Trying to avoid the navel gazing

Best part about the packing process?

Watching Crispin hide and take naps in the various boxes and laundry baskets scattered throughout the house.

In other news, I'm feeling really low energy, isolated and sad these days. My inspiration and enthusiasm for Fiber Arts seems to have dropped off the face of the earth as the temperature crept towards 80. I need to turn my attention to the soul-harrowing process of applying for jobs, and deciding what I'm going to do with my life come September when the rest of the world as I know it goes Back To School.

Also, I taught myself how to use a manual roto-tiller. As in: the kind where the only power comes from my body, no fossil fuels involved. It was crazy hard work, but I was proud of the beautiful loose soil I created out of clay-y lumps.

I'm showing my summer-program students Casablanca. As we watch, I'm impressed with the wit, the subtlety of the script, the beauty of the images, but I'm hit over the head and in the gut again and again by the chauvinism. As if it were a 20 pound brick. I really kind of want to show them Campion's The Piano as an antidote, but don't think I can get away with showing a rated-r film to high-schoolers.

July Pie in the Sky

It's July, and it is far too hot and muggy to even think about baking a pie in my kitchen. I've discovered, however, that by putting my pizza stone on the grill, I can make an outside oven and make baked goods without turning my apartment into a sauna. Bread, pizza and cobbler have all worked out well so far.

I have a job. It eats up a lot of my time and basically all of my energy, but mostly I like it. Which is to say, I like my students, but find the program I'm working for to be seriously lacking in organizational goals, integrity, and basic, um... organization.

That is all for now. I'm still alive. I still haven't actually packed any boxes. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

Blathering

It's the first day in I-don't-know-how-many that I have the WHOLE day to myself. The sheer decadence of it is so, so very tasty after this hectic week. Just knowing that this is MY day, a day for ME is so mentally liberating and rejunvenating, that it almost doesn't matter that I'm feeling so physically gross that I probably won't get to do half of the things I wanted to to (woodworking project, bike ride, thoroughly clean kitchen...).

We put our TV in the basement, did you know that? We were spending too much time watching law & order re-runs, and then the stereo broke. We're not ready yet to invest in a good sound system, and it seemed silly to spend money on another cheap-o stereo only to have it break in a few years when our computer has a really nice set of speakers. So we set the desktop up in the living room as a combined stereo/dvd watching device, and since hulu doesn't carry law and order, we watch a LOT less TV now. J has been playing the guitar more, and I've been reading more, being more innovtive with my knitting obsession, and my brain has just been feeling like more of a creative place in general. So, yeay.

We're not getting a CSA share this year. My employment situation is what one could call "piecemeal" and "not stable," so I was just not comfortable putting down a huge chunk of change up front, especially as we did not find another couple to split a full share with, and the price of a half-share is considerably more than the price of half of a full share.

I'm a little sad about not getting the CSA. I am excited about sharing a garden plot with another couple this summer, though. I have really been wanting to learn how to grow my own vegetables, and my friend S said she'd teach me how.

It's been about 6 weeks, so time for a new post, no?

Today while walking down Bascom Hill, I overheard one dude say to another dude: "...and then someone drank my pee as a chaser, and that just made my weekend awesome."

Well.
Hearing that story did not make my Monday awesome.

But that is kind of ok, because I am so distracted by all the crazy ideas and schemes in my brain that I keep forgetting that it is Monday, and ask people if it is a Friday. I suppose, in a way, the end of the semester is like The World's Biggest Friday, with a 3-month-long weekend coming at the tail end of it.

I've been busy knitting. And playing with yarn that I re-claim from sweaters purchased at the Goodwill. And by "playing" I mean "I am completely obsessed" and by "yarn" I mean "fiber arts in general."

This is how crazy it has gotten: there are specialized wooden tools that help you do things in fiber arts: a niddy-noddy winds yarn into a skein for dying and soaking; a swift helps you wind a tidy ball from a skein; a lazy kate holds multiple balls of fiber that you intend to ply together to create a thicker yarn. Not only have a researched these tools and their uses (and crazy cool names!) I have found instructions for making them on the Internet, and I am going to build them for myself. I already have the niddy-noddy built, and I am currently tweaking the design slightly. Oh yes, I am a nerd. A fiber-arts nerd of the first degree. I won't tell you how many Goodwill sweaters made out of luxury fibers are sitting at home waiting for me to deconstruct. If I did, you might laugh too hard and die of an aneurism or something tragic like that.

