Glaring Omissions

Examining my motivations

2008-10-10T14:19:00.000-04:00

While editing this thing, I accidentally clicked on the "email to a friend" icon at the bottom of an entry. The message you get above the email form reads:

"The information you provide on this form will not be used for anything other than sending the email to your friend. This feature is not to be used for advertising or excessive self-promotion."

Not for excessive self-promotion? Oh Blogger, you're on to me, aren't you?

Cringe-a-licious!

2008-10-09T12:00:00.002-04:00

This past Tuesday was Cringe at the Midway Cafe in Jamaica Plain. I read a political article from the newspaper I wrote from ages 9-12 (which I'm sure I shall elaborate on in another entry) and a painful poem about sitting in the dark, "oozing poetry," written for a creative writing class my junior year of high school.

Two among many awesome things about this event were:
1. Briefly meeting Sarah Brown, despite being star-struck and shy about meeting someone who I have read for awhile and who is, like, wicked funny, published, and generally cooler than me. This fear of talking to people who I think are cooler than me is what led me to have so much free time in high school to write dark poems about poetry. I am working on overcoming this fear, because I like making new friends, and, of course, the world does not need any more dark poems about poetry.

2. I forgot how much I love reading on stage! I am generally terrified of initiating conversation(see #1), I despised teaching, and I can't tell a story or ad-lib for shit. But give me something really terrible or really great to read in front of a room full of people, and I am so damn happy. I guess, like someone who gave me many of my genes, I've never met a microphone I don't like.

Other awesome elements of the night included a woman reading a story she wrote at age 9 from the perspective of a blind runaway slave, the bar owner commandeering the microphone to read us his 2nd grade report card, and being lured into the back room of Doyle's to watch the debate with a bunch of Hillary voters for Obama when we were just trying to go home.

I'm not laughing

2008-10-03T12:28:00.005-04:00

I am fed up with kneejerk reactions, partisan soundbytes, and the general lack of critical discussion that happens every election. I'm certainly as guilty of participating in, and reacting to, this stuff as a lot of other people, but I am trying to change that. And I am starting by making a plea to the people who won't engage in the kind of discussion that forces them to examine and truly defend their beliefs.

Despite the timing, this isn't really a reaction to last night's vice presidential debate, though I'm sure it played a role in my thinking this morning. It's more a reaction to the reactions, to the things we say every day to express our beliefs that effectively shut down meaningful political discourse.

Last weekend, Ryan and I committed the ultimate in family relations sins: Getting Into a Political Discussion at Your Republican Grandfather's Birthday Party. In our defense, we didn't start the discussion, and we kept it safely out of Grampa's earshot. It started as a conversation about a recent Obama rally between us, an aunt who is also an Obama supporter, and another aunt who is still undecided. A third aunt, who is a steadfast Republican, entered the conversation via an attack on Obama, and four of us exchanged a brief series of platitudes and simplistic attacks while the undecided aunt sat silent. Fortunately, we stopped before the argument spread around the room.

Throughout the campaign, a good friend of mine who supports McCain has been sending me various messages attacking Obama or praising McCain, in a joking manner. I've tried to talk to her about the reasons behind her comments, but I can't get her to move much past the jokes. I get angry at the comments, but I hate confrontation, so up until now, I've just blown them off.

This morning, one of those comments showed up in my inbox just as I was talking to another friend, a moderate Republican who is undecided. She was lamenting the fact that, far from helping her choose a candidate, her conservative family and liberal social circles make such absolute statements that she struggles to find an entry point to think critically and make a responsible decision.

I finally got fed up and sent this email to friend #1, and it stands as my message to anyone who has ever claimed an opinion while refusing to engage in real discussion about it.*

*I can say this, because I've done it too.

Here's the email:

Hey,

I'm tempted to keep jousting with you via comments, but I'm getting frustrated and I don't want to carry it out on a public forum. Email is second-best to talking to you directly about this, but I am terrible at confrontation and I know if I tried to say this live I would flounder and not say what I really mean. I need to work on that.

No matter how funny, I can't get into trading political jabs with you, not when I sense (and I think you've pretty much said) that you do have real beliefs behind supporting McCain. I have tried - admittedly not as hard as I could have, for fear of making you mad at me - to find out what you really think, but I feel like it's near impossible to get you to talk about your political beliefs. Of course some part of me wants to try to sway you to my way of thinking, but, more than that, I really want to know what you think and why. I'm fairly sure you're at this second rolling your eyes at my wishy-washy bullshit, but I swear it is true. I am sick of important political contests being decided by which side can more steadfastly refuse to engage in real discussion with the other side. These things have serious consequences for everyone in this country, and the rest of the world as well. I need to put my beliefs out there, and hear different beliefs, and look at the facts, and really know if I believe what I say I believe. And everyone else does too. I think anyone not willing to examine what they think should stay home on election day.

That is NOT to say I think everyone needs to talk about their politics. I know plenty of people uncomfortable with political discussion. While the righteous part of me wants to try and draw them in, I have to respect their privacy, and just hope that they have other ways - through reading, etc. - to engage with these issues. I know you have said you're just making jokes. But those jokes force you into the discussion, and they have significance for me and a lot of other people. If you prefer keeping your politics private, I will not challenge you on it. But I will assume that means we won't talk about it on any level, unless it's on a completely neutral one. I hope you read this and are willing to talk about this stuff on a deeper level. If you do, I promise to talk, not just attack, though maybe I'll be comfortable enough to send some good-natured McCain jibes your way. If you're not interested, I can accept that, but if that's the case, I just can't accept the jokes.

Shannon

*UPDATE: The friend to whom I wrote that email just wrote back, and I seriously underestimated her. The jokes were just that, jokes, made because she's rather frustrated with the whole campaign and still officially undecided in the election. What she said sounded a lot like my other undecided friend's complaints, mainly that polarized discussion and blanket statements about candidates are intimidating and entirely unhelpful when you are actually trying to make an informed decision. I'm not suggesting we treat undecideds with kid gloves, but let's all try to present ourselves first as critical-thinking and respectful people, and second as supporters of a candidate. Let's actually listen to other's thoughts on the issues, and count to ten before we start trying to convince them of ours. If we don't, we're just encouraging people to make rash decisions in an incredibly important election.

All changed, changed utterly

2008-09-11T12:32:00.004-04:00

I've tried to write about my 9/11 experience a few times, with limited success. I realize some might think the topic is tired, as far as personal narratives go, especially for someone not directly affected. But I think it is important for everyone to record their experience, whether for the thousands who lost their lives, or to contribute to understanding all the shit that has happened in the last 2,555 days. So, here goes:

Despite my frequent whining about Republicans and other such things, most days, I feel, for better or worse, that I am American through and through. Today, though, and every September 11th for the last seven years, I have felt like a visitor to my country.

At about 3 PM Dublin time, I was near the end of my tour of the National Museum of Ireland. I paused in front of a painting of Dublin's General Post Office during the 1916 Easter Rising. I tried, unsuccessfully, to recall the words of Yeats' poem about the event. Rebecca, my best friend in Ireland, who I had met ten days before, came to tell me a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. I didn't get it, really, but all the Americans from our group were rushing to the door. We asked confused questions of each other. We ran to a pub. We stood and watched the tv and didn't order drinks.

I only remember snapshots after that. I got off the DART at Dun Laoghaire and overheard one station agent making a joke to another about "those low-flying planes." I got back to Killiney and my host mother had Sky News on for me. I had messages from my mom's friends in Belfast. It took mom a few hours to get through on the phone, but she did. I don't remember what we said. My group went to the memorial at the US embassy on the Day of Mourning on Friday. We were hungry afterwards. We could only find one place open in the city, a little Italian place.

We were as shocked and upset as anyone else in the next few weeks. It was common for someone to leave class crying. But we weren't scared. Not, I think, like people in America were. We knew our families were close to where the attacks had happened, but we were an ocean away. When the attacks on Afghanistan began, some of us went to a protest in Dublin, thinking the US was striking out in fear and pain at the nearest target. We were reading critical articles in the Irish Times and analyzing the political impact of all this before October came.

