Pareidolia

2009-06-24T20:37:00.002-05:00

Intake

Batting aside the passive aggressive commentary from my boss, I left the office at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday for a nondescript "doctor's appointment." On the highway, I brainstormed answers to questions I thought I might be asked. "What brings you in?" "What do you hope to gain from this?" "What's different this time?"

Officially, this is my third engagement with a mental health professional.

The first time, I was 14. My family had just moved from St. Louis to Chicago. I'd spent a majority of the fall of that year sleeping a ridiculous number of hours per day, eating a ridiculous number of hours per day, and "falling in with the wrong crowd." My grades were appalling. I skipped classes all the time. I was sad...always. My mom set up an appointment for me with a very nice lady at the seminary she was attending. I canceled a lot of appointments in favor of hanging out with the wrong crowd, and eventually just stopped going altogether.

Shortly after I graduated from college, the same symptoms had recurred, only more severely. I started going to therapy again - gathered some strength, got some positive momentum going, got out of a relationship that wasn't going anywhere, moved into my own apartment, met someone new, and promptly stopped going to therapy. (My new therapist calls it "new boyfriend Prozac...happens all the time.") My therapist at the time made some weak protests when I explained how elated I was and how I didn't really think I needed to come see him anymore. (P.S. This really is the incorrect time to stop going to therapy.)

Take 3. Tuesday. Driving down 35W, I thought about how really, it had been a pretty good couple of weeks. Maybe I didn't need this after all. Maybe I just need a mentor or something. It's going to cost so much money. What have these engagements ever really done for me, anyway? While I sat in the waiting room, I flipped through the paperwork I'd filled out in preparation for my appointment. Over the past two weeks, how often have you felt "blue"? Had feelings of hopelessness? Lost interest in things you once enjoyed? Had difficulting falling or staying asleep? Had trouble concentrating? Poor or overindulgent appetite? I scanned my answers. Every day. Every day. Every day. Every day. Every day. Every day.

Oh, yeah.

She didn't ask me the questions I'd prepared answers to, but I physically shook as I answered the ones she did ask. She was upbeat. Real. Hilarious. Was more insightful in the first hour than other therapists have been in months while they watched me flounder around helplessly in a tepid pool of my own melancholy and charge me by the hour. If another dark-haired man with glasses says to me, "Tell me more about that," I may have a flashback and involuntarily punch him in the face.

No chance of that with this lady. #1: She's a lady. #2: She's the type who spots your bullshit, calls your bullshit, and/or shows you your bullshit. "See? Here's your bullshit. I've got it right here."

2009-06-07T11:04:00.002-05:00

06.07.09

Today is the one year anniversary of my wedding day. At approximately this time last year, I would have been sitting in the hair salon with five of the most important women in my life, two photographers, approximately a six gallons of hair spray and more bobby pins than I could possibly count (but that I would spend a substantial portion of my wedding night removing). There were butterflies in my stomach. Maybe they were small helicopters. At any rate, by the time I finally got into my wedding dress a few hours later, nervous vomiting was a very real possibility. My stomach remained in that state until the moment I saw Dan. At that moment, everything became calm. Clear. Grounded. Happy. When I took his hands and with all that I am, and all that I have, honored him as my life partner, everything else faded away.

I'd been warned to not expect my wedding day to be the best day of my life. It was the disclaimer at the end of almost every sentence, every advice book, etc. I have to say, though, that so far, my wedding day has been the best day of my life. It was beautiful, powerful and fun, and I shared it with a couple of hundred people who have seen me at my best and my worst. It was amazing beyond words.

People have a lot of advice about weddings, but they don't actually give a whole lot of it about marriage. I think I've come to understand that the reason for that is that no matter what state your marriage is in, it is a union bound in an experience that is beyond words. The reason that all those sitcoms about marriage are funny (arguably) is because a lot of those experiences have happened to a lot of people - but that's not what marriage is. There are certainly the every day annoyances of living with another human being - but that's not what marriage is.

In the first year, here is what I think I know:

1. Marriage is not something you ARE, it's something you DO. There used to be this billboard at an intersection near my office that said "What have you done for your marriage today?" It seems sort of silly. But it's true.
2. Marriage may change things, but it doesn't change people. Some people would probably argue with me about that one, but I think that's a function of deciding that marriage is something you ARE. If it's something you DO, you are doing it with the same person that you married in the first place. That is at once very comforting, and totally frustrating. That person comes with all the things you love about them, and all of the things that irritate you about them.
3. Because marriage is something you do, and because you are the same person you were when you married this other person, care of your own self is so crucially important. Lots of people seem to think that you naturally become this pod, particularly once children are introduced. That's great if you're into it - but really, there's no need to be a pod. You can be your own pea.
4. As a companion to #3, you must have things that you and your spouse do together. Make dates. Make up silly songs that you sing to one another. Plan trips. Don't have everything centered around what you "have to do." Don't forget about "want to do"s.
5. Don't get caught up in what's next. I think this is the hardest one for me. There are so many things that I want to do - with Dan and without Dan. The sitcom version of marriage (as well as the extended family version) is that you have kids next. Boy, does that ever make something that's already complicated even more so. If you want kids, great. If thinking about kids makes you really excited, but thinking about kids right now makes the tiny helicopters come back in a bad way, it can probably wait a bit.
6. Set aside time for state of the union discussions. Where you're at, where you're going, where you'd like to go. Every day life has a tendency to thwart those sometimes, but they're really important.

I'm sure there's much, much more. I'm only a rookie after all. I do know that after a year has gone by, seeing Dan's face at the end of the day is still my favorite thing. It's home. And it's great.

Happy anniversary, my love.

2009-03-07T13:26:00.003-06:00

A Facebook List Taken Too Seriously

Think of 25 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums, no matter what they were thought of musically, that shaped your world.

No particular order of preference or impact:

The White Album - The Beatles(1968)
I really like the Beatles. I’m not a person who believes that they could crap on a record and it would be gold, but I really appreciate their really good stuff. This album is really good stuff. I probably started listening to this in summer 1994, and haven’t stopped since.

Add It Up (1981-1993) - Violent Femmes
I had just moved to Chicago from St. Louis. My friend Jessi came to visit me in October, and for the whole of the visit she had “Blister in the Sun” stuck in her head. I hadn’t made any friends yet, so my musical tastes hadn’t grown much beyond our 8th grade obsessions with Naughty by Nature, House of Pain and the like. This is one of the albums that started the expansion.

Purple Rain - Prince (1984)
Prince is what pop music should be. I saw him live in 2003 or 2004…and it was awe inspiring. He plays any instrument you throw at him, seems to have a never ending supply of energy and changes costumes faster than a speeding bullet. Also, I married my sweetheart on his 50th birthday. We have this great picture of me in my wedding dress playing air guitar to the solo at the end of Let’s Go Crazy. Totally awesome.

Pretty Hate Machine - Nine Inch Nails (1989)
I had a Trent Reznor shrine in my room…a whole piece of wall dedicated to pictures of him. He’s still pretty damn hot. I can’t say NIN really made it past my teenage angst years – though they were present in a BIG way then. I wish my parents had taken pictures of the getups my friend and I wore to their concert in ’95…long fake nails painted a deep maroon, dark eyeliner, black lipstick…it was ridiculous.

Nevermind - Nirvana (1991)
I wasn’t one of the people who cried uncontrollably when Kurt Cobain died in 1994, but I did have a giant picture of his face on my bedroom wall, I remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard he died, and I still love, love, love Nirvana. All of it.

Automatic for the People - R.E.M. (1992)
I used to have a goal to own every R.E.M. album, but if I had to choose just one, this might be it.

Little Earthquakes - Tori Amos (1992)
A lot of things happened to Tori Amos before and since this album. She writes about all of them. It’s raw, unabashed and sometimes very strange. She does all of it while playing two or more instruments at once. I sort of fell off the Tori bandwagon after From the Choirgirl Hotel, but I’ll probably listen to her forever.

Singles (Soundtrack) – Various Artists (1992)
I was too young to really understand Singles when it came out (or Reality Bites or any of those 20-something angst movies), but I was just the right age to lust after the soundtrack. The best song Smashing Pumpkins ever wrote was on this album, it was my introduction to Paul Westerberg – it was the growing up, branching out mix.

Big Lizard In My Backyard - Dead Milkmen (1993)
I still laugh my ass off when I listen to Dead Milkmen.

Exile In Guyville - Liz Phair (1993)
Oh, Liz Phair. It was all downhill from here. Not any real talent, to speak of, other than being kinda raunchy. She’s one of the ladies that makes it okay for girls not to feel so guilty for feeling naughty, and it’s great. Well…it used to be great.

Last Splash - The Breeders (1993)
Lollapalooza 1994. My friend’s mom insisted on picking our 14-year-old-selves up at 7:00. We missed Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys and George Clinton. We did see L7, Nick Cave, A Tribe Called Quest, and The Breeders. This album is just so good.

Lincoln - They Might Be Giants (1993)
They Might Be Giants just make me happy. They’re smart and fun and make you feel like a big kid. I like that they’re so talented musically without making you feel like your insides might burst with how hard everything is. Do you have to take everything so effing seriously all the time? No. It’s exhausting. They are great, and probably one of the reasons why I wasn’t totally dragged down by all the sad sap and angst I listened to in the 90s.

Pussy Whipped - Bikini Kill (1993)
It took me awhile to come around to Bikini Kill. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to listen to a bunch of girls screaming – until I really listened, and I realized that I recognized that noise as the noise my insides made when violated by an unwanted touch, or made to feel stupid or powerless. This is that voice, taking the power back.

Siamese Dream - Smashing Pumpkins (1993)
This album came up recently in a discussion I had with a coworker about the album as a lost art. This is most definitely one of those – an art, in my opinion, that Smashing Pumpkins never ever got back.

Dummy - Portishead (1994)
I used to turn up the base, lie on the floor and just FEEL this music. It’s still fantastic for driving at night.

Live Through This - Hole (1994)
This album was my gateway to punk. I know the music snobs will snort at that, but it’s true. Lollapalooza ’95 – Beck, Sinead O’Connor, The Roots, Superchunk, The Jesus Lizard, Sonic Youth and Hole. Courtney had lost her voice, but did manage to scream obscenities at the people yelling “Courtney killed Kurt!” at her from the pit.

Dilate - Ani Difranco (1996)
Once in awhile, I’d fall for someone, and they’d never really get how hard. This album is dedicated to those folks. “think i'm going for a walk now/i feel a little unsteady/i don't want nobody to follow me/'cept maybe you/i could make you happy you know/if you weren't already/i could do a lot of things/and i do”.

Dig Me Out – Sleater-Kinney (1997)
My friend Mary got me into Sleater-Kinney in college. Both she and them were a staple of my college-going years. I’m sad that they’re no longer around – but what a great ride.

Surfacing - Sarah McLachlan (1997)
Oh, boy. So, I had it real bad for this guy in college. Real. Bad. For years. At least one person literally threatened to slap me. It was not meant to be. I still can’t help but think of him when I hear this album, but I also just really dig Sarah McLachlan.

When the Pawn… - Fiona Apple (1999)
Fiona loves and loses with the best of ‘em. Personally, I like it when she’s pissed about it, and when she LONGS for it. I’ll never get enough of this album.

Blacklisted - Neko Case (2002)
I never really got into Neko Case, no matter how many people told me how good she was. Then I saw her live. Everyone standing in the Main Room at First Avenue fell totally silent when she began to sing, and her voice filled the entire space. You know you’ve fallen in love with music when it gives you goosebumps and that queasy feeling in your stomach. “Chimney falls and lovers blaze/Thought that I was young/Now I've freezing hands & bloodless veins/As numb as I've become/I'm so tired/I wish I was the moon tonight”

Fever to Tell – Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2003)
I hadn’t heard the Yeah Yeah Yeahs before I went to see them at First Avenue with my boyfriend at the time, who swore by them. There was Karen O, writhing on the stage, tearing at her fishnet stockings, sometimes sort of singing, but mostly just talking or breathing or making noises into the microphone. It sounds totally crazy, and I’m not sure I can adequately describe this, except to say that this album makes me feel like sex incarnate.

Sevens Travels - Atmosphere (2003)
This album welcomed me back to hip hop when I was emerging from a few years of really losing track of myself, my needs, my wants, my everything. When I woke up, there was Minneapolis – and Atmosphere.

Want One - Rufus Wainwright (2003)
This album was the soundtrack for the first time I ever visited the North Shore of Minnesota, which, in and of itself, was life changing. In addition to being a tremendously talented lyricist, Rufus Wainwright paints you right into a musical in this album, complete with full orchestra. The

Undisputed Truth – Brother Ali (2007)
You know that lost art of the album thing I was just talking about? Brother Ali proved with this one that it’s not lost at all. What’s more, he may be the best talent in hip hop today, and he’s from right here in Minneapolis, which I love.

2009-03-07T10:43:00.002-06:00

The Entrepreneur

I'm mesmerized by a sculpture I walk past twice a week on my way to and from a class I'm taking on Friday afternoons. It's of a man, blindfolded, with a hammer in one hand and a chisel in the other. He's carving himself. His arm is raised to strike again at the rock that still comes up to his knees.

It's a powerful image - the notion of self-creation, without a road map - the self in progress. It speaks to what I would characterize as an overarching theme of my life - maybe even an obsession. This is my human condition, though it occurs to me that perhaps not everyone experiences life this way - in fact, that is a privilege to have the luxury of creating oneself, or that one might be perfectly content to live life without the constant agitation and unrest caused by a fascination with self-discovery and improvement. I suppose the piece is aptly titled and located: The Entrepreneur, standing in the courtyard of the College of Business at the University of St. Thomas. (Though my liberal, tree-hugging self loathes the association the title creates.)

I've been kicking around the idea of going to graduate school since 2001. I'm increasingly glad that I didn't jump straight from my B.A. into a random advanced degree, but now I'm just spinning my wheels, stuck in what I believe to be two distinct mud puddles:

1. FEAR. Including, but not limited to: fear of entrance exams; fear of rejection; fear of committing financial suicide; fear of being competitive with classmates; fear of making the wrong choice; fear, frankly, of leadership roles; fear of the time commitment and stress level, etc.
2. INDECISION. Once, I wanted an MFA in writing. Now that I've fallen in love with a young and growing nonprofit, and in dedicating myself to things that benefit other people directly, here are just a few degree considerations: Law; Business Administration; Public Policy; Nonprofit Management; Organizational Leadership; Public Administration

Or any combination of at least two of the above, likely requiring three years of full-time academics.

It's a funny thing about the sculpture I mentioned...you're not worried that the man is going to miss and take out a chunk of his leg. He has no obvious deformities indicating that he has ever missed. The self is. There's not "wrong". There just is. Your self. Your creation. What you do, and what you don't do.

I went out for drinks with two dear friends of mine after class yesterday, and we discussed this concept. How more often than we would like, our drive for ideas and accomplishments we'd like to make is thwarted by fatigue after a hard day at work, or by other priorities that come up, or by television. In an ethics class we took several weeks ago, we discussed the difficult decision of whether you continue toward your goal at any cost, or whether life happens and your goal is changed.

Do you strike again, or do you stand still?

Why is that even a question?

2009-02-22T17:16:00.004-06:00

Namaste

Back in October, I started realizing that my comfortable married life was slowly but surely showing up on my waistline. It had been a happy, but stressful year of buying a home, planning a wedding and welcoming a puppy to the family, and one of my favorite ways of treating stress is with sugar in all of its various forms. Pants were tighter. Shirts were shorter. Worse yet, I’d stopped running.

I love to run. It makes me feel beautiful and powerful and centered – nearly invincible. I love sweating, feeling my lungs expand, wind on my face and blood pumping through my veins – all capped off with a euphoric surge of energy, not unlike orgasm. Last year, for whatever reason, I’d forgotten about all of that. So, one October afternoon, I decided it was time to get back to it. I’d run for just ten minutes today, ten minutes tomorrow…start slow, not push it. I strapped on my running shoes and hit the sidewalk. The enjoyment of this renewed pastime was interrupted by a rhythmic noise in my left knee every time my foot hit the pavement – click, click, click, click. This was no good. I continued for the full ten minutes, rationalizing that I wasn’t feeling any pain. The next day it was a little sore, but I soldiered through a second ten minute run with the same soundtrack – click, click, click. The day after that, I’d characterize my knee as in pain. No real swelling to speak of, just soreness. I decided I probably needed new shoes, to lose some weight and to do something less impactful for awhile. I got a gym membership and started the elliptical instead, with some soreness from time to time, and late last month, finally broke down and went to my sports medicine doctor. He diagnosed me with patellafemoral pain, said that my knee was in good shape and referred me to a physical therapist. He also encouraged me to pick up some core strengthening exercise, like yoga.

Yoga. Blah. I’d tried yoga videotapes before and had been unimpressed. I found it difficult to relax enough to enjoy it, found the hippie music and skinny, ridiculously flexible chicks sort of irritating. Plus, given the fact that I didn’t even break a sweat while doing it, it didn’t feel like it was worth much of anything. Give me a good runner’s high any day over that snoozefest.

So somewhat reluctantly, a friend and I went to a yoga class this morning at the gym. A smiling, skinny, ridiculously flexible woman demonstrated child’s pose – knees bent, buttocks to heels, arms extended on the floor in front of you. Her voice was warm, accented, calm as she described the breathing process, encouraged to pay special attention to our emotions with each movement and release them in order to be fully present in the moment.

For the next hour, I really did let go. At the end of the session, sitting in our original pose, our palms pressed together in front of our chests, our instructor wished us hearts full of sunshine – in front of our lips, words of compassion – in front of our foreheads, joyful hearts. I was so relaxed - so calm and at peace – that those emotions I had been letting go of through each pose streamed down my face in tears. It was nothing short of a spiritual experience, not unlike the feeling of sitting in a church sanctuary, surrounded by others in total silence. Release.

This must be what people see in yoga. Different from the power and solitude of running, and in some ways, the exact opposite. Namaste – the light in me honors the light in you.

I think I'll be back next Sunday.

2009-02-21T16:05:00.004-06:00

Winter

Let's face it. Things have never been quite right between us.

We've been seeing each other again for awhile now - since...what? November? A solid four months, anyway. I guess I was glad to see you, at first...but I never miss you. Isn't that strange? I never miss you.

