If skirts could talk . . .

Last weekend, I wore my blue jean skirt to Harrisburg. While wearing it, I did shots of tequila and danced with boys and stayed out until 2 AM before collapsing, half-drunk, into my hotel room bed.

This weekend, I wore my blue jean skirt to Juniata County, PA and the annual family reunion. I wore the skirt to respect my conservative Mennonite relatives. While wearing it, I answered Bible quiz questions and read scripture from Phillippians.

Does this make me hypocritical or just well-rounded? I like to think the latter.

Sadly I missed the good Friday night stories about old-time shenanigans. Tormenting old Aunt Lizzie, hanging younger siblings from the barn roof in feedbags, burning the dump, etc. I've heard them all before, of course, but they're always funny.

What I did get to experience:



A really hot softball game.



Eighty Mennos on a treasure hunt.



Tug of war across the pond.



Mennonite shooting competition!



Fun on a rubber ball.

Lots more fun pictures live here!

Beep Beep!

So, like I said a few weeks ago: I'm having a quarter-life crisis.

And since these crises stereotypically involve new cars, I'm thinking about getting a new one. A Mini Cooper, specifically.

Maybe. If I can afford it.

It has to be the supercharged version, of course, because I would get no respect from the male members of my family if I didn't have that. And because I don't want to putter around in the standard model. I want to feel powerful when I step on the gas!

Other than the supercharging, I'm not picky. I don't need metallic paint ($450 extra), or any special packages, and I'd rather it be automatic, although I could learn to drive stick if I had to.

There are numerous good reasons to get Mini--great handling, good gas mileage, easy to parallel park. All valuable to my lifestyle at the moment. And of course there's that secret pleasure at the thought of driving it to work every day and parking in the lot where there are NO other Minis . . . being the funky cool copywriter who drives a funky cool car.

Next up: a trip to a Mini dealer to try to get about $5000 knocked off the MSRP. My mad negotiating skillz will be stretched to the limit.

Bring it on!

How are you gonna keep 'em down on the farm?

Floyd Landis mania!

The only reason I have any interest in this story whatsoever is a) that FL is from here, and b) he grew up Mennonite. I have only the very loosest of connections to him, in that way that Lancaster Countians and Mennonites all have connections to each other (in this case, he went to the same high school as a guy I knew from college, who also happens to be Mennonite and used to live next door to my dad’s cousin).

Last Wednesday I saw that he had done horribly, and probably lost the tour, and so I was disappointed for like a minute and then put it out of my mind. And then Thursday he went crazy and made up like ten minutes, which is apparently amazing (I don’t really know, but everyone says it is) and held his lead on Friday and Saturday and won on Sunday while his parents rode their bikes to church.

While FL would probably not call himself Mennonite anymore, his parents definitely are. And the media is all about this, too. They especially like to play up the conflict between FL and his dad, that his dad was this stern disciplinarian who didn’t approve of his son’s choice to cycle and tried to stop him. It would make a good movie. But I don’t think that it was really any more than some general teenage son-father conflict. His dad seems really nice, and so does his mom. And they’re all supportive now.

But it seems like every conservative Mennonite family has this story . . . one kid, usually a son, who gives his father grief and causes trouble as a teenager and finally leaves the fold, because the individuality he wants to express isn’t tolerated in his community.

Next weekend I’m going to a family reunion with relatives who look a lot like FL’s parents . . . dress even more conservatively, maybe. And despite the restrictions of their lifestyle: black cars, very specific clothing requirements, no TVs or movies—they seem pretty happy. As happy as the rest of us . . . probably more so. Because they know what’s expected of them, they don’t mind living with rules, and everything is clearly delineated. They finish high school at home, get married young, start having children, men work and women stay home. They love their children, and playing games, and clean fun, and the women talk about food and gardens and the men talk about other men-type things. Cars and tractors and farms.

The problem comes, when like FL, you don’t fit into that mold, either by choice or circumstance. When no guy comes to date you, and so you’re left single, living with your parents, with no chance for career or babies or adventures. Or when you love school, and really want to go to college and grad school and become a Ph.D. Or when you want to ride bicycle competitively. Or when you just don’t get why you have to do all these things that are supposed requirements in the eyes of God and start asking too many questions.

That's when life in that community becomes hard, and your parents and church leaders crack down on you, and your only choices are to submit or leave.

Stuck in a Moment

Friday afternoon. 2:56 PM. At work.

It feels like it should be 4:30 at least.

I’ve been making a conscious effort lately to appreciate the moment I’m in. Even though I’m making all kinds of plans (in my head) for my birthday, and fun stuff in August, etc., and even though I’m already thinking of myself as twenty-eight, and wondering when I’m going to take off for Christmas, I’m trying not to get so caught up in the planning and anticipating that I forget to appreciate what I have right now.

But Friday afternoon, now 2:58 PM . . . I’m just finding it hard to appreciate much about it.

As the present now will later be past

Yesterday, with some out-of-town relatives, we went on a drive around the county.

