircut and have NO IDEA what to do about it.

8. I'm currently wearing a black cardigan and khakis that feel like pajama pants. That's kind of cheating, but I bet most of you didn't know that.

9. My hair is flipping way the fuck out.

10. We had tickets to see Erasure last night, but I backed out at the last minute and made everyone else call around to find someone else who wanted to go. I would have been a betrayal to every single person in the bar because I can't name a single Erasure song. I'd much rather save the money. Besides, I would have been annoying and whiny all night, so Erik was quite thankful that I backed out. However, I did miss the swan wings and 15 outfit changes. Good times.

Ready, go:

My thoughts were so loud I couldn't hear my mouth.

My thoughts were so loud I couldn't hear my mouth.

My little brother's life seems to have been a series of accidents and unfortunate events. First, as a dribbling toddler, he fell off the side of a seemingly-always-in-progress staircase my parents were building up to the second storey of our house. He had crawled almost all the way to the top, and just rolled off. This resulted in two older sisters, still little children themselves, running up the street to the nurse's house, which resulted in her quick assessment of the situation, something that probably sounded like, "dude, call an ambulance." (With an English accent, of course). Then, as a five or six year old, his best friend, the sweet girl next door, stabbed him in the throat with a stick. I'm totally serious. She said that he fell on the stick with his mouth open, which might have been the best part of the whole fiasco. He ended up having some lesions in his throat but no serious damage. Poor guy.

Fast forward to the last 3 years, where we find out that he has, among other things, a heart murmer, suicidal tendencies, and ulcerative colitis. The colitis recently hospitalized him for almost a week, interrupting the last semester of his senior year of college, causing him to drop several classes and probably not really helping his depression. From about age 13 or so on, he has always been withdrawn and maladjusted, aside from rare moments where he seemed to snap out of it to mutually make fun of our parents/older sister or quote Monty Python/The Simpsons/South Park with his favorite sister.

After the suicide threat, I tried to make more of an effort, but everything seemed so forced and unreal. I could feel him seeing right through me as I sat in his room with him the next day, waking him up from sleeping all day as he had been doing. I tried to alternate talking about funny things I knew he liked, reminiscining about things we did together as kids (the Great Super Mario Bros Addiction of '91, for example), making fun of our other sister, and back to trying to get serious and talk to him about what was wrong. I couldn't do it. We're not an emotional family. We try to mask everything to avoid seeming vulnerable - happiness and pain - and end up just being distant from each other and even more vulnerable than when we started.

I have a friend who in some ways is the exact opposite from my brother, but for some reason, I have the exact same relationship with this friend. Tiny nuggets of a great, deep, nostalgic, loving connection peppered by being alternately uncomfortably distant and engulfing ourselves in dry, sarcastic, borderline mean wit. I'm not sure what's at the bottom of it. Is there something we're squeezing into the vapid depths of subconsciousness that we really should be confronting? Could be. Maybe we just skipped the years of relational layers and problems and went straight to the uncomfortable but familiarly intimate end result. Maybe we just skipped the whole DNA thing and I welcomed him right into my emotionally-helpless struggling family.

I could see myself having the same conversation with him as I had with my brother on that sad afternoon in his bedroom, trying to be serious, fighting to be serious, but ultimately giving up because I wasn't getting anywhere. Sometimes when he talks I'm not listening to anything but the racing confusing in my brain, trying to get to the bottom of why I even want to be friends with this person, trying to label what keeps me here trying, what keeps bringing me back. With my brother, it's easy to write it off to familial responsibility and genetic survival tendencies, but I'd like to think I'd want my brother to be happy and to love me even if he didn't share the same disfunctional parents.

The truth is, I don't know if it's healthy for me. I don't know if it's necessary. My brother does need his sister, but it sometimes hurts me to think that my friend doesn't need me. He has his own sisters and brothers and other friends that can sit on the edge of the bed and maybe get through to him, can maybe make him happy.

I don't want anyone to see through me; I don't want anyone to notice that I'm forcing something, that I'm trying. I want to only sit down on the edge of the bed when I'm asked to and then I can be sure I'll actually listen, that I'll actually be authentically in the moment and not in my head. I'm tired of inviting myself into someone else's room.

I'll just let you go. You know I'll wait anyway.

A bulleted journey...

A bulleted journey starting with pride and self-aggrandizement through hills and valleys of pretty babies and pretty coworkers to a destination of self-pity and more pretty babies.

Saturday morning, I ran twenty miles. I didn't quite kick it's ass, but I ran it. It was a great day, and I feel very accomplished. Most importantly, I learned some important lessons regarding pre- and during-distance run pooping.

