always greener

ringing out, ringing in....

2011-12-31T23:05:00.002-05:00

so my attempts at writing every day in december fell flat on their collective face; HOWEVER, i'm proud of myself for even trying...and isn't that all that really matters?

it's an hour and ten minutes from the new year and i'm so damn thankful to say goodbye to 2011. this year, while a blessing in the sense that it was another 365 days around the sun that i spent above ground, was taxing, tiring, tremendously tense, and a few other 't' words i can't think of just now. i need a new frame of reference, and i'm hoping 2012 can be just the change i'm in the market for.

while i can't recap most of what was difficult for me this year (this is a public blog, after all), let's just say that i'm glad i ended it with my best friend in the world. we spent the day just as girlfriends should: brunching, shopping, laughing our asses off, singing random songs, driving around town, watching movies, talking about men-people, and just getting to enjoy each other's company. i am so thankful that regardless of what kind of madness comes my way, i have someone in my life who's always on my side, always got my back, always the keeper of the things i hold dear. there is nothing in all the world like a true friend...and i'm just so fortunate to have a few to call my own.

in the coming year, i want to dig deeper into my relationships (the ones i've had to shelve for the sake of my busy-ness), pursue my creative leanings, make more time for true rest (not the counterfeit version i've been trying on for size), drink more water, eat better, and turn off the devices a bit more often. i want to carve out a new path for myself...one that means me getting to be happy and to live some of the dreams i'm still holding out for 'someday.' someday is now. someday is 2012. day one starts in an hour, and how shall i spend it?

first, i intend to get up at a reasonable hour. then, i'm going to go see my favorite almost-one-year-old and his phenomenal parents. i'm going to soak in the love of people i hold dear to me. and then i will get out all my pent-up aggression while watching my favorite football team kick the collective bee-hind of the cincinnati bengals (Lord, let it be so). i will have madcap fun with my bff. i will think positive thoughts and make grandiose plans. i will not regret one moment.

and then the next day, and the day after that, i will make every effort to taste the sweetness of what is in front of me. this past year may have left a bad taste in my mouth, but the coming year will be delicious. i just know it....

[note: if you've intentionally or unintentionally found your way here—and whether you know me personally or not—my hope for YOU is that 2012 brings you all the joy and laughter and love your heart can hold. may you be overwhelmed by all that is good and lovely in this world of ours. and then may you share that goodness and loveliness with someone next to you who needs a little of it. happy new year. today and every day.]

today's prompt: what is your "one word"? One word for this year, one word for next year—courtesy of Amy.

the book shelf

2011-12-12T19:54:00.000-05:00

friday's prompt (i'm running behind): What was your favorite children's book? —courtesy of Niki

when i was little, i didn't have a boatload of fancy, brand-name toys and trinkets (no barbie dream house for me, folks!), but what i did have, i had in spades. like my father, consumer of all things literary, i had a shelf (or two, eventually) packed full of books.

for one thing, i learned to read when i was 3, so my voracious kid-brain started devouring stories as soon as i knew what they were. also, my dad read to me practically every night (even long after i could read for myself)...it was our little ritual. sometimes i would spend what seemed like hours in my room, just reading and re-reading the books from my shelf. some were brand new, many were hand-me-downs from my sister, but i didn't care. i loved them all. the pictures, the smells, the feel of the pages beneath my fingers. i would sometimes bring a flashlight to bed so i could stay up as late as possible to keep the magic of a story alive.

to add beauty upon beauty, my aunt was a librarian and would often send some lovely book to me for christmas, signed by the author and/or illustrator (i thought this was magical somehow, never once considering that she probably had to attend some library conferences for work). i still have all those treasured gifts stored in boxes, along with a few dozen other books that just meant the world to me: where the wild things are, bread and jam for frances, the little bear series, the very hungry caterpillar, anything by dr. seuss...the list goes on and on.

even now, when i'm feeling particularly blah, i'll go into the bottom of my closet and open those boxes, look at all the familiar faces and stories, remember writing my name on the inside covers (sometimes in crayon), and get swept away once again in the magic and adventure of the stories they contain. those books kept me busy on rainy days. they taught me lessons about how to treat other people. they opened my imagination and sparked my creativity. and they are the reason i learned to love words.

so, yeah. if i had to pick a favorite? i'm going with the whole shelf:)

mom, jr.

2011-12-12T19:33:00.001-05:00

i've done a lot of soul searching and self-examination in my adult years, and one of the many conclusions to which i have arrived with little to no effort is this: the apple does not, in fact, fall far from the tree.

as a kid, i always remember my mother wearing high-heeled pumps and suits and going off to work early in the morning and coming home long after dinner was done. she put in hours over the weekend. she worked on family holidays at my grandparents' house. and she talked about work (and the people at work) constantly. these things drove me batty as a child, when my one and only wish in all the world was for someone to take me to disney world and pay attention to me, for God's sake. i promised that i wouldn't ever be shackled to my job when i grew up, and i'm generally happy to say that, except for the last 12 to 18 months of my life, that's been true for me.

but more than the workaholic i knew and loved as a child, my mother was (and is, and ever shall be) someone who got things done. she took charge, she rallied troops, and people generally followed suit (often so relieved that someone was willing to take the reins). she has always been able to pack a suitcase like a champ, figure out how to jerry-rig a sagging curtain rod (with fishing line, tied to a heating vent!), iron some complicated garment with precision, sew a costume, and can help you pick some good stocks, write a killer resume, and rearrange your whole apartment in a matter of days. she is a workhorse. she is relentless. she is a chip off the old block (the old block being my grandmother, a 4'11" spitfire named sarah).

and who am i? um, pretty much someone following in many of this woman's (and the woman before her's) footsteps. i am pushy. i will follow up until action is taken. i see things through to completion. i always carry tissues in my purse in case of allergies.

but we're not entirely the same, you see. i am definitely less orderly in my life. and for years, i was embarrassed by my mother's diligence (especially when it involved her confronting someone in public - the humiliation!), but i have gotten to be not only like her in that way but even more so. during one particular incident in a video store a number of years back, i was confronting the manager about the store's horrid customer service and the fact that they were accusing me of stealing some ridiculous movie. after a particularly long string of rebuttals and announcements about the abject unrighteousness of the situation, my mother took my elbow and quietly said, 'i think you should back down now.'

i looked at her with something resembling horror. 'what?!' i said. 'do you even know whose daughter i am?'

and, dear reader, it should come as no shock to you that i pushed that man until i got back the store cred i deserved. it was only fair, really...the right thing to do! :)

in all seriousness, people love my mother. she is a guru of all things HR and has helped a lot of people in her day. but she's also the kind of person who will say a kind word to someone no one else pays attention to. she takes communion to shut-ins. she has been a huge advocate for a number of her elderly friends (sometimes right up to the very end of their lives) who needed someone to be there for them. and she has rescued (literally) family members from situations that would have destroyed them if she had not stepped in.

also, she does not back down from a challenge, even if that challenge is to have a relationship with me. and ours has taken time and patience and effort to get it to where it is now. i love that. my mom understands that things worth having are worth working for, just like any job or opportunity in life. and my mother has proven herself to be relentless in these things as well. i am more than glad to be called hers...and to call her mine.

and yes, i may be pushy as heck, but can you blame me? i'm the apple, remember? those seeds were planted early on!

sunday's prompt: How are you like your mother? And if you're a mother, how is/are your kid(s) like you? —courtesy of Jessica

just write

2011-12-08T23:18:00.001-05:00

i still remember the first day i learned what a blog was. it was back in april of 2002. i was in the midst of clawing my way out of arguably the darkest place i'd ever been in and, on top of it, i had a lot of time on my hands. my dear friend tim had started this 'blog' thing (and at the time, i was in the habit of searching for friends of mine on the internet to see if there was anything to see), and i found it and started reading. then i clicked a few more links and, the next thing i knew, i had fallen down a rabbit hole straight into the blogosphere.

i knew almost immediately that i was hooked...and i just had to start one of these blogs for myself. i mean, what a great way to share all your random musings with the great unknown. what a great way to be 'heard,' even if no one ever saw anything i posted. (if someone writes on their blog and there's no one around to read it, does it make a 'sound'?) i didn't care one bit. the promise of the experience was too tempting....

i quickly discovered that my blog wasn't salacious enough to garner thousands of readers...which is fine, really. i don't need recognition to keep writing. Lord knows if i did, i would have stopped years ago. but it was enough to make ME feel better. it was therapy for my weary soul, and boy did i ever need it.

from that first day, april 29, 2002, i just kept writing whenever i felt like it...sometimes multiple times a day. i wrote about dreams i from the night before, things i made for dinner (not much has changed), moments of stillness and calm with God in the midst of utter chaos, wishes for my future self, reflections on my early life, letters i would never send, etc. it was just me, out there for all the world to see, but it was my eyes that needed to read the words.

every few months, i would go back and read where i had been and how far had i had come (or not, as the case may have been). i would learn from my own reflections, realize how prayer and meditation and good honest work had changed my heart and my perspectives on things. i had created a series of milestones for myself. and the looking back healed the me i was becoming.

it's been almost 10 years since it all began, and although few and far between, i've had others come to me...some friends, some strangers...and share how my words, my pain, my triumphs have helped them to see themselves—and God, life, etc.—more clearly. i've made some friends through the experience. i've learned about other people i might never have known. but i've also cleaned out the closets in my heart and kept my own inner hopeful writer alive. history really is the best teacher, and as much as i've grown and changed, i don't ever want to leave all this behind. i have so much more to learn.

Today's prompt: Why blog? Why do you or why do you like to blog (recognizing that these are not always the same thing)?—courtesy of Kristen

rewind to day 5: a bit of a downer, i'll admit

2011-12-08T00:30:00.000-05:00

i'm going out of order, but here's my catch-up post from day 5.

so the question is: what is the one thing you finally did this year that you always wanted or said you were going to do, but in your heart of hearts never thought you would actually do?—courtesy of Amy

here's the God's honest:

nothing.

this year has been ALL about plodding and trying to keep my head above water. about dealing with the psychological fallout of getting bedbugs on a business trip last winter and having my entire mind, body, and soul consumed [read: obsessed] with their good riddance (and they were) and subsequent obsession about their return (and they have not). seriously, for someone who already has a smidge of OCD, that does NOT do a body good.

so in the midst of all of that mess [read: sleeplessness, anxiety, paranoid fixations on other people's stuff and whether it had bugs], i gained weight back that i had worked my ass off (literally) to lose, i retreated more into a social hole, and i lost my creative sensibilities almost entirely. living in triage mode every day does NOT make for an interesting existence.

and here we are nearly a year later and i'm feeling ready for a shift in the wind more than ever. because frankly, when this blog endeavor comes around next year, i'd like to be able to say that i did something truly kick-ass.

like write that great american novel once and for all!

sisters are doing it for themselves

2011-12-07T22:14:00.000-05:00

okay, so you know those people who giggle at everything? you know, the ones who are always laughing loudly in movies...who could make up their own personal laugh track because everything to them is just that funny?

okay, well, that's not me.

not that i don't find things funny. because believe me, i do. but most of what strikes me as hilarious are random moments, a turn of phrase, a bit of witty repartee, you get the drill. well, at least that's the case until i get in a room with my bff and her two sisters (who i love like they were my own—and really, they are). if there are things that will get me laughing in a HOT minute, it's time spent with those three. it's not PC. it usually involves made-up words. there are often cocktails involved and tales of conquests and random foolhardy behavior. but oh, do my abs get a workout from all the cackling. seriously, people, the shenanigans? legendary.

now if i were feeling particularly inclined, i could post a number of home-shot videos from my camera of african dance routines; weird talking in random accents; skits made up almost on the spot; games of taboo; the adventures of kim jong il, pocahontas, and captain john smith (this was thanksgiving 2010); our easter 'pageant'; and the list goes on and on....

oh, and then there's the first time that the younger sister met my ex-boyfriend. she proceeded to have a laughing fit (and once c. is laughing, there's no turning back for anyone else in the room), began snorting, threw herself on the floor, and started convulsing while yelling 'i can't feel my legs! i can't feel my legs!'

and then there's the situation commonly known as 'THE' trip to mcdonald's that involved the phrase 'we ain't got no quarter meat' and had the same younger sister howling and wheezing in the back seat, snorting and carrying on so loudly that i could barely keep it together at the window. i mean, let's just say you had to be there, but i'm telling you...you will NOT be able to keep a straight face when two or more of us are gathered in one place.

did i mention? shenanigans.

but the best part about the four of us when we're together is that we all just get to be ourselves and say what's on our minds. and i'm sorry, but the stuff coming out of our mouths is just FUNNY. and i can't find a thing wrong with that any day of the week:).

and girls? if any of you are reading this, y'all are my favorite silly hearts. thanks for adopting me into your brood.

love,
s.

Who or what makes you laugh so hard that milk shoots out of your nose and why? Slapstick, dry witty comedy, your kids, Monty Python?—courtesy of Kassie

"...but i won't do that" (x 10)

2011-12-06T23:44:00.000-05:00

what i've realized is that, in life, there are very few things people won't do, given a certain level of desperation. for the purposes of this exercise, i'm going to assume that, all things being equal (and that equality involves a lack of said desperation), i would never do the following:

1. shop at walmart if i absolutely didn't HAVE to (i.e., no other store in all of creation within a reasonable radius). i abhor their business practices and am proud to say i haven't been there in more than 10 years.

2. reconnect with a couple of past first dates. but if i did—and it would be by accident—someone would be getting kicked or at the very least told a thing or two. and that someone would NOT be me.

3. give up my american citizenship. i love this country. i could possibly live elsewhere at some point in my life, but i don't ever see myself cutting ties on that 'official' level.

4. shave my head (unless i really had to). i feel that i would not rock the bald look.

5. betray my best friend or let anything happen to her, if i could prevent it. we have been through too much together. she's true family to me. john 3:16, ya dig?

6. go a day without missing my grandfather. he's been gone for 15 years, and my heart still aches to see him again.

7. intentionally travel to certain places in this world. to be quite honest, i don't have a wanderlust that would take me much beyond western europe. and in general, i'd prefer to avoid countries and cultures where women can't speak their mind, walk beside a man, or show their face/hair/skin/etc. that wouldn't work so well for me.

8. order any dish at a restaurant that contained eyeballs, testicles, or other weird and random body parts that probably shouldn't be consumed. i have nothing more to say about that.

9. miss a chance to go to the beach or the mountains. i just love the majesty of God's creation and how small and insignificant i feel standing at the edge of the sea or in the midst of those huge, rocky structures. it puts things in perspective a bit, you know?

10. stop loving peanut butter. people, it's like the elixir of life. 'nuff said.

today's prompt, list 10 things you would never do, brought to you courtesy of katrina.

me on the big screen

2011-12-04T14:17:00.000-05:00

i've been asked before who should play me if someone were ever to make a movie of my life. in truth, i've never answered that question, because i never looked to find a mirror of myself somewhere in hollywood. much of that industry is made of 'the beautiful ones,' and since i don't fit into that physical mold, by most people's standards, the answer has always eluded me.

but today, and only for the reverb broads, i'm asking myself this question, and i gotta say...it's making me think some thoughts.

if i chose someone of a certain type (i.e., thin), people might wonder why i selected an actress who didn't resemble me physically. but if i tried to find someone who looked like me, i knew that, just as off the silver screen, people would tend to focus more on my character's outward appearance than on anything else. because let's be honest: if a movie features an overweight actress, most people discuss that FIRST, even more than the plot or significant themes.

perfect example in the recent past: precious, starring gabourey sidibe. now, this woman played a character who had endured severe trauma at the hands of many abusers, ranging from sexual to emotional abuse, poverty, neglect, etc. and instead of allowing this film to raise their level of consciousness as to the scars that such events leave behind on someone's heart or psyche, many people chose, instead, to comment simply on how fat this woman is. (i'm not even going to go into howard stern and his verbal antics. that man needs to be quiet more often than he speaks. but i digress....)

on a smaller scale, i faced much of this same type of assessment from some of my peers in school. to many, it didn't matter that i was involved in service activities, or that i sang, or that i was nice to others and tried to be a good friend, or that i achieved academically. i was the fat girl. plain and simple. and don't think for a moment that others let even one day go by without letting me know it. one of my crowning moments of awesomeness was during a high school honor roll assembly when a small group of guys in the audience shouted insults at me while i walked across the stage to receive my certificate. my mother was there to celebrate my accomplishments. in the eyes of those assailants—and all those who joined the chorus of laughter—it was simply an opportunity to showcase and ridicule the only thing about me that they ever noticed: my weight.

so, at the end of the day, i would rather people focus on who i really am on the inside if they were to see my story. and i wouldn't want them to be distracted by anything in the main character's physical presence, because my film would be equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking. and i would need someone good, who could really pull it off. i'm thinking a kate winslet type. someone who's smart and funny yet can show her vulnerability. someone who understands pain. someone who won't shy away from a little drama. (she made titanic, so i think she could probably handle me.)

and in the end, my movie would be about hope in the face of despair. about falling down, yes, but about getting up again, and again, and again. about learning to laugh at the absurdity of life, because sometimes that's all there is. about loving who you are, despite those jerks in school. about knowing that just as the darkness is covering today, light will come to bring the truth of tomorrow. and fat or thin, pretty or plain, the main character would be beautiful. because she is.

In the movie version of your life, which actor/actress would play you and the significant players in your life? What kind of movie is it (e.g., made-for-TV, action, emo/indie, etc.)? What would be the major plot points, and how will it end?—from Emily

reverb broads to the rescue?!

2011-12-03T13:48:00.000-05:00

a couple of days ago, i learned about this 'writing challenge,' of sorts, through a dear woman i know. it was just the reminder i needed that i have words inside me that need to come out. i can't promise that they'll all be amazing...or make any sense at all...but i vow to myself that i will let them loose anyway. to let the chips fall where they may and see where i am when the book closes on this year's trip around the sun.

the challenge for today was to talk about whether i've grown up this year or become more of a peter pan type. to be honest, i feel like i've taken one step forward and two steps back, and i'm not sure that much 'growth' was involved. what i have learned, however, is a lesson i feel like i already understood at a young age while watching my mother work herself to the bone: you cannot live to work. you must work so that you can create the life you want for yourself.