We traveled to Belfast a few weeks later. A taxi driver who had lived through The Troubles, upon hearing our accents, told us bluntly that America was experiencing what Ireland had gone through for thirty bloody years. The comparison wasn't really accurate, but we nodded.

I still believe, possibly in error, that my civic and political makeup was unalterably affected by not being in the US on 9/11. I used to think that this meant that I could make rational decisions without the fear that dominated everything in the days after those attacks. Lately, I wonder more if it's just a juvenile conviction that I will never be viscerally affected by world events. Maybe it's both.

In a morbid way, I both treasure my memories of being in Ireland that day, and wish I could change the past and know what it was like to be here. Beyond the basic emotions and thoughts, I didn't understand what I felt then. I still don't really understand.

Cementing Stereotypes

2008-08-15T10:06:00.002-04:00

Office scene, circa 2006, observed:
Coworker #1 walks into the office wearing Ipod headphones. Coworker #2, a recent transplant from California, asks, somewhat incredulously:
"Why are you wearing those now? Do you wear them on the T?"
"Um, yeah."
"But, it's so antisocial! It cuts you off from everyone around you!"
"Um, yeah."
"I never do that. I like to talk to people I meet on the T."
"Um, yeah, no. Definitely not. We don't do that here."

Outdoor scene circa today:
I am walking from the T to my building, finishing a particularly entertaining chapter in my book (but watching where I'm going of course - it's a very wide, lightly traveled sidewalk). Guy pushing his toddler in a stroller walking behind me unfortunately decides I am a source of entertainment and potential conversation:
Guy: Look at that lady! What is she doing?
Kid (bored sounding): Walking.
Guy (louder): But what else is the lady doing?
Kid (still bored): Reading a book.
Me (silently): Oh f'ing hell, do not do this. Do not try to talk to me.
Guy (louder still): She must really love that book.
[dull silence from kid]
Me (still silent, walking faster): Are you really f'ing serious? I am not responding. You are not funny. Your child is too young to be embarassed and yet is still mortified by you.
Guy (louder, if possible): How do you think she does that? Walking and reading a book, that's hard.
[More dull silence from kid]
Me (STILL silent, walking more quickly now): I am seriously leaving town until the goddamn tourist season is over.

Two scenes, same theme: Bostonians (ok, and Somervilleans), are antisocial jerks. I admit, it's partly true of me and many - though not all - people I know here. I commute in close proximity to hundreds of other people each day. It's the time many people have alone in their cars with the radio. All I ask is that I be allowed to pretend I am alone, and read my book without anyone talking to me.

There are people around here who don't get that, and the number of those people grows exponentially during the summer tourist season. It's not that I don't like the tourists. They're entertaining, and, despite my asshole-ishness, I love being able to help when someone stops me on the street to ask directions, or get a restaurant recommendation, or to inquire what the hell is the problem with public transportation here. At the right time - in line at a store, when a train is inexplicably delayed - I can even appreciate brief, idle conversations. But sometimes people just don't understand the strange unspoken rules of public interaction here - the obscure times when it is okay to start an idle conversation with a stranger, and the few strangers who are always open to those idle conversations.

I really don't want to be a jerk. But the conclusion I have come to is that this is part of our culture. It's often cold here; always crowded. We were originally settled by the British. Until very recently, our sports teams led us to believe any happiness inevitably leads to bitter disappointment. Oh, I don't really know why. We just like to be left alone sometimes. I understand that it takes awhile to learn the subtle signals, and I try to forgive people that. I try to open up and appreciate the friendlier, more vibrant atmosphere. But it's the end of the summer, I am tired, and I am just about ready to be left in peace with my fellow cold, dead-hearted Bostonians.

Evolving Personality, some initial thoughts.

2008-08-07T16:58:00.003-04:00

“I have considered the equivalent of Facebook suicide: removing my identity entirely from the site. But, I am just narcissistic enough to hang in there, because I can’t bear the thought of the internet without me," mused a commentator on NPR this afternoon.

The second half of this quote rings true for me. Not so much the first half, though I kind of wish it did. The internet, and specifically social networking sites, are havens for introverted narcissists like myself. What drives me nuts, though, is that I didn't really have this when I most needed it: when I was introverted, narcissistic, and overwhelmed by the belief that the world - specifically classmates who didn't really notice me - needed to understand how cool I really was, like, just in my existence. Shit, this doesn't sound so different from how I am now. Except now I admit that I'm kind of an asshole.

In high school, I really didn't talk to anyone but my close friends, but I desperately wanted other people to find me interesting. I tried a lot of things - other than actually talking or participating in stuff - to achieve this. Somehow, painting the names of my favorite bands in nail polish on my backpack didn't draw me a legion of fans. I think Everclear was the mistake...

Though I don't feel so desperate for expression anymore, like many people, I suspect, I carefully craft my social networking profiles. It's like a social resume, but oh-so-much more nuanced. I fill in the holes I believe are left by my in-the-flesh personality, trying to cover everything true about myself that someone might find interesting. I admit, I look at my own Facebook profile and try to imagine how another person would see it. And then I realize it's bullshit, because something so carefully crafted really is more like a resume than an actual personality, and that anyone who only liked me for everything in my Facebook profile would be exhausting to hang out with. But...I still do it.

I love this big gay state

2008-07-31T17:08:00.004-04:00

We're at the great quadrennial (yes, it's a word; your expanded vocabulary thanks me) point where anyone with a strong opinion about something can be assured of finding someone either to coddle that opinion or with whom to argue loudly about it. Though I'm still recovering from my weariness over the Hillary/Obama battle, I must say I enjoy these times. I like a good political argument, and of course, I love me some opinion-coddling. But there is one person (well, many), who I cannot get into an argument with, or my head will explode: The Staunch Gay Marriage Opponent.

While the topic hasn't exactly been discussed at top volume nationally, it's always hanging around here in Massachusetts, especially since our governor reinforced his commitment to marriage equality today. To states like Utah, I'm sure Massachusetts is like that other kid's parent who let your fifteen-year-old come over and shotgun a Bud Light. But, how do I say it? Too damn bad.

I can't maintain a civil conversation with someone who deeply opposes gay marriage. I have accepted this. I have heard the arguments:

"Marriage is for procreation." Oh really? What about those great stories of widowed people in their eighties finding true love again? Should they not be allowed to marry? What about the little pill I take to make sure my parents aren't grandparents until they are in their eighties? Is my marriage invalid? Well, it probably doesn't matter because the people who disagree with me most likely think I'm going to hell for a whole host of other reasons anyway.

"They can do what they want. I just don't want them rubbing my face in it." Don't worry. You won't be invited to the wedding.

"It is sending our society down a slippery slope. What's next, marrying goats?" This kind of comparison represents something so far from my moral consciousness that I'm just not going to go there. So, I will just say: Have you seen a goat? They are way too cute to ever be interested in humans, so don't worry about it.

I like the last two anti-gay arguments a lot, because they provide me a perfect parallel for how I feel about the people who make statements like this. You exist. I accept this. I do not like how you act, how you talk, and I probably would not want to make out with you (that one time in Canada notwithstanding). I will accept your lifestyle as long as you keep it out of my face.

Phew, so I wrote all that before even reading any recent anti-gay writings. I'm not being reactionary, so, am I being....proactionary? No, nothing so noble. I'm just being righteous. But, in my defense, I truly believe that I can talk to most people about most topics, even if I deeply disagree with them. But when someone tells me that they believe they have the right to deny another person the right to a legally recognized commitment to the person they love, I just get mad.

X-treme Grocery Shopping!

2008-07-25T10:29:00.004-04:00

I have a longer political post coming, but I'm still working on not sounding like an asswipe in it. So, for the moment I would just like to share a bit of Daily Show awesomeness. The whole segment was funny, but from 2:10-2:20 made it entirely worth staying up past my bedtime.

What was your favorite part of the 2008 campaign?

The dude with the pickle jars, definitely.

