Noble Intentions and Near Misses

Self-Realization

2012-02-03T19:37:00.000-06:00

I sit here thinking about some frustrating things that have happened recently, and it occurs to me that I've been seeing myself wrong. I always call myself a pessimist and a cynic. I assume the worst, don't expect good things so I'm pleasantly surprised when I'm wrong.

That's the easy way to see me.

The truth is, I think, that it's all bull. I'm not a pessimist. I'm an optimist who uses pessimism to attempt (poorly) to shield herself. That's why I keep feeling hurt and dejected when people turn out not to be what I think, why I feel overwhelmed when bad prevails. A true pessimist wouldn't be affected by this. Would expect this.

So I sit here, festering on my surprise and disappointment in others and in the lot I have been handed in certain areas of my life. I thought, "Why are you surprised? You know people suck. What else would have happened?" But the real core me under it all still screams, "Because that's not the way it's supposed to be! I'm not supposed to have this kind of unhappiness. My friend wasn't supposed to die and I'm not supposed to be alone and abandoned for other people on a whim. I'm supposed to be happy. People are supposed to be kind."

So now I'm left confused, feeling like a stranger in my own head.

Touching Grief

2011-12-11T21:53:00.000-06:00

Earlier this semester, I asked my students to attend a documentary on end-of-life issues called Consider the Conversation. The film outlines how our modern society steers clear of talking about death and our end-of-life issues. I asked my students to reflect on how families deal with grief and loss, and how they can better help their loved ones as they pass. I'm currently grading those papers.

2011 has been a year of saying goodbye. We just said goodbye to my maternal grandma in November, and I lost my very dear, and very vital friend, Amy, this summer. In both cases, it was hard to say goodbye to people who've so long been a part of my life. Grandma and Amy both passed in institutional care (grandma in the hospital after a brief infection, Amy in hospice after a long battle with cancer). The film discusses how we've gone from dying at home to dying in institutional care and what are the positives and negatives of both.

Grandma had her daughters at her side. Amy had her husband, children, sister, and father with her. Thank goodness. I'm so grateful for all of these special people for being there for such special and wonderful people, no matter that watching someone go is such a painful feeling. I, on the other hand, was not there for either. There's sorrow and gratitude in that. I'm not accustomed to watching people die, and I'm scared to. I've never actually seen it happen. That's how our culture tells us it should be: distant, abstract, done quietly in a room, away from regular life.

But while reading these papers by my students, I've been thinking a lot about the last time I did see Amy in the hospital in our hometown and how little I actually did. We knew what was happening. She'd been given days to weeks. She looked only a little like the Amy I grew up with. So thin, so weak, a whisper of a voice. And in my inexperience with death, I had no idea what to do. So I sat down and started to blather nonsense. She tried to respond as best she could, but she also slept a fair amount while I blathered. But then, she woke up and saw me. She looked at me, knowingly. And she extended her hand.

I hadn't thought to take it. I hadn't thought to touch her, to comfort her that way. Not until she asked. Of course, I took it then, and held it as tight as I thought I dared, feeling her delicate wedding band in my hand as it hung loosely on her thin fingers. I noticed the mother's ring she wore. I noticed the coolness of her skin. She squeezed back as best she could. We sat that way for some time, still talking, still being together as we'd been in years past, as we began our initiation into adulthood.

As I offer feedback to my students about our culture's hesitancy to touch death, to be near it, I realize just how much a part of our culture I am. How could I not have taken her hand of my own volition? Why couldn't I see she needed that, she, my very dearest of friends. The person who always knew what to do and say to me. How much that moment has taught me now that I've reflected on it. It's just like Amy to teach me something so profound with something so simple.

My only saving grace, the one thing that makes me not feel like a total heel, is that as I left and said what I knew was our last goodbye on earth, I asked if I could give her a kiss. She smiled and nodded yes. And then I kissed the forehead that held the brain that held so much of my soul and essence. So much of me and who I am meant to be, even when I couldn't see it for myself.

That was my last opportunity to give comfort to Amy, but I hope in future, I am able to learn that a more proactive approach toward reaching out and comforting is the very least our loved ones deserve. They need our touch more than we need our distance. Our fear of mortality is nothing to their fear of being abandoned in their time of need.

Losing Cleo

2011-11-13T20:33:00.000-06:00

So, I am down to one grandparent. This terrifies me. My mom's mom died yesterday, and though she had suffered from dementia for some time, it was still hard to see her go from not quite all there to not at all here. She was a regular feature of my life, particularly in childhood when she and Grandpa would visit us in Sioux City or when we stayed at their house on weekends and holidays.

Grandma was the one who served me grape juice (a real treat!) in a tiny glass cup for Sunday breakfast to wash down my pancakes or eggs. She'd sit to my right (as I perched on the stool) as we ate. She's the one to made kringla that rivaled her mom's, and she'd bring or send home old ice cream buckets full of them when we'd see each other. She's the one who seemed quiet, but if you listened you could hear the wicked fast wit under the surface. Just enough to make you wonder what snark she kept under raps to keep up appearances. Just enough to know you could respect her brains as much as her cooking ability. She's the one who made our Christmas chili, kept her pop in the garage to keep it cool, and had more craft projects than you could count. I have a little pink cloth travel case that I keep my---girl stuff---in when I travel. I've had it since before I needed girl stuff.

This is a woman who's been part of my life. Even when she was increasingly lost in her own brain with dementia, we'd get these flashes of the old Grandma so we knew we still had her. She may have had the name of my dad and uncle mixed up, but she never lost the ability to return their teasing. She had lost her pristine, kept-up appearance toward the end, but she never lost her colorful clothing choices. Occasionally, she'd come out with a story about her past that was filled with details that were accurate, just before she returned to telling stories that made no sense. But however sporadic, we loved those moments of Grandma. They were enough to get by, but now we don't even have that.

Grandma is relieved of suffering and confusion. I rejoice in that. But I also wish for those old times of my quiet grandma in my house, sewing with mom, going shopping with us, doing her quiet laugh. Those have been memories only for years, but now they are Memories only. That's hard to swallow.

I was blessed with two amazing grandmas, more different than alike, but equally loved and valued for their own strengths. A girl can't ask for more than that, even though she might like to.

So it goes

2011-09-08T20:59:00.001-05:00

One of the greatest authors of the 20th century is Kurt Vonnegut. That's perhaps not earth shattering information to the more literary among the world, but whatever. It's true. Vonnegut speaks to me because he so seamlessly merges cynicism and frustration with an underlying humor and almost-but-not-quite hope. It's a position I find myself in, and I appreciate someone who can articulate what I'm not clever enough to do myself.

In Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut writes a semi-fictional account of his time as German POW in WWII. He was in Dresden when the Allies bombed the city into oblivion, killing thousands of innocent people. Vonnegut was profoundly impacted by this, and it shows not in hostility but in wry observation toward both his allies and his enemies for creating such a situation.

The most famous line from the book is repeated throughout after Vonnegut describes particularly absurd, inhumane, and horrifying situations in the plot or about humanity more generally: "And so it goes."

"And so it goes." This simple sentence could follow the paragraphs that are Summer 2011. If I were writing my biography, I would write about the last two years, and the last few months most particularly, with plenty of "And so it goes." My best friend, Amy, who has always been the most loyal, compassionate and encouraging person outside my parents, lost her battle to cancer on July 5.

She fought for two years. She got clean remission reports, only to find more ravaging cancer a few months later. She would be encouraged, then collapse into despair. She would find hope only to have it pulled from under her feet. She was Optimism to my Pessimism, but in our last conversation she told me I had been right all along and my heart shattered. She had a wonderful husband--one of the best--and three delightful and sweet children. Everything to live for.

And so it goes.

I know for certain that Amy wants me to live the life she saw for me. I know she wants me to be happy, to feel joy, to embrace life. I want that, too. But I want that with her around. I want to tell her about all that. I want to be an old lady with her so we can laugh about all the dumb stuff we thought about life in our 30s. I don't want to see her only in dreams and in clouds, and I don't want to only hear her voice in emails and the wind and in the sounds of cicadas that remind me of her farm.

And so it goes.

I know that life is always a gamble. I know that none of us have control over our time of death. I know cancer has struck many other wonderful people who also lost their battles. I know some of them. I know that it's better to live 34 powerful and engaged years than 100 miserable or careless ones. I know that I should be grateful I had the chance to grow up with her, to become an adult with her. But that's not enough.

And so it goes.

And so I go. Without my sister friend. Without my email inbox filled with loving shoves and pointed observations and uncomfortable insights whose validities are undeniable. I go on, with the wind, the cicadas, the clouds, and the dreams. I grow older with an empty chair, and an empty spot in my heart. With a silence that will never again be filled with her voice.

It shouldn't go like this.

So it begins

2011-01-19T18:41:00.000-06:00

Next week marks the beginning of my sixth semester as a professor. Below are some funny things that have happened in my classroom over the years both at my current university and as a TA in grad school.

1) Student spelling errors are always a treat, especially when MS Word either doesn't catch the mistake or corrects inappropriately. I often have students analyze examples from the media and their real lives to be sure they connect course material with their lived experiences. Once, a young lady was applying a friendship theory to Lucy and Ethel from I Love Lucy. She meant to say that Lucy would always have her Ethel to rely on, but what she wrote was, "Of course, Lucy would always have her ether." A very different kind of dependence.

2) I assigned people into pairs to work on a small in-class discussion. That day there was an odd number of students present, so I looked at the pair the last extra person was sitting nearest and said, "Why don't you all just have a three-way?" The whole room looked at me with wide eyes until it sank in what I said. As it dawned on me, I added, "Well. That didn't come out well, did it?" They all laughed, we moved on, and I learned to be more careful in how I speak. I also learned early on it's better to be laughed with than at. They respect you more if you can laugh at yourself.

3) A student was presenting on the issue of gay and lesbian teachers and parental fears of their children being "indoctrinated." Only she said, "Parents are afraid gay and lesbian teachers will rub off on their children." I am not a mature person, but it didn't help that a few of the other students giggled, too. The student who said it was very smart and kind, and she took it in stride. But I had a hard time controlling myself for awhile.

4) I was teaching a freshman public speaking class early on in my time at my current school. I had a little metal tin that I passed around with numbers so that they were randomly assigned a date and order for giving their speeches. The first time I did this during the semester, I explained the process and then started walking around for them to draw their number. I got to one girl, who apparently hadn't been paying attention to my instructions. I put the metal tin in front of her, and she got a very sheepish look on her face as she reached into her mouth for her gum. She thought I was busting her for gum in the classroom. So cute. I said, "No. You can have gum. That's okay. I just need you to draw a number for your speech." Then she turned from sheepish to embarrassed.

5) In another speech class, a student was clearly wildly under-prepared for his speech on soccer. He was nervous and fidgety the whole time. He got to the part on the importance of proper handling of balls, which would be hard to say under the best of circumstances when you're an 18-year-old boy (or an immature teacher). Under these less ideal circumstances, even harder. He paused. Everyone looked up. He smirked. Then he snickered. Then he desperately fought to regain his composure. Then I had to look down and shake quietly with laughter while he continued on.

I sometimes feel overwhelmed by my job, and the responsibility, and the students who just don't care. But really. How amazing is it all, really? There are lots of funny, fascinating, and educational opportunities even for teachers. So, I will go on, head into this semester hoping for more funny than frustrating.

The Persistence of Violence

2011-01-09T11:08:00.000-06:00

Excuse me while I jump on the bandwagon here.

The situation in Tuscon is a tragedy, and now we have to wait to figure out what exactly went on and why this person chose to harm a Congressperson. What I won't be a part of, in the angst, is an overly simplified partisan attack on speech.

On one hand, I absolutely understand the concern being hoisted on the Sarah Palin target ad, the call to violent revolution by the Tea Partiers, the Nevada politician's call for a "second amendment solution," the Glenn Beck wild conspiracy, the rage-filled response to the health care bill last year, the insinuation that Obama is a Muslim/not a citizen/Hitler. Currently, it seems that the Far Right is focused on a self-righteous crusade using violent and angry rhetoric. All of those things have consequences, and that consequence may be that it pushes already imbalanced people over the edge. It doesn't make the Conservatives responsible directly, but it does give them secondary responsibility for their words and actions.

BUT.

On the other hand, there's no way that I (as a more liberal leaning person) can allow the pundits on my side of the aisle to wash their hands of the whole thing. Keith Olbermann (who annoys the holy bejeezus out of me) calls people "The Worst Person in the World" on every show. Bill Maher antagonizes the Right with spiteful words and a condescending air. I hear liberal friends and pundits too readily dismiss Conservatives and Christians as mouth-breathing hate mongers. None of these, in my opinion, rise to the level of hate I see and hear from the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaugh's of the world, but they certainly aren't blameless or innocent. Just as above, these comments don't mean liberals have direct responsibility for the actions of people like yesterday's shooter...but, again, it does give them some secondary responsibility.

Rumors surrounding yesterday's assassin have him reading the left-wing The Communist Manifesto as well as the right-wing Mein Kampf. Clearly this guy isn't the simple "mouth-breathing" conservative that some have insinuated he is. Regardless, that doesn't mean the current political rhetoric of violence and hate haven't impacted his already screwed up mind. Because what really matters here is that we've created a partisan divide that dehumanizes the opposition, whichever side you're on. Different opinions are too often seen as fundamental flaws, implications of an evil or ill-intentioned heart, as reason to hate. We're all guilty of buying into this, myself included, I admit. A side effect of this is that we also tend to see ceding a point as weakness, because it implies that we might agree with something evil or vile. When we paint the opposition as evil or the enemy, we paint ourselves into a very dangerous, very explosive corner. We eliminate our ability to reason and find consensus and unity...on anything.

And there's more! Beyond the political rhetoric, we live in a culture that values and prizes violence, and to think that has no effect on society is foolish. Our movie rating system is quick to slap an R on a movie with a sex scene or a few too many "f words," but more lenient when it comes to torture, explosions, gunfire, and physical assault. Our network television shows have to limit their vocabulary and sex scenes, but I've seen terrible and deeply offensive acts of violence on nearly every night that I've flipped through. Law enforcement shows, hospital shows, action dramas--all of them are free to show blood, murder, and attacks. Similarly, our video games are now based on murdering "the bad guys," whoever that might be. Our music often glorifies violent acts, too.

Like the political rhetoric, none of these media portrayals of violence, or their creators and distributors, are directly responsible for the violent acts that occur in our society. But, once more, they bear some indirect responsibility through their glorification of violence and the sheer brutality that an imbalanced person might glom onto.

As a society, we need to stop seeing acts of violence like yesterday's attack as exceptions to the rule. We can no longer afford to write them off as isolated incidents of crazy or unstable persons. We are creating monsters through the violent and demeaning undertones of the discourses we use and surround ourselves with. We are a poisoned culture. We are a particularly violent society. And the sooner we connect the dots between our words/entertainment and the violence that we see on the news, the sooner we can work toward reducing these non-isolated events. We're all guilty.

Academic Me

2011-01-08T10:36:00.000-06:00

I taught a course in the fall on the idea that what we know to be true and real is a product of our time and place. What we taken for granted about ourselves, and the world in which we swim, is a product of our upbringing, our experiences, our cultural norms and rules. The world isn't made up of Truth, some universal, mandated Has To Be This Way reality. Instead it is made up of the truths of the moment and the truths of the prior moments.

I teach my students that who they are has some grounding in their genetics and psychology, but that our enactment of our psychological makeup is a product of how those impulses have been cultivated through our relationships and interactions in a world of rules and norms. For example, I believe I am genetically predisposed to my high levels of anxiety...there's a thread in the family that's hard to ignore. However, because I live in 2011, that's seen as just part of who I am. If I had lived in 1911 or 1811, who knows? As a woman, I might have been seen as hysterical with the common curse of feminine frailty and emotional weakness. As a result, back then I would never have been able to channel an of that anxious energy into education or other diversions. I might have become more recluse, more frail and pitiable because society told me that is who I was and that was what I deserve. I would have been Dena, but a very different Dena--the same genetics with a very different lived experience.

Anyway, what this leads to is that I've been thinking about my own hypocrisy. What I teach my students is that there is no Truth, no Inevitable. We live in a culture, we shape our own and others' lived experience through our interactions. Yet, in my own mind, I am somehow forever doomed to unhappiness. I am a failure...no. I am a Failure. I am an unchangeable force of pessimism. It's just Who I Am.

But how can that be when I'm such an advocate for the lack of such a Truth? I can point, of course, to the fact that every time I've tried to be more positive I fail and go right back to pessimism and unhappiness. But do those failures to overcome signify a Truth of an inevitable future of unhappiness? I also point to the fact that a majority of my daily interactions in my relationships are supportive and should lead me to a positive self-image, but here I am otherwise. In my head, this is proof of the Conclusive Evidence of my own permanent rut.

But can I really be an honest professor, can I really teach my students about the social construction of realities, when I don't practice this in my daily life? How can I become a more honest professor by taking on my philosophy to conquer my own demons? My tendency is always to use theory and philosophy to think through my opinions and understanding of the world. Can I do the same to think through myself and my understanding of myself? Can I do a research study on myself? Review the "literature" on my own mental health, gather the data of my experiences, analyze it within a theoretical--social constructionist--framework and come to some improved understanding through careful analysis?

Is the answer to my problem the research process? And further, can I get tenure on that?

Aquifer

2011-01-05T10:15:00.000-06:00

There's hope for me. It's small. It's fleeting, but it's there.

Yesterday I had a meeting that I was dreading, and I knew I was the cause of dread for another person at the meeting. I hate confrontation most of the time (Delta Airlines being an exception to the rule), but being an adult and a professional means that I sometimes have to have difficult conversations. Yesterday was definitely in that category. I'm blessed to have a department chair who is my total advocate and always goes beyond the call of duty to help me.

So, as I was sitting in my office beforehand, I was experiencing that old heart racing, stomach churning, shaking feeling. And the thought flew through my head and onto my Facebook status before I even had time to fully reflect on it: "So far in my life, I have got through everything that has seemed overwhelming and scary. This day will be no different."

What was that? Optimism? Is there some aquifer of positivity that lives way down deep in the core of me, waiting to be discovered? Given my general emotional state right now, that was profoundly unexpected, but it really worked. I felt my heart rate slow and my shaking reduce. I went into the meeting still nervous, but with an overall calmer feeling than I expected. When the meeting began, I opened it with (I think) grace and a sense of ease. And it all went fine. I got through it, just as unexpectedly predicted.

So there you go. I may not be a lost cause after all.

Happy New Year?

2010-12-28T23:33:00.000-06:00

When I watch old movies or see old pictures, I always try to figure out when the people would have been born and who in my family would have been their age, or alternatively how old my family members would have been when the movie was filmed or photo taken. I like to connect distant and abstract things with more tangible and concrete things in my life, and this is one way of doing that. I once was watching an old movie with a guy I was dating and mentioned that my dad would have been two or three when the movie came out. The guy thought it was really weird that I would think that. That's when I first suspected we might not be compatible. Turns out I was right, but that's beside the point.

What really gets me in a twist, though, is knowing that someday people might do that with pictures of me. They'll think, "Man, this old lady was born in 1977. I can't imagine." What makes it all worse is that I have this lingering fear that they'll find my old pictures in some dusty old antique shop in a box of old pictures that no one wanted. Because, honestly, who would want photos of Old Spinster Dena after I'm gone? I'm probably going to be in some random person's decoupage project of antique photos.

Basically, then, whenever I start down this mental path it turns into that existential angst and a question of what is the damned point of anything? Why fight for survival when it's all so temporary anyway, and when no one will care that we lived in another 70 years. No one will know that there was a Dena Huisman who taught at a university in Wisconsin unless they happen across a picture or an old computer file with my name on it. I'll just be another of the millions of anonymous passers-by in video footage, another person who happened to live a long time ago and who happened to have walked in the path of a camera.

Just another bit of historical ephemera.

So, you know. Happy 2011.

Mediocrity

2010-12-19T09:14:00.000-06:00

This semester has been a long one. I've had more ups and downs than typical, but I don't know whether that's me or the semester. Personally, I've been struggling to stay on top of the emotional game. I've had several really high moments, but also some of the lower moments of my life, too. I've been rewarded with some of the best and most dedicated students....and...some woefully undedicated ones.

I am a nerd, admittedly. I enjoyed school all the way through, and I still am wildly crazy about learning new things and thinking. I love being intellectually challenged by friends and family as well as by books and movies. Sometimes I think people see me as too argumentative or forceful in my opinions, but it's not because I want to push my thoughts on others. It's because I want to be pushed and prodded to be clear in my own views. I want to be sure I'm thinking with all the views possible in my toolbox, you know? I don't want to be guilty of formulating opinions that are easy or based on half the available information.

So it is a mystery to me why others aren't the same way. Maybe that's arrogant, assuming the world should be like me, but I don't think so. It seems like the most common and powerful thing in the world to be curious, to try to learn, to take advantage of every opportunity to be better, smarter, more informed. I don't see this as necessarily tied to formal education, though I'm obviously a big proponent of that, given my job. :) Some of the smartest, best informed people I know have little to no college experience. They just engage in the world and its available information.

This semester, I have seen much more disinterest and lack of effort than ever before in my students. I still have a lot of great ones who do try, but it's harder to keep focused on them when I'm seeing so many more problems. Of course, it's frustrating to grade mediocre work, but that's nothing. The real disheartening thing isn't giving out low grades, it's the lack of caring, the lack of trying, and the lack of desire to learn. It breaks my heart, and I fear if it continues it will make me unable to continue in my job. I can only emotionally handle so much of it.

If you have kids, encourage their curiosity. Build into them a sense of passion for figuring things out, for working hard, for trying. If you're an adult, build into your life more passion for those same things. America is falling behind the rest of the world in intelligence, education, and life satisfaction. These things are not unconnected, but they are avoidable if we stop accepting and rewarding mediocrity.

Lasting Impressions

2010-12-04T17:06:00.000-06:00

I remember walking past Mitch and Sue, my Sunday School teachers, on Christmas Eve service in about 4th grade. I was a shy kid, and I often preferred adult company to kids. I liked to be treated like a grown up and to have conversations. Mitch and Sue, a couple I'm guessing in their mid to late 20s, were pros at this. And when they smiled and waved at me that Christmas Eve, I remember being so pleased. They were grown-ups who were my friends.

