All Good Things Reprise: Episode 14

It's Sunday afternoon again! I don't know how it is where you are, but here in Wilmington it is HOT. Humid. Even the breeze is sticky.

If you ask me, these are perfect conditions for feel-good tunes and All Good Things! Enjoy the list this week, and stay cool!



1. A submission from a reader: Pens! But not any pen. Specifically, the Zebra F-301. This 99-cent gem is a staple in my small world: all my flight instructors had them and once we (the students) discovered them, we were hooked. I know my flying friends back East have them still and when we sign the checks for lunch at the diner, it is a little reminder that represents how far we've come as pilots.

Protip: check out the F-701 if you've got the cash, about $5, to spend on a super-elite writing utensil. Though you might like the new "Flight" models better. And they're not related to flying, as you'd think. I know too much about pens for a normal person.

2. The Baltimore Aquarium . My roommate's mom got a few free tickets through work, so my roomie brought me and two of her high school friends to spend a hot, hot day looking at fish in a dark, air conditioned building. Great way to spend a summer Saturday also because I am a huge nerd and I love learning new things about the world. Plus, water is so calming to me.

3. Speaking of water, I am obsessed with going to the pool at the Y. Unfortunately it is usually swarmed by people... Except before 10:00 in the morning, which makes swimming in the morning a great way to start a day!

4. Happy hour. I've finished off the past couple of weeks by hitting happy hour with coworkers and friends and I totally understand how it got the name. Drink specials are really great ($2 rail drinks and domestic beers at a place two minutes up the road from work, for example), but what really makes it happy is getting to talk and spend time with really great people.

5. Bachelorette parties! I had 2 yesterday: 1 for my cousin and 1 for a friend. My cousin's was crazy and loud while my friend's was quiet and low-key. It was great to simultaneously experience both. Now I know what I want for mine!

6. Date night! Luke and I went out for dinner on Friday. Sometimes he'll surprise me and randomly make reservations. We get semi-dressed up and it's so much fun! We went to Ciao Bella, and I love it more and more every time we eat there.

7. The Edina Art Fair was this weekend. It clogs up neighborhood traffic and annoys us, but the fair is so fun! Lots of fun pieces to look at and food to try.

8. Banana Chocolate Chip Kashi granola bars. I have one before I work out and it's the delicious boost of energy I need!

9. Minute-to-win-it games. We played some at my friend's bachelorette party and had the best time! It's funny how competitive people get over small things like keeping a feather in the air by blowing on it :)

10. Porch furniture. Date night this week for J. and I was burritos and mojitos on the porch, which was so relaxing. Since the weather warmed up, all my neighbors spend their evenings and weekends sitting on their porches, so I've gotten the chance to say hi to some of them and exchange pleasantries. It makes me feel part of the community.


If you read the blog often, or even just All Good Things every Sunday... Or if you used to listen to the radio version of this feature, you are probably not shocked to note the common thread of community and good people that makes this list pretty much every week. I wanted to point it out, though, because our good relationships and the good people in our lives should never be taken for granted. If the feature was only "One Good Thing," I think it's a pretty safe bet what that thing would be.

Don't forget to tell someone you love them this week! Until next Sunday... Stay "Classie," friends and readers :)

two years in review

my fam then -- at st. olaf

So. It's been two years to the day since my first post, which was about celebrating my emergence into a much wider, less defined world than the one I had previously known.

Just over one year ago, I got my wisdom teeth taken out. The doctor said my teeth were "unusual," and while I was too loopy at the time to ask what that meant, I vaguely remember someone explaining that the roots of my teeth were curved around that major nerve shooting up my jaw and into my skull. You know-- the one that makes your whole jaw go numb if they bump it during surgery.

So, last year at this time, I was sustaining myself on liquid food and ranting about the cost of healthcare. For a more general overview of my state of mind one year after graduating college, check out my guest post with Liz on St. Olaf's Sociology/Anthropology Department blog.

This year, I find myself feeling pretty differently about life in general, particularly from how I felt and thought about life two years ago, when I graduated college.

my fam now -- wearing st. olaf gear

Things in general are different. A bunch of my friends and classmates have recently graduated from masters' programs, which is wild; some of them are just starting the process of applying for further education, which from where I'm sitting feels like almost as big of a milestone. My friends are starting to have babies, too. It's becoming glaringly clear to me that we are moving into another stage of life, bit by bit. Some of us, myself included, are moving into the "2-5 years of experience" range that so many non-entry level jobs require. This feels like progress. 





remember this??

