Quarterlife Rites

New Decade, New Issues

2008-01-05T22:06:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-09T11:07:00.000-08:00

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?

2007-05-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

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

2006-11-29T21:34:00.000-08:00

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?

All Shook Up

2006-11-27T19:37:00.000-08:00

Tonight after work I headed to the local bar with a friend for a cocktail and a respite from the sudden onslaught of rush-hour snow. The Seahawks game was due to start at 5:30 and as my friend and I saddled up to the bar I was happy to see some familiar faces as well greet some new ones. Many around me remarked on the unbelievable weather outside. No one could remember the last time it had snowed in Seattle during a football game. Let alone a Monday night football game that was being televised on ESPN for the whole country to see! One guy beamed with pride over the fact that now the rest of the world could see that it did something else besides rain in this town.

I was giddy with excitement as I watched the screen. I kept glancing over my shoulder to the snow globe outside to reassure myself the flurries on screen were real and continuing to blanket the neighborhood.

As the first quarter was getting into full swing an older woman came into the bar looking for a place to sit. In an effort to make her feel welcome I offered her the stool next to me. She ordered her drink and we chatted about football, or rather our disinterest in it. When her drink arrived I asked her what she was drinking and she offered me a sip of her Hot Toddy. She said there was nothing better to curl up next the fireplace with besides a good book and a Toddy.

I remarked on her accent and asked if she was British. She said she was, but that she had been here for over forty years and now her friends back home jokingly call her “The Yank”. She reminisced about old school chums and how, with the advent of Internet meet-up groups, she was able to connect to friends back home that she hadn’t spoken with for decades. She said it was nice to have this link to her past. To have connections that shared her history and memories.

More specifically, she started talking about living in WWII London and what it was like to descend into the depths of the family bomb shelter as soon as the sirens began to wail. She said that her mother left the front doors of their home open so anyone needing shelter could find a safe haven. She laughed at the memory of the ladies of her lane getting their knickers in a bunch over their newly washed lace curtains getting dust on them during the pelting of falling debris from nearby bombings. A favorite activity for she and her brother was to take their Grandfather’s tobacco tin and walk around the yard and square collecting shrapnel after a night of bombings. She recalled how the family brought their pets down to the shelter despite the fact they weren’t supposed to because if they were trapped and air was in short supply, animals would breathe in the precious air, taking it away from their owners.

It was a time that brought out the best in people, she said. For example, whenever someone was getting married in the neighborhood, everyone would pitch in their butter and sugar ration coupons for the week so that the newlyweds could have a cake. She spoke of the neighborhood balloons that were sent up in the air to prevent the planes from swooping in too close. An immediate visual came to mind. It all made so much sense.

I was delighted to speak to someone who experienced history that was alive and real beyond the black letters on a white page. I looked at this woman, Margaret was her name, and I wondered how much longer would we be able to learn oral history from people like her? It’s amazing to me that a stranger could share such a vivid narrative with me, another stranger. I could have sat there all night, but my friend nudged me that it was time to go and it sadly brought the history lesson to a close.

I wonder what narratives people my age will be sharing with younger generations someday when we are just another elderly person on a bench or a bar stool looking to the stranger next to us and imparting a little bit of our wisdom or truths.

Shifting Gears

2006-11-21T23:33:00.000-08:00

Now that I am not in the throes of angst as I admittedly once was. The doctor says I am cured enough to go back out in the world and start showing my face in public again.

After a recent trip to Italy, I discovered I like writing more about the world 'out there' instead of the world 'in here'. So along that vein, I am going to start sharing more travel and day trip related stories and less inner ponderings. Other people shouldn't have to roll around in the endless babble even I myself have gotten sick of reading and even more sick of writing.

I need to step out of this quarter-sized box, please stay tuned.

Words Shared

2006-08-03T22:53:00.000-07:00

Hello again. I was standing over the sink washing dishes this evening and I was thinking about snail mail letter writing and how I have this ambivalence in me about the act of writing one's inner thoughts on paper and then sending it out into the world. The time that elapses between when the letter is received by its intended and when the actual events have occurred has a way of making them all seem sort of moot in the end. Things work themselves out, or are forgotten. However, with a letter, until it is burned or lost or discarded in the trash or in a box that will someday be found in the attic, there is a sense of permanence. I ask myself, “Is this how our thoughts are meant to be?” Forever preserved?

Perhaps it is this day of technology and the fact that one can share their inner urgings with someone, anyone, at the click of a mouse that has me conflicted. I think of the delay in the snail mail reaching it's intended and the point of it all and there is another part of me that is glad it is written down in some form. Glad that some things will not be forgotten because they were apparently important enough to put down at one point. Perhaps beyond the immediate meaning for the recipient, there will one day either be the letter’s intended revisiting the words or a third party reading it and those very same thoughts will strike a chord with those readers as well. Amazing the power of words.

That is why it is always best to share a book that has touched you with someone rather than to let it go dusty on the shelf. Almost every book I have ever read has at least one sentence that has relevance for me.

A friend and I were talking last night about an editorial piece I read in the NY Times Magazine and how the writer quoted the term “intellectual scrapbooking” from an article the previous week. She and I have often talked about the age of Google and how the search engine is another means of providing instant gratification, cyber-style. I mentioned that I had another thought in relation to the instantaneous satisfaction of Internet information searching. What is lost when people no longer have to search out a source and actually hold it in their hands is the discovery of other information along the way. I believe it’s akin to taking a journey via plane instead of the car. In the car one discovers all sorts of roads, people and places they never would while jetting past in an airplane. But again, there's ambivalence. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I suppose one could argue that search engines, like planes, make better use of what precious time we have in life. To their credit, they also lead people to “pages” much like a book and what they find there might spark some further curiosity. But I ask, will it be remembered because it was so easy to attain?

Ah, now that reminds me about the value in the thrill of the chase. Much like the girl that is never to be forgotten because she led you on a thrilling hunt, vs. the girl that met you and dropped her pants two minutes later. Though, like any good argument, depending on the person, one could see some value in both.

Spent

2006-04-16T22:40:00.000-07:00

Every month a group of about 15 friends meet at a new bar of someone’s choosing to sample the Seattle bar scene and connect with what’s happening in one another’s lives. As I looked around the group last night and was in the process of explaining to a new attendee who everyone was and what professional lives that they lead, I was impressed by the diversity of the members. I was glad to be surrounded by people that were not coworkers. To carry on a conversation that did not involve work and have it feel like an honest and true Saturday night was so refreshing.

Well, maybe it was the vagina talk.

One of the most entertaining members of the group works at a non-profit clinic where she gets fodder for her stories that flow as freely as the Astroglide that she samples out to fourteen year-olds. Then there was the drummer friend of a friend who hadn’t been heard from since high school and just happened to move to the city last week and was looking for a gig. After emailing said friend, drummer was able to connect with friend’s guitar buddy whose band just happened to need a drummer. Talks of touring are now underway. Another new member was the date who was getting her trial run with the group. Three weeks into their dating relationship he felt it was time to test her chops. To her credit, she was able to keep pace with conversation that ran the gamut of tilted uteri, signing up exes for Depends samples and boycotting abortion clinics in Iowa. She got the nod and the thumbs up as he followed her out the door.

All in all it was another fantastic twentysomething weekend spent gallivanting about the town grateful to be in this beautiful city surrounded by so many wonderful friends. May y’all have the same good fortune.

Thursday, Again

2006-02-16T00:02:00.000-08:00

Watching a movie this evening at the local cinema, I was struck by a line that roughly paraphrased said, "You have to live a life of adventure otherwise life would be just another Thursday." Sometimes life is just a Thursday and here it is 12:05 am on a Thursday and I am taking stock of my week and wondering what I learned up until this present state of Thursdayness.

Thinking back, the most profound, non-ordinary moment of my week was on Monday night at the corner market. In a rush to find walnuts for a last-minute Valentine bread, I popped up to the tiny neighborhood store. For years it has employed the local high school kids as they bag groceries and work as cashiers in an attempt to save cash for cars and college. I could remember when friends of mine worked there back in the 90's. As the lanky teenager was checking out my meager purchases he asked the safe, yet time-tested customer service standby -- "So how are you doing today?" My reply of "Fine, thanks." was probably his 200th "fine" of the day. Doing the polite dance, I in turn asked him how he was doing. His reply of "I am actually feeling a bit schmoopy." was so unexpected I momentarily faltered. I told him that after working in retail for 7 years, I relished the replies that went beyond "good" or "fine" and thanked him for his honesty.

This encounter means nothing to me in the whole scheme of things that is my life. But, it reminded me that sometimes it's nice to get an answer you weren't expecting. Even if it is just from the pimple-faced checkout boy at the corner market. Keeps life from being just another Thursday.

Caffeinate In Peace

2006-02-12T22:39:00.000-08:00

Stepping into my late night coffee haunt tonight I was taken aback by the silence that greeted me at the door. The place was a tomb filled with twenty and thirtysomethings, their heads bent over textbooks, lobes plugged with earbuds. A person unfamiliar with the workings of this town might have thought they had accidentally stepped into a library. The only thing missing was the scent of stale books filled with promise. In its stead was the olfactory comfort of coffee beans and the unfulfilled chance encounters that would never come to fruition in this sea of people ensconced in their inner world.

Cylical

2006-02-11T17:30:00.000-08:00

God, I feel like it has been forever since I have written anything. Truth is, it has been. For awhile I felt guilty writing here because that meant I was neglecting my real journal, the one that I tell my unpublishable thoughts to. The one that tells the sordid stuff that would probably make for really good reading here, but that I am way to embarrassed to share.

What has prompted me to write you may ask? Well, I would have to say everything and nothing. I walk around and think, "Oh, this would be a great subject for the blog" but to actually put those random thoughts into coherent prose is impossible. Of the quarterlife rites variety the recurring theme that keeps cycling through is how friendships change. I now am dating an old friend and continue to watch as a passerby would, how the friendships of my teens and early twenties carry a different significance in my life than they once did.

It used to be that we were one another's world. The person you would immediately call the moment something terrible or exciting or terribly exciting happened. Over time, those same friends acquire partners whose existence is their first priority. If you are lucky, the same happens for you. It's something that takes getting used to, like a fresh wound that hurts when it first happens, but eventually becomes a scar that you grow accustomed to and even develop a story about to accompany the mark.

Detritus

2005-11-07T21:33:00.000-08:00

“Dragon Tales came out in 1999.”

“How old were you then?”

“Two and a half!”

“When was your release date?”

“1997”

“Yes, that was the year, but on what day were you released?”

“March.”

“That was the month, but on what day?”

“March the 6th” he proudly proclaimed.

“Yes! I remember the day you were born. You were very pink and you smelled so fresh and clean. I was yellow when I was born. Do you wanna know why?”

“Why?”

I leaned in to whisper in his little ear. “It was because mama drank too many banana slurpees when she was pregnant with me!”

He giggled and I continued. “Do you remember watching Dragon Tales when you were a toddler?”

“No. I don’t have a good remembery.”

* * * * *

"The blog originated ... as a catch basin for mental detritus, for the kind of stuff not good enough for print, but too good to waste on casual conversation."
--Joel Achenbach, The Washington Post, August 21, 2005

Another Night in the Emerald City

2005-11-02T00:15:00.000-08:00

“Two words”, he said as I leaned in further to take in his secret.

”Ruby Slipper”

Seems he’s been painting her toenails for over 25 years. To the rest of the world he is the pillar of strength. A man among men as he gives orders and risks his life each day that he clocks in.

Last night over a Belgian white he whispered these words and I was smitten. Charmed by the sweet morsel he shared in confidence.

“It’s to early for the reds”, he continued “stay in the oranges and dark plums just a little longer while we ride out the Fall.”

Here I sit after having visited Google and discovered that Chanel is the key ingredient. The maker of the slipper inaugurated by Dorothy and destined to be gracing my feet in a month’s time.

I wonder what I’ll wish for when get to click my heels three times?

It Didn't Kill the Cat

2005-08-31T22:25:00.000-07:00

Every so often I like to take stock of what I have learned lately. When you’re not in the process of getting a formal education everything else is life education, or the school of hard knocks. Some people are street smart. Some are book smart. Some people could spend days holed away in their apartment working out a seemingly impossible math problem while others would rather spend hours or even days getting to know someone.

A friend of mine said something I will never forget when admitted that he couldn’t mount a picture straight on a wall if it killed him and he made no apologies for the fact that he had to call a friend to do it for him. Now ask this same friend to do your taxes and he could do them in less than an hour. But hang a picture? He was clueless. I respected him for admitting he wasn’t perfect at something and made no excuses for himself as he dialed the phone to call someone who knew what the hell he was doing.

At that moment I learned it was okay to not be perfect at everything and hope like hell you had a friend to call who could be the yin to your yang. Balance your lack of skills with their proficiency.

Life is full of lessons. Full of rules and people with stories to share from their experience “in the field.” Last week I learned that a friend of mine dumped his girlfriend because in his words “she just wasn’t curious”. He told her that as he sent her packing and she was stunned. Afterall, she was the one who took fantastic trips to hell and gone and had a life “to do” list that was getting checked off by the year. His problem with her little list of things was that she didn’t know why she was doing them.

As I sat listening to him speak I was reminded of a Buddhist text I read where the monk talked about people who take all these fabulous vacations and whip out their camcorder at every tourist hotspot. This monk said that though this was all well and good, these people are living their vacation from behind the lens. They are not active in their experience, i.e. in front of the lens. In life perhaps we should try to spend more life in front of the lens than behind it. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but that means that the little puss has got eight left, right?

