Just got off the horn with my big sister. She’s back home, feeling better every day, and will be back in the office on Tuesday.

She confirmed that her hospitalization was not, in fact, my fault, but this was a verbal acknowledgment and not put into writing.

Putting it into writing is where I come in.  Nyuk nyuk nyuk 

I woke up today before my timer flicked my globe light on.

This weekend I finished installing ceiling-to-floor curtains in my bedroom, allowing me to keep the blinds rolled up and let natural light weave its way through the white linen fibers without worrying about the sixty-something single guy across the way seeing me.

I puttered out to my foyer, checked a watch on my desk, and decided getting up before seven is insane. I made my way back to my bed, my right foot meowing as she pushed her way off my fuzzy white throw rug. I slid under my fluffy down comforter, a move made easier by the low coefficient of friction courtesy my silk slip.  My bed was still warm.

I rolled onto my side and looked at the diffuse light through the curtains. I could go for a run, I thought, thinking of how nice another bar would look on my nikeplus graph. Then I worried about my blood sugar, thought back to the 5 a.m. Wednesday morning crew bus, gnawing on a zone bar as we bounced out to Derby. We never got on the water before 5:45 so I could nosh on a bar now and get back up in forty minutes, I thought.

I drifted back into sleep, arms hugging the soft folds of my blanket, skin smiling against the high thread count of my freshly-washed-albeit-slightly-grimy white sheets.

* * *

In my dreams I was in a home with dimmer lighting. I am folding clothes in a bedroom without windows, laying some skinny jeans into a pile, sifting through some business casual. These are clothes I am parting with, donating, otherwise shedding from my life. I can hear the voice of a man I’ve been getting to know but I can’t see him, just the clothes, my arms folding them. And piles of other stuff, too: in this dream it seems I am getting rid of things, transitioning, possibly moving. I see myself for a moment, in my new short haircut, a striped light blue button-down, light heathered grey dress pants, long and wide and crisp crease down the front.

I see a cardboard box, hear the clanging of dishes in the nearby kitchen. There is a door to the outside in this kitchen, a door that lets in sunlight. The screen door is closed but the door is open. I can feel the breeze, smell the chlorophyll.

It is the rich kind of dream that seems to span days. I wake up worried that I’ve missed my first conference call, but no. I immediately think, of my dream: I am walking away from that which I no longer need. And also, I want a pair of pants like that.

I roll towards my bedroom window and notice that a round prism I’ve hung is playing cat’s cradle with the sunlight. There are tiny dots of rainbows sprinkled onto the surface of the curtains, as if the prism was a salt shaker and these rainbows, smaller than a pencil eraser, were adding some flavor to these folds of white.

* * *

A class of young students gets on the F train at the 2nd Avenue stop. There are perhaps a dozen of them, I’m guessing seven or eight years old. They have necklaces of string and paper; the cards-as-pendants read PS something or other, something Ridge Street, New York, NY, with a phone number. They’ve written their names on these cards, I imagine their chubby finger stumps gripping a number two pencil, carefully kissing the lead to paper. Jorge. Asha. Tyrell.

The train surges forward from Broadway Lafayette and the seven tykes holding on to the bar next to me squeal in delight as they lose their footing and all rush towards me. I instinctively put my arm out. They are giddy, their eyes moist with excitement regarding whatever today’s adventure might be. I cannot help but smile, love. I think of a teenager in Brooklyn informing me, “You got deep dimples,” and the memory makes my eyes smile too.

I notice the moist dark brown eyes of a black boy who is jabbering with an Indian girl with a shiny long ponytail. His lashes are like hands reaching out and flapping over his eyes, which dart around, taking it all in, and his big smile reveals the snaggled teeth of someone who’s had many visits from the Tooth Fairy in the past year. His lips move rapidly, his eyes grow large every ten words or so, and all the while his right hand grips mightily to the metal bar.

This sea of life is surrounded by seated commuters, sagging older folks, cynical twenty-somethings. We are on our way to jobs, jobs we go to at least five days a week. Most of us know exactly what today’s non-adventure will bring. I see the warmth in the eyes of a few other folks letting the energy of these kids pour over them. They are grateful for these kids on a field trip. I wonder what thoughts are coursing through the brains of these grown-ups.

The chatter of these sprites sounds like primary colors, rainbows sprinkled onto a sea of mute adults trapped in khakis, trench coats, dreams on snooze.

Nietzsche once wrote something about giving birth to dancing stars.

