What the Muddy Water Means

Old vs. New, Chapter 1: The Kindle

2011-03-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

I have owned a Kindle for a little over 3 months. As someone who has had a longtime addiction to books, I wasn't sure how I would take to the device. Surprisingly (or not?), I've discovered I'm a fan.

Reason #1: Reading on the Kindle feels like reading anything else, and I love reading. (I also love stating the obvious.) Admittedly, the Kindle is a little harder to prop up on my knees when I'm reading in bed, but a pillow does the trick, and I find myself quickly absorbed in the story and no longer aware that the text I'm taking in is not on an actual page.

Reason #2: Holding the Kindle in my hand feels like walking into a good bookstore. What I mean is that there's a moment of excitement when I first enter a bookstore that goes something like this in my head: "oh wow, oh wow, there are so many books here . . . and i could get any of them . . . any of them could end up being mine . . . oh wow, oh wow" The Kindle lets me carry that moment in my purse; having thousands of tomes constantly at your fingertips is awesome.

So how has my passion for old-fashioned book collecting fared now that I've been converted to the ranks of e-readers (yes, that was an intentional re-purposing of that word)? Well, a quick analysis of my bank account reveals that paper volumes are still a very active line item on the budget: since acquiring the Kindle I have spent approximately twice as much money on physical books as I have on Kindle downloads. (No, I won't tell you exactly how much that is -- even I know when something goes from mildly self-incriminating to flat out embarrassing.)

It seems the Kindle is fueling the book fire rather than curtailing it. Why choose between the old and the new, the actual and the virtual, when I can have both, when -- oh wow, oh wow! -- any of them could be mine?

Two Years Later: A Running Update

2011-03-13T23:30:00.000-07:00

Two years ago I posted about training for a 10k. Two weeks ago, I finally ran one.

This is not exactly the training plan I had anticipated, so it feels good to have finally done it. Another thing that (surprisingly) feels good is the running itself. While I do still have runs when (as I described in that initial post) every step is a battle and I believe that going for 10 more seconds might kill me, I also have runs (like today's, for example) that feel great, enjoyable even. Before I liked having just run; now I'm learning to like running.

Here are a couple other things I've learned in my "0 to 10k in 2 years" journey:

1. Slow and steady wins (or at least finishes) the race.
I've never exactly been a speedy runner, but my personality, if not my legs, tends towards the hare more than the tortoise. For a long time, there was something in me that kept pushing too hard, that felt like I was somehow cheating if I wasn't going as fast as I could. My lungs did not appreciate this approach and often felt like they were on the verge of liquefying inside my ribcage. When I finally let myself slow down, and I mean, slow way down, I found my lungs to be much more cooperative, and I think my being able to actually enjoy running now is due in no small part to this fact. The ability to process oxygen will do that, I guess.

2. I will do it . . . eventually.
I remember saying this to my mother a lot when she would nag me as a child, for example, about cleaning my room. It was a true statement back then -- I might put cleaning my room off for a seeming eternity but I would eventually do it -- and it is a true statement now. I did eventually run the 10k I set out to. There were a fair number of false starts (not to mention full stops) along the way, and I would be lying if I said that the stop-and-go didn't frustrate me at times. But in life, unlike in racing, too many false starts don't disqualify you, and things worth doing, I think, are rarely accomplished on the first try.

As I'm typing, I don't mean these thoughts to be metaphors for so many other things in my life. Somehow I think they still are . . proof, I suppose, that running is still good for my soul.

Feel free to check back in a couple more years (or maybe just a couple months this time?) for an update on the half-marathon I'm now training for.

The Psychology of Sugar Cookies

2010-12-26T15:49:00.000-08:00

Last week my sister and I made and decorated sugar cookies. Here are the cookies I decorated:

And here are the ones my sister decorated:

Move over Myers & Briggs. I've discovered a new way to assess personality types.

2010-07-19T22:32:00.001-07:00

I found the following while digging through a box of old papers. It's a "poem" I wrote at age nine.

She opens the book
And starts to read
Going into another world
Of reading enjoyment,
Disappearing into the book
Where no one can find her,
Being immersed in the joy of
READING!

The continuity of my life sometimes amazes me.

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T23:00:00.000-07:00

Summer rolled in over my city today.
It caught me by surprise
As I stepped unsuspecting into its tiny drops of mist.
Although this is a day for remembering
I had forgotten this feeling
Of deep and dampened rest rooting in my bones,
Of dreadful joyous longing gnawing in my gut,
Of thick and hazy cold blanketing my shoulders,
Of spring-turned-summer's wetness condensing on my cheeks.
I walked through the twilit dawning of the season
Remembering these things I had forgotten.
I came to the spot where you and I talked that one winter night.
I am sure you must remember the one
On today of all days.
I looked out from there in all directions
Both forward and back.
My eyes made out nothing but the fog.

Old Lesson, New Perspective

2010-02-17T18:34:00.000-08:00

I recently had a conversation that I've known I needed to have for the past two years. As with most things like this that I put off, when I finally did the thing, it went much better than I had imagined it could. The obvious lesson in this is one that I've "learned" many times: anticipation of the things we dread is often far worse than the things themselves. Having come to this realization once again, it would be easy to come down on myself for continuing to put important things off -- why do I avoid what I know I should do when experience has shown me time and again that it's best in the long run to, in the words of Nike, just do it?

But there is another side to this lesson that I'm seeing for the first time, and this new perspective is keeping me from beating myself up too much for the two-year delay. For while it's true that fear was a big part of what kept me from engaging in this particular conversation for two years, I believe there was also something more benevolent at work in my dragging my heels. To be honest, if I had had this conversation when I first realized it needed to be had, I don't know that it would or could have gone nearly so well as it eventually did. Neither I, nor the other party involved, was in a place to have this conversation two years ago without causing more anger and hurt than necessitated it in the first place. Of course, I could be wrong about this, and perhaps I'm just finding a way to justify my dillydallying. There really is no way to know for sure, to know what would have been if . . . But I do know that in the past two years something happened in me -- or more likely, many things happened in me -- that made me both better equipped and more willing to have this particular conversation, which cannot be unrelated to how the conversation itself went.

This is an interesting thing to realize, especially given my penchant for being pretty hard core about pushing myself to confront the things that scare me. It seems that backing away is not always the same as backing down, and perhaps I need to let up in places where I would otherwise press in. I'm not sure. But I'm beginning to ponder what exactly it would look like to find a balance between confronting the challenging conversations in my life and allowing myself the time and space to be whole enough to step into the ring.

Learned Helplessness

2010-01-17T23:51:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about the phrase "learned helplessness" for literally eight months. A coworker first mentioned it on a business trip in reference to the over-dependence (in his opinion) on GPS so many drivers have developed. The phrase struck me as an intriguing one, and although his definition lends a fairly derogatory connotation, and while helplessness is generally viewed as a negative trait, my reflections have led me to an interesting place with this particular concept. Let me explain.

