doing 'nothing'

Our beginning-of-the-week conversations for the first few months consisted of, "What did you do this weekend?" "Nothing." "Really? Nothing?" *Shrug* Before we started exchanging books, hanging out first once a week, then twice, then three or four times and texting in between.

Three and a half years later, people are asking us, "What are you guys doing for the Fourth?" And we say, "Nothing."

It's been nonstop for months now, the days and weeks and weekends jam-packed with meetings and hanging out and appointments and checking things off the list. I like that, to an extent; but a three-day weekend with no obligations is a rainbow unicorn in my version of adulthood, at least.

*****
Last week I wrote, but my heart wasn't in it. And then Friday evening came around, and our fridge was fresh out of food and we had company coming from out of town. So I decided not to post. I stressed about it for an hour or so, and realized I wasn't being present, and that's the important thing; so I gave myself a get-out-of-jail free card and forgot about it. This is part of being gracious toward myself.

It's about what's important. Celebrating means different things to different people, and has meant different things to me at different points in my life. Some people like spending holidays in the world's most famous celebration spots, packed up against strangers like the contents of a massive sushi roll. Those people probably think of strangers as future friends.

I am working on priorities. It's hard for an overcommitter like me to stay committed to everything, and I'm working on whittling down my commitments, whittling down my priorities and using the important things as a flowchart to decide whether I can take anything else on or not. I'm reading lots of LinkedIn articles about it and testing out methods of keeping my life in order. My biggest central goal right now is finding zen in the rhythm of my life, even when it's crazy and too full of good things. Rolling with it.

But my top priority is clear: my relationships with good people - maintaining them, and, more importantly, enjoying them.

Last week, when I really thought about it, between my commitment to blogging and my commitment to hosting, the choice was pretty clear. Today, I am taking a much-needed breather, starting my day with good food and a long conversation, just J and me, with good food and drinks sprinkled throughout. This relationship takes precedence, the health of our relationship and taking time to check in and recalibrate, and while we're at it, putting some care into our mental health.

This is a bit of an oversimplification, but so far my big lesson for summer 2015 is prioritizing, and using that hierarchy to make decisions about what I'm committing to.

With that in mind, I'm signing off. Happy Fourth (though I hope you all are celebrating with your friends and families, dear readers, and won't see this until the day is over). Until I write again...

the mission: ceramics 101

"Are you the Swansons?" - our ceramics teacher as we rolled into class 5 minutes late. (Not bad...) "Are you a band? You sound like a band."

Now that's a new one. But it's particularly funny right now since our running joke for the summer is that we're going to start a family a cappella group a la Von Trapp Family Singers. We opted not to share that joke with out new classmates and teacher; best not to get their hopes up.

"Trapp Family Singers 1941" by Trapp Family Singers
Metropolitan Music Bureau, New York. Photo by Larry Gordon.

We went around the room and introduced ourselves: the high school English teacher trying ceramics out for fun; three women who took the class before and got addicted; Thom, doing this to hang out with the siblings; me, who made some pinch pots back in first grade and hung out with potters in college; Maria, the music person whose idea it was to take the class in the first place ("so when we all hate it we know who to blame!"); and Asha, who of course got the hang of the clay long before the rest of us could even put two pinch pots together and keep them inflated.

By the end of the three hours, Asha had a lion head ready to be fired; Maria made an abstract "war bird"; I had a lumpy eggplant that stands on end and Thomas created and collapsed a pineapple. ("I don't really need a bunch of clay pineapples collecting dust.") After 8 weeks, we're all hoping to have a mug to show for ourselves.

This is what my siblings and I do for fun. The other day J and I showed up for dinner and my dad was tiling the upstairs bathroom, Asha was picking up rocks from the creek to line flower beds, Maria was stitching a T-shirt quilt and Thomas had plans for his latest project laid out in graph paper all over the living room. "Now you know why I get so irritated when the TV's on all the time," I said to J.

One summer, we scripted, set, and produced an adventure movie filmed across four cities in Northern India. The final product was 20 minutes long, with complicated character relationships and a cast of six.

my inspiration: pottery from friends

I value that creative outlet, and the creative community in growing up that way. It's a hunger I carry with me everywhere I go, even now... Even though I dedicate so little time to creative endeavors these days. I envy people who do art professionally, like my full-time writer friends here in Delaware and my college friends now doing MFAs, publishing chapbooks, selling handmade jewelry or bowls or clothes in towns around the country. I envy people who have the energy after work to do anything more than throw together a (roughly) balanced dinner and maybe a fancy cocktail - my art of choice these days.

I caught up with a friend last week who just left her job in preparation for moving and starting grad school over the next few months. She said, "Now that I'm not working, the TV is hardly ever on. I just find a lot of other things to do."

Out of desperation, I added that it serves its purpose; it's an easy way to get a story fix at the end of a full day.

As a kid, I watched only PBS until I aged out around 10. Sesame Street taught me how to read, and Wishbone taught me how to love it; Mr. Rogers taught me imagination. When we had filled our TV quota for the day, we would run downstairs and build a "magic Barney bag" full of scavenged craft materials, or put on a sock puppet show, or set up our own mini-Olympics in the living room. We built tiny towns of mud-and-twig huts in the backyard, elaborate Lego cities for our plastic animal figurines, box and blanket forts for ourselves. Whatever we saw on TV, we replicated in real life. After a movie, when the credit music came on, we all leaped up from the couch and started dancing. When I read a great book, I started writing what I hoped would turn into a great book.

That is the luxury of childhood, and now I see it as such. When I have kids, I hope I can pass that on to them... but in the meantime I'm on a mission to find creativity in the adult world.

