learning curve

i don't believe that i had a real 'girl' friend until i was in my mid-20s. i wasn't a loner or anything; i just wasn't doing the friend thing right.

i could go all psycho-babbly about my mommy issues, the fact that my childhood "first best friend" was a pathological liar that i secretly hated, or that my grandmother was a manipulative narcissist. i didn't have a sister. i couldn't horse whisper my pony, Lucy. i was sailing on a huge fail boat with regards to female bonding.

not that i need it, per se, but i was curious about the different types of counseling:

• Couples / Marriage
• Children / Adolescents
• Anger Management
• Grief Therapy
• Depression and Anxiety
• Pre-Marital Counseling
• Life Coaching
• Sexual Counseling

notice: there's no one specializing in friendship. i can't find a decent textbook or an etiquette lesson on best-friend necklaces and appropriate listening skills. i just had to wing it, right into the rocky shoreline of friend break up.

some people are naturals. i am always so jealous of them! when i'm sitting in the back of the room (making inappropriate remarks to my person, usually), they are legitimately making connections. ugh. bitch. how can you be so gregarious when i'm so painfully cynical? why is my friend-o-meter set to "intolerant?"

but, this story has a happy ending. some time in the middle of "me" i figured girl friends out, with a lot of help from those who i, apparently, didn't push away enough. lucky me! yay!

in all the trials, i realized i just can't fake it. either you're my person, or you're not. if you're my person, i have to trust you. i have to take a risk. if you're not, well, nothing personal. i guess you're just not. i'm sure your people are out there, but it would be stupid for either of us to waste any time being awkward together. right?

overall, the scariest things, like trust, have been the most worth it.

i love my people -- my little trust tree. i just wanted to take a moment to thank you publicly for being so damn awesome. thank you for knowing that i have phone phobia and very little energy for hours of day to day chatting. thank you for knowing that i always want a big hug, but even after a serious hug intervention, still get a little rigid. thank you for not calling me "sweet" or "nice." thank you for listening and letting me listen. thank you for telling me that i need to step off the crazy train. thank you for not giving up on me, even though i am pretty sure i still suck at this more than most.

heart.

after

You might want to read the post "Before" first. What? There isn't one called "Before"? Right, that's because I never wrote it.

I've given up running. I'm not sure I even liked running in the first place. Totally boring and painful, right? After years of Mom preaching at me that it was going to ruin my knees, my back, and my ability to spend less than $60 on shoes, I am on a running hiatus.

The deck is stacked against me: My running friend moved two time zones away. My new scenery doesn't include 15th century churchyards or cobblestone lanes. Dan hates it. And it's going to get boiling hot in a few months.

But what comes "after?"

My dad tells me that I'll figure it out. "Keep moving forward. Just put one foot in front of the other." (P.S. Dad, Mom might not like that piece of advice, it's sort of undermining her parenting here. You should really be on the same page.)

I just don't have the desire to do anything right now. I keep thinking of a movie scene, maybe one in my head. I see a creaky old ship or a leaky raft, and it's stuck in the doldrums...The place with no wind, no current, a hot sun. Going nowhere fast.

It sounds so depressing.

I could play tennis, but then I would have to pay someone to teach me. I could go swimming, but I tend to sink and get earaches (yes, at the same time). Work out at home? Lonely. Work out at the gym? Opposite of lonely. Ride my bike? Get run off the road because the locals might think I'm a gay dude from the city or, worse, a tree-hugging Oregon liberal.

I am plain stuck. Life just happens that way sometimes. Or so they say. I'm sure the wind will pick up soon.

Until then, I am going to wonder why this song makes me sad:

laughing,

but not at you...or with you...ok, maybe at you.

ugh. sorry. i don't like to think of myself as a judging-type person, but maybe i am. is that why i almost laughed aloud, but was happy to muster up some self control, when i overheard this conversation at my local Aveda salon today:

client (texting on cell phone) to stylist: "how long does it take to get an application back?"

stylist: "what type of application."

client: "a rental application"

stylist: "oh, it depends. why?"

client: "well, i had to fill out a rental application for this trailer i want on old country road."

stylist: "really? for a trailer? i've never had to do that before."

client: "yeah, i know. it's not like it's a double-wide or anything..."

both confused.

i am judging myself for writing this, so i'll make a confession: i used to live in a trailer; however, it was a double wide.

