Photo by merlinmann, all rights reserved.

I was looking through my bookmarks just now to find something for work, and instead came across this post, which also reminded me of the above photo. I barely knew her but agree with the post author when he said that Leslie “made everyone who knew her better“. I’m so thankful to have people in my life like that – both past and present. So thank you, friends, for you.

The last two months have been endlessly stressful: holidays, moving to Chicago, moving out of our apartment, moving into my Unnamed Hippie House (which I’ve decided is its name, by the way), my uncle’s death, drunk people drama, sickness, job hunting, job interviews, the beginning of the semester, winding down a job, and living apart. It’s all fucking hard! Hard, hard, hard.

I’m a person who thrives in chaos, so times like these usually see me rising to the occasion. Five years ago, we launched Moodle at the beginning of the semester while I was also a full time doctoral student and a new gyne instructor – so I was essentially working two very demanding full-time jobs while taking on an emotionally and physically challenging part-time job while also maintaining a relationship and starting to focus on losing weight after four months away from the gym (and my bike) with a broken arm. Literally the day before Shane moved to DC, I had unexpected minor surgery after receiving scary lab results from an abnormal Pap and also got an estimate of $2400 to make the necessary repairs to my car so that I could move to join him – while also gearing up for the beginning of the semester and actively job-hunting. I’m not alone in my experience of shit stacking up in impossible ways, or of being able to put my head down and knock through it all to come out on the other side smarter and stronger.

But in and around the stress and stressors of the last two months, I’ve had a lot of time to think. The time and space and distance have allowed issues to rise to the surface that I’ve been ignoring or just haven’t been brave enough to face. And one of those is my unhappiness, a thread of pain through so many aspects of my life.

It’s no secret that I’ve been profoundly unhappy in my career in the last few years. In job interviews, I’ve spun it as “a series of right turns” – from instructional technology support at Illinois to reference librarianship at GW to web development at UM. From a position of authority and trust to the bottom rung of a soul-deadening bureaucracy to manual labor, working in a call center, finding ways of stretching 5-8 hours of work to fill 40, and then ending up in a position where I’m challenged and respected, but which is still tangential to any of the goals I can loosely define for myself.

I’ve been tremendously lonely in my relationships. I’ve focused my energies on my marriage to the detriment of my relationships with others – perhaps appropriately so, but still a stark thing to realize. I’ve been trying to change this in the last few months, but I know I have a long way to go.

I’ve tried to direct this loneliness and frustration into positive channels: running, the garden, cooking, blogging, teaching, and connecting with friends online. What I haven’t realized until recently is the extent to which my loneliness and frustration has been self-reinforcing. I’m lonely, so I go running alone. I like running alone, so I opt to continue with this solitary activity, even though it could be a great opportunity to meet other people and build relationships around running. Shane is often busy with hobbies or friends, and I respond by soaking up the much-desired solo time, which then leads me to support (rather than complain about) more time dedicated to hobbies, which then leads to more time alone.

Which leads me to this place: waking up on a Sunday morning feeling crippled by sadness. Grinding away on the track to meet a training goal but also to focus my mind on something other than the intractability of my feelings. Struggling to remember happiness, or to picture what happiness might look like. Knowing that the easy answer is more meds, or changing the meds, but being unwilling to accept that as an answer YET AGAIN.

I want to be happy.
I don’t know how to be happy.
I don’t know what has to change in my life for me to be happy.
I’m afraid of my own unhappiness.

