Life After Harry Potter?

July 15 marks the end of an era--a nerdy 14-year epoch I like to call the Harry Potter years. This Friday, the final Harry Potter movie will hit the screens and leave all of us Potterites with little lightning bolt-shaped holes in our hearts. There will be no more books; no more movies. All we’ll have left to fill the void are fan sites like Mugglenet.com and disturbing fan fiction bordering on underage porn. I’m scared to see life on the other side.

In 1997, when the first book came out in the U.S., I was a freshman in college, and about the same age as the fictional characters in the books, who were born in 1979 and 80. I had never been deeply entrenched in fantasy outside the standards--my exposure was mostly restricted to The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series. But with Harry Potter it was love at first read. There was something so clever, so charming about the tale, and it hit on my oldest and dearest fantasy--to be found by a stranger and told I was magical.

As a child, I was already firmly convinced I might be a wizard, part elf, or (best yet) a fairy. I waited and waited to have that Buffy the Vampire Slayer moment when a wizened mentor came to declare my mole a mark of great things to come. Unfortunately, no one came. And I really had few moles to speak of. Finally, I just stopped waiting and packed my dream away, like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy--childhood relics better left to memory.

Harry Potter dredged up that fantasy, and apparently revived it for countless others as well. If Gen Xers and Ys are, as they say, a bunch of coddled narcissists, it makes sense we’d all be waiting for confirmation of our specialness. Raised to believe we were blindingly unique and talented, that we could do anything we put our minds to, there’s a crippling level of let down involved in growing up and pushing papers like meaningless drones. The Harry Potter series, which came out when many of us were in high school and college, carried us into the real world with a renewed secret wish that despite appearances, we might still be special. And really, for anyone with a B.A. or Masters, waiting tables or working night shifts at FedEx Kinko’s, there is a sense of magic masked by mediocrity. The temptation to yell, “But really, I swear I’m actually smart,” as you’re dressed down by yet another condescending customer, is an impulse of the mentally caged. Harry, a magical kid trapped in a Muggle world, is the poster-child for all the menial monkeys with a host of tricks up their sleeves.

When I first read Harry Potter, I thought about how much the books would resonate with kids, who, like Harry, are often powerless, friendless, and feel like outsiders. Despite what Hollywood would tell us of childhood and adolescence--that the world is divided into confident, mean popular kids and hopeless nerds, most kids fall somewhere in between. Nearly everyone, even those Queen bees and jocks, are pretty insecure, and everyone feels alone sometimes. The Harry Potter books tap into those emotions--the feelings of isolation, fear, friendship, first loves, and longing that are so heightened as we’re growing up.

As the years went on, though, and I grew older along with Harry, I came to see just how universal these themes are, long after the days of voices breaking and getting breasts. Harry Potter, who was mistreated, misunderstood, and forced to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs--could be any aspiring indie rocker or artist, struggling to get that first break, eating top ramen and couch surfing to survive. Harry’s dynamic with his friends and enemies, too, is only too reminiscent of the workplace, with its complex hierarchy of alliances, backstabbers, and brown-nosers. Harry’s dalliance with Cho Chang, and his fitful longing for Ginny Weasley, who he fears pursuing for a misguided “Bros before hos” mantra, might as well be swapped for any grownup relationship dynamic.

The truth is, middle school and high school, whether magical or not, is frighteningly similar to adulthood. Maybe that’s why so many of us can’t seem to divest ourselves of young adult fiction. Whether Harry Potter, Twilight, or The Hunger Games, human dynamics are just as real in adolescence as they are in later years, maybe more so.

What makes the Harry Potter series so powerful, however, is the fight between good and evil. Like much of the best fantasy, most notably The Lord of the Rings series, the characters’ emotional drama is interwoven with something greater than themselves--something that demands sacrifice and courage, and selflessness. Unlike the Twilight series, which are ultimately centered on the self, and on more personal struggles played out in a smaller, more intimate sense, Harry Potter is about the macro--the struggle for all humanity, for agape, for freedom and love on the grand scale. Without a fight of this magnitude, all the angst is just so much whining. With it, each step on the journey is fraught with meaning.

