photo update

I've abandoned let myself off the hook for the Photo-A-Day project but I'll keep throwing things up there as they come. Here are a few new ones.

Stuff

Randomness abounds since I last posted. Here's a catchall to bring you up to date.

I finished finals on Dec. 8. It coincided nicely with the demise of my computer on Dec 7. Really. It's not like I wanted to turn those papers in on time or anything. Actually, I did manage to retrieve the papers and turn everything in with four hours to spare, saw clients all afternoon, worked the next morning at the holiday party for our kids (where I work) and then, as everyone drove out of the parking lot after cleaning up, I had the moment of letdown where you realize everything you've been pushing for has passed and now you don't know what to do with yourself. I went back to bed for three more hours that afternoon. When Monday arrived, it was time to deal with the computer and the Insurance Saga of trying to get a referral to a physical therapist to deal with a back injury from September (that story is long and involved and I will save it for another post).

Anyhow, it's 10 days past finals and I finally feel as if I've let go a little bit and am starting to feel relaxed. I'm heading home on Thursday for a week and Goat is flying up on Sunday, wish him luck for spending a week with my family in the great, drippy Northwest.

In other assorted, random news, I went to Goat's company holiday party at a bowling alley in Hollywood last night -- I've never been to a bowling alley with a dress code and a full bar (I bowled while drinking a Cosmopolitan and eating coconut shrimp). Also, in completely unrelated random news, in a short poll of the other interns at my site, between the 15 of us we speak at least 11 languages fluently: English, Spanish, Armenian, Russian, Romanian, Mandarin, Korean, Taiwanese, French, Italian, and some Indian language related to Hindi that I hadn't heard of. Other staff also speak Farsi and Hebrew. Only in LA.

Religion Soup

I am having issues with religion these days. Not really faith so much... somehow I'm OK with doubt as a part of faith, and the idea that God's not freaking out about it nearly as much as I am (or at least as much as I was most of last year). But religion is turning into another issue entirely. I have to admit I'm usually at a loss for words in describing how all of it fits together; Goat called the other night, and I was in the middle of thinking about all of it and I was crying, and he asked what was wrong, and after I attempted to assure him it was nothing he had done, or not done, I simply replied that it was part of my religion soup.

The truth is, I do not know much about how to be a Christian here, in my life anymore. I am no longer in a community that shares a common language, and can talk until the cows come home about theological issues, and agree at the end of the day that we (think we) understand God and how he works in the world. The real truth is, so much of my life as a Christian has been about knowing how to talk about it. Yeah, I really do think that I have been part of communities that tried to live out what we intellectualized, but when that part was hard, we settled with being able to articulate and conceptualize it, and feel better, feel like we had a handle on things. But now, I can't divert to talking about it when it gets confusing and difficult. I get... stuck. So I pout. Real mature, I know. But I'm stuck. If I knew how to do it any differently I would.

But I don't want to go back to being able to articulate everything. I'm OK without all the answers. I'm stuck, but I'd like to think I'm stuck because I'm bushwhacking forward. When I got off the phone with Goat, he was concerned whether I was OK. "OK, yeah. Of course." I said. "I'm emotional, but emotional doesn't mean 'not OK'."

Anyhow, I know I'm sort of becoming the one-woman Anne Lamott fan club (maybe I should bill her for the publicity), but I found her archive on Salon.com and I pick through it when I feel stuck, mostly because I find her approach to Christianity refreshing. I liked her a lot before I came to Fuller, and bought Traveling Mercies for everyone I know, but she's like water in a dry land in the midst of systematic theology hell. Here's the one I read today, which is helping calm me down enough to write my last systematics paper. Systematics is just way too... removed. She reminds me that Jesus is about something a lot more applicable than being able to articulate a coherent view on the providence of God in the face of the problem of evil and suffering.

Stop reading me. I'm babbling. Go read Anne. Go.

Advent-urous

I went to my friend Freya's church for the second time this weekend... I think I am finally at a point where I'm doing pretty well, and am able to go and hang out, and observe, and not freak out about needing to feel like I fit in somewhere right away. That makes me a lot less judgmental than I was most of last year, where I spent most of my time not talking to people because I thought that either they wouldn't like me or I wouldn't like them (which, when you don't really give people a chance, tends to make for a self-fulfilling prophecy).

Anyhow, Freya's church is really interesting... there are only about 15-20 people there any given Sunday, and they all have dinner together beforehand. Then they go over to this other room, and everybody picks out some sort of rhythm instrument, and they have this big, giant, drum-circle type worship. There are a lot of artists there, and last night one guy did this photo/painting during the service, which I happen to find so beautiful that I almost cry just looking at the thumbnail. Then they have art stuff set up in the corner, paints and chalk and oils and such, and you can wander over and do artwork during the service if you want.

This was the first Sunday of Advent, and I'm glad I went to church. It's one of the few seasons (the other being Easter) where we have any sense of tradition or ritual in the Protestant church, any sense of marking the time and seeing ourselves, collectively, as part of a larger picture. I don't really know why I love advent, in fact, most of my memories about it involve fighting over who got to light the candles. But I like being reminded to slow down and wait. Advent is about waiting. I used to like to think alot about hope and waiting. Now I'm a little busier living, instead of always thinking. According to Christian tradition, advent is about recalling the anticipation of the birth of Christ, and anticipating a day when he returns. Somebody last night said he tried to think about what Mary would feel like, waiting for the baby to be born. I said I thought she would want foot rubs every night, and somebody to bring her food to her on the couch in the living room.

Those two anticipations seem very different though. One is about reliving anticipation that achieved relief. The second anticipation is about waiting on something that seems so crazy you can hardly believe anybody really thinks it might happen. Waiting on something you want that may be a long-shot in the universe. This year, for me, both faith-wise and otherwise, advent is not so much about reliving anticipation for things that are already here. It's about waiting for things, things you wonder if your heart might break in two without, and not really being sure if they will ever come.

Sorta smart, sorta not

I was tutoring tonight, and usually I work on math with my student. But tonight he didn't have math, he just had history. Not exactly my best subject, but I figured, hey, he's 11, I'm sure I can handle it. Well, his assignment was just to highlight a bunch of stuff in his textbook. So, I sat there and watched him do it - really earning my keep here. He was reading about the Mycenaeans (n.b. I just had to look them up on Wikipedia to find out who they were). Anyhow, at one point, he looks up from his reading and asks whether the whole Trojan Horse thing was real, or just a story.

I didn't know what to say. History, in all it's glorious factitudity (n.b. also not sure if that's a word), escapes me.

Of course, I covered it up by telling him to read the text and see if he could find the answer. I may not know the answer but I know how to fake it, and that's gotta be more than half the battle.

Love, Nerd-Style

OK, so I know I am a former math nerd and may be the only person (other than Andrew, who sent me the link) who finds these hysterically funny.

Damn, I miss integration of functions.

Vacation all I ever wanted

I've been struggling a bit with the Photo-A-Day Project. Some days I look around and realize I travel the same paths most days, and have stopped being able to find interesting things on those paths... and some days I'm too busy or tired to think about my camera until I'm laying on the couch watching Jeopardy. My brain is serious mush these days. But it's a vacation week, and the scenery has finally changed... so here are a few from the last couple of days:

First up, Mick Jagger and company...

My friend Nicole and I got free tickets at the last minute to their LA show last night -- and while I wouldn't have paid to see them, I have to admit it was a good show, fireworks and giant inflatable lips and all. Except for the parts where Keith Richards sang, though.

Next up, today was Thanksgiving and I saw my very first deep-fried turkey. I spent the day with some frisbee friends and their coworkers, eating, drinking, chopping, mixing, and searing a dead bird in 300-degree peanut oil.

Cranky McSpanky

Crap. I am cranky this week. Can't seem to shake it, even after a couple of 10-hour nights of sleep. I'm tired. Tired of having papers over my head. Tired of being in my car, tired of having my life spread out over a 30-mile radius, tired of not being able to play ultimate and having to either sit and watch, or stay home alone. Tired of my room looking like someone only comes there to fling clothes around the room. Tired of my walls being bare, and tired of not having the energy or the decorating ability to do anything about it. Tired of not knowing how to change the things I'm cranky about. Tired of, at the age of 30, still occasionally wishing my mother would fly in and make sure I ate well every day. Tired of it being week 8 (perhaps I should not be surprised... maybe it's just week 7 syndrome showing up a week late). Tired of being hard on myself. Frankly, despite the fact that it is part of my job to remind people all day long that change is a long, slow process, I am secretly upset that I have not found a button to make it go fast just for me. Luckily, I have a therapist of my own who reminds me of the same thing, and having her remind me to chill out and enjoy the ride makes her worth every penny.