Farewell 27

2005-08-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

Sunday night friends and family gathered at my house for my mother’s 50th birthday. As I walked around the yard amid the din of conversation, I overheard someone commenting on the wacky things that my best friend & I get into. True, it seems like there is never a shortage of new and exciting things for us to try out in life. Each year on my birthday I like to honor my insatiable taste for the unknown & challenge myself to do something I have never done before. It is a great way to celebrate merely being alive and start the year ahead on an invigorating note.

I was bit by the challenge bug for the first time on my 25th birthday when my best friend decided to throw me from a plane at 12,000 feet. Funny, I wasn’t even scared until I signed the waiver they make you sign before jumping warning of the possibility of encountering powerlines or other miscellany on the way down. I admit my stomach did a slight flip at that moment, but my resolve held and I took the plunge. It was unforgettable, amazing and I highly recommend trying it at least once in life.

The following year on my 26th birthday I mustered the courage to answer my first ever personal ad and subject myself to my first blind date a few days later. That experience taught me two things – never answer a personal ad off Craigslist and never meet someone who refuses to give you information about oneself beyond a first name. I am however glad I decided not to rule out blind dating altogether because a week after that debacle I met the first man I ever fell in love with and began what has been the most defining romantic involvement of my life.

On my birthday last year I took a plunge of another sort. No, not that plunge! The plunge of the naked variety involving my two girlfriends, a bit of alcohol and an unmanned dock off a nearby lake. Slipping into the black velvety water just shy of midnight was liberating. I am still shaking my head in shame trying to figure out how I made it 27 years without going skinny-dipping. I swear I am not a prude. Really.

This year I had wanted to get a tattoo for my birthday but the artist I like is booked through October. Since I can’t do that I decided to go to the driving range. I know you’re asking wtf? Tattoos to golf? Quite opposite ends of the spectrum, eh? Here I am swearing I am not a prude one minute, then in the next talking about how I am going to honor my inner conservative demon and unleash him on the green.

I had to do something and I am running out ideas of things I have never tried before. Remember, I am only almost 28 and I hopefully have many more years and many more challenges ahead of me. This was the best I could do on short notice. My birthday wish for you all is that you spend at least one day a year challenging yourself to try something you’ve never done before. Even if it’s something small like talking to that cute stranger across the room or striking up a conversation with the janitor. Step outside your comfort zone and dip your toes into the unknown. You, like me, might just discover that the water is just fine (& better experienced naked).

Come Again?

2005-08-02T22:55:00.000-07:00

I met Amy sitting outside my local coffee shop on Sunday morning as her dog-loving friend became better acquainted with my pooch. She remarked on my dog’s unusual name Tikva, which in Hebrew means hope. I explained how it is a difficult name to convey to most people and that I often get lazy and just tell people her name is “Teak” because it is more familiar for them to wrap their minds & mouths around. Amy said that friends of hers have a similar problem with their dog Zeitgeist. When they say his name people tilt their heads with a question mark on their face as if to say, “Zeitgeist? What’s that?

I nodded my head in empathetic agreement both because of the pronunciation problem and my confusion about the word. She asked if I knew what it meant and I am more than a tad ashamed to admit that I immediately thought of the local coffeehouse Zeitgeist Coffee. Remember, this is Seattle. We locals often have a hard time maneuvering around strollers and other pedestrians on the sidewalk because it has to accommodate not only our bodies, but our intravenous caffeine drips as well.

In my previous post I mentioned what a word nerd I am. Yes, hello world, I am a geek who gets off on dictionaries. I had encountered the word Zeitgieist in various readings, but for the life of me I could not think of how to put it in context. I had a vague notion it was German and for some reason my mind sandwiched in meaning between the words “juggernaut” and “blitzkrieg”. Uh, no. Apparently, I am also not as bright as I would like to think either. Amy tried to explain what it meant, but words failed her. See, this is why I would never name my dog something that would require more than a one-word explanation.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I opened my inbox to find the Dictionary.com word of the day to be “Zeitgeist: The spirit of the time; the general intellectual and moral state or temper characteristic of any period of time.”

Just last week I was telling a friend about a conversation I had had with my hairstylist about coincidences. As he shampooed my hair he explained that coincidence literally is intended to mean coordinated or based on coordinates meeting. My friend poo poo’ed coincidence and went with the more scientific angle that seemingly familiar or destined things occur because our mind is primed to look for them. I don’t know what to make of my woo woo Zeitgeist experience of the last two days, but I would happily settle for being able to use the word correctly in a sentence just once.

The Nerd in the Front Row

2005-07-29T00:55:00.000-07:00

“These words are my own, from my heart flow, I love you, I love you, I love you. There’s no other way to better say, I love you I love you.” – Natasha Bedingfield

Call me weird, but what strikes me about these song lyrics is not the most sought-after three-word combination in the world, rather it’s simply the word “words”. I love words. Some people say that the way to their heart is through their belly. Just like eyes give glimpses into their soul, for me, words are key. Uttered verbally, written or typed, I don’t care how they're shared, I just want to hear them, see them, feel them roll off my tongue in trilling r’s or lispy th’s.

I am sucker for words and their meanings. Words are the cheapest addiction I have. I devour books & dictionaries like drugs –- never getting quite enough of a fix as I troll for unknown prey. I subscribe to two online dictionary word of the day services promising myself each day as I try to absorb new meanings that I will try to incorporate these new morsels into my conversations or writing. Occasionally, I do, but the funny thing with these sort of words is that you have to a) use them correctly b) pronounce them correctly and c) be prepared to give a definition when asked to prove you know the highfalutin word that just spilled forth from your lips.

I’ve been known to be swept off my feet not by the way a man looks at me or how he treats me, but by the words he throws at me when trying to win the prize. I know I instantly change my perspective on a man if I see he can’t spell or compose a decent sentence or coherent letter. Jeez, can I even say the word letter nowadays? Since we’re on the subject, I guess in this technologically driven world a more apropos word would be “message”.

Imaginary conversation with friend:
-So and so was hot until I got his message.
-What, text?
-No, email.
-And?
-Well, after my spam filter incorrectly identified it as junk and I retrieved it from the trash, I really just wasn’t that impressed by what he had to say.
-What did he say?
-He used lots of emoticons and smiley faces to distract from the fact that he really didn’t have anything worthwhile to say at all. Perhaps my filter outsmarted me?

Happy 50th!

2005-07-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

Now that Blogspot is finally tallying my entries correctly I see that this is my 50th post. Not bad for a years worth of writing. I realize that some people post this much in a month or two, but hey, I am still a novice. Realizing that this is my 50th post puts a little more pressure on me to say something notable. Like anything done under pressure, it will no doubt turn out like crap.

I was washing my week-old dishes tonight at 10pm in preparation for a party I am hosting for my brother's girlfriend's birthday tomorrow night. While washing, my thoughts kept drifting back to a recently read article in the NYTimes Sunday Styles "State of the Union". This section checks in on formerly featured newlywed couples that have been married for 5+ years. One couple in particular struck a chord with me in how the wife described their former wholesale carpet business which took them all over hell n' gone looking for weavers, sheep, whatever. During these long days they would spend hours in the car talking. She explained that now that they were no longer in business, she very much misses those long days of side by side conversation because she was much more comfortable with that style of relating rather than face to face interaction.

That is me to a tee. I feel more open to my thoughts and able to express myself when I can look to the heavens, the vista outside, even the ceiling as I sit or lay next to someone's side. Not having a stare-down with intense eye contact while I am trying to formulate a thought or sentence is welcome relief. In my developmental psychology courses I remember this being called "Parallel Play". This is a form of play where two or more children are playing with the same materials, but each is playing separately. They may converse with one another, but they work independently. If one leaves, the play continues.

Yep, I am a parallel player. I remember as a kid I would hold a doll or item in my hand and my only concern was with what I wanted to make that toy do. God help the child playing next to me who got in the way of my evil scheme for the Barbie or Star Wars figure I was playing with! Perhaps it was the lower case "a" beginning to rear its ugly head in what has since developed into a capital "A" type personality?

Just a thought for this, my 50th post. I would blow out the candles, but the guy next me did it already.

Cuddle Mania Sweeps Manhattan

2005-07-14T23:50:00.000-07:00

What’s up with Cuddle Parties? Ever heard of ‘em? I learned about them a couple of months ago when I stumbled across an article in People Magazine. This month’s edition of Marie Claire also featured a short piece on this alternative way to spend a Sunday afternoon. The author visited a spot in NYC where for $30 she could snuggle up with complete strangers for a few hours. Apparently there is great healing benefit to doing this sort of thing.

Yeah, riiight.

I wonder if I would ever be ballsy (or desperate) enough to visit one of these yoga-studios-turned-den-of-strangers-looking-to-cop-a-feel? What would my mother say? She would probably worry that she didn’t show me enough affection as a child and I was remedying this situation as an adult. With people I don’t even know! Oy vey!

I would refrain from telling her that about 2 years ago I seriously contemplated placing an ad looking for a “professional” spooner. Pathetic, yes, I know. Imagine all the freaks that would have responded? How would I have screened someone for such a position? No pun intended. What if they had smelled? I could never have slept comfortably with a stinky. Then, there were the odds that eventually they would have wanted to do more than just spoon. I even thought about instilling a "onetime only" spooning guideline to prevent things from getting too intimate.

I didn’t end up placing my ad because I came to the realization that I had many male friends that were willing to offer their services for free as long as they could laze about in the down-filled haven of my bed. I even decided that as an additional perk I would offer incentive for good behavior – breakfast in bed.

To date, I have yet to take any of my buds up on their more than generous offers of strong arms and warm bodies and though I doubt I would ever participate in one of these organized cuddlefests, it seems to me that there has got to be a better way to assuage this longing for human connection. The author of the Marie Claire article decided that in the end she would rather pay to have a therapeutic massage from a stranger than pursue this avenue again. I think I am with her on that one. Though, on the other hand, the Cuddle Party is a lot cheaper and you don’t have to tip.

Hugs,
R

The Only Way Out is Through

2005-07-12T23:55:00.000-07:00

I have been in a funk for weeks now and perhaps writing will be my way to work through the funk. I haven’t wanted to write for a long time now because I have become painfully aware of tone and how depressing my tone can be, even if I am not internally feeling as low as I come off sounding in print. There is nothing shittier than reading a depressive or negative person continually rant about this, that, or the other thing. I admit I have to constantly try to check myself and avoid being “one of those people.”

Excuse for a moment for this post only and I will try to be more upbeat from here on out. My friend’s husband who was diagnosed with Burkitt’s Lymphoma back in February passed away on July 4th, 5 days shy of his 29th birthday. If that isn’t a quarterlife shocking freakin’ reality, I don’t know what is. I said it then and I will say it now – it was too soon. It is not fair. Not like life ever really is.

Recent weeks have also brought a close friend home from Italy to say goodbye to his grandmother as she passed away from bone cancer. Coincidentally, I found out on the 2nd that my best friend from high school has also recently been diagnosed with cancer. What the hell? Is it something in the water? I am about to schedule an MRI along with my annual physical because apparently people in their twenties are getting cancer at alarming rates.

I try to sort through my thoughts about the how and why of all of this happening and have come to the conclusion that it makes no sense.

A 74 year-old grandmother leaves behind a loving husband of 28 years and people miss her but say she had a good life while she was here and she will be missed. A 28 year-old man dies too soon and his wife is left a widow before her 30th birthday. In time she will get to test the training wheels of dating when once again she is ready to step back out into the fray. The seemingly carefree life she witnessed myself and other single friends live will become her new reality. I am sure she will miss him even more when that eventual day comes. Somewhere in Canada there is a lovely blonde girl who grew up fascinated by the tale of Alice in Wonderland. In forty days she will be 28, but she is just a girl and will always be a girl and is glad of this. Will living through the ravages of this diagnosis be her very own Wonderland adventure? I guess we’re growing up now kids.

* * * * *

"The only way out is through", Joseph Brodsky

Nothing to Say

2005-06-04T15:20:00.000-07:00

I have wanted to write for some time now, but the words just haven’t been flowing. Every topic I think about for the entertainment of y’all seems to sound way too cerebral and boring once I commit it to the page. Now, don’t get me wrong, I often fancy myself too boring and cerebral. The difference being that here I have an image of some “quarterlife expert” to uphold and once it’s here, it’s just out there and unlike a bad hair day, not as easily forgotten.

I sit here and try to think of quirky stories to share and as of late, I can’t think of many fun ones. There was the guy my friend and I met in Bellingham at a café last week who was kind enough to offer us his couch if we were ever in the area again and in need of a place to crash. He hinted that us returning the favor if he was ever in Seattle would be much appreciated. I must say, this was quite an uncomfortable situation for two young girls to be in. I blathered my way out of the awkwardness by telling him about a website I had recently heard of called “www.couchsurfers.com” where people offer their abodes for kindred nomads like themselves. This is of course after a credit and background check. Since we were in a bookstore at that very moment I told him to pick up the latest issue of Bust magazine where on the last pages he too could learn about the exciting possibilities offered in the web at large for couch-seeking individuals like himself. This seemed to satisfy him and he left a few minutes later. Perhaps this is what he does all day? Trolls the bookshop café’s looking for innocent tourists to prey upon. Just kidding. Not really. Kidding, that is.

The other day as I was reaching down to pet my dog, my eight-year-old brother asked me when I too was going to be spayed? Hmm, I thought, what a fabulous alternative this could be for a twentysomething woman like myself in the throes of angst over the drama about getting hitched and birthing a couple mini-mes. This could be the solution I have been looking for to all of my problems. Problems not in my eyes, but in the eyes of my mother and various relatives who often wonder when I am going to “take the plunge”? Afterall, my aunt was telling my mom just last week, "She's almost 30!" If I was spayed, I could just look them in the eye and say, “Hey sorry ___________ (Grandma, auntie, mom, etc.), no babies for me, I’ve been spayed.” Ah, the look of horror in their eyes would be priceless!

