Category Archives: life

Curveball, Part II

It was just a little over two years ago that I told y’all we were hitting the road for Seattle, and now the time has come to tell you that we’re officially coming back to Madison.

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Just like the first couple of months of my pregnancy, I haven’t blogged in awhile because I couldn’t not talk about this major but tentative thing in my life – so now that everything’s official with this move I have to spill.
If you recall, this was always the plan – spend 2 or 3 years in Seattle while V gets the experience of working for one of the biggest companies in the world, and then return. It turns out that V will still be an Amazon employee after we move, albeit under a different team, but Ashwin’s birth definitely is the reason we’re leaving after 2 years instead of 3. Had I not gotten pregnant, I think we probably would’ve stayed another year at least, because we both really love this city. Madison is home, but I firmly believe that Seattle is the most naturally beautiful city in the country. It’s not like we are the outdoorsiest of people – um, I believe I’ve called myself quite the opposite – but the mountains and the water and all the hills are so spectacular that it’s enough to make a nature lover out of anyone. I hope we’ll be back for vacations, to show Ash where he came from.
It’s just too hard – emotionally and practically – to raise a child on the other side of the country from virtually everyone you know and love. Some people do it and my hat is off to them – some people don’t have much choice. I just really need my people, now more than ever, and I’m not ashamed! Our actual moving date is still TBD, but it will be in the next month or so.
I don’t know what I’ll be doing when we get back. As in, I truly have no idea. I don’t think I am cut out to be a full-time stay at home mom indefinitely. And I want to keep writing. Those are the two things I know for sure…so I’m just trying to have faith that the right gig will come along sooner or later.

I don’t have any regrets about coming here. We both got what we wanted out of it and more. Granted I am a little sick of moving (and I’m sure my family is sick of helping me move) but this was the right thing for us: coming when we did, and leaving when we are.
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I don’t know if I can ever properly thank my mom and my MIL for everything they’ve done for us since Ash was born. Getting up at ungodly hours, hand-washing bottles over and over, cooking amazing meals…it literally overwhelms me to think about the love they have shown us. No two people on this planet better embody the fact that love is a verb.
Most of the time I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing with Ashwin. In the beginning, everything was 100% a guessing game, trial and error, throw every idea at the wall and see what sticks. Now that we have a few months of living with him under our belts, I’d say now the guessing game is the way we make maybe 65% of parenting decisions. We observe him like goddamn research scientists, tracking his every poop and bottle, trying to make sense of it and discover patterns and ways to predict future behavior – but it’s really useless because he’s constantly changing. One week he might be eating 3 ounces every 3 hours, the next week it might be 4 ounces every 2 hours. On Monday he could sleep from 10pm-5am and on Tuesday go to sleep at 9, wake up at 12, again at 3, again at 6, again at 9. And it all falls within the vast, vast spectrum of “normal”. So there’s nothing to be done but just tag along for the ride; he’s unquestionably the captain of this ship.
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Things I’m Looking Forward to Upon Moving Home:

  • Friends and family
  • Air conditioning
  • Culver’s
  • Real Italian sausage (oh yeah um…I’m not strictly speaking a vegetarian anymore) (but I still try to limit meat)
  • Actual winter
  • The farmers’ markets
  • Devil’s Lake

Things I Will Sorely Miss About Seattle:

  • Endless food delivery options
  • Mt. Rainier visible on sunny days
  • Biscuit Bitch
  • Tillamook ice cream
  • Queen Anne Avenue
  • Green Lake
  • My nail salon
  • The view of Lake Union and Eastlake from our apartment
  • The view of Lake Union and Queen Anne Hill from I-5
  • Wag walks
  • The light rail

Things I Will Not Miss About Seattle:

  • Absurdly high cost of living
  • Not being able to go for a walk around our apartment without negotiating some really seriously steep hills (undesirable in general, downright offensive with a stroller)
  • Weed smell (I don’t care one way or the other about weed! Legalize it!! But I do not personally partake and the smell is among my least favorite things in the whole world)
  • Thinking every day about the Cascadia Subduction Zone and mentally preparing for an apocalyptic quake (I’ve linked to this article before and it is very very scary and you’ve been warned)

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What I’m reading:

  • Just finished “Know My Name” by Chanel Miller, the “Emily Doe” in the Brock Turner rape case of 2015. Brave is a pathetic understatement for the way she took on this gut-wrenching journey.
  • Next up…I don’t know? Whatever’s on my Kindle? Because all my books are packed away and the library still isn’t open.

What I’m watching:

  • Well we finished the LOST rewatch, and I was rather let down by the finale this time. I still think it’s beautiful, but just not quite satisfying.
  • Last night and tonight we watched two episodes of Sherlock with the MIL. I don’t know what it is about British television that is so darn comforting. Just watching the show makes me feel like I’m in a cozy living room with a warm blanket and my cat on my lap and a bowl of popcorn and a ginger ale and snow falling outside. Literally hygge.
  • AshwinTV, aka the baby monitor, aka the live feed of my son tossing and turning in his bassinet and making me constantly think he’s about to wake up and eat, when in reality he is probably just going to fall back asleep (NOT THAT I’M COMPLAINING!)