Readers: let me know where you all find your creativity, and how you make time and space for it!

hashtag learning (when to stop)

the hashtags of my life lately

The last few weeks have been a bit insane, with work (where we have a couple of big projects coming to fruition and lots of development going on), volunteer responsibilities, wedding planning, social commitments, conferences, big news events, and all the other extracurricular projects I've created for myself.

I'm getting a lot out of this laundry list, but am I getting maxed out a little? How much does input feed overload take away from my takeaway? And how do I put on the brakes when most things "can't wait," and I'm trying to establish my place in the world? (Not sure why I even bother, when that place is only going to change every other year, if not more often...)

I think the answer is: You just put on the brakes; there is no "try." It's like saying, "Excuse me, would you mind please turning this gigantic noisy machine off?" when nobody can hear you and you pretty much have to just walk right up to it and firmly push the EMERGENCY STOP button.

So (hopefully) that's one lesson learned. Or lesson in progress, anyway. I have a feeling that one is going to take some work.


But I'm pulling lots of other things, too, out of the chaos. Here are a few of them:

#IWSTEM panel, May 28

1. I am an introvert (or at least much more so than I thought I was). I need to spend some quality solo-time before and after big networking events or presentations, otherwise I get super exhausted, super fast.


2. It's okay to feel like an impostor. One of the extremely poised and successful women on an Inspiring Women in STEM panel shared this with us: "I have a hard time sometimes, and I feel like I shouldn't be, and like I can't be open about that." Afterward I thanked her for sharing that, because I often feel like I should be handling things a lot more seamlessly, and she said, "Do you ever feel like an impostor?" And I said, "YESSSSS!" And she said, "That's totally normal." Score!


3. If I want to talk to someone, I have to reach out. Don't wait. If I have a few minutes, and I'm thinking about somebody or have something to talk about, I just pick up the phone. Even 10 or 15 minutes is enough to keep a long-distance relationship going.


4. Focus on what's most important. For example, if I'm stressed out about wedding planning, I try to take a step back and remember why we're doing it: We're getting married to each other, and we want to share the day with people we love. It takes two seconds to think this and it puts everything back into perspective.


5. Also, share those priorities and values. I've been sharing that central piece with people in conversations, and I've been pleasantly surprised at how it shifts the focus of the conversation. Our culture tends to focus on the wedding more than the actual marriage, but when I introduce marriage into the conversation in that way it opens the floor for other people to share their own deeper thoughts and experiences.
   
   This approach also keeps me focused and accountable in other projects, and makes tough decisions suddenly become clear. Putting together a group for young third culture kids around Delaware and want to set the precedent for low-key, open conversation? Choose a venue that is quiet and open enough for easy talking.


6. State my position openly, and if I am confused or ambivalent about something, say that too. A lot of times what I'm not sure about gets worked out as I'm saying it; if not, someone else can usually offer something to help clear it up. If I know what I think (or if it really doesn't matter between choice A or choice B) it keeps things moving and positions me as a person of action. And then when something comes up that I can't figure out, the rest of the group has no problem chipping in because they know exactly where I stand.

I've also learned some other interesting factoids, such as:

• There is simulation technology being developed for nursing and medical students to practice procedures (surgical and otherwise) on theater students, so that they can get real-life feedback in a much lower-stakes environment. (From #TechTrendsDE, an event in downtown Wilmington that felt like stepping into Silicon Valley.)
• Childhood trauma is a major contributing factor to incarceration in adulthood, and housing access is one of the biggest barriers to successful reentry. #DCHJwomen
• I have learned a lot about my extended family, and about family dynamics in general, through planning our huge 5-year reunion to be held this summer. #arvidclara15
• There are 22 St. Olaf graduates currently living in the state of Delaware. #UmYaYa!

And lots of other things.

I don't see that slowing down anytime soon, and I have to admit I don't hate it.

budgeting 101

My senior year of college I took a one-month intensive personal finance course. Historically I would count it as one of the most useful classes I have ever taken, and would say that it taught me some of the most useful life skills out of any of my college courses.

Two and a half years later, I am learning some really practical and true lessons about personal finance, now less theoretical and more on-the-ground. It's like in our first week of college, when the upper class academic peer advisors performed skits for us to warn us that we would learn time management skills and self-discipline, and maybe we took notes or maybe we rolled our eyes... I know what I really needed to learn was how I handle things, and what kinds of expectations are realistic and what kinds are unrealistic, and when it comes down to it what my priorities are.

To be fair, these are things I'm still learning about myself, and they will probably continue to change many, many times throughout my life.

Money
So, back to Personal Finance 101. I still have not bought any stocks or started putting money into a retirement fund; so much for long-term financial planning! But I do have a growing savings account, and I try (more or less successfully) to keep my home expenses under 30% of my monthly budget. I am learning that 30% still makes things tight. Because then there is gas, groceries, student loans, my cell phone bill, insurance.

This is all very basic. How many of these things can I live without? How happy am I at this bare bones level?

That's an uncomfortable question for me to ask, because I don't like to admit my consumerist tendencies. I don't often go shopping for fun, so that's good. I am pretty much a pro at not buying things I don't need, and I'm getting a lot better at eating my produce before it goes bad. My vice, if you can really call it that, is going out to eat and drink. I also am a sucker for supporting the local arts and culture scene in general; so I give $5 a month to public radio, and I'll hit up museums and small-time concerts and festivals from time to time.

And that stuff adds up.

