On Being an Introvert

I am so glad that being an introvert has become fashionable. At least, I assume it has -- one can never tell whether what you are interested in has become popular, or if it's just showing up a lot on your Facebook feed because of your interest. 

At any rate, it turns out that being an introvert is okay now. 

"But, Sisiggy," you say, "Here you are blathering on about being an introvert -- but you are blathering in a very public place -- the internet."

Yes, but my original blather is as I sit at my computer alone (but for Topper-get-down on the bed spewing noxious fumes and Dirtman  a few yards off muttering sport statistics that have no basis in my reality).

This isn't about the obvious attributes of introversion, but the most common is that introverts find large gatherings draining -- which sounds to me like I'm being accused of snobbishness ("I find these people so tedious, Dah-ling!"). It is actually the opposite of that. I think, when faced with a large gathering, we introverts become extrovert-wanna-bes.

What? You think we want to huddle in the back, pretending to be talking on our cell phones? (Prior to cell phones, the most we could do is dive into the bathroom.)

I manage a teeny, tiny remote portion of a very large non-profit and, therefore, have to attend meetings where I know, if I'm lucky, only one or two people out of hundreds. I am there with my boss's directive to "network."

Networking -- the person who invented this activity should have a flat tire on I-395 outside of Arlington at 5:30 p.m. on a Tuesday; they should encounter a locked bathroom a half hour after having consumed bad guacamole; they should get in a checkout line at the grocery store behind someone with a fistful of coupons, only some of which have not expired, requiring further examination on behalf of the clerk and the supervisor, called to pass judgement on the wording on several of the coupons.

My boss is a networking superstar. She works a room like Auntie Mame and makes small talk sound like the Gettysburg Address. I am in awe of her as I follow her around, smiling politely as she introduces me, while the entire time I'm just thinking up an excuse to go home or, perhaps, go help out the caterers (thereby at least accomplishing something).

This actually came in handy recently. I escaped during a break in a meeting where we were told to "introduce ourselves" to at least one other person from outside our department (since I'm a department of one, this meant everybody). I would argue, as an introvert, that this was not actually, then, a break, but a continuance of the tortuous interactive meeting. So I headed to my car with my phone plastered to my ear. Blessed silence! To fill out the time, I decide to clean out my glove compartment and noticed that I needed to print out a new insurance card.

See? Introversion has it's purpose.

Usually, though, when faced with such a meeting, I scan the room for someone like me -- usually sitting at the back row or table, pretending to be texting someone. This is where I will sit. We introverts have an understanding with each other. We will exchange names and, if asked, we will both have someone to refer to as "a connection" we made. Then we sit in silence and pray for the event to be over.

Later, though, I always swear that next time I will enter the room with a, "Hello everybody!" And everyone will give an exclamation of delight as I enter the room, my arms outstretched to encompass all these people I consider friends -- because what extrovert doesn't consider as a friend every person with whom they've made eye contact?

I will not have to introduce myself to anyone because everyone will be coming up to me, unable to resist the gravitational pull of my charm and folksy eloquence.

And there I'll be, in the center of all those people...those people whose names I, of course, remember*...who expect me to...what? What do they expect of me? Read their expressions, right? That 's how you tell what they want from you. But they're all smiling. That's it. Smiling. And talking about...what? I can't understand what they are saying, they're all talking at once...saying things and smiling...

It requires focus and listening. But it's always someone who talks too quietly and you lean in and still can't hear and ask, "What?" and still can't hear, then give up and just smile and nod until you notice a look of horror on their face and you realize that they've just related to you about their recently-deceased grandmother who raised them.

Or they ask me a question. Oh no!

I make a noise, nothing like speech. Like any good Italian, my mouth doesn't work without the aid of my hands. And I'm off, babbling and gesticulating like an idiot, running out of air at the end of sentences and laughing at my own stupid jokes. I go on and on because I don't know how to end it, so I say (and I'm not exaggerating; this is honestly how I've ended some of my more inane diatribes), "I'm done now."

Then I chuckle, pretend to suddenly notice the refreshment table and say, "Oh! Water!" and hurry away.

And speaking of the refreshment table, what demon of Satan's thought up the idea of having to eat, drink, stand up and talk, all at the same time? (I suspect it's the same person who came up with sing-alongs, high school gym class and those silly games they make you play at Tupperware parties -- all, ironically, activities at which extroverts excel.)

So, you see, in a way, it's a blessing I'm an introvert. No one, not even the most annoying extrovert, should have to witness that embarrassment.

So, Extroverts of the World, I have a deal for you: If you will just leave me alone when you see me sitting placidly off to the side at some event, next time I'm completing some mundane transaction like gassing up my car or buying a pizza, I won't punch you in the head when you command me to, "Smile!"

*I have, under pressure of speaking to someone I didn't know, forgotten the name of my husband. Recently. We've been married 27 years. And the question, "Is it 'Jean' or 'Jeanne'?" confused me because I didn't know who they were talking about.

Crazy Scary

I was ready for them this time: The naysayers, the predictors of doom and those who "just want to let you know we care" by listing every calamity that can possibly befall people who have the audacity to test Frost's road less traveled.

The Cafe

I wasn't quite as prepared for the level of terror I experienced when for the first time I decided not to listen.

I'm writing about this very personal feeling because I know I'm not alone in this. These dreams, these crazy, seemingly-unattainable dreams we have when we complete the sentence, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if..."; these dreams we can imagine so vividly, they make our pulse speed and keep us up at night...until that conservative voice of reason kicks in.

