residue

I am off today, and it's been sort of perfect thus far.  I have been for three glorious days in honor of my favorite holiday, my birthday.  while yesterday was spent pretending I was a new fixture in the living room - recovering from the all-too-much wine consumed saturday night and watching a marathon of the only tv show I can actually stand at the moment - today has been productive, and I'm glad I took it off.

 I just finished the dishes, and the process has made me quietly nostalgic.  from the pint glasses stolen from former roommates' kitchens  to the plastic hawkeye cup I use for multipurpose cleaning, I notice that in my kitchen, it is hard to escape the past.  

the best thing about my current kitchen is the space.  nick doesn't like it, but to me, it is at least three times as big as my first kitchen in saint louis, and that is good enough for me.  baked goods made in my tilted stove come out lopsided, but the double sink and the counter space is quite perfect.  and the view out the back door into the alley has become one of my favorite sights.

I am no longer doing the dishes for four people and a pitbull, but the uptown glass is among my favorites.  its retro black logo is one I've yet to see in person, but I am reminded of stories told on the back porch of my neighbor's house in tempe.  washing that glass... or putting it in the dishwasher (when I actually lived somewhere with one)... makes me grateful for the people I knew there.  

further back in time, that glass and the bridalwreath kitchen made me especially grateful for moving after I used to wash piles of dishes while staring out the window that faced south in my scottsdale house.  I'd watch planes land and wish to be somewhere else, out of that house or elsewhere.  I'd avoid sitting alone in my room and wait for my future roommates to call.

I am no longer fighting with dishland, its lovable quirks and pouty workers.  that was an awful dishpan-hands summer, when the only thing I could do to keep sane was gossip over filling tubs with water and cleaning out a trap I could almost fit in.  I felt a sense of ownership in that part of the camp kitchen, but I would not like to be there again... something I realized when I broke the pints & quarts glass a year ago, and was okay with it.

I miss the kitchen in benona so much more.  that was the summer that I really learned to cook and bake, and to love doing so.  we gathered around the prep table so often that they finally bought us anti-fatigue mats.  we hosted themed parties, and we were extremely good at it.  my triplet sisters would never chide me for my nalgene storage containers, as we all ordered them and think they're perfect.

the epsilon rho kitchen could be the most disgusting room in that small house, until someone forced us to do our chores.  the recycling piles up throughout my kitchen, but it can't come close to the amount of trash and recycling produced by 12 sorority girls.  I am still thankful to my lazy sisters for their lack of desire for pop can deposits, for I would not have been able to buy gas for my entire junior year without that.

and my mom's kitchen in portage, and all of the hand-me-downs I inherited and still use from that small space, remind me of messy holidays, perfect birthdays, and how I finally felt home after flights back from phoenix.  it is still my favorite place in that house, and I still refuse to use a plastic glass there.

as I prepare to take over fissell's kitchen, and inherit the residue of years of people and things that have passed through it, I am realizing how much of my life I have also inherited from the people I know.  how carrying forward a physical piece of history can be just as important as carrying forward the memory, for it makes that memory real to us again.

fiss, I'll miss you.

radiation therapy

I know I haven't posted in a while. but you'll see why... oh, you'll see...

today I wonder how much of what I'm feeling, how much of the apathy and unhappiness I push out through ass-kissing emails and teeth-grinding smiles actually radiates through my computer screen or from behind my counters at work. how much of it gets to my bosses (one in particular), my co-workers, and my customers? can the people around me tell that I hate my job (again, one more than the other)?

part of me hopes they can. the part that is through subliminally pleading with them to care about something other than themselves and their agendas.

the other part of me wants to stop grinding my teeth and find a job that makes me actually smile. something I can do that doesn't have to be justified with an org chart and a half-hour explanation when I tell people what I do. something that doesn't make me want to show up late everyday, or something that doesn't give me angry outbursts as I'm driving to work. something that doesn't lead me to blog about it in the middle of the day, or worse, look for a new job while I'm still sitting at the old one.

the other part of me is hopeful. and the other part of me has set a date.

no matter how I'm doing at the end of this calendar year, it will be better than right now because I will be doing something different by the end of january. even though I might want to relax a bit and visit the dentist before I go.

slow down, st louis

(note: I started this blog a month ago.  I just got around to finishing and posting it, but the sentiment is still alive.)

I can't fool myself all of the time.  I can't make myself believe, no matter how optimistic, that I am as good of a person as I would want myself to be.

I forget to say 'please' and 'thank you'.

I am so on-time that I'm late.

I drive like an idiot, usually because of the aforementioned lateness.

I swear more than a person with my vocabulary should.

I degree-drop (think name-drop, but regarding my education instead of people) at every chance.

I wear flip-flops constantly.

okay, so the last one's just a personal choice.  but I have come so close to frostbite (among other debilitating toe injuries circa 2002) so many times that I should really think about putting on a pair of real shoes more often.  and while I'm sure others out there would be mildly offended by my lack of pedicure, that's not up for discussion at the moment.

no, tonight's blog is about a cold sunday night in october.  a night when I was lazily meandering home in my monster truck, took a route I haven't taken in a while, and ended up forgetting to be the inconsiderate me of normal circumstance. instead, I was only standing out in south city with cold toes.

walking bubba through my old neighborhood was one of my favorite things to do when I first moved here.  he had a ton of energy, I needed to be out of the house.  the neighborhood was quiet, residential, and interesting.  I had three or so regular routes that could take as long as two hours, if we so chose.  the only time I felt even a bit unsafe was in my necessary crossing of jamieson avenue at lindenwood park.

jamieson is a wide, four-lane stretch that goes from being functional and busy (it helps people exit and enter a major interstate at its beginning) to immediately residential (which is where it runs along the west side of the small neighborhood park).  there are stoplights at random intervals, but along the park there are only stop signs; the stop signs are treated as yields when traffic is light, the street itself is treated as an off-shoot of the interstate.

my lazy drive through this part of town was partially out of nostalgia for my old neighborhood and partially out of a need to go to the nearest branch of my bank.  while on this part of jamieson, I was at the front of a pack of oddly heavy traffic for 930p on a sunday, when I noticed a dog walking in the middle of the road.

the picture in my mind is still and clear: the dog didn't dart.  it  just shuffled across the street, staring at the road but not avoiding the headlights or sounds of cars.  it was visibly old, per the matted fur and wobbly gait, but it was also visibly dazed.  afterall, bubba and any other life-loving canine would have looked up and probably sprinted away terrified.  I registered all of this in an instant; I also registered that the people alongside and behind me didn't seem to care.  they needed to be somewhere.  they swerved, they honked, they sped up as they passed.

the rest of the story is sort of classic do-gooder: I pulled over.  so did a few others.  the dog wouldn't let us near it, but it would shelter itself under my car until the police and the humane society arrived.  it didn't have a collar on, it probably had a broken hip.  I signed it over to the humane society, and prayed a humanist prayer that someone would miss it, someone would go looking for it, someone would pick it up...

standing there for about 45 minutes, in 40-degree weather, in a thin sweater and flip-flops, I remember one thing vividly: oncoming headlights... the anger expressed by my fellow do-gooders as those headlights whipped past.

here we were - trying to protect an animal that couldn't survive on its own, and here was the rest of the driving population of the metro area - trying to get wherever they were going as quickly as possible.  an obviously ironic situation, considering that an all-too-quick and careless driver is probably how this poor dog was injured in the first place.  aside from that, it was disheartening, if not mildly alarming, to know that drivers on jamieson had so little regard for life happening outside of their little plastic-and-metal bubble that some didn't even see our little troupe gathered on the road, and that those who did treated momentarily curving into the next lane like a large (honk and yell worthy) inconvenience. 

I find that my inconsiderate behaviors around being late and driving like an idiot have increased in my two years in st louis.  I can blame "fast-paced city-living" and "bad st louis drivers" for it, or I can own up to the fact that I let it happen.  that I have again become a chronically late person, with an ill-temper around driving and sour outlook on my fellow travelers.

I am proud of myself for stopping to help that dog (no matter what became of it, though that hope for a good outcome is blindingly alive in me).  I am not proud of myself for usually being in such a hurry that my behavior on any given trip through the city is more likely to resemble that of those behind the fast-approaching headlights.  

the resolution coming out of this must be to slow myself down, and hope that I take small pieces of st louis with me.

activism for bubba's sake

below is an email I just wrote to the editor of the online edition of mother jones magazine (MOJO), regarding the opening header of today's "MOJO Headlines" email I received. in the header, MOJO compared finding fault in palin, as, well... read the opening line:

"Easy as shooting pit bulls in a barrel"? Really, MOJO? The pun is there, but the visual - to this owner of a silly and loving pit bull - is just disgusting and wrong.

I dislike Palin's stances on issues and her use of colloquialisms as much as the next liberal. Basic political policies and speech-reading aside, I will forever detest the fact that she used a stigma that pit bull owners across America have been trying to overcome for years to make herself look better. To me, it served an underlying purpose of flippantly waving "well-known" stereotypes in our faces, akin to making racist remarks about Obama's character per "well-known" stereotypes of African-Americans. Good dogs are good dogs, good people are good people - no matter what their breed, color, or relations - and I think you're doing your mission of "seek[ing] to inform and inspire a more just and democratic world" a major disservice by keeping any kind of stereotype alive.

