Three Days

If I shed the irony, will everybody cheer me? -- Barenaked Ladies

Two weeks ago tonight, I was in Connecticut, chilling at my parents' place before going on a weekend known as Tres Dias. It started out as a movement withing the Catholic church in Spain, where it was known as Cursillo, and Tres Dias is the ecumenical version. It is, as the name suggests (for those of you who figured out the Spanish), a three-day weekend. During this time, talks are given, chapel services held, discussions are had, and lots of food is eaten.

I didn't know what I was in for. My mom had done a weekend a couple years ago and really enjoyed it, and I was happy to go along and hang out with her and do whatever came my way. That turned out to be a pretty useful attitude; one of the oft-repeated phrases of the weekend is, Don't anticipate, participate! It gets annoying. But it's good for people who have control issues, or who, like me, tend to be so analytical that they don't fully engage.

I had to ditch a lot of things to engage in the weekend experience. Ironic detachment was a biggie. Normally, when given a Christian setting that involves butterflies and teddy bears, I would have shrunk back in aesthetic snobbery. But that didn't seem like the best plan here. I decided instead to dive in and accept things for what they were, not for what I wished they were. And I ended up receiving a lot.

What I heard were women sharing real stories of what a big, loving God had done in their lives. What I saw were women being loved by God and drawing pictures for Him to put on His fridge, and God loving every minute of it. And because I allowed myself to stop analyzing constantly (and was even partially successful!), and because I allowed myself to genuinely appreciate others' ideas and experiences and communication styles, I was able to take in the love of God in whatever form it came. So many times over the weekend, I found myself enjoying Jesus' love for me. I wanted to spray-paint His name on a water tower. I wanted to write "Jesus hearts Holly" all over my math notebook.

I wasn't able to keep analysis at bay forever, and I thought about what I'd say on my blog when I returned to Boston. I wondered what overview I could give, what jokes and clever turns of phrase I could make. I wondered how I could explain my experience to people who don't know Jesus and perhaps don't want to (although if you do want to and aren't sure what to do, I can introduce you -- there's nothing I'd like better!). But I realized that, while God gave me my senses of humor and irony, He also gave me a capacity for genuine feeling and expression. So, without irony, without apology, and without qualification:

I want Jesus so much.
I love Jesus SO MUCH.

I Am Not Dead

Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I come to you after a long, unexplained absence. Sorry about that. Over the last three weeks, my activities have included, but not been limited to, the following:

-- moving across town
-- painting a room (my first time!)
-- getting paint in my hair
-- going on a Christian weekend with my mom
-- acting for - nay, starring in - a homework assignment for my friend's film class
-- plastering the seams of a temporary wall (another first!)
-- begin attending that improv class I told you all about
-- doing 8 bazillion loads of laundry, and only have about 400,000 to go.

So, I've been accumulating stories and amusing anecdotes and the deep thoughts you've come to expect, but haven't had the usual abundance of lounging time during which I could blog about it. I've kind of had a life! Crazy, huh? Don't worry, I'm still hoping to find some kind of balance between having a worthwhile existence and taking the time to tell everyone else about it.

I Am Still Employed

This is disappointing.

I'd been daydreaming about severance since last fall, when rumors started swirling about our division's impending sale to another company. In many ways, I've been ready to move on to more creative work for a long time, but I didn't have any other job to go to, or any real specific idea about what I wanted to do, or how to go about finding it. So I stayed put, thinking that if I could only get myself laid off, I'd have six glorious weeks to figure it out. It would also be a convenient time for God to drop something spiffy in my lap.

After holding out for months, waiting for blessed redundancy, the day finally came: The sale is final! Come to the office today to learn your fate! Several of my friends were told that they're only needed through September or December. But of course this isn't based on talent or commitment; it's based on whether they already have someone to do your job or not. Turns out there's no one quite like me. Darn my indispensability! I was offered a job, permanently. Rats and double rats.

So, on to Plan B. Whatever that is. At this point, it will mostly be prayer. Although I did sign up for a comic improv class this summer, which should be challenging and fun at least, and may lead me down unknown paths, perhaps even leading to physical injury.

Hey, disability leave!

Transition

Hi Everybody,
Thanks for bearing with my intermittent blogging. My current excuse is that I'm moving, and have been busy with related activities. I'll have to get back to you with a different excuse once I'm settled in the new place.

I promise I haven't forgotten about you all!

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

I got a new laptop! She's a Dell Project (RED) one, so she's a lovely deep red color -- a sleek Ferrari of a computer. Her name is Ruby Dell.

She's the second one. The first came a couple weeks ago, but it was in a bad way. The box was torn and the laptop beaten up so badly that it was bent. Bent. I couldn't have done that much damage if I'd jumped on it. Perhaps using Big Violent Gorilla Shipping Lines was a bad idea.

Dell was cool about replacing it, so now Ruby is here. I'll get it set up today. I'm not very computery, as you know, but she sure is pretty.

Sleeping Beauty

Or not.

The problem with being a grown-up is there's no where to take a nap.

We have an indoor plaza with an opaque glass ceiling and lots of tables and chairs where people from work eat lunch and hang out. I was down there just now, writing, and got sleepy. So I put my head down on my folded arms, on the table. I was quite enjoying myself when a guy wearing a suit and carrying a walkie-talkie rapped on the table to make sure I was OK. Naturally, I was composed, and was able to reassure him.

Or not. Perhaps I was a bit startled, had hair in my face and the print of my sweater on my forehead (no drool, though -- high five, Me!), and was only able to convince him I was fine because he really didn't feel like hanging around, anyway.

Either way, it was quite a nice way to spend a lunch hour.

My Chinese Haircut

You can get $20 haircuts in Chinatown! Risky, you ask? Perhaps. You're a lot of things, Holly, you may be thinking, but Chinese is not one of them.

You're right. Just about everything about the shape of my head and face is as far from Asian as you can get. But my stylist was cool, and she didn't steer me wrong. I got tons of compliments on the cut she gave me back in September. That was all I needed to be convinced it was a good idea.

I went back today, to the same woman. She said she liked my hair color. "The real color or the dyed color?" I had to ask. Answer: The real color! And here I was thinking it was mousy. I'm not sure what mousy really means, but my hair has been in this awkward transition between blonde and brown for the last several years, and mousy somehow seems to apply.

Apparently, though, lots of Asian girls try to get their hair dyed my color, and it's pretty difficult to do when the original color is very dark. They're also quite big on light skin in Asia, aren't they? My Chinese roommate once told me that pronounced (rather than flat) noses are seen as a sign of nobility. And she said that there's a disturbing trend where Asian women get creases added to their eyelids to make them appear Western.

Fair hair, pale skin, pronounced noses, Western eyes. You know what all this adds up to, right? Me! All this time, I've been a hot Asian chick and I had no idea. Why didn't I learn all this sooner? I could be on a tour of the Far East right now.

I'm Gonna SUE My Ass!

Several rumors are about to be started about me, by me, as I think of them. Here's what I've got so far:

Holly is not my real name. I can't tell you what my real name is, because it's so secret even I don't know it.

I smell faintly of tuna.

Even my very limited creativity can be directly attributed to absinthe. And literal green fairies who visit my room when I try to sleep. They leave turds.

I'm a quiet, polite neighbor who keeps to herself.
Corollary: Pets and deliverymen have been reported missing after last being seen near my home.

I give raisins on Halloween.

I used freelance musicianship as a front for laundering miniscule amounts of money.

I've been photographed romping on the beach with Owen Wilson and Matthew McConaughey -- and I had cellulite! Tabloids have declared me unforgiveably fat. Although I was labelled a "mystery woman," no one suspected either actor of actually dating me.

The Screaming Burrito

For this momentous occasion, I'm using a font with a fancy name: Lucida Grande.

On Friday, April 25, 2008, at 5:49am, my nephew came into the world. Hi, new nephew! Both baby and mama are doing fine. Dad and grandparents are all happy. Aunt is happy, and kind of relieved that she didn't break anything when she held him. Also relieved he didn't hate me and cry nonstop. Off to a good start.

The Neph looks like Baby. It'll take some time before we start to see what's disctinctive about his appearance. He does have a full head of dark hair, though. I predict he'll be built like his dad, but with his mom's face. You heard it here first, folks.

He didn't cry much while we extended family were around, but apparently he does his share of it at night, when big people are inclined to sleep. When he was first born, he was of course not the happiest of campers. They wrapped him up in a blanket, and there's a picture of the wrapping with a wailing baby head sticking out of it. His dad called him a screaming burrito. And so the nicknaming begins.

Actually, that's not true. This kid's had nicknames for months.

Jokes My Brother Didn't Make for Fear of Being Physically Assaulted/Reported to the Police by Concerned Hospital Workers:
To his wife, between contractions: "You're not handling this very well."
To the social worker who came to see if my sister-in-law might develop post-partum depression:
"My wife has beaten me twice already."
To anybody: "Those soft spots on his head? They're for shock absorption!"

Jokes I Didn't Make for the Same Reasons:
To the women at the nurses' station: "Do you have any white babies for sale?"
Had I been caught while smuggling champagne in for the new parents: "Oh, this? Anesthetic and sterilization in one! You're not going to confiscate my steak knife and drop cloth, are you?"

Do we ooze responsibility or what?

Auntiferous

My nephew is now expected to arrive on Friday. All four grandparents and I are planning on being at the hospital for the Blessed Event.

I was never baby-crazy, but since I received the news that I would be an aunt, I've really been looking forward to having a kid to mess up. I have stupid jokes I want to teach him. And, as I think about it, I realize kids and I like a lot of the same things: Candy, crayons, cartoons. That should occupy some fun days out. And then I can drop him back off with his parents. "OK, so he's had a gallon of ice cream, and then we rode the Tilt-a-Whirl. He could use a good hosing down and probably a trip to the dentist. Bye!"