(as an aside, now that i think about it, if becoming a peter pan is about avoidance, i can say that it's been ages since i've given my apartment a thorough down-to-the-baseboards cleaning. where is tinkerbell when you need her? i could use a little fairy dust right about now!)

but i digress....

so, to sum up: this year i have allowed dust to gather (literally and figuratively) while focusing on my 'career,' stopped cooking on a regular basis, slept very little (i'm amazed that i'm still functioning), corroded my brain with too much mindless tv, and allowed my creativity to be stifled by exhaustion. in short, i've given the reins to someone (or something) else. and i'm done with that. 2012 is the year of taking things back.

and maybe this little endeavor is step #1 in the right direction....

(December 3 Reverb Broads Prompt: How did you become more of a grown-up this year? Or did you pull a Peter Pan and stubbornly remain childlike?—from Bethany)

nineteen

2011-11-20T22:39:00.001-05:00

from up here, the city shimmers, lights spreading across the horizon like a beacon, welcoming some road-weary traveler home. 10:24 p.m. and i am home, restless as ever, wishing so much for that front porch overlooking the river. the one where i will pour my words out...the ultimate blood-letting, once and for all. there are stories within me, but these days, i pay them no mind.

also flying below the radar? the pale circles under my eyes i cover with make-up, the swollen nerve in my foot, throbbing with every step, the plaque on my molars in need of scraping, my dusty nightstand, the kitchen sink, lacklustre and waterstained.

i have learned how how to become one of those people who works too many hours, who closes off and tamps down, who smiles and moves on. i have learned how to forget. how to unclench the fist. i see now that there is little reward for the efforts on this side of anything.

there is also no rest for the weary. i read it once and know it's true.

i came to this city in need of a voice, in search of freedom. i found it and i gave it away and i took it back again, only to find out that i was who i had always been. tonight i want to pack the bags in my closet and go find my river. the stories have waited long enough. their time has come.

ten years: always remember, never forget

2011-09-11T10:58:00.003-04:00

in my mind, i will always remember that day as the most gorgeous day i'd ever seen...right up until the moment that i got my best friend's phone call. juxtaposed against the crystal blue sky and perfect, cotton-like clouds was the news of planes, of buildings, of people flying to their deaths, of smoke covering a city, of terror, of loss. that day started out like any other and ended in black smoke rising into that perfect sky, in tear-soaked faces, racing hearts, knotted up insides, and nightmares of those planes...and buildings...and the people. God, the people.

when i meet someone new, one of the first things i want to know about them is where they were that day, what was going on in their lives, how they feel they were changed (or not), and whether it turned their road in a different direction. the one thing that seems to join every person's story is that they remember thinking it was the most perfect day. they always mention that blue sky and those beautiful clouds. the irony....how perfection can turn into your worst nightmare in the blink of an eye.

ten years have passed since that day and, as for me, i still cannot be around tall buildings without thinking of destruction and of people jumping. and although i have flown a few times, i still don't like seeing aircraft fly overhead (in the back of my mind, there's always that moment of wondering), and i still think about how many children lost a parent, how many parents lost a child, how many people just never came home from that day.

i would like to think that the sentiment of coming together and holding our loved ones a little tighter would have stuck with us all, but i'm not sure that it really did. other than the inconveniences (which are minor, at best) of not being able to bring shampoo on a plane or of standing in longer security lines and getting a pat down, much about the american way of life went back to 'normal.' on some level, that shows the strength of the human spirit—the ability to move on—but what worries me is that it also shows our collective way of avoiding and glazing over and pushing feelings back into the recesses of our consciousness. please don't get me wrong: i'm not suggesting that everyone should sit around thinking of atrocities all day long, but in life God gives you opportunities to change your way of thinking...to make better decisions...to stop in your tracks, pivot, and head in another direction. and to me, that day was such an opportunity. and, what's more, i worry that, as a nation, we may have missed it.

my hope for this country is that we can seek to put a little of the spirit that emerged (at least for a short time) from that day into our every day. that once another ten years have pased, our politicians would be slightly less of a disappointment to us all because maybe, just maybe, they'd really work for the common good rather than greed or power or personal gain. that more communities would band together and put an end to some of the day-to-day evils that plague our cities and towns. that more parents would come home for dinner with their kids, insist that the video games and tv shows be turned off, and that there would be real dialogue about feelings and thoughts and what it means to be a loving person. and that really, at the heart of it all, there would be fewer and fewer reasons for the people who plot these devastations to continue their quest to destroy us. i'm not so naive as to believe there will never be conflict in the world, but i'm also a big believer in not inviting it upon yourself if it's within your power to control on any level.

these may be pipe dreams, but as a citizen of this country, i have a part to play. we all do. it's our responsibility to live the kind of life that makes us worthy of respect. it's our calling to lay down our lives for one another and to love from the heart. and it's our job to remember those who have given something up for the freedoms that are in no way 'free.' and beyond all, to those who left our american 'community' that day because of the choices of others, we must keep their memories alive. they are the friends we never got the chance to know, the lives cut short along the journey to something greater. i carry them all in my heart, from that day until now.

and with my tears and my laughter and the life that i lead, i will never forget.

a near miss

2011-09-04T11:19:00.000-04:00

it's sunday morning, the last day of the grand prix here in baltimore (thank you, God!), and the birthday of my illustrious, fabulous, and in all ways hilarious bff. for the first time in about 3 years, i am NOT sick on her birthday - which i feel is some sort of grand feat for me, i must say. i'm not sure what it is about labor day that seems to curse me each year, but i normally come down with some type of upper respiratory funk that leaves me knocked out and in no way social for the better part of 3 weeks.

despite some mild feelings of impending influenza on friday, i've managed to hold myself together for the last two days and have fortified my strength through sleeping in and doing absolutely nothing. so much so, that i now feel nearly ready to brave the wilds of my currently noisy city and seek out my first brunch in weeks. special occasions must be upheld, no? and a birthday of my 'more sister to me than any sister has ever been' friend is just such an event.

who knows what madcap fun will ensue after bacon is munched and brunch cocktails drunk (hers, not mine)? methinks a trip to the suburbs may be in order...although that seems so...pedantic just now. truthfully, i am without fundage to do something actually fun these days, and if there's one thing i know, it's that most things enjoyable cost money...if not the doing, then the getting there and back.

ah well. i have my moments of creativity. perhaps a hot, soapy shower will inspire me to think outside the realm of my (nearly empty) wallet and put me in a mindset more worthy of today's festivities. once again, i am not in bed with a fever, so i'm heading in the right direction. and besides, there is bacon to be had and a bff to celebrate, and who am i to pass up such an opportunity?

in all seriousness

2011-08-11T21:46:00.001-04:00

so, it's thursday and i should be enjoying watching my ravens in their first pre-season game against the eagles, but instead, i'm fuming and too distracted to watch football. thank God for DVR; otherwise, i'd be in a heap of trouble.

i don't normally discuss my personal life too much around these parts, but suffice it to say that i abhor being lied to - particularly by people i find highly enjoyable. the reasons for this may be obvious:

being lied to is just lame.
for someone i previously found highly enjoyable, i can no longer feel that way about him/her because, well, he/she is now a LIAR.
i have very little free time on my hands these days, and why, exactly, should i waste it paying any attention to someone who has been untruthful when i am just being me? i find wasting my care and affection for others to be just cardinal in the 'relational sin' department.

anyhoo, there you have it. nothing earth shattering, but i can say this: there is a reason that i keep my cards VERY close to the chest with most people these days. and isn't that a shame?

both sides now

2011-08-03T18:12:00.010-04:00

most people who have known me for years also know that i am a singer. music was my first love, before all else, and i am sure that it will be one of the last things with me in this life (i've just always felt this would be so). part of the reason i've always connected so much with music was not just for the melodic progressions, the disarming weight of certain notes or harmonies, but because of the lyrical poetry that often accompanies those strung-together sounds.

and cheesily enough, although i know my heart has some type of song in it, i have realized, over the years, that it is the words that light me up the most. over time, song after song has captured my affections and gotten me all twitterpated and obsessed and wrung out with sorrow and joy and a million feelings in between. two summers ago, for example, i was completely over the moon about maxwell's 'pretty wings'...so much so that i'm pretty sure i wore my best friend's eardrums out playing it over and over (and OVER) every chance i got.

but some songs just fit your life, for one reason or another, and they never grow old, never fade from view, wind up on every mix or playlist for every party, event, or 'just because.' and one of the songs that has me swooning this summer (and every time i hear it, in fact) is joni mitchell's remake of her classic 'both sides now.' to be sure, the aging songbird's voice no longer carries the chipper and clear-as-a-bell tone of her earlier folk songstress days. now, it is wavering and smoky, hovering on the border between learned and melancholy, and just plain rife with years of love and pain. the retrospection in each note just slays me. i believe her when she says that she's looked at life from both sides now...and i feel like i hear some regret in that looking back. and what's more, i know it for myself.

rows and flows of angel hair
and ice cream castles in the air
and feather canyons everywhere
i've looked at clouds that way

but now they only block the sun
they rain and snow on everyone
so many things i would have done
but clouds got in my way
i've looked at clouds from both sides now

from up and down, and still somehow
it's cloud illusions I recall
i really don't know clouds at all

moons and junes and ferris wheels
the dizzy dancing way you feel
as ev'ry fairy tale comes real
i've looked at love that way

but now it's just another show
you leave 'em laughing when you go
and if you care, don't let them know
don't give yourself away

i've looked at love from both sides now
from give and take, and still somehow
it's love's illusions i recall
i really don't know love at all

tears and fears and feeling proud
to say "i love you" right out loud
dreams and schemes and circus crowds
i've looked at life that way

but now old friends are acting strange
they shake their heads, they say i've changed
well something's lost, but something's gained
in living every day

i've looked at life from both sides now
from win and lose and still somehow
it's life's illusions i recall
i really don't know life at all
i've looked at life from both sides now
from up and down, and still somehow
it's life's illusions i recall
i really don't know life at all

by joni mitchell © 1969

a re-turning

2011-08-02T18:11:00.000-04:00

summer has thoroughly taken hold, and i'm pretty sure it's been in the 90s nearly every day for the last 6 weeks. and if it hasn't, it certainly feels that way. correct me if i'm wrong, but i feel like it really is getting hotter around here (and by 'around here,' i mean the world). summers as a kid never felt this stifling....

now then, as to why i have been virtually silent for some time now, i can only say that my work is taking all the life out of me by day's end to the point that all i want to do is watch mindless tv and think about sleep. that, and i actually have too many thoughts in my head to do any writing, if that makes any sense. it's like the energy it would take to wrangle those wayward ideas into a sensible post is beyond my weary-ness after i've been out in the world of the working mundane....

but two days off from the rat race has given me a smidge of fresh perspective, and suddenly this afternoon, i felt like putting fingers to keyboard again. in doing so, i'm feeding my soul just a little bit...and i'm hoping that if i can do even just these small things—maybe one each day—i can start to carve out a space again in my own life. i cannot tell you how much i am in need of something more...something beyond; it occurred to me today that i must do everything in my power to give myself that gift.

so, to that end, here are some thoughts (in no particular order):

1. i have this secret craft project i started about 2 years ago that i need to finish. i'm going to do that by the fall. and that's that.
2. i need to start writing again...for me. whether the world sees it via the internets, or it stays on my hard drive somewhere, i have to get these thoughts out of my head. retrospect, after all, is the greatest teacher.
3. once every month or two, i want to treat maxwell (my current jetta) to a car wash. seeing him shine makes me as giddy as a school girl.
4. i also must make time to wander through stores or other places that have lovely things. even if i don't buy anything, it inspires me to see beauty in design, decor, and the shiny newness of 'stuff'—although the stuff itself isn't really the point.
5. i need to get out of dodge more often. a drive into the countryside, a stop at a roadside store for a drink or some garden-grown veggies, the smell of hay and grass and earth, the sight of mountains - these things refresh and rejuvenate me.
6. i will reunite with the ocean before the first frost. the vastness of that briny deep reminds me how simultaneously small and big my life is.
7. i must keep reading fiction. a well-turned phrase can be more nourishing than any fine meal.
8. sleep. enough said.
9. technology, while fantastic in so many ways, sucks the life out of a person. i need better balance for myself. my future depends on it, i feel.
10. my interior life has suffered from a clog of late. the aforementioned rat race and inability to turn off my laden mind has resulted in a lack of gratitude and, at times, a focus on things that have no real significance when you get down to it. it's too easy to forget that reflection in the mirror. i yearn for quiet these days...in all aspects of my existence.

in sum, i feel like i've been on vacation from myself, somehow, and that someone else has been calling the shots in my day-to-day...and i don't like it. it's got to stop. time is, literally, a'wasting....

so that's that. from here, i turn again. i re-turn. return to me.

in between asleep and more asleep

2011-05-16T20:38:00.000-04:00

last night i dreamed about contingency plans and ideas gone awry. it was like one thing after another spiraling out of control. and in the middle of it, i had this very lucid thought that it was not unlike my waking life.

hmm.

the disconnect

2011-05-14T23:43:00.000-04:00

some days i forget who i am, i think. i get up, i shower, get dressed, go to work, come home, and try to stay awake until bedtime. wash, rinse, repeat. every day feels the same as the last and before i know it, two months...two years...are gone.

so the question i'm constantly asking myself (yet feeling too tired to answer, it seems) is this: how do i keep being me while dealing with the demands of the rest of life? how do i make the time to write and cook and sing and do the things that make me happy when i feel so freaking tired all the time?

i'm starting to wonder if i should abandon electronics for the next six months in order to get more in touch with my surroundings. but then as soon as i think that, i realize how some days my only connection with the outside world is through facebook or e-mail or a simple text message. it would be like cutting off my oxygen, right?... right?

i don't know anymore. i really don't.

there are wonderful things about the internet, cable tv, ipods, smart phones, and the like, but they also serve to distract and suck me into a vortex and keep me at arms' length. even from myself.

there must be balance. somewhere in between the vortex and utter techno-avoidance is where i want to fall, ultimately. now if i can just figure out how to make that work, i'll be getting somewhere....

spring can really hang you up the most....

2011-04-17T17:23:00.000-04:00

spring has officially sprung, with all its weird weather and allergy-inducing air pollutants. living downtown, i don't get as much pollen, but i can attest that geography doesn't help as much as it could with allergies when you're living here in the midatlantic. oh well, some cocktail of claritin, zyrtec, and singulair should help my sneezy, itchy, wheezy self (i hope).

i recently bought a new computer and, as a result, am in the process of not only relocating all of my electronic files but my 'paper' files as well (in addition to my desk, printer, and other such nonsense). there's no time like the present to do a bit of purging, i say.

what this has meant, though, is weeks and weeks of disarray and piles of 'stuff' waiting to be filed, organized, trashed, etc., and i gotta say - it's messing with my sense of equilibrium. and for someone who's in the state i'm already in, that's not exactly helpful.

but i must plow ahead nevertheless. once begun is half done; the busy bee hath no time for sorrow; you know the drill....

yeah, so all of this is great in theory, but then there are the two hours i got sidetracked re-reading old journal entries from 2000, and the four hours i got sidetracked playing a game on my new computer; and the...well, you get the drift. the bottom line is that i'm procrastinating, ok?

so it's nearly dinner time, and my office is still a mess, but now i'm also grumpy and feeling like i wish i'd never started in on the project. i'm fairly certain those people with the bonfire theory of dealing with old stuff are onto something.

i'm going to go drink some water and read my nook, or something else equally as diverting. so much for spring cleaning....

oh how i long to be thee, rip van winkle

2011-03-20T15:29:00.000-04:00

all day long, i have drifted in and out of the transom of sleep and wakefulness. although my eyes are open, my brain feeds simultaneously on external stimuli and subconscious fodder. i am alert and dreaming. it is not necessarily the best place to be on a sunday afternoon.

tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, there are meetings to attend and spreadsheets to update and questions to answer. and i am ready to do all of the above. really, i am.

but right now, i just want to let myself fall into soft pillows, to crawl under cool sheets, soaked in sunlight, and sleep until there are no more dreams to be had.

good God, how i have waited for rest. how i wait, even still.

a pre-new year's to-do list

2010-12-28T13:05:00.000-05:00

now that christmas is over (and it was wonderful, btw: filled with lots of relaxing, cookie-baking, puzzle-doing, laughing with my parents, and generally spending time feeling thankful for the richly provided-for life i lead), i have a week off to enjoy before returning to work. i'm on day 2, and i've done, sadly, nothing yet, except go to the car dealership for two hours this morning so they could replace a blown fuse and check my bluetooth). i'm feeling the need to get productive, though, so that i don't entirely waste this free time....

in no particular order, here are the things i want to accomplish sometime this week:

1. visit with the extended family (this will be accomplished later today)
2. dust and vacuum my entire apartment
3. clean both bathrooms, particularly mine
4. do a pantry 'cleansing' to prepare for #5
5. meal plan and prepare as many meals as possible for the coming weeks
6. grocery shop (see #5)
7. work on a top-secret craft project
8. put away my few christmas decorations: baby tree, snowman chef ornaments, lights (although i might wait until the week after new year's, since i really am enjoying the lights)
9. back up computer files to external hard drive
10. go through some of my bajillion magazines to either give away or recycle
11. make some merry for new year's eve
12. take my laptop to geek squad and figure out if i can afford to have someone fix it!

a dozen seems like a good place to stop. no need to get myself completely overwhelmed. although, while i'm at it, here are some longer range goals for 2011:

1. go through cookbook collection and make some decisions about which ones can go their merry way (sell online or at ukazoo, donate to friends)
2. procure a newer printer/scanner
3. really organize my files by creating digital copies of must-save items (see #2) and purge, purge, purge what i don't have to keep
4. read down the stack of books waiting for my busy eyeballs
5. watch less tv, for crying out loud
6. get back together with the gym
7. get back together with WW
8. buy some new clothes (long overdue)
9. send more snail mail or donate stationery to someone who will use it!
10. pare down unused items (including books)
11. soak in my tub more so i can use my lavendar-chamomile bubble bath
12. fight the winter blahs with more herbal tea and invigorating salt scrubs
13. find some volunteer opportunities (and maybe invite friends to join?)
14. figure out whether to move or stay put
15. plan a trip somewhere fun

hmm....this is a good start. i'm sure that more will come to me as the months wear on. i feel like none of these goals are unreasonable, so i have no reason not to end 2011 feeling accomplished.

i'm trying to set myself up for success in 2011. 2010 brought its highs and lows (probably more highs than lows, if i'm looking at things objectively), but i'm ready for another level of awesomeness. so, welcome, new year. better days are ahead. i just know it.

