All Good Things Reprise: Episode 5

Happy Easter, friends! It seems, no matter how hard I try to counteract the cosmic forces of momentum, that life just gets fuller and fuller! For the most part, it fills up with good things. But it's still very full. And this week, for me, has been full of stories. So hit play, and read on for 10 happy bedtime stories from this week, about going places, trying new things, learning new things, reading new quotes... Tales of love and adventure!

1. Since it's now officially spring, two of my coworkers and I are starting an adventure that should carry us through the warm season into the fall: #DestinationHockessin, which involves us walking to a different local restaurant for lunch every Wednesday (because Wednesday is payday, what up!) This week marked our first excursion. We kicked off the adventure at Quinn's Cafe, and all three of us had DELICIOUS sandwiches. Plus, they didn't even blink an eye when we asked for fruit cups instead of potato chips. NOMS.

2. I moved into Little Italy about seven months ago, and every day have driven past this tiny, brightly-colored storefront less than a block away, which bears the name: Pastabilities. My mom has been bugging me to check it out probably since we moved in; and Jason's mom, who works literally 3 blocks from my house, has also started to get on our case to go check it out. We've been meaning to, really, for months now; but finally got around to it just this past date night... And we were NOT disappointed! At around 8:00 on a Wednesday night, we had the place to ourselves. It's bursting with quirky decorations, and they turned down the lights and turned up the music for us: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, the Greats, of course. It felt a bit to me like Ariel's secret lair in The Little Mermaid. Very charming, and the owner & cook, Luigi Vitrone, and the server, Evan, are friendly, warm, hospitable. Jason kept commenting that the food reminded him of his grandmother's house -- and this is, of course, high praise.

3. This:
























4. I had Friday off from work! WAHOO!

5. ...Which means Jason and I could leave town to go visit Mary and Zach in D.C.! Just so happens their parents were also in town for the long weekend, so I was ecstatic to be able to see and hang out with one of my adopted college families, and for Jason to also get to meet them. After we left he said, like he always does when he meets another one of my friends from a past life, "Your friends are awesome. Also, I love seeing how you come from them." So, shoutout to my friends for contributing in no small or insignificant way to who I am, to my mannerisms and my values and my perspectives.

6. While we were walking on the National Mall (NBD, guys) I caught a glimpse of a face that in profile looked incredibly familiar. I nudged Mary and asked if she recognized him. "He does look familiar, let's conduct some casual loud conversation about St. Olaf while we walk past to see if he looks up."

So we're walking past, yelling things like, "Man, I miss ST. OLAF!" "And hanging out in BUNTROCK COMMONS!" "Which was right next to ROLVAAG LIBRARY!" "And right next to that I had most of my classes in HOLLAND HALL?" "And I loved living on the third floor of MELLBY!"

No luck. But a few minutes later, Zach called us back to where our group had gathered with this guy and we said, "WE KNEW IT!"

Apparently Mary's dad started whistling the St. Olaf fight song and ofcourse a true Ole couldn't walk past without fist pumping to the Um Ya Ya waltz.

7. Every now and then the Written Remains Writers' Guild holds an event at the library called Get Out and Write, which entails a published writer in a certain genre giving a talk about the writing, publishing, and marketing process, and then we do an hour of free writing. A great excuse to write. And a great opportunity to hang out with my mom and brother :)

8. In the front page of a gorgeous menu from Hotel Monaco in Alexandria, where we had dinner Friday night: "One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." Too true, V. Woolf, too true.

9. I'm going to Hogwarts!!!! A well-picked gift from one of my friends who just got back from London this morning -- this exists:







10. Jason says number 10 is Mary's 7-minute hugs... But I'm going to widen that scope to hugs of all kinds, lengths, and frequencies. We've already had dinner twice today and we're about to dive into number three! And each of these dinners involves a round of hugs coming in and another one coming out; plus hugs during peace time at church this morning, and then again when we left church. (I guilted Jason into hugging my dad twice at church, which tickled me pink. He thinks men don't hug, but I think that's what's wrong with the world.) Hugs all afternoon on Friday in D.C., 7-minute and in passing hugs and otherwise. Can't ever get enough! It makes me want to scheme up an excuse to have holidays every day...

to take time for tea (for mutti)

There is a long list of things I would like to write about. I still owe you guys a post about pumpkin beer (we're looking at next fall, at this rate, since pumpkin beer is pretty much irrelevant now); also, having parents with aging parents; how tough it is to start something new without solid leadership; and going out to dinner with people who can't split a check. All issues conscientious recent college graduates like myself probably think about... But let's be real: the latest baby steps have been pretty heavy. They're starting to leave dinosaur footprints in my psyche.