Even the blog has changed a few times since it was born on May 29, 2011. I went from posting a few times a week, to maybe once or twice a month, if we were lucky, to weekly on Wednesdays (how it is now). I've started posting from my phone, which is not an ideal situation but has made it possible to post a few times when I wouldn't have otherwise been able to. Also, there is now a "second set of baby steps" Facebook page! And, on Sunday nights, we now post our All Good Things in a new medium. 

One of my dedicated readers suggested that I mark this anniversary with a two-year blog review rather than a regular post. Read on for my favorite search terms leading to the blog, the most-read posts of all time, and a few posts I never actually wrote.

The Best Most Common Search Terms That Have Led People Here

1. "ways to eat canned tuna." The post: 50 delicious ways to eat canned tuna*, June 16, 2012.
2. "fear of ladybugs." The post: fear and ladybugs, September 10, 2011.
3. "date locals." The post: 5 reasons to date locals, February 15, 2012.
4. "and i smiled." The post: smiling meditation: war stories, April 15, 2012.
5. "baby steps for anxiety." The post: 5 ways to banish anxiety, February 23, 2012.

Top 5 Most Read Articles

1. single girl living. February 6, 2013. On food and cooking, mostly. "I'm crowdsourcing solutions to a world of problems, and at the very least asking questions that need to be asked."
2. better shared. October 14, 2012. On hosting friends and on local activities. "It doesn't matter what we do because we are doing it together."
3. another reformation. January 30, 2013. On church, and faith: the good, the bad, and the... next Reformation? "Anyway, I still think the Black-Eyed Peas raised a valid question: Where is the love???"
4. the same room together. July 9, 2012. On homesickness and identity. "But I couldn't shake one nagging question: What would it take for me to get 30 of my closest friends into the same room for four hours?"
5. things i've learned since i left college. March 31, 2012. A guest post by my friend and classmate Kyle. The title is pretty self-explanatory. I wonder how this list would be different if Kyle were to write an update. (Kyle? Do you have anything you would like to share with the class?)

3 Posts I Never Got Around To Writing

1. Pumpkin beer! I kept incredibly careful notes last fall about all the pumpkin beers I'd tried... But there were always so many far more compelling things to write about! This year, maybe...
2. Online dating. As this is something I've never personally done, I didn't think I could do the topic real justice... But it seems like an important part of the young adult experience! I've asked literally too many of my friends to count on two hands to write a guest post about it, and got mostly just shifty eyes in return. Maybe I can convince J to try online dating for couples? Or maybe someone will message me after this post and volunteer... Cough, cough.



i legitimately struggled to post this...

3. I was thinking at one point about writing a post about fear, talking about my debilitating fear of bees (and anything remotely resembling a bee) as a segue into all the things there are to be afraid of in "the real world." But then something a little more pressing and less depressing would come up and I would write about that instead. I have a feeling this one will officially resurface at some point.

Stay tuned, readers and friends. We've somehow stumbled this far; I have no idea where we will go from here but I hope we can find out together in the weeks, months, years to come!

All Good Things Reprise: Episode 13

Happy Memorial Day, dedicated readers! I'm never quite sure if that's the right way to say it: Happy Memorial Day -- because I don't see it as a particularly "happy" holiday. It's a good moment for reflection, though, so please take that moment. And if you have the day off from work, enjoy the day. Relax. Spend time with your family and friends and lovers. Raise a glass to honor someone.

Then, hit play, and read on:

1. Long weekends! Paid vacation!

2. Corndogs! Beer! Cookouts with friends!

3. The Class of 2013's Last Lecture was given by one of the All Good Things chart-toppers, an anthropology professor both Cassie and I loved through college. He regularly made the list when we actually had class with him 3-5 times a week, so it seems only fitting he makes the list now!

4. 10 things you might not know about love. This article was submitted by a loyal follower of the show and of this blog (Liz, you might have heard of her). I particularly like the connections between love and health in some of the later points. Thanks, Liz!

5. My sister is home from college for the summer! The fam is back together... And now I have someone to talk St. Olaf with :) Photo below.

6. Speaking of St. Olaf, I ended up behind another car with a St. Olaf sticker on the rear windshield this week. The incident has refreshed my quest to connect with other Oles in the Wilmington area.

