the 22 review

My personal special edition weekend paper, featuring traffic and sports reports, dining and entertainment reviews, and editorial.

Black Friday morning was stunning, shot through with rays of sunshine like sheets of muscovite.  I got up and out of the house before anyone else even woke up.  Apparently everyone in the mid-Atlantic region was also either still asleep, or being trampled at WalMart, because the roads were so clear, which made the drive very pleasant.  I won't tell you how fast I got to Amsterdam, but I'll just say Mike didn't believe me when I called to say I was half an hour out.

The whole point of leaving so early, if you recall, was to make it to the Annual Turkey Bowl ultimate frisbee game.  The Four Diamonds were covered in mud--foreshadowing for our state a few hours later?  It was so warm people were stripping down all the layers they usually needed to play outside on Black Friday, but a few people refused to shed their traditional Underarmor.  Not that it probably mattered much; everybody looked and smelled just about the same by the end of the day regardless of what we were wearing.

I love AUL, mostly because I love playing anything with that crew; but I might have to learn how to play football by next year because I really miss the tackling that used to be a lot more common before anybody actually knew how to play ultimate.

Maybe I should just learn how to play ultimate.

I hate rules.  And strategy.

As Rich aptly pointed out at dinner, those of us who grew up in Amsterdam (whatever growing up I didn't do there I made up for in passion--I insist!) tended to perceive the Raindancer as this untouchably fancy restaurant, "a five-star joint, like if you went out to eat there, you would probably run into Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z, they go there all the time."

This is not true.  The chances of Jay-Z or Snoop Dogg having even heard of the town of Amsterdam are pretty much zero, even though Jay-Z did grow up in New York.  The chances of any of you, dear readers, having heard of the town of Amsterdam, is nearly as negligible.  Oh, wait--did I mention my hometown to you once?  What's that?  You don't remember?

That being said, the Raindancer historically does hold the position of Amsterdam's "time-tested local 5-star restaurant."  One of the only places in town you ever make reservations for.  It sort of feels like Applebee's, covered in a vinyl cucina-style vodka penne sauce, and garnished with Rainforest Café light strings and plastic ivy.

The food was delicious, although of course there was too much of it, and there were too many people there to focus on eating anyway, and my mojito margarita was too delicious.  I was delighted to see and catch up with a few people I hadn't seen literally in years.

Rich later complained that there was too much reminiscing throughout the evening, a mostly harmless statement I latched onto the same way my parents latch onto my passing comments about persistent absenteeism and feel horribly guilty about it.  The dilemma is, I come back to Amsterdam once a year or so, and usually miss out on seeing half the people I want to see.  When I do run into them, they ask me what I'm up to now and I really can't think of anything I desperately want to share with them about my incredibly mundane life.  So I boomerang the question, hoping they'll tell me what has made them laugh and cry lately, their drinks of choice, who they're constantly checking their text messages for these days, and the latest developments in their life trajectory.  You know, the important stuff.  I just don't quite know how to ask.

Also, there are too many skeletons and too much dirty laundry hanging around after 10+ years together for us to stage a non-awkward dance party, and I have very little interest in drinking games.

Although, come to think of it, my birthday this year has involved what seems like an inordinate amount of icing.  Yes, there was a lot of it on my various cakes...  But I meant the other kind of icing:

A St. Croix Falls friend wisely thought twice about sending this package.
"I like my bread like you like your men: ICED!"
...Or was it coffee?  I forget.

All I wanted was to split a few bottles of wine with a few close friends and sit around and talk!  But instead, predictably, we ended up with a house full of good friends, a mysterious amount of beer, wine, and Ice, and a collective headache for most of Saturday.

It was completely worth it.  As we have found, I refuse to go uncelebrated.

Saturday at the G.W.I.B. (which is on the market! How badly do I want it?!) we decided to go see the movie Hugo in 3D.  I was skeptical, because 3D movies usually give me a splitting headache--as if I needed a headache on my headache!  But it was actually very well-done.  The cinematography and imagery was really beautiful, and despite a few moments of really awkward/unsuccessful dialogue, we all enjoyed ourselves quite a lot.  Rich and I, at least, were laughing, and I'm pretty sure I cried at some point.  Not that that is unusual at all these days.  (I also cried at Ramona and Beezus last week, and yesterday at The Muppets.  Just to put things in perspective.)

On the topic of 3D, Titanic is coming out in 3D and I have never been so excited in my life.

Full circle, back to traffic.  Back to traffic circles?  I took a route sans traffic circles back from Amsterdam, and ended up getting stuck in traffic on the north end of the Jersey Turnpike.  Both Bizz III and I tend to get cranky in stop-and-go traffic, once I get sick of my solo sunroof dance party and eat all my snacks, I start noticing all the weird things her 10-year-old engine does, and freaking out about it, and then she freaks out and stops shifting gears properly.  So I pull off frantically to a rest stop and make a phone call, and by the time I get back on the road traffic has mostly dissipated and the transmission is back in action.  Can we apply this to real life relationships?  Couldn't hurt.

