Today I saw this magazine cover and was tempted to talk to random strangers about it:

Rolling Stone - Obama

It’s perfect.  Looking down, laughing, the flag lapel pin.  And the best part is the 4000 headlines that are not on the cover like they usually are.

Kudos, Rolling Stone.

(Now maybe I should go read the article.)

Good luck getting that out of your head.

Of course, you could always listen to Girl From Ipanema.

So I read in a magazine that one way to ease stress in your life is to turn off the computer or TV an hour and a half before bedtime.  This resonated with me because how many times have I been on my computer at 9 or 9:30 and thought to myself, “This would be a great time to wash my face, brush, floss, stretch and get into bed for 30 minutes of reading and going to sleep so I can get up early and meditate?”

And I don’t close my computer or do any of those things and then it’s 11 and there’s no way I’m getting up early to meditate now.

So I’ve been trying it.  It’s nice.  I definitely am enjoying The Omnivore’s Dilemma’s much more when I read more than one page at a time.  The downside is that I don’t blog as much.

You know when I want to blog the most?  When I can’t.  When I’m driving or waiting at the DPS (though Twitter helps with those), but especially when I’m biking.  I’ve been riding my bike to work about 3 days a week and I love it.  I notice the headwind but don’t let it control me because it’s irrelevant. The route I take means that if it’s windy, half my trip will be pleasant and half of it will be slower.  And there’s something about biking as transportation vs. biking as leisure that makes heat/rain/wind just part of the journey and not THE MOST GIANT NUISANCE EVER.

And it’s definitely more enjoyable since I’ve found my Shuffle and have uploaded NPR’s Most E-mailed Stories Podcast to it.  A girl needs her fix!

One thing that I have been wanting to blog about is a smell I’ve noticed for about 10 years.  As far as I know no one has described it, or if they have I haven’t come across it.

I first remember noticing it about 10 years ago when I was a camp counselor.  I was hiking along and smelled the most delicious woodsy aroma.  I followed my nose but eventually became convinced it had no source.  And I could only smell it on the hottest of days and fairly deep in the woods.  It wasn’t like freshly cut cedar after the rain or sweet mesquite on a breeze, but something earthier and unidentifiable.

It was the smells of summer, sex, heat and nature all rolled into one.  I say sex because the smell was so stimulating and sensual that it belongs in the same category.  Not so much as an aphrodesiac but as something that heightens all of your senses.  Also because to me it smells masculine and intimate, like the smell of a man’s skin after a shower but before the deodorant and cologne.

I tried to tell people about it, but how do you share with someone a smell that you can’t locate or describe or whose existence you can’t predict?  I eventually decided that it was the smell of leaves and foresty-floor stuff decomposing and for whatever reason I found it pleasing to the nose.  Not sexy, I know. Or maybe it was an animal giving off its mating pheromone and I wasn’t supposed to smell it but I did?  Sorry, Bambi.

Anyway, I’ve smelled it on occasion since then and I think I’ve even been with people and asked, “Do you smell that?  Right there!  That!  Do you smell it?”  And either they didn’t and were humoring me by saying yes, even though they were NOT weak-kneed and gripping the nearest tree saying, “Oh my GOD why has no one bottled this scent??” Or they did and weren’t biologically wired to appreciate it like I apparently am.

Relevance?  I smell it when I’m riding my bike, even though there’s no forest. I no longer care what it is or if anyone else can smell it, I just enjoy it and try to inhale it with all of my pores, (who start coughing and spitting when I inhale OTHER smells from the bayou, but that’s another post).  And even though I say I don’t care what it’s made of, that’s not going to stop me from attempting to recreate it at Naked.

About a month ago, we made plans to go tubing down the Guadalupe River with Keith and Sarah.  If you don’t tube down the Guadalupe at least once during the summer, it’s not really summer.  Or at least it feels that way to me.