Then there are the infrequent expenses, like car repairs and oil changes, medical expenses, personal hygiene. And the more frivolous ones like trips and birthday presents. Frivolous. What does that even mean? How can I classify that?

Because these are things that are important to me. They make up who I am and to a certain extent these are the financial costs of maintaining healthy, positive, important relationships. How can I sacrifice that in good faith?

Time
And yes, I've been writing a lot lately about how full my schedule is and how it exhausts me. I don't have enough time to do all the things I'm doing, and that doesn't even include things I really want to do but absolutely must say "no" to. There is no class for this in college, and although time management is supposedly what they told us we would have to learn in those four years I found that unrealistic. It turns out to be a lot more complicated than just making a priority list and figuring out where you can cut corners to make things faster; because here it's our sanity that's on the line.

And when your list includes a 40-hour work week, sleep, food, showers and travel time, there's not a lot of room left to be human. I'm not really OK with that. But what's my alternative?

Space
I'm really not good at this one. When we moved into our house in Little Italy last September, I volunteered to draw the short straw and take the small room because I loved the house and the 'hood so much.

For most of this year I have had about 3 square feet of space to stand in my room, around the bed and the closet and the trunk I keep my clothes in; and my bookshelves and files and laundry hamper. And since I have so little time left to do laundry and stay up to date with my filing and personal business, I also have stacks of half-clean clothes and paper items and unsent packages shoved under the bed and perched precariously on top of each other in Babel towers crammed between the walls and the bare necessities.

And now it's hot as balls outside and stuffy inside, and I have one little window with a window fan in it and I am getting frustrated at the Cirque du Soleil routines I have to perform to move stuff in and out of the room and to get from the door to the closet. I thought it would be fine, but the cushions I budgeted in other realms to make up for my lack of space have now burned up, and they don't pick up the slack anymore.

Energy
Maybe this is what it all comes down to. Matter can be neither created nor destroyed, but energy is recycled. I have always been fascinated by energy -- how it turns from potential to kinetic energy and somehow continually shape-shifts into something else.

This is my biggest cushion: a positive attitude, which may not seem so positive to you, dear readers, but is really what keeps me going throughout the long, dark Januaries and Februaries and the super-stressful weeks that turn into working weekends. That's what keeps me going through the endless flow of sad and scary headlines and the money troubles and the time crunch: I have hope, and I believe that I am always coming up with a better solution. Also, I have an unbelievably supportive community of family, friends, coworkers, and random other people that pop in and out of my life like rainbows.

But there is the constant danger of getting burned out. Sometimes I start to feel dangerously tired, or irritable, or fuzzy in the head. I'm getting a lot better at recognizing these symptoms and taking an out if I need it; but when that means disappointing someone I love or asking for an unpaid day off it gets pretty hard. Next in line is pinning down how to budget my energy ahead of time so I can see it coming and avoid burnout before it happens.

I've got to figure out how to stop before I get to the $2-in-my-bank-account-and-three-days-'til-payday level. And by "$2," I mean whatever the exchange rate is for money, time, space, AND energy. I'm looking for balance. Culturally we are not very good at this, but I am determined to rise above and build some kind of a system that works. Before my life changes drastically again and I have to start all over.

Welcome to adulthood?

keep calm and dot dot dot

A couple of weeks go I read a blog post comparing blogs to different kinds of beer. At the time, I thought that baby steps was a stout; now, though, re-reading the post, I think it might actually be more of an IPA: Ales have flavor. Sometimes they’re so hoppy they make your face pucker. You feel them as much as you taste them. These are blogs that make you feel something, too. They have an opinion. They’re not shy. They have passion and a natural voice. They know who they are, and they take a stand. Sometimes they’re negative. Sometimes they’re personal. I think I'm OK with that description, even though the classification is a bit ironic seeing as I am not IPAs' biggest fan. My posts are always personal. I'm tackling the Heavy Seas on a regular basis -- imagine living in my head all the time!

I think the post might have missed some categories, though. Like my classmate Caroline's blog, which I would call light but by no means insubstantial. This blog is easy to "drink," but it still has its own distinct flavor. Every once in awhile you get a hit of something heavier, like homesickness or current events or spirituality, but it highlights the beautiful things in life. We all need a little of that.

This is why I publish All Good Things on Sunday nights now. I admit the weeks get a little heavy sometimes. This week, I've had stress nightmares and anxiety taking up residence in the pit of my stomach. Makes me extra glad I started BodyCombat -- I obviously can't tell you enough how it sends anxiety packing.

I'm also really excited that summer is kicking off hard lately. Two weekends ago, my parents took J and I up to New York to see Rock of Ages on Broadway. We unfortunately couldn't get tickets together, so we saw Mamma Mia! instead. Which did not disappoint.

Plus, Rock of Ages was coming to Philly the next weekend, so I decided that in this case I could have my cake and eat it too. Please note, this is generally the biggest problem in my life right now: trying to take advantage of too many things.

In this case, though, I couldn't have made a better decision. One of my coworkers lives in West Philly, and we were both trying to find someone to go with us to the show on Saturday, without success. So, unashamedly, we became backup friends for Rock of Ages at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, rushed tickets and ended up with front row seats for only $22, and had the time of our lives.

There are a lot of parts of this story that are important: being open and spontaneous, going with the flow, doing something simply because I so badly want it. Even the theme of Rock of Ages is follow your dreams.

Maybe this is what has for so long been compelling to me about the eighties and rock music and dancing. It is antiestablishment, personal, true and a little wild. It is about dreaming and going your own way. (Thanks, Fleetwood Mac!)

And it's just plain old fun.

