really raring to go.

Today is delicious. The weather in Philly is absolutely perfect- sunny, 84 degrees. gentle breezes, no humidity. Earlier I found myself power-grading and reading in Rittenhouse Square, drunk on sunshine and iced coffee. It made me happy to realize that at 26 I am still doing the thing I prized most during the summers of my youth-- reading outside. To be able to do that in the middle of a Friday afternoon is bliss. It is exactly what I want my life to be.


I'm reading Erica Jong's classic Fear of Flying (because why haven't I read it already?). There are so many poignant and pithy passages, but this one sums up how I feel today:

"...I'm really happy with my work for the moment and I don't want any more fulfillment just now. It took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence and the white paper. And now that I can take it... now that I can finally do it... I'm really raring to go. I don't want anything to interfere right now. Jesus Christ! It took me so long to get to this point."

Jesus Christ! It took me so long to get to this point.

rediscovering the strokes.

Every once and a while I come across things that I missed out on because I was Mormon. I say "because I was Mormon" but I really mean "because I had what I felt was a really good excuse to be uptight and obnoxious."  


Anyways, my high school boyfriend liked The Strokes. We spent a lot of time driving around in his Mom's black Pontiac Grand Prix listening to The Strokes really loud. It bugged the shit out of me. The distortion, at such a high volume, provoked comments like "I can't feel The Spirit with this music so loud."  I was very good at feeling The Spirit while making out or watching rated R movies, but god, that rock and roll!


I know. Seriously.  More than Mormonism, it was an early response to what would become a presumably lifelong problem of dating guys who lord their superior musical taste over me in this form of really annoying auditory patriarchy that makes me want to do irresponsible things like listen to Celine Dion.


So last night I was listening to The Strokes' new single with a friend (like that past boyfriend, another musically inclined, blonde haired, blue eyed guy- types, much?) and it hit me that in my Mormonness, in my resistance to my boyfriend's taste, I had missed out on something. And yep, it turns out that The Strokes are pretty good. Especially in relation to so much of the indie stuff that's out today-- they've got body, they've sincere, they've got buoyancy, and in light of a lot of the crap we were listening to at the turn of the century, they've proven pretty durable. 


This time around, I am the one turning the music up.

i'm still here.

At the end of last month, I found myself with a doubled commute.  My new job and school year began.  Overnight, I acquired an office, a demanding schedule, and sixty people whom I call "my students."  The transition was rough. I quickly came in contact with my own limitations as a student and teacher, as well as the limited number of possible North / South routes through Center City.  4.7 each miles, these days.

But now that I've found my legs and the heat has abated, I'm back to a point of reflection on my rides.  I've started worshipping at that bike church I used to attend.  Relaxed by now-familiar routes and the timing of the traffic signals (I always get to rest at Spring Garden), I can breath deeply and work through the daily puzzles of my life, putting them together in my mind to find clarity.

One such problem that's emerged lately was what to make of a particular recent outcome, a termination of sorts. I had strategized, when it happened, to "remain selfless, cold, and composed." When I found myself failing at this, in, you know, a mature internalized way, I asked myself, rolling along, what to make of it. And then it hits me, powerfully, so hard that I forgot traffic and potholes and the city's glittery pervasive coating of broken glass.

This doesn't make a difference in my long-term happiness.

Sure, I was a little sad in the moment.  But it was temporary, fleeting. So many of the things that I've mourned in fall's past didn't have a lasting impact on my long-term happiness. Things that hurt-- well, they did hurt-- but they didn't constrain my ability to be happy.  I pushed forward, plowed through, and ran over these miseries and seized happiness. I built myself a life.

It came in a flood, these beautiful flutters of memory of the moments that have made a difference in my long-term happiness-- the moment I put my application in the mail for my Masters, the rush of buying a big red bike, the series of mouse clicks that have purchased plane tickets for home and adventure. Taking a job at a restaurant where I learned to cook, making a drive to Park City to find that I really did want to come to Philly. These memories washed away the problems, and suddenly, I found myself twenty-six years old, settled, on my way to a job I really love, where I get to use my talents, where being who I am fills the qualifications.

