devo: the people in my life

I was toying with the idea of taking the blog on vacation this month, but I decided to just do something simple instead. I've been really inspired by Gettysburg Seminary's advent calendar photo challenge, and Organic Faith Online's DIY advent devotionals. It's reminding me how important it is to pause for reflectipon, to put some serious intention behind thought or action.

Yesterday my mom and I had a long conversation about worry, which turned into a conversation about relationships. The turning point was when she said she's been managing her worry a little better lately, in large part due to regular Skype conversations with an old friend from high school. These conversations always end in prayer.

Speaking of intentional reflection.

To me there is something worshipful in routines like this one. Like Wednesday morning breakfast with my friend Mary, all four years of college. We get together and are present together. This is a critical part of being human, and relishing in our humanity instead of being discouraged by it. My mom mentioned this too.

As I get more familiar with my new phone, I am learning how to use Google Now, which in my opinion is an incredibly useful, somewhat creepy program with an explosive amount of potential. I could go on forever about this, probably, but the interesting part in today's context is that last night my phone gave me directions and a travel time to Marina's house, where I went last Thursday evening for movies and tea. Although there is a definite element of creepiness to this, I like that this encourages routines of getting together, eating together, laughing together, and talking about things that impact our lives.

I am feeling deeply appreciative lately for the people in my life. I have a great family and great friends all over the world, and they are doing incredible things, and have enriched my life in ways that continue to amaze me.

This is my devotional this week. Love. Be thankful. Be a part of the lives of other people, and I mean be active about it. Don't take anything for granted, and if you're ever thinking of someone, for any reason, send a message. It makes a difference.

posted from Bloggeroid

all good things: crazy life, crazy love

All Good Things is a weekly feature on the blog. It started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie. Sit back and enjoy!

1. Song of the week: Crazy Love by Paul Simon. I woke up with this song stuck in my head almost every day this week. It's catchy and makes me feel like I can stand up to all challenges, while staying positive.

2. NaNoWriMo. November is National Novel Writing Month and I am determined to finish it this year... Despite "trying" to do it for years and years now, starting as far back as high school. I'm already farther along than I have ever been. I haven't written yet today but as of yesterday I have a solid head start. And it's still fun!

3. Kitties! My parents spent Friday night and Saturday at the beach, so I went over Saturday to feed and cuddle the kitties. I looooove them.

5. Homemade bread. Apparently J. is famous for his bread, but after almost two years I still hadn't tasted it. This week, though, I came home to a hot loaf of crusty garlic herb bread and it's all I wanted to eat all week. Plus it made the house smell toasty and yeasty and herby.

6. Yesterday was my good friend's birthday, which meant we got to eat pizza and cake and go bowling with her and her husband and family. We bought two hours of bowling for six people, which turned out to be too long to bowl; so after two games we still had almost a half hour left and decided to just do silly throws out of turn to try and "play" as much of a game as possible. Then she and her husband and J. and I just sat around 'til ALL hours of the night talking and playing card games. It's good to have good friends, and to celebrate them.

...And speaking of celebrating good friends, Cassie has rejoined the list after taking some time off to get married! So I'm pumped about that.

7. My friend Emily moved in to an apartment building only 5 minutes from me! I'm really happy we'll get to see each other more often.

8. Making dinner with friends. I love chatting while chopping and eating!

9. Bringing back an old school one: Grandmas!! My Grammy (as I call her :) ) came over yesterday to spend some time with us and brought a homemade apple pie. I'm spoiled!

10. Squash soup. One of my favorite parts of fall!



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Thanks for joining us this Sunday night! Stick with me on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga for updates on new posts and other stuff about new adulthood. Come back next Sunday night for a reminder of 10 good things that haven't happened yet, and on Wednesday night for a more in-depth reflection on post-grad life. Until then, be kind to each other, and find a reason to smile.

posted from Bloggeroid

all good things: flying high

All Good Things is a weekly feature on the blog. It started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie. Sit back and enjoy!

1. Song of the week: Don't Stop Believing by Journey. This is an All Good Things classic, and tops the list today in honor of Cassie and Luke, who played the song at the reception AND danced to it, even though he hates both Journey and dancing, because he loves Cassie and Cassie loves him. (I started yelling as much when he chose the song, and was pointedly ignored, but the romance of this situation is not lost on me.)

(Also, I have to share with you all that I somehow managed to write the name of the song as Don'tCassieBelieving, which strikes me as important for some reason...)

Also, most importantly, never stop believing.

2. Being part of the pool crew at the Y. I have kept up swimming since it made #11 on my list of "things I want to do in life" back in June of last year. The regulars, mostly in their 50s and 60s, have started to recognize me and this week I got into a discussion with some of them about getting old, staying in shape throughout life, staying healthy and disciplined. They are so encouraging to me, even if they are good-naturedly self-deprecating about themselves, and I always tell them, "If I can be as active as you are, I'll be happy!" Just keep swimmin', just keep swimmin'...

3.Conduct Us. This week from Improv Everywhere, a Carnegie Hall orchestra plays for a motley crew of amateur conductors. "Causing scenes of chaos and joy," indeed!

4. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. I had to wait a couple of weeks to get this book from the library, and I started reading it on the way to Minnesota on Friday. I have to tell you, it is PHENOMENAL. I blazed through almost 250 pages of it on my four-hour travels, cried on every plane, in every airport, about every other chapter. A sad, but beautiful, true book. The love in this book is just the most profound, real love of almost any book I've ever read. Also, I didn't realize initially but it's written by John Green the YouTube sensation. A multi talented man.

5. Reunions! Over the past three days, I have got to reunite with my sister, more college classmates and friends than I can count on both my hands, not to mention almost all of my inner circle. Pretty amazing, and so good to catch up and just be with these people. I do know a lot of very loving and generous people, who put me up and welcomed me smiling with huge lingering hugs, shared drinks and food and shampoo. Plus, it is good and interesting to remember parts of myself that don't get a lot of airtime in my new life and my new home in Delaware. Maybe I'll bring some of them back with me, or maybe I'll just visit them every now and then.

6. ...and making new friends too! I met a ridiculous number of new friends this weekend, starting with Cayenne the dog. Other new people I met included Emily, Jose, Francesca, Jordan, Kaitlyn, Emily, Kristy, Mitch (who, it turns out, is from Delaware originally), Ginny (who I have been hearing about since freshman year) and Matt, a few St. Olaf classmates I had not officially met or spoken to before, Tim and Megan, Neil and Jill, Brent, and Henrietta the cat. I was particularly and pleasantly surprised at how quickly I felt some solid rapport with so many of these people (and animals -- especially Cayenne) and that I was legitimately sad to be leaving them with no guarantee that we will meet again.

7. The Forster-Brotens! (Known to fans, readers, and former listeners as Cassie and Luke!) I am giddy, ecstatic, smitten, proud and honored about this latest union. And I think they are probably even happier than I am.

8. The wedding itself.I have desperately tried to avoid making this entire list wedding-related, so it can be more accessible, but I think the happy couple deserves more than one number this week. Some highlights: hanging out and goofing off with the girls while helping Cassie get ready; the look on dad's face when he saw the bride in her wedding dress for the first time (we all lost it at that point); Cassie's old stuffed puppy dressed in his wedding best: dress pants, a tailored collared shirt and vest; said stuffed puppy hanging out with Grandpa all night (the handsomest men in attendance); a beautiful ceremony in the Rose Garden, short and sweet and unassuming and intentional; the bride and groom's running commentary through dinner; dancing with wild abandon; and of course our reason for gathering trumps all.

