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.

all good things: keys to happiness

All Good Things 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.

Sit back and enjoy!

1. Song of the week: Let Her Go by Passenger. This is the song that has been stuck in my head all week long... probably because it's playing on the radio almost every time I turn it on. After song of the week, I officially name it overplayed.

2. The Princess Bride. My local Regal Cinema is playing classic movies on Sundays and Wednesdays this winter, and last night it was Princess Bride which is one of my all-time favorite movies and the first thing J and I really connected on when he was still just Coffeeshopcrush. So of course we went to see it for date night and it was really cool to see it on the big screen, surrounded by middle-aged couples who were quoting the movie and laughing hysterically the whole time.

3. New shoes. I signed up for the Spartan Sprint again this year, and I thought a new pair of running shoes would be a good way to kick off six months of training. I got some New Balance trail running shoes and took them for a spin around the neighborhood this afternoon. They are awesome.

4. Opus No. 1 by Tim Carleton and Darrick Deel. I turned on NPR this afternoon on the way back from DSW, and This American Life was on with a story about tracking down a song somebody had stuck in his head endlessly. The song ended up being some obscure hold music from Cisco, and it's super 80s and kind of haunting. I put it on repeat while I ran this afternoon and it has a nice feet-on-the-pavement beat to it... With plenty of synth over top.

5. This article from Slate about the "Do What You Love; Love What You Do" mantra. I rarely read an article and find myself or my perspectives immediately changed. But this article made me think, and while I'm not making any rash decisions about my professional life I suspect I will find myself approaching work, and the way I talk about it, differently.

6. Getting back on the horse. My workout routine came this close to extinction through the end of last year, but this week I went to three classes and ran a couple of times. It feels good to get moving again.

7. We got WiFi! Our friends and family have been very concerned about our lack of internet and cable, particularly since we moved. To be honest, I have really enjoyed not having it; but it does make a lot of things hard, and it makes our house less of a draw for friends to come and hang out. So now we have it, and it's been awesome. Now I just have to work on not letting it take over my life...

8. Cleaning. We're mostly moved in to the new place, but there are of course a few things still out of place. So today I did a bunch of actual cleaning, to make way for organizing and nesting that needed to be done. It's not quite finished yet, but I'm really satisfied with the progress I've made.

9. The New Castle Farmers' Market. This place is a local legend in New Castle County where I live, but I have only ever been there on Sundays 'til now, which means the Amish section has always been closed. This time we went on Saturday, and got some great stuff. This includes a couple of delicious New York strip steaks that J then cooked on the charcoal grill that came with our new house. Yummm.

10. Surprising conversations. I went to church this morning, and had a few surprising and really fulfilling conversations with people. I laughed with two people I haven't laughed with before, and talked about happiness and shared perspectives I never expected to share.



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Thank you, readers, for being with us tonight, and for giving me reasons to write, and things to write about.

And thanks for joining us every Sunday night! Join the Baby Steps on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga for good things every day, and updates on new posts. Come back next week for another reminder of 10 more things to be thankful for!

Until then, be kind to each other, and find a reason to smile!

posted from Bloggeroid

all good things: so much love in this room

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: Let's Go Crazy by Prince. Prince featured heavily in this weekend's adventures, and this song seems particularly fitting. The best video I found was actually Janelle Monae's convincing cover, which is great because her song Tightrope was a close second this weekend thanks to my favorite movie: Friends With Benefits.

2. What Would I Say? Suddenly on Wednesday this was my Facebook news feed and it was wonderful. Normally I don't like Facebook apps but this one is worth it. SO worth it.

3. Twelve Years a Slave. I saw it yesterday afternoon and was really impressed at how well they adapted the movie from the book. Super powerful

4. Getting to the washer and dryer in my apartment in the morning on Sunday before anyone else. I always feel super triumphant!

5. I went to a going away party for my friend Megan this weekend. She's going to China for a year! I love going away parties because I get to see so many friends at once.

6. BJ's. A lot of people may not have heard of this, but it's pretty much the same thing as CostCo and it's awesome. I hosted a birthday shindig this weekend, which literally lasted all weekend, and we were able to feed a lot of people food and beer so cheaply. Plus, we are now well-stocked on frozen pizzas and corndogs and beer.

7. Networking. I know you are confused by this, since I recently wrote a post about what I dislike about networking, but I went to an event on Wednesday morning that was so energizing. I met a lot of smart, interesting, successful people and spent the rest of the workweek feeling super inspired.

8. Getting things done. Thanks in part to that inspiration, the second half of this week was so productive both on a personal and professional level. At work I checked so many things off my list, and I also forced myself to get around to things at home that I've been putting off for eons. It's a weight off my shoulders.

9. You know you are a nerd when you and a bunch of your friends sit down and start drinking beer and it devolves into doing imitations of NPR personalities, and it seems like the funniest game you have ever come up with. Seriously though, it was hilarious and it's all I wanted to do all night.

10. Being in a room with a lot of people I love. Like I said, this weekend I hosted people at my house, and this is one thing that never fails to make me happy: having great people around me and hearing constant laughter and good conversation.