A number of people close to me have gone through some real shit in the past year. The details vary from person to person -- for some it was a death, for some the dissolution of a relationship, for some life in general seeming to fall apart -- but all involved hurt and sorrow that in the moment was completely devastating. And so I've found myself in conversation after conversation with someone whom I care about deeply, listening to their heartbreak, wanting desperately to provide some sort of comfort, some relief, some thing, any thing to help, and feeling at an utter loss as to how to do that. The best I could usually muster was a simple acknowledgment: This sucks, I'm so sorry you have to go through this. While I know this sentiment was appreciated, I'm not sure how "helpful" it actually was.

But the thing I'm realizing is, these situations are not about my being helpful. (These situations are not about me at all, really, but that's a different matter.) I'm learning that it's actually no help at all to come in with an action plan or even unflinching reassurance. Because, honestly, there isn't anything that any person can do to make these scenarios any less painful to the people going through them, and acting in a way that presumes otherwise seems naive at best and cruelly dismissive at worst.

So while it's hard to feel incapacitated and ineffectual in response to loved ones' reaching out -- and it is extremely hard to feel this way when you're someone who likes to find solutions, someone who's made a career, in fact, out of telling other people what to do -- I'm learning that the best and only help I can provide is to try to be present, to listen, to grieve a friend's loss as if it is my own, and to embrace my helpless role with the commitment to be there until we're both through to the other side where there is no more need for my "help". In short, in learning my own helplessness, I'm learning it is not the same as hopelessness.

2010-01-16T19:01:00.000-08:00

I got a haircut today, and the chitchat with my hair-guy (he's fabulous by the way, Jeffrey at Salon Baobao), after the requisite trip through pop culture and our mutual appreciation of Lady Gaga, turned to the topic of New Year's resolutions. He hadn't made any for 2010 but had in 2009 finally completed his 2008 resolution, which was a pretty impressive accomplishment. I feel like it's not my place to share the details of his undertaking, but what he told me inspired me to start taking care of some of the unfinished business in my life, even if the "deadlines" are passed.

Being the consummate procrastinator that I am, there are quite a few past-due items on the old to-do list. I've decided to start tackling them in an fairly easy place -- this blog. So over the next little while I'll be going back through old drafts and finally posting all the unfinished pieces I meant to write over the last several months.

Thanks, Jeffrey, for the cut and the inspiration.

2010-01-12T19:47:00.000-08:00

He told her he wanted to kiss the hell out of her. She wasn't sure there was any hell in her to begin with, but she let him try anyway. If there is a hell, she thought, I'd rather it be kissed out of me than otherwise removed. He laughed for three blocks when she told him that, which surprised her. After all, hell and kissing are both serious business, and really she wasn't that funny. He laughed all the more in response to that remark, at which point she gave up on talking and let him exorcise a few more sulfurous demons from her mouth. The absence of hell, she learned, tastes like spearmint gum.

2010-01-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

Had a poetry night with the Reimagine girls tonight. Mostly we read for each other from our favorites, but we also did a quick writing exercise: a poem inspired by one word, chosen by the person to your left. Great fun, with some impressive results from the group overall. Here's my bit:

Silk

I think first of soy milk
and then of "smooth as" and flowy dresses
and then of all the the other textural cliches.
And then I think of how it comes from worms,
ugly gray little things,
as a matter of fact.
I know because we used to raise them:
we fed them mulberry leaves from the front yard,
watched them spin gray cocoons,
and then gnaw their way,
transformed,
through the thread.
They lived a flightless seven days
as ugly gray little moths;
they mated,
and they laid their eggs,
ugly gray little dots we used to keep
in old shoebox lids.
We put them in the freezer
until spring came again
and there were fresh mulberry leaves
in the front yard.

I remember also
the story of a Chinese princess
who smuggled worms hidden in her hair:
I think of how she carried beauty,
disguised as ugly gray little things,
in those silky tresses.
And I think of the promise
of ugly gray little things
stored in my childhood freezer.

Going the Distance Part 2

2009-04-12T00:25:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter!

I made it.

Not perfectly by any means.

But I made it.

Going the Distance

2009-04-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

This is me after running 4 miles to the beach with my friend Jeff. It was by far the longest distance I have yet to cover, and it was surprisingly not nearly as hard as I anticipated. Perhaps expecting all-out torture diminished the actual rigor, or perhaps the time I've put in on intervals and shorter runs is paying off. Regardless, upon reaching the ocean I felt a little like Rocky (picture the scene in the montage of his training when he finally makes it to the top of the stairs of City Hall). I did a victory dance of course. And then I ran the 4 miles back home.

2009-04-06T00:59:00.000-07:00

My job currently entails interviewing dozens of people each week for seasonal positions, and in the hundreds of interviews I've conducted I've learned a lot about myself and a lot about people in general. One of the most interesting things I've seen candidates do is respond to the information I present to them in ways that can only be interpreted as discomfort, disengagement, and even disagreement. Which is actually fine. I think there are many wonderful people out there for whom this is not the right job. The interesting thing that some of these interviewees do, however, is at the end of the conversation, make very emphatic statements about wanting to do the work. Some even go so far as to say they can't imagine anything they would rather be doing.

Trying to make sense of these passionate claims in light of conduct that clearly contradicts them is a fascinating study in human nature. It has started me thinking on the places in my own life where I believe I want a particular outcome, but my actions or my instincts belie such a claim. And I wonder in moments like this if it's a matter of lacking self-awareness -- do these candidates simply not see the discrepancy that is so obvious to me, and do I have such a disconnect within myself that allows my active will and the more subconscious elements of myself to be at odds in this way? -- or is there something else getting in the way here? Is it pride, perhaps, or fear, or a sense of obligation, the feeling that I should want a particular thing? And I wonder if I slowed myself down enough to look long and hard at these supposed objects of desire, would I be able to see with enough clarity and honesty to admit that I don't (in part at least) really want them? And would I be willing to start the work of bringing my conscious and instinctual responses to the interview of life into alignment?

Palm Sunday

2009-04-05T23:22:00.001-07:00

I was a little skeptical of the palms at first. They seemed a strange gimmick, with potential for kitsch. But they turned out to be anything but. Simply put they were amazing. The robed attendants processed, carrying the large boughs aloft, and the less reserved of the Anglican congregation lifted their own smaller branches. And as the organ played and the people sang, I felt for the first time that I understood the wave offerings of old. I felt for the first time that Hosanna was more than a word in a song, it was the song of my heart. And I felt for the first time in a long time the joy of welcoming my King.

And this one's for Sarah

2009-04-01T00:42:00.000-07:00

One of the first tricks I learned as a new teacher was how to respond to the inevitable "I don't know" answers students try to get away with. The basic principle is that "I don't know" is rarely a genuine answer and that if you're going to be effective in the classroom, you have to treat that response as the defense mechanism that it is. And over the years, I've gotten pretty good at getting past this particular defense when others put it up.

