"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."

super (bowl) weekend

Idiotic of me to try and write tonight.  I've been going full-steam since Friday--Thursday--Wednesday...  Yeah.  For weeks.  And I have finally hit the extreme point on the homeostasis sine curve (see Figure 1) where I remember that I need to take time for myself, to clean my room, for example, do my taxes, start up another vocational project, or write some letters.  Because the great thing about writing letters is it's nice on both ends: Everybody loves getting a handwritten letter in the mail, and it's cathartic and constructive to write.  So this is on my agenda.  Among approximately 2497573523957 other things.

Figure 1: Graphic representation of the Search for Normalcy

One thing that makes the Quest for Normalcy difficult, or at least complicated, is that I do not live in a bubble.  (Believe it or not...)  There are always other people involved in my life and the way it plays out, other obligations, desires, and demands on my time and energy.  And I would have it no other way.

Here's an example which has been killing me slowly all weekend:

I came home on Friday having just received a phone call from yet another friend recently engaged.  This makes at least 3 or 4 of my inner circles now engaged or married, and I mentioned this fact nonchalantly to my mother, who responded, "Oh, honey, I'm sorry!"

Seriously?!  "Mom!  I'm not sad about it!"  In fact, I am unfathomably excited for all of them and of course I wish them all the best with a passion that beats at the borders of my heart.  Mostly it's just strange that I've reached that point in my life where, not only are my peers getting married, but they're actually kind of ready to get married.  I most certainly am not, and I'm just as pumped about the state of my own affairs as I am about theirs.  The last thing I feel is left out.

Maybe I read into it too much (it wouldn't be the first time, nor the last) but my interpretation of this hilarious exchange plays into the beautiful burden of Legacy which has been haunting me for years now.  Like Christmas dinner, senior year of college, when Grampa said pointedly, "Well, Clara hasn't brought home a boy yet.  And if she hasn't I think it must be because of Clara, because I sure met a lot of nice St. Olaf boys when we visited there."

AHEM.

The point is, Grampa and Gramma were married at 18 and still are madly in love, nearly 60 years later.  Grampi has loved and still loves to a degree that is agonizing even for me.  Mutti and Papa are definitely, disgustingly in love 25 years later.  It's a beautiful thing, but none of them really get why I'm not jumping on the bandwagon.  After all, G&G had 2 babies by the time Gramma was my age, and Mutti was newly married and doing missionary work with her new hubby.  She actually said this weekend, in a really fascinating conversation about vocation I had with my parents Saturday morning, "We didn't really have a plan, we didn't know what we were going to do with our lives.  We just knew we were going to do it together."

Puke.

I know I've written about this before, emotional detox and this awesome chance I'm getting right now to figure out what I like and what I want and who I am.  This is a completely different way to start my adult life than figuring out what we like and what we want and who we are.  Really, though, it is a lovely legacy and I am fully aware of how lucky I am to have it.  Unlike a lot of my peers, I wholeheartedly believe in everlasting love.

Speaking of everlasting love, one thing I have been throwing under the bus with my wild schedule lately is girl time.  Oh travesty!  I of all people, author of a study on girl talk, should know how crucial female community, company, and support is in a woman's life.  And I have not been getting enough of that good solid girl time.

So Thursday my Delaware wingwoman and I went to Zumba at the Y and followed our intense sweat session with drinks and apps at Applebee's, because we both love it and neither of us is ashamed of that fact.  Plus there's half-price appetizers after 9pm.  This is key.  We also planned to spend pretty much the whole weekend together.

Now, let's be clear.  I like guys, I like hanging with them -- one in particular, these days.  But there is just something refreshingly awesome about spending an entire weekend attached at the hip with an awesome girl friend.  Which is what I did this weekend.  Or with multiple girl friends, I guess.  We ate pizza and read trash mags and watched chick flicks (Friends With Benefits consistently takes the cake over No Strings Attached in the hookup movie category).  Our mixed drinks were lumpy because I bought creme de coco instead of coconut milk.  (Take heed!)  We discussed goldfish psychology at 3:00 in the morning, and polished off almost an entire bag of inspirational Dove chocolates.

And then we headed over to Craig's for the Super Bowl.  I know, since when do I watch football?!  (Since when does my family watch football?  I swear my jaw hit the floor when I came home and both my parents asked what I thought of the Giants' win.  ...Whaaaat?)

I admit I spent most of the time giggling in a sleep-deprived delirium, and heading to the kitchen when the game came on to grab more snacks or another beer.  Lots of snapping going on, and "that's what she said."  I had even watched most of the commercials online at work over the last 2 weeks, since they have all been trending videos lately.  But I did watch the halftime show and the fourth quarter, and I was actually really into the end of the game.  It helped that Kristy is a die-hard Giants fan, but that wasn't a hard wagon for me to jump on seeing as at least part of my heart is and will forever live in New York.  I even said "Blockbuster" in my Amsterdam voice this weekend, without thinking about it.

Incidentally, Blockbuster has apparently copycatted Redbox with Blockbuster Express kiosks, or perhaps kiosk, since I have only ever seen one: tucked on the edge of the Food Lion in Claymont.  I am also dead over the Food Lion and the medieval logo: 

I've had a fantastic weekend and tomorrow I'm taking the evening to myself to check some things off my list and do my own thang.  Or, you know, catch up on the sleep I missed out on this weekend and last week and the weekend before...  I'm also pumped for a lunch date with my dad this week, and visiting Queens next weekend to spend some time with my girls up there.  It's been too long, and we all know my last (barely overnight) excursion up there was a flaming success.  In a more vague sense, I've decided to start more actively looking for a community of writers in the Wilmington area, or figure out how to do some coaching.

Right now, though, I'm about to pass right out.  True to form, I couldn't be more pumped about it.

a not particularly cohesive, but perhaps somewhat enlightening, post.

I am continually amazed at the resilience of certain relationships in my odd and scattered life.  Some, too, surprise me.

You would not be surprised if I told you that, although I no longer live in the same room, suite, building, town or even state as most of my mainstays, I still manage to stay in fairly good touch with most of them via a mindblowing number of mediums.