9. Uplifting flight crew speeches. Lead flight attendant of my first return flight today gave a parting speech highlighting achievements of fellow passengers, and finished it off by telling us to be kind to one another, treat each other well, and take care of ourselves.

10. Coming home again. No matter how good the trip is or how I'm feeling about my home itself, there's nothing like a homecoming.

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Thanks for joining us this week. I hope it made your Sunday night! Like second set of baby steps on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga, tune in on Wednesday for reflections on new adulthood, and come back next Sunday night for the good things that are going to happen soon! Until then, be kind to each other, and treat yourself well.

posted from Bloggeroid

30 weird things we never would have thought to prepare for before "growing up"

This week's lunch break phone date covered a lot of really important topics, starting out about as sad-serious as you can get and ending on a much more lighthearted note. Still, though, the things we have to talk about are big. Important. Of consequence.

I want to take a moment (before I dive into topics I am actually equipped to tackle) to pay homage -- one of the sad starting topics for those Oles who read the blog. First, I must make tribute to Professor Jim Farrell, who I just learned passed away almost a month ago. This man made a huge impact on the St. Olaf community at large, and more specifically on my immediate circles, of which most members at least dabbled in environmental studies, campus ecology, the impact we make on our surroundings. To a man who knew the great extent of what that means: cheers.

You may also know that Pastor Jennifer Koenig has resigned since we left Olaf, due to illness. I must also pay tribute to her, the woman who taught so many of us how to communicate, how to smile, how to find peace. This week has brought some heartbreaking updates on her status, posted on CaringBridge. This is an uncomfortable thing to mourn at this stage, and yet we are in mourning. Please keep her and her family and the huge number of her supporters in your hearts in the coming weeks and months.

Now, I realize, this post can't be lighthearted in any universe. But I must take this, as I said, to a dimension where I can process it.

One of the amazing things about both of these people is how wide are the ripples of this news. Both of them taught my peers and me far more than could ever be encapsulated in a textbook or thesis paper. Or in two years of blogs. The things they have left us with clarified who we are and how we understand our lives, and continue to emerge to this day as we work through things like relationships and grief on the phone more than two years after our last class, our last coffee bought with FlexDollars in the Cage during senior week.

After Monday's phone conversation, which finished with a bittersweet acknowledgement of "the weird shit we have had to deal with since graduating," I read an article on BuzzFeed called "12 Things Our Parents Forgot To Teach Us."

(Since I am in the social media marketing field, I can't gloss over this prime example of native advertising: posts with some degree of actual substance, designed and paid for to promote a company or service. The topic of a future post, I'm sure... But back to the meat of the issue.)

My parents luckily at least mentioned once or twice that credit cards are not free money (number one), and that lending money to people must be done with extreme caution, if ever (number four), and they've definitely given me a crash course or 11 about how to read a paper map (number eight). But even if they did give me lessons in some of the others I still have stumbled over them once or twice. For example:

5. You never really stop feeling like a kid.
7. How to get along with your roommates.
9. How you feel after too much coffee.
10. How to deal with your first heartbreak.

And to be fair, a lot of this stuff would be pretty dang hard if not impossible to teach. I'm not sure whether the history of anthropological theory and the forced downtime and the infamous Project Without Parameters were intentional cover-ups for daily life lessons, but some of them sure served that purpose in the long run.

So, without further ado, a partial list of Weird Shit We Would Never Have Thought To Prepare For, But Kinda Wish We Would Have Known About In Advance. (Also known as, A Preview Of What Life Will Be Like From Here On Out.)

Disclaimer: Some of these are drawn from personal experience, and some of them are borrowed from undisclosed sources. You know who you are.

1. That we have food allergies, and spent all of college feeling really gross all the time and not knowing why.
2. Along similar lines, how to cook (and drink) gluten-/lactose-/meat-free...
3. Speaking of drinking, that we get more hungover, even if we drink less, higher-quality booze.
4. In other news, how to drink with bosses and coworkers without accidentally saying anything you shouldn't. Plus, what if everyone else is just hammered?
5. Also, how do you grocery shop in general?
6. What it's like really not having any money, but also not having a cafeteria that we, our parents, our grandparents, and/or our student loans already paid for.
7. How great it is to live somewhere that has laundry included.
8. How to meet our significant others' parents.
9. That we might want to move in with somebody before we marry them, and
10. How to talk to our parents about it, or
11. How to pretend like we are not living together so our parents or other important institutions don't find out about it.
12. How to work a job that didn't exist when we went to college, or even when we graduated college, or even when we got called in for the interview.
13. How to find something new to do if what we thought we wanted to do as a career turned out not to be the right thing.
14. How to leave a job properly. Is that a thing?
15. Deciding whether to sign our souls away to make monthly car payments on a new(er) car, or whether we would rather figure out how to get our old car into the shop every other month to get repairs done on it and parts replaced, and then how to get to work after that, and how to pay for it.
16. Or, whether it's worth it to live and work where you don't need a car. Really, there aren't that many options!
17. Facebook friends who get married and then change their names, and you have to look through half their pictures to figure out who they are and how you know them.
18. And then when your news feed is suddenly full of babies. Babies everywhere. Where did they all come from?! No, wait... I don't actually want to know.
19. Realizing that every conversation and relationship we have is a cross-cultural one and that you can never assume anybody is on the same page as you.
20. How to handle getting mugged, or robbed.
21. Is it ok to move away to get over somebody?
22. Or, if you move away for any reason, how do you meet new people you might like to spend time with? How do you meet anybody?
23. Also, how do you make friends in a new place if you know that you, or they, are going to be leaving after their gig is up?
24. How to get up and go to work when we really just don't feel like it.
25. How to grieve when life goes on and nobody around you knows about it.
26. How to wear black, brown, navy, taupe, or anything conservative without getting super bored.
27. That people make up responses and solutions to a lot of questions they don't know how to answer.
28. How to reconcile spiritual needs and personal faith, disillusionment with organized religion, and family expectations.
29. How to go on a cheap date without feeling cheap, or, if it is a first date, without making a big deal about it so the other person doesn't think you're high-strung.

And finally, number 30:
How to do all this stuff when your closest friends, the ones who know what you're dealing with and how you deal with things... When those people are who-knows-where, but they're definitely not up the hall, they may be in the same city if we're lucky but sometimes aren't even reachable by phone?

This is the really tough part. I have been fortunate to know that I am not alone in dealing with super weird stuff, and fortunate to be able to share it with people close to me and also with people who are really far away. (I must admit, I love Facebook and smartphones and text messaging for this reason...even though they are apparently causing the breakdown of our society.)

And I have been incredibly blessed to share it with all of you. Read on, dear friends. Live on!


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Like second set of baby steps on Facebook at www.facebook.com/theBabyStepsSaga! New posts show up there first, plus other articles about post-grad life, plus teasers and other important information. Thanks for reading! Tune in on Sunday night for this week's All Good Things list, and next Wednesday for more reflections on being a "new adult."

all good things: history and more heartwarming things

1. Song of the week: London Calling by The Clash. For some reason I've been hankering to listen to London Calling by The Clash this week. It's a completely random urge since I don't normally listen to The Clash.