If I ever become a mom, I'll have to get my act together. But when you're an aunt, you get to be eccentric. I can fly around the world, have exotic pets, wear big hats, buy him noisy presents. This kid's gonna love me.

On a more serious note, though, it's gotta be good for a kid to have a whole ring of (mostly) responsible adults who love him and have his best interests at heart. I'd like to be the kind of aunt he can talk to when he likes a girl or gets into trouble (hopefully not in the same conversation). And if he turns out to be shy and nerdy, he'll have a grown-up to relate to ;-).

Before all that happens, though, his parents will need extra hands to change diapers. So here's to being barfed and pooped on. Stinkiness, here I come!

Dangling a Carrot

My sister-in-law is expecting a baby boy, and we've reached the point where he should show up any day now. We're all waiting for the phone call. She and my brother are concerned about the timing, though, because his flight schedule is erratic and he really, really, really wants to be there for the birth. Thanks to modern medicine, inducing may be an option, but wouldn't it be nice if the little tyke could be coaxed out more gently?

Let's consider the gene pool from which he springs. I bet if you wave around a bottle of Bombay Sapphire and a foot-long roast beef sub, that guy will make his way out in a right hurry. Here, baby baby baby! Come get the pretty drink and gum the yummy sandwich!

All That and a Bag of Chips

There's a cabinet at work on which people place free food. It's a happy place. I left work around 5:40 today, and happened to walk by the cabinet. There were three little bags of chips, and most of the workforce had left already. Ha!

Ben the Serial Killer was standing there, reading. "Do you think it would be bad for me to take two bags?" I asked.

"As long as you don't take both of the barbecue ones," he replied, while taking one himself.

"So as long as my selfishness and your selfishness don't conflict, we're fine."

"You know, that's one theory about the foundation of morality. It's called Enlightened Self-Interest."

"I don't know how enlightened it was of me to take two bags of chips..."

"...but it was definitely self-serving..."

"...so I'm halfway there!"

I served myself well, too. Those chips and a bottle of chocolate milk were my dinner.

Inner Space

I read something last week about how skinny people could be obese without knowing it. It has to do with percentage of body fat. I guess that makes sense -- if you weigh 125 pounds, and have no muscle to speak of and teeny-weeny bones, then you could have 40% body fat and be dangerously unhealthy. And you wouldn't know, because it's all on the inside somewhere.

Obviously, I don't have all the facts on this. And I read it on the Internet, a blurb which was in turn taken from a morning news program, which probably had precious few facts in it anyway. So don't go panicking because of what you read here. Unless you struggle with weight, and you're relishing the idea that those obnoxiously skinny people around you could be fat and not know it. If that's you, go ahead and enjoy this.

This all made me wonder if I'm unhealthy. What if I have secret Inner Body Fat? Around my heart, between my ears, in my toes -- it could be anywhere! There's some test where they send sound waves or something through you, and see where they find resistance. I don't have access to that. You'll just have to drop me in a pool and see if I float. Like a duck, or very small rocks. Or fry me up and see how much I sizzle. Cuz I'm hot, baby ;-).

Cute in Hats

I have an unwritten list of things I want to do when I have disposable income. Near the top: Wear hats. Why would it cost money to wear hats? you may ask. Answer: It doesn't. But it costs money to buy them. And, unlike umbrellas, you can't just pick them up for free at restaurant coat checks. You have to find ones that look good on you and don't have lice.

For many a year, I assumed I wouldn't look good in hats. Boy, was I wrong! I look freaking amazing. It's a bit of a shame we don't live in a hat-wearing society. Sixty years ago, everybody wore one. Now, unless it's a baseball cap and you're moving furniture, you probably don't sport any head gear. It takes some free-spiritedness. But I feel ready! Even if it turns out I can't pull it off as well as I think I can, I'll never find out if I don't try. But I need money. Dagnabbit.

You know what I don't look good in? Lace. Makes me look like a librarian. Not the secretly sexy kind, either. The kind who shushes you all the time, and really, really means it. I think it's because I'm bony. The ironically square look looks unironic on me. Mary Janes? Forget it. I might turn a few heads, but only because people would be checking to see if I had a literal stick coming out of my ass.

Though that would give me something to hang my hat on.

Night of Debauchery

Misten and I went out again on Friday. A run-down:

-- Got dolled up in cute '40s-style dress.
-- Went to pricey but super-yummy Italian restaurant.
-- Ordered way too much super-yummy food, and ended up with massive bag of leftovers for super-yummy lunches throughout the week. Not used to spending so much money on myself.
-- Stayed till restaurant closed at 11:30.
-- Went to bar down the street.
-- Was confused that the stamp on my hand didn't show up.
-- Was introduced to the wonder that is the black light, under which stamp miraculously appeared while others laughed "with" me.
-- Settled in with my drink, when Misten asked me, "Holly, do you notice anything about everybody here?" I looked up for the first time. "All the men appear to be together," I said. "Yeah," she said, laughing. The place had been my idea. I'd managed to take her to a gay bar.
-- Upon realizing that no man in the room would be interested in me, I began slouching comfortably.
-- Was devastated to notice I'd left my bag of glorious leftovers at the now-closed restaurant. Four days later, I'm still mourning this loss.
-- Stayed at gay bar till after 1am. The subway stops running at 1. Oopsy. Misten is unruffled.
-- Misten is stopped twice by men with cameras who want their picture taken with her because she is "beautiful beyond belief." Yay, Misten!
-- Misten has brainstorm and suggests we stay in a hotel instead of taking cabs home. Spend more money on said room. It's pretty swanky, though.
-- Stay up till 3 or 4am talking. In spite of good conversation, my eyes are crossing from alcohol and exhaustion.
-- Woke up. Drank some water and threw it up. Guess I should have hydrated a bit more the night before. Lesson learned.

So, there you go. Had so much fun I didn't go home. Spent more in one night than I usually spend on fun in a week, or even a month. Did something spontaneous. Threw up.

I'm learning, friends. I'm learning.

Stalking Derek Jeter

We'll see if having Mr. Jeter's name in this post causes more Googlers to land on my blog. This isn't just a cheap ploy, however. It's legit. And it's my friend's fault.

Two-and-a-half years ago, I temped with a girl I shall call "Misten." She's a lot younger than I. In fact, I'm closer to her mother's age than to hers. She has an uncle younger than I am! We once had a conversation about how, as a thirty-something woman, in Medieval times I'd probably be a grandmother, and "almost dead."

Misten turned 21 last year, and since then we've gone out drinking a couple times -- she because she can, and I because, frankly, I need to loosen up. Be proud of me, then, that I went out with her Thursday after work -- spontaneously! We split a bottle of wine and discussed one of her favorite topics: Derek Jeter. You'd think, as a Boston girl, that she would hate him. Nope. Somehow she grew up into a Yankees fan, and she's obsessed with the man she calls "Captain Sexy-Pants." I can't really argue. I mean, hot millionaire ball-player!

I don't have her initiative, though. Unless my memory is failing me, I've never staked myself out across the street from someone's hotel. Misten cannot make the same claim. In her defense, Misten says that in order to trail Derek during his stays in Boston, she only skipped work once -- and it doesn't really count, because she was 18 and working for UHaul. That'd hold up in court, right?

And she classifies herself as a shy stalker, keeping her distance, not getting close enough to be "ho-y." (Or, as she's Irish, McHo-y. In the spirit of even-handedness during our conversation, I also gave myself a more Germanic moniker, von Ho.) And she doesn't stalk alone. Her friend Jonathan goes with her, because stalking alone is just creepy. So really, that's not even stalking; it's a fan club. It's fan-clubbing.

Before you decide this sounds like a fun pastime you may wish to pursue yourselves, be warned that there are side-effects. In Misten's own words, "When a man doesn't live up to my imaginary vision of Derek Jeter, it's very off-putting." Ah, there's a lesson there, my friends. These obsessions with celebrities can negatively affect one's more commonplace relationships.

So if you're going to go after a superstar, stick with it and don't settle for anyone else.

American Idle

I was doing so well. For two-and-a-half months, I had largely managed to avoid American Idol. I watched The Biggest Loser or whatever it took to keep myself away from Fox at 8pm on Tuesdays. Until last night. I watched The Simpsons (on the same station as American Idol), and then they started talking about how Dolly Parton was the coach for the week, and I like Dolly Parton, and the next thing I knew I was watching. And then it went further. I began to care. Yargh, I'm a goner!

The auditions are really what I'd been avoiding. There are too many people kidding themselves, or they're so close but not quite, and dreams get dashed, and I get get all philosophical and it all just brings me down. Of course, I got all philosophical last night, too, but that was because of Dolly Parton's lyrics. She's a heck of a songwriter, man. I really like her. And she just seems so nice.

And she sings about Jesus so genuinely. Have you seen the movie Elf, with Will Ferrell? You know that part where he's in the toy store and they talk about how Santa is coming, and he gets super excited, shouting, "I know him! I know him!" That's how I feel when I find out somebody else knows Jesus: You know Him? I know Him, too! You get excited when you hear others talk about somebody you like, and I like Jesus.

Let's Get Physical

This week at work I've been listening to Bach's Cello Suites. It sent me right back to my years as a trombone player, because I would often play the Suites as part of my practice. They're not written for brass instruments, so there were a lot of things I couldn't do, but it was a good workout. It's the kind of thing I'd save for a couple hours in, when I was super-warmed up. You know when you're in shape and you run, and you get to that point when you can go and go and go? That's how I felt when I got to the Cello Suites.

