waiting, for dummies.

if there is one thing i have become remarkably adept at as i've gotten older, it's waiting. a difficult skill to master when you have the kind of patience i have (i.e., none whatsoever), but somehow i've done it. sort of. it's really more an ongoing course of study than a finite goal.

of course, like so many other things, you become a little quicker to learn when it's a matter of necessity. and when you have lots of opportunity to practice.

and oh, the opportunities i've had.

privately, i consider the year i left college to be the year i really started my course; prior to that, my entire life was spent waiting to finish school, and that's all. upon undertaking my study of waiting, i started (as generally befits a neophyte) with the basics: waiting for the subway. waiting for my laundry to finish. waiting for water to boil. waiting for my hair dye to develop. these are simple exercises, but necessary foundations to have in place before you attempt to move on to the intermediate level. fortunately, they're also completely necessary if you want to have something that even vaguely approximates a life in this city (or anywhere), so mercifully most of us have a pretty steep learning curve on the basics.

next came the intermediate level: the exercises you undertake at this level, horrifically, tend to coincide with the arrival of that double-edged sundae, becoming a grown-up. intermediate exercises include (but are not limited to): waiting for your next paycheck so that you might eat something that's not rice. waiting for a doctor's appointment. waiting for a letter to arrive. waiting for customer service to patch you through to an actual human. waiting for the woman in front of you to finish counting out sixty-two dollars in pennies. this is all a bit trickier, and requires occasional supplementary sedation. if you've reached the intermediate level, don't be too hard on yourself if you stumble occasionally--the path to waiting greatness is littered with episodes of furious screaming on the phone line and impotent flailing in your apartment. if you forgive yourself your small missteps, you'll be far more prepared for the advanced class when it knocks down your door, as it invariably will.

the advanced class is more difficult to describe, because there's so very much of it. you'll probably spend your whole life trying to complete the advanced course, and fail miserably: no matter how much practice you get, there's always more to wait for. as a result, everyone's course is different. mine has recently included such great hits as: waiting for medical test results. waiting to get the appointment that will yield the aforementioned test results. waiting to get an appointment for a minor (but important) procedure. waiting for the necessary equipment to arrive to achieve said procedure. waiting to find out if it was completed successfully. waiting for bureaucracy to catch up. waiting for evidence that i am not, actually, an adopted alien pod baby. waiting for my father to call back. waiting to change this regime. waiting to officially announce our engagement. waiting, more recently, for today to end.

the waiting game is one that we never escape. i'm absolutely not its biggest fan, not by any stretch of the imagination. but, just as i was once good at algebra without harboring any great love for the subject, i find i'm getting better and better at doing it. and, i'd wager, unless you have a serious amphetamine habit that precludes you from having even the vaguest semblance of patience, so are you.

and well done on you! good luck with your continued study. i rather suspect we're all going to need it.

miscellany the seventh

today, the new york city subway is 100 years old.

today, the shivery are 14 hours old.

rock and roll, baby. rock and roll.

many apologies for being so quiet and oblique the last little while--as you might have gathered from last week's news, it's been an intense few days. we've had run-ins with the doctor (i'm fine), phone calls from a disgruntled boss whose spam filter ate my 'home sick' note, announcements from the hospital where i was born that technically i don't exist (we clarified that little difference of opinion rightquick, make no mistake), and the very first meeting of the band.

so, you know. busy.

but i have managed to learn a few things in all the busy-ness:
1. if someone tells you you don't actually exist, stay on the phone with them until they have found evidence to the contrary.
2. the universe finds it incredibly funny to force you to make alternate plans and then suddenly make your original plan available again--but only after you've created a new, complete, detailed plan.
3. the right lipstick (or the lack thereof) can go a long way in supporting your claims to good health/horrible illness, should you be called on the carpet about it.
4. it doesn't take much to make life feel completely surreal.
5. making music is infinitely more pleasing when everyone's goal is to have fun--not to make money, not to repay a favor, not to show off. to have fun.
6. i know jack shit about typography. this is going to change, but right now it's just ridiculous.
7. that morrissey is a dour fucker. i don't know why this always comes as such a surprise to me.
8. sometimes, a hot water bottle is just as romantic as roses.

and that's what's up for now.

two cows and a dishwasher.

"it's going to be your father," he said jokingly.

