hobbies

Someone asked me what I like to do for fun the other day. I had to stop and think about it. I know what I do (go to class, be in transit to/from class, do work, eat, sleep). I know what things I do when I'm being bad and not doing one of those things (be with people, drink, go places). But what about when I'm a nurse and I have four days off? Before I can work myself into the ground by excessively signing up for over-time, I'll be on my new nurse probationary period that they call a residency. And I'll have four days a week where I've left work at work.

So, just what will I do with those four days? Kind of an important thing, because aside from who you are to your friends and loved ones and what you do for a living, your hobbies kind of define you. I'd like to get into yoga. Keep my room neat. Run, obviously. Go to the smithsonian museums...even the ones no one knows about. Go for long walks. Read at a coffee shop all day. Maybe I'll write a book. Get into backlogged scrapbooking activities that were, ironically, scrapped due to lack of free time. Make that quilt of all my college tshirts.

So many people have to combine their hobbies with their jobs because they don't get enough time to do things outside of work... but for the six months before I go back to school or am allowed to have overtime I'll have free time. This concept, this illusive thing I've dreamed about. I've been waiting 20 years for free time, ever since I started school. And now that I can see it coming closer I don't even know what to do with it. I really just don't want to waste it.

secret

sometimes I go to bed without eating dinner because I love good food so much that I stay up late looking at recipes and then I'm more tired than hungry so I go to bed.

don't worry. lucky thing I make a habit out of happy hour so I've always had some cheese and crackers.

cheese and crackers fits in almost 3 columns of the food pyramid. you know, wheat, dairy, and then whatever is inside of those crackers that makes them taste so good. like garlic(=vegetable). thats the same number of columns as macaroni and cheese which is a totally acceptable dinner.

the voicemail paradox

I hate voicemails. really hate them. I love the idea of getting a text of what the person said so I can just read it. I don't want to pay for this visual voicemail service so I am stuck ignoring voicemails. When someone leaves me a message and I can see who it was who called, I'll just call them back. Sorry, didn't listen to your voicemail, kindly explain again.

The exception to this is when I don't have service or my phone is off... I suppose a voicemail is fine if a text really won't do. But, normally, I groan anyway at taking the time to call in and listen when I'm just going to call them back anyway.

Except today. I was in the gym (no service area), and saw I had a voicemail when I got out. I am in a time of many possibilites. Aside from unrealistic ones like the president is calling for my advice on something or it's the internet calling to say I won a contest I entered for a trip to Thailand for me and my three closest friends I actually have very exciting normal possibilities. It could be HR calling to officially offer me that job. Or it could be the management company of my (hopefully) future residence to tell me my application was approved. Or that it wasn't. Or that they need something for me right this minute.

Right now though, verizon's voicemail is down (at least for me and two others). The fact I don't even have a random number to try to call back is making me crazy. I'm slowly dying inside of absolute curiosity. Sure, it is after business hours. Sure, it's probably something I don't even want to hear. But it could be SO great.... And I'll have to wait patiently until verizon restores the service I never falter in paying for. Oh, the suspense.

moderation.

things I could eat straight from the container:

ricotta cheese

peanut butter

honey

dip of any kind

cream cheese

sweetened condensed milk (at least I don't drink it straight from the can, ahem, Paula Deen)

cottage cheese

pesto

sour cream

ranch dressing

red pepper jelly

frosting

guac... if you count that as something that comes in a container.

i do, however, prentend to be an adult and use restraint. most of the time (I did just polish off the ricotta cheese container...oops).

bottom line: life without dairy, sugar and oil is not a life worth living.

wavelength.

Sometimes I find a blog that expresses exactly how I'm feeling except they do it way better than me.

Found it today. Totally how I'm feeling... except the success part. I haven't even started my career but somehow things just going according to the plan seems to count as success for me. Aaand naturally, I think I'm going to die. And, so, I talk about how lucky I am. But I don't say that to sound like a braggart. I'm not telling you I'm lucky because I think you should know, I'm telling you so you know I'm grateful. Because, as of now, everyone who reads this blog is special to me... so me feeling lucky has everything to do with you.

♥

favorite things

old houses

black squirrels

sunglasses

an ice cold beer on a stiflingly hot afternoon

unexpected afternoons off

spiral staircases

the right song at the right time

leaves crunching under my feet

reading well made books

the sound of ice skates coming to a stop

the high 60's

the 1920s

puppies and their smell

turrets

sailboats

the smell of fall

bright, blue skies on crisp, cool days

the sound of skis on fresh snow

the perfect word choice

creaking of hard wood floors

the breathless feeling when you jump into a cold pool on a hot day

the first bite of something so good when you are so hungry

relief.

I take comfort in daily hassles. It's slightly twisted, but when all things go my way I feel unsafe. Like it must be the end. Silly, I know, but as the adage goes, "when everything is coming your way you're in the wrong lane."

I am so lucky. I know this. And I guess I feel better about things when I suffer minor obstacles because they enable me to pretend I'm not the luckiest girl ever and keep the laws of probability at bay. So when things were going so so right with romance, tests, jobs, homes, and friends I was becoming more of a basket case wondering when the streak will end and my delicate house of cards will swiftly capsize.