Anyhow, when I am cranky, I cry a lot and, to be honest, really want the rest of the world to join my pity party. Usually I can help get out of it by doing something to remember the world doesn't revolve around me, but then this morning I remembered that I had forgotten to go visit my hospice patient yesterday, which means that not only did I miss a chance to remember that whole not-the-center-of-the-world thing, but now I also feel like a big, mean, self-absorbed jerk too, for forgetting about a sweet little 95-year-old lady in a nursing home. Not really helping.

This is about the point in the quarter where I get really hard on myself, and start thinking that everyone would be better off if they didn't have to deal with me, because clearly I make everyone's lives more difficult when they have to "handle" me. So last week, when a friend pointed out this little streak I have, of thinking that I have to fix myself before anyone should have to deal with me, what was my first reaction? Crap, I thought, I'm too much of a perfectionist - I better fix that before I let anybody get anywhere near me, so I'm not too much to handle. I suppose the irony of that reaction would be much funnier to me if it weren't so true.

So, anyhow, in the spirit of trying to go easy on myself for five minutes, I'm dredging up another Anne Lamott quote. Maybe I've posted it before, but I need it again today.

"[My therapist] reminded me of something I'd told her once, about the five rules of the world.... The first rule is that you must not have anything wrong with you, or different. The second rule is that if you do have something wrong with you, you must get over it as soon as possible. The third rule is that if you can't get over it, you must pretend that you have. The fourth one is that if you can't even pretend that you have, you shouldn't show up. You should stay home because it's hard for everyone else to have you around. And the fifth rule is that if you are going to insist on showing up, you should at least have the decency to feel ashamed. So we decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was show up for my life and not be ashamed."

I Voted

So, I got off my butt, got over my excuses, and made it to the polls. Here's the play-by-play:

• September, 2005: Register to Vote in LA County as a "Permanent Absentee Voter," thinking I will be more likely to vote if I can do it from the comfort of my own home.
• October 2005: Receive voter registration card. Promptly file it in the "pile of things to be filed" in the corner. Receive absentee ballot for Nov election - thankfully, in English this time.
• November 2005: Forget to vote. Recycle absentee ballot. Get jealous of people wearing "I voted" stickers, as they remind me I am, occasionally, lazy and irresponsible.
  
• October 2006: Get voter's guide and absentee ballot for this year's elections, along with threatening notice that if I don't vote this time, they will stop sending me absentee ballots, as I don't seem to be using them. Put voter guide and ballot on shelf with every intention of eventually reading voter's guide and making informed decisions about Important Things That Affect Society and About Which I Have a Voice.
  
• November 5, 2006:
• 7:30pm - In attempt to procrastinate from reading for class, spend 1.5 hours reading analysis and pro/con content of voter's guide and attempting to understand which choices are the lesser of evils. Try not to be swayed by ARGUMENTS WHICH FEEL THE NEED TO MAKE THEIR POINTS IN ALL. CAPITAL. LETTERS!! Find myself overcome by irritation at the idiocy of a society which wants things (like, say, education, traffic relief, and environmental protection) but is unwilling to pay taxes to fund it, opting instead to insist on issuing bonds, which essentially amounts to taxing our children for things we want to enjoy today (Buy now! Nothing down! No payments until January 2036!). Fear that one day soon we will see Arnold Schwarzenegger on late night TV, riding a donkey in a clown suit, advertising California's Going Out of Business Sale (Closing our doors! Everything must go!).
• 9:00pm - wish I had a martini. Start working on something easy, like the Sunday crossword.
• 9:30pm - notice that my absentee ballot was supposed to be in the mail two days ago.
• 9:31pm - curse. decide to deal with it the next day.

• November 6, 2006:
  
• 8:16am - hear on NPR that absentee ballots can be dropped off at polling locations.
• 8:17am - hear on NPR that thousands of people do this, causing close races to be undecided for days on end while ballots are counted.
• 8:18am - decide not to be One of Those People. Decide to find my voting location and vote properly
• November 7, 2006:
• 9:52am - leave for class
• 9:53am - use One Return Rule to go back for absentee ballot
• 9:54am - use first amendment of the One Return Rule to go back (yes, again) for voter registration card, which no longer appears to be in To Be Filed pile in corner.
• 9:56am - decide doing my civic duty is more important that being in class on time (which, really I don't seem to do often anyway, today's excuse is just better than usual) and continue searching room until I start over and find voter registration card in the To Be Filed pile, right between the title to my car and my CPR certification card.
• 3:00pm - pull card out after class. Discover it does not actually tell me where to go vote.
• 3:05pm - spend 15 minutes online attempting to ascertain the location of my polling place
  
• 3:30pm - bike to my polling place. Say hello to the ladies knitting outside the retirement home
• 3:33pm - spell my name, several times, to the lady behind the table. Offer to show someone, anyone, some ID to prove I am who I say I am. Wonder why no one seems to care that I am who I claim to be. Realize I didn't need my voter registration card. Explain that I want to vote today, even though I'm holding my absentee ballot, all filled out, in my hand. Get quizzical looks. Get directed across the room to another lady. Stand there holding my ballot while they yell back and forth about what to do with my absentee ballot, because apparently ripping it up, throwing it out, or writing VOID are not options. Realize I am not being helpful, and stop giving them suggestions about what to do with absentee ballot.
  
• 3:40pm - enter booth with shiny new ballot. Marvel at the wonder of technology that is the InkaVote machine. Try not to mess up. At least not on any of the important ones.
  
• 3:45pm - exit booth. Ballot in hand. Feed into SuperSecretVoteGuardingMachine, monitored by Frank. Feel powerful. Feel like I have a voice. Feel, strangely, like watching election results on television all night.
• 3:46pm - Proudly display my first ever "I Voted" sticker. Wish a good afternoon to the knitting ladies. Resume worrying about society.
  

Decisions...

I recently remembered another reason I love author Ann Lamott - I found a quote of hers I had written somewhere, presumably at one of the many points in time at which I found myself making a life-changing decision:

"When you need to make a decision, and you don't know what to do, just do one thing or the other, because the worst that can happen is that you will have made a terrible mistake."

In other exciting News of My Rapidly Approaching Demise, I got a TB test this week. Well, I got half of a TB test. The half where they stick you with a needle and inject something under your skin. Then, even though I was 50 feet away from it for 8 hours, I forgot to go back across the street two days later and get the test read.... which unfortunately means the whole first part, the painful part, was all for nothing. I must be really special.

Nostalgia

Last night I watched my life pass before my eyes. Well, at least seven years of it. And actually, some of those bits were really not my life, as they took place before I was around, in the strange netherworld that is Your Parents Lives Before You Were Born.

As a very belated joint birthday gift for my parents (really now, an early Christmas present, as the birthdays were last summer... aren't I a great daughter?), I had 36 reels of Super-8 home movies transferred to DVD. 1972-79. Silent movies of my parents before they had kids, going on camping vacations with their new puppy. My dad working on his Volkswagen squareback in the driveway of our old house. My grandpa on the farm in Illinois, my mom's dad, sitting around at Christmastime, while my aunt floated in and out of the scene, pregnant with the first grandchild. The life of people and things who are hazy in my own mind. My only memory of that dog is that she bit me when I was four, right before she died. My only memory of the VW is sitting on the hood, drawing in the ash that settled on it when Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980. My aunt had two more kids, my three cousins, and they've produced 9 of their own offspring in the last 4 years -- the 10th is due next May. I never met my grandfather, he died the summer before I was born.

So maybe it's just the romantic nature of Super-8 - even watching the DVD brings up memories of the rhythmic clacking of the projecter, and smell of the warm film as it passes in front of the lens - but watching the early years of our family filled me with the overwhelming understanding that I had a really wonderful childhood. Yeah, sure, so of course the only scenes in the movies are when my family was actually all together, playing in our backyard or clamming on the Oregon coast, and everybody's smiling and waving at the camera and since there's no sound, you can't hear my brother and I screaming at each other (though, circa 1978, he was caught on tape trying to run me over with a Big Wheel). But man, there's something about watching us run around in our backyard, swinging and rollerskating and learning to ride bikes, completely oblivious of the havoc that the Teen Years would wreak upon our rosy memories...

