This word has recently become part of my almost daily life. A word that until the present time never really passed my lips. However, after getting up close and personal, I have decided it is a highly underused word. Much like the beloved F bomb, it can be used in so many ways. For example
S: "Guys are such chumps man."
Me: "What do you mean?"
S: "They always wait til after a girl walks past them to say something."
or
Me: "Why won't you tell me?"
S: "Cause I am being a chump"
or
Me: "Maybe she just hasn't reached her breaking point yet."
S: "Whatever she needs to stop being a chump."
I mean the list goes on and on and on. In the last 7 months I've learned that chump can take the place of almost any other insult or name calling you can think of. It wasn't the first word that ever came to my mind, but lately it has become one of my faves.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
Tina Feyminism...
One of the joys of moving back to Minneapolis is the lovely company of my favorite ladies. I was lucky enough to entertain them in my humble abode last night for my initiation into their already established book club. There was wine. There were chocolates. There were snacks procured at the last minute. And there was Tina Fey's Bossypants.
Now for those of you who have read it. Congratulations! Nice work. For those of you who haven't you really should. It is an easy, entertaining read, full of half baked themes like motherhood, professional sexism and self deprecation.
To be honest, the book clubs I've participated in up to this point in my life usually included a bottle of Jager. Yeah, we were REALLY interested in talking about the book back then. But now the women that were in my home are no longer just college friends or bar working buddies. These women now run the gamut when it comes to profession from the first ever critical care/neuro NP in the state of Minnesota to multiple entrepreneurs. From corporate desks to teacher's desks. The commentary that was spurred from what was reviewed as a book that included some...
"hugely funny bits, and some inspiring bits, and some nerdishly interesting bits, and some bits that read like essays in the New Yorker (which in fact two of the chapters were). "
Led to the type of conversations I crave with intelligent women whose opinions I trust. Communication enriched by our diversity in specialization, experience and personality.
We talked about men in the work place and how top heavy, pun intended the lower class of business still is. There are so many over the shoulder boulder holders in the lower half of the corporate ladder that I am surprised it hasn't toppled forward due to the extra frontal weight.
We talked about being a working mother. Well we postulated about it except for one. Wondered if the aforementioned situation was intrinsically linked to maternity...which it obviously is. Nobody is talking or writing about the Fatherhood Penalty. But we talked about it less from a fair vs. unfair perspective and more about how our specific jobs treated the subject as well as how we felt motherhood would affect our futures. Of course the one mother in the room made sure to point out that Tina has it pretty good since she can bring her baby on set. Not the case for most. Oh and she has a constant "babysitter" so that helps. But to quote one of the women in attendance:
"Tina doesn't have a f*!%#$% babysitter, she has a nanny. Let's get serious"
Still I think we all felt a certain sense of pride that there is a woman out there who is not conventionally beautiful or funny for that matter, that made it. Like really made it.
One friend mentioned that she loved the part of the book where you could see a shift in late night comedy. There was an instance at SNL when Amy Poehler stood up and said she didn't give a F*&^!!!! what a male writer liked. There was a time when Tina said that a guy told her no one would ever want to watch a sketch with just two women. Then there was the Sarah Palin v. Hillary Clinton cold open during the presidential election and it made the news. Screw you guy who nobody knows!!!
I talked about how I thought it was kind of sad that women's comedy has to be more self deprecating to be funny, or so it would seem. Maybe it is because we don't like watching women be physically humorous, or listen to them talk about the funny things women have to go through like maxi pads. (read the book) I figured it was also about the fact that if women make the joke first someone else can't hurt us by making it for us or about us. That was more of a life comment than a book comment. Some girls heads went up and down. Others side to side. Alas a debate that will go on another time.
We talked about the Tridiots. Palin, Bachmann and O'Donnell.
We talked about the nuggets of wisdom Tina left like breadcrumbs for you throughout the book. They often lead you in a direction but never to a specific destination. I think she believes strongly in women thinking for ourselves. We talked about the anecdotes, peeing in bottles and the difficulty of teaching your daughter that Snow White is pretty even if she doesn't have yellow hair.
We debated about why women are such haters? We are HATERS, MAN!!!! We refuse to be happy for each other when we see another woman succeed, especially but not limited to direct competition. Actually that isn't completely accurate. To use the word refuse would mean we have some sort of conscious power over it. Nope it is like a primordial response that our body just involuntarily projects. It is a sad social commentary that women are still the ones that seem to be holding women down. Now don't get me wrong, we aren't the whole problem but until we can lift each other up instead of tearing each other apart there may never be a Tina Fey for every generation. I think everyone at my house would at least agree that young women should have a Tina Fey type.
Over all it was a great evening. It made me proud to be friends with the women I'm friends with.
At the end of the night I sent most home, well one in particular, with Chips Ahoy! Starbursts and Skittles. I'll never get long Swedish legs or the abs of a lesbian gym owner if I have that stuff in my house. The door closed and it was just me and my cat. A little bit fuller and wearier and happier and a lot more aware of what she tells young women who ask her for career advice:
People are going to try to trick you. To make you feel that you are in competition with one another. “You’re up for a promotion. If they go with a woman, it’ll be between you and Barbara.” Don’t be fooled. You’re not in competition with other women. You’re in competition with everyone. Also, I encourage them to always wear a bra. Even if you don’t think you need it, just… you know what? You’re never going to regret it.
Thanks Tina Fey.
And thank you God for the double D's. Wearing a bra has never been an issue.
Now for those of you who have read it. Congratulations! Nice work. For those of you who haven't you really should. It is an easy, entertaining read, full of half baked themes like motherhood, professional sexism and self deprecation.
To be honest, the book clubs I've participated in up to this point in my life usually included a bottle of Jager. Yeah, we were REALLY interested in talking about the book back then. But now the women that were in my home are no longer just college friends or bar working buddies. These women now run the gamut when it comes to profession from the first ever critical care/neuro NP in the state of Minnesota to multiple entrepreneurs. From corporate desks to teacher's desks. The commentary that was spurred from what was reviewed as a book that included some...
"hugely funny bits, and some inspiring bits, and some nerdishly interesting bits, and some bits that read like essays in the New Yorker (which in fact two of the chapters were). "
Led to the type of conversations I crave with intelligent women whose opinions I trust. Communication enriched by our diversity in specialization, experience and personality.
We talked about men in the work place and how top heavy, pun intended the lower class of business still is. There are so many over the shoulder boulder holders in the lower half of the corporate ladder that I am surprised it hasn't toppled forward due to the extra frontal weight.
We talked about being a working mother. Well we postulated about it except for one. Wondered if the aforementioned situation was intrinsically linked to maternity...which it obviously is. Nobody is talking or writing about the Fatherhood Penalty. But we talked about it less from a fair vs. unfair perspective and more about how our specific jobs treated the subject as well as how we felt motherhood would affect our futures. Of course the one mother in the room made sure to point out that Tina has it pretty good since she can bring her baby on set. Not the case for most. Oh and she has a constant "babysitter" so that helps. But to quote one of the women in attendance:
"Tina doesn't have a f*!%#$% babysitter, she has a nanny. Let's get serious"
Still I think we all felt a certain sense of pride that there is a woman out there who is not conventionally beautiful or funny for that matter, that made it. Like really made it.
One friend mentioned that she loved the part of the book where you could see a shift in late night comedy. There was an instance at SNL when Amy Poehler stood up and said she didn't give a F*&^!!!! what a male writer liked. There was a time when Tina said that a guy told her no one would ever want to watch a sketch with just two women. Then there was the Sarah Palin v. Hillary Clinton cold open during the presidential election and it made the news. Screw you guy who nobody knows!!!
I talked about how I thought it was kind of sad that women's comedy has to be more self deprecating to be funny, or so it would seem. Maybe it is because we don't like watching women be physically humorous, or listen to them talk about the funny things women have to go through like maxi pads. (read the book) I figured it was also about the fact that if women make the joke first someone else can't hurt us by making it for us or about us. That was more of a life comment than a book comment. Some girls heads went up and down. Others side to side. Alas a debate that will go on another time.
We talked about the Tridiots. Palin, Bachmann and O'Donnell.
We talked about the nuggets of wisdom Tina left like breadcrumbs for you throughout the book. They often lead you in a direction but never to a specific destination. I think she believes strongly in women thinking for ourselves. We talked about the anecdotes, peeing in bottles and the difficulty of teaching your daughter that Snow White is pretty even if she doesn't have yellow hair.
We debated about why women are such haters? We are HATERS, MAN!!!! We refuse to be happy for each other when we see another woman succeed, especially but not limited to direct competition. Actually that isn't completely accurate. To use the word refuse would mean we have some sort of conscious power over it. Nope it is like a primordial response that our body just involuntarily projects. It is a sad social commentary that women are still the ones that seem to be holding women down. Now don't get me wrong, we aren't the whole problem but until we can lift each other up instead of tearing each other apart there may never be a Tina Fey for every generation. I think everyone at my house would at least agree that young women should have a Tina Fey type.
Over all it was a great evening. It made me proud to be friends with the women I'm friends with.
At the end of the night I sent most home, well one in particular, with Chips Ahoy! Starbursts and Skittles. I'll never get long Swedish legs or the abs of a lesbian gym owner if I have that stuff in my house. The door closed and it was just me and my cat. A little bit fuller and wearier and happier and a lot more aware of what she tells young women who ask her for career advice:
People are going to try to trick you. To make you feel that you are in competition with one another. “You’re up for a promotion. If they go with a woman, it’ll be between you and Barbara.” Don’t be fooled. You’re not in competition with other women. You’re in competition with everyone. Also, I encourage them to always wear a bra. Even if you don’t think you need it, just… you know what? You’re never going to regret it.
Thanks Tina Fey.
And thank you God for the double D's. Wearing a bra has never been an issue.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Coming home...again...
At a certain moment in one's personal history, home as a concept is a paradox. That moment for me is now.
It is odd to be welcomed back "home" to a place that has never been my home. Not in the way most dream, smell, reminisce about whatever place that bore them. The land whose ground supports the foundation of their parents house. A town or city that echoes with the sounds of the childhood they had no choice but to leave behind. A home is usually filled with lifes' firsts or a place to return to for holidays and anniversaries. A one of a kind locale at the center of connective tissue that stretches to sounds, scents and stories.
The more liberal of the twin cities was never that kind of home for me. It was a place to grow up in a completely different way. To discover myself and create a life around that Lauren. That is why I will always have a soft spot in my heart for this place and more than anything the people.