Don't die. If you do, who will wear all the crazy stuff I knit with all the yarn I re-claim from those sweaters?

accomplishments and creativity

ok, now that I've performed some Internet Magic and gotten my standard blog-writing window back, I have some Very Important News to share with all of you.

...wait for it...

(1) I taught myself how to splice a rope (line in the parlance of People Who Like Boats) this weekend.

(2) Also, I aced the Online Census Taker Qualification Practice Test.

Since I do not live in an 18th century fishing village and my parents no longer own a sailboat, I don't think item 1 will significantly affect my life in any way. However, in view of my current badnewsbears employment situation for next term, item 2 could prove to be a potent catalyst of change. And by change, I mean both the kind you put in your pocket and the kind that makes a difference.... awww....

But basically, adding 1 + 2 in this case makes me reconsider my self-conception. Both accomplishments involved skills, logical thinking, and puzzle solving. Both were somehow immensely satisfying. But even though item 1 resulted in the creation of something that did not exist before, it is not really a creative act, the splicing of lines. Neither is needlepoint- something I've been spending a lot of time on lately and finding (oddly) satisfying. My hands like to be busy. I like to make new things out of other things. The sense of satisfaction is higher when the original things are things that might otherwise be thrown away, like concocting a yummy dinner out of odds and ends, or re-purposing the material in old clothes to make new clothes, but even the basically skill-less process of needle-pointing a (kind of stupid and pointless) needlepoint thingy which will eventually be turned into a throw pillow (which is kind of a stupid and pointless item of home furnishing in and of itself) has been pleasurable, soothing and rewarding of late.

While I'm proud of myself for taking the initiative and attempting the Census Exam, the skills that the exam is designed to test are very basic. So it really is ridiculous to have this sense of accomplishment for totally owning that sucka'. But I do. I feel proud of myself. My brain liked the exercize of being faced with those 28 tiny challenges and solving those problems. None of which required ANY creative or truly critical thinking at all.

Basically, I guess I'm saying that I used to always think of myself as a creative person, but it turns out that I just really like busy work.

confessions

i kiss my cat on his mouth.
i actually like it when my friends' dogs lick my face, even though sometimes i pretend not to.
i hate flossing my teeth.
i hang the clothes in my closet sorted first by type of clothing and then by color within each type.
i think Goethe is over-rated, and I'm not actually that fond of Dickens, either.
i don't like apple pie.
i think that pulp mills and feed lots smell WAY worse than skunk spray.
i think that cow poo smells nicer than some types of men's cologne.
i only own one Radiohead album, but i own several Disney soundtracks.
my favorite JD Salinger character isn't Franny Glass.

Identifying The Roadblocks and Progressing

I'm in this class. It's an interesting class, but I kind of don't care. I haven't actually learned that much new stuff in this class. And the new stuff that I've learned is peripheral to what the actual focus of the class is supposed to be. So I've procrastinated a lot this term, and done Stuff That Is Important to me. Really Important Stuff. Like knitting and watching all of the back episodes of Grey's Anatomy and snuggling the kitties.

And I've just NOW realized that I do not have to feel guilty about this. This is something that normal people do all the time- they make choices about what is important, about how they are going to spend their time, and sometimes, school isn't their number one priority, and even if they are capable of getting an A in a class, they just plain don't want to jump through all of the A hoops and do all of the A work, and they would be happy with an AB or even a B. And they know that when they choose to do this, the world will not end.

Draw from this little anecdote what lesson ye will. I'm going to go make out with my own mediocrity, and maybe paint my nails or something.

Overloading on Bliss

There are so many things I've been meaning to blog about lately... wardrobe refurbishing, my odd (to me) love of cosmetics, my new kick-ass blue boots, my wood-working project, etc. Not to mention that I never really gave a full detailed report on the skydiving, which I did, like, 2 months ago, or the Bike The Barns (1 month ago) or my first journey into The Rust Belt of America (2 weeks ago) or my first experience at a country club, and how I actually danced so much at that one party that I have bruises on my feet (last week).

Hold on to all of those thoughts, because right now, in this very moment, I need to focus on the bliss overload that is live music.

Last night I went to a show. Vienna Teng opened for Over The Rhine. I am still riding the high of the electricity they created together.