J and his brother donated an old PS3 guitar to my brother's secondhand Rock Band last weekend. So on Monday, at the weekly dinner, my sister and I got decked out in badass hot pink purple sparkly makeup and rocked out.

I used to dress up all the time. I used to play a lot more. I guess I'm growing up, but there are some things I hope I never forget. I hope there is always something I want so badly it doesnt make sense. I hope I go out of my way for them. I hope I still try new things even if it's not comfortable. I hope I never lose the ability to get lost in dreams and music and dancing (and Shake Shack) for a few hours, and that the real world continues to accommodate magic when I return to it.

P.S. Yesterday, another coworker invited everyone to join him at happy hour at the mall, and in line with this whole post, I thought, sure! I'll finish my post by phone, later.

And here I am, 24 hours and change later, writing something I didn't know I was going to say, but probably really needed to.

"i need a healer"

St. Olaf has this tradition, as part of senior week and commencement activities, of hearing one "Last Lecture" from a professor chosen by a vote of the senior class. Traditionally, the senior class usually chooses renowned philosophy professor Charles Taliaferro; but to my great delight, the class of 2013 voted to hear their Last Lecture from Anthropology Professor Thomas Williamson. His lecture was titled, The Anthropologist's Guide to Unhealthy Living. You can stream it here; it's long, but worth it.

I took a medical anthropology class with Tom in the spring semester of my junior year. In it, we discussed how different societies conceptualize "health." In our mainstream U.S. culture, we tend to view "health" as the absence of illness. In the negative.

My medical missionary grandfather said to me once that many members of the tribal Amazon basin cultures have not known what it feels like to "feel good" most of the time. Their state of normalcy is illness: digestive issues; malnutrition; river blindness.

But, the older I get, the more I wonder if we, as a culture, know what it feels like to feel good most of the time. I would argue that our state of normalcy is worry, stress, depression, anxiety, terror; digestive issues; hangovers; hypochondria; migraines; general pain.

I have been noticing lately the occupational hazards of sitting at a desk for 7.5 hours a day, 5 days a week. I feel regular stiffness in my hips and knees, and pain when I run; perpetual tension in my back and shoulders, which in severe cases turns into piercing headaches, which tear up my stomach too; constant pain in my right hand, my mouse hand, my pen hand. This isn't the first time, either; last time I went to the doctor about hand pain they sent me to a hand surgeon who gave me a shot to create scar tissue in my tendon, after a shot of novocaine that left my entire hand numb for at least 12 hours. And then they charged me $270.

This isn't what I'm looking for. I don't want to get rid of my ailments; I want to be healthy. I want my doctor to tell me what I can change about my life to prevent this pain in the first place.

On Monday I had an SOS lunch break phone date with a faraway friend, to work through some general anxiety. She said, "I need a healer in my life." She said where she lives everyone has a bodyworker. And she's tried it, but that's not the kind of healer she needs. She said, one-on-one yoga practice didn't do the trick; nor did counseling. I would never even suggest to her that she goes to a "real doctor," because what would he or she do? Prescribe some drugs to glaze over the problem.

Not gonna cut it.

I've been on a quest lately to balance my life, to clear out more empty space so I have time for self-care and time for flexibility. I've been working on eating foods that make me feel good, foods that boost my energy and alertness and don't give me stomach trouble. (The list of foods that give me stomach trouble gets longer every year, which is a little frightening. And I know I'm not the only one with food allergies and intolerances springing up on me out of nowhere.) I've been trying to sleep more, which actually helps a lot. I've been learning how to say no, which is hard because there are legitimately a lot of things I want to do every single day.

Call me a hippie, but I truly believe that most ailments are psychosomatic or somatopsychic. That is, most sicknesses and most of the pain we feel is actually a symptom of a larger, deeper problem or imbalance. In fact, I will boil it down even more and say that a huge percentage of our general ailments are stress-induced. (Actually, it turns out that stress in our grandparents' childhoods may actually impact the ailments we experience now. Wild.)

This is hard to get away from, since the bulk of what we deal with on a day-to-day basis, particularly as young adults and recent grads, is

• Healthcare: Do I have any or not? Does it cover birth control?
• Money: Do I have any or not? Is it enough to pay my rent AND my student loan payments?
• Terrorism and random shootings
• Global warming and the most aggressive storm season since the Ice Age
• The government spying on us (but, really, are we all that surprised?)
• Jobs: Am I on a "career" path? Does that even exist? ...do I even HAVE a job?? Given the statistics, maybe not.
• How long before Friday afternoon and happy hour? Because this is getting old.

So what would it mean to bring a "healer" into all this? What kind of healer would even be able to approach our ailments while avoiding either dialing a hotline of some kind or pulling out a pad and sending me straight to the pharmacy?

I am doing a lot to build and keep a healthy lifestyle. But what I kept saying to my friend on Monday is that she shouldn't try to tackle all her struggles alone. There is something different and comforting and important about being healed, about the process and the social aspect of it. It is active, healing and being healed; it is interactive.

So what do we need? I couldn't tell you. I wouldn't know what to call the person that could tackle this one. People trek to all the most isolated pockets of the world to find healers; they try all kinds of shamans and rituals and superstitions, and they write books about their quests.

Any ideas? Recommendations? For my friend and for me -- a healer to bring us closer to good living.

society is crumbling

Last week one of my coworkers found a video on Fox News entitled "All-Male Fox Panel Laments Female Breadwinners." Somewhat shocked and horrified, we took it as our comedy for the day... But the clip stuck with me.