The irony, of course, is that I do not hold myself to the same standard. I let myself get away with this three-word phrase a lot more than I ever let my students do. In the moment it usually feels genuine (as I'm sure it does for some of my students), but looking back I do see how it is most often a cop-out. At the very least it is a marker that there is something going on that I haven't taken the time to fully figure out. And though I'm generally relentless with my students, I can let myself off the hook way too easily at times.

So tonight I find myself grateful for friends who don't let me get away with the "I don't know", who stick with me, who keep probing, who circle back and back and back again until I finally get to the heart of the matter. The truth is that I don't always know what's underneath the surface, but I get there a lot sooner when people push me to stare down my own uncertainty and process whatever it is that is causing my inability to articulate a genuine opinion. So thanks to those who do this. You help me live my life more fully as myself. And thanks to those who have tried. I know I haven't always made it easy.

This One's for Charlynn

2009-03-31T22:39:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up at 7:30 after snoozing my alarm for nearly an hour. I finally rolled out of bed with just enough time to pull on clothes and pack my lunch before my ride to work arrived. I was pretty tired and kept nodding off on the drive up to Marin. Once at work though, I pretty quickly got into the swing of things. I had seven interviews scheduled, but only ended up conducting five of them since two candidates needed to reschedule. They were actually all decent interviews, and I found myself really enjoying the conversations I got to have. After work, I got dropped off at home and was intending to go the gym and then catch up on some work projects I brought home with me but got derailed by a phone call from my brother and a TiVo'd episode of House. I re-heated some leftovers from yesterday, sat on the couch with my food, and enjoyed a fairly indulgent evening in front of the television, first on my own and later with my roommates. Now I'm writing this post. And that was pretty much my day.

So here's the deal: Charlynn told me the other day how much she dislikes blogs that are about inane day-to-day details rather than the blogger's thoughts. And I thought, wow, what a perfect way to knock out an easy post.

But here's the other thing: as much as this kind of post is not what I think this blogging exercise is about for me, I have to admit that today was a very pedestrian day and that I enjoyed it for that very reason. Nothing spectacular happened; I had no great epiphanies. In fact, I somewhat purposefully let myself veg out in front of the TV most of the evening and ate more than I should considering I didn't work out. Sometimes it's nice to check out for a night and not have to analyze and over-analyze and find some sort of deep meaning in everything. Sometimes I need to live in my life without thinking about it too much. Sometimes my brain (and heart and soul) needs a mini-vacation. And this act is blog-worthy, I think, although probably not as interesting to some of you. Sorry, Charly. :)

Speechless

2009-03-25T23:12:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning without much of a voice. I've been fighting off a cold the past several days, and I guess it finally caught up with me. I stayed home as I was pretty much useless at work -- hard to conduct telephone interviews in a whisper -- and spent most of the day in silence. It's been a long time since I was that quiet, and it was an interesting experience. So much of the past year and a half has been about me finding my voice, and overall I've made a lot of progress in that quest. But I think that sometimes I've gone overboard; sometimes I talk too much and too loudly.

I read Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Daughter recently and there is some really lovely interplay in the narrative between the literal and figurative processes of speaking and being speechless. The book was a lot deeper than I expected, and I found myself identifying with the story in a lot of ways. I wonder sometimes if for me it will also take something tremendously momentous, or if it will simply take the better part of my lifetime for me to grow fully into my own voice. I suppose it's all tied up in figuring out what it is that I have to say as well. I've gotten very good at asking the questions. I am not so good at expressing the answers I think I've found. The words I need are ever and always more elusive.

Perhaps the missing step here is listening more, which is why the silence today was nice.

Selective Memory

2009-03-24T23:12:00.000-07:00

I was struck today by the way my memory operates.

I spend hours of each workday engaged in intense conversations on fairly serious topics, and I devote a tremendous amount of mental energy to listening intently to these interactions and processing the subtle nuances as well as the overall impression they leave me with. Lately my days have also been interspersed with snippets of conversation of an entirely different nature: playful, lighthearted, and frankly, entirely frivolous. At the end of the day if you ask me to recount how my serious conversations went, I find my mind is at best blurry, if not outright blank in this regard. All of that focus apparently leaves little lasting imprint. I can, however, at the end of the day, and sometimes even several days later, recount the silliness I have engaged in with uncanny detail.

I don't really have any profound insight into why this is, although I will admit that it worries me a little. I do find it interesting, and I wonder what it all means. If I knew, would I even remember?

For the Time Being

2009-03-22T22:39:00.001-07:00

This morning's sermon was on fixing one's gaze to find healing. I have some thoughts on this and on the passages which were read (from Numbers, Ephesians and John) but mostly I was struck by this excerpt from Auden's "For the Time Being" that was quoted:

He is the Way.

Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.

I suppose it's kind of cheating to post this selection and not actually share my reflections, but I want to let it stand on its own. Plus, Sundays in Lent are cheating days anyway.

Tootin' My Horn, 'Cuz I Got Skillz

2009-03-20T22:38:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago tonight I introduced two friends to each other. Let's call them Ken & Barbie. The names are fitting because it was just that perfect of a match, and I saw the proof of it at Ken's birthday party tonight. Barbie couldn't have been happier and neither could her posse of Malibu beach friends. And Ken, well, needless to say, I didn't get him a birthday present as there was really no way to top what I'd already given him. It's been a fairly amazing process to watch these two dolls go from a first conversation to their present state of bliss, and even I was surprised at how quickly it all went down. I must also say that I'm pretty proud of my part in all of this. I've never set up friends before -- the whole Jewish matchmaker gene does not run strong in my family, thank God -- but apparently I'm a natural. (Not that I'm planning on making a habit of this. I kind of like that I'm batting a thousand right now and may just keep it that way.) It makes my heart glad to see two awesome people so happy together. And yes, Ken, I will take you up on that offer of a free lunch for every week you stay together. May it be for a long, long time.

2009-03-19T00:24:00.000-07:00

I feel like my life no longer has any margins. I'm not sure when it happened, but lately it seems that on any given day of the week I can double- or even triple-book my calendar and still not be keeping up. Tonight I shirked two invitations, both activities I'm sure I would have enjoyed. I told myself I needed to stay home and knock out some work so I wouldn't have to do it this weekend with Joel in town. I told myself it was a night to take care of housekeeping: cleaning up, doing laundry, actually going for a run for the first time this week. I think I would have felt really great if I had actually followed this plan. Instead, I . . . well, here's the thing: I'm not really sure what all I did tonight. I partially did what I planned: I sorted laundry, but didn't actually put any of the dirty clothes in the wash; I made a small dent in the pile of applications I need to grade for work, but didn't finish the stack I intended to; I put on my workout clothes, but didn't make it to the gym. I sent a few emails, I chatted briefly with a friend, I ate a bowl of cereal, and watched bits and pieces of this week's American Idol. It's not that I think there's anything wrong with spending a Thursday night at home, not being especially productive. And it's not that I still have these other things looming over me, the things that I didn't get done, the people I didn't see, and looking forward I see no space to slot them into. I think it's that my time somehow no longer seems like my own, and my life seems to be moving forward without my steering it. I guess, really, it's all about the control freak in me losing control.