I grew up on folk music and campfire sing-alongs, with some oldies and classical thrown in for good measure. I went to my first "real" rock'n'roll concert at the tender young age of 13. It was a Christian rock concert, sponsored by my youth group, and I had a terrible time. It was too loud, the venue was huge, the sound so bouncy that it got messy, and my seat was up in the balcony, so not only could I not see the band, but the lyrics and melody were indiscernable from my vantage point. I suppose it didn't help any that I had never heard any music by that particular group before- I just wanted to go because opportunities to go to concerts were very far and few between in my small town. I think it says a lot about my experience that I cannot remember the name of the band even enough to righteously complain about how horrible they were.

Flash forward to high school. I was occasionally in the know about shows that local bands were putting one. When the stars were correctly aligned, and the show was part of an alcohol-and-substance-free festival, I was allowed to attend. I know that one is supposed to be greatful to one's parents for being strict, because it supposedly creates an environment where one can achieve great things. I knew I was not cool enough to be A Music Fan or A Show-goer. I had all the wrong clothes, flat, stringy, mousy hair that fell to my ass, and not enough black eyeliner. In retrospect, all the black eyeliner in the world would not have made me cool enough to fit in in the post-Cobain, wrong-side-of-the-state, small-town garage band scene. Sure, I had fun jumping around, sweating, screaming, and tripping over my too-baggy jeans and untied hiking boot laces in pathetic attempts to "mosh," but that music wasn't made for a girl who secretly daydreamed about playing acoustic guitar and tramping through wheatfields and along abandoned railroad tracks in a sepia-tinted world of wistful nostalgia and flowy, lacy, broomstick skirts and suede and velvet blazers. My head was full of naive romance and dark smoky candle-lit coffee houses. The music of that time and place was angry, pent-up young energy exploding into the lack of community and echoing off of the sagebrush, getting no answer from the bleak november skies as it repeatedly expressed confusion, disillusionment, desperation and disgust. I don't know if that music was making any actual demands or not; I don't remember any of the lyrics or any of the melodies. I just remember that we were all stuck in this place and we all wanted out, because if we didn't get out, the most exciting thing in our lives was going to be sneaking into the smoking section at Dennys, eating greasy fries after midnight.

In college I flirted with the idea of World Music, danced barefoot at marimba band performances in the park, took a West African dance class, stopped spending money on broadway soundtracks, and discovered The Indigo Girls, Billy Joel, and made a half-hearted attempt to collect downloaded mp3s. I also still adored Judy Collins and remeber informing my roommate rather bitchily one morning that it was too early for Modest Mouse or Blondie. Which is to say that I liked what I liked, was very, very Not Cool When It Came To Having Musical Taste. To be fair, I was at least cooler than my then-boyfriend, who loved The Braveheart Soundtrack and Loreena McKennit. I at least listened to music with words! And owned cds by The Cranberries! And Tori Amos!

I still had flat, stringy long hair down to my ass, all the wrong clothes, and daydreamed of acoustic guitar concerts played in intimate coffe-shop settings. Obviously, I attended very few live music events, and only moderately enjoyed the ones I did attend.

In grad school, I cut my hair and discovered iTunes. I had friends who played music I enjoyed while riding in the car with them make me mixes. I made a concerted effort to expand my listening range. I eventually forbade myself from buying any more Putomayo World Music albums. Now that I actually hung out in those coffeeshops I only used to daydream about, I got over my fear of the awesomely hip, tatooed women behind the counter and asked them what was playing when I liked it. I wrote it down and got myself copies. It is, after all, a well-known fact that baristas at independent coffee shops have The Best Taste In Music In The World.

In short, I discovered what it is to be passionate about music, and to have music create passion within me.

I went to live shows and learned what it is like to be reduced to a rapt presence of bliss and joy and adoration. I learned what it is like to have every fiber of my being caught up in the energy of a great performance while the waves of sound caress my ears and reverberate in my aorta. I want to make out with rock stars and be such good friends with musicians that I am thanked with inside jokes in the liner notes.

The Morning After...

It's not that I'm having regret about my decision, exactly, it's more that I don't really know what to do with myself and can feel the depression and inertia gnawing at the cracks of my being. So I slept in until 9, picked a passive-aggressive fight with J about how he has The Disgusting Sniffles And Is Not Taking Care Of Them And Now I Am Getting Sick And It's His Fault because I am really just that kind of winner (read: terrible) person and spouse. It's true though, that after only 2 contact days with the kiddoes I've got a hoarse throat and sinus issues and I am not pleased. Time to break out the Neti Pot and the Airborne. And to stop picking on J for not liking to take medicine for his allergies, I begrudgingly concede, but in all honesty, is there any sound less sonorous and soothing than the ssnnnoourrrrrwwaaakkk!!!!! snorking of snot from the sinuses to the glottal chamber of the upper esophagus? ew.

