149 posts later

One year ago today I started this blog. At the time, I noted how it was only fitting I would join the Internets on Independence Day. My first entry I wrote about how I detested technology. Back then I was afraid of my phone, had no idea what Flickr was, and thought people who used Twitter had an overdeveloped sense of self-importance.

Now, I’ve upgraded to an iPhone (which I still don’t know how to use properly), co-launched a second blog, and fully admit to tweeting. But I remain old school. I still believe boys need to make the first, second, and third moves. I still prefer phone calls over texting. And I still don’t own a digital camera. But I’m not writing today to talk about technology – or boys.

Looking back, I’m not really sure why I started sharing my personal thoughts with all of you anyway. And ‘sharing’ probably isn’t really the best word to use in this case either – that would imply you actually asked for my opinion. I just kind of dumped them on you. But you’ve been kind enough to listen for the past 12 months. So thanks.

The blog was conceived in the same café I sit typing in now with Emily and Allison. They encouraged me to make my thoughts and opinions public knowledge after one of my frequent rants. Maybe the girls were just tired of being the first place I unloaded my ideas. Maybe they recognized that I simply needed an outlet for my emotions. Maybe they thought other people might get something from them. Either way, I had no goal or direction with the blog when I started.

And in truth, I still have no idea what I’m doing. I write about everyday things that move me. Or at least move me to the point of grabbing my laptop and heading to the nearest café with Internet my computer will talk to. Because I do write in a vacuum. I have to be emotionally invested in a topic. That’s probably why I only write about relationships – whether they are with friends and family, boys, technology, the Boston Red Sox, or with myself.

Over the past 12 months the blog has turned into sort of a life experiment for me. I’ve enjoyed looking back over the past 148 posts and seeing what has changed and what has more or less remained the same: We have a new president – one I actually voted for. I live in the same apartment – though only for the next three weeks. I gained and lost one lovely boyfriend. I’ve trained for and completed a marathon. I’ve applied to law school only to eventually opt not to go, and I’ve launched another blog with Allison which should make us Internet famous any day now. (Fingers crossed.)

While I’m not certain what will unfold over the next year, or whether the blog is something I will continue with at all – as long as I continue to feel deeply about the people and things around me, I’m pretty sure I will have something to say about it.

apartment hunting. sigh.

After several months of apartment shopping in San Francisco, sifting through hundreds of ads on craigslist.org, separating the too-good-to-be-trues (they always are), from the junk (always posted in caps), and whittling it down to potential places in my price range (not much) – I’ve learned a few tricks. And because you are so lucky (and because most of you reading this live on the East Coast and are therefore not competition) I am going to share them with you.

Everyone knows Photoshop
These days it doesn’t take much to doctor a photo. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve walked into an apartment and felt my heart drop with disappointment. I imagine it’s like meeting someone from the internet for the first time. Ooh…you look … different from your pictures… But the polite you goes through the obligatory showing, nodding as the agent points out the scuzzy bathroom and the shoebox of a bedroom overlooking the auto body shop. Meanwhile you really want to just look her in the eye and say: Look, this just isn’t going to work out. You see, the apartment, well, it’s seen better days. It needs more love than I can give. Quite frankly, it’s never going to happen … But you take the rental application, fold it into your purse and say you’ll be in touch soon – all the while knowing deep down you’ll never call her again.

Everyone wants your money
Scam artists thrive online. It’s a good thing most of them are fairly retarded. You see yesterday I responded to an ad for a two bedroom apartment in SOMA. Everything about this woman’s reply seemed normal until I read: “It comes with two parking spaces. Did I mention that in the ad?” Immediately red flags shot up. If they didn’t for you – you don’t live in San Francisco. Because parking is always mentioned in a post. I continued reading. She asked me to sign up for a free credit report using a company she has trusted for years and to contact her afterward. Naturally I Googled this nonexistent company. It turned out to be a blog where you were to upload your social security number and other personal information. Silly woman. I use WordPress too…

Read the fine print
I was just about to hit reply to another ad last night when I scanned a sentence I had somehow missed earlier. Turns out the gentleman listing the apartment would continue living there as well. Just during the day. But the place was all ours in the evenings…Right. Another two bedroom apartment in Pac Heights had all of our requirements: hardwood floors, lots of light, ample street parking … but no kitchen. Honestly. I want to meet the people who wind up living here.

