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Sorry, Rousseau

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You might have missed this in this post, but if you were paying attention, you saw that I have left these sentiments behind and gotten a smartphone, for the first time ever. My apologies to Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Here are some thoughts on smartphone ownership after having had one for almost two months:

  • One of the biggest reasons I decided to get one was for the MBTA apps, so that I know when the bus is coming. I don’t have a car, so when I’m not near a T station, I’d like to know how much longer I have to wait in the cold/rain/heat until a bus comes to rescue me. OpenMBTA is pretty great, especially if I decide to take one bus that runs very close to my house. Unfortunately, it’s not a magic app- it can tell me when the bus is coming but doesn’t make it come any faster.
  • Instagram is overrated. I was excited to check it out after hearing so much about it, but I was very underwhelmed. Most of the pictures on it end up on Facebook anyway, and the filters really aren’t that big a deal.
  • Soundhound is better than Shazam. I feel like Shazam is the brand name people go to when they’re talking about using an app to find out what a song is, but Soundhound does everything Shazam does but does it better. It also gets everything I sing into it, even the obscure stuff, while Shazam doesn’t.
  • I love having the whole Internet at my disposal- if I’m out somewhere and want to show a friend Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals, I just pull it up. However, it’s no substitute for a real computer and a bigger screen.
  • It’s great to discover apps for things you wouldn’t even have thought of. I just ordered Domino’s and did it all through the Domino’s app.
  • Talk-to-text makes no sense to me. You might as well just make a phone call. And on that note,
  • I refuse to talk to Siri. She scares the shit out of me.

How to Live Through a Week of Tragedy

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You can’t remember so many bad things ever happening in such a short amount of time. Information keeps coming in about the bombing at the marathon and the people who were killed and wounded. All of your friends who were at the marathon (it is not an exaggeration to say that EVERYONE in Boston knows someone who was there) are uninjured, but the stories of people who were hurt are hard to hear. You remember how when events with mass casualties happened in the past, you tried to think of who you knew who could have been hurt—on September 11th, your cousin who often flew from Boston to LA, and when the shooting in Arizona happened, your friend who lived in Tucson. You had to wait to hear if those people were okay.

Now it’s your turn. You’re the one people are trying to get in touch with to make sure you’re okay. You’re the one getting texts from your parents, sister, aunts, cousins, friend who’s on vacation, friend in Seattle, friend in DC. It’s not some distant event that you’re mildly disturbed by and think about occasionally—it’s here. It’s your city, your people.

And despite the acts of kindness that are reassuring you of the goodness of people out there, this week of tragedy keeps getting worse. Poisoned letters are sent to President Obama and a Mississippi senator. A plant explodes in Texas, killing and injuring dozens of people. The bill for background checks on guns fails in the Senate, which makes you so angry you’re afraid to talk about it for fear of saying something you’ll regret. Something else in your own world that you don’t want to talk about publicly—something not on par with everything else but still pretty awful— also happens this week.

You don’t think things could get worse…and then they do.

*             *             *

Before you go to bed Thursday night, you hear that an MIT police officer has been shot, then that he was killed. You’ve seen the photos the FBI released of the two suspects and note that there’s nothing distinctive about either of them—they could be anyone. You wonder, before you go to bed, if this shooting is related to the bombings or if it’s yet another unrelated tragedy in a terrible week.

Friday morning, when you finally drag yourself out of bed after hitting snooze several times and start to get dressed, it occurs to you to check the news and see what the latest is on the bombing suspects, so you pick up your new iPhone.

You don’t make it to the news. Your phone has blown up with text messages and voicemails almost as numerous as they were on Monday after the bombing. Dazed, you check the computer and try to make sense out of the hell that’s broken loose while you were asleep. Your office is closed. The T has shut down. Cambridge is one of several cities and towns on lockdown. You’re not supposed to leave the house.

You stumble downstairs and turn on the TV, bringing your laptop with you and trying to get yourself up to speed. They think the suspect is in Watertown, not very close to you, but who really knows? You see pictures the news crew has from around the city. Boston, on a workday when people are normally rushing around and doing their day-to-day thing, looks post-apocalyptic. This, oddly, is just as scary as anything else.

Your fright turns to impatience when you realize that it might be awhile before they catch the guy. The news starts repeating the same things they’ve already said. You go to the back porch to read the paper. You answer work emails from your customers, who all live out of state and have probably forgotten where you live. You talk to your parents, who are flying home from their vacation in Florida. You have a long chain of text messages going with three friends, and your discussion of the news coverage is interspersed with talk of guys, one friend’s cat, and the Geek Squad at Best Buy. You get annoyed when you realize that you barely have any food in the house and can’t even order takeout because businesses are all closed. You get more annoyed when you realize what a nice day it is and how great it would be for running but you’re now stuck inside because of some murderous assholes. Then you feel guilty for being so annoyed at little inconveniences when everyone you know survived the bombing unscathed and so many other people can’t say that.