Sometimes I miss the physicality of the trombone. I'm not really the kind of person who works with her hands or plays a lot of sports. But one of the interesting things about playing an instrument is that it's 50% mental and 50% physical. That's a big part of what made practicing hard -- if either your mind or your body is tired, it doesn't get a break. I'm rather spotty with my exercise, so there were long stretches where playing the trombone (and carrying it around) was the most active thing I did.

I actually felt a bit athletic when I played. Brass instruments are all about the air, and that kind of breathing affects the whole body. Even my walk was looser and more relaxed after I'd been practicing. Try it: For a full two minutes, take the deepest breaths you possibly can, one right after the other (without hyperventilating). Feel any warmer? Yeah.

I read in book of trumpet exercises that "you are the instrument." At first I dismissed that as a weak "Be the ball!" kind of concept, but now I see there's a very real way in which it's true. Sound is vibration, and a brass player produces that themselves. It starts with the air, and you buzz your lips (a.k.a. "chops"). The horn just focuses, amplifies and projects the sound. Nearly every note I can play on the trombone, I can buzz without it. The trombone can't make noise. Unless you drop it. Then it's percussion. Or sporting equipment.

Hey, speaking of, here's a joke: What's the range of a trombone? Answer: 20 yards if you've got a good arm. Yuk yuk.

Anyway, it's funny what you miss.

Beansprouts Ruin Everything!

Does anybody really like these things, or are we just supposed to eat them because they're healthful? I mean, how desperate for sustenance do you have to be to start eating beans before they're fully grown?

And they look like sperm. Appetizing.

Who thought to put scoop-fulls of this stuff in a plastic container next to the croutons at the salad bar?

Blech blech blech.

Blech, I say.

Maybe if You Put Me in Some Glasses and a Button-Down T-Shirt, I'd Look Like a Computer Programmer

My brother's wife is reading a book about a particular religion. It includes the story of two brothers who killed their sister-in-law "because God told them to." She told us about it and I said, "I've been thinking that for a while now."
"Thinking what?" she asked.
I grinned at her.
"Oh, thinking that God has told you to kill your sister-in-law?"
I grinned some more. I find that smiling and not speaking after declaring that you've heard the voice of God is the best way to assure people that you're completely sane.

I do hear the voice of God, but I gotta say a good two-thirds of the messages I get don't involve commands to kill.

When I do kill, it's mostly spiders and ants. Not aunts.

I'm thinking of writing a manifesto, though. What do you think of this for a title: "The World's Best-o Manifesto." Pretty catchy, huh? In your face, Ted Kaczynski!

Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy

My brother had his first official flight as a commercial airline pilot today. He's had 8 years of training and professional experience as a military pilot, including 3 years as an instructor, so he knew what he was doing. But it was still a milestone, and a test. I asked him a couple days ago whether he was nervous about it, and he said that there are always some nerves when you're dealing with an unknown, but it should be easy.

"Can I quote you on that?" I asked. "Next time I'm flying and there are nervous people on either side of me, can I tell them, 'Hey, no worries! My brother is a pilot and he says it's easy. The only thing easier than flying it is letting it fall out of the sky.' "

I hear he did quite well, which is not a surprise. He was the co-pilot, but the pilot let him do everything, and prove himself. He took off and landed. (For those nervous fliers out there: Please don't worry. These men are capable, and I've placed my life in their hands with confidence. Now back to the exaggeration and humor. Roll with it.) Which brings us to more Undesirable Intercom Announcements:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. I'll pretty much be doing squat for this flight. My co-pilot, a rookie, wants to have a go. Let's give him a big hand! I'll be turning off the intercom so you can't hear me scream. As far as you know, everything is fine. And if you feel a big thud, that would be the plane hitting the ground, and we're pretty much home-free at that point anyway. We're all about building a young pilot's self-esteem here, so please think of something positive to say upon exiting the aircraft. Even if you have to lie. He might be big, but he's sensitive, and kind of a crier. It's not pretty. Enjoy your flight. I'll be popping my Valium now. Nighty-night!

Lost in a Daydream

The gentleman walked onto the bus. It took him till the next stop to sort through his small change and put it, coin by coin, in the slot. All the while he said to himself, "A daydream, a daydream." He then slowly made his way down the aisle, stopping to look directly at people and say to them, "A daydream, a daydream."

One man got onto the bus, and as he passed the gentleman he was told, "A daydream, a daydream."
"It's all a daydream," he agreed.
The gentleman liked this, laughed, and began saying, "It's all a daydream. Ha ha! It's all a daydream."
This was interspersed with directions that I hoped he'd be able to follow: "She said 'Elm Street.' "

I smiled when it was my turn to be looked at and told it was all a daydream.

As we passed stop after stop, he continued to make his way toward the rear of the bus. Before I got off, I could hear him behind me, adding one last bit of wisdom:

"I'm free, free as a bird. She said I was..."

Granna Gets a Onesie

I have this great zip-up blankety thing, with sleeves and holes in the bottom for my feet. I think the official name for it is "slumber sack," but it's pretty much a grown-up onesie. My dislike for the word onesie aside (it seems lazy to me to call a one-piece item of clothing a onesie, and it doesn't lend itself to phonetic pronunciation; it looks like oh-NEE-see), it's a great item to possess if you're cold all the time, like I am. It's like a blanket that comes with you wherever you go.

Mine is red, and my brother says it makes me look like a deflated Teletubby. I'm not allowed to wear it outside.

But I did wear it to my grandmother's house for Christmas! It don't get much snuggier than curling up in my onesie when the North Dakota temperature is in the single digits outside. Granna thought it was so comfy-looking that she decided to get one for herself. She liked my color, too, so Mom ordered her one just like mine. Now we match. You won't be able to tell us apart.

Unless we start talking. I'm more sarcastic, but she's the one less likely to take crap. And she can tell stories that begin with the words, "Back in the bootlegging days..."

18 Wheels a-Rollin'

Last night I saw Smoky and the Bandit for the first time. That is one classic piece of American cinema! I knew it existed but it hadn't solidly registered in my consciousness until the My Name is Earl episode where Randy wants to go to the Camden County fair and see the Trans Am Bandit drove in the movie. Then the Jerry Reed song, East Bound and Down, played while Earl and Randy messed with some poor guy's golf game (you kind of have to see it). Now that I understand what it's about, I can't get that song out of my head. Which is fine. I like it.

East bound and down
Loaded up and truckin'
We're gonna do what they say can't be done...

I've long thought I had a redneck in me trying to get out, and this movie is bringing it that much closer. Now I want a cool "handle." I want a basset hound named Fred. I want to get messed up in a bar brawl and somehow enjoy it. I want to race some Coors across state lines with Sheriff Buford T. Justice on my tail.

But mostly I want to have witty CB chatter.

After that movie, my life seems so... below the speed limit.

Rowr

You know what I like better than dinosaurs? Mammals. I like the fur. The feathers thing was a nice middle ground, but fur wins out. I don't know much about the movie 10,000 BC, but it has lots of big furry animals running around, which appeals to me. And saber teeth. Those are cool.

A long time ago I wrote about wanting a woolly mammoth as a pet. Still do. Now I'd like to add a saber-toothed something to the list. Weren't there animals besides tigers that had them? A tiger would be OK, though. I could have a kitty door for him, like the Flintstones. Anybody remember that cat's name?

So, what's on my pet list now? A big dog named Snort, a woolly mammoth, a saber-tooth of some kind. I saw a giant sloth once at a museum. That might be cool. But kind of close to a bear. I could just get a bear. I saw a car commercial several years ago that showed a big bear making himself comfortable on a red couch, and I thought the bear looked even more comfy than the couch -- like a big bean bag. And I wanted one.

Mom, if one follows me home, can I keep him?

Like Big Bird!

I caught a bit of a PBS show about whether birds evolved from dinosaurs. They say a whole mess of dinosaurs, including T-Rex, could have had feathers. I like that. Makes them friendlier somehow. Any chance they could have been yellow and sung songs with grouches?

I like eating dinosaurs
That's what I like to do
And when I'm done I brush my teeth
Like mommy told me to

Meat is what I like to chew
I tear into the flesh
And then I use a toothpaste
To keep me minty fresh

My days are full of hunting
Some roaring and some stomps
And nightly oral hygiene
To give me healthy chomps

I might be big, I might be strong
Everybody's scared of me
But at night I still come home
To my T-Rex mommy

Killing Cereal

We had snacks at work again today.

Snacks snacks snacks snacks snacks snacks snacks .

Which brings me to a little promise I made last week and quickly forgot about: To tell you how my coworkers and I decided Ben could be serial killer. I'd sent around this link:
http://www.malevole.com/mv/misc/killerquiz

Feel free to take the quiz. I got 7 out of 10 (not bad!). It shows pictures of serial killers and computer programming language inventors, and you have to guess who's who. We were talking about the pictures, and Chris says Ben fits the profile -- smart, white, polite.

Ben, concerned and wondering whether he should be offended, says, "You think I look like a computer programmer?"

Because I Don't Have Much Else to Say...

I'll just clarify that I may have the heart and mind of a poet, but I haven't done the work of one. So, to be fair to my friends who are true poets, perhaps I shouldn't declare myself one yet. Perhaps I'm more of a coccooned poet. My fear of cliche has kept me from seriously trying my hand at it. My experience last week made me think it could be worth getting over the fear, though.

