Me? Creative?

Kidding ... I know I'm creative. But it's nice to have it confirmed. Here are my results from the What's Your World View? quiz (via Salvage): apparently, I am what is known as a "Cultural Creative." To wit:

Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.
Cultural Creative – 94%
Postmodernist – 81%
Idealist – 56%
Romanticist – 50%
Materialist – 44%
Existentialist – 44%
Modernist – 19%
Fundamentalist – 13%

Why did Postmodernist come before Idealist? I never even finished grad school! Must look up definitions of other types.

I've always loved taking quizzes, or tests of any kind ... probably because I have a good memory and tend to score well, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and full of a practical, honestly-earned self-esteem. I also have a long history of fascination with those "What kind of lover are you?" kinds of tests, such as are often found in teen magazines—heck, any kind of magazine. I've been known to take them over and over again until my results finally identify me as just the kind of person I've always wanted to be.

Another quiz I've often enjoyed taking, almost always with the same result, is this Religion Finder, which pegs me as a Mahayana Buddhist. Or, occasionally, as a Hindu. Hrrmmm.

In other news, we've had some pretty heavy storms this week, one of which found me arriving at work with both shoes full to the top with water, thanks to a ten-foot-tall fishtail sprayed forcefully into my face by a passing truck. I stopped at Long's to pick up some dry socks to change into (I had other dry clothes in my bag, but hadn't brought socks, since I've never needed them before), and once I got settled in at my desk I rigged up a sweet little sock-drying station under my desk. This consists of a small space heater, a long paperclip chain anchored in the space between two sections of desktop, and a two-armed wire sock hanger (also made from paperclips) which allow the socks to be suspended straight up at just the right height to make the most of the upward flow of hot air from the heater.

When I arrived at work I squeezed about two tablespoons of water out of each sock, so it's safe to say they were completely saturated at the beginning. After three hours at the sock-drying station, they were both completely dry. Dry and warm. Not bad! Maybe I am kind of creative after all, eh?

Bah

I got to work this morning and found that my co-worker who was supposedly on vacation all this week—the reason I wasn't allowed to take even a single day off for Christmas—isn't even leaving until Wednesday. Wednesday, otherwise known as the day after I would have been back from the trip I had planned. This person is here all day today, just like me. We'll both be here all day tomorrow too. And just as I had predicted, there's almost nothing to do.

As hard as I've tried to get into the spirit of the holidays this year (although maybe I didn't try as hard as I could have), I've just been feeling kind of angry and depressed lately. I could go into my usual list of reasons to not feel this way: Mr. A made a heartwarming and impressive effort to inspire me with lots of affection and enthusiasm and some really ingenious presents ... I had several good conversations with various members of my family last week ... received many cool and thoughtful gifts from people who love me ... had a nice celebratory dinner with some friends who are smart, witty, and urbane, and who enjoy stimulating the intellect that is slowly withering away to nothing somewhere deep inside my increasingly thick and cobweb-encrusted skull ... and riding home late at night after that dinner, had a close encounter with a young skunk that crossed the road right in front of me and stopped, like I did, to stare into the face of another curious fellow being (me). We were standing under a street light, as it happened, so I could see her clearly: a small, tidy black and white animal with dense, shiny fur and sparkly black eyes. We looked at each other for a good twenty to thirty seconds before she decided I wasn't going to try to mess with her, and continued on her way into the field.

Normally all these things would have really given me a lift. I know I have a lot to be thankful for, and I am thankful. Sometimes I can't help it, though—I just want certain things to be different. My dissatisfactions du jour are really not interesting enough to enumerate in any great detail (not that that's ever stopped me before). They're just the usual things having to do with my house, relationships, job, body, self-esteem and of course the state of the world and all the various conditions of suffering that I can't do anything about except to feel all my various feelings about them.

My terrible diet of the last couple of weeks is at least partly to blame. Too much sugar and chocolate, mainly. Last night I never really fell fully asleep, just kept drifting off only to notice, after some unidentifiable amount of time had passed, that I was still aware of myself lying there awake. By morning I was even more exhausted than I was last night, which led to symptoms very much like the paralyzing anxiety attacks I used to have almost every day for several years in a row. That scared me all over again. I don't ever want to live like that again.

