Tag Archives: INFP

Feb25

Ground Control to Major Tom

Posted on 25 February 2021 by The Reluctant Girl Scout

PART THE FIRST

I’ve discovered that swiping through TikTok videos in the morning is the perfect way to stay cozy in bed. I give myself ten minutes and then look at the clock and a half hour or hour has passed, which is disturbing, but I keep telling myself this is just winter behavior. It is cold. The flannel sheets and Z snoozing next to me and radiating heat are too inviting for me to willingly bound out of bed the minute my eyes open.

One drawback (of the many) to beginning the day this way is the frequency with which some videos use earworms to highlight whatever antics are going on in the video. For three days now I have had a few bars of Beyonce’s “Halo” stuck in my head on a loop. It. Will. Not. Go. Away. Yesterday, I thought maybe if I listened to the entire song instead of just those bars it would finally exhaust itself but all it did was make Z start humming it too. There are worse songs, but I’d like to move on in my life now.

My recent desire to stay in bed an extra hour was exacerbated by the Big Snow we had that lasted a couple of days. We’re in much better shape than the rest of the country in this regard—now it feels like spring is afoot—but for those two days of snow, the city felt magical and Z and I were thrilled with our new perch here at Oh Là Là, looking down on snow-covered streets and not having to go out on un-shoveled sidewalks. We did venture up to the roof deck and threw a snowball and attempted a snowman with snow that would not pack, but for the most part, we just stared out the window like a couple of kids who had never seen snow before.

Man on snow-covered rooftop deck next to snow-covered table--skyscrapers in background and visible snowflakes falling. — Z on the roof deck about to be pelted with a snowball (of sorts).

Oh, and I did a jigsaw puzzle because snow days are perfect for that and I still miss RBG.

Finished jigsaw puzzle of Ruth Bader Ginsburg image in front of American flag with text written at bottom that says "Women belong in all places where decisions are being made." — Nobody ever looked so good in a lace collar.

INTERLUDE

During the snow days, I got unnaturally concerned with the well-being of a neighbor who lives across the street. Please note (and believe): I am not a peeping Tom. I am not hoping to see any fights, naked bodies, or assess whether my neighbors wipe their noses on their sleeves. Still, when you are living in the sky and working at a window, occasionally your gaze will fall on the neighbor who has a lovely big St. Bernard thrilled with the snow or the neighbor whose cat peers down from the 12th floor as if everything on First Hill belongs to him.

Occasionally, my eye lands on the woman whose blinds are never closed, who sleeps on the sofa with the lights on instead of under her Marimekko duvet in the bedroom. After the first quick glance months ago, I’ve wondered about her. What’s the deal with the sofa? Did she have a bad break up and can’t face her bed alone? Why the lights on at night? Is she afraid of something? Has someone threatened her?

So the other day when I did my quick morning glance before settling into work, I saw her lying on the floor, and my pulse quickened. What had happened to her? I glanced again and the position she was in was really awkward, so I worried that she’d hurt herself. Or, horrors, someone had hurt her.

I instantly started thinking of Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, wheelchair bound and stuck in his apartment, passing the time by looking at his neighbors with a telephoto lens. When he sees what he believes to be a murder take place, no one will listen to him.

Sky and clouds with two eagles in the far distances. (Arrows drawn on photo to highlight eagles.) — They were both much closer than this but not when I had my camera.

Recently, a pair of eagles have been flying over our building, so my mini-binoculars were on the desk. I have never used them to look in anyone’s apartment and when I do use them, I make over-exagerrated motions so anyone peering at me can see that I am only looking up at the sky and not trying to peer into their living spaces. It occurred to me that if this woman was compromised, I might be the only person knew it, so I allowed myself to fake look for the eagles in the sky above Lake Union and then do a slow but continuous spin in my chair and briefly train the binoculars on her apartment.

As it happens, I did not have to call 911. The body on the floor was not hers. In fact, it was not a body. In fact, it wasn’t even on the floor. It was an oversized knitted blanket stuffed into and spilling out of a basket.

I haven’t had my eyes checked for a year and a half. It might be time.

St. Bernard dog standing in a snowdrift on a city sidewalk. — Sans keg of brandy for snow rescues.