Around 6:30 they hold a news conference where they tell people the lockdown is over but the suspect has not yet been apprehended. You’re still nervous but dying to get out of the house, and since the T’s running again, you and your friends start making plans for drinks and dessert. As you’re getting ready to go out, you see something happening on the TV. It’s clear now that they’ve found the guy, and you and your friends immediately postpone your plans. You keep texting each other new things that you hear. You keep on watching until finally it’s over and the suspect is captured.

On Saturday, you get up, get dressed, and head out for the plans you didn’t get to last night. You drink multiple glasses of wine at lunch and buy cupcakes from a bakery. You and your friends head into the city and see the makeshift memorial set up on Boylston Street. Several blocks are still shut down. There are some adorable therapy dogs over by the memorial that you and your friends pet. The dogs look tired—like everyone else, they’ve had a long week.

Saturday night you sleep for twelve hours straight.

 

*             *             *

So much goes through your mind this week. While you don’t know any victims personally, little connections keep startling you. Jeff Bauman is from your hometown and was two years behind you at your high school. Patrick Downes graduated from BC a year ahead of you, and many of your friends know him. Sean Collier lived near you, on a street your roommate walks the dog down every day. They’re jolting details, but you have to keep reminding yourself that it wouldn’t be any less tragic if it had happened to people who come from some place you’ve never heard of. You know it will be hard to remember this the next time something tragic happens somewhere that’s not here.

You try to piece together the bits of information you keep hearing about these two brothers, everything their friends and relatives say, trying to make sense of what could have led them to do this before ultimately concluding that you never will, because dropping bombs on a crowd of people at a marathon will never make any sense.

Humor is one of the only things keeping you sane. You’ve always liked The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but you usually only tune in after some kind of major current event, like to see what Jon Stewart has to say about the presidential election. But this week, watching Comedy Central is getting you through the day. And aside from every other awesome thing they do this week, their Boston tributes are especially gratifying. This clip from Colbert manages to be hilarious while also getting Boston exactly right.

[hulu id=pi5tsuwrierrkrzc3_8vyq width=512]

You feel profound gratitude for everyone who helped put an end to the manhunt that dominated Friday. You’re horrified when you think about the guy who found the suspect hiding in his boat and how scary that must have been.

You wonder how long it will be before Hollywood makes a movie out of all this.

You stop talking in the second person.

                                                    *             *             *

There are so many ways a person can use the word “love,” so I need to get across what I mean when I say I love Boston. A lot of people say they love their hometown but still roll their eyes at it, as if their love is like the love they’d have for a parent who means well but doesn’t understand them at all, like Emily on Gilmore Girls. But Boston, for me, is not Emily Gilmore—it’s Lorelai Gilmore, the mom you can’t believe you were lucky enough to be born to. Boston may have been the city I fell into because it’s so close to where I grew up, but that’s not why I stay here. I stay here because there’s no city in the world I could ever love more.

I love that it’s full of colleges and therefore full of people who are here for education, people who are intelligent, people with ambition, people who want to go on to do great things. I love that it’s so easy to get around on foot. I love the passion people have for sports teams—one of my fondest memories of college was watching the whole city erupt in happiness after the Sox won the World Series for the first time in eighty-six years. I love that people who are liberal and open-minded are the rule rather than the exception here. I love that so many big moments in American history occurred here. I love that so many funny people grew up here—Amy Poehler, Steve Carell, Conan O’Brien, Mindy Kaling, just to name a few. I love that Boston inspired movies like Good Will Hunting and The Departed. I love that we have good seafood. I love walking down Newbury Street, getting a cannoli in the North End, taking a ferry to the Boston Harbor Islands, spending an afternoon at the Museum of Science or the Aquarium or the MFA. I love that we have independent bookstores and artsy little movie theaters. I love that it’s not far from the ocean or the mountains. I love that you don’t need a car to live here. I love that we have four distinct seasons, unlike so many other parts of the country. I love that it’s such a foodie city that I feel like my list of restaurants to try will never end. I love the view as I’m going over the river on the Red Line. I love the Boston Globe. I love that the local furniture companies keep trying to outdo each other with their TV commercials. I love that our medical care is among the best in the world—I know multiple people who might not have survived some scary health issues if not for the excellent medical care they received here. I love that the people here respect each other’s space but won’t hesitate to help someone in need—a quality on display in all its glory this week.

