megolomaniac

You know that feeling you get when you go home? Not the anxiety or the worry that some of us feel, but the warm part. You know, when your heart swells and every fiber of your being relaxes and you know you can just be yourself, because these people know you as yourself. And they love you for it.

I realized last month that that feeling is not limited to the house you grew up in or the place where your family lives.

Over the long weekend in January, Galen and I flew down to the Bay Area to visit his family and some friends of mine. Ben and Amanda moved last fall to a town about ten minutes from Galen’s parents’ house. My good friend Bean from Chicago was also going to be staying with them that weekend, so it was perfect timing.

As soon as Galen and I saw Ben, Amanda and Bean, I got that “home” feeling. These people know me. They may not know the intricacies of my daily life, but they know all the important things. And they are important to me. These are my people, and there is nothing like the feeling of being home with them.

So, to Ben, Amanda and Bean: Thank you for making me feel at home. I am so lucky to have you.

Both of my parents have told me independently their theories on why marriage changes a relationship, and the premise is basically the same.  They both believe that everyone has deep-seated ideas of what marriage looks like and no one knows it until those ideas surface in their subconscious and, eventually, their behavior.  Even if you live together before you get married and don’t reorganize your finances… Even if the only things that seem to change are the jewelry on your left hands and maybe her last name… You’re not safe from those repressed ideas bubbling up and taking over.

I call my dad’s theory “The Tapes.”  You know how sports teams watch “tape” of themselves and their opposing teams to learn from their mistakes and look for patterns that they can manipulate?  My dad says that everyone has similar “tape” filed deep in their mind under “marriage.”  So they come home from their honeymoon to the same home they lived in with the same significant other and the same job and the same car, assuming everything is the same.  Then they start using words like “husband” and “wife” and “marriage”… and their mental marriage file is suddenly flung open and the tapes begin to play in the background like an outdoor movie.  The person can continue along with their life pretending they aren’t watching the tape, but they can’t ignore it completely.

Suddenly, the wife gets frustrated with her husband because he isn’t home for dinner every night.  The husband has never been home for dinner every night, so he, in turn, gets angry because his wife isn’t making her (changing) expectations clear.  Then the husband is aggravated because his wife decides to visit a friend who just had a new baby the same weekend he is supposed to attend another friend’s birthday party.  In the past, they would have just done their own things, but now he expects them to go to the party as a couple – a united front.  She thinks it’s clear that she needs to be with the new mom to help around the house, so she is frustrated with her husband’s lack of understanding.

Clearly these are oversimplifications that revolve around stereotypes, but they illustrate the point.

Back when I was single,  I used to console myself by saying that I would make an awesome girlfriend.  I would be the cool chick that all my boyfriend’s friends would want to invite out with them because I didn’t make my boyfriend leave early or stay home with me when I had a headache.  I would be understanding when he wanted to hang out with other people and wouldn’t make him check in with me all the time.  He wouldn’t have to drive me to the airport early in the morning because I’d take the bus instead.  I wouldn’t harp on him for his imperfections or ever try to change him… Because I would be The Perfect Girlfriend.

However, it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that I have “girlfriend” tapes.  Sometimes things come out of my mouth and within nanoseconds I’m doing my damnedest to shove them back down my throat.  Galen will go a few weeks without trimming his beard (NOT a big deal – nor anything that concerns me) and I’ll say something really sweet like, “Haven’t had much time to keep up the beard, huh?”  And then punch myself in the kidney.

Then there was the other day when we were hanging out at my apartment getting ready to go to a party with friends.  He was wearing a hat because it had been raining, but I thought his hair looked particularly good that day.  So, naturally, I said, in my most passive-aggressive voice, “Are… you going to wear that hat to the party?”  Being the incredibly nice person he is, he just looked at me and said, “I don’t know.  Do you think I should?”

I don’t WANT to say these things.  I really don’t.  Nor do I care if he trims his beard or wears a hat…  In no way do those things reflect upon me.  In fact, I don’t really care how he dresses or how often he showers either, as long as he doesn’t smell (I do have SOME standards).  But it feels like there’s something that says to me, “Megan, real girlfriends comment on the things their boyfriends wear in very tactless ways.”  So I do.

I’m hoping this tape doesn’t last too long.

I have twelve cousins on my dad’s side of the family.  There are 14 of us total and I am 7th in the birth order.  The age difference between the oldest and youngest is almost exactly 30 years and we’re pretty evenly spaced over that time.  Even with this significant age span, we’re a close bunch.  Our relationships morph and change over the years as we go through different periods in our lives and move across the country and around the world, but we all get along and look forward to the time we spend together, whether it’s at Waterton or Christmas or other visits throughout the year.