But you might be surprised to hear that the bulk of my daily conversation, outside of the people I see on a regular basis, happens with classmates I graduated with but barely talked to while we were at school together.  A lot of this is witty banter, small talk, or sharing funny stories, but we hit on a really fulfilling amount of serious shit together.  Like relationships.  Vocation.  Philosophy.  Social issues.  Life goals, greatest fears, and daily struggles.  These are really important conversations, and I am continually amused at the fact that they are happening now, now that we are 1000 miles apart.

One thing I've been doing quite a bit is workshopping, which is cool because one of the top 3 things I'd like to really do with my life is coach writing.  Workshop.  So I've been working with a friend on a lot of different kinds of stuff, and working through a lot of hangups in the process.  Today we brushed the surface of a potentially heated discussion about an element of a piece he wrote.  We disagreed, but while I try not to do the passive-aggressive thing, I don't find outright disagreement the most constructive way to work through an issue  like that.  When I alluded to this philosophy, he responded, "I'm continually amazed at how openminded you are."

I laughed out loud.  Open-minded?  Me?!  I am one of the more impatient, stubborn people I know.  While I don't do a whole lot of broadcasting, I have some pretty rigid ideas about how the world works and what I think about it, and I don't feel very receptive to the idea of change most of the time.  I reacted pretty strongly against my friend's stance on the issue at hand, I just didn't come out that strongly to him with it because I wasn't prepared to make a case.

The amazing thing is, I'd call him at least a little stubborn too; but we can talk for hours and hours, coming at an issue from very different sides, and verrrry gradually I can see these sides shifting, a little farther into the grey area, looking a little more alike.  I think it's safe to say we both enjoy learning from each other.  And it's a fascinating, fulfilling example of how we (people) change each other's lives.

Because despite all our disagreements, I'd most likely catch a grenade for that guy without thinking too hard about it.

Not to mention some of the people I bear closest to my heart, who have some key things in common with me but by and large rub my sensitivities in completely the wrong direction.  Which, now that they are scattered and flung, is actually a little soothing.

Here is a returning theme: Resilience.

I am finding myself lately struggling not to approach situations too cerebrally, but to give myself a moment to step back and say, "What is my stance on this, really?"  And I check in with myself, try to just talk it out, and then chill out.

I am learning so many new things it's a wonder my brain hasn't reached capacity.  Isn't learning supposed to slow down as we start getting old?  I'm faced every single day with a situation in which my instinctual or original approach needs to shift to make room for other input or adjustments.  This is difficult.  But I am finding that ideas have incredible elasticity.

This is a bit of a rant -- my thoughts are disorganized lately, or too organized, perhaps.  There are things I'd love to talk about that I'd feel weird writing about here.  Like the awesome ob-gyn I saw today.  For example.

Anyway, speaking of resilience, the longest, slowest train in the world sometimes likes to cross my morning commute.  Not on a schedule at all, mind you.  But more than once I have spent longer waiting for it to pass, or waiting while it comes to a full stop in the railroad crossing, than it normally takes me to get to work in the morning.  I was wildly unamused, and even more unamused at how unamused I was about it.  Trying the entire time to just let myself roll with the punches.  Speaking also of the cerebral vs. holistic dilemma.

On another note, happy Groundhog Day!  Let's be honest, has there ever not been 6 more weeks of winter?  I'm as superstitious as the next guy, but let's be real.  It's February.  And it seems to me Groundhog Day is just an excuse for every weather-manipulating deity to get together and laugh at our folly.  It's like the Super Bowl of the gods.  Maybe global warming will change things next year, give those suckers a challenge.  Make winter hard for once.

Minnesota has a hard winter every year.

I want to tell you what I'm most excited about right now, regardless of how relevant it is to any of the aforementioned topics.  It is: red velvet cupcakes with lime green frosting.  I'm going to make them tomorrow and I could not be more pumped.  And the reason I want to make this particular kind is because I got stuck (after the train) behind a magenta landscaping truck with lime green accents.  And for some reason it made me want cupcakes in that color scheme.

Makes sense, right?

why sunday is the most beautiful day of the week

I know, I know, this is a sweeping, often inaccurate generalization.  Especially considering 8 years ago or so I used to cry almost every Sunday.  For some forgotten reason(s).

Today, though, I awoke to sunshine again, got dressed for a breakfast date at the Post House on Main Street Newark.  This place is cool -- it's a low counter in front of a grill and you sit in a line and watch your food be prepared while a cheerful redhead waitress refills your coffee over... and over... and over again.  An old-style all-American diner at least a billion times more legit than Perkins (not hating, though, Perkins, I love you).

I want to share with you, though, the most beautiful mental snapshot of my life, taken at an intersection on the way to Newark.  This is why I'm breaking my "only post every 5 days" rule.  So savor it.

So I'm sitting at this intersection, sunroof open, Journey playing on the radio ("When the lights... go down... in the city... And the sun shines on... the ba-ay..."), a truck twice my height on either side.  The one on my right is dark blue or so, with grey double wheel wells in the back, and thoroughly mud-splattered.  I'm regarding the world with a general smile, but then I catch a glimpse in profile of the driver of this rugged truck.

He is rugged, too, and his colors match the truck: dirt-road jacket, you know that classic workman's kind -- everybody's dad has one.  Dark blue cap, mud-splattered or at least not often washed.  He was swarthy, his face showing the wear of an uncoddled lifetime, and short, tight grey curls filled out his head outside the cap.

But what really got my artist's heart beating was his hands.  Everything the truck and his coat and his hat and his face was, they also were: rugged, the color of dirt, calloused, torn and reconstructed.  Strong.  Work-worn.  His palms engulfed this small cup of Wawa coffee, his wrist bracing the base of the paper cup and his fingertips framing, tracing the lip of the cup.  Like that 12-ounce cup of coffee was his space heater, his only source of warmth and comfort in the world, even in the streaming Sunday morning sunshine and even over the rumbling of the truck beneath his feet.