7. Meeting new people! Our team for the Spartan race in July met up at Stanley's Tavern, a bar in North Wilmington, last night. Well, two thirds of our team plus one non-running friend met up. I hadn't met the other two runners, who are friends of Jason's, and they were really great. It will be fun running together. Also, we decided on our team shirt design :)

8. Getting together with friends I haven't seen in awhile. The non-Spartan who came out last night is one of my favorite people in this town, who I haven't seen in far too long. It was important for us to catch up.

9. Blueberry muffins! I haven't made them in awhile, but I've been saving up these blueberries in the freezer for awhile. My mom has a great recipe so I whipped them up this morning for a vacation day breakfast.

10. Goofy laughing. Just good for the mood :) Make sure you do some of that today.

Off to cook out and soak up the sun and day drink with my friends!

living the dream

These days, if I need to bring it up at all, I tell people that I graduated from college "a couple years ago." Full disclosure: next Wednesday, in fact, marks two years to the day since graduation, and not coincidentally two years since my first post on second set of baby steps. (I'll be posting something different and special, so make sure to tune in!)


this was me and my girl Lisa back in the carefree days

It's been two years, and I feel different.



Two years ago today I was probably the only person in the library on the last day of finals, racing the clock to finish my last paper for my last year of my college career. In between sections, I would have been scrolling through emails from the college career center asking, "Are you SURE you haven't found a job for after graduation yet?????!!!?!?!?" Subtext: "You're ruining our numbers and making us look bad."

My response was invariably, belligerently, that I still had no plans for after graduation. To be honest, I was almost proud and a little thrilled to be slighting "The Man," the proscribed "way of doing things," the pressure to "give back" to what I was increasingly recognizing as an institution just as flawed and convoluted as any other institution. I was not feeling very warm toward institutions at the time.

I don't think I would have believed you if you told me then what I would be doing now, two years down the line. I'm in a leadership position, at a for-profit company, doing marketing, of all things. I work in a field, like they always say, that was barely beginning to exist when I started college. I wear business casual, black and grey and brown, without patterns, for the most part. I am learning corporate jargon and business savvy. I read newsletters from LinkedIn. I get jazzed about examples of PR and marketing in the real world.

I live in Delaware, not with my parents -- but I do hang out with them for fun. I live in a city. I'm in a long-term, serious romantic relationship. I have a smartphone. I read nonfiction books for fun. I listen to NPR every day -- in fact, I am a member of my "local" (Philadelphia) public radio station. I go to church (only once a month or so, but still). I chaperone youth trips and activities, for God's sake!

I made my first green smoothie last night. (It was OK. I think I put too much banana in it.) I get excited about having 15 minutes to myself from time to time.

I wouldn't have guessed, when I was struggling to stay awake through my commencement ceremony almost two years ago, that this would be my life now. It's too much like what The Institutions told me I should be. I'm living "the dream."

And I like it, don't get me wrong. But part of me feels like I skipped right over my twenties. I skipped over the $100-a-month-stipend years in service to my society. I never lived in NYC or L.A. or the Twin Cities. My waiting tables phase was three months long. I loved it, for awhile. I have never been in a band. I don't go to concerts in coffeeshops, or hang out with starving artists (I do spend a decent amount of time with people who actually make a living doing art and writing, which is infinitely less hipster and can get depressing). I don't own a bicycle. I don't have beer for dinner on the regular. (Only on occasion.) I rarely day drink. I'm not sure I even have any beer in my fridge right now.

Last year, when I lived at home, I used to tell my mom that I hoped I would never become un-fun. I used to pray fervently that I would always be able to keep things in perspective, and never get dragged down by the humdrum and hurdles of adult life. I wanted never to take myself too seriously.

But I can already feel my mind growing inflexible in certain ways. I am resistant when the new people at work propose an idea I "know won't work." I haven't written a poem in weeks.

I made a very conscious decision not to stay in the Midwest, and I don't regret that. But part of me is jealous of my friends who all live together in Uptown, crash on each other's couches when they stop being able to pay rent, do idealistic jobs for community-focused nonprofits that can't really afford to pay them for the work they do -- but they truly are making a positive impact! They feature in each other's Instagram pictures, lit up in psychedelic pinks and purples, with up-and-coming Indie musicians onstage in the background and heavily garnished cocktails in the foreground.

I don't even like Indie music, and I still wish I was in those Instagrams.

This sounds pretty bitter. I'm not, really. I have invested a lot in my life the way it is now, and the return on that investment fulfills me beyond my expectations. I feel very lucky to have found the places and the work and the people I have found here.