"then you'd probably better answer it!"

i was standing at the kitchen sink, up to my elbows in bright yellow rubber gloves and wrestling with the dishly aftermath of our dinner. given my father's propensity for utter non-communication, i was a little skeptical at dom's pronouncement--the dishes kept their top priority, because those gloves are a pain in the ass to put on. i could have been more trusting, considering that dad had received the email equivalent of a letter bomb over the weekend. but, to my way of thiniking, the odds were even.

dom was still a bit surprised to hear my father's voice on the line--despite his prediction that it would be my dad, he is all too familiar with the deplorable communication skills that run rampant in my family. he was not nearly as surprised as my father was upon hearing that i was doing the dishes (dishes being, historically, not my forte). less surprising for all of us, however, was the news my father had called to deliver.

backtracking a bit, the story actually started saturday night; dom was running a bit late and had opted to meet me at chez k for the party rather than accompanying me, biscuit , mike and the cakes in the car. shortly after our arrival, i received a text message informing me that he was going to be later than he'd thought, because he'd gotten sidetracked. by writing emails to my mother, father and sister, asking them for their blessing.

because he wants to marry me.

and while this may not be such scintillating news to you, blogosphere--it certainly lacks drama, compared to other recent couplings, and most of you probably smelled it from a mile away--i'm awfully excited. i'm excited enough that i can't really even write about it properly (clearly). dad was the last of the gang of three to clock in (i remain amazed at his relative timeliness--two days for him is pretty miraculous), and with his blessing we are now free and clear to say:

watch this space for news of our impending engagement. because while we've decided on a dowry (two cows and a dishwasher), and dom's already asked me twice (once while sitting at the dinner table with my mother), it's not official till there's a ring. or, at least that's what he tells me.

we're going to get married.

christ in a sidecar.

bit of a leap for a girl who, this time last year, thought she'd never be able to love someone like this again.

though i'm going to have to say that i like to think i'm a fucking bargain at two cows and a dishwasher. i think we could at least squeeze an extra goat and a washbasin out of the deal if we tried hard enough.

mousezilla and i take full credit for this.

it happened. an honest woman has been made of our little owl.

the celebration was made with family and friends, and brightly-colored fondant biscuitcakes (v tasty, unsurprisingly), as well as lots of sangria and other assorted libations. the ladies were hot, the boys were cool, the sweetness stayed just this side of saccharine, and the room was full of warmth and love and laughter.

as was only fitting, really.

congratulations, kids. love you both loads.

more bitching about problems you'd kill to have but are still making me fucking crazy.

so.

my mother does not have an original copy of my birth certificate. which means that i am now at the mercy of the records department in the hospital where i was born, hoping and praying that they have some sort of evidence--any evidence--that i am indeed the legal and biological spawn of my parental-types. i got in just under the wire--after 25 years, they can turf the records out. as it was, the woman i spoke to actually made my blood freeze in my veins by telling me that they didn't have me on record (though she ultimately found me). so now i submit my request in writing, and hope.

biscuit, of course, had an interesting take on the whole rigamorole:

shiv: basically, all i need is one certified piece of paper stating that i amd the biological spawn of my parents
biscuit: Right.
shiv: that's all. and i'm terrified that they won't have that.
shiv: the woman i spoke to was all...'well, you never know WHAT they'll have. sometimes they have the footprint record, but sometimes not. you never know'
biscuit: Maybe this is the cosmos' way of helping you find out you're adopted.
shiv: i feel as though by this point the parents would have come clean about it.
biscuit: (laugh) Probably. unless they destroyed the records and feel comfortable that youwon't find them.
shiv: ooh, that's a bit evil.
shiv:even for them!

right. so while i know you all think i'm a spoiled princess for having problems like this...i'd appreciate it if you'd keep your fingers crossed for me here anyway. because i'm really starting to stress about this.

biscuit: starting?
shiv: shuttup.

right now...

i am in a foul fucking temper. the kind of foul temper that the universe is clearly finding extremely amusing, because it's not doing a damn thing to alleviate it. instead, it's exacerbating it, through a combination of fucked up billing snafus, psychos with backpacks on the subway, further delays conjured by a group we're working with who are bitching about all the delays in the project, a massive guilt complex, a google goddamn adwords campaign to plan and an impending horrid cold.

i need a hug, and a shot of bourbon, and earplugs, and gumdrops, and a few more hours of sleep, to book this fucking gig at the c-note, some klonopin and the power to enact a ban on marking a page of complaints about a graphic as "urgent", the ability to will the circumvention of port 8080, a good cry, the power to be invisible and for the phrase "armies of compassion" to be stricken from the record because i can't believe anyone would say anything so blindingly ridiculous, even if he is the president of the united states.

please god, let the customer service inbox stay empty. grant me that one tiny bit of solace in this already exceptionally fucked up day.

sharp like a stuffed bunny.

apologies for the serious lack of edge around these parts lately. it's inexcusable, really, because there are still women who insist on wearing sunglasses on the subway.