The church we went to until I was 11 wasn't particularly small, but there were very few kids my age and the only other girl was a snooty snoot from the wealthy kids' school. Most of the other kids were hit or miss on attendance, but the Huisman family was not. Unless visiting relatives, we were there every Sunday. That meant, as often as not, I was the only kid who showed up for Sunday School.

Mitch and Sue were always there waiting for me, and then we waited together to see if another kid would show up. They would ask me about school, what I was learning, what I was reading. They were sooo cool.

One time when no one else showed up, they invited me to go to Mr. Donut, a chain donut shop, with them. I must have asked my parents for permission, but I don't remember. I only remember sitting in the back seat of their car, talking about my school as we passed it and how I got to walk home by myself. Then I remember sitting at a stool at the counter of the Mr. Donut. I got to pick out my favorite: a cake donut covered in a hard frosting shell and stuck on a stick. I preferred mine with pink frosting and sprinkles, connoisseur that I was.

And there we sat. Just me and my buddies, Mitch and Sue, shooting the breeze and having a donut at the counter on our stools. Like grown ups.

One could probably argue that this wasn't the best use of church time. Other Sunday School teachers I had certainly were more likely to stay on lesson plan and to force me to memorize my Bible verses. But what Mitch and Sue gave me as Sunday School teachers was less about the intricacies of the Gospels and more about the lived expectations embedded in the messages of the Gospels. Be good to others, even small others. Be gentle and loving and respectful. Be generous with your time...and your donut money.

Truth is, I couldn't tell you the names of any of my more structured Sunday School teachers, save one (Fern Swanson, bless her heart). Mitch and Sue are really the only ones who made a lasting impact because they valued me as a person and loved me as their Sunday School student. They were excited to see me at Christmas Eve and showed me with that friendly smile and wave as I passed, which is more than any other teacher had ever done, but all just like Jesus would do.

But I bet Jesus would have let me have two donuts...

Roadkill Memories

2010-11-25T21:47:00.000-06:00

My family and I were driving around Des Moines today, and I saw a dead squirrel in the road. It might surprise you to hear that my first thought on seeing that dead squirrel was about my Uncle Laverne. This always happens when I see that particular brand of roadkill.

Uncle Laverne was one of my dad's closest buddies in the 1960s--so close that Dad served as Laverne's best man when he (Laverne) married Sheila Fisher. Sheila's sister, Cindy, was a bridesmaid, and the best man fell in love with her and married her a year and a half thereafter. So, given the dual connection, I grew up with frequent visits to Sheila and Laverne's house, and they to ours. Their sons and my brother and I were buddies, too.

One of our traditions was July 4. When my generation were all kids (I was the youngest), they came to Sioux City to light illegal fireworks. After we moved to Creston, it was pretty much just Sheila, Laverne and my parents. I would still hang out occasionally when I wasn't with friends. In July 2004, my parents had moved to Ankeny. I had just got back from backpacking Europe and was living at home till I moved to Iowa City to go to grad school in the fall. On July 5, Sheila and Laverne came down for the traditional holiday together a day late.

After lunch that day, Mom, Sheila and I went shopping. As we went around the corner from my parents' street, there was a dead squirrel on the road. Sheila, exasperated, said, "Laverne killed that squirrel. He swerved toward it to be funny but then he ended up actually killing it." We all three kind of laughed but kind of tsked tsked him for it, too. End of story.

That was July 5, 2004. Less than two weeks later, we got an early morning phone call with the dreadful news that Laverne had passed away very unexpectedly. We truly lost one of our most valued family members that day, and we all still reel from the loss. I spent that morning in shock while Mom went to be with my aunts at the hospital. My brother came over and we went to lunch together to process the impossible-to-process news. On our way to the restaurant, I saw that squirrel. No one from the city had come to get it, so it was just flatter and grosser than ever.

As I saw it, I thought of that July 5 and Sheila's story. And that dumb dead squirrel made me cry. It was a reminder that someone who had just been to my house, who had just had dinner with us, who had just told stories with us...who had always been in my life, in this world with me....was no longer going to do or be any of those things. The world still existed. The real, tangible, physical presence of him existed there on the road, in a very weird connection. But Laverne did not. It was too much to take in.

And so, six-and-a-half years later, I think of Laverne's absence from the world every time I see a dead squirrel. It's not your typical memory trigger, but I think it's one that would amuse him. And I'm always happy to think of him, so I guess we all win. Except the squirrels.

Weigh Your Words

2010-11-20T23:17:00.000-06:00

I just posted on Facebook what I thought was a little statement of positivity. I was feeling good about life and my place in the world, and I wanted to post a little comment about how my general outlook of self-loathing and negativity was proven wrong..again. There have been several moments this week that really reminded me of how good I have it and how valued I am by those in my life. I had a moment where it hit me how many positives I've experienced this week, amidst the moments of crazy, and I decided to post on it.

Then it was quickly dismissed by a friend as a moment of drunk posting, which it was not.

And I fell right back into despair. Because my general view of myself was proven: I'm weird, people think I'm nuts, melodramatic, foolish, and silly. That one little comment, one little negative comment, innocently intended as a glib little joke, destroyed all the warmth I was feeling. All I could think about on reading it was how everyone else would read it the same way, would accuse me of being drunk, of being stupid. They would laugh at me because I'm the freak people have always assumed me to be. I spent ten minutes crying about it until I finally decided it was best just to delete the posting as a form of damage control.

So here I sit. Right back in despair. Because of one little comment that was not meant to overpower a series of messages of warmth and positivity. I can blame no one but myself for this overreaction, but nonetheless, it's a reminder to me of how one glib little passing statement isn't meaningless. We have to watch our words, lest they be taken seriously. We all have a responsibility to choose our statements carefully to avoid turning someone into a gelatinous mess who won't sleep tonight because she's too busy thinking about all the ways and the reasons why people hate her.

Words are not powerless.

Swings and Things

2010-11-14T22:06:00.000-06:00

Having just got home from traveling for a few days, I suppose it's not a huge surprise that I'm feeling a little emotionally taut today. I love to travel in the sense that I love seeing new places, and seeing great places again and again. I love being somewhere else--sometimes anywhere else--for awhile. But I hate to travel in the sense of getting to those places. Air travel, especially, as this summer's two-part blog post about the evils of Delta Airlines will demonstrate.

Yesterday was shaky getting home due in part to Delta Airlines and in part to weather issues. I found myself feeling that old anxiety, coupled with anger, fear, frustration, panic, dread. Things were not going how they were supposed to and it was all I could do not to lash out in front of my travel companions who don't know me well (it was a work trip). My gut reaction to these types of situations is either to get angry and sweary or to cry. Fortunately, I did neither.

Once we were on the plane, though, I had a very difficult time keeping it together. A fellow passenger was inconsiderate, and it pushed me over the edge. I had to put on my iPod, lean forward and close my eyes in order to avoid a full-on meltdown. I had a hard time breathing normally and I was in tears for about half the flight. So, yeah. Today's emotional roller coaster is the inevitable day of letting off steam. Going to the grocery store on a Sunday didn't help, but I digress.

What I didn't expect, though, was the meltdown I had while shutting my eyes for a bit to rest from grading. My mind went to childhood, as it often does, but this time rather than focusing on my own directly, I started thinking about my brother. Like me, he was teased as a kid. I remember a few instances of seeing him be teased, and I know of other times when I wasn't there to witness it. I remembered one cold day on the playground before school when we were standing and waiting to go inside. He had his coat all zipped up, including the fur-trimmed hood. The coat had an extended front part that covered the face more fully. I remember thinking it looked like E.T.'s head. We were standing against the building and a kid came and teased my brother about the coat. My brother said nothing in return. I remember being mad on his behalf, but I didn't say anything, either.

I thought about that day this afternoon, and other little things like it, and I just started to sob. Heaving sobs. Because how dare they make fun of my brother? How dare they not see that he's a good person? He and I are so very different. I'm more social and emotional. He's more reserved by far. He has his eccentricities, as I do, but they are a radically different set than are mine. But, like me, he didn't deserve anyone's ridicule.

And that was the thing that became my bugaboo today. That was the thing that let me get out some of that tension build up. There's no sense in it, nothing that can be done. But maybe that's the point. The cause of the tension was my lack of control, my ability to do anything about anything, so maybe so went the release. The idea that there are injustices and frustrations that no amount of optimism or positive thinking can make better. That there will always be assholes. And asshole companies, like Delta. Who knows. Maybe those elementary school bullies are now running the show at Delta. That would make sense, actually.

Happy-ish Holidays

2010-10-31T18:29:00.000-05:00

Today begins the season of rapid-fire holiday celebrations. From Halloween, we quickly move to Thanksgiving and from there to Christmas, finally wrapping up in two months with New Year's Eve. I love the holidays, and the music, and the decorations, and all of that. But it's blended with a sense of dread.

Most of my friends and family are creating memories as couples, and/or with kids. Most of the people out tonight chasing their costumed kids up and down the street are my age. Meanwhile, I sit home, alone, doling out candy. I'm not buying gifts "from Santa" or making the Thanksgiving dinner for my family.

And, really, who am I to whine about that? Because A) It's a bunch of headache and stress, as anyone with kids and/or in-laws will be quick to tell me, and B) I'm so very very very blessed to have wonderful parents and a brother to go home to for my holidays, which my friends who've lost parents, spouses, or siblings will so justifiably remind me. I truly have much to be glad for, and I am grateful. And I do love being with them, more than I can put to words. And I have it so much better and easier than so many people, in my life and in the world beyond my personal boundaries.

But, but, but. There's always the but. But. I'm so tired of doing it all alone. Being alone. Going to holiday parties alone. Handing out candy...alone. Driving four hours home...alone. Every damned week of the holiday season brings particularly acute reminders of alone. Being alone. Being alone.

My love of the holidays, today included, is hanging increasingly tenuously on memories, nostalgia, and what they once were. Every year, I wonder why the holidays don't feel as exciting or happy as they once used to. All adults experience that, I suppose, but I can't help feeling that a lot of it for me is the stagnancy, the feeling that by now it should be different. By now I should be experiencing the holidays through younger, newer eyes, and through the creation of new memories with new people rather than the rote patterns of solitude and an awkward sense of artificial joyousness glossing over an emptiness and isolation. Through the distortion of tears that can't come out till later because letting them out is a violation of the Rules of Merriment. Of Rule 1 in particular: "Just be grateful and shut up about it."

So, I'll start listening to Christmas music soon. I'll put on the glad face, and I'll sometimes mean it. I'll be happy to see my family, happy to watch It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story. But it will be happiness that's drug down by something more persistent and wearisome. By something that's doing nothing but begging for January...when seasonal depression hits. The blessed relief of seasonal depression, when no one expect any more of me anyway.

Let Me Call You Sunshine

2010-10-17T14:23:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, my cousin, his wife, and their two kids made their annual trip to La Crosse to see the fall leaf colors. Unfortunately, the colors haven't been particularly vibrant this year, but we had a really nice day anyway. We went to McGregor and Marquette, Iowa, just over the river from Prairie du Chien, to shop for antiques (I only bought a cheap fake pearl necklace), stopped at an orchard just as it was closing, had dinner together, then came home. After my cousin and the kids went to bed, his wife and I stayed up till nearly 4am talking, which was fun.

It's been years since I stayed up so late, and it kind of reminds me of all the times we'd visit my cousin's family growing up. My dad and his dad were buddies (my parents met when Dad was my uncle's best man when he married my mom's sister), and no two men liked to talk better than Laverne and Dad. When visiting my parents' hometown area, we would often visit them and stay till way late before going back to Grandpa and Grandma's house to sleep for a few hours till church on Sunday morning. My brother and I loved to play with my two cousins, who had four-wheelers, video games, a pool table, and tons of other crazy fun ideas. I also enjoyed (with some horror) watching my cousins pound on each other. My brother and I only ever play fought (besides shouting at one another), so to watch an authentic fight was pretty fascinating to me.

My cousin who visited was the younger son, and I idolized him growing up. I didn't want to play with my girl cousin who was closer to my age--she was way boring in comparison, though we're really good friends now. He was crazy and cool and always so nice to me. He came to stay at our house for a few days one summer, and he graciously played house with me for awhile instead of playing Atari with my brother. How's that for a good guy?

While we were all out shopping yesterday, he reminded me of something I had completely forgotten. He asked if I remembered when my dad would call me Sunshine, particularly when I was upset. "What's the matter, Sunshine?" he would say as he picked me up to comfort me. It's funny that I had completely forgotten that, but I do remember my mom (lovingly) calling me Missy Butt, Booger Butt, and Poop Sock. Haha. I've been thinking about that ever since, and the memory of it has really been particularly powerful for some reason. I guess maybe it goes with the more general nostalgia I've been feeling lately, but it's such a warm, safe feeling to remember those moments of being taken care of, being cuddled when I needed soothing, being loved.

It's a reminder that I'm a very lucky person, even now. Dad hasn't called me Sunshine in more than 20 years, I imagine, and given that I'm an adult, it would be creepy and weird to sit on his lap or be cuddled. But I still always know that I can call home and get help when I need it. I'm loved in the same way, even though I take care of myself most of the time. I'm still someone's Sunshine.

Metaphysical Reflections

2010-09-26T17:11:00.000-05:00

It's not a giant secret to those closest to me that I've spent most of my adult life away from organized religion, and almost as much time away from "unorganized" religion. I grew up in a religious home, but we went to a pretty awful church when I was a teenager. They basically asked us to put our blinders on and go through life without questioning, doubting, or doing anything even remotely fun. I mean, even the Waltons were scandalous sinners by comparison to these people.

When I got to college, in a fit of uncharacteristically optimistic "maybe this time will be better" philosophizing, I went to a church with a family member. It was okay at first. Seemed more open, people seemed nicer. But, alas, in the end, it turned out to be as much a product of rigid conservatism and unquestioning/unquestionable legalism. I remember one day at lunch with one of the pastors, I asked for an answer to a tough question and got the textbook diversionary answer. Tried again. Same answer. Tried one more time. Same answer. That was the final straw in a long series of frustrations.

So by the time I graduated, I was done. Religion was not for me. I still respected my parents and others who managed to be religious without being close-minded, but I just couldn't participate. A friend/neighbor and I spent lots of time talking about religious issues, but I found myself increasingly alienated from it. By my mid-20s, being in church became truly uncomfortable. I felt like I didn't belong there, and not just philosophically. Whenever I went, I felt a vague physical uneasiness in my chest and stomach. I felt no connection to the messages, to the songs, to the imagery. In fact, it was more the opposite. I felt like crying when I was there. Not because of a longing to fit in but from a feeling of an increasing, gaping (and angry) separation from all that had felt normal as a kid.

Hearing people talk about their faith felt frustrating and alienating. It felt false, like empty rhetoric, even when I knew it to be otherwise. All I could focus on when hearing religious talk was the hypocrisy--the hateful antigay rhetoric from divorced people and adulterers; the anti-immigrant spitefulness from those who spouted "love thy neighbor;" the sexist drivel against female church leadership from people who claimed we are all created in God's image. Et cetera.

I have been purposefully using the past tense in this post, not necessarily because things have changed in any meaningful way. My bullshit detector still flares up when I hear religious talk. But I will confess to experiencing some alterations in how I think. I don't know what it means, what I'm meant to do with it, or what I will choose to do about it once I figure what I'm meant to do about it. I'm nowhere near ready to walk through the doors of a church.

But a few things have been happening. First, I have been having random flashbacks to childhood the past few weeks, and the first image that always hits me as I go through the wave of memories is of me, about age 4-6, running around outside the doors of the (normal, happy) church we went to until I was 11 and we moved. It's not something I actively try to bring up. These flashes just pop into my head at unexpected moments. It took quite a few times before I even noticed that it was the same image that started it. I'm never inside the church. I'm always just running around in front of the doors. That inevitably leads to images of my dad from around the same era. Those differ each time in terms of what he's doing and/or how I'm interacting with him. Even now that I've noticed the pattern, it comes to me unexpectedly but in the same pattern before I even really realize I'm thinking about it.

Then, this summer I read a book by C.S. Lewis. While he wrote many books on religion, the one I read this summer is one of his academic works as a literature scholar/professor. As I read it, I thought back to Mere Christianity, one of the books I read with my friend/neighbor nearly 10 years ago. I got an urge to read that again, but was distracted by being included in a new book club with a book to read by October. I finished that early, and the idea kept nagging at me to read the Lewis book. I ignored it because I wanted to read another new book I had recently bought. But the feeling would not go away. I kept thinking about Lewis and his book. So I got it off the shelf.

What's particularly interesting to me about that is that it also connects in a fairly abstract but notable way to the topic of one of the classes I'm teaching this semester. The topic is social constructionism, which basically argues that all we are as people is a product of the social interactions and relationships--basically our communication and how we're communicated to. (It's more than that, but that's the two-cent summary.) Lewis, unsurprisingly, takes a different view of human nature, but that has made his argument all the more interesting, and the book all the more useful to me in a broad way through multiple aspects of my life. All that does, then, is to force me to really dig into my vision of my self and how a metaphysical entity fits into that...how god/God fits into that.

I have no idea what any of this will lead to. I'm still quite adamantly resistant to a return to being religious in a Christian/organized sense. But I feel like these two things are telling me that this is a time in my life when I'm meant to do some intense and meaningful reflection on my relationship to god/God in some sense that's useful, relevant, and realistic to me. The flashbacks are too intense, and the call to that book to persistent, to ignore. Given my recent shift toward more optimism and openness to whatever positive energy wants to find its way to my door, maybe this is the next logical area of development.

Maybe by the time I'm 40, I'll know who the heck I'm supposed to be.

Nothing to Report

2010-09-19T17:53:00.000-05:00

After a rough start to the semester with a difficult situation (ambiguity alert), things are going well for me. I've been able to successfully divert a few incoming self-loathing crises with very little effort, which I take to be a good thing. I have managed to keep up relatively well with my schedule. I have not veered too far off my diet, beyond the occasional splurge. But even with the splurges, I chose to learn some lessons about my body rather than beat myself up for them or run screaming from the possibility of enjoying a little too much.

What is this? Is this equilibrium? Is this...thing...this...contentment...is this what people feel? Is this what it's like to be a balanced, sane, or (dare I say) a happy person?

Is it possible I've turned some kind of corner? Is it possible this corner is a full 90 degree one rather than a moderate, slight, itty bitty curve?

Great googly moogly. Am I going to be okay?

What the crap am I supposed to do with this development? I'm so confused.

It's all gonna be okay

2010-08-31T12:38:00.000-05:00

Oof. It's been an interesting few days. I read that book that had me all freaked out about everything in my little universe. I tend to go a little overboard at times, and this was one of those times. But sometimes going overboard is okay. Maybe because when you call for help (even if not to a real person but just to the world more generally), you get responses that serve as little life preservers. It's all simply a matter of asking.

While freaking out, things started happening. I spent Saturday night just meditating. Not in a new-age Buddhist way, necessarily (though that would have been okay, too) but just in a sitting back and letting go kind of way. I decided to pay more attention to my own self-negativity and counteract it when I found myself thinking this way. Then things got interesting.

1) A friend had called on Friday, and I hadn't heard the phone. I noticed the call later on, but didn't notice the voice mail. She called again when I was out on Monday, and that time I noticed a voice mail, so I heard both back to back. The first one was just a sweet simple message that she had thought of me and found something I had given her a long time ago when she was struggling. She wanted me to know how much that meant to her and that she was glad to have me for a friend (um, one who hasn't yet called her back, but I digress). I cried a little at that. The other message was an offer to give me something she had from her mom who recently passed. Very sweet.

2) Then I had another voice mail (I have a habit of not leaving my cell phone where I can hear it--so sue me). It was one of my cousins who just wanted to say that he thought it was great that I had lost weight and that he and his spouse are trying, too. It was just a spontaneous call from a cousin I don't normally hear from, and it was so very sweet and thoughtful. And made me feel really good, too.

3) I was talking to some friends about my prior post topic of anxiety, and they both completely related. They understood and could provide similar stories, so now I don't feel so unusual or crazy. We're all highly functioning adults, so maybe the anxiety doesn't really rule us after all. Maybe I can let that go now.

4) The author of the book that had me freaked out quoted a poet named Mary Oliver, and the quote was really meaningful to me. I had been given a book of her poems from a friend awhile back. I struggle with really understanding poetry, for some reason, so I had started it but not finished. After reading this quote in the food book on Sunday, I went to my shelf to look for the Oliver collection. I couldn't find it anywhere. I figured it would turn up eventually and forgot about it. Then on Monday, I went to my nightstand cupboard to look for a pencil (I'm always losing them). I had cleaned the nightstand out a couple of weeks ago, so I knew there was one in there. I found it, but then I noticed a book in there, which I hadn't recalled putting there; I thought I'd put all the books back on my shelf. I pulled it out...it was the Mary Oliver poem book. I opened it up, and the only poem that was dog-eared (I do that for ones that I particularly like) was the poem that was quoted in the food book.

5) I got an email from a childhood friend who has been very ill, and things are really starting to look up for her. Tests are coming back in her favor, she's feeling great, and her kids are adjusting to school...her daughter even wants to play the flute like I did! Yeah! I was hoping for good news, but the email radiated it from every letter. I just really needed to see that well-deserved peace from her to remind me that all those angst-ridden teen years, those years of anxiety, also produced some of the most joyful and meaningful experiences of my life, and that they will continue to do so for many many many years.

So, from moderate despair came a series of messages of hope. It shows that my attempts to start afresh and be the happy person I deserve as much as anyone to be are not going unheeded or unnoticed by god or the universe or whatever label you want to put on it. Now I just have to keep it up...that's the hard part.

This can't be good.

2010-08-28T16:35:00.000-05:00

I'm reading a book called Women Food and God about how women use food and diets to mask the bigger emotional problems in our lives. So far, it's more geared toward binge eaters, which I have never truly been. I've eaten way too much on way too many occasions, and I've used food as comfort plenty 'o times, but I don't think I qualify as a true binge eater. Anyway. Beside the point.