Please find another way to poke fun at her blunders and sound bites - or, in my mind, this magazine's attempt to inspire informed voting and open discussion of social justice issues is becoming as closed-minded as its opposing media and campaigns.

I mean, really - isn't my bubba cute?

so, I won't stand for it. even if I weren't already voting for obama for every other reason on the planet, this one's a definite deal-breaker.

conservatives: keep your laws off my body, your words off my rights, and your prejudices off my dog.

in-formality

I spent $48 dollars on a flower arrangement last week. that amount is, at this somewhat fortunate point in my fair city, about as much as it will cost me to purchase a full tank of gas this week.

I would like to tell you that the flower arrangement was for my only living grandparent in michigan. I got a letter from her last week, and though I will see her in two weeks, I haven't talked to her in twelve. but memaw will get flowers soon enough.

I would like to tell you that it was for a friend. doesn't matter which friend, just someone I enjoy would have sufficed. I once sent something just as pricey to a friend who lost his bid for the vice presidency at mizzou. and while I didn't own a car at the time, the purchase hurt my wallet just as much. but I found satisfaction in knowing that I made such a gesture because I knew I would have appreciated it. he still talks about it.

come to think of it, I used to bring flowers to my teachers when I was a kid! straight out of the yard, tulips and lilies and hyacinths, wrapped in wet paper towels and ziplocs, and carefully guarded on the bus. so I would like to tell you that I brought the flowers to someone whom I admired as much as I admired those teachers.

but I didn't.

I gave the flowers to my boss.

for those of you not in the working world, last thursday was boss's day. had I not been reminded by the other ladies in my office who are on my staffing level, I wouldn't have given the holiday one thought. I might have gotten a card or something small and cute... but never would I have independently thought to buy her such a thing. I don't dislike her, but I also don't think I regard her as highly as the people I mentioned above. so I suppose it was peer pressure, as the ladies who reminded me also reminded me that they were going to the flower shop across the street to chip in for an arrangement for their boss. and our two bosses share an admin... who was super-excited at the thought of both bosses getting flowers.

you get the idea.

so there I was, recovering from the mildly awkward ceremony of presenting the flowers, when I thought: at what point do we drop formalities? at what point are we comfortable enough that we do something, like giving someone flowers, out of a positive connection, instead of an expected association?

I'm sure it has something to do with love, or at least fondness. and I'm pretty sure that the scale slides... if you're one for formality to begin with... depending on the social hierarchy of the situation. but what I really wonder is, what makes us treat people on the secondary levels of our lives like first-class citizens, while those on the primary level can alternately be venerated and walked-on as we see fit?

I'm still asking myself almost a week later, and have yet to come up with a solid answer.

part of that inability to answer stems from the fact that I had a rough weekend. a rough weekend of my own doing; a rough weekend that relates back to part of my personality that I don't flaunt; a rough weekend that had been coming, but could have been handled differently. I treated a primary person in my life like a secondary character, like I didn't care how my actions affected our relationship... partly because I felt like I'd reached a level of informality with him that allowed me to act without consequence.

but I am old enough to know that there is never a case for such a thing. I know that acting without regard or respect for another person, no matter how well I know them, is inexcusable.

I wonder if I could learn to treat more people like I was about to give them something rich, cheerful, and fun - like a karmic flower arrangement - each time I saw them. I wonder how to integrate a sincere level of formality back into my life.

taking baking lightly

the nice thing about baking with crank is that she generally makes me stick to the recipe on the side of the box. it's not necessarily intentional on her part - I generally worry that if I'm asking her to make something with me and it turns out gross, I've wasted our time and money on a culinary disaster. but sometimes it's more about making a mess and a memory than it is about making something to munch on.

I still laugh over the flourless cookie mess I made with my fifth-grade best friend katie, the details of which included borrowing two other main ingredients from various neighbors, and then discovering that her family was out of enough flour, too. after deciding that the peanut butter globs looked like pre-baked cookies, we shoved the pan in the oven... only to return to the kitchen ten minutes later to find that all of the globs had spread out and formed one big burning cookie.

her mom came home at that very moment, and was quite mad about the whole thing. we, of course, thought it was hilarious.

this past weekend, I found myself in a situation straight from my past: staring at a giant, shapeless pan full of cookie goo. I'd decided, in my self-pitying mode of baking gluten-free cookies - the dough of which is almost nothing like your day-to-day tollhouse recipe dough - that the addition of a little chocolate milk would make my crumbly dough feel more like the stuff I ate off the spoon for so many years. the dough was delicious, but as I spooned it onto my smooth gray pan, I wondered if I was repeating a childhood mistake.

it went into the oven anyway! hope - and a desire for warm, melty chocolate! - had over taken me.

five minutes later, seeing that mocking pan of goo was less hilarious. this time, however, I decided to salvage it by pouring it into the next best container, a bread pan, and baking it that way. my hope was that it would turn out as a kind of bar consistency... or something like that.

I returned to check on my little pan of wonder, the very pan in which my mom used to make me banana and zucchini bread, and after about forty minutes in my tilted oven, I had a somewhat crumbly yet deliciously dense cookie loaf. my experiment had worked!

my karmic lesson, I guess, is something along the line of where following directions will get me. following all of the directions will more than likely lead to predicatble results, the likes of which are safe, comforting, and usually not disappointing. but sometimes, taking a chance will produce tasty little surprises if they are willing to be tried. and really, chances like this one, even if unsuccessful, at least make for good stories later in life.

in case you'd like to try the cookie loaf for yourself:
--purchase 1 box whole foods gluten free chocolate chip cookie mix
--purchase/ensure that you have vanilla, eggs, and butter
--make to specified directions
--add about half a cup of chocolate milk
--eat a bit of the dough, if you're into that sort of thing
--dump in a lightly oiled loaf pan
--bake at specified temperature for 40 minutes
--enjoy!

good-bye, sweet gnome.

dear friends,

it's been a almost a year since I started this blog. I've had a tremendous year here in the lou, and as I come upon my second anniversary of being a resident of this fine city, I've decided to make some changes. some are to my social life, some are to my diet, some are to my attitude. and one... one is to this blog.

do you remember in that initial email when I said I'd never get rid of the gnome?

I lied.

I have ditched him in favor of my new photoshop creation above. I will, however, reserve a place for him in the right-hand navigation for a memorial picture... which I will photoshop together in a minute!

anyway, get ready for more exciting stuff to come.

love!

weird weather in the lou

this is the current local stl radar, per weather underground.

the regional radar is seeing wisps of things pushed ahead by the tropical storm that hit the carolinas yesterday. so... we were expecting rain... but am I the only person who thinks this is just strange? like, the universe and the weather are taking it out on the lou as if we were the pigpen to the national peanuts comic of the day?

the really funny thing is that I checked the sky outside after I published this the first time... and it's clear. so is the radar check on weather.com... so either this is really high level moisture, or weather underground is playing a joke.... on me... who's just bored enough to notice it.

don't have a clue how to behave

I just realized that I haven't written a blog in two weeks. sorry, folks: I'm tired, too tired to form a cohesive thought pattern around anything. I'm going through the kind of interpersonal manic depression I only experience when I'm stressed out or unhappy -

where I'm distant or mean to the people I know the best, and happy-go-lucky with everyone new. where I play with my rings a lot (my most visible nervous habit). where I don't make the phone calls I should make, don't write the letters I've been meaning to write, and don't get out of the apartment enough.

I'm hoping to work my way back toward center. soon.

once learned from a republican

in the 1992 election, this politically-eager sixth-grader was named the republican campaign manager in the mock election taking place in my advanced english class. a week later I flip-flopped and changed sides, after having a lunch-time talk with my democratic counterpart in which he cited some of the basic tenants of the democratic party and platform. I eventually failed that project for "not sticking by my original charge" but at least I felt better about my endorsements for the dems.

my flip, I think, was the result of being raised neutral. my mother raised scott and me without a definitive religion or political party. she allowed both of us to experiment with (or, in my case, completely neglect) organized religions, but will have intelligent philosophical discussions on anything posed. she will still, to this day, often not tell me which party she voted for in national, state, or local elections, for fear that it will bias my opinion going into the voting booth. so, I can theorize the media-related reasons I allowed myself to be elected as republican campaign manager at that age, and why, when I realized what I actually stood for, I promptly went democrat.

this year, I am an obama girl. (in fact, I think it's time to post the one picture I have from the obama rally I attended in st louis in february.) I am all for someone who formed his political roots doing the kind of community organizing I went to school for and hope to do some day. he draws his ideas and hopes for the future from the experiences he gathered in this setting. he served others in small ways, and continues to grow those ways to make bigger impacts, while searching for the answer that is most fair to all. and that's something I can respect.

without trying to be partisan, I have to admit right now that the republican ticket rubs me the wrong way this year. there is something entirely too socially conservative, too religious, too extremist about it. part of that ticket, the vice presidential nominee, particularly irks me. and until last night, I couldn't quite determine why.

as I read and listened to media reports of republican supporters stating that they liked the VP nominee for sticking to her family values in the case of her pregnant daughter, I became stuck. I argued in my head that there must be some kind of wrong in this situation.

and I finally found it.

paulo freire, in his 1960s grassroots manual for community organizers and those they serve, the pedagogy of the oppressed, said one of my favorite things: "those who authentically commit themselves to the people must re-examine themselves constantly." this quote, to me, sums up my exact feeling that we should not be lauded for our ability to stick by our values blindly, but to stick by them when we have thoroughly examined a situation, its solutions and alternatives, and have ended up in the spot where we are most comfortable.

that each time a new issue or hardship arises, we make an effort to reassess our morals, values and knowledge and make sure that our response not only suits the situation correctly, but also serves in the best interest of others.

that we never truly "know" what's good for others, because we recognize that the needs of others, and our perceptions of and responses to their needs, change constantly.

that blanket statements and groupthink mentality regarding social issues often miss the subtle nuances of everyday humanism, and prevent us from ever really knowing what we believe at a given time.

