Jen Larsen's Blog, page 4

very very very fine

So it’s going to be three years ago this fall that Ben and I bought this house. After months and months and some ridiculous number of listings. Because we hated all of them, because they were weird. And of course every once in awhile we considered settling but we didn’t because we are stubborn. And maybe a little stupid. But mostly stupidly stubborn. And we kept looking.

And eventually, once in a while, one would come close—but only for one of us. Ben wanted the one with two bathrooms back to back. So you could pee separately, but with a sense of camaraderie! That’s not why he wanted it, but it was among the reasons I hated it. We made an offer, though. And it fell through because they wanted really way too many dollars for a house with back-to-back bathrooms.

We offered on a house with an honest-to-god pirate fort in the backyard. You could tell by the pirate flag. The owner rejected our offer and then counteroffered 15 grand above the actual list price and we said yes of course! Except we couldn’t afford it not even for a pirate fort and my heart broke into three pieces that day. S

Then we found the two-story place with the horrible kitchen and the worse bathroom and the creepy man-cave downstairs, with a wet bar and a hand dryer. An honest-to-god hand dryer in the bathroom. We saw it twice. He said, “come on.” I said—okay, fine. And we bought a house.

This house. With the creepy man cave and the hand dryer and the wet bar and the industrial tile. We bought it, and we realized we loved it. We loved this weird house. It was our house, and we nested. To be fair—I nested. It’s what I do. I’m fond of talking about how I moved to San Francisco with all my belongings in two suitcases, but what I actually did was immediately buy two thousand dollars worth of IKEA furniture to fill up my new studio apartment. To pin me down, maybe. To make me feel a sense of solidity.

I nested. And we tried to decorate together, but what we did instead was fight about paint colors and I cried because I am insane but seriously, if someone insisted that you had to paint the living room walls cobalt with lime green molding and orange trim, wouldn’t you maybe burst into tears too? We argued about furniture and decorating. We argued about every single decorating decision and finally he said, you decide. You care more than I do.

For a really long time, it was the most important thing in the world to me—making this house perfect. And I wanted to make Ben happy too. Because happiness is important; because I felt guilty. Look this is your favorite color and I know you want a couch that you can stretch out on and I know you want a big table so we can have people over and I know these are things you like and I’m trying very hard, here.

He didn’t really care one way or the other. He wasn’t aggressively apathetic. It just. It didn’t mean to him what it meant to me. He loved the house as much as I did, but it didn’t mean the same things to him, I think.

So when we broke up, he said, the house is yours. The house has always been more yours than mine and I said no, wait I wanted to make you happy too, but we both knew what he meant.

It’s a big house. It’s huge, actually. Two stories plus a finished basement. Three bedrooms upstairs, three bathrooms, a dining room. We thought we needed something huge because at the time we were both working from home and each needed an office. Because we thought we needed the biggest house possible. Because we were flush with the power of a double income.

It turns out when your income is halved you have about half as much buying power, even if your mortgage stays the same. It used to be that I could weather the occasional late freelance checks or a dip in work and it would always be okay, but that couldn’t happen any more. Except it did. And kept happening, a long and unexpected dry spell at the worst time possible.

Suddenly I was in trouble, and having a roommate helped but it was still a struggle and there’s a special kind of panic that happens when you think maybe you could lose everything, just because you didn’t think things through and a special kind of fury at yourself when you realize what you let happen.

Selling the house would have meant a loss, my broker told me. So I went and got a desk job, and that was useful. And now, this weekend, one after the other, there are two more roommates moving in.

I am so happy to have them—they are people I love, and people I trust and respect and if I had to live with anyone, it would be with them. We will have a good household and we will cook and talk and retreat happily to all our separate bedrooms and not talk for days and it will be good but our house, and then my house, the house the way it was. It is all gone for good now.

It’s okay—it is better than okay. It’s something I’m glad we’re doing, but look, okay, a part of me hates it. Hates it so much. A part of me still harbors so much of that fury at myself. At the way things turned out. At my short sightedness. At luck and also free will. I love my house, and I am so glad to keep it and grateful to have found such a good way and I am going to miss it so much.

inventions

1. A bread squeezer. It squeezes bread for you, into satisfying balls that are excitingly spongy-yet-dense in texture and are a joy to eat. It has many off-label uses, none of which this manufacturer wants to hear about.

2. A hobby horse. It’s a horse that does hobbies for you. Because it’s important to have hobbies, but who has time for them? Your hobby horse does!

3. nü shüs. They are the mighty morphin’ power ranger of shoes, transforming from ordinary–to extraordinary! Your nü shüs are the best shoes in the world. But then you get bored and they are not any longer the best shoes in the world. So a thing happens that you do (patent pending) and suddenly you have shiny NÜ (NEW) shoes on your pretty, pretty feet. It’s a 3-D printing thing, you wouldn’t understand because science.