And then I felt my hands grip my brakes, heard the clackity hymnody of the folding bike's noisy chain, and stopped at the stop light, satisfied. And, lucky me, I still had three and a half more miles to go.

a dispatch from the summer of 2010.

It's been a while since I blogged.  I think the whole internet slows down during the summer, and personally, I think it's fantastic.  I haven't been posting because I've been playing pretty hard.  Playing too hard to finish LGRAB's summer games... or to even ride my bikes.  Playing too hard to do the reading and language study I should be getting to... or to even get to the library.  Playing too hard to clean my floors or paint that bookshelf.... or to even buy groceries.  


It's been delightful.  


My body bears the telltale signs of a summer well-spent-- a range of ever changing tan lines, a tummy that's a little soft after a good many beers, and a headful of hair that's getting white blonde.  My friendships feel strong and ready for the assault of another year of graduate school-- my fourth.  After going all over-- to Delaware, South Jersey, The Shore, New York, Boston and Cambridge-- I am eager to fly home tomorrow to continue the summery process of replenishing my spirit.  This summer has taken on an unexpected richness, a kind of abundance that would seem inconceivable if you saw how low my bank balance is or knew how hot it got in the house we moved out of or about any other number of dramas.  But still, life is sweet, and there is nothing more to do, I suppose, than finish with my favorite poem, because it seems to capture all the joy of living that I'm so high on right now.  It's funny how life gets to be so good when you aren't finishing all the items on the to-do list, or, even better, when you forget the to-do list existed at all.

wishing you a merry summer from Philly!

i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any-lifted from the no

of all nothing-human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened) - e.e. cummings

Don't forget: It's not too late to help the children and win a bag o' swag at Tacoma Bike Ranch!!

america, america.

Jon Contino continues his amazing guestbloggery at my favorite blog Friends of Type.

I love America.  I love that the Fourth of July is the day I get to wave my nationalist freak flag, let my patriotic cup overflow with stars and stripes and eagles, and permit tears come right to the surface when I hear "America, The Beautiful."


I love that I've lived in so many parts of this great nation.  From my earliest years in the heartland of Oklahoma to growing up amidst Washington's evergreens, to my collegiate journey amongst the arid mountain vistas of Utah to the gritty urbanity of Philadelphia.  These places and the people I've known in them have made me who I am--O beautiful for spacious skies / For amber waves of grain / For purple mountain majesties /Above the fruited plain!
America! America! / God shed His grace on thee / And crown thy good with brotherhood /From sea to shining sea!

I love that America was a place my ancestors wanted to come to- from the minister who came to Virginia's red soil in the 1740s from Ireland to my great-grandfather who came from Denmark as a young man, working in dairies as he made his way west-- O beautiful for pilgrim feet / whose stern impassion'd stress / thoroughfare for freedom beat / Across the wilderness.


I love that the history of America is my life's work.  I love it for all its flaws and missteps, in spite of its shameful inequalities and slow progress towards change.  I love getting a sense of what mattered to Americans, understanding how their dreams and vision shaped the world we live in today.  I love that our Constitution provides us with freedom of expression, equal protection, and the opportunity to vote and elect representatives-- America! America! / God mend thine ev'ry flaw / Confirm thy soul in self-control / Thy liberty in law.


I love that America is a country that people in my family have fought for.  From the Revolutionary War to the right and wrong sides of the Civil War to Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, my people have been there, giving all.  I am so proud of my mom, a courageous servicewoman who sacrifices every single day to contribute to the cause of freedom-- O beautiful for heroes prov'd in liberating strife / who more than self their country loved / and mercy more than life.  