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Thanks for joining us this Sunday night! Stick with the Baby Steps 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

what nobody ever says about networking

Well, dear readers, life gets in the way again. Or, life sidetracks. I have had this post about Meeting People in my Idea Bank for months, and was inspired to write it this week by a really great fleeting romantic encounter involving one of my friends... But then tonight happened and I have to switch tack. Keep an eye out for the Romantic Encounters post in the near future, though. (Also, I have been trying for years now -- plural! -- to get someone to write a guest post about online dating and for the life of me I can't get anyone to write it! So, dear readers, if any of you would like to take a stab at it I will love you forever.

...Speaking of romantic encounters.)

On to my story for this evening.

A week or two ago, I saw a Facebook post from an old family friend from the Upstate New York days, the mother of a girl I studied abroad with in high school saying she was going to be working at Winterthur for a few days. I commented that Winterthur happens to be just a few minutes up the road from where I am currently situated, and she messaged me right away and gave me her phone number and said she would love to meet up while she is in town.

So after work today she met my mom and me at Nirvana, an Indian restaurant in Independence Mall (fitting, since the circumstance of our meeting was the study abroad program in India).

Sidenote: Positive dining experience at Nirvana. We had a lovely combination of dishes: chicken madras, dal bukhara, and malai kofta with rice and raita; also the veg pakora were delicious. I would say it's on the underspiced side, especially compared to the fiery Maharaja Palace in Newark. The decor was also nice, and we got some joy out of the music. In the two hours we were there, I think there were only two other tables so it was pretty quiet on a Wednesday night. And now, back to the main event.

It was fabulous, to catch up after what has easily been seven or eight years, to share and to hear what we have all been up to, and to get a fresh perspective on things from what feels like another time and place. You know that feeling of introducing a high school friend to a college friend, like two versions of yourself are sliding together at least for a moment? Or the feeling of explaining a current situation to someone you knew very well in middle school, as if they can tell you how your middle school self would react to what is happening now, and reveal some sort of truth or wisdom you have since lost sight of? It's affirming.

Meeting up with this friend was also an opportunity to share updates on the lives of mutual friends, particularly a lot of the girls I went to school with on this program. That part was a little sad to me, because I have done a terrible job of staying in touch with most of them, and have mostly watched from afar as they all graduated together and visited each other around the world and traveled together. I will say that I am inspired now to drop a few notes to say hi and I hope you are well. Because I do. This is something I have never quite come to terms with: how can I ever express how often I think of people that have crossed my path throughout my life, and how important they are to me even if I have nothing really to say to them at this point in my life. I don't know. Staying in touch is a bit foreign to me. But I think I'm getting at least a little better at it over time.

I have, in fact, been in touch with at least one of these mutual friends in the past week or two, and I have been very happy to exchange a few words (and snapchats) with her.

Also in the last week I have exchanged messages with two really important people from my college days. And I've written some letters too. And all of these exchanges mean more to me than I can even comprehend or explain to myself.

So this all brings me to something I think about on a pretty regular basis, being a contributing member of society and spending so much of my time engaging with the working world: networking.

It's like a dirty word. It's what you have to do if you want career success. There is a right way and a wrong way to do it. The general feeling about it is reluctant and everybody has anxiety about it and to be honest I always associate the word with slimy and/or pretentious behavior and, at the very least, some fibbing and embellishment.

Which is really sort of silly, because I actually "network" all the time and I do legitimately enjoy making interesting connections with people. I like staying in touch with old friends who are doing interesting things; I like meeting new people who are doing interesting things and talking to them about it, and catching up with them later to find out what has changed and how the whole thing is going.

I met this woman on the plane coming back from MSP two weeks ago, who is an organizational change officer for her company. That means she travels around helping different branches of the company transition smoothly into using new systems and incorporating new policies into their basic operations, and making sure everybody is on board with what's going on. She talked a lot about the "people side of change."

I loved that! I wanted to ask about a billion questions, and I wanted to know how things turned out for her in the latest round of changes, and I wanted to talk to her about the impact of social media on organizational change and about the perspectives she gained from her studies in communications, in the context of what she was doing for work. I almost asked her if she had a card, or for some contact information, but I liked her so much I didn't want her to think I was being opportunistic, so I didn't ask. And I have been kicking myself ever since.

And I really think the reason I didn't ask is because that is a pretty standard "networking" technique and it seems opportunistic and not genuine and like just what I'm supposed to do. (We all know how I feel about things I'm just supposed to do.)

That may be more of a side effect of my stubborn beat-of-my-own-drum attitudes than the social stigma of networking, but I still think it's worth mentioning. Why can't I just think someone is cool and maybe want to talk to them about work, especially if we both like what we do and can inform each other's perspectives, without having it tainted by the veneer of corporate traditions? And why does something so pure, like an interesting conversation or a potential future friend or mentor or colleague, have to be cheapened by a term that carries so much weight of self-interest and personal gain?

I would love to hear other thoughts about the whole networking thing; I am pretty open to the idea that my resistance could easily be a byproduct of nervousness about putting myself out there, but I have always felt the whole "you have to do this to be successful" dialogue to cheapen connections between people that might otherwise be effortless and mutually enriching.

And to bring it back around to my original thought: I love catching up with you, classmates, friends, relatives and other readers. If I get around to sending you a personal message, it means I'm thinking about you and that I think you are probably doing something interesting and that I have respect and admiration and fond memories of you.

