Sedimentary, igneous, and metaphorical

I live a sedimentary lifestyle. Right, I know it's sedentary, but I never get to use that word. I took geology in college for some reason, I suppose because I thought it would be an easier class than say, chemistry, which I completely struggled with in high school. But studying rocks? Ok, here's a rock, and there's one - how hard is that? Even studying birds sounds more difficult, I mean those things move around like crazy. As it turned out, studying rocks is really effing hard.

It was the first science class from which I ever really learned something: how an area's climate is determined, how temperature and water vapor create clouds and rain, why the Grand Canyon looks like layer cake and how fossils are formed. Every assignment I read (of the ones I read), I remember thinking, gosh that's super cool. Even stuff like metamorphic rocks, because did you know that extreme pressure can transform one rock to a totally different rock?

What a wonderful metaphor to have at my disposal. I'll just sit at my desk today, my mind racing to keep up with all the crap I have to get done, with all of the demands of this job, the stress of trying to perform and keep performing, with the anxiety that any moment a partner will swing by and say, "where the hell is that research I asked for?" or "why in gods name did you fail to define the acronym 'IR&D' in this memo?"; all the time wondering how long it will take for my metamorphosis into the kind of rock that actually gives a shit.

Last night.

Last night we drank a whole bottle of Makers Mark 46 in advance of a Flogging Molly (aka, Who Cares There's A Bar) concert, and in doing so discovered a delicious new drink. It's Makers, blood orange juice, and a splash of cognac. I call it Kentucky Sailor Sauce. I don't know why - isn't Kentucky landlocked? We drank a lot of bourbon that night, I have a headache. Leave me alone.

Best Sandwich Ever

Black Forest bacon, heirloom tomato, avocado and baby field greens on whole wheat toast. BLT&A? Nope, got it: BLAT-wich.

Ow

Last week I woke up with ridiculous killer eye-popping pain in my jaw.  I rode it out like an idiot until it was unbearable, and my cheeks were swollen up to Cabbage Patch Kid-like proportion.  Then I finally went to a dentist, and found out I have TMJ disorder.  Sometimes, people, the fact of diagnosis can be worse than the disease itself.

Because TMJ is not a genetic or viral condition - it's brought on by stress.  That means that I worry about sh*t so much that it is actually affecting my health.  AND I let it get worse by not seeing a doctor about it, so that I was on a fast route to grinding my teeth into little nubs, because I was too damn busy.  AND the muscle relaxers they gave me make me a friggin' zombie all day, even if I take them the night before, so now I can't even FIX the problem, because I have to WORK MORE.  What the HELL, life?

AND I can't eat crunchy or chewy foods.  What kinds of food are those, you ask?  Only the BEST kinds!  Popcorn, bagels, baguettes, pizza, gummy bears, steak tacos - basically all my major food groups.  So now I'm hungry, swollen, in pain, unmedicated, inflamed, stressed, and busy.  Killing it!



Haha Google image search TMJ = 80's mullet model.



For all you lovers out there...

I loved you first: but afterwards your love

    Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song

As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.

    Which owes the other most? my love was long,

    And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;

I loved and guessed at you, you construed me

And loved me for what might or might not be –

    Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.

For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’

    With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,

         For one is both and both are one in love:

Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’

         Both have the strength and both the length thereof,

Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

--  Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894

Valentine's Day is for Schmucks (like me)

What a ridiculously fabricated lie of a holiday. That I LOVE! But probably only because I'm in a relationship, and because I just got these at my office:

Suck it, office ladies! See how desired and coveted I am! Someone loves me and has proven it with shrubbery!

How truly amazing it is that one's attitude can change so extremely and violently with just a little shift in circumstance. Witness!

Me five years ago: "Valentine's Day can kiss my a**. What a crock! Do people still srsly buy in to that Hallmark-induced red-splattered kitch fest? It's truly for the vapid and self-obsessed - those trying to prove to the world how their relationship is super *perfect* when really they will go home tonight and NOT have sex, having mutually consumed three bottles of wine, and one of champagne because they can't stand to be alone together *cuz it's a special night,* lying in their icy beds like beached manatees saying ohhh I'm just so tired me too, happy v-day sweetiemuffin! NO THANKS."

Me today: "Yayy I got flowers! Prettyyyyy! I love my fiance lalalalaa. Now we have a whole day mandating appreciation for eachother, which is great, cause now I don't have to worry about the other 364! Superrr convenient. Thanks, Hallmark!"

What is my point? Who cares - I'm getting lucky tonight! (or am I?) Just kidding.  A fancy Italian dinner, a dirty martini, an obligation because of sent flowers, another obligation because of the awesome massage certificate I got him - I mean, do the math people.  Cue Manilow.

Memories...

Yesterday I took a three hour nap and ate my weight in beef tenderloin with blue cheese-mushroom sauce.  Visiting my mother is dangerous to my health.  I love her, but she keeps Cheetos in the house and somehow maintains the willpower to leave them alone until I visit.  Mean.

I spent the day on her couch recovering from Saturday night's birthday bash for a friend at Bowl-O-Rama, while Oscar slept upstairs until 3:15pm (winner), having taken a bagel sandwich to the face and four Advil.  After bowling we had gone out downtown Annapolis to McGarvey's, where we actually first met.  It was wonderfully surreal to sit in the same chair (wearing a similarly low cut dress), drinking and engaging in merriment with Oscar just as I had four and a half years ago on the night of our first encounter, with very minor variations.  I suppose both of our brains have swelled, mine from law school and his from medical school, so our heads were distinctly huger.  His sweaters are nicer, and his jeans are more expensive.  I am definitely paler, since now I spend most of my time under florescent lights looking like this guy.

Other things are different - there is a newly introduced desperation and mania in our nights out, knowing that the time spent as FREEDOM is transient and woefully short, that in between conversations we will return, unconsciously, to the acknowledgment of a crushing workweek hanging just overhead, and that we hear in the pause between Journey songs an urgent and petulent voice of Responsibility over and over again.  There is now, interspersed with the boozy merriment, a sort of distracted, repetitive look thrown toward a certain future, where awaits regret, exhaustion, and fuzzy-headed attempt at effort.  Which, of course, is where I am right now, eating an eight dollar sandwich in front of my computer in my office with the door closed, wishing I could fast forward to the next cloud break of a weekend, and do it all over again.  Fun life.