Well, for someone with nothing to say, I suppose this will suffice until the next time I have nothing to write about.

Monotony

2005-05-17T23:18:00.000-07:00

You know you’re getting old when you start to lose track of where, when and with whom you've experienced certain things. Worse yet, you forget who you’ve told these things to. Lately I’ve noticed myself wondering, mid-conversation, if I have already said the same thing I am talking about to the person present. Alzheimer’s can’t be setting in already, can it? I feel like an idiot and wish my conversational partner would just cut me off and slap me in the back of the head and say, “Hey, you’re repeating yourself stupid.” Save us both the trouble of me repeating one diatribe or another time and time again.

Do you ever feel like you spend your weeks having pretty much the same conversations week in and week out? Sure, the subject matter may change from time to time according to the players, but after awhile you feel like you are in a conversational holding pattern with no landing in sight.

I remember when I was fresh out of the gate in the adult world and how I would hang on someone's every word. I rarely forgot details and when I would spew them back to the person days, months, even years later, they would always compliment me on my amazing memory. Life isn’t like that for me any longer. I think the difference between then and now was that I cared more. That, or perhaps it was because didn’t have a lot of mature life experiences to cloud my judgment and distract me while they were sharing. Now that I have traveled along the same ups and downs in my own personal life that used to fascinate me in other peoples lives just a few short years ago, it all seems so completely forgettable.

I don’t mean to sound bitter or depressed. I am not. I am merely befuddled at the repetition and dullness of life. It seems like you can try to shake the monotony here and there by taking a class, quitting a job, moving, dating someone new, dancing naked in the rain, or trying a new religion, drug, etc. You get the picture, right? The worry I have is, what will it take to entertain next? Think of the most outrageous thing you could ever picture yourself doing, go do it, tell all your friends, forget whom you’ve told, then find yourself bored once again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Wallimont Wanderings

2005-05-14T01:15:00.000-07:00

Summer is in the air. As my best friend and I stepped outside my house this evening, I noticed the muggy weariness of the day’s heat had subsided and it its wake left a warm blanket of summer evening laziness and calm. We walked three blocks west of my house and found ourselves smack dab in the middle of an annual neighborhood artwalk. Over thirty shops had extended their hours and opened their doors to artists and potential clients.

Everyone was smiling and happy. My dog trotting along in front afforded us glimpses of even more smiling faces as strangers came up and offered their hand for a sniff and stroke. We walked a couple miles south to a little Caribbean food joint that has been teasing my senses for months as I passed it on my way to the Burke Gilman Trail. The food was amazing and cheap, or is it better to say, “reasonably priced” to avoid giving the wrong impression? If you are ever in Wallimont – try it! You’ll know the place, just follow your nose to the wafting scent of BBQ.

We grabbed a movie rental and a coffee and couldn’t pass up an opportunity to relax outside while sipping our java and enjoying the passing scenery. It never ceases to make us both feel old when we watch 21-year-old girls awkwardly swagger by in their too-short skirts and uncomfortable shoes. We shake our heads and reminisce about what it felt like to be that age. Insecure in practically every sense of our being, but trying oh-so-hard to fool the rest of the world into believing we knew everything. It’s funny to grow old and acknowledge you are growing old and realize that in most cases you’re better off now than you were then. You hope.

Walking back to my house we saw a band of young guys in their late teens, early twenties, dressed up as women for theme party. The surprisingly pretty blonde boy we met shimmying into his fuchsia prom dress on the sidewalk couldn’t wait to get his fake rack in place so he could start hitting up his fellow partygoers for free drinks. Afterall, he said, isn’t that the best “perk” to having a nice shelf? Of course it is we nodded as we both enviously eyed his tissue packed hooters. Both of us painfully aware that our minis might get us a schooner, at best.

During our meandering we also encountered a man decked out in full Day-Glo orange gear complete with matching face paint and hair color. We caught him en route to a fundraiser event for Burning Man. He was a riot and told us if we weren’t doing anything later that the party would be thumping ‘til 4 and we would be doing ourselves a favor to come. I admired his friendliness and spunk, a commodity I thought was rare in this town until my travels this evening.

I ramble all this to you now in hopes of conveying the sense that summer is here folks. Break out those shorts and start sunning those getaway sticks. Dust off that lawn chair and park your ass in your yard or nearest public green space. It’s time to grab your friends and hit up your local happy hour and pray y’all get a table outside. Best of all, if you live in Seattle, you know this means you can now start requesting ice in your latte.

Pet the Yuppie

2005-05-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

I was at a library sale a few weeks ago and noticed amid the pile of former bestsellers and diet books of the moment a tiny little book designed like a kids “feely” book titled “Pet the Yuppie”. I flipped through the pages and chuckled at the opportunity to pet the crisp material of the yuppie lady’s silk business suit. Turn the page and I could finger the limp noodles of she and her husband’s (I presume) yuppie linguine dinner. They knew they had really arrived when they purchased their shiny new BMW and encouraged the reader to poke the squishy propeller logo embedded in the tiny page.

How the hell does it happen that the small linear successes you achieve along the route of life like the college education which leads to a good job that then affords you a nice house and eventually a good vehicle make you one day wake up and realize you are a freakin’ yuppie? Doesn’t everyone hate yuppies? I thought I did, but now I shudder to realize that perhaps I am one of them. Wah, right? Woe is me. All I am saying is it's weird realizing you’re turning into something you never aspired to be.

A former boyfriend once mumbled with disdain dripping from his voice that he was “dating a yuppie”. The horrah! I don't know if he was more disgusted with me or with himself since he was used to dating earthy granola chicks. The kind of girls who probably hadn’t seen a razor in years and wouldn’t put anything in their bodies unless it was a dick or organic. But I digress. That was my first taste of anti-yuppie venom and realization I was it's target.

I like my house and my car and my job, but hate the label that comes along with this sort of lifestyle. Though, I guess if you have read anything else I have written you would know I abhor labels. Well, unless of course they are Chanel or Prada or ……

Ha! Just kidding!

A Blogger's Defense

2005-04-15T23:15:00.000-07:00

I have been particularly sensitive about blogging issues ever since last July when I decided to start airing my thoughts publicly for anyone to read. My mother knows that I blog, but doesn’t know how to find me on this mysterious “web” that she has yet to untangle. Odds are against her ever finding me since the word “Google” and how it functions is not part of her daily existence like it is for many of us. She finds the whole process intriguing and strives to save every article she can find amid her pile of magazine subscriptions, NY Times Book Reviews and scrawny, underdeveloped Seattle Post-Intelligencer columns that mention the word “blog”. I hate both the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer with a passion, but can never tell her this as I accept her pile of clippings. I am partial to the NY Times primarily because their reporters use words that you have to be older than eight to understand

Recently, in the Life and Arts section of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a reporter by the name of D. Parvaz has cropped up with a column called “Popping Off”. Parvaz is a young woman who the P-I apparently considers an authority on pop culture and worthy of being paid to spout off about it. Parvaz likes to take potshots at bloggers, but ironically writes like one herself. In a March column carefully clipped and saved by my mother titled, “Confessions of a writer who didn’t pen a memoir”, Parvaz rambles about the abundance of memoirs that have flooded the literary market. Though I agree with her that there are a few too many crap memoirs out there being penned, I don’t like her tone towards bloggers. She writes, “Those who don’t make it into print embrace blogs, painfully detailing their every triumph and trauma.” So what? Unlike Parvaz’s words and the plethora of bad literature out there, at least readers aren’t paying to read a bloggers ponderings. The beauty of the blog is that you can click in and click out. Tune in or tune out. If a blogger speaks to you and you jive with what they are putting out there, cool. I personally have spent many an hour comforted by blogs where authors share experiences similar to my own or better yet, open my eyes to cultures and ways of thinking that I might never experience on the street, so to speak. As long as no animals or small children are harmed in the crafting of an entry, then it’s all good. Why you have to be a blogger-hater Ms. Parvaz?

I have commented before about my struggle in the past year to read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I am proud to say that last week I finally finished it! (Cue the mariachi band in the background please) I wouldn’t consider myself a slow reader, nor am I delayed (at least I don’t think so), but I struggled with all seven hundred pages of that monster like no other books in my lifetime. Why? Perhaps it was the endless court dramas the self-righteous protagonist Roark was always embroiled in? That, or perhaps it was my inability to relate to a character like Dominique Francon who embraced and later married her own rapist? I grew tired of the heavy doses of existential and societal drama that were hard to swallow, again, and again, and again. Remarkably, what stood out most in my mind from this 25th Anniversary Edition “classic” pilfered from my mother’s basement were Rand’s comments in the introduction. She wrote, “Certain writers, of whom I am one, do not live, think or write on the range of the moment. Novels, in the proper sense of the word, are not written to vanish in a month or a year. That most of them do, today, that they are written and published as if they were magazines, to fade as rapidly, is one of the sorriest aspects of today’s literature…” This was written in 1968 and though Rand is speaking of novels and Pravaz of memoirs, I think both women are essentially saying the same thing. Both think that literature should not be penned lightly, but to glance around you will see that it is. I agree to a point, but to throw bloggers into the literary pool as Parvaz does is not fair. In the age of the internet we are dealing with an entirely different bird. People blog because it is accessible and easy. Did I mention that it is FREE? It is also a fairly anonymous outlet where you can reveal as little or as much as you like about your true identity and where this anonymity produces a more realistic, uncensored approach to the material at hand. I am looking around my office and over my shoulder and I don’t see an editor in sight. Whew.

Not all bloggers are looking for fame and glory and want to make it “in print”. Yeah, a little kudos for your time and effort is nice, but at the end of the day when someone emails me or chats with me personally saying they could relate to something I wrote, then I feel pretty darn good. It’s not a book deal, but if you think the way Rand and Parvaz do, then apparently those aren’t worth bubkus these days anyways. Besides, bloggers know better than to quit their day jobs.

In her Collected Stories, Carol Shields writes, “Written biography, that’s another matter, quite another matter! Memoirs, journals, diaries. Works of the bio-imagination are as biodegradable as orange peels. Out they go. Psssst – they blast themselves into vapor, cleaner and blonder than the stream from a spotless kettle. Nothing sticks but the impulse to get it down.”

Impulse satiated.

The defense rests.

Thanks for stopping by.

Click.

Buffalo Gals, won't you come out tonight?

2005-04-11T00:25:00.000-07:00

Parking: Free (It’s a Sunday)

Two Cuervo Peach Margaritas: $14

Ticket to the Bob Schneider concert: $15

New Babydoll Tee, Size S: $20

Dancing with your two friends without a care in the world and no babies or “significant other” to run home to: Priceless

Tonight my two friends and I went to the Bob Schneider concert at the Crocodile Café in Seattle. While dancing, I was feeling the buzz from two pre-show margaritas and as I glanced back to look at my friends I thought to myself, this is youth is in purest form, this is priceless. Wildly we shook our hips to the mambo sound and threw our heads back and laughed as Bob peppered “dirty” words like “pussy” and “fuck” throughout his set to get the crowd going and feelin’ the love in his corner. His music was an eclectic mix of sounds that reminded me of Springsteen, Jack Johnson, G-Love and Special Sauce and some latin beats tossed in for good measure. There was a vibe in the air that was indefinable. Something that made me feel young and free and sexy and happy. Of course, then again maybe it was the booze. One never knows.

As I bopped my head and swayed to the beat I had one of those “bottle-able” moments. Which means, note to self, pack this one away in that bottle of youth and vitality I keep tucked away in that cubby under the stairs knowing full well that someday, hopefully far, far away, I will no doubt go searching for its whereabouts.

After the show we made a mad dash to Dick’s Drive-In to get the customary carbs to “pad the belly” after a night of just a wee more drinks than a girl should have on a “school night.” As I was thumbing through the pile of change in my hand that the cashier had just handed over a shiny buffalo on one of the coins caught my eye. A new nickel! I didn’t know the government was issuing new nickels this year! As I exclaimed a similar thought to my girlfriends a couple of guys behind us wanted to know what all the fuss was about. We showed them the new nickel and when the clerks till sprang open he was kind enough to trade me two dimes for four newly minted nickels. Sharing them with my girlfriends and the two gentlemen behind us, we all turned the new coins over in our palms. One of the men echoed my thoughts this night as he shook his head and said “Priceless” over my paltry five-cent offering. How appropriate that written on other side of the coin was the word “Liberty.”

I couldn’t have found two better words to sum up my evening.

Don't Fence Me In

2005-04-07T00:20:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think I have ADD. My little brothers both have it. My mom suspects she has it. You know what? Probably to some extent, we all have it. In this day and age where practically anything we want is available at the push of a button, it comes as no surprise that the human appetite is always craving, looking for it’s next fix, rarely satisfied with what’s at hand. We desire things fully aware that in all likelihood, everything is open to us provided our wallets and people involved are up for the ride.

To label the constant insatiable drive I have for new experiences, people, intellectual stimulation, etc. as ADD demystifies what another person might look at as typical youthful vigor and restlessness. Why is it that we live in a society that demands we label everything and tie it up in a neat little package of words and meaning? Maybe it’s just me.

It has been my experience that the minute you put a label to anything you are trapped in a pattern or train of thought from which you cannot break free. Words cannot be retracted. The minute you tell someone you love them "It is just out there”, to quote Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. This can be either good or bad as in the aforementioned example. Endless couples have suffered agony and subsequent million-worded conversations with confidantes after the utterance of a beautiful four-letter word that has morphed in our society to mean so much and often carry such heavy implications.