They wanted to see Amish, without being obnoxious, and after we'd seen our fill of buggies and fields (to quote my four-year-old cousin, who was narrating our trip while looking out the window: "Corn corn corn corn corn corn corn"), they started asking my dad where exactly he'd grown up. He loves to tell and show people things, even more than I do, and so he took them through the part of the county where he spent his childhood and adolescence.

My dad doesn't spontaneously talk about his growing up years, although occasionally he'll come out with a story about something. That could be because I rarely ask about those things, and if I do, I want to know about feelings, not facts. He deals much better with facts. But yesterday we got a narrated tour . . . we drove over those farm-lined roads, and Dad could talk about who used to own each farm, and how they were related to him. Apparently, back then, all these farms were filled with Mennonites, all related to each other in some way. They all knew each other, mostly, and went to church together.

My dad was the ninth generation of his family to grow up in that area. It's where my ancestors settled, fresh off the boat, to farm in the early 1700s. So for 250 years or so, people with the same history and family background lived in the same place and farmed. They did keep up with the times, and got cars and electricity and stuff, but they were still there, secluded in their community, in their school and their churches. (Of course people came and went, but it was pretty consistent, especially in terms of occupation).

And then, in the 1960s, something happened. Things changed enough, the modern world broke in (or something), and people left the farms, and the church, and decided to go to college or try something else. And I know this happened all over the US, it's not just limited to my dad's world, but it's strange to think that I'm part of the first generation of my family who DIDN'T grow up on a farm, in that world.

I grew up in Florida, in the suburbs, with a TV and Nintendo, and I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm just marking the end of an era here, I guess. Because there's no going back. Whatever existed has vanished. Choices that were made, by my dad and his contemporaries, changed everything. And those choices and cultural changes have resulted in a million more choices and freedom for me, so I can't say I'm upset about it. It's just weird to think about. I'm pretty sure that when my dad left the farm he wasn't thinking much past the next year or so.

And look at the results. You can't go home again. Amish own the farms now, and I'm not going back to get one.

Birfdays was the worst days

Is it bad that I'm already thinking about my birthday?

Keep in mind that my birthday is September 19. That's over two months away.

But from the ages of about 12-16, I never had a birthday that quite matched my expectations of what a birthday should be. My parents are pretty blase about the whole birthday thing. They don't care about gifts or cake or celebrations for themselves, and so they didn't really make birthdays a big deal for my brother or me. I spent my fifteenth birthday in tears . . . embarrassing to recollect now, but just one of those expectations-not-matching-reality things. Plus I was fifteen.

I think most grown-up people are OK with not going birthday crazy. It's just not a big deal. But as much as I tell myself it doesn't matter, I still feel like it does.

But nobody's going to plan this stuff for me.

So, I'm already thinking: what am I going to do to this year?

Just you wait and see.

Life in the Fast Lane

A couple of months after starting my blog last year, I decided there were three things I wasn’t going to blog about anymore.

1) The fact that I’m single.
2) The fact that I don’t have a life plan.
3) The fact that I’m getting older.

And, if you go back and read my blog entries of the past few months, I think that I’ve kept my resolution quite well.

Today, however, I was thinking about life plans. Not just today, I guess. Most days. I think it’s easy, when you’re twenty-two or twenty-five or twenty-eight to think about the future as something out there and distant from your current life. And all the crazy and amazing things you’re going to do in the very many years you have left. When I imagine fifty I imagine myself as well-established and happy and settled. With a family and a career and a life. And it’s very possible that I will have those things and be that person. I hope so.

But I’m already on the downside of my 20s. This decade will be gone before I know it. And what’s to say that the rest of my life isn’t going to go just as quickly? Or even MORE quickly. I’ll spend the next twenty-three years the way I’ve spent the past five. Working. Eating. Exercising. Running errands. Paying bills. Reading books. Hanging out.

And then I’m fifty.

This is what provokes mid-life crises, I think. Getting to midlife and realizing that this IS real life. This is all there is to it. The future has become the present and you better get off your ass and do something.

So maybe I’m having a quarter-life crisis. I think that I am. Because this is real life. The future has become the present.

And consequently, I better get off my ass and do something.

I’ll let you know when I decide what that “something” is.

Small Talk Moment

Q. How's your new job going?
A. Very well, thanks. I like it a lot.

Q. What did you do this weekend?
A. I went to a baseball game. I also saw Pirates of the Caribbean II in the exact same theater AND seat where I saw Superman Returns last weekend. In the front row, because I never get to movies early. Also went to church, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo concert. Very cool.

Q. Have you tried your Mangosteen juice yet?
A. Yes, I tried it last Thursday. It was pretty gross. There was lots of brown grit in it, which I believe is the rind. I'm anxious to see if XanGo brand mangosteen juice is tastier.

Q. How's this week looking?
A. Pretty normal. This weekend my little cousins, who are four and two and very cute are coming to the area and staying with my parents. That should be fun.