I think this is where most dreams die; before they're even uttered out loud or see the light of day.

Some, though, survive...weakened but still viable. And that's when the naysayers and predictors of doom deliver that final coup de grace.

As a people pleaser and dysfunctionally obsessive Good Girl, I've always done what I was told. There is safety in listening to what other claim to know more about (everything) than you, because you never have to hear, "I told you so." That way, though I've never gotten anywhere, I could stay the Good Girl everyone  liked (predictability is always like, isn't it?).

And, let's face it, the naysayers have history and tradition going for them -- there is a reason everybody takes the path of safety -- most of the time it doesn't lead to calamity. (Though, I gotta say..."the path of safety" has been, for us, a minefield. So there is not much to recommend "doing what everyone does" to us.)

Which brings us to that weed-riddled, rocky path upon which we decided to embark -- opening a cafe during a recession. Or, insert your own seemingly wacky endeavor that seems to annoy everyone around you singing the praises of the status quo. For us it's a cafe.

This is another reason why, in the past, I've always done whatever is safest.

Terror.

There is no other way to put it.

Terror is very different from intuition. Intuition goes much deeper. Terror reacts to the cues in front of it. Terror drowns out intuition.

This is terrifying. It's terrifying to not do as expected. It's terrifying to do something that lacks the safety net of working for someone else in a field that is a sure thing. It's terrifying to be placing something that is so personally produced by me up for sale; up for others' judgement.

I think both Dark Garden and I counted on the fact that we were doing this together to waylay some of that fear. We appeared to each other so confident. I figured he was sure of himself, we must be okay. I seemed just as sure to him, so he figured the same.

... and then we had to commit. And we looked at each other and realized no matter what, we were going to have to muster a type of courage we had never tapped into before. Oh sure, it took courage to go through some of the challenges my family has over come in the past few years. And God knows, as a cop, courage is DG's stock-in-trade.

This is different, though. It's a different kind of fear and requires a different kind of courage. And I don't think there is any getting around it. You either let it stop you or you just let it flow while you do what you have to do.

And so yesterday we closed on the cafe. For myself, once it was a done deal, the terror subsided to a dull twinge and I was offered another option: Excitement. Oh, there is still that scared part of me that nudges every now and then, but I let the excitement drown it out.

I feel like the elderly Isak Dinesen reminiscing at the beginning of Out of Africa*: "I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills."

I have a cafe in Romney at the foot of the West Virginia Appalachian Mountains.

*Perhaps, more appropriately is this: "...the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road."

Dear 2012...

Dear 2012,

Happy Birthday.

That's right. No exclamation point. I will acknowledge the day, but I haven't been able to muster the enthusiasm of an exclamation point for you or you siblings for a few years. I think my disenchantment with your family began back when your brother 2008 arrived, all cuddly and cute and pretending to be just another year until May*, when it suddenly turned into a psychopathic monster threatening to destroy our lives.

Ironically, when your sibling 2009 was born  Dirtman and I still celebrated by clinking glasses, shrugging our shoulders and saying, "Well, at least it can't get any worse!"

What the hell were we thinking? Was there ever a phrase more guaranteed to bring down the wrath of God, the gods and any minor imps within hearing range?

Whatever the reason, I don't remember ever experiencing a year so defiant and stubborn, so unwilling to work well with its predecessors, so unwilling to work for the greater good. By the time December rolled around we were more than ready to kick 2009's annuated arse out the door.

Little did we know that we'd miss 2009's up front, in-your-face hijinks. We'd learned our lesson about trying to approach the new arrival of 2010 with unfettered optimism; but, secretly we hoped that 2010 would be more like her older siblings -- cooperative, understanding, sensitive to our weaknesses. In the beginning she was there everyday, pressed and dressed and ready to take on the world. But she really didn't do much for anybody, certainly not for us. In the end, she'd turned pretty nasty in a scary, stalker sort of way.

We were afraid to forcibly do anything about 2010, but were relieved when she up and left of her own accord to make way for her brother, 2011 -- the demon spawn. More wily and cunning than any of its siblings, 2011 baited us with a false sense of security. It pretended to be our friend. It showed us a glimpse of rosy future and assured us it's what fate had in store for us. We believed in 2011 and enthusiastically hopped aboard his optimism train.

You know those Road Runner cartoons where Wile E. Coyote is speeding along and Road Runner paints a tunnel on a rock dead end? That's where 2011 led us.

So here you are, 2012, expecting a big party and happy revelers. Well, I don't think so. We're a little tired of you and your tyrannical siblings showing up here every January 1 to knock us around like you're the boss of us. You can just let yourself in this year, park your butt in the corner and keep your mouth shut.

This time I'm in charge.

                                                                             Sincerely,
                                                                             Sisiggy

P.S. Since when do you show up at someone's home without a hostess gift?


*The incident of 2008 has been linked ad nauseum and I'm reluctant to make it my first link of the New Year. Besides, just about everyone knows the story, but for those who don't I will insert a very tiny one here. I hope it won't stir up any bad karma...

Think positive...NOW!

It's a phrase that absolutely sets my teeth on edge, almost as much as when someone orders me to, "Smile!"

"Think positive!" The only people who have ever said that to me have said it to either manipulate my actions for their benefit or stood to gain more than I would -- usually financially -- from my having "positive" attitude.

Aside from being rude and unfeeling, the phrase should be restated to mean it's true intent: "Think positively about what I want and to hell with your feelings."