What I’m listening to:

  • “Sonic Boom”, the podcast about how the Seattle Supersonics were taken from our fair Emerald City to…Oklahoma City back in the halcyone days of (*checks notes*) 2008. I wasn’t super aware of the background drama when it happened, so I’m loving learning all this goss now as a (not for much longer) Seattleite. The city really got screwed.

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For the most part I have no idea what our new life in Madison will be like, but I am excited to find out, and excited to be going…yes…home.

The dog days of fall

I am terrible at blogging regularly. But here we are.

And I am quite lonely. The Holidays® are approaching and we will not be doing anything for Thanksgiving. Maybe we’ll attempt a pie; I think that’s the least we can do. But there won’t be any family, there won’t be any decorations. There probably won’t even be a food coma – not that that will stop me from napping. Oh believe you me, it will not. I guess it’s just that I had thirty solid years of pretty perfect Thanksgivings that I apparently took for granted.

So I am trying to focus on Christmas, when we’ll be home for two weeks and will have time to see all of our people and do The Holidays® right, and my parents’ house will be a cozy, warm, softly-lit Christmas paradise like it always is. That image is basically getting me through right now.

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it feels like this.

They say motherhood, the early days at least, can be really isolating – just you and your crying baby, awake at 12am and 2am and 4am and God knows when else. That’s probably true, but I think pregnancy itself can be isolating too. I don’t have another woman to share any of this with, so I’m forever posting and scrolling around on my Facebook due date groups looking for some small piece of camaraderie/sisterhood/something. I pester my friends who are moms with tons of questions. I try not to talk about it too much with my friends who aren’t moms, lest they think I’ve become totally consumed with this nameless, amorphous creature that belongs more to the future than to the present.

What I’m reading: Just started “Over the Top“, JVN’s memoir, after finishing “The Witches Are Coming” by Seattle’s own Lindy West. She’s one of my favorite feminist thinkers, so her book of essays was a treat. I also recently finished Watchmen, the original graphic novel, and am now understanding, and consequently enjoying, the HBO version much more.

What I’m watching: Watchmen. Not much else? The Man in the High Castle too, but I feel like the gap between seasons has been so long that I’m not as invested as I had been, because I don’t remember some of the finer points. We also got Disney+ of course, and V’s first priority with that has been watching all the Star Wars movies, and I sort of dip in and out of that.

What I’m annoyed about: Oh God, so so many things, I am so glad you asked…

  • apartment maintenance for some reason put two big stacks of orange cones right next to our parking space in the garage, between our space and the door that goes outside, making passenger-side access to our car extremely difficult for, again, no apparent reason but storage
  • I think I need new walking shoes? Something to better support these tired bones in my quest for near-daily constitutionals
  • the impeachment hearings – like, I am very glad they’re happening, but it really feels like an Al Capone/tax evasion situation, you know? Because we know dude has done sooo much worse than try to get a foreign government to get dirt on a political rival, but maybe that’s all we can actually *get* him on? At least for now? I just would really like to see him brought to account for, say, racist housing discrimination, and/or rape, and/or probably a million kinds of financial fraud, and/or literal Soviet puppetry
  • I have felt very minimal, if any, movement from Baby Nagappala, which isn’t technically concerning at 22.5 weeks with an anterior placenta but sure is annoying when the Facebook due date groups are abuzz with posts and videos of belly kicks and punches and somersaults
  • the Packers – when they lose it always puts me in a mood.

What I’m looking forward to:

  • Christmas in Wisconsin, obvs
  • I’m thinking of booking a maternity photo session if I can find something reasonably priced. It seems worth it to commemorate this time, especially if I can be commemorated looking all glamorous and ethereal. Especially since this could be my only pregnancy – who knows.

I will leave you with some highly relevant pregnancy memes that describe my current life.

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Mandatory side sleeping: the second majorly painful sacrifice expecting moms must make (after avoiding alcohol). (I would kill for a mimosa.) (But I know some FB moms who are planning on chugging a beer right after delivery and it’s like…I think you might have a problem)

WHY CAN’T I HAVE APPLE CIDER

I mean, I know why not, but it’s total bullshit. What is fall without apple cider, I ask you? All the good shit is unpasteurized.

We are officially making the holiday pilgrimage to Wisconsin December 18-31 and I am PUMPED. Who knows to what lengths my belly will have grown by then!

In organizing our travel plans, I was reminded of a crude fact of living in a place without nearby family or close friends: you have to pay people to do shit for you, shit that your family or close friends would have done as a matter of course if you still lived among them. I don’t mean mooching! I mean the little life chores that people do for each other – in a symbiotic way – when they care about one another. Dropoffs/pickups at the airport, or when your car is in the shop. Pet-sitting. Babysitting. Bringing food when someone’s sick. Random errands. I’ve done all those things and had all of them done for me over the years. I suppose that’s called having a support system, and though we’ve made a few friends here, we do not have a support system. And that’s why, no matter how beautiful Seattle is, no matter how much money might possibly be made here, no matter how much I love Biscuit Bitch, we can’t stay here indefinitely. I need our people, and I will especially need them once Baby Nagappala makes their debut. (And also, I’m too afraid of the Cascadia Subduction Zone.) (I am warning you, the article linked is really fucking scary, you probably shouldn’t read it, I think about it every goddamn day.)