I also learned that poetry can be much easier to appreciate when it's read aloud. I'd heard that poetry is meant to be read aloud, which always struck me as odd. Now I see how much a live performance can bring to it! It was quite fun. I'd recommend it, even to those who don't think they'd like it. You might be pleasantly surprised. Maybe not. But maybe yes :-).

Slammin' Poetry

I went to an open mic poetry night last week. Isn't that one of the most Cambridgy things you can possibly do? Anyway, in the hours I was there, my thoughts followed a progression something like this:

I'm not a poet.

I don't want to be a poet.

Damn it, I'm a poet!

Maybe I'm Janice

Have I done a Muppet post yet?

A girl I used to work with sent me photocopied pages from a book she owns called Sesame Street: Unpaved. She did it because of the recent presidential primaries; there's a particular Muppet she thinks looks like Mitt Romney. Can you guess who it is? I'll tell you at the end of the post.

Anyway, I had this Muppet's picture up in my cube, and Ben (the serial killer) comes over and we talk for a bit. Then he says, "I'm looking at this picture, and I'm looking at you..."
"Do you think I look like him?"
"Not completely. Your eyes aren't flat. And your face isn't fuzzy"

Don't let that throw you off in your guessing, folks. Ben also thought I resembled the computer wallpaper I had a couple months ago. It was a picture of a polar bear.

I do bear a few resemblances to a Muppet, though they're not necessarily physical. I like to sing and dance, and I've always wanted to be on a variety show. I'd like to take Manhattan someday. If I'm ever in a rock band, I'd want it to be the Electric Mayhem.

I think if I were to have a crush on a Muppet, I might pick Rolf. Although Animal could be a very fun date.

OK, ready to find out who's on my cube wall? It's Guy Smiley. Raise your hand if you called it!

Snack Time

I wake up every morning in a bed that's too small, drive my daughter to a school that's too expensive, and then I go to work to a job for which I get paid too little, but on pretzel day? Well, I like pretzel day. --Stanley Hudson, The Office

Today it's snowing in New England. It's a gentle snow, but long and steady enough for long-distance public transportation to be disrupted, and for my office to close early. Woo! Slightly less woo: I was so hungry that I went and bought a panini. By the time I got back, we'd all received notice that the office was closing immediately. I could have saved five bucks! Then my coworker, Ben, comes over and says, "Not to make you feel like your purchase was even less necessary, but snacks are here."

We get snacks every Friday at 2pm. My coworkers and I like snacks very much. Our jobs involve very little live interaction with others of the human kind, so when snack time rolls around, we'll often spend a whole hour, talking and laughing and distracting other people from their work. Snacks are very important to us. We like snacks.

Today, it became apparent to all of us just where snacks stood on our priority list. We'd just been released early from work on a Friday, and with the rest of the office deserted, we go have snacks. They'd been set out at the time of the announcement -- too late to take them back, but not important enough for anyone to stay for -- except us. We had them almost entirely to ourselves! Glorious abundance! I even brought some home.

Snacks snacks snacks snacks snacks snacks snacks.

Perhaps I'll tell you all later about how our conversation revolved around Ben fitting the profile of a serial killer. But more the basement kind, not the snapping-at-the-office kind, so we think we're OK.

Mono: Molto Bene?

Has anybody out there ever had Mononucleosis, a.k.a. mono? I've often thought that would be a great illness for me. I'm very good at sitting around. And do you know if you can get disability pay while you have it? Wow, that could be a real kick-start to the writing career. I'm going to give this some serious consideration.

I've never had it, though, so I don't know what it's like. Do you just get weak, or do you actually suffer? I only want to be sick if it's fun.

Incontinental

Another installment of Things You Don't Want to Hear Over an Airplane Intercom:

"I can't believe you said that, Kevin! You're the most inconsiderate co-pilot ever. I'm so distraught I don't know if I can land this thing... No, I'm not speaking to you anymore... Hello, control tower? Would you tell my co-pilot to prepare for our descent? And would you tell him to make the announcement to the passengers and crew, if he's not too self-absorbed to do so?... What, the speaker has been on the whole time? Why didn't you tell me? I hate you! I hate you all!"

And in other news, I read that scientists have discovered a fossil that indicates bats developed flight before they developed sonar (I assume this is from an evolutionary perspective, not a life-cycle-of-every-bat perspective). I'm picturing a bunch of bats smacking into cave walls, getting really ticked off. Surely there's a metaphor in here somewhere, no? I'll let you decide how it would apply to you, but here's what I think of myself: My sonar is better than I (and even other people) have given it credit for, and I'm learning to trust it more. A few cave-smacks and some loud interference shook my confidence, but I'm coming back, baby!

Brotherly Love

The family was together at my parents' home this weekend. My brother and his wife are in the process of closing on their first home and all sorts of impressive grown-up activities. She's coordinating the bulk of it while he's in various other parts of the country, finishing up his training. Don't let all her brains and ability fool you, though. Sure, my brother was attracted to her strong character and intelligence, but I once heard him claim that he knew she was The One when they went to see Jackass, The Movie, and instead of squirming or being offended, she laughed her jackass off.

L is sometimes fascinated/appalled at our brother-sister dynamic. (She's an only child. She says her parents felt no need to mess with perfection.) Yesterday morning, J had made some hot cereal and couldn't finish it all, so he pushed it in my direction because I was hungry, saying, "I guess you'll want your own spoon."
"Oh, I'm not picky..." and I looked up to see him, eyes wide with sadistic glee (his usual expression), licking his spoon exaggeratedly. Liiiiiick. "You still want it?" Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick. "You still want it?" If even I wasn't grossed out at this point, it was a matter of honor to get up and get my own clean spoon.
"Just trying to help you make a decision," he said. "You seemed to be having some trouble there." L shook her head.
I explained, "You learn to receive affection differently when you have a brother. There was one Thanksgiving when he threw a roll at me across the table."
"I remember that," J chimed in helpfully.
I went on, "People think it's bad that he threw something at me. But he did it because he knew I liked rolls." Some see a projectile. I saw a young man giving up food from his own plate. Brings a tear to the eye, does it not?

Thinking about this does bring up a question for me. J, if you're reading this, do you remember: Did I catch the roll? My ego wants to know.

Here are some of the other services my brother provides:

- He points out when I'm doing or saying something stupid.
- He tells me when I look bad before I take myself in public (L is also happy to help in this regard)
- He offers to "talk to" people who insult me (though he may feel as territorial as protective -- dissing me is, after all, his job).
- He teaches me to cheat at party games -- with flair! (He taught me so well, in fact, that during a game of Scattergories, when we had to come up with a President whose name started with the letter I, he and I both came up with "I-senhower.")
- He keeps an eye on me when I go drinking. Though this may be largely for his own amusement. And he's as likely as not to say, "Do you think he's cute? Then finish your drink and go talk to him," and push me toward the bar.

All in all, a pretty useful guy to have around.

Mobile Isolation

Today I'm washing my winter coat. It's a great coat. Not great-looking, necessarily. It's this long, massive down number, the warmest L.L.Bean had in its arsenal. I tend to be cold anyway, so I sacrificed fashion for utility. Not that I noticed the sacrifice right away. At first, I told myself that the look was still beautiful, in an unconventional way. I called it Sexy Eskimo, and I imgined myself strutting down the street accompanied by wah-wah trumpest, a la Bugs Bunny when he put on lipstick. Or like those stunning Russian women in the fur hats.

Then I saw myself.

I caught a glimpse of my own image as I passed by a mirrored building on my way to the subway after work. There was something familiar about it, and I realized: I'm the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come! A frumpy conical monolith, shrouded in mystery and periwinkle, impervious to the scrutiny of stylish but freezing Bostonians around me. In this glorious garment, I'm aware of the cold only on a detached, intellectual level. I'm oblivious to snow, rain, wind, and oncoming traffic.

Mom's not happy about that last bit. The hood comes well in front of my face, cutting off all peripheral vision and a fair bit of sound. I have to turn the upper half of my body a full forty-five degrees to see if cars are coming or to make sure I haven't lost my walking companions. It's my own cozy little world.

I'm way too comfortable to care that I look somewhat less than fabulous. I'll be fabulous in the Spring. Then the danger won't be my walking in front of cars. It will be all the men walking in front of cars because they're staring at me.

Humor me on that.

I'd Like to Bring My Bankie to Meetings

We do boxing at my gym twice a week. A few sessions ago, I was paired with a girl who works with children, and is getting her Master's degree in business management. I wonder if one is good preparation for the other. Are we really all that different from kids, after all? We're cranky when we're tired, impatient when we're hungry, and we get all happy when others give us hugs, praise, or cookies. The biggest change for me is that these days I'd love to be told to take an afternoon nap. I like the idea of our childishness being overt:

"If we transmit the files on 4/15, we should be in good shape to... Johnson, Smith! What's going on back there?"

"Nothing."

"Am I going to have to separate you two?"

"No."

"OK... So, we should be in good shape..."

"Ow!"

"That's it! What's going on?"

"He bit me."

"Johnson, what did I say before?"

"No biting."

"And what did I say would happen if you did it again?"

"I wouldn't get to go to the sales conference in Florida."

"So what's going to happen now?"

"But it's not fair! He started it!"

"I don't care what he did. We don't bite in the office, do we?"

"No."

"No sales conference for you."

"This is so unfair."

"Life isn't fair. And don't give me that face."

"Ha!"

"Smith, this isn't funny. You'll stay late for the rest of the week."

"Aw, man!"

"I'm pinning this note to your lapel. Have your wife sign it. Or do I have to call her?"

"No."

"Good. I know neither of you likes this now, but you'll thank me when you're middle management."

