Claiming the good

Some of the happy things from today. (To keep my most recent post from being depressing and to cheer me up before bed.)

• Wearing short sleeves, summer skirt, hot pink tights, and my boots with magnets in them.
• Tasting some of B's Mustard Girl mustard at lunch.
• Walking by the lake with A.
• Phone calls with both of my grandmothers (and no political discussions).
• Homemade frozen pizza with rosemary from my plant.
• Receiving my new favorite tote bag. (Yes, it's NPR. Judge or be jealous. Whichever fits you.) And water bottle too.
• Warm enough to be outside without a coat.
• Sunshine and blue sky.
• Plans to be done writing papers for finals tomorrow (though editing through Friday), go out to a play tomorrow night, and H's visit this weekend.
• Being able to use my university connections to download an article and e-mail it to a teacher friend who wanted read it.
• Oh, and this video.
  

Disappointed

As much as the little visits can build connections, the missed opportunities can shake the faultline underlying a friendship. Because each time it doesn't work out, it tells me that I'm not that important to you.

~~~

It's sad that I don't feel surprised when plans fall through.

~~~

There are lots of opportunities that I miss. More people than I have time to see. And we all have to find some personal time when we can.

I get that.

I just thought you could squeeze me in. Instead I'm feeling shoved out.

Power to look people in the eye

I could wear non-tennis/hiking shoes again today!

Explanation: I've been wearing my Merrells all week because I realized on Sunday that I was twisting my foot funny when I walked and that wasn't good. I was twisting my foot to avoid walking on a blister on the ball of my foot that I got when I went to a party Saturday night.

A party to which I wore my 4-inch stiletto black boots. Check!

I really don't think I would have gotten such the blister if the evening had gone as expected. Cross the street to the bus. Ride downtown. Walk two blocks. Do the party thing. Change into flats and go home.

The two blocks turned into twelve. What can I say? Streets get funny sometimes. Buildings pop up right where you don't need them to be. Walkways aren't clear. I called twice for directions.

But in the end I made it. And got to spend the evening being tall. (Especially since the male half of the guests tended to be going stocking-footed.)

Check plus.

Not talking politics in this post. No really.

“What do you think of the protests in Wisconsin?”

Umm.. I’m sorry, Grandmom. What did you just ask me? Because it sounded like a political question. Wait, you want me to answer that? Erm.. Well. Um. Uh. I mean.

~~~

Supposedly families are the most diverse networks.*Our best friends are people like us. The people we work with chose the job based on similar values. We live in neighborhoods with the type of people we want to resemble. We worship in communities of shared beliefs.

We might know people who aren’t like us, but they’re not who we associate with. If we don’t click with people, then they can fall away from our lives. But family you’re stuck with no matter how different the paths you go down.

~~~

I didn’t come up with the most eloquent answer. I’m a little (but only a little) bit conflicted. Unions can be a big business. They can be part of the problem. But I do believe that the can offer important protection.

“Did you have to join a union when you taught?”

“No, Grandmom. My school wasn’t unionized. I think it could have helped if they had been.”

~~~

We don’t talk politics in my family. At least not that side of my extended family.

Granted, there are cousins who bring up issues sometimes. I missed the summer at the beach where the California cousin said something referring to global warming. The South Carolina cousin protested, “You don’t actually believe that do you?”

But my Grandmother stays out of the conversations. During college, my parents confirmed that she votes the other side of the ticket than I do. I suspected, but didn’t know. It's just not something we discuss.

~~~

“Because you know, when your Aunt was teaching in New York, she had to pay union dues.”

Did she now? How about that.

~~~

I struggle with the deep divide in American culture. I’ve lived in places where I felt way too liberal and places where I identified with the more conservative community members. I carry both of them with me, if only to the extent that I know the arguments on either side. And I hate the other-izing of the opposition. As someone who has been the the minority for over half my life, even in a privileged position, it’s not comfortable.

I firmly believe that the best way for the country, the world, to combat this ostracizing of each other is to talk to people on the other side.

I believe that I have benefited by my relationships with people who are not like me. But I’m not sure that they have been benefited by their relationship with me. I’m afraid that I camouflage too readily. That I know that you’re different from me, but if you don’t figure it out I’m not going to tell you. And if you do figure it out, or ask questions around the issue, I’ll hedge.

~~~

“It’s been good talking to you, Grandmom. I love you.”

“Love you too, sweetie.”




*Don’t ask for my citations, because the best I’ve got is a lecture last year.

How did we become friends

I still love the "How did we become friends?" conversation starter. (Not as a pick-up line. But as a legitimate, "We're friends now. We weren't a year ago. How did that happen?")

J and I were talking today. We're not quite sure how it actually happened. But my favorite line "I knew on the first day of class that I wanted to be friends with you."

"ME TOO!" I squealed.

~~~

Not all of my friends are like that. One of my best friends now is someone who I knew for years before we were more than acquaintances. Sometimes it takes a while.