So, what am I getting at, then?

I guess I'm just missing my friends, the classmates I was clinging to so literally two years ago, and the dreams we had. I'm afraid that I am becoming boring. I'm too responsible, and too scared of the world as it is uncovered before me, to be the fearless explorer I wanted to always be.

And yet, I am relieved at the relative lack of drama and crisis in my regular life. (Knock on wood!) It is nice when a lot of things stay pretty much the same for extended periods of time, and I don't have to move my stuff into storage and live out of a suitcase anymore (although my room is so small right now it pretty much is a suitcase). Even my hormones are leveling out. It is nice.

Maybe this is my next coming of age: reconciliation. Finding the balance between being fun and being comfortable. Maybe that's how I'll take it.

All Good Things Reprise: Episode 12

1. Baby! Woke up on Friday to pictures of J's new niece swaddled in blankets and all her grandparents' arms. So tiny and sweet!

2. The new Vampire Weekend album came out this week, and keeping with the theme of babies, the song Diane Young has been cropping up everywhere from Fresh Air to everyone's latest iTunes purchase, and stuck in all of our heads in the office all day, every day. It's included in this week's good things playlist.

3. The Scottish Festival! Right over the border in Maryland, it's a day of bagpipes, men in kilts, haggis, and day drinking. Gets me a little in touch with my fambly heritage. I should try to dig up something in the Ross tartan...

4. Spring cleaning! I've been waiting for MONTHS to clear out our freezer, which is literally bursting with food: some frozen meals in tupperware containers, some freezer bags of smoothie fruit, lots of freezer-burnt veggies and chicken, and who knows what else. Plus, this involves getting all the roomies together to do some serious excavating.

5. Silver Linings Playbook. I know. I'm behind the times AGAIN. But I finally watched this movie (set in Philly, right up the road) last night and it was phenomenal . Recommend.

6. Pets! They can brighten up my day and make me giggle like a kid! My friend owns a bunny that's chocolate brown named Noah, and I'm in love with him.

7. Rainy spring afternoons. Luke and I are currently watching Hook while listening to the rain. Awesome afternoon!

8. Luke and I took engagement photos this week (rather late, I know!) It was so much fun! We took photos in a bookstore. Although it was awkward for us to kiss in public we got used to it after a while!

9. I'm in my cousin's wedding in June, and because of this I've been able to spend more time with her than normal lately. It's been nice to get to know her again!

10. Not many people know this, but I love raccoons. I wanted to be one for Halloween every year when I was little, but we couldn't find a costume. Anyway, I saw one in my neighborhood this week! It was the first time I have seen one in the wild!

girls: i am one.

I know I am behind the times, but I finally got around to borrowing the first season of Girls from the library this week. For some reason the show completely fell off the face of the planet, or at least my circles of the internet, after the first season, but I didn't forget!

For the uninitiated, Girls is a show on HBO created by a 20-something young woman about the lives of four 20-something young women living in New York. It made quite a splash last year when it first came out, with general sentiment recognizing the show as revolutionary, the defining piece of television of our generation, Gen Y, the infamous Millennials. At least that's what I heard.

So, I thought, I'd better watch this. I meant to blog about it a year ago, when episode 4 was the latest. I watched episode 1 and was skeptical; thought, well, maybe I just have to get into it, and watched episode 2; was still skeptical; watched the first half of episode 3 because I felt I should be able to talk about the show that was sweeping the nation and couldn't finish it. I described it as painful. I still think, having watched the whole season, it is uncomfortably oversexed, over-the-top dysfunctional, overdramatic. But I can't hate it as much as I did originally.

My friends were asking me if I'd seen it, and recommending that I watch it. "Oh, it doesn't get good until episode 4," they'd say, when I told them where I'd stopped. My boss came in one morning raving about how this show is the most brilliant exposé of the psychology and experiences of American 24-year-olds (a well-represented demographic in our office).

The one real conversation I had about the show was with T, a male friend from my freshman dorm. We took a course series together in the history of Western thought, philosophy and literature. The turning point in my opinion of the show was when he said:

I see it more as a tale of disconnect. In a society more connected than ever, a lot of people who grew up with infinite amounts of communication feel more disconnected from themselves and others than ever.