'like the corners of my mind....'

2010-11-20T11:17:00.000-05:00

this morning i had to sort through some boxes of cards and photos to locate a baby pic or two to take with me to a shower i'm attending today. and as i was sifting through all these treasures, i found some cards from my grandparents, notes from old friends, and the hundreds of things my best friend has written me over the years. and i couldn't help but feel overwhelmed with the love contained inside those cardboard structures. i was also reminded, unfortunately, of how much i've lost...of how some of those people whose handwriting graces birthday cards or whose faces smile in pictures are no longer in this world. my grandpa al, my grandma jane, my friend polly...i shed tears for them all this morning.

and then there are people with whom i've sort of lost touch. i mean, i know where in the world they are, but our lives have taken different paths. this is the case, really, with a number of friends whose memories line those boxes. and the whole experience had me thinking....can you ever really go back?

i've made efforts over time to keep in touch with various people—and really, facebook has helped me to reconnect with a lot of people from my younger days—but the daily grind kicks back in so quickly and it's really, really hard to sustain those connections beyond something utterly superficial. and in truth, i think we're not really meant to turn around. life is lived in forward motion. if one chooses to interact with people from the past, it has to be about who they are NOW, not who they were then. and what i've learned is that some of us have never really grown up much. i see the faces of people who are still clinging to their teenage selves, still drinking like they're in college, still trying to avoid their own realities. and as much as i get that, on some level, i just can't be there.

no, see, i'm done pretending the way that 18-year-old me used to feel she had to do in order to get by. i'm done living in a big game of charades and comedy sketches, and 'what would you really think of me if you knew what i was thinking'-type scenarios. i prefer to look you in the eye and just be me, unabashed. and the me that i am now might not be super palatable to some people who've called me 'friend' over the years. i mean, sure, i haven't turned into a jerk or anything, but i've also come to this place where i no longer feel the need to live up to others' expectations. and some of my more zealous ways have been tempered into something a bit more...well....reasonable for me and where i live my life these days.

so while it's lovely and heartwarming (and, at times, sad) to sift through what i was and where i went and who i was with, i want to see what today will bring...what memories there are to be made in THIS space, at THIS time, with the beautiful people around me. and i welcome tomorrow with open arms and the hope that my future 'looking backs' will find much sweetness and very little sorrow. for now, though, head up, eyes open. onward....

'n-y-c, what is it about you?'

2010-11-11T17:37:00.000-05:00

tomorrow morning, i board a bus for the big apple. no, not to go catch my big break...just a weekend away visiting good friends. i must say, i'm a little anxious about it, though. sure, i live in a city, but it's not THE city....the raucous, unforgiving, overblown streets of manhattan that swallow you up and spit you out all at once. baltimore is much more of an underdog's kind of town. and i'm beginning to think that i am the consummate underdog....

anyway, i digress.

i have a couple of goals: have great hang time with my peops, enjoy a couple days out of dodge, see something(s) beautiful, and eat something(s) delish. this shouldn't be too hard, i'm thinking.

the truth is, though, i wish i were brave enough to go to that town and sink or swim for a year or so. but i'm not sure that i am. i'm not sure whether the salient point is that new york is too much for me, or i'm not enough for new york. either way, i'll board the bus and do my thing, and then i'll board it home again.

wish me luck.

the return of fall (and me)

2010-11-08T21:20:00.000-05:00

gee, golly, it's been awhile. i'm still here. really, i am. in fact, i've started and abandoned no fewer than five blog posts over the last two months. let's see if this one sticks, shall we?

too much to chronicle of what's been going on, so i'll just pick up from today and head forward. work has been insanely busy. my personal life has been equally so, and i'm trying to mentally prepare for a weekend away in NYC ('what is it about you?' kudos to you if you know where that comes from....). i'm super excited to be staying with two dear friends, but i'm also feeling a little overwhelmed at, well, how big that city is and how much there is to DO. i think what i need to do is take all the pressure off of myself to find 'fun' and just remember that i'm there to enjoy the company. besides, i'm too exhausted to exhaust myself further (and then have to start back up at work on monday morning)....

which leads me to my next thought: all i want is some uninterrupted time alone to sleep and just be. i cannot believe that christmas is a mere six weeks away, and all i find myself asking is where the heck has the fall gone??

with the hectic pace of the day-to-day, there seems to be less and less time for enjoying just being in the city right now. on friday, the simple pleasure of walking home from jury duty astounded me with the awareness that i'm never just out and about in the streets, interacting with the wind and the smells and the sounds of life around me. i need more humanity in my day....in my life....

for now, though, i'll settle for some mindless tv, a glass of icy cold water, and the hope of pleasant dreams to carry me into tuesday.

enter illness, stage left....

2010-09-10T19:28:00.000-04:00

weeks of working too hard and too much and not getting enough sleep finally took their toll on me. late last week i woke up with a sore throat and, within 3 days, had a bad chest cold/bronchitis. i've been diligently resting and staying home, doing very little (i spent all of labor day weekend/salimah's birthday in bed, in fact), and i'm finally starting to get some energy back. as i've been doped up on codeine, it seems the world has continued on its merry way, and i gotta say—i'm not enjoying feeling so disconnected from my life and from other people.

but, despite all of this, i'm at home on a friday night doing laundry, working, and trying to rest up as much as possible. one week from tomorrow i leave for the ocean, and it pretty much can't come soon enough. i am LONG overdue for some time out of dodge and i'm hoping the sound of the waves will give me some much-needed perspective.

between now and then, there are miles to go....and with that, the dryer just buzzed. there's my cue!

1,464

2010-09-01T20:00:00.000-04:00

is the number of e-mails i deleted today in honor of september 1, 2005. and boy, let me tell you, did it feel GOOD.

onward!

'the answer, my friend....'

2010-08-30T19:53:00.000-04:00

at the risk of baring my soul here, i have to take a moment and speak 'aloud' (a.k.a. fingers to keyboard) some truths that have been gradually surfacing in my mind and, therefore, my life. see, for a long time now, i was kind of shut down to my own emotions about certain areas of my life, because, quite honestly, it was easier to 'go there' than to feel the disappointment in its place. work has been busy with new challenges and opportunities, and i didn't have to try that hard to dig in and give myself the space to pursue my career, all the while knowing that there were parts of my life that were getting no air time. to be honest, this wasn't ideal for me, but the relative barrenness of my social landscape seemed to create the opportunity for a time of pulling back.

well, i had that time, and i was grateful for it, in a way, because it was very clarifying for me. and as a result, i came to a few conclusions.

first (and foremost), i am ready for a great adventure, whatever that may mean. in a conversation with a friend recently, i was mentioning some aspect of a past relationship that had always frustrated me, and the other person said, quite plainly, 'it doesn't sound like you're past all of that.' this statement caused me to sit back for a second and listen to those words i had just spoken and ask myself how they must have sounded coming out of my mouth. and i realized in that moment that my friend's statement wasn't the truth. the truth was that i hadn't changed the way i was talking about the situation, even though my feelings had changed.

this small kernel of awareness began to enlighten other areas of my thinking and made me realize that, in the area of relationships, i have been feeling more and more ready to be out there, to give and receive the love i've got inside of me, but hadn't yet said it to myself, to God, to the vast unknown.

so last week, i was in my car late in the evening, driving down the dirty, barren streets of my city, and i just began to speak my own truth out loud. i can't say that i was entirely praying, but i can't say that i wasn't. i just knew that everything inside of me - my fears and hopes and intentions - needed to come out and be given the air time they deserved. and the most important outcome of all of this is not so much that my world turned on a dime, but that i began to really open up, more expectant of and ready to receive all the beauty and love and good things that can come my way. (and, by extension, that anything UNhelpful can go....)

this has clearly been a long time coming and it couldn't have happened at a better moment in the grand scheme of things. a couple of weeks ago, i posted as my facebook status that i am 'open to possibility.' well, i just AM, and since cracking open the door to my heart, i am here to say that i have already noticed a shift in the wind....

methinks it's time to let my hair down....

tap.... tap.... is this thing on?

2010-08-25T23:17:00.000-04:00

it is now, officially, safe to assume that no one is reading my blog anymore. it's just as well, though, because i probably have a few things to say that most people don't need to read....then again, that's a topic for another day.

in the meantime, here i am, standing on the cusp of the end of summer...the end of fetid and stifling and all things sweat-inducing. frankly, as hard as this past winter was, i welcome the onslaught of chilly nights and leaves strewn across roadways and all the 'stuff' that fall conjures up.

so with all of the anticipation of good things (including a LONG overdue vacation, less than a month away), i find myself also sitting here with a pile of feelings i don't know what to do with. all i know is that i'm trying to be open to whatever God has for me right now...to whatever life is throwing in my direction...yet at the same time, i find myself wondering just what is it that i'm being open FOR?

the answer will come in due time, i know, but right now there are simply questions.

i will say this, however: i sure would love to have someone to share the glory of fall with me this year. it might make some of the questions a little easier to answer...or maybe not worth answering at all.

we'll see....

summer treats

2010-07-18T14:52:00.001-04:00

after days on end of brutal heat, i am (not that) happy to report that i have neither heat rash nor sunburn. in fact, i've been staying inside as much as possible; the heat is simply too asthma-inducing and, therefore, something i avoid. besides, i hate to sweat.

now then, aside from this brief weather report, i must take a moment and recount the last couple weeks of my life. first, my 35th bday celebration kicked off the day before with an after-work happy hour at diablita with a few girlfriends and some dangerously delish cocktails (caipirinhas and blood orange margaritas) and burritos.

my birthday proper, july 1, i spent at work, although i confess i wasn't quite as productive as i might normally be (can you blame me? i was giving out birthday tattoos to my coworkers, and it caused quite a stir). my friend k. took me to lunch at lebanese taverna, where i was serenaded over baklava, and gave me a lovely purple aster (which, i am sad to say, celebrated independence day by dying in the sunlight). after work, i ran home to change and pick up salimah, and we made our way up to the city cafe for dinner with friends. there was kazoo playing, drinking of more delish cocktails (something with coconut, a cosmojito, and probably something else i don't remember), and eating of these lovely numbers:

lobster nuggets in a honey-mustard butter sauce

petit filet mignon stack with tomato tart, pesto potato gratin, caramelized onions, and a red wine demi glace

dear heaven, that food was delicious. oh, and did i mention the kazoo playing? oh yes....and michael jackson songs, no less! i won't provide the incriminating evidence (this is the internet, after all), but suffice it to say that two of my friends should go on the road with their 'thriller' dance-kazoo routine!

after dessert (can you say italian lemon cake and heath bar bread pudding??), my bed was singing the siren song, so salimah and i made our way back to my place to get some much-needed shut eye.

friday we found ourselves wandering fells point, where we had lunch at shuckers right on the water.

after lunch was a bit of shopping at the silver shop and williams-sonoma (danger zone!) and then an attempt at free birthday cupcakes at the tremont grand cafe (shot down).

we did, however, get some latte beverages and a moldy truffle or two:

then, saturday night, i had a game night at my place with a few friends. we had fun appetizer-y food and a basket-o-prizes:

we even played pin the tail on the donkey! some people were more random about it, while my friend k. took a more scientific approach:

there was a rousing game of taboo, sarah-related trivia questions, present-opening, and much laughter and making of merry:

all told, it was all the things i love best: good friends, good food, lots of laughter, a bit of madcap adventure, one of the best birthdays i've had in recent years. i'm so thankful for all my friends who came out, sent me messages online or through snail mail, and generally jumped in with both feet to my age-appropriate birthday whimsy. i couldn't think of a better way to kick off my 36th year of life.

so, here i am, more than halfway through july, and my biggest wish for the rest of this summer is that i really seize opportunities to let my hair down, so to speak. life is whizzing by these days, and it's so much richer to careen through it with people you love. that's the greatest gift.

this just in....

2010-06-19T08:10:00.000-04:00

it's gearing up to be a scorcher this weekend; i can feel it. in fact, the forecast for tomorrow is a blazing 97 degrees! how is it possible that my average body temperature (which doesn't feel particularly hot to me), when applied to the outside of my body, makes me feel like i'm going to die? strange....

anyway, i woke up early this morning despite being quite exhausted and am trying to gear up the urge as we speak to finish cleaning my bathroom before my day is fully underway. i also just realized i need to go to the post office to put a large package in the mail (return of some catalog clothes shopping gone awry), so if i'm being particularly productive, perhaps (alliteration!) i will get that done before my saturday brunch date with s & c.

in other news, my 35th birthday is less than two weeks away, and because this is a big one for me, i'm finding myself more reflective than usual. i have some thoughts to share on the matter of celebrating this particular birthday, but they will have to wait until there are no sinks and tubs to scour.

so that's it, i'm afraid. nothing special. nothing of consequence. nothing worthy of the title of this blog post. but at least i'm writing. it's a start.

bmore. be more.

2010-05-29T23:10:00.000-04:00

it's been almost two months since i moved into my new apartment, and i've been trying to give myself the room to bond with my space, my neighborhood, my new understanding of life from the 19th floor. i'll be honest, though—it's been really challenging for me to connect lately. i'm not sure if it's because my mind is awash with projects and deadlines and schedules, or whether this change has shaken me up enough that i simply cannot yet adjust, but i've felt so transient and disconnected over the last 7 weeks. it's enough to drive a girl a little crazy.

within the last week, though, things have begun to shift a bit. last weekend, i walked up charles for a mini street fair, and i was loving just being out and about, smelling and seeing and feeling everything around me. and last night, salimah came over and we walked to a local pub up the block, and as i sat there taking in the conversations and smiling giddily at the waiter (i'm sorry, but he was a smidge adorable), i realized something: this is my neighborhood. mine. i LIVE here.

so now it's saturday night, and i've just had a day out gallivanting around the city i call home, eating and drinking (caipirinha, anyone??) and shopping and wandering, and now i'm back in my quiet, cozy apartment, and i just feel grateful. for all of it, really, but mostly for the shift that has occurred in my life to bring me to this place. it has thrust me out of the rut i was in (geographically, anyway) and made me uncomfortable enough that i'm starting to wake up and remember all the things i haven't been doing lately. like feeling anything deeply.

suddenly, i'm experiencing emotions that have been lying dormant—some good and some not so great—and i'm realizing that my life, as cher horowitz would say, is screaming for a makeover. if there's anything living downtown has reminded and inspired me to do, it is to give my love and life away again. every time i've been in a place where my soul seems shallow and stagnant, i need only to look outside myself, to start serving others and giving joy and sustenance to people i may never meet face to face, and suddenly the world around me is vibrant once again.

as someone who believes in God, i cannot live my life stowed away in my 19th floor 'tower,' looking down on all that lies around me and failing to get dirt on my shoes and the smell of the city in my hair. there is so much humanity down on those streets, and i want to be part of it. i'm not quite sure what this means yet, but somehow, i will stretch myself...become uncomfortable so that someone else can have a better life.

i was reminded recently that loving others isn't something you can do with restraint. it's either go big or go home in matters of the heart. i have always known this, but day-to-day life has taught me to hold it back for fear of overwhelming another. to be careful, just in case that love isn't returned. well, you know what? i don't care anymore. if people can't deal with my heart, then so be it.

all i know is that, for the time being, i call this city home. and i love it. i love being here. i love the crazy people who talk to themselves, the ridiculously friendly waiters at my favorite haunts, the snarky older dude i always ride the elevator with, the woman working in my garage who nearly breaks her back every morning just to stick her head out the window and wave at me, the tired-faced people walking home from work just as i'm leaving to go to my job, the traffic, the ball games, the fireworks, the police on their segways, the steam pouring out of the gutters, the church bells pealing, the screech of the lightrail, the sun setting over the abandoned buildings every evening.

this is my underdog city, the place where my heart first opened up and started to really take the world in. and in all of my uncertainty and fears and hopes, my arms—and eyes—are open up here on the 19th floor. my heart is ready to connect again...to do and feel and be more. so get ready, baltimore. i'm really just getting started with you....

Son.rise.