We've had some good times. I have to admit, I loved seeing my puppy play with you for the first time...I even made a special effort this year, braving temperatures and conditions I would have ordinarily avoided just to watch her hopping through snow banks, sliding around on the ice, leaving tiny footprints behind her all over southwest Minneapolis. Or that moment, snowshoeing up on the Superior Hiking Trail - the silence, the solitude, the beauty. I thought we really had something this time.

But I'm tired.

Tired of waking up in the dark and driving home from work in the dark. Tired of layers upon layers of clothes that keep me barely warm enough when I'm outside and overheated when I'm inside. Tired of having plans ruined due to inclement weather. Tired of the sharp precursory frostbite pains in my fingers and toes. Tired of the extra weight that seems impossible to lose. Tired of risking my tailbone just to walk down the street and my life every time I get behind the wheel of a car. Tired of you hanging white-knuckled from my windowsill, creeping in through the imperfections in the original windows and breathing frigid air down my neck. Tired of shoveling, and shoveling, and shoveling.

So I'm asking you to go. Quickly. Quietly. I may be happy to see you again, but I won't miss you.

2009-02-11T17:20:00.002-06:00

This Is Our Country.

I work for a nonprofit organization. Lots of people have a lot of misconceptions about what that means, exactly, but what it means to me is that every day, I get up to go to work for something I believe in that benefits people other than myself – though I do, directly and indirectly, experience benefits as well. I’m paid. I have fantastic fringe benefits. I have amazing coworkers. I am inspired and humbled by the young people we serve. And every year, about this time, I get to read dozens and dozens of applications from people all over our great nation who are interested in dedicating a year of their life – and in many cases, two years - in service to their country through community organizations. They make virtually no money. They have virtually no fringe benefits. All they want is to be a part of something that helps someone else.

I’ve been reviewing these applications for quite a few years now – but this year, it’s a little different. People from all over the country – not just Minnesota, not just the Twin Cities – are applying for national service here. Some of them are married. Some of them have kids. Some of them were the first in their families to attend college and are now completing Masters’ programs. Some of them are a few or several years out of college. Cynics will chalk it up to a lousy economy. I chalk it up to our President. They have heard the call to service and they have answered it. “I am asking you to believe, not just in my ability to bring about a real change in Washington, I’m asking you to believe in yours.”

It’s one thing to hope. It’s one thing to be asked. It’s quite another, as many AmeriCorps members will tell you, to live on less than $11,000 per year. But they do it. Without complaint, and without remorse. This year, as I wade through application after application of diverse, highly qualified, highly motivated, and highly inspired individuals applying to work with my organization, I am moved from hope to belief in my fellow citizens, in my country and in my President. Or, as one of my coworkers so succinctly put it: “People were skeptical, but the world really did get better over night when Obama took office.”

My Pareidolia

2008-12-16T18:30:00.001-06:00

2008-11-13T09:44:00.002-06:00

24

One of my coworkers downloaded her recently acquired Covey-style time management skills to a group of us in a meeting yesterday. She started with the basics:

1. There are 24 hours in a day.

Yep, got it.

2. It is up to you what you do with them.

...Okay...I guess...

3. What are your priorities?

Uh....

4. Are you making time for them?

Er....

Based on the fact that Stephen Covey is a gazillionaire, I'm guessing that I'm not the only one who struggles with this. For me, it's not an efficiency issue - it's the priorities and balance issue, particularly in my personal life. It's not even that I don't know what my priorities are, it's that I sacrifice them too readily for other people, or worse, for my own, wallowing self. Periods of wallowing may last from hours to months at a time. This last stint I would estimate to have been severe for the last seven months.

The aforementioned coworker went on to say that the man who was leading her training takes himself out to coffee every Saturday morning and organizes himself for the coming week. He looks ahead at his professional and personal calendars, things about what needs to happen in the coming week, and then everything gets a priority number (1, 2 or 3) and a sub-priority number (A, B or C).

As a 23 year old, I would have found this ludicrous. Not the coffee part. Just the organizing part. When myself was my number one priority, all of this seemed easier. With a house and a husband and a demanding job with hopes of moving up some sort of ladder, it's harder - particularly with my caretaking tendencies.

So, I'm giving this new thing a shot.

Being the advocate for the separation of work/life that I am, I plan to break these into two planning sessions: one focused on professional tasks on Friday afternoons before I leave work for the week, and a second for personal items on Saturday mornings before my husband wakes up.

Professional seems easy enough. I'm already a high-performer at work - it's possible that this tool will even prove itself obsolete or counter-productive. (Please disregard the fact that I am currently blogging at work.)

Personal may, in fact, need to be broken down into those tasks that are really just work at home (i.e. cleaning, yardwork, home improvement, grocery shopping, meal planning, etc.) and things that are really just for me...I think they were called "priorities" above (i.e. writing, exercise, calling a friend or family member, planning to get out of my house, etc.).

In some ways, it seems ludicrous to use this system to manage my motivation to do things that actually make me feel fantastic. On the other hand, it certainly can't hurt.

Also, this is Minnesota and winters are long - if you're not careful, they'll getcha.

2008-11-04T15:49:00.002-06:00

#438

The line stretched the width and most of the length of the school. A man donning the coveted "I Voted" sticker pointed at my feet and said "When I was standing at that spot, I had an hour and a half left to wait." I smiled at him, and refused the bait to become irritated. He joked that he was running off to get a mobile coffee bar to park across the street and make his fortune. A few minutes later, someone suggested selling a spot in line to another voter. Ah, America.

I silently cursed myself for not having brought a camera. How will I remember each detail of this experience? How will I tell this story to my children?

An hour and a half later, I read his name on the ballot and carefully traced the appropriate oval before filling it in as completely as possible. The ink spilled dutifully out of my pen. I read his name again. Imprinted its presence on the page on my brain.

This. Is. Happening.

Choice. Hope. Change. Possibility. Challenge. With hundreds of my fellow citizens, I chose.

The woman at the ballot machine held stubbornly to my sticker until the count had changed from 437 to 438, then smiled at me and released it.

I Voted.

Now we wait, with bated breath.

2008-09-26T08:52:00.004-05:00

"You're not religious, are you?"

It's delivered in an accusatory tone, as though the correct answer is obviously no.

I hear this question on a regular basis, usually after someone I don't know very well has said something offensive about God, Jesus, religion, fellow human beings, etc. It makes me instantly defensive, and I almost always trip all over myself trying to figure out what to say. If I quickly rearrange the wording of the question and remove the implied value judgement, the question is "Are you religious?", the answer to which is yes. But that's not the question. The question is "Are you one of those crazy right wing fundamentalist nutjobs that forwards a lot of email about God and country and believes that everyone is going to hell (most specifically gays and people who don't believe exactly the same thing as you do) and that children should pray in public schools and that we should ban certain literature from all libraries and that life begins at conception and abortion is murder?" The quick and dirty answer to that question is no.

In any case, if I ignore the value judgement and answer yes, I usually either find someone apologizing and then continuing to explain how they think that religious people are crazy and then go to great lengths to describe their nuanced views while I nod and smile and they incorrectly assume that I have no nuanced views because I've described myself as "religious." That, or they immediately shut down as though there's no reasoning with me and this is just something we shouldn't talk about.

If I say "no", or try to dig more deeply into the question, I get myself into trouble. First, because that answer isn't true. Secondly, I don't always feel up to explaining myself and serving as the singular voice of all Christians in the world (which is akin to someone asking me to speak for all White people in the world, or all women in the world, or whatever). My family has a long and complicated history with the Lutheran church in particular, which has profoundly affected my relationship with the institution, and is not something I generally wish to discuss in everyday conversation, particularly when dealing with someone who is more interested in polarizing than talking with me.

Despite what anyone may see on TV or hear from one of our vice presidential candidates, I am not going to pull a Bible out of my back pocket and start proselytizing or speaking in tongues if you tell me you're not religious, or if you take the Lord's name in vain, or if you use profanity. I would, however, appreciate the same respect in return.

2008-09-24T09:03:00.007-05:00

The Obama Effect

I'm addicted to basically all forms of political media these days. It's like that Blue Cross Blue Shield commercial with the funny dancing buttless white guy, which for whatever reason I am totally mesmerized and endlessly amused by. The political addiction thing is much more of an emotional rollercoaster, with much less of a guilty pleasure quality and more of an intense sense of global impact and personal responsibility.

One of my earliest political memories is going to see the Reverend Jesse Jackson speak when Dukakis ran against Bush, Sr. in 1988. This was at the height of his influence in the 1980s, before time and exposure did what time and exposure seems to do to many public figures (particularly if they are Democratic, and perhaps even more particularly if they are people of color). It was at a church in St. Louis and, characteristically of all of virtually all my surroundings prior to the age of 18, my family and I were the racial minority in the room. I remember the sounds and smells of the room, the extreme tardiness of the guest speaker and the definite sense that something very important was happening. In a generation that was, at the time, removed from Kennedy assasinations, men on the moon and "I was [HERE] when..." events, it was a formative experience. In the years that followed, I would volunteer with my parents to complete mailings for various local, state and federal candidates for office, attend candlelight vigils for victims of gang violence, help operate a hot lunch program for the homeless, attend cross-denominational inner city church services and other (dare I say it) community organized events and efforts, all of which were accompanied by a profound sense of accomplishment, involvement and responsibility.

It is perhaps for this reason that when Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president, I cried from the moment that he walked on stage until the moment he walked off. Not only because of the content of the speech, though I am among those who believe that the government exists by the people and for the people and that people are inherently good, but because his candidacy represents so much to me. It is not insignificant that there is a very real chance that he will be the first Black president, and I feel priviledged to have lived to see such a day. Even more powerful, however, is the promise that his campaign brings to restore what the Bush administration and others have stolen from our great country, which is the responsibility of our fellow citizens to be involved, informed and engaged - not just for the good of themselves, but for the good of their fellow citizens. By contrast, after 9/11, while people were lining up around the block to give blood and searching actively for ways to help their country in distress, our President told them to go out and shop.

It's perhaps also why I find myself so incensed to discover people living in my country who truly buy the "every man for himself, pull yourself up by your boot straps" mantra of the Republican party. MPR ran a piece yesterday morning on the role of race in the presidential election. I suppose I should have expected to hear about this sooner, but I guess the chicks have taken center stage up to this point. For Barack, as the election draws closer, it's time for the "Bradley effect" to be on the lips of media pundits, and much less flattering terms among the less educated and/or more bigoted. Named for Tom Bradley, an African-American who lost the 1982 California governor's race despite being ahead in voter polls, the Bradley effect refers to a tendency on the part of white voters to tell pollsters that they are undecided or likely to vote for a Black candidate, when, on election day, they vote for his/her white opponent. It has a name. What's maybe the most disturbing is not the guy talking to a national reporter and using racial slurs to describe Barack Obama, but the possibility that all of the momentum of this campaign - the signs, the shirts, the crowds, the hope, the content - might be sabotaged because of White people who are silently terrified of Black people. Particularly since, back on the blatant racism front, some states seem to be so amazingly adept at "losing" votes and getting away with it.

These are the sorts of things that make my eternal optimism falter. I wish I could vote a million times for every microsecond that someone who would vote for Barack Obama if they didn't know what he looked like thought about not doing it because they do know. I wish that everyone felt the same responsibility to the health and welfare of all of the citizens of this country as I was raised to have, and that Barack Obama's campaign wants to make sure everyone has the ability to act on. Instead, I'm hoping the revolutionary policy and infectious enthusiasm overcomes all of the pressure to repeat the past that the media seems intent to inflict. I hope it inspires people past inspiration into action.

2008-07-25T16:03:00.002-05:00

Carbon Footprint

I did a personality inventory for a leadership institute I participated in last year. One of the insights into my INTJness was that I often set high, unrealistic goals for myself.

Unrealistic, maybe. Unattainable? Nah.

On Wednesday, after weeks of "shoulds" and "coulds", I bit the bullet. At 7:00 a.m. I got up, packed a change of clothes and a lunch, ate a nutritionally balanced breakfast sandwich and marched right past my Honda Civic to my garage. I strapped on my bike helmet and wheeled my bicycle to the edge of my driveway - ready, able, willing. "St. Paul's not so far from Minneapolis." "I've run 13 miles, I can certainly bike them."

Here's where I failed to recognize my limitations.

Limitation #1: I have no sense of direction.
Limitation #2: I ride a $75 Target mountain bike.
Limitation #3: I've spent much of the last 5 months avoiding exercise and slowly losing all muscle mass.

When I finally hit the Midtown Greenway after 30 minutes of biking around Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun, I thought to myself, "You know, you could just turn around right now and bike back home, shower, and still get to work by 9:30 a.m." But myself would not admit defeat after just 30 minutes. I pedaled and pedaled and huffed and puffed. I saw Midtown Global Market loom above me and thought, "Seriously? I'm not closer than that?"

Then, the moment of true error, when limitation #1 became truly evident. I crossed, with some difficulty, the fabulous yet amazingly steep bike/pedestrian bridge over highway 55. At the end of it, I had one of those moments where your instincts gnaw at you, trying to tell you something that you just can't quite put your finger on. Rather than pause a moment to figure out what this might mean, us INTJs just keep going. In my particular case, at this particular bridge, I turned left rather than right. Someone with a sense of direction might say west rather than east (or north rather than south, I honestly am still not sure). In so doing, I undid a fair amount of the good, hard bicycling work I'd accomplished in the preceding hour. When I finally did stop to acknowledge my grave mistake, I was in downtown Minneapolis - a solid 7 miles from my final destination. A brief cell phone call to my bike savvy friend ended with instructions to bike south (or right) down the River Road to Franklin. Except that there's a big fallen highway bridge between the Guthrie and Franklin on the River Road. So I walked my bike up to Washington Avenue, hopped on and rode the Washington Avenue bridge through the University campus to the East River Road, and biked that back up to Franklin, to University Avenue, to work.

Precisely two hours after having left my house on a wing and a prayer, I had made it. I had not used any gas. I had not spent any money. I changed out of my sweaty clothes, brushed my hair, donned some pit paint and sat down at my desk, in an amazingly good mood. After recounting my story to some coworkers (who responded with harmonious choruses of "You know what you should have done?..."), one of them offered to drive me part of the way home. I refused, not wanting to give up that easily. The ride home was much less eventful, much prettier, and much more direct. I arrived home just over an hour after leaving my office feeling accomplished, fantastically exhausted and ravenously hungry. I kissed my husband and headed for the shower, ready to do it again next week.

2007-09-18T20:07:00.000-05:00

Summer of Love

How time flies when you're attending wedding related events. Effective next Sunday, I will have been to 5 ceremonies and accompanying receptions, 2 showers, 2 bachelorette parties, 2 engagement celebrations, 2 gift openings, 1 rehearsal dinner and a side of baby shower (served fresh with a game where you had to consume and identify mystery baby food, which, for the record, is vomitous, particularly in "meat" form).

Prior to this summer, I could have counted the weddings I'd been to on one hand. At a recent engagement celebration, I was chatting with one of my newlywed friends about how life has, rather abruptly, changed from what it looked like just 2 years ago. All sorts of weddings and babies and home buying and grad schooling...and we never even saw it coming. (Okay, sometimes we did.)

At any rate, all of these events have been fantastic for several reasons. First, research. Notes include asking attendants and guests to please turn off their phones; making sure everyone eats something to avoid the bride or groom needing to sit down in the middle of the ceremony; making sure not to be daunted by things that make our wedding ours, no matter how much other people protest; remember the marriage license; register for much more stuff than you think you should but not for stuff you'll never use; etc. Second, weddings are so fun. Eating, drinking, dancing, laughing, crying...it's unreal. Third, each event has been totally appropriate and amazingly reflective of the couple getting married, and that is so beautiful. I CAN NOT WAIT.

We've spent a fair amount of time thinking about and planning our wedding this summer, as well. One of the stranger phenomena I've encountered are all of the different message boards - some for people who aren't even engaged, but plan to be one day (scary, scary wedding industrial complex) and some for wedding withdrawl - "what to do when you realize that the biggest party of your life is over". Ick. What if it's just begun?

2007-06-28T14:42:00.000-05:00

Repost

This happened two years ago today.

Tuesday Night Dating

I've strategically placed myself at the bar 30 minutes prior to the scheduled rendezvous time. I prefer to be approached, rather than approach - take time to observe, occupy, own the space. I sit close enough to the door to circumvent excessive aimless wandering. A courtesy to a complete stranger who knows me by face, name and generic 20-something MySpace profile. Why do I subject myself to these situations? In the first place, Bryant Lake is on my list of places never to go on a first date because of the delusory quality of the lighting, which has virtually the same intensifying effect as alcohol on attraction - mix the two together and you've got double trouble. I guess since it's still daylight it's okay. But also, how many horrifying situations do you have to put yourself through before you learn your lesson about going out with someone you don't already know? Ugh. Maybe I should just go home. Or maybe it'll be worth it. The last half-hour before a first date has to be one of the most agonizing things ever - the excitement, the optimism, the possibility...the fear, the dread.

At least the people watching is good. There's a - what? - 9-year-old having a birthday party with her family at the table next to mine. Mom's painted her lips red for the occasion. She's completely aware of how cute she is. She opens up a box to find a whole slew of those "Groovy Girl" dolls and accessories and lets out a dramatic "thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!" Without any responsibility or agenda to back up the sincerity, it sounds strangely artificial. Still, she's just barely still young enough to have it count as adorable. There's a baby sitting in a high chair across the room from me. It's strange to see babies out in bars now that they don't risk asphyxiation from smoke inhalation. She's so cute that I can't help but smile at her. She smiles back and it makes my heart (& uterus, for that matter) ache.

I'm running out of things to write about. Maybe I write because I'm a fidgeter. I couldn't just sit here with nothing to do for half an hour. Should have brought a book...but here he comes...and oh boy.

2007-06-26T22:15:00.001-05:00

Al Sits Here

If this couch could talk, I'm only aware of things it might say about the last two years or so. Before that, it belonged to a friend, and I'm told has had something of a sordid past. It's the couch that Dan and I shared our first kiss on. And now, thanks to the beauty of the "free" section on minneapolis craigslist, it will be intricately involved in the future of politics. As intricately involved as a couch can be. That's right. Our couch, perhaps even now, is on its way to its new home at Al Franken's senate campaign headquarters. We were even encouraged by the very friendly, somewhat hippy man who came to pick it up to come to the kickoff picnic. Enjoy, Al and company! Awesome.