Take a load off, Shannie

2008-07-10T17:14:00.004-04:00

I could be honest and say my lack of posting is due to laziness. But instead I'll chalk it up to the fact that the last month has been really hard for a lot of people close to me, and, by osmosis, hard for me. This is true; I'm just not sure it's the reason I haven't posted. Since I'm still seeking my focus on my little plot of internet space, I wasn't sure I wanted to spill my guts about sad stuff. So, I won't spill totally. But I will say this:

Ryan's grandfather died a few weeks ago. This was the first of his grandparents to die, and it was a strange and sad experience for me. I never knew my paternal grandparents, and my maternal ones both died before I graduated college. I gained four grandparents through marriage, and I've loved being in a three-generation family for the first time (aside from the two months that my Grandpa and his first great grandson overlapped in the world). But it also means I've taken on the inevitable loss. Since I only saw Ry's Grampa a couple of times a year, and only knew him for 3 years, a lot of my grief has been sadness for Ry's family.

Still, even knowing someone for a short time, strange things grab you. Grampa LOVED food, and when he talked about it, you could just tell he was tasting something in his mind. He'd close his eyes, gesture with his hands, and leave you in no doubt about his Italian heritage. One of my best memories of him is a 15-minute description of the fantastic creations that came out of his deep fryer, where he looked Ry and me deeply in the eyes and said "Those scallops just melt when you put them in your mouth! Melt!". I think I loved this trait so much because I see it carried on in Ryan and his mom. Now every time I show Ryan a recipe I want to make and he closes his eyes, shakes his fists, and whispers "Yessssss!" I'll remember Grampa.

Giving voice

2008-06-16T22:04:00.003-04:00

I had a great Father's Day. I bought my dad a $6 breakfast, and he gave me this wonderful piece, which was published in the Lawrence Eagle Tribune on Sunday (on page A9! Go dad!). I'm not sure how long the link stays up for, and I'm not sure if I can legally repost the whole article word-for-word here (does the paper own it now? hmm). But, in my lame summation, it is a beautiful piece about how my father, from my earliest days through now, has longed to and tried to create a safe place for me to grow and learn without being hurt by the world. Seriously though, if the link's still active, read it. It's way better than whatever I can say.

My dad is a great writer, and can tackle anything from a nuanced reflection on public policy to a 300-word, stream-of-consciousness fart joke (usually emailed to either me or my uncle when dad is particularly bored). Yet no one, even, I suspect, him, knew this until a few years ago.

As I've mentioned before, my parents lived in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from 2005-2006. Mom had a one-year teaching position at St. Mary's University College, and dad, being recently retired, decided to join her for the adventure. As we all should have known, being alone in a place where no one knew him - during the sometimes long hours mom worked - suited my dad quite well. He could listen and watch and feel the place without interruption. As a result, he started writing long emails, something of a cross between a journal entry and a travel essay, about Belfast, its people, and how those things shaped him, a 59-year-old first-time expat.

When dad returned, he kept up the writing with letters to the editor and a couple of op-eds in the Lawrence Eagle Tribune and the Boston Globe, all incredibly thoughtful and thought-provoking, not to mention a few with some wicked jibes at George Bush that few others could have gotten away with. I was proud, and loved seeing my dad's words in print, certainly. But there was something about his writing that meant far more to me than that.

I hate using cliches, but, most of the time, my dad owns the title "a man of few words." He deplores small talk, and is strongly introverted, needing lots of time to retreat into his own mind. Yet, I discovered at some point during my teenage years, that there were certain topics - often involving some kind of deep philosophy, that I could throw out to get my dad talking at a rate that rivaled anything mom or I could do. It's not that dad doesn't have anything to say - quite the opposite - it's that he saves his breath for the stuff that really matters.

As you might tell from some of the childhood games that my dad references in his article, I was a very introverted kid. At 27, I've gradually worked my way to a sort of balance on the introvert/extrovert scale, but I still feel that need to retreat into my own mind more often than a lot of people I know. It's not always a place of happy, productive thinking, because, along with the introversion, I've inherited the worry gene from my dad. But it's a place where I always have and always will feel comfortable, because he has always "stood sentry," protecting that space for me.

Writing, for both of us, has been a way to, sometimes with great caution, give voice to all those things that are heard only by ourselves or those closest to us. In his article, my dad observed that, even with him standing sentry, I cannot be protected from all the bad things in the world. But, so long as he writes, as we write, we can make more of the good.

Sound financial advice

2008-06-11T10:23:00.003-04:00

When my husband was born, the Social Security Administration consulted a psychic who told them that he would be a Bush-hating, Daily-Show-watching, NPR-listening liberal. So they made the last digits of his social security number high. As a result, we have yet to receive our economic stimulus check, and I have had some time to think about what this whole rebate means. I certainly want to help the economy, but do I feel this is the best way? Probably not. Do I want to take a handout initiated by this president? Not really, but Shannie needs a wardrobe update so she can stop wearing her slutty shirts to work when everything else is in the laundry.

So, during this long waiting period, I have taken some time to think about some fun ways to spend the check that would really get Georgie's Finding Nemo jammies in a bundle. A few ideas:

1. Buy an overly extravagant present for your gay friends' wedding. Sign George's name to the card.

2. Give the money to an organization that works to make his friends behave.

3. Order 25 copies of Scott McClellan's book. Send them to Jenna as a belated wedding present.

4. Get yourself a Diebold voting machine. Use it to make toast.*

5. Stock up on Venezuelan oil for the winter.

Any other suggestions?

*Make sure you have backup toast.

Looking back, seeing far, landing right where we are

2008-06-08T18:32:00.007-04:00

Today is my mom's 58th birthday. I am sure she doesn't mind my posting her age on here. She shouted to the rooftops when she turned 50, and she has been asking me about her 60th birthday party for at least the last three years. It's safe to say she is a woman who ages not only well, but also happily. It's one of the many things about her I hope to emulate, and I'm doing well so far - I just think it's so damn cool that I will be 30 in a few years. Seriously.

I realize I've been abusing the privilege of writing lists for entries lately, but, I must do one more for mom. Here is a random selection of five of my favorite things about my mother:

1. Vocation: My mother is an English professor. When asked what she does, she answers that teaching is not what she does, it is what she is. She was on sabbatical this last year, kept busy with writing projects, but far less busy than she usually is. As the summer approached, I asked her if she was mourning the loss of her freedom, and she answered no, that she was actually itching to get back to school. She isn't complete if she isn't teaching - generating questions, exposing people (including herself) to thrilling new ideas. I hope to feel that way and be so dedicated some day.

2. Ringing on her mobile: My mother shamelessly appropriates the accent and the dialect of any place she visits for more than ten minutes. This became abundantly clear when she and my father moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland, for a year. It has been two years since they returned to "the states," and mom still says things like "mobile," "car park" and "roundabout," even though (or maybe because) it often means explaining the terms to people. When she was there, it was a way of becoming part of the place and the people. It's a tendency I've picked up, so I like to think I know why she does it. It is a way to keep a place and a people with her, and maybe, just a little, to sound cool.

3. Humans for Free-Range Anarchist Lesbian Chickens: Some people, as they get older, become so set in their ways that, not only will they not change anything about themselves, but, they will not even talk about their motivations. My mom is the exact opposite of this. She is always seeking out new things and listening to new ideas, even when they mean making herself uncomfortable. Since I gave up meat, mom and I have had many discussions about the ethics behind my choice to go veg, and her choice not to. Most of these discussions were initiated by her. In the last year, she has read a lot about responsible food consumption, and has switched to free-range, humanely raised meat. She is always giving me articles about the topic, and talking about her motivations. She keeps me honest.

4. Another glass?: My mom is one of my favorite drinking buddies. Not a "pub crawl, stumble home, puke on the front lawn" drinking buddy, but rather a "sit on the porch on a summer night with a glass of wine until you've laughed yourself exhausted and covered every topic in existence" drinking buddy. I cannot wait until we do our yearly family vacation at the beach this year, when we can get her to stay up past her bedtime (9:30, religiously, or so she says) to kick our asses at Trivial Pursuit and drink margaritas.