And if I don't get around to actually sending a message... I'm probably still thinking a lot of those same things.

Be well, readers; and be real.

posted from Bloggeroid

guest post: the mission of moving forward

“The point, what I've got it down to, is there are only two questions worth asking: 

Why are we here, and what should we do about it while we are?”

– John Lloyd

Particularly strong during the mysterious and often overwhelming years of early adulthood, I sense within me an ache with an eager pulse, demanding that I discover what the hell it is I'm going to do with the rest of my life. Back when I was first asked this question of vocation, I recall my eight-year-old self considering gas station attendant a worthy calling (candy being the main motivator). Then, after years of school, it evolved from a question about work into a quandary of passion. I felt the need for a calling or at least a path that would eventually lead me there. So I went to a college that claimed it launched people into the real world with real skills, majored in political science, graduated, and then...splash!

As a member of the current class of twenty-something's spelunking my way through these years, this question of calling/splashing has plunged itself deep within me since I left St. Olaf. A month after graduation I began working for a large healthcare software company in my home state of Wisconsin. I found things to like about the work and travel involved. I felt challenged, enjoyed my colleagues and put in good hours with good output. And then it started to feel stale. Would working here for five years lead me to happiness and fulfillment? I thought not and decided to make my first major detour of adulthood. After two years of full-time work, I quit my job in order to travel aimlessly through the Western U.S. and Asia for an indeterminate amount of time.


I'm currently a month into that trip and although it still can feel ostentatious when I describe what I'm doing to friends, family and strangers, I think it was the right move for me. To get away and exist in an unorganized way, divorced from the routine of an adulthood I had barely experienced, is totally worth the lack of income or certainty in what exactly it is I'm accomplishing each day. I know that “taking a year off” is classic Stuff White People Like and I decided against maintaining a blog of my own after more than a few friends jibed, “Oh, you're not going to start a blog about finding yourself on the road, are you?” But the fact is not having anything to do other than what I choose to do has jarred me out of the way I was thinking for the last two years. It is affording me the time needed to reflect, reconsider and reengage in the mission of moving forward.

The first step was to accept that I am who I am and the world is what it is. I have made the conclusion for myself that the healthiest way to consider existence is as a collaboration between two basic elements - chance and choice. Sam Harris explains in his book Free Will that “you can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.” His basic premise is that although we may have the ability to make choices, the situations we experience and how we arrive at them, as well as why we make the decisions we do, is all determined by a chaotic web of outside factors that we definitely do not choose or create. Chaos, though we would rather have order, is the stage on which we must act. It was by chance that at a certain time, in a certain place and with a certain set of circumstances, genes and socioeconomic factors, all of us became a living, breathing element of humanity. And this “luck of the draw” has a major influence on everything that follows. Being born a healthy, white, male citizen of the United States in 1988 meant a far different set of future opportunities than what one experiences if they are born an ethnic minority, lacking basic resources, in a time and place mired in violence and/or famine.


The element of chance continues to play a significant role throughout our lives, but I still think that the ability to choose A or B means we still have some power to construct our own identities. Choices we make are constantly altering our life's trajectory, and so with everything each of us does there is a slight bend and ripple to who we become.

Since chance is not under anyone's control, choice seems to be the element to consider closely. Choice is how we navigate through the dizzying amount of options the modern world provides us. Choice determines whether we talk to people we know via our smart phones when we find ourselves in social situations with people whom we don't know. Choices make things happen that would not have otherwise happened.

Choices we make are also vastly unequal in importance and differ in the level of conscious thought we employ while making them. Each of us engages in the repeated, physical tasks of daily life – choosing what to eat, what to wear, what to buy, when to set the alarm, or whether to set an alarm. There are also the more fluid and gradual choices that manifest into our goals, personalities and philosophies – deciding how to use our time and who to use it with, what to learn, what to believe, where to focus our energy and passion, when to move on to something else – decisions that we tinker with over an entire existence.

We all make millions of choices during our lifetimes and most of them are never considered again (many of them are not even consciously considered at the moment they are made – our subconscious brain is just that good). You will forget most of them, yet some choices will be so pivotal that the person you were set to become is completely rerouted into someone else. When I dropped I.B. chemistry in high school, it was unlikely that I would try again in college, and furthermore that I would ever become a physician. We all think about choices in the past we would like to change, imagining the different ways it would alter our current state. We think about the choices we can make now that will lead to the future we hope we hope to create. We always want to make the right choice, even though the amount of options available to the average citizen of the Western world makes the right choice harder to find and even more difficult to accept as the correct one once you have made it. Perhaps life is easier with a penchant for minimalism, eliminating the clutter of choices that are not truly important to happiness and are merely taking up time that you could be using to do things that actually matter to you.


I recently read the story of a man named Arthur Fields who spent fifty years taking pictures of people as they walked past him on the O'Connell bridge in Dublin, Ireland. He would take candid pictures of unsuspecting pedestrians and then attempt to sell them the instant color print, hopefully making enough money to buy film for the next day. This is how he supported his family and the reason he got out of bed each morning. Taking pictures was clearly what he loved and wanted to do. His sons claim he never even went on a vacation. He didn't take his camera to exotic locations, let alone find a different street in Dublin, for a span of time that resulted in over 180,000 photos. It would seem that this man had no second-thoughts about his choice in vocation, nor any reason to try something else. For fifty years, Arthur's career was immovable and unchanging.