He said he appreciates that the show addresses the confusion of being a young adult, one of those who grew up being told that we could do anything, be anything; one of those who graduated into a scene of general panic at the economic and social crises facing us every time we open our eyes. One of those who followed our passions, only to suddenly realize that our passions will not pay the bills and might not even sustain us emotionally...

Or one who grew up with so many options that we don't even have passions anymore. NPR did a story last week on an Ivy League graduate in his early 20s who is looking for his life's calling -- so far in vain. He doesn't even know what he wants to do.

The fact that Max and other young college graduates can even entertain this question — "What is my passion?" — is a new conundrum, and still a luxury not everybody enjoys. Yet, Tyler recently told me, it is "a central question of our time."

The world is changing. Of course it is. There is this to consider, and the fact that each new generation does have to come up with new solutions to old problems, and solutions to problems that didn't exist before, or at least hadn't come to light.

But I'm not convinced that past generations, when the bulk of them were in their 20s, didn't face the same hot hatred from the older generations who felt their seats contested. It's just that now, we read about it every damn day on the internet.

And here's one way I don't mind being lumped in with the inane, overdramatized bullshit millennial myth perpetuated in shows like Girls or, better yet, 2 Broke Girls: we are sick of being talked about! The marketers marketing to us are missing the point. As are the churches preaching to us. And the managers writing treatises about how to manage millennials. And the executives writing angry blog posts about why you shouldn't trust a 23-year-old with your company's social media, just because (s)he grew up with the internet. And then there are the articles, like the one in the New York Times recently which I can't find but was summarized to me roughly thus: "They hate this, they hate this, they suck at this... but they're going to change the world!"

I just want to go about my business. Yeah, maybe it would be cool to change the world, at least in some small way. I can think of a few things that could use a change. Maybe I am super self-centered, like all millennials supposedly are, because I am so concerned with getting my feet under me. Maybe what I have learned about having functional relationships is minimal compared to what I will know by the time I am 50 -- just by virtue of being alive longer and having had a lot of experiences with different kinds of relationships.

Yes, I am concerned about my career, partially because I have to pay rent and stuff, and because I now have a sharpening view down the road to when I will no longer be the only person depending on that career. But I am also concerned about my career because I am obsessed with doing good work, and learning things, and achieving goals. Particularly when doing so comes with the privilege of being included in a team of really interesting, smart and capable people who have experiences already that I will never be able to have because I am me and they are them.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm trying to say, exactly. I guess it boils down to this: we are young. I think sometimes I need to be reminded of this. I am young! I have my whole life ahead of me! There is so much to do and to learn!

But really, Girls and the daily diatribes against "my generation" just doesn't really do it for me. Fancy that.

All Good Things Reprise: Episode 11

Sorry I didn't get a playlist together for this week; I swore I'd set it up already, but I guess not. I may have to move the time of this post, since it turns out I'm always stressed out and scrambling to get this live online! Which is counter the point.

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean there aren't any good things this week! In fact, I even tried to squeeze in a few extras. So... This week, YOU pick the tunes. :)

1. Iron Man 3! J. and I went to see this for date night this week and it was SO good! I highly recommend you see this movie.

2. "This Is Water." A striking and fabulous short film adaptation of a 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College by David Foster Wallace. It's about 10 minutes long, but if you can spare a few, I highly recommend you watch this too.

3. The Color Run. It's the happiest 5k on the planet. I ran it yesterday in Baltimore with 25,000 other people and it was so hot but it was so colorful and beautiful... and yes, I would definitely call it happy.

4. I had a wonderful spring gnocchi at Good Earth in Edina last night. The peas, pea shoots, squash and zucchini were so fresh that it made me feel like I was eating Spring! I think I'll make it at home sometime soon.

5. Spontaneous hang-outs with friends! My friend Carol stopped by randomly this week, and we hung out/went for a drive. It was unexpected and so nice!

6. Remembering to say thank you. Sometimes it's so easy to go through a day wrapped up in my own world. It's easy to forget to express gratitude to those who deserve it.

7. Neighborhood book exchanges. We have about 10 in our neighborhood, and have dropped some used books in them. It's such a great way to get connected to others in our area by seeing what they're reading!

8. Summer shandy! When it gets hot at the beginning of summer, I immediately start craving Leinenkugel's. That right there is branding gone right.

9. Talking. Open communication is one thing I appreciate most about my romantic relationship -- SO unbelievably important -- but I have also enjoyed having some really good talks with girl friends this week, and with both of my parents, and my brother and my sister and even a few people I have never met before in my life. (Can I sneak in an extra good thing? Lunch dates with my dad, which don't happen quite often enough. And also my baby sister's junior prom!)