HEY LADIES:

if you are compos mentis enough to apply estee lauder, '3-d' lips, you are NOT hungover enough to merit wearing last season's amber-colored, wraparound faux prada sunglasses in a place where the only light source is a sad, flickering fluorescent bulb. i don't care how bad ass and sexy you think you look; when your need to look like donatella versace impairs your vision to the point that you do things like step on your fellow commuters' feet or fail to see little old ladies tottering over to the seats you daintily sit upon, you need to stop and swing around your priorities. or someday, someone is going to take your express design studio glasses and shove them up your ass.

love,
shiv.

and you know, that's what i would say, if i could just stop talking about stupid shit like love and stuff. i'll do better in the future.

in other news...

bureaucracy can kiss my ass. the passport application has been rejected for the second time, with some handy person in the UK embassy finally taking the time to scribble a note as to why the birth certificate i provided was not an adequate gauge of my identity. apparently, it is absolutely necessary that i provide the original document--not a notarized, state-issued copy, but the original document, that my parents had clutched in their hands as they dragged my screaming pink self home for the first time. this is because of the general grumbling between US adoption and UK immigration laws--they want to make sure that i am not gunning to claim my citizenship by right of adoption, because apparently if you've been adopted in the US, you can get your birth certificate changed. and HEAVENS FORFEND that someone try to claim citizenship from someone who is only PRETENDING to be their parent. because CLEARLY that's all that an adoptive parent is. a BIG FAKER. a BIG FAKER whose citizenship is not allowed to be extended to "their" child.

while i'm lucky, and my mother is going to be sending me my parents' proof of ownership at the end of this week, i remain resolutely grumbly over the bureaucratic bric a brac polluting my rant centers. and the fact that it does not compute that my brother, who was born in america but whom my very english father adopted years ago, is not going to be automatically eligible for UK citizenship (as his sisters are), were he ever to want it. if he wants it, he needs to go live in the UK for x number of years. bah.

this rant brought to you by shiv's impotent rage (tm) and the fact that i burned the living fuck out of my tongue making risotto last night, which has left me in a very foul temper indeed.

proud to live up to yet another gender-based cliche...

...because i cried at the wedding. the sniffling began when the groom took his place at the altar. it intensified when the bride started down the aisle, and grew even stronger when she flashed us a goofy grin because she tripped over the dress' train. it didn't hit full bore, however, until he started to choke up during his vows. that, unsurprisingly, really set me off in a cavalcade of sniffle. fortunately, i was not alone.

if love is what makes the world go round, then it's no wonder that a wedding is such a defining thing; it's the moment when two lovers concentrate the most sought-after force in the world into something indelible, something powerful. it's magic. this one was no exception: outdoors and far from the city, overlooking a majestic valley where the leaves were in the midst of their fall makeover and the sun shone (albeit a bit weakly) over the proceedings; it took place in the world's cathedral (if you'll permit me that little bit of sickening schmaltz) reminding us that we were bearing witness to something huge--to two people promising to love each other for the rest of their lives, no matter what.

and that's massive. that's older than the trees and bigger than the mountain. that's the whole point.

and totally makes up for the fact that i did some serious damage to my newly resoled pointy boots.

somebody's getting married (and it's not me, smartass)!

the cobbler downstairs has misplaced my pointy boots. my treasured, much-worn and loved pointy boots. they have no idea where they are, much less whether they're going to be ready at the appointed time (1pm tomorrow, immediately before i leave town for the weekend) or not.

as though i weren't already having enough of a shoe crisis, bereft of any other shoe in my oeuvre that would properly complement the dress i'll be wearing! quelle scandale! quelle horreur!

seriously. this could be a problem. because this isn't just any weekend.

this weekend, dom and i are running off to massachusetts for the wedding of his former roommate to his ladylove--the first wedding of my adult life. i was eight years old the last time i showed up at one of these shindigs, when my father took the family to portugal to witness a family friend's very confusing, very portuguese wedding. i remember only snippets of that, including the extreme heat and my discovery that i liked pork, the blue and white tile floor in the cool, unlit church and the case of port that my father had us carry around the entire country before leaving it on the plane. somewhere in my personal effects back home, i have a silverplate swan-shaped ring holder and a crumpled piece of pink tulle to remind me of the experience, but that's about where the memories end. as such, my knowledge of the wedding process is hazy at best, full of big hair, cheek kisses and really frightening pantsuits.

so, really. particularly in light of krissa's impending marriage, i'm glad that i'm getting this opportunity to learn first-hand about american weddings, because nobody should ever rely on information they've gleaned exclusively from the television and/or websites they've had to cruise for work (yes, work. shut up).

also, i really just want to see one of those dresses in the flesh wish them the best of luck in person.

dom's comment on my dreaming.