PART THE SECOND

Because Z himself is also magical and amazing like snow in Seattle, the number of times I’ve had a crush on a “celebrity” since we got together is almost nil, but I’m finding myself disturbingly attracted to the bobble-headed @therealindiandad. Initially, I didn’t know why. I mean, his cartoon head is handsome, I guess, but other than the fox in Robin Hood I don’t make it a habit of crushing on cartoon characters. But then one day Z was bossing me up (in a very loving, comical way) and we were laughing, and I realized it’s because watching @therealindiandad joke-chastise @sheenamelwani while Z is still sleep is the next best thing to having Z awake. They remind me a lot of each other, though I’m relieved Z doesn’t have a bobble head. Z was disturbed by this news until I pointed out to him that his bobble headed doppelgänger is not the father of the woman he chides but the husband and the two of them are laughing so much and having such a good time that they feel like good company these days, particularly when so many posts are full of rage or sadness.

When I finally do shut off TikTok, drag myself out of bed, and head to the study, I’m immediately greeted with annoyance because this is the last space in our apartment at Oh Là Là that has refused to organize itself since our November move. I seem to just keep moving the same items in a circle around the room. A stack of things on the ottoman gets moved to the Napping Cloud and sits there for two weeks, and then I move the items on the bed to the floor so I can nap. Then it’s time to run Angus the robotic vacuum so I pick the stuff up off the floor and put it on the ottoman. I think the problem is I haven’t found a home for these final bits of our life: photos, art, and frames we aren’t using right now, stacks of paper I don’t know where to file, knickknacks in the windowsill, tote bags full of projects I have yet to finish, etc.

And in the center of this still messy space is The Desk: the black hole that sucks in and spews out chaos threefold.

This isn’t a new subject for me—I’ve always had trouble with organizing the place I write and teach. I could clean it up for a photo op, but no sooner is the pic posted than the mess starts building again. It’s one of the things that annoys me most about myself: not just that I can’t be neater but also that I can’t fully embrace my messy tendencies without chastising myself. And because the desk is an exact replica of the inner workings of my mind, I’m also annoyed that after all of these years I also can’t just embrace the rich alphabet soup that is my thought process and instead am convinced there must be something wrong with me.

My desk is really a 6 foot cherry dining table with one tiny drawer and a faux drawer with a keyboard ledge in it. When I ordered it two decades ago, I’d just read a book about how people with my brain type were no good with things that were put away and we just need to see everything in front of us in stacks. The book’s premise was that creative types have different brains and were fighting a losing battle in trying to make traditional 1950s-office-systems-with-filing-cabinets-and-in-and-out-trays work for them.

The theory was a good one—and remains true…if my house keys are under a piece of mail, say, the keys cease to exist for me and I start to make plans about how I’ll have to live the rest of my life without locking the door. But when I embraced this new way of organizing, I imagined myself being tidier than I actually am. I was picturing a soft focus desk with a stack of three books, a cup of tea (even though I don’t drink it that often), and an artful lamp so I could write until the sun came up. I imagined a vast expanse of empty desk, glossy wood grain encouraging me to put only beautiful words on the page.

Large desk that is tidy--laptop, neat stacks of books, photo, journal, clock, and glass of water. (Not messy) — The dream.

Alas. It never looks like that.

There is never an empty space where I could suddenly do a project or a puzzle. Instead, there are layers. If I dig down, I’m reminded that a month ago I was really interested in learning how meditation can be different for women than men, I was organizing things to put in a scrapbook, and I was planning to frame a couple of pictures. If I dig further still, I’d discover a gift card for Elliot Bay Books and a receipt for something I bought Z for Christmas. A jar of pickled onions, I think.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to the Poet Friend on the phone and told her how frustrated I was, and she—a tidy Virgo—suggested that I get an empty box, put everything on my desk in the box, dust and oil the surface of the desk, and then put back only the things I use. For two days, it was the desk I imagined it would be when I bought it. But now, I have this box of “essential things” on the floor:

And the desk is now looking like it’s former, messy self.

I’ve taken very little out of the box of essentials, so what I did was find more/different “essentials” to fill the surface. Nature and Beth abhor a vacuum.