Beware of the bait and switch
Tonight after work I visited an apartment Emily saw earlier this morning. She emailed me a photo of the entrance way and I had been mentally unpacking all day. She seemed excited about the space and I couldn’t wait to see it. The agent showed me the apartment and I couldn’t help but wonder if Emily was losing her ability to reason. It looked nothing like what she described. Where were these huge bedrooms? Where were the closets? The apartment was designed for midgets. Let me qualify that. Midgets with no clothes. Then she told me the truth. Emily was shown another apartment earlier. A more expensive one out of our price range. Oops…

I am trying to just laugh all this off. Because I know deep down that our apartment is out there. We just haven’t found it yet. And all this searching will payoff big time. It has too. Because you’re all invited to the housewarming. Otherwise I am officially homeless in 29 days…

30 days notice

Sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump.

For much of the past year I have been contemplating moving out of my apartment. When I first unpacked the Subaru last January I expected staying six months – maybe a year. At the time, I just needed a place to lay my head at night and a driveway to park my car. And since I had already donated much of my furniture I didn’t require a lot of space. But the apartment never really became my home. Eighteen months later I still have boxes I’ve never opened gathering dust in the garage and have never thrown a dinner party. And like everything else in life, my needs changed over time.

Now, I want more than a place to rest my bones. I want a dining room to host Thanksgiving, a kitchen I can pretend to cook in, and a new neighborhood for boy watching. I guess what I’m saying is, I’m ready to unpack and stay awhile. And after years of dreaming about it, Emily and I are finally moving in together. I remember us sitting on a rock overlooking the Merrimack River one summer and talking about moving west after college. We were 14 at the time. Nearly 15 years later we are finally both here and ready to sign a lease, register with the DMV, and buy flatware.

Though we have been ready to move for months, we have never found a good time to actually do it. At first we scrolled through ads on craigslist.org for two bedroom apartments, emailing potential posts back and forth. But we never acted on any of them. Then we began actually contacting the landlords and visiting places. Finally, we visited an apartment so gorgeous we began mentally unpacking our rooms. Then we learned the price – $5,000 a month – and that broke our spirits.

But the search is back on. The truth is there will never be a convenient time to move. The economy might continue to decline and we may never find the perfect apartment. But it got to the point where I needed to impose a deadline there was no backing out of. So I gave notice this week. I am out August 1. And while we have no apartment lined up, no appointments on the calendar, and only a vague sense of what we’re looking for – I am not concerned. We’ll get there. We have to. And this time it won’t take 15 years to do it.

no other heaven

Allison and me toasting on a hilltop in Mount Tamalpais State Park. Not sure what exactly Peter is doing. Photo courtesy of Emily Yurko.

Blades of grass tickled my fingertips as I walked with palms outstretched. Following a narrow trail snaking up more than 2,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, I used rocks embedded into the hillside for leverage and kept my head down to avoid tripping on one of the tiny holes some animal had burrowed into the path – long before my arrival, claiming this site for its home.

When I reached the top of the peak I saw a cluster of rocks shaped into a bench and a plaque now green with age. I set my backpack on the seat and read the marker while pulling out a box of Italian cookies from North Beach and a bottle of wine.

“Give me these hills and the friends I love, I ask no other heaven.”

The plaque was given in honor of Dad O’Rourke – a local hiker who led outings throughout Marin County in the early 1900s – on his 76th birthday in 1927. I smiled upon reading his words and took out my camera to snap one of only four photos I took that day.

“There’s a plaque up here you guys have to read,” I shouted to my friends still making their way up the trail.

Now I will admit it has taken me a long time to get to this point. And I don’t mean to Dad O’Rourke’s bench. That is just a short drive across the Golden Gate and a few miles of winding along Panoramic Highway. I mean to the point where I can call California home and not immediately feel the urge to qualify it with, “But I’m from Boston.” (That now occurs about 35 seconds later.) But that’s just geography. I also mean to the point where I have found folks I can call ‘my people.’ (Most just happen to be East Coast transplants.)