It took me a little longer to get home to Wilmington than it took me to get home to Amsterdam.  (Ha, confused yet?  Welcome to my life.)  But my family was waiting for me and we all went to see The Muppets, which I'd been waiting for with bated breath for WEEKS.  It fulfilled all my wildest dreams.  I laughed so hard, and for so long, especially at all the 80s jokes and the 21st-century celeb cameos (Neil Patrick Harris, John Krasinski, and Zach Galifianakis, to name a few).  It's hard to say whether my tears were a side effect of intense hilarity or of the touching moments interspersed throughout the script.  Lots of real issues addressed in this film.  I definitely recommend this movie to any diehards, and anyone who knows the song "Rainbow Connection," and anyone who watched Sesame Street back when it was still good, and anyone who likes puppets or Jason Segal or Amy Adams or basically any hip young celebrity out there--except Justin Bieber.  Sorry Beliebers, no sightings in this flick.  But you should still see the movie.

I'm feeling a little dazed still, but my feeling after this weekend is that 23 is going to be a good year.  Emotional detox is going well and I could be ready to get back on the horse.  But greater than this is less than three, my mantra/amulet/lucky charm.  I am SO amazed and thankful and just completely blown away by all the wonderful people that make my life what it is, interesting and agonizing and rich and hilarious and drunk and soft, in the case of my brand-new birthday flannel sheets!  This sounds cheesy, but I really mean it.  Everyone was teasing me on Friday night (and every other day of my life) because I kept walking into rooms full of these people and just laughing.  And they would all stop and look at me, because I obviously had no idea what was going on in there before I stepped in.  But all I could say is, "I am so. happy."

The 22 Review brought to you today by my parents, my grandparents, and all my other ancestors, without whom I would not exist; also my homeboys and -girls in the Dirty, especially Mike, who planned everything; and just a general thanks to everyone who made 22 what it was.  I'm investing in 23.  You in?

moments of thanksgiving: too everyday to be cliche

I really have the most bomb family in the universe.

I am not exaggerating.

I spent the whole day at work at the restaurant, starting at 11 in the morning.  I actually had a pretty nice time, since I've known all along that there was NO WAY everything would go smoothly today.  The only thing I could do right is keep my cool, smile at every person that came in, and say, "Happy Thanksgiving" at every possible juncture.  That's the part of this job I'm really good at.

Let me just mention quickly that I'm fascinated by smoking culture in the service industry.  Apparently I'm one of 3 people on staff who doesn't smoke, and it makes me somewhat of an outsider--that I don't join any collective smoke breaks.  I actually put a lighter in my jacket pocket so that I can at least say yes when somebody asks me for a light.  Now, outsider status is my Achilles' heel; but I can't really justify starting this particular habit just to fit in.

But I finally got home.  And there was Granpa doing a puzzle in the living room, Papa doing some kind of project on the dining room table, Mutti cooking.  Thomas, Maria and Asha hollered "hello" from somewhere in the house as I let myself in the back door.

I had bought some pumpkin ale at the beginning of the season, expecting to have friends over for Thanksgiving dinner who would help me drink it; but that plan fell through so now I'm saddled with a few more beers than I can take care of on my own, and nobody else in my family drinks anything besides Country Time lemonade.

My mom is the best cook.  Plus, she remembers all the Thanksgiving dishes I say I love in the weeks leading up to the actual holiday.  Last year at the Coulsons' in Kansas City we had what I remembered as apricot stuffing but which Mary says was apricot sweet potatoes; but I said I wanted apricot stuffing and so, failing to find a recipe for it online or in any of her cookbooks, she made it up, and it was delicious.

On top of my stuffed stomach and übersatisfied tastebuds, I have hardly stopped laughing since I came home from work (speaking of laughing).  We've got age-old in-jokes, funny stories about our collective childhood, awkward moments, hilarious accidents, and weird accents.  We ended the evening getting obliterated by Granpa at Apples to Apples--the Buckners really rock at that game.  When Gramma's here nobody else stands a chance.  And then we ended the evening again with one of the most perfect pecan pies I have EVER tasted, and my brother narrating a 1980's French nature documentary about suburban Delaware.

Just a day in the life.

I am the MOST happy to have my brother home from college, to have us all in the house again.  I can't believe how lucky I am to be born into this family.  I know this is cliche, the thing all people say they're thankful for every time they have to say something they're thankful for, but I firmly believe that cliches became cliches because they're really true a lot of times in real life.  And even I can't believe how much I really, really mean it.

cusp

So The sun enters the fiery realm of Sagittarius.

This part of the solar journey brings the longest nights of the year,

nights filled with festivity and exploration, new friendships, travel, reading,

study and passionate work toward the goals we believe

will help ourselves and our loved ones prosper.

- Horoscopes by Holiday

How fitting. Just so you're all aware, we are now officially under my sign. (I refuse to acknowledge the apparent horoscopic glitch about all the signs being off by however many months; I was, am, and always will be a Sagg at heart.) So, please celebrate. How could you not, with "nights filled with festivity and exploration" and all that?! I think I'm finally ready for this. Let's hope I haven't missed my chance with Coffeeshopcrush. He seemed less receptive to my halfassed non-advances today.

Either way, he'll have to wait until next week, because I'm tired and cranky already just thinking about 2 days of holiday hostessing...

On the plus side, my new mattress is being delivered tomorrow, and I was just reading "The Entrepreneur's Guide to a Good Night's Sleep." Not that it said anything new, but it just struck me as particularly profound today. Maybe because I somehow managed to trick myself into napping last night, and I feel a little better overall ever since.

I also finally got through my Box of Papers to Sort and Process, and at the very bottom I found two brochures from St. Olaf's Counseling Center, one titled Loneliness and one titled Addictive Relationships. I picked them up at the mental health fair in the spring, stuffed them in the bottom of the box and completely forgot about them until right now--which is pretty ironic considering I probably set them aside with this transition in mind. This is the first time in awhile that I look at these brochures and think, "Maybe someone I know will need these" instead of "I wonder if there's anything in here I don't already know."