Current essential items on desk:

glass desk lamp filled with my mother’s childhood marbles
Row of “must have near me” writing books held in place by Scottie dog book ends from Poet Friend
clock with big numbers so I always know how late I am to a Zoom appointment
laptop
Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls tin can now containing pens, scissors, letter opener from elementary Swedish penpal Cecilia, and two beaded Roses from Zimbabwe
1972 Christmas present clipboard from my maternal grandmother given to me because of my love of drawing but now used for class notes and other things I want to remember but eventually forget about and discard

On a six foot desk, this seems like a reasonable amount of items and all you really need for a desk to function, but I’m not done yet.

Other “essentials”:

An anatomically correct metal bulldog with spiked collar and butt door that raises for insertion of a tea light candle if Oh La La allowed candles and I wanted to illuminate a metal bulldog
An ashtray from a bar bearing my surname purchased on eBay 20 years ago even though I don’t smoke
a two-handled tea cup/soup bowl which I use on different days for:
- my earphones
- my prayer beads
- clean watercolor water
a vaguely royal looking red box in which I intend to keep bits of paper with notes jotted on them of things I don’t want to forget but that currently holds only a Serenity Prayer key chain of indeterminate origin and a postcard of Wales from a boy I never met but with whom I tried to hae a romantic online relationship in 1994
a handmade Scandinavian-looking pottery gnome holding a warm pie next to a toadstool because she looks capable and happy
a shallow light blue dish with my grandfather’s rosary in it. I’ve had the beads for almost twenty years and still haven’t learned all the components of the rosary because the 50% of me that was raised Catholic never got to those lessons
a chicken timer named Erma to keep me writing
a series of gemstones the names of which I can never recall and must then dig in The Box to read the leaflet that came with them reminding me what each crystal is good for. My favorites so far: amethyst and tiger eye
a deck of Farber-Zerner tarot cards because I like the art and like to use them for a focusing practice before I write even though I don’t really know that much about tarot and don’t want my future told. (I’m in it for the metaphors.)
three books on tarot because why have one when you can have three?
my new set of prayer beads (sodalite to encourage intuition, focus, and creativity)
my old set of prayer beads (cobalt blue glass, made when I found out my father was sick, the color of which calms me)
a rock that fits perfectly in my palm that Z found for me on San Juan Island
a Bluetooth speaker
a statue of a pig with a quote from Winston Churchill about the superiority of pigs, which reminds me daily not of Churchill or of pigs, but of my college mentor, Gibb, who loved pigs, particularly his boyhood pig, Jipper, who would meet him after school when the bus dropped him off
some coasters
a tiny painting I painted last year of a young girl squeezing through the Eye of the Needle in a church ruin in Dingle
an envelope that likely contains a home colorectal screening test that I have been ignoring for a year but because I’m partly a responsible person and thus haven’t thrown it out but I keep thinking Tomorrow Beth will take care of it and do the responsible thing
a Venus of Willendorf statue
a holy card of Joan of Arc
class notes, printed readings, and dogeared pages of book passages I want to share with my students
a paisley beanbag from my childhood with a tag hand stitched on it that says “Wayne County Historical Museum Richmond, Indiana” that I like to play with while I’m lecturing and have had since I was about five

So where exactly would I put the stuff in the box (notebooks, ShellE the stuffed turtle, my hairbrush, various pics, notebooks, small clipboard, empty box of chocolates with my last name on the lid, to-do list notebook, notebook from my Swedish penpal circa 1978, an Apple box for my AirPods because Apple boxes are just too good to get rid of, a wooden file box that has half a screenplay written on notecards inside that I started with a friend twenty-five years ago and which I keep meaning to put elsewhere and use the box for some other important non-computerized filing, and a variety of pottery dogs.

I need an intervention.

Large desk with laptop on stand, stacks of books and notebooks, binoculars, clock, prayer beads, pottery creatures, etc. (Messy) — My desk and mind are kind of like the Hotel California.

Lately I’ve been writing every morning with my newly discovered family of fellow INFP/J creatives and we often spend time talking about how our brains work, how differently we are wired from most of the population, and what the insides of our heads look like. We’ve talked about how when we are writing or drawing or doing some other kind of creating, we are out there just loosely tethered to earth and when Ground Control calls us back down to have a conversation about cornflakes or the funny meme they just saw, it’s really, really hard for us to make that adjustment. It’s hard to acclimatize back to earth’s atmosphere.

In my life, I’ve had what I would classify as two and a half visions. One was holy. One was comforting. And then this one from my childhood when I was staying with my grandmother that until now I’ve never been able to interpret.