“This is our fucking city,” Big Papi so eloquently put it at the Sox game on Saturday. And it’s MY fucking city, too. I have no desire to live anywhere but the Boston area for the rest of my life, and it’s too bad it took a week of tragedy to remind me why.

On Faith

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The cursor is patiently blinking at me as I try to figure out how to write this post. But I WILL write it. Inspired by this post at Busted Halo, I’m going to do my best to fast from being private about faith today. But I am changing the date on this post so that it won’t show up on the front page, and I’ll change it back to the correct date later on.

I am Catholic, and I do go to church. I really enjoy the church I go to, which caters to the more progressive flavor of Catholics, and I’m trying to get more involved there. I read a lot of blogs that are mostly or partly about Christianity, but there are a multitude of reasons that mine isn’t one of them. For one thing, I’m from New England, where religion isn’t discussed openly as much as I’m told it is in other parts of the country, and for another, I’m Catholic, and Catholics are, in general, pretty reserved when it comes to expressions of faith. My beliefs are a work in progress, so I often feel like posting too much about them would be like posting the rough draft of a story or something. And also, since I do so rarely discuss religious issues here and I know I have readers who believe all kinds of different things, I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. But in this post, I’m going to have to take that risk.

Why am I still Catholic? I’ve often had a hard time finding the words to explain, and people who dislike the Catholic Church are often very vocal about it. And I am obviously not okay with the sexual abuse cover-ups, their positions on gay marriage and birth control, and the lack of female priests. But here’s what it boils down to for me:

                -I believe everything that Catholics profess to believe in the Nicene Creed. And there is not a word in that creed about any of the more controversial doctrinal points—homosexuality, birth control, or even the pope and priests. I struggle a bit with the concept of the Trinity, but to simplify it, I came to believe in God through reason, Jesus through history, and the Holy Spirit through experience.

                -The negative things people hear in the news about the church, like this recent issue with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, are terrible, but they do not reflect my personal experience. We all know someone who makes the rest of us look bad, but most of the religious Catholics I know are very warm, open-minded, welcoming people. There are many, many good priests in the Church as well as good laypeople serving the Church in their way—in a nutshell, there are more Stephen Colberts out there than Rick Santorums. I also went to a Jesuit college, and Jesuits are awesome—a liberal-leaning order of priests very focused on educating the whole person. While there were certainly a lot of religious disputes at my school, for the most part, it was very focused on social justice and on loving and caring for others. And the community at my church is wonderful, and I love that it exists. If Catholicism is going to grow and change, I think it will do so with the help of people who love the Church but want to see it evolve.

                -I think, also, that people like me, who never knew pre-Vatican II Catholicism, find it easier to reconcile disagreeing with church leaders and remaining part of the Church because priests, to us, do not have the same power they once did. I’ve always viewed the people in the pews as more important than the men in the pulpit.

                -Would I ever change denominations? As of right now, no. I’ve been working on a project (that’s taken me way longer than I intended it to) where I visit many churches of other denominations, and it’s been really interesting and eye-opening. At this point, I can tell you that Catholicism is still what I am most comfortable with, and I will post about the project when I finally finish it.

                -I find a lot of beauty in the message behind Christianity- redemption through love. People get so caught up in particulars—often, bizarrely fixated on sex—that they forget that what Jesus calls the two greatest commandments are “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And regardless of what else in the Bible or in Christian tradition is right or wrong, I think we can all agree on love.

That’s what I believe at this moment in time. Maybe at some point in the future, I’ll look back at this post and marvel at how my beliefs have changed in some way. I certainly can’t guarantee that that won’t happen. And there is plenty I don’t know and may never know, like the true nature of God, how prayer works (if at all), how much of the Bible is true and if the books that weren’t included in it should have been, etc.

But the “love your neighbor” part will never change. You obviously don’t have to be religious to believe in that idea, but it does take on a new meaning when viewed through the life of Jesus. And currently, it’s something that I’m struggling with in my own life—it’s been dawning on me lately that there’s not nearly enough service to others in my life, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to change that. It’s the other, lesser-known, and probably more painful kind of Catholic guilt.

So, that’s me being open about faith. When I wrote this posta few years ago, I said that I wished people felt freer to speak openly about what they believe or don’t believe, but I haven’t been doing much to change that. I sincerely hope this post didn’t make anyone uncomfortable, as it’s different from my usual style, but I also hope that more people will take the time to speak thoughtfully and respectfully about their own beliefs or lack thereof.