Don't get me wrong -- I am a great proponent of positive thinking. I could not have gone through some of the challenges of my life -- and Linguini readers know they have been many and brutal -- if I hadn't consciously developed an immunity to all the negative energy swirling about me.

I can recognize when, as a family, we've entered "rut mode," where, after a setback, we begin feeding off each other's fears. But even then, it's not my place to order everyone to "be positive." And I'm well aware of the wisdom of the phrase, "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." Certainly there have been times when I've had the power to set the tone for the household and knew I'd better pull myself together before someone does something drastic.

As a mother, I'll admit when the Heirs were younger there were times I had to remind them that most of what we worry about never happens and to take responsibility for their own, personal "rut modes." But to tell them how the "should" feel ("Think positive!") would have been a betrayal of the latitude given to me as a parent.

I recall an incident when my mother was dying of cancer. I was working in the comptroller's department of a bank at the time, living at home and trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy. This was a time before "hospice" when terminal patients were either kept in hospitals or sent home for relatives to make do as best they could.

It was a horrible, horrible few months for Da Bros and I, not to mention my father, who had essentially shut down, leaving poor 15-year-old Dark Garden not only without a mother, but also without a father.

This wasn't a situation I shared with everyone at work. I didn't want to become "the lady with the dying mother." However, whereas I usually functioned as the office comic, not to mention the department diplomat who smoothed over office politics before it had to go to personnel, I was now more sedate and quiet and, frankly, clueless when day-to-day employee kerfuffles were escalating.

Most of my co-workers and management were satisfied with the explanation that I was "going through some stuff." After all, my work wasn't suffering. But one supervisor -- a woman who got her job mostly because she was married to the son of the bank's CFO and who had been cushioned since birth by money and plain, dumb luck -- just couldn't let it go. She called me into her office to tell me she couldn't help noticing my attitude and perhaps I needed to "leave my burnt toast at home."

And then, when I offered the "going through some stuff" explanation, she uttered the words that ring in my ears to this day: "You need to think positively! It will turn your life around and everything will change!"

Now, not only did I feel miserable because I was 22 and my life consisted of working, going to hospitals and tending to my sick mother and that, ultimately, my mother was going to die anyway, I also felt guilty that I felt BAD about it. Call it a Catholic girls guilt or whatever -- the fact is, that in the throes of my grief and pain, I was made to feel that somehow this was all my fault because I couldn't manage to FEED GOOD about it. And, truthfully, I felt that way for a long time.

I know now, 32 years later, that I was called into that office because I was no longer doing the supervisor's job of employee relations for her. I think of what a more enlightened Sisiggy would have said and even considered, for a time, returning there to deliver my scathing diatribe.

Alas, the bank no longer existed. A few years after I left to move to Virginia, the entire company was investigated by the fed, and most of upper management was found guilty of various forms of financial mayhem.

Still, I have this vision of visiting her in her reduced circumstances, patting her on the hand and advising her to "think positive!"

What reminded me of all this was I was shopping at a department store recently and ahead of me a very talkative woman was checking out, going on and on about why she'd purchased each item or why she chose one thing over another or why her son hated this, but loved that and blah, blah blah. The clerk, as it appeared to me, was focusing on the transaction and not responding to the inane chatter of the customer. This was bothering the customer no end and she kept looking toward me and rolling her eyes as though we should join forces against mute department store clerks.

As the clerk handed the customer the receipt and said the obligatory, "Thank you," Ms. Motormouth looks at her closely and says perkily, "You should smile!"

The clerk had this stricken, deer-in-the-headlights look on her face and I think she almost broke down and cried. These days, especially, you don't know people's story and what they're going through. What I saw in that clerk was a raw, depleted soul, white-knuckling it through her obligations with the last of her reserves being asked by a privileged, insensitive airhead to validate her skills as a savvy shopper.

Now, I'm don't normally jump into the fray on things like this. But that clerk looked so stricken and then looked at me as if to say, "Now, what are you going to hit me with?"

I looked at the Perky Pollyanna walking toward the exit, shook my head and said, "What an idiot!"

We both smiled. And breathed.

Only the women can relate to this...

Who thought up the name "menopause?"

It should be "meno-STOP."

Complete with the capital letters.

To blog or not to blog

This November I will have been blogging for six years. There have been a few months of dry spells here and there* but, if you were bored enough with life to go through each post from the beginning, you would have a pretty good idea of what goes on around here in Linguiniland, the whys and the hows and what everyone around here thinks about it.

Back in 2005 I had some misgivings about starting a blog. Oh, privacy didn't bother me much -- anyone can pick up a phone book and find out more about us than they'll glean from my blog. And I knew better than to treat Linguini on the Ceiling as an actual on-line journal or, worse, an on-line litany of my "feelings" and the state of my health.

I've been mulling over the reasons I blog since the day I started. Back then, it really was a great way to stop the "blogging in my brain." It became the outlet for the stories and observations I'd relate if, say, we were having lunch together.

But, every now and then I'd think, "This is really a self-absorbed sort of pass-time." That was a pretty good indication that whatever I was writing was inappropriate for this blog.

I will admit that in the time following our foreclosure and bankruptcy, some of the posts got a little raw and personal. That was a very deliberate decision on my part. While my family was going through all this agony, there were tens of thousands of other families going through the same thing; only no one had the least bit of compassion for these people whose lives were turned upside down. Instead everyone bought into the media short-cut of clumping the economy's victims under the banner of "spoiled, materialistic, over-spenders." It was lazy thinking and, I suppose, gave comfort to those it hadn't happened to: "That couldn't possibly happen to us because we are not like them." There is the illusion of safety in an "Us and Them" mentality -- and denial.

