Things I'm not writing about...

In high school, a rival school had a literary magazine called Erehwon. (Nowhere spelled backwards, which is a fancy pants reference to something.) Our literary magazine was called Silver Quill, to match the newspaper, which was Silver Chips, and the yearbook which was Silverlogue. (I had to reach under a pile of books by my bed to get the name of the yearbook.) The one I uncovered is 1987, the year after I joined the literary magazine.

In this magazine, the one from the rival school, I remember making a copy of a poem a girl had written. It went something like this. "I'm sorry that I haven't written any poetry. I've been busy doing homework." It went on, but this is going on twenty years, this memory. And the last line was something like, "I'm sorry that I've been too busy not living."

The gist, of course, being, that for some of us, living = writing.

Well, I've been too busy to write.

Too busy working, and watching Mary Tyler Moore (I'm on season six right now.)

Too busy to write about the fact that almost overnight I became a co-manager of Technical Services with my friend Jane, as our boss Eva left to join her husband in New Jersey, after the sale of their house. I have no more hours in the day, and my pay has stayed static except for the 2% at the beginning of the year which doesn't even cover the fact that our health insurance costs doubled or tripled. (Doctor visits doubled, prescriptions tripled.) And I do still work in the Children's department, which has actually been a saving grace, because when I need some air, I can say, I'm going over to Children's, and oftentimes, Maya, my excellent manager, will be in her office and I can sit and talk to her as I calm down.

Too busy to write about Charlotte Zolotow, an important editor and children's writer, a rewrite of a Master's program paper that I need to get published in a peer reviewed journal so I can impress upon the folks at PhD programs that I'm serious, and they want ME.

Too busy to write about the fact that I'm not studying for the GRE, because of course the year I need to take it, it has changed, AGAIN, and this time, big time. It's an hour longer, and they've taken away analogies, antonyms, and sentence completions. Which just means that the stuff they've kept will be more complex, because why else would they have added an hour AND given you an online calculator? (Yes, it's a computer test now. If you get easy questions right, they give you harder ones in that subject, upping your score. But if you get the easy questions wrong, you'll keep getting easy questions, which will sink your score, and possibly your boat.) The GRE is not as important for my program, the letters I write and the letters my recommenders write is what will get me in, but a good GRE score can be a tool for getting more scholarship money in some cases. And I know, if I went to college, I can pass the GRE, but I do need to prepare, and I do need to go over the math that I haven't done for at least fifteen years.

Too busy to write that all of my friendships are changing, again. It's the changing of the guards...Anna is in Russia now, so if I call her, I have to call her when it's a normal hour there (our time +8 hours) and know that she will keep me on the phone for a while, because, well, not many people call her. She loves it there, though. Sally in Michigan is acclimating to Michigan, so she's home less, she has folks over...so we have missed each other coming and going. But all of a sudden, Sally East End has a project involving taking books to Haiti, so she enlisted me to help her find appropriate kids books, so we're talking more. But I'm so tired these days that I don't want to work on relationships that aren't at least eight years old because I don't want to have to explain how I feel about things. Which means that I pretty much go to work and come home and read or watch Mary Tyler Moore. (Plus the fact that my schedule has always been best suited for friendships with stay at home moms, since I am home during the day a lot, and not available most evenings.)

Too busy to write that my sister is getting married!! Yes, my dear Bird has gotten herself an engagement ring and a mighty fine boy. The wedding is in August. (Yes, 2011.) I'm the maid of honor, so that has added to the stress too, as we try to figure out dresses and things. My sister is not one for chatting, and my mother has had other things on her mind, so I knew WHERE the wedding was five days before I knew WHEN it was. It's a Friday wedding, so I assume in the evening, but I don't actually have that information either. I had to ask my dad. Mom and Dad are in California right now. They spent a week traveling around, spending time with friends (had lunch with their future in-laws) and today they'll meet up with "the butterfly folks." My mother is big into Monarch butterfly conservation, and so after she went to a few workshops, they asked her if she'd help...and so she travels all over the country doing exactly that. Usually in February there is a trip to Mexico, but, well, things are a little dicey in that particular Central American nation, so they're visiting the Muir forests (of the huge redwoods) as that is where some butterflies spend the winter, the ones that don't go to Mexico.