Let me summarize it for you, although the title is pretty self-explanatory:
The clip consists of four guys in suits talking about a new study stating that in 4 out of 10 families a woman is the primary breadwinner. Of course they find this "concerning and troubling," and spend about four minutes discussing the crumbling, the dissolution, the disintegration of American society and why it can be directly attributed to women being the primary breadwinner in less than half of American families.

"It's having an impact on our children," they say. "We as people in a smart society have lost the ability to have complementary relationships, and it's tearing our society apart."

"We're losing a generation. Bottom line, it could undermine our social order."

It's easy to dismiss everything they are saying as sexist and ignorant. Because it is. But there is something in this conversation that needs to be addressed.

I work for a registered minority- and female-owned company. This always casts political and social issues under a really interesting microscope. Especially political and social issues that deal with women or people of color.

When we sent the clip out to everyone in the office, the female partner said, "You know, it's unrealistic to think that we can balance having a fulfilling career, taking care of our kids, maintaining a successful marriage, keeping a clean house... I don't envy you young ladies. I don't envy your generation. You have some incredibly difficult choices to make."

The clip stuck with me, and that comment stuck with me. It's not as though this is something new to me. My female friends and I have been battling the question for most of our conscientious lives, and particularly since we graduated college: What sacrifices do I want to make to have my dream life? What sacrifices should I make to have my dream life?

Do we sacrifice our dreams or our callings for love? Or do we sacrifice love for our calling? Do I move to a new and faraway place, where I know no one, because my significant other got a good job there? Do I move to a new and faraway place, where I know no one, and leave my significant other behind because I got accepted to my dream grad school, or because I got offered my dream job?

The social environment in which I grew up taught me that I should not sacrifice my personal -- read, "professional" -- dreams for a romantic relationship. Because I will inevitably become resentful and that will take a toll on the romantic relationship I gave up everything for.

But I grew up in a family that prioritized the collective, the community, the relationships within a community, above all. Plus, that greater social environment planted this seed in my head that I can have it all. This is one of the main complaints of my peers: that we were led to believe something untrue, namely, that we can do anything; and it is one of the main complaints of older generations against our generation: that millennials have this sense of entitlement, this belief that we deserve to have everything we want. We want to have our cake and eat it too, and it turns out, suddenly, that we can't.

Damn.

So I, and a lot of other people in my peer group, feel a little confused.

there are 168 hours in a week. i need at least 250.

Many of our mothers, now that we're out of the house and figuring out our own lives, are having an opposite realization. My mom has said on multiple occasions that she made the conscious decision to do things she wasn't wild about sometimes because she would be with the people she loved. As a mother and wife she would have given up almost anything for us, and on many occasions she did.

I think that choosing a family or a relationship as #1 is a decision that is unfairly vilified for women in modern, forward-thinking society. But there is real emotional and psychological fallout for those women who do make that choice, and put love in the top spot in their lives.

And there is real emotional and psychological and social fallout for those women who make the choice to put their careers in the top spot. There is and always will be fallout, no matter what we decide to put first. Something will always fall behind.

Those Fox News guys were right when they said the rise of female breadwinners is "having an impact on our children." They were right when they said it's undermining our social order. They were right, honestly, when they said that we as "people in a smart society have lost the ability to have complementary relationships."

But it is ignorant, cowardly, to conclude that this means we should go back to "the way things were." It's ignorant, too, to say that the rise in female breadwinners caused all of this chaos. I would call it more of a symptom of an outdated model that was also flawed and that isn't really working anymore in the world as it is turning out to be.

We do need to learn how to have truly complementary relationships, where all involved parties are on equal ground. We need to figure out some way to raise our children to be functional human beings who can have functional relationships, while also making sure they don't go hungry and that they are comfortable with diversity and the change that is an inevitable part of our future.

We need a new model. I don't know what it is, and I dread the day I have to make an actual decision about my family, my relationships, my career, my lifestyle. I'm barely sustaining sanity as it is, between work, my love life, my friendships, my family, my workout schedule, and having time to eat. I know if something happened to make two of those things suddenly really conflict, it would be the hardest decision I have ever had to make. It already has been, on a smaller scale. And when my friends ask me what to do in x. y, or z situation, I have no idea what to say.

And this, I think, is the real reason "society is crumbling." The global population is getting bigger while the earth stays the same size. The amount of valuable resources really doesn't change, either -- money, time, energy. We're running out of options. The pressure on families is that much higher. The pressure on individuals is that much higher. We have to do a lot more to be seen, and our odds feel like they're always going down.

As a society we need to be creative and resilient and trash the conceptual limitations we have had for a long time. It's time for a change. Get on board, suits. You're going to get left behind. I hope.

new territory, and oh, how familiar it is



Jason + Jerk Chicken Tacos = <3

This has been a strange and wild week. I'm spending a lot of my free time getting familiar with my new neighborhood, which has turned out to be a very cool place.

We already know I like Dead Presidents. Good food, good drinks, nice bartenders, great atmosphere and great social media. The...quintfecta? The only thing that could make it better is if they played Call Me Maybe/Gangnam Style mashups.

It turns out there are a lot of other places to like, too. Black Lab Bakery. The Blue Parrot, which was nearly empty on Saturday afternoon except for Chris, the server, who made the best mojito I have ever tasted and was also super friendly and fantastic. I'm not kidding about that mojito and I'm not even inclined to qualify that statement, and you know how seriously I take superlatives. That is, not seriously. But I really mean this one. Also, great creole food. We all know how much I love that taste of New Orleans!

Across from the Blue Parrot is a place smiling underneath a sign that says only "Pastry Shop," and which features a gorgeous display of cakes and pastries, as well as gelato. Just enough flavors not to be boring, but so you know it's pretty much the freshest gelato around.