When I first moved to California I told my family I was only going to live on the West Coast for two to three years. Well, it’s been closer to five and I have no plans for punching my return ticket anytime soon.

Sidenote: In the past upon reading that last sentence my mother would have booked her next flight on JetBlue to convince me otherwise. Now she just books a flight and we go to wine country instead.

The truth is, the first three years I spent in tiny newsrooms chasing stories and scraping by on a wage deemed “below poverty” by our county standards. The friends I made were all fellow news reporters and wound up moving across the state for other jobs –some for bigger papers, some leaving the profession altogether, and most I have lost touch with.

The areas I covered were located in suburban or unincorporated pockets of farmland– not exactly places teeming with young single people looking to make new friends. I was fortunate to get dumped over Christmas by my live in boyfriend – an event that forced me to move to San Francisco and start over 18 months ago. And given time, distance and an additional 2,000 feet – I am so thankful for that.

When our group reconvened under the trees I poured the wine into plastic cups and we toasted to a good day where Allison took nearly 500 photos (I’m not being hyperbolic), Emily and I binged on chips and salsa, Peter ate everything else, Sam climbed rocks and Chris – well, Chris fell. And then we went home.

Editor’s note: Watching the sunset over Mount Tamalpais marked the first of a series of weekend outings we are organizing to take advantage of the perks of living in the Bay Area. Namely – proximity to wineries, trails and the beach. To view a lovely photo narrative of our trip compiled by Allison visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/allisonmccarthy/sets/72157620162020926/

magic

Magic is a convenient word to describe something we don’t understand – or for things we simply don’t want to. And to be perfectly honest, I’m kind of fine with that.

Take nanotechnology. Lately I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around the concept of growing nanotubes to use as conduits to improve the performance of traditional integrated circuit chips. I’m also learning how to convert information like sound waves into analog and digital formats. See – I sound smart for typing all that. Now do I understand what nanotubes are and how to grow them? Do I know what a DAC is and how it works? Hell no. But that doesn’t mean I’m not trying.

Recently I conducted an interview with a researcher building nanodevices. I tried to capture at least half of the information this individual was telling me about his work. Finally I cut him off somewhere between the theory of Moore’s Law and wafer processing saying, “Look. I’m going to be honest. I am a little slow on the uptake with technology. I just got an iPhone three months ago.”

He smiled and pulled out his phone – a plastic device circa 2004 – and laid it on the table: “So am I.”

I relaxed. Surely this would come to me – this man gets it. But as he began explaining converters and scaling I felt my eyes glazing over. I tried to take notes but really I was at a loss. I’d like to think that the diagrams he gave me will come in handy when writing my piece. I’d like to think that in about a week from now I will suddenly comprehend the physics of it all – perhaps after waking from some dream where I’m donning a bunny suit and safety goggles. (The other kind of bunny suit people.)

The truth is I just don’t think my brain operates that way. And that’s a hard pill to swallow – to consider I might not be cut out for a rigorous life of scientific research. (And all this time I thought I had actually chosen not to pursue that career path.) But I do not understand how you can build something you can’t see or touch. I do not know how a chip smaller than my pinky nail can change the world – or at least the speed of my computer. But you can and it will and I still don’t get how.

My explanation: magic. It just sounds more special that way. It’s cleaner. It’s comprehensive. And it captures the awesome feat that it is without the necessary explanation.

Sometimes the moment something becomes accessible it no longer seems quite as impressive. And I don’t know what that is either. I feel the same way about airplanes, carbon paper and rainbow striped pasta. It just works. So while some call it science, I will continue referring to nanotechnology as magic – at least when my editor isn’t reading. And in a way, I guess it is.
 

Special

A package came to the house the other day. It was from my nana and something I anticipated arriving for about a week. No, I didn’t get a new job, or a promotion, or a new apartment. (Yet.) I just have an awesome nana that occasionally mails care packages to her poor granddaughter the writer. But this time was different. This time, the package had priceless contents inside.