I could hardly believe that the family I was watching was my own. Not because I didn't have a good childhood (I did) and not because my family doesn't get along now (we do), but because that family is sealed off in Super-8 happy-ending land, and my family has been through so much since then. We are not without our happy endings, of sorts, but we're tempered by reality, by years of bickering with each other and accomodating each other and sticking by each other through life-threatening illness and adolescence and all that jazz. But I love revisiting that family, and finally beginning to understand how much my parents sacrificed to give my brother and I a good life, and watching everyone wave at the camera as the picture begins to flicker and the screen goes white. I can almost hear the end of the reel going thwap, thwap, thwap.

Say Cheese

Hey, take a look over here. I've started a photo blog, where it is my intention to take at least one interesting and/or informative picture every day for at least a month. I'm trying to challenge myself to look around a little more and just generally pay attention. Goat mentioned something about the rose bush outside my apartment last week and I couldn't recall seeing a rose bush there. The next time I came home, sure enough, there it was, looking vaguely familiar about 6 inches away from the front gate. Been there all year.

Wonder what else I've missed.

Dancing Queens

Goat & I have been practicing some of our dance moves. I think we're pretty stylin' if I do say so myself. We've got it on video... check us out here (may take a minute - or three - to download... go get yourself a snack while you wait).

Fall Unflung

Despite much pleading, begging, and whining on my part, fall has still not arrived here in Southern California. Well, unless by "fall" you mean the season where the temperature stays the same but everybody gets allergies. We had one grey day and a slight drizzle, and now we're back up to 85 degrees. On the up-side, Becky D was here last weekend, taking a break from the snow in Colorado, and we got to spend a day at the beach. Blogger seems to be thwarting me from posting a picture today but Becky's got one up here (yes, I was wearing all my purchases from the day, no I did not think I looked cool like that).

Also, I'm taking suggestions for new hobbies. Something went awry with my back a month ago and while I nurse it back to health, Ultimate is out of the question (along with biking, hiking, running, or anything else that keeps me sane). The only requirements are that it cost no money, and not involve sitting, standing, picking things up, or bending over. Get your minds out of the gutter and let me know what I should do with my time.

I have the facts and I'm voting maybe

Every year I have such good intentions of voting. Really. I have this little person sitting on my shoulder, we'll call him Voting Victor, that reminds me how lucky I am to have the opportunity, because people in other places in the world walk 20 miles and wait in line for three days just to speak their mind. Me? I just have to check some boxes on an absentee ballot that already arrived, walk 20 feet to the mailbox, and tell the government my every wish. Well, except for that one about the bathtub full of chocolate pudding. I mean, I could tell them that one, but it would be a write-in I suppose, since I didn't see it on the ballot anywhere. Then again, there was that year when my absentee ballot arrived in Chinese, maybe the Pudding Prop was on that one.

Anyhow, as I said, I always psych myself up to vote, because voting is important!, and part of my civic duty, and all that... but then the voters guide arrives in the mail, and this little person on my other shoulder, we'll call her Fuhggetaboudit Fergie, starts wailing and screaming as soon as I open it up. I mean really, can't the thing have a few comics, an entertainment section, maybe a sudoku stuck in there somewhere? It's so boring I lose the will to vote before I've made it through the first rebuttal of the argument against Prop 1 about whether or not they should pass a law allowing them to rewrite an amendment to the ratified code index veto adding a $0.25 tax to Q-tips to fund field trips for inner-city vegans.

the boobies edition

I was just thinking the other day how lucky breast cancer is. I mean, it's got the most edgy-but-still-socially-appropriate appeal, as evidenced by recent campaigns. First there were Save the Ta-Tas t-shirts donating to breast cancer research (I do not recommend, however, typing in "www.tatas.com" while trying to find them online). Now there's the Feel Your Boobies campaign to promote breast self-exams.

Poor colon cancer. It's never gonna get that kind of exposure. Especially now that Katie Couric's a "real" journalist. Then again, with the rise of colon hydrotherapy as the frou-frou celebrity treatment-du-jour here in LA, maybe people will be wearing colonoscopy-themed pants soon. What will they say?

This Princess Leia wig makes it quite tempting to pick up my needles again, especially now that I have 8 hours of sitting in class with my hands free every week again...

Faith, doubt, and several other cans of worms

So, mostly this blog has been a collection of thoughts on life and God, often intertwining because God influences how I understand life, and life influences how I understand God, and for better or for worse I don't see any end to that in sight. And most of you out there read it because we used to sit around having these conversations in the middle of the night, in some other city or state or country... anyhow, more of the same ensues.

In her splendiferous memoir, Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott claims that there are only two prayers she ever prays: "Help me, Help me, Help me," and "Thank you, Thank you, Thank you." (This from a woman who recounts that she fought becoming a Christian for awhile, until she realized God wasn't going anywhere, so she said, "Alright, f*** it, you can come in.") I am, technically, at a seminary, but despite (or, because of) some of my theology classes, Lamott's take on addressing the Almighty is about all I can handle these days - on the days when I believe someone's listening.

Let's just say that somehow I am slowly learning to be OK being a person who harbors growing amounts of doubt alongside a still-deeply entrenched faith, and who realizes that it's a much better option to go learn how to go forward holding both than to sit still, waiting for one to finally win out over the other. Quite surprising for a person who has always considered consistency to be a primary virtue.

Becoming a therapist at a seminary will mess with your head. I came home one weekend, having been assigned a client suffering from PTSD, in his 5th foster placement, who had watched his mother burn and blind his sister when he was 7. I cried all weekend. The next Tuesday, I had to sit through a lecture on the finer points of the doctrine of the trinity and the difference between ontic and ontological. At that point, a much harsher form of the thought "who cares? Does this really matter?" goes through my head and probably comes out my mouth, and I want to swear off the triviality of theology forever (this from a person who had a year-long running discussion on the difference between hope and optimism, you remember). And yes, I realize there is a difference between faith and theology, but being surrounded by theology students will blur the distinction.

I know at this moment I sound like I'm on the down-side of faith. Actually, I'm not, really, although it fluctuates daily. Because on the flip side, even on the days when the whole Jesus story starts to sound a little absurd, the churches that have filled a role of "home" in my past are places where things that feel really deeply true to me are deeply valued. Where community (dysfunctional though it is) is formed around the (admittedly idealized) tenets of grace, generosity, mercy, gratitude, and justice. If following faith to its tangible ends produces these things, then must tracing these ends back to their roots lead me, necessarily, back to my faith? I want it to, although I don't know anymore. But in any case, I miss being part of a community that actively and intentionally holds onto those ideals, and I need to be part of one again, if they'll have me, doubts and all.

But even in the middle of two extremes, trying to figure out how to live with faith when doubts won't shut up these days, all of me resounds with Jon Krakauer, as he writes in the author's note to his book about the Fundamental Mormon church, Under the Banner of Heaven:

"I've come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain - which doesn't strike me as something to lament.... And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few more modest truths: ... Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why - which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive."

Grrr

I don't really like ranting about politics in a blog but today I can't resist.

President Bush, stating the oh-so-obvious, recently declared that "America is safer but we are not yet safe." Well, duh. And we're never going to be. If anything pissed me off after September 11, it was that America's response was to insinuate that we could throw enough money at "homeland security" and the "war on terror" to make ourselves supremely, completely, 100% safe. Anything short of that was viewed as failure.

Well, get over it. We will never be safe. Especially not if we never have the humility to admit that we cannot be in control of the entire world. I'm not saying we should dismantle the CIA and let people walk on planes with AK-47s, but what we're doing now is kind of like playing that wack-a-mole game at Chuck-E-Cheese... you hit one mole and another one pops up somewhere else, and they never really go away, and you throw a lot of money and energy into trying to continue life as usual when maybe life isn't usual anymore. The world is a messy, complicated, place with a lot of crazy shit going on, and have we been sheltered from the reality of that for so long that we think we can be immune? It's as if we've extended our personal obsession with immortality to the national level. It won't happen to us. It can't happen to us. And if it happens to us, we're going to sue someone and buy a lot of duct tape so it never happens again.

Kitchen Table 30

I turned 30 last weekend. I was kind of anticipating it being a more emotionally challenging birthday, and had spent most of the last year curious about when I would have my breakdown, but I love 30. I was actually so excited about 30 that in a way, I feel like I arrived a year early, because the moment I turned 29 I started referring to myself as "almost 30".