I don't remember if I already mentioned Rocco's, where I got a gin and tonic (emphasis on the gin) and some delicious gnocchi that lasted me three days -- for only $10.

I know I have mentioned the library. It's still wonderful. The lawn is wonderful. It's the place to be on a sunny Saturday or Sunday afternoon; I've done both.

I also found another farmers' market, which to me seemed like more of a weekly carnival. It's in a park probably a mile from my house, and it had used books, some produce (sweet potatoes!), Thai and Mexican food stands, Philly water ice, and a cover band riffing on Bob Dylan.

Also had beers at Famous Tom's in Hockessin last night. It was a comfortable place, and good company didn't hurt. A bar I could get into. I may also have to start a bucket list of Famous [insert man's name here]'s bars to visit in New Castle County, because I can name at least 5 off the top of my head: Tom's, Jim's, Joe's, Tim's, and...

Well, I can name four.

AND on Sunday, I got to hit up HersheyPark with my roommates! Despite the fact that I started off the day with a bang by admitting that I don't actually like rollercoasters, I had a great time and only sat out one ride: The Comet, gigantic wooden coaster. I also flew solo (almost literally) on the Tidal Force, a log flume of epic proportions which inescapably soaks everyone within a 20-foot radius of the foot of the slide.

The last time I was at HersheyPark, I was in eighth grade and the Great Bear, a dangly-feet rollercoaster, was the big new thang. Some of our group waited in line for 3 hours to ride it; I, terrified of heights, irritated by long lines, and delicate of stomach, opted out. This time, we waited in line for about 30 minutes to ride the now 9-year-old coaster, and I loved it. This season's new ride, Skyrush, was terrifying to the nth degree, with thigh-only restraints and floorless edge seats. Needless to say, I sat in the middle. And I screamed the whole time, with my eyes closed for most of it.

OK, let's be honest, I screamed the whole time, as in, on every single ride. I still haven't completely gained my voice back.

The best part of the outing, though, was getting to spend an entire unbounded day with my roommates. You'd think we would see each other at least once a day, since we live in the same house and all, but somehow I only manage to run into them 3-4 times a week. Turns out they're pretty cool! (Ha ha, like I didn't know that before!)

In all seriousness, it is so important to me that I touch base with my roommates, and even just with my friends. Relationships of all types require maintenance, and it's been an interesting exercise so far figuring out the balance of roomies versus boyfriends versus family versus local and long-distance friends.

This brings me to one of my themes this week: living well. This also happened to be my dad's theme last week. If any of you go to Hope Lutheran Church in New Castle, you heard him preach about how will I feel at the end of my life about the way I have lived. This is partly coincidental.

And, of course, partly not. My dad is coming at this question with a bit of agitation, balancing his insatiable drive to make the world a better place, and wrestling currently with whether it may sometimes be more hurtful to speak out on an issue than to remain silent about it. I reminded him, "The beautiful thing about life is that to say we have lived well doesn't mean we haven't made any mistakes. It does not mean that we will look back and see a life free of missteps. We will look back and cringe, but that doesn't mean we can't be happy with the progress we have made and the things we have managed to figure out."

That being said, my angle of concern right now is balance. I'm struggling to balance routine with spontaneity; I'm finding balance in communication, and balance as I said between my various relationships. I'm really focused on balancing practicality, especially financial practicality, with having fun and doing things that make me happy.

Weirdly, my horoscope last Wednesday read:

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). It's normal, but not helpful, to come at financial issues from an emotional place. Pay what you can really afford and not a penny more. Finding the right number will require thought as well as accounting.

I've resolved all the medical and auto-related expenses that had me in such a state of despair over the summer, but I'm now facing another year of doctor and dentist appointments, and adding rent, utilities, and regular groceries into the mix. Fortunately I am fairly responsible and aware, but this takes my personal finance skills to a new level. More to come, I'm sure, on that front.

I'm also suddenly very aware of external forces that factor into the "living well equation". Maybe it's that I have moved into the city; maybe I'm just out of the St. Olaf bubble and getting my feet wet in the real world. Let me tell you, that water is muddy. I'm talking dirty politics; racism, classism, sexism; poverty; violence.

A few days ago I heard a tribute on the radio to the servicemen and women who have been killed in Afghanistan this year. We are also mourning the deaths of our countrymen in Libya last week, and it wouldn't be a stretch to say there's been a shooting a week since the heat hit us a couple of months back. In fact, Wilmington was recently named the most dangerous city in the nation. And this in the face of a year of infamous shootings: Trayvon Martin; Tulsa; the Aurora theater shooting; the Empire State Building; a Pathmark in a town in New Jersey where a colleague of mine grew up.

I could be angry about these killings, but my default emotion is grief. I mourn the victims, I grieve with their families and friends; but I also mourn the perpetrators. To me this endless violence indicates a thinly veiled pathology in our society, locally, nationally, globally. To me each new crime and ensuing public outcry feels desperate, defensive, hopeless. I am too shaken and too small to understand the cocktail of factors that instigate such violence, but I listen to NPR and I talk to people and I'm trying to figure out the small ways that I perpetuate the hurt of the world, and the small ways I can turn those into healing. I take weekly, sometimes daily moments of silence to mourn for my fellow human beings, to treasure the life that I still have, and to muster enough courage for a smile, small talk, maybe a hug, and enough breath to make it to the end of another (wonderfully terrifying) day.

