Dear

I think I've mentioned that my blog entries are ostensibly letters without the "Dear" (I was never a "dear" sort of person) and for those friends who got a kick out of my letters. Old news for you guys.

When you see several week lulls, I'm caught up in the every day stuff that is sometimes too "real" for a public "note" - it usually occurs when topics like politics, work, people who should be smacked, major networks that should be shut down and their executives publicly flogged have managed to block out rational thoughts. I am still writing my heart out during the lulls (see above topics), but only to the few who can stomach the me that isn't anywhere close to being humorous or sassy - the friends who can read "Me: An Ode to Beige" (a delightful poetic metaphor likening me to beige and comparing my vibrancy of one of Monet's pastel water lilies) and not visibly roll their eyes (mind you, the close friends who read my blog just had a "what? What poem? I didn't read that poem" moment - sorry guys, even I can put the breaks on when I'm being too much of a self-indulgent whiner), but they can also keep up as this bland water lily decides she's some sort of vermilion paint haphazardly splashed across a canvas (one of us may have a hair trigger when it comes to rage - you should seek help for that - it's most unbecoming).

So, let's see... since this is a letter, I suppose I should give some sort of update.
Over the last few weeks, I seethed, I calmed down, I got a little miffed again, someone made my day, someone made me sad. Apparently the internet makes me a tad neurotic.
My tire died last week, someone chased me down for a couple of miles to let me know, I knew, I was just trying to get to the tire place. I made a mental note that sometimes I'm unflappable - like the time the stove caught on fire and I really just wanted to finish the dishes. Honestly, one person running around screaming was enough, but I stopped, found the extinguisher and took care of it. The dishwater got colder. I tried to determine if it was a pattern. After a few days of thinking about it, I've decided it isn't.
I took some photos. I was wowed by others creativity. I felt embarrassed.
I watched the news. Nineteen pound babies... the Mamas & the Papas... Ahmadinejad... al-Gaddafi... wow, the universe must be throwing a carnival for crazy.
Someone stomped a major hot button. I acted out. Sometimes I'm 5, but still you don't know me well enough.
I read two reviews of the new "Fame", came home and ordered the original while listening to a snippet of Irene Cara. I threw The Outsiders into the mix. Amazon is sneaky with it's "just $2.01 more and you'll get free shipping" and I pay more for another item than what the shipping would have cost.
I sat back and smiled while Jim twisted himself up into a ball over the term "doodlebobbers".
I read a little. I watched TV a little. I picked on myself a little. I read a love poem written for my Mom when she was 20 that I had never seen. It was in a box that held a lock of her hair from when she was 3. I rapidly fanned my hand in front of my face to let Jay know I was about to have a "moment". You can fan away tears.
I put on a puppet show at lunch that made the waiter and my co-workers laugh.

All in all a "meh" kind of two weeks without a decent story to really latch onto - well, not one that I would feel comfortable enough to throw on the blog. The stories these past couple of weeks are better suited for an individual. Actual letters of the "Dear" variety. And maybe one day I'll be a "dear sort of person".

Follow-Up to Friendship vs. BBM

I feel obligated to follow-up on a piece within that particular post of mine.

Most of you who know me also know Julie and know that Julie was alright and eventually grew up to become a doctor. While we may have walked a good mile or two back to her house like the oblivious teen morons we were, Julie did have the foresight to call her mom. In what seemed like minutes, her mom was at the house and we were speeding off to the emergency room. Trust me, there is nothing scarier than seeing your friend being hauled away on a gurney with a neck brace keeping their head immobilized. Well... not quite immobilized, she was able to keep popping her chin down into it so she could look around. The nurse was not amused and we all got a brief lecture on the seriousness of neck injuries. In fact, while she was off being examined, I was pretty sure (thanks to the lecture) that she was going to come back as a paraplegic.

But in all cases involving Julie and serious injury (I have many injury photos of black & blue body parts and the prize, a glorious x-ray of her elbow after it was wired together (as soon as she got to work at the clinic, she had them x-ray her bionic elbow again) - she's a big fan of sharing and each scar tells a pretty amazing story of her resilience or maybe just her sheer luck. Sadly I never got one of the scar along her neck where she took a chain to the throat while riding full tilt on her mountain bike - again, another story that makes me shake my head), she came out relatively unscathed and was fortunately only incredibly sore the following days.

After the hospital, we were dropped back off to continue on with our summer errands (nothing would interfere with shopping at the strip mall down from the school). On the way back, we paused to look at the crosswalk she'd been in. You could see where the guy skidded straight through the crosswalk. That morning three lanes had stopped for Julie. The school zone lights had been flashing. One man had been in a hurry and pleaded with her not to turn him in as she sat dazed on the road. The teachers and bus drivers let him go - never got a name. A few years later, Julie lost a good friend - another classmate of ours - another driver who didn't see some kids. He also drove off. The kids were found in a ditch by the side of the road.

Think of the follow-up as maybe a cautionary tale.

Relenting

I was about seven the first time I saw a vampire movie. It was late and I was at my friend Jeff's who lived two houses down. The only clear memory I have of the actual movie is a swarm of hissing women in long flowing polyester dresses, bearing their fangs and chasing some poor selfish fellow around. Just like Sesame Street, this was clearly an allegory about the virtues of sharing and the terrified man clearly would have made Gordon, Maria and the Cookie Monster sob. As the child of social workers, I understood the importance of feeding the hungry and this man was setting a very poor example.

I guess this was a Hammer Horror flick of some sort and only terrifying to kids under the age of 10. When it finally ended, I ran home screaming in fear that I was being pursued by the Headless Horseman. Don't ask. I'm not sure how my fear morphed from vampires to head deprived equestrians, but I flew across the yard screaming only to find the door locked. I beat on that door shrieking all the while until one very worried Mom came running out. (This may have started the trend where I can't sit through horror films.)

I avoided vampires for many years until I came upon Mom's copy of Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. There I met self-loathing Louis - a far cry from the suave, well-dressed babe hounds that I was accustomed to with their quirked brows and forced "Romanian" accents. (No offense to George Hamilton or "Love at First Bite".) The book was original and steered-clear of the more ridiculous clichés associated with the genre. I faithfully followed that series through Memnoch, which I noticed, after plodding through the first few chapters, just happened to be the perfect size to brace our cat tree. I'm one of those who believe books are sacred, so this was a little out of character and a reflection on how much disdain I had for it. I was done with vampires again. No shrieking. Just an unceremonious shove under some cat furniture.

Then there was the online vampire game, which grew old once I realized that I was getting up in arms and shouting at people about interpretations of an imaginary world filled with vampires; the height of silliness. I wasn't debating politics or engaging in any meaningful conversatins, I was screaming bloody murder over vampires. A low point. (For the record, though. Tethys, the handle of one of the online players, was entirely wrong. It is completely viable that members of the Swiss Guard would be excellent candidates to become vampire hunters. Like the Vatican wouldn't have a keen interest in the living dead. I'm just saying. Ahem.)

I watched Buffy and Angel next, but we'll stop there since some of my friends are rabid Joss Whedon fans who also happen to know where I live.

Twilight came out and received scathing reviews from several of my friends so I avoided it. I didn't have time for another "oh, your skin it's so cold, yet... yet... your trench coat and that leering thing you're doing, which would be creepy from anyone else and might land them in jail, is kinda hot." Every time they gave me another storyline update, I winced. Then True Blood became the rage, and I rolled my eyes despite my Twilight hating friends singing its praises. Enough with the vampires, already.

I recently broke my no vampire policy and starting watching the BBC's "Being Human". It's like Three's Company of the preternatural world. A ghost, a werewolf and a vampire get an apartment and zaniness ensues (or maybe they walk into a bar - the beginnings of a great? so-so? joke). Sadly, those wacky kids did drive their landlord insane. In all fairness, it's not exactly a light-hearted romp. The vampire looks like he's in desperate need of a good shampooing, the ghost is a tad neurotic and the werewolf has dating issues, but thankfully his new girlfriend has issues, too so it all works out. Anyway, it was a gentle re-introduction to a topic I now find somewhat stupid. Cut me some slack, it is a rather slow summer for television; it's not entirely my fault.

Last weekend I gave in again. With Dexter a month away, and Dexter not on until next month and then there's Dexter, oh and a little show called Stargate Universe in October, my original show choices are somewhat limited. So, I figured one episode of "True Blood" couldn't hurt, which turned into, "well, that ended on a cliffhanger, maybe I should just watch one more to see what happened" and sure enough, those sneaky writers ended on another cliffhanger, and who was I not to get just one more episode? Well, once you're three episodes in, three more can't hurt? Right? I'm on episode 8. I blame the writers.

And once again I find myself watching more vampires. Leather coat wearing, brooding, pff pff lisping, look-at-my-teeth-gaze-into-my-eyes, vampires. The kind that whine when Type O- isn't available at the local bar, vampires. We may be dead, but we LOVE lots of gratuitous sex, vampires. Sure, it's not my Dexter or my Deadwood or my The Wire or my Carnivale or even my Sopranos (pre-Adriana killing, which is when I threw in the towel) or anywhere close to my BSG, but it beats the snot out of more UFC matches (shh, don't tell Jay - maybe he won't read this far) or reruns of Deadliest Catch (you know, they just never wear leather or trench coats on those shows).

I'll hang my head in shame as soon as I finish the series.

Disconnected

Twenty years ago, I would talk on the phone for hours. Twenty years ago, I wrote long and thoughtful letters. Twenty years ago, I went out with friends and family and we hiked, camped, danced, listened to music and strolled around Town Lake until dawn. I was involved and engaged… twenty years ago.