This is a lie, I think as I settle my headset onto my head and get ready for the third call of the day. From my desk I can see the McGraw Hill building at 11:00, the Carter Hotel right at noon, and the top of the RENT billboard at 1:00. It is midtown New York City and according to popular media it is fabulous.

The lie being this: that every day cannot be a field trip, that life must be like a subway line with a fixed track and regular stops and a known, measurable, predictable route and destination.

* * *

Last night, probably to cheer me up, a colleague took me to a Literacy Partners benefit, where after readings by A. J. Jacobs, Ann Patchett, and others, two adults learning to read took the stage. As a thirty-something man read his speech, voice hesitant and flat and jerking like a subway, I welled with emotion and awe at the fears he must have overcome to head into a classroom and admit I do not know how to read, to work to learn the alphabet, to close the book on his past of being whipped by his mother, shuttled around foster homes, marijuana by age six and cocaine by age twelve.

For my daughter, he said. He wanted to be able to be a good man for his daughter, and was grateful for his wife. “My beacon,” he said, after sharing that he is five and a half years sober. “You know, I wanted to learn how to read so I could help my daughter with her homework. And now she says, ‘Daddy, did you do your homework?’”

The crowd laughs.  I look up to the jewel-like lights of the New York State Theatre at Lincoln Center, trying to keep the tears balanced.  They spill.  I am glad that my mascara is waterproof.

A thirty-five year old woman, a bit further along in her reading, shares her story of being a child in St. Lucia, missing school in order to help her family pick bananas. She would miss every other day and fell further and further behind, until, what is the point? She says this word several times, bananas, and it is rich and round the way she says it, her voice a rubied amber. Bananas. Her voice becomes trimmed with ruffles and waves, like the edge of a crepe, when she speaks of being able to read books to her children at night.

Can you imagine taking a dive into a world so new as a full grown adult? Unlocking this frontier, these reading rainbows, and making sense of what before had been white noise, unintelligible, invisible? They had set aside their fears, they said to themselves, Yes I can, Yes I will, A B C D E F G.

All of this is to say that I’ve decided to leave the corporate world, that I made my intentions known to my employer yesterday, that after having had a six-figure base salary for the past year and my very own apartment in Manhattan for the past several months, I’ve realized they are not quite the rainbows that I thought they’d be, or that I once thought they were.

I see them now, like blobs shifting into words for an adult learning to read. I see the breadcrumbs I’ve been leaving for myself all along, they’re like rainbows on white curtains, sparkling with brilliant brisance. Before clouded by noise — but this is what Dad did / show those econ majors and frat boys and football players that you can beat them / wouldn’t it be nice to make a big donation to your hometown high school — they now cut through and sing to me in Technicolor.

This is what you are meant to do, ANP. You have spent your entire life doing it, furtively, and now you can do it out in the open. There is nothing to fear.

I hear, I see, I get it.  I’m with you.

And so begins my journey, I am that excited snaggle-toothed black boy on the subway, eyes moist with the anticipation of what will today bring.

And tomorrow.

And the day after that.

And the next forty years.

I think it’s interesting that on my bank statements there’s a descriptor called, “Interest Paid.”

* * *

I think it’s interesting that a friend of mine texted me tonight with:

So I went to therapist yesterday, total breakthru in clarity, I know why now I broke things off, it has to do with me trying too hard to please her and not feeling like she reciprocated…

My reply:

You need to explore why you felt it necessary to work for love in the first place.

* * *

There is no sigma “interest paid” greater than / less than. It’s not a competition.

* * *

I think it’s interesting that another friend of mine IM’d me today with:

I’m still working 80 hour weeks, am passively sleeping with two women and actively with three others. Things are pretty good.

Really, guy? I love you, but, really?

Anyone who has to create that much noise in their lives in order to distract themselves from themselves … “Things are pretty good.”

Erroneous!

* * *

I am not judging. I get it. Believe me, I do. And I give you all — especially the nutballs who generated the above block indents / blocking dense — a big hug.

Oh wait, new words I learned last night: un abrazo fuerte.

I know words –> I am smart –> Therefore I am allowed to receive love –>

INTEREST PAID.

* * *

I think I shall now shift my ire from the wheel to words, databases, all reductive forms, objects in general.

I have decided that if a man, in his head, consciously or subconsciously, says to himself, “I am not good enough for ANP. I do not deserve a woman like her,” on a consistent and more-than-occasional-bout-of-insecurity basis, then by definition, he is absolutely right.

