There have been two books* that I have liked a lot recently and I’ve noticed that when I really like a book, and I’m about half-way through, I start to run my hand over the cover and then smell the pages at the top of the book.  A good deep inhale, and then I take a look at it again wishing that I could read a little longer or wishing that I could write like that or wishing that I could have the life of one of the characters.  I love the smell of a book, new and inky or old and musty.  It’s part of becoming friends with the book, really taking it in.  I used to get this feeling about books, but it’s been a long time.  I think that since entering graduate school, I’ve become a better reader in general, and I think that I’ve spent so much time wading through dense texts that opening up a novel that allows my eyes to glide across the page is so… pleasant.  I almost forgot people could write stories that make you feel something, that make you savor every word.  It’s a beautiful thing.

Tomorrow, I feel like finishing this book and writing some of my own stuff.  Ah, summer.

*Loving Frank and The Namesake

Today I was on my own.  I had a nice leisurely run this morning (and it was in the 60s!).  Then, I read a good book (The Namesake, finally!  Thanks, Beth!) on the porch.  I even snuck in some academic work I had been putting off… put together a proposal for Bergamo (one of the conferences I loved last year) and resubmitted a formerly rejected article to a different journal.  I’m hoping that both of these turn out well, but if it has been anything like the past, my conference proposals get accepted too often for my taste (as they involve a presentation) and the journal article gets rejected.  Oh well, now I just wait.

This evening, I made myself some kale and rice soup and burned my wrist with steam.  Have you ever heard that steam burns are worse than regular ones?  I have and it sure hurts worse than the burn that I gave myself last week trying to catch the curling iron.  You might call me careless, but I prefer fearless.    Tonight I plan on reading a little more and maybe watching some solo telly.  Tomorrow I go back in the office for the first time in 4.5 weeks.  Wow, time flies.

This blog post is a dud, ain’t it?  Publish!

This week’s challenge is not to buy anything for a week.  I think I’m going to sort of pretend that payday is next Monday, I’m out of funds for the week, and I just have to deal with it.  I got a few groceries on Friday, so I think I’ll be okay in that department.  What might be harder is not going to get some coffee at the coffee shop or not going out to eat this weekend when Dan gets home from Arizona.  We like to do that.  I also hope I don’t end up “needing” gas.  I don’t think I have any place to go except to pick Dan up at the airport.  Hmm.  This shouldn’t be that hard, right?  Just one week.  It should be easier than not talking anyway…

- On the porch in the morning, I started singing to myself.  Does that count?
- My neighbor two doors down talks to me.  I say as little as I can.
- I put toilet cleaner in the upstairs bathroom and when I came inside the toilet was flushed.  I wanted to ask Dan if he scrubbed or just flushed, but I couldn’t.
- Dan asks me questions about a gift and a card.  I answer only what I need to, but Dan makes fun of me for not being able to talk and I playfully punch him, which he fully expects.
- Mom calls and leaves a message.  I decide to email her back.
- I walk to the post office to mail a package.  On the way I have to say hello to another neighbor and Sonja, our groundskeeper.  Then, I have to talk to the postal worker.  Duh.
- I then walk to the coffee shop to work and have to talk to order tea.
- On the way home from the coffee shop, I see Sonja again and say hello again.
- I came home and wanted to tell Dan about what happened at the post office.  I couldn’t, so I wrote it in my blog.
- I went outside to work and m neighbor was out again and talked more to me.  Not my fault.
- The UPS guy came with a package while I was out there too.  Bah.
- I wanted to tell Dan about how much work I had done all day, but instead I flipped through my many pages of notes and sighed.  I think he understood that.
- I accidentally talked to the TV as I watched Wifeswap and the Bachelorette.
- I asked Dan about his day because I figured that wasn’t really me talking or telling stories.  I just listened.
- Dan and I drove around to find a new recycling bin (ours had been moved) and we had to talk to figure out which way was best.
- While we were driving, I noticed that I held back saying things I would normally say, like “This light is really long!”  or “Ooh, look at that cloud!”  or “Where is this guy going?”

