January 10, 2007 | Filed under: I Write About My Feelings, The Fam

Home is full of little paradoxes, which tends to make being there a little strange. My trip over Christmas lived up to that standard…a long, strange trip, indeed.

After doing all the family/Christmas-themed things, I had a couple days to just chill, during which I really can’t recall what I did. I believe naps featured prominently. But my last night in town, I went out to dinner with my parents and then attended a friend’s birthday party. At dinner Dad handed me the wine list and inquired as to my suggestions for a bottle. Apparently living in California qualifies me to be their sommelier. (Admittedly, I probably do have a more extensive repertoire, particularly of California wines.) The surprising part of this interaction was in being treated as a peer, an adult, not my dad’s daughter.

Two hours later, when he handed me the keys to his car, Dad asked what time I’d be home. Just like in high school. (I began to wonder if I still had a midnight curfew…but then realized I probably wouldn’t be putting it to the test.) “It’s Janesville. 10:30.” Dad raised his eyebrow. “Ok, maybe later than that, but I can’t imagine it’ll be past midnight.”

For the party, I’d packed jeans (it’s Janesville – everyone would be wearing jeans) and what can only be described as a “going-out shirt.” But when my friend’s mom stopped over to chat on Christmas Eve (bearing a cheese ball, no less) and invited my parents to the party, it occurred to me that there would probably be other parent-types there. And that perhaps they wouldn’t enjoy seeing my midriff through my translucent shirt. Whoops. Time for a new plan! I concluded that I could still wear the shirt, if I tossed a shrug-like sweater over it. I didn’t take the sweater off all night. And I was still one of the cutest-dressed people there.

At the party, I caught up with four girls I went to high school with. We were mutually aware of each others’ existence, but I wasn’t friends with them. Now that we’ve been at several post-college events together, we actually can carry on not-so-awkward conversations. During one of these exchanges, Heather mentioned that there are a dozen girls, mostly friends from high school, but a couple additions from college (all of the high school friends attended the same college, 30 minutes away from home) who are still friends and every year they go away for a girls’ weekend. This concept amazes me. I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a 12-person circle of friends, and it certainly wasn’t comprised of people I went to high school with!

I was left with a mild feeling of being an outsider — a feeling which, while significantly diminished, has not yet dissipated, despite living in/having ties to Janesville for the past SEVENTEEN YEARS. (Seriously, people, how long does it take to be considered a local? Don’t be too quick to bestow that term on me, though, I’m still ambivalent about the idea of being “from” Janesville.)

At one point during the evening, the five of us girls were chatting when a guy friend joined us. Upon seeing me he said, “Katie! Are you back? Like, are you just here for Christmas or did you move back to Janesville?” I didn’t even have to answer, as each of the four girls shot him a withering look and one chortled, “No, she did not MOVE BACK here!” (The only thing missing was “as if” tacked on to the end of her statement.)

Despite my outsider status, I have made some noticeable inroads. When I stopped at the drug store to buy a birthday card, I recognized the cashier as the mother of a boy I went to middle and high school with. I debated about saying hello, but when there was no glimmer of recognition on her part, I decided to pass. Other than, “Hi, I’m Katie! Do you remember me?” what was there to say? “I went to school with your son and despite the fact that he’s turning 30 this year, I can still only picture him as the 13-year old boy I had a crush on” just didn’t seem appropriate. Besides, she probably would’ve asked if I’m married, and that becomes a pretty short conversation in a hurry.

Lastly, one of these high school girls (who still lives in Janesville) is newly engaged. I politely inquired about her fiancé, expecting not to recognize the name. Turns out he’s a guy we graduated with. Though neither she nor I were friends with him in high school, I know exactly who he is because my mom taught him science at a different middle school than one I attended. So, I got all caught up on his life and dutifully reported back to my mother what one of her former students is up to.

After a couple hours of birthday fun, the high school girls headed out to the bars. I took my leave, as well — why stick around when the few people I knew were leaving? — and pulled in the garage at 10:38.

