Rhubarb Pie

Barely enough.

 

Anand found them first.

Now, see, I want this blog to be a force for good.  I hope it improves your lives.  But it is a very diffuse medium and there's not much it can actually do.  Perhaps it can reassure you that other people have felt something you feel.  Perhaps Sherry's posts can waft some crisp Maine scents and colors your way.  On a very good day, maybe I can crack you up.  I have heard on two occasions that my advice got someone laid, so I am quite proud. On rare and treasured occasions, we can save someone from going to law school.

This is little enough and tenuous.  But there is a much more direct way this blog can make your life better.  You should MAKE THESE PANCAKES.  They are that good.  They are a sure thing.  If you make them, your life will be better than if you do not make them.  Three people have tried them since I first mentioned them, and reported fantastic results.  I want you to have fantastic pancakes.  But I can't force you.  I can only invite you over to eat them, and plead with you on this blog.  Please.  Invite a couple people over.  Make the batter the night before.   Eat oatmeal pancakes together, for extra goodness in 2010.

The days are getting longer.

Best of the winter holidays to you, however you celebrate them.

If you celebrate them in snow, though, you should know that you don't have to live like that and we'll be waiting for you on a sunny beach with trees full of tangerines, lemons and limes.  Hope your next few days are good.

Fair weather.

I am supposed to be studying for the Professional Engineer exam in April.  But now I have two awesome roommates, so there's a dinner and friends over most nights.  And Ali and I are talking about adding in yoga.  And knitting or painting projects.  I'm still lifting weights.  We're working on a big and difficult jigsaw puzzle.  My pleasure reading has already slowed.  Gardening will kick back in a few weeks.  So basically, all my minutes are busy in very enjoyable ways. 

Nevertheless.  I'm thinking it may be time to start watching the Kings again. 

No copying, Sherry. You have to write your own.

I have all sorts of thoughts, some of which don't directly answer your question.   But I'll try them anyway.

First, I love the actual question you asked, "How do I re-frame what's going on so it doesn't feel like low level on-going rejection?".  That's the perfect question.  The situation sounds like it is stuck, but you are the boss of how you think about it (mostly), so lets get you a better angle on this.  I know full well that low-lying scripts can take away from your daily experience of life.  They nag and mutter and say mean things to you.  They pester you, barging into should-be glorious moments.  They're also unfounded and ridiculous, which is really obvious when your perfect brilliant gorgeous friend confesses some piece of self-loathing that makes you shake your head amazed that someone could be so wrong about himself.  Whatever pained framing you can't help but hear is equally pointless and wrong.

Next, who knows what happened, but I can tell you one thing.  They're conflicted about why they shut you out.  That's what the silence means.  If they weren't conflicted, it would be easy to tell you.  They would say "Because you robbed a bank and shot three people, that's why!".  Instead, they're keeping quiet because they don't know or don't like their own reasons.  They have rationalizations, but they know the real reason is that maybe you were careless or they were overoffended or it didn't feel the same and they can't face their own insecurities.  They aren't proud of what they did, or they would tell you straight out why.

To your actual question, on how to re-frame:  Here I have to give you the only truth I've come to after all these years of dating, with rejection going both ways.  It is profoundly unsatisfying, but I have finally settled on the vague and underdetermined "fit".  Sometimes people fit and sometimes people don't fit, and there is no reason for it.  There is no reason in the good direction; why should Ali and I click so very much when we are such different people in such different life stages.  There is no reason in the bad direction; why can't I fall for that sweet bright good man?   Looking for reasons will only make you nuts.

My guess from reading your email is that you grew some, and the fit wasn't good any more.  If they were old beloved pants, you would know because they'd get too short and tight.  But they aren't pants, they're people, so instead of being too snug around the waist, they start to scritch and squirm and close out this person who shows them that they haven't changed.  That's my first guess at the reason, but my underlying guess is that there is no good reason except that people have shortcomings and don't live up to who they want to be.  That's hopelessly vague, but sometimes vague is all you get.

Finally, you sound like you're on exactly the right track, but I wanted to reinforce what you're doing.  The only thing you really get to do in these nebulous friend situations is live your own life really well.  Seriously.  They lost something fantastic and precious when you left the situation; they lost your voice and ideas and spark.  Now you make your own life good, so that your voice and ideas and spark are that much stronger.  Treat yourself well and be bolder and deeper, so that you develop even more.  It isn't to spite them.  They may never know (although, word does get around), but that isn't the point.  The point is that you are growing into new friends, and they will be as good as you are.  You are trading up, and you earn better friends by being more of your best self.  You are great; your life and friends will be great.

That's not a feature.

What do we talk about?  We talk about how COLD it is, and how we are about to DIE of COLDNESS.  Then we complain that it might be COLD for more days, and agree that this COLD is UNACCEPTABLE.  We say we hate these cold, dark days and we can't believe we have to live through them again, because that's not how we roll and why, dear god, does the earth have to tilt on its axis and take us away from the beautiful sun that we worship and crave.

Sherry, it has been cold.  Mostly it is in the forties, but last week it was in the THIRTIES, and no one can live through that.  We stayed inside (which is horrible) and didn't even drink on the porch because that would lead straight to hypothermia and death of COLD.