Anyway. I’ve always said the move is temporary. In other news…

What I’m reading: The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which I believe is his first foray into fiction. I’ve read everything else he’s written and found it excellent; so far the novel does not disappoint.

What I’m watching: Several months ago I watched the first two episodes of Succession and then kind of forgot about it. Now V has taken it up with me and we’re about halfway through the first season. Rich people are terrible, you guys. And as it turns out, terribly compelling.

Of course given the season, we are also watching a ton of football. My fantasy team, the Iron Jawed Angels, is currently 4-2 and playing against V’s team this week. (I am always terrible at naming things, but I happen to think I.J.A. is a pretty badass team name.)

What I’m listening to: Look, I usually think Dax Shepherd is pretty annoying, but I am enjoying his Armchair Expert podcast. He gets into every guest’s whole life story and you learn a lot of crazy things about them. I skip around and only listen to the people I’m actually interested in, of course: Charlie Day, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bill Hader, Kumail Nanjiani, Kaitlin Olson (yeah, there really should be more women). Dax has a female co-host who…almost never talks? I don’t know what that’s about. But the most recent episode is with Monica Lewinsky and that’s obviously gonna be amazing.

Baby Nagappala update: We’re on week 17. According to the Bump app, during this week the baby is the size of a pomegranate, and its feet are the size of gummy bears (!).

We are in heavy name-brainstorming mode, and I obviously will not share the contenders here, but it is true what they say: you never realize how many people you hate until you have to name a child. I’m picking out registry items too, but am so overwhelmed by the research that needs doing on car seats, cribs, high chairs, etc that I have mostly just selected cute outfits and accessories so far.

I’m dealing with a lot of lower back pain; it’s usually brought on by overdoing it on my walks, so then I am housebound for a couple days trying to recover, unable to do the one thing everyone agrees I MUST be doing (walking). It has become a bit of a cycle.

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Week 17, day 3. You get a nice bump close-up this time because mama’s eczema is flaring up and she is NOT fit for public viewing at this time.

What else is going on: Isis has her yearly vet appointment this weekend, which is not a big deal, but she’s been a little odd lately. She’s thrown up a couple times, and left a gift from her bowels in the guest room while we were in Portland last weekend. And of course she’s still gnawing off all of her fur she can reach, every chance she gets. Her tummy is literally bald, it’s so sad. I’m sure she’s fine but she’s no kitten anymore so I get worried sometimes.

Been pitching some things. No recent success to share. Maybe I should write about pregnancy? Because that’s a really under-discussed topic. #sarcasmfont

At Last

*At Last was the song our bridal party walked down to at our wedding and it also feels appropriate now!

So yeah. ICYMI…I’m gonna have a baby. I’m going to be a mom and V is going to be a dad and we’re going to be parents. You know…real adults!

Just kidding, I know far too many parents with and without their shit together to believe that parenthood makes anyone an actual grownup. “Real adults” is quite relative.

It’s a heady thing, pregnancy! And it’s why I haven’t blogged most of the summer – I had no idea how to talk about what was going on with me without mentioning THE biggest thing. So to catch you up, here’s how it’s been thus far…

Finding out: V and I both took off work on the day that we would find out if our embryo had successfully implanted. We wanted to be together for the news, whether it was good or bad. And as soon as the fertility clinic nurse called, I knew – her voice was too cheerful to be bad news.

Weeks 5-7: My main pregnancy symptoms were super painful boobs, super painful constipation, exhaustion, and nausea. During week 7 I went to Disneyland for beloved Michelle’s bachelorette party, and that was Quite. A. Day. I had a great time despite not being able to ride a lot of the cool stuff, and the sandals I wore (researched exhaustively before purchasing to ensure quality and comfort) held up, but I was BEAT by the end of the night. 

Weeks 8-10: The bad symptoms started to wane. We visited family in Fresno and brought V’s mom back to Seattle with us. She spoiled us with homemade food and I took video of her making dosas so I could potentially attempt it myself at some point. I was still very tired most of the time and took lots of naps.

Weeks 11-now: I had my first real OB appointment, after “graduating” from the fertility clinic. I had no idea how to pick an OB and obviously we haven’t lived here long enough to know very much about the local medical scene. That does make me wish we were home in Madison, where I had the same insurance company and system of care for literally my whole life and everything was familiar. But anyway, I liked my doctor, and we got to see an ultrasound where Baby’s head was discernible (and not much else). They did a bunch of blood tests (11 vials worth!), all of which have come back normal, much to our relief. After that, we finally felt ready to “go public”, even though some of our close friends and family already knew.

