The Kindle Dilemna

The other day I found myself having to kill time in Bethesda to wait out the Beltway traffic from gridlock to heavy, and so I wandered over to one of my favorite places, the downtown Barnes and Noble. As I wandered through the store, I found not one, not two, but three books I wanted. I had them all in my arms and was headed towards the checkout when I was struck with premature buyer’s remorse. As I may have mentioned, I’m moving next month (AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH) and I realized that I would be just adding more weight to my move.

Books are some of my favorite things. Which makes sense, since reading has been one of my favorite things since I made my first tentative solitary way through a Muppet Babies picture book in first grade. My mom has gotten used to me not hearing her the first time because my nose is in a book and Chris and Cary both give me a hard time, saying they can’t leave me alone for longer than 30 seconds before I find something to read. My book collection is suitably big. In my parents’ house I have over a hundred books stuffed into various bookcases—and (except for a six month relapse) I don’t even live there anymore! I’ve moved ridiculously heavy boxes of books up four flights of stairs in college, twelve hours down I-95 from Boston, and now I’m proposing to carry them to Baltimore. I have a certifiable book addiction, and while it’s not as bad as a coke addiction, it’s a lot heavier to move.

So the fact that I was given a Kindle for my birthday is not just generous but practical. But the fact that I now own a Kindle has brought up a huge moral dilemma for me. There are such pros and cons, it makes my head spin.

Kindles are practical. They don’t weigh anything, and they carry so many books! And while I don’t really live the greenest of lifestyles, I do appreciate the fact that saving trees through using less paper is a good thing. And, not to be forgotten in this time of less-than-flushness, books tend to be cheaper on a Kindle than in full-size.

But I LOVE books. No matter what those annoying commercials say, you can’t get the sensory experience of a book through a Kindle. Clicking a button is not the same as turning a page. And as a certified nerd who has spent years highlighting lines in books, clicking a little note with a cursor does nothing for me. Also, as a nearly obsessive re-reader, flipping back through a book is much easier and more enjoyable than clicking back through the pages of a Kindle. Finally, there are some downsides to technology—all of those “make life simpler” tech things seem to end up making life more complicated when they mystically stop working! For example, from my own experience: this is what a Kindle looks like when it’s been stepped on:

And this is what one of my favorite books looks like when it’s been stepped on:

You see the benefits of the old fashioned way of life.

Plus, I love bookstores. I can, and have, spend hours inside them, wandering around, enjoying the temperature control and the free restrooms, dabbling in every kind of book I could ever want to read. I for one was a big Borders fan, and I am so sad they are closing!!! I have Borders that mean something to me—the one on Boylston Ave around the corner from the Hand M in Boston, the one in Friendship Heights, the one in Hilltop—and they are all going to be gone! I don’t want bookstores to go the way of record stores. So I think it’s important to buy books, actual honest books, before we’re all just using the ITunes of reading. But who can I count on to do that if even I—book and bookstore lover—choose to buy on Kindle than in the store? I feel like such a traitor.

When I got home, I realized one of the books I wanted was not available on Kindle. So I guess I will be going back to the bookstore. I guess that’s the best of both worlds. And I guess I will have to continue to balance my loyalties, because I’d hate for the book gods to find me out!

Speaking of unreasonable attachments, I have finally started packing (AAAAAHHHHHHHH) and as I always have to do, went through a lot of my clothes to find the ones I never wear and should donate to Goodwill. And like I do every single time I do it, I got all teary-eyed. Does that happen to anyone else out there? Surely someone else out there has a hard time picking out clothes the want to give away? Ok, so maybe I haven’t worn that H&M shirt for two years because it got magically too tight in the chest and has a mystery stain on the stomach and kind of makes me look pregnant, but I had good times in that shirt. I wore it in Mexico City visiting Freddie, I have pictures of me wearing it with Karen at the Zoo in DC, and I went on a darn good date in it. By putting it in a pile and acknowledging I’m never going to see it again, to me it feels like I'm acknowledging that those good times it represented are over. This is why I’m a packrat, and terrible at packing, and all that; I have too good a memory (who remembers what shirt they wore when?!?!?) and am hopelessly sentimental.