2010-04-04T11:25:00.000-04:00

the sun shining through my window this morning woke me before i could force my eyelids open. it has always seemed fitting that easter morning should burst forth with sunshine. it is all of creation shouting, 'He is risen!'

i've been giving a bit of thought of late to my ongoing church conundrum, and i've decided that once i move to my new apartment, i am going to visit the episcopal church just across the street. i love the thought of being able to walk to church the same way my family did when i was a little girl living in allentown, pa. but even more, in times of frustration and uncertainty about modern evangelicalism (and believe me, there have been many), the traditions of my upbringing have brought me much comfort and a way to experience God in a familiar way but with a heart that understands those prayers and hymns more than i did back then.

as a child, i grew familiar with the tunes, the words, the kneeling and the standing up, and it meant something then. it did. but i was without the experience of a heart converted by the living God. i thought we were all participating in an event. i didn't realize that He was there, rejoicing right along with us. on some level, i believed that the words in the scriptures were true, but i had yet to experience the way that those words breathe life into a soul and etch themselves into your heart. i flitted along, unaware of His plan for my life and the truth that would begin to unfurl in front of my eyes at the age of 18.

so now i find myself, on the verge of 35, wondering where it is in the church-on-earth that i belong. i know that my ultimate home is with God Himself, but i find that so many of my experiences have pushed me farther and farther to the perimeter of most people's understanding of 'modern-day christianity.' and you know, i'm finding myself okay with being there on that fringe, because the last time i checked, there was room at the table for people who don't have it all figured out.

if anything, my lack of understanding means that i'm still wanting to know Him. my unwillingness to simply follow the pack and read the books and listen to the music and do what others are doing doesn't mean that i've 'fallen away'; it means that i'm on my journey. and the finish line is God Himself.

this easter brings with it much sweet and very little bitter. i'm not sitting in a pew in a church this morning, but the living God is here with me, rejoicing over me with song (zeph 3:17). and later, i will go spend time with others who also call His name. and we will break bread together and remember and express our gratitude for the truth that binds us all together. if good friday has taught me anything, it's that it's always darkest just before the dawn.

happy easter.

if easter means anything to modern man, it means that eternal truth is eternal.
you may nail it to the tree, wrap it up in grave clothes, and seal it in a tomb;
but truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again.
truth does not perish; it cannot be destroyed.
it may be distorted; it has been silenced temporarily;
it has been compelled to carry its cross to calvary's brow
or to drink the cup of poisoned hemlock in a grecian jail,
but with an inevitable certainty
after every black friday dawns truth's easter morn.
- donald harvey tippet

at home

2010-04-03T09:06:00.000-04:00

upon waking up this morning, the first thought on my mind was wow, this is my last saturday here. last night, salimah and crystal brought some dinner over and as we sat amidst my boxes and feasted on mari luna, salimah remarked that this would likely be the last time she ever stepped foot in this place i've called home for the last six and a half years.

that reality struck me rather hard in that moment. believe me, i'm excited to be moving forward, and i'm super thankful that a number of logistical things have arranged themselves so that i might do just that, but there is always a tinge of sadness in any closed door, no matter how ready you are to close it.

when i think about who i was when i first walked into this apartment in the fall of 2003, i feel astonished at how much has happened since then...and amazed at the faces who have walked in—and out—of my life. the weekend i moved in, i was filled with so much hope for all that lay ahead of me and a sense of accomplishment for all that i had done to get me here. i was in my 20s, for crying out loud!

now, i find myself in that same place—only farther down this road and with my eyes a bit more focused and my heart more open and yet more guarded all at once. in short, i've grown up. living here has given me the space to create a real home. for a long time, i thought maybe i was making that home for another person, but what i've learned is that i needed to find that place inside of me. and i have. i'm much more secure now in who i am, in what i want, in where i'm going. i'm not afraid of being abandoned, of being rejected, of being left behind. i learned that no matter the circumstances, i have a choice in the matter, always. and my choice now is to move on and not look back.

the other night, i dreamed that someone i used to know and love told me something about himself that i had been waiting to hear for years. and when he said it in the dream (though it was not good news, per se, and was said with a kind of hostility), i felt so relieved. so relieved, in fact, that i woke up almost wishing we could have had that conversation years ago.

what that dream said to me, though, more than anything, is that life is too short not to say what you mean...even if what you mean is what no one else wants to hear. there is still a kind of relief in knowing the truth, regardless of how bitter that pill is to swallow.

and my truth is that i have no regrets, about anything. i still believe in God, but i also believe more than ever in what He has placed in me and the mind and heart and will He has given me to make my choices. i am where i am now, and i know that it's time for me to close this door and open the next one. and more than that, i am ready to make new adventures and see new things in my city for as long as i am called to be here. but wherever i am and whoever is with me, i am at home now. i am my home.

breathe in. breathe out.

2010-03-29T21:15:00.000-04:00

it's monday all over again, and this rainy, foggy day has brought with it a true mixture of all things human.

first, a bit of sad news....it's taken me a few days to process this, but eva markvoort, the author of one of the blogs i've read faithfully for some time, passed away this past saturday after a long and inspiring journey with cystic fibrosis.

this girl was just a light to the world; there is no getting around it. she was one of those people God sends to earth to remind the rest of us how much of the good stuff we're missing on a daily basis. her joy was infectious, and i found myself feeling almost jealous of her family and friends for getting to hang out with her. couldn't we all use more than a little 'eva' in our daily lives??

for anyone who needs a reality check, i would encourage you to go back and peruse some of her writings...to think about all this girl went through and how she did it with so much grace and honesty. really, it's staggering.

she hoped for a legacy, and based on the number of people who have been touched by her life and the way she lived and loved and gave of herself, i'd say she more than accomplished that.

aside from the sorrow of eva's passing, i was also given a gift today of getting to spend the early evening with a dear friend and colleague. we share so many commonalities, and she is so nurturing and caring (and just a great, great person), it's a true blessing to get to work with her on a regular basis. over dinner, we had some really nourishing conversation—well beyond the meaningless chit-chat that plagues so many social interactions. i left feeling refreshed and thankful...and hopeful for the next time she's in town so we can visit again!

it seems that so many people i know are making great strides in their lives these days...shifting priorities and taking steps forward. it's inspiring, really, and it sets into sharper relief the unwillingness of others to make a decision to live out their truth—no matter what it is.

life is really such a fleeting thing....

now, i know that one could look at that statement from a 'glass-half-empty' type of perspective, but i choose to see it as a rare and precious opportunity to make different choices. to right the wrongs. to say 'i love you.' to try and fail and try again. to take bigger risks and stretch the boundaries of what makes you comfortable. to jump off that ledge, trusting that the net will be there to catch you.

there are a limited number of breaths left in this life. and some of us, like eva, aren't even given the ability to take those breaths without great effort and sacrifice. for me, there is no excuse not to breathe life in deeply...no excuse to live anything other than my best life...no time to live it without meaning and purpose. and the same holds true for us all.

so, eva, with thanks in my heart for all that you've taught me, this next deep breath is just for you:)....

'all my bags are packed; i'm ready to go'...well, almost

2010-03-20T19:49:00.000-04:00

the day is fast approaching when i will bid farewell to my humble abode and take up residence in a 'dee-luxe apartment in the skyyyyyy' (a.k.a. downtown high-rise). i've scheduled the mover, reserved the loading dock at the new place, signed my lease, and packed up about half my stuff so far, and next weekend, my mom will come to help me mostly finish the job. times, they are a-changin', and despite the risks and unknowns, i feel largely good about it.

i've never handled goodbyes very well, though, i admit. i'm a nostalgic soul, and my heart has always yearned to make and keep connections. even though i'm feeling very ready to move on from this place i've called home for the last 6 1/2 years, there is a part of me that will miss the quirky little things about this place, and i'm sure when i close the front door for the final time, i'll feel that all-too-familiar pull.

when i was a kid, we moved around more than i would have liked, and although my adult mind can understand now why, at times, that was a necessity, my kid brain comprehended it as a complete affront to all that i knew. i remember throwing a veritable temper tantrum when one of our old houses was being shown to a potential buyer (who, i think, wound up taking the place). i remember feeling VERY territorial and downright hostile to the family, because i could not bear the thought of someone else sleeping in. my. room!

and then, when we left another house, as soon as i got my driver's license, i would periodically take drives over there to see what they had done to the place and, again, felt a pang of hurt when i realized that they had taken my blue bedroom and turned it yellow. yellow! because although it wasn't my room anymore, a part of me had laid claim on that place and forevermore, it would somehow belong to me, no matter who owned it.

i realized some years later that that was me trying to establish something for myself...to take some control where i never felt i had any.

as an adult, i've made a lot of decisions—some of them good, some of them bad, ALL of them mine. and at the end of the day, whether my sense of what was right and true led me down a path, or whether fear dictated my steps, the choices were mine alone, and the fact that i made them, over and over, and faced their consequences, began to help me feel like i didn't NEED to control everything.

and this decision to move now is a kind of final step in that process. i am stepping back into the unknown because i need to have things NOT be in control for awhile...not be predictable....but the difference is that it's my choice to walk to the edge and step off, knowing that God has ordered my steps. in the end, i don't have to fear the unknown because He's already in it. what's more, i don't have to make any desperate grasps at holding onto something that doesn't belong to me just so i can feel safe. i choose to hold it all with an open hand and let it be what it will be.

so, in three weeks, i will close one door and walk through the open one in front of me. i don't know what the next year of my life will bring, or what adventures i'll have, but that's okay. and although this goodbye may be bittersweet, i won't resist its coming. in fact, i think i'm ready for it.

actually, i know i am....

moving on?

2010-02-28T10:33:00.000-05:00

this has been a brutal winter, filled with much frozen precip, leaking windows, scratched-up paint and flat tires, and failed efforts to get to the gym. and now, as winter's end seems more and more likely each day, that also means that i've lived in my current apartment for the last six and a half years—longer, in fact, than i've ever lived anywhere in my whole life. methinks it's time for a change.

bottom line: since the last snowstorm, i've been apartment shopping online, and yesterday i went to see a place downtown. i'm not gonna lie: it would be a bit of a stretch financially, but this place is SUPER convenient to work and fun city attractions, and, what's more, it has one location of the gym i belong to RIGHT INSIDE the building! needless to say, i was ridiculously happy when i discovered this. plus, it would cut my commute in about a third, and i would save mucho bucks on gas not sitting in traffic and not having to drive to and from the gym after or before work and on weekends. i'm waiting for a couple of things to be confirmed this week, and if all goes well, i'm going for it.

i admit i'm a little uneasy about giving up a month-to-month lease and having to pack ALL my stuff up again and pay someone to transport it to the new location (i am too old and too without young male friends to try and move myself), but the thought of being back downtown in a charming neighborhood, close to so many shops, restaurants, and the place where i spend at least 40 hours per week makes me more than a little happy.

here's to new (and hopefully better) things ahead.

FYI

2010-02-15T20:58:00.000-05:00

hi internets,

i'm not dead or buried under a 6-foot snowdrift. i just haven't written here in awhile (this is not a shocker to most of you). but i have some news...just a little bit: i started another blog (that, again, not shockingly, i do not update super often) that chronicles my food journey and recipes i've concocted to prevent myself from going completely batty.

so, if you're interested, here's the link: http://heres-the-skinny.blogspot.com/

in other news, it's done nothing but snow for the last week, and i've been trapped in the house since thursday, february 4. wow, i can't believe i just typed that, since today is the 15th!! in truth, i got my car out this weekend, but i haven't been out again since saturday because i've been dealing with a persistent leak in my living room (all that snow has to go somewhere, i guess) for which i FINALLY got some attention from my rental office today. anyway, here's bella, stuck under a HUGE pile of the white stuff last week:

and here's the huge snowdrift that was up to my waist when i stepped into it:

at least i got major cardio from shoveling, shoveling, and more shoveling!!

when's spring coming, again??

bienvenue à 2010 et bon appétit!

2010-01-01T16:32:00.003-05:00

as this first day of a new year and new decade has worn on, i feel somehow more and more hopeful for this next chapter in my life. i'm not sure why, really, because i've gotten nothing done today, per se, but i've been thinking about all there IS to do...all i COULD be doing...and that has me feeling excited. plus, i'm drinking a chai latte from my keurig, and can i just say? hot bevs in an instant just thrill me!

in all seriousness, i've been spending the better part of the last hour perusing all my new cookbooks (between christmas and some serious discount shopping, i've scored a total of 10, i think!), most of which have a focus on healthful living and eating—from the simplest of preparations to the somewhat more gourmet.

i've never really used a lot of recipes (except for baking, when one must be precise), with the majority of my cooking being a fusion of stuff i've read, seen on tv, and thought about while staring blankly into my kitchen cabinets. but what i do love are COOKBOOKS and all the inspiration they bring to my culinary adventures. and i'm thinking strongly about switching things up a little—about actually using some of these volumes to help plan my meals for the year ahead.

and speaking of meal planning, i need to go strategize for a brunch i'm throwing tomorrow morning and tidy up my apartment, which looks like some sort of tornado has blown through it. here's to a year of eating well and being prepared for whatever adventure (culinary or otherwise) comes my way!

'is it worth it, let me work it....' (a.k.a. thoughts on the coming year)

2009-12-31T12:17:00.005-05:00

it's the last day of 2009 and i'm resisting the urge to review. of course it's natural to think back on the year and ponder all the good, the bad, and the ugly, but really, this new year's eve, my heart is looking forward. i'm actually just ready for 2009 to become a series of memories so that i can forge ahead into what's next.

here are (some of) the reasons why....

1. i have some fitness and weight loss goals that i want to bring about. no time like the present to get moving!
2. i have a stack of books that are calling my name, just waiting to be read.
3. i have fun plans on the horizon in less than a month.
4. i have lots of new cookbooks to peruse and use as inspiration to create fun, healthful meals.
5. there's always the possibility of professional growth and new opportunities. at the very least, i still have a great job, and i'm super thankful for that.
6. i have some beautiful people in my life, and some of the ones who are far away, i may even get to see this year. that makes me sublimely happy.

there are probably a million more reasons, but the bottom line is this: tomorrow holds promises that today could not fulfill, and i'm ready for what lies ahead...not just what will come to me but what i can and will bring about by my hard work and dedication.

i'm well aware that some of my dreams may not come easily, but where's the satisfaction in having life handed to you like some type of freebie? putting in hard work means that, at the end of the journey, you understand the worth of what you have.

and me? i'm ready to have it all. so let's get to work!

happy 2010, everyone. may this year knock your socks off!

on the eve

2009-12-24T13:27:00.003-05:00

it's december 24 and i'm working. i've just eaten a lackluster salad from whole foods and am contemplating how proud i am for NOT buying any treats from the chocolatier next door to my office. in fact, i'm strongly considering heading to the gym for a quick workout before returning home to my parents. i feel the need to get moving....

this morning has been highly productive workwise; while revising and formatting a doc, i was listening to the festival of lessons and carols from kings college, cambridge. what a flood of memories i always get when hearing those crisp, clear tones and robust, harmonically rich refrains. it makes me think of being a child and sitting in the pew on christmas eve, waiting for the moment at the end of the midnight service when we all lit our candles and quietly sang 'silent night' as the clock struck midnight. and even though we were so far from bethlehem, i couldn't help but feeling that 'the hopes and fears of ALL the years' were present in those simple lyrics, sung in a dark church by hundreds of voices, united in one moment of peaceful acknowledgement.

so much has changed since then about my life, but much inside of me...of what i want and who i am...is still the same. i have walked a rocky path, again and again, to that manger to see what God has placed there. and many times i have failed to follow that star in the east (or the one inside my heart) and have tried to walk my own road, on my own terms. but the truth is that no matter where i wander, the mystery and wonder of this time always bring me back to that child...to the reason He came....to the reason He died. and i cannot help but feel so grateful for all the chances i have to rise and fall, to trip and veer and stray....and to come back home again.

i hope tonight to go with my parents and sit in another pew and sing those songs and pray those prayers i've known nearly my whole life. and although december 25 may not mark the actual day of Jesus's entrance into the world, i'm thankful to have this time to spend with those i love, to sit and reflect on all that His life and sacrifice have meant to me, and to thank God for the gift of music, of peace, of good friends, and of second (and third, and fourth, etc.) chances.

and to whoever you are who may be reading this, may you be reminded that there is always a chance to turn toward a new and better life, toward a new way of thinking and being, toward forgiveness for yourself and others. may the knowledge of this gift flood your heart this day...and always....

working it out

2009-12-07T20:06:00.003-05:00

tonight i am celebrating. you may be thinking it's a monday, sarah. what could you possibly have to celebrate on a MONDAY?

well, that's a valid question, but here's the thing (two things, really): 1) i'm finally nearly over the bronchitis that i contracted over thanksgiving week this year that rendered me positively immovable when i visited my parents the weekend before and 2) because of #1, i was able to get myself back to the gym tonight where i ROCKED the elliptical. i must give a serious shout-out to blackalicious, whose tunes and rhymes gave me the vibe to keep on movin until the time on the machine ran out.

all of this effort is to the end of participating in the journey i've been on since this summer to change my physical body once and for freaking all. i've talked about it before, here and there, and know that i had to get through a lot of emotional baggage before i'd even be ready to consider such a venture, but i've done the work on my heart and mind, and i was just waiting to be ready to tackle this. in the past, my efforts have been stalled due to some combination of illness and self-sabotage (the latter usually because of some romantic endeavor that wound up falling flat anyway). this time, however, i feel different. for one thing, i've kept this thing up for about 6 months now, so it's much more a way of life than it is a 'diet', and despite minor setbacks (such as the aforementioned bronchitis and the afore-aforementioned case of the SHINGLES), i am making progress, little by little. i have a support system in place, a plan to get me where i want to go, and sheer determination, the grace of God, and a hope for a better life to drive me.

so tonight, when i went back to the gym after my two-week period away, i was reminding myself that you can do this, girl. keep the machine moving. keep choosing your dreams. keep your head up and remember that no one has given this to you. this is the gift you give yourself. and you deserve it.

and i know that i do. i really, really do.

turkey eve

2009-11-25T17:58:00.003-05:00

i'm on a week hiatus from work (using up the old vacation time) and in order to pass the hours of what would surely have been boredom (ha!), i concocted a nice little upper respiratory infection that has knocked the (literal) wind out of me. i swear, sometimes it feels like i can't catch a break, and one of those times has been this entire SEASON.

first it was a bad sinus infection in late summer, then the shingles in early fall, and now a major case of bronchitis before turkey day. i hereby declare that NO MORE DISEASE is allowed to cross my doorstep for the foreseeable future. do you hear me? because i mean it this time, and when i get a bee in my bonnet, it's best not to cross me.

:)

now then, since i have some 'extra' time on my hands spent wrapped up in blankets and pjs, i'm watching all my DVRed episodes of oprah and mentally plotting what christmas cookies i want to bake this year. (a dear friend informed me that i was to get on a big batch of pecan tassies post haste or there would be hell to pay. methinks she's onto something.) tomorrow i hope to share the day of thanks with salimah and her fam—if i can drag my sorry butt off the couch and put on a little makeup and some real clothes—because nothing says turkey day like some semi-drunken game playing, blackmail videos of salimah's sister dancing with the dog, uproarious laughter (my side!), and liquored up sweet potato pie. and i'm not even doing any cooking this year!

my motto for tomorrow (and every day, really): don't let the turkeys get you down. truer words, people....truer words....

musings from an (un?)seasonably cold saturday morning

2009-11-07T10:19:00.001-05:00

so here's the deal: i'm frustrated with myself. sure, i could pinpoint any number of piddly little reasons, but there's one big one that's been making me kick myself for a couple of weeks now. and the thing that's most annoying? i only have SOME control over it (in other words, i'm pseudo pissed at myself for something i can't entirely do something about. makes sense, no?). oh girl, when will you ever learn?

now then, in addition to that, i feel like i've been wasting my own time lately running in circles like some type of silly school girl. what's that about? oh, right: i'm bored. the idle mind really IS the devil's playground sometimes, i think. project for the winter: stop the madness.

and speaking of winter, it got decidedly cold last night. like, below freezing cold. no wonder my throat hurts and i feel like i could just mainline hot cocoa lately. note to self: sleep more, stay hydrated, and stop fretting, for heaven's sake!

before i recede into shadows once again....