And in the meantime, trying to live well. Whatever that means.

taking time

When I was growing up, my parents used to not let me go out on Sunday afternoons because they said we needed to set aside time to "just be."

"Be what?" I used to ask, or more likely whine.  "Be-ing is boooring!"

Since moving back home I've brought this up with both of my parents, laughing as I reminded them how frustrated I used to get about it.  My dad said he remembered me giving almost as much input into the "Formula for a Balanced Life," like asking my 'rents to tell me I couldn't go out if I was feeling too swamped or just didn't feel like doing something with my friends.  And my mom and I came to the conclusion that one of the most irritating parts of this institution was that we never distinguished between "family-time" and "me-time."

To this day I struggle to separate "me-time" from "doing-things-I-want-to-do" time.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who spends a lot of my life doing things I have to do, ticking things off my to-do list, things that need to get done.  Whether I want to do them or not.  So when I have a spare moment to recalibrate, do I spend it checking in with myself or doing something solely because I want to do it?  Tough choices.  And usually the things I want to do involve spending time with people I love, including people I live with, people I go out with, people I visit occasionally, and people I can really only communicate with by phone.

The dilemma I constantly face these days is this: I don't have time to love everybody I love in life.  (This dilemma also means I have been known to eat 2-3 dinners in a single evening, sometimes several times throughout a week.  And then I have to find time for an extra-long workout to keep my girlish figure.)

Since I don't have a solution to that problem, here are a few examples of me finding myself stuffed threefold.

So.  Friday.  J's college roommate came up from D.C. to celebrate his birthday, first with a very late dinner at Sushi Sumo.  Most of the sushi was delicious, except the uni (better known in English as sea urchin).  It just had this slimy consistency of too-chewed gum.  Like when it gets to the point of dissolving in your mouth.  Anyway, I'll try anything once.

...But don't quote me on that.

My favorite thing we got was the Dynamite Roll, which came served atop a flashing blue faux ice cube in a kinky-stemmed martini glass.  I forget what was in it, but it was wrapped in soy paper and it was delish.  I also got to try sake for the first time, warm, at the sushi bar where one of the chefs whipped us up a free special sample while we waited for the rest of the party.  Turns out I like sake quite a lot, though it did kick my simmering desire to go to La Ronda for canelazo into second or third gear.  Worth it, definitely.

Calle La Ronda at night (2009)

(Also, hilariously, the adorable hostess asked to see my ID but not Jason's.  He got a kick out of this because he is always complaining that he only gets ID'd when he goes out with me.  As for me, I have mostly resigned myself to being ID'd until I am 55 years old and finally look more than 17.  Optimistic?  Welcome to my life.)

After dinner we hit up Moodswing, quite possibly the only dance club in the state of Delaware, and located approximately 4 minutes from my house.  Convenient.  I felt very underdressed all night--except at iHop in the wee hours of the morning--but especially when the bouncer told me they normally don't let people wear weatherproof boots inside the club.  I still feel a little sheepish about this, but in my defense I really didn't think there was a single nightclub in Wilmington.  But they let me in "just this once," and I pretty much danced the night away.  The photographer from Spark magazine said it was usually packed, but maybe the rain kept everybody in their weatherproof boots and out of the club, because I could probably have singlehandedly counted the people there on Friday.

I slept through Zumba on Saturday morning but, according to tradition, Asha and I hit up the Y anyway.  She definitely holds me accountable.  We're good for each other.

She had made this elaborate plan for all of us to have people over on Saturday night to play Cranium, since Thom had just got home and really needs to meet some people in this state.  Unfortunately none of my friends could make it, but it's always fun chilling with my sibs anyway.  We got a huge box full of Chinese food and read our fortunes "in bed" style, staged rousing Moulin Rouge singalongs and played the penis game.  Seriously, we are just the coolest people ever.

After the game we watched Mulan and I fell asleep about half an hour into it.  Fail.

And then I slept through church on Sunday (I'm sensing a trend here) and in gratitude for everyone who didn't wake me up for church I decided to clean the whole kitchen.  Plus, staying home on Sunday morning usually has good repercussions of the Sunny V Sunday variety, namely delicious french toast, smoothies, good tunes blasting, etc.

The Original Sunny V Sunday <3 

I also watched Legends of the Fall on Sunday, and while I admit it was a pretty excellent specimen of film, I will also admit that I cried throughout most of the second half.  Maybe because I am a certified sap, but maybe because it hit all the right heartstrings, or wrenched them, maybe, in the family/starcrossed love department.  I have been needing a good cry, though, so it's all good.

About 4 minutes after the movie was over J came to pick me up and was a little taken aback that the movie he left for me to see over a month ago left me choking on tears...  But no hard feelings.  We wanted to check out the Newport Restaurant but it was closed so we took a loop around the Newark Reservoir.  It was cold up there, and windy...  But the sunset was to die for.  J tried to take a picture but his phone died right at the key moment.  Oh well.  This is why we have mental imaging capabilities.  And also why I used to sneak my dad's oil pastels out of his desk drawer to do posters of Caribbean sunsets when I was little.

I have been weirdly nostalgic for Quito lately--note the canelazo cravings, and the reservoir reminded me of the reservoir behind my Aunt Lori's house, where Natalia and I used to go running sometimes.  In a flash of brilliance, J remembered this Peruvian restaurant called The Chicken House, which reminded me (of course) of this Peruvian grill a few blocks from the hotel in Quito...  Instead of sending me over the edge into a deluge of homesick tears, though, this place just made me the most happy girl in history.  I ordered the chuleta a lo pobre, basically a pile of porkchop-topped comfort food like rice, fried egg, french fries, and maduros (sweet bananas).  Oh, and a maracuyá pisco sour, and flan for dessert.  Mmmmmmmmm...