Then along came the internet and my first account when I was a beth@ because few people had email and I could be beth@ without many contending for the name. As each year ticked away, I gradually stopped writing, stopped dancing, and stopped listening to music. Today, I no longer see dawn at the end of a long night, but at the beginning of a long day. My letters are email quips, my music is downloaded. I catch up with my friends through Twitter or through Facebook or the occasional website. I don’t share much; I’m content with simply being a name connected to a few short adjectives or a family stereotype; people don't know me. Today, it’s easier to reach me online than it is on the phone and in fact, it’s my preference. I don’t feel the need to speak. New friends no longer come from work or school or through other friends, but through online connections as a handle or an avatar. We try not to trade in too much that is “real” – first names are rare. A very human connection slips away.

I suppose that’s how things go as we bumble through this digital age. With all this connection there is a very real and palpable disconnection.

How is a particular person doing? I’ll check their status on Twitter like I check the weather. I dip in, read a sentence or two and flitter away to find another distraction.

This works for me until they disappear.

I sometimes wonder, “where is Lori?” I used to have the answer. Her blog lies dormant. Where she encouraged you to follow her on Twitter, there hasn’t been an update in a year. Photos that were updated daily haven’t changed. Google tells me she’s alive and well. Prodding one of her closer friend confirms the same – that she’s alive. She’s living off the internet grid. I can’t relate.

I wonder about people like Mado, Myles Brakken, Tamara Nivens, Corwin and Lillia. I don’t know their real names. I don’t know where they live. I’ve personally never met them. However, for brief moments in my life, they were important to me in some small way and despite the shared laughs and occasional heartaches, I will never know who they really were nor them me.

… and I bumble along. More connected. More disconnected.

Bad Things/Good Things/Updates

Life is a balance...

Bad Things

I lost my cell phone. My obnoxiously girly pink phone that plays the theme to Indiana Jones.

A long time acquaintance finally succumbed to Cystic Fibrosis after a 41+ year battle.

The IRS asked for a kidney this year. Why not, I have two! Big thanks to a former employer for not entering my W-4 information in correctly (they took out a mere $105 for the year) - I don't wish them ill. No wait, I do. Of course, shame on me for not noticing.

Oh, and for the record, I do think that funerals should be deductible.
...and really, I didn't want to continue to take viola lessons, go to the movies, go to lunch, go out of town ... I mean honestly, who does?

I did try to talk a friend out of one of her kids, but she's trying to convince me that the rebate they get for their kids is the government's way of thanking them for not putting them up for adoption.

Eddie Izzard tickets sold out immediately. :(

...and the number one - no, that deserves a special post

Good Things

Jay still had his old phone (my old one had actually died). I actually like it better than the pink one and it now plays the Pink Panther. (Indy wasn't even an option.)

We were missing our groundskeeper, Ray, and found out he'd been hospitalized due to a terrible bicycling accident. He's one of those people who puts everything he has into every job he does around the building - one of those people who doesn't just do his job, he launches a full scale assault - and he does it with a smile. IN the middle of it, he'll always pause a moment to say something that makes you feel special. I'm sure you're thinking "bad thing" and it is... but I said to a friend "I think it would be nice if we could get the money together to get him a new bike". I was hoping for a couple of hundred dollars tops. Well, we talked to each other, talked to a few co-workers and the word spread. The count as of a few hours ago - close to $1,000. When I talked to Ray at the hospital he said, "Beth, did you know if two people pray for me, God will hear them and I'll get better?" On Wednesday, Ray is going to see just how many people were thinking about him, praying for him and hoping to see him get better.

The new (final (that should be under not so good))season of Battlestar Galactica started. I wouldn't be a geek if I didn't list this as a "good thing". And it's Roslyn - we can put money on it if you're ready to send some my way - my kidney, the one that is about to be removed for shipment to the IRS, will thank you after dabbing the sweat off its little kidney forehead and breathing (yeah yeah, I know they don't breathe - thanks smart alleck you) a sigh of relief.

The new neighbors have moved in - they both have "B" names which means the reign of the Stepford Julies might be coming to an end and a new "B" era is waltzing in. You've got to love them, because the first thing they did was cut down all of their trees, throw out all of their bushes and dump a big pile o' dirt in their driveway. I'm sure the only Julie left (and the HOA) is having a complete stroke (there's a form if you sneeze on a bush and a fine if no one saw the form). Their pool is going in at the moment and every day after work there's the pounding sound of drilling (the ground is hard after 3 ft.) Of course, I'm at home sick today, so I see some Tylenol in my future.

Apricot chicken salad - ok, that may be the best thing EVER and it's even better sitting in April's cute new place.

Updates

Sam can almost regularly blink her left eye and is almost at the point where she can close the right. GO SAM!

Tap starts for me in about a month. I'M ECSTATIC! I LOVE TAP!!!

... and I'll think up a real blog idea one day. No really. I'm just trying to avoid being overly morose and self-indulgent.

TMI

A couple of my friends have recently come up to me to announce major health issues which have been followed with a statement like "well, I was concerned about telling you because I thought it was too much information". So, I'm writing this for them.

Too Much Information(TMI) - according to Beth

What constitutes TMI? Let's start with your bowels. I appreciate that the digestive system is a miraculous and wonderous thing - that without it, we wouldn't be here to discuss TMI or really anything else. And while I don't mind hearing about "product in", I don't much care for "product out" - what shape it made, how often this little miracle happened for you, what caused it - if it has the perfect DQ swirl, feel free to marvel at it, applaud it, take a picture of it for your own records, but don't share it with me.

Recently, I hurt a person's feelings. She was carrying on about the big bucket of popcorn she had at the movies and how all that roughage was just working it's way through. Then gleefully added, "I'll be running by you back and forth all day trying to make it to the potty." I'm pretty sure my face lost all color. Mid-way through the day she dropped by to explain that everything was going beautifully with her bowels and she was pretty sure the popcorn had cleared her system. I threw up my hands and started shouting, "TOO MUCH INFORMATION! YOU ARE REALLY SHARING TOO MUCH!" ... and I hurt her feelings - seriously. Too bad, because I am not your go-to girl for poo.

Your sex life. For starters, you don't play a major role in any of my sexual fantasies, but I appreciate that you're trying to give me the visual. I don't care how raunchy, over-the-top, frequent, or how heralded you happen to be, you've just given me the willies because I don't think of you that way. In fact, I prefer to think you've only gone so far as holding hands and that your anatomy is something Mattel pieced together. Unless you're Brad Pitt, you fall into the same category as Ron Jeremy or Flavor Flave or Sandra Bernhardt - because you just made me lose complete interest in sex with your talk - in some cases you made me lose control of my bowels; your story was that upsetting. WAY TO GO! Now those of you that see this as a challenge and are moments from e-mailing me what a bedtime casanova you are, feel free - since you feel like sharing, I'll post it on the blog with your full name attached - hey, if you can share it with me, you can share it with the world. And the world wants to celebrate your escapades.

Under the umbrella of your sex life is your pubic hair. Yes, I applaud your ability to shave in your name, your favorite team, Winnie the Pooh - you're a little barbershop prodigy. This is also TMI unless we're both falling down drunk, then the TMI lines get blurred a bit. But if I'm dead sober sitting at my desk or lounging on my couch, I don't want the visual of your curlies bouncing around like Tigger.

When "naked" isn't TMI - when you've bounded into the living room of your apartment fresh from a shower wearing what God gave you only to discover there are construction workers right outside the window who just locked eyes with you. And after the aforementioned locking of the eyes, you fled for cover (and clothes), and now have to walk the gauntlet by passing them on the way to your car. THAT'S just good times! (that's not TMI)

So, I'll say one more time to my surgery having friends - if your brain is exploding, if they're replacing major organs, if they amputate your pinky toes - this is not TMI - this is how you score presents and flowers and cards and balloons. I don't care if you wet the gurney, spewed on the attendant or had to have a catheter - that won't fall under the TMI umbrella. Now if Barry White showed up while you were seducing your doctor, that's TMI. It's a fine line.

"Glass Half Full!"

I'm a freak magnet. Just take my word for it. It's just something about me - like Anna is good with computers, Jeff is good at drawing and well Beth, Beth is good at having crazy randomness bump into her.

I've had days when it's been easy - studying for a test and some random stranger interrupts with an, "excuse me, but have you ever been to a Star Trek convention?" to a guy landing in my office and announcing "I have gangrene! Give me a knife so I cut it out of my leg." Yes, I'm going to hand crazy a knife. Mmm hmm.

So, I don't know really why I bother being surprised by it, but I always am.

Take Friday. I was sitting and waiting for some people when a guy pops in to ask what I'm doing. "Waiting, but I think the folks aren't going to show because it's Good Friday so I'll probably be leaving soon."
"Does this happen to you often?"
"No, not really."
"Oh. Mind if I sit down?"
"Sure."
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"What do contemporary Christians do on Good Friday."
"Uhhh..." (They go to movies? They taunt me from home? Sleep-in?)
"Do they go to church?"
"I believe they go to mass." (Yeah, the stations of the cross totally not in my head because I really wasn't prepared for this question.)
"Oh. Ok. Can I touch your jacket?"
"Ummm sure?" Then he reached over and pinched my sleeve.
"Well, good bye! Glass half full, you know!"
... and he scampered away.
... and I had the biggest uhhhhh moment before I could finally actually send impulses from my brain to move my legs and run away.

I won't even mention the Tai Chi moves he slowly performed except to mention them. But I must admit that I do plan to spend the next week annoying Jay and my friends by asking if I can touch random bits of their clothing and then shouting, "ok! Glass half full!"

Cubicles

Last week I was fishing around for blog ideas and my cousin suggested something along the lines of people who forget they're in a cubicle farm and thus end up sharing too much on personal phone calls.

I can't relate.