I love that this country gives me hope.  I love the sense that things are going to get better and brighter, that opportunity is just around the corner.  I love coming home after trips abroad.  I love our past, our present, our future, is proud, persistant, and promising because we are Americans.  I love that my dad put a seventeen foot flagpole in our front yard, I love seeing the flag hanging in my window, I love to see it waving from the back of my brother's bike. I love everything that America is to me-- America! America! / May God thy gold refine / Till all success be nobleness / And ev'ry gain divine.
O beautiful for patriot dream/ That sees beyond the years / Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!

(lyrics from here)

transfiguration.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow, 
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sun on ripened grain, 
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

-Mary Frye

The day we buried my grandfather last spring, I thought my grief was complete.  

As a family we had borne each blow within the short span of a season. Illness, diagnosis, acceptance, decline, passing, viewing, and burial, bookended by the hope of spring and its fruition in bright bursts of rhododendron.  After all of the processing, planning, and tears, the three poignant blasts of the honor guard's guns signaled with intensity of the completion of the old man's journey.  I could feel no greater sorrow, no deeper sense of loss.  In that moment, I thought I was to walk ahead without him.

---

I don't know that I really accept what religion tells us about dying.  The content, to a degree, satisfies me.  The notion that families can be together forever, true or untrue, seems to speak to the continuity that I feel.  Memory is persistant, and while a day may be the difference between having a grandfather and not, the feeling of being a grandchild is everlasting.  

Yet religion doesn't speak to the second life my grandfather has taken in the material.  It's surprised me, the way I see him daily as I pass the small veteran's memorial by my house.  Eating a hot dog, his favorite food, is an act of tribute.  Some days I feel he pulls me to my favorite spot, the one facing west.  The one where I went to hide out and smoke cigarettes (his token subversive act) as the leaves returned to the trees and I contemplated his passing.  The presence he assumes throughout the homes of my family members, in park benches and coffee mug stands and balls of Christmas lights surrounded by plastic cups, is solid, sturdy, shining.

---

During these encounters I wonder: When did my world become a shrine?  Connected, I know that it has always been one.  Ancestor worship is my religion.  My sacrament takes familial forms.  My blood is represented by wine served in everyday chalices called "Papa Tony glasses" for the tiny serving our great-grandfather was known to take.  The bread comes in seemingly infinite forms-- little cookies offered at the homes of great-grannies and banana cakes made by pioneering women symbolize my body.  In prayer, I fold hands identical to my grandmother's.  Clouds of cigarette smoke are my incense, evoking gatherings on porches, at domino games, fishing.  I worship in churches of hand-me-down furniture wearing amulets of vintage necklaces and brooches, channeling centuries of grit and tenacity and strength.  My people are my divine, and my grief, hardly complete, becomes my faith.

the ghosts of graduations past: a lesson in comparative graduations.

My cousin is graduating from high school today and I am overcome with sentimentality.  Was it eight years ago that I sat in my white gown hopefully eating contraband M&M’s with my best friends in the Tacoma Dome?  Was it just four years ago that I again trod the floor of the Tacoma Dome, this time in black, and with a greater sense of terror about where my life was going?  Or a year ago even that I was hooded in the Huntsman Center, finally graduating with a life plan? 

I thought it would be fun to dig through my paper archives and share with you some blurbs from the exceptionally fair weathered days of graduations past:

“It’s crazy though, because the next five years will probably determine my whole life.  No pressure or anything! …. Lots of cool options, when it comes to careers and what to study in college.  The whole world is in front of me! Weeeeee! I can do anything I want with my life! Ha! I can do whatever I want.  If I wanted I could go find some dweeby singles ward guy and get married.  I could go to college and become a teacher, a translator, a counselor- anything! … I can do anything I want!  The world is my pancake and I’m ready for breakfast!!!!!”

-June 10, 2002

This is obviously the first time I had thought about my future.  I’m glad that, after a few close calls,  I didn’t follow through with the “dweeby singles ward guy” option.  