2009-11-05T21:25:00.002-05:00

happy november, world! here is a little listy to keep you up to date with my goings-on and whereabouts and what-not:

i've seen 'this is it' twice now, and i have to say that the love is still very much there. two hours watching that genius did my heart good:).
i'm contemplating dying my hair darker. not sure if it'll happen or not, but i'm fully contemplating (think auburn!).
i'm woefully unprepared for the impending holidays.
i'm nearly over the shingles, although i'm still having some nerve pain. but just a little these days.
i'm still fully entrenched in a bonafide writer's block. blech.
i heart cottage cheese lately with some type of passion (almost). eerie.
i've had a few mild adventures, but nothing to write home about.
i'm slowly but surely making progress on some major life goals i started tackling within the last year. that makes me happy.
i'm feeling more and more sure of where i want to go and what i want to do once i get there.
well rested? not so much.

so, that about sums up my fall. here's hoping i have something else to say before december peeks its head around the corner. i guess we'll all find out together....

what i have to say about my life reminds me of the B52s lyric 'tin roof.....RUSTED'

2009-10-21T13:24:00.002-04:00

so let's see, where were we? ah yes, fall. fall is here. fall has fallen. fall has....well, so far....not been that great. i mean, sure, i'm glad to see the end of the summer temps and the start of all things warm and cozy (including my desire for making soup and roasting veggies and wearing fuzzy socks). but this fall has also meant some exhaustion, a turning of a page into a new chapter of 'stuff i need to deal with,' and a case of the shingles.

yeah, that's right. shingles. that condition that is theoretically not supposed to hit you until you're of AARP-card-carrying age. let me just say, for anyone still reading, that i cannot recommend one thing about this affliction, except perhaps that sometimes, percocet-induced sleep can be quite delish. first there's pain, swelling (it looked like i had the mumps last week), itching, burning, the feeling as though there are bugs crawling on me, and occasional jolts of ice cold across my scalp. in other words, awesome.

thankfully i went straight away to the doctor and got myself on a course of antivirals, steroids, and the aforementioned painkillers.

since then it's been a slow crawl back to 'normal,' and i'm still having enough symptoms and headaches that i can't make a full day back at the office just yet.

but i'm moving forward, despite all of it, and i'm still making some good choices in other areas of my life.

in other news, i'm moderately obsessed with cottage cheese.

but perhaps that's a story for another day.

nice to see you, internets. who knows? maybe i won't be such a stranger in the month of november....:)

again and again

2009-10-04T23:03:00.004-04:00

fall has, decidedly, arrived, and i have been silent here for more than a month. at times i try to diagnose this dry spell, but then i give up, realizing that it will end when it sees fit.

tonight my mind is traffic-jammed with thoughts and i'm not much for words, but i have learned to let others' musings suffice when mine do not. here is rilke's take on things, circa 1914:

again and again, even though we know love's landscape
and the little churchyard with its lamenting names
and the terrible reticent gorge into which the others
end: again and again the two of us go out together
under the ancient trees, lay ourselves down again and again
among the flowers, facing opposite the sky.

i'll be back soon, blog world. promise.

in the works

2009-08-30T16:27:00.002-04:00

this afternoon, i finally purchased my domain name. it's only taken me, what, 5 years to do it? but it's done now. i went ahead and bit the bullet, got some hosting, and am in the process of figuring this whole 'full-on' web site thing out. it's not that i don't know what i'm doing, per se (although, i admit that i have a LOT to learn still), but it's more that i need to sit down and devote some time to actually setting up basic structures, figuring out what i don't know (and rectifying that), deciding on structure, color scheme, and overall theme, and taking my designer friend v. up on her offer of making my new home pretty.

so, for now, i'm still here. but it won't be long before you'll see me in a new light....

representation

2009-08-28T22:33:00.003-04:00

in this world of ever-present sound bites, i am finding myself frequently throwing out status messages on twitter and facebook and neglecting to write multi-sentence paragraphs to express myself. this is a problem.

although i love the idea of instant communication and the quoting of a song lyric to condense an entire wave of emotion in one simple phrase, the importance of crafting prose cannot be underestimated. how can i in any way fancy myself to be any type of writer if i cannot, in fact, write anymore?

i assure you, internets, that i have much to say. i just cannot think of ANY of it when i sit down to put fingers to keyboard. i know i mentioned in a previous post that i'm suffering from a kind of writer's block, but in actuality, i think i'm suffering from sound bite-itis. there are only so many times that i can quote the lyrics to a bread song or some colbie caillat or david gray lovesick refrain before the words become stilted and clichéd (although to me they really never will). i have to find my own words again...to look at the world and feel all that i feel and then share it with you...with myself...in a way that really means something.

i don't know what the real answer is here. i'm not sure whether a period of silence and reflection would make a difference, or whether i just need to write more as an exercise--even if i have nothing to say. so, to myself i make this promise: in the coming days, i will try to put more thoughts out there, even if to the outside world they mean absolutely nothing. the point, i suppose, is that i keep speaking my mind. these words, after all, are often all i have, looking back. and whether they are single sentences or long, blustery paragraphs...whether they are my words or some i've bogarted from others....i will let them speak for me. they are my memory. they are how i connect who i was then with who i am now....and with who i will be tomorrow. they are, quite simply, my emissaries, my purveyors of truth.

right on.

write on.

winding down

2009-08-18T22:48:00.003-04:00

it's been a busy few weeks (months, really), and although the summer doesn't look to be slowing down to welcome the onslaught of fall, i am thrilled to report that i don't miss being in school ONE BIT. having my evenings and weekends taken up with things other than homework is still just divine. perhaps i'm in a honeymoon period; if that's what this is, so be it. it's far, far better than staying up until 2 a.m. to finish a paper on a friday night.

in celebration of my new-found freedom, of sorts, this summer has been one of films and grocery shopping with abandon. i am a produce hound, and as soon as my refrigerator begins to empty of all the fruits and veggies, i return to fill up a cart and lug home my wares to stuff my crisper box and all three shelves with packages of peppers, blueberries, strawberries, various forms of lettuce, green onions, long english cucumbers, baby carrots, and crispy-tart grapes. i'm telling you - it's been one hell of a summer.

in the midst of all of this, i have been working my tail off at my job trying to stay on top of deadlines, so because i don't have a ton of mental energy at the end of each day, i've enjoyed drowning myself in luscious, useless 'reality' programming until bedtime. and at night, i crawl under my fairly newly acquired beachy-green duvet cover and blue-green-taupe paisley sheets and drift off to dreamland with a long to-do list hung for safekeeping in the upper recesses of my consciousness.

i've had a pedicure that's lasted me for a month and a half. that's an accomplishment worthy of its own paragraph breaks.

i've made a few new friends and have enjoyed the prospect of impromptu dinners out and occasional meet-ups for various social gatherings. in line with this, i'm trying to say 'yes' more than i say 'no.' (i admit that sometimes this is easier said than done.)

i have lovely red globe lanterns (replete with white stars) hanging on my balcony. this still delights me in ways i cannot explain.

i am learning to embrace the heat a bit more (just a bit).

although this summer has treated me fairly well, i am all too happy to let fall arrive in all its grandeur, bringing with it the crisp evening air, the early mornings where darkness lingers, and the long drives down country roads bursting with all the best colors nature can offer. to be honest, my heart is ready for the next thing, the new adventure, the fresh notepads and pens filled with ink (oh, the promise that they hold!), the talks over coffee, the long lists with checked-off items, and the knowledge that i am one day closer to everything i hold dear.

as long as there are more words inside me, i will keep writing.

despite the fact that this post contains actual words...

2009-08-04T19:23:00.003-04:00

...i'm pretty sure i'm suffering from bona fide writer's block. my head is a jumble of thoughts, but almost none of them coalesce into anything worth putting down on the page. i'm not sure whether it's because my brain took the excuse of not being in school any longer to turn immediately to mush, or whether i'm feeling the effects of too many deadlines and details and loose ends to tie up at work, or whether it's because i'm generally uninspired and in need of some cataclysmic event to thrust me back into the world of deep thoughts.

actually, while we're on the subject, i'm really not in the market for cataclysms just now. i'll take rest and relaxation for 400, alex....

and speaking of relaxation, i have, like, eight more personal/vacation days to use up before the end of the year, and i'm having a really hard time trying to decide what to do with them. part of me feels like i should save most of them up and just take off a huge chunk of time right before christmas, but the other part of me is quick to remind that christmas is FIVE months away. dudes, that's a long time without a break.

so, in the interim, i shall ponder all these things in my heart, keep reading the chick lit book i'm slowly making my way through, blind myself on occasional, feverish bouts of cross-stitch, and (currently) make that baklava salmon that's got my name ALL over it for dinner.

c'est fini.

i've always been a tad bit of an overachiever, so why would you expect anything less from me?

2009-07-31T00:11:00.004-04:00

just about two years ago this time, i had just gotten accepted into grad school and was feverishly trying to mentally prepare myself for the academic (and personal) unknown. i was also just 3 months shy of leaving a job that wasn't fulfilling me in the least for the place i now work (still without a doubt a fantastic decision). there's no possible way i could have known how much would change in that time and how quickly the time would pass. two summers ago, i felt it would take me FOREVER to get that degree, and i couldn't imagine doing it, let alone being able to sustain an A average the whole time. i didn't have enough faith in my own ability to put my mind to something and stick with it. and yet here i am, having accomplished every single thing i set out to do.

and tonight i find myself at a similar beginning feeling just as uncertain (or at least slightly doubtful) that i can actually FINISH what i've started. and yet now i have clear evidence that i can do these things, so tonight i'm giving myself an internal pep talk that not only CAN i do this, but i WILL do it. and however long it takes, i will just keep working hard until i get it done. no doubt i've been tough on myself these last two years, and while some of that might not be super healthy or helpful, it gets things accomplished, you know? so maybe i'll let a little of my inner drill sergeant out again to kick some ass and take some names (even if it's my own ass getting kicked). and who knows where i'll be two years from now? one thing's for sure: i've tasted straight As and i'm not particularly interested in half-hearting my way through my life anymore. this time i'm going straight to the head of the class.

mark my words.

post-its and catalogs and half-torn envelopes, oh my!

2009-07-27T18:13:00.003-04:00

i'm sitting here in my home office after a long day of work, work, work, and all that catches my eye are the papers i need to process, throw out, file, etc. i envy and do not fully understand those people who live a truly uncluttered life; there is always so much stuff to deal with, and i haven't yet mastered the art of utter simplification. if you go into my living room, it's the same situation: magazines, magazines, and more magazines. before grad school, periodically i would take the time to sift through, purge, and make space for new ones, but for the last two years, i've done very little except move them from one receptacle to another (and another, and another) and now i have two baskets full of (partially unread) magazines. and my pantry needs some work, too, may i mention.

i know i'll get there some day; it's all part of the process of deciding what i absolutely need and what i don't...of saying no, of making piles, of prioritizing. i'm good at it in other ways, really....just not, apparently, when it involves paper-related items and canned goods/baking supplies.

tonight is not the night for gargantuan undertakings, however. my cleaning lady is coming tomorrow, so i must tidy (i.e., create piles, around which she will dust), make dinner, wash dishes, and watch my dose of mindless (mind-numbing?) television programming. let it be known, however: i want less clutter in my life. so it is written. so it shall be....

i hope.

seven years/one month

2009-07-25T09:15:00.003-04:00

as of this past april, i've been blogging for seven years. seven. years. i can't believe it. and what's more, in those seven years, i have never once blogged on july 25. the 24th, sure. 26th? absolutely. never ONCE on the 25th. so i thought perhaps i'd break my seven-year itch and lay out some words, for what they are.

it's saturday and i'm one week out from the beginnings of a throat and sinus infection thing that definitely knocked me down; i'm assuming that one or more people at work with their own brand of ill got me this way, but no matter. i've been taking steps to rid my body of the unwanted.

perhaps more significant, however, is that michael jackson has been dead one month today. it feels so strange to type that, still, because my world has always had him in it, and it still does, in a way, but obviously it's not the same. i'm not gonna lie - it's been really hard to come to terms with that truth. it's like i miss someone i know, and i feel so disappointed at the realization that he'll never make any more music...that there will never be a chance for him to do anything remotely similar to the brilliance he laid down on some of his earlier tracks. to manage this, i've been surrounding myself either with his music or with music that makes me feel similar things that his does. of course, nothing moves me like the grumbling guitar at the beginning of 'billie jean' or the disco beat and soaring vocals of 'rock with you'....and yeah, i'm even a sucker for the slightly saccharin sweetness of 'will you be there' and 'man in the mirror.' i can't help it, man...he felt every word....

as a white girl growing up in suburban america living in a house where a lot of classical music was played (along with folksy stuff and early pop/rock of the 70s and 80s), michael jackson opened my world in a way that no other musician ever could. sure, my folk-loving, poetry-infused heart still belongs to james taylor, but my soul and my rhythm and my love for the funk can be traced back to michael's 'off the wall' and 'thriller.' no doubt.

and that's probably why i love all those r&b boys who croon and sing their high-pitched 'hooo' and do their runs and what-not....because all of them have at least a little of MJ in what they're doing. they took his basic palette and brought their own hues and nuances to add to the art...but let's all just acknowledge that if he hadn't been painting the way he did, they wouldn't be doing their thing now - and fooling all the young girls into believing that they did it best or first or with the most swagger. but if you look at that 10-year-old kid belting out any number of songs, he had it all inside of him, even then. a slight turn of the head, a jutting of the jaw - the funk was already there.

so, i'm sure i'll still cry for awhile when i hear some of this songs, and in a few weeks, i hope to have a little memorial of my own with a few friends who will gather to watch one of his concerts and just talk about our memories. he may be gone from this earth, but his music got into me—and into countless others—and even though "the groove is dead and gone (yeah), you know that love survives....so we can rock forever on...." and we will, michael. i promise you that.

this morning...

2009-07-23T23:41:00.002-04:00

...i woke up about 2 hours before my alarm went off and had a few moments of wakefulness (before falling immediately into a disturbing dream) in which i reviewed some aspects of my life from a number of years back that, quite frankly, left me with a pit in my stomach. the aforementioned dream emerged from that feeling of blech and left me feeling all out of sorts when my alarm finally did go off some time later.

and as i laid in bed, listening to my alarm for a good ten minutes, all i kept thinking, over and over, was how much i regret you...you who will never read this....you who have since become the representation of all things i regret—or will regret in the future....you, the one-trick pony....you who are called by different names, depending on the day and the conversation in which you are brought up....you who seemed so positive in so many ways yet took and took and took from me and never really gave anything back....you who, if you were reading this, would know exactly who you are. OH, how. i. regret. you.

'don't speak....don't tell me cuz it hurts'

2009-07-19T10:16:00.003-04:00

not one month after my grad school experience is over, and i'm sufficiently waylayed with what can only be described as the great throat and sinus ICK of 2009. i have this horrid itchy scratchy soreness in my throat that is making speaking impossibly uncomfortable, and furthermore, it's making me want to cough everytime i swallow or breathe. i'm so cognizant of this discomfort that i couldn't even sleep through my trusty nyquil haze last night. people of the internets, i am uncomfortable; do you hear me?

my goal for the rest of the weekend is to drink/eat as much chicken soup as possible, push fluids like they're going out of style (yesterday i probably drank a gallon of water; i am not exaggerating), take my probiotics and vitamins, and try to catch winks of rest when i can.

not speaking is surprisingly enjoyable sometimes, you know. it makes you realize how little there really IS to say sometimes. and with that, i'm done:).

resurfacing

2009-07-08T22:52:00.003-04:00

where to start? the past two weeks have flown by in a blur of excitement, exhaustion, bewilderment, sadness, and intense relief. more on all this later, but for now i will say this: i'm still here. i reached my goal of a perfect GPA. i turned another year older. i'm starting to remember how to sleep again.

in the midst of it all, michael jackson died. this has marked my days with a kind of grief that i didn't think i would feel at such a revelation. i have many thoughts on this event, but i'm letting them all marinate before i write them down. some things are too intensely personal to share capriciously.

soon. very soon.

in the meantime, hi there, world. nice to see you again:)

so close i can almost taste it....

2009-06-26T00:04:00.003-04:00

i have ONE more assignment left in my grad school career! the day i've been waiting for is nearly upon me and, in all honesty, it feels so unbelievable that i can hardly take it in. tonight as i responded to classmates' discussion postings (in which we were asked to provide a kind of retrospective on our experiences in this program), i found myself feeling oddly sentimental and realizing that for as much as i've complained about having too much work and felt at times frustrated for my lack of free time, i have loved being a walden student and have REALLY learned a lot over the past 22 months. and the cherry on my sundae tonight was some feedback that i got from a classmate in which he said that i have embodied the spirit of our program by encouraging him and helping him to grow and that my writing inspires him to improve. finally, he said that he can't think of anyone better to work on the courses at this university, especially after my experiences over the last 22 months. his words meant so much—particularly because he suffered through all the difficult stuff with me.

i know when this is all over, i'm going to have some pains of separation from my time as a student. despite my delight over having more time for myself, i will miss my coursework and the process of giving myself to something so wholeheartedly. it has been one heck of a ride, but i'm so glad i made the decision to embark upon this journey. my life has been enriched, probably more than i can know at this point. i've always believed that education can change the world; i know without a doubt that it's changed mine.

these days...

2009-06-23T19:46:00.003-04:00

...i count the hours, one by one. i let clothes pile in the basket (for later). i leave the dishes sitting in the sink overnight—or maybe two days (at most). i stockpile berries like they're going out of style. i ration and plan and bag and ration again. i obsess over the current state of my DVR recording bank. i listen for quiet, but it almost never comes. i make lists and forget to complete them, and then i make some more. i wait and hope and wonder whether it will ever be the way it should. i drain the phone batteries talking to the people whose voices make me remember who i am. i nurse tension headaches that sit just over my left eye. i talk to myself. i answer back. i put magazines into piles (for later). i forget to change the calendar until more than a month has passed (though i hate missing the pictures). i think about cleaning off my patio chairs and sitting in the mugginess to watch the sun disappear over the trees. i stay in the air conditioning instead. i let things go. i pick them up again. i run my fingers over the shells i found on an empty beach in south carolina. i think of the ocean and what it brings and what it takes away. i miss what almost was. i miss what still might be....

getting there

2009-06-14T13:30:00.004-04:00

two weeks from today, i will be finished with my master's program. TWO WEEKS. i cannot believe it. the past twenty-two months have, at once, flown and dragged by, but now i'm just two weeks(!) away from being done. there are already new projects in the pipeline (one of which i've begun working on), and i cannot wait to move on...forward...with my life!