I have been particularly thinking along these lines the past few months and, at one point, even considered abandoning Linguini altogether. Afterall, Facebook gives an adequate snap shot of what's going on around here, if you're really interested. And there are very few people left with the focusing ability to read full paragraphs. But I just can't do it. Every now and then I hit common ground with someone who just happened by and that makes it all worth it. I've made some swell friends through this blog.

C.S. Lewis said, "We read to know we are not alone."

Sometimes we write for the same reason.

*I have no other explanation for my absence during the past few months other than to say I may not be as immune from Seasonal Affective Disorder as I've previously stated. But we have pushed through, thanks to the efforts of my family...and the entire collection of Jeeves and Wooster (thank you, Netflix).

Just another reason ...

I know most of you think I'm ridiculous with my "thing" against Walmart and I'm sure Walmart cares not a whit that Sisiggy isn't spending her little pittance at their stores.

Walmart is by no means alone in exploitative practices, but they are the leader and, worse, a model that other stores emulate.

I will grant that it is practically impossible to live reasonably without going into a big box store at some point. Believe me, we've tried. Some things are prohibitively expensive -- not the fault of the local store, but simply because they don't sell the volume to get the kind of deals a large distributor can cut. Some things just aren't available, usually because the big box corporation made their deal "exclusive" and the merchandise provider is permitted to supply only them.

Every now and then, though, something like this happens that drives home the directive to support local businesses.

I know that this is hardly the catastrophe that explosive words like "plague" and "famine" hint at. But it is cause for concern and some serious consideration about buying from corporations whose only quality standard is how cheaply and quickly they can move the product. Let's face it, Burpee has been distributing plants for decades without causing widespread blight.

More importantly, there is no direct accountability. When we bought our vegetable plants, we bought some from a local co-op that buys direct from a supplier. The co-op manager chose the plants and approved them himself. He didn't just take delivery of what some faceless "distribution center" sent him on a truck.

Most of our plants were purchased from members of the high school FFA program who raise the plants as part of their curriculum and a local nursery stocked and run by people down the road. The expense for the FFA plants were about the same as I would pay at a big box store. The nursery plants were, understandably, slightly more expensive, but during the purchase I learned of the particular needs of the type of plant I was attempting to grow. She didn't pretend to know about what she was selling, she knew because she was responsible for it to begin with.

While I haven't been in a Walmart in over seven years, I still go into a Target or a K-Mart and I grocery shop at a chain store. "Farmers markets" around here are tied to the local orchards. You're "buying local" only if you purchase the fruit in their orchards. Everything else come from the same source as the grocery store -- only more expensive.

It is a dilemma for those of us willing to pay a little more for local, better-quality products. And it's tough to navigate through the rhetoric of what constitutes "organic." Technically, you can slap an "organic" label on a container of salt and charge $3 extra for it, but it would still be the same salt as the regular stuff.

I continue to tilt at the windmill, though. Me and my Sancho Panza.

My own kind of blue

Maybe it’s a late-winter slump or maybe it’s coming out of one. Maybe I’m just feeling the teasings of spring; you know how those 70+-degree days make you feel, even if it is followed by a string of days in the 40s?

Whatever it is, lately I go around annoyed by all this doom and gloom everyone has so easily fallen into. As if the season itself weren’t depressing enough, everyone feels this need to gear every conversation about the economy and the how it is going to bring about the end of the world as we know it.

Look, no one has more reason to be pessimistic than we here at Linguini on the Ceiling. Three out of four of us have no steady job -- only sporadic “projects” that keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. The industries wherein lie our expertise have been decimated and there are (at least here in the valley) hundreds of applicants for every low-paying, entry-level position. I could go on and on with the suckiness of the Linguini situation, but that would be doing the very thing that irritates me.

See, there is also this other thing. In a way it’s a good thing because otherwise last year when we lost two houses and the bank seized every penny we had, I would have done the logical thing and had a nervous breakdown. I could have spent those following painful months in a nice, quiet psych ward, drifting in a mist of valium. Oh, I would have emerged six months later to a family divided, bitter and in ruin, but it would not have been my problem because my delicate condition would exempt me from blame.

Believe me, I tried to have a nervous breakdown. But my brain is a survivor. It always, always, always manifests hope.

Hope. Every time. I don’t know how or where it comes from. There I am, on my way to a perfectly justified emotional meltdown – and – oh, look! A bluejay.

And because of the bluejay – or whatever catches my eye at the time – there’s the hope.

And, honestly – at the time it makes me really, really angry because insanity by contrast seems so peaceful, so much easier than duking it out with life.

My point is, when you approach me with your furtive looks of impending disaster, I’ve probably got the bluejay on my mind; I’ve probably got a plan that is seeing me through, even if there is a slim chance of it working. And you, you’ve read something or watched something or talked to someone and now you feel the need to share your feelings of disaster, not only as it applies to your life, but also, as a bonus, how it applies to mine.

Well, knock it off.

If not for me, for your own sake. Knock. It. Off.

Because here’s a secret that no one seems to get: We are the economy.

The economy isn’t “out there.” It’s us and what we do and how we feel. When we felt competitive and materialistic, the bloated economy reflected that. Now everyone is scared and expecting disaster and – guess what?

So, for Godsake, people, just live your life. I am as frugal as my personal economy dictates, but who I am is not my personal economy. I have other things to talk about, like books and writing and dogs and...