~~~

And sometimes friendship just happens. Today, I celebrate the easy friends. The ones that are reminiscent of preschool best friends.

"Hey, didn't we click right away? Weren't we meant to know each other? How are we friends? For real? How could we not be friends?"

Cutie Pies

Other teaching roommate was requesting cheesy love songs for a play list. I sent her a playlist. But then started on the videos of songs I don't have.



"Crayola doesn't make a color to draw my love."
Plus, I love patty-cake.



Cute-ness in this video. And they lindy. And adorable couples. Thank you mm for sending it to me. Now I can't listen to the song without wanting to watch the video. (Which is okay, because I don't really hear The Weepies that much otherwise.)



Felt like I needed a third song. And it's a party of a video. Seems like a good way to end the night.

Snow, Show, and Vertigo

This week's blizzard was awesome for at least two reasons.

1. I got to play in snow!

2. Snowstorm sleepovers!

My roommate from teaching and I were talking this evening about how we miss the social life we had in the middle of nowhere. I'm more social in the city and am happy about that. But I miss the weekend getaways. And we both miss the low-key, hang-out at someone's place sleep-overs that were a normal part of the culture out there. Here I feel like I need an explanation or excuse to have a slumber party. It's not the, "so, can I come over for the weekend?" call.

But with the blizzard I could totally say, "Do you want to cancel on dinner tonight or plan on spending the night?" And the next day, I could call my friend from the coffeeshop, saying I'd walked the two miles to get first friend back home. Could I come over to her place? Spend the night? Excellent!

I should make this a more regular occurrence.

Anyway, I've finally uploaded pictures.


Poor cars stuck on every sidestreet.

I still haven't shoveled my car out. (No, we don't have to switch sides of the street.)


The horizon disappeared. "That's why it's called a white-out," my friend told me. "Yes, but I can see the tree. It's not that white out."


There weren't many people out in the morning. It was still snowing, so I guess that's legit. But the people who were out were friendly. Like this guy, taking a photo of the snow plow. He'd been out looking for skis. Couldn't find them.


I wish I had cross-country skis.


Though I'm doubt they'd help me reach the door. Those are supposed to be steps. I'm still not sure how what I walked on matches the ground underneath.


Loved the playgrounds. In the morning.


And in the afternoon.


The slide seemed so much shorter when there was no drop at the end.


Love the patterns of snow sticking to the wall.


Who am I kidding? I just love a good snow!

~~~~

From the Life Checks list:

5. Pay to go to a show by myself (I already go to free ones, but this needs to be something I really want to see)

Check. Bam. I'm doing well on this list.

I've got a subscription for one to the local Broadway tours. Went to my first show all by myself.

Now my subscription is the cheap one. I have nosebleed seats. You really notice the set from the next to last row in the theater. But I got a tip at intermission that there were empty seats to the side of the second row from the front. Totally moved. Didn't get ushered out. 'Cause I'm cool like that. Y'know.

I did miss the gushing about the show with friends afterward. But this performance didn't leave me gushing anyway, so perhaps it was just as well that I wasn't expected to.

~~~

Last part of the title is vertigo. Had a bout of it this morning, which was a new expierence for me. There are enough possible explanations and it subsided quickly and, yes, I'll go to the doctor if it continues, but honestly not too worried about it.

The expirence alerted me to how much I take the sense of balance for granted. When every eye movement, never mind head turning, never mind actually walking, set the room spinning I just wanted to sit absolutely still. Except I'm bad at sitting still. So for now I'm grateful that my sense of balance has returned. And I beg it not to leave me again.

Practice and Pressure

Ming Mei isn't blogging anymore. So instead of e-mailing her this awesome ad and letting her share it on her blog. I'm putting it here. (And then waiting for her to share it. Not giving up hope that you'll start floating again. :)




I love the way they switch between practice and pressure. The reminder when I'm bored with practice that I'm working towards a goal. Or a reminder for when the going gets tough that I've done similar exercises to prepare myself.

Found through Chase Jarvis' blog

Gossip and Relationships and This post goes on and on for ages just like this title