2007-06-12T17:46:00.001-05:00

Flushed Away

My grandmother gave me a necklace for my golden birthday. It was my name, written in gold, with a peridot dangling from the end. At 8 years old, it was perhaps the fanciest thing I had ever owned, but sadly, its fate was not to become an heirloom. See, I drop kind of a lot of things in the toilet. When my necklace fell into the toilet that fateful day, not long after I’d received it, I was too squeamish to go in after it, and too shy to retrieve a parent. (Hm. That makes you think twice about having kids.) Years of experience have curbed the nausea a little bit, but I still get shivers down my spine and wash my arms practically up to the pits whenever I’ve gotta go in. The usual suspects: hairbrushes (too big to flush); makeup; maybe a hairdryer now and again, etc. Every time it happens, I think about the necklace that I didn’t rescue.

Why, just this afternoon, I was fumbling to get out of the bathroom stall at work (which is impossibly small and whose door opens inward so that you practically have to be in the toilet yourself to get out of there), purse in hand, and somehow I lost my grip and *SPLASH* went my purse, right into the toilet as the final flush funnel swished around the bowl.

You can’t make this stuff up.

I used a paper towel to minimize the drippage, and carried my purse the 75 feet or so back to my office, held as far away from me as I could get it. I explained to my office mate what had happened as I grabbed two plastic bags from my filing cabinet and started going through the purse contents to salvage what I could. Thankfully, it seems the purse got the worst of it. I finished my sorting, calmly but quickly went to the sink and resisted the urge to bathe in it, and went about my day.

Which, by the way, started with me almost knocking myself unconscious on the kitchen counter in my office. But that’s a story for another day.

2007-05-31T16:50:00.001-05:00

Reread

I've been something of a young adult literature junkie lately, fueled in part by my book club's decision to lay off the "heavy stuff" for the summer. On our list for the next couple of months are (among others): The Phantom Tollbooth, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, Bridge to Terabithia, The Neverending Story, and my pick, Harriet the Spy.

I was unable to contain my excitement to read Harriet the Spy again, so I did so this weekend. When I was younger and obsessed with writing, Harriet was one of my heroes. In elementary school we had a dress-as-your-favorite-fictional-character day, and I came in full spy gear, right down to the spiral notebook and thick rimmed glasses without lenses.

It's a bummer when heroes fall.

On the reread, something became glaringly obvious to me that wasn't so before. Harriet is terrible. She's dreadfully spoiled and insists on everything being just so all the time. She writes horribly mean things about people. She does horribly mean things to people.

Maybe it's not her fault. Her parents are the antithesis of involved with her, being too busy with high society to raise her themselves. Her nurse is a bizarre mixture of almost completely emotionally inaccessible, lofty and from humble beginnings that, in the end, she can't seem to leave behind.

Virtually all the children Harriet goes to school, and indeed all the other characters in the book, are of similar backgrounds to her, with the exception of her best friend and the people she spies on. It would be one thing if she learned from these characters, but in the end it seems all she can do is make crass generalizations and mean observations of all of them. Even when confronted with how her spying might harm other people, she simply continues on in the same manner as before. The only resolution is other people forgiving her, after she essentially lies about being sorry for hurting others' feelings.

Children's literature is amazing to read as an adult, but what you glean from it is remarkably different.

2007-05-25T15:07:00.000-05:00

Eau de Prince.

2007-05-25T12:36:00.000-05:00

Stop.

At a staff meeting this morning, our CEO urged us to take a moment over the long weekend to slow down, appreciate where we've come in the past year, and be proud. This job is so fast-paced that sometimes we move so fast that we don't stop and look around, and we just go on to the next thing. Last weekend, as I mentioned, I gathered with more than 1,000 low-income youth as they celebrated academic success and the transition from high school to college. Anyone who came from a low-income urban community can tell you that this is unheard of - both because academics are decidedly not cool, and because inner-city public schools are not always, but often, worlds of "can't". Anyone who came from a low-income community and went on to college can tell you that it transformed their life. Anyone who made that accomplishment without support can tell you that it would have made a tremendous difference. Every day this is where I go to work. Almost every day I hear about students who were told "can't" and said "Oh yeah? Watch me."

Stop.

Yesterday was a good running day. I've struggled to get into the gym because it's been so beautiful outside and there are three lakes within running distance of my new apartment. I pushed myself to go to the gym, pushed myself to run 10 minutes longer than I'd originally intended, pushed myself to do a wind sprint at the end. As I walked through the parking lot, I felt a surge of happiness travel from my heart to the tips of my fingers to the tips of my toes. I love to run. Ten years ago, I would never even have thought about it. I would have turned my nose up and figured out a way to say "can't".

Stop.

Dan has this very profound and sort of bizarre effect on me. It happened almost immediately after we started dating - I'd feel happy about something, and then I'd start to cry. I still do it. I realize how happy I am, and I start to cry. This is a complicated thing, partly related to the fact that I am afraid to be happy. When we got engaged, I would tell people, "It's fun!" What I meant was, "I am SO happy," but to my recollection, I'd never really said that before and meant it in that way. There'd always been a caveat, or something new to worry about because of the happy thing, or an inability to express pride or joy in something, to own it. In fact, I will sometimes go out of my way to be unhappy - to invent or create something to obsess and be miserable about. No one knows this better than Dan, and he is infinitely patient and reassuring at every turn, no matter what, and it has taught me so much. In those moments of true happiness, when my eyes fill up with tears, I imagine this tendency of mine flowing out of me, so that someday soon it will be all gone.

Stop.

2007-05-23T15:39:00.001-05:00

Procrastination

June is a veritable minefield of deadlines, dangerously obscured by a thick haze of donor and potential donor mailings. And yet here I sit, feeding my new addition to Google Calendar, researching bachelorette party options for my sister (e.g. horseback riding. According to the Minnesota DNR, “A horse is defined in rules, at 6100.0500 Subp. 5h. Horse. "Horse" includes a horse, mule, donkey, llama, alpaca, or other ungulate or ruminant that is used to transport people, equipment, or materials.”), and brainstorming excuses to leave so that I can go get my drivers’ license updated and/or go to the gym.

This sort of procrastination is bound to lead to a frenzied and stressful June, and yet I am unable to motivate myself to write any more donor solicitations or stare at any more federal grant guidelines. I’m perfectly capable of spreading work out so that it doesn’t pile up and become insurmountable, I just am disinclined to do it at this juncture. It could be that I’m long overdue for a significant break from work. It could be that I’m genuinely disinterested in the work that I’m doing. It could also be that I actually enjoy the rush of pushing the envelope on deadlines.

Work is insufferably boring sometimes.

2007-05-22T11:36:00.000-05:00

Panty Ranty

A couple of weeks ago on SNL, Weekend Update did held a "debate" about the use of the word "panties". Amy Poehler held the position that it was a derogative and exploitative term - one more culturally ingrained tool in ongoing sexism and objectification of women. Seth Meyers dismissed this argument, saying that it didn't really matter, and suggesting the word "manties" be used to replace "underwear" for men.

I know quite a few people who despise the word "panties". It's right up there with the word "moist". Something about the way the word rolls off the tongue is capable of inflicting nausea on not less than 5 people that I interact with on a regular basis.

I've never had the same reaction. I use the term freely and indiscriminately to refer to both men and womens' undergarments, much to the dismay of my fiance, who insists that he does not, in fact, wear "panties".

But that's neither here nor there.

Despite (and perhaps because of) my post secondary education in cultural studies, comparative literature and semiotics, I find these sorts of arguments for the most part to be rather fruitless and immaterial. That is, until I sit in front of the "Today" show at the gym and watch as women's underwear is paraded around, so that we can be sure to know how to feel our most beautiful by choosing the proper undergarments for our naturally imperfect selves. Mannequins donned bras, panties, and supportwear which were then sported by fully dressed models, so that you could see how fabulous they looked in their $80 bras and $50 panties. The segment had to have been on for a full 5-7 minutes.

That's when you know that it's all true.

I had to give them credit for using regular sized women, instead of ultrathin supermodel types. Nevertheless, there were "panties", right on stage, for the whole world to see. Then they'd bring the models out so that you could see how their breasts look in a certain bra, or how certain underwear can lift and pad your butt. These women wandered around the stage for the express purpose of people staring at the regions of their bodies covered by their underwear.

I'd have to argue that the time and place for this is not on a national morning "news" show. It's also glaringly obvious that NBC certainly wasn't going to parade men around the stage to see how different types of men's underwear looks once pants are on, having millions of viewers ogling their genitals.

I may have to swear off the word "panties".

2007-05-21T12:28:00.000-05:00

Back to the Earth

On Saturday I woke up at 5:30am, drove to the University of Minnesota and helped run an end of the year celebration for about 1,000 sophomore, junior and senior high school students. It's the culmination of a year of really hard work that has yet again paid off - so far this year, 98% of our students have been admitted to college. It's inspiring. It's emotional. It's exhausting. After a celebratory round (or two or three) of beers with my fellow staff members, I headed home and was dead asleep by 9:30pm.

The exhaustion didn't stop there. I woke up on Sunday morning feeling okay, but within a few hours of waking up, all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. Unfortunate, since I'd completely forgotten that I'd agreed to go plant a vegetable garden with Dan's mom out at Dan's brother's house.

I've been looking forward to this garden for a long time. Last summer, the previous owner of the property had already planted it when Dan's brother moved in, and all summer the garden produced the best tomatoes I've ever eaten. There aren't words to describe them. I eagerly volunteered to ensure the existence of more tomatoey deliciousness this summer.

I should tell you that I grew up in the city, and believe that produce comes from the produce section of the grocery store. If you're really super conscientious, it will come from the produce section of a co-op grocery store. I have killed each and every plant that I've ever owned, except for one. This may not be saying much because I've only attempted to own three or so. And I have never, ever, gotten down on my knees in the dirt and planted a garden. But I sure did yesterday. We planted tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, beets, peas, corn, potatoes, green peppers, watermelon, cantaloupe, and zinnias (yes, I know those aren't vegetables). I saw big, gross bugs. I got dirt under my fingernails and in my shoes and in between my toes. I got stabbed with prickly plants. And I loved every second of it. I've also discovered that gardening is great for the butt and thighs, if the pain I'm in today is any indication.

I forgot to take a picture of the garden after we'd finished planting, but I am so excited to see what springs forth from the earth in the next couple of weeks - and in a couple of months, I may be eating nothing but tomatoes.

2007-05-09T15:51:00.000-05:00

I Want To Eat Everything in the World

In the past month or so I've really, really fallen of the wagon with any semblance of food control. Between the move, conferences, parties, work events, etc., I've both stopped attending WW meetings and paying any attention whatsoever to what I'm eating. Here's what I ate yesterday:

-banana & Luna bar
-salad with avocado, Goddess dressing, sunflower seeds, craisins and shredded carrots
-yogurt
-strawberries
-a bag of limited edition (and disgusting) Carnival flavored Skittles
-a bag of fruit snacks
-a mini bag of popcorn
-fetuccini tomato rustica (read: bread bread cheese oil bread oil cheese)
-Spicy Chicken Boca patty
-two gigantic beers at a baseball game
-one soft serve chocolate sundae, also at baseball game
-granola bar
-provolone cheese and smoked turkey wrapped around a dill pickle (Really. Dan said, "Are you pregnant?")

That? Doesn't look so bad. Gets worse as the day progresses, which is pretty standard I find. And is nothing. It's a light binge day for me, really, and represents 52.5 points. My allotment for a day is 20. I did earn 4 in exercise. So...still.

And here's a list of what I want to consume right now, in no particular order:

-a Hot Shot Italian sandwich from Caffrey's Deli & Subs
-a Chipotle steak fajita burrito bol
-lemonade
-Old Dutch salt & vinegar potato chips
-Fat Lorenzo's pizza
-chocolate anything, though something in the cake/brownie family is sounding especially scrumptious
-beer.

The thing about eating poorly for me is that it's just a vicious cycle. I understand this to be a common thread in women's attitude about eating and weight loss. "If I eat this slice of pizza, I've blown it for the day, so I might as well just eat whatever I want and start fresh tomorrow." Except starting fresh tomorrow isn't so easy, either.

Irresponsible eating and smoking cigarettes are two very similar behaviors for me. They make me feel crappy, both physically and emotionally. They make me cranky. They make me feel helpless and hopeless and inferior and awful, and yet, when I'm particularly stressed out, I will fall back on one or both of these two behaviors only to have to drag myself back out and undergo the week of misery it takes before I'm not starving all the time from the sudden cutback in food intake or feeling like I might do just about anything for one drag of a cigarette.

I know all of this. There's a voice in my head that tells me not to eat excessive fat, sugar, salt, alcohol because I will not like the consequences. There's both knowledge, evidence and painful reminders of how bad smoking is, just in general, for me and everyone else.

And yet, this recurring battle.

Once I start eating junk food, it's all I want to eat. I go into this comatose daze and am almost instantaneously lazier. Cigarettes are the same way. Put everything all together and you have me, 5 years ago, 230 pounds, depressed, huge, boring, bored.

This is why these things matter to me. Being free of these addictions:

1. Makes me happier.
2. Makes me healthier.
3. Puts me in control of my own health and happiness.
4. Makes me look and smell fantastic (except when I eat asparagus...look out).
5. Keeps me in my wedding dress, which has already been purchased.

On the plus side, I have gone back to the gym this week. The first week of not smoking is almost over. Now for the food. Grr.

2007-05-08T14:44:00.000-05:00

Blogtastic

My sister started culinary school for baking last month, and has started a blog about all her culinary endeavors. It's possible that I'm biased because I think she's one of the greatest people ever to walk the face of the earth, but this blog is hilarious and has pictures of bakery delights that will make your mouth water. I highly recommend you adding it to your daily reading list. In addition, if you're in the area, you'll likely be partaking in a good deal of these masterpieces...at least if you stick with me.

2007-05-07T22:22:00.000-05:00

Caution: Spoilers in the Form of Pictures

I woke up at 3:30am on Tuesday, May 1st ready to go. The wheels in my brain were spinning fast enough to exceed legal limits, so by 5:00am I gave up, got dressed and left my future in-laws house with my future husband still sleeping soundly so that I could make absolutely sure that all of our many, many belongings would fit in our new apartment. I'm not sure what I would have done if I'd arrived to discover that they wouldn't, but for some reason that didn't occur to me at the time. After having exhausted all the menial tasks I'd managed to fit into my car (hanging shower curtains and the like), I walked down to the coffee shop on the corner to grab a cup of joe and a muffin that was still warm from the oven. I returned to my sunporch (pictured at left), sat at my table, and watched the world go by. It would be a good day to start again.

That little radio there on the corner of the radiator? I plugged that in right away and listened to a few CDs I'd left unpacked. Bill Withers ushered in a new era. I sang a little too loudly and listened to my voice echo around the empty apartment while I waited for Sleeping Beauty to arrive. When he finally did, I danced with him all over the dining room (left) and living room (below) with morning sunlight streaming in through all the many windows of the apartment.

Things look a little different now that we're getting settled. There are a few random boxes lying around, but we're amazingly settled for people who moved in less than a week ago. So far, here's some of what I know:

- I woke up this morning, went to my closet, got out my clothes, went to my kitchen, packed my lunch, went to my bedroom, and said goodbye to Dan. All those rooms are his as well. I didn't have to go anywhere but here to find my stuff. It was phenomenal.
- There are no drunk people screaming at the tops of their lungs at 2:00am just because they're drunk and they feel like it. Or at least, they're not doing it outside my bedroom window.
- My car is always in the same spot, always within 50 steps of my apartment.
- There's laundry downstairs. It's free.
- The one true wrong I can commit with my landlord is leaving a window open when it's raining. Also, I can hear her pee when I'm peeing. Can she hear me?
- Yellow may be underrated as a paint color.
- Our apartment is the entertainment capital of the world.
- Getting married is the biggest most important scariest happiest most beautiful thing I've ever done. Or intend to do. Or whatever.

Come visit us!

2007-04-27T16:09:00.000-05:00

Celebration

A couple of years ago, shortly after Xtine and I became friends, we instituted spring and summer "Celebration Nights" on the balcony at my apartment. We'd pick up a fresh baguette from Franklin Street Bakery, dips and veggies and cheese and a pint of Ben & Jerry's from the Wedge, arm ourselves with a couple of bottles of cheap champagne and sit and celebrate the good things in life. Friends, family, gainful employment, good food, bubbly - whatever was making us happy at a given point in time.

In anticipation of my move this weekend, the finale of this particular incarnation of Celebration Night was last night. We had a lot to celebrate. Men (for a change), happiness, new living situations, Xtine's new puppy, engagements (two, even!). I expected this night to contribute to the wave of nostalgia I've been riding these last few weeks, but it didn't. Not because I lack fondness for these events, but because I'm ready. Having her with me reminded me of the true function of Celebration Night - to make time to embrace the joyful things and let them breathe. To air out the stress and everyday hassles that sometimes cloud pure joy. I can think of no better end to this chapter, and can't wait to usher in the new, co-authored by my partner, my lover my friend.

Catch you on the flipside.

2007-04-26T14:25:00.000-05:00

Busted

There's a busted water main outside my office building, presumably caused by the demolition of a Target that is soon to be replaced by a SuperTarget. First, it was going to be fixed in 30-45 minutes. Then, by 3:00pm. There's still a big, wet, muddy hole outside my office window that's been there pretty much since the incident at 10:00am. I haven't peed since 7:30 this morning.

2007-04-25T17:39:00.000-05:00

Angie

The first and only time I met my friend Flora’s mom Angie was at a wedding, though her reputation had proceeded her. People always spoke of her with a smile and a knowing twinkle in their eyes - I knew this was a special kind of person. Dan introduced me to her and she looked at me with daggers in her eyes and said, “So YOU’RE the one who’s stealing my boyfriend.” It might have been a tough choice, since she was drop dead gorgeous. Dan left to go back up to the head table and we managed to get over our shared love. We spent dinner delighting in her multiple Johnny Cash cell phone rings and the fact that she was having difficulty with a shirt that wouldn’t stay buttoned. At a 10 person table in the midst of a room filled with more than 200 perfect strangers, she made me feel first really uncomfortable, then a little bit scandalized, and quickly as though I’d known her forever and could laugh right along with her.

I didn’t have the opportunity to meet her again, and she lost a long battle with cancer this morning. Godspeed to a legend and a fighter.

2007-04-24T10:51:00.000-05:00

Dining Out for Life

This Thursday, April 26 over 100 Twin Cities area restaurants will donate a portion of their proceeds to The Aliveness Project, a local nonprofit organization that provides on-site meals, food shelf and other supportive services for for HIV-infected individuals and their families. In case you haven't seen a poster with KARE11's own Sven Sundgaard's face all over it, here's a list of participants.