We almost canceled because of Dave’s job situation but at the last minute decided to go anyway.  It it always a good idea to choose tubing down the Guadalupe over any other options you might have.  Because when you’re laying on your back in a tube floating lazily down a river with a cooler full of beer next to you it’s hard to imagine anything being wrong in the world. Even when you just bought a Sony digitial camera and underwater housing and lose it within your first 5 minutes of being in the river and spend the next 30 minutes searching for it to no avail.  Even when that happens in 2005 and you have to buy a new one before your trip to Miami in a week, you can still have a good time tubing down the Guadalupe.  Trust me.

And it’s June so the weather is boiling (already 80 when you wake up for work at 6am), but the Guadalupe is a cool 65 degrees.  That sounds cold - and it is - but that’s why it works.  There are very few naturally cool places in Texas in the summer and when you’re trying to get your booty into the freezing cold Guadalupe River, you DON’T EVEN NOTICE that’s it’s 110 degrees in the shade.

It was Sarah’s first time to tube down the Guadalupe and Dave went tubing for the first time last summer, only down the Comal (it feeds into the Guadalupe and is 5 degrees warmer).  We brought a few snacks: chips, sandwiches, etc.  Keith of course brought salami, olives, goat cheese and ciabatta.  (Keith said he’d wager any amount of money that we were the only group on the river snacking on goat cheese.)  And of course beer.  Only cans are allowed on the river, so we brought Corona and Tecate.  Under normal circumstances, Dave and I will go through a six pack in about a week, maybe 2.  On the river, we’ll go through 2 six packs in 3 hours.

There’s something about the combination of cold water, hot sun, and floating that makes me drink beer a million times faster than my normal pace.  (Seriously, ask anyone.  I don’t care at what temperature a beer is served to me because by the time I finish it, it will be room temperature anyway.)

Anyway, on this trip we floated near a father with his 2 kids, a boy of about 10 and a girl of about 8.  The 2 kids had water guns and the dad borrowed his daughter’s to shoot his son, who was on the other side of us.  The dad thought that since he was near “civilians” the son wouldn’t shoot back.  Right.  So we were caught in some (cold) crossfire for a while, but we weren’t upset.  If we didn’t want to get wet, we had no business being on the river.

We watched and laughed for a while and then I turned to look at the daughter, who had her water uzzi back and pointed at my face.  I thought she was joking, so I laughed, if a bit nervously.  But she didn’t waver.  She looked me dead in the eye and said, “No one will ever know about this.”

I turned my face and she sprayed water at my head while I heard her dad wrestling the gun away from her and saying, “Have you lost your mind?  We don’t know them!”

As they floated away the dad apologized, but I said it was okay, and that I was going to blog about it.

Jen- 1, Little Girl Who Watches Too Much TV? 0.

So it’s been over 6 years since I was laid off, but I do remember the devastation.  I remember the lack of confidence, the guilt, the feelings of inadequacy.  My friend Pam calls being on unemployment “living the dream,” and it’s so not. It would be if not for all of that emotional crap.  All of the roller coasters- interviewing, getting turned down, interviewing, getting called back for the second interview, getting turned down.

We don’t know yet if Dave will live “the dream,” but if he does, at least it will pay the rent until he finds something else.  But I hate to see him like this. The weekend was full of distractions, but once we got back into (at least my) daily life on Tuesday, the depression kicked in.  He was Mopey McMoperson.  I went shopping with Keith and Sarah (Sarah wanted discount name brand jeans but didn’t know how to shop for them- and I am better at finding expensive jeans on sale than I am at just about anything else) and Dave didn’t want to go b.c he wanted to mope.

I don’t have a problem with his moping b.c I remember what it’s like.  It’s an emotional headwind.  You’re constantly trying to show people why you’re valuable as an employee, which feels like trying to show people why you’re valuable as a person.  While trying to convince yourself that you ARE valuable despite the fact that the last 20 resumes you sent out got you nothing and the last 4 interviews got you not much more.  It.  Sucks.