Anyway, the ride to work took most of the edge off the anxiety, and then my sister-in-law called to talk for a minute, which cheered me up. I've been nursing a hot cup of Emergen-C (vitamin C plus 32 mineral complexes and B vitamins!) all morning and in a few minutes I'm going to walk down the street and order the crispy duck sandwich I saw on the menu of a new cafe I've been meaning to check out. And later this week I have a lunch date with this new bicycle-riding woman I've been getting to know. I'd seen her riding around town and had assumed from her many-layered outfits that she was homeless and/or possibly a little cuckoo, but I happened to be in the front office the other day when she came in to place an ad, and got talking with her, and as it turns out she is neither homeless nor deranged but a bright and delightful 80-year-old person who is simply trying to keep warm. She came in again last week to give me an update on her bike (it had been stolen—hence the ad—but she'd just gotten it back, and I'd offered to have Mr. A, bicycle mechanic extraordinaire, give it the once-over and tune it up for her), and then our paths crossed again on a sunny street corner on Christmas Eve and we spent close to an hour just chatting.

I gathered from our conversation that she probably is a little eccentric. But then, who isn't? I'm just looking forward to pushing out of my comfort zone a bit, to get to know someone who seems like a possible kindred spirit who could use a friend. Not to mention my own need for connection, information, inspiration—I hope I'm still riding a bike when I'm 80 years old! Hmm. Actually, I'm already halfway there.

Man, I really need to start getting my shizzizzle together.

Money again / Keeping things simple

Something happened tonight that left me feeling really angry and conflicted, and that was that at a meeting of the board of directors I'm on I was shanghai'ed into making a donation of several hundred dollars I was (am) not prepared to give. A new board member, excited over the opportunity to make a favorable first impression, I suppose, started by very ostentatiously offering $400 toward the replacement of a crucial piece of equipment that has unexpectedly gone kaput. Then she challenged everyone else at the meeting to give a similar amount. And then, just so nobody could fail to follow through, she got out a piece of paper and sent it around the table with the instruction that everyone should sign their name and the amount they were committed to give.

I'm guessing I wasn't the only person at the table who was taken aback by her approach (there was an uncomfortably long pause before people started ponying up). But I'm pretty sure I was the only person there who makes less than a hundred grand a year, and I know for a fact that at least a few of them have considerably more than that. In the house we were meeting in, as an example, the living room alone is larger than our entire house. The guest cottage at the back of the property is also larger than our whole house. And this isn't even their main place—it's just their weekend Wine Country getaway. Most of the time they live in an even bigger house in the city.

All of which I'm sure is very nice for them, and why shouldn't people enjoy the beautiful things in life if they're lucky enough to have access to them? (For the record, the very gracious and generous person whose house we met at is not the one who made this challenge.) But I don't like being bullied into forking over the equivalent of several days' pay I had not planned on losing. And I think it was incredibly uncool of her to put everyone on the spot like that. Why didn't I say anything about that? Simple: because I felt like to call her on it in front of everyone, at her very first meeting no less, would have been even more rude than what she'd just done. So I silently seethed as the paper made its way around the table, then—seeing that everyone else had written the requested amount—stayed true to myself (and the realities of my bank account) by writing next to my name an amount that I felt comfortable with. If everyone thinks I'm stingy and cheap, too bad. I've already way overspent this month.

The whole thing made me want to burst into tears, run away and hide, or send a huffy, enigmatic letter of resignation: "It's obvious to me that my contributions of time, energy and professional expertise are not valued by this board as much as the size of my checking account. Therefore, screw you! I quit! So there! Et cetera!" But the whole reason I've stayed on as long as I have is because I want there to be at least someone making decisions for this organization who isn't so blinded by their own good fortune that they can no longer comprehend what it's like for a normal person to try to live around here. I stayed because I want to advocate for the common person... and then the moment a situation arises in which I could actually say something, I get so flustered and offended that I don't say anything at all.

Why do I always feel like I need to know exactly what I'm going to say and how I'm going to defend my position, before I ever open my mouth? Why am I so afraid people are going to disapprove of me? What do I care what they think? Why didn't I say, "Y'know, what you've just done is a great example of the kind of experience I think a lot of people have when they come to our organization. They like what we're doing and they want to contribute and participate, but we are continually giving out the message that unless they have a lot of money, they're not really wanted here."