2007-04-24T10:24:00.000-05:00

Mmm...

Pizza Luce has resurrected brunch in the Twin Cities at it's new St. Paul location on Fridays and Saturdays from 11am-2pm. If it's anything like the short-lived brunch at the downtown Minneapolis location, it's phenomenal. Check it out.

2007-04-23T14:08:00.000-05:00

Growing Pains

Last week was a high job satisfaction week. More precisely, it was a good reminder of the mission of the organization and of the fact that we achieve it, year after year, for hundreds and hundreds of kids. Their lives will be changed as a result of our presence in their lives, and there’s no real way to argue that fact.

On Friday I sat in a staff meeting listening to one of the coaches emphatically describe the great lengths she went to in order to get one of her students up out of bed to take the ACT. He had been having some ongoing family troubles, and was determined to stay in bed no matter what anyone did or said. He laid there through multiple phone calls from the coach, yells from his mother (who was ready to give up almost immediately), and a call from a full-time staff member. Finally, exasperated, he said, “Why are you still calling me? I said I’m not going to go. Why are you still on the phone right now?” The coach replied, “I’m on the phone right now because when you care about someone and they’re about to make a big mistake, you don’t let them do it!” He got up and went to the test. At this point in her story, the whole room full of staff members was either in tears or staring fixedly at a point on the floor in order to try and avoid doing so. I was one of the former.

In this altered emotional state, I was reminded of my responsibility to make sure that we’re able to continue doing the work we do. So I stopped feeling sorry for myself. I stopped complaining about the lack of work and started asking what people needed help with. I started brainstorming ideas for individual fundraising campaigns. And I wondered, again, how long it will be before I’m able to quickly if not immediately recognize situations such as these and my own ability to improve them, rather than moping and whining and wasting precious time, like a 27-year-old 5-year-old.

Sometimes growing up is all about remembering something you already know.

2007-04-20T12:47:00.000-05:00

2007-04-19T11:24:00.000-05:00

Humanity

In the wake of the shootings at Virginia Tech, and the media frenzy that followed, I’ve been awed, yet again, by the incapability of members of the media and the community at large to grieve. Maybe it’s human nature to disassociate from the pain and look for a way around it.

I’ve watched a number of newscasts and listened to a slew of MPR radio interviews that coerce the same question out of any Joe Schmoe on the street, whether they were involved or not: “Am I safe?"

I think the spirit of this question is actually right – the sentiment being that when one is faced with one’s own mortality, as is the case when a gunman opens fire in a public space and it makes the national and international news for days on end, one can’t help but feel the weight of the randomness of life and death. One might even think about how it might feel to emerge from that space unscathed, or to have lost a loved one, or to have witnessed the horrific scene and have to live with those images in your head for the rest of your life.

But that’s not how it plays out. Rather than supporting a community in pain in love, in empathy, in sympathy, we look to place blame, then to throw money at “solutions” that ensure that something like this never happens again. And then it does, and we all wonder why, or what else is to blame, or what other things we could buy for public places that would ensure that something like this never happens again. “Why didn’t the police do X?” “Why didn’t the professors do X?” “Where are the parents?” “Why isn’t there a plan for this kind of thing?”

This was not a politically motivated act with the power to incite a War on Terror (though the frenzy is ultimately the same). This was one of our own, a person who walked among us, and who was clearly and by all accounts devoid of sanity. He committed a random and unthinkable act of violence, and we lost 32 fellow citizens.

So, “Am I safe?” No. But will you live your life? Or will you live in fear? Because one thing that we’ve all got in common is that we’re all going to die. Most of us prefer that we live for a long time, and leave life quickly, quietly and peacefully. I wish that for everyone. I also wish that people would recognize the death of community in this country as one of the significant causes of the physical death of individuals. Think about that the next time you ignore something in public that you could at the very least make a phone call about. Think about that the next time you cast a ballot for people that serve in public office, the next time you watch the evening news, the next time you look the other way. Don't be ashamed or afraid to shed tears for strangers, or grieve in other ways, or take action.

And take a lesson from Dr. Jack Shephard “If we can’t live together, we’re going to die alone.”

2007-04-12T15:48:00.001-05:00

RIP Kurt

RIP.

2007-04-06T11:33:00.000-05:00

He's Back

"I could go down on her."

-My boss, talking about how he may have scored a job applicant higher than he meant to

"You're the one nailing her."

-My boss, talking about how someone else scored a job applicant lower than anyone else

At the end of today, I will have interviewed 150 people in the past 72 hours.

2007-04-03T21:32:00.000-05:00

How That Conversation Could Have Gone

Building Manager: Hi, Maria! I was wondering if it would be okay for me to show your apartment tomorrow.

Me: I don't see why not. What time were you thinking?

Building Manager: How about the next time you have super stinky, explosive farting happening?

Me: Hm...let's see. Hard boiled egg sandwich for breakfast, pizza for lunch, black bean burger for dinner...how's tonight around 6?

Building Manager: Sounds great! We'll get that studio rented for sure!

2007-04-03T11:00:00.000-05:00

The Cost of War

My addiction to MPR got me into trouble this morning. It had me listening to our president speak as I drove to work, putting me in the foulest of moods. My desire to be informed often keeps me from doing simple things like switching off the radio when I hear hateful, manipulative right-wing propaganda.

White House strategists are pulling out all the stops to blame the Democratic majority in Congress for a potential delay in funding the Iraq war. To punctuate this effort, White House aides have adopted a new gambit – referring to the number of days since Bush requested funding for the troops in an effort to keep up the pressure (today, 57).

During the reign of the 109th Congress, Bush submitted two major supplemental spending requests. Each request experienced a delay far more than 57 days with hardly a peep of anger from the Commander-In-Chief. The first, submitted on February 14, 2005, requested $82 billion, and was approved 86 days later on May 11, 2005 (86 days). The second, submitted on February 15, 2006, requested $72 billion, and was approved 119 days later on June 15, 2006.

After the 119 day delay, Bush did not say an “irresponsible” Congress had “undercut the troops” or that military families had “paid the price of failure.” Instead, Bush told the conservative-led Congress, “I applaud those Members of Congress who came together in a fiscally responsible way to provide much-needed funds for the War on Terror.”

If this 110th Congress fails to act soon, Bush said, “the price of that failure will be paid by our troops and their loved ones.” When announcing the press conference, the president was quoted as saying that the American people “will know who to blame when the troops run out of bullets”. That wouldn't be the opposing team, would it? The one who may steal the throne in November 2008?

Since the war began in March of 2003, 3257 American troops have died in Iraq - several thousand after "Mission Accomplished", several thousand after the capture of Saddam Hussein, several thousand after Bush began his second term in office. Almost 25,000 American troops have been wounded. The Iraqi death toll is staggering.

Take a look at a few more of President Bush's numbers. You might find this one relevant: 0 Number of minutes that President Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Karl Rove (the main proponents of the war in Iraq) served in combat (combined). Or this one: 0 Number of memorial services for the returned dead that Bush has attended since the beginning of the war.

Another tidbit of this press conference I enjoyed was the bit about how Congress is now on spring break and has left work undone, spoken by the man who has taken more vacation than any other president in United States history. The White House has said the vacations "clear his mind," "it allows him to get back in touch with real America" and "he's earned it."

He's earned it. He's earned it on the backs and in the blood of U.S. soldiers (not to mention Iraqi soldiers, civilians and their families) as he sits at his ranch home and clears his mind. He's earned it pursuing a war on a word that allows him to invade and conquer wherever he pleases and alienate the international community.

But the Democrats are to blame.

And they just sit there and take it.

Where’s that revolution, folks?

2007-04-02T12:09:00.000-05:00

The Skinny

I started WeightWatchers for the first time in April 2002. My friend Sara and I went in together, unsure of what we were getting ourselves into and maybe even less sure about whether or not it would work. My starting weight that evening was 230 pounds even. I was 230 pounds, a smoker, wearing size 22 or 24 clothing (I’d stopped caring at that point whether or not things actually fit) and got out of breath when I tied my shoes. Pictures came back from my dad’s ordination ceremony that spring and I’d realized that I looked like all my other family members – all the family members that had been hospitalized for multiple heart and stomach surgeries or diabetes, experienced significant difficulty when trying to do things like stand up from a couch or stay awake behind the wheel of a moving car, and ate and ate and ate for lack of anything else to do or talk about. Visits to my grandparents’ house revolve around meal times – when you get up, breakfast. At 11:30am, lunch. At 4:00pm, dinner. It’s not a question of your level of hunger – it’s just what you do at that time of day. The ultimate irony? Visits to my grandparents’ house also include ingesting many, many things that are fat free, sugar free, low- fat, low calorie, etc., etc. They buy in, 100%, to the notion that these things are better for you, and still manage to be morbidly obese. Go figure.

Looking back, I’m able to identify behavior that led to my weight gain: depression, ignorance, eating at Chipotle three or more times per week, eating whole pizzas by myself, polishing off whole bags of salt and vinegar chips, skipping anything that remotely resembled a vegetable and rarely, if ever, exercising. At the time, while I was watching my weight climb, I was perplexed. I had conversations with my mom and remember telling her that I didn’t know why I was gaining so much weight. I even brought it up to a physician and had her tell me that I should run, not walk, for at least 20 minutes every day and build up from there, and eat 25 fat grams or less every day. That was it. Those instructions seemed somehow too nebulous to follow, so I didn’t, but I was realizing that something had to be done.

There’s a part of obesity that feels like freedom. Freedom to eat what you want, when you want. Freedom to eat things that you perceive as tasting good. Freedom to avoid being a slave to a gym. At some point I realized that what I was experiencing wasn’t freedom – it was slavery. My life totally revolved around food.

After a week on the WeightWatchers program, I had lost a couple of pounds to my friend Sara’s six. I plugged away and managed, without much difficulty, to lose a couple of pounds a week for months. Sara eventually left the program but I continued, learning about exercise and food intake and nutrition for the first time in my life, and taking control of my health.

It’s been an eventful five years, and I’ve had ups and downs with WeightWatchers. Sometimes I needed to focus energy on other things besides weight loss. But by summer 2004, I had lost upwards of 75 pounds. Try to pick up 75 pounds sometime and walk around with it. That was what it was like for me to move around every day as an obese person. No wonder I was so sedentary – it’s exhausting to move with that much weight on you!

Despite all the ups and downs, I’ve never actually set or hit “goal”. At the beginning, I wasn’t even sure what that would look like. This past summer, I’d managed to pack on some extra weight, and so returned to WeightWatchers just before Thanksgiving. It’s been going fine, but I’m staring the five year anniversary of when I first started this journey in the face, and I just want it to be done. So the goal is to hit goal by the end of this month.

This is proving to be easier said than done. When you’re not very far from goal, you lose slower, and your weight bounces up and down a little bit. What’s more, I’m in the final “points range” for WeightWatchers – I only get 20 per day. As a frame of reference, one Chipotle burrito is around 27 points, one slice of cheese pizza is 8 points, one cup of rice is 4 points, one egg is 2 points, one bottle of beer is 3 points, one piece of fruit is usually 1 point, etc. Once you start putting ingredients or meals together, 20 points are gone fast. So I find myself in the interesting position of deciding what I’m willing to do long term, and therefore what weight I’m willing to maintain.

The fact remains that I have never, ever been in good of shape as I am right now. I haven’t weighed this little since I was 13. I zipped up my wedding dress without any sort of corset situation and looked fabulous in it. The value of WeightWatchers for me at this juncture isn’t the weight loss as much as it is the support, but the stubborn part of me is still after those last 5 pounds.

2007-03-30T12:27:00.001-05:00

Secrets

I've linked to this before, but I really think it's so, so awesome and interesting.

2007-03-30T11:15:00.000-05:00

Forgiveness

A year after my boyfriend of three and a half years and I had broken up, he left me a voicemail message telling me that I had accidentally sent him an email that contained information that he really did not want to know. Namely, that I'd been seeing someone else. He insisted that I do him the courtesy of deleting him from my email list so something like that never happened again. I hadn't thought to send him an email for months so, naturally, I found this a little strange. Then he called me at work and begged me to come see him because he had some important things to say to me before I got serious with some other guy. Given our history, I felt like maybe I owed him that.

You may only have to read that paragraph once to see all the red flags.

I showed up at his apartment, and he confessed to me that he had sent me an email that he didn't want me to get, so he logged into my email account to delete it, and while he was there had read an email exchange between me and a friend about this new mystery man. He got upset, apparently smashed the computer he was on to the ground, and then thought up this scheme to get me to come see him. "Can you ever forgive me?" he asked. I told him that he'd have to give me a minute. Then, he launched into the purpose of bringing me there, which was to ask me something that he should have asked a long time ago.

"Will you marry me?"

I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. No one had ever asked me that before. Certainly not this person, who I had at one time believed to be my future husband. Not this person who had gone out of his way to make me feel like dirt, to feel guilty for being suspicious that he'd lied to me about things on a number of occasions, not just this most recent one. He apologized some more. He said that it was okay to say no. And I did.

I don't really remember what happened after that. I know that before I left he asked if he could kiss me one more time, and I remember being so tired and befuddled that I didn't know what to do but let him. And I remember beginning to bawl as soon as I walked out his front door and being unable to stop for hours.

Several months later, I was still dating the person who inspired my first marriage proposal by virtue of his very existence. As a matter of fact, we had spent a fair amount of time arguing about when I would be healed, stable, comfortable enough to commit to a future with him. In the midst of yet another one of these fights, he asked me to marry him so that I would say no so that we would stop fighting about it. I said, "You have no idea how much that hurts me, and no, I will not marry you." And I cried and cried and cried. He apologized over and over again, and I couldn't say anything through my sobs. I didn't stop until I fell asleep.

Clearly, particularly to people who have been forced to listen to me talk about this repeatedly, I have not ever forgiven these two individuals for these incidents. What's more, they're really only snippets of what was wrong. Both of them did irretrievably stupid things, and begged (there's really no other way to put it) for forgiveness.

“Forgive” is a verb. To say, “I forgive you” is performative – an act of absolution. Granting pardon. Ceasing to feel resentment against someone. And in a lot of cases, in my experience, totally impossible.

This week, I’ve been made party to what has become a rather public, victim of the ugly tree divorce between two people that I truly love. I attended their wedding six years ago and watched as the bride, whom I’d known and gotten into trouble with for more than 10 years, wrote her wedding vows and dressed. I watched how happy they were. I watched how they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other during the ceremony, and couldn’t wait to be pronounced man and wife before kissing one another. Now I watch that fall hideously, spectacularly to pieces. I watch two people that I love do and say things that make them feel like strangers to me, and I wonder where my friends are. I hold my fiancé a little closer at night, just to make sure he’s there. And I remember that there’s nothing worse in the world than the singular moment you realize that a person you’ve given your heart to has done or said or become something that means that they’ll never occupy the same place in your heart and mind again.

2007-03-29T16:56:00.000-05:00

Professionalism

I had a meeting today with a woman to discuss data management strategy at a local coffeeshop. She excused herself to go to the bathroom, and I realized once she'd returned that I needed to use the facilities as well, so I followed suit. It was a unisex, one toilet in one room sort of situation, with one of those big signs that says "Please be sure to hold down the handle until the toilet flushes completely. Thanks. Mgmt." Except that she hadn't, and she had had a number 2 situation on her hands that she hadn't handled well. I returned to the meeting and tried to act like I hadn't just seen her poop. Then I came back to work and blogged about it.

2007-03-23T13:34:00.000-05:00

Spring Has Sprung

Today it is so warm that I had to roll down all the windows in my car to let it air out before being able to comfortably ride in it. It has been months and months since this has been the case.

Today the sun is shining and there is not a cloud in the sky.

Today people practically swarm the streets and sidewalks of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and it makes me wonder what they’ve all been doing with themselves for the past six months.

Today I wore three layers of clothing and have had to slowly shed most of them over the course of the day.

Today I mailed the last rent check for my studio apartment in Loring Park.

It is beautiful.

2007-03-22T11:35:00.000-05:00

Yet Another May 1 Rant

Last night after work I went to my house to pick up dinner, my meals for today and a basket of dirty clothes to wash at the apartment we’re cat-sitting. I picked up Dan and forgot to ask him to bring the strawberries I had sitting in his fridge, so I went without. We got to the apartment and loaded up with one backpack full of my standard accompaniments, my dinner and meal items for today that needed refrigerating, the cold, sweaty contents of my gym bag and my laundry basket and headed upstairs.

After awhile we got restless. SuperTarget seemed like a reasonable place to kill an hour or so before LOST in HD, so we headed out so I could stock up on SuperCheap Amy’s Organic burritos and other values only someplace as questionable as SuperTarget can deliver.

Then I had two bags of groceries. When we got back to the apartment parking lot I grabbed a grapefruit and left the remaining groceries in the car with questionable refrigeration temperatures.

We watched LOST. We returned to the car with the remaining food, a basket of clean clothes, and my backpack full of my standard accompaniments. We drove over to Dan’s, loaded up with the laundry basket, my gym bag, one bag of groceries that needed real refrigeration, left one bag of groceries behind in the car, one backpack full of my standard accompaniments, and headed upstairs, where I unloaded the groceries that needed real refrigeration. I realized that my Salsa Lisa, a required condiment for full enjoyment of Amy’s Organic burritos, was at my apartment.

At this point I felt a little like I would cry.

To the naked eye, this just seems like a pain in the ass for a day. In reality, with a few abnormalities here and there, this is the pain in the ass of almost every day. We are down to 40 days until the move is complete, when our house is the same house, and there are many, many more days behind us than in front of us, at which point our house will be the same house forever. I cannot think of anything that is more exciting than that. And yet, the remaining 40 days seem like an excruciatingly long time to wait, with some of my belongings in one place and some of them other places, and no real home base.

So this morning I moved out of Dan’s apartment. I packed up one, two, three baskets full of clothes, blankets, towels, unmentionables; two bags of groceries; one gym bag packed with one pair of shoes, two pairs of shoes, three pairs of shoes; 2 boxes of jewelry; one backpack full of my standard accompaniments. I took one, two, three trips upstairs. I packed the trunk and backseat of my Honda full, drove to my apartment, and took one, two, three trips upstairs.

Until we make our home, my home is home base again.

2007-03-15T12:42:00.000-05:00

Wish List

These are things I desire for my new apartment:

Couch
Loveseat
Coffee table
Dining room table & chairs
Baker's rack/freestanding counter space
Full bed frame
Rugs

I am stalking craigslist yet again, but if anyone is looking to rid themselves of any of these things, holla.