Sure, I work in a sea of cubicles, but everyone goes all secret agent when it comes to personal phone calls. Voices drop. Feet scurry. When their cells ring there's a curtly whispered "ummm... psst hello" quickly followed by the opening and closing of the hallway door. Your only hope of pure, unadulterated eavesdropping occurs if you're lurking around hallway - the "oh my, I haven't ever read this poster about the importance of security badges before. Maybe I should give this a closer look" approach or you move onto a landing in the stairwell - you know, voices really carry in those. Not that I know from personal experience. I've just "heard" things... from others. To top it off, a good portion of the people I work with speak multiple languages, thus severely reducing the chance of a good, solid, gossip-able family meltdown. Wow. I've found the one good reason to force people to only speak English - how will I know if the guy next to me is a player unless I can hear him making his moves?

It's not that I haven't had some great moments with co-workers and their personal calls, but it's been so long that I can't even think of one good story. Sure, there was the time Robert yelled at his kid over homework versus video games, but really, that's just nothing.

Now, if we can take it out of the office. I've heard some GREAT conversations that people were either sharing with a friend on the phone or personally entertaining a crowd at the store. Take the time Jay and I were at a coffee place called Mozart's (by the way, a "Z" in German sounds like a "ts", so when you read that think Mote's Art - not Moe's Art - random factoid for the day, forever pet peeve of mine... ANYWAY). While we were out on the deck enjoying the moonlight dancing over the murky water the young frat guy behind us was having an amazing conversation with some guy friend. Now he was a player and was cheerfully chatting on about all the women he was stringing along and was downright giddy (and very loud) while using every thumping-chest kind of derogatory remark he could. Suffice it to say that Gloria Steinem would have given him a beat down had she been there. Sure, what he said was wrong... but funny... and well, I can't really justify that statement because for the life of me all of his cheesy comments that I had committed to memory for so long have finally been purged from my long term memory.

Or there was the guy at the comic shop recently who had several other customers enthralled as he loudly proclaimed that everyone should trust him because he was a genius. (Personally, I always sit up when any conversation involves someone touting their IQ.) He meant the conversation for the younger geeks in front of him, but the conversation was wafting (as words and smells tend to do at comic book stores) across the store. Honestly, once I heard the beginning of this promising speech, I gave Kendra the look which basically meant "Oh, this is good. I'm going to be feigning interest in this shelf over here to hear the rest." (It's ok that I'm occasionally mean. I wasn't hugged much as a child and I have self-esteem issues. And yes, it does make me feel better about myself. Look it up!)

So, I guess that while overall I get where my cousin is coming from - that people should be mindful of where they are when they discuss personal things, I still enjoy the occasional random conversation I bump into. It makes me feel confident that when I'm making an ass of myself, because someone has just caught a stray sentence or two from one of my little monologues, that there's someone out there gleefully mocking me (I hope they got the voice right). And really, we should all take a moment to laugh at ourselves and each other. We've funny little creatures that can get wrapped up in being too serious too often.

For Susan

Susan, who is both an amazing person and is hands-down one of the most amazing meeting facilitators ever (she makes meetings both worthwhile and fun), told us about the following fun little "performance art" piece:


And since I'm in a YouTube frame of mind, I thought I'd pass it along.

Young at Heart

A grab bag of some random thoughts...

After I graduated from college, my mother gave me a copy of Robert Fulghum's book titled Uh Oh. In truth, without cracking it open, I decided it was silly, overly simplistic and a better choice for anyone else but me. I finally did read it (a sure sign that I had run out of books) and one particular section stuck with me...

Ask a kindergarten class, “How many of you can draw?” and all hands shoot up. Yes, of course we can draw—all of us. What can you draw? Anything! How about a dog eating a fire truck in a jungle? Sure! How big you want it?

How many of you can sing? All hands. Of course we sing! What can you sing? Anything! What if you don't know the words? No problem, we make them up. Let's sing! Now? Why not!

How many of you dance? Unanimous again. What kind of music do you like to dance to? Any kind! Let's dance! Now? Sure, why not?

Do you like to act in plays? Yes! Do you play musical instruments? Yes! Do you write poetry? Yes! Can you read and write and count? Yes! We're learning that stuff now.

Their answer is Yes! Over and over again, Yes! The children are confident in spirit, infinite in resources, and eager to learn. Everything is still possible.

Try those same questions on a college audience. A small percentage of the students will raise their hands when asked if they draw or dance or sing or paint or act or play an instrument. Not infrequently, those who do raise their hands will want to qualify their response with their limitations: “I only play piano, I only draw horses, I only dance to rock and roll, I only sing in the shower.”

When asked why the limitations, college students answer they do not have talent, are not majoring in the subject, or have not done any of these things since about third grade, or worse, that they are embarrassed for others to see them sing or dance or act. You can imagine the response to the same questions asked of an older audience. The answer: No, none of the above.

What went wrong between kindergarten and college?

What happened to YES! of course I can?

Excerpt from Robert Fulghum's book Uh Oh entitled "Yes, I Can!"

Of all things, it reminds me of my mother and singing in the car or around the house - we'd play a game where you had to start with the letter A, sing a song that began with that letter and work your way through the alphabet, - it also reminds me of a time when my Mom, aunt, cousin and I were watching Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas" and leapt up to do a not so amazing interpretation of Ann-Margret's dance to "C'mon Everybody" (I just listened to a sample and am finding it hard not to dance). And it makes me a little sad, because at some point I decided I shouldn't sing, I shouldn't dance, and I shouldn't play. Of course, society (that's what I'll call them to play fair), helps - who hasn't said, "you know why they sing that song? So you don't have to!" which is really more about ribbing in most cases, but it ends up being limiting, because eventually you just stop singing, and dancing, and drawing unless you're completely alone. Then when people ask "how does that song go" you shrug, "I don't know" just to avoid singing it.

... and this brings me to the documentary that is coming to Austin called "Young at Heart" - these people who still sing and dance and find joy by singing pop songs around the world. So, today I'll leave you with a little bit of them:

NPR Audio Clip - May, 2000

Movie Website

And of course, a video that made me smile - The Young at Heart Choir singing The Ramones "I wanna be sedated".



... don't stop singing, dancing, drawing, writing or simply creating. You know why they sing that song? So you can sing along, too. You know who sings that song? Must be you, since you're singing it.

Valentine's Day

So, I'm a day late, but yesterday I was sugaring up on Lindt chocolate (only to regret it later) and I couldn't possibly focus on posting while chocolate was sitting on my desk staring me down. (It never blinks. Why doesn't it blink?!?!)

I spent some part of the day making mental lists of all of my favorite romantic things and thought to myself, I should share (oh sure, you're thinking please don't, but Valentine's Day is about sharing... just like Christmas and Groundhog's Day and most any other day of the week I feel like posting something).

I flipped through my copy of The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Vol. 2 trying to remember a specific poem by Yeats that I always enjoyed, which actually began as a search on Google, a trip to Wikipedia, some chocolate, a grand "AH HAH! Yeats" moment and finally the book came into play. The poem is titled "Adam's Curse" and I think that what I like most about it is the story behind it - the story reflects a moment in Yeats' life and his longing for the Irish revolutionary Maude Gonne. And with that, an excerpt from the last two stanzas:

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

W.B. Yeats - 1902,1903

As I made my lists, I had to come to terms with the fact that while I lodge my eyes into the back of my skull when it comes to romance novels, I have to admit I'm a complete and total weak-kneed sucker for Gothic Romances. Give me my Jane Eyre, my Wuthering Heights or some Pride and Prejudice and please pass the tissue because I'll be snorting and blubbering by the last sentence. I completely blame my high school English teachers, because up until then I was all about Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land and other titles you wouldn't recognize unless you avidly trolled the shelves for pulp science fiction/fantasy. I suspect that Seth, having had the same teachers in school, is the exact same way judging by his writing (thankfully, I don't live close by and I like to think he's a pacifist - or at least wouldn't hurt a girl with glasses).

In fact, my love of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series started with The Eyre Affair simply because I wanted to be back with Jayne and Rochester one more time. I wanted to hear their voices again even if it meant they didn't come directly from Charlotte Brontë's pen - it was enough that the words were in her style. (Yes, my friends... that's what started me on those books. The ugly truth is out.)

So, those are obviously my Valentine's Day picks for books.

Movies: Well, of course it would have to be "Sense and Sensibility" and yes, I do cry at the end every single time (I cry every time I see "Beaches", too for the record). When it comes to movies, another guilty pleasure of mine is romantic comedies. The experience is even more perfect if it's with my cousin, Kim - she's the only person I know who reacts in the same way as I do. I'd share, but you all are my serious-minded friends and with you I like to sit as stoically as possible in the theater and pretend I'll have something intelligent to say at the end like "Did you know that Bumblebee was actually a Volkswagen Beetle in the Transformers cartoon?" "Oh, indeed indeed and Megatron was a machine gun" "Coffee?" "Let's!" (I am the embodiment of sophistication. And hopefully one of my Transformer friends won't smite me for goofing that up. I mean, I think I got it right.)
EDIT: Well, I got busted. Jay says Megatron was a pistol and more specifically a Walther P38, a WWII German service pistol. Who knew? Well, aside from Jay? and you?

Music: Well, you really can never go wrong with the Beatles and "I Will". In fact, I sang that to myself all day yesterday. Jay, not being a Beatles fan, lucked out in that I didn't sing it loudly at him. "I've Just Seen a Face" - again, the Beatles, is also timeless. They just have a way of singing the word "girl" that makes me all gushy. Blame my aunts who came of age in the 70's and were my babysitters.

TV: Well, I'm not a big fan of sit-coms so finding a show that depicts a strong relationship that doesn't leave me bemused and uttering snarky remarks is hard - so I'll go with my favorite love story arc - from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (yeah, yeah - shush) - Willow and Tara. I really didn't like this arc at first, it seemed awkward and forced and made me uncomfortable, but by the time the character's relationship ultimately ended, it was hard for me to let it go. Just thinking of one of the lines from the show "she still sings to you" chokes me up. Truly, it's one of Josh Whedon's finer writing moments.