Also, the milk I poured into my coffee this morning curdled, and the heel end of the loaf of home-made bread is nasty and stale.

The energy that filled me as I made this decision was fire; scary and freeing, like skydiving (which I know I still have to write about), like getting on the night train to travel solo to Prague when you are 20 and don't know a single word of Czech. That energy is sapped now. I seem to have used up my quota of brave. Can I borrow some of yours?

Or will you at least come and sit with me and hold my hand while I figure out who I am behind the looking glass?

How I Went To Minnesota....

... it wasn't actually that much of an adventure as far as adventures go, unless you maybe cast it in the light of 'Adventures in Adulthood'.

[Backstory: There was a time when as a naive child, I thought that weddings were made out of the same stuff as fairy tales and golden glitter. Then I became a jaded angry feminist, and while I still believed in the values of love, commitment and partnership, I thought the whole marriage thing was completely over-rated. Then my boyfriend and I decided to get married, and I discovered that the whole wedding industry is kind of a crock and a sham and a Big Giant Rip Off. Now that I'm (still) happily married, I like the legal rights that marriage allows me to have, I like that I publicly committed myself to my husband, and I like that the budget for my wedding was a frugal one; even thought it wasn't the prettiest wedding, it was a lot of fun. I love going to weddings and tearing up as couples commit themselves to each other in rituals that are meaningful to them, but as much as I love being a witness to that, and partaking in the free booze and dancing that generally comes after, I still think that there is probably a lot to be said for eloping, and I think that it is total crap that gay couples don't have equal marriage rights.]

Ahem.

So, it was a whirlwind weekend, because we'd been invited to a wedding here in town and a reception for a wedding that happened in February in Hawaii in Minnesota. That is to say, the reception was held in Minnesota - there is no actual 'Hawaii in Minnesota'.

The first wedding was a blast. I got emotional (surprise!) and may have even allowed myself a few sentimental sniffles. I partook liberally of the viands and edibles. I wore a new pair of fantastic red leather pumps and was a superstar on the dance floor with J. We twirled and whirled and attempted the merengue, we tripped over our own toes a minimal amount of times and had a record low of zero dancefloor disputes about Who is leading and Where are we going and What the hell are you even trying to do and Why are you yelling at me and making me feel like crap and I'm not good at this but I'm trying for you so don't treat me like an idiot and This is easy and Why don't you know how to do it five minutes ago. Which is to say that there was definitely some gold glitter flying through the air. Maybe I was the only person to see it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there. STOP TRYING TO RUIN MY HAPPY STORY ABOUT BEING HAPPY.

The next morning we woke up early! And then we drove and drove and drove and drove, and then we got to the reception. Which was hosted in someone's home and very lovely and relaxed and laid back. Except for that it was in a really fancy neighborhood! With shrubberies! And limited on-street parking! So we parked our banged-up dusty subaru illicitly in the country club lot and I tried to ignore the niggling worries that Our Car Would Be Towed, and sat and ate and chatted and played with a cute baby and generally beamed at the world because My Friend Got Married And She Is Happy And I Am Happy, Too, (Even If I Didn't Get To Go To Hawaii).

It was good to see my friend again, but sad to only get to see her for a snippet of time. However, the convenient thing about Minnesota is that it is miraculously located Right Next to Wisconsin (where I live), and Much Easier To Visit Than Hawaii, and so if would just commit myself to planning more things in advance, I could see my friends who live there a lot more often. Which is what I vowed to myself to do as we were leaving the reception. Yay!

Then there was an ice-cream meet up with another dear friend from summer camp, and more cute baby holding and beaming.

Then there was a quick dash in to the Mall of America so that I could buy some expensive shampoo.

Then there was a drive down to Northfield from the Twin Cities to visit another friend who just got a tenure track job at a liberal arts college there. There was also a torrential rainstorm, which was very scary.

Northfield is where J and our friend went to undergrad, so we had to order gyro pizza, and I got to listen to much reminiscing and jibing, as our friend got a job at The Other liberal arts college, and not his and J's alma mater. Gyro pizza is not that good, and since I have no school spirit or team spirit whatsoever, I tried to ignore the jibing.

The next day, we woke up late, ate a delicious greasy breakfast of eggs and hashbrowns, hung out with our friend, and hit the road sometime in the early afternoon.