Coming from a psychology background I find it fascinating to read therapists journals documenting patients that come in looking to their shrink for comfort – someone to tell them they are ________ , *antidepressant optional. The minute they have an “excuse” to be exactly who and what they are, they feel free. The light bulb has gone off. Someone else has given them an “answer”. I am sorry but what was the question? I’ll have to take notes for the next time I am lost and looking for my Self.

John Paul II, a Memory

2005-04-03T23:25:00.000-07:00

As we approached the formidable gates I recall thinking, “I am about to experience something I will never forget”, and “Damn, those guards are cute, I hope they will let us in despite the fact that we don’t have a ticket.” They smiled and nodded their heads as we, two foolish American girls, tried to explain in broken Italian “No bigletti.” To our surprise and eternal gratitude they waved us through the iron gates after a pass through the metal detector and a cursory check of our backpacks

Entering the square my eyes were immediately drawn to the right where St. Peter’s Basilica sat surveying the immense compound tucked within Vatican City. The excitement in the air that crisp morning in Rome was palpable as crowds arrived hours early to hear the pope's blessing. We felt like imposters as we inched closer and closer to the podium amid throngs of pilgrims who had journeyed unknown distances to hear this enigmatic man speak. We decided to stop one hundred or so feet from the steps as we were unaware of the process and worried we would get discovered and booted at any time by the people around us that were more deserving and more importantly, ticket holders.

We both wrote in our journals as the late morning sun began to beat down on us. Both of us wanted to remember this moment forever. Around us people clamored for seats and began to argue heatedly when large groups were unable to find seats together. The once organized folding chairs became a maze of white where rows became less and less discernable. We shook our heads and laughed in mock horror at the “good Catholics” around us cursing one another and fighting to get the best vantage point.

At last his white Hummer came into view. As it slowly made it’s way down the aisle I remembered an image from my childhood of news footage of the popemobile in all of it’s bulletproof glory as it ambled through a sea of people in Russia. The potency of his position in the world was evident to me at that childhood moment and even more so as I sat in his audience as an adult, humbled to witness him firsthand.

I remember feeling great sadness and pity as I watched him surrounded by his aides as they assisted him from the vehicle to the podium. His body weakened to the point that his head had to be propped by a headrest so he could remain upright. A man with razor sharp wit and fluent in many languages, I was told he would give the blessing in at least five languages, English among them. As he spoke in Polish, Latin, and Italian mumbling phrases I could not understand (but that were translated on a screen in the front) my heart quickened knowing that English would be spoken at any moment. When he finally got to the English blessing I was unsure if he was in fact speaking my language because his words were so garbled I had to look to the translation screen to understand my own native tongue.

After the talk he received newly married couples and miscellaneous others who sought his hand and his blessing. It was touching to watch the excited couples ascend the podium and kneel at his feet. After the ceremony was over we walked to the obelisk in the center of the square where we met an American woman traveling alone. We made small talk about travel then talked about the pope, all of us knowing we had just witnessed something none of us were likely to see again. We talked about his frail condition and wondered aloud how long he had left as it appeared he could go at any time. That was almost two years ago to the day. When I heard the news yesterday afternoon that he had finally passed I was saddened, yet relieved. He was an amazing pope and an amazing man who will not soon be forgotten by both his Catholic followers and people like me, not religious per se, but impressed nonetheless by his intellect, global empathy and fiery spirit.

Thanks for the memories.

Arrogant I

2005-03-29T00:45:00.000-08:00

Last night at Easter dinner my mother, brother and pseudo-stepfather and I got into a heated discussion about the Terry Schiavo saga that is currently playing itself out in Florida. My mother is a nursing assistant who has cared for people like Ms. Schiavo for over fourteen years now. She is passionately against what is happening. She has seen the spark of life in how a disabled or retarded person communicates and says that despite their obvious incapacities they continue to experience happiness, sadness, and excitement and Lord know what else in the mysterious happenings of their minds. According to her, there is something indefinable there. It might just be a glimmer in their eye or an excited cry, but she says they are present and equally deserving of life like you or I.

My brother and I told her that we see people like Mrs. Schiavo as an emotional and financial drain on the people who love them and believe that they serve little purpose but to give people like her a job. Who will care for Mrs. Schiavo when her parents run out of money or pass away themselves? Society will. My brother and I let it be known if we were ever to be in a coma or suffer brain damage that placed us in a vegetative state that we in no way shape or form wanted to be placed on machinery that would keep us artificially alive. We wanted to be let go because we would no longer serve a purpose. Human vegetables do not serve a purpose. My mother angrily asked us who were we to pass judgment on what purpose another human being serves?

On my desk at work this morning my boss had left me his copy of People magazine. In it was an article about Ashley Smith, the Atlanta woman held hostage by Brian Nichols who killed four people and repeatedly raped an ex-girlfriend before stumbling upon Ms. Smith’s apartment in the middle of the night. Ms. Smith felt it was her calling to speak to Mr. Nichols and share in the love of Christ with him as she talked him into turning himself in. It was her belief that perhaps it is his life duty to share the gospel in prison and she was there to aid him in his journey. Coincidentally, she had been reading “The Purpose Driven Life” from which she read him excerpts.

As I read this article I reflected further upon what it means to have a life of purpose. I guess I could see my mother’s point that perhaps Ms. Schiavo’s life does serve a purpose. Like Ms. Smith, Ms. Schiavo might be touching a life in a way that has a butterfly effect and therefore couldn’t I concede that even in her vegetative state she serves a purpose? You or I may not see it, or read about it in People, but maybe there is someone out there like my mother who cares for Ms. Schiavo day in and day out and who has changed their life perspective because people like her are around to remind us of the frailty of life. A mere thirty hours later I feel less clear about what a life of purpose is exactly. I guess this is my feeble attempt to admit that my mom is right and how can I, or my brother or anyone else be so arrogant as to say one way or the other.

Accidentally on Purpose

2005-03-24T22:30:00.000-08:00

Are you psychic? Neither am I. But that doesn’t stop me from always trying to predict the future and try to get a handle on things that have yet to happen and of course, that I have no control of. Last week in meditation class my teacher was talking about the fact that no matter what we think something is or will be, the majority of the time the opposite usually proves true. For example, imagine it’s Thursday, you’re tired and don’t want to go out for the night. You’re sick of the bar scene and never have a good time, so why would tonight be any different? But friends are cajoling you into coming out to play and you don’t want to let them down and sit home feeling like you’re missing out on something. You go out, have the time of your life and the next morning in your hung-over-gotta-drag-your-ass-to-work-state realize that the previous night was one of the best nights you have had in a long time. Why does it work this way? Why do things often prove to be the opposite of what we think them to be?

I love it when it works in my favor and things turn out well despite my sour predictions. The worst is when I have high expectations of people, events, things, and they let me down in some way. I know you know what I am talking about! Prom. Your first time. That really romantic dinner you planned to cook and burned all the food. I actually melted the faucet handle one evening when prepping my first romantic bubble bath after I placed a votive candle right under the knob. Oops. Makes for a funny story though.

I once told someone that the worst feeling for me to experience is disappointment. This stemmed from a conversation I had with another friend months previous when he told me that the worst feeling he experienced was loneliness. I was getting ready for work this morning and Alanis Morrisette’s song “Ironic” came on the radio. I like this song despite the fact that there are few, if any, actual ironies in her song, other than the fact that there are none and that may be her wicked point. Anyway, the “rain on your wedding day, ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife”, you know the rest, got me thinking. I think these brief disappointments make for a meatier life. Who wants to always find the knife when they need it or have the perfect wedding day?

In her anthology “Collected Stories”, Carol Shields writes “Everything is an accident, Hazel would be willing to say if asked. Her whole life is an accident and by accident she has blundered into the heart of it.” Every morning I leave my house with equal opportunity to experience accidents or adventure. Is Lady Luck on my side or is she in a corner watching for my reaction to the seemingly unlucky twist that may well be part of her scheme? .

I find it humorous (and annoying) when I catch myself try to predict how my day, my weekend, my year, my life will unfold. I would like to think that experience, maturity and the “duh Sherlock” factor have proven time and again that there is very little I have control of in life and that despite this, somehow it all turns out grand.

Going, Going, Gone

2005-03-21T21:28:00.000-08:00

Getting old is realizing that when a movie starts past 9 pm on a school night, er I mean work night, that it is probably out of the question and getting your beauty sleep is higher up on the priority list. For several days now I have wanted to go see a movie, but the effort involved in parking, buying a ticket and junk food is making me unmotivated to do much beyond the contemplation phase of the venture. I was sitting at my desk today thinking about a comment a friend of mine made over a year ago as she was preparing a fabulous feast for myself and few other friends. She said “You know, I really like these quiet evenings making dinner for the people I care about with a nice cd in the background and a good glass of wine in my hand. This is what I always envisioned for my future and it is better than sitting in a loud bar or going to a club.” In that moment I felt old. I felt old because I agreed with her. I feel old right now because I can’t even muster the energy it takes to stay up past 10:30 if it doesn’t involve alcohol fueling the adventure. At least I still drink. Although I am sure that’ll be the next thing to go. Then it will be my eyesight, then my bladder control, then my hip. You get the picture.

Broken Record

2005-03-20T21:55:00.000-08:00

This morning my friend and I were at our favorite local coffee shop sitting across from one another attempting to read the Sunday NY Times. Midway through our efforts not to distract one another, a man and a woman in their twenties sat down at our table and proceeded to have a very intimate conversation. This was quite a break from the norm in terms of the Seattle coffee shop scene. You see, people go to coffee shops around here to be by themselves, to get lost in a book or hide behind a laptop screen. It is a library-like atmosphere with unspoken, yet universally known rules about talking. The steam emitting from the espresso machine is like a “shhhh” from a librarian reminding anyone who dares to chat that this is sacred space. To an onlooker, I am sure my friend and I appeared thoroughly engrossed in what we were reading behind our paper screen. But, every few minutes throughout their conversation we turned our papers to the side and raised an eyebrow at one another questioningly as we eavesdropped. Serendipitously, the couple was talking about the very topic I discussed in “Hairy Sally” and what she and I have been conversing about a lot as of late.

The gentleman and his female friend were discussing a mutual female friend of theirs and how on Thursday he crossed the friendship line and kissed the woman. Things progressed from there and they have now become more than “just friends”. He expressed his amazement and dismay at being in this new place with this other woman. He said that he was happy being her friend and that he feels he makes a lousy boyfriend, but on the other hand, because he has gotten to know her so well over time, he feels like perhaps he could change his former ways. He expressed his fear of their actions ruining the friendship and how he feels that perhaps he is in love with this woman and the thought of losing her as a lover and especially as a friend terrifies the shit out of him.

A predicament to be sure, wouldn’t you say? Can men and women be friends? Now I realize every situation is different and I would never be narrow-minded and say that these things NEVER work out. But, I have to admit the realist/cynic in me is thinking that the guy from this morning is probably justified in feeling scared. Is it worth the fallout when things go awry and one party is alienated from a person or god forbid a group of people s/he had grown so close to? If the chemistry was there then wouldn’t things have been of a romantic nature from the beginning?

On the flipside, I know it is occasionally possible to have a friendship grow into something more. That was the case for a couple of married folks I know. Which leads me to wonder, is the sexual tension that lies just underneath the surface of many male/female friendships just part of the dance? Part of the thrill of the chase and even if it never comes to fruition, meaning culminates in sex, isn’t it fun while it lasts? That is of course to say, that sex shouldn’t necessarily be looked upon as the pinnacle of a relationship. Who hasn’t woken up after the chase is over and thought to themselves “Is that it, what now?” Given the fact that these scenarios so often end in disappointment I wonder why we place so much emphasis on the sexual aspect of relationships? Yes, I realize it basically it just feels damn good and as a side benefit we are propagating the human species, but why all the pomp? Maybe it’s an American thing? But, that’s a whole other topic.

As my friend and I wade through our twenties, we are learning to discern the attributes we like and dislike in men not only through our romantic attachments, but also through our male friends on a purely platonic level. I would like to think that if either of us should get married someday, then the person we chose would have more of the characteristics we admire and have found in the males in our lives and less of the annoying habits we can’t stand in them and have the ability to just turn off when we aren’t in the mood to hang around them for a time. It’s sort of like enjoying children, but being thankful when you can hand them back over to their parents. Our male friends, brothers, fathers, etc. are wonderful mentors who have given us a glimpse into the male world and mind and taught us how they see things. I personally am thankful for this priceless education.

The divide between friendship and something more is a fine line to be sure, but one worth walking.

Turtle Turtle

2005-03-18T10:17:00.000-08:00

Every weekday on my two-minute commute to work I have to stop at one traffic light. Yes, I know, it’s rough isn’t it? Each morning I see the same little old man on the corner, green lunch bag in hand, his head stooped turtle-like as he patiently waits for the light to change giving him the go ahead to scuttle across the walk. As I sit in my car watching him I straighten my back against the seat, mindful of the good posture I am trying to practice and hoping I will never be scrunched into myself like that poor man. I also can’t help but laugh and think the words “turtle, turtle” in honor of my brother who coined the phrase when he was at a strip club and the ugly girl sliding across his lap made his dick crawl back inside itself, sorta like a turtle. All my brother has to do is merely mutter these two words anyone “in the know” around us starts laughing.

Turtle Turtle, Lake Astaire and my morning cup of coffee usher me into my workday making this 9-5 grind tolerable for yet another day. I want to say something more about the rhythm of life and how seeing these things around me at home is like traveling and noticing similar rhythms in different countries on different trips, but I can’t put my finger on it. It’s not déjà vu, but it’s similar. I can’t peg it, but maybe you know what I am talking about?