I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but I'm senior warden at our church. It's technically called "rector's warden" at our church, and the "junior warden" is actually the "people's warden." We're all about equal opportunity and not making anyone feel senior or junior. So instead of using those words, they make me a possession of the rector, and the junior warden a grammatical lesson in plurals. I digress. We had a church-wide professionally-facilitated workshop this weekend, and of course only the 50 usual suspects showed up. At one point, 3 hours into it, I turned to my priest and said, "dude, this is stressing me out." He responded, "you need to just let it go. I did." Which makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. I have a very fierce love for our church and the parishoners, but GOOD LORD. I'm just thankful that it was an outside facilitator up there absorbing it all and pissing people off, not me.

I should add that as soon as I finished the 20 miles, I (laid down on the grass for a few minutes and ate a dripping popsicle and then) ran to my car, quickly showered and ran to church for the above workshop. I was this close to just falling over and giving up, and then I had to use up my precious remaining energy for patience, of all things.

Sunday, we had a going away party for our dear, dear friends Scott and Sarah. We love them so, so much. Since they're not going too far away, we're going to have to make a point to schedule mandatory and regular visits. It makes me (and them!) so happy that Grace can wake up from a nap in our house, look at us, and say "hi Julia, hi Erik." She knows us, and it would break my heart if we didn't have the same relationship with sweet Natalie as she grows up. It was a wonderful low-maintenance party, and Sarah looked fantasic holding a much-deserved post-partum beer.

Grace is addicted to watermelon. The only way you could get her to stop gnawing on the rind of one piece of watermelon was to distract her with a new piece.

I think I have a crush on my coworker Billy. He's tall, really tan, has a bit of a southern drawl, and, amusingly, is built almost exactly like my husband. The best part is that we had never talked. Until Friday. He used the phrase, "you're quite useful," (swoon) and then used the word "shit" in his second sentence to me (unswoon). And referred to my haircut as "remov[ing] excess weight." (un, unswoon). That's okay, he's still very pretty from afar.

I was going to use his last name in the above bullet, because it's one of those names that you can't separate. You know the type - you can't call them by their first name alone. But that's a google nightmare waiting to happen.

My friend Daniel just got his PhD. I am very, very proud of him, and very, very impressed. And also feel very, very useless and like I've been wasting my time. Yay.

Real, unbulleted stories on their way, I promise.

Sweet little Natalie when the camera almost caught me sniffing her delicious head:

Lactose Intolerant, Day 366.

Lactose Intolerant, Day 366.

Remember that little experiment I took on for only 30 days? It stuck. Surprisingly, veganism is totally easy. You heard it here first.

After a year, I feel great. I instantly noticed that I had more energy, not to mention more poop. (Of course I'll mention it, though. Who am I kidding?) I feel in touch with what goes into my body (with the exception of vegan ice cream which has an ingredient list a mile long), and dude, I'm running a freaking marathon in three weeks. I'd like to think I'm doing well with it. I feel like a spokesperson or something, like I have a lot of responsibility riding on this marathon. If I can do this, maybe people will stop thinking vegans are scrawny and grey and weak.

Body-wise, I've lost weight, I think. I haven't weighed myself at all, and I don't know what is attributed to the advent of the Fall '04 Weekly Night Hikes, or to the Winter '05 Marathon Training, or what is attributed to Not Eating Cheese. But I feel skinnier, and I had to go clothes shopping so that pants wouldn't drag on the ground if I didn't pull the waist band up constantly. These things, however, are minor little consolation prizes in comparison to the greatest veganism-inspired discovery EVER: dark chocolate.

I really can't wrap my brain around the fact that there was once a time documented in diaries and notes to friends and what have you that I hated dark chocolate. I may even have used the trying-too-hard-to-be-Californian words "gag," or "ick," or "ew." I honestly don't think I gave it a chance. Or maybe I considered Hershey's Special Dark to be real dark chocolate. It's not! For one thing, it has dairy products in it.

There's nothing greater than letting a piece of pure dark chocolate melt on your tongue. Or, preferably, delicious dark chocolate flavored with a little vanilla bean and orange extract. I could list countless amazing cookbooks, my understanding husband, my supportive coworkers and friends, and my first ever vegan mentor, Rebecca, but really what has gotten me through this year with flying colors has been my dear friend dark chocolate.

How quickly one month turned into one year. The best part? I don't plan on stopping any time soon. That is, as long as Newman's Own yummy orange dark chocolate bars stay as cheap as they are.

11" gone.

11" gone.

I think this is why I ran so fast this weekend. I was so much lighter.

Ex-P.

Ex-P.

It turns out that my so-called work boyfriend has Windows XP installed already. I'm not sure what system IT is using to determine order of upgrades throughout the company, but maybe it's alphabetical starting with the third letter in our middle names. Regardless, John took the opportunity this afternoon to gloat and delight in the bubbly, child-like XP display. He's not even a real employee! Nor was he ever in marching band! I'd say it's high time I follow in the very wise footsteps of my dear friend Scott and reserve all work-boyfriend-ships for IT guys. Or girls, in the case of my marching band comrade.

