Change

Every once in a while, I'm told that I need to cheer up, read happier books, relax, spend less time worrying about the state of the world. But recently I've been honestly wondering if the inverse is the case: have we humans reached a point at which we are creating change faster than we can adapt to it, that we aren't as "big picture" as the problems we face? This isn't cynical; it's not lack of faith in people, but a sense that we don't understand the gravity of the situation we're in and it won't sink in fast enough for us to avert some serious consequences. For instance, we know we've been changing the climate of the entire planet we live on, but in response most people do little more than recycle (if that). I have to believe that if we really thought it was going to cost our lives (literally for some, but certainly life as we know it for us all), we'd be more motivated to act. In fact, it is costing lives already, and we've yet to make the connection.

We still seem to be taking the path of least resistance and thinking that our small acts of treason against the world won't hurt anything. We seem to forget that we are part of a community of billions, and our actions together amount to a tremendous amount. So how do we buy things without knowing where or how they are produced, or shrug the vaguely-acknowledged reality off because we not the ones to blame, we're just buying things as we always have, we're innocent participants in the system. Our stuff has always been made in sweatshops. It's always been made of petroleum-based plastics. Our farms have always been huge fields of one overproduced and overfertilized crop for miles, that's how it's supposed to be. It all looks too lovely to have a dark side.

We say we can't afford to live justly and sustainably, it's too expensive, and giving up some of our gadgetry and creature indulgences is just too much to ask. We value our individualism, our right to choose and to buy. And the imposition of a value system that preaches sacrifice is anathema to our sense of entitlement. In fact, the imposition of any value system that uses "should" and "shouldn't" rather than "this is just what I think, you can think and do what you want" doesn't seem to get very far. I am not saying all of this to be negative, I just want people to think. And deeply, a really honest look at ourselves, at what we do and who we are, with an eye to our collective future and what we are going to do to create it wisely. I think that's actually quite positive.

Commuting Karma

A couple of days ago after work I had to stop at the corner of Clark and Jackson and wait for a few minutes because the police had blocked out a route for Obama's motorcade to depart from the federal building. The entire wait had to be about 5 minutes or so, but about 3 minutes into it a lady standing near me on the corner turned to a guy by her and said, "Someone else should have won the election so we wouldn't have to go through this." I was like, oh, yes, lady, someone else should have won so you would have an uninterrupted stroll to your train. Not being interrupted for a moment on one day of our lives is certainly worth another term of inept leadership. For me, if it was an inconvenience at all, that was more than compensated for by Obama waving at all of us as he went by. It was enough to put a smile on my face, and I even had a wave of rock concert euphoria where I wanted to throw my hands up in the air and yell "Woo!"...but fortunately I kept that urge in check.

On a less novel note, that same day I encountered a higher than typical number of inconsiderate fellow commuters. I was shoved two times while boarding the train to go to work -- not the "we're all trying to get on this thing at once" kind of forward-thrust shove, but the "I want to go this way and there's a person in my way, so I shall push this individual out of my way" kind of sideways shove. The kind of shove that's easily avoided by waiting about two seconds until I've naturally moved out of their path. And then on the walk from the train to the office, a guy turned the corner and became oncoming traffic, only he decided to walk on the side of the sidewalk where everyone's going in the opposite direction from him. His solution wasn't to move over to where the traffic was flowing the same way as him -- it was to grimace at me and wave me out of his way with annoyance. I just don't get it, rude people. We're all trying to get somewhere, what's with the jolt of jerkiness to start the day?

But maybe it was my price to pay to get a wave out an SUV window from our soon-to-be President.

Protest & paranoia

This one's going to be rather random and rambly...

Can I just say I hate Christmas in America? I mean, why does it have to start before my birthday, which is in the first half of November? That means we have at least 6 weeks of Christmas, although I've heard of Christmas paraphernalia sightings as Halloween candy is being clearanced. So that puts it more at 8 weeks before the day...so that means that we start thinking about Christmas far enough in advance and spread it out for long enough that we essentially devote one day out of every week of the year to it. Doesn't that just suck away the novelty of it? And not only that, but it's not like we start giving or appreciating each other or any sort of wholesome community-based activity...we start buying. So many people complain about the commercial orgy that is Christmas shopping, but that doesn't stop most of us from participating in it and making ourselves less happy. Can't we just wait for Christmas to actually arrive and then spend it with people we love, perhaps exchanging small tokens of our affection? It doesn't seem so hard to accomplish.

On a completely separate topic, a strangely paranoid thought popped into my head recently that I'm having a hard time shaking. Sometimes I look at the people around me and wonder if any of them can get into my head and know my thoughts. It's a pretty horrifying possibility given some of the shameful and ridiculous things that pass through my brain, which I'm guessing are natural and along the lines of what pass through other people's brains as well, but all of us keep these things backstage for a good reason.

The new relationship between my butt and the couch

Okay I'm seriously depressed -- I think it's a combination of work stress, reduced daylight, and a combination of feeling both "stuck" and "can't-keep-up." I don't know when I became such a working stiff, but lately I go to work, get my butt kicked, and then come home exhausted and want to do nothing but consume myself to sleep with TV and snacks. It's all pretty pointless. And I don't really savor my own whininess, either...I just wish I had some kind of game plan to change things, but I don't, and that just makes me doubt my own resourcefulness. Ugh.

Pleas(e)

Please, women, don't vote for Sarah Palin just because she's a woman (find a good, credible news source or two...or more).

Please, bikers in my 'hood, slow down at crosswalks so you don't hit me or scare me senseless. I promise not to jaywalk. Deal?

Please, pals, take a listen to Ani DiFranco's new album streaming here: www.imeem.com/anidifranco. It's fabulous.

Ber

This week we went from highs in the upper 80s to highs in the low to mid 70s. While most people I know thought this was a step down, to me, it's the best news I've heard in a long time. The "ber" months are the best time of the year for me, and I love the first hint of fall's arrival. There are apples at the farmer's market, football season is kicking off tomorrow, and I'm in the mood to bake and knit again. Now I'm biding my time until apple cider and pumpkins arrive...

Vaguely Determined

I've been pretty keenly interested in personality type for the past year or two, particularly the Myers-Briggs types. When I first took the type test and read about the INTJ, I was like, "Holy crap! They're psychics." Since I bring up personality and the interactions between types so much, my friend Erin was sweet enough to pick me up the Myers-Briggs Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type book. In it, while discussing the IN_J types, they quote J.H. Van der Hoop, who I'd never heard of until now, but part of what she or he said really hit home with me, so I thought I'd share:

"In later life, also, it is a persistent characteristic of people of this type, that while on the one hand they possess great determination, on the other hand they find it very difficult to express what they want. Although they may have only a vague feeling about the way they want to go, and of the meaning of their life, they will nevertheless reject with great stubbornness anything that does not fit in with this. They fear lest external influences or circumstances should drive them in a wrong direction, and they resist on principle." [from Concious Orientation, 1939]

When I read this, I had a Charlie Brown moment inside, where I thought, "That's it!!!" I have really been struggling over the past few years to put my finger on what it is that I really want in life. It's frustrating, because it ends up looking like I'm wishy-washy, when in reality I know that if I found what I wanted to do, I'd be eager to get up and do it. It's just that I know a lot more about what I don't want than what I do want. In a way, it's affirming to know that this is something that other people experience, but then again it's frustrating to think that this could be a lifelong issue...

If you have the choice, pay for some books, not for shipping to Mexico

I feel compelled to write something since I've not in a couple of weeks and I just left things hanging in the middle of vacation. I like the idea of writing, and I love to read, but when it comes down to it I am just not very motivated to express myself via blog on a regular basis.

A few things, as they come to me...for those who haven't read anything by Salman Rushdie, and who think you might appreciate some challenging and brilliant writing, pick up a copy of The Satanic Verses, Midnight's Children, or Shalimar the Clown. I'm actually reading the latter now, and I am loving it 100 pages in. It goes from poetic to concise and from reflective to irreverent...I can't really convey the brilliance that is Rushdie, so you can just read.

I'm taking some training at work this week that involves receiving the results of a consulting/influencing skills survey from some of my colleagues, and I'm learning that I need to be more assertive when talking about my ideas. More than one person said I had valuable things to say but back down too quickly. That's really useful to know, but I think it's going to be difficult to overcome my natural disinclination toward sales.