If you read Sunday's All Good Things, you'll know that I was in Baltimore over the weekend, and that I went to an Indian buffet for lunch on Sunday (#5 on the list). While I thoroughly enjoyed the meal, the part I was most excited about was the "Nepali tea" (called chia if you find it in Nepal) in one of those big industrial plastic dispensers. Number 5 mostly made the list for my mom's benefit, and sure enough, I got a text message saying, "About the Nepali chia. I'm jealous!"

My mom just revamped her blog, which is now called, "Hot Tea at Dawn." This title was the agonized result of a series of conversations and thought processes, trying to capture a journey, a lifelong journey embodied by a hike, where you get up early-early and have a steaming cup of tea that will hold you over until midmorning, when you stop again for a meal, and then continue hiking for a few more hours until a midday rest, and on 'til the next camp at dusk. And that morning cup of tea is your greeting to the dawn, and the dawn's to you, the anticipation of an entire twelve hours somehow encapsulated by the wisps of steam curling out of the cup and warming your hands and your face and your throat all at once.

You might recall that I have started a new project of being early to things: early to work, early to the gym, early to bed. Since my latest conversation with my mom about the blog, almost two weeks ago, I've been making even more of a conscious effort to actually enjoy a cup of tea every morning. This involves setting my alarm a little earlier and getting out of bed faster; it means not dawdling in front of the mirror or in front of my closet so I can dawdle over the kitchen table, the tea, and NPR instead. It means spending an extra dollar on a box of tea I will actually enjoy, and not getting distracted and leaving the tea so long it starts to get cold, or it steeps too long and gets too strong.

So back to Kumari (the Indian buffet -- highly recommended). The four of us made a pass at the buffet, but at the end we spent a long time sitting at the table, talking and eating kheer rice pudding and drinking tea. I could hardly bring myself to set the cup down, I was so excited. I remembered, when I didn't have to make the tea, boil the water with the spices and add the sugar and boil and add the milk and boil and then let the tea steep and then strain it and then drink it, how calming and energizing it is at the same time. I need this. I think I actually said it out loud. I need to write a blog about this.

A couple of friends of mine are currently traveling in the U.K., and the photo documentation of their trips as it appears on my Facebook and Instagram news feeds throughout the day is pretty stellar. There was a picture in a London cafe, and better yet, a picture of "proper high tea." I am really jealous of this tea tradition. It's like the recently abolished siesta (institutionalized "naptime"/rest hour) in many Latin American countries. At boarding school in India, we had a 15-minute tea break every morning between our classes, and lunch halfway through the day, and then tea after school.

But here? We just snack at our desks, and take working lunches.

This morning I finished the snacks I had stashed in my desk drawer, fortunately, because now I will not replace them and I will stop snacking compulsively at work. So, since I was still feeling fidgety and had already chewed a quarter of a pack of gum, I drank two or three extra cups of tea throughout the day. 

It gets me up from my desk, first of all, it's a low-sugar snack (unless I load it with honey, which I have mostly stopped doing since I was thoroughly ridiculed by my mom and Alex at the Whistling Kettle back in the day), and some types of tea supposedly have other health or mental benefits as well. There's the vanilla spice energy tea which allegedly energizes the body and focuses the mind; the rooibos chai which is revitalizing and stress-relieving; green tea has antioxidants; chamomile soothes (and knocks some people right out).

Last week we took a business trip and we stopped at Starbucks to recharge after our drive. I ordered a Refresh Mint tea and a banana, and in the car my boss turned around and said, "What is that smell?!" When I told him I was drinking mint tea, he said, "Oh, that is my favorite kind! I always get that." And I said I self-medicate with peppermint tea all the time. Tired? Have a peppermint tea. Feeling queasy? Peppermint. Too wired at bedtime? Headache? Cramps? Sore muscles? Thirsty? Peppermint, peppermint, peppermint!

So, tomorrow is Thursday, and every Thursday my mom comes over to my house after work and we drink tea and sit for an hour and a half and talk until I leave for Zumba and she catches a ride or catches the bus home. Tea has always been a common point for my mom and I, a conduit and an excuse for us to spend time together. If I got anything from her, it was to value slowing down for a minute, and to allow or sometimes force myself to do so. And if we get anything from tea, it's this.

