Weekend

Posted August 29th, 2004 by Michelle

I’ve heard it said that when we are happy, we gain weight. If that is true, then I have proof positive that I am happy right now. Christ, I am pudgy! It’s ridiculous! Why do I have to love cookies so much?

It’s Sunday night, and it’s almost back-to-school time, and I’m feeling nostalgic and strange. I feel the need to go buy a pencil box and school clothes and to go back to 6th grade at Arthur Elementary to prove something to my classmates. I wasn’t a TOTAL loser in grade school; more than that, I was disliked because I knew how smart I was and I was unafraid to show it. I also didn’t take much time with my appearance and was famous for wearing the same pair of jeans for weeks. (I actually had two pairs that were exactly the same, but it was still only two pairs.) I supposed I was the wrong combination of snotty and not very attractive, and also elitist because I was the conductor’s daughter, the composer’s daughter, and I simply knew that I was something more than my classmates who weren’t musicians. And really, even if they played an instrument, they weren’t really musicians. I really believed myself to be something entirely other.

I don’t know when I stopped believing I was smart. I remember specifically dumbing down to talk to a particular friend in high school, but the decline started long before that. Maybe it was when I hit the 7th grade and became a hottie nightmare. I don’t really know. God, the phases I’ve been through. And now I’m this nebulous thirty-something caught between attractive and pudgy, smarts and idiocy, shame and elitism.

But I had a great weekend.

Saturday morning I got to do something I do with great frequency these days: work with my dad. But rather than on the phone talking business, we picked his Pinot Noir:

Clearly I’m working hard.

So’s my dad. And it’s 7 AM so we haven’t started drinking wine yet.

So pretty at 7 AM…

I then had the good fortune to meet up with my mom and my brother Steve in San Francisco, and Jon (the absolute bestest guy friend this girl has ever had) drove us all over the city, including into the Presidio where I’d never been. Steve directed us to, uh, this Point, that has a name and lots of historical significance and I’m sure he’ll (hopefully) email me the name and some story on it…

And then today I cleaned my baseboards. God, it’s sexy, isn’t it. This next week is so huge, again, and although I love sleep, I also can’t wait to get to work tomorrow. I’ve had nightmares about tomorrow’s first meeting, and it’s not even a big one. My job is infiltrating my life.

This weekend I missed a wedding that meant the world to me. I missed it because I didn’t have the cash to fly to New York. Next week I miss a huge weekend at Ian’s farmhouse. These things pain me so much that if I didn’t feel wholly committed to my job, I’d be thinking long and hard about my life right now. So to Deb and Steve, much love, many happy wishes. To all of you who get to be in the presence of my brothers and sisters in New York next weekend, I’m excessively jealous. But my organization has a huge kick-off party this Friday night, and I pretty much have to be there. So have a drink for me, dunk a ball in the barn, star-gaze, swim in the swimming hole, ride the hills. I’ll be here missing all of you.