Boston University was a cesspool of apathy. Now wait one second before you go poo-pooing all the Eurotrash and rich kids. I loved attending BU. Everything from hearing an incredibly moving speech by Elie Wiesel, a visiting professor at the time, my freshman year and realizing I was going to have a lot of great opportunities in college, to drinking cold ones with the shirtless, angry Red Sox fans.

But when our equally hated and respected chancellor, John Silber, woke up cranky one morning in 1997 and decided to scrap the BU football team in one fell swoop, well, who could blame him? I mean, except for the football players who where there on scholarship and suddenly had no reason to live. Our team a) wasn’t good and b) was very bad. Besides hockey - which I still bring up everyone talks about college (We RULED at ice hockey, we RUULLLLLLEEEDDDDD!”) - we BU kids weren’t much in it for the sport. In fact, the school was so big and so varied (one of the things I loved about being there) that it was pretty hard for any passionate soul to generate enthusiasm for any cause, great or small. I remember once watching a group of about 15 admirable protesters marching in the light rain one morning, their cause: sweat shops. Their plan: to get everybody roused about the horrors going on in sweatshops around the world. People, for the most part, unfortunately, took one look at this group, this sad, wet little group, and turned back to their friends and their raspberry mochas without so much as a thought about inequity in the world.

Hockey. I’m telling you, that’s all we cared about. And how much Boston College sucked at everything.

So today, friends, is going to be pretty neat. I’m headed out to watch the UNC/Maryland game on Franklin Street, and then will meet my friend at his old fraternity for some beer and rejoicing. Or sadness, whatever. My guess is it will still be a party. I’m going to summon the part of myself that always hurt, like an injured bird, at not being able to get into college sport, and I’m going to yell for the team when they make a touchdown! Or, when they do other important football maneuvers.

This morning Josephine and I were engaging in our routine chit chat - “It’s windy!” “It’s a beautiful fall day!” “It’s so windy!” - when all of a sudden I heard myself utter the words, “Yeah, this morning Justin said it rained a little last night…” before I caught myself and with a slight gasp got ready to add the qualifying “I mean, I called him and he said,” or “he dropped by and told me,” in order to, well, not really lie, but make it seem at least a little possible that the two of us aren’t living in sin outright. I like to let whoever it is - the religious or elderly or judgmental person - decide for themselves whether or not we deserve to go right to Hell. But then I remembered we got married. Ha! Married! And I continued on confidently with our always stimulating conversation, “but when I got up, well, it was sunny.” And Josephine said, “Yup! I didn’t hear the rain!” Two married ladies talkin’ ’bout the weather.

Me: “I’m bored.”

Suggestion-provider: “You should write a book!”

I agree, and am going to need some book-worthy topic suggestions in the comments section of this post, please. Let’s make this a joint effort. I’ll keep you guys up to date on my progress! Now, remember: 1) I’m not good at writing fiction. I like real-life. Humorous subjects, preferably. 2) History isn’t my greatest subject, so nothing about past wars and whatnot, ok? Don’t overestimate my skills. I get facts wrong all the time.

To celebrate the first of many mile markers in our marriage, I got up early and made pancakes this morning. We sat at the coffee table eating breakfast and drinking coffee and watching the Today show. There was this segment about overweight teens. One girl was saying, as she cried, that when she walked into public places people would actually look up from whatever they were doing and stare at her, and J, without a moment’s hesitation, said, “It’s because you’re fat!”

HAPPY ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY BABY!

I spent this weekend on a mission to get the house back in working order. Because you can’t sit and chill when there are packing peanuts all up under the end tables, or when you’ve got to put the boxes of new cutlery on the floor in order to get a good view of the television set. I worked until I felt that the level of organization was sufficient, and believe me, my standards were high. I rubbed stains out of the carpet and washed the dogs and put new collars that smell new on the dogs. It was serious business. I worked so seriously that last night, for the first time in what seems an eternity, I was able to make dinner (clean kitchen floor nothing sticking to my bare feet) and relax reading a magazine (one of 5 or so, not one of hundreds, piling up for months…and months on the coffee table…), drink a glass of wine on the couch (old and without legs because we had to saw them off to get it in the house but we bought a new one yesterday to be delivered next week!) surrounded by a space where, you know, I could get stuff done. My worries regarding everything from finishing thank you notes to the generalized “doing more with my life” were so hard to really act on when I couldn’t even get in the front door without stubbing my toe or hitting my head - multiple times.