*stepping back*

before i get ahead of myself, though, i feel the need to have an action plan for the next two weeks of my life. here are my wants and needs, in no particular order:

1. hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!
2. try to be in bed by midnight (at the latest) every night.
3. continue to eat lots of fruit and vegs to keep the stress-related illnesses at bay.
4. same with protein (oh, and helps with the energy, for sure).
5. get a pedicure (i threw that one in there just for fun; in truth, i might wait until my birthday, which is in two weeks and 3 days!).
6. get my simulator homework done by 8 pm every day, no exceptions.
7. ride with the sunroof open as many days as possible, with music blaring, of course.
8. call my supportive friends for extra fortification.
9. keep ipod charged for work-related stress reduction.
10. breathe.

all right, that about does it! i'll say one thing: i'm definitely looking forward to getting back into blogging this summer once i can think straight. let's all keep our fingers crossed about that one, shall we?

june 28, i'm coming after you, and you better watch it, because i'm feeling relentless.

remembering

2009-06-07T18:30:00.003-04:00

for the last two years, understandably, my life has been very focused on getting my master's degree. and in that time, certain pleasures and hobbies have had to take a back seat...at least that's how i've viewed it...because quite honestly, i made the decision at the outset that i wasn't going to give myself to something like this unless i was really going to GIVE myself to it. and, for the most part, it's been the right decision for me during this time.

in the interim, however, some other things have become rather apparent: the season has ended on some of my friendships (all right - i suppose that's unavoidable, really). also, my diligence and upkeep with certain regular chores and habits has definitely been down (again, understandable, but not something i want to continue). and finally—and perhaps the one that really gives me pause—i feel remarkably out of touch with myself...so much so, really, that i'll have this luscious moment or experience in which i feel totally connected again and it almost makes me cry because i suddenly realize what's been packed away in a box for a period of time.

the only other time i've experienced this so strongly was when i was in a relationship and had inadvertently sent parts of myself underground for (what i thought was) the sake of the other person. let me just say—not a good thing. when i realized i had done this, i became so angry, so selfish with the need to resurrect those things i had put to death (even if temporarily) and i was hell-bent on bringing them back into the 'vernacular' of my life that nothing and no one would stop me.

i was so different then, though, and that hibernation was unintentional and in no way necessary. this period of virtual desert, however, has been for the greater good of my education and (hopefully) to create future opportunities. having said that, i will admit that i've been feeling some measure of resentment for the last month for all that i have had to put away. it's like i want to open all my drawers, dump out their contents, and just look at my stuff again...reconnect with every bit of it...enjoy it and use it before i have to put it away to let everyday life function as it must.

as i type this post, a chanteuse is laying out some truly yearnful, hopeful, slightly melancholy lyrics that stir me. i remember this. and in the kitchen is the dinner that i will go and create with fun ingredients and spices hidden in the back of my cabinet. i remember this also. and though there are 3 weeks left of this final course in my MBA program, i'm hoping that, little by little, i can begin to reclaim all that i've tucked away for the last 22 months of my life...that i can start enjoying a weekend free of obligations...that i can go visit friends who now have husbands and babies and new homes and all of that...that i can forge ahead with gusto into the next project(s) i have lined up for my life—one(s) that will not require me going underground in order to complete a goal. i'm getting it all back, do you hear me? all of it. every. little. bit.

'i wake when these dreams collide'

2009-05-31T13:04:00.004-04:00

this weekend has been productive. i hooked up with salimah late morning yesterday and we spent the day running all over the metropolitan area collecting wholesale groceries, office supplies, athletic shoes (for her) and socks (for me), with several refreshing drinks in between. after a quick dinner of carne asada (me) and special tilapia (her) at mari luna, we came back to my place where i put together my newly acquired desk chair before setting out for the weg for a late-night shopping excursion.

today after dropping salimah off at her place, i went to my office to load up my desk with some snacks i bought at bj's. i was going to head straight home, but it was so beautiful outside, i decided to open the sunroof and all the windows and take a drive back up to the hunt valley area where my favorite little coffee shop is. after procuring an iced tea (lots of lemon, please!), i wandered over to the farmstand across the road and bought some tomatoes and potatoes (forgotten on yesterday's excursions) and then made my way back home, singing at the top of my lungs the whole way.

as i was driving under the swaying, lush green canopy watching the sun filter down along the winding road toward home, i realized how much i love days like this...when the whole world stretches out in front of you and for 10 minutes, you can forget all the things on your to-do list. my heart leapt a little in my chest as i imagined myself forward to the day when i can have a whole weekend full of errands and fun and centered calm, without regard for homework and deadlines and all that rubbish. it's coming soon, though, and as much as i can for now, i'm trying to keep the melancholy at bay with the idea of sun-drenched, cool mornings, the wind in my face, and singing loud on the open road that takes me anywhere my heart wants to go.

good luck figuring this one out....

2009-05-30T09:58:00.003-04:00

these days i feel so disjointed, like i'm constantly waiting for something to start but there are all these delays and sudden 'this has to be done right now' type of tasks that keep intervening. between having things due for school nearly every day of the week and coming to the end of this program and facing a huge assignment that is making me feel completely lost, it's not really helping my sense of equilibrium.

what i want is to go somewhere where nobody knows my name (so anti-'Cheers,' i know) and just wander around to my heart's content, write the story that's on the tip of my brain, and figure out what i'm really thinking about my life these days.

what is real, however, is that, in typical 'me' fashion, i have bitten off slightly more than i can chew, and i just don't exactly know whether to swallow the piece and hope it doesn't kill me on its way down or pull part of it out of my mouth and just say enough's enough.

four weeks cannot come soon enough....

2009-05-25T11:28:00.003-04:00

i've been having strange and arresting dreams of late....all indicative of my anxious self trying to work some stuff out while i sleep. every morning, i wake up and while the hot water from the shower streams over my head, i try to make sense of the madness. honestly, it's probably not even worth it. i'm stressed. so what else is new? why should my dreams reflect peace and calm when there's little of that to be found nearby?

in about a month, i'll be done with this master's program. i've busted my tail and done a lot of work over the last 21 months, and i've managed to get straight As, but this final class has me wondering if my streak is over. some of my colleagues think of me as the girl who cried wolf, because every course, i apparently complain that i'm not going to do well and then get an A. whatev. i'm telling you that this one will be nothing short of miraculous, because much of my grade is based on this ridiculous simulator that i cannot make sense of to save my life.

in the meantime, i'm going to go and cook some food for the week and hope that i can calm the hell down and just bide my time. this, too, shall pass, i know.... then on to the next adventure.

checking in

2009-05-20T19:28:00.002-04:00

the last class of my program is in full swing and i must admit that i'm not feeling it. like, not at all. i'm implementing some pro-me efforts, however, and hope that the taking of the bull by the horns will pull me out of the academic funk i'm in. stayed tuned for what i'm sure will be breaking reports....

in other news, my birthday is a mere 6 weeks from today (and 3 days before, i should mention, i will be FINISHED WITH SCHOOL). i will be 34, and i'm not sure how i'm feeling about that. to be honest, i try not to think about all the things i haven't done by this age (things i figured i surely would have accomplished by now) and instead think about all the possibilities that lie ahead. 34 seems so...blah to me, so uninspiring. i suppose i shall have to figure out a way to rectify that...infuse some intrigue and madcap adventure into the 365 days. of course, knowing my life, there will be some measure of all of that—and more.

i'm off to create a powerpoint due tonight. first, a quickie dinner of chix and vegs; perhaps a little american idol in the background (i'm filled with despondency since my danny gokey got voted out last week, but whatev); and a concerted effort NOT to yell at my neighbors who are making loud noises and allowing their children to run about screaming and carrying on.

two more days, and it's officially a 3-day weekend. i can roll with that.

at the risk of sounding melodramatic...

2009-05-13T22:00:00.000-04:00

...i'm fresh out of words just now.

i'm nothing if not last-minute....

2009-04-27T20:43:00.005-04:00

it's monday night here in crabcake corners and i'm readying myself for a lengthy, multi-day trip, the first leg of which will begin tomorrow evening after work. i've got laundry to wash, packing and tidying to do, treats and supplies to gather, and papers to organize before i leave. shouldn't be a problem, right? it's only 8:50 PM the night before.

this weekend, bella got all spiffied up, and today after work, i went and bought some new running shoes to keep my tootsies happy. really, it's just a matter of checking all the items off my list before i depart.

oh, and i'm going to the antebellum south, in case you're wondering....the land of sweet tea and y'all....where i plan to sleep in, get on a boat, put my feet in the ocean, eat more than one grit, visit my dear nigel, and finish the book i began before this past semester started. in short, i can't wait. when i come home, i promise to *try* and upload some pics, but for anyone who's read my blog for more than a year, you know that i don't always hop to it right away. i'm trying to get better. really, i am.

so, that's all the news that's fit to print tonight. i'll have my laptop while i'm there, so i'm sure there may be some blogging, facebooking, and tweeting going on (but again, we'll see how faithful i am with it all once i've got an ocean breeze in my face).

try not to miss me too much, y'all. see you on the flip side:).

i'm not a doctor; i just play one on my blog.

2009-04-18T13:43:00.004-04:00

the last few days, i've been an incredibly slow-moving train. my asthma kicked into high gear this week, and i feared i was on the fast track to bronchitis. so, i did what any paranoid girl does: i locked myself in the house for a few days and slept as much as humanly possible, didn't take too many phone calls, and tried to let myself just breathe.

i think it may have helped.

i'm not entirely out of the woods, but my chest isn't incredibly tight anymore—thank God. still, i cannot seem to shake the cloud my head is in. i don't know if it's 3-day-old nyquil that has yet to wear off, complete exhaustion, or some combination of the two, but it's taking me extra time to do everything. as it stands, i've been up for 5 hours now, and i haven't even gotten fully dressed yet, haven't eaten anything, and certainly haven't started on the paper i have due tomorrow. i just cannot get moving. all i want to do is sleep.

so, i'm going to listen to my body. i'm going to eat a little lunch and then i'm going to take a nap while i wait for salimah to call so we can hang out. the laundry can sit in its piles. the paper will get written tomorrow. right now, i need restorative sleep and more fluids. sometimes that's just what the doctor ordered.

gotta have you

2009-04-12T12:55:00.003-04:00

gray, quiet and tired and mean
picking at a worried seam
try to make you mad at me over the phone
red eyes and fire and signs
i'm taken by a nursery rhyme
i wanna make a ray of sunshine and never leave home

no amount of coffee, no amount of cryin
no amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
no no no no no, nothing else will do
i've gotta have you, i've gotta have you.

the road gets cold, there's no spring in the middle this year
i'm the new chicken plucking open hearts and ears
oh, such a prima donna, sorry for myself
but green, it is also summer
and i won't be warm till i'm lying in your arms.

...chorus

i see it all through a telescope: guitar, suitcase, and a warm coat
lying in the back of the blue boat, humming a tune...

no amount of coffee, no amount of cryin
no amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
no no no no no, nothing else will do
i've gotta have you, i've gotta have you.

**************************************************
it's easter sunday and i got up early to bright sunshine and blue skies. yes, i thought, that's right. good friday the skies were angry and overcast. i fully believe that on easter sunday, it should be bright and clean. as a child, even before really understanding the meaning of the day, i remember daffodils and ribbons in my hair and sunshine warming my skin and somehow i knew that was as it should be.

i wasted no time this morning waking up and setting about the things i needed to get done before leaving the house in a bit. laundry's churning, cookies are baked, breakfast still in my tum (eggs, biscuits), and i'm listening to the weepies. i cannot get enough of them these days. their melodies make sense to me on a visceral level, and they remind me of what it is that i want and where i want to be.

all day today, i've thinking about a place that once represented sorrow and death becoming a source of peace and hope. there was once a tomb inside of me, too, i think....a well of sadness and loneliness and pain. but the one who transformed that tomb in jerusalem has changed the place inside of me and given me dreams and hope and the will to want things i never knew i could have. and one day i'll get there, even though my path might look different than some others'.

i've never been very good at following the masses, and it seems i'm still not. but this isn't really about them, is it? it's not really about what anyone else thinks. all the matters is that in some small way, i've seen that empty tomb and i know that some day it will all make sense to me.

in the mean time, there are some more things i still need to walk through. grad school is almost over, and then the next big project begins. and i know what i hope is waiting for me around the next bend in the road. looks like i need to get some new shoes for the next leg of this journey. it might prove to be a bit rocky, but like i said, one day i'll get there.

in the wee small hours of the morning

2009-04-11T04:35:00.000-04:00

it's 4:30 a.m. and i've come to a conclusion: no one should be up this late/early. it's just not a good time of day for doing stuff. honestly, i was asleep. i just woke up and couldn't go back there, so instead of lying in bed feeling frustrated, i got up and meandered down the hall to my office. so, let's see...since we're here together, i might as well tell you a few things, internets....

1. now that i've moved my furniture around/gotten new stuff, i really want to paint. i'm pretty sure this will NOT happen because a) i don't have the time to deal with that right now and b) the fumes are no good for me.
2. i need an oil change soon.
3. in particular, i should get an oil change soon, because i'm going to charleston, sc, in 3 weeks or so to visit my dear nigel. i love that i will be in the land of sweet tea for a few days.
4. i've been thinking lately that my days of city living have a shelf life, and i'm becoming less and less tolerant of the idea of urban dwelling. not that i have any grand plans for today, mind you, but i just feel like i can't stay here forever...nor do i want to.
5. one of my coworkers is pregnant, and it occurs to me every few days that she's actually growing a human man-child inside of her. trippy.
6. i am not sleeping well lately, as i'm sure you can tell....
7. i can count multiple nights this week where i didn't eat dinner because of homework and then found myself awake and ravenous at 2 a.m.. this is not contributing to #6 either.
8. i consider #s 6 and 7 a problem.
9. i have rediscovered my love for old school strawberry preserves. they still might be my secret, underdog favorite for pb&j sandwiches.
10. i think i'm getting hungry.
11. enough of that. i need to clean out my desk drawers and reorganize my papers. it's actually starting to get on my nerves.
12. i have ella fitzgerald's version of 'the boy from ipanema' in my head. it's splicing and interspersing with 'evening' by eric roberson. interesting....
12+1. i just found out that domino is discontinuing its magazine production. bummer. but at least i got an awesome tote bag out of the deal :D.
14. once i get done with grad school, i have a list of items that i want to accomplish asap, not the least of which is to start ripping my entire CD collection so i can load up my ipod properly. i find myself craving random music that i own but don't have electronic copies of. sometimes you just need to hear 'love is a battlefield,' you know?
15. my grandmother keeps making cameo appearances in my dreams lately. i wonder what that's about.
16. today i got to watch some kids running in circles looking up at the sky, and i actually felt a little jealous. i don't remember the last time i did that.
17. in order to make up for #s 6 and 7, i want to take a nap later and make a good dinner. it's all about restoration, baby.
18. i really only drink cabernet these days (if i'm drinking wine, that is).
19. my beloved JT was on oprah today. it actually made me tear up a tiny bit to see him.
20. i've made it to 20 and suddenly i'm sleepy. i feel i should go capitalize on this.
21. goodnight (again)!

jelly belly sours are not nutritionally valuable, fyi

2009-04-02T07:28:00.000-04:00

before this day gets away from me, let it be known that i didn't eat dinner last night. unless you count some leftover rice at midnight after finishing homework. which i don't. or the jelly beans i ate while doing said homework. which i don't.

this morning i feel lethargic like there's no tomorrow. i have major deadlines and am, therefore, working at home today, but i'm just having a hard time getting jumpstarted. i swear, i'm so tired of talking about how i want grad school to be over, but it's at the front of nearly every thought i seem to have these days.

so i'm officially letting the world know that in three more months, you won't hear me whining about this anymore. i pinky swear.

in the meantime, however, i cannot make any promises.

here is my positive statement du jour (must make sure to get at least one of these in): i'm hanging out with my dear friend melly tonight (we're getting mari luna), and between now and then, i plan to eat some real breakfast to make up for last night's jelly bean debacle. onward and upward....

dear downstairs neighbors,

2009-03-30T20:11:00.002-04:00

i have but two requests. here they are, in no particular order.

please, for the love of all that is good and kind, stop cooking delicious-smelling food at 10 p.m. when, quite frankly, i'm hungry from a lacklustre dinner i ate on the fly while reading something meaningless for homework. for some reason, your late-night feasting makes me crave stuffing like nobody's business. yeah, that's right. like stove top, out-of-the-box-and-on-a-plate-in-two-minutes stuffing. what is wrong with this picture? everything. ev.ry.thing.

okay, also, i can hear every word of your television program. how freaking loud do you have your tv turned up that the person ABOVE you can hear this? seriously, unless you want me to start doing some type of aerobics up here...or better yet, irish dancing (yeah, that'll really show 'em!)...please turn it down just a smidge.

and if you're not going to turn it down, could you at least call me the next time you're making fried chicken? pretty please?

thanks for your consideration,
sarah

if it starts hailing, i'm turning off my computer....