5. Her life-long dream: In her next life (and apparently with the aid of a time machine), my mother would like to be a backup singer for Aretha Franklin. She loves dancing, especially to Motown, and approaches it with the seriousness and precision of a surgeon. This, sadly, is not something I have inherited, as evidenced here:

Happy birthday, mom!

Get your money back at the door

2008-06-05T13:41:00.004-04:00

Priorities are strange. We all have a definite set, but most of us probably can't immediately articulate our priorities in life (and if you can, you are way too Type A and I hate you, unless you are my mom, in which case you're cool and I love you).

This afternoon, I decided to analyze my behavior over the last few hours to figure out exactly what my priorities are. In the best order I can determine, they are:
1. Analyzing my behavior to determine what my priorities are.
2. Blogging about it.
3. Searching the NPR website to figure out exactly what Carl Kasell looks like. Yeah, exactly like you would have imagined, though with a disappointing lack of jowls.
4. Worrying about what I will eat for dinner once I start my night classes three months from now.
5. Worrying about the fate of uncontacted tribes.
6. Reading archives of my new favorite blog.
7. Rereading archives of this blog to figure out if I sound like a total assbag. Answer: sometimes. Lately, kind of a lot.
8. Examining my pores in a compact mirror and wondering if they are larger than those of the average person.
9. Work.

You know you're a yuppie when . . .

2008-05-27T19:59:00.003-04:00

. . . your husband is bringing home sushi for dinner. Only, it's not from your usual place, so he didn't order enough rolls, and he calls to warn you that you might want to make something else to go with the sushi. So you say "Ok, I'll figure something out." You look around and are thrilled to discover a bag of frozen edamame in the freezer. Just as you are taking it out, your husband texts you "Edamame?" and you both think it's just so cute that you thought of it at the same time.

You cannot hate me as much as I hate me right now. Trust me.

Marital spat, Gmail chat

2008-05-23T10:39:00.003-04:00

Talking to the husband on G-chat, at work on Friday morning:

me: whoa i just realized you can navigate between chat windows just using tab
Ryan: kind of
you have to shift+tab to go left
me: i don't
Ryan: liar
me: i just tabbed between you and drew like 3x
COME OVER HERE AND I'LL SHOW YA

Big Trucks!!

2008-05-22T14:56:00.002-04:00

There is massive construction going on next to the courthouse where I work. I'm talking, like, canyon-sized hole in the ground filled with pipes big enough for my car to drive through. There is a ladder that disappears down into the canyon! It's awesome. But it's all going behind a fence covered by a banner advertising the luxury shopping and condos and blah blah that is going up.

Yesterday, I was walking behind a woman, middle-aged, well-dressed, probably a lawyer. She slowed her stride gradually until she finally found a gap in the banner, and she eagerly put her face right up to the fence to gaze through. After passing her, I noticed the thoughtful construction dudes had actually put transparent windows in the banner, for ease of gazing, and, further down the line, had actually build a platform with a big sign saying "Observation deck. Public welcome!"

Last summer, there was actually a hot air balloon guy who got people to pay him 20 bucks to go up in the air, look down on the construction, and come back down.

I love when adults are 9-year-old boys.

It's going to be so damn boring when they finish this building.

Fun with hyperlinks, because I only learned how to use them three weeks ago

2008-05-21T15:09:00.002-04:00

Club Passim! I love you, more so since the most recent Girlyman show. But STOP sending me emails twice per day about your silent auction. I buy gum once a week using money from our change jar. I am far from the Auction Bidder phase of my life.

Open letter from the passive-aggressive commuter

2008-05-21T10:11:00.003-04:00

Dear Man Sitting Next to Me on the T,

If there weren't 10 people per square foot packed in here, I would have vacated my seat in a huff three stops ago. Despite the suffocatingly tight quarters that we are all sharing, you are sitting like a sneering 16-year-old boy in the back of a classroom. Your knees are at least a foot apart. Mine are grinding against one another. Your shoulders are comfortably stretched out against the back of the seat. Mine are slowly crushing the top half of my spine. You seem to think it's acceptable to turn fully around, throwing your arm across the back of my seat, to look out the window when the train crosses the river. It is not. I do not care that you are professionally dressed and moderately good-looking. Should you so much as accidentally touch me with that obnoxious arm, I vow to either yell or smack you. But I will probably just seethe in silence and write about it in my blog.

Sincerely,
Shannon

Dear Woman Walking in Front of Me on the Sidewalk,

I should preface this by warning you that I just had a miserable ride on the T, and I have barely enough patience with humanity left to get me home. Therefore, it would behoove you to obey some basic rules of sidewalk etiquette. First, and most importantly, treat it like a road. Remain on the right-hand side unless you are passing. Walking very slowly, while talking on your cell phone and smoking a cigarette, on the left-hand side, is deeply annoying both to me and to the people trying to walk in the opposite direction. Doing so in the middle of the sidewalk is even worse. Oh, you ran into a friend along the way? How nice! However, I am not sure why the two of you collectively lack the understanding that the middle of an extremely busy sidewalk is not the best place to hold your reunion. I fear I must veer off the sidewalk, into the street, and pass you in a quiet huff, coughing to indicate that I also do not appreciate the second-hand smoke you have been providing me for the last 1/2 mile. You don't notice. Perhaps you are new to this mode of commuting, and I should give you some friendly tips on the rules we tend to follow. But I think I'll just go home and complain about it in my blog.

Sincerely,
Shannon

The art of procrastination: talk about one's workspace in order to avoid doing work

2008-05-20T13:36:00.004-04:00

I often have a hard time separating the necessary from the not-so-necessary. It makes me a bad budgeter, a bad packer, and a really boring storyteller.

Over the last three years, I have developed a fairly substantial collection of Stuff I've Brought from Home to Leave at the Office. Perhaps this list of the collection's contents tells me what I TRULY value:
- NPR Morning Edition coffee mug
- black clogs
- old Nalgene bottle
- black cardigan
- soy sauce
- white cardigan
- new Nalgene bottle that does not contain the chemical that will deform my future offspring
- chopsticks
- houndstooth ballet flats
- parmesan cheese
- sneakers
- fat-free butter spray that I wouldn't be surprised to discover WILL deform my future offspring
- pictures of the husband and the parents
- deodorant

Yup, that about does it. Now how else can I put off writing this report?

Getting in the game

2008-05-15T12:21:00.003-04:00

I'm a bit of a Johnny Come Lately to baseball fandom. After years of sneering at my father for spending his time on such a pointless activity, I cautiously joined two of my roommates - a die-hard Red Sox fan and a die-hard Cubs fan, respectively, to watch the 2003 playoffs. I got into it a bit, but was frightened away by the heartbreak I witnessed. In 2004, I really caught the bug. I touched the Sox' trophy when they toured it through DC, while the stranger waiting in line in back of me yelled "I am going to marry this trophy!!!!" and I never looked back.

So, needless to say, I feel a bit of a need to prove my legitimacy. I have survived sitting with my dad and four uncles during a family party in which they quizzed me about the most obscure baseball terms. I may not have passed the quiz, but I stuck with it, which I think was the point.

I've also learned the joy of talking the talk, theorizing and expressing half-formed opinions about the game, becoming more bold and knowledgeable with each beer. A few years ago, as I practiced this art with Ryan while watching a game the Sox were winning at a bar in the South End, a stranger next to me turned and asked "Do you know if this is a save opportunity for Papelbon?" I never thanked that guy, but, dammit, he legitimized me!

The remaining hurdle to overcome is the stigma of the Girl Baseball Fan, she who wears a pink baseball cap, screeches for a home run but does not understand the squeeze play, and picks her favorite player based on how cute he is.

I don't own any pink baseball clothing. However, I cannot remember the squeeze play no matter how many times it is explained to me, and I blush a little every time Mike Lowell gets up to bat. But, dammit, Lowell is a solid offensive and defensive player, and a great guy in the clubhouse. Yes, I have a little crush on him, but that shouldn't diminish my baseball cred. Mission: make way for a new kind of baseball fan, regardless of the teasing of certain over-50 members of my family.