4. Portable comedy. Are you feeling sad? Of course you are, it is the human condition in these, the modern dark ages. But what’s this? There’s comedy in your pants! And not the kind your ex-girlfriend accused you of having that one time in public. Pull out your Portable Comedy Kit and you are guaranteed laughs for miles, and miles for laughs. Wherever you go, and whatever you do: it’s comedy that’s always there for you! Probably there will be a monkey in it, and maybe some fart noises and a butt.

5. Kittenponyotterbunny. Welcome to the glorious future of bioengineering, where all the cutest animals have their cutenesses extracted and then poured into a new, stronger better faster vessel of heart-crushingly squishy happiness. The kittenponyotterbunny is guaranteed to make you stop screaming after you witness the manufacturing process because that level of cute will just BLOW YOUR MIND.

6. Y-ray vision. It’s like X-ray, only BETTER. Why just see through one thing when you can see through ALL the things? Once you try it, you’ll go from saying “why ray?” to “hoo-ray!” if your mind withstands the crashingly soul-crushing vision of infinity.

7. An ostrich hat. Don’t put your head in the sand literally, because that will just muss your hair. Don the microfiber ostrich hat and blissful oblivion of your surroundings is yours.

8. 3D printing. You print things IN THREE DIMENSIONS. Note to self: explore extraordinary medical uses that can transform healthcare forever.

9. Life-size caterpillars. Not their life-size–yours! Play Kwisatz Haderach in your own backyard with your giant fuzzy friend. Charge neighbors for tree services. And when your big buddy becomes a beautiful butterfly, you’ll never pay to check your luggage ever again.

10. Spare hearts. Things happen to hearts. They break, or break down. They fall, they flip, they beat double time. They get worn out! Muscle fatigue is real, you guys. So a spare heart isn’t just a luxury–it’s necessity.

Note to investors: Call me!

spring spring spring spring spring

It’s spring, it’s spring, it’s spring. There was sunshine at 6:30 in the morning, and it lingered. It swept the lawn and broke in through the windows and sat on the couch and crawled into beds and woke everyone up. It was warm and it was substantial—you could actually feel it on your skin. Touches on your face and neck and hands. This wasn’t that watery, thin, almost-clear sun that makes you a little high in the winter. This was—is—spring sun, almost-summer sun, the kind that you have to push through, the kind that slows you right the hell down to the pace of pure and essential candy-like happiness.

Pure and essential candy-like happiness is one of the harbingers of spring. It would be the best of all possible horsemen of the apocalypse but that is probably asking too much of current world religion.

It’s spring and there is sunshine. There are tulips in the yard and they are loud. They’re the best color red there is, the kind you want to put in all caps, RED. That color. The color of spring except the real color of spring is when the trees are exploding everywhere, in white and purple and pink and green. The trees are fireworks, and the fireworks don’t stop they hang suspended as you pass slowly and it feels like this could be endless, spring. Especially after endless winter. But you hardly even remember what winter felt like any more, because spring, you guys.

It’s totally spring. And in thirty seconds it won’t be, any more, despite how slow the sun is and how pure and essential the candy-like happiness is and despite how the firework trees look like they’re going to hang there forever, and that is okay because blah blah the cycle of life and blah blah the nature of change and blah blah the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind and etc. You know all about that.

It doesn’t matter, though, what any of us know because there’s not a lot we can do about it. And there’s a comfort in that, a real comfort when it doesn’t send you spiraling into mad-style madness where you go totally mad because free will and also the simultaneous lack of it—and it is comforting how the series of tiny eternal compromises that consciousness is sends us rattling away from that idea whenever we get too close. Because we’re easily distractible, especially during spring spring spring spring spring.

talking

The kind you never, ever meant to do on an airplane at 6 in the morning. When it’s too early to be alive, and there is not enough coffee in the world, not even if they turned on all the coffee-making machines and constructed a complicated funnel that poured it all into your face. When you’re nervous about where you’re going. When you notice that your seatmate kind of looks like the pretty version of Keira Knightley. Only cooler, and probably sleepier. But you’d never say so because what kind of animal talks to her seatmate on a flight? But then she says something offhand under her breath about the flight attendant and makes you laugh. And you say something in return, and she laughs. And somehow, you don’t stop. The kind of talking that carries you through a two-hour flight and sleep giddiness. Her fiancé and your quiet hopes. Jobs and careers and life choices and the kinds of hearts it takes to make specific decisions. And you exchange contact info when you both head off to your respective layovers and you remember talking about the wonder of this digital world that is so ridiculous and awful and keeps everyone in touch and you’re glad for it.

The kind when you’ve known each other for years. So many years. All the years, and through all the worst of it, of both of you. You know each other’s most horrible hopes and very worst dreams and evilest deeds. You have seen each other at your ugliests. And yet. The kind of talking that never changes but is always exactly right and comfortable. You say the right things to each other, and it’s always a gift. He’s got a beer and a shot and you should have a Manhattan but instead it’s a glass of wine with your lunch and you’re talking about the vagaries of life and the absurdities you always talk about and you are aware that this is when you are your most relaxed, when you have to talk. You are so much better at writing than talking. But this talking is as comfortable as talking to yourself, only funnier.

