An upscale Piggly Wiggly--who would have thought?

This is life right now:

• We spent Sunday afternoon in Myrtle Beach, exploring, and we found two places we’d not been before. The first was a trashy flea market where we walked in the heat, melting, my long summer dress clinging to my legs, and looked at cheap guitars, gaudy turquoise rings, old cast iron skillets, pocketknives. A woman was selling used books for outrageous prices and as we drove away I complained (“You can’t sell a used paperback for five dollars. It just isn’t done!”) and Jesse remarked, “You sound personally offended,” and I paused and thought and said, “Why, yes, I believe I am.” Then we drove past the beaches and the beach hotels and ended up in a ritzy part of town, a new development it seemed, where we found, to our great amazement, a ritzy Piggly Wiggly. We immediately stopped the car and went in, and then spent probably a solid half hour wandering through the store, exclaiming things like, “A whole display just for imported Belgium beers?” and “Check out these cakes!” The Piggly Wiggly in our town sells beef tongue and smells funny. This Piggly Wiggly was the nicest grocery store we’d ever been in. We bought Little Debbie snacks and milk and ate in the parking lot.

It wasn't an illusion--the inside was as nice as the outside!

• We spent that evening in a mall, talking about New York. It seems that the jobs I am both qualified for and interested in are all in New York. The fact that we’re discussing this both excites and terrifies me.

• In the event we do not move to New York, and honestly we probably won’t, I am exploring my employment options in North Carolina. They are few and far between. I’m applying for everything right now, including jobs high schoolers apply for, and this has been more of a hit to my ego than I expected. I’m three years away from thirty and have a master’s degree. I started to apply for jobs at Harris Teeter, but I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it. I know this blog might prompt worried emails from family members, but I’m sorry, if you can job hunt in the middle of a recession in a city that didn’t have good jobs even before the recession, if you can do that without getting a little bit depressed, then I’m worried about you.

• Saturday was by far the worst—the day I almost applied for the Harris Teeter job, the day I got the most discouraged about my employment prospects, the day before we started talking about New York. That evening, I read a blog Sabrina posted about fried rice with SPAM and I knew instantly that SPAM was the only thing that would brighten my mood, so I dropped everything and ran to Wal-Mart (you can buy SPAM at Harris Teeter, but why would you?). It’s been years since I’ve had SPAM, and I wondered if I’d be able to find it, but as I looked at the signs over the aisles I realized I needn’t worry: Wal-Mart has an aisle specifically marked “Canned Meat.” In said Canned Meat aisle, I saw a row of familiar plastic pouches and thought, “Oh, what the heck,” and grabbed two packs of Ramen noodles. Might as well. And? Turns out I was right. SPAM helped.

• I am starting a new book and I’m pretty sure it’s about zombies.

• Yesterday, Jesse came home from work early and on the way home stopped at the grocery store to rent a movie. I had watched both A. and M. that morning and was exhausted. I didn’t mean to, but I had fallen asleep on the couch, and Jesse came in and woke me up with a kiss and a rose he’d gotten for me. I love that man.

All right then, since we’re on Awkward Topics, let’s talk about my employment status. Let’s just go there. I suppose the technical term for me is “underemployed.” I’m not unemployed, a distinction I feel is important. But the job I have is decidedly not full-time.

After I graduated with my MFA in 2008 (yeah, we’ll go there too—it’s been two years, two full years) I got a job working from home. I wrote stuff, edited stuff, did online stuff, and had to call people to try and convince them to set meetings with someone who would then try to convince them to move their business to our client city. I enjoyed (well, “enjoy” might not be the right word) everything except the calling, which I absolutely hated and dreaded and avoided if at all possible. On the side, I also copy edited for a local business.

I did this for about a year. Then, the recession hit. First, I lost the copy editing. Then, I lost the online job. I had already begun watching A, though, so I still had something. Regardless, I promptly felt depressed at my underemployed status and started looking for a job. Before I found one, though, Jesse and I had a heart-to-heart and we agreed I would take some time off from job hunting to focus solely on the book, which I was in the process of completely re-writing and which had taken a back burner since I’d been out of school.

And that’s been the past year of my life—two or three mornings a week of watching a toddler, the rest of the time writing. And keeping the house clean, and doing laundry, and grocery shopping, and cooking all our food, and washing our cars, and maintaining our lawn, and growing our garden. You know, that stuff.

Now, I’m wrapping up a draft of the book, ready to call it quits on that project (whether it works or not—I’m simply exhausted, creatively, and don’t know how much energy I have left for it). Which means my experiment in housewifery must come to a close.