Ancient Wisdom

I was introduced to "Ask a Ninja" last week. How long has that been around, and why did it take this long for someone to open my eyes to its brilliance? If you haven't seen these YouTube masterpieces, allow me to whet your appetite with this useful gem, a Ninja Pickup Line:

From across the room, I thought your body was punching. But now, up close, I can see that it's kickin'.

Typo

During an IM exchange with my supervisor a while back, my fingers goofed. Instead of "got it," I keyed in, "go tit."

Whoopsy.

Mr. Mom

Today I forwarded am email I got, full of random bits of advice. My Dad, who is rarely online, read it and replied that he was really excited to try the method for cleaning the lint filter on the dryer. This was not a joke. Dad has taken over more and more of the housekeeping duties over the last 20 years. It started when we moved from Germany to Maryland, and he began doing the grocery shopping at the military base where he worked because it was less expensive than the civilian stores we lived near. When he became a firefighter, he had more days at home than my mom, so he kept it up.

Dad has his special -- oh, let's just call it anal -- way of doing things. By the time I was in grad school, he was cleaning the bathrooms proudly. One day I came downstairs and saw a washcloth sitting on the kitchen counter. "Dad, is that the cloth you just used to clean the toilets?" "Yeah." "It's on the counter where we put our food." "Hey! Those toilets are the cleanest things in this house!" It was probably true, but I bet you'll hesitate now if I invite you over for Thanksgiving.

He has a sponge system -- this sponge for dishes, that rag for counters. And a towel system -- this towel for hands, that towel for surfaces. I mess it all up when I come home. It's great, because it usually ends up with him doing things himself if he wants them done right, and I get to do what I do best: Watch TV in the other room. Or sit at the table and tell stupid stories while he's trying to concentrate on getting a ring out of the cherry-wood island. Or anything that doesn't require a toilets-cleaner-than-counter-tops mentality.

Maybe it's military discipline that just sticks with a guy. My brother certainly is becoming more Dad-like that way. I'd just assumed it was latent genetics.

Anyway, Dad was quite appreciative of all the little household hints in the email. I wrote back to remind him not to forget the tip about placing a safety pin in your slip to keep your skirt from getting clingy. His response: "That's an old one -- been doin' that for years!" Apparently these are the pearls of wisdom a man picks up during fifteen years on the fire department. Those guys are all kinds of useful.

Miscellany

"Those cold temperatures, plus that precipitation -- that'll make the snow."
Gotta love the weather man.

"It's mostly the sandwich tray. That's the big news I wanted to share with you. There were over thirty sandwiches!"
-- My supervisor, brining me up to speed after Thanksgiving break, when he was one of the only people in the office.

I wore a red sweater, and my roommate started singing "Lady in Red." I've rewritten the lyrics to make it more appropriate:
The lady in red
Is covered in wool (head to toe)
It's three inches thick
So she won't get cold
And I hardly know
This woman by my side
Under that sweater, I can't see
The way you look tonight

But Perhaps I'm Too Picky

I just saw a bit of an adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice" on TV, and am struck by the following thought:

If I ever receive a marriage proposal, I really, really hope it does not begin with the words, "My dear cousin..."

The Retirement Jeep and Other Stories

My parents just ordered a new car. It'll be a candy-apple red Jeep Liberty with "all the bells and whistles." With my parents, that could mean actual bells and whistles. But I'm told it also includes GPS. It's not quite the GPS my Mom would like, though. It'll probably be all polite, and she anticipates that being ineffective. What she would prefer is more along the lines of Global Positioning Sarcasm: "You missed the turn, idiot! Did I stutter? Now we're going to have to go a half hour out of our way. I'm not going to be the one to tell your husband why we're late getting home." Perhaps she knows she's likely to get mad at it, and wants it to give her a good reason.

Mom tends to get lost. [I have her permission to share this. We share the same priorities: Funny trumps Embarrassing. By a LOT.] She grew up in North Dakota, where everything is straight, flat, and laid out in squares. You can see a silo 30 miles in the distance, aim toward it with your car/plane/buffalo, and get there. One can easily imagine, then, how more haphazard layouts might be confusing to someone used to that kind open terrain. Haphazard layouts. Hmm, where might one find those? Let's pick a place at random-- say, Europe. Oh, hey, it just so happens Mom got lost in Europe! Who saw that coincidence coming?

One summer, when we were living in Germany, Mom loaded up the dog, my brother and me for a vacation to Belgium and Luxembourg. [A little tip for the travelers among you: Don't go there unless your idea of fun is not having fun.] So, we're driving through Germany, through lots of little towns. On a tiny street in a tiny town, there's a little booth with a bar that lifts, like you'd see upon exiting a parking garage. It's empty, and the bar is up. That was odd. We drive some more, and some more. We haven't seen signs in ages. How long does Germany go, anyway? When will there be a sign telling us where we are? Eventually we make it into a city, and start trying to find out where we are. Not so easy when you don't speak the language. Finally, we manage to figure out that we're in Luxembourg City. In case you didn't major in Geography, I'll let you in on a little-known fact: That's not in Germany. I know, where's the logic? Turns out it's the capital of Luxembourg. We were in the capital, and we didn't even know we were in the country.

It's kind of understandable, though, because Luxembourg is small. What's much more impressive is that we once accidentally almost went to Canada. I had spent the summer in Maine, doing music stuff. Mom came to take me home. A couple hours into the trip, we stopped to eat, then headed back on our way. I noticed we seemed to be passing a lot of the same towns we'd passed before lunch. We looked, and we were heading South, the correct direction to for getting to Connecticut. How was this happening? Then we realized: It was happening because we'd spent the first two hours of the trip heading in the wrong direction. Looking at a map, we saw that we'd almost hit Canada. Four hours after our initial departure, we get back our starting point and Mom sends me to a pay phone to call Dad and tell him we'll be late, with an added command: "Don't tell him what we did." How am I supposed to pull that off without lying? So I call, and say, "Dad, we're leaving Hancock now." "I thought you were leaving at noon!" "Yeah, uh, we're leaving now." "OK." Close call.

Yeah, with or without the sarcasm, that GPS is a good idea.

Upon reflection, it's also apparent that I'm not the most useful person to have as a passenger.

Things I'm Bad At

Finding Stuff. Doesn't seem to matter what it is. When my brother and I were kids and hunting for Easter eggs, he'd find them in places I'd just looked in and passed over. This once happened with a whole frigging basket. How do you miss a basket?
Fast forward 25 years, and I'm digging through electronic storage sites, looking for files. Still can't find them.

Taking compliments. Oh, I'm excellent at fishing for them, I just can't take them. Self-deprecation, if not my native tongue, is certainly my primary language now. It took me years to realize that disagreeing with compliments insulted the giver, not just myself.
Although, there was one time as a kid when I went in the opposite direction. I was about 4, and wearing a pink dress. A woman behind a counter told me I looked pretty, and I said, "I know." What? What's wrong with that?

Laser Tag. I was so bad I didn't know I was bad, until it was finished and we were handed our scores. Some people had 4-digit scores. Mine was 43. Can you die and stay dead in laser tag? Maybe I was dead.

Anything requiring upper-body strength. Now that you've had access to pictures, that shouldn't surprise you. Arms like toothpicks. It's a wonder I can lift my own hands.

Cleaning. This is probably because dirt, frankly, doesn't bother me all that much.

Liking vegetables. Never been a fan of the veggies. Better to accept the truth than live in denial. To be fair, though, they're awfully strict with the rules. My favorite plant-based foods are not considered vegetables. Peanut butter (from peanuts!) and chocolate (from cocoa beans!) and cows (from hay!) are all, apparently, in other parts of the food pyramid.

Fun With Convalescence

I have a health issue that required surgery a few months ago. Don't worry, it's nothing life-threatening. I won't get into details here because it gets weird, but it's not necessary for anyone to know what's wrong to appreciate the point I'm going to make. And my point is this: Surgery was awesome. I loved the whole process. There was almost no pain afterward, but I was told to take several days before returning to work, mostly to recover from the anesthesia. I was also ordered to wear sweat pants for a while.

So, let's look at this summed up:

-- I take a nap while the doctors do all the work.
-- I awaken and get immediately doped up with pain meds.
-- I get a week off work.
-- My parents take me home and spend the whole time saying either, "Don't get up," or, "Go lie back down."
-- I get pictures of my insides that look like Mars from a distance. (I almost wanted to put them up on the wall of my cube, just to see if anyone would mistake it for outer, rather than inner, space.)

Um, can I have this bi-monthly, please?

You can imagine my excitement, then, when it turned out my health issue hasn't been resolved and I'm going to get to do this all again. It'll probably all go down around the end of March. Warm up the couch, Mom, my butt's going to be planted on it soon!

Worth noting: I mentioned briefly in a previous post that I salivate at the thought of severance pay. Now you know I look forward to surgery largely because it gets me a week off work. It's not like they torture me there or anything, but surely this is indicative of a need to move on. My church, during what is traditionally the season of Lent, does what it calls 40 Days of Faith. During these 40 days, each person is supposed to ask God for something really big, something that requires a lot of trust on our part. So today, on Ash Wednesday, I present my request: Lord, I pray for a job that's more fun than surgery.

Another Try With the Photos

OK, at the suggestion of the lovely Sylvia, I put some photos up on Flickr. I haven't figured out how to get them onto the blog, but I've got a web address where you can go see them. I also haven't been able to make it a live link yet. Sorry I'm so bad at this, guys. But at least it's a step. Can you copy and paste this?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laughholly/

Let me know how this works!