A real-life beautiful moment.  Brought to you by the United States of America.

I'll make the rest of this quick, but I do just want to say that today was stunning, gorgeous, mind-blowing.  I tasted scrapple for the first time and despite some mildly unsavory descriptions of what it actually is, I thought it was pretty tasty.  Also french toast, which we all know I love.  And good company.

We spent the next few hours walking around at the Newark Reservoir, which was absolutely unfrozen, and surrounded by a network of paths all gilt with fallen leaves.  We got "lost," unsurprisingly, not that I was worried about it.  Not that either of us was particularly worried about it.  Mostly it was just gorgeous, and peaceful, and so so refreshing.

I do think that my eyeballs have been mildly sunburned this weekend, but I'm really not complaining.

I also walked barefoot.  Outside.  In January.

Wonderful.

I love Sundays.

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

Q&A

Please believe me when I say that I am at least as concerned as you are by the increasing number of my posts lately that start out: “I’m sorry I haven’t written in 4/5/6/7 days, but…”

Then again, maybe I’m not that concerned.  Keep in mind always Tolstoy and the Writer’s Dilemma: How To Live Life and Also Write About It.  And I can assure you, the reason I haven’t written in 5 days (or responded to a growing stack of letters and emails in much longer than 5 days) is because I have been living pretty fast & furious.

Here is what astounds me about this: 2 or 3 months ago, my life consisted of working two jobs, sleeping through church, working out a few days a week and blogging on the days I didn’t.  Every now and then I would take a weekend off and drive north to visit my people.  Far-flung friends would text, call, email and Facebook me to ask how I so successfully found work; how I meet people; how I deal with homesickness or physical sickness or heartsickness, or with a painful breakup.  And I have by and large felt highly unqualified to answer these questions: I found my job on Craigslist in a flash of luck.  I don’t actually know anyone yet in the state of Delaware.  If you learn the secret to getting over a breakup, or if you find a way to teleport to where my besties are, please let me know.

But suddenly on Sunday I found myself at Buffalo Wild Wings, surrounded by Ravens fans, drinking beer with two people I met at two separate networking events, some people I met through them, and an ex-suitemate from college, talking about Southern accents and speeding tickets and planning a Super Bowl party, of all things.

Life is very, very strange, but very good.

Here are a few reasons why:

Anna Linn, my TMI Pod protege, flew up from Nashville this weekend to hang out in my new life.  We haven't seen each other since May, which was MORE THAN 6 months ago!  Also, she is newly 21.  This combination of factors means only good things, as we all know.

When we first planned this weekend, months ago, I had planned on taking the weekend off from hostessing so I would be able to spend the whole weekend with my guest.  The way things started rolling in 2012, though, I had to quit at the restaurant so that the end of my 2 weeks fell right on this weekend.  I couldn't very well ask for my last 2 days off, so I decided to just man up and apologize profusely for leaving A.L. on her lonesome.

On top of that, Maria was going to have an audition in D.C. this weekend, so I would have to take Grampi to the airport before Saturday morning while our parents took her to Washington.

Around 1am on Saturday morning, though, it started snowing.  Everyone was ready for it; but by morning the entire area was covered in a couple of layers of snow, all sealed in with a fifth of an inch of ice.  Pleasant.

This Major Winter Weather Event dissuaded my mom from driving over the mountains to D.C., which meant she, my dad, and the van were available to drop Grampi off at PHL.  This turned out to be a massive windfall, because when they finally made it to the airport there was a huge fiasco involving Grampi not being registered on any flights until the next morning, among other things.  I don't have a lot of patience for this kind of fiasco, especially at 6:00 on Saturday morning (after not hitting the minimum recommended hours of sleep once in the past week).  Saved by the Hielo*, I guess.

Translator's Note: "Hielo" is the Spanish word for ice.  It's just a little closer to rhyming with "bell," which brings me a little bit closer to some terrible wordplay.


So Grampi is cleared out of our place now, and en route to his new abode in Cumbayá, Ecuador, via my cousin Andrew's wedding (!!) and a few other events in Cali and Florida.

So A.L. and I slept in, and then drove some errands.  The Golf weighs about 4 pounds and therefore didn't want to stick to the road.  To make matters worse, I had forgotten to park at the top of the driveway in anticipation of the impending dump and it took a heavy foot and a careful hand to make it to the road.  Which, not being one of the 7 highways that triangulate my position in this state at any given time, was not plowed or salted.  This made for several days of delightful driving.  (The second, third, fourth, or fifth spring of the year melted the ice trap this morning with a 50-degree January day.  ...what?)

Anyway, around 2 o'clock my manager called and said there had been so few tables in all day that I could stay home that evening.  What a way to go.  Typical, really.

So I spent the afternoon whacking my driveway with an ice pick so my dad and Anna Linn could shovel our ice luge of a driveway so Mutti could cover the whole thing in kitty litter.

We stayed in on Saturday night.

Also, I visited my first-ever IHOP on Friday night.  Obliterating that bucket list, baby.  What up.  Mostly it reminded me of all my weird late-night excursions to Perkins in Northfield and Owatonna, but without the raspberry muffins and Natalie Merchant.

So.  How do you find a job?  Apply.  Search and apply to as many jobs as you can possibly find, and try a few different industries.

Where do you meet people?  Networking events.  Open mics.  Twitter.  Church.  Your favorite coffee shop (or Japanese restaurant).  Bars and gyms tend to be superficial as a general rule -- but we all know how I feel about rules:

So use your own best judgment.  I've got a team working tirelessly on this question day and night (that's getting more and more literal by the day) so I'm sure the list will grow.  Don't lose hope, dear readers.

How do you deal with homesickness, heartsickness, or a really nasty breakup?  Cry.  Watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall for the billion-and-1th time.  Get too drunk at least one or two times and probably send an ill-advised message or two.  Become a compulsive texter/Facebook wall-poster/Tweeter. Blog obsessively until things get better.

