I’m going to BlogHer! But I, uh, won’t be at any of the panels. Or any of the cocktail parties. Because, as a card-carrying member of the Intense Procrastinators club, I didn’t sign up in time. So it sold out. Which honestly never occurred to me. Perhaps it should have, but perhaps it also should have occurred to me to register my car that one time last year BEFORE it got towed for delinquency. Thankfully, this mistake SAVES me money, rather than sucking it out of my bank account until I’m moaning piteously and searching Turk St. for used crack pipes I can sell for shiny nickels.

Luckily, my houseguest is a similarly dedicated slacker and also failed to register promptly. So we’ll be slouching in the lobby with our sneakered feet propped on potted ferns while the rest of you lovely bloggers trip merrily about, doing responsible, productive, contributing-to-the-good-of-society kinds of things. We will be a leeching carbuncle on the bum of BlogHer and WE WILL BE PROUD.

A few parties will take us without the badge of blogger responsibility, but most of our time will be spent in a bar somewhere waiting for people to be done with official activities so we can pounce on them. If any of you want to escape the crowds, or say hello, or come to a Slackers Anonymous brunch on Sunday, just say the word. (Word can be sent via email, comments, carrier pigeon, smoke signal, or candy gram.) (I like salted caramels.)

Or just look for this:

I’m not terribly demure about birthdays. I send out reminders two months prior and badger people with demands. Demands like a bullhorn and a tall building, so I can climb to the top and bellow: “TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY. I REQUIRE A TIARA.” When the tiara arrives, I hand it back with a curt shake of my coiffed head if it doesn’t have enough peacock feathers.

Friday was my 30th birthday. This is what we did:

(Camels & Chocolate, yours truly, Holly - who organized the whole event, bless her kind soul - and Jemima)

Here we are a few hours later. Notice that pronounced list to the left? There’s a reason for that list and that reason is RYE’S BARTENDER.

I’ve been looking forward to my 30th birthday for, oh, six years now. Someone once told me that by the time you hit 30 you’re more comfortable in your own skin. I’m happy to report they’re right, and THANK THE DEAR LORD FOR THAT. My confidence wasn’t going to win me any awards when I was younger, and that can make life a lot harder than it needs to be. But I know myself better now, know what I want, and developed some solid coping skills. In short, I’m a lot more sure of footing and far less willing to beat myself up over stupidity, real or imagined. I also extol the virtues of sunscreen.

I think the very best thing I’ve figured out is to not waste my time. Worrying? Wastes my time. Fretting over something lame I said? Wastes my time. (Especially when those lame somethings fly so fast and thick that it requires an entire calendar month to parse out a single dinner party. Said month could be so much better spent watching back episodes of Lost, don’t you agree?) Angsting over the men folk and their peculiarities? Quite possibly the biggest waste of time ever, after those lines at the DMV. Turning 30 hasn’t morphed me into some zen master, I’m sorry to say, but the squirrels in my brain are a lot more relaxed than they were five years ago. Perhaps all the alcohol just stunned them into submission, but I like to think that I’ve gotten smarter. It seems a reasonable trade-off for slower metabolism.

I’m happy where I am, even though where I am is not where I wanted or expected to be. And if that doesn’t shriek maturity, don’t tell me. (I like my delusions, thank you.) (Turning 30! Means being better able to lie to oneself with reckless abandon!)

I think my 30s are going to kick my 20s ever-loving ass. Stay tuned for the cage fight.

(If you want to see the birthday photos in all their tipsy glory, go here. None of these pictures were taken by me, because I am apparently allergic to photographic documentation. Luckily, many of my favorite people were present and many of them brought cameras. So I shamelessly pillaged their flickr accounts.)

We knew Julia was planning a bouquet of vegetables for the wedding, we just didn’t know which vegetables she had in mind. Thrilled though I was when the legislation came through in time to turn the ceremony into a legally binding type arrangement, the real excitement was the farmer’s market bouquet. Speculation was rampant for months. “Do you think it will be a small spray of carrot greens? Or do you think she’ll tote an eggplant down the aisle?” I have to admit, I was voting for the eggplant. Or maybe a pumpkin.