Luckily I can blame this on my parents—as Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes posits when asked why he committed some horrible mischief, “Poor genetic material?” First of all, they are pretty darn good packrats themselves. Second of all, they love Mary Chapin Carpenter, and she has a song that I listened too all of the time as a kid and it explains the exact same attitude I have about my clothes and my books—

This Shirt, by MCC
This shirt is old and faded
All the color's washed away
I've had it now for more damn years
Than I can count anyway
I wear it beneath my jacket
With the collar turned up high
So old I should replace it
But I'm not about to try

This shirt's got silver buttons
And a place upon the sleeve
Where I used to set my heart up
Right there anyone could see
This shirt is the one I wore to every boring high school dance
Where the boys ignored the girls
And we all pretended to like the band

This shirt was a pillow for my head
On a train through Italy
This shirt was a blanket beneath the love
We made in Argeles
This shirt was lost for three whole days
In a town near Buffalo
'Till I found the locker key
In a downtown Trailways bus depot

This shirt was the one I lent you
And when you gave it back
There was a rip inside the sleeve
Where you rolled your cigarettes
It was the place I put my heart
Now look at where you put a tear
I forgave your thoughtlessness
But not the boy who put it there

This shirt was the place your cat
Decided to give birth to five
And we stayed up all night watching
And we wept when the last one died
This shirt is just an old faded piece of cotton
Shining like the memories
Inside those silver buttons

This shirt is a grand old relic
With a grand old history
I wear it now for Sunday chores
Cleaning house and raking leaves
I wear it beneath my jacket
With the collar turned up high
So old I should replace it
But I'm not about to try


Not to be overly somber, but when so much of life is losing involuntarily or good things ending, it is difficult not to want to cling to whatever you can, even if it’s just a stupid $10 shirt. But I must move (AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH), and I must not hurt my back or pay movers extra to move things that I do not use or need—and in the case of my clothes, could be used by people who do need them. So I will continue to collect Goodwill things and buy books on Kindle. And to try to remember that every parting or ending is necessary for new meetings and beginnings. Or, you know, more shopping trips. Since now I have a bunch of empty hangers. Mwahahaha.

Finally, on a real note, several of my dear friends are having troubles much greater than Goodwill-remorse—specifically, they have family members who are struggling with serious health issues. Please send mental hugs and all the good wishes you can spare to them and their loved ones!

Love to you all, and stay cool!

Sunday Randoms

This afternoon I found my distinctive favorite pair of underwear on the floor of my parking garage. Disturbing. More disturbing? I'd packed them to take to spend the night dogsitting Wally on THURSDAY night. So, unless my math is wrong, they've been lying on the floor of my parking garage since Friday afternoon. About 48 hours. Eeek. At least the neighbors don't KNOW they've seen my underwear?

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Today I went to get a massage. I have three saved free massages built up and only 4 weeks to use them in…um, speaking of, I’m moving. To Maryland. In about a month. AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH. Too…overwhelmed…can’t….talk…about…moving… so stay tuned. Details to follow.

Anyway, me, massage. Since I had Steven the Sk8ter Boi with the hands of gold, I’ve been sticking with male masseuses. What can I say, I like firm massages (not a euphemism.) Today, though, I had Michelle. Not to fret though, Michelle might have been skinny, but her hands were about the size of my head, and she had some strength going for her. She was thrilled to find out that I was an OT and would understand her anatomical terms. So she proceeded to systematically find and “release” my pressure points and narrate what is so wrong with my body that my back is consistently one giant knot.

First of all, I am medially rotated all down my spine but particularly in my scapular region. Second of all, my IT bands on both thighs are abnormally and inexplicably tight. Finally, to end on a positive note, while my right back muscles are way tighter than my left back muscles, overall I present with a well-maintained, very balanced body structure. See that, I am capable of balance! At least musculoskeletally.

Related to that, Michelle must have had to tell me to relax 15 times in one hour. Obviously it is hard to be relaxed when your pisiform muscle is being forcefully manually “released” by a woman with man hands, but even when she wasn’t working on me she had to tell me to relax because my body’s natural state is just short of stretched rubber band in terms of laxity. I started to explain about how at work today I had one woman burst into tears at the mention of therapy, another man say “Why should I put on underwear when I’m not going anywhere?” and another man overflow a bedpan with a massive bowel movement, and to tell her that I was moving (AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH), and so on and so forth, but even thinking the sentences made my arms curl back up like stretched Slinkies, so I just stayed silent. And listened to the wind chimes in the music like Michelle told me to.