Because they will.  In all honesty, I left some things out of that last list, like find someone to hold you accountable.  Even if that person is 1000 miles away (totally hypothetical), somebody loves you and misses you.  It's like a New Year's Resolution -- mine, as a refresher, is to express my appreciation and admiration more often.  So I semi-accidentally stumbled upon someone who will come right out and say, "I think you just complimented me under your breath, but I didn't really hear it...  I think you said I'm sweet?"  And a few people who prod me, explicitly or with a pointed look, to graciously accept a compliment or praise.

I don't have The Answers.  I perhaps have some, but they are far from watertight.  I'm afraid to say I'm getting closer to the real deal, but it feels like a lie to say I'm getting farther from it.  So we'll just leave it at that for now.  I'll enjoy myself and probably come back with an existential dilemma or an ocean of tears in 5 days or so.

a rare musical love affair

One question I dread when I'm getting to know somebody new is the "what kind of music do you like" question, or more specifically "name 5 bands you listen to the most."  (Thanks, Steve.)

I then complain that I can't listen to the same artist for the length of an entire CD.  In fact, I'm far more likely to play the same song on repeat 12 times than listen to a 12-track album all in one pop.  Weird, I know.  But I get very irritated with most artists by about track 04.

With a few exceptions: Simon & Garfunkel, Bruno Mars, Norah Jones, Natalie Merchant, and Train.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.  Go ahead, laugh.  I have no shame.

Anyway, part of the reason I'm thinking about this is because Train recently released a new single, which has been plastered all over my Spotify homepage for at least a week now, and for some reason it took me a long time to listen to it...  But I did, and it's pretty much all I've been listening to for the past 4 days...  Interspersed occasionally with the rest of the discography.  I'm smitten.  Here's the new song:

I would like to point out to all the haters that Train has been cranking out hits since 1998.  That is quite a long pop career.  Or alternative, or whatever they do.  I struggle with genres almost as much as I do with artists.  Plus, somebody pointed out to me yesterday that they've also written music for other people, which is cool.

Now don't worry, because this is more than just my global profession of love for Train (which may very well be stricken from the web, anyway, if SOPA and PIPA all that were to ever go through).  (Also, I have to admit that I'm struggling to take these campaigns seriously since in Spanish sopa means soup and pipa is a pipe.  It trips me up every time, and I never immediately think "oh, internet privacy!"  Despite the fact that this has been going on for quite some time.)

Yes, this post is more than just a profession of love for Train.  It is also my brief, ditzy contribution to the current political uprising.  And it is also about to become a musical deconstruction.

You might have noticed that Train's video features all the lyrics to the song, and you might also have noticed that a few of the lines don't quite make sense.  I'm not too worried about it, though, because life doesn't make sense and love doesn't make sense and even lust doesn't really make sense.  I'd say that's part of the point, is it's irrational, and if you try to organize it too much then it all goes out the window.  I tried to come up with an illustration for how the beauty gets sucked right out, but I couldn't think of anything non-beautiful enough to do the comparison justice.  Nothing bland enough to represent a life so structured and analyzed that there is no room to actually live it.  Nothing hopeless enough.

The title line of the song strikes me, though: This is not a drive by.

There is a low-key commitment in this statement, an awe-inspiring resonance.  I have been here, in this same house, this same tfoL, this same job, 4 months now.  Going on 5.  This is not a drive-by.  I'm not going to pack my car one of these days and split, like I have in the past.  I don't want to.  I want to break that habit.  Desperately.  And in the same vein, I would love to not be the bystander in a drive-by anytime soon.

It's the simplicity of the image, it's not straight up, "I'm never going to leave."  It's more of an, "I've parked my car and turned it off for the night and that's what matters."  The promise exists in a state of extended present, in the current moment that stretches on indefinitely into the future.  Refreshing.  Tantalizing.

And admittedly catchy.

This is the cherry on top I can't ever pass up.  Not that I am inclined to pass up any cherry, really, maraschino, bing or otherwise.  But if it catches my tongue I'm done for.

cover art

I was browsing the stacks at Barnes & Noble a couple of weeks ago, pulling out a book here or there to look at more closely.  Now, we all know how much I love metaphors, and I wish I intended to use this image as set-up for some profound revelation.  But, perhaps also in line with some literary affection, I am going to stick to a skin-deep, felt-up cliche.

And now, as the Great Professor Williamson so wisely suggests, I will stop telling you what I am going to do and just do it.

The thought that came to me suddenly in a fit of passion was the proverbial warning: Thou shalt not judge a book by its cover.

In all honesty, I have no passion for this proverb.

Not true.  (I lied to myself before, unintentionally.  I never intend to mislead you, dear readers.)  I do have passion for this proverb.  But in no universe would I hold it as any realistic standard.  Because, come on, what else are we supposed to judge a book on, but its cover?  A decent number of people are paid a decent living to create book covers that consumers will judge favorably enough to pick up, and exchange cash (or the theoretical equivalent), and take home.  And then the really good covers will be spotted casually perched upon a coffee table by the consumer's friends, who will say, "Well doesn't that look interesting," and the friends will go out to their preferred book vendor in search of a copy all their own.

I know what you're thinking: "Clara, for someone who professes such great love for metaphor, you have altogether missed the point!"  So, I will humor you and take this into the real world (because who really reads anymore, anyway?  Raise your hand if you just collect e-books on your Kindle).

The number of people who are paid an [in]decent living to create metaphorical book covers that fall favorably upon consumers of all types of goods is even greater than the literal cover designers.  And even those of us who are not paid to create an appealing product strive to create an appealing product every day.

Believe me, I commoditize self-presentation here with the utmost critical respect.  I am the Queen of Internal Battles Over Self-Presentation, that is, I care altogether too much what people think.  Or I strive simultaneously to blend in and to be unforgettable.  Anyone would tell you that this level of contradiction can only portend failure on all counts.  But I understand how important it can be to appear a certain way, to conduct oneself in a certain way, and oftentimes it is beneficial to follow the rules to get what I want.  On the other hand, one who only roams within the parameters of the game can only ever hope to achieve the average payoff of the game.  (Here comes my inner economist.  Quick, out the side door!)

