Twitter… I know, I know.

Because my life is crazy at the moment, blogging has taken a back seat to it– this crazy mess of my life. Nothing too serious, though–with the exception of my car dying on the side of the freeway at 2 a.m. this past Friday night/Saturday morning and now needing a brand new engine which is costing $3500–just a LOT of other STUFF going on. But I have been Twittering a bit. I know, I know, I know what you’re thinking. But it’s fun, and less of a commitment. (Sorry blog, you knew I wasn’t a relationship kinda girl when we met.) I’m not nearly as addicted as others, but I tend to drop the occasional witty 140-character-comment

Hope all is well with you! Thanks for being so understanding, blog. You’re such a good friend I’ll be back more regularly after the crazy mess is a little more organized.

xoxo

the girl and the fig and a bottle of happiness.

Sonoma is the quintessential wine country community, the kind of place out-of-towners dream about when they think of Northern California, and ponder leading the kind of romantic lifestyle I only know about from movies and stories and being a daydreamer myself. It has a grassy, tree-shadowed square and the streets are lined by quaint shops and beautiful hotels, award-winning restaurants and casual cafes. Wine and cheese is a way of life, enjoyed daily like a meal, and the passing of the seasons is noticed in grapevines rather than tree leaves.

As a Napa Valley girl, born and bred, I am virtually committing treason by announcing this confession, but there is something I love about Sonoma so much more than my hometown, I find it difficult to express beyond my obvious appreciation of its aesthetics. Perhaps it is because it is a tabula rasa, something Napa can never be for me. Regardless of the fact that it is a mere 15 minutes from Napa, it often feels a world away.

Now, I know I have a penchant for wanting to run away from my life at times. Proven in my indecision, in my quick decisions, in moving to and fro, sleeping on foreign couches and sisterly futons, in friendly beds, on not-so-friendly floors, not knowing what the hell is coming around the next bend, finally settling at the beginning again. Settling, however, very often feels closer to restlessness, neighbors on the circumference of a circle rather than strangers at different ends of a spectrum. But I’ve come to the realization that what I am actually trying to do is run towards my life. I feel as though it keeps evading me somehow, like a star in the sky when you look directly at it. Only when you look away, does it finally come into focus, burning brightly in the corner of your eye.

MY good friend, JB, and I had a little date last Saturday night. I arrived at her house around 8:00pm, we enjoyed a glance of pinot noir as we chatted and she suggested we drive into Sonoma for dinner and conversation. A Napa girl, like me, she couldn’t bear the thought of our usual downtown Napa routine, undoubtedly running into all sorts of characters from the past (i.e. high school, boys and drama-causing friends) and I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief because my feelings mirrored hers exactly. I was almost going to suggest we stay in, in order to avoid the fray that is Napa on a Saturday night.

We conversed as she drove, winding her Land Rover through the two dark valleys, catching up on months of new developments after a summer apart. Upon our arrival at the square buzzing with tourists and locals alike, all out painting the town burgundy, we parked and chose a restaurant called the girl and the fig (lowercase letters). We have both recommended it a combined total of one hundred thousand nine hundred ninety eight times to guests at the hotel, but had never actually patronized the place ourselves. Concierges are the best liars who give the best advice on the best restaurants to which they never actually go. Unless invited as industry guests. Complimentary, of course

We sat at the bar, I pulled a fantastic bottle of Terra Valentine Cabernet Sauvignon from my handbag and gave it to the friendly bartender. One of the things I do love about wine country folks – most everyone knows how to pour wine correctly; into a certain glass according to the varietal, never filling the glass more than halfway at a time. If that qualifies me as a wine snob, I don’t care.

As we enjoyed our wine and cheese, another fellow concierge, and dear friend, arrived. LS was on a first date with a stockbroker, nice guy, and they joined us at the bar for cocktails and conversation.