I waited for the bus for forty minutes (according to the schedule, four should have come in that time), and then the one I got on followed a detour. This detour threw a fork in my travel plan as I'd only researched my planned path of normal bus routes. So I walked, in search of a bus stop. More than a mile of sweaty walking, arms full of bags, I arrived at another bus which was of course off schedule. And I exhaled.

so much beauty

This quote would have made me feel better if I'd heard it 3 years ago. Every year around this time I think a message to my former self saying, 'you'll find a prayer that you can say that will give you peace for the day.'

As if he heard me doing this last year, all day long I heard his soothing voice in my head periodically saying simply, "so much beauty."

***

“God Is present, loving, smiling, having received our loved ones. They are in his presence, illumined by his smile, and warmed by his love. His kingdom is enriched this day, so enriched by so many beautiful souls. So much beauty. Our world is so empty without them. Our hearts are broken, our sadness immense, our tears so abundant… We live our sorrow together.

“We need You. Please come and touch us. Fill us with courage, calm our discomfort, give us signs of Your presence. We need to feel that You hear us as we offer You our prayers and we try to overcome our grief. We ask You, we beg You, come.”

Father Mychal Judge, after the TWA Flt. 800 crash

running through my head.

Anniversary (noun) - the annual recurrence of a date marking a notable event

These things are easy to think but not to share. It is with great trepidation, I hit "publish post" knowing this could be read by others.

I can still hear the sound of my world view shattering. It's not a dramatic sound whatsoever, it is swift and finite like that of an egg dropping to the floor, and absolutely a figment of my imagination that assigns sounds and pictures to everything. The visual though, is different; my delicate little glass world was squeezed too hard by a firm hand... It didn't fall into a thousand pieces, it kept its spherical integrity (think broken windshield), but the one piece became many I'd have to refuse together with time.

Here's a conundrum: do you go on, unchanged after a truly heartless act, or do you let it change you? Do you at least acknowledge you are different or pretend you're not? This idea of letting evil "win" is troubling. I'm sorry, I didn't know we were playing a game. I don't know the rules. Is this force of good ever really the loser when it's up against evil? Maybe I don't know what it means to win or lose, then. We hear all the time, we can't let evil win. I don't know what that means.

The struggle for me seems to be how to go about this most difficult day. Should I break my routine or continue with it? I like that this day has come to mean gatherings are formed of people who understand, who come to just be. together.

I think about what I want as a legacy after my own death. Most of all I want to be remembered. Have everyone know how much I love them. So, then, is that the answer? Aside from letting our loved ones know we love them, letting those we've lost know we remember them, what they've gone through, and acknowledging their potential? I'm reading this book about the Vel D'hiv roundup and its message is clear: remembering is powerful. Remembering seems to be the only way to move forward when we can't change the past. Always remember, never forget, right? It just doesn't seem like enough.

What about letting them inspire you? For me, it's those 32 people with their 32,000 gifts. It's almost insurmountable to try to think what I could do on their behalf. Although I know many people who've suffered from the same hands that killed them, I didn't know them. If they are anywhere near as wonderful as their friends, their classmates, and their families, though, they were so worth knowing. What about recognizing the wonderful things about the people who are still here? I hate that we sometimes only see the dreams and gifts of the people around us after they're no longer here. I know these things about my friends, but what about the people I'm not as close to? I'd like to open my eyes a little more.

I should be studying right now; studying microscopic evils (infectious diseases), but I'm not. I'm pondering human suffering. Loss. Tragedy. Violence. Surviving. I'm sad. I'm wondering whether or not it's a good thing that a great act of evil has become woven into the fiber of my being and that I wouldn't even change it. Of course, if I could have prevented it from happening at all I would have... but if it was going to happen I wouldn't change having it affect me. It gives me perspective. It can, on a rainy day when I can't find motivation, be a sense of purpose... paying it forward for those who can't. I would never change having "been there" because the cosmic order of things would have put someone else there instead.

We have trouble with senseless acts because they prevent everyone from feeling safe. We hear time and again that life isn't fair, but it really messes with us when we see it being true because it prevents us from ever feeling safe knowing it could be us at any moment. This is why some organizations believe it necessary to find a reason why a higher power made this happen, and insist on letting us know through protest. They can't handle the truth that everyone is equally vulnerable to life's unfairness (although it plays out far from equally in the end), and spend their lives terrorizing ours because they want to construct a false bubble of safety in their own ridiculous and arbitrary rationalizations that perpetuate prejudices. I want to vent about their atrocity and simultaneously not mention them or give them any attention because then they are winning. There it is again. Losing a game I'm not playing. Ask any three year old what he thinks when he lost a game when he said no to playing and he'll scream, "NO FAIR. I SAID I WASN'T PLAYING." And back around again, with things not being fair. We're always playing this game of life, and it never is fair. It's all a continuum of chance that we have only some control over and only hindsight has the answers. That's life in all its wonder, I suppose.

All I know, though, is on this anniversary, I remember. I love those we lost and I love those that survived. I admire the strength and courage. I'm constantly inspired by those I see and their triumph over adversity, in this tragedy or others. I'm filled with love, hope and faith. I don't understand and I can never go back. But I can remember.