Anyway, so in order to be less medially rotated and knotted and tight, I am to do daily hip rotator stretches, spend 10 minutes a day with my spine propped on a rolled towel with my arms out to the sides ala Tickle-Me-Elmo to “open up” my pectorals, and to lie with a bag of ice under my right rhomboid every night right before bed. Feel free to enjoy those mental images. And, as you might have guessed, I left the massage not so much relaxed as feeling EXTREMELY educated.

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Yesterday I walked around UVA's Grounds and managed to crash not 1 but 3 weddings. I did not, however, party like a champion.


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So, in my mind, mentally going through my closet and thinking which clothes I am donating to Goodwill and carrying in my coworker's generously donated boxes from my car into my apartment counts as packing. So I have officially started packing. Go me!


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Finally, a Lulu kiss to say goodnight. Have a good week!

Monday Randoms.

The 7/11 slurpee may be my favorite chemical-based drink of all time. Especially when it's FREE!!!


You get used to the freedom of living alone--walking around in states of undress, eating bizarre things at weird times, doing totally unpretty-looking workouts, talking to cats, etc. But when you attempt to glide gracefully onto your yoga ball as part of a core-building exercise and manage to fly off ass over teakettle and land halfway across the room with your legs where your arms should be, you kind of feel torn between being glad no one was watching and wishing someone was there to laugh with you; physical comedy of that sort should never be wasted.


You know you've been single too long when the last man to call you "baby" is your cognitively impaired patient. Related note: said patient, when he thought I asked him to do something he'd already done, exclaimed in long-suffering tones, "I already did that, baby!" Which was his one and only coherent sentence of the entire session. Nice to know spousal exasperation can survive profound global aphasia.


Self-affirmation of the day: Whatever poor decisions I've made in the past, I am proud to announce that I have never had sex on a golf course with a married (not to me) woman dressed as an M and M. I met someone this weekend who told me that story about themselves and I thought, wow, now I'm feeling much better about my life choices!


I have 23 days of work left. Crikey!!!


And finally, I think the secret of life is learning how to perfectly fit the sunbeam:

Love to all.

This is your brain on PBR...

As an OT, I think int terms of goals. This weekend, my goal was to spend both nights in my own bed. Between visits to Norfolk, dog sitting, and so on, it's been a busy few weeks and the next month will be equally busy--can we say MOVING??? EEEK. So I was determined this weekend would be really lowkey.

And it was! and it's been nice. I was really sad to miss a chance to hang out with some of my Bryn Mawr besties in Philly, and I didn't go to what was probably a super good time in Richmond, but I slept til 10 and sat in the sun and cleaned just enough to make me feel productive, and it's been good.

Part of my lowkey weekend was attending a late-bday pool party at my friend Miriam's. She hosted her bf, our friend Karen and her bf Ian, her friend from OT school, me, her friend from Richmond, and the friend from Richmond's new friend, whose name is Kestrel. Like the bird. And, as I think, like a potential X-Man character! We drank margaritas at first, but as the evening progressed, the beverage of choice turned to PBR. Which is not, as one person suggested, manufactured in Richmond (ahem, Miriam), nor the abbreviation of "Peoples' Beer of Richmond" (ahem, Kestrel). Can I just say how much I love the fact that these Richmond people are so excited to take ownership of this beer?

Anyway, since I was driving and being low-key, I managed to make one PBR last for the entire event. Despite this responsibility, I had like the weirdest dream EVER last night, so I thought I would share, with hopes you can find the amusement in my subconscious' trash can:

I was at a part on the DC mall to welcome the royal couple, and somehow, since I was inexplicably cool, I ended up going swimming in a tiny, magically appearing pool with Kate and Pippa Middleton. (And yes, I resent the fact that if my brain was going to give me a chance to look at one half of the royal couple in a bathing suit, it was Kate instead of William--dude may have some hair issues, but all that polo playing has given him some pretty nice arms). We were splashing around and having a jolly old time, but eventually it got too cold and the crowds had thinned enough that we figured we could make a paparazzi escape. As I got out, I realized I desperately had to go to the bathroom. So, hurriedly scraping up my things, I took the royal sisters to the highlight of the Mall, the public bathroom behind the FDR memorial. Since this was the site of many a Fourth of July potty run in my past, I have a fairly good mental picture of this place, and I even remember having to take the time to wad up a bunch of toilet paper and wipe off the yuckiness on the toilet seat (thanks again for that image, subconscious!) When I began dressing, I realized my Kindle was no longer in my bag. In real life, I am already on my second Kindle, the first one (a gift from my granddad) having bite the dust after I stepped on it (stories like that are why I'm not allowed to buy an Iphone), and in the dream it must have been my second Kindle too, because I was DEVASTATED. I realized it must have slipped from my purse and when I ran back to the pool, it was gone. I vividly remember the feeling of groping around on the dark slippery grass, praying that my fingers would run into the slim dark Kindle. When they didn't, there was obviously nothing to do, so I said goodbye to the Middletons and went home.