There you have it - not a story today, but a simple list of a few of my favorite Valentine's things (and of course... Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens...)

My love to you all this day and every day and especially to Jay, my best-friend and favorite co-conspirator.

The Big Blue Mess

I’m on vacation. Yes, a real bona fide vacation. A long over-due break from everything - this is where I sit in my robe, look around the house and occasionally attack something with Clorox for eyeing me funny (and flaunting its dirt). My last vacation was in May 2007 and the one before that was September 2006, so I feel completely ok with myself when I plop down on the bed and watch every “Dead Like Me” episode we have in the house while Sam snacks on some article of clothing we’ve forgotten on the floor. (Sam usually does this on the sly and we go through the routine of acting surprised – we can’t get mad at Sam for being Sam, but I could kick myself because I liked those jeans – eh, back to the robe.)

Maybe it’s an only child thing or a disposition thing, but if I go on vacation from work, I end up working overtime on me – sometimes known as engaging in self-deprecating behavior where I over-analyze every flaw I possess. Why inventory the good when it’s easier to make a laundry list of the bad? I don’t find the chinks in the armor, I find the big gaping holes that make me appear naked. As a master of this particular game, I also know when to cry “uncle” and back down. If I can be the biggest me bully on the block, then I have to be the biggest defensive older sister; it’s a balance.

That brings me to the Big Blue Mess. I don’t like it at the moment. My writing needs work and posting once a week for two years hasn’t really improved its quality. It hasn’t even made me a “writer”; I’m just some random person who slaps words together on a blog that would make my college writing professor cringe. Most real writers have up and down days and personally I can smell a bad post even before I hit “publish”. I can even tell you what made it bad – where it wandered – where I lost the point as I rushed to wrap everything up before you got overly bored. (Hey, I’ve seen the numbers for the average time spent of my site. I have an idea of your threshold.)

What that means is that I’m going to try to find a way to get some feedback from writers. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to do that, but it became my goal after I had a small meltdown last night. It also means that I’m going in search of some writing classes (God forbid they make me write a story; I’m just not that kind of a creative writer (well, that goes without saying)).

I will continue to blog (I hate that word, for the record) and the stories will still continue to be up and down in terms of quality – what you’ve come to expect here. I do want to say that I appreciate all of your support – my friends and family who come and read more out of a love for me (and because it’s a slow work day) than for the content. Thank you guys for the times you’ve said to me “Beth, when you said … in your blog, that was really funny.” Those comments made my day.

Back to the ol' drawing board.

The Viola Lesson

Yesterday was my first official viola lesson. I was told to practice. I did - a couple of times, but whose counting? And at first the cats came in to stare at me blankly, then Sam walked into the hallway and delivered her criticism in the form of throwing-up all over the floor (am I really so bad that I make grown animals queasy?) My excuse then became, how can I practice when poor Sam has already been through so much? I’m doing her a favor. Oh, and those strings hurt my fingers. I think my ring and pinky fingers have atrophied. I don’t like sitting up straight. My rosin has died. Do I tune the A at 440? This is too hard. Oh hey, computer!

So, with viola slung on my back I entered the string shop and proudly proclaimed that I had nothing prepared to showcase my decaying talents. Patient Jason asked, “can you play a scale in C Major?” “Oh, I dunno.” Ok, I can. It makes beagles barf, but I can do it – still, I wasn’t owning up to my “skills” (note to readers: please be sure to make liberal use the air quotes as you read that word). “Well, can you hum a C Major scale?” I blinked. I don’t “hum”. Patient Jason then thought if he hummed I might join-in and we’d have a lovely little humming duet. I continued to blink as he hummed the scale and then he’d restart giving me the “join in” encouraging nod. I still blinked. “Do you sing in the shower?” “Yes! I love to sing… in the shower.” (I also love to loudly sing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” in the car and do vocal exercises I learned from my choir friends. I can even do a small bit of yodeling that I learned from my father that is really obnoxious in confined spaces. I decided not to share this information. Post my shower singing admission, I just blinked. See, I don’t sing for anyone and in the hierarchy of people I don’t sing for, Patient Jason is on the lowest rung.) The ugly reality cloud set-in and Patient Jason thankfully gave up on this fun little humming exercise. (He does an amazing C Major, for those who are interested. It was only one octave, but I’m sure he had another in him if pressed.)

Basically, the lesson went as lessons do with a heavy emphasis on posture and technique as we tried to work out an issue between my shoulder and shoulder rest. You’ll all be glad to know, I stand with my viola quite well and was praised. I was reminded not to suck in my stomach (I think we’re beyond the point where I can suck that in), not to overly flex my tush muscles (someone plays like that?) and rock back on my heels (dangerous).

My favorite Patient Jason moment, as we discussed atrophied finger muscles, was when he quoted the Polish pianist Ignacy Paderewski, "If I miss one day of practice, I notice it. If I miss two days, the critics notice it. If I miss three days, the audience notices it." I gave a thoughtful, “hmm” (my own staccato version of a hum and the closest I came to humming that night – it wasn’t in C Major). “Of course, the guy was insane.” “Oh, that’s just great Jason, you’re quoting insane composers at me and I’m supposed to learn from that.” “Yep!”

Our lesson then wrapped up with a discussion of movies (April – a guy after your heart) while he helped me get new strings and rosin that isn’t quite as dead as the caked mess that hunkers in my case.

“Beth, you’ll find I’m sarcastic.”
“Great! Me too and if I make you cry, it’s not my fault.”

Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Top 10

The year is wrapping up, which means only one thing –Top 10 lists and I hate Top 10 lists for the most part because they tend to be pieced together by art house know-it-alls who want to make sure you feel stupid for enjoying The Fantastic Four by beating you down with a list of movies that were shown in four major cities to an audience of about 62. Doubtlessly, they golf-clapped at the end, drank some wine and threw around many multi-syllabic words to express their profound appreciation of the masterpiece they just enjoyed then made plans to jet to Cannes.

After talking to April and receiving her personal Top 10 of “Why I Hate Top 10 Lists” (by far, the number 1 Top 10 List of 2007 as determined by me) and then later reading my first genuine Top 10, I decided to chime in with my own completely subjective list. Unfortunately, I can’t find that person’s Top 10 – and it was great because it pushed me over the edge and made me realize I couldn’t walk away from my own list – all with one whiney little statement about the 300 being one of the worst movies of the year and how we didn’t need to see another war movie.

So, here you go – some lists.
Movies
“No Country for Old Men” – everything about this movie is solid from the acting to the set design to the sound effects – I’ve stood in front of those counters, talked to those people, walked on those floors, opened those doors – I’ve never seen a movie get so much right in terms of “flash” and sounds.

“Pan’s Labyrinth” – I know, you saw it last year. Well, I saw it this year and this is my list.

“Children of Men” – my stub says 1/21/2007, so this one counts, too. For the record, I think it’s cheating to sneak things in at the end of the year before the rest of us can see them. I hate the pressure of trying to see everything before Oscar Night that Top 10 lists have told me is good. I’m talking to you limited release “There Will Be Blood” and “Butterfly in the Bell Jar”

“300” – complete eye candy and not just the CGI-ed abs – I feel no shame in listing this – just take one look at the Frank Miller graphic novel and compare the frames to the movie – their special effects team deserves a standing ovation.

“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Bob Ford” – I hope I didn’t ruin the end for you.

“3:10 to Yuma” – We like all things Christian Bale in this household. (Well, I wasn’t too keen on American Psycho, but I’ve liked him since Henry V.)

“The Last King of Scotland” – again, saw it this year. It’s not my fault I didn’t want to go to the one theater it showed in here.

… and for the record, I really enjoyed “Transformers” and “Live Free or Die Hard” – take that movie snobs.

The worst movie for an action junkie like me: War - you shouldn't be able to go wrong with Jet Li and Jason Statham, yet they did.

TV
“Dexter” – America’s favorite serial killer

“Battlestar Galactica” – by far the best Science Fiction serial show and I’m going to have to go with “ever” on this one. Your Star Treks (any version), original BSGs, Space 1999’s, Stargate’s, Farscape’s, Cleopatra 2525’s, Andromeda’s just don’t hold a candle to this show.

“Chuck” – FUNNY and it has Adam Baldwin

“Heroes” – Last season, not this one (well ok, I really like the addition of Dan Anderson’s Kensei)– and since last season wrapped this year, it counts.

“The Daily Show” – could someone PLEASE pay the writers what they’re worth? I miss you Jon – so much in the news, so little mocking

Books
Gates of Fire – Ok, I really sucked in terms of reading this year – my life blew-up and I have a backlog. Anyway, this is fictionalized story about the Hot Gates or the Battle of Thermopylae. In other words, it’s the story of the 300.

Music
Best CD according to ME: Rodrigo y Gabriela – album by the same title

My favorite songs that I was introduced to this year:
“Ina Mina Dika” – it’s a RHYMING song from Bollywood and an old standard.

“Hold On” – KT Tunstall

“Wagon Wheel” – The Old Crow Medicine Show

“Myriad Harbour” – The New Pornographers

Honorable mention to the Brian Setzer Orchestra (you know him from Stray Cats) for “One More Night With You”

If I missed something you enjoyed, good. Go make your own list.

Mid-Life Crisis

I really miss school – not homework or projects or tests or, God forbid, anything that involved me standing in front of people and speaking. I miss the learning. I miss changing up subjects every hour all day long from English to science to math – and I loved it all – maybe not all of my teachers, but almost all of the subjects.

