Champs

36 weeks down
17 weeks left
Starting back at 0 pounds lost (I’m not totally there, but I’m close enough that starting from scratch feels better than actually admitting to the *real* number.)
About 9 months until the wedding

‘Tis the season for people to take the time to stop and tell the world what they are thankful for. I thought about doing that here today, but honestly, I feel like in the last few posts I’ve basically already covered all that. I’m thankful for my job, my smooth transition, my amazing friends, my wonderful family, Washington DC, music, and J. I feel like that’s sorta what this whole blog is about. It’s well- covered territory. So, I’m going to go another direction here.

Thanksgiving was when J proposed to me. Yes, it’s true. We’ve now been engaged for one big fat happy crazy trying year. And since each year at Thanksgiving, I will remember our hilarious and ridiculous and weirdly romantic engagement and be thankful for J,I thought today would be a good day to tell our engagement story. It’s a good story. And it’s pretty reflective of the two of us, which makes me love it even more.

J had a master plan to ask my father in person for permission to marry me (how sweet is that?) on Thanksgiving Day and then ask me at dinner. By the way, I was the only person on the planet that didn’t know this was happening. My best friend DJ was joining us for dinner as well; DJ who knew, had helped plot, had helped design the ring. Because I was hosting Thanksgiving at my apartment with J, DJ and my father, I thought it would be a good and kind idea to invite J’s parents to travel the 4-ish hours to my apartment to join us. J assured me that they rarely traveled and that they would probably say no. I extended the offer anyway, and they jumped at the chance. J was convinced that this would be the tip-off to me that something was going to happen (yes, they knew too.) I’m not that smart.*

*It should be mentioned that not a week earlier J and I had been at a dinner party where we were asked repeatedly about marriage and J constantly made comments about not being interested…not being ready…us not being “there” in an attempt to throw me off the scent. Um, it worked. I was a bit off-put. I called a girlfriend (a girlfriend who, by the way, had already seen the ring at this point) and was so upset. “I can’t believe he’s being like this! I thought we were on the cusp of getting engaged! This is so unlike him!” I’m an idiot.

J tried countless times that day to get my father by himself to ask. This plan did not work. Every time J asked me to run to the store to get something, my father offered to do it. Every time J came up with a new plan to separate my dad from me, something happened. I noticed that he was acting slightly on edge, but I just figured it was because this was our first big joint family venture.

Throughout the day, mutual friends kept calling J to ask him how the day had gone. I remember thinking at the time that this was so strange. What? I made a turkey. Did they think I was gonna kill people with it? (I’m a good cook, by the way…I’ve made a turkey or two in my time.) In hindsight the day was really quite funny…everyone consumed with nervous laughter and J sorta in his head…Dad and I oblivious to it all and DJ just kinda laughing at us all as an impartial observer.

The next morning the lot of us went to brunch. J’s parents, my dad, me, J, and DJ. J could not have been more distant, knowing that my father was leaving town after breakfast, and trying desperately to come up with a way to get him by himself in the few moments he had left. I’ll not go into the elaborate plot details of what happened next (which J came up with while sitting at breakfast freaking out) but it was quite hilarious and included dad being convinced to drive DJ and I home while J pretended he had errands to run while in fact tailing our car, DJ keeping me busy with serious conversation designed not to give me time to actually think about what was going on, and ended with J quite literally jumping in front my father’s car as he pulled out of the parking lot to drive home.

I am told the exchange between Dad and J was lovely and heartfelt. This always makes me happy.

So mission one—accomplished. Permission granted. At that point dad left, DJ left, and it was just me and J. He told me that since I had worked so hard and had made such a lovely dinner the day previous, that that night he was going to take me out to a super nice dinner just the two of us so that I didn’t have to cook (I’m still clueless.) Before our dinner though, one of J’s best buds who he rarely gets to see was coming to town and we agreed to meet up with him for a light late lunch—some wings and a beer and then come home, clean up, and go to our nice, special romantic dinner.

That’s about when I got a miserable migraine headache and crawled into bed with some unbelievably heavy drugs.