The kind of talking you do in a room full of people you graduated with, the instructors who taught you how to write and about what kind of writer you wanted to be. Who kicked your ass and saw how bad you could fail. Who are proud of you because you did okay in the end. To the writers in the room who are on every single point of that spectrum, to both sides of you. Talking about fear and success and ability and hope and possibility and change. Talking about this book you made and how it’s in the world. Talking about how strange it is. Talking about how proud you are. Making that admission, because you can in a room full of writers. That is what you can talk about.

Talking when you’ve known each other for years but only recently, only recently realized that you should have really known each other, really for years. Too much time not noticing that you had so much in common and why aren’t you friends? Why not yet? Because there is so much to talk about. There are all the things to say. There is not enough time to say them, ever, even over the oysters you’ve been craving since oysters crawled up on land and became frogs or whatever. Oysters and writing and how exhausting it is. More oysters and the complexities of relationships. Navigating love and navigating friendship. Tangling and untangling the threads that lead you through the maze but not to the maw of the minotaur, you hope. But the problem is you always worry that there’s a minotaur, and you always worry that the thread could—can, will, might, whatever the fuck you can’t think about it now—break and it is a wonder that sometimes you can go on hoping and keep creeping ahead.

The kind of talking in a car that smells like fried onion ring chips and garlic potato chips and pork rinds and all the other awfulnesses you’ve swept off the shelf with one arm to carry along with you on a long drive up (down? You always forget which way) to the next place where you have to do more talking—about yourself, about the book you wrote, and why you wrote it but you’re trying not to think about that. The kind of talking you do with someone who so important to you but has been so far away for too long—have you ever lived in the same city? Have you ever had more than a handful of hours together? But every time it’s like there wasn’t all those miles though there is a moment of pressure as you push through the funny and the glib and you fall into the real part of your friendship, the true part that makes it so important and real. And you talk about things that range along that scale, from butt jokes to the construction of consciousness, from friendship and fear to the kinds of words you backspace because that’s how much respect you have for them. It’s like a Kinsey scale you’re playing, only the nakedness is all emotional and it is the kind of talking that feels good. Invigorating. The kind of talking that makes you remember who you are and even more importantly who you hope to be. Of who this person in your life is, and how long you hope to keep them.

The kind where you know each other so well, and so strangely, and so strangely well–but not at all. Where you are texts and phone calls, but not people yet to each other, with head and hair and heartbeats and facial expressions and a smile that stops you short just for a split second because you didn’t know that’s what it looked like and now you are so glad to know. Where there is so much that is familiar, like a song you heard once but only once and only a long time ago but you know you liked it. You know it has stuck with you for a reason. And it’s coming back to you while you talk and you realize that you are talking and this is different and strange until it isn’t any more, and it’s just talking about everything, some of it important and some of it not and you’ve walked three miles through the city without noticing and that’s the kind of thing that happens when you know someone, and now you do, or you’re starting to and it is a happiness. That kind of talking.

The kind of talking where you’re panicked. Where you’re in the spotlight and being called upon to be poised, smart, articulate. And do it on television. But you have to be poised, smart, and articulate off the cuff, on the television, about something incredibly personal to you. Something that scares you a little bit when you think about it, makes you feel vulnerable even though by now, my god, aren’t you over that yet? Even if you aren’t totally confident and secure you should be able to fake it, am I right? So you fake it. The kind of talking where you smile and you keep smiling and your mouth moves but you’re not sure you’re saying the right thing but you keep talking because it is sink or swim, honey. That’s just the way it is. That’s the way it always is, really, and you feel like you’ve learned a valuable lesson when you collapse afterwards, just glad you lived through all the talking.

And then, the kind of silence where you realize you haven’t spoken to anyone all day, not out loud. You can’t ever stop talking with your fingers—your brain is wired directly to your hands and ha if that’ll ever change. Where it is a relief to be quiet, for a little while. A silent spot where you realize you’ve always been terrified of talking, out loud, to people. Strangers and not and semi-strangers. And that you’ve lived through that too. That the more you do something, the better you get at it. That it’s also really nice to be quiet for awhile.

may fly

This is something I forget sometimes: I have a lot of love in my life.

Like, a lot. I am lucky to be liked, loved, cared for, considered carefully and well by a significant number of people. I am important. I mean something to their lives and to their hearts. Sometimes, more often than I know, usually when I don’t realize, I am in their thoughts. Sometimes when they go to the grocery store or they’re driving or on the subway or sitting on the couch making noises at their beautiful baby, they think about me the same way I think about them. My heart is full of them, and their hearts have room for me too.

I am an incredibly lucky woman.

