So If Any of You Have Particularly Dexterous Children With Time On Their Little Hands

The other day I wore this skirt that I made. I dyed the fabric a delicious, sunny, orangy-red with fuchsia circles. I cut it on the bias, so it has lots of swish when I walk. It's fun.

For a while I was selling my bags. Sometimes people would see me wearing a bag I made and say they loved it and ask where I got it, and I would do a little yippee! dance and jump up and down and say "I made it!"

Some people asked if I made them to sell and if so, if they could buy one, and I was so flattered! I was making the fabric for fun anyway, trying new techniques, playing with color and pattern, and so Betty and I just took a bunch of my fabric and made bags and sold them. We had friends patiently waiting to buy them.

But here's what I've figured out. That in order to be at all compensated for time, I'd need to sell them for eleventy hundred dollars. Each. Which I wasn't doing. It made it just not worth the time.

It's one thing to just buy fabric and sew it. But when you start by dyeing your own fabric, that in itself takes hours. And then the cutting and stitching takes a long damn time and a ton of effort on top of that.

Now, part of the time investment is that Betty does everything perfectly. Her seams are amazing. She measured my cell phone and iPod and then sewed pockets to fit them. The things she sews are so well constructed that you could seriously carry 100 pounds of rocks in these bags.

And me, it turns out I'm selectively anal. When I'm really interested in something I'm doing, I'm very precise.

All this precision and anality, it's time consuming. So admittedly, these could take a little less time. If we weren't us. But we are.

So we stopped making them. We decided to keep and use the ones we have. We both really like all of them. Each one is totally unique. And they're perfect for summer. Light, and you can sling them across your body like a messenger bag, so they don't pull one shoulder down.

Friends suggested that I just design the patterns and have other people make them. But I love working with fabric and I wouldn't know where to begin a production process. So then they suggested that I outsource the sewing, since that's not the part I love anyway.

So I asked one of my dearest friends, Sam, who is a big proponent of me turning this into a business, if he'd give me some help. He has tons of family. Doesn't he have any relatives with young children that I could exploit?

Because child labor, that would really be the way to go in terms of cost savings. Plus I'm sure their fingers are much more nimble. I don't have any kids and my nephew is only one. It'll be years before he learns to sew, or is really of much practical use at all.

Don't you think?

The Naming of the Dude

I once worked at a place that had such high turnover that they had started waiting three months before ordering a new employee a name plate for their office. I think I've recently adopted this policy myself.

Lately I have been referring to this guy as "this guy." Actually, he noted, I've referred to him in a variety of ways on my blog.

But he has sort of kind of somewhat did I say sort of (cautious? twitchy? me?) become an actual person in my life lately. As he pointed out this morning when I added him to an Evite for a friend's party - he's moved up from +1 status to having a name. Ha.

And, barring unforeseen calamitous behaviour, will continue to be a person in my life, at least for another month, at which point he moves to NY.

Somehow, this is perfect for right now. It's easy to avoid people who are leaving. But it's also easy to get involved. Like, he's leaving so this is safe. It can be really fun and feel great, and we can be totally open and candid with the safety of a built-in end. We chatted very frankly about this the other night.

With my peripatetic upbringing, we were always leaving somewhere. You knew at the outset that you'd only know people for a year or two, four at the most. And so you attached quickly. And detached and moved on just as quickly.

I used to be great at that. I used to be so good at having a person in my life in the here and now and then walking away without looking back.

At some point I realized that the people who mattered, those people stayed in my life. No matter how much time goes by, we will always pick up where we left off. Maude, for example who I know from when I was born. She lives in England but we still see each other. Same with my high school crony Kris who lives in Paris. To name a couple very long-standing friendships.

Somewhere along the way, though, I lost that letting go without a twinge ability. I value people more, I think. I share more of myself than I used to. The ones I really let in get into my heart and my soul.

Wow - this is not where I thought I was going with this! Which is hardly a surprise to anyone.

On a side bar, a college friend and I used to write papers together sometimes. Not collaboratively, just writing side by side. She'd make an outline; she knew where she was starting and where she was ending. And I'd just sit down and write.