As Lisa said at the buffet this weekend, you can't rush a cup of tea. You have to let it steep. You can't throw it back; you have to sip it, because it's hot. Sipping leads to savoring, and savoring leads to happiness. The formula is that simple.

I'm excited for summer to come, for the return of the sun, harbinger of sun tea! In gigantic pickle jars now catching the light with a color that can only come from the earth: hazel, honey-colored, rum-colored. Rich and smooth and warm -- the color of flavor, the color of time. The color of tea.

And now, it's time for dinner and for date night and for perhaps this day's final cup of tea, #5: Sleepytime.

All Good Things Reprise: Episode 4

And another week has gone by! Can't believe how time flies. But good things keep happening every day, so cuddle up and get into the list.

1. According to the Census Bureau, a baby is born somewhere in the U.S. approximately every 8 seconds. Imagine 7 families celebrating a new life every minute!

Clara says...
2. Saw my sister in the school play on Friday night: Don Quixote de la Mancha. Pretty funny production, and she was one of the best actors up there! (You can say I'm just saying that because she's my sister, but you would be wrong. Just take my word for it.)

3. Yesterday I took off down to Baltimore for my girl Lisa's birthday party. I got to see some other longtime friends too, which seriously warmed the cockles of my heart. (See photo) "Reunited and it feels so goooood..."

4. This was also just a fun party in general. The theme: A version of my former self. So there were a lot of pseudo-middle schoolers running around, eating shapes mac-n-cheese and drinking Sunny D. So funny.

5. Had lunch at a delicious Indian buffet in Baltimore called Kumari... And there was Nepali chia! Yummm.

6. Country music! Haters gonna hate, but we had country music day at work on Friday, and I listened to it all the way to and from Baltimore and the good ones make me really FEEL something. There are some great descriptions, and plenty of turns of phrase that perfectly capture the gamete of human experience.

And Cassie says...
7. College winter sports. People always bond over brackets or favorite teams. Also, shout out for the Gopher Women's hockey team who won the championship today!

8. Northfield! Luke and I visited this week. Dinner at the Tav, coffee at Blue Monday, and ice cream at the Cage!

9. Working out after a long day. It's rejuvenating. (Clara says: So is working out in the morning... Great way to start the day!)

10. Spring is coming? I mean it's only 32 here, but it smelled like spring the other day so I'm excited anyway :)

Until next time!

mediation meditation

This post is about anger, and about positive communication. Just an FYI, because as I'm starting to write this I'm realizing it's taking me awhile to get the core topic.

I've been thinking a lot about this over the past few months, and after last week's apparently very controversial post I have been thinking even harder about it. After last week's post about my struggles with "feminism" as a falsely all-encompassing entity I am left feeling that I might not have the temperament to put myself out there on the internet or in any of those volatile public forums (like politics or activism, for example). Not when it comes to controversial topics, anyway. I don't have the temperament for arguments either, or even for particularly heated discussion.

Here's why: I am stubborn as all get-out, but I am easily persuaded to seriously consider and even adopt a contradicting viewpoint -- if it's presented properly. If it's not... I'm like a shark. Or a bee (my most feared adversary). Or a skunk, or a... platypus? What's the thing that rolls up into a ball if you poke it? An armadillo?

ANYWAY. What I am getting at is this: if I feel like I am being attacked, or if I feel that you are telling me the ground I'm standing on isn't sound, then I am very likely to either snap, or retreat into an icy silence. And I'm not the only one. But I do know certain people who like to argue, or be incendiary, or fight. With one exception I can think of, I don't like to be around those people.

When I was little, I used to fight with my brother and sisters just as often as the next kid. When a fight broke out, we were usually separated and not allowed to look at each other for a slow count of ten. We had to take a breath in between each number. And then we were forced to go back and face each other and work it out. We were not allowed to speak to each other until we had let the initial anger pass.

As I've gotten older and had more of my own experiences, the benefits (or perhaps the results) of this parenting technique become more and more clear. Thanks to a few encounters in which I didn't take ten deep breaths before speaking, I now remind myself sternly (with mixed success) never to have a conversation with anyone who is already yelling or angry; never rise to the occasion of false accusations or implications; always consider someone's motivations for saying what they say and respond to those, not to their actual words and phrasing.

Because if we are yelling or lashing out, we are not listening. We feel threatened. Our first instinct is self-defense, whether or not there is anything truly at stake. You can't have a conversation with someone who's not listening or receptive to what you're saying.