Then when I arrived at work this morning, at a desk I’d cleaned off before leaving Friday, I finished my stories. That’s right. I wrote all my stories. I didn’t let myself eat lunch or look at emails til I’d finished. I started to think about how awesome it would be to get home later tonight after the Pittsboro Planning Board meeting and have done so much today because I’d finished my work so early. And I had a whole afternoon free! I could…I could…Well, for one thing, I could check Friendster, which has once again become an evil and enticing distraction for me after months of ignoring it. But after that bout of indulgence I realized I was out. I was out of frantic measures in which to procrastinate and so I ran some errands and opened up “Personal Finance for Dummies,” which I toted along with me today. I ate my lunch and read. Can I tell you how many times I’ve said I’ll eat my lunch while reading a helpful and enlightening book? I can. 873,383 times.

This all followed jogging with the dog this morning and eating a healthy breakfast. Also having the time to enjoy a full cup of coffee and therefore forgoing the usual bringing the coffee cup in the car with me, where it gets chipped, and then having J ask, “Jeez. Why do our coffee mugs all get chipped?” and my responding, “Huh.”

But I suddenly felt a rush of panic as I wondered if reading a financial strategies book, which I realize isn’t the pinnacle of responsibility but I honestly do think will be helpful, was the best way to spend my precious time - time made even more precious by the fact that due to my rash and obsessive actions this weekend - I now feel…caught up.

I feel caught up.

I’ve still got a hell of a lot of bills to put in the mail. I’ve still got the thank you notes and sure, there will be some dishes to do later on, but I’ve achieved that always-elusive togetherness that I’ve scolded myself for not having in the past. Watching a movie and eating popcorn when the kitchen’s all messy because I’m so, so tired, or driving back and forth to DC every single weekend to plan a wedding and never getting a chance to catch up. I don’t feel like that today - and I didn’t know what to do.

I started wondering how to make each day worth it on the grand scale. How much do I need to do in order to say I’m working hard to achieve my personal goals? I realize it’s different for every person, so where do I fall? It really started to get to me.

Then, for no reason other than I was up for another distraction, I pulled up the pictures my friend Sarah had sent us all after the trip to Vegas for my bachelorette party. And I started flipping through the album on my computer and remembering the adventures - from champagne in the limo to handstands in the pool at the Mirage to the cop in the hotel room. The cop. Who arrived because of the noise violation. For which we needed to be frisked. And then, you know, he got hot, and seemed more comfortable in his thong…

It was very enlightening. Not all the debauchery, heavens no, but the pictures of the girls I loved. And I mean, I couldn’t fit all the people I love in Vegas, not on that one weekend anyway, but you know, I got to thinking.

The other night at a party my friend Eric and I were talking about the wedding, people he’d met, and I told him how great my high school friends were. “We write emails to one another every day,” I said. “Eight of us.”

And he said, “No way.”

And I said, “Yeah, we do.”

And he said, “That’s awesome.”

True, it is. I thought about that conversation after going through this misery of wondering how to best spend my time and stumbling upon some pictures from a few months ago for a reason, I think. And that reason is that I needed to remember that things like that weekend are important, too. They’re just as if not more important as making a living and furthering one’s career and managing your finances. In fact, most of us do those other things in order to feel good about ourselves, and to be able to let loose with nine friends in Vegas.

Ok. Maybe not just to be able to do that, but you get what I’m saying. My family and all the friends I’ve even known - and I mean since childhood and also the ones I’ve met in the past couple of years or only recently - give me a reason never to feel the way I was feeling just a little while ago, at least if I can stop and remember that the experiences I’ve had with those people - like Vegas, getting married, nights talking at the James Joyce pub, giving and receiving Christmas presents, going to concerts, talking over coffee, celebrating new babies, hatching hot new business plans and on and on - those experiences drive me to do the things that matter. Like writing. Not getting the house all settled. That doesn’t quite do it. Although I can’t downplay the sweet joy of having a clean path to the refrigerator.

Of course Justin is a huge part of all this. I swear I could die happy right now just knowing the people I’ve known and having the chance to be with someone who - and I mean it - I can’t imagine living without now that I’ve met him. And I don’t mean because I’m lost without a partner, or that I can’t live life on my own. I mean that everything is just so much better because I’m with him. Better than I thought it could ever be.

