Remembering why (the work edition)

I flew. I pumped. I networked. I conquered.

The dreaded first business trip is complete. And honestly? It was great.

H was fine. We had milk to spare. My mother-in-law got some great grandbaby time. I got some great professional time. (T is still waiting for his great relaxation time.) It was good to get away and be out west again. It was good to remember the good work I've done in the past, to get recharged about the good work I'll do in the future.

The truth is, I love my weird corner of the professional universe, maybe especially because I never really meant to call it my own. Given the bubble of DC and my current project, connecting with other folks in my field and learning from other projects is something I need to do more than ever. And of course, in the constant juggling act that is working momhood, it's harder than ever to make it actually happen. Having a reason to go and an excuse to suck it up and make it happen? Critical. I worked on Tucson's streetcar project way back in late 2007/early 2008. These things take time, as we know. Back then I was chasing love much more than the idea that I'd be at the system opening in 2014. I'd only been in Dallas a few months when I worked on that FTA application - T and I were just figuring out how to live together. We'd adopted one cat, maybe two. There was not yet a marriage, a move to DC, a house, infertility, a baby girl. Those things struck me in Tucson last week, seeing this project go live in a cool little town that reminds me in so many ways of the great one I left behind seven years ago. It's funny how things work, because pursuing transit was the professional path that made my choice to leave Albuquerque for Dallas as practical as it was romantic. I miss New Mexico like mad, but the decision was the right one.

All these years later, this streetcar project and I ended up meeting again. That's one of the reasons I love community planning and transit projects - you can always visit. Sometimes we all need a reminder of why we do what we do, why the headaches are worth it, why the unnecessary drama is sometimes just something you need to work through until the smoke clears. Last week refreshed me, and being away from H helped me see the big picture, to be honest. Some day I want her to know that her mom's work matters to her because she believes her projects help make cities better places to live. What I do might not always look exactly like it does today, but I hope that broad definition will still fit. And even if I decide some day to buy that little bookstore I love in the Outer Banks and leave it all behind (note to self: need to inform husband of these plans first), we can visit my projects together, anytime we like: that streetcar a mile away from our house, or the one in Tucson or Dallas or Ft. Lauderdale, the commuter train in New Mexico, or spots scattered around the country that are maybe a little more vibrant than they used to be - the Lehigh Valley, the South Valley, the Piedmont, and more. The thing about this work is, you get to leave your mark.

As for traveling to visit one of those marks, it was a juggle of course, but not as bad as I'd feared. I timed things similarly to my office, found a few breaks in the schedule to steal away solo, had refrigerators in my rooms, traveled with ice, only filled my bags to 100 ML to speed up airport security (which I didn't even need to do, it turned out), and basically just made it work. As we do. The only real wrinkle was just an embarrassing one, and saved for the flight home. Despite verbal warnings insisting otherwise, congregating in the aisles is in fact still rampant on airplanes. I discovered this the hard way after pumping in the tiny airplane bathroom for just ten minutes to take the edge off (having learned my lesson from the flight over - ouch and oops), and exited to find the bathroom line literally running halfway down the plane. Seriously people? Oh, the dirty looks. (Although they might have thanked me when they realized I did no harm in there.) At any rate... at least my freezer woes are no more!

Home, full of love.

Remember this North Carolina, my home state of kindness and acceptance and love? That's the North Carolina I visited this weekend. I love my Outer Banks family, the way we laugh and cry together, the way we join forces for celebrations and for sorrow. This weekend, we celebrated. My Aunt Penny and her partner Allison - who fell in love as teenagers and reconnected twenty years later - had a commitment ceremony in their Outer Banks church, alongside their children. I was proud to be there, and prouder yet to call this family my own. But mostly I was thrilled to see my aunt with such a big smile on her face.

Have I mentioned that my dad is quietly the best toastmaster of all time? He is. I should write about his haiku at our wedding; it's legendary. And there was his Forrest Gump toast at my sister's wedding, and his bridge metaphor at my brother's. In honor of my Aunt Penny, he began with farm tales and ended up with my late Aunt Jill, and how her life and her loss shows us how important it is to be happy while we're here. Somehow this was tied together by my Aunt Penny's childhood schemes for ice cream. My dad's toasts should not work, but they do, every time.