Also, I tried to mail a box to Mexico City yesterday. I stopped into FedEx after work with the box containing about $25/1.5 lbs. worth of giftage from me and Nicole (one of my direct reports) for Tania (my other direct report). After a few minutes of elaborating on how there would be duties and fees to pay for shipping internationally, which I decided was okay with me, the FedEx employee then said something like, "Oh, yeah, and the shipping itself will also be over $100." My response was, "Are you kidding?" And unfortunately he wasn't. The tab would have come to $117 and some change, which he attributed to gas prices, etc. But Mexico D.F. is not that much farther away than California (a fact I pointed out as I politely declined to ship), and I fly myself there with the box in tow (among other things) for under $300. What the crap?

Maine, at last!

After three days of riding with Mark, Jeff, and Heather, I'm in Maine. Comments from the journey thus far:

Day 1 was exciting but not so scenic. Lots of Michigan and the part of Ontario that looks like Michigan, although stopping for lunch in Detroit was a highlight. The Canadians hassled us on the way into the country, possibly randomly or possibly because Jeff accidentally drove past a stop sign before the customs booth. In any case, we had to pull off to the side and have them search the car, and then we were made to go inside to immigration and have someone officially let us into the country. Jeff and I were bitter toward Canada after that -- after all, it's like the same country, really! Between the border and Toronto, our first stopover spot, we drove through the heart of a couple of thunderstorms that unleashed massive amounts of large water missiles on us. We reached Toronto around 7, checked into the hotel, and then found a nice, hip Italian restaurant to eat at. I was a particular fan of the fact that they had an "All Ontario" section of the menu, with items made of local ingredients.

On day 2, Mark and I got up around 6:30 and went for a walk through downtown Toronto, getting our socks, shoes, and sub-knee portions of our pants soaked. But it was cool, and nice to see at least a little bit of Yonge Street on foot. Before leaving the city, we all stopped by a nearby grocery store to pick up lunch supplies in order to make the drive go faster with fewer stops. Then we got our coffee and some breakfast for the road. New York let us back into the US without a fight, which we appreciated. I've since proceeded to eat a lot of maple flavored everything...although this technically began with maple cheesecake at dinner in Toronto. We drove through the Adirondacks, which were beautiful. Mountains, trees, and rushing rivers...just gorgeous, everything I'd hoped for from upstate New York. In the early evening, we reached the ferry dock and enjoyed the ~50 minute cruise across to Burlington, Vermont, our second night's stopping spot. It was a beautiful ride across Lake Champlain, with mountains in the distance on both sides and the sun setting with a brilliant pink to the west. After checking into the hotel, we went to dinner on Church street, a bustling retail and restaurant strip in downtown Burlington. I proceeded to become very sleepy and crabby, but managed to eat my salad anyway.

Day 3 is today. After I got up and showered, Jeff and Heather had gone to take a dip in the pool, and Mark and I left to take a stroll along the lakefront. It was a great and refreshing way to start the day. We left Burlington a little after 9, riding past the University of Vermont campus, which was beautiful. We stopped in Montpelier, where Mark, Jeff, and I spent a few minutes browsing through the state capitol (Mark and I have a quest to hit all of the US state capitols.) It was a really neat building, with old, historic furnishings still intact, and a manageable, not over-the-top size, which I suppose is appropriate for the capitol of a state as small and practical as Vermont. The town also seemed very nice, with a lot of shops and restaurants. That's how a lot of our drive has been so far, though, small towns strung together in the middle of some of the most amazing scenery you can imagine. There are an incredible number of ice cream shops, and we've taken to watching for giant ice cream cone cutouts, blow-ups, and statues along our travel route. At one place where we stopped yesterday, I got a medium waffle cone, and it appeared to contain a full pint of ice cream, piled on it precariously. It was deliciously overwhelming. We managed to cover the width of Vermont and New Hampshire and get to our final destination, Bar Harbor, Maine, before 6. We ate at a nice diner in Littleton, New Hampshire, for lunch -- a really idyllic small New England town. After checking in at our really nice, cozy bed and breakfast here in Bar Harbor, we all headed out to dinner at a seafood restaurant (where else?) downtown. I'm looking forward to exploring the shops and the national park here more over the next few days...but for now, I think that's an exhaustive amount of detail.

In summary, it's lovely here. :)

Unorthodoxize

I've been going through another bout of "What am I doing with my life?" lately, which is largely spurred by the book that I'm reading. It's called Take this Bread, and it's the memoir of a woman who inexplicably wanders into a church after somewhere around 35 years of being perfectly content with not being religious, takes communion, and evolves into a Christian over the following months. For her, this doesn't mean adopting a creed and starting to behave nicely, but really digging into the action that seems imperative as a result of her faith -- feeding people. It's a pretty incredibly different perspective from my own since I grew up going to church, and behaving nicely was the first cardinal rule I was taught. Sometimes I think I need a good dose of misbehavior to break me from some of my less savory orthodox inclinations and assumptions. It's been largely the social requirements of being part of a "church" (at least as I perceive them) that have kept me shying away from even attempting to attend services for the past four years. But with or without a disciplined regimen, I think I need a change of some sort, a spiritual renewal that isn't just a nice front, which will affect my life in a pretty major way. I've thought that for years now, and to be honest, I'm not sure that I won't just continue to think it for another couple of years before I am resolved to do something about it. I don't think it's going to leave me alone until I act, though, which must be a good thing.

Twizzling

On the walk from the office to the train today, just before I reached the stairs down into the subway on Dearborn, I crossed the path of a guy riding a bike through the federal plaza. One of his hands was on a handlebar, and the other was gripping a full-size bag of Twizzlers, holding it up to his face like an ice cream cone so he could munch on the licorice inside. At first I thought it was odd, but then I thought, "Dude, I'm with you." I could handle a pound of red licorice right now.

I keep getting flashes of India that make me a little bummed to be back. But I also keep getting flashes of Chicago's blue sky that make me love this city. And somehow the guy with the Twizzlers adds a little bit of extra charm.

Bombay hiatus, but still creeped out by plastic...

dodgingautorickshaws.blogspot.com

A sore arm, a visa, and four packs of probiotics

Mark and I leave for India this Thursday, and it still doesn't quite seem like it's really going to happen. But everything is in order, including the visa that I was freaking out about getting in time and the last-minute tetanus shot that has made my arm sore and annoying for the past few days. The goal today is to get some Chicago souvenirs for my coworkers in Mumbai while we're down on museum campus.

But stepping back for a moment, I had a conversation with a couple of coworkers yesterday in which we were talking about people who somehow have all the weird and inconvenient issues happen to them. Isn't that strange, that some people just chronically have crap for luck and have to deal with all the random dilemmas that life seems so eager to throw at them, while others of us just kind of coast through with only an occasional blip of a problem and whine when those blips come up? I think that in my family, my sister has often been that random dilemma person, and I have to say that while I think that she is probably better suited to deal with it than the rest of us, I don't think it's very fair.

Sleepy in Chicago

So Mark and I just got back from our weeklong vacation to Seattle, which was incredible. I don't have the energy or patience to describe all of the details at the moment, so I'll stick with the two biggest highlights for me:

1. Seeing Salman Rushdie read...Mark spotted the announcement in the paper that he would be reading from his new book, and so we took the bus down to Elliott Bay Book Company on Thursday and got to sit about 10 feet away from him. For those who don't know, Rushdie is my favorite novelist, and I was pretty much beside myself to get to see him. And he didn't disappoint -- he was really captivating, both when reading from his book (I have an autographed copy!) and when answering people's questions. The sense of humor that comes through in his books is also part of his natural conversation style. It was fantastic to get to see him, although I opted not to stand in line and gush all over him since we had other places to visit (the line was quite long), and I really preferred not to make a big fool of myself in front of him. Here's a picture of him:

2. Seeing mountains in Olympic National Park from Hurricane Ridge...it was a sort of scary drive up since I'm terrified of heights, but it was worth it, as the view was stunning. We were actually above one layer of clouds, which kind of hung down in the valley, and a higher layer of clouds, which was above us and the mountains. We got up to the ridge after just about everyone else had left, and there was a deer grazing in the meadow not far from us, which made the scene just that much more idyllic. Here's a photo of me at the top:

Flaky, Unremarkable, but Still Competitive

I've been too old and corporate lately to feel interesting enough to blog, thus the flakiness. Work has basically taken over every vacant brain cell I have, and then I can hardly stand to Qwerty my way through a ramble here. But next week I'm on vacation, which brings with it a brand new excuse for neglecting to share my thoughts.