Q. Why are you writing a post like this?
A. For several reasons. One, I want to try out my new Comments option and see if I can get it to work. Commenting will be so much easier for everyone (so do it!) once I figure it out. Also, I was going to try a giant long post on religious fundamentalism and all the thoughts about that that have been coming at me lately, but I didn't have the energy (or enough coherence) to do it.

I like to tell people things.

Every day at work, I listen to the girls on the other side of my cubicle talk. It’s generally entertaining, but also torturous. Because they’re asking each other questions about things that I know the answer to, and I really want to jump in to their conversations.

This would involve yelling over the cube wall, as well as irritating everyone in the vicinity. Plus I really don’t want to be obnoxious and jump in with an answer to everything.

But it’s so hard for me when I know something NOT to offer my information. I physically have to bite my lip.

Today they were wondering out loud about Gulf of Mexico beaches and what songs Crosby, Stills, and Nash sing. I was in agony. Sarasota has great beaches! Southern Cross! Our House! Love the One You’re With!

A few weeks ago, one of the girls actually yelled over to me with a question about Rh factor. Which I actually did know a little bit about, but not enough to answer her question.

“You just seem like someone who would know,” she said.

Why exactly she thinks that is interesting to me. I have never said anything scientific, I’ve never been pregnant. The only thing we’ve discussed at length is gardens and sustainable living.

But if I’m already seen as a know-it-all, I might as well jump right in and start yelling over the wall.

Adventures with Edibles

Ever since I started my new job, I've been intrigued by XanGo. It's a juice, made from a fruit called the Mangosteen. I've learned all about this fruit by researching info for the ads I'm writing. The mangosteen is known in Southeast Asia for its healing properties, and it is also known as the Queen of Fruits. Anyway, I plan to get me a bottle of XanGo somehow, and drink it, and see what happens.

But at Costco on Saturday, I was signing up for a membership when I saw, under the counter, a box labeled Mangosteen. This was a scrap box that they were using for paper and pencils, but I immediately took notice and began to wonder . . . was there mangosteen fruit or juice somewhere in Costco? I began my quest for the Queen of Fruits.

I bought what I needed, and then went to the supplement section of the store. I found Acai berry juice, and Joint Juice, but no mangosteen. I moved on, eating a lunch of free Costco samples, but before I left the store I decided I had to look again. On my second trip, I found it. A bottle of Thai mangosteen juice. It's not XanGo, which is sad, but its still the juice of the magic mangosteen. So I bought it, and I'm taking it to work tomorrow. Shots of mangosteen juice for everyone!

In other food news, I coordinated the meal at our church last night. It's for the people in the neighborhood who might not otherwise have a decent meal, plus whoever else wants to come. We made sausages, because someone donated a whole pile. Sausage is disgusting. These were long rolls, in casing, and it reminded me of many things, none of them good. But I cut them up, and we cooked them. By 5:30, when the meal was supposed to start, the sausages were still pink inside. We switched them from the roasting pans they were in to boiling water. It was all chaotic for a good hour . . . all of us running around, trying to set things up, buy things last minute, and just generally figure out what we were doing. But by 5:45 people were getting fed.

My dad ate a sausage later that was still kind of raw in the middle. His complaints about how nasty it was didn't make me feel all that great about the meal, but later other people told me they were good, so whatever.

I didn't eat one of those sausages. Ugh. But as far as I know, there have been no reports of ptomaine poisoning.

I'll stick with my mangosteen.

That's what friends are for

I read an article last week about people in the US and how lonely we all are. Apparently, 25 % of people in America have no one they can confide in. And the average American only has two people to talk to, as opposed to 1985, when the average American had three.

So, the number of people we feel we can talk to, about serious things, has dropped from three to two in twenty years. I wonder if in another twenty it'll be down to one.

The study blames all kind of things: busyness, the technology in our homes that keeps us from connecting with real people, etc.

When I first read about this study, I nodded along. Because I feel like I really have very few people I can confide in. And then I started thinking about it, and I realized that's totally not true. While there may be personal things that I only want to talk about with a few people, that's my choice. There are tons of people who would listen to me, if I chose to tell them things.

And it's interesting the way that various needs are met by various people depending on the situation. With some friends I can talk about anything. With others, our topics of conversations are more specific, but still important.

When I started adding up all the people who are a part of my support group, I felt really blessed. I've got my friends, of course. My close friends who live locally, and my college friends, who I talk to via email but who would be here in a second if I were having some kind of crisis. I've got my church--people who would help me move, visit me in the hospital if I were there, support me if my parents were sick, etc. I've got my family--I'm really lucky to have a bunch of cousins who are actually friends in addition to being relations. I've got my parents, who I give me all kinds of advice and help about work and houses and finances and stuff. And more than that, just love me without conditions.

WhenI think about that, I know that I'm "above average." Really lucky, actually.

And I think that pretty much everyone who reads my blog is included in the above list.

So thanks.