2009-03-29T16:44:00.002-04:00

the first thunderstorm of spring is bellowing outside my window. i'm holed up in my office trying to create something out of nothing for a group paper and thinking about what to make for dinner and when i'll deal with all the sorted laundry that awaits me on my bedroom floor. what amazes me is people who put truly crappy work out there and expect others to clean up their messes. well, folks, i'm not doing it this time. i phoned my prof on friday night to tell her of the madness; she actually understood and promised not to penalize me if what i submit is their paltry pseudo bullet points. finally, someone who's thinking logically....

oh, and suddenly the sun is out again.

in other news, i've been having the strangest dreams for the past few nights, undoubtedly brought on by my anxiety over salimah's unemployment, coupled with too much facebook and the inevitable wheezing that occurs during allergy season. former coworkers, reality tv stars, and movie characters are showing up unannounced to hug me, console me, tell me i'm fired, and/or help me problem solve my way through some un-solvable problem.

now that i type these words, the sky has opened back up, and rain is battering my window at full force.

spring is, indeed, a funny, fickle season. how fitting.

up close and personal

2009-03-18T19:26:00.007-04:00

i recently moved all my furniture around to accommodate some new things. yesterday afternoon, i was in a super macro mood, so i photographed a few important (or just lovely) items in my immediate vicinity at that moment. here they are, in no particular order:

i love these pens. for editing, they're my favorite.

lately i've been needing this way too much. spring brings with it a host of allergic issues, i find.

i love this little guy. my dear friend kim brought me this dish from maine a few years ago. he used to hold paper clips at my old job. now he just sits there and looks cute:).

my sweet friend carla gave me this notebook before i started my current job (a little office pick-me-up). i use it only for very important lists and other such things.

my awesome friend cat made me these coasters for my birthday last year. they're scattered about my living room and office now.

two words: red mouse. 'nuff said.

my hair, in a non-straight state, which is very unusual for me these days. for the last two mornings, i simply couldn't be bothered with straightening. i'm sure you all can understand.

finally, my 'new' phone (new to me since january). honestly, this thing is a little bit temperamental, but at least it hasn't completely crapped out on me the way the instinct did. that phone was such a punk. never again.

now then, enough of these diversions; i'm off to eat dinner and do homework!

ides plus 2

2009-03-17T07:23:00.000-04:00

winter is lazing about, it seems, and while spring is trying her best to make a debut, the cold keeps creeping in, sometimes bringing with it spitting rain that seems to penetrate the skin, leaving you feeling bereft and greatly in need of hot beverages and naps. i am craving open windows, even despite my allergies; i need fresh air in more ways than one.

lately i've been listening to other people's stories of 'woe,' and i find myself thinking that they just need to get over themselves. i know it sounds insensitive, but even despite the economic misery we're all facing (among other things), there is still so much good to find in each day. and i guess when i listen to the whinings of someone else who pretty much has it made, i want to just tell her/him to cease and desist. even more so, when i listen to my own whinings, i find myself quickly over it...shut up, sarah. just shut up and move on.

last night i had a dream that i opened up the window next to my desk at work (which faces a kind of courtyard, 7 floors up), and there was snow all around me, on every branch and piled high on the walls surrounding me. my coworker looked at me with this childlike glint in her eye and i knew in that instant that i needed to start making snowballs to throw with gusto. i tried a few round-shaped ones, but eventually, i realized that if i made my snowballs in the shape of footballs (mini torpedoes, i called them), they would soar much farther. i guess when you think about it, much of life's successful attempts come down to a bit of good sense, a spirit of fun, and aerodynamics.

"this is for all the lonely people...."

2009-03-14T01:01:00.003-04:00

i can't believe i'm still awake after the week i've had, but again, friday night homework sucked me into a vortex and although my eyelids are drooping something fierce, i felt like checking in with the internets. hello there. although it's been awhile, you're looking lovely as ever. :)

in the past few weeks, i've been acquiring some new things for my apartment, and tomorrow morning, some new dining room furniture is set to arrive, along with a new entertainment center thingie from ikea. nothing earth-shattering, but it was time. my old dining room set was about 10 years old, very well used, and had a huge scratch up the middle of the table due to the indiscretions of my ex's former roommate. whatever. the whole thing cost me 175 bucks brand new. that should tell you something about its craftsmanship.

anyhoo, i'm just glad to have it gone. i wound up giving the set to a pregnant, out of work woman and her new husband. i hope they can get some more good use out of it before it falls apart completely. i was happy to donate it to some people who both need and appreciate it.

in other news, i'm just as tired as ever, if not more so. i started crying a little tonight from sheer exhaustion. even my trip to blacksburg (girls weekend!) last week wasn't long enough...and to boot, it took us over 6 hours to get down there! driving for long periods of time doesn't really help an already cranky/sleepy/headachy me. i'm just not sure when there will be a break in the deluge of stress and unfinished tasks, but i could sure use a nice little respite sooner rather than later. if you know where i can catch a break, please report to me immediately....

all things, good or bad, must come to an end....

2009-03-01T09:15:00.002-05:00

i distinctly remember riding in the car with at least one of my parents (usually my mother, when i had picked her up from work in the afternoon during my high school years) listening to paul harvey's rest of the story. another light has gone out in the world:

"my father and mother created from thin air what one day became radio and television news. so in the past year, an industry has lost its godparents and today millions have lost a friend." - paul harvey, jr.

and so it must be that eras pass and memories fade. but what is good in that is that even the worst things in our lives will also go away—if we choose to end them, that is. with that being said, i'm about to hunker down in one particular area of my life for the next few years, and while i don't anticipate that it will be easy to get through, i'm committed to seeing it all the way to the end, bitter or sweet. sometimes life gives us a pill that must be swallowed, whether now or later. i'm choosing today to fill up my glass and drink it down, because i'm truly convinced that ultimately, this is for my good.

thank God that i have friends, both old and new (hi, jeff!), to see me through this process and to remind me that maybe it really IS darkest just before the dawn. oh, and perhaps you're wondering why i'm being kind of cryptic. i'll tell you—part of this situation involves things i don't want to discuss on the internets for another several months (although if you're already in my life, you probably know what the heck i'm talking about), so if we're friends and you're like, huh? feel free to get in touch.

and now, because i have a ridiculously long paper to tackle today, i bid you a fond adieu. let it not be said that i'm one of those girls who stays too long at the fair....

at this point, i could be a country song

2009-02-21T12:49:00.001-05:00

blog world, i'll warn you: i'm a jumble of emotions right now. the last few days have been rough for me...like nearly crying at my desk rough. oh, nothing's wrong, per se; i just have way too much to do and the weeks of pushing too hard are taking their toll on me physically and mentally. every day at work, i look at my face in the bathroom mirror (not the most flattering lighting, i know), and what i see staring back at me is slightly bloodshot eyes and dark circles and i just keep telling myself that maybe if i keep hydrated, things will get better.

yeah, because water will fix my stress level. sure.

so then i go back to my desk and try to zone out to some tunes, but every song is all emotion, and i'm trying to keep mine pent up so as not to melt down. not super healthy, i know, but it's getting me through the week and it means the homework gets turned in on time.

so then yesterday was friday and i felt like i could finally relax for a few. (a huge paper due this week was already turned in, and it seemed that 1 of the monkeys previously on my back had removed itself.) somewhere in the midst of watching programming on HGTV, i fell asleep and had wacked out dreams about having house problems and weird real estate issues and what-not, and when i woke up, i felt the pressing stress of money woes on my shoulder blades.

so i went to bed. and proceeded to sleep like a log (which i needed). and then i woke up kind of late this morning, went into the bathroom to shower, took a nice, luxurious stretch, and felt every single muscle in my mid-back tense up like it had a point to prove. apparently, i slept horribly wrong, and now i'm on a heating pad with some major ibu pulsing through my system.

and did i mention i have to write a 15-page paper this week?

dear blogworld, i have a confession to make....

2009-02-16T23:13:00.002-05:00

...i love 'reality' programming and i'm probably never going to give it up.

seriously, this is the best time of year for me, because all of my favorite shows are either on or are about to be on. american idol is about to be in full swing, the biggest loser is getting really good, jack bauer has already taken several people down on 24, that angry man from hell's kitchen is cussing people out, tom colicchio and team are about to pick another top chef, and the bachelor is about to pick ANOTHER wrong woman. again. really, it's so awesome.

and besides, can you blame a girl? it's winter time, i have no one fun to hang out with, and school is a drag. so sue me.

now if you'll pardon me, i'm off to watch my DVRed programming. happy monday!

'and then there's morning; each one feels like the first one....'

2009-02-08T18:34:00.003-05:00

my head hurts. i have too much to do. tomorrow is monday already. i wish i were somewhere reading a book and drinking something warm under a blanket. i missed my sunday afternoon nap. this paper won't write itself. i miss you.

but

it was almost 70 today and the sun came out. i made delicious lasagna with a friend from work. i'm wearing flip-flops. my dishes are done. i bought red grapefruit. there are a few more hours until bed, so once i finish this paper (just do it!), i can read for awhile. my down comforter is soft and pillowy. there are harmonies and melancholy voices in my ears.

i still miss you.

'when i get back to the city

everything's cluttered and pretty.

i won't regret my return.

i'll just remember the wind and the snow

and the howling so loud

that it alone drowns out the inside of me.'

a whole bowl of super

2009-02-01T23:54:00.004-05:00

well, here we are again. it's sunday night, and i should be sleeping, but i'm awake, of course. this is because i napped today. when will i ever learn?

but you see, it's because i have an excuse. i was out very late last night at a beautiful friend's awesome wedding at which i drank a "bit" too much rum. (i blame it on the ukranian who plied me with free drinks before i brought 'sexy back' out on the dance floor with a host of friends and strangers.) apparently i am a dancing machine. who knew? actually, i wasn't truly busting a groove the way my friend's cousin was. i informed her and her sister that he was, in fact, a 'modern artist.' all i'm saying is he was doing these very interesting things with his fingers and the rum made it even better.

so, after i got home last night, i washed up, drank a bunch of water, took a huge ibuprofen tablet to stave off the aches, and drunk dialed my coworker to tell her all about my evening. (this is, of course, after leaving 3 messages for other friends in which i believe i informed them that i adored them and that i was, in fact, intoxicated.) again, i'm not entirely proud of myself for this, but that captain morgan really did sneak up on me.

whatever.

so i slept in until 9:30 this morning after staying up until probably 3:45. less than 6 hours....not enough for me. so at about 3ish this afternoon, i put on a movie and promptly zonked out for a couple of hours. i needed it....more, apparently, than the laundry and tidying i had planned to do today.

i managed to wake up and take a quick shower in time for the kickoff of the superbowl, although i missed the national anthem (youtube, here i come). the game was awesome. i can't say i'm a fan of either the steelers or the cardinals (although that ~~mark~~ kurt warner is rather dreamy), but i found myself rooting for pittsburgh and was really happy for them when they brought it home. so, after more hydrating and a little follow-up homework, i'm going to take the book i'm reading (just got it yesterday), get into bed, and follow some fictional woman's life until i slip off into slumber. sounds nice, doesn't it?

'i know you're out there somewhere....'

2009-01-25T22:04:00.003-05:00

yes, i just quoted the moody blues. how old am i anyway?

in other news, i'm here to report that there are a lot of freaking people in this world. i was in a beauty products store and the owner was going on and on about 6 billion. okay, yes, it's a number. a very, very big number. but do you ever really THINK about what that means?

during the inauguration this week, i looked at the sea of people that descended on washington (perhaps up to 2 million people on the mall?) and realized that this sea was just a speck of humanity. just a speck. does that ever weird anyone else out, or is it just me??

anyway, then i started thinking about the whole doppelganger theory...you know, that there's at least one other person out there that looks and perhaps acts just like you. which is just weird. and sometimes, when i'm doing something quirky and saying one of my 'isms,' i wonder if my doppelganger is saying the same thing at that very moment. and then my head starts to hurt, because again, there are SIX BILLION people and also, why am i thinking about this in the first place?

right, so anyway, i wonder if there's another person somewhere in this world that looks and acts just like me. that's it. that's all i've got tonight. i did more homework, and now my brain is shot, and i didn't eat any dinner, and i'm thinking about doppelgangers.

k, bye:)

in which it becomes obvious that i have very little on the to-do list

2009-01-25T12:40:00.003-05:00

this past week, i had a bout with a stomach flu that knocked me on my butt. i'm still not entirely recovered energy-wise, and i'm starting to wonder if i have a slight iron deficiency. perhaps i'll mainline spinach for a few days....

yesterday i spent napping, trying to chase away a headache i think was brought on by dehydration, and writing a paper that, once i sat down and actually did it, took me all of 45 minutes. all that procrastination for nothing!

today's plan is to shower, get out of the house for awhile, and then come home and do the four loads of laundry i have waiting on my floor....mostly towels and sheets, but still. i hate looking at it, and i refuse to let it go another week without getting addressed.

in other news, i'm starting to think more pointedly about what i want to do with my graduate degree—and possibly with the next one i get. if i'm going all the way to 'doctor,' i might as well have some actual plans, you know?

more on that as time passes. for now, shower and something to tide me over until lunch. what more riveting update could i give you than that!?

'...and let it begin with me'

2009-01-20T18:59:00.003-05:00

today i watched history crack open and reveal itself to be a surprising, hopeful, and ever-changing turn and twist of events. today 'we the people' saw the swearing in of a black man as President of the United States of America. today i watched joy spark in the eyes of those who have seen and felt and experienced so much tragedy and so little freedom. today i wept along with those people for the reality of what, for many generations, was a dream too elusive to grasp, too terrifying, almost, to hope for.

today i thought about how far we've come and how many more miles we must yet walk in these shoes.

today i thanked God for another man who has been through a lot in the last two terms and tipped my hat to him, even when so many others do not. today i pledged to support mr. obama....mr. president....because, even though i didn't vote for him, i believe it is my duty as a citizen of this country to respect my leaders (even when we disagree). today i am proud to be an american. today i am hopeful for change.

today i am even more aware that the change we all seek must begin with ourselves.

it's friday and i'm in high avoidance mode

2009-01-16T20:41:00.004-05:00

so, the new year is in full swing and i suddenly have nothing to say.

but here's something: i'm thinking about getting my doctorate. i know. i know. all i've done for the last year and a half is complain about how much homework i have. and maybe i'll change my mind when the time comes, but for now, it's sounding like a darn good idea. and even more so because i get 70% off my tuition. hellOOOO....

for now, however, i just need to make it until june without losing my mind. and then i've promised myself six months off. i pinky swear!

in other news, i've taken on a small personal mission to try and be a bit less loose lipped this year. it's not so much a resolution as a mindset. yes, a mindset. that's what i shall call it. so far, so good.

and speaking of good, i'm now obsessed with encrusting everything in panko bread crumbs. so crispy and tasty! expect to hear of panko in '09.

and for my final announcement of the day: i'm getting rid of my nails. i'm tired of having them. i want stubby fingers back when i bake and do hardcore cooking, and honestly, i don't need the added expense. plus, my nails were getting tired of being covered up. i could tell. they—and i—need a break. my hair, however, does not. it needs a trim and another highlighting job in a month or two. gotta keep ahead of the old lady hair!

and with that, i have nothing more to share. i now return you to your regularly scheduled lack of programming while i go and procrastinate some more:)

hello, it's me.....

2009-01-07T07:18:00.000-05:00

i know. i know. it's been awhile and i'm long overdue for some type of update. well, no time like the present....

first, the holidays were lovely and relaxing. my parents came to see me and stayed for a few days. we opened gifts, had some nice dinners, and celebrated their anniversary at della notte (for the second year in a row - it's becoming a tradition). i slept almost whenever i wanted—something i needed more than you'll ever know. over this mini-vaca, i also got to see a few dear friends and spent much time hanging out with the bff. new year's eve brought with it my dearest nigel, some tasty cocktails (including mai tais and firefly and lemonade - oh dear was THAT good), salimah and her sister, and some game-playing and karaoke-singing. i have blackmail videos, but i'm still debating whether they'll make it to the internet;). nige and i also visited with his cousin, her husband, and their two awesome kids and during that visit i was introduced to the best mac and cheese recipe i've ever encountered in my LIFE. oh, martha stewart, i really DO love you, despite what others say....

going back to work was slightly jarring, but i managed to hold it together, and although the new semester has started, i'm sort of avoiding doing anything resembling actual schoolwork. that will all change tonight, however, when i have to buckle down and produce a couple of assignments on the fly. i'm only three courses away from my degree. damn, that feels good to say!

as for what most people would consider new year's resolutions, i suppose i have a few, but at this moment, i'm not feeling so much like sharing those with the internets. perhaps i'll change my mind later, though. i'm sometimes fickle that way:).

what i CAN give you, however, is a year-in-review of '08. here are some things i discovered, rediscovered, and/or continued to appreciate, in no particular order:

1. the neti pot. holy crap - go out and get one of these and use it. i promise you won't regret it.
2. ne-yo. gosh, i heart him for some reason.
3. brown. i also heart brown.
4. red. don't worry, red, you're still my #1.
5. DVR. i don't feel that i will ever want to give this up. it has changed my TV life.
6. fage greek yogurt. i'm deeply entrenched in a love affair that borders on obsession. please don't try to intervene. it will do you no good.
7. grapefruit. citrus love. 'nuff said.
8. eucerin calming cream. so soothing.
9. regular haircuts and highlights. i'm too old to have my hair looking bad. trust me.
10. nails. even after a major nail 'incident' that involved bleeding and exposed flesh, i still love them. i may give them up in '09, though. jury's still out on this one.
11. my bella. she still runs like a charm and makes me happy every day.
12. money. i do not take these things for granted....
13. a job i enjoy. i ESPECIALLY do not take this for granted.
14. old friends and new friends. facebook really IS awesome.
15. my educational mojo. i'm kicking butt in grad school, yes, but i'm also just really wanting to continue my studies. this is foreign to me!

i know there's more. i just know it. but right now, i need to get crackin' on work and all of that. oh, and one of my glasses managed to throw itself off the kitchen counter at about 5 a.m. (hmm, suspicious), so now i've got shards all over my kitchen floor that need sweeping. is it friday yet?

oh, and happy 2009! may it be your best year yet, whoever and wherever you are:)

'twas the morning before christmas...

2008-12-24T08:36:00.003-05:00

...and i woke up with a horrible knot in my right shoulder and a headache to match.

i've been done with this semester for a couple of days now, but i have yet to enjoy the feeling of 'time off' because i've been running around like a crazy woman and have been battling sprint in order to try and get a phone that works and that doesn't erase my contacts list from the online back-up system (which it did yesterday!). *sigh*

so, let's just say it's been a rough few days and move on from that, shall we?

i'm actually thankful for a lot this year. let's briefly recap:

my parents, who are loving and supportive and who still put up with my random phone calls to ask them dumb questions
my kickass friends who put up with my random freakouts and remind me what's true about my life when i manage to forget....and who don't seem to mind when i do the same for them:)
my job, which not only was a vehicle through which i was able to leave the last place (a bit disastrous) but which has provided for my financial needs this year and gives me an opportunity to do something i love and to make a difference in the world through education
my cute apartment that keeps me warm and is filled with fun things (many of which were gifts from the aforementioned parents and kickass friends)
my bella, who gets me from place to place without complaint - and with heated posterior parts due to her toasty warm seats:)
my country, which affords me the freedom to pursue my interests and the freedom to worship and profess and confess without hiding under cover of darkness
my God, who (in addition to providing all of the above), day after day, saves me all over again. He knows i need it.

today may you be filled with the mystery of promise, with the trembling hope of what is to come.

real quick

2008-12-11T07:52:00.003-05:00

i'm about to dash off to work, but i just wanted to check in with the blog world and remind you all that i'm alive (sorta). 31-page paper down, 2 more major papers to go (one due tomorrow night) before this semester ends. Lord, let it come soon.

oh, and because i'm a slacker in responding to comments of late: devika, sticky toffee cheese, from what i could surmise, is something like stilton with pieces of actual brown-sugary toffee cake-ness stirred throughout (there were raisins in there periodically, too). i'm telling you—it's sinful; that's how good it was. wegman's sells it, although someone else in the world must as well. holy dairy products, batman. now i want some more!

all right, off to start my day. we're over the hump, people. there's no turning back now in our downhill slide toward the weekend:)

'we have a piper down. i repeat. a piper is DOWN.'