This ended up not being a horrible chain of events because his friend kept calling and pushing our late lunch back and back and back. It was almost 4 p.m. when his friends called and said they were ready for us to meet them at the bar, a whopping 4 hours late, and much closer to dinner time than lunch. The good part was that by then my migraine was pretty well gone and I could stand up again.

Of course, I was also totally stoned.

The plan was still to meet J’s friends for a quick drink and then still make our swanky dinner. When we got to the bar however, J’s friends had bought rounds of drinks and dinner for the table. I (not knowing what the intent of said swanky dinner was) suggested we just sit there and eat dinner. “It’s no big deal if we miss our dinner. It’s not like it was for anything special! Let’s just hang out here.” (Did I mention that I was high and clueless?) J just looked defeated.

And so we sat and we ate. And by the end of dinner I was not so stoned. And was feeling better. As we left, J, still desperate to make something happen (he had had the ring out of the box and in his pocket all day long just waiting…) suggested that we still try to salvage the evening by going out for a nice glass of wine somewhere special. I, still not feeling totally awesome, suggested that instead we go get a quick drink somewhere close to my apartment, just in case I started feeling badly again. And the only place close to my house was a total dive hole-in-the-wall bar called Champs. When I suggested Champs, J just looked at me and laughed.

“Really?...Champs?”

So off we went to the local pool hall. We got ourselves a bar trivia controller and a pitcher of cheap beer and sat down to watch some basketball, for what is supposed to be the MOST romantic evening in a couple’s relationship.

“I need to talk to you about something sorta serious.”

Oh God. The last time he said something like this, I found out he was getting deployed.

“Ok. Tell me.” J took a deep breath…and my phone rang. “Hold that thought.”

“Wait…really?”

It was one of my close girlfriends on the phone and she was crying. She had had a miserable Thanksgiving and was embroiled with high family drama which was quite upsetting to her. After about ten-ish minutes, our conversation concluded a little something like this:

“Just come join us for a quick drink. We’re not having a special moment here or anything…Seriously, I’m kicking his ass at trivia, we’re drinking beer and watching basketball. It’s not like Champs is place you come for a special evening. I promise you we won’t talk about your family at all.”(And then J in the background… “Seriously, give me 5 minutes and I PROMISE you, you two won’t be talking about HER family.”)

I hung up. J looked at me, and nonchalantly pulls out the ring. “Guess I’m going to have to do this quickly.” He said a few very romantic things (hey, some stuff gets to stay private…) stunning me speechless. He put the ring that he had carefully designed just for me in my finger. There was, of course, crying and kissing and all that. I just couldn’t see my gorgeous ring because we were in a dark bar. At one point I am pretty sure I was laying on a pool table under the low-hanging lights when J finally just laughed at me and said “Just go to the bathroom already and look at it under the big lights.”

It was while I was in the bathroom that I rewound the last 48 hours and realized how at just about every turn I had torpedoed J’s attempts at special and romantic. And yet, I couldn’t think of a better way to have the day end. When I returned from the bathroom, I kissed J.

“Do you know why this was the perfect proposal? Because *this* is us. We aren’t fancy dinners. We’re easy. We drink cheap beer and play trivia and watch basketball. We adapt and keep our cool when things are hard—we always have a plan B and a plan C and a plan D. We put including our families in important stuff first even when it screws up the plans we have in our head. We put a high premium on accommodating our friends and being there when they need us. You and me…we are Champs. This is us. And come on, would it really be an US engagement story if it wasn’t funny and ironic and ridiculous?”

Each Thanksgiving for the rest of my days, I’ll remember our engagement day and smile and laugh and be oh-so-thankful for the things that make J and I, well, us. We are Champs. And that’s why it works.