As I read back over this paragraph I just wrote, I'm annoyed at my whiny tone. Honestly, my life has been only good and more than good lately, and the lack of margins speaks more to a fullness of life that than to an existential crisis. Can I chalk this post up to tiredness and leave it at that?

The Ups and Downs of Snyder Siblings

2009-03-18T00:06:00.000-07:00

Note:
The title of this post is a reference to a lovely book I've taught many times to 2nd graders, who, by the way, are some of the most awesome people ever. The book, The Ups and Downs of Simpson Snail, chronicles the literal and emotional rises and falls of Simpson and the steady support his friends provide through his adventures. This post chronicles the turbulence of today's events in the life of me and my brother:

Up: I wake up excited that Joel is arriving today for a visit. A quick day's work and he'll be home waiting for me when I get off.

Down: I see him online, message him, and realize that he has confused his departure date and missed his flight.

Further down: the airline company informs him that they have canceled his entire itinerary, including his trip to Arizona that was to follow his visit to me.

Up: Joel informs me that he was able to work something out with the airline.

Down: Joel informs me that "working something out" means that he got them to apply the money he already paid to a new flight to Arizona but that he can't get a flight to CA that isn't ridiculously expensive.

Down Again: We resign ourselves to not seeing each other for another few months.

Up: I do some research and discover I have enough frequent flier miles to get Joel a free flight.

Down: I do some more research and discover I have ALMOST enough frequent flier miles to get Joel a free flight.

Up: I discover I can purchase the additional frequent flier miles I need to get him a flight.

Down: After purchasing said miles, I discover that they may not post to my account for up to 48 hours.

Down, Down, Down: After much talking with customer service I discover there is no way to get around this waiting period and there is no way to make the purchased miles available any sooner.

Down: I spend all afternoon and evening realizing just how excited I was to see Joel and just how pissed off I am at airline companies for their inane policies.

Up: I check the airline website one last time and discover that against all probabilities my purchased miles have actually posted and can be used.

Up, Up: I use said miles to get Joel a ticket to arrive in SF only two days later than originally scheduled - I was going to have to be at work those two days any way.

Up, Up, Up: Joel on an airplane, thousands of feet above the ground, on his way to visit me.

Insomnia

2009-03-17T00:43:00.000-07:00

I want to sleep
and normally I can
but tonight instead is this
muddled mess of musings:
parents with concerns
and concerns about my parents
and parents who upon first meeting
reveal so much and so little
about their children
and are so unexpected
why am I surprised at their humanity?
and banter with boys
and batman
and bread
and bread shaped like batman
that might be a signal in the night sky
calling for help or for rescue
or foretelling the arrival of something
bat-like
I could use some radar right now
as I'm mostly flying blind
I'm not sure if the pow! bam! whack!
is my head and heart about to crack
or the hero's fast-flying fists
protecting me
and typos
and flirtation
and frustration
and singing loudly to country songs
by shania twain
and wondering whether teachers that I hire
will be good
or good enough
and who I'll have to fire
and whether the bread should be shaped like turtles instead
they move much more slowly
and I could stand for that
and for versatility
they live both in water and on land
I wonder where they prefer to sleep

Tortoise vs Hare: Halfway Through & Hard to Tell Who's Ahead

2009-03-16T00:42:00.000-07:00

I've realized that I'm just about halfway through this experiment of blogging, and I feel like this realization should prompt some sort of reflection on my progress so far. What strikes me is that my 'progress', if there is any, is not apparent to me. Halfway points for me are most often points of feeling behind, points of thinking I should be so much further along than I am. Very rarely at any halfway mark do I feel I've actually covered half the distance I intend to. My gait tends to be one that picks up towards the end. Actually, making a mad rush at the end after letting myself fall horribly behind and feeling progressively more guilty about it but not doing anything it until it's intolerable and nearly too late to recover is probably the more accurate description. The fact that I've often been able to pull things off with a degree of aplomb while operating under this last-minute intensity has not aided my attempts to become more of the slow and steady type. No matter how many experiments I undertake, I fear I will always be much better at power sprinting than long distance running. Halfway through this particular race, I think the verdict is still out. Looking back, I suppose I am somewhat satisfied with what I've done up until now. Looking forward, I wonder if I'll make it to the end.

Losing my Religion in Church

2009-03-15T23:05:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure which is more ironic -- the fact that a message on losing religion to follow the Way was preached in one of the most formal church settings I've encountered or the fact that for me embracing some of the ancient formality and ritual has actually been a step away from 'religion'. More than the irony, though, what struck me in this morning's message was the sense I got of everything coming together, of the theme being the perfect summation of my own journey over the past year and a half, and of a greater voice than the pastor's speaking to me. Every now and then I reach points in my life where the pieces seem to converge and coalesce in this way, points where the themes begin to overlap, patterns emerge, and for a moment everything fits together. Today I had one of these moments; it has shed light on my path and given me new confidence in the Way I am seeking to follow.

Third time's the charm

2009-03-14T23:04:00.000-07:00

Since the beginning of the year, I have gone on three dates -- exactly one per month -- with three different guys. The first was pretty innocuous, which is not a good thing for a date to be. The second was the source of much entertainment for my friends, although I still shudder a little every time I think of it. The third, well, the title of this post really says it all.

The beginning, of course, was a little awkward, because that's how beginnings always are. But by the end, I was definitely smiling. In fact, I still am. There was a lot of walking (about 8 miles as best I can tell), a lot of talking (about six hours of it), and a little flirting. There was joking, there was seriousness, and most of all there was good times all around. I definitely have questions -- and I'm working hard to turn the over-analytical part of my mind off before my questions undermine the whole process of getting to know someone new -- but I also had a lot of fun.

I'm realizing that this is what I've been missing all these years. In my overly serious adolescence and in my jump-all-the-way-in-way-too-soon adult relationships, I never got this part of it: dating is fun. And flirting is fun, too. Somewhere in my conservative upbringing this sort of fun got a bad rap, and so I simply steered clear of it all, taking high offense when people called me flirtatious. I've decided I'm over that. I like to flirt, and I am no longer ashamed of this fact. I take great pleasure in the banter, in the mildly antagonistic back-and-forth, in the subtly suggestive teasing that is flirtation. I'm pretty damn good at it, too.

And today, I think I found someone who just might be able to keep up with me in this regard, someone who might in fact be a worthy object of my skills. At the very least, he's worth a second date.

Inevitability

2009-03-13T23:04:00.000-07:00

It finally happened. I always knew it would eventually, but I'll admit there was a part of me that took a little pride in the fact that it hadn't happened yet, a part of me that thought I might end up being the one exception to the rule, the one person who managed to avoid it through a combination of watchfulness and good luck. And I did stave it off for a solid 17 months of living in this city, which is pretty impressive, even if I do say so myself. But this week, my streak came to an end and the inevitable finally occurred: I got a parking ticket.