I've been missing my Aunt Jill so much lately. I know she's in each one of us, every single day, but some days the loss is still too tender to bear. T and I stayed at her house with my cousins over the weekend, and I found a book I loaned her when she was sick, my note to her still inside as a bookmark. We were both bookworms, both writers, both full of infertility issues, too - but that's a story for another day. She would've loved Penny's ceremony, whose "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" flash mob equaled her own church band rockin' out at her funeral in every possible way. Music unites those sisters, still. Speaking of sisters, my late aunt's daughters amaze me at every turn. (They also crack me up, as demonstrated below.)

I spent a lot of time this weekend thinking how hard family can be sometimes. It's also wonderful and worth it, but family can be tough. In those tough times, I want to do nothing more than to sit in a room with them all and just be. I think that's a good thing.

In our happy moments? I like to give hugs. Liam likes to give high fives. Take your pick.

Photos by Melissa Habit - isn't she awesome?

Tick tock, North Carolina

Before yesterday, North Carolina was the last Southern state without a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Before today, I also believed North Carolina was the last Southern state to secede from the Union. I just google-checked my memory and discovered that Tennessee actually seceded a week after my home state did. There goes a youthful assurance, a little piece of why I've always loved home. (Google: killing dreams since 1998.)

The truth of the matter, though, is that what matters more than when. North Carolina did secede from the Union. North Carolina now does have a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Last night was a deja vu moment for me. I saw myself driving my high school car (a hand-me down from my grandmother), with its "Jesse Helms Doesn't Speak For Me" bumper sticker on the back. I'd found it at a little bookstore in Chapel Hill that offered a discount if you could name a historical event that happened on the year they pulled out of a hat. Any nerd like me knows that the French Revolution began in 1789, so my bumper sticker cost me practically nothing. It wasn't the only lefty bumper sticker in my high school parking lot, either. We were in the Triangle of Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill after all, a dynamic region for research, universities, and industry. (The marriage amendment lost 4-to-1 in the Triangle last night, for perspective.) But back then in the 1990s, gun racks still outnumbered peace sign decals. We liked to show our stripes.

Those stripes are everywhere, if you're looking for them. The problem with making assumptions about any "red" state is that it ignores not only the pockets of blue, but the legions of people working hard to change the tide in their surroundings. There's a particular kind of state pride among those who love their state despite their state, who have a seasoned respect that's deeper and more honest than sheer boosterism. Making blanket statements about regions does so at the expense of the folks working hard there to make a difference, and it's something I take personally. Change is slow, and it starts small. Bumper stickers matter. But more than that, so do conversations on front porches, at the neighborhood park, in churches, in the checkout line. This small, steady change is happening all over the South. It's why some of my favorite people are progressive women from Texas. It's why North Carolina voted for Obama in 2008. It's why my teenage cousin half my age just went to her junior prom in NC with her girlfriend, and no one raised an eyebrow.

That same cousin's Facebook status yesterday was "And we keep fighting... and we keep going," said with all the assurance of a seasoned community organizer. She knows that time is on her side. We all do. While headlines are made about irrational amendments being passed, my family and friends at home, some of whom are gay, are trying to go about their lives just as they did yesterday. They're talking with their neighbors, raising families, and adding value to their communities. Their hearts are hurting, but they know the clock is ticking. The bravery in their hearts is the best thing I know. The second-best is the dedication of those on the ground already trying to peel this thing back, already laying the groundwork for how progress will reassert itself.

Tick tock, North Carolina. The march of progress has never left you behind completely, and it won't now, either. You're too beautiful to be shadowed by hate, too smart to be labeled something you're not. Time will tell.

New Year's, then and now and next

Five years ago, T spent New Year's Eve with my family in North Carolina. He'd never met them. Just days before, he'd moved back to Dallas, while I was still living in Albuquerque. Life was a wee bit uncertain. There was a lot I didn't know, but one big thing I did: bringing this guy home to the family for New Year's was the best idea I'd ever had. Here we are that night, all shiny and new. T's still sporting his short politics hair. He hates this photo, and even though it doesn't flatter either of us, I can't help but love it, knowing that hours later he'd whisper things in my ear that we both already knew, but were both waiting on him to vocalize. (As usual, I'd jumped the gun weeks earlier.)

Five years later, we've come full circle. We were home in NC for New Year's Eve again with the family that he's firmly a part of, in a position so secure it's hard to believe there was ever a time when we hadn't yet used the L word. In a twist of fate that I'll choose to believe was just the universe giving us a year's worth of bad luck all at once - and not a cliched representation of the decline of passion after marriage - we didn't even kiss at the stroke of midnight this year.