My kind of town

35 weeks down
18 weeks left
Kitchen is cleaned out and unpacked. Groceries purchased. Now if this week wasn’t Thanksgiving…sigh. Let’s just pretend I’ve lost nothing and I’m starting back at 0 pounds lost. Because honestly, I think I’m just about back there. Additionally…how did that even happen? Sigh.
About 9 months until the wedding

For the longest time, I marveled at people who had a love affair with New York City. I neither shared this love nor did I understand it. To the people who live and breathe New York, there is no other thing…no other place they would rather be, no other people they would rather be surrounded by than other New Yorkers. And New Yorkers are pretty vocal about defending the honor of this love (though not so much with a mere glove swat across the face as with a mean right hook.)

To those engaged in this tawdry love affair with NYC, there is something sexy about the anonymity of the millions of people there; something beautiful about the grittiness; something alluring about the hum of the city streets and the electricity of constant motion. And for those who, in the immortal words of Frank Sinatra, can make it there, well, you feel like you can make it anywhere. Because New York is the toughest of the tough—a badge of honor worn by those who can survive there unscathed. At least this is what they tell me. I’m not that guy so I don’t really know.

When I moved to Washington DC for the first time almost ten years ago, I was, quite frankly, petrified...and still a little wet behind the ol’ ears. I had grown up in a small town, living a sheltered life, surrounded by people I loved and trusted, at the end of a dirt road in the middle of a cornfield. The pace of Washington DC was insane to me. The people and the speed of life, a harsh reality for me to face.

To say that the first few months of time in DC was hard, is a vast understatement. I lived in poverty, walking everywhere because I couldn’t afford public transportation, eating apples and granola bars and microwave popcorn for sustenance, working a dead-end forty hour a week retail job, while I went to school at night. I rented a room in a house with a crazy lady (seriously…when I mentioned that I had been having bad dreams while sleeping in the attic of her home, she required that we engage in a white-sage burning ritual with the sage that was left over from the last time the Shaman blessed her home and exorcised the demon spirits. Yup. I moved out soon after.)

But slowly, surely, I began to grow into my time in DC. I wore my poverty and hard work like merit badges. I was doing it. Dammit. I was making it. I slowly found a better job; found better pay; got into a rhythm at school; made friends. By the time I got ready to leave three years later, I felt like I owned the city. I not only knew the roads, I knew the shortcuts. I not only knew the best touristy restaurants to frequent, but the mom and pop holes in the wall too. I knew when to drive where and how to avoid traffic. I had places that were mine. I had a sommelier a my local wine store who knew me by name, and recommended a new bottle that she knew would be to my liking every time I walked in the door. I had a jogging path and a coffee shop and a library card.

I had conquered DC. And until the end of my days, I will remember that feeling. The day that the city was not my foe, but rather my equal. The day we were no longer fighting each other, but were working in concert with one another—I may have just been a cog, but it certainly was a well-oiled machine. At the time, I likened my time there to a runner’s first marathon, knowingly signing up for it, secretly believing I simultaneously could and couldn’t do it, but not really knowing truly how far I could push myself until I hit the limit and came out on the other side stronger. I remember thinking at the time that *this* must be what all those crazy New Yorkers were wearing their “I heart NYC” shirts about. I get it. And I remember thinking I needed to go out and get myself an “I heart DC” shirt just to mock them.

When I left DC, I went on to other adventures. But when I did so, it was with a sense of accomplishment and pride and self-assurance. I had conquered Washington, DC. Whatever was next would be child’s play comparatively.

I have been back in DC now for a week. And in that week, I have rediscovered that sense of empowerment, the feeling that I can conquer the world. Maybe that’s not quite right. I don’t feel invincible and I’m not feeling self-important. But I guess being back here just makes me feel like I’m up to any challenge that’s put in front of me. I know it’s going to take effort and focus and hard work and patience. But being here just reminds me that I’ve got those things at my disposal when I need them, and that I can do whatever needs to be done.

Today was a beautiful fall day: mid-50’s and sunny and so warm. I found myself driving along the Potomac with my windows down: Arlington National Cemetery on one side of me, the splendor of DC on the other, and the Pentagon dead ahead. I dodged in and out of traffic with the ease of a local as I traversed my favorite routes to my favorite little grocery stops on a leisurely Sunday afternoon.

I felt free and alive and in charge of my life for the first time in so many months.