When the day arrived, Crunchy and I drove into the Santa Cruz mountains early to fulfill our duties as Very Official Beauty Consultants - which is hilarious when you consider our respective devotion to appearance. I think I can safely speak for both Crunchy and myself when I say our general method of grooming is to use shampoo and maybe a comb before walking out the door. A hasty swipe of Chapstick marks special occasions. Which is probably, come to think of it, why Shannon and Julia chose us. I do believe the first time Shannon ever wore makeup was during the pre-wedding experiment when I attacked her with concealer as she winced and held her face away from my prodding brush. But we gamely offered our expertise, and I only blanched slightly when the eyeliner was produced. I’m proud to report that said makeup was added to glowing faces without one instance of cornea puncture or sudden apocalypse. After the brides were done, they trooped down for photos. Also known as THE GREAT BOUQUET UNVEILING. Triggering a mad stampede for cameras. (We all wanted flickr evidence.) Stepping toward the table in cinematic unison, we found a decided lack of glossy aubergines or plump, awkward squash. But I wasn’t disappointed, because check out this masterpiece:

Yes, I do believe those are onions. And radishes. And some type of kale. I haven’t checked, but I do like to think that they went home the next day, dumped their bouquets in a large pot over medium heat, sprinkled in some white pepper, and turned them into a nourishing soup.

(Dear Shannon and Julia,

If that’s not what you did, don’t tell me.

Love,

Moose)

Watching Shannon and Julia’s ceremony helped me remember what I want from a relationship - namely someone to get so uncharacteristically choked up over her vows that she can’t speak for several minutes (I’M LOOKING AT YOU, SHANNON). I don’t remember the exact text - I never caught a glimpse of the index cards they so faithfully studied - but I do know they summed up what I’d like the next time around. Love, acceptance, support. (And, of course, radishes.) So I leaned over to a friend and whispered, “I should become a lesbian.”

Flip, yes, but I was touched - even if I expressed it by implying that lesbians have the market cornered on love and acceptance (and Kitchen-Aid mixers). (Yes, I do have depth. And that depth can be measured with a toothpick.) The door prize for watching my own love life tank is a huge respect for all you lovely folks who keep healthy, happy relationships going. How can you not want to emulate that? And I’m so glad they got to make it legal, just like everyone else who loves someone and wants to gift them with better insurance coverage.

So we drank wine and composed rude madlibs for Rosin Coven to sing later in the evening. (The madlibs were a virtuoso of tipsy wedding guest creativity. Sadly, the only one I can remember verbatim is “If you were original, I’d be your sin.” Orangutans and chocolate cake also made an appearance and I’m left wondering why I don’t go to weddings with a tape recorder.) We performed a conga line through the wood chips and called it a night.

Congratulations, ladies. I look forward to borrowing your Kitchen-Aid mixer.

(Note: The second half is far more cheerful. Feel free to skip down to the booze-y bits, if you like.)

Grief is a tricky thing. You’ll be merrily trucking along with a few blips on the pain radar, but nothing that infringes on your smug feeling of Handling Things Well and Being Brave and Moving On With Your Rather Awesome Life, Thanks. Until grief swings its book bag - containing the complete works of Nietzsche and the Encyclopedia Britannica circa 1972 - on a random Tuesday morning and clips you under the chin.

Even when the epitaph reads “We loved each other. It didn’t work out. The end”, even when you parted well, even when you both know it was for the best - you still have to wait it out while The Wringer takes up residence in your stomach, moves in its potted begonias and ugly dining room set, and forgets to pay the rent. It squats there, cranking every one of your vital organs through its stiff roller until you need to re-hydrate your kidneys with the careful application of many margaritas. THE WRINGER, IT WANTS YOU TO SUFFER. Sometimes The Wringer will take a few weeks off, lying on a beach in the Maldives without you, but it always comes back and usually when you were really looking forward to your weekend.

Apparently, the way I deal with grief is to feel guilty. Very, very guilty. For all the times I was so wrapped up in my hurt that I didn’t notice his. Or noticed it, but couldn’t offer much in the way of compassion. For not sweeping often enough. For getting so mad I chucked my cell phone at the floor. (Which = “not handling anger well” and “broken cell phone”.) For still not being entirely sure when the trash was collected because I never, not once, took it out. I am the guiltiest non-Catholic you will ever meet.