One of the things that I've been realizing lately through my relentless introspection is that I'm not terribly remarkable. I think that over the course of school and childhood, and even since then, it was easy to see the ways in which I'm different from other people, and I was given a lot of praise. I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, but I now realize that there are plenty of other people who are better than me at about anything that I do...I'm ashamed because it's taken so long to really, consciously realize that. It's not that I'm devaluing myself, it's just that I've got too many examples of truly extraordinary humans in my consciousness to think that I'm a stand-out at all. So now I have to learn to be okay with it, but I still would like to be the best at something, because I'm stupidly competitive.

Auntie up!

I haven't blogged yet about the new fetuses in my life. Both my sister & bro-in-law and Mark's brother & sis-in-law are expecting babies this fall, which is exciting. My sister, Shanna, and her husband, Pat, live in Texas, and they just found out last week that they are having a girl. Which means that the baby (Caitlin) will wear silly adorable stuff like this: http://trumpette.com/store/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=391 I've told Shanna that we must web cam it up, so that I can be the TV aunt who occasionally visits in 3D with gifts and excessive kisses.

Jeff and Heather are in Chicago, so we get to see them more, which when it comes down to it is one of my favorite things about Chicago. So we'll also get to see the wee little blondie when he or she transitions from fetus to baby. There are lots of city parks that will be fun to stroll to, and we can also babysit! I haven't done that in a long time...probably since high school. But I'll brush up my skills soon enough. :)

Why are imperialists so mean?

So I began reading a book yesterday that is about India's struggle for independence, which is aptly titled India's Struggle for Independence. And I'm realizing how indefensibly crappy colonial domination is, based on just a few pages of mid-19th century accounts of Indian revolts against the Brits. It pretty much blows my mind that anyone would think it's okay to barge in, take over the land, and then levy taxes and charge exorbitant rent. Then when people can't afford it, take them to jail and oppress them even more. And let's just go ahead and establish a free trade zone and put all of your artisans out of business while we're at it. What the crap?

Foodie Almost-Fridae

So I'm going to follow Heather's lead and do a "meme" blog about food...

Ww is for wasabi that I put on my veggie sushi. I love it -- spicy and intense, but then it subsides instead of leaving burning death on my tongue like peppers do. Yum!

Hh is for honey, which is fabulous in all kinds of foods, both savory and sweet. I have always loved putting it on a slice of bread (preferably the end piece) and letting it soak in and get a little hard before eating...mmm...and it's also good in oatmeal, in salad dressing, in tea, on fried goat cheese balls, etc.

Ii is for ice cream...oh, how i love ice cream! My all-time favorite is mint chocolate chip, of which I received a 3-gallon container from my high school boyfriend when I had my wisdom teeth out. Now, one of my favorite activities is walking down to Sweet Occasions in Andersonville and getting a gianormous cone of whatever flavor strikes my fancy (Zanzibar chocolate, Espresso Oreo, whathaveyou...)

Tt is for tea, which is awesome. As someone who can't handle caffeine (I get jittery and experience freaky crazy anxiety), it helps me stay warm in winter. One of my faves is rooibos, but I really like anything that's not just silly fruity cheap herbal stuff (although I'll drink it, even if it is silly fruity cheap herbal.)

Nn is for naranja, which means "orange" in Spanish. I've been eating a lot of oranges lately, and I'm loving them, as I love all fruit. My mom likes to tell the story that when I was little, I used to ask for fruit over chocolate for a snack. Oh, but what happened to me? Now I like chocolate on my fruit!

Ee is for egg salad! I love egg salad, which I always used to make from Easter eggs that we'd dyed growing up. Just pull one out of the fridge (save the pretty ones for last!), mush it up with some mayo, a touch of mustard, and a pinch of sugar, put it on some bread, and voila! I'm in heaven.

Yy is for yellow cake -- it is unreasonably good, especially with creamy chocolate frosting. Makes me think of birthdays. Of course, what cake don't I like? Another favorite is Texas cake, and also German chocolate cake, my favorite by a lot. Brilliant.

Where have I been?

Okay, so I've been slacking on the blog...where?

• At work, training a new direct report who's located in Mexico City (which will be much easier when she has a computer and phone line of her own!)
• At home, thinking about work.
• On the train reading, actually re-reading, one of my all-time favorite books, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. The guy's brilliant -- I highly recommend either this book or The Satanic Verses.
• Watching and listening to the Cubs with Mark, and going to a couple of games at Wrigley with friends.
• Online and other virtual places like the post office, preparing for my upcoming trip to India (Friday 5/2: submitted passport application, told that passport will arrive in mail in 4-6 weeks; Friday 5/9: passport arrives in mail, complete with freakishly hologrammed-over photo of me.) Upcoming fun includes booking flight, getting visa, and being stabbed in the arm with various immunizations.
• Watching American Idol, which mercifully ends next week so I can have two nights a week back.
• Tending to my plants, which are all excited about the warm(er) & sunny spring weather. Except the giant aloe vera plant, Vera, who decided to sacrifice succulent glory and crash to the ground twice in one 24-hour period...she's convalescing now.
• Talking to my mom and sister on the phone, and attempting to plan a trip to Texas later this year to see sister, bro-in-law, and new baby (whose sex I should know tomorrow so I can call her/him by name!)
• Forgetting that I have a vacation in the nearer future, to Seattle...fortunately that one comes with great hosts (Mark's aunt and uncle) and a loosely pre-arranged itinerary (so I don't have to do much in the way of planning.)
• Also forgetting that before I gallavant off to Seattle or India, I need to also arrange for places to stay on a fun road trip to Maine that Mark and I are taking with his brother and sis-in-law (and fetus Spanarkel.)
• Fighting spring weather-change sinus pressure and accompanying crushing headaches.
• Knitting...I can provide no further details at this time.

That's all I have in me now...hopefully that's a satisfactorily thorough update!

segundo aniversario

Mark and I are having our two year wedding anniversary on Tuesday, and yesterday we did some celebrating. One of our traditions (if you can call it that after only two years) is to watch the slide show of our wedding photos that's set to music we picked out. In a few years it'll be more entertaining to see how we looked and what songs we chose, I think.

We also commemorated the event by ordering a mini replica of our wedding cake (as seen in the picture) from the incredible baker who made the original. The first time we actually had only one tier, but this time we thought it would be fun to have two. The cake is coconut, with chocolate buttercream frosting and a layer of apricot preserves in the middle, topped with sugar-frosted fresh fruit. We were going to wait until after dinner to dig in, but we polished off the first layer immediately (after the necessary photo shoot, of course). I had forgotten just how incredible the cake was.

To cap the festivities, we went to dinner at a place we've never tried before, Indian Garden, which is in the Indian-Pakistani stretch of Devon. Mark ordered saag paneer (a stew of spinach and cubed cottage cheese), and I had a mild curry with mushrooms and green peas. I've not had Indian food before that I know of, but as of last night I have also fallen in love with naan, a leavened flat bread that gets cooked in a tandoori clay oven so that it bubbles up and is crispy on the bottom. Ours was doused with butter...I might be addicted. Fortunately, its a 30-40 minute walk to get there, so it won't be an everyday thing and I won't gain fifteen naan pounds.