The side door being, in this case, a brief foray into creepiness.  Senior year of high school the guys I hung out with had read whatever it was that talked about having a "woman-suit," and their way of processing this misogyny was to make fun of it -- ironically at the expense of their female friends.  I won't go into details, but today the word popped into my head under a totally different connotation, in a liquor store, of all places.

I stopped in to pick up a 6-pack of beer because I'm almost out, and because we were having company for dinner tonight and I thought it might be good to have some beer around just in case our guest wanted some.  I learned long ago that the best way to avoid questions is a confident sense of direction (which in my case is usually a complete facade) so I walked in, greeted the proprietors, and made a beeline for the beer cooler.

I set my choice on the counter with a smile, and the clerk snapped, "ID!"  Still smiling, I pulled it out with no particular urgency, so the two of them (husband and wife, a pleasant-looking Indian couple) could pore over it in search of my DOB, inspect my face for lies and wrinkles, and tilt the license to see the watermarks.  Finally, finding nothing to suggest I was duping them, the man handed the card back and with those eternally unnerving green Indian eyes, smiled weakly and apologetically.  "You look very young, ma'am."

I laughed.  "I know.  Everyone says that."  This is true.  People are constantly failing to hide their surprise when I tell them that Maria and Asha are 4 and 6 years younger than me, respectively.  They look less shocked if they happen to run into me in my work clothes.  I try to make them feel less awkward by joking that I can only hope I still look young when I'm 40, 50, and so on, but I doubt if any of them ever fully believes that I'm not 17.  The other day I was exchanging ages with someone and his response to my youth was, "You look young, but you act much older.  Women are like that, though."

I of course gave him a hard time for implying that I am just another average woman, and he weaseled out of the chokehold with a very meta rendition of the "unique-snowflake-just-like-everybody-else" joke.  And since I love meta at least as much as I love metaphors, I let it slide.

So all of these instances, far from making me feel insecure about my green-dom, have done more to force me to wear in my "woman-suit" of sorts.  I am learning to carry myself more like a woman, less like a college girl.  More importantly, I am learning how to navigate my own personal carriage without wobbling, faltering, or turning over in a ditch.  Knock on wood -- because we all know that overconfident drivers are at greater risk of accidents.  (Don't quote me on that, though.  It's mostly circumstantial.)

This is progress, and I am starting to feel more comfortable than ever in my very own skin.  How very refreshing.  (Also in my very own family...  But that is perhaps a story for another day.)

OK, not a story for another day.  I'm just going to say yet again that I love them, and I could not be happier to be spending this time with them.  This afternoon my sisters and I and our dinner guest laughed so hard for so many hours that Maria's and my throats hurt by the end of the evening.  Good times.  Remember what I said about how crucial hilarity is...

Now, speaking of being of legal drinking age, and being comfortable in my own skin, and laughing a lot, and judging books by their covers, for that matter...  I am coming to terms with my indecisiveness surrounding beer lists.  I have a few "favorite" beers (New Glarus Totally Naked, Old Dominion Oak Barrel Stout, Mudpuppy something-or-other -- if only on Wisconsin mornings) but I don't really do the go-to thing.  Maybe I just haven't found it yet, but I like to try new things.  I like to judge a new beer by its label, or by its name, more like.  I like to weigh reputation, context, recommendation, and creativity of presentation, and then top it off with a flourish of impulse, and get something I sometimes can't even pronounce.

Saturday night at the Homegrown I further solidified my unexpected growing infatuation with interesting stouts, by haphazardly ordering a bottle of North Coast Brewing Co.'s Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout.  My companion fortunately warned me of its high (9%) alcohol content and predicted that it might be too heavy for me, but I actually really liked it.  Partially because of the creepy picture of the creepy dude on the bottle, partially because I actually love that deep stout color, partially because it was full and good.  This stout wasn't very bitter, and I found it warm and almost sweet.  A very pleasant drinking experience.

We left after just one, though, because I had to drive home before the cows beat me to it, and walked around the UD campus a little.  It was really cold, but I love campus greens (the quad, to all ye Oles) and clear skies at night between those classic buildings pillared and painted for academia.  Also, the green was still strangely green, even in the dark, and even in January.  It was a lovely night.

The beer I chose today was from Dogfish Head, a Delaware brewing company located down in Dover.  Their big thing is pale ale, at least that's the impression I get, and that might be a seasonal technicality.  Whatever the case, their motto is "off-centered stuff for off-centered people," and most of what I've tasted from them makes me want to err on the side of normal and centered.  But, I really want to like some of these beers since they are local.  (Oh no, here comes my hipster ego!  Quick, out the side door!)

So, I'm still trying.  I chose a mahogany ale because I love the color and concept of mahogany, and because the brew is called Raison D'Etre.  Too good.  Dogfish Head caps come in a gorgeous golden-bronzey color, with a sharky fish silhouette, so this is also exciting.  It should provide fodder for some jewelry for my beer-loving 'Sconnie mates.  As for the drink itself, it looked beautiful in my clear-bottomed mug, swirling with foam and those mahogany tones I like to see in people's eyes.  It was a bit too heavy for my tastes, and Maria commented on its strong winey smell.  But I enjoyed it well enough.  I might have to invite a friend or two over to help me finish it, and I really need to hold myself to the task of not buying 6-packs of ale.

Every day I learn something new, and while covers and labels and titles are there to help us navigate our lives, I do need to remember that sometimes the best books come in an understated cover; sometimes, they come highly recommended but you would have never picked them up on your own.  The best beers taste even better when you have someone to share them with, and some beers just taste bad regardless.  I don't have to like all of them.  The best me, though, likes myself and doesn't drive into a ditch.  She holds her carriage steady and walks around the green while the tipsy wears off.  She arrives home safely and sleeps comfortably knowing that, when it comes down to it, there is nothing worth worrying so hard about that time stops.

healthcare

I’ve been in college.  I’ve been insuranceless.  In the past few years I’ve visited the campus health center a few times, particularly in the midst of my General Unwellness of 2009, until I realized it was holistically unhelpful.  Other than that, I’ve pretty well stayed on the personal side of healthcare.