See?  That was just Monday.  I couldn’t keep records like that all week!  Besides, by the third day I was feeling kind of emotional.  I realized that the more I didn’t talk, the more I had to keep all my emotion, good and bad, bottled up.  A little while ago, I started to think that it would be nice if I didn’t have a body to schlep around, but I think now that I would definitely miss my own voice.  I noticed that I use my voice to shape my environment in a way.  I use it to tell jokes, ask questions, sing, laugh, etc.  And without it, it was quiet and boring.  And, Dan kept being confused about whether or not I was upset.  Usually, I’m only that quiet when I’m upset about something.  The thing is, I wasn’t upset, but I started to feel as if I was because I couldn’t be peppy and funny at all without my voice.  Maybe if I was a mime, I could have, but I’m not a mime, so I felt very restricted and it kind of made me sad.  And it was also as though I couldn’t release any of the bad feelings by talking, so they sort of got stuck inside.  Make sense?  No?  Well, you try it and maybe the same thing will happen to you (but, maybe not).

On the other hand, I also noticed some good things.  I noticed that often when I want to talk, it’s to complain or criticize or get attention via some sort of comment I think is funny.  This isn’t always true of course, but I started seeing a pattern that much of what I was holding back was negative or self-indulgent.  In that way, it was a good exercise.  There was a guy in church a while back who talked about this challenge where you where try not to criticize, complain or gossip for 21 days straight.  And if you mess up, you have to start all over.  I noticed how much I wanted to do the first two things and I think that his challenge would be a good one.  He wore a bracelet and anytime he had to start over, he switched arms.  Maybe I’ll try that.

But, see, by Friday, Ben and Rachael had stopped by one night, I talked to Mom and Julie on the phone and Dan and I went out to eat and I just didn’t want to sit there and not talk.  Then, I went to Canton on Saturday and I wasn’t about to go visit people I don’t see that office and sit in a corner.  This weekend, I just gave it up, but I was still trying to pay attention to what I was drawn to talk about and unfortunately the complaining, the criticizing and the gossiping were big.  I also like to tell a good story though, so there were some of those too. 

This was a nearly impossible challenge for me.  But, I learned a lot about myself (some things that I would rather not think about me) and I think it was a good (if short) experiment.  Dan has taught me a lot about how silence can often say more than lots of words, and in grad school I have also learned when it’s important to keep my big fat mouth shut and just listen.  This was sort of an extension of that, but now I feel like I need to learn to control the negativity that is so easy to let slip.  How can I do that?  Does anyone have suggestions?

What a nice day!

I was going to write some more about my day, but I’m tired.  It has something to do with Plato’s closet not liking my stuff, but it’s not that interesting anyway.  Night!

P.S.  Been missing my Dad for seven years today. 

Anyway, 21 pages down today on my final exam question!  Just revisions for the next two days and then a few weeks off until more revisions!  This is very anticlimactic, but it’s still good.

Beth and I had been looking at colleges since we were at least 15.  We searched college catalogs as a hobby.  We trashed Canton every chance we got.  We couldn’t wait to leave, to go somewhere great, to start our own lives.  Where would it be?  California, Washington, DC, New York?  We had so much fun imagining how our lives would change, living in an amazing place and starting college where we would make new friends and major in something fantastic.  We were ready.  We were more ready than any two girls could be.  Beth decided first on American University in Washington and I made up my mind a little later.  It was so great to dream all summer and then finally pack up our rooms and load up the cars together to head to our new lives… a 6 hour drive, my dad and me in his purple lumina and Beth with her parents in my Aunt Mary’s borrowed van.  We arrived, we walked around, we unloaded, and then we went to the quad to say goodbye.  There we were hugging our parents one more time before they headed back home without us, but it wasn’t until they got in those empty cars and pulled away that we looked at each other with tears in our eyes.  This was it.  The moment when we got our freedom, but also the moment I realized that I didn’t live with my family anymore and that I would be sleeping in a new and unfamiliar place that night. I didn’t expect to feel that feeling.