Upon my return to Minneapolis, the place that both cultivated and corrupted me, I was welcomed with open arms. The word "home" embraced me with the outstretched appendages of a long lost love. It trickled off the tongues of friends and my second family. Always prefaced by "welcome" and "it is so good to have you back". Practical strangers seemed genuinely happy to see me. To be welcomed was expected. It was the welcomed "home" that threw me. It slid from people's mouths so easily that it was hard not to believe. In fact, I was almost convinced. Yet, somewhere in the ethereal place where personal memories and instinctive pride come together to create the connection you have to "home", I was awakened. There was a knee jerk reaction and that knee went straight to my gut. This was unexpected. I've never felt all that close to the small town in which I grew up, but something like betrayal filled my insides. Like somehow I had replaced my actual place of birth with something all together different. It was odd. It was like a different side of me was trying to make itself known. Some deep seeded attachment to a place I left easily and have yet to return permanently flashed before my eyes and then was gone.
Once I came back to reality I had to admit I made a home in Minneapolis during college and grad school but it was fabricated. It wasn't authentic and I mean that in the most positive way. I created it out of a need to feel completely myself in a place with people that accepted that person. Here I found people that made that transition seamless for me. The majority of my adult life was spent on the corners of 1st avenue between 4th and 6th street so it's definitely familiar.
But is it home?
Have I've always felt closer or more connected to a place where no family resides, no former playground stands, no historical deep rooted emotional connection exists? And if I do, does that make me messed up? Is that disrespecting my elders or upbringing? Is it turning my back on my roots?
I am glad to be back walking the streets that gave me a chance to get to know me better. The dark corners and bright lights that gave me the confidence to leave the place I call home as well as this place. When I left for Chicago four years ago I didn't know that I'd return. It wasn't clandestine. At least, not in my brain. But alas, I am back. Surrounded by 10,000 lakes and hundreds of thousands of memories. Talking to voices that my ears haven't heard in the flesh for years. Turning corners that almost seem familial but no longer resemble the picture in my mind's eye. Filling my days with doing things in Minneapolis for the first time again.
Home is a paradox when you return to a place that was never really your home.
Especially when you realize through its archetypes and architecture the world moved on without you but is still happy to have you back.
It is odd to be welcomed back "home" to a place that has never been my home. Not in the way most dream, smell, reminisce about whatever place that bore them. The land whose ground supports the foundation of their parents house. A town or city that echoes with the sounds of the childhood they had no choice but to leave behind. A home is usually filled with lifes' firsts or a place to return to for holidays and anniversaries. A one of a kind locale at the center of connective tissue that stretches to sounds, scents and stories.
The more liberal of the twin cities was never that kind of home for me. It was a place to grow up in a completely different way. To discover myself and create a life around that Lauren. That is why I will always have a soft spot in my heart for this place and more than anything the people.
Upon my return to Minneapolis, the place that both cultivated and corrupted me, I was welcomed with open arms. The word "home" embraced me with the outstretched appendages of a long lost love. It trickled off the tongues of friends and my second family. Always prefaced by "welcome" and "it is so good to have you back". Practical strangers seemed genuinely happy to see me. To be welcomed was expected. It was the welcomed "home" that threw me. It slid from people's mouths so easily that it was hard not to believe. In fact, I was almost convinced. Yet, somewhere in the ethereal place where personal memories and instinctive pride come together to create the connection you have to "home", I was awakened. There was a knee jerk reaction and that knee went straight to my gut. This was unexpected. I've never felt all that close to the small town in which I grew up, but something like betrayal filled my insides. Like somehow I had replaced my actual place of birth with something all together different. It was odd. It was like a different side of me was trying to make itself known. Some deep seeded attachment to a place I left easily and have yet to return permanently flashed before my eyes and then was gone.
Once I came back to reality I had to admit I made a home in Minneapolis during college and grad school but it was fabricated. It wasn't authentic and I mean that in the most positive way. I created it out of a need to feel completely myself in a place with people that accepted that person. Here I found people that made that transition seamless for me. The majority of my adult life was spent on the corners of 1st avenue between 4th and 6th street so it's definitely familiar.
But is it home?
Have I've always felt closer or more connected to a place where no family resides, no former playground stands, no historical deep rooted emotional connection exists? And if I do, does that make me messed up? Is that disrespecting my elders or upbringing? Is it turning my back on my roots?
I am glad to be back walking the streets that gave me a chance to get to know me better. The dark corners and bright lights that gave me the confidence to leave the place I call home as well as this place. When I left for Chicago four years ago I didn't know that I'd return. It wasn't clandestine. At least, not in my brain. But alas, I am back. Surrounded by 10,000 lakes and hundreds of thousands of memories. Talking to voices that my ears haven't heard in the flesh for years. Turning corners that almost seem familial but no longer resemble the picture in my mind's eye. Filling my days with doing things in Minneapolis for the first time again.
Home is a paradox when you return to a place that was never really your home.
Especially when you realize through its archetypes and architecture the world moved on without you but is still happy to have you back.
Friday, April 15, 2011
The gates are golden...
Dark.
Dimly lit but still, somehow vibrant.
A fire breathing head, that smolders and cracks while it winds from sea level to such great heights. The air is always on aflame.
A cloud appears on the sidewalk like an apparition. A smell you cannot misconstrue. Yeast pumps into the street where transients and tourists salivate for completely different reasons.
The pungent scent of a salt that can only accommodate an alien food chain that is both on the higher and lower end of our own.
The unreality of its reality transformed a movie set into a landscape to live and love right before my eyes.
"Take my picture", floated on the night mingled and muddled with the scent of medicinal THC.
"Where'd you get that booty?", broke the night abruptly like the disappearance of the beam from a lighthouse stretching across a nothingness that fades into a deeper nothing.
Blues spread over the deep blue.
Cash exchanged for contraband that sustains sister cities across the ever-rotating globe.
High heels walk the crowded streets of history.
You can smell the ashes of Ashbury. You can feel melting in the pot. You can see the hum of a place that runs on the real ideal that anything goes.
If it happens here it most definitely doesn't have to stay.
Costumes moonlight as casual and couture. It is difficult to miss the fanfare.
Gold lame jackets of lizard lounges beckoning for the good old days. Vampire teeth suckling on a cigarette. Beehives and bow ties on boys. On girls.
Boys. Girls. Some both. Some neither.
There is no rhythm here because it is too melodic to just be a bass line but there is sound and a strong beat. Noise with intention, vibrating with purpose.
A multiple personality disorder displays itself like the proud tail of a male peacock. Each one layered in a beautiful arrangement. Still schizophrenic but well meaning and full of heart.
It's not hard to see its appeal. Both sex and judicial.
There is something addicting to the feeling of already fitting in. Just another patch on an infinite patchwork quilt. Between the hours of late night and early morning my sister and I became citizens of a city that showed us it's wonders, it's unsavory and it's unkept secrets.
I felt like I fell in love in the dark.
Perhaps that is the best way to fall.
Dimly lit but still, somehow vibrant.
A fire breathing head, that smolders and cracks while it winds from sea level to such great heights. The air is always on aflame.
A cloud appears on the sidewalk like an apparition. A smell you cannot misconstrue. Yeast pumps into the street where transients and tourists salivate for completely different reasons.
The pungent scent of a salt that can only accommodate an alien food chain that is both on the higher and lower end of our own.
The unreality of its reality transformed a movie set into a landscape to live and love right before my eyes.
"Take my picture", floated on the night mingled and muddled with the scent of medicinal THC.
"Where'd you get that booty?", broke the night abruptly like the disappearance of the beam from a lighthouse stretching across a nothingness that fades into a deeper nothing.
Blues spread over the deep blue.
Cash exchanged for contraband that sustains sister cities across the ever-rotating globe.
High heels walk the crowded streets of history.
You can smell the ashes of Ashbury. You can feel melting in the pot. You can see the hum of a place that runs on the real ideal that anything goes.
If it happens here it most definitely doesn't have to stay.
Costumes moonlight as casual and couture. It is difficult to miss the fanfare.
Gold lame jackets of lizard lounges beckoning for the good old days. Vampire teeth suckling on a cigarette. Beehives and bow ties on boys. On girls.
Boys. Girls. Some both. Some neither.
There is no rhythm here because it is too melodic to just be a bass line but there is sound and a strong beat. Noise with intention, vibrating with purpose.
A multiple personality disorder displays itself like the proud tail of a male peacock. Each one layered in a beautiful arrangement. Still schizophrenic but well meaning and full of heart.
It's not hard to see its appeal. Both sex and judicial.
There is something addicting to the feeling of already fitting in. Just another patch on an infinite patchwork quilt. Between the hours of late night and early morning my sister and I became citizens of a city that showed us it's wonders, it's unsavory and it's unkept secrets.
I felt like I fell in love in the dark.
Perhaps that is the best way to fall.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
The Flatlands...
As someone who comes from the Midwest, land of rolling hills, tall corn and flat lands, a place with that name doesn't exactly belong among the sparkling antennas and dark, black iron of the Hancock and Sears towers.
A name like 'The Flatlands' doesn't seem to fit a city like Chicago, at least not instinctually . Yet here it sits on the South side of the city surrounded by everything that isn't flat. Not even close. Well, that's not entirely true. Once the doors open and one is inside these walls everything is flat but only for a while and only to serve at the pleasure of the artist that stands before it with bottle, blade or brush in hand.
It is run on an energy of people. A humming that comes from inside the brain, the soul and the heart. This place has a lifeblood and it's made of ink mixed with sweat that pumps out colors Crayola doesn't tell us about as kids. These colors emanate from a variety of cones. Pressurized and pointed because you never know what will come next. They spread from bristles and fingertips. It is a living, breathing creature that allows visitors but never truly lets them in. One doesn't need a passport to come here, but one may feel jet-lagged upon the return to Earth.
This place is poetry in words expressed visually. It is camaraderie in solitude. It is home to some. A rest stop for others. A place that one may not love at first but will always want to leave last.
Ruled by creativity. Run on 808's. Rotated on an axis of late nights and the lyrics that the people of this world spit. An individual sound. A communal silence. A place ruled by a common passion. The result a common good. Uneven, rough, and jagged as the streets of the city on which it stands.
A land unto itself. Full of cramped, cluttered nooks and crannies packed with everything and nothing all at the same time. Masterpieces and just pieces. One man's trash. Another mans treasure. In this place something could be both to the same person depending on the time, place and mood.
Here colors have their own scent, a scent one is powerless not to take on. Lining its bowels are materials waiting to be molded. Or resting in a flash of new found inspiration, molded but forgotten. Layers upon layers of project upon project try desperately to blend into the floor or the walls. Failing miserably to do so, of course.
Scraps lie in piles on tables and against pipes wishing for the proverbial dog to gobble them up or bury them. In every corner one can find mismatched liquid rainbows. The harshness of metal penetrating, banging or protruding. Panels dripping wet with what is here today and possibly gone tomorrow.
There is plastic and piping. Trees get blown. Bottles get emptied. Conversation flows both with words and without. Art becomes greater than artwork.