I cannot respect someone simply for their values-based judgment if they cannot prove to me that they re-examine or questions their own values once in a while. just like I cannot respect someone who flip-flops on an issue simply because they were told that it was in their best politcal interest to do so. I think that all such decisions must come from knowledge gained and internal judgment, and, more importantly, they must come with and admission - to one's self and one's constituents - that re-examination happened, a decision has been made based on such changing circumstances, and values were altered for the better.

so, in this election year set afire by new and old faces alike, what I am figuring out now holds true to what I acted on in 1992: I will not allow myself to endorse something in which I don't believe - but I need a minute to figure out what it is that I truly believe in, so that I might act boldly for the best interest of everyone else around me. and I will remain unimpressed by republicans until their someone in their party shows me the same kind of self-awareness.

finding the familiar

I feel grossly overbooked lately.

in describing this feeling to my mother, I said, I feel like I go to work all week, go to whole foods all weekend, and spend the rest of my time trying to catch up with everyone else or on sleep. it's like I'm doing the same thing over and over again, and I just keep watching the time pass by without being a part of it.

she goes, oh, so it's like you're in groundhog day.

though she has a point, I knew that I'd missed something in explaining how I felt about how I spend my time lately.

somewhere between the 62-hour work week, the healthy amount of sleep I try to get, the social life I try to maintain, I still feel lonely. I still feel like I am missing out. and it makes me a whiny, grumbly sort of person when I'm doing something I don't think I should be doing with my time.

and "whiny, grumbly sort of person" is exactly how I would describe myself on labor day.

it was my little brother's 26th birthday, and I was absent for a family function yet again. tired of not having actual days off, and angry because I hadn't thought sooner to drive home for the day, I was a pouty mess for most of it. when it came time to finally venture out into the humidity for some socializing, I basically relied on nick to drag me.

like the end of any feel-good story, I returned home several hours and two different social engagements later feeling much better about life. my friends are silly, vibrant people who tell ridiculous stories and make me think, and I am grateful that they are (whether they know it or not) easily able to pull me out of such funks.

but I still missed my family as I crawled into bed that night... until I realized that I'd seen them all day, and the best part of my family was already in bed with me.

see, each time I move I have a hard time remembering that being home is less about being surrounded by the comfortable and more about being comfortable in your surroundings. I could move home to kalamazoo in a minute, knowing that I would recognize smells and sights and street names with little-to-no effort, but being there for more than a weekend would make me want to jump out of my skin. the nice thing about st louis, and the thing that I am apparently just now realizing, is that I am beginning to have both sides of the equation.

now I just need to work on that whiny/grumbly thing before it becomes too familiar to everyone around me.

a funny thing happened on the way

if you call locking my keys in my car "funny."

last saturday night I was on my way to a surprise party - one that I helped to plan and was supposed to help set up - and stopped to get some gas. for whatever reason, I took my keys out of the ignition, threw them on the front seat, took my phone and debit card out of the car with me, and shut the door. I realized moments later that I'd locked myself out. I can, at this point, only say that I was glad that I'd taken my spare out of my WFM apron pocket (as the apron was in the backseat of my car at that time) and left it where nick could find it.

there is a certain amount of emotion that goes into a personally disruptive event such as this one: anger, fear, disappointment, resignation. I've locked my keys in my car a few other times, and this was the first time that I felt the latter two more than the former.

for example, as a junior in college, I locked my keys in my car on a snowy, cold day. on that day I was impatient and angry: my car was running, I was on my way to class, and my mom couldn't get there fast enough with the single spare key. this was the case in the handful of other incidents involving my person and a missing set of keys: there was a certain amount of woe and whining, of acting like a giant baby and apologizing sheepishly later.

in the forty minutes it took nick to venture to our apartment and then meet me at the gas station, I seemed to handle myself quite differently than before. sure, there was the intial sigh and depressive self-blame ("oh, I'm such a fucking idiot...! who does that?"), then the resignation ("nick's my only hope. I'm going to be late, but that's how it has to be."), and then... like no other time before... there was the positivity! the "well, it's fucking hot and sticky outside, so I might as well go into the convenience store and see if the attendant's at least nice enough to let me hang out for a while." and that's just what I did.

it turns out that the attendant was nice enough. I explained my predicament immediately and nervously, but berlin, the tall, lanky, cornrowed, pretty-eyed young man behind the counter, was friendly and nonchalant about the whole thing. for most of the time that I was there, I was the only other person in the tiny store, and pretty soon I found myself in random, but not shallow, conversation with the most genuine person I'd met in months. the regulars who came into the store liked and trusted him, and I could see why: he gave everyone who came in an equal chance. he would talk to those who needed to talk, laugh with those who needed a laugh, hurry for those in a hurry. but he remained smiling, seeming to enjoy all of it.

in a time when I'd feared that my efforts of last fall - my self-imposed campaign of allowing others to show me how amazing they were, no matter what the circumstance - had failed, or at least somehow stalled, I saw that another person out there was also entirely open to this kind of thinking. he was simply naturally happy to be treating others as he wanted to be treated, with interest, affability, and respect. and he sloughed off people on whom this equal chance was seemingly lost, not rudely but in the kind of softly resigned way that shows disappointment in the present and hope for the future.

the rest of my night was entirely better for this encounter. rather than noticing how long I waited at the gas station, I was instead ridiculously happy and grateful to see nick. and in an exceptional interpersonally challenging moment, I was more comfortable than I usually am in entering a social situation without a buffer and fostering a few new friendships while there. okay, okay... the substances consumed at the birthday party helped in that, too, but the point is that I think I regained my enthusiasm for letting amazing things happen to me in a few moments when I could have pity-partied my way through the rest of the evening. and I can't think of a better way to spend a saturday night.

from anaphylaxis to zombies

while mindlessly munching my way through a small tub of carob-covered raisins yesterday morning, I stumbled on my current greatest fear - a single raw sunflower seed at the bottom of the tub.

I already know, per my very limiting diet and extensive list of allergies, that I should absolutely avoid the bulk aisle at whole foods (or anywhere, for that matter). but I am assured by the bulk buyer that he's got some things I can eat... and carob-covered raisins, being one of them, are probably my favorite candy on the planet. so though I should stay out of the bulk aisle, I am often lured to its cross-contaminated bins by the promise of a candy I can't get anywhere else.

this single seed, however, was a bit of a shock. to date, sunflower seeds were the cause of my worst allergic reaction - an episode of anaphylaxis that was scarily quick and just as quickly quieted with a high dose of benadryl. earlier this weekend, in fact, I'd picked up a stray potato chip from one of the hand baskets at work and almost instantly developed an uncomfortable rash between two of my fingers from the sunflower oil on the chip. so, facing one in the middle of my carob-y goodness was rather jarring, and it got me to thinking: if I am most afraid of a small achene and a few stone fruits - some of the only things that can kill me as I stand - should I really be all that afraid of anything else?

I would like to say "no." but I'm honest, so you know that's not the case.

I am one of those people who is admittedly afraid of scary movies, and lately will refuse to watch them for fear of nightmares. at age six, I was the kid who thought vampires were real and didn't fall asleep unless the blankets were pulled up to my chin and the hallway light was on. I will walk through any neighborhood or building during the day, but leave me in my mom's dark basement at night without a flashlight and I might cry.

late yesterday evening I found myself at my friend john's apartment, making pizza, playing with his puppy, and being talked into watching a zombie movie. i am legend, which, it turns out, is actually based on a book and set of previous films that were actually about vampires, is not something I would have seen in the theaters. of course, the behavioral social worker that I am, I was entirely more interested in the plot bits regarding adaptive psychological traits of the hero and the antagonists, but I was shaking at the turn of each hemocyte head nonetheless.

for everyone's future reference, I am also afraid of: abandoned buildings, being jailed/kidnapped/otherwise detained in a foreign country, deep water, dark spaces, gremlins, guns, hostile alien takeovers, knife fights, papercuts, serial killers, spider bites, rabid monkeys, tree nuts, tsunamis, and watching other people die.

but none of these, honestly, are as scary as that centimeter-long seed I saw yesterday morning, for most of them will never enter my personal bubble for longer than the 120 minutes spent in a theater. maybe I'll just be more careful in my edible and watchable selections.

just another manic month

I was all set to write a new blog... another new 'universal realization' about having friends as an adult... inspired by a recent depressive streak I've developed around my social life and a good conversation with crank. and then I realized that I need to just pay attention to the chaos going on around me right now, more than I need to lament something that I can somewhat control.