The Director's Cut

2005-03-15T22:57:00.000-08:00

Do you ever have an experience and ask yourself “Will this make the story of my life?” My hectic days are overfilled with activities that are predominantly mundane, occasionally profound, but nothing to really write home about. About a week ago I was sitting in meditation class thinking (shh, don’t tell my teacher) and came to the stunning realization that I am exactly the same age my mom was when she was carting my brother and I off to her weekly Jehovah’s Witness meetings. My mom went through this “phase” in her twenties where she essentially tried any religion that was not white-bread Christian based. My family now laughs about her trial and error religious quests of the 80s that eventually ended in her being no more devout than she was when she started. It amazes me that she had me at 22, a perfectly normal age, and as children my brother and I got to witness her many attempts to discover who she was and what she was about. Someday I will probably be sitting in my rocking chair thinking back to this “woo-woo” New Age phase I am currently embedded in and laughing about how it all turned out. Thankfully, there are fewer impressionable minds to witness my dabblings.

I realize this IS the story of my life, right now. I look forward to the things I haven’t discovered yet and reminisce about the things that have passed. I believe that when we are children we start to construct an idea about what we think our lives will be like. I remember years ago I was having lunch with a friend and out of the blue she said “Rochelle, you think your life is supposed to be like a movie.” I have never forgotten her statement, because at the time, it was true. She had obviously already come to the reasonable conclusion that real life is not typically scripted like it is in the movies.

As a preteen I watched movies like 16 Candles and Fast Times at Ridgemont High and truly believed that someday my life would be filled with cute boy crushes that would reciprocate my interest and that high school was essentially one big prom. As I matured, storylines of interest for movies and my life changed. Out were the school dances and in were the drugs and the angst-ridden love affairs, unexpected pregnancies optional. I was too much of a goody goody to really dabble much beyond experimentation with drugs, but welcomed the dramatic love scenario and possible love child. When my friend set me straight about life not being one big movie, it was like a light went off and out at the same time. Giving up my fantastical movie notions was akin to learning as a young child that Snow White, Cinderella and their sister in crime, Sleeping Beauty, were all fictitious women who were never victims of evil bitches and lovers of handsome princes.

Is it better to have a fantasy life forecast for yourself? Better to dream big and hope for the best? Or, is it better to be “realistic” to the fact that there are no perfections out there, that life is for the most part pretty mundane, full of compromise and settling and that yes, this IS it and it just might be as good as it gets? Or maybe, if you let it, does the story of your life take on a life of its own so that one day you are sitting around rehashing your life story to someone and lo and behold, it is actually better than any movie you have ever seen?

Crack Canyon, an Ode to Coffee

2005-03-08T23:15:00.000-08:00

My best friend and I, we love our coffee. It’s our crack. When we travel we take pictures of the coffee joints we visit and the actual cups of coffee we manage to find. Yes, we know we are weird. Why we want to remember these places and these drinks is beyond me. Perhaps it is because like many things in life, somehow the memory and the story about something being shitty is more fun to recall and share than something perfect. We find it hilarious when we find powdered floaties in our “mochas” or have to explain to our “baristas” abroad the simple difference between a mocha and a latte.

Last Spring we journeyed to the Grand Canyon to check one of the seven wonders of the natural world of our “must see before we die list” and more importantly, chase down a decent cuppa joe since we had been on the road for a week in Utah and there were none to be found there. We had heard that Flagstaff was just a hop skip and a jump from the canyon and that they had a Starbucks in Barnes & Noble. Now please understand, when we are in Seattle, we avoid Starbucks like the plague. We work for an independent company and have come to value the importance of supporting the little guy. Not to mention the fact that the little guy typically makes a better product since he has to rely on more than merely a name, a little green siren and convenience to lure you in. However, when you are on the road, desperate times call for desperate measures people. We thought that the 80 mile trek to Flagstaff was well worth the trip if it meant that Grande Frappuccino’s would be in our hot little dirty hands within hours. Not only did we find the Starbucks, but we also found a Cineplex up the street that was playing the movie “13 Going on 30”, or as I like to call, “Big, the Chick Version.” We were so inspired by the 80’s flashback tunes from the movie that we went back to the Barnes & Noble to find the soundtrack. They didn’t have it, but we did find a kick-ass 80’s compilation disc. High on chick movie ju-ju and amped from our purchase we decided to get one last fix from Starbucks and bought yet another round of crack for the road.

As I sped along the highway heading back to that stunning pit, Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield” and Falco’s forgotten classic “Rock Me Amadeus” filled the truck. I had a moment so pure I wished I could bottle it and uncork it when I am eighty and may have forgotten what it feels like to be youthful and free, the wind in my hair, my best friend at my side and the two of us together, undaunted by time, literally having the wonders of the world at our fingertips.

Then again, it could have just been the buzz from the Frappuccino’s.

Not Him. Not Now.

2005-03-07T00:40:00.000-08:00

How do you write a sympathy card? I used to work in a floral shop where people would ask me what they should write on the 2x3 scrap of paper they just bought for 50 cents to go along with their equally depressing azalea plant or bunch of white chrysanthemums. The first time it happened I stared at the person questioningly with a “How the hell should I know?” look seeing as how I didn’t know them, their friend or the circumstances that necessitated a visit to my counter. After awhile I got used to being asked and would immediately rehearse something generic and wish them luck as they shuffled off, their token purchase in hand.

On Friday I had to write my first “Sorry to hear about your illness” card. The husband of one of my friends from high school was just diagnosed with Stage 4 Lymphoma. They think they caught it in time, but the next several months are going to be sheer horror for them both. It’s too soon for me to be writing sympathy cards for my friends. I was anticipating dealing with blows like this in our 40s not our 20s. I have to admit that I didn’t do the card justice. I was horribly awkward as I fumbled through words, trying to convey how it just wasn’t fair and why him and why now just as she was about to start grad school and they were entering the next phase of their life together. I wrote something paltry like, “Gee, you sure are testing those ‘In sickness and in health’ vows sort of soon aren’t you?” I didn’t want to sound glib, but since her husband is fighting this with everything he’s got, I wanted to lighten the mood and acknowledge them as a pair, battling this shitty disease together. I wonder does it get easier over time? Do you just rehearse the same lines in every card and at every funeral reception, filling in the names and circumstances surrounding the horror that has befallen someone close to you?

As I have said before, working in an office of older individuals I learn about a lot of life scenarios secondhand as I eavesdrop from the other room. From time to time I hear them commiserating over the cooler as they talk about a college friend from 20 years ago who just passed after a long illness or God forbid, just losing a parent. I take note of their sad stories, glad it’s not me, but painfully aware that someday I will be them and I will start to lose my friends too. I am not prepared this first time and realize I probably never will be.

Hairy Sally

2005-03-02T22:40:00.000-08:00

On Mondays the bartender at my local hangout plays movies for the patrons viewing pleasure and let's face it, probably to boost tips on what would otherwise be a slow night. This week I decided to stay home to give my poor liver a break and to save a few dollars since I recently purchased a new car. Unfortunately, I missed the night he finally played the movie myself and my best friend had been requesting for months. What was it you ask? None other than “When Harry Met Sally”. Now I know this is the quintessential chick flick of all time, but there are some fantastic themes in that movie that play out frequently enough in my life that the movie has basically become my life manual. I should start carrying the damn thing in my glove box. What I came to talk about here is the central theme, the million-dollar question “Can men and women just be friends?”

Now being of the female persuasion I would say yes, they can be friends and I would cite examples from my own plethora of male friends to backup my claim. I often ask myself why I have so many male friends. Other than one really good female best friend who I have known since high school, 90% of the people I hang out with are men. The psych major in me would look to my lack of a father figure growing up and say that I am trying to fill the daddy hole in my life in some way. The Buddhist(ish) person in me would say that inside we are all the same and it is the heart and soul of the person and how we are connected that matters, regardless of sex. The insecure part of me would wonder if perhaps I am just one big cock-tease and I was leading these guys on because no matter how much they deny it, they would jump at the chance to sleep with me and say to hell with being “just friends”. The strong female, “I am woman” part of me would say, why the hell not? Honestly, other than conversations with my best friend, I get tired of all the surface chatter I have with my female friends. Surface chatter being conversations that cover the following topics: hair, makeup, weight, men, relationships, weight, other women, clothes, did I mention our weight? You get the picture. It gets old and I think this is because it is too familiar. I already know all I need to know about women, I find men to be far more fascinating because they are just different.

That being said, I’ll flip a little and say that despite the whole “Mars/Venus” thing, I have found that men and women are more alike than we care to admit. I think we are both just afraid of one another. The Mysterious Other. Some of my favorite people are folks who have non-conforming gender attributes. The girl who likes to play touch football and whoop and holler at an M’s game. Or, the guy who can appreciate and look forward to a good pedicure because he knows his girlfriend hates being clawed in the night by runaway toenails. I think that you acquire more self confidence and can better relate to the opposite sex when you acknowledge that of course we are going to be different in many ways, but deep down we have a lot of the same fears and insecurities and ultimately we are just people trying to get by.

Let me use some food analogies here. I wish more people would have a smorgasbord of male and female friends. I think that a lot of marriages fail because people look to that ONE other person to fulfill them in every way and that is an impossibly tall order. If people could cultivate a smattering of platonic relationships with people that make up the many slices of their pie, then the burden wouldn’t fall to their partner to be their everything. It would also make that person a more delectable and diverse piece of pie, dontchyathink? It is late and I need to not blog when I am sleepy. Hope this makes sense and you can all tell me if it doesn’t. Peace my friends...

The Onion in the Corner

2005-02-28T22:30:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I went to the annual book sale fundraiser for my little brothers daycare. As I was surveying the offerings I couldn’t help but overhear a middle-aged woman comment about a ragged book held gingerly in her hands. The book was “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand. The wife turned and said to her husband “Remember reading this in college? Those angst-filled days when we thought we could change the world?” He mumbled something and nodded his head in agreement as he continued to peruse the titles. Two things struck me in that moment. One, at the urging of a friend, I had been reading that very book since April and unfortunately had yet to finish it. I wanted to take my time and savor the philosophies of the tale and churn them over in my head. I had heard many things about the book from various people and was hoping to find a morsel that would validate the bullshit angst I had been feeling the past few months. At that point, I did not love the book, but as I turned every page I kept looking for that gem that had made it such a classic. Sadly, it is February, damn, almost March and I have about 20 pages to go. I continue to hold out hope that I will find something in the conclusion that makes this arduous journey through nearly 700 pages and the span of one year worthwhile.

Now, back to my story. The second thing that struck me was thought “Please God, don’t let me be like these people someday!” I feel like no matter how hard I fight it, someday I will be just like everyone else. Like when I was a kid and my mom told me someday I would like onions. I would always vehemently shake my head and deny her claim, but lo and behold, mom was right, I now love onions. Is middle-life acquiescence just another inevitable fate for us all in the stages of life? The thing we fear and deny will happen to us does indeed happen? Last night I was listening to an audio lecture given by Robert Thurman. He said something to the effect of isn’t it funny how we all think we are at the center of the universe? We could sit in a room full of people and think that the realm we inhabit within the room was the most special. I always think nah, I will never be middle-class, middle-aged boring. I am going to conquer the world and see all there is to see. There will be no Volvo’s or Baby Bjorn’s in my future! But, you know what? As proved true by the onions, someday I just may be like everyone else and resign myself to not being the most special one in the corner.

I leave you with an apropos quote by Curt Smith from the band Tears for Fears as he explains to a NY Times reporter the difficulty of the comeback:

“The emotion in a lot of the songs we wrote back then really doesn’t mean anything to us now. There are certain emotions you have in your late teens and 20’s that really don’t exist when you turn 40. There is a certain angst we had then that doesn’t exist now. Now we have middle-aged angst.” February 13, 2005

Lake Astaire

2005-02-23T09:39:00.000-08:00

I work across the street from a beautiful city lake in Seattle. The lake has a sidewalk around the perimeter that is approximately 2.8 miles long. It is the outdoor workout mecca of the city and on mornings such as this it is one of the most spectacular views in town. I love to watch the shapes of dogs and jogging strollers whir past, their silhouettes transforming as the sun rises in the sky as I sit at my computer nursing my morning cup of java.

Around this time each morning there is man in who walks the lake with typically one or two disabled persons. He appears to be a gentle caregiver who pushes his charges around in their wheelchairs or leads them by the hand around the whole perimeter of the lake. It is a mild workout for most fit people and a moderate workout for those with a few extra pounds, on average taking about 45 minutes to get around. I wonder as I watch his group go past how long it takes them to navigate the lake?

When I walk the lake, I pound the pavement at a feverish pace, anxious to get done, focusing on the concrete in front of me and only mildly noting the wonders of nature that inhabit the lake around me. This man not only strolls with his charges at a pace they can handle but from time to time he does something wondrous that captures my eye and melts my heart. He dances with them. In the style of Fred Astaire he gracefully takes their hands and twirls them in an awkward embrace that by no means implies they are Ginger Rogers but is somehow more lovely and memorable than any scenes of the pair that I have ever seen. Watching them reminds me of the fragile beauty in life that avails itself to us if we merely look up.

Yet Another "Rite"

2005-02-17T22:33:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard of a “Single de Mayo” party? Well, I hadn’t either, until I turned to the Sunday Styles section of the NY Times this week and saw an article titled “O.K., It’s Over. So Now Let’s Party.” I think we all know that failed marriages continue skyrocket and divorce rates currently hover in the 50% range. Apparently since people are getting divorced at a younger age, they still can still get down and feel the urge to flaunt their reclaimed freedom in the form of a celebratory romp with all their friends. Psychologist Dr. Reena Sommer called this “another rite of passage, a way for somebody to say ‘It’s finally over.’” Leave it to a shrink to come up with a statement like that.