T was sick. Miserable. Bedridden with the flu. Holed up in the bedroom of my youth. The entire weekend.

It was a very Influenza New Year's Eve. Oh, how times have changed.

Folk art paintings now take the place of Smiths posters up in my old bedroom, but there's still something sweet about tending to a sick husband in your teenage bed. Poor guy.

Downstairs, we tried our best to be festive without him. After five years of making memories in this house, his presence left a hole. But I set out the party supplies anyway.

My nephew Liam kept calling it a birthday party. And so during our "calendar birthday party" without one of our own, we ate smoked fish, beef tenderloin, green beans, and cheesy grits. We played games. We laughed at the kids and hugged a new puppy. We wore flats.

But most of all, we fervently wished for a 2012 that's a little luckier for our crazy crew, with a little less sorrow and stress than the year before. I'm fairly certain this was my family's wish in 2011, too. We're a patient family, I suppose. Although by the looks of her kitchen chalkboard, my mom may be getting less patient...

T tried to make it downstairs for the ball drop, but couldn't do it. Hence the saddest and cutest New Year's Eve text message I've ever received, sent from two floors above.

Now that he's feeling better, we've decided to just redo New Year's. We have lots of fun plans this weekend... why not add in a romantic countdown? So if you're out and about in DC this weekend, keep an eye out for two weirdos whispering to each other and checking the clock at midnight. There will most definitely be kissing this time around.

"Why are you so far away?" (she said)

I'm reading South of Broad right now, and loving it despite its initial chapters of overwrought, floral prose. I wasn't sure I'd be able to get past the insufferably long, overwritten sentences at the beginning of this book, although they did serve as excellent fodder to entertain T with dramatic readings. (Note to all writers: if a reader has to stop and gasp for air while trying to read one of your sentences aloud, it's probably too long.) Fortunately, Pat Conroy settled down the rhetoric once he introduced additional characters and stopped simply expounding All Things Charleston, and now I'm hooked.

I was thinking last night about the tight group of friends who comprise the heart of the novel, and how so many of my favorite books, movies, and even television shows involve a central group of friends who grew up together over the years. I'm absolutely guilty of romanticizing that sort of camaraderie. We romanticize what we don't have, after all, and my life couldn't be more different than the hometown experience. I'm lucky enough to have friends all over the place, from all sorts of chapters in my life, and many of these friends are as different as could be. I love that about them. If I hadn't gone north for college, I would never have met my fantastic Boston Girls. If I hadn't gone west for graduate school, I would never have met my amazing ABQ crew (or my husband, for that matter). If I hadn't followed T out to Dallas, I would never have met the Champagne Thursday girls. And now that we're in DC, we love the new friends we've made and the new life we're creating. We are constantly evolving.

Despite the knowledge that I wouldn't trade any of what I have for staying in the same town with the same people forever, I still adore wondering what that would feel like. I'll never have kids who'll go to high school with the kids of my high school crew. Most of my high school crew left town like I did anyway. I won't see my college friends at weekend football games or alumni events. Most of us live too far away, and besides, we don't even have a football team anymore. I'm not able to walk over to my graduate school pals' house anymore for breakfast, hashing out the previous night and planning how we'll take over the world tomorrow (oh, how I could use those breakfasts these days!). Heck, my pals don't even live together any more... marriage and babies and all. Time marches on and moves us farther apart geographically. We all visit and stay in touch regularly, but still.

I understand the logic of distance, but my heart can't help but pine for one endless "Big Chill"-style reunion, minus the suicide (although the drama of one person's husband impregnating someone else in the group with his wife's permission would be... exciting?). And while my choices mean I do and always will fly around a lot to see my favorite people and their offspring, how much would I love for them to all be here with me, living in my neighborhood?

Here's a song for today from my friend Ann, who is part of my "Nightswimming" memory, and in comments notes that she feels the same way I do about that song and about that long-ago weekend. Ann left the Triangle like I did and now calls Nashville home. She sent me this clip over the weekend, which immediately  prompted me to tell T to develop some Nashville clients so it'd be easier to get out there regularly. That's exactly how my world keeps getting bigger, by the way. Is it crazy that I sometimes wish it was small?

Thanks, Ann, for knowing this song would make me as happy today as it would have in 1996, sitting in your living room drinking boxed wine. I raise a glass of Franzia White Zin in your honor, and send you a long-lost hug across the airwaves.