It is an amalgamation of paint. Wood. Paper. It is a concoction of film. Cotton. Fumes. A never-ending bass line that makes dreads, braids and baseball caps bob up and down. It don't matter if you’re black or white here. For real. This place, this world opens itself up to you as long as you have access to someone who has the key.
Welcome to The Flatlands.
A landscape that makes the name so much more than ironic.
A name like 'The Flatlands' doesn't seem to fit a city like Chicago, at least not instinctually . Yet here it sits on the South side of the city surrounded by everything that isn't flat. Not even close. Well, that's not entirely true. Once the doors open and one is inside these walls everything is flat but only for a while and only to serve at the pleasure of the artist that stands before it with bottle, blade or brush in hand.
It is run on an energy of people. A humming that comes from inside the brain, the soul and the heart. This place has a lifeblood and it's made of ink mixed with sweat that pumps out colors Crayola doesn't tell us about as kids. These colors emanate from a variety of cones. Pressurized and pointed because you never know what will come next. They spread from bristles and fingertips. It is a living, breathing creature that allows visitors but never truly lets them in. One doesn't need a passport to come here, but one may feel jet-lagged upon the return to Earth.
This place is poetry in words expressed visually. It is camaraderie in solitude. It is home to some. A rest stop for others. A place that one may not love at first but will always want to leave last.
Ruled by creativity. Run on 808's. Rotated on an axis of late nights and the lyrics that the people of this world spit. An individual sound. A communal silence. A place ruled by a common passion. The result a common good. Uneven, rough, and jagged as the streets of the city on which it stands.
A land unto itself. Full of cramped, cluttered nooks and crannies packed with everything and nothing all at the same time. Masterpieces and just pieces. One man's trash. Another mans treasure. In this place something could be both to the same person depending on the time, place and mood.
Here colors have their own scent, a scent one is powerless not to take on. Lining its bowels are materials waiting to be molded. Or resting in a flash of new found inspiration, molded but forgotten. Layers upon layers of project upon project try desperately to blend into the floor or the walls. Failing miserably to do so, of course.
Scraps lie in piles on tables and against pipes wishing for the proverbial dog to gobble them up or bury them. In every corner one can find mismatched liquid rainbows. The harshness of metal penetrating, banging or protruding. Panels dripping wet with what is here today and possibly gone tomorrow.
There is plastic and piping. Trees get blown. Bottles get emptied. Conversation flows both with words and without. Art becomes greater than artwork.
It is an amalgamation of paint. Wood. Paper. It is a concoction of film. Cotton. Fumes. A never-ending bass line that makes dreads, braids and baseball caps bob up and down. It don't matter if you’re black or white here. For real. This place, this world opens itself up to you as long as you have access to someone who has the key.
Welcome to The Flatlands.
A landscape that makes the name so much more than ironic.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
She's got legs...
and doesn't know how to use them?
Legs are so strange. They are the foundation of your body there to serve a functional purpose for most. You know, a way to get from here to there. They can be strong. They can be stubby. They can be gorgeous. They can be long. They can be overlooked. They can be the center attention and names like Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth have made legs so much more than the most archaic way to travel.
While I must say I love those women for reasons other than their legs, like their voluptuousness, moxie, gumption and pin up... it's their legs that have me writing today. I for one can appreciate someone who has really great legs. The kind of legs that turn heads. The kind of legs that have covetous knees. Yes, I said covetous and knees in the same sentence. The kind of legs that have a definition in the calves. A contour from top to bottom. A shape at the ankle. Different lines running parallel and perpendicular towards the ground. Graceful. Curvaceous. Silhouetted. The kind of legs that made the aforementioned women famous.
Well guess what? Those are not the kind of legs I have. So, while I appreciate the women who were known for their stems I also secretly hate them. Not only have knee surgeries and bike accidents scarred my, what I lovingly refer to as ‘trunks’, genetics haven’t helped me out one bit. My mother would attest to this, so I will publicly thank her and the women that have come before her for my walking sticks. The gene pool has left me with thick thighs, knock knees, high arches, and undefined calves… I mean the list goes on and on. I have all the trappings of killer legs, but in my case it’s killer of a serial kind.
I will always watch classic Hollywood films and stare in wonder at the way Marilyn and Jane Russell sauntered across the screen. Or the way Vera Ellen and Ginger Rogers floated seemingly inches off the floor. Their legs were a tribute to these women. I would argue their legs were a tribute to legs themselves. Little girls and grown women have stared longingly at the pinup of Betty Grable and sighed accordingly. Men have as well. Double takes and catcalls. Green eyes and pouting faces. Great legs have the kind of power to cause involuntary reactions. And when it comes to reactions, and legs for that matter, I will always be a bridesmaid, never a bride.
Legs are so strange. They are the foundation of your body there to serve a functional purpose for most. You know, a way to get from here to there. They can be strong. They can be stubby. They can be gorgeous. They can be long. They can be overlooked. They can be the center attention and names like Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth have made legs so much more than the most archaic way to travel.
While I must say I love those women for reasons other than their legs, like their voluptuousness, moxie, gumption and pin up... it's their legs that have me writing today. I for one can appreciate someone who has really great legs. The kind of legs that turn heads. The kind of legs that have covetous knees. Yes, I said covetous and knees in the same sentence. The kind of legs that have a definition in the calves. A contour from top to bottom. A shape at the ankle. Different lines running parallel and perpendicular towards the ground. Graceful. Curvaceous. Silhouetted. The kind of legs that made the aforementioned women famous.
Well guess what? Those are not the kind of legs I have. So, while I appreciate the women who were known for their stems I also secretly hate them. Not only have knee surgeries and bike accidents scarred my, what I lovingly refer to as ‘trunks’, genetics haven’t helped me out one bit. My mother would attest to this, so I will publicly thank her and the women that have come before her for my walking sticks. The gene pool has left me with thick thighs, knock knees, high arches, and undefined calves… I mean the list goes on and on. I have all the trappings of killer legs, but in my case it’s killer of a serial kind.
I will always watch classic Hollywood films and stare in wonder at the way Marilyn and Jane Russell sauntered across the screen. Or the way Vera Ellen and Ginger Rogers floated seemingly inches off the floor. Their legs were a tribute to these women. I would argue their legs were a tribute to legs themselves. Little girls and grown women have stared longingly at the pinup of Betty Grable and sighed accordingly. Men have as well. Double takes and catcalls. Green eyes and pouting faces. Great legs have the kind of power to cause involuntary reactions. And when it comes to reactions, and legs for that matter, I will always be a bridesmaid, never a bride.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Puzzles...
You know that feeling when you're doing a puzzle and you search and search because some of the pieces are almost perfect but then bend and warp slightly. Just enough to realize that it isn't the right piece.
Then you know the feeling you get when you actually find the piece that fits perfectly. That sense of excitement, accomplishment and also calm that follows. Calm because it fits. There is no fighting. There is no pushing. There is no trying to squeeze something in where it doesn't belong. It is easy. It puts you at ease.
That is how relationships should be. As a person who has always said "the people who walk around thinking relationships are easy should be shot", I guess I sort of agree with them. I mean don't get me wrong they are work. Work to make them successful, to be always present in them and sustain them. However, as far as a partner goes or the piece you find it doesn't have to be. In fact, it shouldn't be that hard.
The things that have warped you in the past are actually things that endear them to you. The things that have bent and buckled before are appreciated, wanted even. The pushing and squeezing is replaced by pulling in and letting go.
The cynic in me says "nothing is perfect", but the hopeless romantic in me says "a perfect fit does exist".
Relationships are just like a puzzle, there are plenty of pieces that almost fit...but there is only one that fits perfectly.
edited by kristin haley
Then you know the feeling you get when you actually find the piece that fits perfectly. That sense of excitement, accomplishment and also calm that follows. Calm because it fits. There is no fighting. There is no pushing. There is no trying to squeeze something in where it doesn't belong. It is easy. It puts you at ease.
That is how relationships should be. As a person who has always said "the people who walk around thinking relationships are easy should be shot", I guess I sort of agree with them. I mean don't get me wrong they are work. Work to make them successful, to be always present in them and sustain them. However, as far as a partner goes or the piece you find it doesn't have to be. In fact, it shouldn't be that hard.
The things that have warped you in the past are actually things that endear them to you. The things that have bent and buckled before are appreciated, wanted even. The pushing and squeezing is replaced by pulling in and letting go.
The cynic in me says "nothing is perfect", but the hopeless romantic in me says "a perfect fit does exist".
Relationships are just like a puzzle, there are plenty of pieces that almost fit...but there is only one that fits perfectly.
edited by kristin haley
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Penny and the Packers...
There are a lot of things that mothers and daughters bond over. Shopping. Movies. Gardening. Cooking. Men. While I can't say that Penny and I have never bonded over any of the aforementioned things, I know with complete certainty that nothing brings us closer together then men.
Specifically, men in uniform. More specifically, men in the unmistakable green and gold of a Green Bay Packer jersey.
Sundays, Mondays and during the playoffs... Saturdays include cross state, country, at times continent phone calls and text messages for collective celebrations and disappointments. We yell through the phone, we curse through text messages. When my mother was given Packers tickets for the last game of the 2010 season, she took me. When the Packers beat the Vikings and I was in Denmark, I called her at 5am in the morning because I knew she would be watching. It is a relationship that some would call unconventional, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
It started when I was a very young. I can't remember a time when the Packers weren't on in some room of the house. I remember going over to my grandparents house to watch as a kid, and seeing my mother and her mother bonding the same way. Screaming 'you toad' at Don Majkowski and his crazy mullet, or in grandmother's case the referees. Crying when Reggie White died. I remember my grandmother and mother not having very nice things to say about the likes of Mark Chmura and Antonio Freeman after their escapades came to press. Recognizing that the rest of the league pays homage to a man who coached us for 10 years and brought us two Super Bowl trophies. And then to watch Brett Favre , braces and all bring us back there in 1996. I was 13. There is the Lambeau leap. The Gilbert Burger. The experience of being at the stadium itself. My dad giving up his corporate tickets so that mom and I could go sit in his box seats. Watching the UW-Madison marching band celebrate center field after the Pack beat the Cowboys, which at the the time was a big rivalry. Sterling Sharpe's career ending injury. Mike Holmgren leaving and taking what seemed like our entire coaching staff with him, and subsequently trying to stifle a grin when his street sign was rumored to have disappeared. Sam Con. Brooks. Bennett. Matt Flynn out performing Tom Brady. Non-profit, community owned. The training camp bicycle tradition. And of course watching a hero of any Green Bay fan become a sad, pathetic media train wreck.