I've been noticing the 30 come out in me more this year. My knees always hurt. I listen to NPR while I'm driving. I spend more time with a smaller number of people, and more time alone. I started thinking some of the clothes at JCPenney are cute. I want a five-year plan.

I like 30 because it gives me an excuse to be a grownup. For a while, I've been feeling that transitional pull between worlds, like I'm on the fence between an old stage of life and a new one. And some people have families, or own homes, or have other outside influences speeding them along on the way to greater responsibility. But in the absence of those things, 30 has been the first tangible mental marker that helps me live into the next stage. I keep asking myself questions like, "what would a 30-year-old do in this situation?" That's how I bought my kitchen table. I was wandering around the flea market and saw one I liked and didn't want to spend the money. Now, the old me, the one who was still in her 20s, she would have been OK with eating on the couch for a year. But I was about to be in my 30s, and that's what 30-year-olds do, right? Even when they're in grad school, they buy furniture so they have something to eat on.

I like 30 because it fits with those things. I've never really been one for plans, but looking back, making a decision to come to grad school was already a step towards something approximating a long-range goal. Then I moved here, and, as noted above, my life looks really different than it did in Berkeley. It was becoming clear here that I was outgrowing my 20s, but I was still wearing them. Being "in my 30s" is like finally getting new shoes that are 2 sizes larger - they don't fit perfectly yet, and I'm still figuring out how to walk in them, but instead of busting at the seams, I feel like I've got room to grow into them.

You must read this book

Rain of Gold, by Victor Villasenor. It's a novel that tells the true story of two families who survived the revolution in Mexico 100 years ago and made new lives in the US. I just put away almost 600 pages in less than five days and (literally) cried when it ended, because it is one of those sweeping stories full of love and death and familial strength and honor and adventure that reminds you of the power of your blood ties and history (yet at the same time makes you feel like your family's about as exciting as the Cleavers).

It was an assigned book for my Narrative Therapy class, though... which in general has made me put a lot of time into thinking about my family and the stories I grew up with, and the way that those stories shape you and teach you about your role in the world. We talked about family rituals, like the way I get back in bed at noon every year on Christmas when my brother arrives with his family, so that he can come upstairs and jump on the bed, "waking me up" to begin the day (a ritual we continue even though I am nearly 30 and he is 33). And even rituals like the way the boat breaks down every year before our family vacation and how my dad gets frustrated and starts throwing things around and my mom goes in the house until he calms down, and then we get it fixed and get on the road late and there's an awkward tension in the car until my dad cracks a bad joke to indicate he's over it, and then life continues as usual. It's so bittersweet to think about your roots and your history, and to have the chance to take a long, hard look at where you've come from and how it's shaped you into who you are, for better or for worse, but to be doing it more than a thousand miles away from your family, in a new city where your roots are shallow, at the end of a decade of moving around and constantly starting over in which you've created few rituals of your own.

It makes me miss my family, but it also makes me think more about having a family of my own, because sometimes I think you need the impetus of another person to make it meaningful, this business of having rituals. It makes me grateful for the communities that have surrounded me in the places I've been, because they've been my surrogate families, and it makes me realize that as much as I want to figure out how to "be myself" in this new place, I'm never really fully myself outside of a community. And it makes me grateful that one of the functions of a family or a community is to keep rituals to mark the passage of time and the events of life.

It's interesting to apply this concept of "family rituals" to the patchwork communities of the urban metropolis... for example: the Ultimate community, I suppose, would seem quite odd to the uninitiated. We sing strange cheers to the other team after a game, we follow a code of ethics that sets a high bar for sportsmanlike conduct, we speak in a language that leaves others guessing ("That was a sweet layout D; too bad you got stalled before you got a hammer off"), and in place of holidays we have annual tournaments, which develop their own rituals (like Potlatch, where teams give gifts to their opponents and one team always plays naked).

Anyhow, this is all a bunch of rambling, but 30 hours of lectures on stories and rituals gives one lots to ponder in your spare time... what stories did your family tell? What rituals did you have? How did they help shape and define who you are and what you believe you are capable of in the world? What are the rituals in your community? Are you creating your own rituals? If your life was a story, what kind would it be? Comedy? Drama? Art-house indie with random characters, no plot, and an abrupt ending? And, if you don't like where your story is going, can you rewrite the ending?

I came home from the grocery store the other day with a giant box of frozen waffles.

I neglected to remember that "toaster oven" is on the list of things that disappeared from the apartment when Elizabeth moved back to South Carolina.

Frozen waffles, anyone?

There are some things money just can't buy...

Tent pants: $88
Mr. Rogers vest: $88
Flimsy white tank: $52
Having the time to make fun of clothes you would never buy: priceless










Then again, ringing in at a whopping $16, this outfit ain't much better.

Feelin' hot hot hot

Gah, did I mention it's hot here? It's at least 50% of any conversation. Anytime there's a pause, someone will interject a new story about what they're doing to cope. I have to sleep naked with no covers and a fan blowing at my face (probably overshare, sorry... at least it's a timely month not to have a roommate). I have actually started thinking that I shouldn't bother going to Ikea to replacing the missing furniture in my apartment until October, because I can hardly stand to be here, much less follow directions in Swedish and assemble things with little allen wrenches and crawl around looking for missing screws. For now, the AC cools a little 5x5 corner of the living room, where I have moved my chair and bed, and no more furniture will fit there anyway.

I was up until 2am reading The Kite Runner last night, unable to put it down until my eyelids insisted. I read all 400 pages in two days. I'm about to start Atonement, by Ian McEwan, which has the bonus feature of actually being an assigned book for Narrative Therapy class so I can smarmily feel like I'm doing something productive.

Anyway, I know this is a thrilling post... the real truth about life this week is that I'm just moody a lot, feeling useless after a month of having no schedule and minimal commitments... and if I try to write about anything other than the weather, it's going to come out all sad and wrong. So, I know things are going to get better as I get into the routine of practicum next week and until then.... did I mention it's hot here?? :):)

More church musings -- this time with puppets!

I went back to the little Episcopal church today. Again, no anonymity (by now, I was not looking for it)... midway through the service - after the singing of happy birthday to a 91-year-old woman in the back and before communion - the priest (same one from last wednesday) said, "No pressure, but if anyone here is new, and wants to say a few words about themselves, ahem, JULIE, they would be more than welcome." Then, jokingly, he offered a door prize to anyone who brings a man to church at the 10:15 service, because it is made up of mostly middle-aged and elderly women. Afterwards, we adjourned to coffee and birthday cake in the parish hall, which apparently has been rented out to an organization called COPA - the Conservatory of Puppetry Arts... so the place is filled with marionettes and strange monster-type puppets. The funny thing is that I didn't really even notice that it seemed odd decoration for a parish hall until I saw the movie posters for Team America.

I have this strange thing going on... in some ways it's a love/hate relationship with church, but even in the ways I feel alienated from it now, I still crave it, it still calms me down. Even when I sit in church and recite liturgies that I question, and wonder how much of my faith is cultural and how much is "real," for lack of a better word (though it begs the question, can any faith, even "real" faith, be extracted from its culture?), I would rather go than stay home. Maybe it's because even though I'm realizing that on some level, we all ultimately worship God "as we understand him," church, for me, is still the place where I know how to do that. And so I go, almost as an offering -- an admission that I want to know God, and even though I'm confused about it all right now I'm going to trust that it's not my job to figure it out so in the meantime I'll keep showing up.

Vacation, part III

OK, really, I'm home for good. Now I'm back in Pasadena again, where it's so hot in my apartment that my computer keeps shutting down because the fan can't keep up. Here's a little visual update for the far-flung Berkeley folk out there.


Is that he-man (with the sword... although Andrew could pass for he-man too, of course)? The shirt was a gift from a friend who picked it up in Iraq, I think.










Hannah the rock star.








Emily, Andrew, and the always-smiley Mr. Bill.







Only on the UC Berkeley campus do people graffiti in latin (Nietzsche, no less).

Addiction

I'm posting not so much because I have something to say, but because my Addiction and Family Treatment class just ended and it was really powerful and a bit gut-wrenching and frustrating and scary and hopeful and sweet and sad and way too close to home sometimes and I want to write something down before I move on and lose the feelings associated with having been there.