Cravings I have had: Nothing exotic. There’s nothing in this world that could make me crave, like, pickles – not even pregnancy. I’ve wanted Egg McMuffins (sans meat, and besides, who really wants Canadian bacon anyway, even if you do eat meat), potatoes in all their glorious forms, and this French brioche bread I found at Trader Joe’s that is just magical. So, you know, nutrition is…something we are working on. The Egg McMuffins have been funny, because while we’ve lived in Seattle we’ve eaten very, very little fast food and anyway, there’s not much on those menus that we can eat even if we wanted to. That has changed!

Things I did not know about pregnancy but do now: maternity jeans are weird-looking!! I never knew that they didn’t actually have zippers or buttons – or POCKETS! That really pisses me off. A lady needs pockets, for God’s sake. Also, pregnancy brain is a very real thing. I’ve accidentally left my phone at home when going out more times in the last few weeks than ever before in my life. Relatedly, I have gotten rather clumsy, like *nearly* tripping or knocking something over a lot, just not really looking where I’m going. I think it’s driving V crazy.

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The amount of love we’re getting from people who are happy for us and celebrating with us is so, so appreciated and kind of cathartic, also, because everyone knows what a long struggle this has been. I’ll definitely be writing about it, but because I’ve been there, I want to tell anyone for whom this subject is painful that it is ABSOLUTELY FINE to block me, mute me, unfollow me, do whatever you need to do for as long as you need to do it. I’m going to write about my pregnancy because I write about my life and because I want to fully absorb and be able to remember how all of this felt. And I 100% understand if you don’t want to hear it. Only pretty recently have I unblocked/unmuted/re-followed a number of the new parents among my friends. Do what you need to do, chin up, I love you.

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September 4, 2019 (week 11)

Someone please tell Seattle about A/C

33 doesn’t feel any different than 32, but the celebrations were polar opposites. Last year I had one of the best birthdays of my life, partying with my friends at our old college bar and feeling pretty and loved and alive. I felt those things this year too, but it was only me and V – plus, of course, all the calls and texts and cards and posts from the wonderful people in my life. There’s nothing wrong with “only me and V” – that’s how I like to spend a good chunk of my time – it was just a stark contrast to last year’s shenanigans.

Really, the way I spent the majority of my birthday itself was pretty similar, because I am a creature of habit who has few qualms about dropping coins in the name of self-care: I took the day off, got a massage, haircut, therapy session, diner brunch. Like, a pretty fucking great day, made possible by my abundance of privileges.

A few weeks ago I read an article written by Paulette Perhach, who is a Seattle freelance writer and someone whose work I admire. It’s about the idea of a birthday check-in: taking some time on or around your birthday to step back and assess every aspect of your life. What could be better, what you’ve accomplished, what you want to do differently in the upcoming year, etc. They aren’t resolutions – I, like everyone, suck at keeping New Years resolutions – but introspection with a purpose, you could say. I have a few thoughts.

  • I want to watch more old Hollywood and more new Bollywood.
  • I want to finally open a high-yield savings account because what am I waiting for, to finally earn a whole dime of interest in our shitty 0.01% Chase account? Fuck you, Chase.
  • I want to continue to take good care of my skin but spend a less obscene amount of money doing so.
  • I want to take a friends trip. (Just watched Wine Country)

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And a few others.

  • I don’t want to stop writing, regardless of my employment situation.
  • I don’t want to compare myself to other people – friends or strangers – because 1) nothing is what it seems, 2) we’re not robots, and 3) there is a LOT to like about my life.
  • I don’t want to be glued to my phone whenever I have a spare moment.
  • I don’t want to rely so heavily on food as an emotional balm.

 

I am really enjoying my job and the women I work with. I have a lot to learn about communications, but learning about it doesn’t really feel like work, it sort of feels like a stretching of skills that I already have and watching the other women to develop the ones that I don’t. It’s a team of all women. It’s amazing.

We don’t have any trips home planned, or any trips at all save a long August weekend in Fresno and a short September weekend in Phoenix. V mentioned today that he wants to start thinking about our next “big” trip, which I am always down to daydream about, but I also think there’s a lot to see in Washington that we haven’t done yet…the San Juan Islands, Lake Chelan, Olympic National Park. Granted, those are all ~outdoorsy~ things, and we are two people with fairly low tolerance for that. It’s good to know these things about yourself.

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What I’m reading:

  • “The Farm” by Joanne Ramos. Another gift from dear Kate!

What I’m watching:

  • Well, we got two episodes in to “When They See Us” and couldn’t go on. I know. I KNOW. We need to suck it up and look the wild miscarriage of justice in the face. It’s painful on spiritual and profane levels.
  • We’re caught up on Barry, despite me being tempted to quit after season 1. It’s hard to talk about that show without spoilers, so I’ll just say it’s really funny and really odd and occasionally depressing, but Bill Hader has much more range than I’ve ever given him credit for and Henry Winkler is a goddamn treasure.
  • BIG LITTLE LIES, which I am fully prepared to rewatch with V’s mom when she visits in August.