I wonder if we all need to make a similar choice in order to feel fulfilled with how we use our allotted time on earth. Committing in such a complete way is a tricky decision to make. Where do we start? Most people have hobbies that inspire their quest for knowledge and skills, but there are also the jobs we do that absorb the most productive part of the day, some of which may have nothing to do with our actual passions. Can the thing you love also be the work you do? Clearly some people make this a reality, but still so many others are unable to find that happy balance. I don't know how to distill the fascinations I have with music, photography and writing into as pure a path as Arthur's yet, but this is what we all seem to be looking for as we drift through periods of employment and hobby. I think we are all determined to make our lives meaningful and that usually means finding a focus; being great at something is earned only after making many choices to first of all become better.


I visited Glacier National Park last week as part of one of the main goals of my trip to visit the majority of the national parks in the western U.S. and to strengthen my photography with the assistance of gorgeous landscapes and night skies unpolluted by light. Although my vehicle and current home, my mom's Roadtrek camper van, is both large and ornery about going up steep inclines, I decided to give Going-To-The-Sun Road a shot. Many switchbacks later, I made it to Logan's Pass with a few hours of daylight left. Feeling triumphant, I disembarked and found a hike to an overlook of Hidden Lake. I took to the path without pause. I counted the many people I passed who were descending back to the parking lot, their faces appearing pleased with what they had worked to see. I said hello to them as they walked by and they responded in kind. I passed other people, some much older than I, who were walking up the path with me. There were still others who had decided to stop halfway, laying on rocks, looking out over Logan's Pass and marveling at the beautiful scenery that had been carved by glaciers millions of years earlier.

When I reached the overlook, I joined others who were taking pictures and enjoying the view of the lake and the receding peaks beyond it. I watched as two young men judged a sign pointing to a further hike down to the water below, which stated that it was “very steep” and to “use caution.” They shrugged at each other confidently and continued on anyway. On the way back I joined a group of people taking pictures of a baby mountain goat and it's mother who were munching on grass a few feet from the trail. I noticed one man who I had passed going up retreating back down the trail to encourage his wife, who had decided to sit down short of the overlook, to come gawk at the goats with him. As I reached the parking lot I heard an old man say to his wife that the view was “so scenic and visually stunning – why do we need to walk up that mountain and sweat to enjoy what we can see right here!”

And so I noticed then that even on a single path there were still many choices to make. Even when there is a destination, something halfway there might feel better. Even when there is a sign telling you it's steep ahead, maybe it's still worth following. Even if a path is there in front of you, perhaps it isn't worth taking if you appreciate the view from where you are. And even when life seems vexing and the path isn't clearly marked and you wish you knew what to do, you always have the ability to live in the present moment and enjoy the small steps forward.


The lesson of mindfulness taught by the Buddha is very useful when I find myself wanting something to strive for and can feel that acute, aching anxiety because I don't know exactly what it is yet. To be mindful is to simply appreciate that you are alive, connected to the things happening around you and to be present and focused amongst it all. Rather than being lost in one cacophonous head-space, treating the world as an entity that you are a part of - rather than a separate actor in - can feel like a purer form of existence.

By practicing mindfulness through meditation and yoga, or at any time of day – standing in line, sitting on a bus, or in those moments when you feel overwhelmed by all the things you have to do - you can actually choose to have a more peaceful outlook. I can choose to be me right now instead of thinking about a non-existent future-me. This leads to far less time worrying and far more time doing what feels good. I realize that a calling isn't necessarily something you can choose first and achieve second. And I think that if I feel happy (or unhappy, which is a necessary part of life) with what I'm doing now and have a sense that I'm moving in a positive direction, I can accept that I have no idea what I want to be doing in 2018, 2024, or 2050 (if I'm even here at that point).

And with all the chance and choice involved from now until then, it would always be guesswork.

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Jordan is a friend and fellow St. Olaf Class of 2011 grad. He was born and raised in Wausau, WI. His favorite job was the summer he delivered pizza. Kurt Vonnegut is the reason he loves reading and writing.

when life gets in the way

It's Wednesday, and I am just sitting down to post at the time I'm usually hitting "publish." As always, life is complicated, and it starts pouring when I am halfway home, and right when you are starting to get comfortable with the way things are something happens to shake it all up again and you have to start the "getting used to it" process all over again.

Date night is experiencing some turbulence lately. Not so much internally, and if it was I guess you wouldn't expect me to share it on the blog anyway, but thanks to factors outside of our control, J. and I are having to reevaluate.

The coffeeshop of lore, Bishop's, where we met, has been uprooted and is now a one-man baked goods supplier run out of a home kitchen. For awhile J. thought he was going to be without a job, but then the people who are taking over the space said they wanted to keep him on as part of the startup team for the new place. Which to me sounds like a great opportunity, but also comes with a heavy load in terms of time, energy, and expertise.

In my entrepreneurship classes in college, we always talked about what huge investment is involved in starting a new business. It's more than a full-time job, and obviously tends to require a lot of financial capital, and you also have to be extremely well-prepared with a business plan, some projection of how things are going to pan out (hopefully supported by at least a little market research), a certain degree of knowledge of the industry and good business practice in general.