But then my dad got back his insurance plan from work, and I graduated college, and I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start off my adult life in verified good health.

Now, my Grandfather the Missionary Doctor has bestowed a good bit of medical wisdom upon me over the years.

Our version of Norman Rockwell's Doctor and Doll

Once, I called him from the bathroom floor of a Quito hotel room, undoubtedly facing my death at the hand of some Amazonian parasite.  I was delirious from fever and, as I said, propped somewhere between the tub and the toilet.  I choked an account of my symptoms into the phone, and in a slow, even tone he told me to sleep, and call him back in two hours, at 1am, with a status update.  “Our bodies are pretty well designed to take care of themselves,” he said, “but sometimes they just need a little help.”

And so I slept.

Lo and behold, by 1am I no longer felt as though my brain was the 10^th tier of the Inferno, and could keep enough crackers and water in my system to give me hope that I might actually see the morning.  When the sun came up that day I felt the Pit of 2009 bottom out and start the upward climb toward sea level.

At least a year before that, Grampi, M.D., was telling me some of his (incredible) field stories.  I won’t share the stories right now, but one thing he said has stuck with me ever since: “You know, people in a lot of parts of the world never know what it is to feel good, they never know what it feels like to be in good health.”

I understand what he was getting at, but as I get older I’m starting to think that most people don’t feel good most of the time.  At least, I usually have at least one minor ailment on my radar at any given time, and I consider myself a relatively happy, healthy person.

That being said, I went to the doctor 2 months or so ago with a short list of questions about mildly annoying but not incredibly worrying issues, and emphasized that I’d really like to avoid taking any medications if I could help it.  I just wanted to make sure I didn’t need to be particularly concerned about anything.

So, the doctor checked my ears, throat, height and weight, asked me a few questions and prescribed me a month of allergy meds and an antibiotic, “just in case” my symptoms were indicative of a bacterial sinus infection.  (She also mentioned that a lot of patients were appearing with sinus infections, but that unfortunately most of them were viral.)

There’s something wrong with this situation.

Somebody, please, show me a doctor who will talk to me honestly about my health, and more importantly about my life.

If this mythical doctor could manage his or her accounts efficiently and transparently, that would be a major selling point as well.  Because, to add insult to injury, I’ve received a bill for every appointment with pre-approved physicians, informing me that my visit was not covered by my insurance and demanding that I pay in full.  Several hundred dollars a pop.  For someone who doesn’t give a shit about me to write two pointless prescriptions I never planned to fill, and take my (eternally normal) blood pressure.

Although I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s nearing dangerous levels as I write.

Fortunately I have had some excellent customer service fix the billing issues and charge me only one-third to half of the original rate.  So that’s… positive?

I could wax political about the state of “healthcare” in our country/world.  I could rant about the inefficiency and unfairness of the billing system, about the moral erosion of health insurance under force of market competition, or about the myriad frustrations and limitations of healthcare and medicine.  I could go on for years (and in fact I have, to various audiences) about how overmedicated our society has become, about cultural hypochondria, about our skewed modern perception of health and illness, about pathological epidemiology and epidemic pathology.

But I’ll direct you instead to a great article that calls Americans “anxious wimps,” and move on to a more interesting/constructive discussion of health.  (I have a South American uncle who once laughed at me for freaking out about an obviously cancerous spot on my toe and said, “You North Americans worry so much.”

Point taken.)

And true to form, I’ll finish with my personal outlook on healthcare.  Aside from the fact that I need to get my wisdom teeth out, and the unfortunate side effects of missing a few days of work, taking medications, and shelling out a couple hundred for a procedure that doesn’t even pretend to be covered by insurance, I’ve basically decided to avoid most medical professionals for awhile. (Excepting gynecologists – for some reason I’ve had overwhelmingly positive experiences with that particular branch of medicine.  At least with the specialists.  Again, won’t speak for campus health services.)  The dilemma I’m faced with then is that I forsake the opportunity to build a relationship with any particular healthcare practitioner, but I’m mostly too disgusted to be interested in that right now anyway.  And then, if an emergency happens and suddenly some biomedics are saving my life, can I in good conscience accept their help having publicly shunned the profession?

So maybe I’ll hold healthcare at arm’s length and focus on self-care.  (Ha, ha!)  I’ve substituted long-distance phone calls, blogging, and journaling for my monthly chats with a personal counselor back at good ole Boe House.  I’m creating a lifestyle.  Lifestyle goals: Boost my immune system.  Be physically fit.  Foster healthy relationships.  Nurture my spiritual side.  Like myself.  Breathe.  Laugh.  Feel good.

prayer for presence

Dear readers, I'm sorry to have left you so long!  I've spent the past few days battling a cold and feeling like my brain was slowly leaking out through my face.  This unfortunate circumstance, not randomly correlated with the recent cold spell, reminded me of my main vendetta against winter.

That is to say, it was no strange coincidence that this illness took me down right when everybody sealed the windows and doors and cranked up the heat against the cold.  Yes, it's the fake, stuffy, stale air that hits my immune system the hardest.

I extend this immunology to all aspects of my good life and health: As much as I seek security and constancy in my life, in the deepest recesses of my soul there lives a wild child who is terrified of falling into a rut, terrified of being straitjacketed or inflexibly contained within any building, relationship, religion, or situation in general.  Back in high school my friends and I dubbed it "commitmentphobia," layman's terms for "Type II Claustrophobia."  I've spent a lot of time and energy since then targeting this debilitating condition in search of a cure.  Since then I've gotten a lot better at not turning tail when a relationship threatens to get serious (although I have perhaps strayed too far in the opposite direction on one or two occasions) and I've gotten a lot better at getting comfortable in a new place, even if that place is a suitcase.  I've gotten a lot better at investing in people and places and decisions.  This fear probably originated from an ingrained belief that no situation is permanent, that everything will at some point be ripped out from under my feet and I will again be saddled with a new earthquake relief project like the one from which I was born.  (Ecuador: March 5, 1987.)