What I’m listening to:

What I’m buying:

  • Strongly considering giving into my bougie-est desires and buying this expensive ass vanilla extract to make my chocolate chip cookies EVEN BETTER. I have an Amazon gift card, LET ME LIVE. Like so many pricey AND affordable things I end up buying, I found it on The Strategist.

 

Tell your people you love them!

Summer

For those of us who had relatively happy childhoods, or at least scattered pleasant memories of Junes, Julys, and Augusts gone by, I think we are always trying a little bit to recreate the feelings of those good old summers.

Summer is the most sensory-stimulating time of year, for me anyway, and everything I associate with it has a unique smell or taste or sound.

When I was little, on hot summer days when my dad would be mowing the lawn, my mom would encourage me to take him something cold to drink. In most Wisconsin families, that would have meant a sweaty can of Miller Lite or a brown Leinenkugel’s bottle fresh from the refrigerator; in our house, it meant a tall glass of Lipton Iced Tea, in a faded Badgers- or Packers-themed plastic cup, a freebie from some long ago game that became a permanent fixture in our cabinets.

I took my role as Dad’s Refreshment Provider very seriously. No one could make him iced tea like I could. Never mind that it was simply a glass of water vigorously stirred with excessive amounts of iced tea mix and topped with some fat ice cubes. I mean really excessive amounts – I would fill the bottom quarter of the cup with light brown powder that looked like pure sugar. This was the only way it tasted good to me, and if my dad would have preferred something a little less painfully saccharine, he never let on.

I usually made a second glass for myself, but I never ordered iced tea at a restaurant. That is, not after the great mistake of 1995, when my mother and I were at the mall and I stubbornly insisted that the iced tea on sale at the Gloria Jean’s Coffee Shop would taste the same as what I made at home for my dad. Mom tried to tell me that it wouldn’t be nearly as sweet, that it was in fact unsweetened, but I could not be dissuaded. I took one sip, swallowed with a grimace, and marched sullenly over to the side corridor to wash my mouth out with bubbler water, dumping the offending drink in the trash on my way.

The taste is one of those things you chase after in later years, trying to find again, like the perfect pair of jeans you once found on clearance that the brand doesn’t make anymore. It is of a time. For some reason in the last few days I started thinking about the iced tea and hoped, prayed, that maybe I could find it and concoct the same perfect ratio of mix to water to ice cubes. Today, dear reader, I did it. I found the correct type at Target (which wasn’t easy because the canister as I remember it of course isn’t the same color/typeface/graphics as it was in 1995), came home, noted that the recommended amount of mix for 1 glass was 4 tsp, and promptly stirred in 1/4 cup. I don’t have any of the old faded Badgers or Packers plastic cups; I wish I had at least one for sentiment’s sake, but I just have regular water glasses. Anyway, I mixed, I tasted…I was nine again.

 

What I’m Reading:

  • “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller, as recommended to me by my friend Kate, who has excellent taste. I don’t really get into mythologies that much, but I’m quite enjoying this tale as told from a very different perspective.
  • I haven’t been reading as much lately because of my new job, which perhaps I’ll write about next time, but for now I’ll just say I like it a lot and I’m very happy.

What I’m Watching:

  • Game of Thrones is over, and we all have our feelings. AP Bio has been canceled, because there is no justice in this world. We’ve mostly been watching Always Sunny reruns, but I have ambitions to start the following, with or without V: Pen15, Fleabag, Killing Eve.
  • We did watch Sleepless in Seattle last night because I had never seen it and I don’t think they let you become a legal resident of Seattle until you have done so. It’s so cute!

What I’m Buying:

  • Lots of Lipton Iced Tea, I’ll tell you that.
  • Searching and searching for a proper bridesmaid dress for Michelle’s wedding in September. I am very picky.

What Else I’ve Been Up To:

  • We spent a few beautiful hours today at Gasworks Park, which boasts incredible views of downtown and Lake Union, reading on a picnic blanket and trying to pet other people’s dogs. It was a truly lovely day.

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jaggery & neem

Last week was Ugadi, which is the New Year celebration in Karnataka (where my husband is from). He and I don’t usually do much to celebrate festivals or holidays, though I wish we did. We happened to have made dinner plans with a good friend of V’s mom, who lives in Seattle. She actually introduced V’s parents and is the sister of V’s dad’s brother’s wife – so, she’s family, and really the only family we have here.

Prema Aunty made us a classic thali-style feast of sambhar, pappadum, rasam, chapatis, black eyed peas, and kaseri bath. I wished her happy Ugadi and she told me that traditionally the holiday is celebrated by ceremoniously eating a combination of jaggery, which is sweet, along with some neem leaves, which are bitter. Sometimes in your own random portion, you get a larger amount of jaggery and sometimes you get a larger amount of neem. This is symbolic of what we should expect, and greet with equanimity, from life: a mix of sweet and bitter circumstances. (I’m sure I didn’t explain this very well, but Google is there for you if you’d like to learn more.)