I know that there will be those of you, like I am with NYC, that will not understand my love affair with Washington DC. People say that it is corrupt (it can be) and it is hot (often) and it is built on a swamp (yes) and is filled with self-important politicians (also true.) But for all of that, there is also history and culture, music and art, families and friends and people trying really hard all day long to do good work. And there is so much natural beauty. In the immortal words of The Moldy Peaches (worst band name ever), l don’t know what anyone can see in anyone else, but you.

DC will always be my first love. My first real sense of accomplishment. My first real grown-up obstacle I ever truly faced and conquered. And to be back here now, after alllll that the last year has presented to me just seems right as rain. It’s not NYC. And forgive me Sammy Kahn, as I steal the lyrics you intended for Chicago…but DC truly is *my* kind of town. And I’m so so happy to be back.

The Big Easy

34 weeks down
19 weeks left
Still not talking about the diet- But soon. Once I’m through the first week wine-and-dine at work, and actually have my kitchen set up so I can begin cooking again, I’ll be back on the wagon. And I need it. Clothes are starting not to fit again. Sigh.
About 9 1/2 months until the wedding

I am without internet. I didn’t realize how much I used the internet until I no longer had said internet. Evidently Verizon will only come and set cable and internet up in your house when you in fact are in the house. And they only do this during their business hours of 8-5. And since today (or, almost a week ago now) I started a big kid job who has just about those same hours, this means that I will not be home to meet said Verizon people to get said internet until two weeks from now. Yeeeouch. And so, I will not be able to regularly post the blog from the comfort of my own home for another two weeks (can you believe there isn’t even anyone in my building I can pirate the interweb from? Stupid password protected neighbors.)

But internet or not, I am still writing the blog, though I can’t promise that it will be posted at the same intervals on the same days with the same frequency or in any sort of timely fashion at all.

So here I am, broadcasting live (well, on about a six day time delay between writing and finding a place/ time to post) from my new city and my new job and my new apartment after what will be known heretofore as the most unrealistic moving timeline ever. I ended my job at 5p.m. on Friday, loaded a moving van with all my earthly belongings on Saturday morning (and let’s be honest, even though I got rid of much, all my earthly belongings still constitutes a lot of crap), drove umpteen hours through the mountains with my car in tow, unloaded all my earthly belongings Saturday night before falling over exhausted, tried desperately to get settled in on Sunday (by settled in I mean, set up the bed, found my shampoo, a clean pair of pants and my coffee pot) and started a new job at 9 a.m. Monday morning.

Yeah. That happened.

Whether it is the moving or the exhaustion, the change in weather, the lack of sleep, the running around ragged or just the kicking up of dust everywhere, I have gotten for myself a MONSTER head cold that has just about zapped any energy that I had left after moving, establishing a new morning routine, and an *actual* 8.5 hour work day (haven’t had one of THOSE in quite awhile.) Seriously, it’s like the kind of sick that you legitimately call off from work for and don’t even feel guilty about. If it hadn’t been on the first three days of my brand new job, I would have been at home sleeping hard. At any rate, I have been in bed each night I have lived in the city around 8:30 p.m. (Clearly, I live a very exciting life. It’s like middle school all over again.) And though vile, I have greatly appreciated the value of my neti pot in the last 24 hours (and of course Vitamin Water, for whom I could be a spokesperson.) Still lame though. Nothing says “I’m so happy to be here for my first day of work” like sneezing all over your new boss ( that only happened once.)

So today (actually, it was today when I first wrote this…it’s four days later now) I started the new job. And I felt amazing, and overwhelmed, and excited and comfortable. It was like I had been there forever. People were kind. I laughed. My colleagues took me out for a welcome lunch. Pretty much, all in all, the best way my first day could have gone.