It seems like there has been a lot of arguing lately in the public sphere; and with good reason, because there are a lot of very important issues on the national table right now. But I don't think many of you would argue if I said that we're not really making much progress on any of them.

I was excited to hear on NPR this week Chris Satullo promoting the Bernard Wolfman Civil Discourse Project, where he will be helping "two top experts on health care have a lively but respectful conversation about where they disagree, and as importantly, where they agree about what's not working with the nation's health care system — and what we should do about that." If we could all sit down and start from our common ground, and then talk through our respective solutions, and listen carefully to our opponents' questions and challenges, then maybe one of us could propose a solution that covers more of the bases, and makes less of us feel personally attacked. But the first step is actually listening.

What if the national conversation on gun control turned into a conversation about controlling gun violence? That conversation could consist of all sides offering solutions to the problem we all agree needs a solution -- and the solution we eventually come up with would be that much stronger and more appealing. What if we could address all the issues on the table starting from the most basic, most common good and go from there? We'll start with things like breathing and eating, and when we come up against a conflicting interest we'll figure out a way to work it out so no one feels threatened.

The other day I was hanging out with J. and he got up to leave for work half an hour early. I asked what was wrong and he said, "Nothing, I'm just gonna get into work a little early today." And I said, "Well why don't you come sit with me for awhile first? You've got time. You seem like you're mad at me or something." So he came and cuddled up with me and said he was frustrated and told me why, and after a moment of silence he said, "Wow... It's amazing how much better it feels just talking about it." And then we got around to actually addressing the issue.

I know this is idealistic and seems impossible. But I'm working on doing this every day on a small scale, and it seems to be working. I'm looking at human motivations and the root causes of anger: shame, fear, pain. People do unbelievable things when we are in pain, and we are in pain a lot of the time. It is a painful world we live in. I'm working actively these days to address the root causes of anger and lashing out, to take ten deep breaths before I look someone in the eye again, to resist responding to or prodding a scared or hungry shark. And I've realized that half the time, when someone lashes out at me, it has so little to do with what I've actually done or said it's almost funny. My job then is not to respond in kind, and to carefully defuse the potential explosion.

I can't say that I've mastered this art or that I succeed even a majority of the time, but I'm really, really trying and I wish that we could have some constructive conversation on a grander, more global scale. I wish we could give each other the time of day and realize that our actions and attitudes have an effect on the other people around us -- and, in the meantime, remember that the people around us often forget that this is true. Don't take it personally. Take 10 deep breaths. Try to make magic.

All Good Things Reprise: Episode 3

Happy St. Patrick's Day, friends! We all know how much I love holidays... And this seems to be a particularly high-spirited one in these parts. I didn't see the famous parade, but I had some friends over last night and I think we all had a great time. Great food, great drink, great company.

The gang is back together this week for All Good Things, so enjoy our collective cross-country list! And by the way, if you have a song request or a list item to contribute, let us know in the comments!

1. I (Clara) have developed a tendency to visualize metaphors and hyperboles used in day-to-day conversation. This has caused some hilarious and often wildly inconvenient incidents in work meetings, especially since I mentioned to my coworkers that I do this. (I had to; it was my explanation for having bust out laughing at something not meant to be in any way funny.) These images have generated from the following circumstances, to name a few:

• "If we want to market to blue cows, but this channel targets all cows and all we can do is hope the blue ones see it, then we're going to have red cows and green cows in here... but we only want the blue ones!"
• "They always have waiting lists out the butt."
• "It literally blew my mind."

Are you picturing it?

2. We have a new pope! Well... the Catholic Church has a new pope, and a lot of people are really excited about it. And he's South American, for the first time ever!

3. Movie days! More specifically: spending a day watching all the movies in a series. Harry Potter, Karate Kid!

4. I (Cassie) did a PedalPub with some friends this weekend. When we passed people on the street they'd start smiling and laughing. It was so great to see how something so simple and goofy can put a smile on people's faces!

5. People who wear sandals in the winter. It doesn't make sense to me, but it's impressive!

6. Yoga balls. I use a yoga ball at work now, and I'm loving it. (Cassie -- and Clara is SO JEALOUS that flies at Cassie's work...)

7. Observing a first date at a coffee shop. We both love surreptitiously watching couples and seeing how they react to each other and their body language. So interesting.