I forget that, sometimes. And that is selfish. To think you are invisible? To think that you don’t matter? It is unfair. All those kilowatts of heart-power going wasted? It could power a small city, the love you have in your life. I promise you.

It’s taken me so many years to figure this out. So many! Too many! Really a ridiculous number of years. My god, I am the worst learner in the world. I never remember anything for more than the space of approximately five minutes. I am a May fly. So I have to keep relearning, over and over, and it is painful every time, the cycle. I can forget in the instant of a bad day, or it can be ground out of me over the course of a long week and then I have to figure out all over again why I feel wretched, why that wretched feeling is a lie, why I am utterly crazy, why I need to stop doing this, for the love of god.

Some day it’s going to stick, I swear.

Right now, right now I remember because I have palpable reminders that I am loved. Every time I go to the fridge there are the cards, the beautiful families of my beautiful friends—mo pie and the cute brigade (a jug band), Trixie and Penny and the geese who bite, Magnus the littlest tattoo artist. There’s the desktop photo I try to remember to look at every couple of hours, my little bright-faced nephew tucked into the arms of his dad, one of my favorite people on earth.

There’s the leatherwork pencil case on my desk, stamped with my name and perfect for a writer, from A. The utterly gorgeous, painstakingly hand-painted matroyshka dolls from Karen that made me burst into sobs the moment I unwrapped them. Each one is perfect. Each one is the work of hours and thought. Each one is utterly humbling.

I forget that being overcome with sincerity is no bad thing. I forget that I am loved as much as I love.

frequently asked questions

You have questions! Some of them are asked frequently. In order that everyone may be served at once, rather than in the order they’ve queued, I’ve prepared this valuable document to provide you with the information you need, the security you desire, the intimacy you have always longed for with your distant father.

If you do not find the answers you seek here, perhaps Googling will turn up some kind of result. I suggest googling “adorable kittens” or “tiny baby bunnies.” That always leads me good places I don’t ever want to leave.

How tall are you?

My legs reach the ground! Oh ho ho.

How funny are you?

See above.

How much do you weigh now?

Anywhere from 150 to 160, I think? I prefer not to know because things get less fraught that way.

What type of weight loss surgery did you get?

The duodenal switch. See here for all the information your heart could possibly desire. Please avoid looking at the before-and-after photos until you’ve thoroughly absorbed all the information provided, up to and including the parts where they’re pulling your intestines apart and then stitching them back together.

Further investigation will reveal that there are many types of weight loss surgery available, but I know little about them.

Should I get the duodenal switch?

I don’t know! I rushed into the decision because I thought it was going to solve all my problems. If weight loss surgery sounds like something you want to do or something you need to do, do me a favor and don’t just go sign up for it. Research it, talk to you doctor, and get counseling to make sure you’re ready for that kind of major operation. It changes your whole life–you need to switch up how you eat and how you take care of yourself and you need to exercise and you need to not be dumb.

Don’t, in other words, do what I did.

Should I do what you did?

No.

So are you a model for weight loss surgery patients everywhere?

Yes, clearly. My book is a how-to manual. On opposite day. (See what I did there? Oh ho ho.)

Should I get weight loss surgery?

Talk to your doctor and do the research and if you do, eat right and exercise and take your vitamins.

Are you a hypocrite?

Probably.

Would you get weight loss surgery again?

Yes. It is easier to be thin than to be fat. Science shows us that diets don’t work. Genetics means I would never diet my way to skinniness. If I went back in time and decided I wanted to be thin, I would choose weight loss surgery as my method of getting there. I would just be less stupid going about it.

Are you happy?

I am really goddamn happy. I love my life and my friends and my house and my dog and some days I even love myself but that’s always a work in progress, frankly.

How did you become happy and will it work for me?

I wish it would work for you. I want everyone to be happy and then we’ll all have picnics! With party cake and pink lemonade and dancing bears and never work again.

Except I don’t have the answer. It took me seven years of stupid decisions to finally come to terms with the fact that I make stupid decisions. And that it’s okay to make stupid decisions because the mistakes you make are the things that help you figure out what you really want and how you really want to get there. I started running, and that’s helped me believe that my body is worth more than how it looks–it’s strong and it can get me places and do awesome things.

If you’ll excuse me for being sappy for a second–you know how much I hate sappy–everyone’s body is amazing and awesome. I am not even joking. And figuring that out, I think, is one of the keys to happiness. Or heroin. I hear that works too.

How old are you?

Oh dude, I don’t know. I’m not forty yet, and I’m okay with that. I suspect I’ll be okay when I turn forty though too, if only because here I am still alive on this earth. Here is hoping I am still alive here on this earth. Ooh, won’t this be morbid if I die?

Where the hell is Ogden?

It’s northern Utah! 40 minutes out of Salt Lake City, and the coolest town you’ve never heard of.

And why are you in northern Utah?

Remember Ben? Ben is from northern Utah.

Wait so you ended up with Ben?

I sure did! I moved to Utah, instead of him moving to San Francisco, because I could afford to live off my freelance income and that was way rad. We were together a little over 4 years.