This was definitely not a book-learning class. We took field trips to residential treatment centers, and had guest speakers, and went to 12-step meetings, and heard so many personal stories over the course of the week, as well as just getting a totally different perspective on the physical (disease-model) roots of addiction... people in the class shared insanely personal stories and the professor cried at least three times. For the first few days I was a bit at arm's length from it, even though it was really fascinating, but by the end of today it felt intensely personal to think about the power of secrets, and the lack of education and support for healthy coping behaviors.

Anyhow, having walked out of the class into the light of day, and traffic, and dealing with the housing office, and my empty apartment, and people heading off to the beach, and thinking about Ultimate, and packing for vacation... I keep wondering if it ever gets any easier to go from a place of emotional intensity, straight out into a world where absolutely everything seems trivial and I want to snap at people who make jokes or don't take something seriously enough because don't they know what just happened in that room? Don't they know what people are going through? How do you process that stuff in a way that lets you return to the world outside and actually engage with life again when you leave the office? How do you learn to make the transition? I suppose everybody goes through this to some degree when they navigate between worlds, so advice is welcome.

Backwash and chuck taylors

I went to a mid-week Eucharist service tonight at a small Episcopal church up the street. I was late, of course, but I was just looking to slip into the back and have a bit of anonymous peace and quiet and liturgy to get my mind off the little hamster wheel of overwhelmedness that it jumped onto the moment I returned from vacation.

Instead, I found myself in a teeny, tiny church with a large, bald, black priest wearing a white robe over shorts and white Converse All-Stars, and four black women interspersing comments about the NBA finals game into their discussion of the reading (Matthew 4-5, two passages coincidentally about being in the midst of chaos). It was wonderful. They stopped in the middle of the chapter and introduced themselves to me, asking all sorts of questions about my program before jumping back into reading. After a bit of discussion and prayer and a time for silence and contemplation, we came to communion. I love the liturgy and tradition surrounding communion, especially in high church. I love that in the Episcopal church they consider it an opportunity to contemplate the mystery of God, because really, some days I just don't get the whole wafer-and-wine thing as a reminder that I believe there is a God and I believe he loves me ('cause some days lately even that sounds crazy).

But, lest I get too wrapped up in the seriousness of the moment, one of the ladies calls out to the rector as he up-ends the cup of wine into his mouth, "Did we leave you any? 'Cause sometimes I really want a lot of that blessing and I take a big swig," and we all disintegrate into titters and giggles and jokes about backwash in the blood of christ... and even though I'm a pasty white girl who wandered in off the street 10 minutes late with no idea who just won the NBA championship, I felt warmly welcomed.

Now that's communion.

Vacation, part II

OK, back from the rest of the week off, which included lots of laying around on the beach drinking free margaritas with Tiffany in Cabo San Lucas, and a fun, quick daytrip to Santa Barbara with Goat, which included biking and banana splits. I'm still working on being in the mood to write, but in the meantime a picture's worth something, right?

Anyhow, now I am back in class, and really enjoying the class (Addiction and Family Treatment) because it feels a lot more practical than the theory stuff we've been stuck learning so far the first year. We've been taking field trips for this class and meeting real people instead of just sitting around reading case studies and writing up treatment plans for imaginary families. But a friend of mine had a good take on that whole process in a recent email: "Glad that you are getting into the actual doing of what you have been looking to do. Doing is usually much more interesting than learning, but i guess if we just did, we would never learn of all the posible ways to do."

So I'll hang onto that for the next few weeks of sitting around feeling useless before I start practicum.

Vacation, part I

Two quick pics from the weekend in Boulder with Becky D... it was a lot of biking around, hiking (or, sloshing through snow for 5 miles to get to a frozen lake), grilling, eating waffles, and hanging out with her friends, all made possible by the generosity of Southwest Airlines who bumped me off a flight last July!
As for that bottle of wine... well... we weren't about to let it go to waste. That's what those bottle cages are for, right??

Nothing to report here other than that it is hot (was in the upper 90s over the weekend) and I am taking finals and very much looking forward to a trip to Boulder starting Thursday to visit the fabulous Becky D, and then a trip to Cabo with the fabulous Tiffany (she won a free trip for two to Mexico and is taking me as her guest... how lucky am I??), where I plan on exploring and relishing old friends and reading the paper and eating slurpees and listening to the podcast of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and maybe Car Talk if I can find it.

Finals aren't too overwhelming in and of themselves (just two take-home exams) but I think I'm just exhausted from the constant presence of having something to read or write hanging over my head since the beginning of January with only a week's respite in March. I love my program and I'm extremely grateful to be able to pursue a totally new field, and I know that I had a killer schedule this quarter with tons of free time, but I'm counting the days until graduation (369, to be exact). If I ever decide to get a PhD, will you please ask me if I know what I'm doing?? In the meantime, I'm actually psyched to start practicum on July 10, at Glen Roberts Child Study Center, a county-funded community mental health clinic in Glendale. I'll be working there about 20-25 hours a week for a year.

I'll try to come up with something more interesting to say one of these days soon....

quote board

The latest entry in my random quote list, from my friend/coworker Kim while we were skipping out of one of the main sessions at an Urban Youth Workers conference last week:

"Find someone who wants to pay me $5000 to look at porn and then we'll talk."

OK, so the context was a discussion about situational ethics and the greater good of being merciful above all else, but even in context she had us going for a while.

Synchronize me

So, I bought an iPod.

What finally pushed me to do it was that I'm taking a distance learning class this summer, and when I went to pick up the course materials I had the choice of getting a 5-inch thick, 30-lb binder full of course materials and 20 CDs, or I could get the entire course in PDF and MP3 format on two CDs that fit into my purse. So, to save a few trees, I opted for the mp3 option, which conveniently also gave me an excuse to finally buy an iPod so that I could listen to the lectures on the beach instead of sitting in front of my computer. I ended up going home and finding a great deal on one on Craigslist and drove straightaway to West Hollywood to pick it up, so within two hours of stopping by the Distance Learning office I was busy trying to figure out how to work this thing.

And then I discovered podcasts.

I can get news. Music. Spanish lessons. NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. I could even download sermons via podcast, except that I still think that church is supposed to be a community-affirming experience and I refuse to partake alone in my bedroom.

So if you need me these days, you can probably find me in the kitchen, doing dishes, mumbling Spanish vocabulary under my breath.

did I say that?

So, a while back in the blog I made some naive and idealistic comment about being grateful for people who irritate me because they give me practice being kind. Well, that is all fine and good until my neighbor moved in.

I've chatted with him a few times, because I like knowing my neighbors and all. Anyhow, he's one of those.... umm.... chatty types, where you can't just talk to him for a minute, 'cause even when you're running away late for class he's still talking at you as you go, and if you don't go, he'll talk for 20 minutes nonstop, and you have to point out that you're holding 50 pounds of groceries and carrying your mail in your mouth and this isn't the greatest time to get into a long conversation about the cable service in the area.

Anyhow, even this wouldn't be so much of a big deal, 'cause it's not hard for me to point out the part about the groceries and the mail etc... and whenever I'm not in a hurry I try to stay and chat a bit... but I have this balcony, my haven, the place I go when I leave my phone and computer in the back room and want to just sit and ignore technology and listen to buses go by for a half-hour, or read, or just generally be away from people for a little while. And it overlooks his yard. So now when he comes out (which is most of the time, because the weather's nice and he doesn't have a job), he just starts talking to me on the balcony, even though I have pointed out that I can't hear him (because of the aforementioned buses) and have mentioned that I'm in the middle of reading. And it's one thing to walk away when I have the grocery excuse but it's hard to sit on the balcony and politely inform him I'll be ignoring him 20 feet away.

biking

A big THANKS to everyone who biked/walked to work/school during bike-to-work week! Every mile counted, from Jenn's 2-mile walk, to Martin's toodling around Leipzig in Germany, to Becky D's 32-mile round-trip commute in Boulder. Cumulatively, we biked 115 miles, including 28 miles biked by three folks at Goat's office, which is getting double-matched. So altogether we're sending $175 to Wild Hope.

For the cycling geeks among you, the LA times also happened to print a huge feature today about bike commuting, in their Health section.

Ride on!

heaven on two-wheels

Hey everybody... next week (May 15-19) is National Bike-to-Work week, culminating in Bike-to-Work day on Friday, May 19!!