8. Today was the 50th annual Caesar Rodney Half Marathon & 5k, and my work (Clara) hosted a water stop. It was freezing cold but we all brought our families and had a really good time. It never gets old -- the runners are so appreciative, and it's really rewarding when they point at you to indicate that they are aiming for the cup of water in your hand and no one else's. Like being chosen.

An added benefit: my sisters had a good time too!

9. I (Clara) had to take my car in to the mechanic twice this week, but it looks like the check engine light is going to stay off for awhile now... and it was a fairly straightforward fix. I REALLY appreciate having such a good car overall...

10. J. turned up in front of my house (this is Clara, obvi) on Wednesday night for date night with a dozen roses in his hand. Just because :)

call for a new kind of feminism

Lo and behold, it is Wednesday again. Just like that.

A lot has happened this week: my dad came back from a trip to Ecuador with my grandfather, who is now living with us again; daylight savings time ended; International Women's Day came and went.

My friend Marina is from Russia, and while she thinks Valentine's flowers are a waste she expected a lot of pomp and circumstance on Friday for International Women's Day. In Russia, apparently, International Women's Day is a big deal. It's like Valentine's Day and Mother's Day combined; on this day the entire country celebrates mothers, sisters, wives and girlfriends, aunts, nieces, grandparents, cousins... Women.

This year, International Women's Day also coincided roughly with the release of Sheryl Sandberg's highly controversial, self-proclaimed "feminist manifesto" Lean In. I heard about the book first in the pool locker room at the Y on Monday morning, when I told a fellow swimmer that "I do social media" for a living and she told me about 60 Minutes' interview with "the COO of Facebook," and then connected the dots when I heard a review of the book on NPR last night.

The online world in general celebrated women on Friday in some interesting ways. My Facebook news feed was full of general shoutouts from my female friends to "all the wonderful women in my life." These women, and their shoutouts, are dynamic, beautiful, acutely intelligent, and tend to carry a little bit of self-protective anger.

Twitter apparently celebrated women on Friday with the hashtag #SayThankYouToAFeminist. I didn't see it, or the inevitable ensuing anti-feminist fallout and then the next round of retaliation, until a friend sent me an article about it, with the subheading The Word "Feminist" Is Done.

I can't say I agree 100% with this article, but the general sentiment is something I'm glad to see poking its head up into public conversation. I have spoken to too many young, educated, empowered women lately who cringe at the label, but feel that it would be disloyal to eschew it completely; and so we remain silent on the subject. Even more disheartening is the scathing judgment of previous generations of women who feel that we are ungrateful for their sexual revolution and the blood, sweat, and tears they have shed chipping away at the glass ceiling -- for us, for their daughters.

So a disclaimer for these women-warriors: I'm not denying that the glass ceiling is still intact to some extent; I'm not saying that the sexual revolution is over and its objectives achieved. There still exists imbalance to an appalling degree in both the professional and the sexual realm, to mention a few. And I respect and in some odd way envy their battle scars. I am grateful for the writing and activist-ing they have done, because without them I wouldn't have the liberty or even the foundation to think and act and live the way I do.

I will admit I had a hard time choosing the word imbalance to fill the space in that sentence. Was I talking about discrimination? Inequity? These words feel too strong, and perhaps this is my feminine instinct telling me to back down so as not to offend anyone -- the same feminine instinct that will put me at a disadvantage in my career and make me vulnerable if I go out alone in certain areas or at certain times.

In the aforementioned article, Liz Spikol claims that "men and women should be equal" is a no-brainer, a commonly believed truth. I disagree. I don't think that this is the general feeling in our society or in the world in general. And to be honest I myself hem and haw a bit at this statement.

I suppose it's partially because I feel that it's unrealistic. But I also resent the inherent devaluing of femininity that has come as fallout of the feminist movement. For men and women to be equal, to be treated equally, women have given up a lot. We have striven to adopt masculine qualities. We have adopted their dress, their stance and body language, their habits, their communication style. Because men are powerful, we have striven to emulate them in hopes of also adopting the source of their power.

There have been positive outcomes to this approach. I think the traditional gender gap shortsells everyone by limiting us to select only the traits and actions designated for our sex. So we, women, have gained some good tools throughout this process. But there are certain areas in which we could all benefit from a little feminine influence. And the perspective of people who have experienced being downtrodden that is at least enlightening, if not invaluable.