crazy cat lady

is this what it has come to? me writing about my cat? i guess now that i'm in situ, my topics of interest have waned considerably. i do want to give a shout out to my lungs for no-complaint performance during the inhalation of a significant amount of toxic paint fumes over the past few days and another to the muscles of my forearms and right hand for expert wielding of the crowbar and staple puller during floor removal. but, back to the cat.

she's a pretty stellar cat, as far as cats go. somewhat stupid and completely un-stealthy, she is generally good for hair loss and hilarity (like when she decided that our air ducts would be fun to play in. ha. ha.). when i picked her up in baggage claim she was calm, unruffled, and covered in her own...well, it was eight hours. gross. i immediately tossed out her nasty fleece bed, gave her a bath in the airport bathroom, and went on my way.

the next day i picked up a super plush microfiber bed at target. soft, comfy, and $15. she hated it. pushed it off chairs. never sat on it. didn't even use it to scratch up or piss on. stupid cat. instead she camped out on top of our suitcase or curled up in a giant box of crumpled paper leftover from our moving process.

i went to the store on thursday and found a bed similar to the one she destroyed over the atlantic. i sprayed it with a bit of catnip, put some treats in it, and set it on top of her favorite suitcase. (yes, we are still living out of our luggage.) she still hated it. i left the tag on, thinking that this might happen. just as i was about to put it back in my "return" pile, dan's genius took over. he went to the garage, pulled out a wad of moving paper, wrapped the bed in a crunchy duvet, and it was like flies on stink.

now, every night around 2 a.m. i hear "crumple, crumple, crumple" as she makes herself comfortable in her new home. next step: try to help her overcome her fear of the Great American Outdoors.

fin

i am in America. no, wait. i LIVE in America. although the jumble of my life will most likely remain, the location will cease to be so exotic.

when we moved to the U.K. 41 months ago, our goal was simple: fill the passports. i hoped to average one trip per month over (what was originally supposed to be) 32 months, instead i averaged 1.25 trips per month during our year-point-five and had to have extra pages sewn into my passport. (i did make the mistake of totaling the "travel" category in our Quicken budget. but, really, i would rather have my full passport than that brand new car i could have paid cash for had i spent every night at 39 Garland Street.)

it was bittersweet leaving the island, with no return ticket booked. no more cask ale and $40 flights to dublin. no more weekly market and queues, bins, rubbish, cricket, footie, give-ways, tubes, and half-pints.

now we need to make a new goal. hrm. this could be tricky.

the final list -- number indicates overnight trip, cities during trip next to number, "A" for airport.

1. london
2. canterbury, dover
3. venice (A)
4. tonbridge, hever
5. sevilla, granada, marbella, nerja, gibraltar (A)
6. hong kong, chengdu, tongren (A)
7. k-town, portland (A)
8. dublin, cashel, killarney (A)
9. amsterdam (A)
10. brugge
11. rome (A)
12. edinburgh
    >> end of 2007
    
13. mannheim
14. boleslawiec (A)
15. naples (A)
16. prague (A)
17. dublin (A)
18. san francisco, santa rosa (A)
19. brugge
20. florence, pisa (A)
21. portland, k-town, boise, CDA, las vegas (A)
22. the cotswolds, stratford-upon-avon, warwick
23. rome, amalfi (A)
24. istanbul, ephesus, mykonos, santorini, crete, alexandria, gisa, corfu, olympia, athens (A)
25. stonehenge, salisbury (day trip)
26. zurich, lucerne, interlaken, murren (A)
    >>> end of 2008
    
27. provence (A)
28. bath
29. copenhagen (A)
30. madrid, segovia, avila, toledo (A)
31. london
32. paris
33. rothenburg, bavaria, munich (A)
34. wales
35. kas, turkey (A)
36. scotland (A)
37. yorkshire
38. boise (A)
39. normandy, brugge
40. heidelberg (A)
41. morocco (A)
42. krakow (A)
43. chiavenna, italy (A)
    >> end of 2009
    
44. london
45. las vegas (A)
    
46. norway (A)
    
47. south africa, zambia (A)
    
48. washington, d.c., las vegas, oregon, road trip to north carolina (A)
    
49. romania (A)
50. red sea, egypt (A)
51. brugge
    >> end of 2010