three rights make a left

Every time I plan a major trip I end up having a few twinges of financial guilt.  I could put this money into my languishing retirement fund.  I could make a down-payment on a car.  I could go to school and learn something useful.  I could invest in art.  I could donate to charity. I could pay down my debt. I could buy something useful and tangible... But instead I take my excess cash (if you can call it that) and pay for hotel rooms, meals in restaurants, airfare, train fare, museum admission, and other things that cease to exist as soon as the experience is over.  My un-frivolous side cringes just thinking about it.  Luckily that aspect of my personality is overshadowed by side that believes life is about experiences, and not about accumulating money or things or equity.

Traveling to foreign countries forces me to use my brain in unusual ways.  When constantly facing an unfamiliar language, that interpretive part of my brain kicks into high gear - trying to make sense of the landscape.  Not to mention having to read and interpret maps in order to figure out where I am.  I believe that travel is excellent exercise for the brain, and it also leads to a sense of humility from sounding like a two-year-old when trying to communicate with the locals.

Being in an unfamiliar environment puts "home" in perspective.  There's no better way to take a step back and look at what is really important in my life than by leaving it for a while and just being me outside of my familiar space and routine.  When I return from a long trip I feel re-invigorated by the things that I enjoy doing.  It gets me out of the routine.

It's a classroom out there.  I learn more about art and language and history and architecture and other cultures by experiencing them first-hand than I ever could in a classroom.

Food. I like food.  And going abroad opens all kinds of doors to cuisine.

Down time. When I take a day off and stay home it really feels like a day of playing catch-up.  When I travel I am forced to exist in a world where I cannot Get Things Done.

Yes, it can be pricey, but in the end I think it's worth every penny.

The loathelies:

• When the procrastination of others messes with my bizness.
• How expensive everything is!
• Pants that are too tight.
• Too much stuff.
• The things that lurk at the back of the closet.
• Missed deliveries.
• Anal-retentive project managers who actually use MS Project and fuss over it no less.
• Allergies.

• Leaving for Europe 1 week from today!  (I am)
• An organized closet.
• Moleskine notebooks
• David Foster Wallace
• I bought a waterproof pouch for my camera.  A pouch!
• Vigorous vacuuming
• Cashews
  

I suppose you might call it Spring Cleaning, but I call it long overdue.  One of the great features of my apartment (apart from high ceilings, hardwood floors, loads of windows, a full-size bathtub, and an excellent location) is the ginormous walk-in closet.  It's an odd L-shape, cupped as it is around my smaller bathroom.  The main body of the closet extends back about 8 feet, with 10' ceilings, and then there's a little cubby about 2' square off to the right at the front.

Th primary closet-rod is about halfway back, with another behind it about 7' off the ground.  What this makes is a generous space to throw shit, out of sight and out of mind, behind the hanging clothes in the inaccessible part of the closet.  For three+ years I've been throwing empty boxes and any odd or end I wanted to keep but never see.  It had gotten to the point that the frontline closet detritus (shoes, bags, cleaning supplies) was beginning to creep forward and closing the door had become a bit of a challenge.  I bought a thingy at Ikea to store towels and linens and I had no choice but to make space for it... so into the depths of the closet I delved.

I knew I had a lot of memorabilia back there, including about 2 reams of letters from my friends in high school, but I had forgotten that I had also stored all of the bits and pieces of my childhood saved by my grandma as well.  One large box packed full of folders containing the likes of 4th grade essays.  I openly lack sentimentality, and I can't imagine what good she thought keeping every school report and drawing I made as a child would do anyone.  I had already thrown out the many locks of my hair she saved from haircuts, and yet somehow I still have a chalk handprint on a napkin made by 2 yr old me.

I come from a family of collectors.  The accumulation of nostalgia has surrounded me since birth, and perhaps it a form of self protection to lack sentimentality.  At the same time, though, I keep stuff.  Almost against my own will.  I have a kitchen cupboard that is packed with empty yogurt containers that might come in handy someday.  I accumulate books and shoes at an alarming rate.  I admire those who can live simply, and I aspire to that state of un-clutter.  Right now I still have some work to do.  However much I get rid of... it's never quite enough. 