Nana had enclosed a book once owned by my aunt Carol – a feisty artist who I like to think I might take after somewhat – even just a little bit. She died suddenly my freshman year in college and I will never forget receiving the phone call from my mom and crying all the way home on the commuter train. I will never forget sitting across the kitchen table from my dad while he explained what happened to his little sister and noting that he looked like a statue talking – devoid of color or movement in his face.

Carol could do anything. And she seemed to do everything well – whether it was painting or sketching or arguing. I recall her taking my sister and me home with her on a spontaneous trip to Washington DC. It was a night flight and I still remember thinking the ground looked like a giant Christmas tree all lit up. I remember spilling a bowl of cherry pits in the backseat of her car, and trying to help water her garden but losing control of the hose and watching it whip back and forth on the sidewalk – spraying her and everything but the plants. I believe I was five at the time.

When I unearthed the book – Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person, by Hugh Prather – from the tissue paper I was eager to just hold it and flip the coffee stained pages because she had.

After she died I was given some of her jewelry, three of her paintings, as well as several pen and ink sketches. One year for my birthday she gave me a set of oil paints, brushes and canvases. While I never developed her passion or talent, I have never thrown away the eight pages of instructions she wrote detailing how to begin painting with oils. I like to think she was speaking metaphorically when she wrote “It’s easy to make mud.”

At this point in my life where I continue to struggle to discover the person I am and becoming, I find it comforting to read a book Carol consulted for inspiration. While I regret never being able to ask her about her favorite part, my only hint is a single blue star scribbled in a margin. Beside it reads, “to force myself into a single role, to decide to be just one thing in life, would kill large parts of me.” That was my favorite entry too.

I underlined it. And I know that years from now someone will skim these same pages and pause at my scrawl and wonder who scarred the page and what it was about the phrase, “I have been given another day. Another day to hear and read and smell and walk and love and glory. I am alive today. I think of those who aren’t,” that made me smile.

a good story

MOM: Today is the 35th anniversary of the day your father and I met.
ME: Wow. What made you remember the date?
MOM: Because June 3rd is the day I met your father.  Don’t you remember the day you met M —?
ME: No. But that’s probably why I’m not married to M—

As someone who is paid to write about other people’s lives, you would think certain story lines would inevitably get stale. You might imagine certain themes illicit groans, a blinking cursor on a blank screen, or at least a visit to the online thesaurus for another turn of phrase.  And yes, you do become weary of repeating the same stories remedied simply by inserting different people’s names.

As a writer one of the most frustrating things is when someone contacts you trying to promote a story that is in fact not a story. And I guess that might leave you wondering what makes a good one?

In elementary school when you are just learning to write you are taught that a story has a beginning, middle and end with some action in between. Throw in a few adjectives and call it a good time. Otherwise, it’s a just a footnote and who wants your life edited down to something pushed to the fringe? While opinions on what makes a good story vary, in a newsroom the key is in the first word: new. Something noteworthy needs to have happened to get ink; but in general, you need a character people give a shit about doing something people want to hear about.

The stories I seem to expend the most energy writing are those I have to try to even care about long enough to get them down on the page. Mostly they lack a struggle, speed trap or giant pothole. After considering this, I have decided we are all just characters in a big book God is writing and the reason we have so many misunderstandings is because we would otherwise be boring subject matter.

That aside, the one story line I never seem to grow tired of is learning how people met their other. These are best told when the couple is together since both typically have different accounts of the situation and the meat of the story typically lies in these differences.  In my experience, the best stories seem to contain the same elements: the misinterpretation of a moment, a tiny act of God, or a little bit of luck – and most of the time, it’s a combination of all three.

In the case of my parents, they met while working the night shift on the men’s geriatric ward of a local hospital. She was a nurse; he was an orderly. The night she started working he had made a bet with coworkers that the new girl was going to be a fat Italian lady with rolled down knee socks. Not so much. “She was a babe,” my dad recalls. “He had great arms,” my mom says.

