Mystique

I'm afraid I'm turning into a little suburban housewife. I was very excited when I recently discovered the Greatest Costco Ever. It's located in an industrial area, right off the freeway (i.e., easy access), and, because there are no residences around, there aren't very many people. There is always parking, and the lines are never longer than two or three people deep. The staff is friendly and helpful. I was so excited about this that I became frightened: who gets this excited about a Costco?

Well, me, at this point in my life. I've been in a slump lately. I'm so focused on the house hunt that everything else has taken a back seat, including writing. Or maybe I'm so focused on the house hunt to avoid thinking about the writing? I'm nearly done with a manuscript, and so have started spending more time thinking about agents and publishers, and I have to say, the whole thing turns me off. Putting together a book proposal is like putting together a business plan, and involves figuring out who your market is and the potential size, etc., etc. No wonder we have so many crap books out there: it's what the majority of people want to read, stuff that reads like television and doesn't force you to use your brain at all. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I'm not out to garner readership; I write because I'm trying to create art. The idea of trying to tailor what I write to maximize commercial potential is incredibly painful. I'd rather not write at all.

So - even the house hunt, painful as it can be at times, is less painful than thinking about writing. I feel ridiculous complaining about stress, when, compared to most people, my life is or should be stress-free. But it just seems like so many things are so uncertain for me right now. If I don't/can't write for a living, what am I going to do with myself? Where am I going to be living in the next few months? In general, where is my life going, what am I accomplishing or even trying to accomplish?

I know I'm lucky; I have options. So many people don't. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. I know how fortunate and how blessed I am and have been. God has blessed me beyond anything I have deserved, and I trust in His plan for me. Speak, Lord, for Your servant listens.

Yet Another House Post

These days I have a one-track mind: it's all about the house hunt. I spend my days looking at houses, thinking about houses, and at night, I dream about houses. I'm so obsessed that my obsession has spread to my own family and to my in-laws. We all talk houses day and night. (Well, okay, my siblings are not so interested.) But unless you want to talk about real estate, I got nothing to say.

I'm also turning into a little house whore. Every week I fall in love with a new house. I suppose this is more encouraging than if there were no houses that I liked. A few days ago I said that I was in love with this one house. Well, after visiting it three more times and nearly making an offer, we finally decided that it was too small and would take too much work. And, while some people enjoy the home improvement process, I am the sort of stress case that would hate it.

Today my broker sent me another listing, and I went to go see it with my mom this afternoon while my husband was at work. I LOVED it. My mother loved it. I would love to own it. Here's the catch: it's reachable only by narrow and windy roads. Hard to get to work, and, as my mother pointed out, will be difficult and possibly dangerous when we have children and have to chauffeur them around constantly. Also possibly difficult for people who come to visit us.

Argh. I want this house. If it had been easier to get to, we probably would have made an offer tomorrow. My broker leaves for vacation later this week and comes back in a week and a half. I guess I'll think about it until she gets back. I gotta say, I've fallen hard. But I guess I said that last week too.

Could This Be Love?

I've been sick for the last week or so. Today is the first day I've felt like myself. It's a great feeling. But again, humbling to realize how much of your personality is closely tied to physical elements beyond your control.

At least part of the reason I've been sick is because I've been so stressed out. No matter how much I tell myself to just let God do His thing, I keep wanting to be in control of the situation, and to hurry up the resolutions of all the uncertainties that currently fill my life. For the last few days, I've stayed up at nights thinking about the house hunt. Looking for a house is like being in back junior high: you fall in love over and over again, only to keep getting your heart broken. And then there's the fear. What if something actually does work out? What if, by some miracle, we like a house and it likes us back? Then we're stuck, committed. The big "C" word. I'm a real commitment-phobe. I want a house, I want a house bad, but the COMMITMENT. Shudder.

Yesterday I saw a house with my broker. I didn't love the house, but I loved the neighborhood. One street over from where a friend lives. Beautiful trees, quiet streets. The house itself was okay, although on the small side. But everything else makes up for that. I fear I may have it badly this time. This may be the real thing, not just a crush. I have it so badly that it's time for the house to meet the parents. We're all going to go look at it this weekend. I don't know if I'm hoping for it to go well or not. If my parents don't like it, I'll have escaped making a BIG COMMITMENT. At the same time, though, I may miss out on "the one."