Bourbon should be pretty straight-forward. I like it. I like it a lot. Bourbon and I got back together in 2011 after several years of separation and brutal hangovers. In previous years, the bourbon hangover tended to hit me about 16 hours after the actual consumption of bourbon, and felt a bit like someone is performing trepanation on my head. This past year, however, bourbon has come back into my life, particularly in the form of manhattans, and it has been my welcome companion at many a happy hour or party, particularly in the last few months. When I posted on Facebook that I’d be giving bourbon up for Lent, I was accused of contributing to the mass of lies already on the internet. I was also told that I was SO BRAVE. Regardless of your stance on this matter, I will be deprived of bourbon for 40 long days and nights.*

Miss you, Prescription Julep

Pants, on the other hand, might be the tougher challenge. Let me clarify that this means pants in the American sense, not the British sense. My stance on those pants is none of your business. My desire to give up pants is twofold. First, I have an awful lot of vintage dresses and skirts and knee socks and tights that I really should wear even more often. Second, I have a hell of a time buying pants, and the ones I do own no longer fit. I possess a body made for 40s house dresses, not for 21st century pants. I’m tall, which means that most pants are too short. I have runners’ legs, which means I can’t buy skinny jeans. I have a butt and a proportionally small waist, which means that pants that fit the former don’t fit the latter, and pants that would fit the latter won’t pull up over the former. I’ve resorted to adding extra buttons to my jeans, but even then, my pants are all doing this:

I’m not pregnant, and I’ll punch anyone who suggests that I might be.

The pants pictured above are freshly washed in hot water and dried, and yet I still have 1-2 inches of space between my waist and the waistband. My jeans are even worse. So to some extent, giving up pants is a no-brainer. They don’t fit. I live in Michigan, though, and walk most places, including the 3/4 mile to work every day. This sacrifice may require some sartorial creativity. If nothing else, it will guarantee that I finish out my time in my current job without ever having worn jeans to work. And that in and of itself is a success.**

So: bourbon and pants. I’ll miss you, but that will just make April all the more sweet.

* I haven’t yet decided if I’ll also be giving up rye, scotch, or other forms of whiskey. It seems like I should.
** Exemptions will be granted to pants necessary for exercise, so yoga pants and running tights are still OK. But, like leggings, they aren’t really pants that should be work in public anyway.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Mostly, and yes.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not as many babies as in 2010 (good lord), but yes.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
We lost my grandpa in September.

5. What countries (or new places) did you visit?
I ran to Canada and back – does that count? Other than that, no new countries or cities.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
More real mail and more nights on the dance floor.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
We lost Grandpa on September 18.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Are you tired of hearing about running yet? Because the two halves were a really big deal for me. My first semester of teaching was also effing hard, but really good.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I basically always wish I could’ve been more prepared for the first (and all subsequent) days of class.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I was sick most of May, and took this awful antibiotic that made my mouth taste like metal for weeks. Other than that, no significant illness or injury.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My newest Queen Bee bag is thus far my favorite of all of the QB bags I’ve purchased in the last five years. And that’s saying something. Also my crinolines and vintage dresses.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My sister is great – great person, great sister, great wife, great mom. I’m so proud of the woman she’s become.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Basically everything done by our government was appalling and depressing with the exception of the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Apart from the normal expenses: food, drink, travel, and running.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Moving to Chicago. Getting back together with bourbon and Neo.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
We’ve already established that I mostly listened to old music in 2011.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder?
A draw? The last month has been hard.

ii. thinner or fatter?
Thinner and, more importantly, stronger.

iii. richer or poorer?
Richer, I guess?

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Drinking and dancing.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Drinking.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
In Rockford with the family, a welcome respite from the endless move.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
With Chicago, yes.

22. How many one-night stands?
I left my heart on the dance floor a few times.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
New: Sherlock. Old: Fringe. Always: Law & Order.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nope.

25. What was the best book you read?
Netherland

26. What was your greatest musical (re)discovery?
The Radio 1 Essential Mix

27. What did you want and get?
Strength and good health. New friends, and time with old friends. A decent amount of travel. A new, much better job with a really great boss and big boss.

28. What did you want and not get?
A productive garden devoid of mosquitos.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
Nothing to report here, actually, and that makes me sad.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
My 31st birthday was sandwiched between a tough (but ultimately successful) job interview and the first day of my first semester of teaching. Shane tried to surprise me with dinner at Eve, which turned out to be a huge disappointment. We hopped over to Vinology and had a totally lovely evening.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Air conditioning in the summer.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Vintage day dresses.