But I contradict myself: I hate change, but I'm afraid of things that stay the same; I seek stability, and yet I seek to shake things up.  Such is life.

On the plus side, this whole brain-leaking-out-of-my-face thing has really put things in perspective.  I'm changing some things about my life.  For example, I've officially pulled out my winter coat so I can be more comfortable walking around outside, during my lunch break, or whenever, to make sure I get some kind of fresh air quota.  Focusing on bolstering my immune system with good food and good exercise.  Air-tightened the door where most of the cold air was seeping into my room.  Washed all my sheets last night.  I love a fresh bed.

I feel refreshed, too, from spending an entire weekend sleeping, drinking honey tea and watching bad movies like Blue Crush 2 -- guilt-free!  Because there are no classics I didn't read and no papers I didn't write as a result of staying on this side of the River Styx.  What I'm trying to say is, getting sick as a student SUCKS because there are constantly 7,000,000 things you have due on Monday that you either have time to survive your illness, or you have time to pass your classes.  Not both.  Now that I'm an adult, I can be sick all weekend without dooming myself to academic mediocrity.

So.  I face the upcoming week with gumption.

Today I finally pulled together the young adults group I've been trying to orchestrate at church since I got here.  I mean, the group I started to organize a long time ago and promptly left to wallow.  But after today's meeting, I am optimistic about the future of this group, and perhaps more importantly I see that there is a need for it.  This is the kind of project that can foster really deep, significant friendships, and I'm looking forward to working on it.

Speaking of friends, I have quite a few plans floating around in the air with different people, to the point that my weekly schedule is muddled full of social obligations/opportunities.  When is the last time this happened?  Senior week?  Ha.  We all know I like it that way.  Before long I will know enough people in this state, and know them well enough, to play host.  This is my happiest state of being.  There are so many things I want to do and so many projects I want to pour my energy into, so many things to learn and things to see and people to meet and spend time with.

Let me not get ahead of myself.  Let me remind myself that I am not yet fully recovered and that I still need time to rest.  Let me remember to breathe.  Let me smile, and laugh.  Let me do the things I need to do and do them well, but allow me flexibility to take a new turn, a new opportunity, to try something unprecedented and potentially wonderful.  Let me enjoy each activity, each person, each moment, for what it is.

This is my prayer for presence.

a series of reviews

OK, it's officially cold.  I've enjoyed rocking my leather jacket straight into the new year, but after shivering visibly and audibly for at least one full day, I gave in and switched to the black cherry fleece-lined coat I begged for last year.  A word to any future professionals out there: When investing in clothes, outerwear, and footwear, go for black, sleek and simple.  It should transition smoothly among whatever personas you might need to have over the item's lifespan.

Or maybe I'm the only one who compartmentalizes.

This sudden temperature change also means that my basement tfoL is FREEZING.  Granpa told me back in November that I would need some insulation down there, but it wasn't cold enough yet for me to flag it as a priority.  So it stayed as-is.  And now I'm regretting it.  I might have to go back to wearing hats when I sleep, because I think my sinuses froze overnight.  It is bitter.

I could go for a little snow, and I could stand if it stuck for a few days.  It would be romantic.

Speaking of -- kind of -- not really -- I have not been doing my blogger duty in the venue-review vein.  So here it goes.

Ann eating honey stix
outside the farmer's market

Today I took my frigid, frigid lunch break at the Back Burner To Go, right around the corner from the office.  I go there for the pumpkin-mushroom soup, which is delicious although I'm suspecting I might be mildly allergic to it.  I also go there for the accents: It's a haunt for the local Hockessin stay-at-home ladies with foreign accents and sometimes cute foreign babies.  They talk about books and vacations and, at least, today, my soup.  This afternoon I also found honey stix there, something Ann and I have been hunting fiendishly since Day One in Sunny V.

Review #2 is overdue.  On Saturday morning I went to the Perfect Cup looking for a simple breakfast sandwich, but when I saw sweet potato pancakes (with walnuts) on the menu I didn't really have a choice.  De-lish!  Especially since I love all things sweet potato: Fries, fried, baked, mashed, mashed and baked, scalloped, smothered in other delicious things like black beans and salsa and cheddar cheese...  You name it.  Pancakes was a new one for me though.  Also, the vibe was so perfect for a Saturday morning: Bustling, buzzing, pleasant.

I had brought my book (Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore) and sat at the wall right next to the door, scoping like I do.  Then this ADORABLE curly-headed baby and her family set up shop right next door.  She was VERY friendly and her dad put his full attention to trying, sheepishly and unsuccessfully, to distract her from distracting me from my (obviously very private) moment.  But I smiled as she waved her own palm-sized board book at me, and assured her that I was reading too.  Dad leaned over his baby girl, still looking nervous, and said, "See, she has her grown-up book and you have your baby book!  See?"

My GROWN-UP BOOK.  I'm old.  Little kids point up at me and say, "Mommy, why is that lady so tall!"  Or whatever little kids say about ladies.

Speaking of my "grown-up book," I am not typically into vampires, despite the fact that Bram Stoker's classic was maybe the only book I enjoyed reading in 12th grade English.  And I did get a kick out of Twilight & Co., at least until the movie came out.  (A horrible-awful piece of cinema.)  But I really did enjoy Bloodsucking Fiends.  It was fun, and funny of course, but what I really liked about it was Christopher Moore's intricate attention to detail, his careful study of human interactions, motivations, and relationships.  Leave it to me to pull that out of a comedic vampire novel with a lime green cover.  Leave it to me to like it for its realism.  Of all things.

It's the first in a trio, the second installment of which (entitled You Suck) I now have in my possession.  But I've already started reading Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead.  A delightful title, I know, but the introduction framed it as a scholarly report, an ethnography, if you will, about the Vikings.  Like a dark, undead version of St. Olaf.  I'm kind of excited about it.

Go ahead.  Call me a nerd.  I'll own it.

On a totally different note, I just got home from work and we now have a cat.