It was just the two of us together on a Saturday morning, and I was lying upside down on the davenport, my head nearly touching the floor as I took in the new perspective of the acoustic tile and how the dropped ceiling into the hallway would make a stair step if her pink mobile home were upside down. (I’d been exposed to The Poseidon Adventure at a young age and was fascinated by how normal things would be transformed if flipped upside down. Please note, Gene Hackman was an early celebrity crush. A man who was convicted that he could get you to a place of greater safety—what was not to like? Even better than @therealindiandad.) As I hung upside down, Grandma was across from me in the kitchen, where she always was. I never saw the woman sit down until I was a teenager.

Then suddenly, without planning it, I was on the ceiling. I don’t know if this would be classified as an out-of-body experience or a vision, though probably most people would say it was just the fancy of a child, but I felt myself floating in this upside down landscape—the only thing keeping me earth bound was the ceiling—and my grandmother was frantically reaching up towards me, kind of hopping up and down trying to grab ahold of me, and pull me back towards earth as if I were a balloon that had escaped. It was so real. Then I came back to myself and my real grandmother was asking me which cartoon I wanted her to put on the TV because I wasn’t hovering above her after all but was lounging on the sofa expecting her to serve me by turning the channel to Scooby-Doo. We grandchildren were so spoiled.

Tree-lined city street covered in snow. One person walking in street. Snow-covered cars. — On terra firma.

The vision was weird and for years I’ve wondered what it was, what had or hadn’t happened, and then it just sort of folded into my life like the time I was stung under the arm by a bee or the time I fell out of a tree and had the wind knocked out of me and thought I’d killed myself. It was just an event in my life: that time I was floating on the ceiling and Grandma pulled me back to earth.

But now? I think the universe was trying to give me a metaphor for how I’d spend the rest of my life, trying so hard to listen to step-by-step instructions or remember a list of five items to pick up at the grocery or to stay engaged in a conversation or stay focused on my non-creative work, but always, I find myself somewhere other than where I’m supposed to be living between my own ears. Then I come back to myself and the other person hasn’t noticed I was gone. Or, if they are Z, they have noticed and they think I’m a bad listener or lackadaisical worker or a bad bet if they want me to pick something up for them at the store. But they love me despite my human frailties.

It’s been a real boon to know 60-90 minutes a day I’m going to be getting together with these people I’ve never met in real life (and were it not for the pandemic would never have met on Zoom) and they get it. One of us will say, “Have you ever…?” and everyone else will nod in agreement and the conversation will flow. And then we write. And when the host tells us it’s been an hour, most of us are startled because we’ve been out there on our own individual tethers. But also, together.

Goodness knows what the totality of 2021 is going to hold for us. I don’t even want to guess about the future (I told you those Tarot cards are not about knowing the future), but my goal for this year is to embrace my quirks, to work around whatever ear worm has burrowed into my head, and if my neighbors appear to have been murdered, to check in on them even if I feel foolish (or criminal) afterward when I realize their knitted throws were never in any danger.

In the remaining ten months of 2021, let us all be kind to ourselves and laugh whenever we find cause.

FIN

Feb24

An Embarrassment of Dragons

Posted on 24 February 2017 by The Reluctant Girl Scout

Standard

Puget Sound, the Cascades, and a view from the Boatyard Inn.

Last week Jane and I—from our respective homes 2,344 miles apart—sat in on a webinar featuring the blogger/writing coach Lauren Sapala that was all about transforming the “dragons” that keep you from your best writing and your best life. I’m a big fan of Lauren’s work with personality type and writing styles. (She has a description of what it is like to be an INFP writer—which is what I am—that brought me to tears because it so aptly explained the soup that my brain is when it’s trying to focus on a single idea to write about or trying to dish servings of that word soup up into appropriately sized and non-melty containers. It’s a mess here in my head, people. A real mess.) This webinar was exactly what I needed as I try to get myself out of what I can no longer call a “writing slump” as it is clearly now more of a lifestyle choice.

Can you see the slides? I can’t see the slides, I’d text. Jane would text back, There are slides? Where are the slides? My screen is just blue. It was nice being there—wherever “there” was—with Jane. One of the things I will never stop missing as I age is the closeness of friends from my youth. I miss being in each others’ space. I miss staying up too late and talking about love and life. I miss the dramas that now just seem ridiculous. So these moments of connection with old friends—even if they are now more often electronic—delight me.