I, of course, don’t want it to. Not working has confirmed what I’ve been suspecting for quite some time now: I don’t like work. I don’t like having a job. At least, I haven’t loved any of the jobs I’ve had, and I’ve had a variety. I’m much happier at home, cleaning the house and baking bread and doing all that stuff a good feminist isn’t supposed to like.

The inherent problem is I married a man raised in my generation, a generation very used to two incomes, a man philosophically on board with stay-at-home mothers but bewildered at the prospect of a stay-at-home wife. I can’t say I blame him. I know he’d rather stay home too. (Though I’m convinced that about two weeks of domestic chores and responsibilities would have him running back to the office.)

And while stay-at-home mothering seems to be experiencing, at least in my circle of friends, a comeback, a little stamp of Oprah-approval, the noble act of sacrificing career for the raising of productive citizens, I can probably forget about the possibility of the return of the housewife. Women make up more than half the workforce now. We’re better educated than men are, and we’re more likely to be managers (though not CEOs).

Today, I read Hanna Rosin’s article—“The End of Men”—in the new Atlantic and found it fascinating, and probably true. She writes,

Dozens of college women I interviewed for this story assumed that they very well might be the ones working while their husbands stayed at home, either looking for work or minding the children. Guys, one senior remarked to me, “are the new ball and chain.”

But, shhh, don’t tell Jesse. He might want to try a little experiment of his own.

Sometime last week, Jesse observed: “You never just sit.” I may stop for a moment, but even in my times of “rest,” I’m always consuming something or doing something—reading, checking the news online, planning something I’m about to do, or regretting something I should have already done. I’m always on.

Sadly, this doesn’t result in great amounts of productivity. If you want to see productivity, just look to Sabrina, who accomplishes more while napping than I do in a normal day.

It does, however, result in a lot of procrastination. See, when my brain decides it’s done and can’t stand to edit or write or whatever, I just end up on Facebook, wasting time. Then, I feel guilty for not getting more done and overwhelmed thinking of all that needs doing. Even when I do something I enjoy, say reading a book or something, I feel guilty for it afterwards.

So, the epiphany. Sunday afternoon, I had a Congo meeting and afterward Rachael and I stood out in the parking lot of the church and realized we were looking forward to the trip because in Congo, we’d be less stressed out. I wanted to laugh. Who goes to a third-world country to relax? Well, me, apparently. Because here, in my comfy first-world existence, I don’t.

The other day, I forced myself to take a bubble bath without a book or magazine with me. I filled up the tub and then stared at the ceiling and every three minutes thought, Is that enough? Am I done? Can I do something else now? NO, I told myself, and stayed put, determined to rest.

I think a lot of this stems from the fact that Jesse’s basically working two jobs right now while I babysit and try to finish this book. I feel like a freeloader, and that drives me crazy. Sure, I do all the household chores, I cook, I pay the bills and keep the budget, I grocery shop, and so on. Most of the time, Jesse comes home to a fairly clean house and a home-cooked dinner, and I’m sure that’s kind of nice. But, I’m not bringing in a whole lot of cash, and try as I might, I still have that linked to my feelings of self-worth. (Stupid, I know. Sorry.)

So, when I do things I enjoy, somewhere in the back of my mind is a picture of Jesse, slaving away, not getting to do the things he enjoys. And it’s all my fault.

Well. I guess he and I need to do some more talking about our current situation. But, in the meantime, I can’t keep this up, this whole never-really-resting/feeling-guilty-for-not-doing-more song and dance I’ve got going.

I made a list, because that’s what I do, and at the top I wrote Things I Enjoy. It goes like this:

Being outside
Gardening
Photography
Reading
Cooking/Baking
Reading cookbooks
Spending time w/friends
Spending time w/Jesse
Having a clean house (not so much the actual cleaning)
Listening to music
Drinking tea

(Note that Facebook didn’t make the list. Neither did checking online news.)

This week, I’ve been trying to do at least one thing from the list each day. These things are relaxing to me, restorative. The trick is, it doesn’t count if I feel guilty for it later.

The funny thing? Since I’ve started this, I’ve been more productive. Because when I’m tempted to procrastinate or waste time, the pull isn’t as strong because I know I’ll be able to do something restful that I enjoy if I make the time for it. It’s really just an attitude shift. Today, I mopped the floors and vacuumed and cleaned the dishes, and while I was doing it, I told myself I was doing it because having a clean house is on the list, and I knew I’d feel better once the floors were sparkly and smelling nice.