In college, I loved deciding which classes I’d take and my first few years looked a lot like my high school schedule with all the usual suspects including orchestra and PE, but in college I could focus on particular areas – biology became zoology – government became international law – and PE was modern dance or Tae Kwon Do depending on the semester (I’m so out of shape now I can’t wrestle the cat off my desk without her pinning me to the ground while hissing “you want some of this? Hmm? You think you’re a tough human? Whose a tough girl, now? Is it you? Hmmm? I didn’t THINK so!” then she lets me up and I go sulk in the living room.) The only thing I hated was picking a major and the way I decided was to review all the classes I’d taken and determining that “ahhh, I have more government than anything else”, because I didn’t want to be in school forever. I wanted to get out and enjoy the freedom of having a “job” – forget learning anything useful, any ol’ job would do. Choosing a minor was a little more difficult – I had an equal number of classes in biology, anthropology and English so it came down to “eh, English is ok”.

(Just for clarifications sake – when I say I have a minor in English that does not mean I have any special skills at either writing or editing. For some reason, when people hear I have a minor in English, they think I can critically analyze their writing and begin to actually worry. Unless you’re using the word “irregardless” trust me when I say you’re safe from me. What an English minor actually means (at least in my case) is that I’ve read a lot of poetry, short stories and books. In fact, I need some of you to sit down for this next revelation, you see, I cannot even diagram a simple sentence. I know, I know, I single-handedly make English teachers across the globe weep, but I didn’t become a run-on sentence, comma splice abuser because I could identify an indirect object. I prefer a more stream-of-conscious Dickens approach to a sentence. (C’mon, that first paragraph in a Tale of Two Cities (aka that sentence) is blatant abuse and they paid him by the chapter.) In fact, every year in high school would open with our English teachers berating us for our poor skills, snarking about our previous lax teachers, then they’d set aside two weeks to drill the basics into our head, throw their hands up in disgust, declare us all hopeless and begin throwing books our way. If we could survive a couple of “who” “whom” or “which” and “that” chapters in the Little Brown Handbook, we were home free. The next year, they’d start this whole cycle anew and we’d always be rewarded because ultimately they wanted to read books, too.

Now I have a job and it’s nice – it pays the bills – it keeps me off the streets, but I am missing all of the exposure I once had to history, social sciences, geography, geometry, etc. Sure, I can relive the orchestra experience by practicing and joining a group. I can try to recapture that English feeling by joining a book club, but that has a few drawbacks which will only serve to make me sound more arrogant than I already do. But I really can’t break away and find a group that wants to sit around solving algebraic equations, working matrices, figuring out a complicated proof – those mathematical puzzles that are equally stimulating and fun. There’s no special hour to devote to the discussion of ethics or Eastern political thought or compare death rituals across the various tribes in Africa. The only group that might come close is MENSA and what do you really do there other than compare the size of your score? “Well, mine’s bigger!” Go Big Brained You! Plus, I’ve met some of the MENSA folks here in town, and they’re also proud members of the B&D Society. Personally, I don’t need a little spanking with my Chaucer, thank you very much – “Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote…” doesn’t inspire me to become anyone’s filthy little love pony – and if it does for you, go you – I know a great club you can join.

Sure, I could go back to school, take a class here or there but I really can’t recapture that same feeling nor can I carry 12+ hours of classes, live in a dorm and think that Ramen every day is ok by me. Call this my mid-life crisis. I’m just missing the sports car. (I already got the hot young man. Go old me!)

The Top Ten

Dad and I were recently joking about one of those serious family matters - the ones that are easier to take with a smile because otherwise it's too serious and a tad too painful. Dad suggested I turn it into a story for my blah-g, which made us cackle a bit, because again it's one of "those" stories that would make your grandmother gasp if she read that dirty laundry hanging out there for the world. We went back and forth until Dad suggested a "Top Ten Reasons My Family is Crazy" or "...Crazier than Yours" or my favorite "...Should be Characters in a Faulkner Novel".

I ran with the Faulkner idea then spent some time working that up trying to eek some funny out of it. But here's the thing... Faulkner wasn't exactly a humorist (well, maybe in a dark, stomach-churning, awkward way that makes you want to intervene - you know - that kind of funny) and shoving my family into roles that would suit one of his novels was becoming really un-funny. I laid out our Southern creds that would establish our claim, mentioned the family tree that occasionally looked more like a trunk (I think that makes us more rednecks, but that's another top 10) By #7 I had - "Some family members only recently got electricity." I think that makes us... Amish? but not really funny. I moved down to #2 "We buy our children to help-out less fortunate relatives." Ok, a good family story, but maybe not funny. The guy that the relative attempted to buy would agree. Finally, I made it to #1. But here's the hitch or the rub or whatever you want to call it - the #1 reason we'd fit in perfectly with Faulker recently made the local press, it involved a corpse and some jail time. Thankfully CNN wasn't having a slow day, because it read like one of the headlines that might have followed Britney Spear's womb. And I just couldn't make my fingers type that story. Sure, it was funny in that "OH MY GOD, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT" way but didn't have that "universal" appeal.

So, you're going to have to trust me when I say that My Family Is Crazier... Would Make Better Characters in a Faulkner novel, etc and, if pressed, I could give you 10 reasons in a flash. Apologies to Dad that I can't do more with it - we'll have to recite the list to ourselves and snicker quietly. (To the Cearley's, it's not just Dad's side of the family that made that list. ;) You don't get off that lightly.)

Something Bad Happened...

Something bad happened in the state of Texas as things do every moment of every day in some part of the world. And it may have happened because the people involved made poor decisions, had a mental imbalance, or were quite simply “bad” people. I was drawn to the story in part because the article said “Texas” and because one of the news sites I frequently visit leans heavily towards the salacious and sensational. When I step out of my car I am cut off from NPR and left in the hands of online journalists. And in truth, maybe I read it because those stories make me feel a small bit better about myself.

In the beginning, I noticed there really wasn’t much to it – a handful of facts strung into a story about a couple who came together and did something horrific that they will never be able to take back. No one knew why, and the story could have ended in a few sentences. The journalists had done their duty and answered their who, what, when, where and why, but no good story could end in one paragraph. No reasonable journalist would end it there, and so where the story lacked meat, an overdose of fluff was inserted to ensure we readers had to scroll past half a dozen advertisements for home loans and weight loss miracles before we could move on to the next bad thing that happened somewhere else.

In the middle of the story a whole paragraph was devoted to the following line: “…and the couple met playing the online game, World of Warcraft”. You could hear the investigative journalist’s “gotcha” after they revealed the big “ah hah” to the reader. Online games – the journalist’s new Dungeons and Dragons – the why to all anti-social, psychotic, sociopathic behavior – the internet’s boogey man.

I’m here to tell you that of all the possible “whys”, I am almost certain the “how” of how they met played only a small part into the “why” of what they did.

I’ve met people online and trust me when I say that upon that meeting we didn’t Mickey & Mallory it across the country. Nothing snapped inside of me where I lost site of my moral compass. And to the best of my knowledge, the people I’ve known who have met their spouses online don’t kick puppies, litter, swear at the elderly or sit around poking holes in the ozone layer simply because it’s a slow day and it feels like the right thing to do (and they definitely don’t stick toddlers in a plastic bin and float them in Galveston Bay). It’s just another way of meeting people – it’s neither inherently good or bad, nor is it inherently safe or dangerous – it quite simply “is”. You can meet both good people and bad people, likeable and distasteful just like you can walking down the street.

And I’ll say again, something bad happened in the state of Texas, but it had nothing to do with how the people met and everything to do with who the people are.

Quiznos vs. BSG

Speaking of all things geeky, I don't know if any of you happened to watch Battlestar Galactica's Razor episode, but without going into a lengthy critique of the show (or my disappointment that really none of the Pegasus crew were redeemable in my eyes) - I just want to say:

I am officially boycotting Quiznos. (I wish I knew who their advertising team was, so I could send nasty withering looks their way, too.)

With each commercial break, Captain Obvious would recap what we saw and basically plug the sandwich shop.
You just saw that Admiral Kane is a brunette!!!! Eat more sandwiches!!
The most baffling one came in the form of a supposed vote:
You all voted, and you knew that Admiral Kane flirted with a cylon!!! EAT MORE SANDWICHES!
It became a mocking point with each commercial break and what it seared into my brain is: I will never eat Quiznos sandwiches.

From my boards (I hope Jay doesn't mind, but he really made me laugh):

"I think they should have skipped the commercials and just had the crew enjoying
Quiznos sandwiches on the bridge.

Apollo (angsty, yet excited):
Launch nuclear strike!

Adama (grim):
Belay that order! Let's all have sandwiches brought to us by our sponsor.

Apollo (angsty, yet satisfied):
Mmm, mmm, that sure was a tasty sandwich. Oh, and thanks for de-balling me in front of my crew, Dad.

Adama (grim):
No problemo, son. You sure can't beat these toasted sandwiches from Quiznos.

Starbuck [from radio speakers] (whiney):
Do I smell sandwiches?

Adama (grim):
Better release those nukes after all, son. Haha.

Apollo (angsty, yet jocular):
You got it, pop! Haha.

Bridge Crew:
Haha."

Sorry, the Quiznos commercials were so particularly obnoxious they were worth nothing - they make the Christmas Hawk commercial seem hysterical.

A Letter to My Hero

Well, now I’ve gone and done it. I was at one of my favorite sites poking the author’s favorite site list looking for inspiration when I found a guy talking about personal heroes. Although, I don’t think he phrased it quite that way. Still, the idea was to approach the person you want to emulate and ask them for a few pointers.

The writer suggested a few novel ideas: that the person you were writing was indeed human. What? Oh no no no, mine didn’t get to where he was by being human, thank you and I appreciate you not humanizing him. Mine is a demagogue of humor and you don’t become a “dema” of anything by slumming with we silly mortals. Then, the writer went further to say something about how given the person is in fact human, that person would likely be open to a few questions. Oh please, now you’ve gone too far. This writer clearly has demonstrating his own sense of humor with this suggestion, but the problem is that my guy is far too busy thinking up amusing topics on top of his pedestal to answer a few questions – questions he’s likely posed on a daily basis from fan-girls like me. He suggested that you be brief, to the point and be ready for rejection. Now the rejection part, I was prepared for.

