Grappling with that erratic creature called Success

Whatever's clever.

I feel like a failure today. Like a Paul Giamatti-style failure in Sideways. Which sucks because I'm usually as effervescent as the other guy in Sideways, his best friend who goes to wine tastings with gum in his mouth and crashes cars to cover up mistakes and has no problem with Merlot or even white zinfandel for that matter.

Now I know I'm not a failure per se, and please don't have a seat at this table telling me I'm amazing because I know I am and I hate pity parties. But sometimes my pensive anxiety brims higher on certain days and today just happens to be one of them. I think the anxiety of an unwritten future is what plants that unsettling seed of self-doubt on my off days. (Do any of you feel like this sometimes??)

Anyway J says to hang in there and that "it comes in waves", this feeling of mine that emerges from being tied to no formal definition of success. And I do hang in there because on other days I feel more successful than I've ever felt before. Like I'm unstoppable, and my potential is endless. On these days, which usually outnumber the bad days, I have no dearth of self-esteem.

It's very much a ying and yang, black and white thing. I guess the real question is what is success (i.e., what is success to me)? And for that matter what is "success" to you reader-friends out there? Perhaps my problem is my definition of success is mercurial -- sometimes it can be enough to have just written a book or two (which I've done); other times it seems success should be more measurable, like in the form of a concrete publishing contract or a big house (neither of which I have).

Nevertheless today has been one of those days and usually a tall, lethally caffeinated cup of coffee can pull me out of said doldrums, but it's not working and now I have to ship out in a few minutes here and deal with annoying little gremlins children. (Can I just say after starting this part-time job that I fear for the future of this country?) Ugh, I'm turning into the Grand High Witch in Roald Dahl's "The Witches."

These...are the days of our lives

Breaking the news that we have to move.

Tomorrow is moving day. And as I sit here surrounded by boxes, using the last of my Internet before the Comcast Nazis shut it off at midnight tonight, I can't help but feel a little sad.

I'm used to moving. In the last five years I've lived at six -- yes, six -- different addresses including this one. Packing up and leaving is modus operandi for me though always a little bittersweet. But this time that sucrose savoriness lingers a bit more than usual and I have a sneaking suspicion that it's because this is where J and I started out as a married version of "us."

When we left the west coast with 16 boxes and the rings on our fingers we didn't know what would be in store over the next three years of our lives here. Would he survive law school? Would I survive law school? Would we get to take weekend jaunts over to Europe now that we lived on a closer coast and plane tickets had to be cheaper? (The answers to these questions, consecutively, are yes, yes, and no.) We still have four months left in the DC area, and I suppose this post would be better suited for when we leave for good, but we've lived at this address for two years and I think it deserves some accolades.

This apartment has been the setting for some pretty fabulous memories, including intimate fondue dinners and epic tickling wars, dinner parties, Friday movie nights (thanks, Netflix) and dancing with J to the Bee Gees after he'd get home late and exhausted from class and still make an effort to make me laugh, a testament to what a good man he is. Oh and it was also here where monumental arguments between us would take place, making Lola -- who's very sensitive to volume and tone -- cower under the dinner table in fear. (Don't worry, pup: You know as well as we do that these arguments always end in laughter over how ridiculous we're being.)

It was in this apartment where we first brought Moneypenny home after adopting her, where my sister (who stayed with us summer of 2008 for her internship) ended up sleeping on the floor of our bedroom for a month after barricading the doorway because she was terrified of cats. (Suffice to say, as obese as Moneypenny was she still cleared our tall cardboard box hurdle. Hilarity ensued.) This is where I was first introduced to the Wii (grr), the best Bordeaux I've ever tasted, and everything jurisprudence-related (whether I wanted to know it or not) as told to me by J. This is where I woke up on the morning of Obama's inauguration, when we walked from our front door down to and across the Memorial Bridge, so we could stand on the National Mall with thousands of others in freezing conditions to hear the man give his speech.

It was in this apartment where I first discovered what would become my overarching obsession: Mad Men. It was here where, when I'd finally had enough, I made a career decision that two years ago I never would have dreamed of taking. This is where I started my life over because I realized it was never too late to push the "reset" button. This is where I competed in (and won!) my first Nanowrimo. And this is where I finished my first novel:


Did I think we were going to stay here forever? Of course not. It's an Archstone for Christ's sake; the clientele is as variable as Madonna's next musical persona. And I know that everyone has sentimental, sappy memories woven within rental walls, but these are mine and they're worth noting before Comcast clips the end of an era.

Anyway, at this point in our marriage we are without a home, complete unknowns, like rolling stones -- which is all fine with me. J brought up a good point the other night: We've built our life to be completely mobile, to pack up and leave whenever we need to wherever our next destination is. I'm glad that I could happily agree.