This year is not even half gone, but it’s already brought a bounty of both ingredients. It’s hardly a novel idea, and most cultures have idioms to the same effect – “look on the bright side!” “there’s a silver lining in every cloud!” – but given recent events, it sort of resonated with me more strongly than I would have expected. The “greet with equanimity” part reminded me of V’s dad; he was always the picture of Zen, no matter what. It could have been a year full of nothing but neem and he would still find things to be joyful about. And in the jaggery times, no one smiled bigger or laughed harder. It wasn’t just an attitude of “be positive”. He carried himself like a person who understood that neither good times nor bad times last forever, and who possessed the sort of spirit that could withstand any bitterness while relishing every sweetness. I aspire to be such a person.

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I’m going back to Wisconsin a week from tomorrow for 5 days and I can’t wait to see my family, biological and otherwise.

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We switched insurance providers beginning April 1, so there are officially no real barriers standing between us and starting IVF, except of course my own fear of picking up the phone and getting the ball rolling. I need to get over myself and just do it. By the time I blog again I will have at least made the call, and then we’ll be on our way to daily injections and super fun side effects and embryo testing and major anxiety and all that jazz. CAN’T WAIT.

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After that great meal at Prema Aunty’s, we were craving more Indian food, so on Saturday we went to a dosa place in Issaquah. It was…magnificent. As much as it pains me that paneer is not really a big thing in south India, dosas come very very close to making up for it. V’s mom is visiting in August, and this time I SWEAR TO GOD I will finally really learn how to make them. We BOTH will.

dosasjaggery, personified

 

What I’m Reading:

  • I gave up on King Leopold’s Ghost and spent a few days on Miriam Toews’ Women Talking. It was okay, but sort of tedious.
  • I’ve moved on now to Shane Bauer’s American Prison, which is the book-length story that grew out of his Mother Jones article of a few years ago. Surprise: prisons are fucked up! Private prisons are *really* fucked up!

What I’m Eating:

  • Crap, mostly, tbh. I’ve made one or two genuinely healthy meals in the last several days but mostly it’s been cereal, bread, pasta, and sugar. God that looks even worse in print than in my Fitbit log. Who am I kidding…I haven’t been actually logging anything for weeks.

What I’m Watching:

  • We bought the current season of Schitt’s Creek since it isn’t streaming anywhere yet because we really missed it. David and Patrick are everything.
  • The last season of Game of Thrones, for obvious reasons.

What I’m Fuming About:

  • Our landlord, or more specifically, the property manager. It is too stupid to even get into but I am on the warpath.
  • Why is basic economy even a thing?? Airlines are like “this is for our more cost-conscious customers” like that isn’t fucking everybody but the .01%. Your cost-conscious customers don’t want to pay $315 to fly from Seattle to Madison without getting a seat assignment OR any overhead space because it’s not like $315 is any kind of bargain when you can pay $50 more to have the goddamn overhead space! You know I’m going to spend that extra $50! Why are you like this????

kere-the-charges-are-correct-sir-the-airline-36277854

I went to a house party in Portland with strangers…?

I did the first leg shaving of spring today, and I feel glorious.

Last week I was in Portland for several days for the AWP conference. I took Amtrak by myself and stayed at an Airbnb by myself (for a couple days, until V joined me). The conference itself was good, I learned some helpful things, and it was nice to just be in the company of so many writers.

Initially when I’d been creating my schedule of sessions I wanted to attend, I was a little disappointed by how few names of presenters/panelists I recognized. Where was Roxane Gay, Celeste Ng, Lindy West, Samantha Irby? I mean, they’re all super successful, so I don’t know why I thought they would deign to be at a conference in Portland. But I was pleasantly surprised by so many people I wasn’t previously familiar with. Only a couple of sessions featured an author I knew, but at each one of them I discovered several new writers to follow and learn from. It made me realize that there are actually a lot of ways to be a successful writer, and the NYT Bestseller List (just as an example) isn’t necessarily the end-all, be-all. Similarly, at the conference’s book fair, I realized that there is an incredible number of small presses out there – meaning Simon & Schuster, Random House, et al are not the only games in town. Of course they are the most well-known and can probably provide the biggest book advances, but they aren’t the only options when looking to get an agent and publish a book. That’s still a ways off for me, but it was a cool thing to discover.

You know it was a struggle for me to be social at a thing like this. It really, really was. After a very hectic and overwhelming Day 1 on Thursday, I stayed in and didn’t go to any of the offsite events or parties that were happening, though I followed them on Twitter and berated myself for sitting in the Airbnb and watching Selling Sunset. So on Friday night I told myself I would go somewhere. I ended up at a bar where two literary websites were both celebrating their 10th anniversaries, and where I knew a few of the writers I Twitter-stalk would be. The first hour or so was rough, for partly this reason:

awp bar

Honestly, how is this supposed to work? I couldn’t decide if the sign was meant to be sarcastic or not because literally how else do you get a drink at a crowded bar. Lines make the world a semi-civilized place. So of course it was anarchy. But eventually I got my vodka lemonade, and on round two, a vodka cranberry. I’m nothing if not predictable at the bar.