The Harry Potter books started out as cute, clever books for young adults and those of us, like myself, who can’t seem to leave the genre. By the end, though, they were something more. They were darker, deeper, more lush, more angry. They made me weep on several occasions. The movies on the whole have been poor facsimiles, but I’ve enjoyed them, nonetheless. Sure, I’ve been known to throw a wall-pounding fit post-midnight show for a couple of the films, particularly the Goblet of Fire, which got so many things so impossibly wrong. But the fact that I keep going to the movies is a testament to my ongoing hope they’ll finally capture the true magic of these books.

The last movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, was the closest Warner Brothers has come to giving me that desire. Slow, dark, and as cerebral as the WB can allow itself to be, I came away wishing they’d turned many of the books into two movies. From the fifth book on, the movie’s lengths seemed impossibly restrictive. From what I’ve read about The Deathly Hallows Part II (on Mugglenet, I’ll admit it) I’m bracing myself for some level of disappointment, not all of which can be borne by Hollywood. I’ve read the books so many times I could run a trivia night at our local pub. I am, if it’s possible, a Harry Potter historian by all rights. No movie, unless I was allowed to direct it myself, could possibly live up to my expectations. Isn’t that what we all love about books, after all? That our fantastical minds concoct intricate mental images from each page, down to the ticking of clocks and smell of bacon? To read is to take ownership. Much like Bastian in The Never Ending Story, we ultimately craft our own visions through our imaginations.

I’m not expecting miracles and I won’t demand perfection from this, the final Harry Potter film. If anything, I’ll let it stand as a marker to the end of my young adulthood. When I started Harry Potter I was still a teenager, lying in my sleeping bag with a cup of hot chocolate on a Spring Break camping trip. Now I’m 32 years old and a mother to my own little magical beast. Watching her, seeing the sparkles in her eyes and her bawdy little laugh, I can’t help but imagine a day when a bearded gentleman in a long cape will come to her and tell her of her powers. Maybe I’ll have a second chance to see this fantasy finally come true. Just in case, I’m buying her a wand.

I have moved...for now

I've moved here for the time being... http://open.salon.com/blog/cedar_burnett

So, a bottle walks into a room...

Hombrelibre is gone on a business trip, which means its just me and the kiddo for the next three days and I'm, frankly, terrified of going batshit crazy. Any time I claim I'm not an extrovert I have something like this to remind me I am. I do Not. Like. Being. Alone. Even if "alone" in this case is actually being with an incredibly vivacious 7-month-old. I don't like being without fully realized grownup English-speakers.

The weird thing is, I haven't rushed to make plans during his absence. Usually, I have plans most days--a walk here, a playdate there. But this week I've been crippled with inertia. I don't know if my subconscious needs some alone time, or my Puritan experimenter wants to see how well I can do without help or interaction. In any case, I'm looking at several days with not a lot of breaks from a baby.

The baby in question is really entertaining and laughs at nearly everything I do, which is not a bad ego boost, but she requires a lot of attention. Not having other children, and having avoided children much of my life, I don't really have a barometer for normalcy on this. Is my kid an attention whore? Or are all kids attention whores? If I remember my own childhood correctly, with my near hysterical need to be as close as humanly possible to my mom and sister at all times, its all kids.

But now that its me doing the entertaining, I have to admit it can be a wee bit exhausting. I'm fairly creative, but after my fourteenth round of Things I Know Amuse My Baby (trademark) I'm looking around for an invisible person to step in and continue the sketch comedy while I take a nap.

Maybe I just need more material.

We're out of the woods, we're out of the dark, we're out of the night

I should change my blog name to A.D.D. O.D. this week because I feel like a fifteen-year-old in Chemistry class right about now. Distracted and twitchy, I'm day-dreaming my way through any free time and totally spazzing out while caring for my daughter. She seems to be enjoying it--after all, who doesn't want a mom who can make 16 different animal noises and then dance like an uncoordinated Michael Jackson for her entertainment. I'm like my own variety show.

I tend to get this way every Spring. I don't know if its psychological (whee! It's Spring! Let's party!) or physiological (Get moving to the summer feeding/hunting grounds, humanoid) but I'm clearly a victim of our unseasonably warm weather this year. Something about cherry trees in full bloom and wee daffodils poking out through the grass is making me want to don a flippy dress and go running through the park.