I think I've mastered the art of never getting too comfortable in one place. You just never know when you'll have to leave. Some might find this sad or scary; others may find it exhilarating. I think of it more as the latter. Every time you move you're embarking on another adventure. Even though I'm married I'm still young, malleable and open to change, which is the way I've been for the last 27 years. I hope I stay open to forms of change for the rest of my life, because I think that's what rounds you out as a person. If I dug my heels in at every opportunity to remain status quo I wouldn't be as happy, and I'd miss out on things I never tried.

Take moving to DC. It was definitely not on my to-do list (I'd lived here before for a congressional internship and had had my fill then), but I came back because of J and though it isn't my favorite place in the world it also hasn't been altogether terrible. If I hadn't come back, for instance, I never would have realized that this is truly the land of the personalized license plate. If I didn't live here I would never get to be cut off by the pretentious Mister "MasGolf" in his navy blue BMW almost every morning on Constitution Ave. while taking J to school. Or, after getting cut off, inevitably find myself behind Mister "JoeBama" in the brand new yellow Beetle. Again, DC has not been horrible. It's just another place that's been filled with new experiences and new friends that have shaped who I am. Contrary to what J might think, I have no regrets.

(Well, okay, one teensy regret: I have yet to live in a foreign country. I mean really live, not study abroad or visit or anything like that. I hope this'll change later this year when, money and careers permitting, we take up living in Buenos Aires for August. Oh, how I want to be an ex-pat, even for short-term. *Crosses fingers.*)

Anyway, as I mentioned in an earlier post, to save money our last four months here we decided to discontinue cable at our new apartment (funny social commentary that we own a 42'' plasma television but no cable). Luckily I've found a few places online that stream the shows (probably illegally) I watch but it's not my fault that laws in Malaysia and India aren't as strict as ours. We'll have Internet, but only God knows when since J just contacted Comcast today about scheduling an appointment, meaning we'll probably be connected in, oh, about three weeks.

So, until we meet again -- quite possibly sooner than later using free WiFi at a coffeeshop -- I'm off to Silver Spring, Maryland in a Uhaul truck tomorrow in the region's second-biggest snowstorm this winter. Let the good times roll.

My first Work in Progress: COMPLETED!

Let it be known that at 10:10 pm, January 30th, Crystal completed her first first manuscript, entitled "In the Hall of the Mountain King," a literary fiction novel about an ex-Nazi doctor who flees to Buenos Aires after WWII to start a new life as a cab driver under an assumed identity.

She can't come to the computer right now because she's overwhelmed with excitement and yes, she realizes it's annoying to talk about herself in the third person, but feels she's earned it now that's she's finished an entire. bloody. manuscript. (!!!) (Finishing said manuscript also entitles her to use such British dialect as "bloody" in lieu of something more crass and unrefined. She is a lady, after all.)

It's true that the clouds didn't part and God didn't speak to her in the psychedelic trip she expected upon typing that final word. But she's still frolicking about in the snow right now, basically pulling these moves in a parka on the sidewalk to share her elation with passing traffic:



J has no comment.

Of course, she realizes that the easy part is behind her. Now the REAL work begins. John Irving once said that half of his life was an act of revision. She says let the revisions begin!

A New Way to Think About Creativity

When I first began writing my book, I often struggled with the creative process. Feeling pressure from all angles to prove myself in some way through my writing was eliciting results that I knew were sub-par for me. It was frustrating and I couldn't shake the feeling, and I knew I wasn't alone. No matter what career or hobby you pursue, there is pressure on all of us in today's world to come off as a genius or a bon vivant of whatever it is that you undertake, but that expectation can suffocate and stifle your creativity from pouring forth.

As I mused on this truth a few months ago, my friend Tami (a blogger/reporter by day, a fiction writer by night) over at Fete a Fete passed along a video of "Eat, Pray, Love" author Elizabeth Gilbert giving a talk on new ways to think about creativity.

I immediately loved Gilbert's lecture because she touches on so many truths about creativity that apply to whatever field of work you're in or whatever hobby you dabble in. The video is a bit long (2o min.), but if you've been feeling blah lately, prepare to be truly inspired:



After hearing her speech, I came to grips early on that I am not writing for other people. I'm not writing for success. The creative process of writing is what makes me feel successful. Now if that doesn't fall in line with what society deems "successful" than so be it. I've been writing for myself in these last few weeks and can already tell you the results are significantly better than before. I've now realized that the best thing I can do for my career and my creativity is to just "keep showing up". Every day. Same with you. Ole!