2. Visiting friends! A friend from St. Olaf just moved to New York for grad school, and she came down to hang out for a weekend. It was really good to see her and get to talk about lots of interesting things. And an excuse to go to all the cool places there are to go to around here, and get people that I like together.

3. Old New Castle. I'm sure this one has made the list before, because I love Old New Castle. (It's also known as Historic New Castle, but I like the contradiction of "old new" right next to each other.) I also like the tours and the museums and just walking up and down the cobbled streets... I could take the old courthouse tour a hundred times (and I'm already well on my way). I like walking past this huge purple house that was up for sale a few months ago, and has since been taken off the market, but I still gaze at forlornly every time I walk past. And I always leave feeling more relaxed than I do at any other time.

4. Baking soda, tin foil, and hot water. We found a few pieces of really tarnished silverware, and discovered that if you line a pan with aluminum foil, set the silverware in there, sprinkle baking soda over it, cover it in warm water, and let it sit, the change is pretty impressive.

5. Puppies and babies. Separately, these things are both really cute. Together, they are unstoppably adorable. I'm not even a big dog person, but today at family dinner there was a new puppy who is SO CUTE and rambunctious... AND a baby that, as we have already determined, is endlessly charming, captivating, and the apple of everyone's eye. Is "too much cute to go around" even a thing? Because if it is, we achieved it today.

6. Someone bringing treats to work! I absolutely love walking into the break room at work and finding some type of treats in the break room. Last week there was a meeting in our building that had an entire tray of leftover desserts! It made my entire day. Nothing like an unexpected brownie, cookie, or bar to make your afternoon go by more quickly.

7. I've been working at my job for a little over a year now, and I got certificate from my boss the other day. It honors my "1 year of service changing lives and communities." Sometimes it can feel like no one notices or appreciates the things I do at work, so little things like a certificate really brighten my day!

8. Bunnies! My friend Kristy is moving out to Massachusetts which is really sad. But until her boyfriend, Mitch, gets back from moving her out there Luke and I get to watch her bunny, Noah! He's chocolate brown and super cute. We're learning his likes and dislikes. Likes: carrots, apples, head scratches, hiding under the coffee table. Dislikes: being picked up, loud apartment noises (slamming doors,etc), and going to bed at night. I want to keep him forever!

9. The National. Luke and I saw them in concert last week, and they were fantastic as always. They played at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium which has the worst acoustics in the world, but they still managed to be so great! At one point the lead singer hopped off the stage with his mic and sang a song while walking through the crowd. Such a lovely time!

10. Writing thank you's. I've been having some bridal showers lately, and my friends and family are so incredibly generous. Writing thank you's to them after the shower I get to really think about how grateful I am to each person and take a moment to explain why I feel so lucky to have that person in my life. When I first start writing thank you's I always feel like it's a chore, but by the end I'm feeling so overwhelmed and happy to have these people in my life!

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Like second set of baby steps on Facebook at www.facebook.com/theBabyStepsSaga! New posts show up there first, plus other articles about post-grad life, plus teasers and other important information. Thanks for reading! Tune in next Sunday for more All Good Things, and come back Wednesday for my latest reflections on being a "new adult."

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 :)

love in the time of fists and choler

When you look back on your college years, you won't remember doing homework. You'll remember studying abroad, volunteering, playing sports, participating in student organizations, [not remembering at least a few "last nights,"] and spending time with your friends. 

- American proverb

I woke up yesterday morning on a crinkly bedbug-protected mattress on the floor in a guest room of what I know as Karin's Convent. Audrey rolled over on the mattress next to me, and instead of getting up and booking it over to Brooklyn Bagel, we talked for at least an hour about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness.

And then we got up and booked it to Brooklyn Bagel.

Anyway, somewhere in the course of that conversation it occurred to me that I really don't remember doing ANY homework.

Those who know me might legitimately question whether that's because I really didn't do any homework or if all the papers and projects and case studies and readings just melted into the hectic humdrum of the Life of a Lib Artiste.

Judging by the fact that I did in fact manage to pass college, and by the blank look on Audrey's face that mirrored my own awe at the sudden, tangible truth of this cliche, and the fact that my grandparents are still (for some reason) proud of me and also read my blog, I'm going to say it's the latter.

And yes, I will begrudgingly acknowledge that there are some other, more notable experiences throughout my college career that overshadowed the time we spent doing homework. (I almost wrote, "time spent in the library," but to be honest I don't even remember where I used to do my homework, and I remember the library pretty well. Using the logic I gained presumably from doing my homework, I can infer that my time spent in the library was not homework time. Weird...?)

In the process of writing this post I made a list of a few things I do remember from my college years, which I will not share because if I do then none of you will buy my memoirs in the future, and also because you would get pretty bored pretty quick. But my favorite thing on the list so far is watching "The Bachelor" with a living room full of friends at a house called Huggs.

The name of the house was entirely coincidental; but it is not a coincidence that our driving subject of conversation this weekend was love. Specifically, open-handed love. Inviting-the-fickle-and-fateful-whims-of-the-universe love. Agendaless love.

The kind of love my mind doesn't like to wrap itself around.

But, as Audrey so wisely and beautifully put it, "You have such a range of motion when your hands are open. When they're closed, the only thing they can do is punch."

I would like to add that closed hands tend to grab things. Like a baby who gets hold of a chunk of your hair. Infant vice grip = pain.

Closed hands don't really facilitate the most love-inspiring activities.

And as I discovered this sunny Sunday morning, I struggle to understand and accept open-handed love. Which is ironic since as a baby I used to sleep belly-up, hands fallen open at my sides. Now, though, they spend most of their time in various degrees of curled up. But throughout the course of this conversation Audrey gently took my hands (literally and figuratively) and opened them up, smoothed out the crinkles and the clenched knuckles and the terse palm.

And just in time, too.

By evening I was back at home and on my way out the door to see Jason when I noticed some dental insurance letterhead sticking out of the pile of mail on the kitchen counter. I pulled it out, expecting the relief I'd been promised the week before my surgery, but what I saw shook my hands and closed my throat and churned my stomach. I felt like I was going to puke. Covered by insurance: 0.00. Patient responsibility: Over $2,500.

Now, this is really getting to me. I am upset that the original estimated amount I would have to pay, and a condition of me going ahead with the surgery, ended up being less than one third of the final amount that now falls under my responsibility. I am upset at the fact that it will take me months to pay this off, even if I give up every penny of my paychecks until I'm out of the red. I'm upset that at the very least I will have to give up some things I wanted to do this summer and into the fall because of this outstanding balance. These are my selfish complaints.

On a fundamental, societal level, though, I am angry that a fairly routine and preventative procedure is so financially out of reach for me, someone in a stable financial position, to say nothing for the millions of people in this country who struggle to make ends meet. I am angry that nowhere in the surgery office is there a posted list of prices: anesthetic, single tooth extraction, extra dose of anesthetic, stitches, markup for skill and precision. Nowhere in the pharmacy nor the GP's office are those costs posted either. I am angry that income influences so many doctors' decisions to enter the medical field, and that income influences so many families' decisions to stay out of those doctors' offices at all costs, until they can no longer put off a trip to the emergency room. By this time it is too often too late.