It's amazing to think that this is Indie's first Spring. Let that sink in. Her first Spring. Imagine if you'd never seen the world unfurl after a wintry sleep. Imagine if all you knew of the outside were grey days and rain and then all of a sudden there was sun and color and birds singing. It must be like the Wizard of Oz when it switches from black and white to color.

Fashionably Late

I was recently pregnant, as my gut would attest, and by recently, I mean 7 months ago. Those 7 months spent getting some semblance of my body back plus the 9 months I was knocked up and portly equals a reallllly long time (in fashion years) out of the loop. I basically spent the last year and a half wearing whatever fit and could be scored from a thrift store, so imagine my surprise when I came back to normal person land and found that the clothes are hella ugly.

When did we decide to fuse the worst of the 80s, 90s and some mid-century interpretation of the future and call it good? When did shoes that look like they were created by performance artists on meth binges become haute couture? From high end to low end, there's very little I'm digging.

My mother-in-law once said that if you wore it the first time, you shouldn't wear it again. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so that means I can't get on the flannel or leggings bandwagon. And skinny jeans? In a moment of sheer madness I bought a pair at my local Value Village with the intention of tucking them into boots. Somehow I forgot that only 14-year-olds and anorexics can pull off that look. Let's just say I looked not unlike a T-Rex shoved into riding boots.

Tunic tops make everyone look pregnant, and I'm frankly done with that. I didn't even wear them when I was pregnant, because they made me look fatter, so I'm not about to start now. At least I can get behind the long t-shirt look that's so big now. Modesty and the loss of my flat stomach have steered me toward this style--I think my butt crack flashing days might be behind me now.

It's hard to wake up and realize you're so far behind on the trends that it isn't even worth catching up. It's the clothing equivalent of sticking with all the music from your college days because you don't have the energy to find what's cool now. I used to scoff at people like that. I chided my mom for her wardrobe--"1982 called and they want that blazer back, Mom."--and mocked my brother's in law for their music taste--"Bands have come out after Pearl Jam, guys."--but I'm starting to see how easy it would be to go there.

Stores like Ann Taylor are starting to look really good to me, and I have officially left my Forever 21 days behind me unless they change their name to Forever 31. I'm just too old--too mommish to buy Smurf-print thongs and skull print hoodies. I don't want to be one of those women in their forties who still wear cat-ear hats and think they're being cute. But I also don't want to start wearing mom jeans to hold in my pooch. There has to be a happy medium. Maybe that's what being in your 30s is all about.

Mad Men and the women they love

We've been watching a lot of Mad Men lately, and it's gotten me thinking about my love of 60's clothes, my inability to emulate the hairstyles of that period (seriously, where do women learn that?), and the obvious miscasting of my body in this time period, when clearly it is of the vintage ilk. The show, not surprisingly, has also triggered a nagging desire to examine gender roles.

In Mad Men, the women cater to the men like mothers and whores, submitting and stuffing down their desires, thoughts, and opinions in order to be proper subservients. And yet, through all of it, you get the feeling the women think the joke's on the men, as they employ the tricks often utilized by the oppressed--manipulation, lies, beauty, and a tight-knit cameraderie. Books and books have been written on the subject of mid-century gender roles and I don't have the credentials or genius to add anything on the matter, but I do find myself doing the third (or is it fourth?) wave feminist thing of wondering what we as women have lost while we've gained so much in the period up until now?

From my perch as a modern day housewife, at least for the last four months, there's something a bit intoxicating at the idea that your husband goes to work and provides for you and the family, while your expectations are to run the household and raise the kids and all that entails. There's no nagging fear about re-entry to the workplace, no constant jockeying with your husband over how long you'll stay home and when you need to start contributing to the house fund. You don't have to find yourself defending your decision to stay home to everyone you come into contact with, from the grocery store checker to your relatives you never see but are somehow allowed opinions on your life decisions. There's no existential crisis over whether or not this is the right decision and are you going to destroy your career/marriage/friendships/finances by staying home with them. There is, in point of fact, freedom that comes with restriction.