Is a man who does not believe in himself a man who is good to himself? Is a man who tortures himself with self-punishing internal monologues a man that is kind to himself?

Sez ANP: nyet!

—

Also, do you think it’s a problem if, while lying on your faux suede couch in the Saturday afternoon sunshine, you hear yourself think, “Hmm, all the subway lines near me [F, J, M, Z] are also coveted high-point tiles in Scrabble.” … ?

It’s your turn, Dorie, Gordy, McShane, Alex, Chris, Lilit, Liz, Speegz, ALO, and Dowdell. Chop chop. (3, 4, 1, 3.)  Mishka, should I initiate the rematch or do you want to?

My disclaimer to this post is that I just finished watching the series premiere of Cashmere Mafia, my body is tired from the cold dip / hot dip / cold dip / hot dip / warm marble, and what I’d like to do right now is lay on warm concrete and look up at the clouds as they breeze by against the backdrop of our indigo universe. Also, a very acoustic version of Such Great Heights is playing on iTunes (part of my ’sweepy’ mix).

I don’t like these roles that’ve been constructed for men and women, and yet –

I don’t like this false notion that just because (when I am engaged and given the proper resources) I can dominate at the office (I don’t mean that in a braggy way; I just mean that when I am passionate about something, I give it my all. Go team. Yeah, I’d like one of my side projects to blow up and make me a million bucks. Hey, our society is capitalist, and so, that’s the goal…) means I am somehow less of a woman, means that somehow I am not girly and feminine.

A list of things that I miss:

• Losing hours playing with my sewing machine
• My Pyrex for making pies :(

Yes, I like wearing suits and strutting and doing the dance required in all workplace negotiations, but I also flutter when I see li’l Asa and smile on the inside when toddlers beg me to do the airplane

1. Lie on your back
2. Have kid put their abdomen against your feet
3. Hold hands with the kid
4. Lift them up into the air with your feet

and I like making things with my crock pot and I love my glue gun

and I love men who love me and I love sunshine

and now that I have figured out how to create a home for myself, one that is warm and smelling of baked goods and soft and comfortable and loving –

I don’t want it to just be a home for myself. (I am scared that I will forever be alone.)

I don’t mean to sound dramatic, I am not wallowing over here, my life is rich and full and interesting.

But all the fun I am having with myself, gettin’ nekkid and slathering up with pink mud and baking in the Miami sunshine, imagining art projects while dining alone, screwing around with the movie making software on my MacBook …

No one wants to share their life with me, share in my fun with me.

Everyone always runs away.

Even the track star cannot catch them.

I used to avoid seriously writing about my love interests on this blog for any number of reasons.

1. I didn’t want to hurt my (real) ex-boyfriend’s feelings
2. I was worried that showing interest would scare said love interest off
3. I was multi-tasking and dating more than one person
4. I knew they weren’t that into me
5. I, frankly, wasn’t that into them
6. Part of me knew that I’d only be blogging about them to prove to the world that I was loveable
7. I’m sure that my relationship to my mother is somehow involved as well so I’m putting it in at number 7

But, well, none of that matters anymore, because thanks to many angels in my life, including but not limited to

1. Katherine
2. Edmund
3. My cognitive behavioral therapist (get well soon!)

Plus, non-human methods for achieving inner peace (read: reconnecting with the inner child)

1. Al Anon
2. Cognitive behavioral therapy
3. The Fantasy Bond
4. Oprah magazine
5. The wacky cord-cutting thing encouraged by those crazy Children of Light
6. Yoga (esp. vinyasa)
7. The village zendo
8. Reiki healing circles

… thanks to all of the above, I no longer worry that I might be coming from a place of objectifying inauthenticity should I choose to pen a few words about a person I care about (in a romantic sense) on this here blog. (I’m sure I’m forgetting something in the above lists. )

But while I’m making lists, I thought long and hard about what Dr. Love advised me. “Interests and values,” she said, were key for a lasting, loving relationship. (And butter, I thought.)