[Note: For an easy, enjoyable read that addresses a lot of these societal factors, check out T.R. Reid's The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.]

I'm angry for the people I know bearing the burden of exorbitant medical bills on top of the burden of pain and illness those bills could not cure or even ease. I'm angry for families left with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills to fill the void left by the death of a loved one who couldn't have been saved with millions. I'm angry that health insurance is so expensive, so exclusive, and so apparently worthless (if my personal experience in the last 8 months is any indication). I am angry that business owners oppose healthcare reform because of the added cost it will place on their straining bank books. (I understand the threat this added cost can pose, but where does the cost come from? Something is wrong here.)

I'm angry that this country is growing increasingly obese, increasingly over-medicated, and increasingly polarized in political debates about public health. Public health. The very title indicates an issue that affects every constituency in the nation. People in every party die of cancer, stroke and heart disease. People in every party get colds and break bones and live with chronic diseases.

I am saddened by all of these things, and perhaps most of all saddened by the fact that there is no easy fix, that there is something broken in our system that I can't pinpoint, cannot package into the perfect legislation, cannot encapsulate in a widespread activist campaign. There is something broken in our system and it is too broken to fix itself. And I don't know what to do about it.

Anyway, I tried to contain this wave of anger and sadness and general unrest by fleeing to the basement to gather my things and my thoughts. But it wasn't going away. It's not just going to go away.

A few moments later my dad came down the stairs after me, and my impulse was to push him away. But I thought of Audrey opening my hands, and tried not to resist.

"You're not going to have to pay that," he said. And I launched into all the health-related angers and sadnesses and general upsets I just spelled out here. And his reply was something along the lines of, "Yes, but don't lose hope yet. Don't lose control. Just go there tomorrow and try to sort it out."

"But I don't have TIME!" I broke down.

"I do," he said. "I don't have to work tomorrow. Let me go for you."

I shook my head. "I don't have time or money to deal with this right now!"

"I have time!" he said again, more forcefully this time. "Let me do it."

"But I want to take care of it MYSELF!" I wailed, collapsing like I was 6 again and feeling like the world was caving in on me.

At which point my dad just burst out laughing, and squashed me into his arms. "You've been taking care of everything yourself since you were 15," he said. "You've been taking care of some things since you were 2." (That's the year my brother was born.) "I want to help you. I want to take care of some things for you. We are a community and a family and that's what we do. We help each other and take care of each other. You don't have to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders, all by yourself."

And suddenly I felt my hands unclench. Literally and figuratively. I felt this wave of universal whim swirl around us and it made me dizzy, so dizzy, but in that corkscrew I caught a glimpse of love sans agenda. Hands spread wide, flat, open. Reaching out toward my fists and waiting. Just waiting, so patiently, for my stubborn flailing fists that might just keep pulling farther and farther away forever.

I'm still terrified of this. I'm still working on faith and I'm still working out the kinks in my palm, tied up in there from years and maybe even decades of clenching and punching and pulling. I still cringe when someone approaches me open-handed. But I am starting to understand. I am circling closer every time, and I am finding it easier to resist biting the hand that feeds me. Open. Agendaless. I know that I am very lucky to have many sets of open hands around me, despite my thorns and bristles. There are too many hands to count.

hook, eye, and sinker

I just got back from four and a half days of vacation in the Midwest.  I am writing now because I am due for a post, overdue in fact, and while mere mortals might be unfazed by the calls of a self-imposed schedule, I am the Pinnacle of Self-Discipline.  Sometimes to a dysfunctional degree.  But mostly, without this characteristic, I would have spiraled irrevocably into the deepest circles of the inferno.

But there is no good place to start.  There is no way I can share every activity, every discovery, every crucial moment even of the past five days.  There is no way to fully express exactly how much this time means to me.  So I am loath to write anything at all, knowing I can never do it justice.

My mom said, driving me back to Wilmington from PHL, "You said it earlier, when you were talking about going back: Closure."

There it is.  Closure.  Did I go back for this?

It has been just shy of one year since I pulled the loose threads of my college career into a quick and careless knot of necessity.  Part of me feels that if I had postponed this trip by just a few weeks, certain things would have hardened into unfortunate eternal truths.  I didn't really know that up front, but I think it's good I went when I did.

I went to see Ann, and the apprentice art show at the NAG.  It's strange to me that I haven't seen her in 9 months.  That feels wrong.

I didn't make plans, I told about 3 people in advance that I was coming, and I vowed to keep a low profile.  I was going to avoid campus at all costs.  Anyone I did speak to while in Northfield heard my apprehension about running into any of my ghosts should I set foot on The Hill.  This is something I may never feel prepared to do.

But places get under your skin.  I love St. Olaf.  I am proud of the place I chose to get my (invaluable) education, and awestruck by the relationships that grew out of that place.  Of course I would go back.

I got in on Thursday, which as any Ole knows is Froggy's night.  Froggy's flooded last fall, weeks before I turned 21.  So I never got to experience this particular tradition.

Of course I had to go.

And of course some ghosts appeared to me there, and it was expectedly mundane, and we drank (and sloshed through) cheap beer and danced a little and laughed at how normal it felt to be at Froggy Bottoms on a Thursday night.

The next day Ann had some work to finish in the ceramics studio on campus, so I went up there with her and sat next to her workstation for most of the day.  Again, I felt content.  I snuck out the back door to do some yoga, and tried to work on a stagnant poem, but predictably I got restless.  My respected fellow anthropologist William had suggested to me the night before that I stop by the Soc/Anthro office (Ye Olde Stomping Groundes) and say hi to some of the professors there.  If there is anywhere on campus I do want to visit, it is Holland Hall suite 400.

I undoubtedly chose the right course of study at St. Olaf, and I was glad to be back.  (I did miss the Bananagrams set that used to be the focus of my Friday mornings in the Soc/Anthro office, but things fall by the wayside.  We all know this.)  Mid-May is a hectic time on campus, but I snagged some really good chats with a couple of professors.

Professor Tom Williamson of Anthropology Lore invited me to walk with him to Buntrock, where he was going to a meeting.  Buntrock.  The center of campus activity.  My kryptonite.

Of course I went.  He mentioned the chances he's had to catch up with a few of my classmates lately and said, "What strikes me about seeing all of you is that, in 8 or 10 months, you've got this confidence.  You're just so confident."  He seems a bit awed, as always, with us and with the world at large.

"We have to be," I reply, and launch into a description of the requirements of professional conduct.  But I get this weird feeling he understood better than I did that I was really talking about something much broader and deeper than just self-presentation.  It's about survival, and self-discovery, and the truthful uncertainty of the post-grad world.

I ended up on campus one more time, the next afternoon, to see Grace, who refused to let me escape unscathed.  She recalled the place she saw me in last spring, wild and desperate and even delirious, and she said she understood then to give me space, and she understands now what I felt like.  I was amazed by her perceptiveness of a situation I myself was barely aware of, but I remember feeling the same way in the spring of my junior year and the spring of my senior year about my good friend and peer mentor Jon.  I'm overwhelmingly grateful to her for knowing, all along, and for not letting me leave without a hug, a conversation, and a St. Olaf Cookie.

I ran into a few more people while I was there, all of them important.  For all my fears about having to tell all 2500 campus denizens a blander version of my year, I only suffered encounters with people I think about often and with whom I could have hoped to share my time.  It felt normal, sitting on the quad in the sunshine, being the Enabler of Work-Shirking, just like I always have been.  Talking about nothing in particular.