There was a bit early on in the book where the author talks about how we need to go back to that time when we were children when we remember being free from anxiety and worry and were able to cry and get over it without it being a big deal. Before life became filled with emotional instability and constant worry. Then we will be able to start rethinking ourselves and our relationship to food. She said, "Do you remember when..." and listed all of that, and after thinking for a minute, I realized, "No. I really can't remember then."

Now, I suppose it may partly be because that was quite some time ago, and I was little and little memories are often a little fuzzy. But the times I remember quite clearly from when I was four and five years old are filled with anxiety, doubt, and fear. Fear of school. Anxiety about getting in trouble. Worry about doing something wrong or badly. Anxiety that something would happen to me or my family. That God would be mad at us for tearing up our sidewalk, which he specifically put there when he created the world. Anxiety about being grabbed and stolen by the people lurking under the bed (okay, that one's pretty common, right?). I was terrified to spend the night at other people's houses without mom and dad, even when it was a house I knew well and with people I trusted (which turned out not always to be true, but that's another story).

I'm sure I must have felt secure some of the time, and I certainly had reason to feel so. I had a safe and loving home and family life. My teachers (with the exception of my 2nd grade one) were compassionate. I was never told I was bad or dumb or expendable. But truth be told, it's all kind of overlaid with this feeling of the need to tread lightly because things weren't right or safe.

It certainly explains why I spent so much time bursting into tears for no darn good reason until I was about 11. By that point, I had finally learned the art of keeping it in because it was hard to make friends with people who knew you were a nervous freak all the time. Looking back, even the kids across the street, who were my only real friends as a young child, made fun of me. One night after dinner I was waiting for them to finish up dinner so we could play. They were at their kitchen window facing the street and my front yard, where I waited. They started taunting me for reasons I couldn't fathom, and I started to cry. I went in to tell Mom, who by this point was understandably exasperated with my constant crying, and she told me to go up and tell them to knock it off if it bothered me. Instead I just stayed in my room and cried and played alone. Perhaps that was when I began my path of hiding my tears to keep people from knowing--and therefore disliking--me.

So here I sit. I'm 33. I live in fairly constant paranoia and anxiety. Just like I did then. Maybe I just never had a period in my life where that wasn't normal, which is why it's so hard now, despite my best efforts over the past few years to change it, to be the person I know on some level that I deserve to be. Maybe that's why even after all this weight loss, I still feel the anxiety of being overweight, unattractive, and socially stupid. Maybe my posting this on the web is a step toward not hiding it...maybe that's a good thing. But maybe not.

Why I still shop at Target

2010-08-23T13:29:00.000-05:00

I know a lot of people who are currently boycotting Target because the corporation donated a chunk of money to a conservative PAC that supports a governor candidate in MN who holds strong anti-gay views. It's come up a few times in conversation, so I decided to write down my thoughts on it.

Before I begin, though, I want to stress that I vehemently disagree with the MN candidate's views on gay rights. I'm an ardent supporter of marriage and other civil rights for gay and lesbian people, some of whom are my friends and students. I will fight for the rights of all of them to have the same rights I do as a straight person.

That said, here are the reasons why I am not boycotting Target, in no particular order:

1) Target has a history of treating employees with dignity, including gay and lesbian employees who are eligible for partner benefits. That doesn't erase the current problem, but at least it indicates an interest in basic equality as a company-wide policy. WalMart, the most likely alternative to those boycotting Target, barely gives their employees benefits, let alone domestic partner benefits. The big picture still leaves me leaning toward Target, albeit with a skeptical eye.

2) Speaking of WalMart, where I live, I pretty much have the choice of it or Target for the basic stuff that gets me through (e.g., health and beauty stuff, cleaners, etc). So...am I to shop at WalMart, which often treats employees like crap, that has a history of class-action lawsuits based on racial discrimination, gender discrimination, AND sexuality discrimination? That has a history of union-busting in order to keep employees suppressed and unorganized? I don't think so. And neither should these people boycotting Target. The old cliché rings true: it's cutting off your nose to spite your face.

3) Further, unlike Wal-Mart, Target has a strong record of supporting the community through donations to education systems in their communities as well as charitable organizations. My dad works for the Salvation Army, and Target frequently donates money and products for poverty relief in the local community. I personally disagree with the SA's stance on homosexuality as well, but at least they are a private, religious organization, not a public one. What this means, then, is that Target does a lot of good in the community that is being erased by the over-hyped boycott.

4) Then there's the issue of making Target the...target...instead of the larger issue of the Supreme Court's recent ruling that corporations can donate like people. That ruling will have huge repercussions in our society. Corporations often don't have the best interest of people in mind, unless you count their shareholders (if they are publicly traded) and/or their corporate leaders. Target's reputation for being reasonably responsible in their communities and to their employees doesn't erase that they are a giant corporation. Corporations are most likely to push for candidates who will help their bottom line first (not to mention the pocketbooks of their leaders). Most of those candidates will be Republicans, who tend to have more pro-corporate policies. They are also more likely to have anti-gay stances, as well as similar stances on other social issues. That means Target is one of about a bajillion companies in this country that will be pushing for candidates whom I won't like. Am I to boycott all of them? Or just Target? Why one and not the others?

Shouldn't we instead be spending our time fighting the Supreme Court ruling and the political process that now heavily favors corporate interests over our own? Shouldn't Target be an example of the problem, not the be-all-end-all of the problem? Shouldn't we be focusing more broadly on the corporations who actively resist treating gay and lesbian employees and customers with respect? In short, fighting the larger problem rather than the symptom of the larger problem?

5) This whole thing smacks of a left-wing reactionary response rather than measured response to social problems. This is reason number one why I resist every day the urge to find myself on a political fringe. People on the fringes of the right and left are guilty of emotionally lashing out rather than intellectually reasoning. This one happens to be on the left side, but if Target responds too much in favor of the gay and lesbian rights side, you know full well the stupid fringe right folks will do the exact same damn thing the left is doing now. And we're all the poorer for this behavior. We all become blind to the real issue in the mud-slinging.

So there you go. I am working hard not to spend more money than I need to in general, but when I need to buy, I don't feel guilty shopping at Target. I will continue to advocate for full and equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans, but in a holistic, realistic way...not through emotional protests and boycotts.

Customer Service with a Stare

2010-08-19T22:51:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow night I am cooking dinner for the poker group I go to. I had a majority of the stuff in my cupboard, but I needed enough that I decided to head over to Woodman's, the local budget grocery store. I had planned to go Friday, but just got a bug up my butt and went tonight instead. It's less busy at night, and I was bored.

I went through the store and gathered all I needed (plus some). By the time I got to the checkout, I figured I had about $25-$30 in my cart. The guy started ringing it all up with that vacant-scanner-swipe-glazed-over look they all usually have. When it was all through, he said (vacantly), "That'll be $115.##." I about crapped myself. I said, "That can't be right! I didn't get $115 in groceries!" Which, frankly, should have been obvious. Who buys some cheese/dairy, some fruit, and some disposable utensils and spends $115? It was three re-usable bags not terribly full! Vacancy, my friends. The checkers are glorified cows who have no clue what they are doing.

The guy looked at me--you guessed it--vacantly. I just looked back at him while he slowly processed this. I was clearly an obstacle between him and going home. He finally looked at the receipt. I, being intelligent, quickly found the error. The top half of the receipt was stuff the guy in front of me bought and I had $87 in "prior balance" from his stuff. The cow-man brought over a manager to look at it. She, too, had the vacant look, so I explained the situation.

The guy protested that the prior customer had taken a receipt, so it must not be his mistake (uhhhh....right). The manager finally said to the bagger, "Sorry, Megan, you'll have to unload her bags so he can scan it all again and start over."

That's right, my friends. She did not apologize to me for the error or the delay. She did not even further acknowledge my presence. She simply apologized to her employee for having to do more work because of her colleague's vacancy and walked away.

I couldn't believe it. I have a low opinion of people, but that one got even me. I don't expect to have my ass kissed, and I didn't expect any kind of compensation, but a simple apology to a customer seems reasonable, right?

Optimism is futile.

Dena, The Blogger, Part Deux

2010-08-18T09:49:00.000-05:00

Hello, my millions of readers. :P Just thought I'd mention that I'm starting a second blog because I need more things to distract me from working.

Since I've lost weight, I've had lovely friends and family ask me how I've done it. I decided that, instead of writing each person individually, I'd start a blog to gather information and have fun. With any luck, it will help keep me honest and healthy myself as well as helping other people. Feel free to follow both blogs, as I'll be writing on both. They'll just have different foci.

If you're interested in the new blog, you can find it here: Newly Thin Dena

Teenage "Rebellion"

2010-08-17T09:14:00.000-05:00

There was a terrible accident in Iowa last week. A group of teens were out in the wee hours of the morning and got caught up in a flash flood. One of them couldn't escape the car and died, despite her friends' attempts to get her out. I can't imagine the terror all of them felt, and the regret the survivors must feel for being out when they knew full well they shouldn't be.

The thing is, of course, that none of us have much right to judge. We have all done stupid things, made bad decisions, been overconfident in our "right" to a long, healthy life. And not just when we were teens. The girl who died in the accident had snuck out of the house after returning for her curfew, which falls into the category of a stupid thing, but hardly one that is unusual or particularly evil in the grand scheme of things.

Anyway, the thing about this story is that it has me reflecting on my own teen years and the stupid things I did. What's amazing is actually how few of them I did. Not because I was so dang smart or virtuous, though. I was as dumb and arrogant as any teen...so why didn't I extend my "parents' rules are stupid" philosophy into the common pitfalls of teenage rebellion? Why didn't I defy my parents beyond some serious back talk and eye rolling? And (to be honest) some less than kind thoughts about them. (Sorry, Mom and Dad. I stopped doing that, I promise!!)

The only thing I can figure is that it comes from them. Despite my views of their dumb rules, I knew, understood, and respected them deep down. My parents were great about balancing freedom with restraints. I remember Dad once telling me that they followed a kind of farming/livestock rule of child rearing, which sounds a little suspicious on the surface. The philosophy was that kids need fences and boundaries to understand the world and their place in it. It's a parent's job to build the fence with enough room to run without getting too far away from the barn. As the child grows, the parent must rebuild the fence a little further out to accommodate the growing intellect and abilities of the child. This way, the child learns a little more through a gradual broadening of the responsibilities of the farmyard. By the time a child is a teen, there needs to be a big area where the kid can explore and make some stupid decisions, but still within site of the parent/farmer who can help redirect them when the need arises.

And this is exactly what they did. I was their little lamb who had a small range when I was little. I was free to run, but always in site of the house rules. When I jumped the fence, I was lovingly grabbed and put back in. It was explained to me why I was grabbed as well as what the consequences for jumping were. As I got older and became a full grown sheep, I had more space to run, but I still tried to jump now and then...and again they patiently (usually!!) explained why the boundary was where it was. What's more, the punishment was never being locked in the barn, deprived of light and freedom to roam. I was given a talking to that focused on building my logic and respect for them and the parameters they set.

The result is that as a teen, I had no need to rebel against anything unjust. Sure, I didn't always like their rules, but I had been taught so carefully, lovingly and (most importantly) respectfully that I felt little need to shove anything back in their faces. I had enough room to run and enough security that they would take care of me so long as I stayed in sight of the barn. I didn't have to love it all the time, but I had every opportunity to understand it. And, when faced with something I saw as unjust, I was secure enough in my relationship with them that I could usually tell them about it and we could come to an understanding. Not always exactly how I wanted it, of course, but always with my feelings under consideration.

My 16-year-old self would likely scoff at this writing. That's okay. She could be kind of a bitch sometimes. :P My 33-year-old self knows it's true; proper reflection and distance make that possible. My overall thinking here is not to imply that the parents of that poor girl in Iowa did something wrong or were bad parents. I know nothing of them or their family. I just had to ponder on why I never snuck out of the house after curfew within my own particular family and personal history. I'm sure her parents love her as much as mine do me and did even when I was a bitchy 16 year old.

Making Changes

2010-08-08T21:14:00.000-05:00

The past few weeks have been filled with some serious thinking about the way I eat. In reality, it's actually a long-time casual topic of reflection that has been put at the forefront of my mind since I read "Omnivore's Dilemma," a widely read by Michael Pollan book about the modern food system.

The book has made me realize several things about the way we eat. For one thing, I'm more acutely aware of how often food is advertised and marketed as being "real," "made from real ingredients," or "all natural" (and variations thereof). What does it say about us that we are meant to be excited and pleased to see our food be real or natural? Shouldn't ALL our food be real and natural--shouldn't we expect our food to be real and natural? Additionally, I have a more complicated and nuanced understanding of what "organic" is. The word has lost much of its meaning and is actually not a serious guarantee of anything better than non-organic. I've never bought into the craze that organic is by necessity better, but now I am clearer on when and why organic is and isn't better.

Then there's the issue of how much corn we consume in the various food products. I have known this for some time, but I'm more concerned about it, as well as the impact that it has on the economy and health of the state I grew up in--one of the leading U.S. growers of the crop.

But the issue most important to my life, and the thing I've been reflecting on the most, is the issue of how we use and consume animal products...meat. I've read several articles about the atrocious living conditions of animals in the modern meat production industry. I've also seen first-hand the cramped quarters these animals live in--you don't live in the Midwest without seeing confinement facilities for hogs, cows, and poultry. I've long had an uneasiness about the process of raising animals for meat, but reading "Omnivore's Dilemma" has pushed me past the point of uneasiness.

I hope that I'm an ethical person, and I want to be a person who is humane not only to my fellow humans but also to the animals who are part of this world. I do not see a moral problem with eating meat, but I'm increasingly convinced that my sense of justice and morality cannot, and should not, include participating in a food system that allows animals to be confined in too-small spaces, fed foods (i.e., corn) that their bodies aren't meant to process, and given hormones (along with the fatty corn diet) that forces them to grow faster than their bodies are able to sustain. The reason those chicken breasts you buy are so enormous? Because of hormones and corn...the chicken it came from probably spent most of its life unable to walk on legs that were not meant to carry so much weight.

These animals are living short, miserable lives so that we can eat meat cheaply. The low cost of meat has a very high cost in our moral obligation toward other creatures. If I want to be the moral and ethical person I know I want to be, I have to make the decision to eat accordingly. And so, I have decided that I will only purchase meat from animals that I can trust were treated humanely, allowed an opportunity to experience a life that is in line with their natural desires to be outside and eat a healthy diet (i.e., not just corn). I also want to eat meat from animals that were not subjected to growth hormones that force growth that outpaces their skeletal ability to support it. It's less about my health and more about their basic right to a decent life.

This means a fairly radical change. Buying meat is now more expensive (which means eating far less of it). It also means scanning restaurant menus for vegetarian options because most won't serve meat that isn't from the industrial food chain. This means a very challenging dilemma when going to visit family and friends. I'm not sure how I am going to deal with all of that, but it's something I'm going to have to figure out. I don't want to be complicit in a cycle that is so unfair.

On a side note, there's also the issue of how the industrialized meat is processed by people working in terrible conditions at great risk to their well being. That's an issue that merits an even longer discussion.

Holding Myself Accountable

2010-07-20T11:28:00.000-05:00

I'm to my weight-loss goal, and have been successfully holding steady for three weeks. In three more weeks, I will become a Lifetime Member of Weight Watchers (you have to maintain your goal weight for six weeks for that to happen). I assume there's some sort of coronation ceremony for this. Maybe a crown embellished with broccoli florets will be placed on my head and I'll carry a carrot sceptre topped with a grapefruit. Dottie, my leader, will help me take the oath: "I, Lifetime Member Dena, solemnly swear to uphold the tenets of the Points System and will not abuse the powers of FlexPoints bestowed upon me by the people of Weight Watchers. I will endeavor to earn the ActivityPoints I so desperately need and will not surpass the budget thereof." And I'll wear a pretty dress.

But then what? I find myself still a little shaky on my relationship to food. I'm increasingly (rather than decreasingly) obsessed with how much food goes in my mouth and what happens every time I go over points just a little. Will that ice cream put me back where I started? Will having pizza ruin everything? Are my jeans going to suddenly not fit tomorrow because I drank that wine? It's a running discourse in my head, pretty much all the time. I know that's not a sustainable way to live if I want to be a happy, comfortable person. Being thin shouldn't mean being a nutcase, nor should it mean an obsession or compulsion to deny myself things I love. I know that constant worry and denial will not lead to long-term success, and I know that if I'm good most of the time, an occasional splurge isn't going to throw me off course. And if I gain a few pounds, I can lose it again. Weight gain is not like cement setting on my butt or anything.

But the fact is that making my brain accept this new version of food reality is a lot more difficult than actually losing the weight was. This has me surprised and nervous. I thought it would be easier to be on maintenance, but it turns out this is where the work really begins. Physically changing was one thing. Emotionally changing is quite another.

Delta Delta Delta Will Not Help Ya Help Ya Help Ya. (Part 2)

2010-07-06T20:21:00.000-05:00

Okay, so part two, which is the equivalent of day 2 of our misadventures with Delta Airlines, the most idiotic, thoughtless, inconsiderate and terrible of all the airlines. Part 1 is just below this entry.

8) The following morning, Mom and I show up at the check-in gate at 9:30 to claim our two guaranteed seats. Of course, we were barked at to try the "automated" service, but I said, "No, your airline screwed us over last night and we were told to talk to the agent instead." She backed off us and moved on to barking at the rabbi in front of us, who tried to be patient and kind, but with only a tenuous grasp on success. When Mom and I approached the agent, she handed us "seat requests" and told us we'd have to inquire about boarding passes at the gate. Mom and I both verbally balked, and she said, rudely, "Don't beat me up. I'm just the messenger." Grrrrrrrrrrr. So I replied, "Ma'am, I'm sorry but your airline has been beating us up for 36 hours." She said there was nothing for us to do but go to gate C37 to ask about passes.

9) After a little holdup at the security checkpoint, we got to terminal C. Just out of habit, I checked the departure board. Lucky decision. Our gate was not C37 but C32. Not a huge difference, but another example of the idiocy and lack of basic competency of Delta Airlines. We got to C32 and I inquired about boarding passes. The guy looked at the monitor behind him which said, "Lansing, MI" in order to obnoxiously point out to me that I was early and/or had the wrong gate. I calmly (but not pleasantly) informed him that we were on edge about being messed up again with our flight and I wanted assurance as early as possible that I was getting boarding passes. He told me I'd have to go to C2 to get more information. A full 10-minute walk back the way I had just come.

10) I left Mom sit and booked it back to C2. While in line, I learned about the couple (probably my parents' age) who had been screwed the night before. They had run to make their connection, and the husband made it while the gate was still open. He pointed to his wife who was no more than 30 seconds away, not being able to run as quickly as he could. The DELTA GATE AGENT SHUT THE GATE ON HIM and said, "Too bad." DELTA DIDN'T WAIT 30 SECONDS for a lady to make the connection. Then the plane sat there for 10 minutes before leaving anyway. Yes. Another girl had been trying to get to her destination for two days but had been bumped or had flights cancelled every time. The people behind the older couple had also been trying for two days. This did not bode well.

11) When it was my turn, the lady told me my flight was full. I said the lady last night had told me there were seven and I was guaranteed two. She said, "You shouldn't have been told that. It all depends on weight restrictions and the gate agents choose who would get to go on the plane." At this point, I realize Mom and I are not getting on that flight without a fight. So I pulled out the heavy ammunition: my Huisman temper. I said, "So, you're basically telling me we are fu***d. Is that what you're telling me?" [Ed note: I did not use asterisks in the original conversation. So sue me.] She looked at me evenly and said, "Probably yes." I said, "So the lady last night lied to me about there being seven seats and that I was guaranteed two of them? And that if I showed up at 9:30 this morning, I could pick which seats I wanted?" Reply: "She shouldn't have told you that." My reply: "Well she did. But now you're telling me that, in spite of that guarantee, I. Am. Fu***d." She said, "Yes." Then I really lost it. I expressed what entire bullshit that was and I wasn't accepting this as possible. Then she took my boarding passes--sorry, my "seat requests"--and went to the nearest gate. She spent several minutes there...and came back with two boarding passes.

12) The only thing she said to me when handing them over was, "She shouldn't have told you you had them guaranteed." Oh, for cripes sake. How the heck is that MY problem, incompetent Delta lady? Seriously? So I said, "Ma'am, I'm sorry I yelled, but you have to understand that your airline has terrible customer service, terrible communication patterns, and terrible scheduling problems. Do you see that?" The response (predictably) was, "Yeah. She shouldn't have guaranteed you those seats." ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I again said, "Well, she did guarantee them to me, but that just proves my point that you have terrible customer service, terrible communication, you lie to people and you are completely unorganized!" She just said, "Yes, it's bad communication." Holy shit. It was like talking to freaking Rain Man. So I just said, "Thanks for the boarding passes," and off I went, leaving all the poor other schmucks behind me begging to get on a plane, any plane. Please just get us where we need to go. That kind of thing. Going back to the first point in the prior posting, when they overbook all their flights, they don't leave any room to deal with the people they screw over by being late. If they're going to screw up their schedule so much that they have permanent areas dedicated to rescheduling, they need to AT LEAST have some seats available (i.e., not overbooked) to accommodate this!

13) Finally, it's time to board, only not. We are told it would be another 10 minutes. Fine. About 15 minutes later, we're told it will be another 10 minutes. About 40 minutes later, we are allowed to board. I mean, really. Would it be so difficult to be honest with their customers? Would it kill them to say, "Ladies and gentlemen, there's a delay, and we're not entirely sure when the plane will arrive. We hope within 30 minutes. We'll let you know more as we get information." Honest and completely lacking in condescension. Ugh. So we finally got home about an hour late. Well. Actually about 18 hours late, but who's counting?

Honestly. This is not exaggerated. This airline is so inept, incompetent, arrogant, rude, and pathetic. One might argue that this is a fluke, but A) the other passengers on my NYC-Detroit plane and in line behind me the following day suggest otherwise, B) the permanent kiosks and overall familiarity with DELTA-specific vouchers suggest otherwise, and C) the similarly rude and incompetent experience I had with Delta last summer from NYC-Minneapolis suggests otherwise. This is a pervasive and ongoing problem. Delta Airlines SUCKS. I personally have vowed never to fly with them again, which is particularly sucky given that I have few options out of La Crosse, and even fewer in general when you consider how many airlines are owned by Delta. But I'd rather stay home than give Delta Airlines one more red cent of my money. And keep in mind that saying this is a person who loves to travel and does it as often as I can.