The annoying thing is, I can't even get upset at the city about it; it was totally my fault and I deserved it. The only thing I can chalk it up to is my own tiredness. I drove home on Wednesday evening, knowing full well that I would be riding into work with Kristen for the next two days, knowing as I pulled onto my street that I needed to find a spot where I could leave my car parked until the weekend. But somehow this knowledge did not manage to play out into my actions. I pulled into the first spot I saw, which happened to be on the Thursday street cleaning side, and didn't think twice about it until I decided I would drive to the Richmond tonight rather than taking the bus.

I suppose it's good that I made this mistake -- my vanity can certainly stand all the lessons in humility I can get and my perfectionism now has one less foothold -- but I think it's also one more piece of evidence that I need some de-fragging this weekend. Apparently my boss knew what he was talking about in that pep talk yesterday.

Ah, the inevitability of my own humanity!

2009-03-12T23:38:00.000-07:00

They say that sometimes if you just start writing, the words come to you and you find all of a sudden you have something to write about. I have no idea who "they' is, but apparently it's kind of true -- after all I hadn't been thinking about that at all just a moment ago before I typed that first sentence. I've never been a fan of the stream-of-conscious thing. It's always irked me, in fact. James Joyce is known for quipping on the reader's task being to work much harder to understand his writing than he did to compose it (this is obviously a very rough paraphrase), and this stance strikes me as essentially arrogant. It is laziness posing as profundity, an abnegation of the author's role, and a failure of creativity. It's not that readers shouldn't have to work hard; it's that if you're going to expect someone to spend the time reading what you write, you should at least attempt to help them in that endeavor. I ask my students and my employees to bring their best effort to their work, and I feel it is fair to do so only because I require the same of myself. Working hard is both the curse and the honor of all human beings; neither readers nor writers should exclude themselves from this, no matter if you are f-ing James Joyce. Language is tricky and too easily misunderstood all on its own; it doesn't need your help in this respect. Understanding another's thoughts is always a battle; this fact is no excuse to disengage from the struggle involved in the articulation of one's thoughts. Shouldn't both parties be bringing their best to the field?

If you're having trouble following my thoughts here, do not fret. I think this only proves my points:
1. You're struggling here because I am as well -- there is equity in the effort.
2. The stream-of-consciousness thing is overrated.

2009-03-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

'Ji' is not a word, but 'jo' is, at least according to the official Scrabble dictionary, 4th edition. Kirk learned this the hard way tonight, and while he sulked a little, he was mostly a good sport about it. Arcenia surprised us all with an early breakaway: 'quips' (which I later wanted to turn into 'equips' until I was cruelly blocked). Judy pulled up from behind with a last-minute bingo and took the game. It seemed fitting that this trump word was 'holiest'. Not that scrabble usually gets me thinking about deep spiritual issues, but the topic had come up in an earlier conversation, and I was already thinking about how I feel God's presence most keenly in moments that seem anything but religious. There's something about dancing my heart out til 3am at a club that feels a lot like worship and something about playing board games with good friends on a Wednesday evening that feels a lot like holiness. The boundary between the sacred and the profane is permeable, I think, and holiness seeps into all kinds of mundane moments.

2009-03-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

Blogging has not been good for my sleep schedule. Posting is that one last thing I have to do every day, that one task hanging over me that I so artfully avoid, that nagging at the back of my mind that pushes me to do a million other things that don't really need to be done. The only thing I can't use to avoid the writing is turning in for the night, and so that too has gotten pushed back, night after night. One would think I was avoiding sleep and not this blog.

What I'm wondering tonight is whether it counts when I'm doing this only because I know I should, when the sole thing propelling me forward is the fact that I said I would do it. Because tonight's post, I'm sad to say, is pure obligation. I like to think there's value in this action, even if it is obligatory. I like to think that pretense can become fact, doing can become being. I don't like to think I'm copping out. But even if I am, I'm a little too tired to do anything else in this moment. And I don't plan to lose any more sleep over this dilemma tonight.

Here's to sweet dreams. I hope.

2009-03-09T23:32:00.000-07:00

I had an epiphany today. It started out as a joke I made a few days ago, but today I realized it was true. This will make sense only to a few (if any) of you, but here it is:

Compliments outweigh bad spelling and grammar.

I need to remember this more often.

Grieving

2009-03-08T22:29:00.000-07:00

A good friend called me earlier tonight to catch up on life. The last time we talked, she told me about a situation that had caused her a fair amount of anger and pain. I asked how she was doing in this regard and heard an answer that made all too much sense: the situation was no longer immediate for her temporally or spatially and so it was easiest just to let it lie. She felt she was doing better but had suspicions that underneath the story went much deeper. I wish I did not understand her so well.

In many areas of my life I am driven and relentless; in recent years I've chosen to become even more so. Despite this, I sometimes find it is too easy to mistake distance for true healing, moving on for moving through. I can't count how many times the ghosts I thought I had conquered have reappeared down the road or how often in unguarded moments I've realized that my dealing with an issue amounted to little more than ignoring it. For me, grief is one of these areas.

I've thought a lot about grief over the past six weeks or so, not because anything particularly sorrowful or traumatic has occurred in my life (quite the opposite, in fact) but because I've realized that there is some loss from my past that I haven't fully felt. I know this because it pops up on my emotional radar at odd moments here and there, usually when I'm least expecting it: after a particularly exhilarating workout, upon getting a lovely email from a new friend, when watching a favorite old movie, or when kneeling at the communion altar. It comes as a sadness, sometimes gently, sometimes more rudely, and it always feels both foreign and familiar.

I know that what I really need to do is get myself away for a little while -- away from all the stimuli that allow me to ignore the underlying grief, away from all the triggers that bring it back to my attention -- and let myself just have it out. I've known this for a while now. I have not done it. Yet.

Part of me is afraid that I don't really know how to grieve and that trying to won't truly work. Part of me doesn't fully know what it is I'm grieving and is afraid that if I let myself find out, I won't know how to recover from that knowledge. Part of me knows that if I don't do this soon, it will continue to pop up, and it will continue to affect my life in unforeseen ways. And part of me knows I'm just making excuses.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

The Violence of Redemption

2009-03-07T23:56:00.000-08:00

Tonight I went to see Slumdog Millionaire with my roommates and a few friends. (It's actually the first movie I've seen in the theater all year, but that's a separate topic. Also, while I'm in these parentheses, I should mention that I'm going to give away some details about the ending, so if you haven't seen it yet, consider yourself warned.) After the movie we walked from Embarcadero to Union Square to get some late-night Thai food. On the way, Judy, who has a low tolerance for ambiguity and whom I love for the dogged curiosity inspired by this trait, was asking a lot of questions. One of them was, "Why does Salim fill the tub with money and lie down in it when they come after him at the end?" One person speculated that it had something to do with the luxury of it, of reveling in one last moment of wealth to spite all the destitution he had lived through. Another person posited that his death in that bath was a very literal representation of how bloodstained the money was. My take is a little different:

The money in which Salim meets his death is in some ways the very money that his brother Jamal was winning at that same moment. If Jamal had not been on the game-show, if he had not made it to the final question, he would not have used his last lifeline, and the bad guys would not have heard Latika's voice on the line or realized Salim's betrayal. Jamal's winnings are the undoing of his brother. Jamal's moment of redemption is causally linked to his brother's death -- they are in some ways the same moment.