Ok, dad, I will give you credit for not making fun of me nearly as much as you used to. And, for that, I give you this:

Stuck Inside of Somerville with the Denver Blues Again

2008-05-04T22:34:00.004-04:00

I have a confession to make. As might be obvious to anyone reading this site, I've been in a bit of a battle with myself between what I feel I ought to be writing and what my jackass brain wants to write. That is to say, I've been fighting to keep my blog from becoming what it's doomed to be - at least for a while - an agonized meditation on my identity as a writer.

Shit. I just lost my four readers. Come back - I didn't mean it!

Well, I kind of did. What I mean is that I am trying to break out of my own brain, write intelligently, creatively, and entertainingly about things happening outside of my head. And it's going to take some exercise to achieve all those adverbs.

Tonight's book club meeting started me thinking about this. Book club consists of a few of my college friends and their friends. I would lovingly describe it - based on the 2 meetings I've been to thus far - as a group of frustrated intellectuals trying to break out of being frustrated intellectuals by being frustrated intellectuals and talking about books. It brings back the parts of college I never thought I would miss, but I do.

Our current book is On the Road. Most of us read it at 16 and found it inspirational and thrilling. Then we read it again at 27 and found it sad and depressing, albeit with some redeeming positive moments. I don't plan to pick it up again 10 years from now, unless it's before throwing myself in front of a train. Why has the book become so much more depressing as we've matured? Because Sal Paradise is running away from any established life by telling himself he's running toward some great, authentic, fantastic goal, and it always turns out that there is no there there. When we were 16, the idea of running was enough.

One person mentioned tonight the fact that Kerouac's disillusioned privileged intellectual narrator - and maybe Kerouac himself - consistently refuses to analyze his experience. Or at least he refuses to write out his analysis. Sal is running away from his analytical, intellectual self, hoping to find something more real. Is the result a more authentic text, or is it a sad narration of beautiful, awful, and sometimes boring moments - a narration that longs for a narrator to turn it into something else?

I'm not sure of the answer, but I do know I sympathize with the desire to cut the analysis in an effort to seek something real. It is boring and maddening to get stuck in your own head, and writers all write to try and get out of there somehow. I tend to believe - though my 16-year-old self would turn away in disgust - that there's no way to write yourself totally out of it. If you put it to the page, you're analyzing and appropriating, whether you admit it or not. But some of us - me - could stand to push it a bit more. I'm starting small, with the little anecdote posts. But for each restrained one of those I feel like I pile on to my need for a marathon self-reflexive pile of crap like this one. It's an addiction. I'm working on it, ok?

So the moral of tonight's story is that I think I'm glad I haven't found my way into the consciousness of the whole Internet yet. I'm working out my craft for all the world to see at the moment, and I think I'm glad it's a pretty small world. Also, if you're over 18 and don't want to totally piss off your inner teenager, put down that copy of On the Road.

Delighting in inconsistency

2008-04-29T14:36:00.002-04:00

So, yeah, I'm kind of a culture snob, as I'm sure has been proven by earlier posts. Yet, we just got offered free box seats to the Boston Ballet from one of our corporate sponsors at work, and my first thought was "Dammit, why couldn't they be Celtics playoff tickets?"

Little Giant Pandas!

2008-04-26T09:53:00.003-04:00

I heard about this on NPR the other day and went to their website for this video. If it doesn't make your day at least a bit happier, you need to seek help.

I tried to embed it, but did not succeed. Bear with me, I'm still learning how these dang Internets work.

Marshmallows, karma, and a little luck

2008-04-25T17:09:00.003-04:00

I am fortunate (or maybe unfortunate) to have coworkers who delight in bringing baked goods to share with the office. A few days ago, I was especially happy to discover a plate of Rice Krispies treats on the reception desk. It was half an hour before lunch, my blood sugar was tanking, and I decided to treat myself. I reached for the glistening cluster of gooey deliciousness, and then remembered the recipe. Marshmallow. Marshmallow has gelatin. Gelatin comes from animal collagen. I am a pescatarian (I eat things that swim, but not things that walk). DAMMIT!

In the four years since I gave up meat, I haven't had what I would consider a major moment of temptation. I've had to write in "meatless" on wedding reply cards, bypassed the turkey in the Thanksgiving buffet line, and breathed a sigh of relief for an excuse to pass up the bacon wrapped scallops my grandmother-in-law buys in bulk from Sam's Club. But, until yesterday, I never had to turn away from something I was drooling over.

Becoming pescatarian wasn't that much of a sacrifice for me. I started dating a guy who had recently given up meat, and figured it would make going out to dinner more fun if we were always able to try each other's meals (aw, how cute). So I decided to see how long I could go veg (pesc??). It was pretty easy, since I was down to eating meat only a couple of times a week already. The guy stuck around, and so did the eating habits.

My ethical reasons for giving up meat have become clearer to me as I have read more about factory farming and some of the philosophy behind vegetarianism. But I've ignored the hidden things that might make my commitment less-than-pure: the foods made with chicken broth, the leather shoes, gelatin. It's become important enough for me to do no harm to animals that I'm now actively looking for those things and filtering them out of my life. So far, I've spent an obscene amount of money on gelatin-free vitamins from Whole Foods and vegan Earth Shoes. Proof that moral righteousness is a luxury of the privileged. I'm thankful for my fortune.

The One Worth Leaving

2008-04-18T12:41:00.007-04:00

I did it. I submitted my deposit for Grad School Round 2. Almost as soon as I'd made it official, Emerson sent me an invitation for a reception for admitted students. I must have made some progress over the last few years, because my first thought was not "Meeting new people by myself? How can I get out of it?" Instead it was "Meeting new people by myself? There had better be booze."

I've been focusing so much on the financial stuff and the career/life balance issues around going back to school, that I kind of forgot that, for the first time in almost four years, I'm entering a new community. Yikes.

Until I moved back to Massachusetts it felt like I was being thrown into a new group of people every year or so, and in most of those situations I was pretty far from home It's made it easier for me, in my compartmentalizing obsession, to divide my past life into phases. The last of those distinct phases was, by my choice, a lot shorter than I'd originally planned.

I tried the grad school thing four years ago, for an English MA. I quickly became part of a core group of people, most of whom had moved to DC specifically for school, and it turned out I was much more interested in the social aspect of grad school than the academic. I was 24, but felt more like a new college freshman...only I was the polar opposite of the reclusive, serious college freshman I had been years before. I was reveled in having a big group of casual friends and - for the ONLY time in my life - more attention from guys than I could juggle. But as my social confidence was soaring, my intellectual life was languishing. I wasn't inspired by my coursework, and I doubted the degree would really get me anywhere career-wise. So, after long discussions with my parents, the counsel of a very wise professor, and agonized late night phone calls with the guy who would eventually become my husband, I left.

Four years later, I have my moments of doubt, but I am deep-down sure that I made the right decision...if there is such a thing. I came away from DC smarter for the experience of trying - and leaving - something that was fun as hell but no good for me. I made, and have kept, one really good friend from my time there. The rest of them have, I think, forgotten about me. I visited once the year after I left, when my friends were still all together in school. Though a bunch of them showed up at a bar to meet up with me, I could tell I had given up my place in the circle.

I don't mean to whine "my friends forgot me!" I was the one who chose to move away. But it still bothers me. I guess I just feel like I was somehow a phony. Like they've all written me off because I was there for the wrong reasons. More likely, they just moved on together, while I moved on my own. My time there was relatively small to them, while, for me, it was the entirety of the experience. And it's an experience, a phase, I still struggle to place in context.

What the hell, then, does this have to do with my invitation from Emerson? I really don't know; this has been a rather unsuccessful attempt to think by writing. Will I somehow exorcise the ghost of my DC life by starting school again, getting in with a new group, actually graduating with an MA? I doubt it.

In DC, life centered around my school social life. Here, it's going to be yet another portion of a life that keeps getting more full. I'm doing this so I can finally make good on my writerly ambitions. But it'd be nice if I could be one of the cool kids again too.