And, in conclusion, DELTA SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS!

Delta Delta Delta Will Not Help Ya Help Ya Help Ya. (Part 1)

2010-07-06T19:53:00.000-05:00

I was lucky enough to fly to Ireland for a whole month, and get paid for it. I'm a person who experiences a great deal of good fortune. I should be grateful for the opportunity to see so much of the world. But here I am whining anyway. I'm sure Delta Airlines would rather I accentuate the positives, but I don't care about how Delta Airlines feels. I want to share with the world (or some tiny fragment of it) just what I experienced through this god-awful, terrible, no good company. A company that is among the worst of an already pretty terrible industry. Below is a list of the idiocies I experienced. Share with your friends.

1) On the way over to Shannon, Ireland, one of my students was on the same flight. She made the error of assuming she had reserved a seat on the plane when she made her...reservation. Unfortunately, she and about six others were told their reservations had been for nothing because Delta, as always, overbooked the plane. My student had to stay overnight in NYC to get on the next night's flight. This involved an extra trip back to the airport from the first hotel that turned them away because Delta had made no reservations for them there. Yes. This theme will return later.

2) On the way back to the U.S., Mom and I flew into JFK airport on time, with nearly three hours to spare till our flight to Detroit. We were feeling pretty confident, in spite of the fact that JFK airport is a sinkhole of doom and delays. About 15-20 minutes before our scheduled boarding time, an announcement was made that our gate had changed to another one a little ways down the concourse. All of us scrambled down to the new gate to be greeted by a wide-eyed and very confused desk agent who wanted to know who we were and what we were doing there. Turns out our gate hadn't changed...the OTHER flight at the original gate was supposed to move. So we all book it down back to the original gate, only to find the other flight was being told they were not to move.

3) At about this point, we find out that our plane was delayed by "weather." Apparently, if there's a light overcast, it's bad weather. Shortly after being fed this obvious pile of crap, the sun came out. Too late, though, because we were already being bumped back on departure by at least an hour. I waited in line to find out if it were possible to get to Chicago instead, where my dad could pick my mom and me up from his meetings there. I was told no, but there was a plane from Detroit to La Crosse the following day at 12:40. Our best scenario, barring making our tight connection, was to stay over in Detroit. No compensation, of course, because they were still claiming "weather" as the cause of the delay.

4) While waiting in line, a lady asked if this was the gate for Barcelona. This was the OTHER flight that was supposed to leave from our gate, but maybe now was supposed to be at the other gate now (unclear). So I told her I wasn't sure but I think that was now the other gate. The poor lady asked the ticket agent and was told to stay here because this was the right gate. No more than five minutes later, the loudspeaker announced that the Barcelona plane left out of the OTHER gate. The poor lady looked confused and exasperated (a feeling I well understood).

5) About 2 1/4 hours late, we finally took off for Detroit. The pilot, bless him, got us there as fast as he could, but we arrived no more than ten minutes late for our connection. We were told hastily to go "over there" to get rescheduled. We took off for "over there" but saw no "there" to go to. By this time, I was getting really hacked. I saw a Sky Miles kiosk, where a woman was trying to sign people up for the program. I figured she would know where "over there" was so I approached. She cheerily asked me if I wanted to get a free Delta flight for signing up. I said, "Actually, no. I don't plan to fly Delta ever again." The guy signing up looked up in surprise and asked if they were really that bad. The lady hastily said, "No! They are NOT that bad!" and gave me a dirty look. Unphased, I said to the guy, "Well, this is the second time in less than a year that they've left me stranded overnight, so you do the math." The lady asked what I wanted and sent me on my way.

6) It turns out "over there" was a designated gate with information and phones specifically for all the Delta customers who, like us, had been jacked over. It's pretty telling to me that there's an entire area cordoned off to deal with all this. I mean, this was not a temporary setup but a permanent, carpeted, furnished area. Ugh. So we were barked at to scan our boarding passes to get replacement flight. Delta planned to get us home the following day via Indianapolis via Minneapolis to La Crosse. Three more flights on Delta? I don't think so. The lady there barked at us to call in to get something better. The lady on the phone (the designated Delta phone bank in the permanent area set up for customers they screw over) told me she didn't know why they had done that when there were seven seats available on the direct La Crosse flight at 12:40 the following day. Seven seats. She said she had me marked down for two of them. All we had to do was to show up at 9:30 to the airport the following morning to claim the two that we wanted. I said, "So you're telling me I am guaranteed two of those seats tomorrow morning. You have guaranteed me two seats?" She said yes. Two seats guaranteed. Okay.

7) Now. I have to say something decent here. Delta did put us up at a hotel (mom and I each got our own rooms instead of sharing) along with $18 in meal vouchers. The funny thing is that when I called the pizza place to have dinner brought to our rooms and said I had some vouchers, the lady on the phone said, "Oh, you mean Delta vouchers?" So clearly this was not a novel situation. Mind you, she didn't ask if they were airline vouchers. She asked if they were DELTA vouchers. DELTA specifically. She KNEW THEY WERE FROM DELTA BECAUSE DELTA SUCKS.

To keep these short(ish), I'll start the following day's events in the next posting...

Luck of the Irish

2010-06-26T12:58:00.000-05:00

I just returned from a month in Galway, Ireland, where I taught a summer course for my university. I was lucky enough to live with people who have become friends, as well as to have my friend, Jennifer, come. We traveled around the west of Ireland and experienced a lot of life. But the part of my trip that will remain forever at the top of my list of best weeks was the last week there, when my mom came to visit.

Back in January, I had been to a medium who told me that my mom would visit me sometime soon, and she would need me to take care of her. At the time I just figured that meant Mom might come up to La Crosse for a few days. When I found out later I was going to Ireland, she mentioned that she might like to come visit. I told her to think it over, but she was reluctant to come without Dad and Dad was reluctant to come at all. Finally, one night on the phone she said, “You know what? I’m coming on my own, and you’ll just have to take care of me.” Just like the medium had told me. I knew it was meant to be now. And I knew it would all be okay.

The morning of June 18, I took the bus to Dublin with my school group, and then as quickly as I could took the commuter bus to the airport. There she was! My mom was in Ireland. If only her luggage had arrived with her…alas. The first chance for me to help her was trying to figure out how we would get them back. It took a few phone calls, but it showed up in Galway two days later.

We spent the first two days in Dublin, and Mom was a real trooper. I kept her walking all afternoon that first day to try to keep her awake till evening. Otherwise, jetlag will persist. She walked in sandals that gave her blisters, but she never once complained. The next day we went off again and explored our hearts out, stopping at a cathedral, a prison (!!), and a lovely park dedicated to Irish revolutionaries from the early 20th century.

On Sunday, we were glad to leave Dublin for the relative calm of the west. Over the days together, we explored Galway, the ocean near Galway, The Burren and Cliffs of Moher, and Connemara and Kylemore Abbey. Each day trip out of Galway included lots of walking, lots of sitting on small buses, and lots of climbing around very rocky and uneven terrain, but Mom took it all on with gusto and saw as much as she could. She also took with great equanimity the swearing and inebriation we witnessed (not to mention the time I had Guinness with lunch)! In the quieter moments on the bus and on walks, we talked about family, life, and the things around us.

One of my favorite moments was in Eyre Square in Galway City Center. We were just relaxing and soaking up some Irish sun, and I got out the joke book she bought for Dad as a souvenir. I read some aloud and we both laughed till our guts hurt. Even some of the less “clean” ones. It was great to be sitting in Ireland and just enjoying each other's company. And I always love getting a big laugh out of her.

My mom and I always get along (now that I’m an adult anyway), but this last week in Ireland was a rare opportunity to be friends and travel companions in a way that is difficult in the course of everyday life. I already knew I was lucky and blessed to have the parents I do, but now I know that the luck of the Irish gave me a week that will forever live in my heart as a moment of pure happiness.

Almost there.

2010-05-27T10:35:00.000-05:00

As I leave for Ireland in the coming days, I have less baggage to carry than I would have one year ago. I've been a light packer for a long time now, but never in my adult life have I carried less with me as I traveled than on this trip. Because this trip I am 54 pounds lighter. Given that the limit for luggage weight is 50 pounds, this means I am slightly more than one whole suitcase lighter. If only that meant they allowed me an extra 50 pounds for souvenirs on the way back.

I recently went back to look at older pictures, including the pictures that finally motivated me to start Weight Watchers last October (the one on the left above is The Picture). I'm pretty excited about the change, and can't wait to have good pictures to bring back from Ireland! I can't measure my self-worth based on how I look, and I don't base my perceptions of others' worth on their looks, but it's hard to deny that I feel a lot more confident now as well as healthier. And I certainly don't dread looking at pictures of myself like I used to. So it's all to the good.

Now I just have to hope I have the luck of the Irish when it comes to keeping it off during a month of travel!

The Language Police

2010-05-25T18:55:00.000-05:00

All the recent talk about the new rules for textbook curriculum out of Texas has me fairly steamed as folks who know me well will be unsurprised to hear. The old "it's not biased when it is our view" line seems to be rearing its head. However, I'm not so biased myself (not that I'm unbiased, mind) that I see the problem being caused only by the right. In fact, there is a larger problem of both ahole wings of the political spectrum unduly influencing the terrible, toothless way that our children learn about history. A couple of excellent books come to mind that highlight this bipartisan ineptitude:

1) "The Language Police" by Diane Ravitch is an excellent look at how these things have crippled education from the left (in California) and the right (in Texas). These two states are shown to be responsible for a large part of the material covered in the entire nation's textbook choices because these two states purchase the most number of books. Money talks--there's a history lesson for America. Ravitch is a former Assistant Secretary of Education.

2) More commonly known is "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen. This is a more narrative book, retelling the common stories of American history in a more historically accurate way as compared to the way history textbooks cover them. Loewen argues that the toothless and boring telling of history in K12 history textbooks is a result of left- and right-wing groups taking the complexity of events out of children's hands. As a result, children are unable to develop critical thinking skills and an ability to understand current events from any kind of accurate historical context. He is sometimes kinder than Ravitch, arguing that the review boards may be "well intentioned." I would argue otherwise...on both sides. Loewen is a former history teacher.

3) "A People's History of the United States" is another classic by Howard Zinn, but this one is not as impartial. :) Zinn was a strong social critic and activist, with a heavy tilt toward the left. However this book is meticulously footnoted and strongly argued. He also has the decency not offered by many left- or right-wing authors to lay out his bias at the front. He said in the introduction that his book is no more impartial or neutral than any other textbook or history book..but it's no less so, either. All history books take a perspective, but the perspectives he writes about--of the downtrodden, the losers, the poor--are rarely truly covered in more traditional history books.

Today is Geek Pride Day. Here is a sampling of my geekhood. :)

Interpretation

2010-05-20T23:09:00.000-05:00

Now I'm feeling all bloggy, so I'm writing again. I feel compelled by two recent events to think through some things.

First off, an old friend from high school mentioned my rather cynical Valentine's Day entry, both to confirm my feelings and provide me with some new perspectives to think through. I really appreciated the response, and it has helped as I've mulled it over. I'm feeling a little less cynical.

Then, around the same exact time he was writing, I was hanging out with some friends--the twins' mom and dad, actually! Yay, twins! Anyway. We were talking about my lack of serious dating potential in the area, and I was set to be all jaded as usual, and then my friend said something nice. She told me that she had hope for me and what lays ahead. It made me feel good.

It took a few days for those two events to collide, but they've just done so as I've partially drifted off to sleep and back into wakefulness. In my jaded Valentine's Day post, I said how I hated when people tell me to be patient or that "it will happen" because it sounds so condescending to me. Yet, when my friend told me she had hope for me, I felt really good. I got to wondering what the big difference is between those statements that would lead to such different emotional responses on my part.

It is this:

The former statements feel condescending because they sound like the kind of thing you would tell a kid who wants a new toy. "Just ask Santa and you'll get it!!" We always say stuff like that to kids, along with telling them to ask God, or to be patient, or whatever. I interpret all these things in the same way.

The latter is not condescending because it sounds like the speaker's own personal feelings of hope and positivity on my behalf. It's not a pat on the head but a statement of personal conviction or positive energy toward how the speaker sees my fate. I interpret that as similar to a more adult compliment or statement of faith in me as a person who is capable of great things...and deserving of having great things happen to me.

I teach my students about how communication is part intention and part interpretation. I argue that interpretation is more than half of meaning making in interpersonal interaction. It's the primary force, actually, at least in my opinion. So while the intention of speakers in both these categories of statements are the same ("Chin up, Dena! Great things may be in store for you!"), their interpretation by me--and hence their practical meaning--is radically different. One instills a sense of camaraderie, the other a sense of superiority/inferiority.

So if you're looking to cheer up a single friend (or anyone about anything!), think through the interpretations of your words. What might you say to help them persevere? Try expressing your own personal hope for their future.

Balance

2010-05-20T14:06:00.000-05:00

Saturday, May 15, 2010, was a day of universal balance. Three things happened that symbolized the true essence of existence in my little version of the world.

1) My friends' twin babies were born. The start of new life, and more importantly new life that I will be able to spoil and cuddle, began on Saturday. The twins were long expected and eagerly anticipated (not least of all by their mom who lugged them around all those months), and I can't wait to be part of their lives.

2) I watched several students I know graduate from college, finally ending their childhood in a real and significant way. While technically they have been adults for several years, it's that college graduation and entrance into the career world that really makes the transformation complete. In the coming weeks, months, and years, they will be building their adult life, along with all the intensity and randomness of the middle years.

3) My great uncle, Leonard, passed away. Mere hours before the emergence of the sweet new babies who entered the world, the world lost a great soul. Uncle Leonard was sweet, kind, and loving. He and his wife have been like a third set of grandparents for me my whole life because we celebrated Leonard's and my dad's mutual birthday every year. Leonard gave great bear hugs and loved to tease. His absence from the world is the world's loss.

All three of these things happening in one day makes me keenly aware of how time waits for no one, that we're not in control of the meandering life cycle, and that each phase of life has its small place of importance in the ongoing line of history. But even its importance is overshadowed by the relative brevity. We are who we are for as long as we are, and when we transition from life on earth to whatever comes next, we know there is someone (or, in this case 'someones'!) who will replace us and carry time forward.

In my life, right now, these new babies are delightful symbols of life moved on after the loss of another life I loved. They mean to me that I have to keep moving through the cycle in the same way that my uncle Leonard did before me and that they will after me. Leonard would love this connection of life as much as I do. Because he understood that's the balance of things.

Oops.

2010-02-14T11:05:00.000-06:00

So I haven't been posting again. I just get a little distracted. But I'll go ahead and post today about some things that really irk me about friendship and relationships.

1) I'm more often single than not (alas), and I get really tired of being the backup friend. I'm good enough to go out with, travel with, talk to...until someone with a penis comes along. Then I'm relegated to backup status. I only get asked to entertain you when the penis-bearer is unavailable. I'm supposed to accept this as normal, reasonable behavior. To understand. To be encouraging and supportive. And then, when you break up, I'm supposed to come running back to you to help you through it and then be grateful that you suddenly have time to hang out with me again. I'm not. I think you're a jerk when you do that. And I feel very small and pathetic, like I'm a homeless dog who should be grateful to eat whatever scraps are thrown its way.

2) Don't tell me (or anyone) to "just be patient" or "it will happen." It might not, and patience won't help if it's not going to happen. It's patronizing and insulting. It sounds like pity, and I don't need any additional pity. I have enough self-pity without you adding to the mix. Thank you.

3) Don't tell me how you so often wish you were single again so you could just go out and have fun whenever you want. Bullshit. Single people aren't going out and having fun all the time, living some sort of crazy fabulous life. We're home a lot, and when we're out, we're often the third wheel. You no more wish you were single again than I wish I were a meth addict. Don't patronize me. (Are you sensing the theme?)

4) Stupid restaurants that offer buy-one-get-one-free coupons or deals frustrate me. I don't need two meals, thank you. I would very much like to have a 50% off meal, though, which is the economic equivalent. So offer me that instead of telling me I can't get a deal because I'm unattached. *I'm looking at you, Subway.*

How's that for a happy Valentine's day? Remember kids, Valentine's Day is VD.

Goals for 2010

2010-01-02T15:06:00.000-06:00

1. Stop being negative about so many things. Being negative is a negative thing, after all.

2. Enjoy the crap out of my week in London in March.

3. Keep losing weight till I hit my ideal weight. Then keep at my ideal weight. Also, avoid becoming one of those hyper-paranoid eaters where I watch every ounce of weight and every calorie every day. Just be cool with how I look without being obsessive.

4. Relatedly, find some sort of physical activity that is both good exercise and enjoyable. And that doesn't require good weather, considering where I live.

5. Be more opinionated and independent and less submissive. (Haha. Just kidding.)

6. Be more proactive in my social life. I need to do a better job of seeking out friends and maintaining the friendships I have. I have been pretty bad at that in La Crosse, and it has to stop if I'm going to make a life for myself here.

7. Learn to love house cleaning. Or at least to do it, even if I don't love it.

8. Blog more. (See #5.)

9. Be okay with ending lists on a non-even number. (Goal accomplished!)

Bodily Function and Love

2009-12-26T17:25:00.000-06:00

So, it occurs to me that one of the markers of true friendship or familial closeness is the fart. Now, of course, I have a mix of family and friends who will alternately be amused or disgusted by this statement, but it's true. Even the disgusted among my acquaintance have to acknowledge that flatulence is an expression of love. Here's why (with examples).

1) I have heard multiple people tell me the story of their relationships and how a) embarrassed or b) amused they were when they (or their partner) farted for the first time in front of the other. But they always end the story by saying how it made them feel closer because they could relax (in more ways than one).
2) My friend and I were on a little road trip last summer, and the topic of indigestion came up. I told some little poop story (as I am wont to do), and she busted a gut. She was actually a little surprised that I talked so openly and joked about that stuff (maybe she was under the mistaken impression that I am sophisticated), but ever since then we have sent little jokes and stories on a similar theme. It's actually made us (already close friends) a little closer. It's just one of those markers of intimacy, in a weird and hilarious way.

3) Another girl came to my grad school department the year after I did. She seemed nice, but we really didn't visit much. One night we had dinner and found out we had quite a bit in common, so we started hanging out more. The day I knew we were going to be good friends was the day she told me about her fart machine and how she and her friends used it to play jokes on people during their cruise. When I reacted with great amusement, she was a little surprised and glad. She told me she wasn't sure if I would think it was funny. Once I declared it so, she and I became great friends and have shared lots of laughs about bodily functions. It was farts that brought us together. Awww.

4) My family has had fart contests and laughed at poop and fart jokes since I can remember. This includes my immediate family as well as my dad's extended family. And it gives us a kind of camaraderie and sense of fun whenever we're together. You can bet at least once when we all gather someone will make a joke that splits our sides. I can't imagine being in a family that couldn't laugh about that kind of thing.

So there you have it. Eleven years of college, and a Ph.D. in interpersonal communication, and my contribution to the study of relationships=the fart as a marker of intimacy. I'm living proof of the power of poofs (though not in the British sense...look it up).

The Revolution Inside

2009-12-09T20:27:00.000-06:00

I've been on my Weight Watchers "diet" now for about seven weeks, and have lost 15 pounds. This, obviously, pleases me greatly.

But the fact is, it is hard for someone like me to admit I needed help from an outside source, and even more difficult that it comes in the form of what is basically a support group. I am smart enough to do this on my own, and I've read all the stuff that tells me what one should eat and not eat...but for some reason I really needed the structure of a program and a weekly routine of weighing in to motivate me to do what I knew I needed to do.

On the positive side, though, the program has really highlighted for me how to balance my food intake. I had heard all the gunk about how if you're going to a party eat light earlier in the day. Blah blah. I never listened. But now I find myself planning a little bit better so that I can enjoy party food without ruining anything. The past three weeks have had regular social events where unhealthy food was served, and I found myself automatically thinking through how to account for that in my day. Eat a salad with vinaigrette for lunch, eat an apple, eat a smaller sandwich...whatever it takes so that I can enjoy some junk later in the day. Similarly, at Thanksgiving, I tried to fill a good portion of my plate with vegetables so that I would be less tempted to overload on cheesy potatoes and corn. It worked, and I left feeling comfortable and happy. I ate my cheesy potatoes and corn, but I didn't overdo it.

And the really miraculous thing about this is that I now think this is normal and reasonable, if I think of it at all. I am not feeling left out of anything, nor am I feeling intense longings to gorge on junk. Maybe I'm still in the honeymoon phase or something, but I really, for the first time in my life, feel like I have a grasp of what food is supposed to be doing in my life rather than seeing it as a pastime. Food is not just about pleasure...it's about pleasure AND health. I still enjoy my sweets and eat pizza from time to time--I ate two crab rangoon on Monday night, guilt free--but just in a better proportion to my other, healthier foods. This is revolutionary. Simple, but revolutionary.

Temptations

2009-11-30T18:58:00.000-06:00

I wish someone would explain to me why I decided to buy four boxes of Girl Scout cookies awhile back. Because now I have four boxes of Girl Scout cookies sitting in my house, and each friggin' cookie is two points on my Weight Watchers diet! That's ridiculous.

I just ate one, and I took the tiniest bites ever to savor it. This worked for the first cookie, but I am not sure this will be enough in future. Soon the overpowering deliciousness will take over and then...boo.

Since the end of October, I'm down 13 pounds, which is great (I even lost over Thanksgiving week! Heck yeah!). I have to keep up the hard work and not surrender to the evils of cookies.

Year Two

2009-11-26T15:45:00.000-06:00

I've been absent on my own blog. It's mostly that year two of professorship has been more overwhelming than year one, so there's been yet another learning curve. Someday I will learn that the learning curve is like a rainbow that has no definite beginning or end, but just an ongoing arc. The harder you look for the end, the further you get from it and the more frustrated you become. So I guess that means this year is about another lesson in chilling out and letting go of control.

But the problem, of course, is that control is my obsession. So that's going well.