2008-12-04T18:34:00.003-05:00

this post will be short because i have a paper to write and only 9 fingers to do it with. yeah. that's right. one of my little helpers is out of commission because yesterday, in a sleepy stupor, i went to pick up my laundry basket and managed to tear off one of my acrylic nails (and a third of my real nail) as it slipped out of my hand. there was blood immediately. and crying. and panic. and more crying. and then self-imposed medical care. thank God i know how to wrap a bandage and care for a wound....growing up around medical people really does have its advantages.

but now my middle finger on my right hand is completely ineffective and sore and i this is really frustrating. and did i mention the paper? oh yeah. better get to it.

it's official....

2008-11-30T16:15:00.005-05:00

as is becoming my new tradition, today was spent (with salimah's much-needed help) setting up my christmas tree. candles are strategically placed around the living and dining rooms, stocking hung on the wall, and all is magically aglow.

see what i mean? oh, and here's a close-up of one of my favorite ornaments....

i promise i'll try to post more pictures in the coming weeks. i'm trying to be better about all of that. in the meantime, i have two papers to write this evening. boo. hiss!

welcome, christmastide. it took you long enough to get here!!

thanksgiving antics

2008-11-29T23:47:00.000-05:00

the turkey day holiday was very relaxing, as it turned out, and a good time was had by all (i can hear my high school principal saying that over the loudspeaker in my head as i type this; it was his favorite way of summarizing school events). i can show you pics of the cheese plate...okay, fine. here it is:

see that brownish triangle around 1:00? sticky toffee cheese. yeah, you read it right. so delicious!

anyway, enough cheese. aside from being thankful that we were all together (me, salimah, her two sisters, her mom, her mom's friend, and babygirl), there was much laughter and making of merry. and as part of the usual theatrics, i present to you, caryl and the lovely miss baby g herself:

thanksgiving antics from shrub775 on Vimeo.

happy belated thanksgiving, everyone!

that's it

2008-11-27T01:40:00.002-05:00

i officially hate school.

okay. i don't 100% hate it, but i have a freaking paper due on thanksgiving day, and it's 1:40 in the morning and i just finished another stupid assignment. and i'm exhausted. and i didn't eat dinner tonight, which means i'm now hungry and very thirsty and whinewhinewhine!!!

also, i'm extremely congested and i hope i'm not coming down with something. i can't handle that. i mean it.

did you hear me?

okay, enough complaining. i'm getting some water and then off to bed.

*sob*

'hang all the mistletoe; i wanna get to know you better....'

2008-11-22T19:12:00.002-05:00

yesterday we had the first snow of the season. it spent a good portion of the day flurrying and/or really coming down in various parts, much of which i could see from the window of my office building. the city looks so beautiful in the snow. i seriously wished in that moment that i had my camera.

this week was rough for me. i'm feeling really run down (what else is new?) and it's just been very, very hard to motivate myself to get anything done once i come home from work. i'm looking forward to the short work week ahead but not to the papers i have to write. the one downside to this graduate program is that (along with my lack of free time) there are no breaks for major or minor holidays. just keep on trucking, even on turkey day.

tonight the apartment is quiet. i spent the afternoon snuggling under blankets, catching up on some tv, and napping on and off. i don't know how late i'll be staying up tonight, but of course tomorrow brings with it another paper due and another week to gear myself up for. july better come soon. thats all i'm saying about that.

on one final note, as part of my tv time this afternoon, i watched the movie 'this christmas' (salimah had recommended). i loved it. those family, homey-type movies always put me in the holiday mood. christmas is just over a month away. let the ho-ho-ho begin:)....

'never find a love like this....'

2008-11-17T21:43:00.003-05:00

tonight i am missing my grandfather more than i can express in words. i feel that subtle ache in my throat from the sadness that wants to come out but cannot. there is no room, you see. i have much to do before bedtime. in the background, my cable is playing one 'adult alternative' hit after another...some slightly upbeat, some melancholy, some filled with aching hope. i'm down the hall chatting on IM, cleaning up my desk, and trying to create some semblance of order before i hit the hay (cleaning lady comes tomorrow). i already checked in with my bff, my mom, and my work e-mail (check, check, check), and i'm longing for the quiet of an empty room and the white noise of a fan to drown my thoughts about tomorrow and all of its worries.

last night, my mom was sewing and i was in the living room doing work, and it hit me so heavily. mom, i miss grandpa, i said.

i know, she said, i miss him, too. every day.

every day. yeah, that about sums it up. it's been almost 15 years since he died, and there isn't one day that goes by that something doesn't stir up his voice, his spirit, his ways of answering questions, his quiet knowing. these days i look for glimpses of him in every man i meet. most don't possess even a shade, but there are some...a few...whose character and very essence hearken back to a time before they crossed my path...to a person they've never met and, on this earth, never will.

when my grandfather was a young man and not long married, he had to go overseas in WWII. during that time, he wrote my grandmother letters (letters i knew nothing about until after she died five summers ago) telling her of his days and instructing her to watch this or that aspect of her health and the health of their young daughter (my mother). amidst the medical advice (he was a doctor, after all), you could sense his love for her and his longing to be back with her. and as an old man, there was never any question that she had been his love all those years. through their arguing and sometimes even yelling (conversations, they called them), he looked at her with the kind of certainty that bespeaks something so much deeper than movie screen love affairs and flowery poetry. it was the kind of love that had seen war and death, birth, blood, sickness, hard financial times, difficult relational times, children, and the putting of hands to a plow (or hammer, or stethoscope) to put in an honest day's work—side by side. it was a love that never gave up, never walked out, and never needed proving with empty words and meaningless tokens.

it was a love that spilled over into four children, six grandchildren, and hundreds of devoted family and friends. it was a love that changed my little kid heart every time he held me tight, called me sweetheart, or asked me to sing him a song.

every day. yes. every. single. day. i still feel that love. i still miss it. i want it again. and obviously, though it won't be the same (nor should it), it will echo of times past. of honor and forbearance. of believing in someone's dreams and promises and hopes. of wanting the best and laying down your life for that to happen. of knowing what you want and never, ever letting it go.

herculean

2008-11-16T22:24:00.002-05:00

this weekend has been packed. my mom came to visit me and we have been doing chores nonstop. let me recap:

friday
arrival. chicken parm. hot cocoa and '27 dresses.' hung out until midnight or so. collapse.

saturday
slept in a bit. breakfast/shower. errand running (wine store, drugstore, jo-ann fabrics, trader joe's). lunch out (flying avocado cafe - LOVE). prepping pants for hemming. stuffed chix breasts for dinner. hot cocoa and 'ratatouille.' early to bed.

sunday
early to rise (mom had been up for hours). cutting patterns for quilted appliance covers. lunch at mari luna with salimah. starbucks. four hours of closet cleaning (looks amazing). four bags of stuff for goodwill. four bags of trash. hot shower. more hemming. bread, cheese, and english breakfast tea for dinner. computer work to prep for tomorrow. sleeeeeepy.

my mom is a champion, plain and simple. she's so generous and helpful with her time and talents. my closet was in desperate need of organization and cleaning and she got me three tubs (two hold purses and one holds photos) and several garment bags and covers. so now all my clothes are protected from dust and tucked away in their proper places. and my cleaning lady comes on tuesday to deal with the rest of the dust and grime. what a relief!

tonight i will sleep like a log. this past week was rough and the one coming up promises more long days and late nights. i'm grateful for exhaustion like this, because it means that i did something worthwhile with my time, and i'm one step farther along in the process of having a more orderly life.

oh, and as a side note: my mom found a 9 of spades behind something in my closet and said to me with concern, 'i hate to tell you this, but you haven't been playing with a full deck.'

ain't that the truth....

worn thin

2008-11-12T21:29:00.002-05:00

i'm having one of those weeks where i cannot even envision making it to friday. no, nothing's wrong, per se, but i'm just so inundated with 'stuff' to do and i just want to sleep. tonight i was at the office until 8:30 finishing up some things for work and then writing the equivalent of a 3-page paper in about 30 minutes' time. thank God i can put words on a page rather quickly; i honestly wouldn't be making it through grad school right now otherwise.

what makes me feel a tad bit sick to my stomach right now is the understanding that even though the thanksgiving holiday is fast approaching, there is no rest for the weary. i will probably spend the night much the same as last year: spending a tiny bit of time relaxing with friends and then writing a paper until the wee hours of the morning. the thought of this makes me want to cry.

okay, there. i got it out. now i'm going to watch some DVR'ed cooking shows, put my feet up, rehydrate, and call it a night.

all right, look

2008-11-07T08:39:00.003-05:00

i'm just going to say this one time, because i don't want to waste the opportunity to catalog the goings-on of the world in this space.

i'm a conservative, okay? like, really. and for the last several months, in particular, i've been on the receiving end of a lot of crap from other people about how that somehow 'means' something about me and the way i feel about others. well, it means a lot of things, but none of them include that i'm stupid, naive, bigoted, and a hater of women, racial minorities, and other groups. may i remind the gentle reader that i am, in fact, a woman? and i like us just fine, thank you. :)

i'm saying all of this because i am one of the few million who did not 'barack the vote' during this election. and believe you me, i struggled with it. i struggled because john mccain isn't really that conservative and i really wouldn't have chosen him as my candidate (nor did i in the primaries), and voting for barack obama - for me - would have been more of a social statement than a political one. and i nearly did - for that reason alone. i nearly, nearly did.

in the months up to the election, salimah and i had many a tense conversation about the candidates. she was so passionately pro-obama and i was so passionately anti a lot of his policies (primarily economic ones). but her passion runs so much deeper than politics, policies, and elections. it draws from a deep and abiding wound that exists in the hearts of so many people in this country for centuries of injustice, hatred, anger, and the feeling of being mocked, cast aside, and placed forever in a position of 'less than' just because of the color of one's skin. but it's not just the wound, either. it's the hope of healing that wound....the hope that all the bullshit (yeah, i said it) might actually be proven false one day; it's the awareness that at some point, the white supremacists, the 'good ol' boy network', and even those of us in suburban america who harbor racist attitudes (and there are many of us, whether we know it or not) will have to acknowledge that ALL PEOPLE REALLY ARE CREATED EQUAL - and not just as a statement on a piece of paper signed by some white men hundreds of years ago.

it was for THIS reason that i nearly voted for obama. but i didn't. i didn't because at the end of the day, i still believe in other things, too, and i made my decision - even though it was a difficult one - based on where i thought this country needed to head in order to get out of this mess we're in. obviously, my choice didn't make it into the top seat, but i'm glad and really grateful that so many people all over this country shared their opinions, got involved, got inspired, and got behind the candidate they wanted.

when barack gave his acceptance speech on tuesday night, he made mention of all those people whose support he has yet to earn (and in that statement, i hope that i heard a desire to earn that support in the coming months and years). i'm glad he feels that he's my president, too. he's got a lot of hard work ahead of him - that's for sure. but with all that he will have to accomplish, there is one HUGE hurdle he has already crossed. and for that - regardless of policies or party - my heart is overjoyed.

salimah, you are NEVER going to the back of the bus in this country again. and by God's grace, no one else ever will.

soundtrack for autumn 2008

2008-11-03T18:23:00.001-05:00

i started a new mix the week before last. it's 63 songs that conjure up fall for me....in all its yearning and wonder and worry....the gearing up for a season of desolation followed by the promise of something new. it is the turning inward, the time to make a nest, the months of bearing up under the coming cold and wind. fall makes me remember the strength that winter requires.

my heart is a bit heavy today...lots going on inside me but none of it worth mentioning here, really. what i continue to find remarkable is how everything just keeps moving along its trajectory. even looking at the trees, the brilliant reds and yellows are undaunted by indian summers. roads fill with cars in the mornings and evenings as people go to work and home, even as small tragedies grind some other people's lives to a halt. people...and life...keep moving ALL. THE. TIME. no matter what. and though i know that this is the way it must (and probably should) be, sometimes i wish for a moment that i could hold the progress at bay for awhile....perhaps encourage all of life to just take a nap (or a load off) for a few...think about what really matters and get back that sense of focus and calm. (calm? what is that?)

in my ears, someone's voice breaks on a note and everything inside of me stirs, then relaxes. keep singing, i think. winter's coming in more ways than one.

from brie to tater tots: one week later

2008-11-02T19:42:00.002-05:00

last saturday night, salimah hosted a game night at her apartment and a small group of us gathered to eat hors d'oeuvres and make merry. because there were only 6 of us, we huddled around her small dining room table and feasted on crab rangoon, brie with gingersnaps and dark cherry butter, mini quiche, and shrimp with cocktail sauce. since none of us had eaten dinner beforehand, we descended on the snacks and devoured them in no time at all. by the time we had settled into a rousing game of apples to apples, the second round of food came out: this time, buffalo chicken fingers and tater tots. i know. first, brie with gingersnaps and chi-chi preserves and then tater tots. but you know what? they were the HIT of the night (all thanks to salimah's sister, c, who insisted that everyone would love them - she was right!). as we nibbled on the crispy potato nuggets (with ketchup, of course!), we reminisced about fish sticks and childhood before retiring to the living room for a brief but rousing conversation about politics.

honestly, it was just a lovely way to spend an evening and i hope we can have a repeat performance in the not-too-distant future. readers take note: when you're planning a get-together, let this be a note to the wise that even the most 'foodie' grown-ups still love a tater tot. maybe even more than mini quiche!

electoral

2008-10-31T21:15:00.003-04:00

the last four days have been rough for me. i was completely without cable services: home phone (not that important), cable tv, and internet! seriously, it stressed me out to no end. i couldn't get into my classroom in the evenings and even had to stay at work until 9 pm on wednesday just to get a paper written. ridiculous!

i'm back in the game now (for good, i hope) and back to sharing my inane thoughts with my four readers (hello!).

in other news, the cold weather is kind of lovely. it's been rather brisk the last few mornings, but i welcome the temporary disappearance of the swelter and the pulling out of sweaters and woolies. plus, christmastime is coming soon!

before that, though, i have so much work to do (as usual) and much sleep and reading to catch up on. the election is a mere four days away and a week from now—barring no insane hanging-chad-type 'incidents'—we will know our fate for the next four years. regardless of outcome (although it's seeming pretty likely that obama will take it), this is a historic election and one that would seem to indicate our nation is slowly moving in the right direction as far as determining one's qualification for positions of import using more than the amount of pigment in his or her skin. don't get me wrong: we have miles and miles to go in order to put bigotry and hate behind us (and perhaps we never will), but there is hope in that regard.

whether you are republican or democrat, liberal, conservative, or somewhere in between, i hope for all of us that in the coming year, we can care a bit more about the person to our left or to our right; outstretch our hearts and work for justice for anyone being oppressed; dig deeper to meet the needs of people who are without; and seek to understand more than to be understood. this isn't lip service. it's real living with the goal of love in mind. and without it, what do we have to show at the end of the day except a paycheck and another 'thing' to acquire?

while i have been slightly panicked about the state of affairs in our country and in the world at large, i realized once again tonight that the way through our collective fears isn't from the 'right' outcome on november 4. instead, we must strive to elect ourselves to be the change we want to see in this world. so, be assured that i will be voting on tuesday. i'll be voting for all of us. every single one. every single day.

le samedi matin

2008-10-25T10:01:00.004-04:00

i love saturday mornings like this....sleeping in, nowhere to be for hours and hours, and a bevy of cooking shows on the dvr just waiting for me. my finance class is over as of tomorrow; i just have one final assignment to knock out before then, and though it's worth a sizeable chunk of my grade, it's one that i always do well on (kind of a 'how is this program contributing to your personal and professional growth' essay). now that the sleep has been fully shaken from my eyes, i'm planning something eggy, cheesy, and fruity for breakfast (not all in one dish, mind you) and then a long, lovely shower to restore me to some sense of normalcy (and to calm down my freshly cut hair, which, when i woke up, was standing on end).

and i'm happy to report to the world that the light chemical burns on my legs from yesterday's hair-removal incident seem to be subsiding! yeah. please don't even ask.

anyway, tonight i'll go hang out with some friends for a game night. hors d'oeuvres, taboo, and friends: i implore you to tell me how that can be anything other than rousing fun! tomorrow is brunch with salimah and 'the secret life of bees.' can't wait.

now then, giada de laurentiis and tyler florence are waiting for me. passez un bon week-end!

wilson phillips sure did know what they were talking about when they said 'hold on for one more day'

2008-10-23T21:03:00.004-04:00

i'm having one of those days where i sincerely wish my grad school experience were over. it's not that this week has been particularly harrowing (it hasn't)—more that i'm dreading the start of another class on monday and the realization that i have to gear myself up to deal with another prof and another group of potentially unknown fellow students. i know that i'm in the home stretch, and i know that at the end of this road there is a piece of paper with my name on it, a bit of recognition, and a raft of student loans to repay. go, me!

but along with this understanding is the more obvious fact that i'm not there yet. and oh, how i wish i were. oh, how i wish i could come home after work without thinking about all the stuff i have to do tonight...tomorrow....this weekend. what would i do with myself if i had time to read a book? for leisure!?

i will know this answer soon enough. not long after i turn 34, i will be done this program. i'm sure that the next 8 months will fly by and the next time i think of it, it'll be summertime and then...finito.

but is it okay in the meantime to tell you that i'm TIRED? and more importantly, that i'm TIRED of being TIRED? i hope it's okay, internets, because i'm saying it. and i mean it. i really, really mean it.

as soon as i hit 'publish post,' i'm going to go and turn on the heat (fall is decidedly here for reals this time), put on some comfy clothes, sit under a fleece blanket, and read a cookbook (or at least page through it and ponder the possibilities) while watching something mindless on tv. i've earned it today; i won't be doing any homework, and i feel unbelievably okay about that. and someday i won't have to justify anything one way or another. but i'm sure tonight you'll forgive me if i don't let myself think of such craziness just yet. it's a thursday and it's only october 23.

july, please come soon.