I didn’t talk to anyone and no one talked to me for that first hour. I was annoyed about it and decided to avail myself of the chocolate cake on the premises, going outside to sit on a picnic table alone among several twosomes and threesomes and foursomes having gay old times. A girl who looked about my age was also sitting by herself, and so after awhile my two drinks had given me that blessed “ah, fuck it” courage to invite her to sit with me and chat. Reader, you should be so proud of me. We had a great chat and I ended up following her and a few of her friends to a “house party” of sorts in southeast Portland, where I played soccer in the backyard with a 4-year-old child before V arrived in town to whisk me away. It was the kind of weird little adventure I haven’t had in so so many years.

So it was a good trip.

***

I’m terrible at segues.

***

One of my best friends was diagnosed last week with a brain tumor. She’s having surgery tomorrow for it to be removed. I’m going home to be with her in a couple of weeks, dates TBD. She’s strong. She’s brave. We have every reason to be optimistic, and I am. Just also at an entire loss for words. She’s my sister in every sense of the word, always one of my biggest cheerleaders. So I’m going to be hers.

What I’m Reading:

  • One of those lesser-known authors I discovered at AWP was Tyrese Coleman, and I finished her How To Sit in one…sitting (sorry). It was breathtaking.
  • Now onto one I’ve been meaning to get to for awhile after hearing it recommended on one of my favorite podcasts, Keep It: King Leopold’s Ghost.

What I’m Watching:

  • Tonight we finished season 4 of Schitt’s Creek. I simply can’t recommend it highly enough. Everyone in it is a fucking genius. We don’t deserve Catherine O’Hara. Or Eugene Levy. Or Dan Levy. Or Annie Murphy.

david schitts creek

What I’m Looking Forward To:

  • Game of Thrones returning in a couple weeks
  • Avengers: Endgame, obvs
  • V and I are going to take a road trip at the end of April (Vancouver, Banff, Montana) and we’ve planned so little of it, on purpose, to just go and explore do whatever we like.

Brain tabs

I’ve had the same four tabs open on my Chromebook since New Years Day. A GQ article on the HBO show Succession, which I want to try watching but V doesn’t so it has languished; NPR’s Best Books of 2018 monster list, which I’m still picking my way through; a slideshow from Redbook called “25 Solo Vacations For Women“; and a spreadsheet tracking my paltry 2018 income for tax purposes. I just closed that one, because our taxes are done now, but I don’t want to close any of the others, because in my mind closing a tab = closing the subject in my brain. My brain is very literal like that.

The solo trip keeps getting postponed. Not officially, because I’ve made zero decisions or plans for it, but every time I apply for a Real Job (which I am still doing, albeit not terribly often), I think about how I need to get my ass in gear already because what if I do get a Real Job? Then I’m back in the weeds of vacation days and PTO and out-of-office emails, which are currently, blessedly irrelevant to me. I just need to pick a place and a time and make the damn plans, but I think I am subconsciously a little anxious about it. I would’ve done it already if I wasn’t. I’m not overly concerned about safety – I worry more about like, if I’ll be bored. But if I make enough plans, that shouldn’t happen. I just need to go somewhere that has a lot to see and do.

Two weekends ago, we spontaneously did a 24-hour Portland trip. I am, of course, going there again at the end of this month for #AWP19 (Association of Writing Programs 2019 conference), and that is sort of going to be my baby step solo trip. I’m taking Amtrak (a first!) down there on a Wednesday, doing the conference Thurs-Sat, and V is going to drive down to join me Friday night or Saturday morning. So it’s a half-solo trip, I guess. That will be a trial run. But I think the conference will keep me plenty busy so there’s not much danger of getting bored. Anyway, our little 24-hour trip was a good introduction to the city. Portland and Seattle seem to have a weird sibling-rivalry relationship that as a PNW outsider, I don’t fully understand, but I think it’s sort of like Madison and Milwaukee. Places that attract similar people; places that have a major influence on the rest of the state, which the rest of the state is not very happy about; places that are a lot more alike than they are different, leading to inevitable comparisons – I see some parallels. We didn’t see much of the city outside downtown, but there were some very pretty views of Mt. Hood. Not quite comparable to the views we have here of Mt. Rainier and the Cascades…like, everywhere you look…but that’s my Seattle bias.

portland seattle meme
I imagine it is something like this.

What I’m Reading:

  • I finished two books this week: “The Byline Bible” by Susan Shapiro and “Leaving the Witness” by Amber Scorah. I won’t get into the latter, because I actually want to pitch a review of it to Ploughshares, but I did receive an ARC (advanced readers copy) and let me tell you, I feel VERY important. The Byline Bible was great freelancing advice. If anyone is qualified to give it, it’s Susan Shapiro – she’s been published every-damn-where. I learned a lot and wisely bought it instead of getting it from the library, so I can refer back to it as needed.
  • I’m now reading Stephanie Land’s “Maid” and I’m less than 100 pages in but GOD, it’s heartbreaking. The book is about a single mom doing odd jobs to make ends meet, barely escaping homelessness, for herself and her daughter. The author’s own family of origin isn’t exactly the focus, but I learned enough to once again be extremely grateful for the healthy and loving family environment I grew up in. I don’t know what it’s like to live without a safety net, and I have so much admiration for people who persevere and beat the odds. Not a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” kind of moralistic story, but simply people with difficult backgrounds overcoming them and blazing their own trail.

