From Pennsylvania folks are travelin'

Yoga definitely provides me with blog fodder. Whether or not it's actually interesting is another question, but hey, it's new content.

Last night the crazy yoga teacher made us go around and say our name and an interesting fact about ourselves. I said I was going to Florida today, which is only semi-interesting. Pretty much everyone else in the class talked about either their kids or their pets. I’m sorry, but the fact that you have three kids isn’t really all that interesting. Or that you have a dog. Could no one come up with more interesting things than this? Once you have kids, is it all downhill in terms of interest?

I suppose we were all just taken aback, since intros aren’t normally a part of yoga class. But I want real interesting facts! Random stuff! It would certainly make the people in the class easier to remember. As of now, they all blend together with their kids and their dogs and their cats.

I am going to Florida today: my interesting fact was true. My plane leaves in about five hours, and I have to drive to Baltimore to catch it. Mike and I were IMing about this: what if your plane crashes when someone is following it in real-time on the computer? I guess it just disappears, but it would be much more fun if there was a big skull and crossbones and a sad trombone. Not fun for your relatives and friends, I suppose, but come on. I’d be DEAD and I’d think that was funny.

I thought about this over Thanksgiving when my plane had free wi-fi. What if hijackers took over? What if the plane started crashing? I mean, technically couldn’t I send out a mass email saying “I love you all! Bye!” That would be weird. And what if I were on AIM? Could I chat until I died? What if you were chatting with someone and they died in front of their computer?

Gah!

This has turned into quite the morbid little blog post. I’ll stop here. Have a good Christmas, and no matter what happens, I’ll catch you on the flip side.

Where were you

So tomorrow is September 11.

I don’t think I’ve ever done a “where were you when?” kind of post, so here’s mine.

It was an amazing September day – perfect blue sky, sunshine, low humidity. I had just started (a week previously) a job – my first professional post-college job – as a secretary at a high school in town. I was in charge of attendance, and we had those ScanTron pencil-bubble sheets that the teachers marked.

I had carried the ScanTron sheets back to the scanner (it was temperamental) and was working on that when one of the women in the office came around to tell us that a plane had hit the world trade center. We all exclaimed and commented and thought it was weird. I finished my scanning and went back to my desk.

I don’t actually remember the order of events after that. I do know that we found out pretty quickly that a second building had been hit, and then we knew it wasn’t just an accident. The kids were doing a special reading test all morning and were locked in their classrooms, so there was no great outpouring from the student body – but as they finished their testing word started to spread and the teachers turned on their classroom TVs.

I was still very new at my job and learning the ropes, plus I wasn’t sure how much time I should spend not working, so I sat obediently at my desk and put info into the computer. The administrators in the office had the TV on, and at one point one of them came out and asked if I’d seen any news and told me I should come watch. And I did for awhile.

The thing I remember most is the feeling, though. Because we didn’t really know what was going on . . . for awhile it seemed that every half-hour another target had been hit. Planes were missing. The president was somewhere. Dick Cheney was hiding. We had no idea when it would end and a kind of panicked nervousness overhung all my work that day.

By 11 AM or so, some panicky parents were coming to get their kids. By 12:45, we’d let the kids out early. I think I stayed for the rest of the afternoon, but I’m not sure what I was working on.

You’d think the days after the event would stick out to me, too, but really everyone just went about their daily lives (except for those in NYC, of course). We all went back to work and school and did everything we’d done before. I guess there was news. The internet was still pretty new and relatively small at that point, so no one spent tons of time on it. The other week when Mike was down here we were imagining 9/11 Facebooking and Twittering, and how absolutely insane that would’ve been.

And it’s strange to think about the fact that my life hasn’t changed that much in 8 years, other than my job and the fact I now couldn’t be torn off the internet if something happened. But there are kids who were fourteen then who are 22 now, and they are very different. 9/11 happened in their childhood, before they grew up. Their lives now are completely different. The kids who were doing that reading test are now working, married adults – I think I work in the same building as at least one of them.

So that’s my 9/11 story. I was about to turn 23. My life situation may not have changed much, but I think I have – even much more than I realize.

You oughta know

I have a bulletin board in my kitchen that’s full of wedding invitations and Save-the-Date cards. Just the other day I tacked up the first baby shower invite. I’ve gotten shower invites before, of course, but this is the first shower invite that made it to the board--and I have a feeling there will be a lot more to come.