Are you still together?

We are not, but he is one of my favorite people in the world.

Will you be my girlfriend/come kiss me with tongue/let me gently relieve you of your anal virginity?

No.

What happened to Andy?

He was eaten by a bear. By which I mean he still lives happily in San Francisco, and remains awesome. He is also one of my best friends.

Is he gay?

No.

Are you gay?

No.

Does Carrie [your brother's wife] know you portrayed her as such a raging bitch?

Carrie knows I portrayed her as someone who was so secure and happy in her relationship and her self that she was comfortable enough to express her real feelings, to share her anxiety, and be herself with her husband-to-be. Carrie and Ken were the model of a healthy relationship with healthy communication–even arguing!–that did not immediately cause their relationship to crumble. Etcetera.

How do your friends put up with you?

One leg at a time.

What are you writing now?

An FAQ. Oh ho ho ho. Also a young adult novel about identity and inner strength and rad stuff like that.

Are you available for bar mitzvahs?

Is there a buffet?

Can I ask more questions?

You sure can. I try to answer all the emails I get.

awkward all the way down

photo by mo pie

A friend and beloved of mine from grad school wrote me an email a few weeks ago. She had seen me on the teevee, and she said–we’ve come such a long way from being in class. She meant of course that we are really old and about to crumble into gravedust, but she was also talking very specifically about how afraid we used to feel, and timid.

And god, I remember that. The smallest grad school classes–I refused to volunteer information. Which was less than ideal vis a vis a discussion class. And when I was called on–the painful burning at the tips of my ears, the tops of my cheeks, down my neck and into my decolletage because suddenly I was being looked at. The horrible, tears-welling-up stammer and the Long Stare of Terror. The blank head and the slightly open mouth and the fight-or-flight response that kicked my nerves into highest gear. The dwindling off into silence while everyone kind of looked at their hands and felt sorry for me and wondered what the hell I was doing in grad school. Wasn’t I supposed to be an adult?

I was supposed to be an adult, but I had never figured out how to be a good one–I mean, no one ever does, right? Or ever thinks that they manage it. But I was the cliche of the fat kid who grew up cripplingly shy and afraid of being looked at and afraid of being thought about and afraid about putting even more of herself into the world–wasn’t this body an overgenerous amount to already offer? Seriously, go look at a scenic vista or something and pretend I’m not here, okay? We’ll pretend this never happened. I’ll go back to pretending I never happened, because it’s just easier that way, ghosting your way through the world.

Years of that! Way too many years, you guys. No one should slouch around feeling like that. No one should ever think that way. Especially so far beyond the teenage years when you could maybe expect to feel mopey and tragic and blame it on your hormones. Far beyond any reasonable statute of limitations. Even past the point where I developed a sense of self-awareness and a sense of style and a sense of self–there was a core of that terror that never quite dwindled. Like a hunk of schwarma meat on a metal spike, spinning greasily inside me.

And while I managed to basically muddle my way through life without actually tipping my hand as to the actual content of my innermost innards, public speaking never got easier. Talking to strangers? Oh, you are going to die, the insides of my brains jangled at me, and then it was all downhill from there. Parties were painful and interviews were more like interrogations and I avoided the whole talking thing as much as possible.

You can’t do that in grad school. So there was the meaty fear inside me, and here was me feeling, two nights a week, like an awkward fool who would never get over awkwarding around all awkwardly.

One of the things weight loss surgery was supposed to fix was this fear. They were supposed to scoop it on out, while they were inside me, and discard it in a medical waste pile somewhere. When I wasn’t fat, my reasoning went, I wouldn’t be so afraid of being looked at.

Of course when I wasn’t fat by empirical standards, I was still afraid of being looked at because I was sure I still didn’t look right. At every size, for the love of god.

As I got older–grew up for real–as I felt more confident in myself and started figuring my bullshit out, as I lost some weight and gained some weight and realized that I was still the same me whatever number of digits my pants size had, dorky and awkward. And I got better at being that me. I got better at trusting myself, my general appeal, my worth to the world despite-maybe-because-of. There were hangovers–I am still knee-jerk self-deprecating at the drop of a hat. Get to my flaws first before you can make me feel bad about them, you see. It’s something I’ve never been able to root out of me.

I was feeling pretty good about myself in general (if frequently awkward), through my early thirties, though I’d still sure as fuck never volunteer to lead a group prayer or something. Well, I mean, I wouldn’t in general, but you understand the basic gist of the scene I am trying to paint for you here.

Then I wrote a book and found out that once you’ve written the book, you have to talk about it. To people. To people everywhere. To people in the street and people behind a microphone and to people on camera and to the world. You have to look up from your laptop and string sentences together with your mouth instead of your fingers. And no one gives a shit if you’re afraid or if you feel too awkward and clumsy and you’re going to fuck up. Too bad. Get out there, you’re on.

