Trivia Night

Two friends of mine from college, Meredith and Adam, just moved back to Nashville. They invited me to go to Trivia Night at Cabana. It was so great to see them again. My favorite moment of the night:

Keep in mind I'm at a table with six people. Five of us have advanced degrees in literature or writing. The sixth person is a librarian. We were amped up for the "Literature" question. The lady starts announcing it, "In Lord of the Rings..." I wish I had a recording of my table's reaction to post here. Hilarious. The full question was something like, "What does Aragorn change his name to?" We answered "Harry Potter. This is not a literature question."

The last question was something about a phone number on the TV show Full House. Four tables knew it. I think there may have been a little smart phone google searching under the table cheating from some of the other groups.

(P.S. I have no idea why the first section of this post is underlined and bold. Can't figure out how to undo it. I think I need to learn some basic blog skills.)

My favorite date I've ever been on...

...was eight years ago and only cost the price of two sandwiches and two pints of beer. I met this lad when I was 18. We have never lived in the same city, but if we had, we would have definitely dated. He visited me once. I visited him once. The last time I saw him, it was the summer of 2003 for only one day in Vermont. He had the whole day planned out. We hiked early in the morning to Lake Pleiad. He went swimming in the lake in his clothes. I watched from the rock (in the third picture). We hiked back down and got in his car, drove to get sandwiches and ate them overlooking the downtown and an old watermill. Then we went to a local brewery (Magic Hat...this was before local breweries were cool and before I had ever heard of Magic Hat). We left there and went swimming in another waterfall on our way to Lake Champlain, where he pulled a small sailboat into the water. He had asked permission to borrow someone's boat for the afternoon. We spent the day in the middle of the lake, sailing and overlooking the Adirondack Mountains. It was beautiful. Then we went to his friend's apartment, made dinner and ate on the roof of the house while the sun was setting. I remember laughing. I remember telling myself to remember that day, because it was certainly one worth remembering. I've never had anyone plan a more perfect day....or put so much care into a date. This was eight years ago. We've remained friends through email, postcards and phone calls. A few days ago I got a call from this man. Out of the blue. He is at Johns Hopkins. They found a tumor in his spinal column, and did surgery on it. He is in a lot of pain. He doesn't have many answers. It has been so many years since I have seen him, but he is one of my very favorite people. I just can't even explain how much I want to fly up there, and crawl into bed next to him and just hug him until everything is okay. Life is so messy.

I've been trying for days to scan photos of that perfect day from my silly scrapbook I made of that summer, but my scanner broke. I decided today that you don't need clear photos on this blog to get the story. Just the story of that day is the beautiful part. You get to see the photos posted here as they appear as photographs of photographs in my album. I like that more, almost. I'm going to go visit him soon. It has been far too long.

The most pleasant red light ever...

Normally, I sit at red lights behind a giant Hummer or ridiculously large SUV (with one person in it), and feel discouraged and frustrated. Sometimes it seems like very single little bit of progress I'm making by driving on waste veggie oil is being immediately undone by the car in front of me. That was not the case a few days ago when I found myself sitting at a red light behind an electric car (Nissan Leaf) for the first time I can ever remember in Nashville. It was inspiring. I wouldn't mind red lights so much if they all involved this view.

Book Report

So, I've made it through about 1/3rd of this Codependency No More book. I have felt such a wide range of emotions while reading this book...from understood and supported to ashamed and confused. I consider myself a very independent person, so it has been difficult to admit that I have been a codependent person in my marriage the last few years. Chapter four is about codependent characteristics. At first, the list of characteristics seemed to make sense. By page 6 of this chapter, I felt like the list was absurd. You are codependent if you a) have a face b) pee at least once a day c) breathe through your nose d) were born on planet Earth. Those weren't really on the list, but it felt like if a person was being truly honest with themselves, every single person would identify with many of the characteristics on the list, because some of them seem fairly universal. Does this mean we are all codependent to varying degrees?

My favorite tree....

Here is my favorite tree on my hiking loop at Beaman State Park. I don't know what happened to it....clearly something intense. Maybe it snapped in half, but somehow managed to mend the wound and then grew up again from a broken part of the trunk? Who knows, but I just love it. I couldn't fit the whole tree in one frame, but this tree is just as tall and leafy as the others around it at the top. It reassures me that life can unexpectedly and completely change directions, and you can still end up just fine. Better than fine. You end up being someone's favorite out of the whole dang forest.

Your daily dose of cuteness....

I used to have pygmy goats. When my favorite goat (Bette Bruce) died in February, I sold the rest of the goats to a wonderful local farm. I just didn't have the heart to keep them anymore. The woman who took them sends me sweet updates every now and then. Here is a photo of Miss Newton who was born yesterday evening. Newton is Fig's first kid. (For those of you who knew Bette Bruce, Fig is Bette's sister.) Anyhow, just thought I'd share this photo with you. There aren't many things cuter than a baby goat.

Cross Stitch

While leaving our last set location today, I noticed an antique mall across the road that I hadn't been to in years. The last time I went in that store, I was very in love with a man who was not who he said he was. This statement could be said about a lot of people, but I mean it in the most seriously intense way. Everything Aaron told me (including the accent he told it to me in) was a lie except his name. But I didn't know that yet. I remember exactly what I was thinking to myself as I was walking towards the front doors of this shop, years before. I was blissfully happy, and thinking that I was carrying around the most wonderful secret. Like a physical thing I could carry, as if it were a purse or a book I hid under my coat. The most wonderful secret was that the most wonderful man in the world loved me back. ME. Why had he chosen me? What had I done to deserve to be the one woman who ended up with him? I had no clue, but I felt loved. Truly loved and in love and lucky and more excited about my future than I had ever been.

Fast forward a few years. I parked in front of that store today and decided to go in. As I walked from the car to the door, I thought of that feeling I had walking to the door years before. I wandered through the booths, a little sad that I didn't feel that same way anymore. Then I saw this framed cross stitch and almost started laughing in the middle of the store. How appropriate in this moment! Little Pinocchio. If the man I loved then had been Pinocchio, his nose would have wrapped around that dingy strip mall at least eight times. All Pinocchio wanted though was to be a real boy. I think the same was true for Aaron. I don't think he told lies to hurt people or steal from people. He just wanted legs that weren't made of wood, a jacket that wasn't made of flowered paper and a hat that wasn't made of bread. He desperately wanted to be something other than what he was. I'm not saying I excuse his behavior. I just understand it better now....because of a cross stitch of a character from an Italian fable that was later made into a Disney movie that I found hanging in the corner of an antique mall in Franklin, Tennessee. Ha. Oh, life.