I’ve been thinking a lot about babies lately. Probably because by the end of the year my family will have two new ones, who I fully intend to treat as my nephew (and as yet to be discovered) nephew or niece. (I vote niece!) Of course, neither of these kids will be actual nieces or nephews, but hey, I can pretend. Any actual nieces or nephews I ever get will probably grow up as Canadians.

Anyway, I’m thinking about it because here I am, going about my life, understanding so much at 30 about where I fit and what life is like in this world right now. There’s just so much information and context and what-have-you, and these kids will be born without any of it. And I know from experience that hearing your parents talk about the past is fun and good, but it doesn’t actually help you “get it.” I don’t know what the world was like when Beatles songs were being played on the radio for the first time, or when Lancaster was basically just a farm community with a city at its center. I don’t know what my parents were like when they were my age or what they talked about with their friends. I don't know what the extended family looked or sounded like before I was old enough to remember it.

I suppose this is just a factor of being born when you are, and maybe it’s nice that new children aren’t weighted down with the baggage of an 80-year-old woman, moaning about how things used to be. But I’m a context girl. When I discovered my strengths, context was in my top five. And since I feel like you can understand the present so much better when you understand the past, I want to give these new children some kind of information that will help them be wise from the beginning. To understand what’s happening now, while they’re not even really in the world. Here’s what came before you: this is why things are the way they are.

But it’s not possible for me to pass my so-called life of acquired wisdom on to anyone, let alone two babies who won’t be interested for a long time, if ever. So they’ll have to figure it out for themselves (mostly) and the rest of us will just be here in case they ever want to know.

Come and Gone

I should be sleeping, because even though I'm not going to work tomorrow, I still need to go to the airport early for my trip to Canada! Vancouver! To see the kids. And by the kids I mean my brother and sis-in-law. I'm excited.

But before I go to sleep, I feel like I should update briefly about the "Letter to Myself at 30" that I wrote from my 20-year-old self.

Let's just say it wasn't as bad as I thought. I thought it was going to be full of wishes I'd made at 20 that I'd hoped would be true at 30, and aren't. But no. I basically just had a lot of questions.

Here's an excerpt:
"What kind of music, clothes, etc. are in now? Right now the music is kind of pop alternative and people like to wear work shirts w/other people's names (just one trend of many). 70s styles are in. Any new words? [Um. Yes. Google. Facebook. iPod. What else? There must be tons.] What was the year 2000 like? [Mostly disappointing.] Right now that seems spooky. And you get to P.E.I.? [I like this question, because YES! I did. With the cousins, just like we'd planned.]

I had questions about my brother . . . I forgot how much I didn't like him when he was 17 and I was 20. Looking back now, I think we were just really, really different and I didn't understand anything that was going on his life, nor was I particularly open to hearing about it. And I think he was kind of obnoxious. But we are both different, and we've moved closer together, and I think it's good.

Another excerpt:
"I feel like I should say something edifying--a revelation about this time, so at 30 you can look back and learn from this. But what? Well, what have I learned since I was 10? Depression is temporary. Friends are important, I am a loyal person, etc. What have you learned between 20 and 30. Hopefully something."

Yeah, hopefully. Geez, 20 year old me didn't have a lot of faith. I've learned more in the last decade than in any previous, so that's good. What have I learned? It can pretty much be summed up with "nothing's as big of a deal as you think it is."

And finally:
"All I have is questions. I feel as though I'm writing to a different person, and in a way I am. Thirty is different than 20. But how am I the same? What has carried over from 10 to 20 to 30. Anything? Maybe by 30 you will know."

Do I know? I know MORE. But maybe that's the whole point of this aging thing. Maybe uncovering "me" is an ongoing process that's never going to be finished. It's all in the journey and that sort of thing.

And if you look at "growing up" as slowly uncovering your soul--whatever it is that makes YOU, you--then it's kind of interesting adventure.

And now it's time for me to quit muddling around in philosophical musings and go to bed.

Morbidly

The humor in our office the past few days has been of the gallows variety. In other words, kind of dark but very funny. My co-worker lost her dad (weird phrase) two weeks ago, and she’s back at work now. Whenever anyone dies, though, you’ve got a lot to process, and she’s dealing with family and craziness and stages of grief . . . and humor is the only way to get through most of that shit.