One foot in front of the other

2008-04-10T15:57:00.002-04:00

It's 4:00. I have been working on the same convoluted grant proposal all day and I am going to assault the computer if I try to continue. So I just ate a plate of mashed potatoes I was saving for tomorrow. Then I read the online menu for the restaurant we're going with Ryan's family this weekend - read it for the third time, to be honest. I like to daydream about restaurant dinners for days before they actually happen. I generally start planning dinner around 10:30 AM. I must burn a lot of calories thinking about food. It's the only way I can explain how I have kept off the 35 pounds I lost four years ago by eating oatmeal and lots of bland salads. Metabolism, you better be here to stay, because I am never doing that again. It wouldn't be fair to all the cheese I love so much.

It is 73 degrees outside - finally, warm enough that it's almost uncomfortable to wear a coat! Ry and I are celebrating by attempting to walk home from work - a 6-8 mile trek, depending on which route we take. We started doing this occasionally on really nice days last year, and it's become a great way to avoid going to the gym but still get exercise. Plus, we start by walking through Boston Common, where we stop for about 10 minutes and gaze longingly at the dogs in the puppy park until we start to feel like sketchy old men at a playground. From there, we go up Charles Street and across the bridge, and either follow the Red Line or walk along Memorial Drive. We tend to end up parked in a bar around Harvard or Central, but this time we're hoping to make it all the way home without succumbing to the lure of beer and french fries. I just love how connected everything feels when I can walk such a distance. I traverse most of the distance between home in Somerville and work in South Boston underground, so this gives me a whole new perspective.

I just now realized how pathetic this must sound to people who regularly run 10 miles. In-shape people, do NOT read the preceding entry!

Postgame Reflections

2008-04-08T18:43:00.003-04:00

So, writing this personal timeline thing was really weird. In no particular order, some things it made me think of:

- When I dug through my memory for these tidbits, my top sources/triggers proved to be: parents' stories, my old journals, friends' stories, songs, smells, and world events. I guess there's no such thing as a truly individual history...unless, that is, you define the individual history as the unique collision of all these outside forces and the individual thoughts and experience that creates. Yeah, I think I'll go with that.

- As I wrote, I found myself rejecting certain memories as if they were overplayed songs. Somehow it felt cheap to include these, like they had lost their meaning in the overtelling. Of course, there were also the ones like the Fisher Price socialist community that endure despite the repetition.

- I found the second set far more difficult and boring to write than the first. Maybe because the majority of those ten years were my pathologically reflective time, and I feel like all the memories I have are SO overplayed.

- That last point actually led me to think about how memories are shaped after the fact. I think part of what made me uncomfortable about writing the 11-20 memories was that they felt so contrived. I included the first love(s), the rebellious friends, etc. In middle and high school, even up through college to an extent, I was hyper-aware of those things that were expected to be momentous in my life. Not that the actual memories weren't important, but I wonder how different they would have been if I hadn't given a shit about those expectations. More importantly, I wonder how different they would be if I truly didn't give a shit now. Those memories are far enough away now that I have lost a lot of the random day-to-day stuff in favor of the big momentous stuff. I'd like to think that 21-30 will be a bit more wide-ranging. I'm damn sure they'll be a lot happier!

Oh, and in case it doesn't end up making that list, the Neil Diamond performance and subsequent conversation with Tom Werner during the Sox home opener today was the most awkward and horrific thing I have witnessed in a long time and I am still really upset that I had to watch it alone. They need to stick to playing the recorded "Sweet Caroline."

Also, dad, did I mention that Manny hit a triple that turned into a run?

Personal Timeline Part 2

2008-04-06T21:17:00.001-04:00

The Angsty Years:

Age 11: The Maloys ask me to babysit for the first time. I finally feel like the big kid in the neighborhood.

Age 12: I keep a "newsbook" of each day's news stories. I am mortified when my parents mention it to anyone, but I turn to it frequently to place my memories in context.

Age 13: Melissa and I spend hours on Salisbury Beach at night singing Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, and Bette Midler.

Age 14: Maureen and Joel swear when we're out in public, love John Waters movies, and make fun of everyone else in our school. Their friendship gives Melissa and I the confidence we need to get through eighth grade.

Age 15: I have my first kiss at the Souhegan Halloween Dance; I am dressed as a hippie, wearing my dad's old bellbottoms and Maureen's tank top, Jon is dressed as a woman, wearing my shirt.

Age 16: An ice storm leaves us without power for four days, and Grandma dies with all of us around her bed. Mom and I will never be able to separate these two events in our minds.

Age 17: A black cat follows Jon and I to the car, and hops onto the roof when we move to get in. I don't bother to write a poem about it later.

Age 18: Driving to school, Ani Difranco on the radio in my 1988 Volvo, I approach exit 9N and wonder desperately what might be possible if I drove past.

Age 19: My friends in the women-only dorm plaster "Welcome Jack!" signs on my door for his first visit. The RA laughs and looks the other way.

Age 20: As I stare at the painting of the Easter Rising in the National Museum in Dublin, Rebecca runs in to tell me that a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.

Feeding the brain

2008-04-01T18:58:00.003-04:00

Oh, I've been a bad little blogger. I thought that treating blogging as something to do when I am procrastinating work would make me more consistent with it, but I underestimated my drive to be totally unproductive. Since my job has become primarily writing, I've found that I avoid writing more desperately than before. This became very clear to me the other day when I had a record-long streak of doing work without so much as stopping to put the 47th Cadbury Mini-Egg of the day into my mouth. Why was I being so disgustingly diligent and productive? Because I was doing MATH. Yes, I had a massive pile of demographic stats that I was trying to make into something useful for a grant proposal, and I was pumped to get it done. I don't know exactly why. I suck at math. What would have taken a high-school sophomore 30 minutes took me an entire afternoon. But it was as if my brain craved every last clunky mistake-ridden minute of it. Certainty! Completion! Decimal points! I can only hope the foundation finds my data so stimulating.

If nothing else, this unexpectedly pleasant work experience, and my less-than-enthusiastic response to the prospect of writing, led me to wonder about career choice and the need for balance. I have decided that I want to be a writer when I grow up (most likely some time in May, 2010). So why do I have to force myself to do it? Why did it take me a year to start a blog, and now I can't even be bothered to write in it once a week? I know other writers would offer me bucketfuls of wise answers, all of which I would accept gratefully. And my generally positive take on it is that writing is hard work, and it's something I care about doing well, and as long as I'm not doing it, I can't screw it up. It still energizes and excites me to finally get the fingers to the keyboard, but I also know I'm in for a lot of days where I have to glue my butt to the chair to get me to do it. And I know I'll still need that balance, those ridiculously simple math problems that I do just so my brain can feel balanced, and so I can feel like more than just a jumble of abstraction.

Honest Mess

2008-03-19T10:54:00.002-04:00

I was prepared for weight of Barack Obama's speech on Tuesday, since the three closest people to me in the world, all now firm Obama supporters (right, mom??), had already gushed about it to me. So, after listening to the speech for the first time, I gave myself a few minutes to enjoy the fact that a candidate fighting tooth-and-nail for the nomination dared make such an honest and nuanced speech. Then I immediately started to worry about how everyone else will react. Then I decided to stop worrying, because any fallout is worth it.

It's impossible to know yet exactly what the impact of the speech will be. From the varied responses, two threads are emerging. Many feel that Obama has opened up an important dialogue about race AND class in our country - a dialogue that potentially helps us to overcome the tired old "red state/blue state" divisions. Others are upset that Obama refused to completely denounce Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I agree that Obama will run into a lot of problems because he did not divorce himself from Rev. Wright, but I think he did something far more important in this speech.

This country is dominated by incredibly divisive politics. We don't have the dangerous ethnic divisions that places like Israel, Rwanda, the Balkans have suffered/are suffering. But, as Obama pointed out, a majority of people in this country struggle economically and have, for understandable reasons, come to see advancement and opportunity as a "zero sum game," and politicians take advantage of this, encouraging disadvantaged people to blame other - often equally disadvantaged - people for their problems. People get angry. Sometimes that anger is rational, sometimes it is not. Sometimes they allow that anger to become warped into hatred. Sometimes they redirect it systems of power. And sometimes they become a little too loud about it for mainstream tastes. When this happens, mainstream politicians back down from the divisions they have been fomenting and say we should all just work together.