My oldest cousin, Molly, passed away suddenly four years ago.  Since then, I’ve tried hard to hold on tight to every memory I have of her.

…One year at Waterton, she rented a surrey with my cousin Emily and I, who must have been about 10 and 9 at the time.  We weren’t quite tall enough to reach the pedals, so she had to do most of the hard work.  She knew we really wanted to go for a ride, though, and we needed a grown up to take us, so she offered.

…She always made me feel special when I was younger by telling me how cool it was that we had the same initials.

…Molly was the first person to explain divorce and step-parents to me, long before I gained firsthand knowledge.  Looking back on our conversation now, I know how hard it must have been for her to explain to someone so young what it’s like to have two families, and I’m particularly grateful for her patience with me.

…I remember when she explained to me what an Irish claddagh ring was, what it symbolized, and I bought one soon after that because I wanted to be like her and wear it all the time.

…She came through Missoula one time when I was in high school and visited us.  She had just been in the hospital for what sounded like a stroke and had just started taking blood thinners.  She had a few bruises on her legs and arms and I remember thinking how incredibly upbeat she was.  She told me the bruises were a little annoying but she felt like a million bucks.

…In every single memory I have of my cousin Molly, she was happy, laughing and overflowing with charisma.  I thought of her as someone who was always looking for the next adventure and I admired her in so many ways.

On December 4th, just ten days ago, my cousin Kevin and his wife Jen had a baby girl.  And they named her Molly.

As my cousins have started having kids, I love spending time with the babies and talking to their parents about what life is like with children.  I look forward to many years of being the fun older cousin who teaches the little ones new games and buys them ice cream when their parents aren’t looking.  I’m sure I’ll tell them stories that will bore them to tears sometimes, but hopefully I’ll also be the person they invite to sit at the kids table at Thanksgiving because the rest of the grown ups are so boooooring.

And I hope with all my might that Molly, Eamon and Liam (who are all babies and toddlers now) are there for my kids when their feet can’t reach the pedals.

My aunt and uncle sent this article in an email to all our family members on Thanksgiving. I thought it was beautiful.

It got me thinking this weekend about what Thanksgiving is for me. This is the third year in a row (and ever) that I haven’t been with my parents for Thanksgiving. There are lots of reasons for this – all of them related to distance. If it were easier for me to get home, I wouldn’t think twice about it. But spending four flights, two days, and 5 or 6 hundred dollars to only have about 48 hours with my family was getting frustrating. Driving over two mountain passes in the middle of the night isn’t really an option, either. Not in the winter.

So I’ve learned to find other kinds of “family” – usually friends – in Portland to celebrate and feast with. This year, Galen invited me to spend the weekend with his extended family here in Portland. His parents and sister flew in and everyone gathered for dinner Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. They are an incredibly welcoming bunch and I had a great time. His sister also has young kids who are tons of fun, so Galen and I spent a fair amount of our pre- and post- dinner time being silly with them.

And I realized that Thanksgiving is about feeling at home, even if you aren’t. It’s about that warm feeling you get when you go inside someone’s house, where the lights are on and the kitchen is full of commotion, where the people are excited to see you and hug you hello, where someone’s dad wants to talk about the day’s football games and someone’s mom wants to take your coat and put it in the hall closet, and you’re so grateful to be out of the cold and rain.

It’s about being surrounded by people who like you for who you are, even if they don’t know you very well. People who want you to have two desserts and an extra glass of wine. People who will ask what your family is doing today, wherever they may be, and then listen to the answer. People who look you in the eyes when they ask you how you’ve been and want to hear about your day, even if you didn’t get out of your pajamas until after 2:00. And although you may never be completely at ease, since you aren’t at your house, you feel welcomed, you feel the warmth, and you feel at home.

I am thankful for my many homes away from home.

My friend Abby referred me to this poem, which seems fitting right now:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

I’ve mentioned before how my mom taught me to celebrate the Jewish New Year by doing Tashlich and celebrating change and fresh starts. This year, I may have outdone myself.

Aside from the national change I wished for eleven months ago, I have also witnessed significant changes in my personal life. I moved to an area of Portland with which I’m relatively unfamiliar, to live on my own for the first time in 26 years. I got a new job. It may be in the same building with the same coworkers, but my duties and reporting structure have changed. I started seeing someone new, and he’s fantastic. Pretty dramatic compared to last year, when I think I cleaned out my closet and washed my car.