I can think of a million things I could have said. But then I think of a million things they could have said ("So if you're so unwilling to be hit up for money yourself, what are you doing on a board whose sole function is supposed to be fundraising?"—a good question I'm still trying to answer for myself), and pretty soon I've argued myself back into silence. Because I really don't want to get into it with these people. I mean, suppose I had come right out and said, "I'd love to help but I don't have that much cash to spare right now, and I resent being publicly pressured into giving money I can't afford to give." First, even if I'd left out the second part (which is true but maybe not necessary to say) it would've made every single person at that table feel instantly uncomfortable. Second, it would've made me feel even more marginalized than I already do, and not just for that one meeting. Third, it would have turned a simple funding request (an awkwardly presented one, but still only a request) into an Issue.

The thing is, it IS an issue. For me, it's a huge issue. Money. I'm not comfortable with it. It's never been important to me to have a lot of it, and until moving here I'd never been around so many people who make it the center of their existence. I'm losing all sense of proportion. What's enough? What's too much? I spent most of the weekend bemoaning my over-abundance of possessions—wanting to throw away everything that doesn't fit in my bike bag, and ride away with everything I own strapped onto my back—and then I go to this meeting tonight and leave feeling more impoverished than the poorest Sudanese refugee. It's ridiculous!

There's no sense of priority. Why am I spending even one minute promoting an arts organization when there are people literally starving in the world? Why is anyone doing anything else, when there are people to be fed and housed and healed?

Life can be so simple. A simple life can be so good—is so good. It stormed all day yesterday and just watching the rain come down through the trees was several hours worth of beautiful. The dogs were staring at me while I was making their dinner tonight, stirring in some leftover soup and melting a little chicken fat in with their warmed-up crunchy kibble, and they were both so happy to have it—wagging their tails and grinning from ear to ear and even yelping a bit in joyous anticipation.

But then even that can get complicated. For instance, why do I keep dogs when there are people who don't have enough to live? Some people believe it's morally wrong to keep animals as pets, just for that very reason.

Well, everyone makes their choices. I keep dogs because I love them, and they love me, and that love helps me keep my heart open to the rest of the world, including humans, who are in some ways harder to love than dogs are.

A few thoughts I want to record for my future self: 1. I'm aware of my own privilege. 2. Sharing is important to me as a way to show that I'm grateful for what I have. 3. I am okay with the fact that money is not the most valuable or abundant thing I have available to share. 4. I'm not ashamed of the way I live, or of the amount of money I make (or don't make, as the case may be). 5. The simplicity of my life is something I'm actually kind of vain about. I work hard to keep my impact low. 6. I did not say anything about the money issue tonight because I was embarrassed and caught off guard, but next time this group is together, in January, I will. Not about my personal irritation over being humiliated tonight, but about the idea that people with limited funds don't feel welcome here. That needs to change.

Also: Maybe I really will resign this year. I need to find something better to do than this.

I can hardly stand the wait Chipmunks

Getting up before the sun is not one of my strongest skills so it was something of a pre-Christmas miracle when early, early in the still-dark hours of this morning (okay, so it was only 6:15) I hauled my sleepy self out of bed, threw on several layers of clothes (long johns, sweaters, scarves, the fleece pseudoberet, etc.), hopped on the bike and rode into town for a 7 a.m. Community Picnic planning committee meeting. Twenty minutes later I arrived at our meeting place, an unintentionally kitschy faux-"home spun" family style chain restaurant popular with the senior set—and before I even got off the bike I could hear the obnoxiously squeaky sound stylings of the Chipmunks' Christmas Album wafting through the chilly pre-dawn air. I knew then it was going to be the longest meeting of my life ....

Ugh. The Chipmunks. At 6:45 a.m. On outdoor speakers. Just so everyone can enjoy them.

Actually, even I can tolerate one or two songs. The whole album—two of them, in fact, played back to back over the course of our meeting—is a little too much. But whatever. This is my fifth year on this committee and I've endured endless repetitive meetings, smashed fingers, sunburned shoulders, the biggest wood splinter I've ever had right in the palm of my hand (as if my faithfulness has blessed me with the stigmata?!), earwigs in the corn, a big grease stain on my favorite t-shirt, and the counting, by hand, of more than four hundred raw sausages per picnic (my personal responsibility for the last three years). After all that, the Chipmunks are not going to deter me. All the same ... please, Christmas, don't be late! I can only stand so much.

