Stacyverb

Summer: it turns me upside-down

Somehow it sort of crept up on me, but apparently summer is pretty much here now.  Although my mixed emotions about the season have been well-documented on this blog, right now I find myself daydreaming mostly about the fun aspects of summer.  The seasons keep turning whether we're ready for it or not, so we might as well try to enjoy the ride, am I right?

What are you looking forward to this summer?  I'm excited about popcorn-worthy movies, both at the drive-in and in the cool of an air-conditioned theater.  Plentiful fresh produce.  Baseball games.  Frosty beverages, popsicles, and ice cream.  Picnics.  Fireworks.  Adventures big and small.

Summer and adventure seem to go together, don't they?  No matter how long we've been out of school, summer makes us think of freedom, of lazy days and endless unstructured stretches of time.  Whether that's the reality or not is another matter, of course!  Things aren't looking too promising for a real vacation this summer, but I'm hoping Anthony and I can get our free time and spare cash to align enough to take at least a little mini-break or two. 

I'm not hard to please, really.  Sure, I wouldn't say no to a swanky bed and breakfast or a week at the beach, but I'm the kind of gal who can also have fun just cruising down the highway with my head out the window (optional: tongue flapping in the breeze like a big dog on a joy ride), stopping to take pictures of weird signs and statues.  And if nothing else, there is always, always, some sort of silliness to get up to here in the ATL. 

Whatever summer adventures I find myself in, you can be sure I'll post about it all (or at least the not-so-incriminating parts...) here on the blog.

Here's a video that takes me back to those carefree summers of yore, when I was still too young to have a job, and spent those long hot days hanging out with my friends, either at the pool or in somebody's air-conditioned living room watching MTV.  Hee.

 

In my own little world

Due to work schedules and money issues and a few other smaller factors, Anthony and I have been out of circulation lately.  No socializing, no fun outings, just dealing with the basics. 

This hermit-like existence doesn't come naturally to me, and after a few weeks of it, I start going stir crazy.  Traveling only the stretch of road between my job and home day after day gets old.  I want to have conversations that don't involve bank accounts or grocery lists.  I'm not cut out for a life of pure domesticity.

But this is what we're dealing with right now, so I've been trying to make the best of it--cooking some good meals, catching up on reading, and so forth.  Focusing on this stuff while I have fewer outside distractions seems like a good thing.

I keep reading about people who take a digital sabbatical and unplug for a week or even a month.  While that seems drastic to me, I realized I could better focus on, and appreciate, the simple pleasures that are in my life right now if I could spend less time online.  Check Facebook only a couple of times a day.  Ignore my Google Reader for a while.  Check email a few times a week instead of a few times a day.

Yeah, so that didn't work so well, because today I found out I had missed an email telling me about a death in the family.  So now I feel like a self-absorbed loser.  I thought not checking email would keep me from feeling bad about all the announcements of fun events I couldn't attend anyway, and the requests for donations I can't afford to make right now, not to mention all the spam and newsletters I usually delete immediately.  But now I feel bad in a different way, and disconnecting doesn't seem like a helpful way to focus, it just seems like a way to isolate myself even further. 

Blerg.

Family time

Hey there, readers!  I took a little break from blogging while I had company and worked on a special project.  (More on that project in a future post.)

My mom and dad were in town for four days and we had a nice visit.  One of the highlights was having dinner at BestGalPal Christy's house, along with her mom and, of course, Max!  It was such a beautiful night, Anthony built a fire out on the deck after dinner.  What a treat it was for me to be able to spend the evening with so many of my favorite people in one place.

 

So what if your head explodes?

In the past couple of weeks, Atlanta has been setting new records for crazy high pollen counts.  It's normal for yellow-green dust to coat everything here at this time of year, but this spring has been INSANE because of the mild winter and early warm temps.

Even people who've never had allergies are suffering this time around.  Me, I'm more of an autumn allergy girl, so all I've had in the past few weeks has been some sinus pressure and sometimes a sore throat.  No biggie compared to the snotty misery many are experiencing, that is if they're not just knocked incoherent on allergy meds.

 

But there is an upside.  This azalea was thisclose to blooming for quite a while, and then one morning and I went out and BOOM, there it was.  Despite the fact that I'm the one who planted this bush, it continues to stay alive.  That must be because I've never done anything to it except dig a hole and stick it in the ground.  My brown thumb hasn't touched it enough to curse it.

 

Ditto this lovely Japanese maple tree.  I wish you all could know what a tiny twig it was when I planted it a few years ago, and now it's about five feet tall and thriving.  Again, that's because I haven't done anything to it.  No "gardening"--no, that's the kiss of death for any plant I get involved with.  Better to just plant it, walk away, and let the pollen work its magic.