Anyway, the purpose of this entry is to appease my mom and aunt, both of whom have asked why I haven't posted in a long time. Now I've posted again, and I will try to do what I can to become a regular writer again. I miss ranting. :)

Why I love Kurt Vonnegut

2009-09-02T23:19:00.000-05:00

"Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer. So it goes." (From "Slaughterhouse-Five")

I may not be writing much on my blog, but with stuff like this out there, how can I possibly compete anyway?

Sexism from 100 years ago

2009-08-17T12:50:00.000-05:00

I use the following song in my gender communication class, and it always amazes me. A mere 100 years ago, it was hilarious (HILARIOUS!!) to suggest that women were capable of being independent, authoritative human beings. The very idea of women trying to wear pants (PANTS!!) was downright hysterical. Uh-oh. I probably shouldn't use that word. Why, you ask? Look up the etymology of the word: hysterical (HYSTERICAL!!).

Meh. So, the good news is that we're a lot better off than we were 100 years ago. But, by the same token, I continue to hear similar sentiments today. About the guy who doesn't demand his way or the highway: "Well, I guess we all know who wears the pants in that family. Hardy har." (HARDY HAR!! That's backwards. Haha!) The woman who hints at aggression is a ball breaker. The man who hints at aggression is a man (MANLY!!).

Here's the song, in all its hilarity. It was recorded in 1909 by the delightfully charming Billy Williams, and was written by a fine, swell, upstanding gentleman named Charles Denton. Here's to you, aholes.

Travel Yin and and Yang on Crack

2009-07-27T17:42:00.000-05:00

I love to travel, so the past two weeks have been nothing but chaotic pleasure. I went on a cruise with a friend, and had more fun than is recommended by the Surgeon General. I got to snorkel, eat delicious meals (each and every dessert contained Grand Marnier liqueur--ooh, lala!), have relaxing visits on the balcony of our suite overlooking the bluest water I've ever seen, and so on. It was a relaxing trip that never stopped moving...literally (the boat pretty much always moved and when it did, I got off it!) and figuratively (I was on non-stop sight seeing mode).

Then, of course, I jetted off to NYC for a few days immediately afterward and spent six days wandering around, and bussing around on a guided tour. I saw all the big spots and several smaller spots. I spent too much money on food and stuff I didn't need. I saw the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Central Park, and so on and so on. I wore out my sandals from walking. I saw my first Broadway musical.

So, that pretty much sums up my idea of heaven. Stuff to see and do every day for two weeks.

If only it weren't for the airlines, which were required to make it possible. A flight delay from Florida (the weather's fault, I grant you) meant, I got to Des Moines at 11:30 pm on Monday. My flight to NYC left La Crosse at 5:20 am on Tuesday. Five and half hours between flights, and a four hour drive from one place to the next. So, I drove like a madwoman from midnight to 4am, repacked and left my house again at 4:15am to get to the La Crosse airport again. All things told, I ended up being awake for 36 hours.

Then, coming home last night, we boarded the plane just a few minutes late (at 6:30pm). Great. But it was raining with lightning, so we had to wait to leave...along with all the other planes at La Guardia, leading to a major traffic backup. At about 7:30 or 8pm, we were about to pull away from the gate when another storm blew in. So we sat. Then we sat on the runway for awhile. We finally took off about about 9:40pm...more than three hours after we sat down on the plane. That's later than the time we were supposed to land in La Crosse.

And, as luck would have it, we missed our connection, which was the last flight to La Crosse for the day. So we got sent on a fool's errand around the Minneapolis airport, being misinformed by one Delta airline representative after another about our options for sleeping at the airport till our plane left at 10:00 the next morning. We were told there would be pillows and blankets as well as mats. Then that there would only be mats. Then we argued a little more and they finally coughed up some crappy, useless pillows and blankets. We found a supposedly quiet spot to sleep, but there was construction and cleaning crew noise all night. Fortunately, we got out of there on time this morning.

Airlines can't help the weather, but honestly. What a nightmare flying is. My love for travel is equally as strong as my hatred of flying...so what's a girl to do, really?

Yin and Yang on Crack

2009-06-27T21:46:00.000-05:00

I believe that reality must be a balance. We cannot know good without knowing bad. We cannot experience happiness without also experiencing sadness. We must feel pain to know what pleasure feels like. I am confident that it must be this way, but I can't help but feel that the intensity of the simultaneously oppositional tugs is sometimes a bit stronger than is universally necessary, which merely leaves me feeling stretched too thin, like (in the words of Bilbo Baggins) butter spread over too much bread.

I am about to embark on a month of adventures. I'm traveling by cruise ship to Key West and Cazumel, and then returning to the Midwest mere hours before leaving for New York City for five days of exploration. Both trips involve great friends, fun experiences, and I hope lots of pictures and memories. I have not had a full-blown vacation in several years, so I'm completely pumped. Both of these trips have long been on my 'must do' list, and I'm checking them off in short order.

But the forces of the universe won't have it all to the good, it seems. While I'm planning for these wonderful trips with wonderful friends, I'm feeling the oppositional tug of concern and worry for the well being of one of the truly dearest people in my life, who's battling a serious illness. All my hopes and thoughts are directed toward her recovery, but I'm fully conscious of the difficulties presented to her, all the while I'm flitting about on planes, subways, and cruise ships. The joy of traveling will be blended with the concern for my friend. The excitement of my July co-exists with the hard decisions and anxiousness of hers.

My life has quite often been a series of tolerable oppositional tugs, the tensions never terribly extreme. This time, however, I feel the tautness so acutely it makes my heart race nervously when I think about it. I wake up at night and instantly my mind moves from excitement of the impending trips to anxiety about my friend's well being (or vice versa)...the two poles strike practically simultaneously, and then I continually bounce from one to the next, which leaves me reeling and awake for lengthy periods of time.

As an intellectual and half-assed amateur philosopher, I know what all of this means and acknowledge the inevitability of opposition. I just, for the first time, have absolutely no idea how to cope with it.

Memories of Dad

2009-06-19T21:54:00.000-05:00

I've been a slacker on blogging, but since it's Father's Day this weekend, I thought I'd better play equal and list some dad memories just like I did for mom. This in honor of the fact that my parents are always worried about making everything equal between my brother and me.

1) I love to read, and have since I learned how. Part of the reason is because I got regular trips to the library on Saturdays. Dad would drive Dirk and me up there and we were allowed to look around as long as we wanted and to pick multiple books. It was part of the routine of our family life, so it became part of my routine as an individual, too. Relatedly, I remember Dad reading stories out of a magazine he got. It was a religious magazine for adults, but it always had a kid's story in it. We'd all sit on the couch while he read it aloud to us.

2) Dad traveled a lot for his job in Sioux City. We were always sorry to see him go (except that Mom took us out to eat--on a week night!!!--while he was away), but it was worth the separation when he came back with presents for us. As soon as he pulled into the driveway, we'd dash out to the car, ostensibly to greet him. Really, though, we were dashing for our new toys. They were never enormous gifts, but they were new and exciting. Once, around Halloween, I got a little plush jack-o-lantern that hid a ghost inside it. I think of it now as more of a recognition that he thought of us while he was away, and that he missed us. Even the hyperactive little girl.

3) There's still a well-known song in our house, called "Hershey Kiss Eyes." It's the song my dad wrote for me. My main memories of him singing it are around the dinner table, and after we ate. I'd sit on his lap and squirm (as usual) and he'd sing it. "She has Hershey Kiss eyes, and ruby red lips. Cute little toes and fat little hips [Ed note: Hey!!!!]. She can wiggle and she can squirm. She's her daddy's wiggle worm." He can't sing to save his life, but for this song, it didn't matter. It was perfection.

4) In addition to the library trips, one of the greatest patterns in our family was discussion. We were allowed to ask all kinds of questions, and just to generally question everything. My parents are devoutly religious, but that did not mean I wasn't able to doubt and question growing up. I could ask his opinion and contradict him all I wanted, and I was never punished for it. And if Dad didn't know an answer to something, he'd help me find it. I remember when I was about 12, I started hearing the first anti-Catholic crap in my life. I was baffled because my best friend in Sioux City had been Catholic, as were some of my cousins, and they all seemed like the same to me. Dad offered me a book on the similarities and differences and told me that Catholics were his friends the same as Protestants, and that any differences between the two groups were minor compared to the similarities. That still means a lot to me, even though I'm not particularly connected to either camp at this point in my life. Just the fact that he was intellectual about it made all the difference. I truly, absolutely believe that my success as an academic is rooted in my dad's approach to life and questions.

5) Dad likes to quote an old saying: "The best gift a father can give his kids is to love their mother." And he can quote it because he lives it. My dad still loves my mom as much (or more) than he did when he married her 40 years ago. He compliments her, gives her little thoughtful gifts, etc. This particularly struck me one time when he was going through a rough patch in his life, spending his weeks away from home, and coming home on weekends. We were in the Walgreen's parking lot, and he was talking about how hard it all was. He said, "I sit in a hotel room, and I just miss my best friend." His best friend=my mom. It was all I could do not to bawl, a similar struggle I face as I write that out. I'm perpetually single, and I sometimes think part of that is because I have yet to meet a man who will treat me the way my dad treats my mom. Those are enormous shoes to fill, and not just because he's 6ft7in. I fear that sounds creepy, me comparing dudes to my dad, but if you have a dad like mine, I guess it's inevitable.

6) One last little one. I remember one Saturday during lunch, my dad and I had an insult-off. We went on and on, trying to take each other down. It was awesome. I eventually won, but I think it's because he let me. Dad's hilarious (sometimes in a groaner sense, sure), and I've always loved that we can all just joke around and make ourselves laugh till we hurt. Dad's confident enough in himself that he's willing to take a few slams from his (truly loving and respectful) kids.

7) Okay, I lied about 6 being the last. One last thing. He didn't spank me nearly as much as I deserved. And I always had ample warning that punishment was imminent. And he never actually hurt me when he did it, despite the fact that his hands were bigger than my butt--at least for a few short years. That's a good dad for you.

Memories of Mom

2009-05-10T22:02:00.000-05:00

So, I got my mom a really nice, sincere Mother's Day card, which I totally meant. My mom is pretty much awesome, and that's just the way it is. But I thought it might be nice to think through some of more specific things about my mom in addition to the generic Hallmark sentiments. Here are a few things that make me smile when I think of them.

1) When we went to South Dakota on vacation when I was pretty little, we saw some buttes. Mom said, "Hey, aren't those the butts I read about?" Obviously, she didn't realize how important some e's really are. At the time, I didn't know what a butte was, but I knew my mom said butt, and that was enough to make me laugh. Dad teased her about it, and it became a family joke.

2) When I was little, she used to tease me by squeezing my thighs. That sounds really weird. But it was a tickling thing, and it made me laugh. She would sometimes give me warning so I would try to squirm away, but other times she'd surprise me and get me. As I write, it sounds so bizarre, but it was hilarious to me at the time, and truly a fun mom thing. Not weird.

3) She also called me poopsock, boogerbutt, and missybutt. I swear she loved me! :)

4) I used to cry a lot at school, and one time she made a deal with me. She bought a Barbie doll and told me I could have it if I went two weeks without crying. I didn't make it, but I was too honest to lie about it. My teacher told me to tell my mom, but to explain that she (the teacher) thought it was 100% understandable and I shouldn't be punished for it (this was my fave teacher EVER). So I went home and confessed. Mom expressed that she was disappointed, but she didn't get mad at me. I got the Barbie, though I think I did have to wait a couple of days. I just remember that as an instance of her being a good disciplinarian, but one with compassion.

5) I remember as a teenager, something happened that mad mom feel bad, and she cried. She's normally fairly stoic for the most part, and especially as a kid I rarely saw her cry. I remember seeing her cry there in her chair, and having that first dim realization that my mom was a person beyond the four of us. It took longer to fully realize that (and I still sometimes forget), but that was a hard thing to realize as early-teenage kid. I ended up crying just because she was crying.

6) Similarly to that one, I was 15 when my Grandpa Huisman died. We knew for a while that it was going to happen, so when the phone rang late one night, we knew what it was. Dad answered it and then Mom came to my room to tell me. I remember I started to bawl because A) Grandpa died and B) I had been snotty and mean to Dad and now I felt bad because now I saw that my dad wouldn't live forever either. Mom just hugged me and told me not to feel bad about that. Dad would be around a long time. Then, in the kitchen, Dad was writing a note to my brother who was working till way late to tell him what had happened. Dad got upset while writing and threw the pen down on the table and started to cry. And Mom and I sat down the hall on my bed and cried together. As an adult, I think maybe she should have been with Dad instead of me, but at the time, I needed her and I guess she knew that.

7) More generally, it's just a funny realization to have your mom go from the lady who bosses you around and makes you do dishes and vacuuming to the lady you want to talk to and go shopping with and hang out with just because she's your friend. I remember the teenage moments of frustration and anger, but those are so faded and distant and now mostly all that's left is the idea that my mom is a fun person I can hang out with and laugh with. And vent to when I need it. And I need it a lot.

8) One more. I remember sitting next to her in church and being cuddled up with her arm around me. I got to play with her rings and necklaces and eat pink mint candies. That was about the safest place on earth. I still miss that sometimes. But I suppose it would look dumb for a 32-year-old to curl up next to her smaller mom and play with her jewelry. Darn.

On year one

2009-05-07T22:44:00.001-05:00

This year was my first as a professor, and like a good lifelong learner, I've been trying to pay attention and get something out of it. Here's a list of good and bad discoveries, in no particular order.

1) I am not as horrible at my job as I fear I am. I learned this when I got my evals back for my large lecture class, and discovered that I got high marks from almost everyone in the course. This was only weeks after I had a breakdown in fear that I had irrevocably messed up my course and my reputation as a teacher. I had been so convinced that I stink that I was terrified to get my reviews. And then it turns out I did fine, and several of my students from that class were repeats this semester, and several others have asked me to be their adviser. So go figure.

2) I'm also not as good as I want to be. I've always been unorganized, but I let that get in the way of teaching a few times this semester and it made me feel bad and inept. We'll see what that means on my evals this semester, but I hope my honesty and enthusiasm make up for some of the absent-minded professorisms. Nonetheless, I gotta work on some serious skills in this area of my life. I'm a mess!

3) Despite my general self-loathing and continual apprehension about what students really think of me, I am relieved to find that I really love what I do. So now I just have to build my confidence to match that. It feels amazing to know that all those years of school were worth it for this job. Even when I'm feeling (as I'm feeling now) like I'll never get all the grading done.

4) I'm not a happy person even when I'm happy. I'm not sure what it will take for me to embrace the happiness that I know I deserve. I continually fight the slump, the dissatisfaction, the anger, and the overall unhappiness that seems to follow me around. The past few weeks, it has been nearly unbearable, and I am not sure why that is. I keep writing it off to being tired, but it's not like I haven't been tired before. I've learned that I need to get to the bottom of it if I don't want it to destroy my career, as well as, potentially, my overall life. I just don't yet know how to do that.

5) I've learned that Wisconsin is near Iowa in geography, but a far distance in many cultural senses. The constant presence of beer--in the most unexpected places--continues to surprise me. I've learned that I enjoy the stuff more than I thought I did, but I also learned that it's easy to pack on a few pounds with a simple glass of liquid. The occasional, single beer to be social can turn into a few extra pounds in no time. No wonder this is one of the most obese states in the U.S. And no wonder my pants are tight.

6) I've learned that people are nice. I am lucky to be in a department full of really, genuinely nice people. I have little in common with many of them, but I love spending time with them all the same. They are good, fun, caring people around here. In academia, that's not all that common (alas), so I am particularly grateful to all of them. And I hope they don't think I'm a raving lunatic, though I'm sure I sometimes seem that way.

7) I actually am a raving lunatic.

American Theater

2009-05-03T11:09:00.000-05:00

I like TV. I like theater. I like musicals. So when the opportunity presented itself to see all three in one, you might understand why I said, "Yes, please." Or at least why I said, "Sure, why not?" It all started last fall, when I was new and friendless in my new town. Some colleagues invited me to attend a production of Gilligan's Island: The Musical, which was playing at another local university way off in May. I agreed for the reasons mentioned at the start of this paragraph, plus the added fact that I wasn't about to turn down a social opportunity, even if it was more than six months away.

Finally, the night came. I admit that I had low expectations. The TV show was utter crap, but I like it for its open embrace of crapness. I figured the musical would feature little references to the show, little in-jokes and stuff like that. Plus songs...who knew what the songs would be like, but I was game to try. Low expectations for me does not equate to unpleasantness.

When I got there, I discovered via the playbill that an alien featured in the plot. Oh, dear. I had been duped into going to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and had been shat upon by a plot involving crystalline aliens. So that was warning bell one. The group of us discussed our growing apprehension with this development. Were they really going to mess with the 'integrity' of the show in such a ridiculous way??

Yes.

So the second warning bell was the first song, where the characters meandered about the stage, each carrying a plywood section of the ship that was tossed about by the storm while they sang the theme song of the show. Finally, they were separated by the tides, and washed up on a plywood forested-island.

And then it went downhill from there. Honestly. That was the high point. The second warning bell was the high point.

The good news is that I laughed pretty much throughout the whole debacle. The bad news is that I laughed at it, not with it. I have low-brow tastes, but I'm dismayed that crap such as this passes for theater, and that its connection to a terrible TV show means we were suckered into going.

Though I should add, in our...oh, let's say in our defense...that our original draw-in to the show was the fact that Greg Brady (aka Barry Williams) was going to play the Professor, but he had to back out. The problem with this defense is that it still rests on our being lured in by crap TV. So we still come out pretty weak in this whole thing. But not quite as weak as the musical itself, so it evens out, I guess.

Sometimes I get confused.

2009-04-20T18:59:00.001-05:00

All right. Hugo Chavez is a bastard, to say the least. A serious, power-hungry bastard. Obama shook hands with him, okay. It seemed like one of those situations where you have to be polite and diplomatic even when you kind of wish you could run away. But whatever. He did it. But the outrage about it seems weird to me because there have been plenty of times when our leaders interacted with some pretty dastardly dudes. For example:

Bush's family has a long tie to the Saudi Royal family, the perpetrators of atrocious human rights violations, and who tolerate the United States only because we make them richer. If we stopped buying oil from them, they'd hate as bad as or worse than Chavez. And yet...Bush kissed the prince, held his hand, acted altogether chummy. Where's the outrage?

And then there's:
Vladimir Putin, the man whose soul Bush saw, has been linked to extreme totalitarian-style political tactics (including assassination of outspoken opponents).

And don't forget:

Reagan schmoozed with a damned dirty Communist...sure, it was for diplomacy, but when Obama suggests talking to Communist Castro, he's a maniac hell-bent on destroying America. The Gipper was an effing hero for doing it. What gives?

Lastly, let's not forget:
He's not a president, to be sure, but Donald Rumsfeld was sent by Reagan to provide military support to known human-rights violator and genocidal asswipe Saddam Hussein in his fight against Iran. Shook his hand and smiled at him, not terribly unlike Obama's interaction with Chavez. Again, it's not like we didn't know who Hussein was or what he was doing to his own people.

So. My point. I have a point and it is this: Hugo Chavez is an arrogant, evil blowhard with aspirations to totalitarianism, and the U.S. should not support him. However, I really believe it's a pot-and-kettle argument to say that Obama is making a calamitous error in shaking the douchebag's hand. Our leaders have done similar things, and often with (it seems) far more nefarious intentions. So seriously. WTF?

Delayed Reaction

2009-04-12T21:12:00.000-05:00

This weekend, my family, and some of my aunt's family, gathered at my grandparents' house. In years past, this would have been a typical Easter activity. We're a close group, and we often got together for the major holidays. This year, however, was not like the old times. Instead of celebrating together, we were looking through my grandparents' belongings, taking what we want before we sell the remaining items and the house.

Since Grandpa passed away in December and Grandma moved into a nursing home, there's no reason to keep the house, and that includes 80+ years of accumulated stuff in the lives of Bill and Cleo. My mom and her sisters already took what they wanted, and now it is my cousins' and my turn. So Saturday afternoon, I found some nice mementos from their house, including an accordion, some china, some games, and other odds and ends.

At the time, it was a little sad, but I kind of just saw it as the thing we were doing. I've known it was coming for several weeks, so Saturday was just the day. We boxed up everything, wrapping the fragile stuff, and loaded it up in the car. Done.

And now I'm back in La Crosse, looking through what I took and thinking of what I'll do with it and where I'll put it all. And I'm bawling my eyes out. It's now hitting me that I took pieces of my grandparents' lives from the place where they lived with them, and left other pieces behind forever. Some of the items that made their house their home are now in my home because Grandpa and Grandma aren't home to enjoy them anymore.

Life is obviously not permanent. I understand the cycle, and I've accepted the fact that my grandparents won't live forever. But before now, the concept of impermanence and separation through death was all too easily seen in sepia tones of long-gone ancestors and the experiences of the older generations. Even after Grandpa died, it seemed distant and unreal. Heck, even on Saturday, it didn't seem entirely real.

But now, with my grandparents' things sitting in boxes and on my table, I am hit with the fullness of what's happened. In full, vivid color I am living with the reality that my family has irrevocably changed. The home I grew up visiting will soon just be another person's house. And the fragmented remains of Bill and Cleo's lives will sit all across the midwest in the lives of their impermanent descendants.

Ms. Nervous

2009-03-24T18:54:00.000-05:00

I was at Target a few weeks ago, and I saw a little display of buttons, magnets, and stationary featuring those characters from the Mr. Men children's books. The series featured various anthropomorphic shapes that had personality flaws that were resolved through the narrative.

I had a moment of nostalgia as I looked at the stuff on the Target rack, remembering the one Mr. Man book I had and read regularly. It was Mr. Nervous. Ah, the memor....wait. I had Mr. Nervous. The only one my parents ever bought me was Mr. Nervous.

It occurred to me right there at Target that it was likely no coincidence that they bought me that one. I'm sure it wasn't just a matter of them choosing whichever one was available or cutest. They chose the Mr. Nervous book...because I was such a nervous little kid.

Ah.....

I remember being a high-strung, nervous little kid. I got scared at school, at home, at church, at the store. I'd have tear-filled meltdowns with little notice, driving my parents crazy. I was in 4th grade before I went to school on day one without bawling about it. I cried when I spent the night away from home without them. And so on...

