Real talk

I wrote this in an email to my friend Lara earlier this week, in reply to her comment that my posts on Instagram were fun to follow. I think it's worth sharing here, too: 

San Francisco is treating me well, but I feel like I should also post more realistic photos of my day. Something that captures the exhaustion I feel after trudging up a big hill carrying groceries because I missed the bus, the loneliness I feel when I get home on a Friday night and realize I have like 3 friends in the entire city, and I have to make an actual effort to coordinate plans with them, or the sheer panic I experience when I get lost inside the labyrinth of Facebook's offices. All the buildings are connected, but I keep having to go outside into a courtyard to reorient myself. It's exhausting, and I'm late to every meeting. 

Thinking more on it, I would probably add:

It's sunny -- and warm -- most of the time. There's endless food and drink, and I can get my laundry done for free. Best of all, I'm surrounded by some of the smartest people I'll probably ever meet. But I go to work for 8+ hours a day with 8,000 people and still manage to feel lonely. I'm optimistic I'll find my people, though. Everyone I've met is friendly and interesting, but it's just a matter of finding that connection. 

I'm being patient with myself, and I'm quick to remind myself how lucky I am to have a few wonderful friends here. 

But I just wanted to be real about what it's like right now. 

Tomorrow

I'm pretty sure I'm not leaving the house today. These last few days have been productive but exhausting, and I figure I need to rest up for my first day of work tomorrow. So far I've read in bed, talked to Neil, drank coffee, watched last week's Grey's Anatomy, showered, ate breakfast, sat outside, talked to my parents, booked a flight to Nashville for April and read a bunch of stuff on the internet, including this conversation between Anjelica Huston and Sofia Coppola, the only two women who are 3rd generation Oscar winners. 

All the orientation materials from Facebook keep reminding me to "be my authentic self." So instead of thinking up ways to be impressive I'm trying to make myself think about who I really am. Here's a very short list of stray thoughts on the topic:

• I'm smart. And I really want to add a ", but..." after that, but I'll refrain.
• I'm a good listener. 
• That said, I'm often so worried about acting normal in front of strangers that I forget to do things like listen when they tell me their first names.
• I make mistakes.
• I love helping people.  

That last thought about helping people is probably the most connected to the work I'm about to start doing. I don't claim to know a lot about technology (just ask Neil, or anyone who has watched me use iTunes) or even a lot about the inner workings of social media, but I do have empathy and a desire to help make other people's lives easier. Here's hoping I can use that to help make a difference at Facebook. 

My Monster

I'm currently reading Anjelica Huston's second memoir, Watch Me, which has prompted me to Google image search old Vogue covers and take a video tour of her childhood home in Ireland, which was purchased by Merv Griffin and turned into a hotel at some point, but it's now a private home again so I can't plan a trip there I guess. 

I wouldn't consider myself an Anjelica Huston fan -- I never gave her much thought and only really know her work in Wes Anderson films and of course, The Addams Family movie. In Huston's first memoir (A Story Lately Told) she mentions she loved watching the TV show as a kid. That'd be like me playing Allie Lowell in a Kate & Allie movie. (Still a possibility.)

Anyway, I'm enjoying reading about someone else's life, and it's reminding me about the importance of journaling, which I never actually do but how else can one remember details like which celebrity friends attended that dinner party in 1974? 

Speaking of memoirs, I think I'm going to adopt the name Cheryl Strayed gave her hiking pack for the hill upon which I now reside. Last night my friend Annie asked me about where I live, and I told her it was on top of the one of the biggest hills I've ever walked up. She said, "Oh, what's the name of the hill?" and without really thinking I said I was just calling it The Monster. I climbed The Monster three times yesterday, and this morning I woke up with burning calves. I'm sure I'll get used to it. I just have to. 

My goal today is to only climb The Monster twice. I already did one summit after a walk down to the coffee shop and a stroll around the flatter parts of this neighborhood. I made a late breakfast (and I learned that I have to light the stove manually in this apartment, which is a little scary for me) and am thinking about taking some mode of public transportation somewhere I haven't been before, like maybe where I see the Golden Gate Bridge up close. Then I'll meet my friend Mallory for dinner and I'll climb The Monster when I'm ready to call it a day. 

Day One

It's 57 degrees and cloudy, but I can see the blue sky. More importantly, I can feel the warmth of the sun on my face. I feel so guilty.

Yesterday I flew from Nashville to San Francisco. I escaped my sub-freezing, iced-in adopted hometown, left Neil and Ginger to bundle up and hold down the homestead, watched one pretty good movie (St. Vincent) and one terrible one (The Judge), and ultimately arrived at my pied-a-terre in Noe Valley.  

Update: I am now wearing sunglasses because it is so sunny. And warm. Forgive me, Nashvillians. 

I've considered starting a new blog to document my strange new life, but for now I'll just update this old haunt. I like lists even though it's probably lazy writing, so let's start with three things that are making me happy and two things that are worrying me: 

THREE THINGS THAT ARE MAKING ME HAPPY AND TWO THINGS THAT ARE WORRYING ME

1. This sunshine, you guys. It's so warm. 

2. I bought a mattress by lying on two options at Macy's and saying, "I guess that one." And I slept great last night. 

3. My roommates fed me last night and together we watched the last half of To Kill a Mockingbird on cable, which was only briefly interrupted by a DVR alert asking if we still wanted to record Empire. Good balance. 