But you don't really get it until you or your significant other is working 13- to 16-hour days, and when he's not actually at work he's tired and stressed out and distracted. You don't really get how much of a sacrifice it can be to follow your dreams (if opening a business is a dream for you, as it has been for me since I was 13 or 14) until you start to feel the repercussions on other areas of your life, outside of work.

And here's what really gets to me, as I'm recognizing this latest embodiment of the ripple effect.

I have a friend who recently got a 9-to-5 job just as her husband started working second shift. Exciting developments for both of them professionally, but rough because they are pretty recently married and now they rarely see each other. It turns into something similar to a long-distance relationship, where you only see each other on the weekends. And as many of us know, when you have so little time together it puts a heck of a lot of pressure on the time you do have to spend with each other.

I wonder how friends with new babies manage to maintain their jobs, their relationship, and make sure the baby gets fed, when, for example, they have to get a sitter to cover the undetermined amount of time between when mommy leaves for work and daddy gets home. When do they see each other?

And how did my parents, when I was three, four, five, six years old, take care of two to four children while my dad was in school and my mom worked second shift catering at Holiday Inn (which did not fulfill her), manage to feed themselves and their children, and still have time to even speak to each other, much less maintain an actual relationship and stay married for twenty-some years? I'm floored.

Because here I am, with no children, working 35 hours a week, falling out of touch with my boyfriend who I see every day, when he has an unusual work schedule for a finite (if undetermined) amount of time. We snap at each other. We talk past each other. We keep missing each other's meaning. Our communication -- the very foundation of our relationship -- is just generally suffering. I don't know how people do it when they have to go out of their way to see each other at all, when they have dependents, and when they are operating under these conditions for an indefinite amount of time.

When it comes down to it, J. and I are fine. Just today he had a couple of hours off from work, so when I got out we sat down for a pretty leisurely dinner at Hockessin's favorite little Mexican place, and got to actually look each other in the eye and talk about the things we haven't talked about.

So what I'm saying is, it's hard. It takes a daunting amount of energy and intention and commitment to even approach the topic of reconnecting, working out how to line everything back up, or find a new order that will work under different circumstances without burning everyone out. And every couple or family or friend group has their own version of this story: And Then Life Got In The Way.

Actually, I would bet that every couple, family, and friend group has a whole series of these stories. I'm sure I'll be writing and rewriting mine until the end of time.


* * * * * * * 
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."

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!


* * * * * * *
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."

decisions, decisions

whole wheat pasta or veggie?

Do you ever suddenly feel completely overwhelmed and burdened, when somebody asks you to answer a fairly simple question? Or for your opinion on something that, in the long run, really doesn't matter all that much? Do you ever just feel tired at the prospect of choosing what to wear to work in the morning or what vegetable to cook with dinner or whether or not to go out on Friday night?

And then, you just know the asker of the question, or the person who invited you out, or the coworker hoping for some constructive suggestions, is just standing there looking at you and wondering why it's taking you so long to say "yes" or "no", "carrots" or "peas", "red shirt" or "the blue one"?

Lately I have been recognizing this feeling in myself more and more often. Starting first thing in the morning, when I have to decide whether to hit snooze or not, and regardless of the fact that I know it's almost always better not to hit snooze, in the long run... And then I go to work, and the day is one long series of decisions which feel increasingly like life-or-death decisions as the day goes on... And everybody is asking me whether they should send this email reminder, and who they should copy on it; what I think of the colors on this flier or cover photo; which word gets the point across better, or if I can suggest a totally new word that would do the trick; what time they should schedule a meeting with client X.

Don't get me wrong-- I do really like being in a position to answer questions and make decisions. I like that the people around me care what I think about anything. I like managing projects and people and being responsible for the outcomes of things. (And to the girls in my department who I know read the blog, by no means does this post mean you should stop asking for my opinion or anything. All I'm saying is, a girl gets tired.)

Plus, not that I need to pound this nail any deeper, but when I get home I have to decide whether to go to the gym or not (despite my set-in-stone gym routine, I still have this battle almost every day), and then when I inevitably decide to go, I have to decide what to wear to the gym. And then when I get back from there I have to come up with something to eat, and then decide what plate to eat it off of...

I know. I make things hard for myself. I like to keep things fresh and do things differently all the time. And there are about seven billion factors that influence every single one of these decisions, and I always try to take them fairly into account.

I heard this story on NPR awhile back, and it came up again at the writers' breakfast last month. It was an interview with a guy who shadowed President Obama for half a year and wrote a book about it. The bent of the article was on the decisions POTUS has to make throughout the course of a day.

What he said that struck me, the first time I heard it, was "about research that showed the mere act of making a decision, however trivial it was, degraded your ability to make a subsequent decision."

Fascinating. Apparently we each have an allotted amount of decision-making power per day, and if we use it up... that's it!

So Obama, as the President of the United States, has to make a lot of important decisions on a daily basis, I mean the kinds of decisions that impact an entire nation-- the entire world! And because every decision makes it harder for him to make another decision, he gets rid of as many extraneous decisions as possible. He cut out all choice from getting dressed; he now only has grey and blue suits, so he can literally just grab something and go. Somebody else schedules all his appointments and decides what he eats for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So all his mental capacity can go to running the nation.