10. Mom! I spent the day with my mom and dad today. It's her birthday too! We got to hang out and enjoy each others company which was well needed. Happy Mother's Day to all the great moms out there!

I'm going to dedicate this post to our mothers, to the two moms that birthed us especially, but also to all the other women who have mothered us throughout our lives. I don't think I can ever really express how important you are to me and how much of an impact you have made on my life. This day is for you <3

you are starred

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). The wind is invisible, but its strength changes the landscape. You love with a power that is stronger than the wind, and the force of your feelings will move people.

I can be pretty thorny, tough to pin down. If you know me well, we have probably had some sort of battle sparked somehow by my seeming nonchalance about our relationship and its sustainability. You have probably stood by, biting your lip as you watch what is most certainly my back retreating from you forever. I don't consider myself an easy person to stay friends with; historically it has been like pulling teeth to get me to schedule a phone date or write a letter.

This week, on Monday evening, I suddenly fell violently ill. I was curled into a ball for a lot of the evening in response to awful head and stomach pain; I was getting increasingly delirious as the night wore on; by 9:00 I couldn't stand up straight without throwing up.

And of course, there was my family standing by, watching for their opportunity to swoop in and take care of me. They took turns knocking on the bathroom door and asking if I needed anything, despite my inevitable snap in response; my dad gave me a head massage; my mom gave me a wet washcloth for my face; my doctor-grandfather suggested a series of painkillers and, when I refused each and every one of them, he suggested my family pray over me. Which they did, and which, despite my convinced heathenism, actually made me feel the tiniest bit better.

But despite all of this attention, I was convinced that I was too gross and mean for anyone to actually want me around, and refused many offers to drive me home until it became clear, an hour or so later, that I wasn't going anywhere if I didn't let someone else drive me there.

Like I said, I can be incredibly difficult.

I've written about this before. One of my most personally groundbreaking posts, written almost a year ago, was about freely giving and receiving open-handed love. Well worth a re-read.

I've made progress since this post, but I still don't really get it. I have felt pretty selfish at a lot of points throughout these years since college, where arguably everyone is a little selfish; but it gets thrown into a different light out here when I'm not surrounded by other hormonal college students absorbed in hacking out our own paths.

Let's be clear: I'm still working on hacking out my own path. I don't foresee that ever really changing, so I've struggled a little with how to balance taking care of the needs of others while keeping my own feet steady underneath me.

J., my parents, even my roommates, seem to be constantly giving me things, giving me time, gifts, cards, emotional support; they help me out of situations and are very often willing to work with me to find solutions to problems I'm having, or to work around my schedule. My friends from far away will schedule phone dates with me, send me letters and packages, text me to say something reminded them of me.

In comparison, I feel cold, uninvested, unhelpful.

I mentioned this to a couple of college friends at a bar in New York City a few months back, that I feel unbalanced in my social exchange with the people around me. First, I said, I hate how much I got hooked on social exchange in Sociological Theory sophomore year. Social exchange theory explains social interactions in terms of balancing equations, equal trades. It creates a system based on people in relationships owing each other.

Now that's cold.

My friends looked at me curiously, and after awhile K. spoke up. "That's interesting that you feel that way," she said, "because I've gotten a LOT of mail from you since moving to New York. You're always sending me new granola because I told you that one time it's my favorite comfort food, and I've seen you pretty often... And you just told me I'm starred on your Facebook!"

Indeed I had. In fact both of these friends are starred as "close friends" on my Facebook page, which means I get a notification whenever they do just about anything on Facebook. It sounds a little creepy, but fortunately both of them were flattered to find this out. Even if I don't comment or like everything they post, I see everything. Just the fact that I've opted in to staying up to date on their lives, they said, shows that I care about them.

Which is true. I think about the people that have been a part of my life, and a part of who I am, every single day. I miss you guys. I can't turn off my radar for reminders of the people I love, even if I wanted to. And you can bet that these reminders are constant. It's just that I am forward-facing to a fault, and I'm fidgety and I get anxious if I ever start to feel stuck in place, in time.