The Ones I Love

Oh, R.E.M. Oh, adolescence. Oh, sitting in my bedroom playing "World Leader Pretend" endlessly. And still, even today... how does that song know? I wished I wrote it. I still do.

And what about the absolutely brilliant "Losing My Religion," the first cassette single I ever bought. Or the way that "Driver 8" and "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" always make me yearn for a road trip, right then and there. Or the way that "Nightswimming" will always take me back to one weekend the summer after high school, when a bunch of us spent the weekend at the beach. Or the brainy-moody-sweetness of "Talk About the Passion," which gets me every time. And their last album "Collapse Into Now," released in March, that I've listened to on almost every drive down to North Carolina since I bought it.

For me, R.E.M. was the promise of What's Next. The notion that ideas and passion and dialogue and debate and pain and joy were around the corner,that I was Almost There. That college would be the best thing that happened to me, or grad school, or young adulthood, or something. That I would craft a life that found a way to match my ideals and weirdness and energy.That even if I didn't, the yearning might just be enough.

R.E.M. was like a bug bite underneath my skin, itching again when I needed it, just when I'd almost forgotten what it felt like. They helped me dream big dreams, and hope for a life that was more me than the moment was. I've figured out how to be happy in my reality, but when I listen to R.E.M., a little part of me always wonders how much more today could be something that only I could create. And because I am who I am (did you listen to "World Leader Pretend?"), I love them for that. And always will.

Dallas, the epilogue

I'm writing from an old favorite coffee shop in Albuquerque, in a booth responsible for much of my master's thesis six years ago. I just ate a breakfast burrito the size of my head, and practically licked the plate. The weekend stretches before me, and I feel incredibly lucky. The next three days could be measured in coffee cups or wine glasses or old stories or words that cut through all the filler and go straight to the heart of who I am. That's what this town is about. A piece of me breathes differently as soon as I step off the plane here. A piece of me will only ever be at home here.

But I set down today to write not about this city, but the one I just left. Visiting Dallas before Albuqerque was a funny trick, as if I were tracking my personal timeline backwards. Maybe I should go to Boston next, then back home to NC. Sometimes you see things differently when you do them backwards, I think. Or maybe that's just me.

When I left Albuqerque to move to Dallas, to be with T and to put an end to long-distance traveling, the chances of me feeling at home there were slim to none. We actually joked the night we met that I would hate Dallas. It just wasn't anything like my academic/activist nest of Albquerque. But T and I found as "me" a neighborhood as we could, we ate and drank fabulously, and we were at least together. Still, the fact that I was there only for him seeped into everything. I'm stubborn and independent and hated that I'd followed him there. Following him was worth it, but it made life difficult for a while. Dallas and I had a rocky start.

Two and a half years later, we left Dallas for DC. And a year and a half after that brings us to this week, when I visited Dallas for the first time since we moved. The best thing happened, too: I had a ball. I realized firmly, without a doubt, that after all my hangups about being there, Dallas really is a city full of memories that I created, full of people that I care about, and a place that will call me back again and again. This sounds so simple, I'm sure... but it's a bit of a bombshell.

In two days I re-met the daughter of a dear friend who was the size of a football when I last saw her, and is now a walking, talking beauty. I met the new fiancee of a friend who's practically reinvented himself since we left, but who makes me laugh just as hard as he always has. I reconnected with two amazing women who are taking control of their lives in the best way possible, and are both happier than they've ever been. Life is good for the people I care about in Dallas. And life is good for me, too... as someone who's happy not to live in Dallas, but happy to say, at long last, that it's a city I love anyway.

Maybe it's finally time - so many years later - to thank my funny and handsome and smart husband for introducing me to the Big D. Like so many things I said that first night we met, I take my words about Dallas back completely.

Never say I only show the good stuff

My freshman year college roommate is spending the night tonight. It occurred to me that of all possible houseguests, Amy is the perfect one for this moment in time. "This moment in time" being the very unready-for-houseguests state of our house. The current state of the guest room isn't really that far off from our college digs, after all. Seriously, take a look (and shield your eyes from the flourescent yellow paint).

Okay, the color doesn't look that bad on screen. But in person, you practically need sunglasses. And this from a girl who likes color.

So I'm imagining this room with an old-school desktop computer in the corner, a dozen posters and photos taped to the wall, and several cups of coffee lying around. Pretend that bed's unmade, and this looks exactly like the college freshman dorm experience that Amy and I rockedsurvived.