So, yesterday I decided “what the hell” and I wrote my local hero. I even threw out my website, why not? I was already being funny, why not extend my personal skit to include my blah-g. I tried to be brief, but in also trying to be humorous, I lost track of that whole brevity thing and found I had composed one of those crazy meandering e-mails my friends occasionally get. At some point I thought “ok, enough you nut – he’s going to think you’re going to start hanging around his yard if you keep it up” and paused long enough to finish with a big “Thank you for your time, Beth”.

As I always do, I called Jay and April to announce that I officially lost my mind. They’re sympathetic and understand that I am Lucy from “I Love Lucy”. And then I braced myself for the “rejection” phase the post I read talked about.

When I got home an e-mail sat in my box winking at me. “Beth, give me a call”.

Now, I’m stuck. Sometime between now and Monday, I have to think of some good questions (I’m back to that again) – things I want to know to help me improve my own writing without sounding like a complete goon. Wish me luck.

A Meaningful Question

In college, everyone had “that” professor – the one person who did more than most to introduce them to a new world view, shape their ideas, get them excited and inspired about education. I was lucky in that I had three: Dr. Louis H. Mackey, who taught me a little about Ethics, Dr. Michael Adams who tried to teach me Advanced Expository Writing (blame him - he's the one who passed me) and Dr. Richard C. C. Kim who got me so excited about Political Science that I thought I should make it my major. Little did I know that what he taught me had more to do with philosophy than politics.

I took every class that Dr. Kim taught, sitting at his feet in my mind trying to absorb everything he said. I wasn’t Dr. Kim’s best student by far, but that didn’t stop me from eagerly anticipating each class in a vain attempt to will myself to be more like Dr. Kim. He was one of “those” professors - the one other students warned you not to take, but you knew better than to heed their warnings. With his offbeat teaching style and radical views, he was a far cry above the professors who merely wanted you to “read chapter 3 and answer the questions at the end of the section.” In fact, most of my core beliefs about politics and political philosophy come from this man and his out of print book “Kimbrations: Reflections of a Philistine”.

We students spent a lot of time in “Plato’s Cave” (a room filled with articles and books set aside by Dr. Kim to study politics and philosophy) looking for truths and looking for meaningful questions. To Dr. Kim, a meaningful question was not “how are you doing?” (He would argue that the person who asked had no actual interest in how you were actually doing, he just wanted to hear the word “fine” so he could shuffle down the hall and be done with the social obligation.) In fact, if you made the mistake and asked Dr. Kim how he was doing, he would tell you exactly how he was doing, which was always a bit startling because it was never “fine” or “well”. Dr. Kim’s example of a bad question would be, “what color is my underwear?” He would state (and I hope I’m doing this justice after 20 years) that because it was a very answerable question, it was not worthy of being asked. The kinds of questions he was looking for took some thought. Those were good questions; the kind that forced you to think.

What this all is leading to is my birthday and the present that I want from my friends/family. Since it's a 0 birthday, I'm allowed to do something a little different. I want to ask my friends and family a few questions that they answer and give to me as a birthday present, but I’m stumbling because I can’t think of truly "good" questions. I want something beyond those e-mail chains of “What is your favorite color?” “What is your favorite movie?” or “What color is your underwear?” – while they are arguably interesting (depending on whose asking) they don’t really tell me much about you. I want to know you.

So, I’m asking you as my readers. What is a good question to you? (Seth? Tony? Lori? Pam?) - something Dr. Kim or the metaphoric blind man, Johnny Alameda, that Dr. Kim invoked in many a class, would see as good.

Six Degrees

We all know that if we connect the right dots, we can eventually find ourselves connected to Kevin Bacon in less than six steps – our “six degrees of separation”. I can make that connection in four, so if you can’t find your own way to Kevin and you know me, you can now make it in five and have one to spare to include everyone Kevin might know or have met. It’s a nice analogy to prove that we’re all connected in some way; it’s just a matter of finding those connections – you just have to know the right questions to ask.

A long time ago, in a galaxy - no wait, that’s another story. Still, it was a long time ago, I was online talking to the people I always talked to online and preparing to fight the big battle. Someone in the group (the Vegas gang) mentioned that they knew a guy from Austin. (It sounded like, I knew a guy from Dallas once, do you know him?) I figured we’d talk about all things Austin, hit the highlights that everyone knows – the drag, the capitol, the LBJ library and maybe popular restaurants – maybe we both went to UT or either he walked around campus when I was at UT and we might have seen each other.

David, the guy from Austin, gets online and gets the conversation started. “So Beth, do you know…?” Here we go. Yes, I know a John. Was he about 5’10”? Brown hair? Brown eyes? Wears clothing? Breathes both in AND out? Must be the same guy. “Beth, do you know Rocco?” Ok, weird. I knew a Rocco and after much back and forth, I not only knew the right Rocco, but I’d met this guy David when I was 17. I had one of those moments where your heart races and you’re typing as fast as you can because your mind can’t wrap itself around the fact that of a million plus subscribers on this particular game, I found the one guy that I was connected to by chance. On that day, my world became a hair smaller.

Fast forward to this week. I had joined the HOA boards for our little community with the thought of becoming more active or at least meeting some of my neighbors. One of the guys around the corner posted a really nice note on my guestbook because he’d found website through the boards. I got it in my head to sort the member list on the boards by website to see who else was out there posting – what did my neighbors have to say. There were only a handful of websites, so I methodically poked each one hoping to find someone like me or maybe just learn something new for the week.

I came across one website I’d seen before, which was odd. I’m not much of a net surfer so people’s personal websites typically make an impression on me. I prodded that website a bit, seeing the same funky cool purses and clothing that I remembered to belong to a friend’s wife, Jennifer. In fact, I’d been sent the website link some time ago when a friend of theirs suggested I look at all the cool things Jennifer was into. I couldn’t get my head around it though, because in my mind these guys still lived in central Austin, so I spent a good 15 minutes trying to convince myself that I was wrong – that just because the website said “Jennifer” and the picture of her on her personal blog looked like Jennifer, this wasn’t Jennifer because I’m an island all alone in Pflugerville. No one I know lives here.

I finally sent Jennifer a note and sure enough, Jennifer, her husband Bradley and their two girls not only live in my neighborhood, they live two blocks away. They’ve been here the entire time.

Between the posting on my guestbook and discovering two very cool people that I know actually live here, this place has become a little more livable, a little more friendly and I can stop mourning the loss of Matt & April (the cool hipsters that moved from across the street).

It really is a small world.

How Did You Two Meet?

“How do you two know each other?” This can be an awkward question especially if you’re a geek or you’re me, a geek that is occasionally ashamed of being a geek. I met most of my friends the traditional way, through school (I still have friends from second grade, one was the guy that was told “ok, you make sure Beth gets to the right class and to the right bus after school” on my first day here in Austin ), from college and from work. But there are still quite a few that were friends of friends that I mostly know because they sat across the table from me and were orc warriors, vampire truck drivers, robot agents and shapeshifted dragons. The best dice slingers in town. How do I know them? Well, it started in a tavern in my imagination. The rest came from online. I like to call them the Vegas Gang. There’s even one I knew in high school. We shared the same classes (for the most part), but our names rhymed which people would point out on occasion, one person referred to that as “cute” (yes, rhyming is adorable – if you like that, do I have a limerick for you) so I tried to not sit too close. I now know Seth better through the magic of the internet. So, if you ask me how I met them, this is how I truly know my current set of friends/acquaintances.

I feel comfortable boldly stating this on my blog, because either you don’t know me (but you’re learning about me online) or you fit into one of the above categories and you’re accepting. But in real life (IRL if you prefer) when asked, I will fall back to what I feel is a more comfortable explanation “I met this person through friends” or “at a dinner party”. For a geek of my caliber, “dinner party” is code for “roleplaying session that began at noon, ended at 2am and heavy amounts of soda, chips and pizza were consumed (unless my friend Jeff was there, and he did the cooking throughout the day_ before we unraveled the devious plot, slayed the dragon, or arrived safely in the port of the space station after a harrowing encounter with some unknown force”. People don’t quite know what to do when you say either “online” or “playing GURPS” (which is “like” D&D in that it’s a roleplaying system).

In my opinion, people are more comfortable with meeting someone “through friends” than hearing a long winded description of how “Lee was this awesome necromancer who…” Somehow, the term “roleplaying” (which I actually haven’t done in years, but it’s how I would have to honestly explain meeting some of my friends) thanks in part to the 1980’s movie by Tom Hanks, is the equivalent of saying “I eat babies” or “I’m a social misfit who worships Satan”. I’m here to assure you that the friends I met back in the day over a roleplaying table, while some may be categorized as a bit socially awkward, have yet to eat one baby or small toddler and don’t engage in anything cult like, to my knowledge. They even all hold down respectable jobs and can form whole sentences without too many physical twitches or ticks. Still, the average person won’t buy that.

So, if you meet me on the street with a friend and you ask “how did you two meet”, I’ll still say “through friends”. You can envision a gardening or book club, while I can imagine an enchanted forest or haunted library.

The Secret Family Recipe

It's summer, a time of picnics, BBQs, social gatherings which all amount to potlucks and you've got to bring something. When I was in college working summer jobs for my employer, they knew they could always count on me to sign-up for plates, napkins, cups, or plasticware. Occasionally, when someone beat me to it, I'd bring a 5lb. bag of chips from the El Lago factory for $5 where the chips would come out fresh and steam up the bag. As I grew older and my budget improved, I would venture out into soda and fancier chips whose factories were in exotic places like Purchace, NY.