Texting Jane during webinar lulls also gave me flashbacks to our shared college computer programming class, for which we were both ill prepared and bad performers primarily because our class notes were comprised of notes to each other about everything but class. It was also nice to have her along for the ride because over the years we’ve spent an inordinate amount of time discussing our own and each others’ personality types and quirks in epic emails to each other. We are ever hopeful that we’ll make some life-transforming discovery at some point. Instead we make small ones that we adopt for a time and then move on when we are not magically transformed.

Since I’d read nothing ahead of time about this theory of dragon-based writing blocks, I had some preconceived ideas about those that might be my most likely foes.

Dragons I expected to have:

Dragon of Procrastination
Dragon of Disorganization
Dragon of Obsession about Political Facebook Posts
Dragon of Netflix Binging
Dragon of Unnecessary Reorganizing (because having my sweaters and Fiestaware plates in ROYGBIV order sometimes seems more important than writing)
Dragon of Spending Blocked-Off Writing Time On Epic Emails to Jane

Sadly, these were not the options presented. Sadly, it was clear from Lauren’s description that I had not one but four and a half of her dragons of writing blockage and none of them were all that funny or flattering.

Dragons I do have:

Stubbornness
Impatience
Self-destruction (more of a historical dragon for me, so I give it a half point)
Self-deprecation
Arrogance

I’ve read a lot of medieval literature and a fair amount of fantasy, and by those standards, having four-and-a-half dragons to do battle with is a considerable challenge. Possibly one I’m not equipped for. Plus, I’m still struggling with the notion that I can be both self-deprecating and arrogant.

It’s that last one that I scored the highest on that I’m struggling with most. Don’t arrogant people walk around all day thinking they are the cat’s pajamas? I’ve never felt like I was the cat’s anything. I avoid mirrors like a vampire. I assume other writers are more prolific and more deserving than I am. The few days a year I dare to wear this huge, artsy ring that is made from a geode, I get embarrassed almost immediately and so turn the glittery bit toward my palm so no can see it and think I’m getting above my raising.

Were I arrogant, this is how I would expect to look. (Photo credit of Sundance Catalog)

I’ve spent several days since the webinar considering ways I might act superior. I DO think severe bangs are a bad choice for everyone. I DO NOT like it when people make Scottish terriers wear clothes. I DO believe I’m right in my criticism of ¾ of modern art. I feel strongly that you should use the Oxford comma. But is that arrogance or just some random opinions I’ve cobbled together over the years?

Regardless, Lauren Sapala’s webinar was good and her advice seemed sound, and I recommend you read her book if you are an NF and I recommend you read her blog if you are a writer of any Myers-Briggs type.

She offered some sound suggestions about vanquishing dragons and for that big ugly one at the end of my list, one of the best ways to beat down the arrogance is to recount your embarrassments from the past and just sit with that embarrassment instead of making excuses for why you shouldn’t feel bad or why it was really the fault of someone else that you made a fool of yourself.

In the interest of my healing and growth, I offer you a buffet of recent mortifications.

At the beginning of the month, Leibovitz came out to celebrate her own Birthday of Some Significance. While Z and I were waiting for her at the airport—where there had recently been some impromptu protests about the immigration ban—a friendly fellow with a cardboard sign came up to ask us if we knew where the protest was. I engaged him in conversation as he stood there shifting his giant “Jesus is Weed” sign from one hand to the other. I was unsure why that particular sign seemed important at a potential anti-immigration protest in a state that legalized marijuana a few years ago, but still, who was I to judge? (See? Totally not arrogant! Totally accepting of differences!) I asked a few questions and clucked and nodded and smiled as he talked. And talked. And then I heard this very tiny voice coming out of the side of Z’s mostly closed mouth and it said, Stop talking to him. He’s crazy. And then I realized that of course Z was right. In the span of our conversation this guy had told me about how “they” had jammed his cell phone and that’s why he couldn’t find the protest. The same “they” had also made it impossible for him to find silver prices on the web because he was investing his non-weed money in the metal market because he didn’t trust the dollar. “They” were doing some other things to him that didn’t make sense to me but clearly agitated him. For the duration of our conversation nothing he had said—including his protest sign—made sense and yet I had failed to notice that he was either delusional, under the influence, or both.