I was walking through a school recently which had posted a display of "academic new year's resolutions." My inner anthropologist ran a quick, unscientific correlation and found that the boys' resolutions consisted mostly of personal academic goals and behavioral challenges; the girls, on the other hand, almost exclusively listed interpersonal challenges. I could, of course, write an entire ethnography on the value systems expressed by this simple activity; but for now I'll give it to you straight: We can't have a functional society with only one approach or the other.

Here's the part I kind of really liked about Spikol's argument -- this, and the part about "feminist" becoming almost a dirty word, tainted by negative public perception. That definitely doesn't help at all. But this is where she gets close to what I see as the major fallibility of the feminist movement:

If I were going to SayThankYouToAFeminist on Twitter, I’d choose someone who has a lot of the stereotypical features of The Feminist: unshaven armpits, no makeup, an overly serious mien. His name is Barack Obama and he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and legislation that will make health-care costs equal for men and women. But I wouldn’t call him a “feminist.” I’d just call him a sensible human being. So what if he’s a man? It’s time to get away from gendered political movements anyway. Binary gender is so 20th century.

While I don't think we're quite ready as a society to ditch gender politics and binary gender and all that, we should at least be making progress toward learning, as a society, how to care about each other regardless of the color of our skin or what kind of "equipment" we were born with or how we use that equipment. We have to learn how to care about each other as people. For our own good.

As far as how to actually do this, I don't have any answers. I also realized this week that action without leadership takes a lot of energy (but that's a story for another week). And unfortunately, the ones who realize there is a problem are the ones who have been traditionally repressed and oppressed. So all the self-help books on male-female communication are written for women who feel that their relationships are emotionally distant. It would take a special kind of man to buy into that. Now that men are allegedly starting to feel emasculated by women wearing pant suits and working outside the home, maybe we can have a real revolution.

Or maybe it will just turn into a bloodbath. Maybe we'll just have to wait until all the birth control in the water completely eliminates men from the gene pool entirely.

Here's hoping (...the revolution/conversation thing, not the bloodbath or the birth control thing). All I know how to do is write.

***

Post-script: The aftermath of this post fell pretty hard on me. I was frustrated to get back a lot of feedback from readers who understood from this post that I think the battle has been won, that I think the feminist cause is obsolete, that we have found equality/balance/justice between women and men in our society and in our world. That's not what I'm saying at all. In fact, I found this to be the greatest weakness in Spikol's article: she took it for granted that gender equality is now a standard mindframe in our society. Even I, for all my privilege, can say with conviction that this is not true.

I deeply appreciated several comments on this post that enriched my understanding of the complexity of the feminist movement and of the issues at hand. I obviously see things only through my eyes, and this is one of the great limitations of being human: we know enough to grasp at many monumental concepts and issues, and yet our vision is narrow and we cannot grasp any of them in their entirety. I had hoped, by writing this post, to open up conversation on a different part of the movement. I know for a fact that I am not the only one who feels frustrated at the limitations of the term "feminism" and the feminist movement at this point in history, but it's not something that I've seen often expressed. (I am seeing this change, though. I saw an article making the rounds on Facebook today that expressed the underlying feelings of this post better and more broadly, I think, than this one did. I highly recommend you read it.) I hope that others, with different perspectives, can eventually find the basic feminist cause enriched by the questions I'm bringing up as my understandings have been enriched by theirs.

All Good Things Reprise: Episode 2

Welcome back to All Good Things, dear readers! It's a beautiful sunny Sunday here in Wilmington, so I'm ecstatic to be able to share with you some little rays of sunshine from my part of the woods. Cassie and I are still working out the kinks in collaboration, but hopefully we'll figure out something that works! In the meantime, enjoy this week's playlist and things-list.

1. My mom and I, tea-lovers of the greatest degree, have both hit a lull in drinking teas we love. This may be in part due to the fact that we are missing having the Whistling Kettle 20 minutes away, but supermarket boxed teas have almost always fallen a bit short.

(Any readers finding themselves near Ballston Spa, NY: stop in and have a cream tea in our honor! Also, any readers in or near the Wilmington, DE, area who know of a good tea spot, drop a comment on the blog!)

...So how does this not-so-good thing make the list, you might be asking yourself? Here's how: I met someone this week whose sister writes a tea blog! Better yet, it's not just about flavors and teas, but history and culture of tea! Nerd/teagasm. Check it out: http://cafelegi.wordpress.com/

2. I love finding excuses to do things I love, i.e. eating sweet potatoes, walking and running, dancing, and doing creative stuff. These all turned up on an infographic of ways to live longer.