After the lovely girl and the fig, we crossed the square to the locals’ favorite Irish watering hole, drank some beer and water and then said good night to LS and her stockbroker, who were clearly ready to continue their date sans JB and me.

When JB and I got back to her place, we chatted outside in the cool night for a bit, and although we talked for close to five hours that night, what I remember most about what we discussed is this: Her son had been having trouble recently with mean kids at his school. He is only six years old, I think, but is so wise, asking her how it is that people can be so cruel. Her response was equally wise. She basically told him that all we can do is surround ourselves by people who make us happy and to not worry about what other people think, because there is nothing we can do about them.

I have thought a lot about that advice in the last week. Because I think that is the ultimate struggle we all face in life. Finding who and what makes us happy. Easier said than done, right?

What I do know is this: Nothing makes me happier than a great bottle of wine, great friends, loving family, reading a good book, writing in my journal or on my blog, yummy cheese, and knowing that I don’t have to run from or towards my life, if I am willing to accept what makes me happy right now. My future life of travel and love and adventure will wait for me, while I enjoy my present life of school and struggle and sacrifice. No rush, right? Life is not a means to an end. As the saying goes, life is a journey, not a destination. Happiness is not “there” but here, not “tomorrow” but today. I have heard this quote attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Steven Tyler and Sidney Greenberg. Though it has become so ubiquitous it almost requires no author. Common knowledge need not be included on the works cited. So I must accept it as a truth, and learn to live it.

Now, if I can only hold onto that notion for a few years – or even a few hours…

Panic Attack!

I used to think that I had plenty of time to figure out who I wanted to be.

Now I feel like I’m having a panic attack about my life at times.

I was walking across a parking lot in Petaluma yesterday after school. I had stopped at this great deli to get a sandwich before work and while walking back to my car, this overwhelming sense of urgency and dread washed over me like a tidal wave and I felt like I was suffocating. In the mere twenty seconds in took me to walk to my car, and listen to my voicemail. One of the voicemails was from, insert ashamed smiley here, a debt collector. So yeah, that was obviously the cause of my mild heart attack, but I couldn’t shake that feeling for hours. That feeling you get when you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, and that every decision you’ve made in your entire life has been a total mistake and your life seems completely empty and pointless. All because I got a voicemail telling me I needed to pay my bills. Well, maybe not all because. School has become less than inspiring, and my goals seem so far away, and still have a chameleon-like quality, meaning they keep changing on me. Or I guess, I keep changing my goals is more like it.

Mike sent me an email the other day entitled “book on waiting” and I held my breath for a second, because I thought that he was sensing my distress and anxiety or something. It was about a book on waiting tables I had to laugh at myself when I realized how silly I was being, stressing out over the future. I seem to be doing that (and writing about it) a lot lately. I’m sorry if it’s annoying but I can’t help it. I have this six year plan, and when I think that in six years I’ll be 32… sorry I just passed out for a second! I feel so far behind. I try to reason that I’ve always been a bit of a late bloomer, but that’s depressing too. So I just try to focus and remember that I am still really young and have no reason to freak out.

This blog kind of sucks, and is going to be really scattered, but I think I need to vent.

So I think I’m going to drop my writing class. I kind of just talked Mike’s ear off about it so I really don’t feel like blogging about it other than to justify my wanting to drop it.
I’m really beginning to hate writers in San Francisco. They’re all such pretentious, think-they-know-everything, oh-so-cool and emo, unique and super intelligent writers, and yes I’m generalizing a bit, because my last class wasn’t that bad at all, but this class, oh, this class… Not to mention the smell. Yeah, have I mentioned the smell? It’s like, in order to be a writer in San Francisco you have to smoke and you can’t take a shower or brush your teeth because it’s too mainstream or something. I sat next to this person the other day with the worse combination of halitosis and BO ever. I took wintergreen Altoids out of my bookbag and put one in my mouth and then placed them on the table right in between us. I even bumped the tin a bit with my elbow, without trying to make it look like I was being passive-aggressively implicit in my gesture… no…luck.