But, dude. XP on a contractor's machine! You didn't even know what Filmstrip view was until a few hours ago, John, and I bet you totally don't know the difference between a drum major and a section leader. I don't know if I can go on like this. It's like I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU ANYMORE.

oh five, oh five, oh five.

oh five, oh five, oh five.

Today is Cinco de Mayo. Today, like on St. Patricks day, the American populus finds common ties -- usually in the form of plastic party accessories and restaurant specials -- with foreign pride in order to eat and drink in excess. In San Diego, I don't know if it's as drastic. Our daily local identity is interwoven with, beyond just cuisine and inebriation, that of Mexico. For some people, it's a novelty, but for many it is a given undercurrent to American life.

The only America I've ever lived in is San Diego. It took me a while before I realized that many of what I thought were American differences and idiosyncracies were actually unique to such a border town. I remember seeing signs of the road indicating pedestrian crossings. They'd have the little guy walking accross the street, and beneath that, the word "PED," and beneath that, the word "XING." Call me naive, but as a fresh-off-the-boat kid, I had always thought "XING" was the Spanish word for "pedestrian." I was so used to seeing Spanish translations beneath signs.

So, today, on this very special, not happening again until 3005, date of 05-05-05, let's all offer a Corona and a taco to any smiling xing crossing the street.

Dear May 1975, thank you for giving me a husband. xoxo, Julia

Dear May 1975, thank you for giving me a husband. xoxo, Julia.

I'm alive and well. Clearly the blog isn't, though.

A quick update: I survived 18 miles on Saturday, and then some. Well, and then 0.4. It took us 3 hours and 14 minutes or so. We took the train up to Oceanside, and then ran back to our cars. It was fucking incredible. I felt so powerful. And tired.

Today is my sweet Erik's thirtieth birthday. I'm throwing him a "30 is the new 21" party on Saturday, the theme of which I completely ripped off of someone else. Regardless, I'm excited because his hip, pierced Aunt Trudie is coming to town for the party. I want to be like her when I grow up.

I remember a few weeks after Erik and I met, he invited me to his 25th birthday party, at a bar. I had to graciously decline because I was too young to get into the bar. I'm convinced I would have nabbed him six months earlier than I did if he'd only had the party at a restaurant or all-ages high class venue like Chuck-E-Cheese. However, then I wouldn't have wanted to date someone who has Chuck-E-Cheese birthday parties and God knows where we'd be today.

I can't believe we and our friends are no longer just "in our twenties." We're in our "twenties and thirties," hereby destining us to an age bracket solely reserved for church singles and couples groups, and not much else. Consumers are grouped in separate brackets, but church singles are always bunched into the two decade combo. Soon, we'll all be in our thirties, and I'll undoubedly have another post that looks much like this and mentions the hit 90s namesake TV show. In fact, I think I'll use the title as the post title that day. Look at me, not posting for a few days, but then planning out post titles 5+ years in advance. Hopefully blogging will still be hot by then.

In other news, I'm going to donate my hair as soon as possible. The hair is freaking omnipresent. Pictures of me look like I photoshopped a giant head onto my body. Kind of like those creepy Steve Madden ads that always make me divert my gaze.

Work is fine but crazy, where we're having several product/customer-related emergencies and I'm also concurrently working on a "buy/do/make/cook" list for the party. Making lists is one of my fortes, and I'm highly proud of it. You may remember an ill-fated attempt to publish those list on a sub-blog. Making the lists public is like letting someone read your diary but then continuing to write. You'll never write the same again. My lists always had to be one step up, one step wittier, one step more profound. This made it difficult to write the chore lists I actually needed to write, or the grocery lists, so I ended up neglecting my true love.

Well, the IT guy needs to play on my computer so I should finish up. I'm currently in full strength IT-Guy Charm Mode, because apparently I'm low on the list for XP upgrades. Everyone else has it but me, and every straightfoward request I've given to get XP and the fancy photo file explorer "Filmstrip" view just gets ignored. Therefore, enter: charm. I even spent the majority of one happy hour a few weeks ago discussing high school marching band with one IT person, within earshot of my coworkers, many of whom formerly thought I was cool, stylish and maybe even enigmatic. That's dedication. I want XP, damn it.

Anyway, I had originally planned on making a beautiful, prolific-vocab post about my sweet thirty year old husband, but look, here I am talking about lists, Steve Madden ads, Chuck-E-Cheese's potential impact on my marriage, and IT guys. So I'm just going to walk away from my painfully-non-XP computer and forget I ever posted.