2007-03-15T11:27:00.000-05:00

My Life Raising Funds

Okay, so I'm bored. Powerfully bored. I love the people I work with, I love having a mission we succeed at year after year, I'm decently compensated and have fantastic benefits. I like wearing jeans and sweaters to work. I like that I'm comfortable sitting next to any one of more than 50 staff members and having a conversation about common values and interests. I love knowing that people's lives will be profoundly impacted by what I do.

The difficulty is the boredom. Here's the bulk of the work I have to do: gather annual reports. Look up each individual on the list of donors in the annual reports on QwestDex.com. Sort through pages of names looking for the right one. Enter name, address, telephone information into fundraising database.

There are a number of people in the world who would kill for this job. After several hours of this activity, I'm ready to jump out my office window. Meetings with my boss are spent talking about how to extract money from people with obscene amounts of it. He thinks about this ALL. THE. TIME. Every waking hour. Even in his "leisure" time. If he's not thinking about that, he's thinking about what he'd do if he had a certain amount of money. "It's a fun thing to do when you're running," he told me yesterday. "Think about what you'd do with $5 million dollars. It's easy enough to spend $5 million, but then try to go up from there. These CEOs make hundreds of millions of dollars per year. That's what's so great about fundraising - you get to figure out how to get them to give it to you so you can put it to good use." I believe we put money to good use. I also believe that it is nauseating that some people make hundreds of millions of dollars per year while other people wonder where they'll sleep tonight, or how they'll feed their children. That some people operate on survival instinct only, and do not have the opportunity to evaluate a financial plan, or consider higher education, or heat their homes at night. It's difficult for me to disguise my contempt for these individuals. I shift uncomfortably in my chair when I meet with my boss, trying to seem interested when what I feel is fury.

I've spoken to a number of people about this, but have not yet spoken to my boss about it. The bottom line is that I need more stimulating work to do. Data entry is not for someone with six years of professional experience. I'm not being offered any opportunities for professional growth. The bigger question - the one that I think makes this such a difficult discussion for me - is whether or not I just made a misstep in choosing fundraising as an occupation, and therefore need to leave this organization. The thought of that makes me terribly sad, but the longer this goes on, the more I know the answers.

2007-03-14T13:03:00.000-05:00

Hey Baby

My coworker's long awaited baby arrived for show and tell today...he was born only about a week and half ago at the size of a one month old (9 pounds, 9 ounces, 21 inches). She said that the doctor saw the head and said that it wouldn't come out on its own, so they had to get the vacuum and suck him out of there. No joke.

I haven't interacted with many babies, but I got to hold Levi today until I thought my arms might fall off from the weight. Even for a big boy, he has the tiniest ears and nose and mouth, tiny hands and tiny feet, and takes tiny breaths that you can feel against your chest. He smells like...baby. But in this totally amazing, good way that I can still smell on my sweater.

It's miraculous to me that there's a person here now. He made it. And he's beautiful.

2007-03-14T11:10:00.000-05:00

Art & Education

I saw a preview of The Chosen at Park Square Theater last night. Based on the novel by Chaim Potok, the play told the story of two young Jewish scholars (one Zionist, one Hasidic) and their fathers in 1940s New York City. It wasn't a particularly good play, or a particularly bad play, though it did receive a standing ovation from the audience. The actors who played the fathers were good. The actors who played the sons were annoyingly overdramatic and the homoeroticism between the two was so pronounced that it was distracting.

What I walked away with was a profound sense of my own ignorance about a people that have suffered a long history of persecution, whose battles continue to make headlines almost daily, while I manage to remain safely removed and uninformed. Before last night, I hadn't really considered what Hitler's death in 1945 meant to the Jewish people. I hadn't ever really thought about what it would have been like to be a Jewish person in America and to hear about the systematic attempt on an industrial scale to assemble and kill everyone like me. I hadn't wondered very much about the complexities of Judaism, how it shares many of the same attributes as a nation, with ties to ethnicity, religion and culture. Until I sat down at my computer this morning and did a little research, I couldn't articulate the difference between Hasidism and Zionism, or between the Torah and the Talmud, or between Yiddish and Hebrew. I knew the words and how to spell them, I've seen the movies about the Holocaust and cried or turned my head at all the right parts, I've read Elie Wiesel.

I realized that everything I knew about the Jewish people was about their persecution.

Come to think of it, most of what I know about a lot of people is about their persecution.

I know that there was slavery. I know that Native Americans were forced from their lands to make way for the United States of America. I know that there is genocide happening in Darfur. I know that women and girls are forced into the sex trade all the time. I know that the United States is engaged in a war on a word, giving said war no boundaries, no conceivable end.

I also know that racism is so firmly ingrained in our culture that it disguises itself in everything, including "facts", historical as well as scientific, and that we continue to educate future generations in a way that ensures racism's permanent presence in the world (if you're in town, check out this exhibit at the Science Museum). But what's more, we sensationalize hardships and, in the process, sacrifice culture. I know the headlines of the Holocaust, and it's important that people recognize the gravity of mass genocide - but do they? Is it possible? What is that worth without cultural competence?

This is what makes performing art such an amazing experience - even if it's not the most stellar.

2007-03-12T15:45:00.000-05:00

Same House

It's the bottom half of a two bedroom duplex in the perfect part of Uptown. Within walking distance of grocery stores, cafes, coffee shops, shoppy shops, restaurants, ice cream, parks and lakes. It's got a big sun porch with a big comfy couch and, with any luck and buying information from the current tenants, a kitchen table and chairs. Two bedrooms, one bathroom between them with a bathtub, big living room medium dining room, medium kitchen, tons of storage in the basement, free laundry, paid utilities, two off street parking spaces, a yard with a patio and a grill.

Our house will be the same house.

2007-03-09T12:51:00.000-06:00

Recruitment

I took an unanticipated jaunt over to Milwaukee yesterday to recruit national volunteers. I think I may have snagged one wearing an “I’m living Kabbalah” bag, not quite so sure about the kid in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt (for a number of reasons). The other recruiters: a representative to my right used hand sanitizer every time she shook someone’s hand and ate candy for practically the whole four hours straight. The guy across from me asked what my organization was all about and then sort of smarmily said something like, “That’s great – making a difference” in a way that indicated that he couldn’t care less. The Social Security Administration had two representatives dressed like the secret service. There wasn’t much of a line for that table, I can tell you. The UWM panther mascot showed up and tried to shake things up – I almost climbed under the table to avoid it touching me, but I lucked out and he stayed at the end of the row.

Milwaukee seems like a cool town, I’d like to actually visit it sometime. As it was, I drove to Wisconsin Dells on Wednesday night, crashed at a Super 8, left at 7:30 for Milwaukee, recruited for four hours and turned around to drive home. However, I was able to gather that it would be cool to go to Miller Park, take some brewery tours, and check out a couple of record stores and a slew of restaurants. I think we’ll try and take a trip this summer.

In other news, the elusive apartment may have been found. It’s a duplex in a great location with very decent space, great storage, great big sun porch (I can have an herb garden!), hardwood floors, a yard with a grill and patio and two off-street parking spaces. Applications go in tonight! We also saw a house that we could have bought with the money they were asking for it, which did not include any utilities or yard work of any kind. I know I’ll have to mow a lawn eventually, but I’d like to push it off for awhile longer – at least until I’m done renting.

Blah. Friday.

2007-03-07T09:40:00.000-06:00

In His Own Words - Boss Quote #2

"She told me after the meeting, she said 'You know, he's really loaded' and I said, 'Well, you should have told me that in the first place,' because I wanted to go fuck himself during the entire meeting."

2007-03-06T14:26:00.000-06:00

Where do you see yourself in five years?

I’ve asked that question of a slew of potential AmeriCorps candidates over the past month or two. I’d say 98% of them say they want to go to graduate school. Probably about 80% say they’d like to travel or live abroad. If you’d asked me five years ago where I thought I’d be in five years, I can guarantee that I wouldn’t have predicted where I am right now. As a matter of fact, I probably would have responded much the way they respond – I’d go back to school, because school was what I knew, or thought I knew. I’d travel abroad, because not doing so remains my single biggest regret from college. I’d work in a nonprofit. One out of three isn’t so bad.

Where do I see myself in the next five years? Married. Homeowner in Minneapolis. Mother or soon-to-be mother of one, maybe two, not yet three kids. These three things I believe to be certain, unless something totally unpredictable happens. What is life if not unpredictable?

I’d say I’m currently pretty disillusioned with the workplace. I’m not quite sure where the proper balance is between feeling connected to what I’m doing, liking coworkers and having a peer group, having adequate time off and earning a decent living, and being stimulated by what I do from 9:00am to 5:00pm. Ideally, I’d have all of those things. Realistically, there seems to be wild differentiation from place to place between any and all of those criteria.

Depending on which web link you click, I’m either a member of Generation X or Y. As a group, Generation Y employees in particular are commonly viewed as idealistic, with a high level of social consciousness. They’re frequently anti-establishment and are concerned about stress on the job among other things. Generally outspoken, they make up the largest pool of young people in the job market today. Promises of monetary rewards and overtime pay may not interest them as much as time off to attend a party, concert or just hang out with their friends. Members of Generation X supposedly aren’t motivated by money, either. They also have a social conscience; as one website I checked out points out “many are vegetarians and consider themselves free spirits.” They demand benefits and time off for recreation over bigger wages.

I heard on MPR this morning that members of Generation Y can expect severe social impediments as they enter the work force as a result of their profound sense of entitlement and self-importance. I’d say that probably my biggest problem out of college was, in fact, a profound sense of entitlement and self-importance. I had gotten my degree; I wanted my job. When that wasn’t a guarantee, I sunk into a depression that didn’t lift for a long time. It took me years to feel as though anything would ever make sense, and sometimes it still doesn’t – I think the difference now is that I’m not surprised or impaired by the fact that it doesn’t make sense.

I don’t see going back to school for me anytime soon. It seems like an awfully popular route to take, with many people ending up with a ton of education and little to no work experience, which ultimately makes them unemployable. Not to mention the mountain of debt. I have a high level of social consciousness, but I’m frustrated by the stereotypes nonprofits and their employees endure. I like having casual, flexible hours, but I’d trade that for doing work I enjoyed and am stimulated by.

What life has taught me over the past five years, I think, is that things happen pretty slowly and imperceptibly, and it can take you a number of years to arrive at anywhere resembling where you’d like to be. Fulfillment comes in a variety of forms. You can’t do nothing and expect things to happen, but it takes a series of pretty small somethings, tiny twists and turns, a lot of patience, a willingness to be wrong, and some initiative to change things when you need to.

Oh, and time? Speeds by.

2007-03-05T09:59:00.000-06:00

Deep Clean

I went to my apartment after several days' absence due to the extremely inclement weather to find a note from my building manager: "Maria, give me a call with your phone number so I can give you a heads up when I'm going to show your apartment."

Shit. They're going to show my apartment.

What a prospective tenant might not want to see is the windowsills black with dirt (makes you feel good about the air you breathe, huh?), the nasty kitchen floor, the sink full of dirty dishes, the hair all over the bathroom floor and in the bathroom sink, the huge pile of stuff I need to sell or donate etc., etc., etc.

So yesterday, armed with a Swiffer and a sponge and a lot of 409, I set to work on the deep clean. I wiped down windowsills, and wiped them down again. I scrubbed the splatters of food on the side of my fridge and on the walls of my kitchen. I washed dishes. I abandoned the Swiffer and got down on my hands and knees to scrub the kitchen and bathroom floors. I vacuumed all the rugs. I took out trash and more trash and recycling and more recycling. I wondered how long you can keep a bottle of Bailey's before it curdles. Nearly two years of cleaning neglect, with some tasks even the full four, was slowly vanquished.

As I scrubbed, I couldn't help thinking about how great my apartment is. It really has a lot of cabinet space for a studio, including a tall cabinet for things like mops and brooms. It's bright and sunny and the ceilings are high enough to make it feel bigger than it is, but I even managed to get four bookcases, a couch, a bed, a TV, a CD case, and a whole lot of other stuff in without it feeling like the whole thing was going to cave in on itself. I never had a ton of people over, but I had great nights sitting out on the porch or on one of the balconies drinking wine with girlfriends and watching the people go by, even the occasional small dinner affair or movie night. I got dressed up fancy for nights on the town. I walked to First Ave and the 7th Street Entry and the Minneapolis farmers' market and Uptown and downtown and all around. I ran to and through the Sculpture Garden. I was just three blocks from Music & Movies in Loring Park in the summertime. I've laughed and cried and been terrified and angry and everything in between in it. It's the only place that's ever been all mine, just mine. It's been my home and solace through thick and thin for almost four years.

I hope the new tenant appreciates it like I have. I just wish I'd kept it this clean while I actually lived there.

2007-03-03T00:10:00.001-06:00

Bring it.

2007-03-02T14:12:00.000-06:00

Old Haunts

I love the Bad Waitress. Just love it.

I love the giant floor to ceiling windows, the superhero/monster cards, the bright red walls, the retro light fixtures and living room relics, the formica table sets, the big leather booths, the giant glasses of wine, the food, the malts, the people, the view, the works.

Right now I'm looking out the window at a snow covered row of newspaper machines, with headlines reading "It's not over" in ridiculously enormous type accompanied by pictures of Minnesotans armed with shovels, listening to a regular customer who has awakened from his nap at the counter and is now loudly musing about where they put all the snow once it's hit the ground, and munching on a garden burger and salad that are delicious, but admittedly overpriced. There's a couple in front of me sitting on the same side of a table and touching each other inappropriately, making out almost furiously. I could do without that, I suppose.

It's been awhile since I've been here by myself, just sitting. Stupid piece of crap computer. Stupid CompUSA.

There should be more snow days.

2007-03-02T11:00:00.000-06:00

Take 2

Apartment number two was on 24th and Bryant, just down the road from the big blue dream house I'll buy when I win the lottery. This house, similarly, was beautiful, and as soon as we stepped in we knew we were on the right track. The stairs up to the 2nd floor were framed by a gorgeous finished wood bannister. After being asked to leave our shoes at the door, we stepped into a space loaded with personality. The hardwood floors almost sparkled, which was clearly of import to the woman showing us the space. The walls in every room were painted a different color...blues and greens, mostly. The bedrooms were enormous - one of them could likely fit two queen sized beds with room to spare, and another had two closets in it. And the sunporch. The fantastic, three season sunporch with a bright green tiled floor and a breathtaking view of the snow-covered yards of all the other near-mansions of the neighborhood. Also from the sun porch we could see the three car garage that we would be able to occupy one space in. And the magical words "heat included" were spoken.

And yet...

The kitchen was abismal. The stove was miniscule - so small that the four burners almost touched each other. There was virtually no cabinet space, even less counter space, and though the kitchen wasn't small, per se, it was set up so there was no chance of getting a kitchen table into it. That, coupled with the fact that there was no dining room, equalled a problem for the potential resident with dreams of dinner parties galore. The living room was also comparatively small and oddly shaped, so that it was difficult to picture getting a living room set into it (the current occupents had furnished it with an entertainment center and two leather recliners). The future Mr. & Mrs. Cote have quite the library - one 5x5 IKEA shelving unit nearly full of records, 4 CD cases full of CDs, 1 small bookshelf for DVDs, and an estimated 6 bookshelves full of books. As it was, we'd need to dedicate one of the bedrooms as our library, and would have been hard pressed to show it off in the common areas of the apartment.

Back to the drawing board we go.

2007-02-28T17:12:00.000-06:00

Bust.

Okay, so the first craigslist posting for May 1 turned out to be totally unremarkable. It had normal-sized kitchen counters, which was a nice change of pace from my midget kitchen, but the rooms themselves were mini-sized. I don't think there's any chance that the queen-sized sleep number bed would go in either of those rooms, and by the time you got it in there, there wouldn't be room for anything else. The closet space was nonexistant throughout. I don't know if the current tenant is in the midst of moving out or if he just doesn't really live there in general, but it definitely didn't seem lived in. In fact, there was a food bowl and water dish for what looked like a small dog or cat, but the animal itself was nowhere to be found. There were, as promised, hardwood floors, but all the other woodwork had been painted. No porch. No built-ins. No dishwasher. No porch. We left with a definitive "Meh."

We've got another appointment tomorrow morning and this one seems much more promising. Check out the sunroom! I love the sun! We'll see what it has in store, and keep eyes open for other opportunities. It's March tomorrow!

2007-02-27T11:18:00.000-06:00

It's Here!

The first of what will be many craigslist postings for an apartment available May 1. Location? Check. Not on Lyndale, not in Loring Park. Bedrooms? Dos. One for sleeping, one for guesting and officing. Wooof! Dogs are ok? Doesn't appear so, but that's a negotiable item. Dishwasher? Unknown. Dining room? Unknown. Grownup sized kitchen? Unknown. Bathtub? Unknown. Price? Right.

Okay, so there are a lot of unknowns, but I have never been so excited to move in my entire life and we're going to at least go check it out. Since I've been stalking craigslist apartments since...oh...last March, pretty much, I know that occasionally apartments come up with stairs inside of them (no joke!) or breakfast nooks (yay!) or jacuzzi tubs or built-in-buffets or other little bonuses. This particular posting is pretty tame, with no pictures, but it's AVAILABLE MAY 1!!! We don't have to take it, but at least the search will have begun and we'll have something to compare other spaces to and it will be real. We will live in the same place.

No more packing every single day. No more going home to change out of cold, wet clothes only to remember that all my dry shoes are somewhere else. No more forgetting important articles of clothing or makeup or some breakfast or lunch item or personal hygiene products and having to make a special trip back to the other place to get it. No more parking 3-5 blocks away. No more sleeping with the window closed in the spring to shut out the noise from the street. We'll have people over for dinner, and they'll sit at our dining room table instead of on the floor. We can have parties. I can go into our kitchen and get a snack, and open our fridge and know I can have whatever happens to be in it. I can go to the bathroom with no clothes on. I can go home at the end of the day. Just home.

And Dan will be there.

2007-02-27T10:40:00.000-06:00

Shop 'Til You Drop

Hey everybody, my friend Anna has just opened an online shop with lots of great jewelry, and soon to come will be textiles and crafts and all kinds of other stuff. Please drop by and keep her in mind when you're shopping for unique and beautiful things for friends and loved ones (say, for example, me)!

2007-02-26T11:12:00.000-06:00

And I Quote:

"That guy is a total asshole. I would say like a raging prick."