I got home after this feast to find the house dark and a single place setting on the dining room table.  SO SAD!  I had meant to leave time to hang with the fam after spending the afternoon with J, but in line with my social dilemma that did not happen.  (And are we really surprised?)  So I tiptoed up to my parents' room to see if they were still awake, because I like to chat with them.  They're cool people.

Long story short, I ended up squashed in my parents' bed with all three of my siblings and both of my parents--a really adorable family puzzle which fit together a lot better when more of us were under four feet tall and 100 pounds.  OK, when any of us were so pint-sized.

But, this is why my family is the bomb-dot-com.  Seriously.  It is always some raucous good times with us.

So what is the difference between me-time and love-time?  I pretty much consider blogging me-time, but I'm doing it in Maria's room under the guise of "helping her with physics."  (This is our code for "sitting together while each doing our own thing"--an activity I love more than almost anything in the world.  Is "sitting together while each doing our own thing" me-time?  Or love-time?  ...Or both?)

Here it is, I really think so: me-time is Sunday morning, and love-time is Sunday afternoon.  Family time is Sunday night all crammed into a queen-sized bed, or any time a few of us spend around the dining room table.  And all of it is important.  And home is where -time happens, where my heart is the clock.

rubber-banding

I'm on vacation!  Out of the office until Wednesday, and the restaurant too.  I'm definitely looking forward to having some time off, but I'm also mildly terrified about having nothing on my schedule, no obligations or anything.

...Besides carrying the star into the crèche on Christmas morning.  I have graduated from my days of playing Mary, Mother of Jesus, and my days of co-writing and co-directing overambitious nativity villages and talk shows.  I am moving into a new role.

Speaking of changing roles, my latest realization is how utterly awful I am at transitions.  The other day I walked into Bishop's after work and I must have been acting weird because the guys said, "Hey, are you OK?  You seem... distraught."

First of all, how pumped am I that that's the word they came up with!  Secondly, after they called me out, a lot of my tension evaporated, and I smiled and realized that I am often distraught when I walk in there.  I'm easily distraught from one side of a new situation to the other, and it takes me so long to adapt.  Which is a strange thing to realize (over and over again over the last few years) when "adaptable" used to be a pretty accurate descriptor of me as a kid.  Of course, back then I had to be.

And I guess, if we're being realistic, I still do, because life is basically a series of changes.  I wouldn't want to become prematurely stuck in my ways at the age of 22.  I hope to at least be 80 before that happens.

I can't knock on my need for routines, though, and on a more fundamental level, some sort of stability.  Thus my uncharacteristically vehement response yesterday morning to certain suggestions about my future...

When I came upstairs in the morning, Grampi was already up and bumbling around.  Now, first off, you need to understand that the communication centers of my brain don't fire up until I've been bumbling around for at least 20 minutes.  Also, I'm definitely not interested in small talk over breakfast.  Breakfast with other people is a time for communal basking, or important discussions.  And when I say important, I mean touchy-feely important.  Like relationship-talk.

Anyway, he asked what I studied in college (even though he totally knows, and brings it up himself from time to time) and then asked if I'm planning on going to grad school in the near future (the answer is no, because I'm sick of school, I don't know what I would study if I went back right now, and I love working).  My early morning mumbling problem also makes conversation difficult, especially with someone who doesn't understand me very well on a regular basis.  So I mumbled that question away, and then he said, "You know, anthropology has been one of the great passions of my life" (an odd contradiction to the anti-anthropology creationist sermon he preached to me on a flight to India 4 years ago).  "Have you ever considered mission work?"

I think I actually snorted, and responded shortly in a definite non-mumble, "No."  Not that don't revere the incredible work of my grandparents (all four of them) and appreciate the experiences I was able to have as a result... I just feel quite certain that the type of mission work he's talking about is not my life's calling.

"You have some skills, though, that could really serve you well as a missionary!"

For some reason it took me twice as long to eat breakfast and get ready for work.

Every semester, every vacation, every project and job I've been amazed at how long it takes me to settle into a new routine, a new way of thinking and of doing things.  I feel like it used to be a lot easier, and I'm wondering now if I'm subconsciously resisting change as a defense mechanism, to protect my seemingly fragile core and foundation.  Things--my future, my control--feel uncertain.  This is disconcerting.  It makes me act irrationally and defensively, to protect the delicate balance I have worked out to move forward.  Ironically, when I am existentially so unbending, it makes me more vulnerable to the threatening aspects of change, and I bounce back less readily.  A la bridge pose mantra, "I am vulnerable.  I am strong.  I can be vulnerable because I am strong."

As far as getting comfortable goes, I'm just now starting to settle into my jobs and my routine, after how long?  I'm starting to feel actually comfortable with the people I work with, to feel some rapport.  On Wednesday I brought a fruitcake to work to share, and--it's not too early to share this here--my top New Year's resolution is to express my appreciation more openly, to say thanks more often.  So I wrote this in an accompanying note, and it's always strange to me when people are surprised to hear that I like them, or to hear anything that I think, in fact.  It's just so transparent to me!

Speaking of saying thank you, Coffeeshopcrush finished (and loved--no surprise) The Princess Bride...  And he introduced himself, and now that I know his name, the saga is over.  As promised.

Happy Christmas weekend, Merry Christmas Adam, because Adam came before Eve (via @jensentweets on Twitter)!  More to come this weekend, I'm sure.

Until then, I'll get a headstart on 2012 and say thanks for reading!