This, in a nutshell, is why I identify so strongly and stubbornly as a Sagittarian: I am intense, restless, passionate. The horoscope I started this post with (from Friday) gave me the chills, because I know how true it is. Some time back it occurred to me, and I completely latched onto the idea, that I love fiercely. I don't always play nice and I don't sit still for very long (literally and figuratively), but I stick to things, and even more so things stick to me. Once you have me hooked you have your little lovely barbs in my heart for a long time. You're starred in my eyes.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). The wind is invisible, but its strength changes the landscape. You love with a power that is stronger than the wind, and the force of your feelings will move people.

All Good Things Reprise: Episode 10

1. This is just to say -- one of my favorite poems ever... not written by e.e. cummings.

2. Camping. This includes the smell of campfire; being able to see the stars; going to bed exhausted, sun-kissed, a little sore from hiking; s'mores, of course; and having an excuse to be a little dirty.

3. I'm making granola as I write this. It's been awhile and this is already a good batch. I can tell it's going to cluster just perfectly.

4. Weddings. They're everywhere! I swear someone else gets engaged or married every week these days...

5. Pleasant people. The guy who checked me out at WalMart today (I know...but it's cheap!) had the nicest smile.

6. Aloe gel. Just saying, my shoulders are in a little bit of pain... But that stuff is THE BEST for soothing a sunburn.

7. Great coworkers. It really makes it a whole lot easier to swallow that I spend more hours at work than I do awake at home.

8. The first mojitos of the season! And with fresh mint!!

9. "Man-strength" coffee. Delicious, and sometimes necessary.

10. My bro. Shoutout to my first best friend, who I still think is great :)

a disturbance in the force / spring cleaning

Please excuse my absence, dear readers, from the blogosphere for the past 2 weeks.

If you tuned in last week or the week before, you might have been disappointed (or relieved, I suppose) to discover no lengthy treatise on the universe in its entirety, no rambling excuse for personal narrative, no amateur philosophical musings. I don't know how much you all count on my weekly posts, but I know the disruption to my personal schedule gave me some things to seriously chew on.

It doesn't entirely make sense to me how heavily I depend on my Wednesday evening blog time, and I have struggled to explain the role it plays in my life and why I take it so seriously. It's mindboggling, how guilty and unsettled I feel when I break this commitment I've made to myself to sit down and write a blog at a particular time. I feel some obligation to you all, my readers, as well, even though my weekly pageviews could be random accidental clicks on a search result or a Facebook news feed, for all I know.

Over the past few weeks, there have been plenty of disruptions to my daily grind, both personally and on a collective level.

Our society as a whole has been reeling from a few things since I last wrote: the bombings at the Boston Marathon; the explosion in West, Texas; the ensuing investigations of both of these incidents -- just today, in fact, the arrest of 3 others in connection with the Boston bombs; the continual onslaught of horrific shootings in the news, the latest trend being small children killing each other with guns... You know as well as I do what weighs on our national conscience these days. Such tragedies and conflicts disturb us, emotionally, mentally, physically, and disrupt the relative calm of the humdrum lives so many of us are desperately pursuing.

Then there are tragedies more close to home: someone was shot right outside my friend's apartment building in West Philly last weekend. My boyfriend's grandmother spent a week in the hospital, on life support and in Hospice, until she passed away last Thursday morning. These things disturb us too, and invade our home territory, the path of our daily footfalls. We all deal with grief and fear differently, but as much as some of us (cough) try to just smooth it over and do what we've got to do, we are never really the same after "something happens."

Lately I've been struggling with my routines. I miss the days of getting random phone calls from people asking to hang out and being able to accept, right there on the spot; I miss the days of being able to pick up random phone calls in the first place! I just spent a few minutes before starting to write this post looking back over some of my earlier posts. Even a year ago I was more carefree, almost flippant; my posts were shorter and lighter; I was less dry and set in my ways.

I'm doing a lot of amazing things with my life, but there is something missing.  Time to rebound. Time to process. Time to lick my wounds -- to notice them in the first place! And to heal.

So these past two weeks have made me realize that it may be time for a reboot. When so many factors outside of my control have torn my regular routine so thoroughly apart, it's made me examine why I started doing those things in the first place, what they're doing for me now, which ones I miss most when I run on a totally different track for two weeks. Which ones make me feel like they're supposed to, and which ones just aren't doing their job anymore.

Let's call it spring cleaning. I don't know yet what summer will look like when it's all said and done, what I will uncover and the total mass of discarded dust bunnies, but I hope to be able to ease into it. I pray for peace and time to grieve and the presence of mind to celebrate that which deserves celebration in this life.