Let’s end things on a lighter note- with David Sedaris’s brilliant and hilarious Easter story “Jesus Shaves.” “He nice, the Jesus.” Happy Easter!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UagpFoguoUY]

The Katie-Has-Bad-Taste Post

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I’m about to tell you some of my unpopular opinions, but I have a feeling this isn’t one of them: I hate icebreakers. You know, those let’s-go-around-the-room-and-get-to-know-each-other exercises that people do at the beginning of a meeting or event. But if you must do an icebreaker, here are two that are actually kind of interesting to think about: things you like that no one else seems to, and things you don’t like that everyone else does.
You guys, if you’ve been paying attention, already know some of my likes and dislikes in both categories. I love Celine Dion. I hate Arrested Development. And here’s where I give you a multitude of other reasons to think less of me.
Things I Like That No One Else Does
Domino’s Pizza
So apparently, it’s a commonly accepted opinion that Domino’s sucks. I…don’t know why. I really like Domino’s. It’s actually my favorite of the big pizza chains. Their cheesy bread is amazing.
Seafood
With all my weird food quirks, which I’ll get to in “Things I Hate that No One Else Does,” I do love seafood. And because I’m from New England, my standards for seafood are high.
Facebook
It’s become trendy lately to say that you hate Facebook and love Twitter. I’m the complete opposite. I still really love Facebook. Sure, some people are annoying on it, but there’s nothing else that lets me keep up-to-date on people. And someone as nosy as me really needs that kind of tool. Hiding people on your newsfeed solves most Facebook problems anyway. I have an acquaintance who’s a fan of the Tea Party, and while I have her blocked on my newsfeed, every once in awhile I’ll check to see what crazy, conservative, teabagger, “Poor people are lazy and selfish but I love Jesus!” thing she’s posted on her wall today. And you know what? I like looking at pictures of people’s babies. Babies are cute. 
I do draw the line at gushing over your significant other, though. Don’t do that.
The Da Vinci Code
Like, not love. I liked The Da Vinci Code, as in I read it once and found it enjoyable and saw the movie when it came out. It’s nowhere near a favorite. But I will defend it because I don’t think it deserves any bit of the backlash it’s gotten over the years. No, it’s not the best-written book in the world. Yes, it’s sometimes overly dramatic and far-fetched.  Yes, there are some factual inaccuracies. But it’s not as if this was intended to be some kind of award-winning masterpiece. It’s just a thriller. It’s unusual in that it’s a thriller about religion and art, and that it became such a blockbuster hit, but it’s still just a thriller. Plus, considering how little people read nowadays, I’m not terribly picky about which specific books are keeping the publishing industry going. I have no desire to read Twilightor Fifty Shades of Grey, but if you want to buy them, go for it.
Megan Fox
Not as an actress, mind you. I’ve only heard bad things about her acting, but never having seen any of her movies, I can neither confirm nor deny that. However, her interviews are awesome. She just so clearly does not give a shit about what anyone thinks. She knows exactly what her image is and what people think of her, and a lot of times she makes good points. This comment she made on young celebrities who had private pictures leaked to the Internet was great, and something I wish more people would say publicly.
Cheap Light Beer
Not only do I like Bud Light and Miller Light, I like them better than what most people consider “good” beer. And if I enjoy the taste of something with fewer calories, why the hell wouldn’t I drink it?
Phone Calls
Hating phone calls is a thing with our generation, but not with me. I hate texting for anything more complicated than, “I’m here. Where are you?” And for my friends who live out of town, I’d much rather catch up with them over the phone. Not to mention that phone calls are a huge part of my job- I’d be kind of screwed if I hated the phone.
Things I HateThat No One Else Does
Twitter
I still don’t like Twitter. And not for lack of trying, believe me.
Concerts
I love music. I do not, for the most part, love concerts. The forest, for me, is not usually visible amid the trees. If they’re in small venues, you have to stand, and I hate standing. You have to wait through crappy opening bands. You never know whether to sing along or dance or what and try to figure out what looks the least awkward. Your hearing is shot when it’s over, and most of the time you end up thinking the artist sounds better on the CD. These days, it would take a pretty amazing concert for me to pay money for a ticket.
Tom Brady
This is blasphemous in New England (probably not so much in other parts of the country), but I can’t stand this guy. It started with the whole dumping-pregnant-girlfriend-for-a-supermodel thing, and it seems like ever since then, everything he’s done has just been irritating. He comes off as smug and faux-gracious in interviews, the same reason so many people criticize Anne Hathaway. He had that awful grown-out hair for awhile. He’s a spokesman for Uggs. Fucking Uggs. Yes, he is a great quarterback, undeniably. He just bugs the hell out of me as a person.
Kathy Griffin
Now, she annoys me on absolutely every level. I’m honestly kind of mystified at how popular she is. I’ve never found one word out of her mouth remotely funny, and she has that awful voice.
Spinning
I like yoga, Zumba, boot camp, pilates, etc. But I absolutely loathed spinning when I tried it. I didn’t even get that I-just-got-a-great-workout feeling when it was over—I was just sore and miserable. I hear so many people talk about how great spin class is, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why.
Stand-Up Comedy
I can’t put my finger on why, but although I love things that are funny, I don’t generally put stand-up comedy, by anyone, into that category. Maybe because it feels like you HAVE to laugh at everything, even if it’s not that funny. In any case, I’d rather stay home and watch sitcoms than go to a comedy club.
Burgers, Rice (except in sushi), Any Kind of Noodles, Coffee, Jelly, Cold Cuts…
I’m such a picky eater. I don’t like burgers (or most sandwiches with meat), cold cuts, rice when it’s not in sushi, noodles (I’ll eat pasta if there’s nothing else around, but I’m not crazy about it), bacon (ditto), jelly, coffee (always thought I’d get to like coffee when I got older- I never did), and plenty of other things. I don’t put milk on my cereal and don’t usually put salad dressing on my salad. I wish there was a convenient term to explain my weird food quirks. Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, lactose intolerant, allergic, dieting…people get those things. But my food issues just make me weird.
What do you like/hate that no one else does?

