40 Days of Dating

I know I promised lots of life updates coming up here, but in between the last two nights of "Bachelor in Paradise" (#TeamKristina) and a few hectic days at work, I haven't felt like taking the time to do justice to my life lately. Instead, I revisited an old favorite, and wanted to share it. 

Have you guys heard of 40 Days of Dating? It's a social experiment-slash-blog written in 2013 by two graphic designers, Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman, about how they dated for 40 days to try to overcome their respective relationship issues. Jessica falls too hard, too fast, and always for the wrong men. Tim, on the other hand, is a classic serial dater and commitment-phobe. Their daily dates, including couples therapy, a weekend trip to Disneyworld, and plenty of ups and downs along the way, charmed me the minute I discovered it in 2013, around day 18's publication.

I read breathlessly along the first time through, convinced they were going to end up together. (Spoiler alert: they don't. Jessica is happily married to someone else now - see their wedding here. BOOOO.) That said, they are both incredibly candid and vulnerable throughout the series, and being able to read their respective thoughts and intentions, along with how the other perceived them, was a fascinating dive into human experience. 

I remember re-reading the series probably two years ago, and stumbled back on it yesterday to marathon through it again. Some of the things that stuck out most to me now are that I'm officially older than they were when they did the experiment in the first place...a weird and kind of unsettling feeling, given their respective focus and obsession with dating. I'm just kind of...not, and that makes me feel like I'm doing things wrong. 

Second, this section on online dating, from a portion of Jessica's Day Nine entry: 

"We no longer search for romantic partners, we shop for them. Just like when looking online for a new pair of shoes, one can sort men by highest rated, size, popularity, even by color. While I admit it’s all very practical, I have to wonder if it’s caused me to miss out on spontaneous interactions or chance encounters."

You guys, it seriously messed with my head a little bit. I HATE online dating. As I've chronicled numerous times, I'm utterly terrible at it, and it always comes to feel a little dirty and cheap to me. This, I think is why - I am a consummate consumer, but the act of searching for a partner the way I search for a deal at J.Crew is repellent to me. 

Third, I really love and identify with their Day Five activity of illustrating their past relationships. See art (and ones I especially identify with) below: 

It all made me wonder if certain tropes and kinds of hindsight have a certain universality to them - if everyone has a person who was too good to them, or, conversely, has someone to whom they regret being too good. If there's always "that guy from New Years" or something. 

Finally, I love the stark, bold, graphic nature of the site. Tim and Jessie visually curated their way through their 40 days, with hand-drawn art, snippets of iPhone messages and chats, and photos of souvenirs, tickets, and ephemera. The way the art came together created a powerful third character in their relationship - how they both distilled and perceived their relationship, and expressed it together. 

Tim and Jessica released an "extended cut," of sorts, in the form of a book in 2015. I'm tempted to pick it up and read it, and to see how much extra info they popped in there - who knows? That said, if you've got a spare few hours and a desire to play fly-on-the-wall in another pair's relationship, it's super interesting. The added element of self-awareness, knowing this was an experiment with a fixed end date, just added to the tension and self-examination present throughout. 

They've done another project, 12 Kinds of Kindness, and I think you can all probably guess what I'll be reading later on tonight! 

Summer Break, blog-style

Hi friends, I'm a slacker delinquent and I decided I'm kind of on summer break from the blog a little bit. Honestly, I have no excuse for that except that I've been doing all sorts of other real-life things instead of writing. Namely: 

- Dave has me hooked on "Master of None" and "How I Met Your Mother," neither of which I've seen before. Could Aziz Ansari be more charming? I love the writing and tone of "Master of None" in general. We're also entering "Bachelor in Paradise" season and I, for one, am crazy-excited for the most! dramatic! season! ever! ;)

- I only brought about a third of my books to California with me, and as a result, we have a sad, very empty bookshelf in our living room. It makes me so despondent every time I look up and see those empty spaces where I used to have so many of my faves (as you can tell if you read my monthly bookworm posts, I'm a huuuge re-reader.). I've accordingly gone on a bit of a book-buying binge when I can find good deals on Amazon or at the Stanford bookstore (employee discount ftw), and in line with that have been reading so many wonderful books lately. Lots to share in a couple weeks in this month's roundup!

- I'm getting really into yoga and Pilates, thanks to Stanford's phenomenal employee wellness program. I go almost daily over lunch hour and get to enjoy a great mid-day reset. While I'm most definitely not the bendiest person in the room at any given session, I'm really loving feeling more centered and flexible, and noticing that my general klutziness seems to abate a bit as I'm focusing on being more aware of my body. 