A gentleman named Andrew Marks was proud host of the “Single de Mayo” party held last May in Los Altos, CA. At the party he entertained 80 friends who stuffed themselves silly and “danced to Mr. Marks’s “Divorce Mix” which included Carlos Santana’s ‘Black Magic Woman’ and Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Go Your Own Way.’ [Nice choices Andy] Friends gave Mr. Mark’s mostly gag gifts, including a voodoo effigy of his former wife.”

The article described how there are now books, websites, party planners, and even gift registries for such occasions. At www.theytookeverything.com the innocent bystander of a messy divorce can register for a new blender or toaster and cross their fingers in hopes that new appliances will be showered upon them courtesy the same friends who likely bought the first ones for the wedding that the sorry ex-spouse ran off with. What the hell? If one of my friends pulled a bullshit move like this I would laugh in their face. Let me get this straight. First you want me to come to your bridal shower, with gift. Oh, then there’s the bachelor/bachelorette party. Another gift. Let’s not forget the actual wedding, yet another gift. Forever seemed just a teensy bit long for the two of you hmmm? Now you want me to come out and drink myself silly with you to “celebrate” the split AND bring another material token just to show you how much I care? Hold on a sec, let me retrieve my eyes ‘cause they seemed to have lolled into my head.

To be completely fair, I do admit it is important to commemorate closing a chapter of life like a marriage and divorce in a way that fosters healing and forgiveness. People seem to need markers or cues that make their brains feel like “Okay, I can move forward now.” I guess my beef is with the promotion and materialization of such a “rite”. What happened to a good crying fest amongst your best girlfriends where you overate and male-bashed for a few hours? Or, having a couple of buddies come over for beers and maybe a game where y’all sit around and they admit what a bitch they thought she was all these years?

Maybe that’s just me, but I hope this recent “rite” is just a trend and will fade over time.

Probably like the 20-something angst.

About Blogging

2005-02-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

I feel the urge to admit for the record that I experience a lot of ambivalence about blogging. There have been a number of times in recent conversations where I have dropped in the word “blog” just to see the reaction of the other person and if they know what one is and how they feel about them. I consider myself fairly in tune with recent happenings in the world and though blogs have been around for years, I hadn’t heard of them until last summer. Working in an office of educated (albeit older) people, if there is something I haven’t read about or seen on TV, then they have and are talking about it around the water cooler. I hang on their every word from the room next door and get a lot of helpful tips this way. I dunno how it happened, but somehow we all missed the blogging boat.

I discovered blogs last June when I saw an article the UTNE Reader titled something to the effect of “How Blogging Ruined My Life”. I thought the piece would be a sordid account of somebody so addicted to this newfound voyeuristic pleasure that they no longer could function at work and spent all their available free time reading about other people. It wasn’t that extreme of a tale. Please remember this is my memory of the article and read the following all with a grain of salt. The article was about a woman whose social circle had become so dependant on their communal blogs to converse and make plans amongst themselves that anyone who forgot to check the blog daily or weekly essentially got left out of the loop. The author was met with dumbfounded stares at social events when she would inquire about this or that and the person she was talking to was basically like “Duh, didn’t you hear about that last week? I posted it on the blog!” I remember thinking at the time “Gawd, I hope that never happens to me.” I never want to be so conversationally out of touch with my friends that we can’t have a person to person exchange without referencing something that was already said via the computer.

Back to my point. Blogging. I love it and loathe it. After posting late in the night on the 8th baring my soul and saying I had essentially had a nervous breakdown I awoke the following morning with that feeling you get after a night of drunk dialing your ex. C'mon, I know you know what I am talking about. That “Oh God, what did I do last night?” feeling. I have a friend who blogs almost daily and invites friends to read his work has recently made me feel a lot more comfortable exposing more of my inner workings here. In my ideal comfort zone I would like to keep and objective eye on the world and comment in a detached fashion, but what fun would that be? The blogs I relate to the most out there are very personal. That is what I like about them. And I want you to like me, you know, REALLY, REALLY like me. Just kidding.

The thing I love about blogging is the fact that there are a lot of damn good writers out there that may never get book deals, but have worthwhile things to say. Blogs bring their words and their worlds to us readers in a way that seems to be fostering camaraderie and empathy. I think that’s pretty cool.

Water Works, a New "Theme" Park

2005-02-08T22:53:00.000-08:00

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the beginning of what I now deem to have been a nervous breakdown. I am shocked that somehow my overly analytic, hyper-anxious, need to know sort of self has not yet looked up the symptoms on the net or went through my college boxes looking for my old DSM–IV to see if I really honestly and truly had a certifiable “episode”. However, I am pretty sure it was the real deal. The past year was a blur. I no longer recognize the person I see in the mirror, but am slowly getting to know and like her better than the familiar girl I thought I knew a year ago.

The final question on my philosophy final in December asked “Do you believe that life has meaning and if so, give examples of what makes it meaningful?” I haven’t sent my self-addressed envelope to the prof to get it back, but I recall one thought I spewed forth particularly cogent (at least to me). I said something to the effect of “Meaning is the intellectualization of past experience upon reflection. Personally, I think meaning should be found not only in the intellectual realm, but also in the moment to moment visceral and basal drives as well.” It’s late and am horribly bastardizing my own though process of “meaning” as I rambled about it on my test, but I hope you catch my drift.

I abhor the thought of sounding like a cheesy Self Help book/manual/video/cd/Oprah guest, however from the lessons gleaned in the last year, I humbly offer the following:

Reflection is great, but be careful what you remember. Don’t give others more credit than you give yourself. Be present, try to recognize moments while they are happening and revel in them. The deep end isn’t as bad as people fear, but never wallow too long because your friends and family will wonder what happened to you. Climb out of the well or you will forever be having a pity party down there for one. Not fun. Life is full of people and experiences that are like steppingstones taking you Lord knows where, but hopefully to a place yielding double tall 2% mochas with whip, friends, family and copious amount of books and guacamole. All in no particular preference or order, of course.

Talk to Me

2005-02-08T15:54:00.000-08:00

I love to talk. I love to engage in what I hope is
dialogue. I say hope because I consider myself a decent
listener, but admit that I am often one of those people
who get a little caught up in what people are saying to me
and spend part of my listening time formulating what my
response will be. I have come to the realization recently
that it is hard to truly process what someone is saying
when I am constantly trying to think of an articulate
response. I need to work on this.

A Zen Buddhist friend of mine once said that an exercise
he had to practice for eleven days was being silent unless
someone specifically asked for his opinion in the
conversational matter at hand. He said that what he found
after this exercise was that people rarely, if ever, asked
for his opinion. Oftentimes they were just looking to
vent or for a sympathetic ear. I have mulled over his
comments on this experience for over a year now and the
idea of it still fascinates me. I do not have the control
or attention span to practice such an exercise myself, but
I admire his awareness of such a conversational
phenomenon.

Another friend of mine has what I like to call a “three
day get back to me” policy concerning our conversations. I
talk while he quietly listens without saying a word.
He has assured me that he means no disrespect by this and
proves it when he gets back to me sometimes up to three
days later with a thought or answer to my verbal
ponderings. Now I realize this is extreme and in a normal
conversational world this simply is not possible. But, I
must say that the depth of his answers make it well worth
the wait. I wish I had the guts (I almost said balls
there, but sorry guys, I don't wish for those) to say this
to people more often. I think the quality of my answers
would vastly improve.

You know, in writing this out, I see how neurotic this all
may seem. I realize people don't necessarily hold me to
the same high standards I hold myself and I should just
let it go, but this meditation class I have been taking
lately has all sorts of weird thoughts percolating in my
head. You know, the ones about "being present" and all?
More to come on that in the coming days.

Namaste

So, what do you do?

2005-02-05T22:31:00.000-08:00

In December of 2003 I stumbled upon the Bill Moyers interview of Joseph Campbell that airs ad nauseam during the pledge drive of the local PBS station. I was immediately smitten with the white-haired gentleman with the sparkling eyes and vast knowledge of history and mythology. I admit I found many of his ideas daunting and hard to comprehend due not only to my limited knowledge of the subject matter, but also to my life experience up to that point. I googled Campbell the next day and had a plethora of websites at my fingertips just aching to educate me further.

The common Campbell theme that peppered each of these sites was his “Follow your bliss!” proclamation. I remember thinking “How do you know your bliss? What if I haven’t found it yet, will I ever?” Is it akin to what they say about love – “you’ll just know” when you are on the tail of it? Earlier that year I had attended a lecture given by the Latina writer Sandra Cisneros from San Antonio,TX. Oh my, that woman has some spunk! I remember she said something similar to Campbell about fulfilling your life path. She believes everyone has a life path and purpose. Some fulfill that purpose, while others do not. She said that there is a feeling when you are fulfilling that path that is like the flutter in your being similar to when a lover smiles at you.

I have come to terms with the fact that though I may never fulfill my career life path there is more to the journey than just the career and I need to focus on that. That being said, I find it both amusing and frustrating that as an American, my career path is the first thing that springs to mind when I contemplate the road ahead. Because we as a society place so much value on what a person “does” I suppose it is only natural that this is what is at the forefront of the minds of many when they consider their path. Why is that though?

Two years ago I was seeing a guy who practically leapt down my throat when I conversationally asked his friend, to whom I had just been introduced, what he did for a living. (Nice guy to do it in front of his friend, eh?) However, to his credit, he did teach me a valuable lesson that night. He asked me “Why don’t you first ask him what he does for fun?” Always one to keep an open mind and strive to understand especially if I have erred, I gave his question a lot of thought. When you think about how little our jobs actually represent us as a person, it’s sort of comical how much emphasis we place on them. Yes, my job puts food on the table and gives me a reason to get out of bed everyday, but it is not me as I perceive myself to be. Again I wonder, will my path ever be a blissful union of my core essence and a paycheck?

From my experience, the most blissful unions of person and path rarely take the form of a large paycheck or “career”. I know this and I fear this. I have had hints of what I think would make me the happiest in my path, but it would take a braver girl than I currently am to get off the business hamster wheel and venture into that potentially blissful unknown. I think I need to go revisit Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" now.

Timing is Everything

2005-02-02T22:40:00.000-08:00

Timing is a funny thing. I was thinking about this the other day as I logged onto msn and saw yet another request for money to aid the tsunami victims. I wonder, if the tsunami had occurred on June 26th instead of December 26th, do you think there would be the outpouring of global support that we are currently witnessing? You see, I was one of those people who turned on my television that morning and saw the horrors on the screen, then scanned my eyes around the living room taking in all of my newly gifted material goods. In the spirit of generosity kin to the season, I simply could not turn my heart or my billfold away from those devastated people. If it had been June would I have felt the same tugs of generosity? Honestly, I doubt it. I am deeply saddened by what occurred and mean no offense when I say the following. If it had to happen on any day, I say you couldn’t have asked for a better date.

Good Enough for the Guru, Good Enough for Me

2005-02-01T21:20:00.000-08:00

In the same Time magazine that I recently referenced on the “Twixter” generation (yep, that’s me, sort of) there was an interview with Deepak Chopra. Guru to millions, Chopra gives people courage to face the day and themselves. I have never read any of his books, but a quote in this interview caught my eye. They asked him “Do you see yourself more as a scientist or a philosopher?” He replied, “I don’t know what I see myself as. I’m just trying to decide what I’ll do when I grow up, to be honest. My attempt is to bridge the scientific insights of today with the spiritual learning that we all have.” How apropos that 32 pages later the magazine devotes a whole section on the current twentysomething culture that just can’t seem to grow up. I ask you, do we ever?

I love and paraphrase the quote “How old would you be if you didn’t know your age?” I wonder, how old would I be? I think I would be somewhere around ten. Experts say that some people get stuck developmentally in a place where bad things happened to them and they have trouble overcoming these things. Mentally those people have a hard time moving on and retreat back to this stage of their life for comfort. Other than my parents divorce, nothing devastating happened to me at this age, but this is the age that wraps its arms around me. This is the age where I last felt like a child. Ten was an age where I could still play hide-and-seek with my brother and still fit under the bed. That, or have marathon Barbie sessions with him where we played dolls for twenty hours straight. This age is where our mom cared where we were, but was not too vigilant and we could pretty much do what we wanted as long as it was “around the house.” Things seemed easier then. Remember whining to your parents about wanting to be a grown-up? Now we whine about not wanting to be grown-up. If I ever have kids, I will probably laugh at them like my parents laughed at me (much to my chagrin). It’s nice to finally understand why they laughed. They were practically my age now when they were laughing at me.

If a guru doesn’t have to grow up, then perhaps I don’t have to either? There is something to be said for childish delight and curiosity. I hope to never lose my sense of wonder and delight in the unknown. In the evening philosophy class that I took fall quarter we spent about four hours on student introductions. It was fascinating to learn about my peers as they shared parts of themselves, both mundane and profound. Many of the things people said those two nights will forever be embedded in my mind (until Alzheimer’s kicks in of course). I remember agreeing wholeheartedly with a girl named Leah who looked to the ceiling and shook her hands for emphasis as she said, “ I get excited by the idea of all of the ideas out there.” Books, ideas, conversations with people…these are my drugs. This hunger for knowledge and stimulation is the closest thing to addiction I have ever felt. I suppose this curiosity is more human than childlike in nature. However, I guess the aspect that is childlike for me is the lack of motive. I am not getting a higher degree or striving to learn for a specific goal (things typically associated with adult learning), I am merely devouring the unknown in a quest to learn all I can about the world around me because it fascinates the hell out of me. Sometimes I feel like that ten-year-old again, you know, the one who has just discovered boys or lesbians or cigarettes and is dying to know more.

The Descent

2005-01-27T14:46:00.000-08:00

A writer of one of my favorite blogs recently got engaged. Since then every other post has been about her upcoming nuptials. Her blog is beginning to remind me of that point in a sitcom where the main characters start getting married and having babies and somehow the show just doesn’t have the same appeal.