Wanderlust

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My wanderlust is kicking in, big time.

With today being St. Patrick’s Day, I feel it stronger than ever.

I have a whole list of travel goals on this blog. I’ve made very little progress on it, especially on those that are outside the country.

I’d never left the country until a few years ago, and that’s still the only foreign place I’ve traveled.

I’ve never been to Europe.

I really want to go.

Specifically, I really want to go to England and Ireland. I mentioned it on this post I wrote at the beginning of the year.

Last night I started crying when it dawned on me how hard it might be to make that happen. It sounds so stupid- the very definition of a first-world problem- but maybe it’s just a symbol of all the other things in my life I’m trying so hard to change but am having trouble with. I’m trying to find love, I’m trying to lose weight, I’m trying to get published…but so much is out of my control.

People, both in real life and in the blogosphere, always say things like, “Just get up and go! Do it while you’re young! You’ll regret not taking these kinds of chances when you’re older!”

If only it were that simple.

If only I knew that it would be the right financial decision and that I wouldn’t need to give anything else up to go.

If only I could work out the logistics of it.

If only I knew that my friends could go with me. (And I know someone is going to suggest just going by myself or on a group tour, but I don’t want to do that. I like traveling by myself if I’m going someplace like New York, but to do Europe I’d only enjoy it with people I’m already close to.)

I’ve always been the kind of person who will regret the things she did rather than the things she didn’t do. Until recently, most of my regrets were things I’d done, and I felt grateful for the risks I hadn’t taken. In college, one of my friend was asked when the last time he’d taken a risk was, and he replied,”Well, I’ve never seen the back of a police car, so I think not taking risks is working for me.” I tended to agree with him.

It’s only recently that I’ve started to regret things I haven’t done- and not seizing opportunities to travel is a major one.

For a really long time, I had no desire to see the world at all. I remember when I told a friend that, she said, “That’s sad,” as if there was something wrong with me. But I just didn’t feel like it was an experience I needed. I was happy where I was.

But I can pinpoint the exact moment when it started to change. My friend was telling me about how a friend of hers had just come back from a semester abroad and was having trouble re-adjusting to the US, partly because it frustrated her that no one else seemed to think about how much else was out there in the world.

When I heard that story, I just thought, “Well…that’s me.” And just like that, I changed my mind.

It always kind of made me roll my eyes when I heard people talk about how much traveling changed them. You saw the Eiffel Tower or the Great Wall of China and suddenly you’re a new person? People on online dating sites do it all the time- I talked about it here– and I still really feel like traveling is not, and should not be, some kind of badge of honor. I don’t understand how a vacation could change someone that much.

But maybe I could understand it.

So much of my life, so much of what makes me different from other people, is what I haven’t done rather than what I have. I feel like my lack of experiences- in love, in travel- are what make me stand out rather than what I have experienced.

In fact, maybe I’m talking about love as much as I’m talking about travel here.

Even so, I am craving someplace new to go, outside anything I’ve ever experienced so far.

I hope I can make it happen as soon as possible.