I wrote a paper in college on the pairing of violence and redemption in Flannery O'Connor's stories. This aspect of her work shocked me at first, but now I see that it can be no other way, for O'Connor or for the world at large. Redemption, from the very beginning (and by that I mean going all the way back to Genesis) has always been a violent proposition. It is violent because it is transformational, and any force that creative carries destructive power as well. I could launch into examples here, but really my point is that the violence, the cost, is what gives the redemption its efficacy. The slumdog's triumph requires some payment, some failure, else it is meaningless.

This may seem grim to some, but I find odd comfort and hope in it. I find it hopeful because redemption without cost would seem too cheap; violence seals redemption's value and is evidence of its permanence -- both the judgment and the grace are equally irreversible. And then, of course, there is the reverse implication of what I'm proposing: if every redemptive act is a violent one, then all violence is potentially redeemable.

Catching Up & Coming Clean

2009-03-06T21:40:00.001-08:00

Okay, so I have to admit that I haven't been completely truthful in my blogging recently. On the very top of several of my posts there has been a blatant lie. You see, one of the marvelous features of this blog is that I can manually set the date and time of any post to whatever I choose, and I've taken advantage of this feature more than once in the past several days. Why? Because I wanted it to look like I had actually written a post every day. That is, after all, one of my Lenten experiments: to blog every day. The truth is, though, that while I have thought about blogging every day, and have stared at an the empty text box of a new blog post every night before going to bed, I have not actually written every day. There have been a handful of times when the old shadow won, when I succumbed to whatever it is in me that keeps me from this task, when I gave in to the very thing that I'm trying to conquer through this experiment. I knew from the outset that this would be a battle and that it would not be easy. What I did not know is that I would care so much about exposing my battle wounds and scars to the world. There's still a part of me that wants to present a complete package: a thorough, thoughtful, and edited post neatly stamped with each successive date, no gaps, no holes, no misses, no failures. I want my efforts to look like success, even when they are a struggle. And I think this urge in me, the desire to cloak the weakness and the failure, is not so far removed from the thing that keeps me from writing in the first place. Which is why I'm choosing to write on this topic, why I am exposing my own fraud. It probably matters little to anyone but me that I've been fudging the dates, but to me it does matter. The irony, of course, is that part of the reason for blogging every day, rather than just writing or journaling, is that a blog is in the public eye and therefore presumably carries a certain level of accountability that more private writing does not. I found a way to bypass that accountability, but now I am caught up, and I am coming clean. No more hiding my mess, no matter how messy. Instead, I will continue my attempt to follow through on my original intent and I will endeavor to focus on the process, not the final product. If I miss a day, I miss it, but I will let the dates from here forward be true. Not that you have any way of really knowing, of course . . .

Singin' in the Car

2009-03-05T00:47:00.000-08:00

For the past several weeks I've been carpooling with my friend Kristen to work. In addition to all the usual perks such as saving gas, saving money, saving the environment, and having someone to keep me awake on those insanely early morning drives, I've discovered a fellow car-singer. It all started a few weeks back, after I had watched Singin' in the Rain on PBS. I was telling her how much I used to love that movie as a kid, and the next thing you know we were both belting out lines from the title song. From there we moved into a gleeful rendition of "Good Mornin'" and from there we never looked back. We've continued to have spontaneous sing-a-longs whenever a tune pops into one of our heads, and we've covered ground from classical musicals to Journey (thanks, JB, for that one -- don't stop believin'!), from old-school Britney to Elton John.

I don't remember how it started, but today on the drive home we started reminiscing about songs from childhood, tunes we learned in Sunday school, at summer camp, and in school assemblies. It was gads of fun, but more than that, it was amazing how many of the same ditties we recalled. Amazing not just because it's been (gulp!) two decades since I last sang some of these songs, but amazing because Kristen, who grew up in rural Indiana, apparently had the same musical upbringing as I did in my far-flung nomadic childhood. It was such a surprise, and a joy, to realize we had this thing in common, to share something that I hadn't even realized I still had with someone who in many respects is very different from me. Some might say that this commonality is a sad comment on the conformity of our culture and on the mass production and marketing of childhood that occurs in modern America. For me, however -- a person who has seldom felt a true part of her surroundings, who was always from somewhere else, who became the expert in blending in but never fitting in -- for me, this moment in the car felt a lot like belonging.

Kristen and I have decided, by the way, that we need to record our musical adventures and produce a series of "Kristen & Leah mixed CD sing-a-longs" so that the world can join in the transcendence that is our daily commute. So keep an eye out for us on iTunes or Amazon or wherever else you get your music. Believe me, you won't want to miss it!

2009-03-04T00:23:00.000-08:00

There are days when I am struck by just how rich my life is and today was one of those days. I believe I have more than my fair share of joy and love and genuine relationship, and I am grateful for all the simple and profound ways this truth manifests in my life. I know I'm being vague, but it is because I am happy.

Shakespeare, as usual, says it just right:
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gates.
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
(from Sonnet XXIX)

Deciding Again

2009-03-03T23:39:00.000-08:00

I started training for a 10k about a week and a half ago. For those who have known me for longer than two years, you probably recall my making snide remarks about the pointlessness of running when no one is chasing. But as I have with so many other things I used to disdain, I've decided to give running a good hard go. And believe me, it has been hard.

Runners always talk about pushing through the wall and hitting a spot where you feel amazing, where you could keep going forever. I have never gotten there. Perhaps I simply haven't run far or long enough yet. But I suspect that running will never be that endorphine-inducing, euphoria-driven experience for me. When it comes down to it, I simply don't like to run. And I spend most of my time on the treadmill trying to distract my mind from the fact that I'm running, trying to avoid looking at the clock because I know it's only been ten seconds since I last looked, trying to convince myself that I won't actually die.

Even though I tell myself at the outset of any run that I will for go x minutes or y miles, that goal, that pre-decision is not enough to keep me moving forward. Every step is a deliberation, every second is a battle with the desire to stop. I choose hundreds of times each mile that I will complete the mile, and each time it is a real choice, it is an act of will. One would think that making this decision dozens and dozens of times would eventually make the choice easier. I think it's more like flipping a coin: no matter how many times I've already tossed it, and no matter how many times it's come up tails, the probability of it coming up tails in the next toss is still only 50%.

These odds aren't the greatest, but that's okay. As someone for whom too much has come easily, I have tremendous admiration for those whose achievements come through struggle. I think they deserve much more credit than I do, and I'd like to learn to emulate them in any way I can.