Last weekend, I had a conversation with H. about how I like talking through other people's gossip because I don't generate my own. It's not my style so much. Three days later, I'd scheduled a date with a guy from OkCupid, who was not the guy that I have a budding interest in at dance, nor the guy from the other dance place who I was seriously flirting with. Yeah. If you've seen me in the past week, there's a decent chance you've heard something about this. But most of you who read this, don't see me. So a follow-up to the gossip you're not hearing.

~~~

The OkCupid date was scheduled for last night. Brief summary:

Oh my God, are you there? I've been messaging you for 4 hours, but I have a feeling my "smart" phone is not quite smart enough for OK Cupid. Anyway, I am in the hospital. Please, please call me. (Phone number redacted.)

Yeah. I was stood up. And sure, hospital. Could easily be something major and nasty and bad. And if I was really feeling the messages we'd exchanged, it's possible I'd find a way to reschedule. But I'm not.

And by the time I made my way back home last night, I wasn't even feeling generous enough to click over to the site and read the entirety of his message. Finally did this morning. (Which is when I saw the hospital line.) Felt like I should at least acknowledge the message, but, again, with the not feeling generous enough for another chance.

Yeah, I was there. Well, not by the time you sent this. After an hour I bid farewell to the guys working the front desk, called some friends, and made other plans for the evening. (And I'll admit, I'm partly to blame for not calling you. I have a rule against giving phone number to guys I don't know. Only took one sketchy experience to make me enforce it. Blame Chris.)

So yeah, your smart phone and OkCupid definitely failed. Hope whatever situation took you to the hospital turns better soon. Ideally that everyone is healthy and normal again. But it sounds like this isn't the time for either of us.

~~~

Writing that I realized it was true. I'm not into the online dating thing. So I disabled my account. In the spirit of thinking it may be an issue of timing, I didn't delete. Just turned it off for the time being.

When you leave the site, they ask why. Lots of checkbox options. And then there's a text box for any other comments or suggestions. I took that to mean, "therapy time!"

Warning, this is way more of a debrief than the size of the textbox indicates that you're looking for. I'm ended up using it as one last time to process what the OkCupid experience meant for me.

Real reason that I'm leaving has more to do with why I signed up in the first place. My friend kept telling me that I should try online dating, so I let him set me up with an account. But he's deactiviated his account (again), so he can't give me a hard time for shutting mine down. :)

I love reading the OkTrends blog and am a little sad to not be actively contributing data anymore. But it's not like I was doing much to contribute data anyway.

Personality-wise I never connected with the online dating experience. I like tweaking my profile and people-watching other people's profiles. But I haven't really felt the desire to talk to people here. I've been terrible about replying to messages. I'm bad enough at responding to people I know, people I don't know don't get prioritized and then, ironically, I don't get to know them. (Maybe I'd be better if I could read the whole message in my e-mail account, sometimes the click stopped me, but I get that you need clicks on the site for advertising.)

Okay, that's more than enough for now. Thanks for the experience. It was fun and helped me learn about myself. Who knows, maybe I'll even come back in the future.

~~~

I did like tweaking my profile. Considering how I present myself to strangers. It's a fun exercise. Saving the main parts of my "about me" section, because I like them.

I wake up to NPR. Read XKCD over my oatmeal or yogurt. There is always a book by my bed to read before I go to sleep.

I am easily entertained, but carry a book and my knitting.

I believe in stories. The stories we tell ourselves and the ones we tell each other.

I believe in making decisions after hearing all sorts of arguments for and against. During my first year teaching, there were times where my biggest motivation was knowing if I'd gone back a year, I wouldn't be able to talk myself out of committing to teaching.

I don't realize how much a place has become home until after I've moved. I wasn't Southern until I left the South. I didn't fully value the ruralness of the plains until I moved to the city. I'm still figuring out how I feel about the city; trying to accept that there are years before I settle on my opinion.

And, I only Twitter with math teachers.

~~~

So instead of a date last night, I came home and did laundry. (I said I made alternate plans. I didn't say what they were.)

And then I got hooked on a wedding blog. (I knoooow.) Suffice to say that I felt like the blog did a good job of capturing a lot of the ways I think about relationships, partly because it allows a place for community for people with a wide variety of perspectives on relationships.

And with that, I'm including links to the two posts that made me squeal with excitement to see some of my thoughts expressed by other people.

Do I know you? The game

After church I'm approached by a woman about my age. Not surprising, I just joined and people were told to greet us.

You look familar.

A quick glance. Y'know, maybe.

So do you.

And like that the game is begun.

~~~

Begin by listing affiliations. The last place I worked. My college. Nope. Not that.

She went to grad school at the place where I'm at now. Graduated in 2009 with a degree in chemical engineering.

Were you involved with the graduate women's group?
Yes!

Ah ha! We found it. But no. Wait. You graduated in 2009. I started in 2009. That couldn't be it.

And then I figure it out.

~~~

Megan? You're Sara's friend! You went to that church!*

Fifteen months ago, I visited her church. It was my first time attending there. Possibly her last. Four of us went out for brunch after the service--two old, two new. We friended each other on Facebook, but that was all. She was moving out of the life that I was entering.

~~~

There's a neat parallel to her greeting me after I joined today. A validation that it's okay for me to not be joining the church where she originally greeted me.

~~~

I've invited her to our Sunday School class. Who knows, maybe we'll end up real life friends yet.


*Names changed. As always. Initials just lost too much of the feel here.

And thus she joins the unknown guy from college who I ran into in DC
and the illustrator who I met at an arts festival and then saw at church
in the list of people with whom I have successfully won the game