The tears didn’t last too long though and before we knew it, we were getting around like pros and loving the life of a college student.  But there are lots of times that I still long for life just before that moment.  I think we all do.  When we had only minor responsibilities, when we were taken care of, where we were allowed to be kids and where we just fit.  You really don’t know what you’ve got till its gone.

Anyway, there are a couple of stories that I’ve been dying to tell Dan today and since I can’t, I’m going to tell the internet (that Dan also reads)!  For the first story you need a little background that Dan already has, but too bad Dan, everyone else needs this part.  So, I am submitting another journal article for publication and for some reason this journal requires that I mail two paper copies and a CD with the file on it (because apparently they’ve never heard of online submission systems).  I wanted to get this done yesterday, so Dan and I went to a FedEx center and I picked up a cardboard envelope thing, filled out the forms and then went up to the counter to mail it.  The guy asked for the zip code and I fumbled around for a minute because it was going to Canada and their zip codes have letters in them… crazy Canada.  But so, I read it to him and he goes, “Okay, to get there on Tuesday or Wednesday, it’s going to be 59 or 60.”  And, I go, “Dollars?” And he goes, “Yep.”  And I said, “Do you have anything cheaper?”  And he looks all annoyed and says, “Um, no, I don’t see anything.”  And I’m thinking, this is a flat envelope that weighs 8 ounces and is going to Ontario, which technically borders Ohio!  But, I didn’t yell, I just said, “Well, can I just pay for the envelope?  I’ll go somewhere else to ship it.”  And I pay my $1.59 and as I’m walking out the door, I say to Dan, “I shipped a box to Burkina Faso in Africa for cheaper!  That’s insane!”  Blah.  So, today at lunch I walk to our local US Postal Service, filled out a form and guess how much it’s going to cost to mail a large envelope to Ontario, Canada?  $4.  Yeah.  That’s what I thought.  FedEx, you stink.

Okay okay, this is a good one too.  I’m on the porch this morning eating breakfast and doing work and I see my neighbor two doors down.  I don’t know him too well, but I’ve gotten to know his habits since I’ve been home full time working on my exams.  He has two shih tzus that he seems to be walking every time I head out for a run.  He also smokes on the front porch just about every hour or so and since I’ve been spending a lot of time working on the front porch, I’ve been seeing a lot of him.  We don’t usually talk, but today (of all days), he decides he wants to say hi.  And he says, “You sure do stay out here a long time.”  And I say, “Well, I kind of have to.”  But, I didn’t elaborate because, well, I’m not supposed to be talking this week.  Gah.  And then that’s it and he goes inside.  But, this afternoon, I’m back outside again and it’s smoke break time (I guess) and this time he goes, “Do you have problems with your internet or something?”  And I go, “No, I just like working outside.”  And he says, “Oh, well, before you said you had to be out here and I figured since our walls are made of metal (they are) that you were having problems with your internet.”  I say, “Oh, no, I’m just working on some exams and I just have to be reading and writing for long stretches, that’s all.”  “Oh,” he says, “I work from home, I’m a writer, and I have problems with my internet all the time.”  “Oh, yeah?  I thought you might work from home.”  But really I’m thinking two things, Stop talking! and I live next to a writer!  Maybe he can tell me how to get something published! But, then I don’t say anything else and he goes, “Well, good luck with your exams.”  “Thanks.”  See, I know this sounds like a lot of talking, but I kept it to a minimum, I swear, and what I really wanted to do was jump up and walk over to his porch and introduce myself and ask what he was writing, but I refrained, for now.  It made me feel kind of socially awkward, but I’m all about following the rules of my challenges.  But really, how cool is it that we live next to a writer?  Neat, huh, Dan? 

I need to taaaallkkkk.  Wah.