So like I said, I don't anticipate this becoming any easier. However, I do anticipate continuing to decide again. And again. And again. I think the discipline of this -- of deciding moment by moment to do what's hard, of choosing time after time the choices that I've already made -- is good for my soul as well as my legs.

Rant

2009-03-02T00:23:00.000-08:00

I actually wrote the following piece a little while back so including it now may be cheating, but it really does fit thematically with the purpose of my exercise in blogging: it's a rant against my shadow. If you can, picture me screaming it out into a deeply quiet night. This is very much a glimpse of, as my friend Jeff puts it, "ferocious Leah".

I speak
I speak to you
I tell you that you will not do
you cannot stay
you are not me
I speak and speak
insisting that my life
is not the blank
is not the pit
is not the sleeping never waking never dreaming
that you seem
I speak and speak and speak

into your gaping silence

And I speak

And in this is my victory:
my speech
my simple act of flexing vocal cords
of pushing air from lungs into the world
destroys you
shattering with the crescendo of my voice
My Voice
MY VOICE
your very presence
And in this is your utter devastation:
you have always been destroyed
from the beginning
you the void that hovers
troubling the waters that would be life
you were never even there
from the beginning

From the beginning
was the word
my word
my voice
I speak
and there is light
I speak
and it is good
I speak
to you the nothing:
you are nothing
and I speak

2009-03-01T13:04:00.000-08:00

Compassionate God,
you have fed us with the bread of heaven.
Sustain us in our Lenten pilgrimage:
may our fasting be hunger for justice,
our alms, a making of peace;
and our prayer, the song of grateful hearts;
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen.

I really liked this prayer from the liturgy this morning, partly because the verb sustain is one I've always loved, but mainly because the focus this prayer gives to each of the Lenten practices feels quite significant. The actions are not mere actions but intents to become more, to help me become more. The pastor preached on repentance, the act of turning around, and framed it as a turning towards rather than a turning away, a repenting to rather than a repenting of. It is a choice to focus on the spirit of God, to turn towards his presence in and over my life. The fact that in so turning I am also leaving other things behind is coincidental. This turning is not a spurning of guilt or a judgment on shame but an embracing of love and a decision to walk in the direction from whence I hear his voice.

Meeting Prufrock

2009-02-28T00:32:00.000-08:00

No doubt it's bad form to reference T.S. Eliot two days in a row, but I'm going to do it anyway. (And it probably won't be the last time I do so -- his work is uncannily applicable to everything in life.)

By far my favorite work by Eliot is the much acclaimed "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". I couldn't count how many times I've read and re-read it to myself, to friends, to anyone who would listen; or how many times I've worked various quotes from this piece into conversation, hoping that someone would catch my allusion. And despite many arguments I've heard to the contrary, I've always found this poem full of hope. Perhaps I'm guilty of some literary narcissism here, of looking into a work and seeing my own reflection instead of the author's words, but I have viewed the piece more as a warning than a resignation. And in light of Eliot's own trajectory as a poet and human being, I like to think he would have also seen it this way;. Prufrock's questions are Eliot's and my own, but the answer the poet and I come to is not the same as his. In penning the line, "It is impossible to say just what I mean", Eliot so poignantly disproved the exact point he was attempting to make, and he continued to do so in future works, continued to wield the words and bend them to his will, sometimes failing, but always knowing that it was worth it after all. Prufrock, then, is only a shadow, a thing that would have been had Eliot not been a poet and a man. I will grant you that I'm bringing some fairly large assumptions to my formation of this hope-filled reading of the text, but I stand by it just the same.

Or at least I would have until today.

Today I met Prufrock. I met a man who in the face of the overwhelming question chose not to dare, who resigned himself to being an attendant lord, a scuttling pair of ragged claws, pinned against the wall, but no longer wriggling. And the saddest part was the resignation itself. "It's not depressing," he said. "It's realistic." And he found some comfort in that, I think. A comfort that to me seemed more like misery.

I realized as he spoke that though we both love this poem, it is really two different poems that we love. I caught a glimpse of his version, and I do now see the sadness others have always told me was there. Sadly I think I will always see it now, and while part of me resents him this effect, I also see that I owe him my compassion. He has decided the mermaids will not sing to him.

On the Third Day

2009-02-27T23:23:00.000-08:00

I didn't expect to already be pushing through a wall, but I am. I'd like to say it's because I've worked more and slept less than I should have over the past several days, but I don't know that I can really chalk it up to just that. Even now, I'm tempted to delete the very words I'm typing. Because what I have to say is not nearly interesting or profound enough. In moments like these I wonder whether the struggle is about not having anything to say at all or about being afraid to say something meaningless. I'm not sure which is worse.

But enough of the self-conscious crap. I made the decision I needed to. Eventually I'll stop talking about this thing I'm doing and will just do it. Tomorrow will be better.

Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.
(from "Burnt Norton" in T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets)

Lenten Lilting

2009-02-26T21:55:00.000-08:00

I've taken on three tasks for Lent this year:

-- blog every day
-- actually go to church
-- fast from meat/animal products (except for fish)

The last one is the traditional Lenten fast - I figured if people have been doing it since the Middle Ages, I should give it a try.

The first one is by far the most challenging.

Last month I decided to wear only skirts and dresses to work. At first it was a pain, but an interesting thing happened after the month was over: I'm still wearing skirts nearly every day. In fact, this morning, I stared at the pants hanging in my closet and none of them appealed to me. The pendulum has effectively been swung.

My relationship with writing, especially in the public eye, is much more complicated than my wardrobe preferences, but I'm hoping there will prove to be some similarities. That's my hypothesis at least; we'll see what results the experiment yields. Frankly, I'm a little tired of only being able to write about the conflict and complexity. I'm swinging over to the simple side. And I am writing.

Returning to the Dust

2009-02-25T22:56:00.000-08:00

I attended my first Ash Wednesday service tonight and found something very comforting and familiar in the ceremony, in the marking of this time of year, even though it's something I've never done before. I feel like my faith has been under wraps lately, like I have been tucking it away, saving it for later. It hasn't gone away, but it hasn't been on display either, mostly because I haven't been comfortable with the clothes it used to wear, with the stares it drew, with the choices it seemed to imply. It was easier to put it away with Emily Dickinson's life, "over there on the shelf", easier to let it be understated rather than misunderstood. But today I dusted it off and paraded it, naked and unashamed. And it felt good. Good to be connected to tradition outside myself and my questions, good to strip down to the basics just as the pastor preached, good to let myself reflect, both in onto myself and out onto the world. Afterwards, I walked home through the streets where I am usually anonymous, this time with an ashy proclamation on my forehead, and I thought: I may be ready to come out again.