We drove and drove and drove, and during a 4 o'clock coffee stop, I fell in love with the town of LaCrosse Wisconsin.

There was some more driving, some mocking of the "ski resorts" along I-94, some driving, and then we were home! Beer and a Law and Order marathon for everyone!

All in a bowl of blueberries

I am back from a glorious visit home, but not done processing all the things I learned and experienced while there. I feel reconnected to my extended families again, after years of feeling like the inconvenient and unwanted wierdo relative. I am mourning the fact that I still live so far away from them and that this flush of emotion and bonding will likely pass all too quickly. My desires to move back to the NW have been intensified, at the expense of my desire to do other things... I'm hoping to energize myself with a local adventure sometime in the very near future.

J is coming back from St. Louis this afternoon. I'm trying to tidy the house a bit before he gets here in the hopes that if I tame my clutter a bit, my crazy alarm won't go off when his clutter gets plopped down on the floor. It's amazing how my chaos expanded to fill the void.

I had blueberries, greek yoghurt honey and sliced almonds for breakfast. What is it about berries that makes them such a soulful and decadent meal? One of the things I did while on vacation was read a copy of the children's book Jamberry to my two-year-old cousin. I love that book. If you know any two or three year olds, please make sure that they own copies of this book.

A long December,er, July.

St. Louis was great. If you go there, check out the art museum (free!), especially for its amazing collection of 20th century German artists. They have a whole room dedicated to Richter, and another whole room dedicated to Max Beckmann. It was overwhelming, and I almost cried.

St. Louis is made out of bricks and humidity. It was fabulous to see J again and to visit with the sparse family I have down there. We sadly did not get around to eating any barbeque, but since I don't really like pork, that is ok. We did find some pretty good Japanese food, though, which was exciting.

I've actually been back for over a week and just have not bothered to update on my adventures. To be honest, it wasn't really that adventuresome of a trip. We hung out, did some crossword puzzles, had some good food, some good conversation and gazed goopily into each other's eyes and all that romantic stuff that people do. Coming home to an apartment devoid of people was hard. Having good friends around for the next weekend was amazing. This weekend I'm headed out west to visit the family. Good times all around.

Frankly, I haven't been doing too much out of the ordinary lately. Went to a Mallards' game. We lost, but some strange dudes sitting next to us helped balance my legs when I basically dove over the fence to grab at a T-shirt the Rightfielder (Go Scotty!) had chu(n)cked our way. Discovered what an amazingly cool place the Monroe St. Bistro is to be on a Sat. night. The French Bistro Cuisine isn't as refined and as well-articulated as the food at Brassierie V (which is just down the road) but who can say no to a happy hour special that lasts ALL NIGHT, especially when there is good, cover-free live music and a super-friendly bartender? Nobody, that's who. And now you all know where to find me on Saturday nights from now until the end of time.

I have no good reviews of films or books to offer you, nor do I have tales of romantic adventures to relate.

So, my dear Internet Friends, I leave you with this: 1) there are some awesome things on the GAP clearance rack right now, and Land's End is selling pants for $7.50, and 2) I learned how to play euchre tonight and totally kicked butt.

3) Sometimes it's the little things that make life worth living - sometimes it's the promise of a quesadilla after all the little things are over.

PS:
The Harry Potter movie was good and really scary during that one part. I apologize to anyone who may now be suffering ruptured eardrums as a result of my terrorized shrieking. They probably heard me in Iowa. I'm sorry, Iowa. I hope your eardrums get better soon.

Inarticulate Rage and Frustration

My sleep schedule is off-kilter, meaning that instead of being productive, I am sleeping late and being slothful, but that is only part of what is bothering me.

I am so overwhelmed by my situation right now. I had so many plans for productivity this summer, so many fun little projects I wanted to do around the house to surprise J when he got back from St. Louis. My wheels have gotten bogged down in a mud patch, and they keep sinking deeper and I'm tired of spinning them. I am so mad at myself because I can't even keep up with the chores required to keep the house tidy when I am the only one living in it. I am mad at J for being in St. Louis (even though I know intellectually that this is completely irrational and unfair, I'm not going to lie about my emotions...). I'm mad at the cats, because they need my care when I am too disgruntled to even care for myself. I'm mad at everyone who ever told me that it would be a great experience to be on my own for a summer. I'm mad at myself for not having a great experience being on my own. I'm mad at myself for being a Person Who Is Dependent On Her Partner. This is not the person I used to think that I was, or the person I used to think that I wanted to be. What the fuck happened to the me I used to be?