Speaking of Galen, he very sweetly agreed to do Tashlich with me this year. For those not familiar, this is a Jewish tradition I’ve compared before to a mix between Poohsticks and Confession. I don’t consider myself particularly religious (I would say “spiritual but not religious,” to us a phrase I learned from Match.com), but I do love tradition and Tashlich really resonates for me. The basic gist is that you take bread to a body of water and throw a bit in for each of your sins (or as I like to think of it, “areas for improvement”). Then they float away down the river and you get to start fresh without them hanging over you. How can you argue with that?

So Galen and I went down to a dock on the Willamette River, armed with a few slices of bread and a year’s worth of baggage. After we sat down and threw a few pieces in, some Canada Geese came over and started eating the bread. We joked that the birds were going to get sick later, but didn’t think much of it.

Then the geese came up right next to us and waited for us to throw bread directly into their mouths.

Then a few seagulls appeared.

Then there was a staggering number of seagulls circling overhead.

Then the seagulls and the Canada Geese were all cawing and squawking and fighting over our sins.

And then we hightailed it out of there. As we were leaving, I turned to Galen and said, “Next year, we’ll throw them from a bridge…”

I was getting my hair cut last week when my stylist, Daniel, said, out of the blue, “Do you feel like a grown-up?”

Now, I think of Daniel as an adult. He didn’t go to college (which in my mind means he grew up faster than I did) and has at least ten years on me. He’s a gay, single mama’s boy, but he owns a condo and a new car and lives on his own. I, however, enjoy the occasional bowl of ice cream for dinner, sometimes have to use Kleenex when I run out of toilet paper, and have been known to let the registration on my car lapse.

“Sometimes.” I said. “What about you?”

“Well, I was just standing here thinking about how excited I am to get home tonight and play the new video game I bought this weekend. And then I realized that I’m getting close to 40 years old and I’m excited about a video game,” he giggled.

We laughed and talked about paying bills and staying out late on school nights. But that question really stuck with me. Abby recently asked about growing up and I had so many thoughts I couldn’t narrow them down into something coherent to comment. I’m still sort of in that place, but I’ve made a little progress.

I feel like an adult when I can pay bills without worrying if the check will bounce. When I use my credit card so that I can get the miles, not because I don’t have the money in my checking account, I feel responsible. When crazy things happen, like I have to pay lots of money to get my car to pass DEQ emissions tests or I need to pay the deposit on a new apartment, I can make it work. And that makes me feel self-sufficient and responsible.

I feel grown-up when I can deal with the surprises in life. Someone broke into my car again… At least I know who to call. A boy broke up with me… I’m surrounded by wonderful people. I travel to a foreign country with a national language that I don’t speak… I can handle it. Work puts me in a situation that makes me uncomfortable… I can stand up for myself and do what I know is right. I have a solid foundation of friends, family and love that make me who I am.

On the other hand, I can’t cook. I don’t know the difference between “less than” and “fewer.” I have a hard time following rules like, Eat healthy, Don’t buy things you don’t need,and Always be on time. I think speech impediments and puns are funny. I love terrible pop music. I have a really hard time saying no to anything involving fun. The other day, my boss’ boss at The Foundation caught me in the halls at work riding on a hand truck pushed by a coworker. I am just a few clicks away from believing in the Tooth Fairy and eating Froot Loops for breakfast.

So I think of it sort of like learning the English language; you have to learn the rules so you can break them. I’m grown-up enough to act like a kid if I want to.

Besides, a totally immature 26-year-old would never have credit as good as mine.

Today someone I work closely with was “let go.” This has happened to me before. At my last job, one of my closest coworkers and friends was fired about six months after I started working there. But as with most things, it’s different at a nonprofit.

Of course, all of the regular emotions and issues are in play: Where will she go? What will she do? How will she make ends meet? Particularly in this economy?

But there’s also the question of what our institution just “let go.”

This woman was an integral part of the hospital, the university, and the community that surrounds it. She’d been working there for most of my lifetime, and a significant chunk of hers. There will never be another person who cared as much about the mission, the patients, and the families of the hospital. She was everyone’s go-to gal. If you didn’t know the answer to a question, inevitably someone told you to call her and she had it. She worked harder and longer than the rest of us and never asked for any recognition or attention in return. She cared about her coworkers and always made us laugh. I had talked with her before about why I got involved with The Foundation and she told me about how rewarding her job was. She was the type of person I hoped I would someday be.