But I’m not blaming myself. People fail each other. That’s what we do. Some relationships can work through the failures, some can’t. So I’m looking at what I can do better in my next relationship (read: plenty) and trying to feel what I need to feel so I can move on. But all that hard-won understanding of How Life Works rapidly deflates when The Wringer returns from Honolulu, wilted leis around his chubby neck, rubs his hands together and says brightly, “What shall we squeeze the life from today?” Then he wraps my small intestine around his knobby fist and bites down hard.

(Was that unnecessarily graphic?)

(Sorry.)

Here’s how I know my (almost) 30 years haven’t been wasted. I still had a lovely Fourth of July weekend. I didn’t let The Wringer destroy anyone’s fun. He was very disappointed. He protested loudly until I drowned him in tequila, ice, and whatever else one puts in a margarita to make it taste so darn good.

TO MY LOVELY WEEKEND. AND THOSE MARGARITAS.

Fourth of July means sun, booze, and grilled meat. We gratefully partook of all three. I might have eaten my weight in guacamole. I definitely pickled my liver - that blender was humming merrily away all afternoon, I tell you what. My friend Erin and I may also have drunkenly registered at Crate and Barrel, hypothesizing that the only way two single girls can score themselves a red Kitchen-Aid mixer is to marry each other for the gifts. Yes, we are deep and profound souls who’ve never had a materialistic thought in the whole of our pure and innocent lives. I’m fairly sure the Crate and Barrel web site wouldn’t let me register for the matching Mini-Cooper I was talking about while lolling about in the tequila haze that makes so many close-held dreams seem possible. “I want a red convertible, and a Le Creuset roasting pan, and … a house boy.” We did manage to apply for the house boy, but that required an entirely different url.

As the sun set over the last crumbs of strawberry pie, we wandered over to Morgan Hill to watch the fireworks. We trooped out to the field, set up lawn chairs, pulled our hats over our ears, and settled down to wait. We waited. We waited some more. Someone joked about the Great Pumpkin and hoped our field was sincere enough. We kept waiting. Every so often, we heard the spark and pop of a firecracker and we’d all sit up and stare intently at the sky. Once it was determined the firecrackers were being illegally set off on a lawn somewhere, we’d go back inside for more chocolate pretzels. That might be an inaccurate use of the plural. I’m fairly sure I was the only one who kept going back inside for more chocolate pretzels.

At about 9:00, one solitary yellow flash lit the sky above the field. I skittered out of the house, mouth full of chocolate pretzels, and joined everyone in anticipation of the spectacular show we were about to witness. We sat at attention, eyes scanning the horizon for any stray colored lights. I didn’t blink for two whole minutes. We waited. Conversations kicked up again and doubt was expressed. Doubt was quickly hushed, citing the Great Pumpkin and the necessity of faith. And sincerity. I sincerely enjoyed those chocolate pretzels, so I don’t know what the problem was. Around 9:30, another firework exploded in the air above us. This one was green.

I’ll save you the suspense. And the chill night air. And the chocolate pretzels. (I finished them all anyway.) THERE WERE NO FIREWORKS. The two we saw were testing the wind, and apparently the wind wasn’t cooperating. Fire marshals were being vigilant because of all the fires and exhausted firemen (my brother and his crew just worked 19 straight 16-hour days, so…yeah) and decided to take no chances on stray sparks and their penchant for setting things aflame.