I don’t know what any of this means, really. I guess just that there’s some weird bond, maybe just the bonds of time, that tie me to this place that I’d never heard of or cared about before we moved there. Some day my parents will retire elsewhere and I’ll have no reason to go back to that little city in Southern Wisconsin that everyone recognizes because of “The Oasis Cow.” Dad won’t show off all the fancy new restaurants in town. Mom won’t brag that there’s now a Starbucks over by the Interstate. (Awwww, my baby’s all growed up!) My family won’t marvel over the intertwined families, the descendents of whom stick around Janesville and marry each other and send their kids to school together and, apparently, plan a weekend getaway together once a year. It’s a little sad to think that, someday, I won’t be part of this place, that nobody expects me to move back, that I’m missing out on that kind of wholesome, small-town, everyone’s-connected-to-each-other lifestyle. Then again, perhaps that’s an idealized, insider version of reality. After all, it’s not the life I had, even when I lived there.

January 1, 2007 | Filed under: The Fam

Well it’s been a busy week of eating chocolate by the pound (lovingly provided by Steve, who still has the metabolism of a young man, unlike the rest of us) and wearing my pajamas all day long and checking my e-mail only once a day. Exhausting work, I tell you, which explains the near-daily naps.

I think I also managed to confuse the hell out of my mother by alternately talking about how ready I am to be a housewife (tongue-in-cheek, as I had just cooked dinner for the first time in the past three weeks) and then openly obsessing over career-related things that would leave little time for a personal life, let alone marriage and children any time in the next century. (For the record, I WILL HAVE IT ALL, JUST WATCH ME. Hey! Stop laughing. I’m not kidding.)

Alas, the Christmas excitement is over, though the joy of my new egg separator will last for years to come. Now I’m back in California, attending to various work details, grocery shopping, and continuing the Christmas card death march, three weeks late, while watching football and drinking beer. Emily Post is probably rolling over in her grave. But I’ll be sure to include thank you messages to those who sent me gifts. Surely that counts for something, right?

And now it’s the high-pressure New Year’s Eve. To make resolutions or not to make resolutions? That is the question. Followed shortly by, what, exactly, shall I resolve? I guess, since I actually have a place to document them, I may as well. Then perhaps I can even refer back to them, making them, you know, actually useful. (Did I make resolutions last year? No idea.)

The old stand-by: Be a kinder, more patient person. Yes, this is like the fifteenth consecutive year I’ve resolved to do this. Continual improvement is clearly required.

Physical health: Go to the gym every day. Seriously. Whine all you want, but there are no good excuses for missing it.

Financial health: Save, save, save, save, save.

Mental health: Read books. Maybe even ones that you can’t read in a seven-hour plane trip and are more than the print equivalent of a chick flick. And that New York Times subscription you pay for? Try to make use of it more than once a quarter.

And you? How was Christmas with the fam? Did you make any resolutions for 2007? And do we get to place bets as to how long they’ll last?

May 15, 2006 | Filed under: The Fam

From the “Because in This Family We Just Make Fun of Everything Instead of Actually Talking About Our Feelings” Files

On the phone with my mother Sunday, shortly after she told Dad she didn’t want to talk to me.

Me: Thanks for being my mom!

Mom: Uh, ok. Not like I had much choice in the matter. I mean, I guess it depends on how you define “choice.”

Me: Well, you didn’t leave me on someone else’s doorstep or something!

Mom: *laughing* I suppose that’s true.

Me: So, you know, thanks for that.

April 29, 2006 | Filed under: Because They Pay Me, Boys Are Dumb, DC! DC! DC!, People I Like Even More Than My Job, The Fam

I don’t know whose, plan, because it’s sure not mine!

I’m in South Bend/Chicago this weekend, and then it’s off to DC on Monday for the week. Just about every detail of these trips has changed, other than that Caron and John are, in fact, getting married in a few hours.

[Hi, DC people! Let's pretend that I have my shit together and I totally sent you an e-vite for happy hour like two weeks ago, ok? So...it'll be Thursday. Um, somewhere. Around happy hour time. Hope you can make it!]

A voice mail message I left for Steve earlier this week, regarding our Sunday afternoon/evening plans sounded like this:

Hi, it’s me. Just calling to remind you I’ll be in town this weekend. Still don’t know what our Sunday afternoon looks like, and Traveling Companion isn’t sure he can make it, so maybe I’ll be free for the afternoon and maybe it’ll just be dinner. So, basically, I have no information for you. Don’t call me back because I won’t be able to deal with this until Friday. I’ll call you from the airport or something.