So, all of this got me thinking. I already know that when my parents die (in a million years, Lord willing) there will be songs I will not be able to listen to for months or years without sobbing my eyes out.

And then I thought: what if there was such a thing as a death playlist? A mix CD for funerals, that you’d hand out so everyone would have a reminder of the deceased. I wondered what I would put on my funeral CD. Would I want tracks I loved? Or tracks from each stage of my life? A little of both?

Is there one song that you know you would you want on your death CD? Or can you do a whole playlist?

Post Getaway

Whoa! How is it July already? And are there any songs with July in the lyrics? I guess Yankee Doodle Dandy. And that Chicago song about Saturday in the park.

Speaking of Chicago, I got back from that town on Sunday with no problems. Travel certainly went better than I expected, but I suppose that’s the beauty of non-stop flights. No connections to screw you up. But the most interesting thing about the trip was getting a ride back from the pre-wedding barbeque with a guy who’s a post-doctoral fellow in early brain development with a specialty in autism. Joy and I were hanging on his every word in the car, and then we made him go to the hotel bar with us and tell us more.

Traditional pickup lines? No good. Start talking smart about brain development and we’ll follow you anywhere.

P.S. Soon I'll put photos on my Facebook--so watch for that!

Bring in Da Noise

I expressed my displeasure with the heat already, but good gracious it’s hot *fans herself with southern lady fan and sips mint julep* Yesterday the air conditioning in our office malfunctioned, making the temperature (inside) climb into the 80s. We got out early as a result! Today, however, everything seems to be working fine.

My house, on the other hand, is a sauna. I’m fighting a losing battle against the heat with my window A/C. My fridge seemed suspiciously warm this morning, too, which makes me think the motor has given up trying to keep things cool. Last time my fridge motor died I had lots of stuff in the freezer that promptly rotted; right now I just have some old bananas which I was saving to make banana bread (when? probably in the year 2024), so I’m not so worried.

So, life is mostly quiet. I’m hoping for a giant crashing thunderstorm tonight.

2000 Years of Theological Debate Summed Up in One Brief Exchange
Co-Writer: Who's that baby? (pointing at my newest cousin, who's in my rotating picture slide show)
Me: My cousin's baby. He met [Designer]'s niece at the picnic last night.
Designer: He was eyeing her up? He better watch out--her mom won't want her to marry someone who's not a Christian.
Me: Oh, he's a Christian.*
[Laughter]
Designer: Maybe everyone's a Christian when they're 3 months old.
Me: Or maybe NO ONE is.

*This is not exactly what I meant to say, but it produced laughs, so I went with it. I'm mostly funny unintentionally.

I welcome our new insect overlords

Last night I listened to this really fascinating live Radio Lab show about the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast (thanks, Dan!). I recommend downloading it if you have to commute anywhere or have time to listen at the gym. (I firmly believe that podcasts are the key to getting through 40 minutes on the elliptical).

Anyway, the program analyzed the way mass hysteria took over on that night. It was kind of a perfect storm of events. People were already paranoid about the Germans and the most popular show on the radio was featuring a musical act that wasn’t all that exciting. So people changed the channel and came across this War of the Worlds broadcast (having missed the introduction), and from there, well, old-timey hilarity ensued.

Just listen.

Toward the end of the program, the hosts got into a discussion about the role that news anchors play in communicating scary or disturbing news—how they ultimately frighten us with their words and yet assure us with their presence at the same time. And I would agree. For me, the scariest part of any apocalyptic film or movie is the moment when the news goes off the air, when the radio and TV stations go dark. Why is that? Lack of information, of course. But also the feeling of being alone to face whatever is going to happen. There’s no help or advice from any “expert,” no historical context or interpretation, no reassurance, no prediction of outcome, no spokesperson to articulate the fear or desperation for all of us.

I hate the fear-mongering that goes on, especially in local TV news, as an attempt to get ratings (and this program addresses that a little bit). But I like knowing that if something big happens I can turn on the TV and find people who know more than I do about the situation and they’ll tell me about what’s going on.

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And, completely off topic but another link. This post pretty much completely illustrates why I read blogs. She takes one personal experience, makes it universal (at least for women), and addresses major societal issues at the same time—all while being really moving and entertaining. I haven’t experienced anything close to the situation that she’s describing, and yet I was crying when I finished.

Dudes, it’s always about more than the burrito.

Time will Tell

--It cost me $50.00 to fill my tank this morning. First time ever. And I drive a MINI.