Today, I spent the first half of the day with A. and we took a long walk, played outside, read books, worked on learning colors, shapes, letters, and numbers. Then I came home and ate lunch while sitting at the little table on our back patio (er, concrete slab). While talking to Simona on the phone, I dusted the house and tidied up, and after hanging up I performed the aforementioned chores, then washed Jesse’s car (outside and in!). Earlier this morning, I’d put a pot roast in the slow cooker, so I didn’t need to make dinner, but on a whim I decided to go for a batch of cornbread. Jesse had to work late, so I ate by myself, cleaned up the kitchen, then decided I’d bake a lemon buttermilk pound cake (I’ve never made a pound cake before, so we’ll see how it turns out).

And the day’s not done. I may read, I may drink some tea, I may tackle some editing. Or, I might sit in the tub, doing absolutely nothing.

Don Miller said this: “The truth is, you and I have a lot more agency, if you will, over how our story goes than we like to admit or we even feel comfortable thinking about. God actually hands you a pen and says, ‘I want you to tell a great story with your life.’” He talked about how often we settle for boring stories, how often we allow our storyline to be focused on things, on the procurement of Volvos and the like (which, I’ll just be honest, I really want—ever since the accident, I’ve had car-lust for Volvos, what with their great safety ratings, their special anti-neck-injury headrests, and the magic I perceive they weave into the seat cushions). But, really, we are far too easily pleased, far too easily distracted, and by “we” I do mean me. My tendency is always to play it safe, to take the well-worn path of least resistance, to allow fear and plain old-fashioned laziness dictate what I do and do not do.

Last year, I was working a job I didn’t like and letting the book take back burner, the book I’d spent the last two or three years and many grad school classes on. Then I went to Congo and lost that job I kind of hated and floundered for a while and then decided to get serious about the book, and Jesse was lovely and took on extra freelance, and I started watching a lovely little two-year-old boy who has very generous parents, and now I’m here, re-reading old blogs and realizing what that whole thing was about—I wasn’t telling a good story. I was bored by the story I was telling with my life. And this is no tragedy to anyone but me, but still.

I wrote years ago (one of my first blogs ever!) about this little plastic sign I bought in Tokyo that reads: “This is your own future! That means you yourself are going there. Choose your own way!” I framed it, put it over my desk, and that’s what it says to me—tell a good story. I think years of creative nonfiction classes have driven it home, this idea of life as story, of the importance of story. The importance of conflict and adversity to a good story. The way a good story operates not as escapism but revelation and confirmation. I’m getting off the ground here, so I’ll end and say that at the close of my life, I want to look back and not—as I told my friend Beth—say, “I paid all my bills on time,” but rather, “That was a good story.” And whatever that story is, and so much of it will not be my choice, I’m not under the delusion that it will be, I just hope—and pray—that it’s a good one. And when I do have the choice, I hope I always choose the good story over the safe one.

Oliver has been impossibly cute these days. In the mornings, while Jesse showers I sit on our sink so we can chat before he rushes off to work. Oliver picked up on the pattern and now sits on my lap. Gracie sacks out on our bed (which is nice when I’ve already made it up, but poses a dilemma if I haven’t—do I move her to make it up? Oh, but she’s just so comfy!). I sit between our sinks, and Oliver sits on my lap, and Jesse showers, and we talk. The other day, I was getting ready to go somewhere and was putting on makeup while talking to Jesse. Oliver sat on the sink and meowed at me until I finished and sat down, at which point he quickly climbed into my lap and immediately began purring and licking his paws. He’s on my lap right now, as I type this. Making up for the fact that he was on the kitchen sink this morning, checking out the pan I’d left soaking from last night’s dinner, trying to see if he could find any morsels to supplement his diet-food breakfast.

I dreamed of Congo again last night. Jesse was there too, and we were eating Mama Lily’s cooking and I was showing him how to brush his teeth without using the tap water. Yesterday, I was thinking about electricity, how I have it whenever I want it, how it felt to sit around a living room with flashlights and candles, talking in the dark, about candlelit dinners that were born out of necessity rather than romanticism. Only ten percent of Congo’s population has access to electricity. That kind of blows my mind. And even the ones who do… Every day, we lost power at least once, and our compound had a generator. Bishop goes for days without power. He loves ice-cold soda. He apologizes to us when he has to serve it warm. Some days, it’s not war, it’s not rape, it’s just this—it’s just Bishop, looking embarrassed, handing his guests bottles of warm soda.