It is impossible for me to breathe out of my mouth for three hours. I tried. I’m not a mouth breather. (Being sick is so miserable for me because of this.)

The teacher is actually really awesome, so I’m struggling quite a bit with this decision. I think I’ll give the class one more shot.

I’m okay. At least, I’ll be okay. I just get angsty sometimes Don’t we all, right? I’m trying to stay positive and for the most part I usually am. I talked to my sister for a while tonight and laughed and felt better. “The Sounds are this great English band from, um, England.” Thanks for that, Mick! That quote made my week! And I talked to Mike tonight for about an hour and laughed and felt better. So thanks Michelle and Mike!

I guess I better give that debt collector a ring…

In a whirlwind at a snail’s pace.

Do you ever feel like time is moving so quickly, yet so slowly? In a whirlwind at a snail’s pace. I feel that. I’ve felt that for about a month. Moving home was such a rushed (rash?) decision. But it was something I had considered for the better part of a year. And when I finally finalized it, after I layed all my cards on the table and peeked at each one individually and repeatedly before sweeping them all onto the floor with a single brush of my arm, watched them flutter to the, well, linoleum , I made my decision without regard, uncharacteristically, to the minutiae I had so devastatingly exhausted in my cognition.

Basically, I stopped thinking. For once in my life. And just did.

The last time I did anything remotely comparable was when I moved to Newport. And I’m laughing at myself right now. I guess I’ll never learn the easy way. I’ve always, always done everything the hard way. But I’ve never regretted the hard way. I’m a firm believer in things happen for a reason. And even though I had to live down south for five years to figure out I needed to be here to get to where I eventually need to be, that’s just the way it had to be. Yes. I’m still laughing at myself. Because I know how ridiculous I sound.

No one really knows what they’re doing, right? At least I hope I’m not the only one…

a red condom

Have you ever wondered why your life is so shitty and then becomes so wonderful, but continues on this cyclic path of shittiness and wonderfulness, and the rollercoaster of emotions you have to go through on a daily, weekly, monthly basis is so frustrating that you almost wish your life was less hustle-and-bustle, less rushed, less whirlwindish?

I should have listened to my mom. A sentence that I know many people say as they get older. (yikes I’m getting older.) Actually, I am enjoying getting older. I will be 25 in a month and I wouldn’t go back to 21 if you paid me. Knowing now what I had to go through to reach 25, I am so glad all that is done with. I can’t wait for what lies ahead of 25; the excitement and uncertainty of not knowing makes it all the more appealing.

Back to not listening to my mom. She has said this to me my entire life. Enjoy how long the day is when you’re young. As you get older, the days become shorter. Not verbatim, but along those lines. And I’d always roll my eyes and reply to her in my head, whatever, Mom. Her words now resonate loudly in my thoughts, frequently, as I realize how quickly the days do go by, and how I never seem to find enough time in one day for everything I want to do.

Money seems to disappear as quickly as the sun sinks into the Pacific. Save your money. She still says that all the time. I honestly do not know how to save money. Did they teach a course for that in college? Because I didn’t see it in the catalog. Another responsibilty I am learning how to handle, and each time I fail hurts worse than the last. Eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and canned corn for a week because I didn’t budget very well was a slap in the face the first time. The second and third times, it was just pathetic.

Things are looking up, actually. But I’m still at the bottom, waiting for the up part. I’m almost there and, of course, now that I want the days to go faster, they dragggggggggg. Like a rollercoaster, getting to the best part takes awhile, but once you get there it is exhilarating, and wonderful, and you’re so excited you can’t think straight. But then it is over, and you have to walk a mile to the next rollercoaster.

If you’re walking with friends though, the down part isn’t so bad

I know what you’re thinking. What the hell does this stupid blog have to do with a red condom? Don’t ask. It was just one one of those shitty things. In honor of Cortney.