And yet somehow I think I’m going to look back on $50 as “the good old days.”

--Today I dug my wool winter coat out of my car and wore it as I walked over to the grocery store for lunch. It’s cold!

But I think I will be wishing for cooler weather soon enough.

--I realized that it’s May 19, and so I turn 30 in exactly 4 months.

Crisis? Opportunity? Crisitunity? Right now I feel blah about the whole thing.

Deep Thoughts

Yesterday I went to our local theater to see the play Doubt, which is apparently a very acclaimed play that I had never heard of. (See also: Art and Wit. What's up with the one-word play titles that end in "t"?) Anyway, I recommend it.

The playwright's (John Patrick Shanley) note in the beginning of the program discussed the idea behind the play--that we all have a crust that we show to the outside world. And we'll proclaim things about ourselves that way: I love tomatoes, hate conservative talk show hosts, and don't believe in God (for example). These can be deeply held beliefs that everyone who knows us knows to be true. But sometimes, says Shanley, things start to change deep inside, little doubts pop, and fissures start to appear in our outer crusts. Suddenly we're not sure about God, conservative talk show hosts are making sense, and tomatoes don't taste as good as they once did.

And slowly, these things push our way into consciousness and we have to act--to actually proclaim the opposite of what we once said we believed. It's disconcerting, and weird, and hard to admit. Who wants to turn around and say, after years of being known as an atheist or a republican or a tomato-lover that you're giving up what you once loudly and vehemently (or perhaps quietly and passionately) proclaimed as your truth.

Some people won't do it. They'll ignore the enormous cracks in their outer shell and pretend as if nothing has changed. Others will do it, reluctantly and with self-examination. And there are probably others who change themselves quickly--although I wonder how deeply their beliefs ran in the first place.

I didn't get all of this from the play itself, but after reading Shanley's notes, I'm beginning to see it in the text--and in real life, too.

Least complicated

In my desperate search to locate "The Wire" online, I seem to inadvertently infected myself with spyware. I realize when you dance with the devil that is illegal downloading, you open yourself up to various consequences, but spyware is embarrassing. It's seems like it's only for old people; people with AOL as their primary (and only) email address, who click on various popups in order to get free widgets or because they just get confused. I am not one of those people, and yet I'm infected. Fortunately, I've dealt with this before and I can go get help. On my own, because I am savvy!

So why was I looking for The Wire online when I have all four seasons on DVD? Well, I was horrified when I discovered that the Season 2 set was missing one disc. I'd just finished episode 7 and went to pull out the disc with 8-10, only to find it was not in its case. Horrors! Despite all my efforts, I wasn't willing to wait 1d8h to download the eps I wanted, so I read some summaries and went on to Episodes 11-12. Now I've started Season 3. It's beginning to feel like overdosing, but I'm addicted and I'll be very sorry when my stash runs out.

In other randomness, here's my favorite comment from a message board discussing the TV show Quarterlife:
I blame shows like this, that make everyone think their life should be filled with beautiful people and significant drama. The sooner you realize that the highlight of your week will be a trip to the Olive Garden (if you're lucky) the sooner you'll get over your Quarterlife Crisis.

Words to live by, 20somethings. Get over it.

Life on the Farm

Blerg. I have nothing to write in this blog at the moment. So, I'll just come up with something. I'm sick of seeing the same post at the top of my blog.

I've been thinking a lot about farms and self-sufficiency and living in community on a farm lately. It just keeps coming up in various contexts. At work on Friday we ended up having a conversation about what you would do if you owned a farm and were offered $3 million from a developer to purchase it. (what would you do?) Why this came up? I don't know . . . I didn't bring it up. But early in the day I'd been exchanging some emails about The Omnivore's Dilemma. And one of my friends just started an intentional community Facebook group--her dream is to have a farm full of awesome people living in community (in private houses, though) and so I joined that. And I got this book for Christmas. So really, I can't get away from this whole idea.

It's weird theme running through my life right now--and yet it has very little to do with what I'm currently doing. Maybe it's a sign.

I just need $3 million to buy a farm . . .

Weekend

Hello! I should finish my Honduras trip recounting here, but I don't really feel like it. You can see pictures on Jen's Facebook if you really WANT to. We went to a Children's Home on Tuesday, Christmas Day. It was much nicer than I expected--much more in terms of resources, I mean--and the kids were not desperately needy. They seemed generally cared for with plenty of attention. So we played and colored with them, I was commandeered as the personal playmate of a girl named--as close as I could tell--Biki, and I followed her around and did what she told me. "Push me" (on the swings) is pretty much understandable in any language.