It’s been trial by fire. It’s been a trial, and I feel like the top of my head is on fire. But I’ve been getting better at it. More comfortable, every so slightly more relaxed, more sure that what I’m talking about is what people want to hear, even if it’s my face it’s coming from (author’s note: self deprecation).

What it’s come down to is that I’ve finally embraced the fact that I am awkward. That I’m kind of goofy. I say a lot of dumb things-I mean, like, a lot. I am never sure when to shut my mouth, now. I always go that little step beyond. I’m a little bit of a mess but that’s okay because when you embrace it, when you become aware of it and have a sense of humor about it, it can be sort of charming? At the very least it can be you, the real you, instead of something about you that’s embarrassing.

Twenty years ago, or ten years ago, or five years ago I would have died if someone tried to put me on Good Morning America. A couple of months ago I almost died being on a local Sunday television show. This week I’m doing radio interviews and I even like the things I’m saying. I feel good about the conversations I’m having. I feel hopeful that I am saying the things I need to say and want to say and have to say. I am still awkward, but I’m sincere about it. I’ll always be awkward, and I’m okay with that. Or I better get okay right quick because I have run out of operations to try.

including and especially vampire hunting

I’m really tired but reluctant to sleep because I might miss something. Because this sadness that’s kind of hovering around me is going to swoop in and take everything over the moment I close my eyes and there’s nothing to distract me.

Because my crombomb is curled up in a ball on the electric blanket and sighing and there’s nothing cuter in the world. Because I feel guilty about feeling sad even though so many things in my life are so good right now. I am lucky and I love and am loved in return and things are going—so much better than I ever thought they would.

So the guilt creeps in because I should be happy-bouncing-totally secure-absolutely thrilled to be alive and living in a world that seems also generally glad that I’m alive and doing some living.

But I’m still sad and I hate it.

These are almost-two-in-the-morning thoughts and I know that it’s not true. It’s a let down after a week of traveling and intense conversations and being on all the time with no recharge and drinking and emotion and unsettled migratory patterns and feeling oddly far away and disconnected. It’s a tiny fear that every good thing I’ve experienced is going to go away. That people will suddenly realize I have no idea what I’m talking about. That my job will get really tired of me and my suddenly weird schedule and toss me aside. That friends will realize that I’m actually the opposite of whatever they think of me and go away.

You know how it goes. Sometimes, you let yourself feel a little vulnerable and a little sad and a little alone, and it’s okay and it’s good to acknowledge. And then sometimes you crack that door open the tiniest bit and the flood comes flooding and every idea you’ve had has been a mistake and you want to Ctrl-Z every text you’ve sent and every Facebook message you’ve ever posted and everything you’ve ever said or thought or felt.

It turns out Ctrl-Z is not an effective method for life re-evaluation (which I should have remembered seeing as how that sometimes-undoable key combo has fucked me over in manuscripts more than once).

It turns out that maybe you can pour yourself another glass of wine and bury your face in the back of the dog’s neck and allow yourself, just for a split second, just this once, to wish hard that there was someone in bed with you. And then you can breathe back out and let it go for a little while. Because there are other things to think about at almost-two-in-the-morning and not all of them are sad.

Sometimes reminding yourself that you have a lot to be grateful for can actually engender a spark of something makes you warm up, stop feeling a little sorry for yourself. Maybe feel a little tired and a little ready for bed, despite the fact that when you wake up your to-do list will still be there and everything you’re worried about or scared of or hoping for will still be wrapped around you. But it’ll be easier in the morning, because so many things are (including and especially vampire hunting). And you won’t take down a blog entry you wrote when you were sad because you can allow yourself to be sad sometimes too, even when it’s for no good reason, even when you can’t pin down the why.

still not miserable

On Wednesday morning I got a phone call from a 212 number. I am a suspicious person, who eyes things sideways and suspiciously and askance at every opportunity, because when should you turn down an opportunity to look askance at something? NOT EVER. Anyway. Suspicious. Right, so, I didn’t pick up because mysterious number. But I googled it, because that’s a thing that you do in these, our modern times. And it was the number for ABC News. ABC News was calling me.

Do you know how long it took to actually work up the nerve to listen to the voicemail? A long time. An endless time. ABC News on my phone. The world is getting weirder and weirder every day. I thought I had reached my weird threshold when my Brazilian waxer texted me to tell me that she had seen me and my book on a major news outlet. We had graduated, as more hilarious people than me pointed out, from her seeing my yahoo to seeing me on Yahoo!. And that was insane. And weird. And delightful of course delightful, hugely amazingly wonderful, delightful, thrilling. I’m reaching the world, which includes my Brazilian waxer.

I don’t know about you, but when I think about putting out a book into the world for people to read, I somehow never envisioned the world being quite so small.

And then Good Morning America left a wonderful, sweet, enthusiastic voicemail, inviting me to share my story about having been fat and then not fat and all the complicated squishy feelings involved and all murked up by it, and I sat at my desk and wondered at the marvels of the beautiful universe and how unbelievably weirder this was getting. And cool! And weird.