- A couple weeks ago, my colleagues and I had our quarterly team-building day (my first at Stanford). This time, the outing was to an escape room, where we broke into two teams and competed against each other, as well as against two teams from Google. The room itself was actually four different rooms, each containing a segment of a puzzle to solve for a final puzzle - incredibly complex and detailed, and relying heavily on logic games and critical thinking (my favorite!). We ended up losing to both the Google teams (no surprise), but beating our other Stanford team soundly as we escaped with seven and a half minutes remaining. 

- The weekend before last, I had the pleasure of heading up to wine country to play tour guide for my friend Josh and some of his work colleagues! They are in town working on an area audit for a few weeks, and stayed the weekend to explore. We enjoyed a day at La Crema and Iron Horse, my two standards, and also visited Ledson for the first time (where I, naturally, bought like a case of wine. OOPS.). 

The way that people pop out of the woodwork to get together here is one of my favorite things about living in a destination city. Josh is the husband of a friend's younger sister, and we weren't particularly close in the Cities, but it was so fun to spend a day together, getting to know his team and catching up. I really enjoy that about California so far - playing tour guide in my new home region is a great way to learn it better myself, for sure. 

- I got to spend part of last week with Zach! He was in town for a work trip, and we met up in San Francisco at 21st Amendment Brewery for dinner on Tuesday and at Original Gravity Pub in San Jose for dinner on Wednesday before his red-eye to Chicago. So fun to see one of my favorite friends, hear all about darling baby Ryan, and catch up on life!

- Dave sat for his internal medicine boards exams last Friday, and to celebrate, the roommates visited one of our faves in downtown Palo Alto ("DTPA," apparently?), the Old Pro sports bar. Giant beers, classic bar food, truffle tater tots, and of course Dave's affinity for making faces - what's not to love? 

- My office had a giant Solar Eclipse watching party yesterday, and were lucky enough to see about a 75% eclipse. While I was a good girl and didn't stare directly into the sun, I couldn't resist snapping a photo or two when clouds made the crescent particularly visible. Cool, right? 

- And of course no blog post would be complete without at least a few Fiona photos. Laura and I stayed in last Monday night and, rather than watching "Bachelor in Paradise" without Dave, rented "Now You See Me" on Netflix for a girls' night of movies, sundaes, and poodle cuddles. 

- Fi and Dave have a particularly special relationship, which she affirms on the regular by snuggling with his laundry while it's waiting for the washing machine. He maintains that "POOOD" is perfect, and I think their weird little friendship is the cutest.

- We also put socks on our little poodle, and it did NOT go over well. I've got a video on my phone of her trying to walk in them that I watch legitimately daily for a completely out-of-control laugh, but the photo is almost as good. To quote Dave, "She's amazing! She's perfect! We love her!" 

More to come soon, campers, including a few Schwegfam reunions, a lot more wine country, and, as always, my random and spastic general thoughts on any myriad of topics. Thanks for bearing with my ever-sporadic updates! 

Lately I'm Loving

Things making me smile/on my mind/causing distraction lately:

- I've been doing a lot of thinking about books lately. Namely, the fact that my reading list has burgeoned to nearly 150 titles, all added in the last couple of months, and that I've done a shamefully lax job checking them off. While I attribute that in large part to the fact that my days are, in general, much fuller here, I've also been a total social media fiend lately (stories forthcoming). This piece, about a guy who read 400 books in the last two years, was thought-provoking in its direct call-out of people like me who waste a ton of time on apps. While I still polish off around 10-12 books a month, it's crazy to think about how much more I could be doing. 

(Related: this Atlantic piece about how smartphones are destroying today's teens was a lengthy but compelling read.)

- As far as reading goes, I started extremely young - I read the entirety of the "Little House on the Prairie" series in kindergarten, and graduated (rapidly and prematurely) to "Pride and Prejudice" and "Watership Down" in second grade and "War and Peace" in third. (For the record, do not recommend that course of action.) What I do recommend? Reading early and often with kids. Some of my happiest and earliest childhood memories are of reading in bed with my parents almost every night. With that in mind, I've decided my new go-to baby gift is membership in The Picture Book Club, which is, as far as I can tell, basically the Jelly of the Month club but for books. Sign me (and my hypothetical future progeny) up for the "Women Who Changed The World" subscription, please. 

- I think the reason I read so much from a very early age is that I was a very well-socialized but equally introverted child. It's a topic that I've seen addressed a lot lately, most recently in this way-too-relatable post a friend shared on Facebook about characteristics of the type. I can't even begin to express how strongly I identified with most, if not all, of the outlined traits...to the point that, even as I write this, I'm re-reading the list and aggressively nodding along in my cube. 