Leibovitz and I took off the next day for an overnight on Whidbey Island so she could wake up on her birthday to beautiful views. On the way, we stopped for a long walk on Double Bluff Beach. The wind was cold, so I jammed my knitted Scottie cap down over my ears, stuffed my hands into my favorite stripey fingerless gloves from the Sundance catalog, and meandered with her along the beach. A pair of eagles soared and cried above us. It was a perfect afternoon and I was so glad to be with her, talking about life.

The next afternoon—after a leisurely Leibovitz Birthday morning in which we ate hummus and olives for breakfast because we didn’t want to leave the Puget-Sound-Snowcapped-Cascade-Mountain view to get real breakfast—I discovered that one of my favorite stripey gloves from the Sundance catalog was missing. I searched everywhere while growling my disappointment. The gloves were a gift and because I can neither wiggle myself into the gorgeous non-Midwestern-sized-woman clothes Sundance sells nor afford the home furnishings and other doo-dads they offer, these gloves were my one touchstone to the life I fantasize about living. That is, a life of a Sundance catalog model living a Sundance catalog fantasy life. A life wherein I am thinner and younger and have fabulous sun-bleached hair and look like I know Important Truths while I stand around in my textured Light and Love cardigan, my gauzy Mystic Meadow skirt, and some distressed cowboy boots that are new but look well worn, all as I stare into the distance where, no doubt, there is a palomino pony beyond the horizon that I have either just ridden or am about to ride.

Don’t mind me, I was feeling chilly and decided to take a hike draped in this hand-knitted blanket.

I don’t even know why I think I’d be happy in this life: I don’t like the outdoors much, horses make me nervous, I’m not a big fan of the American Southwest, and I’m pretty sure these catalog women are aficionados of salads and country music, neither of which appeal to me. But still, it’s a dream of mine and it was lost with my glove.

Me telling you the catalog fantasy isn’t even the most embarrassing part of that story. The embarrassing part is that I returned to every shop and restaurant we’d been to the day before as well as the Langley City Hall asking if anyone had seen my missing glove. I’d hold up the one still in my possession so the person could see how truly special it was and I why I wanted the pair reunited. I left my name and phone number with a city official as if someone would turn in one lonesome glove. I sighed a lot. And then when Leibovitz and I got back to the city and headed out to dinner with Z, I put on a coat that I had not even taken to the island and there in the pocket was the errant stripey glove. I’d only ever had one glove while on Whidbey Island; its partner had always been safely back in Seattle waiting for me. Clearly, I was delusional as I traipsed the streets of Langley looking for it as was the guy with the Jesus is Weed protest sign.

If I had this horse, it would help me find my missing glove. (Photo: Sundance)

An added embarrassment to the above story is that for a full two days afterward I insisted to Z that I HAD had the errant glove on the island, that I remembered putting it on on Double Bluff Beach, and therefore, surely the fairies were messing with me by stealing it, flying it to First Hill, and stuffing it into the pocket of my coat. My Irish coat that I bought in Ireland. (Hence fairies.) Why would I do this? I am mostly a rational person, yet I firmly believed for two days that the only explanation involved the mythical beings of Éire stealing my belongings and then returning them.

Additional embarrassment and possible evidence of real arrogance: I see from Spellcheck that “stripey” should be spelled “stripy” but I don’t like the way that looks like “strippy” (also not a word) and thus I am refusing to use standard spelling.

Twice I broke into spontaneous dance that embarrassed me, the dancer, and Z, the witness.

I had an entire conversation with a server at a restaurant, explaining how I needed my burger to be prepared and I was smiling and joking so he would maybe not spit in my food since I had a special order. When he walked away, Z said, “Honey, you need to wipe your nose.”

I discovered I’ve been using hoi polloi wrong my entire life. I thought the hoi polloi were the arrogant rich people (who probably order things out of the Sundance Catalog regularly) who didn’t want to interact with common folk.