Suffice it to say, this year’s fireworks were the pyrotechnic equivalent of bad sex. Lots of anticipation for two stray pops and the overwhelming feeling of “Was that it? Is that all I get?” So you go and eat some chocolate-covered pretzels.

~~~

Tomorrow (because this sucker is getting long): The wedding, the conga line a la Rosin Coven, the bouquet with bulbs of garlic, and why I wanted to become a lesbian. (And not just for the red Kitchen-Aid.) (God, I make it sound like a food processor is the door prize for coming out.) (Um, is it flip and/or awful of me to think that would be awesome? “We didn’t give you any legal rights for years, but HERE’S A KITCHEN-AID MIXER FOR YOUR TROUBLE.”)

I’ve been hankering to go camping. Which is somewhat odd, as I’m not much of a camper. I don’t make a habit of tromping into the wilderness at the first sign of thaw, headlamp strapped to my forehead and little orange poop shovel at the ready. But I am rereading A Walk in the Woods - does that count? (No, you say? Reading about backpacking through the Appalachian Trail while sitting at my kitchen table eating a roast chicken sandwich with arugula and aioli doesn’t count? Well, fine.)

We went camping when I was a kid, but we did the kind of camping where locking your keys in the car would result in panic because no one could get to the pancake mix or marshmallows. (Yes, this happened. I’m not sure if it was the same trip when we drove to Big Sur, couldn’t find our friends, called them and discovered to much hysterical laughter that we were supposed to be in Big Basin, a forest three hours away. But I do know that it takes Triple A a very long time to send a truck into the wilderness to jimmy open a car door.) It wasn’t the kind of camping that involves weighing everything you bring on a little scale because you’ll be carrying it all on your back, and apparently those six packs of beer are too heavy.

Maybe I’m yearning for the outdoors, or maybe I just really need a vacation and camping seems more viable than a Hawaiian island. But this keen desire of mine comes with a small problem: I don’t know anything about camping. I get lost on my way to the grocery store. Which means modern technology can’t yet calculate what I’d manage to do on a backwoods trail leading to an even more remote backwoods spot, a spot that might be home to large, hulking bears who sharpen their talons menacingly on alpine firs.

Which brings us back to Bill Bryson and his book - I’m currently at the part where he discusses bears and how dabbing on a bit of hair gel or carrying a Snickers bar in your pocket for later can result in having a limb gnawed off. I haven’t worn hair gel since the seventh grade, but I did eat my last Snickers bar only minutes ago. I’m sure bears can sniff such things out. Even if you don’t have chocolate on your person, they can probably deduce how much you like chocolate and they’d better eat you just in case. At any rate, I’m rather fond of my limbs and not entirely sure how to keep them attached, should a grizzly wander within range. Sure, people backpack all the time without being eaten by bears, so I can probably stifle most of my hysteria on that score. But I’m fairly sure that at some point during the proceedings, I will have to read a map.

Maps scare me. I started driving just before mapquest and google made the freeways safe for those such as me, and most of my first few driving years were spent wondering how I ended up in Nevada. Bless the internet and its keen ability to take two designated addresses and spit out specific written instructions. Not that mapquest is any kind of guarantee, you understand. Just a few months ago, I was trying to track down a new place to get the oil changed on my car. I trundled out at 6:30 in the blessed a.m. to get it done before I was due at work, grabbed my internet map, and started the engine. Fifteen minutes later, I found myself parked in an unfamiliar neighborhood, in front of an unfamiliar house. As I inspected this patently residential establishment for a Jiffy Lube sign, it dawned on me that perhaps I was in the wrong place. I was. Turns out 19th Avenue is very different from 19th Street.

If I can get myself so thoroughly confused in an urban area, with street signs and a cell phone at my disposal, how would I fare out in the woods? “Rather poorly” is the only honest answer I can give to that question. Somewhere, a bear just licked his chops in anticipation of my tasty left leg.

Suffice it to say, I find myself intimidated by the whole backpacking process. (We haven’t even gotten to the equipment quandary and what to put in that towering backpack. How many novels is too many? Six? Seven? What about that bottle of pinot noir?) But I don’t want to avoid something simply because it’s scary. Or because my last earthly sight might be the gaping maw of an oversize bear.

So I guess I have to go backpacking. Anyone have a map?