These days, after much experimentation, I have a handful of dishes that are considered "mine" and that I'm usually asked to bring. However, there is this one I've offered on occation that upon suggestion, makes people twitch with uncertaintly - trapped between trying to be polite and overwhelming revulsion. I like to call it "pineapple salad". There's probably a better name for it, but I'll have to pester my aunt to find out what it is. This is something that my mom and her sisters had when they were younger and that they invariably prepared for my cousin and me. Basically, you take a leaf of lettuce and lay it on the plate (I think it's more a garnish, because I've personally never eaten it), center a pineapple ring on top of the lettuce, sprinkle the pineapple with grated cheese and then finish by adding a dollop of mayonnaise. Mmmmm! Just writing about it makes me want to rush out and get some pineapple, I bet you're having the exact same reaction! Ok, ok, so it sounds "weird", but honestly it really is fairly tasty.

Of course, talking about it makes me reminisce about the other dishes my family makes that are frankly better than any other place I've ever had them like something as simple as pimiento cheese. If you've never had homemade pimiento cheese, then you've never had pimiento cheese. My grandmother made the best cornbread stuffing; it's one of those tastes that taste like Thanksgiving and fortunately both my aunt and mother could reproduce it, although my aunt recently said she made it for a group and no one except her would touch it - they preferred the more traditional stuffing. My grandmother also made these green beans from Kentucky Wonders that were heaven and if anyone knows where to get Kentucky Wonders in town, please let me know - my aunt is looking for them.

I suspect every family has a few of those recipes that no one can do better. For example, Anna's mother makes the best pound cake. You could reproduce the recipe, but as Anna says, it's the Puerto Rican spit that her mom adds to the pan that makes the difference. So, unless Anna's mom starts aspirating into bottles and selling them, you're just going to have to settle for your inferior pound cake.

Then, of course, you run into the occasional "secret family recipe" that someone will be kind enough to share. When you're dealing with one of those recipes, there's a certain etiquette involved. 1) Marvel at it when you're the lucky recipient of the "secret recipe". I don't care if it's butter on a plate sprinkled with sugar, if it's got the title "secret recipe", you marvel and thank the person for offering it to share. 2) Never proclaim, "I can do that, too!" and then whip out some Country Crock and your sugar dish. 3) In fact, if it really is good, try to pressure them into giving you that recipe - it's both flattering and maybe you can eventually be marveled at, too. (Personally I've only been able to get one of those recipes and that's now "my dish". I'm holding out for the torte. In fact, this isn't a hint to that person, but my BIG birthday is coming up and I swear I won't share.)

I'm Alive

My step-mom suggested it might be good if I let people know I was still alive while encouraging me (along with my aunt and cousin) to get something up on the Mess. So, I'm here to say that yes indeed, I am still alive and yes indeed, I do need to get something posted. It's difficult when you don't have quite the chops of a Dave Barry, a P.J. O'Rourke or even an Erma Bombeck to pull humor from the air and when your writing is presumably based mostly on humor (with the occasional rant thrown in to mix it all up). I figure you don't want to hear about my daily hangnails or maybe you do (I need a manicurist, fyi).

I tried sending out a note to some close friends and relatives asking for ideas. What I got back was an interesting mix of suggestions that really said a lot about the people I was asking, although I think I can pull some of those suggestions together and hopefully churn out a few entries.

Sooo... without any further adieu, I'll try to have something up in the next half hour. Since I'm writing on the fly, I again reserve the right (as I always do) to edit and revamp for the next 24 hours. I'm going to start toting my journal around that Anna suggested I keep to better help contain and develop my ideas... when I can find it again.

Random Thoughts - Clothing & Size

The other day (and in my world that could be anywhere between yesterday and 5 months ago) my co-workers burst into my office still high from their previous night’s shopping experience. See, we no longer have malls in my city, we have experiences and the latest experience is the high end shopping strip known as The Domain – a high end retail center for women who have money to burn and absolutely no use for the phrase “Keep Austin Weird”. Here’s the thing, I’m really not your go-to girl when you feel like busting into someone’s office to scream “the Prada shoes were on sale for $300!” but they did and I managed to get a plausible, “oh my GOD! You’re KIDDING! $300?!?!” out while keeping my eyes fixed forward (although the muscles were straining desperately to pull them skyward). I did such a great job that I got to hear about the AMAZING Fendi and Armani sales, too. Go me.

Since we’ve already gotten it out there that I’m a nerd, let me add that I dress appropriately. I’m about function and not style which is why my InStyle magazine had to go away – something about choking at the idea of a $30,000 purse that only held things let me know I was not their target demographic. A $30,000 purse should make an iPod look like an abacus. A $30,000 purse should act as a phone, a camera, a remote control for my H2, set appointments and I should be able to swipe it across credit card machines without having to bother to pull out an actual card.

After enduring the shrieks and the stories of everyone standing around in the same dressing room, (which gives me the willies) I got to listen to the aftermath. (Imagine, three of your closest friends and you standing in a dressing room tossing clothes around. Well, the whole idea of MY closest friends made me bust out laughing. Anyone who knows me, picture Kendra, April, Anna and me 1) squealing and 2) swapping clothes while drunk in the same stall – you can even pretend we’re a comparable size – it’s just silly.) The main storyteller went on to mention how she’d found the perfect size nothing dress that she dashed home and put on a little sexy runway show for her husband. The actual story and the demonstration were hysterical as she took exaggerated steps around my office and did a few dramatic turns. I’m all for physical comedy especially while trying to shake the idea of my friends in the same changing room giggling.

Then she says something like “my husband was so excited, you see his previous wife who passed away was FAT! (and she said this like the woman molested toddlers and posted the pictures on the internet) she could have never worked her way into a dress like mine!”

Wow.

…and I wondered if she really believed that’s all that matters. If her eulogy would go, “well, she wasn’t a very kind person, but she was incredibly skinny. In fact, she was a downright beyoatch, but she wouldn’t let that hold her back from slinking into a size 1!”

… and here I thought it was more important to be kind.

… and here I thought people would have the common sense to know that I’m THE wrong gal to come slapping down “FAT” people to if you were expecting any sort of sympathetic ear.

Five Songs

Have you ever been influenced to try something new based on something you’ve read or heard? You read a blog by a favorite author and think, “you know, I might just read that book, try that bath soap, watch that program, listen to that song” just to try something new. It’s similar enough to your own tastes but just a little bit different from what you’d normally expose yourself to that you decide you’ll throw caution to the wind.

A few weeks ago, I was up at the crack of dawn but it hadn’t actually cracked. In fact it was dark and threatening rain with no hint of dawn in sight. I was listening to NPR’s “World Café” because it was on and I was too lazy to switch to KGSR (the more Austin folksy radio station) or 101X (the Beastie Boys station which claims to be alternative rock). They were talking to a pseudo celebrity who has a new show on the Sci-Fi channel called “Destination Truth” and he was listing his top 5 songs. With each song he told a story about how he came by it and what it meant to him, making the selections a little more special than just some random list of 5 songs. The next thing I knew, I was tracking down the play list from that show and suddenly:
“Ina Mina Dika” by Asha Bhosle, “Wagon Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show and Dwight Yoakum’s “A Thousand Miles from Nowhere” showed up on my iTunes.

It got me to thinking about my own music collection and with few exceptions, I can tell you how I came to like a particular band or a particular song. So, I got to thinking – what would be on my top 5 list if I had to choose only 5 and here’s what I came up with (at least these are the top 5 for July 3, 2007 – July 7 may be completely different):

1) “The Golden Vanity” – The Druids - this is from my friend Mark’s album “Irish Sea”. His voice is beautiful and rich and it’s the best version I’ve heard of this particular tune (and there are many out there). My kingdom to be able to post this song.

2) “Metamorphosis One” – Philip Glass – a fairly simple piano piece that was featured in the Battlestar Galactica episode “Valley of Darkness”

3) “Wind on the Buffalo Grass” – Hardin & Russell – This group was a favorite of my father’s in the late 70’s. I’m pretty sure they were based in Texas, performing in Dallas and Austin (and I’m sure other cities around the state). The group featured Tom Russell and Patricia Hardin. Their two albums “Ring of Bone” and “Wax Museum” can now be found on a single CD “The Early Years”) but tracking it down can be challenging. I actually like everything on this album, so narrowing it down to one song is difficult for me.

4) “Honey” – Moby - off of the “Play” album – GREAT tapping music – I can paddle & roll up a storm while this is playing. In fact, thinking about it makes me want to throw on my tap shoes and stomp around, which is my version of dancing.

5) “Life by the Drop” – Stevie Ray Vaughan – I like it for too many reasons to detail.

These are my five – the five that I can always listen to without having to be in a particular mood to hear.

Realizing that two people will play this game, what are YOUR five songs?

(PSST, You don't have to be a member of Blogger to post a note - just post it anonymously and throw down your name.)

Shoot the Messenger

I’m not sure when the tide turned for messengers – maybe someone once had a lot of bad news to deliver, was running a little low and had to call a moratorium, “hey, please stop shooting my guys, I’ve still got some more bad news to come and I’m sure as hell not going to deliver it myself considering your poor attitude about messengers.” Personally, I think we should rethink this whole “messenger gets off scot-free” philosophy we’ve adopted and declare it open season on messengers again.

How many times have you received news from someone where they’ve said something like, “I’m sorry, we’re not going to be able to go *insert whatever it was you had your heart set on* because Fluffy the cat is insisting we lay around and pet him all day. It’s not my fault, you see. It’s Fluffy!” It’s never, “Hey look, I’m not going because I’d rather develop eye cancer than go out for drinks with you.” The break down of the excuse is always someone is preventing you from doing whatever; otherwise you’d be all over the proposed invitation.