Barack Obama did not say that Rev. Wright is correct. He said that the man's anger, and the anger of millions of Americans, must be put in the context of both their historical and current struggles. And that is a critical difference. Many people agree with Reverend Wright, and, if we simply dismiss that anger as inappropriate and unproductive, thus shutting it out of political discourse, we are just widening the rifts that we claim to be trying to close. I recognize that hateful speech should be denounced, and I certainly do not want to see our democracy devolve into an angry shouting match. But, in a real democracy, political discourse HAS to be messier and louder than we are willing to admit.

(Another topic to be tackled later - the same principle can and should be applied to our foreign policy and all the crap Obama has taken for saying he would talk to leaders like Ahmadinejad and Chavez)

Polite discussion about contentious political issues is a luxury of the privileged and free (though not all of us choose to partake of that luxury). Obama gets that, and he is offering to be a mediator, to take the anger and frustration that a lot of Americans feel and transform it into progress. It's a big task to take on, and I don't know - can't know - how successful he will be at it. But, dammit, he said it, and opened himself up to a lot of criticism in the process, and for that, I thank him.

Da Winnahs

2008-03-14T14:14:00.001-04:00

Good work, Melissa and Ry. The quote from the previous post was from the Sage of the Sox, Manny Ramirez. This article featured an impressive number of direct quotes from the usually reticent Bad Man. It also reminded me to be grateful and stop wishing for more Manny post-game press conferences, because I know that, if always spoke to the media at such great length, all of our heads would explode.

Pop Quiz

2008-03-13T14:22:00.001-04:00

I find the following quote inexplicably hilarious. It is taken from an article, which I will properly cite once I've gotten a few guesses as to the source:

"I like it. I don't need to read a whole book to know what it's about. It's about this," he said, pointing to his head. "It's about what you want. If I come to you and tell you I want to take you to my house and cook you a steak, then you'll know. Because what it is is if you think positive stuff, all the positive stuff is going to come to you. Making things happen for yourself. Hey, that's what it's all about. If you said to yourself, 'Oh, I'm tired today, brother.' Then you're going to be tired all day. That's it. That's what it's all about."

Who spaketh this brilliance? Post your answers in comments.

Looking forward and back

2008-03-12T16:35:00.003-04:00

I don't know why I was so pissed off for most of yesterday. I seem to remember that it had something to do with people refusing to use Track Changes in MS Word, the seemingly inherent corruption in government, and the fact that my reheated brussel sprouts didn't taste as good the second day. But then I came home, got a sweet gift from my awesome husband, ate cheese, watched Once, and all was right again.

This weekend, I got into my top-choice grad program (and my second choice - woo!), which is great for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it gave me clarity on my life beyond this coming summer. I know what I am going to do for the next two years (roughly)! And last night, Ryan got me a congratulatory gift that - whether he realized it or not - gave me clarity on my life before 2007.

A bit of background: a year or so ago, my trusty laptop caught a case of computer gonhorrea that even my antivirus software couldn't cure. All of my attempts to extract the documents I hadn't backed up ended with tears and me screaming insults that no poor emotionless machine should be subjected to. I basically gave up, and have just been in denial that some potentially important stuff - not to mention ALL of my music - is trapped in the bastard-machine where I cannot reach it.

So, last night, after dinner, Ryan handed me a small gift-wrapped box containing a hard drive. He had "worked from home" yesterday, but he actually spent most of the day heroically extracting ALL of my documents and music off of the asshole-machine and safely onto a healthy hard drive. Now, I can finally update my Ipod, reread all of my angsty high school and college poetry that I never plan to show to anyone, and see if any of my half-finished crap from last year is, well, better than crap! I have been reunited with a digital portion of myself that I thought had been severed from me. If you remember the whole "daemon" thing in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, that's how it feels. I have been reunited with my daemon.

Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but, a lot of sentimentally important bits of my life were on that shithead-machine, and now they are safe. I can sleep peacefully again. Thank you, Ryan. Now I'm totally going to download that Pat Benetaar song I always sing when I get drunk.

Personal timeline, Part 1

2008-03-07T09:45:00.003-05:00

As I am already failing miserably at blogging every 2 days or so, I'm going to attempt a kickstart with a cool idea from Maggie Mason at Mighty Girl. Seeing as I haven't yet completed Decade 3, this will only do for about 3 posts....

Age 0: Dad sets off a fire alarm in the hospital in his rush to the delivery room.

Age 1: Mom leaves me in my room for a minute while she answers the phone. While she is gone, I cover myself and my large stuffed bunny entirely in Vaseline. Bunny's plush fur will never recover, but she will years later make the final cut of stuffed animals I choose to keep for sentimental reasons.

Age 2: Dad stays home with me for a year or so while in-between jobs. He spends hours at Drummond Playground with me.

Age 3: Someone cuts Grandpa off, forcing him to slam on the brakes. Mistaking a cue, I yell from the backseat "Jeeza Chist, you jerk!" Grandma and Grandpa cross themselves.

Age 4: While walking downtown with mom and dad, I am greeted by at three elderly women, friends of my nanny, who my parents have never met before. My parents are shocked to learn that I already have a social life outside of them.

Age 5: On our first night in the new house, we have picnic of Burger King food on the floor of my parents' new bedroom.

Age 6: Mom learns at a parent-teacher conference that I have convinced my entire class, including Mrs. Newcomb, that I have four brothers and sisters, all of whom happen to be named after characters from Silver Spoons, Family Ties and Our House.

Age 7: The notorious old Doberman in the apartment above us at the beach bites Melinda on the nose, sending her to the emergency room. This does nothing to help my fear of dogs.

Age 8: Dad takes me into Boston to see Uncle Danny in the hospital. While he says goodbye to his brother alone, I play the piano in the waiting room with Sister Gertrude. Later, while walking through Franklin Park, dad gives $20 to the guy who asks if he can spare some change.

Age 9: I finally manage to sled down the hill in our back yard, straight past the house, and down the hill in our front yard. I hope the snow never melts.

Age 10: I drag out all of my old Fisher Price Little People, and set up a socialist community in my parents' loft. I name it Friendly Forest.

Identity politics - NOT!

2008-02-29T14:31:00.003-05:00

Time to weigh in on the primaries in my patented inconclusive and self-serving way - yes!

First, the disclaimers:
1. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to vote. Not because I don't believe in telling people how to vote (quite the contrary), but because I'm pretty sure that the 3 people in total I know from Texas and Ohio have moved elsewhere. Oh, but Vermont's voting too! Vermont, where, one crazy November back in 2000, I cast my ballot for the consumer-hero-turned-big-ball-of-mildly-destructive-ego (settle down, I knew VT would go for Gore, and I was only 19). Please vote for Obama, my darling cow-loving hippies, and tell all the Ron Paul people to move to New Hampshire where they belong.

2. I made my primary decision only a few weeks before Massachusetts voted on Super-Tuesday, and, after much deliberation, I decided on Obama. I really don't see a lot of key policy differences between him and Clinton (though I tend to agree with her on the health-care mandate, at least as a starting point for debate). I just feel like he has an ability to bring people together and work out solutions that she sorely lacks. Clinton's style seems to be to make her decision, hunker down, focus on the details and look up to face the opposition when it's too late. I've had too much of that lately - 7 years and about a month too much, to be exact - and I believe Obama can ultimately accomplish more with domestic policy and do more to repair our international image than she can.

Woo, those were long disclaimers. Fortunately, my political obsession of-the-moment is fairly simple (empty promise). Everyone is understandably obsessed with how and why Democrats are making the choices they do in these primaries. We're looking closely at women and African-Americans to see if they vote based on their race or gender, and looking at everyone else to see what identifications trump others. It's going to take us a long time to sort through what this primary means for and about us as a country, and I, for one, am drooling with anticipation of a protracted discussion about identity politics, a topic I managed to work into every goddamn paper I wrote in college.

