Caught myself smiling.
To think I thought forty was
an end. Shame on me.

Click here to be magically transported by sparkly single-mother unicorns.

For those of you who couldn’t make it:

This just in from my dear Kelly at The Reading Nest. Thank you, Kelly and ZenMaster B! Such a beautiful night that was. Beautifully, beautifully unlikely, indeed.

WWHOHD?

What would Hestia or Hera do?

Oh, these H-gals are on ON MY MIND. It turns out that Hestia, not Hera, is the goddess of hearth and home. Hera is the goddess of marriage, motherhood, children. But I am grooving hard on both of these goddesses, at the moment.

I realize I have not cleaned the cat litter box for some time. Some kitty litter is scattered beside it, and the trail extends into the hallway outside the bathroom. I swallow the unpleasant conclusion: Eli has been, er, helping me keep it clean. Ugh. Clearly, I am no goddess of the hearth and home—not yet—although I love home with a passion, and I pine for a hearth with the fervor of Hestia. I yearn for a lasting marriage like Hera, even with a husband that tosses a lightning bolt now and then.

After a scary start to the beginning of 2010, my health is under control now. Now I want to change that ‘l’ to an ‘r’. I want me some hearthy goodness, stat.

My mom dispatched a friend of hers to help me with the air conditioners yesterday, after I nearly careened down the front porch roof on my stomach, chasing a runaway AC unit I tried to install myself. I managed to drag the unit and myself back through the bedroom window, but not without scraping up my decolletage and yelling bloody murder for the entire neighborhood to hear.

As mom’s pal put in a new electrical outlet (whaaaa? really? it’s that easy? would you like me to do you now? bed or floor?) so Sophie’s air conditioner could be plugged in correctly (too hard to explain coherently), I again had that intense urge to bake or knit some gratitude for the guy. Bring him a dirty martini on a silver tray. Sew him a monogrammed hankie with a Jesus fish on it. (He is a God-fearin’ man, with a God-fearin’ wife at home to do these things for him, but still.)

You know things are changing for me if I am having intense urges to bake or knit or sew, or use a cocktail shaker. Well, maybe the cocktail shaker reverie is nothing new. I just don’t have one.

If Women’s Studies 101 was all about women’s choices, then my liberal education was perhaps not lost on me. I am simply entering a new phase of life that happens, on the surface, to resemble the 1950s. But my innards are totally 2010, full of dark smarts and bloody wisdom.

As I was on my belly on the roof two days ago, clutching the tail of the air conditioner—swearing like a beached sailor whose ship is disappearing into the distance—I realized I was idiotically willing to go down with the air conditioner, skull first, before I let go of it. I was not going to be That Woman: the woman who, without the assistance of a husband’s biceps, loses the air conditioner and dents the roof of her car with it, spectacularly.

I needed help, I really did. And I pretty much suck at asking for help. See: Exhibit A, Friends Who Can Attest to My Hermetic Existence When the Going Gets Rough.

I want a partner in this life, for the rest of my days, because that is how I roll. Like the German shepherds I’m so crazy about, I’m a one-person creature, at heart. My inner circle of friends is small, tight, loyal. Most of them are one-person creatures too, and they don’t judge. I have never been a socialite. I can stretch myself, sometimes, but it will never be my way.

I am tired of worrying about creative success, financial success. I am tired of worrying about books that never seem to get written, or—once written—never get published. I am tired of query letters. I am tired of trying to drum up freelance writing and editing work. I am tired of my successful-enough (except for air conditioner installments) independentish single life.