This makes me feel a little better. I don't have a staff of people who can make all my minor decisions for me. Or even a board or a cabinet that can help me make the major ones. And when the major decisions have any infinite number of options and outcomes, and impact a good number of people, I think I have some license to waffle.

Just not too long, because then people will stop asking at all. As always, it is a delicate balance.

Seeing as it's Wednesday, the big choice I have to make now is what to do for date night, and exactly how to incorporate food into this plan. Better get on it.

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Thanks for tuning in again, dear readers! Like second set of baby steps on Facebook to stay tuned, see new posts right away, read other posts from fellow post-grads, get teasers for future posts... And I'll see you on Sunday for All Good Things!

you have to.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

maintaining friendships

I'm going to try and make this quick, because I'm heading out to hang out with some local friends.

The distinction is only important because of the topic of this post.  And I can't believe it's taken me so long to write about this.

I think I have mentioned before that I could not have predicted my post-grad long-distance social network, and the varying degrees of keeping-in-touch.  Some people I talk to most now I never, or rarely, talked to while we were at school together.  Some of the people I have the most important conversations with, too.

Granted, these conversations tend to happen on Facebook chat, but that doesn't make the subject matter less important.

That being said, I would like to reiterate Kyle's (incredibly salient) point that a 10-word text message can be enough to maintain a relationship with a good friend you haven't seen or talked to in awhile.  This can make all the difference in the world.  I was inexplicably happy to get a text from J the other day that read, "I'm finding that people really like it when you reach out to them via text."  And a minute later: "You taught me that."

One of my favorite ways to stay in touch regularly is with my famed #LunchBreakPhoneDates.  I have 30 minutes for lunch most days, which is by no means long enough for a satisfying long-distance conversation, but I am the queen of working healthy activities into my daily or weekly routine.  If we keep waiting until we have enough time to have a satisfying conversation, we will never have any conversation, and eventually we'll just stop trying.  There is no way I will let that happen.

Now, the 30-minute time limit also means we can't waste time worrying about what to talk about.  I don't care to talk about "what's new in my life" because it's just another day to me.  But, as you may have noticed, I ALWAYS have something on my mind.  So what do I talk about on a typical #LunchBreakPhoneDate?  Here is a brief sampling and synopsis of topics.

1. Hair care and no 'poo.  Yes, this is some hippie shit.  But you all know I love it.  Also, I have a lot of hair, so there's a lot to talk about.  This particular #LunchBreakPhoneDate also has quite a lot of hair, so between the two of us, we're set for AT LEAST 30 minutes.  If not 30 hours, or 30 days.  Or 30 years.  I'm sure we'll still be talking about hair when we're 50.
2. Objectification, to-be-or-not-to-be a feminist, and Take Back the Night/sexual assault.  This, of course, is part of an ongoing conversation, which I have been meaning to write about, but it's an armful to take on.  I'm not sure yet what approach I want to take.  But here's a teaser: I promise to consider the complexity of these issues, every time I consider them.  Which, as a woman, is pretty much every day.
3. Relationships, theoretical and otherwise.  Yeah, pretty much every conversation I have has something to do with relationship theory, but since most of my friends are negotiating the minefield of post-college relationships, our specific experiences come up a LOT.  Also the weird number of our peers who are suddenly engaged, married, or popping out babies.
4. Work.  Sometimes this topic has a "what-do-I-want-to-do-with-my-life" kind of spin on it, but in my case, I like my job and I'm happy here at least for now.  And most of my friends are at least somewhat satisfied with their current status.  So we also talk about how much money we make, and where we see ourselves going, and what we're passionate about that we'd like to push more into our work now or in the future.  (Work.  Is this what adult life is all about?!  It often seems that way.)

Obviously this is not a comprehensive list, but none of you care about my day-to-day conversations anyway, unless you're having them with me.  Or you only care about them to the extent that they often inspire me to write about some topic or another right here on the blog.

I know I don't have to tell you this, but every conversation and every relationship is different.  Some relationships need more careful curation than others, more time and energy and demonstration.  I thought of this yesterday when I was (as usual) chillin' on Facebook and someone I haven't touched base with in awhile popped up in my top 6 friends.  I am not a habitual Facebook stalker, but I read my news feed, and every once in awhile I give someone's timeline a skim just to make sure they're apparently alive and happy.  And usually I'll drop a line.  In this case, the line I thought to drop was a simple "<3".  But right before I hit "Post," I remembered what a mutual friend said about her once: "You really have to reach out to her, because she likes to do things, but she doesn't like to call.  She feels like she's imposing."

And so I sat there debating whether I should feel guilty for not writing something more substantial, until the most obvious epiphany hit me like a water balloon: That's how Mutual Friend is friends with Her.  My friendship with Her is not that way.  My friendship with Her is incredibly comfortable with a <3 from time to time, and in fact, is more comfortable with that than with obligatory extensions and "catching up."


That may have been a little obscure, but the thesis of my story is that each friendship, and even each individual friendship within trios and groups, is different.  Some of my best friends (as much as I cringe to use that word, there isn't really any use denying it) are people I don't feel the need to have big catching-up conversations with every day.  Because our friendships depend on the fact that we each lead our own separate and active life, and that's something we like and respect about each other.  It makes the time we do spend together that much richer and more worthwhile.