On the other hand, I don't like anyone making decisions for me, and the idea of being essentially yoked by marriage and motherhood into a foregone conclusion doesn't sit well with me.

So this is what it's like to have time to myself?

I'd honestly forgotten. And clearly I haven't blogged in, gee, a long ass time. Long enough that I am now a mom for god's sake. A mom! Like a fish with a bicycle or an emo kid who washes their hair, it's all a bit incongruous.

I've been reading "Madness" by Marya Hornbacher, author of my beloved "Wasted," a woman of brilliance and insanity in equal parts. It's good--not as good as Wasted--but good, darn good. Her typical stream of consciousness vignettes of startling imagery interspersed with totally head-screwed-on wisdom style clicks with me, our thoughts like long-forgotten Legos snapped simpatico. I don't know if that makes me crazy, or what. Note to self: analyze later.

The book makes me feel a little off. Dopey. Drugged. Again, part of her genius and I'm sure, knowing her, wholly intentional. I find myself muttering absently as I pour my add-water-and-stir "chicken" soup into a bowl, giggling at nothing in particular after reading too much. My hands are clammy; my back sweaty. Maybe it isn't even the book. I have, after all, been starving and retching and shitting my way through the last four days, as I battled (battle) food poisoning Armageddon. Midget thinks it's norovirus. The word scares me, so I avoid it.

In the book, Hornbacher talks about her constant fear, during a cycle of depression, that she's stupid and has forgotten how to write. I get that. It's my fear as well. It gnaws at me; wakes me at 3 a.m. when a full bladder or a peep from Indie hasn't done the trick. "What if I'm dumb now?"I whisper into my drool-stained pillow. "I will be found out. I am a fraud." I get the desire for mania, for the manic bursts of energy-driven excess and creativity. Aren't all artists of all ilk a bit cuckoo for cocoa puffs? Or is that just the romantic myth? It sure seems to fit most of the talented freaks I know.

Signs you may be ready to leave your twenties

10. The word "club" makes you break out in a cold sweat and you don't own a single halter top, a curling iron, or a push up bra.

9. You spent two weeks looking for the perfect commuter bag, that was age appropriate and didn't make your back/shoulders hurt, then bored all your friends with a running monologue about the features of said bag.

8. You recently purchased a "skort" from an outdoorsy company because it was "practical," and you wear clogs almost every day.

7. You think guys in their mid-twenties are cute until they open their mouths and say something. Anything.

6. You can't sleep without melatonin, valerian, benadryl, wine, or some combination therein.

5. When a kid starts screaming at a restaurant, your first reaction isn't to smother it with a paper bag. Babies start seeming endlessly fascinating.

4. One night of stoned grazing causes you to gain a whole pound. Jogging starts to seem like the only viable option for fitting into your pants.

3. Someone mentions the latest 'it' band playing at the Showbox and your first reaction is "who?"

2. You compliment your 60-year old coworker on her outfit from Chico's... and you mean it.

And the number one reason....

1. You're spending your birthday dinner at an all-organic restaurant with your husband and mom, because that's what you wanted to do.

This Vagina-American needs some hair of the dog

On the cusp of my 30th birthday, things are looking awfully bleak. On a personal level, life is a-ok. I just had a champagne-fueled birthday party, where I may or may not have engaged in a lurid display of my finer dance moves, and I'm about to head out on a European adventure like the yuppie I am. I have a sweet Hobbit house and am hemorrhaging friends and loved ones. I'm pretty much the Scrooge McDuck of joy right about now, diving in my giant pit of luck and imported chocolate.

The bleakness, my friends, is not personal, but is affecting me personally, as I'm wont to internalize such things. The election, the economy, the war--it seems to have whipped up a shitstorm of anxiety among my peers. I don't think it was a coincidence that my party made haste of no less than ten bottles of bubbly alone, in a Gatsby-esque attempt to drown whatever discontent is gnawing at our temples, etching permanent worry lines into our faces.