-My boss, during our weekly meeting.

He says stuff like this all. The. Time.

2007-02-23T11:48:00.000-06:00

Winter Storm Warning
Statement Issued: 4:07 am CST on February 23, 2007

... Winter Storm Warning in effect from 6 PM this evening to 6 PM CST Sunday...

The National Weather Service in Twin Cities/Chanhassen has issued a Winter Storm Warning... which is in effect from 6 PM this evening to 6 PM CST Sunday. The Winter Storm Watch is no longer in effect.

An intense storm system... moving into the western rockies this morning... will deepen and eject into the upper Midwest this weekend... bringing two rounds of dangerous winter weather to the
region... resulting in significant snowfall accumulations...possible icing... and blowing and drifting snow.

The first round of precipitation will begin this evening and last through Saturday morning as the storm system moves into the Central Plains states. Areas to the south of a line from Appleton to Litchfield to Red Wing could see a mix of freezing rain and snow... with areas in the Minnesota River Valley seeing the highest likelihood of ice accumulations. Snowfall accumulations could
reach the 3 to 5 inch range... with a maximum of a couple of tenths of ice accumulation possible as well.

The second round of precipitation will commence during the late afternoon hours on Saturday and last through Sunday... as the storm system moves through the mid Mississippi Valley and into the Great Lakes. All areas should see snow... with no mixed precipitation expected after early afternoon Saturday. The heaviest snow should occur Saturday night... with an additional 6 to 10 inches of accumulation possible... especially in the Interstate 35 corridor.

The snow should begin to taper during the Sunday afternoon hours... but blowing and drifting snow may continue past this time.

Storm total accumulations should range from 9 to 12 inches in most locations... with as much as 15 to 18 inches possible along the Interstate 35 corridor and the Saint Croix River Valley.

A Winter Storm Warning means significant amounts of snow... sleet... and ice are expected or occurring. Strong winds are also possible. This will make travel very hazardous or impossible.

2007-02-20T12:51:00.000-06:00

Apocalypse...Eventually...

I returned home from a thoroughly enjoyable weekend in Grand Marais to find the top story
on AOL News to be that a giant asteroid is hurtling towards Earth and that the U.N. has been asked to intervene. According to the story, the asteroid has a 1 in 45,000 chance of colliding with Earth on April 13, 2036. That's a .002% chance, folks. I don't know about you, but I'm willing to take those odds. Instead what we'll do is spend a projected $300 million to form an "asteroid deflection mission".

Let's put this into some perspective. Current estimates put the total number of asteroids above 1 km in diameter in the solar system to be between 1.1 and 1.9 million. About 5,000 asteroids are discovered per month.

Well, shit. At $300 million per killer space rock diversion, that adds up to a pretty penny. But I'm being dramatic, as usual - the ones we're really worried about are Earth-crosser asteroids, not to be confused with Earth-crossing asteroids, and that of course is a much smaller subcategory.

I sure am glad we've moved on from all that global warming malarky in order to deal with the really important issues facing our planet today.

After all, the movie Armageddon about a giant deadly asteroid hurtling toward earth had a budget of $140 million. And Deep Impact, about a giant deadly comet hurtling toward earth had a budget of $75 million. Armageddon is the 121st top grossing film of all time at just over $200 million. I bet Al Gore won't see that much money in his whole life on An Inconvenient Truth. Sea levels rising? Bee-oh-arr-eye-en-gee. Ice melting? Animals moving around and dying? Heat waves? That can't compare to Morgan Freeman being president and Ben Affleck kicking some major asteroid ass, not to mention gettin' a nice piece of Liv Tyler's ass. And all we had to sacrifice was Bruce Willis.

I don't mean to be flip about killer rocks from outer space and the devastation they can potentially cause. I do think it's interesting, however, what people buy into on the movie screen and how closely it aligns with what shows up on the news, particularly when it equals fear. What's so "inconvenient" about An Inconvenient Truth is that every day people can do something in their regular lives to help this problem. Asteroids, on the other hand? Form the Aversion Team! Get Ben back up there! Want money? Take all you need, it's already being taken anyway, it's not going to make a difference to my bottom line. Buying expensive light bulbs, though? To hell with that.

I'd take 1 in 45,000 odds any day to see people take some fucking initiative to make sure people spend OUR money wisely.

2007-02-15T12:45:00.000-06:00

Not a dog hair to be found...

I'll say this for Pane Vino Dolce...they like to keep your wine glass full. Dinner was good - fancy italian cheese wrapped in arugula and drenched in truffle oil; duck glazed with pomegranate juice; pork tenderloin with mashed potatoes and an apple reduction; did I mention the wine? I'm always amazed at fancy restaurants how much money you can spend on so little food. We mused on the way to the car to go find more wine and some truffles for dessert that if your bill comes to almost as much as your rent, you'd expect everyone to leave the table stuffed with food. As it was, I think the portions of food, though clearly adequate generally speaking, were not sufficient to balance the quantity of wine consumed. Not that it's anyone's fault but my own. Today I feel like dirt. Exhausted, dehydrated, nauseated, constipated dirt. Blech.

2007-02-14T10:52:00.000-06:00

To My Valentine

If I had just one day to tell you that I loved you, I'd say it out loud until my voice was hoarse and my mouth was dry, I'd kiss you until my lips were chapped and hug you til my arms were sore. I'd stay up all day and all night to make sure not a second of the day was wasted.

I can't fit it into one day, so I'll have to take a lifetime. I'll watch the laugh lines form on your face, and I'll know that I've done the most meaningful and important job I'll ever do - making you happy for now and always.

I love you.

2007-02-12T17:02:00.000-06:00

The Stars on Valentine's Day

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Happy Valentine Daze, Leo! I predict that more love will flow into your life in the future. Why? Because beginning now, you will remove the obstructions that have been interfering with that flow. That's not all. More love will flow into your life because you'll decide that you are actually very lovable–more lovable than you've previously acknowledged. That's not all. More love will flow into your life because you will vow to invoke in yourself a tremendous surge of willpower that will make you hungry to give love, to bestow blessings, and to extend favors. You'll derive deep pleasure, a real libidinous thrill, from radiating generous emotions in all directions.

I love Rob Brezny.

2007-02-12T10:37:00.000-06:00

Retention

I've been in major cleaning/purging/donating/selling mode in my apartment this weekend. I've got three bags of clothing to donate, some twin sized sheets that I kept for sewing them into something (though I don't have a sewing machine), some framed art that I no longer feel any connection to, assorted housewares, a whole box of VHS tapes, board games, a stuffed animal or two, etc. I've thrown away what I estimate to amount to about a gallon of lotion, probably about that much body spray and/or perfume, and have discovered some pretty disgusting things underneath my bathtub. I've done all this, and yet had been avoiding the biggest challenge of all - the personal filing project.

You see, there's this cabinet in my kitchen. It's tall and skinny and I'm not really sure what they were thinking when they built it, because it's not very functional for holding kitchen supplies. For the last three or four years, it has been my filing cabinet. I should clarify what I mean by that. What I mean is, every time I pay a bill, I take the bill pay stub and toss it in that cabinet. We're talking phone bills, gas bills, electric bills, credit card bills - the works. What's more is that I developed this habit after my existing filing box had grown so large that it was busting out of its container, and rather than clean it all out then, I just started a new receptacle. As of Sunday afternoon, the pile in this cabinet was three feet high.

I pulled every last sheet of paper out of there. I got out my old, dusty, plastic tote and pulled ever last sheet of paper out of it, too. I discovered checking account statements dating back to 1997, lines of credit I didn't even know I had, Qwest bills from when I still had a land line three years ago, faded receipts that are totally unreadable - your basic identity theft nightmare.

So for you, dear friends, I did some research. It's possible you don't have the same problem as I do. But if you find yourself in a similar predicament, here's what I've discovered about what to keep and for how long:

Taxes -- Seven years. The IRS has three years from your filing date to audit your return if it suspects good faith errors, and six years if it thinks you underreported your gross income by 25 percent or more.
IRA contributions -- Permanently.
Retirement/Savings plan statements -- From one year to permanently. Keep the quarterly statements until you receive your annual summary; keep the annual summaries until you retire or close the account.
Bank records -- From one year to permanently. Throw away checks that have no long-term importance, but keep checks related to your taxes, business expenses, and housing and mortgage payments.
Brokerage statements -- Until you sell your securities.
Bills -- From one year to permanently. In most cases, i.e. utility bills, when you receive the canceled check, the bill can be tossed. However, you should keep bills for big purchases (e.g., jewelry, appliances, cars, collectibles, etc.) for proof of their value in the event of loss or damage.
Credit card receipts and statements -- From 45 days to seven years. Keep the statements seven years if they document tax-related expenses.
Paycheck stubs -- One year. If your W-2 form matches your stubs, you can toss your stubs.
House/Condominium records and receipts -- From six years to permanently.

It will save you a lot of time and energy if you just follow these simple rules, though these sorts of things do make good kindling.

2007-02-09T14:57:00.000-06:00

Mission

At 7:45am this morning, I fumbled with the shiny, stainless steel tongs that had been provided to grab a large banana nut muffin and some fruit, stacked my plate on top of my cup of inadequately caffeinated coffee, and sat down at a table with seven other nonprofit leaders at a corporate campus at the corner of I-394 and Highway 169. The company generously provides nonprofit staff with intermittant training opportunities - generally because they've spent thousands to bring a consultant in to train their own staff and are able to tack this onto the package as a contribution to the community. From a nonprofit employee perspective, it means the ability escape the chaos of a regularly schuduled 9 to 7 job, or to get a glimpse into how the other half live.

Corporate campuses are a world apart from any of my experience in nonprofits. Private gas stations, gift shops, dry cleaners, restaurants, barber shops - any and all manner of conveniences under a series of roofs, people wandering around in full suits and heels, coiffed and manicured and made up, photo I.D.s being scanned at the door before being funneled through turnstiles. Send a bunch of nonprofit people into that type of environment and they stick out like sore thumbs. Even in my khaki pants (my dress up clothes at work), my jean jacket was a dead give away. If that weren't enough, you'd only have to look for the nose ring and three earrings in each ear. Beyond the obvious visual clues, there are the cultural differences. When I sat down this morning, I was introduced to 7 people dedicated to completely different things - occupational therapy for single African American mothers, childhood development for autistic children, independent publishing - in 2003, there were nearly 5,000 nonprofits in Minnesota with at least one employee, and no two causes are precisely the same. We listened to each other intently as each mission was described, nodded our heads, asked questions, and said "That's great!" to each and every one (whether or not you happen to mean it is a personal matter). When the company representative got up to introduce herself and the speaker, the “mission statement”, ultimately, was to sell product(s) – and to continuously learn how to sell the product(s) better. Some people are in charge of selling the product(s) domestically, some internationally. Some people are responsible for making sure enough product gets produced. Some people are responsible for making sure there are enough raw materials to create the products in the first place. But ultimately, the goal is to have people buy the product, and to have that happen continuously and increasingly forever and ever amen.

Perhaps Lloyd Dobbler can best describe my general feeling on this one: "I don't want to buy anything, sell anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that." I also don’t want to live in poverty, feel forever like there’s so much need and not enough time or money or resources to fix all the need, get stereotyped as a hippie tree-hugging liberal (as true as that may be), or work for any one of a plethora of poorly organized, poorly run nonprofits.

I do want to feel connected to what I do. I do want to do something that makes a difference. I want to be able to provide a comfortable life for my family. I want to travel. I want to give gifts and go out to dinner and see live theater. I want all this and more.

What’s your mission?

2007-02-08T10:12:00.000-06:00

A Day in the Life

6:45am - Alarm goes off on Dan's side of the bed. Dan hits snooze.

6:55am - Alarm goes off on Dan's side of the bed. Maria groans. Dan hits snooze.

7:30am - After several more bouts of snoozing/cuddling, Maria finally gets out of bed. Retrieves toothbrush, toothpaste and floss from travel toiletries bag on stereo speaker. Stumbles to the bathroom.

7:40am - Maria retrieves gym clothes from their drying spot on the radiator and throws them on. Digs through laundry baskets for a clean outfit to stuff into gym bag. Packs gym bag. Goes to the kitchen to retrieve frozen/refrigerated breakfast/lunch items and pack lunch bag.

7:50am - Grabs backpack, gym bag, breakfast/lunch bag. Leaves for gym.

8:00am - Arrives at gym. Sweats profusely for the next hour.

9:15am - Leaves gym for work.

9:30am-5:30pm - Looks up rich people or avoids looking up rich people. All day. Enters them into database.

6:00pm - Maria arrives at expensive storage locker A.K.A. her apartment. Checks mail. Cooks dinner. Eats dinner. Watches T.V. and/or reads and/or cleans. Packs gym bag, backpack, breakfast/lunch bag.

8:00pm - Picks up gym back, clothing bag, lunch bag. Goes to Dan's house. Unpacks lunch bag into appropriate freezer/refrigerator receptacle. Unpacks/hangs up gym clothes. Plays with Dan.

11:00pm - Maria sleeps. Dan surfs internet, plays PlayStation, plays with iTunes, files records...I don't know what else, I'm asleep.

6:30am - Rinse. Repeat.

If anyone can think of a way for May 1 to come any faster, I'd be much obliged.

2007-02-07T09:20:00.000-06:00

The Doody Master

Recipe for baby shower game:

Ingredients
6 diapers, labeled 1-6
6 candy bars, all different brands, assigned to a numbered diaper

Directions:
Put all or part of each kind of candy bar into a labeled diaper, keeping track of which candy bar is in which diaper. Put the diaper in the microwave for 2 minutes, or until candy bar has melted. Have baby shower guests guess the contents of the diaper.

At my second ever baby shower, I correctly identified 4 of 6 doodies. I mistook Rolos for Caramello, and missed Milky Way Midnight Dark (come on! who eats those?), but correctly identified PayDay (sick), Snickers, Butterfinger and 3 Musketeers. Guess I know my doodies - I was the one and only winner of the doody game. For a prize I got a little nauseated and a $5 baby-bottle-shaped gift cart to Target.

This is the first time I've watched a pregnancy from start to finish, the first pregnant belly I've touched, the first experience watching a woman pull her maternity pants up to her armpits. At 16 weeks it was exciting and new. Now that she's at 37, it's clear that the novelty has worn off and she just wants it out of there. She has three outfits she can fit into. The baby occasionally turns into a position that presses on her sciatic nerve, making her limp around the office. She's gained almost 50 pounds, and has adopted the extremely pregnant woman waddle.

I get to watch from the sidelines, asking lots of questions and getting totally grossed out (did you know they pee in there after a few months? Sick!). I get to peruse the gift registry from the boobies section (nursing bra pads and sore nipple "soft shells" and breast cream) to toys and blankets and towels and tiny clothes and shoes that are so soft you wonder why everything isn't made out of that material.

I can't imagine what it's like to be a parent, or a parent-to-be, watching your belly fill up like an hourglass, waiting and waiting, registering for what you think you need and in the end playing it totally blind and deaf and having no idea. I can't know what it's like for them, but I know I can't wait to meet this kid.

2007-02-06T10:37:00.000-06:00

The Minneapolis Sound

I have just determined, in my research for this post, that Prince's 50th birthday is also my wedding day.

This means several things:

1. I've totally forgotten what I was going to write about, though I can tell you that the thrust of it is that Prince represents all of what pop music should be and isn't, and is therefore the greatest pop musician of all time.

2. We definitely picked the right date. Not only because of our love of the #8, but also because of my extreme love of Prince.

3. Purple is officially one of my wedding colors. (I was leaning toward it anyway, but now there's no getting around it.)

4. The wedding reception music will now include even more gratuitous amounts of Prince than initally planned.

5. The wedding reception music will close with Purple Rain.

(#4 & 5 contingent on approval of the DJ. I'm not him, but I am sleeping with him, so we'll see what I can do.)

6. S. has just suggested that I walk down the aisle to Sexy M.F. Or writhe down the aisle. I'll not repeat the other stuff he said, I just think it's sort of a funny picture.

I'm so excited I could just pee.

2007-02-05T10:10:00.000-06:00

Have You Ever Noticed...

...how slowly time moves when something mortifying is going to happen?

It's possible - nay, indubitable, that the Chief Operating Officer (affectionately, COO) of my organization saw me buck naked this morning at the gym. We're not talking full frontal, NC-17 naked...more like teenage boys watching a woman skinny dipping getting out of the pool, PG-13 naked. Only the woman is sopping wet, scurrying first to the sauna where she tries to shake water off herself like a dog, then across the slippery YWCA tile floor to the automatic paper towel machine, waving her arm frantically to activate it, running from the machine to the locker area trying not to fall on her bare ass, looking over her shoulder to avoid such an embarrassing thing and seeing the aforementioned COO entering the locker room, trying just as hard not to see the woman, but of course, failing miserably.

I forgot my towel.

Ordinarily, I could care less about being naked in the gym locker room. I'm certainly not an exhibitionist, like:

-the woman who loofahs her ass in front of the vanity mirrors so everyone has the opportunity not only to witness this display but also to catch flecks of sloughed off skin as they walk past;
-the ones who get totally naked, then go put on makeup and/or style their hair before getting dressed. I don't know if you've ever watched a woman blow dry her hair, but sometimes they bend over so they can blow dry upside down for added body. In this case, more body for everyone;
-the ones who take extra great and extreme care in soaping and rinsing every crevice in the shower;
-add your own bizarre locker room behavior here - talk to any woman who goes to the YWCA.

I think women's bodies are beautiful, I really do. Behaviors? Those are something else. Loofa-ing your ass? Something that you need to do in the confines of your own bathroom. Period.

I'm content to be someone who takes off sweaty clothes, wraps themselves in a towel (assuming I've remembered it), goes and has a group shower, dries off, gets dressed and gets out. That's it. No shows. No flare. No NC-17 rating. Call me old fashioned.

But I digress.

I forgot my towel. There were really few courses of action at my disposal - I didn't have any money to rent one, I didn't have any clothes on, I was going to be late if I went home to shower before going to work.

Maybe I should just accept that at the gym, women fit into a new category of gym-goers and for that hour a day are not to be saddled with additional labels, like "coworker". Or "superior". For now, I'll continue to live in the slowed down time mode, awaiting the moment where I actually have to meet the COO's eyes for the second time today - albeit with clothes ON.

2007-02-02T12:30:00.000-06:00

Runnin' on Empty

As it turns out, the official temperature on January 27th was 5 degrees, not 16 degrees, as I initially reported. See for yourself on the official results page. You'll have to scroll down awhile to find me...but a few hundred people finished after me, and hey, I sure did finish a half marathon. Whoa.