The Picture My Mom Likes

We interrupt our series of Things That May Be Obvious to You But Were Revelations to Me, But Hey, at Least I Learned Them Eventually, Right? to bring you the first pictures on this blog! Because I know what you've been thinking: Boy, that Holly sure is smart, funny, spiritual, and lots of other flattering adjectives that she's too lazy to type about herself. But, is she hot?

The answer is yes. Duh. But because I believe in letting you think for yourselves, I'll post some photos and you can decide. I also believe in helping people, though, so I'll help you decide: You think I'm pretty.

OK, here we go...




And so you can see, here's my natural hair color, next to the cousin who's responsible for the red:




We're baking cookies!

OK, these images are looking awfully small, and I don't know how to make them larger without them getting all pixel-y. So, you can't see any of this very well. Sorry, still working out all this tech stuff.

Captain Obvious, Part III

Before I go on to the third thing I learned, I'd like to ask if Part II made sense to you all. I'm not sure I made my point well, or if it was even clear what my point was. I guess my point was twofold: 1. Even if you're not incredibly skilled in an area, if you're strongly inclined in a particular direction, you'd do well to pursue it at least to a small degree, even it's not on a professional level. 2. I've come to believe that, at least in the case of writing, I do possess some skill, and that I'm not chasing a dream that can't -- or even shouldn't -- happen.

I don't know how you tell the difference between pursuing your dream in the face of doubters who are wrong and doubters who are right. I think that's where my next point comes in:

Lesson 3: God is in this. I've always had a notion of honoring God with my work, but it's a bit new to me to think that I honor Him most when I try to pursue work that aligns with the way He made me, and that that will be a source of joy for me. I think it can be tempting in our culture to believe that practical work is the most useful, the most helpful to society, and creative or entertaining work is diverting at best, self-indulgent and corrupting at worst. I have a fair bit to say about that, but my main point here is that God made you how He made you, and He intends to use that, whatever it is. For myself, I've come to believe in the value of entertainment and laughter, both as a spoonful of sugar for conveying serious thoughts, and also as ends in themselves. I see how much I turn to these things myself, and I'm not sorry that other people took the time to create them. I want to do the same for others. There's so much that weighs people down. Comedy may seem like a balloon, a bright, colorful bubble with no substance, but sometimes such balloons keep people from sinking. Not forever, of course, but they help.
I tend to be cynical about fridge-magnet sayings like "Believe in your dreams!" And as a Christian, I used to dismiss "Believe in yourself" as ungodly humanism. But I now see truth and value in both attitudes. I do God no favors by disregarding the dreams He's put in me, the skills He's allowed me to acquire, and the character He's built up in me. I choose to believe in my dreams and in myself because God created both of them.

Captain Obvious, Part II

Hello, boys and girls, and welcome to Holly's Life Lessons That You May Have Known Already. Last time, you'll remember we talked about how our seemingly silly childhood pleasures give us insight into our core traits. Today's lesson is about how we can take our natural inclinations seriously.

Lesson 2: Perhaps we're not kidding ourselves. Every year, American Idol starts with dozens of laughable auditions from people who really shouldn't be there. They've dreamed of this moment their whole lives, only to be put on TV for the rest of us to mock. If we're supposed to pay attention to what we enjoyed as kids, how are we to avoid pursuing dreams which we can't back up with talent or skill?
A year ago, I knew I liked humor and writing, and was pretty sure I was good at it. But what if I was wrong? Doesn't everyone think they could write Top 10 lists for David Letterman? Few probably can, and I suspect I am one of those few, but how can one really know?
After this past year, I arrived at this answer: Even if I'm deluded about how my skill compares to that of other people, I'm still better at writing than I am at most other activities (e.g. doing my taxes, astrophysics), and I'm more likely to find fulfillment in work that involves my core traits. And there's a place for the opinions of other people. Most of the bad performers we see on American Idol probably haven't sought much criticism from people who truly know good singing. And those who had received input -- and found it to be positive --probably received it from people who aren't qualified to judge singing ability and star power. I've received praise from people whose opinions I trust, so I've decided to stop asking whether I have any business trying to be a writer, and to instead get on with the trying.
Of course, you, my readers, will undoubtedly have an opinion on this. So if you think it's OK for me to quit my day job, but only if I do so to take another day job, feel free to speak up. Your validation will come should I ever be laughed off of Literary Idol.

Captain Obvious is a Wise and Insightful Fellow

It occurred to me a couple nights ago that you may be wondering what I was doing with myself during my year away from this blog. Well, for one thing, I did some vocational counseling. I loved it. Among the things I learned:

-- I like writing.
-- I like it when things are funny.
-- I like an audience.

You may be wondering why it took professionals to help me see what any one of you could have told me back in 2006. So I'll be a little less flippant now and tell you, on a deeper level, what I learned.

Lesson 1: That stuff we long-ago dismissed as silly isn't silly. You know how you wanted to be Evel Knievel or Dorothy Hammil or Luke Skywalker when you were a kid? Did you spend your summer hours on your driveway, pretending you were them? What did you enjoy about that -- the thrill of physical risk, the pretty pink skirt, almost kissing your sister because you didn't find out she was your sister till Return of the Jedi? Did you enjoy competition, wish for an audience, or love rounding up the younger kids next door to be Storm Troopers? There's something worth noting in all of that, and at your core, you still carry around most of those traits. Today, you may drool at the idea of extreme sports, or like getting dressed up for a party. (If you're still trying to kiss your sister, though, I recommend moving out of the family house NOW.) You may assume everyone in the world daydreams about what you daydream about, but it's not true. I, for example, have zero desire to take my bike of any sweet jumps. If you do, then you can acknowledge that desire as a God-given (albeit insane) trait, rather than dismissing it as a silly childhood pursuit. It doesn't have to remain in your childhood, either. Who says you can't hit a mountain biking trail, just because you're older and (hopefully) more mature and (possibly) decrepit?
When I was a kid, one of the things I wanted to do most was be in musicals -- singing, dancing, acting -- "doing it all." Once I hit sixth grade, I was giving myself to tromboney activities to the exclusion of nearly everything else, but what remained the same was this: I am a natural performer. Whether anybody likes what I do is another matter, but even my coworkers at my decidedly non-showy office job can attest to the fact that no matter how you slice me, I'm still a ham.

As you might guess from the fact that I numbered the above lesson, I learned more than one thing throughout the vocational counseling process. However, I don't want to flush my writing career down the toilet with a case of carpal tunnel from trying to cram a year's worth of lessons into one blog post. I feel a Post in Installments coming on. Besides, I wouldn't want to tax your attention spans;-).

The Color of This Blog -- Times, Like, a Hundred

My mom (who, for the record, was not as grossed out by the salt and blood thing as I made her out to be) is excited about me finally putting pictures up here. Since I have none, she's volunteered to send one of her favorites. It's not in my possession in digital format yet, but I wanted to warn you all in advance: The hair color you'll see in this picture is bright, bright red. Not ginger. Red. Or, as noted on the container, Vampire Red (said in a deep, horror-movie voice).

I'll explain. First, we were in North Dakota. Second, I have a cousin. Third, I'm on a budget.

Mom is from North Dakota, and my grandmother and uncle live out there. 9 years ago, I was out visiting Granna and my cousin Christy, then 16, dyed my hair purple for me. It smelled like grapes. As it washed out, if left purple all over the shower curtains, towels, shirt collars... Since then, I've often thought, You know, I don't think dark purple was really my color. I'd look much better in a deep, forest green.

So this year, when we all headed to ND for Christmas, I told Christy I wished we'd done green. "We can take care of that," she said. So we went a-huntin' for dark green hair dye in every punk store in Grand Forks. There are more of those than you'd think. At the record shop, Christy bought some incense and she said, "Hey Holly, they don't have hair dye, but they have piercing needles!" This is a girl who's pierced her own father's ear. That should say something about both of them.

We eventually found green hair dye, but it was fifteen bucks. Honestly, who spends that much on their hair? Surely no one. So we went to another store where the only green was really light and yellow. Not foresty. But they did have a deep red for eight dollars, and it was just a few days before Christmas, so that seemed both cheap and festive. Killer combo!

Thus I went red.

You'll see.

Guess Where I'm Writing From!

From my home computer! It had all kinds of things that weren't working two days ago. It wouldn't even boot up. It had done this before, and it required a fair bit of TLC to get it functioning again. But tonight I turned it on, just to see, and ta-da! Happy machine.

Sorry for writing you off so quickly, my Dell.

I'd still like to look into that laptop, though. For the onion rings.

Sweet Dell, You've Been Good to Me

Yesterday, my computer crashed for the third time in as many years. I've had it since Christmas of '01, and the poor thing has been limping for a while now. At the moment, it appears to be in a sort of computer coma -- there are signs of life, but it can't quite do anything. I have friends who have put in long hours resuscitating it in the past, and this time I think rather than bother them again I'll take the plunge and get a new one. Big investment for little me.

And this time, I'm thinking: Laptop! I have daydreams about writing for this blog as I sit in coffee shops. Or let's face it, for me it will be a sub shop, and I'll have to wipe the off the grease from my onion rings before typing a sentence. That's OK. Coffee shops are for poets and novelists. I don't have the attention span to write a novel, and you all have seen my poetry. Truck-driving ducks? Pass the ketchup, please.

I'm also looking forward to eavesdropping on the conversations of the people around me and putting what they say into what I write. You know, for authenticity. Otherwise I'm just left coming up with my own jokes, and who knows how quickly that well will run dry. Best to start plagiarizing and quoting without permission now.