Yeah, we have cheered through the good, the bad and the very very ugly because the words fair weather were never used in our house. In fact I think my mother inadvertently used Sunday games as a teaching opportunity. She is a teacher after all. She taught me you can still sound positive when you are yelling nasty things at Cris Collinsworth. That it is okay to be irrationally passionate. That it's possible to lose with grace. That you can't control everything. That you are never to old to celebrate like it is Christmas morning. That there is no such thing as semi-loyal. That it is important to honor your personal history. And that love is a labor that you should take on with your whole heart.
The relationship my mother and I have with the Packers, has made our relationship stronger in a way that many including my sister and father don't really understand. But in spite of that, they are still there right next to us in the living room anytime my mom and I are together for a game. Why? Because there is nothing like watching us watch the Packers.
Oh, and Mom if you read this. I am coming home on Saturday night so we can watch our boys. Go PACK!!!
Specifically, men in uniform. More specifically, men in the unmistakable green and gold of a Green Bay Packer jersey.
Sundays, Mondays and during the playoffs... Saturdays include cross state, country, at times continent phone calls and text messages for collective celebrations and disappointments. We yell through the phone, we curse through text messages. When my mother was given Packers tickets for the last game of the 2010 season, she took me. When the Packers beat the Vikings and I was in Denmark, I called her at 5am in the morning because I knew she would be watching. It is a relationship that some would call unconventional, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
It started when I was a very young. I can't remember a time when the Packers weren't on in some room of the house. I remember going over to my grandparents house to watch as a kid, and seeing my mother and her mother bonding the same way. Screaming 'you toad' at Don Majkowski and his crazy mullet, or in grandmother's case the referees. Crying when Reggie White died. I remember my grandmother and mother not having very nice things to say about the likes of Mark Chmura and Antonio Freeman after their escapades came to press. Recognizing that the rest of the league pays homage to a man who coached us for 10 years and brought us two Super Bowl trophies. And then to watch Brett Favre , braces and all bring us back there in 1996. I was 13. There is the Lambeau leap. The Gilbert Burger. The experience of being at the stadium itself. My dad giving up his corporate tickets so that mom and I could go sit in his box seats. Watching the UW-Madison marching band celebrate center field after the Pack beat the Cowboys, which at the the time was a big rivalry. Sterling Sharpe's career ending injury. Mike Holmgren leaving and taking what seemed like our entire coaching staff with him, and subsequently trying to stifle a grin when his street sign was rumored to have disappeared. Sam Con. Brooks. Bennett. Matt Flynn out performing Tom Brady. Non-profit, community owned. The training camp bicycle tradition. And of course watching a hero of any Green Bay fan become a sad, pathetic media train wreck.
Yeah, we have cheered through the good, the bad and the very very ugly because the words fair weather were never used in our house. In fact I think my mother inadvertently used Sunday games as a teaching opportunity. She is a teacher after all. She taught me you can still sound positive when you are yelling nasty things at Cris Collinsworth. That it is okay to be irrationally passionate. That it's possible to lose with grace. That you can't control everything. That you are never to old to celebrate like it is Christmas morning. That there is no such thing as semi-loyal. That it is important to honor your personal history. And that love is a labor that you should take on with your whole heart.
The relationship my mother and I have with the Packers, has made our relationship stronger in a way that many including my sister and father don't really understand. But in spite of that, they are still there right next to us in the living room anytime my mom and I are together for a game. Why? Because there is nothing like watching us watch the Packers.
Oh, and Mom if you read this. I am coming home on Saturday night so we can watch our boys. Go PACK!!!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The Dark Side of Transparency...
Honesty is the best policy. Yeah we have all heard it before, but my malleable adolescent brain must have absorbed that golden rule at a much higher capacity than others. Or perhaps it was my inclination towards bending the truth as a child, a punishable offense in my house, that branded it into my brain. At this point in my life honesty is almost a compulsion.
I tell the truth in every way possible. You know how omitting the truth, is just a different way of lying? Yeah that is what I mean. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I can't keep my opinion to myself. I give more information than necessary. If there is something on my mind you'll know it. Poker champion I will never be. Honestly, I even speak in an authoritative manner that makes my personal perspective sound like fact. I answer questions after these obligatory caveats
'Do you really want my honest opinion?' or 'This is going to sound horrible but...'
with complete and unsparing truth. Like I said it's a compulsion.
Of course my sharp tongue can lash with the best of them. I have hurt those close to me and while they say they love and accept me for my honesty, it still hurts to know I have hurt them. After all, you can only say you are sorry so many times before you've rendered the word completely and utterly useless. And forget first impressions. There is no recovering from being a bitch in front of or to a new acquaintance or complete stranger. You can't.
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." That is so true Ms. Angelou. How do I know? Well because I have been on the receiving end too. At some point the tables always turn.
In this case I am referring to my feelings. I have a heart that is among the easier to bruise. I've let down and left my guard around my ankles many times for exploiters both hidden and obvious to take advantage of. The only thing that follows is disbelief, self doubt and deflation. It's hard to bounce back when you are only half full.
Any sense of empathy or imagination can see this makes for quite the precarious situation. It is as if I am always walking on a tightrope, balancing between violently active verbs and a hopelessly romantic heart. Both of which are inherent to who I am and have become. I watch my words fly like arrows, wishing I could swallow them the minute after I let them fly. I watch my heart fall harder, faster wishing it wasn't made of glass and I wasn't standing on concrete. And because at this point it has become habit, it is definitely a hard one to break.
A very good friend of mine recently told me that I have this crazy curious, doe-eyed naivete whose companion is solid, unfaltering conviction. No one has ever gotten it so dead on. I am so transparent in some situations, you can practically see through me. I am as opaque in others that you wouldn't even bother trying to argue with me. Quite the dichotomy. Definitely an internal struggle. After all, how do you change something that at 27 has become so much a part of you?
While I would never want to change completely, I know I could be honest with more grace. A lot more. I know I could be transparent and self-preserving at the same time. At least when I need to be.
I recognize these traits are assets in specific situations. I realize that for some they are honorable, they are envy inducing, they are even the correct way to respond. I don't necessarily disagree, but I have learned that honesty isn't always the best, especially when brutal. Truth will out the nasty as well as the good and it is easy to be overlooked when you're completely transparent.
I tell the truth in every way possible. You know how omitting the truth, is just a different way of lying? Yeah that is what I mean. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I can't keep my opinion to myself. I give more information than necessary. If there is something on my mind you'll know it. Poker champion I will never be. Honestly, I even speak in an authoritative manner that makes my personal perspective sound like fact. I answer questions after these obligatory caveats
'Do you really want my honest opinion?' or 'This is going to sound horrible but...'
with complete and unsparing truth. Like I said it's a compulsion.
Of course my sharp tongue can lash with the best of them. I have hurt those close to me and while they say they love and accept me for my honesty, it still hurts to know I have hurt them. After all, you can only say you are sorry so many times before you've rendered the word completely and utterly useless. And forget first impressions. There is no recovering from being a bitch in front of or to a new acquaintance or complete stranger. You can't.
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." That is so true Ms. Angelou. How do I know? Well because I have been on the receiving end too. At some point the tables always turn.
In this case I am referring to my feelings. I have a heart that is among the easier to bruise. I've let down and left my guard around my ankles many times for exploiters both hidden and obvious to take advantage of. The only thing that follows is disbelief, self doubt and deflation. It's hard to bounce back when you are only half full.
Any sense of empathy or imagination can see this makes for quite the precarious situation. It is as if I am always walking on a tightrope, balancing between violently active verbs and a hopelessly romantic heart. Both of which are inherent to who I am and have become. I watch my words fly like arrows, wishing I could swallow them the minute after I let them fly. I watch my heart fall harder, faster wishing it wasn't made of glass and I wasn't standing on concrete. And because at this point it has become habit, it is definitely a hard one to break.
A very good friend of mine recently told me that I have this crazy curious, doe-eyed naivete whose companion is solid, unfaltering conviction. No one has ever gotten it so dead on. I am so transparent in some situations, you can practically see through me. I am as opaque in others that you wouldn't even bother trying to argue with me. Quite the dichotomy. Definitely an internal struggle. After all, how do you change something that at 27 has become so much a part of you?
While I would never want to change completely, I know I could be honest with more grace. A lot more. I know I could be transparent and self-preserving at the same time. At least when I need to be.
I recognize these traits are assets in specific situations. I realize that for some they are honorable, they are envy inducing, they are even the correct way to respond. I don't necessarily disagree, but I have learned that honesty isn't always the best, especially when brutal. Truth will out the nasty as well as the good and it is easy to be overlooked when you're completely transparent.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
The Stall Standoff...
Yeah girls aren’t supposed to talk about this kind of thing, but working in an office building of over a thousand people, it comes up. So if you have a problem with public restrooms, stop reading right now.
I have anxiety in public restrooms, well really only when someone else is in there reminding me it is a public restroom. I always feel this weird tension if I walk in and a stall is already occupied, like I am intruding. I am guessing that is because I always feel like I am being intruded upon when I am in there and someone else walks in. And for some reason this anxiety usually leads to what I like to refer to as “The Stall Standoff”. The reason I named it is because I know others have experienced it too. Whether it’s because there is some alternate version of stage fright, embarrassment or because you feel like whatever happens in that room should be private (yeah I know I am ruining some people’s belief that girls don’t do that) there is this weird power struggle. Seriously, it becomes a waiting game where whoever waits the longest wins. Wins what? Nothing really. Maybe a few seconds of privacy, but not really because you are in a public restroom. The problem is, if you wait too long someone else will eventually join you to brush her teeth, reenact her morning beauty regimen or conduct a completely unnecessary conversation and then the stalemate starts all over again.
I know there are people who literally refuse to use public restrooms. “The Stall Standoff” is one reason I can sort of slightly understand their neurosis.
I have anxiety in public restrooms, well really only when someone else is in there reminding me it is a public restroom. I always feel this weird tension if I walk in and a stall is already occupied, like I am intruding. I am guessing that is because I always feel like I am being intruded upon when I am in there and someone else walks in. And for some reason this anxiety usually leads to what I like to refer to as “The Stall Standoff”. The reason I named it is because I know others have experienced it too. Whether it’s because there is some alternate version of stage fright, embarrassment or because you feel like whatever happens in that room should be private (yeah I know I am ruining some people’s belief that girls don’t do that) there is this weird power struggle. Seriously, it becomes a waiting game where whoever waits the longest wins. Wins what? Nothing really. Maybe a few seconds of privacy, but not really because you are in a public restroom. The problem is, if you wait too long someone else will eventually join you to brush her teeth, reenact her morning beauty regimen or conduct a completely unnecessary conversation and then the stalemate starts all over again.