What I’m Watching:

  • I watched the first half of Leaving Neverland, and don’t know if I can bring myself to watch the second half. It is extremely rough viewing.
  • Captain Marvel was sooo good! I’m still working on forgiving Brie Larson for Basmati Blues, but we’re getting there.

What I’m Eating:

  • Dinner tonight is probably naan pizza. I’m trying to be good; I bought the wheat naan at QFC.

What I’m Writing:

  • Or perhaps more accurately, What I’m Getting Published. I do have a new piece in the March issue of BRAVA (page 23 in the digital magazine). Fingers and toes and arms and legs crossed for something else soon.

Extras:

  • We won $0.61 each on HQ last night! Because V is a Game of Thrones encyclopedia.
  • I have rose gold-ish hair again!

rose gold hair

#Snowmageddon2019

We’re on day 4 of #SeattleSnowpocalypse2019. V and I left the house on Saturday by foot to get supplies at Trader Joe’s (sugar, mainly – forgot the goddamn milk) but other than that, we’ve been totally housebound. I learned my lesson from the first snowstorm a week ago, when I tried driving to one of my Wag walks in Fremont. I eventually made it there, but not without some seriously scary sideways spinning down 4th Avenue North. On the hills that don’t get much sun, you’re pretty much screwed.

It’s not normally like this here, or so I’ve gathered from stalking various Seattle weather blogs over the last week or two. Figures the most snow in 50 years would occur in our first Seattle winter.

I don’t know if I’m stir-crazy or if I’ve already drained any talent I had or what, but I’ve had a really hard time writing just about anything for like a month. I’ve applied for a couple of full-time writing-adjacent jobs, one of which I learned today I didn’t get. So I kind of just moped around the apartment and did laundry and made oatmeal Raisinet cookies, because sugar is my preferred coping mechanism. The first couple of days into #snowpocalypse I started Marie Kondo-ing the shit out of everything I could: my bookcases, the kitchen cabinets, my clothes. I replaced my janky mismatched collection of plastic and wire hangers with a sleek matching set that takes up less space and now my closet looks like a dream. But there’s only so much decluttering and tidying one can do before one looks around and feels very very spent. Satisfied, but spent.

The stir-craziness has also led me to keep fantasizing about the solo trip I want to take. I can’t decide where to go, but I want to do it fairly soon. There are so many people I’d love to visit, but honestly, I don’t really want this trip to be about visiting friends or family. Kind of defeats the purpose of going solo and trying to be independent. So I’ve been brainstorming places where I don’t really know anyone. I’m currently considering Santa Fe, NM; Savannah, GA/Charleston, SC; and San Diego. Warm places. Sunny places.

We are probably going to begin IVF in a couple of months. We’ll be fortunate enough to have some insurance coverage for it soon, so it sort of makes sense to give it a shot (oh and there will be shots). I’ve given more thought to adoption as well. Today I finished Nicole Chung’s All You Can Ever Know, which was a super popular and highly celebrated memoir last year, about her experience growing up as a Korean adoptee to white parents. It’s all so very complicated, the questions of identity and belonging that come with adoption, especially when it is transracial. I expect that if we do adopt someday, it will be from India, but who knows. There are so many variables and questions and hazards – ethical adoption is not necessarily the default.

What I’m Reading:

  • Before Nicole Chung’s book, I read and loved Abbi Jacobson (Broad City)’s I Might Regret This. Her essays are actually centered around a solo road trip, which has obviously been inspiring some of my daydreaming. I don’t particularly want to drive across the country for my journey, but she did make it sound like a lot of fun and adventure. I’m not even the biggest Broad City stan, but I like Abbi and her voice a lot.

What I’m Watching:

  • We’ve begun Schitt’s Creek, which is so far pretty good, but neither V nor I can really see where it’s going to go for the 5 seasons we know it has. Maybe that’s a good thing? Nonetheless, I’ll take most any excuse to watch Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, and Eugene Levy’s eyebrows play fishes out of water.

eugene levy

  • Also watched the first episode of Russian Doll, because I keep hearing great things, but it didn’t really *grab* me so I don’t know if we’ll continue. Again though, any excuse to listen to Natasha Lyonne’s gravelly voice.

What I’m Buying:

  • These are the hangers I bought for my closet. They’ll change your life. They’re on clearance. They are not paying me to say this. You can thank me later.

What I’m Listening To:

  • Isis snoring. And V watching some video on his phone. And the high-pitched humming sound that comes from Lake Union a couple times per hour for no clear reason and whose origin has been hotly debated on our neighborhood’s NextDoor. And the very, very quiet sound of snow turning into sleet.
balcony snow
our balcony, around 3:00pm today