We did talk about their plans for the impending eternity, and I did find myself spinning my life story with a bit of a didactic touch.  I have learned so many lessons this year and I want to talk about them so much more than I have opportunities to do so; I guess what I'm hoping is to set up the stage for a continuing dialogue, and that maybe someone will pick up the dangling thread a few months or a year down the road.  Or tomorrow.

Feeling sun-tired and almost overwhelmed, I headed back downtown to breathe before Ann wanted to leave for our camping trip.

We were pretty quiet in the Rover, winding between cornfields and trying not to speed too much on those classic U.S. highways.  Both of us alone with our own thoughts, but once Ann said, "I was wondering why this feels so normal, and then I remembered that we did this last summer, 3 days, all the way across the country."

So normal.  We crossed into Wisconsin as the sun sank slowly from its piercing peak.  I didn't know until we crossed the old bridge spanning the St. Croix River, and my heart sped up erratically before thunking back into a slower, deeper rhythm, how normal.  Without a doubt there is a piece of my heart melted into the wild Wisconsin landscape, molded to the river and the hills and the dark green trees.

We stopped just over the border at St. Croix Liquor to pick up the New Glarus Wisconsin beer I've been craving for weeks now.  The proprietor spoke with such a warm, thick Wisconsin accent, was so friendly, helpful, knew the trails and the beers and the importance of a good campfire.  "Beautiful night for camping!" he said, waving us out.  "You girls have fun!"

I didn't know how much I missed it.

I still am not a through-and-through Midwest girl, but my loves are in Wisconsin, Northfield, Minneapolis.  I got my fill of Bread Belt witbiers at the Lowry in Uptown, drank cold press coffee at a hipster coffeeshop on a high-traffic corner.

Most importantly, though, I got to touch base with my loves and with the parts of myself I left with them in May, June, August.  I got to access that deep, unspoken, unspeakable click that happens when we reconnect, which is as simple as a smile and a touch and a minute of quality time.  This is my love language.

a delaware love affair

And again, you've caught me being remiss in my writing.  I am still excited about Kyle's list from last week, partly because it gave me a post off, but mostly because I can never get enough of hearing my classmates' reflections about life before and after graduation.  As Nathan Soland commented, "One of the most important things St. Olaf taught me was to reflect; [Kyle did] that here with honesty, wit, and thoughtfulness."  This is something I seriously appreciate about my college education: My fellow Ole alumni reflect thoughtfully, intelligently, self-deprecatingly, on our shared circumstances and on the circumstances we no longer share.

That being said, and in the wake of Kyle's thoughtful, funny and true list of life lessons, I am growing weary of my play-by-plays and reviews of cool pubs and restaurants.  There are a few things I'd really love to share with you all, but I don't want to lose sight of the underlying exploration of this new life.  Plus, things have lately been thrown into an interesting new light.

I took Good Friday off from work and drove up to New York on Thursday night to meet my usual crew, Karin and Audrey, plus a delightful extra: My beloved Boo and one of my best and oldest college friends, Lisa, who was on spring break on the East Coast.  (Yeah, she works at an elementary school, and I'm betting she's really good at it...  But it means she gets spring break.  Jealous.)

Lisa: "Thanks! Just press the big button on top."
Jorge the Waiter: "Oh, I thought it was different from every other camera."

We met up with Heidi, who lived in Pod TMI with Lisa and I last year, and Mariella, Heidi's host in Brooklyn.  While Karin was at work the 5 of us went to Da Gennaro's in Little Italy for a delicious lunch, and it struck me that most of my beautiful, incredible friends are in one-year service positions: Episcopal Service Corps, Good Shepherd Volunteers, Minnesota Reading Corps...

And I have found something permanent.  Or at least long-term.  This puts me in a different mindset than a lot of my friends, especially those who are now in a similar situation as we all were this time last year (although most of them are freaking out less right now than we all were last year).

That being said, the four of us headed up to New Haven to stay in Audrey's house for a couple of nights.  In between sneaking into Yale dorms in search of a bathroom (unsuccessful), a smoky Episcopalian Easter vigil, throwing back a pitcher of the world's best margaritas at Viva, and chasing down cherry blossoms with bread, hummus, and strawberry picnics, Audrey gave me a gift she'd found at New Haven Reads, where she works: Delaware, a hardcover picture book produced by the State Quarter people.

I was pumped.

I love state quarters, and history, and Delaware.  (Who woulda thunk?!)

Lisa watched as I flipped enthusiastically through the pages, reading aloud facts about Delaware being the first state and explaining the perfectly round northern border.  Audrey and Karin laughed at me with the same expression they reserve for my professions of skepticism and everything else over-the-top that I do (which is a lot of things).  "Clara loves Delaware," they said.

"Why?" Lisa asked, looking very solemn.  "What do you love about it?"

I thought about it for a moment, and the first thing that came to mind was, characteristically, the robbery.

Which is kind of funny considering that the robbery typically tops the list of reasons to hate this state.  On a psychological level, though, those kind of intense experiences create intense emotional reactions that associate heavily with a place, person, or situation.  And then they mutate and skew in a way that can cause some pretty unfortunate circumstances, for example, addictions to unhealthy relationships.

I'm definitely not comparing my growing love for Delaware to an unhealthy relationship; the connection is that in the wake of the pretty serious trauma of having my home robbed within three weeks of moving into it, I experienced some incredible grace, love, and compassion.  To this day I am awestruck at the mental image of packages addressed to me and my family, full of love and other, more tactile things.  The address on these packages was in Wilmington, DE.  Reason #1.

Also in the wake of the robbery I moved into my own space and set it up the way I wanted.  I got a new bed, put up posters and photos, set up my books and mugs.  Invested in my living area.

A few months down the line I had my first visitor: Audrey, back in December.  This visit was an important milestone both in that I got to own my space, show it to someone, and because it was my first real foray into the history of the First State.

I love that Delaware is the first state.

I love my Delaware license plate, and my Delaware driver's license (even though I got really sad for a second when I saw a New York license this weekend) and the fact that there is no sales tax.

I love cherry blossom snow outside my window at work, and how close I am to New York, and that we are close enough to the ocean for fresh seafood.

DE pride at Two Stones!

I love Wawa.  Like, LOVE Wawa.

I love Delaware craft beer.  Even though Dogfish Head mostly makes IPAs.  Last week was Delaware beer week at Two Stones Pub, which has 25 taps of all craft beer at any given time, and last week served only Delaware beers.  We went on Old Dominion night.  You know I love it.

I love my job, and my friends, and my man, the bars and coffeeshops, and the creek behind my house, and I love being close to my family.  I even feel at home at Hope Church, despite the fact I don't go that much.

When I really boil it down, it mostly all comes down to this: I have settled.  I have put down roots.  I am investing my time and energy (and tax-free consumer dollars) into my life here.  I am making friends.  As Ann says, we'll find people to love anywhere, no matter where we go, if we stay there for awhile.

I miss my far-flung loves, of course, and I cherish every hour I can spare for a conversation with each of them.  As Kyle said, a random 10-word text from a distant friend is better than pretty much everything else.  Because, as Kyle also said,  friendship isn't measured by how well you stay in touch.