I want to make crazy swinging-from-the-ceiling love to a sweaty, grinning husband who’s just mowed the lawn, just weed-whacked our property into tiptop shape, and re-entered our home through the new back door he installed. I want to bake brownies for him and the kids, from scratch. I want to buy one of those little torchie things and caramelize the top of a creme brulee for him, for his birthday. I want to knit him warm Icelandic wool hats that I line lovingly with fleece. I want to clean toilets, I want to keep track of our social calendar, I want to mend tears before they turn into rips. I want to research the difference between lemon oil and Murphy’s oil soap. I want to help with the family business, whatever that might be. I want to send Christmas cards and birthday cards, on time. I want to plan wonderful trips that end with us sighing and happy to be back home, framing and hanging photos of our adventures on freshly painted walls. I want to do laundry for days, listening to love songs, humming dreamily, writing poems in my head, while all my former dreams of grandeur and fame fly away like dark birds and disappear into trees. I want to immerse myself in a warm, milky bath of gorgeously outdated gender roles. I allow myself these fantasies, now.

At 40, I will dream what I want, without fear of chastisement or scorn. Nobody went around dissing Hera or Hestia. Uh-uh. Hellz, no.

I want to wake up with someone again. More days than not. When the dog barks at something in the backyard at 3 a.m., I want someone with me when I go to investigate. The people who have truly seen me, really seen me in this lifetime, are for the most part the ones I’ve woken up with, gone to bed with, snuggled for hours. Sex is fun and fine, sure, but real intimacy lies in listening to someone’s slow, sweet breathing as he falls asleep beside me.

I am Hestia. The pumpkin bread is on the counter. All yours, honey.

I am Hera, hear me roar. Put away your lightning bolts, and let’s play.

But first, excuse me while I polish the banister.

At sunrise on June 22, 2010, I was in a hot-air balloon, floating serenely over Temecula, CA.

OH MY.

Best birthday of my life. Forward:

…for the first time ever.

And The Bachelorette will be in Iceland on my birthday, while I am in Southern California, taking a surfing lesson.

I am liking the beginnings of 40. Sure didn’t see this twist coming.

Wanna come to my birthday party?

The beach bonfire is SO happening. I IZ STOKED.

Email me or comment here if you want me to send you the details of when and where. Would LOVE the opportunity to meet dear San Diego blog readers and friends-from-afar! Talk about a great birthday present. Wow.

Cheers,
Jenn

This year is getting more peculiar by the minute.

So you know you know you KNOW that my plan had been to wake up in Iceland—somehow, some way—on my upcoming 40th birthday.

For Christmas, I got luggage for Iceland, maps of Iceland, Icelandic necklaces (2), and an Iceland refrigerator magnet. I learned the Icelandic word for “forward” (“afram,” thanks, Stine!). I was ready to ride Icelandic ponies and eat fermented shark and skinny-dip in hotsprings.

Funny thing happened on the way to Iceland.

Iceland will have to wait. Don’t cry for me, Icelandia.

This birthday I will be waking up in a place I never thought much about, never had much of an urge to visit. I will need sunscreen instead of sweaters, sandals instead of Uggs.

Fate is steering me heavily south and seriously west. San Diego, here I come.

It’s absurd. It makes no sense.

I am not ready to get into the hows and the whys. But I can tell you the whats:

The week of my 40th birthday, I am going to:

1) take a surfing lesson for the first time ever

2) go wine-tasting in Temecula

3) visit a haunted mansion

4) do an 11pm ghostly walking tour with EVP gadgets

5) eat BOATLOADS of sushi and real Mexican food

6) go parasailing for the first time

7) visit the San Diego Zoo after dusk

play with dogs on Fiesta Island

9) have a birthday bonfire on the beach, dressed as much like Annette Funicello as I can

10) allow my mind to be fully blown and delighted by the Unexpected

I. Can’t. Wait.

If you are in San Diego, and you might be interested in joining me for a birthday bonfire? Write me, dudes. Because that would be totally awesome. And rad. Not to mention gnarly.

I am so stoked.

And, wow, it sure feels good to be stoked.

On the Verge. Fanny Cranberry. The role I wanted. September 2010. Be there or be, you know, wherever you are. But I’ll be there.

I feel compelled to add a smiley face, so I shall:

That is all.