He wooed her with homemade doughnuts; she drove him home every time his MG broke down – which was nightly.  Then he moved to France for medical school and left her behind. When he returned over Christmas to find her wearing an engagement ring belonging to someone else, her sick mother, he felt sucker punched and within a week asked her to marry him.  (Who knows how long he would have strung her along otherwise?) They moved to France and have been drinking good wine ever since.

I love that story.

coin tosses aside

For the past year I devoted much of my spare time to exploring career paths – going so far as taking the LSATs – twice, and dropping several hundred dollars on applications to law schools and public policy programs across the country – only to wind up sitting face to face with my future over cokes and cheeseburgers in a sports bar in Menlo Park. There I discovered it was none of the options on the table, but the one tapping loudly on the door I kept trying to ignore.

I am a firm believer in listening to yourself – whether it’s your body or your mind or your heart. Physically, it’s easy to tell when something is wrong. You exhibit symptoms you can feel or see or measure. And you often know the steps you need to take to heal. Typically the cure is just rest, clear liquids and a bit of waiting. The other two are much more difficult to diagnose and treat. That’s why there is so much support for research into the science of decision-making. Imagine the profit for the marketing world to know just what makes you tick and how you rationalize purchases. Imagine the edge politicians get by knowing what issues grab your attention and heartstrings and which will get you to show up on Election Day.

I struggle with the process of decision-making. It’s an emotionally exhausting endeavor I ignore for awhile. Instead I go for some long runs and think about thinking about it. I talk out my options with anyone who will listen. I scan web sites in search of information and an answer. I never write lists weighing my options – that is just not how I organize my thoughts. For me, putting a pen to the page is something you do when you know what you’re going to say, when you know what you’re going to do. It’s final.

Secretly, I’ve always wanted a little old man to approach me on the street and tell me what to do then disappear into the darkness from where he came. Am I looking for God to personally deliver the answer to me? Maybe. It’s comforting to think a divine intervention could occur. But it hasn’t happened yet so I’m stuck making my own decisions for the time being. Besides, I’m not all that comfortable banking my future on what could simply be the rantings of a person off their meds in the Tenderloin.

After coming to my final decision four times, (and confirming the last on a coin toss 3-0), I suffered a panic attack after having lunch with my former editor last week. I sat across from her and realized I was making the safe choice. And that’s not how I operate. I arrive at a decision based on what I want to happen, not what I am afraid will. That’s why I voted for Obama.  That’s how I wound up moving to California in the first place.

Fear is an important part of the decision-making process. Fear can prevent you from doing dumb things like walking alone at night or picking fights with Yankees fans. But fear can intervene on your behalf and make you do dumb things too, like not confessing how you feel to the boy you adore or going to law school. When I finally removed fear (and money) from the equation and considered my options I realized I was only left with one. Afterwards I called my mom.

“Do you need my permission not to go to law school, she asked?
“No. I think I just needed to hear myself say it aloud,” I said.

So, I spent one year and the equivalent of a trip to Europe to determine that I want to do exactly what I’m already doing. But for real this time.

fumbling through spring

There is a troublesome moment when you discover your heart slipped through the cracks and went and fell in love again. The moment is fleeting, typically some tiny instance the other person remembers as an afterthought, if at all, a moment that leaves you shaken and smiling to yourself on the bus and wondering how you were duped so easily.

It might have been the inspection of a glass, the careful way he turns it in his hand and tilts it forward that has you noticing the veins in his arms and how fragile they are. Maybe it’s the moment you noted how her jaw clenches slightly just before she’s about to be proven wrong, or just the way you feel when you know his eyes are resting on you from across the room and find you suddenly can’t look up.

Maybe it’s a sign that spring is finally here, but I am finding that more and more of my friends are falling into those moments. And I adore witnessing the fledgling days of a new relationship. It’s kind of like watching old people search for their cars in grocery store parking lots – fits and starts in opposite directions, a look of confusion and wonder plastered across their faces.