It’s one of the privileges you get from being in a relationship. You no longer have to be the bad guy, you just use someone from your household as the reason you’re being held back. “Sorry, we can’t make it. Beth has been stricken by the dry heaves every time I mention visiting for Christmas.” In fact, I know I’ve encouraged it at home. “Jay, just tell them it’s my fault.” (And today’s word will be “hypocrite”, but that’s ok because I’m not only aware of it, I’m comfortable with it, too.)

What I propose then is that we all shed the messenger mantle and use that brazen word “I”. “We’re not coming, because I think that sounds really lame and have a date with picking at my toes. Jay would like to go, but I’m personally holding him back with my bad attitude. Sorry. Well, I’m not even sorry. I’m going to enjoy the freedom of not being tied down doing something I hate. I may even do a little happy dance.” Let’s try to use “I” more and leave our unsuspecting friends & family (typically cast as the bad guys in the excuse) out of the mix when we offer up our excuses. Otherwise, I think we get to go back to shooting the messenger. “Oh, Michelle didn’t want to come because the bubonic plague unexpectedly broke out at your house and a hazmat team is currently setting up quarantine? Well, bummer for you since you’re delivering the news.”

Disclaimer: I didn’t really want to express this opinion. Jay put me up to it. He’s never been a fan of messengers. True story. Honest. I have no reason to lie.

Hitting People is Illegal and Other Issues

I have an issue, one of many, about my looks and my age. See, from I don’t know when people have always thought I was older. From that time in 8th grade when someone mistook me for a substitute teacher, to the battles in high school to convince the cafeteria staff that I did not pay the teacher rate (I finally just brought my lunch, it was easier), to sneaking into R movies (oh how risqué), ordering drinks as a teen and later explaining to a guy from work (who was older) why I would be offended by getting an AARP invitation (he genuinely didn’t get it). I've frequently been mistaken as my friend Kendra's mother (she's 4 years younger) and I’ve never been legitimately carded - ever. For my 21st birthday, when Mom and my Aunt Jen took me out for margaritas my Mom had to tell the staff to card me, which they did just to make her happy. Back in the day, I’d go into a club with a nod at the doorman and a “you don’t need to see my ID do you?” and they’d always shake their heads. It wasn’t a Jedi mind trick, it’s that I suffer from some mild form of that disease where you look elderly when you’re really only 3 (apparently, it’s not Crohn’s Disease, but I now consider myself a subject matter expert after an unsuccessful visit to WebMD) – I’m convinced! Don’t listen to my friends or family – they’re just trying to be kind. Ask any stranger on the street, they’ll give you an honest opinion. Needless to say, I’m hypersensitive about the subject.

So, in comes Saturday and we’re sitting at Mom’s estate sale watching people pick through her things and make comments while I quietly recite my mantra “hitting adults could land you in jail”. A “customer” comes up and says “I heard the lady that lived here died.” I nodded and thought “hitting adults could land you in jail” but instead said “that was my mother.” “Oh! Was she in a nursing home?” Most people recognize this as a yes or no type of question. Not me. What I heard was, “Oh! YOUR mom? She must have been ancient and spent her dying moments wrapped in a blanket after her eyes failed and her arthritis prevented her from knitting, but you’ve got to love that octogenarian spirit!”

Yes or no. That’s all I had to say, but crazy was going off in my head. She just accused me of being what? 60? I think she’s being flip about Mom’s death! I wonder if I tighten my face and stare at her hard enough she’ll just fall over and die in front of me – that’s not like hitting an adult – that’s like destiny – it was meant to happen – no forensic teams could possibly find proof of a death glare. Since she wasn’t combusting, I realized I was obligated to answer her yes or no question. “Was your mother in a nursing home when she died?” And crazy forced out of me a bitter, “no, she died of a heart attack.” This gave the woman pause as she tried to remember if she asked if the nursing home killed my Mom, so she blinked at me a few seconds. She finally recovered and offered, “I work in a nursing home – we have lots of heart attacks.” …and still she didn’t combust. I finally resigned myself to sitting quietly and feeling insulted.

For the record, my Mom wasn’t old enough to be in a nursing home. I know you were all thinking that. And that reunion I went to last year, it wasn’t my 40th. I know you were all wondering that, too. Oh, and one more thing, I’m still not old enough to join AARP – if you think I am, keep that to yourself.

The Cho's

You know how random memories just spring up when you least expect them? Today’s had to do with a writing assignment my 4th grade class received. We looked at a mimeograph (remember those? I can almost smell the ink) of a man treed by a bear. Our teacher explained we were to write about what was happening in the picture from either the point of view of the man or the point of view of the bear. In a class of twenty kids, I was the only one who told the story from the bear’s point of view.

As we recover from the massacre at Virginia Tech, I wonder what the Cho family is going through. How do they mourn a son and apologize to a nation? Because the feeling I get, is we would like an apology. How do they go to work or greet their neighbors outside their house? When the reporters couldn’t get to them the day they announced the name of the shooter, they interviewed their postman who said they always seemed polite when they received packages. I know I’m always polite when I receive a package. Really, unless you’re the Grinch, who isn’t polite when receiving a package? Next, reporters flew out to a poor neighborhood in Korea to ask those people if they remembered the family and if I’m not mistaken, what we got from those interviews were, “well, they couldn’t afford a nice place and instead chose this apartment that was partially underground.” Off to find the Korean Grandfather who added the killer, “…was a serious boy” or something like that. It seems like the next bit of information I had about the family was brought to me by a reporter who had the sister’s work announcement. In it, she talked about how proud she was to have graduated from an Ivy League school and to be in the position she was in with the government. And I thought, in that brief moment her life was going well as she looked towards a promising future. In that moment, she wasn’t defined as the older sister of a mass murderer. When her colleagues look at her now, do they see their former co-worker and all of her achievements, or is she now only “Cho’s sister”?

To this family, I would imagine Cho was a son, brother, grandson, neighbor and not a major headline. And again, I wonder how they as a family move forward, especially since it seems fairly obvious that the media would like them to atone for their son’s actions. We would like to vilify them, see their three heads – the monsters that begat a monster.

I would imagine they will be forced to move, to change jobs and it’s likely they’ll have to change their names if they want any sort of peace – all because their son did something so amoral, so heinous and so unconscionable that they are put in the spot where they now bear that tremendous burden of responsibility. A responsibility that will never allow them to mourn for their loss openly – something we take for granted when it comes to our own losses.

It is fortunate, that they have such a common last name that once they’re resettled will allow them to blend back into society – unlike a name like Oswald. A friend of mine once attended school with and befriended Lee Harvey Oswald’s daughter. He never knew who she was while they were in school together. Once she left, the rumor’s spread (and very well could be the reason it was time to move on). Here’s a girl not really old enough to have known her father, but had her secret been revealed, she would be plagued by questions from her peers and from the media. And all she wanted to do was live a normal life and attend college - not become the second shooter from the grassy knoll – not be defined by something she had no part in.

While I could easily rant about the media, it wouldn’t be fair. We direct the media and we, as a people, strongly believe in a good lynching (in this case, a media lynching of the family since the Cho took his own life). Raise the pitchforks, light the torches, someone is going to pay and we’ll ask our questions later and I find that kind of sad.

I guess that says something about me – I’m always trying to see the story from the bear’s perspective. While I’ve wondered what would happen if the press could reach the Cho’s, I also wonder how they move on, how they grieve someone’s death they likely cared about and how they bear this terrible burden of shame?

The Affectionate One

This past weekend my aunt and I went through more of Mom’s belongings to get ready for the “estate” sale. At least, I think that’s what you’d call it since will encompass more than the garage. Still, I don’t really consider us “estate” people – more “squatters” or “modest dwelling inhabit-ors” or “one step away from that cozy spot under the bridge”, but I guess “Better Than the Average Under the Bridge Sale” costs too much to print in the classified ads and would scare away potential customers. (To my cousin who is reading this and wondering what I’m talking about, it’s creative license. These people don’t know anything about us. Shhh. We’ll talk later.)

As we sifted through Mom’s remaining possessions we got to talking about the labels that have been assigned to members of our family, particularly to my aunt and her two sisters. See, my Mom was the oldest and immediately gained the titles of “the smart one” and “the athletic one”. Then my aunts came along and the youngest took “the funny one”, so that left the other aunt without a good title. At some point my family bestowed upon her “the affectionate one”; I guess they couldn’t think of anything better. As my aunt talked about it she noted, “who wants to be known as the affectionate one”?

Labels are funny in how they can define you and how they can do so with one single word – one annoying little adjective that works its way under our skins. My aunts and my Mom grew up with these labels and were defined by those labels. My Mom was smart, my aunt Jen was very funny and my aunt Philis is affectionate… and they were and are so much more than one word.

In many ways I feel lucky that I was the only child born to my parents. I got to be all the adjectives – I got to be the smart one, the talented one, the funny one and the nice one. I know there are words that are used to describe me used by the family as a whole – I secretly think I’m probably the “not quite” one – not quite as smart as some, not quite as creative, not quite as thoughtful, but decent enough to have around during the holidays and kinda funny with a decent memory. I’m ok with those labels, because I know when I talk to my Dad I shed any limiting label to become all that is best – an envious position for any child to have with a parent.

There are so many words to describe my aunt that are more than simply “affectionate” such as, beautiful, smart, talented, outgoing, gregarious, funny and longer descriptors like hard working, easy with a laugh, good listener and great tap dancer – and for the past two years she’s been the person we all turn to for strength as my cousins and I cope with the loss of our moms, her sisters. She’s so much more than only “affectionate” and I know the rest of my family would agree.

As I was thinking about our conversation over the weekend, I guess I felt lucky to have the family (both by blood and by choice, as my friend Jonathan might say) I have and hope that everyone realizes they are so much more than just a single word to the people around them. (Except for my ex-husband who really is just that one word I use to describe him. :))