“It seemed like the day would never come soon enough, and without really giving a care as to what happens after, well, it came.  Suddenly it would seem—barring [sic] all classes are passed- that I am to be an adult, an educated person, some sort or worker.  I can’t say that I’m particularly prepared for the finality of my educational pursuits but alas, the unpreparedness is my reality…

I cannot say that the post-graduate lifestyle will be without its struggles.  The need for full-time employment is imminent.  Greater independence must be obtained, as must a more fuel-efficient car.  The blessings of love and family will bring their own set of stressors; still, well, the potential of life inspires too much hope to feel overwhelmed.  Sure, Monday will come and I may feel some despair but that does not change the infinite possibilities for my future.”

-May 21, 2006

If a student wrote this, I would spend a lot of time debating about whether I'd give her an A- for being reasonably articulate or a B+ for being inflated and obnoxious, containing tense confusion and misusing words.  She would probably get the A- as like, four times elsewhere in the entry she talks about how graduation made her really want to go to graduate school.

Bonus points because my life plan was to become “some sort of worker."

“I am nearly 25 and I feel like I haven’t done anything yet.  I know I have to let go of that, take a deep breath, (<-- grad school made me put that comma there, so not me) & somehow I must believe that I can do what I said I would do…. I suppose that’s it.  I have no deep thoughts about life right now, just a lot of peace about my choices.”

      -May 16, 2009

 I think by the time I got my MA, I had finally floated down to earth and found some real goals.  Clearly after graduating so many times, its momentousness is lost on me.  I now struggle to buy people sincere graduation cards because I’m like, “Really?  I’ve graduated like a gazillion times. Do it a couple more times and then we'll talk.”

And so, class of 2010, I present you with the same wry card I presented myself with last year:

card available through Sycamore Street Press on Etsy.  Check it out- they run a mean letterpress. 

Photo links to the card as this is their sales photo. 

summer lifestyle lessons from england, part 2.

Since all of the lessons from my last post involved going out, today's will involve staying in.  The nice part about vsiting people, especially when they are generous and gracious enough to let you stay for a long period of time, is that you can to try their routines on for size. Dearest Mommy and Don have picked up some nice habits on their expat journey that I think are examples of quality living.

4. If you're going to stay in for the evening, you should probably have something nice to drink.

After a long day of touring, or writing papers to finish incomplete classes so you can get your Masters degree, there is nothing more refreshing than a fancy drink.  Moscow Mules were a house favorite last summer.  Or how about a Dark 'n' Stormy made with Cuban Rum? (if only!)  Strawberry beer, sweet German wines, and of course classic Gin and Tonics all provide maximum summer refreshment.

If you want to go all out, have a Pimms! You can have your drink and eat it too.

5. Now you'll need something to eat. 


British cuisine is pretty straightforward. Grab some fish and chips. Snag some apple sausages from Trader Joe's (or, Philadelphians, get to Gracie Tavern stat).  I'm a big fan of the ploughman's lunch- typically bread, cheese, and pickle.

I made a modified ploughman's lunch recently with crackers (read: I've been eating them almost every day).  Apricot stilton is my life.  You should top off your meal with a nice dessert- maybe some molten chocolate cakes if you want to replicate the suffering from every episode of the BBC cooking show Master Chef (the major plot thread was that nobody could make a chocolate soufflé. But you can!)

6. Now, what to watch?  
A little googling and you can watch episodes of the working-class soap Eastenders and the medical drama Casualty 1909 (I am so behind on Eastenders it's not even funny!)  

Holkham Hall

If you're looking for movies that feature houses we visited, you can see Burghley House in the new Pride and Prejudice and Holkham Hall in The Duchess (the house outshines Kiera Knightly).

Of course, if you want to come over, we can just crank up the streaming of Star 107 Cambridge / Ely and watch my iPhoto slideshow (ha! I do that like, every day ;) ).

all it requires is a little bravery. or a lot.

While I can't say I was as deliberately observant of Valentine's Day as I was in years past (heh), I can say that:

A. That pulled pork sandwich I woke up craving? It was delicious.  But I would've eaten it anyways.  In fact, I will probably find a way to eat one tomorrow. Because bitches treat themselves every day, not just on days when other people are going out to dinner.