I know there are people who literally refuse to use public restrooms. “The Stall Standoff” is one reason I can sort of slightly understand their neurosis.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Jingle Jangle
I think advertising needs to bring back the jingle. Seriously, no matter what state I have lived in, there are mom and pop businesses that always use jingles. And no matter what it includes, their name or phone number, people ALWAYS remember them. Luna, Empire, Adriana Furs and The General are just a few you hear in the great state of Illinois. Whether you are in the market for a new bed or a car insurance doesn't even matter. When people hear the beginning of the Empire jingle, they can always fill in the phone number blank. ALWAYS.
So why is it, as a copywriter, I never decide that a jingle is the way to go. I don't think I have ever been in a meeting, since my advertising career started that a creative team has ever presented a jingle. Why is that? I mean everyone can sing the Oscar Mayer bologna song or the Band Aid jingle. Even people who have never seen the ads can sing them. Currently people can cherry pick parts of the long-winded FreeCreditReport.com jingle or recognize the tune of McDonald's 'I'm loving it.'
Maybe the solution to all advertising is bringing back the jingle. People don't just remember good ones, or even likable ones. They remember them no matter how obscure, awful or amazing they are. Sure in my 'ad' opinion I've been ingrained to believe that jingles are a cop out, but I am wondering more and more if I only think that because I was always told that they are. I mean I was also told to never show something and say something at the same time, but now we are forced to do it everywhere we can. I was also told that repetition was a 1950's Madison Avenue device and when used today it is embarrassingly outdated. Jingles are for those people who don't have anything more clever or creative to say. I have to say, I do believe that most of that is true.
However I also know this to be true... the majority of consumers can fill in the following blanks.
"Plop, Plop, ____, ____"
or
"Like a good neighbor, ________________."
Get ready world, I'm bringing back the jingle one client at a time. Hey, a girl can dream
p.s. I wonder what Mustafa would sing if Old Spice decided to add a jingle to their campaign. I'm sure it would be hilarious, and it would probably make those ads test better with recall. I'm telling you. Jingles are where it's at, just not here.
So why is it, as a copywriter, I never decide that a jingle is the way to go. I don't think I have ever been in a meeting, since my advertising career started that a creative team has ever presented a jingle. Why is that? I mean everyone can sing the Oscar Mayer bologna song or the Band Aid jingle. Even people who have never seen the ads can sing them. Currently people can cherry pick parts of the long-winded FreeCreditReport.com jingle or recognize the tune of McDonald's 'I'm loving it.'
Maybe the solution to all advertising is bringing back the jingle. People don't just remember good ones, or even likable ones. They remember them no matter how obscure, awful or amazing they are. Sure in my 'ad' opinion I've been ingrained to believe that jingles are a cop out, but I am wondering more and more if I only think that because I was always told that they are. I mean I was also told to never show something and say something at the same time, but now we are forced to do it everywhere we can. I was also told that repetition was a 1950's Madison Avenue device and when used today it is embarrassingly outdated. Jingles are for those people who don't have anything more clever or creative to say. I have to say, I do believe that most of that is true.
However I also know this to be true... the majority of consumers can fill in the following blanks.
"Plop, Plop, ____, ____"
or
"Like a good neighbor, ________________."
Get ready world, I'm bringing back the jingle one client at a time. Hey, a girl can dream
p.s. I wonder what Mustafa would sing if Old Spice decided to add a jingle to their campaign. I'm sure it would be hilarious, and it would probably make those ads test better with recall. I'm telling you. Jingles are where it's at, just not here.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Lauren, you're too LOUD....
could be heard every other day coming from my sister's mouth when I was a kid. That is probably a conservative estimate in fact. I was a loud kid. I'll admit it. Between wanting to be a singer, which of course would have lead to fame and fortune the likes that even 1980's Whitney Houston hadn't seen, and "scweaming my bwains out" on my neighbors truck I was bound to annoy a few people. Rachy was definitely no exception.
Well to my dismay, and others celebration I am sure, I was recently informed that I need throat surgery to clear a polyp from my right vocal chord. I was diagnosed with singer's nodes in grad school, but the otolaryngologist and I agreed they would go away when I quit my job at the bar I worked at at the time. It was a late night joint that often entertained live music and I had to strain or scream for hours at a time to take and deliver hops and hamburgers. It seemed like a classic case of cause and effect. Once the cause of the nodes was gone, the effect would be a back to normal voice.
False.
At some point between then and now, a blood vessel burst in my right vocal chord and the node is now a polyp that can't be treated with voice therapy alone. It needs to be surgically removed or it will just get worse. Worse to the point where my voice will be permanently damaged. It is an out patient procedure. There's general anesthetic. It's no big deal. That is what I was told. Hakuna Matata, right?
In light of the situation, this post is for my big sister. This is for all the times you had to tell me to be quiet or put your hand over my mouth. This is for all the drowned out Grass Roots choruses and Defying Gravity exhibitions. You were right. I was too loud. I am going ahead and telling me so, for you.
YOU WERE RIGHT. The informational packet confirms it.
Assocation with "Extroverts"
Children with vocal fold polyps usually are extroverts and may have a loud voice, which can often be particularly percussive.
So there. Even medical experts agree with you. I wasn't just loud, I was too loud, just like you said. The thing is, I am loud. It is part of who I am. Even my personality is loud. But on November 22nd 2010, that part of me will be silenced forever. Okay dramatic. Not forever, just for seven days after the surgery. I won't be able to talk at all. After that I will have to ease back into talking, while training myself to communicate in a manner that will not cause the problem to return.
So Rach if you want relish in your rightness, come to Mom and Dad's for Thanksgiving dinner. For once in your life you can do all the talking you want. You can tell a story without my interjection. You can ask a question you have never actually wanted the answer to. I will not be able to interrupt, talk over you or sing Uptown Girl. This Christmas you will have to carry Sisters all by yourself. It's your turn to sing, just make sure it isn't too LOUD.
Well to my dismay, and others celebration I am sure, I was recently informed that I need throat surgery to clear a polyp from my right vocal chord. I was diagnosed with singer's nodes in grad school, but the otolaryngologist and I agreed they would go away when I quit my job at the bar I worked at at the time. It was a late night joint that often entertained live music and I had to strain or scream for hours at a time to take and deliver hops and hamburgers. It seemed like a classic case of cause and effect. Once the cause of the nodes was gone, the effect would be a back to normal voice.
False.
At some point between then and now, a blood vessel burst in my right vocal chord and the node is now a polyp that can't be treated with voice therapy alone. It needs to be surgically removed or it will just get worse. Worse to the point where my voice will be permanently damaged. It is an out patient procedure. There's general anesthetic. It's no big deal. That is what I was told. Hakuna Matata, right?
In light of the situation, this post is for my big sister. This is for all the times you had to tell me to be quiet or put your hand over my mouth. This is for all the drowned out Grass Roots choruses and Defying Gravity exhibitions. You were right. I was too loud. I am going ahead and telling me so, for you.
YOU WERE RIGHT. The informational packet confirms it.
Assocation with "Extroverts"
Children with vocal fold polyps usually are extroverts and may have a loud voice, which can often be particularly percussive.
So there. Even medical experts agree with you. I wasn't just loud, I was too loud, just like you said. The thing is, I am loud. It is part of who I am. Even my personality is loud. But on November 22nd 2010, that part of me will be silenced forever. Okay dramatic. Not forever, just for seven days after the surgery. I won't be able to talk at all. After that I will have to ease back into talking, while training myself to communicate in a manner that will not cause the problem to return.
So Rach if you want relish in your rightness, come to Mom and Dad's for Thanksgiving dinner. For once in your life you can do all the talking you want. You can tell a story without my interjection. You can ask a question you have never actually wanted the answer to. I will not be able to interrupt, talk over you or sing Uptown Girl. This Christmas you will have to carry Sisters all by yourself. It's your turn to sing, just make sure it isn't too LOUD.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Hiwela High....
I never thought I would go back to camp. I really didn't. For one thing I grew up. Then the camp I attended as a child closed it's doors, and with it closed that chapter in my life. Albeit a chapter revisited and remembered fondly but definitively in my past, or so I thought.
Just a few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to reopen that chapter and amend it, this time as a counselor. The force and fervor with which camp songs returned was astounding. The thrill of a schedule that included arts and crafts was palpable. I was going back to camp. A mixture of nostalgia and nerves filled up every inch of my body as I packed towels and tennis shoes. I worried the campers wouldn't like me. I wondered if I'd forgotten how to play. I dreaded the thought of a shower being an afterthought. I laughed at my own vulnerability.
Like I mentioned in a previous post, being the baby of the family for twenty five years has left me quite the novice when it comes to adolescent behavior. The disciplinarian, the teacher, the example, the friend. All things I haven't been to people more than a few years my junior for the majority of my life. This was now the task at hand. A task that to me was blinking like a hazard light off in the distance. Needless to say as the luggage filled up with jersey and repellents, my stomach filled with knots. This experience was going to be a first, and I could not have comprehended how a week later I could even imagine making that week at camp my last.
Upon arrival I was jolted back to flagpole, campfires, silly games and sloppy meals. The smell of burnt wood lingered among the living. The hugs of returning volunteers mixed with the timid handshakes of newcomers. The white washed cabins looked foreign against the backdrop of the forest. I remembered how great it felt to feel like part of a frontier. Since the campers hadn't arrived yet, my anxiety cut me loose. I just stood for a second to drink in an environment I hadn't visited in decades. It was beautiful. It only lasted for a moment because the kids would arrive in less than twenty four hours and there was a lot to do. Training commenced, lunch was eaten, people were introduced, camp was acquainted, songs were sung and beds were tossed in anticipation. Before I knew it there were nine girls standing in front of me. Some wide eyed. Some veteran. Some gorgeous. Some guarded. Some introverted. Some out loud. They were there, standing in front of me. It was amazing how immediate the feeling of ownership hit me. I felt like they were mine and that scared me even more. I was responsible for these girls until they left over 100 hours later. May seem like a short time to some. That was an eternity.
Now I have to caveat this story by saying, I wasn't alone. I had other counselors with me. I wasn't solely responsible. But unlike the rest of them, save one, I was the only virgin. They had done this before. So, I had a support system from the day I got to camp and they were with me the entire way. They were saviors, sidekicks and supports. The experience wouldn't have been the same without them. However, this post isn't about them. It is about me and the girls.
They ranged from the ages of 9 to 12. Most of them from the inner city. Their backgrounds were starkly different from my own. Everything from where they lived, to how they lived was a contrast. Their schools, their shoes and their attitudes all a bit unfamiliar. Some more callow than others. Many of them older than the years displayed on their faces. The differences from girl to girl were almost as obvious as the difference between them and me. This was a bit of a comfort, but still for me, uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable like being asked a question on your first day in your first graduate course, more like your skirt being caught in your underwear uncomfortable. Unknowingly exposed. Feeling powerful because of my authoritative position, but feeling unqualified at the same time. I felt like a walking contradiction and it was hour three.