I was always so impressed with her ability to line it all up before she started. Because how, I wondered, how did she know where she was going before she began? How did she know how it was going to wind up before she was immersed in the middle? How how how?

And she couldn't understand how I could just write without these things. How could I even start if I didn't know the middle or the end? But it seems to be the only way I can do things. I have to see how it feels along the way.

So to end this wending post. . .I'm not sure what to call him.

I could call him The Director, which is how Betty and some of my friends have referred to him since we met working on the 48-hour film. We were driving back from wineries on Saturday and I called Betty to see if she was home so we could stop by, but she was just on her way out the door.

She said, "Oh, I'm so sorry! I would love to meet your director!"

My director. Heh. He's possibly one of the least directorial men in my life ever. As I've said before, he doesn't have an agenda. He's just plain nice. It's refreshing. I'm not sure what it says about me that I generally attract and am attracted to control freaks, but that's a bit much to delve into now.

He doesn't mind how I refer to him - I get to choose. He doesn't mind what I write, as long as it's not some kind of big weird surprise news to him. This is fair.

So I might call him The Director. I quite like it.

Oh, and for the title of the post - apologies to Shakespeare. And a nod to the Coen Brothers.

Especially with a little BBQ sauce

I should be more mature than a dog. I really should.

I spent a good part of Memorial Day with this guy. Which also meant spending a lot of time with Kaylie. His little lemon beagle - like a regular beagle but blonde. What a coincidence, no? I figured we were destined to be friends. Until I realized that she loathes me. Because I am a huge impediment to her having ALL of his attention, and it really irritates her. She won't even look at me.

We went out strolling Saturday - coffee at Starbucks, walking around his neighborhood. Partly for exercise for the dog, partly to enjoy the gorgeous day. We stopped at Rocklands (yum!) to pick up BBQ for lunch.

He went in and I was standing outside with her. And she was at the far end of the leash, head pointed away from me, with this look on her face that read, "God knows I want nothing to do with that woman. It's a vile coincidence she's holding my leash."

And then he came out and she bounded towards him all "Love me love me love me! And get rid of her, wouldja?"

She is really, really bright, with lovely expressive black eyes. I know exactly what she's thinking and why she's behaving this way. I don't know what to do about it, though.

So we were walking and we passed a couple who was strapping their child into a stroller. Kaylie loves kids, so she headed over to sniff. The child reached for her.

He said to the couple, "Don't worry, she's really gentle. And she loves babies."

And I said, "Because they taste so good."

While he, at the exact same moment, said, "Because they're so tasty."

She's got me beat in the number of nipples category, but I know for a fact that I have a better sense of humor.

I'll protect you from the hooded claw, keep the vampires from your door...Or, the perils of drunk downloading.

A week ago my office moved into a new location. A fabulous space, with a cool new Spanish restaurant/bar on the ground floor. It's bright and airy and oh so friendly. I can imagine many happy hours there, in fact.

So I had, over the course of the evening, three beers with colleagues. And my boss. And his boss. They were asking me about my personal life, and so I gave them a brief synopsis. And then it occurred to me that I should call this guy to see if he wanted to join us.

I got his voice mail and he returned my call once I was already home. And I was flat out hammered. Seriously.

When I drink my personality often doesn't change - it just gets more so. More chatty. More giggly. More non-sequitur-y. More jump up and down yay! fun! yippee!

Doesn't just reading this make you a little tired?

So I answered "Hi! We moved into a new office and I had three beers although they have very yummy wine as well I tasted some and how are you and how was your day and what are you doing now and did I tell you that the bar of this place is cool and I left you a message and wow, I think I had too much to drink! And oh, it's Lisa, by the way."

Which he knew. Because he'd called me.

He said he was working and I suggested he come over. Because his work? At home? Had nothing to do with me. And I wanted to play! And yay! Monday! Come over!

And so he did. How he had the patience for me in such a ridiculous state, I have no idea.

After I gave him a tour of my fridge and plied him with beer and tried on my fun new platform shoes that I'd gotten the day before (Look look look! Now I'm tall enough to almost look you in the eye without standing on my tip tip toes!) and turned down the AC from 78 (my perfect temperature) to 74 (requiring me to put on a fleece), we sat down on the couch.