With how bad things have gotten over the last, gee, eight years, we of the liberal salon set were smugly sipping our over-priced macchiatos and gleefully planning our victory outfits for inauguration day. Now that She-Ra, Princess of Hicksville has entered the arena, we're running scared. I can only speak for myself, but it isn't even the prospect of a McCain/Dumbshit with a vagina presidency that sends me into a crying jag. It's the idea that the American public, having lived through the Bush years, would blithely turn around and vote in another pair of bass-akwards, cronyish, fear-mongering, racist leaders. It's the idea that my fellow countrymen would invite more of the same against their own self interests? And for what? To keep gays from getting married? To keep 16-year olds from getting abortions? To keep their taxes down? Or to simply keep a half-black man out of the white house?

If fear and ignorance end up winning out over rationality and progress yet again, I don't know that I can continue living in this country.

A rush of love to the head

Trying to write the entire story of evilcat and povertyrich's wedding would be like stuffing an entire Christmas ham into your craw. Impossible. It was too rich, too lush, too lovely, too crazy and too indescribable. So here I'll commit the snapshots: the little vignettes that stick out in my mind.

Standing in Kamaria's house with inumerable girls--gorgeous, smart, strong women talking about makeup and hair and sex and life and love--giggling and singing and playing with the baby, eating toast with brewer's yeast and drinking gin and juice while we prettied ourselves for the main event. And then, evilcat's arrival. Snapping her up in her corset and crinoline, helping her through the dress and standing there, while Pohaku cried behind the lense of his camera, looking at such a breathtakingly beautiful bride. Then all of us jumping on a trampoline (and not a Mormon in sight?) in our wedding finery.

Processing through the woods to "Sympathy for the Devil" played on acoustic guitar and banjo by Chelsea and her girlfriend, emerging on the bank of the stream to see 200 people beaming down at us from the bridge and across the creek on folding metal chairs, holding their breath in anticipation of seeing the bride and groom. Seeing Po out in the creek, up to his knees with that massive camera. Catching Alissa's eye, and seeing Presley on her hip in his bow tie and suspenders. Watching the creek run past, hearing the vows and reading (without throwing up) what I'd written about these kids to all those eager faces.

Eating tacos on hay bales with friends I hadn't seen for years. Laughing and eating and drinking a compostable keg cup full of champagne until I was past the point of caring that I was on the verge of a wardrobe malfunction. Dancing in the dark to 80's hits and country songs I don't know, almost falling down on the uneven ground, and laughing and laughing.

Watching Zeb take mushrooms and setting off into the dark to find Rachel only to find a woman named Marigold who talked to me for half an hour about the strange twists life takes, until she brought me to a giant pot of hot soy chai, simmering under a tent. Leaving the chai to continue my quest, but being waylaid by Shoshanna by the fire. Staggering off into the night with a punched can lantern to the other field, where I finally found Rachel asleep in the motorhome.

Watching hombrelibre puke up Gatorade and breakfast burrito on the side of the road outside Junction City, taking the wheel and driving almost to Portland, then both of us napping in a rest stop when my eyes started to cross.

Spotted yesterday on the bus...

...the most fetchingly nerdy couple I have ever laid eyes on.

She had milky white skin liberally adorned with freckles, coke bottle glasses and light brown wavy hair that fell past her butt, held in place by a ridiculously large irridescent butterfly clip. But her outfit was even more amazing: a baggy light pink sweatshirt, intense pleated mom jeans with tapered ankles and a bright purple leather fanny pack worn over both articles, making her look not unlike an overgrown six-year-old from 1989.

He was in a white polo shirt, almost white khaki pants and white tennis shoes, his baby gut straining at the pants, giving him the appearance of an angel gone to seed. His accessories were less angelic, however, as he flashed large yellow gold rings shaped like horseshoes and a tasteless goldtone belt.

They read the paper together, he on one side of the comics, she on the other, and made snarky comments in the sort of distinctively smug nerd voices developed from years of communicating only with one's parents and being reassured that they were "too smart to be popular."

I wanted to sell them as indentured servants to South Park. Trey Parker and Matt Stone could copy them intricate detail for detail and have another hit on their hands.

What to do on the bus when you can't read

My leetle bus riding experiment has gone swimmingly well. It takes longer, but my stress level has dropped considerably. In fact, on Thursday I ended up driving because I felt like ass and it was raining, and the resulting commute wrecked my physically. I was so tense and angry on the way home (at 2 p.m., I might add) that my one consuming thought was, "I wish I was on the bus right now."