Eternal Flame

You know those fireplaces, the gas ones? They have that little pilot light. I have a pilot light inside me. I call it anxiety. For the most part it is there, keeping my wits about me, keeping me alert and using common sense. It's a good thing, I suppose.

I also have an overactive imagination. I consider this the wind within me ( I know, I laughed as I wrote this totally awkward metaphor. cue wind beneath my wings. corny much? but still, it's true). It takes my mind on magic carpet rides into exciting hypotheticals. It can, on occasion, blow me over, but I like windy days just fine. Usually it remains in light breezes to brighten my life and make everything more enjoyable.

Every once in awhile, the world throws some gas my way. Sometimes it is related to an unfortunate event or a particular week of the year, but sometimes it comes seemingly out of the blue. This, when combined with a pilot light creates a fire. I can ride out a contained fire. But, if the wind picks up the fire surges and all I can feel is fear. It too shall pass, the wind does die down eventually, the gas burns out and the pilot light is left as it is.

There is one week of the year, where the wind gusts with negative hypotheticals as a result of unpleasant memories; the perceived dangers everywhere throw gas on my pilot light and I feel as if I'm looking at the world through paranoid schizophrenic lenses. I approach the week with bated breath. Every year the fire roars a little less, the pain of memories of a world shattered soften ever so slightly and the world seems a little less evil.

Not to be cliche (or exaggerate greatly), but I love life, humanity, our country, my undergraduate university and our nation's capital as much or more than the next guy...and maybe this is why those evil shadows seem even more threatening because all of these gifts are so lovely. I love it all, despite these unavoidable shadows, but hope someday I won't see the monsters lurking in every shadowy corner.

Good Friday

Good Friday always confused me as a kid ("Why do we call it Good Friday if Jesus died?"), but most things in church went over my head. For someone who has a hard time sitting in class without taking notes (even when it's material we don't need to know...), I never paid all that much attention in church... or maybe I did and it didn't stick. I'm not particularly proud of this, but my remediation of Christianity has given me some direction on my journey to finding religion again.

So today it is once again Good Friday. I haven't thought much about Good Friday in the recent past because we never had it off in college so all of the sudden I'd realize it was Easter. Not that I'm saying it should be necessary to have the day off to appreciate it, but we tended to miss holidays where we had to attend class and forget to observe them. Last year I didn't pause as much as I would have liked to consider the meaning of these days in the eyes of faith. This year I'm poised to reflect, and my "major paper" will certainly give me the motivation to be doing anything but work on it.

What I like so much about the Christian story is that we can always draw parallels to our own life and our own suffering. That's the point, right? It is supposed to bring us closer to God because He's suffered like we have. I like to infer from this story that He doesn't "call" people to heaven to be with him, but mourns their death like we do (wouldn't it be silly if he gave Jesus life only to call him back in such a heinous way?)... I realize that's just one view, but it's the spin I like the best. That's another thing I like about catching on to religion a little later, people don't need to know I'm absolutely catering religion to what works for me. I like the idea of Saints because if I'm going to pray, I don't always want to talk to God (how Catholic...). I believe in miracles. I like some of the tenants of Buddhism and Judaism. My roots are and always will be firmly rooted in the Episcopal tradition, but I think it's really taken 24 years to really, truly, actually believe in any of it and I don't want to confine my beliefs in any sort of structure.

I've digressed... In this group of Christian landmarks, (Mardi Gras, Lent, Palm Sunday, Holy Week, the Last Supper, Good Friday and Easter Sunday) I identify most with tomorrow I think, the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter. The awful in-between time, the time when you've lost someone or something horrible and life changing happens and life goes on in an eery silent sort of way, like in a movie when the loud music ends and your ears ring as you struggle to find out, "what now?". Everything is the same, but it feels different. You sit, suffer, and wait for life's next move. The next move in this case of Easter is pretty astounding, and in terms of time elapsed is pretty close to immediate gratification.

At the end of this story we get what all people have been seeking for thousands of years: Proof. Proof that God exists. Proof He's watching, proof of His love, and proof that it's not all for naught and that there is a reason to believe. Funny that within all of the ideas of faith alone being rewarded, God in His infinite wisdom knew that what we wanted most was proof, and now that it's been almost two thousand years since He gave it to us, we're still looking for it.

I know that for most regular church go-ers this is the same sort of thing they've been hearing every Easter for their entire lives because these aren't new and unique revelations, but they kind of are for me. I zoned out until I was ready to hear it I guess, but I'm ready now and it makes them special because I feel like I've connected my own dots. I have faith.

hypochondria.

I laughed out loud because this is me pretty much everyday. Just ask cinderella.

and i hate lol catz.

tummy ache.

I ate too many jelly beans.

...we grow older, and yet we never learn...

Night Owl

"Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree." Antoine de Saint-Exupery

-and-

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." Edgar Allan Poe

That's what the night feels like to me.

Except when I'm outside and alone, when it feels like:"'Oh my God, everything is dark and mad and violent'; it doesn't leave my head." Woody Harrelson