I feel the earth move under my bed

Today I had the novel experience of being awakened by a mild rhythmic shaking and thudding noise. A moment later, Mark woke with a gasp. The shaking continued long enough for us to discuss: what the crap is happening? Why is our bed moving? After a few seconds, we correctly ascertained the cause and alas, I have survived my first earthquake...my first tiny midwestern tremor, that is. My reaction was, "That was really cool!", but Mark's was, "That was unsettling." That's a pretty big reversal of roles from the usual high-strung Whitney and unflappable Mark, but the reversal is in my favor this time. :)

In other news, I have a rare evening to myself because Mark is off hanging out with his fellow philosophers-in-training. When he first told me he'd be gone tonight, I was like, "Nice, an evening to myself will be relaxing and productive. I'll knit and get some things done." But what actually happens is that he leaves, I go buy myself some ice cream and candy, and then I sit around thinking, "Gosh, it's quiet. I wish there was someone here to hang out with. I guess I'll eat..." Sadly, I really don't know what to do with myself when I'm in total solitude, because it happens so infrequently at this point. I feel like I should really be enjoying it, but what I actually want to do is go to sleep early so that I am relieved from the oppressive silence, and my relatively social day tomorrow can come and bring sounds other than the ticking of the clock back into my life. Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock...

I'm not going to blog right now because...

...Mark has offered to give me a back rub, and that's way easier than writing about something interesting.

But I haven't forgotten about my blog! Be back soon...

I will take a large glass of water, thank you

I have this habit of deciding that I'd like to drink a glass of water because I'm thirsty and/or I think I should for the sake of my health, then drinking a gulp or two and forgetting about it. Tonight Mark gave me the option of a regular or an extra large glass, and I chose extra large. To put it optimistically, the glass is still half full after a few hours. Mark is drinking it now. Maybe that's not a very interesting blog topic, but it's a quirk of mine that I thought I'd share. Maybe writing mundane blog entries is another quirk of mine...

This has been a strange day. I was off of work on Monday and Tuesday, so today was my first day in the office this week. I still can't figure out what day it is. I came home and my mom called to tell me that a longtime friend of her and my dad passed away suddenly and unexpectedly yesterday. It's really sad, of course...I don't feel like there is a lot more I can say about how terrible it is for her family and friends. It's crazy to think about. I can't imagine what it would be like if someone close to me who I expected to be around for another few decades was suddenly and permanently gone. I guess that's a contingency we're not really meant to spend our energy anticipating, we just have to live. Life is pretty amazing...it's so tenacious and also so fragile at the same time. It seems so cliche, but I think I'm going to be more mindful to appreciate it for a while.

Inexplicable giggliness

Okay, so this may be a cop-out of a blog, but this just tickles me. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF8vZM-O3hc&feature=related

It's hard to blog when you work in a cube

I find myself really wanting to stay disciplined with blogging, but I don't generate much blog-worthy material while sitting in my cube on the east side of the 25th floor watching it be gray all day. It's easy to lose sight of what you actually want to accomplish in life, or even in the next year, when all you get are a couple of days here and there to catch your breath. Mark has said that he would like to write a novel at some point in his life, which I think is a cool aspiration. I think I would like to write something more substantive than a journal entry as well, but I think I'm more inclined toward non-fiction than creative fictitious writing. Maybe something to do with sustainable consumption? I also think it would be cool to have a garden and grow all of my own produce organically. I'm told that Chicago soil is dangerously lead-ridden, though, so it may have to be a rooftop deal somewhere down the road when it's possible that I'll own at least a share of a roof. Maybe somehow during the day when I'm in my cube gazing over the hideous roof of the building next door and all of its strange gray contraptions, I'll be inspired to realize this dream.

I'm really tired of lists now

Since missing so many blog entries this past week, I have discovered that I am not very excited to get back to making a list a day. So on this second-to-last day of March, I'm declaring list month over for me. This will make it more difficult to decide what to write about, but hopefully I can come up with things that are not totally boring so that my handful of readers won't abandon me (if they haven't already.)

Something that Mark and I have been thinking about a lot is travel. We just scheduled a week-long trip to Seattle in June -- it will be my first visit to the city and the first for Mark in over a decade. Seattle is a place that I think I'll fall for because of its west coast laid-backness and mild summer weather. We're staying with Mark's aunt and uncle, with whom we are excited to spend some time and who also seem excited to host us (which is nice since we just emailed and asked if we could come out!) At the top of our list of things to see is Olympic National Park -- we really enjoy hiking, and I really want to see what temperate rainforest is like! I'm also hoping that we'll get to visit some wineries in the area. We may also have to do a day trip to Olympia, just to see the state capitol, which is becoming a tradition for us -- so far we've been to Madison, WI; Indianapolis, IN; Des Moines, IA; and Austin, TX, together (note that Springfield, IL, is not on the list yet -- we've both been there on school trips when learning about our native state, but we haven't been there together -- I think a Lincoln tour will have to beckon us downstate at some point. I'm betting my parents would be up for a short trip down with us sometime!)

Also potentially on the horizon is a short-term assignment for my job to Mumbai, India. They are looking for volunteers to go for about a month in June/July (yes, that's monsoon season!) to help train several new hires in my department. I've put my name on the list for consideration, and Mark would likely come with me since his summer is very flexible. The thing that I'm really nervous about is how long I'd have to be on a plane -- I am generally really tense while flying, and I don't really want to know what it would be like to be that tense for most of a day. Hopefully having Mark with me would help, and I also might calm down just from having to be up there for so long. But I don't like the idea of being afraid keeping me from traveling to such an interesting place, so the possibility of 16-20 hours of sheer terror didn't stop me from volunteering.

I also mentioned the other day that Mark and I are planning a road trip to Maine with Jeff & Heather in August. I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of the US that I've never seen and also getting some relaxing and quality time. It's very cool to have family members who are also friends who live pretty closeby. :)

In October, I am planning to fly down to Texas for about a week to help my sister, Shanna, out after she has her wee little baby (hopefully it qualifies as "wee little" since my nephew, Alex, was eight and a half pounds!) At this point, it looks like her husband, Pat, is likely going back to Iraq this summer (boo to the Army!), so that will make it more difficult to adjust to being a new parent again. I'm hoping that I can make myself useful and also spend some quality time with Shanna and Baby H.

That may be all of the travel for the year, unless the holidays bring any other times for jetting around.

My blog truancy

I have been in Cincinnati this week for work, and my days have been pretty jam-packed with meetings and group discussions, followed by group dinners. Thus, I have been neglecting my blog. This may not sound like a very pleasant time (it's far from a vacation), but in spite of my fatigue, I am in fact having a good time. I've gotten to meet and re-meet people, since my department hasn't convened in a couple of years. Do I have a list left in me? I don't know, let's see...let's do personal highlights from each day so far this week:

1. Sunday - Mark and I talked with his brother, Jeff, and sister-in-law, Heather, on the way to the family Easter dinner, and I think we're for sure on for a road trip to Maine together this August. Very exciting!
2. Monday - We went out for a group dinner to kick off the week here in Cincinnati, and after we got our appetizers but before we were able to order, we were informed that the kitchen had lost power & gas. It ended up being surprisingly fun that we all just had wine, appetizers, salad, and dessert.
3. Tuesday - Gosh, Tuesday always sucks to find something good about. It's not that this day was bad, it was just the least notable of the week in terms of highlights. I did like the little bar & grill that a lot of us went to for dinner (they actually had a really tasty veggie burger), and I got back to my hotel room in time to see most of American Idol.
4. Wednesday - It's cheesy, but we had this little segment over lunch for Show 'n Tell, where people each brought a 5-minute topic to share. I really enjoyed this segment...and I know this is creating a food-centric pattern now, but I also really appreciated dinner, even though it happened at a steakhouse. I just hope that my two big glasses of wine didn't make me say anything completely stupid...but I think I stayed pretty coherent and aware of my choice of discussion topics (I think I just risk being too no-holds-barred with a drink or two in me).