Why should I bike, you ask? Well, OK, so all of you know the reasons. You're commuter- and enviro-savvy. It's good for the earth, it's good for your body, it makes a political statement, you arrive at work more alert and in a better mood, it reduces our national dependencies on oil and caffeine. It's a tangible way of being the change you want to see in the world. If you're not already a fan, give yourself a chance to let biking rock your world.

So, I'm going to donate $1 for every mile that you guys bike on Friday, either commuting, or running an errand, or some other activity that you would have done in a car. It's this easy:

1. Bike to work (don't forget to wear a helmet)
   
2. Take a picture of your bad self on your studly two-wheeled wonder
   
3. Send me the picture, tell me how it went, and send me your mileage.
   

I'll send a check to Dave Willis at Wild Hope, a non-profit faith-based organization that I've guided for, which is heavily involved in advocating for the protection and expansion of wilderness, and getting people (from college students to journalists to politicians) out into wild places to, among other things, experience it in a way that helps them understand why it's worth preserving.

If you absolutely can't ride, I'll still make a donation for anyone who replaces a car trip with public transportation (ask a stranger to take a picture of you on the bus... it's a great way to make friends) or carpooling. But if you can ride, do! Check out informational resources here, or ask me, or go down to your local bike shop - they're always friendly. Feel free to include your friends/SOs/coworkers... I'll make a donation for anyone you guys recruit to bike to work if you send me a picture in all your spandex glory*.

* spandex not required

scheduled maintenance

I had my "week seven breakdown" this week, right on schedule. This one was a little bigger than previous week seven fireworks*, as it included irrational thoughts about dropping out of grad school and wondering which I need more - a therapist or a babysitter. My current "to do" list contains items such as: 1. Brush teeth. 2. Dress self - matching optional. 3. Stop losing things.

Anyhow, this one was pretty cathartic, as my despondency over feeling out of control seems, so far, to have snapped me back to a place where I'm ready to start figuring out what I do have control over. But Goat had the pleasure of walking me through it... and as I was sitting in class the next day, I had to grudgingly admit that I'm high maintenance (thanks to all of you who have known that for years and humored me). Scott Peck writes that mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs. Does kicking and screaming count?

*"week seven" is grad-school speak for the point in the quarter where you're exhausted from the work and adjusting to a totally new schedule, but you're not yet close enough to finals week to taste the end.

Joshua Tree

Grover went to Joshua Tree this weekend... did some camping, did some hiking, did some climbing. As usual, he brought me back a picture.

hippity hop

Remember the giant blue rubber bouncy balls you hopped around your yard on when you were five? I think mine was a Daffy Duck one. They're still out there... I shot an Urban Assault bike race in San Diego this weekend and the Hippity Hop was one of the challenges... they are actually much tougher than they look, as a grownup. Good leg and ab workout.

Idealism

I have a love-hate relationship with idealism. I get all these big ideas in my head about saving the world and then when I realize I can't make much of a large-scale (or sometimes even small-scale) difference I get bitter and cynical. And hanging onto the hope of large-scale systemic change usually prevents me from being part of the small-scale change I can be part of, and, sadly, from really just relishing the moment I’m in now.

Anyhow, I told my boss the other day that next year for lent I thought I should give up idealism. "Hmm...," he said, "that sounds pretty idealistic to me." Drat.

And on a totally unrelated note (or maybe not)... this was a quote from my OT Writings professor, in the course syllabus, which I wanted to share (even though I had no illusions about seminary answering any questions...):

People sometimes comment ruefully that they thought seminary was going to answer their questions but in fact it leaves them with more questions than they had before. One presupposition of this comment is that the key or a key thing about the Christian life is that it means having the answers to questions; and I think that implies that Christian faith is a set of beliefs and answers. I think the Writings can help us see why this is not so.

• They set our lives not in the context of a set of beliefs but in the context of a story, and of some smaller stories, too.
• They set us in a relationship with God - a relationship of praise, lament, trust, repentance, and testimony.
• Thus, they rescue us from the limitations of what we believed already.

Fairy Godmother

I'm a Godmother! Now all I need is the sparkly wand. Meet Sydney (doing her best Rosie the Riveter impression)...


Also, if you like Sudoku, try Kakuro. It's insane. But don't try it unless you have an hour or so to to kill the first time.

Di'anu

I will probably butcher something about the meaning of Dayeinu in this, but here goes.

The word means "enough," in the sense of, "it would have been enough" or "it would suffice." There's a little song that goes with it, in the passover haggadah, in which each successive step of God's provision for the Israelites is recounted -- and punctuated with the claim that each of these steps, though not the whole shebang, per se, would have been sufficient:

Had God fed us with manna and not given us the Sabbath, Dayeinu!
Had God given us the Sabbath and not brought us to Mount Sinai, Dayeinu!
Had God brought us to Mount Sinai and not given us the Torah, Dayeinu!
Had God given us the Torah and not led us into the land of Israel, Dayeinu!

Dayeinu. It would have been enough. I love this concept because contentedness is usually something I have to remind myself about. Dayeinu. What I have, even if it is all I ever have, even if it all goes away tomorrow, is already so much that it would suffice. Even if I never get an iPod.

The second part of dayeinu I really liked was the explanation in the haggadah, which likened the whole process to acceptance of necessary baby steps, in the long process of getting to where we want to be. It's a very therapy (and AA)-oriented concept, which might be why I liked it so much. Each of the steps, alone, really weren't enough, at least in terms of getting the Israelites into, well, Israel, and completing what was begun. But they could never have gotten there, eventually, if they hadn't gone through each step along the way. So, the concept that even if what you have isn't enough, it's something, and being grateful for what it is will do a heck of a lot more to move you along there than sitting down on your butt and whining that you didn't get the whole thing handed to you on a silver platter. As my OT prof said, "it's not enough, but it's not nothing. And it is a gift from God."

I was talking about this with a classmate the other day, about the way that Christians often sit around and pray for something - something holy-sounding, of course; say, that God would change us, and make us more patient or kind or generous - and then protest when we're given an opportunity to take part in getting what we asked for, to do the work of changing, rather than waking up one day changed, which is what we thought we asked for. Or in her case, she was frustrated because she wants to be in a relationship but is afraid to practice dating, because it's scary and you have to be vulnerable and risk getting rejected a few times along the way and things like that.

So dayeinu: for the $&*$!# LA traffic because it gives me a chance to practice being patient; for people who irritate the snot out of me because it is a chance to practice being kind; for people who ask for my time, attention, and money because I have a chance to practice being generous with what I have been given; for G who makes me practice saying what is on my mind and not running away. Baby steps, being OK with where you're at in the process of getting to where you want to be, not knowing if you'll ever get there. Dayeinu. It is enough.

sailing

OK, so I have enough emotional distance on my Old Testament project now that I'm OK putting it up. But I took down the painting, in which I ended up printing a heart off the internet and pasting it in, because everything I drew looked like a headless pink turkey.

*****
“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”

I happened upon that Louisa May Alcott quote a few years ago, and tucked it away. It captivated me, but I can’t say that I knew why at the time. I think I liked the idea that knowing that I was still a beginner – at so many things – made it OK to sail into a storm rather than stay in port, safe from wind and waves. And I liked the part about not being afraid.

I have never really thought of myself as a person who is afraid. I’ve traveled the world, tried new jobs, taken up sports and hobbies, returned to grad school at nearly 30. I project so much confidence that a roommate in college once admitted that I made her nervous, because I seemed to have it all together. You see, I have this thing about competence – I try new things, but only things that I know I can master. I don’t have to be put together, but I have to be in control of the things that aren’t put together, I have to have them in a big purse over my shoulder, to tuck them back into if they start to spill out. And if I can’t keep them tucked in, then I’d rather not show up, because I don’t want to be that vulnerable, and I wish I didn’t have to work out my issues on other people’s time. But I can’t keep it together, at least not for long stretches of time. I've always known this somewhere in my head, but these days life is reminding me of it a little much, in ways that are a little too personal. And it's scary. So most of the time, part of me wants to turn around and sail for safe harbor, so I can sit inside where it’s warm, maybe with a martini.

The Old Testament Writings live in the place where the reality of God meets the reality of life. They are not pretty, or neat, nor do they keep all of their issues tucked into a big purse out of sight. God is not a cosmic vending machine, where you put in your prayer, pull the lever, and out pops your little trinket or bag of Chee-tos. There is weeping and wailing, and hope and loss of hope, and cries that are met with “because I’m God and I said so, that’s why,” and cries that are met with silence. Nobody shows up all prettied up. All that the authors and characters can do is show up, and describe the world as they know it, and say that Yahweh is the Lord God, and that this broken, bleeding heart is all they have to give.