Look! A bluejay!

Self-indugent blathering

I have many character flaws which I’ve enumerated on this blog more times than I care to remember, so I’m not going to reiterate them all just now. I plan for this entry to be a “Yay Me” posting, but I don’t want anyone to misconstrue that I in any way am not regretful of being, at times, self-indulgent and materialistic. I have been both of those, not to mention whiney and sarcastic.

Anyway, I’m not going to talk about that. I’m going to talk about this character trait of mine that is equal parts blessing and curse: I’m adaptable.

Seriously, plunk me in any situation and, after an initial phase of shock or anger or sorrow, I’ll figure a way to be happy there. I will adjust my attitude, my goals, and my point of view. Depending on the gravity of the situation, it may take a few hours or days or weeks or, in a few extremely drastic cases, months – but all in all, nothing thus far has landed me in a state of total despair.

I’m very good at gleaning the lesson in each of these disasters, adjusting my behavior accordingly and moving forward.

I know on the surface this is a good thing. It’s what keeps me going and prevents those around me – particularly my kids – from being frightened. No one seems to rally around here until I gather my sanity together and start cracking jokes.

The downside to this is that wherever ugly situations come from, whatever negative energy feeds off the mistakes I’ve already made and turns them to disaster (I’m not in denial about my own part in situations that go horribly wrong) keep ramping up the consequences, in spite of the fact that, as I keep telling Them (It…whatever) “I get it. I understand. Now STOP!”

It’s gotten to the point that more than one person has asked me why I’m not at this point screaming my head off, demanding justice and retribution for having to continually endure the consequences of decisions I didn’t make and situations I knew nothing about.

The answer is that I don’t know why and, as I explained to my eternally patient sister-in-law Mrs. Dark Garden, what can I do to let Them (It…Whatever) know that I can’t take anymore? I mean, I can’t do any differently from what I’m doing and It keeps throwing stuff at me. I keep trying to have a nervous breakdown or a heart attack or anything to tell It: “Back off, Jack. She’s hit the wall.”

I write all this by way of being honest and also by way of explanation for the fact that, while most of my readers know that we’ve endured two foreclosures and are going through bankruptcy, my posts are, but for an exception of a few, positive or downright frivolous.

There are those, in fact, who are offended that I don’t have an entire wardrobe of sackcloth and ashes or that I don’t walk around flaying myself while continually reciting a prayer of contrition. To them I can only apologize that I’m still alive and, therefore, require the sanctioned food, clothing and shelter and even have the nerve to want the food to taste good, the clothing to fit and the shelter to be comfortable. I know that’s too good for the likes of me but, again, sorry.

To these same few, I am also sorry that I’ve managed to adjust and be happy in these circumstances. It’s not that I don’t recognize the gravity of the situation. It’s that I have a life to run, whether you happen to think I deserve it or not.

The fact is, one of my ways of coping, or adjusting – whatever you want to call it – is to embrace where fate has landed me. You can believe this or not, but I’ve never been a frivolous shopper. All our financial resources went toward building a house and being unable to sell the one we owned to begin with (along with other factors). But I don’t have boxes of “stuff” or closets full of clothing. I don’t even have gadgets and electronics.

The point I’m trying to make is that now that our financial resources are so much less than two years ago and significantly less than when we realized the Housing Bubble was about to implode, there isn’t a whole lot we have had to change to accommodate the shortfall. Certainly we’re living in a smaller house, so we had to make that adjustment. And it doesn’t matter anymore if steak is on special or not – it’s not in our budget and we don’t eat it. It’s not a big deal (and, again, I’m sorry that I’m not in tears over this loss and, in fact, have rather a good time finding increasingly cheaper meals).

Anyway, one of my ways of adjusting to my current situation is to do the same with the rest of my life, even if it strikes some as rather pathetic. The reason I say this is very specifically for Dark Garden at this point. Whenever confronted with a challenge that most people would solve by spending money, I get a real kick out of finding a way to do it by laying out little or no cash, even when it’s justified.

Okay, for instance (still with me or have most of you clicked on by now?): We arrived at this house with one of those toilet bowl brush wands onto which you attach disposable brushes. The refills for these things are prohibitively expensive, not to mention adding to the accumulation of more waste to enter landfills.

So I knew, once my stock of refills ran out I was going to switch back to your standard TB brush and caddy, both of which could be purchased for the price of what one box of refills would cost. For a cleaner I decided on good ol’ bleach.

I’m sure the dollar store had a perfectly serviceable brush and caddy, but then not only would I have to pay a buck for the brush and a buck for the caddy, I’d have to specifically travel to the dollar store.

So during one of our CVS trips, having accumulated $16 in cashback bonuses, I was able to purchase a toilet bowl brush along with the soap we had originally gone there for: 66 cents. But that didn’t get me a caddy. (There was a brush with a caddy there, but it meant I’d have to pay over a dollar.)

So I present my toilet brush and caddy.


Now, I know that, upon seeing this, Mr. and Mrs. Dark Garden will show up at my door with a toilet brush and caddy. It will be top of the line and better than they would buy for themselves.

This is what I mean: a toilet brush caddy made out of a milk carton is not, to me, pathetic and I’m not posting it because I want you to see how poor we are. I can afford a toilet brush and caddy. But think of it – we are recycling! And I’m posting it because it makes me happy and to show you how clever I am.

Yay me.

