A nice weekend, definitely, full of long uninterrupted stretches of languorous loafing and undirected wandering. On Friday evening, we made random plans to see Constantine but then decided that we were both too tired and screw it, we’d just stay home and watch history geek shows. We discussed our plans to go to Chicago on Saturday. I was vacillating, though, because we didn’t have a real reason to drive three hours south and then turn around and drive three hours north, especially since they were forecasting a giant snowstorm. In fact, my sole reason was that I wanted to wander around Nordstrom and say “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home” clicking my Stuart Weiztman heels three times. Oh, as if, because I shop in no nonsense flat shoes, of the type you normally see on social workers and nuns, because I am sorry, but I will not have my aimless meandering cut short by an unexpected blister or unnaturally shortened calf muscle that is mid-spasm. Priorities, damn it.
And then when we woke up, the world was white and it was still snowing, so I just went back to sleep, figuring, aw hell, I didn’t really care all that much. Then Esteban woke me up and asked if we should go, but I grumbled about snow and then we both snuggled in and slept until 9 am. Once we woke up, I peeked outside and realized that it really wasn’t horrible. And Esteban was game, so we showered and packed some snacks and jumped in the car, and were immediately disturbed by the state of the roads. Our street had not even been plowed by 10 am and the main drag out of town was sloppy and messy. We were met by triads of plows following one after another, taking care of three lanes at a time, a technique only used for the very worst snowfalls, when the runoff from a single plow will leave a berm of snow and ice capable of taking out the front end of a Buick. However, we were undeterred, feeling that the highway would certainly be better than in town, zipped through Starbucks, which was empty since most of the world was still trying to get their driveways clear (we blissfully powered out of ours, since the plow hadn’t been through to block us in yet). The highway was marginally better, although as we got out of town, Esteban started making wary grumbling noises and griping the steering wheel tightly.
It was a very pretty drive however. The snow, which was still falling, turned everything a sort of hazy black and white, making distant barns and silos into dark shadows on the horizon, lines of fences disappear into the horizon that is nearer than it should be. Sometimes I really hate Wisconsin in winter, but then there are other times when I love how austere it is, how the trees make different shapes, some like whisk brooms and others like flowers and still others like dancers and hairbrushes and old women. I love how you can see the inverted triangle of a raptor in the branches, silhouetted like a G-Man with big shoulders, watching for his contact or perhaps just a juicy field mouse. I love how there are no colors unless you look closely and then you see the exposed veins of reeds slashing up through the snow, the cold wintergreen of the pines that refuse to ever take off their uniforms, and sprays of burgundy berries, looking like poison for an unsuspecting Snow White. It takes a watchful eye to see the color in winter and not let the unending blank gessoed canvas overtake you until you want to drown yourself in Prussian Blue and Cadmium Red.
We got a little past Sheboygan, right to the point where the good radio station comes in, when Esteban pulled off the highway, swung around and turned north. He felt bad about it and I knew that he had really gone further than he had wanted to, but he didn’t want to disappoint me. I wasn’t all that disappointed, although Nordstrom, you owe me two couple’s skates. I suggested that since we didn’t have anything planned and since we both needed to go to the bathroom and eat something, why didn’t we stop in Kohler where we could do both and explore a little? Esteban was game, so we drove around the little town made famous by faucets and golf, oohing and aahing over the poor little rich people and their matching dogs. We decided to eat at the American Club. Esteban was fine in his jeans, black shirt and black Clarks, but I was dressed in layers, none of which were four-star dining fair. I tzutzhed the hair, applied a fresh coat of lipstick, lost my polar fleece pullover that brands me as a suburban soccer mom and went with jeans, a v-neck white t-shirt, and a black leather jacket. Surprisingly, it worked and we didn’t look out of place, other than the fact that there are no fat people among fat cats. Ah well. Tourists we were, but the prime rib sandwiches with bourbon mushrooms in the club room were divine.
We made a quick stop at the grocery store, because I love rich people grocery stores, and picked up some foo-foo food, some kind of crazy beer that made Esteban all happy, and also a whole tenderloin to roast later that night. Esteban was relieved, since I had originally planned to make a Shepherd’s Pie, something he was not regarding with much excitement, as it would contain the dreaded vegetation such as toxic carrots and forbidden peas. Hi, I would like you to meet my husband, the four-year-old.
We drove back to Green Bay and when we got home, they STILL had not plowed our street, so Esteban cleared the driveway and moved the cars back in while I did some laundry and started dinner of the roasted tenderloin and some mashed potatoes (originally earmarked for aforementioned Shepherd’s Pie). I got creative with the mashed potatoes, as I picked up some incredible Pecorino Romano cheese when I was in Milwaukee at a different snooty grocery store, and man, Food Network is so right, because Pecorino Romano is the futhamucking bomb. I grated a hunk of cheese into the mashed potatoes and followed up with a little Irish butter (yes, I know, I have officially become pretentious. I apologize, but it is so good) and it was phenomenol. Not that Esteban would know, as he insisted on putting gravy on my piece de r’sistance potatoes. Sacrilege! Also, I made brownies for dessert. With chocolate frosting. Ok, whipped chocolate ganache. Gee, I can’t imagine why I can’t seem to lose any weight.
