Picture Yourself in a Mercury Now

I hate cars. HATE them. Hatey-hate-hate. I hate their smell, their look, their gas needs, their space needs, the way they dominate the whole world. I correspondingly hate roads, highways, parking lots, garages, car dealerships, "car toy" stores--if it was built for a car, I hate it (except bridges. I still have a toddler's love of things that go over water). I didn't get my driver's license until I turned 17, which in the town I grew up in was like saying I didn't learn how to drive until I was thirty. I didn't own a vehicle until I was 22, and then it was a gift for helping a graduate student watch sparrows (a surprisingly difficult job). I didn't BUY a vehicle until well after I was married (although I'm enhancing my carless status here by omitting the detail that I used Hubs's truck as a primary vehicle for several years). We didn't join the ranks of most American couples and buy a second car until Silas was three and Helen was well on her way--and even then we only bought it because the truck's extended cab could hold one car seat but not two.

So. That was then. Now our family has four people, two cars (a Toyota pickup and a Jetta), two jobs, two schools, and four sets of mutually incompatible activities. In other words, we drive. A lot. On a typical day I drive almost forty miles. ICK. Every so often I make a big flurried show of trying to get us to drive less, and whenever I can walk or bike to an activity, I do, and the weeping of the small ones be damned (my children regard being forced to use their legs as something akin to child abuse, and I only wish I were kidding). However, most of the time, not-driving is not an option, and in fact to even contemplate either biking or taking public transportation would be a huge indulgence on my part, one that would inconvenience pretty much everyone else in the family.

For example: I could bike to work. I figure it would take me about an hour and a half, so I'd have to leave the house six thirty in order to get to work by eight. This would mean that Hubs would have to do all of the kid prep, plus drive Helen to school. It would be, frankly, selfish of me to do this more than once or twice a month. Alternately, I could make EVERYONE get up at five thirty, and make my kids both ride their own bikes AND get dropped off at school an hour to an hour and a half early. And as much as I believe in this, as much as I believe in teaching my kids the importance of not relying solely on carbon-powered conveyances, the bike-centered lifestyle does start to sound a little like child abuse. Or at least like something Balloon Boy's dad might do. You know?

Yes, we could be the weird and slightly overauthoritarian family who makes the kids rise at five, eat a sugar-free breakfast and hop on their bikes, come rain, sleet, snow, or ice. And to tell you the truth, we HAVE been that family. Last year at this time I was still "encouraging" Hubs to bike Si to school on the way to the train station. Si was often the only one whose bike was parked in the school bike rack--a distinction he did not really appreciate. As recently as this summer (before I got the job) I was still biking Helen to school. But as they get older, and social pressures start to crystallize, I get hesitant about forcing them to be so obviously Different.

Getting to work using current public transportation options is not much better. So I'm stuck: on the one hand, this is something I really, really think is important. On the other hand, I don't even know how to make it work in my own life--so I REALLY can't expect anyone else to make it work. And it's more than just an abstract problem--these sorts of dilemmas are at the HEART of why we don't have better public transportation and a more bike-accustomed world.

I mean, it sucks. And it's not all about improving public transportation options--although shuttles passing every major intersection north & south every ten minutes would be helpful (RTD take note). It's about changing our attitude. Dropping the kids off by bike would be a hella easier if OTHER KIDS were doing it, too. The inevitable delays and waits built into a day based in public transportation are also easier when everyone's feeling the wait. Starting the day at nine and leaving by four--a schedule that makes slow transportation options a lot more feasible--only works if it's part of the office culture (and OH BOY is it not).

The Countdown Begins

Summer's almost over: the days are cooler, I'm starting to get emails and phone reminders from the elementary school, the school bus drove through the neighborhood today, checking its routes. By this time next week the kids will be in school and I will be frantically readying for work.

Here's what I want to finish up before I start work:

1. Painting the kitchen and laundry room. People, the hardest thing about painting walls is the prep, and these rooms, with their windows, cabinets, shelves, appliances, et cetera et cetera and so on, have MASSIVE amounts of prep. To the point where I stand in front of the wall that will definitely be prepped today and start to get headachey just thinking about it.

2. Trimming up the bushes on the sides of the house. The folks we bought the house from basically stopped trimming bushes about five years ago. The house is being smothered.