As I go over this post, I realize I've just written the opposite of those Christmas cards that glow: "Our daughter just gave us TWINS! We love being grandparents!! Our son got married in Alaska, it was a beautiful ceremony at sunset, the seals were on the beach. Manny got a promotion this year, so we're moving to Hawaii. We'll miss all our friends in Manhattan, but it's an excellent opportunity for our youngest, who we've decided to home school. Did we mention that our son married a doctor? So while he builds his law firm, she'll be building her private practice..."

And all of a sudden it's quarter to eight and I need to get in the shower so I can get to work before nine. Say hello in the comments, I've missed you!!

Hurry Christmas, Hurry fast...

(this is the advent devotional I wrote for our church's advent booklet.)

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. (Read Isaiah 9:2-7)

Every year while on summer vacation, my night owl sister and I share a room. Inevitably I wake up before she wants to even think about morning, and I need to turn on the light to get dressed. So we share my sleep mask. I wear it at night, so my sister can read with a light on late into the night, and in the morning when I want to turn on the light, or open the drapes, I hand the sleep mask over to a groggy form that groans a thanks.

The darkness that Isaiah describes here is not a literal darkness. Sleepy Israelites aren’t waking up to a literal dawn, handing over sleep masks to those too tired to greet the sun. Instead, Isaiah describes people who have been living in the land of the shadow of death. As we read the verses that follow, we see that light is the first of many improvements. Not only can they see, but the light that dawned on their darkness has opened their lives. Each verse describes something better than the next. And in verse 6, a child is born. The poet Carl Sandburg said “a baby is the God’s opinion that the world should go on.” This child is not just ANY child, this is the Messiah, who carries special names: Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace. But none of these improvements could have happened in the dark. The light, first, was the catalyst for changes, after.

God of Light, show us the beginning of your wonderful plan, the plan that started with a baby, your son Jesus.

***

As far as Christmas preps go, I am SOOOO grateful there is a hockey game on tonight. First intermission: first load of laundry, drop something at Sally's parents' house. 2nd intermission, check on laundry. All the while, I will be listening to Mike Lange and packing for my mini mini vacation down to Virginia. I still have one person to shop for.

"Do you think you look like Colin Farrell?"

(Charlotte, to Anthony Marentino, in the last episode of Sex and the City)

In this moment, Charlotte has gone into Chanel to find something to wear to meet the biological parents of the baby she and Harry are intending to adopt. And Anthony says, it's so "TV movie," because the parents are from, guess where? Charlotte! And in the movie, he would be played by Colin Farrell. Charlotte pauses, and says kindly, "Do you think you look like Colin Farrell?"

I had one of those moments today. (Or I think it was today.) (Sorry, the cold is making me all fuzzy.) I was g-chatting with someone and shared that I have a crush. And I shared the age of that crush. And there was a HUGE pause. And finally she said, "Do you think he's interested in you in that way?" And, um, NO. There is no indication that he sees me as anything but this older woman that he is friends with in a class that will be ending in five weeks. Which is why it is a crush. (The thing is, there are no available men in my life that are my age.) (Currently.) (Hoping that will change.) But what I said to g-chat friend was this: the fact that I have a crush (and baby lust? moi?) is letting me know that I am still alive, there is still some kick left.

*********

I realized something today. I used to use blogging as conversation. Instead of talking to people in my life, I blogged for people "living in" computers. Today, instead of blogging about the crazy weekend that included a family wedding, I emailed my sister and told her what really upset me. And she responded with what really upset her. And you know what? Instead of us both stewing, we shared our equally valid strong opinions with each other. We're communicating!! And life is good. She said she liked that I had opinions, it was very Elizabeth Bennett of me. Which, coming from my sister, is a high compliment.

So...it's an adventure, discovering what this blog is going to become, now that I'm back occasionally. I want to go back and read what I wrote, but I want to move forward too.

Time to go to bed.

My sister's phone: inanimate object? NOT!

My sister's phone, much like the watch in the movie Stranger than Fiction, decides to call me every once in a while. It's done this one other time, and all I heard was jostle jostle and when I called back I got voice mail. I was freaked out and called my mom. Sis just called me but I couldn't hear her! I imagined her trapped somewhere without cell coverage. It was around the time when that guy got out of prison because he twittered one word. When my phone rang this morning, because of the snow, I thought the only person that would be calling me this early would be someone from the library saying that the library was closed, which would be ridiculous, a) because it's not that much snow and we never close, and b) because I don't work until 1 pm, so everything will be clear by then that isn't clear now.