Wednesdays, we mow

I haven’t lived in a “neighborhood” for a very long time. For the past 27 years I’ve been zoned “agriculture.” So, while I’ve read about and have seen movies of neighborhood behavior, this is the first time in a long time I’ve had to deal with it myself.

For instance, I don’t know what brought it on, but yesterday everyone rushed out to mow their lawn. I didn’t notice that the lawns were becoming excessively shaggy.

Is it because Dirtman started to mow? Or because it was Wednesday? What happens if I let it go until Thursday? I mean sometimes the Heirs have something to do on Wednesday and it might be put off until Thursday or even Friday. What will become of us?

Oh, and did I mention the warm welcome we, as “renters,” received from the neighborhood? Like – none. I mean, other than from our landlords, who live next door. Even when Salt slipped under the fence and I chased him across the street where he went to greet the big black Lab whose name, as it turns out, is Pepper, and I apologized and introduced myself and the couple looked at me like, “Why on earth would we give a renter our real names?”

Though another couple across the street did offer us a place to park our cars while we had moving trucks and stuff in our driveway, so that was thoughtful.

I’m very conscious about keeping the dogs quiet, to the point of obsession. All it takes is one neighborhood dog to set mine off and there is a big difference between one dog barking and six dogs barking. Salt has, therefore, invented a form of communication that cannot, technically, be called barking. It’s sort of like he’s talking a strange language: rau, rau, raurauraurau…” Topper mutters expletives under his breath and, I swear, Abby rolls her eyes.

Then there are the Heirs’ rules of conduct: No loud music; no “peeling out” of the driveway; no driving up with the bass thumping; wave politely back to a neighbor if, in fact, anyone bothers to wave to A Renter; and no screaming profanities back and forth outside like we’re on Cops or something.

Oh – and no getting arrested in your underwear. I’m really strict about that.

Last night, I didn't get to sleep at all...no...noooooo!

Okay, maybe I dozed a little during the Twilight Zone marathon. I may have nodded off just as Burgess Meredith was about to enter the vault where Jack Palance and Elizabeth Montgomery were in tattered evening clothes and army boots listening to a ventriloquist dummy in the corner. Something like that. I do recall getting into bed "just to rest awhile" and waking up briefly to yell at the lump next to me that he needed to do a walk through of Heir 2's teen New Year's party downstairs and having the lump turn out to be Toppergetdown, who didn't, but did give me one of his grins and sneezed in my face.

Prior to all this, Dirtman and I spent the evening playing Scrabble. I lost by a measly seven points, a real heartbreak, since Dirtman, having pondered several minutes over his letters and thinking of nothing, suddenly scored 38 points with "joined," mysteriously thought up while I was out of the room preparing the caramel popcorn. I'm not making any accusations, but strikes me as suspicious, particularly since earlier he was trying to convince me that there was such a word as "pettingly."

We toasted in the New Year with Alpenglow, which is, I think, Swiss for "fizzy fruit juice crap." We winced at Dick Clark hosting the Times Square ball drop and hope people will be kind (kinder than I certainly was) when discussing it over the water cooler, which inevitably they will because, I'm telling you, it was work trying to understand what he was saying, not that it was all that important, but, still, I feel obligated to pay attention because he's trying so hard and it looks like such an effort. And, yeah, I know, I'm bringing down the Gods of Justice upon me and, really, these days you'd think I'd know better than to tempt fate when it's been in such an uncooperative mood lately. Certainly that's what Dirtman pointed out to me. Apparently the entire economy stinks because of my bad attitude.

As for the party: All went smoothly, the last ones stumbled out of here after noon on Tuesday and, even more amazing, there is food left in the house.

Obligatory New Year's post

You all know how I feel about sharing my resolutions for the coming year, but I did promise to fess up to how I did on last year's resolutions (okay, two years ago...).

The fact is, not too shabbily. Last year I my resolve to two-fold: to continue my quest for serenity and to begin to eat more heathfully. We'll get to the first later in order to dispense with the more boring of the two, because actually I started out the year vowing that I was going to cook in such a way that I wouldn't be contributing to Dirtman gaining weight. I hope you appreciate how carefully-worded that was. At no point did I want to be the one responsible for Dirtman's weight loss because, frankly, that's none of my business. But I do recognize that, as the only one who can consistently conjure a meal around here, I can't ignore my role in his health. In the back of my mind was, of course, the thought that perhaps I might, myself, shed a few pounds.

And to get it out of the way: I did and I kept it off, though it was a meager 25 pounds. But it is still gone, through holidays and mood swings and everything else, it's gone.

But more importantly is the way I view food and eating and that whole issue of "losing weight." I refuse to buy into the hype anymore and refuse to compare myself to people who just happened to luck out on the metabolism spectrum. I'm not wasting another minute on that damn treadmill staring at the wall because it gives me a "calories burned" read out and a measurement of miles walked. I'm taking my dogs for a walk through the woods and if that, coupled with dragging three loads of laundry around the house and vacuuming 11 tons of dog hair, isn't enough exercise for a 50-year-old woman, then someone is skewing the stats for their own benefit, whatever that may be. I pay attention to nutrition and this past year made it a point to learn more about what my body doesn't need and what it does need. And that's it. If I'm lucky I've got maybe 30 years to live and I'm not spending it squirting lemon juice on lettuce and saying, "MMMM, I love this so much better than Starbuck's coffee ice cream."

Enough about that.