Feeling, at this point, pretty comfortable about the substance of my vote for Obama, I can now strip away the reason and look at the emotion of it. Before I reasoned it out, I knew I didn't want to vote for Hillary Clinton. That bothered me, because, like most other women I know, the idea of finally having a viable female candidate for president is really powerful. This resurfaced again the other day, as talk of the media's unfairness toward her and how we "just don't know what we want" from a female candidate began in earnest. Could my reaction to her be sexist? I fully believe that she's receiving unfair treatment (Tim Russert, I want a word with you...), and that we, as a country, seem to have a harder time figuring out what a female candidate is supposed to be than we do an African-American candidate. That said, I think Clinton has run a mediocre campaign, hasn't given satisfactory answers to some critical questions, and likely deserves to be this close to losing the nomination.

So, what's at the core of the emotional reaction that, maybe, on some level, led me to build a case for my Obama vote? I don't want to vote for someone like me. Hillary Clinton is a privileged, white, liberal female. And, as a privileged (albeit without $5 million to lend to a campaign), white, liberal female myself, I am simultaneously obsessed with my own perspective and really damn sick of it. I believe I am right about pretty much everything, but I also know I am incredibly sheltered and have a lot to learn. I wanted to vote for someone with a drastically different background and perspective, who maybe, just maybe, could give me some answers to the political questions I never quite managed to answer in all those college papers. Fortunately, Obama gave me the chance to buy into that high-minded idealism while remaining confident that, when the facade cracks, there will still be valuable substance behind it.

....as the day she was hatched

2008-02-26T13:34:00.003-05:00

Our apartment is on the third floor of a three-family house. When we give people directions, we generally don't bother to describe the house. Instead, we tell them to look for the circus of lawn ornaments in the 5x5 plot that is the front yard. No one has ever gotten lost.

Our landlady has a borderline pathological obsession with holiday decorations, and, in the year-and-a-half we have lived in this apartment, the phases of our lives have come to be marked by the ever-changing yard adornments, the centerpiece of which is a life-size ceramic goose who is always dressed for the season. She has been an elf, an Easter Bunny, an Uncle Sam, and a witch, among other things. But, in this most dreary time of the year, when Christmas is over and spring is not yet in sight, the goose develops an identity crisis. Apparently there are no goose-sized costumes available until closer to Easter. As a result, the goose sits, naked and vulnerable, on an equally bare square of grass. This troubles me daily, and I desperately want to go buy some green felt and make a leprechaun costume for her.

But, then again, I know the creative process is a delicate thing, and I don't want to get evicted.

Taking stock, Sunday at 11 PM

2008-02-24T22:59:00.002-05:00

The bad:
- Ralph Nader apparently decided he didn't alienate the left enough the last 2 times around, and is having another go at it;
- I woke up at noon, and I'm trying to go to bed at 11;
- I have to meet with The One With No Soul and Terrible Table Manners tomorrow

The good:
- Terry Francona just signed a 3-year contract extension;
- My Ipod shuffle just played Dylan's "Idiot Wind," a song I used to be all angsty to in college, followed by "Mama Lou," a song I haven't heard since my mother sang it to me when I was 3;
- I, and, I think, everyone else who campaigned for Nader in college is head-over-heels for Obama already. Sorry Ralph.

Three Worlds

2008-02-24T22:08:00.001-05:00

It's been a great weekend. In the last 48 hours, I:
- spent a snowbound evening with the husband eating sushi, playing Dr. Mario (I kicked his ass), and doing serious planning for our futures as grad students and/or (eek!) homeowners;
- had a very grown-up triple date with two close friends and an old friend I hadn't seen in 10 years;
- went to a party at which we played Wii bowling, debated the merits of a violent proletarian uprising vs. democratic change, drank copious amounts of beer, and ended up eating cheez-its and going to bed at 5 AM;
- found out that the first of our friends to venture into the kid realm had a baby girl on Saturday;
- had dinner with a friend I hadn't seen in way-too-long.

During dinner tonight, as the large group of Serbian men at the bar talked about women, alcohol, and - I think - Kosovo's declaration of independence, my friend and I did what we do best: analyzing Where Our Lives Are Going. The conversation is best summed up in my friend's description of her New Year's Eve. She and her fiance, who recently bought a house, went first to a block party full of thirty-something couples and their kids, then for drinks at an upscale restaurant in Harvard Square with another couple, and ended the night at a party with kegs and beer-pong.

It's always a bit dangerous when I start analyzing my life, because I am wont to get so immersed in analyzing that I stop actually DOING anything. Fortunately, as teen and college angst have passed, I have become less likely to do this, but I am fascinated by this feeling of being caught between three worlds: the barely-out-of-college, the young independent professional, and family life. Obviously there is more to life that can't be forced into these kind of categories, but I have to admit, the categories fit a large part of my day-to-day life. I'm at a rare and really fortunate point where I can feel comfortable acting like a college kid one day and a wise (hah!) grownup the next. And I can't help but wonder if, in a year or so, once we've taken the plunge and bought a house, I will feel so free to dabble in the lifestyle of every phase of the twenty-something life. I'll enjoy it for now.

Feeling like a kid who just pooped in the toilet for the first time

2008-02-22T14:33:00.001-05:00

I sent a colleague an email to notify her that we received an official document and that I had placed said document in the folder created specifically for the purpose of storing such documents.

Said colleague is incapable of sarcasm, yet, her response was "WOW!!!!!!! Great job!!!!"

Be Nice

2008-02-22T12:20:00.001-05:00

A big snowstorm was forecast today, which inevitably meant that the Foul Weather Riders (those who only ride when driving conditions are bad) descended upon the T. I become even more of a righteous city asshole than usual on these days, because many of these people do not follow the rules that the rest of us inherently know, and the part of me that thrives on being pissed and passive-aggressive with strangers for obscure breaches of etiquette is just THRILLED.

The beast was awakened when, as Ryan and I waited about a foot from the edge of the platform, an FWR standing behind us suddenly darted in front as the train approached. I responded by glaring and then moving up next to him, and we jockeyed for position as we each tried to guess where the doors would stop. Though I guessed right, Mr. FWR STILL darted into the train in front of me and took the prime seat. I enjoyed several moments of glaring and whispering complaints to Ryan as he tried to peacefully read his newspaper before the beast returned to its slumber.

By the time we got to Central, the train had filled up with regular commuters and FWRs, and apparently there were more breaches of etiquette as people tried to get onto the packed cars. As we sat, instead of the usual "Use all the doors please," the conductor came on the loudspeaker saying, in his best parental voice:
"The train is very crowded. Be nice to each other, people. Please, be nice."

I do enjoy being a city asshole, but, the guy has a point.

The Grand Entrance

2008-02-22T11:49:00.001-05:00

Finally. I have meant to start a blog for a long time, mostly because I feel guilty. I call myself a writer, but I have not written anything of note - other than stuff for work, which I can't bring myself to count - for years now. So, here it is, Internet. I doubt you have felt my absence from your huge and varied discourses, but I am going to try to make my mark, because, dammit, I want to be a writer when I grow up.

My secondary motivation in writing is that I've fallen into this trap of going work-home-work-home (well, sometimes it's work-bar-home or work-gym-home...less the latter, though) and doing very little that is creatively or civically motivated in between. The cause is good - I am really happy with my life - but the effect is not. I don't want to be defined solely by my job, home, and social lives. So my solution is to blather away online. Perhaps writing will inspire some other ideas.

I expect I'll be writing a lot about my commute on the T, because, in this ostensibly most boring part of my day, when I am as tuned out as I can possibly be, some of the funniest and most interesting things happen. I'll inevitably bitch about work, because the pathologies that exist in my workplace are just too good to be left alone, and, yes, I'm sure my poor husband, friends, and family will find themselves occasional subjects. I never really fight with the people I'm close to, so let's see how long it takes of me writing this (assuming people read it) before I make someone want to sputter obscenities at me. Oh, and I will also inevitably be obsessing over the election and the Boston Red Sox.

Here goes...