This here photo was taken by my biggest fan at about mile 11, I think. I'm smiling because he and a coworker are cheering me on, not because of how great I felt at that point.
Other fun notes: the second to last person to finish this race was an 80-year-old woman from San Jose, California. How totally awesome is that?

Who's signing up with me for next year? Anyone? ...Anyone? ...Bueller?

2007-02-02T11:56:00.000-06:00

This is new...

I have a "Wedding" subfolder in my internet favorites, both at work and at home. Within that subfolder are other subfolders called"Bridesparty Attire", "Decorations", "Photography", etc. That's not even the worst of it. I have a binder, decorated with pictures of Dan and me, with printed checklists and dividers in alphabetical order by category. Attendants, bride's attire, ceremony, flowers and decorations, food and drink...all the way through transportation and lodging. I bought $4 heart-shaped post it notes just for this binder. I look through bridal magazines and tear out pictures of stuff I like, and file them in the appropriate subcategory. Reactions so far when I pull out the binder: "Okay..." "Wow. Organized." And of course, my favorite: "Oh my god, dude."

I haven't dreamed about my wedding since I was a little girl, as all the bridal propaganda presumes that I have. I never dared to dream or even began to understand what it would feel like to want to spend the rest of my life with someone the way I do right now, today. His pictures look down on me from my bulletin board at work, and all I want to do is jump into them and be back in that moment - and then I realize that there will be so many more great moments to capture and it brings tears to my eyes. This literally happens once a day.

I've spent about a month and a half being engaged so far, and I have a dress, a wedding date that's a year and a half away, and a ceremony and reception location. I told myself that once the location was booked I could take 6 months off from all of it, but I'm drawn back in all the time. It's not that I think everything has to be perfect. It's not that I'm itching to spend thousands of dollars or that I think it can't wait. It's just that I have so much love for this person right now that I don't know what to do. I feel like I have to do something all the time or my heart will jump right out of my body. I can't not think about it. I can't make 2008 come any faster. I can, however, plan a fantastic party so that all my friends and family can catch even a little glimpse of how this makes me feel, because I can't even begin to explain it.

2007-01-31T16:10:00.000-06:00

Twenty-seven So Far...

Twenty-seven is the age I always wanted to be, for no particular reason at all. At some point when I was little and thought my aunt was the height of coolness, with her own hatchback car and her own horse, she was 27. And here I am, flipping through the past few months in my planner to see what's happened so far, and I can't say there are any complaints.

On August 12th I FINALLY got a car stereo, after 2 years of being terrified that someone would steal it yet again. So far, so good...it's made the drive to southeastern Illinois much more bearable. It may also be responsible for Justin Timberlake reappearing in my life, for better or for worse.

On August 19th I went on a big motor boat for the first time and caught my first fish on Lake Superior. On August 22nd I ate it. Mmm...salmon.

In September I worked, and worked, and worked, and worked, and worked, and thought I'd die at work from working...

On October 14th I watched my friend Peter from college get married, and thought about all the time I'd wished that for him, and wished it for myself.

On November 6th I started training for a half marathon with a couple of coworkers, despite the dubious sanity of running a half marathon in January in Minnesota.

On November 18th I went to my first ever professional hockey game. It was loud.

On December 8th I finally, finally saw the last Twin Peaks episode. But please don't speak to me about it as I may fly into a rage. Thank you.

On December 16th I agreed to marry the love of my life. I've spent all the time since then thinking about that, thinking about me, thinking about us, thinking about all the details, and trying to capture this feeling of optimism and joy and nostalgia and anxiousness that I hope lasts forever and ever.

On January 27th, I ran 13.1 miles alone (coworkers = pansies) in 16 degree, windyashellcoldfrontwindchillcraziness, snowy Minnesota weather, and lived to tell about it. (After I ate a bunch a bunch of pizza.)

All this, and it's not even half over. Can it get better than this?

2006-08-08T13:24:00.000-05:00

Me. At 27. At work. Fundraisin'.

It's my birthday!!!

2006-07-15T12:25:00.000-05:00

In the Fishbowl

I split my time at the gym somewhat unevenly between the Uptown and Midtown YWCAs. Uptown because it's closest to Dan's apartment and also located conveniently next to two lakes for running around outside when the weather is conducive to that, and Midtown because it's just a whole lot nicer - high ceilings, lots of machines, huge track, lots of space - and by space I mean both physical and mental. Uptown is a claustrophobic's nightmare, and it's not just because the ceilings are low, it's sort of dark and the machines are so close together that it's not uncommon to find someone else's sweat flinging on to you from your neighbor's elliptical. Also because, true to Uptown form, the personalities are big:

Megaman: A man of about 70 who is so buff in his chest and torso that he can't stand up straight, kind of like a He-Man action figure. He's there every, every day and spends his time at the fitness center split equally between chatting with the staff and the regulars and lifting weights as he grunts freely and loudly as if he's having the best orgasm of his life.

Bones: A woman so thin that I could easily wrap my entire hand around both of her upper arms. She's there when I get there, climbing step after step on the stair climbing machine, and she's still there when I leave an hour later. Every time I see her I wonder if someone shouldn't say something to her, but I'm not an eager volunteer. It makes me really sad.

Mr. Fabulous: A flamboyantly gay man who intermittantly sings Erasure at the top of his lungs while he runs on the treadmill. If it's a weightlifting day, he'll do a little dance routine (complete with spins and ballet jumps) between machines. The soundtrack for these days is most likely one of several musicals.

Glamour Girls: A series of beautiful women who wear sports bras, thongs and bicycle shorts and use the elliptical machines right in the middle of the gym for an hour every day. It's literally impossible not to watch them given the fitness center layout. The YWCA staff has placed a television right above that row of machines. There's no way the girls could see that from where they're standing, but the men on the row of ellipticals right behind them can use it as a smokescreen for staring at some hot ass.

A1 for entertainment.

2006-07-10T14:57:00.000-05:00

Buried

I moved into my current apartment three years ago this May. It was one of three apartments I'd looked at, and was a welcomed change of pace from the dark, dank studio on Colfax that smelled like armpits and cigarettes and the modern, boring, white-carpet-equals-nightmare on Bryant. This place had personality: the little independent grocery store next door; the friendly building manager; two public balconies; bright, east-facing windows; hardwood floors; a clawfoot bathtub so big it's almost cartoonish compared to the rest of the space; walking distance from anywhere a 20-something would want to be in Minneapolis. It was a relief to have found a new home. J and I had broken up just before Valentine's Day, and though things were civil, they were still impossibly confusing and difficult.

I remember a lot of things about those 3 and 1/2 years - some happy, some not so happy. For the vast majority of our time together, though, I thought J was it. THE one. When we moved in together, I wasn't nervous about it. It was the kind of relationship that I didn't see ever ending - why would it? But it did. I don't remember the breakup conversation at all. Not a word of it. I don't know what I said or what he did. I know when I first moved into my new place I was terrified to leave it. The first six months in the apartment were spent in that strange gray space between being together and being broken up that happens with someone when you don't know how NOT to be with them. For all intents and purposes, we broke up for a whole year, ending with him proposing marriage to me, and me, having waited for that question for a few years, having to say no. It wasn't as emphatic as those closer to the situation would have expected, or even as emphatic as I would have expected from myself. But there it was.

Then one day I woke up and my life looked totally different than it ever had with J. My television lived in my closet (there's still a lingering nausea whenever I catch even a few seconds of a rerun of Frasier). I'd quit smoking. I'd lost 80 pounds. I had friends. A job I loved. All of these things were slow in coming, but they're there, and they're mine, and I don't regret a single day of any of it.

There's a lot of emotional baggage I carry from this experience and one remaining legal document tying us together. An educational loan I reluctantly agreed to cosign. I haven't spoken to J in two years, but Wells Fargo is now his representative looking to collect on that decision - a favor I did for someone I loved years ago. Now I sit and wonder if he bears me so much malice that he's decided to get one last "fuck you" in, if he just forgot, if he wants to see or hear from me and considered this his option to do that, if he's on vacation, if he's in trouble, if he's hurt or (god forbid) dead. And I don't really want to know that any of those options is the answer. I want all of those pleasant and not-so-pleasant memories to stay in the past, where they belong.

And if there's one thing I definitely don't need more of, it's debt.

2006-07-07T16:51:00.000-05:00

Online Banking is Currently Unavailable...

...so I can't check the damage to my bank account. What I do know is that I left for St. Louis with few expectations and returned home having gotten more out of the experience than I would have ever imagined. One of my favorite philosophers recently quipped: "On vacation you need less and get more. Less sleep, less water, less rescuing. The hours fill up on everything, or just nothing." Despite the money spent, what I got can't be bought. What's the upper limit of loving one person?

2006-06-26T11:23:00.000-05:00

Days and Days...

Today is the 177th day of the year -- 7 days until the precise midpoint of 2006.

Tomorrow Christine and Matthew will cook Dan and I dinner...great not only for the fact that someone else will cook me dinner, but also because they're so much fun to watch and admire, and independently two of the best people I know. (We'll bring the wine.)

In two days it will have been one year since Dan and I met for a drink at Bryant Lake Bowl and a walk by Lake of the Isles. He wore a navy blue button down shirt and what I now refer to as his shiny shoes, smiled like he smiles (which makes me melt), and did this awkward rubbing of my back thing at the end of the night that meant he wanted to kiss me (I was too shy and dodged it until the next time we went out about a week later).

In three days Dan and I will be in St. Louis, a place that always feels like home to me no matter how long I stay away from it. Not because of the places, but because of the people - a high concentration of beyond close friends. I'll run under the magnolia trees in the park that I used to play in as a child. I'll eat frozen custard sitting on the warm car hood on a hotter than hot summer night. I'll laugh and laugh and laugh. And I'll show Dan where I came from.

In 6 days I'll see Albert Pujols hit a grand slam in the brand new Busch Stadium. Just you wait. And if he doesn't, seeing Albert Pujols in the brand new Busch Stadium will just have to be enough.

In 9 days I'll meet my newlywed 83 year old grandmother and her new husband for an afternoon of catching up and marveling at love at any age.

In 28 days Dan and I leave for a week in Grand Marais - still an interesting transition between the Grand Marais I'm used to and the new one that's being built for me, but I'll go with excitement at the opportunity build on (relatively) new friendships.

In 43 days I'll turn 27. At some point when I was a kid and thought my aunt was super cool, she was 27, and I decided that must be the best age ever. And here it comes, promising, in all aspects of my life I can think of off the top of my head, to fulfill those expectations. (Speaking of birthdays, in 773 days it will be 08/08/08 and I will be 29. THAT will be the party of the century, my friends.)

2006-06-26T10:52:00.000-05:00

Reasons to Love Kurt Vonnegut

"There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president."

2006-06-23T20:40:00.000-05:00

Pillow Talk

The walk down memory lane a few weekends ago registered more steps on the pedometer than usual...the requisite Sterilite(TM) tub held information dating back to at least 1993, if not before. I visited old friends, old lovers, old would-be lovers, etc. In particular, though, it struck me the way that lovers enter and exit your life - each one with its own unique story, complete with a secret shared language. Some of them disappate completely from that landscape with relative ease, with only a picture or two of them staring up at you from a frame that used to be featured prominently in your every day living space. The mementos make you suffer from that temporary punch-in-the-throat feeling of guilt or regret...others are dismissed with a laugh and an eye roll...still others with whole books dedicated to letters, ticket stubs, vacation pictures, birthday and holiday cards, notes sent with flowers or left on the refrigerator. Even your name in that world might have been changed. Ordinary words leap off the page that were part of that language and that, spoken by any other person, seem somehow out of place. Out of context, out of this world.

Lately, I've been in a purging kind of mood. Aside from books, I pretty much want to get rid of everything. Old framed art that I don't love anymore, DVDs leftover from a reality where I felt like I had time to kill and kill and kill again, CDs that have been replaced 3 or 4 times over from Dan's music collection (aside from a few guilty pleasures that I'll have to keep for myself), etc. Just STUFF.

Ironically, I'm a closet packrat. When I was 14 or so, my friends Jessi, Teresa and I stayed up all night long and walked to Steak 'n' Shake at about 5:00am. On the way there we found a little plastic chipmunk figurine (Dale, of Chip and Dale, not to be confused with Chippendale) in the street. I still have it. I also have a piece of the curb outside the Walgreens we waited outside of to buy nail polish and conditioner. The mementos bring that night back like it was yesterday, even though it wasn't particularly distinctive from any of the other weird teenage nights she and I spent together. The story removes the memento from the STUFF category. I love to remember that night, when we walked straight up the middle of Big Bend Blvd. in St. Louis, with no cars on the road, no sign that there was anyone else in the world except the 3 of us.

The other things in the box are a little more complicated. Some hold pleasant memories, but all of those worlds crumbled for a reason. The more time I spend with Dan - the closer we get with each day, each vacation, each ticket stub - the more room it takes up. Those mementos still aren't STUFF, but there's less physical and emotional room for them, and they become part of the need to purge to make room for the new, the now, the future.

2006-06-21T16:41:00.000-05:00

Friendraisin'

I'm fascinated by rich people. Fascinated by, and terrified of. It's something about having always been on the "have not" side of things...one of my biggest dreams as a child was to live someplace that had stairs inside. I swore I'd never make my kids drink powdered milk, or have to live somewhere infested with cockroaches, or have to miss their equivalent of a New Kids on the Block concert. As I grew older and the indicators of my family's poverty became clearer, I went through various stages of anger, resentment, depression, and have finally reached a place of extraordinary gratitude for the sacrifices they made for me, my relative freedom of scar tissue from the experience, and for everything I have - because I know there are people with much less.

When I was a kid I'd walk into friends' houses and be awed and terrified of breaking something or doing something wrong. You'd think over the years I'd outgrow that, but to this day it's the same awkward feeling anytime I enter a house (or a Pottery Barn, or a department store, or a suburb, etc.).

So what do I do about this fear? Pursue a career in fundraising, where I am required to interact with people with lots of money on a daily basis. ("Confront your fear!" Dan says. We'll see how it goes.)

Last night I attended a "friend"raiser for my organization at a country club in a well-to-do suburb. I'd never been to a country club before, and was sort of terrified at the prospect of being anywhere near one. What happens at those places? Would I have to give my name at the gate? Was it okay to wear khakis? What's "casual dress" to a millionaire?

It was strange from the get-go. Caterers walked around with silver trays of mini-hamburgers with a dollop of ketchup on mini-sesame seed buns, mini-crab salad pastries, mini-watercress sandwiches and (get this) crackers with peanut butter and BACON on them. (Apparently this is the life.) Many of the people in attendance, I was told, were "old" money, which I think means living off the interest and/or investments of their predecessors often with little or no need to work themselves. I mingled with these folks. I admired their wardrobes (which included loafers without socks and bright red pants with a loon belt) and smelled the heavy perfume of the women in attendence. Guests asked me about AP and I relayed information about our funding, our program, my excitement about my job. Stories about an actual student in our program warranted shaking heads and tsk-tsks that reeked of a lack of frame of reference.

"Where do we send the check?"

We gave them our address and left the country club grounds. And now I wait for the envelopes.

2006-06-20T13:22:00.000-05:00

Til Death Do Us Part

About a year ago I leaned up against the counter in my estranged step-grandmother's kitchen as she mixed us up a couple of Bloody Marys. I hadn't seen her since my grandfather's funeral, and before that it had been several years as well. They'd been taken off the holiday visit rotation when I was still too young to understand that "grandparent" meant that my mom had a mom and dad, too, not to mention any of the politics that caused that relationship to disintegrate. Over the years I've pieced together a story that makes sense for me, even if my mom remains quiet about it.

Sweedy (real name Edy, aptly nicknamed) and I chatted like old girlfriends, reaching far into our news archives to bring each other up to speed on anything and everything. She'd just turned 81 years young and talked about aerobics, her grandparents, the most recent opera she'd seen, and on and on. I talked about my job, my family, lamented lost time, lost loved ones, never having the opportunity to know my grandfather. I listened intently to her description of him - loving and honest, but not bitter, she talked about him as a person with imperfections and weaknesses that made me appreciate the true love I know they must have shared. She listened to me, asked questions, responded - it seems simple enough, but you'd only have to witness a holiday at my paternal grandparents' house to understand why it meant so much to have an actual conversation with someone in a grandparent role. At some point a brief lull in the conversation led her to complete nonsequitur and she announced, "Maria, I have a boyfriend."

His name is Edward. She's known him for 40 years. She and my grandfather went to church with him and his wife, who had also died within the last couple of years. They hadn't meant for it to happen, but it had, and she giggled like a schoolgirl. Edward picked us up for church on Sunday, stayed with us as we interred my grandfather's ashes in the church garden, and took us out to lunch afterwards. Later that afternoon, Sweedy carved some honeydew (his favorite melon) for us to take over to share with him. They shared smiles, sideways glances, kisses on the cheek - like teenagers, only slightly more tasteful. At the time, Sweedy confided to me that she didn't expect they'd ever marry - there didn't seem to be much point in that. This week, though, she called to let me know that they've bought a house and will marry this afternoon with just close family in attendance. I've never been happier for two people in my life - committing to beginning a life together at 82.

2006-04-19T13:43:00.000-05:00

Older & Wiser

I feel like a grownup today. Not in that horrifying way, where you feel scared and alone and crazy and incapable and want to call your mom. It's the kind of day that feels totally opposite of that.

I got up this morning and ran for 3.25 miles, biked for about 12, and could do it without passing out. Having that schedule makes my body feel good, which makes me feel good, and the routine is valued and feels like an indulgence rather than a chore. Plus, the money my insurance company reimburses me for being a regular gym member has become an impromptu savings account, which I haven't really done in the past.

In the midst of a series of expensive car repairs, news came of some extra money coming my way as a result of the extra hours I've been putting in at work and the tasks that I've been juggling that have caused 40 hour work weeks to turn into 60 hour ones. Upon receiving this news 5 years ago, I probably would have run out to enhance my CD collection. Today, though, I thought "Wow! This doesn't have to go on my credit card! How amazing!" I then thought about that parking ticket from a few months ago that I still haven't paid (did you know you can't park on bridges?), the CDs I bought from BMG that haven't been paid, the dental filling that wasn't fully covered by insurance, and those can get covered, too. And I don't feel like it's an injustice.