The next morning, I woke up and realized the person who had stolen my Kindle had been charging items to my Amazon account all night! The nerve!!! I called Chris, one of my personal technology gurus, and he taught me how to turn on the GPS chip on the Kindle (no, they don't exist in real life) and I got an address! So I called up my pal Kate (!!!) and asked her to come with me to retrieve it. I told her to bring all her bodyguards in case it got ugly. We met at the Tube Station at Waterloo and walked together down the Strand in London to get to the DC Mall, which is where the address was. I know that doesn't make sense. But I used to go to school on the Strand when I was studying abroad, and the memory was clear as day in my mind, the wide sidewalk, the sound of the cars rushing by; we even walked by the mini Topshop (as opposed to the massive Topshop in Oxford Street) and I made KAte stop and take a picture of me in front of it since I hadn't been in so long. Eventually we got to the address (after turning towards what was magically the DC mall), and opened the door. It was a tiny little low ceiling-ed room, and though it was full of things like computers and blown up posters of Kate that were JUST a little creepy (in the way of dreams, she had suddenly disappeared, and I was glad she wasn't there to see her stalker), there was no Kindle. Just when we were about to give up, one of the bodyguards opened this closet, and the thief fell out! He looked just like Jonah Hill, and he had my Kindle in his arms. He said something like, "you'll never catch me!" and ran out of the apartment. And even though he was rolly-poly, he evaded all of the bodyguards and escaped down a twisty, winding alley (yes, on the Mall.)

I went back home and tried to do the GPS thing again, but he has disabled it. So, left with no options, I went online again and turned off my Amazon identity much like you would turn off a credit card. And at that depressing point of the story, I woke up.

So that's it. I left out a lot of the detail, but trust me when I say it was like watching a movie. A very odd movie. What does it all mean?!?!?!? Probably nothing, except maybe that I should not drink PBR. I am, after all, not from Richmond.

Hope you all have good end of your weekend :)

Hope your weekend

Don't Be Scared...

When you are overwhelmed by life, I recommend a night spent driving around with your hysterically funny friend drinking Chik-Fil-A milkshakes and singing along to GLEE music.

So it was pointed out to me that my blog has been a bit...let's say "depressing"....lately. I agree. I tend to use this as a journal and forget that people actually read it. So it makes sense that I write at my bluest moments and don't pause to write when I'm happy or feeling silly or all the other emotions I have.

One of my favorite quotes is from Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya sisterhood, where the main character's mother Vivienne is talking about how she feels as if she has a crack in her heart, and that while she acts tough and tries to hide her vulnerability, part of her wishes everyone could see that crack, and treat it (and her) with the gentleness it requires. I try to live my way in a life that is respectful of the fact people have their own vulnerabilities like Vivienne, and one thing I appreciate about writing, especially with this blog, is how it allows me to reveal and explore my own "weaknesses." But those aspects are certainly not all I am, or all I have to talk (er, write) about, and I certainly don't want to be someone who unnecessarily adds onto other peoples' burdens by sharing my own. Nor is it wise to get caught up in the blueness and self-pity and never see or share the light that exists even in the tough times. Or, to strangle the metaphor, to so focus on the one crack in the heart that you can't see how well and strong the rest of the organ is around it.

So if you see me getting stuck in the melancholy, feel free to smack me out of it. And I will do my best to remember to write the good, not just the less good.

To end, I'd like to share my blonde moment of the day.

Doctor talking to my patient: "Oh did you work for Intelos?" (Patient nods.) "Did you do wiring or something like that?"
Me: "I think Intelos is wireless."
Doctor: "blank stare."
Me: "You know, like, the Intelos Wireless Pavilion downtown...." trails off while realizing the blondeness...
Doctor: "Right, well, you still have to WIRE for the wireless, right?"
Me: "Riiiiight...."
Doctor: "So there are still WIRES. Anyway, moving on..."

Sigh. At least my patient got a laugh out of it. I live to amuse.

Have a good night, and xoxo.