It got me thinking. My blog is about quarter-life angst. What happens to it when I no longer am in the throes of it? Will it become like a washed-up sitcom that loses its appeal to its audience?

Maybe I should just resolve now to never emerge from my angst so I can continue to scribble my thoughts for your reading enjoyment (or misery) forever. Just a thought.

Peter Pandamonium

2005-01-21T16:24:00.000-08:00

The current issue of Time magazine (January 24, 2005) features a story titled “Grow Up? – Not So Fast” an article about the rise of the “twixter”. What is a twixter you ask??? According to the article “the years from 18 until 25 and even beyond have become a distinct and separate life stage, a strange, transitional never-never land between the adolescence and adulthood in which people stall for a few extra years, putting off the cage of adult responsibility that constantly threatens to crash down on them. They’re betwixt and between. You could call them twixters.”

I find this constant need to define this period of uncertainty we quarter-lifers live in quite humorous. The article mentioned just a few of the names researchers have coined in describing our subgroup of, let’s face it, adults. Such names as “kidults”,”boomerang kids”, “thresholders”, “youthood”, adultescence” crack me up. But, I must admit, this period beyond adolescence and before adulthood is becoming more and more lengthy and gray. Yes, we are technically adults at 18, but as one researcher in the article mentions, our brains are continuing to evolve into our early twenties.

The article sites the increasing partner-hopping and job-hopping exhibited by people in their twenties as a sign of them living their life on their terms, pursuing their “bliss” Joseph Campbell style and attempting to get it “just right”. I know I myself have done this. In an attempt not to fall into the divorce trap my parents did, I am constantly on the lookout for the first sign of a flaw a partner may have that screams “Unfit spouse! Abort! Abort!” But, as I get older I realize that this is not a new concept. My parents were also once young and in love and like millions of other baby boomers, never saw divorce in their future. We all want to get it right. Nobody wants to fail, but allowing ourselves to fail – both in love and jobs is what shapes us hopefully into better, more evolved people

The recent rise of parents mollycoddling their twenty plus-year-old children through every difficult transition that occurs in their lives troubles me. It sort of reminds me of the anti-dodgeball campaign that successfully wiped the game from playgrounds across the country. “Jimmy can’t be subjected to being the last one chosen. Then, to add insult to injury, have a ball lobbed at his head.” God forbid Jimmy learns disappointment and resiliency. How can baby proofing our twentysomething lives benefit us in any way? People have been riddled with insecurity and indecision for centuries. The fact that it is now a cultural phenomenon with its own demographic and articles in Time magazine speaks volumes about the way society is evolving. Why is this happening and why is it newsworthy?

That is why people like me have this blog. I am one of those people facing my existential angst head-on and hoping there is light at the end of the tunnel. I turned 27 recently and have been embedded in this quarterlife obsession for over two years. My best friend turned 28 last week and for a gift another friend gave her a session with a psychic. Apparently there is a lot in astrology about the “Saturn Return” -- this period we experience in our mid-twenties and early thirties. This is serves as even more evidence that this (whatever it is) is nothing new. I can’t wait to learn what the psychic has to say.

Maybe that is one of the many answers to all of this twentysomething drama. Go to the psychic. “Take two pills and call me in the morning.” Follow the advice of the songwriter Jem “It’s Just a Ride”, sit back and enjoy it as such. As I think about this little obsession of mine more and more, this seems to be the answer that keeps coming back to me. Chill out. The mental masturbation is getting me only so far and at some point I need to just enjoy this period for what it is…because ya know what? It is what it is and it’s not going anywhere.

Reunion Prelude

2005-01-04T13:20:00.000-08:00

Last week several of my acquaintances from high school got together for an impromptu gathering since many of them were home for the holidays visiting their families. I had a graduating class of approximately three hundred people. Of those three hundred, there are probably ten or so I would be curious to know how they were doing today. About five of those ten were at the gathering last week. It was pure delight to see these people again because rumor has it that thus far, there are no plans for a formal ten-year reunion in the summer. This meeting provided us with wonderful opportunity to reminisce and catch-up.

I was amazed at how little (on the surface) this group has changed. Personalities are still the same. With the exception of a few laugh lines and pounds, they all seem to look the same. I, however, wanted to delve a little further and after a few beers a few of them were more than happy to accommodate my curiosities. I asked the simple question “What is different about you now than ten years ago?”

Reply 1 : “I think more now.”

Reply 2: “I am more jaded with the opposite sex and don’t trust people as openly as I once did.”

Reply 3: “I don’t give a rats ass what people think of me. I no longer feel the need to conform to societal norms or constantly look around me to see how people perceive me.”

Reply 4: “I know people on a deeper level now.”

My comment to this last response was perhaps we now are able to know people on a deeper level because we have acquired more depth ourselves. That certainly seems to be the case with that group that night. Surrounded by my high school peers ten years later, I was in a humbled state of awe and appreciation of the people they have become. Professionally and personally they all seem to be “on the right track”, whatever that is for them.

Life without George Bailey

2004-12-28T11:03:00.000-08:00

I was watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” on Christmas Eve as I marathon wrapped all of my holiday gifts. I hadn’t seen the movie in several years and was surprised by how little of it I remembered. The end of the film in particular struck a chord. When George was contemplating suicide and later lamenting to Clarence about the current state of his life and thinking perhaps everything would be better had he never been born. Clarence gave him the priceless glimpse of what life would be like had he never existed and, of course, George saw that his life did have meaning to himself and many others. There was a line in the movie spoken by Clarence that said something to the effect that each life touches many others.

Now I know this isn’t a profound new thought by any means, but it gave me food for thought over the holiday weekend. I love hearing butterfly effect stories where one thing led to another and so on. Some examples:

About a month ago, I was reading the airline magazine on the looooong flight home from Germany. In the magazine there was a story about the owner of the Aveda Salons and how one day many years ago he took the time to give an extra long scalp massage to a client. The woman called him later that day and told him how the attention he gave her reminded her that there were decent people in the world and instead of going home to kill herself as originally planned, she went to a hospital and checked herself in for psychiatric care. He changed her life and she changed his.

A friend and I were talking on Sunday about how a week or so ago he called me after having slept with a woman on essentially their first date. He told me that morning that he likely would not call her again because she was apparently too easy. I told him that he was being narrow-minded and that perhaps he was missing out on an opportunity with a seemingly intelligent young woman who merely wanted to get her freak on as uninhibitedly as he did. He told me that my words had an effect and he has since spent many days with this woman getting to know her and learning that she is recently out of a one year relationship where she didn’t feel wanted by her boyfriend and is stretching her wings. Her behavior with my friend was not typical, she said. He thanked me for suggesting he open his mind and give this woman more time. It was rare and refreshing to hear my words had an effect on other people and I wish them luck.

Everyday interactions with others can sometimes have profound effects. Even if they didn’t I think it is worth the effort to live conscientiously and strive to have minimal regrets. I hate New Years resolutions, but if I had to say I had one, this would be it.

Silver & Gold

2004-12-21T11:18:00.000-08:00

On Sunday I attended a holiday party at the home of a fairly new acquaintance. Most of the attendees were former roommates and friends of his from college and their respective girlfriends or wives. I don’t know if it is this particular group, but I noticed how difficult it was to ingratiate myself with those people. The established cliques were already in place conversationally and even physically at the tables. Sadly, they were not granting admittance to any newbies like me.

I have often thought of this social growing pain associated with my quarter-life angst. How do you break into already established groups to meet like-minded individuals? I never lived in a dorm or with roommates in college and am feeling a little left out of the twentysomething social circle. My coworkers have always been much older which is great for mentors and life lessons, but they can’t exactly keep up on a Monday night when I want to close the bar down.

Another growing pain is noticing how friends from high school and college are no longer on the immediate or even distant radar. When does that happen? One day they are there, the next they are not. I realize this is all a part of life changes, etc. Sometimes, though, it leaves me with little pangs of sadness or regret. It’s not that I dislike these people or they dislike me (I hope), I guess it’s just that life has become more complicated and priorities have changed.

The friendships I have held onto through both high school and college are akin to good marriages. The best ones are the ones you can grow with. The ones who can see your ugly sides and forgive you anyway because they know who you are deep down. The ones you can’t imagine not being in your life.

Perhaps it is the approaching New Year and the opening lines of “Auld Lang Syne” that are influencing my reflections this morning. Maybe it is just that time of the year where you take a step back and look at where you’ve come from and who was with you along the way. But I digress. The point of this post was to ask how to make new friends and I have wound up talking up the old ones.

Philosophizing

2004-12-15T09:38:00.000-08:00

I have spent the fall taking a muticultural philosophy course at my local community college. Having essentially slept my way through my bachelors degree, I wanted to see what it was like to study something I was passionate about and something that was applicable to day-to-day living. Sadly, I was too intimidated to take philosophy as a young undergrad. I thought only lofty intellectuals thought about philosophy and were able to process it and discuss it. Having matured a little more into myself, my intellect and my experience, I decided I was ready to jump into the fray.

Tonight is the final class and exam. It has been by far the most engaging class I have ever taken. The classes I took at my four-year university pale in comparison. Not only was the professor outstanding, but since it was an evening course, a lot of my fellow classmates were older and had experience and knowledge that they too could bring to the proverbial table and enhance ideas being tossed around. I have had unforgettable discussions with classmates after class that have challenged my beliefs and theories of life.

I guess all good things must come to an end. I am sad that it is over, but look forward to sharing some ideas here on questions I continue to have. One of the fundamental messages I have taken from the class is the importance of dialogue. I love having my ideas challenged and love it when people don't merely agree out of mental laziness or necessity to be "pc".

More to come....

Recollection

2004-10-20T13:21:00.000-07:00

There is a book by Susan Shapiro called "The Five Men Who Broke My Heart". I have not read this book, but remember passing it in a bookstore one day and being intrigued by a statement on the back cover that said something to the effect that when Shapiro went back and analyzed her failed past relationships she could pinpoint exactly where they went wrong. Because I haven't read it, I don't know if Shapiro cites exact moments or general things that contributed to the demise of the relationship.

What intrigued me was the recollection of moments. Can you recall exact moments, words, people, occurrences, etc. where something dramatically shifted in your life and you were never the same again?

For me a dramatic moment came the day after my 25th birthday in August of 2002. I was dating a pilot and we had been sitting around the dinner table loosely discussing spirituality in regard to the life and death nature of his career flying commercial jets. It was an especially heightened conversation in light of the events of September 11th and its upcoming one-year anniversary.

Later that night we headed out to his patio to bask in warmth of the late night summer evening. As we were sitting down a moment happened that was so mundane, yet so profound. His head caught in a tangle of webs from under the umbrella of the patio table and he said "I hate to disturb the little guys they work so hard." Sort of silly huh? Well, to me, looking at this confident, commanding guy actually taking a moment to acknowledge something as seemingly trivial as the workings of a spider, I was struck. In that moment something in me spiritually shifted and I began to question and chase down theories about the great unknown that is life.

I think it can provide great insight when we trackback and recognize moments that shaped us in some way. What broke me? What made me strong? When did I know I loved someone? When did I experience a moment of unadulterated joy? I think life is about recognizing these moments both forgettable and unforgettable. The beauty of memory is that even if you can't capture the moment as it happens, later you can reflect back and look at how it has added another layer to the person you've become.

Lost Words

2004-10-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

I was watching a rebroadcast of "Frontline" on my local PBS station last night. In my opinion, the show did a wonderful job portraying John Kerry and George Bush in a straightforward, unbiased fashion. Local PBS stations will rebroadcast the special for the final time on November 1st.

One thing (among many) struck me during the show. In addition to video footage and interviews with friends & spouses, the show filmed and read from handwritten letters John Kerry had sent home from Vietnam. They were eloquent letters which gave me a glimpse of John Kerry as a passionate young man embedded in a war he did not agree with, but was honor-bound to serve. I wondered as I watched how much personal written history is being lost in the way we now communicate predominantly through our emails, blogs, etc.?

I realize that if a soldier sends an email home, it could be printed out and saved much like a handwritten letter. However, given the ease and frequency of email vs. "snail mail" I wonder if people are just storing these precious missives in an inbox somewhere to be printed out at a later date that will probably never come? Much like the digital photos I take and barely, if ever, actually print.

The blog has replaced the written journal for a lot of people. I see it as a wonderful tool for getting out frustrations, ideas, questions, etc. The bonus comes when people actually give you feedback and food for though in return. But, are there valuable sentiments being sent into cyberspace and eventually forgotten as they fall into step with the billions of others being spewed out in the same second, that we will never have 30 years from now when some special is on about two candidates that were attending college during the dawn of the new millenium?

Sources of Inspiration

2004-09-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

The name of this blog was inspired by two things. The first was a quote I sent to someone who was going through a difficult transition in life. I love quotes and collect blank cards and often send them to friends and coworkers. The quote read:

"Every positive change--every jump to a higher level of energy and awareness--involves a rite of passage. Each time to ascend to a higher rung on the ladder of personal evolution, we must go through a period of discomfort, of initiation. I have never found an exception."~ Dan Millman

When I sent this card I had never had a transition of my own. There wasn’t one notable episode or experience I could call a “rite”. I know people often refer to puberty and adolescence as their first rite. However, this was not the case for me. To be frank, my head was up my ass during my adolescence. I was still in innocent la-la-land. I have come to realize that my 20s are my first initiation or rite. I would like to think that my head is slowly being dislodged from my ass and I am acquiring knowledge of the world and self awareness that will lead me towards an uncertain, yet hopeful future.

The second source of inspiration was from the headline “The New Rites of Passage” from the July/August Utne Reader magazine. The article talked of how 21 used to be the age where adulthood kicked in, but now it is being pushed back towards the 30-year-old mark. Current twentysomethings are often spoiled children of the baby boomer generation that have not been forced to grow up and are being coddled towards adulthood – if it ever arrives.