After doing all of that together, Amy is immune to shock. She can hang in this sort of environment. Probably get a great night's sleep, even. We may need it. Tomorrow morning we're headed down to Greensboro, NC to rendezvous with the other half of our college girl gang. No painting will be done. Much wine will be consumed (at least for the non-preggos in the bunch). Many laughs will be had. And it will be exactly, precisely what I need most.

(Did I mention there won't be any painting?)

Have a great weekend, folks!

Feliz Cumpleanos, Lisa!

Today's the birthday of one of my favorite people on the planet... my sister! I always thought having a Cinco de Mayo birthday was beyond cool... talk about having a built-in party atmosphere for your big day! While it's possible that Lisa may not be donning a sombrero and downing margaritas this year due to life being a wee bit hectic, I'm looking forward to a raucous belated celebration as soon as can get herself up to DC. In the meantime, let's give a warm round of birthday cheer to the girl who's also known as....

SUPERMOM

CHICKEN WHISPERER / DIY EXTRAORDINAIRE

(not to mention part-time backyard chicken blogger... I told her that she had requests for a full-time blog!)

MOST AWESOMELY PREGNANT MAID OF HONOR EVER

ALL-AROUND PARTNER IN CRIME

then...

and now...

Happy birthday, sis!!!

Plated, now and then

Our car is finally DC-legal. 14 months later. We're sort of bad about DMV regulations, as you can see. There are plenty of excuses related to the ridiculously small window of hours the DC DMV is actually open, but really... there are no excuses. We're slackers who live in a building with a parking garage and thus can get away with being slackers. I must say, though, I've been geekily looking forward to having one of the coolest "state" license plates around.

Confused? Take a gander at this explanation of "Taxation Without Representation" and what it means in DC. Most of the U.S. has no idea that DC residents don't have a vote. That's 600,000 residents, by the way... more folks than the entire state of Wyoming.

Speaking of other states, I confess to loving license plate design. Spotting different state plates makes me a kid all over again, on the long road trip down to Disney World, playing I Spy with license plates. (Just yesterday, walking home: "Ooh! Alaska!") Being an Outer Banks girl, I always liked North Carolina's license plate (which eggs on the heated Wright Brothers rivalry with Ohio... the drama!), but I don't like the switch the state made to red letters a few years ago. Give me the old school blue, please... the red is sort of glaring.

I never had a car in Boston, but I'll endorse the classicism of the Massachusetts plate anyway. Truth be told, I might have been tempted to get the Red Sox plate there, although I firmly support the sentiment of Massachusetts as the Spirit of America, Mass-holedom and all.

For my first car in New Mexico, that amazing combination of late '80s design and mid '00s politics that it was, I was thrilled to have New Mexico's funky old-school license plate on the back, blazing with color alongside all my bumper stickers. In any other context I would hate this garish yellow, but in the Land of Enchantment, it works. Please notice that you're admiring a license plate not just from New Mexico, but "New Mexico USA," by the way. This was part of the state's campaign to assure everyone else that New Mexico is in fact part of America. Sigh... Seriously though, this plate is more effective than something like the "Keep Austin Weird" campaign by a mile. One look at this plate, and you know something strange and awesome is going on in that place.

For my second car, they were out of the cool yellow plates, so I had to go for the "new school" hot air balloon version - very friendly to tourists, very "see, we're a normal state in the United States" of them. The plate might have been less funky than the crazy yellow one, but it's still really pretty. Man I love that place.

When I moved to Texas I was pretty resistant to getting Texas plates, which says as much about my attitude toward Texas at the time as anything. My expired NM plates forced my hand, though, and I truly did approve of the Texas plate design. Its tribute to various state elements is clean and graphically interesting - although it's notably lacking a Dallas Louboutin. It's a pretty Houston plate, all things considered, but nicely done all the same. Never fear: I promptly slapped a political sticker on the car to balance the Lone Starness of it all.

A couple of years later, Texas decided it was time for a new plate, so they ran an online contest where residents would choose the new design. Oh, Texas. Some of my favorite people are from your state, and I will adore Austin until the end of my days, but this sort of represents why people make fun of you:

I want to believe that the Texans who voted for this license plate were doing so with a strong sense of irony. Maybe they thought it would be hilarious to vote for a bad tribute to State Fair airbrushing, because surely the state would not actually print something that heinous. But no, Texas. Your governor is Rick Perry, and your state did in fact print the winning license plate design. And now you are paying the consequences.