As for my ongoing quest for serenity, this year was a real challenge (like Randy Quaid in Independence Day, I picked a hell of a time to give up drinking -- which I also did for real this year because it started to mess with my blood sugar so much. I do still have a drink every now and then, but I always regret it and it doesn't happen very often.) Anyway, as previous posts have indicated, this year did not lend itself to calmness and peace. But the whole point in something becoming a lifestyle is that it is not drastically affected by other issues swirling about.

Still, I've managed to stay calm this year and not get stuck in panic mode. Panic makes you do dumb things, like listen to the wrong people, people who claim to be "helping" when, in fact, they have a whole other agenda, usually involving making themselves feel good or putting you "in your place." Whenever you hear between the lines of what someone is saying the phrase, "Who do you think you are?" this is probably the wrong person to listen to.

Which brings me to my big lesson learned this year, which is to listen to my gut (or, for the more sentimental among you, my heart). I'm more intuitive than I've given myself credit for and, if we'd acted on that, we'd be better for it. I don't mean to be so cryptic about situations. Honestly, every issue I'm referring to is just too stupid, boring and convoluted to go into in depth. Believe me, you're not missing out on something salacious.

All totaled, as a person I'm better off this year than last. That may sound contradictory with what's been going on around here lately, but its true. And that's all I can ask of a year.

So long, 2007. You were by far the fastest-moving year of my life. I have a feeling this is a trend.

I knew this was going to happen

Ya know...

I held off saying anything about our situation until we were sure it's what we had to do. That way you aren't forced to say things that end up not coming true.

Well, wouldn't you know that immediately after we decided to "go public" with the news that we would have to move from the House of Never-ending Construction, our brains kicked into gear and suddenly options appeared to us. Or, rather, it turned out that ideas I had conjured and thought utterly ridiculous and beyond the comfort zone of all involved, ended up being first a possibility and then, ultimately, the solution.

So, yeah, things around here will be a-changin' (well, not here specifically, but around Casa Linguini), we are here and, if all works out as planned, always will be.

I can't tell you how this has changed the atmosphere and I wish we'd have thought of all this before we spent an absolutely dismal Christmas saying heart-wrenching things like: "We'll never see the crabapple tree get big;" or "What do we do if the new people won't feed the birds?"

We had demonized the people we figured would buy this house (opportunists who would offer us way under appraisal because they could smell the stench of fear, panic and despair on us; greedy money-grubbers who took one of those get rich courses they advertise on paid programming at 3:30 in the morning that tells people to hunt down poor slobs drowning in debt and weed them out of the financial gene pool by offering a ridiculous amount for their property). We were quite sure they not only wouldn't feed our birds, they'd shoot the mourning doves, put a foozeball table in the library and not house a single gnome.

Yes, there is much rejoicing right now, but the real work lies ahead. The House of Squalor must still be rejuvenated, though the five-acre parcel it sits on is the real value of the property. And our extra lot next door will go up for sale.

But the Hill is still of the Gnome and so it shall remain. And the crawdads will still roam free.

Say Hallelujah; say Amen.

A sad state of affairs...perhaps...

This may be the hardest post I’ve ever had to write. And, no, it’s not the end of Linguini on the Ceiling, just to get that out of the way. But there is no denying Linguini has suffered over the past year or so and this may give you an insight as to why.

K. Here goes.

The Linguinis are high-tailing it back to the House of Squalor and the House of Neverending Construction is up for sale.

There. I said it.

Those of you who have been with me for the past two years know the ramifications of this statement. You know of the anguish and waiting and disappointment we went through to get here and know what a kick in the stomach it is for all of us to have to give it up.

But we’ve had to circle the wagons this last year, so to speak; pull up the drawbridge and try to cut our losses. We really thought the housing industry would have at least leveled out by now. We knew the glory days were over and didn’t expect them to last forever. While the glory days were what built this house in the first place, we figured the usual income from the industry was all we needed once we dealt with the initial outlay.

We probably could have survived the total annihilation of the housing market if that was all we had to deal with. Dirtman had, in fact, begun to move into less market-dependent areas of the industry and that would have suited us fine. But we couldn’t absorb the onslaughts from other factors on top of housing going bust.

The one thing Dirtman and I agreed about when he decided to go into business for himself was that we were going to maintain our integrity. No exploitation of situations, no undermining the competition, no backstabbing – all pretty easy to do when the market is good and there is plenty of work for everyone; but not so easy when things start getting competitive. We were totally unprepared for (read: naive) the lengths our “friends” would go to and still be able to justify betrayal. Frankly, Dirtman is usually the trusting one, but even I was taken in and that really pisses me off.

Needless to say, the embarrassment factor is quite high right now. Dirtman wants to hide. I just want to get it over with and start a new chapter. I don’t like the role of “victim” and need to shed it as soon as possible. But we know there is an element among the people we know who have been salivating for something like this to happen and, while they will make all the right sympathetic noises, they will not be able to keep the tinge of smugness out of their voices: “Well, that shows them. I would never find myself in this position. Of course if they lived their lives just like me this wouldn’t have happened. That’s what they get for being so uppity.”

(As an aside: We all know people like this, of course; people who are quite sure there is only one way to live and it’s their way. But what I want to know is: when they make their snide remarks and digs, do they actually think they’re so glib that we can’t hear how rude they’re being? Do they actually think they are so intellectually superior that, just because we’re too polite to call them on it, we don’t realize? Just wondering.)

So we are quite unsettled right now and feeling just a little bruised. But okay, really. Because we made some decisions before things got desperate, we have choices and control over how this is done – in other words, this is not a foreclosure situation, but a decision that Dirtman and I made over other options like working our tails off seven days a week to maintain a house we’re never home long enough to enjoy (not the lifestyle for us).