So this summer I got rid of the old list (1. 6′2″ 2. Must drive stick 3. No divorcees. 4. Must play basketball and/or baseball. (Geez, what was I; twelve?!)) and thought about a fresh new list describing the ideal partner for the fresh new me. I was going to blog it in August after the very predictable quiet poof of a non-ideal non-partner poofed into the poofy-land, but the job thing and the moving thing and blah blah blah. So, here:

1. He’s gotta be good to me. I’m done with the men (/boys) who make me feel bad about myself, who make me feel insecure, who trigger sadness or inadequacy. I want a man who is genuinely interested in me, as a person, and cares about my feelings and isn’t afraid to demonstrate his own. He’s gotta be affectionate and, in return, allow me to be affectionate with him. He needs to be able to love me.
2. He’s gotta be good to himself. This immediately eliminates smokers and vegetarians, of course. But if a man can’t treat himself well, how can I really expect him to be able to treat me well? Am I right? (This is your cue to say, “Yes, God.”) There’s some good ways to spot a man who loves himself: he doesn’t deny himself unnecessarily, he’s open to new experiences and life in general, he’s probably been to a therapist. But the most important reason that man needs to be good to himself? He needs to be able to let me love him.
3. He’s gotta read. So much of my life and navigation of the world is informed by my early love of reading and, more broadly speaking, my knowledge lust. I do not fundamentally understand people who do not caress pages of books, breathe in their words and allow themselves to be shaped by text. A man with no bookshelves is a man with no ANP!
4. He’s gotta be able to hang with my peeps. This is related to point two, in that, the Yale factor has proven itself more than once to be a key wild card in my romantic relationships. Bottom line is that, whether or not it should be this way, it is: some people are intimidated by Yale; it has a tendency to bring up insecurities. I can’t roll with a weasel that’s not going to bother to put a friggin’ suit on for the damned Yale Medal Dinner, and I cannot hang with a dude that’s going to fume and pout and be generally unable to socialize in a room full of Yalies.

Thought #1

When I’m unhappy, I cling to my management systems. Gridlines, systems, order.

When I’m happy & content, they’re a nice to have, not a need to have. I mean, they help. But I don’t flip out and obsess when plans scoot off the rails.

Thought #2

If a human is a management system, then I hereby declare myself a content management system.

Thought #3

“ANP?” you ask.

“God,” I correct, firmly yet gently and lovingly. Everyone makes mistakes.

You raise your eyebrows at me yet indulge el megalomania. “Uh, God?”

“Yes, Margaret? I’m here.” A Judy Blume fan that’s eavesdropping snorts in the background.

“You realize that’s the dorkiest play on the term CMS that I’ve heard?”

I nod. “You realize that’s the only play on the term CMS that anyone’s ever heard?”

There’s a reason for that, you think, while I putter off to look at my newly-assembled bookshelf and heat up some stew.

Months ago, my older sister Rahnee was in town in conjunction with a conference she was speaking at up in Bridgeport. It was the first time she’d seen my adult living quarters, and I had a great time simply hanging out with her.

Those of you who saw my one woman show, or are otherwise aware, know that my relationship with Rahnee has been one of the most difficult, challenging, and downright rewarding relationships of my life.  I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic when I say that I shut down for nearly two decades after she got sick, and only after accepting truths about me and my big sister was I able to really step into the world of living — not just the existing.

To be feeling and wholly alive means that one must accept all that comes with feeling and life.  And sometimes that means pain.  And sometimes that means closing your eyes and wishing you could disappear.  And sometimes that means opening them and watching your older sister become disabled while you sit by helplessly and make yourself get all A’s in the hopes that it will somehow make it all go away.

And in the best times, that means moving past all that and stuffing yourself silly at a great restaurant around the corner from your grown-up-girl-crib with one of the very few people in the world that has known you forever, that you will know forever, and with whom you develop a deeper and warmer appreciation for with every passing day.

I love you, Rahnee.  You mean so much to me and I’m so thankful for your patience and love.

xoxoxo

(Full pictures from her visit here.  And if you haven’t been lucky enough to meet her IRL, check out her hell-raising towards the end of this news clip.  File under:  so that’s where she gets it…)

Just reading over an email I sent out earlier today to a real giver and realized that part of it was purty good:

…  This email is scattered because of the adrenaline from this insane breakout session that just finished, involving building literal bridges out of paper, etc.  I’m so psyched to be working here.  It feels like home.  Or maybe I’ve just settled into myself, thus making all places feel like home.  Dunno.

This reminds me.  I’m doing some urban planning for my blogosphere.  This blog’ll probably turn into my place for dorky personal blah blah blah.  I’m shifting my explorations of food and recipes to Foodums.com, and moving my thoughts related to the convergence of universal one-ness, selfhood, and Why Wal-Mart Has P&G In A Headlock over to OwnThePipes.com.  So if either of those topics interest you vaguely, please note the URLs.

And if you’d like to be a Foodie, just holla.