Oh, look. I just recounted! Done!

I spent a good chunk of this weekend watching nuclear annihilation films on YouTube. These are movies produced in Britain in the mid-eighties, and they are not good. No triumph of the human spirit or hope for the future. Just horrible, horrible death and destruction. Had I seen these movies as a child, I would've been traumatized for life. I shudder to think how they would've screwed me up. But now they're just really disturbing.

I cry fairly easily, about many things. TV commercials, thinking about parent-child relationships, listening to sad songs, seeing a mother and her handicapped son at Kmart. But when I watch something horrifying, I can't cry. I don't feel like crying, I just feel this sense of growing dismay in my chest, like a lump getting bigger and bigger as the problems worsen. That's what these movies did to me.

So, why did I watch them? They were fascinating, for one. And interesting, and a piece of history (albeit very recent). If you are interested in what will happen in or after a nuclear war, you should watch. When the Wind Blows is an animated movie, but I would never, ever show it to a child. It's just two old people trying to prepare for a nuclear bomb and then what happens to them afterward. Very bad things. And Threads is live-action, very cheaply filmed, but still completely disturbing.

Mike and I had our End-of-the-World party in 2006, and we watched Armageddon and Deep Impact and drank some beer. If we'd had an End-of-the-World party with WtWB and Threads, a) we'd have needed something stronger than beer, and b) we would have just kept drinking.

The Man is Watching

So, I was just reading this other blog when I noticed a banner ad above the text offering low car insurance prices, in the town I'm in RIGHT NOW. And that's okay. I mean, I understand that ads can read my IP address and fill in the appropriate city. But then, right there in the ad, there WAS A PICTURE OF A MINI!

Now, I don't know if the MINI was chosen because it was a cool car, or if someone is targeting me . . . the idea with internet marketing (and probably all marketing) is that someday soon, we'll all only see ads that are exactly targeted to us, based on browsing history and searches and IP addresses. And in theory, that is kind of okay with me. I mean, privacy is pretty much gone when you get on the internet; I have no illusions.

But to actually see a targeted ad (if that's what it was) . . . well, my first reaction was HOW DO THEY KNOW THAT? Quite frankly, it freaked me out a little. I don't want everyone to know who I am, where I work, and what I drive. Years of stories about the End Times and the Mark of the Beast probably have something to do with my paranoia. But really, this can't be GOOD, can it?

A History of my Life as Told with Cars

I sold my old car yesterday, or at least I almost. I still have the title, plus several thousand in cash. They have the car with expired plates. So, good deal for me. We will be meeting to do the title transfer after I return from Thanksgiving.

So, end of another car era. My car-owning eras coincide roughly with parts of my life. My first car was an '87 Dodge Shadow, blue, which was really a piece of crap. It got me around, I guess, and no big deal if I ran it into something (which I did on a few occasions; usually parked cars). I did leave me sitting alone on the interstate, no cell phone (this was in the late 90s); fortunately I was within easy walking distance of an exit. At 87,000 miles it was about finished, and during Christmas Breaks in college I would drive it with fear and trembling--one time the brakes cut out, another time we lost all real power on the way home from the beach, so we had to roll through all stop signs and pray we didn't hit any lights red, because the car wouldn't take off from a dead stop. Every year was a question: what will happen to the Shadow this Christmas?

My college car was a '90 Ford Bronco in silver. A big 4WD beast of a thing for those snowy western NY winters. I drove my friends around; we put seven girls in it for a cold ride to New England (cold for those in the way-back, at least). I took it grocery shopping, and on long drives to church. We even drove it to Florida for Spring Break. I liked it okay, and I really liked having a car, but small things were always going wrong--windows stuck down, tires going flat and not being able to find replacements in Podunk, NY--little glitches that made things difficult.

After college, when I moved here and didn't need the Bronco anymore, my dad sold it for me and I got the old '95 Honda. This became essentially the car of my 20s, and I really loved how reliable it was. The Honda took me all over--Lancaster, up to New England, to Ontario, down to North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. It's been up to Pittsburgh, to Baltimore, to Philly. It's taken me to thousands of work days at three different jobs, to many weddings, to a few funerals. I've sat in it nervously before dates and job interviews; I've had hundreds of conversations with myself, been angry, and wept, too.

