1:30 AM . . . what am I doing?

I went to a career counselor last week.  Interestingly, we verbally walked through my personality type and I self-identified as an INFP.  This information, combined with yet another mental health professional suggesting that I suffered the abuse of my mother's narcissistic parenting, has brought me closer still to understanding who I am and how I live my life.

I make decisions with my head.  I sacrifice my heart.
My heart wants creativity, art and travel.
My head wants the approval and love of my mother (and others).
The conflict is painful and destructive.

Listening to music.
Watching the dog sleep.
Distracted by the idea of leaving my job.
Trying to reconcile feelings of excitement and sheer terror when I think about having a baby.

My head knows having a baby with P will be special.
My heart feels that a baby and motherhood would be another cage.
Sometimes I just want to run away from the life I have created.

The picture below is overly dramatic (I was playing around with the features on my new phone).
 

 

On another note, I cannot seem to stop listening to this song.

 

Godzilla Anyone?

Great eats at the Mobile Food Rodeo at Lake Union this Saturday. Everything from mini donuts to curry empanadas . . . !

This guy is hungry for a TokyoDog!  WIth all that urban destruction and fury . . . you can definitely work up an appetite of giant lizard proportions.



Love this Tokyo Dog-zilla . . . woof woof yum!











What variety!

As someone who works in the culinary vacuum that is downtown Seattle, I appreciate mobile food.  Best case scenario: a go-to rotation of food trucks visit the ACT Theater/Convention Center/Two Union Square area in downtown Seattle.  Despite the efforts of the underground eateries sprinkled between the Convention Center and One Union Square (to include gem in the rough, Juicy Cafe), the culinary variety is otherwise, in my opinion, lacking.  A few authentic ethnic (Ethiopian, non-chain Mexican, Moroccan) would go a long way up in our neck of the woods.  Most good eats are a hike away in Belltown (Black Bottle, Mama's, the Tom Douglas empire) or down closer to the waterfront (Pabla Indian, Japonesa, Mae Phim, Maximilien).  Although I happily confess to sacrificing foot pain in exchange for good food, make no mistake that I firmly believe the words "hike" and "heels" do not belong in the same sentence.  Ever.

Food trucks, please come downtown and consider this to be my plea for help.  We young working professionals (read: stiletto-styling-designer-handbag-toting-suit-and-tie-sporting-work-in-a-fish-bowl-with-air-conditioning-robots) would kill for a little culinary creativity! 

See you in the Beer Garden!

The Sea

The sea is violent,
whipping winds,
foamy waves,
frothing at the mouth.
Sea monster.
The tide turns,
slippery flying fish glide over a cool wake,
screaming gulls echo in pursuit,
and a delicate crab tiptoes deep into black.
Eels gracefully ease between jetti rocks,
endless and invisible in length.
High, low, ebb, flow
quiet your mind.
Rhythmic wave after wave after wave,
shush, shush, shush,
lapping and licking
the shores of my heart.

Essential Tao of Travel

Paul Theroux’s “Essential Tao of Travel”

1. Leave home
2. Go alone
3. Travel light
4. Bring a map
5. Go by land
6. Walk across a national frontier
7. Keep a journal
8. Read a novel that has no relation to the place you’re in
9. If you must bring a cell phone, avoid using it
10. Make a friend

–Paul Theroux, The Tao of Travel (2011)

So, the next question is . . . how do you do all of this and have a baby?

Number 2 is out, but perhaps the rest is still do able?

12 Miles and An Evening With Ira Glass



Dahlias in full bloom at the Ballard Farmer's Market

It's been a busy weekend!  On Saturday, P and I drove to Snohomish County and ran a 12 mile out-and-back, beginning and ending at the Macchias Trail Head.  It was a gorgeous day, hot and sunny with blue sky and wispy clouds.  After our run, we grabbed a quick lunch (sandwiches on fresh bread, cole slaw, pickles and coffee) at the Snohomish Bakery. 

Downtown Snohomish



I was hoping to visit Flower World, but they closed at 5 p.m. and we did not make it in time.  For those of you who have never been: Flower World is every gardener's paradise.  Do not be deceived by the name "Flower World."  Although the Flower World website is exceptionally lousy (in my opinion), their 15 acre facility has an incredible variety of indoor and outdoor plants, shrubs, trees, succulents, (and more) at very reasonable prices.  It's a little off the beaten path (about an hour from Seattle), but well worth a weekend trip every now and then.

After just missing our chance to experience the euphoria that is Flower World, we jetted home, showered up, then headed off again.  This time, to Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle to see "This American Life" host, Ira Glass.  [side note: while driving to Seattle, we witnesed some breathtakingly beautiful clouds]. 

Ira Glass was more charming and heart-felt in person than I had expected.  His I-am-a-normal-person approach when speaking to the audience was engaging, as was his witty, quirky, self-deprecating sense of humor. 

P's finger frame

The show covered a wide range of discussion topics: from a tutorial on how to put together a story (introduce and move a plot forward with questions, then reveal the answers at the end), to an explanation of the important role that semiotics plays in his life on a daily basis.  (Don't feel bad.  Prior to the show, I had no idea what semiotics was either - but now I do, courtesy of Mr. Glass!)
He called himself nerdy.  I loved that.

After the show, P and I decided to take a late supper at The Palace Kitchen.  We shared an amazing appetizer of mussels, curried eggplant fritters, and a mushroom sampler plate.  The mushrooms were a little disappointing (rather rubbery and flavorless), but the pita and fava bean mint hummus was lovely.

Trying something new.

I'm trying something new today. 

Although it is entirely possible that this blog will share a similar fate with a half dozen abandoned journals laying around my house, I want to try and capture my thoughts, moments and memories for a couple of reasons:

(1) My memory is oh-so-terrible.  P and I are active.  We take trips, visit friends, explore new places . . .  and make all kinds of memories that my little brain just can't seem to hang onto.  I feel geriatric when he says, "hey, remember when we [fill in the memory]" or "we've been/done/seen this before, remember" and I (wiping the drool from my chin and adjusting my Depends) say, "huh? Not really."

(2) I'm 31 years old and wrestling with some interesting life decisions (including but not limited to: procreation, living abroad, career changes)

and

(3) I like sharing.  Maybe it's generational, but I just can't help myself.

With that said, here is a wonderful poem by Mary Oliver:

The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?