Matching dresses, hidden candy

Since it's Easter, here are a few of my favorite Easter-related childhood memories:

1. Mom always made matching Easter dresses (typically the same design in different pastel shades) for my older sister, Shanna, and me...and sometimes she also made herself something that coordinated with what we were wearing.
2. Of course, we were so adorable that we also got our pictures taken in our beautiful new dresses, which typically involved Shanna (who didn't like pictures or cooperation) crossing her arms, crying, and not looking at the camera, and me next to her smiling as though nothing is wrong. It's funny, but I think I like these old pictures more now because of Shanna's scowling...it could get a little dull if we were both just smiley and sweet in all of them.
3. Our grandma also got us stuffed Easter bunnies each year, which we loved. They were typically adorable and fluffy, and like our dresses, a matching pair in different spring colors.
4. Mom also hid Easter eggs for us every year, either outside if the weather was nice or throughout the house if it was rainy or cold. It varied whether she chose to stuff plastic eggs or hide little chocolate ones...the plastic ones were important for outdoor hunts, though. What I remember about the process of Easter egg hunting is that it sucks to have an older sister involved, because she'll always find more, and then things have to get evened out after all of the eggs have been found. My mom developed some good egg hiding tactics, though, even going so far as to label each egg with an "S" or a "W", so that we could each hunt only for the eggs that belonged to us.
5. I also remember different points in the year when we would just be hanging out and we would stumble upon a lonesome little chocolate egg somewhere in the house that we missed at Easter -- and not necessarily the previous Easter, either. Sometimes we'd find an egg and be like, "Hey, this is the kind Mom hid a couple years ago!" And then, of course, whoever found it would eat it, even if it was a little whitened with age. I kind of wish Mark would hide chocolate all over our apartment so that I could occasionally experience this kind of delicious excitement. I mean, wouldn't it be cool if I went to get a book off the shelf someday and found a candy egg behind it?!
6. I almost forgot this one, and I can't believe it: dyeing hard-boiled eggs. Every year, we'd get the cheap Paas egg coloring kit, which included 6 color pellets (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) to dissolve fizzily in vinegar and water, a white crayon for repelling the dye and leaving secret messages on the eggs (usually each person in our family would have an egg with their name on it), useless decorative cellophane egg sleeves, stickers, cardboard rabbit and chick character standups, and a wire egg dipper. Mom kept the wire dipper every year, so that we got quite a collection of them after a while and didn't have to share with each other or between colors. We liked seeing just how long we could leave an egg in a color to get it as deeply and brightly colored as possible, and we also really enjoyed making half-half colored eggs with each end dipped in a different color. Once they were colored to our specifications, we would let them dry in the cardboard tray that was formed by punching the circular pieces out of the back of the dye kit box. Once they were dry, we would put the eggs back into the carton that they came from the store in, and I would enjoy egg salad for the next couple of weeks, always preserving my favorite eggs until all the others had been eaten. Shanna was never a big fan of eating eggs, so there wasn't much risk of her swiping mine. :)

And on that note, Happy Easter!

I won't consume you, but it's not because I don't love you

I really can't believe it's snowraining today, on the second day of spring! Hopefully flights won't be so ridiculously backed up this weekend that my flight to Cincinnati for work on Monday gets screwed up...

Now, back to the program, I will list things that I miss eating now that I've become a vegetarian (my inspiration is Easter in a couple of days, which features a lot of non-veg-friendly treats):

• Marshmallows - why, oh why, must they contain gelatin? I want to burn them on the outside and eat them with graham crackers
• Jell-O - although I must say, I miss it a lot less since I found a vegan version that uses plant cellulose instead of gelatin, to the same delicious and jiggly effect
• Lamb - in general, my departure from meat was an amicable parting for me, but once in a while lamb sounds lovely
• The turkey chili at Bar on Buena - I don't miss the "turkey" part of this one, just the delicious chili spices and texture, along with the sour cream and cheese on top...but they don't make it sans turkey, so woe is me

Eating is nice in Chicago

My mom has been following my blog for a week or so now, and she suggested some topics for upcoming entries. Today I am going to take one of her suggestions and list my favorite restaurants in Chicago:

1. Bar on Buena - this place is in Buena Park near where I used to live. It has great beers on tap, and yes, also tasty food. It was a surprise to me that a bar would have so many vegetarian options. My parents (especially my dad) also love this place.
2. Indie Cafe - a little Japanese/Thai restaurant nearby...I am slightly obsessed with their Panang curry.
3. Hopleaf - okay, this is another bar, but it's a Belgian bar in Andersonville with very tasty and interesting beers and excellent food -- again, surprisingly vegetarian-friendly.
4. Heartland Cafe - I love this place not only because they have a huge and very healthy menu, but also because they have a general store with all kinds of organic & natural goodies.
5. Green Zebra - This is one of my favorite splurges, an upscale vegetarian restaurant in West Town that is really tasty. I like that their courses are small so that I can try a lot of things, and their special non-alcoholic beverage concoctions are amazing (pink peppercorn thyme soda?! Great idea!)
6. Bin 36 - This is where Mark and I had our wedding reception a couple of years ago -- it's not the most vegetarian-focused (you have to ask for the current vegetarian dish, which isn't included on their regular menu), but it's doable and for omnivores and those who love wine and cheese, it's delicious.
7. Hannah's Bretzel - a little organic sandwich shop downtown at Washington & Wells. I rarely run out to buy lunch, typically opting to pack food, but when I do go out, this is one of my favorite places. Their sandwiches are tasty and fresh, and they also feature an entire wall of premium chocolate bars...my kind of place!
8. Alice & Friends - Korean vegan restaurant near where I live. The whole atmosphere in this place is so serene, and they make some really good unmeat (I'm generally not a fan of plant-based meat imitations, but this place does unmeat really convincingly and it's yummy.)

Okay, I have to run and get ready for work now...I'll add on later if I think of more!

The CTA brings us all together

I've lived in Chicago for almost 4 years now, and in the course of these few years, I've encountered some really interesting characters on the trains and buses. Some of my favorites are:

• Shovy lady - This person gets on the train around the same time as me in the morning, and I'm fascinated by her. She waits for the train to pull in, and then as it is slowing, she follows the nearest door to its stopping spot, where she aggressively steps in front of whoever was actually standing by that door in order to be the first one onto the train. I could understand this if the train was at all crowded, but it's early and one of the northmost stops on the line, so there are tons of seats...and she does this every day. I find myself wanting to thwart her by stepping in front of her and up to the door as she is trying to push through (I did this yesterday, which resulted in a grunt of irritation from her and a little inner "hooray!" for me. I shouldn't make a habit of this.)
• Petty lady - This is the lady who I didn't notice walk up to me because I was reading, and whom I only noticed when she started petting my head. I gently removed her hand, and she got the signal that she should go have a seat, so it was resolved easily enough. At least two of my coworkers have had similar experiences, so this must be a regular morning commute occurrence.
• Touchy guy - This guy was I think my first awkward encounter on the train. He started off by swinging around the upright pole and telling me I was beautiful...which could only be a sign that things were only going to get more uncomfortable. After a few moments, it was time for him to get off the train, but not before he attempted to caress my cheek in farewell. My flinching reflex was on it, though, so I only got knicked by his approaching index finger...I was relieved when he was gone, and it at least made for a couple of good laughs for the other passengers.
• Leany man - This guy sat next to me on the way home once, and as is the case for many commuters, he couldn't help but catch a few winks on the way. The problem is, if you're going to sleep on the train, you have to know how to keep yourself upright while doing so -- this guy had unfortunately not honed this skill, so he kept snoozing and leaning on me, then waking up when I would nudge him, then snoozing again and leaning again. And I don't mean a little lean here, I mean I was supporting the bulk of his torso weight. Weird.
• Off key cell phone singy boy - This guy decided it was appropriate to turn up his music on his poor-sound-quality cell phone speaker and sing along with it. Which is silly because of course nobody else wants to hear his music, and if we did we'd like to hear a decent recording through real speakers, probably on our own mp3 players, and then we also wouldn't want him to mumble loudly along. This went on for 20-30 minutes, I think, until one of our fellow passengers informed him of how completely inconsiderate it was. Oy.
• Scary cursy lady - This lady went off on a CTA employee, who had told her that she couldn't leave her cart in the middle of the aisle, where people would have a difficult time getting around it to get on/off the train. Simple enough, right? Apparently not...this little older lady let loose a 10-minute string of the worst cursing my ears have heard to date, basically attributing the CTA guy's request to racism and sexism. Mark and I were very relieved when we reached our stop.

I think I will leave it at that for now, because that's representative enough and I also have a meeting in about 4 minutes. Hopefully I won't have anything to add after my commute home today!