I realized a few months ago that love is a decision.  Among other things, of course.  And I'm definitely not trying to say that we don't ever fall in love with people or things we shouldn't or don't want to fall in love with.  If I told you that I would be a big-time liar.  But for love to work, you have to let yourself fall into it.  You have to decide that you're going to do everything in your power to let it happen, to make it work, to make it work well.

Delaware and I had a slow start.  In fact, I'll say we started in the negatives.  But slowly, we've decided to accept each other.  Slowly, we've decided to love each other.  Slowly, we've decided to put our all into making this work.  And now, I'm attached.  Like a tick to bare ankles in the summertime.

Aaaand we come full-circle.  Love them ticks.

I'm sure the feeling is decisively mutual.

check-in

Maybe things just get hard at this point in the winter.  The cold gets old.  Maybe I've been here for just the right amount of time to get bored, or comfortable--I can never tell the difference.  Maybe it's hormones.  Maybe I'm in a rut.  Maybe I'm not sleeping enough, or eating right, or exercising properly.  Maybe I'm just stressed out.

Whatever it is, I've been feeling weird lately, a little bit delicate, volatile.  Always tired.  On edge.  And, alternatively, flatline, like things I should be really happy about just show as a little blip on the radar, and I don't get sad about things very often.  I haven't been reacting, really, until suddenly in the past few days, which is maybe why I noticed it.

This is just what I feel like doing right now.

No.  To be honest, I noticed it a few weeks ago, right before I had a lunch-break-phone-date with a friend who, like me, monitors for signs of depression.  She said she needed to talk and said she's been worried about the fatigue, weird cravings, lack of motivation, and failure to be impressed or riled up by anything.  All the things that tend to send us both into a red-flag frenzy.  What we have both learned to do is broadcast, and we have learned where to broadcast, to judge whether these red flags are reasonable responses to the current situation, or whether we are overreacting to the point of not connecting with our mainstays.  Most of the time, we both go through dips at around the same time, so we are easy reference points for each other.  And a few weeks ago, we both dipped.  Must be the winter, we thought.  We need some sun, a change of pace, some vitamin D.

I think my mom might have noticed it, too, because she checks in with me in a different way when I am being distant.  It's really cute, how she seems to approach me delicately, as if I am a hungry predator and she is about to throw me a bone.  The bone, in this case, is usually a kiss on the head or a shoulder pat, and an "Are you OK?"  Her voice gets softer, too, and less matter-of-fact.  She is great at being a mom.

I think she noticed also because she said something the other night that has been sticking with me like the honey  water on my E-brake.  (Don't ask...)  I think I was talking to my parents about intellectual exercise, in the context of colleges, or something like that.  About how choosing a certain college both reflects and shapes who you are as a person.  And about how refreshing it is, once you've left that, to go back to it and have the opportunity to talk the talk again.

So my mom says, "Well your learning curve, with your job and everything, is really steep right now."

WHOA.  I somehow managed to think that this learning curve had plateaued, that I am totally in the groove right now.  PLEASE.  Remember how long it took me to get into the groove at St. Olaf?  In Amsterdam?  Granted, the curve gets a little smoother the more curves I climb, but it's still steep, and I'm still climbing.

And thinking that a curve has plateaued when it really hasn't is the key ingredient in the recipe for feeling inadequate, exhausted, depressed, anxious, stressed, whatever.  Feeling like you should be in control when really, you would be a little superhuman if you had it all figured out by now, is the first step into the pit of disaster.

Yes, OK, I'm being a little dramatic here.  But this is my check-in.  This is where I officially hold myself accountable.  I got some sun today, and I hereby vow not to start expecting unrealistic things from myself, like having everything on lockdown.  The transition isn't over.  I'm letting you off the hook, self.  And I'm letting YOU off the hook too, readers.  Give yourself a little break for a second.  Or a minute, or a day.  Whatever.  But REALLY, take a break.  Don't just fake it.  I am the QUEEN of giving myself fake breaks.

Here's what pulls me up: After my post the other day where I was cranky and commiserating, I just got FLOODED with comments, private messages, text messages, emails, phone calls, telepathic sympathy cards, whatever.  I am stunned once again at the capacity of human beings to love and care for each other, our capacity to give time and energy and empathy to another person in need.  I don't care WHY we do this, whether we are selfishly motivated or whatever, because the point is that it HELPS.  It helps us to connect with other people.  When we commiserate, the mutual sharing of pain and sorrow often helps to soothe us; and when we share our struggles with someone who is not quite struggling as much as we are, they often reach out a hand to pull us out of the well.  And even if we ignore it at first, we know that it's there.

This is something that amazes me about people, about human society, and about community.  Continually amazes me.  That we have the ability to care.

"toothbrush, wisdom and love."

Back to my roots: I am rockin' the grunge right now.  Thanks to a wonderful, extensive, and somewhat haphazard series of events, recounted here.

*Note: Some important theoretical discussions also went down, and I will skim them in italics at the appropriate chronological narrative moment.

The Plan: Karin would finish work in Manhattan around 10pm.  Audrey would catch the 7:30 train from New Haven.  I would leave Wilmington by car around 8, and the three of us would meet up at Karin's convent-home in Astoria by 11.  We would then head out on the town.

The Wrench: On Monday my oil light came on, so I made a service appointment for Friday and in the meantime poured a few quarts of oil into my engine over the course of the week.  The best part of this is that my designated oil-buying time is approximately 8:45 on weekday mornings, on my way to work...  Which means I'm demanding (politely) a quart or two of 5W-30 and a funnel, declining (also politely) any help or expertise, and pouring oil (delicately) into my engine in heels and tailored trousers.

Despite the unfortunate conditions forcing me to perform this task, the scene never fails to amuse me.

Because we all know I like to make a scene.

Friday afternoon, around 4pm, I find out out my oil pan needs to be replaced, because the entire engine is splashing around in several quarts of motor oil.  The car should not be driven, and if it must be driven, it should only be driven locally in Wilmington, until the pan can be replaced on Monday.

So, feeling somewhat defeated and wildly desperate, I check train tickets: no way I'm going to spend that kind of $$.  The time is ticking.  Greyhound's got my back, but I have to be at the bus station in half an hour, it's 15 minutes away, and I haven't packed yet.

The New Plan: Audrey, Karin and I converge on 42nd Street, Manhattan, 4 hours from ticket purchase, ready to hit the town, with only a purse each.  Thus the grunge.

The Run-down: I saw the lady behind me at the Wilmo bus station get nabbed for check fraud, and fought for a phone-charger outlet as my phone was conveniently and extremely dead.  Love the bus, baby.

After a series of long, mid-sidewalk group hugs, we headed to E. 14th Street for free-pizza-when-you-buy-a-beer at the Crocodile Lounge.  Immediately upon entering Karin disappears from in front of us into a deluge of screaming hugs from none other than Britta and Andrew, notable Jersey City Inhabitants, St. Olaf Class-of-'11-mates, and Good Friends.  (Also Joe McGo of Northfield freestyle fame.)

WWR**. Too excited to make a normal face.

Crocodile Lounge was hot and deafening, so we decided to head back to the street in search of a slightly less overwhelming venue.  Karin had been wanting to check out a place nearby called, what else, Professor Thom's.  As die-hard anthropology grads, could we really pass up a bar kind of named after the illustrious Tom Williamson?  Not a chance.