GMA (we’re buds, I can call them that) decided they wanted to fly out that afternoon (in approximately 3 hours) and meet at my house and film me, at my house. Television at my house. My amazing bosses said, “get your ass out of here, go!” and my amazing friend Jenny said she’d meet me at the house and help me clean it and I fled home to meet the camera crew. A batch of delightful, burly men who worked hard to make me feel comfortable because they could see I was physically shaking, head-to-foot tremors and wide, wild eyes, full of generalized panic and terror and dread.

“Have you done television before?” the producer said. “NO,” I shouted. “No, you did Good Morning Utah,” Jenny reminded me. “RIGHT. THAT,” I shouted. “Oh, a local show,” the producer said. “That’s way different. This reaches something like 4 million people.” And he smiled at me excitedly. I said, “THAT’S GREAT,” and I fled.

And there was a camera crew setting up lights and talking about the colors of my house and which direction to face and how to set up the shot and where to put the giant cameras and taping me up with wires and microphones and strapping things around my thigh to hold wires in place. In the middle of my living room.

That was happening, and the weird threshold snapped into a brand new height of weirdness, and then higher and higher as the lovely interviewer interviewed me and I was talking on camera and holding very, very still for fear that I’d start shaking again and shake entirely into pieces. Trying desperately to say smart things with words in the right order, and very carefully explain the very important thing I keep trying to explain over and over: Weight loss wasn’t the only key to happiness. I expected it to be, and it wasn’t. I’m working hard to find other ways to be happy in my life and in my body.

And then they turned off the lights and the interviewer left and they started setting up B roll shots, in which they requested I walk from one place to another, looking natural. I did not look natural. I texted, awkwardly awkwarding down my hallway, “You’re on television! Are you excited?” because texting is more natural for me than walking. It was still awkward. B roll outside, walking the dog and looking around wistfully at natural nature. And then, the crew of Good Morning America looked at my stove and said, “What’s that buzzing noise?” The clock is broken, I explained. “Oh, we can fix that,” they said, and they all gathered around and together took the front of my oven off and fixed it.

The crew of Good Morning America fixed my stove you guys. Weird threshold is officially blown to shit.

They hugged me and they left and then I crawled onto the couch and under the electric blanket and shook for awhile because I was overwhelmed and scared it would turn out poorly and amazed that that had just happened and terrified I had said something stupid and full of stupid wonder that I was lucky enough that shit was getting real, yo.

I got to talk about the thing that’s important to me, but the segment ended up being titled, “Woman Loses 200 Pounds, Now Miserable.” Which—you know. The hell? When did I say that? Misery sells clicks though, doesn’t it? The Onion-like headline that makes you want to watch the video just to see what kind of big idiot would be miserable after weight loss.

For the record: Not miserable. So not miserable. The opposite of miserable. It was hard to realize that losing so much weight wasn’t the answer. It was hard to figure out what the answer was, in fact (well, still hard. I have no goddamn idea what the answer is). It is amazing to me that I have to keep explaining that I’m not moaning about my diamond shoes being too tight, that it is far easier to be thin than fat and I am very, very cognizant of the thin privilege I benefit from every day. That I’m not miserable. Not! Happy! Happy to be me! Wishing I hadn’t been so miserable! But did I mention I’m happy?

Maybe that’s where the weird threshold really sputtered and died—that this is still a surprise and still something some people misread or misunderstand or refuse to believe. All I can do is keep promising I’ll keep yelling about it.

P.S. Still excited about all the super crazy cool stuff happening. Still not miserable.

online hating

It was only a month after the end of my relationship, but I said yes when the dude asked me out. Maybe because I was astonished—people DO that? It’s a thing that happens? A real thing? Where one person asks the other if they’d like to have an awkward meal together and then you both eat painfully slowly and save up bits of awful conversation to call up a friend and yell about as soon as you go your own ways? Weird.

No, I’m pretty sure I said yes because I don’t think I had ever been on a real first date, complete with real what-do-I-wear anxiety and a serious, considered decision about whether or not to shave my legs. And because I had just broken up with someone and felt wretched, wrecked, lonely, alone, uncharming and possibly alone forever and you can’t tell me different you don’t understand how I am more sad than anyone else on earth okay?

He was not my type, and I was so clearly not ready to date, with the dark under my eyes and the churning in my gut but I said yes anyway because I wanted to spend some time inside the idea that someone wanted me and wanted to spend time with me. I wanted drinks and food and a conversation. I wanted him to make me laugh.

He did. We were supposed to just have a drink and then go eat but we sat at the bar and we talked for two hours, maybe, and there were no lulls and it was one of those conversations that just go, straight-ahead and full-on and breathless and hilarious. He thought I was hilarious; we talked about Star Wars and—I don’t even remember. He had been in Brazil, maybe? He liked books or music. One of those. Possibly filmmaking.