Thank goodness time heals all things, because as the hours passed by the contradiction faded away and the connection became apparent. When it comes to growing female, there are baseline issues that no matter your background akin you to one another. The struggle for friendships. Feeling left out or forced in. Becoming a woman. Fighting for attention using whatever talents you have at your disposal. Establishing your role in a group. Struggling to keep it. Detaching all together. Diving in headfirst. Watching this group of young women acclimate to their new, temporary social circle was a trip. I would dare any woman my age to say they didn't recognize the interactions I witnessed from their own pubescent memory. These girls were astonishing to behold. Truly, the were enlivening with their ghettoric (that is what we called it). They were self-conscious -effacing and -indulgent. It was a pleasure to be around them, as well as a throbbing pain. It was fulfilling and frustrating. I was amazed to see how the personalities were already cemented. I mean, these girls were and are who they are going to be for the rest of their lives. I could tell you which girls were motivated by intelligence or attention. Those who would chase the boys and those that the boys would chase. The antagonists and the protagonists. The self-reliant. The needy. The ones I would have befriended. The ones I would have frenemied. I knew who was going to end up gyrating at the dance way beyond her single digits. I could tell who was going to spend the majority of her time in the company of adults instead of cabin mates. Well, that one will always be contemplative. Her? She will always thrive on positive reinforcement. This one will forever and always be non-compliant.
It was a slightly shocking revelation that we are who we are that young, and that got me to wondering. If I could interview counselors that had me as a camper, they would probably agree. Twenty years later they'd say, yep, that is the Lauren Buckley I remember. I actually found myself attaching bits of me to bits of them. They were me, but in smaller vessels. Their age was just a number that I had passed fifteen years earlier. It wasn't an obstacle I had to get over in order to relate to them or them to me. In fact, it was the reason I could.
By the third day I woke up and realized I was not just a part of this experience, I was entrenched in it. I found myself vying for some of the girl's attention. I thought about which activity I wanted to sign up for depending on what girls were going where. When breaking up a fight I found myself wondering what side I would've been on. I knew which table I wanted to sit at breakfast,lunch and dinner. I knew what boys I would have flirted with. I even started adopting some of their bad attitudes about things they didn't want to do.
Pathetic. Hilarious. Wrong. Go ahead, you can judge me. I know I am right now.
But the thing is, the good, the bad and the ugly come out at camp. It did when I was younger and it definitely did with my girls. I am glad it all surfaced. I couldn't be happier about it, all of it. I decided to go back to camp as a counselor, but I actually went back as me. Just me and it was almost out of my control. My inner child. My disciplinarian. My last picked for the team. My caregiver. My educator. My student. My gossiper. My nurturer. My discoverer. My loner. Every nuance of my character was brought forth, challenged, found adequate or found wanting by my girls. First they introduced themselves and then they reintroduced myself to me.
Life happens and you do live and learn beyond your foundation as a human being. I know I have in the time after my days as a camper. But at the end of the day it was the unconditional love and acceptance of nine young women that taught me more than I ever could have imagined. When the buses pulled away from camp on the final day echoes of laughter were lost in a haze of exhaustion. I felt incomplete and renewed. I loaded my luggage, a little lighter. I loaded myself, a little heavier. I was a walking contradiction, again. As our bus pulled away I knew my chapter would continue to amend itself the following year. Same cast of girls, but a very different counselor.
Just a few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to reopen that chapter and amend it, this time as a counselor. The force and fervor with which camp songs returned was astounding. The thrill of a schedule that included arts and crafts was palpable. I was going back to camp. A mixture of nostalgia and nerves filled up every inch of my body as I packed towels and tennis shoes. I worried the campers wouldn't like me. I wondered if I'd forgotten how to play. I dreaded the thought of a shower being an afterthought. I laughed at my own vulnerability.
Like I mentioned in a previous post, being the baby of the family for twenty five years has left me quite the novice when it comes to adolescent behavior. The disciplinarian, the teacher, the example, the friend. All things I haven't been to people more than a few years my junior for the majority of my life. This was now the task at hand. A task that to me was blinking like a hazard light off in the distance. Needless to say as the luggage filled up with jersey and repellents, my stomach filled with knots. This experience was going to be a first, and I could not have comprehended how a week later I could even imagine making that week at camp my last.
Upon arrival I was jolted back to flagpole, campfires, silly games and sloppy meals. The smell of burnt wood lingered among the living. The hugs of returning volunteers mixed with the timid handshakes of newcomers. The white washed cabins looked foreign against the backdrop of the forest. I remembered how great it felt to feel like part of a frontier. Since the campers hadn't arrived yet, my anxiety cut me loose. I just stood for a second to drink in an environment I hadn't visited in decades. It was beautiful. It only lasted for a moment because the kids would arrive in less than twenty four hours and there was a lot to do. Training commenced, lunch was eaten, people were introduced, camp was acquainted, songs were sung and beds were tossed in anticipation. Before I knew it there were nine girls standing in front of me. Some wide eyed. Some veteran. Some gorgeous. Some guarded. Some introverted. Some out loud. They were there, standing in front of me. It was amazing how immediate the feeling of ownership hit me. I felt like they were mine and that scared me even more. I was responsible for these girls until they left over 100 hours later. May seem like a short time to some. That was an eternity.
Now I have to caveat this story by saying, I wasn't alone. I had other counselors with me. I wasn't solely responsible. But unlike the rest of them, save one, I was the only virgin. They had done this before. So, I had a support system from the day I got to camp and they were with me the entire way. They were saviors, sidekicks and supports. The experience wouldn't have been the same without them. However, this post isn't about them. It is about me and the girls.
They ranged from the ages of 9 to 12. Most of them from the inner city. Their backgrounds were starkly different from my own. Everything from where they lived, to how they lived was a contrast. Their schools, their shoes and their attitudes all a bit unfamiliar. Some more callow than others. Many of them older than the years displayed on their faces. The differences from girl to girl were almost as obvious as the difference between them and me. This was a bit of a comfort, but still for me, uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable like being asked a question on your first day in your first graduate course, more like your skirt being caught in your underwear uncomfortable. Unknowingly exposed. Feeling powerful because of my authoritative position, but feeling unqualified at the same time. I felt like a walking contradiction and it was hour three.
Thank goodness time heals all things, because as the hours passed by the contradiction faded away and the connection became apparent. When it comes to growing female, there are baseline issues that no matter your background akin you to one another. The struggle for friendships. Feeling left out or forced in. Becoming a woman. Fighting for attention using whatever talents you have at your disposal. Establishing your role in a group. Struggling to keep it. Detaching all together. Diving in headfirst. Watching this group of young women acclimate to their new, temporary social circle was a trip. I would dare any woman my age to say they didn't recognize the interactions I witnessed from their own pubescent memory. These girls were astonishing to behold. Truly, the were enlivening with their ghettoric (that is what we called it). They were self-conscious -effacing and -indulgent. It was a pleasure to be around them, as well as a throbbing pain. It was fulfilling and frustrating. I was amazed to see how the personalities were already cemented. I mean, these girls were and are who they are going to be for the rest of their lives. I could tell you which girls were motivated by intelligence or attention. Those who would chase the boys and those that the boys would chase. The antagonists and the protagonists. The self-reliant. The needy. The ones I would have befriended. The ones I would have frenemied. I knew who was going to end up gyrating at the dance way beyond her single digits. I could tell who was going to spend the majority of her time in the company of adults instead of cabin mates. Well, that one will always be contemplative. Her? She will always thrive on positive reinforcement. This one will forever and always be non-compliant.
It was a slightly shocking revelation that we are who we are that young, and that got me to wondering. If I could interview counselors that had me as a camper, they would probably agree. Twenty years later they'd say, yep, that is the Lauren Buckley I remember. I actually found myself attaching bits of me to bits of them. They were me, but in smaller vessels. Their age was just a number that I had passed fifteen years earlier. It wasn't an obstacle I had to get over in order to relate to them or them to me. In fact, it was the reason I could.
By the third day I woke up and realized I was not just a part of this experience, I was entrenched in it. I found myself vying for some of the girl's attention. I thought about which activity I wanted to sign up for depending on what girls were going where. When breaking up a fight I found myself wondering what side I would've been on. I knew which table I wanted to sit at breakfast,lunch and dinner. I knew what boys I would have flirted with. I even started adopting some of their bad attitudes about things they didn't want to do.
Pathetic. Hilarious. Wrong. Go ahead, you can judge me. I know I am right now.
But the thing is, the good, the bad and the ugly come out at camp. It did when I was younger and it definitely did with my girls. I am glad it all surfaced. I couldn't be happier about it, all of it. I decided to go back to camp as a counselor, but I actually went back as me. Just me and it was almost out of my control. My inner child. My disciplinarian. My last picked for the team. My caregiver. My educator. My student. My gossiper. My nurturer. My discoverer. My loner. Every nuance of my character was brought forth, challenged, found adequate or found wanting by my girls. First they introduced themselves and then they reintroduced myself to me.
Life happens and you do live and learn beyond your foundation as a human being. I know I have in the time after my days as a camper. But at the end of the day it was the unconditional love and acceptance of nine young women that taught me more than I ever could have imagined. When the buses pulled away from camp on the final day echoes of laughter were lost in a haze of exhaustion. I felt incomplete and renewed. I loaded my luggage, a little lighter. I loaded myself, a little heavier. I was a walking contradiction, again. As our bus pulled away I knew my chapter would continue to amend itself the following year. Same cast of girls, but a very different counselor.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Nerd Alert...
So I got on the bus this morning and I sat down next to what I think most people would constitute as a male nerd. I know the distinction has gotten a bit muddled with the emergence of the hipster culture, but this guy wasn't trying to be a nerd. He just was a nerd.
He had a Napoleon Dynamite type shirt on tucked in to his pants of course. He was futzing at first with his iphone, which I caveat is not nerdy, but then started awkwardly bobbing his head to music I couldn't quite make out. Actually bobbing isn't the correct word. It was more a seizure like motion with his head and a weird Hitch like containment with the rest of his body. Then he took of his head phones, took his out his glasses case and put on his 'four eyes'. Again, nothing against glasses, I wear them in fact, but it added to his overall Urkelness. He proceeded to pull out his ipad, again not nerdy, and began playing some sort of Grand Theft Auto like game but with way more parochial graphics. Grand Theft Auto is probably not nerdy, but on this guy, this game more than even his weird gesticulations made me really uncomfortable. His appearance alone made me assume he was not exactly bursting at the seams with social skills. That mixed with the fact that he was playing an unbelievably violent video game made me really uncomfortable. Even after I got off the bus I couldn't stop thinking about it.