It turned out to be the best decision ever.  Thom's is a Boston bar, which is probably only interesting to me since my brother goes to school there and I love it.  And possibly interesting to New York City residents who want to watch Patriots or Bruins or Red Sox games.  The decor looks like colonial Boston, brick-walled with red and gold accents, lots of polished wood.  More notably, we took our first round, of Thom's Olde Ale, upstairs to the Loft, where we found a side room full of large couches and a small dance floor pretty much owned by two gorgeous ladies in LBDs and tall boots, rocking out to 80s dance hits.  Needless to say, we eventually joined them.

*Note here the social phenomenon of taking turns buying rounds of drinks for our companions, a theory first introduced to Karin in Professor Tom's Modern Elixirs class back on The Hill.  Sociologically, the proverbial "round of drinks" is a ritual that shapes the social experience of drinking culture.

When things seemed to be petering out up there, we left to find drunk food and found it around the corner at a Taiwanese joint called Baohaus.  To find out what bao are, you are better off just clicking the link and looking at photos, because I really am at a loss for descriptors.  I got an oyster po bao, mostly because I thought the name qualified as amusingly poor wordplay.  It was very oystery, which I didn't mind.

True to CAKE-in-New-York form, we made it back to Astoria roughly around 5am.

Also true to form, we headed over to the nearby Brooklyn Bagel for breakfast the next morning.  Now New York is famous for its bagels, and Brooklyn Bagel's mindblowing array of creamy, any-flavor cream cheeses and fresh bagels does not disappoint.  They also have one of those fresh orange juice machines, which I love.

*Enter the Cream Cheese Theory.  If, hypothetically, Karin went to Brooklyn Bagel on Day 1 and had a whole wheat everything bagel with lox & scallions cream cheese, and fell in love with it, should she try some of the other delicious options on a later occasion and risk dissatisfaction?  Or should she continue to enjoy her old standby, lox & scallions?  Analogically, should we settle at this early point in our lives in a place, or with a person, that we love, when the theoretical maple walnut could potentially be our new favorite if we only tried it?

Next stop, Central Park Conservancy's Tavern On The Green ice sculpture exhibit.  This was a cool stop, and as a matter of interest you can become a member of Central Park Conservancy kind of like you can become a member of public radio, old-school-crowdfunding-style.  The free hot chocolate was a major perk.

We didn't stick around too long because the Chelsea High Line was calling our collective name.  This former elevated train track has been turned into a park, like a raised greenway popular in cities like MSP and Boston.  Audrey was excited to catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty off in the distance, and a rather extensive glimpse of Jersey across the river.  Actually, the High Line provides a pretty sweet vantage point of the big city.  (In the future, keep an eye out for a photo of the building-side Diane Von Furstenberg ad featuring tons of lips, which it turns out I love with a weird intensity.)

Feeling hungry, and in search of a restroom, we descended toward the Chelsea Market, where one can find the impressive Amy's Bread, started by an Ole grad like ourselves!

Let me just say that Valentine's Day weekend was a fantastic time to visit the city.  Audrey and Karin were somewhat taken aback by my uncharacteristic displays of emotion at the virtual cornucopia of flowers saturating the city.  Also at the babies and little kids all bundled up in their tailored New York best.  A few quick vignettes: A flushed, apron-clad server at a Queens diner dashes out of a florist two doors down with a single rose clasped behind her back.  A sort of nondescript grey-haired man emerges from a subway station with an explosive bouquet in hand, emanating distracted determination.  A little girl in a perfect black pea coat and matching beret flounces along before her parents holding a bright yellow tulip over her heart.  Beautiful.  There is no other word.

Lunch break hugs. I LOVE these girls.

Back to the Market.  I was most excited by a stall boasting "Craft Beer To-Go!" but my sighting of it was poorly timed.  We hit up Hale & Hearty Soups for three-lentil chili and a delicious Tuscan white bean soup with spinach, and talked about our professional ambitions as though we are real, live adults.  Our real-life adult alter egos also hit up a wine & chocolate tasting of wines and chocolates I somehow managed not to write down, but the chocolate had lip prints on it (!!!) and was filled with rosé champagne cream.  The tasting also featured a beautiful, rich port, which I would love to drink again but alas, I am remiss in my name-jotting.

Quick aside: I am a sucker for shoes.  Another enthusigasm I had (haha, see what I did there?) was a direct reaction to a Chelsea store called Shoegasm, where I got stuck on a delightful pair of bright purple Dolce Vita "Notty" pumps.  Today, between Chinatown and SoHo, I was hypnotized into a store called Necessary Clothing by a gorgeous pair of red Breckelles Kansas-12 boots.  Step 1: I wholeheartedly own the fact that I have a problem.  Step 2: I have retained my willpower and bought neither pair of shoes.  Kind of a sad victory.

Now, Shoegasm happened while we were vaguely en route to meet Andrew, Britta and Joe for happy hour, and we ended up stepping into and back out of several West Village bars before we found The Slaughtered Lamb in Greenwich Village, on W. 4th and Jones Street.  It caught my eye because of the Slaughtered Prince in Stardust, and also because I'm super into that dark-windowed pub exterior with neon beer signs in the window.  The embellished nameplate was a successful kicker.

*Here I went on a passionate rant about intelligent design, or better intentional design.  (Here Karin chimes in, "Purposeful design!"  And Audrey adds, "Conscious!"  Context being the heated disbelief of a person this summer who insisted that intelligent design couldn't be possible if we consider all the ways our bodies break down and stop working, and all the individual imperfections in our bodies and in the natural world.  My argument is that intelligence does not presuppose perfection, but that the flaws and failings of what I call Creation make it all the more beautiful, that I, intelligent though I may be, could not begin to create something that works better.  That the intricate workings of our bodies are beautiful and I prefer to imagine someone bent over them late into the night, working out the kinks, putting pieces together with agonizing care.

The Slaughtered Lamb boasts over 100 bottled beers, the world's smallest bathrooms, the world's best whiskey sour, awesome music and ambience, and a weird larger-than-life spinning statue of a werewolf biting a young maiden on the neck.  We were sitting in its shadow, which really freaked out Audrey and Karin, but we had a good time there anyway.  Even though the water tasted like liquid plastic.

The water at Veselka, though, where we went for supper, was delicious.  The guy who refilled our water glasses was also very skilled at aiming the pitcher stream straight into the glass from a substantial distance.  I was impressed.  All of us were impressed with the pierogies, which come in about 9 different delicious flavors.  The arugula & goat cheese, sweet potato, and sauerkraut & mushroom were favorites.  The place was packed, so we were kind of rushed out, but we took a piece of cheesecake to go and ate it on the subway back to Astoria.  It was divine, and all the more so because of the setting.  I admit we made a bit of a splash with our savoring antics.

We ended up staying in and watching YouTube videos on Saturday night, so we could get up early and head to Chinatown's Jing Fong Restaurant for dim sum--Chinese brunch in a HUGE banquet hall where we sat at a table with a small Chinese family and chose delicious delicacies off carts pushed by staff through the hall.  Let me just say that eating out with vegetarians is consistently an interesting experience, especially since I was craving meat for a lot of the weekend.  I'll sum it up in a quote from Karin: "This is great because we can just pick whatever looks good, and Clara can be our garbage disposal for all meat!"