I moved around a lot when I was a kid, so "home" has always been more about the people than the place to me. I cringe at the sentimental thought that "J is my home now," but I guess it's true, if not an exclusive condition.

I'm trying to get back to the NW to visit my family. To hug my mom. To see the ocean, mountains, desert and river that I love. I am mad that I don't get to go to the NW very often. I am mad that I live so far away from my family. I am mad at the world because the tickets are expensive. I want to go- it's my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary! I haven't seen the Pacific Ocean in 3 years (waaaayyyy too long!) But I feel like in order to make it worth the cost and the inconvenience my parents will go through to host me, and to schlepp me back and forth across the state. I should go for a week, and not just a weekend. But I don't really want to go for a whole week. I don't have so very many close friends in the NW anymore (yet another thing to be mad about, although I know I haven't done the best job of maintaining these friendships over time).

A week is a long time to spend just with family. What will I do? Will I be more lonely there than I am here? Who will watch my cats? Will I get any more or less work done there than here? I don't really want to go for that long.... Or maybe I do? I don't know what I want right now, and it's making me cranky and crazy.

Psychopharmacuticals, I love you!

I'm currently trying out a new combination of medicine to help me combat my depression. Yes, at the behest of my doctor. Yes, under the supervision and advice of a professional psychotherapist person. So far, I LOVE the newest ingredient in my "sanity cocktail"! I have felt so focused, so determined, so confident ALL DAY LONG. My thoughts have not been this clear since I-don't-know-when. I am superwoman. I am Maniac-Brainiac McGee. I am on the ball, on top of the tallest tree in the forest, balancing serenely. Got any shit, world? Just throw it at me, and watch me cope with it in an efficient and competent manner!

Don't worry, I will only use my newfound superpowers for good. I will leap tall trees, write coherent and intelligent papers, save puppies from drowning and dance my booty off in the privacy of my living room every night from now until the end of time.

(I am totally going to regret this public jubulation, aren't I?)

If you could be the patron saint of something, or of some group of people, what would you be? For example, St. Jude is the patron saint of Lost Causes, but there are also specific patron saints for blacksmiths, sailors, actors, and television.

For example, I coud be St. Regina, patron saint of Tone-Deaf People Who Sing Kareoke, or St. Regina, patron saint of Thrift-Store Shoppers.... or, or, or... The possibilities are endless and endlessly amusing. So, what or whom would you be patron saint of? Choose carefully, because this is something that could totally make or break your resume!

Affirmations:

Ideas Come From Writing. The More You Write The More They Will Flow.

Write First, Edit Later.

Get The Content Out Of Your Head And Onto The Page.

This Is Possible And I Am Capable.

I Am Doing This For Me.


...wash, rinse, repeat as needed...

There and back again

County roads through the Wisconsin Driftless Area are windy and make me nauseous.

Our campsite was isolated and overlooked a lake. Raccoons visited nightly and each time I was terrifically torn between the emotional desire to snorggle their cuteness and the knowledge that Wild Animals Are Not For Petting And Probably Have Rabies. (Raccoons are less scary than Possums.)

I couldn't find the sunscreen the first day, despite knowing that I'd packed it. My burn will fade to a tan, and that pleases me. When I think of myself in my mind-mirror, I am tan, and I like it. It's good when the mirror me and the me-mirror match. My shoulders feel a bit leathery and every time I get a new freckle-mole, I think thoughts about skin cancer. Much aloe vera is in order. Next time I'll pack my straw hat.

If it were not so cliche and hyperbolic, I'd say I have a sore gut muscle from laughing so hard. Instead I'll say the truth, which is that I laughed a lot, but that my sore gut muscle is probably from eating so much delicious food cooked over a fire.


I know I'm the overly emotive, touchy-feely one of the bunch, so please don't laugh when I say that I wish we had ended the long weekend with a group hug. I will try to convince myself that our round of beers at the Grumpy Troll was an equivalent in the parlance of the collective.

My apartment still seems oddly eerie and foreign. What is this thing called a ceiling, and why do I hear exhaust fans and not birdsong? My bed, however, is divine.

My coffee this morning was acrid and strong. I tempered it with cream leftover from the adventure. I'll probably cry a little when that bottle is empty.

Let's go camping again, and soon!