Lucky for us, we fled Texas in a hurry before being confronted with that thing. And here we are, cool "Taxation Without Representation" proclaimers at long last.

Am I alone in my license plate geekiness, or do you nerd out to license plates, too? What are your favorites?

(My non-biographical faves: Colorado, Maine, Oregon, and Vermont)

Green, head to toe

During my college days in Boston, St. Patrick's Day really was a holiday. I remember lots of beer. I remember freezing my *ss off at the Southie parade, watching the gold medal US Women's Hockey Team go by, the storefronts all celebrating local flick Good Will Hunting. I remember our favorite local bar, all the regulars, all the music, all those years. Years I forgot to wear green, I'd fall back on my green eyes, which saved me from pinching fingers. With a name like Maggie and a fair face full of freckles, many Bostonians assumed I was Irish. Nope, I'd always have to say, just a WASP.

I adore the color green, and regularly swoon after anything emerald or grass or avocado in stores. Right now, this is the green item I'm coveting the most. Absolutely unsuitable for the sort of St. Patrick's Day raucousness that I miss from Beantown, but worth coveting all the same.

Cole Haan Violet Air OT Pump

 I've stroked them in the store... these are the real, early-birthday-present-worthy deal, folks.

Friday I'm in Love

I'm excited about this weekend... no huge plans, just a weekend in DC at long last, and Oscar weekend at that! I hear it might even be spring-ish, so I'm going to take some long scenic walks, maybe go fox-hunting... until it's time to plant myself on the couch, ogle the red carpet, and cheer on Anne and James, of course. I'm strangely not in the mood to write an Oscar post this year, but go check out my pal Kate's post if you're in the mood for one (and read my comment there to feel my pain about a celebrity near-miss I had last week). On that note, my three picks for the week (which actually are not all this-week finds... it's been one of those weeks). Have a fantastic weekend, folks!

Bangable Dudes in History

Huge props to Lauren for bringing the blog Bangable Dudes in History to my attention. Yep, it's as fantastic as it sounds. Case in point: the above graphic. (Click for a larger size.) See more bangable dudes in history at the blog, and proceed to weep with joy.

Back to the Future

 Props here go to Sarah for spotlighting the amazing project Back to the Future. Oh, how I'd love to set up a series of these portraits with friends and family. I could look at these for hours.

Salvatore Bklyn

Once upon a time, I dated an Italian-American for several years, who always made fun of the way I said "ricotta." Which is to say, I pronounce it without an Italian accent. All these years later, I officially have my response. It's in the form of this couple in Brooklyn who make their own ricotta and sell it to some of New York's most celebrated restaurants - as well as to shoppers at the Brooklyn Flea. They begin this video with a dismissal of ricotta pronunciation snobbery, then tempt you with their smoked ricotta on toast with olive oil, and then have you cheering entrepreneurship. Let them eat riccota!, they might as well shout from their windows. And let them pronounce it however they like!

Valentine's Day advice from my grandmother

Valentine's Day is an appropriate day to kick off remembrances of my grandmother. She loved romance, and gifts of red roses or "jewels" (even if it was just a trinket) from my grandfather delighted her to no end. If you were to meet my grandmother for the first time, she'd coerce you into sharing details of your love life before you knew what hit you. She loved surprising people with nosy questions or bold statements. Case in point:

In high school my cousin got married in Atlanta, and Grandma and I were getting ready together in a hotel room. I had an ugly rash on my chin and cheek, and was trying in vain to cover it up. Grandma stepped in to assist. She gently touched the rash, surveyed the area, and with a twinkle in her eye, she stepped back and pronounced, "Maggie, you and I both know that what you have on your face is a case of beard burn, and nothing we can do in this hotel room is going to cover that up. I hope you had fun getting it, because it's not going to be fun getting rid of it." She was right, of course. I'd been ruined by a boy's stubble. We laughed and laughed. All throughout the wedding, she'd make beard gestures at me from across the room, having a ball making me blush.

One story my grandmother loved telling me was from her early twenties, when she was a single gal in Edenton, NC. She was tall and she was very pretty, boasting long legs and gorgeous auburn hair, and considered quite a catch in town. Two men proposed marriage to her before she met my grandfather. "Do you know how I responded to their marriage proposals, Maggie?," she'd ask. "I laughed right in their faces."

"Grandma!" I'd protest. "That's so mean! Those poor guys!"

She wasn't having it. "They weren't the right men for me and they knew it, so they deserved to be laughed at."

Harsh but fair. It was her way.