The only problem with the bus is that I get violently sick if I read in a moving vehicle. Heck, I tend to get car sick no matter what, but reading really pushes me over the edge. To keep the ralphing at a minimum I have opted to spend my trips staring. Out the window, at my fellow passengers, at the molded texture of the plastic on the seat in front of me--you name it, I've stared at it.

More fun though, are the games I play while staring. My first diversion is a game I like to call "If there was a nuclear holocaust and you had to repopulate the earth with the people on this bus, who would you pair together, and why?" Let's just say my neuvo earth village would be highly interracial.

I also like to play "makeover" where I mentally redress and rehairstyle my fellow passengers. Only one rider has remained unscathed, and he is so painfully fashionable I'm hardly qualified to stand in the glow of his vintage reproduction Raybans. Naturally, he works at Bellevue Square. Boys that hot and gay always work retail or bartend or pursue whatever occupation gives them the best opportunity to shoot lasers from their soul-piercing eyes.

Today I played a new game, courtesy of my pink mini Ipod, which has languished, unused, since I stopped working out at the gym. As we rolled through town I scrolled madly through my playlist to find an appropriate soundtrack for the voyage. Cast in my own little movie I moved in dramatic form with the music--slowly turning in repose over the sweep of Keane, bouncing in the early morning sun to Ereland Oye and even sucumbing to Bright Eyes' 'Arc of Time' as we crested the 5-20 bridge. Bathed in the blinding reflection off the water, barely separated from the seagulls who glided past, I closed my eyes and felt, if only for a minute, like I was flying.

Whipped

When you don't sleep because you simply can't sleep, you become so close to madness-so intimately intertwined with her, that you slip into something like lovers. Madness and you; you and Madness, strolling hand-in-hand down sandy beaches with heavily-lidded eyes, weaving your fingers together to erase where one begins and the other ends. You're a darling couple. You really are.

I'll give you something to cry about.

The only thing worse than feeling sorry for yourself is when you want to punch yourself in the face for feeling sorry for yourself. Nothing ruins a good sulk like the little voice inside your head saying, "but really, you have it pretty good. And there are people in Africa starving. And think about Iraq. And shit, you even have it better than some of your friends, you SELFISH WHINY BITCH."

All that aside, I will temporarily remove myself from the hierarchy of pain to indulge in the most self-indulgent thing I could possibly do: blog about how hard it is to be me today. Try not to throw up in your mouth.

1. It took me one hour and fifteen fucking minutes to get to work today. Otherwise known as going 5.76 miles per hour.

2. I'm the fattest I've been in years. My clothes don't fit right. I feel like a hovercraft. Like the Koolaid man. Like a whale with a glandular problem. I mean, sure, there are literally thousands of people sitting at the DMV right now who are fatter than me. But I live in thin-land and all my friends are pocket-sized people and I walk, on average, three miles a day and how the fuck did I gain seven motherfucking pounds in three months? HOW? And have I mentioned that I'm hungry all the time so me on a diet is just fucking delightful? If you thought I was moody before, take away my food and I'm really, really, really 'pleasant.'

3. I apparently can't sleep like a normal person anymore. I now sleep roughly six hours a night. Fuck you, mind.

4. I'm a mediocre copywriter.

I wish I were a man. No, a raccoon. No, maybe just a jellyfish, adrift, blissfully unaware and boneless; my tentacles waving as I made my way under the heavy covers of the sea.

I'm a damn liar

I didn't take the bus the other day. Despite my best intentions, and a really heart-felt blog post that all three of you who read this were privy to, my fat ass stayed comfortably in my car seat for the past two days.

In my defense, I "needed" to drive yesterday, insomuch as we headed to my mom's after work for some home-style cookin' and a little "So You Think You Can Dance." As a one car household, we "needed" the car to get home from said mama's house.

A word about SYTYCD--it just might be therapeutic. My mom, a clinically depressed emotion-whore is back on the Zoloft sauce, so one could argue that the dolls are lifting her spirits. Me? I think it's the dancing. I made her watch SYTYCD last week for the first time, much to her grumbling as it didn't involve torture, insect copulation, sensationalized news or any of the other depressing-ass topics she seems to gravitate toward on television.