Spring and Fevers and Other Cliches

It's difficult to tell if my self-diagnosis is correct- I've been feeling blah and discontent with my self and my life for the past couple of months. Yet as the weather grows warmer and it becomes ever more evident that despite my best intentions, I will have to buy new and larger shorts yet again this year, my delight at the soft green buds on the maple trees and the soft yellow feathers of blooming forsythia that grace Other People's Gardens is not as absolute and transporting as it has been in years past. It does not displace my malcontent entirely. That still sits bleakly in my heart like a bald-headed vulture or a flaccid leftover parsnip discovered at the bottom of the vegetable drawer. Ugh. There is, however, a new and restless quality to my grumbly and petty unhappiness. Instead of wanting to roll up into a little hedgehog ball of prickly misery, I want to grow wings and escape, to get the hell out of this situation called adulthood where responsibility and decision-making lie heavy on my shoulders, and I am paralyzed by the knowledge that I must soon take a step and by the anxiety that any false step could seriously jeopardize my future well-being.

Do you think that if I followed the second star to the right and went straight on 'til morning I'd really find Never-Never Land?

Well, if I can't, the next best thing is surely a weekend spent camping in the woods with friends! I wasn't able to participate in the last two adventures, due to medical issues and school, but I am so excited about this one. I really, really need a change of scene and a chance to reconnect with friends and get inspired by their energy and bouyant hopes. (I promise to try not to be too much of a Debbie Downer.) I wish we were going this weekend... well, actually no, I don't because then I would miss the Super Awesome Sale at my favorite yarn store and the opening weekend of the new X-Men movie, but still!

I love planning for adventures almost as much as I love the adventures themselves. Not that I don't like spontaneous adventures, but there is something thrilling about making a list of the gear you will need to pack, assembling said gear into (many) tidy little bundles and then leaving everything else at home and heading off into the blue. Yes, I am that sick, sick person who loves to organize the first aid kit, brings a lot of gear, and gets mad at her husband when he doesn't want to get ready for the trip 3 days in advance, but just wants to thow some stuff into a paper bag and head off camping without a water bottle, sunscrean, bug repellent, or a rain coat. What can I say, once a Girl Scout, always a Girl Scout. Don't worry. I won't lecutre you about knife safety rules and if you forget your flashlight and are scared to go to the outhouse in the dark, you can borrow mine, and I won't even say 'I told you so'.

You were always on my mind

It's one of those days of false spring, when the snow is almost gone and the temp is reaching towards 50 degrees. I love and hate these days. Love them because, well, who wouldn't love a bonus day of not-having-to-wear-a-down-parka before April is officially here. Hate them because they are so tempting, so full of false hope. "Look, Spring!" they say to me. "Get out your sandals and get a pedicure. Pack away those winter things like hats and pants." After 6 years in the Midwest, I've learned not to listen too closely. One day of 50 is not a promise that my vitamins-D and -E deficient pasty skin will soon be fortified against acne with a healthy summer tan. It does not mean that it won't snow again.

It does mean that I can get my bike back out of the basement for at least one day of tooling around town. I'm a fair-weather biker. I have tons of respect and a little awe for the people who are crazy/dedicated/skilled enough to bike through Madison all winter long, but I like being reasonably warm, and reasonably not dead too much to contemplate doing it.

I love biking. I feel so strong and confident and capable when I'm out on my bike. I don't have to worry about finding a parking spot. I'm not reliant on bus schedules. It makes me feel free in that little-kid way of running across a sandy beach to get splashed by the frigid pacific waves and loving every sparkling, salty minute of it.

I've had the same hybrid for 6 years now. It's a good, sturdy bike. It was a great fit for me when I first moved here. It gets me around town, it's comfy, it built my confidence in my physical ability to be more than just an occasional rider of bikes. Now that 2+ years of yoga have strengthened my legs and improved my balance, I'm tempted by the idea of a road bike. A lot of my friends do a lot of long-distance riding during the summer. I went on one medium-distance ride with them last year - just 20 miles or so, and I loved it. It was the best Saturday ever. But my bike isn't built for longer distances than that - it's too heavy and upright, and so my muscles don't work very efficiently to power it. A 60 mile-ride is out of the question, unless I magically wake up one morning and find myself in better shape than Lance Armstrong. But I've got spring fever, and I've got it bad, and the idea of spending more glorious sunny Saturdays with friends riding along beautifully green bike routes to small rural towns for breakfasts and picnics, exploring and enjoying Wisconsin, is making me drool.