Freak lightning storms set off something like 800 fires in central California this week. When I woke up and left the house yesterday, the sky was tinged with smoke. I drove the 50 miles from San Francisco to San Jose yesterday afternoon under a gray haze. My brother works as a firefighter with the forest service, and methinks he and his crew have their work cut out for them. During fire season they work 16 hour shifts, take a few hours off and go back for more. He loves it. Which is only one of the many differences between us. Attempting to stifle one of hundreds of fires while hot, exhausted, and covered in poison oak does not sound like my idea of fun. In fact, it sounds rather similar to my most literal definition of hell. Which is why he does what he does and I do what I do. What I do has very little to do with fire. Unless I drop a stray mushroom into the burner of my stove and it starts smoking.

Walking into my mom’s house after the smoky drive, I was greeted not with the customary “hello” so common in polite society, but with a “Where on earth did you get those pictures?” Referring, of course, to the pictures I posted the other day of my grandmother Margaret.

“I don’t remember her this way,” my mom said, as my aunt and I flipped through the photo album. Reading your comments on that post made me realize that I don’t remember her that way either - fun, happy, and in possession of a smashing wardrobe. My only knowledge of her is based on my mom’s stories, most gathered at least 20 years after those photos were taken.

Flipping ahead in the album, my mom pointed out another picture. “This is how I remember her.” My grandmother was older and had a furrow between her brows. The laughing girl wasn’t gone precisely, but she’d been buried under the layers life tends to heap on us. Most of my mom’s stories involve a rather stern woman called “mother” - as opposed to the more affectionate “daddy” assigned to her father. But one story involves my grandma lounging on the couch in a leopard print coat, dramatically waving either a highball or a cigarette. Either way, it feels closer to the girl she was, hair wild and smile big. I don’t know what kind of life my grandmother led, what kind of pressures she was under. I imagine the pressures were many, she lived through the Depression, the second World War, and later with an alcoholic husband.

As much as I recognize myself and my family in my grandma’s smile, I also recognize myself in her furrowed brow and tense expression. There were days last year when I looked in the mirror and saw lines etched between my eyes, courtesy of many miserable hours. The hours and days and weeks when my relationship was circling down the toilet, in spite of our best efforts. Even my hair hurt from the tension. Another aunt, my father’s sister, trims my shaggy head at her salon in Half Moon Bay. A few months ago, she found my first gray hair, yanked it merrily out, and handed it to me. I’ll be thirty in a few weeks.

I don’t have kids yet and I suspect my life has been - and will be - much easier than my grandmother’s. And I want my children to remember my laugh, not the furrow between my eyes. So I’m concentrating on enjoying my life, just as it is right now, and not fretting about what it isn’t or what I might like it to be.

I also need to stop worrying about the hundreds of fires burning around us. Trust my brother and his fellow firefighters to put them out, so we can all see the sky again.

I never met my grandmother, Margaret. She died before I was born. But according to family photos, genes will out. We all have big smiles with big teeth, the better to eat big meals. Cousins were visiting from Minnesota last week and, while having a spirited discussion about lunch, my mom was pinned to her family tree. “You have a lot of Margaret in you….” Pause. “You’re always thinking about what to eat and where to eat it.”

My grandmother Margaret, smiling.

My grandmother Margaret, eating.

I feel a kinship.

When I was a kid, I thought true success meant rising to the top of your field, raking in wads of cash, and vacationing on a tropical island named after you. (Or your dog, if you’re the modest type.) Now, I realize that success really means eating broccoli, exercising regularly, and being able to find your PG&E bill when needed.

Which sounds like considerably less fun than owning a tropical island, but here’s the thing - EATING BROCCOLI WILL PROBABLY MAKE YOU HAPPIER IN THE LONG RUN. I know. My brain rejects this notion too.

I’ve always had some trouble staying balanced. The problem with eating well is you can’t just eat a spinach salad and be done with it. You have to KEEP eating spinach salad. You can’t do five half-hearted situps and declare yourself done for the month. (Believe me, I’ve tried.) You have to do all these things regularly. AND FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Earn enough money to live, eat your whole grains, move your twitchy limbs, keep your stuff organized so you can find your keys when you leave the house, volunteer your time to worthy causes, do the projects that keep you interested in life, nurture your relationships, and maybe dust under the sofa once in awhile.

Are you tired yet? I am. It’s official: Being human is exhausting. And the kicker is, if I did all these things on a regular basis, I wouldn’t BE so exhausted. Because I’d be full of all that spry energy promised by wheat sprouts. And the self-satisfied smugness that comes with treating yourself well.