But when I got my Mr. Nervous book, it never once occurred to me that the book was meant to be a lesson in chilling out from my (very likely) exasperated parents.

But 25 years later, I'm finally onto them. I see their game! Too bad for them I'm still a high-strung nervous adult. Mr. Nervous wasn't enough to cure me.

Home vs. home

2009-03-22T21:14:00.000-05:00

I was lucky enough to spend my spring break away from home. I went Home. I didn't need a fancy beach vacation. I like going Home.

I've always been very close to my family, and I consider myself exceedingly lucky to have these people in my life. But every blessing has some twinge of a curse. It's the dualistic nature of the universe to pair opposites: yin and yang, black and white, etc. The curse of having so many wonderful people in my life is that I'm perpetually Homesick. No matter how settled I am into my adult home, I still always long for Home. Home with my family. Home where I belong to people. Home where I am a daughter and a sister, not just a single woman, a professor, and a friend.

I joked with my students before spring break that I was jealous of those who were going somewhere exciting, that I didn't think it was fair. But the truth was, I was just as excited to go Home as they were to go to Florida, South Padre, or the Caribbean.

And I left my parents' house this morning, and their company later in the afternoon, with that familiar sense of dread. That feeling of going to a strange familiar place I call home in my everyday life, but that can't compare to Home. Even if I have a family of my own someday, I don't think it will compare to the Home I've known my whole life. I'll always want to leave home for Home.

Some compassion after all...

2009-03-15T22:01:00.001-05:00

A Catholic church official has spoken out against the ex-communication of the Brazilian mother who chose to terminate her 9-year-old daughter's pregnancy after the girl had been raped by her stepfather. Just wanted to point it out to show there's complexity of thought even within the church's relatively straightforward views.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jQjAIPlGEFkMsL4LzVbOmz8Q1UfgD96UKG600

Kudos to this dude, IMO.

Confidence

2009-03-15T20:19:00.000-05:00

I hate people who are vain, and who focus too much on their appearance. I hate people who judge others solely on their looks, and who value themselves for their physical traits at the expense of their personality and basic human decency.

And yet.

I recently got a new hair cut, complete with brow waxing and all that. And I have to say that my confidence has taken a noticeable bump. I find myself smiling at people more, being bouncier, being happier. Feeling more like approaching people and chatting them up. Add to that the new glasses that I'm trying to grow accustomed to, and I feel like a new, cooler person.

I'm struggling with it, though, because I love the feeling. I love feeling good about myself when I walk out the door, and I love chatting people up and feeling like a fun person. But I also feel kinda lousy that it took a physical alteration to make that happen, and I fear I'm using my appearance as an artificial boost. What happens when I get used to the changes and they become the normal me? Will I take a dive again? And is it really healthy to base your confidence on your looks? Shouldn't I worry more about being happy inside and less on looks?

I worry about the balance. Where's the balance between these two elements of our total selves?

And I worry that I'm worrying too much about all of this. And then I worry because I worry too much about worrying about things to worry about.

The trouble with black and white thinking

2009-03-08T15:16:00.000-05:00

I'm shocked by the following article...every possible aspect of it is terrifying.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-wovati0812527514mar08,0,5869588.story

The issue of abortion is frightfully complex, and I'm not willing to dip my toe too far into it on a silly little blog like this, but the fact that the Vatican calls abortion a worse crime than the rape and impregnation of a 9-year-old girl by her stepfather is giving me the absolute jitters. Here are some reasons why:

A. If you've seen what happens to a woman's body when she's carrying multiples, you can imagine what it would do to a tiny 9-year-old body. This girl's life would be at very serious risk if she carried them to term, which (BTW) simultaneously puts the fetuses' lives at serious risk.

B. This is not an issue of birth control. If you want to argue that abortion as b.c. is a moral crime, I'll listen to the argument, but I'm not willing to listen to any claim that this case is anywhere near the same issue. This girl had no control over any aspect of what happened to her. She did not choose any of this. So I can't in good conscience tell her that she has to further put herself at risk and live with more personal physical trauma than she already has.

C. The Vatican basically is arguing that this girl's life and well being are less significant than the fetuses' lives, which is one of the issues that bothers me more broadly about the abortion debate. Once children are born into the world by parents who don't want them or can't afford them, then it seems like society is supposed to care less about their welfare. Programs that help children living in poverty, or in abusive homes, are too often derided for being entitlement programs. Sure, the parents suck sometimes, but it is no more the kids' fault than the 9-year-old girl's fault for being raped. So why do we care more about the fetuses than we do about the people already living in the world, including (but not limited to) this girl and her personal tragedy? How can you rank one as more important than the other when your basic argument is that all are equally important in God's eyes? It's a circular argument, I realize, but that's why I also think the following.

D. The idea that abortion is a black/white issue, a right/wrong issue, a simple issue, etc. does not work, and this case is absolute proof that we will never resolve it by trying to oversimplify it the way the Vatican just tried to do. That might make me a wishy-washy liberal, but I guess I'm just fine with that. I'm siding with the little girl's family on this one. If I were them, I'd tell the Catholic church to stick their little pointy hats up their butts and find a new religion.

Commission=suckage

2009-03-02T19:05:00.000-06:00

So I went to the mall to kill a little time on Saturday (before the birthday fiesta). Macy's was having a 75% off sale on shoes, and who am I to resist a perusal? I actually need some brown dress shoes to wear with my dress pants, and they had a pair for $11. Sweet. The clerk who had brought out the mate to the one on the rack put them on the back shelf while I looked around some more. I ended up finding another pair of boots to try on, but by then the clerk was busy helping another customer. So when another clerk asked to find the mate, I said okay.

Shortly after I get the mate, the original clerk shows up asks if I need another mate from the back. I said no, that someone else had brought them up for me. She acted all confused, so I pointed to the other lady and said she had offered to get them for me. The first clerk was all upset, and told the other lady that she had been helping me.

And that's when I realized they work on commission. How the crap was I supposed to know that??

The rest of the time I was in there, the first clerk was polite to me, but only just barely. It was obvious she was mad that I may have cost her part of her commission. I apologized for having made things complicated (even though I didn't really feel like I should have to apologize at all!), and she was all coolly accepting of it.

So the thing is, I'm thoroughly annoyed at stores that put their clerks on commission. Partly because I have no way of knowing, as a customer, when that's the case; and partly because in busy times like Saturday, it would have meant I had to wait an extra five minutes just to get the attention of the one clerk to try on the 2nd pair of shoes. How inefficient is that? What does that say to the customer? Basically that your time is less important than making our clerks be pushy about sales.

Meh. Yet another thing to irk me. I needed that.

Two Schools of Thought

2009-02-27T13:57:00.000-06:00

What's a single girl to do? I want to date, I would like to get married someday, all that. But what happens when the only guys who express an interest are guys you aren't at all interested in?

My philosophy has always been to avoid going on dates with people you're not interested in. Why waste your time and his? I know you're not my type. I know you're uninteresting to me. So let's just not go out and save us both the headache.

But then I have people who tell me I'm just being too judgmental or picky. I should go out on dates when they're offered just to see what happens.

A few times I've taken this advice and it's been exactly as I thought it was going to be. Awkward, boring, sometimes even excruciating. So I am confused, perpetually. Should I say no right off and hope that someone of interest comes along? Or do I just take the chance that someone might turn out to be interesting under the surface?

Do I follow my gut (like Stephen Colbert tells me to) or do I ignore my trepidations and get the free (if uncomfortable) dinner?

And lastly, why doesn't someone interesting express an interest in me? Why??

Germs!

2009-02-15T14:04:00.000-06:00

I earlier confessed to being George from Seinfeld. Another confession of a similar nature is in order. I'm also a combination of Putty and Jerry in that I have an overactive fear of germs. It's not to the level of full-on germophobia (unlike Putty, I have not felt the need to go through a 12-step program for the problem), but it is significant enough that I sometimes have chapped hands from overwashing.

So, that's another of my many charms. Why am I still single??????? Ahem.

Anyway. So my primary issue with food is in the sharing with other people. Knowing that their utensil touched my food, or their fingers, gives me the willies. In the interest of being a member of society and a number of friendly social networks, however, I generally keep my angst to the inside and force myself to continue eating after the dreaded double dip. Because if people knew the full extent of my neurotica (awesome--a word I made up that sounds dirty but isn't), I would spend even more time holed up in my house.

If I may be indulged in yet another sidetrack (and it's my blog so sod off if you don't like it), my family has a current running joke (or a hypertext story, to use a term by my proffie Steve D.) about me in this category. The three of them wanted to go to Bonanza for dinner one night. Bonanza is a buffet-style restaurant, like Old Country Buffet or Golden Corral. I, in keeping with the full honesty that comes with family relationships, expressed a less than enthusiastic response. I wasn't excited about eating food touched by people whose cleanliness standards were highly suspect. My exact words were that I didn't want to eat with all the people "chawing." I don't know where that word came from, but the point is my family thought it was funny and now every time eating out is mentioned, the word "chaw" appears at least once.

Yes. So. End of sidetrack.

The point is (I think) that I am freaked out by germs, and most particularly the eating of it in social settings where I can't control the entire thing. Again, why am I still single?? I am usually able to overlook the fact that the kitchens at the restaurants I frequent are probably not as clean as I want because I can't see it back there. Ignorance is bliss. I eat out, I take that risk. Period.

Imagine my dismay, then, to read an article in the NY Times this week that discusses all the various disgusting things that can legally find its way into the food I buy. For consumption in my own home. Which I always thought I had some control over. Turns out I have no control over eating germs even with my OWN FOOD IN MY OWN HOME. Crap!

Apparently I eat rodent hairs, rodent poo, maggots, mold, and various other delights every time I open a jar or wrapper. That's just fantastic. Now I have to swear off eating even at home?? Madness.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/opinion/13levy.html

Read it. If. You. Dare.....

Why can't I marry Aragorn?

2009-02-07T18:50:00.000-06:00

So, I'm trying to write a paper today to submit to an academic conference. I can't write in silence, so I decided to put Lord of the Rings on for background noise. And now all I can think about is that I really need for Aragorn to be real, for him to dump stupid Arwyn, and for him to marry me instead.

And maybe take a bath.

But not shave. I like the scruffy look.

I have such simple expectations. I really don't see how this is too much to ask.

Grammar, Punctuation, Joy

2009-02-03T21:07:00.000-06:00

I like to write. More importantly, I like to write using proper English. I think grammar and punctuation rules are not just useful, they're also fun! As an undergrad, I took a class in copy editing, and it was one of my favorites. I consider grammar and punctuation to be the version of math that I'm actually good at: it's a puzzle, organized by basic principles that are easily learned and applied. If only math were as easy as my version of math.

Now, some will say that math doesn't have exceptions, but grammar does. Fair enough. But those are part of the fun, too. Or something. I don't know. I can't account for that. But I still think grammar is like math. So deal with it.

The point is, I found a blog through one of those Internet chains where you start somewhere you normally go on the Internet and suddenly you're somewhere completely off in the wilderness. This blog makes me happy, and I thought I'd share it. It's filled with pictures of signs and logos that misuse quotation marks.

http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/

Enjoy. And, please, whatever you do, don't go looking through past entries of this blog for grammatical mistakes. There are none. You'll just be wasting your time. No, really.

My Right Foot

2009-01-24T13:51:00.000-06:00

When I was a kid, sometimes my parents had my brother and me shovel the driveway. Not when there was a ton of snow, mind you, but when there wasn't enough to justify the snow blower. I don't remember doing it tons of times, but I remember hating it a lot. 'Work? Why should I have to work?' I thought. Surely, I didn't need to learn a work ethic or to contribute to my own upkeep. That's madness.

Any arguments I might have provided were shot down, however, and I was occasionally asked to chip in. One afternoon in December of 1985 was just such a time. My brother and I bundled up and headed out to our long--eternally long--driveway and got to it. It was arduous work, our backs ached, and we could think of nothing but going inside to warm up.

That is, until we noticed that the cement stairs leading up to our backyard was completely piled on with snow. We lived in a hilly town, and our back yard was probably about 8 feet above our driveway/house level. There was a staircase that went between the garage on the east and a retaining wall on the west. It was suggested (I don't know by which of us) that the pile of snow might make a nice sledding opportunity. Suddenly our painfully cold bodies were irrelevant, and only the thrill of the orange plastic sled was on our minds.

I remember going down the first time, but I'm not 100% sure about that. Either way, it was FUN. The staircase was long and steep enough to get some speed up before hitting the base of the stairs. There was a patch of grass between our patio area and the driveway, and that was the place that kind of slowed you down as you neared the driveway itself. It was seriously perfection. We went down again and again, eventually deciding it would be even faster and cooler with the two of us going down together. Oh, yeah. It was.

Eventually, Mom came out to see what was taking us so long to do the shoveling. When she saw what we were doing, she was naturally a little nervous and told us to be careful. Duh! Of course we would be careful. What was she so worried about? Honestly. What could possibly happen??

Nothing. Nothing happened, and we went inside when we had our fill. But by the next day, we were ready for more, only this time, we decided two people were not enough to get the speed we needed. A quick call to my bestie Mandy across the street solved that problem. Mandy was 1.5 years older than I was, but I was still larger (hmph). We decided to go heaviest person in the back (Dirk) and lightest in front (Mandy). That put me in the middle. Good times ahead. Nothing but good times.

We positioned ourselves at the top of the stairs, my legs sticking out around Mandy. And we were OFF. Down the hill we went, all joy and anticipation. Until about half-way down, when my foot hit the retaining wall and bent backwards. By the time we hit the bottom of the stairs, I was completely freaking out. My brother, who normally was a very supportive big brother, rolled his eyes and told me to stop crying when I told him I hurt my foot. (To be fair, I really was a total crybaby. I bawled when I stubbed a toe).

I went inside--crawling because I couldn't walk on the foot--and Mom wanted to know what I was bawling about. I told her and she was as skeptical as my brother. She put me in bed, elevated the foot, and told me to just wait for it to feel better. When she came in later to check on me, she couldn't help but notice my foot was swelling up. Eep. This was when she became concerned.

Then something happened that kind of amuses me. Dad came home and looked at it and said we'd have to go to the hospital to check it out...but not till after supper. WE ATE FIRST!! I've mentioned before that we're a food-centered family, but what the heck??? My ever swelling foot was second to food. Good thing I know they loved me, huh? Anyway, we went to the E.R. after dinner, and long story short I wore a cast for six weeks. Oh, and not surprisingly I milked that thing for all the sympathy I could get.

I'm a George

2009-01-13T15:22:00.000-06:00

I was watching Seinfeld the other night, a show that I never tire of. It's mindless, but at the same time, I find myself applying theories and concepts from my studies and I love that. I've actually used several episodes in class to illustrate various communication and relationship issues. My students like it, I like it. Win-win.

So I was watching an episode the other night where George decides to see a therapist for his woman problems. As he's sitting in the therapist's office, he tries to unzip his parka, but the zipper sticks. After a few seconds of trying, the therapist encourages him to let it go and focus on the issues with his on/off girlfriend. George lets go of the zipper for about three seconds, but it lures him back. He can't focus on the conversation because the zipper is broken, and it's driving him crazy. So he's pulling and tugging on the zipper, and the therapist keeps telling him not to focus on it. But the more she says it, the more he becomes obsessed with it. And the more obsessed, the more filled with rage that it won't unzip. Pretty soon, he's completely freaking out in anger over this stupid little zipper.

I was laughing while it happened, but then I realized I was laughing because I could relate to it. It was funny because it was........me. That is absolutely 100% how I would behave in that situation. I become so obsessively focused on the little things, on the things that I can't fix (and that don't ultimately matter all that much), that I lose track of thinking of the really important stuff. I become so angry when things don't go the way they are supposed to that I lose it.

Because I live alone, drive alone, etc., I usually get away with this childish behavior without anyone noticing. But sometimes I lose it in front of friends and family--something inconsequential gets under my skin and I freak out. At the time it seems perfectly well within the range of reasonable responses to the situation, but inevitably I look back later and realize (with shame) that I was a giant ass. People laugh at George Costanza (me, too) for doing exactly what I do. This is not the way I want to live my life, nor how I want people to see me.

Serenity now.

Five Weirdo Things I Believed as a Kid

2009-01-07T21:17:00.000-06:00

5) When I was probably five or so, we replaced the sidewalk in front of our house. I honestly thought God would be totally P.O.'d at us because he put that sidewalk there when he made the earth and here we were ripping it up. Though, come to think of it, maybe that's why he didn't give me my Cabbage Patch Kid right away. Aha!!!! It was my parents' fault. Typical.

4) Speaking of God, the sanctuary of our church had vaulted ceilings, but the fellowship area right behind it had regular ceilings. That meant the back of the sanctuary had a wall that went only partway down from the ceiling to about 10 feet (ish) above the floor. On this partial wall was a big vent, which I suppose was related to the heating/cooling elements. As a kid, though, I didn't think much about heating or cooling. I did, however (as validated by the above), think a lot about how God was watching me misbehave. It was my working assumption that the vent was where God hid to watch the church service--and me. I figured if it was the "house of god," then God must live there, where he could see all the action from above. It didn't always keep me on the straight and narrow in church, but it did sometimes.

3) Nearly every Saturday afternoon, my dad took my brother and me to the public library to pick out books. I loved going to the library, and in particular looked for books with that plastic wrapping. I loved the sound of the plastic wrapping, which I always described as "special." I have no idea why I used that word. I remember one time I told my mom I liked it because it sounded "special." She laughed, and I didn't see why.

2) I saw Superman (II or III??) with my family...it was the one where some of the people turned into robots or something--that's how I remember it, though I don't know if that's really what happened. This whole thing terrified me. There was one woman in particular who turned into a robot, and she had an Afro kind of haircut. Every night after that for years (seriously, for YEARS), I swore that woman lived under my bed, and countless times I saw the top of her afro creeping up over the edge of my bed to get me. I used to whine that my parents didn't let me see as many movies as I wanted, but maybe that was a good thing after all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My parents were right. Blahdy blah blah blah.

1) There was a young woman who went to our church; she was a newlywed I think. She was just another old adult as far as I knew, but I'm guessing she was probably mid-20s. This was the early 80s, around the same time as the show "Bossom Buddies" was on TV. I rarely watched that show but I was aware of it, and the premise--that two men dressed as women every day. Whenever I saw this woman, I really believed she was just like those characters on TV--she was a man who wore women's clothing. Whenever I think of this, I am both amused and a little dismayed. This poor woman probably had no idea that the little blond brat a few rows back lived under the assumption that she was a drag queen. What if some little kid thinks that about me?? I'm tall, broad shouldered...yipes!!

Best Christmas Gift Ever

2008-12-24T11:36:00.001-06:00

So, because I'm a materialistic heathen, I'm going to write about one of my favorite Christmas pressies instead of the joy and love of the season. Yeah!!! I'm like that.

When I was about 8 years old, Cabbage Patch Kids emerged on the scene. And oh holy crap did I need to have one. I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeded one. To add extra pain, my friend, Mandy, had one called Joelle Alicia or something like that. She had blond/brown hair and blue eyes and she wore a yellow dress with white shoes. Not that those details were at all important enough for me to remember 20+ years later.

Obviously, if Mandy had one, I needed one, too. The yearning was unbearable. Torturous. Excruciating. All I ever wanted in life was to become the mother of a baby born in a cabbage. And I was not shy about telling my parents this. I was only shy around other people--my parents and brother saw the true, far more obnoxious, me. So I asked and pleaded time and again for a baby birthed in leafy vegetables.

At one point, my mom suggested that I pray to God for one, because God has a way of answering prayers. Hm. Interesting strategy, I thought. So I tried it, to no avail. I prayed for days and days but no ugly-but-cute nylon doll showed up. Not ever. Things were getting desperate. So I thought about it and decided these times called for strategy as desperate as the need I felt. I decided to use the God Card. I mean, hey. Mom started it, so it was totally justified that I use it, too.

The plot unfurled. I approached my mom one night while she was preparing dinner. I specifically remember looking at the stove while I unleashed my strategy--the top of the stove came up to about my mouth--I was shorter then, you see. Here's what I said: "Mom, I have been praying and praying so hard for a Cabbage Patch Kid, but God STILL hasn't given me one. Why not?" So innocent. So sweet. So conniving.

Mom suggested that I just keep trying, that sometimes it takes awhile. Hmph. God was playing the 'be patient' card, eh? And Mom had a dodge for my strategy. No good.

But then. Not too long later, my grandparents were visiting and I was across the street playing with Mandy. Probably with her treasured Cabbage Patch Kid. Oh, the jealousy. My brother came to find me to tell me that my parents wanted to talk to me.

Yulp. That couldn't be good. They didn't interrupt my play for nothing, so as I walked home, I ran through a list of potential offenses that could be at root of my imminent punishment. I walked in the front door, and there was Mom and Dad with my grandparents. In the room was a big garbage bag. Mom told me that I was getting an early Christmas present (it was probably late summer/early fall), and that it was in the garbage bag.

You can guess what happened next. I got Danya Karlotta, who had red hair, green eyes, and wore a pink knit dress with white shoes. I nearly peed my pants from joy. And it turns out, it was my little plot that had made it all happen. Mom and Dad decided they didn't want me to drift into atheism just because God didn't get me my Cabbage Patch Kid, so they took immediate action and gave me the doll. Sweeeeeeeeeet. They chose not to tell me that till later, and similarly I did not confess my little strategy until after I was an adult. We all lived in blissful ignorance that we had outsmarted one another.

And I got a Cabbage Patch Kid (the first of three, actually). And that year, on Christmas Day, I got a whole bunch of homemade clothes for her. Life was good.

Another sappy cynic agrees with me.

2008-12-21T21:16:00.001-06:00

Found this NY Times article that delves into the complicated feelings about It's a Wonderful Life. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/movies/19wond.html?_r=1

Wonderful Life?

2008-12-17T19:08:00.000-06:00

So, I'm finally getting around to watching It's a Wonderful Life this year. I'm a strange combination of cynical and sappy, so this movie makes my brain hurt. I can't decide how to feel about it. Do I love that the end shows how important a person can be without fully realizing it--and that being important doesn't involve doing anything grandiose? Or do I hate that it ends with George still never getting to follow his dreams of traveling and architecture?