"No matter where I roam
I will come back to my English rose
For no bonds can ever tempt me from she
I've sailed the seven seas,
Flown the whole blue sky.
But I've returned with haste to where my
Love does lie.
No matter where I go I will come back to my English Rose
For nothing can ever tempt me from she.
I've searched the secret mists -
I've climbed the highest peaks
Caught the wild wind home
To hear her soft voice speak
No matter where I roam
I will return to my English Rose
For no bonds can ever keep me from she.
I've been to ancient worlds
I've scoured the whole universe
And caught the first train home
To be at her side.
No matter where I roam
I will return to my English Rose
For no bonds can ever keep me from she..."
(English Rose - The Jam)

dreamscape.

the ghosts come out when you're sleeping;

mine do, anyway. last night was a cavalcade of old loves and old enemies, one hopelessly detached and driving home the point that what happened really was all for the best, the other devious and scheming, trying to sink her little newly-mormon claws into my man (well, not that newly--but it happened after i knew her, so i consider it new)...of course dom was still there in the morning, and there was no one else in our bed. but i was still exhausted, and short of crawling into his skin it didn't seem possible to get close enough to dom to reassure myself.

sometimes i miss the days when i didn't dream.

the smells of our homeland

rupert giles once said that knowledge should be smelly, referring to his general dislike of computers and his fear that their purpose was to replace books. personally, i think that certain kinds of knowledge are dependent on smell; it is the most powerful memory trigger we've got. the right scent is as good as a document for certain memories; here are a few of my more powerful favorites:

lemon-scented dishwashing liquid: when i was a kid still in the single digits, i had what i called a fairy wand--a twenty-inch dowel of wood with a piece of wire that had been wrestled into the shape of a star affixed to the top. it was less a fairy wand than a bubble wand, and while i never quite got over the disappointment of learning that the bubbles it created were not actually star shaped (they were comfortable in their roundness, after all), i loved that wand and spent hours in the backyard spinning around and creating giant bubbles with a bubble solution my mother carefully prepared for me, using lemon-scented dishwashing soap and lots of warm water. when i smell it, i'm suddenly six again, spinning at the top of the steep hill that was our backyard, blissfully unaware that inside the house my mother's life was falling apart.

vanilla: when i was a teenager, i went through a shoplifting phase. among the many trinkets and baubles i liberated from their capitalist oppressors was a vial of vanilla-scented perfume oil with which i was absolutely besotted. i wore it every day, through driver's ed, through learning to smoke, through alcohol poisoning and my subsequent five-year cessation of drinking, through endless choir practices and parties where the boys i fancied never knew my name; through skipped periods spent sneaking off campus to aroma's and hours spent lurking downtown waiting for my mother to come pick me up after work. now, whenever i smell it, it's may 1996, and i'm sitting in my blue car in the parking lot at school, waiting for the pent-up heat to dissipate so i can give ben a ride home; on the way, we get into an accident which tears my car in half. i still have no idea how neither of us got hurt.

bonfire: more high school memories. when it was warm enough (and sometimes when it wasn't), the carass would pour ourselves into as few cars as we could muster and drive to the beach at north salmon creek. we'd find some driftwood and build a bonfire, drinking and smoking and laughing and talking until the sun came up or the highway patrol kicked us off the beach. my hair would smell like bonfire for the next three days, because i loved the smell so much i wouldn't wash it out. for me, it was the smell of belonging, for the first time in my life.

windex: i thought i was so fucking cool when i got the job at concrete jungle. i'd always wanted to work there, where the punks bought their docs and the skaters stocked up on the best gear. they played rock music and had chain link on the walls to offset the loud plaid carpet; they sold the best shoes and rob zombie had an in-house account. it was also the single worst working experience of my life. it was a long, hot summer where i spent hours cleaning the display cases because no customers came in and i was being monitored by CCTV to ensure that i wasn't just standing around (whether there was anything to do or not); where i got yelled at for making a mistake after having been trained for just 25 minutes and then left alone in the store; where i was frequently told i was going to be fired if i didn't sell at least six pairs of shoes a day--difficult, when you only have two people come in over the course of your entire shift. the summer was a good introduction into the way the real world works for me; it certainly prepared me for the fact that things are not always necessarily going to be as cool as you think they are. which is an important lesson, though not necessarily one you want to be reminded of every time you pass a clean window.

one good thing about that summer, though--i got to meet tom waits. who is as tall and quiet and shy as you'd never ever expect.

burning building: that strange, acrid miasma of burnt carpet, plastic, metal, wood and fear that gets released when a building burns down. i first smelled it on september 11, standing on the ferry watching the city burn as the port authority evacuated me. i smelled it again a year later at biscuit's; turned out that the smell came from a duane reade that was burning in queens, but even that news didn't cheer us. it remained a strange, drawn evening for us both, as we remembered everything that happened that day. i catch faint whiffs of it on the breeze from time to time now, and even the barest hint makes my blood run cold.

what are some of your smell memory triggers?