To summarize, in case someone I know DOES need these, the loneliness brochure basically says, "Use this time to figure out and enjoy yourself." Check. And the addictive relationships brochure says, "If you know you're in a relationship that's bad for you but you're convincing yourself to stay in it, find a support group and work your way out." Also check. Awesome.

I interrupted the writing of this episode in my life to go to Zumba, speaking of enjoying myself. An hour of busting moves really gets those endorphins going, and driving through a blinding rainstorm to get to the move-busting is almost as inspiring.

By 8pm, the torrential downpour had subsided to a drizzle like a gazillion dancing ladybugs--NOT Asian beetle bites. The kind of drizzle that makes you feel like you're stuck in the movie Push, or maybe American Beauty. I drove to pick up Asha with the window open and Lady Antebellum blaring on the radio.

This is why I moved home. To pick up my sisters when my parents can't, because the conversations I had with my mom when she chauffeured me around in high school were the ones that solidified our relationship.

I tried to listen more than talk. But I realized, my big sister never gave me any love or life advice (probably because I don't have a big sister). I blundered through all that on my own, and figured everything out in hindsight, since I'm always too immersed in the present moment to lift my head and check out the scene. She looked at me as I talked and said, "I never knew of any boyfriend you ever had, but now I realize you dated like 20 guys." Yeah, ok, great. But now I have something to share.

If I could give one piece of advice to everyone I ever meet, it would be this: Forget what you "should" feel in a certain situation or relationship, and spend your time figuring out what you DO feel about it. At least be honest with yourself to avoid digging yourself into a hole, where suddenly one day you look around and realize you can't tell which way is the sky anymore.

This sounds really dark and sad and morbid. But if I was ever lost inside the Earth's crust, I can see the whole sky now, and I can tell when it's sunny and when it's raining. And I'm taking this time to really feel the sun and the rain on my skin, and figure out what I like to do in all kinds of weather.

November has always struck me as a grey month, but this one has been enlightening. I really love it, despite the tempests and the indecisive sunshine, and the total whiteout that will no doubt engulf me on my way north this weekend. Praying for a smooth drive, but I can't wait to go "home."

the importance of being hilarious

The first signs of my mistrust of biomedicine showed up somewhere between 10 and 14, when I packaged my first home remedy.  (Actually I'd been concocting perfumes and other serums years before this, but that was more vaguely related.)  I dismantled, flipped inside out, and reglued a Sweethearts box, made a label for it and filled it with jokes written on little slips of paper roughly the size and shape of cookie fortunes.  I think the idea was roughly inspired by fortune cookies, actually, and the box probably contained a few printed fortunes.

Just to make it clear, the label said, Laughter is the Best Medicine.

Please, have a laugh while I blush.  I recognize the incredible cheesiness of this whole shebang, and I sincerely hope I burned all those jokes years ago because I can almost guarantee that every last one was horrible.  But I will not step down from my fundamental belief.  Since I was 11 or however old, I have read tons of articles linking laughter and longevity.  (I particularly like the claim that "those who found the world the most funny were 35 percent less likely to die during the study" in this article.)  I have also read articles claiming that the link is less definitive than past studies would have us believe, but what Scrooge would write an article like that?!  Whoever it is, I don't trust him for a second.

You might be relieved to hear, in light of this conclusive and exhaustive research, that I have been laughing more and more often lately.  I laugh with at least one of my sisters every day, usually have a good giggle with my mom; I laugh with guests at the Den almost every night, and on Friday afternoon I was in tears with my supervisor working on a project, we were laughing so hard.  I laugh at Zumba, which is another reason to love it.  I went out a couple of times this week with really good people, and just tonight I went out with a "that's-what she-said" kind of crew and at a couple of points I was doubled over laughing.  Then I came home and my mom and I laughed for roughly 107 minutes straight at the movie A Lot Like Love, which I had somehow managed not to see until now.  Also, I know "lol" and "haha" don't really mean anything anymore, but I'd just like to thank the people I've chatted, texted, or emailed with recently who made me laugh, legitly and sometimes hysterically.  (You know who you are -- if I typed more than 3 has in a row, you're golden.  Also, the more, the better.)

This photo has had me laughing for several days now.

Not that you need a play-by-play of everything I've laughed at lately, especially since I've gone and cropped out all the funny parts, but I need to emphasize the magnitude of the good effects.  Because it's easier to pretend like I'm not frustrated when I'm actually not frustrated, and easier to not be frustrated when I'm laughing.

Here's an example of a time when general laugh-esthesia eases an unpleasant situation:

You may recall from the summer at Sunny V how I gradually conquered my entonophobia, or fear of ticks.  I got better at the bees, ants, and other bugs, too, but let's be honest: I still don't like them.  That being said, this basement living thing may have been a fatal mistake.  Because every day I have to get up close and personal to the various crawly things with which I cohabitate, to determine whether or not each one deserves to live.  Here's the breakdown:
- Crickets die.  No second chances.
- Spiders, I like.  If their webs are all up in my grill I clear those out, but I appreciate very large spiders after living in India, because they eat all the things I definitely do NOT appreciate.  Also they are relatively friendly, and my brother once witnessed a spider-scorpion wrestling match.  I'm pretty jealous.
- Centipedes also die.
- Lately there have been these big brown wasps just lazing around, which I obviously try to get rid of STAT.
-  And then there are the stinkbugs, which I try not to disturb but usually get tromped on in daily foot traffic.  Then I dispose of their corpses.