And now it's gone, and I'm 29, with a new car that will take me well into my 30s. We'll just have to see what happens.

Beautiful Mess

I read this comment on a message board today; books were being discussed:

I always refer to "the fat, lonely secretary-archetype". You know, early 30's, her whole life is her near-bottom rung job that she power trips with. Pretends to convince herself she is happy being totally alone in her two bedroom flat on the outskirts of downtown; loves her cat. They also read absolute garbage literature. The whole legion of them making up a large part of that female readership demographic that gluts Borders with all that shick-lit.

This made me laugh, and also cringe. Because I can so picture this person, and I occasionally worry that I'm becoming her. I go to the gym. I like my job. (But sometimes there are power trips). I have a two-bedroom (granted, its a house), I WOULD have a cat, were I not allergic. I'll soon be in my early 30s. And The Devil Wears Prada is downstairs on my living room sofa--plus I just read a LaVyrle Spencer book that was absolute dreck. In fact, I've been craving ridiculous chick lit lately.

But . . . I don't pretend to convince myself I'm happy. And sometimes I really am.

God only Knows

I have been thinking for awhile about writing a post about someone I know who is dying. Not a close friend or relative, but still a church friend, someone I have worked with on various projects, someone who is young and has two children and a husband. I was going to write about the sadness and the unfairness of it all. But I wasn’t sure exactly how to go about it, and so I didn’t.

And she died today.

She was forty-two. She was one of the nicest people you would ever meet, she worked with kids because that was her passion and she thrived on it. When I think about people who don’t deserve to die young, who SHOULDN’T die young, she would be at the top of that list.

There was a time when I would’ve been really, really angry about this. About the unfairness, the seeming senselessness. And I don’t understand it now at all. But I’m not angry, just sort of resigned. Anybody who’s lived in this world long enough knows that bad things happen to good people, that “deserving” really has very little to do with anything. Good people die, bad people live and thrive, and life goes on.

I sound really jaded. Maybe I am. But I also like to think that there’s a different set of rules operating in the world, rules that don’t match our ideas of fairness and justice. Because there’s grace, too. And when something good, something amazing that you don’t expect, lands in your lap, that’s like the most amazing thing ever. You don’t deserve that goodness, but there it is. That doesn’t really answer the conundrum, but it’s the other side of the unfairness coin.

Grace and pain are unpredictable and often undeserved. The simplicity of the “eye for eye” philosophy, the way that we all seem to think that the world should work—that’s just not true. And if it’s not, that’s got implications for all sorts of things.

I don’t know. Through a glass darkly and all that. Life is like a freaking Lost episode.

Passions

Note: This post is probably not going to be as interesting as its title.

One of the questions that people ask you when you're talking about your career (or lack thereof) is "what are you passionate about?" That's suppossed to be the guiding question. Find what you're passionate about and turn it into a career.

This is easier said than done. What if you're passionate about knowing song lyrics? Or ranking everything in the universe? These things CAN be translated into jobs/careers, but not as easily as if you're passionate about, say, teaching or medicine.

Anyway, I always thought the answer to the "what are you passionate about" question should be something like "preventing hunger in third world countries" or "talking with people about their problems" or some other similarly socially responsible thing. And I have my moments of passion about things like that. But lately I've been realizing that I'm passionate about words.

Just words. The order that they are placed in, their connotations, finding the perfect word(s) to say exactly what I want to say.

The reason I know this? I get really pissed if words are not used well. Today an email was sent from our company with two words that I really hated. I sent recommendations for changes, and they may have been overlooked or they may have been ignored, but the email did NOT have my changes, and I was annoyed.

Now this is silly, and there's no reason to get annoyed. If for no other reason than it's certainly not helping me. Plus there are plenty of times when I get lazy and just do whatever is adequate. And some things I'm not capable of, as much as it irks me to admit it. However, I don't get angry when people improve on what I've written. Because the writing is what's most important.

It's nice that I have a job that lets me mess with words all day. I just need to figure out how to keep my passion from shooting out my eyes and burning everyone with its white-hot fire. Channel it helpful ways, instead of letting it overwhelm me with frustration.

I'll let you know if I figure out how to do that.

In which I discuss my psychosis . . .