Finally, since I'm already 'munk bashing, I just want to also report that when I went to Amazon to grab the picture of the CD cover, I could not resist checking out some of the Chipmunks' more recent work, namely, Club Chipmunk, The Dance Mixes. All I'm going to say is that their rendition of "Play That Funky Music, Chipmunk" literally made my hair stand on end—I felt a shudder pass through me, and I looked down at my arms and the hair was standing straight up. And not in a good way.

Moving on: Saturday was Mr. A's father's 90th birthday. We got up early (this seems to be the way of things lately, so much to do) and spent most of the morning sitting in a freezing warehouse waiting for our auction lot to come around, then left for the birthday lunch, then returned to the auction just in time to bid on and win the object of our desire: a late 19th century carved stone Buddha with the most beautiful hands and feet. It's so pretty I don't even care if it's not really as old as they said—it just makes me happy to look at it. Such a serene face.

But—back to the birthday. It was nice. When we got there everyone was gathering in the kitchen to surprise him when he came in from the garden (he keeps the most amazing enormous garden). We waited and waited, and he didn't come in and didn't come in, and finally somebody went out to find him and he was asleep in the sun on the little bench in the gazebo. And I thought, what a nice way to spend your 90th birthday—sleeping in the sun, then coming in to find your entire family waiting to celebrate your life. I was secretly hoping he'd take advantage of the occasion and the captive audience to make some kind of commemorative speech or proclamation, but I think everyone else in the family was glad he didn't (since they've been subject to his extremes of imperiousness all their lives). Instead we had sandwiches and cake, wandered around the house chatting with everyone, took a few pictures, and headed back to the auction.

It left me thinking about one of the differences between Mr. A's family and mine: the approach to ceremony. In my family, every occasion is blessed with a prayer at some point, and very often there's some kind of speech as well. It's usually very simple, just welcoming everyone or thanking them for coming or giving some kind of information (for example, "Save room for cake"), or even just a brief moment of quiet before the prayer, but I love it because of the way it creates a space and brings everyone together into it.

This kind of thing doesn't happen in Mr. A's family. When we get together for Sunday dinners, or any occasion, it's all much more open-ended. People arrive, food appears, people fill their plates and eat, visit, and then say goodbye and leave. There's almost never that moment when everyone pauses to acknowledge the same thing all together at the same time—though we did sing Happy Birthday the other day, which was something, and there were some toasts at his parents' 60th anniversary party last spring. It makes me feel lonely, somehow. Adrift.

I might be tempted to think that this is mainly just because I'm used to having that happen, and so when it doesn't, I notice. But Mr. A misses it too, probably even more than I do, and he's never had it. I think it's something all people just naturally recognize and respond to and want—that moment of acknowledgment, whatever you want to call it. I want to think of some new ways to bring more of that into our lives.

In other news, we spent the entire day yesterday completing about 99% of our Christmas shopping. Now I just have to wrap it all and get it in the mail before it's suddenly the end of July again and I find myself wondering if she would really think I was crazy to send her a Christmas ornament as a birthday present ... Yes, you! :)

Listening to: Play That Funky Music (White Boy) – Wild Cherry ... just to get that nasty chipmunk taste out of my ears!

Jebediah

This is a picture of the Jeeps. In the background, over our oh-so-hip vintage 70's avocado colored stove, is a framed poster (also vintage) of Linus marching with a protest sign that says, "Help stamp out things that need stamping out!" That poster—not the poster itself so much as the fact that he had it displayed in such a prominent location—was one of the first things I loved about Mr. Amazing, aka "the boyfriend," or Mr. A for short.

The Jeeps is his dog. Our dog. He's our dog. Sometimes, I regret to admit, I do suffer a bit of Evil Stepmother Syndrome. My darling Taterboy can do whatever he wants and I still feel all googley-eyed with love for him, but when the Jeeps jumps off my bed to reveal a brown stinky skid mark on my pillowcase ... or follows me around the house insistently jabbing his nose up into my crotch from behind in order to steer me in the direction of his box of Milk Bones ... or breaks into the kitchen garbage and spreads its contents all over the floor AGAIN ... sometimes I feel challenged.