From the first time I heard that story, I liked that my grandmother had other offers. I liked that she took her time and found the right match. I liked that she knew herself well enough to know what she wanted, and had enough confidence in herself to know that she didn't need to settle. I didn't get engaged until I was 30, but unlike all those other folks throughout my 20s who hinted that it was time for me to hurry up and get married already, my Grandma Miller never once suggested that I needed to settle. She loved the fun stories folks had from casual dating, but when it came to marriage she had only two questions: "Is he the right one?" and "Is he good to you?" He was, Grandma, and he is.

She and my grandfather were married 65 years ago last month, and were my grandma here to dispense Valentine's Day advice today, she'd keep it simple: be true to yourself, never settle, and make sure to have lots and lots of fun. 

It certainly worked for her.

Shrooms with Georgia O'Keeffe (you heard me)

I cooked mushrooms for dinner last night, per my "gorge on foods that T doesn't like while he's traveling" rule. Yep, dinner consisted of a huge plate of mushrooms. Not just any mushrooms, though: Francis Lam's mushrooms, a guy whose writing I enjoy immensely. A guy who begins his piece about mushrooms like this:

"Look, no offense, but chances are your sautéed mushrooms aren't very good." 

I respect that sort of approach. In "How to Sear and Saute Mushrooms," Lam breaks down for us the things we do wrong when we cook mushrooms, and how to do it right. The technique seemed surefire, so I was on board immediately. But it was Lam's style that made this post memorable for me, caused me to seek it out last night as I was going through my mental salmon/olives/mushrooms/tomato selection process. The way Lam speaks directly and makes gentle fun of the reader: hot. But the way he sprinkles in things like "I might as well baby them with some sweet, touching caresses beforehand, too": doubly hot.

And so I cooked Francis Lam's mushrooms, using two pans so as not to crowd them, turning up the heat so high it's a miracle my smoke alarm didn't go off, and no doubt making the neighbors salivate with the smell. And you know what? They were the best mushrooms I've ever made, hands down. They were meaty, full of smoke and flavor, and begged for red wine.

Not one to disappoint the perfectly cooked mushrooms, I got after the wine a little bit, and in my night of going solo did what any self-respecting girl does on rare night home alone: watched chick flicks*.

Let's talk about Joan Allen for a minute here. This woman can do no wrong in my eyes. Didn't she scare the hell out of you in Nixon? Didn't she impress the hell out of you in The Contender? Didn't she woo the hell out of you in Off The Map? I thought so.  This woman is a force. I love her role choices (The Ice Storm to the Bourne franchise?), I love her intelligence, I love her face. How fitting, then, that'd she play the woman with my all-time favorite face: Georgia O'Keeffe.

I love O'Keeffe's handsomeness. I love the lines in her face, the strength implied in it. Years ago at a photography exhibit of her life at the O'Keeffe Museum, I marveled at that face for what felt like hours. The grin on the back of a motorcycle, riding through the desert. The smirk that seems to carry a secret message just for you. The wise eyes, sizing up her work. The humbled eyes, unable to size up the vastness of the high desert. Maybe it's because I look the opposite of O'Keeffe in so many ways - I curve where she stretches straight across, my cheekbones have never quite seen the light of day, whereas hers could cut glass, she shrouded herself in black while I blanket myself in color, I could go on here - but looking at O'Keeffe, that face is the embodiment of being a wise woman to me. It's the look I'd love to have as a fierce old broad with a big laugh doing whatever the hell I please.

And that's the other thing about O'Keeffe that gets me: her commitment to a place I love so much, her inability to get it out of her system, her eventual decision to give herself over to a place. I cherish my five years in New Mexico as a sacred time - full of mistakes and hilarity and growth, but in so many ways the best time I've ever had. I know I left at the right time for me, but I'm only now realizing the extent of what it means to carry it with me always, wherever I go. O'Keeffe understood this about New Mexico.

So Joan Allen as Georgia O'Keeffe, then? It works. And yes, it's a Lifetime movie, whatever. It's available on Netflix. I admit to wishing there was a Part II - to forget Stieglitz and New York and to just stay in New Mexico with her friends, to be with her in her favorite place a while, to relish in this thing I like to imagine we share.

As a girl power signoff, I offer the painting at the O'Keeffe Museum that always stops me in my tracks. It's "The Blue Flower," and in person it looks like it should be made of velvet. I'll let you interpret as you will.

Note to Self: Need to get serious about booking a trip back to New Mexico.

