New Decade, New Issues

Note to self: One should never start a blog with a fixed "rite" of passage. Now that I am thirty, I feel like much of my quarter life angst has subsided. With this new decade come new issues to contend with. As a woman, there is issues of biology, marriage, career, fertility, etc.

I went to see the movie "Juno" last night and as I sat in the theater surrounded by girls in their teens I noticed I no longer related to the 16-year-old protagonist, rather, I related to, and felt sympathy for the 30+ year-old Jennifer Garner character. The girls around me laughed as Garner's character crouched in a very public space to cup the belly of the young girl who had agreed to hand over her unborn child to her. You could see the wonder on Garner's face and imagine the heartache of an infertile woman as she gently held the belly of this very fertile teen. The audience laughed at the hilarity of the circumstance, two women standing in a mall, yet there was a sense in the audience that some of us couldn't laugh. We couldn't laugh because the few women I saw that like me, are in our thirties, are potently aware that she could be us someday.

As many of us delay children in favor of higher learning, travel and unfettered fun and career advancement, it would be foolish to say that we never give our ticking clocks a second thought. But, what do we do about it? Have children before we feel ready? Never have children? Leave fertility to fate and work it out later should she not deign to grant us our own progeny? That last option appears to be the option for me. I believe that should I not be "blessed" to have my own children someday, then the likely option for me would be to adopt. There are many children in our country and abroad that are already here and need a place to call home. I don't believe I am vain enough to empty my wallet and emotional reserves merely for the sake of having my "own" children via fertility treatments or other measures. If anyone is reading this that is currently in this same position and would like to share their thoughts, please feel free to do so.

The Seven Week Storm

When did Christmas festivities start arriving so early? This year, I had been dreading the fact that I would be in Thailand for a good chunk of the holiday season. I know, you ask, “how is it possible to dread such a thing?” While I don’t particularly enjoy the materialism and commercialization that surrounds Christmas, I do enjoy the activities. Things like holiday symphony with friends, baking cookies with my younger brothers, egg nog lattes from the local coffee shop. Catch my snowdrift?

Last week it struck me -- Christmas Festivus as already arrived! No sooner had the pumpkins been removed from the doorstep and the witch and goblin decorations been taken down from the window that the Santas and snowmen began appearing in a storm of rosy reds and snowy bluster. It seems I won’t be missing a thing. My Thailand trip will be a mere two week respite from the seven week blitz that has now become “the holiday season”.

It saddens me that Thanksgiving has become a mere blip on the radar in the speedy flight towards Christmas. It seems that we live in a culture geared less towards giving thanks and taking pause and more towards spending money and acquiring goods.

Who's Zooin' Who?

Crouched on an upturned milk crate he sat hunched like a crooked crow, just as watchful and alert but without the luxury of a bucolic outlook. The passerby’s were not animals or hunters, but in his mind, they were all quite similar. When one of the men or women deigned to stop, he silently nodded his head and gracefully dipped his hand into his front right pocket where nestled amongst the balled up dollars from the days tips was a leftover remnant from his morning meal. Put forth from the earth and good for far many more uses than these money-hungry moguls of the world were ever to know. As he slid its slippery sheath over the scuffed toe of a leather upper or plush pump, he could practically feel the dubious eye of his customer boring a hole into the bald spot on his bent head as he deliberately and carefully brought the shoe back to shine.

Often when he polished, his mind would drift to the women in the Vietnamese shop down the street. As he scuffled past his eyes would dart into the shop and take in the lab-like appearance of the women as they worked, a swatch of mask crowned by their almond-shaped eyes. He knew that years from now they would wonder why so many of their masses suffer cancers and babies born with birth defects, but all of that is very far from their minds as they buff and polish the manicured hands of the genteel ladies that swagger into their shop and frantically tap fingers on Blackberry’s and five hundred dollar heels on the linoleum as they wait their turn.

He wonders, never aloud, but always in the recesses of his mind, how these people -- the women in the shop and the pedestrians that pass, can pollute themselves so thoroughly, day in and day out, but he is the one who society deems “sick”.

As he labors over the foot placed on a separate crate in front of the one which he is perched, his mind will always return back to the present and back to his task. People who have never visited him before but come because a friend told them they must, are always a little hesitant about his unorthodox methods, but stroll away on those shiny new cows with a newfound belief in the superiority of organic. They pay him a price that ensures the next day’s breakfast will be paid for and his daily supply with be restocked. He is the only multi-millionaire that makes his daily wage on a well-slicked, biodegradable, twenty-six cent banana peel.

Can't Complain

She told me I should write more, so here I sit. I am trying to write more. But what do I say?

Sometimes I think I complain too much, but when I try to write something upbeat, I worry that I am coming off uber-cheerful, sounding like one of those optimists I know I am not.

A church in Kansas City was featured in People Magazine because the pastor decided that his pews were filled with a bunch of whiners. He slapped a purple strip of rubber around his wrist and encouraged the cranky congregants to do the same. The bracelet was to be switched from wrist to wrist every time it’s owner complained. If the person could make it 21 days without complaining, then voila, they got their name in the church newsletter.

It took the pastor five months to accomplish this task. For some it took five weeks and numerous others are still trying. They offered these bracelets on a donation-only basis to anyone who was interested. So far, they have had over a million requests from around the world. My request for ten bracelets was back when they were hovering around the 180,000 mark.

Since reading that article and via conversations I have had with coworkers and friends on the subject of complaining, I have noticed that I do it an awful lot. I wonder why? Is it because it shows I have a critical mind? Does it massage my ego when I complain about the behavior of another person I deem in the wrong? If everything worked like clockwork and the world was seen only through rose-colored lenses, would this make me a better human being? Or is it the mere verbalization of a pessimistic or negative thought in the form of a complaint that’s the problem?

How does one reconcile not feeling like a negative person but when stepping outside oneself and really analyzing the majority of thoughts and spoken words, see that perhaps, in fact, maybe they are not so chipper?

I started to take note of the comments made by those to whom I am closest. I noticed that one of my closest family members complains nearly all the time. Is this where I inherited this nasty little habit of complaining from? Negativity can be quite insidious. Weaving a path into the dialect and train of thought without hardly a howdy do.

But, so what now?

It had better be positive or I’ll make you switch your imaginary purple bracelet.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

I can't help feeling like a kid again every time it snows. I keep running to the front door to peer through the glass, fingers crossed as I approach, hoping that the snow hasn't stopped falling. For the last hour or so, I have not been disappointed.

I am no longer in school and don't have children, so school closures mean nothing to me. In the grown-up world, your boss doesn't care if it's freezing outside. No cocoa and mittens covered in bread bags for you missy, come hell or high water, you'd better get your ass to work. But, for the sake of the schoolkids, I still fervently watch the street lamps and hope they continue to illuminate flurries that will mean pile-ups on the road and the third snow day in a row.

As an adult, I suppose it's the little things I like about the snow. How everything looks new again. How people are a little more laidback as they frolic in their yards. Big kids making super-sized snowmen. How the night gets that grayish lavender glow and the street noise dissipates because people are tucked warm in their homes, happy for an excuse to stay in and do nothing. For me it has meant a Get Out of Jail Free card from the gym. I refuse to turn on the DVD yoga tapes that are gathering dust on the shelf because hey, it's a snow day. Snowball fights are exercise, right?