At the airport yesterday morning, I changed my flight from Chicago to DC, my flight from DC back to Sacramento, and attempted to cancel my flight from Chicago to Sacramento, but the nice woman from Northwest Airlines told me they couldn’t leave it open as a one-way trip, so unless I was canceling the entire trip (no! please no! I’m sitting at the gate waiting for my plane to Chicago!) I’d need to call back after I got to Chicago.

When I got to Minneapolis, (my layover on the way to Chicago) Traveling Companion officially bailed on the trip. Bah. Oh well, not having to entertain someone for the weekend leaves more time for my two favorite pastimes — working and working out, both of which I’ll be able to do at the hotel.

Since there was no longer a need to coordinate schedules, I set off to get on an earlier flight into Chicago. Success! I love the people at Northwest — I believe that’s the first time standby has ever worked out for me. (Oddly enough, I think I read that they were rated one of the worst airlines to fly, but I’ve had relatively few problems with them.) I got to Chicago and had to change my rental car reservation to accommodate all those other schedule changes, but at last I was on my way to South Bend.

Even my body is messing with my plans. Headed to Chicago, I fell asleep while the plane was still sitting at the gate, as usual, but woke up for no apparent reason, before the flight attendant even told us we could use our portable electronic devices. I believe my body was trying to tell me something. Namely, “Woman, you have already slept for three hours today! Don’t you realize you’ve filled your sleeping quota? How can you expect me to sleep more?!?!?!”

Steve and I caught up with each other to pin down those elusive Sunday plans. He’s now booked for the afternoon, as am I.* But the requisite dinner-paid-for-by-your-big-sister-when-she’s-in-town is on.

*In Minneapolis I discovered I’d won a deadline of Tuesday (preferably morning) for a work project that just hasn’t gotten the attention it needs from me. Given that I’m spending most of Monday on a plane and in meetings, this attention-getting will have to occur Sunday.

[To the work people who know about this blog and read it, Hi! Yes, I’ve worked for an entire week straight, barely stopping to sleep, and yes, it’s my weekend away, and yet -- look at that -- I’m still working! Anyone want to trade jobs??? Too bad my bosses don’t know about this blog. I think they’re catching on to the all-work-all-the-time nature of my life, though.]

I hear there’s some college or something in South Bend…maybe I’ll go crash the library there to get my work done.

But for now, I’m off to a wedding. Caron and John have been together for almost five years, and will now commit to seventy-five more. At least some things stay the same.

April 20, 2006 | Filed under: The Fam

Today is my parents’ 32nd wedding anniversary. THIRTY-TWO YEARS.

They got married in a lovely little hippie wedding* held on a Friday night, with one attendant each, and a short invite list. (Well, as short as an invite list can be when you have eight or nine siblings.) The reception was held at a friend’s house and catered by various friends with foodstuffs purchased from the grocery store, beer in cans and a punchbowl that contained more than Hawaiian Punch, as a six-year old Uncle David discovered. In a word: Low-key.

*Not so hippie that it didn’t involve a church and a Catholic priest, though. Let’s not get carried away.

As a child I was convinced my wedding would be The Party of the Century. You know, because that’s what weddings are about, really. I may have picked out some poofy dresses from the J.C. Penney catalog for all eight of my bridesmaids. And the matching parasols. (Don’t blame me! It’s not my fault that 80’s fashion was so hideous!!!!) I’m pretty sure my anticipated reception featured an ice sculpture or a champagne fountain or some other expensive display of non-functional excess. My parents’ wedding, it was not.

Now guess what my plans look like?

(And by “plans” I mean, “random musings in my head when I’m at someone else’s wedding or hearing about the planning process.” Not “I have everything charted out right here in this expandable file folder, just look for the tabs that say ‘dress,’ ‘invite list,’ ‘dinner menu,’ etc.” But if it would help, I’d be happy to put something together for you, you know, just in case.)

Thirty-two years? I don’t think I could do it, I said to a friend.

How long do you think you’d last?

You’re assuming it’s a non-zero number??? Ha!