B. It's blurry and teeny and obscured by a tree branch, but I can see a lit-up heart from my laundry room.  Awwww:

C. This bit from the NYT Modern Love section made me verklempt:

"What is love, anyway?

Ah, best for last. If I were Spock from “Star Trek,” I would explain that human love is a combination of three emotions or impulses: desire, vulnerability and bravery. Desire makes one feel vulnerable, which then requires one to be brave.

Since I’m not Spock, I will tell a story.

Say you decide to adopt a baby girl in China. You receive her photo, put it on your refrigerator and gaze at it as the months pass, until finally you’re halfway around the world, holding her in your arms, tears of joy streaming down your face.

But later in your hotel room, after undressing her, you discover worrisome physical signs, in particular a scar on her spine. You call the doctor, then head to the hospital for examinations and CT scans, where you are told the following: she suffered botched spinal surgery that caused nerve damage. Soon she will lose all bladder and bowel control. Oh, and she will be paralyzed for life. We’re so sorry.

But the adoption agency offers you a choice: keep this damaged baby, or trade her in for a healthier one.

You don’t even know about the trials yet to come, about the alarming diagnoses she’ll receive back home, the terrifying seizures you’ll witness. Nor do you know about the happy ending that is years off, when she comes through it all and is perfectly fine. You have to decide now. This is your test. What do you do?

If you’re Elizabeth Fitzsimons, who told this story here one Mother’s Day, you say: “We don’t want another baby. We want our baby, the one sleeping right over there. She’s our daughter.”

That’s love. Anyone can have it. All it requires is a little bravery. Or a lot."

D. This song popped up on the internet today.  I'm not usually such a sap, but I liked the sentiment:

Happy Valentine's Day from Philly!

end of the decade commemorative post.

The 2000s are over.  Hurray!  I've been reading so many commemorative accounts of what to call the decade (I liked this one from The New Yorker) and summaries of events (I liked this icon chart from The New York Times) that like, really, how glad am I, as an individual and an American, to put this decade behind me?

IIn honor of that simpler time- before hanging chads, 9-11, the Iraq War, swift-boating, sustainability, iPods, social networking sites, the recession, and change you can believe in- or for me, before dating, state lacrosse championships, parental divorce, baptism, high school graduation, community college, acquiring a sister-in-law, singles wards, college, nieces, working, and graduate school in two states-- I present to you my own lackluster account, straight from my journal, of New Year's Eve, 2000.  I was a sophomore in high school.  If anything, in contrast to my account of 2009, the entry is evidence that the most humdrum of occasions (dancing in a gym? come on!) can portend a decade of change, accomplishment, and greatness.  However you celebrate it, Happy New Year!

(edited in spots for coherency; names abbreviated to protect the innocent. spelling errors left intact.)

"DUN-DUH-DUN! HAPPY NEW YR.! It's January 1, 2000, 2:18 am!
Time 4 the MILLENIUM REPORT!


Alright, a quick run down of todays events...
11:30 wake up by hang up phone call
1-2 library, checked out The Divine Comedy by Dante, Beloved by Toni Morrison, etc.*
2-4 Reading
4-4:15- attempt to get ready for planned "Main Street" course run (27th to 67th, 67th to Cirque, Cirque to Grandview, Grandview to 27th, up 27th to home)
4:20 leave house, under excuse of don't want to be worn out, do the "2000 m spring" (approx) in 7:21, w/rest / 1000m.


My last millenium meal:
-1.5 beer marinated pork chop, dipped in ketchup & Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce
-shoestring french fries
-water


We ate with Big Brother, Mom, Big Sister and Dad.


-Big Brother hosted a small get together and smoked stogies w/ T at midnight.
-Mom went to CF's, as tradition stands.
-Dad worked, unwillingly.


And A showed up early- at 7- for the big par-tay, so we could help set up.  Of all places, the Tac-South Stake [city-wide conglomeration of Mormon congregations] rented out our High School, so I went to school for New Years!