To my point: I’m trying to get my life in balance. And keep it that way - which seems to be the tricky part. Do plenty of work, have some fun, treat my physical carapace well so it doesn’t up and die on me when I’m 37. Be a better friend, daughter, etc. Volunteer with some cute dogs. (I will only care for the cute ones, you understand. The matted, scrawny mutts are on their own.) (I’m kidding.) (You probably realized that.) (But I feel the need to explain myself.) It’s a somewhat daunting process to drag oneself out from the macaroni and cheese encrusted hermitage, but I’m sure I can do it. I know how much happier I feel when I’m healthy and organized and busy - and that makes it all worthwhile.

But I’m still not so sure about the regular sit-ups.

[Edit: I amuse myself. Seriously. This was supposed to be a positive “I can do it!” “And so can you!” “Eat broccoli! It’s good for you!” kind of post. And then I started thinking and I wore myself out. And everyone else, it seems. Is this not funny? I find this funny. I also just guzzled an enormous mocha. Which tends to make things more entertaining. Anyway, I see this post as evidence that you shouldn’t think about something until you keel over from the stress, you should just do it. By “you” I of course mean “me”. There is value in doing something concrete rather than fretting. I guess this means I have to stop writing and go eat some broccoli.]

When I was four, I had the great honor of being a flower girl. According to my mother, I was so excited that I gave myself a fever. Yes, I actually made myself physically ill from the glee of wearing a flouncy dress. She thought I’d be kicking up my little patent leather heels at the reception, but instead I clung feebly to her side, my face red and hot.

If I was a superhero, it would be due to my ability to make myself ill with the POWER OF MY BRAIN. I find this interesting. I can’t say I understand my brain, but it seems capable of quite a bit. Not advanced mathematics certainly, not even the analytic manipulation needed to refold a map properly, but it sure can take me down if I’ve over-exerted myself.

A few months ago, I decided the best way to manage a breakup and a new apartment and new bills was to…get this…find a full-time job. What did I tell you about the power of my brain? So I worked my contract job during the day, did freelance work at night, and spent weekends preparing the writing samples deemed necessary by interviewing companies. After a few weeks (maybe a month) of not giving myself any time off, my body sent a hearty FUCK YOU to my cerebral cortex and dropped me in bed, not letting me up for two full days. I took this as a sign. A very subdued sign that read: STOP, FOOL.

General wisdom states that when you’re going through a rough time, you should take care of yourself. I assume you should always take care of yourself, but eating vegetables and flexing your (somewhat nonexistent, thanks) muscles seems to become more important when all you want to do is shovel macaroni into your face and stare blankly at the TV. What’s more insidious is when I try to give myself what I need, but realize I can’t quite decode the messages if they aren’t blinking neon. Subtlety is easy to misinterpret. And I like to misinterpret things to make them say what I want them to say. Which is usually MORE MACARONI AND CHEESE.

I did a bit of hibernating the first few months post-breakup. I saw my friends and was social enough to keep my fingernails from growing long and yellowed, the better to scratch at my mossy teeth, but I shied away from new people. I’d go to parties (by “parties” I mean “a party”), but I’d either talk to people I already knew and liked or cower in the kitchen. Anything more strenuous (like a new face, THE HORROR) made me feel like plastering the back of my hand to my forehead and collapsing delicately against the wall.

For the past month or so, my brain seems to be creeping back into the WANT FUN mode, as opposed to the WANT SLEEP mode. Judging by my past few entries here, my brain also seems to be pointing out the boys. I’ve been hesitant to dive into dating - not wanting to flail about in that particular pool until I’m ready, feeling like I should maybe be sure I can pay rent beyond August before participating in any recreational activities, etc. But I think dipping my proverbial toe in the proverbial dating water might be a good idea. If that toe gets bitten off by the sharks, so be it. Who needs ten toes anyway? What have your toes done for you lately? All mine do is wiggle and knock over glasses of water. Judging by the amount of thought I just gave to my toes and their purpose (five minutes of staring off into space, if you must know), it’s long past time to emerge from my cave and into the waiting arms of the human race. (Not even just the boys. Anyone - male, female, reptile - who will expand my world a bit and who might benefit from contact with a girl who knows her way around a box of macaroni and cheese.)

By announcing it here, I’m hoping to force myself to actually do it. Instead of diving back under the bed, the sound of squawking chickens ringing in my ears.