I feel like I've spent the last week of my life on some kind of high-alert for damage control. so I'm floating the question, "what's with today, today?," out to the rest of you, and then I'm going to rant about some of the chaos that has been presenting itself in my life lately. here goes:

I feel like I'm drinking entirely too much, just to prove to myself that I'm not going to throw up whatever I'm drinking. I just lived through two weeks with an mild fever, recurring migraines, and a case of nausea that wouldn't subsist - especially when I would drink any kind of gluten-free alcohol. which, of course, means that I developed a minor paranoia around the possibility that maybe I'm not meant to digest sorghum or rice either. but this week, in some championship-style moves involving bar-hopping and softball, I've made some pretty good progress in my apparent new-found quest to binge-drink my summer away...

...and I've also run my mouth a little too hard in a few scattered directions during these binges. but that's another story altogether.

the small social life that I do have is kind of blowing up around me. I don't see my old friends enough, and I think I sometimes see my "new" friends too much. both sets are experiencing their own patches of turbulence. people are getting fired from whole foods, people are fighting and getting injured, people are getting burnt by people they used to enjoy. not much of this social drama involves me directly. but I'm taking it all entirely too personally, allowing myself to become a sounding board or to absorb some of their feelings in order to help. and it's causing me so much stress that I find myself either shutting down or taking it out on myself with bad behavior directed at my liver, my brain, or my boyfriend.

and my family, who I'd hoped would enjoy the michigan summer in my place, are instead spending their summer mediating fights and making tough decisions. being at the other end of the phone on some of these hours-long rants about houses, money, relatives, and pets is tough, and I am exhausted at the end of these calls. I cannot comprehend what they're going through, and sometimes lack the empathy to try.

grumble.

I have been instructed by jim to "stop answering my phone." we all know that I hardly ever answer my phone, but I get his point: stop allowing myself to be that sounding board. but I think my good friend (and self-proclaimed personal life coach), tim, said it better when he told me to "always look on the bright side of life" and focus more of my attention in that direction, instead of on other people.

I can't promise anything, boys, but I'll try.

different names for the same thing

I've been bothered by something for a while, and I'm going to make this quick:

I was once extremely optimistic that exiting formal education settings with such a close age-range of peers would ultimately eliminate the majority of my social problems. if you were reading a few months ago, you already know that I've learned that bullies remain present past adolescence. so why did I think that cliques wouldn't either?

to the people in my office who chided me about "never coming out of my office to hang out" so much that trying to hang out with you became awkward, especially when I wasn't in on your jokes, because I didn't feel like spending an scattered hour each day obviously sitting around up front, and who now avoid eye contact with me because you finally made a comment about me being anti-social to my face, that I didn't want to take - I have three words for you:

you missed out.

glory days

I'm not going camp this year.

to be absolutely honest, I made the choice six months ago as I was applying. I wanted to know a few things before I decided to go, but wanted to make sure that I had the choice in the matter, and didn't end up not applying when I was bored and lonely in july. but I knew back then that if I got the answers I didn't want, I wasn't going to go.

the things I wanted to know:

which position would they give me? would they retire me to the a-team? would they stick me in the office, away from most staff and participant contact? would they finally think I was old enough to be a coordinator again? would they, for the Nth time, give me a position that I'm good at, but doesn't force me to be anything better?

who else was going back? am I going to feel like the old kid again? would I have people I would want to talk to, or would I just sit around explaining things to younger staffers? would I, again, feel like the of-age lush because I went to the yacht club for a night or two during staff training?

how is my name being thrown around up there? am I still seen as the girl who took on GC and lost? the one who used to curry favor with so many, but is now an outsider? the silly kid who used to wear costumes and paddle canoes? or, am I just the heartbreaking and bitchy person-who-should-not-be-named?

my answers: they gave me a position I didn't want, but am extremely good at, and it would have been my sixth time doing it. none of my female friends are returning, and I would have, once again, been the girl who hangs out with boys and absorbs the glares of the other girls. and my name will apparently get you a death stare or two if you say it in front of the wrong person. I would have been the old girl, sitting around quietly bitching about things that I don't really care about anymore, but trying to stay out of the way of a few choice characters. the fact is that it would have been quite uncomfortable, and unlike any camp experience that I want to have.

all this said, who really wants to go back to such an environment?

partly... I do... if only because I'm going to miss the people around whom you can still say my name, I'm going to miss those boys with whom I laugh because they're way more fun than the girls, I'm going to miss hanging out with a bunch of ridiculous adolescents who will make me feel young again. I'm also going to miss laying in the sand and playing pranks and staying up way too late and dressing in silly outfits and bitching about the lake-effect weather and raiding the fridge... and all of those classically trite but oh-so-fun things that make summer camp, summer camp.

but, my line of thought since january is that I've had my times. those things have happened. they were the highlight of my last decade, and I think that, much like the misadventures of sorority life and the flub-ups of phoenix friendships, things just naturally need to come to an end. or rather, they cycle:

my favorite summer will always be 2004. sure, I was the one who was heartbroken, but I was also a triplet, and I could do anything I wanted. I drove kids around in 15-passenger vans, I owned "gear," I had glorious days off shopping in thrift stores and laying on the beach. my favorite conference still existed and we ruled it with humor, late night conversations, and ultimate frisbee. summers after that were just my attempt at emulating how I felt in those three short months (which worked about half the time). these feelings directly correllate to my favorite semester in grad school - fall of 2004, spent sitting on the bridalwreath house driveway, teaching chris and caryn to shotgun beers and watching nick hurt himself on his bike - and my favorite semester in college - fall of 2001, when I was super-skinny, had a ridiculous-looking fake ID, and squirmed my way into every dark bar my sisters would frequent. all of these are the height of the carefree attitudes (and perhaps, careless attitudes) in my cycle of living, my glory days.

I think that as I get older, maybe these "heights" will be more frequent, but less high... so that eventually, I'm just having a series of small highlights for the rest of my life, instead of months of an episode of interpersonal mania.

so I've made my choice: spend a whole summer in st louis - spend a whole summer seeking out small bits and pieces of the fun, the silly, the dramatic, the stressful - instead of fitting it all into two heart-wrenching weeks away from my life here. and I'm fully content with that.

expiration dates

I wait for days to expire so I can avoid doing the things I don't want to do and can get closer to the things I do want to do.

in trying to write an epic post about this statement, I realized that it's a crappy way to live and gave up on trying to justify it eloquently. the truth is, it's all I can do right now... I can only survive in a state a looking forward, of waiting for things to end so other things (that are hopefully good) will come along.

I rarely enjoy the moment anymore, and when I do, I feel like I can't tell anyone about it because it will only ruin that moment in my memory. which is sad, because I used to have so many little moments, so many reasons to love where I was and what I was doing, but also look forward to experiencing more of that. I need to get back to that state of mind.

a short tribute, with nayonaise on the side

this is the saddest thing I've heard in a while, and I'm reading about it 16 months late:

I never needed a bag, I always had my timbuk2. I came to see you before work, between classes, after my internship, and whenever else I got bored and hungry. I never needed help in the bulk section, I only ever wanted carob chips and dried lentils. I bought a t-shirt, which I forgot to wear on the days it would get me discounts. your member-employees were pretentious but well-meaning, but so was I. I was constantly broke, but it was cheaper and more fun to visit you in the end than it was to hop a bus to whole foods or trader joe's. I was sometimes that annoying customer who came in as you were closing, but I didn't mean it, I just got caught on a delayed bus. I tried so many random delicious things that you sold me, and figured out what I actually did and didn't like. you showed me progressive magazines, local products, bulk beauty products... and you gave me a comfort zone far away from my two other favorite health food stores.

despite my current location and lack of excuse to visit phoenix... I'll miss you, gentle strength.

imperfect timing

M thinks Kerrie's priorities are out of whack, is how a friend's status update on facebook read yesterday. I'd previously put up a status about hoping that the detroit tigers would beat the st louis cardinals in that day's game, and this was his st-louisan-turned-new-yorker response.

thanks to the 'convenience' of facebook's ability to oversaturate its users with updates on other people's information, I saw his update as soon as I signed in. I will refrain from a rant based on the "news feed" and "mini-feed" at the present time. instead, I will focus on the fact that I was hit fairly hard by his comment for two reasons:

one.
M isn't really a friend. in fact, he's someone I stopped talking to abruptly after I figured out that he'd broken my heart practically on purpose eight years ago. he just found me on facebook, and already I find myself sucked into a pattern that I've been sucked into by three other people before: a jumble of minor unresolved feelings and sympathy mixed with the hope that maybe I can right this situation through forgiveness and casual conversation. I've already got one of those in real life in st louis, and I resent taking it on. why do I need another - one that is clearly unfolding in a predictable manner - via the internet?

two.
my priorities truly are currently out of whack. I work two jobs because I don't get enough satisfaction out of either to justify working just one or the other. I spend money without regard to actual finances or future situations. I have a vague goal on the one end of my life, and plenty of little ones in between here and there, but I am doing nothing truly productive on any of those things. I love watching fry roll in the grass though it's like mentally pulling teeth to want to come home to let him out. I bemoan internally about the amount and kind of attention I get from certain people in my life, yet when they give it, I push them away. and finally, as stated above, I take on old friends and situations when I know they're just a psychic trap!

but how is it that he ends up being the one to point this out? granted, it was a completely unrelated and off-hand remark, but why him and why now?

the inside of my head feels a lot like my apartment right now: disheveled messes that get cleaned up on a whim, or a little at a time, but never enough to make a true impact. on one hand, I like the chaos of it and what it all really is, but on the other hand, I'd kind of like to pack a bag, get in my car, and go somewhere else to start clean.