So I am doing bad art for my final project in this class. I could have written a paper. It would have engaged my head on the topic of showing up before God with a messy heart on a cracked plate, and it would have been succinct, and eloquent, and have tied together some points well and straightened out a few things knocking around in my brain from the quarter. But instead, I’m going to deliver my broken heart. I am not an artist, and it will frustrate me to try to translate my ideas onto a page in reds and blacks. It will not look like I want it to look. It will not speak to anyone the way I want it to speak. It will betray my incompetence. In that way, it will be my broken, bleeding heart. I am not afraid of storms. This is the world as I know it, Yahweh is the Lord God, and this is all I have to give.

Matzo Ball Soup

I went to a Passover seder tonight. I really enjoyed it - it was nice to get a deeper understanding of stories I saw acted out on felt boards in Sunday school (although the felt board stories usually focused more on Jesus than on the 10 plagues of Pharoah). I also really enjoyed the matzo ball soup. And, apparently, many other things, since I am so full right now I'm going to have to waddle to bed.

Anyhow, there was a liturgy in the middle of the Haggadah (I'm not actually sure if you call something a liturgy, if it's not in church, but that's how I'm choosing to explain it) where I learned the Hebrew word Di'anu, meaning "it would suffice." And that is your little teaser, which I will expand on tomorrow -- both the liturgy itself and why it was so compelling.

the green monster

So last week I had blog envy... and now I have iPod envy.

I had never used one until I borrowed G's to go running on the beach on a balmy Saturday afternoon (OK, so this LA place is growing on me little), and there was SO MUCH GOOD MUSIC ALL IN ONE PLACE! And no ads. 'Cause when you're running, ads really kill your motivation. And then my neighbor was going off about how her mini 'pod had revolutionized her life and all, as if it cooks for her and writes her papers and made her lose 20 pounds while eating only ice cream. OK, maybe it's not that amazing, but it was shiny, and full of good music, and I want one of these shiny musical things, even if it never does my laundry.

toot toot

Since I know Hannah will not toot her own horn about this... let me toot it a little for her. Her band, the Bittersweets, just got an email from a fairly prominent radio show host in Alabama, in which he heard a bit of their new album coming out in June and said that she sounded so good that she sounded just like Shawn Colvin in 1988. Actually, he said she "sounded more like Shawn than Shawn does," and said he was going to start playing the album as soon as they'd let him (it comes out in June).

In other tooting news, my friend Jessica, who I have known for 20 years, just produced another human being. I have other friends who have had babies, but this time feels different, somehow. It's ridiculous, I feel proud as if I had something to do with it or something, because I have known her since we were 10 and both new kids in the 5th grade with huge bangs and huge glasses, and the fact that we survived to be grownups together and have done much reflecting on the process along the way makes this a salient moment for me too.

Woo hoo! Consider yourselves tooted.

Anybody know a good joke?

OK, so I am really tired of being overly serious these days. Last quarter was too intense. Where has my stupid side gone off to? It's time for a trip up to Berkeley, maybe another Ugly Night Out. Maybe I should just wear those plaid pants to class Thursday? Hanging out with a bunch of therapists-in-training isn't helping. Nor is having too much free time to become inert this quarter. So I am soliciting jokes, pictures, memories, inside humor, taped recordings of Natalie's laugh, sock-puppet home videos, stories of public humiliation (mine or yours), basically anything good for a belly-laugh....

verbatim

If there's one thing our professors do not do, it's beat around the bush, and if there's one thing they do do, it's tie everything back into personal development. Compliments of my very grandfatherly integration prof:

"You don't know why some clients make you angry and some make you horny. But you've got to let it help you grow as therapists."

Lenten Feast Days: ashes and dust, part II

It's funny how attempting to explain to someone why you do something makes you think about it in totally different ways. So thinking about lent this year, I've started to realize how easy it is in American Protestant culture to completely reverse the purpose and meaning of this season leading up to Easter. We often make sacrifices in an attempt to master ourselves (or, of course, we give up ice cream because swimsuit season is around the corner), when the real purpose is to do the exact opposite -- to remind us that because we come from ashes and dust we cannot, ultimately, master ourselves, but will always be dependent on God. And I don't think that means God is orchestrating every moment of the future and we're just supposed to sit around and wait for it to arrive, like room service on a silver platter. But ultimately, I think it means that God is a lot bigger and more mysterious than we give him credit for, and recognizing our dependence is somehow acknowledging that. In the Hebrew lesson for the day (compliments of my OT class.... since my Hebrew is nonexistent), the word yada, "to know," also means "to acknowledge." So maybe I don't have to know, or understand, God very well in order to acknowledge him and be grateful.

Lent has never been part of G's world, but he gave up chocolate this year. When I was explaining feast days to him (on Sundays, you don't have to fast from the thing you gave up for lent), I was really thinking that I could tough out a lenten discipline for the whole seven and a half weeks. I can handle it, I thought, I don't need no stinkin' feast days. But then, a few days after Ash Wednesday, G asked if it ever got easier, to resist the thing you sacrificed. I said I thought that, in some ways, it gets easier because you adapt to life without it. I was looking forward to the day when I adapted, when I didn't get in my car and absentmindedly reach to turn the stereo on every time before I panicked and realized I didn't have that option. "Maybe that's why you're supposed to have feast days," he said, "so you don't adapt so much and you remember how important that thing is to you, so it still means as much that you gave it up." There I go, learning about lent from a Jewish boy.

Woo Hoo

OK, don't want to get ahead of myself here, but I think I may have found a church in LA that I would actually relish going back to a second time. I was having lunch with friends from Berkeley yesterday, lamenting that I seemed to be nearing the end of my church search prospects, and mentioning that I wouldn't mind finding a church where a few cynical people hung out (remember, I like to call them 'hopeful realists'). My friend mentioned that her cousin had been going to Pasadena Mennonite Church. I think the Mennonites have ties to the Amish, but there was nary a buggy in sight. And here are five reasons why I'll be going back:

1. It was small (maybe 50 people?), and the woman in front of me turned around after the service and said, "I've never seen you before, have I?" and then proceeded to talk to me for 5 minutes and remember my name later.
2. She turned out to be an ethics professor.
3. They're big on social justice, and they're not theologically wishy-washy (because I've become theologically wishy-washy of late and while I'm sorting through all that I need to remember there might be something more constant than my personal opinion out there).
   
4. There were nerds, hippies, and punks present -- and not a small amount of polar fleece.
5. Someone invited me out to lunch afterwards.
6. They sang off-key.

WhySpace

OK, can anybody give me a compelling reason to be on MySpace? I mean, once upon a time everybody told me I had to get on Friendster, so I did, and really the only thing that happens is that I get an email every six months from someone from my past who found me, and wants me to be their "friend," and I say yes, and then I never hear from them again. Maybe that's because they all left for MySpace.

Anyhow, I'm thinking about this today because I just wandered upon a website where people with camera phones can post their pictures... and some guy posted, like, 25 pictures of people writing on a white board at a business meeting. I don't really get it. Maybe it's art. I think I missed the Net Generation revolution by just a few years, where all the random stuff that you say and think in passing gets immortalized with emoticons. I blog and I email, but that's where I draw the line. I can't IM either... it makes me anxious to have to write in such short snippets, and then while you're writing your reply, the other person changes the subject, and you hit "enter" anyway to respond to the question they asked before, and then they can't figure out what question you're answering, and you spend five minutes trying to unravel why, when they asked what they should do about their boss's habit of putting them down at staff meetings, you answered "because I was out of cheese."

Think Thank Thunk

I've got a bunch of incomplete blog entries piling up, but never fear, that doesn't mean I've stopped thinking... all the time... about everything. Just ask the boy who popped into my life when I wasn't looking (we'll call him G... and I bet he was wondering when he'd show up here), who gets quite a chunk of it these days. It's just all been sort of big things I've been thinking about that are impossible to contain in a post. I need to get over it and just be OK starting threads that I never tie up... maybe over spring break I'll try that out. For now it's finals week and, despite being not exceptionally stressed or taxed this time around, it's hard to muster up the energy to do anything other than compulsively check my email and move the piles of clothes in my room (clean but too lazy to fold, not clean but might still wear again tomorrow, skanky from Ultimate) around in little circles, from the chair to the bed to the floor and back again.