1. The weather now seems to have summer and winter modes, and it can go back and forth within a single day.  Morning: ooh, it's 70 degrees!  Afternoon: Why is it snowing??  Or vice versa.
2. Men are almost universally interested in women's boots.  It seems like it is something close to professional interest.
3. You win some. You lose some.
4. I have expensive taste.  This is not necessarily a virtue.
5. It is really difficult to avoid buying things made in China.  Go ahead, give it a try.
6. Hair salons are ridiculously overpriced.
7. I cannot spend less than $195 at Ikea.
8. Cheap lamps are not durable.
9. Wool rugs shed.
10. Exercise makes everything better, and yet it is so hard to find the time/ motivation.
11. Thin asparagus tastes better.
12. Drinking lots of water improves my mood.  Drinking lots of alcohol doesn't.
13. Losing weight is not as easy now as it was ten years ago.  I think this has more to do with my metabolism than climate change or some other mysterious external force... but either way these are factors I cannot control.
14. Political red herrings are more common in the media than political realities.
15. Sugar is my most deeply entrenched addiction.
16. Moby makes music for ambivalence and/ or organizing one's closet.  There seem to be no emotional highs or lows whatsoever.  It's just... there.
17. Oysters have no real aphrodisiac effect that I can detect after eating a dozen or so.
18. Reference books published before 1930 are almost always hilarious.
19. In eleven days I will be in Denmark for the first time ever.  I'd never really considered going to Denmark before.
20. There's never as much time as I think there will be.
    

Tell me, tell me: what must I absolutely be sure to do/see/eat/drink in BERLIN and PRAGUE?  I will also have limited time in Copenhagen and London/ Brighton...oh and Southern Sweden.  I know, a bit random, but there is a logic to all of this.

Also, do you know anyone who'd like to share a drink or a meal with a weary solo-traveler?  Tell me.  I leave on the 13th.

I loathe it:

• stress
• clutter
• voicemail
• advertising
• re-shoots
• unfolded laundry
• wasted food
• working in the evening
• forgetting to take daily photos
• forgetting in general
• discomfort
• fitful sleep
• bank of america

• natural hot springs
• moss
• spring in seattle
• getting ready to go to europe
• funny little bird noises
• projector!
• ikea.  i admit.
• river rapids
• body heat
• professional respect
• strong coffee
• new lamps
  

Last year, I hiked the Lover's Lane Loop alone and ended up soaking wet, covered in mud, tired, cold, and injured.  Half of the hike was essentially in rushing streams.  This year the winter has been different - longer and colder - and half of the trail is still covered in feet of snow.  The brush hasn't been cleared from the trail yet either, so it can essentially be classified as a pain in the ass.  We got all of a quarter mile or so up the trail and decided to turn around.  It must be nice in the summer when the trail is clear and dry.

Soaking in that hot water is relaxing in a way I can't describe.  I fall asleep at 9:30 every night I'm there and have strange dreams.  There's something beyond simply nice hot water going on there.  I mean - I take hot baths at home regularly and never feel quite like that.  I'm glad I've decided t make this an annual sojourn. I just wish I could have stayed longer.  Now I have to start thinking about my trip to Europe in just over 2 weeks!

This week has been... Lost footage, miscommunication, driving around a lot, meetings (starting at 7:30 a.m. yesterday), a trip to the gym for once, tiredness, clinching, chocolate, watching Cold Feet on DVD, dinners in three of my favorite restaurants, nice clients, gantt charts, laundry, returning dvds far and wide, running late, coffee.  Coffee. I need coffee.

In a few hours, after I return some dvds, pick up some prescriptions, go to the chiropractor, and have a 90 minute conference call, the man-friend and I will be hopping on a ferry and then driving to the Sol Duc hotsprings, for two days of standing still.

Amongst the many things that have lately been distracting me from blog-land is producing a DVD for patients recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. The first edition of the DVD was my first official producer role four years ago, and now we are revising it with new and updated information.  Two of the new sections are testimonials from family caregivers and interviews with young children of people with Parkinson's.

Carolyn is in her seventies and her husband Wayne was diagnosed with Parkinson's ten years ago.  They have been married forty years and rarely have I seen someone so in obviously and honestly in love.  She does not see the disease as a burden (though clearly it is), but rather as a journey they did not plan to take.  Over the course of this journey they have learned a lot about themselves and one another, she has improved her physical health and lost weight, and she sees them as caring for one another, as opposed to her taking care of someone who is sick.  Parkinson's Disease does not make life easier for anyone, but this woman takes the good with the bad and they live a full and relatively happy life.  It's just not the one they expected.

And who can predict these things?

Betty Jane is the sixteen year old daughter of a man with PD.  She has two younger siblings.  Her father is on permanent disability, and she is the only person in the family who is able to work.  She has a job at a grocery store and admits that some days she comes home tired and frustrated. At the same time she considers herself lucky.  Unlike other kids her age, who she teases for being spoiled, she can cook meals, and knows how to care for herself.  Of course, no child should have to go through that.  But if there are no other options, it is much better to look to the positive side of things than to become bitter and live in despair. 

Life does not always cooperate with our wishes, and these are two women who have accepted that and learned how to flourish in hardship.  Hats off to Carolyn and Betty Jane.

my lovely, witty friend Lily Moriarty has started using vox and would be a fine addition to any neighborhood.