Bringing this all back, I have been notably OK getting close enough to these critters to dispose of them.

I'm starting to think that laughing significantly increases my bug tolerance.  Not sure of the confidence interval though...

Lately I've been appreciating not only my great sense of humor but also one of the most valuable things I left college with that I didn't quite have when I got there: The ability to communicate confidently and clearly, and keep a cool head.  (These qualities are also beneficial while driving, I've found.)  "Stand my ground" is a phrase I've been hearing a lot lately.  Yesterday I dragged my parents out mattress shopping, because they promised me a nice grown-up mattress as a graduation present and it hasn't quite materialized yet.  Anyway, we had a very pleasant shopping experience overall thanks to my dedication to being direct with the sales dudes.  I'm pretty proud of myself for that -- self-taught, you know!

Don't get me wrong, I've got a LOOOOOOOOOOONG way to go.  But every day I'm getting better at shortening my sentences, cutting out ums, ers, and likes, speaking up when I'm saying something important. I'm awarding myself a prize right now for "most improved."  At least in this case, that also stands as encouragement to keep up the good work and keep improving.  (Readers, please award yourselves prizes from time to time.  It really feels good to win something, especially if you've been on a losing streak lately.)

I'm trying to remind myself constantly these days that I have valuable things to offer.  My characteristically meek transition period has stretched on interminably and it's time for that to stop.  I'm trying to remind myself that I can be gregarious.  Smart--not ditzy, but also not pretentious.  Other important parts of my personality that have been boxed up since the move include sticky eyes, bad jokes, color, flair, gentle teasing and witticisms, that charming conceitedness you all know and love, good listening and attention-paying skills, and The Laugh.

I missed The Laugh, big time.  Next on my list is to get back on the dance floor...

oh, anthroPOLogy

So I swear I meet anthropologists everywhere I go.

Last night I went to UD's Main Street Journal poetry open mic.  The venue, Mojo Main, hosts a regular open mic from 9pm to 1am every Monday night, but this was a coffeeshop-style poetry open mic in a bar.  I dig.  And I could tell this is my zone because I felt no hesitation in sitting down at the table with the editors of the journal, introducing myself, and striking up a successful conversation.

...Why have I been freaking out about meeting people again?  Remind me.

The lineup, predictably, was full of music, but even a lot of the musicians showed a gift for lyrics.  One other poet did read, and he is a Word Whisperer -- really, I am blown away.  As I was leaving (around 11, when I usually like to go to bed) he called after me, "Hey, you coming to the release party on the 30th?  I'd like to see you there, I really like your stuff!"

Can I say it enough?  I love poetry.  And despite the amount of time I've spent complaining about the label, i love poets too.

Anyway, the PR person and the editor-in-chief were both anthro majors at UD.  I was pumped!  Because as any good anthro major knows, anthro majors all speak a certain language.  And today I noticed that a friend of the PR person posted the same link on her Facebook wall as Liz posted on mine, within an hour of each other last night.  It's about sex ed.  Meant to be?  You bet.

To understand the emphasis in the title, watch the following video.  The important part starts around the 2-minute mark.

Tonight I went back to Newark -- let's be honest, if all the action is in the college town then why should I be lame at home alone just because I'm not in college anymore?  I shouldn't.  UD's engineering sorority was hosting a fundraiser at Grotto Pizza on Main Street -- and I know because a girl from church is in this sorority and invited me to the event on Facebook.  (Social media does it again!)

I'd made plans to meet up with a girl I met at a networking event downtown about two months ago.  She's an AmeriCorps VISTA worker down in Dover -- and guess what she studied in college?  Duh: anthropology.  I'm telling you.

Believe it or not, there are popcorn bars outside of the Midwest!  I may have missed Froggy's, but I still get beer and popcorn.  But instead of Leinie's or South Shore I get Dogfish Head.  It's a fair trade.

Carly brought one of her VISTA coworkers along, and after pizza the three of us set off in search of another bar to hang in.  The cold suddenly set in like whoa, so we shivered our way up and down the main drag before settling on the Iron Hill Brewery.

And let me say, what a cool place.  Carly had met the owner at some event so she pointed him out when he appeared on the floor for a moment, and started telling us stories about him and the startup, which has now grown to nine or so sites, and pretty successful ones at that!  The restaurant was fitted with a row of huge brewing tanks behind glass that reminded me of KC's 75th Street Brewery, where I have never failed to meet interesting men.  All good things.

We took to people-watching: a group of professor-esque men that reminded Carly of a band of PhDs, just hovering by the hostess stand for a good 5 minutes; the Leader of the Loudmouths, a trio standing right behind us practically yelling their conversation; one of those unfortunate couples you see in public where she's more interested in him than he is in her, and he's mostly concerned with the game on the screen behind the bar.  Give it up, girlfriend, we said.

Anthropology.  The study of people.  I'm remembering my knack for this, my love of observation and research, my passion for communication.

This was significant: On Sunday at the Bishop's house, as I lamented my inability to navigate Wilmington's social scene, one of the sympathetic crowd nodded understandingly and uttered two simple words: "culture shock."  I had somehow managed to completely overlook this very basic fact, but now that they've been said everything looks different.  Everything is easier.  I am finding my voice at work -- at both jobs.  I can hold a mundane but afternoon-altering conversation with the redhead behind the counter at Walgreen's.  I can connect with other poets and offer to help build a writers' workshop at UD.  I can be the person, in a joint I've never visited, in a town I'm not yet familiar with, who table-bounces and brings people together.  Because that's my thing.