I haven't even chosen a new machine yet, and I'm already looking toward the next big purchase: perhaps a digital camera! I'm not much of a photographer, but I'm rethinking my original desire not to put any pictures on my blog. As Marquioni noted in one of his comments, he only knows me through the characters I type. When I started this, I quite liked the idea of creating a face made only of words, so that people's views of me weren't filtered through anything visual. But let's be honest, those who know me already know what I look like, and those who don't are dying to know what I look like, aren't you? It's OK, you don't have to admit it here. Holly knows.

And speaking of knowing me through my words, I managed to be surprised at the response I got (some of them outside this blog) to that post about salt and blood. Even though I'm the one who wrote it, sometimes I can be like a naive girl, not entirely aware of the effect she's having on those around her. It appears the verdict is in, though: Writing about salty, blood-tasting lips is, indeed, hot. Thanks for the feedback, fellas. If this blog weren't already pink, it would blush.

Kissable Sentences

My brother read and approved of my little blog about Continental. Especially flattering as he was my muse. A 6'2", 250 lb., farting muse.

So, a couple weeks ago I hung out in the city after work. I didn't feel like going home, so I grabbed some high-sodium food from the Value Menu at Wendy's, and sat and wrote for a while. Then I wandered down to the Prudential Center to see if there were any nice journals at the bookstore. I love journals. It's always my hope that I'll have experiences worthy of the beautiful blank book I'm buying. I found none that inspired me, none that made me want to have beautiful, book-worthy experiences... except the expensive leather ones. So that's what I got. It felt like an investment in my future, an act of faith, a declaration that my future deserves such a book.

By the time I'd bought it and done some more writing, though, I was pretty dehydrated. The last thing I'd eaten was French fries, and my lips were getting a little raw. They tasted like salt and blood. And I thought, "Oooo, My lips taste like salt and blood. That's a cool sentence!" Then I thought, "My mom won't like that sentence. She'll think it's gross. And she thinks I downplay my beauty too much, and this isn't going to make anyone want to kiss me." And I also thought, "Maybe men will want to kiss me because I write cool sentences! Maybe they'll say, 'Wow, salt and blood! I'm drooling at the thought of the female brain that wrote that sentence."

What do you all think? Salt and blood may be gross, but writing about them is totally hot.

Uh, right?

The Continental

My brother has been a Navy pilot for the last 8 years, and is now leaving active duty to fly for Continental Airlines. He is a fine, upstanding young man, and I would place my life in his hands any day. He's also a freaking riot, and it's a darn shame that commercial pilots are supposed to maintain a professional level of boringness in their in-flight announcements, because his would be an improvisational hoot. In honor of this next step in his life, I now offer a few of the things he won't be allowed to say over the intercom:

Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know about you, but I feel the need: the Need for Speed. We'll be flying into the danger zone shortly, once I've buzzed the control tower. Please pay very close attention as the flight attendant demonstrates how to operate your parachutes.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now approaching our destination. I hope you all slept as well as I did. As we begin our precipitous drop, I'd like to remind you all not to try the stunts you're about to see at home, mostly because you all don't have planes.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm your captain... because I'm awesome. Today I'll be your captain. Yes, you're welcome! You know, in a way I have the gift of flight, so it's kind of like I'm a superhero. In fact, why don't you call me Captain Awesome. Now you kids, don't all rush the cockpit to get an autograph; there'll be plenty of time for that once we're back on the ground. For now, just tell your parents how much you want to grow up to be me. And parents, enjoy your in-flight movie, and sit back and enjoy the Awesome.

Carrying a Tiki Torch

On Sunday, I caught a bit of the Charlie Rose program. He was interviewing Tiki Barber about the NFL playoffs. I'd heard the name Tiki Barber before, but didn't really know who the man was or what he did. I gleaned from the conversation, though -- this is how smart I am -- that he played for the NY Giants and, upon his recent retirement, was picked up by one of the major TV networks as a commentator or correspondent of some kind.

I don't generally follow sports, but everything Tiki said was interesting to me. He was so intelligent, thoughtful, and articulate, and he talked about football in terms that someone like me could appreciate and understand.

And he was pretty.

I imagine a catch like that already has a wife, so allow me to issue the following statement: Mrs. Barber, I'm not after your man. I hope you won't mind too much, though, if I respectfully admire him from afar. He seems like a swell fella. And he got me to like football, for Pete's sake. The man could be canonized for performing a verifiable miracle.

And in Winter, It Freezes

Boston has a spitting epidemic. You can't walk more than a few yards in America's quintessential college town without having to dodge globs and splats on the sidewalk. I can't complain about it much beyond that, though, because I've seen worse -- in Paris, of all places. The city of light. Of romance. Of great art. Perhaps Parisians are all too busy making love, but if my walks were anything to go by, not one of them knows how to clean up after their dog. Le doodoo all over the place. Tres icky.

And because I'm a teacher at heart, here's a medical tidbit I learned last night from my roommate, who's a nurse: Alcohol inhibits the body's natural anti-diuretic hormone. Translation: Most of the time your body has the good sense not to wet itself. When you drink, that overwhelming urge to pee isn't just from taking in lots of liquid, or even the same general lack of control that affects every other part of you. There's a chemical that's no longer able to do its job. So, next time you're sitting in a bar and realize you've suddenly soiled your Jordaches, you can slur your way through this nifty little scientific explanation as to why. That ought to impress the cute guy who'd been staring at you ever since your barstool started dripping.

Brilliant When Tipsy

I don't necessarily have a ton to say, but I wanted to build on yesterday's post and see if I can get some momentum. I went out for drinks with one of the editors I work with tonight, so I'm just a little tipsy -- but that ought to make me funnier than ever, right? Let's say yes.

OK, here's something not funny, but which concerns several of you personally: I've decided to take your compliments to heart. For a long time, I worried that I might be kidding myself, wanting to find a career that involved humor and writing. Thousands of people watch sitcoms and listen to David Letterman's Top Ten List, and think, "I could do that." But they can't. Who's to say I'm any different? Well, many of you have said that I'm not kidding myself. Out of some twisted false modesty, though, I thought that your perspective might be skewed by the fact that you're my family and friends, and you like me. And in dismissing your opinions, I did you a disservice. My family and friends are (for the most part ;-) ) intelligent, discerning, informed people. So I now choose to take your encouragement seriously. Thanks for saying all the nice things you've said, even when I wasn't as receptive as I could have been. From now on, I promise to let it all go to my head until I'm unbearable. That shouldn't be a long trip.

Hey, most of you might not know this, but the division I work for is being sold. We may or may not have jobs with the company that's buying us. I was excited when I found out, because I began salivating at the idea of severance pay. Many of my coworkers have begun polishing their resumes and sending them out. I still feel too vague to do that -- I don't know where I'd send a resume -- I don't even like my resume -- but, as the Powers That Be at our company like to say, "The winds of change are blowing," and I find something exciting about that.

OK, getting a little sleepy now. Not a really funny post. This whole blogging thing may be a bit like rehabilitation for me, where keeping going is the key -- excellent quality may have to wait. I hope you'll be patient with me. But if you're reading this after all the months I've been away, then you certainly don't need lessons from me in patience. Congratulations on your vast reservoirs of biblical virtue!

Bringing Bloggy Back

Hi Everybody,
One year ago, over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, I announced that I was backing off from blogging in an effort to find out how to enjoy things, and not just do them out of obligation. I never expected to be away this long. In fact, for the last several months, I've thought about posting again, and have had many bloggy thoughts, but have had some kind of internal paralysis that prevented me from getting online and doing it. While I've been gone, several of you have mentioned that you missed my blog and have gently encouraged me to come back. I really appreciated that.

This paralysis hasn't just affected my blog. It's affecting my entire life, including my desire to find work that relates to humor and writing. My tendency is to beat myself up for my inaction, which isn't especially helpful. I know I'm capable of pushing past the lack of inspiration and motivation, of forcing myself do produce and achieve, because I've done it before. The problem with that is that I pushed past that lack of inspiration so much that I forgot what inspiration felt like. I got so used to not enjoying the process that I no longer enjoyed the achievements the processes led to. I didn't want that to happen again. And I didn't want change for the sake of change; I wanted something better than what I had, and that meant being careful and deliberate about what I chose to pursue.

You won't be surprised when I say that I'm a person of thought rather than a person of action. This doesn't mean I never do anything; it just means I tend to live most of my live in my mind, and when I Do, it's usually because I've given the situation a lot of thought and I'm able to back up my actions with reasons. I'm cautious and calculated, and would rather plan my steps than just start running. I don't like falling, and it takes me a while to pick myself up once I've fallen, so I take careful steps. I find that people of action don't mind falling, and they learn by trying and failing, then trying again. I learn by processing internally. Failure tends to hit me quite hard. I know failure is both inevitable and necessary, but that knowledge doesn't change my fundamental nature, which is to work things out in my head before moving.

So there I was, wanting to blog, knowing others wanted me to blog, beating myself up for not Doing more, and still feeling stuck. I kept praying that God would help me to Do. I'd have moments of inspiration, and I tried to feed them, in the hope that inspiration would become motivation, motivation would lead to action, and action would lead to change in the areas in which I most desperately want change. I didn't want to skip those first steps and jump right into action, because I didn't want changes that didn't include inspiration.

I've heard people say that it's easier for God to steer a moving car than a stationary one. But, as a friend and I discussed a few months ago: Who says this is the most accurate or most helpful metaphor? Why must we be cars? Why must we be moving? Who's to say we're not just wasting energy and time, and heading in a direction far removed from where God would have us? If you're a car, and decide to move from Baltimore in the direction of Santa Fe, and you're putting your energy into getting there, what happens when God says He wants you in Buffalo? Will you even hear Him over the din of traffic and your own engine? You've just wasted time and fuel, and you're hundreds of miles out of your way.