I mean, really, figuring out the former would exponentially help me resolve the latter, but it's making myself do both of these things - on and with purpose! - that's apparently so hard lately.

try to be more alive

I walked fry through an alley today. not the safest place for my little shoeless dog, but I was multi-tasking - taking out the bathroom trash and taking him out for his morning walk. he likes the alley, despite the glass and sometimes sketchy visitors, probably because of the smells and squirrels who roam freely there. I like the alley because walking through it causes me to find my way back to my street from a different location... and I get a different view of tower grove park or my neighborhood.

but today, I actually enjoyed it because of the single orange daylily growing out of a crack between the concrete of a driveway and a neighboring house's garage. I thought, what a brave and adaptable little plant! and so pretty! I thought basically the same thing when I fell in love with these particular flowers over two summers spent in michigan. I can remember a night of camping in sleeping bear national dunes, coming over a dune and into the forest to see another lonely orange daylily among the shaded dunegrass. or when I'd walk daily past the lemon-colored bunch on the hill before my lake cottage the next summer. and now, as I leave my apartment in the early summer, there is a whole group of them standing almost taller than me that I like to watch open and close with the sunlight of the day. they're my favorite blips of bright colors in what can be completely green-brown-black landscape.

so thank you, wikipedia, for informing me that this flower is not only NOT considered a true lily (which is sad, because I very much like lilies), but is also an invasive species to north america. that explains its ability to thrive in a concrete crack or crappy sandy soil: it will bully its way through an ecosystem just to live... and to delight most casual viewers with its beauty.

somewhere in my brain I'm forming an intelligent metaphor for what remains one of my favorite sights. something about adapting to organizational redesign, to living life authentically in the face of social norms, or persisting through rough patches in relationships...

but I can't quite get it out yet.

fell off the soapbox

I got my first standing ovation when I was thirteen. I didn't think I deserved it... afterall, all I did was raise my voice and slam my clipboard down while making my final speech during a debate I knew I'd lost. my evidence was thin and weakly supported by the journals of the early nineties, but I knew in my being that I was right; that my partner and I had picked the stance of liberals, of animal rights activists, of adventurous and caring people, of the future. we'd denounced urban sprawl, and all of its related ills - overpopulation, new development in favor of rehabilitation, single-occupant - and we were ready to fight about it.

three weeks ago, while walking fry around the outside perimeter of the missouri botanical gardens, I saw a pair of foxes cross magnolia and slide through the mobot fence. fry freaked out a little, as did the man walking our way who had never seen a fox in real life. I, on the other hand, had a happy little time remembering the fox who lived not far from my cottage at camp and relishing in yet another "perk" of city living: when I can see sights I'm used to in the middle of the desert or on the lakeshore in the middle of my urban situation. like foxes, I see stars, lilies, lightning bugs, and herons, and am instantly somewhere else. maybe some of these things aren't necessarily solely found in more rural areas than st louis, but the association is there, and for me it's a nice little escape.

I used to take drives for escapes when I lived elsewhere. in phoenix, it was to downtown and parks where I knew the homeless residents. in michigan, it was getting lost on back roads and finding my way back again before dark. but now, I find myself the owner of what my eighth grade debate partner would have called an "over-sized predator, a metal beast" that drinks more gas than I can afford, so I rely on small moments on the metrolink and walks through tower grove park for the sights I miss.

during my commutes of late, my radio listening has consisted of NPR discussions about environmental change and oil outrage, which has made me even less inclined to drive. I am now finally agreeing with the rest of the gas-consuming majority: while the american misuse of fuel is outrageous, so is the price of a gallon of gas.

all of these things came together last night when I rolled past an orange-ish brown lump on the shoulder of my street. the smaller of the pair of foxes lay pristinely dead just across from where I'd first seen her, and I suddenly wondered what I'd done to help or hurt the little being's situation. I may not have killed her personally, but I'm sure that somewhere my "footprint" did.

with all of that, I am left with the mental picture of my younger self behind that podium, blushing and wondering if I deserved the applause. if I didn't deserve it then, do I deserve it now? where did I leave the conviction I had when I'd started subscribing to the three modern R's? did I believe it, or did I just slam the clipboard to get a reaction?

lame, lamenting, & venting

a short list of things I find unsatisfactory today:

• the amount of sleep I got last night.
• the number of places to buy small vegetarian snacks in the central west end.
• the notice given by my landlord of the upcoming improvements to my building.
• the new ad placements on my favorite website.
• the cold I seem to be getting.
• the post-it note that has gone missing.

a short list of things I miss today:

• the unpredictability of lakeside living.
• the familiarity of working with other people in a group setting, and all of the people I used to work with (well, almost).
• the space afforded by basements and garages and backyards.
• the carefree attitudes of summers.
• the ease of certain kitchen appliances.
• the ability to daydream as, but also be, a possibility junkie.

a short list of things I am annoyed with today:

• the fact that I left some checks for deposit on my dresser, when I work three blocks from my bank.
• the nosiness of one of my co-workers and how it contributed to me spilling water all over myself.
• the thought that it might just cost me as much in gas money to catch the metrolink to work.
• the task at hand at work today - of putting nebulous and tiny things on paper to justify what I do.

I'm not really crabby today, but from everything I have to say, it must look like I am. time to find something to laugh about...

navigation

the problem with the internet is that there's entirely too much of it.

I wonder what I would be doing with my life today without it:

would I work more and be less distracted by instant information? maybe my desk wouldn't be such a mess and I wouldn't be so behind. or maybe I still wouldn't completely do everything I'm supposed to be doing, and would have created a pile of doodles instead. or maybe, just maybe, I would be working somewhere completely different and feeling ultimately more productive.

would I know half of what I know about my allergies and illnesses? maybe I'd feel better if I didn't. maybe I'd be a happy little human running around eating low doses of things and slowly building immunities instead of becoming more sensitive to foods. maybe I'd be less cautious about certain things, or at least less serious, less of a down.

would I read more actual newspapers, and buy more actual music? maybe I'd get so much work done that I'd get out early and have time to sit in a bookstore and read, or stroll down the block to buy music, and support two professions I actually respect.

would I stress out about communicating with long distance friends? I mean, maybe I would use all that free time to write more real mail. maybe I would check my voicemail more often, and make more phone calls. maybe I would live somewhere else entirely, just to stay close to a handful of people, or just one.

would I remember half of the people who drop me oh-so-convenient comment posts? maybe I would come upon them in a picture in a box in my mom's basement and grow instantly happy at the snapshot where I hold them in my head, instead of grow sick to my stomach with envy or disappointment in the people they've become.

would I notice that I am suddenly less important in someone's life than they are in mine? maybe life would be easier if, rather than being bumped off of someone's top friends list, or left off of their page completely, I just never knew that they took that picture of me and them off their shelf, or never put one up to begin with.

but it's there. it's all there. and it's how I use it, it's how I see it, it's how I take it. I guess I can choose to use it less; to pay less attention to how other people use it (or don't); I guess I can be less offended or excited over things I do and don't see or read. I guess I can make more of an effort to make more tangible efforts in the dimensions I understand more.

I guess.

I harp on this shit so much, it might as well have a tag. oh, now it does.

back to it.

gathering moss

I think I got too used to academic years. I think that my internal clock has been so aligned with the coming and going of the scholastic seasons that I find myself in a state of panic once something outlasts those seasons.

for example: I've grown tired of my last three post-graduate jobs around the six month mark, and have been ready to quit (or have quit, in one case) all of them at the eight month mark. I know, I know - the traditional scholastic year is nine-ish months long. but I know I'm not the only one who, sometime in the middle of that bleak month of february (the sixth month), always took a look at the calendar and waged such an internal war:

if I quit doing homework now, I'll fail out of this year. which will be nice, because then I can start summer vacation early! ...but will also suck, because then I'm going to have to wait tables for more hours per week, or find another part-time job, and my family will be disappointed in me, and my friends will move on without me... and worst of all, I'll have to take (insert stupid business class I never used anyway) with (insert asshole teacher's name here) again next year... as a sophomore instead of a junior!

so, I would tell myself I could cut it for another couple of months. I would suck it up, keep doing most of my homework, and basically wait out the rest of the year in depressed anticipation of whatever ridiculous adventures I had planned for the summer.

my seemingly recurring problem in being an adult is that there isn't a particular ending point in sight. I have these jobs until I choose to leave them, or until I choose to fuck them up badly enough that someone tells me to leave (hopefully more often the former than the latter). I mean, at least at camp different seasons meant different programs and slightly different mindsets. but without actual markers to "divide" my time, without semester breaks, I'm having trouble marking endings and beginnings with any kind of mental relaxation or excitement.

maybe it is so much easier for someone, like me, who is used to floating through experiences, and therefore attachments to friendships, working situations, relationships, etc, with an air of disposability, to get used to a lifestyle where familiar people and places come and go so quickly. where my interactions are not prolonged. where I join a social group for a while and never have to maintain it for longer than the calendar tells me. maybe I'm still not used to working at 830 every morning in an office where the lighting and air conditioning continue to screw with my seasonal affective tendencies. and where I plan things according to fiscal and academic calendars, but see no real benefits of working by either.