I am not sure if news stories of men like George Sodini, or names like Dylan Clybold are the reason I had such a negative reaction to this guy and his video game but it got me to thinking. Maybe something other than his appearance gave me an uneasy feeling. Or perhaps the nerd factor lead me to think about the loner factor, and that made me uneasy. I don't know what it was. I mean he left me alone, he didn't leer. He was just doing his thing. However, in that short amount of time he got me to thinking. Historically, there aren't a lot of infamous females that have blown up buildings, convinced people to drink kool-aid, shot up their high schools and college campuses or randomly open fired in a female dominated gym. I am sure there are a few, but movie Monster was such a big deal because it was a case of an out of the ordinary serial killer. The out of the ordinary part is the fact that the killer was female. I don't know if it society, socialization or Malcolm Galdwell's exploration of contagious and infectious behavior that kept my mind running in circles. I obviously haven't done any reading on the subject, this is just how my mind was working that day.
There really is no point to this post, other than the fact that for a morning I was completely preoccupied with a stranger on the bus and a trend that has spanned news coverage for decades.
He had a Napoleon Dynamite type shirt on tucked in to his pants of course. He was futzing at first with his iphone, which I caveat is not nerdy, but then started awkwardly bobbing his head to music I couldn't quite make out. Actually bobbing isn't the correct word. It was more a seizure like motion with his head and a weird Hitch like containment with the rest of his body. Then he took of his head phones, took his out his glasses case and put on his 'four eyes'. Again, nothing against glasses, I wear them in fact, but it added to his overall Urkelness. He proceeded to pull out his ipad, again not nerdy, and began playing some sort of Grand Theft Auto like game but with way more parochial graphics. Grand Theft Auto is probably not nerdy, but on this guy, this game more than even his weird gesticulations made me really uncomfortable. His appearance alone made me assume he was not exactly bursting at the seams with social skills. That mixed with the fact that he was playing an unbelievably violent video game made me really uncomfortable. Even after I got off the bus I couldn't stop thinking about it.
I am not sure if news stories of men like George Sodini, or names like Dylan Clybold are the reason I had such a negative reaction to this guy and his video game but it got me to thinking. Maybe something other than his appearance gave me an uneasy feeling. Or perhaps the nerd factor lead me to think about the loner factor, and that made me uneasy. I don't know what it was. I mean he left me alone, he didn't leer. He was just doing his thing. However, in that short amount of time he got me to thinking. Historically, there aren't a lot of infamous females that have blown up buildings, convinced people to drink kool-aid, shot up their high schools and college campuses or randomly open fired in a female dominated gym. I am sure there are a few, but movie Monster was such a big deal because it was a case of an out of the ordinary serial killer. The out of the ordinary part is the fact that the killer was female. I don't know if it society, socialization or Malcolm Galdwell's exploration of contagious and infectious behavior that kept my mind running in circles. I obviously haven't done any reading on the subject, this is just how my mind was working that day.
There really is no point to this post, other than the fact that for a morning I was completely preoccupied with a stranger on the bus and a trend that has spanned news coverage for decades.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Cafeteria Christian...
For those of you who may not know, Cafeteria Christianity is a derogatory term used by some to accuse other Christian individuals or denominations of selecting which doctrines they will follow, and which they wont. A recent conversation about this very idea got me to thinking about what cafeteria line I'm standing in.
My family is heterogeneous when it comes to religion. My father was brought up and educated in the catholic system. My mother was brought up in a Presbyterian household. So my sister was born and baptized Catholic. I however was baptized Presbyterian, in what has been described to me as the coolest ceremony ever preformed by a foreign minister visiting the church that month. Yeah, riddle me that.
Anyway, I have had multiple conversations with both my parents about their religious upbringings. My father has not attended church since, I don't even know when, but he used the hood of his jacket to hide his eyes multiple times during 'The Exorcist". Obviously something about his Catholic background lives within him. My mother will say she was brought up in home that had a strong Christian foundation. Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal and always treat others the way you would like to be treated. However, in college she was told by a professor that after talking about religious philosophy, hers in particular, he believed she didn't belong anywhere. She was a malleable early twenty something at the time. She doesn't claim any affiliation to this day.
That was the household I was brought up in. Someone who stopped placing any effort in Catholicism married to a person who believed in the fundamental application of Christianity but didn't subscribe to anything specifically. Therefore, my sister and I were baptized two different sects, yet we attended the same Sunday school. The years following Sunday school, if my memory serves me correctly, was empty of religion unless I was in a place of worship for a wedding or a funeral. A white or a black dress is what my religious experience boiled down to as an adult. That is a very slight over dramatization, but for the most part it hasn't played a huge role in my life. I took a World Religions class in college to try and figure out if I did belong anywhere. It just confused me more, and that is partly due to the fact that it is more common than ever to change religious affiliation. To get more generic or more specific. To cast off the teachings of an upbringing to follow your own path. Religious freedom abounds, or so it seems.
When you take that idea and put in the context of a cafeteria line, religion is much more Central Park West than General hospital, if you know what I mean. It is like politics. Nowadays you can be the daughter of a right wing nut job and have a baby out of wedlock. You can be a staunch environmentalist but lobby for factory farming. In the case of religion, you can be Catholic and divorced multiple times. You can be Buddhist and a billionaire. You can be atheist and hate the song Imagine. It seems that anything goes, or at least is possible in a country that boasts of religious freedom. I know the indoctrinated children from 'Jesus Camp' would disagree, bless their hearts, but there are two sides to every conversation. When it comes to religion I would argue there are many more than two.
Here is mine. I once thought that religion was the opiate of the masses. That faith was something people followed blindly. It is part of the reason, as a young adult I rallied so hard against it. I used to think that I was special because I thought religious texts were just really amazing sagas, written to quell or swell the fears of mere mortals. I thought I was outward thinking if I only entertained the idea of six commandants and filled in the remaining slots with Siddhartha's four sights. That as a woman, religion was created to hold me down and therefore was something to be reckoned with. So young. So self-indulgent.
In my experience the majority of people I know are in a line at The Religion Cafeteria. In my expeirence, most people are just like me, but different. I have friends in the Catholic line, the Latter Day Saints line, the Juddiasm line, the Wiccan line and of course standing in front of the consistently empty chafers of the Atheist line. They are picking and choosing what to put on their plate and subsequently swallow, just like me.
Everyone has a different palate, and can only consume so much of any given doctrine. I'll have a serving of Halakha, with a side of The Principle and some Christian Fundamentalism for dessert. I know it isn't as simple as fusion cuisine, but I can tell someone I am agnostic and that is the end of the conversation. It is not even close to a derogatory term. A word was created in the mid 19th century for people like me, so I could confidently express a religious unaffiliation and not necessarily be judged (again the 'Jesus Camp' kids come to mind) for it.
I'm still not sure of what I believe entirely, and I am not sure that I ever will, but what I do know is that my taste changes depending on the subject and even that ebbs and flows. I am at the cafeteria but even then I would jump lines. I would mix creeds and wash it all down with a healthy glass of apprehension. Maybe that means I have no faith in faith, or perhaps I am still struggling with the idea that I have no faith at all.
I don't know. But I do know if there is a line for people like me, I sure hope Chris Farley is behind the glass with a hair net slinging dogma along with a huge helping of comedic relief because everyone needs a good sense of humor to have this conversation.
Goodness, now I'm hungry.
My family is heterogeneous when it comes to religion. My father was brought up and educated in the catholic system. My mother was brought up in a Presbyterian household. So my sister was born and baptized Catholic. I however was baptized Presbyterian, in what has been described to me as the coolest ceremony ever preformed by a foreign minister visiting the church that month. Yeah, riddle me that.
Anyway, I have had multiple conversations with both my parents about their religious upbringings. My father has not attended church since, I don't even know when, but he used the hood of his jacket to hide his eyes multiple times during 'The Exorcist". Obviously something about his Catholic background lives within him. My mother will say she was brought up in home that had a strong Christian foundation. Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal and always treat others the way you would like to be treated. However, in college she was told by a professor that after talking about religious philosophy, hers in particular, he believed she didn't belong anywhere. She was a malleable early twenty something at the time. She doesn't claim any affiliation to this day.
That was the household I was brought up in. Someone who stopped placing any effort in Catholicism married to a person who believed in the fundamental application of Christianity but didn't subscribe to anything specifically. Therefore, my sister and I were baptized two different sects, yet we attended the same Sunday school. The years following Sunday school, if my memory serves me correctly, was empty of religion unless I was in a place of worship for a wedding or a funeral. A white or a black dress is what my religious experience boiled down to as an adult. That is a very slight over dramatization, but for the most part it hasn't played a huge role in my life. I took a World Religions class in college to try and figure out if I did belong anywhere. It just confused me more, and that is partly due to the fact that it is more common than ever to change religious affiliation. To get more generic or more specific. To cast off the teachings of an upbringing to follow your own path. Religious freedom abounds, or so it seems.
When you take that idea and put in the context of a cafeteria line, religion is much more Central Park West than General hospital, if you know what I mean. It is like politics. Nowadays you can be the daughter of a right wing nut job and have a baby out of wedlock. You can be a staunch environmentalist but lobby for factory farming. In the case of religion, you can be Catholic and divorced multiple times. You can be Buddhist and a billionaire. You can be atheist and hate the song Imagine. It seems that anything goes, or at least is possible in a country that boasts of religious freedom. I know the indoctrinated children from 'Jesus Camp' would disagree, bless their hearts, but there are two sides to every conversation. When it comes to religion I would argue there are many more than two.
Here is mine. I once thought that religion was the opiate of the masses. That faith was something people followed blindly. It is part of the reason, as a young adult I rallied so hard against it. I used to think that I was special because I thought religious texts were just really amazing sagas, written to quell or swell the fears of mere mortals. I thought I was outward thinking if I only entertained the idea of six commandants and filled in the remaining slots with Siddhartha's four sights. That as a woman, religion was created to hold me down and therefore was something to be reckoned with. So young. So self-indulgent.
In my experience the majority of people I know are in a line at The Religion Cafeteria. In my expeirence, most people are just like me, but different. I have friends in the Catholic line, the Latter Day Saints line, the Juddiasm line, the Wiccan line and of course standing in front of the consistently empty chafers of the Atheist line. They are picking and choosing what to put on their plate and subsequently swallow, just like me.
Everyone has a different palate, and can only consume so much of any given doctrine. I'll have a serving of Halakha, with a side of The Principle and some Christian Fundamentalism for dessert. I know it isn't as simple as fusion cuisine, but I can tell someone I am agnostic and that is the end of the conversation. It is not even close to a derogatory term. A word was created in the mid 19th century for people like me, so I could confidently express a religious unaffiliation and not necessarily be judged (again the 'Jesus Camp' kids come to mind) for it.