33. What kept you sane?
Running.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Daniel Craig.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
I’m not all that pleased to admit that I spent most of 2011 checked out as far as politics are concerned.

36. Who did you miss?
Chicago and DC friendos, my sister.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
I met Michael, the Black Pipes, and a lot of fun MPub people – and Kristen, who I’d known online but met in real life for the first time. I got to know the ladies of the A2BC, who I will miss now that we’re somewhat disbanded. Also Max is much more of a person than he was this time last year, and that’s awesome.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
I can’t point to specific factors that resulted in this epiphany, but around October I realized that I’ve spent the last two years – possibly longer – turning inward, avoiding connection, enabling my introversion rather than reaching out into the world. I’m trying to change that.

Unlike my grandpa, I don’t have photos of my uncle to post here. I don’t have affectionate stories about him from my childhood. I’m not traveling through the stages of mourning, as we didn’t really have a relationship to mourn. When I got the news last Thursday, I was – and remain – honestly more upset by my lack of reaction than by any feelings of loss.

I had the unpleasant task of contacting Rich’s Facebook friends to spread the news of his passing. I can think of few less appropriate ways to notify someone of this sort of thing, but we had no other way to reach these people, and no indication of others that he would have wanted us to contact. The responses I received described a man I never knew.

After the brief service on Thursday, the lot of us went out to lunch: my parents and grandma, my mom’s siblings, a cousin, and a few friends. My grandparents’ angel neighbor asked my mom and her siblings about their favorite memories of Rich, and it’s telling that most of them involved conflict, but that they could be told with affection and laughter.

So this is what I know of my uncle: he was wildly intelligent, and applied this intelligence to the things he was passionate about: astronomy, model trains, cameras, motorcycles, computers. He He hated the military, and gained weight to avoid having to serve in Vietnam. He had a friend who was poet laureate of some South American country, and when his friend received this award, they drank a station wagon full of beer. Until this fall, he held the family record for the half marathon – when I beat his time by several minutes, he reminded me that he had run the race in a storm with an injured plantar fascia. He was difficult and argumentative – as wildly intelligent people often are – resulting in polarized relationships with his family, but deep respect from his friends. He loved cats, and is buried with the ashes of some of his late feline friends. He smoked enough pot in the 70s that he developed an allergy to it. He was proud of me and my siblings, and told his friends that my sister and I were beautiful, though we never heard it from him.

He didn’t believe in God, and would have turned in his grave – or walked out – at the words of compassion and grace meted out by the pastor at the service. Regardless, I hope he’s at peace tonight, wherever he may be.

Now that we’ve finally cleared out all of those “best of” and “year end” music lists of 2011—and good riddance!—here’s something different: most played songs. The songs that show up on your most played list aren’t necessarily the songs that defined the year for you. They can be timeless—the comfort songs you return to over and over again. Or they can reflect periods of brief, intense obsession, such as, in my case, with “My Heart is a Drummer” by Allo Darlin’, which I first listened to on a recommendation from a friend, and proceeded to play 50 times in a span of three days.

I’m an inveterate music binger. I get absolutely, completely hooked on a song or an album and then have to force myself to move on by enforcing arbitrary rules concerning the contents of my iPod – i.e. can’t add any other music until I’ve listened to everything on it, can only have 5 Essential Mixes on deck at any one time, etc. This tunnel vision also means that I’m slow to discover new music, especially since nearly every time I decide I need new music, I end up downloading music that is new to me but generally dates to the decade of my birth. Oops.