3. My mom sent me this picture from her daily lunchtime walk this week. Spring is a-comin'!

4. Our team at Hilltop Superstars (local social services fundraiser) this year improved substantially at all events over last year... And while we came in 6th out of 8 teams, it was great bonding, feel good body movin', and good wholesome fun.

5. Met some new people and made some new friends at 1984 last night! I got invited by my Wilmo-Ole connection to see this band play at the arcade bar, and this time got a chance to talk to a few new members of the group. Cool kids so far :)

6. Then, while two of us were playing Connect Four, we were suavely interrupted by a guy asking to play the winner. We ended up talking to him and his friend for the next hour, and the conversation was actually quite excellent overall. I swear interesting people do exist in this town... You just have to...believe in them? Like fairies.

7. I opened the windows today while eating pancakes and the cats made a friend! The cat next door was sitting in the window across the alley, meowing back and forth with them. So cute :)

8. Also, this was on my tea bag this morning:

9. The plus side of the Blogger app being mediocre (and not having reliable computer/internet access on the weekends) is that I am learning something about HTML code! On-the-blog training?

10. I've spent some time writing, reading, and organizing my words today at a place I've never been before (eeffoc in Trolley Square, and for those who are interested, I do enjoy the vibe... and I'm totally jazzed about the unbelievably eclectic music they play here) -- but anyway, I'm about to head out and "throw a disc" at Brandywine Park for a bit in the sunshine! Go and do likewise.

Until next week-- Stay Classie :)

you have to.

I hope you all tuned in on Sunday night/Monday morning when I posted the first All Good Things Reprise. If you didn't catch it, I highly recommend you read the post because, as one faithful reader told me, "your shit gets depressing, girl!" I will be the first to agree, and I sincerely hope you all were able to shake it off. For the sake of honesty and the full impact of this blog and of sharing my struggles as a young adult, I am not inclined to sugar coat much.

But never fear, dear readers, for we are on the upswing! Spring is on its way in (despite the major snow warnings we are being bombarded with after the Great Midwestern Snow Day of 2013), daylight lingers longer, and the warmer winds are just beginning to replace the bitter ones. I hit the bottom of the curve, bumped along it for a bit, but have now managed to get a good foothold to push off faster toward the surface.

Lately I've been focusing on spring cleaning, not of physical stuff but clearing out the clutter in my jam-packed schedule. Some of you may not believe me, given the number of tempting invitations I have turned down in the past couple of weeks, but I promise I am working on it! I'm trying to get more sleep, which means being more disciplined about getting home at a reasonable hour (at least on weeknights) and recognizing that "going to bed" is a long process for me. It involves a lot of winding down, not rushing through my routines.

I'm trying to get to bed earlier, get out of bed faster, be earlier and leave myself more cushion time between point A and point B. I'm trying to be more efficient so I can cruise for 15 minutes here and there, in between the other stuff I have to do.

To be honest, spring cleaning also means sweeping out the clutter in my brain, cutting back on responsibilities and commitments, addressing issues I have with people and situations, taking care of menial tasks so they stop hanging over my head. A week or two ago, I was getting really low on gas but couldn't afford to fill up my tank until the next morning (what did I say about not sugarcoating?!), so I turned off the heat and the radio, and ran the wipers as little as I could get away with. And I found the silence liberating, a relief. There is not much silence or inactivity in my life, and to be honest that's mostly because I'm afraid of it.

But it's becoming increasingly clear to me that I need oasis. I need empty moments from time to time; I need to give myself a break. Last week I had a minor meltdown when I realized I was escaping the chaos of home to go to work, and escaping the chaos of work to go home. There is no solace in this cycle.

For me, a big part of this is awareness. Step one is infinitely harder than steps 2 through 12 combined.

I have been realizing lately the extent of prejudice that is a part of our daily lives. This is partly because I feel forced into silence on many of these topics (in this sense, silence is not liberating). I'm too skinny to talk about weightism and too white to talk about racism. I am a woman, but as we know there is a forced silence in being a woman, too. Maybe silence is normalized on both sides? We'd rather just pretend these issues don't exist. Anyway, the flavor of this week is ageism.

I have heard this word being tossed around, but it has never been tangible to me until this week. I was wondering why I have repeatedly been raked across the coals by one client after another, when my boss will say more or less the same thing to them and they are suddenly satisfied. It occurred to me suddenly this week that it probably has a lot to do with the fact that I am one of those dreaded irresponsible, self-absorbed milennials who have no valid experiences or skills to speak of and would rather spend all our time posting about what we had for lunch on Facebook than get any work done.