I’m nervous when I tell you that it was pretty much what I expected given the way the last few weeks have gone. I have never, ever, had any transition go so smoothly. And I gotta be honest—it’s sorta been freaking me out. From getting rid of the apartment, to finding a rent-controlled, all utilities included apartment very close to work (true story, even in morning rush hour, big city traffic that was stop and go the entire way, I still made it to work in under 30 minutes. My friend JO is cursing me for this, by the way.) The move, with the help of an amazing crew of friends on both ends, could not have gone faster or more efficiently. In the middle of late fall, when it rained the week before and after, my moving days were bright, sunny, dry, and easy.

True, my apartment is little. And the kitchen does leave a great deal to be desired. And yes, I am going to have to live on a shoestring for a bit of time until my first paycheck comes in. But all in all, this couldn’t have gone more according to plan.

A long time ago, probably because most things are pretty hard for me generally, I sort of adopted the sentiment that nothing much worth having was easy to get. And if something was easy to get, then it probably wasn’t worth very much. (I am always trying really really hard, by the way, which is surprising to many people. I’m kinda like the proverbial duck, on the surface gliding along smoothly on top of the water, but really, the only way that is actually happening is that I’m kicking like hell under the water the whole time.) But I think that even though this has been an easy transition, that it’s also going to be really good—that this ONE time, the ease just means it’s the right thing, and not that it’s a bad thing. Once again, I find myself having to stop to challenge my own assumptions about life (that could be the subtitle of this blog, don’t ya think?)

So here I am, and while my poor health is a bit of a challenge, all else is running like clockwork.

I mentioned my trepidation to one of my dearest friends who was helping me move my things in here in DC. He just laughed at me and said, “You know, not everything has to be hard. Can you just take a minute and appreciate that this is just a good and right thing to do?” Ha, indeed friend. Indeed.

As I have mentioned (woefully) I have no energy to unpack things, and even less room in my wee kitchen to put the things away that I unpack. And so sadly, arranging the kitchen in a manner that lets me cook hasn’t really happened yet. Obviously, step one of living in a new neighborhood in a new city without a kitchen is to find the best and most easily accessible Chinese takeout restaurant who delivers.

This was last night’s (or, well, Monday’s) dinner plan—the first real meal in my new place after my first day at my new job. The old standby of some pork lo mein and some chicken fried rice in hand, (I had visions of that episode of Sex in the City when Miranda gets angry that the girl at the takeout place starts to know her order by voice because she orders so often) I started to eat. As my meal came to a close (with enough leftovers for *several* more kitchenless nights- ah, the joy of Chinese food) I cracked open the two fortune cookies that I found at the bottom of the bag. The messages read as follows:

“Sing and rejoice, fortune is smiling on you.”

“Look up in the sky tonight. Have a moment for yourself.”

I couldn’t help but smile. These little gems seemed to be echoing what my friend had said and what I had been feeling all along but had been too afraid to say outloud. And so in that moment, between the boxes and the dust and the fog of a Nyquil-induced stooper, I did, in fact smile and rejoice just a little bit. Life is not so bad after all.

Armistice

I am not a military historian. Actually, I am not a historian of any kind. At all. I pretty much detested my high school history teacher who picked his nose and only talked about the Civil War, and therefore I took as few formal courses as possible. In my adult life, I have seen this as a bit of an issue. I don’t like not knowing stuff. And becoming associated with a military guy who likes history and is required to *know* military history has pretty much shone a Batman-distress-signal-sized flood light directly upon my ineptitude in this capacity. (History is *not* the pie I’ll be winning for your team in Trivial Pursuit.)

But as today is Veteran’s Day and since I am in fact marrying a Veteran, I felt compelled to learn more about the history of this day. I’ve already had many lovely people thank me for my military sacrifices. (I have learned to stop myself short of reminding them that I’m not the one making the sacrifices, and have simply learned to graciously say thank you. You can teach an old dog new tricks, apparently.) At any rate, if I’m getting thanks, I feel like I need to know what for.

And so, this is what an exhaustive search has taught me about Veteran’s Day. (And by exhaustive search, I mean I Googled it.)