I think it is sad that as a society or age group we spend so much time contemplating our angst, myself included, and how many among us are depressed. Sadly we fail to look around at just how fortunate we are. I read articles in the newspaper about the state of affairs in places like Russia, Iraq, Africa, and China just to name a few, and I wonder how we can feel so angst-ridden when we have it so damn good?

Some 'Poo for Tought

2004-09-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back, I was in the shower shampooing my hair and I don't know if it was all of the tactile stimulation to my noggin, or just me being my typical analytical self, but I had a thought. Not a particularly brilliant thought or epiphany, but something I found sort of funny.

It is interesting that when people moan about the habits of their significant other they often hear the admonishment, "Ya know, you can't change a person, they are what they are." Which seems to negate the excuse everyone uses when they decide to end a relationship. " I don't know what happened. We changed."

Change is inevitable. I remind myself of this everyday. Change is what I struggle with. It is both my friend and my enemy. When it comes without warning it is my enemy. When I look back on it and respect what it has taught me and admire how it has shaped me, I embrace it as a friend. But, it still doesn't mean that I like it.

I recently began studying Buddhism and am about to start a meditating course. This is my attempt to embrace change, living in the moment, and practicing lovingkindness. However, I must admit, sometimes I look around these meditaion halls and I just want to shake these people and say "Wake up! Let me see some passion from you people!" It has been my experience that some Buddhist practioners allow passivity as an excuse for non-action towards things and write it off as "Everything is impermanent." This drives me crazy.

Inhale. Baby steps. Exhale.

Aha Moments

2004-09-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

" I was lost and depressed and thinking what's going to be the next chapter of my life? Because I need to start now. I felt like a lot of people in their 20s could relate to that feeling, praying for an epiphany, praying for some clarity, something that would come along and open their eyes."
-- Zach Braff, The New York Times, Sunday July 25th 2004

I was in high school when I heard the word epiphany for the first time. I remember envisioning myself at some point in adulthood, sitting on a boulder on a windswept beach waiting for my epiphany to come. In my fantasy the clouds parted and the sun burst through the clouds. Something dramatic to that effect. Sounds cliche' huh? Needless to say, it hasn't happened with that sort of pomp.

I have noticed as of late how I am having mini epiphanies more and more. Moments of clarity. Aha moments. I am especially primed in the morning. Bolting awake with a clear thought out of nowhere. Was I dreaming? It is interesting to take note of your first thought of the day. My boss keeps a yellow notepad next to his bed so he can write down ideas, dreams, "to-do's". He is a very kind, successful, driven man who never forgets a thing. I think he is onto something.

This past summer I had an epiphany while I was painting my kitchen. I was painting alone and missing a person who is no longer in my life. I remember this person talking about a similar sadness as they scraped the moss from their roof. I was reminded of that story as my brush stroked the sunset-colored wall. The similarity of our mundane tasks and our mutual sadness reminded me of how fundamentally similar we all are. I believe we are all deep down a bit fearful and insecure about something, despite the brave faces even the strongest among us put on as we step outside the door everyday. We are all searching. For love, acceptance, community, contentment. All in good time, I tell myself as I strive for a future that is happening every second.

Seattle, a Rant, a Rave

2004-09-16T15:33:00.000-07:00

I live in Seattle. It is:
A place where people like their coffee, their books and their yoga. In that order. A place where people don't introduce you as Sally So-and-so, just Sally. A place where when you pass someone on the street, they will not look you in the eye (unless of course you have a dog). A place where it does rain an awful lot, but not as much as the rest of the world thinks. A place where you are likely to have a better relationship with your barista than you do with some of your coworkers. A place where you can't find a decent meal after 10 pm. A place where it's like a scavenger hunt to find an apple with pesticides in it.

To keep this from sounding like a rant. It is:
A place where live music, literature and the arts flourish. A place where we now can boast one of the funkiest public libraries the world has ever seen. A place where just being Sally comes in handy when you don't want the guy you met at that party Saturday night to be able to Google you or call directory assistance. A place where you can get a damn good cuppa joe. No doubt due to the high level of yoga and other aerobic ventures, we are one of the most fit cities in the country. A place where organic is every where. Yeah, we like our green. Green trees, green apples, green ganja.

I'll stop now. I had intended to write about spirituality and the openmindedness that abounds in Seattle and how it has influenced me and my current state of angst. However, as you can see, I got distracted.

What We Are

2004-09-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

On Superbowl Sunday of this year I was going through a relationship crisis and decided to go out for some shopping therapy to calm my nerves and combat all the testosterone in the air. I visited a cutsie boutique called Essenza in the hip district of Fremont about 5 minutes from my house. It is a funny little neighborhood that was once full of real hippies and rundown houses that now is full of new townhomes and "Fremonsters" -- yuppie 20 and 30 something wannabe hippies who like to think they are all "indie" and unique and don't seem to recognize how alike and conformist they all are. But, I digress.

To the point. In this frou frou little boutique, I found a unique line of jewelry designed by a female designer out of California, Jeanine Payer, which has hand scripted quotes in tiny print. I selected an i.d. style silver bracelet with the inscription "The idea being to accept fully what you are." On the inside is the name "Mattox". This person and this quote were both new to me and I remember how the "what" part of the quote didn't quite sit well with me at the time. Why was it not "who" we are? As I have fingered my bracelet in the months since, I have tossed this question around in my mind. I think the "who" would be too limiting. It is a who related to the "I" -- perhaps the biggest stumbling block we all encounter. Our "I", our ego, gets in the way of all of the possibilities of "what" we are capable of. We are capable of many many things. What is more infinite that who.

I admit, I am STILL contemplating this idea. I am definitely in the fetal stage of *what* this/it/life/meaning is all about. Perhaps I will visit this again. I am merely tossing it out there.

An excerpt

2004-08-19T16:45:00.000-07:00

On a recent hiking trip through Utah and Arizona I was wandering around Flagstaff and came upon a used book shop for the local university. I felt like had arrived at an intellectual mecca surrounded by forgotten friends from my college days. One of the books I stumbled upon was "The Book" by Philosopher/Psychologist Alan Watts. I found the following passge particularly applicable to my current state of quarter-life angst:

"...the individual is taught to live and work for some future in which the impossible will at last happen, if not for him, then at least for his children. We are thus breeding a type of human being incapable of living in the present -- that is, of really living.For unless one is fully able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax. There is no point whatever in making plans for the future which you will never be able to enjoy. When your plans mature, you will still believing for some other future beyond. You will never, never be able to sit back with full contentment and say, "Now, I've arrived!" Your entire education has deprived you of this capacity because it was preparing you for the future, instead of showing you how to be alive now. In other words, you have been hypnotized or conditioned by an educational system arranged in grades or steps, supposedly leading to some ultimate Success. First nursery school or kindergarten, then the grades or forms of elementary school, preparing you for the great moment of secondary school! But then more steps , up and up to the coveted goal of the university.Here, if you are clever, you can stay indefinitely by getting into graduate school and becoming a permanent student. Otherwise you are headed step by step to the great Outside World of family-raising, business, and profession.Yet graduation day is a very temporary fulfillment, for with your first sales-promotion meeting you are back in the same old system, being urged to make that quota (and if you do, they'll give you a higher quota) and so progress up the ladder to sales manager, vice-president, and at last,president of your own show. In the meantime, the insurance and investment people have been interesting you in plans for retirement -- that really ultimate goal of being able to sit back and enjoy the fruits of all your labors. But when that day comes, your anxieties and exertions will have left you with a weak heart, false teeth, prostate trouble, sexual impotence,fuzzy eyesight, and vile digestion.All this might have been wonderful if, at every stage, you had been able to play it as a game....."

Growing Up cont...

2004-08-18T13:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I was feeling a little flip on Friday when I wrote my last post. In staying true to my analytical self, I thought more about when you know (if ever) that you have grown up.

I think that awareness of one's mortality brings you a step closer to this adult sense of self. That and the gradual realization we are all more similar than we think. Realizing one's own insignificance in the grand scheme of things is a very humbling, profound experience. Not to say that we are not each important and worthwhile in our own right, but grasping that realization that the world really does not revolve around us. Some people grasp this in adolesence, most in early adulthood, and sadly, some people don't grasp this until they are knocking on death's door. But hey, as they say, better late than never.

we are all just part of the dance.

When do you grow up?

2004-08-13T11:22:00.000-07:00

Have you ever have a moment where you feel like you have finally grown up? People around my office have recently been sharing stories about when they knew it was happening to them.

One guy said he knew he had grown up when he hired a maid to clean his house for the first time.

A woman said that having just given birth, the moment her child was placed on her chest, she finally felt like a grown-up.

Another man said he felt like a grown-up when he hired a moving company to move into his first house.

Having recently bought a house myself, I thought, finally, this is it... I will get a sense of having arrived in that grown-up place I have heard adults talk about since I was a child but had yet to visit myself. Alas, that did not happen.

I think having that grown-up sense of self is akin to falling in love. It is not necessarily one moment, but a collection of moments that when you add them up and reflect back on them, you feel that "a-ha" sense of knowing. A couple of my moments:

Realizing my Aunt. R, who I always admired and viewed as so chic and cutting edge now has furniture and decor that is dated 1980s and will surely stay that way until she dies. Sort of like Grandma's furniture before her, you know it is dated and was probably cool at one time, but is no longer. Of course, it is perfectly good stuff and doesn't NEED replacing, but...... Will I be like that someday? Probably.

Last night I was having a group birthday dinner with 2 of my Leo friends from high school and my best friend S. who I see everyday. The 2 Leos are married and S. and I are not. As I looked around the table I realized "Sh*T, they have HUSBANDS to go home to!" and when in the heck did we ALL start getting crow's feet?

It is happening. I am growing up. I can't fight it. I don't think I want to anyway. Like love, it just sort of happens.

Easing the Transition

2004-08-06T14:58:00.000-07:00

Camaraderie & Compassion
I once said to someone that this existential angst many of us feel throughout our various stages of life might be alleviated if we were to sit with an elderly person for a couple of hours and converse with them as to our troubles, joys, fears, etc. I think they would likely listen with a smile and nod their head from time to time in agreement while in their mind they reminisce about similar thoughts & experiences in their own lives.

Perhaps if this was tried as an alternative to taking prescribed antidepressants for depression & anxiety, it just might produce the desired effect of making some of us feel like it's all gonna be alright.

The Salon

2004-08-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

When did Salons -- as in the ones where people get together to share ideas go out of fashion? The other night I went into to a bar up on Capitol Hill here in Seattle that had a dark, European, intellectual feel to it where people were huddled at tables sipping German beers and talking about things that made their faces look very intense and interested in what their tablemate was saying.

At my table we were talking about politics, religion, music, etc. It had a very salon-esque feel to it except none of us were officially writers, scientists, or philosophers.

I wish there were more places where one could go and overhear or partake in conversations that stimulate the mind. I guess that is what the blog world could be seen as, but there is something lost when you take away the personal face-to-face component of debate & conversation. There is something being lost (but also gained) by our ever-increasing reliance on computers.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2004-07-28T10:39:00.000-07:00

"If only we arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful." - Rilke

I read this quote months ago and liked it, but it did not resonate with me at the time based on my life experience up to that point. Sort of reminds me of how a story or a song can never have any meaning to you until you experience something similar. Your mind can likely process the words, but you can't feel it.

The last 6 months of my life has brought about changes I could have never foreseen, would never have asked for, but now, could not imagine my life without.   Change is inevitable, everything is impermanent, the only thing we can count on is things never staying the same.  Do we make up these sayings for comfort or as a coping strategy?

The title of this blog is about rites - rites of passage and what they mean to me, a twenty-something and what they mean for others. It seems like we go through many of these rites in our lifetime. I wonder if they get any easier as we get older and have the ability to recognize them? Seems like awareness is half the battle. Like when someone has a problem and they say once you recognize it, you are half way there, or taking the first step, whatever. Bottom line, they are scary as hell, but maybe just that simple act of being aware could act as a comfort as we transition from one phase to the next?

Funny, I am about to leave work for the day and I just happened to walk by the horoscope page someone left out in our work area.  I tend to not put a lot of faith in astrology, but decided to take a look for kicks. For Leo it said "The more you accept change the more successful you will be today. The desire to cling to safe ground is natural, but have faith and dive in. Trust that the water is just fine."  As a friend once said to me "The cosmos sing a familiar song."

The ever-present now

2004-07-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

In response to a post I received yesterday, I am contemplating (for the millionth time) what it means to live in the "now". I consider myself in the fetal stage of studying Buddhism and of course, one part of it's central core is about "being present". A seemingly simple concept but in actuality - not! I read somewhere that we spend over 90% of our waking hours consumed with thoughts of either the past or the future. This is definitely true for me. I try to catch myself when I notice my thoughts turing into a vicious cycle of "what if I had?", "what happens when?" Even as I write this I cannot merely look at this screen and focus on what I write.

I once said to someone "No, I do not think about the future because there is always stimuli coming at me that is going to affect that future." I try to wake up each day and live honestly with purpose and practice kindness towards those around me. But, I guess in typical American fashion I feel like I have to be future minded and strive towards lofty goals or I would be a considered stagnant and uninteresting otherwise. But, what is so wrong with contentment and like Jack Nicholson in "As good as it gets" is there a point when you wonder "Is this as good as it gets?" and if so, then I am okay with that.

Purpose

2004-07-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this post is to seek others out there trying to find their place or passion in this game we call life. I think it is a game and one that should be played vigorously and with purpose. Looking for others perspectives on rites of passage and what "it" is all about for them.