Scenes from a wedding

This weekend we had the pleasure of celebrating the wedding of one of the coolest couples we know. Thanks, Joe and Rebecca, for inviting us to this fabulously fun party.  May your marriage be filled with this much joy and laughter for many years to come!

 

A dream of the 90s, part 2

[If you missed "A dream of the 90s, part 1," you can read it here.]

So there I was, driving toward Atlanta.  My route wasn't direct.  I made some stops along the way, exploring, and visiting friends who were living/working/going to school in Washington, D.C., and Maryland, and Virginia.  It was a great trip.  

When I left PA, there were dirty snowdrifts on the ground and I was wearing a heavy coat over various sweaters (this being 1994, there was probably some flannel in there, too).  I peeled off layers of clothes as I traveled south, watching the snow gradually disapper, until I arrived in Atlanta wearing only jeans and a T-shirt.  It was February 15, and the trees already had tiny buds on them.  I felt giddy and disoriented, like I'd landed in a completely different world.  My plan was to hang out for the rest of the winter and maybe spring, and then figure out what to do and where to go next.

Well, within a few days, I'd bought tickets to some upcoming events, so I had to stick around for those.  And before long, my friend's roommate's boyfriend recruited me to work part-time for his boss.  I made some new friends.  My part-time job turned into a full-time job.  Then another friend arrived in town needing a place to stay, so we became roommates.  Then I met the guy who would eventually become my husband.  Someone offered me another, better job.  And then, and then...you see how it was.  I came for the winter and ended up staying for the past 18 years.

That's how life works, right, folks?  You can't plan this stuff.

Looking back on that period in my life, my immediate thought is: that could never happen now.  And sure, part of the reason it could happen then is because I was so young, and unhappy, and had nothing to lose.  But even more than that, it's because things were different then. 

Many people have stories like mine about the 90s.  When money was tight and we wanted to fund something special or expensive (like a long-distance move), we just picked up a second job telemarketing or waiting tables or stuffing envelopes, and saved up the money.  No big whoop.  It was a time when you could move to a new city with no job lined up, and feel sure that you'd find something.  Maybe something crappy, but that was okay, because when you got tired of it, you could just move on to something else. There were plenty of jobs available if you weren't picky, if what you did to make ends meet did not define your life. 

I'm really glad I reached young adulthood then, and not now.  It was a much more hopeful time, I think.

What were the 90s like for you?  Did you take any big chances you don't think you could take now?  If you were a kid then, how do you think growing up during that time affected your outlook as you reached adulthood?

A dream of the 90s, part 1

After posting my new About Me page the other day, I got some requests to tell the story of how I ended up in Atlanta.  So here it comes.

In 1993, I was 24 years old and living in a small west-central Pennsylvania town where I seemed to be the only person under the age of 25 (notable exception: my neighborhood McDonald's was staffed entirely by pregnant teenagers).  I had just endured one of the coldest, snowiest winters in the history of weather, followed by one of the hottest summers, which I survived in my eleventh floor, un-air-conditioned apartment by wearing a wet t-shirt to bed every night and aiming a box fan directly at my face. 

My social life was practically non-existent.  The only friend I had in this town was a woman I worked with, who was very nice, but also old enough to be my mother.  Occasionally she would invite me out with her and her husband to catch some friends of theirs play Simon & Garfunkel covers in the lounge of a Days Inn off the interstate. 

I had a couple of romantic flings during this time.  One involved a series of dates at a Moose Lodge.  The other consisted largely of watching MTV and sipping Zima, then adjourning to the room my guy shared with some other dude.  Right: my beau was a 22-year-old man who slept in a bunk bed.  (Being near my age, obviously he didn't actually live in my town, either.)

Keep in mind, these were the things I did that passed for fun.  Because my job, the place I spent more of my time than anywhere else, alternately bored me to actual tears and/or made me want to stab people.  So yes, I was miserable, and eager to get the hell out of that town.  I spent a lot of time studying road maps and plotting my escape.

Around this time, my college roommate/BFF had gotten a job in Atlanta.  Although I'd never thought about living in the southeast before, Atlanta met all the criteria I was looking for right then: a) a large city, with b) warm winters, where I c) knew someone.  So, in February 1994, with $800 to my name, I loaded most of my belongings into a 10-year-old Buick and hit the road.

TO BE CONTINUED...

The good things

Stupid cancer.  It came back to our sweet Little Kitty again.  She had surgery today to remove two small lumps from her breast tissue and is now, as they say, "resting comfortably" at home.  The cancer could come back, or not.  (Let's go with not.)