I like thinking. But every once in a while I go through a phase where I get frustrated about being a thinker, and wish I could chill out a little. I was home for my brother's birthday last year, sitting around in the garage he built, listening to him talk with his friends about building things, and towing things, and fixing cars, and it felt so.... tangible. They make stuff, and break stuff, and fix stuff, and it made me really jealous. I sit around with my friends talking about esoteric things that don't even exist. Or, they exist, but you can't see them or touch them or measure them. I know I am who I am, and I've learned to work with it, and I suppose my chosen profession is my way of putting my proclivity for relentless thinking to good use. But my brother is building a house now, and sometimes I just want to fly there and pound some nails, and learn about drywall and how to drive his excavator. That just sounds really cool. In the absence of being able to do that right now, maybe that is what Ultimate does for me... running around after a piece of plastic for two hours shuts down my head and roots it back in my body.

And since if I go any further with this, I'll just be thinking more... I'll just stop there.

Milestones: happy no more tuesdays

That's Happy No-More-Tuesdays, not Happy-No-More Tuesdays... in four and a half hours I'll be done with 11-hour days of class. Spent the last day of clinical lab role-playing a suicidal adolescent girl. The cool thing about today was the sense of balance that is creeping in for the first time... between talking about elder abuse and postpartum depression, we had a potluck marking the end of clinical foundations class, where we reminisced over two quarters of in-jokes and drama, and talked about transitioning into practicum. Somewhere along the way we've gone from people who know nothing and are stressed out about it, to people who know only infinitesimal amounts more but who can laugh about it now. I was having trouble seeing it before today, but it finally helps me realize how far we've come since orientation week.

I kept a list of professorial quotes this quarter, here are a few of the more entertaining ones (not sure if they're funny... maybe it's just therapist humor?):

"So what would that mean to you if....?" (regarding anything - i.e. if I hugged you, if I were your mother, if you wore red shoes today)

"who's that idiot who wrote the book about men having caves? how come women don't get to go into caves? he doesn't need a cave, no, he's depressed, you idiot!"

"I used to hate depressed clients"

"Why won't you take your Prozac!? Just put it on the pile. Treat it like a vitamin deficiency."

"Psychotic persons should not be traveling the world. that's just a bad thing."

Mortality Therapy: Ashes and Dust

"Remember that thou art dust and to dust thou will return."

OK, so most people wouldn't find that a particularly cheery thought for a Wednesday evening. But last week was Ash Wednesday. And yeah, if I were thinking about death all the time, that might be a problem. But on a random Wednesday, in the middle of a long week of studying, and interviewing for practicum, and trying to remember to keep my fridge full, and 72 other things that feel really urgent if you let them, a little dose of my own mortality in the form of a charcoal cross across my forehead was a good thing, to begin 40 days in which, somehow, I am meant to remember that God is God and I am not. (OK, so I'm supposed to remember that one the other 325 days too, but the intentional discipline of lent helps bring it home).

I gave up the stereo in my car for lent this year. The faceplate is now living in my sock drawer. So let's just say that it was a looooong drive to Palm Springs in Friday afternoon traffic at the end of last week. I figured it would be a good chance to be more present, to God and to my own self, since I'm usually pretty good at distracting myself with email, music, people, bellybutton lint... you name it, I'll get sidetracked by it. In the car, I'm trapped. Hopefully in a good way. But after an hour and a half of being alone with the little spinning hamster wheel of my own thoughts, it was not a good feeling. Praying wasn't getting me very far, and besides, I was managing to distract myself from that too. I needed something short and sweet. So I repeated the "dust" line 20 or so times. Really. There is something about remembering, as Ecclesiastes points out, that the sun comes up and the sun goes down, and the rivers flow and are never full, and that all of this stuff runs whether or not I get out of bed on any given day. Yeah, the stuff I was thinking about is important, and somewhere within my theology I assent to the idea that God cares about things that are important to me, because I am important to God. But pondering my eventual demise takes a lot of the pressure off and definitely puts a few things in perspective.

Anne Lamott has a great passage in Operating Instructions about how revolutionary it is to show up for your life and not be ashamed that you don't really have your shit together. So this week, I'll drink to "dust," because mortality therapy helps me keep showing up.

Brushfire Fairytales

I came out of my apartment tonight, late to meet a friend, and saw that there was a crowd of people huddled around a firetruck, and cops everywhere. Someone had lit a palm tree on fire. Y'know, because there's nothing else to do on a Friday night in LA. The firemen were out with hoses and flashing lights, it was bringing the neighbors together. This was all an entertaining scene for a minute or so, until I looked down and noticed that my car was parked three feet away from the burning tree. My first thought was something along the lines of being frustrated that they probably wouldn't move the firetruck for me to get my car out, and then somewhere along the way I realized there was a flaming tree three feet away from my car and I did become briefly curious as to what effect that would have on it.

In the end, there was no damage, at least none that I could see at night, but I had to wait for the firemen to put the tree out and for a bunch of cops to come check out my car and take a statement. At least they let me move it before they started spraying this foam stuff into the tree that they said tended to be "kinda not good on paint" (I can only imagine how good it is for the tree, but I suppose it's not good for the tree to reignite either). Never a dull moment.

Hope, part III

It's been years since the days when Andrew and I would toss this one around until 2am, but our long-running conversation on the difference between hope and optimism always comes up for me. Somewhere in the midst of our long nights of philosophical rambling, I came to the conclusion that optimism, while a very good thing, is ultimately self-generated, and therefore at the whim of my capacity to generate it on any given day under given circumstances. Hope, on the other hand, has to be rooted to something outside of me - something that exists and persists outside the bubble of circumstances that undercut my ability to be optimistic.

If optimism is simply choosing not to see the glass as half empty, what happens when there's just a drop or two clinging to the bottom? Is it just naivete, or even stupidity, to see that glass as half-full?

School is kicking my butt right now. Classes are a barrage of laws and ethics regarding sexual abuse, perpetrators, mandatory reporting of child abuse. Professors with years of experience treating clients share stories about how they have never seen a pedophile be "cured;" the best case scenario is that they stave off perpetrating for longer and longer. Schizophrenia is incurable. And even when you gain the trust of your clients to the point where they share something with you even though they know you are mandated to report it, once you make that call you have no control over whether the investigators treat your clients with any sort of dignity or respect, or whether the kids actually wind up in a situation that is any better than the one they left.

There are facts that stare us in the face that prevent naive optimism, that make seeing a glass half full as absurd as flattering the Emperor for his new clothes. So I suppose I am asking more questions about hope right now. Does it exist? If so, and it is rooted in something (or someone) beyond us, then it has to exist regardless of circumstance. How do you hang onto it? And can you hang onto it for someone else, who has run out?

Most days, I don't find it so much a depressing topic as just a constant one. I don't have answers for too much of it. When I read the first few verses of Isaiah 61, I can't help but wonder what it means to be part of bringing good news and binding up the brokenhearted, in the midst of all this. I hold onto those verses in faith that what I hope for and the God I hope in exist, and are very, very good things, but I think I have to leave room for what I'm hoping for to look really different than I think it will look. That's generally the hard part, when we cease to be able to see the bright side because we can't see how the outcome that we would vote for is possible, like a cure for cancer or a magic pill that makes paranoid delusions go away for good and makes pedophiles stop fantasizing about little kids and stops parents from doing or saying anything that won't help their children grow up to be strong and healthy and know they are loved. Maybe hope only really kicks in when our idea of a 'bright side' is revealed to be insufficient, at best, or even impossible.

But another way I've been thinking about hope lately is in Spanish. Not "thinking in Spanish," per se, because that would not help un-muddle my thoughts on the subject, but in remembering a word: esperar. It means to hope in Spanish, but it also means to wait. They do not have a separate word for the two concepts. To hope is to wait. Wait for what? I don't know. That is part of waiting. Waiting for something to be completed. Waiting until it is completed to know what it will look like. Waiting to know what 'the year of the Lord's favor' really means. Maybe tearing some hair out and chewing down your fingernails in the meantime, but knowing that nothing you do can bring it any clearer any faster. Sitting in that, and being OK with it, because it is bigger than you are and you don't have a choice and you are not in control, and maybe your job in the middle of all that is just to sit with people who have lost their hope and letting people sit with you when you've run out.

OK, so I suppose this comes across as down with optimism. That's not really my intention. I just think it's not enough, and that I'd take hopeful realism any day.