We left [the party] around 8:15, went to Dairy Queen, but someone was in our spots so we stopped by my house for a bit o Toblerone ( :) ) and went to B2's house for a while. Went back to the school- swung by the Youth dance for a while, but there were way too many little kids in there and it smelled like B.O. Danced with B2 to one song and then me and A had a shift managing the inflatable "bouncer" for 30 minutes.  Then we hooked up with J & E & went to E's house. The boys played pool & we girls were obnoxious with this big blue bouncy ball. Got back to school @ 11... that's when New Year's got fun.  The dance was movin, and it was a great time. I got sick of following A & B though, so I just hung out with the other group I know- lot's o' fun!


Last Song- "I'm Dreamin'"- Selena
Partner- Freshman DD


Then we did the countdown and poof- 2000! The lights stayed on & I came home. Ate licorice, triscuits & choc milk & a See's mint truffle, read Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets and am now here.


My goal, as told to A & B, was not to be an old spinster this millenium.**


Oh, my attire for the eve. was:
new heman shirt
green cargo shorts
brown Saltwater sandals
old navy pullover, gray fleece***


My goals for this yr, officially are:
-to lose at least 5-7 lbs & keep it off
-Learn the non-metric distance system (yds. vs. meters)
-play la-x & run varsity x-c
-build my testimony
-expand my base of friends
-get kissed
-be a better friend to J
-not eat so much chocolate!


...Merry freakin' millenium, as Dad said!
-Melanie"


*I'd love to know what the etc. was, as I never read either of the books listed.
**Jury is still out on how I'm doing on that one. Good thing I have 90 years to work on it...
**It just so happens that I still own this entire outfit.

2009 end of the year meme.

So I'm back in Philly, and like, so tired that I'm drooling.  It was smooth sailing getting back here, aside from the getting up and 4 am and having a facefullofsnot all day parts.  I am already homesick and missing the constant company of siblings, dogs, and the little people but feeling very enthusiastic about sleeping in my own bed tonight, once I dig it out from the laundry I left on it two and a half weeks ago.


Anyways, I was catching up on my blog reading to stave off going to bed too early and happened upon PilgrimSteps' version of the "2009 End of the Year Meme."  After a sort of blog hiatus, it looked appealing because it's a fill in the blank thing.  So here it goes:


1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Finished a Masters thesis, got my MA, fell in love with the English countryside, presented at three academic conferences, went to Wales, moved to the Eastern time zone, started a PhD program, sold my car and became a bike commuter, bought a pack of cigarettes (naughty naughty!).

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't make any last year, but 2010's will probably have to do with achieving balance or some shit.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
does my brother's BFF's wife count? my circle really isn't much for breeding.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Lost a great uncle and an acquaintance from Utah.

5. What countries did you visit?
England, Wales, middle Pennsylvania.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
cop out answer: headlight for the Dahon, or better yet, a road bike.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
the day I went to Park City and decide to go to Temple, the day I played in the Pacific at Ocean Beach.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Finishing my Master's thesis meant a lot to me.  Broadly, figuring out that I could make things happen in a big way.

9. What was your biggest failure?
The times that I lost sight of my worth and abilities. 

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
The Great Kidney Stone of January, hangovers, heartburn.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
All those plane tickets. My iMac and my foam mattress will have to duke it out for runner-up. Also, a pair of gold leggings for my superstar niece.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My family, doy- and all the people who propped me up during a very difficult Spring semester, and really, year round.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Meh. I got over it. So let's go with all those people who tried to block healthcare reform.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent, travel.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
moving to Philly, going to England, going to Denver for WHA 

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Sun Kil Moon, "Lost Verses." my anthem.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer?
a) way happier!
b) thinner
c) poorer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
More fiction reading. More walks in the park by my house. More embroidery. More trips to the Philadelphia Art Museum. Basically, more me time during the school parts.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
fixating on my ridiculous man problems, moody wallowing and brooding.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
3 busy days with family, culminating in a beautiful dinner at "my other parent's" house.


