irony

I have been unable to do pretty much any physical activity for a while. Sure I would sneak a few points of ultimate here and there, but eventually that caused me so much pain that I resigned myself to doing nothing more than walking. I finished a round of physical therapy and on Friday was finally cleared to start biking again. Woo hoo!

Woke up this morning and was cooking breakfast when Goat looked outside and said, "hey, where's your road bike?"

Somebody stole it while it was locked up on my second floor balcony. The funny thing (well, not funny, just ironic) is that it had been unlocked for months on the balcony until a friend of mine had her $1200 road bike stolen from her third floor balcony 10 days ago, so I came home and locked mine up.

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.