The beginning interactions of a new relationship are never smooth, never filled with silver screen moments of precise conversation and perfectly timed kisses. Instead, they are awkward and fumbling, frightening and painful, and oh how fun. (At least for me.) They are the moments where both parties are standing on the sidewalk, hands shoved in their pockets, shifting from one foot to the other in the cold, and wondering why the other person is standing so very far away. They are the nights we stare at our phones and silently will them to ring and toss under the covers  imagining why they don’t.

I am increasingly curious how several of these starter relationships will play out – when the moment will arrive where they eventually locate the car and decide to give it a test drive.  And despite one’s best attempts at avoiding these moments altogether, it’s strange how easy it is to fall into that space and find yourself suddenly committed to the way a person rolls his jeans and making space in your heart for him to unpack and stretch out, hang up his coat and stay awhile. It’s kind of sad really.

I was having this very conversation with a friend yesterday as she was washing dishes while I sipped a glass of water and listened to her recap her situation. She tried to hide her excitement about her date tonight, saying she had no expectations whatsoever. “I’ve dated enough San Francisco boys to know,” she said. But I knew better. Normal people don’t smile that much while washing the dishes. Finally she turned around, scrubber in hand and just shook her head in defeat.

“Damn,” she said. “It doesn’t take much.”

I just clapped my hands and laughed.

Editor’s note: I find it bittersweet to be writing so hopefully about love today since the California Supreme Court just announced it was upholding Prop 8. If only people cared more about what was happening in their marriages rather than the relationships next door the battle to preserve the word might not be so laughable. Separate definitions are not equal. I look forward to the day all couples – however, they are comprised, can wed and call it what it is: a union between two people in love without exception or explanation.

Papi doesn’t suck!!!

5:42 pm: Voicemail from mom

“Hey Krissy, it’s Mom.  I just wanted to let you know that Big Papi won’t be needing your services. He just hit a home run and JD Drew just hit another one right behind him so we’re doing pretty well. And Youk’s back and he’s got a hit too. But Big Papi came through – a standing ovation and he tipped his helmet to everybody. It was really cool. I hope you’re listening.”

Oh was I.

I was stuck on the Caltrain listening to WRKO on my phone and freaking out in my seat on the upper deck. I looked around for someone to share the moment with but only saw commuters tapping laptop keyboards or passed out entirely, their foreheads pressed against the windows. Naturally, I turned to Twitter, typing: “Papi!!! 129 plate appearances later!!! Home run a curtain call and one giant sense of relief.”

But I was wrong.

Turns out it was 149 plate appearances. (I hadn’t realized how truly dire the situation had become.) Initially I was just happy Jason Varitek officially moved off my last-man-I-want-standing-at-the-plate-in-a-clutch-situation list, after belting his second home run of the game. Then minutes later Papi made the arduous trek to the plate, snapped out of the streak and all was right again in the world. I’m pretty sure all of Red Sox Nation slept a little better last night.

For me, it wasn’t because I truly believe all his struggles at the plate will be solved in one at bat. It wasn’t because I was concerned about the legacy factor; it was simply because I like the guy and every time he struck out or hit a dribbler down to first a tiny piece of my soul died.

And with every at bat proving to be yet another disappointment, it became the giant elephant in the room everyone kept talking about. Just yesterday the Boston Globe ran a story titled “What’s Plan B?” before the game, even quoting Mike Lowell as saying, “I don’t think David’s career is over.” Now that response didn’t come out of nowhere. [Way to keep the faith Massarotti.] It was the question everyone was asking inside. And deep down I suspect Papi was too.

Now I can’t take credit for his home run last night. Despite all my letter writing, tweeting and coaching advice for Tito, I realize this was the work of someone else entirely: my nana.

If you recall, just a few days ago she prescribed the one thing that worked: David needs to have fun again. Well, turns out he listened to another wise old person: his dad. (He must read my blog).

“My father flew in yesterday,” Papi said. “My father told me, ‘It’s not going to get worse than this. Get out there and have fun. Do what you know how to do.’ “

Now time will tell whether Papi continues this new streak. But I feel pretty good right now. I feel good when Papi says things like, “I feel like I got my confidence back. I feel like a real hitter, not like the punch and judy hitter I’ve been the first 40 games . . . swing like a man.”