But I do love him. We have a million pet names for him, too—Jeepers, the Jeeps, Mister Jeepieman, the Jeepinator, Mister P'Dee, and most recently, Jebediah the Dog Prospector, because he's constantly on the hunt for anything that may possibly be even remotely edible. He can't help it if he gets into the garbage sometimes—he's a prospector! There's gold in them there garbage cans. Et cetera.

Jebediah is getting old. Last night when I was sitting in front of the tv updating a website for one of my clients, he jumped up onto the couch next to me (with great effort) and started trying to make himself comfortable. When I first started getting to know him, he wasn't a cuddly dog at all. But these days, I don't know if it's because he's getting used to me, or because he's getting old, or if it's just because he's trying to stay warm, it seems like every time I sit down he wants to be right up there next to me. So last night I wrapped him up in two down sleeping bags and tucked them in around under his sides, and rolled up the end of one to stuff under his head like a little pillow, and he was so happy he heaved an enormous sigh and fell asleep instantly.

For Christmas I'm making him a custom insulated dog vest out of a very warm little kids' jacket we got at the thrift store. He's never worn clothes before but I'm predicting that once he realizes how much warmer he is with the vest, he's going to really love it.

Weird ... it smells like somebody in my office is cooking bacon. Why would someone be cooking bacon in an office at 6:15 p.m. on a Friday night?

Listening to: Mustang Sally – Wilson Pickett

Trying to get home

This morning I dreamed another installment in my "trying to get home" series of recurring dreams (a variation on the "missing my plane" dream I've been having since I was about 24). In today's version I am at a small church leadership meeting in a town ten miles away from the town where I grew up. The people who are holding the meeting ask me to go get something from the store, and when I get back everyone is gone and my ride home has left without me. I spend some frustrating time trying to flag down a bus, knocking on doors asking for help, considering (and deciding against) hitchhiking, etc. Finally I realize I'm just going to have to walk. It is getting dark. I think, "Ten miles is a long way to walk, but I know the way and at least at night the road will be quiet, not many cars."

In the dream I'm stoically resigned to going it alone, but still, I woke up all choked up. Part of it, I know, is the stress of the holidays and all the emotions that come up when I know I'm going to see my family, and also the fact that I still don't know if I'm going to be able to see them at all this year. Also, yesterday while going through some papers I found a letter my dad wrote me when I was 22, when I was getting ready to move to San Francisco, in which he said so many sweet and loving things that I had to stop working and just sit there sobbing for a few minutes. I miss him so much.

To get back to this morning—I pulled myself together and got in the shower. Once I was in there I sort of fell back into the dream and was standing there feeling all these swirling emotions about being abandoned, alone, unable to get where I needed to go, and unable to find anyone who would help me (the dream had involved lots of begging for help). Several minutes into this, still swimming around in this weird forlorn half-dreaming state of mind, I heard the bathroom door open and the boyfriend (whom I hadn't seen yet this morning) saying, "Hey, I just put your bike in the truck. I'm going to drive you to work this morning. It's cold."

So there was the nightmare, in which nobody would even acknowledge I exist — and then here is my waking life, in which this beautiful man is constantly giving me gifts it would never even occur to me to ask for. Giving me, in fact, the exact thing I had been begging for in my dream, without even knowing I had dreamed it.

It amazes me and moves me so much to be treated so kindly. It also makes me feel vaguely anxious. Why is he so good to me? Am I pulling my own weight in this relationship? What does he get out of all this? And when is it all going to be taken away? I try to let those thoughts pass. It feels so much better to just be grateful, and look for ways to spread the good feelings around. It's hard to ignore the anxiety, though. Do other people feel this way when good things happen to them? I would like to be able to just relax and enjoy it without always this little black bird of worry pecking away in the background.

I know I've written about this before, but it really struck me to read in a recent interview with Pema Chodron that although this feeling of "something not quite right" is a universal human experience, it seems only in the West do people take it so personally. This is something we need to learn to overcome, because it really gets in the way of our learning. She writes:

... The first noble truth of the Buddha is that people experience dukka, a feeling of dissatisfaction or suffering, a feeling that something is wrong. We feel this dissatisfaction because we’re not in tune with our true nature, our basic goodness. And we aren’t going to be fundamentally, spiritually content until we get in tune. Dzigar Kongtrul, my teacher for the past five years, says that only in the West is this dissatisfaction articulated as “Something is wrong with me.” It seems that thinking of oneself as flawed is more a Western phenomenon than a universal one. And if you’re teaching Western students, it has to be addressed, because until that self-hatred is at least partially healed, people can’t experience absolute truth...