That's the thing for me. I think everyone should be able to follow their own dream, but that would all too often mean that no one is taking care of anyone. We'd all be so focused on ourselves that those in need would be crushed under our self-centered weight. So that means that someone has to be the one to do the propping up, the taking care of, the seeing to, the watching over. And while I suppose that might be someone's 'dream,' I think it's fair to say that's rare. So that means a lot of people are living George Bailey's life instead of Harry Bailey's. Only who knows how many are ever going to at least get the thanks that George got?

I don't know what any of that really means. I can't in good conscience ask the George Baileys to stop the propping up, but I can no more ask them to sacrifice any dream they sacrificed to make it happen. Where does that leave us?

I guess it leaves me lucky that I've been able to follow most all my own dreams--traveling abroad, becoming a professor, etc. I'm Harry Bailey.

Top Ten Memories of Grandpa Fisher (in no particular order).

2008-12-06T22:03:00.000-06:00

10) The fact that he called Happy Joe's pizza "Slappy Ho's." My brother and I aren't sure if he realized how sexual that sounded...or if he just got a kick out of it enough that he took the risk of us figuring it out. Probably the latter.

9) The Dukes of Hazard horn on his old, brown van. It played lots of songs, actually, be we liked that one best. This was before I fully understood the racist underpinning of the song's origins. But honestly, I don't care. It was awesome to pull into our driveway, have Grandpa honk the horn, and know that the Pylelo kids would hear it across the street.

8) When Grandpa and Grandma would come visit us in Sioux City, they would bring all their pop cans with them to redeem at the recycling center. Then Dirk and I would split the money he got back. Jackpot! Grandpa told us we could buy anything we wanted with it. I bought a Ken doll with mine one time.

7) They had this ugly old black dog puppet in their basement toy box. My cousin, Molly, and I would (oh so cleverly and sneakily) put the puppet on our arm and run up to "bite" his arm with the dog. He would carry on dramatically, as if in great pain from the bite. We thought it was so hilarious...looking back, it may be a miracle that we didn't turn out to be psychopaths. Whatev. It was good times, and he was sweet to indulge us. Every. Single. Time. We did it.

6) We used to stay at their house when we'd come to Hamilton county for a weekend. My brother and I used to HATE it when Grandpa would scrape his plate with his fork and knife. He would dig those utensils into the porcelain, making the most god-awful screeching noise, not far removed from nails on a chalkboard. Between that and ketchup on his fried eggs, meal times were an adventure for us. (Though Grandma gave us grape juice, which was a treat we did not get at home....that pretty much rocked.)

5) Keeping with the food theme, my parents rarely drink, but Dad and Grandpa would share a pitcher of beer when we went out for pizza together. Grandpa called it "barley pop," and claimed it was healthy for him. Who am I to question that logic?

4) When Molly and I were little, we went camping with Grandpa and Grandma in their RV. We stayed at a Cutty's resort and went miniature golfing. Then we went back to the RV and played cards till what seemed to be a very late hour. The next morning, Grandma made us blueberry pancakes for breakfast (there's the food theme again). Grandpa was great about having fun with a couple of silly little girls. One other time when our moms and Grandma were out shopping, Grandpa took Molly and me to Leon's pizza in Webster City. Just the three of us hanging out, having fun.

3) I spent the summer of 98 in France. When I returned to Iowa, I told Grandpa and Grandma all about it. Grandpa was excited to learn that I went to Aix en Provence, which is where he was stationed for awhile during WWII. He kept calling it Aix in Providence, and no matter how many times I corrected him, he kept saying it like that. I just gave up because ultimately it didn't matter. After that, we had several really great talks about his experiences in France during the war and he gave me some really nice photos and memorabilia from his Army days. I have always treasured those things, and will even more so now.

2) Grandpa often said the prayer during our family gatherings, and one thing he always said was, "Thank you for this food. Let it nourish us and give us strength for your intended juice." Or something like that. I never quite understood what that was meant to say. Juice seemed like a weird word choice. But it was familiar and comforting along with his voice, and I'll miss hearing it.

Spazz Alert: My pal, Sara, pointed out that I'm a bad listener. He was saying USE, not juice. I confirmed with my mom, who got a nice chuckle out of it. She said it's too bad Grandpa never knew that's how I heard it. He'd think it was pretty darned funny. So, Grandpa, if you have Internet access in heaven, go ahead and have your little laugh!

1) Grandpa started emailing about five or six years ago. He took to it surprisingly fast, and in fact was not fearful ENOUGH of the technology, leading to some issues over the years. Anyway, he sent any and all email forwards that crossed his inbox. Sometimes it would drive me crazy that he sent all those weird, wacky, nutty things. But now I won't see them anymore, and that makes me sad. I'll kind of miss rolling my eyes and saying, "Oh, geez, Grandpa."

I am so lucky and grateful that I had my grandpa in my life for 31 years. Not everyone is so lucky. So to my grandpa, I say goodbye, but I'll never forget these and a billion other little things that I got to share with you while you were in my life. I love you!

I feel like I'm growing. As a person, I mean.

2008-12-04T13:58:00.000-06:00

So, last night I was out with a group of people who put on a storytelling festival in my town, and at the end, a lady asked if I was interested in meeting men. Now normally, my paranoia and fear tells me to be all like, "Well, you know. I guess. I'm single, yeah." Because I don't want to come off as all desperate or needy or like I want other people to do my dirty work of hunting down potentially eligible guys. I'm afraid of looking weak or stupid if I say anything.

But last night, I said, "Heck yeah. I'm new to town and am looking around for someone." Woohoo. I braved it. I risked looking pathetic.

Even if nothing comes of it, I still took the risk of admitting that I'd like not to be alone forever and ever and ever. And ever. Forever. I admitted I'm normal.

Golly, just look at me all grown up.

Recurring memory

2008-11-29T12:55:00.000-06:00

As we've all been thinking about the struggles we face with my grandpa who is sick, I've been thinking about the memories of my other grandpa, who had Parkinson's disease since long before I was born. Throughout my childhood, I knew him as a sick man. His body shook, hence his voice shook. He had trouble walking. As grandchildren, we all loved him, but we were unsure how to interact with him because he was hard to understand. As a result, we all too often avoided conversations with him. I'm sure that hurt his feelings as it does mine today when I think back on it. I try to remember that I was just a dumb little kid, and he probably understood that. Still, though, he probably wanted to get to know us as any grandpa would, but we did not make that easy for him.

When I was about 12 or 13, we had to move Grandpa into a nursing home. We would go visit whenever we where nearby, but I still remained shy around him. Maybe even more so because of the nerves that accompany being in a nursing home for most of us, young and old. I have several memories of sitting in the nursing home, listening to Dad and Grandma talking with Grandpa, trying to figure out what Grandpa was saying. Dad and Grandma were much better at that than I was.

The last time I visited the nursing home, when I was 15, was no different from this pattern. We were sitting at a table in the lobby area, talking and probably eating. At one point, Dad, Mom, and Grandma wanted to run back to Grandpa's room for something, leaving me alone with Grandpa. I had no idea what I would say to him, so we kind of just looked at each other and smiled. That was something we both could understand. Then he said the last thing I can remember him saying to me before he went to the hospital where he passed away.

His false teeth didn't fit quite right, making him even harder to understand. But I clearly heard him say this to me: "You're a pretty girl. Such a pretty girl." Then he smiled again.

At the time, I just shrugged, said thanks, and smiled back. At 15, no one could really convince me that he was telling the truth, but it was nice of him to say. After he got sick a little while later, I remembered that moment and realized it might be the last thing he ever directly said to me. My last personal, one-on-one interaction with him was a lovely compliment from the man I had spent too much of my childhood ignoring. I probably didn't deserve it, but I am so grateful that's what I got.

So now as I visit my other grandpa in the hospital, I wonder: what will be the last interaction I have with him? What will those last words be? Will I remember them as vividly as I do with my other grandpa? Will I still cry 16 years later when I think of it?

My Christmas Card for 2008

2008-11-28T09:24:00.000-06:00

Click for a more readable version. Other funny cards at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/3531904/Christmas-and-holiday-cards-for-geeks-Top-11.html

Ending good, ending bad

2008-11-27T21:29:00.000-06:00

Things end. All of them. And sometimes that's just perfectly okay with me. Other times not.

For the good, my first semester as a prof is wrapping up. Overall, it's been a great semester. I've had almost exclusively good students, the pressure has been manageable, my colleagues friendly and helpful. But I'm still glad it's almost over. I am ready not to be new new new at everything everything everything. I'm ready to start fresh, having learned some lessons during my first run-through at the university where I teach. This ending is good.

Other endings? Not good. Not in the least little bit good. My grandpa is really sick, and I fear the end of his life is going to approach sooner rather than later. The poor man is in pain, and it probably won't get better. So it's not like I can ethically or humanely ask him to stick around forever. But dang it. I can't emotionally allow him to go. I can't emotionally accept that the inevitable is inevitable.

I've heard all of it: without pain we wouldn't know joy. Blah blah blah. That does not change the fact that pain and sorrow suck. Suckity suck suck suck. Suck.

Fave new Obama quote

2008-11-10T15:44:00.000-06:00

Two posts in one day: unprecedented. But I found this quote from Newsweek, and I laughed my ass off. It's another reason to like Obama, IMO. Here's the quote with a setup from Newsweek before it.

_______________________________
The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'.
_______________________________

Ah, honesty. If only he could have said it live. Maaaaaaaaybe without the f-bomb, though I personally find that to be the piece de resistance.

Link to full (and interesting) story: http://www.newsweek.com/id/167581

I will not tolerate change.

2008-11-10T15:06:00.000-06:00

Anyone who knows me knows I am not the world's biggest fan of change. And when you're not a big fan of change, little insignificant things can remind you in a big way that change is all we know. It's just that we quite often ignore changes in order to provide the necessary illusion of constancy.

I went to visit my cousin, Molly, this weekend (Hi, Molly.), and we had a nice time visiting, shopping, and eating (eating--now there's an actual constancy in my life. Seriously...I'm eating right now. It's not even anything good, but I'm still eating it.). On Saturday we shopped, mostly for household stuff--not anything fun or exciting. I didn't tell Molly at the time because I wanted to process it, but at one point, while we were looking at fruit, I had another gut-slam moment. We were buying stuff for our own houses. Little household necessities and food and stuff. We were buying our own stuff with our own money for our own houses. With each other--we used to play house and pretend to do all that stuff. Now we were really doing it--no more pretend.

Of course, I've become accustomed to buying my own stuff for my own house. I've been doing this for more than 10 years. But once in awhile, particularly when you're with someone you've known since before your brain could even process rational thought, you think about it in a different, long-term-implication kind of way, and that's what happened to me. And after that, all weekend long, I kept going back to it...I was visiting Molly at her house. I drove myself there in my own car. I was using Molly's shower, sleeping in her spare bed, eating her food, and using her dishes. Goofing around with her kids. It was not her mom's stuff. It was Molly's stuff. Her own stuff.

When the heck did we become the adults? And when did it become so normal that we were the adults??

And when will it stop? I want my illusion of constancy back, please.

Tomorrow

2008-11-03T19:48:00.000-06:00

A bunch of people are going to be happy, and a bunch will be unhappy. While I hope I'm in the happy camp, I do worry about what happens next. Will we be able to come to some understanding as a nation? I have expressed my fear of the angry and violent rhetoric that has been spewed in this election, and my greatest fear is that the anger and fear will continue to overpower at the expense of the greater good.

No matter who wins, we have to trust that we will be okay as a nation. Neither man is perfect, but neither man is the devil the opposing side has made him to be. I believe both have the best interests of the country at heart, even though I disagree with some of the views of what that means...frankly, on both sides. No candidate is ever going to match us 100%. Neither matches me 100% this time, for certain.

I just have this sinking feeling that we have built too many fortresses around ourselves. In an age where we can get the news filtered through any and all lenses to match our ideological perspective, we lose sight of the fact that there may be reason and legitimacy in other perspectives. When we don't seek out information that opposes our own view, we stunt ourselves intellectually. And I have seen an awful lot of people in this election season stick to their ideology, forsaking all others. The result is a poorer, less rational, angrier, and less capable society.

And that is what makes me terrified for the coming years. If we continue to allow ourselves to hole into our ruts at the expense of reasonable, logical discourse with others, we will fall as a nation. No president can do what we will do to ourselves if we don't try to understand one another. No president can destroy our nation--only we can do that to ourselves.

So, whether you're happy or sad tomorrow, my genuine hope is that you'll look on the positive side and try to intellectually engage your brain with different perspectives. Let's see each other as the human beings that we are, not the monsters we've created.

Jim Wallis's commentary

2008-10-31T15:10:00.001-05:00

Now I always say no more politics on my blog, but then I go and do it anyway. I'm hopeless.

My dad (who rocks, BTW) recently sent this via email, and I kinda liked it. So I thought I'd link to it, too. Why not? No matter what happens next week, I hope all sides can agree that we should not use fear or hate to persuade people. It's too easy, too shallow, and too far beneath our standards.

End of rant. Read the link. :)

http://www.sojo.net/blog/godspolitics/?p=3287

Warm fuzzy photo

2008-10-29T19:54:00.000-05:00

(Taken from a fun site: http://yeswecanholdbabies.wordpress.com/)

I don't think a photo should sway anyone's vote, but I dare you to tell me this photo isn't the freaking sweetest thing you'll see today. I actually cried a little...though actually that means pretty little, given that I cry all the time. Whatev.

Just look at it. I dare you not to be touched a little bit. I double dog dare you.

Point of comparison

2008-10-25T11:36:00.000-05:00

So, while I deal with my own little crazies I came to a realization, and it is this: my failures are my own, and I will not blame others--either particular others or generalized, societal others.

I truly believe that people are generally cruel and competitive--no other animal destroys its own like the human animal. If other animals could talk, they would tell us that they hate us, and they think we suck. Even the crazy mean animals would say that. We are (to quote Perry Cox on Scrubs) "bastard coated bastards with bastard fillings." So that's the sunshiny outlook that underpins my personality. Nice, huh?

So. These past few weeks, I have noticed plenty of people who play up on this idea. These people live up the idea that they are victims of this world--of oppression, suppression, etc etc. And, yeah. Society's like that. Our history is not about helping others up, but about finding others to tear down--in the name of god, country, or moral/intellectual superiority. Every time we stop oppressing one group, we find another group to oppress. Or at least we find new ways of oppressing the same groups. We're so effing clever that way.

But what I have come to realize is that people actually like to use this cruelty as an excuse for not succeeding or for being douchebags. They argue that their failures and attitude problems are out of their control--it's because people are cruel and oppressing. And I realized that that's not completely okay with me. I am sensitive to the fact that people are continually marginalized in our society, but what better way to shove their crap right back in their faces than by succeeding and being a rockstar of a person?

I realize that by doing this, I risk seeming insensitive to the oppression of others, but the reality is far from it. I'm entirely sensitive to that. I feel like shit about how my race has treated people of other races. I feel like whites have a lot more to account for before true equality can be reached. But at the same time, I don't think it's helpful for anyone to give those in power MORE power by accepting their oppression and making it so central a part of their identity. That's ultimately what moved me from strident feminist to normal feminist. I realized that the far-out feminists were only giving power back to the "white male" by telling them how powerful they were at our expense.

What better way of telling them to stick it than by saying, "Your power over me is not that important to me. I acknowledge it exists. I think you suck for using it. I think you've always sucked for using it. But I'm not going to let you tell me what to be. I'm not going to let your bullshit determine my successes. So screw you."

Playing the victim will not get us past anything. Acknowledging the unfairness and giving it the old finger might. So while I deal with my insecurities, I feel some comfort in the knowledge that I take personal responsibility for them. The cruel human race has played a role in shaping who I am, but I'm not about to let them tell me it's right that I dislike myself, or that they have the power to continue their oppression on me.

Little thing...

2008-10-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

So there was a dumb little moment in my day that made me think about how seldom I enjoy little things. I was heading to the bathroom at work--that's not the aforementioned little thing, though I do enjoy a nice tinkle--and there were two girls walking down the hall.

They were enjoying their conversation. As they got to the stairs, one girl asked where the other was going. The second girl said she was going home. So the first girl said, "Hey, do you want to walk together?" The second girl said, "YEAH!!!" in the most excited voice imaginable. That girl was living in the moment, man. She was All. About. Walking home with her bud. I loved that moment, for its meaningfulness in its relative meaninglessness. I need to be more excited about things. Even the little things like walking with a friend.

Did I learn a tiny moral lesson today? YEAH!!!

Figuring Me Out

2008-10-18T22:27:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to figure out the root of my insecurities. Easy task. Ought to just take an hour or two, right? Yes. Right.

The first thing I did was think about the moments when I felt least secure and most scared. The second moment that came to my brain was the day I was leaning against the brick wall of the old school near my 6th-grade building. It was recess, and I was watching the class nerd being teased by her classmates. They were pretending to be her friend, and she was taking the bait. Really, really taking the bait. She thought they were her buddies, though it was obvious to the rest of us that it was all a bust.

I was feeling bad for this girl for not getting the fact that she was the butt of the joke. Then I got one of those sucker-punch feelings. A series of memories from my previous elementary school in a different town rushed through my brain. I remembered the time Brenda pretended to be my friend for several days, then one day suddenly laughed at me for thinking we could play together at recess...laughed at me along with the "popular" girls who had not been her friends the day before. I thought of the very very cold morning during safety patrol when no one would relieve me so I could go in to warm up--they relieved the other person out there with me several times, but not me. When I went inside at the end of patrol, they all laughed at me. I remembered the time when I gave a small report in front of the class and they laughed at me for reasons I could not figure out.

As I watched my 6th-grade classmate being mocked without realizing it, I figured it all out. That girl was me. I had been that girl at my old elementary school--the butt of the joke. Not once, but repeatedly. And like the 6th-grade girl, I had not known. I had not suspected my role was the class dork to be laughed at. It made me sick to my stomach when I realized it. What a dupe I had been.

I was now a new girl in a new school, trying to find my place in a new place, all while adolescence loomed. And all I could ever think about was, "Am I going to be that girl again? How can I prevent myself from being that girl again?" My primary strategy became to doubt everyone. Every kind gesture was suspect. Every attempt to be friendly was seen as a ruse to mock me when I wasn't looking. I was friends with my (still very good) friends for about four years before I started to let myself believe that they might actually like me. That they weren't my friends out of pity or (worse) because they needed someone to laugh at and make fun of.

I grew out of adolescence, and some of that paranoia, too. But it lingers. Since that 6th-grade memory came to me earlier this week, I have been listening carefully to myself as I interact with people. And, boy does it linger. I doubt without even fully realizing it. I question every motive, and I doubt every act of kindness, every compliment, every laugh. Even among people I know care about me--my family. I wonder whether they think I'm a loser, too. That's probably not okay, huh?

Probably not.

I am not a conspiracy theorist!!

2008-10-12T16:17:00.000-05:00

But the problem is that I have to keep telling myself that lately, because it's harder and harder to believe it. I watch the news, read the news, and hear stories about things happening in our world that make me feel like one.

There are increasing signs of unfettered rage in the political world. Shouts at political rallies of "Kill him!" and "He's a terrorist!" and "He's an Arab!" are coming out of the mouths of citizens of America. We have always had our share of zealots and crazies, but this kind of mob mentality is something our history books (smugly and self-righteously) told us was the stuff of lesser nations.

I'm scared of mobs. I've seen and read about what they can do. The only thing that scares me more than mobs? The martial law that follows. The kind of law that beats people down, doesn't pick them up, and scares everyone else into toeing the line and participating in further crimes against humanity.

I read a book called "The End of America" that described the easy descent into fascism and police states. The author compares our current climate with the early days of the rise of Nazism. At first I thought the author was being overly dramatic, but the end of her book describes things Americans should be on the lookout for in the coming years. Guess what?

She's been right. The things she predicted would happen are happening. We are slipping into a quagmire, and my fear is that we will not pull ourselves up in time.

So when you hear the McCain campaign (particularly Sarah Palin) use folksy rhetoric to turn Barack Obama into an unhuman monster, think about that. Consider whether you want a potential president who can so glibly and whimsically tear another human being down, and in so doing incite people in a crowd to shout for blood and murder. Think about whether you want to be on the side of a campaign, and a candidate, who is willing to whip people into an emotional, and irrational, frenzy for her own political gain.

When Mussolini and Hitler did that, it was fascist. It's no different now...unless we reject it outright. McCain's attempts to calm the crowd (which was angrily booed down by the crowd) was half-hearted, given that he continues to air commercials that further the cause of violent hatred. His response does little to slow the kind of madness reverberating through his crowds.

Vote against fascism. Please, for the love of god, don't vote for fascism.

Midterm, mid-crazy

2008-10-07T18:38:00.000-05:00

I feel as though I'm kind of losing my grip. I was told that I would very likely hit a kind of depression once I finished grad school, and I think I've made impact. I took a little online test thing through my employer, and it said, "Woah, Nelly! You've got depression." Okay, it didn't say exactly that, but yeah. Basically it did.

So I was thinking about it all day. Am I depressed? Because I feel like it's really just a more acute version of what I always feel--moments of happiness surrounded by moments of hating it all and thinking I suck and wishing I could figure out what I REALLY want to do with my life. Will I always be alone? Will I ever be happy? Blah blah blah. But if I've always had these mood swings, is it any different now? Is it worth even trying to deal with it again? Or should I wait for the downward slump to end, and the upward slope to begin?

So am I just a "depressed" person? Could I ever really be happy when I'm always so centered on not being good enough, being a failure at stuff? Is that too hard-wired in to overcome? Do I just suck it up and live with being unhappy much of the time? Because what is the alternative? I have tried "positive thinking" and all that, and it will work for awhile, but then it wears off, and the more "natural" me returns--to thinking I'm a fraud, that I'm not good enough for what I have, etc. I don't want to take meds--so what the hell can I do?

I have no reason to doubt myself, or even to really be unhappy. I have led a relatively easy life, no gigantic drama, no calamitous failures, no....real problems. So it's not like I have any real reason or "right" to be this way. But what can I do to change it? How do I rewire myself after 31 years?

Oye.