Obligatory New Year Post

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Everyone is doing these year-summation and New Year’s resolution posts, but I find myself resisting that. Partly because, well, I’m not sure how I feel about 2012. It wasn’t a bad year but not a particularly good one, either. I kind of feel like I spent most of the year in a state of blah. There were so many things I should have been doing—dating, eating better, exercising more, writing, meeting my goals—but most of the time I opted to collapse in bed wasting time on the Internet instead.

Although, at least I can say that my time blogging didn’t fall into the “wasting time” category. I did meet my goal of posting 50+ times last year, and I had a lot of fun doing that and staying involved in 20sb.

So here we are, 11 days into 2013, and thankfully, I’m on my way to having a more productive year. And while I’m trying to get a lot done, I’m also trying to cut myself a bit of slack and not hate myself if I don’t meet those goals as fully as I’d like to, since that sometimes leads to giving up. Progress, in any form, would be a good thing. Here are some of the things I’m going to work on:

  • Dating. It would be so, so nice to be in a relationship with a guy I love. Dating sucks, and the longer I’m single the more discouraged I get, but I’m just keeping my eyes on the prize here.
  • Financial things, which I won’t bore you with.
  • Eating better. I’m not going to do some kind of detox like the 17-Day Diet I did last year, which did help me lose weight in the short term but which I wasn’t able to keep up. But I am keeping track of what I eat, cutting down on sugar, and cooking more.
  • Really committing to exercise. I’m taking a break from distance running for now, although I might do some shorter races this year. When I was training for my most recent half-marathon, I found myself dreading the runs on my schedule, which is a pretty good indicator that I’m not getting any joy from running. So while I’m still going to run sometimes, no races with double-digit miles for now. I am also trying to make it to the pool, the yoga studio, and the gym more often. I went to a boot camp class on Monday, will be going to Zumba tomorrow morning, and am making my way through Jillian Michaels’ 30-Day Shred. (In more than 30 days, though—that whole cutting myself slack thing!)
  • Certain work-related goals that I’m not going to get into here.
  • I don’t talk about this much on the blog, but I have a church I go to that I really like and I’d like to get more involved with it.
  • Getting more organized. This is embarrassing to admit, but I’m a bit of a slob and more often than not, my bedroom looks like my closet threw up. I need to get rid of a lot of the shit I don’t need, too.
  • Getting more sleep. Amazingly, I’m already making progress at breaking my terrible habit of staying up late for no good reason, and I feel better already.
  • WRITE. I love writing fiction. Why have I been doing so little of it in recent years? I’m thinking about taking another Grub Streetclass as well.
  • And the most fun one—traveling to England and Ireland! I have never been to Europe and would love to change that. And I have some amazing friends who would be great travel buddies as well.

On a related note, recently, after hearing about it from several other bloggers, I completed the Joy Equation with Stratejoy. I’m kind of skeptical about self-helpy kinds of programs like that, but I really liked it and felt like my head was clearer once I finished it. It helped me zero in on the values that are important to me and give me a clearer idea of what I want my future to look like.

This is going to sound kind of vague, and I apologize, but 2012 was also a year where I kind of challenged some of the things I thought I wanted. For most of my twenties, I’ve been working toward certain things for my future that, I realized this year, I no longer think I want.

The summer right after my senior year of college, I was living on campus at the school I’d just graduated from, working one part-time job in the morning and another in the afternoon and then going back to the dorm room to search for jobs online until I went to bed. I had no idea what my future held in terms of jobs and living situations but did have a weird, completely unfounded faith that everything would work out—and it did. That summer ended with me finding a job and an apartment in an instance of absolutely perfect timing. I am kind of astounded when I look back at how optimistic I was when I was twenty-two. The faith I had in myself and in the future seemed to be completely unfounded and misplaced—but it wasn’t. And now I wonder if some of that belief is what actually created that future.

So now I’ve done something I’d previously been terrified of—imagining a life different from the one I’ve spent years imagining. Now that I’ve let go of something I’d held onto for way too long, weirdly enough, I don’t have any fear at all. I have two quotes from books I love that come to mind (and I’m pretty sure I’ve used both of them before on this blog):

“Not giving a shit, she decided, is like the defrost option on a car’s heater that miraculously unfogs the windshield, allowing you to see where you’re headed.”

-from Empire Fallsby Richard Russo

Not to say I don’t give a shit about anything, just no longer about things I shouldn’t.

“And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn’t that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you’re less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn’t it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you’ve experienced before? You see things more clearly and you know that you’re seeing them more clearly. And it comes to you that this is what it means to love life, this is all anybody who talks seriously about God is ever talking about. Moments like this.”

-from The Correctionsby Jonathan Franzen

So that was all a really long, complicated way of saying something that I probably could have just said in the words of George Michael: “Cause I gotta have faith.” And that’s something I’m going to work on, too- while it’s important to take steps towards goals like I’m doing now, what’s also important is working on having more confidence, more hope, more faith that in the end, everything will work out.