Ryan Seacrest is Uh-noying

As I mentioned previously, Mark and I are hooked on American Idol. The show just began, and as usual it started with a dramatic shot of Ryan Seacrest exaggerating its importance. Ryan is completely inexcusable because:

1. His smile is really tight and forced
2. The way that he says "This is American Idol" is way over the top
3. He acts like he enjoys sniping with Simon Cowell, but you can tell he's really uncomfortable with the ribbing when it comes back at him
4. He seems to relish the power that he has in dismissing contestants each week...he dangles it over their heads before dealing the death blow
5. His name sounds like a screen name for a soap opera character
6. He's supposed to be the attractive young host guy (I think?), but he's not that young and is kind of creepy, especially when he puts his arm around female contestants

Mark of quality

It's 9:37 on Monday night, and I have been trying to get Mark to come up with a good topic for my blog for the day. He is currently in the bedroom be-jammy-ing himself since I rejected his first idea (how on earth can I rank my favorite dairy products? Way too hard...) So instead, I thought I'd list some of the things that I like about him (but note that this list is not comprehensive, it's spontaneous):

1. He likes really lame puns (hence "Mark of quality" as this post's title)
2. He's a big softy and likes everything wholesome and purely good -- like the Christmas spirit at the end of the movie Elf, that gets him every time...and the nutritional content of broccoli
3. He's a natural nurturer, and he makes me nutritious meals and encourages me to get enough exercise
4. He's really smart, but he is amazingly low on ego (per point #2, he likes just getting along, not dominating)
5. When my friends come over on Monday nights for religious discussion/Bible study time, he is content to sit in the back bedroom for some quality alone time with his computer and a double shot of scotch
6. Dissatisfied with his own belt today because it was too bulky for the shirt he was wearing over it, he borrowed my rainbow stripe belt to wear instead...which is just cute
7. He can get sucked into the same silly TV shows that I get wrapped up in, like Criminal Minds and American Idol, so I don't feel so ridiculous for watching them

Easily embarrassed

I was a very shy kid, and I had the capacity to become very deeply embarrassed, sometimes at things that seem pretty small now. Here are some childhood moments that were embarrassing enough to stick in my conscious memory:

1. In kindergarten, we had to take these standardized tests (which in itself doesn't make sense to me -- what are they testing in a standardized way among 5- and 6-year-olds? sharing skills? nursery rhyme fill-in-the-blank?)...anyway, I completed a section of the test, which I knew because there was a big STOP sign in the corner of the page. My best friend at the time, Jenny, was not done yet, so I held up my page to show her where to STOP. Of course, the teacher saw me showing Jenny my page with answers, so she of course called me out. Fortunately, though, she must have figured I was spacy and not actually cheating, because she sent me to lay on the classroom rug and do the "bicycle" with the other kids who had finished (for those of you not schooled in the "bicycle", it involves laying on your back with your legs doing circuits in the air as though you're on a...can you guess...bicycle).
2. In first grade, I remember a conversation among some of my classmates about the order in which they washed different parts of their bodies when taking a bath. One kid (who was notoriously trouble, I should have known not to jump in) posed the question, does anyone wash bottom to top rather than top to bottom? Having tried out this radical method of self-cleansing, I said that I had. He, of course, seized the opportunity to point out that this meant I had washed my butt before my face...eeeeeewwww. I was mortified.
3. In second grade (somehow this is becoming more chronological than I intended), I had a teacher who was so hateful toward children that I can't imagine why she would ever have become a teacher in the first place. (In her defense, though, she was slightly less hateful than the other second grade teacher in my school, whom my sister suffered through.) Anyway, one of my teacher's favorite things to do, besides to teach us how to mispronounce Spanish, was to survey the classroom and pick a kid out with the line, "(insert name), go wash your hands." Which everyone knew meant she had caught the kid picking their nose...which of course she called me out on once. The extra crappy thing is, I think I may have been itching not picking that time...
4. My dad's company used to have annual picnics, which I don't remember well except that they always had a lot of strange people I didn't know at them. One year, though, I remember going to look for my dad, and having found him, tapped him on the back to get his attention since he was facing away from me. However, when he turned around, he wasn't my dad at all but a big mustached man, who promptly roared something that the other big men around thought was funny (I don't remember what he said, just that it was loud and drew attention). I was so embarrassed, but now I think, what a jerk. Who'd use a confused little girl to get a laugh instead of helping her find her dad?
5. Another annual event when I was a kid was mother-daughter banquets, which were church luncheons in honor of Mother's Day where mothers and daughters came in their best spring dresses and grazed on a buffet of midwestern homemade fare. (One year, there was a fashion show involved, in which my sister and I modeled our homemade dresses. I think that was sometime after we stopped being cute in our homemade dresses, though.) On the year that I am thinking of, my mom's mom came to the banquet, and we were helping set up. At one point, I realized that I liked swishing my dress around and started lifting it up in the back to get a pleasant draft. Silly, yes, but I started out cleverly doing this with my butt facing under a table...but then I forgot about this key safety measure and started swishing with my butt facing away from the table, which my grandma promptly informed me was not a good plan. Oops.

Okay, I think that's enough of memory lane for now. I'm still pretty easily embarrassed, but maybe not quite as easily as when I was a kid, fortunately...

Amnesia

The past couple of days have been themed along the lines of "remembering things that have been forgotten." A preliminary list to illustrate my point (which hopefully also makes up for missing a blog entry yesterday):

1. My sister-in-law, Heather, blogged about things that she used to know but doesn't anymore.
2. Mark and I zoned out in front of the TV last night, and we ended up watching a random game show called "Amnesia", where the contestant has to answer questions about their life in order to win money.
3. The book I've been reading this week (Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert) has been making me reflect on how much I've forgotten to just relax and enjoy life as it's happening.

So now, my actual list of things that I've forgotten that I once knew:

1. Math - I mean, sure, I use statistics in my job, but most of what qualified me for a bachelor's degree in this subject is gone (I have no idea how to prove anything, like the fact that there are infinitely many prime numbers...did I ever know how to prove that? Oy.)
2. The names of all of the books in the Bible, in order (I think I could patch together some strings of names, but rattling off all of them is not happening. Goodbye, junior high.)
3. Grammar - Since ceasing to be graded on things like correct punctuation and not splitting infinitives, I've really begun to slide downhill here...and I used to be really spot on. (Can you blame me, though? I get emails from coworkers sometimes that have things like "its" and "it's" mixed up...who's going to hold me to a higher standard of self-expression?)
4. Enjoyment - This may sound dismal, but I guess it kind of is. Does anyone else relate to being so responsible and future planning-focused that you forget how to be alive and participate in right now?

I'm sure there are lots of things that I am forgetting that I have forgotten...but there's not much I can do about that now, is there?

Wednesday: what day?

Yesterday had too many other things involved in it (mostly work-related), so I never did get to my blog. Let's pretend that didn't happen since in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. Today I'm going to make a list to reassure myself and my readers that the decision not to have children is a perfectly legitimate and not uncommon reproductive choice -- here are some notable people who never had children (with lots of credit to online sources...this list is definitely not off the top of my head -- but I tried to include a variety of people):

1. Frida Kahlo
2. Gloria Steinem
3. Simone de Beauvoir
4. Oprah
5. Annie Sullivan (Helen Keller's teacher)
6. Amelia Earhart
7. Immanuel Kant (philosopher)
8. Florence Nightingale
9. Susan B. Anthony
10. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell
11. Julia Child
12. Christopher Walken
13. Stevie Nicks (singer, of Fleetwood Mac fame)
14. Katherine Hepburn
15. Dr. Seuss (and nobody could say he didn't like children, either!)
16. Jesus of Nazareth (um, argue with that, right?)

Alright, I'll leave it at that for now, even though I assure you that there are plenty more!

Tuesday is not a good day

A lot of people get "a case of the Mondays" each week, but I maintain that Tuesday is worse because:

1. Monday tends to fly by with beginning-of-the-week busyness, but Tuesday drags after the weight of all I have to do during the week sets in.
2. I'm tired from Monday, but I still have three days to go after this before I can really rest.
3. Fun activities don't get planned for Tuesdays - Mondays are sometimes holidays, Wednesday brings occasional hump day events, Thursday night is a feasible pre-weekend unwinding time, and Friday, well, it's Friday.
4. On this particular Tuesday, I am cranky because "springing forward" has robbed me of daylight when I need it most: waking up time.