He kept laughing at my jokes, anyway, and maybe that’s why when we stood up and he leaned down to kiss me, even though he wasn’t what I wanted to or who I wanted and this was nothing I had any business doing, I let him. I kissed him back, in the middle of the bar, and people slipped around us and I thought, what the hell am I doing?

But he kissed me and then he kissed me again it was nice to be kissed and his hands tightened around my waist and I thought, he wants me. So I let him kiss me in the middle of the bar like an asshole. I’ve always wanted to punch those douchebags in the kidneys, the ones who have Special Moments in the most egregiously awkward and visible place in the whole room, as if they have specially staked out the place and put down tape so they could make their marks for the most epic romance drama moment of all times. No one punched me in the kidneys but they ought to have.

We ate dinner slowly and closed down the place and when we left the restaurant it was misting and he started kissing me again. Oh romance! Oh drama! Oh, lack of kidney punching. What good are disapproving bystanders if they only stand by while they disapprove?

In the gentle rain and the soft glow of the Romance Streetlights we drifted down the sidewalk, tucked ourselves to the overhang of the building. I honest to god didn’t remember the last time I had made out with someone. I like making out. I think everyone should make out, all the time. All over the place. Everywhere, like bunnies if bunnies made out instead of reproduced madly. But it still wasn’t what I wanted so I kept my eyes closed and then I realized he was saying, “why don’t we go back to my car?” and then I realized that dating sucks because really dude? Yes, please lets go back to your car so I can what, clean out your glove compartment? I can do that. That’s not a euphemism. Get your hands off my ass.

I didn’t go back to his car, and later he texted me a few times and then he drifted away and it wrecked me. It wrecked me completely because—no, I didn’t want him. I just didn’t want to have fucked up, I guess. I didn’t want to have gone on a date and then have it end like some terrible romantic comedy where I sit in bed and eat a pint of Strawberry Lonely Chunks (call me, Ben and Jerry’s) with a spoon and cry on my unmade bed to my best girlfriend. I am not that girl. It is unpleasant to get even a little bit close to feeling like that girl.

Dating sucks. It has not gotten very much better. I didn’t go out with anyone until months later, and then I tried online dating. An extreme sports guy who kept his hat on during dinner and did all the talking; the blank-stare, acting-deaf guy who couldn’t seem to hear what I was saying and didn’t care, but spent a lot of time scanning my body up and down—and who, when I said automatically, “Talk to you soon!” as we were saying good bye, replied “You want to HANG OUT?” with an ears-ringing sting of incredulity.

The Bro with the baseball cap and the inability to make small talk—the guy who had texted me on February 14 and said he’d kiss me on the lips next year because I’d be his valentine then, and then got in a fight with me about women in sports. The beautiful guy who seemed perfect in really a ridiculous number of ways, who I saw a few times, who I had started to develop a crush on, who disappeared entirely. Who never explained exactly what happened. The guy who liked me so much, who I ought to have felt the same about but didn’t. I guess I was his disappearing act.

The guy with the black straw fedora, who chewed gum during dinner and snapped his fingers at the waitress. The guy who said all the right things but never bothered to make a move. The way too young guys who made me feel too old. The guy who said he was 5’9 but was actually some kind of elf. With whom I ended up in bed, unfortunately, because I am nothing if not the world’s greatest decision maker. Nothing was supposed to happen—he was just staying over. And nothing particularly happened, especially after he put his fingers where fingers DO NOT GO on a FIRST DATE. Especially unexpectedly and in the dark, for fuck’s sake. We texted briefly and then I realized I kind of hated him and his ass face.

I do not like dating. I hate online dating—which sucks because I thought it would be ideal. I like shopping online! I like writing! Online dating should be awesome! It is not awesome. I did not even get to make out with anyone really and I need to ask the universe where the fuck is the fairness in that? I get some kissy face and then boom fingers where there oughtn’t be any. I meet them and know them just a little bit, and they know me just a little bit or not at all, and it always ends up sadness.

That doesn’t seem right. Connection should be lovely, and important, and transformational. It shouldn’t make you go home and throw things around and stomp up the stairs and swear you’re never talking to anyone ever again.

I keep forgetting to deactivate my profile, and I keep getting messages that make me sorrow for the human race. From guys who see I’ve logged onto the site to look at them and without messaging them back. Who are angry that I’m ignoring them. Who, if I’m going to be really honest with you, I sometimes want to die in a fire. Okay, always. Always dead, always in a fire.

Right now, right now what I want to do is step back. I want to let things happen. I want things to happen, and I want to have hope, instead of anxiety, and happiness instead of worry that I’m doing things right, and know and be known instead of hoping having a drink together now means maybe someday we will totally have love babies. I want to believe and I’m going to say yes to things for the right reasons, and only to things that don’t suck, and figure that everything will work out the way it’s supposed to. Because I am, in the end, probably not actually more sad than anyone else ever on earth.