But here's the thing: I am one of the most responsible people I know, in any age bracket. I take accountability seriously, and I take the quality of my work seriously. I take the way I treat people seriously, and while I don't hit the mark every single time on every single task, I take getting better at it really seriously.

I will admit that I do post about what I had for lunch and other minutiae on this blog, and I'm not ashamed about it because lunch is real life and it's actually a lot more stressful than you think it is when your mom makes you sandwiches (or at least buys the deli meat and peanut butter) or it's lumped into your tuition under the subheading: Room & Board.

Anyway, the important thing clients (and other people) should know about me is that I am great at what I do, and I am just one member of an unbelievably smart, talented team. That's something we milennials know about: group work. Pretty sure I had one class, if that, in college that didn't involve a group project of some kind.

So this epiphany to me was empowering. And this, coupled with a few other small victories, successful mental cobweb-clearing, and a series of conversations, I turned into fuel to power some big changes in my attitude and my self-presentation at work and in my personal relationships. I've got skills, but no one will take me at my word if there's no conviction behind it. I will have to work harder to be taken seriously from time to time, both because I am young and because I am a woman.

There are some uncomfortable truths I am just going to have to accept:

• I will face discrimination.
• ...And, yes, I will discriminate from time to time, even though I try so, so hard not to.
• Animals are messy and demanding and I live with three of them. Too bad.
• My car is getting old and sometimes it needs a little more TLC than I am prepared to give.
• I have horrible eyesight.
• People aren't always nice to each other.
• There are not enough hours in the day.
• This is by no means an exhaustive list. In fact, I charge you to find a list that is truly exhaustive.

So my goal is to continually get better at living with these truths -- yes, and mitigating them as much as I can, but with the understanding that these things take time. I am so often guilty of expecting too much of myself, and that only makes the weight feel heavier. So what can I do?

One day last week my boss was joking around and instead of laughing I made some kind of skeptical face.

"It's a joke!" he said. "You're supposed to laugh!"

"I miss your laugh," my supervisor chimed in. "You used to laugh all the time." (It's true; I did, and they all used to try for it. They called it "gracious.")

"I don't have time to laugh these days," I said, trying to brush it off and get back to the endless checklist on my desk. "There's too much to do."

"Make time," boss-man said. "You gotta have time to laugh. You have to."

When he said this I felt guilty. I used to tell my friends in college, "If I'm ever start dating someone and stop laughing, get me out of there stat." I have always judged my general state of being by laughter, and I think it's cyclical: laughter is both an indicator and a perpetuator of happiness.

I have to laugh; I can't afford not to.

All Good Things Reprise: Episode 1

Some of you may remember Sunday nights back on good old KSTO, St. Olaf radio. There was a show called All Good Things, a review of feel-good, stress-relieving music, bad jokes, and things that made up happy over the past week -- hosted by my good friend Cassie and yours truly. I've been missing the show (and Cassie) extra lately, so we've gotten back in touch to bring you a post-grad edition of All Good Things. Hit play for your background music, and read on...

1. Children who have some grown-up mannerisms. I had a 9 year old introduce himself to me and firmly shake my hand the other day. He was so formal! It made my heart smile! -Cassie

2. I've been letting people cross the street in front of me or waving them on at ambiguous intersections, and I've gotten some really lovely smiles and waves. So worth it. -Clara

3. Jeans that are completely worn in to fit the shape of my body. -Cassie... but really, who DOESN'T love this?!

4. Wrote a blog post on Wednesday with time left to go to happy hour, where I met another Ole and a bunch of other really cool LVC volunteers!

5. ...And because I went to happy hour, I found out that Ben Taylor (the son of James Taylor and Carly Simon) was playing at World Café Live at the Queen THAT VERY NIGHT! So I went to the concert, which was great, and also discovered Grace Weber (featured in the above playlist). Good choices. -Clara

6. Dogs wearing boots to walk in the snow. I saw a golden retriever wearing boots this week and completely lost it! I was giggling to myself for well over 10 minutes. -Cassie

7. The plus side of bad weather: it's pretty! -Clara

8. Madeleine cookies. Luke and I found a recipe that is wonderful! (If we can find the recipe again, we'll share it with you!) -Cassie

9. Got some new "persimmon"-colored plastic Adirondack chairs for my porch... can't wait for spring! -Clara

10. AND last but not least, we're back "on the air!" See you next time, faithful readers :)