It's anthropology.

Next on the list: Convince Coffeeshopcrush to give me his take on Wilmo's best bars and hangouts.  It'll happen.  I can feel it.

for my fellow krill

I've been easily frustrated lately, in particular about work-related situations.  I have been known to have a temper, but it's surprising how incredibly non-irritable I've been at home lately in comparison.  Maybe it's karmic balance.  Maybe I'm sleep-deprived.  Maybe simple situations just get easily out of hand due to high tensions in the vicinity.

Maybe I'm getting my general empathy back!  This is maybe not the most productive possibility, but it is the most exciting to me considering all the time I've spent wondering if I still have emotional reactions -- the suppression of which was a defense mechanism that did less to "defend" me than to make me pine for my lost innocence.

Speaking of lost innocence, it came to me in the wake of Saturday night Den drama that I am, once again, a small fish in a big ocean.  It's not the first time this has happened: there was the transition from elementary school to middle school, then middle to high school, then high school to college -- not to mention the other times I changed schools in between there.  I hate change.  And so far, this is the biggest ocean this krill has ever been swept into.

And my krill-status is painfully obvious to all the angelfish, barracuda, and baleen whales in this gigantic ocean, who tout my n00b-hood and just assume I know virtually nothing about the world since I am so newly born to it.  In many ways they are right; but I hope that among all the things I learn from living in this "real world," a sense of idiocy is not one of them.  I hope I never lose touch with the things I have to teach the world.

Let me rephrase: I hope we never lose touch with all the things we have to teach the world.  Because this is how things change.

"But Clara," you might be thinking right about now, "you hate change!  You said it yourself!"  I know, but it really just needs to happen.

So, on another note, remember how my birthday is coming up?  Well, it is.  And remember the wild plan I didn't want to tell you about, in case it went wrong?  Well...  For those of you who don't know, the annual AUL Turkey Bowl ultimate frisbee game is held every year (predictably) on Black Friday at the Four Diamonds.  This is the fourth year running, and I have never played a game in my life.  Shame on me.  (This is hometown-speak, so I apologize to those of you not originally from the Dirty -- more widely known as Amsterdam, NY.)

And this year, the Turkey Bowl is on my birthday.  So how could I not go?

You're right.  I couldn't... not... go...

So I asked to get the weekend off from hostessing, shot the cursory text-blast to important down-home parties, planned to leave the house before Best Buy opens on Black Friday (to make it to the Four Diamonds by noon), and apologized to my mother for being so eager to hightail it out of the house on a holiday weekend.

She gave me a funny look.  "You know it's funny," she said slowly, "I had planned to have all your friends come down here for your birthday.  I even Facebooked Mike about it awhile back and he was doing all this planning in the middle of studying for his finals.  We were going to surprise you."

Floored.

I called Mike and he yelled at me for ruining my own birthday surprise, and I swore that he is my favorite person ever and forced him to make a huge dinner reservation at a nice restaurant.

So much love in this room.

Speaking of love in this room, last night I went to a Wine, Dine & Discern event at the bishop's house in Baltimore.  Guess what it was?  A bunch of young adults in the Delaware/Maryland Lutheran church who have graduated college and are trying to figure out our lives, eating meatball subs, drinking beer, and watching football in a cozy living room while talking about vocation.  Story of my life.

I RSVP'd to this event months ago, when I was feeling slightly more desperate for human contact and slightly more amused by church.  Over the last few weeks, though, I've been feeling my patience waning and my frustration growing.  It starts on Saturday night when I fall asleep wrestling with my personal demons.  It weighs on me as soon as I wake up on Sunday, boils in my stomach during the youth class when I censor my highs and lows for the "plankton," and pushes at my throat and my eyelids during the service when I flip through the prayers section of the hymnal looking for something that addresses what I'm struggling with...  And as mundane as my Demon of the Day undoubtedly is, nothing comes close.  Because, hip as they may have been, neither Martin Luther nor any of the other authors of the Lutheran Book of Worship were 20-somethings struggling with the demands and desires of the twenty-first century, smartphones and the hormone-fed Petri dish better known as college.  And In This Economy?

You may be surprised to note, then, that I may be the only person between the ages of 20 and 40 that goes to my dad's church on Sunday (emphasis added).  No offense, because I have really sincerely enjoyed meeting and talking with the people of Hope.  (I am also tickled by this name: the People of Hope.)  But I rarely get the feeling that anybody there gets me.

My family members, concerned about my spiritual well-being, have said repeatedly that finding a faith community is the most important element of maintaining a healthy relationship with God.  I have historically found this to be not true -- at least not in the way they mean it.  My most fulfilling "faith communities" have sprouted from one-on-one conversations with good friends who are working through their own faith-related fears and frustrations.

I could go on and on in this vein, but the important point for now is that far from feeling uncomfortable at this peer-group gathering, I felt invigorated and encouraged by the camaraderie.  I might venture that a good way to get rid of your personal demons is to send them off on playdates with other people's personal demons, while their hosts meanwhile strategize together about ways to run them out for good.  And personal demons aside, I remembered last night how crucial peer groups are for general well-being.  Peer groups tend to share common issues, a sense of humor, taste, TV channels, and a language with which to talk about all of these things.  My peers already know what social media is, and I can relate when they explain why they didn't apply for the Peace Corps.  We can commiserate over being tired of writing cover letters and tweaking resumes, getting a drudge job or another degree just for something to do.