21. Did you fall in love in 2009?
I fell in love with my profession. A lot of things clicked for me. I fell in love with Philadelphia as I rode my bike every day. I am so happy to be here.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
Mad Men and Gossip Girl. I get uber dorky over those shows.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I have better things to do with my energy.

24. What was the best book you read?
So the other night I was reading a book and my brother said something to this effect: "If somebody would've asked me a long tiime ago what you were going to be when you grew up, I would've said, 'I don't know, but she sure reads a lot of books.'" Here's my best effort at a short list:


For work: To Serve God and Wal-Mart; Catholic Intellectuals and Conservative Politics in America; Woman's Body, Woman's Right; Fighting for American Manhood; The Bitter Road to Freedom.


For pleasure: The Road; Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck; The Yiddish Policeman's Union.


I really discovered magazines in a huge way this year. I'm a little obsessed with Vogue and The New Yorker.


25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Weepies, Phoenix, Sun Kil Moon's acoustic albums.

26. What did you want and get?
To have a life I could be happy with.

27. What did you want and not get?
see 30.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
The Wrestler. I also rediscovered Rocky and it occupies a special place in my heart. Godfather 1 and 2 as well.


29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Suffice it to say I drank a lot of free beers. I'll tell you the story in ten years.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
It was pretty damn satisfying, if anything because I had such a great time working to make up for what I didn't have.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Cardigans, or, dressing like a grown up. I was really into wearing a ton of colors at the beginning of the year, but I toned things down a lot as the year progressed. 

32. What kept you sane?
Family & friends, long soaks in the tub, bike rides, lager.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
John Hamm. Yowsers. Though I do love that Ed Westwick as well. 

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
The Inauguration, health care, Iran, education funding.

35. Who did you miss?
So many people! I hung my hat in 4 different places this year, I was bound to miss somebody and everybody.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
I've been lucky to meet lots of great people in my new program and through the internets. 

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
To paraphrase Thoreau: Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life that you've imagined. Build your castles in the air, then build foundations under them.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Don't stop me now
'cause I'm having such a good time!

-Queen, "Don't stop me now"


Let me know if you do the year end meme!

a pack of strays.

I've been touched lately by the thoughtful Christmas essays featured in The New York Times recently.  One spoke to the realities- and hopes- of being a single person during the holidays, another, more poignant, answered for the struggles of the unmoored and the families who take them in on festive days.  While I have never been in the foster care system or experienced even half of the traumas the author alluded to, I have felt the pinball feeling of ricocheting off of other people's (and sometimes my own) family events as both a grateful participant and an uncomfortable intruder.  Confronting this feeling annually involves a late, reluctant, and resigned purchase of an airline ticket and a frustrating blend of enthusiasm and dread.  I love, love, love being around my family but I struggle to really enjoy the holidays (coming home in the summer is so much easier!).  After reading this NYT story about people skipping the holidays- I, feeling very curmudgeonly (probably from gorging on candy and teriyaki to cope with, you know, the stress) was like, YES! Maybe next year I could just spend the holidays at home in Philly in my most amazing bed that I miss so much, without any drama or feelings of holiday malaise!  Maybe I could just skip it, all of it!  Validated in my dark and brooding state, I was plotting a dramatic iCal reminder that would suggest I consider traveling after New Years so that I could just bypass all of the running around and the inexplicable misery I feel in the midst of all this apparent happiness.

It's like you see me making a white sauce, but really I have this complicated inner life. 

I recognize that I'm not the only person on the planet to feel this, and I recognize I'm probably not the only person in this house who feels it either.  Which is why I'm so especially grateful that my some special folks rallied our pack of strays this evening.  Fragments of an extended family, we boast a large percentage of single people.  We lack a clear leader- there are no matriarchs or patriarchs here, just a  contingent of several generations willing to go where they are called.  Suddenly planned, the food was simple, the giving was directed primarily towards the children, and the evening involved the installation of a car radiator.  This was not some ungainly production, but an effort of basic pragmatism:

We would all celebrate Christmas elsewhere, but tonight, we needed to celebrate our Christmas.  We gathered from the far-flung corners of Seattle, rural Pierce County, Tacoma, and Philadelphia to be together.  And perhaps, because of the nature of the season, we were able to see in each other qualities we'd missed or thought too long dormant.  It was an awakening moment for me.