So, with no apologies, I present my top 5 artists and albums from 2011 based on last.fm play counts:

Artists:

1. Talking Heads
2. LCD Soundsystem
3. New Order
4. Front 242
5. Magnetic Fields

Albums:

1. LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening. It’s actually not worth listing my top tracks as they’re all from this album.
2. New Order – Power, Corruption And Lies
3. Talking Heads – Speaking in Tongues
4. Magnetic Fields – 69 Love Songs
5. Talking Heads – Little Creatures

Note: I have removed The Diane Rehm Show from both of these lists as while it contains interstitial music, it doesn’t meet the ‘music’ definition used for this post. It is, however, my 4th most played ‘artist’ and 2nd most played ‘album’.

We’re settling into this long distance, back-and-forth thing. Leaving on Monday was hard, having spent the better part of the previous week putting everything in its place, making our new home feel like a home. I spent the morning making soup for Shane’s dinner, chopping vegetables on the new (and wonderful) island, using my favorite pot to simmer lentils and stock. It was wrenching to leave, knowing that on the other end of my snowy drive lay more unpacking in an unfamiliar place, and an empty twin bed, albeit one warmed by the electric blanket Shane got me for Christmas.*

The routines of my solo life in Ann Arbor are quickly establishing themselves. I do push-ups in my tiny room while I wait for the water for my coffee to boil. I walk to work in the early hours of daylight. I take the bus to the gym or walk home and then drive to yoga. I eat my dinner at my computer, often tucked under the already-warm electric blanket. I watch something on Netflix while chatting with friends, working on job applications, or prepping for class. I drink and snack with my housemates, and stay up too late because my brain won’t turn off at a decent hour. I miss Shane at odd times, and talk to him before sleep.

I’m in Chicago now, and will be back in two weeks. This is our life for the time being. We’ll make it work

* There were other, more romantic gifts, but few things are less romantic than being very cold when already feeling very alone, so perhaps an electric blanket is romantic after all!

I don’t know that I would have gotten through this book had I not had the Kindle with me when I was stuck in a very long line at a blood drive. I’m glad I was stuck in that line, however, as it gave me enough time to really get hooked on the story, if not on the characters themselves.

I can say definitively that Egan is a master storyteller. A Visit from the Goon Squad weaves in and out of time, with a number of stories told in layers, folding and unfolding onto themselves. The reader encounters characters at different points in their lives – Benny, the record producer, is seen as a middle-aged wash-up, an energetic rocker at the beginning of his music career, a husband cuckolded by his wife’s tennis game, a rock legend. His mentor is a dirty old man seducing teenaged girls, a middle-aged father taking his children and his young girlfriend on a safari, a dying man surrounded by the now-middle-aged girls of his youth. His protégé is a kleptomaniac 30-something, a college student losing her closeted best friend, a mother making art from her stolen treasures. Each of these stories – episodes – windows of time is deftly, though not always gracefully, presented, surrounded by music and an indelible scene, whether it is the Bay area in the 70s, New York in the early 90s, full of optimism, or New York in the near future, recovering but not recovered from 9/11.

I wish I’d written this review closer to finishing the book – or to my book club’s discussion – as there are aspects of it that we found problematic that I’ve since forgotten. Some of the female characters felt flat in comparison to the nuances of the male characters. Some of the scenes feel like they were lifted from a Palahniuk or Coupland novel – a compliment, but also a complaint (see my review of Then We Came to the End).

I finished the book on my friends’ couch in mid-November. We were watching their cats while they were out of town getting married, and I was combating a hangover from the previous night’s 90s dance party. I’m willing to allow that the latter may have unduly influenced my reaction to the ‘enhanced’ chapter, in which we encounter the adolescent son of the former kleptomaniac. Her son has become obsessed with the pauses in pop music, and in trying to explain their significance to his father, fails to say all the things he really means to say. Or rather, he says all the things he is feeling, but his dad only hears the (exasperating) parts about the rests. And in that exchange lies the weight of the book, the way we measure the passage of time, all of the things we want to say but can’t, all of the things we try to say but fail to communicate, all of the moments in time that slip through our fingers.

This is the third of at least 10 books that I plan to read in the next year for my friend Mark’s 2/3 Challenge.