And did she like it? You bet your sweet Mary she did! As so eloquently stated above, the woman feeds off emotion. She'll rile people up just to parasitically feed off their feelings. And what, I ask you, is more feeling than dance? Throw in the fact that it's a reality show and thus is obligated to highlight the dramatic inner monologues of the participants and you have a recipe for OCD household fun.

It's not just fun for her, either. Watching this sort of show with my mother is pretty entertaining for me. Just imagine witnessing someone with the unmasked, unwalled responses of a child, the intelligence of a highly-educated adult and the attention span of an ADHD teenager and you have the general idea. I've always said that I never fully understood my mom until I started taking hallucinogenic drugs. Once I did, I could imagine seeing the world the way she did and I've been slightly more patient with her ever since.

In any case, these Wednesday night gatherings are becoming something I really look forward to. We eat dinner, go for a walk, then watch the dancing while Hombrelibre semi-drunkenly heckles us from the other couch.

My mom said that last week, after the show, was the best she had slept in a long time. This week we pulled away from her house watching her pop-and-lock on the front porch, her arms waving, her grin positively lighting up the night.

Save me a seat on the shortbus. I'm comin' aboard.

They've finally broken me. I am broken. Not heart-broken, not house-broken (that's a whole 'nother story), but traffic broken. I am only so patient and my patience has worn through the proverbial toe in my sock of life.

Bad analogies aside, I really am resigned to do something, or rather attempt something I've been avoiding for some time: namely, ride the bus to work. It wasn't the cost of gas that broke me, although it's utterly outrageous. It wasn't my devout environmentalism at play. It wasn't even the time involved. Quite simply, it's the fact that I am too "delicate" for my commute. I get carsick so easily that more of my drive is spent concentrating on not puking out the window than actually focusing on steering my car. The stop-and-go, go-and-stop jerking combined with the ever-present Seattle drizzle makes me literally sick. And the copious amount of dead raccoons along the side of 5-20 doesn't help.

I've avoided the bus thus far because, let's face it, I'm lazy and I hate being bound to other people's schedules, even if those "people" are Metro transit. Cars are the ultimate symbol of independence, at least as far as I'm concerned. I didn't learn to drive until I was almost 21 and I spent much of my youth either on the bus or being ferried around by my patient friends. I hate relying on others. I hate being a burden on others. And I hate asking for favors. So I essentially spent my teen years embroiled in constant guilt and discomfort whenever I had to go anywhere. Call me crazy, but the bus carries some negative connotations as a result.

But tomorrow morning I will set out to trek the .4 miles to my bus stop at 7:39 a.m. and arrive at 8:48 a.m. in Bellevue, a full 48 minutes past when I should technically arrive and at least 18 minutes past when I used to arrive. Long and annoying? Yes. But after spending nearly an hour this morning in my car, struggling with nausea and feeling rage seeth up into every crevice of my body, I am willing to try.

Travel Whore

We're going to Europe. Eastern Europe. Or really, more accurately, Central Europe since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Prague, Krakow, Budapest, Vienna. It's almost all I can think about. I'm like a masturbatory teenager but instead of sex I have a one track mind for Prague.

My mom instilled the travel bug in me early. Sure, all our furniture was picked up off the street or from other people, sure we didn't have a properly working toaster or a tv for much of my childhood and sure our bathroom sink didn't work and we had to brush our teeth in the bathtub but damnit, we traveled.

When I was little, travel meant camping up and down the Oregon Coast, living out of our tiny honda, aka "Little Blue Horse," and making our way to Ashland for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. When I got older we ventured further south to California, and then, when we were finally above the poverty level, we made two epic voyages, paid for by many years of savings and birthday money. First we went to Hawaii when I was in 7th grade and then to England when I was 16.

For people at our income level, this sort of travel is almost unheard of. But my mom made it happen. When we went to London we only had the money to eat twice a day--the breakfast that was included at the B&B and then one meal out, typically consisting of a sandwich. My sister and I complained bitterly, as we were walking roughly 10 miles a day on too few calories, but I have to give my mom some serious props for getting us there to begin with.