It is easy to see the holidays for what they aren't, for what ones' life isn't.  It is a default, for some, to feel lost and aloof amidst endless hams and cookie platters.  It is not difficult to focus on those feelings, it just happens.  And that is why it is so blissful when that moment of grace presents itself and you can't feel anything better than the love and caring that comes from being a part of a family.  We say we're coming together for the holidays, but really, we're coming together for each other. It is good to be reminded that we are no longer strangers and together we are no longer strays.

God bless us, every one.

three disparate things.

1. I'm reading The Handmaid's Tale again.  After a particularly difficult year of high school, I asked a favored English teacher what to read that summer, knowing that she had to have good taste because she'd done her masters thesis on e.e. cummings.  She suggested Atwood's book. I loved it. It got me thinking about woman's place in the world.

As an undergraduate I pursuaded another kind English instructor to let me do a paper on it. The course of that research introduced me to Phyllis Schlafly, the ERA, the Christian Right, and the LDS Church's efforts against the proposed Amendment. It revealed to me that dirty word: feminism. As a graduate student I've done work on the Eagle Forum and am now working on the Moral Majority. The Handmaid's Tale was written in a very particular moment, and that moment has come to define my career and how I spend my days.

And to think it all stemmed from a very casual book recommendation to a teenage student.

2. When I was living in the dorms at college, I embarked on a mission to a suburban Macy's for a bathrobe. I left the store with a piece of fluff the color of buttercream frosting. It was one of the first times that I said, "damn the costs," and bought something because I liked it and I knew I would need it for a long time.  Now that it's suddenly winter bathrobe season, wearing it puts me back in Pflueger Hall, back in the steamy smell of Dove body wash, back next to the drafty window where I used to sit after my showers. It puts me back in a time before I was an aunt and before my relationship with Mormonism got so fraught. I put on this bathrobe and I go back in time, back to before I knew anything about how good life could be.

And yet I kind of like that my cozy bathrobe takes me back to that time of not knowing any better.

3. Yesterday I went to New York City for the first time. It was big and bustling and dense and busy and shadowy. I only saw a few rushed snippets of the city, and I didn't like it all that much. How do people live there?  Why would anyone choose that? 

And then I remembered that I was in New York City, where I had never been before. That I made choices- a lot of them, big ones- that got me there. That I'd better enjoy right where I was because I'd never get to go to New York City for the first time ever again. Times Square got a little prettier and the people seemed a little nicer. 

New York made more sense to me when it was a myth, but at the very least, there I was. And Philly seemed so blissfully quaint when I returned.

rocky mountain high.

After not posting for twelve days, guilt is finally starting to set in. I know, I know, twitter isn't enough for you people! (you people!!!) My first impulse was to post this Whitney Houston video because I fell in love with the song watching VH1 while I was in Denver (tvs are so novel to me), and then I was like, oh yah, I went to Denver!

There were so many awesome things about the trip. I went for a Western history conference, and of course enjoyed the expected joys of conference attendance- finding out what kind of work other people are doing, networking, presenting, free coffee. Less expected, but definitely what made the trip worthwhile, was the time spent with friends. It was a strong reminder to me that facebook is so illusory- connecting and reconnecting in person matter. The memories of the weekend will definitely buoy me through the intensity of the rest of my semester.

I was lucky to have extra time after the conference to see the city. While exploring on Sunday, I was stoked to come across this:

Pretty sweet huh? I'd been bummed about not being able to take the folding bike and the total dearth of bikes in downtown Denver (well, it was freezing), so I was pumped to stumble upon the very promising beginnings of a city-supported bike program.