We do not mostly talk of dressing for cold.  Dressing for cold is just one more indignity of cold.  It covers our fading tans and is hard to move in and you have to take jackets on and off.  The only tiny possible sliver of benefit is that I get to wear scarves and hats that are important.  I wear a plaid wool scarf from my grandpa. My sister knit me a hat.  I have a fuzzy scarf and hat that I made.  Just this weekend, Ali is knitting me wristwarmers (with yarn from my aunt!), which I desperately need for my ride into work.  Because my wrists get cold, because the temperature is cold, which is just awful.  We talk about missing summer.  Tall, light-flooded, hot, beautiful summer.  It can't come too soon.  This winter bullshit needs to end.

Anecdote fodder.

I was chatting yesterday with a handsome young man who said that he isn't interesting, and he wants to be. I was pretty dubious about that. I know him to be funny, and I know that he has interesting observations about being a runner. So I know that he leaves the house to pursue a hobby, and then reflects on it. Funny, does stuff, and reflects on it is most of being interesting. So I wasn't convinced by his claim. But he says that he runs out of things to say too early in conversation. He wants to make his life more interesting, so that he has more to say.

I thought that should be pretty do-able. He lives in a big city, so he has lots of ways to make his life more interesting. I suggested that he go to stuff around town. Book readings and open mics and gallery openings. It isn’t so much about whether he likes an individual outing. Going to a few open mics in a row will start to give him opinions, and opinions are interesting. If he goes there by public transit, he's likely to see strange things, and strange things that happen on public transit are interesting. He got the idea right away; sure, he said, a calendar for anecdote fodder.

On my bike ride home, I got to thinking about it even more. It struck me that he could get even more out of it if he reflects on the outings on his way home. I wanted to propose two (maybe a third) questions for him to answer after the event.

First: what was your favorite part? I think consciously deciding on a favorite part of the evening is helpful for a few reasons. First, I think it will make him like the evening better in retrospect. Maybe the café was dingy and the open mic was largely embarrassing and the whole thing reminds him of the emptiness of our disconnected urban lives. Fine. But searching through the evening for a favorite part will emphasize that piece in his memory, and he’ll look back on the evening just a little more fondly. Since going to a bunch of those things can be work, he might as well remember the best aspects of it. Second, people enjoy enthusiastic people. It is a good practice to notice the best parts of things and be able to recount them. Calling out the bad parts is not-interesting. It is easy and predictable and brings negativity to the party and sounds like a jaded teenager. To be interesting, note your favorite parts.

Second: what were you surprised by? Defied predictions are interesting, because they illuminate the prediction and if other people have it, they will be surprised too. Then you and your listener can all do the work of re-calibrating your predictions, which is figuring things out, which feels good to people. So, note surprises.

Optional third question: how did the logistics work? This is idiosyncratic, perhaps. It won't be interesting to everyone. But I promise you that there is a portion of the population that hosts parties and plans events, and they are fascinated by logistics. So if there weren't enough chairs but you could have fit more people in by re-shaping the aisles, dorks like me notice. We don't get to talk about it often, but when we find someone else who notices, we can talk for hours, finding it interesting the whole time. How did the logistics work? Was everyone comfortable? What were the fire hazards? How were the lines of sight? What would make the speaker more at ease with the mike? Hopefully the content of the evening will be interesting, and if not, the first two questions can improve it. But if none of that is inspiring, there are always logistics to ponder.

I think that is more than enough homework for this poor guy, who was interesting to start with. But he asked.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Hey friends,

I'll be away from the internet 'til next week.  Take care of it for me.

See you then.

Megan

It isn't always Porgy and Bess.

This is great.

As is:
Such a great song.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

I had my perfect nephews on Wednesday.  They're five and three.  Anand and I took them to the park in the afternoon.  Then we dealt out hands of gin (the one where you can take the other person's spreads if you can continue the run), and figured we'd hear about it if something went wrong.  I didn't hear any shrieking or anything, but I looked around one time and saw the little one sitting across the park on the tire swing.  There were two big boys with him, and he was pointing at me to a woman.  So I went over to see what was up.

They were very sweet, a woman my age and two boys, maybe eight or nine.  Man, if you spend the morning with the five-and-under crowd, eight year olds are practically colleagues.  Talking to them is so direct.  Anyway, the woman said that my little nephew had hopped up on the tire swing with her boys and was raring to go.  But she wasn't going to push a little one as high as her boys wanted to go until she knows it is OK. 

There's a hill and wall on the playground we normally go to.  The kids take off running on the top of the wall while the hill slopes away until the wall is a three foot drop (which for them is head height).  I once saw the three year old run to the end of the wall and jump.  At the top of the arc he stretched out, straightening his legs and pointing his toes.  Then he landed in a split-foot crouch and kept running, and after that I was all, "Play however you want, Jet Li.  You can handle it."

So, lady, thank you for checking.  That was super thoughtful, but it is fine.  He'll go higher until the chains bounce and then he'd like some spin on that, but thank you for checking.  So she pushed Smalls and her boys, and then went to a different swing with one of the older boys and I pushed the two remaining boys higher.  Smalls was loving it, and I suddenly realized the older boy was holding on to him too.  It was subtle, and I think un-needed, but the eight year old would reach behind his back, or hold my nephew by the wrist.  I was so very touched.  The kid had a very nice smile, so I wouldn't expect him to be mean or anything.  But to see him care for a little boy who jumped on his swing at the park was really more thoughtful and kind than I expect from kids. I keep thinking about it, because the light was all golden and the kids were different races, so it was picturesque, you know.  Basically, he made my week.