*In my liberal interpretation of "chick flicks," I'm counting a Georgia O'Keeffe biopic and a documentary about industrial design. It takes a lot to make me watch a rom-com. Like, one or more characters from my fantasy island and no small amount of witty banter.

Halloween, or, Being a Goofball and Getting Away With It

I'm antsy with excitement about the weekend ahead. My pal H arrives this afternoon for a weekend that includes a fun dinner tonight, some rallying tomorrow, and a little Halloween gathering tomorrow night. We decided to launch a local pub crawl from our apartment, which gave me a great excuse to break out the boxes of decorations I've had since those legendary college Halloween parties we started throwing in 1997.

Take these spooky candelabras, for instance, which had a few timeout years back in the day due to their fire hazard potential during raucous flip cup matches. Adult apartment with nice furnishings in a prohibitively expensive and therefore small space = no flip cup! Although there's always the patio...

There will be decidedly less beer this time around, and I'm skipping fake spiderwebs everywhere, too. Just a small little crowd taking in the local scene. Fanny has contempt for this approach, by the way. As a Halloween kitten she thinks we should go big or go home. I remind her it's not college anymore. Hell, it's not even graduate school anymore.

Since I'm way, way, way olderwiser  now, I know enough to prevent the rookie mistake of eating all the Halloween candy before guests arrive. This is why I not only refuse to open any bags of candy until Saturday, I've even hidden them from myself (and umm... will hopefully remember said hiding place tomorrow). Speaking of the rookie days, here's a treasure - the dreaded costume box, forced upon anyone who dared show up sans costume. This collection is pretty finely tuned, actually - consisting of a few basic things I bought during Year 1 and growing annually with the props that drunken partiers left behind at our place.

Oh, and my "Michael's bag of crazy" costume? I left a hint for you in one of these pictures. Let's just say I'll be straddling the very thin line between "abstract artistic expression" and "hot mess." In a feminist- and conservative-approved manner, of course.

Go get after it this weekend, everyone. After all, laughing at ourselves is the best kind of laughter.

The Boston Girls, reunited

Boston. The first city I ever fell for, hard. A weekend with my best girls from college, starting now, doing nothing but cracking each other up and remembering when. Thank goodness for our nerdy-as-hell-but-whatever-that's-just-who-we-are Honors Dorm, where I met three kick-ass girls that will forever and always be "The Boston Girls" to me: A, T, and N.

Please admire the late-'90s dorm decor

Oh boy.

We parted ways with the dorm after freshman year, much to the dismay of the 5,000 mice that liked to keep us company. Our chief accomplishment over the next few years was developing a widespread reputation as The Girls Who Throw Fantastic Halloween Parties. (We also figured out that whole hair and styling thing, too.) (Thank goodness.)

And it was Boston. We cheered on the Sox. We cheered on the marathon runners (including A herself, years later). We cheered on a certain local movie, shown here on a Southie marquee during the St. Patty's Day Parade.

We also cheered on this guy during spring break in Cancun.

And then we graduated, but not before one last throw-down at The Squealing Pig, the neighborhood bar where we congregated every Thursday for years.

We spread out across the country, but there were visits. The girls came out to see me in New Mexico. I went back east for THIS AMAZING EVENT OMG I WATCHED IT LAST NIGHT TO GET IN THE MOOD AND I STILL CRY AND GET CHILLS. One summer, we spent a week on the Outer Banks - the last week we'd ever spend together as single girls. I'd just met this guy and couldn't stop talking about him, even though I assured the ladies it wasn't going anywhere. Riiiiiiight, they all said.

And before we knew it, T got married. Hurricane Ernesto decided her picture-perfect Buffalo lakefront scene wasn't happening, and so we had the best garage party wedding of all time instead. So. Much. Fun. My all-time weirdest come-on happened at T's wedding: a guy asked if he could bathe me. Seriously.

A couple months later, N got married, and we headed back to Boston to be her ladies in brown.

N was the visionary who made gritty urban wedding photography a thing, I'm telling you.

And here we are with our gritty attitudes a little later. This shot cracks me up every time.

We surprised N in Boston for her 30th birthday the next year, and I finally brought that guy I'd been talking about at the beach for them to approve. They did.

For the next two years, we had individual visits, or 3/4 visits, but never all of us at once, until this.

And now, we have this weekend. N has a two-year-old boy. T has a one-year-old boy. A is engaged. And I'm me. And life is so very good with these three in it.