And so, I dream wistfully of road bikes, but tentatively so. I'm not the most adventurous person, nor do I always keep up with hobbies that I get interested in. See: pottery, stained glass, violin. Now the thing with the other hobbies, is that I could invest in them slowly, buying only enough materials or studio time for the current project, so when I lost interest, I didn't have a lot of residuals. But if I want to do more/ longer rides, I have to get a bike. I have to get a bike that fits my body. I'm not one to make big purchases on an impulse, so we'll see if it ever happens. But for now, it's on my mind a lot. Especially when I should be doing more productive things. Like grading. (gah).

"When you grow up, your heart dies."

I wish there was a better translation for the German word "Mitgefuehl" ... It's close in concept to "Mitleid" - compassion, a suffering along with (someone) but encompasses a broader spectrum of feelings than just the rigors of suffering, Mitgefuehl is literally a feeling along with (someone). Okay, technically, it means 'empathy,' but that translation is imperfect, as translations usually are.

Now, I'm a sensitive and emotive person, and I tend to experience emotions as very present, and very extreme. I'm not exactly what you would call even-keeled. I'm exuberant or moody, but rarely just ok. I experience spontaneous Mitgefuehl sometimes, usually in response to the distress or delight of someone I'm close to. For me, it's an intense welling up of emotion, sometimes quite disconcerting because it can dislodge me from the tasks of my day and become the sole paradigm that I am able to inhabit until someone else comes along and shakes me back into reality.In general, I consider this a positive quality in myself, although I do realize that I am sometimes a little... intense, which may be off-putting to newer acquaintences for whom I (already) feel an affinity, or even to dear friends who are simply not as expressive about their emotions. What can I say - I am who I am, and in general, it works out ok for me.

It gets difficult, though, when there is no available outlet for these emotions of 'feeling along'. Just this past week I was confronted with such a situation. A person told me about a very distressing personal situation. I really, sincerely like this person, although we do not know each other well. My emotional reaction to the bad news was intense. I wanted to reach out, to care for this person, to offer any and every support they need that I could possibly give, to wrap them up in a protective layer of my caring for them, so that the pain of their situation would be lessened. Because the nature of my relationship with this person is a professional one, I could not do this. I could not do anything that felt meaningful to me, or that relieved the burdan of my feeling of concern. I do not know if the meagre actions I had room to take did anything at all to alieviate this person's distress.

Because I could do 'nothing,' my emotions continued to flow and flow and soon I was drained, exhausted, beat. I don't want to stop caring about the world that I live in or the people I encounter in it, but it is going to take me several days to refill my tank of emotional stability. Even now I am thinking - if only I could have done 'something'! This is not the most ideal of situations for me. Am I the much-belittled fool with the heart on her sleeve? Does everyone experience moments of feeling-along-with-someone like this and everyone else just knows how to manage it better than I do? How can I train myself to find and maintain a course of moderation, and y'know, have mature and professional relationships with people? How can I use my emotive impulses to create actual good in this world? How will I ever become cool if I keep confessing to nerdy falliabilities like this? Why does my foot hurt so much when it falls asleep? Should I even be writing on the internet about this? Can you become a grown-up without your heart dying?

Post the first

Friends have long suggested that I "get myself a blog." I am a noted navel-gazer and meanderer, but will strive here for economy and wit. Haha. Frankly, I've been itching to join the ranks of the blog-havers for a while now, but have refrained. Partly because I'm not sure if I have much of a story to tell that others would want to read, and I already have several other options for writing into the void. The other part of why I have refrained is because certain family members of mine are pro-privacy and anti-blog - to the point in fact, that when the first Blogs were spawned on the Internets back in the day when it was powered by hamsters running on wheels, these certain family members of mine (who I love dearly) said some very negative things about the practice of blogging that sort of stuck in my head to the point that I'm still not sure how comfortable I am being entirely open in this very public forum. However, as certain other Wise People In My Life have known to say: nothing ventured, nothing gained. And I need practice writing for an audience, a creative outlet, and a way to stay in touch with friends that allows me to communicate more than two sentences at a time. Hence this venture.

Oh, and speaking of sentences, the title of this blog is derived from a Maximo Park song "The Coast is Always Changing," which was the third song to pop up on my iPod when I shuffled it in search of some good lyrics to turn into a title. It resonated with my goal of using this space for good (economical, eloquent) writing as opposed to scribbling, but it has other, weightier connotations for me as well.