In this same interview she says that years ago when the Dalai Lama was told by a group of American teachers that one of their big challenges was helping their students deal with their own self-hatred, he literally did not understand what they were talking about.

This fascinates me because while I wouldn't say I hate myself, a lot of the time I do interpret that feeling of dissatisfaction as "something wrong with me" (though I am getting better at not doing that). In fact, as a child in church I was told explicitly that if I felt that way, it was exactly because there was something wrong with me—specifically, because I was doing something wrong. This was confusing because a lot of the time I would feel that way even when I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. Theoretically, according to my Sunday school teachers (why did their words have such a long-lasting effect?), if you're living right and being a good person, you'll be filled with this celestial feeling of peace and joy that never ends, etc. etc. I wish I'd known someone back then who could've helped me understand the concept of dukka. It's bad enough to experience suffering, without blaming it all on yourself for not being a good enough person. At six years old, no less!

Anyway, It isn't like I think I don't deserve kindness—everyone deserves kindness. And I have experienced a lot of kindness in my life. I've been really blessed in that way. All the same, it always kind of surprises me when someone does something really special for me. And sometimes it's hard for me to accept. That doesn't mean I'm not grateful, though.

[Later] I just found out I'm not getting those days off. So I'll be here for Christmas. Again. Last night the boyfriend said, "Well, whether we go or stay, I'll make sure you have a great Christmas." And I know he will. And I will make sure he has one, too.

In search of the perfect beret

The years between 1984 and 1991 were some of the happiest my head has ever been, for one reason: those were the years I owned the perfect hat, a soft battered old black wool Basque beret I inherited from a once beloved college roommate (who now thinks I'm the devil, but that's another story). I don't know where she got it or how long she had it before she handed it over to me, but I wore it every day all fall and winter for all those years. I wore it, sat on it, used it as a mini-shopping basket, carried apples and plums in it, wrapped my hands in it when I forgot my gloves, repaired its tattered satin lining and worn leather headband and then, when it was too far gone to repair anymore, carefully and lovingly removed the cracked leather stitch by stitch and replaced it with a new band I made by hand from a heavy (and very expensive) piece of imported silk grosgrain ribbon.

Then, one snowy night in January, 1991, I attended a symposium of Mormon feminist women at the conference center of the big hotel in downtown Provo. I took off the hat and my scarf and gloves and stuffed them into the sleeve of my coat, which I held on my lap for the duration of the boring and overblown presentation. Eventually the lights came back on and everyone stood up to leave. I hadn't walked four steps—wasn't even out of my row of seats yet—when I reached into my coatsleeve to grab the beret et al and found only the scarf and gloves still there. I turned around to look for the beret, realizing it couldn't have fallen more than a few feet away from where I was standing. But it was gone. I spent twenty minutes looking for it and even got them to announce it over the PA, but nobody turned it in. I can only assume that somebody saw it fall and snatched it up before I noticed I'd dropped it. I really hope they're still enjoying it, because I've been trying to replace it ever since and have never found another one that's quite right.

So I've decided that this is the year I'm going to step up the search. I'm not typically all that attached to my possessions, but there are certain things that are important to me, and with those things I'd rather have nothing at all than something that's not exactly what I want. Hats are one example (an especially important one, since I wear a hat almost every day). Bikes, shoes, jewelry, slippers and pens are a few others. Because I'm so picky about these things, I usually have at least one "quest" going on.

One memorable quest was for the perfect bike bell. When I moved to Berkeley in 1988 I bought one that I considered to be the epitome of the perfect bike bell: the Bee Brand Revolving Bicycle Bell. Made in China and decorated with a two-toned metal bee on the top, it came in a cheery red and white box and cost $8.99.