She found the warm spot between the couch and the radiator. Smart Stellaluna.

cheers to a year free of wild goose chases

Well, happy new year!  Welcome to 2012!  It is everything I hoped it would be, so far.

Let's compare.

Last week, to top off my recent series of shenanigans a.k.a. 2011, I managed to slice my poor little pinky finger with a butter knife.  Thank you, frozen cinnamon raisin bagel.  On the plus side, now I see the reason in butter knives not being allowed past airport security.

And I decided that I'd like to start the new year with a clean shiny car.  So, fittingly, December 31st turned into the King of 2011 Wild Goose Chases: the Great Car Wash Expedition.

Let me first illustrate the situation here.  I have not washed my car since I got it.  It has dust from at least twelve states on it, plus the cave drawings certain people used to make it look prettier through the grime.  It also has several different varieties of bird poop, mud splatters, dead bugs (on the inside and outside), and toe prints on the passenger's side windshield left over from the Sunny V - DE road trip this summer.  I finally gave in and realized I couldn't put it off any longer when I noticed flies congregating on the car after work on Friday.

Yeah, gross.

Now, the last time I was even inside a car wash was Christmas break of 2008.  The reason?  The only 3 places open in Amsterdam after 10pm (at least for the under-21 crowd) are Price Chopper, FasTrac, and the automated car wash.

It wasn't because Kat's car was particularly dirty.  We were just bored.

We looked online for nearby car washes, and found that one of the nation's top 50 car washes is only a few miles from our house.  Imagine if your job was to scope out the best car washes in the U.S.  I can't believe this list exists.  Of course I had to check it out, so I convinced my sibs to ride along with me in exchange for sparkling apple cider and we went in search of the famous Prices Corner Car Wash.

We passed one car wash in Prices Corner, but it wasn't THE car wash.  Then we passed the real deal, but it was on the other side of the highway, so I had to pull a U-ie and pass another car wash to get to it.  Then I got in line, a long, long line...  And couldn't read the sign until we were boxed in on both sides.  The basic car wash was $14.  No way, José.  I threw my dirty Golf in reverse and hightailed it out the back way.

...Still grimy.  We headed down toward a gas station on the corner of Limestone Boulevard where you get 20 cents off per gallon if you get a car wash with it, but went through the car wash first (apparently that's not how it works).  I drove forward with the green light and stopped when it turned red, and in turn the car wash soap-soaked the front half of my car.  Then nothing happened, except a couple of tiny tubes trickling water on my front windows.

...And nothing continued to happen until after a few minutes the green light flashed again, ushering me out.  Guess how much cleaner my car was?  Not.  Only now it was streaked with dirty soap, or rather, soapy dirt.

So I parked and tried to figure out what was going on, and formulated my speech asking for help from the gas station attendants.  Who were totally trying not to laugh when I explained the situation, especially since there wasn't much to explain except, "I think I messed up the automatic car wash...  By the way how do I get that discount on my gas?"

So they refunded my $6 in the form of a free car wash, and I bought gas with the discount, and then the pump I'd chosen refused to print up my receipt with my "free" car wash code.  We tried again.  Watched the car in front of us very carefully, and did everything the same.

Double soapy scum, no rinse.  Not even a drip on the back half of the car.

Same result the third time, even though I followed directions better than I have since middle school.  I gave up, and forfeited my $12 as reparation for all the car washes I will never again try to get at that horrible place.

It was not my fault.

Fortunately, the whole thing was audio- and video-recorded (all three times) so I hope someone gets a good laugh out of it.

To keep a long story from getting too much longer, I decided to wash my own car at home on December 31st.  Thank you, global warming.

Come to find out, we don't have a garden hose...  Nor do we have car soap, and the biggest sponge we own sits in a seashell on the kitchen sink.  So I washed my car with old T-shirts soaked in tea tree castille soap, and my sister's help.

Bizz III is now clean and shiny, just like 2012.  And I guess that's probably a more green way to get her clean anyway.

I've managed to keep from slicing myself with any butter knives so far this year, and I haven't had to work at all yet.  (Hopefully that will be the first thing to change.)  Plus, I challenged Craig's farthest champagne cork pop.  A proud moment, documented in the morning by the former champ himself (see photo).


New Year's Eve was a lot of fun, even though I did not send my resolutions up in smoke this year.  There was plenty of snapping (the quick and silent substitute for "that's what she said" in mixed company, in case you want to adopt it in your classes and workplaces worldwide) and even more laughing, and an unknown amount of pomegranate tequila (absolutely delicious, in case you were wondering).  Apparently I am the unlucky team member in a game of pool, so be warned.  However, I'm not bad at air hockey...

Craig has a lot of tools, which is exciting.  My favorite was a welding mask, which he let me wear for a few minutes because it made me feel like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance (a la this video at about 1:00).  I love tool chests.  You never know exactly what combination of things will be in their drawers, but whatever it is it's always useful.  I love useful things, and I love the cool stuff that tools in particular can make happen.

That being said, I did not manage to finish my cedar chest before year end as I had hoped.  I opened it up and found that the inside lip is covered with layers and layers of paint just like the rest of it -- I thought I was done with that.  Unfortunate.

I'm not feeling particularly refreshed for the year, but hopeful?  Definitely.  I'm excited to get to know the people I shared the opening moments of the new year with, and I'm excited to get to know new people as well.  I'm excited to learn more things and read more books and taste more beers.  I'm excited to visit people and host visitors, the first planned guest of the new year being Anna Linn a few weekends from now!  I'm excited to stay in touch with far-flung friends and watch all my classmates find new opportunities and passions and whatever else we find this year.  Hopefully all good things!  I'm excited to listen to new music, watch new movies, to write new poetry and maybe even a novel, this year, and, of course, more blog entries.  It's been over half a year now since we graduated, and look how much has happened since then!

I'm not gonna lie, I would be OK if the world didn't end on December 21.  I could go for a lot more years like the ones I've had so far -- with a few minor tweaks.  Here's hoping.

Cheers.