Cooking Woes

Cast iron is widely considered to be the best material for cooking tools, unless you want to spend a fortune on copper. Cast iron conducts heat evenly, and, once it has acquired a patina, is nonstick without the negative aspects of Teflon. I love my cast iron stuff and have had them for years.

Unfortunately, cast iron has its disadvantages. For instance, when you fry rice in a cast iron skillet, the rice picks up the iron and tastes like blood. Some people don't notice the taste, but for some reason I'm very sensitive to it. I just threw out the rice I fried last night because I couldn't take it.

I've been cooking a lot more since I stopped working. I always liked to cook, and particularly liked to bake, but never had much time for it. Now, I've actually got the time to go to the grocery store or the farmers market and buy fresh ingredients, and the time to prepare the ingredients and cook them. This, too, has unfortunate side effects. Both my husband and I have gained some weight over the last few months, despite surfing and tennis and going to the gym four or five times a week. So, for New Years, I've given up cooking again. Well, not cooking, but baking, which was the real culprit.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on a Saturday Night

Skipped out on a friend's birthday party tonight. It's partly that my husband has to work and I didn't want to go alone (the party is at some club/bar in the city), and partly that a million people are going to be there, including some people that I'm not ready to see yet. Not because I don't like them or am mad at them or anything like that, but because they represent a bygone era of my life with which I am not quite yet reconciled. Moreover, I find myself feeling particularly misanthropic lately.

I know I should make more of an effort to be less antisocial, but it's hard when my personality naturally leans that way. It's part of the reason why I feel God wants me to be a writer: I communicate better from a distance.

I'm also at a point in my life where having a million friendly acquaintances is less appealing than having a few very close friends. I think what I'm craving is greater intimacy, not popularity.

That said, I'll probably still call my friend next week to say happy birthday and to get drinks or something like that. After all, one can't be a recluse, either.

Nesting Instincts

The house hunt continues, but proves to be difficult, time-consuming, and, at times, heartbreaking. Housing prices have fallen all over the country, but not so much in the Bay Area, where crazy people continue to bid up prices. The crazy-people factor is compounded by the paucity of available houses. Most of the houses that are on the market now are not ones that we would seriously consider.

Except for one. It was a beautiful house. The master bedroom was enormous, with a huge walk-in closet and another large regular closet. (For a total of TWO closets! Two!) The master bath was similarly large, with a beautiful tub, and was connected to a room that would make a perfect (hypothetical) baby's room. These two bedrooms and the bathroom formed the upstairs. Downstairs were three more bedrooms and two more bathrooms. The bathrooms were well-appointed; I can't stand ugly bathrooms. Oak floors, recessed lighting. The kitchen was the masterpiece: cherry-wood cabinets, granite counters, including a large island, and by itself was about the size of most of the other houses we've seen. To top it all off, it was, unbelievably, within our price range. (A stretch, but still...)

Of course, it sold before we even got close to making an offer. Heartbreaking. I doubt we will see another house like it within our price range. Our price range, which already puts us in the frightening position of mortgaging both of our futures, seems laughably small for the Bay Area, although our broker has been kind enough not to say this explicitly. For a gal with a hankering for a place to call home, it's almost enough to make a person move to Texas.

As Seen on TV

Or rather, on Youtube. I dislocated my shoulder again yesterday, while playing Wii tennis with my brother. The funny thing is, we'd just played a "real" tennis game earlier, and the shoulder was fine for that. Guess the warnings they put on the Wii aren't just silly lawyer-talk.

One Step at a Time

It's a cold, clear night. There are a lot of stars out. It's the kind of night that makes you feel hopeful.

Old Sports Injury

I developed a deep bond with two of the guys I used to work with when, as we were sitting around talking one day, the conversation turned to old sports injuries, sustained in our glory days. (For all three of us, these were, sadly, all the way back in high school.) It's funny but cute how guys love to talk about this. Their faces just lit up as they were describing torn ligaments, broken limbs, etc.

My chief injury in high school was a dislocated shoulder (from playing tennis), and it has proved to be the gift that keeps on giving. Once you dislocate your shoulder, those ligaments (or tendons or whatever they are) never really heal - they're always kind of loose, so that frequent re-dislocation is possible and even likely. It happened again yesterday. I made some weird motion as I was trying to open a door - a weird motion necessitated by the large box of groceries I was trying to balance in my other hand. Fortunately, it popped right back in again.