That's how I feel in most of the areas of my life, including writing. I'd like to be able to tell people I'm looking for jobs, I'm doing research, I'm writing a lot and it's just a matter of time. But I feel vague and directionless, and I when it comes to taking action, I'm unconvinced. This wasn't always the case. At several points in my life, I've been able to focus on goals and go after them. For the last couple years, though, the goals have been out of focus. For reasons that I don't completely understand and have trouble explaining, I haven't been able to make my life happen, any more than a depressed person can wake up and say, "You know what? I'm going to have an Attitude of Gratitude!", or a chronically ill person can say, "I'm going to put mind over matter and run a 10k!" I don't believe in being utterly passive, but there's a lot to be said for acknowledging your human frailty. I don't know where the line between these things lies.

This morning, I prayed a different prayer. Instead of asking God to get me past whatever hang-up was keeping me from blogging, I prayed that He would restore my blog to me. That seemingly slight change in perspective freed me up, and quickly left room for the very motivation I'd been needing. Thus, here I am, online at home, blogging for the first time in months.

I also admitted to myself and to God that I would like a guide in the world of writing. There are endless resources for writers, including books and web sites, where you can do research and begin carving a career for yourself. But this kind of professional, entrepreneurial bushwhacking is exactly what I found so hard as a musician, an area where my skill was proven and acknowledged. How much harder would it be for me as a writer, where I have no professional experience, and I feel gun-shy from having experienced failure in other areas? Almost all the advice I got was along the lines of, "Here are some resources. I used them. You can, too!" Today, I realized that I need something more personal, almost along the lines of a mentor or private tutor. When I was in high school, my family and I would have been utterly lost when it came to searching out and auditioning for music schools if it hadn't been for my trombone teacher. He held our hands through the process, and was an incredible source of practical counsel and personal perspective. Because no one was offering that kind of almost-parental attention in my pursuit of a writing career, I assumed that it must be wrong for me to want it, that I was supposed to be stronger, more mature, more independent. After all, I'm not in high school anymore, right?

However, whether your desires are right or wrong, it's best to acknowledge that they exist and work with what's there, not with what you wish were there. And sometimes, desires aren't bad; sometimes, they're even needs. So today I asked God for a person or group to guide me in the process of becoming a working writer -- not just a book I could read, but a human who would take a personal interest in me, interact with me, appreciate and affirm my individuality. Someone who would give me a nudge when I need a nudge, but who wouldn't force me in directions that don't suit me at all. I was so excited when I realized I could ask for this, and this excitement is another reason I have the energy to do this blog post you're reading.

I don't know what will come of these prayers. I don't know if I'll have the freedom to post again tomorrow, though I hope I will. But what God gave me today was enough to produce this one post, and that's more than I've been able to do in a long time. If you're a praying person, and would like to see more blogging and more from me as a writer in general, please feel free to pray with me as I take these small but significant steps toward my still-fuzzy dreams. I do believe in a God who answers prayer.

If you're reading this, it's probably because you've been faithfully checking in, every several weeks, to see if I've returned. Thanks for not giving up :-).
Thanks for reading,
Holly

Ruh-Roh, Raggy!

Beause I wouldn't want to be distracted by actual work...

Last Friday, while working on a series of electronic files, I found myself having to retype the words "Process" and "Product" several times. These words were all in caps, but I decided that only the first letter should be capitalized. This meant I could leave the capital Ps as they were. To make sure I typed the rest of the word correctly, I sounded it out in my head -- "rocess," "roduct." Words beginning inappropriately with R make me think of Scooby Doo, so I spent the day with his voice in my head: "Rrrrrrocess! Rrrrrroduct!"

Alas, no Scooby Snacks were involved.

Only slightly fictionalized

Sometimes the goings-on in my brain don't realize that that's where they're supposed to stay.

External situation:
I was eating a banana as my mid-morning snack while sitting at my desk at work. A large, unopened can of V-8 sat between my computer monitor and keyboard. I'd take a bite of banana, then put it down next to the can so I could mouse around and type while I chewed.

Internal sequence of thoughts:
Last week, in yoga, our instructor read aloud a passage from a book which referenced the phrase, "going with the flow." In high school, I had stumbled upon a passage from David Cassidy's autobiography which also included that phrase. There was an episode of Malcolm in the Middle in which David Cassidy guest-starred as a Vegas lounge singer at whom women threw their panties. On Saturday Night Live, Amy Poehler recently gave a brief commentary about using the word "panties," as opposed to simply calling them "underwear." One instance where the word underwear is used is the song, Walking 'Round in Women's Underwear. This song is sung to the tune of Winter Wonderland.

Soon, two worlds, the Internal and the External, will collide. I pick up the banana to take another bite, and the peel hits something on my desk, resulting in a pleasant pong. "From whence commeth such an beauteous noyse?" thought I. There's still a musician lurking inside me, so I hit various objects with the hard end of the banana peel to try to reproduce the sound. V-8 can? No. Keyboard? No. Monitor? No. Other side of the V-8 can? Yes. Pong. Pong.

At this point, I have Winter Wonderland running through my head, so I start to hum, accompanying myself with the banana:

Sleigh bells ring (pong)
Are you listening? (pong)
In the lane (pong)
Snow is glistening (pong)
A beautiful sight (pong)
We're happy tonight (pong)
Walking in a winter wonderland (swing - thwack! - CRASH- SCREAM!)

Thinking I'd give it a big finish, and failing utterly to foresee the consequences of my own actions, I managed to scare myself and attract the attention of coworkers by hitting the can too hard and sending it ricocheting off sundry desktop items. The scream was my own. The barely suppressed laughter was everyone else's.


The Truth
I have a compulsion toward confession, so I feel the need to tell you all which parts of that story are true and which aren't. You don't have to read this if you find such distinctions boring. Anyway, the only part I made up is the playing out of the humming and ponging. The train of thought was real, as was the fact that a coworker caught me hitting the can with the banana peel. There was, alas, no crash and no scream, unless you count me laughing a little too raucously when he told me I reminded him of both his two-year-old daughter and a mental patient. I wanted to pong my way through Winter Wonderland, but by the time it was in my head I'd already thrown the peel away, and I wasn't going to fish it out of the garbage, even for the sake of art.

Jungle Peaches

Today I have the song Jungle Boogie stuck in my head.

This is because we have a friend crashing at our place for the month of May. This friend has a puppy named Peaches. This morning, Peaches was jumping up and putting her front paws on the door, and her master said, "Get down, get down!" I now have those words looping through my brain, backed by horns and a guy saying, "... and shake it around..."

For those interested in further reading on this topic, see my most favorite Onion article ever:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29205

The Difference Between Moms and Dads

As you can see in the previous post, my Mom's response was, "You did what!?" (She has since forgiven me.)

My Dad's response, on the other hand, was, "Here's the proper technique for jumping from a slow-moving train, for future reference." (I think he would want me to mention that he did have a brief stint working on the railroad last year, so he would actually know.) Disappointingly, it does not involve leaping head-first and landing with a somersault. Nor does it involve landing on the back of a horse that's running at the same speed of the train, with a sack of money over your shoulder. No ladders dangling from helicopters, either. No wonder he quit the railroad. They don't have any real fun.

The Scourge of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority

She is a menace. She is a danger to herself and the countless citizens who rely on the MBTA for their commuting needs. She is clearly an unbalanced individual who needs to realize that public transportation is a privilege that can be revoked.

She is I.

Today I leaped off a moving train. I hesitated to post this news because I knew my mom would worry retroactively.

Mom: I'm sorry. The train can't have been going more than three miles per hour.

Everyone else: It was kind of fun. Embarrassing but fun.

Here's what happened: I left work earlier than usual because my brain was done. I got on a train different from the one I normally get on, thinking it might get me to a stop not far from where I wanted to be. I asked a couple of the other passengers to make sure, and it turned out I was wrong. By this time, the train was moving, so I bolted and jumped and tumbled into a crowd of commuters waiting for the next train. They were very concerned and helpful. I fell to the ground as soon as my feet hit the platform, but was physically fine. Embarrassed, but fine.

A couple hours have passed now, and it looks like the emotional shakedown of this is giddiness. I wondered if I'd be too ashamed to even write about it in my journal, but it looks like entertainment value has trumped dignity again and I'm putting it out there for the world to see. I'm a little excited: It turns out that I'm braver-slash-dumber than I'd heretofore given myself credit for. Ta-da! Yay me.

Slightly less Yay is the fact that I'm now afraid to wear the same coat while commuting, at least for the next week or two, lest I be recognized. It's quite distinctive. Imagining what this episode must have looked like is leading me to a realization that I probably have developed a fashion style, and it is this: Salaried Crazy. I don't have a lot of money, but it's been enough to get me some nice items that I can wear to work. I had on a bright peacoat, a long denim skirt, a sweater with a huge billowy collar that spilled outside the coat, rugged lace-up boots, and a cute knit cap that has ear flaps and ties under my chin. Lots of bright colors. Now imagine all that popping out of a moving train and slamming into a crowd of screaming strangers. A knit pastel blur, then a female voice coming up from the ground telling everyone that, apart from being stupid, she's fine.

I hadn't seriously considered before that I might be genuinely eccentric. But I jumped out of a train. I dress funny, even with all the help I get. I take naps at the table where I eat lunch, because I'm tired and I want to. I laugh out loud at the books I read, regardless of who's around. The knit hat starts to look less cute and more like something I wear to cover the holes through which I lost my marbles.

Yeah, maybe I'm eccentric. Or maybe I'm just a nerd who's a little loopy. Either way, I'm good. (And Mom, I'll try to get on the right train from now on.)