4. Old Lady Ginger is mopey without me, and it's worrying Neil, which worries me.

5. Will I ever be able to walk up the hill to my apartment without feeling like I'm having a heart attack? This is a serious concern.

Update: It is now too warm and sunny for me to comfortably sit outside, at least in this outfit. What is happening. 

Books I Read in 2012

My 2012 resolution was to make time to read books. So to keep me on track, I decided to set a goal of two books per month.

I don't consider my resolution lofty, and I think I chose it because the goal-setting really happened at the beginning of February, and I'd only read two books in January. But setting the bar low actually helped me feel like a reading rockstar most months, and I enjoyed pushing myself to see how many books I could add to my list, which I kept in a note on my iPhone.

So what did I read? And what did I like? Revealing what I read feels like when a party guest stumbles upon your Case Logic full of CDs and judges you by them, Jewel album by Jewel album.

Here's the list. Most were first-time reads but a few were books I'd read before and wanted to visit again. While I enjoyed reading everything on this list (exception: Frank Bruni's book, which was self-indulgent and about 150 pages too long), I marked my absolute favorites with an asterisk.

January
Is Everyone Having Fun Without Me? By Mindy Kaling
Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

February
Manhunt by James L. Swanson
The Myth of You & Me by Leah Stewart
Then Again by Diane Keaton

March
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Happens Every Day by Isabel Gillies

April
*The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Bringing up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman

May
*The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
*Just Kids by Patti Smith
Dear Daughter by Heather Armstrong

June
The Story of Charlotte's Web by Michael Sims
A Year and Six Seconds by Isabel Gillies
In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard

July
Bowling Avenue by Ann Shayne
The Annotated Charlotte's Web by Peter Neumeyer
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

August
It's Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong with Sally Jenkins
*The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
*The Rules of Inheritance by Claire Bidwell Smith
*This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper
*I Was Amelia Earhart by Jane Mendehlson

September
Don't Let's Go To the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson
*Wild by Cheryl Strayed
One Day by Dave Nicholls

October
Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater by Frank Bruni
The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan
*The Scent of God by Beryl Singleton Bissell

November was a lost month. I didn't finish a single book, but I started and abandoned several.

December
Everything Changes by Jonathan Tropper
Off Balance by Dominique Moceanu
*Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
*Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett
Swim: Why We Love the Water by Lynn Sherr

What's up for 2013? More reading, like Ann Patchett books I haven't cracked yet and a revisiting of YA novels I loved in middle school, plus a non-reading goal inspired by the last book I read in December. Still working out the details of that one, but I'm excited about it.

The End of Remembering

"Forgotten phone numbers and birthdays represent minor erosions of our everyday memory, but they are part of a much larger story of how we've supplanted our own natural memory with a vast super-structure of technological crunches -- from the alphabet to the BlackBerry. These technologies of storing information outside our minds have helped make our modern world possible, but they've also changed how we think and how we use our brains. "

This is a quote from Moonwalking with Einstein, which I'm currently reading. I picked this book up at my new fave local bookstore, Parnassus Books (co-founded by Ann Patchett, swoon) because 1. Heather Dixon is awesome and gave me a gift certificate for my birthday and 2. I've been thinking about memory lately, and that's what this book is about.

In the book, author Joshua Foer learns that there's such a thing as memory contests, and he ends up training for one because apparently having a good memory is more of a developed skill than an innate gift. His trainers and mentors parlay their methods, which include assigning personas to numbers and very specific images to designated places in the "memory palace."

Technology, however, has taken the place of memory in a lot of instances. I can't tell you how many times I have to check my calendar each day to remember what meetings I have, only to show up in the wrong conference room because I spaced on the thing I JUST READ.

The thing is, I used to have a great memory. And I remember assigning personalities to numbers when I was learning my multiplication tables. Seven was the teenage girl who went on date, six was a little brother in a baseball cap, and I don't remember the rest, but every digit 1-9 had a persona, and visualizing them and their actions helped me memorize. In high school Latin, I made up crazy mnemomics to help me learn the vocabulary words in my deck of flashcards. I'll never, ever forget that the word lapis means stone, because I would picture the "p" in the word flipping over to become a "d," which made me think of the four "lads" from Liverpool, who back in the day went by The Quarrymen. And what do you find in a quarry? Stones, duh.

Memory is a funny thing, and I'm excited to keep reading this book (yes, I'm already blogging about it a third of the way in) and tap into whatever's left of mine. I might start by memorizing all the phone numbers of my friends, because that's useful.

Notes from a Camera Roll...

Oh. Hey.

In case you are wondering, I made it through Unprocessed October and am quite happy I did it. The last week of October felt very busy, and I slipped up a few times, but I'm very proud to say I avoided candy and pretty much all refined sugar for the whole month o' weekdays. I did allow myself one Kit-Kat to close out the night of trick or treating on the 31st, but come ON.

Other news of late (in photos):

We got a new mattress (and Ging approves of Tempurpedic)

I reseeded our lawn

Baby Margot was born, and I became an aunt again!

I made a lazy but topical Halloween costume

It became November

I didn't wash my hair for like, 7 days (and felt sneaky)

Now I'm in Denver on a work trip and enjoying a few days away from my normal schedule. More to come on my Colorado adventures...