So this post is dedicated to My Fellow Krill.  I won't put any parameters on the title, so feel free, even if you are not a young adult, to claim this dedication.  And no matter who you are, keep clear of baleen whales.

yesterday's counterbalance

My too-abstract last post left me feeling unsettled and highly dissatisfied, probably because it was really an awkward love-child spawned by my reactions to Lizzy's most recent "realtalk" post and Bundl's most recent philosophical musings.  I decided to post it anyway because I learned at college that unfinished or unpolished thoughts can be just as valuable as polished ones.  That "choose your own adventure" concept has a lot of potential.  Maybe it will be the key someone -- a later version of myself, perhaps -- was looking for to open a door to adventure, or Pandora's Box, or something.

So I'm going to go in a different direction.  Please enjoy the following numbered list of things I'm excited about right now.  (I love lists, and you secretly do too.)

1. This morning I stumbled across an incredibly cool living-history project: A grad student at Oxford is tweeting WWII in real time over 6 years.  Most likely I will phase it out before the end, but maybe I will get emotionally invested as if I was living through the war myself in 1939-1945.  Either way, I'm impressed at his commitment to six years of what sounds completely exhausting but will most likely prove very personally enriching for him...  And the concept of this project completely titillates me.  On the ground, modern re-created history!

2. I have achieved official Regular status at Bishop's.  I now chat and joke with every person that works there, and half of them know me by name.  #Coffeeshopcrush must remain anonymous until the right moment.  I'm not really sure why, but it seems like an unspoken rule of interaction.  I know, I know, rules are made to be broken, but we all know I like the intrigue.  Yesterday he told me that Adele smokes, which I somehow managed not to know despite loving her music, and which disappoints me; and also that Train once came to Wilmington.  My hope is restored that important things do happen here.

And then he called me "Hon," which is just funny.  I should just legally change my name to Hon in this state.  Because that's pretty much my name now.

3. Christmas is coming.  Well, more importantly, Thanksgiving is coming FIRST, and then my birthday...  For some reason I feel like turning 22 will constitute my admission into REAL adulthood, because when I consort with the over-21 crowd hereafter I will no longer be the "new biddy on the block" since I have obviously been showing my legal ID successfully for over 365 days.  I may very well be deluding myself, since adulthood, like marriage, is probably just a widely-believed urban legend.

What is actually exciting about my birthday, though, is that I'm determined to do something to celebrate it.  I'm afraid to jinx my ideal plan by talking about it until things are set in stone, but I have an ideal plan and I haven't been this jazzed about something in such a long time that the excitement alone is noteworthy.  I'll give you a hint: it involves me actually playing in the 4th Annual Turkey Bowl -- my first EVER.  Happy birthday indeed.

Also, I love stuffing, butternut squash, and pecan pie -- all Thanksgiving dinner staples.  Immmmmpending food coma GO.

4. Christmas is coming.  I'm not looking forward to it in the I-wonder-where-Mom-and-Dad-hid-my-presents kind of way.  I'm looking forward to it because I have some sweet gifts planned out and although it's not yet the last minute I've already started pulling things together!  I'm also feeling ambitiously crafty, and I have a few awesome projects under way.  Most of them must remain a mystery for the time being, but I will say that I might actually finish my big cedar trunk by the end of the year!  Lofty goals, I know.  But I am a woman of action, and I do, in fact, get things done.

Except my NaNoWriMo novel.  But we don't have to talk about it.

5. Holiday says it all.  (I'm a Saggitarius -- what's YOUR sign, boy/girl?)

choose your own adventure

Circa 4th grade I dove headlong into the Choose Your Own Adventure book series -- looking back, I suspect the Titanic installment of either initiating or fueling the Titanic obsession that carried me into middle school.  You might be right in diagnosing this obsession as incredibly morbid, and you might also be worried about a 10-year-old gleaning most of her historical facts from Choose Your Own Adventure novels.  Be comforted, please, by my complete awareness that these books were also, overall, not the best writing, and the fact that I read all accessible nonfiction accounts of all my morbid historical interests.

What captivated me about this series was the way it magically bestowed agency upon me as a reader.  These books consumed much more of my time (until Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) and my mental capacity, as I meticulously and mathematically calculated every possible storyline, and how many different storylines were contained in each separate installment.  I probably read every page several times: the first time through, I'd seriously consider each decision within my personal moral-logical framework.  I'd read through at least once more, depending on how interesting that particular story was, making different illogical or immoral choices (things were much more black-and-white back then).  And finally I'd read the whole thing cover to cover, even though it was disjointed and out of order.  I just marveled over the way the whole thing fit together, its intricate construction, and the way these words were set in print but still so explicitly subject to change.

I hadn't thought of this series in years, until today.  It's been playing over and over in my head all afternoon, and then I remembered something Marija told our senior seminar that I swore I would not forget: "It's up to you to take initiative, say hi, meet people, be friendly, invite someone out for lunch or coffee."  It's up to me.

Since sophomore year when I first started really being intentional about my attitude, I've settled into a much healthier and more realistic balance: I can't hold myself responsible for everything that happens to me, but to an extent I am accountable for how I respond to these things, and to an extent I fit into a system that moves of its own accord, that responds to itself and to everything I do.  Complex.  And thanks to the 10+ years since I devoured Choose Your Own Adventure novels, my moral-logical framework has smudged into a meteorological phenomenon somewhat resembling a cumulonimbus.