Now, speaking of spending time together, I'm off to curate my present relationships: it's ladies' night!  (By the way, if you were wondering, my love language is Quality Time.  You don't have to act surprised.)

Thanks for tuning in, as always!  Each of your comments continues and enriches my conversations with you, and that's why I keep writing.  So keep writing back :)

my life be like

Whirlwind as usual.  There are some interesting progressions going on these days, as my lifestyle continues to be shaped and to shape itself like wet sand, or something like that, something that has a mind of its own.

Let me follow up on my promises from last time.


Wanderlust was hilarious.  One, because I love Paul Rudd, and his awkward super-deadpan.  Also because the wild hippie parties remind me of certain parts of my life, or of a mishmash of different parts of my life.  Like a combination of our family Christmases in the Canadian wilderness when I was little and my sophomore year of college, which involved a lot of pink lights and guitars and spinning and people suddenly becoming vegetarian.  (The vegan thing didn't really pick up steam 'til junior year.)  I also can't knock the whole "enjoy your life, roll with the punches, and don't take the people you love for granted" overtones.

My friend Carly (the first person my age I met in Delaware) regularly uses the hashtag #iworkinanoffice, which I love for the same reason I love meeting Kristy after our 9-5 jobs to do grown-up evening things like working up a sweat at the Y, checking out a new happy hour, or looking at home decor and beachwear at Burlington Coat Factory.  (Foreshadowing!)  It makes me feel capable, independent, successful, and mainstream--satisfying my thinly-veiled inner meta-hipster.

ANYWAY.  One thing that I kept forgetting to use the #iworkinanoffice hashtag on this week was our new office percolator!  We used to use one of those single-cup pod coffeemakers but recently decided to backtrack out of the space age in favor of a more economical, if retro, coffeepot, and this week it has been the hub of activity and excitement in the office.  So here I am, once again coerced into a minor coffee addiction for social reasons.  My mom tells me the proverbial water cooler plays more of a social role in the life of an organization than a hydrating role.  Ours has a stimulant infusion, sometimes pushing OD-levels of caffeine sludge, and I'm told this is bringing me more officially into the World of PR.

All of the numerous "you-know-you're-in-PR-when" lists feature some version of the "caffeine-alcohol-repeat" mantra (it's #20 on this list), so in the spirit of fully experiencing my career path I also experienced my first-ever happy hour this week.  The only reason I planned to go out on Monday (usually my designated Night In) was because it was Jess' birthday and she told me on Friday she wasn't doing anything to celebrate.  Naturally I couldn't let this happen so I invited her and Kristy out to happy hour at Shellhammer's, where J. goes a lot with the guys he works with.  As it turns out, Jess had a date with her boyfriend, but Kristy and I decided it couldn't hurt to go anyway and check out the venue.

Note that the specials board I linked to boasts $3 Captain Morgan drinks, but they're now $4.  No big deal, really, but we went for Absolut, bartender's choice, since like good girls we usually go for the fruity stuff when we go out together.  This will change come summer, when I wean Kristy onto beer, but for now she is encouraging me to ask bartenders for recommendations and suggestions.  Next step is asking them what exactly they've made us, because we had to play a guessing game this time, which I won with the peach Absolut in grapefruit juice combo.  Surprisingly delicious, and light.

Definitely not light, but still delicious, are Tuesday night nachos.  Klondike Kate's on Main Street has half-price nachos every Tuesday, so every other week the That's-What-She-Saiders get together there, thanks to Craig, O Great Organizer.  The in-between weeks are yoga nights.  I'll bet you can guess which kind of Tuesday makes me feel less like I need to go to detox.  I might have to go for a salad next time, even though the BBQ-Ranch pile of chips and whatnot is delicious.  Plus, even the small takes care of my lunch the next day.

I eat out all the time these days.  It's getting out of hand.  After eating leftover nachos for lunch on Wednesday, I dropped Maria off at band practice and met up with J. at the co-op, which featured half-price organic chocolate bars through the month of February--and Wednesday was the last day in Februrary.  As if by divine intervention.

Unfortunately they had run out of the kind I wanted so instead we got all-vegan sandwiches from the cooler for supper.  Only because there weren't any non-vegan options.  Jason got a falafel wrap which I think he quite enjoyed, and I got an avocado "chickn" wrap.  The quotes were included on the label, fyi.  There was no chicken in the wrap.

I know I'm supposed to be a hippie, and I will pretty much inhale several giant vegan chocolate chip cookies, but I straight-up distrust things that claim to be something other than they are.  At least the wrap was up-front about lying about its identity, but still.  Why couldn't it just say, right out, "avocado soy product wrap?"  By all means.

After reluctantly enjoying our well-balanced, earth-friendly sandwiches (OK, OK, after I reluctantly enjoyed mine; J. wasn't that reluctant about it) we headed out to Maryland to State Line Liquors, which is the most giant and heavenly place I have ever been.  It's kind of like my beloved Firehouse in Northfield, but bigger and with a warehouse-level selection of wines and beers.  Plus it's family-owned, which is cool, and everybody there knows their shit.  I found my fave, Old Dominion Oak Barrel Stout, and found that it has the COOLEST caps: they look like Harry's Patronus.  They will make some baller earrings.  Jason also helped me pick out a few good options for Kristy's beer-weaning.  More to come on that.