I don't know. lately, I feel like all I do is go to my day job, walk my dog, then either go to my night job or wait for my boyfriend or friends to get out of work, do something silly (or not), and go to bed... only to wake up too tired to want to do it all again. and while there are programmatic and calendar milestones to be met - like upcoming weddings, research department events, the new WFM store opening, moving into a new place (eventually), etc - I just feel like I'm missing out on the fun that is everyday life... like I'm finally gathering moss in a place I really like, surrounded by people I enjoy... but I'm still wondering if anyone will notice when I roll away.

relativity

I have a memory of my father that I can't let go. in this memory, he is 31, I am eight, my brother six. it is valentine's day and I am crying.

the valentine my father gave me was actually quite perfect for me, the wannabe designer and maker of kleenex ballgowns: it contained paper dolls. my brother got something to do with racecars, which, for the matchbox-toting little boy that he was, was also perfect. and the fact that it came from dad, from someone we barely saw but adored from our imaginations, made it a true occasion. the imperfection came later, when we actually started playing with our paper productions; I with mine, my father and brother with his.

this memory is so brief, almost cloudy, that sequence and exact details become unimportant. all I know is that I cried and my mom took action in two ways: she protested to my father, and she came back to me to explain that, "sometimes dads and brothers don't understand the stuff that girls like to play with, so they like to hang out together." I'm almost positive I cried quietly, or at least pouted, through her attempt to be the interested adult in the kerrie-plus-valentine equation.

there are a lot of ways I could take this post. there are a lot of familial details, social history, and psychological theory that could apply. but for now, I've decided on this: interpersonal relationships all about finding, creating, and holding interest... even if it takes decades.

keep reading.

as any childhood outcast can attest, the difference between being misunderstood and disliked is often so small that the conceptualization of such an adult feeling is out of the outcast's emotional range, not to mention above their heads. in fact, many adolescents and adults have difficulties understanding that the two are far from mutually exclusive. both can produce similar feelings in both the outcast and those doing the casting, but both do not necessarily start from the same place nor do they beget the other. the more they understand this, whether naturally or through years of learning and therapy, the easier the outcast finds it to engage others in a socially productive manner. the outcast can sense their point of misunderstanding with another individual, and, if they care to, find a way to repair the social dissonance.

I think I'm right in stating that the hurt behind such a set of ideas is lessened by higher self-esteem and higher self-motivation. I think I'm also right in saying that the individuals who are most misunderstood but who have the highest self-esteem will push themselves to engage others until they've either won them over or they've turned them off entirely. something in them just allows for this adaptability, this persistance, this creativity in communication, and this obliviousness to the thought that playing well with others shouldn't be that hard.

simply put, some of the world's strangest people have the ability to garner positive interest and affection from almost anyone else in the room. and for a flash of a moment this weekend, I walked away from the hurt eight-year-old mentality into the shoes of that persistant but well-meaning outcast... and found a new approach to relating to my dad.

on saturday, in the interest of possibly slowly improving my throwing arm for my non-competitive adult softball league, I asked my brother if he wanted to play catch. I thought how easy. scott used to play catch with me when I was little, and I'm pretty sure he won't make fun of me if I throw like a girl. I was rejected, but only because scott had other sporting events to attend. almost instantly, however, I realized that this rejection also impacted the other social function my brother was to serve that day: the buffer between me and my dad, step-mom, and grandmother.

what could have been more painful than necessary was suddenly an opportunity for familial growth. as stated in a previous post, I rarely attend family functions, so I tend to rely on scott to update me and hold my hand for the first part of actual interaction. a year ago, without my brother, I would have been lost. but between all of the strange events of the last few months, something just clicked, and I became the confident kid I sometimes am: I knew that I could eliminate that awkward feeling of forced conversation if I asked my dad to play catch.

I honestly don't ever remember playing catch with my dad and without my brother, step-siblings, or cousins. but with my memaw watching from the small deck, dad and I threw and caught and laughed and tripped all over the uneven backyard along a blue michigan highway. we talked about everything from bugs to phd programs. and the short catch-related anecdote about my grandfather (and the accompanying re-enactment by my dad) is something I will hold onto for the rest of my life.

in the end, my dad is a happy-go-lucky and giving man, a little slow at times, but always serious when dispensing advice about life and always quick with that deep chuckle of his. he is a different person than the one I knew in 1989, for more reasons than I can write. but beyond the recognition of the changed man, I am proud of the change I noticed in me, and am grateful for the growth that 19 years of ardent study and awkward social interactions have produced. I may still revert to the past mannerisms of a hurt kid, but at least I know I can do differently. that, along with the thought of making new memories that I can't let go, is what makes the this post so glorious.

non-specific pain

there is a list of things that could be causing the "all-over" hurt I feel today:

• I didn't stretch before softball, or after.
• I drank quite a bit last night.
• I slapped the bar too many times.
• I threw a drunken fit over something and someone entirely not worth my time.
• I slept with nick in a bed that's not made for two adult-sized people.
• I didn't get enough sleep.
• I am not excited to spend yet another day in front of a computer.
• I haven't been eating well, if at all, lately.
• I don't drink enough water in general.
• I am worried about things over which I have no control and no insight.

or... I could just be depressed.

I have this funny nostalgia for sights and smells of the places I used to inhabit. and with this funny nostalgia, as alluded to in an earlier post, comes this sense that if I could just find a place in st. louis that does the same thing for me - but right now, in the moment, instead of in that days-gone-by way - I would feel okay. I'm beginning to think that I'm lying to myself about that. I'm beginning to think that I just need to embrace point twenty-six on my lifelist and simply fall in love with everything I'm doing in that minute, whether that minute is full of noise or silence.

my friend tim suggested that I start doing more for myself. you're always so busy, he said to me on the phone this morning, after I took a walk for a break from my office. you need to just do something that makes you feel better, something small, something away from other people, something just for you. I agree with him. I just don't know where to start.

anda stories: what you don't know won't hurt you...

for those of you who've met my mother... or maybe just heard stories about her... you know that she is a funny little lady. she says and does quirky little things that make me laugh. sometimes I remember these stories and think, I should really write this shit down.

so here I go.

I was 22 and sitting in ASU's student health center. my feet planted on the ground, I was sitting hunched over with my elbows resting on my thighs and my head in my hands. as I stared around the room, my mind was lazily wandering through the typical waiting room thoughts: am I the next person to get called? oh, I hope I don't have what that guy's got. will this lady notice if I read that magazine over her shoulder?

then my attention was turned to my feet: I think I need new flip flops. or a pedicure. or... why does my left foot turn in like that??

what the eff?!

and from that point on, I kept noticing it... my awkwardly turned left foot:

when I would sit at desks. when I would get drunk and be standing up at a bar. when I would get nervous. when I would go to the bathroom. for weeks my attention turned toward my left foot and the way that it turned inward, ranging from a slight angle to almost ninety degrees, while my right foot unfailingly faced forward. it suddenly occurred to me that I might be a little pigeon-toed.

I was mildly distressed - having some tangential thoughts about feet and walking and shoes and arthritis and swaggering and general chiropractic and social health - and decided to bring it up to my mom while home for semester break. our conversation - the tiny exchange I'm about to write - took us all of twenty seconds, and sums up perfectly why I need to tell the stories about my mom: she is nothing if not truthful to a point of being slightly absurd. she is not ever deliberatly hurtful, but what she's thinking always seems to pop out in an innocent yet slightly socially incorrect manner. you know - the kind of thing that would induce the laugh-track if my life were a sitcom. and this was one of those moments:

me: mom, have you ever noticed... well, sometimes I look down at my feet, right? and I've noticed that my left foot kind of... well, it turns inward.

mom: (blank look)

me: I mean... I kind of think... and I don't want to over-react or anything... but I kind of think that I might be a little pigeon-toed.

mom: (relieved look, with an easy tone and a hand-wave through air in that swiping manner that tells the other person "no problem, no big deal!") oh! yeah! that! you're fine. we had that checked out when you were little, but the doctor said you'd turn out perfectly normally.

and that, friends, is my mom. I'm not quite sure I can do her as much justice in print as I can in person, but the more stories I tell, the better I'll be at it. keep reading.

my derogatory geography lesson

I had my last official show-and-tell in may of 1990. I was in third grade, in kalamazoo public schools. my show-and-tell object? a handful of pictures of my new house... in portage.

anyone reading who doesn't know the difference between the two, I'm sure you can relate somehow through this description: they are of equal size and are equally pretty. but they are two different worlds.

portage grew out of kalamazoo as sort of a separate suburb... a whiter, quieter, more affluent suburb. since the two were officially declared separate cities about half a century ago, this distinction has held true - in the stereotyping done by residents and lawmakers alike. in fact, part of the reason my mom decided to move us to portage was because the school system was "better."

knowing of these mild stereotypes, I thought, as my nine-year-old self, that I was instantly going to turn into a rich snob. to keep this from happening, I quickly told everyone in my new area that I was from kalamazoo. I was pretty sure they looked at me just a little differently for it, and I was okay with that. I have never been anything but proud of being from kalamazoo: it's got a funny name. it's where I was born, it's where my parents grew up. it's where I feel instantly comfortable upon seeing the old, and instantly uncomfortable upon seeing the new. it's where I got lost in college, because it's got more one-way streets than a town of its size should. kalamazoo is an adventure to drive through, walk in, and pronounce. portage, with all of its sprawl and gridded streets and pretty shopping centers, sometimes can't compare to the mall city.

when asked where I'm from, by michiganders or anyone else, I always say kalamazoo. only if someone says that they've got family there or they've been there do I make the distinction that my mom's current house, where I spent almost a decade of my adolescent life, is in portage. in truth, I lived in kalamazoo for about three more years total than in portage, simply because of attending college at WMU.

those last four years earnestly spent in kalamazoo, at western, exposed me to a funny set of people: east siders. as in, people from the east side of the lower peninsula, specifically from the detroit/ann arbor metro areas, who are almost as quick as st louisans to ask which high school you attended. I never understood all of their stereotypes or neighborhood biases, but I didn't really need to. it didn't apply to me; the kalamazoo/portage thing was outside of their pervue and I simply became another local, another student, another sorority girl. and sure, my friends picked up, whether through older family members, older students, or personal experience, that there were neighborhoods in kalamazoo that weren't necessarily safe or that certain parts of town were "better" than others. but really, most of their experiences were had in areas within a 2-mile radius of the center of campus. I grew up outside of that radius. I didn't bother their stereotypes, and I didn't let them in on ours.