But he’s doing better now, as am I.  (The 2 might be related!)  It occurred to me yesterday that maybe this was a signal from the universe that he was on the wrong path.  They say that when you’re on the right path the doors will open.  And when you’re not?  Those doors may as well be part of the wall.  It’s like when I wanted to go to Naropa for a Masters in Art Therapy and my rent car clock was 20 minutes fast and I didn’t know, so I started stressing, then I got lost driving from Denver to Boulder (wait, why are the mountains BEHIND me?) and got to my interview 45 minutes late (really 25 minutes late) after first stopping by the wrong campus.  And then the next day for the second part of the interview, I got completely lost (turns out there’s a THIRD Naropa campus) b.c they hadn’t given me the packet for Day 2 in my Day 1 interview due to its brevity.  That, my friends, is called being on the wrong path.

So I stayed in Houston and within the next year I rode my bike to Austin, went to Alaska to visit my sister and then I got a job I loved, met Dave and later got my current job that I’m still enjoying.

Dave’s termination from his job was so random and out of the blue that it can only be a (VERY CLEAR) message from the Universe.  Dude wasn’t supposed to work there.  We don’t know what he’s supposed to do, but hopefully it will have a happy ending like this one.

All over town- well, all over the rich neighborhood between the Museum District and the Village you’ll see yard signs and bumper stickers that say “Stop Ashby High Rise.”  And they have a great graphic of a giant scary building.

I tend to side with the rich people because who wants another giant yuppie complex in the middle of Houston?  Don’t the yuppies have enough overpriced places to live?

Dave, however, says that he WANTS them to build the Ashby High Rise.  But only if they actually build the arms and face.

Also, I stayed up late enough to watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night.  And this cracked me up.

When we went to Mexico for Mother’s Day, we decided to go visit my grandparents for Father’s Day at their lakehouse.  (Hey! Firefox!  “Lakehouse” is totally a word!)  So we just got back from 3 home cooked meals, chilling on a balcony overlooking limestone cliffs and floating in the lake.  And visiting with my grandparents.

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten one-on-one time with my grandparents.  She has 6 siblings, 6 kids.  I have 4 siblings.  Needless to say, I’ve always been around my grandma when everyone else was, too.  So this was nice.  Just visiting as adults.  And my grandpa doesn’t have the mental sharpness he used to have.  Not “tarp as a shack” anymore, as he used to say. He totally doesn’t get Dave’s dry humor.  It’s hilarious.  He was telling Dave how the hill the lakehouse was built on is all rock.  If you stick a screwdriver in the ground, you hit rock.  Dave said, “Well, at least the house won’t sink.”

“Oh no, it’s not going to sink,” Grandpa said seriously.

So cute.

And I saw one of these at the bird feeder!  Next I’ll get binoculars and a beaded string for my sunglasses so I can wear them around my neck.

We wouldn’t have been able to go except for Dave’s unexpected loss of employment on Friday.  (Surprise!  You’re fired!  Happy Friday the 13th!)  So today we floated on our backs under a wide blue sky listening to waves lapping the rocks on the beach.  (The best things in life ARE free.  Unfortunately the gas to get there to experience them is not.)  We don’t know what’s going to happen or where he will work or what he will do, but it will be something.  I wish I made enough money for him to stay home, ride his bike in the morning and make me gourmet meals in the afternoons, but I don’t.

So don’t be surprised if I add ads to my blog.  I’ll try to keep them tasteful.

I’ve been wanting to post this since I heard about it on NPR, but today’s the first time I read it in its entirety.

I think this article is brilliant.  For YEARS I’ve been wondering why we still fill up our cars with gas.  It just seemed gross and antiquated, like something that we shouldn’t have to deal with anymore.  Like outhouses or churning butter or using cash.

Because you can’t.