I went again to England and Scotland when I was 17, funded primarily by my first job at the University Village QFC and weird fundraising efforts like playing an extra in a movie that was never officially released.

And then there were the two trips to Tijuana, Mexico to build houses for homeless families taken my sophomore and senior year of high school, funded by a conglomeration of my parents, my extended family, myself and the church. While not vacations, per se, they certainly expanded my vision of the world.

All that before I was 18. And I just kept going after that. I've been ridiculously blessed and lucky. I pushed Hombrelibre on this trip. I really did. We can't really afford it and we're stretching our vacation time to the max. And we just bought a house, so it's doubly stupid.

But you only get one life. And I don't want to spend mine without adventure. And I have a second job for a reason: to blow it all looking at castles.

Small moments of beauty

Last night, as I was driving to Everett, I was listening to NPR and heard a piece on these ornately carved, sacred Russian bells that have lived at Harvard for 80 years. The 17th century bells were saved from Stalin's wrath by an American industrialist, who sent them to Harvard, where they're played by a roving team of students who refer to themselves as, I kid you not, "clappermeisters." Maybe it was the rain and the way it seems to stir my maudlin pot, but I started crying a little, right there in the car. There was just something so beautiful about jaded teenagers carrying on an age-old tradition of playing large, cumbersome bells. I pictured them, pushing the pedals with socked feet, up in their tower above the tree-lined campus. And then they played the theme from Harry Potter on the bells and I just lost it. It's a wonder I didn't drive off the road.

This happens to me more than I should probably admit. These times when I'm quite literally overwhelmed by beauty; when my heart seems to seize in my chest and blood rushes to my face and my fingers.

It's both a gift and a curse to feel this much, this easily.

"Prada is never funny."

This was the feedback my fellow copywriter gave me. And I'm glad she did since I spent the other night knee-deep in virtual Prada. They're gorgeous bags, they really are, but I'll admit some relief when I switched to Fendi and later, Christian Dior.

With fashion copy, much like fashion itself, less is often more.

This is a hard lesson for those of us who lean toward the hyperbolic and too clever-clever. If you have the ability to spin words, to feel them vibrate off your tongue and onto the page in snappy little couplets, it's hard to reign yourself in. The impulse to show off, to prove that you are the literary equivalent of an Indy 500 driver, is strong indeed.

But few people want to read that shit. I mean, sure, we all love a Douglas Coupland novel, with its nuevo-slang and self-actualized ironic imagery. And I get postively wet for Tom Wolfe's journalistic rantings in his older novels. But by and large, so much of maturing as a writer seems to come from relaxing and pulling back--not hitting your audience over the head with one wordy line after another.

And copywriting is a challenge unto itself. Cramming meaning and clarity into a few lines is an exercize in restraint. Churning through descriptions, assembly-line style, when you're dog tired is another. The later the night gets, the more I want to resort to the weird and amusing. But couture, even couture that has little hand-sewn rainbows and clouds on it (for the low, low cost of $2 grand) is dead serious.

This is all good for me, though. I feel like it's a test. In the same way that others jog or go to boot camp, I am seeing what I'm made of.

Baby Steps

Yesterday, when asked by a friend of a friend what I "do," I paused, and then, for maybe the first time ever answered, "I'm a writer." Not, "I do this but I WANT to be a writer," or "I am hopelessly attempting to be a writer" or any such disclaimer. I said, "I'm a writer"and then went on to describe what I write.

Of course I felt guilty, as if I didn't deserve the word. As if I shouldn't besmirch the same lauded title that could also be attached to Dostoevsky, Tolstoy or, heck, J.K. Rowling. In my head, on loop played the same obsessive thought: Am I a writer? I mean, I get paid to write now, but does that make me a bona fide writer? Does one have to be paid to write something more substantial than articles about remodeling and descriptions of couture handbags to be a writer? Or would even writing books qualify me? Would I ever comfortably classify myself as a writer if I wasn't also living in a flat somewhere, subsisting on coffee and cigarettes, living a half life of endless nights and manic fits of creation? Can a 'writer' be comfortable?

Another night of not sleeping. Tonight, I'll take a pill.