The only redeeming value to Tuesday is incidental -- I was born on a Tuesday, so I guess that's one good thing about it.

Songs I sang with my coworkers tonight

A bunch of my colleagues and I gathered at my coworker Charlyn's to celebrate the upcoming wedding of Jazz, another one of my coworkers. The primary activity for the evening was karaoke, so I thought today's list could be songs that we sang tonight:

1. All That She Wants by Ace of Base
2. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
3. I'm Too Sexy by Right Said Fred
4. Africa by Toto
5. Wake Me Up Before You Go Go by Wham
6. Faith by George Michael
7. I Swear by All 4 One
8. Quit Playing Games with My Heart by Backstreet Boys
9. The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel
10. Yellow Submarine by the Beatles
11. La Bamba
12. Eye of the Tiger
13. Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi
14. Karma Chameleon by Culture Club

and plenty more that I'm forgetting, I'm sure...

I also blame my dad

Okay, so it's dad's turn to be accused of making me the way I am (I have also added a few things to the mom list from yesterday that have occurred to us since making the list):

1. My face - not only do I have facial features that resemble my dad's (brown eyes, prominent nose, sizeable mouth), but I've also inherited his ability to make facial expressions ranging from the goofy to the grotesque when the need arises
2. My height - dad's 6'1", mom's 5'4" or so, and I'm 5'9"
3. I have large feet, so does dad
4. My tendency toward somewhat violent affection - dad sometimes squeezes mom lovingly, to the point of a painful exclamation from mom...I occasionally inadvertently inflict pain on Mark in my earnestness as well
5. I have a bizarre sense of humor, dad is also strange
6. I'm a compulsive and quick eater, and I have a serious sweet tooth - dad seems to inhale whatever is put in front of him, and I share his love for chocolate
7. I love music - dad's a guitar player and has been throughout my life
8. I'm good at math and technical stuff - dad's an engineering designer, I'm a statistics geek
9. I hate exercise - as dad says, this is "because it sucks", although we both concede that it can be helpful in counteracting our compulsive eating habits
10. I'm a procrastinator - we both put off the inevitable as much as possible

I blame my mom

As a tribute to my parents' visit to Chicago this weekend, my list is going to be parent-themed today (and probably will be tomorrow as well). Over dinner, we were considering ways in which I take after each of my parents, so here's a list of traits I've inherited from my mom:

1. My hair - it's fine, thin, and reddish brown, like mom's
2. I don't like to share - like mom, I prefer to get my own dessert, etc.
3. I am uber cranky when I'm tired and/or hungry
4. I like word puzzles and games (Scrabble, Boggle, crosswords, etc.)
5. I gravitate toward leading the way when in a group (I think we both like to be the first to discover things)
6. I love reading and go through a lot of books (mom often checks out several books at a time from the library and plows through all of them in the course of a couple of weeks, which is much cheaper than my habit of buying lots of books and trying to get around to reading them all)
7. I also enjoy writing (my mom has kept a decades long journal that has evolved from pen and paper to electronic format since the advent of home PCs)
8. I like creating crafty things (mom sewed lots of clothes for my sister and me when we were younger, and I knit)
9. My hip-to-waist ratio is quite large - mom and I are both pear-shaped
10. I have ridiculously slim wrists - mom has recounted how when she was in kindergarten, her wrists were smaller than her infant sister's
11. When it comes to browned food, I like things "well done" - mom likes her marshmallows, toast, pancakes, etc. burnt

I'm a little obsessed with Ani DiFranco

I love Ani DiFranco, but until now I've never given much thought to what my favorite songs are from each album that I own. Today is the day to change this, I'll go from oldest to most recent album (leaving out live albums because it's just too hard to decide):

1. Fire Door, from Ani DiFranco
2. Gratitude, from Not So Soft
3. Blood in the Boardroom, from Puddle Dive
4. Overlap, from Out of Range
5. 32 Flavors, from Not a Pretty Girl (the title track is a close second)
6. Joyful Girl, from Dilate
7. Swan Dive, from Little Plastic Castle
8. Come Away From It, from Up Up Up Up Up Up (It was hard not to pick Hat Shaped Hat)
9. Providence, from To The Teeth (#2 is Hello Birmingham)
10. Marrow (Revelling) and Subdivision (Reckoning), from Revelling/Reckoning
11. Slide, from Evolve (this was really hard to choose from!)
12. Animal, from Educated Guess
13. Knuckle Down, from Knuckle Down (Sunday Morning is second)
14. Decree, from Reprieve
15. Alla This, from no album yet but I love it and couldn't leave it off the list

My dirty secret

We both hate to admit it, but my partner, Mark, and I are hooked on American Idol. Tonight was the much-anticipated cut down to the top 12 contestants (which was devastating to watch) -- this is my ranking of them:

1. David Archuleta - who doesn't love this kid? I could just squeeze him!
2. Jason Castro - love the dreds, love the voice
3. Brooke White - she wouldn't have been this high on my list if she hadn't done such a great version of "Love is a Battlefield", plus she's genuinely sweet
4. Carly Smithson - great vocalist, not much more to say
5. Michael Johns - very cool, his version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" from auditions has stuck with me
6. Ramiele Mulabay - she seems to pull off just about any style well
7. Syesha Mercado - love her fashion, beautiful voice
8. Amanda Overmyer - like her Janice Joplin voice and the fact that she's legitimately different from the other performers
9. David Cook - doesn't do much for me, I agree with Simon that he doesn't stand out
10. David Hernandez - too cheesy
11. Chikezie - way too cheesy
12. Kristy Lee Cook - when will she leave so I can be happy? Again, I'm with Simon -- she's forgettable, and I don't understand how she keeps getting enough votes to advance

Some of the best books are freakin' sad

I am reading a really compelling book right now, and it happens that it's profoundly sad (I had to stop myself from crying on the train while reading on the way home from work). Here are some of my favorite devastating stories (both fictional and true):

1. Cracking India, by Bapsi Sidhwa - a novel set at the time of the partitioning of India into India and Pakistan (which I am currently reading)
2. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - a novel set in southwestern India, about a family's sad history (this is one of my top 5 favorite books)
3. Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres - a memoir of a woman raised in a harshly conservative Christian family and sent to a creepy religious correctional camp in the Dominican Republic, where her brother was also sent
4. Beloved by Toni Morrison - a novel about a slave woman and her love for her children, particularly one child whom she lost (I won't give away details)
5. The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler - a collection of accounts from women who gave up unplanned children for adoption when they were young, in the time between World War II and Roe v. Wade

Things in the conference room I'm sitting in

I'm at work for an early meeting (7:30 a.m.!), and I have set up camp in a team room, where I will be stationed for a full day of meetings. Here's what's in the room with me:

1. My stuff: laptop, glass of water, folder with meeting agenda, notebook, pen
2. Black office-issue conference phone
3. Round conference table with 7 lime green upholstered and gray-metal-armed rolling office desk chairs
4. Two white boards, one hanging on the wall to my left and one leaning against the wall across from me
5. Small round side table, and on it a stapler, a tape dispenser, and two dry erase markers (one red and one black)
6. On the floor next to the small side table: A circa 1996 computer monitor with no accompanying CPU or accessories, a white board eraser, two classic yellow #2 pencils, and a couple of inexplicable 2" black disks with screw-like things sticking up out of their centers
7. A small blue recycle-bin style trash can

Names of my plants

I have a lot of plants, and they all have names:

1. Marshall - a 3-foot dracaena named on the occasion that I was a graduation marshal my junior year of college
2. Humphrey - a mosaic plant named after Humphrey Bogart (I love Casablanca)
3. Simone - not sure what kind of plant she is, but she's beautiful and has striped leaves, named after Simone Weil, a Christian social philosopher
4. Miles - again, never have figured out what type of plant he is, but he's named after the main character of Richard Russo's Empire Falls, who I really identified with
5. Vera - an aloe vera plant (get it?!)
6. Oswald (aka Oz, Jr.) - a purple passion plant, named by my friend and roommate in college, I'm not sure if it was because he sat in a window like another Oswald did, or if it's because he's purple like the cartoon octopus by the same name
7. Phyllis - a cactus (pachypodium, madagascar palm) who I thought deserved a spunky and hilarious name
8. Habakkuk - an arrowhead plant who is named after a Biblical prophet because the name is cool and there are some passages I like in the book
9. Esther - an aluminum plant who is also named after a Biblical figure, although I don't remember precisely what the inspiration was for this
10. Phoenix - a wandering Jew who I received as clippings from a friend's mom, which I proceeded to let sit in a plastic bag for a month or so. Amazingly, Phoenix survived this ordeal and I thought I'd give her an "overcoming the odds" kind of name
11. Bud & Dotty - orchids for whom I am a foster parent since my friend Erin decided she was killing them. Bud is named after the one humongous bud (and resulting yellow flower) that he has produced since living in the bathroom, and Dotty is named for the three little buds that she is working on now.
12. Minnie Elaine Rose - a miniature rose that just moved in after my partner's great aunt Elaine's birthday party (Minnie was a centerpiece at the event)

People awesome enough to name someone after

My list today is of people unrelated to me whom I admire enough that I would consider naming a kid after them (although this is purely hypothetical since my partner, Mark, and I do not plan on having children). The list is in no particular order, other than the order in which people occur to me -- hopefully I remember all of the people I'd like to include, otherwise I may have to add on later.

1. Ani DiFranco - feminist, folk musician, poet
2. Martin Luther King, Jr. - pastor, civil rights leader, crafter of powerful words
3. Bill McKibben - environmentalist, author
4. Salman Rushdie - novelist, social commentator, wit
5. Elaine Wagner - chiropractor, nutritionist, natural healer

Reasons why I'm a vegetarian

My sister-in-law told me yesterday about National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), an event in which those of us who would like to be more disciplined in our blogging make a concerted effort to post every day for a month. For March, the theme for NaBloPoMo is lists, so I'm going to attempt to keep up on this. At the moment, I'm rather doubtful that I'll hit all 31 days of March, but it's worth a shot.

My first list is of reasons why I'm a vegetarian (a question I get asked occasionally):

1. Meat production consumes more energy than is produced in the resulting food, and Americans consume a disproportionately large amount of meat versus citizens of other countries -- which means that eating meat, particularly in the quantities that Americans generally do, is at least as large of a concern when attempting to cut energy use as initiatives like greater fuel efficiency in cars and appliances.
2. In fact, meat production produces more greenhouse gases than all forms of transport combined, and large-scale meat producers are also some of the worst environmental polluters (http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/49/meat-is-methane)
3. The American meat industry has historically employed undocumented immigrant workers, who endure treacherous work conditions in animal processing plants and have little or no leverage to do anything about it because they need the wages that they earn and limited English language skills constrain their employment options
4. The American meat industry also relies on the mass production of livestock, a large proportion of which are eating diets that are unhealthy for them (e.g. cows eating corn instead of grass, which their multiple stomachs are meant to process) and/or live in what for humans would be considered condemnable housing (extreme crowding, no proper sanitation) and/or are pumped with antibiotics to combat the consequences of their living conditions and with painful growth hormones to make them as large and profitable as possible.
5. As a byproduct of the mass production of livestock and the pumping of tenement-dwelling, unhealthy animals with antibiotics and other chemicals, our meat is less healthy and at times potentially dangerous to us. Recently, the USDA announced the largest meat recall in US history due to the processing of very sick and physically abused cows into low-grade ground beef, much of which was used by government school lunch programs(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/business/18recall.html?sq=meat%20recall&st=nyt&adxnnl=1&scp=10&adxnnlx=1204383678-0s8hi9Ot/KykNEAQ4DBDdw)
6. In addition to avoiding negative health effects, a nice benefit of eating a vegetarian diet is that if done correctly, it is quite often healthier than a meat-centric omnivore diet, particularly for the heart. This is in sharp contrast to the broadly held perception that vegetarians are emaciated and lacking vital nutrients -- and pleasurable eating experiences. I've had the best meals of my life since I stopped eating meat and started diversifying my diet beyond the same old meat options. (http://www.vegetarian-nutrition.info/updates/vegetarian_diets_health_benefits.php)
7. In America, meat is meat is meat -- so if you eat any meat, you end up eating all meat, without regard for its origins. Eating meat only rarely, and only when you know that it comes from a good local & sustainable farm, is a difficult option to exercise.

A little feminist inspiration

I tend to go through books quickly since I read on the train on my way to and from work every day, and I've plunged into another good one. I haven't done enough feminist reading since college, when great books were requirements for my sociology degree and my various tangents into other humanities. So in an effort to refresh, I decided to pick up The Essential Feminist Reader, a collection of historical (1405-now!) feminist essays, speeches, and literature from around the world, compiled by Estelle B. Freedman, a women's history professor at Stanford. I'm loving it so far, and I am amazed by how long some of the core ideas of feminism have been around. One excerpt that I particularly enjoy is from Harriet Taylor Mill, an English feminist advocating for education and self-determination for women in the early to mid 19th century. This is from a piece called "The Enfranchisement of Women", written in 1851:

We deny the right of any portion of the species to decide for another portion, or any individual for another individual, what is and what is not their "proper sphere." The proper sphere for all human beings is the largest and highest which they are able to attain to. What this is, cannot be ascertained, without complete liberty of choice. The speakers at the Convention in America have therefore done wisely and right, in refusing to entertain the question of the peculiar aptitudes either of women or of men, or the limits within which this or that occupation may be supposed to be more adapted to the one or to the other. They justly maintain, that these questions can only be satisfactorily answered by perfect freedom. Let every occupation be open to all, without favour or discouragement to any, and employments will fall into the hands of those men or women who are found by experience to be most capable of worthily exercising them. There need be no fear that women will take out of the hands of men any occupation which men perform better than they. Each individual will prove his or her capacities, in the only way in which capacities can be proved— by trial; and the world will have the benefit of the best faculties of all its inhabitants. But to interfere beforehand by an arbitrary limit, and declare that whatever be the genius, talent, energy, or force of mind of an individual of a certain sex or class, those faculties shall not be exerted, or shall be exerted only in some few of the many modes in which others are permitted to use theirs, is not only an injustice to the individual, and a detriment to society, which loses what it can ill spare, but is also the most effectual mode of providing that, in the sex or class so fettered, the qualities which are not permitted to be exercised shall not exist.

It's funny to me that these kinds of beliefs and discussions still exist about what women and men are best adapted to be and do. I like Mills' take on it: How about we give people freedom and resources to pursue what they will, and then we'll see if there is any truth to the supposed differences between men and women?

Parabens (they're also creepy)

Another thing that I found out about relatively recently is that personal care products (shampoo, conditioner, body wash, deodorant, etc.) most often contain preservatives called parabens. The problem is that they mimic estrogen in the body, and some researchers have tied the use of deodorant that contains parabens with higher rates of breast cancer. No more parabens for me! For more detail and a list of parabens to watch for on your ingredients list, go to: http://www.seventhgeneration.com/making_difference/newsletter_article.php?issue=105&article=584

Why Plastic is Creepy

I just read a book called "The World Without Us", by Alan Weisman. The idea behind the book is to imagine what would happen if humans instantaneously vanished right now. How would the rest of nature reclaim what we've left behind, and what impact would all of the things that we left behind have? One of the most interesting but also most unsettling trains of thought in the book was about what would happen to plastics, the various synthetic polymers that we create from a variety of chemical processes applied to petroleum. As it turns out, since they are not biodegradable (that is, since they are human-made and not something that any current living thing can digest), they will basically stick around indefinitely. Right now, a large bulk of them are blowing or being dumped into bodies of water, floating away, swirling into the middle of the ocean, and invading and wreaking havoc on the bodies of ocean-dwelling animals who mistakenly eat them. Over time, plastic bits in the ocean will get broken down into tinier and tinier pieces, until they reach the tiniest they can be (particles called "nurdles"), at which point even miniscule plankton will eat them. And when you mess with the bottom of the food chain, you mess with everyone and everything alive. Since reading about this, I have been more conscious of my plastic consumption, and while there are decisions I can make that avoid the scourge, what I have also found is that plastic is insidious and everywhere. I'm still trying, though...