To write all this down and look at it, it seems sort of insignificant...boring even. Who cares about this stuff anyway? Me. Thinking about how unfulfilling work used to be and how its changing, how I've taken responsibility for how I look and feel as a result of my actions and have lost 70 pounds and counting and have quit smoking, how I look at the future as something challenging and amazing that will allow me to have a house and a family with someone I love and trust...

You can't touch this.

2006-04-07T15:35:00.000-05:00

Friday

I got really good at slacking off at work when I was an office manager. Today, I'm finding that even when I really want to, I've sort of forgotten how. I started checking out celebrity news on IMDB and realized I've totally removed myself from that realm and am not sorry about it. I tried to look for movies this weekend and came across such gems as snakes from outer space and a dance movie featuring Antonio Banderas and a bunch of hip hopper teenagers (okay, I totally want to see it and therefore am apparently not as cool as I thought). I've found that my office's new firewall (that I instigated the installation of) blocks sites such as the MN AIDS Project (which prevents me from signing up to volunteer at the MN AIDS Walk) and Overheard in NY (which provides me with at least a half hour of entertainment), as well as Thunder in the Valley's website (what's up with that?). I perused the new Heart of a Champion website because I've got a vested interest in the founder (and also the two new releases coming out which you should totally all buy). So all of this random (and not so random) web surfing goes on and I feel strange about it. I believe the term is GUILTY. I feel GUILTY for not doing my job. I'm an unworthy slacker. Is this what happens when you grow up? Inferior slackage? I'll ponder this on the drive home. Think I'll leave early today.

2006-04-04T10:20:00.000-05:00

Mission Critical

It's as though time slows down for a few seconds every time you accidentally stab yourself in the eye with a mascara brush. You can feel it as your arm starts to move - you've miscalculated the distance from the brush to your eye. The little voice in your head screams "No-oo-ooo!!!" But it's too late. Tiny needles of bacteria covered in black goo are scratching away at your eyeball. The pain is intense. Your eyes gush tears in an attempt to wash the bacteria away. Black waterproof smudges grace your cheeks. Contact lenses sometimes serve as a shield to cushion the blow. I had no such luck today. In this weakened state - already half blind without my glasses on, blinking furiously, eyes watering, trying desperately not to be loudly profane - I notice a fellow YWCA-goer approaching the mirror next to me. She reached for the outlet just to my right, and, unsure whether or not I was in her way, I moved my gym bag a little to the left while I tried to recover from my stab wound.

"I ain't gonna touch your bag," she hissed under her breath. In my distracted state, I didn't even register what she'd said until she walked away. When I finally did, I wasn't entirely sure what to do. It seemed sort of silly to go with my first instinct, which was to chase her down the hall to explain that I'd just stabbed myself in the eye with my mascara wand and I wasn't wearing my glasses so I couldn't tell whether or not I was in her way and I thought she needed to use the outlet and was just trying to make sure she had enough room but I swear that's all it doesn't mean anything at all about me and how I feel about people that are different than me I'm not a racist I'm not I'm not I'm not.

Then I realized that I don't have to brand myself a racist when someone who is of a different race than me is acting like an idiot.

On the other hand, there's possibly nothing sadder to me than the knowledge that this woman deals with so much hatred and institutional racism that she lashes out at something so insignificant as someone moving a bag.

2006-02-28T16:45:00.000-06:00

Dream

We're sitting at a restaurant. It's bright. Brunch maybe? Everyone's dressed in Sunday clothes, him in khakis and a buttondown shirt with his hair slicked back, me in some sort of sundress. We're mostly ignoring each other, but he puts his arm around me every couple of minutes and I stiffen. I'm there for some reason I don't really understand - pretending that we haven't broken up when we have. There's a small blond child (supposedly his nephew, though to my knowledge he doesn't have one) that keeps coming to stand between our chairs. "I don't think you guys love each other anymore." Uh oh. We've been found out. "You don't?" I say. "Why not?" "I just don't think so." "Well, maybe you should talk to your uncle about that." There. Successfully passed off to the person that wanted me there in the first place. But I didn't want to be there. It wasn't my deal. So why was I?

2005-11-02T16:48:00.000-06:00

Fascism: A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

Have you read the news today?

2005-10-24T09:33:00.000-05:00

Empathy

Art, film, literature, music, & (I'm reluctant to say) television capture human emotion in short bursts of visual and aural expression - those that we are drawn to are used to characterize our identity and individualism, and increasingly initiate and define our relationships with others. As an angsty teen, I ran to Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Tori Amos - any number of musical artists to make manifest emotions I couldn't define. I hang prints on my apartment walls that aesthetically and emotionally appeal to me.

I find film to be one of the most dangerous media for this phenomenon. The combination of picture and sound maximizes emotional effect, and provides a vehicle for manipulation of that effect that has fascinating and horrific consequences. Quentin Tarantino can make a whole audience laugh when someone is shot in the face. Horror films have people screaming and jumping out of their seats. Films "based on a true story" inspire us, terrify us, anger us, sadden us.

It's not real. Except when it is.

Yesterday I sat through North Country, a film recounting the story of the first class action sexual harrassment case in the country, which took place in Minnesota's Iron Range. I knew, walking into the theater, that it was bound to be disturbing. The movie contained clips of Anita Hill's testimony against Clarence Thomas. The movie showed what that might have looked like, multiplied exponentially. Being a woman who has suffered the embarrassment, indignity, confusion, helplessness and panic evoked by unwanted touch & dialogue, I can safely say that it is not an experience I need to relive in a movie theater. Suddenly I'm not watching a movie. I'm reliving my own. Charlize Theron is "forced down" and "groped between her legs", "terrified", "unable to move or escape", "crying". I can't breath. I can't look away. I can't stop thinking about when that's been me. I go home to safe, loving arms and cry. I can tell him her story, but my throat closes when I try to tell mine.

Where does film cross the line?

2005-07-15T16:29:00.000-05:00

The Sound of One Computer Crashing

How was I to know? There was no cry for help - no pop ups, no virus notifications, no system warnings. One moment, I was shutting down in a perfectly acceptable manner after having looked at a photo CD. The next, I was trying in vain to boot up as my laptop stubbornly refused to boot up, informing me that Windows cannot start properly (possibly) due to a recent hardware or software change that I have no recollection of implementing. In my head I picture a folder entitled "Works In Progress" going up in flames as I stand helplessly by, my mind flashing incessently back to Steve's insistance that I back up my files regularly - my only hope an underpaid, disgruntled firefighter from CompUSA who will almost certainly do as little as possible before having to completely reinstall the operating system and reduce the aforementioned works to electronic ashes. My writing workshop instructor assures me that something like this can be a blessing in disguise - that reconstruction can make things better than you'd ever imagined them to be, and that there may even be a publishable essay in the experience of this (arguably) tragic loss.

Still really sucks, though.

2005-07-08T16:15:00.000-05:00

Hope

Barack Obama spoke at Knox College's commencement ceremony this year.

An excerpt:

"Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. You need to take up the challenges that we face as a nation and make them your own. Not because you have a debt to those who helped you get here, although you do have that debt. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate than you, although I do think you do have that obligation. It’s primarily because you have an obligation to yourself. Because individual salvation has always depended on collective salvation. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential."

I love him.

2005-07-08T15:32:00.000-05:00

The Past, The Future

In 5th grade I decided that my birthday party that summer would be the party of the year. I consulted friends and acquaintences and settled on a barbeque, complete with Slip-n-Slide, right in my own backyard. I individually handwrote personalized, multicolored invitations to the entire 5th grade class and handed them out well in advance so that everyone was sure to save the date. Months in advance. It must have been May. When the day of the party arrived, I distinctly remember sitting out on my front porch at 4117 Cleveland at precisely 2:00pm, devastated because no one came. Not a soul. Not until Jenny Metzner showed up at around 4:00 and became my own personal savior. She gave me a little brown teddy bear which I still have around somewhere, and said something totally dramatic that seemed poignant at the time about how it reminded me of her in some absurd way. We walked around the neighborhood gossiping until her parents came to pick her up a couple of hours later, and complete disappointment was eased.

(Please allow this entry to serve as a gentle, no pressure reminder that my birthday is precisely one month from today!!! You can take the girl out of the birthday, but you can't take the birthday out of the girl.)

2005-07-06T14:45:00.000-05:00

The Sweater

It could have been the stress of having been in dowtown Chicago for hours frantically searching for a dress to wear to my friend's wedding a mere 24 hours in advance, but when I looked on the rack at Marshall Field's and saw an $850 sweater, I could have vomited what was left of my coop-farm-grown-vegetable-dinner up all over it. It was just a sweater. From what I could surmise (though I admittedly didn't look at the tag), it wasn't spun from gold. It was soft, like a sweater that's careworn from years of use - but thin, as though it wouldn't be much warmer than a long-sleeved t-shirt. $850. Roughly my take home salary every couple of weeks. Rent on a very decent 2 bedroom apartment in the Twin Cities for a whole month. Full health and dental insurance from leading companies for a family of 6. I commented to my sister that I didn't know if I could live with myself if I could pick up that sweater and pay for it without a second thought as to what all that money could mean to someone else, and she aptly pointed out that a: I won't be that person and 2: that the person buying that sweater wouldn't even think about any of that for a second. Not to mention the fact that the person making that sweater is probably making absolutely nothing.

I really don't understand how people with money sleep at night.

2005-06-30T17:08:00.000-05:00

Tuesday Night Dating

I've strategically placed myself at the bar 30 minutes prior to the scheduled rendezvous time. I prefer to be approached, rather than approach - take time to observe, occupy, own the space. I sit close enough to the door to circumvent excessive aimless wandering. A courtesy to a complete stranger who knows me by face, name and generic 20-something MySpace profile. Why do I subject myself to these situations? In the first place, Bryant Lake is on my list of places never to go on a first date because of the delusory quality of the lighting, which has virtually the same intensifying effect as alcohol on attraction - mix the two together and you've got double trouble. I guess since it's still daylight it's okay. But also, how many horrifying situations do you have to put yourself through before you learn your lesson about going out with someone you don't already know? Ugh. Maybe I should just go home. Or maybe it'll be worth it. The last half-hour before a first date has to be one of the most agonizing things ever - the excitement, the optimism, the possibility...the fear, the dread.

At least the people watching is good. There's a - what? - 9-year-old having a birthday party with her family at the table next to mine. Mom's painted her lips red for the occasion. She's completely aware of how cute she is. She opens up a box to find a whole slew of those "Groovy Girl" dolls and accessories and lets out a dramatic "thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!" Without any responsibility or agenda to back up the sincerity, it sounds strangely artificial. Still, she's just barely still young enough to have it count as adorable. There's a baby sitting in a high chair across the room from me. It's strange to see babies out in bars now that they don't risk asphyxiation from smoke inhalation. She's so cute that I can't help but smile at her. She smiles back and it makes my heart (& uterus, for that matter) ache.

I'm running out of things to write about. Maybe I write because I'm a fidgeter. I couldn't just sit here with nothing to do for half an hour. Should have brought a book...but here he comes...and oh boy.

2005-06-30T16:59:00.000-05:00

People who don't read Overheard in NY really are missing out. Here are some choice selections that made my afternoon at work much more enjoyable:

"I ain't saying I love her, but I got feelings for the bitch."

"Woman on cell: Hi honey...yes, I'm fine...I can hear you...stop saying hello to me. I goddammn hate it when you say hello."

"Man #1: Are you in line for the bus?
Man #2: The bus? No, I'm in line for the bathroom.
Man #1: Well, I'm waiting for the bus."

"Cop: All right guy, you have two options--
Old man: Let me guess, you gonna lock me up? Man, I go to jail like summer camp."

Okay. Go read it yourself.

2005-06-28T12:03:00.000-05:00

Been blogging a little here, too, if you're interested...

2005-06-24T14:08:00.000-05:00

Fright Night

Dream 1: I get home and there’s a scruffy, dirty, wild-eyed older man standing in the vestibule of my building. I’m instantly terrified of him. He steps back from the door as I walk up to it, but I don’t put the key in because I’m afraid he’ll follow me in. He shows me two keys that look like my apartment and mailbox key, and says that his security key is getting fixed but that he lives in the building. I reluctantly let him follow me into the building. He walks to an apartment door just down the hall from mine, watching me the whole way. As I stick my key in the lock, he says that he was lying, he doesn’t really live in the building. I open my door and shut it behind me, but the keys he had were to my apartment. I can hear him fumbling with the lock as I try to remove a screen to jump out of my window.

Dream 2: I’m at a party. There’s a pool in the backyard, in which I’ve lost a ring. I bend down to see if I can see it. I don’t want anyone at the party to notice me getting in the water. I strip to underwear and jump in after it. I open my eyes underwater and can see the ring shining on the bottom of the pool and make a dive for it, but it’s so cold that it’s hard for me to keep holding my breath and I have to surface again and breathe before going back down for it. I grab the ring, slip it on, and surface. As I climb up the ladder, a bunch of partygoers and their children come out to the backyard. We’re talking toddlers. Lots and lots of toddlers in tiny autumn jackets. They all get very excited when they see me come out of the pool, and before anyone can stop them, 10 or so of them toddle into the water, laughing and squealing. Some of them can swim, some can’t. People start jumping in after them. I see a baby in a life jacket in front of me. He’s slipping out of the jacket and sinking. I jump in after him, pull him out of the water and run into the house looking for towels. It’s freezing, the baby is alive, but wet and shivering, and I am drying him off and sobbing with the guilt of causing such a chaos.

Waking up alone and afraid is one of the worst feelings in the world.

2005-06-22T21:40:00.000-05:00

Easy Come, Easy Go

Less than a month ago, my boss decided to give my coworkers and I a completely unexpected $750 bonus. As is usually the case in this scenario, I felt the virtual, electronically deposited wad of cash burning in my pocket. I resisted, however. My history with money isn't the greatest - there's a large mountain of debt that swallows my extra resources every month, I have an addiction to coffeeshops and CDs and shows and eating out (read: entertainment) that I just can't shake. I'm known to freak out about it on a regular basis. I've found it difficult to adjust to hanging out with people for whom money is no big deal. Money has been a HUGE deal for me, virtually since birth. Even gestures such as going to a friend's house for dinner sometimes end up feeling like I "owe", and I have trouble hosting and not feeling "owed". It's gotten better with time, but it's taken practice, deep breaths, release of control. I've decided not to let it get to me anymore. Virtually everyone has debt. In general this doesn't incapacitate them - it's merely a reality. A monthly payment. They still save for things, go on vacations, etc. So with this bonus, I decided to remove myself from incapacitation. I was going to SAVE my bonus. Then, with just a little more help, it would soon become enough money to put me on a plane to some other country that I've always wanted to go to.

And then it happened. That car accident I mentioned. $1000 deductible.

But that wasn't really the problem. I was lucky that there was an extra payday in July that I'd be able to use, albeit grudgingly, to pay for the repairs.

And then it happened. The jump off the pontoon boat into the lake. The completely non-buoyant eyeglasses that I'd neglected to take off sinking to the bottom of the lake, never to be seen again. The subsequent visit to Lenscrafters with a bill that nearly equalled my gross salary bonus.

It occurs to me that some people seem to ALWAYS have money, while others NEVER seem to. It occurs to me that I'm so, SO lucky that the car accident wasn't fatal or even harmful to any bodies, that I'm even able to have viable alternatives to paying for emergencies such as these. It occurs to me that I've already left the class that I grew up in, a luxury that most people do not experience. In that light, the tears on the pontoon boat seem a little silly. Too bad money isn't everything.

2005-06-20T20:22:00.000-05:00

My Summer Vacation

I went to Missouri. It was very fun. I saw many interesting things. Including the all time champion of the vanity plate phenomenon: Mr. "XXX-RTD". That's right. But what makes him the champion is not the plate itself. Picture, if you will, a suped up black Honda Prelude (spoiler, extra loud and stuff). Only it's not new and shiny suped up, it's kind of old and gritty. The license plate is encased in some sort of translucent red plastic. There are the requisite window clings of female devils bent in whatever unnatural position necessary to expose their red hot cartoon naughty bits. The best part, though, is that airbrushed in white on the bumper is a pair of male eyes, looking at shapely women's body parts. Truly amazing to behold and too good to be true. While attempting to capture this with my camera phone, the skinny, white, blond guy with fake designer sunglasses behind the wheel noticed the attention he was getting and waved. Ah, people and their cars.

I also:

-became good friends with my grandmother, an 80-year old who is quite possibly more with it than me;
-wandered my abandoned, crumbling grade school for several hours (this is really a whole story in and of itself and there are amazing pictures that you should see);
-ate not less than 4 Ted Drewes blueberry marshmallow concretes (and other fantastic food, homemade and not);
-chatted, argued, dished, caught up for hours with great, G-R-E-A-T friends;
-ran through Tower Grove Park, breathing in the nonpareil smell of magnolias in bloom;
-shopped for lots of clothes at all sorts of great local stores and ended up buying many of them on Target clearance (*shrug*);
-considered moving back for not less than an hour every day;
-got in a car accident that was initially estimated to require 3 days and $800 in repairs, and has been upgraded to mean 10 days and $2500 in repairs
-returned and neglected my blog for weeks.

2005-05-27T15:10:00.000-05:00

Vacation's Where I Wanna Be

Top 5 Signs You Need a Vacation:
1. You find your mind wandering and thinking of reasons you need/deserve a vacation.
2. You have to grit your teeth to keep from screaming.
3. Every time a coworker says "hello" and smiles, you quickly attempt to determine their hidden agenda and when they release it, no matter how nicely, you want to throw your stapler at them.
4. You have thought about posioning, choking, punching, slapping or flattening the tires of someone you work with.
5. You would literally rather be anywhere than at work.

Top 5 Reasons I'm Excited for the Drive to St. Louis:
1. Complete and absolute solitude for 8-10 hours.
2. Singing showtunes at the top of my lungs until my throat hurts and my voice cracks.
3. Eating a bunch of greasy, fatty food intermittently for 10 hours and not feeling a minute of remorse.
4. Laughing at billboards, other drivers, other strange little life quirks along the way.
5. Finding new and interesting ways to keep myself awake.

Top 5 Reasons I'm Excited to Get to St. Louis:
1. Drinks on the back porch.
2. Laughing, laughing, laughing until it hurts.
3. That feeling of coming home again while being the out-of-towner (read: drama exempt).
4. Sitting on the hood of the car eating Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. Blueberry marshmallow concrete. Large. If only you knew.
5. Friends. Since FOREVER.

Departure in T-minus 18 hours and counting.