On Sunday, I worked on a short story and my latest freelance project, and then went grocery shopping at my boring pedestrian store, the one without the funky cheeses and crazy Irish butter. I know. I can barely put up with my own self. Where’s my matching dogs? However, Homerun Inn pizza is ridiculously yummy for frozen pizza. And it was on sale. Go me. While I was at the grocery store, I got suckered into buying a Real Simple magazine, which apparently I am powerless to resist. I don’t know why I do it. They take a very simple story idea that would be maybe half a page at the most in a normal magazine, take a lot of really nice photos, set it into a large font that is justified and artfully spread out and suddenly, it’s a fifteen page story. It’s like all those kids who turned in papers with two inch margins in college got together and started putting out a magazine. And I keep falling for it. Every damn time. I think it’s all the white they use on the cover. I am such a pushover for white space.
Look. I’m in love. Right now.
I guess it does make everything have more impact.
The words seem to have more authority, don’t they.
Your life is too complicated.
Start putting things away.
Use olive oil on your cuticles.
Wear a pair of really comfy slippers.
Put a basket near the door for your incoming mail.
Remember to tell your family that you love them.
This totally is working.
You now owe me $3.99.
I know that I blather on about my iLove to the point that it is obnoxious (and if you agree, just go ahead and skip to the next paragraph and save yourself the eye rolls) , but when I am emotionally downtrodden, I swear that my iPod somehow knows and manages to sort through my 3546 songs to bring forth the precise song that I need to listen to that makes tears of happiness well up in my eyes and reminds me of everything that is wonderful in my life. It never fails. Feeling as though life is overwhelming and complicated? Postal Service, thank you very much. Wishing I could run off to Vegas and drive around in a Jaguar and stay at a posh hotel? Hello Blink 182, who misses me. Ticked at Esteban for being a tool? Here comes Rhett Miller, who has a Question for me and me alone.
And also, man, Ryan Adams’ cover of Wonderwall? Just… perfect. The five notes at the end kill me every time. Just kill me. They are the soundtrack to my death, those notes. They remind me of sitting in my college dorm, wondering what kind of person it was that I was about to become, thinking about all the things I wanted to do and all the places I wanted to visit, and recovering from my fucked up childhood that was still occurring on the weekends and understanding for the first time in my life that yes, yes, I was strong enough and capable of taking care of myself, and that I didn’t need anyone to do that for me, and no matter what happened, no matter where I was going, that everything would be ok. So yeah, Ryan Adams, you alterna-country guy, way to go on that five note phrase because you cut me to the quick. Every damn time.
Yes, fine, it’s the song they were playing when Seth and Summer finally Did It and man, would I just grow up and stop watching The OC already? Especially because could they make it any more obvious that Ryan and Marissa belong together truly and always, even though they have zero chemistry and Mischa Barton couldn’t act her way out of a paper sack unless someone told her that there were calories inside, about to attach themselves to her skeletal frame. Which would be fine with me, because she reminds me of those women you see in bars who get all their nutrition through a long neck and also, maybe they’d stop focusing on my own distinctly non-stick insect frame.
Couldn’t leave you thinking that I was, you know, deep or something. The OC! Boobies! Fart fart fart.
Since I’m on the subject of The OC, I am bugged by one really simple stupid little thing and it is this. Supposedly Julie Cooper-Nichol was in a low budget porn movie in the 80’s, right? And the movie is called “The Porn Identity”, riffing off of “The Bourne Identity”? Except that the movie was twenty years shy of being made at that point. Oh, sure, fine, maybe the scummy porn director was riffing off the original Ludlum text, which was published in 1984. Fine, I’ll grant you that, but that’s like a porn movie in 2005 riffing off the title The Cloud Atlas (The Cloud Asses?) or something. They’re not trying to, you know, appeal to a particularly literary crowd, those porny guys. Ok, fine, maybe there’s some literary porn out there, but come on, OC Writers, stop being so lazy. I shouldn’t have to work this hard. That’s why I watch The OC, so I don’t have to think. It’s supposed to be junk food for the mind.
Esteban’s off to Boston this week. He was supposed to go to LA, but now the father of a friend has passed away, so he’s off to the funeral. It’s spring break, so I don’t have class and had intended to use my normal class night to work on my story (the one that I don’t want to be writing, but it seems to have a mind of its own. I just want to write the Bingo story and be done with it, but my brain is all ‘Noooooo’ Alzheimers disease! Mother issues! Body image! You WILL churn out some over-wrought well-intended piece of shyte for your workshop because I said so! Now shut up or one of your favorite characters is going to have to kill a fictional puppy!’) but I’m not, because I’ve been writing this gigantic entry instead. So that’s my plan for the rest of the week. Story writing and preventing the deaths of fictional puppies.
PS. If you’ve currently got Bernie Mac’s baseball movie Mr. 3000 in your Netflix queue, do yourself a favor and delete that bad boy. Watch League of Their Own instead. At least you can learn something from that one. For instance, there’s no crying in baseball. Also, I’ve used Madonna’s ‘distract them with my bosoms’ strategy in the past and I have to tell you, it totally works. Hand to God. Or, you know, my bosom.