...save that one time I was a "grosse pointe soccer mom" for halloween. but we won't get into that right now.

what we will get into is how offended I got by a fellow michigander's "view" of kalamazoo at the bar last night.

this guy seemed harmless: a supervisor from the whole foods store in troy, roughly my age, with family in st louis, and a disaffected but friendly manner about him. when I mentioned that I was from kalamazoo, he told me that he'd lived there with a girl for a year, working as a cook in a restaurant where I used to play cards. and then he said it, the most off-putting thing someone's said to me in a long time, and the entire reason for my sing-song praises of kalamazoo today: he called it the "colon" of michigan.

what?

I've never heard that before. I was so confused, and it must've shown on my face, because he instantly went off on a tangent about how he'd been robbed, and beaten up, and had things stolen, and had an overall shitty time in kalamazoo, and really, how everyone in the state thinks it's a dirty little town that makes dying a slow death look appealing.

our conversation ended shortly thereafter. I mean, all I could do was say, oh, really? wow, I grew up there and that never happened to me, or any of my close friends. this didn't please him, as I suspect he was looking for an ally in calling the city out for its shittiness, or for someone to validate his I-was-dumped-in-a-strange-city-so-pity-me opinion. and I wasn't excited to feel like I had to defend my hometown in front of a table full of people who've never set foot there.

I realize that people have biases, that people have different experiences. my view of the phoenix and st louis metropolitan areas are completely different than the views of my friends who grew up in those towns. and I know some of the stereotypes, some of which I tend to buy into or agree with, and some of which I do not. but at least I have enough tact to refrain from making such generalized statements when I have no idea how the friend or other residents feels about those stereotypes. so maybe it's a lesson learned yet again: keep your opinions to yourself, and I'll do the same. I think that we'll both hurt less in the end.

the same way all over again

I'm kinda lonely lately.

the kind of lonely I remember from walking around by myself in tempe. the kind that used to feel like I couldn't get out of the city, but didn't really want to; couldn't really find a place to hide, but instead found too many. the kind that caused me to wander around gentle strength for entirely too long, to walk home from the library at midnight, or to ride the bus just so I could get some reading done. in other words, it's the kind of lonely where I want to be alone, but be out in the world alone.

and I don't know how to do that in st louis. I just haven't figured out where to wander yet.

it's cyclical, this feeling of wanting to be alone or to be unknown, but not be completely cut off. because in a few days, I'll be lonely in the way that makes me want to go out with friends all of the time, like I have been for the last few weeks. but today, the only contact I want is with a movie screen, a good view over a body of water, or a slight smile on the street as I walk.

maybe I'll just turn my phone off for a few days. and stop checking my email. just take time off from all of it.

passive/aggressive

after years of working with many personality types, and of consciously performing small cognitive-behavioral exercises on myself to ease away from the passive-aggressive style that often invades my familial interaction, I had a realization this morning: I've turned passive.

I could ask myself, "what happened to me? I used to be bold, to fight back." and then I remember: I've never fought back. there is a small recollection in the back of my mind that while I have always been watched to set certain trends and lead in certain roles, I realize now that I have also always allowed bullies to trounce all over my life.

it happened in pre-school, when I got shoved behind a piano by girls who would later intimidate me through the rest of my pre-18 years.

it happened in middle school, when I got tripped in gym class by a friend's boyfriend, because the friend took to hating me that year.

it happened in high school, when two of my best friends decided to pick on me over cheerleading, boys, and anything else they could name.

it happened in college, when my executive vice president thought I had too much control and rallied some of the other vp's with her.

each time I put up with just enough, trying so hard to get them to be nice to me that I would change things about myself or about my actions, to no avail. each time, I hoped that an appeal to them for them to be a decent person would work. each time, in the end, all I did was cry and look for someone else to tell them to stop.

and each time, I thought I learned enough to be able to combat the feeling of being small, of being powerless to stand up to the person who was belittling me. but then it happened again, to my 27-year-old adult self, and I did nothing.

last night, the girl who has a thing for my boyfriend made condescending and snide remarks about me and my relationship, in front of our friends at the bar, and tried to pass it off as her own brand of literal-but-unfunny humor. when I first started dating nick, she took me out of her friends lists on various online sites and immediately stopped talking to me. then she was outwardly cold and rude to my face at work, and chose to bitch about me at the bar to nick's roommate and anyone else who would listen. I said nothing, save a few choice words to crank and to one or two friends who knew the whole story. to her face, I remained just as friendly as ever no matter how curt she was with me.

one sunday, I wasn't in the mood to take that high road. I never called her a name, nor did I become downright rude. I just gave her back what she'd given me. because I didn't feel like being super-sweet anymore, when it felt like I wasn't getting any improvement in return. needless to say, that guilty little innervoice of mine felt awful after each interaction: don't be cold to her! she's just pissed because she can't control this situation, she's frustrated. you won't help the situation by being cold. I told nick about it, as he knew about every frustrating moment up to that point, and we talked through the innervoice and decided that it was right. I went back to being nice to her the next day.

I'm pretty sure, as in most situations, nick went to talk to her as my "someone else" to whom I look to tell the bully to stop - because about two weeks later, she started being nice to my face. I still heard whispers about my name and character being flogged in conversations behind my back, but I didn't care. I can handle that, because it's easier to ignore.

but then last night... oh, it was like she'd finally gotten me in the right situation: a social situation, without nick but with all of our friends, in front of an old friend of hers whom she was obviously trying to impress. and as she kept drinking, as more people started to show up, her comments to me became less veiled but remained rude... until finally, after I'd done my best to ignore her, to move away from her, to make it known to a few of our friends - and to nick, when he finally showed up - that I didn't want to put up with her, after I'd become so frustrated that I regressed to my normal pattern of bully survival behavior (cry and wait for someone else to take care of it)... she called me "princess," and it was over. I was done.

I didn't react, other than a flick of my wrist through the air in her general direction to brush her off. but I did finally leave the bar. and as I was sorting through all of it with nick, and again this morning, I am glad I didn't react any more than I did.

but I'm not proud that I put up with any of it.

I can't go back and change any of the bullying situations from years' past. some have resolved themselves, some have just closed. but this one is still open. I still have to see this girl... and while my boyfriend now knows what a "psychopath" (his word, not mine) this friend of his is, I still have to figure out a healthy way to deal with her. and standing up for myself, calmly but firmly, is the best way I can see out of this situation.

so now I'm off to think of ways I can catch myself being passive, reminders to help me turn assertive and keep my tone level, and things I should be saying instead of having other people say. suggestions and support are always appreciated.

take it back

I can't focus.

I can't focus today, but I couldn't focus yesterday or the day/week/year before that either. I realize that I normally focus in short bursts, but this is just annoying.

on top of this, I feel like I was floating along for a little while, doing good things and doing bad things, and I'm now at this culminating point where the next few decisions I make will tip me one way or the other. the good things have added into me having a delightfully silly, supportive, and comforting group of friends. the bad things have resulted in chronic pain, depression, and a few strained relationships.

I hate the internet.

I am reconsidering my life-list.

I need some hot chocolate.

no possessions

my grandma, the subject of an early january post, passed two days ago.

my mom called to tell me while I was cashiering. I knew the call was coming, but that didn't make it any less of an awkward moment. I honestly didn't think it would come when it did... but I also gave her the number to whole foods because I didn't want it left as a voicemail on my phone. I blew my nose in the bathroom, checked out one more order, and was sent home. and I was grateful, because no one wants to be the puffy-eyed check-out girl...

the thing is, my entire family knew that call was coming. today, however, I'm just shocked at how some of us have prepared to deal with it, and how some of us are dealing with it.

I am twenty-seven. this weekend will be my first real funeral. I will sit next to my mom and brother, I will not understand half of the service due to it being said in latvian. I will tune out of the rest of it as I sit and think about how awful some members of my family are choosing to behave about certain possessions of my grandmother's - and how they are "supposed" to be divided, sold, or thrown away.

my heart and my brain hurt when I think: is that all it comes to in the end? is that all she will be remembered with or for? with jewelry, couches, pictures, and vases, all given priority because of some possessive value? does the value of her life, as she lived it, and its contributions to the world show through these things? or will it just be up to us to remember that?

needless to say, I don't want to go home this weekend. but I will, I will.

great expectations

per a recent 60 Minutes, and per a few studies done yearly by some researcher in europe, denmark is again the world's happiest country. according to bits and pieces of this research, and some danish popular opinions, this is because

• a) the country is small, and having a smaller community creates more unity and therefore a sense of belonging among its inhabitants.