Despite my dearly-held belief that I have people figured out, that I can accurately sum up people’s feelings, that I can read the mood of a group . . . I have a horrible time actually doing this when I am involved.

I do this all the time: I’ll say something or do something, and then seriously start to worry that I’ve been bitchy, snarky, or otherwise gauche in some way. And once that happens, the worry starts to take over my brain. I feel like I should apologize to someone, or go out of my way to be super-nice. See, I’m not a bitch! I’m a great fun girl that you should like and want to be friends with!

I have no sense of perspective.

And, conversely, if I’m feeling sensitive, things that are said and done start to make me worry. Who’s talking about me? They probably didn’t tell me about that because they don’t like me. I didn't get invited because people don't want to hang out with me. Etc. It’s ridiculous. When I hear other people get paranoid like this, I laugh at them. And yet . . . when it comes to me, I’m completely without clarity. Everything has some kind of negative significance, everything feels like a personal rejection.

I’m sick of caring so much, of overreacting, of being oversensitive. I try really, really hard to be practical, to remind myself that “this doesn’t mean what you’re imagining that it means.” And I KNOW that I'm doing it! Taking the small, slightly negative things as just a sign of a much bigger rejection, and the positive things as just words. Things that people say, that they don’t really mean.

How does that even make sense?

And yet, despite my best attempts to be rational and practical and self-aware and full of healthy perspective, I still find myself upset or sad or angry or all three.

Tim and I were talking about this recently. About the way that people (okay, mostly girls) tend to make big deals out of small things. A word here, an email there, and suddenly she’s facedown on the bed in tears or stomping around the house in anger. I don’t know what to do about that. I mean, it might be a small thing, but, for whatever reason, it seems packed with larger significance.

And who’s to say it isn’t packed with larger significance? (The man!). But why does he get to determine the meaning of the situation? If she thinks it’s a big deal, and he doesn’t . . . well, either one of them could be right. Can feelings be labeled “right” and “wrong?” (I can hear Tim saying "yes.")

I didn’t mean to turn this into a post on the nature of truth. People are just crazy sometimes. I am crazy sometimes, and I wish I could just chill. But since I obviously can’t, I’m going to have find some way to deal.

We're all freak shows

I’m going to a church women’s retreat this weekend.

That sounds bad. I mean, I don’t like church women’s retreats on principle. A bunch of women, listening to a speaker tell them how they can improve their devotions or keep their husbands happy or apply makeup properly or make crafts from household items.

Yuck. Definitely not my thing.

But this is not that kind of retreat. It’s just a bunch of cool women I go to church with hanging out for a day and a half. Very little schedule, and no guest speaker. Just eating and talking . . . and I can handle that.

Past retreats have had NO schedule, but this retreat has a little bit of a schedule, and the plan is to write a 71-word essay to share on a time you “did or didn’t feel odd.” I think this is a fun topic, because I’ve been thinking about it lately.

The thing is, I feel odd most of the time. At work, especially, but in plenty of other social situations. I feel like the weird one, the one that doesn’t fit in. And that’s not unusual, I don’t think. Lots of people feel odd. And I like the reasons I’m odd, for the most part, but it gets tiresome, too. And that’s why feeling not-odd is such a rarity and a pleasure. So I think I should probably write about feeling not-odd, just because it doesn’t happen all that often.

Here’s what I started:

Friends are the people who make you feel “not-odd.” Or at least not-so-odd. Because if there’s two of you who feel the same way, well, then you’re not alone. Maybe that’s how we find our good friends . . . they’re the people who, when we’re with them, don’t make us feel too odd.

I don’t feel odd when I’m talking to Joy about God and church and people we know. She gets it. I don’t feel odd when Mike and I invent a network-marketing cereal company and get all excited about it for ten minutes, or argue about whether a Killer Asteroid or a military coup is more likely in the next 100 years. I don’t feel odd when Tim and I discuss the relative merits of Cat Stevens songs (or any song, for that matter), or if I know an obscure fact when we play trivia. I don’t feel odd when I read something in a blog that could’ve been written by me (like this line from one of Sara’s recent posts: “It's incomprehensible to me now that I could have been upset that a boy I had never met nor talked to didn't meet my gaze and fall in love instantly.” See, I could’ve written that.)

Crap, I’m already at 225 words. I’m going to have to cut that down. Seventy-one words isn’t enough to say anything . . . except maybe to advertise for a network-marketing cereal company.