Why I’m Not At My 10-Year High School Reunion

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Tonight is my ten year high school reunion.

I am not there.

I admit, originally I decided not to go after looking at the Facebook group for my high school class. Our class president (side note: apparently our class officers get stuck planning every reunion until they die, which I’m not sure they realized when they ran for an office that they probably only wanted because it looked good on a college application) asked us to post updates on our lives for our alumni magazine (which I didn’t even know we had), and the responses would put the Smug Marrieds from Bridget Jones’s Diary to shame. No one was married at the five year reunion, but apparently, people have gotten busy getting married and reproducing in the five years since then. While the five-year was hilariously awkward (seriously, the entire event consisted of people walking around with forced smiles saying, “Hi! How are you? Isn’t this awkward?”), I envision this one as full of people showing off engagement rings and pictures of their kids. And it embarrasses me that not much has changed since I couldn’t get a date in high school—I’d never had a boyfriend then, and now, at twenty-eight, I still haven’t.

That’s not the only reason, though. Another reason is that I just haven’t stayed in touch with many people from high school. Those I have I can keep up with through Facebook, and the rest…well, honestly, I never think about them and don’t particularly care what they’re doing now. And although I wrote an article for the school newspaper at the end of senior year about how high school is what you make of it and how it’s your own fault if you aren’t going to miss anything from high school (I found out from my younger cousin that the health teachers started passing that article out to the freshmen after I graduated), in truth, I haven’t missed high school once since I graduated.

High school was a weird time in my life. Not a bad time. Middle school was awful—I talked about it here, but in middle school, people were really mean to me on a daily basis. The pop culture stereotype is that high school is like that, but it wasn’t for me. The way I remember it, high school was probably the most self-centered times of our lives. We were all trying so hard to get into college that we didn’t have time to think about how weird that kid in our biology class was.

More than anything, when I look back at high school, I remember how busy I was all the time, and I don’t know how I ever got through it. I swam six days a week during the fall and, for a couple of years, several days a week in the winter. I always took multiple honors and AP classes. I sang in the chorus and, senior year, in the treble choir. In the spring, I ran track and was part of the musical cast. I was arts editor of the newspaper, fundraising director of Student Council, and sports editor of the yearbook. I studied for SATs, applied for summer jobs, took driver’s ed, and searched for a prom dress. Maybe you just have more energy when you’re a teenager, but I could never do all of that now. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

And what was the result? Well, I didn’t have a lot of friends, but I didn’t have a lot of people who disliked me, either. I graduated in the top 5% of my class—18 out of a class of something like 367. I wasn’t a great swimmer (senior year, I missed the sectional cut in 100-yard butterfly by 0.17 seconds), but I was respectable—in fact, a friend of Jackie’s from grad school graduated from my high school two years ahead of me, and when I saw her at a party Jackie invited her to, I was surprised when the first thing she said to me was, “You were on the swim team!” I AP’d out of English and math in college (I passed the AP US history exam, too, but it didn’t get me out of anything). And while no one cares about your SATs after age eighteen, I kind of wish that wasn’t the case, because mine were actually good! (740 verbal, 710 math, and while the writing component didn’t exist back then, I got 790 on my SAT II for writing.)

The real result, though, was that I got into Boston College, and in a lot of ways, I feel like my life didn’t begin until then. For the first time, I started breaking out of the sheltered little bubble I’d grown up in. I met the people who became my best friends. I did activities like chorale because I liked them, not because they’d look good on a resume. I learned things that I still remember now, not things I forgot as soon as finals were over. And I had the time of my life, which I got to relive at my five-year reunion.

Middle school was the miserable kind of time that builds character. College was wonderful. But high school was just a time of my life when I was preparing for something better. Now I’m in the something better—and I see no reason to relive the part of my life when I was preparing for it.

I do have some great memories of high school, though, and one of my favorites is how at the end of our class banquet (an event that had dinner and dancing but was much more casual and less stressful than the prom) we all stayed to the end and formed a circle with our arms around each other as we sang along to our class song, Madonna’s “I’ll Remember.” Even though I’m not there, I wish all the best to the people of the class of 2002. I hope you’re having fun tonight.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0628NtGJAWQ]

Thanksgiving

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One last thing I have to write about if I’m writing about gratitude.