He sipped beer and I chugged Gatorade. Because I may be ridiculous and lack moderation and judgement, but hydration is pretty high on my priority list.

We were talking music and scrolling through my iPod, figuring out what to listen to. I handed him my laptop so he could look through my iTunes library.

We started talking about the 80's - I have a lot of 80's music - and my best friend Kristin from high school, which led to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which I used to listen to with her all the time. The only thing I wish I still had from that era is my neon green Relax tank top. Alas. Oh, and photos from when I had that Cyndi Lauper criss-cross shaved into the side of my head. Don't think I'm kidding.

But anyway, something we were talking led him to jokingly say, "I'll protect you..." which reminded me that Frankie had a great song called The Power of Love. He absolutely had to hear it. I had to download The Power of Love. Had to.

Which begins with the spoken lines, "I'll protect you from the hooded claw. Keep the vampires from your door. . ."

Um.

A song I'd probably not heard since the end of the 80's. But such a very profound song. Don't you think? Heh. I have drunk downloaded many such gems, in fact.

To his credit, he only teased me a little. And did no apparent eye rolling.

It's probably good, though. It prepared him for how thrilled I was to find my seemingly lost Cyndi Lauper CD in my glove box a couple days later. As well as the little yellow HIGH COLONIC? sticky note.

Because girls? Girls just wanna have fun.

The Charm and the Ache of Damien Rice

I so rarely have visceral reactions to music.

It's true. I rarely feel it. Reading usually makes me feel more than listening. I can't carry a tune to save my life. I love 80's tunes, and while all of my love for them is tied up in nostalgia, the truth is, I cannot make a qualitative distinction between Boy George and Beethoven.

Just so you know where I'm coming from. When I like good music, it's probably accidental.

And so lovely Laura invited me to go see Damien Rice. And I only knew a few songs of his - The Blower's Daughter, Volcanoes, and 9 Crimes - but I'd loved them immediately upon hearing them. So I jumped at the invitation. And turned out to be happily charmed by him as a performer.

But last night most of the music was new to me. If I were one of those organized people, I'd probably have downloaded his albums and gotten familiar with him. But I'm one of those people who doesn't even necessarily know where I'm going when I get on a bus, so surprises at a concert are the kind of thing I like.

He started singing Accidental Babies, which is about unfaithful lovers, which is not what resonated with me, because I am faithful like a dog. Not a flattering image, but absolutely true.

But I just felt the music, the wanting, the lack of having. Immediately, it made me ache.

And so when he sang, "Do you miss my smell?" I realized tears had started rolling down my face.

The missing of someone's smell, that went to my stomach immediately. It reminded me that you can think you're done missing someone, and you can even feel it's a good thing you're not together. But it can knock you sideways realizing you can still feel the lack.

Because smell, smell is like Proust and his damn madeleines. You can have a great deal of distance and be mostly fine. But when you saw the person last month, and you kissed on the cheek and you hugged goodbye, you remembered that that to you is still the smell of being completely in love, and loved, and passion, and comfort, and, more powerfully than anything perhaps because of the fuckedupness of your life, safety.

And so Damien sang, and Laura contended with the asshat woman seated next to her who insisted, when she wasn't texting everyone in creation saying, "I'm at Damien Rice!" - because of course it's more fun to tell people where you are than luxuriate in the experience - on talking to her neighbor.

And I sat there with huge, fat tears running down my face.

I didn't realize immediately that I was crying, I was so in the moment. It wasn't until they hit my chest and ran under my breasts. I was wearing a very low cut, stretchy dress, with lots of skin exposed. Which, having a very modest amount of breasts, I feel very comfortable doing.

But this dress, it turns out, is a poor choice for crying, unless you catch your tears on your way down your cheeks. Because having a modest amount of breasts, it's not like they just form a pool on top. Oh, no, they make a beeline for your stomach.

And so then I was faced with the dilemma of seemingly fondling my breasts in public (really! I'm just drying my tears!) or letting the damn things dry. I chose the latter. But it was cold in there! And those were some enormous tears! That took a long time to dry!