Mostly I don't think about it as I go about my daily business.  Separation of philosophy and life, baby.  (Like church and state, I'm not entirely sure how possible this is -- like anything, really.  But philosophy, in my experience, too often induces paralysis.)

And here I am, getting caught up in it.  I'll have you know this is all far more complicated than I'm trying to make it here.  If you only knew how many anthropological concepts  I resisted explaining on the basis of length and irrelevance!

What I'm really thinking about right now is throwing caution to the wind, concocting wildly improbable ways to celebrate my birthday, asking my coffeeshop crush for the scoop around Wilmo, teaching my grandfather how to dictate and send emails from his iPad, finally getting comfortable enough to break the safety net of routine I set up for myself in this place.

I'm going to leave you with a somewhat related, and very cheesy-profound, exchange from the movie The Perfect Score, just because it struck me.  You can figure out how it relates.

Roy: "A lot of people think these questions are difficult."
D: "Not you?"
Roy: "Nah... These questions all have answers."

general chaos/the house of 2 grandfathers

Note: This is Life > Destiny in action.  I have been planning this post for at least two days now and I keep getting sidetracked -- first by taxes, then by the Y, where I forgot my water bottle and had to go back for it, then dinner, then my sister's physics homework.  (I never took physics, so I decided I could be of the most help by making her a cup of tea...  And while the water was boiling I noticed a delicious Devil's food cake sitting on the counter, and thought, "Mmm, this would be even MORE delicious with a small scoop of chocolate ice cream..."  And while I was eating my double-chocolate dessert Grampi asked me if I was the one writing a book and confided that he'd always dreamed of writing an autobiography.  I ended up volunteering for yet another writing project that I've been secretly composing in my head for ten years now, but may never actually get around to.)  Then, just as I was FINALLY sitting down to write, the other sister paged me to star as a customs officer in her slightly-more-than-3-minute Spanish video, and I had to conjugate a few verbs I haven't used since freshman year in high school...  It really was a moose-and-muffin situation.


So the punch line to my life is that both my grandfathers are living in my house right now.

What makes this even weirder is that my dad is in Ecuador, and while he's organizing history from the country of his and my birth, his dad (my Grampi) will turn 85.  My dad actually just received his AARP membership card, since he's now been alive for half a century.  And sometime after he gets back, and with an odd assortment of eight to seventy-five people somehow crammed into our house for the Thanksgiving holiday, I'll turn 22.

On the topic of age, tonight at dinner my mom pointed out that she, her dad (Granpa), and Maria are each 30 years apart.  This is all like some epic real-life logic puzzle.  While we were all reveling in this inter-generational symmetry, Grampi noted that 30 is a sacred number, and then Granpa asked if "knocked up" means the same now as it did when he was our age.  When my sisters and I deviated from the inter-generational conversation to a heated discussion about what other TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Angel starred in, and how hot he is, Granpa chuckled, "Do they always have so much fun?"  And Grampi replied, "Oh, they make everything fun around here."

Just your average dinner table conversation...

To add to the general chaos, one of Maria's friends is trying to get rid of two six-week-old kittens, and she has spent the afternoon waving around a smartphone photo of them cuddling together all afternoon.  The most common reaction?  "Oh NO."  Not that I wouldn't LOVE to tweet every day about my new kitten's cricket kill count, but I fear I might be allergic, and I can't really afford kitty food and litter.

***

Kinship is a strange concept if you think about it too hard (not unlike anything else I could think of, but I will try my best not to go into it).  The current situation is confusing because our family right now is neither a matrilineal nor a patrilineal tribe.  It's kind of both, and neither.  We've traded our nuclear men (Papa and Thomas) for our somewhat extended men (Grampi and Granpa) and somehow we are all related to both of them -- my sisters and I, at least, carry 1/4 of each of them in our blood.

Also, since when do in-laws get along?  Grampi especially seems excited to have someone in his age bracket to talk to, who is typically scandalized by the swear words on TV and whose main concern about my job is that I am doing God's work by helping people every day.  Granpa was here less than 24 hours before asking me if I'd met any nice young men in this town yet.  I understand that he had (two?) children by the time he was my age, but Young People Have Different Priorities These Days.  I know he understands that, but I also get the feeling they would love to see some grandchildren-in-law and some great-grandbabies.  It's only fair; their parents got to meet us.  And Grampi is never more excited than when I talk about one of my friends figuring out when and where to go to seminary.  As if she will save me from my heathen ways once she's officially ordained.  ...As if she hasn't been trying for four years as it is!  (Mostly kidding...)

This is an oversimplified view of things.  I was struck this morning when I got up to find Granpa in the kitchen making porridge.  I definitely inherited his love for porridge, although I also managed to pick up a love for breakfast burritos which has trumped all other first-thing-in-the-morning foods lately.  Anyway, he was making porridge and listening to NPR, and when I emerged from my basement dungeon he turned his portable radio down to a nearly inaudible level.

I have always been impressed that my mom's parents listen to NPR; I don't even listen to NPR, but I think it's very hip that they do.  They just seem so in touch with what's going on in the world.  When I graduated college, they gave me advice and web links on how to get a job In This Economy.  They have Netflix.  Gramma gave me men's Iron Man underwear for Christmas last year, and Granpa's always fixing something.  He's been here barely 48 hours now and there is already a door-shaped hole in the hall outside the master bathroom.  He'll take a winding, indirect route to get somewhere if it means he won't have to wait in traffic or at red lights, and Gramma's the one who taught me to put spike in my popcorn.  Pod 278 went through almost an entire canister of spike last semester, thanks in part to Lisa eating it plain during Facebook stalking sessions, it was so good.

