Just a year ago I was in Colorado, riding my bike a lot, and thinking un-neighborly thoughts about my neighbors while decrying false patriotism. Hmm, I was going to say, “Wow! Look how things have changed in my life!” but I guess only a few of those things have changed: I still ride my bike a lot, I still think un-neighborly thoughts about my neighbors, and though I haven’t yet today brought up the false patriotism thing, it’s been on my mind. So…other than moving 1800 miles, nothing’s changed, right?
And yet, so very much has changed.
In fact, if you had sat me down a year ago with a list of everything that’s happened to me since then, I probably would have just barely restrained myself from hitting you before going directly upstairs to hide my head under a pillow. And yet, I am supremely happy with my life now. Sure, there are a few frustrations, especially in the logistics department, but wow! Look how much I’ve changed!
So I am well pleased.
However, I have a few things on my list which require complaint to the appropriate department. Shall we have a look at them? (Oh, not a literal look of course, as that would require Extra Steps! Hooking up the camera! Uploading to Flickr! Which you should check out because there’s a few new photos up! Nice segue huh?)
1. I received a call last night from the mom of one of Serena’s first-grade classmates. We got as far as, “Karen?” “Yes…?” “This is Firstname Lastname…” and then she trailed off oddly. To fill in the awkward silence, I said, helpfully, “Hi Firstname, how are you?”
More silence.
Then she came back and said, brightly, as if she had been thankfully let off the hook somehow, “Oh! I’m getting a call! Can I call you back?”
Sure. But you, uh, called me. Which, excuse me if I’m wrong, implies that you might have wanted to talk to me? But of course, you go and talk to whoever’s calling you. That you could have called back because you see, you already have me on the phone. But obviously, that other person? is far more important.
So thank you! I now know for sure where I stand with you! Good thing we cleared that up!
2. Being all concerned and stuff for the environment and for underpaid workers and all, while at Trader Joe’s the other day I thought I’d check out their organic shade-grown fair-trade coffee. It would save me from ordering online the way I usually do, I reasoned, and would save in transportation costs and the associated costs to the environment in terms of exhaust from the truck to ship it here to me and the airplane to ship it to the roaster, and…well, I was already in Trader Joe’s getting enough bagels to last us three months or so until I go back there again because it’s a long drive but the children only like the bagels from TJ’s so we go there and drop like $100 each time because of all the other stuff, like organic maple syrup and tiny chocolate cookies shaped like cats, that somehow magically levitates into our cart, and well, I was already there so why not check out the coffee, right? I mean, I’m already there and all.
So I bring my coffee home, noting that it costs less! than what I usually spend on coffee, which is of course always a good thing, and hey! Maybe TJ’s can be my regular coffee supplier, why not?
I open the bag of coffee and peer inside. The beans, normally a gorgeous chocolate brown color, seem tiny, wizened, and charred to a blackness not normally associated with coffee or anything, really, related to food or consumables. I have a look at the back of the package. “Dark roast.” Oh, ew. These charred black bits? Is that what “dark roast” is all about? Bleh. I put some in the coffee grinder anyway, hoping for the best, and grind it the proscribed 11 seconds. I open the grinder and inhale deeply of the aroma, which usually is pure wonderful coffee. I smell nothing but burned blackness.
I mete out a paltry bit of what little real coffee I have left so I can have at least a cup and then dash online to make my order from the roaster who will roast my beans exquisitely to a nutty brown, then package them and ship them to me via exhaust-spewing airplanes and diesel-spewing trucks, to land at my door in a day or two before my last bit of stash runs out.
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Okay, so maybe some things about me don’t change much. But on the other hand, a year ago I wasn’t writing and getting paid for it. A year ago I wasn’t writing a book, nor was I learning to live what’s in the book. A year ago I was a year less confident about my work than I am now, and the number of clients I have now as compared to then shows the difference. A year ago I viewed my life as out of control. Out of control and under the control of others. Ew! A year ago I viewed relationships much differently than I do now. A year ago I didn’t know myself as well as I do now. A year ago I was essentially unhappy and didn’t know what to do about it.
So, like I said, a lot has changed.
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