In the meantime, Little has no idea there was ever anything wrong with her, and we'd like to keep it that way.  Except for finding that bumpy place (we check her regularly, since we knew it was likely to recur), we wouldn't have known either.  Little is a content, playful, affectionate cat with a good appetite.  She loves looking out the window (aka "watching cat TV"), getting brushed, and chasing the laser pointer--when she's not napping in a sunbeam or on her favorite fleecy couch blanket, that is.  Simple pleasures.

 

A typical post-breakfast nap

We, too, take simple pleasure in having Little as part of our family--enjoying the feel of her soft fur, the sounds of her happy purr and sassy meow, the hilarious way she frantically chases the red laser dot.  Sharing your life with a pet is a privilege, and one that I don't want to take for granted.

I keep thinking about a passage in Ann Patchett's novel Bel Canto, which I read recently. 

"Carmen prayed hard....What she prayed for was nothing.  She prayed that God would look on them and see the beauty of their existence and leave them alone."

That pretty well sums up my attitude toward life in the past couple of years.  I no longer bother to wish for great things; I just wish for nothing to mess up the good things I already have.  And sometimes, I just wish that not too many terrible things will happen all at once, and that's all I can hope for.

Have I lowered my expectations, or just developed a deeper appreciation for life's small joys?  I'm not sure.  Either way, this evening Anthony and I are reveling in the joy of having our beloved kitty home, purring on her blanket as she recovers.

This one's for you, 1994 me

This month marks the 18th anniversary of my move to Altanta (my "Atlantaversary," if you will).  I started thinking, what would my 1994 self think about my current life? 

She’d be thrilled that I’m happily married, and to another creative person.  Probably would be disappointed at how much financial stuff is still a struggle, so that I don’t get to visit my family often or travel much.  Surprised that I work at a yarn shop (I don’t think she even knew such a thing existed), but maybe delighted by that as well, because in some ways it does seem like a dream job for a knitter.  Ditto making jewelry—she dabbled in that, but the thought that I could get paid for it would surprise and probably please her. 

Would she be disappointed that I'm not making a living as a writer?  She probably would think I should've published a couple of novels by now.  And what about other kinds of writing?  Back as far as college, I had this vague dream I used to talk about—“the ultimate magazine.”  It would just be a mishmash of whatever seemed interesting at any given moment, which is kind of what my zine, Box of 64, ended up being (on an extremely small scale, obviously) in the mid-to-late 90s. 

Hmmm, isn't that what I was just talking about yesterday--the idea of writing about anything and everything, for this blog?  The concept of a blog would have blown my 1994 self's mind, because she barely knew what the internet was.  (When I left Pennsylvania to move here, a guy I knew told me to keep in touch and handed me a piece of paper with his email address on it.  I thought, "What a weirdo!  Why would I ever need someone's 'email' address?" and threw it in the trash.) 

When I think of it that way, I feel like I owe it to 1994 Stacy to work on my blog more.  Because if she knew I had the ability to write things that (magically, it would seem) would literally be read all over the world, she would be appalled that I sometimes find it a chore or feel blocked, that I don’t take advantage of this opportunity more.  She’d be shocked at how easy it is to feel so connected with people I've never met in person or haven't seen in years, all because of blogs and Facebook and such.  She'd be shocked, but she would think it was VERY COOL.  And it is.  I don't want to forget that!

Blogging dilemma

Yesterday my friend Rich wrote a post on his blog that really resonated with me.  Rich is one of those people, like me, who has a lot of interests and does a variety of creative stuff.  The problem we're both facing right now is: where does blogging fit into all of that?

I want this blog to showcase my creative endeavors, whether on any given day that means sewing, knitting, learning to play my mandolin, dabbling in experimental cooking, or whatever.  I also want to report on places I go and events I attend--road trips, art shows, ball games, etc.  And, of course, there's that nebulous category of "Life/Whatnot": pictures of random sights around Atlanta, stories about my pets, and silly adventures and mishaps my husband and I have together.

But would I rather be reporting all this on my blog, or would I rather just be doing it?  Well...both.  I just have to figure out that balance.  That, and face the fact that this blog is probably never going to be about anything.  If people are looking for blogs about sewing, knitting, music, travel, etc., there are already plenty of blogs out there that tackle each of those subjects individually and much more thoroughly than I have any intention of doing.  I just wanna do my thing--all of my things.  Whichever thing I happen to be obsessed with focused on at any given time.

If there had to be a tagline for my blog, it would be this: "Life is short, but it is wide."