Why do they say that they “let someone go?” It’s as if your employer were the only thing holding you up and they just couldn’t do it anymore. What a horrible analogy in this instance. By all means, this woman was the backbone of the place that employed her. Yes, she received a paycheck from them every month, but it was the least they could do in exchange for the glue that held everything together and made the organization what a beautiful thing it was.

Nonprofit organizations are started by people who care more about the mission than they do the paycheck. Many of our employees are like this even now, and that’s after more than 50 years as an establishment. Why is it that when funding is low, the first ones to go are the types of people that started it all?

I don’t have any answers. Just sadness. And the knowledge that things will never be the same.

A couple of months ago, my mom and I were shopping in downtown Seattle when she suddenly stopped me across the street from an American Apparel store, put on her serious face and said, “Meg, promise me right now that you will never, EVER, buy anything from that store, American Apparel.” I thought she was crazy. When I asked why, she told me about how their CEO was a “dirtbag” who sexually harassed his employees and responded to their legal actions with a general tone of, “I own this company, I can run it anyway I want.”

The first time I walked into an American Apparel store a few years ago (it was the one on West Burnside in Portland), I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I wear almost exclusively solid-colored clothing, and that’s all they sell. It seems stupid, but it’s incredibly difficult to find plain clothing that doesn’t have some sort of logo or brand name on it. The store was a huge white room with every style of shirt, sweatshirt, and sweatpant that a person could want, and in a rainbow of colors. The wall was lined with photos of garment tags (from non-AA clothing) each declaring that the item was made in China, Pakistan, Mexico…anywhere but the United States. There was a huge sign on the window that read, “Crafted with pride in Los Angeles, California.” I was immediately on the AA bandwagon. Well-paid laborers! A factory in downtown LA! How could this be bad?

When my bowling team bought t-shirts and silkscreened them, we went to American Apparel. My friend Russ used to work at one of their stores, so he could get us their clothing at pretty good prices (because it turns out I can’t afford the fruits of well-paid American labor). When I saw friends selling screenprinted shirts at Saturday Market or the awesome guy who sells (406) shirts at Missoula Farmer’s Market, I was happy to see they used AA shirts and sweatshirts.

But that was all before I found out the company was started by a chauvinist asshole, albeit an asshole with a great business plan that supported American industry and laborers. I did a few searches on the internet and found out that Dov Charney has had three sexual harassment claims brought against him by four female employees. He routinely walks around his office and factory wearing only underwear (that he designed, of course) and does a whole slew of things that I would definitely consider inappropriate – things that would offend me and make me uncomfortable. If I worked there, I would get a new job before anyone even learned how to pronounce my last name.

American Apparel’s ads have always been a little strange. They’re usually grainy (artsy?) photos of just one person against a white backdrop, and the person is wearing an article or two of AA clothing. Sort of. They’re usually in some state of undress when (one assumes) a photographer jumps out of nowhere to catch them on film. I was never particularly offended by these ads (I grew up with Abercrombie ads, I may never be shocked by suggestive nudity advertising clothing), but AA just came out with a few new internet ads that involve partial nudity. Like, of the important parts. As far as I know, the naked photos are all of women at this point.

Do I think people shouldn’t be allowed to advertise with half- or completely-naked models? I’m not sure. I know the photos of nude women I saw advertising lotions or porn hotlines in France (different ads in completely different places) made me uncomfortable, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wrong. To be honest, the first thought I had was, This might not bother me so much if there were photos of naked men as well. Which was followed by, I don’t actually want to see photos of naked men, I would just feel less gross about the whole thing if it wasn’t gender specific.

So I’ve come to this very confusing place. If Dov Charney has done even half of the things I’ve read on the internet, I find him simultaneously fascinating, awesome, and disgusting. I don’t really know how to feel about buying clothing made by factory workers that work under good conditions, are paid well, and receive benefits, when the person who signs their checks (and takes my money) calls his female employees sluts and talks about sex all the time. Do I really have to ask myself whether I’d like to support child and slave labor or sexual harassment when I buy a t-shirt? And if so, how the hell do I answer that?

It’s no secret that I have a huge crush on John Stewart. This video can just be added to the long list of reasons why. He makes just about every argument I would, and does it while still respecting his guest.

I can’t imagine how angry I would be if I were gay and someone accused me of making that choice. I’m outraged as it is, and I made the choice to be not-gay. The passing of Prop 8 and all of the other similar state constitutional amendments created a sad chapter in American history. Although, I suppose if we came from a history of slavery and ended up electing a black president, we can get through this as well. I just hope it’s soon…