On June 4, 1926 Congress passed a concurrent resolution officially declaring that November 11, the day of the official cease fire in World War I, would be recognized heretofore as Armistice Day. And for my friends keeping a vocabulary list…

Armistice: a temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement between the opponents : a suspension of fighting especially of considerable duration by agreement of opposing forces: a respite especially from a disagreeable or painful state or action

The resolution stated in part, (in the lovely way that resolutions do), “Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; We therefore declare," …and so began the tradition of celebrating the day that fighting stopped. Armistice.

Originally, Armistice Day was a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I only. But in 1954, after the hard fought World War II (which mobilized the greatest amount of manpower in US history) and the struggle in Korea, the veterans service organizations convinced the 83rd Congress to amend the Act of 1938 by changing the word "Armistice" to "Veterans," thereby honoring not just those who fought in World War I, but instead all Veterans and Active Servicemen.

And so Veteran’s Day has become a day to remember those passed who brought peace and freedom and democracy to the world and to say thank you to all those still serving in our United States Military today for the sacrifices they are making. (And by extension, it turns out, their families for letting these folks go and do this job while keeping the home fires burning.)

As I did this little mini-research project, I found it of particular interest that the day we celebrate as Armistice Day is not the day WW I ended. It is not the day the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Not the day the war was “officially” over, but rather, just the day we all stopped fighting. I think that I love this part the most.

While I obviously appreciate a day that recognizes all our vets and says thank you, I sorta wish that Veteran’s Day and Armistice Day were two separate occurrences. Because in my head they celebrate two different things—two things that should both have their equal days of respect on the calendar.

I know firsthand right now about the sacrifices that military families make. And I’m not even close to a worst case scenario in that respect. J and I are still not married, so I don’t have to bumble around the house we once shared by myself while he is away. I have a full and active life and job and friends to keep me insanely busy while he is serving. We do not have children who, in my opinion, bear the brunt of the hard times of a deployment. I look at my unbelievably strong mother-in-law-to-be who is married to a retired Navyman, who has two sons who serve (and are often Over There at the same time.) I’m not sure how she does it. If I feel like I’m making sacrifices for the military, then I can only imagine what those who are longer and deeper invested must be feeling.

And so, it is right and good that we say thanks. Happy Veteran’s Day, indeed.

But I love the thought of Armistice Day. Peace day. Not the day the war ends, but rather celebrating the day the fighting stopped. There will always be wars to fight and causes to defend and beliefs to stand up for. But what if for one day, just one single day, we all just shut up and got along. Laid down the weapons (figurative and otherwise) and just took a deep breath. Fighting of any kind is hard and exhausting. What if for one day in our crazy lives we took the time to lay down our arms and merely be thankful that we’ve got fight left in us.

I think this idea is sorely needed in today’s world. In a time in U.S. history when things seem so negative and contentious… (maybe it’s always been this way? Please note my original “I know nothing about history” confession). When partisan politics are running amok and causing so many people to become disenfranchised with government… when the populace has become obsessed with political affiliation or sexual orientation or religious alignments instead of the people, the human beings, behind these labels…when the news is sensationalized for ratings and polarization AND YET continues to turn a blind eye and deaf ears to stories about the human condition (unless it furthers their political agenda)… when the headlines each day tell us about bullying and lack of tolerance and suicides due to folks feeling like they weren’t accepted as human beings…

I don’t know, but to me, it seems like a day of armistice might be a welcomed respite from it all. A day to lay down your weapons, cease fire, and “perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding…”

I’ve been thinking about how I can apply this idea to my own life. I know that over the past few months I have been doing nothing but fighting, and keeping a much-more-negative-than-normal outlook on, well, just about everything. And in the last few days I have even had occasion to be spiteful (what my friends say is well-deserved spite, but is not usually my style and is nonetheless not my finest hour.) These things are not good, and do not reflect the person I want to be.

And so today, I’m going to practice a little peace: Stop the negativity and stop the fighting and just be grateful and say thanks. And I’d encourage others to do so as well. Because if we can all get behind taking one day to turn off the violence and negativity and to lay down our arms, then maybe we can get behind a second day and a third. Because just like everything else in the world, the more you practice at peace, the better you get at it.

Happy Veteran’s Day and happy Armistice Day.