I'm still not sure of what I believe entirely, and I am not sure that I ever will, but what I do know is that my taste changes depending on the subject and even that ebbs and flows. I am at the cafeteria but even then I would jump lines. I would mix creeds and wash it all down with a healthy glass of apprehension. Maybe that means I have no faith in faith, or perhaps I am still struggling with the idea that I have no faith at all.
I don't know. But I do know if there is a line for people like me, I sure hope Chris Farley is behind the glass with a hair net slinging dogma along with a huge helping of comedic relief because everyone needs a good sense of humor to have this conversation.
Goodness, now I'm hungry.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Resigning my family title...
It is an odd sensation when at 25 you are experiencing tinges of jealousy, at having lost the title of 'baby of the family'.
Yes that is right, I said jealousy. I mean, come on, I was the baby in my family for 25 years of my life. Giving up the spotlight is difficult when you've held and ROCKED the title for that long. But alas, my cousin had a baby, and my reign came to a close.
Yes I realize how awful that sounds. However, my selfishness is not the point of this post.
I now, after a recent extended family vacation am happy to report that jubilation beats jealousy every time. This little boy invigorates the older generations in my family in a way that their own children haven't been able to in years. It is an interesting thing when the youngest generation reaches adulthood and how a family's dynamic can change. To see my cousin, only a few years older than me, take on the role of a father. To see my grandfather become a great grandfather. It is strange.
The vacation traditions change but they stay the same. We still golf, we still play card bingo, we still make dinner. The conversations however, have changed from high school basketball games to babies. Salaries instead of summer camp. Home renovations over relationship statuses. Somewhere along the way the 'kids' grew up. It was inevitable. But now, there is a little one running around, and the traditions that I can only pull up from other people's recollections are happening right in front of me. The 'when you were little stories' are now playing out in real time. The horse rides my grandfather gave me as a two year old are reenacted as if I am watching a moving picture. My mother on her hands and knees playing peek-a-boo. The inflections in my grandmother's voice when she asks him a question, rings eerily familiar in my own ears. The silly faces my father makes. The worry my aunt cannot hide when play gets a little rough. All these things have an once removed element of déjà vu.
It is peculiar to observe the grandparents and parents go through the motions of what I can only assume was mine, my sister and my cousins childhoods. It is nostalgic. It is energizing in a way. To see what they must have been like with us. To see what they are like with him. It is the circle of life through the lens of a family. It is pretty extraordinary to see.
I can say, in all honesty, that I am glad to be among the adults in the family. I will find my role in this new group soon enough. But before I do I have to say, because it would be uncharacteristic if I didn't, that every baby will be welcomed into the family knowing full well that they have very big shoes to fill. Size eight and half to be exact.
Yes that is right, I said jealousy. I mean, come on, I was the baby in my family for 25 years of my life. Giving up the spotlight is difficult when you've held and ROCKED the title for that long. But alas, my cousin had a baby, and my reign came to a close.
Yes I realize how awful that sounds. However, my selfishness is not the point of this post.
I now, after a recent extended family vacation am happy to report that jubilation beats jealousy every time. This little boy invigorates the older generations in my family in a way that their own children haven't been able to in years. It is an interesting thing when the youngest generation reaches adulthood and how a family's dynamic can change. To see my cousin, only a few years older than me, take on the role of a father. To see my grandfather become a great grandfather. It is strange.
The vacation traditions change but they stay the same. We still golf, we still play card bingo, we still make dinner. The conversations however, have changed from high school basketball games to babies. Salaries instead of summer camp. Home renovations over relationship statuses. Somewhere along the way the 'kids' grew up. It was inevitable. But now, there is a little one running around, and the traditions that I can only pull up from other people's recollections are happening right in front of me. The 'when you were little stories' are now playing out in real time. The horse rides my grandfather gave me as a two year old are reenacted as if I am watching a moving picture. My mother on her hands and knees playing peek-a-boo. The inflections in my grandmother's voice when she asks him a question, rings eerily familiar in my own ears. The silly faces my father makes. The worry my aunt cannot hide when play gets a little rough. All these things have an once removed element of déjà vu.
It is peculiar to observe the grandparents and parents go through the motions of what I can only assume was mine, my sister and my cousins childhoods. It is nostalgic. It is energizing in a way. To see what they must have been like with us. To see what they are like with him. It is the circle of life through the lens of a family. It is pretty extraordinary to see.
I can say, in all honesty, that I am glad to be among the adults in the family. I will find my role in this new group soon enough. But before I do I have to say, because it would be uncharacteristic if I didn't, that every baby will be welcomed into the family knowing full well that they have very big shoes to fill. Size eight and half to be exact.
Water from the sky...
And I am not talking about rain.
If you live in a city, you have undoubtedly experienced the mystery that is random water falling from the sky.
It isn't at all reminiscent of getting slimed on Double Dare. No, that is just the window washer on the 27th floor who has bad eye-hand coordination. Be careful, the bucket usually follows.
No, I am talking about the fine mist that conjures memories of the first moments of a cool summer shower. However, when examined further there seems to be no point of origin. It also comes and goes as it pleases. It is not consistent. It is almost like a mirage. It is over before you know it and it leaves you wondering if it was real.
Where does this mystery condensation come from? What is it? Is there meaning behind it? Is something from above trying to tell us something?
There is something oddly intriguing about, but when I let my mind wander it goes to a disturbing place.
If anyone has answers, please let me know.
If you live in a city, you have undoubtedly experienced the mystery that is random water falling from the sky.
It isn't at all reminiscent of getting slimed on Double Dare. No, that is just the window washer on the 27th floor who has bad eye-hand coordination. Be careful, the bucket usually follows.
No, I am talking about the fine mist that conjures memories of the first moments of a cool summer shower. However, when examined further there seems to be no point of origin. It also comes and goes as it pleases. It is not consistent. It is almost like a mirage. It is over before you know it and it leaves you wondering if it was real.
Where does this mystery condensation come from? What is it? Is there meaning behind it? Is something from above trying to tell us something?
There is something oddly intriguing about, but when I let my mind wander it goes to a disturbing place.
If anyone has answers, please let me know.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Don't Buy That Shirt...
Here is my belated second entry. Fashion faux pas of the week.
Puka shell necklaces.
What up bro? Where did you get that sweet, double strand puka shell choker bro? Bro? Did you just get back from riding some surf or perhaps just revisiting 1992?
Seriously, I have never understood this fad, except for when I was in the islands, where it isn't a fad. In Hawaii, the wearing of puka shells was traditionally thought to ensure a peaceful and safe voyage, especially for sailors on a long journey, so puka shell necklaces were especially worn by those who had to travel at sea.
Someone should tell that to the 30 something man riding my morning bus. He didn't just have one ring of puka shells around his neck he had three. Count em. One. Two. Three. Each getting closer and closer to pushing the 'few extra pounds' up around his face, like a Shar-Pei whose collar is a few notches too tight. It was disturbing but I couldn't look away. I wondered if they were stuck on. Perhaps the clasps had rusted through to the point of impenetrability. Maybe they are the shackles he wears to remind him of his contrite and miscalculated past. I guess I will never know.
I'd like to believe that the Hawaiian snail shells, in the context of a fratastic 19 year old who has buried his puka within the folds of his popped collars would be better. My intuition, however, screams otherwise.
Puka shell necklaces.
What up bro? Where did you get that sweet, double strand puka shell choker bro? Bro? Did you just get back from riding some surf or perhaps just revisiting 1992?
Seriously, I have never understood this fad, except for when I was in the islands, where it isn't a fad. In Hawaii, the wearing of puka shells was traditionally thought to ensure a peaceful and safe voyage, especially for sailors on a long journey, so puka shell necklaces were especially worn by those who had to travel at sea.
Someone should tell that to the 30 something man riding my morning bus. He didn't just have one ring of puka shells around his neck he had three. Count em. One. Two. Three. Each getting closer and closer to pushing the 'few extra pounds' up around his face, like a Shar-Pei whose collar is a few notches too tight. It was disturbing but I couldn't look away. I wondered if they were stuck on. Perhaps the clasps had rusted through to the point of impenetrability. Maybe they are the shackles he wears to remind him of his contrite and miscalculated past. I guess I will never know.
I'd like to believe that the Hawaiian snail shells, in the context of a fratastic 19 year old who has buried his puka within the folds of his popped collars would be better. My intuition, however, screams otherwise.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
For the love of...
As a former resident of the great state of Minnesota, I have to say what a bunch of babies.
They said how ridiculous we acted when Brett decided to retire from the Pack, then un-retire, then retire, then un-retire, then retire, then un-retire...THEN go play for the Jets, then retire, then un-retire to play for the VIKINGS!!!! Everyone remembers how ridiculous they said we acted, right?
Okay Minnesota, he said he was coming and then he said he wasn't. But then he DID and he played for you and sure while he had a heck of a season, it culminated in an amazingly poor pass decision by the Brett that Packer fans know and for some still love. Had to mention that it puts a smile on my face.
Now he is saying after ankle surgery (poor baby) that he may not come back and EVERYONE in the entire state of Minnesota is crying??? Jimney Crickets...this kind of reaction after only 1 season??? I think Minnesota's reaction should be staggeringly different form the reaction of a state full of fans that cheered him on through thick and through thin for 17 seasons ...wouldn't you agree?
I hope all the criticisms, and reprimands, and taunts and heckles...I hope all of the words those Viking fans are just starting to swallow get stuck in their throats like a HUGE CHUNK OF CHEDDAR CHEESE.
SKOL THIS YOU INFANTS!!!!!!!
They said how ridiculous we acted when Brett decided to retire from the Pack, then un-retire, then retire, then un-retire, then retire, then un-retire...THEN go play for the Jets, then retire, then un-retire to play for the VIKINGS!!!! Everyone remembers how ridiculous they said we acted, right?
Okay Minnesota, he said he was coming and then he said he wasn't. But then he DID and he played for you and sure while he had a heck of a season, it culminated in an amazingly poor pass decision by the Brett that Packer fans know and for some still love. Had to mention that it puts a smile on my face.
Now he is saying after ankle surgery (poor baby) that he may not come back and EVERYONE in the entire state of Minnesota is crying??? Jimney Crickets...this kind of reaction after only 1 season??? I think Minnesota's reaction should be staggeringly different form the reaction of a state full of fans that cheered him on through thick and through thin for 17 seasons ...wouldn't you agree?
I hope all the criticisms, and reprimands, and taunts and heckles...I hope all of the words those Viking fans are just starting to swallow get stuck in their throats like a HUGE CHUNK OF CHEDDAR CHEESE.
SKOL THIS YOU INFANTS!!!!!!!
Thursday, July 1, 2010
In case you are ever in need of a good insult.
http://jezebel.com/5577719/100-greatest-movie-insults-of-all-time
I was a little worried Sandlot wasn't going to make it in there...but this did not disappoint.
I was a little worried Sandlot wasn't going to make it in there...but this did not disappoint.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)