The last time it popped out and stayed out, I was with my husband. We were just getting out of the car; I was still in the passenger seat, and I reached behind me to grab something from the back seat, forgetting that this sort of motion is verboten for people without proper ligaments.

Shoulder dislocation is very painful. To give you some sense of the pain, I have a friend who has both dislocated her shoulder and given birth, and of the two, she claims that the dislocation hurt more. I fell out of the car in agony. My husband figured out what was wrong pretty quickly, even though I was in too much pain to say anything. "Throw yourself against something!" he yelled. "Like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon! Throw yourself on the ground!"

The ground was my only option as the nearest wall was too far for me to reach in my injured state. I threw myself down on the ground. This did in fact work, and the shoulder popped back into place.

While I was still on the ground, however, two women (maybe early middle-age, dressed in exercise clothes) walked by. It must have looked bad, me on the ground, my husband standing over me, both of us looking rather distraught. They stopped and stooped down to ask me if everything was okay. "She's fine," my husband said. They ignored him completely, and asked me again if everything was okay. "I'm fine," I said. My husband added, "She just dislocated her shoulder." This time the women glared at him, and then asked me if I was sure that I didn't need any help. I assured them again that everything was fine, and they finally walked away.

My poor husband was so traumatized. Now, any time we have even the slightest argument in a public place, he's sure that he's going to be arrested for spouse abuse.

Product Placement

My sister gave me a George Foreman grill for Christmas. I have to say, I wasn't very excited when I opened it. It's not something I would ever have gotten for myself. For some reason, it feels like cheating, using a grill that plugs in to a wall socket. I admit, I'm a Luddite in the kitchen, the kind of obsessive personality that still insists on making every part of a Thanksgiving dinner from scratch. My other kitchen grill is cast iron and fits over two burners, and when you turn it over, the other side can serve as a griddle. It weighs about a million pounds and is a pain to clean. I bought it in a special store in Indiana. All of this made it feel more legit to me than the plug-and-grill.

Well, consider me a convert. I used the grill last night while my sister was visiting and it was AWESOME. I am such a fan now, I want to grill everything. I'm not sure I will ever use my stove again.

Springtime?

It's been seventy degrees here for the last two days, and beautiful and sunny. It feels like summer, or at least spring. At any rate, it doesn't feel like barely the middle of January. Funny how much I talk about the weather - it was a habit I picked up in Chicago, where the weather was everyone's favorite topic (next to baseball). Weather in Chicago is Shakespearean. It can be pretty amazing to witness.

The last time I was in Chicago, several months ago, it was pouring rain, a kind of rain you never see in California, where it looks like Someone up in the sky has just upended many, many buckets of water. It was a bad day. I was there for work, at a time when I was already thinking of leaving my job. I was stressed and tired, and, thanks to the weather, also soaking wet, as wet as if I'd just come out of a shower fully dressed. And it was cold. Because I was there for work, I wasn't bundled up the way I would have been had I been wearing my "civilian" clothes. I was blocks from my hotel, and the rain didn't look like it was going to let up any time soon. In short, I was miserable.

But God reaches out and touches you when you least expect, and sometimes in small ways that mean the world at the time. Some random man started walking toward me, where I was huddled under a small awning. I immediately tensed and put my city face on, willing him to leave me alone. He was carrying the world's biggest umbrella, and he held it out to me as he came up. "Here," he said. "Take it. I have another one in my office, and this is my building."

That umbrella got me back to my hotel. I still have it, in my hall closet. Every time I look at it, I remember all the many, many ways God has looked after me.

Postscript

Saw a friend last night and asked if he had surfed that day, fully expecting him to say no (because the conditions were bad), or that he had gone out but that it had sucked. Instead, he said that he had gone out, and that in Santa Cruz (where he surfs) there had actually been rideable waves. That put me in a mood for the rest of the night.