3. Organizing the basement. Right now it's just heaps and heaps of stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else. Kitchen stuff, camping stuff, fishing stuff, Christmas stuff, boxes of happy meal toys I had secreted away, hoping to stealthily dispose of, and which the kids have found and have strewn about.

4. A thorough house-clean.

I also want to go for a hike, laze about, finish some writing projects, and who knows, perhaps invent a cure for cancer. Also organize the tupperware cabinet. Part of me knows it's silly to think that life as I know it will end when I go back to work--but part of me doesn't think it's silly at all. The last time I felt like I had to organize the tupperware cabinet was just before Helen was born, and that's a lot what I feel like now: like I'm nesting. Life will still go on, with beautiful sunrises (of which I will get to see QUITE A FEW during my morning commute) and good meals and whiny evenings--I'll just have a lot less energy to spare for upkeep. Also, I sort of want to have a home space that is restful, vs one that is nagging me to do something about that empty suitcase in the middle of the bedroom floor or the pile of papers on the sideboard.

How about you? Last time you started a job, what did you have to finish up/ square away?

Spring Cleaning

So, I found a hat on Sunday. It was lying in the middle of the road as I drove Helen home from a playdate, and two hours later the hat was still there, limp and pathetic as the weather washed over it. Since adopting stray hats has had good effects in the past--I fell in love with Hubs when he was wearing a terrific leather hat he found in Mexico, for example--I picked it up and wore it home. Over my hood. I will wash it before I wear it for real, in case you're worried.

And I don't know. It's just a hat. But I am hoping for some kind of help, here: for a while I've been noticing that my attitude is in need of a serious change. Yes, I was not really happy about moving to Denver. Yes, I'm bummed that my creative and professional life hasn't exactly been a shining beacon of wonderfulness for the past 14 months or so. Yes, the house we moved into has some problems, such as the dinky little kitchen with rinky-dink cabinets that shed paint peelings and sawdust into our pots and pans, and not all of these problems are going to be fixed in the conceivable future. Yes, for some reason our new geographic location makes me feel claustrophobic and constrained. But come on. This is where we live. I need to step into it and engage: I need to stop focusing on the bad and start pursuing the good.

So I'm hoping for good things from this hat: transformative things. Making-me-want-to-be-here things. Accepting-opportunity-when-it-comes things, and making myself receptive to opportunity. Such as this hat.

With Gusto and Fun

So, it appears that next week my life will take a turn for the busier. Instead of just moping at home during Helen's daycare days, wondering why editors aren't calling and trying to work on my novel, I will be heading into the big city and doing work at a Prominent Cultural Institution (PCI). You will notice that I did not say my life will take a turn for the flush-ier, or that we'd be able to afford to replace the leaky windows in our front room: this work is unpaid. Technically, it's for students. Undergraduates, even. However, when I was moaning to a friend about this--I'm 37 years old and taking an unpaid internship! what the hell am I thinking?--she counseled, wonderfully, that I shouldn't care about that. I should just take this for what it is, a great opportunity, and do it "with gusto and fun." That's the best advice I've had in a long time, so I'm going to do my best to live up to it.

Of course I have misgivings, which I'm going to confide to the ethersphere in an attempt to exorcise them. My biggest fear is that this will lead to nothing; or worse, some other opportunity will come along while I've committed myself to this one and I'll have to pass on it. Or at least make a choice. I kind of hate making choices, especially when one side of the choice is "money and dullness" and the other side is "fun and poverty."

Other fears:

1. This internship will lead to nothing, and will be an interesting but useless interlude.
2. The awkwardness will never wear off; I'll be the 37-year-old unpaid make-work-er for eight uncomfortable weeks. Oh, hai. What do you have for me to do toDAY?
3. The end will feel like the end of my last job before this one: I'll feel disappointed and not-chosen.
4. I won't make connections, either for myself or others.
5. I won't have any ideas; I'll just come in every day and sit obediently at my desk, and never do anything beyond what's asked of me.
6. I'll have great ideas, but they won't catch fire: I won't be able to do anything with them, or convince others to pursue them (this is one of my life patterns. A BAD one, obv.)

But! I'll get to take the light rail every day (well, three times a week)! I'll get to go into the city, with my clippy-clop heels on; I'll get to feel like a part-time member of The Club, for a little. I have some wild hopes, too. I'm afraid to share those too much, but I'll lay one out: I hope this leads to me being in a position to help the people who are helping me now, by bringing me in.