Awesome.  I am a garbage disposal.  For meat, no less.

Feeling well-satisfied by this traditional Chinese brunch, we set back out on the street, which had filled up with cherry vendors.  I LOVE cherries.  And they were so cheap!  So we bought a pound and pretended like we weren't going to eat them as we walked along.  We didn't pretend like we weren't going to practice tying knots in the stems with our tongues, though.  Never gets old.

We were going to try and cram a Staten Island Ferry and a mysterious "cute thing" Karin had planned into the day before I had to catch my bus back to Wilmo...  But I voted we put off the ferry 'til next time, and we headed up toward SoHo to Openhouse Gallery, currently Park Here: The Indoor Popup Park!  Basically, this open gallery has been landscaped with fake grass, trees, bushes and flowers, and even a little gazebo.  We parked it on the ground and sat to chat for awhile, watching the Mommy Morning turn into hipster afternoon, full of trendy twenty-somethings reading poetry and drinking coffee.

We didn't fit in at all, not our skinny jeans or several days' worth of greasy hair.  We decided to hit up the Grey Dog on Mulberry Street (inspiration for the childhood favorite, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street? I don't know) for "lunch."  "Lunch" being Mexican hot chocolate for Karin and hot spiced wine with almonds and raisins floating in it for Audrey and I.  Oh, and we split the world's biggest brownie.  Wholesome, I know.

Also, the host kept frantically changing his mind about which table we would be sitting at, finally settling on "The Ideal Table for you guys, it just opened up.  There've been some people sitting there but they just left...  So you're going to be up in the back corner."  Turns out it was The Ideal Table, a little round one nestled in the corner of the bench wrapped around the whole café, which featured a surface map of Philadelphia.  The way the table was oriented, Wilmington fell right into Karin's lap.  Not a bad place to live, I'm sure.

I won't say I almost missed my bus, because I really didn't, and I did a pretty amazing job not getting anxious about it.  But they shut the doors about 2 minutes after I boarded, and I was so stoked the whole way home that I didn't even try to sleep.  Really the bus is the best way to go, and I plan to get up there wayyy more often from now on.

Seriously.  Spending time with Audrey and Karin was so refreshing, so intellectually stimulating, so much like coming home.  Considering that New York City has often been a source of stress in the past, this is saying a lot.  But I appreciate our shared prior text, and how utterly and unconditionally comfortable we can be together, and how they take for granted all the parts of my personality I struggle to convince my new friends of.  Plus, we got reallllly grungy together.  (A true St. Olaf flashback!)

The day before I left I texted Karin asking her what I needed to bring.  She texted back,

"toothbrush, wisdom and love."

minutiae*

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Wilmington!  It's 50 degrees and sunny today.  The moon is at a fingernail stage (not sure waxing or waning), but it was beautifully centered right above a very bright star last night in a clear navy sky.  And Mercury is causing astrological unrest, which means only one thing: Mischief.

Thanks to the cat, we've pretty much got that one covered around here.

Today is the first day in weeks that I have nothing planned, except to hang out with Asha while Mutti and Papa accompany Maria to her audition in D.C.  (Break a leg, babe!)  First, I can't believe that girl is going off to college already.  I just flipped through our baby books while I was agonizing over what to write about here today, and she was just the cutest baby.  Actually, my brother's baby book is my favorite out of the three (sadly, Asha's is at best a work in progress).  They come in 2-year increments and each one documents the first two years of each of my parents' increasingly adorable children.  Together, they trace the development of our little, bright-eyed family.  We still are bright-eyed, relative to the general population, but not so little anymore.

Anyway, Thomas' album is my favorite.  I think I was the cutest I've ever been during the first two years of his life, and also we were just the best of friends.  There is so much wide-eyed, drooly laughter in that book, as well as costumery and camraderie and a slew of other heartwarming (and often mischievous) incidents.  For example, a four-page spread of a date my parents went on in the mountains of Ecuador c.1993.  They are so young and skinny and pink in the cheeks.  My favorite shot is a rare photo-capture of my mom making an adorable flirtatious face.

I just discovered, though, a spread in the very beginning of my own baby book that for some reason never struck me before.  It features two cards, the kind that come with flower arrangements, addressed in my dad's handwriting, one to me and one to my mom.  (My dad loves buying me flowers, and I love that he loves it, and I'm ecstatic to discover that this adorable gesture dates back to Day One.)  The surrounding photographs suspend me in a moment when I was not even able to hold up my own head, propped in the corner of an armchair that was probably not as big as it looks, making a suspicious face at a bouquet propped in the opposite corner.  As if we are engaged in a deadly game of "Queen of the Armchair."

Judging by the lifespan of your average bouquet, I'll just go ahead and claim the medal on that one.

SO.  Back to the unplanned day.

I decided to celebrate by lying around literally all morning, instead of penning replies to all the letters that are stacking up higher and higher on my bedside trunk, or starting on my taxes.  (Pumped for that, by the way.  Not.)  Then I thought, Look at that gorgeous sunshine!  I will go to bed cranky tonight if I let it slip away.  I went for my first outdoor run since September, and it was almost as warm today as it was back then!

Not really, but it was very warm, and it would be nice if I got a little sun on my face and arms.  I got up the guts to leave my little 'hood on foot, finally, which felt good.  Liberating.  I crossed a bridge over a lovely glittering creek, and circumnavigated a sun-glazed park where cops and other sketchy characters hang out after dark.  Also, my sister and her friends.  Not that I didn't hang out in sketchy parks when I was in high school, but my parents know about her going there and kind of roll their eyes, but don't do anything about it?  I find that weird.

I guess she'd probably go either way, so it's better that they know about it.  (Resisting the urge to hashtag "future parenting dilemmas.")  Also, back in '05 I never would have been allowed to meet up with my friends literally every night this week and stay out 'til everyone else in the house was asleep.  Things change.

This week's features:

• Bowling, and I'm still as bad at it as I've always been.  Although I did get two strikes in a row.  Total fluke, I'm sure.
• Sushi from a cute little shop in a strip mall, followed by froyo in the less anime-ish froyo shop on the block.
• Tried on some assless leather chaps (OVER my jeans!) at Goodwill in said strip mall.
• Nora Lee's French Quarter Bistro in Historic New Castle, which actually did the NOLA thing really well.  I could have been off Bourbon Street the whole time.
• Saw the new movie Contraband, which was not as fast-paced or explosion-happy as I'd hoped.  Fortunately Mark Wahlberg is really nice to look at.
• Some really great raspberry wheat beer at Iron Hill, much better than Shock Top but not quite as good as 75th Street Brewery's raspberry wheat, which was the second beer I had when we went out for my 21st in Kansas City.  That might be an emotional flavor influence though.
• Walking around a ton on the UD campus, mostly.  I am actually getting oriented in that part of town, but I still SUCK at parking.  It helps to have a guide, I guess...  Even if my "guide" did get TWO parking tickets in the span of hours while we wandered.

Now I am VERY SLOWLY defrosting a tub of frozen-solid chicken noodle soup on the stove so Asha and I will have something to eat for "lunch."  Or at least something to complement our slightly stale artisan bread toasted with gouda cheese.  Since when do we eat gouda?

*I dedicate this post to my dear friend Steve, for reasons that should become clear if he can ever get his act together and write a blog post.  Luvz boo.  </3