It's a beautiful chrome bell, but the best thing about it is the sound it makes. Instead of just going "ching, ching" like a regular bike bell, this one circles around and around itself inside as if it is singing—"ching-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling!" It was the happiest sound ever and I loved it, but as soon as I got it home I started feeling some major buyer's remorse. Nine bucks seemed like such a lot of money to me in those days, and I really had just arrived in California—wasn't working yet, and hadn't brought much in the way of cash or strategy to get any. I ended up selling the bell to my roommate (in fact, the same one who gave me the beret), figuring I'd just go buy another one as soon as I got some income happening.

A couple of months later when I went back to buy the replacement bell, the shop was no longer there. My roommate had since moved to New York, taking her bike and the bell with her. The search began. I methodically visited or called every bike shop in the Bay Area, and then got numbers to call all the shops I could find in California. When I moved back to Utah a few years later I looked in every shop I could find there, too. Finally, in October 1996, while visiting Julie in the East Village—eight years later and an entire continent away—I wandered into a small neighborhood toy store and almost walked right into a huge pyramid of red and white boxes displayed just inside the door. I was so excited that I bought ten of them, just to be able to give them away to friends who knew about that particular quest.

I still have one left, on the Hollywood. Here's a picture of it after it had spent a year or so out in the bushes behind my old house. It cleaned up beautifully with a little Marvel Mystery Oil. (That's the Secret Tater Man in the background, approaching the entrance to his lair inside the hedge.)

Finding the perfect bike bell was supremely satisfying. Finding the perfect bike (the Breezer I bought in July) was even more so, although that search only took two years. Now I have only two active major quests going on—for the perfect slippers (to replace the 12-year-old perfect pair that is finally almost completely bald of any sheep's fleece inside and is starting to lose its tread), and the perfect beret. There are also a few smaller-scale ones: the perfect Indian hoop earrings made from that beautiful dark yellow 24 karat gold, which is almost impossible to find—I will probably end up having these made someday. The perfect face moisturizer, now that I'm 40 years old and suddenly dealing with dry skin for the first time in my life. The perfect leather boots (again, to replace a pair I've been wearing for about five years that are starting to wear out). And finally, the perfect cotton or wool lycra blend footless tights in black and in colors. They must be footless, because I can't stand to wear socks, or anything on my feet at all if I can help it, and if I have to wear socks I certainly cannot wear them OVER tights, or tights and boots without socks. Or boots at all, without tights! Urgh.

It is kind of complicated, sometimes, to be so sensitive and picky about such basic things as socks, underwear, and hats. Luckily there are lots of other important things I'm able to be more easygoing about. Or maybe not so much easygoing, as easily pleased. The other day we found these canned peas that I like for only 44 cents a can (usually $1.49), and stocked up. Then, as if that weren't enough happiness for one day, when I was putting them away I happened to read the label and discovered that one can of these peas contains a full 25% of my RDA of iron, and only 180 calories. Joy!

The boyfriend always teases me that if he didn't cook for me I'd eat nothing but grilled cheese sandwiches and yams, which is not that far from the truth. Every once in awhile though I would probably also eat a can of these delicious peas. Nobody else seems to like them, and it's true that they're kind of mushy, but I don't care—that's how I like them. Hot, with a little butter and a little salt.

Also: last weekend we were in Petaluma shopping for yarn (for the baby bear hat I'm knitting for him for Christmas, but he doesn't know that) and on the way back to the car I decided to take a quick peek inside this cool redesigned junk store I used to really like when I worked over there. It turns out she has a small selection of used clothing in there now too, and I found not one but TWO skirts that I totally loved, and they were both super cheap! Yay, skirts! (This is why I need those tights. Maybe I'll step that one up a notch too.)

Anyway. I don't know where this little burst of enthusiasm came from, but it's fun to catch up with myself like this from time to time.

(One last story: It's not the perfect beret, but I do have this other black hat that's similar, that I've had for about 15 years—I think I got it when I lost the beret. It's sort of like a polar fleece mini-tophat with a three-inch brim that folds up around the bottom of the hat, that has always driven me a little crazy. I mostly just wear it to bed in the winter, to keep my head warm. Last night I was fiddling around with it and suddenly realized that if I turn the brim up on the inside of the hat instead of the outside, it looks a lot more like the long-lost beret it was meant to replace, and is also much warmer because of the extra layer of fabric. Why did it take me 15 years to figure this out? It's so cute now!)

(P.S. I am still on the lookout for just the right beret, however.)