2008-09-26T22:37:00.001-05:00

So. Now I know. For certain. I kept trying to tell myself that I was imagining the critter sounds in my attic. Two people looked up there, and I looked up there--no sign of anything.

And then tonight, I hear scratching again. This time, though, not in my attic. This time it was in the ceiling of my living room, which is vaulted (i.e., there is no attic space). At first I thought, SCORE! This proves that the sounds I hear are critters on my roof, not in my attic. Awesome! So I confidently took my big flashlight and went to my deck to gaze upon the bastards running around on my roof. But alas, there was nothing. So then I optimistically thought that it was just that I scared them off. So I went back inside to verify, only to hear more scratching sounds. I gave it one more go, looking on the roof...but there was nothing.

So, what that means is that I definitely have something living in my walls/ceiling. On the upside, now I know I'm not crazy. On the downside, I have something living in my walls/ceiling. I think the downside trumps the upside.

I have no idea what to do next. Two people have looked around and found nothing...no access point possibilities. There is also the fact that I share attic space with the neighbors, whom I don't know. Do I go ask them if they're hearing things? Will they think I'm crazy, filthy? If the pest control people come, and the access point is on their side, will they pay for it to be fixed? What the crap am I supposed to do???

I hate owning a home. I hate it.

My Favorite Debate Partner

2008-09-24T19:48:00.000-05:00

I try hard not to be materialistic. I really do. It's just that I kind of suck at it. I like stuff. And I like buying stuff. And I like having stuff. And I like having NICE stuff. And I like having LOTS of NICE stuff.

The problem is that my life has not been very conducive to having stuff thus far. I've pretty much always lived on a student budget, and I was pretty much used to it. This summer has been the tightest of my relatively short life--I went three months without a paycheck and had my first two mortgage payments to pay. As a result I have been living pretty sparsely. I've felt guilty for spending $40 on a headboard for my bed, felt guilty for buying name-brand food instead of generic--that kind of thing.

Now, though, my first paycheck is imminent. Soon I will have money. Like....real money. Sure a lot will be eaten by my mortgage, student loans, winter heating bills and so forth. But I'll have money. Like...real money. So. Does that make it bad that I am already spending it?? Is it bad that I can't wait till Oct. to buy stuff?

Yeah. But I'm doing it anyway, and finding lots of creative ways to justify it to myself. I'm smart...I like arguing, even with myself. The best part of arguing with me is that I always win.

It started on Monday when I convinced myself to buy a really cute little accent chair for my living room. I wanted two chairs in there, and I had bought one at Ikea this summer. So now I have two, and the new one was not much more money than the Ikea one (but cooler).

That is fine and good, but now I have decided that the Ikea chair looks really bad next to the new, pretty one. The new one is antique-looking, the Ikea one modern and sleek. So I am in the process of convincing me to buy another accent chair and moving the Ikea one downstairs. I have been thinking about getting a chair for down there in case I want to watch TV down there--or if a guest staying down there wants to watch TV. That has been my main selling point for me, namely that I'm doing it for the convenience and comfort of my guests! It's not about me at all. No! Of course not!

I'm also thinking of telling myself that I'm doing it to keep the economy going. If I can convince me to watch/read the news, I'm pretty sure I can win me over that way, too.

It's like a double-assault on my own reasoning.

Hearts and Giggles

2008-09-19T19:39:00.000-05:00

My mom and her younger sister, Sue, were here this week. We had fun seeing La Crosse, eating, and playing cards. They agreed to teach me how to play Hearts (the card came), and that hour or so of playing demonstrated something that I rarely think about.

My mom and Sue were little girls together. I mean, duh, right? Of course they were. But because I have known them as adults my entire life, it is so easy to forget that they lived together in a house with their parents--and they were little girls. And they played together. And they fought together. They weren't always Mom and my cousins' mom.

At one point during the game, Mom passed three terrible cards to Sue--as it happened, the same exact terrible cards that Sue had passed to her the previous round. Mom passed them over, face down, with a neutral face. No big whoop. As soon as Sue turned them over, she made a groan and started to laugh as she realized what Mom had done. And that is when my mom laughed harder than I have seen her laugh in I don't know how long. I mean, she Laughed. And she couldn't stop. It made me so happy to see it--I love to watch her laugh, partly because it's not easy to get a full belly laugh out of her.

And that was the moment I fully realized it. That laugh has a history. It is the laugh of a little girl who pulled a trick on her even littler sister. For more than 50 years, that laugh has been there. It went with them to the lake each summer and to their grandparents' farm.

Mom has known Sue longer than she has known me, my brother, and even my dad. They go back. In my vanity, and the vanity of the younger generation more broadly I guess, I rather casually blow off the first 20-odd years of my mom's life as being insignificant--a bit of trivia, a few stories, that kind of thing. But to her, those memories and relationships are as vivid and important as my memories growing up with my parents and brother.

It's particularly odd of me, given my research is so focused on the importance of family history. But it's easier to see the generational connection amongst other people's families, maybe. My mom, though---she's just my mom. The person who exists so that I could exist.

So I had a reminder this week that I need to change my perspective when I look at my mom and her sisters. I hope it's not something I'll forget in my self-interested focus.

One negative comment...

2008-09-11T20:40:00.001-05:00

can ruin a day. I don't know why four compliments can be so easily erased by one criticism. Maybe it was because of the way it was worded. This morning, a student with a very obvious chip on his shoulder asked for a clarification from me by telling me I explained an activity badly and he and his friends didn't know what was going on. I instantly assumed it was because I was crap and a horrible teacher and hopeless. It only occurred to me later that maybe this kid is just a shit with an attitude problem who sits in the back of the room and barely pays attention on a good day. And that maybe I had a right to check him on his disrespectful attitude, even if he had been right about my bad explanation. Another kid had asked for a clarification, so I probably should have explained better--I know I'm not perfect and that sometimes I ramble. However, the first student who asked merely said, "Can you explain it again so I'm sure I understand what you want?" That's the polite way to ask for help. His comment made me realize I should have explained better, but it did not disrespect me as a person. Not to mention that most of the groups seemed to have no problem completing the assignment as asked (in both sections of the course).

I could go on a rant about the entitlement that so many kids exhibit today, but the reality is that most of the students I've talked to here have been far from that. They are really great young adults, actually. Maybe that's another reason this kid today made such a negative impression. It doesn't match what I expect from them.

So, despite the inroads I've made in self-confidence the past year, I still find myself vulnerable to those moments of self-despair. I wish I could change that faster.

Goodwill...my anti-drug

2008-09-09T21:04:00.000-05:00

There is nothing quite like getting a bargain. I decided to go to Goodwill tonight to see if I could get some plates to take to work (so I don't destroy trees by using paper plates--golly, I'm a good person, aren't I?). So I found some with yellow tags, which meant 50% off. $1.50 for two plates. Booyah.

And being me, and being Goodwill, I decided to meander over to the clothes section. Sometimes Goodwill is filled with nothing but crap. Other times, though...other times it's stocked full of the most perfect crap in the perfect (chubby ass) size. Despite the fact that I have no real money right now, I decided I'd take a gamble on today being a chubby ass gold mine kind of day. Lo and behold--chubby ass clothes aplenty, and all with yellow tags!!

So I got a skirt, a sweater, and a jacket, plus my plates for $11. This was just after my last mall-clearance-rack stockpile two weeks ago when I got two pairs of pants and two skirts for $14. I'm a freaking sale genius!!

So, I guess you can say I'm pretty smug. Only I'm the kind of smug that we Huismans are proud of: smug about our ability to stretch a dollar. Oh, yeah.

I'm not a junkie, because Goodwill is my anti-drug.

P.S. Just to further clarify the depths of my cheapness...they had a really cute sweater there that looked really good on me. But I didn't buy it because it didn't have a yellow tag and was a whole (gasp) $5! The outrageous prices people ask for things these days!

Follow up, and why I love Jon Stewart

2008-09-04T11:10:00.000-05:00

If only the media would actually call these people on their B.S. Instead, they leave that kind of investigative and insightful work to comedians. Shortly after writing my blog entry last night, I watched this on the Daily Show:

They call liberals hypocrites (and they are), but it really does take one to know one, I guess.

I promised myself I would not make this into a political blog, and here I've posted three already. I wouldn't do it if there weren't so much infuriating crap to think about lately. We're all screwed.

Smoke Screens

2008-09-03T21:01:00.000-05:00

The media are incompetent, ridiculous, scandal-obsessed jackasses. However, they are not being overly sexist to Palin. Honest to holy crap, if I hear too much more about sexism against Palin, I'm going to implode. I have been inhaling media coverage of this whole thing, and all I have heard is questions pertaining to her qualification as VP. That is not sexism--that is asking questions pertaining to her qualification as VP. The fact that she is a woman does not mean she cannot be evaluated thoroughly, especially given that so very little is known about her. And this comes from a pretty strident feminist who sees sexism in lots of places most people don't...

A few ridiculous liberal bloggers are making minced meat of Palin's daughter's situation. That's annoying and inappropriate. While I do find it a little bit ironic that the anti-birth-control, abstinence-only advocate (Palin) is dealing with a pregnant teenager, I don't find that to be particularly relevant to her potential VP-ship. I do find it to be entirely relevant to the larger issue of the failure of social conservatism to live in what I like to call "reality." I wish the daughter all the best, but I also wish it would teach her mother that comprehensive sex-ed and access to birth control may have prevented her daughter from having to grow up sooner than they imagined (as she said). Telling hormone-addled teenagers to ignore their addling hormones is a bit unrealistic, and has been since long before several sets of my great-grandparents "had" to get married in the early 1900s.

Lastly, what of social conservatives' view that women should stay home to take care of their children? I hear regularly that putting children in childcare so Mom can work is a bad idea, and women who do it are selfish. And now Palin's career is about to completely overtake her life, leaving her family to fend for itself...and suddenly this is a good thing? I am all for women working or staying home according to their choice, but...really? No one in the social conservative movement seems to remember all that baloney now that they have a fellow social conservative in the running for VP? I guess it's kinda like the famous conservative Phyllis Schlafly and her ilk leaving their families behind to advocate women not leaving their families to go to work. What's good for the gander is only good for some of the geese, I guess.

Movin' on up.

2008-08-29T13:39:00.000-05:00

School starts on Tuesday, and I finally got around to walking over to the building where I'll be teaching my early morning classes on Tuesday/Thursdays. To get there, you have to walk past one of the dorm buildings, and today is move-in day. Students and parents were unloading trucks and trailers full of bean bag chairs, futons, plastic drawer storage containers, bags of clothes, etc. Everyone seemed to be a very familiar blend of excitement and frustration, combined with overheating.

I never lived in the dorms, but watching all the commotion reminded me of moving into my first apartment in Ames 11 years ago (oof) so I could finish my Bachelor's degree at Iowa State. I remember being so excited to have my own place. I bought kitchen and bath stuff, some fun decorations, and spent all summer imagining where I would put it all. Then the day came to move. It was fairly easy work considering the apartment was just one room, but enough work and heat to wear us out. That evening, we drove an hour north to visit my grandparents.

It was on the way back to Ames that it hit me. I was not going back to Creston with my parents, and I was not going to be sleeping in my room or my bed. I was going to a new place, and Mom and Dad were going to leave me there. I fought as hard as I could, but the tears were stronger. I just remember blurting out, "I don't want to go there. I want to go home with you!" Of course, that made them cry, too.

But they did leave me there, and I cried myself to sleep for the following several nights. A few days later, I wanted to bake some chicken but didn't know how long to leave it in the oven. I decided to call Mom to ask. I started out fine, asked my question and got an answer. Then she asked how I was doing, and the tears came again. I still just wanted to go home where everything was familiar and I wasn't alone. It happened the first few times I went back to Creston, too.

It took me a long time to feel comfortable being on my own. I have always suffered from homesickness, and this was the biggest trial of that feeling ever. But eventually, I became used to it, and now I don't bawl every time I leave my parents' house. Though I do admit to some tears after they left me in Onalaska in June...I'm a cryer. That's what I do.

Anyway, the point is this: I saw all of those students moving into the dorms today, and I realized that some of them would probably cry themselves to sleep tonight because they are homesick. They look brave and confident now, but after Mom and/or Dad leave(s) the reality will sink in. They're grown-ups now--they don't live "at home" anymore. They'll get used to it the same way I did, but I am sitting here in my office crying because I feel so bad for those out there today who feel what I felt 11 years ago. It's no fun growing older, but it's inevitable. We all get used to it eventually.

OCD M&Ms

2008-08-27T21:47:00.000-05:00

At a faculty retreat today, we had to write down a secret no one in the room knew about us, then everyone else had to guess who "owned" the secret as each was read. I figured no one would guess this: I have to eat my M&Ms in a particular color order. No one guessed, but then they've not known me very long either, what with my being a newbie and all.

When I 'fessed up, people were surprised, and asked if I was really organized and stuff. Nope. The opposite. I'm a mess most of the time (physically and mentally). But for as long as I can remember, I have eaten my M&Ms in color order, even though they all taste exactly the same. That's reasonable behavior.

If it's a big bag, I just sort them for each serving portion. I dump some out, sort them out, and eat them. Simple. Easy. Not at all weird.

It goes like this: Green first, then yellow, orange, red, blue, and brown. That's my order of color preference (least to most), except brown, which only goes last by reason of brown being the color of the chocolate inside. It deserves an honored place for that reason. That's entirely logical.

There are three times when I don't follow the rules: 1) when they are holiday colors, but that generally just jacks up my psyche so I don't like those as much; 2) when I'm eating them while driving (because I don't want to crash), but that is why I rarely buy them when I'm on the road; and 3) when I'm really afraid people will think I'm a giant ass for eating them in order. This last one has a high-threshold, though. Mostly, I don't care what people think--I ate them in color order during class all the time, blissfully careless that my classmates mocked me. In that situation, we were all grad students and therefore all freaks of nature. There was little risk in outing myself as a weirdo in a room full of weirdos.

The same goes for my work colleagues now. Professors are notoriously quirky and weird, so I don't care that they know. They all laughed at me, but it was the laughter of people who kind of understood in some way. In fact, a couple of people approached me after and said they understood. So there. Perfectly. Rational. Behavior.

Egads. I have unwanted roommates.

2008-08-26T11:04:00.000-05:00

There is a critter--or there are multiple critters--in my attic.

There is a critter--or there are multiple critters--in my attic.

Gah!!

I heard the tell-tale rustling this morning while eating breakfast. I thought I heard something a few days ago, but chalked it up to my paranoia. I know myself--I always imagine the worst of things. This time, however, I was right. The old joke is true: Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you."

There is a critter--or there are multiple critters that are--AFTER ME!!

So I'm sitting in my bedroom all morning, listening for more scratching sounds so I can help the exterminator locate the critter or critters. Every creak has become the definite proof that a (wo)man-eating wild boar is living upstairs, biding his time till he can come down and devour me from toe to head. Slowly, so as to inflict the greatest amount of pain on its poor little prey--me!

There is a critter--or there are multiple critters--who want to destroy me.

Information Overload

2008-08-25T19:04:00.001-05:00

After 11 years of college (shut up--I know that's way too many. I don't need to be reminded), you'd think it would be difficult to overload my brain. I'm used to taking in all kinds of information in a hurry.

But today at faculty orientation, I learned about all my work-related benefits, all the things I gotta do to get tenure, and who does what for whom at the university. And my brain wants to explode. POP!!!!

Then there was a reception afterward, which was very nice, lots of nice people and good food. And every person I met was just a classic academic type. Nice, friendly, accessible, but with just that certain nerdy something about them. I love that quality--I HAVE that quality.

It got me thinking, though, about how I see myself and who I am. It occurred to me that this was a place where I could talk about being a professor without feeling weird about it. Most of the time when people ask me what I do, I say "I'm a student" or now "I'm a teacher." I never ever say, "I am a graduate student" or "I'm a professor." You know why?? Because I don't want people to think I think I'm better than them, or that I think too much of myself. Because I don't think that, and I certainly don't think too much of myself most days (on the contrary...).

But at orientation and this reception, we were ALL professors who spent way too many years in college! So I didn't feel like I would be braggy to say I finished my Ph.D. or that I am a professor.

Everyone I talk to back home is so excited for me, and my family is proud of me and my accomplishments. That makes me feel really great. No one has ever made me feel like I should feel guilty or bad about who I am. I guess it's just that Midwestern egalitarian spirit or something that makes me afraid to be proud of myself. Weird. But, then, at the same time, I'm glad. I don't ever ever ever want to be the kind of person who "thinks herself so much" (to use my grandma's phrase). If only I could balance being proud and confident with being modest and humble. For now, though, I'd rather err on the side of modest. I hate arrogant jerks!

(You'd think a professor would be able to write a more coherent blog entry than this. But you'd be wrong.)

Birth control is not abortion

2008-08-14T11:49:00.000-05:00

I try to be a sensible person, and I try hard to be understanding of differing views, politically and socially. I have lots of family and friends who differ from me on all kinds of views, but I respect them and their views. I keep my opinions to myself most of the time.

But not today.

There's a movement afoot to call birth control a form of abortion (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5935532.html). Okay, I disagree, but fine. I'm willing to accept people's belief that that is the case, and I accept their decision not to use birth control. Where I draw the line is when these people try to push legislation through that says my friends and I are not allowed to use birth control because it's a form of abortion. And they are attempting to make it so that employers and pharmacists can flat-out refuse to even mention the idea of birth control. You'll notice that these are often the same people who will not accept welfare for mothers. They seem more interested protecting unborn babies than taking care of those who are out of the uterus....interesting.

I'm willing to live and let live. I try to keep my mouth shut about stuff. But any single person who tries to justify this asshattery to me will not experience a rational Dena trying to understand. I will be a bitch about it. I am DONE with these right-wingers and their right-wing ridiculousness. I cannot and will not respect people who try to tell me to they have the right to prevent me from using birth control.

If I have become an obnoxious pushy liberal, then it's because I was pushed INTO it by people who have been obnoxious pushy conservatives without enough pushback. The pushback begins now from me. I will no longer keep my mouth shut and let these people dictate my life.

So there, screw it all. I'm a mouthy, obnoxious liberal from here on out.

P.S. This may have something to do with the fact that I'm reading Sinclair Lewis's "It Can't Happen Here," which is about the rise of a totalitarian government. I might be a little on edge about that. It's possible.

1984

2008-08-09T21:08:00.000-05:00

Far from Orwellian, 1984 was the first year that I really remember in full and vivid detail. Memories before that are plentiful but more general and vague. When I changed my iPod collection the other night (because I have a smaller one, I can't fit all my music on it, so I change it up now and then), I decided to add some songs from the Footloose sountrack (you must remember that my license plate sums me up: NRD). I added the song "Almost Paradise," the cheesy ballad one. That song brings back a very specific memory for me, and one that made me bawl for sentimental reasons.

In 1984, the Chicago Cubs nearly made it to the World Series. This, for my sports-obsessed brother (as he remains to this day), was B.I.G. The equivalent, for me, of meeting one of my celebrity crushes and marrying them (or at least having a torrid affair)--equally improbable and equally delicious to imagine. Haha. Anyway. So, my brother. He was freaktastically excited all summer. Then, of course, at the end of the NL playoffs, the Cubs tanked very much like they did in 2003, but without the help of that one fan dude who pushed the ball back into play in game 4.

The 1984 Cubs were my brother's Great Hope, and then his Great Disappointment. One evening, shortly after the defeat, we were going to the mall as a family. We heard the song "Almost Paradise" on the radio as we pulled into the parking lot, and my brother, quite dejectedly, said, "This could be the new theme song for the Cubs." Almost to the world series--almost paradise. Almost.

So, now in 2008, I have that song on my iPod. And when I heard it again for the first time in awhile, I thought back to that little (and relatively insignificant) memory. And, being me, I started to cry. Not because of the Cubs losing, but because I felt one of those occasional and acute pangs of reality that time moves on and we grow old and everything changes. My brother and I aren't kids anymore--we're in our 30s. My parents. Well, they aren't in their 30s anymore. We don't live in the same house. We talk frequently, telling jokes and offering and hearing advice. We still love one another and are lucky enough to have each other in our lives. But we aren't That Family now--the family that lives together, watches TV together, and vacations together (to destinations with baseball teams to appease my brother!!). I don't fight with my brother over the front seat (he always gets it!), and I don't get to cuddle with mom at church or eat those pink mint candies from her purse.

One stupid, cheesy pop ballad from a cheesy 80s movie and suddenly I'm an emotional spazz. A therapist once told me I tend to blow things all out of proportion. Maybe, JUST MAYBE, he was right. But still.

###_NRD

2008-08-05T14:16:00.001-05:00

I went to the DMV yesterday, which was one of the more hellish experiences of my recent past. The final result (after much biting of the tongue and barely repressed rage) is that I now have Wisconsin license plates. It's a weird feeling to see another state's name on the back of my car--almost like it's not even my car anymore. I always wanted to leave Iowa, and now that I have I feel a little like I lost something. Sentimental? About Iowa??? Eesh.

Anyway, what made me feel all better about it is that my plate ID is three numbers followed by the letters NRD. Nerd. It's as if the state somehow knows me already. That must be a good sign.

For no particular reason at all.....

2008-08-04T23:34:00.001-05:00

I decided to start writing a blog. I don't expect a lot of readers, even though I am, of course, absolutely right about everything. The world is not ready for such easy perfection. This is my curse.

But mainly, I just like to write. I've always been too scared to show most people my writing outside of the occasional flip email. That changes now. I plan to use the blog to force myself to be more courageous about putting my writing out there. As such, I will probably do a little creative stuff along with a lot of ranting about things that make me mad. I like ranting as much as I do writing. And believe me, a lot of things make me really mad!

The name of the blog comes from an Ani DiFranco song that I liked a lot when I was in my mid-20s (many short eons ago). It's about growing up and trusting yourself to do what you want to do, not what you're told to do. I always tended to be a go along person, not wanting to disappoint anyone, always taking the safe path. I'm not saying I'm a revolutionary now (far from it), but I guess I've learned to go ahead and do whatever I want even when it makes my family and friends lovingly gawk and balk (e.g., traveling alone to Europe and going to college for 11 years and writing a book-length dissertation). Luckily, they still support me even when they think I'm weird.

So, yeah. I'm writing a blog. For no one but me, really. Deal with it.