Both of my parents are from Massachusetts, where I grew up. Both of them also have multiple siblings- my mom is one of six and my dad is one of four- and they all live in New England, too. So I have a lot of aunts, uncles, and cousins (twelve first cousins- I’m the oldest on my mom’s side and the oldest girl on my dad’s) who I got to see a lot growing up and still get to see fairly often now. While my mother’s mother is my only grandparent still alive now, I saw my grandparents a lot growing up, too.

 

 

I hear so many people complaining about their relatives and talking about how family gatherings always lead to arguments. Or else their extended family lives far away and they either aren’t close to them or, if they are, they never see them and don’t do holidays together.

 

 

I’m really lucky that’s not the case for me. I actually like my relatives AND I get to see them pretty often. I think sometimes about how if I ever get married, I wouldn’t be able to have a small wedding because I’d have to invite all my aunts, uncles, and cousins- but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

 

 

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. And now it’s finally okay to break out the Christmas music!

And Now For Something Completely Different

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I love to sing. Love. To. Sing. It makes me happy like nothing else does. It relieves stress like nothing else does. Case in point: we had a shortened chorus rehearsal on Election Night, and the one-hour break in which I sang Vivaldi’s Gloria rather than watch election coverage was much needed and much welcome.

I love singing in the chorus that I’ve been with since 2008. I love singing karaoke with my friends. When I had a car, I loved singing along with the radio. Now, when I’m home alone, I love singing at the top of my lungs. When my roommate was away for the weekend, I spent the whole weekend singing “All That Jazz,” and “Defying Gravity” and the entirety of Les Mis for Juno’s entertainment.

Yes, this is how cool I am. I SING SHOW TUNES TO A DOG.* Although, I don’t think Juno minds- she’d probably sing herself if she could. My roommate and I are pretty sure that if Juno, who has very high self-esteem, could talk, she’d be singing a song that goes something like, “I’m the cutest! I’m the cutest! I’m the cutest!” (It’s not a very complicated song because she’s not a very complicated dog.)

In this period of gratitude, I felt like I should write about this because it really is something that has consistently brought me great joy. I’m not so sure if this will bring anyone else joy, but if you’ve ever wondered what my singing voice sounds like outside of KROD, here’s me singing “Back to Before” from Ragtime, a lovely song that I included on my “Sad Broadway” playlist. I am definitely not Marin Mazzie or Christiane Noll, and it’s a crappy recording that I did on my computer, but if you want to hear me, listen away. (And if you want to hear me and are reading this in Google Reader, open up my actual blog to hear it.)

*I also sing “The Juno Song,” which is to the tune of “Voicemail #5” from Rent and goes something like, “Juno/You are a puppy/Juno, I love you/You are so cute.” Oh, God, I’m going to regret revealing exactly how weird I am, am I not?

On Celebrating Thanksgiving

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Halloween is over and Christmas is coming. But this year, I am on a mission not to forget that holiday that comes in between them.

Thanksgiving.

You know, the one with all the turkey and football. (And, speaking of “the one with,” a lot of good Friends episodes, too.) But it seems like every year, Thanksgiving gets shoved further and further out of the way as retail stores insist that the Christmas season starts right after Halloween. This year, Target even started running commercials that basically said, “Get ready to get ready for Christmas,” in October. And as much as I love Christmas, like Nordstrom, one of the few retail exceptions to that rule, I believe in celebrating one holiday at a time.

One of the nicest compliments I’ve ever gotten was from someone I had just met. About four years ago, I was on a business trip in Savannah and had dinner with a freelance editor I was working with and had only spoken to on the phone. I was a little nervous about having dinner alone with someone I didn’t know, but she turned out to be awesome and we had some great conversations. At the end of the night, she told me, “You seem like a very positive person.”

I loved being told that, and while it’s true of me often, it certainly isn’t always true. If you read this blog, you know that despite my best efforts, sometimes I can’t resist being emo or bitching and complaining. And while letting out negative emotions can be therapeutic, I think pushing them aside to focus on the positive can be equally so. While there are many things in my life I’m not happy with, there are many more things that bring me joy. And while I do think the phrase “first-world problems” is overused (taken to the extreme, it would pretty much mean that you only have the right to complain if you’re a sick, starving orphan in a developing country), it really does apply to most of the problems I do have.

This year, I am going to attempt to spend this time between Halloween and Thanksgiving being thankful for what I have. Unless some kind of major tragedy (we’re talking death, destruction, or serious injury or illness) happens between now and November 22, all my blog posts during that time will be on what I love and what makes me happy.

This will be especially challenging due to Election Day next week. All the negativity surrounding it, both in the presidential election and in a close senatorial race in Massachusetts, is wearying me. I feel a lot like this little girl:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjrthOPLAKM]

And after that, maybe I’ll get back to bitching and moaning. But I’ll do my best not to.