• b) they have much lower expectations about life and are therefore happier with what they get when they get it.


• c) they kicked major ass at some european soccer tournament back in the 1990's and are still revelling in that glory.

while I'll be the first to admit the importance of the other two major points, I'm here today, kids, to talk to you about b).

I can remember my mother screaming at me from across the kitchen during one of many of our fights when I was in high school: you're a snob, kerrie lynne! a pure snob! I have no recollection of the exact cause of the fight or the rest of the content of our banter, but I know, as you now do, that that one point stuck with me hard and fast. it stuck all this time because, as I knew it then, she was right: I have always been a snob. since I can remember having conscious thought, something deep within me has always turned its nose up on the "wrong" things, and assumed that others have the same high expectations of me, themselves, and the world.

I never had the money, or the family upbringing, or the material possessions, or even the knowledge and social prowess to be able to be quite the snob I always wanted to be. but I emulated the hell out of them. and somewhere it worked, at least in some way. I clearly remember the day a supervisor of mine, who obviously had a similar style of emulating others, said to me, kerrie, do you come from money? because you reek of it. (no joke!) in a split second I was both: slightly happy that someone finally noticed my emulated style; and slightly disgusted with myself for trying to be some snobby-but-compassionate vegan-hipster social work student, for being the confused and somewhat fake paradox I'd become.

I believe that to be the moment that started the line of thinking that got me to where I am today. that was the moment when I realized that while most of interaction is perception, I wasn't happy with the perception I was presenting others - nor was I happy with the perceptions (and assumptions, and therefore, expectations) I had of other people. that was the moment when I figured out that I needed a new way of looking at how I interacted with the world in this way.

it's not that I want to be happy with just anything, but I got to thinking: wouldn't it be nice if I could think of everything as an unexpected present from the universe? if, instead of going by precidents, or expecting certain patterns of behavior from others, I was just happy when the good part of the pattern happened, no matter how often it did? wouldn't it be nice if I could celebrate little accomplishments, no matter how little, as long as they made someone feel good?

as one of my first blogs stated, I have become a much more open person in the last 20 months than I'd ever hoped to be. maintaining that openness along with a sense of hope does not equal lowered expectations in anyway, but I have learned to adjust my expectations. many of you have heard stories of my supervisor at WU, whom I most often portray as prissy and demanding. last week I noticed a post-it note that she had neatly tacked up above her phone: see the world as it is, not as you would have it.

I thought, oh shit, other people stress about expectations, too. and then I thought, that's totally right! when I gave my general new year's resolution as a half-joking "to just be," somewhere inside of me I was hoping for a way to express that I was tired of having grandiose expectations of myself and others, and I'm tired of other people expecting me to be that way.

I have consciously been trying out this "lowering" of my own expectations... and I'm enjoying myself. sure, there's still a little voice inside of me that wants to point out the small quirks and faults, that wants to be upset when certain things aren't done, but it's a small voice. a small voice that is easily drowned out by the strange calm-but-excited hum I get in my head when I smile at all of my little celebrations instead of scoffing at them.

I truly believe that somewhere in each of us is the ability to become more patient, more understanding, and less expecting. how these interplay for us personally, how they come about and manifest, is up to us and up to how our lives unroll. but the point is that we all have the opportunity to be the happiest entity on the planet, the denmark of human beings, and I think we should take it.

save the date

we have 365+ delineated opportunities each year to make a day worth remembering... a day worth marking in our calendars for future reference. a good percentage of the days of the year do not fall into this category. sure, minor memorable events happen on them, but it's not like I'll take a sharpie to my wall calendar about them or write them up in a journal. most days are just days: they may be important to somebody somewhere, but without the marker of a birthday, anniversary, or other holiday, they are just not that important.

until yesterday morning, the sixth of february was just that: another day. sure, it was stout's birthday. and I love him as I should love an older brother. so I guess it wasn't just "another day;" it was more like it was another one of my friend's lovely birthdays, which is a positive association. as of 6:46a, however, that positive association was mildly usurped by this: the slightly less expected passing of my favorite grandparent, my dad's dad, my paw paw.

I say that the whole thing was "slightly less expected" to indicate that I expected my mom's mom to go first, since she was, as mentioned in the previous blog, in and out of the hospital last month. but grandma irene is, as of last notice, okay. not well, not getting any better, but okay.

it's just funny to think: I'd been through twenty-seven february 6th's before. very few of them probably meant anything beyond the due-date of an assignment, a shift I might have worked, a sorority event attended, or another day crossed off on the way to some other important date. and for many people, yesterday remained just another day.

much like the inherent inability of people to witness the amazing potential of the people in front of them, there is also the inability to see the hidden circumstances behind others' attitudes at any particular time. ninety percent of the people with whom I interacted yesterday had absolutely no idea, and probably no interest in the fact, that I'd just lost one of the people I admired most in my life. the ins-and-outs of their own markers for the day, whether of major or minor life-importance, weighed more heavily in their mind and in their adjustment to interactions than my markers ever could or would. but just being aware of the fact that you have no idea what has happened to someone in the last 24 hours, let alone across the span of their life, makes you a much more understanding person in my opinion. or, at the very least, more open to the possibility that people are floating through life much as you are: trying to make it day-to-day, without promise of anything more concrete than just trying to survive.

they come, they go

my downstairs neighbor, bob, wrote a song about living in our apartment building. he made me a rough cd of it and it's not bad. his voice cracks, and the song is actually really cute, sort of catchy in that soft-guitar-paired-with-a-lonely-male-voice kind of way.

but I'm pretty positive that he thinks my upstairs neighbor is in the mafia, and that the reference to the "young girls with their boyfriends and girlfriends who don't last long" is about me. at least now I know he's as much of a voyeur as I am, pretending not to watch the rest of the building come and go outside our windows...

***

for a few years now, I have taken pride in the fact that I am the absent one: that I am the one who lived far enough away that I got to stay out of family drama, and who was welcomed heartily at family events because it was a big surprise when I did actually get to come home and/or show up to something. there has been a certain amount of celebrity added to all of my interactions with family members that has inflated my ego just enough to have me fully enjoying such interactions. or at least has made it feel like I am less of the stick-in-the-mud I sometimes think they all think I am. my life is instantly interesting because I am a fresh face, a fresh voice, and a fresh opinion; and their lives also become edited to the version that is most entertaining, making interactions much more cocktail-party-esque and easier to digest.

maybe this is why, apart from the fact that many of my post-high school life and living situations have been temporary (four years here, two there, one there...), I have so many long-distance friends: because when they finally do hear from me, and vice versa, it is this great joyous event and we are both nothing less than ecstatic about the updates we proffer. granted, this approach to maintaining relationships does provide for a somewhat vacuous experience, whereby neither party ever truly knows the other person well enough in real life - a sense of distant closeness, I'd say. but it is fun, and it seems to give us the chance to treat each other more congenially and with more enthusiasm that one might think we would on an everyday basis.

due to my comfort with such distant closeness, I've found that being present, or living in the same city for more than a year and really trying to have a social life that consists more of face-to-face contact that email-to-email, has been quite the surreal experience. I am often unsure of how frequently I can call or drop by or write or ask to lunch, and am likewise amazed that other people just seem to know that we should be interacting on a regular basis in order to maintain the level of closeness that we do seek. really, to contradict the naive conclusion about everyday interaction above, I am amazed that many of these people are just as excited to hang out with me, hear my stories, and have shared experiences, as the people who only see me once in a while. I'm slowly realizing that when you pick the right friends, they're going to love every minute of hanging out with you, no matter how frequently that happens, no matter how long your friendship lasts.

***

as bob sang: I am the young girl with the friends who come and go. and as of this weekend, I am also the young girl with relatives who come and go - or at least, it's starting to sink in that some of them may go, and go sooner than later...

my grandmother fell ill over the weekend. and I'm realizing now that I haven't seen her since last christmas... or maybe the christmas before that... and I think what has been lacking in our relationship is part of what I'm talking about above: we have allowed our excitement in seeing each other to wane. I used to see grandma weekly. I used to mow her lawn, to play cards, to have dinner, to do all of those basic things you do with someone to whom you are actually close. most of those times, however, were fun. she made me laugh, with her crazy latvian accent and forgetful nature. but somewhere in my process of obtaining family celebrity status, she stopped making me laugh. and I stopped gracing her with my presence.

I am okay with the fact that I haven't seen her in two years. I have already been missing her, missing the woman I remember who made me piragi at christmastime, who sometimes let me beat her at cards, who spoke the most ridiculous baby-talk to her heifer of a cat, and who once called my brother "chuck" when she couldn't remember his real name, for longer than that. I don't think I could handle remembering her as anything less than pleasant and quirky, it would be too much. but I guess what I should be learning from this is that relationships, while fantastic when the parties are constantly excited to see each other, also need that element of the down. they're like everything else: the down makes you enjoy the up so much more. I suppose that's why all of my memories, save that one about the lawn-mowing incident in 1995, have been pleasant about her lately: I'm preparing for the ultimate down.