- In addition to reading literature that was targeted well above my age range, I also spent much of my childhood attending theatrical events and being exposed to classical music. I attribute my adult love of the arts entirely to my parents' focus on ensuring we were well-versed in that world from an early age - and that we knew how to behave there. This New York Times thought piece about children and their participation in the adult world of the arts could basically be a manifesto for how I intend to (someday, maybe) parent...just a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sitting behind a family of five at the opera and listening to the youngest, who couldn't have been more than seven, discuss the very mature themes of Thaïs with her mom during intermission. SIGN ME UP. 

the shakes

One of the weirdest things about my move to California is that it’s actually changed my dreams. Lately I’ve been having the most bizarrely realistic dreams about earthquakes – almost as if I’m having one of those dreams where I feel like I’m falling and actually wake up, but instead the world is shaking under my feet and I wake up feeling like I’m trembling. We haven’t had any real earthquakes – at least not strong enough to feel – but a coworker of mine told me that the easiest way to tell if there’s been a tremor is if the frames get crooked. I’ve noticed my gallery wall is off-kilter a couple times, and am choosing to attribute that to tremors (rather than to Dave’s/my tendency to slam our bedroom doors!).

The newest one, though, is about the hills. I’ve driven a fair amount in San Francisco over the past few weeks, and some of the hills are so steep that, at the bottom, all I can do is look up incredulously, laugh, and hope to God my Civic doesn’t crap out halfway up. The visual of houses going straight as we all tilt up is a complete mind-bender, one I don’t know that I’ll ever grow accustomed to.

For the last several nights, I've dreamed I was driving us (not sure who, but there are others in the car, of course) up one such hill, so tall and so unbroken by cross-streets that the top wasn’t visible from the bottom. We were going up and tilting at a more and more dramatic angle, and all of a sudden it was like the angle had gotten too steep for the car to handle. In the dream, we flipped straight backward and started just free-falling back down the hill, as if the earth itself had fallen away from us. I woke up actually shouting in panic last night and had to get out of bed for a solid twenty minutes in the middle of the night to calm myself down.

It’d be nice to be able to dream about, I don’t know, wineries and fresh-squeezed orange juice or something. I guess my insane subconscious has to remind me it’s not all sunshine and 75 degrees here, or something.

Ending on a funny note…

A few weeks ago when Jonathan was in town, we were discussing earthquakes on the way up to Napa with Tyler. Jonny was curious, so I explained it the way the aforementioned coworker had – that the regular quakes are seldom more than a 3 on the Richter scale, and that it takes about a 5 before people really feel it. From there, it exponentially increases – a 7 will “really rock things,” as she put it.

Jonathan, being Jonathan, immediately goes, “IT’S LIKE A DICK. You don’t feel 3 inches, but you notice it at 5 and a 7 will rock your world!” Tyler chimed in with the absolute mot juste: “It’s like the Dickter Scale!” I died laughing, and every time I think about that little exchange, nightmares about hills and quakes seem a lot less traumatic after all.

Bookworm: July 2017

“Did you ever want to be a writer?” “No,” she said, and she would have told him. “I only wanted to be a reader.” 
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

Loved: 

Commonwealth, Ann Patchett: The most gorgeously-written story of two dysfunctional families, and how their lives intersect through affairs, death, and heartbreak for over fifty years. I couldn't put it down - devoured it in a day. Highly, highly recommend.

A Manual for Cleaning Women, Lucia Berlin: I picked up this collection of short stories at one of my new favorite places in the Bay Area, Dog Eared Books in the Mission. The staff at Dog Eared slip handwritten notes into the inside covers of the books - jokes, reviews, recommendations and commentary - and I find that utterly enchanting. This was a fairly new foray into the world of short stories for me! I prefer to sink my teeth into a lengthy novel, but taking these bit by bit and reading one or two a day was a really fun way to experience the sparse, vernacular-driven writing. A book to nibble, rather than devour (unlike "Commonwealth!") 

The Opposite of Loneliness, Marina Keegan: "A Manual for Cleaning Women" got me on a short story kick, and I finally visited this collection, which was all the rage a couple years ago. The backstory is tragic: Keegan, a 2012 Yale creative writing graduate, was killed in a car accident just five days after her college graduation. Her parents, along with her Yale mentor, compiled her writing into this mesmerizing collection. I laughed out loud, cried, and at certain points had to reread sentences/paragraphs multiple times because they were just so evocative and gut-wrenching. If you haven't read this, do yourself a favor and read it, as soon as possible. 

Enjoyed: 

Rich People Problems, Kevin Kwan: The third book in the "Crazy Rich Asians" series, it made me laugh and was a perfect light beachy read for evenings with a glass of wine on the deck. The title kind of says it all - it was incredibly amusing and I really enjoy Kwan's bizarrely textured, totally foreign world. 

Tolerated: 

Nothing this month! How nice!

Re-reads: 

The Shadow Queen, Margaret Pemberton: I owned this book when I moved to California, but weirdly, I have no memory of actually reading it. I find Wallis Simpson (the woman for whom King Edward VII abdicated the throne back in the 30s) fascinating in a really weird way, but this novel left me kind of lukewarm. It's an easy read about a super interesting historical figure, but I think it could have been better.