So, with the help of Dark Garden, the Twin Progenies and the Heirs, we will be putting the House of Squalor to rights so that I can inhabit it without getting sick. We will be paring down significantly, which, to me, is almost a relief.

And, really, I wonder if this wasn’t what we intended for awhile now. When we moved here a year and a half ago, it was overwhelming. I can’t deny how wonderful it was to have heat and water that was reliable; to not have to climb up and down flights of stairs to do laundry in between high and low tide in the basement; to not have to share a bathroom with the Three Stooges.

That being said, I had begun to explore concepts of sustainability and getting closer to the things that I need to live and this house really is not conducive to any of that. There’s no denying that, for the most part, I’m heating or cooling three floors for four people, not to mention that I’d have to relocate an entire field in order to have a garden.

So, to me, this is the first step of a new life. Dirtman isn’t there yet, so tread softly around him.

This is my gift to the smug among you: go forth and gloat.

To the rest of you, my friends, thank you in advance for your support.

A day late...

I suppose I could back date this, but since I'm not officially blogging everyday anyway, I figure it's no big deal. Sundays are massive meal days and everyone comes here and eats stuff. So that's where I was yesterday.

All this blogging going on reminded of something I read on the internet by someone who did not want to be called a "blogger" because "bloggers" assume their lives are so interesting someone else wants to read about them. Apparently this person didn't agree that someone else's life/opinion was interesting, only his/hers. It made me wonder who was truly the most "self-absorbed."

When I started this blog two years ago, it was sort of like casting a line out into the ocean: Here's what I think. Anyone else think this? Am I alone in this? Can someone talk me out of this?

I've had one rule that I've stuck to since then: I never delete a comment, unless it's an obvious ad or at the request of the commenter (I think that happened once when a comment inadvertently posted twice). I don't claim to think in absolutes and I don't require total agreement.

Of course, I've never had anyone get really nasty. The few trolls that have stopped by have been immediately recognized and summarily ignored. They've never come back as I can tell.

I know a lot of people just hate the word "blogger," but it's just a matter of semantics to me. I yam what I yam. As in anything, there is good and bad and it used to be the same for the term "freelance writer." I remember going on a job interview and the interviewer making the snide comment that "at least you weren't a 'freelance writer.' That's just another way of saying 'unemployed.'" Instead I had a laundry list of jobs that had absolutely nothing to do with the writing job for which I was applying and which I subsequently got because he apparently thought that, since I could make a bank balance at the end of the day, I could put together a column. Yet he would have turned down James Michener because he was 'unemployed' (...and dead...).

So call it what you will. If you are threatened by the fact that there are people out there sending words over the internet that are trite or cloyingly cute or too personal or grammatical disasters and those people are called the same thing as you with your well-organized, sharply edited prose -- well, get over yourself.

I'm rather glad there is a venue for everyone to express their opinions. Because I think eventually the only opinion you will hear out of the mainstream media will be Barbra Streisand's.

Happy Calm Year

Yes, siree!

A new start, a fresh year, and three new gray hairs.

Durn.

As I’ve said before, I don’t do resolutions as much as try to pick a general area to improve. If on 12/31/07 I’m better off than I was, I can claim success.

Last year (and the year before that), my goal was to back out of the ever-increasing need for an adrenaline rush. The resolution, of sorts, started out as “I need to calm down.” But I began to notice that my life was slowly being taken over by activities designed to make my body think something exciting was going on when, in actuality, I was just sitting around. It’s not that I was actually in crisis; my body just thought it was.

In 2005 I remember reading somewhere that some study showed that people check their e-mail three or four times every half hour and the reason they do it is that checking, whether there is mail or not, produces an adrenaline rush that feels good, but is addictive. In other words, this hormone designed for infrequent use in times of emergency, was being used as a recreational drug.

The problem is, when you are constantly on high alert, you develop all sorts of side effects, both physical and mental, that cause illness and, I assume, shorten your life span. That would be a bad thing. For me, anyway.

I wondered, since I was delivering the adrenaline to myself in little short spurts, if that didn’t satiate just enough that I stopped seeking more high-powered, less frequent methods of that sort of natural high. I wondered if I removed those artificial stimulants, if I would be more motivated to get out from in front of the computer and do something else. Something with results.

This was more complicated than you’d think. Every time I’d figure out one form of contrived adrenaline trigger, another would show up. I ended up cutting my television viewing to next to nothing. (I recommend this to everyone, even if it’s just for a few weeks. You’d be surprised how hypnotized you become into thinking that TV viewing keeps you “in touch.” It doesn’t. It creates a false sense of urgency.) I’m very picky about what I consider “news.” Yes, Iraq is “news” that of which I need to be aware. But endless, meaningless speculation that may or may not happen? Useless.

The hardest part of “calming down” has been not getting sucked into the chaos swirling around me. The fact is, while everyone claims that “slowing down” should be everyone’s goal, there is a certain ego-boost (and adrenaline rush…) in being “just so busy.” And there is a judgmental stance that slowing down is merely laziness.

I am better off two years later, if only for the fact that being selective about the media I allow into my head makes me recognize all the hidden methods that exist for grabbing our attention, our loyalty and/or our money. The physical, spiritual and psychological benefits far outweigh that, but would be abysmally boring to relate here, not to mention how boring it would be to read.

The downside? I guess that would be what people think, which should be this year’s project and probably my biggest challenge.

But you all like me anyway, right? If not, what can I do to make you like me?