Crunch

I don't think I ever wrote about the lack of bike parking at my office, or the sort of slapstick comedy of errors that ensued when I asked where I was supposed to park. First I used a tree, then a fence, then tried bringing it inside the building. Finally I asked if it would be possible to have a bike rack installed somewhere. I had a whole presentation I was going to make, detailing the exact kind of rack that is best, and identifying where and how it should be installed for maximum benefit to me and all the others I was hoping to encourage to start riding their bikes to work as well. As it turned out they already had an old rack lying around the truck yard, and before I knew what was happening they'd pulled two guys out of the warehouse to bolt this one to the curb at the end of the parking lot.

They were so gracious and quick to respond that I was too embarrassed to say anything but thank you, even though it's totally the wrong kind of rack and they put it in the worst possible place — far from the entrance, unprotected, unlit, and right smack up against the end of the space the semi-trucks use to turn around in. I felt awkward every time I saw the guys who bolted it in, because I'm the only person in the whole company who rides to work so they knew I was the one who'd asked for the rack, and they also knew I'd never used it. I thanked them for their help, and told them I'd figured out a place to park inside, which is what I've been doing ever since.

Then the other day I was cutting through the lot on my way to lunch and noticed that a truck had indeed backed into the bike rack and knocked it right out of its moorings. If my bike had been parked there it would've been crunched beyond repair, assuming it hadn't already been stolen or vandalized by someone skulking around in the bushes back there.

This whole town is terrible for bike parking, I'm coming to realize. I'm considering taking it on as a personal challenge to see if I can get something done about this. I read online somewhere that in San Francisco, the city will install bike racks for free for any business that requests them, as a way of mitigating the traffic and parking problems in the city by encouraging people to bike instead of drive. A little initial research reveals that serviceable racks can be installed for just over $100 apiece, and possibly less than that if you can get the labor donated. Anyway. Something to think about. I'm kind of itching for a new civic project these days.

What else. Thanksgiving was nice, the usual ginormous turkey fiesta at the boyfriend's brother's house followed by a movie at home and early to bed. The day after that we went and sang kirtan with Jai Uttal at a benefit for our local ashram. It was fun to see a different bunch of people than our usual circle of friends, and I love chanting, or any kind of singing with large groups of people. It's one of the things I miss about being involved in regular group spiritual practice.

Speaking of which, we've been looking for a group to be part of together. Our ashram is a possibility, and there are several other organizations I like and am interested in around here, including the Shambhala Center, the Sonoma Mountain Zen Center, Green Gulch Farm, and of course Spirit Rock. The first two are within easy biking distance of my house and office; the others would require a car. The point is, we want to take our spiritual life deeper, and we want to do it together, and in fact we are doing it together. I love it that he's interested in sharing this part of my life with me. He's more than interested, actually. He's kind of taking the lead. That makes me really happy.

One of these days I'll write about why I'm so enamored of these activities (chanting, meditation, service, etc.), and why these forms are more comfortable for me than the ones I learned growing up, and a whole lot of other related topics. For now I just want to record that I'm really hapy with this part of my life right now. I feel connected and protected and like I'm opening just a little bit more every day, and sometimes it's kind of exhilirating—not always in a good way—but it feels right. For instance, the other night I had dinner with a friend whose elderly cat got ill just as we were sitting down to eat, and I was able to help take care of her, and reassure my friend, and just in general had felt like I'd been in the right place at the right time. As I was heading home I remembered something I heard some evangelist say recently (I wish I could remember where I heard it), along the lines of praying to god "that I might be the means by which you bless someone today" and I realized that that was kind of what had happened at my friend's house that night. Not that I personally did anything that was so great, but more like God was working through me in some small way. It felt good to be present enough to notice that happening.

Anyway, like I said—lots more to write about. Soon. Right now I am leaving for home via our favorite market, where fresh crabs are on sale for $3.49 per pound. I'm picking up three of those, plus bread, plus some kind of greens and probably a little dessert, and cramming them all into my bike bag and riding the rest of the way home, and taking a bath on the patio while the boyfriend cooks everything up, and then we'll eat and probably watch a new Joseph Campbell DVD that just came in the mail, and then have a little snuggling with the dogs and hopefully go to sleep early. Tomorrow morning I'm helping my friend worm her goats again. That's always a good time.