NPR is, honestly, a far cry from the heaven-ly shoes-for-my-momma Christian music Grampi plays in the morning on his iPad.  I suspect he started getting up a little later to avoid running into me in the kitchen in the morning, since I listen to dirty rap music and the only words we ever exchange in the morning fall along the lines of, "Heading off to work?"  "You bet."

We're really lucky to have them here, though.  It's nice: both of them have said they're proud of me, and it's cool to see them sitting at or near the head of the table watching us women, thinking or telling us we're beautiful.  Their very presence inspires perspective that I too easily miss as a self-absorbed 21-year-old in a complicated world.

Just tonight I ended up talking to my doctor grandfather about memory.  Let me just note that I have great genes: both of these men are incredibly intelligent in their different ways and disciplines, and that's to say nothing of the women who helped me become a descendant.  I admit I roll my eyes when anything evangelistic comes up, anything to do with me doing God's work in front of my computer screen all day.  But I deeply value the compassion, consideration, and intention that has driven their lives' work.

So we talked about memory, and he's afraid that he is losing his.  He has a harder time remembering stories or names he feels pressured to remember; but the more I listened, and the more he talked, the more I grew convinced that he still has far more memories than he even knows himself.  He also commented that he remembers more good things than bad, "which is nice," he said, because at the age of 85 why carry the unpleasant memories.  At some point you have to start paring down your baggage, because old people often need to travel lighter than those of us investing heavily in a future on earth.  (My risk tolerance is, theoretically, sky-high right now.)

But although he's pretty lucid, I strongly suspect his heart is in Heaven, with the two women he has loved.  And that is a place so far from my consciousness right now that it's sometimes hard for the two of us to find a feasible meeting spot.

They do exist: somewhere between 21 and 77 and 85, rendez vous points pop up around dishwashers, porridge, echinacea capsules, ice cream, cars, memory, the set of stairs leading down to the basement, pride, love, and DNA.

Kinship is a strange concept if you think about it too hard -- but I'll try my best not to get into it.

i don't know why i ever thought i could ignore my destiny...

When I graduated from the fifth grade, my one line in the ceremony was something along the lines of, "My name is Clara Swanson and when I grow up I want to be an author."  I was 10.

When I was 11, I pulled a book off my dad's bookshelf called How To Write Fiction.  The first page of the introduction more or less said, "Straight-A students can't write fiction.  They never have any questions about the world around them, they never wonder why, because they already know everything."  I immediately slammed it shut and shoved it as far back to the wall as I could.

Now, that straight-A business is total bullshit.  The book was obviously written by a straight-C student at best, one who had obviously not met me and my outrageous imagination.  As an 11-year-old, though, I'd never read anything in a book that didn't hold some degree of truth, so throughout the universally jading experience of surviving 3-6 years at Lynch Middle School I edited my impractical dream, poured my angsty adolescent soul into poetry and journaling, and pushed my lexophilia to the hobby side of the spectrum.

But like I said, you can't escape your destiny.

And now that I am immersed in Figuring Out My Life, Defining My Identity, and Becoming A Real Person, my destiny has caught up to me.  Now I have a lot of catching up to do...

• I love blogging.  I'm blog-obsessed.  I read as many of my classmates' blogs as I can get my hands on, and I make notes and outlines in my planner throughout the week on blog topics I'm pumped to write next.  I am committed to this.
• I am that restaurant hostess who jots lines of poems, essays, stories, and even postcards in the margins of outdated takeout menus and folds them into tiny, tiny squares to shove in my pockets to unfold and leave out around my room "to expand upon at a later date."
• I spend my days drafting content for different campaigns.  This is very short, but still an exercise in the writing side of the brain, whatever side that is...
• I decided (of my own accord) to participate in National Novel Writing Month this year -- after Alex spent most of middle school and high school trying to convince me to join him.  Take that, How To Write Fiction author!  Take that, my dear Alexander!  If I thought I would have time to sleep at some point in November, though, I was dead wrong.
• Also of my own accord, I volunteered to be my class correspondent -- to gather, arrange, and present news items from my St. Olaf classmates now scattered all over the globe.  This involves, predictably, some actual correspondence, as well as writing and editing a cohesive and appealing document.
• I'm managing (uncharacteristically) to keep in touch with a ton of really important people.  I've written and received an impressive number of letters, postcards, emails, Facebook messages, and texts.  This will be a point of constant improvement, but at least it doesn't make me cringe anymore.

I have a journal on my bedside trunk, a pen in my possession, and an eye out for open mics at all times.  I've got my comprehensive toolbelt of genres pretty much covered.  The words course through my very veins, and I can tell that I'm embracing my destiny now because something has slid into place in my solar plexus, like I've stopped fighting this thing that is a part of me.  Vocation Part I.

Still, Leo Tolstoy laid me flat with his whole "write or live" dilemma (forget his anarchic theory, but what a genius!)  He realized -- or decided -- at some point that man does not have time and energy to be both a writer and a real person in his life.  So, predictably, he gave up writing for decades in order to travel, start a commune, etc. before returning to the pen when he felt death coming.  Tolstoy's philosophy changed during his dry spell, became much more gritty and graspable.  He loved to write.  But who can write something true to the world who has not experienced the world and its truths?

But then, who can resist her destiny?

...Is destiny a destination, or is it the way we uncover our path through the world to our truths?