I’m at my parents’ house. My baby seester gradumacated from high school yesterday so we’re in Dallas for the weekend. My other sister is also home from the convent for a week. And a girl from her convent, Danielle, came in last night to spend the night since she had a 12-hour layover on her way back to the convent.

At 6am I heard my sister say from the hallway, “Wow, there is totally poop on the floor.” And Danielle said, “Yeah, that sure is.” And I heard them cleaning it up and then my mom mopped the floor with disinfectant.

I got up and wanted to make sure I heard right. There was POOP on the floor in the hallway? Actual POOP? And yes, there was.

Just for the record, there were no puppies here. No cats, no hamsters, not even sea monkeys. There were no toddlers. There were no homeless people. There were 6 grown-ass sober people sleeping in this house.

And nobody did it. NOBODY pooped in the hallway in the middle of the night. Everyone is baffled. So maybe we have duendes. (For that video, keep your eye on the small shape in the background against the wall.)

EDITOR’S NOTE: I purposely did not make this about who did or did not poo in the hallway.  It ain’t Clue, and let’s be honest- it’s embarrassing for whomever it was. As far as I know, nobody in the house has a history of extracurricular pooping, and if it happens again, someone will have something to deal with.  Until then it was just a weird, weird occurrence.

Last night I realized I’ve been fighting what’s good for me.  I tend to do that occasionally.  Perhaps we all do.  I’ve been planning a wedding reception (don’t worry if you haven’t been invited, nobody has yet) and I planned it for the exact day of a 100-mile bike ride Dave’s been training for.  Like, seriously training for.  He stopped going to yoga so he would have time to bike every day, between 9 and 30 miles a day, I think.  But it was either that weekend or the weekend of ANOTHER bike ride he’s planning to do.

Which leads me to another point.  I’m not really a cyclist.  Dave?  Dave’s a cyclist.  He cares about his heart rate, his cadence, miles per hour, top speed, etc.  Me?  Not so much.  I ride to work along the bayou bike trail and this was our convo on Wednesday:

Dave: How was your first day riding to work?

Me:  It was great!  I saw 2 golden-crowned night herons, a great blue heron, 3 turtles, some sandpipers, some swifts and a ton of fish.  One fish was really big and was sitting where it’s shallow, and his fin was sticking up out of the water and he had these golden flecks that were SO PRETTY in the sunlight.

Dave: . . .

SO.  Here’s what we MIGHT do.  Remember that beautiful baby I got for Christmas?  Well, I suggested selling it so I could get a commuter bike.  Here’s the one I want:

Click the link to go to the site.  Look how it folds up!! I test rode one and it’s so much more comfortable to sit on.  I don’t think road bikes are good for my back- it hurts my neck to look up.  And obviously I like looking up so I can spot the pancake turtles.

Anyway, Dave said, “We are NOT selling the Bianchi.”  I think he wants it.  It’s a better road bike than his and if he really wants to start racing, I think the Bianchi will be better for that.  And then he’ll probably turn his bike into a fixie.  No, he’ll turn his bike into the COOLEST FIXIE EVER.  I know him, he will.

But back to my original point, since Dave’s no longer going to yoga, it’s that much harder for me to feel motivated about it.  Yesterday I left for yoga and then decided that I didn’t want to get there late and I came home.  Dave was like, “What’s wrong?  Are you okay?”  I didn’t know I wasn’t until he asked that.  So I meditated a little last night and a lot this morning.  I made myself sit for the full hour, and for the first 45 minutes, I fought it.  I couldn’t sit still, I scratched my legs, I turned to look at the clock.  Then I got annoyed at how I was fighting it.

Then I decided to accept it.  Right now I don’t want to meditate, at this moment I’m making it harder for myself.  At some point that will change, but for now it’s a struggle.  And wouldn’t you know it, the next 15 minutes flew by.  I’d heard that we need to sit for the full hour to get the meditation’s full positive effects and dammit, they’re right.

How excited am I about this?