Also, it's weird how close we are to Maryland.  And Philly, and Jersey.  Small state.

Takeaway messages from this week:

• It's good to have good girlfriends.
• Also good to have traditions, like Zumba & Applebee's Thursday nights, 1/2 price nacho Tuesdays, and watching ABC on Monday nights with the fam.
• I do pretty much everything for social reasons: I drink coffee when it suits me socially.  I like drinking certain drinks because they remind me of someone.  I think of the Sunny V Summer every time I get BBQ-Ranch nachos because Ann and I ate ranch dressing on EVERYTHING.  It's easier to work out with a buddy.  Easier, and more pleasant, to do almost everything with somebody else.
• BUT I really need to remind myself that I desperately need to take time for myself.  DO THIS CLARA.  GO.

Pumped now to go out tonight, and when I get back my brother will be home for the week!  Look for more fun to come.

sweet nothing

My head feels a little fuzzy right now and it's disconcerting.  It's been a weird week, and one that seemed to stretch on endlessly.  This is a strange season in the adult world.  I've been watching Facebook statuses and Twitter streams about final exams and feeling very, very far away from that.  I'm gradually sending out my long-distance Christmas packages, although I may hold off on the rest of them until after the holiday to avoid the endless lines at the post office.  But getting text messages from recipients makes me ache to be there with them as they open the boxes and each individual package.  Actually, a lot of text messages in general are making me ache to speak face-to-face with their senders.  It's so beautifully devastating to have a feeling like that.

Speaking of beautifully devastating, I'm eating breakfast alone right now, on a gorgeous Sunday morning, listening to Straight No Chaser's Christmas album.  Current track: Christmas Wish.  I'll spare you the eye-rolling gushiness of any real lyrics, but the gist of the song is "I want somebody to love this Christmas."  Watching the "12 Days of Christmas" video on the lyrics website makes me miss the Limestones.  And missing the Limestones makes me miss Face and Homecoming and shivering our way down to Huggs to watch The Bachelor on Monday nights after dinner, sometimes battling snowdrifts and whiteouts.  (And so on and so forth.)

Looks like a white Christmas this year will be nothing more than a dream, if that.

So what's been weird about this week?  Plunged into it on Monday in crisis mode, which is a difficult way to start a week.  Everyone at the restaurant seems perpetually wired lately, which is not really surprising given the season and the particular circumstances.  On Friday everyone in the office dressed up, dashing and beautiful, and rode up to Philadelphia in a limo for lunch at an exclusive city club.  I had to look up online what "business elegant" is, and didn't find a clear answer--but I'm starting to realize that it's important (at least for me) to synthesize my own personal sense of style with the Rules of Professional Dress.  I work more effectively that way, and I feel more confident and communicate a little more successfully.  (How successfully I really communicate these days, with anyone, is up for debate.)

Speaking of communicating, I feel like I haven't really talked to anyone in ages.  I did get a heartwarming message last night from a really important person, someone I haven't heard from in years.  He is a person I knew for 2 months, maybe, but I do not hesitate to say that he taught me a lot about love.  Not in the way you might think, not fiery, passionate love, but how crucial it is to believe that no matter what happens, someone will take my hand and never let go, not until the cows come home, if that's how long it takes, even if we know virtually nothing about each other.  Because this is what he did for me, and has done, and neither of us will ever forget that moment in time.  I think I can still feel his hand in mine.  It's like the phantom limb effect.  It really sticks with you.

I miss those conversations.  The ones where you don't have to say anything at all and it says more than you could ever say if you kept trying to say the important things forever.

Anyway, the club was gorgeous and FULL of history and portraits of important Americans and Philadelphians since Independence.  (Strange that for some people "Independence" brings to mind much more powerful and mixed memories than for me.  This is just occurring to me, that "Independence" was so long ago that I have largely taken it for granted throughout my life.  Meanwhile, Time magazine named "The Protester" as its Person of the Year, because many groups around the world have been battling for this very thing this year: Independence.)

On my way home my mouth felt parched with a thirst that water could never satisfy, so I stopped to get a smoothie from Coffeeshopcrush.  Seriously, this boy must read constantly.  It's inspiring, and it's caused me to carry Tuck Everlasting around with me almost everywhere.  This book may well end up blowing my mind.  Anyway, he told me "not to worry about" the smoothie, and that he's been trying to come up with a book to lend me now.  I really cannot wait to see what he'll come up with.

I tried to write this post last night, but my brain was even less attached then.  I was sitting with my brother and sister in the living room, watching SNL and reading DamnYouAutoCorrect.com while Thom surfed 9GAG and Maria fell asleep mummified by her blanket.  Everyone was saying SNL was especially good last night, and every single trending topic on Twitter was SNL-related, and I definitely was laughing pretty hard, but I don't think I've ever actually watched it before.  I've also never been to Philly before.  Checking things off my very mundane bucket list.

I guess it's OK to have nothing to say.  It's just nice to have somebody to say nothing to.

for my fellow krill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Floored.

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

So much love in this room.

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

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

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

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

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

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