I’ve sort of lost my original line of thinking here, but I hope the point is still loud and clear. It’s a beautiful day here in North Carolina. Josephine brought me some homemade baked goods she’d purchased at a church fundraiser this weekend a little while ago, and a dog is sleeping contentedly at my feet. So I really had no reason to feel worried in the first place. But when I did, when I wondered what to do next, and had no prospects, I realized I was being a little hard on myself. And I realized that through thinking about all the people who mean so much to me, because there’s just no way - no way! - my life couldn’t be good with them in it. It’s so good. I’m so lucky.

11:00 am, November 5-

“Cara, you’ve got to be on the ready today, because if I see a Flicker*, I’m going to be like ‘Cara! Come quick! I see a Flicker!”

*Northern Flicker: a woodpecker indigenous to North Carolina that has been frequenting our feeder.

Some Saturday morning reading for you all (thanks for the link, Cate!)

J and I spent a good amount of time last night watching an episode of “Six Feet Under,” season one, which we’d received from Netflix that day, despite the fact that there was a very obvious crack in the DVD and roughly half of the episode was really unwatchable. As the characters jerked around and opened their mouths, and as their voices erupted from time to time in untranslatable spurts, we sat on the edge of the couch, straining to get the idea, adamant that this rough spot would be over shortly. It wasn’t. In fact, at times the picture simply faded into black, the DVD player obviously trying to tell us, “Take it out! Take this damaged merchandise out of me!” But it was so hard to come to terms with. I mean, we couldn’t just move on to the next episode like we’d fully digested the previous one. So we had to send an error report to Netflix and are anxiously awaiting a replacement disk. We didn’t do so without fully exhausting all resources, however. There were several serious wipe-downs of the defective disk with a soft cloth and even a bout with Spanish subtitles (English wasn’t available). We’d shout out in unison when we were able to translate correctly, which was a lot of fun, but it would have been even better, honestly, if the thing just worked.

I may have mentioned this previously, but my father was one of the first people in the world to acquire a cell phone. It was very large and very embarrassing, especially for me, his teenage daughter at the time. When I was thinking about what I’d like to do after graduating from high school and my family took trips up and down the east coast visiting various colleges, my father brought his cell phone with him. His friends and business cohorts were the other five or six first people in the world to have cell phones and they’d call him while I, and the other nervous teenagers, were listening to our 9000th speech about why this school was the best one for us. Since it was new, my Dad didn’t want to turn it off and he’d answer it while exiting the very quiet room where the nice college students were briefing us about student life, like playing chess in the union or just chilling in the hallways with our new best friends. Suddenly I’d hear my father’s voice, the loudest of loud whispers, at the back of the room, and then in the hallway, always failing to fade out: “Bob? Bob? Can you hear me? I’m up in Vermont Bob. Bob? Hello? I’m not in the best area.”

Now that I’m more mature you might think there is no way he could embarrass me like that again. And that’s true. Those delicate years when I was a teen were priceless in the embarrassment arena. Just when I thought I was free of it all, my Dad would go and do something like trip over the doorway to the biggest dorm at Boston University (where I’d spend the next four years of my life) on the first day of my college career, as all the college freshmen - my new friends for Christ’s sake! - milled around and made introductions. Oh, and all the upperclassmen in charge of signing us in had to go help him up. Oh, and also, he had a broken nose and a broken arm in a sling because he’d fallen down while on vacation the week before. So, you know, it wasn’t that subtle or anything.

But he can still do it, if only a little. With the changing times comes new technology, like smaller cell phones. And cell phones with speaker phone functions, which my father likes and doesn’t know how to turn off. So I’ll be hanging out, just chilling with my friends or enjoying a calm and peaceful moment, say, in a restaurant with my family, and the phone, the phone of ages past (in spirit if not in actual substance) will ring and he can’t not pick it up and when he does it turns out it’s still on speaker mode. He doesn’t know how to turn it off. So not only is everyone subject to his loud “Hello? Hello? Hello?” (sometimes in a foreign accent if he’s not sure who the call is from - his tactic is to pretend he’s Chinese or Irish if it turns out to be a salesman, that way he can tell them he’s not sure where Mr. Fred is at the moment) but everyone is also subject to whoever is on the other line. Their voice comes through the microphone loud and clear, usually shouting something like, “Fred, hey, I can hear you.”

(photo credit to the very talented Randolph)

My wedding was a lot of things. It was fun. It was crazy. There were friends and family, too numerous to count. It was rainy and muddy and there was a lot of dancing. But in all that hubbub, I’m really glad Rochelle and Max got to spend some time with Mina in her princess gown and hat. There is no denying the pure joy that dog experienced when I placed the fancy silks upon her tiny body. You can see it in her eyes.