So I called my sister and she thought, who would be calling me? The only person that calls me while I'm waiting for the bus is Mom, and she wouldn't have anything to say to me, I just saw her last night. She picked up, and I told her, "Your phone called me." She was puzzled. "It's supposed to be locked..."
"Well," I said, "It's done this once before." Which is when she said, maybe it's like the watch in the movie Stranger than Fiction. Yes, my sister's phone calls me. I have a stalker. It likes to call me and go jostle jostle. But we had a nice chat. She was freezing, standing at the bus stop.
"Guess how many layers I have on?" she asked me.
"Five!"
"Three. It's so cold today, it's 32."
"Nice try. Yesterday it was 11 here."
"Ouch. I better bring lots of layers for the weekend."
"Yep, cuz it's going to be cold."
So I told her about my newest fun thing--making sure the sidewalk in front of my house is clear. When I get home after work, I sweep the snow and then salt the walk. It takes me about ten minutes. While talking to my mom last night, I said, maybe it's because it's the only thing I can do in about ten minutes that doesn't have a second part. When I do dishes, there are always more, somewhere in my apartment, on a desk, under a coffee table. When I do laundry, I do one load at a time. But the walk, it's done and that's it! Of course, we got another inch or two overnight, so I'll have to go sweep and salt it, but it will be a lot less work than if I hadn't swept and salted it last night.

Somehow we got onto the topic of the inauguration, because of port-a-potties. There's one at the Metro now. "Yeah, that's the thing about Tuesday. It would be so cold that I'd be wearing five layers, and think about it. Five layers and a port-a-potty? No thank you!" She said, "I have friends that are going and they're like, why aren't you going? And I say, 'You must not read the newspaper.'" I would be one of those crazy people, because this election meant more to me than any election ever has, but my sister with her talk of port-a-potties and throngs of people changed my mind over Christmas break.

We chatted some more, until she was about to go into the station at the Metro. "I'm going to lose you." So we'll talk again, later.

Happy Memorial Park, I mean Day...a photo essay of my very ALIVE sister, Bird

Near where I work, there is a cemetery called Memorial Park. There's a church right across from it, Memorial Park Presbyterian. There's a Preschool, Memorial Park Preschool. We do outreach at our library for MPP. I drive by MP (the cemetery) and MPPC (the church) every day to and from work.

So I had to laugh when the other day I was writing an email and I wrote, "Happy Memorial Park!"

Ya. In other years, I've posted pictures of flowers, memes...this year I'm bringing something I've wanted to do for awhile, pictures I've taken of Bird. Bird is my gorgeous sister, and my favorite muse when I take pictures of our family. She's highly photogenic. And very dear to me. So, because I don't have to be anywhere for a couple of hours and I can noodle with Blogger, happy Memorial park, I mean day!

And if you get this via RSS, I apologize. I'll probably be "publishing" it a couple of times to you know, "get it just right."



at the bus/train station in Harrisburg, PA, before vackay, August 2006
resting on the sofa, at the cabin, August 2006
squinting at me, in front of the Lake, August 2006
helping with the windshield cleaning, somewhere in Montana, June 2007
eating Huckleberry pie, somewhere in Montana, June 2007

bashful, Yellowstone Park lodge, June 2007
At the free vacuum carwash in Moon, June 2007

in the car, vackay, August 2007
looking like a Pre-Raphaelite muse, at the Lake, 2007

first thing in the morning, Thanksgiving 2007, Station Square Sheraton
sticking her tongue out, November 2007
at P&G Diner, the Strip District, Thanksgiving 2007
Smiling, at P&G Diner, Thanksgiving 2007
at P&G Diner, Thanksgiving, 2007

Henry, the Panda webkin that Marian gave to me, has been given to Bird, Christmas 2007
Christmas, 2007
the table was a wash table last century or earlier--I used to crayon drawings on it. Christmas 2007
motion is pink in this picture, Christmas 2007
motion is green in this picture, Christmas 2007

something red in her hands, Christmas 2007
Look at my earrings..., Christmas 2007 (Bro is pensive in the background, looks up from his book)