Boo :(

The surf report today, courtesy of surfpulse:

"It appears conditions are shaping up for yet another day of crummy surf. The good news is, the sun is out, there is no wind to speak of and the temperature is mild this morning. However, the surf is a complete mess, with waves in the 1.5x to 3x overhead range on the outside, slothing around, with no shape or organization to speak of. The inside section is more of the same with head high waves exploding on the the sandbar with no rideable qualities to speak of as well. Overall this morning on a scale of 1 to 10, current conditions get a rating of 0, because it is not rideable out there this morning. That's the report for Saturday morning!"

It's been awhile since there was much surfable. We used to go out even when it was a mess, but after broken boards and injuries sustained, we've sort of gotten lazy about it. It's disappointing though; I was really counting on getting out there today.

California Dreamin'

On a sunny day like today, I can't believe how blessed I am to live here. Even on rainy days, I usually feel pretty blessed. There aren't too many places on this planet that are more beautiful than this, or more filled with things to do. We can surf one day, and the next morning drive to Yosemite to go snowshoeing with friends. But I can't help envying one of our friends (really more my husband's friend), whose life somehow always seems more exciting: moving from one country to another, living in China and eating bugs, jumping out of planes on a regular basis... They spent New Year's in Hong Kong, went on safari in Africa over summer holidays, and those are just the trips I know about. I've been obsessed with buying a house, but today I wondered, What if we didn't? What if we just took the money and ran (traveled the world)?

Best of '06

One more post, just because I have the time today: Here are some visual highlights from my 2006.

"He went out, not knowing whither he went."

Hebrews 11:8. I sat down with My Utmost for His Highest today (I fell a couple of days behind), and read this excerpt from a sermon of Oswald Chamber's. This devotional, and this man, have done a lot to shape how I read the Bible. January 2's excerpt spoke to the way we (general noun) seek to know the next step, the way the path leads, before we walk; how often we ask God what He is going to do, or where He is taking us. But Abraham by faith went out without knowing where He was going or what God was going to do to him once he got there. He went without asking any further questions, based solely on his trust in God's goodness. Oswald Chambers writes that "God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is."

And what matters more than Who God is?

I needed this reminder. The last few months - really, the last year - I've been repeatedly asking God where I'm going, where He's taking me, what the next step is. I've been so scared and worried, quitting my job without knowing what's going to happen, with just the belief that He's called me to be here, to be writing. But why is it scary? Why should it be scary that the plan is not in my hands? It should be a relief, for no plan that I could ever come up with could equal His plan, His master plan for me and for the coming of His kingdom. When I think about it this way, I see that I need to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and soon I'll be where He wants me to be. I don't need to know where that is before I get there because I trust Him that it will be a place of blessing far beyond my hopes. "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28.

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

I love this hymn. (See here for a history of the hymn.)

The words to this hymn are a prayer for me; I sing it at home alone in my apartment, and I know God is listening. It expresses how I feel better than I ever could. (And I call myself a writer.) Particularly verses three and four. I'm not going to say anymore because the song says it all.

1. Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

2. Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I'll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

3. Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

4. O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

5. O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

An Army Marches

Someone somewhere nearby is cooking onions and meat. The smell fills my apartment. It's both comforting and humbling to realize that, no matter what you're feeling, no matter what grand or dramatic ideas are going through your head, your body will respond to the smell of food. Even if you're exhausted and depressed and feel like you can't pick yourself up from the little ball on the floor you've curled into, the smell of food will reach through the darkness and find you, causing your stomach to perk up and grumble.

This was to be a very different post. When I signed in, my brain was filled with the image of Munch's Scream, which I take as a visual depiction of an artist's soul. Artists are said to have great souls, grand souls, souls bigger than the rest of us mere mortals. But maybe they're not great or grand, just more twisted. Just screaming and screaming for the rest of us to open our eyes and see what they see, all the darkness and emptiness and pain. It's hard, though, to write about darkness and emptiness and pain with the aroma of grilled onions wafting by.

Happy New Year

Another year another year another year. Things can change so fast. Last year I was still a lawyer, still working crazy hours, wondering where I would be in a year. And here I am. I couldn't have predicted the way this last year has gone, and I can't predict the way the next year will go. Nor do I want to. I want to learn how to enjoy the process. How to slow down and take things one day at a time. How to be okay without a checklist or a plan or a manual. Not to rush the journey, because frankly, that's really all we're ever going to get, is the journey. More importantly, though, God has the plan, and His plan is better than any I could ever come up with. Here's to 2007.