Random Things I Love About My City

2008-04-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

-- the skyline driving in across the Golden Gate Bridge and how it's different every day

-- how no parking place is too small to attempt to squeeze into

-- that every holiday (or plain old weekend) is an excuse for outrageous costuming

-- that bars are hopping even on Monday nights

-- the views of city, bay, and ocean that sneak up on you as you round an unsuspecting corner

-- that everyone owns a dog yet no apartments for rent are pet friendly

-- that it took me four months to find an apartment and that I was moved into it within 10 days of first seeing it

-- my idyllic, tree-lined street that is just a block away from awesomeness in every direction

More of What's New

2008-02-23T01:37:00.000-08:00

Week Five: Night Out in SF
This was my first foray into SF nightlife and the first time I've ever gone out dancing with people I barely knew. In fact, I knew them so little that I discovered before we even left for the club that this would also be my first time out with total stoners. And there was a photo booth involved. Good times all around.

Week Six: Hair Dye
My hair has actually been on quite an adventure for the past year or so. Below you can see the progression from deep purple streaks to neon pinks & purples to the weird faded browns & reds the neons morphed into to this latest attempt to go back to my natural dark brown. I'm counting this dye job as a first since I've never done my whole head before (just streaks and chunks) and I've never done the at-home, out-of-a-box, rinse-it-out-in-your-bathtub thing before either.

Week 7: Makeup
Believe it or not, I've never bought or owned makeup for daily use, only for random outrageous costumes. So my friend Charlynn, who I think has gotten tired of letting me use her makeup when we go out, took me to Sephora and helped me drop a good chunk of change on some quality cosmetics. Only problem: I'd still rather spend the extra ten minutes in the morning sleeping than using what I've bought. I figure, if I get the extra rest, my face won't look like it needs the stuff anyway.

Week 8: iPod
Despite being a lifetime Mac user, I've never actually owned an iPod. Well, until today, that is, when I became the proud owner of a (PRODUCT) RED nano. I've always preferred to spend my entertainment budget on books, but being at the gym so much recently (see entry for Week 2) has given me a new appreciation for auditory stimuli. And I have to say, 60 minutes on the elliptical machine does go by a lot faster with some Fat Boy Slim pumping into your inner ear.

What's New in 2008

2008-02-20T22:44:00.000-08:00

My new year's resolution for 2008 was to do one "new thing" every week. Not entirely original, I know, but it's track-able and attainable, which are key components in a resolution one intends to actually keep. Plus, it goes well with my recent trend of breaking all my own rules and being generally more adventurous. I guess I'm moving away from the "Why?" towards the "Why not?" side of the spectrum. Here's what I've done so far:

Week One: Got Drunk
Don't ask how I managed to reach the age of 27 (including four years at a university not lacking in the party scene) without having done this. Just know that 5 rum drinks and a shot of Jager (go JB!) definitely did the trick. I could still walk afterwards, and didn't get sick, so I'm pretty impressed with myself. And apparently I get talkative when I'm wasted - talkative and bossy. I also crave cheese puffs.

Week Two: Signed Up for Personal Training
This one is actually a big one seeing as I had worked out all of like 2 times in my entire life up until a few months ago . I used to ridicule the gym-addicted; now I've joined their ranks, and I actually enjoy it. Here's to Texas Double Whoppers!

Week Three: Started a Blog
You're reading it.

Week Four: Rode in a VW Beetle
Okay, so this one is kind of a cop-out -- the week got away from me. In my defense, I've wanted to own a Bug since I was a kid (preferably a purple one, of course) and this was the first time I'd actually been inside one. To be honest, it was kind of a letdown. I think now I'd rather have a cool hybrid . . . look at that, I DO belong in San Francisco! This week I was also exposed to the glory of the International Male Catalog, and I paid money to see a bad monster movie in the theater. Oh, and I ate Iraqi food at a cool place in Lower Haight. Put together, I think all of these count as at least one solid new thing. And the judges say . . . it's my resolution so I make the rules . . .

Story

2008-01-23T23:18:00.000-08:00

This is a piece I wrote for the creativity workshop I'm taking through reimagine. I'm having trouble with the idea of story right now, especially the idea of my story, which I guess becomes a story in itself.

She sat on a bench in the Shakespeare garden thinking how much more Shakespearean it would be if there were quotes from the plays in front of each of the plants. She thought she remembered there being little plaques serving exactly this purpose the last time she was there, but that was all of ten years ago. Perhaps she was remembering a different garden, or perhaps she was only remembering that she had wanted there to be quotes in the garden back then as well. It was not hard to believe that her mind might go back to the same thought, recalling it as fact rather than desire. After all, her feet had brought her back to the place where that thought originated.

She did find it hard to believe that it had actually been ten years since she last sat in this place. She was surprised she remembered the garden at all – she hadn’t even realized she remembered it until she saw the sign on the gate – and surprised at how much and how little had changed. But she often felt just this way when her path happened to circle back on places from her past, although her life was such that it should not have been so unexpected.

The journey had started some two dozen plus years before, not two miles from where she sat on that bench, shaded half by an aging tree and half by her own mood. Born to parents who made their lives a loud exercise in contradiction, and possessing what many would call a good nature but what was mostly just eagerness, she followed them in body and heart from one end of the world to the other and back again several times over. There was such eternal import to all the moving about, and so, though the motion sickness always plagued her, she learned at least to appreciate the variety in scenery. She even fancied that she would one day sign up for the great venture on her own terms. No other life seemed to make much sense.

And then, in the most unlikely places, the girl whose wide experience had left her strangely narrow was exposed to the terrific and terrifying grace of reality. In the dreaded bastion of humanism she embraced spirituality never modeled by the self-proclaiming devotees. And in the seeming little-mindedness of the backwoods her capacity for liberality grew beyond the limits of urbane and learned freedoms.

Now if this all sounds too esoteric, know that it was no less cryptic to the girl herself. In fact, sitting there on the now fully shaded bench, growing cold as the sun began to set, she felt distinctly puzzled at the lack of coherence. Her story seemed to be unraveling, the motifs she traced so faithfully up to this point now dispersing, even disappearing. There were still some things she knew she knew – that life is real and so is joy, that knowing things is not as important as it used to be, and that in losing the certainty of outside themes she hoped to find the clarity in her own voice. She knew this, and more importantly, she felt it. Although part of her still wanted the Shakespeare garden to have labels.

A lot about livin'

2008-01-21T23:51:00.001-08:00

So for those of you who haven't caught the Alan Jackson allusions yet, and for the many more of you who don't know who Alan Jackson is, let me elucidate: both the title and the url of this blog were inspired by the song "Chattahoochee". I heard it on the radio the other day while driving home from work -- yes I listen to country music -- and realized as I sang along with the chorus just how fit a description of my own time "way down yonder" it is. I've heard the song a thousand times before and never gave it a second thought. But this time, well, it just struck me. And it made me want to write. Check out the lyrics or the fabulous early 90's video if you'd like, although know that I will not justify my choice to draw deep personal meaning from such a source. If you don't get it, I can't explain. It's just part of everything I learned on the banks of the 'Hooch, part of what the muddy water means.