Not a member of the hoi polloi. (Photo: Sundance)

Z was lugging two heavy bags of groceries home while I was in charge of the umbrella and the key. When we got to the building door, a tenant was coming in with her bicycle and I was so busy letting her know that I was friendly and helpful in a door-holding kind of way that I slammed the interior door in Z’s face, thus trapping him in the vestibule with the groceries. I was halfway down the hall with a big smile on my face for being so helpful when I heard him saying through the door, “Baby? Baby? Can you get the door.” (Z can call me Baby because he says it ironically. Don’t judge me for allowing it.) And then when I let him in he couldn’t stop teasing me about how I was so enamored with the idea of being a helpful neighbor that I’d completely forgotten him.

I sent a watercolor card of a scene from Seattle painted by a local artist to Jane and family for the loss of a beloved pet only to discover that the artist had chosen to include a graffiti-covered wall in the background on which was scrawled, “Only the strong survive.”

And then there is Tuesday. Last week our building manager told us that she’d be making appointments to inspect apartments to check for things that needed fixing. I was glad she’d given us the heads up because I’m not that strong a housekeeper. Z and I are clean, but we are a messy people. Z is not without sin, but I am admittedly the more messy, so there are stacks of books toppling over, at least three different notebooks going, power cords tangled by the sofa, clothes I put on and shed as my personal temperature changes draped haphazardly on furniture, etc. So it’s always good for me to know ahead of time when someone will be coming to the house so I can race around throwing things into tote bags, shoving them behind a door, and thus offering the illusion of order. (Maybe this is arrogance? Not letting guests see that we live like pigs?)

Because of a three-day weekend and some projects that were started and left unfinished, some laundry done but only half put away, some “delicates” drying from hangers hooked over doorsills, some cooking experiments of Z’s that I enjoyed eating but had yet to clean up after, some wilted flowers from Leibovitz that were now neither beautiful enough to warrant display nor dead enough to warrant the trash, some bonus books to our already teetering stacks…because of all these things the house was not looking its best. Also, there was yet another mouse sighting and so Z had set up his Mouse Wall to encourage the mouse to stay in the kitchen and not skitter into our bedroom. (And no, Z is not a fool. He knows the mouse can scale the wall but he does it out of love for me so I will feel safer while sleeping, which is really all border walls do: make fearful people feel safer even though fences and walls often don’t achieve those goals and can be costly and unattractive.) Still, I thought, as I trundled off to bed, it will be easy enough to pick up in the morning while I wait to hear when the inspection will be.

Recently, I have been on an insomnia bender possibly caused by anxiety about a possible teaching gig after a three-and-a-half-year classroom hiatus, but more likely caused by some late night weed-free-but-highly-caffeinated brownies I’ve ingested. At 4:30, I was still not asleep, so I got up and took a sleeping pill. In the morning, I heard Z talking to the building manager in the hallway and I felt a little cross that they weren’t having the appointment-making conversation in her very tidy office downstairs instead of within my earshot so early in the morning. I sighed, settled in for more sleep, and then the bedroom door flew open and the light came on. I expected to see Z, but instead, it was the building manager and the handyman.

“OH NO!” she said. “YOU’RE HERE! I KNOCKED. YOU DIDN’T ANSWER.”

She and Z had not been chatting in the hallway. She and the handy man had been in the apartment checking our pipes for leaks and our smoke detectors for batteries. Z had been at work for hours. She skittered out of the house faster than the mouse skitters back under the refrigerator when Z swats at it with rolled up detritus from our coffee table.

To say I was mortified to be found in bed by someone other than Z at a 11 a.m.—to have been so zonked out from a sleeping pill that I didn’t hear the knock at the door or people in my home, to have been seen in my own personal bed by a woman I have heretofore only had benign conversations with about mouse infestations and her Yorkshire terrier—is an understatement.

This is the sort of thing that NEVER happens to those Sundance Catalog women.

Not the tidy and artful bed I was found in by the building manager. (Photo: Sundance)

I spent the rest of the day hiding in the apartment with the chain on the door and the curtains drawn. I wrote an Email of Agony to Jane to tell her of my shame. Jane’s house is always lovely. She would never have a mouse wall in a doorway or last night’s dishes in the sink. Jane would never be in bed at 11 a.m. But Jane is a good person and I knew she would not point this out to me, even if she did believe making me feel more embarrassed might help on the road to my ultimate self-improvement.

This is ONE WEEK’s worth of embarrassments. I can’t say I feel particularly good or unburdened about having told you any of these stories. But if I did have a Dragon of Arrogance? That thing has been smote.

Reunited and it feels so good.