For days, I’ve been trying to write about Haiti, but it keeps coming out Congo. I have a friend who is tirelessly campaigning to get tents to Haiti, and she asked me to blog about it, and I’ve tried, I really have. I care about Haiti, and we’ve given money to relief efforts. But it’s not the same. Congo is more than a cause now. But what is it? I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. All I know is that I can’t write to you about Haiti right now, not with any real conviction or passion, you’d see right through me, you’d know my heart was saying Congo all that time, and while it makes me feel a little heartless, a little guilty, not to have enough room for both, what I really believe is that everyone has their Congo, whether they’ve found it yet or not, and we’ve all got to latch on and fight like mad to do something.

And there it is, the man who plays guitar until his fingers bleed, because he’s trying to say something. Something about life and about art, the way we couldn’t paint without dark colors, and there is a beauty about Bishop and his bottles of Coke and Sprite and Fanta that I will never find the words for. But I will not stop trying.

(If Haiti is your Congo, here’s one way to help: www.ahomeinhaiti.com. The rainy season starts soon.)

At any rate, Jesse and I spent half the day on Saturday driving around kind of aimlessly, waiting for the rental company to get back to our realtor so he could get the codes to show us the houses. We snagged some wraps from a Trader Joe’s and ate them in the car, sharing a little jug of orange juice and finishing the meal with a couple of old chocolates the store had been giving away, pretending they were for the Superbowl, when really it was obvious they were just leftovers from Christmas.

Then, around 2:00 we finally got to see the first house. We spent the next several hours inspecting place after place, taking note of the carpet and the location of the laundry rooms, the noise levels, the quality of neighborhoods, and so on. I took notes on a little pad of paper, and after each house Jesse and I spoke our thoughts into a voice recorder. At the end of the day, we had settled on the two best possibilities, and we sent notes and pictures to my aunt. Now we wait and see…

So far this week, I’ve just been at home, doing chores and writing. Yesterday I went through some of my kitchen drawers, getting rid of things I never use and making room for some new gadgets from the Pampered Chef party. I washed everything—all the tools in the drawers, all the utensils in the holder next to the stove. I washed the cabinet doors. Then, I did laundry and baked this bread. Just call me Susie Homemaker! (By the way, you absolutely must try the bread recipe—it was freakishly delicious.)

Today I’ve spent the day writing. And reading about writing. And writing some more. I’ve got some shrimp thawing for dinner, and I’ve discovered this blog, which has me transfixed (the author survived a plane crash and is rebuilding her life and finding joy in the simple things—I found it via The Thin Chef, which also introduced me to the no-knead bread recipe, so bonus points to Kate for finding awesome things!).

Tomorrow my respite ends, as there are children to watch and groceries to buy and another Pod meeting to plan. But before that, I’ve got dinner, and small group, and LOST. Good day.

Simona’s hair is light and wispy, wavy in just the right way, and it always looks perfect, like a halo. I once saw her after she’d spent the day at the beach, and her hair had taken on a windswept look that stylists spend hours creating for movie stars in movies about coastal romance. When I spend the day at the beach, my hair stands straight on end, the frizz propping up the rest of my hair in what I can only describe as Wind Tunnel Chic (well, without the “Chic” part). Simona speaks in an almost-whisper, with such a calming voice I always feel like everything will be just fine, if only because she is in the world. She talks about spirituality, about reality, about Congo and Darfur, and she quotes literature and tells me about philosophy, always having the decency to pretend that I already knew the complex concepts she’s outlining for me, listing off philosophers as if I know exactly who she’s talking about and might chime in with a reference to the philosopher’s third book, which I just happened to have read last week (when she talks about Kierkegaard, however, I do get rather animated). And in return for her brilliance, I tell her about my book, the fits and starts and endless rewrites, and she does not think my existence invalid because I don’t have a full-time job with benefits.

Visha’s hair is straight and strawberry blonde, and she’s got this wonderful radio voice, distinctive, a little husky, memorable. She’s spunky and fiery, but incredibly and unfailingly reasonable. She knows how many female directors have been nominated for Best Director in the Oscars, and she has trained two very large dogs into thinking that she—petite, adorable Visha—is bigger than they are. I think she’s magic. And funny, dear heavens, have I mentioned that Visha’s hilarious? If you know her, you already know she’s got a sharp wit, but you also know that she’s unendingly kind. Though I’ve given her plenty of ammunition, never once has she used that humor to make fun of me or to make me feel anything other than entirely good and happy. She cries for people with Alzheimer’s, and she pulls off the side of the road to care for dying dogs hit by cars that long ago sped off. She works at a bookstore, has read probably more books than said bookstore has in its inventory, knows all about experimental film, rails against injustice, defends the defenseless.

How lucky I feel today, not only to have such friends, but to have hours to run down my phone batteries with them, to listen to them and to talk about writing with them, to find out what they think about plot and beginnings and the plight of the MFA workshop. The three of us are trying to do the same thing, really, to struggle with the words on the page, to find the balance between art and life, to find where the line is and to cross it.

As Story and I cuddled on a giant bean bag, reading and re-reading books with happy pictures printed in primary colors onto glossy-finished cardboard, I think I regained a shred of the sanity that had threatened to high-tail it maybe an hour previous. That night, I went to the last party of the week and stayed late to help clean up (we got home sometime before midnight). Little sleep and hours of chocolate fondue probably got rid of my recovered shred.

Wednesday morning was more child-watching, and then the afternoon was nearly blissful as I realized the Thursday block on the calendar was empty. Big, white blankness. Bolstered by the thought of nothing scheduled the very next day, I went into a wave of productiveness, breezing through the grocery store and stopping by the bank. I made the good old beans-and-rice “stoup” for dinner, which we ate after nine because Jesse had to work late. And then, around ten, I suddenly felt the need to bake. I managed to botch chocolate sugar cookies, whose directions consisted of little more than “mix well, shape, bake.” Well, they were still tasty, even if the texture was all wrong.

Then, a Facebook friend posted that she would be attending something called K-K-K-K-K-Karaoke, and I posted the joke—and this is literally what I wrote—“Is that bowling for white people only?” And it took me a full second to realize what I’d written. I scrambled for the “delete” button. I’m still not sure how my brain confused the off-key singing of cheesy songs from the ‘90s with pushing glossy, heavy round things down glossy lanes at a collection of red-ringed pins. But it did.

Today was surprisingly productive. I put away the approximately three loads of clean laundry that had been piling up in our bedroom. And then I washed the three loads of dirty laundry waiting in the hamper. I knocked out the dishes. I wrote like three thousand words. Three freaking thousand words! I rushed to the library before it closed to snag a book on tape about Nixon and Kissinger and a few Vietnam-themed movies. Another trip to the grocery store for cold-related items for poor Jesse, who was working late, again, and whose immune system is in protest.

On the way home, I stopped by the gas station, which apparently is what everyone else in our town was also doing. I waited in line behind a van whose driver was nowhere in sight. I figured the driver was paying and would soon return and drive the vehicle away. Turns out, she was prepaying. So, I waited still longer as she pumped her gas. Finally, she drove away and I pulled my car into her slot. I climbed out, credit card in hand, and looked at the side of my car. The side the gas tank is not on. I’ve driven the same type of car since I was seventeen. The gas tank has, shockingly, never been on that side.

If I continue at this rate, I’m not sure what state I’ll be in by Christmas, but I believe this picture might sum it up:

Let’s see, on four of the past five days I have taken care of one of three different babies. (And, in case you’re tempted, just know that I will punch the first person to say, “God’s preparing you for something…” Well, okay, I won’t punch you, but I will scowl at you angrily. Fear the scowl!) And on three of the five past days, I’ve had lunch or tea get-togethers with friends. Plus small group, as always, on Tuesday. A dinner party Wednesday. And I’ve had this random pain in my side that is quite preoccupying and distressing. It goes away. It comes back. It hurts to breathe or sleep on my left side. If you notice me bending awkwardly to my right, clutching my ribs, and making a funny face, don’t worry, I’m just dying from some rare and sudden Left Lung Disease.

The house has been in varying degrees of disrepair all week, and by “varying degrees” I mean “unkempt to messy to messier to even messier to no one can step foot in my house.” Yesterday, I finally slogged my way through a couple sizeable mountains of laundry and one enormous summit of dishes, and today I tackled the bathrooms (including the tub).

And on top of everything, I decided this was the week to start new writing goals. I want to finish a draft of the book by the end of January. So, I’ve got this month and the next two, plus three major holidays in between. For the rest of November, my target is five thousand words a week.

With the kind of week I’ve had, normally I would have written some terribly small number of words that I would later just delete in one fell swoop. But, determined as I was with my brand-new goals and my nearly frantic desire to have a draft of this book done soon, I actually went over my goal! Happy grunts (while clutching side)!

Now that I’ve successfully navigated this week, I’m going to grab the brownie Jesse bought me from some charity bake sale earlier in the week and curl up in front of his computer to catch up on Ugly Betty. Friday, I love you.